Disclaimer: I don't own Mass Effect
A/N – Another massive thank you to the people who reviewed my last chapter: Brandischoch, tianacarin, Sita, TLCinbflo, Samolfran, SimoneTRH, McCartneySwines, xxDarknessEternalxx, Candle in the Night, Jules Hawk, Shaun and BahaBatarianBoy!
"He wants us to what?" James almost spat his coffee out as he stared at Shepard, unable to comprehend that after refusing to help them, the turian Councillor had the audacity to ask them for a favour.
"It's not that surprising, really." Rennah was clearly trying not to laugh as she watched him cough and splutter. "It's a case of we scratch their back, and they might, maybe, if we're lucky, think about scratching ours."
Shepard leaned back in her seat at the mess table and grinned at him as she sipped her cup of mint tea. Six months on Earth as her guard and he knew that much about her – mint tea was her favourite non-alcoholic drink. Liara had looked amused when he'd made himself a coffee and a tea for Shepard without being asked, and actually laughed when he didn't made anything for her. But hell, he didn't know all that much about asari, and he wasn't sure if they could drink coffee or tea without getting sick! In the end Liara said nothing, and demurely made herself some kind of spiced asari drink.
"But that's …" He floundered as words eluded him, far too angry at the entitled way the council was behaving to articulate his rage properly.
"That's normal, James." Liara smiled calmly at him as she sipped her drink, her eyes dancing with amusement at his indignation.
Shepard nodded and her sparkling violet eyes sought his. "It's also better than nothing. At least the turians are willing to discuss the possibility of helping us. That's more than the asari or the salarians are willing to do."
Liara's sobered and she guiltily reached out a slender blue hand to touch Rennah's. "I'm sorry Shepard, I know you hoped for more from my people."
"It's not your people that are the problem, Liara. It's the council." She swirled her tea around in her cup before inhaling the steam and taking another sip, her gaze flicking up to her friends reassuringly. "Anyway, you can't blame them for wanting to protect their own interests. The problem is that if we don't band together against the Reapers, we're not going to have a chance against them."
James sat forward and took a sip of his coffee. He'd known something was up when Shepard abruptly recalled her crew and ordered Joker to the Turian home world. There had been some grumbling amongst the crew at their leave being cut short, but James was grateful that they'd managed to have at least a little free time on the Citadel. He doubted they'd be getting much more, and he'd had a good time. He had no regrets about anything he'd said or done in the bar with Shepard on that first night.
Not that anything had happened, but there was an awareness between them that hadn't been there before, and he was certain that Rennah was starting to see him as James Vega the man, instead of Lieutenant Vega the guard.
"Is there any word on Kaidan?" Liara asked, her eyes concerned.
Shepard shrugged and glanced down at her tea. "I went to see him in the hospital but he was still unconscious. The doctors are happy with his progress and think he's through the worst of it." She set her cup down and cleared her throat, looking uncomfortable as she glanced up at Liara. "They don't think he'll have any permanent damage, but they won't know for sure until he wakes up."
Liara nodded reassuringly. "He'll be fine, Shepard. He's a fighter."
"I know, but I had commander and he almost died." Rennah shrugged, her eyes lowering guiltily.
"It wasn't your fault, Commander." James decided to chime in. The last thing he wanted was for Rennah to spend the next few days worrying that she was to blame for Kaidan's injuries. "Alenko happened to be closest to her when she came out of the shuttle, and he was the first to draw his gun. It could have been any of us - he just got unlucky."
"Yes, but I was in charge, Lieutenant. That makes everything that happens my responsibility." Shepard finished her tea and stood up, collecting Liara and James' empty cups and taking them to the mess as she continued speaking. "Anyway, I need to contact Hackett and report in. We should be reaching Palaven within the hour."
James pushed away from the table and got to his feet. "Well, in that case I'm going to head down to the shuttle bay and get our weapons and gear ready. There are a few modifications I need to make to my new armour before I wear it into a firefight."
The armour he'd bought on the Citadel had taken most of his savings, but he'd left his Alliance armour back on Earth and the suit he'd borrowed for the Mars mission wasn't a great fit. Besides, if things went bad with the Reapers then none of them were going to have much use for money in the near future. It was good armour. Better than his old gear. Not only was it top of the line, but it came with several modifications which made his marine heart drool when he thought of trying them out.
He'd shown it to Shepard when he'd brought it back to the ship and she'd seemed impressed, especially with the medical VI, though James knew she preferred her N7 armour to anything currently available for sale.
"I'm going to check in with Glyph and see if I have any information on the Turian Primarch." Liara stood up and activated her omni-tool as she glanced at Shepard. "You never know what information might come in handy."
James lifted a hand in farewell and walked over to the elevator with Shepard, Liara's gaze burning into his back as she watched them walk away. So far she hadn't said anything to him about his painfully obvious crush on Shepard, but he knew it was only a matter of time before she did. He also had a sneaking suspicion that Liara was using her power as the Shadow Broker to trawl through his history and find out what she could about him.
She'd made several casual comments about things from his past that he hadn't told anyone about; like the bar fight on Omega.
"After you, Commander." James gestured for Shepard to precede him into the elevator, a voice at the back of his head point out how lovingly her BDU fit against her curves.
She leaned against the side of the elevator and watched him with a small smile on her lips. "So, how'd you pull up after our night at the bar?"
"Not too bad. You?"
He'd actually drank far too much that night and had been sick as a dog the next morning, but he'd be damned if he was going to let his macho image slide in front of Shepard. She'd had no problem holding her alcohol, in fact he had a sneaking suspicion that even though she'd matched him drink for drink, she'd been in perfect control of her faculties about the time he was ready to pass out.
It had been an unforgettable night. They'd talked more in those few hours than they had in the entire six months they'd been together on Earth. They'd swapped stories and jokes, compared war wounds and he'd flirted outrageously with her the entire night, pleased that he could make her blush and laugh with a word or look.
He'd woken up the following morning with a horrible hangover and no regrets.
"Oh, I was fine." She grinned and rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. "Jack used to say that our amped up biotics help us avoid hangovers. Not sure if it's true, but since Cerberus rebuilt me I definitely don't feel as bad after a big night out."
"Jack again." James said it before he could stop himself, and he almost winced as Shepard's eyes gleamed and her grin widened.
"You're not jealous are you, Vega?" She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward, biting her lip as though to hold in her laughter.
James toyed with the idea of telling her that he was a little jealous, just to see if that would shock a reaction from her, but the elevator reached her level and the doors opened before he could. He grinned as Rennah winked at him mischievously as she left, Traynor instantly claiming her attention and bombarded with her with priority communications. The door slid shut, and James pressed the button for the shuttle bay, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the cold steel elevator wall.
Attempting to woo Rennah Shepard was an awful lot like playing poker; you had to know when to bluff and when to fold, and you had to have a really good poker face. He had a sneaking feeling that this early on in the game there was probably more at stake than he realised - one false move and Rennah would cut him off and he'd be done for. So, as much as he wanted to come right out and make his feelings known, it was safer to just take things slow and work on building their relationship outside of the parameters of guard-prisoner and Commander-Lieutenant.
He just had to be patient and hope he was having an impact on her.
Menae spun around Shepard in a dizzyingly blur as she was knocked from the barricade; a blur of gun-metal grey and cobalt-blue. She hit the ground hard, her knee popping painfully and crumpling under her. Pain lanced through her body, sharp and pure, and she bit back as scream as she rolled onto her back and clutched her leg in a daze of pain.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
For a moment she lay stunned on the ground and stared up at Palaven as it blazed in the sky above her. The sparkling midnight blue of the night sky framed the reds, orange and yellows of the burning cities as the Reapers laid waste to them. It was a haunting sight as it hung in the sky; a constant reminder for the turians on Menae of what it was they were fighting for.
"Shepard!"
The sound of someone screaming her name, followed by an an earth-shattering roar, knocked her out of her daze and she rolled quickly to her feet. Red-hot agony seared through her as she put weigh on the knee, and Rennah whimpered before she could stop herself. Her armour's medical VI had already injected her with localised medigel shots, but it needed time to take effect, and right now she was in trouble.
Shepard gritted her teeth against the excruciating pain, and ran as the monstrously huge creature that had knocked her from the turret charged at her again, narrowly missing her as it rushed past. There wasn't any time to think or hesitate, she just ran for the large boulder in the middle of the crater and took cover, her hands fumbling at her hip for her pistol as she willed the medigel to kick in soon. Husks appeared, and she put them down, praying that somehow the hulking brute would lose her.
You're N7, the best. You can fight off anything, right?
"I'm not a fucking battle-wizard." Shepard muttered to herself as the ground began to tremble as the brute came closer.
The whole mission had gone to shit as soon as the Normandy entered the system. Things were dire for the turians; Palaven was burning and even from a distance you could see that the Reapers were there in force. Then they'd landed on the moon only to find out that the Primarch was dead and they needed to locate his successor - a process further complicated by a communications array that had gone down. She'd gone out with James and Liara to repair it, only to have EDI go haywire on the Normandy; and as the icing on the cake she'd been forced to send Liara back to deal with the tech problems.
The only silver lining was that Garrus was on Palaven's moon acting as a Reaper specialist, and he'd been keen to join up with her again. Thank god. Garrus Vakarian was even harder to kill than she was, and that was saying something. He was also one of her oldest friends and, unlike Kaidan and Liara, he'd never turned her away or refused to help her. When he found out she was alive and working with Cerberus, he hadn't even battered an eyelid.
He was tough and ruthless, but Garrus put a lot of stock in friendship, and she knew he'd support her no matter what she did in the fight against the Reapers.
And she'd missed him.
Shepard snapped back to reality as the sound of an assault rifle and the screaming of brute intruded on her thoughts. Someone had come after her! Was it James? She was sure she'd heard him yell her name when she'd been flung from the barricade. She tested her knee and, though it still hurt, she managed to get to her feet again as the medigel kicked in. She kept her back against the boulder and looked around the rock in time to see the beast rushing in her direction.
It was wounded, bleeding and clearly enraged.
Shepard gathered her biotics and sent a blast at it, unsure if her attack would even get through it's armour, but her blast slammed into it and the brute roared in agony. A spray of bullets from an assault rifle hit it, and a concussive shot to the head put it down for good. It collapsed to the ground and made a slow growling whine, then the light went out of it's eyes and it lay still.
"Commander! Are you okay?" James jogged towards her, his eyes concerned.
"I'm fine." Shepard nodded and gave into the temptation to lean against the rock and take some of the weight off her knee. Where there was one of these things, there was likely to be more, but she trusted Garrus and James to keep an eye out for the enemy while she recovered. "What the hell was that thing?"
Garrus hefted his assault rifle as he scanned their surroundings for more hostiles. "We call them brutes. You didn't have those on Earth?"
"Not that I saw." She tested her knee again and this time was able to stand without any pain at all, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks for coming after me." She nodded at both of them, trying not to let her eyes linger too long on James who looked amazing in his new armour.
Down girl! Focus on the mission and not the eye candy!
"Don't mention it." Garrus pointed at one of the rocky paths leading away from the barricade. "They still can't get hold of the new Primarch, so I'll take you to him on foot. Assuming he's still there."
"Let's go." Shepard checked her thermal clip and followed Garrus as he led the way forward, James at her side.
She couldn't help but compare James to Kaidan as they jogged along, her eyes wary for hostiles as her mind wandered. Physically, James was far bigger than Kaidan, and from what she'd seen on Mars he was far more assertive in battle. He charged in and trusted his combat ability rather than taking cover and safely waiting for opportunities as Kaidan did. Shepard had seen a lot of marines perform outstandingly in battle, but James was something else; his athleticism, speed and strength gave him and edge which other marines just didn't have.
Emotionally the men were also miles apart; James was sociable and outgoing, while Kaidan was quieter and more introspective. James was also an outrageous flirt, so much so that Rennah couldn't tell if his flirting was just his way of being playful, or if he actually did find her attractive. It was a nice thought, James finding her attractive, and a pleasant shiver went down her spine before she made herself focus.
There were other differences between the men; Kaidan would have pushed her about her knee and made a big deal, while Vega trusted her judgement and didn't push her. Oddly enough, even though she'd only known James for a few months, he'd proved himself to be unswervingly loyal and dependable while Kaidan had most certainly not. Even now, almost a year since Cerberus had brought her back, Kaidan was still hung up on who she was and where her loyalties lay.
More and more she was appreciating why it was that Anderson had chosen James to keep an eye on her. There weren't all that many people who Shepard actually trusted to watch her back, and to keep her safe, but James was one of those people. She knew James had been invited to N-School, and if their world wasn't destroyed by the Reapers, he'd make one hell of an N7 recruit and a brilliant officer one day.
As they rounded a corner, James jogged a little ahead of her and Shepard finally let herself admire how ridiculously good he looked in his armour. She'd always had a thing for marines in heavy battle armour, and Vega looked unbelievably attractive in his; broad shouldered, narrow waisted and incredibly masculine. Dammit. He had no right to be so distractingly good looking when they were in the middle of a war!
"Up ahead, Commander." Garrus' voice reached her ears and Shepard quickened her pace to catch up with him. "General Victus should be up there, but we've got trouble."
Ahead of them were the sounds of battle; bursts of gunfire, loud explosions as grenades detonated, and the yells of turians as they repelled waves of Reapers. Shepard powered up as she saw the edge of the fight ahead of them. Swarms of husks and marauders attempted to break the ranks of turians who were fighting them with everything they had.
Rennah didn't hesitate as she hurled a powerful biotic blast at the reaper troops, the force of it scattering them like bowling pins. As she threw herself into the battle, Shepard forgot everything except the fight. Her world narrowed down to the next target to be destroyed, the next clip to be loaded into her gun and the next biotic power to use on the hostiles around her. It was a dance she knew the rhythm to, and she moved amongst the turians with speed and grace, occasionally catching a glimpse of James or Garrus as they followed her into the fray.
She couldn't have said how long she fought for, if it was hours or minutes, but slowly the waves of enemies lessened and eventually stopped. The endorphins from fighting pulsed through her, and Shepard holstered her gun and glanced around; the turians were moving amongst the battlefield finishing off husks and helping injured comrades. Sadly, Shepard saw there were almost as many dead turians lying on the ground as there were reaper creatures.
"I see you're as handy with those biotics as ever." Garrus strode towards her, stowing his assault rifle and looking out over the field with her. He nudged her with his arm and gestured at James, who was helping lift a wounded turian. "Your friend isn't bad in a fight either, not as good as me, mind you, but not bad."
"Lieutenant Vega is handy to have around, that's for sure." Rennah glanced at Garrus from the corner of her eye and chuckled. "Good to see that you're as modest as ever."
Garrus laughed, and his deep rumbling turian sub-vocals made her grin. "C'mon, if General Victus is still here, he's going to be down there with his men."
They walked to the tent in a companionable silence, and Shepard watched James as went back and helped another injured turian. He nodded at her, and his warm brown eyes caught hers briefly as he went by. Rennah grinned despite herself, as she felt that strange tingle along her skin that his presence always gave her. She liked that James was so willing to help turians; a lot of human marines still harboured ill-feelings towards them because of the First Contact war. it raised James even further in her estimation that he didn't have those same prejudices.
"Ah, there he is." Garrus touched her arm and a flush of embarrassment crept along Shepard's cheeks as she realised how much James had distracted her. "General Victus, this is Commander Shepard."
"Commander Shepard." General Victus held out a battle scarred hand which Shepard shook, his grip firm and hard in hers. "I know you by reputation."
"It's good to finally meet you, General." Shepard released his hand and cast her eyes up to Palaven. "I'm sorry to see what the Reapers have done to your world."
"As am I, but I'm sure you didn't come all the way here to tell me that." He waved the pleasantries aside, his voice gruff and impatient. "So what brings a Council Spectre to see me?"
"Not good news, I'm afraid sir." Garrus spoke up before she could, and Rennah relaxed as he chatted informally with the General, breaking the news of Fedorian's death and Victus' new role as Primarch.
As Rennah expected, Victus wasn't impressed or enthusiastic about his new role in the Turian government; like all soldiers he wanted to serve his people on the battlefield, not as a politician. Much as she sympathised with him, the war summit was of the utmost importance and his hesitation was not only putting the fate of Palaven in jeopardy, but also the galaxy. The longer he argued with Garrus the more frustrated she became, until eventually she couldn't take it anymore.
"General, we need you up there." Shepard stepped forward and pointed up into space, her patience wearing thin. "You must represent your people at this war summit. In a time like this we need leaders who are strong! Leaders who know what war is like. I respect that you want to fight alongside your people, but this is bigger than just Menae or Palaven. Every moment you hesitate means more lives are lost to the Reapers."
For a moment she thought Victus would ignore her outburst, but with a sigh he turned and looked up at Palaven alight in the sky above them. "You're right, Commander. Give me a moment to say goodbye to my men and ... I'll come with you."
Shepard breathed a sigh of relief as Victus moved off to say his goodbyes. For a moment she'd thought he was going to refuse them. Thankfully, his love for his people outweighed his hatred of political manoeuvring. It was a relief - now she just had to deliver him to the summit, and if everything went well, there was a chance that the Citadel races would unite against the Reapers, and Earth would get some help.
Somehow though, Rennah knew it wasn't going to be that easy.
A/N – Huzzah! It's been a big week for me! I finally got my Mass Effect paragade tattoo finished on my wrist aaaand I got another chapter done despite being sick with the flu!
As always, please review and let me know what you think!