Chapter 10: Therum part 1

Therum, a small mining colony in the Artemis Tau cluster and to John hotter than Satan's ball, if there was a candidate for Hell on earth; Therum would be the place. 'What the hell is a Prothean Archeologist doing in a place like this,' he though. It had been three hours since touched down on the colony, and already they had to deal with welcoming committee. Luckily, John's baby, the M35 Mako, tore through the Geth without any problem, alight both Kaiden and Tali were complaining about his driving.

"Backseat drivers… great," John muttered. The team made it to a natural blockade, and had to go on foot, much to Ragan, Tali and Kaiden's relief. "Hey, my driving wasn't that bad," he complained. Tali and Kaiden glared at him. Ragan stayed out of it. Ragan was the smart one.

"A drunken Varren could drive better than you, Shepard," Tali said close to vomiting in her helmet. Kaiden nodded his head in agreement. Ragan shook his head and grabs his sword for him back.

"Oh haha," they could tell John was annoyed.

"Maybe someone else should drive… next time," Kaiden said.

"No one drives the Mako but the CO. You got it XO," Ragan said. Kaiden looked at him.

"So what are you saying? Just because I'm the XO doesn't mean shit," Kaiden knew what Ragan was doing. Trying to make this feel like something that guilty on Kaiden.

John frowned and hugged the Mako tightly, "No one's touching my baby but me when we are on missions."

"Oh boy. He had went in a fake love," Ragan explained.

Kaiden and Tali rolled their eyes at John's love for the tank, they would never understand how much he loved riding the tank, although, even he had begrudgingly admit the Mako was a mixed blessing. It enabled him to jump the tank over obstacles and even a few rockets, a feat that would be impossible without the tank's element zero (eezo) core. It could also compensate for variation in gravity between planets, ensuring that it'd handle the same way no matter where he drove it. However the light weight made it hard as hell to control, even with years of experience. "At least you fight better than you drive," Tali teased.

John smirked at little at that. It had been close to a month since Tali and the others – Wrex, Ragan, Ashley, and Garrus – joined the Normandy crew and they were fitting quite well, expect that argument Tali had with Pressly, the former Normandy's XO, about aliens on the ship.

Two weeks ago – UNKNOWN CLUSTER on SSV Normandy SR-1

"What did you say, bosh'tet," Tali was angered.

"You don't belong here, this is a Human mission only," Pressly said. "We don't need your kind here."

"I'm here because of Commander John Shepard wants me here and Ragan is my proof!"

"How do we know you aren't sending schematics of the Normandy's technology back to your people? It's classified Alliance information!" Tali clenched her fists; it was the same no matter where she was, the so-called beggar and the thief. Pressly had been hostile to the aliens from the beginning, but most of that had been pointed to her, she ignored at first, but there only so much she could take before the hostility got under your skin.

"Listen you bosh'tet, I am NOT a thief! I've never once stolen anything! Nothing! And I don't intend on stealing anything from the Normandy!"

Pressly snorted, "It's only words if you can't prove it to me." The crew was getting nervous with their argument, it something wasn't done, a fist fight would ensue. A voice rang out, and very angry voice.

"Hey, what the fuck is going on here," Ragan asked angrily. Tali and Pressly was silent, almost afraid to say anything. Ragan was most cool with people doing their own thing, he even didn't mind crewmates fraternizing among each other, but if the peace and stability of the team's unity was threaten, he could be scarier than any geth. "Well?"

"Sergeant, I don't trust her, we all know about her people's reputation, plus we should do this alone," Pressly said.

"You arrogant bosh'tet," Tali mummeted.

"Enough, this is John's ship, meaning she stays, if you don't like it you can transfer to another ship," Ragan looked at him and Pressly saw ice cold stare in Ragan's eyes.

Pressly sighed, "Of course Sergeant…"

Tali smirked until Ragan spoke up. "And since you two like wasting my fucking time arguing, you two can make up that time with latrine duty." Tali and Pressly blinked.

"W-what?!"

"B-but I didn't do anything," Tali was scared about this CXO.

"Commander John's ship, he's rules…," Ragan said with a smirk. "I would get it done now, ho and I do believe Wrex was in there not too long ago, enjoy…"

NOW

That little stunt was to get Tali and Pressly working together, and it had work, unfortunately he had to deal with Tali's silent treatment for a few days. That girl was hard to handle at times, but that what made her interesting. John learned about that after Ragan told them what happened and he agreed with Ragan's motives. John then found himself blushing and then shook his head. 'What the hell was that,' a shot rang out, snapping his attention. "Sniper, get to cover," he ordered. Kaiden, Tali, Ragan, and he scrambled to the nearest cover. The sniper fired at the group with increasing accuracy.

It was a risk; he looked around cover and counted the snipers. "Six snipers couldn't be a problem if I, Tali and Kaiden take two," John was sure his plan would work. "Ragan, you go in your tactical cloak and find a way to get to the rendezvous point." Ragan then activated his cloak and moved out.

"I'll keep in comm link," Ragan's voice was heard over the earpiece.

Kaiden and Tali nodded in agreement. "Alright, move out," John said. The three members, scrambled to different cover, Tali in the east, Kaiden in the south and John in the north. Tali sabotaged the Geth on the right to her, making the Geth's weapon overheat and explode taking his ally with it. "Nice job, rookie," John yelled as he threw two of the Geth off the ledge. Kaiden lifted his two geth opponents along with a flammable canister, and shot the canister to destroying the two geth. 'Showoff' John though with a smirk. The trio regrouped and moved on to an opened area. It was quiet, too quiet; the group was on high alert.

"Shepard, this doesn't feel right, the geth is up to something," Kaiden was right. Most of the Geth units they fought knew they were there. John nodded in agreement and gave the order stick close. "Get down," Kaiden got alarmed by a rock that flew towards the group; Kaiden threw up a huge barrier, protecting the group. The red Geth rocket trooper was joined by more of its type and new types of geth they never seen before.

"What the hell is that," John asked, looking at Tali. Tali shrugged her shoulders as she didn't know. "Great…" he muttered before adding, "Kaiden get us to cover, we'll give fire support."

Just then, a one of the rocket troopers was flipped over a small obstacle and a dark black omni-blade was seen. All the Geth units turned around and started focusing firing on an unknown threat.

Tali and John tried to shoot the strange new geth, but they were too fast. John's next attempts against the enemy, using biotics, proved less successful as he had hoped for, however, the commander did not manage a very powerful throw that took out some snipers. A rocket trooper fired a rocket that hit and shattered Kaiden's barrier then scattered the group to the floor.

Ragan then turns off his tactical cloak and starts do hand to hand combat on all the rocket troopers. The strange Geth turned their attention and started shooting at him but failed when Ragan just does some quick evading moves followed by a back flip kick filled with biotics.

"Rookie, get to cover and hack one of those rocket troopers," John ordered. Tali got to cover and hacked the trooper turning it against its former allies, thanks to their targeting the new agile geth couldn't escape this time. Kaiden and John both lifted the new geth and Ragan – by accident – with biotics and failed to sabotage until Ragan grabs one of the units and does like a hard crater throw, not injuring himself but the unit was crippled. Ragan jumps off the unit before it exploded and taking its allies with it. "Shit, more Geth are coming, they're like cockroaches," John growled. Any hope of quick soon vanished. The Geth were slowly being killed one by one, and it was getting tedious.

Kaiden was getting worried, the battle was dragging on and they were running out of medi-gel. "Shepard, at the rate this is going…" Kaiden began, but did not get to finish. A bullet nearly got him if Ragan didn't jump in the way and got it for him. Ragan got hit by the shoulder. Kaiden immediately let himself drop to the ground to catch Ragan. "Shit," he blurted out.

"Kaiden! That's it new plan, rookie sabotage those geth, I'll use my grenades to finish them off, stand by for now. Ragan, stay down," John ordered. Tali nodded and waited for his order. John crouched down to his cousin. "Fall back and stay down in over, for now," he said with concern. Kaiden nodded and picked Ragan up over his shoulder.

"Rookie, go give them everything you got," John was confident about it. Tali widened her sabotage field and armed the program all weapons explode in their holder's hands. John finished with the coup de gráce, a grenade between two explosive crates. "I think we got them all, nice job rookie," John was happy about this.

After a quick application of medi-gel and a fresh battery pack to his shields, Ragan was able to rejoin the battle. "Must you call me rookie, I did just saved your skin after all," Tali teased. Kaiden rolled his shoulders, and stared at the two joking with each other and smiled. "What," Tali noticed Kaiden's smile.

"You two make a cute couple," Kaiden said with a smile. Both John and Tali looked at each other and blushed.

"S-shut up Kaiden, you're reading too much into this," John stuttered still blushing.

"Y-yeah, why would I be interested in Shepard? He's a rude bosh'tet," Tali was nervous. John looked at her.

"Hey, I resent that, rookie." John said almost hurt.

"Well its true," she shot back.

Kaiden smirked. "She, even your lover's quarrel is cute," he joked.

"S-shut u-up, Kaiden!" Ragan looked at John and Tali then shook his head when he heard both of their voices in unity. Then he got up.

"Kaiden, ease off. You don't that to happen to you, right?"

"No, I guess you're right about that. Sorry Commander."

Kaiden saw them walk away stiffly and smiled. As Kaiden went to catch up with John and Tali, Ragan went back to his tactical cloak and started moving ahead but a siege pulsed knocked them to their feet.

"Shit, Geth armatures. Get to cover," John ordered. The four scattered to the cover but as Tali was getting close to cover, a siege pulse nearly hits her. John then looked to see that Ragan got her there before it happened. "Damn, you're quick." The Geth attempted to fire at the Quarian again, but John threw a grenade to stun it, he went to Tali and shielded her from further attacks. Ragan then jumped up the air and did a dive attack towards one of the armatures – which failed. John got back to Kaiden and Tali run to cover.

"Take care of her," John said before standing up.

Kaiden looked at John. "John, what are you going to do," he looked at John's determined face, and his eyes went wide. "Are you crazy? You can't stop that armature alone." John ignored him and went into battle.

"You idiot," he yelled out. He then opened his comm, "Normandy, this is Kaiden, we need back up, now!"