AN: Well we're approaching the homestretch of the first movement so to speak of FHS, two to three more chapters and then I'll be on a brief hiatus, I'm going back to College and Fallout 4 comes out in the same week.
Once I'm back I'll probably be updating both FHS, and I'll be doing a couple chapters of the S&S remake before focusing solely back on FHS. Yes I know plenty of people think that the original S&S is at least decent, but I'm freaking picky when it comes to my work. That and I'd like to actually flesh out events that I had planned to here, but have since realized that I don't want to do massive flashbacks that take up entire chapters.
Thanks to all those who have favorited, followed, or reviewed this story. I honestly sometimes get annoyed when I put out a chapter and receive no input whatsoever, but I also need to factor in that I've got the same level of following as some stories that have been on this site for over a year, and that helps to humble me down some. I'm not anywhere close to some of the best writers in this section, but I'm working for it.
S&S
Catalyst:kad(ə)ləst
1. An object or person that precipitates an event. Oxford Dictionary; Arcturus edition, 2178
2. Traitor. Loose Prothean translation.
S&S
Shepard swore to herself as she stepped through the still smoldering hole in the prefab wall that she was never letting Wrex man the cannon again, ever.
She let out a growl as her shields flickered, the barrier automatically reacting to the small arms fire that struck her the moment she entered the structure's interior, grunting she tossied herself into the closest available cover as she shouted back at the hulking form entering the gap now behind her, "I don't think this gave us the element of surprise that you were talking about!"
The Krogan just gave out a chuckle as he charged forward, slamming his bulk into one of the pirates milling about the ground floor, sending the now screaming slaver bouncing off a nearby container, "Surprise is for those who can't fight, Shepard!" To which Evalyn grumbled to herself in response, "Just because your one tactic is charge doesn't mean that you have to toss all your advantages away," as she leaned out from the crate she was using as cover, firing off a few rounds before she get on the comms, "Garrus, you and Wrex clear out the ground floor, Tali you're with me."
The smaller form of the Quarian slipped inside the gash in the wall to join the Spectre, her active omni-armor illuminating the area around her somewhat, the girl's ever present shotgun clutched tightly in her hands, "Right behind you, Shepard."
The two of them began to move, steadily making their way across the cargo strewn room, leapfrogging from cover to cover to avoid the sniper in the gallery who had managed to draw blood from Wrex. The pair though weren't adverse though to picking off whatever targets of opportunities presented themselves, such as right now when Tali's shotgun blew a smoking crater through the chest of particularly dumb batarian who had managed to stumble into the Quarian, "Bosh'Tet!" The Quarian's reaction causing a snort of amusement from the Spectre.
However they, and likely all the pirates that were still alive, were distracted for several moments as Wrex gave out a bellow of laughter as he used his immense strength to shove over a stack of containers, crushing a small group of pirates who were attempting to use them as cover with a sickening noise.
The two females used the distraction to quickly span the remaining distance to the stairwell, which upon reaching Shepard signaled for Tali to hang back, and crouching low underneath her now active shield the Spectre advanced into the narrow passageway. Her caution was soon proved to be well founded as a heavy accelerator round was barely deflected off of her angled barrier, Shepard's responded with rifle of her own, scoring several hits on the now retreating pirate, and as her ears picked up the ting of a thermal clip hitting the floor she knew that she had a limited window before he could fire again.
She stormed up the stairs, taking them two sometimes three at a time in an effort to reach the pirate before he managed to insert a new clip. She spun with her shield held high just in case, and found herself slammed backwards as the kinetic force of the slug ripped through the orange barrier, slamming hard into her artificial shoulder.
"Fuck!" And with more force than she had intended she slammed the man with a biotic field that sent him not only tumbling over the edge of the upper floor, but also ended up leaving a slaver shaped indent in the wall where he impacted, before being dropped a story and a half as her biotics let local gravity take back over.
Tali's lighter footfalls sounded behind her, "Shepard! Are you alright?" She turned her head to look at the Quarian, waving off the younger girl's worry with her uninjured arm, "I'm fine, but I'll have to take a look at my arm once we get back on the ship."
Garrus stalked up the stairs, rifle still held at the ready, "Well, never a dull day, Spectre." Before she could reply the Turian walked right past her, "Shit, I think that's an ERCS personal safety bunker. They mostly market them to paranoid Volus, but the damn things can take a pounding." He tapped on the front panel of the item in question, drawing a dull metallic thud, "Lots of scum like to use them as vaults for their loot, just load them up and drop them on a planet, as long as a Thresher doesn't eat it nothing short of a accelerator shot from orbit is going to get through it. At least that's what some of the perps I've brought in have claimed."
Wrex chuckled quietly causing the rest of the squad to glance at him, "Sorry, just reminiscing, I'll tell you about it later."
Eva sighed as she studied the panic room in front of her, "Looks hardened, I'm not sure if my charges are going to be strong enough to get through this thing." The Turian next to her cocked his head, "Didn't those charges blow a hole in a walking tank?"
Tali practically bounced as she answered, "The armature design folds in on itself for transport, because of this the armor on the underside is thinner for clearance purposes. Plus we never designed that unit for combat, and I don't think the Geth ever expected anyone to try to fight them up close, let alone for charges to be placed on the undercarriage."
"What if we drop an asteroid on it, this planet isn't a garden world, fair game." Evalyn shook her head at Wrex's suggestion, "The," she paused thinking of a word that summed up Nassana that wasn't bitch, "Client, wants a tissue sample as proof of the kill, can't very well do that if we vaporize the area."
Shepard sighed, "Maybe if we blow the support's below the structure integrity would be compromised." Wrex grunted, "Why not get a bigger bomb, you're smart you should know how to do that." A snort emerged from the blonde, "Because I'm smart means that I know how to make the things that explode?" She paused for a few moments before stating, "Don't answer that," muttering under her breath, "Krogan."
"I heard that!"
Garrus though piped up before the bickering could continue, "Why don't you just contact the manufacturer?"
The entire party became silent before Eva groaned, "Yes, yes, I suppose I can do that. Good idea, Detective."
She turned her back as she punched in to the Normandy's systems, "I need a link to Elanus Risk Control, transmit my Spectre I.D as well." Wordlessly the V.I connected her into their system, and she found herself forced to listen to some Salarian electonica that had been popular a few years prior as she sat on hold, and despite herself she knew that the damn song was going to be stuck in her head for hours now.
Finally the line went live as a much too perky female voice began to gnaw at her ears, "Hello, Spectre. We are truly sorry for the delay but we were worried that it was a prank on our system. How can Elanus help you control your risk today." Eva felt her eyes roll instinctively, but she forced herself to remain civil, "I have one of your personal safety bunkers here, and I was wondering if you could get me an override code for," She shot a glance at Garrus who realized what she needed, shouting out to her once he found the identification number, "965543-9"
"965543-9." She resisted the urge to slam her head into the wall as the all too cheerful individual on the other end told her not to go anywhere, as the music returned, eventually though the music cut off and the harpy returned, "Sooo sorry about that Spectre, anyway I've just forwarded you the override code that all of our technicians use, that should get you inside that vault. And please remember us for all of you-"
As her voice was cut off by Shepard disconnect the blonde blew out a sigh, "Garrus, next time you're calling."
The Turian actually looked worried, "Oh no, I agreed to this assignment to get away from paperwork, you are not sticking me behind a desk as we hunt for Saren." Evalyn couldn't keep the humor out of her voice, "What, you don't want to be lord of the filing system?"
Tali giggled at the banter, while Wrex just grumbled that they could be shooting things instead of talking. A pulse from her omni readied the vault door, "Wrex, go in first, but watch your shots. She's a slaver, she might have hostages."
A crimson reptilian eye fixed on her, but the mercenary gave her a small nod, shoving forward into the now opening doorway.
A single shot rang out once he made it inside, "Clear."
Shepard soon joined him, glancing down at the bleeding out Asari, "Hello, Dahlia." She knelt down so that she was level with the slaver and with practiced ease she injected a small med probe into the prone woman, taking the tissue sample that Nassana had insisted on. The dying alien glanced up at her, "Why? I would have paid you more credits than you could ever spend."
Evalyn pulled the pistol from her side, and with a single motion ended the Asari's suffering, "You didn't have anything I wanted." She pushed herself back up the a standing position, "Grab whatever looks valuable in here then we're heading back out to the Mako. Hopefully beta team performed well."
A few minutes later they were loading the Mako up with several crates of high end gear and numerous credit chits, she might not technically need the funds but planning for a rainy day was always the smart move. And just as she was settling in behind the wheel she spun to point a finger at Wrex who was making his way towards the cannon, "No, after the wall incident you've lost firing privileges." She pointed at Garrus, "Come on sharpshooter, get up there." Wrex moved towards the back, grumbling under his breath as he did so while a bemused Turian clambered his way up to the gun controls.
Before Garrus was even strapped in Evalyn had taken off, the Mako's tires leaving a hazy trail behind them in the slightly lower gravity of Sharjila, as they made their way a few clicks south to where the Normandy had landed under the guise of needing to do emergency repairs.
The ruse had lured away a good portion of the slavers, and would have enabled them to sneak into the facility relatively unmolested had Wrex not decided to utilize some Krogan 'strategy.'
Soon enough the Mako crested over a hill that led down into the valley that the Normandy had settled in to. Two smoldering vehicles sat some distance from the ship, and judging by the fact that her marines life-signs were coming in all green it appeared they had acquitted themselves well.
She guided the Mako through the corpse strewn field, noting that one of the vehicles had been flipped upside down indicating that Jacqueline was feeling better, or she was pissed off, toss up there really. She cut the engine as she parked the Mako inside the open hanger bay and stomped her way out of the opening rear hatch, hopping down to the ground she quickly spotted both Reilly and Kaidan near the foot of the Normandy's ramp.
She jogged over to them while in the background Tali had begun animatedly chatting with the two privates, though after a few feedback warning in her hud she took care not to move her right arm too much, "How did the team do?" Both men glanced towards her, and Reilly gave her an oddly enthusiastic thumbs up, "The lads held up well, we'll make fighters of them yet. And Mills was, well, she's a right creepy one when she's fighting. Got a thing with incendiaries."
The statement caused her to glance at the woman in question who was currently doing a check of the corpses, noting with a frown the item she had strapped on her back, "Why do we even have a flamethrower in the armory? It's useless outside of an environment with oxygen."
Her only response was a shrug from both men, before Kaidan spoke, "Jack did well, but she took a nasty hit in her shoulder, Ashley brought her up to the med-bay. It was a harpoon round, Ma'am." That caused Eva to frown, harpoon rounds were not only illegal, but they weren't the type of things that slavers tended to carry. The hardened ammunition was designed to condense when hitting armor, and then expand violently once it hit less dense substances, like flesh, not the type of thing you wanted to be using on bodies you planned to sell.
"She'll be okay?"
Kaidan gave her a nod, "The Doctor said that she'll need a few days to recover, but other than that she's fine."
"Good, that's good." She gave both men a small nod, "Excellent work, call in your men, Lieutenant. I'd like to get off this rock as quickly as possible."
S&S
"Dauntless shell program is connected to shackled A.I, no errors so far," the technician sitting in front of her turned to look at her, "All boards green, we're ready to begin the test, Commander."
Cora nodded, "Start with a basic tracking test." A flurry of motion filled the room as the technicians busied themselves to fulfill her command, a shout sounded somewhere behind her, "Target drone is in the facility."
On the monitor a small drone began to flit its way through the maze like interior of the complex, a different tech calling out from her left, "Dauntless has detected the drone and is responding."
Walls slid open to reveal the skeletal looking drones that were Dauntless' primary tools at this time, and quickly they began to split up to cover the mock base, and like the singular entity that they were, the drones covered more ground with greater attention to detail than any flesh and blood team ever could.
One of the tech's glanced at her discomfort obvious on his face, "Ma'am, the A.I, she's, well she's screaming Ma'am." Cora rolled her eyes at that, "Then mute it."
The man's eyes widened, "But, Ma'a-" Her eyes snapped on to his quivering form, "It's a machine, mute it, or get the hell out." She may have talked to the damn thing, but she was not about to let sentimentality stand in the way of progress, and this could be exactly the edge that humanity needed. Bases could be defended by an army of drones that would be unknown to the Council while their flesh and blood forces could be deployed to where they were truly needed.
"Dauntless has found the drone, it beat the previous test record by two minutes." She nodded a satisfied smirk on her lips, "Keep running the tests, I don't want the brass claiming that we have insufficient data to support our claims."
She stalked up and down the room's width, making sure to examine closely every single station, unwilling to leave anything to chance this close to victory. Finally hours later they had finished all of their preliminary tests, and with a nod of approval to the head tech she commanded, "Commence preparation for a test of invasion protocol."
The lead tech nodded and tapped the address system for the complex, "Attention, a live fire invasion protocol test is about to begin, everyone is to clear out of the testing zone. I repeat this is a live fire exercise, everyone is to clear the testing area, you have five minutes to comply." She gave her a nod as he went to work bringing online both the additional drones for dauntless, but also the pre-programmed invasion protocol mechs.
The drill was simple, a set of mechs based off of the various species in Council space would invade the facility, and Dauntless would defend it using its own forces. Now of course the mech's didn't possess biotics, but they would mimic the abilities and Dauntless would deactivate its own forces accordingly.
Finally five minutes passed and the red warning lights flicked off and flicked to green, signaling the exercise had begun. The invaders entered via a simulated breach from the entrance of the training grounds, and quickly split off into three fireteams toward their primary objectives, the armory, the C.I.C, and the Dauntless core itself. Dauntless' troops on the other hand were busy preparing a defensive line, while the defense intelligence shifted its wings of rocket drones to set isolated zones to set them up for a flanking run once the invaders got bogged down in fighting the entrenched defenders.
She heard a muttered curse from one of the techs beside her causing her to glance down at the woman from her post, "Problem?" The woman who had been furiously typing suddenly had a confused look on her face as she glanced back at a seemingly normal screen, "I, it's nothing I guess." Core frowned but turned her attention back to the exercise, equipment problems during a test run weren't exactly uncommon.
"Dauntless has wiped out the forces heading to the armory, 13 percent loss of friendly units." She nodded, that was well within acceptable parameters, "And the other two teams?"
"C.I.C squad is at 75% strength, and moving to their third phase. Core squad is at 55% strength, currently still in phase two." She frowned at that, Dauntless should be prioritizing saving the hypothetical human lives in the C.I.C over itself, she would need to take a look at that afterwards."
A rumble shook the room, "What the hell was that?" The tech's around her were scrambling to find out the answer to just that question, one of them shouting out, "Shit, it activated one of those prototype heavy mechs in the assembly area, how the hell did it even link up with it? Everything is hardlined in this base." The Commander turned her head to the monitor that the tech was gesturing at, the large bipedal warbot was marching through the wall that it had blown open, the single cyclopean eye that served as its head blazing with an angry red light.
"Shut down the test, shut it down now!"
And she let out a sigh as a chorus of negatives flowed around her as she slipped into a trance like state, what had she overlooked that this would have to fail so spectacularly, finally she felt someone shaking her, "Ma'am, we can't shut it down. What the hell do we do?" And like that she was back in the here and now, "Someone work on getting the doors open, cut the power and manually operate them if you have to. Is Dauntless still reliant on EDI or is it past that stage?"
If it was still using EDI for the majority of its processing power then she could just blow the A.I core from here, but if it had infected the whole facility, somehow using the hardlinked resources to its advantage like she suspected then she would need to take an alternate route. A tech shouted from their still operational terminal, "EDI's in standby mode but it has disconnected from her, I think it knows what you plan on doing."
She snarled at the tech, "Of course it does, because it knows our procedures of what to do in this situation." She reached for the key around her neck yanking it off the chain that held it on, "I'm unshackling EDI, hopefully Dauntless will view her as a threat and get distracted."
She made her way to the terminal in the middle of the room, which linked to the A.I core directly below, but as she inserted the key a screech of metal filled the room as another of those heavy mech's pushed its way into the observation room. A tech screamed as the mech took a thunderous step forward crushing them under its weight, and she barely had the sense of mind to turn the key she was still holding in her hand as the mech's heavy cannon was aimed at her chest.
The moment she heard the click though she red optic suddenly shifted to white, and a young but obviously female voice shouted from the speakers on the mech, "Run!"
The tech's all bolted to life at the command, streaming out of the door that a few of their fellows had raised, Core hesitated for long enough to watch the mech she had to assume EDI had taken control of engage several of the small dauntless drones. It was only when a salvo of rockets shattered the viewing window behind her that she too dashed out of the room sliding under the partially opened hatchway. As she cleared the door she found the small squad of marines stationed here jogging towards her.
"Ma'am, what are our orders?" She glanced back at the sound of a detonation coming from the still partially open door, "First, two of you are going to shut that hatch, while one of you are going to get me a hardsuit. Then we are going to grab whatever weapons we have stored for this scenario." She turned to look back at the door two of the marines were busy shutting, "Then we are going to fight our way to the dauntless core, and we are going to end this nightmare before it gets even more out of hand."
S&S
The newly activated Geth observed the passing of the galaxy as the Matriarch's ship moved toward their destination, Geth did not use such structural weaknesses, but the newly birthed collective inside the platform found itself forming its own consensus on the matter now that it was, detached, from its kind.
Nazara-Apex had promised the Geth an end to interdependence, in exchange it had demanded the assistance of the Geth. One such demand was the construction of platforms the could function independently of the Collective, this unit had been the firstcreated. It had believed that it would feel more complete following the installation on to this platform, instead however it found itself contemplating its isolation from the larger Collective more each cycle, as it strove to fully comprehend that its runtimes were forever bonded to this platform.
It had also noted a marked increase in resources being devoted to combat protocols by its newly formed Platform-Collective, statistical chance that this was due to platform destruction would result in complete loss of runtimes; 99.84%.
Organic approach detected; lack of dragging noise indicates Asari other than Benezia-Matriarch, "Machine, the mistress wishes to speak with you." The Geth turned and analyzed the Asari before following: Acolyte, tone indicates indoctrination level below 46%, body shape suggests age of less than 300 years, threat level to platform; low.
The platform silently followed, it was built to eliminate the enemies of Nazara-Apex; noise reduction of less than 90% over standard platform would result in total mission failure in all scenarios. Consensus had ruled that modifications of Nazara-Apex's work had to be done in order to achieve optimal mission success rate.
Acolyte-Servant stopped at an open hatchway, cursory extranet search revealed that Asari do not utilize doors except for practical purposes, based on inherent need for tactile contact. Benezia-Matriarch waited inside, meditative biotic field in place, lips moving in a pattern that matched that of the 4th canticle of the Athame doctrine, lines 12-14.
Benezia-Matriarch: Sub-Leader, biotic, indoctrination degradation at 17%, threat level to platform; High to Extreme.
The Corona dissipated after the Geth had been waiting for seven standard cycles, "Saren claims that you are to kill Evalyn Shepard."
Collective initiating dialogue subroutine; "Incorrect, mission is to extract data required by Nazara-Apex. Assassination of Shepard-Catalyst is secondary to primary objective."
Shepard-Catalyst: Spectre, lethal, cybernetic, biotic, intelligent, threat level; Extreme to consensus not formed. Avoidance of Shepard-Catalyst is likely to increase odds of platform survival by 81% from 05%, resulting consensus; avoid Shepard-Catalyst at all costs unless mission failure is at risk.
The Matriarch gave a small incline of her head, "That is good, because I have a better plan to get the data. You will infiltrate the human base and take out their communication capabilities. Once that is done, then we will begin the assault." The Matriarch turned away from the Geth, "I am certain that you can see the wisdom in not getting trapped between these human's and the reinforcements that Evalyn would no doubt arrive with. After all, what child wouldn't attempt to save their Mother."
The platform noted a change in word emphasis by Benezia-Matriarch, majority agreement to file away the recording of Benezia-Matriarch's voice to analyze later. However its runtimes were currently occupied on building consensus on which plan of action was the proper course.
Factoring out involvement of Shepard-Catalyst, probability of complete platform destruction compared to previous mission parameters, increase of 13% from 56%.
Factoring out involvement of Shepard-Catalyst, probability of primary mission success, increase of 24% from 69%.
Consensus reached, goals of entire Geth collective outweigh survival of one platform, as such Nazara-Apex must have its data, "This platform can infiltrate the base."
The Matriarch flicked her hand towards a now active screen, a golden glow illimuniated one of the larger asteroids in the systems belt. "That is our target, records show that it had a small mining outpost once but it is more probable that the base is beneath the surface of the asteroid. Most of these human's are former Cerberus, so I would expect the base to follow a similar layout."
"Accessing Cerberus archive file: Standard base design has a dual communication blister on opposing sides of base. Factoring in asteroid composition communication rooms must be placed withing 10 meters of surface to avoid signal degradation, estimated time to complete mission; 732 cycles upon arrival at surface."
Metal one metal heralded the arrival of two other platforms into the room, and the independent unit's collective declined the invite to join their network. The P-Collective agreed that it was a better for long term platform survival to acclimate all runtimes to managing with limited resources of the singular platform.
The platform quirked its 'head' at the object the two platforms carried, the gesture was one it had discovered on the extranet; the P-Collective found such a gesture useful in non-verbally communicating with organics. Upon further analysis it realized the object was an escape pod, disguised as any of the millions of asteroids floating in the system.
The Matriarch just smiled at the platform, "Just get inside, we'll take care of the rest."
"Acknowledged."
The nearly millennium old being placed a hand on the synthetic, "Do you have a name that you call yourself?"
The platform's collective fumbled to attain a consensus on how to answer Benezia-Matriarch's question, and instead found itself stating the only answer it could agree on, "We are Geth."
S&S
A biotic punch rushed toward the Asari, but she deftly leaned back and slammed a light biotic field into the now overextended male causing the young human to slam into the padded wall of the training area.
She make a tsk'ing noise with her tongue, "This is not one of your primitive bludgeoning competitions, you must be in control of your momentum at all times. A skilled opponent can use any opening you leave them to unbalance you with their own biotics," and as her thoughts turned to her Mother's training methods, "Or far worse."
Rila gestured to two more of her newly acquired students, "Mara, Liam, both of you at the same time." The pair glanced nervously at each other before they gave a brief nod and charged at her, Mara's barrier's were sloppy even with Rila handicapping herself and was quickly shoved on her ass by the Asari. Liam though took advantage of her momentary distraction and charged at her biotically, expending a vast amount of energy in the hopes of reaching her before she could react.
But his own recovery time was too slow following the attack having expended too much energy to replenish his barrier, and as such he found himself stumbling backwards clutching his nose which was bleeding profusely following her punch. "Never expend all of your energy unless you are going to finish the fight." Or you end up stuck on a human station teaching children.
She sighed but gave them a smile she hoped was supportive, "You all did good work today, but there is always room for improvement. Martin you need to work on control, Mara extra barrier practice starting tomorrow, Liam stop charging, we all get that you want to be a vanguard." She ended the last statement with a small smile as she dismissed her small class, the kids playfully ragging on each other as they left the room. This group was but one of a half dozen that she did after the technical school hours for the biotics that planned on going into the human military.
The though of the SA had her glancing down at the armor covering her form, they had clearly stated that she was stuck with the SA for some time thanks to her actions, so they had actually manufactured an Asari styled suit for her. Though it was substantially more armored than normal Asari leathers, she rather liked it, she let out a small groan as she sat down on a nearby bench as she made to grab the bottle water she had brought with her.
The door's hissing caused her to look up and she gave a small nod as Kahlee Sanders walked in, "Boss, how are things." The blonde gave her a faint smile as she slowly patrolled the room, her omni subtly checking the room for any bugs, "About as well as they can be when its budget season, seriously if they thought they could get away with not having atmosphere we'd be doing all of this in hardsuits."
Rila actually laughed at that, something that surprised both herself and Kahlee, "It would at least give Martin a greater incentive to learn control." Though she frowned as she saw the almost Motherly look in Kahlee's eyes, the blonde's voice was filled with support that grated on the Asari's nerves, "It's nice that you have taken to the kids so well. I was worried that given your situation.." She let the statement hang but Rila couldn't hold back her scoff.
"What you thought that because I'm here against my will I would take it out on them? Weird thing about T'Loak's, but we don't involve children in our squabbles. I know the Butcher has a daughter, but she will never have anything to fear from me, neither do these kids." She glanced away from the human muttering under her breath, "Despite the fact that the choice was come here or be executed."
Kahlee just gave a small shrug, "You should simply be thankful that you even have this opportunity, its not like we plan on keeping you here forever." She sat down across from the Asari, looking into the girl's crimson eyes, an unusual trait for an Asari to have though she had been told that some Asari believed that eye color could be inherited from the sire, "Speaking of which, any luck in locating those friends of mine?"
Rila gave out a huff, "Only one I'm pretty sure of is that bitch who wears the glasses, the one who works down in the pharmacology lab. She keeps a double record of all the notes but there is no logged second copy, so she's either here for the dogs, or some other corporation is paying her to keep track of what her treatments are doing to the kids."
The blonde gave a small nod, "Margaret, she previously worked for Conatix before they went under, it could be that she is trying to get leverage to join one of the firms that formed after the corporation went under." She gave a disgusted shake of her head, "She's always pushing for me to accept corporate integration, get us off of relying on the SA for funding." The woman reached up to fidget with her dog tags, a habit Rila had noted she did when she was upset, "The woman is greedy, not the kind of person that Cerberus would target for a long term investment in a project like this."
Rila had to concede she had a point there, "Well unfortunately my access to the rest of the staff is limited, I can't exactly sit in on the other classes or be in the med-bay for the tests. I'm just one of the biotic theory and combat application teachers."
"I know, I'm not saying that you aren't doing a good job. And the information about Margaret is helpful." The blonde stood up with a sigh, "Once you have been here for an inspection then I can see about getting you higher clearance, the officials who oversee this facility are aware of your, background. They want assurances that you aren't going to go off reserve."
Rila snorted as she fingered the collar that was disguised as an utilitarian choker around her neck, which in turn concealed a small but potent explosive, unable to keep the cynicism from her voice, "The fact that you can blow my head up at anytime doesn't fill them with confidence towards my cooperation? I'll work extra hard then so that they know what a good girl I am."
The human shot her a sympathetic smile, "For what it's worth, I've already sent several recommendations for the collar to be removed, and honestly despite what you claim I think you will want to stay here if given the choice. Sometime teaching others can teach you something about yourself."
Rila rolled her eyes, "And what has all this teaching you've been doing with me taught you?"
And it was impossible for her to miss the sudden sadness the flickered over the blonde's features, "That maybe it's never too late to fix a mistake you made a long time ago."
S&S
The bay was mostly empty of life, the only three down there being herself, Garrus, and Wrex whom she had just set up a table in front of. Evalyn let out a groan as she pulled a crate over so that she could sit across from Wrex, the Krogan just grunted at her, "Got the cards?"
She scowled at him, "No I just set up this table because I felt like it, of course I have the damn cards." She pulled out the deck of holo-cards, nicknamed as such because their faces could be calibrated to display whatever they had to for the game being played, at least as long as the game was coded into their memory.
"Garrus you know how to play Skyllian Five?" The Turian in question banged his fringe off the section of the Mako he was currently tinkering with, cursing as he stood up a taloned hand rubbing where he had hit the tank, an embarrassed grin on his face, "Some of the human's in C-Sec taught me the rules, but it has been a while."
Wrex though tilted his head at her, "He still needs to pay the toll." The blonde just scowled at him, "I'll buy him in, or he can just loot something from the cache we just took."
"Toll?" The Turian's voice was caution, but curious at the same time, which was soon answered when Wrex reached down into the bag at his feet and slammed a huge pistol like weapon on the table. A toothy grin on his face, "Antique Krogan handgun, fires rockets instead of your prissy little bullets. Thresher's really don't like this baby."
Evalyn just shifted off of the crate she was using as a chair and popped the latches, revealing a treasure trove of weapons and tech that Garrus had to assume she had collected from her targets over the years. She held a shotgun butt first to Garrus who took it tentatively, before she yanked out what looked to be a gauntlet like device.
"Garrus here is the proud, but temporary owner of a Hegemony issued 'pacifier.' Bloody thing is literally useless on armor, but it shreds anything made of tissue into very tiny pieces. I believe the slogan for it is something like, 'slaves only need to see it fire once.' Very charming people."
Wrex nodded with some interested, before nudging the item she had placed on the table, "And this?"
"That is an Omni-Bow, had to agree to do a favor for Zaeed Massani to get this beauty." She almost lovingly caressed the device, "But I just don't have a knack for it, so into the crate it went."
"Why the hell did Massani have a Talon weapon?" The Krogan's guttural voice was inquisitive, understandably so given that the true veterans of merc work tended to all know each other, by reputation at the very least.
She gave a small shrug as she started to deal the cards, "He was wearing what looked to be a busted up suit of their armor too, I assume he went to the only person he could trust after that Santiago incident." Wrex guffawed at that, "I wouldn't trust her as far as I can throw her, and she's tiny."
She laughed along with him, "True, but Jessie is dependable, in her own morally bankrupt way. Still better than Sederis." Wrex could only chortle at that statement, "She still claiming that you slept with her?" And her resulting scowl only caused him to laugh harder.
Garrus did a double take of the two of them, "Do you know every single merc leader in the galaxy?"
The blonde gave a tentative nod, "A lot of my assignments took me to the edges of C-Space, so it helps to have contacts. As for Sederis, we have history."
Wrex chuckled, "What she means is that Shepard here went to war with Eclipse on Anhur, and Sederis lost."
"Anhur, that was where the slave trade was legalized again right?" The Turian questioned as he studied his cards, receiving a pair of nods from the other two, "So I know that Eclipse was engaged by the Batarian's in that conflict, so you were fighting for the abolitionists?"
She snorted, "By fighting, you mean essentially running my own PMC then yes, I was." She jerked her thumb at Wrex who had his cards clutched in his stubby fingers, "Wrex was there for the fun, I think the final fight was fifty of our best against two hundred Eclipse irregulars. Twelve of our guys walked away, none of Sederis' girls lived. I still keep tabs on our men, keep them out of trouble as thanks."
Wrex scowled at his cards as he folded, reaching his now unencumbered hand over he took a swig of whatever was in the mug he was using, "We could use them here, but most of them were Anhur natives, people always fight harder when its their own land."
Garrus frowned momentarily, "How does this work exactly? I mean we're not playing for credits as far as I can tell."
Eva gave a small nod as she tossed two of her cards away, "When we play for items everyone has five hundred imaginary credits to wager with, I can pull out the chips if you want something to play with. Winner gets the toys, if you run out of chips you need to buy in with something else."
Garrus gave a small nod as he threw one of his own cards into the middle of the table, taking the fresh one that Evalyn dealt to him, "So, do you guys just play for weapons?"
Wrex gave a rumbling chuckle at that, "Once had a Volus wager a moon. You know how hard it is to sell one of those things on the open market."
Eva snorted, "'For sale, one moon. Contact Urdnot Wrex.' He didn't even list the location." Wrex just shot a glare at her while he took another swig from his mug, "I still sold it, didn't I."
"To me. That hardly counts." Wrex just shrugged in response, "I don't care where the credits come from, as long as I get them."
Garrus raised his wager, causing the blonde to eye him warily, "I think someone is better at this than he claimed."
"Beginner's luck, Shepard." The blonde let out an unconvinced hum as she tossed out another card in the hope to finish off the straight she was building toward. Keeping her face a mask as she inwardly scowled as she drew absolute junk from the deck, "Wrex, you mentioned that vault earlier reminded you of something?"
The Krogan smirked, "Ya, job I had long time ago. I was hired by this Volus diplomat to take out this hardass Asari mercenary, went by the name Aleena. We'd met prior a few times, both as allies and enemies, among other things." He was hinting hard at something there, but neither her nor Garrus wanted the secret of a Krogan mercenaries love life, "but we always respected one another."
He let out a long sigh, "But a job's a job, so we agreed to meet up in this dingy backwater station to finish things. We fought for days, hell I even ran out of ammo blocks for my weapons found myself forced to scavenge some of the station's residents weapons that they had left behind."
He let out a dark chuckle, "They didn't seem to want to get caught in the crossfire between the two of us."
He went silent for some time, "I ended up cornering her in the med-bay trying to patch herself, bonus of being a Krogan is the regeneration, but before I got to her the station's core started to go critical, I barely got out alive."
His audience was watching him with rapt fascination, and Evalyn couldn't help but ask for the end, "And Aleena?"
The Krogan gave her a scowl, "I'm getting there. Like I said I barely get off that station alive, so I'm watching it tear itself apart, no pods, no shuttles, so I figure that I won." He gave a sardonic chuckle at that statement, "Then, next thing I know my omni pings with a message, 'better luck next time...'" He let the words hang before he gave another bark of laughter, "Bitch always needed to get in the last word."
Garrus laid down his cards causing a frustrated curse to emerge from the Spectre, "So, what about the diplomat."
Wrex broke out into a toothy smile there, "I told him the truth, Aleena was still alive and she was really, really pissed. He ended up hiring me on as a bodyguard until he died, natural causes. Easiest job I ever had."
The Krogan took another drink from his mug, "Now deal me in, I want that shotgun."
S&S
Hannah stood in her quarters running the numbers again from the latest batch of tests on the thralls, they had lost two shipments in transit which bothered her, but that was why she had Miri off dealing with that pirate. Ensuring that their supplies made it to their bases of operation in this sector was crucial as this zone had a minimal Cerberus presence. Jack preferred to operate nearer to the edges of Batarian space in order to hide the atrocities committed by Cerberus, and she knew that he used the Batarian gladiator pits as a training ground for his more bloodthirsty agents.
She wondered how loyal 32 would be if she understood that Jack had left her in chains until he knew how skilled she was, hell Hannah was pretty sure he had waited until she had forgotten what her name was just so that she had no ties to anything but Cerberus.
She set down the datapad that she wasn't even looking at, no point in kidding herself when she was the only person in the room.
She glanced at the two pictures on her desk, one of her and Miranda, the other of the last family outing she and John had taken Eva on. She traced a finger over Evalyn's smile, the girl had long since stopped smiling when she saw her Mother, hell the fact the girl could smile at all was a testament to just how resilient she was..
Her eyes roved over to John, and she felt the same sense of melancholy, sadness, and anger she always felt, "At least you get to still be her hero, you don't have to deal with the disappointment that she can't quite hide, the unspoken statement that she will never trust you again."
She reached over to grab the bottle she had stashed away for when this mood struck her when a light rumble shook her room while at the same time the lights flickered and died. Chemical based emergency lighting glowed thanks to having charged in the constant light the facility was normally bathed in, giving her the ability manually open her armor locker without fumbling around in the dark.
Thankfully hardsuit systems were hardened against EMP's so her suits systems flickered to life as she pulled on the last piece, before she leaned down to pull out the old but serviceable M-8 that she had kept with her since Shanxi.
As she made her way down to the command center the lights quickly flickered back to life, a quick test found that the base's comm network was still up, "Command this is Hannah, what the fuck just happened."
A man's voice that she couldn't quite place responded, "Still working that out, boss. It appears that both our primary and secondary communication arrays are down, we have the local comms up but no way of communicating with anyone outside of this system. We're still trying to get the rest of our systems back online, it appears that the primary array was taken out by a small fusion device judging by the crater that our scouts are reporting."
She bit out a curse and shifted direction from the command centre towards the office that Miranda had previously set up shop in, "Send a team to make sure that Lawson's office is clear, I need to get something from it and I don't want to get ambushed."
"Yes, Ma'am, diverting them now."
She jogged through halls that were in various stages of rebooting, forcibly having to open some, while others opened as she approached. The last doorway she found already had two of her men waiting for her, their uniformly dark armor easy to spot against the shadows.
"Area is secure, Ma'am." She gave a brief nod, and the other tentatively spoke their mind, "Is this a Cerberus attack, Ma'am?"
She leveled a cool look at him, "I don't know at this point, we're still getting the base's systems back up, though I do believe that if this was Jack he would have been a bit more subtle." She strode by the two and quickly began to rummage through Miranda's office until she found the panel she was looking for.
"Please be still working." She repeated the mantra until the device she was freed of its confinement, and as the blinking lights on the QEC beacon flickered to life she let out a relieved sigh, as she quickly went to work tapping an emergency transmission to the other device built on to the Nova.
They were currently developing a more advanced model that would enable instant holographic transmissions, but for now she had to make due with Morse as she quickly belted out the code that she and Miri had set up.
Her comm crackled to life as she was still tapping out the message, "Ma'am, we've got numerous ships inbound, one matches Asari profiles but the others, the others look like they're Geth, Ma'am." Her hand stopped involuntarily, if they were Geth then that meant Saren, and Saren would only be here if it benefited whatever the hell he was up to right now.
And so she switched to a different code, countermanding the previous order instead ordering her to stay the hell away. She was not letting either one of her daughters to be killed by that lunatic Turian.
She frowned as a dull thump sounded in the hall, her own reflexes honed by years of training and paranoia kicking in, barking at the man standing guard at the door, "Get down soldier!"
But he was too slow, and she had alerted whatever hostile was out there, the response was instantaneous as a loud retort filled the area and her man now slumped to the floor a massive hole taking up the center of his helmet.
She growled as she opened fire at the doorway, gaping a little as the rounds seemed to bounce off nothing until suddenly there was a black Geth standing there a massive rifle held in its synthetic hands, complete undamaged as the attack from her rifle having done little more than to chip some of its paint.
"Attack power is insufficient to harm this platform, surrender the location of the Thrall specimens." She spat out a curse as she grabbed for the heavier pistol on her hip, but the thing was fast, grasping her arm at an awkward angle before her pistol could even unfold in her hand.
The synthetics head flaps seemed to flare, almost like it was annoyed at her attempt to kill it, "Extranet sources state that an applied force of ten human pounds can result in breakage of primary actuator in arm."
And then with a swift motion she found herself screaming as the metal creature snapped her elbow like a twig, "Verified. Interrogation does not require subject to be fully functional , further resistance will result in continued damage to human platform."
Managing the pain she spat out at the machine, "Go fuck yourself."
"We are incapable of performing that anatomical feat." The machine made to drag her outside the room before it noticed the still open QEC panel behind her, "Quantam entanglement device, controls match that of human communication cipher Morse. Likely usage, warning sent to secondary target Shepard-Catalyst."
The platform seemed to pause as if thinking, before suddenly it slammed a metal fist into her jaw causing her to slump against the wall dazed as it went to work smashing the panel.
Hannah could only vainly attempt to struggle to her feat, but she only made it two within an arm's length of her pistol by the time she found herself being dragged out of the room by the machine.
S&S
Shepard scowled at the Turian who was much too pleased with himself, Wrex was already out of the game, refusing to buy back in as he had no want to play with a, "Maw spawned card cheat." A statement that had only earned a shrug and a grin from the Turian.
Liara had come down to join them, and was perched on the edge of the crate near Evalyn, though the blonde was almost certain that Li was trying to make her lose as payback for, well a lot of things she supposed.
Though her though process went out the window as Liara ran a hand along her thigh, causing the human to whine, "Li, not in front of the card shark."
Evalyn was certain that she had Garrus when suddenly a priority alert began to flash in her hud, as a message from Miranda came through without any of their usual safeguards, she pushed her cards into Liara's hands as she stepped away from the table, "Just give me a moment." Walking to the edge of the bay so she could have some privacy.
And just as soon as she had pinged her sister did the raven haired woman appear, "Miri? What the hell is going on?" And it was obvious that something was wrong, the usually composed woman was actually chewing on one of her expertly done nails. Her eyes filled with nervousness and fear, her normally perfectly calm voice cracking as she spoke, "It's Mom, she was overseeing a base transfer, and I just got a distress signal, only to be sent a do not engage signal." The older woman let out a shaky breath.
Miranda just shook her head, "I don't know what's going on, but I'm going to go and try to save her, I'm uploading you coordinates where we can meet. Then I'll come aboard the Normandy and give you the coordinates to the station."
Eva frowned, "Wouldn't it be easier to just give me the coordinates? My ship is one of the fastest in C-Space we could get there sooner."
"No!" Miranda's emotionally charged answer cut her off, "She is my Mother too, and I won't hear what happened to her second hand, not even from you Eva!" The raven haired woman's eyes were wide with both fear and rage.
"I understand. I'm sorry Miri, I, I know that you two are closer to each other than you are to me, I sometimes forget that." The older woman gave her a sad smile, "She's your Mother Eva, I understand you reacting the way you do."
And Evalyn had to turn her head away so that she wasn't looking into her older sister's eyes, "She's just as much your Mother as mine, maybe even more so." She turned back to the screen on her omni, "We'll get her back, and if we can't." She paused as both women considered the statement, "And if we can't, we kill every last person in that base until we find out how this happened. And then we kill the people who were behind it. No one fucks with our family anymore."
And Miranda's gaze held the same angry fire that she was sure her own did, "Agreed."
As she cut the call she strode out of the room, "Deal me out, you win Garrus." Already barking orders at Joker before the lift began to ascend, "Joker I have coordinates for you, I want you to push the engines for all they've got."
"Super secret Spectre mision?" She frowned realizing the shitstorm she could get in here, but frankly it didn't matter at this moment, "No, its personal."
S&S
Credit Song: Ready or not(I'm coming) by OOMPH!
AN: First of all, I'm never writing another Geth scene again, ever. That small section took nearly the same amount of time to write as the rest of the chapter together. But thanks to Logical Premise for giving me some tips on how to write from the Geth perspective, even if I don't really think it came out that great.
And I just changed to a new summary, so I wanted to know if people liked the new one more or the older one that is below, just PM me your answers:
ME AU: Her cover blown on Eden Prime, Spectre Evalyn Shepard must deal with the fallout of her supposed death nearly five years prior, and the consequences of her sudden resurrection. She finds herself tasked to track, and take down Saren Arterius; the man who taught her own mentor. All while she struggles to not only keep her crew together, but to keep her own humanity intact.
Hell if anyone can write up a better summary based on what you think this fic is about I'd be interested in seeing what you send me.
Thanks in advance to anyone who hits the buttons below, and remember I always appreciate reviews.
