N/A: This chapter took quite some time to write. I tried to work on my vocabulary because I think, I sound just too repetitive most of the time. I'd appreciate some reviews.
Also, I have to give credit to Drew Karpyshyn since his books have helped me A LOT with terms that are used in battle. I really hope, I didn't just copy them and that I didn't screw up, trying to write a small battle scene with my own words.
A big Thank You to Buggirl who beta-ed all chapters! Thank you so much for everything so far. I don't know where I'd be without you.
Chapter 13
Unknown
All the years I walked unknown behind the faces I assumed.
Once again she was lost in her thoughts, staring into a self-created void in front of her. She wasn't Cerberus, was she? Sure, she worked with them. No matter how much she lied to herself, she couldn't deny it. After all, they were the ones that had invested billions of credits and two years of time to bring her back from the dead but she wasn't fooling herself. They hadn't brought her back for who she was but what she represented, to fight a battle for humanity and the galaxy. Though, this time it would get her nothing. Personal satisfaction for doing the job maybe, if they actually managed to survive. But public recognition? Hell no. Not that she would want it anyway, but at least within the Alliance Military she'd been working towards getting promoted. Within this privately run organization she had no real goals whatsoever. And she didn't even trust her boss, which left a subtle feeling that she had to watch her back constantly.
"ETA 30 minutes, Commander!" Joker's voice came in over the intercomm.
Shepard was still standing in front of her opened armor locker, half dressed, holding the chest-plate of the new Cerberus armor. It kind of reminded her of her old Scorpion armor, at least colour wise: white-grey camouflage.
Let's see what you can do.
They were about to go to a high security prison to recruit someone named Jack, a mere formality, but still she dressed fully in armor and brought all her weapons. It may seem ridiculous to non-military people but for her it had become a habit. She had never gone anywhere without at least a pistol. Even a few years back, when Kaidan and Ashley had talked her into going to the Flux on the Citadel for some drinks, she had showed up in her armor.
You never know.
Kaidan had looked rather disappointed. Yet her armor was all she had left. The only friend she could always rely on, no matter what.
She didn't understand, how Miranda could go into a fight wearing nothing but a white, catsuit like uniform.
Maybe she wants to distract the enemy with her booty. Let's see how she deals with a prison full of desperate and highly dangerous criminals.
Shepard had ordered the Cerberus operative and Garrus to get ready. The latter, because she knew, he wouldn't want to stay behind much longer and the former, because after all she was her connection to Cerberus and she just didn't like leaving her on the ship while she was out on a mission.
Purgatory was a maximum security prison starship, run by the Blue Suns. Upon their arrival several security guards confronted them and ordered them to relinquish their weapons.
You can have a bullet right into your body. My weapons stay where they are.
She hissed at the turian in front of her. For some reason she sensed that she would need them later and Garrus shifting uncomfortably behind her, seeming highly alarmed, only added to the feeling.
They would not walk around this ship unarmed, period.
A barefaced turian approached them, calling back the guards. Warden Kuril, armed to the teeth as well, informed Shepard that they would get Jack out of cryo once the Cerberus credits were transferred.
The way Kuril had chosen his words when telling his guards to back-off and let them pass, she had no idea what exactly his intentions were but every fibre of her body yelled This is a trap.Yet she couldn't do anything but play along. No one may ever have escaped from here, as the warden stated proudly, but she had fought her way out of worse situations than this.
They walked down a long corridor, listening to Kuril's ongoing talk about the prison, asking him a polite question every now and then, until he left them after a couple of minutes to check with the credit transfer while they were supposed to wait in a separate room down the hallway.
"You don't even get good information that way. After a point, victims admit to anything to make the pain stop." Garrus muttered as they were passing by a cell in which one guard was beating a prisoner while another stood outside, watching.
Whatever he's done, he probably deserves it.
That's no reason to treat him like this.
Oh please, you know, he wouldn't be here if he hadn't done more than just steal a few credits.
That's not the point.
So what is?
"There's no excuse for beating a prisoner who can't fight back," Shepard stepped next to the guard in front of the cell.
"This is a massage compared to what his victims went through!"
See? I told you.
"I wasn't asking." she said, her voice cold while her mind tried to ignore the battle of thoughts within her.
"You're in a high security facility with guns and cameras everywhere and you're threatening me?" He turned to her, sounding baffled and if she could have seen his face, she bet he would have stared at her in pure disbelief.
She leaned closer to him and almost whispered: "These guns and cameras won't be fast enough to save you."
"Is that right?" The guard took one step backwards.
"I told you to stop!" she ordered sharply.
He hesitated for a moment. "Call it off..." He said, turning to his comrade in the cell. "...at least for now!"
You confuse the hell out of me, do you know that?
She ignored it.
I mean, at least I expected you to talk some sense into his brain but noooo, you have to threaten him.
Quietly, she walked on.
You always used diplomacy. Hell, you even convinced that Blake woman to disband her gang without killing anyone.
That was true. She remembered Helena Blake all too well. It had been shortly after Shepard had received her Spectre status that Blake had approached her. The woman, member of a criminal syndicate, had asked for help with eliminating two of her affiliates, red sand dealers that had been trading defaulting customers to batarian slavers. Without any second thought, Shepard had agreed and when talking to Blake the last time, she had managed to convince her, that crime just didn't pay off and eventually, Blake had agreed to disband her organization. Shepard had always been proud of her diplomatic skills, but now?
Now? Now you walk around threatening people instead of relying on your eloquence.
She remembered a quote, she'd once heard. Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you find a rock.
Well, you've skipped the nice doggy part a lot lately. And by a lot I mean, what the hell are you doing?
If only she knew the answer to that question herself. But where had all the nice doggy talk gotten her in the end? The Alliance and the Council both had turned their backs on her.
You'd never liked the Council to begin with.
True. They'd dismissed her visions about the Reapers as simple dreams, not to mention the turian councilor who'd never made a secret of how little he had liked her.
Is that why you let them die?
She didn't know anymore. The new Council wasn't much different either, so her decision had had no impact after all. The dead members had just been replaced by new ones, as bureaucratic and ignorant to facts as their predecessors and even less willing to act.
"...buying prisoners, can you buy me?"
The voice of a scruffy looking man in a cell she was passing by, startled her out of her thoughts.
Since when are prisoners for sale? Shepard's mind tried to wrap itself around the man's questions.
The conversation that followed proved her uneasy feeling right. Kuril was nothing but a slave trader, selling prisoners to wealthy customers for their own private use or forcing their' home worlds to pay a certain fee to keep the criminals locked up. Otherwise he would release them onto the planets at an unspecified place and time.
She would kiss a vorcha, if he wasn't going to trap and sell her as well. Shepard had more than enough enemies willing to pay for her.
Not going to happen, she thought.
They reached the end of the corridor and as they stepped into the room some technician told her that Out processing was through the door on the far side. He didn't even turn to her but stayed focused on his terminal.
With growing tension she strode forward to said door and the moment it opened she knew that her gut hadn't betrayed her, for the door didn't lead to another room but was the entrance of a cell.
"My apologies, Shepard. You're more valuable as a prisoner than a customer." Kuril's voice echoed from the walls.
Wishful thinking, you son of a bitch.
"Drop your weapons and proceed into this open cell. You will not be harmed."
Did he really think, she would just walk in there, sit down and wait until someone came to buy her like some cattle?
Go to hell, she thought as she loaded her weapon and headed back to where they'd come from.
Looks like this isn't just a matter of mere form after all.
This kind of 'formalities' was more Shepard's taste, though. She shot two arriving mechs and reloaded her gun while overloading a guard's shields, the three quick, almost silent rounds from Garrus' Incisor sniper rifle sounding like a sweet melody in her ears. This felt almost like old times, just that there was this woman behind her, not Kaidan.
...or Wrex, she remembered her dead krogan friend sadly.
This was not the right time to dwell on painful memories. She shook her head, ducking behind a nearby table while punching a new thermal clip into her pistol. Three more silent clicks from the Incisor. She checked her shield status, it was down to twenty percent.
Dammit!
Her shields had taken quite a beating.
"Miranda, move up!" she shouted and rolled herself to the right, emerging from behind her cover just enough to fire aimlessly at the approaching mechs, while Miranda used the cover fire to charge forward. When Shepard rolled back, Garrus took over, popping up from behind his crate, shooting. They repeated this one more time.
"In position. Laying down cover fire!" Miranda's voice came in over the radio.
"I'm going next," Garrus replied. Miranda stepped out from behind the metal stand and fired a quick cover burst in the direction of the enemy. When her gun went silent, Shepard lifted her head over the table and did the same for about two seconds, then ducked down again.
"In position," she heard Garrus say, then reloaded her gun quickly and readied herself to dart forward.
"I'm on the go," she barked and jumped up the moment Miranda started to fire. She crouched low, running hard for a crate in front of her squad-mates, the constant zip-zip-zip of the bullets filling their air. Before she kneeled down behind her cover, she felt her kinetic shields repulsing a shot. Her heart beating in her chest, she was trying to catch her breath.
Miranda overloaded the shields of an approaching Blue Suns guard, Shepard hit him with a reave, depriving him off all his energy and just when his screams indicated that all life was about to vanish from his body, Garrus finished him off with one single head shot.
"One more behind the crate, three around the corner," the turian said.
"Shield status!" Shepard requested, while checking her own, eighty-five percent.
"Ninety-eight", Miranda replied.
"Ninety," was Garrus' answer.
"Miranda, move out in the open!" she ordered, "Garrus, get ready! On my signal!"
Shepard knew they didn't have much time left. The guard behind the crate would be hard to take out. Using Miranda to draw his attention and tempting him to leave his cover long enough was their only chance. She didn't know if that would work out. Every well trained soldier would just wait for the reinforcement that was already headed his way, but they couldn't hold this position forever. They were running low on thermal clips. She had to take the risk.
"Go!" she shouted and Miranda left her cover behind the column.
When nothing happened, she moved slowly forward, keeping herself right between Garrus and Shepard so she wouldn't catch any friendly fire.
Smart girl, Shepard thought approvingly.
It worked, the guard's upper body appeared from behind the crate and started open fire at the woman approaching him. Although the shots were repulsed by her shields, all three of them knew, that they wouldn't hold up for long. Miranda overloaded the guard's shields just in time for Shepard to pull him towards them and all three of them started shooting at the man swirling helplessly through the air, their bullets piercing through his armor and ripping through the flesh of his body. One last, long breathed aaah signaled them, that he was dead.
"Ten!" Miranda said, as she ducked in front of the crate to cover herself from the approaching guards around the corner. Her shields would take some time to recharge.
"Good work," Shepard said, moving up to the column next to her, Garrus in tow.
Taking out the three arriving men around the corner was almost easy since they had no cover at all.
They searched the dead bodies for thermal clips and loaded them into their weapons. Miranda positioned herself on the left, Garrus on the right, before Shepard finally opened the door through which the guards had come, but there was only a technician inside. Garrus' sniper rifle clicked again and the man's body dropped lifeless to the floor.
We have to get Jack out of cryo.
But when Shepard checked the computer terminal in front of her, she soon recognized that overriding the system would basically set every prisoner on this damn ship free.
At least they will keep the guards busy, she thought grimly as she typed in the necessary sequence.
This will end in a massacre, her inner voice warned her but she just shrugged it off.
They watched as a large robot arm emerged and selected a cryo cell to retrieve it, activating three heavy mechs nearby. Shepard didn't know what she'd expected but the body that lay tied up in the cell, was that of a young, skinny woman with a shaven head. Her skin was covered in tattoos and scars. Simply put, she was the complete opposite of the image that had formed in Shepard's mind.
Jack is the meanest handful of violence and hate I've ever encountered.
Those had been Kuril's words.
Well, she's definitely a handful.
"That's...Jack?" Miranda's voice sounded as surprised as Shepard was.
The young woman's fingers began to move slowly, as life came back to her. She awoke with a loud gasp, her right arm ripping off the metal cuff around her wrist. Her left arm following shortly after. Then both hands moved up to the large cuff around her neck, tearing it apart like some piece of cloth. Jack struggled for a second, trying to catch her balance, clearing her mind, but when the three heavy mechs got ready to take her down, she flared up, jumped up and destroyed them with her biotics before they could even take aim.
Dangerous, crazy and very powerful, Kuril had said.
Indeed, Shepard smirked.
But Jack was already gone and a station wide alarm set off.
Sweet, chasing a loose criminal through a prison with more loose criminals, guards and mechs.
"Let's go," she simply ordered and marched off through the next door. Following Jack wasn't really that hard. The young woman had left a trail of destruction, dead corpses and chaos, holes ripped into the metal walls whenever a door was in need but not at hand.
Impressive!
Finding her though, was the real challenge, since the team not only had to deal with the guards but also with the loose prisoners. Basically each party was shooting the other one. It was pure chaos and Shepard used this to their own advantage whenever she could. The prisoners stood no chance against the heavy mechs, though, and fighting these off while the guards kept firing at Shepard and her team, was tough. It took them fifteen minutes to bring the heavy mech down and another ten to kill all remaining guards in the area, before they could finally move on to follow Jack.
They entered a large bay where Kuril had positioned himself at the far end.
"You're valuable, Shepard. I could have sold you and lived like a king. But you're too much trouble."
Really? What gave me away?
"At least, I can recapture Jack." He fired a shot at her and she ducked behind her cover.
"Not happening. You're a two-bit slave trader and I don't have time for it." Shepard snarled.
"I do the hard things civil governments are unwilling to. This is for the good of the galaxy."
You're nothing but another criminal, she thought, as she unleashed out and started shooting but he had already raised a strong shield around himself, that received its energy from three different generators and repulsed all of her bullets.
Shit!
Taking out the first two generators was easy but getting to the third one was harder than expected, as mechs and guards kept emerging from two different directions and tried to hold them off. Once they had killed all of them, Shepard destroyed the last generator so they could finally take on Kuril.
That was fun, she thought later, as they headed back to the docking zone, to where they had seen Jack running at full speed. They only encountered little resistance from remaining mechs and some prisoners on their way and sure enough, they found the person they'd been looking for, cursing and raging in front of the dock, completely ignoring another approaching guard.
One single shot from Shepard's pistol let his lifeless body drop to the floor.
"What the hell do you want?" Jack shouted angrily when she spun around.
Ungrateful bitch.
"I just saved your ass."
"He was already dead." the young woman replied arrogantly. "He just didn't know it."
Yeah, right.
"Now, what the hell do you want?"
"My name is Shepard and I'm here to get you off this ship."
"I'm not going anywhere with you. You're Cerberus!"
It took all her strength not to punch that chick in the face for saying that but she wondered why someone, who she'd just freed from prison started to be so picky about whom she was leaving this goddamn ship with.
"Why does it matter if I'm with Cerberus?"
"They've been on my ass for years. Anytime I get free, they put a huge bounty on me. That's why warden Kuril figured he'd struck gold when he caught me."
"She's destroyed Cerberus property and killed Cerberus people, hence the bounty," Miranda explained.
Looks like we got something in common then.
"You die first!" Jack's eyes narrowed at Miranda.
Anyway, they had to get off this ship and she would take Jack with her, if she liked it or not.
"I'm offering to be your friend. You don't wanna be my enemy." she said.
"They have a way of dying!" Garrus added in a dry tone.
Shepard smirked.
Damn right.
"You show up in a Cerberus frigate to take me away somewhere? You think I'm stupid?"
Uhm, yes? Apparently, Jack hadn't really considered her options.
"This ship is going down in flames. We can get you to safety and we're asking for your help."
"We could just knock her out and take her!" Miranda suggested.
"I'd like to see you try," Jack snorted.
I bet these two won't get along!
But Miranda was right. Jack didn't seem to like the nice way.
"It might just come to that." Shepard said warningly.
"You'll have to kill me!" She stared at them provokingly but reconsidered. "Look, you want me to come with you? Make it worth my while!" Jack started to bargain.
Now I got ya!
"Tell me what you're thinking!"
"I bet your ship's got lots of Cerberus databases. I want a look at those files, see what Cerberus got on me. You want me on your team? Let me go through these databases!"
Ha! I bet the Illusive Man won't like that.
"I'll give you full access."
"Shepard you're not authorized to do that," Miranda objected.
I don't give a shit if I am. Jack's not the only one who wants to know what you got on her.
"Aww, it upsets the cheerleader. Even better," the young woman scoffed.
Yup, they DEFINITELY won't get along.
But you know that this means drama, right?
I can deal with that later.
"You better be straight up with me," Jack stepped closer to Shepard but she just nodded. "So why the hell are we standing here?"
The debriefing after the mission hadn't gone too well. Miranda had been pacing up and down in front of Jack, pointing out that she was second in command but it hadn't impressed the young woman at all. Shepard had told her to settle in and that she would get the files later, which had resulted in Jack stomping out of the debriefing room, muttering something about finding herself some dark place with no through traffic.
What a little miss sunshine, she thought now, taking the last steps down the stairs from engineering. It was the only place she could think of, that would be dark and quiet enough.
She found her sitting on a cot, studying some datapads.
Great, she thought angrily. Not even twenty minutes on board of my ship and already ignoring my orders. Time to set things straight.
"I told you that you could see those files later," she stated in a sharp voice.
"I get impatient. Bust someone out of prison, they'll probably take what they want."
Shepard clenched her fist at this reaction. She certainly didn't like how this kid was trying to test her limits.
"Do not violate the integrity of my ship again," she said even sharper now. "You won't like what happens."
"Yeah, okay..."
What a snotty brat.
Reminds you of someone, eh?
What?
Well, you've been acting much like her lately, don't you think? And now you're just pissed, that there's someone as snotty as you.
Shepard wished there was a way to stop this voice inside of her. She felt as if she was going in circles with no way out, leaving her drained and tired at the end of the day.
Listening to Jack's story about her past with Cerberus took all her strength. Before she left, she offered her better quarters but the young woman declined. Instead, she jumped on a table in front of her, cowering like an animal ready to leash out for its prey.
"You know, this ship is a power house. You could go pirate, live like a queen. I could help!"
We're on a mission that's way more important than living like a queen, her inner voice shouted but instead Shepard heard herself say:
"You'd be my first mate?"
"I'd lead the boarding party and handle the executions!" Jack smiled, her eyes full of passion.
"I should go," was all Shepard could say, taking all her effort not to stammer, turning around on her heel and heading to the stairs. Her head spun with thoughts.
Pirate.
What if they survived this mission? What would she do? Leave Cerberus? Go back to the Alliance? Would the Alliance want her back after all? More importantly, would she want to go back? Having this ship, no one giving her orders, the Illusive Man basically leaving her free hand on all her actions so far.
You're not seriously considering staying with Cerberus after this mission is over?
Of course she wasn't. But hadn't Cerberus showed her that she could do very good on her own? No one to answer to, well not on a regular basis at least. Sure, Miranda sent out reports about everything that was going on but still, there was no one ordering her around to do this or that, no rules or regulations to keep her from doing her job. It was something she had gotten used to without realizing and she had to admit that she actually liked it that way.
But what about your friends? What about all the stability you've found in the Alliance?
That had been before they'd turned their backs on her. Before they'd treated her like a traitor.
What do you expect? You show up after two years, in a Cerberus ship. How would you have reacted?
She didn't know. But the things Jack had said about taking this ship. She'd never thought about what she'd do after her mission if they survived.
You know this would never work out. It can't!
Cerberus wouldn't just let her go. They would hunt her down. They had their spies everywhere. At least for a few minutes she had enjoyed the idea of being free, yet reality had caught up with her.
Frustrated she took the elevator up to her cabin to get the Serrice Ice Brandy she'd bought on Omega for Dr. Chakwas. Time to make at least someone else's day a bit brighter.
Two hours later, she lay in her bed, feeling the effect of the alcohol in her system. The doctor had opened the bottle right on the spot and they had both spent a good time drinking, talking about old times, reliving memories.
The inner voices were quiet for once.
Here's to simply being happily drunk, she thought as her mind slipped into a world of unknown.