Hello everyone! I'm well aware that it's been forever and a day since the last update, a sad fact for which I sincerely apologize. I've been rather busy, but I'm hoping to keep things moving along steadily from here on out. Note that this chapter is around a thousand words longer than some of the last few, which is a lame, half-hearted apology for how long I've kept my small but dedicated fanbase waiting. Thanks, you guys are the best, seriously. Were it not for the great feedback and reviews, I'm sure that I'd have picked this story apart and moved on to some other doomed project by now. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 13: Without a Paddle

The thick skin of defiance makes you wage a war you didn't start. –Dropkick Murphys

The Turian shouted her name at the top of his lungs, pure malice in his tone. "Shepard!" he roared, standing in the middle of the camp with his assault rifle resting on his shoulder. Kaidan felt a hand grab his shoulder and nearly jumped, startled out of his intentness.

"Christ," he whispered as he realized the hand belonged to Shepard. She had made it into her hardsuit. Good. "It's your call, Shepard."

Her face crinkled in uncertainty.

"Shepard! We've got one of your men alive out here!" A trio of mercenaries emerged from the jungle, one of whom swiftly walked out of Kaidan's limited line of sight. This made the odds about…damn, he wasn't sure where they stood. Shepard, himself…possibly Garrus, assuming the Turian was alive inside the collapsed tent. One marine was gone, the other was apparently in dire straits, and Wrex was unconscious. Fuck.

The man walked back into Kaidan's cone of sight, roughly hauling Corporal Kelvin into the center of the camp. The marine's face was a contorted in an agonized grimace; Kaidan noted a wound in his leg. The second sniper shot from before.

"Tell your Commander to come out here," Vargan said, pushing the barrel of his rifle under the marine's jaw.

"Corporal John Kelvin. Serial number 2516107." Kaidan shook his head. The marine was tough, he had to give him that. It took some stones to pull the old name, rank, and serial number with a gun in your face.

"I told you to get her out here," Vargan said, before roughly shoving a long, spindly finger into the bullet wound on Kelvin's leg. Kelvin collapsed to one knee, crying out in pain. "You have five seconds, Shepard. I'm going to start counting, and when I hit zero, Corporal Kelvin is going to join Private Headless out here, the crew of the Alexander, and the population of Thessia in hell. You don't want that, do you?"

Kaidan checked his gun as rapidly as possible, making sure it at least had a clip in it. He searched Shepard's eyes for confirmation, and saw only resignation.

"Five."

He grabbed her by the shoulder, drew her to him. Kaidan Alenko kissed Rebecca Shepard deeply, very possibly for the last time.

"Four."

He pulled back, gave her a look. Are you sure?, it asked her imploringly. She nodded. They laid their weapons on the floor of the tent and unzipped the flap. As they stepped out, what seemed like a kind of grin crossed the Turian's features.

"One," he said slyly, firing a single shot into Kelvin's head.

"You fucking bastard!" Kaidan snarled, fists clenched at his side. He found himself wishing for some armor. Any armor. He didn't even care about the quality; with these odds it would take more than a hardsuit. It was difficult to come across as a hard man when you were in your underwear.

"Alenko," the Turian regarded him coolly. "How are things? It's been a while. I shot you, remember?"

"I remember. Remember when Wrex kicked your ass and you ran like a bitch? You don't scare me, you piece of shit. Your track record for fair fights is pretty piss poor. You talk tough, , but so far all I've seen you do is shoot your allies in the back, shoot a drunk with a bad hangover, kill a bunch of civilians, and execute a man in cold blood."

"It's all about the results. The two hundred people I killed on the Alexander speak volumes about me."

"So," Shepard said in an exasperated tone. "You're Vargan. And here I expected Darth Vader, or at least Mussolini. Not some little pissant with attitude problems. If you're gonna kill us, kill us. If you're gonna capture us, capture us. Just please, for the love of God, shut the fuck up about it."

"The little lady is defiant," Vargan said with a chuckle. He approached her, walked a circle around her as he eyed her appraisingly. "I'm not impressed. LaRue, her armor if you please."

The ugliest of the mercs, a stocky man with a large boil on the side of his face, approached Shepard as Vargan pulled a pair of handcuffs off his belt. "Hands behind your back, Alenko."

The Canadian glowered at the Turian and complied. Thin fingers grabbed him roughly, locking his hands in the cuffs. Unexpectedly, Vargan delivered a punishing kick to the back of his knee. His leg buckled and he fell face first in the dirt. The Turian dragged him back up to his feet.

The ugly merc, LaRue, pointed a shotgun at Shepard and nodded his head. "Take off the armor."

She raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"Take the armor off, now. Think I'm dumb enough to get punched in the head with motorized Colossus armor?"

"Probably," Shepard said with a sigh. "But at any rate, have it your way. I don't need armor to kill people like you."

She removed the upper half of her hardsuit, revealing her tanktop. "Nice rack," the pig remarked crassly. Wordlessly, she removed the pants, and stood barefoot in only the bikini bottoms and tank top.

"And legs. We could have some fun, you and I."

Shepard's eyebrow went up again. "Oh, we will," she replied, a dangerous edge to her voice. "Count on it."

LaRue cuffed her hands behind her back and grinned oafishly. As Alenko looked on in helpess outrage, the vile son of a bitch reached his arms around her and grabbed her breasts. She weathered the assault stoically, but the fear and revulsion in her eyes was plain for the former lieutenant to see.

"Get your fucking hands off of her!" he bellowed, prompting a sharp backhand from the Turian.

"If Mr. LaRue wishes to inspect the goods, he'll do it without fucking lip from you. LaRue," the Turian continued. "Later. It can wait. Now, we're taking the three of you prisoner for now, until I decide how I want to kill you."

Three. It suddenly dawned on him. Three! Shepard, Wrex, and himself. The bastards didn't realize Garrus was in the collapsed tent. Since the ordeal had begun, not a single enemy combatant had ever laid eyes on the Turian and lived long enough to report back to his or her superiors. He'd been sniping at the showdown by the fountain on Thessia. That merc prick they'd captured had seen him, but Kaidan had seen to that son of a bitch personally. The entire team of Asari commandos had been slaughtered on the scene; it all made sense.

This gave them the edge, he realized. He was sure Rebecca would have made the connection as well, sexual assault or no. Without warning, LaRue struck the commander with the butt of his shotgun, knocking her unconscious. Alenko opened his mouth to threaten the man when a heavy blow crashed down on the back of his head. He saw stars, and then knew no more.

Wrex opened his eyes lazily. "Hmm," he muttered aloud, as he took note of his immediate surroundings. He was in a small room, adorned with a human sized cot and a human sized toilet. He suddenly remembered his last moments of consciousness, shaking his enormous head in frustration. He remembered the net, the electricity. Most of all, he remembered Vargan, the Turian coward who'd been nothing but trouble since Wrex had met him in Chora's Den all that time ago. The Krogan rose to his feet stiffly. His weapons were gone, of course, but at least he still had his armor. He realized with some irritation that his biotic amplifier had been confiscated. His biotic abilities were innate up to a point, but without the amp it was a worthless skill in actual combat.

This left him with his considerable strength and resilience to work with. Wrex's lip curled in a thin smile. However this went down, it would be interesting. The Krogan snapped into alertness as the door unlatched. Swiftly, he put his body as near the door as he was able. It opened a bit, and a hand reached in with a repulsive looking meal. They were feeding him, huh? Wrex's smile grew as his powerful hand closed around the small, fragile wrist in the doorway. The Krogan pulled as hard as he could on the man's arm, ignoring the snapping of bone. He swung his body around to allow the door to open, dragging the human to his feet. The Krogan frowned when he realized that the arm he'd broken belonged to an emaciated human clad in a white jumpsuit. Probably one of the L2 prisoners, Wrex noted sourly. Then he saw the trio of armed mercenaries pointing shotguns at him from the hallway. Behind them, arms crossed behind her back, was the asshole himself, Vargan.

"Clever," Wrex noted with a grunt, releasing his grip on the L2, who fell to his knees sobbing. "If you were really smart, you would have killed me in the jungle."

"I just wanted to see how you were settling in," the Turian replied. "You went and broke the poor biotic's arm."

"You talk big," Wrex replied, "but you're through and you know it. You let some dangerous people into your compound, Turian. They may be caged right now, but we will get out."

"I was planning on torturing you," Vargan said with a small chuckle. "I'm not sure it would be advisable for me to try. You're the type who'd rather get shot and killed first, eh?"

"Come in here and find out," Wrex growled.

"You'd die before you let me strap you down to a table, wouldn't you? It's unfortunate that Commander Shepard is not you. One of my men is seeing to her now."

The Krogan snarled, rushing for the door, when all the merc in the center fired his shotgun. The kinetic buffers on his armor absorbed the impact, sent him staggering inside. In that brief window, the other two mercs quickly closed the door.

Wrex heard it lock in place and punched the steel as hard as he could. He wasn't sure he could bring down this base all by himself; there was a fair chance of it, but things would be a lot better if Shepard kept herself alive and in one piece. Hopefully, his survival and hers were not intertwined, but-aw hell, the Krogan was genuinely worried about her. He'd gotten to know the Spectre pretty well in their time together, and she was one of a handful of humans he could respect. Wrex shook his head, cursed, and tried to comfortably arrange his sizeable bulk on the tiny, human cot.

Martin Novak truly hated his job. The lifetime mercenary had been around the block a few times, had worked with some pretty good outfits, some run of the mill outfits, and one or two groups that were downright bad. No job had ever given off such bad vibes as being part of Mihra Alnatus' little army. Shit, he was just a mercenary. Here, there were actual expectations of him. He was a goddamn number, a statistic in Alnatus' power play. If her ascension called for his death, he'd fucking die.

He was a little ways into middle age, and one thing he hadn't planned on was getting himself killed this late in his career. He'd survived in this business as long as he had by being discreet; never take too much, never cause too much trouble. Keep things low key. Blowing up a fucking planet? Calling up the Citadel Council with ultimatums for galactic domination? Decidedly acts of a much higher key.

It didn't help that his new boss was batshit insane. Vargan was a perfect example of all the things that made Novak frightened of Turians. He was dangerous, sadistic, ill-tempered, and very good at what he did.

The merc shook his head. In a smaller outfit, everyone mattered. Everyone usually worked together to bring in a haul that was generally divided up pretty evenly. He wasn't even bringing in big money! He was a goddamn expendable, and all he needed to further cement his status as a goddamn expendable was a red Starfleet uniform.

His patrol was supposed to last for another hour and a half, but Novak was in a bad mood, and he had to take a piss. "Fuck it," he said aloud. He wasn't being paid enough anyway, and if he had to take a piss, he was damn well going to take one. He left his patrol route, heading for the nearest bathroom, a small single occupancy room. As he stepped inside, he tripped over something metallic.

He looked down, and squinted as he saw the object he'd stumbled on. "A vent cover?" he muttered. No sooner had the words left Novak's lips when he felt the unmistakable press of a gun barrel against his temple. "Well, shit," he cursed.

A three fingered hand grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and spun him against the wall. Novak watched as this new Turian locked the door, of the small restroom.

"I need information, and you're going to give it to me," the Turian said coldly, pointing the pistol at him unwaveringly.

The wheels in Novak's head began to spin madly as he considered his new situation. What did he really owe this outfit? They weren't worth getting killed for; he knew that much. He smiled shakily. "I think we can work something out."

Shepard awoke groggily, lying on her side in a damnably bright room. She grunted her discomfort as she squinted, trying to adjust to the blinding light. Shit. Where was she? She remembered…oh God, she remembered what that son of a bitch LaRue had done to her, and then she remembered being clubbed with a shotgun. And here she was. She quickly took stock of her situation to the best of her present ability. Her hands were cuffed behind her back, and she was still in her underwear. Swell.

"Damn it, Shepard," she chided herself. She'd made all the wrong calls in the jungle. She shouldn't have made such an obvious camp, and she shouldn't have been caught with her proverbial pants down. As right as it had felt to make love to Kaidan, there was a time and a place for that sort of thing. In the middle of the night in a tent in an untamed wilderness crawling with hostile targets was generally wrong by both criteria.

Okay Becky, she thought to herself. Keep your cool, and look for an out. Kicking herself wasn't going to get her out of here. And besides, these mercs had wanted Kaidan long before things had escalated; he was probably being used for whatever purpose had initially drawn their attention. She'd be damned if she lost him again, after all this. She still hardly believed he'd come around. Shepard had wanted, needed, to repair things with him for so long, that now that they seemed to be fixed, she wasn't sure if she quite sure if she trusted it. The breakup had blindsided her, crushed her. It seemed now, that he had at least begun to lay his demons to rest, and find it within himself to love her again, to stop blaming her for saving his life.

Goddamn it, Shepard, cut the shit and find a way out of here. She'd sidetracked herself on that tangent, and she really didn't have the time to allow such things. Her eyes had finally adjusted. She sat up, hands still cuffed behind her. She was on a table, the kind you'd see in a doctor's office. She crossed her legs and looked around the room. Small. Bare, except for this table. Before she could make further observations, the door swung open. LaRue, the bastard who'd felt her up in the jungle, walked in. He wore camo pants and a t-shirt, instead of the armor she'd seen him in before.

"Hello baby," he said with a shit-eating grin. "I've been checking in on you every half an hour to see if you were awake. I want you to be awake, you see. Wouldn't be any fun if you were asleep."

Her stomach lurched, but she kept her expression cold and professional. This son of a bitch was going to rape her, and she wasn't in much of a position to stop it. Shepard felt herself gripped in icy fear, of the sort she'd only known twice in her life. The second time had been that sickening moment on Virmire, when she'd had to make that toughest of decisions. The first time had been the night when she'd gotten the scar on her face, the night when one of her fellow Tenth Street Reds had tried to accomplish just what LaRue intended. The resulting knife fight had left her scarred and out of the gang, and had left him bleeding out in an alley. This time, she was cuffed and defenseless. The fear was even stronger.

"You see," he continued, "I want you to enjoy this as much as I will." His grin widened.

Rebecca felt a flash of rage. "Listen, you Cro-Magnon dipshit," she spat venomously. "Think about this for a moment. I'm going to bust out of here sooner or later. It's a fucking given. You know who I am. And when I do bust out of here, my fucking rapist will be the first one of you bastards I come gunning for. Go through with this and death will be a mercy by the time I'm finished with you." Her voice wavered a bit at the end, and she hated herself for it. She was terrified. She knew it, and LaRue knew it.

"I think I'll take my chances," he replied, approaching her. He grabbed her shoulder with one hand, and stroked the side of her face with the other. She cringed at his touch.

He noted the movement with a harsh laugh. "How about a kiss, baby?" he said, leaning in. He crushed her mouth with his own, nearly choking her with rancid breath. She felt his tongue invade her mouth roughly and, operating on pure instinct, bit down as hard as she could. A feral scream escaped his lips as he pulled away, blood running out of his mouth and down his chin. She spat blood, and the tip of his tongue, our of her mouth and regarded him airily.

"How are you going to tell if your coffee is sweet enough now?"

He spat blood. "You fucking bitch," he said, though now it sounded closer to "thuckin' bih."

She chuckled at his difficulty. "What's the matter? Spectre got your tongue?" It was cheesy as all hell, but sometimes that worked just fine. It definitely elicited a response, as LaRue backhanded her savagely. Her head snapped to the side, and it did hurt, but it was the kind of normal, wholesome pain that she could deal with. "You hit like a Salarian," she laughed.

He grabbed her roughly, forced her down on her back. "Enough messing around," he growled. His hand ran down her side and grabbed the top of her underwear. Christ.

"Wait!" she yelled frantically.

"Yes?" he asked, humoring her with a cruel smile.

"There's something you should know first. You didn't do a very good job cuffing me." She smiled, bringing her free hands around and revealing the bobby pin she'd stuck in her waistband before putting her armor on in the tent.

His expression went from a smile, to a confused frown, to a mask of abject horror as her hands came about, boxing his ears and snapping back to slam him in the face. His nose shattered and began pumping blood as she sat up, spun around, and kicked him in the balls. "Shit," he gasped as she hit him again, pain flaring in her knuckles as she connected with a hard left hook to the eye. She grabbed his head and drove it down onto her bare knee, doing less damage to him and more damage to herself than she'd intended.

He grabbed her, threw her off the table. She hit the wall with a thud and dropped to the floor. He was there in an instant, delivering a punishing kick to her stomach as she tried to climb to her feet. She choked back an agonized scream as he hit her again. He was strong, and pissed, and he had her on the ropes. He kicked her again, and again, and when he was finally done kicking her, she was in too much pain to climb to her feet.

She became aware of a tear running down her cheek and hardened. You're not a fucking damsel in distress. You're a Spectre, and you've killed hundreds like this piece of shit. Now get up and kick his ass! Resolve restored, she tried to climb to her feet, and sank down again. She couldn't get up. Goddamn it. She was lying on her stomach, head facing him. His legs were large in her line of sight. Without warning, his pants dropped around his ankles.

"Ready now?" he asked, confidence restored. The sight of his bare legs and the knowledge of his cruel intent filled Rebecca Shepard with a righteous fury unlike any she'd ever known. She sprang to her feet, delivering an uppercut to his chin as she rose. His head snapped back and she hit him with a body shot. He staggered back, bumping into the medical table. He threw a haymaker, clocked her in the jaw. She hit the wall behind her, blood dribbling out of her mouth.

"Come on," she snarled. He threw another punch, connecting solidly with her right eye. She gasped in pain as the eye clouded over, redness seeping into her vision. She was taking a solid beating, and though she was confident she was going to win at this point, she still had a lot of mercenaries to deal with. This needed to end while she was still fit to deal with them. He threw a great, lumbering punch with his right hand and she got around it, grabbing his forearm tightly with both hands. "Snap," she said victoriously, before breaking it with a savage twist in just the right spot. He let out a choked sob as she bashed the area of the fracture with her elbow.

"I think you're done," Shepard said, panting. Her right eye was all but useless at the moment, her knee throbbed, she was pretty sure some of the knuckles on her left hand might be broken, and she was going to have bruises the size of Antarctica on her stomach. The woman sighed.

LaRue roared, lunging at her, trying to bring his left around to hit her. She grabbed it, spun him around, and forced him up against the wall. "Tell me where my crewmates are," she commanded. He let out a hoarse chuckle of defiance and she slammed his head against the metal wall with savage force.

"I ain't tellin' you shit," he gasped, prompting another run-in with the wall. He spat blood and teeth onto the floor. "You're gonna kill me anyway."

"I don't think you get it, asshole. I am gonna kill you, and you have yourself to thank for it. But how badly I fuck you up before I do it is entirely up to you. Tell me where my friends are, where I can get some weapons, and where your boss is, and it might even be quick. I don't like rapists though, so I'm not making any promises."

"Go to hell," he grunted.

Shepard sighed, and snapped his neck with a very satisfying twist. She doubted she'd ever killed anyone as deserving of it as this asshole, but as much as she would have liked to make good on her bluff and torture the son of a bitch, she didn't have the time. She let the corpse fall to the floor and walked to the medical table, leaning against it and taking deep breaths. She was in a bad way. She wiped her eye and found that it did nothing for the cloudiness. She'd probably have to have a doctor look at it, if she ever made it back to civilization. Her gut was all kinds of messed up from his kicks, as well. Only know, as the adrenaline wore down, did she realize how bad she was hurting. She needed to find some medigel; it wouldn't really fix her, but it would give her what she needed to carry on.

Rebecca closed her eyes, taking in another deep breath. She was screwed. Her combat skill wasn't going to do her a lot of good in her underwear, never mind the fact that she had no idea where she was or where the others were.

And then, like a gift from the Lord Himself, Garrus Vakarian came crashing through the ceiling, vent shaft slamming to the ground beside her as he landed. He rose to his feet quickly. "Commander!" he said, visibly excited. "You're alright."

"All things considered," she said dryly. "Good timing." She gestured at LaRue's lifeless body on the floor.

"Sorry," the Turian said, rather sheepishly. "It's just fortunate I wasn't captured or killed in the jungle."

"For sure," she agreed weakly. "I'm hurt, Garrus. He did a number on me. If you've got medigel, now's the time."

The Turian looked at her, a little shock registering across his avian features. "Damn it," he swore. "I'm sorry, Commander. I should have been here sooner." He handed her a packet of medigel, and she eagerly tore it open, applying it liberally to her abdomen, her knuckles, and her knee. The eye was shit out of luck for the time being. Thankfully, it wasn't the eye she aimed with, so she'd probably still be a pretty good shot with a rifle.

"It's okay," she replied through gritted teeth as the local anesthetic ebbed away her pain. "We've got bigger fish to fry. What do you know about this place?"

Garrus' mandibles clacked in amusement. "It's a funny story, really. The merc I picked to shake down for information is none too fond of his job, and uploaded blueprints for everywhere he's authorized to be in. So we have a location on Wrex, and their armory. He suspects that Alenko is downstairs, in the research labs. There's a special detachment of mercs who work that area. Roughly two dozen. In addition to the Conatix scientists and the docking bay for the weapon."

"The weapon is here?" she asked, all business. "How? How does it launch from an underground facility?"

"It turns out that the whole mountain opens up to allow it to lift off. Coincidentally, that's where I found the ventilation system. I trailed them to the facilities main entrance, snooped around a bit, and found a way in."

"The whole mountain…" she repeated in disbelief. "Alright. We'll get some weapons, bust Wrex out, and storm the subbasement, where we'll secure the L2 hostages, kill that son of a bitch Vargan and the Asari, and find out just what the hell is going on here. Has Normandy been updated on the situation?"

"Yes," he replied, removing the assault rifle from the back of his armor and handing it to her. "We'll still need to get you some armor, but this should help for the time being."

"Much appreciated," the Spectre replied, checking the clip out of habit. Despite the fact that the thing was good for tens of thousands of rounds, her days of brandishing derelict old guns back in the slums of Earth had instilled the habit deeply.

"Alright, Garrus," Shepard said, steeling herself. "Two Spectres, one of which being practically naked, versus somewhere around a hundred hard-bitten mercenaries."

"They won't know what hit them," the Turian replied, drawing his pistol. It was time to go to work.