Shepard's gaze slid over the less crowded market inside Omega proper. Ash and Tali giggled over a rack of less than savoury magazines. "Great," she muttered. "Now I'm going to have to answer to her father for her knowledge of hanar pornography."
Jenkins chuckled, low and genuine, as if he knew she needed another moment to throw up some barricades against her memories. "Can I be there for that conversation?"
Shepard laughed and squeezed his hand. Such a good kid. They all were, really, her crew. Good people . . ..
"Shepard! No!" Martin threw himself at her, nearly flipping her to the ground. "No, you can't leave them out there." She twisted out of his grasp, turning it on him, his arm pinned like a bug to a board behind his back. The fear and helplessness rampaging through her howled as it found an outlet, but the teen's grunt of pain slammed a lid on it, and she released him like a burning coal.
"If we leave the gates open any longer, we compromise everyone in this district," she replied, struggling to keep her voice low and calm despite the fact someone had clamped a vicegrip on her throat. "I don't want to leave them any more than you do. All we can do is hope the Alliance gets here in time to save them." She pushed him toward the stairs, ramming the iron rod of control back down her spine, and waved people back. "Clear back. As soon as the gates are welded shut, we need to get the barricades in."
"What's the point?" a voice wailed from the crowd. "It didn't even take them two hours to get through the last barricade." A murmur of terror and despair rattled through the gathered civilians like the sound of dried tendons on old bones. "How many have already died? Maybe if we . . .?"
"No!" Shepard shouted, cutting off the rest of that sentence. Allowing an edge of rage to enter her voice, she climbed up a few steps to look over the gathered colonists. She needed to break their despair and fast, even if they needed to replace it with anger at her.
"I was raised on Mindoir. When the slavers attacked, I watched my family murdered or dragged off into slavery." She spun around, ripping her uniform out of the waist of her trousers, pulling the back up to her neck, displaying a portion of the knotted ridges of scars that criss-crossed her from neck to heels. "I was sixteen. This was the least of the 'mercy' the slavers showed me. She dropped it and tucked it back in before turning back around to face them, meeting their glass and tears with steel. "Trust me, there's no mercy on the other side of this gate."
She waved her arms, pushing them back. "We're buying the Alliance time to get here. That's all we can do. Now, if you're able to shoot a gun, get up on the roofs and lets keep their ground troops from climbing. If you can't shoot, fall back to the schools where the children and elderly are. Help secure all entrances and windows. The schools will be our last retreat points." She winced at the screams coming from the other side of the gate as the pirates claimed their human cargo. Clenching her jaw so tight her teeth grated and screeched together, she managed to keep her outer facade calm. "The schools are good sturdy concrete and steel structures. They'll hold if we get them secure."
No one moved, the ambient fear ramping up to panic as the screams and sounds of struggle grew worse. The civilians shifted restlessly, preparing to stampede. Shepard held up her hands. "Please. We're doing everything we can to protect you. Don't let fear take your will to fight. We can hold out long enough for help to reach us." She started pushing them back a little. "Let's make the schools as secure as we can get them. Weld some blinds on the roofs, especially over the doors. Get the metal sheeting over the windows." She met as many eyes as she could. "We have precious little time and a million people counting on us. Let's get to work."
At last they began to move in a more positive direction, and she let out the breath she'd been holding.
Martin stalked after her as she headed up to the roof, Ingrid in hand, to help keep the gates clear.
"How could you just leave them out there, Shepard? You know what those pirates will do to them." Martin demanded, his voice low and furious, promising violence.
Shepard stopped halfway up the stairs, turning to him, all the terror and horror boiling inside her bursting loose at once. "Yes, I know . . . far better than I hope you ever find out, kid." She bent down low, meeting him eye to eye. "Is your mother inside these walls? Your sister?" When he nodded, she leaned in next to his ear, forcing her voice to keep to a whisper. "If we don't secure these gates, what's happening to those kids out there will be happening to your family and every other family in here. These people are a moment from panicking. If that happens, it's all over." She reached out, cupping his neck in her hand. "I need your help, Martin. People do stupid shit when they panic. Help keep them calm."
When she pulled back to look into his eyes, he nodded, all the muscles in his jaw and neck bunched. She returned the nod with a glacial one and ran up onto the roof, taking a position over the gate.
Shepard ducked in behind a kiosk and picked up a scarf, focusing all of her energy on it, needing the distraction to get herself back under control. She cocked her head to the side, turning her bulwarks to the corporal as she pressed her eyes closed hard and tight against the screams. Slamming some of the loose bricks back into place, she slapped up mortar. Too many screams. Too few answers to prayers.
"I might get this. It gets cold on the Normandy."
She turned a little to see Jenkins holding up a hand knit sweater against his armour, checking the size.
A wan smile brushed across her face, thanking him silently for the moment. Elysium lay a thousand light years behind her, Mindoir a thousand behind that, but the ghosts . . . well, ghosts didn't care about distance, space, or time. Ghosts followed as tenacious as bloodhounds, as strident as harpies, and as close as the next thought.
She nodded at the sweater. "Good idea. I have one for just that reason." She felt the knit between her fingers. "It's very nice." She waited out of the way, watching Tali and Ash, just trying to find her balance.
"I think this op is a bust, Shepard," Nihlus sighed in her ear.
"That's a firm, but let's go another hour. They can wander the interior markets a bit." She picked up a blue sweater and held it out for Jenkins to look at. "We'll need to space out a bit more inside though, the crowds will be lighter." She forced a smile and refolded the sweater, placing it on the pile. "You hear that, Ash?"
"You bet," the Marine replied.
Shepard purchased two scarves: one in blue and grey, one in black and red, and wrapped them in a jaunty knot around her neck. The warmth helped ease the lump of old panic, grief, and pain enough for her to take a deep breath, preparing for the end of the 'heroic' tale.
Jenkins sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Jane. I was being an idiot. You don't need to finish." He took her hand again, his new sweater in a bag dangling from the other.
She shook her head and bumped him with her shoulder. "Once you start wrasslin' the 'gator, son, you've made a commitment that you'd better see through." A watercolour smile softened her features. "It's okay, Richard. You see . . . any idiot can take a bullet. The test of a hero is knowing when and for whom. It's not a test a lot of us pass. Life can go damned cheap out here. You've got to hold yours dear, and if you give it up, make sure it counts."
He stared into her eyes for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I get that."
She knew he did. "So, we managed to keep them off the residential gate for three hours. Took a lot more casualties, enough that whispers of panic began to spread long before we needed to retreat. It took the pirates longer to cross less ground, so I concentrated on the tanks as much as I could to slow them down even further, hoping that the Alliance was biting hard at their heels. I'm pretty sure I took the pilot out a couple of times, because they'd stop and wait while people shuffled around."
"Can anyone hear me? This is Lt. Jane Shepard. Repeat, is there anyone receiving this signal?" Shepard let her hand drop, but forced herself to keep her disappointment under wraps. She picked up the walkie-talkie next to her knee. "Okay people, it's time. Start retreating back to your assigned school. Make sure to get the wounded down first." Closing her eyes, she shut out the voice that asked about the dead.
"Those of us headed for the school on the next block will hold the gates as long as we can." She shook hands as grim-faced men and women passed by offering thanks. "Just make sure all the entrances are blockaded and covered from above. We can do this. The reason their charge has slowed down has to be the Alliance coming up on them from the docks. We just need to hold a little while longer."
Martin sat next to her, his back pressed against their cover, and looked up at her with weary, sad eyes. "Do you really believe that, Shepard?"
She nodded and pressed a hand to his shoulder. "It's been an ugly night, but you and the rest of these people have put up a hell of a fight, kid." Impulsively, she leaned in and kissed his cheek. "You've been really brave, so let's finish this, yeah?"
He sighed, his eyelids sagging. "Yeah. What the hell. Like Gator Pete always says, 'Once you start wrasslin' the 'gator, son, you've made a commitment that you'd better see through'."
Shepard laughed, exhausted but genuine. "What's that, now?"
"Gator Pete, my little sister's favourite show. It's pretty funny." He pushed up into a crouch. "Okay, what do you need me to do?"
"Check in at the school, make sure that they're ready to seal it up behind us. Make sure they know to get as much water stored as they can. If they've been emptying bottles, fill them. The pirates will knock our power and water out as soon as they get in. Their whole goal now will be to get us to open the doors." She chugged him on the shoulder. "Get moving and be careful."
Shepard watched him go, allowing herself to imagine for a moment that if she'd ever had a little brother, he'd have been a lot like Martin. His passion reminded her of her dad. An image chased that thought across her mind. Bright, strawberry blonde ringlets framed chubby cheeks and laughing eyes. She shoved it aside. No time for that.
For another twenty minutes Ingrid moved from target to target without stopping, but the pirates finally wised up to use the tanks as cover, biding their time. Like a tsunami growing as it closed in on shore, their numbers built up, threatening to surge over the gates, drowning the last defenders in their flood.
"Pull back to the school, people," she called into the radio. "Outer stations first. Let's keep it orderly. My station and station two on the other side will retreat last, keep them off the fence as long as we can."
Martin ran up just as she readied to pull back. "The schools are ready, Shepard."
She held out a hand toward the stairs. "Good, let's get moving." She followed, running down two at a time. The moment gunfire ceased from the roofs, pirates climbed over the gates, jumping down. Luckily, they appeared to have orders to take prisoners rather than kill. "Run! Fast as you can," she shouted to the Alliance soldiers who'd stayed until the end. Bringing up the rear, she dodged from cover to cover, fighting backwards.
"They're right behind me," she said as she stumbled through the school's side door. "Get this door welded shut and barricaded." Turning to look down the hallway, she tried to force a reassuring smile onto her lips. "A beautifully executed stalling operation people."
"What now?" a male voice yelled. "We're packed in here so tight we can barely sit down."
"I know things are cramped and tense. The most important thing we can do right now is keep things as calm as possible. Make sure water gets passed around to everyone before the pirates cut off our power. If you see people starting to panic, comfort them. If we take care of one another, we can get through this." She pushed down the hallway, weaving and jostling her way through the crowd.
"Like the hundreds you left lying on rooftops?" the same man shouted.
Shepard winced, but stifled it. "Those brave souls gave their lives to keep you safe and alive. Honour that." She searched the crowd, trying to find the one causing the trouble. Was he trying to drive everyone into a panic?
A tremor passed through the building, throwing them into near darkness.
"What was that?" a woman yelped.
"That was just them taking out the power. The back up lights should come up any second." As she finished speaking, the hallway bathed in a dim red glow from the exit lights. "It's more important than ever to keep everyone calm. Hold hands, sing, or pray."
She found Martin at the junction of the next corridor. "Are the others already up on the roof?" she asked. A gunshot answered the question for him. "Good, okay. Try to get as many of the people from the hallways into rooms a you can so that we can move quickly if they start to breach an entrance." Looking around, she spotted an exit sign on an interior wall. "Does that lead to the roof?"
"Yeah." He continued handing out water, urging people to pass them down the hall.
"If anyone needs me, I'll be above the front door."
She burst into the light and open space of the roof with a gasp of relief. At the front of the building, she shrugged Ingrid into her hands and peered out. "How are we doing?"
One of the Alliance soldiers squeezed off a couple of rounds. "They've got us surrounded, but haven't tried to get to the doors."
"Yeah, they won't for now. They'll try to find a chink in the armour and see if they can make someone open a door." The words barely made it past her lips before a shrill scream echoed from the other side of the tanks. The terror, pain, and fear in that scream set a knot of snakes loose in Shepard's guts.
"What's your name?" The voice was batarian and spoken into an amp, probably one of the tanks' radios.
"Holly McGillis," a young, female voice answered between sobs. She sniffed, thick and phlegmy.
"And what am I doing to you right now, Holly?" the batarian asked.
Shepard closed her eyes and swallowed hard, every one of her nightmares crowding into her head and heart, promising to rip her apart. Shoving them aside, she ducked around the cover, bringing Ingrid up to use her scope. She couldn't see the ringleader or his captives, but put a bullet through the head of one careless peon.
The young woman whimpered and took a tremulous breath. "You're holding a knife to my eye." Hysterical sobbing. "Please, don't hurt me. Please. Daddy!" The last word came out as a stuttering scream.
"If you surrender now, no one will be harmed," the batarian shouted.
"No, we'll all be taken as slaves. Keep taking out anyone who shows even an inch," Shepard hissed to the others. "The best thing we can do for her and the others is keep picking off the slavers."
"Shepard," the walkie talkie called. "Shepard, come in. We need you at the front doors." The sounds of scuffling came through before the channel closed.
"Keep them pinned," Shepard ordered, racing to the door back downstairs.
She slammed into a seething mess of panic at the door from the stairwell. "Make way. Everyone stay calm. This is what they want!" Pushing into the crowd, she fought her way to the front doors.
"Let me out! That's my daughter out there!" A middle-aged man threw himself against the door guards.
"Sir." Shepard grabbed his elbow. "Sir, please. If we open these doors, everyone here will be killed or captured. Please understand, as much as we wish we could save her, we can't go out there."
He grabbed Shepard's pauldrons and shook her. "We can't just leave her." Red, frantic eyes stared into hers. A shrill shriek of pain from outside tore the man away from Shepard, and he hurtled himself against the door guards again.
"That's one eye," the batarian called. "You have five minutes to open the doors before she loses the other.
"Daddy! Mommy! Please." Screaming sobs echoed down the hall, deafening in the sudden, still silence.
Shepard's heart stopped, her inner alarm howling and stabbing her with scalpels along the length of her spine. The utter calm as the sea pulled away from shore promised a tidal wave of hysteria looming on the horizon. If that wave reached shore, people would be crushed beneath it. The hallways and classrooms were too packed.
"Everyone, please. Take deep breaths, try to stay calm. They know they can't get in. They know their time is short. All we need to do is stay calm. The Alliance will come." She reached out to pat arms and squeeze hands. "Comfort one another, and if you believe in God, pray for those outside."
"And what about my daughter? You'd just abandon her and the others to be tortured to death?" Grabbing Shepard's shoulder, he spun her around. Lifting her by the chest guard, he shook her so hard that the seals popped, and he ripped it right off.
"Sir. I'm so very sorry for what's happening to your child, but if we open those doors, every child in this building will end up in a slaving cage. Is your wife in here? Other children?" She took his silence as confirmation and nodded. "Go comfort them; be here for them."
Holly's father stared at her chest guard for a moment, then let it slip from his fingers to fall to the floor. Shepard bent down to pick it up before turning back to try to keep the crowd calm.
"Everyone, why not sit down?" she called out. "Hold each other's han -"
A rough hand grabbed her shoulder again, turning her. Furious eyes stared into hers with a feral satisfaction as something slammed her hard in the gut, driving the air from her lungs. "You bitch!" the father said, his voice a low growl. "Rot in hell." His hand drove into her again, dropping her to her knees as the numb airlessness turned to an inferno roaring through her intestines.
"Shepard?" Martin's voice rose above the crowd. "Shepard?"
Someone next to her screamed and the tidal wave roared into shore, people surging out against the walls.
"Stop," Shepard gasped. "If you panic, people are going to die." She pressed a hand to her stomach, her fingers bumping into something, groping along the length of it for a moment before figuring out that it was the handle of a knife.
"Shepard?" Martin hit the floor next to her. "Oh god, Shepard." He looked up. "Grab him and tie him up somewhere. Find his family to stay with him."
Stumbling to her feet, Shepard managed to hit her medigel, then grabbed the knife and pulled it out. She thrust it at Martin, hitting her medigel again when he took it. "I need to get back to the roof."
"You've been stabbed. You need to see the doctor. There's a couple in the gym."
"You're five minutes is up," the batarian called. "It's a shame. Such a lovely girl. Would have brought a fair price with eyes."
A shrill, terrible, sobbing, choking scream ripped down the hallway. "Daddy, please . . . help me!"
Shepard stumbled, slamming shoulder-first into the wall, the scream tearing the thin membrane holding back Mindoir and its demons. They raged through her for long seconds, leaving her knees trembling, the rest of her frozen solid.
"There's got to be something we can do, Shepard," Martin insisted, pulling her up to stand square on her feet. "We could sneak out, break them free, and be back inside before anyone knew."
Shepard stared at him for a moment, then grabbed his face between her hands, latching onto him to pull herself free from the old nightmare. "Anyone who goes out there will end up like that poor girl. Isn't one suffering that fate bad enough?" She pressed her brow to his. "I know it's hard. It's killing me to leave them out there, but there's nothing we can -"
An agonized roar and a deafening crash from behind her spun Shepard around. Light flooded the corridor, but it took her a moment to realize the doors were open.
"The father just . . .." someone called.
Martin raced down the hallway, Shepard stumbling behind, a hand clutching in front of her, snatching at the air as she tried to grab his clothing and hold him back. Too late. Both doors swung wide, the father running into a line of pirate gunmen. Luckily, the doors actually opening took the slavers by surprise, and they just stood there gaping.
"Martin! Stay inside!" Shepard shouted over the chaos. Too late. He jumped out even as the refugees yanked the doors shut once more. Darkness blinded her only to be shattered by sparks as the door guards welded cross beams into place.
Martin! Please, sweet baby Jesus, send your angels to protect him!
Shepard slid to a stop, pivoting to push her way back to the stairs. "Everyone please, stay calm. Please. I know it's hard, but panic will only make things worse. Hold each other, comfort each other. Pray. Sing. Whatever helps." She pushed through the door and raced up the stairs, her wounds still seeping blood. Hitting the medigel again, she burst up the last flight and out onto the roof to the sound of gunfire and Martin screaming.
Shepard slid into the blind on her hip, then ducked around it to see the girl's father sprawled on the ground, most of his face missing. Ingrid seemed to find her own way into Shepard's hands as Martin appeared at the end of one of the tanks, the slaver holding him still in cover behind the vehicle.
"Shepard!" Martin called, his chest heaving, blood soaking a thick trail down the arm of his shirt from a bullet wound. "I'm sorry."
"Shepard?" the batarian called. "Is that the name of your leader, whelp?" A hand holding a knife came up, the point pressing to Martin's throat. "Is Shepard your leader?" the voice repeated, enunciating each word with slow menace.
Hovering at the edge of the blind, a thousand ideas raced through Shepard's head, but she discarded all of them. Anything she did risked everyone else. She stopped, slamming up a wall that forced her mind to go quiet for a moment. Gunfire. She heard gunfire and it sounded a lot closer than the docks.
She took a deep breath. "Do you hear that?" she yelled down. "That's the sound of a whole battalion of reinforcements headed this way." Pausing, she gave the slaver's time to hear the fighting for themselves. "You're done here. If you're smart, you'll pack up and run like hell." She laughed, launching it at them like a guided missile. "Or don't. I can live with there being a whole lot fewer pirate scum in the galaxy."
The cluster of bodies in the courtyard shifted, restlessness quickly accelerating toward panic as the sound of hundreds of boots beating against the pavement at double-time grew even louder than the sporadic gunfire.
"Shepard!" the batarian bellowed, "your name will not be forgotten."
Martin screamed, a blood-freezing shrill of agony.
"I'll leave you a gift to remember me by, Shepard. Congratulations on your victory, hero." Deep, mocking laughter slithered behind the words. Screams fed the evil chortle until Shepard clutched her arms over her head, desperate to block out the shrill cries of pain and fear, each one stabbing into her deeper than any knife, ripping her apart from the inside out.
"Jane! Stay strong, baby. Greg, do something!" Screaming. "Get your filthy hands off my daughter, you bastards!" Fighting, grunts of pain, gunshots . . ..
"LT?" Hands grabbed her, shaking her hard. "LT! They've pulled out. The Alliance is inside the gates." They shook her again, and she uncurled. "Damn, you're bleeding." Medigel slithered through her, helping drag her from Mindoir, out of her nightmares, and back to the rooftop of the school.
"Martin!" She scrambled to her feet.
"LT. I don't think you should go down there. It's um . . .."
Shepard turned to look at the soldier. "Is he . . .?" She couldn't force the last word past her lips. It dug in behind her teeth, claws holding it in place.
"He's alive. All seven of them are alive, but . . .." The soldier swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing almost comically. "You don't want to see them like that. You saved us all, ma'am. Don't let that be your memory of it." He wrapped an arm around her, supporting her weight, and tried to help her to the stairs.
"No." She broke away from him. "I'm fine, and I'll honour the ones I failed." One arm wrapped tight around her stomach, she hobbled down the stairs and along the length of the now empty corridor. One hand braced against the wall, she walked to the door, hesitating for a couple of breaths before stepping out into the new sun.
The slavers had run in their tanks, leaving the father's dead body sprawled a couple of metres ahead of a mass of people, blood, and frantic tears.
Clenching her teeth, she walked over, searching the crowd for the young man who, so few hours before, thought the whole thing some grand opportunity for adventure.
"Shepard!" The muffled, mushy way her name came out of Martin's mouth told her far more than she wanted to know. Pushing through the Alliance personnel and civilians trying to help, she found Martin and the others laying on the pavement. She turned away, her eyes pressed shut, but then forced herself to look back, to kneel next to him and take his hand.
"I'm right here, Martin," she said, her voice soft and almost as strangled as his. "You just take it easy and let these people help you out." She stroked his brow, brushing his hair out of the blood that poured over his skin. "You are one hell of a brave kid."
"Stupid," he said through sobs and blood, choking as it poured down his throat.
"Roll him onto his side," the medic called, "or he's going to aspirate. Fucking slavers."
Shepard slapped him on his shoulder, jerking her head and a firm glare toward the blinded youth on the ground. The medic paled and nodded.
"Just never . . .," he said, working to pack Martin's wounds.
Shepard nodded, but just kept stroking her fingers through the young man's hair. "Nah, it's never stupid to try to help others, kid. You just relax. These guys will take care of you."
"Don't leave?" His hand clutched hers in an iron grip.
"Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere." She rubbed his back. "Were your family at another school?"
He nodded.
"Who was in charge here?"
Shepard let out a long sigh at the familiar shout and looked up, searching out the commodore. When she spotted Hackett, she lifted a hand to get his attention.
He saw her, a fierce, furious smile settled onto his face. "I should have known," he grumbled, crouching next to her. "What? You can't even manage leave without getting into trouble?" He gripped her shoulder. "You're hurt?"
"Yeah. Stabbed by an angry father." She jutted her chin toward the dead man. "I'll get looked at as soon as Martin here is on his way to the hospital."
"The slavers blinded him like the girl?" Jenkins asked, his face twisted into horrified sorrow.
"All of them, eyes, ears, tongue . . .." Shepard shook her head. "The Alliance and the colonial authority held a memorial a month later, paraded me, the couple of surviving Alliance soldiers, and those kids out like prized farm animals at a fair. I told everyone where they could stuff their medal and awards, but they didn't care. Colonist enrollment tanked after the Blitz. They needed to put a pretty face on it. Lucky us."
Shepard lifted her hand to her ear. "Ground teams, anyone see anything? Any sign of Rael'Zorah?" When the teams all reported in negative, she let out an impatient huff of air. "Too much to ask, I suppose. Okay, everyone, back to the boat. We'll come back later, find a busy club, see if we don't have better luck."
"Jane?" Jenkins said, tucking her hand back in the crook of his arm. "Thanks."
"Yeah. You're a good soldier, Richard. Just don't be too eager to become a hero. Make it count when you do."