Hello, Time Bomb

Chapter 36

The Saviour of the Citadel

Three

Serving on the Normandy had been educational. James could think of a few other words to describe it, but educational seemed to fit best.

He'd learned not to get into a fistfight with a partial synthetic, even for sparring. She was tiny, but those muscle weaves were something else. It was like fighting a geth; even if he landed a hit it hurt his fist more than it hurt her, and she was packing some serious punches for a little thing.

He'd learned that his carnage move was a big hit against brutes. So much that he was almost sorry he'd ever upgraded his gun. Whenever one of those big bastards came into sight everyone else just disappeared, yelling at him to use carnage while he ran around trying not to get torn in half.

He'd learned that Lola's crew were terrified of her. Not her ground team, they were happy enough to work with her, usually ignored the worst of her weirdness. But the new crew, everyone who had been dragged onto the ship when they ran from Earth, they weren't so happy. The second Shepard entered a room everyone got quiet, stood at attention, wouldn't relax until she was well and truly gone. He guessed she wasn't as intimidating when he'd seen her bratty bullshit on Arcturus and Earth.

He'd learned there was nothing scarier than standing between Lola and the Major. A Spectre and a biotic – well, two Spectres now – who couldn't seem to figure out if they wanted to kiss or kill each other but were willing to trample him into the ground to get it done.

Mostly he'd learned that The Citadel holovid was hilarious when you knew the people involved.

He was up in the cockpit with Joker, cracking up as they watched the hottie playing Shepard give an inspirational speech.

The flight lieutenant was feeling a little lonely, it hadn't taken him much time to get used to EDI's new look and complain when she locked herself in the med bay with Lola and Mordin to do whatever brainiacs did when they got together. James kept him company on the long, boring drive to answer a distress call from Grissom Academy.

"For too long our species has stood apart from the others," the actress said breathily, working the sexy angle for all it was worth. "Now it's time for us to step up and do our part for the rest of the galaxy. Time to show them what humans are made of!"

James could barely hear his own laughter over Joker's.

"Okay, okay," James took a deep breath, trying to tamp down on his laughter. "What did she really say?"

Joker shrugged. "I don't remember. Something like 'everyone move, we're going to get Saren'."

"So she just –" he was cut off by EDI's voice.

"Please prepare for full shutdown, Jeff."

"Aw, man, already?" Joker shut down the holoscreen and started to pull them out of FTL.

"What? What's happening?" James asked.

"Udina's testing his remote shutdown protocols, I guess. You've got Shepard's okay for this, right EDI?"

"Commander Shepard is currently occupied. Standing orders allow me to take initiative for the bureaucratic well-being of the Normandy."

Joker rolled his eyes. "Bureaucratic well-being. Nice to know the Alliance is staying on-message with this whole war thing." He opened up the intercom. "All hands, we're going to be losing power for about five minutes. Prepare for shutdown."

The console in front of him went dark, the emergency lighting on the floor starting up. It was quiet enough to be creepy. He knew they were safe, the life support systems were on, EDI was on, the engine was just idling. If there was any trouble EDI would have them online and out of there faster than he could blink. But it was still creepy.

"So, Udina can just shut us down?" James asked.

Joker scoffed. "No. But he thinks he can. We'll just have to play possum for a while."

"So we're just ignoring orders from the Council now?"

"That's kind of how we roll around here."

"I thought we were trying to prove that Shepard is playing for the home team."

"Yeah, but they expect this. We're on a stealth ship, headed by an infiltrator, we've got the Shadow Broker and a Cerberus-built AI onboard; the Council or the Alliance gives us an order, we do what needs to be done, they pretend it was their idea all along. That's how it works."

James took a moment to chew on that. "Don't really see how pretending Udina has remote lockdown is 'on-message'."

"It's so when we blow something up he can say: 'They tricked me! They're out of control!'" Joker did a fairly decent impression of the Councillor, scowling and flailing his hands around. "Then we say: 'We did what had to be done!' Then he says: 'The Council will not take this lightly!' And then the Council takes it lightly and we keep flying, everyone's ass covered."

Well, all that was true enough but there was more to it. Lola didn't like the Alliance, any idiot could see that. She wasn't any big fan of the Council, either, if this little game was any indication. Or Cerberus, she'd made that crystal clear. Thinking about it, he had no idea who they were working for. Shepard had alienated or outright betrayed every major player in this war, except the salarians.

Were they working for the salarians? That didn't seem right.

The lights in the cockpit came back on and Joker was distracted by getting his ship back in order. Joker played around with the console for a minute then opened up a radio channel.

"Shepard, we missed a call from the salarians while we were out, looks high up, maybe the Dalatrass."

"Shepard is currently occupied, Jeff," EDI replied.

"Well, let her know. You guys planning to come out of there anytime soon?"

"Once the current issue is resolved to our satisfaction Commander Shepard will return to duty."

"What are you talking about down there, anyway?"

"The long term socio-military effects of a bolstered small arms trade on the krogan populace."

"Of course you are."

Of course they were. James knew how military vessels worked, this wasn't his first rodeo. This... whatever this was, was not how a standard frigate worked. Maybe it was just because they were under a Spectre, or because of the war, but a lot of things weren't adding up.

"We're the ranking officers on this ship, right?" he asked. "You know, after Shepard?"

"Uh, yeah, now that Alenko's down."

"So one of us should be XO."

Joker shrugged. "I think EDI's the XO. Ever since Lawson, Shepard hasn't really liked the idea of having one. Can't say I blame her."

James had figured as much. EDI was taking care of everything the XO usually took care of. That kind of made her his boss. "Alright, I get that, but isn't that weird? We have an AI as our XO, we're practically rogue from the Council, I don't think I want to know what we're doing against the Alliance. I mean, who are we working for, here?"

"Why do you have to get all deep? I thought we were watching a movie here."

"Yeah, nice answer."

"We're working for Shepard. Those are your orders, aren't they?"

"My orders are to protect her."

"She's got a lot of enemies."

"Including the Alliance?"

Joker scowled and shifted in his seat to properly face him. "Yeah, including the Alliance. Anyone who has performed a vivisection on you is officially your enemy. That's a rule."

He was pissed. James wasn't sure where he stood on this whole issue, but obviously Joker was on the extreme anti-Alliance side. There was so much bile in his voice. James didn't like being the newcomer here, there was obviously a lot of history he had missed. This wasn't just a pilot loyal to his commander, this was personal.

"So we're with Shepard. Who's Shepard with?"

"As far as I can tell, she's not. We're just fighting the Reapers."

"And if we win?"

"I don't know."

James leaned back in his chair and stared across the console. He already knew the answers to a lot of these questions. He just wanted to hear it from the only guy who had been around since the beginning, just get a straight answer so he knew where he stood. "And you're okay with all of this?"

"Hell yeah, I am. Shepard's a glass cannon. She'll win this war for us but she needs people behind her and we're the only ones who can be her backup. If we don't protect her she won't survive and if she doesn't survive, none of us will. You've seen it. The Alliance wants her dead, the Council wants her locked down, Cerberus wants her under their control. She can't rely on any of them."

Joker was still angry, but it wasn't with him. Something clicked in the back of James' brain. He'd read a few accounts of what happened on the original Normandy. Most of them were pretty fuzzy, there had been a lot of fire going around at the time, but almost every survivor agreed that the last time they'd seen Commander Shepard she had been headed for the bridge.

So Joker killed her. Not really. He probably didn't mean it and it didn't stick anyway, but it explained a lot about him. He'd disobeyed an order or tried to go off Lola's plan and it had ended with her in the morgue. And the morgue was just the start of her trouble. He'd watched her go through whatever Cerberus had done, whatever the Alliance had done. He was her backup.

"Obey orders," James said. "Got it."

"You won't understand half the orders she gives you anyway. Takes some trust."

James nodded. Everything had gone serious in the cockpit and when Joker put the vid back on it didn't seem as funny as before.

The guy they had playing Alenko looked small and wimpy compared to the real deal.

"Hey, what's the deal with Lola and the Major?" James asked.

Joker looked like he was trying to fight off a grin, his scowl disappeared. "Those two? They were funnier in person back in the day. I think Alenko fell for her the first time he saw her. Doesn't have a self-preservation instinct or something, I don't know."

"Can't really imagine her flirting."

Joker broke out into a full grin. "It was hilarious. Alenko was like a bull in a china shop, he couldn't keep his eyes off her. All stammering and blushing and tripping over his feet. Shepard didn't notice a thing. It was like he was flirting with a geth."

James laughed, remembering Lola's imagined forging of them running away together. He had the feeling that Alenko had heard a few speeches like that. He was sure it was touching. "So what happened?"

"I don't know, I guess when we lost Ash – that's Ashley Williams, she was our gunnery chief – everyone was down. She must have got a clue at some point because pretty soon after that I caught them making out in the mess."

"That's not how I remember it."

James jerked in his seat, surprised at the sudden voice behind him. He looked up to see Shepard standing in the doorway, face unreadable.

"Uh, ma'am," he said.

Joker didn't even look up. "Hey, Commander. Alright, maybe you weren't making out."

"We missed a call from the Dalatrass?"

"Yeah. Want me to see if I can get back to them?"

Shepard was distracted for a moment by Mordin behind her. She turned, smiling, then reached out and took his hand for a moment. They spoke quietly, sharing a smile, something Mordin said made her laugh.

When he first came aboard they had done the same thing. Smiled, touched hands, talked, laughed. It was weird seeing Lola with a friend. The talk James had overheard might as well have been in another language. Electronics talk, he thought, or maybe medical, it was hard to tell.

"Where your lab used to be, just through the door," she said loud enough that he could catch it. They touched hands again before Mordin left and Shepard turned back to them. "How far are we from Grissom?"

"Half an hour, maybe an hour if we have to dodge Reapers," Joker said with a shrug.

"I'll try the Dalatrass after we're done."

"Not sure how much luck you'll have, Commander. The Reapers keep knocking out communications relays, our coverage is spotty."

"What about outside Tuchanka?"

"Might have better luck."

Shepard pursed her lips. "Hold off."

"Can do, ma'am."

"James, you're coming to Grissom. Is my Viper ready?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said. "All weapons upgraded, cleaned and loaded."

"Be at the shuttle in half an hour."

"Aye aye, ma'am."

The screen on the console was blaring triumphant music as the final siege of the Citadel played. Okay, now it was kind of embarrassing to be watching this vid. Especially since 'Shepard's' catsuit had come partially unzipped during this scene, showing a decent flash of cleavage. He really didn't want to think of Lola like that, perving on a commanding officer was a big no-no.

The Shepard behind them bit down on a smile, resting her elbow against his seat as she leaned forward for a better look. He didn't know if she was doing it intentionally or not, but when he looked over he was at eye-level with her tits, practically burying his nose in them.

"Is this the Citadel vid?" she asked.

"Haven't you seen this?" Joker asked incredulously. "Oh, Shepard, it's a masterpiece."

"Send me a copy?"

"You got it."

Shepard turned and walked out of the cockpit, calling over her shoulder, "Tell me when we're five minutes out."

James stood up and stretched. "Duty calls. Let me know how the movie ends."

"Yeah, man."

He made his way out of the bridge and headed for the elevator, time to prep for a rescue mission.