Chapter 49: Reinforcements
Rah jolted awake at the sound of his omni-tool blaring at him, letting him know that he had an incoming call. He looked around the hotel room to find the Jack was gone, but a note was left on the nightstand next to him. Jack, it seemed, had gotten up earlier than he had for once. Rah hadn't expected to somehow get a night of dreamless sleep, and even less did he expect to be woken up by a call through his omni-tool and not by Jack.
"Carmine." Rah spoke when he answered the incoming call. He stretched and snatched up the note and glanced it over.
Went to the hospital for checkup. Will be back soon. - Jack was all the note said.
"General." Palius Vakarian's spoke replied from the device. "Is this a bad time sir?"
"Better than any other time Vakarian." Rah replied, sitting up and rubbing his hands over his face. "What's up?"
"There are three individuals requesting to board the Infinity and requesting to see you sir." Vakarian replied, making Rah frown.
"You know who they are?" As far as Rah knew, there wasn't supposed to be any troops arriving for him for another three days.
"They refuse to talk to anyone but you sir."
"Let them board, I'll get a shuttle over there in a few minutes."
"Yes sir."
"So what's with the floating brick in space Carmine?" Bruiser asked from the copilot's seat of their shuttle.
"That Bruiser, is the MSV Infinity the largest and most powerful dreadnought in the entire galaxy." Rah replied from the pilot's seat with a smirk and pride in his voice. "Take one of our dreadnoughts and a Turian dreadnought and shove 'em together and you get this baby."
"You mean the ugly ass brick that kinda looks like a dick?"
"Well, the Destiny Ascension looks kinda like a giant pussy, so it makes sense to have the giant dick for a fleet too."
Bruiser burst into laughter, holding her sides and accidentally smashing her head into the console in front of her. Rah glanced over to the marine with concern, but it seemed the woman was fine, currently not getting enough air because of her laughter, but fine none the less.
"Holy shit Carmine." Bruiser choked out when she got her laughing out of control. "I never fucking thought of it like that, but damn you are fucking right about that shit."
"If you would have gone and boarded the Infinity when I told you and the others to, you'd have realized it before this." While Rah's voice was light, there was still the underlying question that he expected an answer to.
"We were on shore leave before you gave us the order to move our shit from one ship to the other." she replied, a bit of a nervous look on her face. "I uh - I wasn't in reach of my omni-tool for the last few days."
"Mind telling me why?" he kept his voice calm. Bruiser being out of touch on shore leave wasn't that big of a deal if she was still a regular marine, but she wasn't a regular marine anymore and was always on call.
"I was uh - at a uh - a convention." she looked away from him, almost as if she was trying to hid a secret. "One in the lower wards."
"Is this convention one that is normally held on Omega? But was moved to the seedier parts of the Citadel what with Cerberus controlling Omega and all?" he asked, a smirk slowly making its way to his face.
"Yeah." Bruiser sighed out, still not looking at him.
"Well, long as you had fun, and remember to not be out of contact again, I think I can overlook this."
"Thanks Sir." she replied, her voice a little stiff but also holding relief.
"Relax Bruiser, Jack dragged my ass to it the second day of the fucking thing. I won't hold it against you and I won't tell the others."
The marine didn't get the chance to respond before Rah was on the com with the pilot of the Infinity requesting to board the ship and transfer supplies.
As soon as they were in the massive hangar of the Infinity Rah and Bruiser parted ways, with Rah going to find his XO and Bruiser going to lug her shit to go and find the others of her squad.
After only a few minutes of walking through the massive hallways of the dreadnought, Rah's XO found him.
"General Carmine." Palius greeted him when they two stopped in front of each other.
"Captain Vakarian." Rah nodded and the two clasped forearms. "So what's going on?"
"As I told you over the call, there are three people here requesting to speak with you and you alone. They won't even tell me their names." Palius replied, leading Rah rather into the ship.
"Humans?" Rah asked, thinking it was maybe some people from the ICA or someone else from the N7s.
"No sir. An Asari, a Quarian, and a Turian." Palius replied stiffly. "The armor of the Turian is Blackwatch, but she won't take off her helmet."
"And they all came here together?" he gave the other man a questioning look.
"Yes sir."
"Well," Rah sighed out, not having any idea what was going on. "Let's find out what the fuck is going on."
Palius lead him to a room on the dreadnought that served as a sort of recreational room for the officers on board the ship. in the room, all in a completely different part of it, were the three people that Palius had told him about.
Just as Palius had told him, the Turian in the room, a smaller female, was in the nondescript black armor of the Blackwatch. The Blackwatch was effectively the Turian version of the N7s, just much more selective and almost as deadly.
The Asari in the room sat on one of the couches with her feet resting on the table in front of her. Her armor was a very dark blue, but the emblem on her shoulder wasn't one that Rah recognized. Just like the Turian, the Asari was still wearing her helmet.
The Quarian was the only one in the room doing more than just sitting or standing there. While the Asari was motionless on the couch and the Turian was standing near a wall staring off into space, the Quarian was playing a game of pool on his own. The Quarian had his back to the door when Rah and Palius walked in, so all Rah could see was that his suit was the blood red of the Migrant Fleet Marines.
"I'm here." Rah growled when the door closed behind him. "Who are you all and what the fuck do you want?"
At his words, all three of them snapped to attention and gave him their respective salutes.
"Colonel Kal'Reegar, Migrant Fleet Marines." The Quarian snapped out.
"Captain Tanami Duruma, Asari Fidiyins." The Asari barked out, her voice by far the roughest that Rah had ever heard from an Asari.
"Lieutenant Sinia Acatis, Turian Blackwatch." The Turian snapped out.
"So now I know who you maggots are." Rah scowled, holding in his surprise at finding thee commandos from three different races in the room. "Now that the fuck are you doing here?"
As one, all three of them replied in sync. "Reporting for duty to fight the Reapers Sir!"
"Who the fuck sent you lot?" Rah asked, walking between them.
"Liara T'Soni Sir." The Quarian, Kal, replied for them.
"Tell me then Colonel, Why did T'Soni see fit to not tell me that you would get here?" he barked out, getting into Kal's face, mask whatever.
"Sir, she is currently unable to send secure messages to you at this time Sir." Kal replied, Rah could hear the irritation in his voice. The Marine was clearly not used to being treated like a kid fresh into boot camp.
"I assume you brought more than just the three of you." he snapped, looking to the other as well.
"Yes Sir." The Asari replied with a nod. "We each have a platoon worth of soldiers with us and we are at your disposal Sir."
"So why in hell couldn't you tell my XO this?" Rah snarled, motioning to the rigid Vakarian behind him.
"We were ordered to only speak with you Sir!" The Turian replied this time.
"From now on, you are to see Captain Vakarian about anything not of life or death matters." Rah told them all, looking around into the faceplates of all of them. "Do I make myself clear?!"
"Sir yes Sir!" The replied in unison.
"Good." Rah muttered, turning to Palius. "Get some of the Angels to show them where they'll be staying."
"Yes sir." Palius nodded, a slight smirk on his face.
"Dismissed." Rah told them, but the look he gave Palius told the other man to stay.
"Sir?" Palius asked when the three left.
"Sorry about loading that onto your shoulders. God and the Spirits know you've got enough on your plate." Rah sighed to the man, and Palius' stance relaxed.
"Your AI helps more than I would have expected. She seems more than happy to take care of the stuff that would take us hours to do." Palius smirked.
"That she does." Rah chuckled back, glad to see that his XO was no longer livid about Foxtrot being an AI.
"I've been meaning to ask you," Rah strode carefully around his words. "Have you heard anything from your family?"
"I haven't heard from Garrus since Menae." Palius shook his head, his voice holding a sad not to it. "But my wife and daughter a safe for now. Sur'kesh hasn't seen any Reaper activity around it yet. From all my reports, the Reapers are completely ignoring the Salarians."
"Makes sense." he shrugged. "The Reapers need to worry about the powerhouses of the galaxy first, meaning the humans, Turians, and Krogan. They'll probably just wait until the end to take over the Salarians. "
"Have you heard anything from Shepard?" Palius asked, almost gritting out the last word. Rah knew that Palius didn't much care for Shepard, it probably didn't help that she was part of the reason that Garrus was the way he was now.
"Shepard, no. I have heard from Garrus though, just last night actually." Rah told the man, whose face seemed to brighten a bit.
"He's fine, but apparently Shepard decided to play the hero again and is out cold for now. Know her, she'll be back up in no time, and your boy will stop worrying about his mate." Rah smiled to the man.
"M-mate?" Palius asked, his mandibles going slack.
"He didn't tell you did he?" Rah sighed out, cursing himself. "Figures that Scarface wouldn't tell you."
"He has a mate?" Palius grit out, holding in anger and shock.
"Yeah, he and Shepard have been mates for a while. Their not legally mated, but it's only a technicality for them." Rah told him, deciding there was no point in hiding the information from his XO any longer. "Far as I know, they've been like this since Seren."
"Could you get a message to him for me?" Palius asked, his voice holding strangled rage.
"Yeah, I'll tell him to call you." Rah sighed and began walking towards the door.
"Just go easy on him, the kid couldn't have picked a better mate. The two of them are like yin and yang. They compliment each other better than many couples I've seen before."
Palius didn't reply, so Rah left him to his thoughts. After only a few feet down the hall, Rah heard a strangled yell of anger echo down the hallway.
"Sorry Scarface." Rah muttered to himself.
"You fucking done yet?" Rah heard Day's voice coming from the armory that had been assigned to the Death Angels on board the Infinity.
"Hold on." Pawnee's voice grit back, followed by the sounds of an automatic sander powering on.
"The hell is going on in here?" Rah called out with a smirk in his voice before stepping into the armory. When he did enter the room, his smirk instantly faded.
In the room, ever Angel stood near their sets of armor save for Day and Pawnee. Each set of armor looked different than they had since the team's last combat op. At seeing Rah entering the room, all the Angels snapped to attention and saluted him. Rah looked around at the faces of the soldiers around him, but was unable to read any of them.
Rah turned his attention to the now modified armors. Each and every one of the sets had been modified to look more death like or more Rah's eyes settled on the suit that Bruiser was standing in front of, He found that her helmet had been changed so that a black tinted glass-like material replaced most of the front of the helmet and also the top and parts of the sides. Seemingly painted on, was a white human skull over the face of the helmet. The body of the armor was overall the same, just there were now spikes lining the forearms of the armor and crimson paint blotches splattered over the armor.
Rah's eyebrows rose when he looked to the armor that Day and Pawnee were standing in front of and realized it was his. The shoulder pads of the armor were now adorned with steel spikes that were each at least six inches long. The left shoulder pad was now bigger than it had been, and almost resembled a small shield, almost as if trying to give him more protection towards the side that typically faced his foes when charging with his hammer. To top it all off, there were now two large horns, that almost looked the be made of bone, jutting out from the forehead of his helmet.
"What the hell is going on here?" Rah asked in confusion, rather than in anger.
"You told us we could tinker with our armor Carmine." Khaot spoke up, stepping towards him. "This is how we're tinkering."
"Everyone and everything is fighting the Reapers Sir." Maggie chimed in."Now, even the demons of hell are fighting them."
"If this doesn't get people talking about the war, nothing will." Rah sighed.
"One more thing," Pawnee chirped up. "This is you now."
Rah looked the the name tag that the other marine was pointing to on his armor. Rah read the tag, and couldn't help but smirk.
Hellboy, how fitting. He thought, thinking back to the old comics he'd rad at one point in boot camp.
"Carry on." Rah told them. "Just nothing more with mine."
"Yes Sir."Khaot replied for them, and they all acted as if he'd never entered the room.
Jack groaned and roughly slammed her hand on her omni-tool, silencing the annoying buzzing that kept sounding throughout the room. She groggily got out of bed and headed straight to take a shower. After a hot, almost scalding, shower, Jack re-entered the room, and found Rah missing.
It wasn't uncommon for Rah to leave before she got up, there was always something or other that would demand his attention. Sometimes it was something with the Infinity, others it was Hackett, and rarely, his nightmares.
Jack shook her head while drying herself off. She wished a million times that Rah would tell her what was wrong, what gave him dreams that would keep him from sleeping, but she knew that she wouldn't have told him either. All Jack could do, was be there for him when he needed her, just as he had done countless times for her.
Jack glanced over to the nightstand by her side of the bed to find a pad of paper and a pen sitting on it. She quickly threw on her only pair of sweatpants and a pullover that had been discarded on the floor before walking over to the nightstand. Jack quickly read over the note that Rah had left her and glanced at the time. It was ten, and Rah wrote that the mass started at seven, where the fuck was he?
Almost as if on queue, her omni-tool blared at her, letting her know she had a new message.
Miss Naught,
Turn on Battlespace.
Prangley
Jack raised an eyebrow to the message, making sure to chew out her student later if this was some kind of joke. Jack did however turn the holo-screen of the room on and switch to the channel that ran the war reporting show. Her jaw went slack and she had to sit down on the bed.
The screen showed what was being labeled as a live interview with "General Carmine of the Systems Alliance Marines". Sure enough, A rather put off looking Rah looked to the reporter that was interviewing him, while the camera was positioned just over the reporter's shoulder.
"General Carmine, many of my viewers, both on the Citadel and off, are wondering," The reporter asked, her voice pleasant yet it ground on Jack's nerves. "What is the large…. ship, that's sitting next to the Citadel?"
"Ok, not what I was expecting," Rah mussed, scratching the underside of his jaw. "That ladies and gents, is what I'm going to call a Reaper killer."
"Just what do you mean by that General?"
"What I mean Miss Allers, is that that ship has a cannon on it that will punch a hole through a Reaper, and carries two battalions worth of troops, tanks, and aircraft. To sum it up, everything on that ship, both man and machine, are trained to slaughter any Reapers that get in range of them."
"That's a lofty claim General, but how do we know that this is all true, and not just something to get us all invigorated to help the war effort only to disappoint us?"
"I can't tell you anything about how I know it can punch through a Reaper, that Miss Allers, is so classified I can't even tell my fish about it." he chuckled with a warm smile. "But what I can say, is that in about two weeks, maybe less, I will show you just what that ship can do."
"Is that when you are to deploy that ship?"
"It's when Commander Shepard is going to pull the Krogan and Turians into an alliance with humanity."
"I'm sorry, I think I misheard you, did you-"
"Yes, I did just say that Shepard will be bringing the Krogan into this way, and make it a war that we will win." he interrupted the reporter. "This war is what will make our history, or destroy it. When the ship in question strikes the fear of God into the Reapers, history will be made that day."
"I hope you can deliver on that promise General, now if you don't mind I'd like to ask some questions that my viewers have been aching to know."
"Shoot." he shrugged.
"It's been over eight months since you have been come the number two man in the Alliance Armed Forces, and yet until now, we've never seen anything of you. Care to elaborate why you have opted to stay out of the spot-light?"
"You can see my ink and shit right?" he asked with a smirk. "I'm not exactly what people would call good in any lighting or make-up."
"So you're self-conscious about your appearance?"
"Not as you think. I'm an N7 Miss Allers, there are now all of two active N7s that are known to the Galaxy, Shepard and now me." he explained. "It's a large adjustment to go from being nothing more than black ink, to the second most important person in the military, and now the second most important person in all of humanity. That's why everything I've put out is text only."
"Well, you're definitely not what I had expected when I found out who you were General." the reporter's smirk was evident in her voice. "Not that I don't like what I see."
Jack felt a rush of instant hate for the reporter and the almost flirtatious note in her voice. She was so distracted with her anger, that she almost missed Rah's reply.
"Sorry Miss Allers, I'm taken." he smiled to the reporter and his eyes darted to the camera, almost as if he knew that Jack was watching. "Besides, you're not my type."
"And that type would be?" the reporter's voice was not one of hurt, but of curiosity. Jack could barely see that the reporter was trying to humanize Rah, make him look like a normal guy. For what reason, she didn't know.
"Skinny, foul-mouthed, hot-headed, covered in ink, and a teacher." Rah smiled. "Throw all those together and you get my girl."
"Sounds like an interesting combination General." the reporter laughed out.
"You have no idea." he chuckled back. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm rather late to getting back to her."
"Of course, thank you for taking the time to talk with me General."
"Any time Allers."
The camera pulled back and the reporter turned to look to it, while Rah turned and walked away. In the background, he could still be seen walking away, tossing up into the air and the catching a small black box. The reporter signed off and the picture changed from the reporter to some asshole behind a desk.
Jack turned off the holo-screen, but she couldn't get the image of that box out of her mind. She didn't know why, but for some reason, something in her thought it was important.
Jack's omni-tool broke her out of her musings over that small box however. She pulled open the device and found a notification from Rah to all NCOs and officers that would be on board the Infinity with their squads and platoons.
Just received word from Commander Shepard. We are leaving at 1700 today. Pack your shades and sunscreen boys and girls, we're hitting Tuchanka.
General Carmine
Jack felt a small pit of fear and doubt settle in her stomach while she began to relay the message to her students. Even though she and her students wouldn't be the biotic artillery that Jack had first wanted them to be, and would instead be supporting the ground troops with biotics, Jack still feared for the lives of her kids when they would go into a real fight.
A/N: Hey everyone, sorry that this took so long. Life has been annoying and needing to be a responsible adult and focusing on my classes this semester are taking a toll on me. That being said, my updates will probably be rather slow for a while, as I don't have that much free time right now.
Hope you all enjoyed this chapter! I will be moving back into the main story line with the next update.
Please let me know what you all thought!
