A/N: Thank you all for your patience! Please enjoy the new chapter without further ado!
The flight back went surprisingly well. The Normandy was waiting at the rendezvous point and most importantly, nobody shot them. Kaidan's hand resting on her thigh during the short flight back had helped soothe her anger a little bit but she couldn't deny she was still furious.
Expression thunderous, Nick climbed out of the fighter once it set down in the shuttle bay. The thought of having to talk to the quarian admirals and being civil tasted like ashes on her tongue.
The quarians were still arguing when she entered the war room. She wanted them all off her ship - the sooner, the better. Gritting her teeth, she stepped up to Admiral Han'Gerell.
"What the fuck was that supposed to be, Admiral? The dreadnought was defenseless. There was no reason to start the assault with us still aboard. Unless, of course, for some reason you didn't want us making it back," she sneered, contempt dripping from every syllable. "That wouldn't be the best way to treat your allies but considering you thought this whole situation was a good idea I'm not surprised. Now get the fuck off my ship before I deck you."
"That's ridiculous, Shepard," Han'Gerell argued.
"Westmoorland," Nick called, not taking her eyes off the Quarian admiral. The sound of jogging steps approached quickly.
"Captain?" the marine asked.
"Escort Admiral Han'Gerrel to the shuttle bay and see to it that he gets off the Normandy."
"Yes ma'am. Admiral?" Westmoorland pointed at the door.
The admiral bristled. "This is a mistake, Shepard!"
"I don't give a damn."
She turned away, facing the other quarian admirals, leaving it to Westmoorland to follow up on her orders. "Now, what's the next problem?"
Admiral Raan shifted uncomfortably, "We've lost contact with Admiral Koris. His shuttle was shot down. And there is a geth base that has to be destroyed. None of our forces have made it there."
"A geth base, and the leader of the civilian fleet is missing," Nick echoed drily, walking to the display of Rannoch hovering at the sitrep table. "Lovely. Where are the objectives?"
Brow furrowed, she considered both locations the Raan pointed at, "How long has the admiral been out of contact?"
"He missed two scheduled reports," Xen replied. "His shuttle went down near a geth jamming tower so we are hoping the radio silence is due to that and not because there aren't any survivors."
Nick nodded slowly. "Activity from the Reaper base?"
"None."
Fuck, was she tired. The stint on the dreadnought hadn't actually taken that long but it had been intense and draining. Unfortunately, time was certainly not on the admiral's side, the question was were they already too late or was he still holding out somewhere? Better get this over with as quickly as possible. She turned to Kaidan.
"Do you feel up for a trip groundside?"
He met her gaze squarely. "Sure. Gotta take the chance to check Rannoch off my bucket list."
"In that case, Major, grab a quick bite to eat. We leave on an extraction mission in an hour."
"There is heavy flak covering this area," Raan put in, pointing at an area on the map. "There are two AA guns here, and the admiral's shuttle went down here."
Nick frowned at the map, taking in the location of the guns and the general topography. Getting close with the shuttle would be difficult. They had to take out the ack-ack first. She pointed at a spot southeast of the AA guns. It wasn't exactly a blind spot but they should only have to deal with flak from one gun, if the given positions of the guns were accurate. She could only hope the geth didn't have any further surprises hidden along the way. "Here. We will drop here and make our way through this gorge to the guns. Once they're offline we need pick-up to get us to Admiral Koris' last position."
"That could work," Kaidan muttered, peering over her shoulder.
She hummed thoughtfully.
An hour later they were on the shuttle racing toward Rannoch's surface. After giving Cortez quiet instructions she settled into a crash seat and closed her eyes, well aware of Kaidan beside her doing the same. They had two hours until their ETA, best use the time to rest.
"Captain," Cortez called from the cockpit, what felt like only moments after she had drifted off, "we're closing in on the LZ. ETA five minutes. Looks like it's going to be rocky."
Her eyes snapped open and Nick stood up, rolling her neck and shoulders. She cast a quick glance at her ground team doing the same before joining Cortez in the helm. He pulled the shuttle into a swerve, avoiding the first salvo from the nearest AA gun while trying to approach the landing zone as low as possible.
Nick scanned the scenery outside the viewport with a practiced gaze. A body of water glittered in the sunlight, the rocky surface shone in hues of dirty orange, deep gorges cutting through it. "Get us behind that formation. We'll jump, just hold her nice and steady."
"Prepare to jump," she told Kaidan and Garrus, casually checking her equipment. The shuttle door slid open revealing Rannoch's arid, dusty surface. Sweltering heat met them and the day promised to get even hotter even though the sun had already passed its zenith.
"Anybody else getting desert training throwbacks?" Kaidan asked.
"Don't remind me," Nick groaned. "Hauling ass in a complete NBC kit without climate control in 45C or more? Fun times."
"Wanna get back on the shuttle, Shepard?" Garrus threw in.
"Fuck yes, but I'm afraid we're going to have to take the long route. Let's get on it."
They moved out swiftly, using the rocky terrain as cover as they rushed on. Nick took point, Kaidan and Garrus falling into step behind her, scanning the heights for any hostile movement. In the distance they heard the familiar bark of gun fire. They followed the winding path, sometimes hugging a cliffside, sometimes running through a deep gorge. Sunlight glittered on the water below. Was it a large lake? An epicontinental sea?
Sweat began trickling down her spine. Ahead, the sound of movement caught her attention. Nick ducked, peering around the wall before quietly dropping onto her stomach and crawling toward the edge. She took in the situation and backed away again slowly. Once she was out of sight she turned to Kaidan and Garrus.
"Debris field," she mouthed, then signaled, "Three hostiles confirmed. One pyro, two troopers."
They moved in swiftly, taking the geth by surprise, and continued along the path, stumbling over a survivor of the crash, though survivor was perhaps not the right thing to say. The poor man was lethally wounded. Kaidan checked him over as best he could and gave her a short shake of his head to let her know there was nothing he could do to save the man. The quarian managed a few more words, speaking of his partner and child, and something about the name seemed familiar.
"The only thing I can do is ease his pain," Kaidan said in a low voice, expression grim, "but he's not going to make it."
She nodded, turning back to the man only to see it was too late. She swallowed, and waved her team onward. They continued silently, the only sound the crunch of the sandy ground beneath their boots. After another short skirmish in an outcropping the AA guns came into sight.
"Crap," Garrus muttered under his breath, sidling up next to Nick and Kaidan, who were already eyeing the first real obstacle in the way to their main objective. "That's a lot of geth on that platform."
"We could ask them nicely to leave, " Kaidan replied drily.
"Somehow I doubt that's gonna work," Nick muttered, readying her rifle.
Only seconds later the geth opened fire. They scattered, diving into cover. Shepard snagged a grenade off her belt and lobbed it at a group of geth running their way while Kaidan's assault rifle barked in short bursts, the air around him filled with static and a hint of ozone as he Threw a few Geth Troopers back. And still the geth closed in, forcing Nick to trade her sniper rifle for her shotgun.
The firefight felt like it took hours until the last geth crumpled and Kaidan used the chance to sprint to the control panel of the first AA gun, vaulting over the crate he had been using as cover. Advancing at a run, he slid behind a large boulder and carefully inched around it before closing the distance and beginning the override, the other two giving him cover fire.
Nick cast a quick glance over her shoulder and then returned her gaze to the next wave of approaching Geth Troopers. She took a deep breath, and aimed, urgency thrumming through her with each heartbeat.
It wasn't that much later, objectively, when they managed to shut down the second AA gun and radio Cortez to pick them up. Nick could have done without the rocket passing through the open doors of the shuttle once they made it to Koris' location but he made it aboard and then she had the even worse job of telling him there were no other survivors.
After that, the ride back to the Normandy was silent.
The Reaper hiding in the bowels of the base really hadn't been part of the equation.
Kaidan grit his teeth as the shuttle swerved sharply. It was surreal. Their intel had stated a geth base not more than 300 clicks away from their current position. So after Nick entered the geth consensus—something Kaidan had to admit he was a bit envious of—while on a mission with Legion they went to take out the base. Which, it turned out, was not just a base and more importantly, not just geth. So now he found himself in a shuttle with Nick, Tali, and Legion, fleeing from an honest to God Reaper they had stumbled upon.
How many other Reapers were spread across the galaxy, hidden in bases like this one? How long had it been there? It must have taken a considerable amount of time to build a base large enough to accommodate a Reaper. He pulled his attention back to the present at the sound of Nick's voice taking on a sharp quality.
"Concentrate all fire on my signal. I'll paint the target for you," Nick barked over the comms, pulling him out of his thoughts. She turned to her ground party, signaling them to hold position and ordered, "Legion, let me out."
Nick exited the shuttle and sprinted across the clearing. Did she really plan on going one-on-one with a freaking Reaper? This was insane, there was no other word for it. Frozen, Kaidan watched her dodge the first energy beam, playing bait while the quarian fleet synced up their firing solution with Nick's. His heart thumped in his throat. Everything in him screamed to assist her, to draw the Reaper's fire, but he also knew that any distraction on the battlefield could be lethal. So, he stayed put.
"Kaidan?" Tali's voice tugged at his attention, a hint of worry in it. His gaze left the clearing and his CO, and landed on the quarian. "I'm sure she'll be fine." A beat. "I hope."
He cleared his throat, clutching the rifle so tight his knuckles went white. "Yeah, me too."
Legion slowed the shuttle, clearly just as reluctant as the other two to leave Shepard behind. Another destructive beam swept over the small glade, chasing Shepard relentlessly. Nick managed to stay ahead of it, but barely.
Time stretched, narrowing down on the lone figure darting to and fro to keep out of the beam's reach. Suddenly the comm crackled to life.
"All hands, fire!"
The combined firepower of the Normandy and the quarian fleet pelted the Reaper. Kaidan held his breath as it toppled, struggling to regain its footing. The red eye of its beam stuttered, flickering uncontrollably as it collapsed. Kaidan closed his eyes, thanking all known entities as Legion guided the shuttle back to the clearing and set it down. As soon as the hatch opened, they clambered out to see Shepard standing in front of the down Reaper, speaking to it. Its voice boomed around them, reverberating through the air.
Finally, the light extinguished and it fell silent.
Shepard turned to face them, a dangerous glint in her eyes and a sharp smile on her face.
"That's one Reaper less. Now," her gaze darted past them and Kaidan twisted around to see three geth primes ambling their way, "we resolve this mess. Tali, Legion, with me."
Nick walked briskly over to the geth, leaving it to the others to follow her. Kaidan fell in step behind them, listening to Nick scold the quarians into submission over the comms while telling Legion to upload the Reaper code. While he wasn't quite sold on that idea, Nick trusted Legion and, from the few interactions he had had with him, Kaidan was inclined to agree.
He listened to Tali arguing with the fleet admirals, to Legion giving status updates on the upload, and suddenly Admiral Gerrel spoke, "All ships cease fire."
The galley was blissfully empty when Kaidan stepped out of the showers. His energy supply was running low. He chose a meal and heated it up, waiting tiredly for it to be ready. The adrenaline surging through him when Nick faced off the Reaper had been replaced by bone-deep exhaustion.
He wasn't upset, exactly. No. Yes. Maybe. He sighed, scrubbing one hand over his face.
A quiet pling signaled his meal was ready. He pulled it out of the oven and sat down at the table, poking at it with his fork.
"Hey," Nick's voice startled him out of his reverie. The corners of her mouth turned downward and she reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together. "I'm sorry I scared you."
Kaidan glanced around, making sure they were alone, and brought her knuckles to his lips. "I know. You saw a way, took it, and it worked."
Nick pulled a face. "I wasn't sure it would. I hadn't exactly expected the Geth and Quarians to put aside their differences so readily."
Kaidan shook his head, laughing quietly. No, he decided, he wasn't upset. Nick was right, though. He had been scared. "I should be used to your stunts scaring the hell out of me. It's part of what I fell in love with."
She raised her eyebrows. "You fell in love with me scaring the shit out of you?"
"No, I fell in love with your tenacity and sheer bullheadedness when it came to impossible missions. You scaring the crap out of me was just a bonus."
Nick let out a huffed laugh, "Sap."
"You love it," Kaidan shot back. "Any word on where we're supposed to head next?"
She hummed. "We even get to pick where to go first. One is an anomaly at a Prothean dig site, and the other is some Asari monastery that went silent and needs checking out."
"A monastery?"
"Yep."
"Huh."
They sat next to each other silently, Kaidan finishing his meal and Nick frowning at the datapad in her hand, tipping at it with a stylus every now and then. At long last, he pushed back the empty tray, and she dropped the pad on the table and stretched before standing up.
"I'm going to call it a night," Nick said, her hand sliding along his shoulder. She brushed a thumb over his neck. They were, thankfully, still alone. "You should get some shut-eye, too. Today was a lot."
Kaidan huffed, "You could say that. But yeah, you're right. Guess I'll see you in the morning then."
She rapped her knuckles on his shoulder and leaned in for a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth, "Yeah, bright and early. Sleep well."
"You too." For a moment he stood there, watching Nick disappear around the corner to the elevator before cleaning away his tray and getting ready to sleep, the brush of lips against his tingling in his memory.
A/N: I hope you liked it!