answers to reviewers questions or statements:
Starlord Master: Possibly.
Trition0509: A few characters from Overwatch that can exists in this universe like maybe Widowmaker, Sombra, etc.
Jebest4781: Jack and Shepard's meeting will almost go the same as it did in the games. Peter and Shepard's meeting on the other hand will be all kinds of fun.
Rougarou144: I make no such promises.
kival737101: Yep.
The True Skull: Yep.
Devilboy101: Well Tali is tied as my favorite girl from Mass Effect not gonna lie so...
Guest: She's in it.
Mr Guest: Least it wasn't with the Krogan. Jane here is Paragon with occasional streaks of Renegade and has a origin story that's mixed between Spacer and Colonial. Yes that Ana is the Ana from Overwatch. Or a Reaper Brute.
JC: Some of them might.
DarkDevilKnight: I thought of making her a red head but than I thought that'd make her too... default.
Slim A Lou Prime: When you say add Venom, like the villain Venom? Like Peter's suit chooses a new host and becomes this universe's Venom?
TigerJacob: Actually, I'm just expanding on the Alliance Military and to some extent, Cerberus. Some of Overwatch's characters would fit in well with Mass Effect.
Chaosrealm: No.
ff1c: Who says Venom's not already in this.
monkiepawn: What's sad is that simple common sense seems to be eluding you and you mistake it for some weird self righteous 'I THINK I'm smarter than you and I'm going to explain it to you by TRYING to break these past few chapters down' and you THINK you have a remote idea of what's going to happen next. If you actually knew Spider-man's character like your TRYING to imply, you'd know that he wouldn't go out of his way and start beating the ever loving hell out of the Eclipse Mercs for several reasons; One he has no idea just what kind of tech and weapons they have at their disposal outside what's briefly seen them use. Two they are using abilities (Biotics) that are 'alien' to him and he has no idea what the limits to these powers are or what can be accomplished with them in a fight so he's gonna avoid them best he can until he has a better understanding of how they work. Three, he's on a remote alien planet alone with no backup in any shape or form. He isn't exactly going to risk hurting himself when he has no idea of where he's at or what he's up against because he's, in case you haven't noticed, not the fucking HULK. Spider-man isn't an aggressor, he's more reactive in his fights barring special occasions where he knows he has to be the one to attack first and keep attacking. And if your gonna try and make up some make believe scenario where Jack somehow got the drop on Peter, it would've been earlier in the fight because Biotics burn up energy when they use their powers in the way that she was from the get go and Korgan aren't in Eclipse. If you actually knew the Mass Effect lore better, you'd know that genius.
Disclaimer: I don't own any Marvel or Mass Effect characters seen, mentioned or used.
Touching down on the island that the Slavers took the human colonists was fairly anti-climatic in retrospect to how the whole thing started out.
There was no sky filled with explosions from anti-air batteries, no wings of enemy fighters or gunships trying to shoot down the shuttle or even some random hurricane springing up and making the landing even harder than it could be. In truth, Jane wasn't expecting or wanting something straight out of a re-enactment of the Skyllian Blitz, but she was expecting at least before her ship's pilots set the shuttle down and she ordered her men to disembark and take up defensive positions around the landing site.
It wasn't very large, just big enough for a shuttle to touch down in, and it laid over a kilometer away from their destination, some sort of encampment that Alliance Intelligence reported to be the best probable location of the kidnaped colonists.
'This should be fun. A walk in the jungle on a alien world at night that's likely filled with traps of all sorts' Jane thought as the shuttle rose back into the air and headed back into the skies and await word from Shepard for extraction.
"This place sucks... goddamn"
Jane blinked and turned towards Gunnery Chief Laden with a amused smirk under her helmet as the man sat in a kneeling position only two meters away from her, next to a small mound of sand "In what way Chief?"
"It's hot..." Laden complained as he shouldered his rifle and aimed it at the dark jungle before the two SpecOps personnel "Like wet hot. Not that dry hot. I feel like I'm in a freakin sauna or something. and I hate those things"
Jane hummed at this before she took one last look at the expanse of jungle before her and Laden before slowly rising to her feet "Just be glad it's not raining Chief, it'd feel even shittier"
Laden snorted at this as he rose to his feet as well "Yes ma'am"
"Form up" Jane said over the squad's commlink as she brought up her Omni-tool and accessed the files for this operation that held images of the island they were on and the encampment they had to infiltrate.
Jane received nine near whispered 'affirmatives' or 'Yes ma'am's before she was surrounded by ten armored men and women, all armed with enough firepower to hold off a platoon's worth of enemy combatants. To the naked eye, none of the Marines bore any visible rank or affiliation on their armor, but thanks to Jane's HUD, she could see rank, names and call signs of her people.
"Compound is a mile out" Jane pointed in the direction of the slaver's base of operations "Initial scans from the shuttle on the way in shows little ground activity aside from a few patrols, none automated thankfully"
"Ma'am, any idea where the colonists are being held?" one of Jane's squamates, a Corporal, nodded towards a projection of the slaver's compound.
It wasn't very large, only a couple of buildings tat looked to be a thousand square feet each and a ten foot high metal wall that only encompassed parts of the compound's perimeter. The tallest building was only three stories tall and even that looked a little cramp in Jane's eyes to the possible number of hostiles they'll be facing. Of course the rest of the compound could extend underground, but until she and her team could search the place, she had no way of knowing.
"Those are some pretty cramped places for the amount of people we're looking for" Laden said with a frown as he stared at the buildings closely.
"Could they even fit all of the colonists they took in there?" another solider asked, causing Laden to sigh in dread.
"Kid, you'll be surprised how well slavers' can use small confined spaces to hold large numbers of people" the Chief said with a shake of his head before he gestured wildly to the screen "Then again, their could be a substructure under the compound they've stored them all in. Won't know till we get there and take a look"
"Correct" Jane said with a nod as she glanced at her squad "Mind your fields of fire. We have no way of knowing if the colonists are secured somewhere that's rated for gunfire. So check your targets, the last thing I need is to explain to captain Amari while we have dead civies when we should be rescuing them, understood?"
Again, Jane's commands were met with a serious of 'yes ma'ams' or 'understood' before Laden glanced at her with a questioning gaze.
"Assuming we can get them all out of here, how are we gonna get them off planet?" the chief asked as he threw a thumb over his shoulder, aimed in the direction the shuttle took off in "Shuttle seats only twelve, and that's pushing it in terms of space. Cap'n said we're looking at close to two thousand people"
"...We're assuming their all still here Chief" Jane said with a frustrated frown under her helmet "Let's just deal with the slavers first than worry about getting our people off this rock"
"Aye ma'am" Laden nodded, though Jane knew he was still bothered by this.
"From here on out, maintain radio silence, hand signals only, clear?" Jane said as she looked at the rest of her squad and watched as several nodded their heads in acknowledgment.
"Crystal ma'am" Laden said before he glared at the rest and pointed towards the dark jungle before them and growled "Alright ladies you know the drill. Standard pairs with six meter spacing. Watch your shots and watch your steps, we don't need one of you breaking your ankle because you weren't keeping an eye on the ground. Move it out!"
Jane watched with pride as her squad quickly spread out in pairs and slipped into the jungle like shadows. With a single nod aimed at Laden, the N7 followed after her people without another word.
The trek to the compound was... disturbingly quiet and uneventful.
No signs of patrols roaming the brush, no evidence of security measures such as cameras or remote turrets in place, not even so much as a trail left by a roving sentry. In fact, once Jane and her squad had reached the edge of the jungle that surrounded the slavers compound and got a clear visual of it's fortifications and layout, questions began to emerge in hushed tones on the squad's comms. No lights were on, which forced Jane and her squad to switch to night vision to better observe the compound, and there was no evidence that any of the buildings even had power running through them. And the 'heat signatures' the shuttle picked up in its initial drop were actually small polyps set up along the edges of certain buildings that according to Laden, were used to set up a boundary of sorts for any slaves fitted with collars or implants.
If the slave passed by the polyps, they'd receive a very nasty shock that'll dissuade them from wanting to make a run for it, not at all to dissimilar to the methods of fenceless cattle raising that Jane's parents and various other homesteaders on Mindoir did. Jane made a face at this, it was outright disgusting how cruel a sentient could be to another, she's seen rabid animals treat their prey with more dignity than this.
"Ma'am... something's up" Laden leaned in close to Jane.
"So I've noticed" Jane said as she observed the seemingly desolate compound "No patrols, no signs of power. It's almost like no one's home"
"Think they might be in some sort of underground bunker and they leave these top buildings alone?" Laden asked.
"I think your giving these slavers too much credit Chief" Jane said with a shake of her head.
Though, perhaps she wasn't giving them enough, quite a few slavers, mainly Batarians, were ex-military and used that mindset and training to good use. With a dread filled sigh, Jane issued orders for her squad to form up into two fire teams, five each, and begin to search each building for signs of the slavers and their 'product'. This entire operation was starting to set red flags off in her head, but it was far too late to really do anything about it expect hope that her and her men's training will be enough for whatever was thrown at them...
'Funny, I thought the same thing the morning we landed on Akuze' Jane thought privately as she and four of her men entered what she assumed was a mess hall at some point.
The tables were all unoccupied, and the few remaining seats left were all lying about across the hall. There was no light or signs of movement anywhere, even in the kitchen towards the back. On a hunch, Jane used her Omni-tool to scan some of the cooking equipment to see when the last time it was ever used and was surprised to find that the stoves and fryers wasn't even hooked up and in fact, looked a little new, albeit cheap.
"The fuck..." Jane muttered with a furrowed brow as she looked around the kitchen as one of her men checked a walk in freezer, it's door left wide open, while another was going through a storage room further back along the kitchen's far wall.
It was than that she heard Laden's voice in her helmet's speaker "Ma'am, we have a problem"
'Take your pick chief' Jane thought with worry before she sighed "What sort of problem Chief?"
"The colonists, they aren't here" Laden said in a curt tone "In fact, from what me and my boys are seeing, there hasn't been anyone here in weeks, if not months. This place is dead, been dead for some time now"
Jane's eyes narrowed slightly at this while the rest of her team stopped what they were doing and looked towards her with varying looks of confusion and surprise.
"Are you absolutely sure Laden?" Jane said as the uncomfortable feeling of worry was now beating in her chest like a drum.
"Yes ma'am, and we've done a quick scan of the buildings we were in, no signs of any entrances to some subterranean complex. What we see is what we got" Laden said with a frustrated sigh "You sure the fly boys dropped us off at the right place ma'am?"
"Positive Chief" Jane said before she brought up her Omni-tool and prepared to contact the pilots before she noticed something odd...
The pilots' signal wasn't transmitting.
"What the hell...?" Jane said to herself before she glanced towards her squad and could see the worry in their stances.
"Uh ma'am, are we in the wrong place or something?" one of her squadmates' said with confusion in his tone "Like it was the island with the volcano we passed on the way here"
"No, this is the place our intel said the colonists were taken to" Jane said with a frown marring her face.
"Our intel, or someone else's?" another said.
"That doesn't even make any sen-" one of Jane's other squadmates stated before she cut them off.
"Lock it down, all of you" she ordered "Just let me think for a second"
So far this entire operation was drifting into very unknown territory, their objective wasn't here, they've lost contact with the shuttle, and Jane was getting the feeling that despite evidence to the contrary, she and her men weren't alone on this island. After a few seconds of mental debating, she made her decision and contacted Laden's comm to let him know what the plan was.
"Chief, I need you to get your people and-" Jane began before a sudden burst of static through the channel caused her to finch and shut it off.
That wasn't good.
"Ma'am, what was that?" one of Jane's squadmates asked with unease as he gripped his Avenger even tighter than before.
"Just some faulty military grade comm equipment, nothing new" Jane said with a frown under her helmet, it wasn't that, but the last thing she needed was for her people to start panicking.
According to her Omni-Tool, Laden's last known location was what they thought might've been the barracks. If she knew Laden, she knew that the man would hunker down with his people and try to re-establish comms with her and the rest of her squad for as long as reasonably possible before pulling out and back to the rendezvous for extraction.
She could simply meet him there, but she'd prefer they leave this place in force rather than scattered.
"Come on, let's go find the Chief so we can get the hell out of this place" Jane gestured for her men to follow her.
"What about the colonists ma'am?" one of her soldiers said as they headed for the door "Should we keep looking for them and is this place a dud?"
"Honestly, I don't even think their even on this planet anymore. Which is what I want for our people" Jane said as she and her men carefully exited the building and searched the area for signs of activity before quickly making their way across the open terrain and towards the largest building present, the barracks.
She could see several of Laden's men had taken up defensive positions around the structure's main entrance while the Chief and the rest of his team were inside. Jane barely gave the dug in soldiers a glance as she made her way inside while the rest of her own squad broke off and helped re-enforce Laden's people. It didn't take long for Jane to find the Chief, he was in what she could only assume was the building's main lounge, speaking with the team's medic. Laden noticed Jane's arrival and gestured for the medic to wait outside while the two spoke privately.
"Ma'am, was just about to come look for ya" Laden nodded at the approaching woman.
"Find anything?" Jane asked as she looked around to see that the 'abandoned' barracks was in remarkably good condition.
In fact, it seemed almost brand new, as it someone had just set it up only weeks ago...
"No" Laden shook his head with obvious frustration in his tone and posture "This place feels more like some kind of creepy mock town that they'd have us go through back on Titan"
"So I've noticed" Jane said as she looked around for a second before she turned towards the way she came "Come on, we're pulling out, and once we get back to Einstein, I'm going to kick the teeth out of whoever the hell supplied us with this mission's intel"
"I'll hold him down ma'am" Laden said with a snort as he made to follow after Jane before the lights suddenly flickered off, causing the two to stop and bring their weapons up, fingers on the triggers.
A dark, heavy silence settled in the dark room as Jane and Laden used their helmet's infrared to scan their surroundings for sigs of hostiles. Jane could hear her own heartbeat going a mile a minute as she slowly scanned the room for signs of anyone that wasn't a part of her squad. Laden was already barking orders to the men outside to standby for possible contact.
"We need to pull out now, Laden. Tell the men we're heading for the rendezvous point" Jane said as she gestured for them to start slowly backing towards the lounge's door while switching her rifle's safety off and running a quick last second diagnostic check of her armor's shields "Weapons free. If it's not us, we mow it down"
Laden quirked his head slightly in confusion before he nodded and was just beginning to issue Jane's orders to the rest of their squad when a loud 'crack' sound echoed through the air only a split second before the upper half of the chief's head suddenly exploded in a shower of gore, metal and bone. Jane's head snapped towards her squad's now dead XO and watched his body stumble a half step forward before slumping to the floor, blood pouring from his half destroyed head. Jane's gaze snapped towards the direction of the bullet as she rushed to cover and just made out the form of what appeared to be a fully armored Krogan, holding a large rifle, a M-98 from the looks of it, in it's hands.
Another 'crack' tore through the air as Jane raced to cover, her shields flaring as the round grazed her shoulder and nearly sent the woman spiraling to the ground. Even if it wasn't a M-98 that the Krogan was shooting at her, it had a hell of a punch to it.
"This Shepard, all squads be-" Jane began before a loud burst of static tore through her helmet, causing her to flinch and shut it off just as a series of nearby explosions drowned out another crack off the Krogan's rifle.
The force of the explosions outside caused the building they were in to shudder while the Krogan stumbled slightly before he growled in annoyance and barked something into his commlink. Jane wasn't sure what it was, her ears were still ringing from the volume of the static on her own commlink, though she knew it was likely some sort of curse or threat to whoever was setting the blasts off. Taking a deep breath, Jane shot out from her cover and aimed at the Krogan's upper torso and squeezed the trigger.
Her Avenger shook against her shoulder as a merciless barrage erupted from the barrel and tore into the Krogan's armor, causing a series of sparks tp erupt across it's surface. The Krogan roared in anger and annoyance, mainly the latter, and brought his rifle up and took aim at Jane. With a enraged snarl, Jane lowered her rifle as her body began to glow from her Biotics and send forth a wave of destructive Dark Energy. The Krogan's eyes widened at the oncoming wave and only had enough time to turn and take a single step before his body was struck by the blast, shredding his armor, his body beneath that, and even the floor and nearby walls while sending the Krogan's body flying out of the room.
Jane let out a gasp as she stumbled forward slightly, sweat already dripping down her brow, that shockwave was a bit more than she normally produced. With a deep breath, Jane rushed towards the doorway just as another figure entered it, a Vorcha armed with an old M-451 Flamethrower in it's clawed hands. The Vorcha hissed at Jane and just began to raise it's weapon when the N7 slammed her full body weight into it, sending both tumbling tot he ground. The Vorcha and Jane's weapons went clattering to the floor as the former began to punch, slap and claw at Jane's helmet while the human woman tried to fend off the Vorcha's hands with one arm while the other aimed at the snarling alien's torso.
"You die now!" the Vorcha yelled as it's clawed nails left scratches along Jane's helmet.
"Yeah, you do!" Jane gritted as she activated her Omni-tool's Omni-blade and stabbed the silicon-carbide construct into the Vorcha's chest, causing it to shriek and spasm in pain and flare it's limbs about wildly before going still.
With a grunt, Jane ripped the blade from the now dead Vorcha and watched as the construct dissipated. She could hear various gunshots outside, along with several explosions, prompting her to move towards the building's exit. It didn't take her long to reach the entryway, nor to see the damage that was inflicted on her people. Five of her men were already on the ground, pools of blood spreading beneath them while another was being leaned against the wall by the squad's medic with various smoldering holes in his legs and chest. Jane also saw several dead Vorcha lying on the ground, their bodies riddled with bullet holes and strewn about in a way that the human female could see that they had tried to rush through the door, made it several feet, before being gunned down.
'That Krogan and Vorcha must've been with them' Jane thought as she stared at the mangled remains of the Vorcha with something very close to hate.
"Ma'am!" one of the soldiers shouted when he noticed Jane's appearance only seconds before his face suddenly exploded as a high powered round tore through the wall he was using for cover and found it's way into his head.
Jane flinched at the violent end of one of her squadmates before she raced towards the medic who was still trying to stabilize their dying teammate while the remaining two Marines of her squad fired off long bursts of fire into the smoke filled compound outside.
"Ma'am..." the medic nodded at the Lieutenant Commander even though his full attention was on the gasping man before him.
"What the fuck is going on Corporal?!" Jane shouted over the gunfire and screams echoing from outside, a mixture of the Krogan's deep gravel like laughs and that of the Vorcha's screeching.
"Total shit storm ma'am" the medic replied in a blank tone as he watched the man he desperately tried to save slowly bleed out in front of him despite his best efforts "Numerous charges along the perimeter went off, torching the tress and brush around the entire compound. Briggs, Marthson, and Hoplin here were attacked by a Krogan that charged through here with those Vorcha. I guess you took care of him?"
"Not before he killed Laden" Jane growled in frustration.
She'd mourn the man, and those she already lost after she got the members of her squad still alive out of this hell.
"Dammit" the medic said as he shut off his Omni-tool and leaned back away from the now dead Marine lying before him and his commanding officer.
"We need to get the hell out of here" Jane said as she glanced towards her remaining two Squadmates.
Their armor was covered in blood, she had no idea if it was there's or not, and one of them was now only sporting a sidearm, his rifle laid at his feet, literally smoking from the excess heat leaking from it. And her squad's medic was only armed with a sidearm, his rifle nowhere to be found, though Jane had a feeling that it was one of the torn up Avengers lying only a few feet away from them.
"What sorta numbers are you seeing out there?" Jane glanced at the two Marines that had been shooting at whatever was outside the building they were in.
"We've counted at least a dozen Krogan visually ma'am" one of the Marines said with dread "And twice as many Vorcha. Though I think there's a lot more running around out there. We've also heard Varren"
"And they have air support" the Medic said with a shake of his head as he stood up and checked his side arm to see that it was still functional "A shuttle had dropped off the Krogan and Vorcha that breached this place. They probably have more and are what's keeping the Kodiak from making any sort of runs to us"
"Assuming they haven't shot it out of the sky already" Jane thought as she considered that may have been the reason why she couldn't raise the pilots in the first place.
Though a shuttle getting blown up in the sky would've still been noticeable.
"It doesn't matter" Jane said with a shake of her head as she glanced at what remained of her squad "We fall back to the rendezvous, hunker down. With luck, our pilots were able to et off some sort of distress signal back to the Einstein"
"And if they didn't?" one of the two remaining Marines asked with slumped shoulders.
"Than we improvise" Jane said before she reached for her lower back and removed her Katana Shotgun and handed it to her squad's medic before she made her way to the barracks entrance and risked a glance outside.
The entire compound seemed to be on fire along it's perimeter with black smoke and embers filling the sky. She could make out several Krogan moving through the soot and taking up firing positions on her team's location while a squad's worth of Vorcha laid spread out on the ground, dead. Jane shook her head at the casual disregard the Krogan had for their Vorcha underlings though another part of her couldn't help but admit that it was a sound strategy in a brutal sense.
Tire her anx her men out with the Vorcha, than the Krogan come in and finish them off, even though they might be more than capable of doing so on their own.
'At least they didn't send in the Varren' Jane thought before she pulled away from the door and glanced at the last three survivors of her squad "We're gonna have to make a break for the jungle. If we stay here, the Krogan will just keep throwing Vorcha at us until they either kill us all or they just decide the hell with it and bring this place down on top of us"
"Long walk to the jungle ma'am" the medic said with an audible gulp in his voice "And it's on fire"
"Believe me, a run through a burning jungle is preferable to being taken alive by either Vorcha or Krogan mercs out for blood" Jane said in a grim tone as she signaled for the two Marines to stack up behind her "On my signal, move"
Jane and her squad stood there for several moments in silence as several Vorcha, led by a Krogan in green and yellow armor, slowly approached the barracks building. Jane bit her lip as she began to channel her Biotics around her before unleashing it in a powerful blast towards the door just as the first Vorcha stepped through.
The aliens went flying back, letting out yelps of pain and surprise before they were quickly silenced by Jane and her squad as they rushed from the now destroyed doorway and gunned down any Vorcha still left standing. The Krogan that was leading the squad was knocked down and was just beginning to climb back to it's feet before Jane and one of the Marines fired a long concentrated burst at it's head, shredding it to a bloodied pulp.
The Krogan's now headless body slumped forward and fell with a thud as more Vorcha began to emerge from the compounds clouds of black smoke like some sort of demented specters. Jane turned her attention towards the emerging Vorcha and fired short controlled bursts at the mercifully more fragile aliens while her squad made a run towards the compound's least enflamed sector.
"Keep an eye out for any shuttles that brought these guys here-" Jane shouted as she turned to follow after her men before they were suddenly engulfed in a powerful Biotic explosion that sent the Lieutenant Commander flying back.
Jane let out a pained yelp as her body skipped across the ground, her armor doing little to cushion each impact. She could fell parts of her damaged armor had punctured a few areas of her body, nothing life threatening, but enough to let the human know that she'll need extensive medical treatment when this is over.
'Assuming I'm even still alive by than... fuck, what I wouldn't do for a Krogan's redundancy nervous system' Jane thought with a pained groan as she laid on the ground, blood filling her mouth and her vision slightly blurry as she slowly forced herself up into a kneeling position.
Jane saw that her rifle laid only a few feet away from her and quickly crawled across the torn up ground towards it. Once the weapon was back in her hands, Jane looked towards where the remnants of her squad was only moments ago, only to see a crater, scorched from the sheer intensity of the Dark Energy that was used to rupture it, being all that was left of her men.
Jane's jaw locked as she forced herself back to her feet and looked around for signs of the Biotic bastard that killed the last of her men only to see a lone Krogan, his body glowing with the familiar Biotic flare, casually approaching her while reloading a rocket launcher in his hands.
"Your a tough one" the Krogan grinned darkly at her as he brought up the loaded heavy weapon "I can see why they wanted you dead"
"Go fuck yourself you sterilized newt" Jane bit out towards the smirking Krogan.
The Krogan growled at this before he pulled the trigger and fired the missile towards the N7 as she was bringing up her rifle in the alien's direction. The last thing Jane saw was the ground before her going up in fire before the force of the explosion sent her flying back into the very crater that was once her squad.
Than nothing.
...
Six days later...
...
"So you have no idea where the colonists are?" the woman across from Jane said in a neutral tone, beside her stood Lieutenant Commander Allen, staring straight ahead with a vacant look on his face, though his eyes seemed a little cold.
Jane knew Allen wasn't pissed at her specifically, more of he was angry at the situation that Jane and her squad walked into and the failure to retrieve the colonists. She also knew that he'd likely be blaming himself for what happened, as a intel specialist, it was his job to ensure that Jane and Ana didn't walk into a situation blind. Than again, Allen had no say or hand in the intel that Jane was given, this entire Op was rushed far too fast for either N7's liking.
"No ma'am" Jane said after a few moments of silence.
Even though it's been well over a week since the botched 'rescue mission' to Yamm, she felt like shit. Her body was still sore from being caught up in that rocket explosion fired by the Krogan and the impact her body made against that crate afterwards. Luckily her armor and it's shields held, leaving her with only a few cracked bones and a fracture in her left wrist that was currently in a splint and a very shattered ego. Still sucked she was up and moving about, against the ship's doctor's orders mind you, but it was better than lying in a bed feeling miserable and getting her ass chewed out for letting everything go to hell.
Ana hummed at Jane's response as she held her datapad up and scrolled through it's contents, mostly data from Jane's Omni-tool and that of her late squad's recovered devices and the woman's own report when she was sound of mind enough to write one "No notes, no logs, or even so much as word of mouth from the slavers that said where they sent them off to?"
"No ma'am, I just think we-..." Jane cut herself off and did her best to try and collect herself.
The last thing she wanted was to start throwing accusations around without solid proof.
"Speak you piece Lieutenant Commander Shepard" Ana said with narrowed eyes.
Jane mentally winced at the tone that Ana spoke to her in, been speaking to her in since she first stepped into this room. It was expected of course, she was in the middle of being railed out in a debriefing for a mission that went straight to hell in every conceivable way possible. Her entire squad was dead, the colonists weren't recovered, and the Alliance now looked like a bunch of assholes to the Galaxy at large.
"It's nothing ma'am" Jane said with a sigh "Just... just... it's nothing. Just angry is all"
Ana stared into Janes eyes with an intensity that only a sniper could ever achieve, leaving Jane feeling very self conscious. The fact that she was in an affair with her didn't help much either, it simply allowed Ana to get a better read on Jane's thought process.
After a few seconds of looking at Jane, Ana turned her head slightly towards Allen, a silent gesture for him to give the two women some privacy. The N7 nodded and quickly made his way towards the door and stepped outside before having it close and lock behind him. Once Ana was certain a fair amount of time had passed since Allen's departure, she stood up and slowly made her way around her desk before coming to a stop in front of Jane and placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Shepard... Jane..." Ana said in a softer tone than the one she's been speaking to her lover for the past half hour "Tell me, what is it?"
"It's just... something about this whole thing wasn't right Ana" Jane said with a tired sigh as her shoulders slumped "From the moment we landed, everything felt off"
"You mentioned something like that in your report" Ana nodded to the datapad lying on her desk.
Jane nodded at this before she reached up and rubbed her temples "The compound, the way it was set up, how the mercenaries got the drop on us, it was too perfectly planned and executed. The pilots swore that we were undetected during the drop, and none of my men or I saw any signs of any sophisticated or advance sensors that could've picked them up before we landed"
"Maybe they were prepared for something else and you just happen to get caught instead" Ana said in a gentle tone as she stood up and made her way around her desk and made to embrace and comfort her young lover.
"Than there's the fact that I lost contact with the shuttle, and the apparent rescue team that Allen led" Jane said with a shake of her head "We hadn't even been out of contact that long to warrant a response, and yet there he was"
"To be fair, he took a squad out to back you up without prior approval only a hour after your team departed. Said that with your luck, you might need him" Ana said in attempt to add some lightheartedness to this whole debacle.
"...I think we were set up, intentionally" Jane said with a dark look in her eye that stopped Ana only a meter away.
"Set up?" Ana said with a furrowed brow "What do you mean?"
"That someone intentionally fed us bad information about what we were up against" Jane said as her hands slowly tightened into fists as the screams of her men over the radio began to filter through her mind "That the mercenaries knew we were coming and knew exactly how to hit us. They lured us in, waited until we were in one place, than hit us with overwhelming force"
"Who or why would someone set you and your squad up Jane?" Ana asked with a raised brow.
"Wish I could tell you Ana" Jane said with a tired sigh "But this was more than just a simple 'intel fucked up', I just know it"
Ana's eyes narrowed in thought at this "I see..."
The two women stood there for a few moments in heavy silence, Jane gazing at some unspecific point on Ana's chest while Ana herself stared at the woman before her with a unblinking gaze that only a sniper could ever pull off. After some time had passed, Ana sighed and reached into her pocket for something and held her hand out for Jane to see. The N7 frowned as she looked down at Ana's hand before her eyes widened at the sight of a silver oak leaf resting in the other woman's palm.
"W-What... what is that?" Jane said as she slowly looked up towards Ana's face.
"You impressed a certain number of people back at Arcturus" Ana said as she kept her hand out and waited for Jane to take the rank insignia out of her hand "Captain Gregor and I were hoping to make this a big thing when you and your people got back from what we hoped would be a very successful mission but... well we figured it'd be bad taste to hold a big ceremony for you after what's happened"
Jane still made no move to take the rank from Ana's hand, her mind still whirling. She was honestly expecting to top out at just Lieutenant Commander before retiring after this tour and wait for Ana's divorce to finalize and find somewhere in the colonies to settle down.
"I... I can't... Ana, I can't take that" Jane shook her head as she stepped away "Not after what's happened"
"Jane..." Ana said as she stepped closer to the Mindoirian and gently took her hand and brought it up and placed the rank insignia in it before she reached up and cupped Jane's face "What happened wasn't your fault"
"Tell that to the ten families I'll have to inform" Jane bit out with obvious bitterness.
"You know you don't have to" Ana sighed as Jane reached up and removed her hand from her face and turned to leave.
"My people, my responsibility" Jane said in a quiet voice with a brief glance thrown back towards Ana before she headed for the door.
Ana watched Jane step through the parting doors, just narrowly managing to miss running into Allen, and turned towards the direction of her quarters before the doors re-sealed themselves. With a sigh, Ana went and sat back down at her desk and stared at the door in total silence for several long minutes before she finally tore her gaze away and directed it towards her private terminal. She bit her lip as she stared at the holographic screen before she took a deep breath and hit the 'unmute' option before leaning back in her seat as a voice emanated from the terminal.
"Lieutenant Commander- sorry, I meant Commander Shepard, continues to impress..." the voice said, male, voice given a slight electronic blanket to make trying to match it with another next to near impossible "Few can walk out of what she's gone through and still maintain their sense of self control"
"I'm happy to hear traumatizing Shepard meets your standards" Ana snapped at the terminal, already imagining the smug grin on the man's face before taking a drag from those wretched cigarettes' of his or perhaps throwing back a shot of whatever drink he usually fills his glasses with.
She was no innocent in this either, she knowingly sent Jane into that trap, knowing that her men would more than likely perish and leave the newly minted commander even more mentally scarred than she already was...
"I take no pleasure in this Captain, but if we want humanity to ascend to it's rightful place in the Galaxy, we need strong soldiers like Shepard leading us there. And we have to make her ready for the trials to come" the man on the other end of the line said "Unfortunately with her promotion, she'll be transferred to another command and away from you. I'll see to it that she's moved to Rear Admiral Mikhailovich's command. His own views, while not entirely in line with our own, will help further ensure Commander Shepard's line of thinking will slowly align with ours"
And with that, the call ended, leaving Ana to her thoughts.
...
And done.
Next chapter, The Spider, the Biotic Bitch... and Eclipse.