Very short chapter this time. Wanted to clear up the Eden Prime aftermath so that we could get to the citadel, which is probably going to be similar in length to the Eden Prime mission, although hopefully done in much less time.
"Shepard, I'm glad to see that you're okay," Kaidan's soft voice said as she stepped out of the medical bay. "Losing Jenkins was... hard on the crew and, well," he blushed slightly. "I'm glad we didn't lose you, too."
She bit back the snappish remark about idiots getting themselves killed for no reason and gave as sympathetic a smile as she could manage with her headache. "Yeah," she said. "It's rough. I'm not looking forward to telling his parents."
Kaidan winced. "That's right, they lived on Eden Prime, didn't they?"
She nodded, and immediately regretted the motion. "Farmers, he said."
"Then they may have made it out," he said with a sigh. "Well, it's been a hell of a shakedown cruise. Our first mission ends with one Spectre killing another."
"You heard that?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, and he rubbed his booted toe on the deck sheepishly. "Remind me to tell Anderson that the med bay isn't as sound-proof as he thinks it is," she said with a glower.
"Uh, aye aye, ma'am," he said. "Still..."
"Hm?" she grunted, rubbing her temples.
"Just thinking. Citadel council is not going to be happy about that. Probably use it to lever more concessions out of the Alliance," he said, half to himself.
She furrowed her brows. I keep forgetting that he's smarter than he looks, she thought to herself. "You seem pretty knowledgeable," she commented, keeping her voice casual. "You a career man?"
He nodded. "I'm an L2 biotic. We're not restricted, but we sure as hell don't go unregistered. Might as well get a paycheck for it. Besides, my father served. Made him proud, when I joined up."
He coughed. "Ah... is that why you're here? Because of your parents?"
"I never knew my parents," she said shortly after a moment. "If they wanted to talk to me they could have done so after that mess a few years back. Speaking of scumbags..."
"Ma'am?"
"You remember that smuggler down on Eden Prime?" she asked, pulling her omni-tool's holographic display up.
"The one at the spaceport transit station that you blackmailed into giving you stolen grenades?"
"That's the one," she confirmed. "I need you to pull the stream from our helmet cams and pretty up the part where he talks about Nihlus and Saren,"
He nodded as she punched in the required access codes to the Normandy's computer database. "How pretty?"
"Well," she said with an evil grin, "pretty enough to get the citadel council to open an investigation into their favorite Spectre."
He winced. "Right. How soon?"
She glanced at her chrono. "We leave for the citadel as soon as the relief fleet from Arcturus arrives, so..." she shrugged. "An hour or two?"
He sighed and saluted. "Aye aye, ma'am. I'd better get busy."
Two hours later, Shepard was sitting at the table in the mess hall with the detritus of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and an after-dinner snack strewn around her place at the table. She'd snagged some of Alenko's migraine medication and taken a shower long enough to bring Chakwas knocking on the door, concerned that she'd passed out.
All in all, she felt at least sixty percent more human, and that made writing the report on the damnable touch-screen keyboard merely frustrating instead of intolerable. She was just adding the finishing touches to it when Ash walked up to the mess table.
"Uh, ma'am?" she asked as she saluted, her voice hesitant.
Well, Shepard thought to herself as she glanced up at the awkward Gunnery Chief, she cleans up nicely.
"Yes, Chief... Williams, was it?" she asked, setting the slate down and tapping the display lock. "Can I help you?"
Ash dropped her salute. "I just wanted to thank you, ma'am. For, well, saving my a-, er, my hide down there," she said. "I don't think I'd have made it out if you and Lieutenant Alenko hadn't shown up."
Shepard waved the chief to a chair and leaned back in her own. "Ass. Your ass," she corrected with a smile. "And don't worry about it. The brass sort of frowns on commanders letting soldiers die when we can help it."
Ash settled on the bench seat in the mess, her hands folded politely on her lap.
She looked so uncomfortable trying to act formal that Shepard had to work at concealing her smirk. "At ease, Chief," she said. "What's eating you?"
Ash's shoulders immediately dropped. "Is it that obvious, ma'am?"
Shepard nodded apologetically.
"Shit. I mean-" she winced, biting her tongue.
"Chief, last I checked, 'at ease' meant 'at ease.' You just had your unit wiped out, you've been Shanghai'd by a captain with enough medals to armor a small platoon, and nobody's told you anything. I think you're entitled to a little bit of foul language."
Shepard wasn't a psychologist by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn't take a doctorate to figure out that the poor woman was likely completely overwhelmed by what was going on. Hell, Shepard herself was still sorting everything out in her head, and she didn't have any irritating personal attachments to bother her.
"Yeah... I mean, I'm a marine. I've seen friends die before. But my whole unit..." she looked down at the table, shaking her head slowly before looking up again. "And you never get used to seeing dead civilians. Still, it would have been a whole lot worse if you hadn't shown up, ma'am."
"You helped," she said. "We cleared those bombs without about three minutes to spare, remember? If we had to guess our way to the spaceport, those bombs could have easily glassed the colony." Not to mention the beacon... and if the message in that thing means what I think it does, you might have just helped save the entire galaxy.
We'll just skip out on mentioning that, though.
"I guess," Ashley said. "I still feel a little guilty being here, though. I heard about Jenkins..."
"He was a good soldier," lies "and will be missed," more lies "but you did well, Williams. The Captain's not one to offer positions out of pity." even more lies.
It's a good thing people don't tell the truth more often, Shepard thought to herself. If they did, we'd be too busy taking offense at each other to bother inventing fire, let alone discovering spaceflight.
She reached across the table and clapped the woman on the shoulder. "Welcome aboard the Normandy," she said. "I'd give you the full tour, but I've got to get this sent out before we jump."
Ashley looked up, her expression alarmed. "We're leaving? What about Eden Prime?"
"Nobody told you?" Shepard asked, and Ashley shook her head. "We're heading out as soon as the relief force from Arcturus arrives."
"Where are we going?"
Shepard grinned. "Need to go tell the Citadel Council that their poster boy isn't as great as he seems."
Shepard felt the telltale rush of dizziness as the Normandy's mass effect core powered up from stationkeeping to full. Relief fleet must have arrived, she thought as she gripped the railing on the stairway.
"Hey, Commander," Joker called as she walked up, the cabin windows showing nothing but cloud. "I'm sure we could arrange to move your pillow into the shower if you'd like. Seeing as, yannow, you seem to be taking up residence there and all that,"
Shepard grinned. It had been a surprise at first, but the pilot's gentle (or not so gentle) teasing had grown on her, and she actually enjoyed the verbal sparring matches that had become a staple of their interactions.
"If we used that as a metric, Joker, you ought to be looking into a job as a cameraman for porn instead of piloting," she replied. "At least, if media you leave on the displays here is anything to go by."
"Gotta go for the low-hanging fruit," he said, weakly lifting his arms in exasperation. "You forget to lock your screen one time and nobody lets you hear the end of it, I swear."
"Not when you make it so easy," she said with a chuckle.
"So, Commander, did you come up here for a reason, or just to torment the cripple?"
Her smile faded. "Yeah. What's our ETA to the citadel?"
He glanced down a rapidly scrolling list of numbers. "We're about six hours shifted from citadel time," he said, "so there's not a lot of local traffic. Call it fifteen minutes to the edge of the system and maybe an hour or so until we dock?"
"Right. Thanks, Joker," she said.
"Uhuh," he grunted.
One last thing to do before I rack out, then, she thought as she walked down from the cockpit.
"Sir?" she said, knocking on the doorframe leading to the room that doubled as Anderson's private quarters and his office.
"Come in," the captain's voice called.
"I have the mission report done," she said, lifting the data slate for emphasis. "Figured you might want to give it a read before I put it in the message queue to the Alliance."
He nodded and reached up from the desk to take the slate from her, thumbing through the document. "Pretty sparse report, Commander," he said.
She shrugged. "I'm not about to put conjecture in a mission report. If someone asks what I think, I'll tell them, but with my..." she glanced over her shoulder, making sure nobody was listening, "unique circumstances they prefer if I keep my reports dry."
"I understand," he said with a sigh. "This all looks in order. I'll add it to Alenko's presentation. Hopefully Udina will be able to get us an audience with the Council quickly."
She tilted her head at him. "Is there usually a delay?" she asked, and he responded with a bitter laugh.
"Yes. Months, usually, although emergencies can sometimes make it in with only a weeks' notice, if they're serious enough. The Council is busy. No, our best bet is to try to find someone with an appointment and ask for their slot."
Shepard looked at him incredulously. "And how many bribes will that take?"
"Too many," he said with another sigh. "Udina hates it when I push for things."
He set the slate down on top of several others that were piling up on the corner of his desk. "Thanks for finishing that promptly, Shepard, I know you must be dead on your feet."
She nodded. "If that's all you needed, sir, I'm going to get a nap so I'm on something resembling citadel time."
He rubbed his eyes. "Sounds like a plan," he said. "I'll see you in a few hours, Shepard."
She offered a quick salute. "Yes, sir."
Next time: The citadel!