Mass Effect 1

Night and Day: From Akuze to Earth and Back Again

Chapter 7 – Nodacrux

Ashley threw the brass headed hammer onto the workbench in disgust. She'd just miss hit the centre punch for the second time that morning. She rested two hands against the bench and sighed in frustration. Garrus looked up from where he was crouched by the Mako, but he didn't come over this time. Her work had not been going to plan. She decided she would head up to see Kaidan, he was a great person to talk to when things weren't going well, always knew what to say. Then she remembered he was preparing to go out on a mission. With Shepard. Her jaw clenched.

She punched the button on the elevator and jiggled impatiently as it crept up slowly between the levels. Three days later the doors opened, and Ashley stepped out onto the crew deck, she stomped her way towards the medical bay, and her rage boiled over when she saw the orange light display on the door. Dr Chakwas was with a patient.

"For fuc—" She cut herself off just at the start of what was going to be an expletive-ridden tirade when she saw Alexei Dubyansky's startled expression. She raised an apologetic hand to him, but he was already gone. He wanted no part of whatever it was that had upset the gunnery chief. Ashley sighed long and hard through her nose, trying to get her temper under control. She walked over to the mess. Liara had recently re-introduced her to the joy of a cup of tea, and the meditative state the process of making it can induce. As she waited for the tea to steep, she pulled Shepard's coin out of her pocket and examined it for what felt like the hundredth time. The coin was worn almost smooth, but she could make out some of the details. On one side, the side with the profile of a man, were the words "George V" and "Emperor," the other side depicted a man crouching low and holding some sort of weapon. The word "Zealand" and the number "935" was still visible, but only just. She could only guess why Shepard carried a coin with her that was almost 250 years old and could only guess why she had carelessly left the coin on Ashley's hospital bed. Ashley sipped her tea, furious once more, and immediately burned her tongue.

Chakwas' door light turned green and a moment later Talitha Draven walked through it. Ashley pretended to be absorbed in her tea. But the moment Talitha had rounded the corner, Ashley shot out of her seat and flew through the door of the med bay.

"Doc, I need you to clear me for active duty." She had tried, unsuccessfully, to sound calm and professional.

Dr Chakwas frowned down her nose at Ashley and raised a sceptical eyebrow. She seemed in no hurry to respond to Ashley's demand, instead she calmly replied, "Chief Williams, I don't have an appointment with you until tomorrow."

Ashley felt herself deflate under Karin's piercing gaze. She must have looked pitiful enough because the Doctor relented and pointed her stylus towards a chair. Pulling the pieces of her shattered argument together proved difficult, the words she had practised over and over in her head fled faster than Dubyansky had.

"I—"

Karin looked up patiently as the silence stretched on.

The med bay was clean and sterile, nothing remained to mark this as the place where Shepard had kissed her. Nothing to show that this was the place where Ashley had chosen the Alliance instead.

Chakwas scratched the bridge of her nose somewhat impatiently, and obviously feeling that Ash would benefit from a sentence starter, she parroted back, "I need to clear you for active duty because…"

Ashley grasped the words like a lifeline. "Because I am going crazy!" She spat out the words triumphantly.

"I'm not sure that that is really the most compelling argument, Williams." The doctor continued to regard her warily. "It is common for people who have been very active to become somewhat depressed after an injury. Your body has become used to experiencing a regular endorphin rush. You need to get that chemical rush back."

"Yes. So, you'll clear me?"

"No, of course not. Your body needs time to heal." She frowned disapprovingly down at Ashley. "There are plenty of ways to get that rush without risking further damage to your leg." Ashley shrank back into the chair and crossed her arms. She didn't doubt that she looked like a moody teenager. "Get in 45 minutes of exercise at least three times a week, upper and core only. No legs, no glutes. Listen to music. Spend time with friends. Keep your brain busy. Shepard has a stack of mission reports to go through. She's been banging on about some Cerberus group and I know she'd appreciate the help. Find reasons to laugh. Stay away from alcohol. Create art. You like poetry. Why not write some?"

"No. I don't… I can't make the words come out right. From my brain," she finished weakly, more than adequately proving her point.

"Hmm. Actually, hold on one moment."

Ashley sat up in her chair, her interest piqued as Karin started opening crates and rifling through them. She let out a noise of satisfaction and held up a small box like a prize. She placed it on her desk in front of Ashley, and then pulled open her top draw. It was a model building kit, containing a spaceship, specifically the Normandy SR1. The desk draw closed, and Karin placed a small bar of dark chocolate on top of the box.

Karin looked at Ashley, grinning expectantly, but clearly found Ashley's confused expression disappointing. "See you tomorrow," she said with finality, and ushered Ashley out through the med bay doors.

"But Shalei. We can never be together. I have my duty, and you have your people."

Ashley looked towards Tali who was absorbed by the characters on the vid screen. To be fair, she wasn't the only one. Caroline Grenado, Jamin Bakari and Addison Chase all seemed totally enamoured with the taurian and quarian love affair slowly unfolding before them. Despite his words of rejection, it was obvious to Ashley how this romance would eventually unfold, that Shalei and Bellicus were madly in love and nothing, not duty, not honour, not even species, would keep them apart. Ashley snorted at how unrealistic it all was.

Tali elbowed her sharply in the ribs.

Addison began to sob openly and Jamin passed her the tissues and put his arm around her for a hug, she held his knee in reciprocity. Tali passed Ashley the bowl of popcorn the humans were sharing before mournfully sipping on her packet of keleven.

By the end, Ashley was sobbing along openly with the rest of them. Tali patted her on the thigh, and they laughed at their mutual silliness. Ashley helped Caroline clear up and then she was alone again. Alone, but wide awake. She went to her locker, pulled out the model and walked back to the mess. Unwrapping the box sent a thrill of anticipation up her spine. She'd made one of these when she was a child, it had been some sort of historic sailboat, the HMS Endeavour. That set hadn't come with paints, and she had left spider webs of glue all over it, but she had still felt inordinately proud of it when she'd finished. Her family had obviously not shared her enthusiasm, because after a week it disappeared from the kitchen counter (where it had held pride of place) and she'd never seen it again. She watched a couple of extranet tutorials and then went to work, carefully cutting her first piece away from the frame.

When Kaiden, Wrex and Shepard returned to the mess, they found her concentrating hard on attaching thrusters to the wingless body. She let their banter flow around her, as they joined her at the table with their food. Kaidan made the mistake of picking up one of her carefully organised pieces. She snarled a warning at him, and he raised his hands in submission, Wrex chortled happily, and Shepard barely contained her laughter. They left her to it after that, talking around her about the mission, about thorian creepers, Doctor Ross and Cerberus' involvement. Ashley was half listening but without having been there, not much of it made sense. She would read the mission de-brief when it came out. Finally, the trio began to wind down from their mission high. Kaidan and Wrex said their farewells and left in search of late shift entertainment. Shepard brewed herself another coffee.

"Chakwas thinks you could use my help to go over the mission reports."

"Mmmhmm," Shepard replied, clearly unwilling to commit. "Let me help you with that, and I'll let you help me with the reports." It was a challenge. Ashley rose to it.

"You may assemble the wing," she said in her most prissy voice, "but you better not even think of touching the paint until you've watched the tutorial."

"Yes, ma'am." The commander offered a mock salute before picking up the instruction manual and reading each line carefully.

They worked through the hours in near silence, each absorbed in the task. The only hiccup came near the end.

"This isn't the right blue." Shepard looked horrified as if they were about to commit some appalling crime.

"It's a kids' toy, Skipper, it doesn't really matter."

Shepard pleaded her case and eventually Ash told her where in engineering she could find the paints. Shepard jogged away, heading towards the maintenance shaft. Ashley brewed a pot of camomile and athame flower tea and settled in to wait. Shepard was gone a long time, but she returned gleefully holding extra paint brushes and a mixture of what she insisted would be the perfect shade of blue when it dried. She had been up to the cockpit to consult with Joker. Ashley decided not to remind her that the fabricator in engineering could be programmed to produce the exact colour match, not when she was so jubilantly proud of her efforts. Then she realised that she couldn't be sure whether or not that was what the pair had decided to do. She wouldn't put it past either of them. Ashley slid a teacup towards her and watched as she sniffed it suspiciously. They worked in silence. Shepard added final details using the dry brush technique she'd learned from the tutorial Ashley had shown her, then held it steady while Ash glued on the wings. They clipped it to the stand and sat back to admire their handiwork.

Shepard threw back the rest of what Ashley had to assume was stone cold tea and smacked her lips with satisfaction. Together they tidied the area, scrubbing at parts of the table that had picked up little splatters of paint. When they were done, they stood side by side against the wall.

She smiled at Ashley, leaning away slightly. "That was fun," she stated. "Thank you."

Ashley fished in her pocket and pulled out the silver shilling. She held it towards Shepard, who made no move to take it.

"Shepard, it's probably precious. You can't afford to lose it."

"I haven't lost it." She grinned at Ash. It was her most smug, lopsided grin. "I know exactly where it is." She told Ashley she'd see her the following day to look over the mission reports and then strode off towards her cabin.

"Fuck," Ashley whispered, rubbing her eyes tiredly. She made her way slowly to her bunk in the dorm room, half-heartedly punching a wall as she went.

Ashley bent athletically at the waist, stretching her arm out to catch the piece of metal she'd been soldering. It took a moment to register the searing pain as the fire hot metal burned itself into the skin of her hand.

"Ah, fuckin' Goddam mother fuc—"

Garrus and Wrex looked over at her. They both appraised the situation and quickly realised what had happened. Their reactions were very different. Wrex roared with laughter; Garrus went to get medi-gel from the first aid cupboard.

"It's a mistake you only make once," Wrex offered consolingly. He looked down at her hand which had already begun to blister painfully. "Humans are very soft though. Soft of skin, soft of brain. Maybe you'll need to do it twice."

Ashley could only scowl at him as Garrus poured on the gel.

She made her way towards the elevator. It was time for her appointment with Doctor Chakwas anyway.

She held out her hand mournfully and the doctor examined it without speaking. Ashley didn't watch what was being done, instead she found herself staring off into the middle distance. If asked, she wouldn't have been able to explain what she was thinking about, only that it felt dark and grey, like when a thick cloud moves in front of the sun, blotting out the light and making the middle of the day feel like twilight.

Ashley was brought back by the doctor's questions. When she related what had happened, Chakwas said, "Oh dear, well it is the sort of mistake you only make once." Ashley rolled her eyes. "It will heal quickly, but you shouldn't try to push it for the next two days or so. No lifting. No weights. The top bandages are just padding. It should help when you try to pick up something without thinking." Chawkas peered at her. "Now the leg."

The appointment was over quickly, and Ashley was no closer to getting back to field work than she had been. The grey cloud curled its way around her, so by the time she reached Shepard's door she felt hopeless, drained of energy, utterly defeated.

Shepard's smile was like the moon, though. It reached through the darkness towards Ashley, and she felt it settle there, a tiny spark of reflected light. She pointed Ashley towards the round table, laden with datapads. Shepard's gaze found the bandage on Ashley's hand and her brow wrinkled slightly but she said nothing, Ashley moved her arm, so that her bandages were under the table and out of view. Her chest ached.

"I'm thinking there is a connection between ExoGeni, Cerberus and Saren. If we can find the link, we might be able to use it to find him."

Ashley nodded. Using her left hand, she picked up the first datapad and began reading the file, and after a moment or two of stillness, Shepard picked up a pad of her own. The silence stretched between them. Out of the corner of her eye, Ashley watched as Shepard idly scratched the back of her neck and then leaned forward to rest her head on her chin. The words on the screen didn't seem to be making any sort of impression on her brain, so she went back to the start of the report and tried again. Trebin is a modest terrestrial world, with an atmosphere composed of nitrogen and argon. Its surface is mainly composed of nickel with deposits of—. Shepard had picked up a stylus and was twirling it around her thumb. Ashley did her best to ignore the quickly spinning pen, but she still found herself rereading the sentence with her jaw clenched. She moved her hands up to cradle her temples, which allowed her to rest her head and shield her peripheral vision. Trebin is a modest terrestrial world, with an atmosphere composed—. The stylus clattered noisily onto the table when Shepard lost control of the spin; Ash darted her unbandaged left hand forward to arrest its momentum and her hand landed on top of the commander's. She narrowed her eyes warningly at Shepard, who smiled disarmingly back at her. Finally, Shepard slid her hand out from underneath and raised both her hands in surrender, leaving Ash with the stylus.

"Sorry," she said. It was her high voice, her totally insincere voice, and she was still smiling.

Her lips curled upwards in response. She made a show of raising an eyebrow and placing the pen far out of Shepard's reach, then went back to her reading. She heard a huff of amusement and felt her own body suddenly relax.

The door swished open, and Liara entered, looking for a distraction of her own. Shepard explained the plan, Liara took to it with scholarly enthusiasm, and the three bent over their tablets. …composed of nickel with deposits of silver. Trebin's environment is relatively mild, but the scarcity of water or similar enabling substances has prevented the development of any biosphere. ExoGeni Corp recently performed a test impact of a single water-ice comet into the surface, the first step of a long-term plan to thicken the atmosphere and introduce water to the environment.

They read together in a silence that was occasionally broken by a question, or an exclamation, or the reading of a particularly interesting section of text. It was comfortable and interesting, and Ashley found herself totally immersed in the work.

"There was something somewhere about a colony that went missing. Does anyone remember where that was?"

Ashley found that the tricks she used for memorising poetry were applicable here as well, and while the other two relied heavily on note taking, she was able to access the information without it.

"Antaeus system, Hades Gamma. It was an ExoGeni project. Here," Ashley replied, and slid a datapad towards Shepard, who grunted her thanks.

Ashley was rolling her neck trying to work out the stiffness when Liara slid her datapad towards them. She had drawn up what appeared to be a sort of flow diagram. She talked them through her findings, simplifying as she went. It wasn't what they'd hoped for, but the connection was now clear.