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As Shepard reached the skycar lot, she saw a familiar figure with the blue glow of activated biotics surrounding him in the act of throwing two mercs across the room. They landed against a wall and slid down, effectively out of commission as Kaidan turned to her. "It sounds like you've had a bad day, Shepard."
"You could say that," she conceded, lowering her weapon and crossing the room to lean her head on his shoulder. "It's damn good to see you."
"Same." His hand cupped the back of her head, holding her there against him for a moment, before letting go. "Here." He handed her a tube of medi-gel, which Shepard took gratefully. "Let's get out of here."
"As soon as possible, please. There should be a C-Sec shuttle arriving any minute."
"The landing pad's over there, but it's behind a locked gate."
She sighed. Nothing was ever simple. "Let's look for a control panel."
Kaidan led the way to the office, which was also locked. Shepard prepared to kick the door in, finding some satisfaction in the idea, but Kaidan held up a hand to wait and tapped on the glass instead. "Can you open the gate?"
The volus crouched inside did so. "Please leave."
"Happy to," Shepard said, frowning at Kaidan. "I could've done that."
He nodded, but didn't look convinced. "So what happened? You fell through the fish tank?"
"We'll talk about it later."
He sighed. "Such a shame. It's one of my favorites."
"We'll talk about it later," Shepard snapped.
Kaidan eyed her pants and shirt, which had rips in some interesting places after her fall. "Nice outfit, though. You get that dressed up just for Joker?" She glared at him, and he held up his hands, grinning. "We'll talk about it later. Right."
As they reached the landing pad, the shuttle was just arriving—but in keeping with Shepard's luck today, it was filled with those same mercs blasting gunfire at them. "Who are these guys?" she asked no one in particular as she and Kaidan ducked behind the nearest cover.
"You want to take one alive and torture him until he talks?"
"Damn right I do," she said grimly.
But before either of them could move, something fell from one of the levels above them, landing on top of the shuttle. By the time the mercs knew what hit them, Urdnot Wrex was drop-kicking the last of them off the edge of the shuttle.
"Wrex? What are you doing here?" Shepard asked as he stepped off the shuttle, grinning the satisfied grin of a krogan who had just kicked a lot of ass.
"Butting heads with the Council over krogan expansion. I heard you were getting yourself shot at again, figured you could use a hand."
"Thanks."
"Anytime, Shepard. Always glad to drag your ass out of the fire." He chuckled.
From the skycar lot came a whole squad of mercs, and the three of them fell into their familiar formation.
"Shepard, we got a way out of here?" Wrex asked as he tossed one of the mercs over his shoulder.
She picked off another one with a clean head-shot. "Wrex, I'm a professional."
"That's not a yes."
It wasn't a yes, but she knew Liara was on her way, and figured Joker must be as well. Sooner or later they'd get out of here. They always had before, after all. "It's not a no!" she called back to Wrex.
And, sure enough, in a few minutes Joker's voice came through her comm. "Approaching your position, Commander. Just following the gunfire."
The shuttle came into view, and Kaidan, Shepard, and Wrex disengaged from the last of the mercs and ran for it.
"Sorry we were a little late, Commander. I had to take the scenic route."
Brooks, in the copilot's seat, looked at him with wide eyes, clearly still jittery from the medi-gel. Or maybe she was like this all the time, Shepard thought wearily. "Scenic route? We nearly crashed four times! Where the hell did you learn to drive?"
Kaidan chuckled, the sound warm and comforting beneath Shepard's ear as she leaned against his shoulder. "Best pilot in the galaxy and she wants to know where he learned to drive," he murmured in Shepard's ear.
"I get the impression she doesn't get out much."
"Well, if she's looking to add excitement to her life, she's come to the right people."
Closing her eyes, Shepard reflected that she, personally, had been hoping for a few days with no excitement. Clearly she had been wishing on the wrong stars.
Joker dropped them off in front of the apartment building. Kaidan looked up at it, frowning. "Shepard, you know someone who lives here?"
"Yeah. I do. Now, at least," she added as he frowned at her in confusion. "Anderson's place. He wants me to look after it for him." She'd explain to Kaidan in private later that Anderson had actually given her his apartment. With Brooks looking on, all eyes and ears, she didn't feel like giving out any more information than she needed to.
"Got anything to eat, Shepard?" Wrex asked. The elevator creaked a bit under the weight of three humans and a krogan, but it held.
"I doubt it. You can look, though." Her stomach growled loudly. "Actually, why don't you order something in? I could use it, since my dinner fell through the floor on top of me."
"You have any idea who those guys were?" Kaidan asked as she keyed in the code for the apartment door. "They were heavily armed and using C-Sec shuttles."
"I don't know," Shepard said, ushering them all in and watching as they took the same open-mouthed tour of the front room that she had. "I've never seen that armor before."
"I can't believe you survived all that. They had guns! And grenades! And those drone things!" Brooks was practically bouncing up and down.
Shepard had had enough of her already, and the night was only getting started. "Brooks, gunfire means something serious is going on. Can you keep it together long enough for us to figure this out?"
"Oh, sure. Of course! It's just the medi-gel making me jumpy. And the fact that I work a desk job and have never been shot at before."
"It does take some getting used to," Kaidan conceded.
"Yeah, then it just gets fun." Wrex grunted a laugh as he added more food to his order on his omni-tool.
"How did you get mixed up in this?" Shepard asked Brooks.
"I monitor data for Alliance intel. This program I wrote—it's really neat, I named it Mr. Biscuits after my cat—"
"Brooks."
"Sorry, Commander. Anyway, Mr. Biscuits detected a breach in your classified files. When I went looking, I discovered everything we had on you was compromised."
"Since when does hacking personnel accounts involve heavy weapon fire?" Wrex asked.
"Think of what criminals could do if they had Shepard's military acccess codes, or her Spectre codes."
It was a good point. Shepard sighed. "I guess we're back on the clock."
Kaidan reached for her hand. "There will still be time for some real shore leave once we get this wrapped up."
She smiled at him, hoping he was right. Time alone with him, here in this luxurious apartment—it sounded heavenly. "We'll carve out the time," she promised him.
He squeezed her hand. "Where do we start? Maybe with that pistol you picked up? I noticed it earlier."
"For such a tiny little thing, it packs a punch," Wrex agreed. "I've never seen anything like it before."
Before Shepard could answer, the door opened. She smiled as Liara walked in—if anyone could hack the door code, the Shadow Broker could. "Liara, you want to take a look at this?"
"Happy to." The asari took the gun from Shepard and called up her little drone assistant, Glyph, to start collating the relevant intel. "I'm relieved to see you still in one piece," Liara said, eyeing Shepard up and down.
"I take a lot of killing."
"A shame about the sushi place. It was a favorite."
"We'll talk about it later." Shepard frowned at her, suddenly unpleasantly aware of the stiffness of her ruined clothes and the smell of fish. "Someone let Joker and the others in when they get here, will you? I'm going to take a shower."
"Didn't you already have one, Shepard?" Liara tried not to smile, but couldn't quite stop herself.
"Laugh it up, T'Soni. Next time I get shot at, see if I let you in on the fun."