Even with her extended vision the dark was a gloomy set of dull grey patterns resembling walls and floor and ceiling. Wasn't long before her resentful steps turned into an all-out run while the gravity of how little time she had to actually do a damn thing sank deep. Her steps echoed into a useless cacophony that she eventually ignored as seconds turned to minutes; every moment in her head a battle of what she needed to do versus what she should .
Can't even save myself ! She argued uselessly. How'm I gonna save HIM! And yet an endlessly bubbling anger squelched them both and set her feet one after the other over and over in staccato. The only thought that even gave her pause was the stray thought of Miranda…
Taking Jack's face in her hands, eyes blazing in passion. Gesturing angrily in defiance when they quarrelled. Head thrown back in ecstasy or pain. The thoughtful tilt in her head wondering just what the fuck what was going on in Jack's own brain and the soft touch of her fingers in an offering to connect and understand. She'd rejected it so often and now, now at the end of everything, all that was left of that exertion was thick, cloying regret.
Too late for that now; too late for anything but the task at hand, the impossible task that wasn't impossible, not if she just fucking shut the fuck up and put one foot down after another again and again and again and fuck everything else goddamnit because just no! Her decision to try even in the face of failure didn't make any sense but who cared because really, what else actually mattered in her entire life ?
Each step punctuated an inner scream coming from a place where the bile of shameful fear met the adrenaline of fuckall and filled her gut with a back and forth churning, swirling tide of confusion. It eventually occurred to her that she wasn't paying attention to landmarks or distances or anything that could, you know, actually help her; so she slowed her pace wondering if she hadn't just managed to screw herself even worse. To her credit she didn't stop, the long strides of her new body eating the distance even while she palmed her face. She was gonna die. Okay. SO WHAT?
Her steps faltered and she put her hands on her knees. "Get it together," she snapped at herself, doing her level best to quiet the bipolar voices in her head while she caught her breath.
Funny how she could meditate and put a plan together only to see it fall apart the first time she got angry or sad. It brought to mind something Shepard had said to her years ago, back when the team had a strat they thought was foolproof. No strategy survives first contact with the enemy , she'd said with her trademark smirk and damned if she hadn't been right, but they'd pulled together and did what they do and came out the other side anyway, so...she guessed that was her new plan, now.
She sped back into a jog and brought to mind all the things she needed to do when facing opponents as large and deadly as Krogan; move quickly, use the environment and don't, whatever you do, get in arm's reach. Truth be told she hadn't had to fight them alone often, but she should be fine...she'd fought Brutes alone and won. Mostly. Tactics provided a decent distraction until her eyes finally began to pick up a faint sense of light and warmth ahead. The throne room was a long way off still so this had to be one of the checkpoints they'd sped past on their way to Roksar's lab.
Jack slowed her pace again and pricked her ears, creeping close along one wall to get a peek at what she was up against. The prospect of a fight this early wasn't entirely upsetting. It was only when she had shit else to do that she wrestled with herself like she'd been doing and a tussle might just be the thing she needed to clear her head.
"Yeah," she purred quietly at the sight of the five idle soldiers. There would be no negotiations or sweet talk this time. Either she or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, verdict coming right up.
Kat was at full tilt now, all her limbs and muscles moving in unison to propel her down the dark tunnel with the echoing clank of her armored boots and her breathing the only sound. Her heads-up showed no sign of the human she was chasing except for the regular and totally out of place human-sized bootprints highlighted before her, but she'd had a pretty good head start. Just a matter of time. And patience. And stamina...the only one of the trio that seemed to be limited. Her lungs burned with more than just exertion, and she cursed the cell she'd been stuck in as well as the damn Krogan who kept poisoning her with whatever atmosphere was outside.
The android's voice crackled in her ear. "Has there been any sign of Jack?"
"She's not trying to hide," Kat rasped, "Trail's clean but I'm not sure how deep she's gone."
"I will come and assist."
"You need to get the hell outta here," she replied.
"I will send the shuttle to rendezvous with the Normandy," EDI stated. "Rana will be safe."
Kat sighed. "Your funeral. What's your ETA?"
"Without knowing your destination I can't be precise," EDI answered.
"Ballpark it," she panted.
"25 minutes," came the reply.
Her brows lifted. The robot was quick. "Understood," she said, then focused on what was in front of her.
When the footprints began to faintly glow with residual warmth she slowed down a bit. The asari said Jack seemed upset when she inexplicably took off on her own and the last thing Kat wanted to do was spook someone who wasn't right.
And Jack… Jack just wasn't. Kat was no shrink of course but if the biotic's stories were even half true there had to be some pretty keen PTSD rolling around in there; and she hadn't even heard word one about the actual war. She didn't know if that made this run straight down hell's throat a bonafide rescue attempt or just a way to end it all but she'd be damned if the next note in her record would say she'd abandoned one of the Intrepid after she'd just been saved by her. Just the same, if Kat couldn't get the woman's head on straight it wouldn't matter.
The infrared of Jack's tracks got bright enough in her viewfinder that Kat lifted her eyes to watch for a silhouette, but before she found one the ambient light began to rise and she could make out the twisted movement of a long shadow against the left wall. An effortless thought bent just so in her head activated her suit's cloak and the pad of her forefinger caressed the trigger of her rifle.
What she saw next would stay with her for a long while. The biotic just sauntered up to 5 armored Krogan, cool as a spring breeze, and they stood there like they were seeing some kind of shared mirage. Fistful of dust to the eyes of the closest and before he could even lift his weapon she'd grabbed it in one hand, the other creating a wall of force that flung him into his companions. She spun the new shotgun in her hands, moving toward the mass of lizard flesh trying to come to grips with the fact they were actually in a fight.
Her shots took down their shields and when 3 of them charged her she just flowed , moving in a pattern that seemed to keep the Krogan always in each other's way. It looked like chaos for a minute, especially when the other two picked themselves up from the ground to join the party, but then one was down and bleeding and another was shouting and flailing as he gently floated up toward the ceiling, weaponless.
The two returning to the fight had gotten around her at that point and though she managed to lash one by the leg to drop his fat ass before shooting him in the face, her barrier went down with a pair of shots...then they had hands on her. Kat was already moving forward for an assist when they slammed her hard into a wall, fists curled in her already threadbare shirt, but the expression on the woman's face stilled her once again.
The blow must've hurt the woman but she looked..radiant. Her lips were peeled in a wide smile and her eyes were calm and lidded. Not bored, though, that wasn't it. There was too much flash in those eyes, a seductive look better suited for a seedy hook-up than a fight for her life. A shockwave pushed them back two steps and the biotic laughed in deep satisfaction before casually gesturing to the Krogan on her left. The combination flared with a loud bang and the soldier flew across the wide hall and into the wall with a sickening thud, leaving only one standing before her.
Jack took a sultry step toward him and he quickly backed away, lifting his weapon into point-blank range. Kat saw her side-step quick as a cat though her hip still caught some hot ordnance when it fired. She grunted but her right hand managed to grip and lift the muzzle of his weapon up and away from her. The Krogan's tiny eyes narrowed and he stepped closer, certain of victory just as soon as he could overpower her; yet to his surprise the weapon shuddered, twitched and didn't move.
As interested as she was about how this last bit was gonna end, Kat noticed the floating Krogan had finally settled back on his feet and picked up a discarded weapon. The bastard had a clean shot at Jack's back. She lifted her own rifle, her cloak melting away as she fired 3 rounds, and both Krogan ate dirt right about the same time.
Jack spun and 'tched' when she saw her. "Come on, I didn't need your help," she spat.
"Yeah? Everyone who's ever said that, did," she retorted while nodding at the dead Krogan in front of her.
The biotic continued to stare at her disturbingly as the dust settled. Then like a cloud breaking, her face relaxed, she burst into laughter and Kat's finger finally left the curve of her trigger.
"Yyep," Jack crooned at the sight of the corpse. "Forgot about that one."
She pointed at Jack's side and the blood so easily visible to her infra-sensors. "You alright?"
The woman lifted her arm and checked it out for a moment before nodding. "Just a graze. Be fine in a few."
Kat's brow lifted in her helmet. "Netics, huh?" she asked.
Jack only nodded and began collecting thermal clips. Her answer explained a lot.
"Have them during the war?"
"Nah," she answered, dumping an armful of clips into her duffle.
Okay, maybe not everything. Kat started collecting a few clips for herself before following up. "Were you injured?" she asked carefully. "In the war?"
Jack stood and turned toward her, head cocked irritably. "Yeah. So?"
Kat shrugged lightly and she said, "Stood toe to toe with that last Krogan. Just wondering how much of you got replaced."
Jack blinked. "Oh," she murmured. "Heh, no. Just some parts. The rest I added later."
Now Kat tilted her head and tucked her rifle in a weapon slot on her back. "It was elective ? Shit, that couldn't have been cheap."
"My uh...ex bought it for me as a gift," Jack admitted, her tone turning a bit wistful. "Said as reckless as I was I might actually need it."
Kat looked around at the scattered bodies, then back to her. "Now where would they ever get that idea?" At Jack's mild look of chagrin she spread her hands in exasperation. "What are ya doin', Jack?"
The woman grinned and shook her head. "Reckless. Capital R. You didn't have to come."
She clenched her jaw and her eyes moved to the darkness before them. "You think we can save him?"
"No," she said after a moment then shouldered her duffle. She looked in the same direction and added, "But I'm gonna make 'em sorry they ever saw my ass at the very least."
Kat removed her helmet, looking at the state of Jack's clothes which while revealing before were damn near shredded now. "Well, they're gonna get to see it again before they die."
Jack reflexively asked, "What?" But looked herself over just the same.
Kat chuckled, "If we're going in there alone we'll need to be scary...but…"
"Hey, I am scary!"
Her chuckle broke into an outright laugh and Jack swore, dropping her bag and pulling off what was left of her top before digging for another.
"What you need is some goddamn armor," she laughed, then froze at what she saw.
"Please.." Jack straightened and put her head through a black cutoff tee before noticing Kat's focused regard. "What now?" she asked before smiling knowingly. "Oh, like 'em?"
Kat assumed she must be talking about her own tats. "You had...full body replacement, right?" she asked instead.
"Yeeaah?" she intoned suspiciously.
"So why do you have burn scars?"
Jack straightened and turned, tugging at her side trying in vain to see her back. "I don't," she insisted.
Kat held up a hand. "Stop. Hang on. I'll take a frame." Jack lifted the back of her shirt and stood still while she caught an image on her Omni to show her.
They looked at it together. From a spot on the lower left hand quadrant of Jack's back was a sprawling twisted mass of what looked like scar tissue climbing up her shoulder blade. It was lighter colored than her normal skin and covered the elaborate tattoos on her body like a splash of pale paint.
"That's... not supposed to be there," Jack said before looking sideways at her. Before she could say anything, Kat felt the woman's fingers sliding over the malformed left side of her face. She recoiled, a curse at the ready but then they were gone, Jack reaching back behind herself to probe where the growth was.
"God dammit," she breathed, followed by a shouted, "God DAMMIT! What IS this shit?"
Kat sucked a breath between her teeth at the realization Jack might be right, the textures were similar. "Wish I knew," she said, then added, "Roksar said it started happening to me after I nearly died."
Jack met her gaze, then her eyes slid sideways in thought.
"You get in some shit before you got to the lab?"
Jack's hand went back to her back, her eyes hooded before she replied. "No, not here. Bit of a scrap, few days back. Wound was right there." She turned and pointed right to the center of the mass.
"Well shit," Kat swore. "I thought it was something here, something about this place." She chewed her lip, then beckoned to the biotic. "Come here, let me look where you took that shot."
She came over without a fuss and Kat turned her toward the sullen lamps atop the guard post for better lighting. As she expected the wound had already sealed and she wiped away the blood that covered the site with a gloved hand. The liberal tattoos were marred by patches and pockets of healing pink skin, but the spots were raised as if something lay beneath them. Gentle prods only confirmed it, the flesh was stiff and hard surrounding them. It was spreading.
She sighed and stood back up. They shared a look that answered her silent question and the biotic simply nodded and collected her duffle again.
"Rewriting our DNA," the marine echoed. "Wonder what the new recipe is."
"Doesn't really matter to us anymore, does it?," she mused before striding off, inserting a thermal clip into some kind of pistol. Kat saw that devil may care grin once more before she disappeared into the dark.
"Suppose not," she breathed, almost to herself. She slipped her helmet back on and saw the Jack shaped hologram speeding up to a jog, so she followed suit. "So, how far is the throne room, exactly?"
"Eh," Jack said by way of reply. "10 clicks or so."
"About an hour then."
"Think we've got 3 more checkpoints ahead," she panted. "Well, 2 or 3. Can't remember."
"Mmmn. They might know we're coming this time."
Jack snickered. "Good."
While the woman was clearly a force, Kat didn't share her unbridled confidence. Thankfully, she had something else to bring to the table. She pulled up her Omni as they ran and clicked a few keys. "Two checkpoints," she said after a moment. "There's 9 Krogan at the next one and 15 at the last." When Jack slowed down to stare at her, she smirked in her helmet. "For now, anyway."
"'Splain," Jack said flatly and Kat stopped to show her the readout. "What is this?" she asked after looking at the Omni for a wide-eyed minute.
"It's a map, kinda," she answered. "My mission was recon. We loaded a couple of Krogan up with tiny surveillance drones which are programmed to spread out and send back layouts, numbers and footage."
"We?"
Kat had done a pretty good job compartmentalizing Bembe's demise but the question broke that box wide open. "My...partner. We were a team," she said softly.
"Got it," Jack said as if she was avoiding the subject. "We should keep moving."
Her attitude needled Kat, though she joined her in a ground-eating lope. "Tell me about your ex?" she asked after she lost count of their steps.
They ran a good bit before Jack shook her head and replied, "You first."
"I don't do relationships," Kat fired back. When Jack laughed she followed up. "What? Don't have time."
"Got time to fuck, don't ya?" she said sarcastically.
"Not the same," Turner wheezed in-stride.
"Can be," she argued.
Kat coughed, then huffed to herself in amusement. "Guess that explains why they're an 'ex'."
"Says the virgin," Jack said without missing a beat.
"Wow, that all you got?" she retorted, "You don't know me."
"Hey I asked. You're the one shutting down the conversation."
Kat reared her head back in realization. "You're still mad aren't you? Damn that's funny."
Mad at what? That you can't get laid?"
"That I asked about Shepard back there instead of you!" she laughed, "You got some kind of a…" She stopped, her eyes getting wide. "Oh my god."
Jack glared at her.
"Shepard's your ex!" she exclaimed and watched Jack have a stroke right in front of her. When the shouting began she congratulated herself. Whatever was happening to her body, it hadn't made it to her wits yet.
"Hey," she added just to twist the knife, "You wanna keep it down? We're supposed to be sneaking around."
"She's not my ex!" Jack yelled as loud as she could, stopping in her tracks and pointing at the ground.
Kat slowed and circled back, resting her hands on her hips and taking deep breaths. "Alright," she gasped, "Who is?"
Jack jerked her head to the side angrily before snapping it front again. "God...Why do you even care?"
Turner took a few more breaths before answering. "Look, I dunno know why you've got such a hate boner for Shepard but…" She held up a silencing finger before Jack could say anything else. "What I said back in the tower still stands. We might have 3 hours left in our fucking lives , Jack. You really wanna keep playing this game you're playin' 'til the end? That how you wanna go out?"
Jack stepped up close and Kat could hear her teeth grinding as she spoke. "You wanna know why I hate Shepard? Because she's supposed to be here . Not me. I can't fix this!" She paced a few steps before returning. "She's the hero! She's the peacemaker...and the second she got what she fucking wanted she bounced!"
"Good!" Kat cried. "Good. What else?"
Jack stood still as a stone, perplexed into silence.
"Get it all out!" Turner said louder, giving her an exaggerated come hither with her arms. "Tell me about your ex."
"No!"
"Yes!" she barked. "They left you, right?"
"What? No!"
"Really? Why'd you leave them? Tell me."
She hesitated a moment, then blurted, "Because she doesn't love me and I don't know if she ever really did."
"Did you ask her?"
"...No."
"Why not?"
The woman went silent.
"Why not?" she asked in a bit gentler voice.
While her head dropped she still said nothing.
"I was...feeling pretty abandoned and alone back there, you know," Turner admitted. "There was no way I was getting home and I had nobody to help me until you came along. I'm right here, Jack, and I'm not leaving."
Kat watched her lift her face, though it was hard to read emotion on a hologram.
"Right," Jack said finally. Kat heard her take a breath and she repeated herself, firmly. "Right."
"I need you to stay focused, alright? You fought like hell back there but only got 4. We've got at least 9 ahead of us in a couple miles and we gotta figure out how we're gonna handle that."
"Yeah," she said with an edge of fire in her voice. "I'm good."
"We don't have a lot of time," Turner added suggestively after another long moment.
The woman nodded and set off again, leaving her to catch up. "You really managed to take Cerberus down, huh?" she asked once she did.
"Eh, with a lot of help," Jack answered solemnly.
"How'd you convince the others to help?"
Jack's head swivelled to look at her as they ran, as if considering how to answer. "Shepard knew what was up; she'd had dealings with them before...but she kinda had to work with them for a while. If they'd just stayed in their lane, I'm honestly not sure if she'd have taken the time."
"Mmn," Kat agreed. "What was the tipping point, then? I'm assuming you told her what they did to you."
Jack chuckled. "The tipping point wasn't any one thing . It was a person. Cerberus stooge who came with the ship, complete with a cheerleading outfit and pompoms. The crew answered to her before they answered to Shepard. Defended those assholes with every breath but even she couldn't ignore what they were really doing forever. When she finally tipped we started getting downright confrontational with 'em."
"Oh yeah," she mused between gasps, "Lawson. Whatever happened to her? I heard she disappeared."
"Yeah," Jack said in an odd voice, "She did."
Took a moment for her to grasp the double meaning. " That's your ex," she said simply.
Jack said nothing and when compared with her reaction to naming Shepard meant it had to be true. Kat had heard plenty about Miranda Lawson, so just how many ways was that situation fucked?
"Your turn," Jack demanded in a tone that brooked no argument.
They ran for a few more seconds while she struggled to give words to what she'd been studiously trying to forget.
"My ex," she finally started, pushing her feelings into an ice cold box, "Was my partner, Bembe."
"Your partner… down here?" Jack echoed. "Damn. No wonder you were acting like a crazy shitbird."
Their shared steps sounded like horse's hooves ringing against the dirt covered stone.
"Hey. I'm sorry," she panted, "I mean it."
"Yeah," Kat answered solemnly. "Me too."
Just then, a familiar voice sounded in Kat's ear and she held up a hand to Jack to stop.
"How long?" she asked, then nodded at the reply before directing her words at the biotic. "Good news," she reported. "It won't be 9 against 2. EDI will be here in a couple of minutes."
"Oh," Jack said. "Good." She took a seat against the near wall and began catching her breath.
"So what's the plan?"
The woman leaned her head back against the stone, her hologram shape looking upwards. "Way I figure it?" She began, "The plan is we kill 'em before they kill us."
Kat smirked, "And I'm figuring the Intrepid didn't look to you for tactics." At Jack's responding chuckle she reasoned, "You're gonna stand out like a sore thumb when you start slinging biotics. Wait for me to cloak and count to 30 before you do. When they look at you, I'll nail them from behind."
"Pegging your kinda thing, huh?"
"Eh," she quipped, "When they ask nice."
They both unpacked and checked their weapons while they waited.
"So, you got Cerberus," Kat mused after a dark and quiet moment. "Did you get the Hand, too?"
Jack sighed. "Only had time for one galactic criminal organization, sorry."
Kat slid down to a seat next to her. "You had time after. They still around?"
She heard Jack's shoulders shrug against the wall. "Cerberus used their homeworld up while I was in prison. If any of them survived they prolly got dressed up in fancy armor and used as cannon fodder elsewhere."
"If," she said flatly. "Probably."
"Yeah, well, I had other things to do."
"Heh, if someone locked me up in prison after I thought they were my family I think I'd be looking for some payback."
Jack shrugged again. "Not that big a deal."
"The fuck?" she exclaimed. "You're not even mad. How does that work?"
"I was mad," she said between her teeth. "But the truth is, they were right. They had a good thing and they were defending that. They could have had me killed but they didn't. They stayed true to their rules even when I was tearing them down. How can you stay mad if you'd have done worse?"
"So... you don't think they did anything wrong," Kat pressed.
"Did I stutter?" Jack spat.
Kat had a witty comeback at the ready but bit her tongue. She'd met a lot of people in her short time in the universe; strong and weak, clever and innocent, good and evil, but never someone so wholly twisted by other people. Worse, while she knew the cult had left Jack... she suddenly wasn't sure Jack had ever left them .
"No," she said instead. "I got it."
They heard the sound of metal feet pounding on stone and looked up in the direction they'd come from to see EDI's hurried arrival before pulling themselves to their feet.
"I am glad to see you are well," EDI calmly said.
Jack approached the android and looked at it for a second. "I don't know what you or Williams think you owe me for this," she began, "But thanks."
"Got a group of about ten Krogan just ahead," Kat added as EDI inclined her head in a nod. "Another larger group after and then the throne room."
"Injuries will be likely against such numbers. I have some medigel but am unsure if the amount will be sufficient if combat is initiated," EDI stated.
"Just keep us from dying," Jack offered. "Krogan don't have a lock on regen anymore."
"Understood."
"Stay back with Jack and follow her lead. I'm gonna cloak into position until we're ready to engage," Kat instructed.
Turner was pleasantly surprised at how this next fight went. It's impossible to get a true sense of someone's abilities from reports or even first-hand descriptions. Jack was delightfully violent and the android smashed whatever she couldn't shoot. The whole thing probably took less than a minute, though it felt longer, and it was the first time outside of ICT that she felt her skills were matched or exceeded.
EDI immediately approached the station the group was guarding and examined the equipment there while Jack just smiled at her under the harsh white lights of the guard post.
"It appears they sent an alarm," EDI said, somehow able to frown in a robot body.
Kat pulled up her spy-drone feeds and sighed. "Yep, the next station looks like a kicked hornet's nest. You can bet they'll be getting backup."
EDI was busy pressing buttons. "It appears this facility is using more advanced security systems than I've previously encountered from their species."
The words worried Kat but Jack started snickering, then pulled out her pistol to twirl it like some bizarro world cowboy. "Is there a joke in there, somewhere?" she asked.
"Yeah," Jack crooned. "They just made themselves hackable." She wandered over to look over EDI's shoulder, who straightened and turned to them shortly after.
"So what now?" Kat asked curiously.
"Bypassing the remaining station should be relatively simple," EDI explained, watching Jack's face with a pleasant smile.
"How's that?"
The AI looked pleased with herself. "I will power down their lighting and communications systems as we approach," she said before turning to Kat to add, " We can all see in the dark."
"Well hell," Turner chuckled, "We just might have a date with Kravorog after all."