What could be one of the things missed in life when your own life is on the line? Kaidan had asked himself that question multiple times since he was forced to leave Gemma's side. Shepard had been successfully returned to the ship, but her wounds were much worse than anyone realized, she was now in an induced coma and Chakwas couldn't answer anyone's questions about when she would possibly be woken up.
The ship had no chance of outrunning the beam from the Crucible, it was using the mass relays to travel between the star systems. Joker had tried his best to get out of the beam's way, but with no help from Edi, his attempts were futile. They had been clipped from the back engines and their mass effect field failed. Adams and Tali did what they could with the other engineers, but the ship fell from FTL and had crashed landed on an uncharted world.
Kaidan didn't even witness the crash nor come to check if everything was okay. If he died from the crash, then he died, his attitude towards life had quickly changed with his love now gone and presumed dead.
Kaidan was currently sitting in Shepard's cabin, he was now acting Captain of the Normandy and her crew, it was his job to get everyone home safe, but to do that he had to get his feelings under control. He sat on the couch, staring at a picture of him and Gemma on his omni-tool, tears stained to his cheeks from hours of crying.
He cleared his throat when he heard the knock at the door, "Major?" Liara said quietly. Kaidan closed his omni-tool and wiped his cheeks clean.
"Come in," he said with a croaky voice. The doors had to be manually pulled open, all the electronics passed basic life support was gone. Liara pulled each door until it made a gap big enough to fit her in, she walked in and descended the stairs, seeing a hunched over Kadian in the corner of the couch.
"I am sorry to disturb you, Kaidan, but we need you in the debriefing room. The whole crew is lost without you or Shepard's support." Liara looked at Kaidan with sadness, she could see the bloodshot in his eyes, he shook his leg violently with nerves and agitation.
"Shepard isn't awake to help," he snarled at her. Liara took a step back, fiddling with her hands nervously. Kaidan looked up, he sighed heavily with his eyes shut tight. "I'm sorry Liara, I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'll be there in a minute," he quietly said as he looked back down at the floor.
"Thank you, Kaidan," Liara said as she departed, leaving the door open as she left. The lift did still work, but with only basic power, it ran half the speed it did before. Kaidan stood up, looking around the cabin before getting the courage to finally leave.
Most of the crew had arrived at the debriefing room, they all stood around the table, arguing and bickering about what their next move should be. The footsteps of Kaidan hushed them all as he walked through the archway and stood at the head of the table. Most looked at him with sorrow, they could feel the depression radiating from him and he did very little to try and hide it.
"Who are we missing?" he grimly asked as he looked around the room. Liara stepped forward to answer.
"Joker has locked himself in the AI core, he refuses to leave Edi's body. Thane has become sick and caught an infection, Chakwas is helping him the best she can and Garrus..." Liara looked at Tali, not sure how to tell Kadian the news. "It seems during the fight on Earth, he hurt his arm. Chakwas doesn't know how bad it might be, but... Tali said that he has mentioned he has no feeling in it anymore."
"Shit," Kaidan muttered to himself. A dead arm feeling from something that happened hours ago only really means that he has no function in his arm anymore. "What exactly happened to Edi?"
"We are not sure," Tali said, stepping forward. "She shut down the moment the ship made contact with the Crucible. I have tried all I can to reactivate her, but she hasn't responded. Her AI core is also down, in turn, most of our systems are."
"Do we know where we are?" Kaidan asked, looking at Traynor, who he could see was visibly tired and shaken up. The previous job of a small lab job she had was nothing compared to her current job on a stranded, flightless ship.
"We do not know, Major. Our guidance systems are fried, we are trying to figure out where we are. But the planet we are currently on is a lush green world with good oxygen levels." Kaidan leaned into the table, a lush green world wasn't exactly what he wanted to know about. They could be just a few light systems away from Earth, or anywhere as far as Omega.
"Get the flight plan Joker took before he got hit, try and extrapolate from there where we could be," he ordered. Traynor quickly saluted and left to get to work. Some systems still worked, but gathering data would take much longer with a human reaction team, almost half of what an AI is.
"What about Shepard? What's her condition like?" The room fell silent as no one would answer, even Liara was reluctant to answer. "Dammit," Kaidan shouted, slamming his fist into the table, "someone answer me, now!" Some around the table jumped at his sudden aggression, Liara finally spoke.
"Chakwas has done what she can for her, but her brain has little to no activity. She will not live long without proper medical treatment, we don't have what is needed on the ship." Kaidan wanted to scream in frustration, but he nodded slowly as he leaned into the table.
"Okay," he said slowly. He could see the tiredness and pure fear of his crew, it was his job to get them home safe and save their Commander. The galaxy still needed her. "Tali, you and Adams get all the engineers and do what you can with the drive core. We need to get off this planet. Liara, James, take all ground crews with you and scout the area. I want to know more about this planet. You find anything; food, water, herbs bring them back, they could be of some help. Someone tells Traynor to get into the war room and do what she can with our comms, we need to figure out where we are."
The crew all saluted and quickly filed out of the room to get on with their assignments. Kaidan went straight to the mess hall, he wanted to find Garrus. The ride in the lift was painfully slow, but he had to try to keep what little patience he had at bay, he had to be the activating captain until they got Shepard back.
Kaidan found Garrus in the forward battery, he was fiddling with the main batteries but kept swearing under his breath when his arm wouldn't work and his talons couldn't grip anything. He dropped the spanner by Kaidan's feet, he looked at the human, looking less than impressed to see him.
"What do you want, Kaidan?" he snarled. Kaidan picked up the spanner, his wound protesting as he bent down. He placed the spanner back in front of Garrus, just for the Turian to drop it again, "shit," he scoffed.
"Garrus, what happened to your arm? You need to see Chakwas and get it sorted." Garrus shrugged his one working shoulder and tried to continue his work, Kaidan huffed heavily and stood in front of the battery. "Tell me what happened, that's an order."
Garrus scoffed at him, he stood up and turned away from Kaidan. "Something happened down on Earth, a banshee attacked me. I thought I was okay, but soon after I started to lose feeling in my arm." Kaidan held his hand out for Garrus to put his arm down.
"Show me," he commanded. Garrus scoffed again but took the armour off his arm, using his working arm to do it. Kaidan bit back the sharp grunt of disgust. His arm was fried, barely past looking like a slab of meat on a table. His hard plating was gone and his blue blood was slowly leaking from the multiple lacerations over his lower arm.
"God, Garrus. You need to get this sorted," Kaidan says with worry. "Chakwas is in the Med-bay. Come on, we are going there right now." He didn't wait for Garrus to argue, already heading towards the door.
The Turian can only sigh, before finally moving his legs towards the door. Chakwas had been working overtime as it was, dealing with the crew members that were injured and the state Thane is in when they saw him was just sore to their eyes.
"Thane?" Kaidan calls as they both stop by his door. Chakwas didn't give Garrus a chance to stand around before dragging him to the bed across from Thane, chastising him as she peeled his armour off.
"Hello, Major," he says with a stifled voice. "I am glad to see you up."
"Wish I could say the same about you. What happened?" Kaidan asks as he stares at the multiple bruises over the Drells chest. He had an oxygen mask hanging over his neck and wires covering his arms. They both heard Garrus hissing as Chakwas pulled some of his skin back to try to save what she could, it wasn't looking good for him though.
"My Keprels have returned, worse than... before," he coughs. Kaidan shut his eyes, this was the last thing they needed. That was Thane, Garrus, Edi and Shepard all out of action. The others weren't much better either.
"He needs Gemma," Chakwas says. Leaving Garrus to rest as the scans and sample bottles takes what they need for analysis. "She should be able to help him."
"... Chakwas," Kaidan mutters, trying to keep calm. "She's not here!" he sternly says. Chakwas can only sag her shoulder and point behind her to Shepard.
"I've done what I can for her, but we need better medical equipment. The coma will not be broken until then." Kaidan leans around the doctor to look at his Commander. She lay dormant in the bed in the far corner of the room. Her breathing was dull, her body was covered in bruises, gashes and dried blood, he could see the light orange glow of her cybernetics working hard to try fix her. Chakwas had pulled the curtain around so Garrus couldn't see her, he was already stressed enough.
"Just do what you can. I've got some of the crew scouting the planet we've landed on. Where is Joker?" Chakwas and Thane both stared at the door that led to the AI core. Edi's body was in there as well. Kaidan nods and walks over, knocking before unlocking the door.
It was dark, only the sound of Joker's sniffling breath flowed to Kaidan's ears. He could see Edi's body on the workbench at the far end of the room, but her normal blue coloured processing machines all ran red with basic life support to the ship is the only thing working.
"Joker?" Kaidan calls in a low voice. He sees the familiar hat move up from the floor in front of Edi's body. Joker looks up, finally turning the lights on with the low yellow hue struggling to come to life on backup power.
"What?" he asks with agitation. Kaidan can see the bags under his eyes, tears stained into his cheeks and his beard was becoming wild as it grew with each passing day. He hadn't shaved for a good few days.
"We need you, buddy. I know you're hurting, but the ship can't move without you." Joker can only scoff a laugh at Kaidan's encouraging words.
"We aren't going anywhere without Edi, the ship can't run without her. Go deal with it yourself, you'll do just fine without me," he shouts with a wipe of his nose.
"I'm hurting too, Joker. I've lost Gemma, now our Commander is in a coma and I've got you lot to get home! Get your ass up and help us!" Kaidan knew he was being tough to his friend, but everyone was grieving, but at least they were still doing their jobs.
Joker looks at him, then turns to look up at Edi's motionless body. "Alright... help me up." He holds his hand for Kaidan to pull him up. He is pulled up with crack sounds leaving his spine. "Shit, I've been down there too long."
"Go see Chakwas. Make sure you're fit for duty," Kaidan says with a light pat on his shoulder. Kaidan watched him hobble away to the waiting doctor, he sighs, thinking how hard this would be for them all. They needed a lot to get home before starvation or sickness came for them.
He had to work hard to get his family home, then he will find Gemma if it's the last thing he did.
It was cold. Cold and dark, the air scent was burning flesh and burnt metal. "Help..." her voice calls out into nothingness.
A/N: Hello everyone. Welcome back to the next book for the Unknown. I've missed this one so much, but having other stories to write between them had taken up much of my time. This story is now back and it's got my full attention. I hope you enjoy the story so far, you're in for a hell of a ride with this one. Enjoy and I'll see you in the next chapter.