Enjoy the Chapter. Have fun!
*POV: Garrus Vakarian
Commander John Shepard was a unique man. A soldier, killer, manipulator, and berserker. Above all else though, Shepard was the very definition of a leader. First in, last out with no one ever left behind. He looks out for everyone and only has the best intentions whenever he works or talks with everyone.
If there was ever a man that was destined for greatness it would be Shepard. People seemed to just flock to him too, no matter their background. His very presence everywhere he went demanded attention and respect. While we were on the Citadel, eyes from every race would follow his movements and I saw it all. The eyes of a sniper see more than anyone expects them too.
Still, he wasn't without his faults. Vastly overprotective in some cases with his subordinates and that could be used against him if the opponent was smart enough or just noticed it. That being said it could also be a strength for him; not in a militaristic way but when it comes to the team I've personally seen him slaughter 8 mercenaries by himself with a combination of biotics, CQC, and point-blank shots. It had been Liara and myself who had been pinned down by the mercs.
So, plainly put he is an absolute monster on the battlefield. A more competent psychiatrist than professionals off of it. A political mastermind, even if he didn't enjoy it, and someone who could make friends with anyone he meets. Which makes the revelation that the man is completely oblivious to all things involving women hilarious.
This revelation has sparked many a betting pool with Torchbearer being the chief operator of every single one of them. Either directly or through a proxy. Concerning maybe but the man only placed a single bet and that was with the ground teams pool, which didn't include Shepard, Liara or Ashley for obvious reasons. The rest of the pools he just held onto the money and made sure no one was trying to influence Shepard towards either side.
Speaking of Torchbearer, Tali had apparently seen his real face, no makeup at all. She told the whole of the ground team about it during a lunch after the mission with the N7s. We had all pestered her about what he looked like but surprisingly straying away from Quarian stereotypes and kept her lips tight. She didn't leave us with nothing though and said he had deep chocolate eyes and a kind smile. Wrex and I currently have a bet on if they'll get together.
All things said though, Torchbearer was a unique man in and of himself. Uniquely reliable and had never failed in anything Shepard tasked him with; even when he should've. Smarter than he believes himself to be and an excellent improviser when the situation calls for it. Surprisingly enough too the man was a natural leader and when he talked people listened, just like Shepard. Nowhere near Shepard's level but he's supernatural so it's not that bad.
Still, Torchbearer's best attribute was his ability to adapt. To be able to be put in any situation and within seconds do what needs to be done. All the while maxing adjustments to what he's doing almost instantly when something changes. It was frankly amazing. Turian military rhetoric and structure just didn't allow for that. You got one job and that was yours within the unit.
Somehow, Kaiden and Ashley haven't figured out who he is yet. If I didn't know they were competent in the field I would've been very concerned about my health.
Just then the bolt that I had been tightening while having those thoughts finally tightened. With how the Mako was built it took far longer than average to tighten or loosen the bolts. Annoying but needed to be done and as it finished I slid out from under the Mako.
Shepard stood right above me as I slid out while he talked to Torchbearer, a friendly coincidence? Either way, they were talking but with the custom Turian earbuds I had on there were no voices. Quickly taking them off as they both looked down at me.
"Yes?"
"Do you have any favors in the Turian military?" Torchbearer bluntly stated
"A couple. Depends on what you need."
"Any big ones?" As Shepard asked, I looked between them both for a couple of seconds and got the impression I was out of the loop on something. Sighing I knew they would tell me eventually.
"One. If I call it in though then I'll need a favor in return," they each exchanged looks between each other and then nodded in unison. "Alright, what's the favor and I'll make the call."
"We're being followed and studied," Shepard started and I balked at his statement and made to exclaim my surprise in shock. Torchbearer stopped me though with a quick jab to my hip.
"Don't." As soon as I regained my bearings, much to my embarrassment that even happened, Shepard continued.
"Small shuttle, probably a luxury shuttle capable of using the Relays. We won't need the favor yet but when I ask for it, make the call from my room," okay, they're being a little paranoid but something like this I agree with. If we are being followed and studied though they may have someone on the ship.
"Aye, aye Commander," I said with a nod and nothing more. He nodded back before taking his leave. Torchbearer didn't though.
"Be careful on the ship Garrus."
"You think they got people here?"
"If they are who I think they are we have more than just this ship to worry about," he didn't wait for my response and just walked off leaving me to digest that.
That wasn't ominous at all. Nope.
*POV: Aedon Wy(Torchbearer)
After leaving Garrus to digest what I said I went over to my locker and got my AR out and began cleaning and doing maintenance on it. We don't have long until we get to Feros, maybe a couple hours. At best we had 5 and that was if we coasted. I planned to get at least something done in that time instead of just sitting on my ass. Maybe a nap in a bit but for now weapon maintenance.
That's exactly how it went too. Everyone else left me alone to do my own shit with only occasional looks from Ashley. She still hadn't figured out I'm Torchbearer and for that matter neither has Kaiden, disappointing. Plus, they were both still suspicious of me which was understandable. I was suspicious of everyone in general except for Shepard, though he was a bit more manipulative than I remember they let you in the games.
When he was manipulative it was never malicious though. It was small things and stuff you wouldn't really notice unless you were looking for it. If anything it was more impressive than anything that he was able to do it without people noticing. It was probably only me, with the exception of Garrus. That guy notices everything, people just don't realize that he does cause he's surprisingly soft spoken.
Not anything crazy like he wouldn't talk because he does, he just doesn't talk often. Chooses his words carefully and only speaks when he's sure. Might be the Turian military training still in him but I'm not sure. He might just not like to talk; Omega will knock that out of him in the future but for now it won't.
I would stay cleaning my AR for the next hour. Disassembling it and reassembling it throughout the whole process to keep it clean and make sure it was functional. It was rather relaxing but that ended when Wrex plopped his big ass down next to me on the crate. He stared at me in silence for almost a whole minute while I did the final reassembly on my gun before speaking.
"Talked to the Doc. Frank trained you?"
"I'd say it was more akin to refining but yes."
"He owes me 10000 credits and a favor."
"Then why talk to me?"
"Cause," he huffed out. "He can repay both by helping me."
"What do you need?"
"My Family's armor. Got 5 places it could be."
"And you wanna narrow it down so we don't waste time?" he didn't bother to respond to that and just grunted in the affirmative. "I'll send him a message to get it narrowed down."
Again he didn't respond and just walked off. I took that as his way of saying yes or maybe even 'thank you'. Either way once he left I put my gun away and made my way to the sleeping pods. It took me maybe a minute before passing out once in.
Waking up an hour or so later, according to Sam's clock, I made my way back to the cargo hold. Shepard was already there and getting ready. He looked at me I got out the elevator and wiggled his thumb side to side, 10 in sign language. Nodding back to him and going over to my locker I grabbed the big case and hauled it out.
Opening it the Predator X armor stared right back out at me and a smile graced my lips. It had all the holes from the ARK Medicinals mission cleaned up but still had some wear and tear on it. My baby was here and it was time for her to shine. It took only a minute to throw it on and with it on I felt invincible. Best shields and armor on the market if a little on the heavier side but it never mattered to me anyways.
Once it was on and I joined the others Garrus, Wrex and Shepard looked at it appreciatively. Ashley and Kaiden looked impassive and Liara looked a little miffed, don't know why. Tali looked at the gear appreciatively, it makes sense a tech junkie would like new armor.
"Is that the Predator X model?" Shepard asked as he took another careful look at the armor.
"Of course sir," I was smiling under my helmet. Best on the market and for good reason.
"I didn't know they had any on the market right now. It's still in prototype stage," that was Ashley as she now recognized the armor.
"They don't."
"Then how?" Shepard again.
"Stole it," complete lie but if it was still in prototype stage and Frank had it then he probably knows a guy who knows a guy and they stole it for him. Everyone but Kaiden and Ashley just nodded at that. They looked incredulous but didn't say anything else as Shepard started the debrief.
"We're coming in on Feros. All contact has been halted from the colony for the last two weeks. However, before communication was able completely cut off they were able to get out a single message saying that the Geth were here. Ai just forwarded us the info as the company that runs the colony, ExoGeni, has been trying to keep this quiet.
Don't expect survivors, two weeks against Geth with next to nothing to protect the colonists isn't a good sign. If we do encounter them get them to safety as best we can but our main objective is to find out what the Geth want here. Must be important if they singled out this seemingly random colony.
As for ROE, consider everything hostile unless it's a race we know. If not you're cleared to fire. We'll be docking at the bay in about 5 minutes so head up to the airlock now."
We didn't need any more prompting than that and moved out as a group. As usual, Wrex had to take the elevator second as he was just too damn heavy. He didn't mind as he seemingly had gotten used to it.
As Shepard said we were docked right at the five minute mark. However, we weren't able to actually get out of the airlock until the decontamination was done. So we didn't actually set down on Feros until about ten minutes after he gave us the five minute mark.
Getting out the airlock we moved as a unit across the entrance and metal skywalk until we got a sight we weren't exactly expecting but I was. There in front of us was a human. He said something about being there to take us to Fai Dan but before he could finish was he was about to say Geth came out of nowhere.
He was dead in the first second of the fight, never had a chance. The geth didn't give any quarter and started firing on us immediately. We returned this in kind. The 8 geth that attacked didn't last long against any of us.
Four simultaneous Overloads went off on a singular target taking their shields down and fucking with them. Two were caught in a singularity from Liara and the only two not hit by an ability were gunned down straight away. The four overloaded ones each died to a single shot to the head from all four who sent the overloads; Tali, myself, Garrus and Kaiden. The ones caught in the singularity got introduced to a grenade from Shepard and were ripped apart. All in all, our first fight on Feros lasted all of 20 seconds.
"He said something about seeing Fai Dan, you know who that is Commander?" I stated as I prodded one of the downed Geth making sure it was actually down for the count.
"Head of the settlement here. Guess they're more resilient than expected."
He didn't expand on that and just motioned for us to move out pointing at me to take point. Nodding back at him I got out in front of the group and started scouting and moving forwards. Surprisingly, Feros was also incredibly similar with the in game one. It didn't take me long to hear commotion of fighting. Tapping the mic twice in two quick successions signally that there was a firefight ahead I started to push forward.
I got there in time to see the geth start pushing towards a makeshift barricade with humans on the other side. Thankfully, the Geth hadn't noticed me and I engaged hitting two at once with an Overload as they were bunched up. It only took two rounds to take them both out and by then Shepard and the rest had caught up, running up when I gave the signal for the firefight.
We took the rest of the 10 or so geth without a problem. They were caught in the middle between us and the colonists and although being exhausted and untrained they didn't last this long on luck alone. Each colonist was relatively efficient and with a fighting force like ours backing them the geth were easy pickings. Hell, the geth didn't even hit me once and I wasn't even in cover. It lasted barely longer than the initial fight.
However, once the fight with the geth ended the Colonists fired a round at me. It pinged off my shields doing nothing. Guess they were a bit more twitchy than anticipated.
Staring down the offending colonist he looked really sheepish and muttered a soft 'sorry'. At that one of the other ones cuffed him upside the head before looking at us and motioning for us to come in. Once we were in the barricade he told us that Fai Dan was expecting us and where to find the man.
Walking past the colonists they were just off. Damn near drone like behavior which you could definitely mistake for exhaustion but that wasn't it. There was nobody just doing nothing or resting besides the dead or injured. The rest were always doing something and always attentive. I know that doesn't sound bad but you would expect that out of an experienced military unit and someone would still be hounding them. Not a group of settlers.
"Shepard. Something ain't right here," I voiced over the comms finally as we exited the pathway the guards had pointed us to.
"He's right. Something is wrong," Wrex backed me up.
"Yeah, I feel it too," Shepard answered, stopping momentarily. "Stay sharp, people."
After Shepard's momentary stop a man in his mid 40s ish saw us and waved us over. Slightly remember the man's face this must've been Fai Dan. Grizzled beard with brown eyes and black hair he had obviously seen better days but he seemed to have his wits about him. Unlike the rest of his colonists who were really just drones at this point.
The woman at his side I didn't remember her but she really did not look happy to see us. Black messy hair going only to about her shoulder and green eyes she had a face that was nice to look at. However, it was covered in dirt and grime. She was probably pretty but with all the dirt and grime it wasn't the best of looks.
"Thank god you're here. We won't last much longer," Fai Dan starts only for the woman to cut in.
"Took you fuckin long enough," Fai admonishes her for her words and tells her to leave. She wasn't happy about it but does it all the same. .
"Sorry for that. Tensions have been running high here."
"Think nothing of it," Shepard said moving his hand in a placating manner. "What can you tell us about what's going on here?"
"Well, we're low on water, power and food. So everything is bad," he let out a soft chuckle at that.
"And the Geth?" I cut in.
"They're set up around the colony somewhere and have something blocking all our communications. Aside from that I don't know anything."
"That's all we need sir. We'll ta-"
"Geth incoming," some random settler shrieks back from where the barricade was and from right in front of us. Fai Dan responded instantly as did the rest of us.
"Protect the heart of the Colony!" Fai screamed.
"Wynne, Wrex, Garrus and Tali. Stay here and protect the flank, the rest with me," Shepard barked out sprinting back the way we came with the others following him.
"Wrex get front and center, block their fucking path. Garrus, get up high or anywhere with a vantage point. Tali, with me; we're Wrex's direct support," I barked out as soon as Shepard left and we all went to do our own jobs.
Wrex barreled past the mini barricade that was in front of us and collided with the geth funneling in knocking a few to the ground before he blasted them to pieces with a shotgun blast. As soon as his initial charge had ended he jumped to the side and into cover. This allowed Tali and myself to hit the remaining grouped up Geth with two Overloads. We smoked the few that had already gotten out quickly after the Overloads hit.
"Juggernaut!" Garrus called out
"Focus Fire!" was my reply.
Boy did we too. Even as the thing sprinted full tilt at us all of us fired our weapons and hit just about every shot. Still, the Juggernaut powered through it all and two overloads plus a sabotage. It was heading straight for me but in its haste completely forgot about Wrex who came from the side and threw all of his weight into the thing. Replicating one of those NFL blindside hits; in other words he knocked the Juggernaut flat onto its ass.
It got three simultaneous Overloads and a carnage round to the face. The Juggernaut let out a high pitched squeal as we blew the thing apart. That wasn't the end though as more Geth came around the corner behind it and it left Wrex exposed and out in the open.
As he tried to return fire I could see his shields starting to flicker and his barrier was already out so it wasn't good; we had no angle to help him either cause he was blocking our view. So I ran forward, grabbed him by the back of his hunch and threw him into cover, diving to the opposite side as soon as the deed was done. He stared me down from his cover but we both knew I did the right thing.
Not bothering to continue the staring contest I poked out of cover and fired upon the advancing geth. Garrus and Tali were already firing upon the geth when I joined and Wrex didn't wait up at all. We poured our fire into the narrow passageway. It would only be another minute of continued fire before the Geth stopped.
We held the position for almost ten more minutes waiting for more geth to come through but none did. At the end of those ten minutes Shepard and the others showed up, they had a couple scratches but other than that they looked fine; as did we.
"Wrex, Garrus, Kaiden and Ashley go hunt for the Alpha varren and the power converters. Last intel from the settlers said they should be close together. Wynne, Tali, Liara and myself are going for the water pump and the jammer. Let's move!"
So we did. Made our way down into the far catacombs of the settlement and found the water pumps. It honestly wasn't all that hard to find where they were. What was the hard part was that we were in a small ass corridor with minimal cover and the geth were already set up. If it wasn't for Liara's singularities I really don't think we would've made any headway until the other group came to support us.
As it stands though she was there with us and with the biotic combos we unleashed it didn't take long to make our way through the corridor. It was still a slow business but it wasn't as bad as it would have been if not for her. Even so it was still a cover to cover business and Tali had to stay back with only her pistol. Shepard and I took point, his shotgun and my high damage AR did all it needed to with the support of Tali and Liara.
It took us around 20 minutes to clear all the tunnel the whole way and when we did we found two of the valves fairly quickly, the third not so much. Took us another few minutes of searching to finally get it and when we did we kind of felt like idiots. We had walked past the damn thing like four times just never seeing it. We all quietly agreed not to mention that to anyone.
With that done we started to make our way to where we thought the jammer was when we ran into a colonist. Called himself Ian Newstead and I didn't remember him until he started talking. Talked about how his mind was clouded. How he could feel the claws digging into his mind and the harder you tried to escape the claws the more they dug in. It was disconcerting to say the least and put us all on edge.
We didn't talk to him long before we left him to his own devices. Still, the way he talked, walked and in general acted it was incredibly similar to how I remember indoctrination working. Or, in the more concerning way, the way TIM began to act towards the end of Mass Effect 2 and the entirety of Mass Effect 3; not to mention his lackeys. I don't like this.
Anyways, we made our way to where the jammer was. Protected by two Krogan they didn't last long at all. Caught completely with their pants down we eviscerated them. Doesn't matter if you can heal instantly if your head is nothing but mush. Courtesy of Tali and Shepard's carnage rounds.
When we found the actual jammer we just collectively fired upon the thing until it exploded. With that done we left and made our way back to the colonists where we met up with the others. We exchanged pleasantries and that was it before Fai Dan showed us to where the colonists Mako was.
The thing was old and slightly rusted in parts but it's shields were operational and good to go. Plus the weapons systems were all ready to go if not the caliber we were exactly used to but like everything else, we would make it work.
We didn't take any detours getting across the bridge, running over several Geth along the way. It was quiet the entire ride too, until we got completely across the bridge. Once we did the radio crackled to life and Exo Geni chatter started coming across the radio. We traced the signal to just before the Mako stairs.
Shepard got out and took Ashley, Kaiden and myself to meet them. They weren't impressive at all and all reminded me of the basic smarmy businessman and scientists. The ones you really just wanted to hit because they pissed you off. Still, I held my fist and tongue even though I didn't want to.
Walking over to one of the people on the computers while Shepard and the others talked to the leader, whoever the fuck he was. The man at the computer gave me one look and asked if I wanted to make a little extra cash. Nodding back to him he sent me some data on where to find his date to my omni-tool. A man who didn't ask questions and just wanted basic work done, I could appreciate it but I was still going to go over that data. Who knows what could be on it.
After finishing with the man Shepard called out to me that we were leaving. Leaving with him the woman who had a daughter, couldn't remember her and I didn't care enough to listen to her. Still, Shepard did and made a promise that we would at the very least try and find her daughter.
We made our way up the Mako stairs and received very little resistance as we made our way through everything. Opened up a door only to stare at an unactivated Armature. We slowly closed the door and backed up and made our way to where the drop down was.
Dropping down we followed the path around the corner only to be unceremoniously attacked by Varen. They were quickly taken care of and when they were, another shot rang out. It pinged off of Wrex's shields and we all wheeled around to return fire only to stop when we saw a young woman standing there.
"I-I- I'm sorry. I thought you were geth," she stammered out.
"It's okay. We all make mistakes," Shepard placated her. "Who are you?"
"Lizabeth Baynham. I worked with my mom here."
"She sent us here to find you if we could," he continued and she graced us with a small smile at that.
"Here, take my ID. You'll need it to get access to where the Geth are," she took it off her person and handed it to Shepard and he motioned to her and told her where to go and to stay at the Mako and wait for us. I, however, wasn't done.
"What is Exo Geni studying here? Why are they giving us the runaround?" I stated walking up to her. She looked increasingly nervous and didn't say anything so I put my hand on my pistol and took another step. "Answer the question."
"We call it the Thorian," she blurted out. "I was the one that was sending the distress beacon. Please, I'll tell you everything but you have to deal with the Geth first."
"No," no one could stop me as I whipped the pistol out and put it on her head, she looked about ready to piss herself in fear. "Tell us what it is." I could feel Shepards disapproval on my back but he didn't stop me. Neither did anyone else.
"It's a plant."
"A plant?"
"We don't know much about it. Only that it releases spores that seem to have an ability to influence people," If I didn't know where it was going already I'm pretty sure I would've been able to connect the dots anyways.
"And you experimented on the colonists," she looked ashamed and slowly nodded her head looking away. I could hear the disapproval in the others behind me. A couple growls and snorts of anger with a hiss I couldn't identify.
"I didn't want to but you've seen the area. It wouldn't take much to make someone like me disappear. I can't fight, I'm a scientist. I was sending drafts though to Ai and anyone I could about what was happening here. Please, I was doing everything I could."
"I believe you," I spoke and took the gun away from her head and back to its holster. "Go and wait by the Mako. If it's gone when we get back every member of Exo Geni will die including you and your mother. Yes, she's alive. Now go." she didn't waste time and sprinted away from me.
As soon as she was gone I turned back around and looked at the group. Shepard wasn't the happiest but we got good intel out of it so he wasn't terribly pissed. That was the general consensus of everyone but Liara, Ashley and Kaiden openly looked mad at me for how I got the info. I couldn't care less but now I was curious.
"Who hissed?" Slowly Tali raised her hand and I was admittedly surprised. "Quarians can hiss?" she sheepishly nodded her head.
"Alright let's move. Throw the ROE out the window, if it moves and isn't us. Put. It. Down," we all nodded at Shepard's words and made our way deeper into the complex.
It was generally smooth sailing the whole way. The confined corridors made fighting a little harder than normal but with the Predator X armor it wasn't that bad. The armor lead Shepard to putting me up front with him and Wrex and we wrecked the Geth's collective shit. My overloads were all on point and when they weren't Tali and Garrus, occasionally Kaiden too, picked up the slack.
It was slower than I would've liked because of the smaller corridors but it wasn't bad at all. The hardest part was when we came upon the stairs where all the hoppers were. Those things will always be annoying but we dealt with them all the same. Some excellently placed sabotages from Tali and Garrus doing most of the work for us.
Eventually, we came upon the claws of the ship with the Geth worshipping the light that was at the bottom of the claws. It was weird. Still, a small and quick discussion with Tali revealed she had no idea about any of this. With no info available we just opened fire on the Geth. The two didn't stand even a remote chance. However, that left us with dealing with the claws. I quickly found a possible solution.
"Do we have enough explosives?" Shepard simply shook his head.
"We'd take down the building and we don't have enough," was his answer but Tali pipped up this time.
"What about the shutter hydraulics?" We looked at her waiting for her to explain and she continued for us. "All these buildings have shutters in case of storms. The hydraulics have too be powerful to keep them in place, they should be able to shear the clamps."
"Can you turn them on?" Shepard asked.
"Not here. The Geth are probably protecting the controls which are probably in the main area anyways. We should find them after we deal with the geth in the main hall."
"Nothing changed then. Let's move," Shepard barked out and on we went with me taking point.
We came across a couple pockets of geth resistance but they didn't really do anything. The couple Krogan groups we came across put up more of a fight but they still couldn't do anything to us. Eventually we made it to where the base of the Geth was.
We were vastly outnumbered and outgunned against the geth but definitely not outclassed. It was a hailstorm of gunfire, overloads, sabatages, singularities, throws, and pulls. Still, with the discovery of the biotic combos on the biotic combos during Liara's rescue definitely helped.
I counted no more than 4 combos from everyone and it was havoc among the geth. Still, with accordance with what Tali had informed us about them, they made quick adjustments and our abilities started to be less and less effective against them. Eventually, their three Juggernauts made their presence known and when that happened I disappeared running back to the entrance.
Thing is, at the entrance there was a little push off that allowed you to get on the rafters. Using that I made my way all the way up to the top. Getting up the Juggernauts were slowly pushing the team as they were supported by the rest of the geth. Acting fast I tapped the comm four times rapidly. Tali and Shepard looked up at the rafters and saw me standing above the fight unnoticed.
Making my hand into an 'O' the nodded in understanding. As one the whole team popped out of cover and poured down fire on the Juggernauts with Tali, Garrus and Kaiden hitting two of the three Jugs with Overloads. Them being the middle one and the left one right below me.
As soon as they dropped back into cover I jumped down with Miss T'kari's knife in one hand my Breaker AR in the other. I landed straight onto the Juggernaut below me shoving my AR into the back of it's head and firing. However, along the way down I reached out with the knife and it plunged into the back circuits of the middle Jug. It too slamming into the ground because of my momentum.
Even with all their computing power the geth were shocked by this and stopped their actions. This cost them as everyone, including me, unloaded onto the third Juggernaut; it died quickly and unceremoniously. After that killing the rest of the geth was child's play.
As we mopped everything up I found the terminal the guy had told me and downloaded the date. Quickly looking it over it didn't really seem like much. Just some data points but they were all about the Thorian, specifically about the spores. I didn't like what it meant and my paranoia was acting up. To be fair, this whole place had it acting up.
Still, with our jobs done and as Tali turned on the shutters at max power we heard the geth ship detach from the building and fall all the way down. We couldn't hear the crash, it would've been cool to see and hear it.
Anyways, we made our back to the Mako where Lizbeth was waiting for us. She didn't move at all when we approached and still looked deathly afraid of me. So, of course, I made sure to sit next to her. She looked incredibly uncomfortable the whole time and I reveled in it.
However, when we were passing the Exo Geni outpost we had found earlier we picked up more chatter and it sounded like people were about to come to blows. Shepard being Shepard stopped and let out Lizabeth and we followed them as a group.
Jeonge, I think that was his name, paled when he saw all of us. The guards that were watching and supporting him quickly backed off but Jeong didn't back off and still held the gun against Lizabeth mom's head. I had my gun trained on his head immediately, as did Wrex and Garrus. The guy was a cunt and we were honestly just looking for an excuse at this point.
We never got the chance though because of Shepard. I was starting to understand why Jack would always call him boy scout. Speaking of Jack she was another best girl, she's criminally underrated and no I will not argue about it, I'm right.
Moving on, yeah fucking Shepard stopped us from killing the Exo Geni prick. What he did do was clock the mother fucker and order the guards to restrain him. Effectively making Lizabeth's mom the new one in charge. All of the Exo Geni workers seemed to pretty alright with this.
She then started to talk to Shepard about everything and as I walked away I could hear them arguing about what was the best way to deal with the colonists. Going to the guy from earlier he looked up from the computer and nodded to me.
"Who's it going to?" I asked simply. Kind of a taboo to do that in the merc business but I had to find out.
"You should know better," he spoke softly to me and I just nodded at that.
"Cerberus?"
I stated that plainly just to see how he would react and he didn't disappoint. He completely froze for a second and peeked up at me away from his computer. Knowing he was dead to rights he went for the pistol on his right. However, I was faster and before he could bring the gun up my knife had buried itself deep into his forearm. In the exact position of the nerve cluster controlling that hand.
With that done he screamed in agony. I didn't care much and grabbed his wrist, breaking it to release the grip on his gun. Before it even hit the ground my other hand had grabbed the same arm and flung him over my shoulder and the desk forcing him onto the ground. He landed with a solid thud and was dazed for a second. A quick punch between his eyes* and he was out like a light.
Shepard and the rest looked at me quizzically and I just shrugged before pointing to the guy. "He's got intel Shepard." Getting the meaning behind the words he nodded and turned back to the guy. Slinging him over my shoulder I took him to the Mako, tied him up and tossed him in the back.
Getting back to the group Lizabeth's mom and Shepard had just ended their discussion and he turned to all of us. I stood next to Wrex.
"Dr. Baynham had devised a way for us to take care of the infected colonists. Non-lethally," he pointedly looked at both Wrex and I.
"And these colonists are brainwashed and will fire upon us with the intention of killing us," I asked rhetorically.
"Yes." was his immediate response. "But with the countermeasure we'll be fine."
"Fantastic," both Wrex and I sighed out at the same time.
"Jinx, you owe me a beer," I said instantly. I got good at that in college. Wrex just looked at me in disgust. Liara, Tali, Garrus and Ashley just chuckled.
Part 2 coming next week y'all. Hope you liked this week's chapter.
Remember to have a great day if nothing else and I always welcome reviews. Help me get better.
1*: there is a nerve cluster right in the middle of your eyes. If hit with a moderate amount of force (moderate to an average man) it will render the person unconscious.