CHAPTER 24: BROWN PANTS
"So…that's the true story of Elysium," Commander Shepard finished.
The entire rest of the crew had heard that their CO was talking about the Blitz, and everyone huddled into the crew mess to listen to the raw, unfiltered story. Even Wrex had stood off to the side and listened.
"I…I had no idea, that it was that bad," Liara said quietly, looking embarrassed at asking the question about Elysium originally.
"Or that close," Shepard added softly. "Those parts, and the casualty count, never made the news vids."
It was Garrus who first finally spoke after several moments. "So…the award presentation for you. Is there normally that much ceremony for high honors?"
She shook her head. "Usually not. But the attack on Elysium was all over the news,"
"What did you think of the pomp and circumstance?" a crewman asked.
"I hated it," the commander said with a slight scowl, but then she actually laughed at for a quick moment, the first time since discussing N-school. "I was also…well, nervous."
"After Elysium, you were nervous?" someone said in disbelief. The crew couldn't believe that she could actually be nervous about something – she was Commander Shepard, after all.
She nodded her head in response. "Very. I don't really crave the attention and the scrutiny. Honestly, when I found out, I kinda wanted to just go hide under a blanket to avoid the publicity. I certainly didn't want deal with a live ceremony that was probably seen by half the galaxy."
"But you did those recruitment videos and posters," one of the crewmen pointed out.
Shepard moaned and put her head in her hands. "Did you have to mention those?"
"Recruitment experienced a big jump after they aired those," he replied matter-of-factly.
I wonder why recruitment jumped, Joker thought to himself with a fair amount of snark. A famous and cute young woman asking people to join the Alliance. He knew that one particular poster of her, despite her being clad in full light armor from the neck to the toes, was a rather popular one…
Garrus' voice snapped Joker back to the conversation. "What recruitment ads?" the turian asked in puzzlement.
"You haven't seen them? Well, we…" a crewman started.
The commander's head snapped up and she quickly exclaimed, "NO. You are not to look at those. Ever. Period."
"They're all going to be on SpaceBook. Probably just some brief browsing on the Alliance PAO pages, and they'll turn up," someone commented.
"Please don't," Layla responded with a frustrated moan, putting her head back in her hands as her elbows hit the table with a pair of thuds a split second apart. "Don't make me block public extranet access on this ship."
"You'd probably need to find a new pilot if you did that," Adams said. "Joker's probably responsible for 80% of the extranet traffic on this ship by himself."
"And 100% of the viruses," Ashley added.
"That's not true, Ash!" Joker protested. "It's only 98%."
"98% of what? Traffic or malware?" she asked.
The pilot paused before responding. "Both."
The commander shook her head, finally looking up to glare at the pilot. "Joker, if we end up with viruses and have to reformat the – "
"You won't! I know what I'm doing. And the firewalls will protect us," Joker assured her. "And why are you picking on just me? Wrex is the one that downloads – "
"We don't want to know!" Layla exclaimed to interrupt the pilot.
Wrex slowly looked around the room before he gave them all a wide grin. "I can assure you, I always use protection," he growled. After a moment he failed at suppressing his laughter. His roaring bass echoed throughout the ship.
Nearly everyone assembled groaned and winced at the pun.
"I can't un-hear that," Shepard muttered after she caught the pun, wincing as she rubbed her ears. "So much for needing to eat dinner tonight. And no more trolling, you two."
"Agreed, skipper," Williams said with a grimace.
"Back to topics that won't haunt our nightmares," the commander said. Her expression changed for a moment before looking down. The change was brief enough that Tali figured no one else noticed, but to the quarian the expression was obvious. What was Shepard having nightmares about…was it the beacon?
"Agreed, back to other topics. So," the chief began lightly, "you really don't like those recruitment ads, do you?" She elbowed her CO in the upper arm.
Shepard shook her head. "Well…it was soon after Elysium…I didn't know any better at the time. They're a… they're just embarrassing." She shook her head and said quickly, "Let's move on. Any topic but the recruitment videos. Or the recruitment posters. And nothing about…those other topics."
"What happened after you woke up after Elysium?" Tali asked her.
The commander explained for several minutes. "Basically, they didn't tell me what was going on until I had healed up. Then they sat me down for a couple days and discussed how to deal with the press. Then…" she paused, "then they had me practice the ceremony a few times."
"What?" a crewman asked.
"Yeah," she laughed quickly, and wrung her hands. "I was nervous for the ceremony. Like, really nervous. Turns out I have stage fright. Good, I'm glad it seems that not everyone saw it or remembered it. The actual ceremony, where I stammered a couple times and had that awkward pause, and a few um's, that was with a script and after some practice runs." Her amused look had faded. "I'm biotic, so I've always tried to keep a low profile. Plus I grew up on a small colony, and I'm introverted. So it was a bit of a shock, to say the least, to be thrust into the spotlight so suddenly."
"So, at the medal ceremony, you were scared?"
She grinned. "Yep! Scared witless, thrust in front of all of the cameras like that. The practice somewhat helped through some of the nerves. Despite that, I was actually shaking when I gave that speech. Glad nobody remembers or saw that. But especially for the first couple practice rounds…well…" she laughed. "It's easy to laugh and poke fun at it today, but not so much back then. I really hope that the Press Corps deleted those vids."
"You know the Alliance doesn't ever delete anything, right? Mandatory records retention for however many years?" Alenko asked with a raised eyebrow and a smirk.
She winced a little, though her grin was still present. "I think those practice runs don't count as records…I hope. I would like to think that they have more important things to store in archives."
"Why? They can't be that bad," Joker said.
"They're pretty bad," she stated.
Everyone remained silent, waiting for her to continue.
"Well, you can't leave us hanging, skipper," Williams finally said with a grin.
Shepard shook her head and looked down at the table for several moments. "I may have tripped a bit."
"Okay…just how much is a bit?"
"Nearly faceplanting when I practiced right before the ceremony." She frowned at the reaction from the assembled crew. Her response of "it's not funny" was drowned out by the laughter.
"They better have gotten a video of that!"
Shepard grimaced. "They did. I just hope they deleted it soon after."
"If they didn't, I'm going to find it, and it will immediately make its way to the extranet," Joker proclaimed.
She frowned at Joker. "Only if you want to PCS to Pentara."
"Ha!" the pilot laughed. "Joke's on you! With my bum legs, I literally can't shovel shit."
"Okay, just how exactly did you trip and fall on a flat surface?" Ashley asked.
"I was actually starting to think 'Hey, I got this. I got this. I can do this.' Then seconds later, I trip and just got my arms out in time from probably breaking my nose."
"Just blame the shoes," Williams said.
Shepard shrugged. "Sure, why not. And the worst part is I'm still short when wearing them."
"I would just say it's because you're blonde," Joker said.
The commander scowled at the pilot. "Keep it up, and I will block public extranet access for you on this ship."
Joker grinned back at her. "Go ahead. That won't stop me. I have my ways," he replied as he drummed his fingers together conspiratorially.
Shepard sighed, putting her head in her hands. "Our systems are going to be chock full of viruses." Her head came back up after a moment. "Okay, enough of that. What other questions do you have before we depart?"
"What do you miss most when being on a ship?" a crewman asked.
"Pools," the commander answered at once. "I love to swim, and it's great exercise. My swimming with the associated cardio was what probably allowed me get through N-school to begin with."
Kaidan felt a rush as he suddenly imagined Layla Shepard in swimwear. The swimsuit accentuating her hips and rear, water clinging to and dripping from her lithe, slender frame…he shook his head clear of such inappropriate thoughts. She was his CO; he couldn't think such things about her.
Ashley looked around the table and saw the reactions of several of the crew, subtle though they were. The chief kept the smile to herself – Shepard was completely oblivious to the effect her response had on a few of the crew present, and the reactions weren't restricted to males, or even just humans. She couldn't read everyone equally well, but the subtle change in expression from Liara surprised her.
"Where did you grow up?" a crewwoman asked, which broke the several seconds of silence.
"A small farming colony in the Traverse, before moving to Terra Nova for school and the Academy," she replied after a moment.
Ashley chuckled. "Chasing livestock around in your free time?"
"Something like that," was Shepard's brief, quick response before biting her lower lip. "Well, that's enough about me," she said as she stood and stretched. "I hope you all found listening to someone ramble on about herself at least informative. Next time, though, we're talking about someone else," she said with a grin, though Tali noticed it was forced. "We're heading to Argos Rho soon…wonder if they've given us a departure time." She checked her omni-tool, nodding with satisfaction. "Good, a bit under an hour." She then let out a brief sigh. "There's some sort of PR thing that the media has apparently bullied the Press Corps into doing in a few days on Terra Nova. Whatever they decide, I've insisted they need to provide something for the crew, and that said something needs to include free alcohol."
"Will there be ryncol?" Wrex asked.
"Highly unlikely," Shepard replied.
"Then it's not a real party," he growled back.
"There will be no ryncol," she replied forcefully. "Nobody from this crew will be sent to detox at any of our parties."
"Your challenge is accepted," the krogan replied with a grin and narrowed eyes.
"You're on," Joker replied at the same time as Wrex, resulting in some snickers between several crew.
Shepard's sour look alternated between the two of them for several moments. "I have a myriad of titles up to and including 'Spectre,' but the one it seems I need most with you two trolls is 'Mom.'" She shook her head. "Whatever ends up happening, just please be adults."
"With those two, I think you'll have to worry more about diplomatic incidents," Ashley said.
"Yes," Wrex replied deadpan, to a few more snorts of amusement. "You do."
Shepard frowned at him, closing her eyes. "You two are insufferable." She sighed. "All right, let's make sure everything is prepped for departure. And…" she paused for a moment, looking down at the table before looking back up. "Thank you," she said sincerely, wringing her hands. "There's been some difficulties, and I know the bits of levity helped me," she said softly. "Let's get back to work."
She started to walk back up to CIC, but Wrex caught up with her. "I hear we're heading to the Argos Rho cluster," he half-asked, half-stated.
She stopped and turned to face him. "That's right."
"There's a set of armor that has been in my family for several generations. It was stolen by a turian privateer and collector. He has a major hideout in a system in Argos Rho."
She immediately opened her omni-tool. She owed Wrex significantly for sticking with her despite her decision on Noveria. Well, he had a contract, she knew, but still. "Which system? We'll swing by to check."
"Phoenix. Planet's called Tuntau."
"Hmm…" she said as she looked at a display on her omni-tool. "It looks like we were going to patrol a system nearby. Tuntau's not particularly habitable—too cold and the atmosphere's not the best—but that doesn't mean the geth can't use it. We'll stop and raid his outpost, see if it's there."
Wrex looked a little surprised that she agreed to this so readily. "That'd be…I've been looking for the Urdnot family armor since long before you were born."
"If it's there, we'll find it," she assured him, then paused as she narrowed her eyebrows. "What's wrong?"
"Frankly, I'm a little surprised you said yes," the krogan replied bluntly.
She smiled up at him. "Wrex, you're part of the crew. We look out for each other." She looked back to her omni-tool. "I'll shift the itinerary around so we can stop in Phoenix sooner, though we probably won't get there for another three days or so."
He regarded her for several seconds, pondering this tiny human woman that stood before him. He had never asked any favors of employers…or anyone, actually, and never expected them in return. Most people he worked for wanted to know what his rate was and when the job would be done. But Shepard hadn't hesitated to help him, even though she was a human celebrity and now a Spectre, and he was just a krogan merc. Krogan and mercenaries were often distrusted in the galaxy; krogan mercenaries more so. Well, she knew he still hadn't forgiven her for sparing the queen, though he did understand her point. This would be a step in the right direction to mend fences. "Huh. Easier than I thought. And here I had a whole speech prepared."
She laughed as she gave him a skeptical look. "You? Give a speech? It isn't just 'Do what I say or I will snap you in half'?"
"Hah. That's what I normally say. Or just say nothing and glare at them."
She looked amused. "I rather suspect the latter would work quite well."
He crossed his arms and glared at her for several moments, using his normal intimidation stare.
She looked at him while he performed a rather intimidating impression, even though she knew it was an act. She didn't want to be on the other side of the real version of that expression, with her biotics or not. "Yep. That will work," she stated matter-of-factly, then paused. "I need to start prepping for departure. I'll keep you in the loop for when we're getting close to Phoenix, but it will probably be about three days."
The old krogan nodded, a genuine, honest smile appearing on his face for the first time in a long time. "Thank you, Shepard."
The Normandy patrolled Argos Rho for a day and a half, resulting from reports that indicated geth ships had been scouting the area. The stealth frigate was to evaluate the presence and determine whether a flotilla or battlegroup needed to be brought in.
Commander Shepard ordered the ship to discharge in the Hydra system.
"Decelerating above Canrum in 5…4…3…2…1…"
The holographic system map immediately displayed the planet and the Normandy's trajectory. A series of beeps alerted the crew to a sensors contact. "New ship contact, Sierra Nine. Positive ident as a geth scout ship." Next came the bearing and distance.
"Set intercept at four engine speed," Shepard ordered. The Normandy nearly always used only two of her four engines to limit heat generation, since all four running drastically increased the heat load on the frigate. "Weapons free."
The Normandy's engines roared to life, rocketing the frigate towards the defenseless geth ship. "Sierra Nine is in low orbit, burning hard and accelerating past system escape velocity. Power spike indicates it's charging for a jump. Estimate thirty seconds to jump."
"Seventeen seconds to intercept." The solution light for the mass accelerator flashed green, but the crewman at the weapons console wanted to close before firing.
Using all four engines at full power, the Normandy ate up the distance to her target rapidly. Seventeen seconds later, the main gun fired at full power, the round traveling across the void of space for just over four seconds before hitting the rear of the geth scout.
The impact ripped away one of the ship's engines and vented the reactor to the vacuum space. The ship immediately lost primary power, and switched to residual. However, the drive core discharged from the damage, and the resultant EMP destroyed nearly every electrical component on the ship.
The discharge effectively destroyed the geth scout, but the second shot from the Normandy made it a de jure kill. Five seconds later, a second round gutted the ship from stern to bow, the projectile crashing through bulkhead after bulkhead before exiting the front.
"Sierra Nine is destroyed," the sensors crewman reported. "The first shot hit the reactor and the drive core discharged. The second was through-and-through. Doesn't appear the scouts have much in the way of armor."
"Thank you, sensors. Searchlight on the bearing to Sierra Nine. I want tracks of the debris."
"Aye aye, ma'am."
Several seconds later they had a good picture of the debris trajectories. "COMMO, transmit the data from the engagement and the debris tracks to Fifth Fleet. After that, let's discharge on Canrum, then set a course for Gorgon."
"Aye aye, Commander."
The commander watched the Normandy crew at work silently. Her crew. The responsibility then hit her once again. She was responsible for all of their lives. If she screwed up, they all could die. Children would be without a parent, parents without a child, partners without spouses. She felt much more apprehensive about it since coming aboard the Normandy, since the stealth frigate would likely be at the forefront of any Alliance operations. Her prior command, the Concord, had always operated in a reserve role, primarily used for fire support, always with protection from newer and more powerful ships. But the Normandy would often be the first in and last out. She had to remind herself that it wasn't too different than commanding a team of N's, but the stakes of chasing Saren couldn't have been higher.
The first human Spectre suppressed a yawn, watching the countdown to deceleration to the Gorgon system. From what the commander had read about this star system, she doubted this was more than a passing geth presence. The sensors chief had stated with near certainty that the geth wouldn't stay for long. Shepard was seriously hoping the geth weren't here; combat "close" to the B-type main sequence star Gorgon would put serious constraints on their stealth system. She didn't understand how such a massive, hot, short-lived star could ever develop planets—planets that weren't still molten due to being formed just a few million years ago, if the gas wasn't first blasted away by the powerful solar wind. And from what she had read, neither had any of the astrophysicists and astronomers. Millennia of debate and study from researchers from every spacefaring species had come up with no scientific explanation.
"Dropping out of FTL in 3…2…1," Joker said. They were still over 1000 AU from the star, but given the enormous size of the Gorgon system, that could be considered close to "in-system" from some perspectives. The pilot adjusted the ship's course and speed for the final in-system jump.
The second jump was brief, and the pilot didn't engage the stealth system. There was enough heating here from the star to begin with, and they would have to radiate their own stored heat plus the absorbed solar flux if they engaged the IES.
The sensors crewmen and navigator on duty looked over their data. The senior chief, who had over two decades experience operating ship sensors, shook his head after several minutes. "It looks like two smaller ships were deeper in system. It's tough to tell, due to the extreme distance and the radiative output of Gorgon."
"Best guess, Greico?"
"Ma'am, my best guess is that two frigate or destroyer sized ships were deeper in system. Maybe about 20 AU from us now, could be a bit less, though I'd be real careful using that number."
"Where should we jump to, Chief?" At a time like this, the Normandy was completely reliant on passive sensor data.
Senior Operations Chief Marcus Greico told her where he'd like to be to get the next set of sensor readings. Shepard gave the order, and Joker and the navigator made it happen. Thirty seconds later the Normandy was at FTL for a brief, very low speed jump.
"If they're geth, I suspect won't be long in this system. Maybe another thirty minutes, if that. They're probably seen everything they need to know about this place, and came up with the same conclusion we did."
"A hot mess," Joker's voice came over the console's comm.
The chief snorted and said, "Literally." Then he nodded sagely. "If we jump in another AU or two, we'll lose the signal of them – they'll have jumped by then."
She nodded, gazing at the cluster map for a while. "Greico, Pressly, think they're jumping back to the relay?" their CO asked.
"I'd put a few credits on that assumption, ma'am," Greico said. Pressly agreed as well.
"A bit over fourteen hours to Phoenix at two-thirds, right, Chase?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, ma'am," the on-duty navigator replied.
"Well, let's get moving. Call up Fifth Fleet and say we had geth ships in the Gorgon system about two and a half hours ago. We're heading to Phoenix to check for geth activity there and to run a quick errand."
Shepard called Tali up to CIC as the ship reengaged the FTL drive on a course to the Phoenix system. After several minutes discussing known geth ship capabilities and tactics, they made the decision to drop out of FTL 500 AU from Phoenix to dump the heat the ship had accumulated. While the Normandy wasn't in Gorgon long, the stealth frigate had still absorbed a significant amount of thermal energy.
She let Pressly take the conn for several minutes as she took the elevator. He turned to face her as she approached. "We stopping on Tuntau or what?"
"Sure are," she replied. "About twelve hours out. We first have to make sure there's no geth in system, then we're getting your armor back."
"Thank you, Shepard."
"Don't mention it," the petite commander replied with a smile. "Hopefully it's still there, along with that profiteer…Actus?"
The krogan nodded. "Tonn Actus. Turian bastard. One more request, though: you leave him to me."
Shepard and the ground team had gone to rest for several hours before heading ground side. She had already suited up into armor, though left her weapons down in the cargo bay.
Shepard said, "Let's set Condition-3. Play it safe. Just in case they've been sitting behind a planet, or landed on one, somewhere that our scanners can't see." She shrugged. "Call me paranoid."
"Not a bad idea, ma'am. Better safe than sorry," Greico said.
They dropped out of FTL at 500 AU from Phoenix, then turned around to fly stern-first. Joker fired the engines to reduce their significant sublight velocity from the fast intersystem jump. Then the thermal crewman began to radiate all of their accumulated heat.
The crew was nearly all awake, and it only took a minute for them to reach their stations, though many people in CIC were already there. She hadn't piped the alert through any of the annunciating systems, rather through pings on their omni tools, a softer way to wake up than the booming voice of an annunciator. Shepard was still surprised how quickly the crew reached their stations. She knew they were very well-drilled and trained, but it still was impressive. The crew strapped into seats and secured any loose items.
"Condition-3 set throughout the ship," a voice called out.
"Let's run a quick sim while we're radiating," Shepard said.
"Sounds good to me," Pressly agreed.
She thought for several moments on what they should run… "We've all run the standard and non-standard gauntlet of sims over the past few weeks, so now let's try something completely different. Let's run a…" She paused for several moments, wondering which scenario she should have them run before settling on a snapshot engagement sim. It was an incredibly rare scenario where they dropped out of FTL very close to a hostile ship, but it forced the crew to react quickly and improvise. The crew performed quite well, destroying the enemy frigate with no personnel injuries. However, it had been determined that a mass accelerator round had retained enough energy and punched through the barriers. It caused minor damage to the armor, but the damage was still enough to render the IES essentially useless.
After the heat had been dumped, Joker and Pressly prepped the next jumps in system, which would be much slower, since at full power the Normandy could cover well over 10 AU per second. That figure was highly classified, and the publicly stated number was a much lower "5 light years per day". In inhabited systems, they were under standing orders to not exceed that velocity. Eden Prime had been the exception, and the press had already started to speculate that the ship's top FTL speed was much higher than its stated velocity.
They dropped out of FTL at 40 AU. They didn't detect any targets, or at least there weren't any targets there about six hours ago. Joker reengaged the FTL drive for the last quick jump.
"Disengaging FTL drive above Tuntau in 3…2…1…"
Immediately overhead lights flashed red and alarms blared, and practically every display on the ship flashed red. "Riser! Geth ship dead ahead!" Greico shouted in alarm. "Two k klicks!" A geth ship was in orbit above Tuntau just two thousand kilometers away.
The alarms and sudden shouting jolted everyone into action. "Weapons free! Break to higher orbit!" Shepard ordered. It took the computer less than a second to arrive at a shooting solution, and Alenko at the WSO station fired all of his available weapons at the ship, slewing the nose around to fire the main gun.
"Spike!" The geth ship tracked the stealth frigate continuously on active scans.
Joker accelerated the ship higher trajectory above Tuntau and began to angle "down" relative to the plane of the system.
"Vampire! Four inbounds." The geth frigate had launched four missiles that were now actively tracking the Normandy.
"GARDIAN energized. We're snoozed." The stealth system and electronic countermeasures wouldn't matter much at this close distance, since the geth ship could sometimes detect them on high power active scans, despite the stealth system, since it already had a pretty good idea of the bearing to the stealth frigate.
"Hold on!" Joker shouted. Shepard's stomach felt like it lurched up to her heart, then down to her thighs, as the Normandy used her massive engines and the drive core to perform physics-defying maneuvers. Despite the inertial dampeners that kept the ship and crew from tearing themselves apart, despite the gravity fields engaging to keep the acceleration to survivable levels, she nearly blacked out for a moment. Four more missiles streaked from the Normandy to the geth frigate as Alenko fired again.
"All vampires lost lock."
"GARDIAN splashed one, other three missed." The geth frigate was turning in space to aim its main gun at them.
The ship lurched again and Shepard felt her stomach sink to her feet.
"Spike! Vampire!" The geth ship had reacquired the stealth frigate on active scans and had launched more missiles.
"Shoot then bugout!" Shepard ordered, watching the rapidly increasing power in the drive core to prepare them to jump.
As the weapons officer on duty for this Condition-3 watch, Alenko tracked the geth ship expertly. He ignored the incoming ordnance directed at them—he couldn't do anything about it, anyway—and focused on the next salvo. He would have four missiles available, plus the fully charged gun. He selected a round that would fragment more after initial armor penetration. He noted the active sensors dwelling continuously on the target, nearly all of the energy passing through the tiny point in space just a few hundred kilometers away. The scanners were at full power, and he took note that the ECM crewwoman had every jammer engaged, both offensive and defensive. The combination of the offensive electronic attack, and cyber, just might be enough to throw off their sensors just a little bit.
The lieutenant's mind automatically told him the same information the computer was, the nose would be around at the perfect firing position in just a moment…the missiles needed to hit here to disable the rest of the shield generators for the cannon round to hit…
The Normandy began to point her nose at the geth frigate, but the slower geth ship had a head start due to the Normandy's frantic maneuvering to avoid the missiles. The synthetic ship had not been so fortunate to evade the initial salvo from the stealth frigate due to its comparatively lower maneuverability, and its GARDIAN wasn't prepped. All four missiles of the initial salvoes had impacted to cause significant hull and engine damage. They shot down two from Alenko's second salvo, but the other two should have drastically reduced the strength of their armor.
Despite the damage done to the geth ship, it got its bow around first. It fired its spinal-mounted gun at the smaller, more maneuverable frigate.
The Normandy shuddered violently as if it had just crashed into a dead stop on an asteroid from a high speed. Shepard lurched forward and to the side from the hit with such force that part of her seatbelt tore as she was nearly launched out of her seat, through the tactical map, and towards the helm. "BARRIERS HIT! Thirty-seven percent!" a voice shouted. Just a single shot from the geth frigate took out more than sixty percent of their barrier strength.
Less than a second later another rumble came from below CIC as the gun fired again. "Launched," Alenko spoke up for the first time during the engagement. A split second later the pilot engaged the FTL drive.
They only jumped a couple seconds at low power, less than an AU. "Another jump, random direction. At least 2 AU," Shepard ordered.
Greico set out omnidirectional scans while the FTL drive charged for several seconds and the ship maneuvered to a different attitude for the next jump. Alenko prepared another salvo of missiles and another gun shot.
"Jumping in 4…3…2...1…" The ship lurched as light from the cockpit blueshifted.
"Damage report," Shepard ordered.
"No damage to the hull or any systems. Kinetic barriers at thirty-seven point four percent, pausing charged since we're at FTL."
"Engage the IES immediately when we decelerate. Joker, drift us out of here immediately with the drive core off-axis from our deceleration vector," the commander responded.
The Normandy dropped out of FTL a moment later.
"We're snoozed."
"No contacts. Sensors clear."
"Drifting away from the decel point."
The crew breathed a large collective sigh of relief as the adrenaline surge wore off and the shakes came. The whole engagement had lasted less than a minute, but each of them felt like they had a liter of adrenaline dumped into their bodies during that brief span.
"We're only 2.4 AU from where we fought that frigate, but…it isn't there at all," Greico said quietly.
"So…it arrived less than 20 minutes before we got there," the commander asked, the concern and worry evident in her voice.
Chief Greico nodded, hearing the concern in her voice and having the same thoughts she did.
"Keep running silent. Reengaging would take several minutes anyway," Shepard said.
"Kinetic barriers back to full strength."
Shepard let out a deep breath, realizing her heart was still racing. "Great work, everyone! That was messy, and we got our shots off much faster than a ship composed entirely of synthetics."
The rest of the crew began breathing normally again as nerves continued to calm and the adrenaline faded. "Commander, did you have to run a snapshot sim right before dropping out of FTL to an actual snapshot engagement?" Joker complained.
"Sorry," she said sheepishly. "I jinxed us yet again. Pressly, shut me up next time if I'm about to cause another jinx."
The navigator snorted, muttering something under his breath.
"In my more than twenty years, I've never had a snapshot engagement. Trained for it, but never had one. Until today," Greico added.
"Maybe someone put a broken mirror under the CO's seat when they were building her?" the commander asked.
"You have a pet black cat or something?" Pressly asked.
"No," she shook her head. She took two deep breaths, calming herself for several moments, before asking, "Drive core saturation? Heat load?" She got a response, then paused for a moment to consider options. "Let's drift slowly away from Tuntau. Keep the IES engaged. Ten minute breaks, in order. Have the off-duty crew provide relief during the break. Once breaks are done, we jump away to dump the heat from the engagement."
"Anyone who was asleep is now wide awake anyway," the XO muttered agreement. Several of the crew, based on crew shift, would go take a quick break, then relieve several others for a quick break, repeating the pattern until everyone got a chance to use the bathroom. A few probably needed it.
A minute and a half later Greico said, "That ship just appeared on the passive array. It was in orbit around Tuntau less than fifteen minutes."
The commander had thought about that fact, and didn't like one of the possible conclusions at all. "That makes me wonder if they've compromised our communications. Or was it just a coincidence that they dropped out of FTL on Tuntau just fifteen minutes before we did?" Shepard asked quietly. "And from the looks of it, they left the pirate facility alone."
She got no response from Pressly or Greico, just looks that shared the same thought.
"I constantly have to remind myself just how vast space is. It's hard to believe that geth ship dropped out of FTL just fifteen minutes before we did, in nearly the exact same location," the commander continued.
"I don't believe in coincidences, Commander," Pressly said quietly.
"Me neither," she agreed. "Let's not send anymore transmissions for now. Keep running silent."
The crew continued to cycle through quick breaks over the next few minutes, while Shepard talked with the crew about the engagement.
"Okay, the EM energy from the engagement will start reaching us in one minute," Greico announced.
Shepard brought up several displays to view.
"Thirty seconds."
"Well, this is one way to find out what happened to that ship," Pressly muttered.
"Ten seconds…five seconds…now."
Shepard watched the "real-time" displays of the engagement, looking intently at what happened. "Smooth flying, Joker. You fooled not only their missiles, but their scanners," she commented. A couple moments later she exclaimed, "Great shooting, Alenko!" She saw the bright flare on the sensors as the Normandy had jumped to FTL…and then there was something else, or, more accurately, nothing else. "Did…we really kill it?" she asked after several moments with a hint of skepticism.
Greico looked over the data for several moments. "It appears that way, ma'am. There's no engine power, reactor output looks to be dropping…" He watched the data stream in over the next minute. "It looks to be dead, or so damaged that is it non-functional. I wonder if…damn!" he exclaimed.
"It self-destructed, so no one could salvage it," Shepard sighed. "Again."
"But we killed it with just a few shots," Greico said. "Lieutenant Alenko, that was some damn fine targeting and shooting. I owe you a nice bottle of something for that. What do you drink, sir?"
There was a chuckle from the cockpit. "Just lucky shooting, Chief. You don't owe me anything."
"Rather be lucky than good, right L-T?"
Another laugh from Lieutenant Alenko. "Exactly."
"But sir, I've seen shooting, I've seen shooting, and now I've seen that. You get a nice bottle of something."
"It took all of us to get the job done," the lieutenant responded, then chuckled. "If you insist, though, I'm never averse to good scotch or bourbon."
Shepard opened up the shipwide comm and gave quick congratulations to the crew.
"Well said, ma'am," Pressly said with a nod and a grin.
The crew began to exchange a few grins as the fact of their accomplishment had hit them. In just two weeks they had killed two and half warships. Warships, not just any flying scrapyard that would pass for some pirate vessels. Most ships didn't get two and a half kills over two and half years. Sure, they just had killed frigates and not heavies, but they were fully armed and capable of shooting back effectively, unlike many pirate vessels. By this time all of the crew had cycled to a quick break, and Shepard jumped them out further from the sun to radiate heat from the engagement faster. They went to battlestations before dropping out of FTL, and this time as expected there was no surprise waiting for them.
After the heat had been dumped, Shepard gave the conn to Pressly. She walked to the front of the ship with a bit of a spring in her step after the very surprising, yet successful, engagement. "Excellent work, you two," she said to Alenko and Joker.
"Thanks, Commander," Alenko said.
"Given how empty space is, you can't help but drop us out of FTL right next to a geth ship. Really could've used my brown pants today," Joker grumbled.
Shepard looked confused. "Huh?" she finally asked the pilot.
Joker explained the joke, and Shepard frowned, hitting the back of the pilot's seat. "That's gross, Joker," she grimaced.
"You're the one that asked," he told her.
"You're the one that said it. And besides, you were the one flying."
"Yeah, and I had to bail you out, Joker," Alenko commented with a smirk.
"You're ganging up on me too, Alenko? Didn't think you had it in you. Look at him. Kills a geth ship in snapshot, and gets all cocky."
"Joker, you could have killed the ship yourself. I mean, you did almost ram it. Just a couple thousand klicks away," Alenko retorted.
"Now with all this complimenting he's been getting, you know he's going to become insufferable too, right Commander?" Joker asked as he looked skeptically back towards her.
"I think I can handle him," Shepard responded with a smirk.
"He's your problem when you take him on missions, then," the pilot said.
Shepard chuckled and patted Alenko on the shoulder. "Alright, let's get down to the cargo bay and prep for the mission."
Joker barely suppressed a snicker at the two of them. He found the budding mutual attraction between the two biotic officers highly amusing. He started to wonder if anyone else might have caught on. Both of the biotics were too professional, and both seemed to be too awkward to ever admit they had a bit of a crush on the other. Strict fraternization regulations against dating someone in the chain of command or not, he would have to start to look at ways he could rectify that situation.
A crewman relieved Alenko at the console as the two went down to the cargo hold. "Garrus, Wrex, get suited up."
"Got it, Commander," the turian said.
"What the hell took you all so long up there? I've been waiting," the krogan growled.
The commander chuckled into the comm. "Had to say hi to a surprise welcoming committee of murderbots. We'll hopefully be hitting planetside in about fifteen minutes. We'll need to be quick, though, since more geth could show up."
The krogan grinned to himself. He felt the ship take a hit, and heard the commander over the comm. Eh, ship combat. He couldn't do anything about that. But he could kill that Actus bastard.