Samantha
"Specialist Traynor, I am having trouble connecting to outdoor personnel and could use your assistance."
Sam furrowed her brow. EDI is a VI, but she just said "I." That's not right… "I'm working on it, EDI," she answered. "Why are the inertial dampeners not working correctly?"
"Engineer Adams is seeing to it. They should be fully functional momentarily." Just as EDI finished, a low hum reverberated around Samantha, followed swiftly by the sudden evening out of the ground she was standing on. Her path now free and clear, Sam went running, forgetting all about her toolkit as she burst into the security screening room.
"Shit," she let out, stepping into the screen as two very harried-looking, rifle-wielding security officers activated the scan. Chomping at the bit, trying very hard not to actually jump up and down with her impatience, Sam was out of that screen as soon as humanly possible, launching herself through the door and sprinting to the Captain's Yeoman's station.
"Okay, EDI, I'm in," she said, though obviously the VI would know that… Whatever, I talk to myself. So what? Her Inner Monologuer was threatening to be her Outer Narrator, which was fine. Anything to get the job done, really.
Before she could do more than start looking at what the problem might be, however, she was practically tackled from behind.
"Oh, thank God you're safe!"
"Ashley?!"
Sam managed to turn in Ashley's embrace, burying her face in the leather of Ashley's father's blue leather jacket. She was immediately surrounded by the familiar scents of lavender, lemongrass, the leather of the old jacket, and that ever-present tobacco-ish scent that followed Ashley wherever she went, and the relief that accompanied it was nearly overwhelming. Samantha wasn't even aware of just how worried she had been until she was presented with her whole, hearty, and hale fiancée. Taking a deep breath, she clung to that feeling as long as she could.
Which wasn't long, as it turned out. "We gotta get comms up, Ash," the large mountain of a man who had accompanied Ashley onto the ship shouted, breaking their moment. Sam had met him once, out drinking. John? James? José? Ashley pulled back, smiling apologetically as she quickly wiped away the single tear that had escaped Sam's eye for her.
"We got the best comm nerd this side of the equator right here," she said, her voice gentle and husky; despite the terror of the situation, Sam desperately wanted to be naked in that woman's arms. Shoving aside that desire, she turned, shaky, back to her station, pulling up her diagnostics for the comm system again and looking to see what the problem was.
Typing quickly, she got partial communications up. "All right, I have partial access."
"We need to find Anderson and Shepard," Ashley said, looking over Sam's shoulder even though both of them knew that Ash had only a rudimentary understanding of the base code Sam was now perusing.
"I don't suppose you have a military comm ID tag for me?" Sam asked hopefully, only to be shot down when Ash shook her head. "Damn. All right, let's just-"
The ID tag she needed suddenly popped up on a new screen, along with Shepard's, courtesy of their remarkably omniscient VI (VI my arse. She is definitely an AI). "Right. Scary," Sam breathed, but took the information, plugging in the ID tags as fast as she could. Her partial access immediately gave her the location of the two officers, blinking cheerfully from a map on a new screen, taking over the window that had shown her the tags in the first place.
{Take my hand,} Shepard's voice suddenly piped through the console's speaker.
{You can't help me,} a small child's voice spoke. It was unknown if the child was male or female, but it really didn't matter. Mostly all of them were completely shocked to hear it at all.
It also made it clear, however, that her partial access also got her partial communications, meaning they could hear Anderson and Shepard, but not speak back. They learned this by repeatedly trying to raise the duo.
"Bloody hell," Samantha mumbled, completely blocking out even the presence of her fiancée. Now, she had a Problem to Solve. Nerdy Sam Brain was coming to the fore, and her fingers flew as she tried to bolster the connection.
Meanwhile, they were privy to the conversation Anderson and Shepard were having after the kid seemed to disappear. {Every minute these machines are here, thousands of innocent people die,} came Anderson's voice.
{It's bad enough fighting a war, but it's worse knowing that no matter how hard you try… you can't save them all.}
"Damn Shepard and her hero-talk," Ashley muttered, pulling Samantha out of her stupor. Ashley then gripped Sam's shoulder tightly for a minute before marching away toward the cockpit, the big marine on her heels.
"Where are you going?" Sam called after her.
"I'm the ranking officer on board, baby. Gotta go take command and shit," was her answer.
This is real, Sam thought. This is happening. Oh my Jesus fucking Christ, what are we going to do?!
Anderson's voice pulled her back to action once more. Ashley could handle the combat part. Sam had to get communications working again. They had to get Anderson and Shepard. Shepard had saved the galaxy twice now. If they had Shepard on this ship, then maybe she could do it again. Third time's the charm…
It's the third time for the Reapers, too, Sammy.
Not. Helping.
{They hit so fast. I thought we'd have more time,} Anderson was saying.
{We knew they were coming.} Shepard sounded annoyed.
{And they still just… cut through our defenses,} Anderson growled in response. {We need to go to the Citadel, talk to the Council.}
{The Citadel?!} Now Shepard was incredulous. {The fight's here.}
{It'll be everywhere soon enough,} Anderson responded calmly. {You said it yourself: the Reapers will destroy everything if we don't stop them. The Council has to help us.} Samantha couldn't help but wonder what in God's name they were doing as they spoke, given all the grunting and scraping sounds. Obviously trying to get to a landing zone for the Normandy, but where? All her map showed her was that they were in the belly of some nameless office building.
The conversation went on, doubting whether the Council would actually help – apparently Shepard had some experience to tell her otherwise? – but Samantha was now in view of getting communications to work two ways again. A few more insertions of fixes to bugs in the code, and she had it.
"Ashley!" she shouted, then remembered internal comms on the ship. "Ashley," she said again, quieter and into the radio on her collar, "I have them two-way now. I don't know for how long, though."
She didn't even get a response. Instead, Ashley was hailing the admiral. {Anderson, we got you for a minute. Status?}
{We're headed to the spaceport on the water,} he said, huffing now. Clearly, they were running. {ETA three minutes.}
{We made it to the Normandy, taking heavy fire, but nothing Joker can't handle. I- Oh God! They're gonna take down that dreadnought! Evasive maneuvers!}
Shepard's voice cut in. {Oh fuck, we gotta move Anders-}
Sam didn't hear any more of Shepard's yelling, as suddenly the ship rocked to the side, sending her sprawling to the floor once more, despite the inertial dampeners having been activated some time ago. Imagine how bad it would be if they hadn't been, Sammy. Shepard's grunts and shouts sounded in her ear, the soldier obviously being thrown around. It did mean that they were very close to the two people on the ground, though, if that blast had affected them and the Normandy.
Sam was on her feet as soon as the movement of the ship halted enough to allow her, running up to the galaxy map and zooming in on their location. In the 3D holographic representation of Vancouver, she could see the blue blip that marked the Normandy's location. Near it was a ship whose eezo core had clearly been compromised, as it existed as a bright starburst suspended in space. Standing with wide eyes for a minute, Sam only went back to her station when Anderson's voice piped back in through her console's speaker.
{Normandy! We're going to reroute! Do you copy?}
"Yes, we do, but you can't hear me because of this bloody virus they introduced into the damn server!" Sam shouted out loud, actually hitting the side of her console. "The only reason it hasn't taken out our communications entirely is because I think our VI is actually an AI and is combating it even while taking care of other systems! No other VI is this damn smart!"
Her Outer Narrator had now officially turned into her Useless, Angry Shouter. One more step, and Sam would be muttering to herself in a corner about how the code just wouldn't behave. It had happened once before, in university. Her ex, Penelope, had had to email her professor on her behalf to ask for a few more days on the assignment on medical grounds.
Penelope had been taken on Horizon by the Collectors; she was dead now. As would everyone else be, soon, if they didn't get out of here. Sam had no time to go the loony route. So she embraced her anger, funneling it into hyper-focus, tuning out the conversation over the radio and turning her attention to eradicating the virus.
After a minute or so, she had news for Ashley. "Ashley," she said, activating her comms. "They're by a downed gunship in the harbor. They're activating its radio. I lost their location with the explosion, but that radio should have a distress beacon. It… there, I have their location. We're only a minute away."
{On it,} came Joker's voice.
It was clear moments later that Anderson and Shepard were in the middle of an intense firefight. Sam couldn't help but to look up at the galaxy map, watching the Normandy fly in on the blinking light that was the emergency beacon.
She actually rolled her eyes at Joker's, "The cavalry has arrived!" But she couldn't deny that it looked rather dramatic on the galaxy map display as they swooped in and fired on the Reaper ground units…
Not even a second later, Ashley and the hulking marine were sprinting past her, accessing the lift and rushing inside. Ashley made eye contact with Sam just as the doors swished closed. Sam couldn't help the sinking feeling in her gut as her fiancée's face disappeared. Something was telling her she wouldn't see Ashley again for quite some time.
But that made no sense. She was right there.
Minutes later, they were headed out of the atmosphere, leaving their home behind.
Earth. The birthplace of my parents. We… we need to get it back.