Samantha
Samantha was not on-duty for Palaven. They arrived to the system around midnight ship-time, Samantha cozily asleep in her bunk. Something woke her after only a few hours of sleep, however. Sitting up, she took in all the waking forms around her. Furrowing her brows, she swung her feet over the edge of her bunk, making sure not to hit the person below her.
Suddenly, the ship bucked. "What the-" she started, only to cut herself off in a yelp, catching hold of the wall to keep from being thrown off her bed. The night light strips on the floor flickered ominously.
"Uh… it's not good when the power goes out and you're in space, right?" someone piped up.
Samantha snorted a laugh, albeit quietly. "No, no it's really not," she murmured to herself. Then, louder, she called toward the ceiling. "EDI? What's going on?"
No answer.
That's strange…
Pushing herself off the bed to the floor, forgoing the ladder and simply landing nimbly at the foot of her colleague's bed, Sam reached for her omnitool, affixing it to her wrist before pulling up the display. "Damn, there are no comms anywhere in the ship," she said.
"All right, everyone head to your posts," Adams said, pulling on a fresh uniform shirt. "If you can't get there for some reason, then stay in the mess hall. Let people know comms are down as you pass them. Any questions?"
Someone groaned, "Is there no chance we get to sleep more?"
He just chuckled. "Nope. Sorry folks. Welcome to life aboard a ship."
A few minutes later, Sam had her uniform on – a clean one, as the one she'd worn not four hours before had been put into the sanitizer already – and was just tying her boots before heading out the door. The power wasn't actually out, but the lights in the whole ship hadn't stopped flickering. Disconcerting, to say the least.
"Hey, Traynor?"
Samantha looked up to see she was now alone with Adams. "Yes, Lieutenant?"
"I need you to check on EDI. Go to the AI core and see why she isn't talking to us or responding in any way." He pulled up his omnitool, her own chirping a second later. "I've got direct link set up for messages. Can't do voice, but you can type and send the text message to me. Best we can do in these conditions."
Samantha nodded, finishing with her boots before standing up. "No problem, sir. I'll head there straightaway."
He smiled. "Thanks, Traynor."
He was out the door almost immediately, Sam on his heels. But whereas he went directly for the lift, Sam continued past him, heading for the medical bay. Chakwas, who was on duty because she must be whenever there were marines on the ground, looked up when she entered.
"Can I help you, Samantha?"
Sam smiled. She was still so grateful to the woman for intervening when she couldn't see Ashley in the hospital. "No, Doctor. EDI isn't responding, and we have no communications, so Adams sent me to see what I can find out in the AI core."
The woman nodded. "Makes sense. The ground team will be on the ship in the next few minutes. Our last transmission was Cortez letting me know he had them and there were no injuries."
"Good to know. Let me know if someone's able to get a hold of you, will you? I am still lead Communications Specialist."
Chakwas nodded, turning back to her terminal. "Will do, Samantha."
Sam passed through the doors, unsurprised when they shut behind her. Going straight to the terminal, Sam began working.
"EDI?" she called, just testing once more. To her surprise, EDI's voice issued from behind her.
"Specialist Traynor, I am-"
Samantha never learned what EDI was. She gasped, just seeing something alarming on the holographic display of the terminal before she was hit hard across the shoulders. She crumpled to the floor. Instinct took over and she rolled away, staring wide-eyed as a robotic foot crashed down where her head had been. Looking up, she saw it was the mech that had injured Ashley so horrifically. But as she stared, the color of the visor flickered, changing from blue to orange.
EDI's voice issued from its mouth. "Specialist Traynor, please exit this room; I am attempting to take control of the Cerberus mobile platf-"
She was cut off again, the visor flickering back to blue. Somehow, the eyes held all the malice in the world. Sam could say with confidence that she had never been looked at like that before. The floor bucked beneath her, tossing her onto her belly. As she tried to scramble to her feet – and away from the angry machine – the door's holographic interface turned red.
Her stomach dropped.
Shit. I'm locked in here.
Don't panic Sammy.
Too. Bloody. Late.
Something told her to move, so, abandoning her attempt to get her feet under her, Samantha dropped and rolled to her left, ramming her elbow right into a bank of equipment. Swearing at the numbness radiating up from her funny bone, she tried to keep moving, but a metallic hand went crashing into the computers right where she'd intended to move, causing a spray of sparks in her face.
Sam had never experienced electrocution. But as the power surged in the computer bank before the emergency systems kicked in, she knew for a fact that electrocution was what was happening to her now. Technically electrocution was death by electric shock, but Sam wasn't going to split hairs at the moment. She couldn't move anything, or perhaps more accurately, everything was trying to move at once. Her back straightened painfully and she hit the ground face-first, her whole body shaking, yet rigid.
Suddenly it was over, her body going limp. Her heart raced. All her skin was tingling, her fingers and hands and arms twitching at random every few seconds. Hands seized her shoulders, turning her onto her back. Her eyes opened and she saw the Cerberus mech standing over her, its visor blessedly orange.
EDI. It's EDI. Maybe it's over. Oh who bloody cares? If it kills me, it kills me. I can't move anyway.
"Specialist Traynor, I apologize. Are you hurt?"
"I…"
The doors suddenly slid open, Shepard's voice filling the cabin. "Talk to me EDI, what's happening?"
The commander stood silhouetted against the medbay lights. She still wore her armor, had a pistol in her hand, though her helmet was off. In her addled state, Sam thought it was her fiancée.
"Ashley?" she murmured, before it was all just too much and black overwhelmed her, rocking her away to oblivion.
A metallic hand, skin melting off of it, reached for her face.
"No!" Sam cried, sitting up to see she was actually in the medbay and the hand had been a dream.
"Whoa, calm down there, tiger!"
The voice was Shepard's. Blinking in the bright lights, Sam saw that Shepard, now in her uniform and not in her combat armor, was getting up from a seat near Chakwas's workstation. Right about then the pain hit, however. Wincing, Sam lay back down, the whole scene with the Cerberus machine coming back to her.
"Bloody hell," she murmured.
"You can say that again," Shepard said, appearing at her side. "What the fuck were you doing in there when EDI went nuts? Without telling anyone? Comms down?"
Sam opened her eyes, looking up at Shepard. The woman looked worried, pissed, and sympathetic all at once. "Adams ordered me in there when the ship started bucking." Her voice was scratchy, but it didn't hurt too badly. "EDI wasn't responding, comms were down. We couldn't communicate with anyone not in shouting distance."
Shepard knit her brows. "I'm gonna have to talk to Adams about sending people dangerous places on their own."
Sam shook her head. "Nobody thought it was dangerous, Commander. I went in there to sort through EDI's code and see what the issue was. We don't… we don't think like marines, ma'am. It was just where the proper computer terminal was located."
Shepard narrowed her eyes, then hung her head, shaking it. "You're right. I go in there alone all the time, even when it was where Legion spent his time."
Sam was confused. "Legion?"
Shepard shook her head again. "Don't worry about it, I'm just talking out of my ass. Do you remember everything that happened?"
Sam shook her head, trying to sit up only for her stomach muscles to protest mightily. "Oh, that hurts something awful," she murmured, suddenly feeling like she had that time an eight year old Richard had kicked her in the gut.
Shepard's arm went around her shoulders immediately, helping her to sit up. It disappeared as soon as she was upright, for which Sam was grateful. The woman's presence was alarmingly similar to Ashley's, her scent earthy, her body powerful, and it all worked to make Samantha incredibly uncomfortable. It also made her heart pang for Ashley.
"Did everything work out all right with EDI?" she asked.
Shepard opened her mouth, but EDI's holographic sphere popped up in the corner, her voice filling the room. "The Cerberus AI has been thoroughly deactivated, Specialist Traynor. The program has been fragmented so that it no longer has sapience or a will of its own. It will be destroyed completely soon."
Sam nodded. "That's good. But the data you needed was still there?"
"The data was in the hard drives in the mobile platform. I was able to isolate it as I disassembled it's program."
Sam smiled. "Excellent. And now you have a sex-bot body to use. That will be interesting."
Shepard smirked. "She can even join the ground team, apparently."
Sam's eyes got wide. "Ooooo that should be useful! She can hack with much more speed than any organic being, and can do it while also shooting. And if she does get shot, we don't lose her."
Shepard stared, mouth slightly open.
Sam blushed. "What?"
"I just… hadn't thought of it like that." She paused, then suddenly jumped. "Oh, I just remembered. Are you in pain? Chakwas gave me something to give you before she went to catch some sleep."
Sam furrowed her brows. "My entire body hurts. My back and shoulders especially. And my face. Why does my face hurt?"
Shepard smirked. "You had a pretty nasty electric shock and slammed your face into the ground, Traynor, not to mention the hit or two you took. Your shoulder was broken, though Chakwas fixed it. You look like you tried to headbutt a krogan."
Sam narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "You speak like you know what that's like, Commander."
Shepard grinned. "I do indeed know what that's like."
"I hope you at least had your helmet," Sam said with a wince.
Shepard shook her head. "Nope. Just my noggin. Where do you think this dashing scar came from?" she said, pointing to the fine white line that traveled from the center of her forehead through her left eyebrow. It wasn't wide or thick, but it was visible, the brow hairs not growing where it sliced through.
Sam had to admit it actually was quite dashing.
"From headbutting a krogan," Sam repeated incredulously, an eyebrow up.
Shepard snickered. "I know, I'm an idiot. Here, you want this or not?" She held up a vial of what was probably morphine.
Sam considered it for a moment. "Oh hell, why not?"
Shepard grinned, pushing the medicine into Sam's IV. "That's the spirit. Why pass up drugs when they're prescribed and sanctioned by your doctor?"
The effect was instantaneous. Sam felt it flood her system, and she sighed contentedly. "There is a reason this is still not available without a prescription," she said, settling into her body again. She could still sense the pain, but the morphine just made her not give a shit. It was lovely.
A chirping sound came from Chakwas's desk. Looking over, her vision following the movement of her head a second or two later, Sam smiled. "Is that mine? I have a call!"
Shepard laughed, going over to the desk and retrieving the skin-molding bracelet-computer for her. Sam grinned, answering immediately.
"Ashley!" she greeted excitedly, seeing her fiancée's beautiful face hovering before her.
"Hey, Sam." Ashley smiled, making Sam's heart soar.
"Goodness, I've missed you."
"Ash?" Shepard asked, perplexed, brows furrowed. "What… what are you doing calling my lead communications specialist at four in the morning? Or, you know, at all?"
"Oh!" Sam exclaimed, remembering Ashley had told her to let the cat out of the bag. "I forgot to tell you, Shepard! Ashley and I are engaged," she sing-songed, swaying happily back and forth in her seat.
Shepard gaped. "You're… engaged. To be married?"
Sam just giggled.
Ashley, on the other hand, frowned, her eyes traveling between Shepard and Sam. "Yeah, Miriam, to be married. What the hell is wrong with my fiancée?"
Sam did a little dance. "Chakwas has me on the Good Shit, Ash! I don't feel a thing!"
Ashley's voice took on a very measured tone, her frown deepening. "What?"
Sam continued to bounce around. A voice in the back of her mind told her she should be concerned, that she perhaps had said something she shouldn't have, but she ignored it. The world. It was bouncy.
Shepard cleared her throat. "I'll, uh… I'll just be goin-"
"Like hell you will," Ashley nearly shouted. She was so sexy when she was angry. Also adorable. "Shepard, why is my fiancée high on painkillers? Why is her face all bruised?"
Shepard rubbed a hand over the back of her neck. "She, uh… well, you know that mech that injured you?"
Ashley's expression immediately clouded. "Yeah, the one that broke my fucking neck?"
"Yeah, that's the one. It, uh… might have trapped Traynor in the AI core with it while EDI tried to take control of the platform…"
Sam stilled, looking at Ash. She wore a tank top and no bra, and Sam suddenly very much wanted to see it off of her. "Ashley, it's been ages since we've had sex. What do you say to a little pick me up?"
Ashley shifted her gaze to Sam and sighed wearily. "Sam… Go to sleep, baby. You're high as a giraffe's vagina." Her eyes shifting, her expression not changing despite Sam giggling at her joke, she continued. "Miriam, transfer this call to your omni. We need to talk."
Her tone was deadly serious, and it only made Sam randier. But then Shepard was easing her down, and she was suddenly sleepy. She saw Shepard's remarkable ass disappear through the doors. She didn't get to say goodnight to Ashley. She missed her terribly. And her remarkable ass.