It occurred to Shepard on her way down to the cargo bay in the elevator that maybe, just maybe, her tried and true method for keeping the universe at bay might not work as well as the captain of a ship as it had as an N7. She'd never cared about getting along with people. Life was not a popularity contest; it was about survival and getting the job done.
The people who stuck around long enough always figured her out. She'd put Anderson through all the rings of hell after he pulled her off Mindoir, and he'd never let her down.
Letting people inside her shields before she got them disarmed just invited a shot to the head . . . or the heart. A chuckle as brittle as a February ice storm echoed off the walls. She pressed the heel of her hand against the lingering pain that throbbed alongside her heartbeat.
Case in point, Shepard. Case in point.
When the elevator opened on the bottom deck of her ship, the Marines and her team had already assembled. She gave Sparky a crooked smile and a nod, but passed by, heading for where Gunnery Chief Williams stood armoured and ready, but separate.
"Ma'am." The woman gave Shepard a brisk salute.
Shepard returned the salute. "At ease, Chief." She glanced over her shoulder at the Marines then back. "You all right taking squad leader?" She held Ashley's eyes, searching for any sign that the gunnery chief wasn't ready to step up. "I think you've got the brains and the spine for leadership, so I'm tossing you in the deep end, Williams. If you're not ready, you need to tell me. There's no disgrace in needing to put some time and distance between yourself and the sort of hell you went through on Eden Prime."
Ashley straightened and gave Shepard another salute. "I'm ready, ma'am. Five by five."
"Excellent." Shepard nodded toward the gathered Marines. "Go get 'em, Chief. Good luck down there."
The soldier softened a little just at the edges. "You too, ma'am."
Shepard stopped next to Jenkins. "How you holding up, Corporal? Did you hear anything about your folks?"
Jenkins saluted, then nodded. "Yes, ma'am, they're both fine, thank you."
"Glad to hear it." She patted his shoulder. "Take care of yourself down there."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Sparky, you're driving," Shepard called, striding toward the Mako. She grinned at Garrus. "You ready to go, C-Sec?"
He nodded, and opened the hatch at the back of the tank. "Your chariot, Captain."
She chuckled and gave him a sweeping bow. "You're starting to worry me, big guy. Did turians use chariots, or are you a student of ancient human history?" She winced a little as she pressed her hands to the Mako's floor and hopped up. "You want the cannon and electronics, or the gun, C-Sec?"
She sat on one of the seats in the back. Kaidan brushing past on the way to the operator's seat.
"You're not driving, and you're not shooting?" Nihlus asked, hopping in. "You take a debilitating head injury during our sparring match, Shepard?"
Shooting Kaidan a cautionary glare and quick shake of the head, Shepard leaned back. "Something like that, Kryik." She looked back to Garrus. "Which is it, big guy?"
His mandibles spread wide and fluttered. "Cannon."
She laughed, brightly, if a little forced. "I can see that it's always going to be the biggest gun with you." She nodded to Nihlus. "That leaves you the other gun."
"You're really just going to sit there?" He moved to the other front seat despite questioning her. Garrus strapped himself into the seat at the cannon controls and powered up the electronics suite.
"I might even take a nap . . . if Sparky can keep us out of the lava." She strapped herself in, her hands clumsy, but managing to get the harness buckled before anyone noticed. "Hell, I might stay in the car unless I find something of tourist value."
"With all due respect, Captain, our odds of avoiding lava are a lot better than if you were driving," Kaidan called back. "You just relax, lie back and take your nap while I demonstrate how to make this baby handle like a prized thoroughbred."
"You haven't seen me drive to know if I endanger lives or property," she called back, stretching out as far as she could within her harness.
"Do you remember a Marine by the name of Lt. Angus McLaren, Captain?" Kaidan called back as he started bringing the massive tank to life.
The name lit a fire under Shepard's skin. "Hey! That totally wasn't my fault. McLaren was navigating. He said that river was shallow enough to cross." Despite her embarrassed blush, Shepard grinned, recalling the screams of her team. Good times.
"How many waterfalls did it go over before you finally got it back on shore, again? Four?" Kaidan finished the pre-start checklist and activated the controls, the Mako rumbling to life.
Shepard ignored his laughter and purred. "Oh yeah, this is going to be nice, just like a baby on a Sunday drive." She yawned and laid her head back, closing her eyes. "You're such a drama queen, Sparky. Get this damned thing on the ground, and let's go find this matriarch's daughter."
"Captain?"
"What is it, Joker?" She sat up, hearing the bad news in his tone.
"The dig site contacted us, said they were under attack, then the message cut out."
"Deja vu," Shepard said, her heart sinking. "Okay, drop us outside the enemy perimeter. We'll fight our way in. As long as that plateau is still viable, land the second team there as planned."
"Roger that."
Shepard shook her head. "You heard the man, we're fighting our way in. I hope you're as good as you think you are, Sparky."
"Roger that, Shepard."
Alenko lived up to his own hype, mostly. She left it to Garrus and Nihlus to yell at him when he set the tires on fire trying to avoid blasts from armature class geth, choosing to watch her team from under heavily lidded eyes. More than once, she had to clamp down on her lip to avoid saying something, but Nihlus stepped up and took command. For their parts, Sparky and C-Sec took no time at all to settle into a rhythm, bantering back and forth as they coordinated keeping the Mako out of the line of fire and blowing the geth to hell.
She grinned to herself as they debated the best way to tackle the few geth fortifications they came across. Although never quite relaxed enough to sleep through it, she pretended, while keeping one eye on the tank's damage sensors. She got out at the first compound, emptying the lockers and crates while her boys played commando, raiding the outbuildings on either side of the massive gates. She piled the weapons, armour and mods in the back of the Mako, then climbed back in, holding her aching hands trapped under her arms.
"Here." Making no more fuss than if he were brushing lint off her shoulder, Garrus fastened her harness, then sat back at the cannon.
Shepard shook her head. Of course he'd seen. He said so little and yet saw everything with those pale, ice-blue eyes. She nodded her thanks when he looked her way again, then sat back until Kaidan called out that the luxury cruise had come to an end. She climbed out and pulled first Ingrid and then Roger from her back, trying to decide which one would hurt less to fire. Either one was going to smart like a mother.
They clambered over the wall of rock in their way, and she radioed for the Normandy to pick up the Mako before they set out for the dig site. A hundred metres in they encountered the first resistance, mostly just troopers with the odd rocket trooper thrown in to keep them on their toes.
Shepard launched her drone, keeping it active, and then stuck to a support role, overloading and sabotaging to save her hands. It worked well until they came under fire from snipers entrenched in towers several hundred metres up the road.
Shepard let the rest of her squad take out the geth on the ground and took cover, pulling Ingrid from her back. "Okay, my love. Do me proud,"
Shepard set up the shot, resting the gun on the rock, setting the sight on the distant tower. She adjusted for the wind, took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then fired. The geth toppled out of the tower. Shepard bit down on a thin shrill of pain as the gun kicked back, the impact sending bolts of fiery lightning searing halfway up her forearm before they eased.
"Sweet shot, Captain," Kaidan said and whistled.
"Why thank you, Sparky. I live to entertain." She lined up the shot for the second tower, this one a good hundred metres further out. Compensating, she went through her routine. Hesitating for just a second, Shepard steeled herself, then the second geth fell.
Garrus walked up beside her and nodded. "The first one . . . silver medal at best." His subvocals rumbled. "The second, nothing but gold."
Shepard hung the sniper rifle from her back, a quirky smile on her lips, her heart speeding up a little in her chest. "What, you a cop or something, C-Sec? You been running my rap sheet?"
He chuckled and switched his guns. "Something like that."
"Yeah, it's an compelling thriller packed with heartbreak, suspense, and a whole lot of stupid." She spawned her drone and followed as Nihlus took the lead once more.
Kaidan walked backwards for two steps. "That's right, I remember hearing something about that. You won an Olympic medal for something, didn't you?"
She spun her finger in a turn around gesture and pointed up the road. "Oh look, Sparky, there's no one on point." She sighed and shrugged Roger off her back. "And it was two medals, actually. In Biathlon."
He made a low hum and nodded as he trotted past Nihlus. "Skiing and shooting, right?"
"Yep. Now, enough with the ancient history lesson. We're going to be getting shot at again in a minute or two." She squared her shoulders, her spine crackling like someone walking over bubble wrap, and hefted her rifle.
In fact, they fought pretty steadily up the last few hundred metres to the excavation site. A couple of new leapfrogging friends, a half dozen troopers, three krogan, and an armature awaited them in the camp. Nihlus and Kaidan worked on the smaller units while she and Vakarian whittled down the armature with overload and their sniper rifles.
"I really hate the jumping ones," Kaidan gasped, throwing himself behind a crate at Shepard's side.
"Spray and pray, Sparky." Shepard waited for the burst of plasma from the armature's canon, then swung out and overloaded before putting a bullet in its head.
Kaidan ducked out then back. "You meant bullets, right?"
Garrus took out the armature with his next round, then they set to work on the krogan. After another half hour of dancing in large circles around walls and crates, Shepard bent over, resting on her knees, her chest heaving, sweat running down her face. "Sweet baby Jesus, Saren wants to make sure we get our exercise." She looked up. "You all in one piece, gentlemen?"
"I think my amp set the back of my head on fire," Alenko groaned.
"Fine here," Nihlus called, striding past her and up the ramp into the mine shaft. "The doctor's got to be in here if she's still alive."
Shepard nodded and heaved herself up, giving Garrus a gentle nudge as she went past. "You okay, C-Sec?"
He straightened and pushed away from the railing that had been holding him up. "Yeah, Shepard, I'm fine. Damn krogan."
"Yeah, tough sons-of-bitches," she agreed, climbing the ramp a few metres behind Nihlus.
"We need to start bringing Wrex along," he suggested.
Shepard laughed. "The Mako will seem so crowded and claustrophobic with all that krogan." She lifted her hand to her ear. "Williams, sitrep?"
"Under fire, but nothing we can't handle, Shepard. We're making our way down to cover the entrance now," the chief reported.
"Roger that, Shepard out." She followed Nihlus from the bleak, brown-black, smouldering surface into a narrow, corrugated metal tube. "Oh yeah, this can't possibly go wrong," she muttered, staring down the hundred metre stretch.
"Sitting ducks," Kaidan whispered.
"Sh!" Nihlus hissed, glancing back. "I hear geth."
"Pick it up," Shepard whispered. "Get out of here and into cover." She hunkered down, taking point ahead of Nihlus, and sent her drone out. Hopefully it would distract and confuse.
A shock trooper stepped into the mouth of the tunnel, its back to them as it fired on the drone. Shepard overloaded it and the others took it down. Unmistakable chattering and clicking sounds echoed through the cavern beyond the tunnel.
Lifting into double-time, Shepard moved as silently as she could down the rest of the tunnel. It branched right, more geth showing through the metal railings along the catwalks. She spawned a new drone and settled in to the familiar heartbeat of battle.
They fought their way down through a series of ramps and catwalks set up to get the people down into the mine, signs of battle becoming more and more apparent the further in they went. Shepard stepped into an elevator, no small amount of trepidation and claustrophobia clinging to her back. She stood at the front of the platform, staring straight out, trying to ignore the shrinking metal cage around her.
She leaped out the moment the door opened and let out the lungful of air she'd been holding.
A little further along, they reached another elevator, this one definitely showing signs of heavy bombardment damage, like someone had been using missiles. She searched for another way down, but all the tiled corridors leading out of the cavern glowed blue, the entrances sealed by kinetic barriers.
"Prothean?" Nihlus asked, stepping up beside her.
"That would be my guess. Unless the archeological team are all a bunch of neat freaks and tile their dig sites." Shepard shoved her shoulders back, cracked her neck and stepped into the elevator.
"Two seconds," she muttered to herself, trying to avoid looking at the twisted metal. "You can endure it for two seconds." She looked down. "Ohhh stupid move, Shepard," she groaned, louder than she intended.
Below them, the elevator shaft had been reduced to pretzel-shaped metal, and fallen chunks of the ruins.
"There's got to be another way down," she said, but too late. Nihlus hit the control and the door closed, sealing her in. Again, she moved to the front, standing close enough to the structure to keep it at the extreme of her peripherals.
Letting out a horrific grinding shriek, and a shower of sparks, the lift lurched to a halt. Shepard looked down. It was only maybe a ten foot drop, but first they needed to escape the cage.
"C-Sec, can you get us out of here?" she asked, taking position at the side of the elevator to watch for incoming enemy troops. She turned her back to them, struggling to keep her breathing from whistling through her nose as it sped up and shallowed.
"You're an engineer, aren't you?" Vakarian asked, giving her a cocky nod.
"You have a point to make?"
Oh for the sake of the sweet baby Jesus, just cut us out of this fucking thing!
"Pretty sure I already made it," he said, his chuckle warm.
The tones moving under his voice and through his laugh slowed her breathing a little, her heart taking two entire beats before fluttering. "Just open the door, wise-assless." Shepard meant to keep going, but then a little voice called out of the rubble below them.
"Hello?"
Shepard clung to the distraction of that call. She opened her mouth the answer, then closed it as she saw movement at the far end of the cavern. She traded Roger for Ingrid and looked through the sight. A few shock troopers and two rocket troopers picked their way over the uneven surface.
Shepard gestured to Nihlus, then pointed down the cavern. When he nodded and reached behind him, she looked back to her sights, lining up a rocket trooper's head. A red laser nearly blinded her as it homed in, then a shot blasted against her shields, throwing her back.
"Son of a motherless . . .." She lifted the rifle, looking for the geth sniper. Her lip curled in a vengeful grimace as she took its head off. A shrill cry greeted the crack of her rifle.
"Who's there?" the voice called. Definitely young and female, Shepard decided.
Nihlus took a shot, grunting in satisfaction as the rocket trooper's head exploded in a spray of white fluids.
"Please, if you're not geth, say something."
"We're busy at the moment, love," Shepard called. "Put on your big girl panties and breathe."
"Put on my wha-?"
Shepard took out the other rocket trooper.
"How dare y-?"
Nihlus put a bullet straight through the flashlight on one of the shock troopers, earning him a Shepard grunt of approval.
Shepard lined up her next shot, her shields sparking now that the troopers were in range with their rifles. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
"I don't know who you are, but-" The voice shrilled, sending sharp metal spikes up Shepard's spine.
The captain jumped, then took a long breath. As if her nerves weren't frayed enough being trapped in the tiny metal cage of death. "Sweet baby Jesus, lady. Shut the fuck up for five seconds." Shepard took the shot, winging the geth, and cursed, lining it up again. Her shield indicator flashed at her, warning her of their imminent failure. The last two geth went down, and she let out a long sigh as she holstered Ingrid.
"Lovely soundtrack," she sighed. "How's that door coming?"
"Who are you? You've got to get me out of here."
"Hold your horses," Shepard called back. "We're coming." She craned her head around Garrus to look at his cutting work. "Maybe."
A second later he turned his back to his work and kicked behind him, sending a chunk of the elevator crashing to the floor of the cavern. He chuffed a little and stepped back. "Your door, Captain."
She grinned as she ducked through. "Very nice, C-Sec. Practically a work of art. I can see why you're so proud."
He just chuffed again, his subvocals rumbling.
"Hello?"
"We're on our way," Shepard called back. She looked down, trying to figure the best way down through the rubble. Why had the geth blown the crap out of the cavern?
Nihlus jumped down ahead of her, picking his way over the heaved slabs of rock and concrete. She followed his path, seeing the reason for the use of rockets when she reached the bottom.
"Well, damn," Shepard said, crossing her arms and cocking a hip. "I didn't expect this. In fact, I probably couldn't have guessed this if I'd tried."
Like the rest of the corridors leading off the main cavern, a barrier curtain blocked the way forward. The part that had Shepard thrown related directly to the asari on the other side, dangling in mid air like a butterfly in a spider's web.
The asari let out a long sigh. "Thank the goddess. Help. I've been trapped here for days."
"Um . . .." Shepard walked up to the barrier. Struggling to rein in her sarcasm, she looked over the situation. "How the hell?"
The asari ignored Shepard, looking to Nihlus. "Please, you have to get me out of here. I've been trapped in here for days."
"That would explain why the dig site lost contact with her," Garrus offered.
"Dr. Liara T'Soni?" Shepard asked. When she didn't get an answer, she waved. "Hey, lady, focus on the cranky human. Are you Dr. Liara T'Soni?"
"Yes." The asari finally looked back at Shepard, her mouth turned up in a delicate sneer of distaste.
"How did you get into this mess?" Shepard prodded the energy field a little, but it was too strong for even her overload.
"The geth and krogan came after me. I activated the barrier curtains, but I must have triggered a security device." She grumbled a little. "Please, I've been here for days. If you can get past the barrier curtain, there is a control panel."
Shepard walked right up to the energy field. "Look, honey, my partner here will probably try to talk me into letting you out of there, because, let's face it, you're an asari maiden . . . he's turian. Between us, he hasn't gotten any in awhile and a nice dance might loosen him up." Shepard crossed her arms and leaned back, letting out a long, heavy sigh.
"Your problem lies with the fact that, as much as my life might improve if someone worked that rod out of his ass, I need more, and it's me you have to convince. I've got to know that you're going to be more useful to us than helping Kryik over there get his rocks off." Shepard ignored the elbow that smacked into her from behind. "Your mother is Matriarch Benezia. We believe that she's helping Saren destroy the entire galaxy. Can you help me with that, or do I go back to my ship and look for someone who can?"
The asari went a darker shade of blue, her mouth opening and closing like a beached fish for a second before an indignant squeal made it out. "How dare you? I'm not some stripper in a seedy bar. I'm a doctor of archeology and an expert on the prothean extinction."
Shepard backed up, making beeping sounds. "Ship for the people useful to Shepard now leaving. Last call for boarding . . . all those useful to Shepard please get aboard."
The asari let out an enraged noise that wavered between scream and shout. "Fine. Fine! I haven't had any contact with my mother in years, but I can tell you that she wouldn't just be trying to destroy the galaxy. I'll help you find her, even if just to figure out why she's helping Saren."
"And if I need to put her down?" All traces of humor drained from Shepard's face. "Am I going to be fighting her and you?"
The archeologist took a deep breath and shook her head, meeting Shepard's stare with one that finally told Shepard what she was looking for. "No. If my mother really has joined Saren, then these geth and krogan trying to capture or kill me are here under her orders as well."
Shepard nodded. "Okay. Give us a minute or two to figure this thing out." She turned her back on the energy field and let out a long sigh.
"Do you have to antagonize everyone right off the mark?" Nihlus whispered, stepping up beside her.
"Nothing gets to the real person faster than pissing them off, Kryik." She gave him a dead, exhausted stare. "Look how well it worked on me."
He chuffed and gave her that exasperated rumble from his subvocals, but she saw his mandibles drop.
She strode forward. "We need to find a way to get the doctor out of her situation." Spotting geth making their way down the chamber, she glanced behind her. "Sparky. C-Sec. Look sharp, bogies at our twelve. You two stay here and keep the good doctor company. We'll go down and see if we can get past that curtain."
"Aye, aye, ma'am," Kaidan answered.
Shepard grabbed her pistol off her hip and made her way down the rubble field to an intact walkway, pausing to shoot the few geth that made it past Garrus and Alenko. By the time she made it down to the cavern floor, they'd cleared the way.
"Nicely done, gentlemen," she called up.
Shepard scanned the side of the cavern closest to the trapped scientist. "Looks like there was a way through there, but it caved in. She winced, giving her head a quick, single shake and clicking her tongue. "I don't like it. This whole place seems as unstable as hell." She looked up at Garrus. "Hey, C-Sec, we're right in that super fragile, danger spot you marked, aren't we?"
"Yes. The rear exit you intended to use is on the other side of the doctor's barrier and then a hard right," the turian answered, gesturing as he explained.
"Yeah. Okay." She wandered up the cavern, picking up dropped supplies as she went. her mind flipping through possibilities, discarding each as it appeared.
"That's a mining laser." Alenko pointed out. "It's aimed the right way."
"Yes . . . to destabilize the entire mine," Nihlus grumbled.
"Yeah," Shepard agreed. Still, she stopped next to the giant laser. "We might not have a choice. Activate it for a few seconds, cut through to the tunnel on the other side of that barrier." She shrugged when Nihlus chuffed, his subvocals rumbling. "I'm open to less crazy options. We could grab one of the geth rocket launchers, but it's using a wrecking ball instead of a scalpel."
"No, you're right. We don't have any other means to get through it. The rocket launchers collapsed all this. Any more explosions, the whole place could come down on our heads." Nihlus stepped back.
"Okay guys," Shepard called as she opened her omnitool to hack the laser controls. "This could be the last stupid thing I do in a really long line of massively stupid things, so be ready to grab the doctor and run." Casting one last glance behind her at Nihlus, she hit the override.