Clean and dry, her head happily sealed up with medi-gel, Shepard dressed in work clothes and headed out to the galley to make herself a hot drink before going down to help rebuild the Mako.
"Listen! Listen!" Ashley cackled. "This is my favorite part."
A shrill, tremulous scream roared through the galley, echoing along the length of the space, and the crowd around the table burst into hysterical laughter.
"Yeah, that Wrex has a good set of lungs on him," Shepard said, just loud enough to announce her presence as she stepped around the corner.
Williams greeted her with a wide grin. "Ah, Captain, we were just reviewing the audio and vid logs from the last mission. For . . . um . . . um . . .."
"Training purposes," Joker finished for her.
"I can't believe you drove the Mako through a thresher maw," the chief said. "That's either inspired, or completely insane, ma'am."
Shepard nodded and poured herself a thermos of hot water. "Probably a bit of both. It takes so long to kill them the other way." She started shovelling hot chocolate mix into the water. "Be careful that the aforementioned krogan with excellent lung capacity doesn't catch you all cackling over that footage like a bunch of hens."
She added extra sugar and creamer, then slapped on a lid. "Give Sparky and Wrex some respect. They brought that thing down. All I did was drive." She took a sip. "If it had been any of you in that Mako, you would've been screaming just as loud. Have fun, ladies and gentlemen."
As she waited for the elevator, Shepard heard someone whisper. "She's a lunatic. She's going to get us all killed."
"Didn't get Wrex or Alenko killed, did she?" Ashley asked. "Thresher sure is dead, though."
"By the way, something else you might want to pass along: your CO has insanely good hearing." Shepard called. The whispering dropped into awkward silence. Chuckling, she got into the elevator and pressed the control to head down to the cargo bay.
"I think I hate you a little bit, right now," Garrus's voice greeted her as she got out. She couldn't see him.
"Aw, C-Sec, and here I thought we had this unshakeable bond." She sipped her cocoa and crouched down to look under the machine. "You just getting started?"
"Yes." He slid out from under the tank's chassis. "It took me this long to get the guts and acid blood washed off."
She beamed down at him with a wide, gleeful smile. "Yeah, but damn, C-Sec. It was awesome." After another sip, she set down her cocoa and climbed under the Mako.
"Not what I heard from Alenko and Wrex." He grabbed a tool, changed the head on it and passed it to her. "Here, you can change out the rotors, knuckles, hub bearings, dust shields . . .." He cursed. "Just take off the wheels and entire brake mounts then we'll look at the axles. So much of the metal is replaced by omni-gel that they'll probably just crumble in your hand."
Shepard chuckled and took the tool. "Fine, Mr. Grumpy-you-beat-up-on-my-Mako-and-now -I'm-going-to-sulk-pants, I'll change out the wheels and brake mounts."
"How much omni-gel did you use, anyway?" Garrus slid back under and set to work on the front axel.
Shepard shrugged as she started ratcheting bolts loose. "I don't know, seventy-five or so."
"Seventy-fi -" Garrus sighed. "It'll take all the salvage from Therum to replace that much omni-gel."
She let out a long, hard-done-upon grumbling sigh. "Fine, Admiral C-Sec, next time, I won't do repairs between runs. Aye, aye, sir." She grinned over at him, finally rewarded with a grudging flick of his mandibles. Chuckling to herself, she dug in. They needed the tank ready for Eden Prime.
After working in companionable silence for about an hour, Shepard's prying timer went off in her head. Garrus gave her a stubborn, private vibe; the sort of onion that needed a paring knife to peel. Starting early and keeping at it always proved to be the key to the paring knife types. "So, C-Sec, what's the deal with you and . . . well, C-Sec?"
He glanced her way, then went back to replacing the right front quarter panel. "We're going to need two hundred and fifty thousand credits worth of replacement parts."
Shepard sighed. "I'll make sure the quartermaster has the credits." She stuck her head out and whistled to the Requisition Officer. "Hey Verblovski . . . Hank! Set Vakarian here up with whatever he needs for the Mako."
The Alliance officer glanced up from his datapad and nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I'm sending in orders tonight, Officer Vakarian, if you have time to get one together." After waiting a moment for a reply that didn't come, he shrugged and went back to work.
Shepard pulled herself back under the Mako. "There, now that completely unsolvable issue is taken care of - thank god for me, by the way - you and C-Sec, spill it." Her hands hesitated halfway to their next task, the query gaining weight as she stared him down, one eyebrow climbing toward her hair.
His answering, non-committal head bob came across smooth but disingenuous, a white chocolate answer. "There's nothing to spill, Shepard."
Covering up her mouth, she heaved out a monstrous cough that sent the word, "Bullshit," bouncing off the bulkheads.
Garrus grumbled, then let out a sigh. "Fine. Let's just say that I don't care for the discrepancy between the amount of time I spend fighting the system to help people and the time I spend actually helping people. When bad people hurt good people, that draws a line for me."
Shepard hummed, vague but aiming for interested as she dug into cutting the last wheel loose. Thresher acid really did eat through anything.
"It's supposed to be about stopping the criminals," Garrus continued. "How do you do that when most days it seems there are more laws protecting them than the good, decent normal people? Drug dealers, thieves, and organized crime run rampant while C-Sec and the council shackle our talons at every turn."
Shepard turned to look at him, meeting his eyes with a narrow stare, fighting to rein in the sharp spark of disapproval that sizzled through her at his words. She had a feeling C-Sec would prove a far more complex onion to peel back than first thought. A sharp nod with a single shoulder shrug encouraged him to keep going while she took cover behind her work.
"Kryik said your father is a legend in the force." She wrestled with her last wheel, trying to pry it off its mount. It wouldn't have even been rotating as she drove onto the ship. She turned to lay on her back and kicked it with both feet. "Did that influence your decision at all?"
"Made the entire decision for me." He wriggled down the length of the Mako and lay next to her. "On three. One . . . two . . . three." They both kicked, sending the wheel flying halfway across the cargo bay. It rolled the rest of the way, slowly looping around to crash to the floor right behind Ashley.
Williams jumped and let out a foul curse, her reflex flinging a rifle across the cargo bay to land at Wrex's feet. She spun to face the Mako. "Hey! Keep your toys on your half of the room, Vakarian!" the Chief barked. She shoved and grunted, trying to set the huge wheel upright.
"Keep your toys on your side of the bay too, Pinky." The krogan kicked the gun back across the floor.
"Pinky? Look, dinosaur boy . . .." Williams swooped down, snatching the gun off the floor looking as though she intended to use it.
"Wait. Wait. Before we start a war, the tire's all me," Shepard called. "Sorry. Sorry." She clambered out from under the tank and trotted over to the tire. "Give me a hand here, Chief, and I'll get it out of your way." They tipped the wheel up on its end, and Shepard ran it back, her palms slapping against the treads in a highly satisfying way. Once it was propped up next to its brethren against the bulkhead, she climbed back under and started removing the brake housing.
"So, before we were so rudely interrupted by my escaping wheel, you said that your father made the decision to go into C-Sec for you?" She turned her back to him, sensing that she needed to be an absorptive wall to keep him talking about himself.
"Mmm,' Garrus replied. "I was happiest building things, taking things apart, drawing and reading. Whenever Dad came home for a couple of days, he'd drag me outside the city and drill me on shooting." He chuffed, his nose sounding the thin whistle that made her grin. "He'd plant evidence and create crimes for me to solve while he was gone. Although . . .." She glanced over her shoulder in time to see him bob his head a little. ". . . that had its moments. When I was really young, I used to work hard between his visits to solve the mysteries he'd left. It was a chance for us to do something together."
"He wasn't around much?" she asked, her voice neutral, back still toward him.
The left front quarter panel hit the deck plating. "No. Work was important. There was always some case or another to be solved." He dragged the eaten-away metal off to the side and threw it in the recycling bin. "Might have been different if we all lived on the Citadel, but he wanted us to grow up turian." He deepened his voice, making it more gruff for the last few words.
"Us?" She turned and smiled. "You have a brother or sister?"
He crouched down, picking up a bottle of water he'd stuck behind one of the new tires. "Yeah, a sister. Sol is a very good turian." His mandibles lowered, and his head jerked back and forth a little. "She blew everyone away during her mandatory military service." His voice and mandibles lowered. "Could be a general someday."
Shepard focused on the work for a moment, letting the silence settle thick and comfortable. He wanted to say more, she just needed to wait until he was ready. .
Metal banged and clinked behind her, the volume getting louder as time passed. Garrus let out a yelp of pain, then a foul curse. When she turned to face him, he gripped the talons of one hand in the other.
Shepard walked over and held out her hand. "Come on, let me see them."
Garrus cleared his throat and shook his head. "Shepard, I don't think we know one another well enough for that. Besides, I didn't think humans were into ankles."
She chuckled and tilted her head a little. "Ankles, huh?" She waved her fingers toward her palm. "Come on, C-Sec, your turn to drop the shields." The rumble he sent through his second larynx made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, but he pulled off his glove and held out his hand.
"Ow, sweet baby Jesus, C-Sec, that looks painful." She took his hand in hers, gently feeling around the knuckles he'd barked almost down to the bone. "Looks like it's just the meat, but ow."
"I'm fine," he insisted pulling his hand back.
"Garrus 'C-Sec' Vakarian, sit down." She pointed to the crate next to the tool cart. "Sorry, don't know if turians have middle names. The mom voice works best if there's a middle name involved."
"Human mothers do that too?" Garrus asked, plunking down on the crate, surrendering his hand without a fight.
"All mothers do that," Wrex sighed and dropped his voice an octave. "Urdnot Alnar Golc Wrex, this is the third brand new shotgun you've broken this year. They are not clubs!"
The gunnery chief turned away from her rifles and cocked a hip, her arms crossed to match the petulant grimace on her face. "Ashley Madeline Williams, proper young ladies don't climb trees before church. Get in here and wash those knees."
Shepard knelt and splashed water over Garrus's knuckles before blotting them on a clean rag, then smearing on a little medi-gel and a couple of cling bandages. Leaning back, she shot a sly grin across the cargo bay. "You two were troublemakers. I can't believe it. I, of course, was the ideal child. Never did anything to make my mother holler at me."
Laughter echoed.
"What? It's true. I was the perfect child." Shepard felt her face heat and turned to putting away the first aid materials.
"What's everyone laughing about?" Tali'Zorah asked, walking up the ramp from engineering.
Shepard stood. "Hey, Tali. How are things in the mysterious room with the engines?"
Garrus arched both browplates and flicked his mandibles at Shepard. "You're a pretend engineer, aren't you?"
She kicked his foot.
"This ship is amazing, Shepard, and Engineer Adams has been so nice to me. I'm learning so much." The quarian bounced over to the Mako. "What's everyone doing?"
"Comparing mommy issues," Ashley said. "It seems we all have the experience of our mothers using our full names when they're angry."
"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," the quarian yelled in a firm voice. "If the hygiene department condemns your room again, you can go sleep in recycling." She sighed. "Mother died a few years ago, and you all know about my father. I ran away from home when I was five; he grounded me for a quarter cycle. Do I get to ground him when we find him?"
A thoughtful frown traced wrinkles across Shepard's brow. "You lived on a ship. How did you run away?"
Tali chuckled and sat on the crate next to Garrus. "The Rayya is a very large ship, Shepard. It's one of the flotilla's three liveships. I hid in one of the aeroponic bays. Of course, he worked so much that I never spent any time actually grounded."
"Well, I guess we all have our share of daddy issues as well," Shepard said, turning back to her work.
"Betting yours didn't lure you to a clan gathering and then try to kill you, Shepard." Wrex grumbled.
Shepard prepared to remove the back axle. "I hope you tried to kill him right back. You can't tolerate that sort of behaviour from relatives."
Wrex narrowed one red eye, glaring at her for a moment, then laughed. "Heh, yeah, family. Bastards."
"So?" Tali asked. "What did you do?"
"Stabbed him right through both hearts and left his corpse to rot."
"I would have been grounded for life," Tali said, sounding entirely and hilariously serious.
"I was few hundred cycles older than you are," Wrex replied, then spun to leer at Ashley. "What about you, Pinky? Any daddy issues?"
Ashley shook her head. "No, my dad was a great father. Died a couple of years back. In my family, it was bitter general grandfather issues." She stopped dead, slamming up barriers over her expression before spinning around and attacking on her rifle.
"General Williams?" Garrus asked. "Shanxi General Williams?" The turian whistled a little.
"I'm surprised you know about him, Vakarian." Ashley bulwarked her spine and didn't turn.
The turian snapped his back straight and arched his neck. When he spoke, his voice came out formal and scolding. "A good turian knows his history, Garrus. If a torin doesn't know where he comes from, he'll never know where he is going." Garrus pulled on his glove and got up, returning to beating on the Mako's front end.
"Your grandfather surrendered the garrison at Shanxi?" Shepard asked, looking out. She whistled to match Garrus's. "That's a tough break for you and your dad, even though your grandfather had no choice. His people were dying. At least as prisoners, they had a chance."
"Granddad never really got past being drummed out and the family getting blacklisted." Ashley shook her head. "Whatever, it doesn't matter."
Shepard nodded and climbed out far enough to crouch and meet the Marine's eyes. "You're right, Williams. On this ship, it doesn't matter."
A tight smile cracked the chief's face a little. "Thanks, ma'am. I appreciate that."
"Everybody deserves a chance to prove him or herself on their own merit." Shepard climbed back underneath the tank.
"Got daddy issues, Shepard?" Ashley asked, obviously trying to lighten the mood. "Or you going with the perfect child defense again?"
Shepard kept working, clanging hard enough to mask her words. "My father was a good man who died inciting the prisoners to resist the batarian slavers." A smile softened her words, then she shrugged. "So, yeah, probably a few issues here and there."
Williams gave her a more genuine smile and nodded before turning back to her work in earnest.
Just when inevitable defeat loomed, Shepard wrestled the last rear brake mount free. Giving a whoop of victory, she climbed out and grabbed a large jack to slip under the axle.
"Where did you learn how to take Makos apart and rebuild them?" Garrus appeared at her shoulder to help her maneuver the large jack into place. "The Alliance?"
Shepard hit the control, raising the cylinder to where it began lifting the tank, then backed it down a touch. "My father was a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, an odd-job guy. He never really knew what to do with his life, so he just followed his passions, learning about anything that caught his fancy. Machines were one of them." She got down on her back and scooted underneath. Loosening bolts a bit at a time, she kept the axle even on the jack.
"Yeah, so I've been underneath machines, covered in grease, pretty much my whole life." She shrugged. "Unlike Kryik's more tawdry guess at how I paid for my habit, I spent my late teens stripping jacked cars." Grinning at the expression of surprise on his face, she nodded. "It's true. That's how I met up with Anderson again, actually. The people I worked for grabbed a freight truck loaded down with brand new shuttles headed for Alliance headquarters in Vancouver. When I was arrested along with the rest of them, he grabbed me, took me out of the system."
She looked out. "You want to do the bolts on the other side? Don't really want this thing tipping off the jack and landing on me."
Between them, they finished removing the axle and wheeled it out.
"You really are freakishly strong," Garrus said as she lifted one end of the trashed part and they dumped it into the recycling.
She wiped her greasy hands on the front of her overalls. "Thanks. I -"
"Captain Shepard?" Joker called over the intercom.
"Yeah, here, Joker. What's up?" She grabbed a rag out of the tool chest and wiped off more of the grease.
"Captain Anderson on the comms, ma'am."
"On my way, Joker, thanks." She cocked an eyebrow. "Speak of the devil." She looked into the reflective trim on the tool chest, searching for smudges of grease on her face.
Garrus grabbed her shoulders, then the rag and wiped at a couple spots on her face. "There, semi-presentable."
She laughed. "At least you didn't lick it, Mom." She strode to the elevator. "I'll be back."
Garrus pulled his head back, his mandibles dropping. "Mom? Do human mothers do that licking and wiping your face thing too?"
"All mothers do that," Wrex sighed.
"Quarian mothers don't. Guess the bubbles and suits have an advantage after all," Tali said happily. "See you all later." Flipping her delicate hand in a friendly wave, she trotted back down to engineering.
Shepard nodded and grinned as she stepped inside. She hit the control and met Garrus's eyes, tilting her head in a little, half shrug. "Guess we're all more alike than we thought, huh?"
Shepard's grin stayed with her until she reached the comm room, then widened as she activated the center terminal and a holographic image of her mentor and oldest friend appeared. "Anderson, it's great to see you. How are you doing?"
The gruff officer grumbled something under his breath, then nodded and shifted to cross his arms. He always tried for formality to start, but then went to mobile and defensive once she saw him remember that formal meant nothing to Shepard. At last he let out a strong, hard sigh, the corner of his mouth lifting in a grudging smile. "Shepard."
"How's life treating you?" she asked, bracing herself for the reply.
"Better than your life would be if you worked with Udina fourteen hours a day."
She chuckled. "If I worked with Udina for fourteen hours, C-Sec would be hauling one of us away for murder about hour three." She did her best to look innocent and uninterested. "Speaking of, how did that whole Avina episode work out?"
"If I'd have been able to get my hands around your neck, Shepard . . .. Udina paced back and forth all day, trying to keep people away from it, but of course, the Keeper just kept working and once people realized what the Avina display was saying, they'd run in just close enough to trigger it then take off. Udina tried to shoo it away, it ended up self-destructing, but another one replaced it within five minutes."
Shepard frowned. "Aww, the poor little Keeper."
Anderson grumbled. "Glad to see your priorities are intact, as always, Shepard." He shook his head. "We can argue that over when you get back to the Citadel, and that should be sooner rather than later. The council and Udina are beginning to ask if you and Nihlus aren't the rogue agents."
Shepard shook her head. "If the council's dirty, unless we have irrefutable proof, we'll just end up with kill orders on our heads, Anderson. We'll be back when we know what Saren is doing. We got information from that Han'Gerrel that Rael'Zorah is trailing Saren. We're on our way back to Eden Prime to catch up with him."
He straightened, going formal again. "That's why I'm contacting you, Shepard. I . . ." He paused and cleared his throat. ". . . happened upon a distress call from the Exogeni colony on Feros. It was garbled and jammed almost instantly, but it mentioned geth."
Shepard reached up to her radio. "Pressly, get us underway for Feros, maximum possible speed. Full stealth." When he confirmed her order, Shepard nodded to Anderson. "How long ago did you receive the call, sir? We're about eight or nine hours out."
"About fifteen seconds before I called you, Captain. I intercepted it before Udina saw it, so you'll have a little lead time. I'm sending you all the information I have on the colony. Good luck, Shepard."
She nodded, her heart thumping fast and hard. "Thank you, sir. I just hope we get there in time to do something, find something." She gave him a crisp salute. "Talk to you soon, Anderson."
He saluted and the image disappeared.
She stared at the space for a second before she lifted her fingers to her ear. "Kryik, we've got a lead. Meet me in my quarters."