"Shepard?"
The captain yawned and stretched. Why did every single day start with someone at her door bellowing her name? She grumbled and flopped onto her back, blinking wearily at the ceiling. "How long have I been sleeping, Nihlus?" she called. She stretched again, her right foot curling into a tight spasm. "Ow! Goddamn it!" Leaping up, she stomped her foot into the deck. "This had better be good, Spectre!"
Nihlus chuckled, then coughed. "Spectre?" He sighed and she heard a slight thump and scuffle as he leaned against the outside of her door. "A friend and fellow Spectre sent me a message to let me know that the council has called a code white on Noveria."
Shepard scowled as she rocked on her foot, trying to work out the cramp. "Code white, that is a top secret emergency, isn't it?"
"It is. Bau's message said that there was a catastrophe at the Binary Helix Peak 15 facility." He moved outside the door. "Do I have to stand out here?"
She grinned. "No, come in." The cramp finally easing, she collapsed onto the side of the bed and leaned forward, her forearms across her thighs. Looking up, she covered a yawn with her hand as he limped into her quarters. He carried himself as if he were made of spun glass, one arm wrapped around his lower chest.
"May I?" he asked, nodding toward her desk.
"Yeah, of course. You look sore." She frowned at him until she yawned again. "You overdoing it, Nihlus?"
He shrugged. "I'm fine." His head bobbed in a slight shrug. "Well, I'll be okay by the time we arrive on Noveria." Sighing, he lowered himself into the chair. "Bau contacted me when the council left me out of the code white call-in. Loose contaminants at the Peak 15 complex in the Skadi Mountains."
"Okay, so that's unusual?" Shepard asked, arching an eyebrow. Guess that said how little the council trusted what they were up to out there.
He nodded. "It's an 'all available agents' alert."
She nodded and let out a sigh. "How many are responding, and how far out are they?"
"Five so far, but they aren't the concern. They're fourteen or fifteen hours out. What concerns me comes from Noveria. When Bau messaged me, I contacted a friend in the administrator's office at Port Hanshan. The Executive Board isn't waiting for the Spectres; they plan to bombard the facility from space. She says we have just over seven hours before Peak 15 is a smoldering crater."
Shepard ran her hands through her hair, tugging at the snarls. "Whatever got loose there is something the board doesn't want to risk press or council interference on. If any of their companies are colouring outside the lines, they'll sanitize it and cover it up. We need to get in there first."
Nihlus grumbled. "Even with the code white, it could take us a day or two to get clearance." His mandibles fluttered. "Of course, I could go into Port Hanshan with the Normandy and get those clearances started . . .."
Shepard gave him a wide, ingenuous grin. "You know . . . the jump thrusters on the Mako have been acting up. I really don't feel good about waiting until we're in combat to test them."
"We could drop you in the Mako just outside the city, and you could test them, make sure they're ready to go once we get the proper clearances to head out to the facility." Nihlus nodded, looking very pleased with himself as if he were the genius behind the entire plan.
Shepard stood and walked over to activate her computer terminal. "Bau didn't happen to send you maps or a layout plan of Peak 15, did he?"
"He did." Nihlus opened the message and transferred the files to her console. "Who are you going to take?"
"Garrus and Legion. I want to get Legion out in the field so that Rael'Zorah can get used to seeing it as part of the team." Shepard shook her head. "Thank goodness for Tali. She's the only reason the admiral didn't just grab poor ol' Legion and start running tests on it."
Nihlus's mandibles fluttered. "She's an impressive young person." He chuffed a little. "All the team members you've collected are. Wrex, taking out Tonn Actus's first two bases yesterday, showed a real leadership potential that I wouldn't have guessed at."
Shepard moved back to sit on the side of the bed. "Yeah, he did a great job of leading the team. Actus's few surviving lackies should have some good stories to tell." A comfortable chuckle bubbled to the surface as she recalled the way Wrex had led his small platoon through reclaiming a good chunk of his people's heritage. He'd given her a strange look when she suggested that he lead his 'krant' made up of all the Normandy's available hands, but five minutes in, she'd known that she'd made the right decision.
"Tonn Actus's last base is going to be raided by the fearsome presence of the mysterious Urdnot battlemaster and his multiracial krant of badasses when we're done on Noveria?" Nihlus asked. He smiled when she just wriggled her eyebrows. "I hope I'm fit to hold a gun by then."
Shepard stood. "Do you want some help getting back into bed? You should rest until we get there. I'll grab my team and prep them."
Nihlus nodded and held out an arm for her to help him get up. "I'll take Wrex and Williams ashore with me, put on a good show. I'm sure there will be questions about the detritus falling off the Normandy as it pulls into port."
Shepard eased herself under his arm. "Just take it easy. You've barely begun to heal."
He leaned on her, limping heavily. "I will. I want to be there with a gun in my hand when we catch up to Saren." His voice growled with a little rolling subvocalization, but nothing like it had before. Nearly dying seemed to have reset his perspective.
"Yeah, you've earned your answers." She helped him limp across to the Medbay and settled him back in bed. "I'll keep in touch over the radio as we make our way into the facility." Her fingers brushed his arm. "You keep the bureaucrats off our ass."
"Be careful down there, Shepard." He snagged her hand and squeezed her fingers.
"No worries." She patted his hand and headed toward the lab in the back to fetch her third squad member. Raising her hand to her ear, she paused outside the door to Liara and Shiala's lab and called Garrus, asking him to meet her in her quarters in five minutes.
After closing the channel, Shepard walked in the door and smiled. Liara and Shiala sat hunched over a piece of jury-rigged equipment and a computer terminal, so intent on their work that they didn't look up. Legion crouched next to a pile of tech on the floor, fitting pieces together.
"So," Liara said, sitting hunched over one of the little data modules, "it boils down to needing a prothean." She let out a soft, frustrated sort of chuckle. "I knew we should have contacted that fellow on the extranet."
Shiala laughed. "Who? Rodney the Prothean: Exotic Wonder of the Ancient World?" She shrugged. "He had some good moves on his extranet site, and that was an inventive makeup job. If nothing else, we'd be entertained."
"I didn't bring any singles back to the ship." Liara's laugh rang high and young, innocent in a way that made Shepard's heart ache. No matter how the captain saw the future playing out, she doubted that Liara's innocence would survive the journey.
"Captain!" Shiala called out as she turned and saw Shepard. Jumping up, she nearly knocked Legion on its backside. "I'm sorry, we didn't see you there."
"Rodney the Prothean?" Shepard asked, barely managing to keep her face stern as she cocked a hip and crossed her arms.
Liara's laugh echoed through the small space again, her delicate features turning a darker blue. "We did an extranet search for prothean information when we were on leave, Captain. He's a stripper, specializes in parties and risque messages for special occasions."
Shepard broke character and chuckled. "So, nothing that will actually help our search, just boost our morale?"
"Exactly," Shiala answered. "He has a very nice . . .." She cut a glance across at Legion. "Anyway, Legion has been helpful. It believes the prothean technology in these devices was activated by touch and has something to do with stored memory engrams. It's been helping us try to build something to approximate an interface that allows us to access the information using our biotics."
Shepard's brow furrowed. "And how's that working?"
"We managed a brief flash," Liara reported, "and saw a moment of battle. Terrible machines as tall as Sovereign walking over the planet, shooting everything with their lasers."
Shepard straightened. "Excellent work. I'm going to steal the third member of your brain trust for a few hours, but I'll get it back to you as quickly as possible." She nodded toward the door. "Come on, Legion the Geth: Wonder of the Artificial Intelligence World, we've got a ground mission."
"So, we just wait for the Normandy to get her docking vector, look for the most hidden place to drop, and hope we don't get shot out of the sky by an AA gun?" Garrus asked, glancing up from the Mako's electronic suite.
"That encapsulates the essence of the plan, Brother C-Sec," Shepard replied. "Just keep your eyes glued to that topographical display." She cackled a little at the glare the idiom provoked from the turian. Turning, she looked back to where Legion sat at the cannon controls. "You okay back there?"
The geth's light dipped in a quick nod. "Affirmative."
"We're on our final approach to Port Hanshan, Captain," Joker reported over the comm. "Our approach vector brings us through the Shide Pass. If I swing around the left flank of Guoqang Mountain, you'll have a seven second window where you should be able to drop without being too obvious to their ladar."
"Roger that, Joker. Thanks."
"An important weather note, Shepard," the pilot continued. "Port Hanshan and the surrounding Skadi Mountains are currently in the middle of the worst blizzard of a bad winter of blizzards. Visibility is almost zero and the avalanche threat is extreme."
Shepard sighed. "Of course it is, Brother Joker. So stay away from the edge of the mountain roads, or what's left of them. Understood. Excellent safety tip, thank you again. Anything else?"
"Just be careful, Captain."
"Roger that, Joker. Shepard, out."
"Massive blizzard, skinny mountain roads, avalanche risk . . .." Garrus sighed and looked over at her. "Didn't Williams call dibs on the avalanches?"
Shepard met his stare, her grin growing wider. "Seriously? Scary, secret laboratory; loose contaminants; possible geth heretics; avalanches; and an impending antimatter bombardment, and you're telling me you'd rather be sitting at a bar on the Citadel?"
His brow plates arched. "Damn straight."
She covered her mouth and coughed, the word, "Bullshit" echoing off the inside of the armoured vehicle. "You know that if I'd left you to go ashore with Nihlus, I'd never hear the end of the bitching. You love our adventures, Brother C-Sec, don't even try to tell me otherwise." She moved the Mako to the head of the ramp, running last minute system checks.
"Two minutes to drop window," Joker's voice came through.
"Roger that." Shepard pulsed the jump thrusters a couple of times, making the vehicle bounce.
"Maybe Alenko should drive," Garrus suggested.
Shepard just shook her head. "Fasten your safety harness, wise-assless."
"One minute to drop window."
The Mako rumbled as she backed up to nearly the elevator, the cargo bay's alarms muffled through the heavy plating, but still audible.
"Drop in thirty . . . twenty-five . . . twenty . . . fifteen . . . ten . . . nine . . .." As Joker counted down to the opening of their drop window, Shepard hit the throttle then released the clutch.
"Ramp in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. Clear," Garrus called.
Shepard eased off throttle as they hit the end of the ramp, adjusting the eezo core to lower the vehicle's effective mass as they cleared the Normandy. Pulsing the thrusters, she landed them dead center on the road leading past Port Hanshan and into the mountains.
"Smoother even than Alenko, thank you very much." She turned to Garrus, meeting his tightly drawn mandibles and worried scowl with a cheeky wink. "Brother C-Sec, it saddens me that you possess so little faith." She grinned and hit the throttle, taking them away from civilization and toward the unknown. Peak 15 stood about forty-five minutes from the capital. Hopefully, they didn't take too long figuring out what was going on, because in just over four hours, death was set to rain down from orbital stations.
"That looks like trouble waiting to happen," Garrus said, nodding toward an avalanche tunnel ahead of them.
"Yeah, it sure does." Shepard slowed, dropping the Mako into its lowest gear. "Legion, are you ready on the cannon?"
"Affirmative," came the flanged voice from behind her right shoulder.
"Okay then, in we go." Shepard focused on the sensor readouts of the tunnel ahead as it wrapped around the mountain. No enemy signatures appeared.
"Looks like my bad feeling was wrong this time," Garrus said as they came out the other side.
No sooner had his words dropped into the space between them then a rocket hit the right front corner panel, rocking the Mako.
"Dammit, they've got long range turrets." Shepard wove the Mako back and forth across the narrow road with one hand while adjusting the sensors to a longer-range readout. "There they are," she said, her voice a soft, satisfied growl. "You got them, C-Sec? Legion?"
They both confirmed in the same breath, and Legion opened fire. Two hits from the cannon, the first turret exploded long before they reached it.
Turrets peppered the entire mountain side, even before Peak 15 became visible above and ahead of them.
"Sweet baby Jesus," Shepard said and groaned as she activated the forward viewscreen and looked up at the towering complex. "We're going to need a bigger boat."
Ignoring Garrus's confused glance, she focused on keeping the Mako on the road, bouncing over and crashing through massive snowdrifts that completely obscured the road anywhere the wind curled around the wall of rock. Luckily, Noveria lived in perpetual winter, and the sheer cliffs on the left side of the vehicle were lined with beacons to keep them from rolling off the edge to their doom as she dodged a nearly unending stream of rockets.
"What the hell is that?" Garrus asked, a long talon pointing at two huge red marks amongst the smaller turrets on the forward scan.
"Really big goddamned enemies?" Shepard offered. She grimaced as a massive plasma burst sent the shields crashing to half. "With really huge guns, apparently." Driving straight for the massive, four-legged geth tanks, she allowed the shields to absorb their small arms fire, waiting for them to fire their main weapon before swerving.
"Colossi," Legion supplied.
"Damn!" Shepard dodged a plasma blast to get hit by two rockets. "Take out the turrets in range first so I can focus."
A double hit impacted the front corner, throwing the tank toward the yawning kilometre of sky between them and the valley floor below.
"Spirits! Shepard!" Garrus yelped as she hit the brakes, bringing the Mako to a plunging halt with its nose hanging over the edge of the cliff. "You're going to get us killed."
She didn't respond, slamming it into reverse just in time to take a glancing blow that spun the Mako around a little on the slick road. Compensating by increasing the vehicles relative mass and dropping it into low gear, she steered out of the spin and got it oriented facing the right way.
"Okay, those things are starting to piss me off," Shepard growled as another plasma burst hit the back end, sending her into another slide. Fear turned brittle, cold and deadly. "Gentlemen, fire as quickly as you can without overheating your guns."
"No, not gentlemen." Garrus groaned. "That always means you're going to do something monumentally reckless." He tightened his safety harness and sent three round bursts at the first of the giant walking tanks.
"Glory hallelujah and praise the Enkindlers light," Shepard said, her voice low and fierce. She increased the positive mass effect field encompassing the tank, shifting up through the gears, accelerating until the Mako charged at the first colossus with the momentum of a small frigate.
"Increasing power to forward shields and inertial dampeners." Garrus's voice came out tight, the subvocals harsh and high-pitched underneath the words. "You're going to be the death of me."
"Don't even joke about that," Shepard snapped. She focused on steering, making small corrections to their course to miss most of the incoming fire. Time hung over her like a guillotine, poised and ready to fall. She didn't have time to fight smart and slick.
Garrus is right. You're going to get everyone killed. It's not like you haven't learned this lesson. Dumbass.
She shut that voice down as a blast hit the right rear panel, sending the machine slewing sideways toward the open cliff-face. Snow billowed up to explode into a blinding cloud when it hit the wind. "Son of a bitch!" Her heart slammed into her ribcage, thumping like a jackhammer, but her hands stayed steady and quick on the controls.
Shepard steered hard to bring the Mako out of the skid. The left rear wheel slammed off the edge, the impact snapping Shepard's teeth shut on the side of her tongue as the cockpit tilted hard to port. Copper filled her mouth. Metal screamed, gravity and propulsion dragging the back end of the machine over the rock toward doom. Opening the throttle full, Shepard hit the jump thrusters, steering into the jaws of death just long enough to drag the wheel back over the stone lip. Once she had all four wheels on solid ground again, she corrected their trajectory, aiming them missile-straight for the first of the colossi.
They impacted the first geth tank so hard that it drew a graceful arc straight over the roof, and plowed into the snow, sending a great plume of white powder skyward. At least, until it hit the edge and, in a tangle of legs grappling for purchase, flew off the side of the mountain. Shepard didn't slow or hesitate, just changed course for the next. Having seen what happened to its compatriot, the second one reared back, bracing itself, wrapping around the front end as the Mako slammed into it.
Plasma bursts slammed into the cab of the Mako as rapidly as the colossus could fire them off. The damage sensors began to wail, the entire Mako flashing red on the console as the metal in front of their faces heated to a molten red.
"Shepard! What the . . .?" Garrus hollered as she aimed them toward the concrete collision pilings at the mouth of the next avalanche tunnel. "We can't take an impact like . . .." His words faded into a bellowing scream.
The world erupted in a deafening, crunching roar of metal and concrete embedding into one another, the Mako plowing through six pilings before it stopped.
Silence.
You stupid, reckless ass. You killed yourself and Garrus. Probably Legion too.
The wind whistled across the hole melted in the cab. Pain and cold shivered through her entire body, adrenaline turning to ash in her blood.
Not dead then.
Shepard lifted a shaking hand from the controls to press against the slice in her scalp from her old friend, the sharp edge on the front support. A dull ache dug into her head like a tick the size of a junebug, rapidly transforming into a junebug carrying a small army knife, then a chainsaw. After a couple of seconds, she took a deep breath, grateful that air flowed into her lungs. Her heart slowed from jackhammer to war drum when she heard Garrus curse.
Congratulations, Shepard. You managed not to kill Garrus too. Let's go for the trifecta, shall we?
Blinking to clear the fuzziness in her vision, she hit the omnigel repair controls. She'd probably killed the poor tank, but it didn't hurt to try. If it ran, they could still make it to Peak 15. If it didn't . . .. She sighed. It was a long, cold hike back to Port Hanshan.
Pulling her hand away from her head, she looked at the blood and hair stuck to the palm of her glove. "When we get back, C-Sec . . . grind that fucking edge down, will you?"
The turian groaned and shifted in his harness. "I hate you so much right now." He stretched his neck, moaning as it popped, then started checking systems.
Shepard looked through the divider. "You functional back there, Legion?"
The geth looked at her, its head flaps all spiking out from its head, fluttering hard before settling back. "Affirmative, Shepard-Captain. You have sustained injury."
Well done, reckless ass. Of course, there's a lot of day left. Keep trying, you can get at least one of them good and dead by dinner.
She pressed the heel of her hand back to her head and nodded. "Yeah, but it's nothing." She sighed and hit the omnigel control again. "Okay, let's see if we can get this thing rolling."
When the engine started, Shepard crowed softly. "A good first step, my friends." She eased it into reverse, letting out a long, relieved sigh as the wheels dug in, wobbling and thumping oddly over the snow, but moving.
"How far to Peak 15?" she asked, setting off down the long tunnel, avoiding the bits and pieces of colossus the best she could.
"Half a klick," Garrus answered, his talons moving over the electronics suite. "We're in rough shape, but should be able to make it as long as there aren't any more geth between us and the front door." He keyed in commands. "There's a chunk of colossus head jamming the machine gun, Shepard. You'll have to let me out to work it free. However, if we still have the cannon . . .."
"The cannon remains functional, Shepard-Captain, despite a calibration error of 7.21 percent. This unit will compensate during targeting," Legion reported.
Garrus twitched, his mandibles flicking hard, but he managed a small head bob. "That should get us past the last turrets if you can manage to avoid their rockets."
Shepard took a deep breath and nodded. "Let's pray the Enkindlers heard you, Brother C-Sec. Glory hallelujah."
(A-N: Hi hi! For the foreseeable future, I'm going to put out chapters of Future Imperfect as I get them finished and my lovely betas get a chance to go through them. So, there might be more than one chapter ready and waiting when you return.
I really want to thank everyone for reading this story. I love this version of the crew so much. Glory hallelujah and praise the great glowing asses of the Enkindlers! Onward through the snow! Noveria awaits.