"Shepard? Are you all right?"
Shepard scrambled up, her back to the crate, bullets playing deadly music as they sank into the thick polymer of her cover. Behind her she heard Garrus overloading the barrier, the roasted ozone stench of the thing letting her know it wouldn't go down without a fight.
"For now." She took a couple of deep breaths to calm her shaking. They did nothing to ease the sick twisting in her guts. Sealed in. She forced that thought away the best she could, then launched Droney and peered up over the barrier to assess the situation. Eight mechs and three drones moved in on her position, but not as quickly as she would've thought. When faced with a single enemy combatant, cut off from rescue but only by a few minutes . . . logic said swarm and overwhelm. Instead, they hung back, the mechs spreading out in a slowly closing semi-circle. Only the drones advanced with any sort of speed, two of them distracted by Droney. She took the last out with an overload and let out a relieved sigh. Drones: no problem.
She brought Ingrid up, sighted down the mech on her far left, and fired. It staggered, but didn't go down. A direct headshot should have flattened it. Her teeth clenched as frustration and a thick thread of fear wormed its way through her. What the hell were those things? The fear wrapped itself around her throat, squeezing with the inexorable grip of a boa constrictor. She opened her omnitool to scan it, but it deflected the scan completely. She scowled down at her omnitool. Failing her. Her tools were all failing her.
Alone, trapped . . . sweet Jesus . . . trapped. She popped up, her shields complaining as she took fire, trying to find another way out. There had to be a way out. She needed to get out.
Stop it! Get down and grab some damned control, Janey.
"Shepard!" Garrus yelled, his voice muffled by the barrier, but enough to break through the walls of her cage. "What are you doing? Get behind cover!"
She ducked back down. Unless they got the barrier down, she had no way out. And she couldn't die, not with so much of the fight left.
Use your head, Janey. Test them. Every mech, every device has a weakness.
"How's it going with that barrier, C-Sec?" she called over her shoulder.
"It's not going down. I don't know what's powering this thing, but it's nothing I can take down with my overload or sabotage. Targismar!" His sniper rifle coughed once and then again. Assault rifle bullets played a symphony across its surface.
"Wow, you better not kiss your mama with that mouth, C-Sec," she said, forcing a laugh, but it just closed the room down around her, panic's sharp edge cutting into her again. She overloaded another drone, changing out Ingrid for Roger to go after the mech. After sabotaging it, she hit it with at least fifty rounds, popping in and out of cover to avoid fire from the rest. While she fired, she watched for any hint of weakness. The only thing she saw was a tiny opalescent shimmer each time a bullet impacted the thing's shields. "What the fuck is the deal here?"
It walked passed a table, its shields melting away a corner of the plastic top that intruded upon their envelope.
"Oh crap." The snake wrapped itself around her neck, hissing in pleasure at the rabbit-quick thump of her pulse against its coils. "Come on, Shepard. Think." Then . . . understanding. The shimmer was her bullets vaporizing upon impact. An incendiary shield. No wonder it didn't go down.
"The mechs have incendiary shields, C-Sec," she shouted. "Any ideas?"
"I get this fucking barrier down and get you out of there?" He slammed a fist against the barrier then pulled back and cleared his throat. He raked his talons over his fringe. "Sorry, Shepard. Not helping." He rumbled deep in his throat, and swiped at the upper plate of his mouth with the back of his hand. "Cryo?"
She grinned, a cool breath of relief whispering through her. It might just work if the shield made their chassis run hot. "Worth a shot." Unclipping two grenades from her belt, she set them for magnetic grapple and cryo detonation. Holding her breath, she sent out a vague prayer and lobbed one straight at the mech's chest, detonating the charge as soon as it hit. Jubilation and relief combined into a heady brew as slivers of frost sliced up the metal plating on its body, the metal cracking in the split second before the whole thing blew apart. Pieces rained down on her, tendrils of smoke drifting up from where they landed on the deck plating.
"Yes! You're a genius, C-Sec."
A chime sounded. Shepard popped up over her cover to see a new enemy drone wink into being. An overload winked it right back out. A smile drifted across her lips. Felt good to attack something and just kill it. Proof of at least basic competency.
She looked down at her belt. Five grenades left, seven mechs. She tossed the second grenade. The mech dropped into a roll, but not quickly enough. Another one down, but the snake whispered, as it slid its coils over her skin. The mechs were learning.
"No time to get complacent. Need to keep surprising them."
Leaning back against the crate, thighs shaking and burning with the strain of remaining crouched for so long, Shepard flipped through possibilities. The next time, the mech would anticipate and move before she could detonate. She might be able to fake them out once, but it would wreak havoc with her accuracy.
She grabbed a chunk of metal and stood, throwing the garbage at the nearest mech. When it rolled to evade the fake grenade, she tracked it, hitting it dead on the side of the head with the real thing. It blew just as it regained its feet. Three down. "There you go, Shepard," she muttered to herself. "You're never trapped. Not any more."
She heard Droney go down and respawned it just in time for the fabricator to spit another one out as well. She remained focused on the remaining mechs, letting the drones deal with one another. As one, the mechs stepped forward, walking slowly, but she had maybe a minute before they overran her position. Still, the fear withdrew, leaving her calm, her muscles regaining some strength. The room, her thoughts, and what she needed to do all crystallized in the quiet left behind.
"Tell me that barrier is down!"
"We're going to use one of the demolition charges to blow it," Tali told her. "You'll want to move to cover at the far end of the room."
"Roger that." She glanced up. The left side of the room presented her best chance to get by the mech advance, but maybe . . . if she could move quickly enough . . .. Yes. Surety calmed her hands, and she hung Roger on her back. If she could claim to have an element, it would be certain death situations.
Like the proverbial pig in the mud, Janey.
She pulled two more grenades, set them and then charged out of cover, bolting straight for the furthest two mechs on the right. A wild grin crept across her face as she saw her opening. A table and chairs forced the mechs to separate, circling around either side. Hollering a wordless challenge, she leaped up onto the table, dropping the grenades onto the top of their heads before springing into a forward somersault. She hit the ground behind them hands first, tucking into a roll that brought her straight back up on her feet.
"Thank you, Mrs. Johnson and ninth grade phys. ed."
Two strides carried her to the computer core, the grenades' blast waves giving her a helpful little shove into cover as they blew the mechs apart, peppering her back with shrapnel. She covered her head and waited for the debris to stop raining down, peering out from under her hands when it did.
Shepard scrambled to her feet and leaned out to survey the room. She pushed aside relief that her gambit had worked and started trying to figure out how best to take out the last three.
Then the far side of the room erupted into fire and smoke, chunks of prefab and rock blasting across to smash into the core and hammer huge dents into the wall. A twisted piece of the door frame parted Shepard's hair and sank more than a foot into the metal and bedrock behind her.
"Holy living fuck, people!" she shouted, her heart hammering in her throat as she looked up at the piece of metal pressed against her face. "The words I think you were looking for are 'fire in the hole'." A deep tremor settled into Shepard's hands, but she clenched them into fists a couple of times, then shook them out.
Survive seven of the scariest mechs of all time just to be taken out by my own people. Not cool!
A quick inventory of her body revealed all parts intact and no more aches and pains than she'd had the moment before. A survey of the room showed only one mech remaining, the other two cut down by flying debris. Gathering the shards of her shattered nerves around her, she built them into a diamond shell. One left and then she could go the hell home.
"Sorry, Shepard," Tali called over the clatter of settling rubble. "My knowledge of demolitions is theory. Quarians don't usually blow things up."
Ignoring Tali, she drew herself up as tall as she could, erecting armour, chinking pieces into place in time with her breath. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five. Gradually the chaos and swirling mess of emotions and thoughts sweeping through her calmed. "Better. Warrior inside and out. Now, take this fucking thing out, Shepard."
Squaring her shoulders, she settled her armour in place then slapped her omnitool, bringing up Garrus's fantastic shields of doom. A fierce smile slashed across her face as they buzzed to life around her, the charge strong enough to lift the hair on the back of her neck. "Sorry Garrus, but it's time for the sexy hotness of death." She shrugged Roger back into her hand, loading him for cryo rounds. Taking the mech's bullets in stride, she just clenched her jaw and closed on the damned thing.
Quite a lot of damage from the explosion showed on the mech's chassis, buoying her confidence. "Come on, you mother, go down." Volley after volley, overloads, sabotage, she gritted her teeth, and whittled away at it, praying its shields died before she did.
In a flash of hellish red aura, the mech's shields fell, widening Shepard's smile into a grimace. Glancing down to check her footing, she spotted her last grenade. How she forgotten that? Snatching it off her belt, she thumbed the controls to set it.
"All right you fucker," she growled. Sprinting forward, she leaped over the remains of the blasted out table, the grenade aimed for a cranny just above the mech's hip. Perfect aim jammed the device in with all the force of her charge, spinning her a little as she charged past.
Then a metal vice-like grip clamped down on her wrist, wrenching her backwards. Before she even recognized that it had grabbed her, the mech dropped into a roll. Ligaments shredding, her shoulder joint let go with a terrible crunch. Instinct kicked in as her body recognized the impending loss of its limb even though her brain shorted out, adrenaline pouring into her blood to numb the pain. Popping her shoulder even further, she stepped up onto a fallen chair and threw herself into a back flip. The movement wrenched her wrist free of the mech's grip and she dove for cover, the exploding grenade flinging her right over it and into a wall.
"Shepard!" Garrus and Tali called out at the same time.
She dragged herself up onto a hip and then across to take cover behind the crate, dead arm scraping through the debris and thick layer of dust on the floor. The mech lay in pieces around the room, but the drones just kept coming. Forcing herself up off the floor an inch at a time, she leaned against the crate and took a foggy inventory. One good arm, fried shields . . .. She looked down at her dead arm. Omnitool doing a great impersonation of a complete write off.
A sudden surge of nausea sent her rolling onto her stomach as what little remained of breakfast that morning made an encore appearance. Pain spiked out from her shoulder, each new shard of agony prompting another heave.
You've got to get control of the pain, Janey. You're going to go into shock. Wrap it up. Package it all up tight. You've done it before. Concentrate. Those drones aren't going to wait for you to stop puking.
"Shepard, are you all right?" Garrus called again, his voice taut and sub-vocals flat, panic slipping through the layers of practiced C-Sec and turian stoicism. "Come on, answer me." Gunfire followed his words, telling her why the drones hadn't killed her yet.
She breathed through the dry heaves, coating over the pain with layer after layer of thick, cool cement, walling it away. It was an old trick . . . a very old trick, but it served its purpose and then pain faded enough that the vomiting eased.
Rolling over, she wiped her mouth on her gauntlet. "Damned thing almost pulled my arm off, give me a fucking break, C-Sec." She sat up, the room dipping and swaying around her. "Why aren't you in here? We're supposed to get trapped in these situations together." She looked over at the doorway and answered her own question. Their demolition charge had brought down a good ton of rock along with the barrier. "It's tradition." She wobbled, the wall cracking, letting her shoulder's screaming through. "I don't feel so good."
"You still have three drones closing on you." His arm reached through the cleared space at the top, overloading one.
Taking several deep breaths, Shepard slathered more cement over the crack and forced herself up onto her knees. Resting Roger on the top of the crate, she sprayed fire over the line of drones, praying that a few of her bullets hit the damned fabricator. She lasted twenty seconds before she sank down on her heels to lean against the crate. Her leg muscles shook so hard with fatigue and shock she knew she had moments before they dumped her on the floor and left her there.
Peering around the edge of the crate, she watched Garrus take out another couple of the drones, shooting over Tali and Legion's heads as they shoved at the rubble, trying to clear enough to get inside. She scanned the room, focusing on the far wall as the swirling balls of light and force fields blinked out. A shimmer thickened the air in the far right hand corner.
"Shepard, back corner. Your right," Garrus called.
"Yep, I see it. Concentrate your fire there." She bullied herself up onto her knees as her good arm lifted Roger back into place.
"Please, let this end it," she whispered as her finger squeezed the trigger. Using rapid bursts of three rounds, she peppered the corner with bullets. The shimmer became more pronounced under direct fire, but the damned thing's shields held. "It's got redundant emitters, like the door," she called back over her shoulder.
An idea sparked. Rotating emitters drained a hell of a lot of power, way too much to be practical anywhere but a land base. Rotating emitters and constantly spawning and controlling three drones . . . that had to be sucking up the juice at a prodigious rate.
"Keep the bloody drones off me for a second." Ducking down, Shepard set Roger on the floor. Grinding her teeth together, she grabbed the wrist of her dead arm, lifting it up to rest on her knee. A piercing scream ripped past her clenched jaw as the shards of her shoulder rasped against one another, crunching ominously as it rotated. Shoving back the pain, she tried to open her omnitool. Definitely dead.
"Shepard!" Garrus called. "Drones trying to flank you from both sides. Legion, take out the one on the left." Their fire increased.
"Garrus, scan that corner, watch for power fluctuations as it spawns the drones."
Leaving her arm resting on her thigh, Shepard snatched her rifle off the ground, opening fire just as the first of the drones made it around the right side of her crate. It went down with a complaining sizzle, but another followed right behind it. A small barrage of bullets that must have overheated Garrus's rifle brought the deadly little hologram down.
"You're right, Shepard. The shield emitters reroute to the fabricator. We should be able to take it out." His rifle drowned out the end of his sentence as he opened fire once more.
"We've got you, you bastard," she growled. "Tali, are you and Legion still there?"
"We are," the quarian said, deep, rapid breaths that lacing through the words. Wounded, or just exhausted? Shepard pushed that aside.
"Excellent. Incoming data for an overload to your omnis. It's going to take all of us to pull that thing's shield down." She settled Roger into the crook of her arm. "Lets try to take out all three drones at the same time. Then, the moment the power level shifts, hit it with your overloads.."
"Tali ready."
"Legion in position, Shepard-Captain."
"Garrus in position."
"Okay, lets end this. Garrus, the furthest right, Tali and Legion, the center one. I'll take the last." She stood and opened fire, the drones sizzling and sparking under the barrage. Hers let out a death whine and blinked out a split second after the other two. "Now!"
In a light show worthy of Armistice Day, all three overloads hit at once. The device exploded, the shockwave slamming into Shepard like a massive fist, driving all the air from her body in a shriek of anguish. It threw her back three metres. She crashed into the floor and slid another metre on her ass before slamming into a wall. A thin shrill of pain bludgeoned its way up her throat despite her lack of air, and for a moment the room faded to an even murkier grey, lightning strikes of absolute black streaking across her vision.
Groaning, she raised her head from the prefab floor just long enough to ensure the damned thing was dead, then collapsed. Every muscle in her body trembled and complained, fatigue and pain settling in, deep and implacable as the adrenaline began to leach from her blood.
"I need a nap," she mumbled, letting her eyes close.
"Shepard!" The scrape and scramble of a large body being shoved through a small entrance preceded the hollow, metal drum beat of running feet. Garrus hit the floor next to her. "Spirits, you just don't know how to duck, do you? I think Wrex might be right about how much krogan you've got in you."
She opened her eyes and let out a weak, bitter laugh. "Yeah." Looking past him to Legion and Tali, Shepard clenched her teeth and forced herself to sit up. Her shoulder throbbed, the pain ebbing as it swelled inside her armour, lack of circulation dulling the bayonets to fists. "You two grab that drone fabricator and one of those mechs. They aren't Alliance, and they're far more advanced than anything I've seen."
"Very good, Captain," a familiar voice called. "You don't disappoint. Your mind and your fighting skills are as keen as I've heard."
Daggers of black ice slid under Shepard's skin. "Help me up." Grabbing hold of Garrus, she used him to scramble up to her feet and turned to face a badly broken up, but recognizable holographic form. "You?"
After a moment of staring at Armistan Banes's flickering image, she pushed away from Garrus, staggering forward a step. The Cerberus operative's hologram stood a couple of metres in front of the computer that had spawned the drones. The polished suit, pretentious air, and cigarette remained unchanged since their last conversation, and she wondered if he somehow just dry cleaned himself. Maybe no one real existed behind the holo-face at all.
"Armistan Banes?" Garrus asked.
Shepard nodded. "Banes? This was you?" Try as she might to force all the frozen darkness into her voice, she knew it came out weak and slurred from shock. Disbelief warred with the proof right before her eyes. "How? You can't be here. Did you do this?"
He swept into a low bow. "Not the VI, of course. That was merely a fortuitous malfunction of life. Hurrah for humanity that you're so very efficient in your killing."
She gestured toward the mechs and drone emitter. "How the hell did you get these in here? And why?" She took a step, but the knee shuddered, threatening to dump her on the floor. Everything suddenly just turned on its head, making no sense. "What the hell, Banes?" She threw her hand up to gesture to her shoulder. "I'll warn you. If you're trying to kill me, it's not easy."
"As I can quite plainly see." He chuckled and took a long drag on his cigarette. "I assure you, we aren't trying to kill you, Captain. Think of this little exercise as . . ." He made a show of thinking that ended with a caricature of enlightenment. The proverbial light bulb. ". . . data collection. You're an anomaly, Captain, one that my employer wants to know absolutely everything about."
She sighed and wrapped her good arm around her stomach. "Tell him to come and speak to me in person. I'll show him exactly how much I appreciate being run around and tortured like some sort of lab rat."
Banes shrugged, the gesture so casual and flippant that Shepard took a step toward the hologram, fully willing to put a fist through it just for emphasis. Fury boiled in her guts, sour and acidic, bubbling up into her throat.
Banes stepped toward her. "You live a dangerous life, Shepard. I suggest you don't spend too much energy worrying about my employer. So, he ran you through a little test." He took a drag off the cigarette, his shoulders lifting along with the inhale. "You came through alive in a most impressive fashion. Get over it, chalk it up to science, and move on."
"Science," Shepard deadpanned. "Is that why you're here? Scoop up whatever remains of the VI and pat yourselves on the back for your invention?" She scoffed, flipping her good hand at him in a dismissive wave. "Good luck with that, Banes. Just keep the hell away from me, or as soon as I end Saren, I'll start a whole new hunt."
Banes let out a long-suffering sigh. "So small minded. I honestly expected better from you, Captain. You appeared to show some capacity for creativity." He paced a little, flicking the end of his cigarette in a steady rhythm. "What most people fail to comprehend about science, Captain, is how laughably small the percentage of true invention is. John of Salisbury said it far more poetically than Newton, 'We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants. We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours.'" The hologram paced a few steps and back. "Invention is not people in white smocks hunched over microscopes; it is following trails to find treasures unseen by others. It's about setting up cause and effect to coincide with perfect timing."
Shepard shifted to her other hip. "Really? Sweet baby Jesus, you do love the sound of your own voice, don't you, Banes?" Exhaustion dripped through her cells, epoxy setting her in place. It felt as though a week had passed since they landed on Luna. "Great villain monologue, though. Kudos. Right now, I just want to know if you sabotaged the VI, killing dozens of good men and women?'"
The hologram fizzled for a moment as Banes laughed. "No. We found out about it the same moment you did. We're merely here to investigate the possibilities for discovery." He shrugged, a mocking, ugly gesture. "Well, and to get a good look at the infamous Captain Jane Shepard in action. Thank you for a very entertaining demonstration, Shepard. We'll speak again soon, I feel certain." His image blinked and folded in on itself, disappearing.
Shepard straightened and staggered into the computer core a couple of feet to her right. Catching herself, she leaned against the solid wing, trying to will energy into her muscles. Without Banes there to focus her anger, even that washed away, leaving her shaking, cold, and wishing for medigel.
Only a little further, Janey. The mission is over, just make it back to the ship.
Garrus wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her tight in against his side. "Normandy, we need a medevac in bunker three." He glanced back at Tali. "You and Legion have this?"
The quarian looked up from the bolt she was sawing through and gave him a jaunty if sloppy salute. "We'll have this and a couple mechs on board within thirty minutes. Hopefully we can find a couple with different terminal damage."
"Call Ashley's team to back them up, just in case," Shepard said, forcing the words out, her tongue too thick and slow, her ability to think swept away by the pain.
Shepard let Garrus do most of the work involved in keeping her upright as they waited for a stretcher.
"How are you doing?" he asked, his voice tender.
"I feel as though I hired on as the assistant to a near-sighted knife thrower in some nightmarish carnival, Garrus. Thanks for asking."
He chuckled and nuzzled her temple. "Dr. Chakwas will get you sorted." He reached up, opening a channel. "Nihlus, Shepard has been wounded. I'm taking her back to the Normandy."
The next moment, Shepard's earpiece signalled an incoming transmission from Nihlus. "Are you all right?"
She lifted her good hand to her opposite ear. "Yeah, fine. Just played Rock 'em, Sock 'em Robots with a mech that demonstrated a surprising gift for hand to hand. Wrap things up here. I'll be out of med bay by the time you get back to the ship."
Shepard awoke to a quiet, dim med bay. Pillows cradled her head and bad shoulder, supporting the regen cage. Shifting ever so slightly, she tested her body out. Sore, but tolerable. Either the painkillers hadn't worn off, or she'd slept through the worst of it. That misconception lasted until she tried to throw the blanket off. A small pack of invisible varren burst through a hole in the universe and sank their teeth into her flesh, heads whipping back and forth as they fought over the choicest parts.
Gasping, she decided to stay as still as possible. "How long have I been here?" she asked, spotting the doctor sitting at her desk. Looking around, she realized she was the only occupant. Dread burst in her gut like a tiny nova. "Chase. Is Chase okay?"
"Take it easy," Dr. Chakwas said, pushing up out of her chair. She walked over, the ever-present omnitool flaring to life. "Things are healing well, but pay attention to the pain. It's there for a reason, Shepard, and no, that reason is not to dare you to endure as much of it as you can."
"Chase, Doctor. How is she?" Anger pushed back against the dread.
The doctor held out a hand she seemed to think would keep Shepard from leaping out of bed and doing something crazy. Similarly, she kept her voice soft and low, almost uncharacteristically sympathetic. "We transferred her to the medical facility at Alliance headquarters in Vancouver. A bullet shattered a lumbar vertebrae and damaged her spinal cord. She's paralyzed, but with treatment, she's expected to recover very well. Now, relax. Soldiers get injured in the course of duty. It is a reality that I am all too familiar with. She is getting the best treatment humanity has to offer, and her family is with her."
She offered the hand to help Shepard sit up. "You, on the other hand, have been here for two days. I had to do some very delicate surgery to save your arm, but it is mending nicely."
"And the rest of the team? Was anyone else injured?" Shepard pulled herself up gingerly, moving every body part as if it were made of spun sugar.
The doctor helped steady her on the edge of the bed. "Tali'Zorah suffered a few scratches and bumps, but other than a fever that has nearly resolved itself, and a very overbearing father, she's fine. Urdnot Wrex took a rocket to the chest, but his armour and plating took most of the damage. Apparently, the wound will improve his sexual appeal." She shrugged. "Everyone else came back intact." Her hand rose to her ear. "Officer Vakarian, your charge is awake and ready to return to her quarters."
"Charge?" Shepard slipped down off the bed but just leaned heavily against it, waiting to see if her legs would hold her before striking out. "I swear I'm going to build a brig. Everyone who gets sassy with me goes in. Bread and water. Thirty days." Worry about Chase and Tali darkened her humor, souring it enough that she winced. Dr. Chakwas didn't deserve her bitchiness.
"Sign me up, I have a shelf of medical journals waiting to be read." The doctor's mouth twitched at the corners, threatening to break into a full-blown smile. She regained control of the insurrection with the help of distraction as the med bay door opened.
Garrus stepped through looking every bit the cop performing a prisoner transfer. "Vakarian reporting to take custody of the patient, Doctor," he said, his voice brisk and official.
Chakwas stood stiffly at parade rest. "I surrender Captain Shepard to your custody, Officer. She's a crafty one. Don't let her talk you into letting her out of bed until we arrive at the Citadel. Understood?" She gave him a curt nod, one corner of her mouth twitching again.
"Yes, ma'am." A turian salute sealed the deal, then Garrus turned to face Shepard, holding an arm out toward the door. "After you, Captain."
"Brig!" Shepard called out loud enough that it echoed off the walls. "Someone build me a damned brig!" She walked around the end of the bed, her one hand clinging to it just in case her knees went ahead with their threats to dump her on the floor with her ass in the air. A fitting punishment for the hours of endless fighting.
Garrus only let her suffer for a few steps before he moved in and wrapped a strong, gentle arm around her. "Little wobbly?" When she nodded, he squeezed her. "We'll get you sorted in time to dock on the Citadel."
She slipped her arm around his waist, leaning into him as they stepped out the door. "We better. I have errands and a date with my boyfriend tomorrow." When they made it to her quarters, she sank gratefully onto the end of her bed. "Remind me to thank Armistan Banes and his employer for those mechs. I was doing so well with the whole not getting injured thing, too. Someone set the no workplace injuries sign back to zero."
Garrus cleared his throat. "I had to go down to Alliance headquarters and dropped by to see Addison. She's in really good spirits and her doctors say she's responding very well." He smiled and shrugged. "She says she's going to be back in uniform before the year's out. You, on the other hand, I'm going to start wrapping in packing bubbles and just roll you into battle."
"Hey! Other than scrapes and bruises, I haven't been hurt since Feros." Shepard bristled. "Considering how many people try to kill me on the average day, I think that's pretty impressive." She held out her good arm for him to help her lay down.
"I suppose that's true," Garrus grumbled. He placed a couple of pillows to cushion her shoulder then helped her get settled. He pulled up the blankets, tucking her in. "Here," he said, passing her a large, insulated cup. "I figured you'd be too tired to eat, but Dr. Chakwas wanted you to get some protein into you before you sleep. I mixed protein powder into your chocolate drink."
Shepard made a face. "That sounds disgusting." She tried to peer in the small hole.
"Alenko tried it, said it tasted fine." He nodded for her to drink it. "Go on, we have maybe three days until we're fighting again. Drink. You need to heal."
"Fine." Letting out a long-suffering sigh, she took a sip. Chocolate—hot, sweet, and creamy—flowed over her tongue, prompting a long moan of pleasure. Delicious didn't even begin to cover how good it was. "Sweet baby Jesus, Garrus . . . what sort of evil alchemy is this?" She took another long draught followed by an even more decadent moan. "What is that other flavour? It's fruity, but . . .." After several sips, she gave up trying to identify it. "Oh, who cares, I may never eat again and just live off this."
He grinned at the praise. "Dr. Chakwas gave me a list of the nutrients you needed. Milk, the protein/enzyme powder, and two varieties of berries covered them all."
"Well, whatever they are, you could patent this, make a small fortune.". Giving him a wink, she nodded toward his spot on the bed. "You going to join me?"
He sat next to her hip. "I should sleep on the cot, Shepard. I don't want to bounce your shoulder around." A smile softened his words. "But, on my brief trip to Earth to pick up our Kodiak drop shuttle—I note you didn't ask why I went to Alliance headquarters—I got a chance to pick something up that I think you'll appreciate." He reached into his armour, pulling out a hardcover book bound in leather.
The new shuttle warred with the book for her attention, the book winning handily. She'd been in a thousand shuttles. "Oh, what is that?" She held out her hand, reaching for the book, but he shook his head and pulled it back.
"Drink your supper, and if you're a very good girl, I'll read you a story before lights out." He turned away and strode over to get his cot.
Shepard cackled. "You're so asking for it when I can pummel you again, Officer Wise-assless, but I meant it about no cot." She grinned at the sound that came from his sub-vocals. "I'll sleep against the wall."
He scowled at her, his brow plates lowering. "Shepard, I don't want you to wake up stuck." His mandibles fluttered a little as she watched him struggle to find a gentle way to reference her hatred of being closed in.
"Come here." She held out her hand. When he didn't move, she raised her eyebrows. "Don't get insubordinate with me, Garrus. Come here." When he obeyed and sat next to on the bed, she took his hand. "There are things more important than pain and fear." She sat up and pressed her hand against his cheek. "You are one of those things. I don't care if you bump my shoulder in the night. I don't care if I wake up and have a moment of panic because I need to crawl out. Your presence makes up for all of that. Okay?"
He nodded, but the set of his jaw told her that the discussion would never end. So obstinate.
"So, go get changed and lets get some sleep." She gave him a gentle shove. "Go on. I won't peek, I promise." Answering his rumble with a bright smile, Shepard cocked an eyebrow. "What? You want me to peek? Why, Officer, you're a member of my crew. That would be completely inappropriate."
"Yes, because being your bed warmer and babysitter is so very appropriate. Just lay down. Impossible woman." He walked over to the cot and began popping the seals on his armour, stacking it beside the cot as he stripped down. "I should shower."
Shepard lay down, settling herself as comfortably as possible. "But then I'll be asleep when you're done. I want my story, mister." She closed her eyes, giving him some semblance of privacy. "Shower after."
One minute later, the mattress lowered under his weight as he crawled up to lay next to her. "Very well. You did kick some serious ass today. You deserve your story." He lay half-inclined against the wall, angled so she could rest her head in the curve of his shoulder.
Shepard wriggled in, not minding the twinges from her shoulder. As she'd told him, some things were worth a little pain.
He opened the book. "My human common is a little rough."
"I don't care." She closed her eyes, relaxing into him.
"Okay." He leaned in to nuzzle her brow, then let out a long breath. "It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills."(1)
Shepard chuckled and nestled in, sleepy and suddenly a little giddy. "The Big Sleep . . .." She sighed. "You're the most amazing torin."
"Are you going to let me read?"
She nodded. "Sorry."
He cleared his throat a little. " I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black bro . . . gu . . . es, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them. I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it. I was everything the well-dressed private detective ought to be. I was calling on four million dollars."(2)
(1) and (2) are excerpts from The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. 1939. Published in the public domain in Canada on 11 January, 2011 by Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #696.
Targismar - The most vile curse in any turian dialect. Has its origins in turian prehistoric rituals involving the disgracing and execution of enemies.