Jo jumped to the side and rolled over as the bullet-proof glass took two rockets and finally burst. It showered the spot where she'd been standing a moment ago in shards and flames. The batarian in the Kodiak kept firing, shredding the bed , floor and walls to tiniest pieces. Jo started crawling towards the door, but the glass was everywhere, stinging her hands and arms, biting into her clothes. Despite the roaring guns of the tank she heard more shooting from the corridor. She had no weapons, no shields, no armour, but her chances out there were still better than in her room under Kodiak fire.
Of course, she had no authorisation to open the door to her room, so she had to utilise whatever items she could find in the chaos quickly to open up a panel by the door and override the lock. She used to be good at this many years ago, until she got the best of omnitools and the best of specialists to do this kind of stuff for her. Today it was back to basics.
An alarm sounded across the complex while she was still busy with the door and the Kodiak outside her room disappeared, chased away by the real Alliance patrol. Jo quickly killed the lock and opened the door. Outside she found her 'honour guard' of eight soldiers involved in a shooting with a group of armoured intruders on the other side of the corridor. Vega was probably still recovering in his room from almost being strangled by Jo. She cursed when one of her guards took a bullet to the chest and fell, bleeding heavily. He didn't have long to live, but the intruders were covering the corridor too well to try and get the guy out.
"Give me your gun," Jo demanded from the soldier who knelt right next to her door. He looked over his shoulder and shook his head:
"No, it's against orders! Go back inside, we'll protect you!"
Jo grabbed his arm and twisted him to face her.
"What is your designation, soldier?"
"M2, Ma'am," he barked to be heard over the gunfire.
"Mine is N7, I'm the first human Spectre and I eat bullets for breakfast," Jo bared her teeth in his face. "I am your only chance to save me right now, soldier, so give me your gun and get down!"
He still resisted, but Jo wrestled it out of his hands and pushed him down. The intruders were advancing, their rounds a deadly mix of anti-personnel, cryo and incendiary rounds. The corridor was burning and freezing at the same time. Three of her guards were down by now, she couldn't see if they were dead or only wounded.
Jo leaned out of her cover quickly and counted eleven attackers in the corridor, one of them in the process of setting up a turret. All she had was a low grade SMG with simple bullets. She took a deep breath. She'd been trained for this, she'd been in this situation many times. She preferred Garrus, Tali and Wrex covering her back, but she could do it alone, no big deal.
"Concentrate fire!" She yelled to the soldiers on the other side of the corridor. "Take out the turret first!"
They looked very uncomfortable taking orders from their prisoner, but thankfully they were smart enough to realise her superiority and experience. While they took turns shooting down the turret, Jo leaned out of her cover and shot twice at the armoured intruder hiding behind cover too close for her liking.
She missed. With exasperation she looked at the SMG in her hand. She'd gotten so used to the best of equipment and the most precise of guns that this low grade kind of tech confused her. For all their looks of "armed to the teeth" badass soldiers her 'honour guard' were just children with very simple weapons, not really fit to protect Commander Shepard with.
She tried again, adjusting her aim to the error margin of the gun. The attacker had shields and she barely scraped them when Vega burst out of his room, his neck bruised after she almost strangled him, but his eyes alert and his focus on the battle. Too bad all he had was a pistol.
Meanwhile the soldiers took down the turret, but the attackers had gotten very close to them under its cover.
"I'd kill to have my sniper rifle here right now," Jo muttered to Vega, who took cover right next to her. "Will have to do without. Dance with me?" She looked in his eyes, knowing he would understand. He did, as he nodded grimly.
Vega leaned out of cover and started shooting at the attackers, as Jo rolled over and grabbed the one nearest to them. It took a lot of her unnatural strength, but she took his head and twisted it, breaking his neck with a pleased shout, despite the armour he was wearing. There was still something primal and extremely satisfying in killing someone with her bare hands.
The attacker across the corridor from her saw her and opened fire, but Vega left his cover, shooting at him as he quickly joined her in her corner. The other soldiers followed his lead, advancing towards the attackers. Jo had no time to borrow the dead guy's armour, but she did grab his gun. Thank heavens he was carrying an assault rifle with incendiary rounds. Vega covered her with his own body while she grabbed the rifle and the ammo. He hissed and jerked, his blood sprayed her face, but he was still standing when she dove under his arm and opened fire on the guy who shot him.
The original eleven attackers got backup in form of eight more. Jo hesitated calling them batarians in her head, even though the Kodiak was driven by a batarian. These guys weren't all batarians. Some of them, sure, but not all. She could tell even despite their full-body armour.
Vega was bleeding heavily from a wound in his left shoulder and another one near his ribs, but his right arm was fine and the pain simply added to his ferocity. He didn't seem to care that he wore no armour. He grabbed the shotgun from the attacker Jo had killed and moved forwards like a tank, heedless of any danger to his life. It was not the way Jo would have done it, but it worked, especially since the attackers seemed confused and intimidated by his scowl and roar as he rushed towards them, bleeding but never stopping. He reminded her of a charging krogan and Jo smiled. A little less heroics and he could be really good.
She advanced behind him more carefully, rolling from one cover to another, taking down her opponents, grabbing their guns and using them against them. The remaining soldiers followed her and Vega, clearly in awe of what they were seeing. Vega reached the last attacker and decided not to shoot him. Instead he knocked the guy down and repeatedly smashed the butt of his shotgun against the man's helmet, until the visor broke, along with the man's face.
Suddenly there was silence. The walls were still sizzling and smoking from the temperature abuse they had taken from the high quality rounds and the alarm was still blaring across the complex, but the attack was over. While Vega cursed, finally noticing that the man whose helmet he'd just smashed was human and not alien, Jo quickly ordered the last three remaining soldiers to give medical attention to their comrades. They hurried back to her door, where the wounded ones still lay on the floor, but Jo looked around the corridor, waiting. And still waiting.
Twenty four minutes and forty seconds after the first shots had been fired Major Lance finally came down the corridor from the other side, followed by six armed soldiers. He scowled when he saw her standing there covered in someone else's blood and carrying several guns. Jo lifted the SMG she'd taken from her guard at the beginning and shot several rounds at the ceiling right above Lance's head. He and his squad ducked, cursing about her sudden attack.
"Put your weapons down NOW!" Lance roared at her in a pretty good 'scary voice', the kind of voice soldiers were trained to use in hostile situations to intimidate their opponents, to make them understand they meant business. It didn't work on Jo.
"What is the response time on Alliance territory in case of an attack, Lance?" She shouted at him and his men. "Four minutes! This corridor has been empty for twenty four minutes, and when you do show up, you only bring six soldiers against nineteen intruders?" She advanced on them. "And do you know what this is?" She showed him the SMG. "A crappy kid's toy, not a real weapon. It doesn't even shoot straight! So first you give me guards who look impressive but are in reality inexperienced children with bad toys, you leave me to fend for myself under attack for twenty minutes longer than you are supposed to and eventually you show up with not enough men. Look at these people," she pointed the SMG at the dead attackers. "The Kodiak that broke my window was Alliance, and half of these guys are humans. Do you know what this looks like to me?"
Lance stood calm and proud, clearly aware of the nature of her accusations, but refusing to reply.
"This looks like the batarians found some human collaborators within the Alliance, and you're involved to some degree."
"This is ridiculous, Shepard," Lance shook his head. "We've been attacked downstairs and couldn't get here sooner."
"Oh, right, because there is a terrible shortage of Alliance soldiers in the Alliance Headquarters! Lance, I will see the Defence Committee first thing tomorrow, I have a bone to pick with them and you will be there to answer for your own actions. And now get the fuck out of my face."
She dropped every gun she was holding and turned to Vega, who was getting paler and paler with every litre of blood he was losing. He was still standing, however, and Jo really liked his endurance.
"Come on, let's get to the med wing. We'll bunk there for the rest of the night," she said to him quietly and grabbed his arm to help him walk. Lance and his men remained in the battle-scorched corridor while Jo, Vega and the rest of her guard made their way down to the med wing, carrying their wounded. Two of the eight guards were dead. What a waste, Jo thought. What a shame. They shouldn't have died. But the really spooky thing was that despite being a busy place during the day, the entire corridor around her room was still empty of people right now. This stunk like a setup.
They found the first signs of life on the level below. People came running, helped them with the wounded and escorted them to the med wing.
"Don't put me under, Doc," Vega grunted from the bed he was almost forcefully placed on, as an elder man with receding grey hair came towards him with his instruments. "Need to stay awake. Need to protect Shepard."
"I need to get three bullets out of you, Lieutenant, and stitch up four wounds. You've been careless with your own body," the doctor shook his head disapprovingly. "If I don't give you sedatives, you'll be in a lot of pain."
"No matter," Vega grunted through clenched teeth. "I can take it."
Jo, who sat on the next bed and had a nurse clean her hands and arms from glass shards, said to Vega's doctor:
"Doc, the man needs to do what he needs to do. Let him stay awake." After the doctor nodded grimly, she turned to Vega, who was loath to let her out of his sight right now. "Don't worry, soldier. I'm not going anywhere. You just might be my only honest protector in this whole building."
With her own skin cleaned and patched up, Jo sat on the bed and watched the doctor work on Vega, while the young man kept glancing her way now and then just to make sure she was still there. Jo liked his mile-wide protective streak. Her instincts told her that it had nothing to do with his fan-crush on her. It was a quality the N school was primarily looking for in their recruits. When this man put his heart and mind to something, he got it done, even if it meant completely disregarding his own safety. He'd taken four bullets for her, but he got her out of the skirmish completely unscathed, save a few scratches from the broken glass. And even now that it was over he was willing to suffer pain to personally make sure she was safe. Jo looked at him with a little smile. He just got himself promoted from "tail" to "guard".
A warm hand on his shoulder woke James up from a feverish dream. He fought away the fog in his eyes and saw Shepard standing over him. All at once he remembered where he was and why. He also remembered that he intended to stay awake all night to make sure Shepard was safe on the bed she'd taken right next to his, but the four bullet wounds and lots of lost blood finally got the best of him. He was relieved to see that she remained with him, making his guard duty easier for him. There was nothing worse than overconfident celebrities who disregarded all need for protection. Apparently Shepard wasn't one of them.
"Eat your breakfast, soldier. I have a lot of yelling to do today and you need to come along."
They both ate in silence. She sat on her bed with both legs tied in that weird yogi lotus position someone like him could never quite pull off. Her clothes were new and her hands healed, but another attentive look at her face spooked him a little. He could have sworn that those small scars on her face were glowing a brighter shade of orange this morning, and that there were a few new ones, too.
"What?" She noticed his stare.
"Sorry, Commander, it's just… the scars on your face…"
She lifted a hand to touch the most prominent one on her cheek and sighed.
"Damnit. They were just starting to really heal. It's from Cerberus, when they resurrected me," she added when she saw his confusion. Oh, you'd have to be Commander Shepard to be able to say things like that so casually.
When they finished eating, she told him to not stray from her farther than two steps until their business with the Committee was done and that was exactly what he did. His body ached and all the medigel in his system made him a little drowsy, but Shepard was not about to baby him and he didn't want her to. He wouldn't have been allowed into the conference room with the Committee under normal circumstances, but she overruled protests and James came along with her, standing right behind her at her own request. She laid it heavily on the Committee, telling them all the facts about the attack from last night, demanded a different supervisor than Major Lance and pushed until they promised a full investigation into the matter.
When the meeting was finally done and they stepped out of the room, she was suddenly swept into someone's arms. Joker. James had to admit that the guy looked different now that he was wearing a baseball cap. James stepped aside to give them a few moments. Joker asked her if she was okay and patted her body up and down, looking for injuries. After some quiet talk and lots of reassurances from her side Joker finally turned to James.
"Thank you," he said, offering James his hand. There was something like respect on the pilot's face. James wanted to believe that respect of a weak-boned skinny twink with crooked shoulders and a limp meant nothing to him, but truth was that Joker was no twink. He'd been with Shepard for years and had seen things James couldn't even imagine.
"Shepard, I can't leave you alone for a moment," Admiral Anderson approached them and shook hands. "I see you put Lieutenant Vega through his paces already. How are you holding up?"
"Anderson, you know that after the end of the world there will be cockroaches and Shepard left. Though I'm not so sure about the cockroaches."
"Indeed," the Admiral smiled.
It didn't escape James' attention that she used only his name, no titles or ranks. She'd also demanded to see the Defence Committee, not requested or asked, and she'd been granted her wish without protests. Whatever happened in the Headquarters last night, most of the officers still knew what Commander Shepard was worth to humanity and to the galaxy.
"Shepard, I have new orders. You're getting a different room, though it looks the same as the one that's been trashed, just on a different level. Lieutenant Vega will still be stationed next to you. I also personally assigned twelve experienced marines with the best equipment as your guard. They'll take shifts at your door. Lieutenant Vega, you will be provided with armour and guns to keep in your room in case of a new attack."
All three of them nodded.
"And one more thing," Admiral Anderson lowered his voice, looking back and forth between Shepard and Joker. "You need to give the Alliance the authorisation to access all systems on the Normandy."
"Oh, do I?" Shepard raised her eyebrows.
"Your VI makes it impossible for us to do the retrofits, Shepard. We need access. Send it a command to allow us in."
"Sorry, no can do," Shepard declared and it was definitely her last word on the matter. "Three people have that authorisation, and one of us is hopefully still on Palaven. If you want access to my ship, you bring me or Joker to her."
"I can't let you go to the docks, Shepard."
"I have full authorisation, Anderson," Joker spoke up and James noticed that he didn't use any titles or ranks, either. "EDI will only listen to my voice if I'm there in person. Since my interrogations are over and there is nothing else for me to do, I'll gladly help. Only pray to god that nobody messed with the settings of my chair."
Admiral Anderson seemed to think about the matter, measuring the insolent pilot up and down. James knew for a fact that someone had already messed with Joker's chair, but chose not to say anything.
"All right," the Admiral clearly had had enough of EDI's craziness, even if his agreement came grudgingly. He knew it was inevitable. "I'll send your guards the details. You can go to the docks right now. Make sure the ship works properly."
"I'll see what I can do," Joker beamed, tightening his arm around Shepard's waist. She looked at him and a tiny secret smile passed over her eyes. James wondered what that was all about, but didn't have time to think more about it. Admiral Anderson gave him the new orders about Shepard's quarters and sent all of them away.
Next day Joker lay on the bed in his room. He'd been assigned a private room in a hotel for Alliance officers close to the HQ, even though he couldn't see the building from his window, it faced the other side of town. He had two guards at all times, but they mostly stayed outside the room. Yesterday morning they kindly informed him of the attack that had happened at night and assured him that according to all reports his woman was alive and kicking, but he'd still died a thousand deaths on his way to the HQ before wrapping his arms around Jo.
It had to be expected, of course. According to the report the attackers were mostly batarians. They had to make a move eventually, he knew it. He also knew that Jo had no weapons and armour and could only rely on her guard. When he'd learned that Vega had taken four bullets for Jo, that two young men died and three more were seriously injured after what was described as a bloody battle in the HQ corridor, he changed his mind about Jo's privacy and the Alliance patronising her. As far as he was now concerned, they could patronise her all they wanted, they could put two dozen guards around her bed when she slept, as long as she was safe.
Meeting Anderson yesterday finally gave him a chance to go and see his baby, though. The Alliance had kept him away from the ship ever since he unlocked the airlock for them and allowed them to start the diagnostics about a week ago. The ship was barely recognisable and Joker knew that if Jo saw it like this, she would have a conniption. The Alliance team opened half of the panels covering the walls, ceiling and floors, dismantled most of the consoles and completely rewired all electronics.
At least he got to sit in his chair again. When he found out that someone had messed up his settings, he almost had a conniption, but EDI had taken it upon herself to torture the intruders for all they were doing. He had fun listening to the Alliance team complain about EDI's behaviour, then he popped his knuckles and put everything in order for them. For a few hours. EDI still refused to tell the engineers where her memory core was hidden and Joker laughed his ass off listening to all those guys curse and spit in frustration.
Today he had nothing to do again but sit around in his room and watch the potted flower on his window sill grow. All his routine was cut down to regular med wing visits, an occasional interrogation, gym and cafeteria. The highlight of his day was an hour with Jo, and that was a lot more frustrating than he ever thought it would be. They hadn't had an opportunity to have sex even once since they landed on Earth! A man could really go insane in these conditions. At least Jo had some fun shooting batarians.
The door suddenly swished open and one of his guards came in. She held her omnitool towards him and said:
"Mr. Moreau, Lieutenant Connor is asking for you. You're not supposed to use any communication devices, so keep it short."
Joker had met this Lieutenant yesterday on the Normandy in the CIC, frustrated beyond belief about EDI. He chuckled. His girl was up to no good again this morning.
"Lieutenant?" He asked the screen on his guard's omnitool.
"Lieutenant Moreau, can't you do something about this VI permanently?" The man began abruptly without as much as a greeting. "It's refusing us access again, and three of my colleagues have been stuck in the Main Battery for over an hour now and it's threatening to vent all air from the room because it thinks they're… collectors?"
"Ah," Joker sniggered. "Yes, it's one of the new security protocols, after the ship had been invaded by the Collectors."
"Can't you do something?"
"It only reacts to my presence, Lieutenant."
"Well, can't you get over here? We need to work!"
"I'm not allowed. Admiral Anderson is in charge of this whole thing now. Why don't you ask him if he can give the order? I'd be glad to help."
"Gawd!" The Lieutenant growled in frustration, obviously a little too scared to personally address the famous Admiral with a problem that would reflect badly on his own abilities. Joker sniggered one more time:
"I would ask him for you, but he won't believe me. You have to tell him you need me. Don't worry, he won't bite your head off."
"Yeah, well. I'll be in touch."
Barely an hour later Private Campbell, one of his guards, came in again and informed him that by Admiral Anderson's orders he was to help the retrofit team as much as he could.
Joker did his best to hide his evil grin at the news.
By the end of the shift, inspired by EDI's good behaviour, the Alliance team on the Normandy was partly begging, partly demanding that he stayed on the ship as long as he could every day. He laughed and said that he had to sleep at night, after all.
"Is there really no way you can access the VI remotely?" Connor pleaded.
"First of all, I'm not allowed electronics or communication devices. I'm still under a criminal investigation, you know. And second: since I have full access to EDI, I could change a few protocols and give myself remote access, but… why would I want to do that? It's too much fun seeing you guys suffer."
There was silence in the CIC.
"You… can change protocols, right?" Connor stepped closer. "I'll talk to Admiral Anderson, hell, I'll even talk to the Defence Committee, but I'll get you an omnitool for permanent use if you help us!"
Joker made a point of wrinkling his nose as he thought about the offer.
"I don't know. It's all work for me, getting woken up in the middle of the night just because my ship is threatening to kill someone, it's not really worth it for me if all I get is an omnitool."
"What do you want?"
Joker drummed his fingers on the armrests of his chair. The Alliance guys watched him with nervous anticipation.
"I want an omnitool that works without any restrictions and has extranet access, I want a console in my hotel room also with extranet access, I'll need one of the earpieces from the Normandy, too. Furthermore, I want my own private shuttle for transportation, freedom of movement around the Alliance facilities, shore leave in town for four nights a week, and a VIP membership in the best strip club in Canada."
He saw jaws hit chests in silence.
"I ain't kidding about that last one," he nodded with a little threat in his voice. Right on cue EDI turned off all lights in the CIC and had Mozart's "Don Giovanni" blast through the speakers.
"I'll, uhm, see what I can do." Connor said.
Joker had no idea what the Lieutenant had to do, but EDI must have put some real fear of god into those Alliance people because the very next morning a messenger from Anderson arrived. He brought Joker the requested omnitool, the earpiece, the computer and a platinum membership card for a club called The Iceberg. If only everything could go just as easily for him, Joker thought.
His guards brought him to the Normandy again and he made a show of 'changing protocols'. In reality he had EDI connect to his omnitool directly and send him the audio feed from the minipad hidden inside his console. Now Joker had access to Jo's listening device. She still couldn't hear him, but at least he could hear her. They'd planned to work on the Alliance until Joker would get that access and EDI had played her role perfectly. Two weeks into the incarceration and Joker already had what he needed most.
He managed to hide his excitement until he got back to the hotel that evening. He tossed the guards out of his room, put the audio through to his earpiece and relaxed on the bed.
He could hear her breathing, and that fact alone put him at ease, relaxing the tight knot of fear that had kept his guts turning ever since Amanda Kenson spoke about the artefact for the first time. Jo was breathing calmly and Joker let his own breathing fall into rhythm with hers. She couldn't possibly know that he was back to monitoring her every move, but their connection was re-established. They were together once more. He'd tell her about it tomorrow, of course, to ease her nerves and she'd know that she had a way to contact him.
She was in a meeting with her lawyers and Joker listened to them strategising for over an hour. He knew he should care about her legal defence, but right at that moment he couldn't get past how good it felt to be hearing her voice again. Damnit, her adamant confidence, the timbre of her voice, more familiar to him than his own, her calm breathing – it all went straight to his crotch. He needed his woman and frankly, he didn't care who would be watching or listening. He needed her more than air.
