Ch.16: Fate, Luck, and Bloody Calculus
Garrus
"Hey watch it!" a salarian yelled as I barreled through the walkway with my omni-tool held at chest-height. I tried my best to type and jog at the same time, but it was hard when I was weighed down by my overnight bag hanging on one arm. I gave a frustrated growl when my search came up empty. Too small, too small, and too goddamn small! There were no shuttles here with a fuel tank that could get me to Horizon and no transports going that way either. I did a double take. That's not possible; that Alliance soldier said she was leaving today.
I punched a code furiously into my omni-tool, still on a mad dash to the docks.
"Garrus," a gravely voice greeted me. "Been a long time."
"Chellick! Need a favor," I spat out, making a tight right turn and hopping into one of the Citadel rapid transports. I waved my omni-tool over the receiver, typed in the coordinates, and the shuttle raised up to set off.
"I assumed as much. You wouldn't check in otherwise," Chellick replied.
I grimaced. "Right. Of course, I'll owe you one. Look, I need to get to Horizon, and there's a transport somewhere going that direction. I need to be on it."
"I'm sure you know how to conduct an extranet search," Chellick intonated.
"Don't give me that, Chellick," I growled. I heard him sigh on the other end of the line as well as the steady click of his typing on the hepatic keyboard.
"Looks like the Alliance has registered a flight plan for one of their ships. Going to Horizon," Chellick said lowly. "You'll have to get on it yourself. Docking area E26. I'd hurry."
"Thanks," I replied, punching the omni display closed.
I redirected the shuttle to the E bay instead of main docks and tumbled out of the seat the moment it set down on the ground. A pair of humans in Alliance uniforms stood guard at one of the loading docks, the bright overhead lighting washing out their already pale features. I made for them and tried my hardest not to actually run while still managing to power walk at a good pace. I skidded into a stop in front of them, my eyes darting between the two faces as I tried to figure out which one to look at. I settled for both.
"Officers," I said casually.
They closed ranks immediately. "I'm sorry, sir. You don't have authorization to proceed beyond this point," the man on the left said. He narrowed his owlish, grey eyes at me, and one of his hands inched closer to his firearm.
I scowled at him. Sure, he was just doing his job, but something about his face rubbed me the wrong way before he even opened his mouth. "This transport is going to Horizon, right? I need to get there; it's important."
"Excuse us if we don't just take you at your word," the man on the right spoke finally, his low, gruff voice grating to my ears. "This ship is private, Alliance property. I'm not even sure how you know its destination."
I gave an exasperated huff, searching back in my memory for the name of that officer. "I know an Alliance officer on the ship, Samantha Traynor. She can vouch for me."
The two soldiers—who, for the life of me, I could barely tell apart—glanced between each other and seemed to come to a silent conclusion as the man on the left gave a sharp turn on his heel and marched onto the ship. I stood there staring awkwardly at the remaining human, his eyes obstinately trained on the far wall except for the few times they flickered across me to make sure I was still standing there compliantly.
Another minute passed, and finally, I heard the sound of footsteps returning on the metal walkway. A wide-eyed Samantha followed, but her face lifted once she saw me.
"Garrus? What are you doing here?" she asked, her hands clasping in front of her. I grimaced at the two soldiers still watching me too closely.
"Well, it turns out that I'm going the same direction as you after all," I said, using my mandibles as emphasis.
Samantha's face closed off, her mouth falling into a harsh line. "I'll talk to the captain," she said, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. I fell into step behind her as she led me onto the ship. "This is a supply run, but maybe they won't mind some extra security."
"Not that I'm complaining, but this is a pretty small ship. They may not need me," I pointed out.
Samantha frowned. "The captain seems like a smart man. With the problems in the colonies lately, I doubt he'll turn an extra gun away."
We turned a corner of the ship together, quickly closing the short distance to a rickety elevator. The entire ship seemed to be the dark color of rust, though the hum of the engine sounded strong and clean. Crates and boxes were piled high and strapped down with thick, black ropes, and a few crew members milled about, though the majority seemed to be simple soldiers. I furrowed my brow, taking in the markings of Samantha's uniform again.
"I thought you were on leave?" I asked.
She glanced at me sideways. "I...am. Because I was doing research for the Alliance, they provided transport to Horizon," she explained. Samantha bit her lip as she considered me again. "Plus, the research is part of the outreach program for Horizon. They're trying to strengthen communications."
"As well as weaponry," I observed, noting the labels on several crates as we passed by them. Samantha's shoulders tensed, and she refrained from comment until we were safely ensconced in the elevator.
She rounded on me the moment the doors shuddered closed. "This is bad."
"I wouldn't say-," I began but Samantha cut me off with a loud scoff.
"It's always bad when Shepard is involved," she said in a hard voice.
"I'm sure your parents are fine," I reassured her. Her head popped up, and she looked surprised. "It might just be a false lead."
Samantha gave me a small smile. "Let's hope so," she agreed as the elevator doors cranked open to reveal a guard on the entrance to the control deck. "The captain is in the cockpit. Wait here. I'll be back."
I stepped far enough out for the elevator to close behind me, my every move watched by the olive-skinned Alliance officer in front of me. She had hazel eyes that held steady and alert even as the rest of her body indicated she was bored by her guard duty. I tried smiling to show I wasn't going to try anything, but her face didn't even twitch in return.
Well, a conversation is out of the question. Next, I occupied myself with a sweeping scan of what part of the deck I could see, but the moment my eyes switched to my surroundings, my guard grew tense, stepping forward like a warning. So, instead, I settled for examining my feet. The bag I was still carrying was starting to get heavy, and I considered setting it down but decided that my guard would probably just think I was about to blow something up.
Then, just as I was deciding whether or not the lateral talon of my right foot was actually bigger than the lateral talon of my left foot, Samantha returned, her face cloudy. She motioned for me to follow, and we entered the elevator together again.
"The captain agreed to the passage, but you have to stay on the crew deck at all times. Unless there's an emergency. And you can't have a weapon on you until then," Samantha instructed. She bit her lip as she glanced up at me, but I just shrugged. The terms were reasonable.
"The captain doesn't really know me. I get it," I responded. When her expression still seemed troubled, I asked, "Is it a non-human thing?"
She laughed. "No. The captain is actually a turian as well. This ship was only contracted by the Alliance to move the supplies quickly. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been let on," she explained. "Doesn't make the captain less of an arsehole. He didn't even consider it until I said your name."
"And Shepard's as well," I predicted.
"That too," she admitted with a guilty dip of her head.
She led us out of the arrived elevator onto the crew deck until we turned a corner and reached what was obviously the crew's quarters. The room wasn't glamorous or nearly as clean as I had grown used to, and it could have dearly used a fresh coat of paint and replacements for the dark light bulbs. I shook away my distaste as Samantha pointed me in the direction of an unclaimed bed, and I dropped my bag beside it with relief. The bed looked decent at least.
"I know it looks bad, but it's a short trip," Samantha said with a grimace at the room. She gave me a once-over. "Maybe get some rest. If you manage to sleep the whole way, I'll wake you when we get there. We'll be leaving in a few minutes."
"Made it just in time," I smirked before sinking down onto the bed. The springs gave an unsettling squeak, and I frowned at the mattress as Samantha shook her head and closed the door on her way out. I arranged myself lengthwise on the bed anyway and, tired from my race across the Citadel, easily drifted off to sleep.
XXX
Miranda
Everyone likes to believe that they're special, that they're somehow made differently than everyone else, even when they aren't. Most people, no matter the species, are painfully ordinary. The ground team of the Normandy was the exception: with modesty thrown away, every single one of us could brag to something extraordinary. Grunt, Jack, and I were all created to be exceptional, though the individual circumstances were decidedly different. Garrus could boast to a lineage high in the turian hierarchy (though I'd noticed he spoke of it very little), and he had been molded from the very beginning to be what he is. Mordin was naturally intelligent, more so than the already high bar set for a salarian. It would be easy to continue the list for each of us.
Shepard, of course, was the exception within the exception, simply because of how pedestrian her beginnings had actually been. Every other person could claim to the life of a spacer child, running rampant through the environmentally controlled stations. She'd been alone, a dirty kid crawling through ducts and making trouble with other equally dirty children.
From there, it makes no sense that Shepard could become what she has. Shepard made no sense. Maybe if she had organized all those delinquents into a rebellion against the space station or shown an early genius with technology during her pranks others would have noticed her sooner. But, really, it wasn't until Akuze that anyone really recognized what she could do, even if it was just an uncanny ability to survive.
Yes, the N7 program had trained her, but her capacity to accomplish the impossible was simply there already. Much of my research when restoring her brain had been to that end: identifying whatever quality she had so I could make sure that she would retain it. Yet, somewhere hiding among 23 pairs of chromosomes was an immutable truth that no amount of research, frantic pacing, or, occasionally, throwing things had gotten me any closer to, and after two years of research I had finally fallen back on two explanations: fate or sheer luck. The first I didn't believe in, but the second...well, she would have needed a lot of it.
Yet none of that stops her from being a bit of a mess, I thought, as Jack, Grunt, and I huddled around an injured Shepard within an abandoned colonist's home. We were closing in on the center of Horizon, where EDI's scans had placed the landed Collector's ship, but for the moment, the team was scattered between two homes, falling against walls or in chairs with heaving breaths.
"Fuck me, Miranda! That hurts!" Shepard shouted, wriggling under my hands.
"Only if you ask nicely," I deadpanned, pulling at the armor pieces around her dislocated shoulder with a roll of my eyes.
Shepard's mouth pulled back in confusion, but then she flushed all the way to her hairline, missing my smirk and a shake of my head. Much as I loved the reaction, it was just another piece of Shepard that seemed out of place: a tendency for blushing doesn't fit with scowls, furrowed brows, and a general proclivity towards violence. Shepard frowned through her blush and tried to pull away but ended up just aggravating the shoulder more, leaving her gasping with pain.
"You're being stupid. Just let the cheerleader fix it so we can get out of here," Jack growled from where she was plopped casually on a bed. She'd found a tennis ball somewhere in the room and was now bouncing it against the wall in a steady rhythm that was both soothing and irritating, given who was making the noise.
"Seconded," I chirped, glaring at Shepard pointedly.
Grunt stopped his vigilant pacing by the window to throw in, "Agreed."
"Big day when you and Jack agree on something," Shepard muttered.
I scoffed but was just about to grudgingly agree when Jack's tennis ball suddenly flew over to smack me in the side of the head. I whipped to face her, biotics flaring as I made to shoot the ball back at her, when Shepard's hand on my wrist stayed me.
"The shoulder, please, Miranda," Shepard gritted out.
"Alright, armor is off, so lie on your back," I ordered, ignoring Jack's still-present smirk I could see from the corner of my eye.
I heard a snort from Jack on the bed, and I looked down to see Shepard blushing again while she rearranged herself on the ground. The light shone in through the window to strike at her eyes, lighting the green irises in an ethereal glow above the rosy tint that still brushed along her cheeks under her freckles. I caught my breath when a kind of tenderness crept in to coil around my throat, my eyes stuck on the wisps of her loose hair and the little scar above her eyebrow.
Shepard turned her head to see what held me, and I recovered by reaching for her right arm, the injured one, and slowly straightening it out towards me. Shepard hissed through her teeth, but there really wasn't much else for it, so I braced myself against her side and began to pull the arm slowly out. I continued, slowly stretching the limb further and further until it popped back into the socket. Shepard groaned her relief, and I maneuvered her arm gently back towards her torso.
She began to sit up and reach for her armor, but I slapped her hands away. Ignoring her noise of protest, I silenced further argument with a look and pulled out a syringe labeled 'anti-inflammatory' from the pouch attached to my armor. I flicked the cap off, pressed it to her shoulder, and used my thumb to eject the needle.
"I hate needles," Shepard hissed, rubbing at her shoulder when I was done. "The suit would've just put medi-gel on it."
I leveled a look at her. "Medi-gel hardens, and then you wouldn't have been able to move your shoulder," I replied, exasperated. "Honestly, how you survived so many years as a soldier is beyond me."
"Well, I did die," Shepard replied. A smile crept onto her face. Though gone in a flash, it had definitely been there, and my mouth dropped slightly as I stared. Shepard had actually joked with me.
The clunk of Jack's boots hitting the ground drew my gaze away. "Ugh," she said, stomping towards the door. "I can't watch this. I'll stand guard outside or something."
"It's done anyway," I said. I kept my eyes carefully away from Shepard and stood from where I was crouched beside her. "We should touch base with the rest of the team and move forward."
I saw Shepard nod, strap and buckle the armor back around her shoulder and arm, and then she led us out of the building. She did a quick check to her left and right, then, satisfied that no enemies lay hidden nearby, crossed the grassy space to the staircase across the way. The four of us stayed close together, eyes flickering from shadow to shadow and only relaxing once we'd crossed the threshold of another colonist's house that held the rest of our team.
"Alright," Shepard said, dropping into an empty chair. "Our destination is close. What've we got, EDI?"
"Here is the layout of the next area," her mechanized voice played from the speaker of Shepard's omni-tool for all to hear as a projection appeared. "The Collector ship remains in the same place, but scans have shown that the remaining Collector ground forces have withdrawn and are heading to your same destination. Resistance is expected to be heavy."
"What's keeping us from just bombing the ship with the Normandy?" Grunt asked.
"Human casualties," Shepard pointed out. "They've likely been loading the colonists on that ship. We can't just blow it up if there's still a chance to save them."
"Survival of colonists: unlikely. Destruction of Collector ship...beneficial," Mordin spoke up.
The room went dead silent, everyone avoiding the eyes of their neighbors. The option was brutal. And bloody tempting. Yet, Shepard's expression didn't seem to wholly disagree either, and once again, I was forced to look at her in a different light, remind myself that she wasn't all the Hero others proclaimed her to be.
Shepard shook her head. "Doesn't matter. Look at this," she said, pointing to a figure in the middle of the square. "That's an anti-aircraft. I don't know if it's active, but if the Collector ship is right next to it, they've either disabled it or turned it to their purposes. I'm not willing to bring the Normandy in close if there's a chance that thing might be working."
She stared at the hologram a moment longer then clasped her hands together. "Alright. Here's what we're gonna do," she announced. "These buildings on the east and west sides of the plaza will make great cover for long range attacks. Unfortunately, we've only got one sniper. Zaeed and Kasumi, you'll take the eastern side. Kasumi, you'll make sure to watch your exits to protect Zaeed's back."
"Jacob and Mordin will take the western buildings. Jacob, your assault rifle has some decent range. Do your best, but don't be afraid to come closer and use this to your advantage," Shepard continued, now pointing to a low walkway connecting two buildings on that side.
"I want the rest of our power on the ground, so that means me, Miranda, Jack, and Grunt. We'll be working to take that anti-aircraft with everyone's support from the sides. If we make it far enough, we'll all gather together to infiltrate the docked Collector ship to retrieve the colonists," Shepard finished her orders. She closed her eyes briefly and opened them again with a sigh.
"Or turn the anti-aircraft against the Collector ship. Possibly bring the Normandy in as well," I finished for her. "At the very least, we'd keep them from loading more colonists onto the ship."
Shepard agreed with a grim nod, and Grunt caught my eyes to give me an affirmation along with a twisted grin.
"They're not getting any more colonists," Shepard promised.
She reached for her helmet and slid it over her head, tucking the wayward tendrils of her hair back behind her shoulders. Then there were no more scowls, no more smirks, no more blushes: just the blank front of a dark visor. Commander Shepard stepped forward, and the rest of us followed.
She led us straight for the center we'd evaluated, warily scoping to the left and the right for surprises. We met no resistance, which made encountering a very large door seem like a precipice. The whole team readied weapons as one. Then Zaeed and Kasumi broke off to enter the buildings on the right, while Jacob and Mordin did the same to the left, leaving the remaining four of us to face head-on whatever lay behind the door.
We were not disappointed. The door opened to hoarse groans of husks already throwing themselves against it backed by the chorus of Collector wings as they flew over the sides of the buildings to join. The four of us broke through anyway, seeing our teammate support from the sides as enemies would go down with a hole through the head or frozen solid in ice.
Shepard had us hold position around the anti-aircraft, connecting it to EDI to activate it when it didn't work right away. Then the fight was simply to hold. With us three biotics and the tower of strength that was Grunt, the circle we maintained around the anti-aircraft gun felt like a fortress, stonework walls standing steady against a siege. Our attacks felt as easy as breathing, like the whole team moved to an internal rhythm played over the comms (which might actually have happened had I not fiercely disagreed with Shepard's suggestion to play music in the helmets today).
Still, even the grandest castles can fall, and so ours did when a large, flying Praetorian scattered us to the sides, forcing us to hurdle the small pile of bodies that we had felled around us. The body of a Collector crunched under my feet unpleasantly when I landed on its arm, but I kept my footing and rolled into the nearby cover.
Shepard, a meter from me behind her own crate, fired off a few rockets from her launcher, and we both frowned as they hardly registered against the monster. However, the ripple across its surface told me why: a barrier, and a strong one at that.
I hadn't seen where Jack and Grunt ran off to. Their status' still showed fine on the screen of my visor, and their location at the moment was unimportant in comparison to the giant flying above us, whose barrier, I might add, was barely reacting to the warps I was throwing against it.
"Jack!" Shepard's alarmed shout burst over the comms, ringing in my ears. "Get back to us! What are you doing?"
The direction of Shepard's face allowed me to locate the prisoner-turned-crewmate, who was now in danger of being surrounded by the husks that had drawn her too far out. Jack ripped through the husks easily, but more and more of the creatures were joining their brethren as they pushed the biotic closer to the corner of the plaza, a corner that was inconveniently out of sight of Mordin and Jacob. The sudden drop of a husk signalled that Zaeed had seen and was attempting to bail her out, but a sniper rifle can only reload so quickly, and the Praetorian had also turned towards Jack as an easy target.
There was a jumble of low, angry curses, and then Shepard was ordering, "Grunt, stay out of that thing's sight and go help Jack. Drag her back here if you have to."
Then the commander charged right into the Praetorian's line of sight, using flashy biotics and powerful warps to gain its attention. She fell into a dangerous game of cat and mouse as she zipped around, her only goal to keep the monster from turning to our two very vulnerable teammates. I helped where I could and returned to my previous endeavors of lowering its barrier. I even gave a shout of triumph when the barrier finally dissipated.
I shouted for another reason when the Praetorian dropped straight from the sky...and right on top of Shepard. The full bulk of the monster crumpled Shepard beneath it and then raised as if to drop for a second time. I didn't wait for that to happen. Gathering my biotics, I used them to push myself across the meters that separated us in a desperate dash to pull Shepard to safety.
It was not a move that came naturally—I was no vanguard—and I dropped out a touch too early, tripping myself over the strewn Collector bodies that still lay near the anti-aircraft gun. My hands skidded against dirt, followed by the rest of me, but I had made it far enough for something: I slammed my biotics into Shepard's prone form, tossing her full body away, before sketching out a desperate barrier as the Praetorian dropped again.
It burst my barrier in one hit, and I barely had time to scramble up to try and get out of the way before the thing descended again, crashing against a second hastily constructed barrier. I thought the Praetorian might give space to use its particle beam against me, but instead, it dropped again and again, shattering each barrier like it knew I would only be able to create them for so long. Not once did I manage to make it farther than a few pitched, horizontal steps before being forced down.
"Miranda!"
I heard Jacob's worried shout carry over the comms, but he was far away, and biotic use was quickly taking its toll, even without taking into account that my biotics hadn't been full strength to begin with. Blood had started to flood from my nose, trickling down to pool around my neck at the joint of my helmet's connection to my suit. My frantic scramble splattered the gore around the inside of my visor until a major portion of it was obscured, not that I could see well anyway with the pain starting to swell at my temples to burst in fireworks in front of my eyes. However, I could see enough to know that the square, cargo platform was maybe a meter away, if only I could make it into the shelter it provided.
A ghastly groan behind me signalled a group of husks had caught onto my predicament as well, and they rambled at an inhuman pace towards me. The creatures had the damning ability to find the weakest opponent on the field, and I cursed, pushing up to a knee, raising to try and run again, when a barrier that wasn't my own formed around me. I breathed out an audible sigh of relief when an arm strung its way beneath my own and hauled me forward.
Shepard biotically shot the two of us across the square and towards the buildings, tumbling through a doorway and into the cool darkness as I barely managed to hook my fingers beneath the chin of my helmet and rip it off in time to vomit to the side. Disgusting, I thought wrinkling my nose and scooting away. I leaned my head back to the stone wall, blinking away the black edges that had formed around my vision.
"Is everyone intent on making stupid decisions today?" Shepard growled, the anger radiating off of her even with her face clouded by her dark visor.
Though as all things with Shepard, or so I was starting to understand, her actions worked in opposition to her words. So as her mouth spewed harsh words, I noticed instead the gentle hand that had moved to my back and the squeeze of her other hand on my knee that might be interpreted, had I not known better, as concerned. Or maybe I was really just that dizzy.
"I couldn't let some bloody Collector ruin all my hard work," I coughed out in reply, and Shepard gave a strangled laugh. I tried to stand, reaching for my gun that had fallen to the side, but Shepard held me down with a hand on my shoulder (with a pathetic lack of effort on her part, I groused internally).
She pulled off her own helmet and set it to the side as she pulled out a protein bar, the ones we kept specially for biotics in the field, as well as the hose to the small water bladder installed in her hard suit. I wasn't even allowed to express my surprise that she'd filled her water for such a short mission before both items were in my hands, and Shepard was watching me intently.
I rinsed my mouth then managed a bite, trying to watch Shepard through half-shuttered eyes. My whole body felt heavy. With a jolt, my eyes flew wide again when I felt fingers on my cheeks; Shepard's gloveless hands were on either sides of my face. I couldn't even find the energy to be repulsed by her using her bare hands to wipe at the blood on my face.
"Oh no, you don't get to play the hero and then pass out. That's not how this works. You keep your eyes open until a doctor can look at that pretty head of yours," Shepard said, her palms warm against my skin.
I scoffed halfheartedly. "I'm not sure if I should regard that as demeaning or not," I muttered.
"You would," Shepard said with a grin. She gave me a pat on the knee before reaching for her helmet and putting it back on as well as one of her gloves. Then she used her right hand to punch through the glass in the window and position her gun in the space, though her left hand was left dangling to nudge me now and again to make sure I hadn't drifted off.
"You're not going to take down that Praetorian from here," I pointed out. "Just go."
I knew Shepard was rolling her eyes even if I couldn't see through her visor. My eyes glossed over as I fought again to keep my eyes open, but Shepard's nudge brought me back. Part of her colorful armband showed now that her gauntlet no longer covered it, and I stared intently at the design, not to mention the well defined muscles of her forearm. Focus, I reprimanded myself.
"You couldn't fight a kitten in this state," Shepard replied, offering no other argument.
I stared up at her, watching as she faced steadily away even as her free hand came every so often to rest on my shoulder when she didn't need it to fire. Very few times had I felt powerless in a fight; always there was something to fall back on: my gun, my biotics, my brain. A tool to be used, she'd called me. Well, Shepard had said I spoke of myself that way. Yet here I was, a tool that was temporarily broken, useless, and I wasn't being tossed away. In fact, the commander stood even closer than normal, brushing right against me as she crouched at the window, her hand unwavering in its grip on her pistol as she watched a shuttle arrive from the sky.
I was wrong after all, I thought, gazing at her silhouette with something like affection prickling in my chest. The sunlight shone on the other side of her visor, illuminating through darkened polycarbonate the profile of her face: the strong line of her nose, the curves of her mouth, a brow furrowed down in concentration. Fate and luck have nothing to do with this.
XXX
Garrus
I was right. I knew I was. Bloody calculus, that's what so many of our missions come down to, I reminded myself. The right thing to do was to save as many people as possible. It just didn't much feel like it when Collector ship fired up its thrusters and started away, taking with it the last vestiges of lightness on Samantha's face. Shepard gave an order over the comms for the Normandy to not engage the ship and come land on the colony, and once the Collector was fully out of range, the shuttle pilot set us down next to Shepard's location.
Samantha was off the shuttle the moment it set down, briefly tossing over her shoulder that she was going to "look for them" before I could offer to help her. I sighed but set the rocket launcher aside as I climbed out of the shuttle into the glaring sunlight of Horizon.
"All clear," Shepard declared. "Mordin, I need you over here to look at Miranda."
I waited for the rebuttal, Miranda's disagreement that she didn't need to be examined, but none was forthcoming. Not something minor, then. Mordin complied quickly, emerging from the opposite building and crossing the plaza. He passed into the shadows of the maimed walls, and I made to follow.
"Shepard," I stated, getting her attention. She was crouched in a dark corner of the building, hovering next to Mordin over a dazed looking Miranda. Shepard's chin tilted up in acknowledgement.
"Thanks for the save. Better late than never," she joked.
"It's not like I own my own ship," I pointed out playfully. "And I did bring rockets."
"True. How did you get here? You were on Normandy's shuttle?"
"I grabbed a transport with some help from…" I trailed off, looking for where I'd last seen Samantha, but she was long gone. I understood why she wouldn't be feeling kindly towards us at the moment, and I just hoped her parents hadn't been on that Collector ship. "...an acquaintance. Then we radioed the shuttle to come get us once we got close."
"Could use more light, Shepard," Mordin interrupted, closing down his omni-tool.
"She's okay to move?" Shepard asked, eyes flickering to Miranda. When Mordin nodded, she turned to me. "Give me a hand?"
Blue eyes fluttered open in time to protest, "I can walk," Miranda muttered, pushing unsteadily to her feet. I squinted at the way she swayed and offered an arm out anyway, and Miranda's fingers circled around it after only one shaking step. I saw Shepard biting back a small smile as I led my human charge through the doorway and into the waiting sunlight.
By my eye, most of the team had gathered outside, the largest of whom was a krogan I recognized from the tank on Korlus. His gaze was sharp on me, but he must have assessed that I was obviously not an enemy because he stepped back, moving to stand to the side as I sat Miranda on the crate Mordin indicated. The salarian set about finishing his exam while Miranda tolerated the attention, the only flaw in her composed exterior the tightening fist she held in her left hand.
A human woman appeared with loping steps from around the anti-aircraft, her face falling immediately into a sneer when she saw the rest of us gathered. And this must be Jack.
"Aw, did the cheerleader get hurt? See, this is why you bring real biotics," Jack jeered, even going to far as to poke Miranda in the arm as the rest of us tensed.
It was a testament to how out of sorts the Cerberus operative was that all I saw was a slight twitch in her jaw as a reaction. Shepard, on the other hand, went still and had just opened her mouth when the krogan beat her to it.
"Maybe she wouldn't have if you had stayed with us," Grunt rumbled in a low tone. His teeth flashed. "You're reckless."
"Yeah, well," Jack sputtered, mouth twisting into something unpleasant.
"'Yeah, well' is right. We'll meet you on the ship, Jack," Shepard replied, her voice ringing hard and vaguely threatening.
Jack sneered back. "Aye, aye, Commander," she agreed with a sarcastic salute and then stomped off. In the meantime, I noticed Grunt was even more obviously close to Miranda. Protective, even.
"When did that happen?" I muttered to Shepard at my side, pointing my chin at the human and krogan duo.
Shepard shook her head. "You missed a lot this week. And I have no idea," Shepard answered just as quietly. "I walked into Miranda's office this morning, and Grunt was just lying on her couch, reading."
"What did Miranda say about it?" I asked, arching a frontal plate in lieu of an eyebrow and staring at the human in question. Miranda had some color back in her cheeks and was arguing with our salarian teammate. Well, she recovers quickly, at least.
"Hardly anything. She was working like she barely noticed he was there," Shepard replied.
"Huh," I huffed, confused.
"Yeah, me too," Shepard interpreted with a laugh, bumping her shoulder against mine.
However, Miranda's sharp tone raising in volume drew our attention immediately away from our conversation, and Shepard took a step away from me and towards the warring pair.
"Professor, we do not have the time or resources to scan every colonist," Miranda argued. "Name a more reasonable number."
"Large data sample imperative. You should understand. Or maybe not," Mordin chattered back. "Largest project just Commander Shepard."
Miranda's face curled into a sneer, catching the slight just as I had. "Just?" she snarled.
"If this is useful, you can scan as many colonists as you can manage until the end of the afternoon watch, Mordin," Shepard said, stepping in to defuse the situation. "After that, we're leaving."
Mordin nodded and turned away, speaking over the comms moments later to request Dr. Chakwas' help. Meanwhile, I kept my eyes on Shepard who couldn't seem to stop smirking at Miranda's disgruntled pursing of her lips and the way her eyes still heatedly followed the salarian. I looked between the two, curious. Maybe I really did miss a lot this week.
What I didn't miss was Miranda's face snapping into something impassive as she looked over my shoulder and how it jarred against the delight that simultaneously appeared on Shepard's.
"Commander," a grim-looking Ashley Williams greeted her as she approached. Her voice was cold, and her grip was still stubbornly on a drawn gun. I took a step closer to Shepard.
"Ash!" Shepard exclaimed, coming to life immediately and seemingly oblivious to the tension that had settled over the rest of us. "I'm so glad you weren't on that ship."
Shepard stepped forward like to embrace her, but Ashley mirrored the movement backwards. Shepard stilled, arms falling back to her sides with a frown.
"So you did know I was here," Ashley spoke coldly, her eyes jumping from face to face. The majority of the team had gathered around Shepard, but Ashley had less faces to focus on as most of them beat a hasty retreat once they sensed the turning of the conversation. Miranda was one that stayed, of course, and her face was almost too still, bracing against something to come. I stayed rooted as well, wary.
"I did," Shepard admitted slowly. "It came up in the debrief when we got the tip about Horizon a few days ago."
"And that didn't strike you as a little convenient? Almost as convenient as having been sent here by your XO only to have the colony attacked less than two weeks later?" Ashley growled.
"When taken out of context, perhaps," Miranda replied, every word dripping in ice despite the heat of the day.
Ashley scoffed in disbelief, and Shepard turned a hard face towards her XO. "You sent her here?" Shepard repeated.
Miranda sighed. "This is just a misunderstanding. The Alliance had already decided the location. All I did was move her deployment date up to get her out of the way," she explained.
"And I'm sure the commander would love to hear the reason why," Ashley jumped in, eyes alight like a bloodhound on the scent.
Miranda froze, face still carefully controlled but almost to the point of snapping with the strain. I sympathized but in another way; I was trying so hard to stay out of a conversation that was obviously not about me. Not to mention, Ashley had that righteous fire burning in her eyes, and that had never boded well for anyone.
"Shepard was to be kept from any distractions," Miranda replied.
"And because I discovered something she didn't want to share," Ashley rejoined, turning to direct her comment towards Shepard.
"Chief Williams," Miranda warned, desperate if she was resorting to titles.
"No, Commander, you deserve the truth about the people you're working for. Maybe then you'll come back to the Alliance, where you belong," Ashley cut in, brown eyes looking pleadingly at Shepard.
"Strange, because it seemed like it was Cerberus that saved this colony, not the Alliance and its malfunctioning gun," Miranda batted Ashley's earnestness to the side. Ashley scowled at her, the expression bouncing off of Miranda's smooth facade like water against stone. For a moment, too, I admired her; it was tiring how often the Alliance gave credit only to themselves, and Miranda's reproach was refreshing.
"Ash, I'm not sure what you're all worked up about. I'm not with Cerberus because we've suddenly become such good friends. I've got a job to do," Shepard said, the hard note of her tone belying the calm front she was still maintaining.
"Elise worked for Cerberus," Ashley blurted out harshly. "They've been manipulating you from the start, and now you've walked right into it."
The silence that followed such a statement was predictable but, nevertheless, sat heavy on the shoulders of all four of us, and I, a coward, suddenly found an intense interest in the grass at my feet.
"You're wrong about manipulation. If that were Elise's goal, we hardly would have killed her before she could be useful. Shepard only became famous after Akuze," Miranda broke quietly into the moment, and her words twisted my stomach up inside me. Shepard's eyes glittered hard as she looked at Miranda, but she was still silent, mouth puckered tight.
"You said," I realized slowly, looking at Shepard, "that you wouldn't have joined the Alliance if it weren't for Elise. It seems unlikely that Cerberus would have been complicit in that."
"It's not impossible though. You know what Cerberus is capable of. They lie. And they apparently kill their own people," Ashley urged.
"I'm aware!" Shepard finally snapped.
"Then why don't you come back to the Alliance? Even your XO was keeping the truth from you," Ashley asserted, waving her hands at Miranda, who looked ready to do a little more than waving back, but Shepard's face was blank as she stared ahead.
"Now wait a minute," I stepped forward to interrupt, "At least Miranda is helping us stop the Collectors. That's more than I can say for you or the Alliance at the moment."
All three faces turned to me in surprise: for defending Miranda, for my outburst, for not having a joke handy to break the tension, maybe because of all three. I didn't care. I was angry at all of us, bickering and causing a scene in the middle of the plaza like a bunch of children. I saw Samantha standing in the crowd that had gathered to watch us. By the look of the two older humans that flanked her and the smile that stretched across her face, I gathered that she'd found her parents. She gave me a weak, awkward wave from the sidelines, and I managed something of the like in return.
"I did try to fight the Collectors here," Ashley protested, "but I'd never work for Cerberus."
"Well that answers the question of whether you'd like to come with me," Shepard muttered.
A flash of regret etched across Ashley's face, and for a moment, I saw the softhearted soldier I'd met back on the first Normandy. Not soft towards me, of course, but she'd always been respectful of Shepard and that had gone a long way towards garnering my esteem. I liked to think Shepard saw through this newer, harsher, Ashley as well.
"Shepard, it's not you. It's–" Ashley bit her lip– "I'll always be Alliance. I can't change that, even for you."
"I get it," Shepard replied, her icy mask falling down like it hadn't been languishing from misuse for the past month. "Just go on, Chief Williams. We'll be off this colony and out of your hair soon enough."
The title struck hard, Ashley's mouth falling into an 'o' as the words made contact. She didn't reply back though, just gave Shepard a salute, turned on her heel, and marched off with not even a glance over her shoulder.
XXX
An hour later and the colony's medical center had collaborated with the Normandy to set up scans for the remaining colonists. It gave everyone a place to gather to look for loved ones while also checking for any abnormalities the Collector technology may have caused. Plus, Mordin had shown interest in the data to improve his counter-measure. He said something about increasing the area of effect instead of it being limited to one person, or, at least, that's what I took out of it. I stopped listening once he started talking too fast.
In any case, the colonists were now organized in lines going up to the six medical professionals at a table. Three were from the colony, with added help from Dr. Chakwas, Miranda, and Mordin, and together they did quick omni-scans of each colonist. Anything unusual and the individual was sent inside to another doctor, but so far, everyone seemed to be suffering no effects from the seeker swarms.
The day was hot, so some industrious individuals had appropriated coolers and were handing out water to those waiting in line. Some of them were crying in relief at finding family members, while others cried at a loss until the whole thing felt like the worst kind of funeral wrapped in a festival.
Shepard came up beside me from where I was observing the event, and she was quiet in that brooding way of hers, no doubt already tired of the colonists' hero worship of her for saving them. Her eyes drifted between Miranda at the table and Ashley, who was speaking with some other soldiers.
"You've been quiet," I stated. "I can't tell if you're angry or not."
Shepard looked up at me, green eyes flashing. "Which one do you expect me to be angry with?"
"Either. Both," I answered.
"Or neither," Shepard sighed, uncharacteristically subdued.
"Really?" I peered down at her, searching, but I saw no passion bubbling just under the skin, no sign that she was lying.
"Ashley thinks she was doing the right thing by telling me. Whether that's true...is irrelevant at the moment," Shepard replied, picking at a nail absently in an attempt to avoid my eyes. "And my thoughts on Miranda–"
We both looked over at the woman in question in time to see a small, dark haired girl attack Miranda's leg with a hug after she finished her scan. Miranda's blue eyes went wide with panic as she stiffened under the touch, but she finally managed to awkwardly pat the child on the back. Shepard and I were close enough to see the girl give a gap-toothed, adoring smile back, even if Miranda didn't quite manage one in return.
Grunt appeared from behind them, casting a curious gaze on the exchange. The little girl's eyes widened in fright, and she scurried off to her parents. Grunt, however, was unfazed and apparently decided to mimic the child by wrapping Miranda in a hug of his own. The Cerberus operative gave an ungainly squeak, mouth falling in alarm, but she shocked me even further by seeming to patiently endure the contact before pushing the krogan away. She might even have smiled a little.
"–are complicated," Shepard finished.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
Shepard chuckled deep in her throat. "That I'm holding back anger until after I ask her why she did it."
"That's...different for you," I admitted, tickled when I got Shepard to laugh once again. She faded into unexpected seriousness, however, and finally met my eyes.
"Do you ever get tired of following me, having to put up with my decisions?" she asked. Her eyes fell away from my face and down my armor, and she reached out touching briefly at the scarred abdomen of my armor. It had been patched, but after Omega and then Korlus, it was definitely time for me to buy a new breastplate. "I almost got you killed."
"I thought this wasn't an issue. You know I'm not upset about Korlus," I replied, scratching my neck.
"Maybe you should have been." Shepard shook her head, reaching to run her fingers through hair that was tangled and caked with the morning's sweat.
"What do you expect me to say? That I hate you for making a mistake?" I asked, the end of the words clicking with my irritation. "We've been through too much together for that."
She looked at me thoughtfully. "What would you do? If you were in command?"
My mandibles flicked out in shock. "Leadership roles haven't exactly worked out for me in the past," I answered, brushing her question off.
"Your team on Omega." Shepard's eyes darkened with understanding. "Still. Would you be here? Would you work with Cerberus and recruit–" She waved vaguely at our motley teammates, scattered throughout the area– "them?"
"Well, I wouldn't have recruited Wrex those years ago, and I definitely wouldn't have let Liara anywhere near the ship if I'd been making decisions back on the first Normandy. But you did, and look how it turned out," I replied. "I'm not sure it matters what I would do."
"It does." Shepard hummed and patted my shoulder. Eight bells played from our omni-tools: the end of the afternoon watch. Shepard offered a shrug to me, then whistled for the team to start moving out.
I stared after them, the last one to join the crowd heading back onto the Normandy, watching as our dysfunctional team somehow managed to look...put together. Or that's what I was hoping we looked like for the colonists we were leaving behind. One thing's for sure, I though, throwing one last glance at the blackened grass where the Collector ship had landed, the Normandy is going to need a bigger gun.
XXX
Miranda
"So you did find me," Shepard greeted as I passed through the lounge doorway
"It's not difficult if you ask EDI," I replied, the corners of my mouth starting up in the beginnings of a smile. I held up the sling I carried, concealing the datapad I'd also brought with me. "Dr. Chakwas said you didn't show up for your post-mission evaluation. We need to take care of your shoulder."
Shepard shrugged but flinched. "You said it was minor. It doesn't hurt much."
"Your body is your most important weapon, Shepard. You need to be more responsible about your injuries," I scolded.
"Pot meet kettle," Shepard said pointedly. "I'm one half-finished meal away from using my position of authority to make you eat a stack of pancakes."
"You could try," I challenged, managing to joke even as the thought made me ill. My biotics were almost to full strength again, so physically I was recovered. The actual eating part, however, was still a trial.
Shepard grimaced but let it drop and looked at my hands. "So, a sling?"
"For at least a few days. You need to make sure you move it as little as possible and ice it. A lot," I prescribed. "Otherwise Chakwas will forcibly immobilize it until you're healed."
"Yes, Doctor Lawson, ma'am," Shepard drawled, throwing a salute with her other arm.
I pursed my lips in amusement and settled her arm into the sling gently, leaning across her to secure the strap in the back. Her breath tickled softly against my neck as I worked, and my heartbeat shot up, leaving me lightheaded. The magnetism pulled between us even now and was becoming impossible to ignore, the kind of force that pulled us together with inevitability and reminded me that we could never just be nothing to one another—even if passive coexistence would be so much easier. We might be enemies or we might be friends, but we would never be nothing, not after I rebuilt her, not after this mission together. The thought filled me with selfish contentment—if I managed to ignore how different Shepard and my opinions likely were on the matter.
I smoothed the strap down in between her shoulderblades and shook my head, as much to clear my thoughts as to get the hair that had fallen into my face to move. The black strands went stubbornly right back, but before I could fix it myself, Shepard had reached up with her other hand to tuck it behind my ear, her fingers brushing along the shell of my ear. It was like she moved on instinct, Shepard's eyes widening only after she realized what she'd done. I froze, and Shepard yanked her hand back like I'd bitten her.
"I should've told you." The admission came out in a burst.
Shepard blinked up at me, frowning at the twist of the conversation. I revealed the datapad I'd brought in with me and placed it next to her.
"I downloaded the files on Elise for you," I offered. "If you want them."
"You said it would take weeks to get access to the files Jack wanted," Shepard said, raising an eyebrow. "But these were just lying about on the Cerberus server for anyone to find?"
I clasped my hands behind my back. "I may have prioritized this request," I admitted.
"Of course." She shook her head but otherwise was silent, staring absently at the counter she was leaning on with her good arm. The silence stretched as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, waiting as she fiddled with the silken armband that was becoming a permanent fixture on her forearm.
"I wanted to tell you," I explained, breaking into the quiet once I realized she wasn't going to. "My mission here is to make sure that you succeed. I debated over the decision, but I was afraid it would break the trust that we'd–"
"Relax, I'm not upset with you, Miranda," Shepard interrupted. She stood and went behind the lounge bar, pulling out a red wine and two glasses. Shepard filled one and handed it to me before filling her own and taking a sip.
"Forgive me if I'm not entirely convinced," I replied. Her eyes shot to mine, and Shepard laughed, like really laughed, all the way from her belly and up through her throat until she was rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hands before wiping them on her pants.
"It is a change of form from my usual attitude, I'll admit," Shepard said, her lightness being taken over by a sober draining of her glass. She reached for the bottle and refilled. "She wouldn't even recognize me now. Elise. I'm a far cry from the woman she proposed to."
"She proposed to you?" I asked, as much from curiosity as to pull her from whatever dark path her mind had taken.
Shepard's smile flickered back. "I was the very image of a future blushing bride, as I'm sure you can imagine."
The white dress and wedding bells were foreign to scenery I had created around her in my imagination, but the blushing I could picture quite well. I wondered if Elise had loved it as much as I do.
"I...don't understand," I stated and was glad Shepard seemed to grasp my switch back in topics. This woman was obviously important to Shepard, so why the cavalier attitude? Where was the yelling, the raging, the flinging of biotics? I had been thinking of ways to make sure she stayed, didn't leave Cerberus, didn't leave me. I hesitated at my last thought, but it was true. I was becoming dangerously possessive of this person I had formed. Shepard had not been given; she was created—by me. I knew her in a way mothers don't even know their children, in a way Father hadn't even known me. And yet she might still try to walk away.
I shook my thoughts away. I do not own her. She owes me nothing, I reminded myself.
"Knowing Elise was part of Cerberus doesn't make me hate them more. It simply...reopens an old wound. And possibly made it deeper," she philosophized with another deep drink of her wine. "As for your part, well, should I be angry that you held back the knife? No. Keeping this from me was a mercy."
"So you're not angry," I summarized slowly.
She smiled in a way that managed to look condescending. "No, I'm not angry. At you, anyway. This time," she emphasized. "I'm willing to forgive this because of the circumstances, but I won't be controlled or manipulated. Not by you, not by Cerberus."
"So you believed Chief Williams? That we've been manipulating you from the start?" I asked, pausing to finally taste the wine she'd served. I was pleased to note she'd chosen one of my favorites. "I think you'll be disappointed when you finally read the files."
Shepard shook her head, the corners of her lips drawing up again. "No, that theory is a long shot. And even if Cerberus tried, they did such a piss poor job of it that it hardly matters," she replied. She peered across at me, hiding her lips with another drink from her glass. "So I know it hasn't been you, at least."
A short huff of a laugh escaped me. "Such faith in my abilities," I said, smirking. "Rest assured, if I were manipulating you, I would have at least stopped you from stealing my favorite shampoo and the assortment of other belongings that have gone missing from my room."
"Tell me you weren't the one who stocked my cabin and put a Cerberus logo on everything, then. I figured you owed me some unmarked shampoo." Shepard shrugged, hissing again when she moved her injured shoulder. She was leaning towards me, an easy smile on her lips, and I pulled just the slightest bit back, trying to cover the way my breathing shortened in my chest. "Besides, I had discovered that yours smells so much better than mine."
My heart stopped. Of course, of all the things for her drunken mind to remember from what I was now calling That Night, she would remember that part. Heat crawled into my cheeks, but then went ever so much lower when, for a second, Shepard's eyes flickered down to my lips. When they came back up, they were full of uncertainty, and I was too, caught between wanting to retreat off the barstool or surge forward.
"Shepard?" Garrus' voice came through the doorway, and we both reeled back. I turned my head with a jerk to the side, hiding my face and biting the inside of my cheek while I focused on returning my breathing to normal.
"Oh," Garrus said, looking between the two of us. He rubbed at the back of his neck.
"I was just leaving," I offered, ignoring the nearly full glass of wine that still sat in front of me. I slid from my seat and made for the exit, forcing myself not to look back.
When I was back in my room, my fingers felt at my cheeks, touching at the warmth still concentrated there. I tipped my head back against the door with a sigh but jolted upright once more at the sound of an incoming message on my omni-tool.
Miranda,
Perhaps hiring Miss Chambers will prove unnecessary after all.
TIM
My gut twisted, and I dropped down into my desk chair, deleting the message quickly as my mind churned. The Illusive Man never was one to mince words with me. I knew what he meant, had the ability to read between the lines, and his mention of Miss Chambers was telling. Kelly Chambers had been hired as the yeoman and to evaluate the crew...as well as seduce the commander if events allowed. He was complimenting me.
"EDI?" I called.
"Yes, Operative Lawson?" EDI replied.
A sick feeling slid through me, and I stood furiously from my desk. "I want any and all recording to my room and office shut down," I ordered. "And you are to tell me if anyone overrides this order."
"Done," EDI responded. "Would you like to cancel recording in the commander's cabin as well?"
Bloody AIs, able to read into things. "Yes, EDI. Thank you."
I undressed quickly for bed and wondered how long it had been since someone other than my father had managed to make a compliment seem so violating.
Wow, breaking that 100,000 word mark, and this chapter was one of the big points of the game. Sorry this took so long! I'm naturally a little nervous because this is supposed to be such a big turn for the game/this story. The team is slowly getting better at working together, but every new person throws a new wrench in the dynamic. And oh boy there are more team members to come.
Questions, comments, and constructive criticism is always welcome. Why do you think Shepard is asking Garrus about his confidence in her decisions? How do you feel about TIM's message to Miranda? Why in the world is this story so long? (Lol that's what I think every time I'm writing).
Can't wait to hear everyone's thoughts! Thanks for all the follows, favorites, and reviews!