Mass Effect Extras

R.A. Crandall

Chapter 1 – Mass Effect

Ton Actus – Wrex's Family Armour

Pinned down in the far corner of the bunker, Shepard stood behind cover between Kaidan and Wrex, picking off pirates moving to approach their right flank. She looked to her radar. They had given up trying to approach from the flanks and Kaidan was taking the brunt of the attack. She couldn't step up to assist without giving up cover or moving Kaidan out of his. She and Wrex were in rough shape. There were two contacts left but they weren't taking enough fire. She watched as he took two solid hits, took cover and stood to fire again. Too soon. Another hit, maybe two, and he was gone - after they had just survived a daunting onslaught. Her own shields were gone, the last of their medi-gel used. Kaidan would be down before they came back. He took a hit, stumbling back from the force of impact. Shepard stepped between Kaidan and his assailants. Two shots. The first hit clean through the skull. Shepard held the second as the pirate moved behind cover. Following through the crate, the instant he showed his face out the other side it was gone. Shepard lowered her rifle, her arms starting to shake. She turned to Kaidan offering him a hand up, not letting go.

"Thanks." Kaidan looked confused as Shepard gazed at him, eyes darting about slightly, as she worked to keep expressions off her face and remained silent. Confusion was quickly replaced with the resolve to bear her attention.

"That armour has to be here somewhere." Wrex said. Shepard looked to him and nodded, releasing Kaidan's forearm.

"Let's go." She stepped past Kaidan, out from cover, making for the only section of the building they hadn't explored yet.

v

They loaded themselves and their retrieved cargo up into the Mako. Shepard drove to the nearest plateau and radioed the Normandy for pick up.

"We're not going after that deposit?" Kaidan asked. Shepard kept her eyes forward, her tone grave.

"No."

v

Wrex dropped his gun in his locker and headed over to the Mako to unload the armour crate, leaving Shepard and Kaidan to unequip themselves.

"Commander, is there something you need to say?" Kaidan asked. Shepard grit her teeth. Honesty wasn't always a virtue.

"No."

"I was careless, Commander. You wouldn't have been forced to…step in…if…" Kaidan shook his head and exhaled. "I didn't keep it together. If you're considering leaving me aboard next time, I understand." Shepard snapped her head toward him, eyes wide with one eyebrow up.

"I'd do it again. Next time…keep your head cooler a little longer and I won't have to." Shepard said evenly, her expression showing she cared more than it should have. She exhaled some of the tension she carried. Kaidan stepped in and lowered his voice.

"You'd…?" he began, not sure how to finish the sentence. Shepard put the last of her gear in the locker and shut it. She met his gaze again.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" Kaidan's jaw worked as he kept himself silent. He was fairly sure he knew the answer to the question.

"Nevermind, ma'am," he replied. Shepard nodded slightly and made for the elevator. As the doors closed she leaned against the rear wall. Silently, she answered his question.

Yes. I would. For no particularly logical reason, I would.

v

Mess Hall Banter

"Never visit that turian trader. He's as sketchy as they get. Bought a Stiletto from him and it turns out it had disappeared from evidence in C-Sec two months ago. I go to try and get my money back and the bastard threatens to take my eyes out. Turned the unit in and reported him. If C-Sec gets him I hope he spends a few years in holding."

"Commander Shepard told me she'd heard a merchant stiffing another customer for a return earlier. Probably the same one."

The mess hall was near packed with crew chatting and tending to the necessity of feeding the body they own. Joker, Dr. Chakwas, Ashley, Garrus and Lieutenant Alenko were among them. Commander Shepard took a seat with her rations and to her dismay talk at the table abruptly died. She looked around at every face at the table and looked behind her.

"What's up, Commander?" asked Ashley.

"I thought Saren had walked up behind me, for a second." Ash laughed. Dr. Chakwas and Kaidan weren't far behind.

"Hey, Commander, how the heck did you guys get inside that compound on X57?" Joker asked.

"Luck…" Shepard said simply. Sensing a story was wanted she began again. "Well, we took out all the defensive turrets and pulled right up beside the fusion engine. They have mining charges set up around the bunker. We tried detonating one from a distance but they had shields around the damn things. To boot, it turns out they have these charges set up in a perfectly spaced ring. We tried to get between them at a few points but they were way too close. Third time I'm going up, rockets and gunfire start flying past our heads." Lieutenant Alenko cut in perfectly.

"Commander pulls us back to the rover to blast them out of their gopher holes, and the whole bloody crew retreats inside the compound. Everyone's thinking it, no one's saying it - what the hell do we do now?"

"Actually, I was thinking we should retreat and see if one of the surviving engineers could improvise a trigger to detonate them remotely," said Garrus.

"That's the kind of thing you need to tell me when we're being shot at, Garrus. The less gunfire we see in our lives the longer they'll be."

"Sorry, Commander. You just seemed determined to get in."

"No kidding." Kaidan quipped. "She goes straight for the weapons locker, pulls out a Nagi VIII, tells us to "keep them busy and keep an eye on her ass" and takes off running for a nearby berm. We scramble back to the blast caps and keep the bastards occupied. A few seconds later there's a rocket heading in the Commander's direction. I got a warning off but when that thing hit…I thought you were toast."

"So did I. Lucky for me they were poor shots. But they didn't know that. I managed to stay out of sight half way up the cliff we'd come down on our approach. Picked them off from there while Lieutenant Alenko and Garrus kept them busy. We shot down the last of them, then another one runs out of a rear door and goes around the blind side of the building. I have no idea what he's doing until I see him sprinting out from the other side of the building, going straight for the blast caps."

"We get the signal to fall back and run for the rover like the hounds of Hades are on our heels. Next thing I know, a blast cap detonates, the ground bounces under my feet, and there're pebbles and dust raining down on us." Everyone's listening, riveted.

"That's it?" Shepard laughed.

"Yeah, Joker. That's it. Don't know where he thought he was going but, he opened a hole in the circle for us."

"Still, cool." A round of affectionate laughter circles the table.

"Lieutenant, can I ask you something?" Garrus chimes in. Alenko turns to him.

"Sure, Garrus."

"Why would you want to watch the Commander's 'ass' when we're the middle of a firefight? What strategic significance does it have?" Most everyone except the Lieutenant and Garrus had to keep from spitting whatever they were eating or drinking out, Shepard included. A choke and small cough later she'd managed to clear the juice she'd swallowed the wrong way. Dr. Chakwas was flushed red with a hand clamped over her mouth, obviously laughing hard. The others weren't far behind. There was an immediate flush on his ears but Kaidan took the question like a champ, laughing himself. Once Shepard managed to get a hold of herself, she explained herself to Garrus.

"It was another, less formal, way of asking him to cover me and watch my back."

"I see, Shepard. Thank you. I was worried we had directly disobeyed orders when you were out of sight." A fresh bout of laughter hit.

"Though, I don't see what was so amusing about my question."

"Geez, Garrus, I think we've all come close enough to wearing each other's lunch today. Can you ask me again later?"

"Of course, Commander."

"Thank you."

v

Virmire Debrief

"I can't believe Ash didn't make it. We just left her down there."

"Williams knew the risks going in. She gave her life to save the rest of us."

"I still feel…responsible."

"It wasn't your fault or mine. The one to blame is Saren."

"Maybe…that doesn't change the fact that it was your call."

"I couldn't hesitate, Lieutenant. If I had it would have killed you both."

"I know. And I am grateful, but Ash and Captain Kirrahe's team died…for us."

"They did. And it'll be a cold day in hell when a soldier under my command dies in vain. We need to focus on Saren."

"Commander, I think I may know of a way to determine where Saren is headed," Liara said.

"You want another look at the information from the beacon."

v

"I wanted to see how you're dealing with Ash's death."

"Dealing, ma'am…Sorry for anything I said back there. Adrenaline."

"I understand. I don't like losing people either."

"It's just…Why me? Why not her?"

"I'd never risk leaving you to die. I couldn't. You know that."

"Then it was us, Shepard. She died for…this."

"Did she die in vain?" Shepard asked. Kaidan put one eyebrow up, taken aback.

"You can be too direct, Shepard. Not that I don't appreciate the honesty."

"Sorry…She was well within the blast radius. It was quick. And I don't plan to leave it to history books to remember her bravery…I didn't come back for you intending to leave her. Without Saren's interference, we all would have made it. All we can do now, is learn from it and put the lives she and the Captain saved to good use."

"I hear you…Commander, I've served for years but never lost so many people under my command. This is…difficult. If you don't mind my asking, how did you deal with the losses on Torfan?"

"It was my job to get everyone out safe. I failed. I vowed not to let that happen again. Same here. I'll remember her and I'll do better - for her." Kaidan nodded. Shepard turned to go.

"I'll come by to talk later."

"I'd like that."

v

Figuring Out What We Are

"Thanks, Kaidan. I needed that. Takes the edge off perfectly."

"Ice melts in it pretty quickly, too." Jenna laughed.

"How does a woman like you get here and not have...you know...anyone waiting for you?" Shepard abruptly found herself keenly interested in the contents of her glass. This explanation never seemed to end well. She took in a solid breath and exhaled. The Rubicon's waters ran gently around her feet.

"I was sixteen. There was a boy in school who shared a lot of my classes at the academy and one day he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes. We dated for a few months and right after New Years I told him I didn't want to be his girlfriend anymore. I was still a kid. Spending the rest of my life with him wasn't what I wanted. Five months later, I asked him if he was still willing to see me. I thought I had been wrong, and I wanted to be sure. About a month later I was. I was already considering breaking it off and, one day, my sister tells me she needs to talk to me. She's two years younger than me, saying we need to talk. She tells me that while we were dating the first time he'd made advances toward her. She'd also found out he was regularly spending time with another girl from a city nearby. I met him the next day and said we were done. After that I promised myself I would never carry on a relationship with someone unless I could be certain I could trust them."

"You loved him?"

"No. But I wanted to, badly. Looking back on it later, I had a clear idea of myself, standing at the edge of a sheer rock cliff holding his hand. I step off and he lets go of my hand. I'm left fighting to hold on to the edge. I look back over my shoulder and where there was clear, deep water, there's nothing but jagged rock. I knew, had let myself fall in love with him, I would have been ripped to shreds. I've seen monsters right out of a nightmare, lost my sister, and some good friends. Still, nothing in my life has terrified me that way again."

"I can certainly see why you're so cautious about relationships after that."

"A while later, my sister was talking with me about a few men she was seeing at the same time and it seemed to me that he'd done the same thing. She was still talking to me and I was railing against the idea. When I consider seeing someone, there's no one else. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask to be treated that way in return. If someone cares more about 'keeping their options open' than they do about me, there's nothing there to begin with. I decided I would never allow myself to be treated that way. I deserve better, and that's how I treat someone I'm with. By that time, I had graduated from the academy, gone into service and I was never in one place long enough or I never pursued it."

Kaidan was stunned. Actually, he was terrified.

"You going to run the other way, Kaidan?"

"No."

"Then help me out. What's going on in there?"

"I'm on the way down, wondering if you're coming or not."

Jenna moved, pulling him into a kiss and saying with the next breath she could catch,

"Gotcha."

v

The Night Before Ilos

"Commander? Do you have a minute?"

"We're a little past ranks, don't you think?"

"We're long past a lot of things. What happens if this doesn't work out, Shepard? I mean, we mutinied, stole a prototype warship. If they wanted to get technical they could throw in kidnapping. We're a hell of an example of humanity's best and brightest."

"If we weren't we wouldn't be here. Still, you'd think someone more advanced would have figured this out by now."

"Yeah. No kidding. 50,000 years and it's down to 25 mutineers? Way to go team Milky Way." Shepard laughed, smiling.

"As long I can see a way forward, I'll keep going. We're not done for yet."

"No, we're not…It's really going to hit the fan when we get to Ilos. If things don't go well, I just wanted you to know I've enjoyed serving under you."

"You know you stopped being a subordinate a long time ago. Don't you think it's time we act like it?"

"Battlefield flirting is one thing, Shepard. There are regs against fraternization. Although, I suppose that will be pretty far down the list of charges at our courts martial. You know what? You're right. I think about losing you and I can't stand it. I mean, the galaxy will just keep going…even the Reapers will come around again…but you and I, we are important right now. This is what will never happen again – us. Shepard, you make me feel…human."

"Bunk here tonight. With me."

"Is that an order, Commander?"

"You walked through that door because you didn't want to spend this time anywhere else. What do you want to do with it?" She stood inches from him. His expression made the question's answer apparent. Almost simultaneously they closed the space between them.

v

Kaidan was breathing heavily as he rested his hand on one of her shaking legs; a tender, steadying touch.

"Not staying in one place…never pursuing anyone…it wasn't just the fear of being in it alone." Jenna shook her head slightly.

"No."

"Self-control…it scares you to let it go." Recovering breath that had been scarce until a moment ago, she answered in a tone so gentle and vulnerable it was hard to believe it belonged to the same person.

"Yeah. It does." Before she could say another word, she was kept mute by a kiss - a grateful acceptance of a gift of trust. Kaidan moved and the reminder of their connection washed away reason.

Her last rational thought before going under: One of the last things she'd held back was one of the first he'd shared.