Normandy, Shuttle Bay, 1200
Shepard squinted down the rifle, her eyes focusing on the target which appeared to be 120 meters away. She felt her breathing slow down, her entire world reduce to the path between herself and vaguely humanoid form. Her finger moved, slowly, smoothly to the trigger, curling around it with practiced slowness.
She raised the rifle slightly, dropping the sights down millimeter by millimeter towards the target. She took a breath in. Another breath out.
She squeezed the trigger.
The recoil from the rifle sent her sight-picture up drastically, the target leaving her line of sight before she could see the marks she had put in it, a soft beep from her omnitool indicating that she had hit it. She brought the rifle down quickly, sighting the target again. Her body tensed, like a cat stalking its prey, her muscles charged as if about to pounce.
Again, her finger slipped from the side of the rifle to curl around the trigger.
Again her rifle went up, coming down slowly, millimeter by millimeter.
Another breath in.
Another breath out.
She sqeezed the trigger.
Her rifle flew up as she heard the familiar beep from her omnitool indicating another hit, the sound a regular occurance for a soldier of her caliber, giving no indication of the location of the impact, simply its existence. She repeated the process again, bringing the target back into her sights, adjusting her firing position slightly, shuffling her feet softly against the metal deck plating.
Again, her finger found the trigger.
Again her sights began to fall towards the target.
Another breath in.
Another breath out.
She squeezed the trigger.
After returning her rifle to the target, Shepard clicked the safety on, dropping the rifle down to an easy carry as she walked back to the upgrade terminal behind her, the orange screen changing as she approached to display a picture of the humanoid target which she had been shooting at, green X's marking her points of impact, diagnostics indicating the degree of lethality which such an impact would cause on a realistic target.
Three of the X's were centered within three centimeters of each other in the center of the head-region, another five within five centimeters near the "critical zone" on the right-side of the "chest", a zone of incredible lethality for almost any species, a hold-over from a past and long forgotten race. What concerned Shepard, however, were the two X's which sat distinctly removed from her other two groupings, one 4.6 centimeters to the left of the chest group, another 5.8 centimeters below the head-grouping.
Elizabeth cursed slightly under her breath as she brought her hands to the haptic interface, reducing the range on the simulated target by two yards, resetting the simulation and watching the target-terminal she had set up 15 yards away adjust its image accordingly, the mass effect fields behind the device glowing an eery blue.
She walked around the desk, her mind racing as she analyzed her past ten shots, running over every inch of her posture, firing technique, shoulder and arm position in a litany of well-practiced concerns, resuming her position in the middle of the Shuttle Bay's landing strip, bringing the rifle up and seating it on her right shoulder, the M8 sitting in her hands almost as an extension of herself.
"If you ever want to shoot accurately, Liz, you're going to have to relax a bit…"
Elizabeth jumped slightly at the voice which came from behind her, dropping the rifle and spinning around to find Garrus leaning against the back of the shuttle bay, arms crossed in front of him and a trade-mark grin plastered on his face. She shook her head and rolled her eyes slightly, her left eyebrow raising as Garrus pushed his Torso forwards, leaving his leaning position to walk across the deserted shuttle bay towards her. The metallic clangs his boots made against the deck plating echoed around the cavernous space, leaving Elizabeth wondering wholly how he had managed to sneak up on her.
"Well, you should learn not to surprise N7's during target practice, I might have shot you for all you know."
Garrus shook his head as he passed the terminals, walking towards Shepard and pulling what appeared to be his Mantis off of his back, the weapons disengaging from the hard-mount and arming with a series of whirrs and a final electronic beep.
"No, you're trained to drop your weapon whenever you hear a sound behind you, hostile or not, before you pivot. Stops you from flagging comrades."
"Well didn't somebody get a hold of a human combat manual."
Garrus shrugged, now standing abreast of Shepard and looking down at his rifle, modifying it's firing setting to "practice", the auxiliary mass-effect core in the back of the weapon which provided recoil during practice shots engaging with a low hum.
"We did some joint operations when I was still in service."
Shepard took a step back, gesturing with her left hand as she did so, sarcasm dripping with the "Magnanimous" gesture.
"Well, please, show me how I need to be shooting."
Without hesitation Garrus took one-step into the firing position, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder. Due to the bulk of his cowl, like most Turian soldiers Garrus shot with a much more forwards-facing position than Shepard, his left arm coming underneath the bulk of his breast-bone to meet his right, stabilizing the rifle only a few centimeters in front of the grip. He angled his head to the right for a few moments, lining his eye up with the sight enough to double check his bead before he rasied it, turning to look at Shepard.
"Like this."
While maintaining eye contact Garrus squeezed off three shots in rapid succession, the computer pinging politely each time, before dropping his rifle. Shepard rolled her eyes before turning to walk towards the terminal, aggressively bringing up the target as Garrus rounded the edge, coming to stand slightly behind her and to her right. Much to Elizabeth's chagrin, there were three green X's, one in the middle of the head-portion, and two within half a centimeter of each other in the critical zone. Shepard rolled her eyes, setting her weapon down as it folded up, facing Garrus with crossed arms and thrown hips.
"Not fair, vakarian. You had the visor."
Garrus scoffed, dropping his weapon back onto the hard-mount on his back, tapping the visor with his left hand.
"As if I'd need it for a shot like that."
Shepard shook her hand as he heard his statement, picking her rifle up and walking back and to the port-side of the hangar, opening up her arms locker and stowing her weapon, giving it a quick wipe before setting it on the mount inside the locker. Garrus followed suite, leaning against the crates that were besides the locker after he finished.
"So what brought you down here, Shepard? I don't think I've seen you come in for target practice before."
Shepard laughed slightly as she re-positioned her helmet slightly, ensuring that all the components were in place before closing the door, locking it, and leaning up against the door. She crossed her left foot outwards and over her right, the bottom of her boot perpendicular to the deck-plating in a posture similar to Garrus', though nobody could ever determine who had learned it from who. She looked at Garrus as she spoke, bobbing her head to emphasize her statement, trying to hide the mild shame with which she said it as nonchalance, hoping the Turian would not pick up on it.
"Well, after Sur'kesh I noticed my shots were a bit spotty. I guess after months without shooting anything, even my skills can get a little rusty."
Garrus nodded, closing his eyes gently before opening them, looking into Elizabeth's. While he said nothing, she could tell he had still picked up on her mild shame, dropping her eyes from him with a furtive hope that he would observe none of it in her face.
"Things did go sideways pretty quickly down there, didn't they?"
Shepard laughed at his understatement, a cold hard laugh which contained neither mirth nor happiness within a hundred meters, being filled instead with only bitter memories and pessimistic predictions.
"That's one way of putting it, yeah. I only intended to bring weapons as a precautionary measure, I didn't think we'd use them on that. Why would we have?"
"Because a terrorist human-supremist organization decided it just wanted to ruin your day?"
Another hard laugh, though this time the bitter memories ran deeper, a crazy man's accusation and a series of military graves presenting themselves in her mind, the sour taste of months of guilt and years of grief hanging on her tongue.
"They ruined my day years ago, along with my squad's. If we have to fight like that any time we try and get anything done…"
Elizabeth's sentence trailed off, the silence a more poignant medium to convey the days and battles she imagined in their future, the struggle added to an already difficult fight, the relentless fatigue of days upon days of combat, the inevitable losses and injuries. The silent space at the end of her sentence was charged with a resigned determination that she would fight through the battles, that the tribulations would never be enough to halt her drive to victory, but also a mild fear at the mountainous task ahead, a seemingly impossible goal made steeper with the promise of resistance at every turn.
"It'll be no worse than the diplomatic fighting you've dealt with for the past four years."
Elizabeth scoffed.
"Yeah, at least this time the enemy admits what it's doing."
Garrus chuckled, Elizabeth continued.
"It's bad enough we're having to fight the Reapers, but now Cerberus too at every turn? I was just fine when we were just fighting the giant death machines, no need to add the power-hungry morally decrepit terrorist group."
Garrus raised a brow plate, his mandibles flaring in a small grin as his voice became seeped in a trademark brank of sarcasm which was uniquely his.
"If I didn't know better, Liz, I'd say you were scared."
Elizabeth laughed, rolling her eyes as she smiled slightly, the familiarity and comfortability of her and Garrus' constant raport a welcome relief after the stress and worry of the past day.
"How could I be, with Turians who can make shots without looking and a crazy Salarian scientist on board."
Garrus laughed again, a low, slow bubble of mild humor which made Elizabeth smile further.
"It is good to see him, isn't it? Wrex too. We're getting the old team together, slowly but surely.
"What, team Normandy? Half of them never even worked together, I'm amazed Wrex and Mordin even know each other."
Garrus angled his head downwards, looking Elizabeth directly in the eye as he spoke, his voice intensely directed at her, neither cheerful nor sarcastic nor even pessimistic but rather just delivered with a directness and concentration of intent which drove his point home.
"They all worked under you, Liz, that's enough."
The silence afterwards was poignant while Elizabeth considered Garrus' statement, her mind rushing through the roster of her "Team Normandy", imagining more efficient combat teams and new interactions which were inevitable were her past two crews united. While she was aware that she had already taken crews on two tasks of large significance, Elizabeth had never considered herself the type of soldier who developed teams around their personalities, whose ships and commands became more institutions than military assets. The N7 within her took her accomplishments as, if not for granted than certainly merely impressive, months of training to handle volatile missions routinely discounting to some degree the immensity of them. In her mind she was simply a soldier, a well-trained and accomplished one, but still not the public icon and hero which she seemed to represent to the rest of the galaxy. The idea of having a "Team Normandy" built from people of disparate backgrounds and almost diametrically opposed personalities, which was seen as an institution of excellence and accomplishment by both her superiors and the rest of the galaxy, still remained fairly foreign to her.
Eventually, Garrus cleared his throat.
So, I hear we're headed to the Citadel?"
Elizabeth nodded tentatively, her mind still thinking of Garrus' comment, pushing off of the locker and turning to walk towards the elevator. Garrus followed suit, staying always to Shepard's right, years in a society rife with structure and rank as well as service in both the Turian military and C-Sec driving him to a perfect subordinate position.
"Yes. I got a message from Ash saying she needed to see me, as well as Miranda and a Salarian Spectre. Oh, and a few crew exchanges, they want to give us some more war-room staff."
Garrus nodded as the elevator slid into position exceedingly slowly, the door lifting with equal unhurriedness, both he and Elizabeth stepping under it, ducking their heads, before it was completely open.
"Sounds like the Citadel's going to be our home port then."
"That's the intention."