I woke up the next morning with a light headache and an empty stomach. The beds around me were empty; apparently I was late. I stood up and looked at myself in the mirror, rubbing my eyes.

Alcohol is overrated.

The buzz of my omnitool startled me for a second. A message from Jane. I opened it as fast as I could.

Report to the briefing room ASAP. Need your input on a mission. – Shepard.

I ran out of the quarters, towards the elevator. As the painfully slow machine took me to the upper floor, I wondered how a low level engineer with zero experience would be of any use for a "mission".

As the doors finally opened I quickly ran towards the briefing room and made my way in. My heart skipped a beat (as always) when I saw her. Jane was pacing back and forth at the end of the room, in full combat gear, staring down at her omnitool. She looked really conflicted about something. Most of her squad, also in their armor, were seated in a circle, facing her. Kaidan and Liara were missing.

"Commander." I blurted out, just as I saw her look up. Probably not the right time for a goofy salute.

Jane gave me a nod, but didn't say anything, instead choosing to look away, towards her Gunnery Chief. "You don't like this, Williams?"

"I really don't, Ma'am. And I'm surprised you're even considering it. He's going to be a huge liability."

"We'll need him for this."

"Are you sure that's the only reason-" Ashley stopped mid-joke as she received a look from the Commander. Ashley probably wouldn't want to see that look ever again in her life, and frankly, neither would I.

"Harry will be… of great… help. I can… vouch for… his tech skills." Tali spoke up, sounding slightly disoriented. Looks like someone's really hungover.

I was genuinely confused. "Um.. may I know what this is about?"

"Harry," Jane looked at me again, this time with a softer expression, "I was going through your personnel file…."

I remembered our conversation. 'I barely know you, Harry.'

This is how she wants to know me? By reading my file? She can just.. talk to me instead, can't she?

I chose not to verbalise my thoughts as she continued."… and I came across something. Your father, James Douglas…."

"Oh, great." I muttered under my breath, looking down.

Jane noticed my obvious discomfort and stepped forward to put a hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry," she spoke softly, "not discussing personal matters here. I'm talking about something else. Is it true that he helped develop the Hannibal VI?"

I was taken aback for a second. "The one being used on Luna, for military training?"

She nodded.

"Yes, ma'am. He and a team of Alliance engineers developed it."

"And you were involved in it as well?"

"Yes, but in an unofficial capacity, since I was barely out of school. I assisted him right from the early stages of the project." I looked at her curiously. "Why is this relevant, ma'am?"

"The VI has gone rogue. It has attacked and killed multiple soldiers." She stopped for a moment to look at me, and continued. "It cannot be deactivated remotely, so we have been asked by Admiral Hackett to go down there and find a way to disable it. Since you are quite familiar with the VI, it might be a good idea for you to come along with us."

Dead silence filled the air for a few seconds.

"It went… rogue?" I stared at her blankly. "It killed people? Hannibal?"

My hands trembled as I felt my feet sink into the ground.

Jane held me by the shoulders. "Hey, hey… It's okay," she whispered, "we'll talk about this later, okay? I need you to pull yourself together for now."

I slowly nodded my head, still in shock. We spent a second too long staring at each other.

"Should we leave, Shepard?"

The turian's deep voice interrupted our moment. Jane pulled away from me and turned to face him. "No, Garrus. We need to plan, and our plan depends on whether Harry is coming along with us or not."

"You humans 'plan' too much. Just point me to the base and I'll take care of it… the old fashioned way." the krogan stated, in an annoyed tone.

Ashley nodded her head. "Wrex has a point. Can't we just blow up its core or something?"

"The Alliance doesn't want the facility to get destroyed, so a bomb is out of the question," Shepard explained. "And we can't just shoot at it, we'll have to gain access to its core functionality and then disable it. And that's where you come in Harry. Can you help?"

I took a deep breath. "I-I think I can. I remember a few loopholes in the code that I can exploit. But I can't… fight. I mean, I've been taught how to hold a gun and shoot at a target, but that's not going to be-"

"You have a pistol. You have me. I won't let you out of my sight, even for a second. You'll be fine, Harry, you have my word."

"Just saying "you have me" would have been enough, ma'am." I replied, with a smile.

"I know." She returned my grin with a bigger one, and I got lost in those green eyes for a few more seconds…

"We should leave, Shepard," Garrus repeated.

Jane snapped out of it once again, and walked back to the far end of the room trying her best to hide her blush. I sat on the empty chair beside Ashley, not reacting to the smirk on her face.

With the press of a few buttons, Jane conjured up a holographic map of what looked like the facility in question. "So," she began, "here's what we do…"

The Mako bounced along the surface of the Moon, dodging rockets and firing back at the turrets, as I held on for dear life. Feelings of regret began to creep up in the back of my mind. I pushed them away, along with the thoughts about Hannibal, and Dad...

There will be time to introspect later. When a VI isn't trying to blow you up.

I looked around at the rest of the squad. Ashley and Garrus were seated at the front, the former in charge of driving and the latter finally getting to test the "calibrations" he had been doing to the weaponry since days. Tali and Wrex sat in the middle row, quietly observing the chaos. Jane was seated in the back with me, eyes closed, deep in thought. She looked so… peaceful. Everyone did. This was 'normal' to them.

It only took a few minutes to blow up the turrets. An eerie silence followed as we made our way to the facility.

"Okay," Jane started as we finally got down from the vehicle, "Three bunkers. Two housing the safeguards, and one housing the core terminal."

"Yes, ma'am." I replied, with a nod. "After one safeguard is turned off, we should have 10 seconds to disable the other one, and then 15 seconds to disable the main core. The VI might have changed the timings, of course, so we might have only a second or two to disable everything."

"But it'll never disable the… 'disable' option itself?" Ashley enquired.

"It won't. It can't. Thankfully, it's not an AI."

Jane walked ahead and turned around to face us. "Right. So, we need to split up and sync our actions from each bunker. Wrex and Tali, go into the first one. Garrus and Williams, find your way into the second one." She turned to look at me. "Harry and I will make our way up to the core terminal. We'll mostly be facing turrets and drones, and they can appear from any direction, so keep an eye on your shields. Now move!"

Each pair made their way to the respective bunkers. I looked up at the sky, at the beautiful view of my planet. I couldn't soak it in though, as I had to jog to keep up with Jane, who seemed intent on getting this over with as quickly as possible. The exact second we left the Normandy, it's like she became a completely different person. A quiet, calculating soldier. It was fascinating, how she managed to keep the two different "sides" of herself separate from each other.

"Here we go."

We went inside the main door, and were immediately relived to see an empty room. The relief didn't last long however, as we heard the unmistakeable sound of multiple combat drones flying around somewhere near.

Jane pointed at the only other door in the room. "Looks like we're going into one hell of a firefight." She quickly motioned for me to get behind her, as she opened the door…

…into hell.

The next few minutes were something I would never want to experience again in my lifetime. The sound of gunfire went on for an eternity. My ears hurt from the continuous, deafening noise of metal hitting metal. Jane immediately pushed me into a safe corner behind some crates, and charged forward. She was a biotic, which was already a disadvantage when facing synthetic drones. This meant she had to almost purely depend on her close-range shotgun.

She might need cover.

I readied my pistol and slowly lifted my head above the crates to take a look. Jane was running around the room, dodging rockets and machine gun bullets and blowing up any drones that dared to come near her. In that moment, watching her absolutely obliterate the combat machines, I realised how much of an absolute badass Commander Shepard truly was. I was watching a legend doing her job.

She had the full attention of the VI, so I had all the time in the world to aim and shoot at anything that moved. In a few minutes we (well, she) had apparently cleared the room of hostiles. As the room turned silent, I gathered enough courage to get up from my spot. I blindly ran towards Jane, as fast as I could.

We were wearing helmets, but I could still sense the look of pure relief in her eyes as she saw me approaching her. "Are you hurt, Harry? Sorry for pushing you like that. I had to draw them away from y-"

"Not a scratch, Commander, don't worry." My eyes started to widen as I noticed her clutching her stomach.

She noticed my reaction and brushed it off. "I'm fine. Nothing that some medi-gel can't fix."

"If you say so, ma'am."

She nodded at me and talked into the radio, "Squad, report in."

Tali's accented voice responded. "We're clear, Shepard. Ready to disable the safeguard."

"Ditto", Ashley chimed in.

"Then let's do it. Harry, what now?"

Okay, time to shine.

"Just a second, Commander." I ran towards the huge terminal in the end of the room and opened up the command console. "Let me just…. Okay…. Hmm.. I'm ready."

"Okay." Jane turned on her radio, "Everyone, be ready. We're doing this quickly. In 3…. 2… 1…"

"Safeguard 1 down!"

"Safeguard 2 down!"

I typed in the command and noticed the prompt on the screen. "30 seconds to shutdown. We did it!"

Huh. That was simple.

I turned back to face Jane with a smile. "Ma'am, I have to say, I really enjoyed watching you fight. How do you-".

I stopped talking when I noticed Jane's eyes widen, staring at something behind me.

"GET DOW-"

An explosion threw the both of us into opposite directions. Every inch of my body was in pain. I couldn't tell whether I was screaming or not, since I couldn't hear anything except for a constant, ringing noise.

As I regained my senses, I tried to sit up. Pain shot up through my legs and immediately stopped me from moving. I turned my head to see Jane lying on the floor. Thankfully, there was no blood around her, and I could see her moving. Our attacker, a rocket drone, was slowly making its way towards her.

"JANE!" She couldn't hear. Or maybe I couldn't shout. She was lying face down on the floor, unaware of the machine approaching her.

I picked up my pistol and tried to fire at it. There was a loud bang, enough to draw the drone's attention, but it was obvious that I had missed. I fired 5 more shots, missing every single one, till the weapon overheated.

The drone started to make a loud noise, preparing to fire another rocket at me.

I threw my pistol, hitting the drone just as it fired, causing it to lose aim. Lucky, I thought to myself as I heard a huge explosion behind me. However, throwing my gun away meant that I was completely defenseless, as the drone prepared for round two.

Throw something at it! Anything!

I pressed the button near my neck to release my helmet, as it opened up with a hiss. Moments before the third rocket was fired, I mustered enough energy to send the heavy thing flying towards the killing machine. The drone fired the rocket…

Time ran in slow motion as I saw the rocket hit the flying helmet, causing a huge explosion. The drone disintegrated mid-air, sending bits and pieces flying everywhere.

The last thing I saw before I blacked out were those green eyes, looking at me from across the room...

A/N: Just wanted to take a second and thank the readers, the followers and the reviewers for their support! Please leave a review if you like this story. It really makes my day, knowing that someone had a good time reading my work.