Mass Effect : Shepard 's Letters
Chapter Six – …And Still The Game Continues.
Part one
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Miranda Lawson's front, three hours ago.
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Miranda Lawson delicately closed a too young recruit's eyes with her fingers.
She was quite used to be the last nice thing some men saw before their last breath on a gunfight, but not to them feeling grateful about it… "The Battle of London's Angel"… The former operative had a bitter silent laugh. "Shepard…What had you done to me?"- She signaled the meds another soldier's demise and walked out from the tent a little before returning to work.
She never thought about herself on terms of some kind of "Mass Effect's Age's Florence Nightingale", but she was good at it. Not much of a surprise here, but her feelings were new…
When she stepped on London with some ex-Cerberus volunteers, she had few options in mind. The Alliance warily accepted her help on raiding Cerberus' scattered strongholds, but London should be too hot for her. Her small team would make surprise strikes at enemy flanks, saving more than a few platoons. Break their lines, assure the win and disappear, that was the gist of it. Not to give time for some Alliance or Salarian Officer with a too good memory start shooting first and making questions later, or even to be under gun sight by some of the stranded Cerberus' agents and moles among the Human forces.
But…after the fall of Cerberus, she had to be there, to see it, to do something… since she felt responsible too.
The burning streets, the screams, the widespread destruction of centuries of History, Architecture, Art, lives, insurmountable losses for all Humanity. Maybe Cerberus could have changed any of it if had taken side as an ally? Wasn't it supposed to be the point? To be Earth's final defense line when all chips were down?
Instead of Cerberus, she saw soldiers of every species defending together Earth's ground. Fighting, bleeding and dying alongside, and Miranda couldn't help but think how wrong her former boss was. She admired the Illusive Man once, his will, his intelligence, but couldn't tell the point he crossed a line when he lost sight of what he was fighting for...
When that first soldier was caught by an explosion next to her. When she crunched the storming husks and dragged the man to safety. When, without a second thought, she made the surgery necessary to save his life and the remnants of the injured leg. When he was finally able to thank her with admiring eyes before turning back to unconsciousness. Then she knew what meant working for Humanity's best interests, and how far from this path Cerberus had strayed.
Now she had engaged on a small but efficient rescue operation. Miranda was no Med herself, but when she accepted the Lazarus Project's assignment, she accepted it with full commitment, as always. That project took two years, but to keep that snake, Wilson, on his toes, she had to become able to keep up with the last achievements and the most preposterous theories on human biology. She managed it in six months, what by Wilson's increasing frustration from being corrected and ordered by her, she guessed it was in a good timing.
She walked by a short line of camp beds. Those soldiers would make the night through but they should be removed from the war fronts… Some watched her passing by with thankful expression. Well, some eyes lingered too long, but she was used to it. Damn, she caught even a glimpse of a salarian lieutenant staring at her butt!
"Men are all the same, even when hatched from eggs…"
"Miss Lawson?"
"Yes, Corporal?"- She turns from her musings to one of her helpers at the Camp.
"We managed to hijack two abandoned trucks to move the injured out. However, we got warnings through the jamming of our comms. It seems there's a Destroyer bound to our position from around ten clicks northeast!"
"Let's move fast then! Spread the word! All hands to get the Hell out of here!"
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Ashley William's front
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Lieutenant-Commander Williams turned to the side where the rumble came from and put up the scope of her rifle. She saw the tell-tale red ray and knew it was a Destroyer, maybe three clicks ahead the crumbling blocks of buildings, but she also knew of a small fortification right at the Reaper's path.
She quickly jogged above the roof she was perched upon, and made a clean jump-roll to the next building just a bit down and ahead. The Officer knew the smart move was to get out of that monster's line of fire herself, but since when being a Williams was about doing the sensible thing?
"It's about fighting the good fight…"- She mumbles while setting her scope at the conflicting zone down there. It was strange for her getting so attached to a Geth weapon, but that Javelin Rifle Vega introduced her at the Normandy was quite a catch…
"Seriously, with that punch and reach, boy…I should be talking'ya over tying the knot and babies…Hey! Who is…Vega?!"
She saw that Jack-girl to biotic her ass over her colleague's head and seemingly charge ahead…The Reaper?! What was that crazy bitch thinking?! The Spectre saw a short discussion among the Marine and the cranky Prothean and then they both following short through the fleeing refugees after the ex-convict.
"Vega…What do think you're doing?"- She searched ahead the path that easily distinguishable Mohican head was trailing and saw Cannibals lurking from the rubble and hiding just next to…SHOOT!
Javik had the warning then to finish the other minions and Ash smiled of the Hispanic hulk's bewilderment, first to the Prothean and then trying to get hint of her location.
Two trucks had arrived at the destroyed camp. A motley group quickly started an efficient evac. A woman in a tight sleek black suit ordered things as it seemed and soon also dashed behind the ruined path open through the fallen buildings.
A just too tight cat-suit… Damn! It had to be the Cerberus centerfold girl? Right…She brought Skipper from the dead first, then sticked along with him (what she didn't) till beating the crap out of the Collectors, showed the Illusive Man the finger and saved a bunch of lives back at fucking Horizon even putting down her own nutjob father…But what the heck with that suit?
Then Ashley sees the operative stopping next to one of the fallen buildings. What the Spectre saw then gave her a whole new level of respect for Miranda Lawson, even not knowing how she could even walk inside that thing!
Lt. Williams is distracted by the noise coming from her comm. She taps the implant within her mastoid bone, right behind her ear, trying to make sense of that booming familiar voice making through the jamming for once…
"It can't be…"
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Major Coats' front, fifteen minutes ago
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"Bloody Hell, it's working!"
Major Coats is caught completely by surprise. The jamming of all comms and radar was suddenly off. From all remaining posts, screens with tactical data blinked to existence and his small group at the Human Resistance's bunker was overwhelmed trying to move troops back and front at a quite different battlefield.
"The beasts seem to had lost their wits… Their troops were scattering, they are running straight before our guns. It was what that Crucible business was supposed to do?"-The Alliance Officer got visuals of a Reaper Destroyer and troops advancing against some defensive positions.
"Humm, not a damn soul close enough to assist the evacuation… Ah! Not human, at least."- He sent sign to the Krogan platoons southeast.
"Not much the gig for Krogans, but maybe to hold back a freaking Reaper is sport enough for those hooligans"
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Vega's and Javik's Excelent Adventure
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"Winning? What are you talking about, Chupacabra? Got loco?"
"I don't feed on mammalian's blood, Human. Your Commander did something I've waited for more than 50.000 years! The Reapers are in pain, confused, exposed! This Cycle must grip to this chance!"
"You want a chance for payback? Come, buckle up. We got a señorita to back up!"
Javik had already read the situation: "The maniacal female that went that way?"
"Yup!"- The soldier was already running throwing some grenades to the Prothean, which were deftly caught.
"I could just shoot her behind the head from afar. Less troublesome." –but followed short anyway.
"Not the way to do business this Cycle, Chupacabra!" –And jumped over the destroyed walls.
"I'm not…"- Vega was getting ahead- "Primitives…"-and the Prothean crossed the barrier too.
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Miranda's Front
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Miranda cursed all her days since she first saw Jack back at Purgatory. No other tattooed biotic lunatic would run straight against a Reaper that way. She heard Shepard did it too, but at least he got no tattoos she recalled of.
The little convoy she was commanding got news about the attack at Jack's fort and arrived just in time to get sight of the small biotic's frame flying and running ahead. Miranda jumped out the truck and set orders for the removal of the refugees and the Biotic Support squad. She blinked, "Kids?". Those should be Jack's students from Grisson Academy. They were slightly hurt and distressed. The feeling the ex-con showed for those kids was what mostly managed to change a little the opinions Lawson had about that woman. That Jack was capable of leaving them alone to rush to death that way…maybe Miranda was wrong in thinking Jack was acquiring some sense of duty over her urges.
Then her biotics resonated near the great pile of wreckage. There was an active Mass Effect shield down the fallen building.
"Someone is alive down there! Corporal, bring help!"
Had Miranda thought logically about it, she wouldn't do it. Even her enhanced biotics couldn't lift tons of concrete and debris. Because she hadn't thought it, she did it anyway.
She brought together her hands, her upper body burning azure with biotics. She let the Mass Effect field infiltrate through the stones. Taking out just enough of the Gravity's pull over them to allow a quick impulse as she moved quickly her arms with a grunt, letting inertia and the restored weight of the stones setting them in motion, rolling and rumbling down, revealing the shimmering blue light of a barrier.
Miranda still managed to move another couple of boulders before the barrier fell, and two exhausted teenagers dropped their heads unconscious but alive over the dusty floor.
The Corporal nodded to the Operative as he reached the kids for pulse and breathing, Miranda's own breathing was still laborious as she moved on again.
Had she thought coldly about running alone and blindly into a Reaper platoon backed by a Destroyer to help a crazy murderous live weapon who had sworn to rip her guts out more than a few times, Miranda Lawson wouldn't do it. Because she hadn't, she did it anyway.
"Shepard, what the fuck did you do to me?"-She mused while disappearing among the ruins of London.
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The former Alliance Corporal Toombs saw the raven headed woman leave the Camp with her Locust ready. His own weapon, however, rested against his hip yet, the Cerberus's witch managed to live another day.
Just like for her, Toombs had a bullet reserved for Shepard yet. He heard all about that. The Collectors were stopped on hitting human colonies, the brave Commander Shepard getting clean from all association with Cerberus since he had just saved the day again. He wouldn't believe on what others said. He had fresh the memory, as in front of his eyes, the death of each of his comrades by the acid of thresher maws, back on Akuse or under the gentle care of fellow humans, those Cerberus bastards… He would believe his eyes only, so he reserved judgment about Miss Miranda Lawson.
He knew who she was the moment his eyes caught sight of her. She was discreet but wasn't hiding. Big White Chiefs at Alliance were letting her around as she pleased. They did not know what she was capable of…
Toombs could have finished her many times, as she walked ahead between ruins, under the shadows she belonged to, deeper into Reaper territory. But then…She did things she wasn't supposed to, in Toombs' personal opinion. Like saving his life, once. A Life for a Life, that was he was trying to live by all those years hunting Cerberus, so he reasoned Miss Lawson had just bought another day of her cursed life. Then the other day she saved another jarhead kid, just like he was before Akuse. Then another, and other.
He hadn't relinquished on his "just-shoot-the-bastard" politics about Cerberus. He wouldn't trust easily again. Shepard made him let Wayne loose. The monster was granted immunity by the Brass. Untouchable for helping, selling Cerberus out. Heh! Probably the Black Ops had their people already inside or bribed influence into the High Command itself. No… but Justice was Justice, and if it was reserved in a short time to be delivered to him, James Toombs, former Alliance Corporal, he had to honor it. So while he helped those kids out of that hell hole, he had to admit that Miss Miranda Lawson got herself the right to live for another day.
Well… She deserved it.