- An angry turian towered above him, eyes seething hatred and contempt and then talons connected with his face and blood filled his vision as Kaidan lost control and flew at the mercenary, unworthy of the position the Alliance had given him.
- "Her brain is overloading, there's too much data!"
"Shut it down!"
"The system's not responding, there's a problem with the neural block!"
Riley reacted, as she often did, without thinking. Pieces of tech lying around and no one paying her any mind as she grabbed what she needed, working fast because judging from the blood running out Ash' nose she didn't have a lot of time. The engineers became aware too late of her intended plan, and by the time they could have stopped her she was already in.
- "What do you mean there's a special school?You expect me to let government men just take my child?"
"It's a program for children like him."
"No."
"Martha -"
"No!"
"We're not sending him away, we're saving his life. We don't know what's going to happen to him and this program is the best chance he has at making it to adulthood."
"Neural bridge calibrating."
- Riley coughed, the sound distant and distorted through air that felt thick in her lungs. Dust. She was breathing dust.
Her father shouted for her in the distance.
He'd never let her go groundside again. Too risky. Too many chances that things could go wrong and she'd be injured.
He was right.
- "Commander, can you hear me?" He grasped her face but she just stared back at him, eyes rolling in her head as he propped her up.
"Shepard!" She jerked her eyes towards him and the worry lessened in his gut before intensifying sharply as her brow furrowed and she attempted to speak but the words came out all wrong and twisted.
The readings on his 'tool were all over the place. Unusual brain activity, weird spikes, erratic rhythms.
"Shepard, I need to know if you can understand what I'm saying."
Her hand clutched at his, urgent. "Commmeeng."
- Shepard heaved herself onto the landing pad, her leg dragging behind her. She couldn't tell if her left eye was swollen shut or gone, just that she was no longer receiving visual input and the blood had stopped running down her face. She'd long since stopped feeling pain, only able to focus on surviving one meter at a time until she made it to the coordinates the rescue team had transmitted to her platoon what felt like weeks ago.
Too late.
It was too late.
The ground shook beneath her feet and she steeled herself against the oncoming attack. Just a pistol with a nearly depleted ammo block and no replacement, but it was better than her fists and certainly better than her leg.
She remained alert for hours, the gun wavering before her but never falling. Her good eye scanning the horizon as she waited but no one else from her unit made it.
"Neural bridge… calibrated. The connection is strong."
- The knife flashed in his eyes as Vyrnnus pinned him to the ground. All for standing up for what was right and he'd do it again.
Military grade, sharp. It pressed against his throat and the merc sneered down at him, blood dripping from his mandible where Kaidan had punched him.
He lost it. A massive biotic corona, bigger than he'd ever made, and he kickedand the merc flew across the room. The snap audible through the blood rushing in his ears, piercing the dead silence of the cafeteria.
Rahna refused to look at him and he turned away.
- Amber eyes stared at her, hands worriedly clutching her face, but she just couldn't understand what he was saying.
She tried to reassure him that she was alright but his expression tightened and his eyes widened and she clutched his hand as he spoke again, the sounds all wrong and jumbled in her brain.
They were comingand she had to tell him but she couldn't figure out how!Couldn't seem to form the words even though she knew the shape of them and how it felt to say them.
His hand ran through her hair.
- "This is an L2 implant," the doctor held the device up and Kaidan examined it closely. He blotted his hands on the hospital gown, nervous as he looked at the implant.
Two of his friends had already gone in for the surgery. One of them hadn't come back and no one would say why, but he could guess.
"You don't need to worry about anything."
- Riley screamed as the left arm of the Vulcan Fury was obliterated, white hot pain searing her system and frying the circuitry in her suit. Her vision wavered. She threw up.
Williams shouted her name over and over again, fending off the attack as two Leviathans double teamed their one jaeger.
"Pilot out of alignment!"
"Riley is de-syncing."
Miranda Lawson cursed, heels clicking across the floor as she ran to the station. "Terminate the connection."
"We can't, there's a problem with the neural block, her connection is too strong!"
- "Riley, I need you to get your shit together, these sons of bitches are coming at us hard!"
Riley pulled herself up and wiped her chin with her good hand, the pain still hot and she couldn't move her left arm even though she could seethat it was still there. Her brain told her it wasn't and the discrepancy almost made her vomit again.
"Good, we need to swing around beastie one to get the kill."
Riley nodded and compartmentalized, shoving the discrepancy into a box to deal with later.
The first beastie went down as Williams sliced it open. Riley tucked her shoulder low, simultaneously aware of the dead weight of her own arm and the input in her brain that told her the left arm was gone, and slammed into the second beastie, once again working in concert with Williams in the Drift. Coordinating their movements as Williams carried the brunt of the offensive strategy.
"We're still losing her!"
"Riley, listen to me," Kaidan twisted in his seat as much as the contraption would allow and reached out for her hand.
- His hand ran through her hair. "Stay with me, Shepard."
- The Leviathan tore through the armored hull of the Jaeger, claws scratching the surface until it punctured through.
The last thought that echoed through the Drift from Ashley was surprise. Too quick to remember to be afraid.
"Riley, stay with me."
- Kaidan stood next to her in the darkened husk of the Vulcan Fury. Riley shuddered in the harness while Williams was lifeless in hers. Mangled and broken. The sight made him sick but he had to focus lest he lose himself, too.
"You can do this, Riley," she whispered.
He knelt in front of her, but her eyes stared past him.
"Get up."
Cheeks wet with tears, lips pale. Eyes red. Blood flowed freely out of her nose and her right arm twitched.
"Get up!"
The jaeger came to life around her and Riley heaved upwards, her movements disjointed at first, but she was moving and so was the Jaeger. She transferred the holographic control pad to her right hand.
"Riley!" Kaidan pulled on her hands, squeezing her fingers and she blinked, eyes focusing on him.
"Neural bridge stabilizing."
"Look at me," he pleaded and she did. Dark eyes struggling to focus on his but they did. "I've got you."
"Right hemisphere… calibrated," the VI announced.
She was breathing hard, ragged air rushing through her lips, and he became aware that he'd been holding his. Their memories still whispering in the back of his mind, tantalizing, but he didn't latch on. Didn't chase the RABIT even though certain memories pulled at him. Glimpses of their lives mixing together because the Drift was intensity and interconnectedness multiplied by a thousand.
Riley blinked. "I know," she replied when she opened her eyes.
And she did. He could feel it and see it and hear it and it was so foreign to feel such trustin himself pouring from another person, but there it was.
"You're kind of foolhardy," Kaidan said and Riley smiled weakly. "Is it like that every time?"
"First time is the most intense. A lot of foreign memories. But yeah, each time you have to fight the urge to chase the RABIT."
He could feel the shame and regret pouring through her already, though it wasn't evident in her body language and he wondered just howsomeone could hold all of that in and not give any indication that a storm was raging within them, and said, "Don't," before she could even open her lips to apologize.
He already knew. And she didn't need to.