Pre-notes:
Welcome, DawnofKing, LilyShepard, Mkady, Red-Handed-Bandit, gaara king, waffleman.
Guest: Because space magic lmfao. But in all seriousness, she went on ground because it's instinct. Anderson put Al- I mean Shepard-on this mission because she's never failed an assignment and she's never lost a fight. He knew she was pregnant but the mission took priority. But alas, Shepard did take some measures to ensure Hope's safety; instead of jumping out of the Mako with her crew, she drove the vehicle around the field and fired from an armored truck. She would have no way to know that the elevator would drop like that. Good question though.
BleachDoctor, you made my day! Thank you!
No haven is impenetrable.
Shepard's full lips turned down into a frown as the boy in front of her subconsciously scratched at where his burns had been before. She remembered that in her neighborhood on the Citadel, there was a group of kids who had gone up and down the local thoroughfare committing mostly petty crimes like thievery and vandalism; and in one case, assault. Every time C-sec had arrived, the gang- if you could call them that- would escape into the Citadel's vents. They were never caught by the authorities; however, about a month after the group had arrived on the scene, C-sec was already pulling their tiny, charred bodies out of the protein vats. Perhaps Logan was a part of a gang that did that? Possible, but Logan looked like he could've been too big to fit in a vent, let alone navigate through one. The boy seemed to snap back to reality when Shepard spoke; "Do you know what you were doing in the protein vats?" she asked.
"No," the boy said, voice barely above a whisper "I can't..." Chakwas laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly.
"It's okay, child. Let's take you back to the med bay," the doctor said with a yawn. She started to turn around when Shepard raised an arm and barred her path. Her face contorted in confusion at the commander's sudden action. "Commander?"
Shepard saw Logan in the corner of her vision, watching the interaction between the two of them with genuine curiosity. Did Broca's aphasia affect a person's ability to understand physical gestures? She pulled her attention back to the doctor who now had an inquisitive look on her face, "Call it a day, doc, you've worked non-stop since we've returned from Therum."
The doctor looked like she was going to argue for a moment but she looked back to the sleeper pods and apparently found it too tempting to resist. She reluctantly agreed, turned and gave Logan a nod before opening her sleeping pod and stepping inside.
"Goodnight," Logan said, surprising the both of them. The doctor seemed to be thrown off by the sudden statement. The surprised look quickly melted into a genuine smile.
"Goodnight," she said in reply. She gave one last nod to Shepard before she closed the pod.
The boy turned to the commander with a blank stare, "D-d-do you have...food?" he asked with noticeable difficulty. Shepard nodded and waved for her ward to follow her down the hall to the mess. Logan walked closely behind her- maybe a little bit too close for comfort, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him to back up let alone feel the need to. There was something about him that made her feel... sympathetic? She scoffed at the idea, but the evidence was there; feeling something for a kid with no memory of his past... was it sympathy she was feeling? Or was it jealousy?
"There's not much variety," she said, opening the cupboard and grabbing a wheat snack bread, a ration-sized fudge brownie, an apple turnover and a bottle of water to wash the dry carbs down. She backed away from the cupboard with her assortment of low-calorie pastries and walked past Logan, surprised to be self-conscious of what she must look like. She pulled up a chair from the table and sat down into it, sighing quietly in to the pleasure of relieving tension. "So is it possible that you would remember where you trained your biotics? I've never seen anyone command such intense amounts of dark energy- not even asari."
The boy pulled back from the cupboard with a frozen space-grown peach and many other high-protein bars. Logan shook his head and apologized but was cut short by the commander who waved for him to sit down at the table.
"I thought so," she said as the boy flopped down in the seat across from her. The ebony-haired kid bit into his peach without a moment's hesitation. She couldn't blame him; he was a teenager, likely a stowaway and an incredibly powerful biotic to boot- it was only fitting the kid would cram food down his throat at every available opportunity. A subtle smile began to form at the corner of her mouth but it disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. Here she was, taking care of a kid who could likely kill everyone on the ship without difficulty. Why had she brought him aboard in the first place? She couldn't remember. It didn't matter anyway- once they had arrived, she would be forced to release him to the authorities; this was a military vessel and they barely had enough food for the essential staff, and not nearly enough for a starving teenager who can't speak. She frowned at the thought of sending him off to fend for himself, but there wasn't a lot she could do about it... Might as well tell him now, she thought. "Logan," she started. The teen looked at her with a questioning gaze; he stuttered and asked what was wrong. "Once we reach the Citadel, I can't promise you'll be coming back. C-sec is harassing me to give you back..."
The boy's sapphire eyes wrenched her heart. They were instantly filled with visible fear and yet they remained locked tightly onto her's. "b...but I didn't d-do anything," he said.
"There's not a lot of room for interpretation, Logan. I'm sorry. I could offer you amnesty but I would need to know- really know- that you didn't intentionally hold a diplomat hostage. I want to hear everything. Start from the protein vat. You woke up there; what came next?"
The boy sighed and leaned back in his chair, eyes pointed up as if he was actually seeing his memory unfold in front of him.
The boy pulls once again at his chain, the scorching hot metal eats into his hands and he rears back and shrieks. A tension begins rising in the back of his skull and the suddenly it feels like the weight from the crate he's tied to lightens. He pulls again and much to his surprise, the crate comes along with him. He snaps from his daze and weakly pushes himself up from the metal floor. He tests the crate again and then dashes to the vent on the far side of the room, jumps and catches the scalding hot frame of the open vent. He hisses in pain and pulls himself in.
"So you escaped the protein vat with a crate tied around you?"
The boy shook his head, "No."
The boy jerks to a stop as he climbs through the vent, something holds him in place. He turns to see the crate stuck in the entrance. He pulls again and cries in frustration when the crate refuses to enter. He instinctively shoots his hand forward and tightens his fingers into a fist; a glowing white sphere circles around the crate and begins to constrict, crushing it like a crumpled piece of paper. The light fades and a ball of what used to be a storage crate falls out.
"...And t-then I went through the vents and o-one grate... Gave out... Under me and fell into... Uh... Barla Von's office."
Shepard shook her head, "Witnesses say you walked in there. What aren't you telling me, Logan?" She glared at the trembling boy across from her; he seemed to look everywhere but towards her. "Logan..." she warned.
"I'm sorry. Ask... Just don't..." he said, lowering his head in what seemed like shame.
A few hollow and suffocating minutes passed by before Shepard sighed in resignation, "Then I have to give you back to C-sec," She said, finally taking a bite into her food. Logan nodded silently.
The two sat in silence, eating their own individual 'meals' and occasionally exchanging glances until Joker's voice broke them both out of their awkward trance. "Commander?" questioned the intercom, "We got a problem.."
"Of course we do," Shepard said into her turnover. She licked the cinnamon spice off of her lips, "What kind of problem, Joker?"
"Well... Uhm... The cargo bay door is open."
"And I'm guessing it wasn't intentional?"
"Right. I think it might be a system malfunction or a bug of some kind."
"And you want me to go down there because of my engineer training?"
"Well... Yeah, actually."
"I'll be there soon," she said as she pushed back from the table and stood, tossing the turnover's wrapper away and stuffing the rest of the 'meal' into her pocket. She laid a hand on Logan's chair as she passed by, "You ought to come with me," she said briefly before walking away.
Shepard walked to the edge of the cargo bay door, a beautiful array of stars and dust floating in an ebony ocean greeted her as she stopped. A thousand sparkling lights twinkled brightly in the confines of space, each seeming to light up the bay in the slightest. "Well," she started, admiring the view, "the door's definitely open." Alongside her stood her ward, equally- if not more- fascinated by the simple yet spectacular expanse of space.
"It's beautiful," he whispered without the slightest stutter.
Shepard nodded absently, turned and walked back up the ramp door. There would be time to see it later, right now she had a door to fix. Logan stayed, peering over the edge. It would be okay with her for him to stay there as long as he came back in when he needed to. She stopped in front of the circuit board that hung on the wall next to the door; she pulled the casing off, humming quietly to herself when nothing seemed to be out of place. Sometimes in starships, the subtle vertigo of ascending from or descending to a planet would vibrate a circuit or a plug out of their respective place. Most ships have engineers standing by when that happens but with a military frigate making stealth runs to all the corners of the galaxy, it was understandably under-staffed. But didn't they have a quarian on-board? Why wasn't she doing this? She huffed quietly and once again scanned the board to see if she overlooked anything. Nope... everything is in place...
"Shep...ard?" Logan's voice called from the edge.
"Yeah?" she called back, lighting up her omni-tool. "You're not about to jump, are you?" she asked plainly.
"Shepard!" he called again, voice getting louder. She was about to ask if he had heard her when he ran around the corner to her; her omni-tool faded and she spun around to see the boy's sapphire eyes, wide with fear. "Geth," he said, turning back to look out the bay door. It took Shepard a moment to register what he said, by the time she understood, a loud buzzing noise began to emanate from outside the bay. A metallic husk of what seemed to be a stiff insect carcass zoomed into the wide space of the cargo hold.
Shepard shot her hand forward and grabbed Logan's wrist only to have it quickly retract as she hissed in pain- his skin seemed to scorch her own. The young man turned his head just enough for him to look at what had touched him; for a mere moment, his eyes were visible, they seemed to look at her but she couldn't see his irises... at all. It might've been the omnipresent cobalt glow of the Normandy's interior but in that moment she swore his eyes were devoid of everything... Everything but white. He turned back to the fighter that was now opening the underside of the craft, presumably to funnel out a large supply of geth. She was starting to think the opening bay door wasn't a ship malfunction; she was also starting to think that maybe this was it. By the time they reached the elevator, they'd already be breathing through holes in their back-
A loud thunderous clang quaked the ship as the geth fighter collided with the wall, sputtering and spraying sparks. Logan glowed with a blinding ivory light. His arms seemed to glow the brightest as he raised his fist and slammed the fighter into the steel floor.
A hot, frustrated sigh left Tali'Zorah's lips and fogged up her glass mask. She watched, utterly bored as the condensation slowly faded away before she blew out another breath and watched numbly as it fogged up her visor again. She turned her head and watched as a tiny, light blue sphere started to form next to her. "Navie, what time is it?" she asked quietly as to not wake the others in the sleeper pods neighboring her own.
"11:43 C-time"
The quarian let out an exasperated sigh and leaned her head against the glass of the sleeper pod; she gave out a frustrated huff when her mask connected with the clear barrier.
"Spirits, Tali," a cool voice calls from the pod next to her, "You have been doing that... sighing thing since you turned in... Oh... and you might want to turn the light off- I think you're waking Pressly up," Garrus said. Tali squinted and saw the bald man from across the way start to fidget and mumble something; she could see how the man's head wiggled and fussed to get away from the light that was shining on his face. "He doesn't exactly like us as it is, might not want to give him a reason to hate us." Tali couldn't agree more, she turned her head and looked at the sphere that was now bouncing back and forth in her pod and with one thought, the light faded and Navie disappeared. "So..." The voice said, "Why exactly are you having trouble sleeping?"
"It's... too quiet," she said, realizing how stupid of a reason that was to not being able to sleep. Garrus just laughed quietly at her statement. She frowned, "Well Vakarian, try living on a nearly dead liveship and then tell me if it's funny. When a ship in our fleet went silent, we'd know something had gone wrong. The Normandy is so quiet, I feel like we're one second away from losing oxygen or gravity... I guess it'll take some getting used to..." she trailed off, how long was she going to be doing this again? Until either Saren or the Normandy was dead... How long would that take?
"You might want to go for a walk," Garrus said, adjusting in his sleeper pod. "I know I won't be able to sleep with you fussing around in there."
Tali thought about it for a moment and sighed in resignation; she was willing to try anything to help her sleep at this point. It had been the second night in a row that she found it difficult to sleep. She reached her hand down the side of the glass and pushed out; the glass gave way and slowly receded into the opposing side of the pod. She stepped out lazily and ambled down the hall; behind her the glass to the sleeper pod re-sealed itself with a hiss.
"Wha- who?" came a tired old voice, "What're your aliens.. doing?!"
"Go back to sleep, Pressly," said Garrus with a yawn.
"Don't... tell me what.. to..." The old man's voice trailed off before he could finish his sentence. Tali couldn't help but to smile to herself as she continued through the mess hall and closer to the elevator. If there was a place in the ship that would have at least a little bit of noise- it would be the drive core. She shifted from foot to foot as she waited for the elevator to arrive. Keelah, I hate this thing, she thought to herself; last time she checked, both humans and turians were great at manufacturing ships that were unmatched in efficiency throughout council space... apparently fast elevators did not meet the Alliance's or the Hierarchy's ideal of efficient. The door finally opened and the quarian hobbled in and pressed the key to take her down, once again questioning the alien's ideals of efficiency as the elevator slowly descended.
A low rumble vibrated through the shaft, shaking the elevator roughly enough to make Tali think that it would plummet the rest of the way down. Another jolt, this time accompanied by a loud hiss and a metallic wail shook through the quarian's suit and into her bones. She held tightly to the wall as the vibrations faded away. Pressly was definitely up now... The elevator's door slowly opened to reveal the cargo bay and behind it, the dark expanses of space. She had been about to wonder why the door was open but immediately fixated on the two figures standing over what seemed to be a large pile of scrap metal; one figure- the closer one- had been bent on the knees, wheezing and coughing while the one farther away placed a hand on their other's back- a human gesture, if she remembered correctly, meant to... sympathize? Or was it to comfort? She didn't know- she didn't care either; the humans had too many different gestures and facial expressions to remember. She stepped closer; she couldn't help but notice that the lilac metal looked oddly... familiar? Geth? Why would the geth be on the Normandy? A sharp pain shot through her foot, "Keelah!" she shouted, lifting her foot off of a bent shard of what might have once been a geth fighter. Tali looked up when she heard what seemed to be a feral growl, the closest figure- Logan- was now turned to her, arms lit in a blinding light, his face pulled into a snarl and eyes completely devoid of color. A hand landed on his shoulder, and after a static moment, his light dimmed and the cool, cobalt glow of the Normandy took its place.
Post-notes:
We are not getting anywhere! Ugh! I'm driving myself insane! This section of the story was supposed to be one chapter- now it might be divided into three or four chapters. Crazy.
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…I swear to God I'm forgetting something….
See ya,
CelestialLight*