A/N: Hey everyone! **waves frantically** Whoops, look at that, I danced left of canon again in this chapter.
I'm so naughty.
So, I know a few of you are slightly frustrated at my 'fade to black' romance scenes. I do them because I more or less suck at writing in-depth shmexy.
Fortunately, KalenCaelli does not have that problem…in fact, she does an absolutely stellar job of it, even if it does make me turn all kinds of red.
So for you fans of Del and Liara AND the shmexy, she has written a one-shot covering that fateful night before Ilos. Major MA warning of course…check it out if you dare And remember to tell her how much you love it!
www . fanfiction . net / s / 8029164 / 1 / Surrender
So…ahem.
Oh, and the lullaby in this section is by Eugene Field. So…credit.
On that note…last chapter until Monday! Y'all have a great weekend!
Shrive's boots sank into rich, soft soil as she moved down the slope, following the faint trail that Eír had left behind. It was testament to the upset of both women that Eír had left any kind of trail to follow at all, and that Shrive was not taking any pains whatsoever to prevent from doing the same.
Reaching the base of the slope, the colony lights now only a small and distant pool behind her, the huntress navigated the rocky ground and moved toward the thickening copses of trees that merged into a small, scrubby forest not a mile further.
The tracks were faint but easy enough for the trained asari to follow. She picked up speed on the more even ground, ignoring the ache in her head and her leg. She was far more concerned over her partner and what Eír might do in her horror than she was a few bumps and bruises.
The girl's nightmares had been getting worse. There were times she thrashed so that Shrive was afraid she would injure herself. This was one of those times, the poor girl flailing and screaming so much in her sleep that when Shrive had first awakened, she thought they were under attack. She knew Eír would blame herself for lashing out as she had and injuring Shrive but the huntress kept the blame firmly where it belonged: on Gellian.
They were both clinging to the hope that Dr. Solus had given them, that he would be able to help her be free of this conditioned affliction, but though found, the solution would take some time to implement. Right now Dr. Solus was strongly engaged in a mission as one of Shepard's own crew, and it was a task that could not be abandoned. Bringing Eír to him would be completely disastrous (having her and Shepard on the same planet was unthinkable, let alone the same ship), and so they had to wait.
It was strange, how a wait could become even more arduous when the goal was finally in sight.
As she neared the first copse she could see Eír's tracks become closer together, more obvious. The girl had slowed from a run into a walk. As Shrive stepped under the boughs of the first tree, she heard a soft sob.
"Eír…"
Heading toward the source of the sound she spied the girl huddled beside some broken boulders, curled up tightly with her knees drawn to her chest. Lifting her miserable lavender eyes as Shrive approached she shrank back.
"Don't! Don't t-touch me, don't come closer!" she sniffled. "I'll just hurt you!"
"No you won't," Shrive stated firmly as she swept out the long, heavy coat she had bundled under her arm. Crouching in front of Eír, who could not retreat any further unless she somehow learned to merge through rock, Shrive draped it over her. Eír had run out in her sleeping garments, which were hardly proof against the cold Aratoht night.
"I did…I hurt you," Eír said miserably, her eyes swollen and damp with tears.
"It was not your fault, sweet one. I am fine. You could have torn me apart, put me through a wall…you did not."
"It is my fault!" Eír gasped furiously. "It is because I am different, because I'm a monster!"
Pulling her in, Shrive embraced her tightly. Eír hesitated only a moment before he flung her arms around her love, gripping her with a desperate, miserable strength.
"You are not a monster," Shrive insisted.
"I am," Eír moaned. "I am because Mother made me this way. I hate her, Shrive…I hate her! I am so sorry…I never want to hurt you!"
"I know, sweet," Shrive whispered, her own eyes hot with tears. "I am here. I am here, and I am not going to leave you to this alone. I am not afraid, Eír. I know your heart. I love you. I will not lose you, not even to your own fear."
Rising, she drew Eír to her feet, helping her to bundle in the coat before she simply picked the girl up. Cradling her close, she headed back toward the colony, carrying her into their small prefab. Eír had fallen silent but had not stopped weeping. Shrive set her upon the couch, wiping her tears before she turned and left just long enough to put tea on. As the older girl returned to the couch and sat down, Eír shifted onto her knees, flinging her arms around her and clinging to her once more. Shrive hugged her tightly, planting small kisses on her cheek.
"You will have to cinch me," Eír murmured at last, her voice weak and trembling, but edged with conviction. Blinking, Shrive pulled back just far enough to stare at her.
"What?"
"At night…when we sleep. You will have to cinch me, so that…if I have another nightmare, I can't hurt you, at least not with biotics-"
"Eír-"
"You have to," the girl repeated intently, her long fingers gripping Shrive's shoulders. "Shrive please…what if this happens again? What if the next time I wake to find that you…that I…"
She choked on the words, embracing the huntress again as she buried her face in her neck. "Just until Dr. Solus can help me…please. Please."
Swallowing the knot that wanted to form in her throat, Shrive's tears mingled with Eír's as the older girl slowly nodded. "All right, sweet thing…all right."
The two women faced each other- light and flesh, oblivious calm and static fury-while just outside thunder rolled in an angry, snarling gasp.
"Subject Zero is showing great strides to improving her biotic potential, but it's not enough," the holographic shade of Gellian Osco stated to her unknown listeners. Pacing slightly back and forth, hands clenched and hackles raised as if she could were measuring an opponent for a brawl, Jack's skin crackled and bristled with faint snaps of blue energy. Behind her at a respectful distance, Del and Miranda were silent spectators.
Beyond a picture in the information files that Miranda had provided her from Cerberus, Shepard had never actually seen Osco. The holograph on the pad before them was still fairly young in her life, early to mid-twenties. Though showing some sign of her self-medicative drug use this Gellian was still pretty and more or less healthy, her blonde hair gloss…nothing like the ravaged, withered waste that had finally died on Tuchanka.
"Full chromosomal therapy with the lot seven serum proved unsuccessful, prompting almost immediate immune collapse and tumor development in Subjects 10 through 14. I told Dr. Benson not to try that goddamn lot until I had finished my study but he moved forward without approval. At least he had the sense not to try that on my girl."
Jack actually spat at the hologram's feet as it went still, the entry having concluded. "Play next!" she barked.
The holograph shifted slightly, Osco's clothing changing under her lab-coat, her hair now pulled back rather than hanging loose. "Zero's abilities have responded more than I could have hoped for thanks to this last protocol, however her aggression levels have increased. She is becoming more and more difficult to rouse from her room. Aethis now insists on using his little toy though I have told him more than once that a kind hand would yield better results. He demanded to know when I grew a conscience. The Illusive Man even questioned my resolve when it comes to my girl. Pompous goddamn fool. You would think he would want a more cooperative, compliant super-biotic than one that would rather tear his face off…still. It is his funeral."
The image went still again, and once more Jack demanded it play the next. Nothing happened, the recordings clearly having reached their last entry. Jack kicked the base of the pad with her boot, hard enough to crack the casing and dissolve the holographic Osco into a sheen of static.
"You see? You see what Cerberus did to me?" she demanded, stalking a pace or two toward Miranda as she jabbed a finger back at the pad.
"It wasn't Cerberus, it was Osco," Miranda defended. "That woman was clearly unstable-"
"Are you deaf as well as stupid, Cheerleader?" Jack raged. "The Illusive Man 'questioned her resolve'! Were you even goddamn paying attention?"
Jack's biotics were crackling and hissing over her skin, her eyes on fire. As Miranda straightened, her defensive posture suddenly shifting toward the offensive, Shepard stepped in between them.
"That's enough," she said sternly, her firm glare landing squarely on Jack. The biotic glared back, before snapping around on her heel and striding down the corridor.
"Let's just get this over with! I don't know why you brought the fucking Cheerleader along, anyway!" she barked as she went.
Miranda sighed in irritation, then shook her head before stepping in beside Shepard as they trailed after Jack. "Why did you bring me along?" she asked. "You had to know this would happen."
"Which part?" Shepard asked stonily. "The part where you see exactly what Cerberus does? Or the part where you continue trying to justify it?"
Miranda's mouth fell open a moment as she stared at Del. "Is that why you brought me?" she accused after a moment. "You wanted to rub my face in-"
Shepard turned, her hand slapping lightly into Miranda's shoulder to halt her as she fixed her with a look. "I wanted you to see, Miranda," she said. "You are a good person but you are so blinded by what you think are weaknesses that you allowed the Illusive Man and his sick ideas pervert you. You are so trapped under the weight of him and your father that you don't even know who you are. You went from one man that wanted to control and exploit you, right into the arms of another one with the same motives. Well, I know who you are. You are a fighter. You are a determined and a compassionate woman who cannot possibly look at all of this and see rationalization. I refuse to see you do this to yourself any more. So, you will keep your mouth shut and your eyes open and you will realize your own worth or by fuck is my witness, I will goddamn beat it into you!"
The thunder was still snarling outside, but the sound was dimmer the deeper they moved into the ruined Teltin complex. Between Jack's almost constantly rippling biotics and now Miranda's dark brooding, however, it felt like they were carrying their own storm along with them.
Three more working consoles had revealed even more records about the abandoned Cerberus project, though neither turned out to belong to Osco. As Jack played each one, Miranda wisely kept her mouth shut.
Jack's fury mingled with confusion as it was revealed the other children had been experimented on in order to keep her safe, and that the riot that had resulted in her finally escaping this hellish place had not actually started at her behest, but had already begun by the time she had bolted from her cell.
It was when they passed through a small morgue in the lower reaches of the facility that things started to get a bit strange.
A dead varren lay in the hall just beyond, the blood pooled around it fresh enough they could still smell it. The hole in its neck was clearly inflicted by a rifle.
Shepard immediately pulled out her sidearm, scanning the hall as Jack crouched by the animal, touching its neck with a scowl. "The fuck? Who shot the varren? This place is supposed to be empty-"
Shepard mistook the faint click for the prep of a gun and whirled, aim snapping toward one wall as an old computer interface folded out, it's holographic interface reading only 'Subject confirmed. Initiate playback.'
A moment later a woman's voice filled the hallway, singing softly.
The sky is dark and the hills are white
As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night;
And this is the song the storm-king sings,
As over the world his cloak he flings:
"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;"
He rustles his wings and gruffly sings:
"Sleep, little one, sleep."
"The fuck?" Shepard blurted in confusion, lowering her pistol a little but not reshipping it. Still crouched next to the dead varren, Jack had gone pale, her eyes wide. As the singing continued, she spoke the words along with the singer.
On yonder mountain-side a vine
Clings at the foot of a mother pine;
The tree bends over the trembling thing,
And only the vine can hear her sing:
"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
What shall you fear when I am here?
Sleep, little one, sleep."
"Jack…Jack, what is it?" Shepard asked warily, brows knotting. Remembering Eír's conditioning at Osco's hand her stomach suddenly went cold and knotted. Who was to say Osco hadn't done the same thing with Jack? She'd done so many different experiments on her, it was hardly outside the realm of possibility. What if this song was some kind of trigger? What if just hearing it made Jack snap and blindly attack them in some pre-programmed fight response?
Ignoring her, Jack continued her near-silent spoken recital along with the singing as the tune played through its final stanza.
The king may sing in his bitter flight,
The pine may croon to the vine to-night,
But the little snowflake at my breast
Liketh the song I sing the best, -
"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
Weary thou art, anext my heart;
Sleep, little one, sleep."
As silence fell, Jack's suddenly glossy eyes shifted down to the varren before her muscles corded into steel. As she straightened, Shepard tried again. "Jack…?"
"Jesus fuck, I'm fine," the biotic snapped.
"What was that?" Miranda asked.
"It…just…" Jack gave a growl of frustration, then strode past. Moving down a set of small stairs, she left the other two little choice but to follow her as she stepped through a broken door and into a lab.
It was clear just standing in the room bothered her. Every sinew of her body was taut under the skin, making the tattoos over her arms and shoulders seem to writhe. The room was damaged and dirty, but still contained the ghostly hint of antiseptic, of medi-gel.
As Shepard and Miranda stepped in, Jack spoke without turning her head. "It was a lullaby," she said tightly. "I'd…I'd forgotten it. I used to love that song."
"A lullaby?"
"Osco used to sing it to me," Jack admitted softly. "When I was very small, when I first came here. It was so long ago, and then to hear it again-"
"That console was rigged to trip and play that song," Shepard told her. "It was rigged to you, Jack…like Osco knew you were going to be coming back here."
"She was a genius," Miranda murmured.
"This was her lab," Jack said. "This is where they would take me. She'd drug me, sometimes, and I would lay on that table in a haze and watch her record her notes in her console."
Striding over to the dark computer interface she accessed it. The HI lit up weakly, clearly having little power left. Filing through its display, Jack spotted a file that was titled the same as the first line of the lullaby. Selecting it, she stepped back as a trio of holographs appeared in the room.
One was Osco again, seated upon a chair. On her lap was a little girl, no older than three years old, cradled on her lap. The child was sniffling, her brown hair mussed as she leaned on Osco's chest, sucking her thumb. Osco was stroking that hair, softly singing the same lullaby to the girl as she did.
"You're not going soft on me, are you Osco?" the Illusive Man asked. He was the third holograph, his form unmistakable. Shepard couldn't help the glower at it when it first appeared standing almost shoulder to shoulder with her.
The younger Gellian inclined her chin toward the man…or more specifically, his cigarette. "You shouldn't smoke around her, she's just a baby."
"She's not a baby, she's hope for humanity's future. She's unbridled potential…potential you will harness."
"I know why I'm here," Gellian said sternly. "That doesn't mean you can't have a little compassion-"
"Compassion? Coming from you? We cannot afford compassion right now, Osco. This is the price we have to pay to make certain that humanity reaches its rightful place in the galaxy…sadly we must sacrifice innocents to insure the safety and progress of countless more innocents. You cannot think of Subject Zero as a child. She is the basis, the template of what we are trying to achieve-"
"She has a name," Osco said heatedly, holding the girl defensively as if trying to shield her from his words. "Her name is Jennnnnnniffffff-f-f-f-f…"
Her words trailed off as the recording corrupted, the power in the console dying. Whirling toward it, Jack slammed it with her hand.
"No! What? You can't fucking die now you fucker!"
The dead console remained oblivious to her blows, remaining cold and silent. Jack gripped its edges hard enough to make her knuckles turn white, slamming her steel-toed boot into it in a barrage of furious kicks, spitting epithets until she was nearly gasping. "It's bullshit!" she declared. "Bullshit! She didn't care about me! She was a sick fuck, a lunatic-…!"
"Yeah, she was sick," Shepard said, her voice a low and soft counterpoint to Jack's choking fury. "Sick, Jack. She was trapped in the madness of her own intelligence, her own brain, but…well, fuck. Benezia saw something in her worth saving, right? Even if others didn't. Maybe beneath it all she did care about you. Back then she was still mostly in control of herself. Liara told me that even before she died, even when she was completely lost in her insanity, she still showed affection and compassion to her own tank-bred children. She wasn't just a madwoman gloating over her forged weaponry."
Jack, her posture half slumped, hands fisted, gave the console one good last thump with her boot. "Bullshit," she mumbled again, though it lacked the same conviction.
"Maybe that's what this was about," Miranda said tentatively. When Jack glared daggers at her, she frowned a little. "I'm just saying…she rigged that console to play for you, not anyone else. She saved this file for you to see. Just before it died she was about to say your name, Jack…your real name. Jennifer…something. Maybe she knew that you'd be drawn back here someday, and she wanted to give you…an answer, maybe. A tie to who you really are, where you really came from-"
"Oh yeah? Why don't you just tell me?" Jack challenged. "Why don't you just tell your boss to tell me? I'm sure he knows. He was standing here in this same goddamn room with me when I was two fucking years old!"
"I don't know the answer, Jack. I would tell you if I did, and I already gave Shepard everything I could find about you. You've read it," Miranda replied.
"And asking the Illusive Man?"
"It's not that simple," Miranda told her. "I can ask all I want but he hardly answers to me."
Jack strode forward, moving toe to toe with the other woman. "You could at least try," she glared. Miranda looked at her a moment, before she nodded slowly.
"You're right," she said softly. "I could try."
Warily looking between the pair Shepard put her hand on Jack's shoulder, clearing her throat. "I'll see if Liara can't dig anything up too, Jack," she said. "In the mean-time, I thought you wanted to blow this place to hell."
"Yeah, I do," Jack sniffed, moving back a pace and heading for the door. "So let's get moving already."
Abandoned though the Teltin facility was supposed to be, Shepard never set foot in unfamiliar territory without expecting that, somehow and sometime, things would end up going sideways. Besides the fact that the marines made absolutely sure to beat expectation into the skulls of their recruits, Shepard was too old of friends with her particular brand of luck to anticipate anything going smoothly…ever.
It turned out to be vorcha who had killed the varren…vorcha led by a trio of krogan who were apparently in the facility for salvage. It wasn't until they eliminated them and actually reached Jack's old cell that they found out the whole mess was led by some lunatic named Aresh.
He had his hands up in the air, Shepard's pistol in his face, when Jack had come striding in. At the sight of her his eyes widened and seemed to go almost fever-bright. As his voice grew more frantic, he started to stammer almost uncontrollably. "You! You! I know you, S-S-S-Subject Zero! Not fair! It wasn't f-f-f-fair!"
"Calm the fuck down," Shepard warned, even as Jack narrowed her eyes at him.
"Who the fuck is this? What do you mean, not fair?" she demanded.
"I was here t-t-t-t-too," he told her. "I was here, like y-y-y-you but n-n-not like you! You got the c-c-c-candy and we got the n-n-needles-"
He tried to step forward, only to bark as Shepard slammed him back against the wall, pinning him with her forearm across his chest, her pistol still aimed at his face. "Don't be stupid," she growled. He didn't try to fight her but neither did he look at her, his eyes still fixed to Jack.
"She was so p-p-pretty, so smart…she s-s-sang, but only to you…only to y-y-you, it wasn't fair! Her girl…you were her girl, and we were nothing!"
"What are you talking about?" Jack gaped. "What are you even doing here?"
"I couldn't forget this p-p-p-place," he lamented. "It's important, all important. Th-th-that's what she said…when she b-b-b-brought the needles, b-b-b-brought pain. This is imp-p-portant, Subject 19…it was my only p-p-p-urpose, the only th-thing to make her h-h-happy…"
He started to weep, sagging a little. Shepard released him, stepping back a pace as he crumpled to the ground, but never shifting the aim of her pistol. Jack stared at the man, dumbfounded.
"I have to st-st-start again," he moaned and sniffled. "T-t-t-to make her happy! Th-th-then she'll come back, then I'll b-b-be her boy, and she'll h-h-hug me and sing to m-m-me-"
"He's completely gone off his hinges," Miranda said in wonder. Jack scowled, glaring at the man.
"Are you talking about Osc-"
"Don't you say her name!" he screamed in sudden fury, red-faced as he bellowed at her. "You don't get to say her name! I will start over! I will finish this and she will come back!"
"Fuck-…the fuck you will!"
Jack suddenly drew her own pistol but as she aimed it at the man, she found Shepard's an inch from her ear. "What the fuck? What are you doing? Shepard, you can't let him just walk, he wants to restart this nightmare!"
"Uh, he's fucking crazy, Jack," Shepard told her. "We're blowing this place whether he likes it or not…what's he going to restart, a fucking crater? He's fucking snapped. He needs help. You have to let this go."
Jack looked at the man who had collapsed into his sobs again, then grimaced, lowering her pistol. "Fuck. I fucking hate it when you're right."
Aresh, as his name turned out to be, fell asleep in the storage compartment of the shuttle almost as soon as they'd dropped him in it. The instant the bind-cuffs had snapped on he'd seemed to lose all fight, all fire. Jack disappeared for a bit as Shepard and Miranda set the explosives pack, striding back into the cell only as Shepard finished linking the detonator switch. Wordlessly, Del grabbed Jack's hand and pressed the switch into her grip. Jack only nodded grimly.
Returning to the roof, they piled into the shuttle, Jack fiddling with the switch in agitation until the very instant the computer indicated they were at safe distance. The instant the wall display flashed green, she rammed her thumb down onto the switch ignition so hard it would leave a bruise.
A heartbeat later, the shuttle jolted slightly as the swelling shockwave shook the air, rattling them with turbulence but causing no damage. Only when the shuttle steadied again did Jack drop the spent switch on the ground, covering her face with her hands.
"You ok?" Shepard asked quietly.
Jack nodded faintly, before sitting up again. "I want to show you something," she said after a pause, digging into the loose pocket of her cargo pants.
She drew forth something that caught the dim light of the shuttle and chipped it away in a thousand different directions. Both Shepard and Miranda sat forward in interest as Jack draped it between her hands, regarding it.
It was an odd, jointed length of metal, a continuous loop at least three feet in diameter. It bore almost invisible seams along its length, seeming to shift and writhe as if it were alive whenever the biotic moved.
"What is that?" Miranda asked.
"Remember I told you about Aethis?" Jack asked, ignoring Miranda and speaking to Shepard as if the other woman wasn't even present. "About the fucker using a chain on me whenever he took me from my cell? While you were setting up the bomb I went to his old security room. I didn't think it'd still be there in a million years but it was. I'm surprised the fucking krogan and vorcha didn't find it."
"Either that or they didn't know what it was," Shepard said. "From what you described this thing has to be worth a fortune."
"He threw this on me so many times," Jack said, and parted the chain between two of its links before snapping it together again. "I dreamed of smashing it, tearing it apart…"
She shook her head, then balled it up and tossed it at Shepard. The commander caught it against her chest, startled, the metal hissing over her breastplate a moment as it sagged from her grip.
"Don't know what the fuck it really is or where the fuck he got it," Jack snapped. "One thing I do know, I don't really want to see the fucking thing ever again. So it's yours now. Chances are, it's Prothean or at least as goddamn old. Give it to your girlfriend if you want. Maybe she'll get a kick out of it. I don't care. Here, this thing controls it."
Digging back in her pocket she pulled out a small cube and pitched that at Shepard as well. Del caught this a little more gracefully. Winding up the chain carefully, Shepard nodded and slipped it and the odd cube into a pouch on her belt.
"I'll see if Liara can figure it out," she agreed, then regarded the other woman. "Thank you, Jack."
Jack flapped a hand and mumbled a subdued 'whatever', her eyes fixing on the wall. The silence remained unbroken the rest of the way back to the Normandy.
"Was there something further, Miranda?"
The Australian's blue eyes shifted upward, her fingers pressed tightly to her desk as she regarded the Illusive Man. His face hovered on her console display, as cool and implacable as always.
"I…wanted to discuss something with you," she said, keeping her voice even. "I wanted to ask…about Jack."
"Subject Zero?" he asked. "You were at the Teltin facility, Miranda. I read the report. I can understand her and Shepard's desire to leave the place a crater…and honestly, perhaps that is for the best. We should not dwell upon Osco's mistakes."
"Osco's?" Miranda asked, her voice a tense and heated whisper, "or yours?"
"Miranda, you are flirting very close to a very dangerous line," he replied. "Osco was useful but unfortunately her madness eventually outweighed her intelligence. She became a liability. Thankfully, she left the organization after the riot at Teltin peacefully, and we did not have to take stronger measures. I have never hidden my motivations nor have I sought to excuse necessary actions. A harsh hand is sometimes required. Sacrifices have to be made. You know this, I know this, even Shepard knows this, or have you already forgotten the reports of Virmire and Kaidan Alenko?"
"That…that was different! She made that choice to save lives, to ensure the mission-"
"And our choices are any different? How many lives could have been saved with the research done at Teltin? How many children exposed to element zero in the womb could have been saved from fatal damage to their immune systems or from developing incurable cancer? How many even now could have rivaled the asari in their biotic potential, without a single life lost? Thousands? Sacrificing a few dozen to save thousands…the math sounds similar to me."
"I just…what I saw…I can't justify-"
"Miranda, I know this is difficult, but you know we are doing good work," he soothed. "You are doing good work. Don't let second-guessing undermine your confidence."
The troubled expression on her face wavered a little as she glanced away a moment. He waited patiently until she looked at him again.
"Can…can you at least tell me her name? I mean…her real name? Can we at least give her that?" Miranda asked.
"I think I can entertain that request," he agreed. "I will have to see if any records of it remain. Not a lot of Teltin's research was backed up off sight, and what was ended up absorbed into Ascension. However this is not a priority, Miranda. Your priority remains with retrieving that IFF and getting the Normandy through the Omega 4 relay. All other concerns are secondary."
"I understand," she murmured. His synthetic eyes seemed to measure her a moment before the call blinked off, the connection severed.
Sighing heavily, she sat back in her office chair, gaze turning inward. It only refocused again as her door slid open.
Surprised that anyone would enter without activating the call first, she could only blink a moment at the woman who swept in like wrath embodied. Even as a fist wreathed in blue flame sailed out, Miranda leapt awkwardly from her chair, her own hand flying up to block the energy pulse with one of her own. Blue eyes narrowed as biotics simmered along her skin.
"Hello, Jack…"