Sea of Crises
"Alenko, increase mass by two percent," Shepard ordered as her fingers flew over the screens in front of her. Luna's surface was coming at them too slowly. At this rate, they would get captured by the nearby station's gravity instead of the small gravitational field of Earth's moon.
"Aye, aye."
The mass effect generator hummed and vibrated in areas that were different than the other vehicle. Fredericks, nervous from losing the last Mako, checked and double-checked the output, running diagnostics on non-essential systems.
"Relax, Private," Alenko spoke up. "She's purring like a kitten. Just the way she's supposed to."
Fredericks gave a nod. "It'll take some time to get used to a new vehicle, sir."
"Precious is a good girl, "Shepard said, an amicable smile crossing her lips as she patted the dash. "She did good during the incursions. She'll do good here too." Provided you don't fuck up again, a small inner voice reminded her and her smile faded. In her mind's eye, she promptly shot the ghost, focusing instead of keeping her team and herself alive.
Joker rolled his eyes at the comm. "'Precious?'" he echoed, his mouth turned down.
"You're not going to just let it go," Pressly commented dryly from the Navigators' station on the bridge, "are you?"
"It's a tank," Joker insisted. "It needs a name like-"
"Princess," Hendricks interrupted from her station to the left of Joker.
Joker was indignant, sending a glare of green in his friend's direction. "No! Like-"
"Cupcake?" she asked, batting her eyes playfully.
"Hell, no!" Joker crossed his arms.
It was quiet a moment. Then Pressly spoke up. "Sue," he said.
"Sue?" Joker craned his neck to gaze at his XO.
Pressly shrugged. "My wife's name."
"It's a tank," Joker emphasized again, gesturing with his hand at the console. "Not a boat. And it should be called-"
"Bluebell," suggested Hendricks, laughter in her voice. "No, wait. Six Wheels!"
Joker sighed and rubbed his eye. It was beginning to twitch. As much as he cared about Beck, she could be a pain in the ass sometimes. Not that he didn't expect it. They'd known each other long enough to put up with the other's shit. And it was a relief she was still alive, but—He looked at the time. Three more hours before Ashley came on shift. It would be nice to see her. She was fun when her feathers got ruffled.
No. Wait. She was no longer on administrative duty. She was in the damn tank.
Damn it.
He didn't miss her though. She nagged him about biting his nails too much. He nibbled on his thumbnail out of spite, earning him a cough and a look from Beck.
Gah.
Women. Did they always have to play the mom card?
"Big Ka-Boom," Shepard's voice came over the comm, startling the bridge crew.
Joker straightened immediately. "Commander?" he asked as he pulled up a topo, ready to dart in with the Normandy and get them if he needed to.
"Big Ka-Boom," Shepard repeated. "A tank name."
What? The helmsman was careful not to shout That's not a tank name! to his commanding officer. She scared the shit out of him when angered. Liked blowing shit up. Nasty habit.
"Yeah, if you're a krogan," Pressly grumbled in reply.
Wrex's snort filled the speakers. "Give the krogan some credit, human. We know how to be creative when naming vehicles."
"Like what?" Alenko's voice asked over the comm.
"Really Big Ka-Boom," Wrex told him.
Shepard laughed. "I think we'll stick with Precious for now, Wrex."
"Heh. You started it."
As the Mako surged across Mare Crisium of the moon called Luna, Tali'Zorah nar Rayya flipped through holos she and few of the engineers had taken during what the humans referred to as "down time." She thought it was a weird phrase and told them repeatedly that if anything went "down" on the flotilla, it was cause for panic. But most paid her no mind. It was probably a human thing. Then again, most of the Council Races paid little attention to the quarians anyway. A human thing, she decided just as she felt the tale-tell heart flutter that came with the way her people were treated by the rest of the Galactic Community.
Her fingers stilled over a holo taken by Chief Adams (she knew it was taken by him because his thumb managed to become a permanent fixture in every holo he took). The heart flutter picked up pace a she gazed upon the holo. She couldn't see her own face, but knew that she had "smiled for the camera" when Adams had asked her to. Wedged between two humans—Corporal Guo and Private Fredericks—she looked sorely out of place in her envirosuit, but both humans didn't seem to mind as they had huge grins plastered on their faces. None of the humans seemed to mind her—well, maybe XO Pressly, but he always seemed cranky.
Cranky. Such a funny human word. Curious, Tali had looked it up the moment she had heard Chief Williams mutter it in regards to the krogan ("Cranky much? Damn krogan."). Truthfully, Tali had hoped it was some sort of human explicative since it had not translated. Humans were especially creative with explicatives and expressions.
They were such a mystery—being so new to the Galactic stage. She had never seen a human until coming to the Citadel, but remembered hearing about them when Shem'Dorei nar Ikitomi had returned from his pilgrimage and was accepted into the Rayya's crew. His pilgrimage gift had been information about the humans, their homeworld, and he had even brought back several inert pieces of a security mech ("Look! Five digit hands. Like the batarians and asari." "And Vorcha. Ugh."). Never in her life did she imagine she would end up on the humans' homeworld's only satellite! She hadn't even received her first suit when Shem had been formally accepted and remembered trying to reach for the mech's head through her bubble. Back then it was just she and Auntie Shala. Father was away so much... Auntie Shala had-
"Look out!" the krogan bellowed suddenly.
Tali's heart lurched into her throat. The last time someone had yelled for her to look out, it had been Corporal Guo, pushing her into the lockers right before the broken cable in the cargo hold had severed his head.
Tali calmed herself, her fingers already pushing the image folder out of the way and calling up the Mako's HUD without having to be ordered by Shepard.
Precious responded to her commands as easily as Lenny had, giving her the sensor readings she needed, feeding them into the vehicle's weapons tracking system.
"Tali," Shepard began, then paused. "Thank you." The Commander turned her attention elsewhere. "Wrex, Fredericks, take out those turrets."
"Aye, aye," Fredericks answered immediately, though he was already arming the automatics.
The krogan let out a guffaw as the Mako's cannon took out one turret.
"Turret 26-A down," Alenko confirmed.
Shepard mumbled something about tax dollars and all the humans aboard-Alenko, Fredericks and Williams-nodded their consent. Tali had no idea what tax dollars were, but made a mental note to look it up when they got back to the Normandy.
Ash was so glad to be off administrative duty. In the last three weeks, it had one big cluster fuck after another. Casbin and the deaths of good people. The damn geth. Four outposts and one primary base in the Traverse. And she was helpless to do anything because of Shepard's executive order. Weapons watch on the bridge and in CIC and weapons maintenance in the armory was all she had been allowed to do.
The attack on Eden Prime was still fresh, and between the incursions and the accident, Ashley was having difficulty compartmentalizing the way she knew she should. It irked her to no end that Shepard wouldn't let her participate until the final base. Hell, the most action she had seen in the last three weeks prior to getting clearance for ground team on Solcrum-with the exception of the influx of wounded into the infirmary-had been a godawful Blasto stim. (She cared not to enkindle anything, thank you very much.) Still, clearing the geth out in only three weeks and only having four fire teams was pretty damn good. Impressive as hell, that was for sure. She chose to focus on the good and set about focusing on the mission as they stood waiting for Shepard to set the charges so they could get past the inner airlock of the first bunker.
"You know this base well, Shepard," Wrex commented from his cover against the door. Shepard looked up from the munitions charge she was arming, giving a shrug.
"I was stationed here after Akuze," she said, her tone light, but the glint in her eyes was haunted.
"Threshers," Alenko murmured softly. Then: "They put you on admin, ma'am?"
Shepard nodded, continued arming as Alenko handed her the primer. "I was pretty messed up." Then she grinned brightly. "Who do you think trained Carpenter?"
Alenko gave a mock shudder. "Scary woman," he told her. Agreeing with his assessment, Ash bobbed her head in a nod.
"This from a human that can manipulate mass effect fields to crush someone?" Tali remarked, deadpan.
"Tali," Alenko said, "her weapon of choice is technically illegal in Council Space."
"Nah," Wrex replied, "Too modified. Handy in fight though."
Ashley nodded in agreement remembering the Elkoss Combine Widow Maker 260Z sniper rifle Carpenter had checked into the ship's armory. Who knew where the hell she'd picked up that baby. Ash had grown up around rifles and that thing scared the hell out of her. But regulations were Regulations. The rifle's VI was programmed to keep the anti-tank rifle just under being banned. Unlike Ashley and Shepard's current pay load and the three Shepard had "requisitioned" on Sharjila. So what if Ashley's inventory was a little vague on the details? Those five rifles had saved their asses at that last geth base. Too bad they didn't have their toys on Edolus. Taking down that damn thresher would have been easy as cake. Well, a little easier. Maybe.
"Alright," Shepard said standing and grabbing her helmet, locking it into place. "If this doesn't open the door, I don't know what will. Five minutes. Let's not be underground when it blows. Gear up and pressurize."
Ashley flipped on her suit's VI and tapped the SCABA command on the haptic interface. Her helmet's visor immediately lowered and began pumping recycled air through the system.
Sometimes systems could be hacked. Sometimes systems could be overridden with omni-gel placed over the right connections and electrodes. Most of the time, however, it took blowing it up in order to get the thing open. Kaidan grinned, relieved that no one could see his satisfied smile. Shepard loved blowing shit up. Five out of six times in the last three weeks, she had had a chance to hack or use omni-gel to gain entrance, and she had opted to either pelt it with anti-tank ammunition or set charges. Hell, even one time she had shredded a door by warping the surrounding gravity field with her biotics. He still needed to ask her about that maneuver. It had been damned useful against those husks that had come pouring out of the overrun base.
"The door's hot, ma'am," he reported as he inspected his omni-tool, scanning for eezo cores that kept the drones aloft and functional. There were a lot of them.
"Form up behind the Mako," Shepard told them, "we'll take them out once we pop the door. Aim for their cores. Once we take those out, they'll just float out into space."
Kaidan blinked. "De-pressurize the base, ma'am? What about survivors?" He hadn't seen anything on the scanners, but there was always a chance. He thought of Akuze and Shepard. Surely she gave it thought. She had thought about it on Edolus.
The Commander sucked in a breath that would have otherwise been inaudible had she not had the breathing apparatus in place. "Can you close the airlock door from here?" she asked.
He knew the answer to that before she'd finished the sentence. The external door was the only door on a separate system. The airlock door was slaved to the other interior doors. Blowing one had shorted them all out.
"No, ma'am," he answered finally.
She knew, he realized as he hacked into the mainframe again, readying himself for the onslaught of drones. She'd known about the doors before they even set foot on Luna. And still she gave the order to blow the doors before confirming survivors. He swallowed, praying he never had to make any type of decision like that.
The drones poured out as the doors slid open, their barriers slowing the slugs from hitting their cores. The full battle lasted nearly thirty minutes so great were the drones' numbers, but they were dispatched without any injuries. Kaidan was panting, exhausted when it was finally safe to enter the base. His stomach gurgled, giving him notice that none of the others could hear.
"Negative contacts," Tali confirmed, then she blew up the two red rocket drones she had managed to hack. "Drones down, Shepard."
Shepard nodded, peered into the base, her breath rasping against the mic in her helmet.
"Base has been gassed," she said quietly, calling up her omni-tool to confirm.
"That damn computer," Williams growled angrily.
"Yeah," Shepard agreed. "Move out. Three of its main hubs are here. The others are out at the training facilities."
"What's this place then?" Fredericks inquired, cocking his head to the side.
"The barracks," Shepard told them and entered the bunker.