Out of the Frying Pan
1/1/11 Dumbass Alert: I did not realize until recently that Therum has a colony. I've altered this chapter to reflect that. Sorry for the revision, guys. Also, I couldn't resist the Empire Strikes Back reference either. :)
(Kaidan's perspective is the same. Shepard's part is what has been updated.)
Happy New Year!
The mess hall was unusually quiet; Kaidan noted as he collected his food tray and rounded the bulkhead to have a seat at the mess table. He remained motionless for a moment as a sudden twinge of pain behind his eyes nearly brought him to his knees. Sometimes he could tell when he was going to be hit by a migraine. Other times they would sneak up on him and kick his ass. Taking controlled breaths, he swallowed the bile and continued to walk to the mess table as though nothing happened. Maybe he could hold it off until he got some food into his belly. If he weren't disturbed—again.
His hopes of the mess being vacant at this time of night were dashed as his dark eyes fell upon Joker and Ashley. They were sitting opposite each other, glaring at one another, their faces marred by deep, grim frowns. Ash, her body tense with anger, appeared to be just holding herself from charging across the table to wring the helmsman's neck, and Joker, a muscle quivering at his jaw, appeared to be refraining from either yelling or punching her.
Kaidan didn't particularly care what was going on as long as they were both quiet and allowed him to eat in peace. The pain behind his eyes was beginning to radiate out, up and back. He hoped he could hold down his chow. He knew he shouldn't have held off eating for so long, but he really had been avoiding getting grossed out.
Kaidan chose a respectable distance—the opposite end of the all but vacant table—glad that neither the Chief nor Moreau were biotics. Food would be flying everywhere.
Joker's limbs, too.
Kaidan glanced between the pair as he forced down his food, took note of the menacing expression on Ashley's face.
Definitely.
"Hey, L.T.," Gun Dog said, flopping down in the empty space in front of Kaidan, sloshing the contents of his tray onto the table. Kaidan really wasn't in the mood to chat and seriously thought about reprimanding the private for his blatant lack of formality. Besides, did everyone have to sit directly in front of him?
"What's eating them?" Fredericks asked. He used his thumb to indicate the battle of wills taking place at the other side of the mess. Neither had yet to flinch or blink.
Kaidan shrugged. "Search me."
Fredericks nodded, looked at the chow on his plate and proceeded to wolf it down. Kaidan felt ill almost immediately and ducked his head and hunched his shoulders, pulling his tray towards him out of the line of fire.
Trapped. He was stuck until Fredericks finished and left. He picked at his food, forcing small bites and trying to desperately to ignore the fact that Fredericks smacked when he ate.
"Preliminary scans are back," Pressly's voice distracted Kaidan momentarily—a welcome reprieve to the onslaught that was occurring across the table. Kaidan's eyes sought out the man as Pressly and Shepard rounded the bulkhead, trays in hand—Pressly also with a data pad.
Shepard's brown eyes met Kaidan's momentarily and a smile unconsciously crept upon Kaidan's face. She quirked the side of her mouth briefly, the scar on her lip stretching, as she took a seat next to Kaidan. Shepard's leg briefly touched his. Her close proximity did nothing to ease the pain in his head. He moved his leg away. Shepard searched his face before turning her odd-colored gaze to Fredericks, a tight frown forming on her lips. She raised an eyebrow to Pressly.
"Is it the intention of the Private to be blatantly disrespectful of his commanding officers?" Pressly asked in a tone that would have made Kaidan's blood turn to ice water had he been the Private in question.
The question and the tone had the desired effect. Fredericks, nearly choking on his food, shot to his feet, knocking his tray to the floor in the process, food splashing in all directions. He managed to snap off a sloppy salute, an expression of terror painted across his young face.
"I'm sorry, sirs," he barked. "It won't happen again, sirs."
Pressly glared at him. "Clean up this mess," he ordered. "Then report to Vassiliadis for duty. This is a top-of-the-line warship. Not the SSV Has-been. Now turn-to, Private."
Fredericks shrank back. "Aye, aye, sir!" He began hastily cleaning and left the mess hall, returning shortly with cleaning supplies.
"You alright, Alenko?" Pressly asked, concerned. Alenko looked like death warmed over. And everyone knew how touch-and-go he was about crowds and food. Pressly wanted to throttle Fredericks. Damned shithead.
Kaidan nodded, his head swimming. "Yes, sir." He was having trouble holding back the bile that was burning his esophagus. The tension behind his eyes had built, and they felt like they might either fall out or explode. He welcomed both. Then maybe they wouldn't hurt so damned much.
"You look a little green around the gills," Shepard commented. Kaidan's throat worked, trying to swallow.
"I, uh, I should probably check in with Dr. Chakwas," he said weakly and standing. "Ma'am," he said by way of excusing himself. "Sir." He dumped his tray and made his way towards the infirmary, reaching up and removing the amp from the back of his skull. It needed a good saline wash anyway.
Shepard watched him go with a vague look of disapproval as she wondered how long Kaidan had been fighting his current migraine. Clearly Gun Dog's sloppy eating habits hadn't helped things. She gave an acerbic glare to the private in question as he wiped his space clean. The private seemed to wither all the more, and Shepard turned her attention to her XO.
"Tell me what the preliminaries found," she ordered with more force than she intended.
If Pressly noticed her tone, he didn't seem affected by it as he picked up his data pad and began scouring it for information. "We've got some strange readings in the outer Belt. Permission to send out the Panoptes satellites."
Shepard nodded her consent. The Panoptes scanning system deployed a grid of one-hundred radar-emitting micro-satellites that were nearly untraceable; however, the probe that deployed the grid was traceable. In an Alliance-claimed system though, Shepard didn't expect any trouble. And they were currently cloaked just beyond the outer belt, but still within the Knossos system's heliosphere where they could blend with the background radiation of the star.
Pressly made a note on the data pad and continued scrolling through the information. "According to the last transmission from the inner system comm buoy, Eldfell-Ashland Energy has a mining operation set up on the planet Therum. EAE runs the Archanes helium-3 supply depot."
Shepard nodded, calculating. "Population?" She called up the Normandy's fuel reserves on her omni-tool. They could wait to get out of the cluster to refuel, so they could avoid a stopover at Archanes. They still had at least nine to ten hours before they would need to discharge the drive. The heat sinks could be discharged then too.
"Negligible," Pressly reassured her. "Less than 300 souls on the whole station."
"It only takes one," she reminded him, and he nodded, blowing at the edge of his coffee cup on reflex. It was already cool enough to quaff if he so chose.
He took a careful sip then set aside the mug. "Scans indicate heavy seismic activity in the southern hemisphere well away from the colony."
"How heavy?"
"Super-volcano," he told her. "Santorini Mons is about to blow."
Shepard gave a low whistle, remembering the report she had read a few nights ago. "That thing has been on the news a good month now," she commented, taking a bite of her food, the tang of barbecue and spice just what she needed after the last few days' stress. It didn't quite have that alien taste like the spices had been grown anywhere but Earth. It was a welcome addition to the menu. She was glad Kaidan had mentioned it in passing. Not everyone on board was Earth-stock, but the ones who were appreciated the homegrown food all the more.
"Looks like they're in the process of pulling up shop," Pressly was saying, and Shepard had to steer her thoughts back from food to the situation at hand. Two months in and she was having trouble focusing. Two months as CO, and I've lost four good people. She had to really focus on what her XO was telling her. "They're to be off planet by the end of the week. The company issued the press release while we were in Sol. They're only supposed to be pulling back to Archanes though. They'll be relocating their crew to the mining facilities on Zorya later this month. Wherever the hell that is." Shepard had never heard of Zorya either. It didn't sound like one of their territories. The galaxy was a big place. Who knew?
He eyed her critically like he was gauging whether she'd been there. She tilted her head as an acknowledgement for him to continue. He studied her a second or two longer than necessary.
"It's a good thing the Protheans are already extinct," he said dryly. At Shepard's questioning look, he went on, "Therum's a treasure trove of Prothean ruins. They cover the planet for the most part. In most cases, though, they're buried by rock." He scrolled down on the data pad. "The planet has a small ring belt and few dozen moons. Tidal and gravitational forces wreak havoc, and Knossos is an active star. All that differentiating gravity plays with the planet's tectonics."
Pressly scratched his goatee thoughtfully. "Strange that Therum has a breathable atmosphere with all that ash and carbon monoxide in the in the air. Humanity's making a go of it though. Nova Yekaterinburg's been there since 2167 – most of the manufacturing on Earth is because of the heavy metal exports from here. Mostly mining corporations and their miners' families. The colony itself isn't owned by Exo-Geni, so we don't have to worry about any" – he used air quotes – "repurposing of the colonists." He shook his head in disgust. "Thank God for small favors."
"What about the volcano?" Shepard questioned. She wondered if they had to worry about a sudden amount of traffic leaving the system. "How large is Nova Yekaterinburg?"
"Northern hemisphere doesn't appear to have as much seismic activity at the moment. It's all focused in the southern part of the planet where EAE was focusing their efforts. Two of the larger moons don't have equatorial orbits." He called up his omni-tool to do a fast fact-check, nodding. "The helmsmen will need to be careful if they geosync – the particles in the ring system aren't ice; they're rock. The scientific consensus is that the moons were either pulled in by Therum's gravity or there was originally one large moon and something splintered it into the ring system and moons.
"Anyway, Commander," he continued, "Nova Yekaterina is one of our smaller colonies. Thirty-four thousand – mining corporations' personnel only. They haven't opened it up to full scale colonization. The ring system is stable, but it's a bitch for communication satellites. According to this, there's only certain times a day they can get transmissions out to the comm buoy system." He studied the datapad. "There are only three asari, seven turians, a volus and six salarians on the mining payroll at the facilities on Therum. All others are human. One hundred eighty-two planetside or leaving as we speak."
Shepard sat back, momentarily confused. "That's... strange."
"How so, ma'am?" Pressly took a sip of his coffee.
"Eldfell-Ashland Energy is publicly traded. You'd think they'd have more aliens – even on an Alliance territory." She gave a shrug.
He studied her a moment before asking, "Play the market, ma'am?"
"Pension," she supplied.
"Ah." He nodded. "Mine hit the crapper when CyberCor-Physiosoft Frontiers went belly-up a few years back," he grumbled.
"Never trusted them," Shepard said. "They used slave labor from the Terminus Systems."
Pressly snorted. "Figures. Damn slavers." He didn't ask how she knew that.
Shepard heartily agreed, bobbing her head, mentally counting to ten to ease the tension between her shoulders. Now was not the time to think about slavers. It took a second to remind herself that not all slavers were batarian. It took longer than a second to force herself to forget about batarians for the time being. "Anything about a Dr. Liara T'Soni?" Focus, Calleigh.
"Yes, ma'am," her XO said, scrolling down the tablet. "She's not officially part of the mining crew. EAE was funding her excavation of a prominent ruin nearby."
"'Was'?" Shepard frowned. If T'Soni was gone then all this trouble was for what?
"They pulled her funding when they started pulling their people. She's supposed to be leaving with the last transport at the end of the week." He scrolled down more, his brow furrowing as he read. "Damn it. There's a snag, Commander. All comm activity is dead after two days ago. No distress signal. Just dead. Nearest Alliance ship is currently us, but the SSV Omdurman is on its way to investigate."
"How long before they're in system?" The last thing Shepard wanted was to explain what she was doing in-system. SSV Omdurman's skipper was a Captain. In order to keep the mission to collect the asari scientist classified, they would be forced to de-cloak, and she'd have to pull the Spectre Card if the Captain wanted to run a rescue Op. Or they would have to collect the asari after the SSV Omdurman ran its mission. Both ways were not acceptable to Shepard. Avoidance was the best route. Debris hit comm systems all the time. It wasn't like it was anything new.
Akuze was a different story.
Very different.
So was Eden Prime.
And Feros.
God.
Feros.
"Another fifty-two hours or so," he told her, drawing her away from her musings. "They're in the Styx-Theta Cluster now. A few supply depots went silent a few days ago. They were investigating. They've got to discharge their drive, and they'll be on their way."
The Commander nodded, sipped her energy drink.
"Commander Shepard," Vassiliadis' gruff voice sounded over their heads.
Shepard leaned back, casting her gaze upward. "Yes, Chief?"
"Long range scanners have picked up four geth dreadnaught-sized ships in low geosynchronous orbit of the planet called Therum," he reported. "Southern hemisphere." Shepard's blood ran cold. "We would have detected them sooner if they hadn't been using one of the larger moons to block their pings."
"Oh, how lovely," she quipped before looking over to Joker and Ashley, who were staring at each other. "Joker, stop what you're doing and report to the bridge. Downtime's over."
The helmsman didn't move from his position, his expression never changing. Taken aback, Shepard blinked. Joker had a mouth on him, but he'd never been insubordinate, nor was it on his record. She cast her gaze on Williams, eyes narrowing at the dark-haired woman. The Chief hadn't moved a muscle either. They were fuming at each other, she realized. Well, I'll give them something to be angry with.
"If you two don't snap out of it and get your asses in gear," she all but yelled, slamming her hand on the table. "Two-Six-Ten."
Both Williams and Moreau fell out of their self-induced trance. Joker paled immediately, his eyes widening in momentary panic.
"I—" he stammered, but the Commander cut him off, slicing the air with her hand.
"Geth are in the system," she told him angrily. "Report to your station, Mister. On the double!"
The helmsman scrambled as quickly as he could to latch onto his crutches cursing under his breath as he limped away.
"I don't know what the hell that was," Shepard said to no one in particular, but loud enough for Joker, who had made it around the corner, to hear, "and, frankly I don't care to know. But I'll court martial anyone else who doesn't toe the line."
She cast her gaze to Pressly. After over two months of serving with each other, her XO didn't appear phased by the look that could have peeled the tiger stripes right off the bow. "Have Alenko and Garrus go over strategies for Surface-to-Ship extraction," she told him, suddenly not as hungry as she thought she was when she'd first decided to take a break. "I'll be in my quarters going over the preliminaries. Forward the next batch to my terminal."
"Aye, aye, Commander." Pressly got up and tossed his tray into the incinerator.
Shepard sat there a moment, running a hand through her messy locks. Geth in the system meant that the Matriarch was extracting her daughter—voluntarily or by force. Either way, they were two days behind. With a fucking human colony planetside. Jesus.
She forced down the last bite of her food and quaffed the rest of her energy drink, knowing she would need her strength later. Four geth dreadnaughts. She ran the figures in her head. It would be like the Armstrong Incursions all over again. Icy fear twisted in her heart. What if she failed again? They'd already lost four crew members since she'd been on board. Suddenly restless, she stood and dumped her tray.
They would extract the doctor, get out of the system and call in the Alliance to get rid of the geth. The Normandy was a powerful warship, but she wasn't invincible.
"Joker," she said into the comm, knowing he would have already relieved Hendricks.
She wasn't disappointed. "Yes, Commander?"
"Full burn," she ordered. "We're on a time line. Saren's two days ahead of us. We might have another Feros on our hands."
"Uh, Commander, if the Normandy goes full burn, we'll have to discharge the drive on Therum," he told her, his voice giving way to nervousness. "And more zombies? What is up with the galaxy lately?"
Shepard started, stunned speechless. They'd discharged six hours ago. How the hell—?
"The standard time on the heat loads is seventeen hours," she said recalling what she had learned in conversations with Chief Adams. "We shouldn't have to—"
"Yes, ma'am, I know that," Moreau cut her off. "But five of the heat loads are down. I've got systems failures across my board. Engineering is looking into it, but we're currently running with no heat loads on the starboard side. Port side is green and the engineers have managed to connect couplings to route the heat to the port side sinks, but it's gonna get hot in here. Real quick."
"Noted," she said. "Get us there as fast as possible without cooking us."
"Aye, aye, ma'am," he said. "One roasted crew being served up in thirty minutes." She was storming to her cabin when Joker asked, "Do you want me to de-cloak, ma'am?"
"No," she answered. "Keep us silent. I don't want Saren to know we're about to crash his party."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Pressly, abort the Panoptes probe to the outer Belt. I'll be in Engineering," she told her XO via their personal comms. "Mission plans just went to hell."
"Getting out and pushing, ma'am?" he asked, sounding a lot more stressed than when he'd been going over the prelims only moments before.
She gave an unladylike snort as the elevator doors shut. "Only if the committee says so."
Forty minutes later, the warning klaxon sounded as Shepard and the ground team was prepping for a drop into the volcano. The temperature inside the Normandy had risen above recommended levels, and the squad had to go in blind. They were out of time.
Sweat dripped off Shepard's nose as she bent down and fastened a leg greave into place, tightening the bolts with the mechanized spanner. "Joker?" she called.
"We can't keep this up, Commander," he reported, affirming what Shepard already knew. "We'll be doing good to drop the Mako and find a place to discharge planetside. We're lucky the gravity falls within the right perimeters. We already deployed the Panoptes scanners in orbit, but it'll still be a while before we'll get the readings back." He paused briefly. "What a great planet you've brought us to, Commander," he enthused, his voice heavy with sarcasm. "With all the volcanoes and super-volcanoes. And killer AIs. Can't wait to land here. Really."
"You forgot the zombies," Shepard told him, retrieving a sidearm from Williams and attaching it to the holster on her hip.
"Thanks for the reminder, ma'am," Joker grumbled. Williams and Alenko didn't look too thrilled over the remark either.
Two-Six-Ten: NAVspeak for "It'll take two doctors/surgeons six hours to pull ten inches of my boot out of your ass."
Panoptes: Named after the Argus Panoptes, a 100-eyed creature in Greek mythology. Based on the Argus scanning system from Mass Effect 2. Consider it the predecessor. :)