Chapter 15: Games of love and war, Part I

-Normandy, Comm room

"Does everyone understand what a war game is?"

Commander Jane Shepard looked around at the crew in the comm room. Some of them were nodding, but Liara and Tali had confused looks on their faces.

"A war game is a military exercise that doesn't involve actual combat. It's meant to train soldiers in warfare and test out new strategies. We will be playing some war games to train everyone here on how to better handle themselves in the field. We will split up into two units, a red team and a blue team. Red team will defend, and blue team will infiltrate. Tomorrow, we will switch."

Everyone in the room nodded their understanding, and the commander continued.

"Red team's goal is to neutralize blue team before they infiltrate the base, and blue team's goal is to capture the base with minimal loss of soldiers. Everyone will be provided special rounds for this exercise that will indicate when a soldier has been hit without doing any actual harm. Chief, please pass out the rounds."

Gunnery Chief Williams passed out the clips and took the live ones from the team.

"Each team will have a team lead that will be responsible for coordinating either the attack or the defense. You are expected to follow your team lead's orders. Gunnery Chief Williams will be the team lead for red team and Garrus Vakarian will lead the blue team. Liara, Wrex, and Kaiden will go with Ashley, and Tali and I will go with Garrus."

"Excuse me, Commander. Why am I being made a team lead instead of you?"

"I need you to further develop your decision making skills, Garrus. You are a good soldier, but to be a great soldier you need to be a leader. To learn to be a leader, you need the opportunity to lead. You will lead blue team today."

Garrus nodded, and sat back in his chair.

"Are there any other questions?"

"Yea, do I get to be Commander after my team kicks your ass?"

"Stand down gunny," Shepard replied, smiling. "You'd better be prepared to back up that mouth of yours. I'm even giving you the advantage of more soldiers, so it would be particularly embarrassing for you to lose this one."

Gunnery Chief Williams smiled and nodded. "Don't worry, Commander. We can take you. I know you think you are worth any two soldiers here but I have a few tricks up my sleeve."

"I guess we'll see. Any other questions?"

The rest of the crew shook their heads. Commander Shepard nodded.

"All right then, red team will touch down first and get themselves into position. Once they signal Joker that they are in place, blue team will be dropped in the Mako and the war games will begin. Gather at your team lead and head to the garage. Dismissed."

Everyone got up and started moving toward their team leader, chattering about strategies and what they were going to do. Commander Shepard was pleased with their enthusiasm. Perhaps there was hope after all.

"Commander?"

"What is it Garrus?"

"I'm a little nervous."

"Don't be. These drills are actually kind of fun. It will teach you a lot about working as a team and overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Just keep the team focused on the goal, and we will be fine. Let's head down to the garages and get ready to touch down."

"Where are we touching down, by the way?"

"We'll be playing at a little compound that a friend and I put out of business on Earth a while back. It's a perfect place to set up a war game. It used to be occupied by the Last Corsairs gang, but we took their major meal ticket and they were forced to scatter. I asked the Alliance to keep the compound for military exercises and they agreed it was a good choice. It's been left mostly intact, except for the minor explosion and water damage."

Garrus looked at the commander, and chuckled. "Explosion, huh? It sounds like you and your friend did a little more than put them out of business."

Shepard smiled and thought back fondly to the day Danger almost got her killed. It seemed like so long ago. "Yea, well. It was a pretty hectic day. Anyway, it's situated on a small flattened mountain, so they have a pretty big advantage. We'd be seen on approach from all sides."

"How did you get in the first time?"

"Garrus, trust me when I say you really wouldn't believe me if I told you. In fact, I'm still wondering if the whole thing was just a nightmare or something."

"So no tactical advice then?"

"No, it's really in a difficult position to storm. There's no room for a drop, at least not without them knowing well beforehand that someone is coming and taking appropriate steps. There's only one road leading up to the compound, so that's easily watched. I guess when we get there we'll just have to figure something out."

"All right Commander. We'll survey the situation when we arrive."

Joker cut in, "Commander, red team is signaling they are in position. They're ready for you."

"Thanks Joker, try not to get too lonely without us."

"Don't you worry about that, Commander. I have a backlog of some rather enticing vids to catch up on. I'm looking forward to And Justicars for all in particular."

"Joker, I really don't want to know... We'll see you later."

"Later, Commander."

-Earth, Alliance Training Ground Location: LC1 (Red Team)

Gunnery Chief Williams walked a line in front of her team.

"All right people, fall in. We have some time to go over strategy but I don't want to keep the commander waiting any longer than is necessary. We are in an excellent tactical position here. There is only one road leading up to the compound, and we will only need one soldier to watch it. The rest of us can fortify the base and keep our eyes out for an air approach."

"T'Soni, I want you to climb up on the tower and watch the road. Try to stay out of sight. It's always a good idea to assume the enemy has a skilled sniper, and Shepard happens to be an excellent sharpshooter. Alenko and Wrex, you are both with me. We'll patrol the perimeter and make sure they don't take us by surprise."

Liara nodded once, and then headed for the tower. The others followed Ashley as she inspected the sides of the compound, looking for any weakness.

"It doesn't look like they will have any option but to come up the road. We'll set up patrol there, and there," Ashley said, indicating a break in the walls to the south and an intact catwalk to the east. "They won't come from the north; it's a straight drop down the mountain and unless they plan to take the next few days climbing up it, we shouldn't have to worry about it. We just need to keep our eyes on the road, and make sure Shepard doesn't try anything cute."

"All right Chief. I'll take the catwalk and Wrex can patrol the wall over there," replied Lt. Alenko.

"Good. We have a lot of advantages over their team. We have all the biotics, and we have the advantage of terrain. This should be an easy game to win."

Wrex just nodded, and headed to his post. Alenko did the same, and Ashley went to check on Liara.

She climbed up the tower and crouched down beside the asari. "Are you ok?"

Liara was taken aback at the display of concern. She was certain that the human hated her. "I. I'm fine, Chief Williams."

"These games are meant to teach teamwork, and I just want you to know that I put my personal feelings aside about aliens and humans when we're all in the field."

"I know that, Chief Williams. And I know that Jane respects you and thinks of you as a valuable member of the team. She pushed for your reassignment."

Chief Williams just nodded. It didn't surprise her that the asari thought of the commander as Jane, nor did it surprise her that the woman had insight into the commander's actions.

"Commander Shepard is one of the best officers I have had the privilege to serve under, T'Soni. She's also a good friend. I'd hate to see my friend get hurt…"

Liara understood. It was a warning. The chief clearly cared about the commander, was aware of the relationship, and was warning Liara to tread lightly.

"Chief Williams, I understand. It is not my intention to hurt Commander Shepard. I cannot say for sure what is going to happen, but she is very special to me."

"Good. Keep your eyes on the road. I'm going to signal the Normandy to drop blue team. Good luck, soldier." Chief Williams stood and saluted Liara, and then climbed down out of the tower.

-Earth, Alliance Training Ground Location: Outside LC1 (Blue Team)

Commander Jane Shepard looked out across the same valley she had looked over so many months ago with her friend Danger. The task seemed even more insurmountable this time, most notably because there wasn't anyone on her team as insane as the mercenary. No one here would be trying daring biotic leaps. In fact, no one on her team could even use biotics, so they were going to have to do this the old fashioned way.

"All right team lead, what's the plan?" she asked Garrus.

"Well, I actually had wanted to ask you about this."

"Ask about what?"

"I've been getting these… Packages."

"Packages?"

"Well not me personally. Every time we dock at the Citadel, they bring aboard packages addressed to the chief mechanic. Well, we don't really have one, so I have been opening them. You wouldn't believe the technology. It's all parts for the Mako, some of the most wonderful things I have ever seen."

Commander Shepard smiled. There was only one person in the universe that would be sending her car parts.

"They come addressed from someone named Danger Vance. Who is he?"

"She, actually. Her name is Darla Vance. Danger is just a nickname. She's a human merc friend of mine that I've done missions with over the years. She's into cars."

"Well tell her thanks for all the parts. I've increased the efficiency of the Mako tenfold with some of the things she has sent." He thought for a second, and then asked, "Is she seeing anyone?"

Shepard considered for a minute, and then replied, "You know, Danger is hard to read. She doesn't seem to be officially taken, but she's definitely off the market." Shepard thought about Matriarch Terriana and the whole complicated situation. She wasn't sure how things were progressing with the two, if at all, but she knew that at least from Danger's standpoint, there was clearly no room for anyone else.

"That's too bad. A woman like that, even if she is a human, is too good to pass up."

"All right, so what do these packages have to do with our strategy?"

"This." Garrus started punching things into his Omni-tool, and the car roared to life. Garrus opened the door to reveal a miniature holographic depiction of Danger.

"DIDI, say hello to the Commander. Commander, say hello to DIDI."

"Accessing: Voice Verification Complete. Good morning Chief Mechanic Garrus. How may I assist?"

Shepard slapped her forehead in exasperation. "I can't believe you put that thing in there. That AI is almost as insane as Danger." She looked a little more closely. "And she even made it look like her. What a narcissistic ass."

"Accessing: Voice Verification Complete. Good morning Commander Shepard. I have a message for you from Operative Danger."

"Great. All right, what is the message?"

"The message is: shut up."

"Wonderful. Even when I'm tens of thousands of light years away, I can't escape her wit."

"Commander, this is some of the most advanced stuff I have ever seen. Watch this." Garrus nodded to DIDI, and punched some sequences into his Omni-tool. The car raced to the far side of the field, and started darting in and out of the trees. Realization dawned upon the commander.

"It's some of the best collision detection programming available. She's doing it all with sonic waves bouncing off of biotic fields. She projects a weak biotic field in a massive radius, and then uses the waves to calculate the distance and shape of objects. The car can go up to sixty by itself, and never hit a thing. You'd think that something as primitive as that would have been replaced with something else, optics maybe, but I have never seen anything this efficient that wasn't on a geth drone. It uses barely any power, and can be programmed to go nearly anywhere and adapt to any terrain and conditions. That thing could weave in and out of snowflakes. The added bonus is that the AI seems to be somewhat shackled, so I don't think the car is going to turn on us and join the geth anytime soon. She's kept the programming just this side of sane."

Tali shot him a look, but let the comment slide. She started looking over Garrus' shoulder at his Omni-tool. "That's amazing. How did she come up with this algorithm? Let me see that." She jerked the turian's arm at an impossible angle and started studying the code. "This is brilliant. I need to download a copy of this." She opened her own Omni-tool and started downloading the data.

"Hey, quit hacking me!" Garrus exclaimed.

"I'm not hacking you. I'm hacking this program."

Garrus just shook his head and focused back on the commander. "There's just one other thing." He picked up a box that had what looked like thick discs in it. "I'm not really sure what these are for."

Shepard looked in the box, and looked confused for a moment. Then she took two of the items out, considered their weight, and grinned at Garrus.

"Garrus, the next time we are at the Citadel, remind me to buy both you and Danger a drink."

Garrus smiled back at the Commander, and they all settled around a map to plan the attack.