The Blue Suns merc standing between the Commander and Jedore's compound is gasping like a fish out of water, a tiny trickle of blood drying on his hip. The wound might scab over before Shepard even finishes her interrogation, but the kid certainly thinks he's dying.
"I've got a nice application of medi-gel ready to go. But if you'd rather I just kept walking?" Shepard's voice over the comms is tight with suppressed laughter, and though the vid feeds reveal only the tight lines that Joker thinks of privately as Shepard's 'good cop' face, the smirk is there. (Her 'bad cop' look is less a facial expression, and more the repeated firing of her Carnifex.)
Joker holds in his own laughter until the kid claims that a base full of mercs isn't equipped to fight 'goddamn commandos'.
"Yeah, Commander, how can you expect a planet's worth of armed men to fend off you, Miranda, and Garrus? They'd have to learn to aim the damn weapons."
Shepard smirks, and Garrus gives an open-mouthed grin that has the merc quaking in fear. Turian teeth will do that to the uninitiated.
It's a shame the boy doesn't know anything, because he's the type that spills everything. Though, truth be told, most people are when it comes to the Commander.
Once Shepard's told the poor kid to run, Lawson comes on the comms. "Cerberus protocols discourage unnecessary comm chatter on high-risk operations, Mr. Moreau." He could be wrong, but even Miranda sounds amused.
"High-risk? I think I may have the wrong feeds coming in." Lawson definitely snorts at that.
The frivolity disappears when they find the tank grown Krogan.
It's times like this, when Cerberus sends them out to join forces with madmen, murders, monsters, that it's hardest to accept the hand that feeds them. Cerberus is a soulless master. Some days Joker doubts any of them will escape that taint.
As bad as the child-like Krogan outside is, inside the compound is worse.
The first tipoff to just how monstrous this operation has become is the Asari from Saren's genophage torture labs working the front desk. Shepard lets her go, again, and Joker struggles to choke back his irritation. Shepard gives second chances- it's what she does. He ought to be grateful, as he's operating on one of his own.
When Shepard steps through the lab doors, standing there to greet her is the largest Krogan Joker's ever laid eyes on. He towers over Garrus, shoulder humps rising a foot or more over his head. Bigger than even Wrex, and standing free, not imprisoned as they've been led to believe.
"I take it you're Okeer?" Shepard asks. "You don't seem particularly caged... or grateful that we're here."
"You may claim to be here to help, but the formerly deceased Shepard is not a sign of gentle change." Okeer knows about Virmire. Joker's fists clench in fear.
"Surprised?" The warlord asks. "All Krogan should know you." The grin he gives Shepard is just this side of feral.
Miranda's hand is sparking blue, and Garrus has his riffle pointed at Okeer's head, but the Krogan's shields are still glowing, and even together there's no saying they'll be able to take him down before he can injure the Commander.
Joker pages the shuttle team and doctors to ready.
Shepard, though, seems to feel no fear. She nods, but doesn't palm her gun. A quick glance at his screens show that her shield batteries are reading fifteen percent. Enough to stop one bullet and no more.
Virmire flashes in Joker's mind, the same decision and another angry Krogan Shepard thought she could talk down from homicide. That it worked then means nothing now. Joker doesn't dare breathe.
"But I approve," Okeer says.
The monster begins to monologue. He's set out not to cure but to purify the Krogan race. And worse still, Okeer's been selling his Krogan rejects to the collectors for tech. Shepard's fairy tales were right after all.
Bile rises in Joker's throat, and for a moment he thinks he might have to make a blind run for the head.
The human consideration for the disabled is rare in the galaxy, he knows. He can remember with burning clarity General Invectus' sneer as he claimed no cripple would ever pilot a Turian ship. He's seen the way the Batarians recoil from his crutches like he carries a contagion. The citadel is not home to a single disabled Asari or Salerian, and what are the odds of that if all else is equal?
"Weaklings," Okeer says about the Krogans he's rejected. Joker knows the rhetoric. Cripple. Gimp. Freak.
His skin flushes with anger, but action is not his to take. Shepard will mete out justice, and he'll pick her up afterward. It's not perfect, but it's enough.
The Commander studies the Krogan for a long moment, and then she smiles. It's a little dangerous at the edges, the sort of smirk she saves for slavers and Cerberus scientists.
But then Shepard offers the monster a place on her team. She tells him he's worthy because he knows how to deconstruct a problem. She runs to kill Jedore at Okeer's bidding.
The merc boss might not be better than Okeer, but she's sure as fuck not worse.
Gas fills the control center, and Joker watches as EDI's survival probability for Okeer ticks downward. EDI attempts to override the base's infrastructure controls, but the system is too old and piecemeal for her databank's coverage. Joker takes his hands from the console and watches. After a moment, he rescinds the page to Chakwas and Mordin. They won't be necessary.
EDI finds an override, just as Shepard takes down Jedore. It comes too late to save Okeer, comes too late for his pure ideals to torture anymore imperfect children.
The Commander radios for a retrieval of the package, and Joker stays on deck long enough to see Shepard and her tanked Krogan safely on the ship. Then he calls up his relief and heads to crew quarters. The Commander can do whatever the fuck she wants with her perfect genetic specimen, but if she expects him to watch, well-
Two hours later, Joker can't for the life of him decide whether his anger with Shepard is justified or not. He'd like to throw himself into work, but since he stalked away from helm like a child with a temper tantrum, he's stuck with the job he enjoys a lot less. Another thing to be pissed at Shepard about.
His first stop is the med-bay, because the Doc is a lot less irritating than everyone else on this damn ship.
No. The ship is very nice. The Doc is a lot less irritating than everyone else on this damn Cerberus crew.
When the doors cycle open, Joker's treated to the sight of the Commander's bare back, Chakwas stretching to grab something from the medicine cabinet beside her.
Shepard turns her head, and on seeing him smiles, but the motion calls his attention to the still darkening bruises up the line of her spine. She'd been fine during debrief.
"What the fuck did you do?" he asks, temper sharp on his tongue. Chakwas' face falls in unconcealed shock, and the Commander blinks. Twice. Joker debates adding a belated ma'am, but decides it would only serve to highlight his disrespect. Anyway, injured or not, he's still pissed at Shepard and doesn't care if she knows.
"Let our baby Krogan out of his tank. He felt the need to challenge my authority as his Commander," Shepard places the barest emphasis on the last word, just enough to call him out on his behavior. "The situation is resolved now. Our new crewman's name is Grunt."
Right, because of course she thought that letting a potentially violent Krogan out of his tank all by herself was the way to go. And of course the Krogan was now a member of the team. Guess perfect genes were a free pass pretty much everywhere.
Perfect human, perfect cyborg, and now perfect fucking Krogan.
Chakwas opens the salve and gives him a pointed glare. Joker only realizes he's staring when Shepard asks, "Will you meet me in my quarters in fifteen, Lieutenant?"
"Aye, aye, Ma'am."
By the time she reaches her room, he's once again laid claim to her swivel chair, though this time he sits straight and stiff.
"You're pissed," she says as the doors close behind her. "Tell me why."
Pieces of equipment drop as she crosses the room, revealing the body hugging suit beneath. Perfect fucking cyborg. It's an ungenerous thought, but one Joker can't let go of. Shepard's been nearly naked in front of him twice in the last hour, and Joker's still so frustrated it barely even registers.
The anger is mostly gone now, and he just feels weary. It is not his job, he tells himself, to play disabled informant to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who can't be bothered to think for even one minute what it might be like. It's not his fucking job to explain why people like Okeer are too evil to invite along.
It's not his fucking job.
"Okeer," he says.
She sighs. "What about Okeer?" Shepard has no fucking right to sound upset with him.
"You thought I'd be okay with inviting him along? Oh, bring on the genocidal maniacs!" He lets the chair spin so he's no longer facing her. "Please, more of the people who think I'm a waste of valuable air."
The last of Shepard's boots hits the locker with a bang. "And what was I supposed to say, Joker? That I was planning to wring every drop of Collector intel from him before handing him over to the Alliance? I needed his cooperation. I needed him alive."
Her gun cases thud heavily against the table, one clatters open and spills its contents on the floor. Shepard glares. "Of course he was a monster. Of course he wasn't going to be a member of the team. Who do you think I am?"
Realization of his own stupidity drips like ice water down his spine. Shit. Shit. Shit.
"You think I'm a proponent of racial purification now? That I think what he was doing to those children was alright?
"I'm sor-"
"No," Shepard says. "Why did you think I was okay with what was happening down there, Jeff?"
He opens his mouth to reply, only to realize he has no fucking clue. Why didn't he trust her? Why did he assume the worst?
EDI saves him the need to answer. "Mr. Moreau, we are experiencing unusual gravitational pull on our FTL course. Officer Hawthorne requests your presence in the cockpit."
He needs to say something, but no words come.
"Go." Shepard waves him off. "Just go."
Her closed door isn't enough to muffle the thud of fist against metal as he waits for the elevator to descend.