Back about the prison ship...
Shepard didn't have to search for his quarry so much as follow in her wake of destruction which was a nice change of pace, for the most part. The new experience was tarnished by his target taking every opportunity to slow his pursuit. The maintenance tunnel she'd sprinted down was strewn with twisted off bulkheads and warped ruptures in the walls venting steam and other assorted mists in the air. It took them almost five minutes to negotiate the narrow corridor that Jack had rushed down in twenty seconds. Already Shepard was feeling tension as he'd hear the sounds of violence petering out as it started to go beyond his range of hearing.
"C'mon, she's going to get killed or run off." Miranda heard the tension in his orders and was able to allay one concern almost immediately.
"Shepard, Edi couldn't access their security protocols, so no luck with their new name, but she was able to access the emergency evacuation protocols, she's locked down all lifepods until we can either clear them or find our convict."
"Edi."
"Yes, Commander?"
"Good job with the pods, tell Joker you're now above him in authority." A weak "Jerk!" was heard as Edi relayed the comment back to Joker.
Shepard took the commentary with good grace, chuckling as he finally levered himself over the last beam and neared a hole blasted into the maintenance tunnel wall. Poking his head out for a moment, he jumped back as he saw a blur of movement towards him. He'd just gotten back into cover as a one by two by two meter bulkhead connector impacted the edge of the hole, it's fourteen thousand newtons of force tearing a large strip of metal three meters long and half as wide through the tunnel wall, the coupling bouncing a few more times before coming to a rest less than a meter from the pylon Miranda had ducked behind. Everyone stared for a moment, just in shock as calm evaluation of their quarry's abilities was rapidly becoming horror at what she could do.
Another quick peek showed the path to be clear, the tunnel opening onto a same two level common area, currently filled with the remains of Jack's amusement. Bodies lay strewn about, some horribly twisted, literally having their upper torso's snapped about to look at their rears, while others appear to have been ground into paste against the side walls. Large smears of blue and red blood showed in several streaks were she'd ground people, eraser-like, against the ship's hull until the stringy remains were apparently tossed at other assailants in a hail of bone and meat.
A low whimper near the hole came from a guard who lay bent over backwards, his legs spastically twitching ever few seconds near his ears, by the look of things his crushed armor about his waist the only thing keeping his body in a single piece. The large dent on his helmet showed where he'd been lifted and slammed with incredible force against the deck plating. Even Shepard, who'd become mostly inured to the wails of combat and the dying, couldn't just keep moving. He waved to gain Garrus' attention before indicating the merc and waving a hand in finality.
He continued to walk through the area, always checking around corners before jumping into cover. It was perhaps a spectacle to dive in fear of nonexistent enemies, but he'd long ago learned that the battle field was no place to sweat looking stupid. Better to duck and whine than to walk into a hail of gunfire. A rhythmic thumping from a adjacent passage drew them into a connecting passage to the next commons, the thumping coming from a severed leg that had been shoved into some power feeds, twitching against the wall as electricity arced through the dying nerves.
Miranda and Garrus caught up a second later, Miranda giving the foot a look of disgust before using her biotics to toss the limb further down the passage. Seeing the lights in the area immediately die down as the limb flew past, Shepard whipped around to glare at the operative. "Why did you do that?"
"Get rid of the twitching limb because it was obviously shorting some main power feeds? Probably because the smell was making me think of Rupert's supper last night and I was hoping to avoid vomiting in the middle of a fight." She raised her eyebrows at him, only noticeable as his helmet provided scant illumination, as though wondering what rationale he'd have for ignoring it.
"Next time just leave it. I've seen too many jury rigged 'jumper wires' to starters and det. packs, unless it twitches and keeps kicking you in the head, leave it for clean up." His tone not one of aggression or bitterness, just letting her know the reasons. He realized despite everyone's strong military associations, not everyone they were picking up were special forces trained. He began to wonder if he or Garrus should do a twice a week refresher over SOP and communications until everyone was on the same page.
"Shepard, not everyone has our experience with the Thorian or Geth and their usage of bodies as triggers and distractions, we might want to take a day in the next few weeks to get everyone-"
"Everyone on the same page?" Shepard interrupted, looking at the Turian with a smirk.
Seeing the look, Garrus threw out,"Thinking the same thing again?"
"Seriously, is there some Cerberus display on the back of my scalp just displaying my current train of thought?"
Miranda smiled at the thought before replying,"Nope, ran out of money getting the full options package, next time you die though, we'll make sure it gets addressed."
"Full options package?" Shepard threw out teasingly. "Like what options?"
Speaking seriously for a moment, Miranda replied, "Enhanced night vision, neural to nerve interfaces to help with aim and reaction speeds, obviously we buffed the strength a bit." Looking back at Shepard, she added for effect,"The camera and audio receivers were inlaid in subcutaneous implants, so we could avoid having to rely on helmet camera logs."
Not sure if she was joking, Shepard tried to blow off the insecure feeling, but had to ask,"So what, the Illusive Man gets his jollies at seeing me take my morning piss."
"Essentially, Commander, though I imagine much more of his time is spent watching you watch cartoons than focused on your standard bodily functions."
"Not that all of this unnerving the Commander chatter isn't fun, but shouldn't we be trying to catch up to the biotic currently tearing apart the ship before she steals our ride out of here." Garrus looked between the two who'd stopped their back and forth to give annoyed looks at Garrus. "Fine, be that way, let's talk about other things; Miranda, what do you use on your hair? Any tips for my fringe?"
She snorted before waving a hand at Shepard, who humphed before turning back towards their objective.
-.
Jack was getting pissed, again, and while that'd not normally be something worth noting, her reason this time was lack of progress. She'd easily made her way through the adjoining commons areas to reach the last bottleneck before the administrative areas. Thinking to trap the Warden in a reinforced office, she'd been caught out in the open as a strike team had opened up on her from elevated positions along both sides of the room. She'd jumped behind a crate near the entrance, barely making it in time to keep her barrier up, she tried to harry a few with lobbed warps and lifts, but their positioning left her unable to reach them, while every time she exposed herself, she drew the bead of twenty or so assault rifles.
Looking back to see if she could go around, she spotted the group that had been hanging around in the control room coming up behind her. It blocked her escape backwards, and her debris left in her wake kept her from tossing the lot five meters back with a throw. She was trapped and could already envision the warden giving her shackles a couple of prods to shock her before he sent her back to her stasis-hell. She'd begun to glow with rage, about to let off a omni-directional shock wave to give herself a little room, when she noticed her flanking squad wasn't even bothering to aim at her.
Instead, the female in a skin tight suit and a turian with a fucked up face sprinted by her to slide behind cover under one side of the room, their quick peeks to rattle shots off at the other side of the room quickly leaving her left side clear. A large thump sounded out of the crate she'd leaned her head against, the soldier in black having landed in cover with a flourish only a FNG could be stupid enough to play at. Fucking moron actually took off his helmet to look her in the face, his brown eyes seeming to switch between mockery and curiosity a couple times as he looked for any bloody patches dotting her form.
Seeing the biting snarl to her teeth and a small twinge to her eyes that screamed weariness Shepard reached back to his armaments, unclipping his shotgun and passing it over. "Here, never use the bitch anyways, enjoy." Seeing the shock on her face at being given a weapon, he threw off a flippant salute before reseating his helmet and proceeding to sprint down the middle of the room, drawing fire from both sides. He, be a complete fucking moron, wasn't even trying to avoid the hits, just running in a straight line to reach the opposite end of the room to settle into a small grouping of crates. Thinking he'd just run off to let his squad die, Jack did impossible of getting angrier, crossing the divide in the room within a millisecond to reach the other cover, she was suprised to find him peering down the room at his team, murmuring to them in measured calm.
Seeing the convict burst upon him, Shepard was able to avoid flinching like a little girl, his rifle only shifting a few millimeters off target as he glanced at her. Seeing the look on her face put tension on his bowel, but he quickly dismissed that to continue his discussion with his turian partner. "Sight high left first, then odds, I'll take the right and evens." A small click sounded, all the affirmation he needed before starting,"Five, four, three..."
A small biotic field was tossed at the mercs opposing Miranda and Garrus, a moment later the lift field slighly budging the crates behind which the team above were crouched. Seeing the slight movement, Shepard tossed out his own warp, the biotics opposing each other and detonating, crushing one merc as he was pinned against the railing and two more to be flung over the edge. The seven remaining tried to dive into cover again, but were stopped at precision sniper fire quickly took out both men on the ends, before alternating between the targets.
"Pussies." came a mocking comment from Jack as she watched.
Shepard looked over to see the girl eyeing him, "Yeah, they're pretty fucking lame, huh?"
"Not them, you guys, seriously, was that the best you got?" Shepard smirked a little, hidden behind his visor, and waved a have-at-it gesture to the convict, who could finally focus on the group on the walkway above the others. "Tell your buddies they better move."
With that, Shepard relayed the message, a moment later feeling as though he were standing too close to the drive core, the glow of channeled biotic energy lighting the area like a torch, as Jack reached out. The walkway the snipers were hiding on suddenly wretched to the left before dropping a few meters, the mercs momentary weightlessness enough for her to grab the lo in a single lift field in one hand. In the other she twitched a couple of fingers, the movement targeting the merc on the left, his screams as he was jerked lasting a moment before he impacted the side wall of the bay with a thump that was felt through the soles of everyone's boots. His head seemed to pop under the massive loads, his body tumbling down while a small part of his visor seemed to have become embedded in the wall. Seeing her glance over at him, he gave a hurry up gesture while looking bored.
"Fine, it's not like there's ever been a shortage of dumbasses." Jack stated, before lobbing the rest of the group up, then slamming them back down into the twisted walkway, the whole mess collapsing in a meter high pile of debris and fleshy bits.
Shepard, glad that she'd told him to move his people, waved them over before turning to the very tense looking woman next to him, her near bald scalp shining with sweat from the exertion though she had only slightly deepened her breathing. "Very nice, Jack. I bet you're wondering why we decided to let you out."
"Not really."
Looking at her for a moment, thrown a bit by her sudden shift from gleeful carnage to subdued boredom, Shepard tried a different tact. "Well, we're going up against the Collectors, and we'll need someone with your strengths to make it through."
"Whatever, fuck 'tard, you helped, so you live a while," Jack started before turning to the warden's offices,"so long as you keep out of my way, I'll might even hear what you have to say, but not before we find that turian piece of shit and lock him in a stasis cell to waste away eternity."
"Well...what the hell, that bitch was getting on my nerves, too." Looking over at his team, he glanced at both of them, both having made it through unscathed," Miranda, head on back, comm Edi, Mordin, Katsumi, and Grunt, have them start prepping for us to leave, and have the others start pushing a path through whatever guards are left. Me, Garrus, and Jack will wrap up things and be back in twenty. Keep me in the loop if something happens."
"Of course, Shepard."came Miranda's mellow response, probably thinking about the long shower she'd demand after the mission was concluded. Looking back at the warped walkway's remains, Miranda shook her head slightly before marching very calmly though the broken bodies and debris.
"Shepard? Like The Shepard?" came the slightly shocked look from Jack, her response making Shepard grin and Garrus slap his back and he chuckled,"See, I told you we should get a t-shirt or repaint your armor with the word "The" in big white letters. At least it's another fighter and not another Conrad Verner."
"Stow it, Vakarian, you can talk when you own up to that 'Archangel' crap that was so popular."
"Oh, but I couldn't compete with you, Shepard, you even have a doll."
"Action figure, and you're just jealous."
Seeing the two stop to poke fun, Jack just punched the nearest one in the chest, happening to be Garrus, saying,"Quit with the fucking dancing, fuck your girlfriend later, I want to see that bastard chained." before she stalked down the admin hall, Garrus and Shepard shaking their heads at each other before quietly following.