Chapter 12
Getting out of her blood-stained rags and into fresh clothes should've gone further towards improving Miranda's mood, but as she stepped back out into the bright sunlight of Typhoon's afternoon, her thoughts were still troubled. Even the fact that the pain in her side was down to a dull ache wasn't enough to banish the unease she felt at what had just passed between her and Jack.
"You good there, cheerleader?" the convict asked, and Miranda could hear some of the same disquiet in her voice.
Not that I blame her. What the hell was I thinking, staring at her like that?
"Fine," she said, trying to keep her answer brief without being rude. Whatever that strange moment had been, this was hardly the time to dwell on it. She ignored the unwelcome urge inside herself and cleared her throat. "We should get moving again. The prison break gives us a distraction, but it may not last forever."
"Yeah, sure," Jack replied. She wasn't making eye contact, instead looking off at what remained of the city's skyline. "Least this asshole shouldn't be too hard to find."
Miranda joined her in looking up at the massive tower where Ford was supposed to be holed up. It was still some distance away, but indeed, getting lost along the way wouldn't be a problem. Getting inside on the other hand… But that was a problem for when they reached their destination. First, they had to survive the trip.
There was an eerie silence as they walked through the streets, a contrast to the totalitarian cheer they had encountered on previous days. Whatever people might've lived in this part of the city had either been evacuated or were hiding from the chaos she and Jack had let loose. Nor did either of them seem to feel like speaking.
The commercial district soon gave way to a residential one. Though the houses had the slightly tacky look of colonial prefab construction, they were larger than most, and Miranda could tell that once upon a time, this had been an upscale part of the city, home to representatives of major corporations, high-ranking officials, and other persons of note. Now, though, it lay in ruins. Craters and scorch marks indicated that a battle had been waged through these streets, and most of the houses were little more than a collection of free-standing walls, unfit for human habitation.
"Guess money doesn't do you much good when the Reapers show up," Jack said suddenly.
"No," Miranda agreed. "I suppose not." Indeed, she had lost count of how many associates from her old life as a daughter of the best society had been killed after Earth was invaded. Most, she had not seen in years and cared little for, but it was somehow still shocking that their world of wealth and privilege had crumbled so swiftly and completely. Typhoon, it seemed, was no different.
As they walked down the street, the damage became less extensive, but though there were more houses standing, no one emerged from them to greet or challenge the pair. At last, they reached a park, smaller than the one Ford's public execution had been staged in, but still decorated in those strange, quasi-religious Cerberus designs. Or at least it had been. Here, it seemed that the fighting here was more recent. Banners that must have been put up after the Reaper attack had been torn back down, while benches had been smashed to pieces and grass ripped up.
"Looks like we missed the party, cheerleader," Jack commented with a wry smile as they moved towards the center of the park.
"So it seems." Miranda's hand fell to the pistol holstered at her hip. No telling if a few guests might have lingered.
Jack stopped before a grand mural that had been painted on the side of an apartment complex. The golden Cerberus logo was hardly visible behind the red words scrawled in various alien languages. Miranda recognized the turian and asari scripts immediately; they might have been written in different languages but their messages were the same.
"You know what this crap says, right?"
"Exactly what you think it does." Miranda's voice was hollow.
Jack crossed her arms. "What's up with you? You act like all this is a bad thing." She gestured to the destruction. "Fuck Cerberus, remember?"
Miranda's gaze turned to the body of a human man laying face down in the grass, two hole in his back. "I just can't shake the feeling we traded one devil for another."
"If it gets us to Ford, who gives a shit what they do? Let 'em burn it all."
"The galaxy was able to stop the Reapers because we put our differences aside for once and worked together. With everything we're seeing… it's like we learned nothing. We stumbled from one war into another without even missing a beat."
Jack rolled her eyes. "We're here to kill someone, Miranda, not fix the fucking galaxy."
"Without Cerberus, what do you think will happen to the humans left on this planet?"
"The hell do I care? That's not our problem. If there's one thing I've learned lately, it's that nobody on this rock is worth saving."
Miranda turned to face her partner. She wanted to disagree but that was more on principle than anything else. Honestly, Jack might be right. As she tried to form any sort of response she found her attention was focusing away from the whole issue and instead settling on the convict's big, brown eyes.
Dammit.
Suddenly a gunshot cut through the eerie silence, saving Miranda from the distraction. Her attention snapped in the direction of the sound, no more than a few blocks away.
Jack un-holstered her weapon. "Maybe we didn't miss all the fun after all. Should we check it out?"
She shrugged. "It could be relevant."
Tracking down the source of the gunshot proved easy when it was followed by five identical blasts. They led the pair into what used to be an outdoor concert venue at one end of the park, and Miranda and Jack ducked down behind the first row of seats in the pavilion when they found their source.
A group of a dozen or so humans were corralled into a tight circle like cattle in the center of the stage. Miranda scanned their terrified, tear-stained faces and found only women and children still alive, all of them dressed in Cerberus colors. Laying face down in growing puddles of blood were the bodies of five men, massive gunshot wounds in the back of their heads.
Surrounding the humans was a group of six, heavily armed aliens. Four turians stood with Cerberus-issue assault rifles aimed at the crowd while a krogan loomed beside an asari with an Omni-Blade glowing on her wrist.
"Who's next?" the asari asked her captives.
"Please!" one of the humans cried. "Just let us go. We didn't do anything to you"
"Your fate is in your hands, you pieces of human trash," a turian replied, contempt evident in the way his mandibles twitched. "If anyone wants to tell us about the military deployments in this area, they just might live. Otherwise, we'll have to make a few more examples." He gestured with his rifle in the direction of the corpses, and the surviving humans began whimpering and sobbing.
Miranda ducked back down behind the row of seat as Jack did the same. She saw the conflict flicker across Jack's gorgeous, brown eyes. "Six hostiles," Miranda pointed out. "We could just let it go. Do we really need the trouble?"
She suspected Jack knew exactly what she was doing. A part of her felt guilting testing the convict like this, but she needed to know, one way or the other, if she was really as callous as she'd seemed earlier.
"Maybe one of them knows how to get us into Ford's tower," Jack whispered.
"Doubtful. They look like civilians in spite of the clothes."
Jack tightened a fist and sat in silent thought before peeking her head back over their cover. She watched as one of the turians snatched a young woman by the hair and dragged her to her feet.
"How 'bout you, human? You feel like talking?". The young woman could only cry out in fear. Her terror seemed to amuse the turian, but before he or anyone else could speak again, another voice cut in.
"They don't know anything, you dumb fucks!"
Six pairs of alien eyes whipped in a single direction just as Miranda's did the same. Much to her surprise, Jack had stood up straight, and she had pistol trained on the aliens, while a blue crackle of biotic energy lit up the air around her. Miranda did the same, though she avoided aiming at anyone in particular. Maybe this didn't have to turn into into another slaughter.
"More Cerberus scum!" the same turian growled, levelling his assault rifle.
"Septimias, wait." One of his fellows put a hand on the gun barrel before he could fire. "Don't you recognize them?"
"They all look the same to me," Septimias declared with a derisive snort. "Ugly, squishy, and better off dead."
"No, you idiot." Now it was the asari who spoke. Irritation was clear on a light blue face that might have been pretty if it wasn't smeared in blood. "They're the ones from the prison, who started the break-out. Can't you see it?"
Septimias squinted. "Heh, I think you're right. Thanks for that. So, what do you two want now?"
Before Miranda could decide on the best way to answer that question, Jack spoke. "For you assholes to stop shooting a bunch of civies who don't know shit about shit. Nobody hates Cerberus more than me, but do you really think some little girl knows what Ford is planning?"
"Well, then I guess we don't need them for anything, do we?" the krogan rumbled. He raised his shotgun, pointing it in the direction of the children, and then everything seemed to happen at once.
The biotic energy that had been gathering around Jack snapped outward, and a massive shockwave flew from her towards the aliens. The krogan and three of the turians were all hurled from their feet as if they were made of cardboard, but even as they fell the other one swung his assault rifle up, opening fire on them. The asari meanwhile was screaming, "Stop it, you idiots," but no one was listening to her.
Jack's barriers absorbed the first burst from the turian without letting any shots through, and on reflex, Miranda put two bullets into his head before he could let off a second one. She hadn't been sure she wanted this to turn into a battle, but Jack had made a choice, and Miranda wouldn't leave her to see it through alone.
One of the other turians had recovered his bearings sufficiently to return fire, and when the shots raked across her barriers, Miranda winced at the impacts. She wasn't the biotic that Jack was, but her shields were at least sufficient to get her back behind the chairs with her hide intact.
Up on the stage, everything was in chaos. Some of the humans were running for their lives, some stood paralyzed by fear, and a couple dove on the weapons that had been dropped by the fallen turians.
The newly-armed civilians opened fired on their erstwhile attackers, unleashing a hail of gunfire on a turian who just managed to recover his bearings. The alien was torn to ribbons instantly, spraying blue blood all over the krogan, who had finally gotten back on his feet as well. The civilians shot what remained of their clips into the large beast, which only succeeding in sending the krogan into a blood rage. He smashed into the crowd, tossing humans aside with terrifying ease, but his rampage was cut short when Miranda sunk a well placed shot into the stiff ridge of his head. The beast wasn't stopped though, leaping off the stage and charging at her with a blood-curdling battle cry.
Miranda let loose a rapid series of shots that hit her target dead in the center of his chest, but she still found herself pacing backwards as her sixth round impacted on the seemingly undeterred krogan. Her heart raced in her chest as she pulled the trigger on the seventh and final shot in her thermal clip.
The bullet hit the krogan right between his eyes and sent his brains erupting out of the top of his thick skull. His body collapsed forward, landing just three feet from Miranda. Once she caught her breath, she looked up in time to see Jack's biotics hurling the asari into the concert hall's backdrop with enough force to stop a speeding train. The woman landed with a bloody explosion as she was pancaked on the wall.
With the aliens dead, Jack's body ceased to glow blue and she lowered her weapon. Yet before she or Miranda could open their mouths to speak, two of the Cerberus civilians turned their guns on them.
"It's her!" The dark haired woman aimed her shotgun at Miranda. "The one the savior needs!"
"Miranda Lawson and Subject Zero." The other armed civilian confirmed their identities. "The traitors."
"Are you fucking kidding me?!" Jack spat. "We just saved your dumb asses!"
Miranda kept her gun trained on the armed women. "It's in your best interests to lower your weapons. As my friend said, we just rescued you."
"We… we should take them back to Father Ford," the woman said, but there was a hesitancy in her voice now.
"The savior only wants this Lawson person…"
The other woman turned her aim to Jack but then one of the other civilians on stage cried out, "Drop your guns!"
Miranda's attention turned to the young woman with red hair who just a few moment prior had been snatched up by the turian, whose gun was now aimed at her own people. "I said drop it!"
"Are you crazy?" the fanatical woman in her crosshairs spat. "Ford said…"
"Ford didn't save us, they did. Screw what he says, drop your gun or else!"
"Or else what?" the woman snarled, before her knee exploded in a spray of gore.
Smoke was rising from the barrel of Jack's pistol. "You were warned. Next one blows your Cerberus brains out."
Miranda shifted her aim even as the other once-armed civilian dropped her gun and backed away with her hands up. "Hey, no need for that. We can be reasonable."
"So I see," Miranda smirked. The other members of the crowd raised their hands as well, and Miranda was stunned to see Jack lower her weapon in response.
The redhead stepped forward to address her rescuer. "You're after Ford? Why?"
"Alliance business," Miranda answered non-committally.
"The Alliance abandoned us!" one of the members of the crowd cried.
Jack snorted. "The navy didn't abandon shit. They thought the Reapers wiped the whole colony out."
"Cerberus attempted to stop Commander Shepard from destroying the Reapers. The Illusive Man was one of their puppets, and Anthony Ford is no savior," Miranda explained. "You've been manipulated."
"Not all of us," the redhead answered. "Sure, it might have been easier to put on this stupid outfit once Cerberus started to take over, but I never believed a word that came out of that crazy old man's mouth."
"Me either," another member of the crowd piped up and a few more voices joined in agreement. Miranda wasn't sure if she believed them, or if they were merely going along with what now seemed to be convenient. Either way, though, they seemed unlikely to try and shoot her and Jack for the time being.
"The Alliance sent you to save us?" someone from the crowd asked.
"Something like that."
Save you from Cerberus anyway. I doubt they give a damn about what the alien prisoners do.
"There's children here... families. This war between Cerberus and the aliens has to stop before it kills us all," the redhead said. "The Alliance has to send aid!"
"We're all the support you're getting," Jack told her as she came up beside Miranda. "I know you guys have your problems, but the whole galaxy has gone to shit. They don't have anything to spare."
The redhead's face fell and Miranda added, "But we're not going anywhere until this is finished. So, please, what can you tells us about Ford?"
"Just that he never leaves that tower. Rumor is that he stays on the top floor, but I've never been there. None of us has. That placed of his is locked up tight, guarded by all kinds of stuff."
"What kind of security are we talking about?"
"Mechs. A couple Atlas suits. And a lot of troops. Not like the ones you find out here in the outer city either."
Miranda raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"They're...odd. Don't know how to explain it but something is going on in that tower. Sorry, but there's not much more we can offer."
Miranda holstered her weapon. "Thank you. You've given us plenty."
Those special troops could be some kind of Reaper alters. That did seem to be the Illusive Man's favorite hobby; turning human beings into monsters.
"No, thank you. If you two hadn't showed up, we'd all be dead."
After a nod, Miranda made for the exit to the park and Jack closely followed behind her. "What was that you were saying before?" she asked the biotic, a teasing note in her voice. She only got an annoyed huff in response, and Miranda continued, more sincere now, "I'm impressed, Jack. There was hardly a moment's hesitation before you risked your life to save those people."
Jack shrugged. "I didn't risk anything. Those idiots couldn't keep up with me."
"Perhaps not. Still...it was brave, heroic even."
"Yeah, you can bake me a cake after we kill Ford. Until then, let's cut the shit," Jack said.
Her words, though, were accompanied with a nervous laugh, and Miranda couldn't help but notice the way her heart fluttered at the sound. Her eyes fell to Jack's lips, and from there, they began following the muscles of her tattooed arms down towards her hands.
Stop.
Miranda looked forward once more. In the distance, Ford's tower still loomed over them. The sun rose behind the spire, casting a long shadow over the city. She told herself to concentrate on the mission. Indulging this foolish urge would get them both killed. She'd never had feelings like this for another woman and they were as confusing as they were inopportune. Yet despite it all, Miranda couldn't help herself. Foolish as it might be, this feeling was the closest thing to happiness Miranda had found in months.
In that moment, in the middle of a war torn city street with the bodies of humans and aliens strewn about, with the stench of blood and battle thick in the air, with the odds of their survival distressingly long, Miranda Lawson smiled. However, her expression vanished a moment later when she reminded herself that Jack would never feel the same way.
Or would she? There've been moments, haven't there?
Before Miranda could think on it more, a sudden boom cut through the air. A massive fireball erupted just a few blocks north of them and a thick cloud of black smoke plumed into the air. Jack and Miranda froze in their tracks, their ears ringing from the blast as a small fleet of troop shuttles soared through the blinding smoke. The city-wide comm sprang to life once more and Miranda heard the same voice she'd quickly come to despise. The voice of Anthony Ford.
"The alien menace in our city has chosen to repay our mercy with war and violence. The time has come for our response. For too long we've tolerated the snakes in our Eden. Soon Cerberus will take back our home, and every one of you has a part to play. Cleanse our city and bring me Miranda Lawson. Together we will ensure humanity rises to it's rightful place in the galaxy. Divided we will fall into an abyss from which there will be no return. Make your choice."
Notes- Thanks for reading. As always I hope you will share your thoughts on the chapter and Miranda and Jack's relationship with us in the comments. The newest chapter of Rise of the Asari is also live now.