"I'm telling you, there's something out there." Joker pulled at his collar, sweating under the stifling heat. It seemed whenever they fixed one problem, two more appeared. As a result, a week had passed and the Normandy was no closer to flying. Gabby was starting to lose faith in her abilities, Ashley was climbing the walls with impatience, and Joker found himself struggling to keep the fighting to a minimum. His nonchalant attitude was tougher to keep up each day, and an overwhelming surge of hopelessness was consuming them all.
"There's nothing out there but mosquitoes. I'm not checking again. Even my bites have bites." James said, almost snapping at him, but not quite. It was still early after all. The pair were stood by the galaxy map. James held open the vent, Joker held the tool kit, and Kevin worked beneath them, grumbling under his breath about the unreliability of fans.
"You wouldn't have to check if we could get the radar to work." He muttered, frustrated.
"Not enough power and you know it. It was either the radar or the distress signal. Which one would you rather have?"
He huffed. The alliance should have gotten the distress signal by now, yet their rescuers had failed to make an appearance. It left the ragged crew at a loss of what to do. Shepard, no doubt, would have had a plan. If she'd been here to lead they'd be off planet by now. Maybe with a few alien hostages for an extra bonus, making their way back to Earth to warn the others and become heroes.
But Shepard wasn't here. The rescue mission hadn't even gotten underway, and no one had to say the words they were all thinking.
Shepard was dead.
He gritted his teeth. No, don't think like that. Not until you know for sure.
"My legs ache." He said, bored, and with nothing to do but irritate the marine who could easily snap him like a twig.
"Hm."
"And I'm hungry."
"Joker."
"Spanner!" Kevin demanded below them, clearly unhappy with his helpers for the day and their incessant need to complain.
Joker rummaged in the tool box, found the spanner in question, and then tossed it down the hole without much thought.
"OW!"
"Sorry!" He said, smirking. "How do you think the girls are faring?"
"They ain't. Ashley and Jack are refusing to work together." James admitted. The pair had butted heads for the final time two nights ago, fighting over the breakfast table while the others tried to pry them off each other. "I think Ashley's with Gabby in the engine room. Jack was keeping the doc company."
"Lucky Chakwas." He drawled.
The pilot and the solider sniggered, whilst their engineer continued to mutter underneath the floor, pulling at wires.
"Fecking piece of clap trap... eejit ship, fecking fecker, slot in…" there was a flicker, a spark from below, and then the galaxy map hummed to life. Joker and James gave out an obligated cheer, and Kevin looked rather pleased with himself as he clambered back on deck, face speckled with oil and wiping his hands on a rag.
"Nice work, señor! I knew you could do it." James said, letting go of the vent and rising to his full height.
"Now we can finally figure out which sector we're in." Joker beamed, limping up to the stand that was usually Shepard's place. No. No. Don't think about it. He typed on the control panel with nimble fingers, the others waited for answers with baited breath.
A flicker, and then not only did the galaxy map shut down in front of them, but the entire ship turned dark. Lights went out with a groan from the Normandy, and an eerie silence filled the room.
"Oh no..."
"Joker! What did you do?! I had just fixed it! Just fixed it!"
"I didn't do anything!"
"You must have pressed something!"
He struggled to climb back down in the darkness, and could hear a clatter as Kevin tripped over the tool box, cursing loudly.
Another rattle silenced them all, and goose bumps prickled his skin while fear churned his gut. Joker was no fighter. "That came from outside." He whispered, wondering where James was stood in the darkness, stepping closer to where he assumed.
They heard a scrabbling above them, then the unmistakable creak of hinges being loosened. Anger replaced his fear, and Joker gasped as he realised whatever it was, it was taking pieces of the Normandy with it. "They're messing with my – our ship! James, do something!"
"I can't see shit, what do you want me to do?"
The lights flickered back to life just as Ashley made it to the top of the stairs, bursting into the bridge panting. They blinked at each other for a few seconds, eyes adjusting, before she turned into her solider mode once again. All business. "Whats going on? Why'd the lights go out?"
"I dunno." Joker answered honestly, staring at the ceiling. "But whoever's out there... they fixed it."
The soldiers shared a stony glance, and with a little nod from Ashley they both unloaded their rifles, heading as a pair towards the airlock without a word needed between them.
"Wait! Hold on!" Joker tugged on her arm, ignoring the way she snatched it back. Being stranded on an alien planet was a wonderful way to lose all your patience. "Let's see what they do next."
"Are you mad?"
"Maybe. But they are fixing everything." As if to prove his point, the galaxy map turned on once again with a purr, and everyone froze as the clattering above continued, getting louder.
"Robots..." Joker whispered, transfixed. The others rolled their eyes.
"What is it with you and robots?"
"SHH!"
Clatter, rattle, bang. And then the air conditioning was rumbling to life.
"Amazing." Joker said. They'd all given up on the air conditioning, it was a luxury after all, and had been last on the list of things to work on. Yet now it had been fixed in a matter of minutes… seconds!
"That's impossible." Kevin said, hand clenching tight around his spanner. "The air conditionings controlled by this little box above the cockpit. You can't reach it from the top of the ship."
Ashley licked her chapped lips and edged towards the air lock, still staring at the ceiling. "I don't think they're outside anymore." She murmured, slotting a heat sink into her gun.
"The air vents then?" James was following her lead, whispering, gun raised.
Joker realised their intentions just a second too late. "Hold on!"
The two opened fire as another clatter announced their intruder, bullets whizzing through metal ceiling with a hiss. Joker and Kevin could only look on in horror, whilst the marines broke everything they'd been trying so hard to salvage. Weeks of work went down the drain as a cluster of wires broke apart from the ceiling. There goes the distress signal. Joker whined, hand half raised as if to stop them, but unable to do so. All the while their mystery electrician darted through the air ducts, directing their aim to more important circuits as it avoided impeding death.
"Stop it!" Kevin shouted, and in a fit of desperation he threw his spanner at James, hitting him square in the shoulder and knocking him off balance with a grunt.
Ashley was a force of nature though, completely unstoppable. And with a few well aimed bullets she was bringing one whole section of the tunnelling down with a crash of dust and debris, along with their intruder.
They fell to the ground with a wail, landing on their back where the galaxy map was supposed to illuminate. The marines were immediately closing in, guns raised and ready.
"Don't move!" Ashley commanded. Joker could only stare. It really was a robot! Purple mask covering the creature's head, hiding its features and… helping it to breath? Not a robot then. His eyes trailed down, widening. They were covered head to foot in some sort of suit, decorated here and there with purple embroidery, only to be marred by expensive looking equipment that seemed to be keeping it alive, or protected, he wasn't sure. Just when he thought it looked remarkably human, he noticed that the legs resembled that of dog's, hands only possessed two fingers and a thumb, and it's eyes glowed wide behind the mask; impossible for him to distinguish properly, yet clearly afraid.
They stuttered in some inconceivable language, full of rolled syllables and strange clicks. The voice sounded feminine at the very least, and so Joker assumed whatever it was it was female. She carried no weapon, and instead clutched some sort of tool in her waving hand, ironically resembling Kevin's spanner.
"So she was fixing the ship." He thought aloud, while James and Ashley continued to scare her senseless, shouting orders and questions yet giving her no time to answer. He immediately felt sympathetic. Though Joker would befriend anything if it could improve The Normandy. "Hey, guys, put your guns down would ya? Maybe if we're nice it will fix more of our stuff."
"The question is why was it fixing our stuff?" Ashley said.
"Maybe that's what it does… like a programing –"
"It's not a robot!" All three of them barked, and the alien watched the exchanged with panted breaths, shaking.
"Alright, alright. Just lower your guns." To his amazement, they obeyed, and watched with suspicious glares as Joker hobbled closer. He slowly picked up the spanner Kevin had previously thrown, then held it towards her. She didn't accept it, and instead glared, leaning as far back as possible, as if merely touching him would kill her. "So, you like fixing stuff right? You're really good at it. If you want we'll show you the engine – "
"Theres no way – "
"It's huge! You'll like it a lot." The alien stared, and Joker struggled with the language barrier. "Engine? Ship's engine? We can't get it to work. I bet you could though. I bet it would take you five minutes, and we could be off saving Shepard by supper time." His words had the desired effect, and while the alien shuffled further away, the others gave each other a little glance. "Enggggiiiine? It's this big thing… It kinda sounds like… kinda like…." He tried to intimidate the sound the Normandy made when it was starting up, rattling his hands in time with the beat. "Whooomf, whoomf, whoooomf, whooomf."
"Joker, honestly, that's not going to work." Ashley was silenced as the alien started to laugh, a nervous chuckle lighting up the mouth piece of her mask. She nodded, then waved her arms as if they were the ship's wings, supplying her own engine sounds.
"Tktuh, tktuh, tktuh, tktuh?"
"Yeah! That's totally what it sounds like!" He laughed, hope trickling its way back into his heart. "Guys, lets show her the engine."
"Fine." Ahsley cocked her gun and cracked her neck. "But she makes one wrong move, I'm blowing that pretty helmet off."
He nodded. "That seems fair."