"Thinking"
"Talking"
"Impactful word"
Location: SSV Normandy SR-1 – Third Deck - Engineer and Storage room
Soon, the young Uchiha joined up with the others in the cargo hold. This time with her Byakugan in place. The Commander was already clothed in the same armour she had had on Eden Prime when she chatted with Wrex and Garrus about the mission. Akane made short notice of their unchanged attire, the same they've always been in.
Her speech was incredible, to say the least. If, it exceeded everything Akane read up on the Commander through the extranet. It wasn't as hard for Akane to navigate through the omni-tool's interface thanks to having used something similar (although not so advanced as the omni-tool) during her time.
Her arrival was followed by a crisp and short debrief of the upcoming mission. Just as Akane liked it. No breath was wasted on unnecessary details. While Wrex and Garrus made their way into the Mako, already set for the mission, Akane was offered armour and a weapon of her choice which she declined except for the weapon. She was never really a fan of armour, not even during the Reaper Invasion. It weighed her down too much and restricted her movements for most of the time.
As for the weapon, she decided to go with a simple pistol. It was light and practical, though she was afraid to not make much use of it since her aim left much to desire. Lastly, she was given a breathing mask because they didn't have her size for a helmet and she couldn't very well go out into space without oxygen.
She let out a deep breath, drawing a snide remark from the krogan seated right next to her, "Already getting chills kid?"
"No," Akane answered, sounding unimpressed even though the prospect of going into space made her blood run cold.
It wasn't that fear of dying was the issue, she had more than enough experience with near-death situations to be afraid of something petty like death. Though she would rather avoid it, for the sake of the promise to her sister. The issue lay within the choice of terrain.
She could fight everywhere. Hell, even in fucking air she moved like a bird. But space was on an entirely different stage. Nothing that she had learnt to do on solid ground applied to empty space. The vast void plays based on different rules; rules even Akane had to obey at some point.
She was confident in her abilities, otherwise, she wouldn't be still walking among the living and was aware of her strengths and weakness. Yet too much confidence may result in her becoming aloof or cocky and underestimating the situation without anybody like Haruko to keep her feet on the ground.
Frankly speaking, she was worried about her performance on the battlefield.
It also didn't help that the Commander's driving skills rivalled that of a roller coaster once the Mako had been dropped off the spacecraft. At some point during the bouncy ride, Akane began questioning how the Commander even got her drivers license as she hit her head for what seemed like the fourth time on the walls of the infantry fighting vehicle. Besides that and her growing irritation, nothing noteworthy happened while they moved on the asteroid's grey surface (at least from what she could tell with her Byakugan).
The same woman who had sent the distress signal was keeping them frequently updated, though she had made it clear that whoever was behind this was close to locating her whereabouts. Still, they couldn't simply rush in without knowing anything about the invaders, so the Commander's first step was to reinstall the connection between the transmission tower and the several survey stations around the fusion torches.
Akane could tell that none of them had remaining signs of life even before the Commander took a quick look at them. Finding nothing more than the limp bodies of brutally executed humans; former engineers. The young Uchiha watched Shepard's expression as she did so and supposed that she already had a guess at who the enemy was.
As soon as they ended their investigation on the last survey station, without further delay, they headed to the nearest fusion torch and were quick to react to the unusual turrets which sensory systems made them emerge from underground when picking up their approach.
"Hands on the guns boys! You know what you got to do!" Shepard swiftly barked out orders at the two aliens.
Akane had even resorted to using chakra to keep herself from wildly thrashing from one side to the other as Shepard initiated evasive manoeuvres (which, if she had to be honest, only faintly differed from her typical driving style). The situation calmed down once the Commander halted right in front of the large conformation, next to the fusion torch.
"Correct me if I am wrong but I smell batarians behind this." Garrus pointed out while hacking his way into the building. Perhaps it was intuition or experience from his time working as a C-Sec officer, she could only guess. Nevertheless, Akane chose to stay silent, already expecting another remark from the krogan yet much to her surprise, Wrex didn't say anything.
"And here I had hoped, but you're right. I suspected as much too." Shepard reacted as they entered the structure.
"So these are batarians."
The Uchiha noted, observing the to-her-unknown-aliens, with her enhanced sight. While Akane wasn't someone to mind appearances, but this time she had to admit that batarians didn't really cut a dash on Akane's beauty list. They were... unique to look at but still had a face only a mother could love with their four eyes and that flat triangle symmetrically ridged vertically place commonly associated with the nose.
Akane snapped out of her mind chat when the Commander silently stalked to the wall next to an open doorway, muttering something about 'hating to be always right' while clutching the assault rifle closer to her armoured chest. Wrex was close behind her with his shotgun while Garrus picked a more distant position with his sniper rifle. It prompted the female Uchiha to unsheathe her chokutō. Commander Shepard shot a look at the team that clearly told them to wait for her signal.
The batarians and their ninken - uh pets - or whatever these creatures were called, didn't notice them yet. Which was strange considering that any animal, in general, should have had already picked up their scent.
"There I go overanalysing things again when I should focus on the task at hand." A mental face-palm was enough for her to set her mind straight.
The Commander raised her hand, then slowly counted down with her fingers for the others to time their surprise attack. When her last finger was about to fall, Akane stole herself away from the team and delved into the embrace of the shadows. She was invisible to allies as well as enemies, using the discord the rest of the team created in order to jump from one shadow to the other, killing any batarians near her with deadly precision.
As a shinobi, she prefered to do it the quiet way to prevent an enemy from alarming the others. Especially now that they have repaired the connection between the three outposts, giving the batarians a higher chance to warn their allies by taking out the element of surprise. Of course, Akane worked on preventing that the best she could while cleaning the upper level of the structure. Perhaps it was Shepard's intent to send a clear message in order to get them to panic or draw their attention from possible hostages.
The skirmish lasted only minutes 'cause of the team's battle expertise and impressive teamwork. Shepard and Wrex've provided enough cover fire for Garrus to snipe everyone who was in sight. They've had all ranges perfectly occupied and there was no way that the batarians could even get near them.
Luckily for Akane, the Commander didn't waste any time trying to figure out what the Uchiha had been doing during the scuffle and went straight for the control panel in one of the rooms on the upper level.
It was a piece of cake for the redhead to disable the first out of three torches when an unexpected call came from the other panels.
"I am reading the torch is offline." The familiar voice of a woman stated with a quiet voice. "Was that you? Can you hear me?"
To Akane, it sounded more desperate than the last time she had called. Meaning that they had even less time given that the woman would soon be discovered.
"I hear you. What's going on? Who are you?" Jane asked bluntly, her voice calm and even despite their lack of time.
"My name's Kate Bowman. I'm an engineer. I was part of the team assigned to bring this asteroid to Terra Nova. We've been attacked by batarian extremists. I've been hiding since they arrived."
The woman managed to introduce herself and give a quick status report within a few sentences, but the last piece of information made Jane exchange glances with Garrus which didn't go unnoticed by Akane's sharp eyes.
After their silent swap of words, Jane replied in a commanding tone, "Stay put, I'll get those other torches offline as soon as I can."
"Thanks, I'll contact you when I can." Kate bid them farewell, but the redhead couldn't have heard as she speeded to the exit. As soon as Akane ran after the Commander, she noticed a slight change in the area they had left after the encounter with the batarians.
"The entrance doorway was open, so somebody must have closed it. An ambush?" It was enough reason for her to use her Byakugan to check up on this.
"Ma'am, please wait!" Akane cried out loud after the almost sprinting Commander before she could reach the doorway. It was a male human in his mid-forties, carefully looking around with a pistol in his hands.
"What is it, Akane?" Jane came to a stop to turn around to look at the shinobi. She waited along with the other two in front of the closed doorway through which they had entered the building not fifteen minutes ago.
"It seems we have company." Akane caught up to them and approached the automatic door for it to swish open. The others took it as a sign of batarian reinforcements and drew their weapons. However, it wasn't the batarians at the entrance... but a human which only made the Commander let out a soft chuckle.
Akane could see the human's muscles tensing under his suit and heard the erratic beating of his heart under the layer of armour. He was afraid but alert, though he seemed to look as if he was ready to shoot anything that scared him enough. Which was exactly what happened after Shepard called out to him with a simple 'Hey!'.
For a moment the young Uchiha thought this was it for the Commander. The confused male, in his stressed-induced paranoia, has shot her right in the chest and Akane almost cursed her own stupidity and Jane's recklessness for it wasn't it for the pleasant surprise that she had some sort of shield that had protected her effortlessly. Why hadn't she noticed it sooner?
"Oh, god! I didn't mean to... are you hurt?" He raised his hands in surrender as he glanced over Shepard's shoulder to see the two aliens eyeing him up.
"Takes more than one shot to bring me down," she assured with a small smile on her lips, releasing the tension that hung in the air for a split of a second.
"Sorry, I didn't even realize you were human until... well. Guess I am not much of a soldier." The man scratched his head a bit of shame.
"The shot wasn't half-bad. I've seen worse from a civilian." Garrus tried to cheer him up a bit.
"I know you're scared. But I'm here to help. Commander Shepard, with the Alliance."
"Simon, Simon Atwell. I'm the chief engineer on this rock. Listen – we don't have much time. The batarians fired up the fusion torches. You've got to shut them down before we hit Terra Nova!"
It was enough for Akane's mind to connect the dots of information she had gathered to get a clear picture of the whole situation regarding this mission. So basically, all they had to do was to get the asteroid off its current course in order to prevent it from destroying an entire human-inhabited region. Plus clear it from batarian extremists and that in less than four hours.
Weren't it for the GIGANTIC size of the asteroid, Akane would consider it manageable.
"There are four million people down there, Shepard. I – my family." Simon looked down, his voice clouded with worry.
Shepard waited patiently for him to compose himself, "They live in Aronas. My kids and grandkids. Nice community. Good schools..." Simon noted ruefully, which made the Commander put a reassuring hand on Simon's shoulder, offering him some words of comfort.
"Batarians everywhere, and we need to shut down all three torches. Anything else we should know?" Akane joined in, her monotone voice letting her seem somewhat cold after everything Simon had told them.
Don't get her wrong, she felt sympathy for the human albeit she did not show it as freely as the Commander. Working for the Anbu had this effect on people.
Jane frowned from the wantonness of the younger woman's question and shot her a discontented look which the Uchiha fully ignored. Shepard's look told Akane that they would have to talk about it sometime later and believe Akane wasn't quite fond of it already but hid her dissatisfaction from Shepard to prevent angering her any further.
Then, Simon warned them about some sort of mines surrounding one of the other two facilities. 'Blasting caps' had Simon called them.
They were prepared to set off when the older human requested from behind them, "One last thing: I had a crew working off-site when the attack hit. I'm worried about them. These batarians are ruthless. I saw them smash the faceplates of guys working vacuum. And those varren... I don't think they always wait for a corpse before feeding."
The request made both the Commander and the shinobi stop in their tracks. If Simon referred to the engineers they had found slaughtered at the survey stations, then what would come next wasn't going to be easy.
The young Uchiha being, unfortunately, more than familiar with this type of thing, since she had been once a Buntaichō too, opened her mouth to tell Simon about the fate of his colleagues but was stopped by an armoured hand griping her shoulder to the point of pain. Making her head jerk up in response only to be met by a fierce glare from the Commander.
Akane took the obvious warning to heart and shut her mouth.
"Any idea where I can find them?" Shepard asked instead of her, easing up her hold on Akane's shoulder until it completely fell off her shoulder.
"Goddamn, I can't feel my arm properly anymore." Akane thought as she shook her numb limb a bit to get her blood back pumping through it. Akane didn't expect Shepard to be this furious about her impassive behaviour.
In her opinion, it was better to tell Simon directly what had happened to his friends, no need to further drag it out if the outcome wasn't going to change anyway. But she could think that only for herself since she wasn't in charge. The Uchiha had to obey, just as she had been taught.
"Time's running short. We better get moving." Shepard finally said to Simon. Akane hadn't noticed that it was only her left in the room with the Commander. Garrus and Wrex must have gone ahead while Akane had been occupied with her own thoughts again.
"I think I'll make myself scarce in case any batarians come back. Good luck, Shepard." With that, they parted ways with each going in the opposite direction.
Falling closely behind Shepard, they've left the building to join the rest of the crew in the Mako. Akane would have to be more considerate of her choice of words in the near future if she didn't want to get on Shepard's bad side right from the first mission.
Words dictionary:
Ninken 忍犬 = Ninja Dogs - Are essentially dogs that have heightened senses and abilities, and as such, are able to work alongside shinobi.
Buntaichō 分隊長 = The leader of a team or squad leader within the Anbu; a position held in high regard.