Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect. This fictional story is not making me any money (unless BioWare takes note and decides to pay me).
Author's Note: I know it's been awhile. Happy Legendary Edition playthrough revival! This is a long one, so strap in.
A Hundred Memories for the Journey Home
Day Ten
(Week 2, Day 3)
Hannah Shepard couldn't take her eyes off of the news broadcast playing in the waiting room outside one of the patient wards. Camera drones floated over twisted piles of debris and shrapnel; all that remained of New Salem, the large colony where she had grown up.
A couple of lone trees jutted up from between a crushed skycar and the burnt-out remains of what had once been a small building. Underneath all of the rubble was the remains of a home she had once known, along with neighbors she'd once known.
A cold feeling spread through her chest; the numbness was almost welcome, displacing the lingering despair that had been attempting to eat away at her morale for more than a week. But the nothingness seemed to carry just as much weight as the sorrow, and Hannah listened to the reporter without comprehending much. The pictures...they didn't need words. Smoke still rose from some of the ruined buildings, and here and there she could see personal items among the destruction; glimpses into the lives of these people.
There were names...she remembered the names of some of her teenage friends, but she couldn't conjure up their faces. And she didn't want to. Didn't she have enough to worry about right now? Wasn't there a limit to what the universe could put her through in one lifetime?
Hannah thought of her parents, and for a singular moment the numbness eased and she was grateful that they hadn't lived to see this devastation. Mars had been her father's drawing board for almost as long as the first colonies had been there; as a private contractor he had worked on multiple settlements, encouraging humanity's spread out into the local cluster. When his only daughter had decided to leave Mars and enlist, he'd been disappointed, but supportive all the same. And maybe that had saved her. He would have been heartbroken, as much for his creations as for his friends and coworkers that had lived within the colonies.
Hannah Shepard was in the habit of thinking of herself as an officer. She had had a better-than-average career, but nothing so exciting and groundbreaking as her husband's career, or as galaxy-wide and overall impressive as her daughter's. And while she'd never stopped considering herself to be a mother...with time away from her only child and the long silences between communications, being a parent wasn't a feeling she had been intimate with in a long time.
The worrying had become so personal; a constant companion day to day with each doctor's visit and new prognosis. To have that aching weight on her chest replaced by a dull feeling that merely looked out on the world, letting her thoughts drift lazily and not having to fear that there would be more pain and sadness with each one...Hannah didn't mind that.
"Admiral Shepard?" an unknown voice asked from the doorway. Hannah didn't turn around; whoever it was probably knew her on sight anyway. "Admiral Shepard?" the woman's voice asked again, and this time, Hannah forced herself to at least raise her hand in acknowledgement as her focus remained on the burned, pitted surface of Mars on the news report.
She was vaguely aware that someone was standing to her right, awaiting recognition. All she could see, though, was the park she had taken her daughter to when they had visited New Salem for Rex and Shae's memorial service years ago. She admitted now that they both had been too old for anything on the playground, except for the swings. But it had been a moment of calm for both of them in the midst of a tempestuous time filled with old friends and neighbors that all wanted to apologize for what had happened...and yet didn't understand.
"I grew up on Mars," she said quietly to her visitor, as if the unknown woman cared to hear. "My parents' house is buried somewhere under all that."
She saw the hand that reached out and shut the news broadcast off; tattooed letters on each finger and black designs on the back. Her gaze snapped right to a person she didn't recognize at all.
"The commander would kill me if I didn't save you from yourself," the young woman beside her said unapologetically. "Normally I'd let my biotics introduce me, but...I'm Jack. These are a few of my students; they've all met Commander Shepard." She gestured to a small troop of young adults behind her. "Rodriguez, straighten up," Jack told one of the girls. "Sanders said you're collecting stories or something for the commander. So we arranged a field trip."
Her name finally got through to Hannah's memory. "Jack. Not the crazy biotic she found on a prison ship?"
Jack's full lips quirked up in an ironic smile. "Oh yeah. Did she also tell you that she tried to get my a—butt kicked in the Collector base keeping all the swarmers off her?" Behind her, her students started snickering. Jack rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "Anyway, I was told we'd find you here."
"How—Kahlee told you about the Normandy's project?" Hannah tried to recover her senses.
"Yeah, Sanders may have mentioned it," Jack said. "But I'm guessing Doc Chakwas sent messages to all the former crew. And I just happen to be stuck in this cluster with the kids. It was Sanders' idea to get them all up here to visit Reiley and Seanne Bellarmine and then stop in to see Shepard."
Hannah stared at Jack for a long moment as her numb brain tried to locate an appropriate response. "She—she's probably back in her room now," was what Hannah came up with. "They were...doing something with a long and unpronounceable name."
"Fall in," Jack said to her students, who quite amusingly hadn't really 'fallen out' of order during the conversation. "And Prangley, if you offer to 'help' another nurse with her uniform, they'll be cleaning you off the ceiling."
"At least they have uniforms, ma'am," Prangley, so called, retorted glibly.
Hannah's eyebrows went up; she hadn't even noticed Jack's...peculiar fashion statement—bandages combined with a long-sleeved jacket. The jacket itself looked new; it was deep bronze in color and had some distinctive blue styling on the shoulders. And not for the first time, Hannah wondered how the Cerberus employment selection process had worked in 2185.
But then Jack was looking at her, clearly waiting...her daughter's room. They were going there. A right, two hallways over, and the fourth door on the right.
The guards outside had rotated; Hannah nodded to Dale and Ilsen, whom she hadn't seen in three days. "These are..." and the admiral waved her hand vaguely at her entourage, "Grissom Academy students and one of their," and Hannah, to her credit, paused only briefly, "instructors." At Dale's nod, she opened the sliding door and let them all inside.
"She looks...smaller," Rodriguez said quietly as the students grouped themselves around the bed.
"Everybody looks smaller when they're not inside an Atlas mech," Jack said, but her rakish attitude seemed to dim as she took a long, unreadable look at her former commander. Then she appeared to rally and nudged Hannah's arm. "That's how the commander made her first impression on them; started shooting Cerberus troops with an Atlas mech."
"It was awesome!" Prangley said, then caught himself with a meaningful look at Jack. "About as awesome as the psychotic biotic blocking tank fire with a barrier."
"Just remember that," Jack said. "If we're lucky, someday your barriers might even be able to hold back a charging varren."
"Hey, I stopped that group of cannibals without your—" Prangley was cut off when another classmate elbowed him in the ribs.
"So, what story did you want to share?" Hannah asked, not sure if she was genuinely interested or just being polite.
"It's about Captain Jenju!" Rodriguez blurted before anybody else could answer. "I mean, uh, Captain Kaba."
"'Jenju'?" Hannah repeated, brow wrinkling in confusion. Both names sounded distantly familiar, but she couldn't place them.
Jack was giving Rodriguez a glare that could have melted an ice dwarf planet. "Captain Kaba is a...friend," she answered after a semi-deadly pause. "He also nearly knocked each and every one of you on your sorry little butts because you let your guard down!"
"It's not our fault, we were trying to get you out of a collapsing building," another young woman with auburn hair protested. "The Reapers—"
"The Reapers are gone," Hannah said a little more sharply than she meant to, looking between Jack and her pupil. "And we're all still here." She shrugged and stretched her shoulders, taking a deep breath as if to remind herself what it felt like. Then she shook her head. "I'm sorry...it's just—it's been…this past week has felt like years."
"Yeah, I get that," Jack said after a pause, and this time her dark eyes were serious. "And you're right. We owe Shepard a lot. It was her orders that kept us all in the fight together." She threw a glance over her shoulder at her students, who were standing in a loose cluster. Her voice dropped a little. "She kept my kids safe." And then Jack directed a hard look at Hannah, as if daring her to laugh.
Hannah waited for a pang of self-pity to hit her; her own child was still in a fight for her life against odds that changed nearly every day. But instead there was a small, warm sense of pride for her daughter's wisdom. Even for a small group such as these biotic students, Commander Shepard had put them in the position they would be best utilized for their skills. And she had made sure that her former squadmate and friend could look out for them.
She found there was no reason to laugh at Jack's admission. Instead, Hannah nodded in acknowledgement. "She would always try to choose the best option for everyone," she said quietly. "Even if nobody knew it at the time."
"Or even if people whined about not being on the front lines," Jack said loudly. "It's not as if there's no action in a support squad." She looked meaningfully at a couple of her students in particular, who both flushed red in the face and suddenly found the floor fascinating.
"All right, the story," Jack said, beginning a bit of a drill instructor-like pace in front of her students. "I'm gonna let you guys tell it because Sanders said it'd be funnier that way. Plus I don't know all of it. Just remember, it's a long shuttle ride back to Old New York City tonight, and I will drill you on biotic maneuvers for an additional six hours after we get back if you screw this up. Got it?"
"Yes ma'am," was the general mumbled consensus. A look at their faces, however, and Hannah could tell that the half dozen students present didn't seem to mind the threat. They respected their somewhat unconventional instructor, and probably even cared about her more than Jack wanted to admit.
Prangley seemed to be the elected leader of the group; he cleared his throat and began. "We were in New Johannesburg, helping extract the last of the refugees before an incoming wave of Reapers hit the city. Reaper scouts had just found the shuttle extraction zone, and we were putting up barriers to keep them out..."
. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .
"McKnight, if you don't keep your barrier up, I'll have you—" Jack's threat was cut off by a wayward rocket exploding to the right, where shrapnel was deflected harmlessly off of Rodriguez's barrier. Rodriguez flinched, but her biotic field held.
The Alliance marine commander for the ground forces came up behind Jack. "We have three final shuttles to evacuate, but the Reapers just jammed our anti-aircraft guns. I've got to get techs up to override them; can you send a couple of your squad?"
"Fernandez and Ford," Jack hollered without hesitating. "Keep those engineers from taking hits, got it? And comm if you need help." The two students nodded in acknowledgement and took off at a quick trot.
"James, you cover for Fernandez," Jack said to the dark-skinned young man who, up until that point, had been using pulls to set up larger pieces of debris as additional fortifications to their position. He moved forward, putting up a barrier of his own to plug the hole in the second line of defense.
The marines were entrenched three hundred meters ahead, having been driven back by the incoming waves of Reaper scouts. The enemy's numbers were slowly increasing; they knew within an hour their positions would be overrun. Jack prowled back and forth behind the academy's students, watching for holes in their defenses and providing her own brand of tough-love instruction. She wouldn't admit it aloud, but the front lines were getting too close to her and her kids for comfort.
"Harvester!" The cry went up, and instinctively everyone's eyes went to the sky. Jack cursed and started shouting.
"Focus! You let me handle that thing; don't lose your barriers 'cause you were rubbernecking!" She jumped up on a nearby ground vehicle, and a blue haze formed around her hands as the harvester swept around a distant skyscraper, straightened out its flight path, and continued coming.
"Rr-aaaaaaargh!" With a shout that sounded as if it had been ripped from her throat, the psychotic biotic threw a warp directly into the harvester. The Reaper almost dropped out of the sky right then and there, and its loss of altitude cost it; it smashed into the side of a building and was lost from view.
The students didn't cheer, much to their credit.
"Fernandez," Jack said into her comm. "Give me an update."
The young man's voice was broken up with static, probably due to the jamming. "Clear so far, ma'am."
Ford's voice joined in. "The building's deserted, but not a lot of damage in the lower floors. The elevator's broken at the top, though, so we're climbing the last five levels by stairs."
"Stay sharp," Jack ordered firmly. "Check your corners twice and your six. I don't care how many marines are with you."
"Yes ma'—" Fernandez's reply was interrupted by the deafening cacophony of more incoming harvesters, maybe two hundred yards from the 103's forward entrenchment. There were half a dozen already in view and each was dropping a dozen ground troops as fast as it could.
There was almost no time to think as the immediate need of everyone became survival. Bullets and biotics flew through the air, and though the Reapers took the majority of the damage, the 103rd's first line of defense was getting chewed up.
"You calling in backup?" Jack shouted to the marine commander, Myers, who was pounding on the portable communication array with a gloved fist.
"Unless we can get to the source of the jamming, we're stuck with local comms only," he yelled back. "Marines, pull back to the secondary line. We'll hold for the AA guns and then get out of—" He ducked an incoming shot from a cannibal and Jack retaliated, knocking the Reaper into a mass of twisted shrapnel that had once been a parked ground vehicle. It didn't get back up.
"Fernandez!" she barked into her comm.
"We're at the guns," her student's voice crackled in her ear. He sounded out of breath. "Ford and I are keeping our barriers up, but two of those flying Reapers saw us."
Jack's gaze fastened on the building's roof and she choked on a curse; the harvesters hadn't dropped any additional enemy troops yet, but the four marines as well as one of the accompanying marine techs had their hands full keeping themselves defended while the others worked on the guns.
"Focus, Fernandez! Barriers only, as strong as you and Ford can make 'em," Jack said, her eyes narrowing as she watched, part of her critiquing their performance, and the other part trying to ignore the twisting knot in her stomach.
"Guns online," came the report not half a minute later. The anti-aircraft turrets whirred into action, picking the harvesters out of the sky.
"We still have blanket jamming; no way to contact Admiral Anderson. Collins, get back here and let's get these shuttles out of this hotspot," Myers ordered over the comms. By that time, those that remained of the 103rd Marine Division's front line had made a successful retreat, between picking off husks, marauders, and the occasional cannibal. Most had pulled back to the second line, one hundred meters ahead of Jack's position. Half a dozen came the rest of the way, providing extra muscle to protect the Grissom Academy squad. They pulled up behind each of the students and were maintaining an efficient formation. Three more harvesters appeared from the hazy skyline, and the hordes of oncoming husks were thinning drastically.
"Send the civilian shuttles," Myers said into his comm. "The air's not going to get any clearer than this." The pilots acknowledged and the small blue crafts lifted off, disappearing into the smoke-smothered clouds.
"Shuttles safely away, sir," one of the techs reported after several tense minutes punctuated only by gunfire and the screams of dying Reapers.
"Good. When the repair team gets back, we'll—"
Jack barely avoided getting thrown to the ground as an earth-shaking tremor ran beneath everyone's boots. Buildings swayed and there were strained cracking noises.
"Reaper ship on the ground, repeat, Reaper ship on the ground!" Ford's voice was thin and breathless as she saw beyond the thick mass of abandoned skyscrapers that had once been a thriving metropolis.
Jack cursed loudly in what she thought was vorcha as Myers ordered the 103rd into a full tactical retreat. She whirled on him. "You can't leave those engineers and my students!"
"If we don't get our own shuttles in the air in the next two minutes before that Reaper can start acquiring target locks, no aircraft are getting out of here," the commander informed her, his voice eerily controlled. "That's how it was when Kinshasa fell." Trickles of ice danced down Jack's spine when she saw the set of his jaw and blank acceptance of loss in his eyes.
"That's not good enough!" she shouted up into his face, pulling back a blue-lit fist as if to hit him and really make it count. Myers just shook his head, hefted his assault rifle, and turned his back to start providing covering fire as the marines continued their withdrawal.
Jack spun on her heel and bellowed for Prangley. "You cover these guys, and you get everyone on those shuttles, you got it?"
"But where are you—" Prangley's eyes went wide as Jack turned back to the buildings where the AA guns were still slicing the smoke-thick air with streaks of deadly light.
"I'll be back," she promised. "And if I find out that you didn't obey my orders to the letter, I'll…" Jack was too distracted by the thought of where Fernandez and Ford might be to think of a suitable threat.
"I got it, ma'am," Prangley assured her, cutting off anything else Jack might have said. "Go." He then turned and tapped Rodriguez and James, beginning to reorganize the barrier line into a tighter formation as the marines guided their line back towards the still secured military landing zone.
Jack turned and ran, her fists blazing as she swept husks and cannibals out of her path. The ground shook again, and she lost her balance and staggered sideways into an abandoned skycar before standing and continuing her charge. The sound around her was deafening as weapons fire streaked through the air, buildings creaked ominously on all sides of her position, and the shrieks of enemies both in the air and on the ground seemed to close in.
Another tremor, and something in the building to Jack's left squealed in protest, like a beam torquing beyond its limit, before a low cracking resonated through the alley and a shower of concrete particles further choked the air. "No…!" she shouted ineffectually at the east wall of the building as it collapsed into the more modern skyscraper beside it. Still the earth continued to shake, and more rubble began to tumble earthward from above. Jack thrust both hands over her head, distantly reminded somewhere in the back of her mind of the Collector Base and then shoved that unhelpful thought away.
She had to get to the tallest building on the block; the marines and her students would be on their way down. They would need help to get out—
A sudden, cold darkness fell over her and an inexplicable shiver crawled across Jack's whole body. She looked up just in time to see a huge panel of steel plummeting straight down and without thinking Jack dove flat on the ground between two dumpsters and put all her concentration into a barrier.
The panel slammed down with the shriek of shearing metal. The containers on either side of Jack flattened under the crushing force, and what had once probably been a support beam impacted on the barrier and twisted back on itself as Jack watched with her breath caught in her throat. She almost waited another moment to see if what remained of the metal panel would shift, but there wasn't time. The shuttles would be packed full of her squad and the 103rd, and Myers had made it clear they weren't waiting.
Jack fought her way out from beneath the collapsed dumpsters and zeroed in on her target once more...only to see that the top half of the skyscraper had been carved clean off. She should have heard the lack of anti-aircraft guns sooner, and she took off at a sprint once more, looking for any sign of the engineering teams.
She clambered over some fallen pillars and navigated a flooding sinkhole as quickly as she dared, telling herself that Fernandez and Ford weren't children; they had good brains in their heads which was why Jack had sent them in the first place…
And then all of the hairs on her body stood up at the same time as a monstrous red beam lanced through the sky, vaporizing air, metal, and flesh alike with its lethality. Jack's whole world went pink and white for a paralyzing moment, and her bones threatened to turn into liquid at the overpowering thrum of sheer power that buzzed through every particle in the vicinity. The last thing she remembered was the indigo light around her defiantly raised fists flickering out.
. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .
"So, we going?" Rodriguez asked as Jack disappeared into the distance. A few wisps of dark hair had come down from her normally tidy bun, and they were threatening to turn into a halo around her head as she maintained her barrier.
Instead of replying, Prangley yanked a juice box out of one of his many pockets and passed it to James. He fished a second one out and popped the tab before holding it up so Rodriguez could chug it and still keep her biotics active. "Yeah," he replied, jerking his chin at McKnight, who was preparing to climb up into the shuttle already packed with marines. The gangly young man turned back eagerly, already digging in his own pockets. "If you've still got snacks, eat 'em now."
The marine commander held up one hand and shook his head. "You're evacuating with us."
"No, sir," Prangley said firmly, standing up taller. "You'll have to hold the last shuttle to make that happen." He almost had to yell to make himself heard over the shrieks of oncoming Reapers being answered by the 103's gunfire.
"Jason, the buildings!" James yelled to Prangley, pointing in the direction their teacher had gone. Prangley's curse was drowned out by the deafening roar of the Reaper ship's beam weapon.
"Seanne and Reiley, stay and cover the marines until everyone's away," Prangley ordered before shoving half a candy bar into his mouth, not taking his eyes off of the immense dust cloud that had been half a block of skyscrapers. A fine misting of rain began to fall as the clouds continued to build overhead, and the Bellarmines moved to take over for Rodriguez and Oliver while Prangley counted heads. He waited until Meyer's back was turned, the commander distracted by maintaining as orderly a retreat as could be managed.
He raised a glowing fist and gestured the other four biotics to follow him, taking off at the fastest pace he thought was both quick and cautious. They moved as Jack had drilled them; two making a barrier, while the other three defended their position and kept lookout. Their pace slowed as the way became clogged with fresh debris, and more cannibals and husks began to take notice of their progress.
Prangley and McKnight kept their throws and lifts as conservative as possible; they couldn't afford to be showy without knowing how much further they had to go. Rodriguez stayed between James and Oliver, scarfing down a granola bar and contributing rearguard pushes to keep any lingering enemies at a distance. Every twenty seconds or so, she tried to raise any of the other Grissom Academy teammates on the comms, but received only the faint hiss of jamming interference.
McKnight threw back a marauder with an angry yelp when it popped up from behind a twisted mass of pipes and grating, and Prangley took his eyes off of the group of cannibals headed toward their left flank for an instant too long. The lead monstrosity charged toward Oliver, who flinched just enough that a shot penetrated her barrier and seared across her scalp. Rodriguez threw up a new barrier as Oliver went down on all fours, half-gasping and half-crying from the pain as the smell of burnt hair and flesh followed her.
"Tam, you can't sit down now," Prangley said to Oliver, as the group was forced to halt. "What's the psychotic biotic going to say?"
"That I got my a—butt kicked by a measly little Reaper," Oliver ground out from between clenched teeth. She shoved herself up, wavering a little as she struggled for balance, already rifling a pocket for her first aid kit. "I'm good, Jase." She gingerly touched the furrow through her auburn hair and then dabbed medi-gel over it as best she could. "It's not deep. I'll keep pushing them back."
"Uh, guys? I think we're running out of room," McKnight said over his shoulder as the breeze shifted ever so slightly and thinned out some of the dust cloud in front of the group, revealing an impassable crumple of what might have once been durasteel siding.
"Jack?" James yelled. "Jack!" His voice barely carried over the cacophony of screams, rumbling of the Reaper ship's passage, and the skull-splitting roar of the red beam far overhead.
Prangley looked around desperately for the next place to go, to get around the obstacle. He saw distant humanoid shapes scaling other heaps of detritus, moving inhumanly fast. The Reapers were swarming now, their ranks growing thicker every minute.
Suddenly, a nearby hail of gunfire took the arm and then head off of a cannibal preparing to charge Rodriguez's barrier, and from amidst the smoke appeared Fernandez, Ford, and both engineers at a dead run. Prangley had never been so glad to see other people in his life.
"What's the situation?" the taller of the two Alliance soldiers asked loudly, taking stock of their position before herding the students behind the remains of a stairwell for a little bit of cover. His companion dropped an automated turret, while McKnight tossed a couple of husks back over a wrecked skycar. Prangley updated the marines, while Fernandez and Ford took a quick opportunity behind James and Rodriguez's barriers to gulp down a shared juice and candy bar.
"We can't stay out here and search for—" the first engineer began, when an ear-splitting screech that could only have been a harvester shattered the air above their position. Both engineers pivoted as a unit and raised their omni-tools to deliver dual incinerate blasts, followed quickly by a warp each from McKnight and Prangley. The turret also spun on its carriage, whirr-ing away dutifully at the new threat.
The harvester shrieked at the onslaught and threw its weight back and forth; it was perched precariously on a jumble of sagging walls and pylons that groaned dangerously. "It's trying to crush us!" Rodriguez shouted, directing both of her palms upward and increasing the scope of her barrier to be a full dome.
It was difficult to tell what happened next—the harvester exploding or their meager shelter flying apart around them. Bits of shrapnel peppered into the layered barriers of all seven biotics, huddled close together in the center, with the two Alliance engineers mixed in somewhere. Outside, the singular turret had been reduced to a smoking smear of grease.
Something landed outside the barrier; in the thick smoke it was difficult to see exactly what. Probably a scion, Prangley thought a little bleakly, preparing to lift and throw.
"Wait," came an unfamiliar voice. "Does this one belong to you?" The misshapen silhouette resolved itself into a lean drell carrying the limp body of Jack over one shoulder.
There was a disbelieving pause before Rodriguez rallied for them. "Yes; that's our teacher," she exclaimed, dropping her hands and moving as if she might step out of the protective biotic fields. Then, "Look out!" she cried, lunging forward to try and shove away a cannibal that pulled itself upright from the rubble behind the drell.
Without looking back, the drell hooked one foot under a narrow piece of broken pipe, flipping it into the air and propelling it behind him with a lightning-fast biotic throw. The cannibal fell with a gurgle. The stranger didn't wait; he gestured for them to follow, turning aside and disappearing into a wildly-leaning structure that hid a concrete stairway descending below street level.
Prangley ordered the now larger group into a defensive wedge-shaped formation, bringing up the rear with James and Oliver. The drell stayed in the lead, Jack's weight apparently of no consideration. The Alliance engineers kept their weapons raised, guarded on either side by the other four biotic students. Their weapon mounted lights swept back and forth, showing the wavering outlines of a few parked ground vehicles covered in a film of concrete particles and chunks of debris fallen from the ceiling. Every fifteen seconds or so, a muffled boom followed by the scream of the death ray sounded overhead–the Reaper ship on the surface moving through the fallen city. Trickles of dust floated eerily in the air, and several of them held back coughs as they pressed forward.
Their guide paused at a service hatch in the floor of a secluded corner, and only then did he pause and lower Jack's unresisting form to the ground. Ford knelt down and checked her vitals, then shook Jack's shoulder gently, taking care not to disturb what looked like pieces of a torn-up jacket tied around her thighs and one calf–more than one jacket, since one of the sleeves was obviously missing from Jack's own coat. Ford looked up at Prangley and Rodriguez and shook her head; they needed to get real medical attention.
"Who are you?" Prangley asked as the drell wrestled the hatch open with the squeal of rusty hinges. In the semi-darkness, it was hard to make out his expression, and Prangley thought for a moment the drell wouldn't answer.
"Kaba. Tsano Kaba," the drell said after a pause. He tested the ladder just visible inside the rim of the open hatch and seemed satisfied. "You are?"
"Jason Prangley. We're from Grissom Academy," Prangley said quickly. He went around the circle of faces (the Alliance men introduced themselves as Swann and Fitzgerald), ending with Jack. Kaba didn't immediately answer; he was touching the underside of the hatch, as if feeling for something, then made a vaguely unhappy noise.
"We are heading to the west side of the city," Kaba informed them. "I have a ship in storage."
"You mean a shuttle?" Fitzgerald asked as the drell swung himself onto the ladder and began to descend.
"No," came the echoing reply. There was a distant splash below. "Pass me your Professor Jack."
Swann holstered his weapon and did as instructed, with the rest of the group following as quickly as they dared, closing the hatch behind them. The shaft was also dark and somewhat damp, with standing puddles of stagnant water covering most of the floor. Kaba once more hefted Jack over his shoulder and waited while the engineers and students ordered themselves into a formation. He examined them critically for a moment, before nodding.
"If we encounter resistance, you will take your professor," he said to James. "Your barrier technique is well-honed, and will serve best. The rest of you," Kaba addressed the students, "in this confined space it is as important to know what is beside and behind you as well as in front. Large effects may strike allies; you will want precision." At their nods of understanding, Kaba turned and led the way forward.
They traveled as quietly as possible, senses straining to hear or see any sign of enemies, or even allies. However Kaba had come to know about this tunnel, however, it didn't seem to be common knowledge. Prangley only saw three other access ladders along the way, all equally dusty and speckled with rust from the damp atmosphere. Only once did they stop, sharing around what meager snacks they had left, including the Alliance soldiers who had reserve energy bars. Jack still didn't rouse, and even with the weapon lights to aid them, the most that could be done was an application of medi-gel to the worst of her wounds and the use of actual bandages instead of jacket remnants.
Then they were off again, and after what seemed an interminable amount of time, the tunnel began to incline ever so slightly. Kaba paused as the tunnel branched, running his palm, then his index finger over a few symbols. "This way," he said softly, taking the right fork. Faintly, the sound of running water came to them, growing louder as they went on. They started walking a little faster, anticipating a nearby exit.
The water turned out to be runoff from a crosspipe that plunged twenty feet into a cistern below as the tunnel they were in ended suddenly. Faint, intermittent moonlight illuminated their surroundings, and Kaba said something low and definitely uncomplimentary as he inspected the remains of several cannibals and at least one ravager in the water below. They were tangled with the twisted skeleton of the bridge that had likely once spanned the twenty-foot wide cistern to continue in another shaft on the other side. Over the noise of the water, the distant sound of weapons fire filtered down from above.
"Is there another way around?" Swann asked in a low voice, his eyes searching the space above them for further signs of enemies.
"Nothing quick," Kaba answered. He peered over the edge again and then turned back to Prangley and McKnight. "Do you see that large sheet of metal on the right, under the big creature?" he asked them, and they moved up to look, then nodded. "Together, pull it free. Cadet Oliver, when it is free, you will lift and help them support it from this side. Cadet Rodriguez, you will be first across, and you will lift from the other side. Cadets Ford and Fernandez, you will follow and lift the opposite corners so there will be six points of lift for the heaviest people."
He looked around the circle of tense faces, and they all voiced their understanding. Prangley and McKnight got to work, while Kaba relinquished Jack to James and turned to Rodriguez. "You have perhaps the most crucial part of this plan," he told her softly. "Have you had much training with self-pushes?"
"Some," she answered, tucking wisps of dark hair behind her ears. "I can slow my fall with enough concentration, and the height isn't more than twenty feet."
"Perfect," he replied with a slight inclination of his head. "Then this will be simple. You will use that same type of push when you jump to propel yourself a few extra feet, and then to cushion your landing on the metal. Repeat it when you jump to the opposite passage, and you will not miss."
Rodriguez pictured what he meant and mimed a series of two jumps, to which Kaba nodded. He reached out and touched her forehead with the barest brush of one finger, his huge dark eyes suddenly appearing luminous. "For grace in your movements," he said with a bow of his head. He brushed past her again as the shriek of metal echoed in the small space, and Prangley and McKnight both grunted as they strained to lift it. Oliver stepped smoothly into place between them as the impromptu platform began to rotate, stretching out both hands, palms up. The indigo light of their combined biotics flared brightly in the space, turning the crosspipe's waterfall into scattering sapphire droplets.
Kaba braced himself and used uneven cracks in the tunnel wall to climb up over their heads in order to direct the operations. "Form a line behind Cadet Rodriguez," he instructed Ford and Fernandez. "The young lady first, so she can support you, Cadet Fernandez. Sergeant Swann, please wait five seconds for them to be in place. Lieutenant Fitzgerald, you follow immediately. I will help you, as you have not the use of biotics. Cadets James, you will then go with your Professor Jack, and Cadets Oliver, McKnight and Prangley will follow in that order. This will be smooth and clean; there is nothing to fear."
"Wait, what about–" Rodriguez started to ask, but Kaba raised a hand in silent warning as a shadow passed by far overhead, blotting out what little light there was. Everyone froze for a moment, and then Oliver scooted to one side, leaving room for Rodriguez to begin her run.
"Now!" Kaba said in a curt whisper, and Rodriguez didn't give herself time to think. She sprinted forward and launched herself just as Kaba had instructed her, coming down lightly on the metal and immediately throwing herself forward again. The instant her boots hit the other side, she spun and lifted her hands toward the wavering end of the metal scrap nearest her, stabilizing it just as Ford skipped nimbly across the surface to join her. Fernandez was next, and the three of them set up positions mirroring their classmates across the way.
The marines were slower; they could make the jump unassisted, but they could not soften their landings. Prangley caught a flash out of the corner of his eye as Kaba threw his own push just under Swann with one hand, clinging to the wall with the other, then quickly switched to a pull on the middle of the metal piece just before the engineer impacted. He maintained the pull and Swann kept moving, vanishing into the darkness beyond the faces of Rodriguez, Fernandez, and Ford.
The instant he was clear, Fitzgerald was on the move, followed by James who kept Jack tucked close to his wide chest. Once they were away, Kaba dropped down and tapped Oliver on the shoulder, taking her position as the center pull point. She bolted like a leaping deer, fairly flying across the gap and barely lighting on the floating platform. The drell then nodded to McKnight, who was sweating heavily, but took a moment to center himself and breathe deeply, before running and thrusting himself forward.
Without needing to be told, Prangley sprang after him, also sailing across nearly effortlessly. Kaba stood alone now, his biotics the only thing holding up one side of the makeshift platform. Rodriguez and the others kept their fields up, waiting for him to take the same leap.
Then a roar came from directly overhead, and a huge body plummeted into the space; a brute had noticed the blue lights and come to investigate.
"Let go!" Kaba shouted to the students, and the metal piece fell away, granting the large creature a one way ticket to the bottom of the cistern. It survived the fall, gurgling in a broken manner as it climbed atop the bodies of the other reapers and tried to get a grip on the rounded walls to get within arms' reach.
Kaba backed up several paces and then ran and jumped, throwing what could only be described as tiny reverse singularities in front of his feet, almost like stepping stones. He sprang into the tunnel, coming up next to a surprised Ford and Rodriguez. "Forward," he commanded calmly. "Go through the vines." And then he looked up at the tunnel's ceiling, reaching to tug carefully at a small string of roots that had broken through the concrete.
Swann and Fitzgerald had obeyed instantly, with James right behind them and the rest of the students in pairs after that. Behind them, they heard an echoing rumble and cracking noise, and the smell of fresh earth soon filled the air. Another five hundred meters took them to a thick curtain of vines that seemed to go on forever, but they stayed together and proceeded in a straight line, guided somewhat by the sound of more running water.
The small group finally burst through the vines and onto a long, low rocky ledge that bordered one side of a very large, decorative lake with a small, glass house in the center. Under normal circumstances the location was likely beautiful, but now ash and soot clouded the water, and there were a few dead husks lolling limply at the lake's edge.
Two automated turrets swung to train their lasers on the newcomers, and biotic shields came up immediately, even as Swann managed to successfully hack them both to disable their friend-or-foe software. Fitzgerald cautiously swept the area with his scope to see if there were any live enemies before giving an all clear signal. Aside from the lake, which was protected on all sides by a manmade basin, there was no ship or even shuttle in sight.
The vines rustled behind them and Kaba emerged, covered in a thick layer of dirt, and holding his left arm close to his body. A drone projection materialized immediately at his elbow. "Welcome home, Tsano-sama. Would you like to run lines for tomorrow's recording session?"
"No, thank you," Kaba said calmly. "Protocol one-one-zero, please."
"Checking," the drone responded, an inner ring of lights whirling for a moment. "Confirmed. Board when ready, Captain." A whooshing of water sounded behind them, and a floating walkway extended from the house, undulating slightly with the waves. Tiny lanterns flickered on amidst the damaged and soot-caked lily pads dotting the surface of the lake, and Kaba addressed his drone once more.
"Record my guests' identities and grant them visitor's access for the duration of their stay." He turned to James. "I wish to give your professor priority; I have a medical station in the house that might be able to help."
"Yeah," James said, somewhat startled. He exchanged looks with Oliver and Rodriguez; something about this seemed…puzzling but familiar.
"Watch your step; the walk can be slippery," Kaba said with a faint ruffle of the frills at the edges of his jaw. He led the way into the glass house, which appeared to be a rotating structure furnished rather sparsely in warm tones and linear furniture. The medical station was in an interior room; little more than a cubicle with a fairly sophisticated medical suite and a single treatment arm above a reclining chair. James and Fernandez carefully maneuvered Jack into the seat, while Kaba instructed Ford on how to turn the station on and let it run.
"I'll stay with her," the young woman volunteered, and Kaba nodded.
"When the orange light flashes," and he points to an indicator over the door, "brace yourself for liftoff. Come with me," he said to the other eight people, who were beginning to stare as if they had walked from the tunnel into an alternate reality. "Ghost," he addressed the drone, "we are all aboard."
"Aye, sir," the drone said, and a shudder passed through the house, causing the windows to vibrate ever so slightly. And then the water rushed in around them, pressing up against the glass.
"Oh, sweet oyster pearls," Oliver breathed, rushing over to look out and below them. "There's the ship!" She pointed to a murky outline perhaps fifteen feet below and growing clearer every second. The ship was the entire size of the lake, and the house they stood in was somehow connected. The water disappeared as the ship's bulkheads rose up around them.
KA-THUNK. The floor settled once more and several deep clunks sounded around the perimeter of the house. "Module secure, Captain," the drone called Ghost reported. There was a hiss of pressurization, and a few of the glass walls disengaged and slid aside, while blue-green lights flickered on down what were unmistakably ship corridors.
Fitzgerald and Swann were trying equally hard not to stare at the luxurious ship style, but they weren't doing a very good job. "Who…are you?" Fitzgerald finally asked, turning to Kaba who was waiting patiently by one of the doorways. He was wiping dust and dirt from his scaled face, which completely transformed from marbled grays and browns into a pale blue shading to gray near his chin. Here and there he had an odd orange scale towards the crown of his head, but otherwise he appeared perfectly normal.
James and Oliver were still looking hard at Tsano Kaba, as if they could almost place him. They were all interrupted by the thrum of a distant power source shivering the floor beneath their feet. "This way," Kaba said. "When the engines are warm, I will plot a course to the Charon relay, and then to wherever you may rendezvous with your fleet." He ushered them into the command module, which didn't have enough seats for everyone, so the Alliance soldiers braced themselves in the corners of the room and held onto grips overhead while Ford and Oliver shared.
The drell brought up the navigation computer, while his drone fitted calmly into the panel beside it, providing security analysis of the lake's surface, which it still had access to via monitors placed around the basin. "The Reaper ship is within half a mile of our position," Ghost reported. "Ground forces attempted to take the house, but desisted upon failure and presumably did not try again due to lack of inhabitants."
Kaba kept his eyes on his readouts, appearing to count something, then starting a timer and waiting again. He did it several more times, listening to the scream of the Reaper ship's beam weapon. Then he reached up one finger and touched his forehead. "For fortune in my flight," he said quietly, and waited for the next timer to reset before throttling up the engines. The module began to shake and creak as water cascaded away and the ship fought to get airborne.
There was another scream of the weapon as the ship stabilized, and Kaba didn't hesitate. He threw the engines into full thrust, making the inertial dampeners chug hard to keep everyone from seeing the backs of their skulls. One moment passed, then a second. The timer reset. One moment, two…
A scuffle came from outside the door of the module, and Swann turned just in time to save Jack from falling on her face. Ford was trailing behind her teacher, trying ineffectually to reassure the psychotic biotic that they hadn't all been taken prisoner.
"Hey! What the–" Jack stopped herself, as much because she was dizzy and out of breath as anything else. "Prangley! What is going on here?"
"Ma'am, this is Captain Kaba," Prangley said, jumping up and offering Jack his chair before she quite literally fell over. She glared at him and ignored it.
"He saved you," Rodriguez piped up, when Kaba didn't take his eyes off his panels or turn to say anything. "He saved all of us," she added truthfully.
That shut Jack up just long enough for Oliver to finish her deep memory analysis of where she had seen 'Captain Kaba' before. "Holy cats," she blurted. "You're Captain Jenju! From the show Aquarius Station!"
Kaba offered her a slight inclination of his head. "A pleasure to be recognized, Cadet Oliver."
At that, Jack really did sit down in Prangley's empty chair. "Are you…are you telling me that a children's vid actor just…" she was at a loss for words. Jack stared at the strange drell, who smiled while still looking straight ahead.
"Are we not all a little more than we appear to be?" he asked calmly. Then, "You are getting blood on the floor. Kindly take yourself back to the medical station please, Professor Jack."
She gaped at him. And then she went.
. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .
"Sorry that took so long," Jack apologized to Hannah. Her students were sitting in a circle on the floor of the hospital room, now chatting about the mysterious and roguish drell captain and where he was now. The two women were seated in chairs by the window at Shepard's bedside, looking out at the view.
"It's all right; I needed the distraction," Hannah admitted.
"Oh? Well, that's not the last story I have to tell about Captain Kaba," Jack said with an ironic snort. "That's just how we met."
There was a pause as Hannah turned the words over in her mind, trying to stir herself to some kind of reaction. Jack reached over and punched her in the arm, not hard, but enough to startle her back to the present. "I know that look," Jack said, eyebrows drawing together. "Believe me, you want to stick around and see what's coming next. Shep's going to pull through this, Admiral."
"How…how do you know?" Hannah asked tiredly. She felt as if the exhaustion were smothering her, pulling her away from things that should have mattered.
"Because I didn't risk my life with her in that Collector base to watch her lie down and die now," Jack said, standing up. "I've never seen someone who wanted to live as badly as she does." She shrugged and gestured to her students, who all began to get up and stretch.
"Um, Admiral?" Tamara Oliver came forward and saluted nervously. "We…that is, maybe you'd like to come see a movie with us next week? We're…sort of doing a rewatch of all of Captain Kaba's shows. Dr. Sanders is invited, too; you might be able to share a shuttle," Oliver ended hopefully.
Hannah looked sideways at Jack, who rolled her eyes. "The only reason I'm allowing this is because of the 'dope monk moves' he apparently showed you all, and you might actually learn something," she said to Oliver, who snickered. Jack groaned in equal parts frustration and despair. "For the love of eezo, Admiral, say yes so I'm guaranteed to have another adult in the room to drink with."
"I'll…do my best?" Hannah said, uncertain as to what precisely she was agreeing to. "Next week?"
"Yeah. I'll bring the booze," Jack said, herding her kids to the door. "If you're late though, you're buying for the movie after that!"
The door swished shut behind the departing Grissom Academy group, and Hannah was alone with her thoughts. Disliking the sudden silence, she used her omni-tool to access Mordin Solus' songs while making up her bed on the visitor's couch. She fell asleep to the salarian's gentle voice crooning,"Through many dangers, toils, and snares I have already come…'tis grace that brought me safe thusfar, and grace will lead me home."