Much like a certain Hunter, I'm back!
When Crow burst into the conference room, everybody stared. Shepard was already at least partway through whatever she was breaking down for them, and she regarded him with a raised eyebrow. Face flushing, he rushed to his seat, trying to suppress a yawn, only to discover there were no empty seats, thanks to Liara's presence. For a moment all he can do is stare at her. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
"You can stand over there, Crow." She gestured to a corner of the room. "You aren't missing much, we don't have a lot to go off of anyway. I'll give you the run-down in private."
He just nodded mutely, feeling a bit like a chastised child as he went to the back of the room, wondering why Liara was present. His thoughts spiraled into a tumble of unfocused theories, even his vision blurring as he completely zones out on the remainder of Shepard's presentation. Were they finishing whatever that business on Illium had been? He thought she was an archeologist, what did ruins have to do with shooting people?
Did someone steal a museum piece or something? Were they helping an incredibly angry archeologist get her artifact back? Why would she need Commander Shepard's help, she had seemed capable enough.
What could the artifact be?
What if this had nothing to do with archaeology at all?
The act of everybody in the room rising from their seats snaps him out of his trance, and he realizes he hadn't been listening at all. Liara strides out quickly with a dark expression, ignoring Garrus when he tried to halt her. The turian sighs and files out with the others, and soon it's just Shepard and Crow. He shuffles his feet as she regarded him thoughtfully.
"Get enough sleep?" She asks.
"Yes." He manages to say through a yawn that had snuck up on him.
"Lightbearers sleep a lot when they exert their powers more than usual." Glint explained helpfully. "I once saw a fireteam who slept a whole day after the Battle of Twilight Gap!"
"Right." She nodded, crossing her arms. "Wanna tell me why you exerted them on an innocent table last night?"
"Sorry." He winced. "I can fix it. I just... things got out of hand, and I couldn't think of a way to stop it."
"So I hear. I've already sat them down and sorted that out, but from now on I expect you to follow the same rules as the biotics." The Commander told him. "And if you could fix the table before we get to Sowilo, that would be nice."
"I'll get on it." Now he just had to worry about apologizing to the others for his outburst. "Why was Liara here?"
"We're going after the Shadow Broker." Shepard sighed, and booted up her omni-tool. "He took a friend of hers captive, and he might still be alive. Sending you the details, be sure to read up and don't eat anything at least three hours before we land. We're going to a planet called Hagalaz, and we're expecting less than favorable flying conditions."
"Commander." He's unable to resist the grin that spreads across his face. "Who says we need to fly?"
"I'm having second thoughts about this." Jacob commented as the Normandy got within transmat range. He, along with a few other members of the team, were standing around the helm of the ship as it shook(though not nearly as bad as it had on their way to the derelict Reaper). "I mean, we're technically killing ourselves."
Crow, Glint, Tali, and Garrus had spent the last three hours calibrating the transmat sensors for the rest of the non-human crew in preparation for their assault on the Shadow Broker's ship, which was surfing the thin, tumultuous line where the heat of Sowilo boiled the surface and the dead of night snap froze everything. Nothing else was known about the ship, but considering that the Broker supposedly had access to every secret in the galaxy, Shepard was once again bringing everyone.
There was no telling what they were going to find down there, in terms of technology or man power, and their primary target alone made the risk of the operation close to if not on par with boarding a dead Reaper. For that reason, Shepard was pulling out all the stops, including agreeing to try the transmat system for insertion. At first she was reticent, citing minimal testing, but EDI had cut in to inform them that Joker had been 'testing' it all morning, and everything seemed sound.
"I feel pretty alive right now." Joker said as his hands flew across the controls, having spent his initial waking hours transmatting everywhere instead of walking 'like some pleb'. "EDI, prep for transmat. Tell the others to hold on to their stomachs."
"We're being atomized." Jacob pressed.
"And reconstructed at point B." Crow reassured him, daring to pat the other man's shoulder as he squeezed past to get to the front of the helm. The Normandy pitched slightly, and he gripped the back of one of the unoccupied chairs in case it does so again. Shepard pulled back from where she'd been leaning over Joker's shoulder, examining the readouts, and faced the others with a grim look. "Sorry about the table, Joker."
"Yeah, just remind me never to actually piss you off." The pilot says distractedly. "And snap a vid of the landing, I wanna see who barfs."
"You got it." Crow nodded, relieved that his outburst hadn't been too off-putting, at least not enough that it soured the pilot's sense of humor.
"Everyone brace yourselves!" Shepard called out.
"Transmat in three... two..." Joker counted down, grin in his voice. "One. Happy hurling!"
The familiar sensation of transmat washed over him, like an icy waterfall pouring over him but only chilling his nervous system rather than his whole body, quickly followed by a similar feel of heat flashing through his nerves in the same way as he materialized on the hull of the Shadow Broker's ship. Gale-force winds hit him like a gut punch, rain strikes his face like bullets, and it feels like his cloak is about to rip itself off his body. Thunder roars all around him, and lightning flits through the darkened eventide clouds in an unending dance.
The others stumbled when they came through, their transmats staggered so as not to overtax the new system. Most of them were wearing helmets already, and if he wasn't worried about Glint getting blown away, he would let his Ghost out to retrieve his own. He sets his omni-tool to record, just in time to catch Miranda vomiting, Jack looking close to following suit. Well, if all else fails, at least Joker got his transmat reaction vid.
"Don't you fucking record this." The bald maniac snarled, having to yell to make herself heard. "You and your fucking clever little fucking teleport!"
"Glint says 'language'." He tells her, feeling a little bold, meeting her glare with an even, hard stare that Garrus had taught him with the aid of a mirror. Apparently, it came in handy with criminals, and he's been wanting to try it.
"Yeah, well I say-" Jack begins, though she looks a little put off by his demeanor.
"Allright people, form-form up." Shepard called out, sounding a bit queasy herself. "We've got-"
The Commander suddenly cut herself off, tore off her helmet, and threw up. The... contents were whipped away by the wind almost immediately, and some of it hits Miranda's left leg. The brunette visibly shutters, but if she says anything, he doesn't hear it. Shepard composes herself, and the rest of team settles into position, some of them stumbling slightly or touching their stomachs.
"I think my intestines got switched around." Jacob grunts.
"Baby." Grunt snorted, slapping Crow on the back hard enough his vertebrae popped. "Just think of the looks on our enemies faces when we transmat right in front of them and blast them in the face! Ha!"
"Ri-ight." Crow coughed, winded and wishing once more that the krogan was less physical. Shepard taps the side of her helmet to indicate they would primarily be using comms, likely because of the wind. Liara was flicking through her omni-tool with an impatient fervor, until Shepard tugged her elbow, turning to the others.
"Liara says there's a signal coming from the back communications relay. There's nothing below us that we can use, so we're going to make our way up. Keep your eyes sharp for defenses, and watch yourselves near the capacitors; just because the lightning is attracted to them doesn't mean the danger is negated."
"Personally, I find danger electrifying!" Garrus declared.
"Well, it can come as a shock to some." Crow pointed out, grinning. Liara cast a glare between the turian and Crow, and a few of the others shake their heads.
"What's with the stormy expression?" Garrus asked the asari, whose look only darkened.
"Boo!" Tali cried as Shepard made to pinch the bridge of her nose, only to be met with her helmet.
"Focus up and save the corny jokes for later." The Commander intervened. "Let's move!"
They filed around the hull of the ship in twos, firing on a couple of maintenance drones that mistook them for debris. What, he wonders, could they have been mistaken for that could make it up this far, even in this squall? They worked their way over plates and up an incline in the hull to be met with their first human resistance. Shepard makes quick work of them by shooting out the capacitors, for which Crow was glad because he still wasn't sure if he could pull the trigger on a human.
He technically had back on Eden Prime. But those men and women had been maddened by the cryptolith, these people were sound of mind, even if they were trying to kill him. Maybe some of them were fanatics of the Broker, some here for money, maybe some of them were even here because he had leverage over them. A hostage, like Spider had done with Glint. And they might die because he shot them today.
It felt... wrong, to use Hawkmoon for it, so he pulled out his pulse rifle, which he hadn't used much since getting the paracausal hand cannon, but had cleaned and maintained just in case. He had even shown it's inner workings to Jacob. They worked their way down the hull again, before rising once more, meeting a combination of LOKI mechs followed by more of the Broker's agents. Once more, he's one of those who wound up not having to fire a shot. Those capacitors are a real hazard.
One would think someone as supposedly meticulous as the Shadow Broker would have better safety standards in case of a boarding, but then again, he'd probably banked on nobody being able to find this place. Shepard spends a few moments hacking something before one of the capacitors retracts, clearing their way forward, but also leading them into another small group of Broker agents.
"All of these small patrol teams..." he wondered out loud once they were dispatched as quickly as the others. "I wonder how long until the larger ones are ready and waiting for us? They have to have realized what's happening by now."
"They might be using these guys to buy time for just that." Jacob pointed out. "Just keep sharp."
They work their way down the hull again, get accosted by more LOKI mechs, and continue down along an angle that makes him nervous. Grunt manages to catch Tali by the elbow when she slips, and the quarian keeps one hand on the krogan's back for balance as they all slow their pace slightly to avoid any more near-slips. They only go further down from there, though thankfully not by any more steep walls. Instead, they fight their next group- a combination of mechs and agents, this time- on a catwalk lining the side of the ship. He popped the head off a LOKI, and considered letting Glint out briefly to get his helmet, but he still doesn't trust the wind tearing through the sparsely-covered half-tunnel.
He really wished he had put it on before leaving. Thankfully, their way forward is through an interior area.
"Thank the Light!" His face was numb by this point, and he flared sol Light through his body briefly to dry off. "Glint?"
"You really should have done this earlier." His Ghost tutted as he phased in the woebegone peice of armor before vanishing again.
"I know, I know." He muttered as they moved through what was probably the ship's power transfer system. It seemed purpose-built for this storm in every way, right down to converting the constant lightning into energy. He could have gone without more disturbing comments from Liara involving taking the Broker down along with themselves if all else failed. All too soon, though, they're back in the squall. At least his face wasn't being lashed anymore.
The uphill climb that was just as steep as the downhill one from earlier was less than welcome, and the Broker team that was waiting for them topside even more so. He thinks he hits someone, but the storm is so violent between the flashes of lightning and the curtain of rain, it obscures even his enhanced vision enough that he can't fully tell.
Or maybe he didn't want to see, so his eyes decided not to. He tried his best to focus on keeping his footing instead, they had to traverse more steep angles to get to where they were going. Several more people nearly slipped, including him, and he would never take stable land for granted again after this.
Another squad of the Broker's men later, and they continued on after lowering several of... whatever the flappy things all over this ship were. Some agents climb out of manholes to confront them, Garrus swears when one of them gets a good shot in, but their larger numbers make quick work of the unfortunate individuals as usual, and the turian's wound isn't serious. They take a few moments so Mordin can slap some medigel on it and keep going.
Unfortunately, the enemy was becoming smart enough to break out the heavy weapons. Most of Charlie stayed back as they pressed the next group, as there wasn't enough cover for all of them, but it was the last squad they had to fight before reaching their objective, which happened to be on the other end of a bridge. A bridge with no guardrails.
"I bet the Broker's agents love patrolling the hull!" Shepard commented as they crossed.
"Not anymore, I think." Garrus said as Charlie filed across after his team.
"It's probably punishment work." Crow guessed. He didn't know if the Shadow Broker was much like Spider, but it seemed likely to be something he might do. The Eliksni mob boss would send him on repair duty in a vacuum because he knew it would 'remind' Crow of what he'd been so graciously 'rescued' from. "Remind them of the power he has over them. Disobey, and risk getting blown off the side of the ship."
"Unless he has hostages as leverage." Jacob shrugs. "Reminders would be simpler than that."
"The hostages would be for if you screwed up big time." Crow shook his head as they finished crossing the nightmare bridge. "He needs smaller ways to show his power for smaller infractions, especially if someone is particularly valuable."
"Sounds like you're speaking from experience." Jacob's statement sounds more like a suspicious question, and a chill runs through his body that has nothing to do with the weather. I guess I am, after a fashion.
"We found the hatch." Shepard saves him from having to say anything else on the matter. "But there's going to heavy reinforcements on the way, or I'm a hanar. Charlie, take the door. Liara has a way to crack it, but it'll need time. Bravo take the left, Alpha on right, let's get it done."
They quickly rushed to position, just in time for the enemy to arrive. It took all his willpower not to go out and try to help, but at least the only exciting thing to happen initially was Liara refusing to say whether she had tested her shunt device before using it. Things changed when the rocket drone came into play; for one thing, they had an angle on Charlie. Jacob put up a hasty biotic barrier to block several of the incoming rockets as Tali and the techs on the other teams stripped their shields.
To say that drones didn't last very long with thirteen people firing on them would be an understatement, and a quick check reveals no serious injuries from the rockets.
"This is suspiciously disorganized." Thane commented. "They know we outnumber them, why do they still hold back their own men?"
"Please don't give the mercs ideas." Shepard asks pleadingly. "Even if I do agree that this has been too easy."
"If the Shadow Broker was expecting us, he wasn't expecting us to teleport onto his ship." Liara said. "Let alone with the full force of your team."
"Transmat." Crow corrected right before more agents charged their position. He's starting to tire of the word 'teleport', it made the feat sound boring and generic. Once more, Charlie didn't have much to shoot at, but the next wave made up for it when someone finally rubbed together enough brain cells to throw a belt of grenades into the hatch entryway. Tali froze, Crow's heart jumped into his throat, Jacob called out a warning, and Thane sent the belt flying up into the sky with a hasty biotic throw.
He pulled Tali down and covered her as best he could as it went off. Pain sparked along his back, and he heard Jacob swear. When he looks up, Grunt is shaking his head in irritation as blood mixed with rain runs down his face, Jacob was taking his helmet off(he could see a large splinter of shrapnel sticking out of the visor), and Thane was pulling back, clutching his shoulder. He feels like something is tickling a lung when he stand up, and Glint presses him to be let out.
Not now, there's too much wind and too many bullets.
"Be careful." Thankfully nobody else gets any bright ideas like the grenade belt, Jacob is quick in doling out the medigel, and soon Shepard is demanding a sound off.
"All good, Commander." The shrapnel had only scraped the bridge of Jacob's nose, and he hadn't bothered putting medigel on it. "Thane's shoulder will need looking at, but it doesn't seem serious."
The Commanders eyes sweep over all of the. "Grunt, put some gel on that."
"No. It'll make a cool scar." The krogan refuses, and even though he can't see her face, Crow can easily imagine the tired expression she was fixing the reptilian teenager with.
"Crow?" She questioned, maybe noticing the way he was tilting to the side a bit. He felt dizzy, and his back was screaming at him.
"I don't trust the wind enough to let Glint out." He manages to get out.
"You're coming in with Alpha, then, just hang back and wait for the rest of your team after." She told him. "Stick behind us, we don't know what's waiting."
"Yes, ma'am." He said, limping up as steadily as he's able and falling in behind Zaeed and Kasumi, who casts him a look that might have been concerned, but it was hard to tell between the hood and rebreather. The door opened, revealing a long corridor, and Shepard gave the signal to descend. Crow followed gingerly, but before he felt safe enough to let Glint out, some chucklehead fired a rocket down the tight corridor of a ship that was traveling through a neverending storm.
Not the best move, in his opinion, but what did he know? He was under the affect of blood loss; Kasumi even had to pull him into cover. He thought about returning fire, but everything is tilting at this point, so he makes what he deems to be the smart decision not to fire his weapon. Maybe the chucklehead had damaged the inertial whatevers that kept the ship steady.
He doesn't even realize he's zoned out like he had this morning until Kasumi gives a shoulder a solid shake. There's no more gunfire.
"Shoulda slept in, after all." He yawns. Glint popped into existence and got to work. The chill in his bones and the blackness at the edge of his vision retreated, and the world around him comes into sharp and sudden focus. The pain in his back numbs and fades.
"Oop, there he is!" Kasumi said, a grin in her voice. "Must be some good stuff."
"Charlie, hold our exfil, everybody else on me." Shepard ordered after giving him a quick look up and down. Crow kept to the side as Alpha and Bravo swept past him. Thane slid up beside him as gunfire and explosions erupted from the end of the hall as the others engaged with more agents, Tali taking cover across from them, and Jacob taking Grunt up a little further ahead before the two of them also settled into cover.
"You good?" He asked the drell. He hadn't gotten a good look at the injuries, but there was no small amount of blood smeared about his arm and shoulder.
"The medigel was applied in time." Thane assured him. "There should be no serious consequences, as far as my condition is concerned."
Crow nodded and turned his attention back to the corridor. Shepard's team was making quick progress, the last of Bravo had moved from sight, but the sounds of battle were still ringing loud. He atunes himself to the void to try to give their own team some extra warning, and manages to spot a squad of Broker agents before they even come through the door.
He definitely kills someone this time. He has to take a few deep breaths afterwards, and barely managed to stop himself from jumping when Thane puts a hand on his shoulder.
"What if they were like-what if they didn't choose this?" He can't help but question out loud, more to himself than the drell.
"Then they met a more unfortunate end than others." Thane says. "But perhaps there is a chance the rest can be spared, depending on what happens with the Shadow Broker."
"I hope she doesn't go with her 'take the ship down' idea, then." He tries not to think about how many people on this ship might be here to protect someone other than the Shadow Broker, or how many of those someones might be imprisoned on board. He can't help but wonder if the man he killed had a family. Were they being threatened? Or would he never have left this ship alive regardless? It wasn't too far-fetched to imagine that the Shadow Broker would never let anyone who saw this place live once one was no longer useful.
One more squad came for them, and they were mid-firefight when Garrus gets on the comms with the last thing any of them wanted to hear.
"All teams, Shepard and Liara are trapped with the Broker." Jacob swears, and then lifts an agent from the ground with his biotics while Grunt takes her out. "They made entry into central operations and the door shut before the rest of Alpha could follow, nearly took Kasumi's arm off."
"Still got that shunt device?" Jacob asked.
"Liara still has it." Of course she did.
"Charlie's taking fire." Jacob told him, ducking back into cover as the hallway was peppered with bullets. "We're good, but we can't do anything from here."
"Hold position for now, we'll try to get this open the old-fashioned way." The turian ordered, voice strained.
On a scale of one to ten, Crow would rank this as a nine on the 'not good' scale. It took them five minutes to fight off the agents that had come for them, and they spent the next ten waiting for reinforcements to attack. Then the power flickered, and his worries about Liara downing the ship seemed suddenly and disturbingly valid. At least, until the loudspeakers came on.
"This is the Shadow Broker. The situation is under control." Jacob sword up a storm, and Crow's blood ran cold. "We experienced a power fluctuation while upgrading hardware. It disrupted communications temporarily. However, we are now back online. Resume standard procedures. I want a status report on all operations within the next solar day. Shadow Broker out."
"Nobody panic, everything's fine!" Shepard's voice crackled breathlessly over comms. "Liara's just the Shadow Broker now, I guess."
"You okay?" Jacob asks while everyone else let's out the breath they were holding. Thank the Light.
"Tell Chakwas to be ready. I punched a yagh." A... what? Crow looks to Thane questioningly.
"What's a yagh?" He asked. The drell, normally rather knowledgeable, could only shrug.
I could have sworn I mentioned I was taking a break last chapter, but apparently I didn't. The game killed off two characters since then, three if we count Rohan even though we barely knew him, and Lance Reddick died. Like.. damn. It's depressing.
On the game side of things, I'm not a fan of how Crow is becoming the Miles O'Brian of Destiny. Every other season feels like 'let's make Crow suffer again'. The emotional beat between him and Amanda was never actually resolved, and while you could argue that's the tragedy of the thing, a lot of people were invested in those two, myself included. I would argue it was the most interesting character dynamic in the game simply because there were so many complicated emotions involved.
At least in fanfiction, he can be happy.
Knightwolf1875: Ah, got it.
Jebest4781: Glad to hear it.
edboy49: Thanks!
Jctherebel: Thank you!
Bladethefox117: I doubt they would do an ME crossover merch thing unless it was for ME4, which probably won't be out for years.
Silverwingzz: Sorry you feel that way.
Narc626: Hope you liked it!
As to why the gap between chapters was so long, a health related false alarm occupied every corner of my mental space for most of February and April, and I was already out of chapters because my lizard also had a several month health related false alarm that affected me similarly before then. After that, Lightfall came out, and the narrative actually disappointed me to the point of having little passion for the game for the last several months, including writing for it, which has never happened before. What they did with Amanda just made it worse.
Then my interest was piqued by an anime of all things(I usually find anime too obnoxious to stomach, probably a side affect of watching too much pokemon as a kid), and of course this triggered a deep dive into its fanfiction archive. Before I knew it, it was May, and people were thinking I abandoned this story.
Fare Thee Well!