I had never been part of a ship boarding op. I hadn't been part of many ops to begin with, so really, it was redundant. I had no idea what to expect, except that there was a very narrow connection between the Normandy and the geth cruiser which had us in its grip. A kinetic barrier bulkhead had fallen in the corridor leading from the CIC to the airlock, and I could only see indistinctive figures behind it.
One of them was Anderson, the N7 armor easy enough to distinguish. The others, well, there weren't many choices.
"Morgan!" Anderson called.
"Right here sir!" I replied, pushing through the barrier with the pulse rifle in my hands.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"What does it look like? I'm not going to let the geth in here!"
He grabbed me by the collar of my armor as I passed, and pulled me right to his face. The way he was looking at me, it was as if he was trying to drill into my brain.
"You fall in and follow orders, understood?"
"Yes sir," I said.
He pushed me to the opposite side of the airlock, and gestured at Grieco to move back. There was enough cover of all five of us, and probably a few more. The five of us being Anderson, Grieco, Garrus, Liara, and I. Clearly, whoever had designed the Normandy wanted it to be hard to board without permission. Or with permission, given the decon cycles.
"Get ready Morgan. When the airlock opens, pressure will equalize and that can throw you off."
"Geth ships have no atmosphere or gravity," I replied. "They don't need it."
"Right."
A whirring sound accompanied by some sort of vibration interrupted us. The geth were trying to get through to the ship. It really was a matter of time, we were sitting ducks. And the captain knew it too, because he was planning for it.
"Joker, get ready," he said to the comms.
"Captain," Garrus called. "I've lost tracking. We're being jammed."
I looked at the corner of my HUD, and saw that my radar was still alive and well.
"There's four hostiles behind the door," I announced.
"Link us through to your combat sensors," Anderson said, not even missing a step.
Um...
"Gee? Can you do that?"
"Affirmative."
All eyes turned to me, and it was Garrus who spoke.
"Gee?"
I raised my omni-tool and pointed at it, not elaborating on who, exactly, Gee was. They probably thought it was a VI of some sort. I should have set a private channel or something, dammit. A loud clunk got everyone's attention, and Anderson yelled right then.
"Now!"
The airlock shot open in the blink of an eye, and the air leaving the Normandy hit like a hurricane. It was a good thing that I had anchored myself hard to my cover. Anderson, in the meantime, hadn't lost an instant. As soon as the door bolted open, he was out there shooting with his assault rifle like it was going out of fashion. I saw two markers disappear in the time it took me to get out there and start shooting.
And in the time it took the geth to do the same. Shit, there were a lot more units at the edge of radar range than we had anticipated. The two left at the front were trying to move to the side, but they were getting all sorts of flack. Then, they suddenly stopped moving and powered down, getting shredded by fire from both sides in seconds.
What the hell, did they power down or some-
The thought didn't even leave the station, because an alarm started blaring in my ear, and the HUD popped up with a marker. A flash at the back and a rapidly approaching object was surrounded with the marker.
"Shit, rocket!" I yelled, diving into cover.
Anderson did the same, diving in and managing to get out of the way of the blast. As soon as the explosion abated, I squeezed out of cover to start firing. More geth platforms were coming out of the woodwork, and in the middle of the large space on the opposite side I saw the towering form of a geth prime.
"We need to punch through!" Anderson said.
"Firing a concussive shot!" Garrus announced.
The blast was substantial, and caught several units with considerable force. The low gravity of the geth ship made for a very eerie scene, with the geth floating in mid air as they drifted back. His attack was followed by a blue flash, a biotic push from Liara sending even more of them flying. Grieco made a push towards the door, but several shots from the prime's enormous shotgun, as well as yet another rocket from the launcher at the back stopped him in his tracks, forcing him back in cover besides me.
"That freaking rocket launcher!" he snapped.
"Cover fire!" Anderson ordered.
As one, we all dove out and started shooting everything we had. My pulse rifle was probably the least flashy of the lot, but man could it spit out rounds. And the recoil was minimal, it was the perfect gun for a newbie like me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Anderson peek out, sniper rifle in hand, and then dive in right before the rest of us did.
"One down, three to go!" he said.
Shit, three rocket launchers?
"Sir?" Joker's voice called through the comms. "You might want to hurry up a bit, airlock's not going to be closing too tight with all the holes it's getting. Just saying."
"Just concentrate on getting us out, Joker."
"We're trying, but the cyber warfare has us locked tighter than the commander's underwear."
I heard Grieco snort at that, probably echoing what we were all thinking. Shepard was going to kick his ass when she got back.
"Geth consensus strength is linked to presence of networked programs. Network capability depends on available hardware platforms," Gee said.
Right.
"Captain! If we hammer the platforms aboard the geth will get dumber, should let us get away!"
"Then we have a plan," Anderson replied. "Cover!"
We repeated the previous maneuver, but this time, the geth had been expecting it. Return fire intensified when Anderson leaned out to snipe, and we were forced into cover once more with two more rockets hitting the airlock.
"Damn it, we need to get through!" Anderson said.
"Gee, any ideas?" I said.
"Optimal parameters require elimination of prime platform."
"And getting rid of the rockets, yes," I said.
Again, my HUD started filling with non-standard markers. The prime, distance markers, and the location of the rocket launchers.
"Overload ready," Gee announced.
"I hope you're onto something, Gee. I'm going in!"
I got my arm out and a massive overload shot from my omni-tool, flying fast and furious and hitting the prime in the middle of the room. Electricity arcs shot from it, hitting every platform within spitting distance. I ran out hot on its heels, and I heard the team firing their guns as soon as I had cleared the airlock.
Running in low gravity is actually pretty weird. I got an accelerated lesson during my mining week, which was coming pretty handy. With the maglock boots on, one had to rely on the suit's VI to engage and disengage the attachment; and to run, one had to pull down on every step, not just up. It was an unnatural movement, but with little gravity, it was easy to tear through real fast despite the strange exercise.
And thus, I shot through the battlefield like a bat out of hell. Made it to the back of the room too, as bullets pinged off my shitty kinetic barrier, and vaulted over the waist-high cover barrier to crash on top of one of the rocket launcher geth units. The stims were still fresh in my system, and I was running high on adrenalin. I slammed the butt of my rifle on the flashlight over and over, and finished with a burst of bullets at point blank range.
No time to lose though, I had a lot of attention on me, and the rest of the team could only do so much. I grabbed the geth rocket launcher, and before I could do my idiotic "monkey with an advanced piece of tech" routine, the launcher flared to life, the interface labelled in English.
"Gee, you're the man," I said.
"Morgan-messenger?"
I could imagine his metaphorical eyeflaps twitching at that. I had to teach him figurative language at some point. For now, I had a working rocket launcher, and a lot of targets. I got up, and started shooting with real gusto. One, two, three, and on the fourth, the launcher started to flash an angry red light at me.
"Morgan-messenger, functionality requires ejecting spent thermal clip."
Thermal... wait? I pulled the marked lever back, and a searing hot sink shot out of the weapon, floating away. Shit, that's right. Geth use thermal clips. Apparently not in all weapons, my assault rifle didn't need them. Well, whatever, I had more shots now.
Not that there were a lot of targets left. Anderson had followed in as soon as I had let the first volley fly, and he was getting all the attention now.
"Grieco! Get that launcher!" he ordered.
Damn. My first thought was to complain, but you don't complain about your orders to Captain David freaking N7 Anderson. I tossed the launcher at Grieco, who was running towards me, pulled my shotgun out, and started shooting. The prime was the prime target (har har), of course, but after a couple of rockets and the combine firepower of the entire team, there wasn't much prime left. Anderson pushed forward, taking the lead to bring the remaining rocket launchers down, and ended up standing alone in the center of the room, scanning for enemies.
And he was surrounded by a sea of scrap.
"No hostiles," Garrus announced.
"Not for long," Anderson replied, lowering his weapon.
"Orders, sir?" Grieco said.
He turned to look at Liara before speaking. "Joker, status of the shuttle?"
"It's aboard the cruiser, sir. Landing bay is on the opposite end."
"Then that's where we're going."
Liara and Anderson looked at each other for a few seconds, until the asari gave him a firm nod. We were going after Benezia. Damn, and Shepard wasn't here.
"Morgan," Anderson called.
"Yes?"
"What else do you have in your bag of tricks?"
"I'm... not sure, sir," I replied, looking at my omni-tool "Let me find out."
It was a stupid plan, I was not happy about it, and we were up to our necks in synthetic scrap. But it was working.
Gee was gone. The heretic ship was too big, too many units aboard, too many weapons and platforms to go through. As long as they held such advantage, the Normandy would be trapped, and we'd be at the receiving end of a massive wave of synthetics. So, he had uploaded himself to the ship's consensus. To break it. To slow it. Standard hacking techniques had little effect on the geth. Even with someone as skilled as Tali hacking individual platforms, the hack never lasted long.
Their only weakness was division. Division was the reason why the quarians were still alive. The consensus couldn't reach a decision when it came to destroying the last survivors, even as they had the quarians at their mercy.
And that was all Gee was doing now. Breaking consensus, isolating portions of the geth colelction of programs as we tore shit up on our way to the shuttles. He was still linked to my omni-tool, hacking doors and running programs, but it was secondary. As far as the others knew, I had uploaded a virus, and I had to keep the code running from my omni-tool, so I could not keep doing nifty tech tricks with it.
If they were suspicious, nobody was saying anything.
Behind us, we had left the Normandy in lockdown, the airlock closed and secured, and automated turrets planted in a defensive pattern inside the geth docking bay. It would hold, and there was no shortage of armed people inside the ship either.
"Get ready!" Anderson called.
He shot the node ahead, his assault rifle spitting rounds with perfect accuracy into the large computing storage device. As before, it was like kicking a hornet's nest, with doors opening and geth units rushing in.
Good man, Gee.
Anderson didn't miss a step, he was the first one firing, short controlled bursts which always found their targets with deadly accuracy. It wasn't the head, it was the neck that was the real paydirt. Not only it cut the feed from the single camera on the head, it also fried many of the main processing hardware pieces.
The result was heads popping out of the geth bodies every time Anderson set his sights on someone. He was at the front, shooting everything and getting the most attention, and yet he didn't seem to care. Three geth troopers fell down as soon as they stepped inside. Grieco came out of cover to throw a rocket at the second door, but as units came pouring in, two more went down, one with a sniper shot from Garrus, another from Anderson swapping targets in the blink of an eye.
"Don't let them get a foothold!" Anderson said.
"Yes sir!" Grieco replied, throwing another two rockets, and swapping to his assault rifle.
"Concussive shot!" Garrus called, clearing a path with us in the blink of an eye.
I got out of cover myself to follow up on his attack, bursts of geth pulse rifle making a sizeable dent on the incoming horde. Anderson, in the meantime, had to dive deep in cover when a rocket flew straight at him, the explosion somewhat muted in the thin atmosphere. The moment it happened, Anderson vaulted over the barrier, and ran straight at the geth, shotgun in hand.
The weapon swap had been so fast I hadn't even seen when it had happened. He powered right through the two geth shooting at him, their bodies floating away. With holes. Damn but he was efficient. He then tackled the third geth before he could fire another rocket, his moves having been so fast and smooth I could only surmise the geth was doubting whether the captain was an organic or a synthetic.
"Morgan!" Anderson shouted.
A moment later, he threw the rocket launcher in my direction, aiming with uncanny accuracy even without having to turn at me.
"Got it!" I replied, grabbing the thing awkwardly and starting a scan with my omni-tool. Gee had left a program behind, which took only a moment to verify the state of the weapon. Green. "Grieco!"
He fired two more rockets with his current one, then threw it away and rushed into cover by my side.
"Geez Roy, I'm going to have to get you a lot of beer for Christmas," he said, taking the new weapon and firing another rocket. He didn't actually hit anything this time, because Anderson had finished most of the geth.
The last three ones were floating in the air around Liara's singularity. We all turned to look at her, and Grieco was the one to call it.
"Take it away Doc!"
Liara was surrounded by blue, dark energy as her biotics flared, and a well aimed push later, the biotic explosion tore the three geth to pieces, the remains bouncing off the walls aimlessly. Grieco let a whoop out, but was quickly silenced by Anderson, who gestured for us to move. As we made our way down the corridor, the comms broke with Joker's voice.
"Captain, we've got company," he said.
"No we don't!" a female voice interrupted, her words shouted over the sound of automatic gunfire. "Sir, we're fine!"
"Draven, report," Anderson said.
Draven? Isn't that Talitha? No, wait, the other woman, the bald one... Can't remember her-
"Nothing to worry about," she said. An explosion drowned whatever it was she was going to say next, but after a moment she continued unabated. "The turrets and I are having a grand ol' time here!"
"What's the size of the force?"
"About eight-" More shooting. "Make that seven geth, sir. There's a big one, but we're fine."
I heard Grieco sniggering next to me, and he gave me an elbow to the ribs. Damn, I always thought it was just the ground team you see in the game, but it looked like the Normandy was packed with badasses everywhere. Or at least crazy enough people.
"Joker?" Anderson said.
"I'm... not going to contradict her, sir," he replied. "I didn't know Shepard was contagious."
"Joker, you have until we're back to put your moves on her," I said. "If not, Griego will."
"Yeah, the cripple with brittle bones will surely want to get it on with the heavily armed psychopath," Joker snorted.
"Hey! I'm still here!" Draven snapped. The comms blared the sound of an explosion, which seemed to accentuate the point.
"You're in the clear, Grieco," I said, earning myself a slap on the back of my head from the marine.
"Enough," Anderson said, cutting through the chatter. He was dry, but didn't sound too angry.
I opened a channel to Grieco, who accepted it after looking at me first in surprise.
"You'll notice she didn't say no," I said.
"Shut up Morgan," he chuckled, closing the channel.
The next door was in front of us. We had made most of the ship now, having fought tooth and nail for every inch of space. It was fucking crazy, I was exhausted and running on a second jolt of stims, courtesy of Grieco. He had only offered it after I promises never to tell Chakwas about it, and yet I was still falling behind. Liara, too, looked tired, but she was pushing through like a real trooper.
I think she wanted to get to her mother. I didn't envy her position, really, despite having a bit of trouble fully emphasizing with it. Blame it on my own family history.
"Get ready," Anderson said. "No shots unless I open fire first."
He didn't need to say it. He was always the first one to shoot. He opened the door, and to our surprise, we were greeted by a blue barrier. Bulkhead. The radar was pinging three enemies ahead, quite far, right at the edge of its reach. Without any second thoughts, Anderson rushed through the barrier, and so did we.
Gravity was noticeable on the other side. Air pressure too. And I could see why.
Benezia was standing at the back of the room, flanked by two asari commandos. Her dress was dirty, blue of asari blood on one side. She was standing ramrod straight, while the two commandos did have their weapons out. The room itself seemed to have been set up for organics. Seats, a table, air and gravity – air is great, let me tell you – and it just looked liveable.
Anderson lowered the muzzle of his rifle, but kept it at the ready. The rest of us fell in, fanning out but not really moving to surround them. There was nowhere to go really.
"Matriarch Benezia," Anderson said.
"Captain Anderson," Benezia replied.
It looked like a very dry greeting, but it sounded like they had exchanged a whole book, not just a couple of words. Anderson had a history with Saren, did Benezia know about it? I was trying to remember, the way she had said Captain Anderson sounded somewhat familiar, but I couldn't be sure.
"Give up now, you have nowhere to go," Anderson said.
"We have your ship, and your commander is trapped in my facility. You overestimate yourself. Give up? Me?" She looked behind the captain. "Is that why you brought my daughter? To soften my heart?"
"I brought whoever wanted to follow," Anderson replied.
"What have you told them Liara?" Benezia said.
The mocking tone of her voice grated on me like nothing else. It wasn't the voice, or the words. It was the tone. Such contempt, I had to restrain myself not to raise my gun or do any sudden movements. I didn't care whether she was indoctrinated or not, that was her fucking daughter. How the hell dare she?
"What could I tell them mother? That you are insane? That you have joined with someone who wants to destroy the galaxy?"
"It does not matter. You made your choice, Liara."
The commandos raised their guns, and so did we. For a moment, it was a stand-off. Pistols at dawn.
"Have any of you ever faced an asari commando?" Benezia said, her voice dismissive.
"What do you think?" I snapped. I couldn't help myself, I was pissed off.
She looked at me and narrowed her eyes, as if she had recognized me for the first time.
"Morgan," she said, her voice like ice.
"The one and only," I replied, and opened fire.
It was probably not a great idea, because it made me the top target. I rushed for cover, bullets hitting my barrier and breaking through as I jumped away, rolling painfully behind a metallic beam. As I caught my breath, I waited for the inevitable boom of the rocket launcher, but when it didn't come, I peeked out of cover.
Grieco and Garrus were standing still like statues, caught in a stasis field.
Shit!
It didn't occur to me that they hadn't actually sent any biotic attacks my way. What I was seeing was two of my team mates standing like dummies and open to attack. My barriers were low, crap as they were-
Wait, they've actually not been as crap as I remember.
Nevermind. Liara was way at the back, and had slapped a singularity right in the middle of the commandos. The two asari hadn't been completely caught by it, holding on into cover, but it was enough to throw them off for now. Benezia and Anderson had somehow moved away from us, and they were trading blows like there was no tomorrow. Each time Benezia shot a biotic attack, its crash made the entire room tremble. It felt like the entire ship trembled. The captain didn't have biotics, but he seemed right at home fighting them. He dodged and weaved with ease, and on every opening he'd squeeze one or two shotgun shots, aimed with perfect accuracy at his enemy.
Forget biotic powerhouses, asari matriarchs, or reaperified enemies. I now could see why Anderson had been lined up to become the first human Spectre. He had Benezia on the defensive.
"Shit! Grieco!"
I bolted out of cover and started shooting, my assault rifle spitting rounds with my finger jammed down on the trigger. The asari had started shooting at the two in stasis, and Grieco was taking the worst of it. His barriers were flaring with every shot, and there was no way they'd last for much longer. Liara, too, tried to give cover, but her singularity was gone, and she was tired now, it would take her a bit to recover enough to get another one up.
The corner of my eye caught sight of a splash of red. Son of a bitch! I ran out of cover, assault rifle up, and came to stand right in front of Grieco. Fuck these two, I was not letting him get killed. The pulse rifle was starting to titter dangerously close to overheating, and I was stuck. Liara threw a push that sent one of the two asari flying back, while the other continued to shoot at me. Bullets chewed through my barrier, hit my suit, and before I could think of anything else, the asari was suddenly gone.
In her place was a splatter of blue, and bits of brain sliding down the wall behind her.
"One down!" I heard Garrus shout.
Fucking hell just in time! I turned and dropped to my knee, quickly checking on Grieco. Damn, he was still breathing. I grabbed him and dragged him to the back, where an exhausted Liara was in cover.
"Take care of him!" I said.
"But-"
"Garrus and I have this, you're the doctor here," I interrupted.
When I stood up and put my rifle to my shoulder, a jolt of pain hit me on the arm. Shit, I had a hole. Chakwas was going to kill me.
…
I was about to enter a firefight with an asari commando, and Chakwas was the scariest thing in my head. Go figure.
Garrus and the last commando were trading shots, with the C-Sec detective having a hard time getting past the biotic attacks. I needed to get him an opening.
"Garrus, heads up, I'll distract her," I said.
He only grunted in response, which I took as a very positive interaction with him. I traded my assault rifle for my shotgun, primed it, then bolted out of cover and ran straight for her. Full speed. She turned immediately, bright blue biotic power around her, then she hesitated. However, it was too late, she still had to fire her biotic attack, and the push hit me right on the chest and sent me flying like a bouncing ball.
The fact that I had been expecting it didn't diminish how much it hurt. The fact that she hadn't been expecting it had been different. To my relief, I had been right. They thought biotic attacks wouldn't work on me. I had hoped that she would have had to swap to her gun on the fly, giving me time to get into cover, but this worked too. I had thrown her off, and that was all Garrus had needed.
I crashed on the wall as Garrus shouted a "scoped and dropped!" at the comms, and a moment later the turian had rushed to my side, his helmeted head looking at me closely.
"Are you alive?" he said.
"No," I grunted, arms crossed over my chest. Fucking hell the pain.
"You're an idiot, you know that?" Garrus said.
"Yeah," I replied absently. "Go help the captain, I'm fine."
"Your captain doesn't need help," he said.
He helped me to a sitting position, and pried my arms away from my chest. Then, he started to run a scan over with his omni-tool, and a moment later he jabbed me in the arm with a load of delicious medi-gel. The noise of a concussive grenade going off caught our attention, and when Garrus moved to the side, I got a full view of the fight between Anderson and Benezia.
His grenade had forced her out of cover, and the captain's shotgun was hitting the matriarch's barrier hard. She threw a biotic attack almost blindly, and even as she pulled her arm back, Anderson was already on the move. He rushed past one of the beams, and the biotic blast hit the metal like a hammer. It bent, the edges of the blast dissolving as the biotics ate away at the molecular bonds. Bloody hell, it was a warp and it hit like a massive push.
It was insane. But Anderson looked like he didn't care. He threw another grenade, turned like a snap, and rushed straight at Benezia. The matriarch rose her pistol and fired at him, several bullets finding their target, but the captain pushed on. He aimed with the butt of his gun at Benezia's face, the matriarch dodged deftly, and her counter seemed destined to catch Anderson dead to rights.
But it never did. Despite the fact that we could all see that inertia was carrying him forward, right in the path of the attack, he made a physics-defying turn and lunged at Benezia with his left hand. He hit her right under the chest, her scream of pain sending a chill down my spine. He made a swipe, until his knife cut through and came out the side of the asari's torso, blue blood pouring out. His last move was to shove the end of hisshotgun in the cut, and press the trigger.
Liara's desperate shout accompanied the fall of her mother's body. She jumped to her feet and rushed towards them, throwing her helmet aside. Anderson was taking a few steps back, breathing heavily, and for once giving some signs of exhaustion. Or pain. He was limping.
"Mother... mother please..." Liara's voice came through hoarse and low, barely audible over the broken silence in the ship. "Why did you do this... Why did you..."
Benezia muttered something. I couldn't make it. I saw Liara nod, and Benezia raised her hand painfully, resting it against her daughter's face. They stood like that for several seconds, and then the hand fell.
"Mother!" Liara shouted.
All I made from her whisper was "little".
Little Wing. I'm sure of it. Damn, she was herself at the end.
And thus, it was over. Liara cried desperately over the body of her dead mother, and the rest of us stood in stunned silence looking at what had happened.
"Captain, are you there?" Joker called, breaking the spell of the scene.
"Joker, what do you have for me?"
"You're going to want to hear this."
"-peat. This is Shepard, are you there?"
Well damn, about time, I thought.
"Right here Commander, about damn time," Anderson replied. "What's your status?"
"We've got a stolen shuttle and two wounded, hows it going up there?"
"Normandy's on lockdown and we just took down the target," Anderson said.
"Morgan-Messenger," Gee called. "We are receiving incoming heretic programs. Heretic consensus increase will overwhelm Gee-terminal's countermeasures in six hundred and twenty-three seconds."
"Wait, what?" I said. "Gee, what's going on?"
"Heretic consensus increasing," Gee repeated.
"Morgan?" Anderson said.
"Shit, Captain. We have incoming geth!"
"Roy?" Shepard called over the comms. "What are you-"
"We have to leave! Now! We've got less than ten minutes!"
"Shepard, what's your ETA?" Anderson said.
"It's... about twelve."
"Too slow, we'll get you on the way. Joker! Prep the Normandy!"
"I'd love to Captain, but there's that geth cruiser holding us in a death hug?" the pilot replied.
"Gee, we need the Normandy free," I said over a private channel to my geth friend. Yeah, so private channels turned out to be really easy to use.
"Focus on Normandy-Ship disengagement will allow heretic consensus to strengthen."
"Okay, do it," I replied, and switched to general comms. "Captain, I'll handle the locks, but it'll mean the geth will be all on alert about us."
"Then do it. Garrus, help Grieco. Let's move!"
Liara's mourning had had to be brief. Anderson had managed to coax her to stand up with a few quiet words, and we rushed out as the remaining geth platforms decided to make us their targets. No more hiding. No more false signals, or muted alarms. The entire ship was a collection of geth runtimes, and thus, it was like moving through a living organism.
Not a minute after Gee had shifted priorities we had our first run-in. Half a minute later, an enormous litany of curses from Draven came through the comms. The remaining geth platforms were no longer holding back. Seemed like she was trying to hold back a tide of them, and the turrets weren't cutting it.
Anderson wouldn't have any of that. I thought I had seen him work fast before, but freaking hell he was on a mission now. He was cutting through the geth like they were butter and he was on fire. I remembered him saying he wanted to be methodical on our way in, trying not to let the geth have a shot at our backs. But it seemed he didn't care now.
Well, truth to be told, we were going so fast that the geth we left behind would never have a chance to catch up with us. At least until we ran out of explosives.
By the time we got to the Normandy, we had less than two minutes to go. We blasted our way through the geth, the captain dragged Draven back with him, and we piled into the airlock like in an old school comedy firm. I expected Groucho Marx to jump at the top of the pile any second.
"Go, go, go!" Anderson yelled.
The airlock shut down with a slam, skipping the decontamination cycle as the Captain dragged himself out of the bottom of the pile to get to the CIC. The groan of metal being forced out of shape preceded a series of snaps, and the Normandy started to float away. Fuck yeah we were free.
"Gee, we're free, let's go," I whispered over a private channel, grunting as I worked to get myself away from the pile and seated in the corner.
"Morgan-Messenger, we are engaged with heretic programs."
"Then get disengaged and back to the omni-tool, we're moving out!" I insisted, my whisper louder and hoarser.
"We are engaging-"
"Gee, right now! I'm not leaving you there!" I snapped. A few people turned to look at me. Damn, I spoke through the helmet private mode. "Come on Gee, we're free, Joker can handle anything the heretics have left."
I waited, and a few seconds later, Gee's voice replied.
"Beginning upload," he said, and my omni-tool flared to life.
The sigh of relief was definitely heartfelt. And just like that, I felt as if the entire mission came crashing down on my shoulders. Tension gone, my legs lost their energy, and the pain finally caught up with me. Damn, I wanted to just curl up there in the corner and sleep for a week or two.
All I needed was someone to bring me a glass of water.
But any happy thoughts of blissful rest were gone when an engagement alarm blared over the comms.
"Holy crap Captain, the reaper's here!" Joker called. "Just came through the relay!"
"Get us to Shepard, on the double!" Anderson replied. "Everyone to battle stations!"
Someone dragged me up to my feet, and helped me down the CIC towards the stairs. Which is a nice way of saying they basically shoved me out of the way. Well, couldn't blame them. The rest of the team, with the addition of Draven, would just get in the way. For one thing, we needed to go visit Chakwas. I was more or less okay, but Grieco needed some attention. And so did Draven, the bald woman looked like she had gotten several holes in her.
She was grinning like an idiot, though.
"Goddammit, that was fun," she said, her words slurring slightly. She had to be on painkillers or something.
"How was any of that fun?" Garrus said. He had her arm over his shoulders, and was helping her slowly down the steps.
"Did you see all those clankers? It was like a shooting gallery!"
"Yeah, don't remind me..."
"Come on birdman," Draven said, laughing. "Don't tell me you don't like the thrill. Well, I, for one, have missed it."
"Missed it?"
"I was part of the marines! Then I moved to the navy, and I was stuck inside the ship while the commander had all the fun," she grunted, taking the last step wrong and nearly faceplanting.
"You missed getting extra holes in you too?" Garrus said, his subvocals sounding amused.
"That's the best part! You've got no idea how many times that's got me laid," she said.
I shook my head and left them to their devices. They had to get medical attention first, so they all filed for the medbay, while I went for the seats at the back wall. Liara stood there, frozen, as if she wasn't sure what to do. She could go to her hidey hole, but the medbay was packed, and then if she stayed out there...
That's what was going through my head as I looked at her. She just seemed so... lost.
Damn, I've got to say something.
I took my helmet off and walked to her side.
"Liara?" I said, but got no answer. I put my hand on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. "I'm really sorry."
She nodded, pressing her hands together and pulling them over her stomach. I put my arm around her shoulders, thinking of guiding her towards one of the safety seats, but instead, she just turned and buried her face on my shoulders, crying.
Now I really didn't have a clue what to do. I only managed to get her to one of the seats when Shepard's shuttle crash-landed inside the cargo deck and rocked the whole ship. Soon after that Joker announced we were in stealth mode, and we all sighed in relief when the reaper didn't come after us.
But, looking at Liara next to me, I hesitated to call it a successful mission.
Author's Notes: Soooo... Yeah. Anderson vs. Benezia (with the latter being wounded though), lots of geth, and a daring escape! Mostly action this episode, which I hope was exciting enough. You may be wondering what's going to happen now, with the team having missed Noveria and only having taken down Benezia, but the observant among you will probably figure it out!
As for me, well, I'm aboard the Normandy for now, and looks like we all did a clean daring escape! But... You know me, never ever works that well, does it?
Anyway, we're running out of Mass Effect 1 plot, so things will start happening a little fast soon-ish. What will it be? Well, you'll see.
Thanks for all the reviews! You guys are the best! I'm so glad so many people got the Wuffles bit, ye gods but it was tempting!
Toothless is best: Oh man, do I have something for you next chapter :D
Mizuki00: Haha, glad to be noticed! Hope the N7-ness delivered :)
eurodox59: Wuffles is the man.
BJ Hanssen: Oh man, you have no idea. Gee's going to... Well, just watch this space. It's going to be hilarious.
Zeru'Xil: That freaking question! :)
Bolondka: Haha, thanks! Shipping questions, things should happen soon, not sure about Roy though, hehe. Convergence (vs. Divergence) was more about the plot "following" the main plot, despite Roy's best efforts (mostly thwarted by the freaking AI).
Uemei: Well, I left the aftermath of the fight for the next episode, which should be a bit of a contrast with how things have gone for Roy so far. Nothing like constant life-threatening fights to level up! :) Also, Gee was the name of the AI of the Sol Bianca. Bit obscure, I know.
, Endrius, bluemarlin, general-joseph-dickson, Blaze1992, themann1086, thanks so much for taking the time to review! I really appreciate the support.
Well, next episode we'll have something a bit odd, and more relaxed. Maybe. Until then, thanks for reading and reviewing! Ta-ta!