I think this makes sense?
Over the weekend I actually have occasion to read another 40K crossover story. Always interesting to see other angles on Imperial thought. Mine's the best though, obviously. I don't even know why you brought it up, it's obviously the best.
+++ON-BOARD THE ASSERTIVE, IN THE HANGER, STANDING AND WAITING+++
Picking out guns had not taken that long, all things considered.
Shepard had been quite right in her assumptions, too, and the Assertive was practically brimming with weaponry. The armoury that Jarrion took her to was not the only one on board, and it had more guns in it than the whole of the Normandy. She knew he had a lot of those armsmen around - he'd said as much - but it was still kind of ridiculous to see.
What Jarrion had meant, really, was that he only had the sort of equipment and armaments as suited his mission, which was only ever meant to involve light combat at most, perhaps a little alien eradication but nothing like a protracted ground war. Though even by those standards he'd brought a lot of guns, some of them very big indeed.
Not that Shepard was complaining, this was exactly what she'd been hoping for.
It had just been her, Jarrion and one of those servo skulls, this one with trailing parchment and with a spindly little arm tipped with a quill - a rather more grim version of the little typing machine that Torian had had, perhaps, and one that could also fly. It was there to take notes.
(There were also one or two crewmembers working in the armoury here and there but they, seeing the Lord Captain and what looked to be an important off-ship guest, steered well clear and kept a safe, respectful distance.)
Jarrion had basically deferred to Shepard, saying that since she was the one who'd be doing the mission and she was the one who knew her team she was better placed to decide what it was she might need. Selection therefore had involved a lot of Shepard pointing at a gun she didn't recognise and asking 'What's that?' and having Jarrion explain what it was to her.
Sometimes it was something she could comprehend like an autogun or a stubber or a heavy stubber or a shotgun (weapons she recognised as 'guns', albeit curiously anachronistic in a lot of cases - almost quaintly so), sometimes it was something new and different like a 'meltagun' at which point she'd express an interest and a note would be made by the servoskull following them.
In this way a list was drawn up.
Shepard did her best to exercise restraint, bearing in mind that she wasn't equipping an army but a squad, and they only had so many hands to hold guns with. It would have been easy to go overboard (she had a bit of a soft spot for guns) but she tried to think reasonably and calmly, and so in the end the list they ended up with was comparatively modest.
This list was then passed to a member of the armoury staff by Jarrion alongside instruction to pack up all items indicated thereon for transport, alongside sufficient ammunition and a few other sundries that Jarrion felt were warranted.
Meanwhile, Shepard had made contact with the Normandy to have the Kodiak sent over and while it was in transit the crates would be loaded and once the crates were loaded they would be brought down to the hanger, thence to be put into the Kodiak whenever it arrived.
It had not arrived yet.
Which was why Shepard and Jarrion were standing in the hanger waiting.
"Exciting stuff this, isn't it?" Shepard said, her arms folded and her eyes on the exterior hanger doors. They were enormous, but then what wasn't around here?
"Most of life is waiting, really. What's that expression? Periods of absolute terror separated by periods of absolute boredom?" Jarrion said.
Shepard had actually heard this or variants of it before, but hearing it from someone from thousands of years in the future wasn't something she'd expected.
"Heh, something like that," she said.
Further discussion of boredom was forestalled by a warning light setting off and drawing both their attention.
An impressively large set of doors a little way behind them opened, revealing what was plainly some manner of cargo elevator - not the one that Jarrion had used when leading his guests off the first time, nor the one that he and Shepard had used to come back down to the hanger this time. No, this was the sort of elevator you used when you were moving a lot of people and-or stuff.
Or, in this instance, driving some sort of cart thing loaded up with crates packed with weapons. Which is what someone was doing.
One of the crewmen from the armoury was stood right at the back of the vehicle, overseeing (and hanging onto) the crates all lashed onto the cargobed of the thing. He looked serious even as he bounced and rattled along.
He was accompanied on the loader-thing by several of the heavily augmented type of crewmembers that Shepard had seen once or two before in Jarrion's company, though usually only ever at a distance. Like when she'd caught him in that hanger (another bloody hanger - that's working in space a lot for you) on Illium, she'd seen some then.
At the time she hadn't given them too much thought - dismissing it as another Imperial quirk and imagining that she likely wouldn't get much useful by the way of answer if she asked - but this time something about them made her look twice. That they were closer helped, certainly, as it meant that a few key details that she might have missed the first one or two times now stood out more clearly to her.
She considered this as the loader drove their way, moving towards the pad that Jarrion pointed out and pulling to a halt beside it. Once stopped, the armoury crewman hopped down and popped the straps off the crates before instructing the augmented crew - with lots of pointing and a lot of shouting - to start unloading.
And unload they did, with a kind of painful, clumsy lack of coordination that only served to further heighten Shepard's concern about them. There really was something off about those guys, but she couldn't quite put her finger on what. Their mechanical bits certainly didn't look comfortable, that was for sure.
And then there was also the guy who she had thought was the one driving the loader.
Initially, she thought that the thing just had an orthodox and very uncomfortable-looking place for him, the driver to sit. It was only now, while it was being unloaded and he had nothing to do, that she clocked that the driver was, in fact, basically a part of the machine. Everything above the waist was person, everything below the waist was loader and where the two met there were a lot of rivets involved.
However he'd got into that position, he was not getting out again without help.
Not that seemed to mind. His blank, slack expression was clear even from halfway across the hanger, as were the same blank, slack expressions on the others doing the unloading.
They all looked to be in a pretty bad way.
"Are those guys okay?" Shepard asked, pointing with concern. Jarrion, who had been thinking about something and so who had been miles away, snapped back to the present and looked around.
He couldn't see anyone, or at least no-one obvious. The armoury crewman had wandered off to have a chat with one of the few hanger crewman around, occasionally glancing back to the ones doing the unloading, the only ones that Jarrion could see.
"Guys? What guys?" He asked.
Shepard pointed more, harder.
"Those guys, there. With the crates," she said and Jarrion peered right at where she was pointing and right at the servitors. He still didn't see who she was talking about.
"Who?"
"Them!"
"...the servitors?" Jarrion ventured, out of ideas.
"Sure, the servitors. Are they okay?" Shepard asked.
A pause.
"They...appear to be functioning correctly."
Shepard squinted at Jarrion and he squinted back at her. By turns, both of them realised that they were coming at the issue from entirely different angles and missing each other completely in the middle.
"I take it you are unfamiliar with servitors?" Jarrion asked.
"Just a bit. Are those the crew with augmented bits and pieces? Or what?"
This statement was so outlandish to Jarrion that he was flat-footed for a split second. He looked at the servitors again and tried to imagine what it was Shepard was seeing when she looked at them. He couldn't quite manage it. He just saw servitors.
"Ah, no. Many of the crew - especially the ratings - will have replacement parts given the dangerous nature of the work but they are not servitors. Servitors are, ah, equipment, I suppose? They perform manual tasks and are incorporated here and there as required. The lighters have servitors for backup or automatic piloting, for example, and there's one integrated into the gantry crane up there, if you can see?"
Jarrion pointed up to the closest of several cranes the hanger had. Shepard followed his hand and, after a few moments of hard looking, spotted what looked to be a small, pale, slack face protruding from a nest of wires and cables set in the middle of the body of the thing. Her mouth dropped open just a tiny bit.
"Okay," she said, mouth closing.
Shepard appeared to be having some difficulty grasping the concept that Jarrion had laid out for her, or at least some issues with what parts of it she could understand. It looked like she couldn't quite articulate what her next question should be.
"People get...made into parts of machines or...treated as...industrial….equipment? Did they volunteer for that? Do they get paid?" She asked, gesticulating as she struggled to get the words out.
Jarrion looked at her as though she had taken a funny turn and might need a lie down.
"Paid? Why - no, they are not paid, Commander. And they're not people, either. They are servitors," Jarrion said, in the manner of one stating something so obvious that they honestly have no idea how else to explain it or how to break it down into simpler terms.
Unfortunately this cleared up nothing for Shepard.
"Which means?" She asked.
Jarrion sighed.
"I'm not a tech priest, I don't know the specifics or the details or the full theological explanation and justification and, in all honesty, it's not something I've ever given much thought to. It is what it is, and it is what it is for a reason," he said, waving his hand vaguely at the servitors as if hoping to waft them out of sight so they could move onto something else.
Predictably this had no effect whatsoever. Would have been stranger if it had, really.
"And that reason is…?" Shepard asked, leaving a gap for an answer, a gap left unfilled.
"I'll have to ask Pak when I see them next."
At this point one of the augmented crew - or 'servitors' - seemed to have something of a minor fit and froze-up halfway through hefting a crate off the loader, half their body jerking one way while the rest jerked the other. This meant they dropped the crate.
The armoury crewman came over. There was more shouting. The servitor continued twitching even as it tried to bend and retrieve the dropped crate, only to twitch especially hard everytime it bent and so having to start over again.
By this point yet another crewman, this one in the sort of red robes Shepard had seen Pak wear, appeared, seemed to tip a little something onto their fingertip before dabbing the forehead of the thing, making some kind of strange hand gesture and then when that didn't work just giving the servitor a not-inconsiderable tap on the head with a wrench.
And when that also didn't work it looked to all the world as though they just turned it off and on again.
That worked. Unloading resumed. Everyone got back to work.
Shepard swallowed.
"So, again, those are...people…? Were people?" She asked and Jarrion had to fight the urge to sigh.
"No, no I wouldn't think so. Not really," he said.
"Not really?"
Another question. Jarrion cursed inwardly. His own fault, really.
"Oh they're just vat-grown. Probably," he said with a yawn, covering his mouth and adding a quiet 'pardon me' at the end.
"Vat-grown?" Shepard asked, but then she clearly thought about those two words together and came to her own tentative conclusion. "Like a clone?"
"Possibly. I wouldn't know."
"You cloned a person to make them into a lobotomised cyborg so they could operate a crane?"
"Not me personally but the Mechanicus did and does. It rather has to, servitors are important. From what I'm given to understand there isn't much to lobotomise or to mind scrub in the first place anyway. But why are we talking about this?"
Jarrion might have mentioned here also how there were occasions when criminals - typically those found to have committed a crime deemed to fall under Mechanicus jurisdiction - were punished and made useful by being converted into servitors, but he had a feeling this wouldn't land well with the Commander and so kept it to himself.
She had enough to work with anyway.
"Is 'mind-scrubbed' worse than 'lobotomised', or are they both about as awful as each other?" She asked.
"I wouldn't know, Commander."
"And - and I'm sorry to keep going on about this, it's just kind of tripping me up - you couldn't have robots or something do this because…?"
"Because a machine that thinks like a man is an abomination. That much I do know."
"But making drones out of skulls - like that one you put in the crate - is acceptable?"
Jarrion liked to think of himself as a patient and accommodating man, mostly as another point of difference between himself and certain other members of his family. He liked to think that he would be able to calmly and cooly keep at a task without letting mounting irritation get the better of him and start to sharpen his responses. And in many ways he was.
But he was also only human, and he was getting very, very tired. He also recognised this.
"Commander, please, I've had rather a long day and I very much doubt my poor efforts at explaining the issues here will satisfy you. If anything I fear they could only beg further questions. Yet again, let us both be comfortable knowing that there are many things that are normal for me and not for you, and the same in reverse. Please?" He said.
Shepard, who perhaps only now noticed how run-down Jarrion was looking and who realised this was the first time she'd ever seen him looking like this, decided she'd likely pushed the issue as far as it could go anyway.
"Alright. Sorry. Just, uh, a lot of people might consider this a crime agains- consider this the sort of thing what the bad guy would do. Maybe. If you get where I'm coming from."
Jarrion did not get where she was coming from. Admittedly he didn't try very hard, but that was because he had a feeling that, even if he did, he still wouldn't have got where she was coming from.
"I'll bear that in mind. Does it bother you?" He asked, not trying to disguise the tiredness in his voice.
Shepard was quiet for a moment. She watched the servitors some more. With the crates all moved and stacked they had nothing else to do and so moved to an alcove off to one side of the hanger which then closed off.
With them out of sight Shepard looked briefly at her hand before raising it to her head and again lightly running a finger over one of those spots where the evidence of how she'd been put back together was particularly close to the skin.
"I'm not sure yet," she said, her hand dropping. "I've done a few things that have bothered me in my life, and I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot more in the next few years. It's always a lot easier to tell what you should have done in hindsight. Or at a distance."
"These things are sent to test us," Jarrion said.
"Hmm."
An awkward pause followed.
"Did you, uh, did you kill that Asari merc back on Illium? The one that keeled over?" Shepard asked. This had been tickling the back of her brain ever since it had happened and Loghain's non-answer in the lighter hadn't cleared anything up for her, and even though she could feel the mood souring she figured if she didn't ask now she'd never find out.
"I did," Jarrion said, disinterestedly, lightly.
"How?"
"Needler."
"Oh."
Shepard did not know what that meant, and could sense that this was perhaps as far as it was wise to push it. At least she knew now that it had been Jarrion who'd done it, even if not knowing the full details was kind of unsettling.
Needler? What? How? Why? What?
They stood in silence after this, and somewhere between three and five minutes later the Kodiak arrived. It looked almost quaintly small in the Assertive's spacious hanger, the crew who disembarked gawping at what they saw before noticing their Commander waiting and hustling over to snap off salutes and take orders.
And so it was that the crates were, with much grunting and sweating, shifted into the Kodiak. Shepard pitched in, what with being an eye-wateringly strong cyborg capable of hefting the crates largely unaided and all. With her help they made short work of it, and in next to no time they were ready to depart.
"A pleasure as always, Commander," Jarrion said, extending a hand which, after a split second, Shepard shook.
"Always a memorable experience, Jarrion," she said.
And with that she left. Jarrion watched the shuttle depart, again noting the oddly floaty, weightless way these local craft moved - similar to a few skimmers and other anti-gravity vehicles he'd seen in his time, albeit with a smoothness he found a little odd to see. Rather Eldar-ish, now he came to think of it. The thought did not improve his opinion or his mood.
He fished his chronometer from his waistcoat pocket and checked it. He thought longingly of his bed.
He heard footsteps and heard them getting louder.
He turned.
And he saw, across the hanger and closing at a saunter, hands clasped behind her back and a small smile on her face, Loghain. Jarrion's shoulders slumped.
He had the sudden, jarring thought that quite often of late he had been getting verbally poked and prodded by Loghain and the Commander, the former over concerns he might not be Imperial enough in his behaviour, the latter that his Imperial behaviour was somehow distasteful in these parts.
Not perhaps wholly accurate, but to Jarrion's tired mind it seemed compelling and somehow very unfair. Why couldn't anyone just say he was doing a good job for once? He wasn't greedy or needy, just once would be fine. Just a single word of recognition. Maybe a meaningful look if speaking the word aloud was too much.
It wasn't even the need for praise, really. He'd grown out of the need for praise many, many years ago as even the tiniest morsel of praise had often preceded a lengthy explanation of why he wasn't truly worthy of it. On top of which any praise wasted on Jarrion was praise that could have gone to his brother, who was known to become dissatisfied if sufficient praise was not supplied regularly, and father had always had a strictly limited supply to spread around.
So no, not praise. Praise was worthless anyway, it got nothing done and too much of it was corrosive and addictive, this Jarrion had seen. But what about an acknowledgement that he'd made the best of an unusual situation? Even a brief one? Even slotted in amongst all the complaints and questions?
He'd fallen into another galaxy! Through time, too! What would anyone else have done in his place? Most people would have found falling through one thing daunting enough, he'd fallen through two! Apparently. Maybe.
At least the Emperor knew his intentions, and his striving. The Emperor understood what it was he was trying to do, understood that it was only His greater glory that motivated him. The Emperor saw and understood the efforts of all his servants, great and small, regardless of whether anyone else did or not. He saw it all and judged it all, and Jarrion knew that He would not find him wanting.
And, really, wasn't that all that mattered?
Yes. Yes it was.
"You look tired," Loghain said, having reached Jarrion. He gave her a look, couldn't really think of anything immediately pithy to say and so just rubbed his face briefly and pinched his nose, slipping his chronometer back into its pocket.
"I am tired," he said.
"Won't keep you long, then. How was your little chat with the Commander?" Loghain asked.
"Rather invigorating at first, tailing off into the depressingly exhausting at the end. You do sometimes forget, when talking to her, that she is coming from a very strange place indeed, and has some very strange ideas."
"No doubt. Speaking of strange ideas, did I see Imperial crates full of Imperial armaments and equipment being loaded into a shuttle set to return to a ship with a distinct alien element?"
Jarrion sighed.
"I assume you're somehow, mysteriously aware of what she and I agreed upon?"
"Very mysteriously aware," Loghain said, wiggling her fingers briefly before shrugging. "And, you know, I did see the crates being loaded and then also saw them being put into the shuttle and can kind of put two and two together. They covered that back in Interrogator training, how to pick up on these subtle clues."
For a given value of 'see', Jarrion presumed. He wondered if Interrogators had lessons or if most of their training was on the job. He then decided this was probably a question for another time, alongside what an Interrogator actually was in the first place. He could make an educated guess, but he could very well have been wrong.
"Wonderful," he said.
There passed a moment where Loghain waited to see if Jarrion had anything else to add and, when he didn't, she stepped in:
"You know what I'm going to say," she said. Jarrion rubbed his face some more.
"Yes, I well imagine I do. And you too, I'm sure, know what I will say in response."
"Oh I could probably hazard a guess."
"Well then, is there any point to us having this conversation at all?" Jarrion asked, knowing that it wouldn't change anything but having a go anyway, just on the off-chance.
"All the other Inquisitors would make fun of me if they heard I didn't at least try. These are the dances we have to do, Lord Captain. To each of us a role, for each of us a duty."
"What do the other Inquisitors make of you, just to ask, Loghain? You don't strike me as the most orthodox, which strikes me as the sort of thing that might see you making enemies?" Jarrion asked, shuffling over to where a fuel-line output had been left jutting squarely from its hatch in the hanger floor and sitting on it heavily. Loghain followed, hands still behind her back.
"I get by. But we're not talking about me, are we? We're talking about you and why you saw fit to pass Imperial weaponry into the hands of someone known to work with and for aliens. Without context that sort of thing might look quite bad, Rogue Trader or not. With context, well, it might look a tiny bit less bad, but that'd depend on your audience."
Jarrion sat a little straighter on his makeshift seat, idly tucking his thumbs into his waistcoat more out of subconscious need to do something with his hands more than anything else. This was, more or less, exactly what he'd expected to hear, and the words that sprung immediately to mind were, more or less, exactly what he expected he would say in response:
"It would do well for you to remember, Loghain, that we are very much in the territory that a Rogue Trader was intended to operate in and I am operating exactly as expected. The latitude the Warrant grants me covers this - it covers far more, in fact. I am exercising considerable restraint. Besides, the lending of a modest selection of small arms to a human ally is hardly leaping headlong into the deepest recesses of xeno-loving heresy and vileness, is it?"
Even if what he'd done still gave him just the tiniest tickle of discomfort if he thought about it too hard. He imagined that would fade in time.
Loghain shrugged.
"It's a minor thing, definitely. Certainly not the sort of thing that'd be worth the time of an Inquisitor given everything else those busy, talented, handsome people have got to contend with."
"So why mention it?" Jarrion asked through gritted teeth.
"Because it always starts with a minor thing, Lord Captain. That one small act that seems trifling at the time but which, when looking back, was the first step onto a path that led to dark places, places utterly unimaginable when that first step was taken. A moment of laxity spawns a lifetime of heresy, as they say."
Jarrion was feeling rather sour. Again, no recognition, only more things he'd done wrong.
"Many Rogue Traders do far worse than me, and do far better for it."
Just as stories abounded of Rogue Traders bravely rediscovering long-lost human colonies and benevolently bringing them back into the Imperial fold or else merrily massacring aliens as and when they found them other, darker stories were often passed around of those Rogue Traders who acted purely for their own sake, who did open business with aliens - not to exploit them for the benefit for humanity, but for their own personal benefit and with no eye to the consequences for them or for anyone else.
Rogue Traders who'd sell aliens weapons, who'd sell alien weapons, who'd sell aliens humans. Most anyone who'd heard of Rogue Traders had heard variants of these stories, and most of them were true somewhere, in some part.
If you could imagine a vile, heretical crime the odds were good that at least one Rogue Trader had done it and had probably made a good amount of money doing it, too, and had probably got away with it all as well instead of meeting a just, sticky end.
(Not that any good Imperial citizens should be imagining vile, heretical crimes, of course. That sort of thinking was dangerous.)
That Loghain would even obliquely suggest that Jarrion might be heading in that direction, no matter how distantly or vaguely, insulted him on a very deep and personal level. But he kept that deep and personal, as he didn't really want her knowing his more tender inner spots.
She'd likely know anyway, her being her, but it was the principle of the thing.
"Materially, perhaps, but the health of their soul would most certainly be suspect," Loghain said. This was putting it mildly. Jarrion let out a short laugh, devoid of mirth.
"Are you concerned about the health of my soul, Loghain?" He asked.
Loghain's face took on a sincere aspect that did not suit it.
"Someone has to be," she said.
Jarrion considered pointing out that the Assertive did have a Confessor (more than one, in fact - the crew was rather large - but the command crew and senior staff had one specifically) and that his own personal spiritual welfare would probably be more his job than Loghain's, but even as the thought formed Jarrion lost the enthusiasm for it. Hardly a biting comeback in the first place, hardly worth the effort.
He was tired. He stopped sitting up so straight.
"This wasn't my idea, Loghain. I didn't go to the Commander she came to me, and she was not only persuasive she was also correct, these aliens - these specific aliens, these 'Collectors' - present a threat to my interests and, at this moment, she is not only the one best placed to counter this threat she is the only one even able to. Given that my interests and the success of them are ultimately the Imperium's interests, too, it would seem that not assisting her would have seen me damned for laxity and inattention. One starts to get the impression that the game is rigged from the start," he said.
"Oh that's always been true, it's more just a case of how much you lose by and how badly. Honestly though, in this instance, having been inside the head of one of those aliens, I can say that you probably made the right choice. Maybe not the best choice, but since no-one knows what the best choice is, you probably made the right one," Loghain said.
"How refreshingly pragmatic of you. Then why are you making an issue of it?" Jarrion asked.
"So you don't become too comfortable."
"I'm not comfortable! I am, in many ways, uncomfortable!"
And not just because he was sat on a fuel pump.
"Good. Stay that way."
"Urgh…" Jarrion grunted, putting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Having an Inquisitor in his life was bad enough, having her practically joined to his hip half the time he was awake was worse, having her decide to become his conscience was probably the worst, though. Another of those things sent to test, no doubt, or if not it bloody felt like one.
The conversation ground to a halt for a few rather awkward seconds.
"There was something else," Loghain said.
Jarrion stayed quiet for a few moments more before slicking his hair back and sitting up straight again, blinking at her, hands on his thighs.
"Of course there was. Yes?"
"Why is it you never invite me up for drinks in the observation blister?" Loghain asked, sounding maybe just the slightest bit wounded.
There was more blinking as Jarrion tried to work out if she was serious or not. Even if he hadn't just had a long day with a lot of talking and even if he'd been fully rested and refreshed and alert he still probably wouldn't have been able to. She sounded and looked completely serious - a little hurt, even - but that could mean anything.
Jarrion had to look away and shake his head.
"Throne preserve me…" He muttered.
Another break in the conversation. He looked back to her and found her standing there, still looking completely serious and earnest. It was rather unsettling.
"...would you like to have drinks in the observation blister?" Jarrion ventured, tentatively, cautiously, not wholly sure what answer he dreaded more.
Loghain perked up immediately, all trace of sounding or looking wounded or vulnerable vanishing in an instant, like it had never been there at all.
"As much as I'd love to, Lord Captain, my schedule is far too busy," she said.
Ask a stupid question.
"Of course. Foolish of me to have thought otherwise. Well, the offer remains open, Loghain, should you wish to avail yourself of it. On the condition that you don't subtly insinuate that whatever course of action I've taken most recently is some tentative step towards becoming irredeemably corrupted and shacking up with a half dozen of those, ah, blue aliens in some sort of unrelenting, sweaty, thrusting, lascivious xenos orgy," Jarrion said, unable to keep his face from wrinkling in distaste even as he said it, the last part not painting a pretty picture in his head at all.
Loghain bit her tongue before replying to that one.
"So no discussing work, then?" She asked.
"If you want to put it like that, yes."
"I don't know, Jarrion, that's kind of all I have."
"Oh I'm sure that's not true. You must have had a life before your career and I like to think you still have part of one now. I'm sure you had hobbies before getting under my skin started taking up most of your time. I'm sure you were a perfectly pleasant, well-rounded person before you became an Inquisitor."
"Hah."
"Adequately pleasant?"
"Somehow you always find the kindest words to say to me, Lord Captain."
"It's a gift," he said, then slapping his legs and forcing himself to stand up again. "I'm going to bed. I dread to ask what your plans for the night might be."
"Thought I'd wander around, poke my nose in places. You know. Inquisitively," Loghain said, rocking on her heels and looking around the hanger. There was, at that moment, not a whole lot to look at.
"I could have you confined to quarters, you know. Wherever it is you've quartered yourself," Jarrion said.
"You could, but you're not going to, are you?"
Not for the first time Jarrion realised it was difficult to stare down someone without eyes.
"...no, I suppose not. Best to stay in your good graces, I expect?"
"Oh, most certainly," Loghain said, nodding.
"And you only really said it to annoy me anyway, didn't you?"
"It's like you know me."
"Yes yes, of course. Well, as pleasant as this conversation has been I am, as said, going to bed. We'll be casting off first thing tomorrow to go and investigate that, uh, possible route back home so there's that to look forward to. Exciting, exciting opportunities, yes. Wonderful stuff," Jarrion said, again glancing at his chronometer.
This would be 'tomorrow' according to ship time, obviously.
"I'm quivering with all the excitement," Loghain said.
"Aren't we all. So yes, I imagine I'll see you tomorrow. Assuming you don't also watch me when I sleep."
"Oh, don't give me ideas."
"Yes quite, very good. Goodnight, Loghain."
And off Jarrion went, only to be brought up short before he'd taken so much as ten paces by Loghain calling out to him:
"Lord Captain?"
"Hmm?" Jarrion replied, turning groggily in place, far too tired to be especially concerned with whatever parting jab it was the Inquisitor felt like getting in. He'd just let it roll right off him.
"You're making the best of a bad situation. It's very easy to point out mistakes, but it's harder to be the one who runs the risk of making them. You're doing the best you can and no more could be asked of you in the circumstances. You're doing the Emperor's work, in your own way."
Jarrion had a sudden icy, plunging sensation that he'd been seen through completely, and the sensation was so icy he couldn't quite be sure if he'd felt chilly before, and if he had whether that indicated she'd taken a little tip-toe through his brain or not. He would have noticed surely? Or would he have? Or could she be subtle? Or was this just paranoia because he'd had a long day and needed to sleep?
Or was that what she wanted him to think?
"You didn't - you're not - are you?" He stammered, a hand going reflexively - and, in all fairness, uselessly - to his temple.
Loghain cocked her head. Just a little.
"Hmm?" She went. Jarrion blinked and forced his nerves to settle.
No. She was just messing with him again. This was the parting jab.
Besides, she didn't need to get inside his head to get inside his head. That'd be being an Inquisitor. Everyone was an open book. They had training for that sort of thing after all, didn't they?
"Nevermind. Um, thank you Loghain. That was, ah, insightful? I'll, um, yes. Thank you. Goodnight. Again," Jarrion said, giving a wave and quickly walking off.
"Goodnight," he heard from behind, but he did not look back.
He sort of hoped she'd stick to her normal jabs and complaints in future.
The alternative - dispensing odd and unasked for advice and moral support - felt oddly uncomfortable, not to mention unnatural.
+++BACK ON THE NORMANDY+++
"Good work, lads. You go and have a break," I said to the crewmen who'd helped me with the crates and they went off tired and grateful, stretching out their backs.
I'd had them set the crates of Imperial guns up just-so, stacked up and arranged in a nice sweep in the shuttle bay. I had a plan in mind, you see? I had a whole thing I'd cooked up on the trip back over. And why not?
"EDI, could you send the team down to me? Everyone, if you please."
"Of course, Commander."
A little bit more waiting followed, the team coming down to join in dribs and drabs but within a couple minutes they were all present and accounted for. All looked a little bemused at being called down, but that's understandable.
"Evening everyone. Glad to see everything's still in one piece," I said.
"How was the dinner?" Jacob asked.
"There was a lot of spies and Jarrion killed someone without touching them or even really moving. Then we went onto Jarrion's ship and saw a lot of skulls. Then there was a lot of talking. Frankly, you should all be glad you got to stay here. Anyway! You're probably wondering why I've called you all here today," I said brightly, or as brightly as I could manage (I'm not known for my brightness).
Blank looks. Guess it was quite late in the day but still, come on guys.
Best press on. I started to walk up and down before them.
"Given that fate seems to enjoy throwing me and Jarrion together I figured I'd make the most of it and of the fact he seems to think it's actually fate throwing us together and so, to that end, I present to you future guns - guns from the future. And some other stuff," I said, spreading my arms wide to indicate the crates all neatly lined up.
They all still looked pretty blank. I'd hoped for a smile at least, maybe a hint of excitement?
Oh well. Hardened professionals. What can you do?
"Anything? Anyone? Questions?" I asked, hopefully.
Jack raised her hand, in the way someone raises their hand to mock you. Probably should have seen that coming. I responded by continuing to look up and down the line of them and ignoring her for a bit before coming back to her as though I'd only just noticed.
See? I can be a dick too.
"Yes?"
"What's with the skull?" She asked, nodding to a space just to the left of my head. A space occupied by a skull.
Not my skull, obviously. I sighed.
It wasn't that I had forgotten about the floating skull next to me - kind of hard to forget what with it just always in the edge of my eyeline - it was more that I'd been trying to ignore it. Apparently no-one else had been trying to do that.
"Alright, so, Jarrion didn't really have the time to go into the details at the time but he was pretty clear with me that these weapons - some more than others - require a certain level of care and attention. So with that in mind he gave me this pad thing that I think he called a dataslate and which contains what you'll need to know. Maintenance, reloading procedure...prayers…"
I gritted my teeth on that one. It was in there, and Jarrion had been very insistent on how important the prayers were to the proper functioning of the weapons, but still. I didn't have to be happy about it.
I continued:
"I passed it along to EDI on the trip back so she could translate it and put it into a more, shall we say, accessible format for you lot so if you check on your omnitools you should find it. Have a look if you want and definitely have a look if you decide to pick any of these up for yourself."
A couple of them idly glanced down and had a quick flick, obviously out of curiosity more than anything else
"Thanks for that, EDI, by the way. You do quick work."
"Commander," EDI said, presumably by way of appreciation. I could imagine a virtual head just tipping forward in acknowledgment, which also made me briefly wonder what EDI would look like were she not, you know, software. Would she wear trousers? The mind reeled.
I didn't imagine that it had been exactly taxing for her, handling the dataslate, but it was nice all the same.
"That still doesn't answer the question," Jack said, flatly.
No pulling the wool over her eyes.
"No, no it doesn't. Alright. As an additional - for want of a better word - 'bonus', Jarrion saw fit to bundle in this skull. It is, I was told, a 'monotask' servo skull, and what it does is check weapons and equipment for problems. Apparently," I said, indicating the bobbing skull which continued to bob. A light on it was blinking, too.
Why? No idea.
Back in the armoury on the Assertive I'd seen a good few of the things drifting about, stopping every so often along the racks of guns and armour and whatever to scan this or that before drifting on again.
According to Jarrion if they had spotted anything out of order they would have alerted a member of crew staffing the armoury, who would have come and had a look and fixed it up. He assured me however that the armoury crew were so top-notch that problems basically never happened.
I wasn't sure why he felt the need to make this clear to me but whatever. I had a skull now. I'd let it out of the crate it had been packed in because I'd heard it banging around and was worried it might have damaged itself or something else if I hadn't.
"To clarify, that is an actual human skull?" Miranda asked.
Had to fight the urge to sigh again. Swear we'd been over this before.
"Yes, it is. Specifically it's the skull of the former head armourer on the Assertive, made into this thing so that he could continue to serve after death," I said, regurgitating the answer I'd got from Jarrion. I could see Miranda taking a breath to ask another question so I cut in quick: "Look, let's not get into the beliefs and values of these guys. They do things their way, we do things our way. We have this skull, let's get on with it, okay?"
Miranda shut her mouth and, thankfully, said nothing. Glad none of them had seen the servitors. That would have been a whole other issue. Hell, still kind of was. Would rather not think about it right now. Later maybe, but not right now.
When you're talking to Jarrion it can be quite easy to forget that, going by everything I've heard of it, the Imperium isn't exactly the nicest place. I mean, fucking mind-scrubbed? Who invents mind-scrubbing technology? Anyone you'd want to be friends with?
No, not thinking about it now. Later. Guns now.
I looked them all up and down again.
"Any other questions?" I asked.
Garrus raised his hand. I wish they wouldn't raise their hands, makes me feel like a prat. Or a low-level manager hosting a staff meeting somewhere with burnt tea where half the lights aren't working. We're keen-eyed murder artists, not people asking if Friday is mufti day.
"Yes?" I said, sweetly.
"Do we have to say the prayers?" Garrus asked. If I didn't know any better I'd say he was trying not to smirk. Unfortunately for him I could hear him trying not to smirk.
How's all this for gratitude? I bring them space guns from the future and all I get is the piss taken out of me. Not even a thank you so far! I came back from the dead for this?
"If you lot don't want these lasers and other delights I'll send them right back, see if I don't," I said, wagging my finger.
"Mr Moreau is asking whether you'd like to turn this spaceship around, Commander," EDI chimed in. Now that's comic timing - from her and from Joker, who was presumably listening in. I should frown on that sort of thing but with him providing solid-gold backup like that I can't be mad.
Top-notch work guys, great stuff.
"Remains to be seen, EDI, remains to be seen," I said, glaring at my team of supposed professionals.
"I think that's a maybe on the prayers," I heard Garrus mutter to Jacob, but quietly enough I could let it slide.
"Alright," I said loudly, moving over to the crates. "That's enough questions. You lot come here and gather round, I'm going to run through these things with you so you can see what I go. Ungrateful swine…"
I moved to the first stack of two crates and they all moved with me, standing close enough for a proper look but not so closer they were crowding me. I sat on the top crate and rested my hands on it so I could lean back a little.
"Right. I haven't gone overboard, I don't think, but I've got us what should be a nice little dash of variety for our upcoming suicide mission. Collectors got advanced stuff no-one else has seen? Well, now so have we, and ours isn't even from around here. Unfamiliar is surprising and surprising is good. This isn't replacing what we've got, it's just here if we need it, if we want it, to mix things up. Alright?"
General nods. I think they were eager for me to get to the point. Well, I was tired and so I was eager too. I gave the crate a slap.
"First up: In this crate is a dozen laser rifles - apparently they're called lasguns. That's las-gun, pronounced LASgun, not lasgun, got that? Anyone feels like using one when we go out, by all means go ahead, but do check over the literature first. According to Jarrion you'd basically have to snap the things in half and throw them into the sun to keep them from working but they're new to us so, you know, get familiar."
He'd mentioned to me - in the idle, off-hand way you rattle off an anecdote you think is only a little bit interesting - that some lasguns to issued to the Imperial Guard had survived the violent destruction of the regiments armed with them, been recovered and then passed onto whatever regiment was founded next. Not sure I believed him, but also not sure I don't believe him either.
I then gave the crate under the lasgun crate a kick with the back of my foot.
"Powerpacks for the lasers are in here. Don't throw them away because we can recharge them. They're also, you know, ludicrously valuable and as far as it concerns us irreplaceable. So don't throw them away. Okay?"
More nods. Proper professionals. And Jack. And Grunt - do you count as a professional if you're purpose-bred to be a warrior? Jury's out. Either way, they all got it and that was the point. I stood up again and was about to start on the next stack of crates when I remembered something and turned on my heel.
"Oh, almost forgot, in the first crate - in two pieces - is also a sniper variant of the laser rifle. A long-las, it's called. And there's a couple of special powerpacks for it, overcharged ones. Hotshots or something. Garrus, thought you might appreciate that?"
I'd seen the thing in the armoury and thought of Garrus straight away.
He didn't say anything but I did see a little flutter of excitement. He tried to hide it, but I saw it. The little things make this job worthwhile.
"Right, moving on."
Second set of stacked crates. I gave them a slap, too.
"This crate has got some more exotic stuff, this is the interesting stuff, I think," I said.
"Laser rifles aren't interesting?" Jacob asked, cocking an eyebrow. Someone is always cocking an eyebrow. Or maybe I just have that effect on people?
"Oh! Don't get me wrong! I'm very keen to see how they work in practise, believe me, especially to see what a proper military-grade Imperial laser rifle is like compared to the laser that EDI helped put together out of the pistol Jarrion gave me. But I'm even more interested to see what these things are going to do."
I gave them a second for that to sink in before turning and flicking the catches on the crate and opening it up. These were things I wanted to show off, just so they had some idea of what we now have available. With the lid open I reached in and pulled out the first gun to hand - something blocky, dull yellow and with a whacking great nozzle on the front.
"This is a flamethrower," I said, flourishing it. "Now I know what some of you might be thinking: 'Shepard! You can just configure your omnitool to act as a flamethrower if you need a flamethrower!' and yes, I know that and I have done that in the past and it's great. But sometimes you just need a lot more fire than an omnitool can kick out. Only got so much gel, after all. This? This'll work when a lot of fire is what you want. If that's what we want. We might want that at some point."
Better safe than sorry. 'Safe' in this instance meaning being able to set a lot of things on fire.
None of them apparently had any questions about this, which was fine by me. I set the flamethrower - or 'flamer' as they're called by Imperial sorts - aside on the first set of crates and moved onto the next gun.
"Right, this one. It looks a bit like a grenade launcher. That's because it's a grenade launcher. And, yes, we do already have a grenade launcher on board but come on, what was I supposed to do? He was offering me a grenade launcher. I'm not made of stone."
I set the grenade launcher aside. I could tell from the looks on their faces that I wasn't wowing them with these choices but I'd expected that and picked my order appropriately. Third one was a treat!
Another big, blocky gun, this one reddish with a vented barrel shroud and a barrel I could comfortably have fitted my arm into had that been something I felt like doing for whatever reason.
"This is a 'meltagun', infantry use them to kill tanks by getting close enough that when the tank explodes it'll probably kill them, too. That's not exactly that Jarrion said but that's kind of how it came across given he told me it's an anti-tank weapon with a very short range. Apparently works by 'agitating air molecules', whatever that means. Will basically just blast and melt a hole through whatever you're pointing it at. Apparently. If it's close enough."
Probably says a lot about me that I'm quite keen to see how that one worked and particularly how it worked against things that were not tanks. Hopefully spectacularly.
Now they're starting to look a bit more impressed!
I moved on.
"Next up, plasma gun," I said, hefting out something ribbed and yellow (again yellow - why?). "Jarrion was a bit reluctant to part with this one, in all honesty. They're quite valuable, he said to me. He was very keen to emphasise the value of this weapon and the importance we keep it in one piece. He might get in trouble if we don't."
With the Mechanicus specifically, he'd said. Why this one and not the others was unclear but I hadn't felt like calling that into question.
"Isn't that one of the guns that melted a man's hands on Horizon?" Miranda asked.
Looking over the plasma gun again I realised why it had been tickling my brain so. Did a quick scan for any burnt-on flesh, too, but thankfully the gun was clean. Or had been cleaned.
"I thought it looked familiar," I said, setting that one aside with the others from the second set of crates, grinning to myself. I do like guns.
"Only four?"
"These are specialised weapons and there are only twelve of us. Greedy bastards," I said, maybe muttering the last part. Then something caught my eye. "Oh yeah, one last thing in here…"
Again I reached in, and this time what I pulled out got a proper reaction, albeit maybe not the best one.
"What is that?" Jacob asked.
It was a chainsword. It was obviously a chainsword. When I'd first seen them in the armoury I'd known exactly what they were, I could work it out just by looking. They were pretty visually self-explanatory.
"It's a chainsword," I said, stating the bloody obvious.
Apparently not a good enough answer for Jacob.
"A what?" He asked.
"A chainsword. A sword that is also a chainsaw," I said.
"...why do they...have those…?" Jacob asked, clearly having some trouble with the concept.
"More importantly why did you pick one up?" Miranda asked.
At the time it had seemed like a great idea and also an obvious one. Now, with all them looking at me like I'd lost my mind, I wasn't so sure. Mean, I was still sure - I'm the Commander, I'm always sure - I just wasn't sure they'd fully grasp what a great idea it was.
"Thought we could give it to Grunt," I said, nodding in his direction.
"Should we be encouraging the sort of behaviour that a 'chainsword' would require?" Miranda asked.
"Shepard knows what she's doing," Grunt said seriously.
"Of course I do," I said, putting the chainsword back again, followed by everything else. Good to be tidy.
Really, giving Grunt a chainsword made perfect sense to me. He was already a big fan of getting far, far too close anyway and a lot of our fighting did tend to happen at the sort of ranges where the opportunity to just rush up and start hacking away often presented itself.
And besides, would you rather be on the side that had a Kogran with a chainsword, or the side with the Krogran with a chainsword running at you? Seems obvious to me.
But all in good time, I wasn't done yet.
"Right, moving on. These two crates. These ones are big so it's a gun in each. Probably won't need them or use them but, hey, better to have and not need than need and not have, right?"
Always better to be overprepared, I find. I flipped the lid on the first crate and hauled out a gun that was probably about the same size as me, give or take a few extremities. Had I been anything less than a hefty cyborg I probably wouldn't have been able to lift it out at all, but I'm lucky enough to be a hefty cyborg so I managed fine.
The thing truly was a statement piece though. You saw it and you knew immediately this was something made for killing things, and not killing them gently. I had all their attention now.
"This is a heavy bolter, so-called - I assume - because it's a heavier version of a regular bolter. It works by, well, did any of you happen to see the pistol that Jarrion was using on Horizon?" I asked.
A lot of shaking heads.
"Not surprising. Guess you had other things to focus on at the time. Basically, it fires a little rocket about the size of your thumb with an armour piercing tip that's designed to explode inside the target. A 'mass-reactive' explosive. That's what this thing does. Only the bolts - they're called bolts - it fires are this big."
I fished around in my pocket for the heavy bolter round I'd specifically put there so I could pull it out for demonstrative purposes. Would have made sitting down pretty uncomfortable but that's why I'd spent the trip back in the Kodiak standing. That, and with the crates there hadn't really been room to sit down anyway.
I held up the heavy bolter round so they could all see it.
It was a lot bigger than a thumb.
"I'm not sure how barriers will stand up to a projectile of this size and weight but let's find out together sometime, maybe. I like to think results will be positive."
Would I want to be hit by one of those? No, no I would not. And this thing fired a lot more than one at a time according to Jarrion.
I put the heavy bolter back.
"Right, and in the other one here we have a laser cannon - or 'lascannon', given that's how they call their lasers. This is another anti-tank weapon. It's massive and it'll probably put a hole in the hull if we fired it while it's onboard."
The lascannon really was very, very big. So big the crate it was in was about double the length of all the others. So big I didn't even properly take it out to show everyone, I just lifted it up by the barrel so they could see and once they had I let it drop again. Thing was nasty looking.
I shut the lid.
"Those last two are crew-served weapons, I should probably point out, so unless you're built like a Krogan - or are, just speaking hypothetically, a super-strong cyborg - you may not get much use out of them. But, like I said before, better to have than not."
In a pinch I could see myself using the last two. I'm strong enough and weighty enough now that I could probably manage it. Wouldn't be very fun - for me or for whoever I was shooting at - but I could probably make it work. But only in a pinch. Not something I'm going to do unless I have to.
Putting my hands on my hips I stood and gave them all a grin. I think I'd done pretty good, all things considered.
Then I remembered there was one more.
"Oh, and this last crate is some armour, a scanner or two, some knives for whatever reason - stuff. The armour is all for humans though but I figured we could look into that, see what we could do. From what I remember seeing on Horizon this 'carapace' stuff is pretty tough," I said, waving vaguely at the last crate since I wasn't going to bother opening it. "So yeah, that's it. How are we feeling about this? Happy? Unhappy? Indifferent?"
Jack raised her hand again.
"You really don't need to do that. Yes?"
"I call the plasmagun, I want that one."
"Don't think it works like that. Also, you do remember the part where it can melt your hands off if you're not careful with it, don't you? And the part where it's usually valued over the life of the one carrying it? And the part where you need to not break it?"
"What's life without some risk? Which crate was it in again? The second one?"
"Alright fine, but you're wearing oven mitts next time you're coming out."
I'd tell her to put a shirt on - or, heaven forfend, some armour - but I couldn't see it getting me anywhere. Suppose I should be grateful she wore trousers.
Not like we're in space or anything.
"Don't suppose I could have a look at that sniper laser, could I?" Garrus asked, edging closer to the first crate even as she spoke. I held up my hands.
"You lot go nuts, have a look, get familiar. Like I say I don't think we'll be switching over but if someone thinks one of these will do good for whatever mission we've got, go for it. I'm going to bed right now though, I'm knackered. Garrus - leaving it to you to see all this gets put away, get some of the crew to help you."
"Of course," said Garrus, the longlas already in his hands. He wasn't the only one fondling a weapon, everyone was getting involved. Nice to see after what I'd thought had been a lukewarm reception my little surprise was actually landing rather nicely. I took some steps back and watched over them all for a moment. They like guns too, ah, so much we have in common.
I checked my watch and yawned.
"Alright, last thing: from what EDI tells me tomorrow is probably going to be our window for grabbing the assassin and that could be just about any time tomorrow, too, so I want you all on standby to roll quick - I'll be taking two of you with me when the time comes, alright?"
They all looked to be too busy manhandling the guns to really have heard me.
"Alright," I said with a shrug before sloping off to bed.
Even with my voluminous reference material it's actually kind of difficult picking out cool 40K guns to give ME folks because 40K guns tend to fall into a few categories:
A) Various types of solid projectile weapons like stubbers and autoguns and such (Which the ME people have covered already)
B) Variations on a few themes like different types of lasgun or plasmagun or bolter or whatever (Which the ME people don't really have the context to appreciate the differences of)
C) Super-duper rare stuff like Volkite weapons or xenos weapons whatever (Which Jarrion wouldn't give out even if he had, which he doesn't)
and
D) Really, really big guns of the kind usually mounted on tanks (That the ME people couldn't really use anyway and which Jarrion also doesn't have right now in the first place).
So that's fun. As the situation develops (or deteriorates) this may change.
Mean, hell, the lances on a Dauntless are about the same bloody size as the Normandy!