Disclaimer: I do no own Mass Effect, I do not claim to own Mass Effect, I am only doing this for fun.
Author Notes: Finally, this arc is finished. It ran away on me when I popped open the hood and realized just how many faults needed repair.
Episode 41: Armageddon [Part IV]
The batarians continued toward the marines, utterly unaware of the trap. Kaidan was crouched next to her, his gaze locked on the video feed on her omni-tool. Shepard could tell he was nervous, as typically he was right there with Bravo, ready to support and shield them if necessary. However now he was too far away. She understood the resultant feeling.
When the batarians got to about twenty meters away from Williams and Jenkins, Shepard switched feeds to a camera mounted behind the marines. She saw Ashley draw a flash-bang and slip her thumb into the safety ring. Behind her, Jenkins was far twitchier than he ought to have been.
"Easy, Jenkins. I know you got this…" Shepard murmured.
"Thanks… ma'am." He muttered back and stilled.
The batarians crossed another ten meters and stopped. Shepard knew it was time, "You are clear to engage!"
The moment Shepard gave the word, Ashley rose to her feet, wound up, and threw the flashbang. Shepard turned off her omni-tool, rose to her feet, and began to descend down the stairs. A moment later there was a very loud bang and then an assault rifle kicked in, beating a wild staccato. At the bottom of the stairs, Shepard raised Sin and turned around the balustrade, only to see that the simultaneous element of the attack plan had worked. Right then, all the batarians on this level had too much on their hands to even think of helping each-other.
An assault rifle beat controlled bursts at a distance behind her back, echoing and reverberating as the sound spread away from its source. Shepard recognized it as Garrus' customized Phaeston. Due to an accident of geometry Garrus had a perfect line of sight on a doorway while firing right over the staircase balustrade he was using for cover. The batarians were hardly so lucky. Only one weapon beat back in retort. Garrus had managed to get a drop on one of his enemies.
On her left there was the rapid rattle of Legion's pulse rifle. She turned her head and spotted the geth emerge from cover and walk right into the batarian return fire, shields rippling with the bullet impacts. The batarian at the receiving end of the barrage strafed out of the way. The other turned to the door leading into the room they were guarding. Legion swapped targets. The second batarian's shields failed before he could finish typing in the door code. A single pulse round tore through the back of his hand and the next few went through the helmet. That batarian went down so quick he did not have the time to register his obliterated hand.
Seeing as Legion and Garrus had their situation under control, Shepard hurried to the staircase that would take Kaidan and her to the bottom-most level. Just as she reached the stairs, she heard the wild rattling from Tali's drone. Shepard looked over and was surprised to see that the two batarians Nihlus and Tali had engaged had managed to pin the Spectre and quarian on the stairs. Nihlus had his assault rifle out, but the problem was clear to see. One of the batarians had tech armor and a kinetic barrier, and he was wielding a larger than average weapon that barked almost as fast as Legion's.
With the heavily shielded batarian keeping the Spectre and quarian in cover, the other turned on the drone. The flying machine wheeled around him, leading his rifle away from the staircase. As soon as some of the heat was off, Nihlus emerged from cover and opened fire on the engineer, his ammo indicators glowing blue, charged to disrupt shields. The batarian's shields flared, but held, and he returned fire without any hesitance. Nihlus ended up the first to duck back into cover, lest his own shields go down. The batarian took that as his cue to advance. Just then Chatika's shields failed. Bullets began to pepper its casing. The drone veered hard, flying into some room as fast as it could.
Shepard turned back to Legion, and saw that the second batarian there had ducked into the alcove of public terminal, which gave him a little bit of protection. His body was glowing with tech armor as well. He was fervently pecking away at his omni-tool even as Legion advanced on his position. Then quite suddenly the geth stopped cold, their iris narrowed down, and the emotive plates rose and narrowed down at the front, as if the geth was furrowing a brow. "Intrusion attempt detected… initiating countermeasures." Legion announced. Shepard heard them over the comm as well as on the externals. "We are a terminal of the Geth. Your efforts are futile."
The batarian froze, then he must have realized the full scope of his error as his omni-tool turned off. Then he stepped out of cover and raised his rifle into position. Legion opened fire, and the batarian fired back. The pulse rifle's charged shots rapidly ripped through the batarian's kinetic shields. The tech armor was no match for the geth's accuracy and lack of sentiment. The engineer went down, his face-shield obliterated. "Resistance terminated. Shepard-Commander, we are aware of Creator-Zorah's and Spectre-Kryik's situation. We will assist them. Proceed to your next objective." The geth announced as they stowed the pulse rifle behind their back and reached for the massive HVR.
"Thanks Legion," Shepard replied.
Suddenly there was a loud crack of an HVR. Shepard whirled just in time to see that one of the batarians who had pinned Nihlus and Tali in cover had collapsed.
"Legion. You are slow." Garrus announced calmly.
"Negative, Officer-Vakarian." the geth replied, unbothered as the massive sniper rifle unfolded. The geth turned the rifle to point across the atrium and peered through the scope. "We calculated your odds of intervention to be a hundred percent. As such, we are right on time." As if to punctuate the point, the geth pulled the trigger. The other batarian's helmet exploded. Tali yelped in surprise.
"Are you two finished making me look bad?" Nihlus groused as he rose to his feet.
"It has been a treat." Garrus rumbled, amused.
"Oh for all that's… we have bombs to worry about!" Tali said tersely. "My poor ears…" she mumbled.
Shepard considered that as the bomb teams getting through. She motioned for Kaidan to follow and went down the stairs. Rounding the bottom edge, she saw what was taking Ashley and Jenkins seemingly a bit longer than it ought to have. They had managed to kill one of the three patrolling batarians, but the other two took cover in the mouth of a corridor extending away from the atrium. What more that was the corridor that led to where she knew Balak was. Ashley and Jenkins would not expose themselves by going in there after them. This turned the situation into a stand-off.
Putting Ashley and Jenkins on that particular staircase had been a bit of a calculated move on her part. Shepard wanted them to eliminate the patrol, and then be in position as back up, should Kaidan and her need it when they went toward the office. She took a different stairway, putting the mouth of the corridor between her and the marines. Now the batarians had absolutely nowhere left to go. Still, they were not wholly dumb, they did the only logical thing left to them. By backing up they eliminated lines of sight from the stairways, so to get rid of them, someone would have to go for them head on.
Still, she knew they would not accept making their last stand, they would want to get out of this alive. This might make their boss show himself. She would bet that Balak was the type to gloat. If the situations were reversed, and she was in the position to blow up his men, she would have wanted to see the look on his face. Heck, she wanted to see the look on his face when she told him that his cronies tried to betray him by making a deal with her. Psychology was universal that way, regardless of species. In some ways they were both monsters, except he was a megalomaniacal terrorist, while she still had some shred of decency and self-control left. The question became how to play this hand?
"Shepard, there is bad news. Defusing this bomb… will take a while." Nihlus announced.
"The wiring is all messy…" Tali explained. "I think that's intentional."
"Creator-Zorah is correct. The quantity of redundant wiring is a crude means of hampering manual disarmament." Legion spoke up.
"Please don't tell me that you're confounded too, Legion." Tali asked, suddenly very nervous.
"We are incapable of being confounded, Creator-Zorah. Addendum: we have initiated analysis to determine which wires are false leads. We will relay the results to you once we complete the process. Stand by."
"Alright… I think I want a second opinion." Tali mumbled.
"Are these things even identical?" Garrus wondered. "Legion, send me the data too."
"Acknowledged, Officer-Vakarian. Stand by."
There was something they could still do, in the event that the bombs proved too complex, "What about the hostages?" Shepard asked.
"I know what you are going to say, Shepard." Nihlus spoke up. "I am working on setting them free right now."
"You're going to have to be careful with where you lead them. Two of the patrolling batarians decided to put themselves between me and Balak. They're still alive."
Nihlus snorted, "Not for long, I bet. Well, I will be careful."
"Alright." She was not surprised that Nihlus had anticipated what she would want to do. However, suddenly there was another consideration to worry about. Nihlus was right to free the hostages, to get them out of harm's way, just in case Legion, Tali, and Garrus could not figure the bombs out, but he could not get all three rooms simultaneously. She glanced in the direction where she knew Ashley and Jenkins were. "Gunny, you and Jenkins go upstairs. Split up and help Nihlus free the hostages and escort them to safety." She would stall as long as she could.
"Got it. Let's go Jenkins." Ashley replied.
"Aye, aye." The corporal replied.
"I suppose this is where you want me to do that something dangerous…" Kaidan stated quietly.
Shepard turned to him and nodded.
Kaidan sighed, "Sorry… I will do it, but… I can't say I will enjoy it."
"I don't enjoy what I do either, but I do what must be done. The day I start enjoying it… is the day everyone should worry." Shepard replied bluntly as she brought up her omni-tool. Kaidan did not reply to that statement. As the cloak settled over her, she rose to her feet and came around the barrier that separated the stairway from the promenade. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Williams and Jenkins vanish at the top of the stairs on the level above them. She pressed her back to the promenade's back wall and inched her way closer to the corridor mouth.
Cloak or not, she was taking precaution because batarians had two pairs of eyes set at different widths and heights, which meant their perception of parallax and depth was more complex. There was a real risk that one of them might be eagle-eyed enough to notice her cloak's distortion ripple.
She poked her head around the edge and peered down the corridor. The batarians had their backs to opposite walls. However right at that moment one was looking at the other as if they were conversing. That just meant at least one of them was not paying attention. Shepard slipped around the corner and moved in, heading right for the batarian who was talking to the other.
Her fingers ghosted on the ammo selector switches putting the twins in disruptor mode. The aware batarian froze and his head snapped right in her direction. She could see his four eyes focus right on where she was. Shepard grinned, not that he would be able to see it. His rifle began to turn, and only then did the other batarian notice and follow its motion. For all Shepard cared he might have been moving in slow motion.
She raised Sin, muzzle pointed into the batarian's face. His eyes blew wide and his mouth slackened. She pulled the trigger. The shot rolled like thunder in the confines of the narrow corridor. The batarian's head whipped back, but Shepard was already moving. She stepped around the body even as the other batarian opened fire on where she had just been. Some of the rounds peppered the collapsing corpse's shield envelope in place of her. She wheeled around, raised Sin, and fired.
The batarian's shields flared, but held. Then he swept across with his rifle, seeking for her. Shepard bolted to her left, to stay just ahead of the bullet stream, raised Dex, and pulled the trigger. Being out of position meant her aim was off, the bullet may have ripped through the batarian's shield, but it merely shattered his shoulder guard. The rifle continued spraying, still seeking her. By then the batarian had turned his back on the corridor mouth. Out of the corner of her eye Shepard saw Kaidan step out into the open behind him.
Kaidan raised his side-arm and pulled the trigger once, and then a second time. The batarian froze and his rifle stopped cycling. Silence reigned for a long moment, and then he crumpled to the floor, ceramics ringing against the hard pre-cast slabs, the plating on his back perforated with two bullet holes. Kaidan stood there, his side-arm still raised.
"Commander, are you alright?" He asked.
Shepard would be lying if she was not surprised at what the lieutenant had just done. "I'm unharmed." Saying she was alright was reserved for when Balak was dead at her feet.
"Good. I didn't want to risk stray rounds hitting you. That and… this actually works for you. I think." Kaidan replied as he drew near, the look in his eyes was vaguely amused right then.
"It does," Shepard replied as she holstered her guns. Balak and his two remaining cronies would have heard the twins and then their ally's automatic. With Kaidan using his own pistol and the warping effect of the corridor they would have little reason to suspect that there was more than one person here. Kaidan had preserved her cover, and what more, he had done so using her sort of sleight of hand. Balak had driven the calmest member of her team into pulling up some metaphorical sleeves.
"Shepard-Commander, we have completed our analysis of the explosive device. We are relaying the data to Creator-Zorah and Officer-Vakarian now." Legion announced.
"Thanks for the update, Legion." Shepard replied. "What about the hostages?" She asked.
"I am on it Shepard. I will assume that silence means it is safe to escort them to the atrium." Nihlus replied.
"I am working on untying the last hostage. The batarians used polymer ties, even with our knives it takes a bit to cut through." Ashley replied.
"I still have two left," Jenkins slipped in.
"Tell me when you get that done." Shepard paused then, wondering if she ought to call Tali, Garrus, and Legion off. Balak had lost his bargaining chip. Furthermore, the rooms were so deep underground that even if the bombs destroyed them, they could not cause a vent-out. Still, she did not want Balak to have that satisfaction. That meant she had to risk her team, but there was a way to mitigate that. "Legion, Tali, Garrus… keep an ear on the link. If it sounds like Balak is getting twitchy… get out of there. Let the rooms blow."
"As you wish, Commander." Garrus replied.
"Acknowledged."
"Don't worry, Commander. We'll defuse these things." Tali finished.
"Alright," Shepard replied as she turned and made her way toward the office at the end of the hall, keeping her footfalls silent and her movement smooth.
"Alright! Last of my hostages is free… Come on people, we're out of here! There will be answers about the friendly synthetic once you're out of the blast range." Ashley said, half as an update, and half to everyone else around her.
"I'm about done here… maybe half a minute?" Jenkins slipped in.
"I guess we are almost clear to finish this. One way or the other." Kaidan said as he caught up to her.
"Indeed." Shepard replied as she let herself fall behind him, and reached up to her helmet to ensure that external signals would pass through her comm link to the others. If things were to go south she needed to give the bomb teams all the advance warning they could get.
"There, done!" Jenkins chorused. "Come with me everyone!"
Suddenly the door at the end of the corridor opened and two batarians filed out, both with their automatics in hand. Kaidan stopped cold, and Shepard stopped right behind him. Then Balak appeared, dragging his struggling hostage by a cord tied tightly around her neck. He stopped in front in front of the other two, four eyes locked on Kaidan, completely oblivious to the absolutely vicious death glare the woman aimed at the back of his head.
"Stop right there!" he growled. "Make one move I do not like and I will tighten my grip until the cord slits her throat."
Shepard glanced at Kaidan, this would be where he would have to do the talking for her.
"Alright. I am not here to provoke an unnecessary confrontation," The lieutenant replied as he holstered his side-arm slowly.
This amused Shepard. Balak would not know that Kaidan was arguably more dangerous when he was unarmed. She advanced slowly, skirting as wide as possible on the opposite side from the hostage. The last thing she needed was for the woman to see the ripple and react as civilians often did, stare and track it. The batarians behind her would notice a reaction like that.
"I am sure we can reach an agreement that everyone will benefit from." Kaidan went on.
"Here's what will benefit me. I am leaving this rock while I can, and this one-" he yanked on the cord for emphasis, "is coming with me. You do not try to stop me, and maybe I will not blow up your friends and kill her."
Shepard circled the batarian cronies and raised her leg to draw her knife. Whom should she attack first? What would give Kate the highest chance of survival? Attack the wrong batarian and Kate would become a casualty.
"I can't let you go. I have orders." Kaidan replied.
"I do not care about your orders! I told you how this will end. You will have to make do with stopping this rock."
"I can't let you go." Kaidan repeated, with more force in his tone. "Not after what happened here and what you've done to these people."
Balak bristled, "This is nothing! You humans have done far worse to us!" He growled.
Shepard grinned. Kaidan had baited the terrorist's victim mentality with a single artful stroke. The Alliance was a metaphorical cactus Balak chose to sit on, and he would blame everyone but himself for the choice.
"We've been forced into exile. Forced to survive on what meager resources we can get. Your Alliance robbed us of a dozen colony worlds!"
"Shepard-Commander, status update: the explosive device we analyzed has been rendered inoperable." Legion announced.
"Your people are enjoying the platinum wealth that should have been ours!" Balak went on, his voice dipping into a dangerous low growl.
Shepard found the tirade highly amusing. As far as she was concerned, he was not the victim here. She refused to ever see the logic in anything coming straight from a terrorist. Any moment now Garrus and Tali would tell her that the bombs were out of the picture. She had chosen her next course of action, she just needed to get the all-clear to carry it out.
"I can certainly understand that, and yes, there are genuine grievances here, but none of that justifies your actions here." Kaidan replied. "You would have killed millions of people… and for what?"
"For what?" Balak repeated, clearly furious now. "We had no other option. Sometimes you need to get someone's attention before they will listen. You forced our hand!"
"Commander… I just defused my bomb." Garrus added.
Shepard did not reply, she could only stand there and marvel at how far down the road of victim attitude Balak went.
"I… still haven't found the right wires." Tali murmured.
"Creator-Zorah, we are on our way to assist you."
"Alright…"
Tali sounded fearful, though Shepard would not blame her. The quarian girl would be fighting her instincts to run, using the fact that she would not want to be the only one who failed at the assigned task. Doubly so given that she had been the one to promise that the bombs would be defused.
"You started the conflict, not us." Kaidan opened, a sharp rebuff in his tone. "You raided our colonies in the twenty-one-sixties. You thought we would not retaliate. Then when we did, you cried foul and ran to the Council. Except they never forgot the raids against Salarian and Asari colonies in the past. I understand that you think yourself the victim. But you are not."
"Enough!" Balak snapped. "Typical human reasoning. That is why any talks between our people would only be an amusement to yours. Your kind do not hide your contempt for our way of life."
"I found them!" Tali chorused, suddenly jubilant. "There are only two wires with a faint electric field."
"That would be them." Garrus said.
"I'm done wasting my breath on you. I am leaving. Stand aside." Balak finished.
"That's one…"
"Kaidan… when I attack, stasis Kate." Shepard ordered as she slid up right behind the batarian closest to the woman.
"Done! The third bomb is inert! Give him what he deserves, Commander!"
"Oh I will," Shepard replied, not bothering to hide the malice in her tone. She raised her free hand to her helmet controls to turn on her external relay.
"You are not going anywhere." Kaidan said as his biotic aura manifested, spreading like liquid fire over his limbs.
Shepard grabbed the closest batarian by the side of his helmet and thrust her knife into the side of his neck. He jerked in her grip and his body flickered periwinkle. Shepard felt the hair at the back of her neck rise. A biotic? It was a good thing she went with the knife.
The other batarian wheeled away as his body ignited with a periwinkle aura. Suddenly there was a whomp, Kate shrieked, but the sound was strangled away as Kaidan's stasis field enveloped her. The sudden air density shift made Balak let go of the ligature around the woman's neck.
Balak growled and went for his side-arm. Shepard yanked her knife free and shoved the corpse at the other batarian with all her exo-frame-assisted strength as she rounded on the terrorist leader.
"I got him, Commander," Kaidan called as he rounded on the biotic batarian, his own biotic aura began to ripple and flicker.
The terrorist leader wheeled on her, pistol whipping into the air, but she still had her cloak on. In the breathless second it took him to spot where she stood, Shepard had the time to reach out, and push the pistol's muzzle down. Balak pulled the trigger, the gun fired, the round ricocheted off the floor with a ping, and Shepard felt it hit her shin-guard, but it had lost a lot of its energy and thus did not penetrate. Balak stepped back, and Shepard slid to the right, away from him, out of the range where he would be able to see her semblance.
Suddenly the hair at the back of her neck rose and she felt her body begin to lift, starting seemingly from her stomach, causing it to roil, and then the rest of her. Her heels came off the floor as the batarian's biotic field continued to build. Shepard knew what was coming, he was probably going to try and throw her.
"Not on my watch, bastard!" Kaidan growled as his biotics flared even brighter.
The dark energy creeping up the back of her neck died, and her heels came back down hard. Shepard turned her head ever so slightly, still keeping one eye on Balak. The biotic batarian had stiffened like a ramrod and his hand rose to his chest, fingers positively clawing at the area where his heart and lungs were. She could see him gaping and gasping like a fish.
Then Kaidan's hand snapped shut into a fist. The batarian jerked, and he must have screamed, though Shepard could not hear it. Spittle laced with blood splattered against the inside of his helmet face-shield. Kaidan lowered his arm, his biotic field faded, and the batarian crumpled to the floor.
The display rooted Balak to the spot. Kate had been released from the stasis at some point Shepard had missed. She too shrank away and pressed her back to the nearest wall, eyes wide in fear.
"Commander are you alright?" Ashley asked.
Shepard did not reply, she was too focused on the task at hand. She grabbed Balak's sidearm and slammed his wrist with the butt of her knife. That caused him to snap out of his stupor, but also let go of his last line of defense. Shepard tossed the weapon behind her. In the same fluent motion she grabbed the terrorist's arm and yanked it back around him, twisting his forearm until the ligaments of his elbow tightened, even as she shoved the tip of her bloody knife under his chin. His automatic remained behind his back, pressed between their bodies, useless. "Eyes on me," she said. Her omni-tool reacted to the phrase as coded, disconnecting her cloak.
"You should have let me go while you had the chance," Balak growled as his free hand crept into one of the side pouches on his suit webbing.
Dimly Shepard heard a familiar set of turian footsteps coming from behind her. She knew there was only one individual who would think of coming here. She did not acknowledge his arrival, her focus remained entirely on the moment. Balak would be reaching for his ace in the hole, unaware that it had been pulled. The thought of having the last laugh made her grin in triumph.
"Should I have? I should think it is more that you should have known not try half-baked acts of terrorism." She teased, no longer bothering to keep the sticky-sweet undertone at bay. It was so easy to let go, to revel in her superiority right then. She would regret it later, but for now? The monster was awake and loose. She could not be bothered to try and rein it in.
"You bitch," Balak whipped out the detonator. His thumb flicked up the safety cap and slammed on its single button with prejudice.
And nothing happened.
Shepard laughed. "It's a wonder what a little forewarning does, no?" She asked. "It's funny, but you literally tossed your chances out the metaphorical window while lecturing the lieutenant here on how much of a victim you think you are. The last bomb was defused just moments before I attacked your bodyguards." She could not help it, she wanted to reduce him to nothing right before he died.
"Who do you think you are?" Balak demanded.
She knew what he was doing, right then he would have realized the gig was up. He was a dead bastard standing. Still, he would stall for every last second he could. The monster within her was going to enjoy playing this game. There was absolutely nothing Balak could do to turn this around. Not on his own.
"Oh pardon me, where are my manners? I am Lieutenant Commander Shepard. Council Spectre-in-training. I don't suppose that matters much to you. But I know you'll recognize my other title, the White Death of Elysium."
Kate gasped in the background. Balak froze, which told Shepard enough about whether or not he knew that title. She had given it three-out-of-four odds. After all, he seemed rather angry about the Alliance's insults to his people. That sort of obsession would make him keep a proverbial bingo book of enemy targets to enjoy snuffing out. The White Death would be right up there in it.
"Careful, Shepard. It is beginning to sound like you are… enjoying yourself." Nihlus rumbled as he came around her to stand in front of Balak.
There was just a faint hint of something else in his tone, which told Shepard enough about just how serious that warning was. That is to say, not serious at all. She laughed and leaned closer to Balak, practically whispering into what the batarians had for external ears. "Just so you know, your plans have always been half-baked. That group you tried to send after us to the torch? They tried to bargain with me for their lives. Your lieutenant had it in mind to set you up and take over. In the process he fed me a lot of rather good information. Of course, if there is something I can't abide, after terrorists, it is traitors."
"You really are an idiot. Even if the Alliance did not respond… which would not have happened, but… the Council would have sent a Spectre to stop you. You had no chance with this scheme." Nihlus added.
"Nihlus, why so modest?" Shepard replied blandly. The game had turned into two on one, but it was almost over as well.
"Not modesty. Technically I never got orders to come here."
She felt Balak twitch, the realization must have taken a moment or two too long to filter through. She would have loved to see the expression on his face when he realized just how bad he had proverbially screwed the pooch. Nihlus was right in every shade of the term. One of the Council's laws extended a blanket protection to all of the relatively-rare garden worlds. The intentional destruction of one was one of the worst crimes, both intentionally during wartime, and even worse, by an act of terrorism. The Council would have sent a Spectre indeed. The only reason they had not, was probably because Nihlus and her were sent in. Had they not been, Shepard would not have been surprised if the Council outright came down like the hand of the almighty and sent in Saren. She wanted to think that even he would have done something for the engineers on this rock, even if it was only because someone had to stop the rock.
"I do believe it is time to finish playing with him, Shepard." Nihlus went on, his tone turning more serious, but Shepard still knew him well enough. He was definitely enjoying the game at least half as much as she was, and was merely putting up appearances of professional detachment.
"Come now… Kate, right?" Kaidan asked.
"Y- Yes." The woman murmured.
"I'm a field medic. Let's go find the others, and then I will help you remove that cord." Kaidan finished.
Shepard heard two sets of retreating footsteps. She grinned and made a mental note to thank Kaidan for that little bit of foresight. She did not want Kate to see what she was about to actually do to Balak.
"Yea," Shepard repeated. "I would love to say nothing personal… but... this is personal. Just be glad I won't bastardize your corpse to ensure you spend all of eternity in a bodily prison."
"You'll get your dues." Balak hissed.
"Oh I know," Shepard replied.
It was over with a flick of the knife's blade across his throat, and Shepard let him go to take a wide step back. Maybe she would not symbolically mutilate his corpse, but she was not so merciful as to give him an entirely quick death. She watched as he crumbled, blood quickly gushing from his slit neck artery. The monster inside would not have any other resolution. His cronies killed people on this rock in truly heinous, slow, and painful manners. Balak was due to spend the last moments of his pathetic life feeling some of their pain.
Still, as the seconds ticked, the monster seemed to retreat back into its cell. Her humane part began to reassert. Suddenly she could not bear to watch his death at all, so she closed her eyes and took a few steps back. Only when a finger poked at the side of her helmet did she open them again. Her HUD flashed that her external relay had been disconnected, then she felt an arm wrap around her shoulders and pull her into its owner's side.
"It is over." Nihlus rumbled, his voice did not come over her suit communication link.
Shepard looked up and saw that he had pulled off his helmet, that way whatever he said would not be broadcast for everyone else to hear. She did not reply, because she did not want it to be broadcast to the others. Instead she just stood there and let the comfort Nihlus offered osmose. Turians were hardly touchy-feely, but these moments showed that Nihlus was uncannily aware of when touchy-feely was called for. She knew he was not going to make a fuss about it, he just offered a very physical sort of comfort. It was actually quite sweet considering whom it was coming from.
Thus she let the moment linger for the twenty seconds she could reasonably afford before she pulled away, even as her hand ghosted over the highest point of his chest plate, her way of saying thanks without saying a thing. Her moment of weakness was over, she knew she needed to move into the final details. "We need this damn rock's chief engineer. The rock has to be slowed down." She announced for all to hear.
"Funny thing, Skipper, he literally just showed up. Says he started walking here when he saw the third torch go offline," Ashley announced.
Shepard would hazard a guess that walking was not quite the right term to use for that. The most efficient form of locomotion in low gravity was a rather silly-looking hopping gait. But that sort of speculation was neither here nor there.
"We'll be there in a moment. I want to talk to people." Shepard replied.
"Alright… but- don't be surprised at anything they do." Ashley warned.
"I'm rarely surprised at anything anyone does. Comes with experience, Gunny."
"Of course," Ashley replied.
Maybe some would find that sort of statement a touch arrogant, but it was her truth. Shepard fancied herself having seen and done so much that very little could catch her by surprise. She wordlessly turned and walked toward the mouth of the corridor. She knew Nihlus would follow her without needing to be told to do so.
When she reached the promenade, she saw that all the hostages had gathered in the small container garden in the center of the atrium. All of them looked frazzled, but none were worse for wear. A number were still subconsciously massaging where the polymer cords had been. Suddenly one of the scientists raised his hands and began to clap. It was like he broke the ice as the standing ovation grew rapidly until all of the former hostages were showing their appreciations.
Shepard raised her hands to silence it, and waited until it well and truly stopped. "I hope you people applauded everyone else on my team with just as much fervor, because they deserve it more than me. Certainly those who defused the bombs deserve it more than me." She said.
"Nonsense!" one of the men in the back called. "You ordered them to defuse those bombs. You did not have to. We were all willing to die if that would stop this rock!"
A murmur of affirmations and head nodding went amidst the group.
"That is not how I operate," Shepard replied, and left it at that.
"Well thank you for that!" the same man called. "I'm rather fond of living too!"
This time a few chuckles went about. Still, they sounded terse and tired, and Shepard would not blame this reaction. Some people took to barely surviving a situation like this as a licence to make the most awful jokes they could think of. She had heard some doozies.
"Alright people. You've seen our saviors. Now we have a rock to stop. Lakshmi, Darius, you're the senior-most propulsion engineers I have, you'll come with me to the control room. We need to calculate and execute a counter-burn." Simon Atwell stepped in, taking charge with all the authority he could muster. "And… Doctor Rosenberg, pleasure to see you are well, ma'am, but please see to everyone else."
"Of course," the doctor replied calmly.
"Now let's move!" Atwell barked.
The two engineers, a short Indian woman with a long messy plait of black hair and a tall, dark-skinned man from the back moved toward Atwell. The doctor, an older lady with grey hair and glasses, wearing medical overalls gathered the others and moved them in the completely opposite direction. The two groups split up, with the engineers rushing toward where they had to be as fast as their legs would carry them right then.
Only Kate lingered behind, she was sitting with Kaidan off to the side. The lieutenant had indeed removed the polymer cord from around the woman's neck, revealing a nasty-looking welt that still showed despite the subsequent liberal coating of Medi-Gel. He had been thorough in treating her wounds, the goop was there to prevent infection if the cord actually managed to break skin in any way. Right then Kaidan had his helmet off and his eyes closed. Shepard knew that he probably had another one of his nasty biotic headaches going to town on his central nervous system.
Now that the atrium emptied out of all the other survivors, Kate rose to her feet and approached slowly. Her eyes were on the floor, and for the life of her, Shepard could not tell whether it was because she had seen too much in that corridor, or because of something else. "Commander… I- I wanted to thank you, deeply, and personally." She murmured.
"No thanks are necessary. Are you alright?" Shepard asked.
"Yes… as alright as I could be. But I will thank you nevertheless. You saved all of us when you could have ignored the bombs. You and the lieutenant saved me as well. I do not want to think about what Balak would have done to me if he had the chance. He already ordered them to kill Aaron. They killed my brother when I would not reveal whom I was talking to. I could not even be sure it connected… but still, they killed him."
Shepard knew what was going on, the shock was beginning to sink in on Kate now that adrenaline and fear were not there to dampen it. "It connected. Your warning about the bombs was everything. I know it is not much of a comfort, but you two displayed tremendous bravery, and that turned the whole situation right around. I wish I could have saved him though." The words sounded paltry, hollow even, but this was the best Shepard could offer to the woman right then. Nothing would make her brother's death truly alright, but perhaps knowing for sure that he did not die in vain could balm the pain even a little.
"It is not your fault, Commander. It was the batarians, but… he would have liked you. He was stubborn, but always did the right thing. He would not have liked to save himself if it meant others got hurt. Still… I don't know if I can ever look at this rock the same way again… Aaron was the one who convinced me to join the team. He said it would be an adventure. And now…" Kate trailed off then.
Shepard could see a hint of the tears that Kate was fighting to hold back. She wished she knew the right thing to say right then. The severed sibling bond went deeper than what she had with Arthur, but it came from the same place. What could she say that would not come across as canned platitudes? "The batarians killed a dear friend of mine on Elysium… so I know it must be tough right now, but it will get better." She hated having to give Kate an omission like that, with canned platitudes on top, but she could not think of anything else. "Know that I killed those who killed your brother. They're never doing that to anyone else. So now let's think about what we can still do. I think he would not have convinced you to come here if you were truly unwilling. You wanted to be part of this as much as he did."
Kate blinked once, then twice, and it was like watching her find and pull up another reservoir of strength. She raised her hands to wipe at the undersides of her eyes, "You are right…"
Shepard nodded, "Hold on to that." She said. "Do not let a bunch of batarian scumbags decide how you should live your life, nor taint what your brother wanted to protect. That is the way I looked at it myself. I would not let them have that power over me."
"I know." Kate replied. A wan little smile flashed across her features for a split of a second. "Thank you, Commander. For protecting us. For helping us. But also for encouraging me. It was a pleasure meeting you and your team, but… at the risk of sounding a little ungrateful… I really ought to see to Aaron now."
"Of course. I'm sorry if I came off a little… preachy." Shepard nodded. "I'm not good with this sort of thing." Shepard figured she owed Kate that much honesty.
Kate shook her head, the wan smile flashed again. Then she stepped back and simply turned to walk away. Shepard watched her go for a brief moment. She would be alright, she knew that much. Kate had a fighting spirit to her. If the batarians had not broken her before, they would not break her now. When the woman vanished at the top of the stairs leading to the level above, Shepard finally turned back to her team. "Alright…" she began, but then her communicator chirped, and Shepard closed her mouth before she could say another word. She reached up and tapped at her helmet's controls, "Shepard here. What is it, Joker?"
"Hey Commander, just calling to let you know, we picked up the Dachau start to warm its engines." Joker announced.
Ah, of course. Balak's crony did say something about some batarians staying back on their ship. "EDI, did you get a good scan of the vessel? Any hints of hostages on board?" She doubted the batarians took anyone to the Dachau once they decided to use the rock as a weapon of mass destruction. They had shot every EVA suit they came across for a reason.
"Commander, I detected three body heat signatures aboard the vessel. Two on the bridge, and one in engineering. I consulted the standard layout plans for this type of vessel found within my database, and I can give you a ninety-nine percent certainty that the batarians have not taken anyone aboard."
"Good. Joker, wait until they lift off and clear the rock, and then put two disruptor torpedoes up their tail-pipes." Shepard ordered.
"With extreme and unashamed pleasure. I take it you're almost done then?"
"We are done, and I call this job a success. EDI you can relay that to Admiral Hackett too. My report will be on his desk in the next twenty-four."
"Right away, Commander." EDI replied.
"With your standards of 'success'… did you find a truck-sized nugget of platinum they let you keep too?" Joker asked.
Shepard laughed, "Alas no. But now I wish I had." It was mostly a joke though. Where did one go to sell that much raw platinum? "Tell me when the Batarians are gone, but for now, Shepard out." With that said, she tapped at her comm to close the link. It was cute how the Dachau and its skeleton crew thought she would let them get away. She turned back to her team, there was just one last thing that needed to be done.
It was another four hours before any of them could get back to the Normandy. Shepard felt like running off was not a good idea. Not when the rock was still hurtling at Terra Nova way too fast. They ended up staying for the careful thruster ballet directed and produced by Atwell, starring his two propulsion engineers. It had ended up a real three-act performance.
Due to the period of time X57 spent running on just one torch, it had started to turn laterally. Act one was to wait for it to do a full one-eighty, so that the torches pointed into the rock's direction of travel. Act two was firing just one torch at first, to counter the rotation. Act three, when the rock stopped turning, the engineers had to coordinate a perfectly simultaneous ignition of all three, while balancing the lateral output to correct the rock's slightly deviated path, to make it fall into its intended orbit. It was no easy feat to steer an asteroid, but they managed to do it on the fumes of the remaining fuel at that.
After that it was a long procession of the survivors thanking everyone. Shepard thought the team was quite literally rescued by the arrival of the company's supply ship with relief resources. It was much easier for all of them to slip away while everyone was too busy negotiating the fallout. Shepard still felt slimy for running off like that, but they were not there to be permanent additions, nor was it her job to handle the post-operation engineering and relief efforts. She could understand why the civilians clung to them half as much as they did, they had just survived a harrowing ordeal, but she would have liked some consideration for her team too. This has been a way too long a day, and she would not blame anyone if they did not want to socialize after that.
Their return to the Normandy was greeted with Doctor Chakwas taking over. Kaidan vanished rather quickly. No one was surprised when he said he wanted to sleep off the headache. Tali vanished back in engineering, muttering something about Chatika and batarians. The girl was clearly upset that they had damaged her drone. After that, Legion bluntly announced that they had overdrawn their internal batteries and needed to recharge before vanishing in the AI core. The real surprise was Matthews. The cook had whipped up what he called a "victory buffet".
After having a meal and a small cup of coffee to give herself just enough energy to do one last thing, Shepard went up to the OD to check her messages. EDI had passed a message to Admiral Hackett to say that the operation was a success, and so the Admiral sent a quick message back, congratulating her and the team, and telling them to get back to Arcturus. Shepard told Joker to get them there when the feasting was done, and then went up to her loft to sleep.
She had no energy left to be celebrating anything, nor even dealing with her dust-covered gear. This whole experience brought back more than too many memories of a rather unpleasant time. She knew she would have to perform a certain song and dance for the media. She just hoped, fervently hoped, that some pencil-neck in charge of recruitment would not come up with the idea of putting her on a recruitment poster again. Shepard had had enough of photo shoots the first time around.
In the end it was about twelve hours before the Normandy arrived at Arcturus station. At least four of them were spent in the orbit of Themis, with the engineers not being in a particular hurry to finish dumping the core's excess static charge build up, or venting the IES system. This gave Shepard some time to really sink her teeth into the report for the admiral. She knew that like it or not, the report had to be quite detailed. Any major omissions and inconsistencies would eventually come back to bite her, somehow. That was just the way the things went.
This delay naturally also allowed the news to get ahead of them. Within hours the event was all over the Alliance News Network, with the media's talking heads going at it as if they knew anything about it. No one even bothered to conceal her involvement, and one pundit boldly called it a "Triumph for the White Death". When Shepard checked her messages, she quickly discovered that some of the media hounds had gotten hold of the Normandy's official semi-public electronic mail ID. Fortunately EDI was right on top of things and had sorted the email according to origin. Important messages from her mother and Captain Anderson on top and the half a dozen messages from reporters begging for exclusive interviews in a whole other separate folder which Shepard summarily deleted.
After seeing the drivel on the public airways, she knew better than to agree to do exclusive grilling. Honestly, who did they think she was? A Hollywood starlet? She was much too busy with important things. That and she knew that there was no point to fueling the pundits. The media's worst was yet to come, and on its own. In fact, seeing the interest, she was sorely tempted to order Joker to do one-eighty, lie that Spectre business had come up, and run all the way to the Terminus. She would rather face every glory-seeking batarian bounty hunter and mercenary on Omega than the media on Arcturus. The former would only want to kill her, but it being Omega, she could deal with them. The latter were blood-sucking parasites that would make her life miserable, and she was not even allowed to hint what anatomically-impossible thing they should do with themselves.
Shortly after culling her emails, while Shepard was contemplating temporarily dyeing in the identifying white in her fringe, her terminal pinged with a new incoming message. Shepard saw the sender ID, smiled, and tapped at it. Wrex was still on the Citadel and had caught the Alliance News Network breaking news broadcast. His recorded message was boisterous congratulations on a job well done, though with an addendum that had she told him she was going after batarian terrorists he would have stuck around for one last job, especially this kind, and doubly-so after what she had done for him. The rest of the message was just an update, him saying that he had made a few arrangements and would be out of contact on Tuchanka. The buoy network in the DMZ was spotty after all, but he would try and send something from time to time, likely just text. Shepard gladly recorded a quick heartfelt thank you message and sent it back, hoping it would reach him before he actually left the Citadel.
That single message from Wrex did more to cheer her up than anything else. It was not so much the fact that a krogan praised her for just about painting some walls with batarian blood, but more that Wrex was unlikely to second-guess the thinking behind every breath she took on that rock. Shepard knew full well that the media networks would run a certain predictable gamut. The conservative networks would be even worse, as their gamut would be entirely self-serving. First they would sing her praises, hitching their xenophobia to them, while doing their best to down-play that more than half her team was "aliens". Then when that angle was played out, they would bring in some so-called expert to passive-aggressively arm-chair nitpick every action like they could have done better. The worst would be that the expert would probably be some mouth-breathing pencil-neck who would have soiled themselves in that same position.
Still, there was no other choice than run the gauntlet and hope her patience held. Maybe she could con Nihlus into taking on some really easy job, Admiral Hackett would understand. With that game plan in mind, Shepard left the OD and went to her loft to change into her blue and gold uniform with a certain degree of trepidation. Once back on the CIC, she spotted Kaidan and Ashley standing by the airlock. Kaidan was wearing his own even-less-often-seen officer's uniform, Ashley stuck to her fatigues. It was also near impossible for her sharp eye to miss the way the gunny was eyeing the lieutenant. Shepard would not be the one to point it out, not her business, but she would hazard a bet to say that Ashley rather liked what she saw, which caused Shepard to grin. It would still be a violation of protocol, but she would be a hypocrite to speak up about it.
"Morning, Ash, Kaidan," she greeted. "You two coming with me?"
Kaidan only nodded. It was hard to miss that he seemed to have slipped right back into his withdrawn shell. Shepard was not buying it, she had seen enough examples of Kaidan when something actually managed to get past it and irk the individual within.
"If that's alright with you, Skipper." Ashley replied.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Shepard replied as she turned to the airlock. She could honestly use some backup in this situation. She could use the reminder that she ought not to eviscerate reporters for their barely-disguised agendas.
The three of them stepped into the airlock and Shepard keyed in the sequence to cycle the system. "I just need to get over to Admiral Hackett's office. I think he wants to congratulate me in person." She would not be surprised if her mother was there with cake and noise makers. Hannah could be irreverent like that, and she had her own chip on the shoulder against batarians.
The airlock's outer door opened and Shepard stepped out first, checking on her uniform toggles one last time. She was mildly surprised to see that there was no mob of reporters pitching tents right in front of the airlock, but maybe that was a small grace from wherever. No one seemed to have quailed to a reporter's demand to know where the Normandy was docking.
As Shepard began to make her way toward where she knew they could get a vehicle to take them to the navy base, she noted how one set of footsteps behind her actually drew closer. By the heavy set and difference in pitch, uniform shoes rather than combat boots, she knew it was Kaidan.
"Commander, I've had something on my mind…" he said, once they were another five meters down the corridor.
Shepard slowed down and glanced at him.
"How did you know I could stasis?" He asked after a long moment.
Ah, that question. She honestly did not know why it bothered him, but she was not going to create a fuss about it. "You are not the first biotic I've worked with. Back in ICT I had one on my squad. He's crazy powerful, but you got him beat in fine control hands down. Basically, I know the standard playbook."
"Alright… I should have known that." Kaidan replied, sounding rather sheepish.
"Ma'am, did you really have Kaidan put the hostage into stasis?" Ashley asked, stepping into the conversation.
"Yep." Shepard replied bluntly. "Here's why. Kaidan has a crazy powerful barrier, you know that, I know that, everyone who was on Solcrum knows that. Then, my thinking was that if Kaidan could expand his barrier for that, he would have the fine control to shrink it down and concentrate it. In a way, a stasis field is an expanded bubble barrier, shrunk down and concentrated."
"It is, in a way, yes…" Kaidan murmured.
"Now what the concentration does…" Shepard went on. "Is that it basically increases the density of air around the objects trapped within it. Ostensibly it is used to stop people from moving, and at its worst, it can prevent the victim from breathing." That was what D'Aros had done to Nihlus on Omega, the memory still rankled Shepard.
"But a barrier that dense…" Ashley began.
Shepard could hear the realization dawn on her. "Exactly that, Gunny. At that density, Kate could not move, the batarians could not grab her, and any bullet from outside that tried to pierce through the stasis field would lose so much of its energy, that at worst it would just embed in the skin."
"You also knew I could control my biotics, and that I would not accidentally suffocate Kate." Kaidan stepped in.
"Indeed." Shepard replied. "An unorthodox, out-of-the-box application of an ability. I trusted you to back me up, and you did. That will be on my report by the way, do not think you're getting away without due credit, Alenko."
"Due credit, Ma'am? Is that your way of saying you want half the reporters chasing you to chase me? That's hardly what I would call due credit." He stated in monotone.
"Oh dear. You're on to me," Shepard replied, just as blandly.
There was a beat of silence but then Kaidan looked up, met her gaze, and bowed his head. "Thank you, Commander."
"For what?" Shepard wondered. "I just admitted that I want to send a mob of reporters after you."
Kaidan smiled a sort of knowing smirk but said nothing more.
"I know I just missed something. Do I want to ask?" Ashley wondered.
"I'll tell you later, Ash." Kaidan replied.
Shepard only pretended she did not hear Kaidan use that nickname, nor the tone he said it in. They had reached the end of the long docking bay corridor and the last set of doors opened up onto a sort of hub room where more people waiting for other ships had gathered. Most of the officers and enlisted men there were coming with heavy duffel bags. Shepard would hazard a guess that they were coming back from furlough, waiting for their ship to come pick them up. It would likely be a cruiser that had been dry-docked for annual work.
"Attention! Commander Shepard has arrived!" someone called. Shepard turned and saw a lieutenant across the room snap to attention and salute. The response seemed to ripple across the room, and soon everyone there had basically dropped everything to snap to attention and salute.
Shepard returned the gesture formally, with a smile on her face. After all, she would not take out her foul mood on people who were not to blame.
As the men and women returned to whatever they had been doing, Shepard noticed the figure leaning against the back wall, a drone floating over her head. Just like that Shepard's mood tanked even lower than it was sixty seconds before. There was no mistaking who it was. Khalisah bint Sinan al-Jilani, Westerland News, conservative conspiracy fuel-thrower extraordinaire. The absolute last person Shepard wanted to deal with any day of the year, and especially not now. Because if the Alliance News Network still had some standards if they wanted to keep their name, Westerland News was unaffiliated, and able to froth from the mouth at will. "Who let her here?" She mumbled.
"Do you want us to do something to her?" Ashley asked.
"No, gunny. That'll just make it worse. If she wants me to make her look bad again, then who am I to refuse her?" Shepard asked.
Ashley grinned, "Oh damn, and here we are, out of popcorn."
"An absolute tragedy," Kaidan deadpanned.
Shepard smiled, but the expression faded quickly as she noticed Khalisah push off the wall and make her way across the room toward her.
Author Notes: That scene with Balak felt a little too on the nose given what is going on in real life, but I drew some inspiration from all that too. It was a pain to write, I had to review the videos and try to figure out where Balak was coming from, even though he was hardly sympathetic. I'll leave you to ponder on whether Shepard really got an unfair prejudice against them, or if it's justified.
General Notes:
Kaidan's Moment – I really wanted to give Kaidan a moment to shine here, and I think I managed. Yes that ability he used on the biotic batarian was the dreaded reave. He shredded that batarian's lungs and heart in one gesture. Beware of the quiet one.
Chapter Notes:
None this time…