Mass Effect 1

Burnt for Beacons

Chapter 11 – Armstrong Nebula IV

Ashley checked Kaidan's environmental seals, running her omni-tool over his suit with practiced ease. They were gathered in the vehicle bay down on the engineering deck, preparing to board the Mako. She clapped him on the helmet twice and moved on to check Wrex's armour. Her omni-tool readings highlighted a weak connection, so she bent down to fix it. Devlon Industries armour was famous for being able to withstand environmental extremes but checking them over was an easy job and worth the time. If their suits failed in the 351°C temperatures, they'd be dead before they had a chance to cry out. She retried her omni-tool, and satisfied she gave Wrex a thumbs up. He grunted his thanks. Garrus' and Tali's suits were fine. Marcus Greico and Silus Crosby finished strapping the last cargo crate into the vehicle and went to report to Kaidan, who was checking each step off on a data pad.

The call came, and the small group of marines climbed into the cramped interior of the armoured vehicle. Tali and Kaidan went first as they were going to steer from the front, Garrus followed and sat by the turret controls, and Ashley settled herself by the machine gun. The Mako's interior was notably human in design. The emphasis was on practicality and resembled the tanks that have existed on earth for centuries.

Kaidan started going over his pre-flight checks, while the rest of them adjusted their seats and harnesses. Vibrating floor panels announced Wrex's arrival as he clambered into the craft, taking his favoured seat close to the door. He took perverse pride in being the first with boots on the ground. Ash gave him an overly exuberant thumbs up and heard him grumble something back, possibly to do with looking forward to getting his armour nice and scuffed. She turned up the volume on her helmet speakers and carried out her own checks.

Her stomach dropped in anticipation when she saw the bay doors open on the virtual display. It was time. The onboard VI gave them a countdown and Kaidan began to accelerate towards the ramp. They dropped into open space and Ashley felt nothing at all as the mass effect fields kicked in, keeping the sense of gravity even. Her readouts showed their descent was comparatively slow in the light gravity, and she braced herself for the landing, but Kaidan was gentler at the helm than Shepard, and she barely felt it.

While the rest of the team compared scanner readings, Ashley readied the gear, making sure that the weapons were equipped with tungsten ammo, and the suits and boots were set to cope with the 0.8 g gravity. They had dropped in quite a long way from the geth base, to avoid detection for as long as possible. There was no sense in getting the Normandy embroiled in an aerial battle without backup. Ashley tried to focus on the details to calm her nerves. Her eyes couldn't help but be drawn to Notanban, which arched massively over the horizon, its molecular nitrogen glowing violet. The landscape of Solcrum, Notanban's moon, was stark by contrast. Not dissimilar to Earth's moon.

Kaidan began to carefully edge the Mako through a mountain pass as Tali called out readings to him. Garrus kept his eyes on his scanners, his mandibles flicking occasionally. Wrex loomed in the shadows and Ashley found herself, not for the first time, calmed by his presence. Kaidan took them in a massive circuitous route and finally their scanners identified the geth base.

Garrus' dual toned voice broke the silence. "I'm getting some readings. They're consistent with Colossi."

"Remind me. They're the cute looking ones, right?" Ashley assumed Wrex was attempting to lighten the mood, but Armature-class geth did sort of remind her of mechanical dinosaurs.

They continued their circle around it, looking carefully for any environmental advantage for the upcoming battle. Kaidan found what he was looking for: a mountain perch that overlooked the base, barely within sniping range and with a few rocks to nestle behind. He explained the plan. They'd hide the Mako at a distance, it made sense to risk the vehicle as little as possible. Without it, the extreme temperature would likely kill them all before the Normandy had a chance to rescue them. Meanwhile, Garrus and Ashley would pick off as many of the guards as possible from the ledge. Then they'd meet up for the final assault on the remaining geth.

"Questions?" Ashley appreciated Kaidan's attempt to stick to Shepard's open style of mission planning. And she did have questions, like, what about the compromises in armour that were made this mission? Devlon Industries armour might be the best at protecting the wearer from temperatures that could boil lead, but they were only mediocre in terms of damage protection and shielding. What if their suits' environmental protections failed while they were outside in a fire fight? Would they reach the Mako in time to allow the suits to recharge?

"Kaidan, I…" Kaidan's helmeted face turned towards her, and she felt herself freeze over. She had tried questioning superior officers before, and it had never ended well. It led to demotions and crap jobs, it led to her teammates giving her the side eye and calling her a trouble-making complainer. It led to people dredging up stories of Captain Williams. It was time to keep her mouth shut.

"Yes, Williams?" Kaidan asked gently.

"Nothing, Sir."

"You sure? If you have something to say, now is the time to say it."

"I… No. Nothing. Sorry."

Ashley knew it would be alright. Garrus was a menace with a sniper rifle. They'd pick off the guards and be back inside the Mako's protective shell without any trouble. She felt the blush creep up her neck and was grateful that it couldn't be seen by the others.

She and the turian readied their gear and went to stand side by side at the door. Wrex clapped her on the back before thumping the switch to open the hatch. Her HUD immediately began to warn her about the external temperature and gave her an estimated time in which the suit would fail. She watched as the bar display shrank slowly in size. They did not have long. The Mako rumbled away behind them as she and Garrus approached the edge and looked down over the encampment. There were two geth armatures and maybe four manned watch towers. They sank behind some cover and found their marks through the scopes. The HUD display continued to warn her of her impending death, so she signalled Garrus who in turn gave her a nod; and she took her shot. The recoil was huge, and it echoed loudly across the rocky landscape. She took her second shot. And then her third. She lost sense of time. Her whole world shrank to the size of the circle of her scope and the chest of the geth at the centre of it. She came back to herself when all the bipedal geth were down. A silvery white armature began to jerk its way towards their perch. If it fired one of its rockets, they'd both be dead.

"Time to go," Garrus said, flicking her elbow.

Ashley's HUD display showed they had almost no time to get back to the Mako. The shrieking in her ear was piercing and she was surprised that she was only now noticing it. The pair of them raced down the hill, their heavy gravity boots struggling to maintain purchase on the little piles of scree. Wrex had the door open and was growling at them to hurry. Ashley's lungs were burning but that didn't stop her from laughing with relief as they tumbled inside. Wrex slammed the door closed. She could hear Garrus laughing, too, and wondered what an untranslated turian laugh sounded like; the thought simply made her cackle louder.

Kaidan looked down at them for a little while and when their euphoria had eased, he gestured for them to move to their stations. It had been close, Ashley knew. If even one thing had gone wrong… She turned her mind to other things. They had a universe to save. While Kaidan took a direct route down to the base, Ashley and Garrus reported back, the team in the Mako would have picked up most things on the scanners, but Kaidan insisted on the first-hand accounts.

"It isn't the big boss fight we were expecting," Garrus said. "If this was to be their main base, it is either not fully established yet, or they packed up shop before we arrived."

"We could send in the Normandy to do a bombing run," Kaidan summarised, "but we need to make sure we have got the last of them. We can't risk that we've missed something and have them continue their invasion from a different system."

"Right," finished Tali. "We go in and find out what we can."

The two-story prefab was of a familiar design, one commonly used by all council species. The fact that the geth were using this building as its main base did seem to support the theory that they hadn't had time to establish themselves on Solcrum; they hadn't created their own infrastructure, they were merely occupying and adapting what already existed. Ashley shot down a geth hopper, before retreating behind cover. She eyed the crates looking for clues about who might have tried to establish a foothold on this inhospitable moon, but there was nothing obvious. Wrex was occupied with a geth destroyer, so Ashley signalled to Garrus that he should try to takeout the juggernaut on the balcony above them. She returned her attention to Tali who was busy behind a shred of cover trying to hack the geth systems. Wrex had moved on to help Kaidan. He threw up a warp from behind Kaidan's barrier, then Kaidan attempted a throw, which seemed to have little effect. The two men roared and began firing weapons, Kaidan his pistol and Wrex his massive shotgun. Another hopper leapt into view and Ashley attempted to take it down with her rifle, but it was too quick and disappeared. Frustrated, she added her fire to Wrex and Kaidan's, the geth exploded in a hail of hot metal, and she managed to wend her way through the wreckage to join Garrus in taking down the juggernaut. A momentary lull in firing was shattered by Tali's shotgun. She'd brought down a familiar looking hopper.

Ashley surveyed the wreckage calmly. The large white pillar that Garrus had been pinned behind was riddled with pockmarks. Crates had been knocked over or were teetering dangerously, explosions had ruined the clean white finish of the prefabricated walls, which were heavily scorched on all sides. A light swung loose from the ceiling, casting dizzying shadows that made Ashley's trigger finger twitch. Wrex planted himself in the stairwell to guard them from any last attack from above, while the rest of the squad made a slow sweep of the lower level. A door on the far wall proved to be entrance to the operational centre. Tali and Kaidan stopped there to gather what they could; Garrus and Ashley joined Wrex to search the upper level. Ashley couldn't help feeling like this was an anticlimactic end to the geth invasion. The immediate threat had distracted them from their hunt for Saren; the risk that the geth had a co-ordinated fleet ready to attack had been terrifying, but now that Ashley had helped defeat the final pocket of geth she felt, nothing so much as tired. She slung her assault rifle over her shoulder and heard the satisfying click as it locked in place. She sighed.

They gathered downstairs in what had once been a lobby. It was now the area with the most space and fewest hazards. Ashley checked everyone's armour. Kaidan's was not looking good. His lighter plating had taken a hammering when his barriers had gone down, but it didn't seem bad enough that they'd need to start looting the compound for replacement pieces. Everyone else's, even Tali's, was fine. Ashley made a mental note to find out how quarian armour was constructed; on the outside it looked almost flimsy, but it had never suffered damage as far as Ashley could tell. Satisfied, she nodded to Kaidan, who gave the order to return to the Mako.

The doors opened and the squad stepped carefully around the scattered metal pieces of what had once been a terrifying colossus. The battle to the outpost had been a challenging one, and the Mako had taken some heavy hits. In the end though, Kaidan had managed to separate the two armature geth and placed the building between them, effectively cutting them off from each other, so the Mako could bring them down one at a time. It had been harrowing, but the environmental shields had held. They climbed into the freshly damaged Mako and rolled her away to dock with the Normandy.

"Kaidan, I'd like to speak with you alone first. Ashley, you after that." Shepard had sat quietly throughout the debriefing. Instead of her usual pose, sitting forward with hands steepled at her chin, or leaning back casually against a bench, Shepard had been forced by her injuries to sit ramrod straight in her chair. The stiff position did not suit her, Ashley decided. It made her look fierce and intimidating. Her pointed questions were asked in a clipped monotone, nothing like her usual demeanour.

"There is something I would like to talk to you about as well, Shepard. If you don't mind," Tali said. Shepard merely nodded in response.

Dismissed, the crew left Kaidan and the commander to finish, and Ashley went to wait her turn in the mess hall. Liara followed her in and, saying nothing, began to make a pot of camomile and athame flower tea. The clinking of cutlery and porcelain would normally irritate her, but Ashley found herself lulled by it. It was a comforting sound and she found herself thinking of home, her mother, and sisters. Liara sat herself opposite Ash and delicately placed two teacups and a teapot between them. Ashley smiled across at the asari.

Liara broke the silence. "She was very worried about you."

"Shepard?"

"Mmhmm. She believes you risked yourself unnecessarily."

Ah. So, it would be a dressing down then. Ashley felt her skin prickle as a familiar feeling of dread and shame washed over her. She sipped her tea, the calm she felt had been replaced with a nameless swirl of emotions. She could see that Liara had more that she wanted to say; she felt the asari watching her closely, but 100 years had taught the woman tact, and she chose not to continue. Together, they sat, drinking their tea in the warmth of the mess.

They were still there when Shepard came in and signalled for Ashley to follow.

"Don't worry I'll clear this." Liara said, gently tapping Ashley's hand, which had instinctively picked up a cup to begin tidying. Ashley released the cup and left with a quick glance at Liara that she hoped the alien recognised as gratitude, before following Shepard into her office.

Shepard whirled to face her the moment the door swished shut. "You knew sniping on that rock was a bad idea and you said nothing."

"Shepard, I—"

"You know the specs of every piece of armour on this ship. You knew the dangers. Kaidan asked for your thoughts, and you said nothing."

"I—"

"Garrus was wearing human-made armour for the first time. He trusted us to take care of him, and you said nothing."

"It came up in the pre-mission brief. They knew the DI armour was the best we had. They knew the downsides." Ashley heard the defensiveness creep into her voice.

Shepard rolled her eyes unimpressed. "That was the first time Kaidan has led a mission on that scale. He would have been juggling hundreds of considerations. That is why we ask for the crew's input. We cannot possibly think of everything. He waka eke noa. We are on this ship together. Now, you better explain to me exactly why you didn't bother to voice the concerns that you and I both know you had."

"He was my superior officer. I…" Ashley was unsure how to continue. How to explain what it was like, second guessing herself all the time, knowing that even if she was certain of something, she would be punished if it looked like she was pushing against authority. That she was only a Williams, and would always, always be wrong because of that. Then she thought of Donkey and Pennyloafer and the other guys from Dog Squad, who died after she took command, and then she thought about all the requests that she'd put through for a shipboard posting only to be repeatedly denied without explanation. She thought about the way she so often said the wrong thing. It wasn't just that she was wrong because she was a Williams. She was wrong because she was not right.

She looked into Shepard's eyes hoping for some sort of understanding. All she saw was a smouldering anger.

"You are no good to me if I can't trust you to stand up for yourself. Even to a superior officer. To Kaidan. Especially to me." Shepard inhaled and frowned. Ashley watched Shepard's jaw clench and relax. She took a step back and leant against the counter, almost crossed her arms before thinking better of it, and instead rested her palms on the surface edge, leaving Ashley still standing awkwardly in the middle of the small room. She felt Shepard's eyes bore into her. She felt herself stripped bare as the woman in front of her examined her, critically, and tried desperately not to fidget.

"Joker told me about your coin. About how you use it to make decisions." Ashley was momentarily stunned by the topic change before the blush crept up her neck and prickled across her face. "So, it's a self-esteem thing, is that it? You don't trust yourself." Ashley's mouth felt dry. She couldn't have answered even if she'd wanted to. Shepard left the bench and stepped forward. "I don't give a shit about a higher power that you trust more than yourself. If you want something to happen, then make it happen. Thoughts and prayers won't make a difference. Instead, you get good people around you and you work together. But working together doesn't just mean following the orders of superior officers. It means asking questions, thinking critically, finding solutions, doing your due diligence, and trusting yourself, and your crew, to do what is right."

Shepard paused.

"I need to know I can trust you." She frowned at Ashley, there wasn't much warmth in the look. "I need to know you can trust yourself."

Shepard waited for her to speak. Ashley knew that if she had anything to say in her defence, now was the time to voice it. But she had nothing. She would not have sent out snipers on a Level 1 heat hazard. She would have used the guns on the Mako from behind its own cover and sniped the geth watchmen, and then moved in closer to take out the armaments. It risked more people, but the risk overall, was lesser. It was something she'd once heard Garrus refer to as the calculus of war. She had no defence. Shepard was right, she should have said something.

Ashley straightened herself into parade rest. "I am sorry for not speaking up about my concerns, Commander."

Shepard grunted. "We'll see. Dismissed, Chief."