Mass Effect 1

Burnt for Beacons

Chapter 16 - Herschel System

"Hey Ash, thanks for coming up."

Standing slightly behind him in the dark she found herself hesitating before sitting in the chair next to Joker's. As usual, he had carefully turned off all panel access so she couldn't accidentally do whatever it was that he thought she might accidentally do. Unusually, he had also closed the glass panels and opened a screen to reveal the flight deck behind them. It was an eerie and unfamiliar set-up. She felt instantly wary.

"How's Sarah doing? She get her exam results back yet?"

"No, not yet," Ashley hesitated. "Not that I've heard, anyway." It was obvious Joker hadn't called her in just to talk about Sar's high school examinations. She wished she was the sort of person who could make idle conversation, the kind of person that would let her friends say what needed to be said in their own time. But she wasn't. "Jeff? What's going on?"

"It's…" he sighed. "Have you spoken to the commander… since Ontarom?"

She had not. Shepard's door had remained stubbornly closed. Ashley hated to admit how many times she had walked past on some pretence just to check if the display colour had changed. It hadn't. Not until the following day. Shepard must have slipped out to do something and Ashley had found her standing in the kitchen staring at a tray of food. She'd tried to say 'hi,' but Shepard had leapt as if she'd been stung, apologised, and then left without another word. After Ashley's own feeling of panic had eased, she'd picked up the tray, with the aim of dropping it off to the captain's cabin. Shepard did not answer her knocks, or message her on her omni-tool as she had done once before.

"No."

Jeff leaned forward, typing. Something obvious by Vivaldi filled the cabin, just loud enough to be heard and quiet enough to ignore. He let the violins swell, mournfully.

"I think she needs help. I think you need to talk to her."

"Me? Chakwas…"

"If Chakwas hasn't noticed already, I'll eat my hat. She'll be doing what she can, but Shepard's a marine and PTSD is a dirty acronym. She's a Spectre because she survived Akuze, we only get to hunt Saren and save the world from reapers because she's a Spectre. How long do you think we'll have that kind of power if the Alliance figures out their poster girl is suffering from traumatic stress?"

"They can't stop her. Spectres—"

Joker rolled his eyes. "Fine. Lemme put it to you this way: are you ok with the fact that the person who's been entrusted to hunt Saren and save the world from reapers is suffering from PTSD?"

Ashley was quiet, slowly absorbing the awkward sentence structure, finding meaning within the tone.

"What do I do? No. Wait." Ashley stopped. "I'm not the one who should be doing this. Kaidan…"

"Would definitely be my first pick, too. Yeah. Obvious choice for almost anyone else," said Joker. "But he will one hundred percent rub her the wrong way." He grinned across at her but she couldn't figure out why. He shrugged and continued: "He starts talking in metaphors, you think he means one thing and then… all I'm saying is: You need to step up. She will listen to you. I know it."

"What am I even supposed to say? What—"

"Shhh!" Jeff hissed quietly, but Ash didn't need to be told. Shepard's silhouette loomed behind them, growing larger in the display as she approached. He swiped the screen and her shape disappeared, replaced now by approaching footsteps.

"Urggh." Shepard groaned without humour. "Again. That music." Ash turned in time to see her frown, darkly. When she made eye contact with Ashley her expression changed. "Never mind, Jeff. Can't remember what I came up here to talk about anyway." And with that, she turned on her heel and left.

Jeff eyed Ash expectantly and when she did not immediately jump out of her chair and chase after their commanding officer, he jerked his head. The signal was unmistakeable. Ashley replied with a mock grimace before she jumped out of the chair to chase after their commanding officer.

Then the doubt gripped her. Fighting she could do. Hand-to-hand, rockets, guns, grenades, booby-traps; she could plan, defend, attack, double-cross, sneak, gain the high ground, fight from the low ground, she knew the importance of every tactical advantage and when to throw them away if it meant a bigger win, later. But what the fuck was she supposed to say to Shepard.

"Joker?"

"I don't know what you are supposed to say to her. I just know that she actually listens to you, so as long as you don't shut down, don't lose your temper, and remember that she is going through some really bad shit right now, you'll be fine."

"I do not lose my temper. I don't shut down!" she hissed angrily. When she realised how stupid she sounded, she shut her mouth, frowning and became still with realisation.

Ah.

She waved her hand at him and spun away in the direction Shepard seemed to have gone.

She did not have to go far. Shepard was sitting at a table in the mess, an untouched tray of food in front of her and a blank expression that failed to hide tired eyes and unusually pallid skin. Through a quick serious of gestures and facial expressions, Shep agreed that Ash was welcome to join her. Ashley nodded, then turned into the kitchen proper to brew them some athame flower tea. She knew the other woman would prefer coffee, but her exhaustion was painful to look at.

She chose the bench opposite Shepard who slid the tray to the side and seemed to instantly forget about it. The teacup made a quiet grinding noise as Ash slid it across the table top, replacing the tray. Her CO thanked her impassively, appearing lost in thought. The silence stretched out and became stillness. The clicking of cooling systems, the humming of machinery, voices, and footsteps, the buzzing of the refrigerator, these sounds swelled in the silence, becoming powerful and significant where they should have been as easy to ignore as rustling leaves. Shepard was staring at a spot on the table and seemed to have completely forgotten Ashley's presence. Ashley still had no idea what to say. So she used an old trick; she stretched out a little, feigning relaxation after a long day, feigned being totally at ease with the silence.

It worked.

Shepard remembered she was there, and presumably realised the silence was hers to do with as she wished. She cleared her throat and tapped at the still-too-hot cup of tea.

"You really like that music, huh?" It was a place to start, so Ashley nodded. "It's so strange, though. Hard to listen to. It doesn't have a rhythm. It's high pitched, like knives scraping on dinnerware. Why do you like it so much?" The tone wasn't angry, but it was something. Frustrated perhaps. Ashley could not be sure.

"It doesn't all sound like that." Ashley began, carefully. "Sometimes there is a rhythm and it isn't always high pitched." Shepard looked at her for the first time and Ashley felt encouraged enough to continue. "I guess I like it because it is about life." At this, Shepard snorted and then apologised with only her eyes. Ashley so badly wanted to explain herself well. She restarted, pausing much too often to sound fluent. "It is a story about life." She stopped thoughtfully, frowning down at the table. "And life… is…" She managed finally to get her thoughts in order, "chaotic. Rhythm takes chaos and puts it into order, but it is not very honest. Life is ups and downs, good moments and bad. Sometimes those stories cannot be told using a repeated rhythm. Sometimes life is more like the ebb and flow of a river, logs and animals create eddies and whirlpools, sometimes forcing it to forge a new path. How do you tell the story of a leaf twisting in the wind with a cymbal and a kick drum? How do you use music to describe the sense of fear and pride before a battle? How do you use music to tell the story of people? That kind of story is more like a dance, or a conversation, because life is unpredictable. I think I like that kind of music because each piece is telling a story, and each story is different, but they are all familiar. At some point I have lived that melody, or I can imagine a moment that would be a good fit. A well-chosen piece of music can help me work through feelings, things I can't put into words, but need to feel despite that."

She huffed and frowned, wishing she hadn't said that last bit. She looked up and saw that Shepard was smiling gently.

"If I didn't know better I'd say that sounded rehearsed." Shepard took a sip of tea and grimaced as it scalded her tongue. She replaced the cup carefully, and licked her lips, before smiling again. "Ok. How 'bout this? Life is rhythm. It's a heartbeat." She stopped to thump her chest with her fist creating a soft da-dum, da-dum, da-dum sound. "It's the ticking of an ancient clock, it is marching boots, it's blinking lights. Its order. It's humanity building perfectly uniform prefabs, and it's mathematics. The story of life and humanity's place in it is told through rhythm, and lyrics, and the choice of instruments. Humanity has always tried to make order out of chaos. Why would our music be any different?"

"I am now willing to concede," Ashley said formally, "that there is room in the world for both kinds of music."

"Yeah, fair enough," Shepard agreed, comfortably.

They lapsed into silence that was shattered when Shepard said: "You have stopped painting my armour with the pre-sets. Why?" Shepard's voice was deep. It was her serious voice; the voice she used when concentrating. When she looked towards Ashley to check the question was heard and understood, her eyes were blank.

Ashley felt her whole head prickle with sudden heat. The roar of static filled her ears and she fought to gain control of herself, instead, feelings of anger and resentment bubbled to the surface.

"Wouldn't you prefer a big red and white bullseye? We could paint that across your chest." Here Ashley drew an angry circle in the air in front of her own torso. "If you want to make yourself a target, let's at least give them a clear point to aim at." Ashley frowned in frustration remembering Joker's warning. She sucked in air and forced herself to sound calm and reasonable. "I know it is a big deal, being an N7. You deserve to have that acknowledged every day, but you have to know that every bad guy in Alliance space probably knows what that stripe means. They know it's in their interest to take you out first. You aren't just a marine anymore. You are the captain. A Spectre. You are the one person leading the fight against Saren. You matter to… a lot of people," she finished, weakly.

She waited. She wasn't shutting down. Just waiting for Shepard to respond. She waited a long time.

"I think," Shepard finally responded, "that not many people know about the N7 detail. If I'm honest, I'm not sure how you know about it. It's not like it's advertised." She looked at Ashley who in turn refused to answer the unspoken question. Shepard shrugged and continued, "I worked my way through the N-program not long after joining the military. I guess someone saw some promise, and I got some pretty good encouragement." She stopped talking, ran a hand through her hair, picked up her tea and drank. "You know I was accidentally exposed to eezo? Someone somewhere has me listed as a biotic. I have an implant and everything. Never did any good though. I was never able to work out how to use my magic powers. I hate that. Never told anyone, not even Kaidan. I guess no likes admitting that they are a failure. I joined the military a year after the surgery and worked hard to make up for it. I wonder sometimes. If I had been able to work my biotics, if I could have learned to do what Kaidan can do, would I have been able to save someone on Akuze? Some biotics can make a shield in the air. I could have stopped the acid. I could have thrown people out of the way, into safety."

Ashley had heard about latent biotics. She felt a prickle of horror. She imagined Akuze, with it's harsh, unforgiving landscapes, it's rocky crags. She imagined the threshers coming. She imagined the desperation and the fight. She didn't, however, need to imagine the pointless guilt of wishing you could do more.

The CO's eyes were staring into the middle distance and when she began to talk again her voice had become a staccato monotone.

"It was dark when the threshers came and we had set up camp for the night. We were just in our tents, light fabric things, not armoured, we had plans to set out for the comms base in the morning and find out what had made them go silent. We'd been delayed. The timings were wrong, so we were in the tents." Her eyes were very far away. "I was on night patrol, and we heard… we felt the rumbling in the ground. Thought it was an earthquake. Back then we didn't even know what thresher maws were. By the time we figured out it was something terrestrial, it was almost too late. We raced to the trucks to get the spotlights working, but by then people were already screaming. I had six guys in a Mako. We were trying to dodge the acid, and take the threshers down at the same time. But the guy driving, Harris, he couldn't drive for shit. He actually drove straight into some of our own men before I could get to him."

Shepard's knee began to bounce. Ashley could feel the vibrations under the table. "I tried to get my people out of there. Out in a straight line. Just the fastest route. Away. Assumed everyone else would be doing the same, but they weren't. The comms were a mess; too many people in the chain were missing. Too many guys just screaming. They were just screaming in dark. I did what I could, ordered people into the trucks, to get the armour running and retreat. We were playing this weird game of cat and mouse. By this time, hours have passed you understand? We had maybe, twenty marines who could fight. We found the bigger guns. By the time you were close enough to hit it with an assault rifle you were already dead. I watched one guy, don't even know his name, get swallowed. Those things… their mouths are full of spiny teeth. This guy, in the end, he just watched his death coming; he knew he was done. He just looked at those teeth and waited for his own death. He probably had kids somewhere, lots of those guys did. The order came to spread out, and fire from different angles. Those worms took us one by one. Toombs was dead. I'm sure I saw him. I'm sure I saw him in the dirt, in the blood. But maybe…" Her voice cracked. "We did manage to take one down like that. One. I watched my friend, Jen…"

She took a shaky breath, her knee still jerking violently. "I watched her. In the end, it was us and one other truck. We tried to make for the ridges. I figured those fuckin' worms would have a harder time digging through rock. But they got us. Came right up underneath us, blew out our tank's armour and their acid did the rest. Some of my people hadn't managed to get their armour on, they were just wearing fatigues. Melted onto their skin. If I had been able to get up some kind of biotic shield… I tried, you know? Just in case it worked better under pressure. Nothing happened, of course... I grabbed Harris, Walker, Cotter-Huxley, and Miggs and told them to make for the ridge. It was too far away, but I thought they might be able to get out on foot. While they headed out, I headed back in. I found guns and then rigged the dead Mako to explode. I was watching you see, they have a pattern of attack, they feel the vibrations and they can predict where their prey will be, but they are a bit like whales, they come up at pretty even intervals and I figured I could steer them to attack my rigged up Mako-bomb. I thought about heading back into camp. Screams carry across desert. There were people out there. I could hear them. They were much quieter by this time. When the wind was in the right direction I could hear the actual words – 'medic', 'help', 'God' – the kinds of things we always cry when we are being slowly melted by acid. It finally got a bit lighter and with my helmet's night vision I could make out some of the melted shapes. There was this Mako that looked like it might get going. I got underneath it, trying to bring enough of its systems back on line, trying not to make any vibrations in the ground while I was working, but there were fewer people around now, nothing left to distract them. I was just so… and I kept dropping the wrench, every time it landed it sounded like a gong. I swear I heard that ringing sound for the rest of the morning, just repeating in my ears. I couldn't escape it. Couldn't escape. I pushed Ray out of the seat, I wasn't… his body just kind of hung there but I didn't have time… I had to save the rest. I got the truck running but it was just this open hull and an absolute bitch to manoeuvre."

Ashley wanted to ask Shepard to stop. But the relentless voice continued. "I drove to get the thresher behind me. I needed it chasing, and not overtaking. I had to have the timing perfect and it took a while to get it right. I drove toward my bomb, and then I stopped. The thresher came up underneath it and just… it just exploded acid everywhere, and that was the end of my truck. I wasn't going to get her going again after that. I was screaming with pain by then. Like everyone else. The acid got my whole top half. I ripped my helmet off in time, but I took too long to shake my top half." Shepard, unconsciously, put her hand up to her collarbone; it rested there for a moment, before her hand dropped to the table.

"We still had one more to get," she said, "but by then I couldn't find anyone well enough to help. I sat with Kane Okutomi for a while. He was scared and I needed to catch my breath. Kane was just a kid. He still had acne on his forehead, you know. Way, way too young to watch his friend Sato die beside him. He was holding Sato's hand when I found him, begging his friend to wake up and help him reach the medi-gel packet. He…" Ashley nudged Shep's tea closer. Letting her know she was allowed to stop.

Shepard picked the cup up with both hands and held it close. "I did my best. I waited with him… for him to... The thresher was still hunting. But I couldn't think of how to kill it. In the end, I rigged up a long line of tech mines. Found them in the back of a ripped open truck. Walking softly, softly, laid out two and left the rest in the truck. I wasn't doing too well so my plan wasn't perfect, and I was probably limping a bit hard to really be moving careful enough. It found me earlier than I wanted; I was way too close to the blast zone; I wasn't wearing enough armour, but I also wasn't going to be able to outrun it. Had no choice but to detonate the mines. When I woke up, the sun, Nsalo it's called, was high overhead and I was running out of blood. I went to rally the survivors, to find the ones who were left. It was so quiet." Her knee finally stopped bobbing. "I found a comms unit. They gave me a medal."

Ashley waited, but Shepard had exhausted herself.

Ashley nudged her own foot against Shepard's and began, croakily, "Shepard, I—"

But Shepard had been startled into the present by the touch and continued, sounding somewhat panicked, "That's why I need that stripe. That stripe got me through. I couldn't put up a shield. I couldn't save a single fucking person," she practically spat the words, though her voice wasn't much louder than a whisper, "but that paint reminded me I wasn't weak. That I could do things. That I could try. Maybe next time I will be enough."

Jesus. Fuck.

Ashley couldn't think properly.

She sat silent for a long time.

"Shepard, it's a target. I'm not painting that stripe on your armour. I'm going to protect you."

Shepard looked mutinous, "I don't need protecting."

They both flinched at the familiar words. The same words that Ashley had growled furiously at Shep from a hospital gurney.

Shepard smiled first.

Ashley blushed furiously which seemed to encourage Shep further.

It wasn't long before they were chuckling nervously, and soon after that they were laughing the hysterical laughs of people who have survived, and who were almost maddened by the fact. The laughs of people who desperately needed an outlet, the laughs of people who desperately wanted to cling to each other but couldn't. The laughs of people who were tired of sitting in dark rooms, crying.

Ashley thought of the krogan from Ontarom, the one who had seen them all and still decided Liara was the biggest threat.

"We are basically a band of mercenaries," Ashley said, carefully. Shepard, calm now, raised an eyebrow in encouragement. "We are paid by the Alliance and the council, captained by a mere Commander with the unlimited power of a Spectre. We do not fall into the traditional naval categories. We can make our own rules because there has never been a crew like us on a ship like ours. What if we all had different armour?"

"We'd look like mercenaries, constantly underestimated by our enemies. Even Alliance soldiers wouldn't know what to make of us." Shepard understood Ashley's point, perfectly.

"Your arm band wouldn't stand out."

"My arm band wouldn't stand out," Shepard agreed.

They drank their cold tea, and Ashley did not move her foot away.