Mass Effect 1

Burnt for Beacons

Chapter 20 - The Citadel II

The streets smelled of piss.

Ashley had left the Normandy almost as soon as they'd docked, and she'd decided that what she needed most of all was to punch something very hard. She walked a long way away from the shiny docking bay and towards the lower wards. Buildings here were shabbier; meaner looking. There were fewer bug-eyed keepers around to keep the area tidy, and when something broke it took a lot longer for it to be repaired here than in other parts of the space station. Crates and boxes were left in piles wherever there was a space for them and more than one of the piles looked lived in.

Cora's Den was around here somewhere, she knew. If she wanted to get into a fight, that was as good a place as any, but seeing a small dirty blanket peeking out from the last pile of crates had drained some of the anger from her body and she instead felt a kind of weariness creep over her. She'd been to the Den once before. Rounding a corner, she saw the neon lights of the bar. It left her feeling empty. It was not at all what she wanted.

Her omni-tool buzzed. Can I come find you?

A pack of alliance marines swayed unsteadily as they left the bar, loudly arguing about nothing intelligible, as they banged into each other on unsteady legs.

"Guys, guys," one of them leered at Ashley, and then back at her friends. "Do you know who that is?" The woman was shout-whispering in the way only drunk people can truly manage. "That is the granddaughter of the great and noble General Williams!" She said the last part with such heavy sarcasm it felt like a physical blow.

"Really?" one asked, peering at Ashley with interest.

"Fo' real. I worked with her for a bit back on… Where was it again?" Ashley didn't remember this person but instead of admitting it she stared cooly back. Maybe she'd get into a fight after all. She forced her body to appear relaxed. "We kept havin' to hide all th' white fabric in the base in case Williams here decided to surrender to the locals." Ashley remembered: Tina Batters.

She hit the automated reply button. It would be good to have someone to back her up, or pick her up if things got bad. Private Batters had always fought dirty.

"I heard they left him rotting in a cell somewhere," a man with a deep voice replied. "Just enough food to last a month, as long as he rationed it. Then they flew away and forgot to make to make a supply drop for another three months. When they came to check on him, he'd been eaten by rats. All that were left were his bones."

"That true, Williams?" a blonde man asked, swaying only slightly.

It wasn't true, of course. Just one of the many stories that had circulated. The hatred of the Williams' name ran deep. They'd started to close in on her.

"Heard you're on the Normandy now. That is one sweet posting." Batters moved in too close, prending to straighten Ashley's uniform. This time it was a whisper. "Bet you had to eat a lot of turian ass to make that happen."

"Hey, Chief."

Ashley was not going to break eye contact, but she could feel Shepard beside her radiating a cold light. "Well," Ashley said, "it's been great catching up, but I have somewhere to be." Finally, she turned to Shepard. As the two of them walked away she could sense the group's stares following them as they rounded a corner and out of sight.

Shepard was looking at her sidelong. She willed her teeth to unclench only to find she had to relax them again a few steps later. For her part, Shepard said nothing as they climbed into the elevator and made their slow way to the surface.

"How'd you get here so quick?"

Shepard shrugged, "I was upstairs. It was just an elevator ride down once I got your message." Those brown eyes were on her again. "Cora's Den? What'd I walk in on?"

Ashley took in the grey noise of the elevator news article, and let the white light flicker over her as the elevator climbed past floor after floor.

"I wanted to hit something," she said.

Shepard turned to face her, frowning. "Me too. And I know just the place."

Ashley had never tried a simulator like this. She knew of them, of course. Some of them were lavishly designed with tanks, and field courses. This one was smaller, but it had a range of environments and simulated enemies. They dressed into the haptic-suits. Ashley's under-armour smelled like the steriliser hadn't quite done its job properly, but she forgot her discomfort once the rep began to talk them through the rules of combat.

"Don't don your helmets until you are in the field. Make sure they are on before the countdown completes. You're in for fifteen minutes. Three rounds of five minutes each." His voice took on the monotonous drone of someone who had said the same thing hundreds of times. "When the game finishes, you may remove your helmet. We will be monitoring your vital signs. If you go into cardiac arrest, the game will stop and you will be removed. You will not be reimbursed your players' fee. If you want to be removed early—" he droned on and on. Ashley caught the eye of one of the bored looking spectators. "Understood?"

The two women nodded seriously, as though they'd been listening carefully.

"I'm turning on your haptics. You selected that you wanted to feel full realism, so this is about to feel very heavy." At those words, the plastic armour suddenly felt like well built combat armour. It wasn't entirely life-like, but it was a close approximation. He handed them each a plastic rifle, which felt solid in her hands. She wondered if Tali and Garrus had been here. They'd be able to talk nerdily about the kit. Ashley was certain that the gear she was currently wearing cost more than actual armour.

A man who walked like military came towards them.

"Williams. Thought it was you. Decided I'd come over and say 'hi'." She couldn't believe this was happening, again. The rep was fiddling with the settings on his omni-tool ignoring them all completely. But Bulumba kept going. He'd been friends with Batters a couple of years ago. Had he followed her here? "They don't give you the option to surrender in these sims. You going to be ok?" The man he was with smirked, flexing his biceps.

The rep looked up at them all for the first time. "Your gear's good to go and the arena's ready for you." He pointed to the two men and then away, dismissively. "Viewing platform's over there."

Shepard looked at her, carefully. "Let's go hit something."

Ashley's HUD was wailing as she rolled into cover beside Shepard.

"We could try flanking them," she puffed.

"They've already got us in a pincer," Shepard replied. She pointed to two of the fictional aliens on their left and another three behind their own cover on the right.

Ashley's sheilds had recovered, which her HUD sounded happier about. She looked around frantically. "There," she pointed to the right. "If we can take the higher ground on that side we could force them into a firing tunnel."

"I like it. Let's move."

They fought their way through the enemy line. Ashley punched one of the aliens in the face and felt the impact ripple along her arm as her suit locked.

"Jesus Christ," she shouted, gritting her teeth in pain. "That felt so fucking real."

They made it to the sniper nest and Ashley longed for her actual rifle. These guns did not have the power or the range.

"The Council refused to listen. Again." Shepard said before firing over the edge and leaping back into cover. "They didn't believe what I told them about Soveriegn. They aren't worried about Ilos. And," her shoulders slumped, "they've locked down the Normandy."

The story Shepard's team had told about talking with a reaper was extremely difficult to believe. Whatever the tech was that allowed Shepard to communicate with the giant ship scrambled their recording gear. There was very little evidence left to support them.

"Commander? Shepard? I cannot believe they did this to you. To us. I'm so sorry."

"They stripped me of command."

What the fuck? "Why would they do that?"

Shepard shrugged, then pointed her weapon down the crumbling stone ramp to fire angrily into a group of enemy combatants.

"I don't know." Her voice sounded like it was being forced through a grater.

They had stopped paying attention. The alien creatures were upon them, swarming over the barricade. They kicked, punched, and shot their way through. In the end, it was a blood bath. Ashley looked at Shepard who was dripping with blood and gore, then down at herself, covered in sticky red blood and bits of flesh.

Their breathing was easing as an electronic voice came over the loud speakers: Game Over. Match to Williams and Shepard.

She removed her helmet to find her armour gleaming and as clean as it had been when she'd first put it on. The pieces of dismembered aliens and pools of blood disappeared and she was momentarily disorientated.

Shepard smiled.

Bulumba and his friend had vanished and she felt a bit of tension leave her shoulders.

"I'm meeting with Captain Anderson in a club around the corner. I'm hoping he's got some ideas about our next move. Mine all involve setting the Citadel on fire and waging war with the batarians."

"Not sure a drawn-out conflict with the Terminus Systems is really that helpful. Something quicker would be good."

"So, want to come?"

"To see Anderson? Yeah. I'm in."