A/N: Thank you Fallout2281 for the fave and follow! I hope you're enjoying the story!
Kacey walked through the door, her mind clearly elsewhere. The conversation with Liara had brought things to light that Kacey didn't want to think about right now, or ever for that matter. She was not in the mood for that type of conversation; not now, not ever.
As the scarlet-haired commander moved quietly up the steps, she stopped behind the door, hearing voices on the other side. She moved a finger up to her lips, signally for Liara and Kaidan to keep quiet as she heard the Cerberus troops talk.
"Why are we pulling back?" One soldier asked.
"Sound like the Alliance has sent reinforcements." Another replied as Kacey quietly opened the door, "The doctor wants the Archives protected at all costs."
Kacey didn't hesitate; she threw two grenades into the small group, thoroughly killing the enemy soldiers in one large blast. She was past the point of caring anymore. There was now a war on, and if the Reapers weren't going to play fair, neither will she.
"That's them! Move!"
Kacey opened fire and mauled the enemy soldiers quickly, popping off headshot after headshot after headshot, burning the bastards alive with her incendiary bullets. Even the shielded guardian troops didn't fare much better as, once Kaidan had removed their metal shield with his biotics, Kacey quickly dispatched them with such efficiency, that even the biotic and asari behind her looked at her with surprise.
She ran off down the hall after the Cerberus soldiers, firing an incendiary concussive shot to send them flying in a fiery blast. She had closed the gap between the enemy and herself so quickly, that the Cerberus troops were killed by her bullets before they even realised that she had caught up. It was a dangerous precedent to be setting but she no longer cared.
The Cerberus soldiers were going down. That Doctor Eva Core was going down. And there was nothing in the known universe that was going to stop her otherwise.
The soldiers continued to fall back as Kacey chased them around the corner, bouncing from cover to cover, methodically wiping out the enemy. Consequences be dammed. She was going to do what she needed to do. She killed as many as she could before they ran through the door at the end of the hall and sealed it tight, locking it completely behind them. Kacey kicked the door in frustration before taking a deep breath to calm herself down; now was not the time for her to get so worked up.
It took a few minutes for Liara and Kaidan to catch up to her; she had forgotten in the heat of the moment how fast she was able to outrun them. A small error on her part, one that she did not intend to make again. She moved over towards the terminal near the lab that Liara was referring to, and she could see the room being swept by some type of decontamination machine. However, as she drew closer to the lab, Kacey could smell something foul in the air; something rotten, decayed.
"Oh, what's that smell?" Kaidan said, clearly disgusted by the decayed scent.
"They just activated the decontamination protocols." Liara answered.
Kacey looked through the window into the lab, a look of disgust and anger painted across her face, "With the staff still inside. The sick bastards."
Kacey didn't linger around and quickly shut off the decontamination process before opening the door into the lab. The smell of decaying and fried flesh was much stronger here than outside; further proving Kacey's point. She took small breaths to avoid throwing up. No matter how many corpses she had encountered on missions across her career, the smell of rotten and decayed bodies still made her queasy; she could stand the sight of them, but the smell? Not one iota. She couldn't cope with it, no matter how many she came across.
"This is where they studied the various relics unearthed here." Liara mused.
"What did they find?" Kacey asked quickly to avoid inhaling the stench.
"More than I could describe in a short conversation." Liara replied, "And they'd only scratched the surface. There are vaults filled with Prothean data troves that have never once been studied."
"Sound like your kind of place." Kacey quipped as they left the lab.
"Yes, it is." Liara replied, "Look, that's the tram line. Takes us right to the Archives. No doubt Cerberus has it locked down. Hopefully we can override it at the security station."
The asari sounded more optimistic than Kacey did; Kacey just knew it wasn't going to be that straight forward. It never was. Moving through the quiet hall was starting to put Kacey on edge; almost like they were walking into a trap.
"Is it just me, or does that look like a trap?"
"I think you're being a bit paranoid, Shepard."
"I'm not so sure I agree, Miranda. The lack of Collectors is rather strange."
"Perhaps it is a way to lure us into their trap, by making the ship appear abandoned."
Perhaps that was it. Whatever was behind that door at the end was going to be a waking nightmare. They were planning something, and Kacey knew they had to be careful.
"Stay sharp." Kacey said before opening the door.
And oh god did she hate being right.
Kacey stood dead centre of the hall, directly in the firing line of a huge mounted turret that locked on to her immediately.
"Oh, fuck my life." Kacey muttered as she quicky dived into cover, narrowly avoiding the bullets that came whirling past at a quickened pace.
Liara and Kaidan had followed suit, moving out the way before being mowed down.
"Is that the only way in?" Kaidan asked.
"It's the only way I know of." Liara replied.
"We'll skirt around it." Kacey said calmly, "Stay out of its sights."
It was a sound idea; Kacey noted the few second delay before the turret started to open fire. If they were quick and bounced from cover to cover, they could easily manage to skirt around the turret without taking any casualties or injuries. In theory.
"I'll move up first." Kaidan said, as he moved up to the glass panel in front of Kacey and dived behind it. "Don't let it target you!"
He didn't give Kacey time to protest; not that she would've done. She was done arguing with him and wasn't about to waste time by debating who got to jump in front of the rapid-fire turret before the other. It was unusual for Kacey to see the more reckless side of Kaidan; on the for the longest time, she didn't think it existed.
Kacey went next and followed Kaidan as each of them bounced from cover to cover rhythmically, avoiding the turret's fire with ease. As Kacey followed Kaidan out into a much larger space, she started to roll over between the much larger gaps between the crates, as the turret followed them around the room, until they reached a blind spot behind it.
The trio then bolted towards the door and entered the room, startling the troops inside; they were still scrambling around trying to prepare for them.
"Surprise!" Kacey shouted as she threw a grenade which immediately blew their formation apart.
Kacey could tell that they weren't as experienced as they were; their formations were off, and their lack of preparation was as clear as day. Kacey didn't quite understand what was going on here, or why that was the case; Cerberus had experienced soldiers; Miranda and Jacob were a testament to that fact. And yet these soldiers were more rookies than anything else.
One of the centurions threw a grenade towards Kacey; she kicked it before the timer went out back towards the group of Cerberus soldiers and blew them up. She was always told not to kick the grenades; it was a reckless and stupid thing to do. Not to mention that it wasn't standard protocol. But right now, she needed to change things up, and utilise new tactics to win.
"Remember Kacey, an Alliance Commander will use every trick in the book to win and if none of those work, they'll just throw the book out and invent new ones."
She remembered those words well. And she let it define her in such a way that she was now synonymous with coming up with unorthodox tactics. And while most described her tactics as crazy or dangerously reckless, she preferred to view such tactics as innovative. Just like how, after she kicked the grenade back, she then proceeded to shoot one in the hand of another centurion before they could even pull the clip out. Another stupid thing the book didn't have, but she was adding to it anyway.
Once the final soldier went down, Kacey walked over to the large computer console, and started to tap buttons until the security camera feed came up. Kacey could see Eva on the camera alongside another Cerberus trooper, barking orders at them.
"Set up a perimeter." Eva barked, "No one else comes across."
"We still have teams on the other side." The soldier protested.
"No one!" Eva screeched in response, "And shut down those cameras!"
She pulled out her handgun and shot the camera, resulting in the screen turning to static. Liara, who was leaning over the computer console as the footage played, leaned back.
"Looks like they made it to the Archives." The asari said.
"And I doubt they'll just send us a tram." Kaidan commented.
"Can you override it?" Kacey asked Liara.
Liara typed away on the screen before her expression changed to a more negative one, "The Archives are on a separate network. We're completely locked out."
"Not if we can find a short-range communicator, helmet to helmet." Kaidan spoke up.
"And?" Kacey question further, her curiosity getting the better of her.
"And we convince them that we're on their side." Kaidan explained, "Tell them that the Alliance forces have been taken care of."
"You mean like we did on Chasca?"
Kaidan looked at her, a brief sign of confusion on his face before it reverted back to his more unreadable expression, "Yes."
"Good idea. See what you can find."
Kaidan nodded before leaving the room through the other door, presumably looking for the short-range communicator. Mentioning that particular planet had brought back memories; specifically of their 'team training exercise' that Hackett had made them go on. It was an odd thing to reminisce about at a time like this. That was back when they didn't see eye to eye with one another and bickered constantly.
Oh, how things have changed since then.
Kacey did eventually regain her focus and turned to face Liara, who looked at the scarlet-haired commander with a sly smirk on her face.
"What?" Kacey said confused.
"The Major has become very…capable." Liara said as she turned her attention back to the computer console.
Liara did have a point; Kaidan had definitely become more independent. And had changed for the better. It wasn't like Kaidan wasn't capable before, but he seemed to hesitate a lot and rarely spoke his mind. Nowadays, that seemed to have changed.
"That he has." Kacey replied.
"You should talk to him, you know." Liara replied, "Before things get even more awkward and tense."
"And say what?"
"Something." Liara responded.
"Shepard!" Kaidan called from outside the room, startling Kacey, "I've found something."
Kacey headed over to Kaidan with trepidation; why he had specifically called her over and not brought the device over both made her anxious and curious. She barely uttered a word to him after the spat by the entrance of the facility, and she didn't want another one.
"What've you got?" Kacey asked as she walked over to Kaidan, who was kneeling down next to the corpse of a dead Cerberus soldier.
Kaidan had briefly looked at her before turning his attention back to the body, "He's got a transmitter in his helmet. If I can…"
He trailed off has he took off the visor. Kacey couldn't believe what she saw as Kaidan took a step back from the corpse. It was truly horrific and made Kacey feel sick to her stomach.
"My god." Kaidan said, "He looks like a husk."
The soldier's face was a dirty white, almost grey, coated with dried blood that must've been weeks old at the most. Lips were the purplish-blue usually associated with dead bodied and the eyes were the exact same as the husks the Reapers made on their factory line. Whoever this poor soul was, they were now so far removed from being human, that Kacey considered it a mercy that they had shot them.
"Yeah, not quite." Kacey replied, trying to mask her disgust and anger, "But they've definitely done something to him. Bastards."
She kneeled down in front of the body, looking for the transmitter. She could smell the stench of decayed corpses from the soldier, something that, if Kacey didn't quickly get that transmitter out, she would probably have vomited all over the place.
"And by they, you mean Cerberus?" Kaidan mused, "They did this to their own guy?"
"Yep, looks that way." Kacey said as she got the transmitter out.
"Is this what they did to you?"
Kacey quickly turned to face Kaidan, with a mix of shock, anger and sadness at the sheer audacity of what he just asked her. She felt offended that he had even thought that she looked like that. Yes, she looked pretty unusual and the fact that she was walking around in cobalt blue armour with her naturally ruby red hair didn't help her case, but to say she looked like a corpse? Too far.
"How can you say that?" Kacey said offended and pissed off, "Do I look like a corpse to you?"
He looked a bit sheepish; it seemed that it sunk in what he had actually implied. Kacey had been called worse in the past; there was a lot of people in the galaxy that wanted her dead. But not once did she expect to hear that from someone, she held so close to her.
"Kacey, I don't know what you are? Or who…" Kaidan replied dismissively, not backing down, "not since Cerberus rebuilt you."
He didn't answer her question; instead, he deflected. Despite not wanting another spat or fight, once again Kacey was starting to get pissed off by the accusations being flung at her. She had already endured six months of questioning, interrogations, and tests, the last of which confirmed she was the real deal. It seemed that Kaidan didn't get the memo.
"For all I know," Kaidan continued, looking away, "you could be their puppet, controlled by the Illusive Man himself."
Kacey rolled her eyes, "Do you honestly think I'd be standing here if that were the case? Do you really think that Anderson and Hackett would let me anywhere near the Normandy if I were just a puppet?"
"I don't know, Kacey. That's the problem."
"Kaidan…"
"Don't try to explain it." Kaidan sighed, "I don't think I'd understand it anyway."
Kacey wasn't the most patient person in the world; not when it came to confrontations anyway. She was a quick-tempered individual when she was angry and right now, she was livid.
"Then why are you asking me these questions if you don't think you'll understand the answers?" Kacey said, trying desperately not to lose her cool, "I don't know what to say to you Kaidan, really, I don't. I've literally just spent the past six months being grinded down for answers to those exact questions. Hell, I don't even know half the answers myself. So, I'll ask again; what is it that you want from me?"
"I just want to know, is the person I followed to hell and back, the person that I loved…are you still in there…somewhere?"
It broke her heart to hear that, in so many different ways. It was so unfair what had happened and not a day went by where Kacey hadn't sat and ran through millions upon millions of possibilities to avoid what the Collectors had done that day; to her and the Normandy. And the worst part of it all? Was what she had put her friends and loved ones through.
"So, you don't trust people on their word alone, huh?"
"No, I don't. It's easy to just throw words around, and not mean anything by them. Actions speak louder than words after all."
"Either that, or you're just really stubborn."
"Heh, maybe I am. But you don't trust anyone you've just met, right? That makes you more stubborn than me."
"Touché, Alenko, touché."
But nothing she could say, would bring them back to that.
Kacey's expression softened as her anger dissipated and turned into sadness, "I never left. They didn't change me, Kaidan. Or how I feel about you. But words won't convince you, will they?"
Kaidan shrugged, "Probably not."
Kacey scoffed, "I thought so. You were always so stubborn."
She nudged him slightly as she took a few steps forward. For the first time, she actually heard him laugh as Kaidan replied, "Me?"
"Yes you." Kacey teased, "Even when fighting off that batarian crime syndicate on Chasca, you insisted on following Alliance protocols down to the letter, even though we were low on ammo."
"In my defence, those batarians would've just chased us into those woods." Kaidan replied, "That, and using a makeshift explosive to blow up a door was a crazy idea that you wouldn't let go."
"What can I say? I'm a lot more stubborn than you."
"Yeah, I can believe that."
"Come on. Let's see what Cerberus is up to." Kacey replied, "Maybe we'll both get some answers, or we'll be incredibly disappointed either or."
Kacey could see Kaidan trying to hide his smile as she pulled up the transmitter and held it like a microphone.
"Uh, hello?" Kacey said tense, "This is Delta Team. Anybody there?"
It was like they were prank calling them; Kaidan couldn't help but snicker as Kacey struggled to contain her laughter.
"Where the hell have you been?" A Cerberus soldier replied.
Kacey jumped upon hearing the voice and tossed the transmitter to Kaidan, who in response tossed it back mouthing, "Don't give that to me."
"Why the hell not?" Kacey mouthed back, "It was your idea."
"Never mind." The Cerberus trooper continued, "What's your status?"
Kacey looked at Kaidan who simply shrugged as Kacey tried to figure out what to say, "We're at the tram station, waiting on extraction. All hostiles terminated."
"Roger that." The Cerberus soldier replied, "Echo Team will ride over and secure the station."
"Do they have to?" Kacey blurted out without thinking.
Kaidan shook his head, and mouthed, "Kacey!"
"What?" she mouthed back.
"What was that, Delta Team?" The soldier asked.
"Nothing!" Kacey said quickly, "Just making sure we're ready for extraction."
Kaidan facepalmed as Kacey managed to cut the signal from the transmitter, both laughing.
"Think they bought it?" Kaidan said as he calmed himself down.
"Well, if they didn't, they figure it out soon enough." Kacey said, "Although I kinda want to keep this."
"The transmitter? Why?"
"To make weird noises to throw them off." Kacey quipped, "Maybe I should give to Joker, so he can prank call them instead of doing it to EDI."
Kaidan scoffed, "That's the reason?"
"It's always a stupid reason with me, Kaidan." Kacey said, "You should know that by now."
"Maybe I do." Kaidan said, "Anyway, we should get into position. Flank them when they get off the tram."
"Good thinking, Major." Kacey responded as Kaidan headed towards the ladder to move into a flanking position.
Liara had come out of the other room and Kacey quickly filled her in on the plan, and Liara quickly moved into position on the other side of the door. Kacey could see from the screen on the door just how far long the tram the Cerberus soldiers were. She pushed the conversation she just had with Kaidan out of her mind for now; she needed to stay focused and get that data, no matter what.