Shepard stepped out of the command tent and into the allegedly organised chaos of the forward base, her brain busy trying to concoct contingency plans for all the varying scenarios that could occur as a result of the gaps in the intel reports that the mission had been planned on.
Anybody else would have walked into someone by now, but the red and white stripe on her armour seemed to work wonders at clearing a route for her and it wasn't long before she was in the section of camp where the strike teams spent their down time.
She felt a prickle of annoyance when she noticed the camera drone, knowing full well that Alliance Media Ops wouldn't have given permission for the press to enter that particular section of camp.
Her irritation only grew further as she recognised one of her men speaking to the reporter, clearly using sentences bigger than 'no comment', although it faded somewhat as she got close enough to hear the actual words.
"You see the enemy attaches microscopic cameras to the pyjaks and then train them to infiltrate Alliance camps and gather intel..."
She almost wanted to wait and see how long the soldier could keep the story going before the reporter caught on, but unfortunately she had a job to do.
"Sergeant! You know the rules. No talking to the press without a warrant."
The man looked suitably chastised, even if he hadn't been divulging anything important, or factual for that matter.
Although it did back up a few of her suspicions regarding the recent Westerlund News broadcast that had claimed the instigator of the Skyllian Blitz, Elanos Haliat, was on the run disguising himself as various different species. With one notable alias being a turian named Sandy Claws.
"Now go grab your gear and round up Echo squad, we've got another pyjak nest to clear."
"Yes Ma'am!" The Sergeant's eyes sparkled with suppressed glee at her continuing his fake news story as he spun away from the camera and started running. She turned to follow him but was stopped by a hand on her arm. A glare was enough for the reporter to rapidly remove it.
"Excuse me, uh... ma'am," If Shepard wasn't losing patience she might have been amused at the way the woman failed to decipher a rank from her armour. "Can I have a word?"
"Oh sure, you can have two words, 'comment' and 'no'. Arrange them in any order you want." She marched off and it didn't take long for her to begin shouting to her team.
"Kassovitz! What the hell are you doing? ... Tough luck, I order you to lose that bet right now and grab your shit, you planning on letting the enemy die of boredom? Let's go!"
...
"Intel says they're moving merchandise through here but didn't say what." Shepard started the briefing as soon as the shuttle lifted off, hoping to get to the good bit before the rest of the nine man squad realised they were leaving orbit and started protesting the idea of withdrawing from the current war zone.
She pointed out the relevant planet on the star charts before flipping to orbital photos of the target. "If it's drugs we destroy them, if it's slaves we bring them home."
"And if it's weapons?" Gurung inquired.
"A little bit of column A, a little of column B."
Shepard missed who exactly came out with that remark, but her money would be on either Elwick or Mercer. She decided to glare at them both equally.
"You all know what the regs say about looting, I better not catch anyone breaking them." Nobody bothered responding with 'don't worry, you won't catch us' but the understanding was certainly there.
Truthfully she didn't care if the odd expensive weapon mod remained unaccounted for. Her men deserved quality gear, sometimes it could quite literally make the difference between life and death, and if the Alliance wasn't willing to foot the bill for it then she could live with the occasional bouts of temporary blindness.
So long as no-one took the piss.
Anyone attempting to take anything strictly illegal in Citadel or Alliance space would quickly find themselves in hot water and a military tribunal. Same with trying to make a steady income on the side.
"As I was saying, we're not getting backup on this one. They start pulling troops off the ground here or moving ships around, the enemy's going to notice and bolt. Now intel's sketchy at best but that's nothing new so, here's what we're gonna do..."
...
A double tap to the head broke the helmet-less batarian's shields and ended his life. Shepard quickly ducking back behind cover as she searched for a new target.
The enemy had been caught by surprise and despite their apparent intent to fight to the bitter end they had barely slowed her squad down.
A flicker of movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention and she turned in time to see a sniper relocate to a position with perfect sight lines on Elwick.
She didn't have a clear shot and not enough time to move to get one, so she raised her omni-tool sending an overload and a prayer in the turian's direction.
Both hit the mark as the tech attack managed to knockout his shields and overheat the rifle before he could fire.
He was obviously a pro. Wasting no time messing around trying to fix it. Instead simply dropping the useless weapon and drawing his sidearm but it was too late, Mercer hitting him with a shotgun blast as he flanked his position.
All targets down, they kept moving. Securing the base room by room until they were all clear.
"Teams Two and Three security. Team One sweep for intel, double check for booby traps before you touch or hack anything. Medics sta-"
It turned out she didn't need to give the medics orders, they were already carrying out their duty. Scanning the captives for injuries from outside the cages so they'd know what order they'd need to be treated in, and it seemed they'd already discovered something serious.
"Boss! She needs an emergency crike now!"
Nikki glanced at McKendrick's glowing omni-tool display and back at the cage.
"I can't disarm the bomb that quick. Is it safe to move her closer to the bars?"
The answer was a firm negative.
Nobody wanted to just sit and watch a child die when they were so close to saving them, but they had little choice, opening the cage doors would see them all blown up.
Shepard's eyes landed on a salarian inside the cage. She was by no means an expert on judging alien ages but she'd guess around ten/eleven. Not the oldest captive but then again salarians matured quicker than other species and while the rest were still in shock his eyes suggested he'd already processed everything and, maybe not come to terms with it, but at least understood what was going on.
With a simple: "get me a trache tube" to the medic she waved him over, removing her helmet as she knelt by the bars.
"Beth's condition serious. No time for you to help. Need me yes?" The youngster accurately surmised and Shepard simply nodded.
"I need you to cut an incision into her throat, put your hand through the bars and I'll show you where." She took gentle hold of his three fingered appendage and ran it across her bare throat, stopping at her thyroid cartilage.
"Feel that yes? Ok, now down here, feel that?" She paused at the cricoid cartilage, waiting for him to nod before moving back up again. "I need you to find those two points on her and then this bit in the middle. Just here, you feel that? I need you to make a vertical cut this long and this deep."
She help up her fingers to demonstrate the appropriate sized gap, nodding when he copied with the same length.
"Very good, then the same again horizontally and you have to put this tube in her throat."
Mac handed her a trache tube and scalpel and she passed them through the bars in turn.
"Think you can manage that? Very good."
The salarian scrambled over to the girl and Shepard nodded encouragingly as he looked over to check his positioning.
"You know the odds of this working are slim right?" The medic warned in a hushed tone. "Even with someone trained it would-"
"I know but you got a better plan? I'll take a one in a hundred chance of success over one in a billion that a miracle will magically make her not die without oxygen."
"And if it fails? Getting the kid involved, he could end up with some serious guilt issues, you think about that?"
"He's salarian, he's a quarter of the way through his life cycle already, hardly a child by their standards. Besides they've been slaves for months Mac, they're gonna have to have compulsory counseling sessions regardless."
The medic shook his head but remained silent.
"Now what?" The salarian called out, the soldiers breathing twin sighs of relief as they saw the girl's chest start rising again.
"Now, I disarm the bombs. Mac will talk you through anything else."
...
"No comment."
Trish hadn't been paying any attention to the TV in the corner until she heard what sounded like a familiar voice.
"No comment." A different voice.
She wondered if she'd imagined the first one but looked up anyway.
The report claimed to be breaking and live at the scene of an Alliance victory, two soldiers carried a stretcher with a young human girl led out on it, other children of various species moving in the middle of a squad of helmeted, black armoured troops.
"No comment." Yet another voice claimed as its owner passed the camera. Each soldier in turn issuing the same refrain until:
"Hi Mom." Trish couldn't help a smile at that, there's always one.
She couldn't see the speaker's face through his helmet but he'd sounded young, although not as young as the turian getting a piggyback on his shoulders or the asari clutching his hand as she walked beside him.
"Copy that, thanks Eagle. Get out of here, we'll find somewhere to hole up." The voice that had first caught her attention suddenly spoke again and she was pretty certain it was who she thought it was. That certainty solidified as the camera moved to focus on the speaker, revealing N7 armour. "Alright folks, you heard the man. Get them back to objective 2 and dig in, I'll get dipshit."
The camera seemed torn between following the about facing squad or the dashing leader, but decided to follow the N7 as she headed towards its owner.
"Can I ask a few questions?" The reporter immediately jumped to work, solidifying the accuracy of his new nickname.
"No you ca- ... You're actually broadcasting live? I don't believe- You idiot! Fine, give it here."
It was subtle and Trish doubted anybody who didn't know Nikki personally could have picked up on the deception, but she knew all her partner's minute tells and was certain the soldier had known full well from the start that the camera was broadcasting.
She didn't know what or why, but she was convinced that meant the N7 was already carrying out some complex scheme. The woman onscreen touched a button and her helmet de-tinted, finally revealing the familiar face.
"Hi slavers! Congratulations on tracing this broadcast signal, you're either moderately clever or insanely stupid. Now I know you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceships with all your silly little guns, and I know you're just itching to get your base and all your merchandise back, but I'm afraid if you want these kids you got to go through me…"
The soldier smiled but it was nothing like the smiles Trish was used to seeing on Nikki's face.
"Now if you were smart, I'd recommend finding an Alliance patrol to surrender to, but if you got a death wish then come on down. My men and I will be happy to oblige. Oh and if those idiots at Intelligence are watching, I've got three words for you: Delta-Delta-Five. If you want to live come with me and stop broadcasting."
That last was aimed not at camera but the reporter directly and seconds later the video cut to black, switching hastily to a news anchor in the station somewhere completely different who certainly wasn't ready for it.
"Uh... We'll have more on that story as it unfolds."
Not if Nikki gets her way you won't. Trish thought briefly, before her thoughts went tumbling down far more worrying paths.
...
"Good thing we didn't blow the demo charges yet." Shepard stated casually as she strode into the formerly enemy base.
"Alright, we're switching up the teams. Mac, Wizzo and Big G, Team Three, take the civvies and hole up in that crashed ship a couple klicks south. Maintain radio silence, I want you completely dark, Wizzo will scram and jam. Same code phrases for success and duress as before. If we genuinely need to update your orders the authentication code will be 'Sarah Jane called'. Kassovitz, Little G, with me, the rest of you Team Two. We're going full on Lemmy Johnson."
Despite how random her words must sound to anyone else, her squad knew exactly what she meant and started getting to work reinitiating the base's defenses.
The two medics grabbed either end of Beth's stretcher and started moving, Wizzo and the reporter helping herd the rest of the children, but the eldest turian broke free, racing up in front of her.
"I want to help, I can fight!"
Shepard looked the youngster up and down as her omni-tool translated his words.
"You sure about that? You look a couple months shy of boot camp to me."
"I can fight."
She held back a sigh at the repetition, she knew it was important not to judge aliens by human standards, asari in their nineties were still equivalent to human teenagers, salarians were nearing the end of their lives in their forties and so had to mature much quicker accordingly. All turians in hierarchy space went to boot camp at age 15 and many important families gave their own children a head start in military training much earlier.
That knowledge didn't stop her from seeing a kid that needed protecting though. It also didn't stop her recognising the determined look in his eye. The one that declared if she didn't give permission, he'd try his luck at something dangerous anyway.
"What's your name?" She caught herself before she said 'kid'.
"Barro, Astur Barro. I can fight."
"I believe you. I'm not asking if you can fight Astur, I'm asking if you can follow orders? My orders."
He nodded and part of her hated what she was about to do.
"Ok then. Repeat after me: I Astur Barro, swear upon my honour as a turian to do my duty to the hierarchy. To defend our land, protect our people and help our allies. As long as blood flows through my veins I shall not falter. To disobey a legal order is to mutiny, to give an illegal order is calefricum."
Shepard was privately pleased when she pronounced the turian word perfectly, not only was there no direct translation but it had taken four members of Blackwatch half an hour to explain the full significance of the concept to her training cadre.
Out of everything she'd learnt during joint species training ops, she certainly never thought the thing she'd first find a practical use for was the turian pledge of allegiance. The few members of her team not busy weren't looking so impressed, but she wasn't sure if it was due to her knowing the words or agreeing to the boy's request.
The turian however was standing to attention, practically radiating pride as he spoke the words. No longer waiting for the translation and repeating them, but reciting them with her in perfect sync.
"Until my service is up I shall live and breathe by the code. Death before dishonour, service before self." Astur finished with a salute and Shepard returned the gesture in the turian style.
She allowed him a moment to bask in his private glory before handing over a pistol. Reassured when he completed the appropriate safety checks before holstering it.
"Ok, Barro. You're with Team Three, protect the civilians. Wizzo will be your section lead, carry on." She saw the feeling of betrayal in his eyes as she sent him to safety. If he'd been human he'd have protested and whined about wanting to fight on the front lines, but it was a legal order and he'd made his pledge. As a turian there was nothing he could do except mutter: "Yes ma'am" and dejectedly slink away.
It was now official: she felt like an evil little shit. She quickly banished the thought from her mind, there was a job to do.
"Alright, I'm gonna go booby trap the rear exit tunnels. You got thirty minutes to finish making this place a death trap then we're moving out."
It was true that the base was the most defensible place on the planet, but her team had already proven that it could be breached and as the saying went: 'make it tough enough for the enemy to get in and you won't be able to get out'.
They didn't have the numbers or the food supplies to withstand a siege. Besides, they were called strike teams for a reason. They might as well play to their advantages.
...
Trish was fine.
Seriously.
She hadn't expected to hear anything from Nikki for a couple more days anyway.
The lack of messages was nothing unusual. It was pretty normal actually.
Expected.
It was perfectly fine, and so was she.
Ok so she nearly murdered Ben when he visited and almost gave her a heart attack, ringing the doorbell like that instead of giving his customary secret knock.
And she appeared to have developed a habit of holding her breath whenever she answered a call regardless of whether it was at home or the office, but that didn't mean anything.
She was used to Nick being out of contact for long periods of time. Often she didn't even know if Nikki was on an op or just bumming around the base bored, waiting for something to happen.
Most of the time she could get away with kidding herself it was the latter, but even on the occasions when Nick had been called away mid conversation for an op and she knew for certain that shit was going down, it wasn't normally quite this nerve wracking.
Then again Nikki didn't usually go on galactic television and practically scream 'come on then if you think you're hard enough!' to every piece of criminal scum in the sector.
Trish had already accepted the fact that their scheduled phone call wouldn't be happening and instead of setting an alarm to make sure she had time to pee and get a drink and get comfortable before the call like she normally did, she surfed random vids on the net, desperately trying to ignore the fact there might be anything wrong.
She was therefore startled when her omni-tool rang right on time. Her breath catching as she answered, hoping it wasn't the Alliance.
"Hi babe."
"Nikki?"
"Uh, yeah... you expecting someone else?" Came the slightly confused but mostly teasing response. It certainly didn't sound like one of those awful cheesy and impractical moments in the vids where the overwhelmed soldier called to confess their love and say goodbye.
"How long have you been back from your mission?"
"I don't know, about eight or ten hours. Why?"
"You didn't think to message me?"
"Why, it's wednesday ain't it? We already had this call scheduled, I start messaging you randomly you're gonna assume something's wrong and start worrying."
Trish could just picture the casual shrug that accompanied that statement.
"So... You didn't want to worry me?" She didn't even attempt to hide the incredulity in her voice.
"Yeah, what's wro- Hang on... How do you even know I was on a mission? I didn't tell you about this one."
"Uh, I saw your little interview on the news." Her eyebrows raised pointedly even though there was no video to convey the fact to Nikki.
"Interview? I haven't- Shit! Fuck... sorry babe, I forgot about that."
"Forgot!? How the hell do you forget about something like that?" Trish finally lost it, her voice getting higher.
"I was kinda busy! As I'm sure you can imagine if you saw that broadcast."
Trish finally calmed down slightly, feeling guilty as she realised she hadn't even asked yet:
"Are you alright? Did you get them all out?"
Nick sighed morosely.
"Not quite, nearly... One of the kids didn't make it. 'Infection arising from complications after emergency battlefield surgery'. Might have made it if we got her to a med bay quick enough but, well..."
"I'm sorry... At least you saved the rest of them. What about your team?"
"Nothing medi-gel and a good shrink won't fix."
"And you? You alright?"
"Of course. I'm five by fi- No, wait... You know how you're always moaning that I say I'm five by five all the time when I never use the rest of the scale?" The relief residing in Trish's chest was instantly shot down and replaced with worry. "Well five by three, I sprained my knee."
Even on an audio only call Trish could see that damn grin across her partner's face as she groaned in reply.
"You are rubbish at this whole reassuring me thing."
"Sorry."
"I still can't believe you forgot about sticking your middle finger up at a bunch of slavers on live television."
"I didn't actually stick-" It was Nikki's turn to groan. "Would I be in more or less trouble if I lied and pretended I had amnesia from a concussion?"
"Depends on whether it's true or not."
"Sorry who are you? What are we talking about again?"
"Very funny Nikki. Ha, ha, ha. I'm dying of laughter."
"Really? Sounds more like you're planning ways to kill me. I might have to start wearing my armour round the house." The soldier sighed, suddenly growing serious again. "I really am sorry Trish. I apologise for being a hopeless, unthinking idiot and making you worry longer than you had to. It won't happen again."
"What won't? Being an idiot, daring an entire slave syndicate fleet to attack you on live television or not messaging me to let me know the moment you were safe?"
"Uh... the last one?"
Trish couldn't help a faint chuckle. No matter how much she wanted to be pissed at Nikki, she just couldn't manage it for very long.
"Alright sweetheart I forgive you. For future reference, if you think there's even the slightest chance of the media leaking your whereabouts or actions then I'd much rather get a message out of nowhere saying you're fine when I didn't know you might not be, rather than be worrying over something I saw on the news ok?"
"Ok. I'll try and keep it in mind."
Trish smiled, finally starting to fully relax and de-stress for the first time since she saw the news report.
They started chatting about anything and nothing, and were still talking when her omni-tool chimed with a message. She glanced down and burst out laughing when she read:
[So... you may have seen me on the news a couple days ago. I don't want you to worry I'm perfectly safe now. Oh and some weird stuff's been happening with military omni-tools recently, you should ignore the time stamp on this, it was totally sent ten hours ago. Love you, Nikki. (Sorry)]
...
Author's note: I wanted Shepard to be known by the public for something other than Akuze. It always bugged me slightly, "oh you had a deeply traumatic experience? We're going to keep talking about it to your face, saying how cool and awesome you were during it, you don't mind do you?" That and (in this story at least) Akuze is classified. Spectre's and important people will know about it, but not the everyday grunts and civvies. They might vaguely have heard a few rumours about what happened but not who was involved.
The other reason for this chapter is a trial run for when we get to the games and need to cover the missions without completely ignoring Trish, if you have any opinions on whether or not you think it works let me know. Do you want more action/less action? Nikki to talk more about what's happened and how she feels about the mission to Trish or just solely use her as a distraction, messing about and not telling her anything about what's going on? I know some things will be classified but she can make hints and vague generalised statements.
As always, I hope you're still enjoying.