"Attention, we are 4 hours from mission objective. Briefing at 0900 for ground team." I heard Joker over the intercom in his monotone, no-nonsense voice.
We were coming up on Therum soon. I had already gotten all repairs done early so I had some time to eat a proper meal in the mess. Of course, all we had were prepared rations cooked up by whoever was on kitchen duty that week. Today's meal was Beef Strogganof. Always a hit with the grunts.
One might think that pre-packaged, processed-to-all-hell beef stroganoff would be fucking terrible, but you'd be wrong. It was easily top 10. The trick was to put your pepper ration in it. That gave it the kick it needed to be perfect.
I was contemplating all of this at the mess table, scarfing down the delicious meal private what's-her-name prepped for us when a familiar purple face took the open spot across from me. I was mostly keeping to myself up till that point. There were some other crew members at the table, but they were probably from other divisions and chatting amongst themselves. I didn't plan on spending more than a few minutes here anyway.
But it was nice to see someone from the ground team here.
"Hey, Tali. What's new?" I was just about done with my meal. She was reaching for something in her pocket, looked like some kind of tube. It was made clear that it was food when she attached it to her helmet for a 'sip', I guess, and detached it to answer me.
"They got me right to work on the engines, I can't believe it." Tali sounded pretty lost for words. I know it probably had something to do with the drive core, if my guess was correct. "the drive core is unlike anything I've ever seen! I was completely at a loss when Adams showed me how this ship supplies it with enough power! There's so much to talk about…"
I guessed correctly. She was in her element with tech and this ship is bleeding-edge. Not surprising that she's basically fallen in love with the ship.
"Beats those old boats on the flotilla, right?" I was half-joking. Didn't wanna completely trash the migrant fleet's ship quality, but it can't be denied they lug around some seriously outdated hardware, at least if galactic reputation is anything to go off of. And of course, I have enlisted the service of quarian engineers before in alien space.
"Wait, you know about the flotilla?" She sounded a bit surprised. Can't blame her. No one pays them much mind, other than to tell them "get off my property" and "you're under arrest."
"Yeah, a little bit. Not an expert or anything, just liked to keep informed." I took another bite of my beef stroganoff, finally cleaning my plate up and cleaning up with my napkin. "I've had quarian engineers fix up my stuff from time to time, usually the young guys on pilgrimage. You guys are quite handy."
Tali chuckled a little bit. "Yeah, the older ships we have to use make us pretty good at working with limited resources."
"Hey, every time I used a quarian mechanic on my jets, I haven't had problems afterwards. One fixed a ammo line with a bike chain."
"Really?"
"No, not at all. But I bet you could."
We both got a good hearty laugh from that. I liked her laugh. One of those laughs that makes ya feel all warm inside. I liked that feeling.
I checked my watch, looks like I was a bit late for getting back to my post. Still pretty new around here so may as well be punctual.
"Ah shit Tali, gotta get back down to my post. Got anymore work to do?"
"I'm actually done with everything for today, at least that's what Adams said…" She almost seemed annoyed by not having work. Weird. Endearing though.
"Always welcome to poke around my fighter" I wanted her to work with me, both for the reason that she would probably help improve what was a basically-stock fighter tenfold, but also I wanted to get to know her a bit better.
She was nice to be around. I found her nice to be around, anyway.
"I saw that thing in the cargo hold, it too looks otherworldly to me! We rarely have fighters in the fleet, drains our resources too much." Tali was clearly overjoyed to have something to work on. I was brainstorming what the trident really needed. I was thinking a tune-up to the gyroscopes.
"The gyroscopes need a look, wanna work on it together?"
"uhhm- yeah! Sure! I'll just check with Adams first, j-just in case, y'know…" She was tripping over her words so much I thought I'd said something terrible.
"I get it, just swing by whenever." I stood up with my plate to throw it away, then head down to the hangar. "I promise to save you something to work on."
I was thinking to myself something I was putting off in my mind for a bit now. Now look, I'm usually the type of guy that keeps it close to home regarding my choice in women, but man… I gotta be real with myself. I'm warming up to her.
Can't help but think about what she looks like.
That's what I'm hung up on. What if she's completely ugly and I've already got a target lock, so to speak? Might seem shallow, but cmon… its not a totally invalid thing to think about.
Well, maybe it is since I met her literally a few days ago, oh whatever ship fixing time, don't fuck this up.
"Damn!"
I exclaimed as my hand got crushed by a stubborn wrench that just wouldn't budge.
"Are you alright Ace?" Tali was here too. I told her about my idea to overcharge the thruster's afterburners with any atmospheric gases that combusted. It was similar to a "turbo" that was common in faster ground cars back home, except it just compressed gasses and shot em out the back, letting the main thruster wick ignite it as the heat escaped out the back.
I was hanging upside down, using my legs to hang on to the thruster struts that jutted from the back of the main combustion chamber and afterburner directors. Having to support myself as I hung upside down made taking this bolt out twice as hard, but that's what I get for being too impatient to lower the fighter on the support rack. I wanted to get the pipe work in place at least so I can order the part after Therum.
"Yeah, just a stubborn bolt, damn…" I was trying to hold my pain in. I'm not gonna lie, I hit my hand way harder than I let on.
"You know, you'd have an easier time doing this if you just lowered the fighter." Tali said with some humor in her voice, clearly entertained with my insistence on making things harder for myself.
"Yeah, yeah but I'm already here and getting lightheaded so now I'm too stubborn." I let my abdomen loose and started hanging vertically. "I think we're ready to install that pipe, hand it over here?"
With a small chuckle, she hoisted the pipe up into my hands as my face was turning red. "Are you not uncomfortable at all?" Tali said as she let the alloy pipe drop into my hand.
"Nope, you get used to blood rushing to your head a lot as a pilot, I guess." I then kipped myself up, using all my ab strength to hold myslf in place while I put the easy-clamp locks in place under the engine. "You ever pulled a few Gs before?"
"Gee-z?"
"Force of gravity multiples. For us 1G is just earth's gravity."
"Ahh, only a few times on a shuttle I guess." She knew what I was talking about, just didn't know the lingo.
"Well, we had to do it for flight school, and don't tell joker, but he has a really funny vid of him passing out in the centrifuge."
"Really?"
"Yep, couldn't handle the 10G test."
"Did you pass it?"
"That's why I fly this baby." I slapped the fuselage to make my point. "To be fair, he smoked me in other areas of flight school. I don't got the mind for frigate flight like he does."
I swung myself up and hopped down from the craft, with the preliminary pipe installed. Luckily, it shouldn't interfere with anything until we install that extra atmo compressor.
I turned to Tali, and found her already looking at me. No idea for how long. I saw her eyes glow through the pink tint of her visor, their luminosity highlighted what looked like irises that held a slightly lighter shade of white.
Felt an awkward feeling rush up into my face for a split second, my eyes darting anywhere else, before the comm lit up.
"Attention ground team, report to briefing room."
"Well, I guess its go time. Cmon Tali." I waltzed my way over towards the elevator, and Tali followed in tow.
It's go time
"Launching in 3…2…1…mark"
The catapult sprang to life as I was jolted back into my seat for the second time, assisting with the mission to rescue Liara T'soni from what we now know is a geth attempt to capture her.
"Good launch, Joker, we are green across the board." I said to him while adjusting settings for atmospheric flight, confirmed by the HUD now displaying the horizon of Therum and gimbals relative to the planet.
I was locked and loaded. Ready to dive into the fray once more. I set up for a hard deck of 1,000 meters , just enough to pull out of a dive at bombing speed. Then again, I had a bad habit of ignoring hard deck regulations in flight school, and got reprimanded many times for it.
It's a miracle I even made it through training without getting CAT6'd.
This planet was gonna be tough to run CAS in. Low hanging clouds covered in soot from volcanic activity. If I was gonna hit anything, it better be radar guided or I'd have to eye ball it with thermal imaging.
I would like to avoid 'eyeballing' if I can help it.
"This is Ace, radio check ground team."
"Solid copy, Ace, give us some recon." Shepard responded with a Mako engine whirring away in the background of his audio. They decided to drop in the tank this time around, because it was looking like the candidate area for T'soni's whereabouts was too hot to do a direct insertion.
Woth that, I switched to LADAR mode and sent out a long-range ping, making sure to keep an eye on the spectrometer as I did a sweep of their projected path to mission target.
Then I saw a weird, no, a really weird spike of high-frequency radiation consistent with eezo barriers.
Really powerful eezo barriers.
"Shepard, got a massive anomaly in readings a few clicks northwest of you, close to mission target and well within candidate area."
"Copy Ace, put it on our nav." With that, I shared the location to the mako's computers and the hardsuits of Shepard, Tali, Wrex, and Ashley. "Copy, Shepard, good hunting."
With that I climbed to a comfortable 4000 meters for long range recon, keeping an eye on the mako's position and status.
The Mako had no trouble mopping up the geth that were blocking their path. Shepard was telling me about how just merely running into an armature was enough to render it harmless.
Nearly fallin asleep up here.
"Shepard here, terrain impassable on Mako, gonna have to hop out. Stay ready, ace, we might need you."
That woke me up. If they're on foot, I gotta make sure they're covered from above.
"Dropping to attack altitude, commander. Ready on your mark." Alright, now nose down, and weapons ready.
I fired up the weapons systems, switching out of recon mode into combat mode. My HUD changed color and my reticle appeared with a familiar chime "Weapons, online." Flatly stated the onboard VI as my HUD displayed my arsenal:
ATG-1: 400/400
GPC: 100%
TRPD: 4/4
Air to ground, general purpose guns, and torpedoes were all on standby. I redirected some inertial dampener power to the thrusters. The transfer of power pressed down on me slightly as the Gs of my maneuvers started being felt more and more.
I gently put her in a holding pattern at 2000 meters, ready to pounce on whatever poor bastard became our enemy.
Well, if one can feel bad for some bots, anyway.
"Hostile ship detected." My VI.
My radar pinged as I shot my eyes over to its protesting.
One drop ship inbound, 3 clicks and closing fast.
"Shepard, drop ship inbound, moving to intercept!" Turn and burn. I quickly inverted, and gunned the throttle hard, my stomach dropping fast as I raced towards the radar ping.
I couldn't get a visual so I switched to thermals, revealing the faint flutter of the thrusters of the dropship. My HUD gave me an intercept trajectory after a few seconds of calculation.
Time-on-Target, 30 seconds
I flipped the cover off the missile release and gently placed my thumb over it as the locking system began to chime as I barreled closer and closer to the dropship. The ship was nearing the squad's location, it was gonna be tight.
The chassis shook violently as I breached the highest cloud layer, the soot streaking across my canopy as I punched a clean hole. The lock tone was still beeping in anticipation, as my reticle began to sharpen around the center of the target.
"Get to cover, guys! This is gonna be loud." The ship was now within their visual range.
Lock tone now blared loudly. The VI gave the command.
"Fire. Fire."
I pressed the trigger. The missile detached with a sharp clang, the fighter listing slightly to my right as a flash followed a large plume of white smoke.
"Fox 2!" The ship was uncomfortably close to them at this point. I hope I was in time. I pulled up to level out, the blood rushing away from my face as my flight suit squeezed my thighs.
Breath in, hold, out. Hold. Out.
I turned 90 degrees. Braced for another turn.
Engines roared behind me, chassis flexing and groaning at the strain.
Breath in, hold, out. Hold. Out.
I had a visual, the trail of smoke slowly increasing as it inched closer to the drop ship below. The HUD keep a circle on it as it pierced through the clouds, punching clean holes through each of the sooty layers.
In training we did this kind of breathing countless times. It was drilled mercilessly into our heads. If you wanted to stay awake during high G-load, you had to keep the blood in your head. I even fund myself doing it while simply lounging around from time to time., it was like a reflex out of control.
Barely holding onto consciousness, I just cleared the hard deck. Any lower and I was barreling into a volcano, or something.
I took a huge breath in and out as I looked over my left shoulder. I saw the missile and the ship, about to collide.
Splash.
The missile punched a clean hole in the top of the drop ship, right at its mid-section. The payload detonated, spraying fire and eezo wakes out the top and bottom. The ship began listing to starboard, finally slamming down into a large rock outcrop and exploding in spectacular fashion, a fireworks show of purple and white hot debris.
"Y'all alright down there?" I made sure to check in on them, given how close I made that shot.
"We're good, nice shot." I was surprised to hear Wrex on my comm.
"Don't thank me, I just point and shoot, bones." Bones. I like that nickname. Fits. But probably not a good idea to call the 800 pound lizard linebacker that.
"Bones, huh?" Yeah, I think ill just get shot down instead. Gonna die in the debriefing room from Krogan temper otherwise.
"Alright I'm RTB Shepard. You're clear for now. Good luck in there." With the squad entering the facility, I sailed my way gingerly back to the Normandy, satisfied with a decent day's work.
Nothing too exciting, but boy if I don't love my job.
Well, looks like we got Dr. T'soni. For some reason I thought she'd be older. If you'd told me we'd be picking up the hot daughter of an Asari matriarch, I'd wouldn't have shown up to this debriefing in my bum-ass flight suit that I forgot to take off.
It was nice-looking to anyone that was Alliance. Gone were the days of baggy G-suits, and here were the days of compressible nano-tube leggings that had striations of pseudo-muscle up and down my legs and lower torse. My upper body had my harness attachment sites and alliance insignias with rank and division. On my left breast was the red insignia of the Lone Star Gunfighters.
Just right now, I looked quite out of place stumbling on my sore-ass legs into the briefing room, with my helmet hanging in my right hand.
Tali and Liara, the new girl, were both there early. I guess it didn't take much for Tali to get out of her combat gear, it was just putting her shotgun away.
As for Liara, well, she looked like she didn't know what the military even was. She was clearly still reeling from the apparently perilous escape from Therum.
I slumped down in my chair next to Tali, letting my entire body loose as I exhaled loudly.
"Ahhh, another day in the office, eh?"
Tali was stiff and upright in her chair, barely moving at all. Don't know if quarians are like humans at all, but she looked a bit off.
"Something the matter, Tali?" I now leaned down, resting my arms on my knees.
She snapped her head to look at me in surprise, startled by my presence. "OH! Sorry, I was just-" She started fiddling with her hands again. "Uhm…"
I knew that look. Any solider does. "First time in a real firefight?"
Tali paused at my comment, then looked down in some glumness. "Yeah. Guess training doesn't get you totally ready does it?" Dejection coated her voice.
"Nope. Can't say I've experienced being on the ground like that, but I've had my share of troubles. You know what got me through them?" I turned my head towards her, my arms resting on my legs comfortably.
"What's that?" She asked.
"Laughing a little. How crazy our lives are."
"Laughing?" A bit of perplexion in her voice.
"Yeah."
Tali was clearly a bit confused. "How though, it was all so horrible, down there."
"Well, think about it. A week ago you were fighting for your life over some data disk"
Some silence passed between us.
"then a Krogan whose lived ten normal lives, a disgruntled turian cop, a war hero, and a pilot using an obsolete relic of a gun come save your ass, and whisk you away to stop a robot army."
"Pfff, I guess if you put it like that…" Good, some life back in her voice.
"It's pretty absurd right? Not even worth the cheesiest vid."
We both chuckled a bit a that, and I swore I saw a smile under there. Probably just projecting, but,
I sure hope she was smiling.
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Tali then looked up at the door, as the door opened.
The rest of the crew came into the briefing room with Shepard and company, and I settled in for my least favorite part of my job.
Endless briefings. And paperwork. Ugh.
A shorter one this time. Glad to be back. Next time we're gonna explore Ace's relationship with the rest of the crew, and especially Joker. Maybe some old wounds, some minor, some major.
More to come.