Disclaimer: I do not own the Mass Effect games. This story is written with no profit in mind. I make no money from it. It isn't for sale or rent.

Chapter 3

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Part 5

=DC=

SSV Normandy

en route to Therum

Settling everyone and their gear in, preliminary planning for insertion under fire once they got to Therum, making sure all the kids played nice with each other, especially the Krogan and the Turians… it all took more energy than Shepard expected. Perhaps he wasn't one hundred percent yet after the Beacon tried to fry his brain – he found himself too tired after a few long but otherwise not really strenuous days. At least not physically anyway… The Commander resigned himself to a stint in one of the zombie capsules as the crew dubbed them before checking Williams file at last and having a talk with her and the rest of the crew. He should have the time at least – they were fifteen hours away from Therum still.

Six hours later, Shepard sat in the mess hall nursing a cup of steaming synthetic coffee made to naval standards – it was thick enough that his spoon could stand straight up in the centre of the mug with a ton of sugar for that extra energy kick… and to hide the distinct tang of synthetic caffeine. Real coffee was damn expensive nowadays. Too many people – human and Asari loved the stuff yet there were only two other planets besides Earth where you could grow it reasonably cheaply. Supply lagged far behind demand so most people had to rely on synthetic caffeine. or other, stronger stimulants to stay awake. Hell, couple of Asari herbal teas with similar purpose but odd sweet taste were much cheaper to procure because they could be grown on most Garden Worlds.

Shepard took a sip of the hot coffee and now that he felt awake if not really rested thanks to some very odd dreams, which should have been very unlikely while stuck in the pod, looked down at the pad on the table. It contained Williams' file, which the Normandy had thanks to the Acting Captain being on the ball and procuring it once it became clear the Sergeant would be more or less permanent addition to the crew. The Commander grimaced at that – replacement more like, they did loose too many people against the Geth. First Jenkins, the kid was both too full of adrenaline and anger at his home being under attack to keep calm. He never stood chance when those drones caught him in the open. Private Harvey followed – a Geth sniper took off her head… Corporal Yamada got torn apart when those husks swarmed them… Shepard closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

Eden Prime was bad, certainly much worse than Elysium or most of his black missions and he had the sinking suspicion things would only get worse before the situation could improve. He took another hefty swing from his coffee to distract himself from those morose thoughts and returned his attention to the file. It was both enlightening and a reason to go speak with the Gunny ASAP. He finished his beverage and checked on William's location. If she was on a rest period, the conversation could wait a bit considering that they would be likely in combat sooner rather than later.

"Gunnery Sergeant Williams is at the Armoury in the Hangar." Normandy's primary VI informed him. Shepard carried his cup to be washed and headed for the stairs. While the cargo elevator could carry great weight – it was meant to move all kinds of equipment and repair supplies through all decks of the ship, the damn thing was slow as hell. Alenko already vowed to do something about it if he found the free time, but as far as the Commander knew, there was no such luck yet.

A few minutes later, he arrived in the hangar and looked around. Wrex dozed off on a stack of crates, Vakarian and two more Turians were on top of the Mako fiddling with the weapon systems, which made both Shepard's eyebrows go up. He had to go see what was that about, but first he finished his sweep of the compartment. The rest of the Turians were in or around their shuttle. Most of them had either slept or maintained their gear – the same was true for Williams who was working on something at the workbench in the corner of the hangar, besides the lockers for the ground element. In the opposite corner of the compartment, the frigate's quartermaster sat on a crate and had both his omni-tool and a pad lit up and was busy glancing between them. Doing inventory check most likely.

Williams first, Shepard decided. Then he might as well check on the rest of the crew. Spectre or not, he was technically the XO now and making sure the ship ran as well as possible was part of his responsibilities – at least until the brass unfucked the complication created of an active duty officer being a Spectre. He didn't really hold his breath on that one. Experience taught him that whatever the solution it would be a pain in the ass.

"Gunnery Sergeant Williams, a word." Shepard said after walking next to the busy NCO. Now that he came closer he could see she had a Lancer assault rifle disassembled on the workbench and running diagnostic.

"Commander, sir!" The young woman jumped. "I didn't see you come in." She put down a diagnostic tool and gave him a proper salute, which he returned.

"I won't mince words, Williams. I finally had the opportunity to go over your file."

For the second time since entering the hangar, Shepard's eyebrows did their best to climb up straight into his short hair. At the mention of her file, Williams went pale and her posture got defensive.

"This is about my grandfather, isn't it, sir?" Her tone was just the right side of disrespect, angry and resigned.

"Tangentially and I'm pretty sure not in the way you just assumed, Gunny." Shepard's thoughts raced. This reaction most certainly wasn't what he expected. What was omitted from her file, he wondered?

"So you don't want me off your ship at the next friendly port because of who my grandfather was?" Williams suspiciously stared in his eyes.

That made a light lit up in Shepard's head and he felt like face-palming. But first to make sure this time it he wasn't the one making assumptions and an ass of himself…

"Would you explain what you mean about your grandfather, Gunny? Assume that I'm a clueless idiot." Shepard suggested.

"You've read my file, sir. You know who my grandfather was. When General Williams decided to surrender what was left of his command and thus Shanxi, well that destroyed his reputation in the military and blacklisted our family. I'm the highest ranked Williams or a close relation in either the army or the navy and with the exception of my younger sisters everyone in the family has done their duty and multiple tours of duty. We don't lack ability, sir, however the brass simply don't trust us."

That… sounded both ridiculous and all too plausible at the same time. He thought about the file and now knew why Williams hasn't received a very strong suggestion to attend OCS. Shepard could read between the lines after all and what was in her file… he bit off a curse. Now, he had no way to know if she saw her family through a rose tinted glasses or if what she just told him was the honest truth as she knew it. On the other hand, such a belief both explained what was in her file, the likely truth of it and how and why it got there… Perhaps it would be prudent to check what other relations she had in the military, including those that already got out, their files too, if he could access them.

"Williams, you're the third youngest Gunnery Sergeant in the Corps. You obviously don't lack ability. The reason why you haven't been recommended for officer training, at least according to your file, is because you have something to prove and until that is resolved no one is going to trust you with an officer billet and responsibilities."

At that explanation, Williams became ghostly white.

"Should I worry you would go all gun ho and get yourself or someone else killed? I must admit, what I saw back on Eden Prime and that entry in your file don't really align. My second concern is your noted distrust of aliens, which given your family history isn't particularly surprising. However, right now we're working under Spectre authority – despite my new status, this is Vasir's show. The specialists she gathered are capable, not to mention the Turian marines – if they were anything but very good they wouldn't have been a part of the CDF. Can you work with them without problems? I'm not asking you to like them, merely act with the integrity and courtesy that your rank and their status as allies demand."

"I… I think so, sir." Williams took a few deep breaths and exhaled loudly. "It's just not easy, especially with the Turians crawling all over the place." She glared at the trio on top of the Mako. "Sir, this is supposed to be the Alliance's newest and most advanced ship! Why are you letting aliens all over the place? To poke around the most vital systems – engines, weapons, sensors?" Williams sounded genuinely confused as she asked.

There was also the implication that as a Spectre himself, he could actually do something about this despite Vasir's presence on board.

Shepard chuckled at that question and earned himself a dark look. "Gunny, the Normandy is a joint project with the Turian Hierarchy. It's not a stretch to say that they did the heavy lifting as far as tech transfers and solving engineering problems was concerned. They already know everything that is there to know about the technical capabilities of this ship. Once we've proven the concept, they have the budget and shipbuilding capacity to build a few orders of magnitude more ships like her than we could afford or really need." He explained.

"I… thats..." Williams mouth opened and closed a few times.

"You don't trust our allies, do you, Gunny?" Shepard asked quietly.

Williams looked torn before she made up her mind and spoke. "I'm not sure I'll call the Council our allies, sir. We, Humans, Humanity as a whole, need to learn to rely on ourselves. They… they don't really need to be racist, or even hate us or something to merely put the well being and prosperity of their own people in front of ours. It would simply be the natural thing to do, sir." Williams shrugged.

"Standing on our own two feet and for ourselves doesn't mean we should stand alone, Gunny." He waved at the Turians. "Look at them – they don't have anything at stake at Therum. Not their colony, letting it get mauled by either Geth or pirates would arguably be better for the Council because then their corporations could pick up the slack of lost heavy element mining and refining, you name it. Yet, they're here with us, ready to fight and die to secure one of our worlds."

"I don't think we should turn down allies, sir. It's just we shouldn't bet everything on them staying allies. Would they still back us if there are Turian, Asari or Salarian worlds under threat? Would any of those aliens be here if that VIP we're going to retrieve wasn't the daughter of an important Asari Matriarch?" Williams looked morosely at the Commander.

"That's a very pessimistic view of the universe, Gunny."

"A pessimist is what an optimist calls a realist, sir." Williams grimaced. "Look, sir, if you're fighting a bear, or rampaging killer robots and the only way to survive is to sick your dog on them, you'll do it. No matter how much you love or care about your dog, it isn't human." She grimaced. "The Council, the Turian, Asari and Salarian military – their job is to see that their people come first. Their species will always be more important to them that us humans or anyone else. Its simply natural."

"I've heard such sentiments before, a lot of times in fact. Yours seem more deep than most." Shepard concluded.

"Sir, my family has protected the Alliance since its foundation. My father, grandfather, great-grandmother, most of my cousins – we all took the Oath of Service and swore to protect the alliance, its interests and thus humanity as a whole. It's just that we've been so long at it that we tend to see Earth's interests as our own."

"I see." Shepard noted. He didn't miss the implication of Williams seeing Earth interests as synonymous of those of humanity's as a whole or the SA's. Granted, most of humanity was still in Sol with Earth being the most populated place in the system, naturally. "I can see where your concerns are coming from, Williams. However, this mission and at least the next three we've got lined up for us, will be multilateral. You'll have to work closely with aliens, rely on them to watch your back and do the same for them, no matter if you like it or not. Can I rely on you, Gunnery Sergeant?"

"It won't be a problem, Commander!" Williams straightened up. "You tell me to jump, I'll ask 'how high' while in the air. You tell me to kiss a Turian, I'll ask which cheek."

"I don't think kissing Turians will be necessary." Shepard smirked. "Besides, the one we'll have for longer on board already has an admirer back on the Citadel." Shepard glanced at Vakarian thinking about Dr Micael's reaction when she found out he was part of the group that rescued her.

"You can never know, Commander." Williams demonstrated a bit of levity.

"Carry on, Gunny." Shepard left the Sergeant to her maintenance and headed for the Turians molesting his Mako.

"Vakarian, what did the poor tank ever did to you?"

"It's a poor tank." Garrus dead-paned thus earning himself a scowl from Shepard.

"That's no tank, merely an IFV with pretentious of grandeur." One of the other Turians snerked.

"I'll let you know..." Shepard launched himself into a tirade protecting his baby.

=DC=

Part 6

=DC=

SSV Normandy

en route to Therum

Shepard left the Turians to their attempts to "better" the targeting and weapon systems of the Mako – as long as they didn't break them he was content. Besides, his primary experience with the light tank was driving it and thus not operating its weaponry. However, he did receive complains that it was hard to hit things – primary slavers and other assorted pirate scum, while he drove and did his best not to get hit. Perhaps, the Turians did have a point – at least as far as the remote weapon station was concerned.

At least they were happy calibrating the guns and caused no problems that would generate paperwork for him… unless they either broke or made a significant upgrade on the targeting system. Then he would have the quartermaster on his ass or have to write a detailed memo to the brass so the upgrades could be spread through the Mako park.

A look around confirmed that Wrex was still sleeping and he looked comfortable too – something Shepard had a hard time wrapping his head around. He had to use similar crates as a makeshift bed twice and his back protested for a week afterwards on both occasions. Perhaps it was that infamous Krogan redundant physiology. The Commander shrugged and headed for main engineering to check on Chief Engineer Adams and Tali – as the most protected compartment in the ship, Shepard had little qualms in sticking their Quarian VIP in there. Besides in case of battle damage, she could be useful – she had to be considering what he knew about the Quarians. They learned how to fix up damaged ship with scrap and space-tape as soon as they learned to walk – it was either that or often dying when something critical failed. And as far as her learning secrets about the Normandy, especially her core… while a concern, he trusted Adams to keep his guest out of the really sensitive equipment and information.

Now it was time to see if Andams shared a similar sentiment.

"Commander!" The Chief Engineer greeted after he heard the armoured door open and glanced over his shoulder. He was at one of the monitoring stations of the Tantalus Core with Tali standing nearby simply staring at said device.

"Chief Engineer. I trust everything is all right?"

"I must say, for a prototype our girl handles great! We haven't had any issues since fixing that feedback loop from the heat-sinks. Just regular maintenance and equipment check to make sure we're in top shape when we hit Therum."

"I'm glad to hear it. I wasn't too happy when I learned her first trip was more than a regular shake-down cruise." Shepard confided.

"Me neither. Hell, Commander, if that feedback was a bit worse we would have had to cut off the stealth systems or cook while sneaking around the Geth on Eden Prime." Andams admitted.

Shepard winced. Heat management was always an issue on a ship. Too much heat and system performance progressively degraded until overhead, not to mention what happened to the crew. Too little and well, everyone could freeze. In fact heat management and charge build-up around the core were the two primary concerns governing ships endurance both in combat and in travel distance. Even a small frigate as the Normandy usually had enough fuel to reach farther than systems with planets that would allow discharge allowed, which in turn was what capped exploration and colonization to a relatively small sphere around the Relays. Looking at a map of the galaxy one might conclude that most of it was explored and controlled by the Citadel alliance and its associates when in fact… what was the number? Two or three percent of real estate was actually explored. That still made for a great deal of systems, habitable planets and sources of raw material. It just paled in comparison to the rest of the galaxy.

"I'm very glad you managed to fix it and I thank you for it, we all owe you one. If you need anything..."

"I'll hold you to that, Commander." Adams smiled. "Right now we're well stocked and have everything under control."

"No issues with your guest?"

"Tali?" Adams shook his head. "Nah, she's great. If I had a few more like her I could build you a bigger, better Normandy. She knows her way around an engine room."

"Carry on." Shepard said and went to join Tali in watching the large pulsing eezo sphere. She had been so absorbed in her vigil that he doubted she ever heard a word of his conversation with Adams.

"It's something else, isn't it?" Shepard asked.

"Ah! Shepard!" Tali jumped making him chuckle.

"Hey, calm down."

"It's great..." The Quarian trailed off. "I… with so much eezo you could have built a whole frigate pack!" Tali exclaimed. "And its so quiet..." She added quietly and looked at the deck.

"It's worth it. If it wasn't for it and the stealth systems, we wouldn't have made it past the Geth at Eden Prime."

"I can see how that can be useful… its just that the fleet has very different priorities."

"I understand." Shepard nodded. You didn't need an aerospace engineering degree to figure it out – it was no secret that the Quarians had trouble keeping their ships operational. Great many of them could spent months if not more in a dedicated dock and were in a need of a serious overhaul. An expense the Quarians simply couldn't afford – not when they had the largest fleet in the galaxy and the smallest population of any known species. "What was that about being too quiet?"

"Back home there was always some kind of noise – life support, gravity, something. If it got quiet, then something had gone terribly wrong and had to be fixed yesterday."

"Ah." That certainly wasn't his experience. While the SA's ships weren't the most advanced in the galaxy, with the Normandy being a notable exception, the in age, their fleet was the youngest with the only reason older ships were being decommissioned being that some of them were simply obsolete death-traps if they had to face anything but the oldest and worst maintained pirate raiders. That was a painful lesson that the navy learned above Elysium. The few newer ships on station survived the battle intact. Most of the system defence fleet made primary by old designs dating from before first contact, only one survived and that was the ship that saw most upgrades. So in contrast, as far as Shepard was concerned, silence aboard a ship meant everything worked; otherwise, there would be alarms screaming all over the place.

"Did you have time to compile what you know about recovering Geth data cores?" Shepard changed the topic.

"That? I got it done couple of hours ago. I would have come to you but Lieutenant Alenko told me you were sleeping." Tali bounced, eager to help and strike a blow against the Geth. She activated her omni-tool and looked at him. "I can send it to you now!" She chirped eagerly.

"That would be great. I can say that not only I but the Alliance too appreciates this gesture. Earlier, you said something about better equipment making the recovery easier?"

"I believe so." Tali nodded happily. "All I have right now is older model civilian omni-tool. With it cutting to the data-core, hacking into it and recovering the information was hard enough. I didn't have the time nor the resources to even try to prevent it from wiping itself out or physically self-destructing."

"So two or more people working together might have better luck?"

"Especially if they have deactivated Geth units to train on."

"That's a good idea." Shepard made a mental note to add that to his report after going over what Tali sent him. "How are you, really? The good Doctor gave you a clean bill of health, however as good as she is she hasn't have opportunity to practice on Quarians before."

"As well as could be expected after being shot with radioactive munitions. I'm practically swimming in immuno-boosters and antibiotics and so far the worst thing I've got is a fever. I got really lucky." Tali shuddered at that thought.

"I can assure you, Fists people won't trouble you again. C-SEC has him into custody and unless I've misread Vasir, once they have everything he knows, he'll be suffering an accident."

"So the Spectre can keep her good relationship with the Shadow Broker… That's not what most people expect from her kind or should I say, yours now. As a Quarian on the other hand, I can't say I'm really surprised. We don't have especially high opinion of the Council and those who work for them."

"I can't possibly comment."

Shepard left Tali to her vigil. A check with the VI showed that Alenko and most of the marines had went to sleep shortly before he got up, so they would be under for another four or five hours. While the pods could compress the need for sleep even further, that didn't mean it was a good idea if you had the option to get at least six hours of sleep – in fact using them that way was of a much greater benefit being the equivalent to up to twelve in the rack. That further helped people who found it hard to operate efficiently on four to six hours of shut-eye or less – something that was often required once the shit hit the fan. Shepard himself for example needed about eight hours, enough danger to nicely kick the adrenaline in or a lot of caffeine to feel alive if he had slept less than eight hours or so in a standard day. In that regard, the zombie-pods were godsend.

Now, what was next on his agenda? Check on Vasir and go over Tali's memo...