CHAPTER 33: Winner Takes It All

2185 CE

Shepard took me on the team for the mine.

I didn't complain. Mines may not be in my top ten destinations to fight through, but as long as they were filled with Batarians instead of husks they were easily in the top twenty.

Kaidan obviously headed in with us as well.

'You know, Rahna's probably going to hate me for this. After BAaT she told me that killing my problems didn't fix them.' Kaidan admitted.

'Even when you solve do manage to solve a problem through killing, it usually creates new ones to replace it. Of course, sometimes that's unavoidable.' I replied.

'You know, after BAaT got closed down because of what I did, my father told me that even right choices have consequences.' Kaidan offered.

'Sounds like a smart man.' Shepard remarked.

'Yeah. He really was.' Kaidan smiled.

The outside of the mine was loosely guarded. We took them down with minimal fuss and some clever teamwork. Most of which defaulted to Kaidan pulling enemies out of cover and Shepard using her biotics to slam into them at high speed like the Krogan that Wrex is absolutely certain that she really is inside that Human exterior.

Seeing a discarded pad, Shepard picked it up and read us the log.

'I can't believe I'm stuck on guard duty. This one promises to be a great execution. Humans really scream when they're being boiled alive. This one's being tried as a terrorist, but I heard the Governor's daughter's just weak. She injured herself playing around with biotics and the governor just wants someone to blame. Everyone knows he's the one to blame buying a human to teach his kid. What a massive cheapskate. Everyone knows Asari are the way to go.'

We continued on. Kaidan was boiling with an almost Krogan amount of rage. He's come a long way since that wishy-washy kid I met on the Normandy. I'm actually kind of proud. This mission; spying on the Commander for Alliance command, I mean, it's been good for him.

The tunnels were sharp and twisty. Luckily, there were clearly marked signs on the way to the execution pool.

After one particularly open chamber full of both chest high rocks and angry Batarians, I pointed to a sign that indicated a jail.

'We should check that out. Maybe whoever's in there can help?' I suggested.

Shepard nodded, but Kaidan didn't want to wait.

'They're executing her now, Shepard!' He protested.

'You go on ahead. I'll pull a jail break and catch up.' I decided, shortcutting the usual Sophie's choice on these sorts of missions.

Shepard nodded and was off.

I headed over to the jail and was surprised to see a Batarian child inside it. Likely a female, from the way she smells. Batarians are interesting. Their sexes aren't sexually dimorphic. They don't have breasts or hips like humans. They don't have different crests like Krogan, either. They're much more like the Elcor in that sense. Their voices are basically identical in range to the human ear too. There are differences of course, but you really have to be a Batarian to point them out. And, much like the Elcor, the easiest way to tell what sex a Batarian is is by scent.

'What are you doing in there?' I ask the child.

'You aren't one of the guards.' She observed.

'I killed them.' I replied.

'Are you here to rescue me?' the girl asked.

'That depends on why you're in there.' I admitted.

The child paused, thinking.

'I wanted to stop an execution.' She admitted.

'Whose?' I ask, curious.

'Rahna's. She was my teacher. I was practicing my biotics without her. Showing off for a friend. I tried to jump over the walled fence around our garden with my biotics, but I overestimated how much force I needed. I jumped too high and broke my leg landing. My friend told his mom and now my dad is going to execute Rahna to save face. He claims she's a terrorist that deliberately mistaught me, but it was my fault; not hers!' The girl wailed.

'What's your name?'

'Jella Balak.' She admitted.

'It's your lucky day then. We're here to rescue Rahna and kidnap you.' I say, gently smashing the lock off of the cage and opening it.

'Stay behind me and keep quiet. Rahna's my priority. If you do something stupid, I can't keep you safe.' I explained.

The girl nodded, following quickly after me as I ran to catch up with my team.

I caught them just after they breached the pool room. The fight was already happening. I heard it and made the girl wait outside. Batarian corpses littered the room as I entered. There were stone seats arranged in an almost amphitheater-like design, and at the focus of the seats? The pool. Rahna was trapped. Her wrists were tied above her head to a chain that was slowly lowering her towards the pool. she still had about half a meter left to go, but Kaidan hadn't made it to the controls of the crane the chain was attached to.

I lowered my head, activated my fortification program, and charged, setting my shoulder like an American football player and bowling over Batarians left and right till I managed to clear a path for Kaidan to the machine.

He leaped at it and stopped the crane with about half a meter to spare, and then worked to move the crane over something much safer for a human than a boiling sulfuric hot spring, such as literally anything else.

It wasn't too long before everyone else in the room other than Rahna, Shepard, Kaidan and me was a corpse.

Kaidan lowered Rahna onto one of the benches and untied her, but before he could greet her she was tackle-hugged by a ballistic Batarian child.

'Rahna! You're alive! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! This is all my fault! I never should have done it! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!' The kid wept.

'It's not your fault Jella.' Rahna comforted her.

Shepard, perhaps sensing that it might be a bad thing to keep a kid in a room full of messily executed Batarian nobility, including what was probably her own father (though I doubt Shepard realized that), hustled both females out of the room and into the hallway where the messily executed Batarians were all lower caste than the ones inside. Probably a good idea to get her off the live vid stream too.

'You ready to give your heroic speech, Shepard?' I asked, nodding at the camera.

'You're late Krell, I gave it before I started shooting.' Shepard replied.

Kaidan was staring at his former friend wistfully. I don't know what he expected. A romantic profession of love? Right before he went off on a suicide mission?

This was a better outcome.

'Mind if I say something for the Krogan?' I asked.

'Go right ahead. We're still live as far as I'm aware.' Shepard agreed.

I turned to the vid-drone.

'And lo, the endless hordes abound; he faced the foe with rocky mein,

He could not win the Rachni's ground. He stared at death, his grace serene.

They found him there. He did not flee. His former krantt, their lives he bought

A price paid dear. His gun spit glee; confronting that which can't be fought.

There is no monument for him. There is no grave to mark his name.

His krantt survived, though duly grim. He fought a foe he could not tame.'

'That's nice. Who wrote it?' Kaidan asked.

'Just some old, Krogan poet. It's from a book called 'On Loss'. I can get you a copy if you want.' I offered.

'Yeah. that sounds nice, actually.' Kaidan admitted.

'Ready to kick this slave rebellion into high gear?' I asked Shepard.

'Always.' Shepard replied.

2185 CE

I learned just what sort of speech Shepard made as we rode our shuttle to the control tower. They recognized her immediately as the Butcher of Torfan and told her to surrender.

'You're gonna be a Batarian boogeyman in a thousand years Shepard. Honestly, you may not even have to wait that long. 'The only thing slaving scum has a right to is four bullets, one for each eye.' Heh. That is a pretty powerful statement of intent, right there.' I admitted after hearing what she told them in response.

'I meant every last word of it.' Shepard admitted.

Rahna and Jella were safe in STG care. Important when your next destination is a warzone, followed by a Geth space station and a suicide mission. The Salarians would get them off planet and back to Earth. Technically speaking Bella was probably next in line as governor of the planet, assuming she didn't have any siblings; but with the threat of a kinetic kill vehicle hanging over the planet's head even STG weren't interested in installing her as a puppet government.

The ride itself was fairly short, and it didn't take all that long before we arrived.

2185 CE

The control tower was a walled and fortified outpost. There were already slaves attacking the gates.

'Bring us in for a landing outside, Grunt. Don't want to trigger any anti-air defenses.' Shepard ordered.

'Wait a sec.' I interrupted.

'Shepard, you're overestimating them. You fought Batarian pirates in their base. Bases like that are meant to allow them to withstand attacks from colonial defense forces trying to retrieve slaves before they're sold. This isn't that kind of base. Take a look. What do you notice.' I pointed out.

'There aren't any anti-air defenses?' Kaidan realized.

'Why would there be? This isn't a pirate base. It's a Batarian Colony. They don't need to worry about slavers attacking it, and if a governmental force attacks they're going to start a war. Anyone else attacking it is improbable. They only need to defend against one threat, Slave rebellions. And slaves don't generally don't have air superiority. Especially not if they need to assault the slave control towers.' I explained.

'And this is an armed shuttle' Shepard realized with a grin.

No one corrected her. It was, after all, true.

'New plan! Strafe the courtyard, knock down the gates and bring us in for a landing.' Shepard ordered.

'Aye Aye.' Our pilot saluted.

The ensuing carnage was very much to Shepard's taste as the guns tore through the ranks of the defending Batarians as well as the gates.

As we came in for a landing, we were suddenly at the head of an army of angry slaves.

'Freedom is the right of Every Sentient! KILL THE SLAVERS!' I roared, charging the tower.

Have you ever been at the head of an army, leading a charge? The feeling is indescribable but I'll try and explain it anyway. The army behind you is more than just a mass of people, it's a wave, it's a physical force that is there behind you, pushing you forward and stripping you of your fear. There's an emotional part of it, you see. The roar of the mob, the sight of the foe in front of you, the knowledge that whatever happens, you will not lose. The certainty that you will tear apart anyone foolish enough to oppose you; it's more intoxicating than even the most powerful of drugs.

We crashed into the guards, and the door, and the stairs. The tower had been built with a spiral staircase, to foil just what we were doing right know. But I knew something that the people who built this tower didn't. I was a mass effect researcher for over a thousand years; and if you gave me some Eezo, a box of scraps and a few weeks?

I could build a jetpack.

"Fuck YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!" I screamed as I activated the jump jet I'd attached to my armor, carrying Shepard and Alenko, one under each of my arms.

We flew upwards like goddamn fucking superheroes to the top of the stairs and as I held the line against the reinforcements pressing down on us from above, Kaidan and Shepard fought downwards, with all the advantages defenders were supposed to have, pincering the slavers in one glorious skirmish and tossing them into the air with their biotics to clear a path for our unruly mob.

My suit recorder was on of course. Normally it's a bad idea to film yourself and your friends as you singlehandedly invade a sovereign nation and incite a slave revolt; but the Batarians would be gone as a collective government in six months anyway, and there was no way I was missing sending this to Wrex.

Especially the carnage as one of Kaidan's pulls wore off and sent a fully armored Batarian falling into an angry slave-filled mosh pit of murder.

'How's it feel leading a slave revolt, Kaidan!' I roared as he caught up with me. His face was newly painted with the red Batarian blood of his foes.

'Damn good, old man!' Kaidan roared back as we fought our way into the room above, our army following behind us and killing all the prior residents.

As he tore our foes from behind cover and threw them into the walls I could see in Kaidan the mein of a berserker of old; a man so fueled by rage and subsumed by the fight that nothing could pull him out of it. It was the blood rage. Maybe not the same mechanism, but somehow the same result.

I laughed. People doubted me when I said Humans were the most Krogan-like race into the galaxy, but if you strip away the formalities, the politeness, and the restraint, there was very little different between us save evolution.

The room was full of electronics. I had no idea how any of it worked and there was no button I could find that was clearly labeled 'press here to free all slaves.'

The solution was obvious.

'BREAK IT ALL!' I commanded, and the makeshift army of the downtrodden that we had collected obeyed with the fervor of zealots.

Soon, Jondum Bau's voice echoed over Shepard's radio. 'That's it! The control chips are deactivated! We can take it from here, Shepard!'

I looked over at the stairs. The now-former-slaves were clogging it up. I shot out the window, grabbed Shepard and Alenko, and jumped out to the court yard.

'WE HAVE WON THIS BATTLE! THE CONTROL CHIPS ARE DEACTIVATED! BUT WE HAVE NOT WON THE WAR! STORM THE BASES! THE POLICE STATIONS! THE SLAVECATCHER PENS! STORM THE VARREN KENNELS! THE FACTORIES! KILL THE SLAVERS! THEY THOUGHT TO WORK YOU FOR NOTHING! NOW IT'S TIME TO MAKE THEM PAY!' I roared as we descended.

A cheer went up among the crowd and they dashed off to do my bidding, leading up straight towards our Shuttle.

'GO NOW! TO VICTORY!' I roared as we boarded the shuttle. The crowd roared back its approval in one voice but a thousand tongues.

Our part here was over. Jondum Bau would have to manage the rest.

2185 CE

'So, how are you doing, John Brown?' I asked Kaidan when we got back to the Normandy.

'I can't believe I led a slave revolt.' Kaidan muttered.

'Yeah... an active-duty Alliance officer, a dead SPECTRE, and a deposed Krogan warlord led a televised slave revolt, and a week or two later the solar system was wiped from existence. You might be in a bit of trouble with Alliance military command when we get back.' I admitted. The system hadn't been wiped from existence yet of course. Shepard hadn't gotten the head's up about Amanda Kenson yet, and the Salarians needed time to evacuate.

'Oh my god, what have I done?' Kaidan lamented.

'Well, you broke any plausible sense of disbelief that you were actually undercover, for one thing. But other than that, nothing particularly objectionable. Nowhere near as many murders as Shepard's gonna commit.' I explained.

'That makes it worse. You can see how that makes it worse, can't you?' Kaidan moaned.

'Buck up! I caught it all on film so if you ever want to date a Krogan you can show them you're a real man!' I confessed.

'What! I don't know which ones we did, but we definitely just committed some war crimes! Why did you film us committing war crimes, Krell!?' Kaidan squawked.

'You were the one who decided to do your assassination over a live studio broadcast, Kaidan. You don't get to go blaming this idea on me.' I pointed out.

Kaidan's only reaction was to moan even louder.

'So, apropos of nothing, would you say you're feeling completely loyal to Shepard and ready for our suicide mission now?' I asked.

Kaidan stared at me with hatred in his eyes before giving it up as a lost cause and chuckling.

'Yeah, you know? I absolutely could go for a nice suicide mission right now.'

Author's Notes: This chapter's title brought to you by Sammy Hagar (not ABBA). It is, as I mentioned earlier, a song about arm wrestling. It also perfectly fits the tone I wanted for this chapter.

There are three origins for Commander Shepard in the games that are possible: Ruthless, Sole Survivor, and War Hero. All three origins are taken by different characters in this story, more or less. Shepard, as previously mentioned is the Ruthless Butcher of Torfan. Krell (thanks to Blue Oyster Cult) is the Sole Survivor.

So who is the War hero then? In canon, the War Hero is a Shepard who, against Impossible odds rallies an army and defeats Batarian slavers.

The Webcomic Darths and Droids does something I've admired for around a decade, if not more. The deliberately set out to subvert expectations about characters. They make you love Jar Jar. They make R2-D2 into an annoying minmaxer whose only focus is giant space battles. It's really really cool, and they put a lot of set up into doing it and making sure it lands right.

Kaidan Alenko is the most hated companion in Mass Effect. He's considered an unlikeable whiner. Most people leave him to die on Virmire. That's fine; but this entire fanfic is a writing exercise to stretch myself and see if I can do things at a high level of skin in terms of writing. Stuff like taking over 100,000 words to set up a brick joke on academic citation and use it in a way to plug up a glaring plot hole in a way that both lands well, cracks up the audience, and serves the dual purposes in story of explaining why the plot hole isn't one, and also showing that the main character isn't all powerful, that he fails as much as he succeeds.

I want to take on challenges in this story, it is my hope that the problem with Kaidan Alenko isn't inherent to his character but rather it's that he (like Ashley) just has not had the proper time he needs to shine.

In short, I want you to introduce you to this story's Kaidan Alenko. The War Hero.