A/N: First of all I want to thank SerenityFalconNormandy, Kirabaros, ela11, Impslave, Vorcha Girl and jediserenity82 for your reviews on the last chapter and welcome new followers. A huge Thank You goes out to Vorcha Girl for being my beta reader; I'm not sure what I'd do without you - have a shitload of punctuation mistakes and typos probably.
This chapter is NSFW towards the end. Enjoy!
Chapter 44. Project Rho
"Goddammit, Kenson!" Nick growled, briefly closing her eyes in annoyance. She should have known things would go south. She should have suspected something.
Fuck.
The pressure of the pistol vanished as the indoctrinated doctor backed up a few steps. Nick turned her head a fraction and stared into the muzzle of the heavy pistol being used to keep her at bay. She bared her teeth, a deep, almost animalistic growl reverberating through her as she slowly stood up. She didn't pay attention to the pistol, but kept her eyes fixed on the scientist.
The sound of running boots drew steadily closer, and Kenson looked away briefly. That was all Nick needed. She lunged forward, and disarmed the other woman. Guards swarmed into the room, and Nick threw herself into cover as they opened fire, casting a quick look at Dr. Kenson's fleeing form before dealing with the guards attacking her.
She swore under her breath as she aimed at the first guard and fired. Nick swung around, targeting the next hostile while her mind registered at least four more getting in position. She dropped back into cover and pulled a grenade from her belt, weighing it in her hand for a moment while her mind brought up memories of Kaidan's impeccable aim when it came to tossing grenades.
Kaidan, I wish you were here. I could use your tech and your biotics right about now. These fucking idiotic scientists thought they were so smart and got themselves indoctrinated.
She lobbed the primed grenade toward the far end of the room and hoped her aim was true, very aware that she didn't just miss him because of his biotics and tech abilities. Dashing from her cover, she vaulted over a half wall and set up a new position. The door at the far end opened again, and more guards rushed in. Nick drew a deep breath, steeling herself for the impending firefight.
With a grim expression, she picked her next target and saw something sailing toward her out of the corner of her eye. Swearing profusely, she quickly ducked, but she had noticed the flash-bang grenade a second too late. Lights danced before her eyes as she squeezed them shut, waiting for the effect of the grenade to pass.
"Commander Shepard, lay down your weapons. We don't want to hurt you," Dr. Kenson's voice came from a loudspeaker.
"Your galaxy is in sight. Your final days are at hand," another voice chimed in, coming from Object Rho. It sounded exactly like Harbinger. "The end of your species will come."
"In your fucking dreams," Nick snarled, aiming at another engineer and firing.
After fighting through several waves of hostiles she suddenly made out the characteristic clank of metal on metal announcing a heavy mech.
"Fucking hell," she muttered. Nick swapped weapons and focused on bringing down the Ymir mech before dealing with the remaining guards. She was so caught up fighting for her life that she barely registered Dr. Kenson's words droning over the speakers, " … have faith in the artifact. It'll be over soon."
"You shall be the first to witness our arrival," Harbinger's voice added.
Nick strained her ears after she had dispatched the last guard, listening for more hostiles, but all was silent. She checked her surroundings once again and straightened up cautiously before running towards the nearest exit. She wanted to get out of this room and away from this artifact quickly. The confidence in Dr. Kenson's voice and the triumph radiating from Object Rho provoking a sense of haste deep in her.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of blue light emanate from the Prothean artifact. It flooded the room, washing over her before she had taken another step, and all went black.
Voices drifted slowly to Nick's awareness and a bitter, metallic taste filled her mouth. Something about this felt oddly familiar. Memories of waking up on Lazarus Station slithered through her mind and slowly changed into Dr. Kenson bending over her with oddly glowing eyes while her brain processed the snippets of dialogue drifting over to her.
"There must be a glitch in the system," an unknown female voice said. "According to the readings, Shepard is waking up."
Nick opened her eyes, her vision blurred, and a wave of nausea swept over her as she slowly turned her head towards the voice. She closed her eyes again as her stomach rolled unpleasantly; had she been sedated? It would explain why she felt like shit; she never handled sedatives well.
"Keep her under at all costs. We don't want Shepard waking up before the arrival," Kenson's voice came over the comm system, and the last tidbits snapped into place in Shepard's mind.
Reaper artifact. Arrival. Indoctrination.
Get up!
Nick suppressed a groan, and, taking a deep breath, swung her legs off the cot. She glanced up to see a scientist looking at her in horror. The woman backed away slowly. "The sedatives aren't working! Security!"
Reflexes took over as Nick took out the security personnel in a few movements only to find the exit barred by a containment shield. She glared at the scientist in the other room, and began inspecting every console for an override. She found a research log entry stated she had been constantly sedated for two days, and each time they'd given her a higher dosage.
"Fucking bastards," Nick swore. Two days. Two fucking days. The countdown to the Reaper arrival had shown just over two days left, and she had been kept out of action the whole time. A shiver ran down her spine. She had to finish the original project objective and destroy the relay within the next two hours, or they were in deep shit.
She found an override, recovered her gear and moved along quickly; there was no time for stealth. With her shotgun at the ready she pushed deeper into the facility, trying to get to project control. Rage drove her forward. Rage at Kenson for getting indoctrinated, rage at the guards for standing in her way, rage at the Reapers.
Zaeed was right, she thought as she stabbed a guard with her omniblade; rage was one hell of an anaesthetic.
Her lip curled to a snarl as she engaged the next hostiles. There seemed to be no end of passages and guards, but she pushed forward. Not that she had much of a choice; this was do or die, and she'd rather die trying to hold off a Reaper invasion than sit back and watch it happen. With a shake of her head she chased away any thought of dying and focused on her objective.
It took longer than Nick had anticipated to reach the main control panel. Breathing hard, she leaned on the console and cast a quick look at the countdown for the Reaper Arrival. She activated the terminal.
"Welcome to Project Control," a VI said.
"I want to activate the project," Nick stated firmly.
"Warning!" the VI chimed. "Activating the project will result in an estimate of three hundred and five thousand casualties. Do you wish to continue?"
Nick stared at the number on the display and took a deep breath. 304 942 estimated casualties.
304 942.
The number burned itself into her mind. She stepped forward and pressed the activation button. Balling her hands to fists she watched the controls light up; there was no other choice.
"Project activation in progress. Warning. Collision with the mass relay is imminent. Begin evacuation procedures."
After hesitating a mere moment Nick opened a comm channel to send a warning to the colonies on Aratoht, but she knew it was more to calm her conscience. They had less than two hours - that wasn't much advance warning time. But before she a chance to issue the warning Dr. Kenson interrupted her.
"You leave me no choice. If we can't stop the asteroid, then we have to destroy it!" the other woman droned.
"Shit!" Nick groaned. This was getting worse by the minute. "VI, where can I find Dr. Kenson?"
"Dr. Kenson is traveling to the reactor core module," the VI answered.
"Show me the map!" Nick ordered, clenching her fists. She caught Kenson mentioning a core overload with half an ear as she memorized the shortest route. Thankfully the core module wasn't far. Renewed anger welled up in her and she gripped her shotgun tightly as she set off.
She was going to kill this woman.
Nick leaned against the bulkhead of the helm briefly. Everything ached; her head throbbed, her legs shook.
"Get us out of here!" she ordered sharply as she stepped behind Joker and watched the approaching relay.
"This is getting to be a bad habit of yours," her helmsman said, looking briefly at her over his shoulder. "If you have to blow things up, can you give us a little more warning time?"
"I've had a really shitty day," Nick snapped. The last thing she wanted to hear now were jokes from her snarky helmsman. She clenched her teeth and hissed, "First I wake up after being sedated by an indoctrinated scientist for two days, then I have to fight my way through a shitload of guards, activate a project to destroy a mass relay and the whole fucking system it's in including 304 942 more or less innocents on Aratoht, shoot said scientist who also happens to be a friend of Hackett's so she doesn't blow everything up, almost get blown up because she still manages to push the fucking trigger button of a detonator, and finally fight my way to the comm towers so I could radio you to pick me up, only to end up having to listen to Harbinger too! I'm in no fucking mood for any of your smartass comments. Just get us the fuck through this relay!" She all but shouted the last sentence.
Joker remained silent, his hands flying over the controls.
"We're through." He looked back over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. "Shepard, you should let the doc look you over. You're bleeding all over the place."
Glancing down, she saw a gash in her armor and winced. The armor was trash; there was more than one hole in it. Blood dripped onto her gauntlet and she reached up to touch her face. Her fingertips were red with blood when she pulled them away.
"Fucking great. If anybody needs me, I'm down in the medbay," Nick let him know and trudged slowly towards the CIC. She suppressed a groan. Every fiber in her body protested when she moved.
"The Alpha relay just vanished from the map!" Joker called to her before she had reached the elevator. Nick closed her eyes briefly. She wanted a stiff drink. No. Not one. She wanted to drink until she forgot about this clusterfuck.
"Clusterfuck" isn't strong enough, she thought as the elevator took her down to the crew deck and she walked slowly towards the medbay.
"Shepard," Dr. Chakwas greeted her, "this is a surprise. Usually somebody has to drag you here. You can sit on that cot." The doctor pointed to the hospital bed at the far end of the medbay and continued pulling items out of different drawers. "I'm glad to see you, though."
Nick scraped the toe of her boot over the floor as she sat down. "Yeah, I know. My hardsuit's internal surveillance system must be malfunctioning because it didn't administer any medigel."
The doctor gave her a look. "You have single medigel pouches, Shepard. You can use those. That's what they're there for, as you well know. Especially if you don't have a medic along."
"I was too busy fighting," Nick answered with a shrug.
Dr. Chakwas gave her a look and shook her head as she ran her omnitool along the commander's body. "Well, you were lucky. Some of these injuries would have been much more problematic if they had been a centimeter or two to one side or the other. Your cybernetics also helped, so it's nothing medigel and rest won't take care of." She closed her omnitool. "Go and rest, Commander. I want you to come in again tomorrow morning for a check-up."
Nick simply nodded and headed to her cabin. Getting some rest, and a shower, sounded great, but first she had to write her report for Hackett. She stepped inside with a sigh and sat down at her desk, her eyes lingering on Kaidan's holo. She traced her fingers along his jawline, wishing it weren't only a hologram.
"Fuck," she muttered rubbing her hands over her face. She would try to contact Kaidan after finishing her report. This was too important to put off.
A short while later she had sent both her report to Hackett and tried to contact Kaidan. With a sigh she got up and undressed before stepping into the shower. Nick closed her eyes, letting the water cascade over her head, and slowly rolled her shoulders. Her muscles felt heavy as the adrenaline surge finally subceded, and weariness crept through her limbs. She needed sleep, badly. Drowsiness began to overwhelm her. She turned off the water, wrapped herself in a towel, and stumbled to her bed.
The next morning Nick felt stiff and sore. Groaning, she got up and checked her messages hoping to find an answer from Kaidan before dragging herself down to the medbay, but the last message from him had arrived while she'd still been on Aratoht.
"Looking forward to seeing you, too. Stay safe. Kaidan."
She cast a quick glance at the mirror. Angry red scars crossed her cheeks and forehead, and a reddish glow shone in the depths of her eyes. She scowled at her reflection, wondering again if she shouldn't have taken up the offer to have the scars removed.
"Good morning, Commander," the doctor greeted her a few minutes later. "How are you feeling?"
"Like shit," Nick admitted, sitting down while Dr. Chakwas ran her examinations. Her thoughts returned to her empty inbox. Maybe Kaidan just hadn't read her email yet, but the lack of response grated on her nerves.
"Admiral Hackett is requesting permission to board," Joker's voice came over the intercom.
Nick looked up in surprise. "Permission granted." Then, quietly, as though to herself, "That went quick."
A few minutes later the bulkhead opened and the admiral stepped into the medbay just as the Normandy's physician closed her omnitool and signaled Shepard they were finished.
Steven Hackett looked worried as he approached them. "Seems like you've had a rough time," he said by way of greeting. Nick grunted in response, waiting for Hackett to continue. "I thought it to be best if I came out to debrief you in person since I sent you on this mission, but why the hell did you destroy the mass relay?"
"What I said my bloody report!" Nick lashed out, her temper flaring as she jumped to her feet. The admiral said nothing. "Your friend and her team discovered a Reaper artifact, learned that the Reapers planned on using the Alpha relay as a gateway into our galaxy, and developed a plan to destroy the relay. Most importantly though they managed to get indoctrinated because they had the fucking thing sitting out in the open instead of in a goddamn containment field," she growled, pacing back and forth. She stopped and faced Hackett. "If I had had back up we might have been able to warn the colonists!"
Hackett sighed. "But you didn't, and I'm sorry about that. We couldn't know what would happen. Now over three hundred thousand batarians are dead and the Hierarchy wants your head." He held up his hand, beckoning her to hold back her comments. Shepard glared at him, but remained silent. "They don't have much to hold against you, but there's just enough for a witch hunt, and they want you on trial yesterday."
"I didn't do anything wrong. I bought billions, no, trillions of lives time to prepare against the Reapers!" Nick's voice rose with indignation. She couldn't believe it. "Fuckers," she muttered.
"You're preaching to the choir, Veronika." The admiral gave her a sympathetic look. "I fully agree with your decision, but it would be best to turn yourself in to the Alliance. You'd be put under house arrest, but also under Alliance protection. We've even found a bodyguard for you."
A bodyguard?
"Do I know him?" she asked casually, glancing down at her fingernails.
"No."
The Citadel tower library was cool and dim compared to the noise of the charity ball they were escaping. The door closed behind them, muffling the sound of music and conversations.
They glanced at each other, and, as if by a secret signal, their lips crashed together in a lust-fueled kiss. His hands roamed eagerly down Nick's back to cup her ass, pressing her closer against him. She moaned softly, parting her lips and inviting him to deepen the kiss. His tongue slid over hers, tasting lime, and rum, and a hint of cinnamon.
This is madness, he thought for a moment as she fumbled with his belt, but the feeling of her hand dipping under the waistband of his skivvies and closing around his growing erection chased every clear thought out of his mind. His hands slipped under her skirt, hitching it further up, and he reveled in the feel of her soft skin as she hooked a leg around him.
With a low growl he hoisted her up. Her legs wrapped around his waist, her heels digging into his back, her arms now around his neck as she pressed herself against him. They kissed as he carried her to a table, tongues dancing around each other teasingly. He set her down, and stepped back to admire at her. Bewitched he watched as she began unbuttoning the blouse of her dress uniform, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, eyes glittering in the dim light falling through the windows.
He gently pushed her hands away, undoing the last buttons himself. His heart thudded hard in his chest at the heated look in her eyes. She was so beautiful. He brushed her shirt aside and ran his thumbs over the delicate lacy bra that emphasized her full breasts in the most wonderful way, causing her nipples to pebble.
"Kaidan," she breathed, his name a prayer on her lips as he gently bit down on a rosy bud through the lace and swirled his tongue around it ...
A loud knock jolted Kaidan rudely to reality. Momentarily disoriented he looked around, his heart still racing in his chest.
"Kaidan," his sister's voice rang through the door, "you might want to get up and see the news."
He groaned, a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment running through him, very aware of how aroused he was as the last remnant of the dream faded away. Ever since Horizon these vivid dreams had returned, making him simultaneously dread and welcome sleep, and this had been one hell of a memory. It had seemed so real. Rubbing both hands over his face he lay gazing up at the ceiling while he waited for his arousal to subside while memories flashed through his mind. He could nearly taste her kiss, he remembered running his hands to the apex of her thighs, he remembered how ready she had been for him.
Stop it, he chastised himself.
He still couldn't believe they'd had sex during a charity ball hosted by both the Alliance brass and the Council; it had been madness.
God, he missed Nick. He was sick of only talking to her via vid screen. He finally wanted to see her again, and maybe get a chance to hold her again.
"Give me a moment," he answered, his voice rough with sleep. A glance at his alarm clock told him he had almost an hour before he had to get up and prepare to leave for his next assignment after spending two days in Vancouver. He laid back for a moment and sighed. Whatever had happened must be important, Erin wouldn't have bothered him otherwise, but it would have been nice to see how long the dream went on.
He dressed and went down to the kitchen. His niece was sitting at the counter eating cereal, swinging her legs back and forth as she looked at a comic, oblivious of her surroundings.
"Morning, Lena-bug," he said, ruffling her hair as he passed her to grab some coffee. The young girl waved a hand at him, her eyes glued on the comic laying next to her bowl. He chuckled; he couldn't blame her, he would've done the same thing at her age.
Sipping his coffee he joined his sister in the living room.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Thought you'd want to see this," Erin replied, jutting her chin towards the vid screen. He turned, ready to take another swallow of coffee, and slowly lowered the mug again, his eyes widening as he read the headlines.
"Breaking News: Alpha relay destroyed - Over three hundred thousand batarians perish in destruction of the Bahak system - Commander Shepard accused of attempted genocide by the batarian Hegemony - Hero of the Blitz and Savior of the Citadel to be court-martialed in Vancouver - more on the morning news …"
What the hell had happened?
Kaidan glanced at his sister, aware she was watching him closely, and opened his omni'tool. To his surprise he had a new message from Nick in his inbox. He'd missed it the previous evening.
"Kaidan," he read. "Mission went FUBAR, but I'm fine all things considered. Was supposed to rescue a friend of Hackett's and she turned out to be indoctrinated. I'll tell you more when I see you. No idea how big the following shitstorm is going to be. I'll get in touch as soon as I know what's going to happen next. Hope to see you soon. Nick."
Lifting his head he looked back at the vid screen, and reached for the control. He changed the channel. Everywhere the same news was running. Nick was right, "shitstorm" seemed to be about the size of it. He turned on the sound.
"... Shepard has handed herself over to the Alliance. She's expected to arrive in Vancouver in two days time where she will be incarcerated and court-martialed," the news speaker said.
Kaidan sighed inwardly. Of course he was shipping out again that afternoon. What was it going to take so they could just have that dinner together that he'd promised her?
A/N: I apologize for the weak combat description, but I hope you still enjoyed it! Reviews are always welcome :)