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This, Alliance N7 and spectre-candidate-in-training Commander Shepard thought, was shaping up to be a real disaster.
She was standing at attention, watching her new instructor closely, all the while hating politics with a rare passion. The Citadel council had, finally, admitted her as the first human for Spectre training, against considerable resistance from representatives of the other races, some of them rather outspoken. It was as much an honour for her as an acknowledgement of the status of her species in the general galactic community, but Shepard was more and more convinced that it was a setup, really, that she was intended to fail. She was a pawn in a complicated game of politics, and something that should have been simply about a judgement of her own ability and training had become a complicated mess with too many variables unknown to her. Only the outcome was fixed, and it was to be failure.
And to accomplish this, she had been paired up with the one Spectre who could be counted upon to do his damned best to make sure she'd never make it through training. Of course he also happened to be the best, which made a perfect reasonable excuse, but the fact remained that Saren Arterius hated humans and everything to do with them. He'd never even bothered to hide that fact.
Shepard wasn't sure what exactly had triggered his extreme prejudice, but even without that context it was clear enough that he wouldn't even give her a chance.
As for her, the fact that her instructor was to be an alien of a species they technically had been at war with some years back didn't bother her. She'd always been able to keep at least a professional working relationship with anyone she'd needed to in the course of her own career, and she prided herself on that. Too bad the Spectre likely wouldn't be extending her the same courtesy.
Shepard regarded Saren critically; Even discounting the fact that all turians could look quite int imitating at first glance, especially if one wasn't used to them, this one was definitely creepy, with that strangely pale face, cybernetic blue eyes and the general stance and impression of a permanently irritated velociraptor. Turians were hard to read as it were with their immovable plated faces, but this one was even worse due to the fact that his mandibles were fixed to his jaw with metal rods, giving them very limited mobility, and therefore expression, and adding to his image of something one thought twice to cross. It was very effective, she had to admit.
Right now, his mood was rather easy to determine, however, given that he was regarding her with about as much enthusiasm as he would have displayed when faced with something slimy stuck to his boot that clung despite repeated scraping.
"Just to make this clear from the beginning," he hissed, "this assignment was given to me despite of my objections. Rather outspoken objections, I might add." His voice turned even colder. "Your species is new to the galactic community, and pushing for too much far too soon."
Shepard was careful to show no reaction at this, because she couldn't completely fault him for this view. In all fairness, the human ambassador had been pushing, and pushing hard.
"Humanity needs to learn its place before your sort can hope to be accepted as a responsible member of the community." He stepped closer, examining her without giving anything away. "If you have any kind of sense or respect, you will resign and end this charade right now."
She gritted her teeth but remained silent, not for fear of antagonise him - she frankly doubted she even could antagonise him any further if she tried - but she had to remain professional.
Saren snorted. "No sense, then. As if that were any sort of surprise. Very well, then." He turned from her, then suddenly snapped back, bending slightly to meet her eyes levelly. "Maybe you need to learn your place too, and if so, you can rest assured that I will be prepared to do the teaching."
Shepard didn't flinch back, although it was something of an effort. After all, she would be damned before she'd let herself be scared off by a spiky alien with a bad temper.
Saren studied her for a second longer, then, seemingly having lost interest, he stepped back. "I will depart the Citadel tomorrow at 0700. Until then, keep out of my sight."
With that, he simply turned away and stalked off, leaving her to contemplate his receding back. Shepard cursed under her breath, sourly noting that he hadn't even told her which ship he was travelling on or where they would be going.
Yes, we're off to a really good start here, she thought bitterly.
Then again, she'd had made it through N7 training. Whatever he could come up with and throw at her, she probably had lived through it before, and would do so again. She might be set up for failure, but she sure as hell wasn't going to go down without fighting. From what she had read between the lines at her own mission briefing, they didn't have much hope for her success either, which meant that basically she was on her own.
So be it. She'd show them all. Straightening her shoulders in resolve, she set out to first locate a terminal to try and figure out their means of travel. Then, she'd need to pack.
I really am in hell. There's absolutely no doubt about that.
Shepard's armoured boots caught on the uneven ground, and she stumbled slightly before catching herself. She was certain it hadn't been very noticeable, but even so, the Spectre half a step ahead of her looked back over his shoulder and threw her a look of contempt, before turning his head again and continuing forward.
By now she was so used to his behaviour that she barely noticed it anymore. Why exactly they were out in the cold rain-forest on a nameless planet out in an unimportant system in the 'Verge she still didn't know, and Saren so far had ignored her questions as to what he hoped to find here. They had been journeying on foot for hours now, through terrain that was completely unfamiliar to her. At least Saren seemed to know where he was going; from time to time he checked direction with his omnitool, but apart from that he kept his own counsel.
Shepard's armour didn't really keep the fine rain out; if she'd known beforehand, maybe she could have gotten a proper env suit upgrade. The turian, of course, didn't even seem to feel the rain although he kept his head bare of any helmet, and what was visible of his plates and skin was shiny with rain.
She threw the back of his head an angry glare and really hoped that he'd catch whatever the turian equivalent of a cold was. It might be petty of her, but so far he hadn't exactly invited any friendly concern from her.
At least right now he wasn't trying to ditch her again; he had done so after they'd landed at the spaceport, when he had simply slipped away and wandered off while she still was held up with a couple of customs officials who were smart enough to get out of the way of a Council Spectre but self-important enough to give an Alliance soldier a hard time. Or at least they tried to, she thought with a grim smile. One didn't get through N7 training and then let oneself be bullied by some glorified magistrates.
Still, the confrontation had cost her time, and she'd had to locate some sort of transport for herself, which in this case meant a rather broken-down all-terrain vehicle, and then track her so-called instructor down. She'd caught up with him far outside the city where the rain-forest began, leaning casually against the trunk of a reddish-green barked tree, for all purposes bored. Of course then she'd had to leave the vehicle, and she was still proud of herself that she hadn't said anything aloud that had come to her mind as she'd caught up with him.
Damned turian.
She was still debating with herself whether to attempt yet another time to get any answers out of him when he stopped and lifted a hand.
Instantly alert, she closed up to him, peering past him at what seemed to be a clearing up ahead. Beyond the trees, she could just make out the outlines of a small camp.
She crept closer for a better look, staying in cover. In the camp, she could make out a handful of figures moving around. From the looks of the camp and its location, her guess would have been that this was the temporary resting place of a group of people interested in hiding their presence, and presumably being up to no good. She counted four of them, all human, armed and in combat gear, but no obvious insignia or tattoos declaring their allegiance. For small time criminals their equipment looked too high-end, for professional mercs they seemed a bit too careless to her, as there wasn't even a guard posted.
Shepard watched them interacting with each other, taking note of body language and tone of voice. If she had to hazard a guess she'd say they knew each other but weren't overly familiar with each other. They probably were able to work together with reasonable efficiency, but not as a real team.
Saren shifted slightly, then addressed her without taking his eyes off their targets. "I want to talk to one of them. You stay here, and don't get in my way."
Shepard shrugged. "Which one?"
The Spectre just snarled. "Doesn't matter. Don't interfere," he warned again, then pushed past her and stepped out onto the clearing, making no effort to hide his presence.
Shepard heard shouts of surprise from the camp, then ducked down at the sound of shots being fired. She considered drawing her own weapon and at least providing some distraction, but decided against it as she heard no further exchange of fire.
As she cautiously raised herself to get a look at the camp, she found that Saren already had the situation under control.
As far as she could see, there were two people down, not moving. Saren was standing over a third, talking to him with his pistol trained at the downed human. Shepard couldn't make out the fourth, but had not much hopes for that one either. Despite straining her ears, she couldn't make out the words, only that Saren's tone was angry, or rather, more angry than usual.
The human replied something, and the Spectre lifted his head in slight surprise, then snarled something. He fired two shots point-blank at the human and turned away without even pausing, making his way back to her position.
Shepard shivered. She had known about his reputation, but seeing it firsthand was something else altogether. What got to her wasn't the fact that he had just executed at least four humans for no reason apparent to her, but the way he had done that. She couldn't even call it cruelty, because it was clear he didn't even take pleasure from what he'd done, or paused to watch the result. He just didn't care at all, and this was probably even worse.
She managed to stay unmoving, her expression blank as he stopped in front of her for a moment, his look measuring.
"What exactly was that about?" she asked, her voice neutral and giving nothing away.
He held her gaze for a moment, then just snorted in disgust and pushed past her, showing no inclination to either slow down or offer any explanations.
Faced with the choice of either staying behind, searching the camp herself for some clues and risking being left behind again or following him and trying to find an alternative way to gain information, she decided on the latter.
It had been the better part of two weeks now, and Shepard had just about reached the end of her patience. She had tried professionalism, keeping out of Saren's way and hoping he'd at least calm down enough to at least explain the mission to her, but that hadn't happened so far, and in her estimation the chances of that happening were slim.
The point of this whole exercise was both to have him evaluate her skills - which didn't happen because he simply ordered her out of any fight - and her learning from his example. Regarding the latter, so far she'd gotten good examples as how callous he was regarding to another being's life and well-being, and she decided that that wasn't something she needed to emulate.
This whole situation was highly unsatisfactory.
Right now she was once again ordered to stay behind on Saren's small ship. The only intel she had on the current mission was the name of a suspect, the fact that it involved some sort of conspiracy and that Saren intended to question said suspect very soon. Meanwhile, Saren himself was out, pursuing some agenda of his own. Therefore, this was a good opportunity.
She went into the cockpit which also held the only proper computer terminal and plopped down in the copilot's seat. A few key strokes called the terminal projection into life, and she went to work.
Her computer skills were decidedly above average, and specifically her decryption skills were a lot higher than that. For various reasons it had never been one of her main subjects at the Academy, so she was willing to bet that there was nothing about this in her official files, but she had had some really good tech experts as friends there, dated one of them briefly and engaged in friendly contests with them long enough to develop some skills of her own.
She wasn't interested in the modules which were needed for operation of the small ship, even though the starcharts might be interesting as well. What she was looking for was whatever other data Saren had stored in the system. There had to be something; of course he'd have most of the important stuff on his omnitool, but first of all, the storage capacity of an omnitool wasn't unlimited, and second, Saren was too cautious not to have backups. On the down side, he was also too cautious not to use heavy encryption on whatever he left in there.
Shepard dug around in the computer's storage, browsing through as quickly as she could. A data source with rather basic encryption caught her attention, and she considered the situation for a moment. As challenges went, this wasn't much of one. It even had rather obvious flags set that would alert him to the fact that someone had accessed that data source.
Her brow wrinkled in concentration as she thought hard. No. That was too easy. Probably a trap, then. Still, it might be interesting to see what that file held, if only to discard possibilities.
A few taps on her omni tool, and the probably bogus file transferred. She considered clearing the flags on the file and hiding her tracks, but then smiled grimly. No. Let that be a thrown gauntlet.
That decided, she dug deeper. The ship's computer was a relatively simple system with not that many possibilities to hide anything, and she felt confident that she could by simple exclusion tell at least that something was hidden away, and roughly how much.
Going by that, she finally turned up two more files, presumably one private, one work-related, hidden away in an unused section of the memory reserved for the starcharts. Both had encryption that she had no hope in breaking in the time she had allowed herself for this endeavour, but she managed to just fit them onto her own omnitool.
She cleared the access flags for those, of course, but since she was dealing with a highly intelligent and suspicious Spectre, she looked around until she found the secondary set of access flags and cleared them, too.
Then she backtracked, erasing traces of her trespassing as she went, finishing off with a quick look through the starcharts, which served well to give her a rough impression of the system they were currently on. She switched the terminal off and left the cockpit, taking up her usual place in the tiny corner of the main cabin.
Her first action was a trick she had used at the Academy for similar purposes: she changed the interface of her decryption module to something closely resembling that of a logic puzzle game which at the moment was rather popular on the extranet in Alliance space. The fit wasn't perfect, of course, and neither was most of it functional, but to any cursory examination it would hold. And her getting caught at it and hiding it would with a bit of luck be considered a normal reaction. She'd probably get contempt and a biting remark if Saren caught her playing omnitool games, but that was nothing new or unexpected, and it would be beneath his dignity to bother with it.
That accomplished, she cracked the encryption of the first data source with almost contemptuous ease.
The result of this was a case file of respectable size. She scanned through it through anyway, slogging through a complicated conspiracy story which essentially was a power struggle between two competing politicians executed by proxies. Reading along, she memorised names and places and facts until a picture emerged. It even made sense, she had to admit.
It was just by coincidence that one little but crucial detail there was wrong. And therefore the whole picture was wrong, and the person being indicated as the instigator of the conspiracy was, while certainly not innocent by any definition of the word, in this instance likely actually being framed.
"Nice try," she said softly. If she acted upon that intel, and by accident, say, happened to shoot the presumed suspect, Saren was certain to find a way to blame this on her, and he'd have an handy reason to dismiss the "trigger-happy human".
Shepard closed the file, thought for a moment, then started her decryption attempts at the file she presumed was his real case file. She was under no illusion that this would be successful anytime soon, but at least it gave her something productive to do until the damned turian returned.
The distant ice storm stirred up ice particles that reflected the light of the low large blue sun, which resulted in moving swirls of shifting colour on the horizon. Combined with the hash landscape consisting of jagged dark mountains the scenery was simply breathtaking.
Shepard paused on the edge of the cliff for a moment, simply enjoying the view. Their destination, the wreck of a downed spacecraft, lay far below them, the ungainly, deformed hull a mar on the landscape. Her eyes tracked back to the storm. Of course she wouldn't care to be in there, as even with the hardened env suit she was wearing she'd not last long in the middle of that, but from a safe distance it was very beautiful.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sensed Saren stopping, and she almost could feel his impatient look on her, but she didn't turn away yet.
"Are you done sightseeing?" his asked acidly, his voice not even distorted much by their suit's comm.
By now she was so used to his manner - or lack of them - that she didn't even register his tone anymore. "Not really" she replied absently, then did a double-take despite herself as he was suddenly at her elbow, trying to get a look at what she was watching. She couldn't see much of his face through his helmet, but reminded herself that that didn't matter much anyway, as he didn't have much expression at the best of time.
"I wasn't aware that humans had any sense of aesthetics," he commented carelessly.
"Be that as it may," she shot back, "one would have to be dead or without a soul not to appreciate this," She usually knew better than to talk back at him, but for some reason that comment had rankled her, and she shot back. "And anyway, aren't turians supposed to highly appreciate colours? Or is it just you that only knows black and white?"
He went completely still, and now she flinched. That was one trick he had that she could identify but not duplicate; something in his stance that changed from vaguely disturbing to open menace. For some reason, her reply had really ticked him off. For a second she wondered whether he meant to push her off the edge of the cliff, but he didn't move, yet.
Saren's voice, when he spoke, was almost mild, which so far she had identified as the only warning sign before he really snapped. "As a matter of fact, I do not have colour vision."
Shepard's breath caught.
"It's because of my cybernetic eye replacements, of course," he continued in the same frightening tone. "The technology is available, but the amount of information that any optical nerve can handle is limited, and so is the speed of visual preprocessing in any hardware. Targetting and night vision are more useful to my line of work. I can probably tell you wavelength and frequency of any colour, but I don't perceive it like you do. So, is there anything else you might wish to share on the topic?"
Shepard swallowed. He was rather scary right now, but mostly she felt ashamed, which, while a bit absurd considering the snipes he sent her way all the time, was nevertheless something she felt deeply. She hadn't intended insult or mockery.
"I didn't know that," she said, keeping her voice steady, while really wishing she could see his face. "And I apologise. That was uncalled for."
He snorted, then snapped in a more normal tone. "You might be correct, though. I'm not dead, but a soul is a human concept I want no part of."
With that vicious jab, he turned and started walking again, picking his way carefully down to the crashed ship below.
Shepard breathed a cautious sigh of relief, and followed.
Being shot at, Shepard reflected grimly, was fast becoming a completely normal and expected part of her daily schedule.
This time it was a high profile kidnapping case, with the victim being the youngest daughter of a high-ranking asari official currently stationed on the Citadel.
There was almost certainly more behind the story than simple greed, but Shepard didn't know the details, and this time around neither did Saren, which didn't improve his mood any.
She couldn't quite keep a grim smile off her lips as she considered what his opinion on a search-and-rescue mission had to be.
They'd tracked the kidnappers - a group of common mercs, not even from one of the better known organisations, all the way to Omega. Right now she was providing a distraction on the front of the derelict building the group used as their hideout while Saren was finding his own way in, presumably via the roof.
She was behind the wreck of an armoured personnel carrier, of all things, that must have been left over from some other previous conflict. As far as she could tell, someone had taken out the APC from below, probably with a landmine or similar, and it was clear from the outside that it wasn't going to move on its own power ever again. Of its interior, there wasn't much left as every even remotely useful scrap had been carried off by scavenging Omega residents, but for reasons unknown to her no one had actually gotten around yet to strip down its plating, so at least it still provided fair cover. Her gear was a set of rather cheap standard light armour, common enough in this part of Omega, authentically if inexpertly dyed in some hair-raising colours that declared allegiance to one of three rivalizing gangs who currently were in a territorial dispute roughly in this quarter.
The armor was one of her own, however. She had drawn the line at Saren's suggestion of just getting the gear off one gang member in the district.
And that particular conversation had been barrels of fun, too.
"You aren't serious, are you?" Shepard asked the Spectre, who was regarding her with a frosty look.
"I am not known for my sense of humour" he replied coldly.
"Don't I know the truth of that," she muttered under her breath, then continued "You want me to acquire the attire of a member of a local street gang."
"Precisely."
"Forget it."
"I need you to provide a credible distraction." His tone had even grown colder.
"I am aware of that."
He stared for a moment, then said in a malicious tone "If you are too squeamish, which wouldn't surprise me, or your aim isn't up to the task, which would surprise me even less, then I can snipe you one of them without damaging the armour." He stared at her, then added "Much."
"No, thank you very much." Shepard shuddered. At his glare, she explained. "No, I don't feel sorry for these people. I've seen them in action. And I'll have you know that I'm fully capable to take out one of them with a head shot. I'm not wearing anything of theirs, regardless." She shuddered.
Saren blinked, puzzlement overcoming his irritation for a moment, and she took that chance to explain further. "This is Omega. Those are gang members. You probably know better than me what they do for a living, or for fun. I don't even want to think about what I can catch from one of them."
He reflected on that briefly, then gave a curt nod. "Then find an alternative acceptable to you and stop wasting time."
Looking back, she still was somewhat surprised he hadn't made her do this anyway, just out of spite. In any case, she'd acquired a couple of cans of spray paint and gone to work on that particular set of light armour. She'd probably never get that paint off again properly, but that was a small price to pay considering the alternative. Besides, that set actually fit her.
The point of the exercise was, of course, to let the mercs think that they were in the middle of some gang conflict that had nothing to do with them personally. The hope was that while it would upset them and divert their attention it wouldn't set them off in any sort of violence against their victim.
She rose cautiously a bit to peer over the APC's hood, then dropped down again hastily as a grenade whistled past her overhead. Shepard didn't turn to see where it landed; there was the remains of the outer wall of a several story building directly behind her, and the trajectory of the grenade had been high enough to lands somewhere behind her inside the ruin.
Out of sight, out of mind. She didn't even twitch at the explosion somewhere behind her.
Still, that reaction was a bit extreme. She'd set them off just by firing in the air, which in these parts of Omega always worked to get some idiot with a gun to start shooting aimlessly at any perceived threat, but really, the grenade was a bit much.
The second one that followed a few moments after, just as badly aimed as the first, was decidedly too much.
With an annoyed grimace, Shepard switched from pistol to assault rifle, then leaned very slowly around the APC's front. Amateurs. Several of them were outside the building, out of cover, and surveying the effect of the grenades.
She took aim and fired rapidly, dropping two of them cleanly and at least wounding two more until she was forced to dive back to cover again as a steady barrage of fire came into her general direction.
Shepard retreated backwards and through a convenient gap in the wall behind her and flattened herself against the wall. Seconds later, the impact of a rocket shook the APC. Surprisingly, it was still in one piece, though she wouldn't have laid any bets on it not disintegrating at any new disturbance. Like her sneezing at it, maybe.
The fire ceased, but she wasn't stupid enough to immediately show herself.
"Oh I hate Omega. What this place needs is a couple of nukes. From orbit, just to be sure," she growled.
"While I don't oppose the suggestion in general, I think there would be too much paperwork involved afterwards, given that the Terminus systems aren't under Council jurisdiction. So it's probably not worth the effort in the end," came Saren's voice over the comm in a rather dispassionate tone.
Shepard almost dropped her weapon in surprise. First, she hadn't intended to let him hear that, and second, was he serious? He had to be, because he didn't have any sense of humour, did he? Before she could decide one way or another for that, he continued.
"You can come out now, I cleared the entrance."
She went back to behind the nose of the APC and peered over it. In the entrance of the building, she could just make out the turian's familiar and rather distinct silhouette. Shrugging inwardly, she circled around the wreck and made straight for the entrance.
He didn't wait for her to catch up but turned and walked inside, casually stepping over scattered debris, weapons and a merc body or two.
Shepard was close on his heels.
Saren led her through narrow corridors and past the occasional body up a set of stairs.
She stepped over a dead turian with significant parts of his head missing and once again felt a mixture of unease and grudging admiration at the precision of his aim. Also, once again it served as proof that he had no hesitation whatsoever killing members of his own species if he considered it necessary and warranted. Apart from that grudge against humans, he didn't seem to have any other prejudices. Unfortunately, in his case this probably just meant that he hated everyone else equally, Shepard thought.
He finally stopped in front of a metal door, that held sparse splatters of blood and had two dead mercs, one turian, one batarian in front of it. The door was slightly ajar, and she could hear a soft sound from inside, the weeping of a child.
She paused, looking at Saren questioningly. He impatiently nodded his spiked head at the door.
"Well? Collect her and be quick about it."
Anger welled up in her at his callousness, despite the fact that she was rather used to it by now. "It wouldn't hurt you any to show a bit of compassion here," she snapped. "It's just a frightened child who is innocent in all of this. You don't have to frighten her even more. Or do you even know what compassion is? Do you even have any emotions left besides being angry and bitter all the time?"
His only reply to that was cool disapproval, and she knew that in the overall score of the complicated game they were playing she'd just lost the round by even getting angry. She didn't care.
"That is not my function. In truth it isn't yours, either, but I won't stop you from exercising your compassion in this context," he stated coldly.
She bit back the next angry retort that came to mind, and while she still was considering what to say -and what not - he turned around and brushed past her, marching off back the way they had come.
Well, that explained why he'd even ordered her inside. Rescue missions weren't his style. She heard his retreating steps down the stairs and shook her head, then took a deep breath and went in to fetch the asari child.
There was something about krogans, Shepard thought, that always reminded her of a cross between a dinosaur and a tortoise, maybe with a tank thrown in somewhere in the mix. There was a reason that they were feared throughout the galaxy for their toughness and fighting ability, and considered even by professional soldiers as something one should avoid whenever possible. An unarmored krogan could already be considered a serious opponent. One in full heavy armor usually meant major trouble.
The individual who was charging full speed at her position certainly fit the description.
Too bad she couldn't do the sensible thing and get the hell out of his path, so she took the next best option and leaned over the cargo crates she was using as cover, and let him have a full magazine of her assault rifle.
It wore down his shields and damaged his armor, but unfortunately it didn't even slow him down.
Even as she struggled to wrap her mind around this fact, Saren's voice in her comm stated dispassionately. "Duck."
She complied automatically, dropping behind the crate as something sailed a hair's width over her head, presumably impacting close to the incoming krogan's feet. The sound of the resulting explosion was familiar, though, and Shepard shook her head in disbelief even as shrapnel rained down on her and her shields gave out completely. Saren had thrown a fragmentation grenade at the krogan.
If she'd been just a bit slower, or the crate a bit less sturdy...
"You are aware that I'm just a couple of feet away?" she snarled.
"I gave you sufficient warning," he replied coldly. "You are unharmed. I think your current status is preferrable to the alternative."
She was still thinking about a suitable reply as he effortlessly vaulted over the crates, passing the unmoving krogan without paying him any attention and continued forward across the landing platform towards the small storage building their current targets were holed in in.
It was just a small band of pirates, not even a major operation and therefore officially not really worth their while, but the fact that they had dared to raid a civilian ship right under Saren's nose and destroyed it had obviously been enough to make him consider them fair targets. The Spectre probably didn't care in the least about the civilians, of which there were no survivors, but he was sufficiently irritated by their audacity that he had decided to take them out himself.
Shepard approved of the fact if not the reasons; as most marines she held a healthy contempt for pirates in general and had welcomed the opportunity to do something about them. Removing vermin like this was one small step to make the galaxy a better place, after all, so this was fine with her.
Shepard shook her head again, waited a few more seconds to give her shields a chance to regenerate, then started forward into the same direction, giving the downed krogan a wide berth just to be on the safe side.
Saren was way up ahead, but waiting at the side of the entrance to the hideout, impatiently half-turning to look at her.
She had the advantage of already facing the right direction as the door mechanism went active.
There was no time to shout a warning, and Saren's own reactions were sharp enough that he already was twisting away, so she just reacted and hoped for the best. A burst from her assault rifle went a bit over the turian's shoulder and hit the vorcha in the opening doorway full on, sending him staggering back.
The next instant, the turian Spectre was on him, first slamming the end of his assault rifle into the vorcha's face with enough force to send him flying, then following up with a measured burst of fire that made sure the pirate wouldn't get up again, ever.
Shepard grimaced slightly, but caught up to him, noting that he didn't even look at her.
He was clearly angry, but for a change at himself. It had been a very slight mistake, and she was certain that his reactions had been fast enough that even without her intervention he hadn't been in any real danger. It was even understandable to her, as he clearly wasn't used to working in a team. Nevertheless it irked him, though whether it was because he'd made a mistake or because she caught him at it she couldn't tell.
The only thing she was certain of was that she didn't want to get on his bad side, right now.
Shepard regarded the interior of the building with distrust. Stacked sturdy cargo crates of all sizes with irregular spaces between them made this a very dangerous arena with far too many possible places for their enemies to hide.
She moved slowly, cautiously forward, scanning the area for any movement.
A shotgun blast that took out her shields and sent her headlong for cover showed her that her cautious attitude wasn't shared by everyone.
Saren had dropped down close to her, his shields having met the same fate.
She peeked out of cover but ducked down again as several shots from several different directions went a bit too close for comfort. She'd seen enough, though.
"Very big krogan incoming, three vorcha wannabe-snipers strewn across the hall," she told Saren.
"Get rid of the vorcha," he growled.
Shepard shrugged, but kept in cover as he leaped forward to meet the charge of the krogan pirate.
The vorchas took the opportunity to take a couple of shots at the Spectre, leaning out too far out of cover like the idiots they were. Shepard switched to the sniper rifle and dropped two of them cleanly before the third got wise and ducked its head down again.
Then she focussed on Saren and the krogan for a moment and understood the vorcha's curiosity a bit better.
She wasn't used to krogans, the previous one the first she'd ever faced in combat, but this one was even more massive. He wore heavy black armor that looked to be of very good quality and had some complicated markings on that meant nothing to her. What she could see of his body that wasn't covered by armor, which wasn't much, had hard, dull plates marked with old scars.
It was really like a contest between ancient predators, she thought, like a velociraptor and a t. rex facing off. The krogan seemed to have caught quite some hits from Saren's assault rifle, if she read the state of his armor right, but that had apparently only enraged him. The turian hadn't quite avoided another shotgun blast, and his armor showed that as well. By now they were too close to use firearms on each other, and the krogan was hacking at the Spectre with an ugly serrated blade.
She'd never seen Saren in close combat before, and from what she saw now she was very certain she never wanted to face him in a hand-to-hand contest either. Heavy armor or not, he was incredibly fast as he evaded the krogan's angry swipes.
The one remaining vorcha tried his luck again aiming again at Saren, but Shepard was quicker and a better shot. The vorcha's head disintegrated into red mist from a direct hit with her sniper rifle, and she turned her attention back to the krogan.
The krogan had managed to get hold of the turian now, one claw clamped like a vise into the collar of his armor as he hooked the claws of his other hand under the edge of Saren's central face plate. Or rather, tried to, as his claws slid off.
"No, that won't work anymore" Saren informed him, turning in the Krogan's grip with alarming agility and slamming his foot full force at the krogan's face. Even at the distance Shepard could hear plates crack under the impact.
The krogan bellowed and released his hold on the Spectre.
Saren had held out against that living tank a good deal longer than she'd given him in a bet, and while she did consider the idea of him getting stomped into the ground not a bad one on general principles, there was no way she was going to explain to the Council that she'd sat idly by while a krogan pirate disassembled their best agent into his component parts.
She took careful aim and scored a good hit on the krogan's hump. "Over here, ugly!" she shouted.
The krogan snarled, sounding to her ears more enraged than hurt, and turned his head slightly so he could see her. Saren had jumped back, trying to get some distance and the krogan snapped back towards him. Strangely enough, he clenched his fist, and kept still for a moment, then flung his hand out at the Spectre. Saren wasn't even within reach, but suddenly he was flying backwards, hitting a stack of crates quite a way back with a heavy thump.
"You've got to be kidding me..." Shepard growled. "He's a biotic, too?" She didn't have any time to ponder this injustice, however, as she was now the krogan's new target.
He was already to close for the sniper rifle, and far too close for her to switch weapons, so she fired a round anyway, opening a hole in his chest armor, but that didn't do anything to stop him.
Then she became aware of movement behind him and dropped down behind her crates, instinct taking over.
An explosion rocked the crates, but she kept her head down as hot shrapnel flew. Another explosion followed close, and then a short but furious wave of fire pushed crates and her backwards. She kept her face to the ground, shielded by her arms, but even so she felt the heat. Her shields once again gave out, but this time she wasn't going to complain, even if she thought an incendiary grenade was a bit much. There were times when it really was better to be safe than sorry.
She heard footsteps over the concrete floor and risked a glance, then stood in relief as Saren crossed the distance to stand beside what was left of the krogan after three grenades. The turian looked down in contempt and growled slightly.
Shepard shook her head in reluctant admiration. He looked battered, this set of armor was probably ruined, and he was definitly hurt, as some of the holes in the armor were slowly leaking blue blood, but one couldn't have told that from the easy way he still moved. She wasn't completely certain, but she thought there was a new notch in the long spine that ran from his left cheekplate backwards parallel to his head. Asking him whether he was all right somehow seemed inappropriate, and she was certain he'd resent it if she did.
"You are one tough bastard, I have to give you that," she muttered, maybe a bit too loud for his acute hearing.
His head snapped around at her, and she made sure her expression gave nothing away. After a few seconds, he relaxed very slightly and regarded the krogan again. Shepard suppressed a grin. If he had heard her, he had decided to let it slide.
"Your aim is not too bad, for a human," he stated, then considered the krogan further. "I wonder what a krogan battlemaster like that was doing with a band of second-rate pirates."
Shepard looked at the still smoking remains. "I doubt we can find out anything more from him," she quipped.
Saren just snorted and turned away. "It doesn't matter. If there was more behind this, it will come out sooner or later. It always does."
"Charges are set. I suggest you make haste on the way out." Saren's voice over the comm was emotionless as ever, but she didn't doubt that he was serious, and deadly so.
Shepard punched a few keys on the data terminal, sacrificed a few precious seconds until the download completed and the small data chip ejected, then she turned and ran for it. Usually she would have objected to blowing the science facility sky high - not that Saren cared one way or another about her opinion - but after seeing the sort of research that had been conducted in this place she really wanted it gone. There were some rare moments when she agreed with his disturbing approach that most problems could be solved with carefully executed violence, absolute lack of remorse and liberal application of explosives.
Her stomach still turned at the thought of what they'd found in there. So far, she hadn't even heard about an organisation called Cerberus, but human group or not, she was very glad that they'd actually hadn't been successful in taking one of them alive. Saren had been annoyed, of course, but she had felt nothing but relief. By now she knew very well what he was capable of when he was looking for information from someone he considered a criminal and expendable. She hadn't seen him interrogate a human yet, and she shuddered even to think of it. Given Saren's opinion of her species, he probably would be very creative in his methods. And after what she had seen in here, she was certain that she wouldn't even have made a token attempt to save any of them from the turian Spectre. She would have just stood aside. Hell, maybe she'd even helped. And that made her feel even more sick.
She raced along a corridor, made a turn, then another, very conscious of the time ticking away. Saren wasn't a believer in large safety margins, and her way out was considerably longer than his. They'd had to split up, him to set the detonation charges, her to retrieve what data she could from the main computer while the facility's VI was doing its damned best to get at the two of them with a small army of Loki mechs. She only hoped she had managed to disrupt the control unit for the mechs for long enough to make her escape.
Another turn, and she passed an inactive Loki, not even slowing down. A locked door barred her way to the garage which was her way out, and she wasted precious time in hacking its circuit.
After an eternity, the door opened and she started running again, eyes on the slowly opening hangar door that led outside. The garage was empty of vehicles, but there were a number of Loki mechs standing around immobile.
She was almost through the garage door as her brain managed to resolve the huge shape in the corner to the right of the garage door into something familiar. Ymir mech.
As she tore past it, she saw out of the corner of her eyes that it turned its head, its faceplate lighting up. She didn't have the time to try and fight it or hide, so the only thing she could do was to keep going at full speed and hope. The only thing she could do was engage her kinetic barriers.
The terrain outside was just barren yellow sand broken by rock formations that weren't higher than her hip and worn smooth by wind and sand. There was no chance of her reaching their Mako rover in any reasonable time, so she dove behind the first of the small rock piles she came across and went flat. Fractions of a second later, a rocket hit a couple of meters left from her, showering her with hot shrapnel and rock splinters.
Then came the sound of the Mako's gun, which surprised her. The turian had to be in there, and presumably was playing tag with the Ymir, but she wasn't about to lift her head to confirm.
And then the facility blew up.
Armoured suit or not, the sound was deafening as she as well as the pitiful cover she was lying behind were lifted and thrown, then the sky went dark as something came down on her, and then everything went dark.
She couldn't have been out for more than a few seconds, but the next thing she knew was that it was dark, she couldn't move, everything really hurt and the controls on her left wrist were flashing. She whimpered as she fought to lift a hand enough to punch the necessary controls to release her suit's supply of medigel.
The pain receded, but she didn't fool herself into believing that she was out of the woods yet. The control had changed to read that her medigel supply was empty, and that there was unspecified but severe damage to her right side somewhere between shoulder and hip. Very helpful, she thought grimly as she tried to sit up. She had lifted her head - or tried to - and encountered something solid.
It took her a bit to get the suit's flashlight up, but as she did, she wished for a moment she hadn't.
What was above her was as far as she could tell at least a large part of the garage door. The only reason she hadn't been utterly crushed by it was that there still was some stubborn parts of rock propping the thing partway up, leaving just enough room for her. She couldn't really move her feet, but she suspected that she wasn't stuck, there was just not enough room.
There was no way in hell she could move that metal plate on her own. And probably even less chance of rescue. They were too far away from any settlement or city. And Saren wouldn't bother to try and dig through this to find her. The most he would do was inform the authorities before he went offworld again and maybe have someone sent to dig her out, if he was in a charitable mood. Maybe not even that.
In the end it didn't matter, she probably didn't have that much time anyway.
She bit her lips, fighting down panic. This was ugly.
Her suit was definitely damaged, but she as she tried she couldn't tell whether comm really was down or whether she was just ignored.
She strained her ears, but there was nothing but the rush of her own heartbeat. The metal seemed to press down on her. She was very well that was an illusion, but that didn't help, really, and she had to force herself to breathe slowly.
She wasn't dead yet. An N7 didn't just give up.
Then the metal plate above her groaned with the typical sound of strained metal and shifted very slightly, and she was certain that that was it and she was done for. But the plate didn't slide to one side but upwards, in a very slow but continuous motion. Her hearing still was impaired, but she could definitely make out the hum of machinery now.
What the...
She rolled to her side as room became available and drew her legs in. To her relief she found she could move at least that much.
From the sounds above her there was now debris sliding off the slowly lifting plate, and she winced with every scraping sound. Fine debris rained down on her, getting into her mouth, nose and lungs, and she went into a coughing fit.
More scraping, this time from the direction of the rock she'd been pressed against. Then the boulder was moving aside, and she was suddenly face-to-face with Saren. She'd never been so glad to see anyone before, period. Right now, regardless of what he was, and was like, she could have hugged him in sheer relief, so it was probably better that she couldn't move.
Before she could properly decide whether she was hallucinating or not he had already hooked a claw into the neck of her suit and pulled. All breath went out of her, and she almost blanked out again, only dimly aware that he was actually dragging her out, with an efficient disregard of whatever sharp parts snagged and tore at her.
With a final sharp pull, she was aware of daylight, and she expected to be dropped, but instead he just kept his hold on the neck of the armour and stood, taking her up with no apparent strain like a man holding a kitten by the scruff of its neck. Apparently the intention was to set her on her feet, but her knees buckled, and she crumpled again, which caused him to slightly hiss in displeasure as he released her and stepped back.
She didn't hit the ground as she'd have expected to, but instead found herself sitting with something smooth and metallic and not quite steady at her back.
Risking a glance, she found herself resting against the leg of the Ymir. She was too exhausted even to try to draw away in reflex, but it wasn't interested in her anyway. It was in standby at the moment, still holding the fragment of the garage door up. The reason for its change of attitude was apparent enough. It had sections of its armour plating missing where the underlying machinery was visible. The covering of its main access port was missing, and wires and small extra parts were dangling from the opening.
Saren must have hacked the mech and then rigged something like a remote control to make it behave like that. That meant that he'd had to whittle its defences and weapons down first, without damaging the mech too much to be of use. It might have been dumb luck, of course, but she didn't believe this for a second. Saren didn't believe in leaving anything to chance. He was maybe one of the most arrogant creatures she'd ever encountered, but lately she was forced to admit he had some grounds for it. He was good, very good at what he did.
"Fix yourself up already so we can get out of this place. You can have your injuries tended properly at the spaceport if necessary." He looked even more sour than usual, probably due to the prospect of having to wait for her.
Okay, so she was going to skip the hug part. "Out of medigel," she croaked, her throat too dry to speak properly.
Saren squinted at the controls of her suit, then snorted. "Doesn't look like that to me."
Automatically, Shepard glanced at the controls, and found that he was right, the gauge actually read almost full. That didn't seem quite right, but she was too fuzzy to give it much thought. Instead, she did as the Spectre had said, waited until the medigel had kicked in enough so her legs were able to support her once more, for the time being.
As she drew herself up, she found herself alone. The mako's engine was already running, a not-so-subtle reminder for her to get going. Shepard limped over and got herself into the mako, heaving herself into the seat.
Saren didn't even look at her as he kicked the mako into gear.
Shepard looked at him carefully, still amazed that he hadn't left her behind. "Thank you," she said softly.
The turian gave an annoyed growl. "Next time, run faster."
Shepard leaned in a quick, automatic move over cover, fired a precise shot with her pistol at the closest Loki mech and dove back into cover. The sound of a small explosion followed, and she looked at Saren who was crouched beside her. His turn.
Saren raised himself up just enough to aim with the sniper rifle, take a shot, then crouched down again.
Shepard threw a quick glance at the sky overhead, noting Tanelorn's single red sun being almost invisible against the rising sandstorm. Tanelorn was mostly a desert world, labyrinthine,narrow corridors of mountains in a sea of sand in all the colours of a sunrise. The whole system didn't hold anything directly interesting and was quite out of the way of the main trading routes, but for some reason a freighter had strayed into trouble and crashed on this mostly isolated world. The automatic distress beacon had sent out its message, and by pure chance they had picked up on it and decided to have a look.
The crash had happened too long ago to hope for any survivors, but at least part of the cargo had survived the crash mostly undamaged. The down side of that was that the freighter had carried a sizeable shipment of Loki mechs. It wasn't clear whether the crash had damaged their systems somehow or whether there was preprogramming and some sort of sabotage involved, but the end result was the same: they had a large number of hostile Lokis at their hands who had attacked the two of them on sight.
The wise move would have been to make it back to their ship and either post a warning beacon in orbit and report the problem to the shipping company which had owned the freighter or solve the situation by going in with the ship, but Saren had been in one of his moods. He'd called it target practice for the both of them.
They had been taking turns at shooting at the mechs for quite some time now, neither of them really worried by being numerically outmatched. True, there was a large number of the mechs, but they operated on single mode, not employing any group tactics at all. They'd need a central VI to supply tactical info for them to do that, and the freighter either didn't carry one or it had been damaged when the ship crashed. Therefore each of them moved around individually in a mindless search-and-destroy pattern. None of them varied its path or behaviour in the slightest, and while they were still capable of searching cover when under fire, their sensory range was very limited, and it took a hit or their presence rather close to them to switch them into attack mode. When they attacked, though, they had rather good fire capacity and a nasty aim. Still, as long as they didn't by some chance swarm the two of them all at once, the 'target practice' at least wasn't as suicidal as it might sound otherwise.
Shepard collapsed her pistol and stored it away and deployed her assault rifle. She paused for a moment, concentrating, then popped up and fired a short burst at the closest mech, turned slightly and did the same to a second incoming one before dropping down again.
Return fire went overhead, then the damage the mechs had taken caught up to them. One exploded, the other just stopped moving in a veil of sparks.
She looked at Saren, giving a slight head-shake into the direction of the sky. "Sandstorm's getting close."
The Spectre seemed unconcerned. "There's still time." He picked off another mech with the sniper rifle and watched her as she took aim.
"So, have you managed to decrypt my files yet?"
Shepard twitched slightly, but corrected immediately, at least hitting the target. With a slight grimace she dropped down again. So, this was how they were going to play, was it?
"Your case files, yes," she admitted freely. "Months ago, in fact. The other one, no."
"Hmmm," he replied noncommittally. If anything, he looked vaguely approving. His next words confirmed her suspicion. "Not bad. Although it has taken you longer than I thought until you managed to gather your courage to hack my computer."
"Well, I used to have some concept of privacy and respect for another's property back then."
His mandibles clicked. "A lamentable flaw, that, but it might be corrected in time."
He took aim, and she said in the same casual tone. "Why don't you have any facial markings? I understand that would be traditional for your people."
There was not even a hitch in his smooth move as he took out another mech. "Technically I don't have a home colony, I was born and raised in space. I could have taken the markings of the Citadel later on, but that would be inappropriate by now. My loyalty has to be to the Council, not any single world or faction."
Shepard narrowed her eyes, counted a few beats, then got up and aimed.
"How did you like getting trapped under that garage door?"
"Not very much, but again thanks for getting me out anyway. I hadn't expected you to, to be honest." She fired a perfect shot, then quickly turned and picked off another one that had come too close for comfort before dropping down again. He wouldn't get her with anything that simple. That was over and done with.
Saren reloaded the sniper rifle. "The prospect was tempting, but the paperwork your accidental death would entail is somewhat daunting. It's not a decision to make lightly."
Shepard snorted again. His tone was as dead-pan as ever, and she wasn't sure exactly how serious he was. By now she had determined he did have a sense of humour just as vicious as the rest of him, but she didn't have enough empirical data on that yet to tell when he was joking and when he wasn't.
"What happened to your face, anyway?" she asked as he aimed.
"A vorcha with an industrial-sized welding torch. And it wasn't even my target," he replied almost mildly and scored a perfect hit, then ducked hastily as mech parts flew overhead.
"Seriously?" Shepard wondered. "What happened to the vorcha?"
The Spectre gave her an almost insulted look. "What do you think?"
She declined to answer that one and lined up again.
"I have been wondering how you live with the knowledge that you lost your whole unit on Akuze to that Thresher Maw."
Shepard didn't wince this time as she hit the next mech with perhaps a longer burst than was necessary and came back down to reload. She stared at him, coldly. "I manage," she informed him, forcibly clamping down on the flare of real anger his words had evoked. Well, if we're getting personal here...
She couldn't tell whether he was pleased by having hit a nerve or not, but when he started to move, she casually asked "I heard rumour that you lost a brother at Shanxi, and that that's the reason you hate all humans. Are you really as petty as this, blaming a whole species for the actions of a few individuals?"
Something changed in his posture, and she forced herself not to flinch back as he suddenly looked very feral, and very dangerous. He got up, fired his sniper rifle several times in rapid succession - hitting every time, she was worried to see - and then he just stood, looking down at her with an unreadable expression, ignoring a few shots that glanced off his kinetic shields.
Note to self, she thought. It's possible to provoke him, but his aim gets better when he's pissed off.
She wasn't certain what he'd do, but then another shot almost dropped his shields, and he spun around with an annoyed snarl, switching back to his assault rifle.
Apparently they were done playing, which suited her perfectly fine.
She checked her combat scanner for a moment, determining number and approximate position of the mechs left, then vaulted over the cover and started firing.
Saren was doing the same, with a cavalier disregard for his shields that in another individual would have struck her as reckless, but with him she was willing to assume it just meant he just knew the limits of his equipment very well and was playing it a bit close for convenience's sake.
The last of the mechs stopped in a shower of sparks and ceased moving, and Saren swung back towards her, ignoring the battlefield. "Now, where were we before that interruption?" His voice was an unpleasant purr she had heard before, usually just before he did something painful to some hapless minor criminal.
Usually she would have backed down, tried to defuse the situation, but this time she had reached her limit, too. Staying silent and swallowing the insults hadn't helped any so far, and she didn't see how, short of actual violence, his treatment of her could get any worse than it already had been. Time to take a stand, then.
She stood still, waiting as he came to stop a bit too close for comfort in front of her. As ever his eyes were almost impossible to read, but his pupils had shrunk, making his ice blue irises stand out even more. She held his gaze, determined not to to be intimidated. Showing fear when faced with a predator is equivalent to inviting an attack, and right now he looked like any small move could set him off. It would really have been wiser to stay silent, but she'd had enough.
"You started this," she said evenly. "I play your games, but don't blame me for playing just as rough as you do. You push, and I push back."
"You are being insolent," he remarked, still in that tone.
"Probably. And you don't know how to lose and neither do I." I hope, she added silently. She watched him process her words for a few seconds, then added "By my counting right now we're even."
It was the best peace offering she had.
He cocked his head to one side, again considering, then blinked, and lifted his head a bit. Just like that, he was back to normal, which meant just a little bit short of actual menace. "I think we're done here," he stated in a perfectly normal voice, then turned away and started back the way to their ship.
Shepard watched him for a few seconds, before slightly relaxing and, again, following him.
Shepard punched the door lock closed and managed, after several failed attempts, to actually engage the locking mechanism.
Safe.
Now there was a thought. She'd never expected that Saren's ship would ever register as a safe haven to her. The mere thought was hilarious, and she giggled, even as another part of her felt a cold shiver of fear, though she couldn't say why she'd felt that way.
I'm not in my right mind. Heh.
She laughed, swaying slightly but catching herself on the rails of her bunk, leaning heavily against it. Funny how the ground moved. Shepard wondered about that a bit, then let herself slide down to ponder the problem in depth.
For a moment everything was clear, and she whimpered, then the room started spinning again slowly and that was quite funny.
She was content for a while to watch the ground beneath her change colour, but then there was some sound from somewhere, the door opened and a familiar spiky face entered her field of vision.
She giggled.
"What the hell happened to you?" Saren snarled. It made her giggle harder.
"Don't know, Don't remember," she drawled, then frowned slightly. "Came here, alone. Oh." She remembered something, blurrily. It took a few attempts, but then she dug something out of her pocket. She frowned at the object, then brightened again. "Datapad. That's it. For you. Just what you wanted. For Christmas?" She held it out to him. "Merry Christmas."
He took the pad, gave it a quick glance, then pocketed it.
Mission accomplished, she let herself fall back again.
Saren studied her intently. "You're not stupid enough to do that to yourself. So what happened?"
She thought about that for a while, then shrugged. "Don't want to think."
"Now there's a surprise," he snapped, but did something that made his left arm glow. Oh, right. Omnitool.
He was changing colour now, too, and she found that pastels really flattered him. She felt obliged to inform him of this important fact, too, but he seemed to lack the proper appreciation.
"I'm not surprised that you make even less sense than usual, given the chemical mix that's now in your blood. I'm get readings of at least four different compounds with quite different properties. What did you do, blow up a drug dealer's storeroom?" he remarked.
"Yes!" she crowed. "That was it." She suddenly remembered. "That's why there are dents in my armor, see?" She poked at a break in the armor over her ribs, sadly. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
The turian stared at her. "You're serious."
"Dead. Ah, dead serious, not dead. Unless you're again trying to kill me. I hope you're not. I really hate when you try that."
"I am not trying to kill you," he stated absently, still studying his omnitool. "I will admit to the temptation of wringing your neck, but so far I have been able to resist. Of course there are no guarantees, ever." His words didn't make much sense, but that was all right, because she had the feeling she didn't understand him most of the time anyway.
"Are you going to keep me company?" she asked.
Saren blinked. "What?"
"Don't feel like being alone. Thought I did, but no." She blinked, slowly.
He looked incredulous. "Why the hell would you actually want me around?"
"Dunno. Never had a thing for turians. But you got this alpha badass thing going, and you're smart. You're interesting, that is, when you're not trying to kill me. Or ditch me. Or scare the hell out of me. Or try to get me dismi- dishmish - kicked out of training." She pondered this. "Not sure what's the right response to that. Should hit you." She frowned. "Or should that be hit on you? Not sure which."
She looked at him and promptly laughed at his expression, which was at the moment as slack-mandibled as he was able to. Which wasn't very, granted, but it was the thought that counted.
"You'd better not -" he almost sputtered, and she was literally rolling on the floor with laughter, even as a very distant, still sane part of her cringed in embarrassment of her own behaviour.
She couldn't resist looking at him again, and in her current state it wasn't even difficult to look him straight in the eyes and not turn away. "I always wondered," she stage-whispered "how much of your face is cybernetic."
"Too much," he replied, distractedly, as he was searching through the pockets of his armour.
"Oh." She considered this, then tried again. "What about the rest of you?"
"Right, that's the limit of how much exposure to your subconscious I can take," he declared. "You need to sleep this off, starting immediately. Hold still."
He slapped something against her neck that felt cold and stuck, but she was too distracted to investigate. "No need to get all huffy," she informed him seriously. "After all this is my bedroom and I did lock the door." She blinked. "Does this mean I'm asleep?"
"Spirits willing, that will be the case very soon," he replied in a biting tone.
"Oh. That's all right then." She yawned. "You have turned green, and green really doesn't suit you. Clashes with your eyes. Or something."
Her last conscious thought was that exasperation was a new look on him, then she was out like a light.
Shepard awoke to something that felt like the mother of all hangovers. She rolled to her side, groaned, then got herself out of her bunk. After stubbing her toe on some pieces of her armour strewn across the floor of the small cabin, she regained enough coordination to grab her pack, fish out a small stim pack and slap it on her wrist. Looking down on herself she determined that she was still wearing the body suit that she'd worn under her armor. Why the hell had she slept with that thing on?
Gradually the fog around her brain receded, and memory kicked in. They were on Night's Edge station, a minor trading post just before the outskirts of the 'Veil. She could recall the meeting with a contact for some information about a shipment of specialised arms, most of it Spectre gear, that had mysteriously disappeared en route to the Citadel, including the transport it had been on, its crew and escort. Apart from the arms in question being highly advanced, highly restricted experimental gear that didn't belong in unauthorised hands, it was something that the council considered a direct insult, as did Saren, of course. Shepard was inclined to agree.
In any case, the contact had been more directly involved in the whole heist than either of them had suspected, and she had walked into a fine trap. The meeting place had been a medium-sized warehouse which on paper belonged to some shipping company and in her opinion hadn't held anything that was even remotely legal in council-space. In addition, it had held a varied selection of low-life of most known intelligent species all of them intent on taking the nosy Alliance N7 down.
She'd made it out with the information she'd come to acquire and herself in one piece, but the general mayhem required to facilitate her escape had resulted in several, unexpectedly violent explosions, fire through the complete warehouse and a selection of various recreational drugs from several large crates blown into the air.
Her armour, having taken damage, hadn't kept all of it out, and she had caught some of it. The way back to the ship hadn't been easy, but she was quite certain no one else had made it out of there.
She winced. It wasn't easy to tell hallucination from reality after she'd come back to the ship, though she really really hoped most of her half-remembered conversation with Saren hadn't been real. She'd settle for mostly not real, too.
If he still wanted to get rid of her, he could spin the events a bit differently, and she'd be out. No one'd believe that story. She winced again.
Then she winced some more as she examined her N7 armour. While she herself hadn't been injured save for an already fading collection of bruises, she wouldn't be wearing this set ever again. Shepard regarded it with a stab of unexpected regret. While she could, and indeed would have to, request and pick up a new one, it wouldn't be the same anymore. If this whole Spectre thing didn't work out - and this was the first time she really admitted to herself that it was highly possible it wouldn't - going back as an Alliance N7 wouldn't really work for her anymore. She didn't fit that skin anymore. Though what else she'd do she had no idea yet. And that thought was frightening in a way that even Saren in full killing rage wasn't.
Well, no way but forward.
She waited until she was certain she could at least give a resemblance of alertness, then got up and exited the cabin.
The turian was in the one large room in the midsection of the ship that was partially a tiny mess and partially equipment storage, sitting at the one table surrounded by by differently coloured boxes of various size.
Something of the drugs must have remained in her bloodstream, because her mind promptly supplied an image of a child under a Christmas tree working through a pile of presents. She bit her lip to make sure she didn't smile, because that was certain to set him off.
She hesitated, watching him reassemble an assault rifle of a make unfamiliar to her with practised ease. The last part slid into place, and he looked up, as usually slightly annoyed.
"So. Still among the living, I see." She couldn't have told whether his tone held disappointment of not. "In case you're wondering, the information was good, and I retrieved the missing shipment. It's already on its way to the citadel, minus a small selection of equipment I appropriated."
Shepard wasn't surprised. He had the right to do that, and it made sense for him to pick up what he needed now instead of going back to the Citadel and doing the same thing there. Well, it explained the clutter.
"Are you going to just stand there and watch or will you actually make yourself useful?"
Paradoxically, the very familiar insulting tone was actually a bit reassuring. She shrugged and came closer, and he impatiently motioned her to sit down.
Shepard complied, regarding him questioningly. "What do you want me to do?"
He collapsed the rifle into its transport configuration and set it aside, then picked up a box and pushed it at her while reaching for another one of the same colour for himself.
She opened the box and dutifully unpacked the parts of what had to be a pistol, again a make she didn't know. Frowning slightly, she lined the parts up for him, then looked up to see him assembling the contents of his box into a very nice looking pistol.
Saren set it down, and she expected him to assemble the second one, too, but he lowered his head slightly, looking at her.
"I hope you don't expect me to put yours together as well."
She blinked, not certain she'd heard him correctly. "What?"
He gave the impression of strained patience. "I thought even human soldiers are taught to maintain their own weapons?"
"Of course," she replied quickly. "But that's Spectre gear."
"Yes." His tone implied he was talking to an imbecile. "And you are training to become one, or have you finally gained some sense and changed your mind?" As she didn't reply, he just continued. "Yes, I thought not, that would really have been too much to hope."
She blinked again. Spectre weapons had to be keyed to their user's biosignature, for security reasons. Any Spectre could key one to themselves or someone else, of course, but that happened rarely. A Spectre wouldn't part with one of their weapons, and they didn't carry spares. Their gear was always highly specialised and not manufactured in large numbers.
A datapad landed in front of her with a thud. Automatically, she took it.
"Better read the manual before you break anything," he said without even looking at her, his whole attention on a wicked-looking sniper rifle he was in the process of assembling. "You'll need a lot more practice until you can handle the assault rifle, and I doubt you will ever be reasonably competent with the sniper rifle, but you just might be able to handle the pistol."
She looked at him, unable to keep a small smile of triumph from her lips, but he was ignoring her completely, collapsing the freshly assembled sniper rifle.
It didn't escape her notice that despite his words there were two of most of the gear he'd appropriated. She didn't know and couldn't know whether this was just another elaborate ploy to get rid of her or whether he'd finally resigned to the fact that it was probably easier in the long term to accelerate her training so that he'd be rid of her sooner that way, but at least that drug-affected conversation hadn't come up, and if he wasn't going to mention it, neither would she.
The music in Chora's Den started to make Shepard's ears a bit weary, but it was nice to at least somewhat relax for a bit. She leaned back from her table, taking a sip from her drink and scanned the club's clientele idly. It was a rather mixed crowd, mostly patrons from the Council races, but here and there she saw a handful of humans in Alliance uniforms and a couple of volus.
She turned her attention to the Asari dancers again, mainly the one Saren currently was talking to. They were too far away and the music was too loud for her to hear what was being said, but from their body language she'd surmise that for a change he wasn't intimidating another helpless alien. Shepard suppressed a snort. So far she'd never seen any evidence of him even trying to be polite to anyone.
She eyed them critically again, decided their exchange looked friendly enough, and snorted again. Well, well. Everybody liked the Asari, it seemed. Not that she had a problem with that on principle.
Technically, she was off duty, and had been so since they'd concluded a meeting here with a contact of Saren's, a nervous salarian accountant working for a company specialising in biotech. Saren presumably had taken her along because she'd be expected to meet the salarian again in a couple of days for some info Saren had requested. Shepard wasn't certain what, if anything specific, Saren was looking for, but since so far there hadn't been any threat, blackmail or bloodshed involved, it probably wasn't anything Saren considered urgent. In all likelihood it was just his way to keep an ear to the ground for trouble.
Shepard looked around again, deliberately ignoring Saren and the asari, and instead focused on a trio of men in Alliance marine uniforms a few tables away who were talking animatedly among each other. She considered walking up and joining them, but somehow she wasn't in the mood for the inevitable bragging, telling of tall stories and exaggerated flirting that would make up the conversation. The problem was, she didn't feel like drinking alone, either. And for sure it wouldn't be wise to get drunk.
She looked up just as Saren came back to the table and watched him idly settle himself in. Before she could get a quip in that would probably get her a scathing dress-down, he cocked his head to the side and regarded her.
"What are you still doing here?"
She didn't have a reply to that, but he didn't seem to expect one anyway. "I seriously hope you aren't waiting for my permission to pursue whatever entertainment you are considering." He glanced briefly at the marines for emphasis.
Shepard snorted. "Hardly. And there's no need to go into detail on the extent of your disapproval."
He growled in annoyance. "You are making assumptions again," he snapped, "and they are based on your own skewed view. Why would I care at all what you do when you're off duty?"
Shepard blinked, but automatically replied "I thought you said a Spectre never is off-duty."
He tossed his head back in that impatient gesture she had come to dread. "That was a different context, and you're misquoting, but that is beside the point. As a Spectre, you don't work to a schedule, and you don't get shore leave. If you are smart, you learn soon enough to take what rest and relaxation you can when you can and make the most of it."
She started to reply, indignantly, that she was a soldier, and knew that well enough, but he just lifted a hand, silencing her.
"No, I am aware you know this when you're out on patrol. However I don't think you have realised yet that in a way you will be constantly on patrol. For however long you manage to survive."
Whatever she could have replied to that fell flat as she realised that she was at the moment talking to the Spectre with the longest service record to date. Whatever else could be said about him, that one had to be true: he knew how to stay alive and functional.
"That's a bleak view" she said instead.
"Of course it is. And you can still reconsider." The last was spoken without his usual venom, which was enough to break their usual pattern of her automatic, defiant reply. Instead Shepard thought about it for a moment, then mutely shook her head.
"Are you worried about your career in the Alliance if you fail in this?" he inquired.
She looked at him, surprised. He had never asked anything like this before. His mood was odd; right now he wasn't snide, but seemed genuinely interested. It deserved an honest answer, she decided, and really, what point would there be in lying?
"No. Not really. Either way, I don't think I will be returning to the ranks."
He nodded as if she had confirmed something he had suspected all along. "I see."
A sudden thought struck her. "Do all Spectres work alone?"
If Saren was surprised at her question, he didn't show any of it. "Most do. It's easier that way. But by now you should know that in the end it matters little to the Council how their Spectres do their jobs, as long as they get the results they need." His tone was wry. "If circumstances or convenience demand it, we can and will work together, but it's rarely a permanent arrangement." He actually shrugged. "I never saw a reason to bother with subordinates, but if a Spectre wanted to gather a few specialists to work with, no one would question that."
Shepard considered this. It sounded right, somehow. This was something she'd have to think through at some point in the future. Not something she wanted to discuss with him, though, not before she was certain of her own stand on this.
"If this is about downtime," she changed topic back "then why are you still here and not over there?" she indicated the direction of the Asari dancers with a shake of her head. Then her mind caught up with what she just had said and to whom, and she braced for the inevitable explosion.
The turian regarded her with something like amusement, which was a first. "Are you actually trying to provoke me?" he asked, then continued "But to answer your question, I think I already said that I don't bother with subordinates, in whatever capacity. That would be meaningless, and I won't waste time on that. And there aren't many individuals I'd consider equals."
Shepard did have enough presence of mind to keep her expression impassive, though she was very surprised. She had expected anything between a snide remark and a real show of temper from him, but a honest answer was something out of the blue. Of course, she had a feeling she should be indignant.
"That's a rather arrogant view, isn't it?" she felt obliged to point out.
"Only a realistic one."
She shook her head. "No wonder you have few friends. If any at all," she muttered under her breath, but she was rather certain he caught that anyway.
He shook his head slightly, as if in some amusement at some private joke, then got up and looked down at her calmly. "Our styles are different," his voice held again that wry tone "and so, I imagine, are our personal lives. So you'll have to find out for yourself what works for you." He paused, looking at her still with that expression that she thought was amusement. "So, go. Relax. Rest. Restock your supplies and equipment. We'll leave the Citadel the day after tomorrow, and I expect you to be in peak condition."
Without waiting for any reply from her, he turned and left.
She shook her head with a wry smile of her own. He had eased off a bit on the insults lately, but this was perhaps the first civilised conversation she'd ever had with him. It would have been easy to attribute his unexpected mellow mood to drink or company, but it never was that simple with him. She was rather certain he hadn't even touched that drink he'd been holding, and there probably wasn't much even the famed Asari Consort could do to lighten his mood. All that it meant was that he had switched gears again, and she would have to struggle again to keep up and determine what this new game of his was and how to play and eventually beat it.
"Damned turian," she muttered into her drink, but her heart wasn't quite in it. Even if he wasn't being his usual abrasive self, he succeeded in annoying her. And as for any other question she might have had...well, that was answered, too.
She looked over at the marines again, and one of them happened to look into her direction. He smiled at her, extending an invitation to join their group with a wave of his hand. Maybe that was what she needed, the company of her own species whose expressions she could read and whose motivations could be determined without having to second-guess every move. A contrast to the company of an individual of a very alien species whose motivations she'd probably never understand and who opposed her at every step and turn and challenged her every decision and opinion. Put like that there shouldn't even be a question about it.
"Oh, what the hell" Shepard told herself and pushed herself back from the table.
The small terminal in front of Shepard was set to low-level text-only mode as she was busy tapping away at it, the minimal interface the only illumination in the otherwise dark secondary maintenance room she'd retreated into.
This here was another Cerberus facility, but contrary to the last one they'd cleaned out, the purpose of this one was painfully clear. It was set up as a small but well equipped biological research facility, and from what she'd been able to tell they were looking into developing a particularly nasty sort of microparasite that targeted a broad variety of organisms. The idea, of course, was to have something that went for the aliens but left the humans alone.
The original parasite had come from some forsaken planet near the 'Veil, probably chosen because of its natural adaptability to many different host species, but by now it had been engineered for maximum efficiency - meaning in this case that it was hard to detect in its dormant state, highly infectious when it went active and slow but so far unstoppable in killing its host. It was a weapon, not one to quickly kill lots of aliens but to cripple a large number of them over time and bind their resources.
They had stumbled over this whole mess by accident, mostly, detecting a small but too-new, high tech base and a decent security satellite network on a mostly undeveloped planet with no clue as to who the base belonged to, and no records of its existence in the first place. It hadn't looked like a normal crime-affiliated or even secret military setup, and that was what raised Saren's interest. The Spectre had managed to land his small ship some distance away undetected by the satellites and the facility's sensor range as they had simply observed from afar for a few days. After that time they agreed that they needed to get a better look at what they were dealing with, and that was why Shepard had gone out alone to infiltrate the facility.
Shepard was certain that with regards to pure stealth, she was the better of the two of them, and in this instance he wouldn't have been able to even take the same route as she had done. The maintenance tunnels she'd crawled through were a tight fit for a human in light armor as it was, and impossible to navigate for a turian in heavy combat suit.
They'd agreed on a 20 hour time frame for her to get in and find out what the whole setup was about; after that, provided she didn't send a message to the contrary, Saren'd come in himself.
Shepard had made it into the facility with no real problems, but once there she realised she was in over her head. Staying undetected had been easier than expected, as the base was bigger than she'd expected from the outside, extending several levels into the ground, and sparsely staffed. For security they relied mostly on the remote location and a camera network controlled by the facility's central VI. There were security guards, of course, but once she'd hacked her way into the VI, evading them was easy enough.
She scouted the place, staying away from the living quarters and control center higher up, had a quick peek at the hangar which held just one ship the size of a smaller passenger liner, and the labs - and the containment area of the test subjects. Turning her back on the latter had been one of the hardest things she'd had to do lately, but there was nothing she could do for them at the moment. She wasn't even certain that there was anything to be done, really, but she was determined to ensure that at least an attempt would be made.
From the change in activity and some log messages she'd caught on unattended terminals she could at least deduce that the staff was already in the process of packing up and moving out. Shepard didn't know whether they judged their weapon as deployment-ready yet, or whether they were simply relocating somewhere else to do more in-depth field testing, but in the end that didn't matter much. Her task was to make sure they didn't get away with this, simply enough, and she had made use of the time she had as her own deadline went up.
She had taken the risk of sending out a very short crypted message for Saren, to give him at least a rough overview of the situation, and then retreated to the lowest level of the facility.
An explosion shook the building, and Shepard started to curse under her breath as cracks appeared in the ceiling above, raining fine dust downwards. She paused her work on the terminal for a few seconds, then resumed activity as soon as she was certain that the room she was wasn't in immediate danger of collapsing.
Still, it appeared the need for stealth had just diminished greatly.
"I know you have a thing for explosions, but that's ridiculous," she growled into the comm.
"That wasn't me." Saren sounded slightly out of breath.
"Damnit. Then they are already pulling out, and that's the cleanup starting," she stated. A few quick taps at the terminal confirmed her theory. "That was the main server room and data storage."
She pushed away from the terminal, shutting down the VI interface. "There are two more charges on your level. If I upload you the locations, can you do something about them?"
"I could, but I won't. It would take me too much time. I will not allow them to escape."
She knew that tone. And she knew there wasn't much argument she could make for trying to evacuate the captives that still might be saved. "Trust me, they won't, not for long," she just said, all the detail she dared to voice over an insecure channel.
Of course she couldn't see him, but she could almost hear him growing very still. Something changed in his voice, too.
"You are aware of the consequences if you're wrong?" he asked.
She was, both for herself and for whatever citizens the group had targeted as test subjects next, if they weren't planning their real coup already. And if she got this wrong in any way, she was finished, career-wise, at least. Maybe even literally, she wasn't sure what he'd do to her in case of failure. He might overlook failure because of bad luck, but bad judgement wasn't something he'd tolerate. "I am," she replied, keeping her voice steady.
There was nothing for a few beats, then Saren's voice was back, emotionless as ever. "Give me the locations, then."
She sent the coordinates directly to his omnitool, then cut the transmission for the moment. She didn't spare another thought whether he'd be able to defuse the remaining charges, she knew better than that.
Instead, she made her way back to the control center and spent a few minutes rerouting elements until the main terminal came online again. Shepard called up the hangar's cameras and was just in time to catch a glimpse of the starting ship. She changed the view to the feed of one of the spy satellites and watched the progress of the small craft.
The sound of the door made her half-turn, but her attention was back at the display as Saren came to stand at her side.
He didn't comment as he regarded the representation of the escaping ship, but he was growling slightly. She had gotten very accustomed to him over the last few months, up to the point that she sometimes was faintly surprised to look at him and find that he was of a different species. And then, just like now, there was no way to see him as anything familiar. Turians were evolved from predators, and the instincts were still there. And right now his prey was escaping, and he didn't like that one bit.
Shepard didn't hold her breath as she counted down silently, but it was an effort.
About now.
On the display, the ship had just about cleared the atmosphere as a silent explosion took out its drives. A second explosion a few seconds later tore it into several pieces that parted ways violently in a satisfying display of fireworks.
Shepard felt her lips stretch into a feral smile. "Oops," she said, dead-pan.
The pieces would come down eventually, but burn up in the atmosphere. Not that she thought it likely that anyone aboard had made it through the second explosion, but she found she didn't dislike the thought of a slower fiery end for them.
Saren's expression was mirroring her own, only with more teeth and spikes. "How?" he asked.
"I did some repacking of their cargo," she said. "I didn't have time to switch all the charges for decoys, but they had a couple of them aboard. One of them linked to the drive."
"Risky," he commented, as ever challenging her.
"There is - or, rather, was - a slow decay virus in the ship's computer as well, as a fallback. They wouldn't have made it far," she parried.
"Hmm." He nodded slightly, a mere inclination of his head. "You certainly were busy."
Shepard shrugged. "There's a lot one can so with a 20 hour head start and a bit of creativity," she said with a slight quirk of lips.
Saren neither agreed nor disagreed, but changed topics. "I will make my report to the Council and request to have this mess cleaned up. Then we can be on our way."
Shepard hesitated. She knew very well that there was little she could do for the victims of those experiments, but she was reluctant to just leave them behind. If it had been her call she'd at least have waited until help for them was on its way and in range. Then again, having Saren change his original plan was more than she'd expected. At least they had a chance now. She would have to be content with this.
She just nodded, fatigue setting in as the adrenaline faded out.
Saren threw her a sharp look, then waved a hand dismissively. "Get some rest. The state you're in now you're useless for any investigative work. They were cautious, but there might still some clue be left in the computers down here."
She nodded again, feeling that she didn't have enough energy left to try and make sense of his plans. That would have to wait for later. As she left the command center, his voice followed her, in his usual sour tone. "You didn't do too bad, here."
It was only after she'd located an empty room in the crew quarters and settled in for some rest that she realised that this time, he hadn't added 'for a human.'.
They had gone straight back to the Citadel afterwards, timing their departure so that the small fleet of Salarian ships that the Council had diverted from their original course and called in to help out was already in the system. Shepard didn't know whether it just had been coincidence or whether Saren had really just happened to take a bit longer to search the base and prove to his own satisfaction that they hadn't missed anything. It really could have been either way.
Right now they were back at Chora's Den, occupying a table out of the way with a good view of the club, in surprisingly companionable silence.
Shepard stifled a grin at the thought that she'd actually gotten used to the Spectre's odd moods, something she'd never have believed just a few months ago. She felt good and relaxed, and she thought that after that last mission she was entitled to that.
Saren watched her inquiringly. "You seem to be enjoying yourself."
She laughed freely at that. "What's not to like? A guided tour of the galaxy, firefights and conspiracies included."
He snorted. "That's a very frivolous view."
She shrugged, leaning back and resting her boots on the edge of the table. "It works for me," she stated. She thew him a sideways glance. "Not everyone can have your tidy view of black and white." Once he would have taken exception to that, but now he just snorted again. "Or your sunny and outgoing character."
"You're once again lacking proper respect," he replied, "and this time you don't have the excuse of intoxication in the line of duty."
She didn't even tense. "I wasn't intending to insult you," she replied, "and you know it." She paused, her good mood dropping. "I can't be like you, a smaller copy of the most feared turian Spectre."
Saren cocked his head to one side, interested. "What brought that on?" he inquired.
Shepard shrugged. "Last mission," she said. "You would have blown that place sky-high without even thinking about it. That's not my first thought, or even second or third."
She would have expected him to mock her for this confession, but he seemed unconcerned. "Your first approach is diplomacy and trickery as opposed to threat and violence. As long as the end result is acceptable I cannot fault you for the choice of method."
She blinked. That admission was unexpected.
"This is beside the point anyway." he continued. "The purpose of your training is to broaden your views and to teach you how to stay alive to do your job. You were suggested for this training because of a certain quality, a certain mindset that might make you capable of taking on a Spectre's job. It would be rather counterproductive to on one hand acknowledge this and on the other force you into a set of rules that won't work for you." Saren shrugged. "There's a reason that there are not that many Spectres, and that they are all from very diverging background, species, belief, individuality and skill sets. Each of us is effective in their own way. Some are more specialised than others, but the basic quality is the same." He shifted slightly. "Did you know Nihlus suggested you for training?"
"No," she replied. "It doesn't surprise me, though." She smiled slightly at the thought of the other turian who was so very different from the one sitting beside her. "He's a lot less prejudiced than you, and a hell of a lot better at socialising," she baited him, but for once he refused to play.
"He had his own hangups, make no mistake about that," Saren countered a bit absently. At her surprised look, he added. "I know him quite well. After all, I trained him."
Shepard had nothing to say to that, and Saren continued. "You might have even ended up with him, but Sparatus claimed he was biased and insisted on me."
Shepard snorted. There was no love lost between her and the turian councillor, and she wasn't surprised at all.
"You, of course, are completely neutral on the matter."
"He intends you to fail," Saren stated simply. "The other two are mostly indifferent, but he dislikes you personally. Hence, my involvement." He snorted in disgust. "He's a fool, of course. I'm an agent of the council - the whole of it -, not a tool to be used in a personal vendetta."
Shepard shook her head. "So you're not going to give me a failing grade for his sake?"
"I'm not going to let you pass to spite him either" he countered. "Both would be dishonourable." He spat the last word, and she realised that he considered Sparatus' game as a personal insult. His values were very different from her own, but she understood that he would not allow his judgement to be compromised like that. She might not like the implications for her, but she had to respect him for that.
"So you are going to be fair," she guessed. "Well, that's all I can ask for."
He regarded her thoughtfully, but didn't offer any more comment.
After a while, she sighed. "So, what's next?"
"Illium, I would think. There have been very discreet rumours of one of the major players in the entertainment industry adding not-quite-legal tech to their line of consumer products. Supposedly there are side effects, resulting in a heightened suspectibility to suggestions."
He didn't elaborate further, but she smiled. "Mind control tech hidden in entertainment electronics? Sounds like a crazy conspiracy theory. Of course, if it happens to be true..."
"I don't think this galaxy needs the general populace acting even more stupid and irrational than it does on its own devices." His tone was almost pained. Shepard snorted at that, having to agree. "In any case, this will require a lighter approach."
Shepard laughed. "I'm up for it."
Saren nodded slightly, studied her for a moment, which was by now not as disconcerting as it used to be, then abruptly got up. "I have some matters to take care of." he said, "but you can consider yourself off-duty."
She was used to his aprupt manner by now, so she smiled and nodded. "All right. See you, then." Watching him stalk off, she idly started considering what to do with the rest of the evening.
The next morning, Shepard started to get a bad feeling as there were no messages from Saren waiting for her. She couldn't reach him via comm either, so she threw on her normal gear - more out of habit than anything since she didn't really expect any serious trouble at the Citadel - and went to the dock where his ship had been parked.
Once she was on the glass walkway leading to the docks, it was obvious that she was too late. Instead of Saren's small ship, there was another one of similar make with unfamiliar markings sitting in the same spot.
Shepard started cursing freely and creatively. "Really, Saren?" she finally growled. "We are back to playing hide and seek? I really had thought we had moved beyond this by now."
It was almost disappointing, since so far he had never played any trick or used any one specific tactic on her twice.
If she counted down on her list, he'd ditched her on a backwater planet's spaceport, thrown grenades over her head, left her false intel on a tricky political situation, made her wander unprepared into gang conflicts, merc band shootouts and at one memorable occasion a university reception on the Citadel, made her lose her equipment to see how she improvised, dropped parts of buildings on her head, switched her rations with dextro amino ones to see whether she was allergic to it - she wasn't, as it turned out, and as she had told him on that occasion, she might be allergic to his character, but not to dextro aminos in general- and in uncountable other ways endangered her life, sanity and patience in new and interesting ways, so this really felt a bit like a cop-out. Maybe he was finally running out of ideas.
With a disgusted sound, she went to locate a terminal. At least he hadn't had her access permissions revoked this time, she thought grimly as she went through the records. She raised one eyebrow in surprise. His ship had taken off less than two hours after he'd left her in Chora's Den, and while he rarely declared his destination, this time he had done so.
What the hell are you doing out on the 'Veil again? she wondered. Was the bit about Illium a red herring? Not for the first time she entertained the thought of snapping off one of the spikes on his head and stabbing him with it, repeatedly.
Her omnitool chimed, indicating a new message, anonymous. "Oh, what now?" she snarled as she tapped the controls, then frowned as she scanned the contents. The message was short, just the words "Hopefully you finally learned your place."
"What the...?"
It was clear enough who had sent the message, but she had to wonder what his game was now.
Another chime, and she blinked at several new messages. All of them were in some form or other offering congratulations for her successful completion of Spectre training. The last was a summoning to the Presidium later today, to report to the Council directly.
A grin slowly spread over her features. Well, now. She'd not have put it past Saren to fake some of these messages just to be able to dash her hopes, but even he wouldn't dare to counterfeit the official summoning for the minor satisfaction of yanking her chains.
She actually had survived training with Saren. Who would have thought it...
And how like him to simply take off without any goodbye or even letting her know her training was finished or even the results of his evaluation. Then again, even with a lot of imagination she couldn't imagine him staying around for the official ceremony. She wasn't disappointed by this. While she might admit to a certain fascination with him, at no point ever had she had any illusions about his character, which was as abrasive as his plates. He wasn't going to offer any congratulations or open praise. The fact that he'd judged her training complete and his report on her performance had been favourable already held all the approval he had to spare on her. Still, he'd even left her with a suggestion on her first assignment, she realised, which said a lot more than whatever terse comments he would have made in his official report.
Yes, she thought. I learned my place, and that place is a Spectre's.
Shepard drew her hand over the electronic lock of her hotel room. The lock turned green as the door opened silently, and she stepped into the room. As accommodation went, it was nothing special, just a room with a bed and a small desk with terminal as the only furniture, one door on the far wall leading into a small bathroom. It would serve its purpose, which was mainly to give her a chance to rest after the conclusion of her mission here before she moved on.
The lighting wasn't set to turn on automatically, so the hotel room remained dim, mostly illuminated by what light was reflected through the window from the various signs, advertisements and other illuminations from Illium's capital outside. Nos Astra was certainly a flashy, refined place, but in its own way it was was just as bad as Omega, and she wouldn't be sad to leave.
There was no sound that could have alerted her, nothing visible that was proof that the room had been disturbed in her absence, but she didn't even hesitate as her instinct told her to get ready for a fight. Shepard drew her pistol, silently,then went still, listening.
Nothing happened, so she took a few cautious steps into the room.
A mere whisper of sound made her spin around, weapon following her line of sight, and a moment later she found herself pointing her pistol right at a very familiar pale plated face.
Saren didn't even blink, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice. "A good reaction. I approve. And good work on your last mission."
Shepard held her position for a moment longer, then lowered the weapon, but she didn't relax. "I thought I'd seen the last of you for some time to come."
He cocked his head slightly to the side, as if considering his answer. "That depends entirely on you."
Shepard frowned. "Is that supposed to be a threat?" As much time as she had spent with him, she couldn't place his mood, and the low light didn't help to figure it out.
He snorted, and that slight head-toss she knew. "I rarely make threats, as you well know."
"Fair enough. So, what do you want? Prove to me that you're still faster and stronger and meaner than me?"
The turian didn't reply, but somehow that was familiar and reassured her.
She finally relaxed her stance and stepped back. He remained where he was, even leaning back against the wall. The neon lights from outside reflected on his pale face, altering the lines of his face with flickering colour and softening the familiar harsh edges. It held her interest a lot more than it should.
For the first time, she noted he wasn't in his usual grayish armor, but in a black outfit that was fitting tightly to his body, with a black, also tight tunic over it, and a broad strand of black, softer fabric wound around his neck like a shawl, trailing down his front and back down over one shoulder. She'd seen him in non combat gear before, very rarely, but never in something like this. He looked sleek and somehow a lot more dangerous. And yet the image before her didn't exactly inspire fear, though there was certainly some other sort of uneasiness somewhere in the pit of her stomach.
She swallowed, suddenly uncertain. "Okay, what exactly is this?"
His face was as expressionless and neutral as his voice. "It occurred to me that technically we are equals now."
Her first impulse was to ask what the hell he meant by that, but then she remembered that one offhand remark, about how he simply wasn't interested in the company of anyone he didn't consider an equal, and her eyes widened. He couldn't mean what she thought he was saying, could he?
Saren remained still, arms crossed in front of his chest, regarding her impassively, his cybernetic blue eyes giving nothing away. He seemed content to be waiting for some reply from her.
If her training with Saren had taught her anything, it had ingrained into her the need to analyse, think things over, use caution. The impulse was there, and made her at least try to clarify.
"Is this still a test? Some sort of game you're playing?" Hell knew he wasn't above using humiliation to get a reaction out of her, and she was damned if she was going to play along if that was his game.
He just moved his head slightly in the negative. "No. None of that." His voice was even, almost uncaring, but in a flash of insight she understood what he was doing.
In a very literal way, he was leaving the decision up to her; he had made this offer, however oblique, and that was all he would say on the matter. He wouldn't move, or try to persuade. It was up to her to approach him, if she chose to.
She could kick him out, and that would be all there ever would be said on the matter. No awkwardness between them, no hard feelings.
Or she could take him up on this.
She stared at him hard, training kicking in again, weighting pro and con. Rationally, this could be a fiasco. The attraction was there, no doubt about that, but acting on it would run counter to what should be a professional working relationship. Right now, he at least somewhat respected her. The possibility to lose that bit of respect by acting unprofessionally was very real. Besides, she really had no experience with that aspect of turian behaviour. She had a general idea about the anatomy involved, although, granted, that had been in the pursuit of improving fighting skills, and had of course heard the stories of how rough they supposedly played. Regardless of the truth of rumours and gossip, this had the potential to go really bad.
He shifted slightly, a slight tension through his body, and she realised two things. One, he wasn't as dispassionate as he was acting and two, he knew what she was doing right now and expected the outcome to be not favourable.
It was enough to shock her out of soldier mode. She was actually doing exactly what she had accused him of all along, just calculating facts and never taking emotion into account. Maybe he had really taught her too well. Shepard smiled slightly to herself. This wasn't a battlefield, and she wouldn't over-analyse. Besides, she usually was the one taking chances. She closed the distance between them with a few quick steps, standing very close to him and looking up at him.
Something changed in his expression for a moment, too subtle for her to catch, so she gave up on trying to figure it out. Instead, she lifted her hand, slowly bringing it up to his face. Slow enough to give him time to pull away, but as he didn't, she cupped one mandible lightly and leaned against him, never breaking eye contact.
"I'm open to the idea," she said, striving for the same neutral tone, but she was aware that she was probably failing. "What did you have in mind?"
In response, his hand slid between her shoulder blades, drawing her closer. There was no hesitation in the gesture, but no undue pressure either, and she reminded herself that he supposedly knew what he was doing. After all, it was only the company of humans he objected to. Asari presumably were close enough.
"I thought that maybe you'd be interested in evaluating my skills, for a change."
Caught by surprise, she chuckled. Well, if that was the way this was going to be played, she was fine with that. "All right, then. Try to impress me."
He rumbled assent and ran his other hand down her side and up again, coming to rest just under her chest. Gathering her closer, he bent his head and ran just the tips of his mandibles down the side of her neck in something like very gentle nibbles.
Shepard sighed and transferred her hand to the back of his head, caressing the surprisingly soft skin there in lazy circles. He rumbled again, almost too low to hear, but she felt the sound resonate somewhere deep inside. Since he wasn't usually shy to voice complaint, she figured she was doing something right.
His hand moved over her breast, slowly, unhurriedly, and she sighed at a wave of pleasure, leaning back a bit to give him better access, and he took the opportunity to slip both hands under her shirt, then moving back to what he'd been doing.
The feel of his gloved hands against her skin was strange enough to jolt her out of the moment.
This wasn't how it went, usually, she wasn't at all the submissive type. Even, or especially at this she always gave as good as she got. And she couldn't let him have this kind of advantage. A fun roll in the hay between soldiers was a pleasant way of easing tension without any consequences, and if things got a bit rough, well, then that was fine too. Tenderness, however, was unexpected, and she wasn't certain she had a defense for that.
She reached for him again, her move almost aggressive, but he just stilled, not making any counter move, and slowly leaned back to look at her. "Don't," he said, his voice so low she almost couldn't make out the words. This time his voice wasn't calm and even anymore, though she couldn't precisely identify the underlying emotion. "Don't let this become a competition. None of us knows how to back down."
He didn't have to spell it out, that for both of them the line between playful competition and all-out fight was hair-thin. It had taken long enough for the both of them to define where they stood with each other when he'd been her superior. Now with them technically being equals, the balance was off, and they were strange to each other again. As he had said, neither of them knew how submit, and a struggle for dominance, even and maybe especially in this context, would probably end badly between them.
He was right, she realised as he hugged her close, touching his mandibles to the side of her neck again. His breath tickled against her ear as she heard him whisper. "Please?"
That word alone told her everything she had to know. It wasn't really in his nature to ask for anything, much less to beg.
It wasn't in her nature to submit, either, but he had made it as clear as he could without actually saying the words that this wasn't a mindgame. She could trust him that far. True, she was way out of her comfort zone with letting someone she still didn't fully trust take charge like this, but then again she suspected from his behaviour that he was well out of his own comfort zone as well, which put them back on equal footing. And she was the more flexible of them. And really, in the end, there was nothing wrong with just enjoying oneself.
Instead of replying verbally, she leaned her head back, relaxing into his embrace.
He licked down the side of her neck, the feel of his oddly textured tongue sending shivers through her. He drew away for a moment, snagging the hem of her shirt and dragging it up, easing her out of it with surprising skill.
She closed her eyes briefly, but opened them again, surprised at the feel of skin against scaly skin as his hands transferred to her sides and he started licking slowly from the hollow of her throat downwards. It almost distracted her as she looked down at the sight of the talons on his hands, black, long and presumably sharp.
This wasn't...quite safe, she thought. Then she considered who she was with, and admitted to herself that none of this was safe, in so many ways.
He didn't look up but guessed correctly what she was thinking, and murmured against her skin. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you."
"Likewise" she quipped automatically, then gasped as his tongue curled around one nipple.
Saren gave a sound that in another person she would have termed a chuckle, but of course he wouldn't stoop to something undignified like that, so she left it undefined.
As one hand came up to caress her other breast, she firmly decided not to worry about his claws. Or anything else, really.
She couldn't help it, she let her head fall back and sighed in pure pleasure.
He moved suddenly, exactly not fast enough to trigger any unwanted reflexes from her, turned her slightly and pushed ber backwards. Her heel touched the foot of the bed, and then he was easing her down, not even pausing in his slow licks.
A distant part of her registered amusement at that move, but then again she knew he had excellent coordination. The rest of her just enjoyed the attention.
Then his hand slipped lower, under layers of fabric encountering skin, and she bit off a moan as he started stroking her slowly. She was dimly aware that he shifted again, efficiently divesting her of the rest of her clothing, but mostly she just felt the rising heat he called up with these slow, certain strokes. And it was just the right speed, fast enough to hold her interest, slow enough to leave her wanting more.
"How do you know how to do that?" she gasped.
She couldn't see his expression, which wouldn't have told her much anyway, but she could have sworn there was a smile in his voice.
"I take it you approve so far."
A deft circle of the pad of his thumb over her clit drew a moan from her, and he continued in the same tone "You still think too much, though."
She could have protested that, but then he dipped his head between her thighs and licked her once, slowly. All conscious thoughts fled as she threw her head back. His hands slid under her, supporting her, as he started lapping at her. She moaned, arching her back, trying to urge him on, but he kept that tantalising slow pace, every stroke precise and measured. With anyone else, at any other time she'd have at least at this point taken charge, but instead she felt herself relaxing, sinking deeper into pure sensation. She gasped again as his tongue slid inside, curling just so, hitting exactly the right spot. That was exactly what she needed, right now, and she would have let him know that except that she couldn't seem to be able to string words together. It didn't matter, though, because he kept going, her reactions more than enough cue for him.
Two more licks, and she had reached breaking limit, pleasure crashing down on her like a wave as she writhed against him, whimpering in relief in a voice very unlike her normal one. She was dimly aware that he just held her, not restricting but supporting until she completely relaxed.
He let go of her, retreating a bit out of her field of view, and she couldn't be bothered just yet to lift her head and watch what he was doing. Then his hands were back on her, running down her sides gently. She looked up at him, finding he had shed his own clothes and was now kneeling between her legs, watching her intently. One hand gripped her hip slightly, and something in that touch woke her again to desire, a lot faster than she was used to. She sat up and carefully ran a hand over his collar and then down the central ridge that went down his chest. The plates there had sharply defined edges, but were flatter and smoother than she would have thought, and also not quite as rigid as expected. She had always imagined a turian's body plating like real armor, but there definitely was some give to it. His colour was uniform all over, which was to her knowledge unusual, the same pale almost-white as his face. Her eyes had adjusted to the low light, but she still wished she could see him better.
His hands settled around her waist, and he lifted her slightly and drew her against him in an effortless move.
She wrapped her legs around him automatically, settling against his oddly hollowed hips. He growled low in reaction, the sound sending a pleasant thrill down her spine. She ground slowly against him, as much as she could as he held her in place, feeling plates shift against her, the tip of him rubbing through her folds. That felt nice, she decided, but she need more, so she rolled her hips against him.
He still held her hips firmly, then moved slightly, suddenly, driving in deep. She almost yelped in surprise, then settled with a contented sigh as they got used to each other. A smile stole on her lips as she thought that while she knew that turians kept their tender parts internal unless needed, she hadn't known they came spring-loaded. Or with such interesting bumps, really. In other circumstances that might be a bit risky, but as things were, she approved very much. He shifted again, keeping one hand on her hips and supporting her back with the other, and she leaned back as he began a slow, gentle rhythm. Shepard sighed in pleasure, just enjoying the moment, letting sensation build.
She watched him out of almost closed eyes. His expression was still intent, and she realised that he was still completely focused on her, taking cues from her reactions and adapting his actions accordingly. And like with everything else he considered worth doing, he wasn't doing things by half. The same single-minded intensity he showed in combat was now applied to giving her pleasure. That alone was even more of a turn-on in a very unexpected, heady way. She whimpered, a sound she didn't even recognise as her own, and he growled again, shifting again against her and then thrusting into her a few times, sending her over the edge so hard that she was literally seeing stars. Distantly she was aware that he gave a strangely subdued snarl as he found his own release, but all she could do was cling tight and ride out the torrent of sensation that had drowned most of her conscious mind.
Finally she caught her breath, realising that he was holding her a bit closer now. He rested his forehead briefly against hers, and she felt content enough just to be held. Then he pulled his head back, and she smiled up at him as she disentangled herself without haste.
"Right. Consider me impressed," she stated, and Saren's mandibles twitched almost imperceptibly, in what she was pretty certain was as much of a smile as he would ever show.
Shepard regarded him thoughtfully. When she had imagined this scenario happening - as unlikely as she had considered it - she had imagined it a lot rougher, possibly involving claws and teeth and struggling for dominance and passion bordering on violence. This almost dreamy experience had taken her completely by surprise, and she was at a loss to explain it. Certainly, there had been the need for caution between them, unfamiliar as they were to each other in this aspect, but she still wondered a bit whether that was the only reason, or whether that, even more difficult to imagine as it was, was just his preference. She would never have thought him even capable of tenderness. It was a puzzle, and one she intended to solve. Eventually. Of course, she would need more empirical data on that before she could start formulating a theory.
She smiled again, allowing her expression to mirror the mischief she felt as the sole warning she gave as she shot forward to tackle him over. He landed on his back, and she straddled him, leaning over his face. Interestingly, he hadn't hade any move to counter or even tensed up, so he either had anticipated what she was going to do or just trusted her. Both explanations were slightly disturbing in their own way.
"My turn now," she told him.
"I suppose that's only fair," he agreed, regarding her with faint amusement and looking completely at ease. "What do you have in mind?" he mirrored her own earlier question.
"I think," she started slowly "that my training still is lacking in some regards. There are still some aspects of turian anatomy and behaviour that I'm unfamiliar with."
She experimentally ran her fingers along the inner side of his collar, and he gave a deep, low sound that was almost like a purr. "Of course there's a lot than can be learned from literature and vids" her fingers ran up to the back of his neck again, and the purr grew in volume "but I thought a more hands-on approach would be more efficient. Now, you are a quite capable if reluctant teacher, and I had thought you might be persuaded to complete my training in this regard."
Saren's mandibles twitched again, and she realised that she had managed to surprise him.
"If you feel your training was lacking," he replied in a dead-pan tone that by now she was certain was humour "then of course I'm duty-bound to remedy that situation."
She laughed. "I'm very pleased to hear this," she told him as she leaned in close.
Shepard woke slowly, leisurely, and stretched. It came as absolutely no surprise to her that she was alone in the hotel room. A smile curved her lips as she considered last nights events. It had been a mutually satisfying experience, of that at least she could be sure. She still didn't know what exactly, if anything, it meant for the both of them. For herself, well, if it had been simple curiosity, she should have gotten this out of her system by now; since she was still intrigued by him, even more than before, it was probably a bit more complicated.
What he thought about the matter, hell alone knew, but he had seemed content enough to her. She didn't believe she had lost his respect or even made a mistake in accepting his offer of company. It would probably be quite a while until they ran into each other again, it was a big galaxy. This wasn't necessary a bad thing, though; he'd called the two of them equals, but to her own mind they weren't, not yet. She needed some time and experience to earn that label for herself. Once she had found her feet and they met again, it'd really be on equal footing.
Regardless of any of that, she had a job to do, so she reluctantly rolled out of bed.
She showered and dressed efficiently but without haste, then fired up the terminal to download new personal messages and news to her omnitool.
Nothing in there was in the least unusual, but she frowned slightly when she noted a new file that hadn't come in with the normal feed.
It was encrypted. She considered the puzzle for a moment, then chuckled and ran the same decryption on it that she'd used on Saren's case files at the beginning of her training. The result was a short note, containing addresses and access codes for a number of extranet maildrops, some anonymous, some with names she neither recognised nor expected to. No further instruction, but that as well came as no surprise.
So, they had a way to keep in touch, unofficially and unobserved. They could make sure their paths crossed accidentally, or call on each other if one of them came across something that was big enough to justify the attentions of two of their kind.
They'd probably snipe and throw insult at each other as ever in public, just to keep up appearances. About what happened when it was just the two of them...well, that remained to be seen.
She smiled again. In a way, it was perfect.