You Can't Always Get What You Want, Part II
Title: You Can't Always Get What You Want
Author: infelixsoror
Artist: regeener
Beta: Afromouse (fanfic.net)
Canon: Mass Effect
Ratings: Teen
Warnings: Death, violence, some swearing, mild spoilers and shameless reinterpretation of canon.
Summary: After giving the N7s years of good service, all Shepard wants is to be allowed to retire in peace. She’s not convinced that a dozen N7 cadets, a smartarse pilot, old rivalries and the odd assassination are really the same thing at all.
Author's/Artist's note: Also posted here and here, for the record. Many thanks and hugs to regeener for the lovely, lovely art.
xxx
“Joker!”
Joker rolled his eyes, confident that Shepard wouldn’t be able to see him do so, hidden as he was by the half-built turian fighter on top of him.
“There are these wonderful things called comms.,” he said. “Means you don’t have to shout quite so loudly.”
“What’s the point of being a CO if you can’t shout a little? And speaking of responsibilities, please tell me someone said you could mess with turian tech.”
“It’s a sorry one of my kids nearly shattered you spine present from the turian commander.”
“Learning anything interesting?”
“Just that turians are all style and no substance, but I knew that already.”
Shepard chuckled softly, a rare sound and Joker couldn’t help but already be a little bit proud when he heard it. “Why are you taking this thing apart?”
“Because you need to know how something works in order to break it properly.”
“I generally find high-grade explosives work quite well.”
“And that’s why you’re the infiltrator and I’m the driver.”
“A very good driver, though.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, bringing out the tone of voice he used on superior officers who weren’t Shepard. She swatted the back of his head, gentle enough for him to know she was being careful but hard enough for him to ignore that fact. “What brings you down here, Shepard?”
“We need to clear the station.”
“Why?”
“Something to do with the maintenance circles. Standard procedure; everyone but Vidinos and his trainees are scattering. I’m taking the cadets to do a little survival training planet-side; you can be our designated driver or I can swing you some leave. Your choice.”
“I’m not letting you run around by yourself. You’ll get yourself shot again.”
“That was one time, Joker.”
“And it was with a rocket launcher. Forgive me for not forgetting that anytime soon.”
“So you’ll help with the cadets?”
“Yep. Do we have a ship?”
“We will do. Bring a book or something. It’s going to be two days of hanging around in orbit while the cadets do their damnest to kill each other.”
“Fun times.”
xxx
Thirty-one hours after throwing the cadets out of a perfectly serviceable ship and Joker was bored. All ready recalibrated everything, run out of books, liable to do things necessary for a dishonourable discharge bored.
“Whatever you’re considering doing, please don’t,” Shepard said from where she was sprawling across one of the benches.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t know precisely what you’re thinking,” Shepard replied. “But I know you’re getting twitchy. Tom Roberts was just the same, only he was a biotic and one of the early signs of his boredom was when your gun starting reassembling itself.”
“Was he in the 95th?”
“Yep. My second ended up teaching the poor bastard how to knit to stop him messing with our equipment. Of course, I had no idea why Lyra knows how to knit, but that was a problem for another day and I never got around to solving it.”
“Are you suggesting I should start knitting?”
“No. That’s Lyra’s solution, but she’s unhappily retired and definitely not hosting old-style craft classes. My solution for twitchiness is push-ups and pull-ups.”
“Don’t even think about it; I have a note from the doctor!”
Shepard laughed. “Alright, so no pull-ups. How about-”
The comm. crackled to life, spat out a string of completely unintelligible words, and died again. Shepard went from lounging carelessly to standing ready on her feet before the noise had died completely.
“Joker-”
“On it. Filtering the message and back-tracing.” Joker’s hands flew over the keyboard. “Whoa. This was sent on the Station’s internal system.”
“Then how the hell did we pick it up?”
“Someone rigged the system, but not very well. I doubt the message could travel out of the system. Give me a second, I can probably clear it up, but the translator can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“Could’ve been Old Turian. They don’t load the translators with dead languages.”
“How do you know Old Turian?”
“Long story. Play it again for me.” Shepard nodded. “One more time, please. Oh, yeah, that’s not good.”
“How not good?”
“Pinnacle Station’s been taken.” She leant over him, taking over the controls.
“Is that the emergency broadcast channel?”
“Yep,” Shepard said. “This is, after all, an emergency.”
“Let me. You always hit the buttons too hard, my girls don’t like that.”
“Freak.” But Shepard leant back, letting him access the control panel, and waited patiently until he gave her the nod. “This is Commander Shepard for the N7C-80s. This is not a drill. I have reason to believe that Pinnacle station is under attack. I want all cadets at the emergency extraction point by the time the ship touches down. Anyone not there by the time we take off can kiss their stripes goodbye.”
“Think they’ll be there?” Joker asked, programming the flight path without needing to be asked. “Also, are the targeting drones still active? It’s not a problem, per se, but I do like to know these things.”
“They’d better be, and no. Those things are too expensive to run all the time when they’re only needed for scaring cadets.”
“Perfect. Taking us down now.”
It was a tense forty minute trip to the landing point. Shepard suited back up and spent the remainder of the time checking and re-checking her weapons, just as she did before any mission. Joker lasted three minutes before switching the shuttle to manual. It was faster, he told himself, and it was, if he ignored the odd safety measure or two. Shepard was willing to trade a little safety for speed and she trusted him to know how much was a little and how much was too much. He got them there safely and eleven minutes faster than the computer could have.
And when they landed, there were twelve bedraggled cadets all in a row, waiting for them.
Shepard hopped out of the ship before the ramp was properly lowered. “No way in hell should you all have been able to get here before me. When we’re done with Pinnacle, we’ll have a little chat about the proper meaning of scatter and run. But right now, we have work to do.”
“What do we know, ma’am?” Clark asked.
“Very little. Everyone on board. We’ll talk in the air.”
xxx
The cadets and Shepard crowded themselves into the back of the ship, surrounding the central console. There was a certain amount of good-natured nudging and pushing between the cadets; magically, none of it ever reached Shepard, who put a stop to all movement entirely with a single look.
“We have very little information. Someone on Pinnacle Station sent what I can only assume to be a distress signal, in Old Turian. Our good friend Joker has detected several energy signatures for small vessels, most likely batarian troop-carriers. I do not particularly care who is there or what they want. We’re going to ruin their plans.” Shepard pulled up the holographic 3D plan of the station. “I won’t bother going over the schematics; you should all know the station as well as I do by now. We have no information on how many hostiles we have or what weapons they have. Thoughts?”
“Timing’s too good, ma’am,” Clark said. “The maintenance cycle was announced less than 24 hours ago; that’s not enough time to pull together a crew and a plan capable of taking out the turians.”
“Especially if the ones doing the planning are batarians,” Brink added.
“So we have to assumed that the batarians have detailed knowledge of the station, maybe even someone on the inside.”
“But their knowledge will be academic at best,” Clark said. “Ours is instinctive.”
“That is a minor advantage at best,” Shepard said, crossing her arms. “But a minor advantage should be all an N7 needs. I want you all working in pairs. Sort yourselves out; you know who you work best with.”
“What’s the objective?”
“Same as it always is.”
“Hurt them without getting hurt.”
Shepard nodded. “More specifically, however, each pair is to identify somewhere in the station where they can do some major damage to both the station itself and whatever unwelcome aliens happen to be on it at the time.”
“Surely the aim is to throw the batarians off without destroying the station.”
“If possible. Whatever happens, we cannot allow the batarians to take any of the technology from the station. If that means trashing the tech ourselves, so be it.”
Quinn raised her hand. “I helped with the installation of additional holographic projectors outside of the main simulators. If the batarians are in the right place, I can easily bring down a little holographic hell on them.”
“How little?”
“An entire battalion. The programme was designed for the turians’ final test. It’s pretty hardcore.”
“Do you have the codes?”
“Don’t need them. If I can get to Ochern’s terminal, there’s a backdoor I can use.”
“You found Jensen’s route?” Shepard smiled. “Excellent. Abs owes me a drink. Who do you want to help you?”
“Hansen.”
Hansen nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
“Alright. Hansen, start planning your route. Quinn, try and access the Station’s systems. I want to know what we’re dealing with. What weapons do we have with us?”
“Each of us has the four standard guns,” Watson replied. “Tchen’s got her explosives-”
“Which are not suitable for use on the Station,” Tchen added. “I can’t guarantee they won’t breach the hull.”
“And I am never going to ask how a cadet got their hands on explosives of that calibre,” Shepard said.
“Shepard, we’ve got the interior cameras,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t look like the batarians have spliced any of the feeds. And all the cameras are still running.”
“Batarians aren’t the sneaky kind,” Shepard said. “But this is bold even for them. Can you find anyone?”
“My bugs are looking for variations in the decibel levels across the station. Should pick up any- Bingo. Unless the batarians can swear in Turian, I’ve found the trainees. All of them, by the sounds of it.”
“You can tell that from the audio feed?”
“Well, yes, but only because one of them just asked why the batarians didn’t split them up.”
“Excellent. Lorne, take O’Neill, Mason and Brink, go get them,” Shepard ordered. “When you find them, save the gloating for later.”
“Shepard, it looks like the feed is being downloaded. Part of it, anyway.”
“Which part, Quinn?”
“Just the assembly hall.”
“Pull it up.”
The feed from the hall was high quality, good enough that footage of the occasional graduation ceremonies could be used by every major news broadcast in the Turian Expanse. The feed was certainly good enough that Shepard could the batarians, lined up to from three sides of a square and being unusually orderly while doing so.
“We’ve got the sensors. Picking up fifty-eight batarians in the hall, eleven more in the docking bay, six outside the turians’ cell. And what looks like ten patrols of five, spread across the station.”
“They’re just waiting,” Ali said. “Why aren’t they trashing the place, ripping the tech?”
“Because it’s not the about the tech,” Clark said. “But what else is there on the station worth that many batarians?”
“Us,” Shepard said. “The N7s went out in force against Torfan, there’s a lot of ill feeling there. You guys are meant to be our best and brightest; killing you would be like killing our children.”
“You were pretty active on Torfan yourself.”
“Very few people know that, even fewer batarians. These bastards are probably waiting for us to get back from our field trip so they can wipe out our graduating N7C class.”
“They could have sent the message.”
“Maybe. But they don’t look like people ready for our arrival. Even if they know we’re coming, they don’t know we’re here. Joker, tell me there are ways onto the Station that don’t involve the docking bay.”
“Like, eight if we have the proper equipment. Which we do because you’re intensely paranoid and very well organised.”
“Good. Start mapping them for me, then-”
“Shepard, looks like we’ve got eyes on their commander,” Quinn called. “Got the biggest gun in the room and all the others suddenly look scared.”
“Quinn, can you zoom in on that?” Clark said, pointing at the screen over her shoulder. “You see, his upper right eye? That scarring looks awfully like that left by a near-miss with a sniper rifle.”
“Let me see,” Shepard ordered and Quinn scrambled to comply; there really was no other option when Shepard spoke like that. And then she smiled in the most worrying way imaginable. “Malak. You stupid bastard,” she said, more to herself than anyone else, and then raised her voice again. “Alright, kids. Change of plan. We’re not going to blow Pinnacle Station to kingdom come. We’re going to take it back.”
“Fine by us,” Lorne said. “Can we do it by ourselves, or do we have to be grown up and share with the turians?”
“It would be rude to have a party without inviting them,” Tchen said.
“Why the change in plan, Shepard?” Clark asked.
“Because that batarian is Commander Malak,” Shepard said. “He led the attack against Elysium and he is personally responsible for the death of an N7 operative, Staff Lieutenant Reid Davis. He doesn’t leave Pinnacle Station alive, are we clear?”
The cadets nodded.
“We’ll need to move fast. Malak likes to execute commanders in front of their troops and he has Vidinos. Everyone suit up. Joker will drop each of you where you need to be. Clark, you’ll take command.”
“And what will you do?” Clark asked.
“I will be playing the role of bait. And I will be most annoyed if it goes wrong. Make me proud, boys and girls. However you see fit, make me proud. Joker! Take us into position. You know what I want.”
xxx
“Are we sure this is going to work?” Tchen asked, peering dubiously out of the view point.
“It’s just like an orbital drop,” Joker said. “In theory, anyway.”
“Yeah, only it’s horizontal instead of vertical and, if we miss, we’ll float in space until we die.”
“So don’t miss,” Clark said. “Shepard jumps first, then Joker will drop the rest of us off.”
Tchen glanced back at Shepard, standing by the hatch with her helmet under her arm, and then nudged Joker. “Do you have any idea what she’ll do?”
“Not in any detail. I imagine it will involve death and death-defying and a certain amount of smart-ass comments,” Joker replied. “Shepard! We’re in place. Are you sure about this?”
“No.” Shepard pulled on her helmet, sealed it down. “But I’m going to do it anyway.”
“That’s my CO. Opening inner hatch.”
She nodded and stepped through the hatch.
“And she’s off,” Joker said. “Where next, Clark?”
Clark was still looking at the holographic map of Pinnacle Station. “Right. This is what we do.”
xxx
Shepard’s landing here, with any luck. She’ll hit a patrol in a matter of minutes, as she wished. And I imagine the poor bastards won’t do that much damage.
The first batarian to come round the corner got shot through the throat. The element of surprise was always good for at least one death and the four remaining batarians were too used to patrolling empty corridors to be ready for an angry and efficient N7 operative. Neat bullet holes and the odd broken neck were all Shepard left behind as she picked a corridor at random and started running.
It had been too long since she’d done this kind of work. Solo infiltration was all about stealth and sneakiness, which were admittedly qualities that Shep had in abundance. But there was always fun to be had when the objective was to do as much damage as possible and damn the consequences. Playing bait was never a problem, so long as you trusted the people getting ready to close the trap.
She made her way across Pinnacle Station, using the route to Ahern’s office that she used when she wanted to put off actually talking to the man. Shepard made sure not to touch any the cameras, just in case Malak was smart enough to have someone watching them. His attention had to be on her for as long as possible if this was going to work.
The hardest part of the whole situation, really, was letting enough batarians live so that they were able to take her prisoner, just outside the main hall and far away from whatever little tasks her cadets had found to keep themselves out of trouble until they were ready to cause trouble themselves.
Her distraction won’t last forever. We’ll need to move fast. Hansen, you and Quinn will land here. Get Quinn to the computers she wants and make sure that nobody stops her.
“Open the door, open the door, open the door!”
“All that shouting is damaging my calm,” Quinn muttered, tearing panels off the wall to get at the wiring beneath.
“And all these batarian bullets are damaging me!” Hansen yelled back down the radio.
Quinn rolled her eyes. If that were true, Hansen would be yelling a whole lot louder. She pulled out her boot-knife and went to work, splicing wires all over the place. Putting this back together was going to be a nightmare. Fortunately, it would probably also going to be someone else’s problem. The door finally slid open, not all the way, but just about enough.
“Door open, Hansen,” Quinn said, setting herself up by the door control inside the room. The moment Hansen was in-
Hansen came barrelling around the corner and threw herself through the door. “Close the door, close the door!”
“There is just no pleasing you, is there?” Quinn said, but the door shut obligingly anyway. There were a few faint thuds as the pursuing batarians didn’t manage to stop it time.
“Is that door going to hold?” Hansen asked.
“Almost certainly not. I had to destroy the locking mechanism to get us in. The batarians will figure it out sooner or later.”
“You’d best work fast, then,” Hansen said. She took up position behind the first row of terminals, rifle ready in her hands.
“Hm.” Quinn picked a terminal seemingly at random and pressed a few buttons. “Or I could do this.”
There were a few screams, all of them suddenly cut off. And then the unmistakable stench of well-cooked flesh.
Hansen blinked, lowering her rifle slowly. “What did you do?”
“Ran a massive electrical charge through the door. And the walls. And most of the floor.” Quinn switched terminals, completely missing the way that Hansen peered dubiously at the patch of floor she was standing on. She wondered how many crucial systems she could reroute to her omnitool before something caught fire or imploded. “Time for some real work, don’t you think?”
Lorne, you and yours are going after the turians, like Shepard said. Once you’ve got them, I want them here and here, ready to move at my signal, see? If they won’t come, leave them in their cell. This needs to go smooth. And don’t let Mason do anything stupid; I want all of us to graduate.
Mason was, in Lorne’s honest opinion, absolutely insane and letting her get out of bed in the morning probably counted as letting her do something stupid. But she was an excellent soldier, strong and fast and capable of taking care of herself, and her particular breed of insanity was particularly distracting, so she was the logical choice.
The batarians standing guard outside the cells were more than a little surprised when an N7 operative popped up out of nowhere, shot the nearest batarian in the face and took off running. And it was really only natural for a few of the batarians to give chase. Piss-poor display of discipline, but only natural. Lorne let Brink and O’Neil take care of the remaining guards; he had the highest tech scores of the three of them and someone had to get the damn doors open. Highest tech scores wasn’t saying a huge amount in this group, but he had soldier proof instructors from Quinn and some very nice omnitool mods.
The door opened and one of the turian trainees had a halfway decent attempt at rearranging the bones in Lorne’s face before Lorne slammed him to the ground and waited for him to realise the difference between a human and a batarian. It only took a minute, the bastards were better than they had been at the beginning of the course.
Mason came back, breathing a little faster than when she’d left but completely unharmed. The grin on her face told Lorne that the same couldn’t be said for the batarians who’d followed her. Good.
“Come on, then,” Lorne said to the still-shocked turian he was sitting on. “We need to get you lot armed and ready. Are you going to be okay with following my orders or do we need to have some time-wasting macho pissing match before we go?”
“Get us guns and we shoot whoever you like,” muttered one turian.
“As long as you just want us to shoot batarians,” corrected Volak, the closest thing the turian trainees had to a Clark.
Lorne smiled. “Good answer. Let’s move. I want to see the look on Vidinos’ face when Shepard saves his life.”
Tchen, you’ll take Watson and jump here. Take your little surprises with you, get ready to cause one hell of a light show when I say so.
Watson set the next block of plastic explosive, moulding it carefully against the bulkhead. And then took a good long look at precisely where Tchen had told him to put it. “Hey, if we set them here, isn’t there a chance we’ll-”
“No,” Tchen said without looking away from the mess of wires she was using to string the explosives together.
“But you said-”
“If we set the explosives here, there isn’t a chance of a hell breach. There will definitely be a hull breach. Mainly because we’re setting these up all around an airlock. Things do not randomly explode around me, Watson. Around me, things blow up precisely when and where I want them to, with only so much force as I wish them to. My explosions are only dangerous to those who didn’t set them.”
“So we’re not going to die?”
“Well, we’re not going to get caught in the explosion or get spaced. Everything else is out of my hands.”
Watson sighed, but went back to work anyway. That was really the best that an N7 could reasonably hope for, after all.
Lin, Ali, I want you two here, ready to work your particular brand of magic. You’re going to see a lot of batarians trying to get through here; I’d appreciate it if few of them managed it.
There weren’t probably that many people who knew how to rig floor tiles so they’d crack under the weight of the enemy and send unsuspecting fleet plunging into the stream of super-heated plasma below. Technically speaking, Ali wasn’t one of those people and so he wasn’t so much working as improvising. The basic idea was sound, he was sure. Moderately sure. And they’d already done all the basic stuff, such as messing with the doors’ motion sensors so that they’d slam shut when people approached them, or even as people were passing through them.
Lin was busy carefully stringing micro-wire across the corridor, being sure to vary the height. The classic use of micro-wire led to plenty of slit throats, but there was always a certain joy in placing a length of the stuff at knee-height. It was slow work; the N7 hardsuits were strong enough to withstand micro-wire if it was touched with the lightest of fingers, but the slightest amount of additional pressure and Lin could kiss her digits goodbye.
Traditionally, the traps would get steadily more dangerous as the enemy moved further down the corridor. Lin had agreed, however, that you could never have too much of a good thing and so the corridor was consistently deadly all the way through.
“That’s it, I’m out of micro-wire,” Lin said, working the cramps out of her hands. “What else do we have?”
Ali grinned and produced the last of his little surprises: old fashioned pin-grenades and a length of plasti-thread for some proper tripwires. He’d always had a soft spot for the classics.
Cohen, you’re with me. We’re going to set up here. And not a word to Shepard.
The balconies of the assembly hall were ornate and modern and very noticeable. They also gave shit cover and limited angles on the hall below. But there was a small alcove just above the main doors, just large enough for a man and a rifle, with good views of almost the entire hall and the small horde of batarians down below, and Cohen was in position at the other hand of the access tube, ready just in case the batarians found them before it was time. The rifle was better than one of the best money could buy; sleek lines and technically maybe-just-a-little illegal mods. Clark was sure the rifle was good enough.
He was almost as sure that he was.
Joker, once we’re all where we’re supposed to be, these will be your targets. The Station’s shields are excellent, you’ll have to be inside the perimeter to do any damage with this ship.
Joker has long since gotten use to loitering in space while waiting for something to explode. The only real difference between this and the hundred other missions he’d done with Shepard was that, at long fucking last, he was finally going to get to blow something up himself.
He had one ship, with four guns, two on each side, always a good start. And he was spoilt for choice when it came to targets. Half a dozen batarian ships, all of them in desperate need for a few holes in the hull. Clark had said that he didn’t want any batarians making it off Pinnacle Station and so Joker was to take out the ships as quickly as possible once the fun started. Joker had spent enough time with the N7s to know that they really just wanted as many explosions as humanly possible.
It was hard, sometimes, being him. Work, work, work.
And then all we need to do is wait for the right moment.
xxx
Being dragged before your enemies with your hands tied behind your back wasn’t the most impressive of entrances, Shepard would admit, but it had a certain timeless class to it. Being thrown to the floor was rather less classy, but she kept her balance as well as she could and nodded politely to Vidinos, similarly bound and kneeling next to her.
“Fine mess you’ve got me into,” Shepard said. “You owe me a drink or three, you scaly bastard.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Vidinos replied. “I’m sure I could handle this.”
“Wrong again.”
“Silence!” The command was accompanied by a smart slap and Shepard rolled her eyes. Idiots couldn’t even hit properly. They’d already lost major points for securing her hands in front rather than behind her. An enemy’s stupidity was useful, true, but after a certain point it just became plain insulting.
The line of batarians in front of them parted and Shepard looked up at Malak, ugly and smug as ever.
“I’d hardly dared hope that you would be caught in my trap,” he said. “The famous Shepard, the butcher of Torfan. Are you ready to pay for the lives you took?”
Shepard smiled. “Malak, I see you kept my gift. I’ve always wondered, do batarian women like a man with scars?”
“They’ll love the one who brings your head back to our people.”
“Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you? You never managed to touch me yet.”
“Never before were you arrogant enough to face me on your own, Shepard.”
Shepard shook her head. “Christ, Malak, you really are the dumbest son of a bitch alive. All these years, all those battles, and you still haven’t realised.”
“Realised what?”
“I mean, for God’s sake, I had five thousand of my closest friends at my side when I burnt your precious Torfan to the ground. You’ve still got three good eyes. How didn’t you see it?” She stood, bound and bruised and surrounded by enemies and not a single batarian moved to put her back on her knees.
“See what?” Malak yelled.
She smiled. “N7s are never alone. And you are going to die very soon.”
There was just enough time for her to savour the look of surprise on Malak’s face before the bullet bore its way through his forehead and out of the other side.
Up on his little alcove, Clark reached for his radio. “Let’s go.”
And, perfectly unified, the N7C-80s unleashed hell.
xxx
The batarians in the hall turned as one towards the balconies, laying down some serious suppressive fire. It was a shame, really, that Clark wasn’t on the balconies and just kept firing, shifting his rifle effortlessly from target to target.
With the guards well and truly distracted, Shepard slipped her cuffs and grabbed Vidinos, throwing them both towards the relative safety of an overturned table. A bullet slid along her armoured shoulder, narrowly missing her neck and Shepard wished for her helmet, confiscated by one of the batarians.
She darted out again just long enough to take her pistol back from Malak’s body, then back to cover, where Vidinos was only just managing to unlock his own cuffs.
“What the hell’s going on, Shepard?” he asked.
“Wait for it-” She tucked her head down as low as it would go, and the doors on either side of the hall blew open. “Covering fire!” she roared at the mix of turians and cadets that flooded the hall, each and every one armed to the death.
Shepard settled back against the table. “This is how N7s do a rescue,” she said to Vidinos, as calmly and casually as if they were talking in one of Ahern’s endless meetings. “There will be more explosions, I warn you now.”
“There always are with you,” Vidinos grumbled. He hooked a talon around a fallen batarian’s rifle and checked it over. “Shall we?”
“We shall.”
They rose together, moving forward with their students. The main hall doors were open, the batarians shifting back towards them. Shepard shot one batarian as he tried to dash through the doors; his brains were slippery enough to cause two other soldiers to lose their footing and they were dead before they’d regained it.
“Hold!” Shepard ordered when the last living batarian was through the doors.
“But we have the advantage!” Vidinos said. “We should follow.”
“It’s not necessary,” Lorne said, grinning. “That corridor leads to three possible routes to the airlocks and the batarian ships, you see. And when they hit those corridors-”
“They’re really going to wish they’d stood their ground here,” Mason finished, grinning equally broadly.
“But if you want to try and make it through all those booby-trapped corridors, you’re welcome,” Brink finished. Not one turian moved.
Clark and Cohen stated to climb down from the sniper’s alcove. An explosion rocked the Station, causing Cohen to lose his grip and fall the last five feet; the turians dived for cover, leaving the N7s standing together in the middle of the hall.
“Was that Lin or Tchen?” Shepard asked, intrigued.
“That was Tchen. I think she went for the airlock in the end. That, on the other hand,” Clark said as they heard distant screams. “Was almost certainly Lin and Ali. Did you know that if you hit micro-wire with enough forward momentum, it can slice through standard issue hardsuits? The spine’s hardly any trouble at all after that.”
“What’s in the third route?”
“Well, by now, Quinn’s had enough time to take complete control of the Station’s security systems. All she needs is an omnitool and a threatening smile. And maybe Hansen to hold a rifle for her. What’s in corridor 74-J?” Clark asked.
“Enough turrets to make a herd of battle-mecha jealous,” Shepard replied. “I hope Quinn leaves one or two for Hansen to shoot, she could do with the practice.”
The hall lit up suddenly as the space around Pinnacle Station was filled with fire and chaos. The charred wing of a batarian carrier floated past one of the windows.
“And that’s Joker. Even if the batarians survive the other 80s, there’s no way for them to get off of Pinnacle Station,” Clark finished.
“Damn it, Clark, did you have to include Joker?” Shepard complained.
“It seemed mean to leave him out,” Clark replied.
“But it counts as active combat,” Shepard said. “I’m going to have to pay him more now.” She retrieved the rest of her weapons from the pile into which they had been unceremoniously tossed by the batarian bastards and strapped them back into place, keeping her very favourite shotgun in her hands. “Right. We’d better go help with the clean-up, hadn’t we?”
The half-dozen cadets around her nodded and hefted their own guns, arranging themselves easily into a mobile combat formation. Shepard turned the turians, who were watching the N7s with expressions of admiration, faint concern and, in Vidinos’ case, the slightest hint of amusement.
“Are you guys coming or not?” she said and lead her troops out into the overly-perilous corridors of the very nearly reclaimed Pinnacle Station.
xxx
Hours later, when the station was secured, the last of the batarians dealt with, and completely unnecessary reinforcements on the way, Shepard was sitting on the loading ramp of Joker’s shuttle and watching her cadets as they cleaned their weapons and armour. Not that they could really be thought of as cadets anymore after what they’d done. The final decision wasn’t officially made for another ten days, but everyone in that group was going to get the red stripe on their sleeve if Shepard had any say in the matter. And she did. She had the only say, really. The turian cadets were massed nearby, still separate, but facing the N7Cs and the two groups were talking almost amicably, possibly for the first time in the decade long existence of the joint training programme.
“Do you think this is what my people had in mind when they allowed your people to come here?” Vidinos asked, sitting by her side and surely seeing what she saw.
“Sure. The Turian Hierarchy wanted nothing more than for the batarians to attack Pinnacle Station so that me and my cadets could save you and yours.”
“I would never have allowed my trainees to plan such an assault.”
“Which is why you got captured and we got to save the day. You know why my cadets were able to do this? Because I never acted for a single second like they couldn’t. Even when they’d just started, I always maintained that they could do whatever I told them to. Even when they couldn’t really.”
“They were able to do this because of you, I do believe that. The next N7C class might not be so lucky with their training instructor.”
Shepard laughed. “Never thought I’d hear you trying to get me to stay on this station. It’s never been big enough for both of us. You once broke every bone in my right hand just to see what I’d do, for crying out loud!”
“And it turned out that what you’d do was destroy my career before it had even really started.”
“Attempted. I attempted to destroy your career. If I’d succeeded, we never would’ve met again.”
“And I would’ve been the worse for it. I’ve leant a lot from you, Shepard. Especially when I didn’t want to.” He held out a hand. “Allies?”
Shepard nodded. “Allies it is.”
And, possibly for the first time in the decade long existence of the joint training programme, the human and the turian instructor shook hands without an Admiral ordering them to do so.
xxx
Once things calmed down a little, Shepard remembered Ahern’s vague threats about what would happen if the N7C-80s did anything spectacular. Nothing came of it, as she’d suspected at the time. It helped, she supposed, that the cadets had helped rather than hindered inter-species relations. The Alliance as a whole seemed to be pretending that the Battle for Pinnacle Station hadn’t ever happened and it was easy enough to muddle through another week or so of sparring matches and the odd simulation. Shepard sent in her official recommendation to Alliance Command in plenty of time. It was concise and properly presented and very nearly true. The second report, the one that was only seen by the N7 General, contained a higher percentage of exclamation marks and curses, along with a much more detailed set of recommendations for what to do with the cadets.
It amused her more than it probably should, really, to add the recommendation that the cadets be split up the moment they graduated. They were dangerous together, of course they were, but they’d be just as dangerous apart, and they’d cover more ground, do more damage that way. If everything went according to plan, Quinn would end up working for Abby Jensen and Clark would make his way to Scott Freeman’s side and so the N7s’ hold on places that they shouldn’t have would be a little stronger.
But there were still one or two little formalities to be observed, and so Shepard managed to get all the cadets together.
She faced them as she had on their first day on Pinnacle Station, hands held behind her back and head held high. But they weren’t in the rigid lines of raw recruits anymore. N7s weren’t overly found of formality, after all.
“Tomorrow, you will all graduate from the N7 Command Training Programme. Only the tenth group to do so. You probably feeling pretty proud right now and you have no reason not to. But there is still one last thing that you all need to do.”
A few looks were exchanged, not worried, precisely, but curious. Even expectant, in one or two cases.
“There are no more tests to pass. You have all proven yourselves to be extraordinary. But when you were selected for the N7C programme, you weren’t given a choice. I am giving you that choice now. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that every single one of you is ready and able to become a N7 operative. I cannot tell you if you are willing.”
“Tell us why we shouldn’t,” Lorne said.
“Because people will die. People you know and people you trust, people you like and maybe even love. You will never have another victory like the battle for Pinnacle Station. Hell, I can’t believe that we all made it through that unscathed. You are going to lose your friends and your allies and your teammates and sometimes there is nothing you can do to stop that.”
“That’s true no matter which part of the Alliance we choose,” Quinn said.
“It’s true even outside of the Alliance,” Tchen countered. “No one’s good enough to save everybody.”
“There are also those who find the work of an N7 operative... distasteful. Normal soldiering is easier, in a way. A man’s shooting at you from the other side of a battleground, it makes sense to shoot back. But all of you could be adapted for use as solo infiltrators and that is different. You may be asked to kill the weak, the defenceless, and you will only the word of people you will never meet to tell you that it is necessary and justifiable. There’s no shame in being unwilling to do that, just as there is no shame in being willing. But you need to know which you are.”
“Now tell us why we should,” Clark said.
“Because God knows what else you kids could do without blowing a bloody hole in the universe.”
That got her a few chuckles.
“Sometimes the bad things need to be done and we need good people to do them,” Shepard said, speaking as seriously as she could. “And I can’t think of better. When faced with impossible decisions, I believe that you will all make the right ones.”
Only Clark would still meet her eye. The others were looking at each other, trying to guess who would quit, or at the floor, trying to guess if they would themselves.
“If anyone wants out, I’ll be in my office. There won’t be any repercussions. Leaving the N7s would not mean the end of your career. Any other unit in service would be lucky to have you.” Shepard let the smile that she’d been hiding out into the open. “Congratulations, N7C-80. It’s been an honour.”
xxx
And so, on the sixteenth of November, a dozen humans stood before an Admiral of the Fleet and the only N7 General in the entire Alliance. One set of dress blues, thirteen N7 jumpsuits, each with the red stripe down one sleeve. One stripe was old, chipped and scarred, but the rest were brand new and practically shining in the light.
Up on one of the balconies, Shepard watched as they stepped forward, one by one, and received their helmets. It was a stupid tradition, an odd bit of symbolism that made no fucking sense because Shepard knew each one of them was just getting back the helmet they’d been wearing for the entirety of their training, and there was absolutely no reason for her to feel as stupidly proud as she did. They’d done all the work, not her. She knew when Joker came to join her. It wasn’t a man on crutches could be super stealthy, after all.
“They’re all there,” he said. And it wasn’t said in surprise or disbelief, as it might have been. A simple statement of fact.
“I thought they would be. But they need to know that this was their choice. Freedom’s just as much about the choices you have as the choices you make, in my mind.”
“Yes, but your mind is a strange, strange place.”
Shepard chucked softly, then sobered slightly and said, “I’ve withdrawn my resignation. I’m going to stay here, take the next N7C group, keep on doing all the stuff that the Alliance doesn’t want anyone to know about. I could really use a good pilot.”
“Are you asking me to choose, Shepard?” Joker said, still watching the cadets. “Cause it’s a bit late for that. Looks like everyone here has made their choice.”
“For better or for worse.”
“Yeah. Only my money’s on the former,” Joker said.
He grinned at her, not the slightest bit surprised when she smiled back.
xxx
Author: infelixsoror
Artist: regeener
Beta: Afromouse (fanfic.net)
Canon: Mass Effect
Ratings: Teen
Warnings: Death, violence, some swearing, mild spoilers and shameless reinterpretation of canon.
Summary: After giving the N7s years of good service, all Shepard wants is to be allowed to retire in peace. She’s not convinced that a dozen N7 cadets, a smartarse pilot, old rivalries and the odd assassination are really the same thing at all.
Author's/Artist's note: Also posted here and here, for the record. Many thanks and hugs to regeener for the lovely, lovely art.
xxx
“Joker!”
Joker rolled his eyes, confident that Shepard wouldn’t be able to see him do so, hidden as he was by the half-built turian fighter on top of him.
“There are these wonderful things called comms.,” he said. “Means you don’t have to shout quite so loudly.”
“What’s the point of being a CO if you can’t shout a little? And speaking of responsibilities, please tell me someone said you could mess with turian tech.”
“It’s a sorry one of my kids nearly shattered you spine present from the turian commander.”
“Learning anything interesting?”
“Just that turians are all style and no substance, but I knew that already.”
Shepard chuckled softly, a rare sound and Joker couldn’t help but already be a little bit proud when he heard it. “Why are you taking this thing apart?”
“Because you need to know how something works in order to break it properly.”
“I generally find high-grade explosives work quite well.”
“And that’s why you’re the infiltrator and I’m the driver.”
“A very good driver, though.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, bringing out the tone of voice he used on superior officers who weren’t Shepard. She swatted the back of his head, gentle enough for him to know she was being careful but hard enough for him to ignore that fact. “What brings you down here, Shepard?”
“We need to clear the station.”
“Why?”
“Something to do with the maintenance circles. Standard procedure; everyone but Vidinos and his trainees are scattering. I’m taking the cadets to do a little survival training planet-side; you can be our designated driver or I can swing you some leave. Your choice.”
“I’m not letting you run around by yourself. You’ll get yourself shot again.”
“That was one time, Joker.”
“And it was with a rocket launcher. Forgive me for not forgetting that anytime soon.”
“So you’ll help with the cadets?”
“Yep. Do we have a ship?”
“We will do. Bring a book or something. It’s going to be two days of hanging around in orbit while the cadets do their damnest to kill each other.”
“Fun times.”
xxx
Thirty-one hours after throwing the cadets out of a perfectly serviceable ship and Joker was bored. All ready recalibrated everything, run out of books, liable to do things necessary for a dishonourable discharge bored.
“Whatever you’re considering doing, please don’t,” Shepard said from where she was sprawling across one of the benches.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t know precisely what you’re thinking,” Shepard replied. “But I know you’re getting twitchy. Tom Roberts was just the same, only he was a biotic and one of the early signs of his boredom was when your gun starting reassembling itself.”
“Was he in the 95th?”
“Yep. My second ended up teaching the poor bastard how to knit to stop him messing with our equipment. Of course, I had no idea why Lyra knows how to knit, but that was a problem for another day and I never got around to solving it.”
“Are you suggesting I should start knitting?”
“No. That’s Lyra’s solution, but she’s unhappily retired and definitely not hosting old-style craft classes. My solution for twitchiness is push-ups and pull-ups.”
“Don’t even think about it; I have a note from the doctor!”
Shepard laughed. “Alright, so no pull-ups. How about-”
The comm. crackled to life, spat out a string of completely unintelligible words, and died again. Shepard went from lounging carelessly to standing ready on her feet before the noise had died completely.
“Joker-”
“On it. Filtering the message and back-tracing.” Joker’s hands flew over the keyboard. “Whoa. This was sent on the Station’s internal system.”
“Then how the hell did we pick it up?”
“Someone rigged the system, but not very well. I doubt the message could travel out of the system. Give me a second, I can probably clear it up, but the translator can’t make heads or tails of it.”
“Could’ve been Old Turian. They don’t load the translators with dead languages.”
“How do you know Old Turian?”
“Long story. Play it again for me.” Shepard nodded. “One more time, please. Oh, yeah, that’s not good.”
“How not good?”
“Pinnacle Station’s been taken.” She leant over him, taking over the controls.
“Is that the emergency broadcast channel?”
“Yep,” Shepard said. “This is, after all, an emergency.”
“Let me. You always hit the buttons too hard, my girls don’t like that.”
“Freak.” But Shepard leant back, letting him access the control panel, and waited patiently until he gave her the nod. “This is Commander Shepard for the N7C-80s. This is not a drill. I have reason to believe that Pinnacle station is under attack. I want all cadets at the emergency extraction point by the time the ship touches down. Anyone not there by the time we take off can kiss their stripes goodbye.”
“Think they’ll be there?” Joker asked, programming the flight path without needing to be asked. “Also, are the targeting drones still active? It’s not a problem, per se, but I do like to know these things.”
“They’d better be, and no. Those things are too expensive to run all the time when they’re only needed for scaring cadets.”
“Perfect. Taking us down now.”
It was a tense forty minute trip to the landing point. Shepard suited back up and spent the remainder of the time checking and re-checking her weapons, just as she did before any mission. Joker lasted three minutes before switching the shuttle to manual. It was faster, he told himself, and it was, if he ignored the odd safety measure or two. Shepard was willing to trade a little safety for speed and she trusted him to know how much was a little and how much was too much. He got them there safely and eleven minutes faster than the computer could have.
And when they landed, there were twelve bedraggled cadets all in a row, waiting for them.
Shepard hopped out of the ship before the ramp was properly lowered. “No way in hell should you all have been able to get here before me. When we’re done with Pinnacle, we’ll have a little chat about the proper meaning of scatter and run. But right now, we have work to do.”
“What do we know, ma’am?” Clark asked.
“Very little. Everyone on board. We’ll talk in the air.”
xxx
The cadets and Shepard crowded themselves into the back of the ship, surrounding the central console. There was a certain amount of good-natured nudging and pushing between the cadets; magically, none of it ever reached Shepard, who put a stop to all movement entirely with a single look.
“We have very little information. Someone on Pinnacle Station sent what I can only assume to be a distress signal, in Old Turian. Our good friend Joker has detected several energy signatures for small vessels, most likely batarian troop-carriers. I do not particularly care who is there or what they want. We’re going to ruin their plans.” Shepard pulled up the holographic 3D plan of the station. “I won’t bother going over the schematics; you should all know the station as well as I do by now. We have no information on how many hostiles we have or what weapons they have. Thoughts?”
“Timing’s too good, ma’am,” Clark said. “The maintenance cycle was announced less than 24 hours ago; that’s not enough time to pull together a crew and a plan capable of taking out the turians.”
“Especially if the ones doing the planning are batarians,” Brink added.
“So we have to assumed that the batarians have detailed knowledge of the station, maybe even someone on the inside.”
“But their knowledge will be academic at best,” Clark said. “Ours is instinctive.”
“That is a minor advantage at best,” Shepard said, crossing her arms. “But a minor advantage should be all an N7 needs. I want you all working in pairs. Sort yourselves out; you know who you work best with.”
“What’s the objective?”
“Same as it always is.”
“Hurt them without getting hurt.”
Shepard nodded. “More specifically, however, each pair is to identify somewhere in the station where they can do some major damage to both the station itself and whatever unwelcome aliens happen to be on it at the time.”
“Surely the aim is to throw the batarians off without destroying the station.”
“If possible. Whatever happens, we cannot allow the batarians to take any of the technology from the station. If that means trashing the tech ourselves, so be it.”
Quinn raised her hand. “I helped with the installation of additional holographic projectors outside of the main simulators. If the batarians are in the right place, I can easily bring down a little holographic hell on them.”
“How little?”
“An entire battalion. The programme was designed for the turians’ final test. It’s pretty hardcore.”
“Do you have the codes?”
“Don’t need them. If I can get to Ochern’s terminal, there’s a backdoor I can use.”
“You found Jensen’s route?” Shepard smiled. “Excellent. Abs owes me a drink. Who do you want to help you?”
“Hansen.”
Hansen nodded. “Sounds like fun.”
“Alright. Hansen, start planning your route. Quinn, try and access the Station’s systems. I want to know what we’re dealing with. What weapons do we have with us?”
“Each of us has the four standard guns,” Watson replied. “Tchen’s got her explosives-”
“Which are not suitable for use on the Station,” Tchen added. “I can’t guarantee they won’t breach the hull.”
“And I am never going to ask how a cadet got their hands on explosives of that calibre,” Shepard said.
“Shepard, we’ve got the interior cameras,” Quinn said. “It doesn’t look like the batarians have spliced any of the feeds. And all the cameras are still running.”
“Batarians aren’t the sneaky kind,” Shepard said. “But this is bold even for them. Can you find anyone?”
“My bugs are looking for variations in the decibel levels across the station. Should pick up any- Bingo. Unless the batarians can swear in Turian, I’ve found the trainees. All of them, by the sounds of it.”
“You can tell that from the audio feed?”
“Well, yes, but only because one of them just asked why the batarians didn’t split them up.”
“Excellent. Lorne, take O’Neill, Mason and Brink, go get them,” Shepard ordered. “When you find them, save the gloating for later.”
“Shepard, it looks like the feed is being downloaded. Part of it, anyway.”
“Which part, Quinn?”
“Just the assembly hall.”
“Pull it up.”
The feed from the hall was high quality, good enough that footage of the occasional graduation ceremonies could be used by every major news broadcast in the Turian Expanse. The feed was certainly good enough that Shepard could the batarians, lined up to from three sides of a square and being unusually orderly while doing so.
“We’ve got the sensors. Picking up fifty-eight batarians in the hall, eleven more in the docking bay, six outside the turians’ cell. And what looks like ten patrols of five, spread across the station.”
“They’re just waiting,” Ali said. “Why aren’t they trashing the place, ripping the tech?”
“Because it’s not the about the tech,” Clark said. “But what else is there on the station worth that many batarians?”
“Us,” Shepard said. “The N7s went out in force against Torfan, there’s a lot of ill feeling there. You guys are meant to be our best and brightest; killing you would be like killing our children.”
“You were pretty active on Torfan yourself.”
“Very few people know that, even fewer batarians. These bastards are probably waiting for us to get back from our field trip so they can wipe out our graduating N7C class.”
“They could have sent the message.”
“Maybe. But they don’t look like people ready for our arrival. Even if they know we’re coming, they don’t know we’re here. Joker, tell me there are ways onto the Station that don’t involve the docking bay.”
“Like, eight if we have the proper equipment. Which we do because you’re intensely paranoid and very well organised.”
“Good. Start mapping them for me, then-”
“Shepard, looks like we’ve got eyes on their commander,” Quinn called. “Got the biggest gun in the room and all the others suddenly look scared.”
“Quinn, can you zoom in on that?” Clark said, pointing at the screen over her shoulder. “You see, his upper right eye? That scarring looks awfully like that left by a near-miss with a sniper rifle.”
“Let me see,” Shepard ordered and Quinn scrambled to comply; there really was no other option when Shepard spoke like that. And then she smiled in the most worrying way imaginable. “Malak. You stupid bastard,” she said, more to herself than anyone else, and then raised her voice again. “Alright, kids. Change of plan. We’re not going to blow Pinnacle Station to kingdom come. We’re going to take it back.”
“Fine by us,” Lorne said. “Can we do it by ourselves, or do we have to be grown up and share with the turians?”
“It would be rude to have a party without inviting them,” Tchen said.
“Why the change in plan, Shepard?” Clark asked.
“Because that batarian is Commander Malak,” Shepard said. “He led the attack against Elysium and he is personally responsible for the death of an N7 operative, Staff Lieutenant Reid Davis. He doesn’t leave Pinnacle Station alive, are we clear?”
The cadets nodded.
“We’ll need to move fast. Malak likes to execute commanders in front of their troops and he has Vidinos. Everyone suit up. Joker will drop each of you where you need to be. Clark, you’ll take command.”
“And what will you do?” Clark asked.
“I will be playing the role of bait. And I will be most annoyed if it goes wrong. Make me proud, boys and girls. However you see fit, make me proud. Joker! Take us into position. You know what I want.”
xxx
“Are we sure this is going to work?” Tchen asked, peering dubiously out of the view point.
“It’s just like an orbital drop,” Joker said. “In theory, anyway.”
“Yeah, only it’s horizontal instead of vertical and, if we miss, we’ll float in space until we die.”
“So don’t miss,” Clark said. “Shepard jumps first, then Joker will drop the rest of us off.”
Tchen glanced back at Shepard, standing by the hatch with her helmet under her arm, and then nudged Joker. “Do you have any idea what she’ll do?”
“Not in any detail. I imagine it will involve death and death-defying and a certain amount of smart-ass comments,” Joker replied. “Shepard! We’re in place. Are you sure about this?”
“No.” Shepard pulled on her helmet, sealed it down. “But I’m going to do it anyway.”
“That’s my CO. Opening inner hatch.”
She nodded and stepped through the hatch.
“And she’s off,” Joker said. “Where next, Clark?”
Clark was still looking at the holographic map of Pinnacle Station. “Right. This is what we do.”
xxx
Shepard’s landing here, with any luck. She’ll hit a patrol in a matter of minutes, as she wished. And I imagine the poor bastards won’t do that much damage.
The first batarian to come round the corner got shot through the throat. The element of surprise was always good for at least one death and the four remaining batarians were too used to patrolling empty corridors to be ready for an angry and efficient N7 operative. Neat bullet holes and the odd broken neck were all Shepard left behind as she picked a corridor at random and started running.
It had been too long since she’d done this kind of work. Solo infiltration was all about stealth and sneakiness, which were admittedly qualities that Shep had in abundance. But there was always fun to be had when the objective was to do as much damage as possible and damn the consequences. Playing bait was never a problem, so long as you trusted the people getting ready to close the trap.
She made her way across Pinnacle Station, using the route to Ahern’s office that she used when she wanted to put off actually talking to the man. Shepard made sure not to touch any the cameras, just in case Malak was smart enough to have someone watching them. His attention had to be on her for as long as possible if this was going to work.
The hardest part of the whole situation, really, was letting enough batarians live so that they were able to take her prisoner, just outside the main hall and far away from whatever little tasks her cadets had found to keep themselves out of trouble until they were ready to cause trouble themselves.
Her distraction won’t last forever. We’ll need to move fast. Hansen, you and Quinn will land here. Get Quinn to the computers she wants and make sure that nobody stops her.
“Open the door, open the door, open the door!”
“All that shouting is damaging my calm,” Quinn muttered, tearing panels off the wall to get at the wiring beneath.
“And all these batarian bullets are damaging me!” Hansen yelled back down the radio.
Quinn rolled her eyes. If that were true, Hansen would be yelling a whole lot louder. She pulled out her boot-knife and went to work, splicing wires all over the place. Putting this back together was going to be a nightmare. Fortunately, it would probably also going to be someone else’s problem. The door finally slid open, not all the way, but just about enough.
“Door open, Hansen,” Quinn said, setting herself up by the door control inside the room. The moment Hansen was in-
Hansen came barrelling around the corner and threw herself through the door. “Close the door, close the door!”
“There is just no pleasing you, is there?” Quinn said, but the door shut obligingly anyway. There were a few faint thuds as the pursuing batarians didn’t manage to stop it time.
“Is that door going to hold?” Hansen asked.
“Almost certainly not. I had to destroy the locking mechanism to get us in. The batarians will figure it out sooner or later.”
“You’d best work fast, then,” Hansen said. She took up position behind the first row of terminals, rifle ready in her hands.
“Hm.” Quinn picked a terminal seemingly at random and pressed a few buttons. “Or I could do this.”
There were a few screams, all of them suddenly cut off. And then the unmistakable stench of well-cooked flesh.
Hansen blinked, lowering her rifle slowly. “What did you do?”
“Ran a massive electrical charge through the door. And the walls. And most of the floor.” Quinn switched terminals, completely missing the way that Hansen peered dubiously at the patch of floor she was standing on. She wondered how many crucial systems she could reroute to her omnitool before something caught fire or imploded. “Time for some real work, don’t you think?”
Lorne, you and yours are going after the turians, like Shepard said. Once you’ve got them, I want them here and here, ready to move at my signal, see? If they won’t come, leave them in their cell. This needs to go smooth. And don’t let Mason do anything stupid; I want all of us to graduate.
Mason was, in Lorne’s honest opinion, absolutely insane and letting her get out of bed in the morning probably counted as letting her do something stupid. But she was an excellent soldier, strong and fast and capable of taking care of herself, and her particular breed of insanity was particularly distracting, so she was the logical choice.
The batarians standing guard outside the cells were more than a little surprised when an N7 operative popped up out of nowhere, shot the nearest batarian in the face and took off running. And it was really only natural for a few of the batarians to give chase. Piss-poor display of discipline, but only natural. Lorne let Brink and O’Neil take care of the remaining guards; he had the highest tech scores of the three of them and someone had to get the damn doors open. Highest tech scores wasn’t saying a huge amount in this group, but he had soldier proof instructors from Quinn and some very nice omnitool mods.
The door opened and one of the turian trainees had a halfway decent attempt at rearranging the bones in Lorne’s face before Lorne slammed him to the ground and waited for him to realise the difference between a human and a batarian. It only took a minute, the bastards were better than they had been at the beginning of the course.
Mason came back, breathing a little faster than when she’d left but completely unharmed. The grin on her face told Lorne that the same couldn’t be said for the batarians who’d followed her. Good.
“Come on, then,” Lorne said to the still-shocked turian he was sitting on. “We need to get you lot armed and ready. Are you going to be okay with following my orders or do we need to have some time-wasting macho pissing match before we go?”
“Get us guns and we shoot whoever you like,” muttered one turian.
“As long as you just want us to shoot batarians,” corrected Volak, the closest thing the turian trainees had to a Clark.
Lorne smiled. “Good answer. Let’s move. I want to see the look on Vidinos’ face when Shepard saves his life.”
Tchen, you’ll take Watson and jump here. Take your little surprises with you, get ready to cause one hell of a light show when I say so.
Watson set the next block of plastic explosive, moulding it carefully against the bulkhead. And then took a good long look at precisely where Tchen had told him to put it. “Hey, if we set them here, isn’t there a chance we’ll-”
“No,” Tchen said without looking away from the mess of wires she was using to string the explosives together.
“But you said-”
“If we set the explosives here, there isn’t a chance of a hell breach. There will definitely be a hull breach. Mainly because we’re setting these up all around an airlock. Things do not randomly explode around me, Watson. Around me, things blow up precisely when and where I want them to, with only so much force as I wish them to. My explosions are only dangerous to those who didn’t set them.”
“So we’re not going to die?”
“Well, we’re not going to get caught in the explosion or get spaced. Everything else is out of my hands.”
Watson sighed, but went back to work anyway. That was really the best that an N7 could reasonably hope for, after all.
Lin, Ali, I want you two here, ready to work your particular brand of magic. You’re going to see a lot of batarians trying to get through here; I’d appreciate it if few of them managed it.
There weren’t probably that many people who knew how to rig floor tiles so they’d crack under the weight of the enemy and send unsuspecting fleet plunging into the stream of super-heated plasma below. Technically speaking, Ali wasn’t one of those people and so he wasn’t so much working as improvising. The basic idea was sound, he was sure. Moderately sure. And they’d already done all the basic stuff, such as messing with the doors’ motion sensors so that they’d slam shut when people approached them, or even as people were passing through them.
Lin was busy carefully stringing micro-wire across the corridor, being sure to vary the height. The classic use of micro-wire led to plenty of slit throats, but there was always a certain joy in placing a length of the stuff at knee-height. It was slow work; the N7 hardsuits were strong enough to withstand micro-wire if it was touched with the lightest of fingers, but the slightest amount of additional pressure and Lin could kiss her digits goodbye.
Traditionally, the traps would get steadily more dangerous as the enemy moved further down the corridor. Lin had agreed, however, that you could never have too much of a good thing and so the corridor was consistently deadly all the way through.
“That’s it, I’m out of micro-wire,” Lin said, working the cramps out of her hands. “What else do we have?”
Ali grinned and produced the last of his little surprises: old fashioned pin-grenades and a length of plasti-thread for some proper tripwires. He’d always had a soft spot for the classics.
Cohen, you’re with me. We’re going to set up here. And not a word to Shepard.
The balconies of the assembly hall were ornate and modern and very noticeable. They also gave shit cover and limited angles on the hall below. But there was a small alcove just above the main doors, just large enough for a man and a rifle, with good views of almost the entire hall and the small horde of batarians down below, and Cohen was in position at the other hand of the access tube, ready just in case the batarians found them before it was time. The rifle was better than one of the best money could buy; sleek lines and technically maybe-just-a-little illegal mods. Clark was sure the rifle was good enough.
He was almost as sure that he was.
Joker, once we’re all where we’re supposed to be, these will be your targets. The Station’s shields are excellent, you’ll have to be inside the perimeter to do any damage with this ship.
Joker has long since gotten use to loitering in space while waiting for something to explode. The only real difference between this and the hundred other missions he’d done with Shepard was that, at long fucking last, he was finally going to get to blow something up himself.
He had one ship, with four guns, two on each side, always a good start. And he was spoilt for choice when it came to targets. Half a dozen batarian ships, all of them in desperate need for a few holes in the hull. Clark had said that he didn’t want any batarians making it off Pinnacle Station and so Joker was to take out the ships as quickly as possible once the fun started. Joker had spent enough time with the N7s to know that they really just wanted as many explosions as humanly possible.
It was hard, sometimes, being him. Work, work, work.
And then all we need to do is wait for the right moment.
xxx
Being dragged before your enemies with your hands tied behind your back wasn’t the most impressive of entrances, Shepard would admit, but it had a certain timeless class to it. Being thrown to the floor was rather less classy, but she kept her balance as well as she could and nodded politely to Vidinos, similarly bound and kneeling next to her.
“Fine mess you’ve got me into,” Shepard said. “You owe me a drink or three, you scaly bastard.”
“You didn’t have to come,” Vidinos replied. “I’m sure I could handle this.”
“Wrong again.”
“Silence!” The command was accompanied by a smart slap and Shepard rolled her eyes. Idiots couldn’t even hit properly. They’d already lost major points for securing her hands in front rather than behind her. An enemy’s stupidity was useful, true, but after a certain point it just became plain insulting.
The line of batarians in front of them parted and Shepard looked up at Malak, ugly and smug as ever.
“I’d hardly dared hope that you would be caught in my trap,” he said. “The famous Shepard, the butcher of Torfan. Are you ready to pay for the lives you took?”
Shepard smiled. “Malak, I see you kept my gift. I’ve always wondered, do batarian women like a man with scars?”
“They’ll love the one who brings your head back to our people.”
“Getting a little ahead of yourself, aren’t you? You never managed to touch me yet.”
“Never before were you arrogant enough to face me on your own, Shepard.”
Shepard shook her head. “Christ, Malak, you really are the dumbest son of a bitch alive. All these years, all those battles, and you still haven’t realised.”
“Realised what?”
“I mean, for God’s sake, I had five thousand of my closest friends at my side when I burnt your precious Torfan to the ground. You’ve still got three good eyes. How didn’t you see it?” She stood, bound and bruised and surrounded by enemies and not a single batarian moved to put her back on her knees.
“See what?” Malak yelled.
She smiled. “N7s are never alone. And you are going to die very soon.”
There was just enough time for her to savour the look of surprise on Malak’s face before the bullet bore its way through his forehead and out of the other side.
Up on his little alcove, Clark reached for his radio. “Let’s go.”
And, perfectly unified, the N7C-80s unleashed hell.
xxx
The batarians in the hall turned as one towards the balconies, laying down some serious suppressive fire. It was a shame, really, that Clark wasn’t on the balconies and just kept firing, shifting his rifle effortlessly from target to target.
With the guards well and truly distracted, Shepard slipped her cuffs and grabbed Vidinos, throwing them both towards the relative safety of an overturned table. A bullet slid along her armoured shoulder, narrowly missing her neck and Shepard wished for her helmet, confiscated by one of the batarians.
She darted out again just long enough to take her pistol back from Malak’s body, then back to cover, where Vidinos was only just managing to unlock his own cuffs.
“What the hell’s going on, Shepard?” he asked.
“Wait for it-” She tucked her head down as low as it would go, and the doors on either side of the hall blew open. “Covering fire!” she roared at the mix of turians and cadets that flooded the hall, each and every one armed to the death.
Shepard settled back against the table. “This is how N7s do a rescue,” she said to Vidinos, as calmly and casually as if they were talking in one of Ahern’s endless meetings. “There will be more explosions, I warn you now.”
“There always are with you,” Vidinos grumbled. He hooked a talon around a fallen batarian’s rifle and checked it over. “Shall we?”
“We shall.”
They rose together, moving forward with their students. The main hall doors were open, the batarians shifting back towards them. Shepard shot one batarian as he tried to dash through the doors; his brains were slippery enough to cause two other soldiers to lose their footing and they were dead before they’d regained it.
“Hold!” Shepard ordered when the last living batarian was through the doors.
“But we have the advantage!” Vidinos said. “We should follow.”
“It’s not necessary,” Lorne said, grinning. “That corridor leads to three possible routes to the airlocks and the batarian ships, you see. And when they hit those corridors-”
“They’re really going to wish they’d stood their ground here,” Mason finished, grinning equally broadly.
“But if you want to try and make it through all those booby-trapped corridors, you’re welcome,” Brink finished. Not one turian moved.
Clark and Cohen stated to climb down from the sniper’s alcove. An explosion rocked the Station, causing Cohen to lose his grip and fall the last five feet; the turians dived for cover, leaving the N7s standing together in the middle of the hall.
“Was that Lin or Tchen?” Shepard asked, intrigued.
“That was Tchen. I think she went for the airlock in the end. That, on the other hand,” Clark said as they heard distant screams. “Was almost certainly Lin and Ali. Did you know that if you hit micro-wire with enough forward momentum, it can slice through standard issue hardsuits? The spine’s hardly any trouble at all after that.”
“What’s in the third route?”
“Well, by now, Quinn’s had enough time to take complete control of the Station’s security systems. All she needs is an omnitool and a threatening smile. And maybe Hansen to hold a rifle for her. What’s in corridor 74-J?” Clark asked.
“Enough turrets to make a herd of battle-mecha jealous,” Shepard replied. “I hope Quinn leaves one or two for Hansen to shoot, she could do with the practice.”
The hall lit up suddenly as the space around Pinnacle Station was filled with fire and chaos. The charred wing of a batarian carrier floated past one of the windows.
“And that’s Joker. Even if the batarians survive the other 80s, there’s no way for them to get off of Pinnacle Station,” Clark finished.
“Damn it, Clark, did you have to include Joker?” Shepard complained.
“It seemed mean to leave him out,” Clark replied.
“But it counts as active combat,” Shepard said. “I’m going to have to pay him more now.” She retrieved the rest of her weapons from the pile into which they had been unceremoniously tossed by the batarian bastards and strapped them back into place, keeping her very favourite shotgun in her hands. “Right. We’d better go help with the clean-up, hadn’t we?”
The half-dozen cadets around her nodded and hefted their own guns, arranging themselves easily into a mobile combat formation. Shepard turned the turians, who were watching the N7s with expressions of admiration, faint concern and, in Vidinos’ case, the slightest hint of amusement.
“Are you guys coming or not?” she said and lead her troops out into the overly-perilous corridors of the very nearly reclaimed Pinnacle Station.
xxx
Hours later, when the station was secured, the last of the batarians dealt with, and completely unnecessary reinforcements on the way, Shepard was sitting on the loading ramp of Joker’s shuttle and watching her cadets as they cleaned their weapons and armour. Not that they could really be thought of as cadets anymore after what they’d done. The final decision wasn’t officially made for another ten days, but everyone in that group was going to get the red stripe on their sleeve if Shepard had any say in the matter. And she did. She had the only say, really. The turian cadets were massed nearby, still separate, but facing the N7Cs and the two groups were talking almost amicably, possibly for the first time in the decade long existence of the joint training programme.
“Do you think this is what my people had in mind when they allowed your people to come here?” Vidinos asked, sitting by her side and surely seeing what she saw.
“Sure. The Turian Hierarchy wanted nothing more than for the batarians to attack Pinnacle Station so that me and my cadets could save you and yours.”
“I would never have allowed my trainees to plan such an assault.”
“Which is why you got captured and we got to save the day. You know why my cadets were able to do this? Because I never acted for a single second like they couldn’t. Even when they’d just started, I always maintained that they could do whatever I told them to. Even when they couldn’t really.”
“They were able to do this because of you, I do believe that. The next N7C class might not be so lucky with their training instructor.”
Shepard laughed. “Never thought I’d hear you trying to get me to stay on this station. It’s never been big enough for both of us. You once broke every bone in my right hand just to see what I’d do, for crying out loud!”
“And it turned out that what you’d do was destroy my career before it had even really started.”
“Attempted. I attempted to destroy your career. If I’d succeeded, we never would’ve met again.”
“And I would’ve been the worse for it. I’ve leant a lot from you, Shepard. Especially when I didn’t want to.” He held out a hand. “Allies?”
Shepard nodded. “Allies it is.”
And, possibly for the first time in the decade long existence of the joint training programme, the human and the turian instructor shook hands without an Admiral ordering them to do so.
xxx
Once things calmed down a little, Shepard remembered Ahern’s vague threats about what would happen if the N7C-80s did anything spectacular. Nothing came of it, as she’d suspected at the time. It helped, she supposed, that the cadets had helped rather than hindered inter-species relations. The Alliance as a whole seemed to be pretending that the Battle for Pinnacle Station hadn’t ever happened and it was easy enough to muddle through another week or so of sparring matches and the odd simulation. Shepard sent in her official recommendation to Alliance Command in plenty of time. It was concise and properly presented and very nearly true. The second report, the one that was only seen by the N7 General, contained a higher percentage of exclamation marks and curses, along with a much more detailed set of recommendations for what to do with the cadets.
It amused her more than it probably should, really, to add the recommendation that the cadets be split up the moment they graduated. They were dangerous together, of course they were, but they’d be just as dangerous apart, and they’d cover more ground, do more damage that way. If everything went according to plan, Quinn would end up working for Abby Jensen and Clark would make his way to Scott Freeman’s side and so the N7s’ hold on places that they shouldn’t have would be a little stronger.
But there were still one or two little formalities to be observed, and so Shepard managed to get all the cadets together.
She faced them as she had on their first day on Pinnacle Station, hands held behind her back and head held high. But they weren’t in the rigid lines of raw recruits anymore. N7s weren’t overly found of formality, after all.
“Tomorrow, you will all graduate from the N7 Command Training Programme. Only the tenth group to do so. You probably feeling pretty proud right now and you have no reason not to. But there is still one last thing that you all need to do.”
A few looks were exchanged, not worried, precisely, but curious. Even expectant, in one or two cases.
“There are no more tests to pass. You have all proven yourselves to be extraordinary. But when you were selected for the N7C programme, you weren’t given a choice. I am giving you that choice now. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that every single one of you is ready and able to become a N7 operative. I cannot tell you if you are willing.”
“Tell us why we shouldn’t,” Lorne said.
“Because people will die. People you know and people you trust, people you like and maybe even love. You will never have another victory like the battle for Pinnacle Station. Hell, I can’t believe that we all made it through that unscathed. You are going to lose your friends and your allies and your teammates and sometimes there is nothing you can do to stop that.”
“That’s true no matter which part of the Alliance we choose,” Quinn said.
“It’s true even outside of the Alliance,” Tchen countered. “No one’s good enough to save everybody.”
“There are also those who find the work of an N7 operative... distasteful. Normal soldiering is easier, in a way. A man’s shooting at you from the other side of a battleground, it makes sense to shoot back. But all of you could be adapted for use as solo infiltrators and that is different. You may be asked to kill the weak, the defenceless, and you will only the word of people you will never meet to tell you that it is necessary and justifiable. There’s no shame in being unwilling to do that, just as there is no shame in being willing. But you need to know which you are.”
“Now tell us why we should,” Clark said.
“Because God knows what else you kids could do without blowing a bloody hole in the universe.”
That got her a few chuckles.
“Sometimes the bad things need to be done and we need good people to do them,” Shepard said, speaking as seriously as she could. “And I can’t think of better. When faced with impossible decisions, I believe that you will all make the right ones.”
Only Clark would still meet her eye. The others were looking at each other, trying to guess who would quit, or at the floor, trying to guess if they would themselves.
“If anyone wants out, I’ll be in my office. There won’t be any repercussions. Leaving the N7s would not mean the end of your career. Any other unit in service would be lucky to have you.” Shepard let the smile that she’d been hiding out into the open. “Congratulations, N7C-80. It’s been an honour.”
xxx
And so, on the sixteenth of November, a dozen humans stood before an Admiral of the Fleet and the only N7 General in the entire Alliance. One set of dress blues, thirteen N7 jumpsuits, each with the red stripe down one sleeve. One stripe was old, chipped and scarred, but the rest were brand new and practically shining in the light.
Up on one of the balconies, Shepard watched as they stepped forward, one by one, and received their helmets. It was a stupid tradition, an odd bit of symbolism that made no fucking sense because Shepard knew each one of them was just getting back the helmet they’d been wearing for the entirety of their training, and there was absolutely no reason for her to feel as stupidly proud as she did. They’d done all the work, not her. She knew when Joker came to join her. It wasn’t a man on crutches could be super stealthy, after all.
“They’re all there,” he said. And it wasn’t said in surprise or disbelief, as it might have been. A simple statement of fact.
“I thought they would be. But they need to know that this was their choice. Freedom’s just as much about the choices you have as the choices you make, in my mind.”
“Yes, but your mind is a strange, strange place.”
Shepard chucked softly, then sobered slightly and said, “I’ve withdrawn my resignation. I’m going to stay here, take the next N7C group, keep on doing all the stuff that the Alliance doesn’t want anyone to know about. I could really use a good pilot.”
“Are you asking me to choose, Shepard?” Joker said, still watching the cadets. “Cause it’s a bit late for that. Looks like everyone here has made their choice.”
“For better or for worse.”
“Yeah. Only my money’s on the former,” Joker said.
He grinned at her, not the slightest bit surprised when she smiled back.
xxx