The Phenomenology of Shepard - chapter 11
Chapter 11 of my femShep/Thane fanfic "The Phenomenology of Shepard" is now live! This story is a somewhat cerebral take on the themes of memory and death as they figure in to their relationship.
Title: "Cooperation". The climax, conclusion, and fallout from the derelict Reaper. Meeting Legion. A lot of ensemble action and adventure!
Rating: M for language.
AO3 / FF.net
The thief was afraid. This was perhaps not surprising. Thane had come to know a number of thieves over the course of his career, and found that although they were useful collaborators, they could be narcissistic and excessively focused on material gain. Acquiring things from under the noses of the wealthy and ignorant - or, better yet, the wealthy and devious - was a distant pursuit from investigating the death-sodden anatomy of an ages-old devourer of planets.
But Kasumi was the very best. He pieced together her identity as he came to know her modus operandi, recognized the quirks and personality imbued in every strike. She had been the wrench in many of his clients’ plans, eliciting the cleanups that caused them to become his clients.
Despite her fear, she returned to them, having gained them access to the very core of this monstrous leviathan.
“Door’s open!” she called, her cheery inflection a transparent, if effective, mechanism to subdue her terror.
Shepard nodded, and signalled for the squad to fall in. Her recent close call seemed to be in the distant past. Her eyes were shadowed with new concerns, a new room of unknowns and oblique objectives, and something Garrus said to her over her radio.
The room was unmistakably a drive core, with an enormous globular heart pulsing with flickering blue energy. It baffled Thane that a life form, no matter how ancient, should have something so much like a ship’s engine. The concept of a ‘synthetic-organic being’ unsettled him.
Except Shepard was a synthetic-organic being, latticed with artificial constructs that were necessary to galvanize her back to life.
He disliked the parallel.
Tali’s abrupt gasp startled him from his brief musings. “Geth!” she shouted, and dropped into cover, training her shotgun over the ledge.
Indeed, she was right. A lone geth, taller than the troopers Thane remembered from the Alarei, was stationed at a terminal in front of the winnowing light of the drive core. Its inorganic stillness had camouflaged it from Thane’s normally hawkish vision. Its hands interfaced with the terminal while it cast its flashlight gaze into the darkness around it. “Shepard-Commander,” it said in a curiously gentle, digital voice.
Light from the drive core beamed through a large hole in its torso, like an eye through a scope’s lens. A massive gun was holstered to its back, a sniper rifle with a barrel so long and weighty that it could not be designed for an organic to wield.
Ah. The shooter.
Read the rest:
from the beginning AO3 / FF.net
the rest of chapter 11 AO3 / FF.net
Title: "Cooperation". The climax, conclusion, and fallout from the derelict Reaper. Meeting Legion. A lot of ensemble action and adventure!
Rating: M for language.
AO3 / FF.net
The thief was afraid. This was perhaps not surprising. Thane had come to know a number of thieves over the course of his career, and found that although they were useful collaborators, they could be narcissistic and excessively focused on material gain. Acquiring things from under the noses of the wealthy and ignorant - or, better yet, the wealthy and devious - was a distant pursuit from investigating the death-sodden anatomy of an ages-old devourer of planets.
But Kasumi was the very best. He pieced together her identity as he came to know her modus operandi, recognized the quirks and personality imbued in every strike. She had been the wrench in many of his clients’ plans, eliciting the cleanups that caused them to become his clients.
Despite her fear, she returned to them, having gained them access to the very core of this monstrous leviathan.
“Door’s open!” she called, her cheery inflection a transparent, if effective, mechanism to subdue her terror.
Shepard nodded, and signalled for the squad to fall in. Her recent close call seemed to be in the distant past. Her eyes were shadowed with new concerns, a new room of unknowns and oblique objectives, and something Garrus said to her over her radio.
The room was unmistakably a drive core, with an enormous globular heart pulsing with flickering blue energy. It baffled Thane that a life form, no matter how ancient, should have something so much like a ship’s engine. The concept of a ‘synthetic-organic being’ unsettled him.
Except Shepard was a synthetic-organic being, latticed with artificial constructs that were necessary to galvanize her back to life.
He disliked the parallel.
Tali’s abrupt gasp startled him from his brief musings. “Geth!” she shouted, and dropped into cover, training her shotgun over the ledge.
Indeed, she was right. A lone geth, taller than the troopers Thane remembered from the Alarei, was stationed at a terminal in front of the winnowing light of the drive core. Its inorganic stillness had camouflaged it from Thane’s normally hawkish vision. Its hands interfaced with the terminal while it cast its flashlight gaze into the darkness around it. “Shepard-Commander,” it said in a curiously gentle, digital voice.
Light from the drive core beamed through a large hole in its torso, like an eye through a scope’s lens. A massive gun was holstered to its back, a sniper rifle with a barrel so long and weighty that it could not be designed for an organic to wield.
Ah. The shooter.
Read the rest:
from the beginning AO3 / FF.net
the rest of chapter 11 AO3 / FF.net