FILL: Find Her (Jack/Miranda) 1/?
anonymous
August 10 2015, 22:34:14 UTC
When I started to write this story it was just a straightforward post-war fic, but every scene and every detail sprung new material, dating back to pre-Mass Effect times. In the end, there are enough materials for three more stories that would take place BEFORE this one.
However, I wanted to finish this one first and I would hate to have this sitting in my drawer for ages until I write the others, so I present it to you with this caveat. If there is demand for the rest of the story, based on this, I might start writing the rest of it (this time, in chronological order).
“Son of a bitch!” Jack exclaimed as the field medic popped her shoulder back into its socket with a swift, and in Jack’s opinion, unnecessarily painful move. “Motherfucker!” She grimaced, shooting a killer glare at the unfazed medic, who moved her arm around a bit to check if everything was in place, before not too kindly pressed Jack’s arm against her stomach. “Hold still,” he said sternly while he dug into his pack for a sling. Jack winced, rubbing her severely bruised shoulder with her left hand and looked around.
London was in complete ruins, smokes billowing from hundreds of places, the Sun struggling to break through the dark clouds, and as far as she could tell it was around noon.
“Fucking hell,” she hissed to no one in particular. She was on a roll, and she couldn’t be bothered with holding her mouth even though her students were staring at her. They were all battered and bruised and quite a bit rattled, but at least they were alive. Most of them.
Embedded in the 103rd Marines, her team held up pretty well, all things considered. They lost a few, way too many for Jack’s taste, but her rational mind knew that they fared better than they should have. Considering that she was sure they would all die here, anybody who was still breathing was a success. Five of her kids came out of this bloodbath breathing, and even then, Rademaker lost an arm, but Jack was told she will pull through.
Nobody understood what happened exactly, but there was a bright flash from the Citadel and the big Reapers just toppled over. But the thralls, husks, harvesters and the lot, the indoctrinated ones remained standing. their ranks fell into disorder, they became less menacing, shambling around like zombies, attacking anything that moved. Still dangerous, but nothing near as bad as before the flash. By dawn the 103rd was regrouping, and carrying their wounded they fell back to one of the rallying points, to the safety of numbers. The marines said it would take days if not weeks until they clear the city of the remaining monsters.
They were sitting on rubbles around a makeshift field hospital, and Jack had to endure the torture of the medic at the insistence of her students, who said they were fine. It was time to tend to her own injuries. The doc put her arm in the sling and sternly warned her to take it easy for a few days, and then left to take care of the other wounded.
Jack clenched her hand into a fist and relaxed it a few times, testing her limits, hissing and wincing. “Cocksuckers,” she snarled, as a closing argument to her rant, and turned her attention to her students, huddled together a dozen yards away. They all looked at her oddly. Most of them didn’t hear her swear this much since they knew her, and were probably wondering if she finally went mad. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned them grumpily. “Once this is all over and we get back to the Academy, it’s gonna be the Queen’s English again.” Most of them blinked in bafflement, except Prangley, who gave her a half-hearted grin. “Fucking-A, ma’am…” he started but his voice faltered as something caught his attention. The others followed his gaze.
Re: FILL: Find Her (Jack/Miranda) 2/?
anonymous
August 10 2015, 22:35:27 UTC
“Jack?” said a familiar sounding voice, but the pitch was all wrong. Jack snapped her head towards the newcomer, starting to flash a cocky grin that quickly froze. Miranda either went back in time and changed her hairstyle or- “You must be Oriana,” she managed to press out after a few heartbeats. Speaking of which, she was pretty sure her heart skipped a few. When she thought she was Miranda, it was anticipation, but after realizing it was her sister, a feeling of dread made her pulse rise. “Uh, I haven’t seen Miranda,” she said nonchalantly, trying to chase away the bad feeling.
Oriana was wearing the Crucible Science Staff uniform, and looked out of place with her clean and tidy look, without a speck of dirt or rip on her outfit. Not to mention her almost eerie looks. Not as pale as her sister, and with a more conventional hairdo, but undeniably related. So this is how she looked like sixteen years ago, she mused, forgetting all the implications for a second. “I know,” Oriana said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Her voice jolted Jack back into the present, focusing on her eyes. It was full of desperation. “Um, okay. She said she will come here?” Oriana shook her head, her expression darkening. “No. She-she said that if anything happens to her, I should find you, so…” her brows furrowed she fought to control her emotions, gathering enough wits to let out a nervous laugh. “So, here I am.”
Jack nodded, feeling a bit dizzy. It was probably just the dehydration, the drugs, the lack of sleep and the pain. “I-uh-I see. So she is-” “Missing,” Oriana replied quickly, with more strength in her voice, not letting Jack jinx it. She held Jack’s gaze, so determined like she would will her sister into being okay.
Jack nodded sternly, searching her own thoughts, and the words she should say to the desperate girl. Breaking the bad news and handling the relatives was the ugly side of her job. She also didn’t want to lie to Oriana.
She took a quick look at her students, who were all watching silently. Except for Prangley, who was openly staring, even his mouth hanging open. Rodriguez shot him a glance and elbowed him in the side, that made Prangley hiss and glare back at the other girl. “What?” he mumbled.
“A lot of units have not reported in yet. Communication is scarce. She could be anywhere,” Jack offered finally, still fighting the surprise of Oriana’s appearance and the news she broke. Before she could mull over the fact that this was the first time they met in person, Oriana spoke again. “Exactly. I-I need your help, Jack. I need to find her.”
Jack sighed, shaking her head in exhaustion and she looked at her students, who were still watching the exchange curiously. She didn’t want to do this. She turned back towards Oriana. “I have others to take care of, Oriana,” she said, nodding towards her group. “We’re all pretty banged up…”
That didn’t come out as well as she hoped and Oriana was not taking it well either. The girl closed her eyes and sighed deeply, calming herself down. She looked back at Jack, gesturing with a hand, her voice trembling. “You know her. If she were all right, she would have made contact by now,” she paused until she took another breath. “You know that.” Jack winced. The last part was so Miranda, it was uncanny. Speaking plainly, and stressing her point so that you could not ignore it.
Jack also knew she was right. Miranda spent her whole adult life looking out for her sister, and making sure she was all right, that it was impossible that she did not prepare for every occasion. A Plan B would be just the beginning. If Oriana had to switch to whichever letter of the alphabet was assigned to “go to Jack”, it must have been pretty serious.
And it was not like Oriana was stupid. If anything, she was as smart as her sister, and probably more emphatic, growing up in, you know, a normal family, that she probably thought this through, too. She would not take a bullshit answer, not when it came to either refusal or false hope.
Re: FILL: Find Her (Jack/Miranda) 3/?
anonymous
August 10 2015, 22:37:07 UTC
And now this vision of a younger, flawless version of Miranda was looking at her with a determination and pleading stare that Jack couldn’t ignore. She was not being impatient. She gave Jack time to process the information, but the sense of urgency was palpable.
“Fuck,” Jack muttered, closing her eyes and shaking her head, rubbing her temple with a painful wince. Part of the reason she tried to avoid getting into this conversation was that she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to deal with-whatever happened to Miranda. Because she just knew it could not end well and she was not sure she could take any more hits at this point.
She looked at her students, chewing her lips and caught Rodriguez and Hanson nodding at her. “I can’t leave my kids, Oriana,” she said finally, despite the signals from her students, with as much regret as she could muster.
Oriana’s face went pale and her shoulders sank, but she managed to stay composed and quiet. The one thing she was not as good as her sister was hiding her emotions and thoughts. Oriana’s expression was so open, that Jack could read her like a book. “I-I understand,” the girl whispered, looking away from her.
Jack was taking a breath to say something, but apparently Prangley found his voice. “I’ll go with her!” This got Jack’s attention, snapping her head towards the students. “Like hell you will! You should all be drinking your electrolytes and chomping down energy bars. You don’t stand a chance out there-” she caught the stare of Rodriguez, who was signaling her like crazy, her eyes almost bulging out as she nodded towards Oriana.
Jack snapped her back towards the girl, starting to feel like she was at a tennis match. Oriana’s eyes were dangerously fogging up as she turned away quickly to leave. “Fucking hell,” Jack hissed through gritted teeth, and the rubble she was sitting on was getting more and more uncomfortable, prickling her skin through her pants. “We will be fine, ma’am,” Bellarmine said quietly and the four of them exchanged glances before they all looked back at Jack. “We’ll stay out of trouble and help with the wounded or cleaning up rubble, mowing the lawn and planting flowers or something,” Hanson said. They all nodded. “You should go find her,” Rodriguez added pointedly. If Jack didn’t know better, she could have sworn she was being reproached by her students. She was keenly aware that Rodriguez didn’t say help Oriana. “Come on, ma’am. It’s your, uh, you know…” Prangley mumbled. “Girlfriend,” Rodriguez said sternly.
“All right, fucking all right!” Jack snapped, rolling her eyes and lifting her arms up. “I’m fucking going. But if you get yourself killed-” “You’ll rip us a new one, ma’am. We know,” Prangley said with a grin. “Don’t be a smartass!” Jack warned, and stared at them with a look of genuine concern before turning away. After only one step she stopped and looked back again, but this time it was with a smirk and a grateful nod.
Then she just spun around and hurried after Oriana. “That was her girlfriend’s sister?” she heard Prangley’s incredulous voice as he asked the others, probably louder than he should have.
Jack caught up with Oriana a few hundred yards down the road towards the airfield comms center. In the space of those few seconds she allowed herself the luxury of feeling just a little bit relieved. She would have hated to just drop everything and leave her kids to fend for themselves, just to chase down her… she didn’t even know what Miranda was to her any more. But whatever she felt for her, she owed it to both of them, if not to Oriana to get to the bottom of this. After all, apparently Miranda thought Oriana would be safe with her.
That Cerberus cheerleader was a smart bitch. She knew Oriana was closer in age to her students, hell, to Jack herself, and she probably banked on Jack’s newfound motherly instincts. Fuck it, she probably sent Oriana to her to provide protection, and she wouldn’t want them to look for her. She knew she wouldn’t get out of this one alive. Jack wondered which one of them got the better deal.
Re: FILL: Find Her (Jack/Miranda) 4/?
anonymous
August 10 2015, 22:38:35 UTC
“Hey! Uh, Oriana! Wait,” she called after the girl. She didn’t slow down. Of course. She did inherit at least some of that damned Lawson pride. “What do you want?” Oriana said, wiping her cheeks hurriedly with the sleeve of her jacket. “Listen, you’re right. You won’t get anywhere alone.”
“You suck at pep talks.” Jack snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
She finally reached her and stepped in front of her to make her stop. “Look,” she sighed, putting her left hand on the girl’s shoulder. Her right hand was still a bit numb and throbbing. She forced herself to look into Oriana’s eyes. “She didn’t send you to me for pep talks, you know that, right?”
Oriana stopped, taking a quick glance at the tattooed arm before looking into her eyes. She sighed, and suddenly she looked older and more tired than a few seconds before. It was unnerving, how she resembled her sister at that moment.
“I know, Jack. I just-I just need to know what happened.” Jack nodded in understanding. “But you have to know that the chances of even finding her- uh, finding her are very slim. You don’t even know where to start.”
“I do.” “Oh, really?” Jack blinked in surprise. Oriana smiled back at her bitterly. “I have her ship’s IFF transponder code. She flew her fighter somewhere over London. I just need to access the flight control terminals.”
“Whoa,” Jack muttered, staring into space thoughtfully. She tried very hard not to raise her own hopes, but she couldn’t help it. She felt her pulse quickening again. “That is actually clever-”
They both laughed at that nervously. “Of course,” Jack nodded with a smirk. “She thought of everything.” “That she did.”
They looked at each other for a long second, Jack searching the girl’s face, then she narrowed her eyes. “So you want to access her flight path and see what happened to her fighter.” Oriana nodded solemnly, pressing her lips thin in determination. There it was again. Hope and despair at the same time. “Okay, kid, I hear you,” Jack said, looking back over her shoulder towards the airfields comms center. “I’ll get you in. Just leave the talking to me, all right?” “Okay.” “Okay,” Jack said again, giving her one more glance and then she nodded behind her. “Come on.”
They started to walk towards the buildings in silence. Jack didn’t know what to say and how to talk to this strange girl, and Oriana was probably too lost in thoughts to bother. Jack’s 103rd insignia that she patched onto her jacket got them through the checkpoints without so much as a glance. It probably also helped that it looked like she was escorting a Crucible staff member. Oriana did get a few respectful glances from the people they passed.
At the comms center, the guards were more alert though, and also higher in rank. Technically they could refuse them entrance. A sergeant stopped them at the door. They were either down on manpower, or this installation was really this important that a sergeant was guarding it. “I can’t let you through,” he explained to Jack. “Listen, man, I’m with the 103rd marines, and need to find and extract a VIP that went missing over London. Help us out here, will ya?” She nodded towards Oriana like it somehow explained why they should be allowed to pass through.
It looked like it was working. The sergeant shot a glance at the tidy and stern-looking Oriana and pondered his options. He looked just as battered and exhausted as the rest of them, and he didn’t seem to be in the mood to go by the book when Earth was still smoldering. “Wait here,” he grumbled and stepped inside, looking for the officer in charge, no doubt.
Through the door Jack watched him approach a major, who was standing behind a few dispatchers. He listened to the guard without looking up at the sergeant’s brief explanation, prompted by a nod towards the door. The major glanced at them and frowned, following the guard back to the door.
Re: FILL: Find Her (Jack/Miranda) 5/?
anonymous
August 10 2015, 22:39:31 UTC
Jack rolled her eyes, taking a deep breath and getting ready for an argument, pulling herself straight. “We are quite busy here… miss, and we have a lot of VIPs missing,” the major, Hardwicke, according to his nametag, said without any greetings or introductions. He must have seen Jack’s unit insignia but no rank on her shoulders, so he was not obliged to salute, or be overly polite for that matter. Even Oriana was considered a civilian here. Jack never understood this pissing contest between the different branches. “We can’t spare resources for a search and rescue, and my dispatchers are already too busy directing the essential air traffic.”
“We just need a terminal to check the logs. We’ll handle the rest,” Jack offered. Her time with the 103rd started to rub off on her, getting all business-like.
Hardwicke eyed them curiously, his gaze stopping on Oriana, who stood behind Jack with a stern expression. He noticed her uniform, too, and nodded towards her. “All my men are busy. Can you operate a flight control terminal?” “Yes,” Oriana replied instantly. Jack tried to keep her face straight and not smirk at the girl’s quick and calm answer. She was wondering if Oriana was bluffing. “Come with me,” Hardwicke said, dismissing the guard with another short nod and started walking along the lines of terminals. “I thought you were on the Crucible science team,” Jack whispered to Oriana as they followed the man. “I was.” “But isn’t flight control like a full course at the Air Force?” “I learned it on the shuttle ride to Earth,” Oriana said like it was the most trivial thing in the world, not even looking at Jack, just keeping up with the man. Jack rolled her eyes. “Of course you did,” she mumbled to herself.
They reached a terminal with a weary-looking young man. Hardwicke tapped his shoulder. “Take five, Garvey,” he said quietly and turned to Jack while the kid shuffled out of his seat. “You’ve got four minutes.”
Oriana slipped into the chair as soon as it was empty, the two airmen watching just as curiously as Jack, who tried to act nonchalantly. The girl called up the ID dialogue and started to type furiously. “You memorized an IFF transponder code?” Garvey mumbled. “It’s faster this way,” Oriana replied keeping her eye on the progress bar as it searched the central database. Jack tried not to snort.
A map popped up, showing London in the center and numbers and lines started to appear, highlighting one that Oriana needed: the flight path of Miranda’s fighter. Telemetry numbers were rushing in one panel on the side of the screen, blips and highlights appearing all over the fighter’s trajectory. The flight controller, who was supposed to take a break and Major Hardwicke were watching just as curiously as Jack did. “Whoa, it’s one of the Recon Special Group jets,” Garvey mumbled. “What’s that?” Jack asked, turning towards the kid. There was only so much technobabble and bluffing that she could take. “I thought you knew who you are looking for,” Hardwicke interjected suspiciously. Jack shrugged. “Hey. I’m just the muscle. She’s the expert,” she pointed her thumb towards Oriana. “RSGs were running counter-jamming during the battle. They flew a pattern to neutralize the Reaper’s signal scrambling so that we could see and coordinate our planes,” Garvey explained quickly. “They were our eyes in the sky.”
“Got it!” Oriana exclaimed pointing to a blinking dot somewhere southwest of London. She zoomed in. “Oh. He crashed,” Garvey muttered, sounding almost disappointed. Jack stared at the display, feeling that unpleasant squeeze in her chest. “Talk to me, Oriana,” she grumbled, tapping the girl’s shoulder to shake her out of her surprise. “Uh, it went down,” she mumbled, moving a dial to rewind the time in small steps. “There,” Garvey pointed to another blinking dot. “Collision.” Jack grimaced. “Fucking peachy.” Oriana tapped the screen. “What’s that?” she pointed to the other dot at the impact. “There is no ID.”
Re: FILL: Find Her (Jack/Miranda) 5/?
anonymous
August 10 2015, 22:43:05 UTC
Garvey leaned closer and squinted. “Uh, that’s a Harvester. See the irregular shape? That’s because the wings ghost the radar image.” Oriana nodded, pulling her hand away, and Jack could see she was trembling. Jack put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently.
The flight controller looked at Oriana curiously, sensing her despair, his exhausted features softening. The younger Lawson sister seemed to have this effect on people.
“I’m sorry,” Hardwicke said, more out of politeness than genuine empathy. Jack took a deep breath, hiding her own disappointment and was ready to thank them for their help when Garvey spoke again. “Wait! Rewind at twenty percent-” Oriana tapped the controls in a haze, blinking rapidly to hold back her tears. “There! See?”
The blip of Miranda’s fighter changed color and a short code popped up over it. “Emergency Eject- She got out!” Oriana whispered.
Everybody fell silent for a second, calculating the odds. Surprisingly, Jack found her gathering her wits about the fastest. “Can you find out which unit was on the ground there?” she pointed to the area where the EE symbol was flashing. “Uh, that’s Sutton,” Garvey said. “You can check with your unit commanders. We only deal with aerial units.”
Oriana was still staring at the blinking dot, almost hypnotized. Jack squeezed her shoulder again. “What do you say, Oriana?” she asked quietly. “Hmm? Oh,” the girl said, quickly shutting down the pop-ups and returning it to the main screen. She looked up at Jack, clearly distracted. “It’s a start.”
Jack nodded, turning towards Major Hardwicke. “I think we’re done, major. Thank you for your help.” Hardwicke hummed. “You can’t get there by air, though. All non-essential air traffic is suspended. We’ve still got these damn beasts everywhere, and relief units are still coming in.” “Then we’ll take a car,” Jack said as Oriana stood up, typing on her omnitool.
They started to file out of the control center, the major and Garvey behind them. “You really think you’ll find her there?” Garvey called after them. Jack didn’t have an answer, and she didn’t want to get into a sentimental argument so she just kept on walking, keeping a hand on Oriana’s shoulder and leading her out so she could not turn back and confront the poor guy.
She did turn back once they were outside and nodded to Hardwicke, who escorted them out and offered a hand to the major. “Thanks for the help.” “Good luck,” the major said, shaking her hand. He still didn’t seem convinced that this could be a successful rescue mission, but he understood camaraderie.
Oriana was waiting for her a few yards away, the worry and desperation etching creases into her soft features. It almost bothered Jack to see the girl this way. “Come on, kid. Let’s get some supplies and a ride,” she said, jerking her head towards the tents. “I couldn’t lift a pebble with my biotics. I need some serious juice and something to eat.”
-------- To be continued...
Forgot the content warning at the beginning. Rated R for violence and discussions of sexual abuse.
OMG, this is great so far! Thank you so much. I love Jack's students yelling at her to go find her girlfriend. But seriously, don't leave me hanging!!! I need Jack and Oriana to find Miranda and get her to safety! ;_;
However, I wanted to finish this one first and I would hate to have this sitting in my drawer for ages until I write the others, so I present it to you with this caveat. If there is demand for the rest of the story, based on this, I might start writing the rest of it (this time, in chronological order).
I borrowed the names and a few characteristics of Jack’s students from mylordshesacactus’ wonderful Jack/Miranda story, “Priority”. Go read it here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/2557067/chapters/5685149
Chapter One
“Son of a bitch!” Jack exclaimed as the field medic popped her shoulder back into its socket with a swift, and in Jack’s opinion, unnecessarily painful move. “Motherfucker!” She grimaced, shooting a killer glare at the unfazed medic, who moved her arm around a bit to check if everything was in place, before not too kindly pressed Jack’s arm against her stomach.
“Hold still,” he said sternly while he dug into his pack for a sling.
Jack winced, rubbing her severely bruised shoulder with her left hand and looked around.
London was in complete ruins, smokes billowing from hundreds of places, the Sun struggling to break through the dark clouds, and as far as she could tell it was around noon.
“Fucking hell,” she hissed to no one in particular. She was on a roll, and she couldn’t be bothered with holding her mouth even though her students were staring at her. They were all battered and bruised and quite a bit rattled, but at least they were alive. Most of them.
Embedded in the 103rd Marines, her team held up pretty well, all things considered. They lost a few, way too many for Jack’s taste, but her rational mind knew that they fared better than they should have. Considering that she was sure they would all die here, anybody who was still breathing was a success. Five of her kids came out of this bloodbath breathing, and even then, Rademaker lost an arm, but Jack was told she will pull through.
Nobody understood what happened exactly, but there was a bright flash from the Citadel and the big Reapers just toppled over. But the thralls, husks, harvesters and the lot, the indoctrinated ones remained standing. their ranks fell into disorder, they became less menacing, shambling around like zombies, attacking anything that moved. Still dangerous, but nothing near as bad as before the flash. By dawn the 103rd was regrouping, and carrying their wounded they fell back to one of the rallying points, to the safety of numbers. The marines said it would take days if not weeks until they clear the city of the remaining monsters.
They were sitting on rubbles around a makeshift field hospital, and Jack had to endure the torture of the medic at the insistence of her students, who said they were fine. It was time to tend to her own injuries. The doc put her arm in the sling and sternly warned her to take it easy for a few days, and then left to take care of the other wounded.
Jack clenched her hand into a fist and relaxed it a few times, testing her limits, hissing and wincing.
“Cocksuckers,” she snarled, as a closing argument to her rant, and turned her attention to her students, huddled together a dozen yards away. They all looked at her oddly. Most of them didn’t hear her swear this much since they knew her, and were probably wondering if she finally went mad. “Don’t get any ideas,” she warned them grumpily. “Once this is all over and we get back to the Academy, it’s gonna be the Queen’s English again.”
Most of them blinked in bafflement, except Prangley, who gave her a half-hearted grin.
“Fucking-A, ma’am…” he started but his voice faltered as something caught his attention. The others followed his gaze.
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Jack snapped her head towards the newcomer, starting to flash a cocky grin that quickly froze. Miranda either went back in time and changed her hairstyle or-
“You must be Oriana,” she managed to press out after a few heartbeats. Speaking of which, she was pretty sure her heart skipped a few. When she thought she was Miranda, it was anticipation, but after realizing it was her sister, a feeling of dread made her pulse rise. “Uh, I haven’t seen Miranda,” she said nonchalantly, trying to chase away the bad feeling.
Oriana was wearing the Crucible Science Staff uniform, and looked out of place with her clean and tidy look, without a speck of dirt or rip on her outfit. Not to mention her almost eerie looks. Not as pale as her sister, and with a more conventional hairdo, but undeniably related. So this is how she looked like sixteen years ago, she mused, forgetting all the implications for a second.
“I know,” Oriana said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Her voice jolted Jack back into the present, focusing on her eyes. It was full of desperation.
“Um, okay. She said she will come here?”
Oriana shook her head, her expression darkening.
“No. She-she said that if anything happens to her, I should find you, so…” her brows furrowed she fought to control her emotions, gathering enough wits to let out a nervous laugh. “So, here I am.”
Jack nodded, feeling a bit dizzy. It was probably just the dehydration, the drugs, the lack of sleep and the pain.
“I-uh-I see. So she is-”
“Missing,” Oriana replied quickly, with more strength in her voice, not letting Jack jinx it. She held Jack’s gaze, so determined like she would will her sister into being okay.
Jack nodded sternly, searching her own thoughts, and the words she should say to the desperate girl. Breaking the bad news and handling the relatives was the ugly side of her job. She also didn’t want to lie to Oriana.
She took a quick look at her students, who were all watching silently. Except for Prangley, who was openly staring, even his mouth hanging open. Rodriguez shot him a glance and elbowed him in the side, that made Prangley hiss and glare back at the other girl. “What?” he mumbled.
“A lot of units have not reported in yet. Communication is scarce. She could be anywhere,” Jack offered finally, still fighting the surprise of Oriana’s appearance and the news she broke. Before she could mull over the fact that this was the first time they met in person, Oriana spoke again.
“Exactly. I-I need your help, Jack. I need to find her.”
Jack sighed, shaking her head in exhaustion and she looked at her students, who were still watching the exchange curiously. She didn’t want to do this. She turned back towards Oriana.
“I have others to take care of, Oriana,” she said, nodding towards her group. “We’re all pretty banged up…”
That didn’t come out as well as she hoped and Oriana was not taking it well either. The girl closed her eyes and sighed deeply, calming herself down. She looked back at Jack, gesturing with a hand, her voice trembling.
“You know her. If she were all right, she would have made contact by now,” she paused until she took another breath. “You know that.”
Jack winced. The last part was so Miranda, it was uncanny. Speaking plainly, and stressing her point so that you could not ignore it.
Jack also knew she was right. Miranda spent her whole adult life looking out for her sister, and making sure she was all right, that it was impossible that she did not prepare for every occasion. A Plan B would be just the beginning. If Oriana had to switch to whichever letter of the alphabet was assigned to “go to Jack”, it must have been pretty serious.
And it was not like Oriana was stupid. If anything, she was as smart as her sister, and probably more emphatic, growing up in, you know, a normal family, that she probably thought this through, too. She would not take a bullshit answer, not when it came to either refusal or false hope.
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“Fuck,” Jack muttered, closing her eyes and shaking her head, rubbing her temple with a painful wince. Part of the reason she tried to avoid getting into this conversation was that she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to deal with-whatever happened to Miranda. Because she just knew it could not end well and she was not sure she could take any more hits at this point.
She looked at her students, chewing her lips and caught Rodriguez and Hanson nodding at her. “I can’t leave my kids, Oriana,” she said finally, despite the signals from her students, with as much regret as she could muster.
Oriana’s face went pale and her shoulders sank, but she managed to stay composed and quiet. The one thing she was not as good as her sister was hiding her emotions and thoughts. Oriana’s expression was so open, that Jack could read her like a book.
“I-I understand,” the girl whispered, looking away from her.
Jack was taking a breath to say something, but apparently Prangley found his voice.
“I’ll go with her!”
This got Jack’s attention, snapping her head towards the students.
“Like hell you will! You should all be drinking your electrolytes and chomping down energy bars. You don’t stand a chance out there-” she caught the stare of Rodriguez, who was signaling her like crazy, her eyes almost bulging out as she nodded towards Oriana.
Jack snapped her back towards the girl, starting to feel like she was at a tennis match. Oriana’s eyes were dangerously fogging up as she turned away quickly to leave.
“Fucking hell,” Jack hissed through gritted teeth, and the rubble she was sitting on was getting more and more uncomfortable, prickling her skin through her pants.
“We will be fine, ma’am,” Bellarmine said quietly and the four of them exchanged glances before they all looked back at Jack.
“We’ll stay out of trouble and help with the wounded or cleaning up rubble, mowing the lawn and planting flowers or something,” Hanson said. They all nodded.
“You should go find her,” Rodriguez added pointedly. If Jack didn’t know better, she could have sworn she was being reproached by her students. She was keenly aware that Rodriguez didn’t say help Oriana.
“Come on, ma’am. It’s your, uh, you know…” Prangley mumbled.
“Girlfriend,” Rodriguez said sternly.
“All right, fucking all right!” Jack snapped, rolling her eyes and lifting her arms up. “I’m fucking going. But if you get yourself killed-”
“You’ll rip us a new one, ma’am. We know,” Prangley said with a grin.
“Don’t be a smartass!” Jack warned, and stared at them with a look of genuine concern before turning away. After only one step she stopped and looked back again, but this time it was with a smirk and a grateful nod.
Then she just spun around and hurried after Oriana.
“That was her girlfriend’s sister?” she heard Prangley’s incredulous voice as he asked the others, probably louder than he should have.
Jack caught up with Oriana a few hundred yards down the road towards the airfield comms center. In the space of those few seconds she allowed herself the luxury of feeling just a little bit relieved. She would have hated to just drop everything and leave her kids to fend for themselves, just to chase down her… she didn’t even know what Miranda was to her any more. But whatever she felt for her, she owed it to both of them, if not to Oriana to get to the bottom of this. After all, apparently Miranda thought Oriana would be safe with her.
That Cerberus cheerleader was a smart bitch. She knew Oriana was closer in age to her students, hell, to Jack herself, and she probably banked on Jack’s newfound motherly instincts. Fuck it, she probably sent Oriana to her to provide protection, and she wouldn’t want them to look for her. She knew she wouldn’t get out of this one alive. Jack wondered which one of them got the better deal.
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“What do you want?” Oriana said, wiping her cheeks hurriedly with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Listen, you’re right. You won’t get anywhere alone.”
“You suck at pep talks.”
Jack snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
She finally reached her and stepped in front of her to make her stop.
“Look,” she sighed, putting her left hand on the girl’s shoulder. Her right hand was still a bit numb and throbbing. She forced herself to look into Oriana’s eyes. “She didn’t send you to me for pep talks, you know that, right?”
Oriana stopped, taking a quick glance at the tattooed arm before looking into her eyes. She sighed, and suddenly she looked older and more tired than a few seconds before. It was unnerving, how she resembled her sister at that moment.
“I know, Jack. I just-I just need to know what happened.”
Jack nodded in understanding.
“But you have to know that the chances of even finding her- uh, finding her are very slim. You don’t even know where to start.”
“I do.”
“Oh, really?” Jack blinked in surprise.
Oriana smiled back at her bitterly.
“I have her ship’s IFF transponder code. She flew her fighter somewhere over London. I just need to access the flight control terminals.”
“Whoa,” Jack muttered, staring into space thoughtfully. She tried very hard not to raise her own hopes, but she couldn’t help it. She felt her pulse quickening again. “That is actually clever-”
They both laughed at that nervously.
“Of course,” Jack nodded with a smirk. “She thought of everything.”
“That she did.”
They looked at each other for a long second, Jack searching the girl’s face, then she narrowed her eyes.
“So you want to access her flight path and see what happened to her fighter.”
Oriana nodded solemnly, pressing her lips thin in determination. There it was again. Hope and despair at the same time.
“Okay, kid, I hear you,” Jack said, looking back over her shoulder towards the airfields comms center. “I’ll get you in. Just leave the talking to me, all right?”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” Jack said again, giving her one more glance and then she nodded behind her. “Come on.”
They started to walk towards the buildings in silence. Jack didn’t know what to say and how to talk to this strange girl, and Oriana was probably too lost in thoughts to bother. Jack’s 103rd insignia that she patched onto her jacket got them through the checkpoints without so much as a glance. It probably also helped that it looked like she was escorting a Crucible staff member. Oriana did get a few respectful glances from the people they passed.
At the comms center, the guards were more alert though, and also higher in rank. Technically they could refuse them entrance. A sergeant stopped them at the door. They were either down on manpower, or this installation was really this important that a sergeant was guarding it.
“I can’t let you through,” he explained to Jack.
“Listen, man, I’m with the 103rd marines, and need to find and extract a VIP that went missing over London. Help us out here, will ya?” She nodded towards Oriana like it somehow explained why they should be allowed to pass through.
It looked like it was working. The sergeant shot a glance at the tidy and stern-looking Oriana and pondered his options. He looked just as battered and exhausted as the rest of them, and he didn’t seem to be in the mood to go by the book when Earth was still smoldering.
“Wait here,” he grumbled and stepped inside, looking for the officer in charge, no doubt.
Through the door Jack watched him approach a major, who was standing behind a few dispatchers. He listened to the guard without looking up at the sergeant’s brief explanation, prompted by a nod towards the door. The major glanced at them and frowned, following the guard back to the door.
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“We are quite busy here… miss, and we have a lot of VIPs missing,” the major, Hardwicke, according to his nametag, said without any greetings or introductions. He must have seen Jack’s unit insignia but no rank on her shoulders, so he was not obliged to salute, or be overly polite for that matter. Even Oriana was considered a civilian here. Jack never understood this pissing contest between the different branches. “We can’t spare resources for a search and rescue, and my dispatchers are already too busy directing the essential air traffic.”
“We just need a terminal to check the logs. We’ll handle the rest,” Jack offered. Her time with the 103rd started to rub off on her, getting all business-like.
Hardwicke eyed them curiously, his gaze stopping on Oriana, who stood behind Jack with a stern expression. He noticed her uniform, too, and nodded towards her.
“All my men are busy. Can you operate a flight control terminal?”
“Yes,” Oriana replied instantly.
Jack tried to keep her face straight and not smirk at the girl’s quick and calm answer. She was wondering if Oriana was bluffing.
“Come with me,” Hardwicke said, dismissing the guard with another short nod and started walking along the lines of terminals.
“I thought you were on the Crucible science team,” Jack whispered to Oriana as they followed the man.
“I was.”
“But isn’t flight control like a full course at the Air Force?”
“I learned it on the shuttle ride to Earth,” Oriana said like it was the most trivial thing in the world, not even looking at Jack, just keeping up with the man.
Jack rolled her eyes. “Of course you did,” she mumbled to herself.
They reached a terminal with a weary-looking young man. Hardwicke tapped his shoulder.
“Take five, Garvey,” he said quietly and turned to Jack while the kid shuffled out of his seat. “You’ve got four minutes.”
Oriana slipped into the chair as soon as it was empty, the two airmen watching just as curiously as Jack, who tried to act nonchalantly. The girl called up the ID dialogue and started to type furiously.
“You memorized an IFF transponder code?” Garvey mumbled.
“It’s faster this way,” Oriana replied keeping her eye on the progress bar as it searched the central database. Jack tried not to snort.
A map popped up, showing London in the center and numbers and lines started to appear, highlighting one that Oriana needed: the flight path of Miranda’s fighter. Telemetry numbers were rushing in one panel on the side of the screen, blips and highlights appearing all over the fighter’s trajectory. The flight controller, who was supposed to take a break and Major Hardwicke were watching just as curiously as Jack did.
“Whoa, it’s one of the Recon Special Group jets,” Garvey mumbled.
“What’s that?” Jack asked, turning towards the kid. There was only so much technobabble and bluffing that she could take.
“I thought you knew who you are looking for,” Hardwicke interjected suspiciously.
Jack shrugged. “Hey. I’m just the muscle. She’s the expert,” she pointed her thumb towards Oriana.
“RSGs were running counter-jamming during the battle. They flew a pattern to neutralize the Reaper’s signal scrambling so that we could see and coordinate our planes,” Garvey explained quickly. “They were our eyes in the sky.”
“Got it!” Oriana exclaimed pointing to a blinking dot somewhere southwest of London. She zoomed in.
“Oh. He crashed,” Garvey muttered, sounding almost disappointed.
Jack stared at the display, feeling that unpleasant squeeze in her chest.
“Talk to me, Oriana,” she grumbled, tapping the girl’s shoulder to shake her out of her surprise.
“Uh, it went down,” she mumbled, moving a dial to rewind the time in small steps.
“There,” Garvey pointed to another blinking dot. “Collision.”
Jack grimaced. “Fucking peachy.”
Oriana tapped the screen.
“What’s that?” she pointed to the other dot at the impact. “There is no ID.”
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Oriana nodded, pulling her hand away, and Jack could see she was trembling. Jack put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently.
The flight controller looked at Oriana curiously, sensing her despair, his exhausted features softening. The younger Lawson sister seemed to have this effect on people.
“I’m sorry,” Hardwicke said, more out of politeness than genuine empathy.
Jack took a deep breath, hiding her own disappointment and was ready to thank them for their help when Garvey spoke again.
“Wait! Rewind at twenty percent-”
Oriana tapped the controls in a haze, blinking rapidly to hold back her tears.
“There! See?”
The blip of Miranda’s fighter changed color and a short code popped up over it.
“Emergency Eject- She got out!” Oriana whispered.
Everybody fell silent for a second, calculating the odds. Surprisingly, Jack found her gathering her wits about the fastest.
“Can you find out which unit was on the ground there?” she pointed to the area where the EE symbol was flashing.
“Uh, that’s Sutton,” Garvey said. “You can check with your unit commanders. We only deal with aerial units.”
Oriana was still staring at the blinking dot, almost hypnotized. Jack squeezed her shoulder again. “What do you say, Oriana?” she asked quietly.
“Hmm? Oh,” the girl said, quickly shutting down the pop-ups and returning it to the main screen. She looked up at Jack, clearly distracted. “It’s a start.”
Jack nodded, turning towards Major Hardwicke.
“I think we’re done, major. Thank you for your help.”
Hardwicke hummed.
“You can’t get there by air, though. All non-essential air traffic is suspended. We’ve still got these damn beasts everywhere, and relief units are still coming in.”
“Then we’ll take a car,” Jack said as Oriana stood up, typing on her omnitool.
They started to file out of the control center, the major and Garvey behind them.
“You really think you’ll find her there?” Garvey called after them.
Jack didn’t have an answer, and she didn’t want to get into a sentimental argument so she just kept on walking, keeping a hand on Oriana’s shoulder and leading her out so she could not turn back and confront the poor guy.
She did turn back once they were outside and nodded to Hardwicke, who escorted them out and offered a hand to the major.
“Thanks for the help.”
“Good luck,” the major said, shaking her hand. He still didn’t seem convinced that this could be a successful rescue mission, but he understood camaraderie.
Oriana was waiting for her a few yards away, the worry and desperation etching creases into her soft features. It almost bothered Jack to see the girl this way.
“Come on, kid. Let’s get some supplies and a ride,” she said, jerking her head towards the tents. “I couldn’t lift a pebble with my biotics. I need some serious juice and something to eat.”
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To be continued...
Forgot the content warning at the beginning.
Rated R for violence and discussions of sexual abuse.
As always, any feedback is appreciated.
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