Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You keep going. You don’t give up. You don’t roll over and die and give the bastards the satisfaction of knowing they won.

Ash slammed her fist into the battered punching bag, and imagined her CO’s face.

General Williams fought till he ran out of ammo, and then he made fertiliser bombs till he ran out of food. He went two days without eating, because there were little kids holed up in that barricaded town hall and they needed the food more. Fucking raptors broke the plumbing like they were kicking over an anthill, and the kids started getting diarrhea, and two of them died of that. That's what stuck in his mind. He was seeing those kids on his deathbed, not the mass accelerators smashing buildings.

Lt. Conroy thought he was funny. Good job on that combat sim, Williams! Now just remember: if real aliens attack, your job's to fight, not to start waving a white flag! 

What did you want the Shanxi garrison to do, Lieutenant? Blow up the whole colony, maybe? Kids and all? Those Hierarchy troops who took the orders they were given, let's wipe them off the face of the galaxy too? Death before dishonour?

Conroy’d go down fast, if she hit him for real. Too much coffee and gossip and not enough PT. You could get away with a lot of laziness in a place like Eden Prime.

Joshua Williams surrendered to Hierarchy Admiral Viaro because kids were dying and there was no food. They put him in cuffs that weren't made for humans and they broke his wrist. 

I didn't look away, though, he used to say when he was drunk enough. Kept my head up and kept staring Viaro right in the face. 

Of course it wasn't an accident. If they hadn't meant to hurt him, they'd have used asari cuffs.

Chana Viaro had been dead longer than Ash had been alive, but she pictured his glossy silver face on the bag anyway. Punch them in the gut or the throat, where they're soft. They've got stronger knees than humans, but the hock joint dislocates if you kick it right. Mandibles are fragile and they're sensitive but they're next to those teeth.

Get in close and watch the claws, Grandpa Josh said. There's not much muscle on a turian. Oh, they’re predators all right, but more coyote than wolf.

The impact reverberated up her arm.

Viaro hadn’t survived the war. According to rumour, he’d realised how badly he’d fucked up and he’d shot himself. But his cronies strolled off Shanxi and straight back to their day jobs, with no questions asked or answered about war crimes. And now the Hierarchy were trying to be humanity’s friends like nothing had ever happened.

What the hell - it was better than having them as enemies. These days, the enemy had fewer mouthparts and more eyes. Say what you like about the raptors: the Mindoir Atrocity wasn’t their style.

(The Hegemon still denied everything and still blamed “unaffiliated pirates” for the massacre. If he was in front of her, she could put her fist between all his eyes and cave his skull in.)

She’d signed up to defend humanity from people like Viaro, and from the fucking Hegemony and their slave raids, and from other humans who’d decided to behave worse than the Hegemony, and she was stuck on Eden Prime like a bow on a package. She'd defended the locals from something, sure - one of those tiger-lizard critters had taken to hanging round the primary school, so she'd shot it in the face and cooked it into stew. Give her a medal.

“Hey! Williams! You want to stop fighting that bag, and see if you can hit me?"

…and there was Jimmy Vega, strutting into the concrete gym to to radiate sunshine all over her filthy mood. He was missing his shirt, again, and he'd just waxed his chest.

She must have glared at him, because he smiled and said “Rough day?”

“Conroy.” That about summed it up.

He groaned. “Conroy. What can you do, eh?”

Vega could escape, was what he could do. He was off Eden Prime in a week and headed for officer school, like he deserved. She had absolutely no right to be jealous.

You keep going.

She took a deep breath. “D’you know how much I’m looking forward to getting off this rock?” You don’t give up, and you do not take it out on Vega.

“Well…” He shrugged. “It’s… got good live bands?”

Not helpful. But hey, he tried! Cussing out Vega: only appropriate when he decides your name is “Boomstick.” “Music’s good. Hold still so I can punch you?”

He lunged at her – still a bit slow, Vega, watch the footwork! – and she dodged behind the punching bag.

Chapter Text

Ash squirmed backwards into the shallow cave, her armoured shoulders grinding against the rock. She could hear the mechs, the glowing-faced things, marching past outside.

They put him on a spike. Her gauntlets were sticky with Nirali Bhatia's blood. She hadn't been able to stop the bleeding. They picked him up like he weighed nothing and they put him on a spike.

Her helmet was gone. Head exposed. Nothing to sharpen her vision, except the implants in her eyes. She'd left the helmet on the card table behind the spaceport checkpoint, when she ran, and she might as well have left it on Sirona.

The mechanical footsteps stopped. Either they’d gone or they were lying in wait.

Sweat trickled down her face. Her armour’s cooling was already full blast.

They didn’t need to ambush her. If they knew she was there, they’d have shot her by now. Her squad were – well. They weren’t likely to rescue her.

A spike, right through him.

If she could get back towards town there’d be walls and better hiding places and spare ammunition. Bullets worked on the mechs, and headshots seemed to work better, but she was down to half a heat sink.

Is anyone alive?

She was over a kilometre from town, and there was no cover on the way beside a few boulders, but she couldn’t stay here. The cave was barely deep enough to hide her from the side. It’d just need one mech to walk past and turn its head and she’d be trapped.

They put him on a spike and he stood back up...

They catch me running, they'll shoot me. They catch me here, they might take me alive.

One deep breath, a moment to wriggle out of the crevice, and she took off running. Made it to the next boulder, a wide flat thing twice her height, and crouched behind it to catch her breath. No mechs.

One more boulder. No mechs.

One more –

Something hit her hard in the back.

She threw herself flat, twisting to face the enemy. Flying drones. A pack of them. She shot two right in the flashlights, missed and winged another one, the first two dropped and she fired into the pack –

The drones froze in mid-air, blue fire crackling around them. Her next bullet exploded one into shrapnel.

The remaining drones tore apart in mid-air, like huge invisible hands were ripping them to pieces, and the glowing shrapnel kept hovering.

What the absolute fuck? There's no biotic troops on Eden Prime! She scrambled to her feet. Her back hurt, but all her limbs worked and there were no hardsuit alarms.

No more hostiles.  Two humans in Alliance hardsuits, an average-size man and a short woman.

The woman had N7 on her armor.

Chapter Text

The Normandy’s medbay.

The Normandy. The ultra-stealth frigate the Hierarchy had helped to build, as an apology. The hell was it doing here?

The medbay had bright fluorescent lights and smelled like disinfectant and stale coffee, and Nirali Bhatia’s blood. Ash had taken off her armour and piled it neatly, but she had no way to clean it.

The Commander was curled up on one of the beds, with the old doctor prodding her and sticking electrodes to her head. She was breathing evenly, and when the doctor poked her in the eye she groaned and shoved the hand away, but she wasn’t waking up.

Commander Shepard. Maura Shepard from Elysium had come out of nowhere, and rescued her from… geth, those were very definitely geth… and someone, probably Saren Arterius, had shot a Council Spectre in the back. Ash had just wanted to check the beacon wasn’t damaged! Beacons weren’t meant to lift you off the ground like that!

Commander Shepard. I’ve blown up a Prothean beacon and fried Commander Shepard’s brain.

One of the nurses scuttled over and started poking and scanning Ash.

They’d picked up Lt Conroy like he weighed nothing and they’d put him on a spike. And he’d turned into that. So she’d shot him.

...he'd torn that scientist's head right off, before she realised he was hostile now...

"Ow! Damn it!"

"That rib isn't broken," the nurse said, and poked it even more painfully. "No internal bleeding."

Right. Good.

Alenko was in the corner, muttering rapidly to a middle-aged black guy the size of a fridge. Wait. That was Captain David Anderson, lord of Traverse spec ops.

At least I haven't fried his brain? Yet?

Anderson turned to stare at her.

...McMartin's dead too. Ngoc. Karagiannis. Liu. They'd died fast, at least. Where do I go now?

Anderson strolled over, slow and calm, and stood over her. "Sergeant Williams?" he asked politely.

She gave him an automatic salute. "Sir!" 

"Alenko speaks very well of your combat skills." He stood there like a big solid object.

"I did my best, Sir." Geth might be bogeymen from under some alien bed, but bullets could stop them. Zombies had no right to exist, but apparently bullets stopped them too.

"As you may have gathered," he went on, "we're down a Marine."

"Yes, Sir!" 

"I'd be glad to authorise a request for mental health leave, after today's events."

Shit. They're getting rid of me. Might just as well study agricultural science - 

"But," Anderson went on, "if you'd prefer, I'd be happy to authorise a transfer to the Normandy."

"Er. What?"

"If you feel it's appropriate, we could definitely use a Marine with your skills." He nodded. “This was not an expected development. I think we’ll need all hands soon.”

Geth. Spikes. Spectres shooting each other in the back. Whatever the absolute fuck was going on, it made Hegemony-funded pirates look like mosquitoes.

Bhatia was planning to be head chef in her husband’s new restaurant. Ash wasn’t sure if you could get revenge on a robot, but she planned on trying.

Chapter Text

The Commander gulped down a glass of soluble aspirin, rubbed her eyes, fished a caffeine tablet out of her pocket, and started crumbling it into her coffee.

Thank you, God! They’d told Ash she was recovering, but that wasn’t the same as seeing her on her feet.

Er. How do you apologise for exploding a beacon into someone’s brain? 

The Commander was kind of short – she'd probably been standing on a box in the vids. It was definitely the same face though, minus a few layers of makeup. Big brown eyes, narrow jaw, wide nose, skin so dark it was almost black. She’d had bright red dreadlocks at Elysium, but since then she’d buzzed her hair to stubble and let it stay grey-streaked black.

Maura Shepard. The Marine who’d organized the Illyrian alley barricades, then held off half a pirate gang with biotically guided Molotov cocktails and someone’s big game rifle.

There’d been two photos of Shepard splashed all over the galaxy. One had been taken just after the battle – she was leaning on a wall and pouring rehydration fluid into her mouth. There was soot caked in her long red dreadlocks and someone else’s blood on her skimpy nightclub dress. The other photo showed her clean and wearing dress blues, with makeup so expert it barely looked like makeup and dreads piled up on her head and decorated with crystals. She was smiling an odd, careful smile, probably because the first photo showed that several of her teeth were missing. Old Hackett was wrapping the Star of Terra round her neck.

Suddenly, everyone in boot camp wanted to be Shepard when they grew up. Ash actually paid a hairdresser to put her hair in dreads. Bad idea - all her African genes were very recessive, so the dreads went greasy and fell apart. After a few weeks of that, Sergeant Nakamura flipped out and made her shave her head.

Shepard went for N-training and vanished into spec ops, then reappeared in the news a few years later when she joined Sa Chanthir, an asari commando unit. Ash wasn’t sure about that exchange program – asari might be polite about telling humans to know their place, but that didn’t make them friends – but hell, it had to be good training!

(Must have been, er, socially interesting also. Did they really all sleep in one giant bed?)

Shepard – who was right there in front of her, at the mess hall table – took a sip of coffee and looked disgusted. “We have any sugar?”

“Bad news, ma’am. We’re down to the nasty-ass artificial sweetener.”

Shepard’s eyes focussed. “Sergeant Williams! Anderson mentioned you were joining the crew. Very pleased to have you on board.”

She had a strong, crisp accent. Ash wasn't great with Earth accents, but it was probably English.

“I’m sorry about Jenkins,” Ash said. She’d taken over his locker, which contained weird Ayurvedic tea blends and an old teddy bear, and his rack, which stank of male sweat, and she’d sat awkwardly in a circle of Normandy Marines while they reminisced about what a great guy he’d been. She was trying not to feel like a discount replacement.

Shepard nodded. “Anderson’s writing to his family. They all made it, although his little sister’s going to need two cybernetic eyes.” She shook her head. “I hardly knew him either, but he seemed like a good kid. How are you holding up?”

Ash handed her a pack of nasty-ass artificial sweetener and started making her own coffee. “Adequately for the moment. Anderson’s making me see the ship’s counsellor.” She wasn’t sure she could trust the counsellor, but refusing to talk to him was just going to look worse, and she didn’t have the acting skills to lie convincingly… honesty was her best hope.

There were a lot of holes in the world. The Flight Lieutenant, whatsisname white guy with scruffy beard, had caught her up on some of the ship’s gossip, and she’d gone to hand it on to Bhatia and Karagiannis –

Lieutenant Alenko had cleaned her armour for her, and told her to get some sleep. She'd woken up panicking a few times and she could swear she still smelled of smoke, but the armour looked good as new.

Shepard nodded again. “Alliance counsellors mostly know what they’re doing, even the ones who have a day job as nurses. If you need a bit of extra support, we’ll get it arranged. I’ve worked with Alenko on and off for a long time, and he believes in keeping his Marines in good shape.”

So far Alenko seemed helpful, kind, and just as good at admin as he was at killing geth with his brain. She wasn’t about to automatically trust him, but he’d made a good start.

Shepard dumped the sweetener into her coffee, took another sip and looked disgusted. She kept drinking it anyway. Her eyes looked bruised.

Tomorrow we get to explain to the Citadel that we lost their beacon, we lost their Spectre, geth turned my CO into a literal horror-vid zombie, and the guy responsible looked an awful lot like their other Spectre... you know, the one with the distinctive colouring and distinctive cheekbones and very distinctive someone-blew-my-face-off-so-I-just-bolted-it-back-on look... yeah, we'll need coffee. Or maybe tequila. 

"When I was in middle school," Ash said, "there was a rumour that crappy navy-issue sweetener had so many chemicals, you could get high if you ate enough of it. My sister Abby made herself puke three times."

Shepard looked up, blinked, and then chuckled. She’d had her teeth regrown at some point since the Blitz, unnaturally straight but already a bit coffee-stained. There was a faint scar across her mouth that pulled her smile crooked. "So how many times did you puke?"

"Oh, I didn't. I always won hot sauce eating contests, also."

Shepard raised her eyebrows. "When you were a kid, or in the Marines?"

"More reliably when I was a kid. Sometimes in the Marines!" 

Chapter Text

Alenko leaned on the railing and smoothed back his hair. "Well," he said, "we’ve gotten somewhere! I'm sure they’ll rebuild that strip club before too long.”

Ash and Shepard leaned next to him. After the Council fucking them around, far too many gunfights, the Council being very slightly helpful, and that manipulative bastard al-Jilani, they all needed a second to relax.

The Presidium air didn’t smell like space station air. It smelled like flowing water and green growing things. Who the hell puts a lake on a space station? Protheans, evidently. Around the lake there was an actual park with white-tiled paths through the grass, and benches covered in rich people in businesswear. The fake sky looked exactly like a sky, with wispy clouds drifting across the blue.

Ash had never seen a real elcor before. There was a pink-hatted elcor in the park, sitting up on their back legs next to a bench. They were arguing with their turian friend out of one mouth hole while shoving piles of hay into the other mouth. It was definitely hay.

The turian reached into her stylish tote bag, pulled out a small furry dead animal, opened her ear-to-ear mouth like a fanged bear trap, and swallowed the critter whole. Ash really wasn’t used to that.

Alenko smiled at Shepard like no one had done anything odd. “Why do you always wind up shooting up strip clubs? Lexi’s Lovelies, Khel Da, the turian sexy-martial-arts-demonstration place, that classy one on Thessia… the mystery classified thing that made Aria of Omega stand you free drinks… that’s a lot of strip clubs.”

Shepard’s nose wrinkled. “Let’s hope the Den gets better management. Can you imagine working for Fist? “Oh, no touching allowed,” he says when he hires you, and the next week he’s threatening to sack you if he doesn’t get a free suck, and the week after that he’s trying to pay you in Hallex instead of money…” Her jaw clenched.

Ash hadn’t actually thought about the strippers, except to be glad they got out of the way. “Ew. Hope the girls are all right!”

Well, whatever Fist had done, all he was doing now was decomposing. That Wrex was a scary bastard.

Use armour-piercing rounds if you’re fighting krogan, even if they’re naked. The eyes make a decent target, and the throat and armpits and inner thighs are just slightly more vulnerable. Rules for hand-to-hand combat with krogan: DON’T.

Shepard straightened up and squared her shoulders. “Right. We have a stealth ship, some damn good Marines, and permission to find Saren and drag him back. Or shoot him if that’s more appropriate. We’ve hired the closest possible thing to a qualified geth expert, plus a proper detective who knows how to talk to turians. And I think Wrex counts as four or five Marines? Tomorrow we sail for Therum, find Benezia’s kid, and shake some facts out of her. That’s a start.”

It was a decent pep talk. T’Soni Jr sounded harder to intimidate than the average upper-crust academic – fit, serious about biotic martial arts, enough wilderness experience to know how to shoot – but hey, we have an real Huntress! Oddly brown and furry, but she counts!

“Spectre status,” Alenko said. “That’s… acknowledgement.”

“Lot more acknowledgement than I was expecting!” Ash hadn’t expected Councillor Sparatus, of all narrow-minded get-off-my-lawn old men who should hurry up and die, to agree to that one! It must’ve been the Huntress thing. Maybe Project Valkyrie had been a good diplomatic move after all.

Shepard stared into the lake. “I can see why the Council’s scared of humans. They’re paranoid, sure, but we’ve got far too many idiots who want to take over the galaxy.”

Below them, an fat old salarian strolled past. He (She? Ash really couldn’t tell) was wearing a long yellow robe that trailed across the tiles behind him, and a wide belt made from gold floral filigree and mother-of-pearl. He had gold filigree cuffs on each wrist and a silver lace veil over his horns. His skin was mostly dark grey. Ash wasn’t sure whether the white stripes on his face were natural or paint, but the red glitter round his eyes had to be eyeshadow.

He was drinking a Starbucks. He looked very happy about it.

“But we invented coffee!” Alenko pointed out. “Hey, if you believe the old movies, we’ve got everything the aliens want… oceans, this emotion called love…”

Shepard chuckled softly. “Beautiful women… yeah, plenty of asari interested in them…”

Ash had seen enough old sci-fi to know what they were talking about. “If some Matriarch wants to tie me up and make me wear a gold bikini, she better buy me dinner first!”

Shepard turned to face Ash, raising her eyebrows.

Yeah, that might have been unprofessional. Made Alenko laugh, anyway.

Shepard’s gaze drifted down to Ash’s chest, and further down, before she apparently had to tear her eyes away. Is she picturing me in that bikini? My hair’s actually long enough to do the cinnamon bun thing…

“Don’t worry, Chief,” Shepard said firmly. “If Aria T’Loak tries anything, I’ll be sure to strangle her for you. Now, moving on?”

Definitely unprofessional. Queen of Omega in a gold loincloth with nothing underneath. Shepard in a gold loincloth with nothing underneath – Definitely moving on.

Chapter Text

There were geth on Therum. This time, Ash was ready.

Overall the mission went well. The biotic krogan (why was there a krogan?) broke Private LaFlamme’s ribs, but he’d be OK. Benezia’s kid came with them without a fight, said she was on their side, and might actually be telling the truth. At any rate, she’d helped them fight the damn krogan.

Ash had made herself useful.

One more blast from the Mako’s main cannon, precisely aimed despite the crazy, looping avoidant course the little APC had to take, and the building-sized geth locked up and collapsed. Marines cheering.

– LaFlamme smashed into the wall and the krogan lumbered forwards to finish him, leaving his back exposed – did he have have any combat experience at all? His armour was damaged at the left knee, shields flickering, and Ash’s first shot exposed skin, and her next few shots pulped the knee joint. The krogan spun round bellowing, but he was using all his biotic abilities to hold himself upright –

– Shepard shot the krogan in the head a few times, to make sure he stayed down. T’Soni Jr smashed the last geth into the wall until it went limp, then dropped to her knees and started retching. Alenko bent over LaFlamme, who was alive enough to swear.

Shepard made a dash for T’Soni, pulling a biotic energy drink out of her armour. She glanced back at Ash. “Nice work on that knee!”

– The Normandy screamed out of atmosphere while they were still being decontaminated in the airlock. Vakarian slipped, grabbed at Ash on the way down, knocked her over, and thudded down on top of her.

She swore at him.

“Sorry,” he said, rolling off. “I haven’t dealt with such high G-forces in years.”

She sighed, and sat up. “Well, at least you remember how to fight!” That had been some impressive combat hacking.

He wobbled his mandibles in a way that was probably a smile. “I almost made it into Special Forces training, except… Hey! Next time we’re on shore leave, do you want to find a range and see who’s really the better shot?”

What? Yeah! “Bring it!” –

This posting might actually work out.

And, may God be thanked, they had time to shower before the debrief. (Except T’Soni Jr, who was taking a sponge bath while being rehydrated.) Ash’s undersuit was soggy, cold, and smelled like wet dog. Her left thigh was turning into a giant bruise and she couldn’t remember why. The Normandy’s poorly-lit communal bathroom felt like an oasis of cleanliness and peace, even crammed full of three random aliens and twelve grimy Marines.

Tali was using the shower to scrub soot off the outside of her suit. Vakarian – who seemed to pant like a dog instead of sweating – was ignoring the showers and rubbing himself with oil and a rough cloth. He was even weirder-looking naked. He looked like he’d snap in half if you hit him too hard.

Shepard yanked off the top half of her undersuit and tossed it into the laundry hamper.

Apparently she didn't do bras. Well, she scarcely had breasts. Ash, who always had to requisition extra-supportive underwear, wasn't sure whether to feel sorry for her or slightly envious.

…Her chest was covered in stars. Little five-pointed stars tattooed in white ink, swirling across smooth dark skin and dense muscle, up round her nipples and spiralling round her navel and dipping below the hem of her leggings.

How did she keep her skin so smooth and glowing on a starship?

Alenko cleared his throat. Ash snapped to attention and looked away in a hurry.

Shepard grinned. “You like the tatts?”

“Yeah!” Well, them too. Really, Ash, if you want to stare at naked women, you’ve got porn. Aren’t you too tired for this?

“I prefer the other side!” She turned away, and Ash tried not to admire the plump curve of her hips.

Across the width of her shoulders, she had a white-and-silver swirl of –

“Is that the Milky Way?” How did they get that metallic silver effect on such dark skin? Secret asari technology?

“Yep! Got a little sick of being from Earth. It had its upsides, sure, plenty to get nostalgic about…” She smiled at Ash over her shoulder. “But there are reasons I left. Give me space any day.”

Ash wasn’t sure she was from anywhere, really, except the Alliance. Brazil and North America were in there somewhere, but she’d never seen either.

“I haven’t been to Earth. I probably should, someday.”

“Eh…” Shepard shrugged. “It’s better if you have money. Good place to visit as a tourist.”

She peeled off her leggings and stepped into the hot water.

“Nigeria’s an awesome place to live!” Ros Draven yelled. “Mind you, I had money.” She went back to washing her feet.

Ash tried to focus on things that weren’t Shepard’s ass, or her thighs, or her back muscles. Like the wall. Like the fist-sized, vaguely human-shaped tooth in the bathroom bin (apparently Wrex grew a new set every year). Like Alenko washing his balls.

Wow, Alenko’s got a nice-looking dick. Bit small, but that just makes it easier to…

Not Alenko!

Focus on Wrex. Red overlapping plates, a face and figure like someone stood a toad on its back legs, and he said he had four balls but they were retracted somewhere where they couldn’t be kicked and Ash didn’t have to look at them. He was scrubbing… what would you call it, the deep skin fold between his hump and the back of his head… with Private Grenado’s cinnamon body wash.

“Oi! Wrex!” she barked. “Stop stealing Caroline’s personal things!”

He glared at her – huge red eyes, too far apart to really make eye contact – but he put the bottle back on the shelf and grabbed the Navy-issue soap.

Somewhere in the galaxy, there was a human who found Urdnot Wrex irresistibly attractive. Law of nature – if it exists, there’s a human who wants to fuck it. Ash was not that human.

Chapter Text

Most of the Normandy’s other Marines were atheists or vaguely irreligious, although Waaberi was pretty keen on Islam. She’d brought her own prayer rug and everything, and she drank as much beer as the rest of the crew but she apologised to God afterward.

Shepard usually said grace before meals, Ash noticed. Nothing complex – she’d just duck her head and shut her eyes and mumble something in a foreign language. It helped remind Ash that she was supposed to pray as well.

Ash didn’t recognise the prayers, though. They weren’t Hebrew or Arabic or Latin, and her translator only came out with gibberish about food and gratitude. But she caught Shepard eyeing her crucifix necklace while they were cleaning weapons together, and… she might have been a bit defensive; she’d dealt with a few officers who thought religion was for sheeple and claimed to be beings of pure logic… but Shepard didn’t seem to mind.

“So that’s me,” she said. “You?”

Shepard finished un-jamming a Predator’s ammo block. “I’m a Siarist. Amaru sect, mostly, although I really can’t be bothered with their fancy purifications.”

What? “Isn’t that an asari religion?”

“Asari came up with it, sure, and I picked it up from the Chanthir crew. These days it’s a bit of an everything religion.”

Ash blinked. “You really don’t like Earth, do you?”

Shepard shrugged. “I hold a few grudges. My Auntie Matt did a fair job raising me till I was eleven, but then she overdosed on something and died, and do not ask me about foster care. The day I signed up with the Navy, that was birth.” She met Ash’s eyes. “It’s not like I abandoned my old religion. I didn’t have one. Auntie Matt got to church occasionally, but it was always some megachurch where they tell you Jesus loves you then they tell you he’ll send you to Hell if you’re even a little bit bad. Only time I went to church after she died was if they had free food.”

“That must have been rough!” Still, though, an alien religion? “Your aunt raised you?”

Shepard raised her eyebrows. “So you know how, if a woman uses a lot of red sand while she’s pregnant, she’ll probably miscarry? Or the baby’ll be born without a head, or as a giant lump of cancer? But the baby might turn out OK, or,” she called up a few blue shimmers around her fingers, “only messed up in the good way…” She smiled, sharp-edged.

“Er. Ouch.”

Her eyes didn’t leave Ash’s. “Mum might still be alive somewhere, but alive or dead, she is not my problem or my responsibility. Understood?”

“Er. Understood.” What the hell had the mother done, to get that reaction?

“Me, I’m from the Milky Way. Not Earth, not where it counts.” She didn’t blink. Her eyes were so black Ash couldn’t tell iris from pupil. “And I’m for everyone in the Milky Way getting a decent chance in life. Alliance first, because they gave me my life, and humans first, because I am one and you’ve got to start somewhere, but everyone else gets to be a damn close second. And I follow a religion that suits me and that welcomed me in. Not my ancestral religion, no. Other than Matt who’s dead, my ancestors suck.”

It still seemed wrong, but Ash couldn’t put her finger on why. “I’m sorry about your ancestors. And your aunt. Ma’am.”

She wouldn’t trade in Grandpa Josh for anything. He’d taught her to cook and he’d braided her hair and he’d sung a lot, badly, and when the aliens took Shanxi he’d gone down fighting.

Shepard nodded hard, and went back to cleaning dried-out gun oil off the block.

“Er,” Ash said. “So… Amaru… do you have gods, or is it more of a philosophy?” All things being fundamentally one, right?

Shepard looked up and smiled faintly. “No gods, but plenty of jhara. Which are absolutely not gods, I’d like to point out now. But it’s like how Catholic saints aren’t gods. I like having a face and a personality to pray to.”

Ash wiped oil off her shirt. “So… are they like saints, or more like… angels or djinn or something?”

“Hmm. I’d call them spirits, really…”

Chapter Text

The... clawed plant zombie... punched Wrex in the chest hard enough to make him stagger backwards. He punched back and the thing sailed across the passage. It slammed into the wall with a crunch of breaking wood, Ash put a shredder round in its centre of mass because who knew where the organs were on these things -

The plant-thing opened its mouth and projectile-vomited all over Wrex.

"Untranslatable klixen!" he roared, and shot it point-blank. "Decaying untranslatable your mother untranslatable radiation sickness!" A couple more shotgun blasts and it went limp.

About ten more plant-things pounded down the stairs. Liara shrieked, ear-piercingly, but she also grabbed most of them in a lift field so that they flailed and bobbed about in mid-air. Ash shot the knees out of the last three while Shepard detonated the field.

Good news: the floating things exploded. Bad news: woodchips and lumps of green goo splattered everywhere, including Ash’s faceplate.

Aargh! The smell! Like a summer landfill!

She could see well enough to keep shooting the crippled, crawling monstrosities till they stopped crawling, with a lot of help from Wrex and Shepard. Then she switched on her helmet’s self-cleaning function and… no, don’t start recycling air, that’ll just seal the smell in!

“Fuck,” she said. The muck on her faceplate crisped up and dropped off, which didn’t improve the smell. “Join the Navy, they said, see the galaxy. Fight vomit zombies? That wasn’t on the posters!”

Liara looked fairly un-splattered, but her face was twisted in revulsion. “Indeed! Fuck!” She pronounced the word with the same elegant consideration as the rest of her English. “Perhaps that is too mild a word. I agree with… whatever Wrex said.”

Wrex was scrubbing zombie ooze off himself with a handful of dirt. He snorted. “Armour intact, Williams? This shit’s corrosive, I’ll need five minutes and some omni-gel.”

“I’m not getting alarms.” She tried to wipe herself down anyway. "Good thing you sent the nerd brigade down the tunnels, ma'am - this can't be a healthy place for a quarian."

She'd had a vague, irrational impulse to go with Tali and protect her. The kid was so tiny she looked like she'd blow away in a strong wind. She'd be fine - she had a shotgun about as big as she was, was so unnaturally strong that she had to be part-cybernetic under the suit, and she had Alenko and Vakarian to watch her back. Liara probably needed more protection anyway.

Shepard scrubbed goo off her chest. "This is my life," she said. "All I wanted to do was fall off a few snowboards, and Elanos Haliat drops too many pirates on my head. Me and the Chanthir crew go boozing on Hyetiana and we get elcor seperatist terrorists, you ever try fighting a bloody elcor? And now vomit zombies!”

The... gooey fungal lump... above them seemed to be pulsating. Ash focussed her rifle sights on it, just in case it tried anything.

Wrex had finished omni-gelling the pits in his armour, and was waiting for it to harden.

“Do you think weed killer would work?” Ash said.

“Works on most things,” Shepard chirped, “if you can get them to drink it!”

“Bullets coated in weed killer?”

“Can’t be harder to mod than incendiary rounds! Sounds like a specialised application, though!”

“I’ve fought elcor,” Wrex growled. “At least we’re not fighting elcor. At least we’re not fighting biotic elcor.”

“Ouch!” Shepard said, “I’ve never fought biotic elcor! I killed a seven-hundred-year-old Ardat-Yakshi pirate once. Not in a fair fight, though – I poisoned her beer.”

Liara’s eyes widened. The kid probably didn’t like talking about Ardat-Yakshi, with her background.

“Unfortunately,” she said, “I do not believe wooden… regurgitating… things… drink beer.”

She’d figured out humour. They were definitely corrupting her.

The fungal lump split open and spat out – what the hell? – a bright green naked asari, who landed in a crouch and stared at them. Ash kept the rifle trained on her head.

“Shiala?” Liara yelped.

It wasn’t an asari. There were details missing – no crest veins, no little claws on the hands or feet, perfectly smooth skin instead of scales. The eyes didn’t move right.

“Are you all right?” Liara called.

Definitely Not Shiala leapt to its feet and biotically threw Wrex across the room. Ash shot it in the head. It spun round – missing half its face and dripping green goo – and suddenly she was weightless and drifting upwards.

She spent the rest of the fight firing at the Shiala-thing while levitating near the ceiling, occasionally flipping upside down by accident. The lift field kept going even after the thing collapsed into slime. Shepard had to come over and get her down.

Chapter Text

The man calling himself Finch jogged up to Shepard and Ash. “So how did –”

Shepard lit up blue and yanked him two metres off the ground, arms held out to the sides. His pistol whirled away and smacked into a support pillar.

Ash kept a pistol trained on his face. Couldn’t hurt.

Finch thrashed and tried to kick and didn’t even disturb the field.

“The fuck, Finch?” Shepard snarled. “The absolute fuck? You thought I’d help you poison a few hundred people?”

He stopped thrashing. “They took over our planet! Someone needs to stop them before they take Earth too, seriously, those things are predators, look at their teeth, have you seen what they do to human women, have you seen what that guy’s doing to human women in that club right now?” His eyes jerked from side to side.

Shepard took a deep, slow breath. The whites showed all the way round her eyes.

“Cop shop’s that way,” Ash pointed out. No point bothering Officer Tertius any more, on his day off – simplest to drop off Finch at the nearest C-Sec headquarters. “Shall I ring and let them know we’re coming?”

“Yeah! I have!” Shepard spat. Blue sparks jumped through her hair. “Cos I’ve fucked a few of them! I can name two Cabalists and a Blackwatch agent who are better in bed than you’ve ever been, you useless little piece of shit! If I killed you now, would Old Jake care enough to miss you? No one would care if you died, Finch, no one anywhere!”

“Er… Ma’am…” Ash was fine with scaring a thing like Finch, but this was out of control.

She put her pistol away. The last thing this mess needed was bullets.

“You were one of us!” Finch screamed.

“Yeah, because I was an idiot! What’ve you turned into? We might’ve stolen some shit and cooked some meth, but we weren’t terrorists! You planning to shoot up Mindoir while you’re at it, because I’m pretty sure I set fire to a few of the guys who got Mindoir –”

Very carefully, Ash put a hand on Shepard’s shoulder. The biotic field licked over her hand, fizzy and glittering. She could feel Shepard’s much-too-fast pulse through the thin fatigue shirt. Shepard closed her mouth.

Finch started screaming again. “Someone needs to defend Earth, if you’re not going to do it! You turn against us like this, you know what happens –”

Shepard breathed in and shook her head. “Go ahead. Tell your arresting officer I stole omni-tools for a living when I was sixteen and a moron. I saved Elysium! You think anyone’s going to care?”

“I loved you!”

“Yeah, when you weren’t a terrorist!”

“Finch,” Ash snapped, “shut your mouth or I’ll gag you. Understood?”

He glared at her. “Bet you’ve sucked a few turian dicks, you –”

Ash grabbed a mini-pack of tissues out of her pocket and strode towards him. Shepard started to lower him towards the ground. Finch apparently realised that he couldn’t move, and couldn’t stop her from shoving the tissues in his mouth, and he shut up.

“Cop shop’s that way, ma’am,” Ash pointed out again. She kept the tissues in her hand. “I’ll ring ahead.”

“Shit,” Shepard said. “I need a drink. Or a massive, massive joint.”

Nurse Siripala wasn’t bad as a psychological counsellor. Ash probably should point that out, tomorrow, after Shepard had completely stopped glowing.

“I bought some fancy asari… candy made of space weed. You want to go somewhere quiet on the Presidium, and eat a few, and I’ll buy my mum another box?”

Shepard rubbed her head. “I have things to buy… shit, Kaidan and Pressley can do it for me, I’ll repay the favour down the track.” She started typing into her omni-tool.

“You want to eat space weed with Alenko,” Ash suggested, “and I’ll do your shopping?”

Shepard considered that for a moment. “I think I owe you an explanation. I’ll tell Kaidan later.”

They found a garden of shiny dark green leaves with a grey-domed gazebo in the centre. They sat cross-legged on the floor, on a mosaic of swimming fish, made from tiny chips of grey and green and shimmering mica. The special candies tasted like mouldy socks, but they sent Ash’s brain somewhere floaty where she loved the whole universe.

“I swear,” Shepard said, “back when I was with the Reds, they were just another bunch of small-time thugs. We were hardly organised enough to count as organised crime. We called a thirtyish guy Old Jake, that’s how young most of us were. Sometimes we wrote anti-alien slogans on buildings because we thought it was cool.”

“So you got out before they…”

“Not like we were good people.” She stared at her lap. “I knifed three guys, killed two of them – yeah, they were trying to knife me, but running away would have worked fine. And the meth cooking really didn’t help the local community. But they’d never have thought of… Maybe if it was a batarian colony, maybe after Mindoir.” She bit her plump lower lip. “I don’t think we’d have gone after turians.”

A few sparks danced across her face, and fizzled out.

“We’ve all done stupid shit,” said Ash.

You could paint Shepard as art nouveau, against the big glossy leaves. Those wide eyes and cute triangular face, and her hair that was long enough now to curl into little black-and-grey corkscrews… you could put her in a white drapey outfit and label it “God of Lightning.”

Heh – she was kind of Venus de Milo shaped, all solid and muscular, nice plump ass and lean top half. If you imagined her with a few more layers of fat over the muscle, she’d be the perfect shape for classical statuary.

That’s going to sound really stupid when I sober up.

“Finch used to be an OK guy,” Shepard went on, “for certain standards of OK. He wasn’t too bad as a boyfriend.” Her lips clamped together. “He never stole my money or hit me, and compared to a few other options, that made him look pretty bloody good.”

“Am I allowed to… Can I ask why you left?”

Shepard stared at her fingers. “Not much future in being the Reds’ telekinetic thief, and I wanted an implant so I could do more than lift things and mess with locks. And we all wanted revenge for Mindoir… that’s how I talked them into letting me leave, and talked myself into not feeling too guilty about it. I said I’d get my brain upgraded so I could kill as many batarians as possible, and I’d, personally, keep humanity safe…”

“Doing a fair job on the second half, so far!”

Some progress on the first half, also, and nothing to be ashamed of there. If you don’t want a Molotov-and-bleach cocktail in the face, you shouldn’t raid colonies.

Shepard ran her tongue over her unnaturally straight teeth. “Most of them were still… not impressed… that I was leaving. Finch, though, he wished me luck and kissed me goodbye.” She shook her head.

“Shit.” It was the most eloquent response Ash could come up with.

“Asked him to come with me, but he didn’t want to work for The Man.” She traced a mosaic shark with her fingers. “Like Old Jake wasn’t The Man!”

“Shit.”

“It was all a long time ago.” Shepard ran her fingers through her hair. “He’ll tell the arresting officer, and the officer will gossip, and someone’ll tell Al-Jilani, and Vakarian’ll be checking his gossipy emails from his cop mates and he’ll find that, and I’ll have to explain this shit to a boy who grew up so upper-middle-class that he thought everyone was upper middle class till six months into boot camp…”

Al-Jilani sounded like the main problem there. “Vakarian worships you, ma’am. I don’t think he’s going to stop.”

She smiled and shook her head. “He really does. Follows me around like…”

“Not a duckling. That’d be politically incorrect.”

Shepard snorted.

Chapter Text

Ash’s hair was turning into a greaseball, but they were out of shampoo, and she wasn’t desperate enough yet to use regular soap.

If she scraped it back, it looked kind of OK. She slapped on a bit of eyeliner to compensate.

Shepard strolled up beside her, wearing a towel. “Alenko’s still got plenty of hair products in his personal stash. He’ll probably trade you some for an MRE with meat.” She looked herself over in the mirror and fluffed up her curls with her fingers.

“If it’s real meat!” Alenko called from the shower. “Or I’ll take real chocolate!”

"What happened to your long hair?" Ash couldn't help asking. "N-training?" No time for haircare when you’re being hunted on an asteroid, after all.

Shepard smiled ruefully. "No. Kept my lovely red dreads right through N-training. It was Project Valkyrie that did it."

Asari kind of had flesh dreadlocks, after all. "Did they think it looked too tentacle-y?"

"I scored a few jokes about trying to fit in, but no, there was no uncanny valley effect. But I was always running out of hair-care products, and my hairdryer broke and I couldn't fix it, and you know how asari like a humid atmosphere?"

"They do?"

"Oh yeah. Haven't you noticed how much moisturiser Liara goes through, on our ship? My hair stayed wet too much, and it went mouldy. It was not good!”

“Oh. Eww!”

“So I shaved my head, and I cried just a little bit, and the whole Chanthir crew made a toast to Shepard’s Mane, Perished in the Service, and ceremonially threw the sad mouldy bits out the airlock…” She shrugged. “Never seemed worth regrowing it.”

“I got sad emails,” said Alenko, wandering out of the shower in a towel. “I held a small memorial service, with whiskey.”

Hey. Why hadn’t he signed up for Project Valkyrie? Was it the L2 thing? It might have been weird being the only man on the squad, but Shepard had coped fine with being the only woman.

Shepard punched him gently in the arm. “Don’t you ever go bald, Kay. There wouldn’t be enough whiskey in the world.”

Chapter Text

Wrex had brought a litre of ryncol into the nightclub. That had to be against the rules, but none of the staff were brave enough to object.

“So,” he growled. His eyes glowed yellow in the club’s half-light. The slit pupils had widened to circles. “You think you can handle Tuchanka ryncol, whelp?”

He took another swig from the bottle.

Most of the Marines were dancing badly or grinding on clubbers. LaFlamme was in the corner with his hand up a salarian’s kilt. Tali and Garrus, who’d tagged along, were at the bar trying to find something they could drink. That only left Ash and Wrex at the little sparkly table. Wrex had to squat – none of the chairs would take his weight.

“Your ryncol?” Ash said. “Pure ethanol with a few herbs in it? Course I can!”                           

Sometimes ryncol had methanol in it, or spices or drugs that were toxic to anything except krogan, but the stuff Wrex had brought on board? About as toxic as good tequila, just stronger.

“Right,” Wrex said, and held out the bottle without wiping off the neck.

What the hell – no cross-species bugs are going to survive in ryncol. Ash took a careful sip.

It burned, but pleasantly. There was an interesting herbal bitterness, and something floral. She took another sip.

She nodded, and handled the bottle back. “Nice. Bit strong for us little monkeys, but nice.”

The bottle was pretty too – it had been a generic plastic drink bottle, but he’d drawn geometric ethnic patterns all over it.

Wrex took another swig. “Hah. Humans. Might be made of squish and flower petals, but you’ve got more spirit than the Top Three put together.”

That seemed unfair to Garrus – who was still throwing her flat on her ass in nine out of ten sparring matches, but he’d taught her enough tricks that it was no longer ten out of ten – but she wasn’t about to turn down a compliment.

“Flower petals?” She shrugged. “I like to think I’m more of a desert cactus. Critters try to eat me, critters regret it.” She grinned. “Critters try to eat anyone in my family, the critters wind up face down on the street, crying and oozing blood and babbling rubbish about I never meant to hurt you, till the police take them away.”

Wrex lowered his head, to meet her eyes as well as he could. “See, you look after your own. Not this wishy-washy everyone’s-my-friend, all-things-are-one varrenshit. You say you’re someone’s friend, you mean it.”

…Well, he clearly meant it as a compliment.

“Have to start somewhere,” she told him.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “Shepard’s worth following. But she’s an alien all the way through. Her soul’s as foreign as her scent.”

Shepard was dancing, badly and arrythmically, under the biggest disco ball. She was wearing an ankle-length swishy skirt and a shirt so tiny it was basically a sports bra, both made of nano-LED cloth so they were covered in flickering pinpricks of multicoloured light.

A little firework bloomed on her left hip, and dissolved into silver sparkles.

Ash watched her for a moment.

“You ever plan on children?” Wrex said.

“Not any time soon, that’s for sure. It’d be nice someday.” It’d be easier if she could marry someone who’d stay at home and look after them for her. Who knew if that’d be an option?

“Blood like yours, it should be passed on.”

This was getting weird. “What? Nah, you don’t want me in any eugenics program. I’ve got some nasty recessive genes, and everyone in my family has cyborg eyes because their natural vision sucks ass.”

“Not what I meant.”

What the hell? Let’s make it his turn to answer invasive questions. “So do you have children?”

He was old, right? Old enough to have little red grandchildren. Hell, he was centuries old – could be generations and generations.

“Fathered some eggs, back on the homeworld,” Wrex said. “Few of ‘em made it to hatching. None of ‘em lived past that.”

He didn’t blink.

“Er,” Ash said. “I’m sorry. That’s shit.”

Wrex grunted, put the ryncol back in his backpack, stood up, and strode out of the club.

Chapter Text

They’d saved a planet.

Ash had personally helped save an entire planet.

The Alliance had been hunting Ka’Hairal Balak and Ta’Dho Charn for years. Balak was probably lying, but he claimed he’d been on Mindoir. Now they were both very, very dead.

Kate Bowman and her friends were also dead, but you couldn’t have everything.

(She’d heard them die. Fuck but Kate had been brave. She’d chased up a list of their names, and prayed for them to get to Heaven ASAP, and when there was a memorial fund she’d donate to it. There wasn’t much else she could do.)

The Normandy was stuck on Terra Nova till the local mechanics got the Mako functional. The nearest bar had a fun ironic-barn-décor theme, with hay on the floor, multicoloured cow silhouettes on the walls, and half-decent live country music. Ash was drunker than she’d planned on being. The next time a local bought her a beer, she was giving it to Wrex.

She’d borrowed a red sequinned minidress with waist cutouts. It was too tight, but mostly in the good way. It didn’t go with her shiny dress uniform boots, but they were the only nice shoes she had. People were staring. She was pretty sure it was “ooh, she’s hot” staring, not “look at that idiot in boots.”

Shepard was watching. Ash had studied Latin dancing, as a vague attempt to get in touch with her forebears. She was no expert, but she was good at the hip-swaying parts.

Ash flopped down at Shepard’s table and poured herself a glass of water.

Shepard nodded. “You can really dance! Wish I was that coordinated!”

Shepard? Uncoordinated?

Charn was yelling at them not to shoot, but she still had a hand on her pistol. “I signed up for a quick slave grab!” she protested, like that helped her case. “Just let us go, and I swear I’ll never give the Alliance any trouble, I swear!”

Her troops were still formed up behind her. All the varren were growling, rattling and deep.

“Do you surrender?” Shepard asked.

“What? No, I said we didn’t sign up for this and we want to get out of here!”

Shepard nodded. “Not an option. First, if you’re willing to raid for human slaves, you’re willing to break any vow you make to a human. Second, I know who you are and you’ve done quite enough raiding already. Do you surrender, Ta’Dho Charn?”

Charn twitched her hand and the varren leapt, as one –

They slammed into a translucent barrier and slid away, scorched and whining and covered in sparks. Shepard’s pistol was in her free hand and two pirates were already down –

“You can really fight, Skipper,” Ash said.

Shepard smiled. She was wearing black glitter lipstick. “I’ve had a bit of practice.”

The Alliance would have to confirm Charn’s identity by DNA – the warp field hadn’t left much of her face.

Oh, Ash had done her bit. She’d dealt with plenty of pirates, and mopped up most of the angry, scorched varren, and she’d led the way through that damn minefield. But she’d never be Shepard.

“Man,” Ash said, “I wish I had superpowers. Just – those guys were uphill from us, with the high ground, and you just vwoom into them and punch out the leader and then bang, knock down the rest of them so we only have to fight five…”

Shepard nodded. “Worked out nicely for me.” She frowned. “Not so well for Kaidan, of course.”

Alenko wasn’t there. He’d gone to bed early. “True, but that’s… human fuckwittery. And Vyrnnus. People fuckwittery. The actual powers are still awesome. You’re made of stars.”

Shepard smirked. “Obviously tone that down if you’re going to say it to Kaidan, but you’re not wrong.” She was actually dressed like an asari tonight – white lace hood covering her hair and neck, long twirly black skirt, and a white lace shirt open down past her navel. Little stars everywhere.

“It’s like fighting beside some… warrior angel, sent by God with a sword of light to smite evildoers. A beautiful angel of destruction.” Wait. Not appropriate. Closing mouth now.

Shepard’s eyes widened. Then she pursed her sparkling lips. “Isn’t that a toadstool?”

“What?” Er. Blame alcohol?

“Destroying Angel. It’s a toxic mushroom.” She typed something into her omni-tool and came up with a display of white mushrooms. “I’m a mushroom! A terrible, deadly mushroom!”

Hopefully Shepard would be too drunk to remember any of this?

“Sorry, ma’am. Too many free drinks. I, er, I should go to bed with Alenko – ah, not with Alenko, you know what I mean, I mean…”

“Definitely too many free drinks!”

“You’re not a mushroom. I’d like to kiss you.” It was very important to say that. Ash wanted to lick off the glitter lipstick. “But that would be wrong.”

Shepard took a deep breath. “Far, far too many free drinks. Look, if I wasn’t your CO then I’d definitely kiss you. But, you know… bad, bad idea.” Her eyes unfocussed for a moment.

Ash nodded. “Very bad idea. Star crossed.”

At least they were on the same page.

Ash drank some more water and considered making an exit, but the situation wasn’t actually uncomfortable.

Shepard met her eyes. “Look. It’s a bad idea that I can’t get out of my head either.”

What? She actually... me? Could have anyone she wants, or soft sweet Liara with her big eyes and ten times my brainpower, and... me?

“I suppose”, Shepard went on, “after this mission’s over… if you really want to… you could transfer to a different ship, and we’d miss you like anything, but then we could, ah, get coffee?”

Ash didn’t want to leave, ever, but the thought of… “Where, though?”

Shepard pushed the heels of her hands into her eyes. “Look,” she said. “I was planning to finalise things first then talk about this sober, but it’s relevant now. Once we’ve dealt with Saren, I want to nominate you for N-training.”

“What?”

“You’ll probably fail, of course, but I expect you to get in on the second or third try.” She’d gone all professional. Somehow she managed to act like a ship’s captain while half topless. That made her words even more surreal.

“Me? N-training?”

“It’s your choice, obviously, but I think it’d suit you and I think you’d be up to scratch.” She sat very straight.

“I… of course I want to! But…” Ah, the hell with it! If all those other people could get through N-training, Ash could do it!

“I’ve discussed this with Alenko, Pressley and Anderson,” Shepard went on, “in case you’re worried about inappropriate hormones affecting my decisions. They agree that you’re an excellent candidate. That’s the short version. We can discuss the long version tomorrow, formally, once you’ve gotten over the hangover.”

N-training. Grandpa would have been so proud!

If I make it through N-training I can have my choice of postings. I might not see much of Shepard, but when we do see each other, I can untuck that silly lace shirt from her skirt and pull it the rest of the way off…

And I can teach her to actually dance!

Chapter Text

The Virmire air was warm and floral-scented, and the sand was white and soft. It was an odd place to be planning a suicide mission.

On the other side of the tiny island, Wrex raised his shotgun, roared like an animal, and fired the whole clip into the water.

“I’ll get him calmed down,” Shepard said firmly. “He’ll listen.”

Ash had fought beside Wrex and got drunk with him and listened to him brag about old battles, and she wouldn’t say she trusted him but he’d never terrified her before. She’d seen him walk off bullet wounds and tear armoured pirates apart with his hands and she’d been deeply, deeply grateful he was on her side, and shit.

“If Saren’s really cured the genophage…” Ash said. None of 'em lived.

“He hasn’t,” Shepard told her. “You seen the krogan we’ve been fighting? They’re clones. Badly made clones. Wrex’ll understand that when he calms down.”

Wrex yanked a shrub out of the sand and threw it out to sea.

“Be careful,” Ash said before she could turn her mouth off. Half a ton of muscle and menace, and Shepard as breakable as any other human…

Shepard took a deep breath. “I’ll need you to be my backup. You’re the best shot we’ve got except Vakarian, and Vakarian’s too trigger-happy for this job. Get in as close as you can, and if he attacks? If you’re certain he’s attacking me? I’m authorising lethal force.”

He’d left his helmet off. A few armour-piercing bullets in the brain, and he wouldn’t get up again.

You look after your own, he’d said. Ryncol in a nightclub.

If she’d spent a thousand years watching babies die and eggs fail to hatch, she’d probably be right beside him.

Saren was trying to call back the Reapers, and Wrex wanted to help him. Regardless of Ash’s personal feelings, Wrex couldn’t be allowed to do that. And if she had trouble pulling the trigger, well… she was protecting Shepard.

“I’ll do it,” Ash said. “Prepared to use lethal force if appropriate. Please.” Can’t kiss her for good luck. Everyone would see. “Be careful.”

Wrex saw sense. Wrex lived.

Chapter Text

One bullet in the flashlight, one geth down. Another geth leapt straight into its place.

There was blood all over Ash's gauntlets and splattered across her chest. Not hers - it was green. Probably Private Ajvir's. The poor boy was propped up against a rock, still throwing grenades with his remaining hand.   

His helmet was smashed, hanging in rags from his neck, and his teeth were bared on one side. On the other side, his lips were missing.

Some of the STG team were still fit to fight. Half of them were dead. Jannau, the woman who'd wanted to get home to her children, might still be breathing.

Ash was going to die here. No regrets. She'd done her best.

One geth down, duck behind the concrete block, one geth down. Return fire was starting to crack the concrete.

God, I'm sorry about... all the bad shit... done my best. Look after Mum and the girls for me.

She'd go down fighting. That'd do.

Khael the sniper shrieked something that only half translated, and his team took up the cry. She thought they were challenging the geth. Something about come back to the water with me, I’ll take you back, I’ll be waiting next time.

Fucking Destroyer. Keep moving so it couldn’t get a target fix. Whittle down its shields, then aim for the processor.

Marru the engineer jerked and half-fell into cover beside her, clutching at his gut. His long legs crumpled under him, one joint at a time. 

Couldn't go to him, or the Destroyer would have them both –

There was a huge, ground-shaking boom and everything went red.

Ash blinked away after-images. Not the nuke – that still had a few minutes left. Heavy artillery. Someone had fired heavy artillery at the rear of the geth horde. Most of the geth were lying in piles and some of them were in pieces. The Destroyer wasn’t moving – did robots go into shock? – so she finished it off and bent to check on Marru.

There was dark green blood everywhere, but his suit had already filled the wound with medi-gel and he was conscious. Not much she could do without taking the suit off.

“Back to the fight, Williams,” he snapped. “We die either way. Just take as many with you as you can!”

Three more geth down. They weren’t moving right and they couldn’t shoot straight.

Something big and sleek sped over the horizon and started to settle itself in the artillery crater. The Normandy. The Normandy had come for them. They were supposed to pick up Alenko and Waaberi and Crosby – what happened?

The Normandy’s hatch opened and Marines poured out, butchering the sluggish geth. The medical team and a mob of crewmen ran after them, pushing hover-stretchers.

Ash provided cover fire for Yi from comms and MacBride the cook as they rolled Marru onto a stretcher and dragged him back to the Normandy. Rentola carried Ajvir slung over his shoulders.

Jannau was still breathing, in irregular little gasps. Her huge yellow eyes were half-open.

More stretchers. Kirrahe with his left arm immobilised, finishing off the last few geth with his right.

Ash and Khael were the last two on board. The outer airlock door slammed closed behind them, all decon protocols cancelled, and the Normandy shot away so fast that Ash staggered.

Where’s Alenko? There was absolute chaos in the hallway, wounded salarians strewn everywhere and the medical team trying to triage as fast as possible. Alenko was a medic. He should have been there. He wasn’t among the injured.

Someone handed Ash a tourniquet, a needle, and a bag of saline. She knelt over Marru and tried to find a vein in his arm – where did you even start looking? His blue-grey skin was soft like human skin, but when she found his pulse it was so fast it whirred.

Khael was giving Jannau chest compressions.

“Try there,” Marru suggested, pointing to his forearm. There were wiry muscles everywhere and she had no idea how they connected. His wrist moved like a ball-and-socket joint and he didn’t have an ulna. “Morphine will work, just use a bigger dose.”

“Let me in!” Shepard barked. Her voice was a ragged croak and she moved awkwardly, but she got the needle into Marru’s arm in one smooth movement and he didn’t even wince. “Williams! You wounded?”

Shepard was half out of her armour, and the remaining armour was dented. She was bleeding from shallow cuts all over her neck.

“No, ma’am. Where’s Alenko?”

“No time to go back for him! The bomb’s about to go off!”

“What?”

“There’s no time, I’m sorry, there’s no time!” She connected Marru to the bag of saline and lifted the bag over her head.

“What?”

“Williams, I’m ordering you to duct tape this bag to the wall as far up as possible! And then check on the red guy with the chin tatts!”

Ash did as she was ordered.

“Khael!” Kirrahe snapped. “Leave Jannau. Get some lines into Eiku!”

Khael snarled at his Captain for a moment, then left his friend’s body and started working on the living.

The red salarian’s eyes rolled back and he started to seize. Ash pinned down his twitching arm while Nurse Siripala found a vein and injected anticonvulsants. He kept seizing.

On Ash’s omni-tool, the bomb timer hit zero.

Amina Waaberi and Silas Crosby and Kaidan Alenko. Not enough left of them to bury.

Chapter Text

Kirrahe’s team, the intact and the walking wounded, had set themselves up in the cargo bay.

They spent a lot of time singing, high and sweet, and hugging each other. Sometimes they wandered into medbay to sing to their bedridden comrades.

The songs only translated in snatches.

…come back soon, and I will love you again…

…half my heart is gone…

There were a lot of long alien names, and sometimes the names Amina Waaberi and Silas Crosby and Kaidan Alenko.

Ash went to her favourite workbench, because the equipment still needed cleaning. Kirrahe limped across and leaned over the bench, too close to her face. He smelled like old blood and weird sharp alien BO. “It has been a great honour,” he said, “working with you.”

She didn’t have the energy to be polite, but he’d had a far worse month than she had. He was wearing a size XXL human T-shirt as a dress, and owned no pants, and his mangled arm wouldn’t get surgery till they hit civilisation. “Likewise, Captain.”

“Lieutanant Alenko’s actions will not go unnoticed. His sacrifice has earned humanity a great deal of respect from my people.”

What an empty, pompous pile of words. He’d barely met Alenko.

…Was it easier for salarians? A prey species, who’d kept their numbers up just by breeding till they invented guns. They were social like bees – did anyone bother mourning a worker bee?

Those were completely unworthy thoughts, and she was never telling anyone she’d had them.

“My thanks, Captain,” she said. “It’s been an honour.”

Shepard had completely lost her voice and was speaking in whispers. Saren had nearly strangled her with his bare hands, armour and all.

“He picked her up like there was no weight to her,” Tali whispered. Her lateral pair of eyes were huge behind the mask. “We all kept shooting him and trying to hack his armour or his amp, and everything just bounced off his barrier. He’s been held together with metal for years, I know, but now he’s put some sort of pipes into his back, and cyber-prosthetics shouldn’t glow like that...”

Ash hugged her.

Should’ve done that earlier. Tali was small and warm and oddly boneless, like a five-foot helmeted housecat. Her veil smelled like disinfectant.

“They’re not making a pet out of me,” Tali said into her chest. “Saren can do what he wants. But the Migrant Fleet, we’ll live free or we’ll die fighting.”

Ash shouldn’t be in Shepard’s office, because it doubled as her cabin. That was dangerous territory. Talking alone in the comms room was…

It was probably also dangerous. They’d moved the chairs six inches apart, because Ash couldn’t hear Shepard otherwise. But really, Ash’s sex drive had dried up and blown away and a closed door wasn’t about to bring it back. Talking in comms looked more innocent if someone walked in.

Shepard took a sip from her huge mug of peppermint tea. Her face was darker than it was supposed to be, and swollen round the eyes. All the blood vessels in her eyes had ruptured and the whites were an eerie dark red.

“He was my CO when I was twenty,” she whispered. “Taught me… a lot of what I know. He never minded, though, when they kept promoting me over him.”

Shepard could have saved Alenko. Instead she’d saved sixteen people, seventeen if Eiku lived. The geth didn’t have a chance of disarming the bomb in time, so it had been seventeen lives against Crosby and Waaberi and Kaidan Alenko.

She’d liked Waaberi and Crosby. They’d been good Marines and good people. Crosby had been an only child.

“Remember when we were stuck on Noveria?” Ash said. “The soup?”

Shepard, Garrus and Liara had spent two days running around Port Hanshan, running stupid errands and trying not to punch anyone. Alenko used the time to buy some overpriced meat and mushrooms and tofu and garlic, grab fifteen spices out of his locker, and slow-cook twenty litres of traditional Singaporean herbal meat soup.

After Shepard got the garage pass, and the horrific mess after that, the ground team came back to the Normandy. Ash found part of an asari crest stuck to her armour on the tram back, and Liara kept staring blankly at the wall and saying she was fine, and Wrex wouldn’t stop snarling about bugs will wipe us all out, I hope you’re happy, but… they’d had soup. Alenko kept giving people reheated soup.

Shepard nodded. “Him and his bak kut teh. He said it was his grandmother’s recipe, and he always complained when he had to make it out of varren and khaa roots because of course she never did that…” She trailed off.

“And there was that snafu with my transfer paperwork, and he went to the office and argued with the paper-pushers till they fixed it and gave me my back pay, when he was supposed to be off duty…” She’d tried to repay the favour with Armali chocolate, but he’d said it was just part of the job.

Shepard nodded again. “I think Kay was born with magic admin powers.”

She was crying quietly, tears trickling down her face and dripping onto her shirt. Ash gave her a tissue.

It was arithmetic. Sixteen Special Tasks commandos and one moderately useful Marine, against three.

(Kirrahe looked at Wrex like he was looking at a pile of dogshit. He was too much of a coward to outright say your people are a mistake and you should die, but he’d made it clear. Still, Kirrahe had a right to live.)

It had been months since Ash went looking for Nirali Bhatia, and years since she’d tried to e-mail her father. She’d already gone to talk to Alenko twice today.

The nuke might have hurt for an instant. Not after that.

“A good guy like him,” Ash said. “He must be in Heaven now?” Or Purgatory, but he wouldn’t be there for long. “Or… gone back to all things, I suppose.”

Or for all Ash knew, he’d be reborn as a tadpole. A little wriggly critter, who could grow legs and big bright eyes and start tinkering with everything.

Shepard bent her head. “To stardust.” Her face crumpled and she tried to hide behind the mug. Ash put a hand on her shoulder and she leaned into the touch.

Kaidan Alenko was dead and Ash was alive. How was that fair?

“I have to be worth it,” Ash said. They could have had Alenko fighting the Reapers, and instead they got Ash Williams. “I have to be worth his life.” It wasn’t a fair deal, but maybe she could make it fair.

Shepard took her hand and held on tight.

Wrex had moved his sleeping bag to the corner of the mess hall. He said he didn’t trust Kirrahe enough to shut his eyes while they were in the same room. Kirrahe didn’t hide his relief. 

Ash couldn’t avoid Wrex on a frigate. She’d have to talk to him soon. She didn’t think she needed backup.

She’d lived with him for long enough that she’d forgotten how huge and powerful he was. Half the mess hall smelled like him now, a dry reptilian musk that had been as normal as clean human sweat. She’d seen him tear humans in half with his hands.

He was sitting down, though, and carving a piece of wood, so she thought she was safe.

She cleared her throat and he glanced up. “Williams,” he said, calm as a boulder. “You’d have killed me.”

She stood to attention and met his eyes as well as she could. “Yes. I would have killed you if you’d attacked. You were endangering the mission and you were endangering the Commander. I had my finger on the trigger.”

She’d run if she had to, but lies were for people she didn’t respect.

He nodded. “I was. I messed up bad. If you’d killed me, I would have deserved it.” He didn’t look away.

She hadn’t been sure how he’d react, but she hadn’t expected that.

“Lost control,” he went on. “Acted as badly as those half-clone swamp frogs expected me to. I thought I was better than that.” His eyes glowed in the dark.

“You got your act together almost in time. We needed some clean undersuits, but there was no major damage.”

None of them lived. There must be some possible cure…

He shook his immense head. “Thought I was a man, not some brute animal. Looks like I need to work harder at being a man.”

“Look,” she told him, “I won’t say I’m sorry. But if I’d had to kill you, I’d’ve regretted it for the rest of my life. I like you.”

“Like I said, Williams. You look after your own.”

Chapter Text

When your CO orders you to jump? You ask how high. When your CO needs a frontal attack on a fortified building? You volunteer. When Donnel Udina orders you to sit on your ass while Saren calls back the Reapers? Then you steal a warship and commit mutiny.

If the universe ended tomorrow? It wouldn’t be the Normandy crew’s fault.

All the gear was spotless and perfectly lubricated. Garrus had beaten all the dents out of the Mako, and he’d started polishing dirt off the tires.

“Dad was hoping Shepard would teach me discipline,” he told Ash. “Would you believe this is the first time I’ve mutinied?”

Ash punched him in the arm, very gently to avoid bruising her knuckles. “You? Really? What, you never started any punch-ups with your last boss?”

He patted her on the head. He’d spent most of his life being tall-end-of-normal, and he enjoyed towering over humans far too much. “I’m proud to say, I never inflicted grievous bodily harm on Venari Pallin, even once! You can imagine how much self-control that took!”

She elbowed him in the soft bit of his side.

He crouched to examine the axles for the hundredth time. “Dad really was hoping Shepard would… improve me. I… I don’t think he’d approve of this.”

“It’s the right thing to do, unfortunately,” Ash pointed out.

He turned his head to point completely backwards, looking at her with his hands still on the axles. “I know. But just… poor Dad.”

Ash liked to think Grandpa Josh would approve.

Shepard was alone in the mess hall, drinking hot chocolate. She’d put on her full dress whites, with the hat and all the medals and the little ceremonial sword.

“We’ve got marshmallows,” Ash pointed out.

“We do? Hand me a huge one, please. Vanilla if that’s an option.” Her voice was almost back to normal. Her eyes were still disturbingly black-on-red, but she said they didn’t hurt.

Ash rummaged through the cupboard, dug out a white marshmallow as big as the palm of her hand, and handed it to Shepard, who bit into it like she was eating an apple.

Ash grabbed a fake-lemon-flavour marshmallow and sat down next to her.

“I’m glad you’re here, Williams,” Shepard mumbled through the marshmallow. “I said I’d do whatever it takes to keep the galaxy safe, but...” She swallowed. “I didn’t realise that would mean turning traitor. I probably shouldn’t be wearing this uniform.”

“You could take it off!”

It was meant as a joke, but Shepard looked up at her bright-eyed and calculating, and she had a sudden sharp awareness of the sleek body under the white uniform, and how those lips might feel.

Shepard smiled. “You know, Williams,” she said, “that’s not a bad idea. We’ve already broken all the important rules. And if we’re going to die tomorrow…”

“Then we might as well enjoy ourselves tonight, right?”

Ash hoped no one saw them sneaking into the captain’s cabin. Well, if they had… what the hell, half the ship was probably doing less illegal things in cupboards and behind boxes. Wrex’d know – guy had a nose on him like a literal bloodhound. Wrex wouldn’t care.

The door shut and Shepard leapt at Ash, arms round her neck and legs round her waist, clinging on tight. Ash held her up by the thighs and brushed their lips together, softly at first and then harder and then she bit carefully at Shepard’s lower lip and got a soft noise of pleasure.

“New version of PT?” she asked. “You volunteering to be my weight set?”

“Maybe? Come on, Williams, you know I can pick you up almost as easily…” The medals were digging into their chests. Shepard pulled back and slid down to the floor, to start opening her shirt.

“Hey. Keep the Star of Terra on?”

Shepard smirked. “Is that what you’re attracted to? The giant medal?”

Elysium might have been a tiny little bit of the attraction. “Nah. I’m attracted to your ass.” She darted in and gave both sides a good firm squeeze. Shepard took revenge by grabbing her tits.

Get the rest of the clothes off and oh hell yeah, Shepard was smiling up at her, sturdy and dark and smooth and all those white stars gleaming in the half-light. The hair between her legs was thick and curling and mostly grey, and Ash ran her fingers through it and gave it an experimental tug.

“You can do that gently. Not hard, though.” Shepard ran her hands up Ash’s sides, following the curves of her body. “Where were you planning to take this? I’m up for most things.”

Ash knew what she’d fantasised about, very quietly in her rack when everyone else was asleep, and there was no reason not to ask. “Can you… er, stop me if this is weird, but can you use your…”

“My biotics?” Shepard snorted. “Sure! For what, exactly?”

“To, ah, hold me in place and… they vibrate, right?”

“Sure!” Shepard grinned. “Just tell me if you want to get down, or want me to back off.”

She flicked one hand.

The field was fizzy and tingling and stung just a little bit, and it enveloped Ash’s whole body, fingertips and scalp and lips and thighs. It floated her a foot off the ground and held her against the cool metal of the wall, legs spread and arms out and just enough pressure for her to feel pinned. Every hair on her body stood on end.

She struggled a little, experimentally, and the field didn’t budge. Shepard smiled.

The tingling strengthened where the field cupped her breasts, and something intangible licked across both nipples in a mildly annoying way.

“My nipples aren’t that sensitive,” she pointed out. “Try behind my knees instead.”

Shepard adjusted something, twitching a few fingers, and the field brushed its way up and down Ash’s legs, up her inner thighs and across the weirdly sensitive creases of her knees, shooting pleasure straight to her groin. She closed her eyes. She couldn’t move enough to tilt her head back.

“So, Skipper. You learn these tricks in Sa Chanthir?”

“Among others! Have to entertain yourself somehow, on those long deployments!” She blew Ash a kiss and struck a silly pin-up pose.

It was a bit greedy imagining other things when she had actual naked Shepard to admire. But still, she spent a moment picturing a trio of implausibly beautiful asari commandos, holding Shepard in a lift field and playing her like an instrument.

That’s one way to prevent disease transmission! Ash had a flexi-barrier app on her omni-tool for more traditional encounters, but you can’t give diseases to a mass effect field!

Intangible fingers ran up and down her belly and across her lips in a weird fizzing kiss. Hard, stinging fingers tweaked her nose.

“Was that necessary?” She wobbled her nose at Shepard like a rabbit.

Shepard smiled at her. “Hey, it’s a good nose. Very noble and pointy. I’m just admiring it!” She flicked a finger and bounced Ash’s breasts a few times for good measure.

The rubber band slipped out of Ash’s hair, and it burst out in all directions, long and glossy and waving like underwater seaweed. Her scalp prickled.

“See, Skipper, I told you there were upsides to me keeping my hair long. Are you still pissed off about the shower clots?”

The field yanked her hair hard enough to hurt. “Yes!”

“Why? Gave me a way to punish my Marines when they played up – LaFlamme was a plumber’s apprentice once, so –”

The field clutched at her groin in a sharp buzzing zap that was half pleasure and half pain and all shockingly intense. She gasped.

“You talk too much,” Shepard said.

“Make me stop?”

Tingling, non-existent fingers spread her labia, and something hard and smooth and buzzing spread up her vagina and stretched it gently open. The… phantom dildo… started to thrash inside her and she completely forgot what she’d been going to say.

Oh, and Shepard remembered her weird knee thing. There were little sharp prickles across the sensitive skin and rubbing up the backs of her thighs.

She was going to say something, damn it. “You’re really short –”

The field brushed feather-light across her clit, and the sad attempt at an insult turned into a pleased yelp.

“Like that?” Shepard asked.

“Oh hell yeah – maybe a bit harder –” She tried to writhe in pleasure but she was stuck to the wall and spread open and the fields pushed back against her and licked across her skin, and – thrashing inside her, and occasional sweet little zaps, and the fields brushing over her clit were so maddeningly gentle –

Need to stay quiet. Thin walls.

Her mouth stretched open in a silent scream.

Everything – just – everything – all her nerves were alight, even her toes – held and caressed everywhere, and Shepard’s bright face looking so, so proud of herself… 

Shepard lowered her down the wall and collapsed the field, and Ash flopped theatrically onto her knees. “Right. I’m a puddle now. Kiss me?”

Shepard bent and kissed the tip of her nose.

“My turn in a minute?” Shepard said. “I prefer old-fashioned fingers or tongue, myself, and plenty of nipple attention." She knelt and wrapped her arms around Ash, and started to stroke up and down her spine. "If you want to hold me down? Or kneel before me and call me Skipper while you’re doing it? Either sounds good.”

Chapter Text

Black jointed tentacles clutching the universe, and Saren burning away, transcending flesh and rising and rising –

Ash woke up. She was lying on her back on scratchy grey carpet, and someone was using her belly as a pillow.

Tali was using her as a pillow. The quarian was wearing only her helmet and tubes and tight black undersuit, which probably qualified as sleeping naked by her standards, and she was completely failing at personal space, again.

One reflective eye cracked open. Tali had her mask opacity dialled right down for the dim light, and Ash could see her smaller, compound middle eyes and rows of nostrils and the long narrow outline of her face. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Aargh. Thought I was back there for a moment.”

“That’s fair,” Tali mumbled. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah, you can stop lying on me?”

Tali sighed. “Aliens. Too much living space. It makes you crazy.” She rolled away and curled into a tiny black ball.

The Wards’ eternal daylight was creeping round the blackout curtains. They were in Garrus’s one-bedroom-one-bathroom apartment. The Normandy was unlivable and in dry-dock, and most of the Citadel’s hotels were trashed, and the Alliance barracks were so overcrowded that sailors were sleeping on the street outside, so Garrus had volunteered to have Tali, Wrex, Liara, and the Normandy Marines informally billeted on his floor.

The apartment smelled like bitter smoke, and like the horrible things Garrus had found in his fridge because he hadn’t cleaned it out before he left. They were taking turns scrubbing the fridge. The smell was starting to improve.

The floor was covered in Marines, using backpacks and piles of clothing as pillows. Wrex was face-down in the corner impersonating a boulder.

We’re all alive. Things are only going to get more interesting from here, but right now, we’re all alive.

Ros Draven was wearing panda-patterned flannel pyjamas. Liara had stolen Jaz Teke’s blanket and rolled it into a ball and she was cuddling it like a teddy bear.

Black jointed tentacles wrapped round the Tower, and the Destiny Ascension begging for help but no ships could be spared to help them… We killed one. That’s a start.

Ash rubbed her eyes. She wasn’t going to get back to sleep.

Shepard walked out of the tiny bedroom wearing boxers and an ancient T-shirt full of holes. Captain’s privilege – she got the bedroom couch. She headed for the kitchenette, picking her way between sleeping bodies. Ash got up and followed her.

“Morning, Skipper.”

There were some non-mouldy snacks in the cupboards, and Garrus was prepared to share them. The tea was edible for humans. The blue-black jerky strips were edible for Tali. The fruit leather was edible for humans, but almost impossible to bite through if you didn’t have knives for teeth. Shepard grabbed herself a teabag. “Williams. You want some… I can’t pronounce that… Palaven tea?”

“Yes please.” Ash rubbed her eyes again. “You couldn’t sleep either?”

“Interesting times coming up.” Shepard fluffed up her hair. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, I suppose.”

“First bite, Councillor Udina should have learned his lesson about listening to you.”

Shepard turned the alien kettle round and round looking for the on button, gave up, and started boiling water with her biotics instead. “There’s talk about making Anderson the human councillor instead. I’ll see what I can do to amplify that.”

The Hero of Elysium’s opinions had a lot of pull with humans, even if the conservatives mocked her for being “half-asari”. “As well as humans, Vakarian’s dad used to be a big shot on the Citadel, and Benezia’s older kids love Liara and they’re all as posh and political as you’d expect. There should be some strings we can pull.”

Shepard nodded. “My old mate Jahri from Chanthir is a Upper Senator’s youngest, and she keeps in touch with her father’s descendants and her cousin’s a sub-Primarch. And I told you I had a girlfriend in the Blackwatch? We had a very friendly breakup, no hard feelings at all, and she’s a captain now. And Kirrahe’s got three dalatrasses and a colony planet governor emailing me for opinions.” Shepard sighed. “The Council species – traditional Council species, you know what I mean – can’t stand Udina. Whereas Anderson? The most politically incorrect thing he’s ever done was help Drescher take back Shanxi.”

“Does Anderson want to be Human Councillor?” He’d been upset enough about losing his ship and being promoted out of the field.

“Not in the least. I think we need him, though.”

The whites of Shepard’s eyes were starting to clear, red-and-white mottling instead of solid red. Her eyebrows were rumpled and the hairs pointed every which way. Ash glanced over her shoulder to check that everyone was still asleep, then licked her finger and smoothed Shepard’s eyebrows straight.

Shepard glanced back, then stood on tiptoe to kiss her on the cheek.

N-training, and a posting elsewhere… they’d work that out too.