Massive Disaster 5-7

Chapter 7

The Mess Hall chattered and clattered with the sound of voices and trays, that sort of forever-white-noise that stayed the same across a dozen different postings on just as many colonies

And there was now one more to add to that count of postings. Twelve hours…

Since Eden Prime, since the Geth, since her entire unit got turned into… whatever those things were. The techs running around were coming up with all sorts of names for them, none that she cared to hear. Not when she still had Bhatia’s screaming face in her head.

What used to be his face, at least, and she still couldn’t close her eyes without the image crawling back up.

And here she was on the captain’s orders; new ship, new crew, and a whole new path.

Ashley sat with her back straight up against the wall, perfect positioning that let her keep an eye on the far side of the room without even moving her head. Her hand stirred her caf on its own, a slow whirlpool of sludge thick enough to stand the spoon in. 

Just the way she liked it. Just the way her father liked it.

And just the way he said his father did too. 

Her fingers flexed tight, other hand nearly forming a fist as it rested on her lap. 

Ashley gave her caf one more spin as she kept her eyes up front, locked firmly on the viewport all the way across the mess with barely any bodies around it. It felt like everybody was keeping their distance, or maybe that was just her attention narrowing as she couldn’t peel her eyes away from what obviously felt… off.

That was barely the word, but it was honestly the closest she had. The whole situation — then and now — was just wrong in ways she didn’t have words for, the kind that made her arm hair stand straight, pushing against her hardsuit. The Gunnery Chief bit her tongue as a head of blue hair bounced, twin ponytails almost neon-bright as one of the two women Ashley had been eyeing let out a loud laugh.

The shorter of the two stood up without another word, shoving off the table to head for the caf dispenser. Brown-skinned, sturdy, and moving as confidently as any career Marine she’d ever seen, it was hard to believe the woman was just a civ. If the dress bodysuit didn’t give her away, then the full face of makeup certainly did the job.

Even still, that confidence was almost enough to make Ashley second-guess, especially as she watched her strut with the kind of ease no civilian should have on a military vessel. 

Herra. That was the name floating around. Director-General of something or other, which meant civilian, which meant she should’ve looked at least a little impressed by a brand-new shiny Alliance frigate.

She didn’t. She looked bored.

Ashley’s own mouth had hung open the second she’d stepped aboard the Normandy. Hell, she knew she’d been gaping like a backwater rube at the sight of all that gleaming tech on a state-of-the-art ship. This Herra woman, though?

She hadn’t even flinched once since coming aboard, barely even a raised eyebrow as she made her way around like the whole ship was beneath her.

Herra wore that same unbothered look even now as she headed back to her table and dropped into her seat next to the blue-haired girl, the one who’d been cleaning a sidearm for the past ten minutes like she was expecting a boarding action. Varnes. 

Another one of the VCA people. A biotic, from everything she’d seen

Herra shook her head as she said something, voice low as if anyone would ever overhear over the noise of the mess. Varnes laughed again; the sound enough to deepen the frown Ashley wore, loud and grating like sand in a boot.

“You know,” Ashley’s voice dropped a bit as her fingers flexed again, “it’s not right.”

A black-haired man sat across from her, pinched eyes blinking down at the tray of standard rations in front of him. It was barely touched, but she couldn’t fault the Staff Lieutenant for not having an appetite.

Hers wasn’t back yet, either.

“What’s not right, Williams?” Kaidan Alenko’s voice was measured, careful almost, as he pushed the tray a bit away from him. “Still not used to being off-colony?”

“No.” Ashley bit back a grunt, shaking her head at the older man’s words. “I’m talking about them.” Her chin jerked toward the viewport table as Herra leaned over to say something, the biotic putting her weapon down as she listened to the other woman’s whispers. 

Neither of them seemed to notice the eyes on them. 

Either that or they didn’t give a shit.

The spoon stopped moving as her grip tightened around it. “They’ve been walking around like they own the place.”

Alenko raised an eyebrow as he leaned over a bit, just enough to catch the both of them over his shoulder. “They’re sitting.”

“That one,” she gestured with her spoon towards the blue-haired woman, “Reports say she was an N7 who went dark.”

“Reports say a lot of things, Williams.” Alenko’s fingers tapped the table, even as he glanced back again. “Besides, Marines disengage from service. Nothing new.”

“And the other one, you saw her on Eden, the way she was moving?” She knew what he was doing but Ashley wasn’t going to pretend like she couldn’t notice the look on his face. “Victors, too. And the one with the sword, they’re all… not natural.”

Alenko’s mouth worked as he glanced down at his tray, taking a single bite of synth-beef. “They helped us on Eden Prime. Who knows what would have happened if Victors hadn’t fielded that bomb or cannon or whatever it was?”

“That doesn’t mean we can trust them.” She rolled her eyes as the man sighed again. Barely a half day aboard the ship and it was more than obvious to her that the biotic in front of her liked to play the mediator. Ashley could appreciate that, but she didn’t exactly feel like extending that sort of olive branch to outsiders. “You saw what Varne did, right? I don’t know much about biotics, but can Asari even do things like that? Throwing an armored truck over a building? What even is that?”

“It’s Varnes, but yeah, younger than a Matron?” Kaidan chewed slowly. “Probably not, and I’m not going to lie to you, Williams, I wouldn’t be surprised if most Matrons could do something like that without a solid amp.”

“My point exactly,” Ashley pulled a face, air whistling through her teeth as she bit back the words from sliding into a hiss. “And look at those veins, too. Blue like that… glowing under the skin?”

“You might be a little out of the loop but that’s old news, Williams. Victors’ company does a lot of gene-modding,” Alenko tilted his head as he dropped his spoon back down. 

“I know.” Of course she did. The only way anyone could avoid hearing all the extranet news out of Traverse space the last year was if they were blind and deaf; all the rumors of miracles, monsters and en-masse militia modding. “But t-”

“But,” Alenko cut in, clearly not finished. “His medical programs are popular for a reason. New as it is, it’s effective, Williams.”

“Effective doesn’t matter. Gene-modding like that is illegal for a reason.” 

“In Alliance space.” He shook his head, eyes closing. “Illegal in Alliance space.”

Ashley shook her head. “But the side effects… she could be a walking biotic time bomb for all we know.”

“But we don’t.”

“And Victors…” She clicked her tongue. “What he did… are you really gonna tell me that was just biotics too? Did you see a cannon on him or anything when he flattened that whole line of Geth?”

Kaidan fell silent as his gaze drifted back to the two women, the shorter of the two getting up and leaving the blue-haired former N7 behind. “I’m going to go talk to her.”

“Wha-” Ashley blinked, one hand reaching out to stop him before she caught herself. “Why?”

Kaidan smiled back at her. “You have questions, right? I’ll get you those answers.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The Hammerdown clattered on the mess hall table as Kira finally set it down, the basic cleaning and (largely unnecessary) maintenance over with. The majority of it had just been stripping away the red mud Zedd had gotten on it during the fight, the bits of it that hadn’t come clean with a basic wipe. 

Now came the rest of it, the work that had Kira hunched over the table, running a diagnostic on the heavy kinetic pulse pistol fully reassembled looking almost innocent under the harsh fluorescents.

Almost.

Blue eyes stared into the orange light of her omni, a program Zedd designed specifically for her to monitor and modify its function staring back at her. The scrolling data stream was a mess of spikes, output high enough to make her teeth itch.

You overmuscled dickhead… Just a few years back, she would never expect to be aiming that particular insult at Zedd instead of Dev, but a lot of things had changed since. You’re trying to kill me. Exaggerations aside, letting Zedd use her gun had taught her a lesson about his preferred settings, and while she loved firepower — the kick, the noise, the way it turned shielding into confetti — she didn’t need to be letting off shots that would leave micro-fractures in her wrist with each trigger-pull.

One-hundred and eighty-eight percent… what kinda output, Zedd? Her tongue clicked hard on the roof of her mouth. She knew it had been effective, sure, and seen the single shots he’d used to drop the Geth and their pet monsters but still… Ridiculous.

The guy had muscles built in a lab and bones reinforced with whatever god-complex cocktail he’d injected himself and Caleb with, so he didn’t feel the micro-fractures. 

But she knew she would.

Hell, Kira felt it all the way up to her elbow just looking at the logs.

Her fingers danced over the holographic interface, dropping the raw shear down to a much more sensible eighty-eight. No need to empty out the battery, you psycho.

“Sergeant Varnes.”

The voice echoed slightly in the expanse of the mess hall, even above the clatter of a few marines eating near her. Who… Kira raised an eyebrow as she looked up, bright blue gaze meeting the dark, tired eyes of an older man standing just outside her personal space.

“It’s just Kira. Or Varnes.” The correction came automatically, immediate dismissal of her N7 past instinctual to her now. “Haven’t been a Staff Sergeant for a little bit now. Paygrade didn’t follow me out the door.”

“Right. Kira.” The man blinked slowly, nodding like he was filing that away. “I’m Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko.” He held out a hand.

“I remember you,” Kira turned back to her omni without offering a hand, red dust on her fingers not really making that a good idea. “Saw the shield you had up on the platform.” She tapped a command that re-synced the K-pulse cycling, clicking her tongue again as the red lines turned a soothing green. “Got some decent output on ya. For an L2.”

Alenko took the bench opposite her, the older man moving with a stiffness that spoke of self-control more than physical strain. “You can tell?”

“Hard to miss the static.” She let her hand fall, omnitool hitting the table with a clack. “Ozone pops around you with each flare-up. I can tell these things.” A half-year of getting used to her new body and some things were second-nature.

“Well… I… I didn’t know I was that obvious.” His tone, all careful and neutral, slipped just a fraction, something in his eyes as he focused on her. “But you… I’ve never seen a biotic signature that strong and stable. My L2… it’s a constant battle to keep it from spiking. Price for power, and all that, b-but you… you don’t seem to have any of that.”

Kira rested her chin in her hand, the blue veins on her forearm pulsing faintly against the pale skin. She knew what he saw and exactly what he wanted; that power without the price. “What do you know of Asari biology?”

Kaidan blinked. “Uh… uh, not much.”

She smiled back at him. “Yeah, neither does the Alliance.”

The Staff Lieutenant’s mouth hung open for a few more seconds, working silently. “I d-don’t understand?”

“I know, I didn’t really get it much either, but…” Kira traced a scratch on the mess table with a fingernail stuck the same blue as her hair. “The Alliance’s approach and understanding of biotic management is… limited, a lot of it based on Asari biology and tech. Again, biology they don’t understand. Tryin’ to copy homework they can’t read.”

She raised her eyebrows, both of them touching her bangs. “Humans… ain’t Asari.”

Well, humans that weren’t her.

“Kinda like putting a racer engine in a shuttle.” Her nail tapped the table. “Mounts ain’t built for the torque and definitely not for constant, regular use. That’s how it tears itself apart. Like you’re probably redlining just sitting there, fighting a migraine right now?”

Kaidan leaned forward, the man’s elbows on the table. “And your system?” He didn’t even bother denying it. “Not an L2, then?”

“No.”

“Then what is it? L3? L4? I heard rumors about an L5 experiment-”

“A V1.”

Kaidan frowned, the little crease between his brows deepening. “V1? That stand for…”

Kira smiled. “What else?”

Victory.

“He built it? How?” Kaidan’s question was one that she had given up asking years back. “When did Victors become a biotic specialist?”

About eight months ago. Her lips twitched. “He’s always been a guy who fixes things. And that includes bad wiring.”

“Bad wiring,” Kaidan’s voice was more flat than it was calm. “We’re talking about the nervous system. The brain.”

“Wiring is wiring, Lieutenant. It’s all just flow. V-Series doesn’t force the flow. It’s more about fitting the system.” Okay, that was a lie. 

Or, a half-truth, at least. 

Zedd didn’t just fit it to her system; he rebuilt the whole thing first with alien parts. But she wasn’t about to explain to an Alliance officer that she was almost half-Asari because of some spinal fluid stolen from a Matron. 

That kind of thing was best not shared with the wrong people.

Kaidan stared at her as she spun the inactive gun in front of her. “He could make a fortune off that, help a lot of people too.”

“Yeah, well,” Kira clicked her tongue, stopping the spin with a slap of her palm. “Zedd ain’t exactly the poster boy for Alliance medical review boards right now.”

“Why don’t you share this with the Alliance? If he won’t…”

“Not about won’t,” Kira frowned at the blatant offer of betrayal. “It’s a matter of can’t.”

Silence stretched between the two biotics, Kaidan quietly chewing on words as she stared back at him. “I just don’t understand. I looked up your file. You made it through the program, fast-tracked even.”

Kira’s frown deepened. Not this again.

“N7.” He almost whispered all three syllables. “One of the best.” He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “I get it, walking away for this kind of… enhancement, but you had a career. You had respect.” The question was genuine, filled with the confusion of a man for whom the Alliance was the sky and the ground.

“I don’t think you get me.” Kira’s gaze drifted to the viewport as stars streaked by in lines of cold light. Respect. “I was with Zedd before I was with the Alliance. Hell, the only reason they fast-tracked me in the first place was because they wanted someone on the inside.”

“…oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” She had known it from the beginning, even if she didn’t share it with Zedd way back when. It was the only logical reason they even had to reach out to her and part of why she kept so much radio silence during her training. “There was no trading loyalty for power, Liuetenant Alenko. The SA never had mine in the first place.”

Kaidan blinked at her again, the tired man leaning back slowly. “So… you don’t believe in the Alliance?”

Kira felt the smile drift back, lips a tight line. “I believe in Victory.”

Before Kaidan could say anything else, a voice chirped over the comms loud and clear. “Citadel dead ahead. Bringing us in nice and easy, no scratching the paint.”