#concerto update

Pairing: mShenko | Rating: M  

Notable tags: Canonical character death, graphic depictions of violence, desperate mutual pining

Summary: Shepard struggles. Kaidan spirals. Joker is an unwilling participant in a 3am conversation.

Chapter 5: Here in the Silence (Ao3)

Karin Chakwas grips the corner of a medical bed as the engines whine, deck plates shuddering under the churn of the inertial dampeners as the Normandy kicks hard and free of Virmire’s atmosphere.  

Shepard calls for her over the comm, but she can’t retrieve Lieutenant Alenko’s hardsuit data to prepare, and she’s watching her scans when Williams’ transponder disappears.  

No. We can’t lose them both. We can’t lose—  

The med bay door swishes open and Shepard fills the space, cradling Alenko to his chest, blood smeared across his chest plate. Alenko’s eyes flutter, one arm hanging limp, the other draped loose around Shepard’s neck. No readings from his suit, none at all, as Shepard lays him on the nearest bed, expression stricken.  

“Sam,” Alenko mumbles as Shepard removes his helmet. “Sam, please.”  

Karin’s body is moving even as her brain tries to catch up, the training she’s honed for over thirty years overriding everything else.  

“Get his armor off,” she snaps. If the hardsuit’s medical exoskeleton isn’t giving her data, it’s of no use to her. He’s bleeding, badly, and she needs access. She calls over Serviceman Lowe, the med tech still finishing with Tali, but gives Shepard space to work. No one knows Alenko’s armor better than he does – he’ll have the fastest hands to get it off.  

But they shake.    

He releases the chest plate, thigh gauntlet. The reactive armor is not designed to be removed so easily, but Shepard is an N7 trained in frontline trauma. He flash-fabricates a blade with his omni-tool and knows where to cut.

The worst breach is in the soft armor over his left side. Medical scan tells her it’s the renal artery.  

“He’s O-negative,” Shepard stammers when his hands come away bloody. “I’m not…I’m not compatible.”  

“I know his blood type, Commander, get his armor off so I can save his life. Lowe, I need to do a celiotomy.”      

As soon as Shepard steps away she takes over, barking orders and prepping the lieutenant for surgery.  

It’s always easier to think of them as their rank when they’re on the table.  

Two salarian bodies in the morgue, and one body left on Virmire that will never come home.  

She’s not adding the lieutenant to the list.  

Pairing: mShenko | Rating: M

Notable tags: Canonical character death, graphic depictions of violence, desperate mutual pining

Summary: Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.  

Chapter 4: High Water (Ao3)

When Saren’s dreadnaught appears on sensors, Joker checks the telemetry twice to make sure he’s not seeing things. Nothing that big, that fucking big, should be able to move that fast.

It’s bad enough being stuck on the ground. But with that monster sliding into orbit, taking flight isn’t exactly going to help them. Even if Shepard succeeds in taking down the second AA tower, they might not make it through the atmosphere. Stealth system or no stealth system, going up against something that doesn’t seem to give a fuck about the laws of physics isn’t exactly how Joker imagined finally putting the Normandy through her paces.  

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Let’s see how Shepard plans to handle that one.  

Assuming they even get that far. Joker had listened to the entire exchange between Alenko and Williams with a cold, sickening twist of his gut. Pressly, who has been wearing holes in the deckplates with his pacing, had stormed back to the galaxy map, unable to stand there and listen. But Joker heard every word. If he can’t help them fight, he’s at least going to listen.

Williams has at least two unrepaired suit ruptures. Damaged shield emitters. Low medigel stores. Over the course of the last hour the salarian hardsuit signatures have winked out one by one. Only a dozen or so remain.

Rentola, miraculously, is still alive. From his original team of twelve, only two remain on radar. Kirrahe, whose squad had fared well initially, lost six in the span of twenty minutes trying to draw heat off the AA tower. The salarian comm channel contains more exploding shrapnel, whistling slugs and bleeping geth than actual combat chatter.

If Shepard doesn’t hurry his ass up, there won’t be anybody left to go get.

Twenty kiloton bomb on board, and nothing he can do with it.

At least when he’s in orbit he can monitor, anticipate, rescue. He can fire giant guns. Stranded here on the ground, he’s truly useless. Hell, he hasn’t touched a firearm since Basic. Most pistols with more kick than a Kessler would break his wrist. He could always try beating them with a crutch.

“Any word?”

Adams’ normally relaxed, carefree tenor takes on a biting edge. It’s the fourth time he’s checked in over the last twenty minutes. The thrusters are up and ready to burn, the entire ship poised for action like the coiled spring of a trap that hasn’t been sprung.

“How badly do you think one AA tower could rip us up?” Joker asks, massaging his forehead. “Because I’m almost willing to risk it at this point.”

“Just our luck the one that’s still up is the one closest to the bomb site.”

Joker sighs, smacking the console in frustration, then tunes back in to Shepard’s comm chatter, which explodes in a blur of static, gunfire and shouting. A check of the combat scanner shows a handful of geth in the area. Manageable enough. But then again, but Joker isn’t the one getting shot at.

According to his schematics of the base, Shepard’s close to the gun. On top of it, maybe. The fact that there isn’t more resistance is a testament to Kirrahe’s men – they’d done their jobs.

The marker signaling the AA tower flashes red. Joker barely has time to acknowledge it before Pressly pages him from the CIC.

“I’m reading it’s down! Joker, what do you see?”

“Looks good here,” Joker says tightly, before opening the line to Shepard. “Commander. Our scans show the AA gun is offline. Can you confirm?”

“It’s down. Get your ass over here. We need to plant that bomb and get the hell out.”

Pairing: mShenko | Rating: M

Notable tags: Canonical character death, graphic depictions of violence, desperate mutual pining

Summary: Salarians, geth, and krogan, oh my! 

Chapter 2: The Coming Storm (Ao3)

Kaidan returns to the bridge as the Normandy skims through the clouds, dipping low enough that white crests from the ocean waves shiver violently outward as the ship steals past. Rounded peaks of stone blanketed with green flora dot the shoreline, with sand beaches tucked in between. Far out to sea a storm brews, the turquoise sky blending into a dark, bruised blue and distant curtains of rain. A flicker of white lightning strikes the water out on the horizon.

Kaidan’s not the only anxious bystander. Garrus paces the cockpit, mandibles flaring as he eyes the shutters. The last time Kaidan can remember staying on a ship while Shepard went into a hot zone is back on the Myeongnyang, when Shepard and a team of Ns had gone out in vacuum to infiltrate the hull of a hijacked ship. But Shepard hadn’t been in command that day.

Today he is. And he’d left Kaidan behind.

(I need you to do this.)

On Joker’s terminal, the Mako’s blue transponder marker jumps as the tank roars out of the cargo bay, stabilizing thrusters firing madly as it careens towards the shallow beach below. Kaidan’s stomach drops right along with it.

No going back now.

Joker guns the Normandy back towards the atmosphere and the relative safety of orbit, reducing Shepard and the others to nothing more than a blip on the ship’s radar. Garrus rests his talons on the grip of his pistol, shifting his feet in agitation. Joker eyes him.

“Can’t hit them from here, big guy.”

Garrus grumbles and drops his hand, talons twitching. “Do we have an open comm link, at least?”

Joker taps a few commands. Moments later an audio feed blares to life, catching Williams in mid-sentence.

“…fried turian with a side of duck sauce.”

“I’m going to guess that was meant for Saren, not you, buddy,” Joker says.

Garrus crosses his arms, mandibles quivering. “Probably go better with kava sauce, to be honest.”

Tali’s flanging cadence, further distorted through the comm, rises over the others. “I see them on radar, Shepard. Probably about a dozen, two-four-eight-mark-nine. Drones, rocket troopers. One armature.”

Kaidan’ stomach tightens.

“Adjusting course. Williams, got that cannon ready to go?”

“I even found the scope button.”

“Fuck off, Williams.”

“Yes, sir, fucking off.”

“I hope she remembers she needs to make allowances for the humidity levels in the targeting matrix,” Garrus mutters, pacing back and forth across the tiny cockpit. Kaidan snugs up against a wall to keep out of his way. “And the wind shear is heavier, too.”

Kaidan smiles in spite of himself. “Pretty sure Williams knows how to work a gun.”

Garrus grunts and continues pacing, nearly running right into Liara as she slips into the cockpit and quietly takes the open seat to Joker’s right.

“Come to join in on the helpless spectating?” Kaidan asks.

She opens her mouth to reply, but static roars over the comm.

“Hostiles ahead!”

“I see them, Williams – take down that armature.”

“Shepard, left, rockets inbound!”

Kaidan holds his breath at the sound of grinding metal and a string of curses.

“Engaging thrusters!”

The unmistakable bellow of a disgruntled krogan roars over the comm. Joker thumbs the volume down a little.

“Damnit, Skipper, warn me before you do that next time!”

“I did.”

“No, I mean before you fire the thrusters, not while you fire them!”

“Is that armature down yet?”

“It will be when you stop slewing us around like a drunk elephant!”

Wrex bellows in the background. “Fire the damned guns!”

“Keep her steady for a second, Skipper.”

“Now, Williams, now!”

“Got the bastard! Targets down, sir.”

“Good work.”

Kaidan exhales, uncurling his fists. Liara turns a puzzled look to Joker, brow furrowed with confusion. “What is an elephant?”

Joker snorts into his hand. “A dumbed down elcor that never forgets.”

“Drunk elcor have high collateral damage on the Citadel,” Garrus remarks. “But it’s the politest shouting you’ve ever heard.”