Massive Disaster 5-27A (Patreon)

“Feros.”

There was a not-so-funny joke that Zedd had heard thrown around over his last five years off-Earth, usually by older men with a couple kids who thought it was the peak of humor.

It was a simple joke.“The whole Feros drop.”Easy to remember, too.

And it went something like this; where does an eight-hundred pound krogan sit?The answer was just as simple; wherever it wanted. And wherever it wanted, in this case, was the primary egress ramp of the SSV Normandy SR-1."I sat in the hold for all of Feros." For all the space he took up in the cramped hold, Urdnot Wrex was not exactly a loud krogan. Stereotypes aside, there were plenty of the oversized shell-heads that weren’t all that loud. Taciturn and grumbly was a far more common species-wide trait than rampant aggression, and it was just as true that the krogan mellowed with age. “All of Feros. Nine hours of nothing but milling around like I was one of those little tank things.”“...fish?”“No!” Wrex grunted the word back at Jane Shepard, sound vibrating through the cargo deck plating. “The ones with the shells!”Turtles. Zedd let his head fall back against the crates, staring up at the ceiling of the cargo as the krogan continued his rant. Didn’t expect Wrex to know turtles were a thing. His eyes slid shut for a moment, forehead still humming with the mildest bit of pressure almost two days out from Feros. Psions were a bitch and a half to manage and recover from, at least when you weren’t actually a psionic. 

Unfortunately, Zedd wasn’t going to risk any added brain strain by dumping that on himself on top of everything else. No, he had priorities and a little extra reality warping juice wasn’t that high up on it. Even still, his thumb dragged over the sapphire-embedded silver band, grounding warmth of the CAD helping him focus.“I polished my shotgun. I reviewed potential missions. I watched the girl with the blue hair things walk around on her hands for hours just to see if she could, I was that bored. I am a mercenary, Shepards, not a damn hood ornament.”Hood ornament? His eyes almost snapped open at that last sentence. Wrex has a car?

“We needed a low profile on Feros, Wrex.” Car or not — ground or sky — the conversation was far from over as John Markus Shepard held his hands up, palms open. “You know how the Thorian mess played out. We needed crowd control. You’re on the roster for the next one.”“Didn’t you make that promise on Feros, Johnny?” Jane snorted loud from her position against the airlock controls, red N7-marked hardsuit freshly cleaned, polished and re-sealed from the neck down. “Pretty sure you did.”“I did. I did say that.” Zedd could hear the strain in John’s voice even with the man’s back turned and his attention focused firmly on the irritated krogan. “But this isn’t Therum and it’s definitely not Feros either. This is Noveria, a corporate headquarters. Discretion is the whole point of a mission like this.”

“Discretion?” Massive hands dropped to his sides, the scarred tank-turtle shifting forward with a single step that ate up a surprising amount of space. Seven feet on anything was an impressive amount of size; turians managed to make that look almost normal. There was nothing normal about it when you looked made to take up space. Judging from the hitch in Shepard’s shoulders as he held his ground, Zedd didn’t doubt the man felt the same way. “There’s Geth on the planet, Shepard. Geth shoot at us, Shepard. I shoot at Geth.”

Missed a Shepard there, Wrex. Zedd bit down a sigh, thumb still running over the gem atop his ring. “Nothing about that needs any discretion, Shepard.”There we go.

He nodded his head, eyes sliding across the bay where a few others already confirmed for this mission were waiting and, from the looks on their faces, especially waiting for this argument to be over. Yeah, I feel you. 

The funny thing was, John was far from being in the wrong here and Zedd knew exactly where the Commander was coming from. While he’d put some distance between himself and Noveria, it didn’t require much of an extranet search to know that Port Hanshan wasn’t exactly a battlefield. More than anything, the place was an icebox engineered entirely out of white marble, black glass, concealed weapons scanners, and delicate proprietary technology. Bringing an eight-hundred-pound mercenary reptile into a corporate lobby was exactly the kind of crazy cowboy move that Alliance jarheads usually got themselves court-martialed for.

“I want Wrex on my squad.”So, of course, Jane Shepard chose him.

Wrex’s head snapped toward the Spectre, millenia-old krogan chompers spread wide in a grin that had put fear into many a merc. “Yes.”

“Jane, you’re serious?” John turned to his sister, arms still aimed Wrex’s way as he stared at his sister for a full two seconds. “Look at him.”

“I am looking at him.” Jane didn’t blink, but she did lie — considering her eyes were firmly on John’s disbelieving stare. “He’s a half-ton of krogan fun and he can do a front flip.”“Took me fifty years to figure out how too.”“See?” A mocking eyebrow went up. “I call that dedication.”“Jane, you have to be joking.”“You know when I wasn’t joking, John?” The smile on Jane Shepard’s face had nothing to do with jokes in the slightest but she definitely found something funny. “When I told you not to meld with the green asari.” “...Jane.”“You get to let asari play in your brain matter.” The Marine in red stood straight, hand out and aimed for the airlock cycle pad. “I get to bring my favorite krogan.”

“Favorite?”

“I haven’t met that many krogan.” Jane put her helmet on, one final smile aimed at her brother as the internal seals hissed shut. “Now, let’s move.”

Well, that was easy. Zedd shoved his hands deep into his pockets, pushing off the crates as a sigh left him. Unexpected, but easy. He’d already thought the squad selection was pretty much final, considering Garrus and Kaidan were still benched post-Thorian — and for completely different reasons too. Despite that, Chakwas had been firm on the rest and recovery requirements. 

With Medigel-V on board, Ashley had been up and at them in hours, but unfortunately the blue gel didn’t do a thing for neural strain. Kira… Ooh, Kira’s gonna be pissed. 

Zedd bit down a hiss as he adjusted his collar, Lil V still shrunken and asleep under it. Kira was gonna be stuck on the Normandy without Kai this time. Can’t really be helped. It was a Geth mission after all, which meant their resident quarian was a requirement and, considering this was Noveria and they were after Benezia, they couldn’t exactly leave their biggest and bluest bargaining chip behind.

I’ll make it up to her with a new gun or something. That in mind, Zedd stepped forward as the airlock cycled and the exterior doors slid open.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

“Ah… Noveria.” The air in Port Hanshan was a scalpel to his nostrils, his own Mantle not helping that in the slightest. Chemically scrubbed and aggressively filtered freezing air made the place what it was, a haven of industrial antiseptic and sterile profit.

Zedd stomped his blue boots onto the immaculate white tile of the landing pad, eyes up as he peered through the blue of his glasses — a cavernous hangar peering back. The glare would’ve been hellish without his aviators filtering the blinding halogen but, even through them, the place was still the same kind of hell he remembered.

A corporate one.Clean sightlines, armored seams, and expensive silence.

“Noveria, Noveria, Noveria…” A finger tapped the side of his glasses, turning off any unnecessary scans for information he already knew. “The salarian version of Ilium."

“What are you talking about?” Jane’s pace paused just a few steps ahead of him, her own boots scraping against the polished floor. “Salarians don’t run Noveria.”Well, one manages it, but… Zedd just sighed as he walked past her, hands shoved deep in his pockets. “You wouldn’t get it, Shep.”

“Explain it, then.”

“Mmmm, nah.” Zedd kept walking. 

He wasn't about to dive into the nitty and the gritty on what Noveria was all about — especially the science over standards mentality — to an Alliance Vanguard whose entire understanding of the galaxy involved blasting things till they stopped moving.

“Hold there.” 

He didn't make it thirty feet past the landing struts.

Zedd blinked at the security detail blocking the archway through customs, eight guards in the gray and blue hardsuits of Elanus Risk Control Services; a name Zedd knew well, mostly for the fact that it was so boring. Regardless of their naming structure, ERCS made sure to keep their men armed and armored and these ones were no different, assault rifles and shotguns resting entirely too comfortably across their chestplates.

A Japanese woman stood dead center in the archway, her dark hair pulled back into a tight knot as she kept her weapon readied. Beside her stood a blonde woman holding a shotgun high, a heavy biotic amp wired directly — and fucking poorly — into the side of her skull. A turian held the other side and, flanking them all, five other mercs — human and salarian — waited for the order to make a move.

"Hold there." The dark-haired woman repeated herself without a shout, dropping the order into the thirty feet of empty space between them. “You go no further.”…and if I do?

"Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance.” Zedd bit down on the urge to speak his mind, simply easing back as John Shepard stepped to the front of the pack to handle introductions. “We’re operating on official Council business."

"Captain Maeko Matsuo. ERCS." The captain narrowed her eyes. “Noveria doesn’t align with the authority of the Council or the Alliance. You’re a long way from home, Commander.”

“We have a ship.” Ashley shifted her grip on her Avenger. “It moves.”"Sergeant Stirling.” The blonde with the undercut took a half-step forward, biotic amp at the side of her skull faintly flaring. Port Hanshan has a strict zero-tolerance policy against carrying firearms in the commercial sectors."

Eyes still on the angles, Zedd didn't bother to lift his hands out of his pockets. Rent-a-cops were rent-a-cops even when they were mercenaries. In fact, mercenaries made to act as rent-a-cops were worse because they couldn’t even bleed off the stress of walking around armed with a firefight. The desperate bruised authority of private security looking for an excuse to escalate a situation was common galaxy-wide, after all.

From the ugly krogan bark at Zedd’s back, Wrex knew it too.Another step brought the blond closer, almost past the captain herself. “Weapons. Hand them ov-”

“We’re not handing over shit.” An assault rifle leveled itself directly at Stirling’s chest, Williams huffing back at the woman. “How about that?”

Kai didn’t make a sound, even as Zedd found the man flanking him with sword out and humming with the edge active. Eyes completely hidden behind those blue wraparounds, there was no doubt the guard was ready for any sort of fight.

And he certainly wasn’t alone.

Another bark sounded loud, the air pressure in the hangar dropping as Urdnot Wrex stepped forward with one arm already reaching back over his shoulder. The krogan-sized kinetic hammer swung down into Wrex’s grip in the next moment, polished red plating still as shiny as the exact day Zedd had handed the weapon over to the battlemaster five years ago. 

Internal mass effect field generators flared to life, a tripartite hum sounding loud as Wrex’s fingers flexed around the long handle. “You want to take this?” Even if the krogan wasn’t a battlemaster, Zedd didn’t doubt he’d be any less confident — especially with a weapon in hand that could flatten a shuttle bay.“Wait!” John Shepard’s hands went up again. “Wait!”

“Alliance soldiers, stand down!” Unfortunately, he seemed to be one of the few not ready for a fight as the ERCS guards raised their rifles. “You do not want to do this!”An M-23 Katana held itself high in the hands of a Spectre. “I don’t think you do either!”

"Stirling! Matsuo!”A voice cut through from overhead, loud and almost echoing through the hangar as it came from unseen speakers.  “Stand down."

Bright, nasal and aggressively pleasant, it managed to tamp down the whine of mass effect fields ready to go off. “Lieutenant Commander Shepard holds Citadel Spectre status. That carries the privilege to bear arms within Port Hanshan, her associates as well.”Matsuo’s jaw tightened, the woman looking up to stare at John and the smirking Jane. “That means lower your weapons and let them through, Captain.”

Two fingers gestured sharply, Matsuo giving the order without another word. All at once, the seven other guards dropped their weapons and parted like doors to let the crew pass.

Wrex snorted, massive red hammer slung back over his shoulder. The mass effect field on it spun back down into silence. “Shame.”