1I apologize if it has been a while, other writing projects have come up, both fanfic and otherwise, but I have so many ideas for this story, or collection of stories so don't worry.
Collector Ship, 2185
The sounds of weapons fire rang out as a team of six were advancing within the bowels of a ship that seemed more like a hive than a star ship. Tala Shepard was leading her squad through the Collector ship that destroyed the last Normandy, and if she had anything to say about it, the only Normandy. Shepard, along with Jack, Miranda, Garrus, Samara, and Thane, were recently moving past one of the last Praetorian corpses. [1]
"I still can't believe that asshole set us up! When we get out of here, I don't want to hear any of his worthless excuses! I don't know about you, but I did not join this damn mission to be treated as expendable." Jack scowled at Miranda
"Neither did I, but talking won't stop these bastards." Miranda had a look of cold fury that even seemed to surprise Jack.
"It must be serious if you're swearing." Garrus remarked, while hoisting his rifle.
"He will hear from us when we get out of here. Right now I need everyone ready to fight our way out before it's weapons fully power up. I'm not going to lose another Normandy." Tala's words were met with no objections as they pressed onward.
The group of six had moved forward to be met by a mass of yellow eyes. Gunfire had rung out as both sides reached for their weapons and started shooting. However, unexpectedly Miranda rushed forward with biotic energy crackling around her as she let out a yell. A biotic shockwave soon tore a path in front of her, throwing many of the collectors aside and killing several instantly.
"Fury is good, but do not destroy the walkway." Samara cautioned firing on several disoriented collectors.
"The cheerleader has the right idea for once." Jack said eagerly rushing ahead with her M23-Katana shotgun in hand.
The remaining collectors started to fight back, only to find themselves lifted the squad's powerful and shot to pieces by the rest. One Scion had soon shambled into view turning to fire it's arm cannon.
"Do we really have time for this?" Tala grunted with irritation.
"Keep it distracted, and I can take it down." Garrus radioed from his omni-tool.
Crackling with biotic energy, Tala charged up close to the horrific creature and quickly moved to it's side to shoot it. As the bloated husk moved to fire on Tala, several shots could be heard, and soon the creature's head exploded as the shots had found their mark.
"Excellent form." Thane radioed in.
Tala waited for the others to catch up as out in the distance they saw one of the Normandy's Kodiak shuttles waiting for them. When a rush of footsteps could be heard. It wasn't long before an image could be put to those footsteps as more than twenty husks swarmed into view.
"They don't even have weapons, this almost seems unfair." Jack had a vicious smirk on her face
"Those bastards took out the last Normandy by surprise, I lost a lot of good people that day. Jack's face slightly softened at Shepard's words. "So I'm fine paying them back" Shepard raised her assault rifle, taking down three of them.
Soon after a storm of bullets, shells, and biotic energy was unleashed upon the remaining husks. In barely two minutes the last of husks fell to the ground clearing the way towards the Shuttle.
"We're cutting it close here Commander, when you guys get in, you better hang on tight." Joker responded over Comms.
"Understood." Shepard replied, and she and her squad quickly entered the shuttle. The shuttle had moved through the bowels of the ship to reach the inside of the Normandy, but the occupants had yet to leave.
"So, Shepard, what are we supposed to tell the Illusive Man? We investigated the Collector's vessel, and found interesting data. Thanks for leading us into a trap." Joker remarked.
"He should get a fist in his smarmy asshole face. Surely you can't bend over backwards for him." Jack said, looking at Miranda.
"I don't understand, why would he do this?" Miranda asked, perturbed.
"Why else, damn it." Jack looked at Miranda as if she had lost her mind, well more than usual in her case. "Cerberus sees people as irreplaceable which must include you, or was bringing Shepard back from the dead like Frankenstein's monster the only one of their twisted science projects you were a part of?"
"I don't know what a Frankenstein is, but do we need an argument between you two right now? Thane interjected with some irritation, as Jack had to make a mental note not everyone knew human literature, and to ask Grunt one of these days why he was reading that in particular. "I am on this mission with the expectation of dying, but even I am not thrilled with being used as bait." Jack had to admit she thought the drell was strange, so calm and accepting of death, yet so deadly in a fight for someone looking to die.
"This Illusive Man acts as if he is untouchable, but make no mistake if he expects us to die on his whims. After we deal with the Collectors, I will convince him of the folly of his beliefs." Samara's hand was still on her sub-machine gun.
"We need to keep our priorities straight, whatever excuse the Illusive Man raises won't change that we need to find out how we can reach the Collectors and stop them." Shepard hoped their argument would cease. Everyone nodded and they soon left the shuttle.
Some time had passed and Miranda had left the Communications Room after debriefing with Shepard. 'Maybe I will have time to process this.' Her hopes were soon dashed when she saw Jack standing in a doorway arms crossed.
'What argument does she want to pick now?' Miranda inwardly sighed, bracing herself for the reckless convict's barbs and supposed sense of humor. "Can I help you Jack?" Miranda kept her tone neutral as she learned quickly to never let the convict see any emotional cues.
"Yeah, Miranda." Miranda raised an eyebrow. She half expected to be called cheerleader and that was in the woman's less angry moods. "I don't get it. How the hell can you be okay with any of this? Your own boss was willing to risk, and I can't believe I'm saying this the lives of everyone on this ship on the chance we would find something useful."
"And we found something." Miranda noted it seemed odd for Jack to care for anyone, least of all the Cerberus crew, but she honestly hoped the convict would relent. Miranda did not want to admit but the thought of being betrayed or easily cast aside unnerved her. Cerberus kept her safe from her father, could she go back to running again?
"What? All we know is that these Collectors were Protheans somehow, and they have enough pods to take every human they can. They were only there because your boss told ⁸them the Normandy was coming." Miranda made a shushing gesture before leaning in.
"If we really have to talk about this, can we do it somewhere privately?" Miranda hoped the convict would not give her an argument; the last thing she needed was for this to leak to the crew.
"Fine. So your quarters then, unless you really are in the mood to see the two chatterboxes in engineering?" Miranda wanted to object but Jack was enough to deal with, and those two did talk quite a lot.
Miranda walked towards the elevator with Jack behind her. The elevator was empty, and Miranda's office was only a floor below. Miranda and Jack walked out to a thankfully empty mess hall and quickly made their way to Miranda's office. Miranda's office was sparsely furnished, which caused Jack to look around before she snorted
"Is there a problem with my quarters?" Miranda asked.
"I thought it would look more fancy." Jack tried to hide her disappointment
"I'm sorry, if you were expecting hermetically sealed pom poms." Miranda thought she could see a small smirk on the convict's face. "Why do you call me that, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Because you act like you're so perfect, which is why I'm here. If you are as great as you act then why settle for Cerberus when you can be anything you want?"
"Because Cerberus offers me protection from someone who took everything from me."
"How can you know what that's like, what could someone like you have possibly lost?"
"The chance to be normal. I was experimented on before I was even born in the hopes of being smarter, stronger, and longer lived than any human. They succeeded, but it was never enough for them. They wanted to shape me into their legacy by controlling everything about me like I was some meat puppet rather than a person." Jack only let out an annoyed grunt
"So you ran to Cerberus? I had my chance to be normal taken away from me too, by those very same people!" Jack shouted, before she composed herself or something close to it. "Now neither of us can trust them to not throw us away before this mission even ends. So what I want to know is, if things go south that your shithead boss betrays us before we've stopped these overgrown roaches, will you sell us out or backstab us?"
"If I am left with no other choice, I will fight against him."
"Yeah? Jack was unconvinced. "We will see, won't we?" Jack had simply the room, as Miranda was thankful it was over.
Jack had simply stormed off back to engineering, she made her way back down and was met with the familiar and relieved faces of Gabby, Kenneth, and Tali or at least her eyes. Jack had learned to tell most of Tali's moods from her eyes, and off to the side of them stood Grunt with a smirk on his face.
"I'm glad you're alright." Gabby had a smile on her but a worried look in eyes, it felt odd to Jack, especially from Cerberus.
"Bah, I told you she would make it through this." Kenneth seemed to be his usual proud self.
"Hey, you were worried too. I wish I was there with you." Jack seemed surprised, she knew Tali could handle herself in a fight, but didn't she would seek one out.
"Why, you don't seem the type." Tali's eyes clearly narrowed in anger.
"I was on the original Normandy, and met many good people aboard there. I lost some of them and Shepard technically, when the Collector bosh'tet's attacked."
"Shepard said she didn't want to lose another Normandy."
"We won't." Grunt said from next to the bulkhead was standing near.
"Well I will let you be, it must have been exhausting to fight all of them." Gabby said
"Eh, it was nothing more than stomping on some oversized bugs." Jack still found the concern from at least Gabby and Kenneth odd, so she walked towards where she usually slept during and Grunt she could talk to later.
"Hey." Jack heard footsteps behind her and figured it was Grunt. "Did you have fun out there?" The young krogan asked even if Jack couldn't see his face.
"Yeah, too bad we couldn't have blown the whole ship." Jack's tone seemed laced with irritation as she still didn't turn around.
"What's eating you?" She and Grunt were close to understand each other's moods, so Jack couldn't brush him off.
"The Illusive asshole sold us out, and I don't even know if I can trust the Cheerleader not to sell us out too!" Jack said finally turning around.
"Then we'll kill her if that happens, but she'd have to be an idiot." Grunt's tone seemed unusually uncertain.
"Eh." Jack brushed off the idea before a thought entered her mind. "That book, Frankenstein, where did you find that, especially as a physical book with actual pages?" [2]
"Miranda gave it to me." Jack looked at Grunt as if he were crazy.
"The cheerleader?" Grunt nodded in response. "Why?"
"She said it might be a good way to understand I don't have to be what some scientist wanted me to be, and that it was one of her favorite stories. I think it was odd since we rarely interact, but I figured it could be an interesting read, or at least have good fighting in it. Romance of the Three Kingdoms surprised me, considering the title. [3]
'The Cheerleader wasn't being honest was she?' Jack decided to dwell on it later. "So Romance? Did Benala recommend that one?" Jack had a small smile as they walked down the hallway, she enjoyed teasing Grunt over that Asari friend of his.
"No, Jackass."
"If you call me that again, I might not help with that poem you're trying to go write." Jack mockingly warned the krogan.
"I am Krogan, I will surmount all challenges, even if fighting the Collectors seems an easier task."
"I'm sure you will, anyway I'm getting some sleep, knowing our damn luck I'm going to need it."
Jack entered her living space and went to sleep, she had better things to do than think about Cerberus right now.
[1] Tala is the Goddess of the morning and evening star in Philippine mythology, Shepard for this fic is a Filipina.
[2] A novel by Mary Shelley which gave Pop culture Frankenstein's Monster, who in the novel proper is purposely nameless or is called a bunch of other things, including Adam.
[3] Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one the Four Chinese Classics, about the end of the Han Dynasty and rise and fall of the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history. Romance in this case is more a dramatic telling of events, than anything to do with love, although it does show up in the novel.
So, thinking back on it, I've realized both Miranda and Jack have a hell of a lot more in common than they would like to realize, so I wanted to go work with that, and maybe Miranda as something of a big sister figure to Grunt. They both share too many similarities to not go for, especially considering their 'wonderful' fathers are practically the same. I enjoy the idea of the engineering deck being a place of unlikely friendship between Jack and Tali, especially since Tali is inspired by Jack to get one for the ME 3 Citadel DLC.
Also I hope no one minds, if I made Jack a bit sociable at times, yes she has anger issues and hides away, but she's also been apart of gangs, pirate crews and cults.