chapter 16

The mood was a moot point as everyone took a seat inside the com room several hours after the fire had died down and what little information or intel could be gathered from both the strange facility and the massacre of an entire Alliance Marine patrol before Joker had been told under no uncertain circumstances to make it back to the Citadel.

"Well start with the obvious," Jane began as she took up her position in the center of the room, "we were damn lucky to avoid getting killed by the Thresher Maw so from now either Jackson or Garrus will be operating the Mako on any groundside mission once we obtain a replacement."

"That being said," eyes turned towards Jason as he forced himself not to fidget, "I think having a larger stockpile of explosives on hand for the ground team would be beneficial, can you do it?"

Jason shrugged, "I'll need more materials to have an actual stockpile built up Commander, I'll send you a list once we reach the Citadel."

"Good, now we have another topic to discuss, we've uncovered something a little bit more sinister than just finding a random Thresher Maw," Jane nodded to John who brought up what little information they had on Cerberus, "we believe that we found part of a terrorist organization, one that some of us have a past history with."

"I told you we should have activated the power core for an overload," Jason sniped at Jackson, who simply crossed his arms and huffed, "but no, you had to make it to the landing bay before the mountain came crashing down."

"Either way that place was history, that and I seriously doubt it was the only installation they had so can it." Jackson growled as Jane stepped in between them with her hands raised.

"That was the past when you two escaped, also causing as much damage as possible," the ghost of a smile could be seen on her face, "good job today, both of you."

"Thanks Boss Lady," Jackson sighed, "did we get anything?"

"Nothing other than some fried servos, a masterfully sabotaged omni-tool that doesn't even power on and scrap metal," Jason scoffed as he leaned back in his chair, "they had the building lined with what I think had to be a rather potent mixture of thermite, chemical phosphorous and weapon's grade plastic explosives to ensure all vital parts of the building, transmission tower and primary power core couldn't be identified."

John let out a low whistle, "Was it a dead man's switch that set the place off?"

"Don't know, had to have been a bunch of radical sonofabitches to do that." Alenko responded because he had been the one person designated to go over all transmission records the Normandy's ECW suite had been able to detect.

"I found a cyanide capsule embedded in the man's back molar," Dr. Chakwas said as she stood up to deliver her presentation with a few visuals as well, "so even if he hadn't been killed in the explosion he would have no doubt taken his own life before we could have stopped him."

Ashley shook her head, "What kind of crazy left wing suicidal kooks are we up against?"

"The kind that want human supremacy over every other species," Jackson replied as he scowled at something only he could see, "who would do it by any means necessary."

Stunned silence reigned for all of ten seconds before Jane got back on track, "For that matter we are returning to the Citadel for resupply, a vehicle replacement (she had the decency to look away when she received several annoyed looks) and some R&R for the crew."

"We'll be assigning each one of you a duty assignment while you are on the ship after some minor retrogrades," John said as he brought up a few detailed specs for everyone to see, "starting now."

"Williams, you'll remain as our armory technician for now with Garrus acting as your assistant," the look Jane gave the other woman clearly said there was no room for an argument, "it'll be your jobs to ensure our weapons and armor are properly maintained and serviced, any questions?"

"No ma'am."

"Of course not Commander."

(Jane Shepard wishes to declare on record that she wasn't planning on getting Ashley and Garrus together, it was more to open the xenophobic up to other members of the team and to allow the gun savvy Turain to pass on that knowledge locked away in his head. Or so she claims.)

"Liara, you'll be working with whatever Prothean artifacts we manage to find in order to piece together what Saren might be planning to do or anything we can learn about the Conduit." Jane received a firm nod from the resident Prothean expert before she turned to another person on her list.

"Tali, we need your mechanical expertise down in the engine room when you are not on ground missions or (she gave everyone a brief viewing of her smile) assisting in other projects." Tali simply nodded as she fidgeted with her omni-tool.

"Alenko, you'll be heading up physical exercise routines and working with the biotic members on the team, everyone will be participating in these events, so send me a schedule once you figure one out." Alenko gave what could have passed as an intense look of concentration as he sat perfectly still, unaware of the glares he was receiving from Wrex.

"Wrex," said Krogan stopped glaring at Alenko and turned his attention to Jane, "once we manage to get it set up, you'll be in charge of the firing range that'll be in the cargo bay to conduct live weapon's training that every single person on the ground team will attend, because you have more experience with guns than everyone in this room combined."

"I'll see what I can do Shepard." Wrex had a smug look on his face, looking pleased with himself as he sat back in his chair.

With that Jane turned to Jackson, "Once we get a replacement Mako it'll be your job of operating it whenever we need it on ground operations as well as keeping it maintained and it working order."

"Hehehe, oh this will be fun." Jackson chuckled as he was already imagining what he could do to upgrade a tank that would have a much higher survival rate with him as the designated driver.

"Jason," he looked up to find himself looking at Jane Shepard in her all out commander mode which meant she was dead serious, "you've gotten the lucky job of being the team explosive expert as well as medic, so your station will remain the same and about the weapons you've managed to build."

Everyone was silent before Jane smiled again, "Could it be possible for you to build a couple more for the rest of the ground team?"

Jason was silent for a moment before he looked around the room, noticing some downright eager faces and excited expressions from at least two people before looking back up with a terrifying smile across his face.

"It'd be my pleasure Commander, just send me a notification on what anyone wants and I'll see what I can do." Jason was pretty sure Wrex and Jackson were high fiving each other while Garrus had a distant look in his eye, no doubt drooling over some sniper rifle he always wanted as a child or such.

"On another note," John said as Jane took a seat and everyone quieted down, "we are currently down an engineer and a medic for the next week while they recover from injuries, we should be arriving at the Citadel in three days, from there we will have forty-eight hours to debrief the powers that be (everyone in the room had a vague clue who he was talking about) and pick up any supplies we'll be needing."

"Any questions? None? Good, now everyone to your stations and the ground team is to report to Dr. Chakwas for a brief medical screening every time they return from a mission," the look both John and Jane mustered up was uncannily terrifying because they were doing it in synch with each other, "no exceptions, carry on."

XXX

"Two fractured ribs, a minor tibia fracture, a broken finger, two separate acid burns and acute fatigue typically assorted with overexertion in biotics," Dr. Chakwas was clearly not amused as she continued on her diagnoses of him, "all injuries have been properly tended to before coming to my medical bay, most I can prescribe is a week of light duty and limited exercise as well a solid reprimand for not reporting to the medical bay first thing."

Yep, he was in the shit now, someone she managed to be more terrifying that the Thresher Maw, which was by no means an easy feat as she gave him a skeptical look.

"I had more important things to worry about, like getting eaten or blown up." Jason said as she finished with her examination and jotted something down on her data pad.

"Be that as it may, you will report any injuries you obtain to me immediately because it is my job to make certain you are fine." Dr. Chakwas made a shooing motion at him that Jason took as his cue to make tracks in the direction of the door.

He made it as far as the mess table before he was blindsided by none other than Garrus, who did in fact want some custom doohickey he could apply to his own rifle for better accuracy, handling, adjustment and of course, calibrations.

From there he managed to eat in peace before he took a plate heaping with food down to his workbench so he could get started on a long list projects that was steadily growing larger. Of course Wrex was standing right there with a demand for a shotgun similar to Tali's, in a much larger Krogan version, so Jason was able to get two shotguns of the same make and model that Wrex preferred and set them aside for him to work on.

Ashley dropped by long enough to ask for an assault rifle with a shotgun (cough grenade launcher cough) combination on a completely different rifle frame, as well as providing some kind of dummy proof manual so she could clean and service her weapon without having to resort to having him do it each time. On top of making a step by step guide for servicing and maintaining his combo weapons, the thing for Garrus that would take hours to get machined just right to the specs he had wanted it, the shotgun for Wrex, no less than fifty demo charges he had to build and his own special projects, he had Jackson to deal with.

Jackson raised a valid point on putting a shotgun attachment on the underside of his own Revenant for increased firepower, so he had that to look into for a later date as he began tackling his suddenly mountainous work order.

He had a sneaking suspicion that someone else with a long list of wants and must haves would be dropping by sooner or later as he began what very few people could ever hope to master with his level of skill.

(Author reaches over and slaps a reader, "Not procrastinating or masturbating you gutter brain!")

Multitasking was a form of art when it was done right and he could accomplish so much more as he got to work. First he keyed up his CNC machine to get started milling down a block of extremely expensive and dense metal that would turn out to be the doohickey Garrus wanted for his rifle simply because no omni-tool in existence had a fabricator powerful enough to mold this stuff. Next he laid out enough parts to build a dozen demo charges on one corner of the table and then the two shotguns he had to unite as one single weapon for Wrex on the other end of the table as he got to work.

While the CNC hummed away taking millimeters of material off with each cut, he began building bombs, a design he had ripped off from Red Faction: Guerilla with his own added flair to increase the overall effectiveness of the design.

It took him just under an hour to make the first batch as he got started on the more labor intensive shotgun build because Wrex had been giving him some unamused looks before he got started.

"Need a hand?" Jason smiled as he looked up to see his favorite person, who also had a love for shotguns that rivaled Wrex standing there watching him.

"I'll take all the help I can get," he punctuated that statement by giving Wrex a look that clearly said bugger off or help as the Krogan shrugged and went back to sleep, "how is the ship running?"

"Great, ran a full systems check three hours ago and replaced a worn heat exchanger valve," Tali said as she took the other stool and examined everything spread out in front of her, "where do we start?"

"Another shotgun build, this one for the big guy." Jason replied as she took the other half and got to work.

Because this build was much larger that the first, it took the two of them the better part of an hour to work out some kind of redesign in order to get it too even work before they managed to put it together properly and perform a function test.

"Everything checks out," Tali chirped as she snagged a tube of food and hooked it to her helmet, "what's next?"

"Next is putting a shotgun underneath both of these," Jason held up the rifle Ashley insisted he use and the mother of all rifles that Jackson had, "I'll take the big one."

"I think I know a way to make it easier for putting them together," Tali glanced sideways at him, "do you want to hear it?"

"I am all ears Tali."

"What?"

"It's an expression, means I'll happily hear what you have to say."

"Oh."

XXX

This was becoming a bit of a routine now that he thought about it, they had finished everything that need to be built, upgraded, decrypted and then shelved for future projects when they had the resources and equipment to do some of the more detailed stuff.

Then Tali had curled up on her side of the workbench and drifted off to sleep while he was still working, he figured it was her way of finding some source of comforting noise instead of having to listen to nothing but silence as he finished up what he was doing. So far he had made progress on building seventy demo charges, the projects given to him earlier today and a few of his own, which was a good day in his book, even though he knew it was only day one of his weeklong removal from ground side missions on the orders of Dr. Chakwas, so he figured that he would have plenty of time to catch up on a few builds.

For now, he still had a snoozing Quarian to worry about before she fell over and cracked her visor against something or something as he put his tools away and gently picked her up.

"Gonna get old carrying you everywhere," Jason laughed softly at that notion as he stood waiting in the elevator to got up two floors so he could drop her off in a sleeper pod and he could grab another plate of what would never pass as food in his mind before heading back down to the cargo bay.

Where he found himself cornered by Jane, Ashley, John and his idiot twin brother, who were all busy shuffling a deck of cards at the mess table, the later looking up with a shit eating grin plastered across his face as he smirked.

"Pods are full," Ashley whispered while pointing in that general direction, "going to have to wait until the next shift starts in order to get a bunk."

"Remind me to get a couple bunk beds set down in the hold," John commented as Jackson helped set up a kind of nest comprised of a thin mat and a blanket so Jason could put Tali down, "the ship wasn't rated for this many people."

"With all that wasted space below decks it's no wonder there aren't enough pods for everyone." Jason grumbled as he gently deposited Tali on her improvised bed near the medical bay windows where foot traffic was typically low and went back to the table to grab some food, seeing as how Jackson was in a much more subdued mood.

"You sound like Tali," Jane giggled, "she was going off about how nobody understood how vital space is aboard ships and such."

"Where is she always falling asleep that has you carrying her up here anyway?" Ashley asked as she accepted the next dealt hand from John, who seemed to dealing.

"On top of the workbench, where I usually sleep," Jason grunted as he sat down and started eating, noticing that Jane was giving him a calculated look, "something on your mind Commander?"

"Cerberus," that word caused him to freeze and look up at her, "I want to know how you are handling this recent development."

Jason nudged his tray aside, his appetite gone for now as he laced his fingers together and pondered that thought for a moment, what was the best way to talk to Jane Shepard without sounding like some kind of broken record?

"Like I want to search every single shadow and distant place in order to find them so I can stomp them out while setting fire to what is so important to them, research, experiments, radical procedures that leave more machine or monster than man or whatever they do to get off," Jason shrugged as he took a drink, "but they would eventually catch on and find a way to either kill me or worse capture me, probably so they could lure dufus over there to his demise in order to have us both."

"Hey," Jackson shot back, "it would be me having to save your ass and carry you out before all the destruction you caused ended up killing us both, again."

"Yeah so you tell me each time we have this conversation," this was sort of a scripted event they had planned for the benefit of having some kind of cover story, "but we signed on with you guys to help you hunt down a real monster, one that doesn't lurk in the shadows, so for now our demons can wait."

"Fucking A bro." Jackson solemnly nodded as he reached over for a fist bump that Jason copied as John shook his head.

"If it was up to me I'd hunt down everyone single one responsible and slit their throats," stunned silence could be heard as John dealt another hand and passed it over to Jason, "so why haven't you gone off the handle yet?"

"You mean aside from the fact he already did that years ago?" Jackson replied as he began ticking things off his fingers, "crushed the head of every single person in that facility with nothing more than his biotics, check. Let about a half dozen chemical agents kill off half the base while strangling the remaining half with his bare hands, check. Impaling assorted guards, scientists and goons on knives, broken ceiling supports, rebar and pipes, check. Setting a massive fire in the middle of the largest lab to destroy any evidence and kill off the head scientists, check."

Jason shrugged, "I've mellowed out since then smartass."

"Yeah, after you learned how to make bombs," Jackson shook his head as he folded, no doubt he had a really bad hand as Jason took his turn, "it took you a year to stop jumping at your shadow or blasting random strangers in the face that got to close to you."

"Most of the time those strangers were either thieves, bandits, smugglers or slavers that wanted to kill us and the other time they were either Blue Suns, Blood Pack or Eclipse mercenaries that wanted our heads because we had pissed them off." Jason countered as he waited for the next hand to be dealt.

Jackson nodded his head sagely, "True that, but have you stopped packing heat wherever you go?"

That got the attention from the others at the table as Jason sent a sour look towards his twin, "No grenades at least."

"Eh best we could have hoped for," Jackson commented as he took his cards and gave them a look, "so how many guns are you packing right now?"

"Three, you?"

"Just one and a boot knife."

Jane sighed, "Do you really need to carry them onboard the ship?"

Jason shrugged, "I like to be prepared Commander, just in case the worst happens."

"You've got biotics that can easily tear a hole through the side of this ship," Ashley said as she folded, "what could possibly happen that requires you needing a gun right now?"

"I'm tired, used up a lot of energy charging around to avoid getting melted or eaten for that matter," Jason frowned as he looked at the hand he had been dealt, "I think I'll turn in."

With that he laid down his hand face up as Jackson groaned, "Had to be the first time you ever played this game that you get a royal flush."

"Damn it," Ashley groaned as she tossed her cards down, "I didn't even get a read on him yet and he already managed to win?"

"Picked up cards when we were running around Omega, scored a lot of credits cleaning out the house tables," Jackson said as he stood up, cracking his back as he did so, "he wouldn't so much as flinch if you stabbed him much less than playing cards."

"Sonofabitch."

"That's what they always say."

"Oh shut up."