chapter 20

Nine more planets were surveyed and scanned before something exciting popped up that alerted the crew to do something important, other than just standard operations as the entire ground team was called into a briefing.

"As of forty-six minutes ago, we detected a freighter sitting in static orbit, identification codes label it as the MSV Worthington out of the Luna colony, reported missing five weeks ago." Jane explained as everyone sat around watching the hologram.

"Scans reveal no signs of external damage or any indication that the ship was fired upon by pirates," Jane continued as she turned to face one side of the room, "Alenko, Williams, Garrus and Liara will be the contingent for this mission, nothing more than a quick a tour of the ship to get an idea about this before we call it in, hopefully we don't run into any surprises."

Crazy biotic lady that killed off the crew, booby-trapped the ship and kept her loved one alive, even though the guy was reportedly brain dead, Jason mentally summed up in his head as everyone filed out of the briefing room to go about their respective duties as he set off in the direction of his workbench.

Even though he could walk into the medical bay and be declared disgustingly healthy, Dr. Chakwas was holding him off that for another two days before she would even consider him to take the medical evaluation in order to be declared fit for duty. Another thing he had noticed was that the good doctor was at the end of her rope when it came to the constant influx of emails and messages layered with enough questions arriving in her private and professional account concerning him and Jackson that she was willing to power down her omni-tool when she was working in the medical bay.

Jason had worked a little hacking magic that rebuffed anyone Chakwas didn't approve of on her contact list, creating a series of firewalls around her personal inbox that deflected those pesky spam mails and annoying messages without her knowledge. She had written it off as either Shepard's or Hackett's doing and left it at that, though Jason had found a least half a dozen heavily encrypted Trojan Horse equivalent of spyware that he found traces of Salarian Task Group codes, a few Turain and even a few rather suspicious ones he could trace back to a Cerberus operative without raising any red flags.

Rather than launch a manhunt over that item, Jason quickly built a program that could monitor any message coming and going from the Normandy, having absolutely no qualms on piggybacking on every single transmission to and from the Normandy in search of any encrypted message protocols. Granted he had a sense of decency to avoid snooping into everyone's mail, he just ran passive scanning algorithms over anything and made sure to hunt down anything that was remotely suspicious, though most of it was assorted spam or junk mail sent to the accounts of various crew members, Joker being the biggest offender.

Sixteen terabytes, Jason shuddered at the thought as he exited the elevator, how could someone accumulate that much porn and not break any laws?

Speaking of laws, Jason smiled as he carefully examined the surface of the workbench and tenderly lifted his latest project up so he could inspect it carefully, he had checked what amounted to the equivalent of a Geneva Convention for the legal way to wage war on another sentient being without getting tried for heinous crimes.

It was kind of sad that a majority of his earlier proposed ideas had broken multiple laws and morality issues, he was proud that at least three designs broke the principals and laws of physics while still being practical. Even though the laws of morality would change once the entire galaxy was faced with the threat of annihilation in a few short years, so he still held onto those ideas, but for now he had to keep the projects rolling off his bench just under Mary Sue and just above the standard fare they had available.

For the most part anyway, as he carefully placed the weapon back down and got to work on placing the finishing touches before he was ready to present it for testing, which couldn't be done inside the Normandy's firing range.

He heard Tali exit the elevator as he continued to work, it was easy to pick up the sounds of her footsteps as she walked out of the elevator and headed in his direction.

"Sup Tali?" He figured that she was thrown for a loop at his greeting as she stopped next to him.

"How can you tell it was me?" She sounded curious as Jason looked up with a smug look on his face, "Oh right, sorry."

"No problem."

Tali took notice of what he was working and gasped, "Is that what I think it is?"

"If you think it is a Combat Drone Retro Mk VII series fabricator for increased range, maneuverability and firepower options then you are correct," Jason answered before he looked up, "though I have a confession when it comes to drones."

"Oh?" Tali tore her gaze from the device sitting there.

Jason shrugged sheepishly, "I haven't exactly made a successful combat drone before."

"Really?" It didn't take a genius to pick up on the surprise in her tone before her gaze narrowed, "What do you mean successful?"

"Because they always exploded," Jackson pitched across the cargo bay where he was busy upgrading key segments of the shielding interface on the Mako, namely around the hatches and turret, "they would either explode in my face or send pieces of anyone it attacked everywhere."

Jason wilted under the look Tali gave him, "It's true, I kind of have a hard time programming them just right in order to do what they should, but…"

Memories of every single remote control car, helicopter, boat and that one memorable instance of that airplane he crashed through the back porch he had ever owned came back to him, he was terrible when it came to operating anything with a joystick or a remote. Jason shuddered when he remembered what happened when he accidently depth charged his parents' Jacuzzi with his remote control submarine that he had improperly wired up that exploded, Jackson hadn't been lying about things blowing up if he had built it.

"Yeah, I've been kicking around the idea of building one after I've seen how handy it was with Chatika down on Feros," Jason said as he upended an entire box of spare parts all over his workbench, "I picked all of this up for a song, so you interested?"

Tali seemed to be speechless as she picked her way through several different components that were pretty expensive and turned back to look at him.

"I'd be happy to help, however I have to ask, why are you starting with such low grade parts?"

XXX

"It was truly sad, the way she fought for his life because she couldn't let him go, tragic." Jane sighed as talked to John inside the elevator after they managed to return to the Normandy after completing the mission.

"Yeah the idea of going homicidal and killing off the entire crew before rigging up a few dozen power cells as land mines and losing her sanity sounds really romantic," Ashley cursed as she adjusted the damage around the edge of her gauntlet, "almost as appealing as walking up to Batarians and asking for a good time."

Alenko visually blanched at that description before shaking his head, "A pity she couldn't be helped."

John grunted, "A shot to the head was all she needed, that kind of grieving made her dead inside, she was just clinging to the false hope of a doctor being wrong."

Jane snorted, "I'll remember that, now let's get out of this armor and hit the showers….what the hell?"

The elevator doors had opened to reveal a surprising sight, directly in front of the elevator was a stack of crates acting as a barricade with Jackson, Wrex and even the Requisition's Officer hiding behind it, the latter dressed in a spare suit of armor curled in the fetal position while the former was using a strange device assembled from a curved pipe and stick to peer over the top of the barricade while Wrex appeared to be taking a nap.

Jackson whirled around to stare at everyone crammed inside the elevator with a panicked expression on his face, his helmet oddly out of place without the rest of his armor.

"EVERYBODY GET DOWN!"

Surprisingly everyone dropped towards the floor as a golden flash of light marred with a loud zapping sound could be seen and heard over at the far end of the cargo bay just behind the Mako as Jane found herself crouched on the other side of Jackson with his pistol up.

"Report!"

"They started building drones Boss Lady before they got the bright idea of testing them against each other," Jackson explained as another arch of electricity lit up the cargo bay as burning ozone filled the air, "it wasn't too bad until they got bugs worked out and they stopped exploding after the first few minutes."

Thoughts of repealing hostile attackers dashed, Jane turned to face Jackson with a confused look on her face that everyone else was sporting, "Huh?"

Jackson seemed to realize his error, "Jason and Tali were upgrading or building some drones, right now they are testing them to see how effective they are."

John seemed to be at a loss for words before glanced down at Wrex, "Any casualties?"

"Negative Bossman, Wrex over there got bored and decided to take a nap," another explosion was enough to cause the Requisition's Officer to start trembling, "and he wised up after a flaming drone went sailing over his head thirty minutes ago."

"Are you telling me that two members of the crew are doing this?" Jane gestured around before she noticed what looked like numerous scorch marks on the walls and ceiling, "What caused all of this!"

A short series of electronic zapping sounds could be heard as Jackson ducked again, "They built guns into the drones Boss Lady!"

"I don't why you guys are hiding down there," everyone looked up to see Jason and Tali standing over them furiously typing away at their omni-tools, "it's perfectly safe."

"Oh Hell no," Jackson scowled as he brandished a finger at Jason, "the last one nearly took off my eyebrows, I am staying right here."

Everyone slowly got up once the drones vanished into thin air, Jane feeling the urge to start yelling before John raised his hand as he faced both of them.

"You nearly destroyed my ship testing your battle drones?" The tone in his voice clearly stated that he wasn't amused the slightest as Tali suddenly developed a case of nervous jitters as Jason simply crossed his arms.

"Of course not commander, we had to work out a few bugs in the programming before we were able to yield effective results," Jason answered while activating his omni tool, "meet the latest generation of combat drones."

Everyone present took a step back once a drone materialized into thin air, right off the bat it was clearly different because instead of the typical sphere comprised of revolving layers of hard light, this one had a much more sinister appearance. For one it had hexagonal shape roughly forty centimeters in height and twice as long, there also appeared to be some kind of barrel of some kind sticking out the front as it hovered just in front of Jason.

"Say hello to the first combat drone that can fire multiple electronic attacks, a series of mass accelerator shots and even deliver a miniature rocket loaded with whatever payload I desire," the drone slowly spun in a circle, the darker blue light a stark contrast to the bright yellow or white most drones seemed to have as it revealed the points where said weapons could be fired before it strafed to the side in order to face the firing range, "it also has increased shielding and speed compared to most drones as well."

Everyone was finding it that much more difficult to stay angry with them after they got a display of those features in action against several targets, nine targets went down to electronic attacks while another fourteen went down to stream of gunfire that erupted from the drone as well before it floated back over to where they were standing.

"I would test the rocket feature, but I think you wouldn't appreciate the idea of a modified grenade going off down here," Jason smirked as the drone faded from existence, "I call it Maximus."

Jane groaned as she walked over to her locker and began stripping off her gear, "We leave to two of you along for like two hours and you manage to build drones capable of firing missiles?"

"No commander, just condensed electricity bolts, pistol grade accelerator rounds and basically an improved grenade design," Jason reiterated before he turned to face Tali, "though I have to give most of the credit to Tali, without her I'd still be blowing them up or melting my omni-tool."

Tali squeaked as everyone turned to give the Quarian engineer a look as her fingers began fighting for dominance, "I just helped."

Jackson laughed as he got to his feet and lifted up the Requisition's Officer as well, "Just helped she says, you should see the monster they were able to take her cute drone and turn it into."

John shrugged as glanced back at Tali, "You upgraded your drone as well?"

Tali fidgeted, "Uh well you see I took the liberty of installing several improvement parts before implementing the upgrades Jason was able to create, more refined of course and well, made a new series of combat drone."

Stupefied looks answered her after she summoned Chatika vas Paus into existence, it was no longer a simple sphere of glowing orange energy anymore, in fact it looked just as sinister as the one Jason had sported, except even more so. It was slightly larger and had three more prongs sticking out of the front, an experienced eye would show that two of them were for shooting electricity and the other two where for mass accelerator guns, but they were much larger than the ones on Maximus. Given the fact that Chatika was also quieter as it soared around the cargo bay once at a much slower speed with slower handling, but anyone was willing to bet that this drone could probably take more of a hit by the way kinetic shielding literally glowed around it before the drone vanished with an electronic chirp.

"I present to Chatika vas Paus Mk II!" Tali announced before realizing that she was the center of attention again as she wrung her fingers together suddenly, "I mean…it still needs some work…"

Jason chose that moment to reach over and pat her on the shoulder in a comforting manner, just the action alone was enough for Jane to forgive them as she noticed how he had turned to place himself between Tali and the others, the look she gave John clearly told him that all was forgiven and nothing would come of it unless he wanted to suffer a most cruel fate. For a nanosecond she swore that a pout crossed her husband's face before his usual expressionless mask slid into place as he finished stowing the rest of his equipment and headed towards the elevator as the moment was lost between Jason and Tali as everyone else went around business as usual.

Speaking of business as usual, Jane was also reminded of something very important as she hung back, waiting for everyone to clear out of the cargo bay before she was finally able to speak with the twins.

"Juggernaut, Psycho." Jane waved them over to where she was standing after she watched the talented engineer sprint back to the drive core.

"You called Boss Lady?" Juggernaut was all smiles as he walked up with his arms crossed while Jason (just because she couldn't mentally label him as Psycho) was more subdued.

Jane sighed, "It's about your medical evaluations."

For once Jackson stopped smiling as he glanced over at his shorter counterpart before giving Jane a worried look, "As in?"

Jane nodded her head while feeling a grimace slid across her face as she watched Jason space out to a million miles somewhere else, "The sooner we get this done, the sooner people stop sending signed orders and more importantly send your paychecks because of administration paperwork that has to be done."

"I don't know Boss Lady, I've got no problem with it, but," both of them glanced over at Jason who was starting to mumble under his breath, "yeah, let's just leave it at that."

"It has to be done before we reach Arcturus Station or else you can expect another welcoming committee like the one back at the Citadel, only it'll be much worse," Jane said as she wisely took a few steps back, "the deal was we either hand over the records or you get to visit a medical lab for the day."

Jackson simply performed an epic facepalm, "Oh shit."

"Stop at Arcturus two fold operation," Jason spoke in that same creepy monotone that sent the hair on the back of her neck straight up, "conduct medical tests while delivering Geth hardware seems most likely scenario, have one requirement before agreeing."

Noticing the look Jane was giving him, Jackson shook his head, "Trust me, if he doesn't want to go he'll either hijack the ship or slide into a ventilation duct where we can't find him, so just go with it."

Even though he showed no sign of listening, Jason was still able to speak, though she really wished he wouldn't talk like that whenever he was in the funk because it made her skin crawl.

"Arcturus Station more than likely having superior equipment and materials on hand for diagnostic operations on hardware as well as surviving Geth software, in order for myself to willing submit to medical testing, a copy of all data found must be given to Tali," Jane blinked as she opened her mouth to speak, "Alliance will not stop at scans, will either order or coerce subject into performing medical evaluation and testing, no way to avoid it."

"Bro, you'll like walk in there and not freak out if all they do is hand over a copy of the data to your girlfriend?" Jackson asked seriously while Jane snapped her mouth shut.

"Tali'Zorah not girlfriend," Jason blinked before turning to stare at Jackson with that uber creepy thousand yard/hypnotized stare that was just unnerving, "she is friend, as are the others, crew benefit from obtaining a copy of data in order to improve tactics and effectiveness against Geth in the future."

Jane blinked owlishly, "Alright, we'll have a copy of that data before we leave the station, I promise you that, it'll be alright."

"No it won't," Jason turned to give her that same look, "it will hurt, memories long suppressed remembered with clarity, possible triggers and reactions likely, will not affect combat effectiveness Commander."

Jackson groaned, "Oh boy, this is going to be a long day, I can tell."

"I'll just head up to the CIC and message Admiral Hackett on the conditions of the deal," Jane replied as she backpedaled to the elevator and mashed the button, "that way there is no chance of anything wrong happening."

Neither Jackson or Jason replied as the doors finally slid shut as Jane let out a relieved sigh, that kid sure was terrifying in the whole silent psychopathic individual hidden underneath layers of secrets that could easily dismember the entire crew without much effort, wondering how she was going to explain this to John and then get Admiral Hackett onboard with the idea.

XXX

"You know, I think you should really lay off the Children of the Corn appeal next time to avoid giving her or anyone else a panic attack," Jackson smirked after he made sure no one was looking or listening, "because that is just unnerving."

If one listened closely, the sound of hands slapping against each other with a pair of masculine chuckles could be heard ringing through the cargo bay as the Normandy continued on through the dark void of space towards the nearest mass relay.