chapter 23

Next stop Noveria," Jackson smirked as both Wrex and Garrus forked over the amount of credits due to him while John didn't so much as bat an eye at the exchange, "we'll track down any possible lead on Matriarch Benezia while we are there."

Liara raised her hand as Jane nodded at her, "I wish to be on the ground team that arrives at Noveria Shepard."

Both John and Jane shared a look, "Fine, but if you hesitate once, just once, I'll be dropping you off at the nearest spaceport, am I clear?"

Little harsh don't you think Shepard? Jason however kept his thoughts to himself as Liara simply nodded and remained quiet for the rest of the brief, which was a simple overview of the planet, political situation concerning the delicate nature of Noveria and possible scenarios, none of which discussed what to do in the event of a Rachni takeover of a separate laboratory, so Jason figured that he should get to work solving that little problem.

Which would make it a lot easier to explain his newest design build that he hadn't even informed the Alliance about, another new type of ammunition mod he dreamed up and got to work on building ever since Joker had raced away from Arcturus two days ago, an hour before the Council sent a transmission informing Shepard about the lead they dug up on Noveria.

His workspace was no longer cluttered with completed projects and design concepts now that he had handed them over to the Alliance R&D, the cold sixty-three million in his banking account told him exactly how much they liked his work. Then again Jackson had thrown out some vehicle upgrade schematics to someone who actually took what he said to heart and got another R&D contract hammered out, a nice sum of four million, even though Jason split his earning with Jackson fifty-fifty.

The Victory Projects were slowly coming together as well, Jason figured he could get all of them completed with another few weeks, depending on how well things went after Noveria would dictate if he had enough time or not. So far he managed to keep those projects a secret, saying that it was another improvement project or a failed design concept even though everything was slowly coming together.

It was kind of refreshing to change things up just a little, a new style of gun here and an effective ammunition mod there, throw in some radical weapons and you had yourself the beginning of something beautiful in a few short years, most of the stuff he had handed over to the Alliance wouldn't be seen on the market for at least a year. There had been many things that bothered him in the first installment that he could now fix, even though he had a sneaky suspicion that every single design he ever created and publicly (or handed over to the Alliance) announced would be making its way to Cerberus eventually.

Another thing he had been working on was the mole they had amongst the crew, he had narrowed it down to only a few suspects, but he didn't have enough evidence to prove it, though he had to admit it was either the communication specialist or even Pressley.

Even though Pressley would never act out in such a way that labeled him as a Cerberus plant, Jason still had to admit that he liked the guy, all six times he ever talked to the man in passing, it would suck to know that the man would die once the Collector ship showed up and destroyed the Normandy later on, but there was nothing he could do about it now.

Which was why he headed straight towards his workbench to get some serious work done when he found a surprise waiting for him.

"Oh hey Tali, did you need something?" It was difficult to smother his grin at the thought of using her own line, but it was impossible to resist.

"Are you alright Jason?" The question was hesitant as she struggled with her words, "You were terrified when we came onto the ship, almost wild."

Jason remembered that particular act he had to do, sprinting for the elevator without speaking a word would have been considered normal for even him, but being found curled up underneath his bunk by Jane had sent a few red flags up for the crew while Jackson promptly told everyone it wasn't their business. Then again anyone who had been concerned about it had stopped by to say hello and ask how he was doing, even Joker hobbled on down to see how he was doing and ask if he knew anything about the added security firewalls that wouldn't let him download anything illicit to his private accounts.

Of course everyone on the ship thought that a team of Alliance technicians had installed those features, when in fact Jane and John both knew that hadn't happened, but didn't say anything about it, thinking that it was something Anderson or even Hackett had ordered.

"I'm fine Tali," Jason answered as he inclined his head towards the nearby stool, "want to take a break from engineering for a while and help me with something?"

Tali sighed as she took the offered stool, "I was worried about you."

Sleeping underneath objects and becoming even more reclusive would make anyone worry, but Jason figured that he could stop doing that after Noveria, it was kind of annoying after all to climb around on top of things in order to find some peace and quiet, he figured that Jane had something to do with that.

"I'm fine Tali, it's just that some things are best forgotten," Jason said as he carefully looked around the cargo bay to see if anyone was eavesdropping on their conversation because Wrex was sound asleep in his chair, providing some interference with his snoring, "and a few memories came back."

Tali was silent for a moment before she rested her hand on his shoulder, causing him to stop tinkering with his new project and look up at her.

What stunned him even further was that she wrapped him in a hug before he could speak as Jason didn't know if he should fist pump or ask what she was doing.

(Jane Shepard wishes to go on record stating that she had not been watching the couple from behind the Mako next to her accomplice after she had a pep talk with a certain Quarian engineer earlier to watch the events unfold, if anyone asked, she had been reviewing the operator manual for said vehicle under the watchful eyes of the mechanics against her will and had just so happened to see the event take place.)

"From what research I was able to gather, humans are social creatures that need touch and trust with one another," Tali explained as she rested her helmet on his shoulder and squeezed his torso tightly, "I just wanted to help."

Somewhere in the universe ten thousand innocent puppies had been punted off cliffs by a sadistic madman as Jason fought his inner dilemma to either break down and explain things (which he couldn't due to the fact that Glyph had taken care of that) or accept her advances.

It didn't take a genius level IQ to decide what to do as Jason reciprocated the hug, failing to notice both Jane and his twin silently high fiving behind the tank while Garrus was recording the whole event as Ashley watched on in amusement.

XXX

It had been good to talk to Tali after the hug, even though he was kind of vague and unclear about some of the things he told her, it was better than outright lying to her face, well visor technically, but he couldn't tell her the truth because technically he wasn't lying.

As far as anyone knew, both he and Jackson were from this reality, granted it was kind of sketchy to begin with, but Jason knew that he was honest with Tali over the things that mattered.

Like when they had finished assembling his newest ammunition mod, an advanced form of anti-organic based ammo that could turn paint chip sized projectiles into something capable of leaving exit wounds the size of his fist, in Krogan sized combatants. When questioned about it, he simply answered that if they ever ran into Creepers again or even Husks, it would prove to be highly effective against unshielded targets, though it had taken a while to work a few bugs out of the design, no pun intended.

Sledgehammer mods basically increased the mass generated with each shot, costing the weapon valuable performance and sacrificing maximum number of rounds fired before overheating would occur, his design was the opposite. Allowing the maximum number of rounds with increased performance and overall accuracy had made it a winner with the ground team if they ever encountered any hostile target that was A) organic in nature and B) unshielded, as tests conducted on what amounted to ballistic test dummies proved.

His newly built Ripper Mk I was handed out to each member of the ground team, everyone carried several different types of ammunition mods for their weapons in the event they had to change tactics against changing situations.

Life on the ship was steadily getting back to normal, as in regular shipboard operations were being conducted accordingly while the Normandy was on its way to Noveria with all due haste, granted it was going to a long trip due to the fact that John seemed adamant to scan every single planetoid, metallic asteroid, gas ball and random object found floating in space along the way, even though they managed to find five more Prothean relics, a couple writings from a long dead Asari Matriarch, some medallions and even a deep space mining probe that had some very interesting data saved away that John wanted to check out later.

Jackson seemed to be content with the idea of tinkering with the Mako to make it even better, doing some pretty innovative stuff while Garrus still managed to calibrate the guns to perfection, Ashley was always found cleaning whatever available weapons and armor over at her station when Garrus slipped away to calibrate something.

Liara, to his knowledge, was in her quarters pouring over enough artifacts and data to give him a headache, trying her best to learn what she could from them about what wiped out the Prothean race all those years ago, but so far had come up with nothing concrete yet.

Alenko was still tapping away at the console on deck two when he wasn't in deck three running exercises and such, but Jason made it a point to chat with the man on several occasions, though it was mostly about the modifications the man wanted on his weapons and armor.

Wrex was found either sleeping in his chair (which everyone dubbed as his throne) or at the firing lanes practicing with weapons to either help someone or kill some time.

Jane was always bustling around the ship, visiting people at their stations, asking how they were doing, talking and such as Jason began to slowly talk more and more to her each time she dropped by for a visit, it was amusing to watch her gap like a landed trout every time he told her something new.

When John wasn't in the CIC doing whatever he needed to do, he was either working out or in the firing lanes with Wrex honing his sniping skills, sometimes challenging Garrus to a shooting match if he felt like it because either he knew better than to ask Jason or wanted to see what great wonderful thing he could build next.

Having been given free reign over the drive core with an abundance of new tools to try out, Tali was either solving an unforeseen problem with whatever system the designers had overlooked or installing new upgrades to various components to the engineering systems as a whole, little things that didn't really improve the performance of the Normandy overall, but Jane liked what she was doing and approved every single project sent her way.

Speaking of projects, Jason smirked as he glanced at the massive storage chest underneath his workbench that contained a few of the completed Victory Projects and the remaining unfinished projects that were coming along nicely. Designing something solely for the Noveria mission where they would encounter Rachni would only serve to ruin the surprise for later, that and he was confident that having extra members on the ground team with a few prior upgrades and modifications would easily remedy any problem they would be faced with.

Granted there were still some minor technicalities where not only Geth, Rachni and indoctrinated Asari commandos would be encountered, but also Liara's mother as well, that wasn't something he was looking forward too because there was no way of saving her from the grasp of Sovereign or the indoctrination.

Which also raised the question of what would happen with the Rachni Queen since he was mentally debating that topic, every time he'd ever played the game he would always kill said Queen no matter what character he had, Renegade or Paragon, not like it would be a huge loss anyway because the Rachni only proved to be more trouble than they were ever worth, so he had money on John being the one to push the kill switch. Though he was pretty sure that Jane might make an issue about it, though if Wrex got to tag along with them for the second portion of the Noveria mission, then all bets were off on the Queen crawling out of there alive.

Then again, Jason made a mental note to add a few more demo charges to his kit as well as some more grenades whenever they arrived at Noveria, he was also going to bring the full weapon loadout along too.

Every single weapon had the upgraded firing mode selections, along with fresh ammo blocks, ammunition mods, some internal upgrades that improved performance and were carefully maintained to avoid any issues that might spring up in the middle of a firefight.

Which was actually a funny thing now that he thought about it, he had never once had a weapon failure in combat, but something always broke whenever he was shooting in the range or cleaning them, granted half the time he was either installing some newfangled idea or repairing said weapon he had improperly modified, granted it was his way of letting people know that he wasn't a machine, so he built several 'mistakes' that were never life threatening, just a spectacular shower of sparks and arching electricity in some cases when a weapon literally exploded. Among his chief discoveries was the fact that he didn't have the resources, time or equipment to build some kind of plasma based weaponry, lasers or even a knock off version of a light saber (Jackson was understandably upset at this revelation) with the technology here in the Mass Effect universe, but he had discovered a few other interesting variations of weaponry, but that was for a later date.

"All hands reports to stations, ground team report to the briefing room for further orders, arrival at Noveria in 26 minutes, Joker out."

Speak of the devil and he shall answer…