Encounter at Rashomon Valley (A Star to Sail Her B

You can do this, Kelly. She's human. Under the tattoos and the hate, she's human.

Unconvinced by her own pep talk, Kelly drew a deep breath and headed down the stairs towards the area Jack claimed as her own.

As she descended the stairs, she heard metal pinging off metal, a steady rhythm. Ding. Ding. Ding. As she drew closer, she heard Jack's voice. Ding. "Fuck." Ding. "Fuck." Ding. "FUCK!" Both sounds fell silent at her approach. A small piece of metal whizzed past Kelly's ear.

"Shit. Sorry," Jack said as Kelly ducked, eyes wide with fear. The spare manifold cover leaning against the wall across from Jack's cot was riddled with small dents, the floor scattered with small nuts and bolts. "Here to ask me how I fucked everything up?" Her voice was dull, quieter than usual.

"I'm here to hear what happened," Kelly said, non-committally.

Jack jerked her head towards a low table. Kelly sat on the edge, facing her.

"Here goes."

--

Everyone's probably told you about why we were on Nagori, right? Crazy Asari Bitch sends Shepard a message, saying a bunch of batarians have a piece of Reaper with our names on it in this abandoned human colony. Rastafari Valley or something like that. Badass. I know Mordin would practically have sex with that. Eww, there's a thought.

Anyway, we go to Nagori. Park way outside of the colony. Hike through these huge plants covered in blue flowers and so much pollen it was like walking on pillows. Looked like campfire ash.

We get to town and sneak in the back, find our way to the hospital's back door. Shepard tells Garrus to watch our backs. I know he's always watching her ass... and her tits, for that matter. Freaky alien shit. Never done a turian. May have to try it some time.

Anyway, we go in the back. Thane and Shepard take point and proceed to have all the fun. I was bored stiff in the back. Finally, we hear some serious action approaching. Guard shift change. I'm ready to paste 'em, but they're afraid it'll make too much noise, so we go into one of the labs to hide.

There's this big cage full of people. Humans, men and women. Shitty conditions. No privacy, exposed toilet in the corner, no bedding, just them all skinny and in rags. Looked like they'd been cutting on them pretty bad, too... they all had fresh stitches on their chests. Harsh shit. Reminded me of my old facility.

Shepard talks to them a little, promises to get them out. Then Tali and Mordin say, be careful, they're full of explosives. Fucked up, huh? The humans start freaking out. One guy even tries to rip his chest open to get it out. Ugh.

Tali says she'll stay behind and find a way to fix it so they can leave without blowing up. Mordin stays with her. Fine by me. Keep the geeks out of our way so we can do more damage.

We keep going. Off a few more guards, then get to the basement stairs. Ton of guards, not paying much attention. Thane goes up in the air ducts, Shepard and Grunt flank one side, and I get the other all to myself. Fuckin' A.

I spin around the corner and nail them a solid with a good blast. Knock one batarian flying through the air...almost knocked Shepard over. Oops. Grunt smacked him down, though. Great reflexes. Guy probably didn't have any solid bones left in him afterwards. Heh.

Anyway, we take them all down, but it's loud, so we get our asses in gear. We get to the basement, Grunt tears the door off, and we go inside. This thing is HUGE. Like, Grunt-sized. Black metal with all these weird circuit patterns, and it was humming. Loud. It was like something grabbing the base of my skull and shaking it. No one else seemed to feel that, though...guess I'm just lucky.

The reinforcements showed up just then. We paired off, two shooting, two reloading, and took down most of the guards that way. Then, I heard them say they were calling in more from outside... probably the guys who just left. Fuck that, I say.

The humming was turning into a screech at that point. Hard to think straight. I let loose a blast to take down the guys on the stairs, and bam, it spikes. A LOT stronger than I meant it to be. It was like something got behind the blast and pushed hard. The guys went flying, but so did a hunk of wall, and a big beam that was probably very important got dented pretty bad. The building started shaking.

So, yeah, I fucked that up pretty bad.

Grunt charges up and takes down the rest of the guys. Throws a couple of them into the beam. Building starts shaking again. We look at each other, Thane and Shepard grab the hunk of metal, and we haul ass. I heard something caving in behind us. Fuck.

We catch up to Tali and Mordin and their new friends, and head for the back door. Garrus is there with this bigass truck. Cool. Then, one of the humans takes one look at Garrus and runs like hell. I mean, I know he's ugly and all, but seriously? Shepard runs after her, like an ass, and gets hit by the explosion when she gets out of range of the thing Tali built. Knocks her dizzy, but Thane hauls her out of the building.

As we were driving off, I think I saw part of the building cave in. When I fuck up, I fuck up big.

Anyway, we're driving through the plants, and suddenly all the lab rats start coughing. Nasty coughing, too, all wet and phlegmy-sounding. I'm shoved up against one of them. He's heating up fast. Fever bad enough that it hurt to touch him. I backed off quick... I'm human too, don't wanna catch what he's got.

Then Mordin freaks out. Well, freaks out for him. Starts talking fast, saying something about the flowers being wrong. Three petals. Something about three petals. Short version: the flowers weren't happy medicine flowers, they were kill-all-humans flowers. And they did. Kill all the humans who weren't wearing respirators. Nasty way to go, too. Barfing blood, convulsions, burning alive in their skins. Shepard and I are a little freaked, but Shepard says we're cool, we've got our masks, we're not exposed. Mordin backs her up, says it's only dangerous if you inhale it. Good thing. If it was topical, I was fucked beyond hope.

Right after all the lab rats died, the truck broke down. We could see the shuttle from there, though, so it wasn't a bad haul. Shepard hops out first and bam, big pile of pollen lands right on her. I laughed. She starts swearin', shakes it off her helmet, gives me a dirty look, and starts moving.

We start taking turns hauling the hunk of Reaper. Every time I touch it, though... it's weird. Like something whispering to me, but I couldn't hear what it was saying. I was about to say something to Shepard about it, but then she starts coughing. Same cough as the lab rats. Fuck. She's got her face on, but she knows she's fucked. We move faster. I ignore the Reaper thing.

We get closer, and Shepard starts staggering. Garrus says something to her, but she just looks like she got hit on the head or something. Not good. Garrus grabs Shepard and starts running. I shove the shard at Grunt and run after him. Pop up a bubble underneath her so he's not carrying the full weight. He starts running faster. I stay with him. I can hear Grunt charging behind us. Crazy fucker has it on his back, running like he's gonna kill the shuttle with it.

We get on the shuttle and haul ass. Mordin and Garrus start stripping Shepard down, yelling that we need to get her temperature down. Tali kills the heat. We're turning into popsicles, and Shepard's still toasty warm. You could see ice crystals drifting off her, where the sweat was freezing. Thane hands me his jacket. Nice guy. Too nice. But at least my tits don't freeze off.

I'm almost sitting on the shard. It's still whispering, but it sounds like it's in pain now. Like it's struggling. Really freaky. I couldn't really hear what else was going on.

We get to the Normandy, and the fucking door seals shatter when we hit the deck. Door pops open. Garrus tries to grab Shepard, but Mordin makes him stay put. Something about killing the whole crew if he tracked pollen everywhere. Killjoy. So, we decontaminate. The shard's still making noises. Didn't like the decontamination beam at all. It's whispering a lot quieter, more urgent.

The beam stops, and Garrus grabs her and runs like hell. Mordin manages to keep up. And, well, that's the last time I saw her.

Fuck.

--

"You should tell Mordin about the shard. That's probably very important information. Maybe he'll know what it's all about." Kelly stood up, eyes wide.

"Yeah, I know. I will. Later." She threw another bolt at the manifold cover. "I'm too pissed off to try and talk to a hunk of metal right now, and I've got a fucking headache."

Kelly stood for a moment, watching Jack as she threw more bolts. It was like watching her mind powering down. Her eyes went blank, expression dulled, entirely focused on throwing the metal. Her way of dealing with the pain.

"I'll leave you alone, then. If you..." Kelly began.

"Yeah, whatever."

Kelly nodded, then left.