Staff-Commander Alenko

Female Shepard: Colonist, Sole Survivor, Adept

[Author's note: The turian "Li" is not an OC. He worked at the garage on Noveria. Davis, Yosomono and Finch are... just to flesh out Alenko's crew a bit.]


“I know where my loyalties lie.”

“It’ll be just like old times.”

“No, it won’t. I’ll never join Cerberus.”

The airlock hissed and parted. Staff-Commander Alenko boarded the SSV Whitehorse, eager to put some distance between himself and the Presidium.

“LOGGED: THE COMMANDING OFFICER IS ABOARD. XO DAVIS STANDS RELIEVED.”

Heat burned Kaidan’s face as he recalled the last words he’d exchanged with Artemis Shepard a few weeks ago. Was it shame, regret or anger heating his face? There was no way to know for certain, and he wasn’t about to admit anything to himself. He made his way to the gunnery control station that sat to the right of the helm. It felt strange... every day, no matter how many months went by. The Alliance had grudgingly acknowledged the useful traits of the unique Normandy-class vessel after losing the prototype and its decorated Commander. In an impressive 16 month period the Normandy’s sister ship, the SSV Whitehorse, was completed and assigned to Commander Alenko. Walking the decks of the Whitehorse was proving difficult to get used to. Kaidan felt as though any moment he might come face to face with a ghost from the Normandy. Confronted and stared down by Pressley, Jenkins, Ash... or the Commander.

No, not her. She’s alive. She isn’t the same Shepard. She’s Cerberus.

“Commander, relay’s coming up. What cluster are we hitting?” The slightly doubled quality of the turian’s voice brought Kaidan back to the present.

“Attican Beta.” He muttered. Lilihierax glanced at Commander Alenko, shrugged, and punched in the coordinates. Alenko’s voice tended to get raspy when he was consumed by his thoughts.


****


The last time Li had heard him sound like this, was the debriefing when he’d resumed command of the Whitehorse. Li had been glad to see him back, as he had never gotten along with the XO, Davis. He’d been on Horizon, Alenko told the crew, and it had been vital that no one but top brass know his location. By then the crew had heard that there’d been an attack on Horizon like that of Freedom’s Progress.

Li knew Alenko had a raw nerve when it came to civilian casualties, but he somehow felt this wasn’t what had the Commander on edge. When Alenko came to find him during his off-hours, Li was hardly surprised. He was tinkering with the workings of their Mako when he noticed that salty hint in the air that indicated a human nearby. Normally he couldn’t pick it up, the Whitehorse containing an all-human crew, besides himself. But up inside the Mako’s shell the trace of human was rare.

“Lilihierax?” Alenko called from somewhere near the elevator. Hooking the stems that jutted from the bend in his legs onto a support strut, Li dangled out of the opening in the Mako’s stomach.

“Commander!” The turian called out, his voice jovial. “What brings you down here? If you’re outfitting the squad, I wouldn’t mind taking someone’s downgraded omni-tool. Downgraded for them is getting pretty damn fancy to me.” Alenko came around the Mako’s port-side to see two-thirds of a turian hanging down like a broken part of suspension. Despite his troubled mind, Kaidan’s mood lightened. Lilihierax was a mechanic to the bone, and he seemed to have forgotten all of the protocol from his mandatory service years on Pelevin.

“Oh, and since you’re here... can I have just a few kilos of refined eezo? Sergeant Davis said we couldn’t spare any, but if I could have some to prime the Mako’s thrusters— ”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you.” Upside down, it was hard to read the Commander’s face. Li wondered if he was about to be reprimanded.

“Sure thing-- uh... Aye aye, Commander.” He brought his hands down to the floor, pushed into a handstand to free his stems and rolled over his shoulder in a fluid movement that brought him to a crouch between the tires.

“You moved like an eel, Lilihierax.” Kaidan remarked as Li came out from under the Mako to stand in front of him.

“A what, Commander?”

“A hatchling hanar.”

“Oh... heh, I suppose I did. Permission to speak freely, Commander?”

“Go ahead, this isn’t a formal visit. I wanted to talk casually. As friends, even.” Li’s face-scales rose and parted from his face for a second: the equivalent of a small smile.

“Well in that case, Commander, you gotta stop calling me Lilihierax. I appreciate that you took the effort to learn to say it right—most humans don’t, but only my folks and superiors in the Hierarchy use my full name.”

“Okay. You can call me Kaidan when we’re off the job, if you think you can keep it straight.” Li scoffed at the jibe.

“Don’t worry; I can keep on and off duty straight enough. I managed all that time on Noveria without referring to Anoleis as a bare-faced pyjack within earshot of his goons.”

“So what do you refer to me as when out of earshot, Li?” Li blinked.

“Got no one to talk out of earshot with, Commander.” He said plainly.

“Now you do. So tell me, what’s your take on Commander Alenko?” Li hesitated.

“You really wanna know?” He asked warily. Kaidan nodded.

“I’m trusting you to be up front with me, Li.”

“He’s—you’re the thresher-slayer kid.” Kaidan was taken aback.

“I’m what?” He said incredulously.

“When you were a kid, you killed a former member of the Turian Fleet. A lot of us called him ‘The Thresher’ because of his unchecked blood-lust. He nearly turned that Relay Incident into a genocide.” It was such an old scar on his memory that Kaidan had almost forgotten the name.

“Vyrnus.” He said softly. Li nodded.

“Yep, that’s the one. Didn’t know it was you ‘til I did some poking around. Wanted to find out more about Shepard when we crossed paths. Felt kind of dumb when I found out that she was a big name in both Citadel and Alliance space. So, yeah, saw your name come up in some data and knew it right away. All the officers from the dreadnought of the Thresher’s heyday got a notice when he was shipped home. Most of us raised a toast to the young Alenko that year. Horrible thing, Shepard being one of the few who didn’t survive that wreck.”

Kaidan exhaled slowly to calm himself and Li’s face scales twitched downwards, knowing he had hit home without meaning to.

“I didn’t mean to-- I know you must’ve--”

“She’s alive.” Kaidan’s voice came out in a coarse whisper.

“What? Alive! How did she survive?”

“She said she didn’t. She said Cerberus has spent the last two years rebuilding her, bringing her back.”

“You saw her? When did she tell you this?”

“She was on Horizon. Came with Garrus and some salarian... drove the Collectors back. None of the colonist would’ve been saved without her.”

“Collectors took the rest of the colonists? And the others from before?”

“Yes. We—the Alliance thought it might be Cerberus. There had been rumours about Shepard, but I didn’t dare...” Kaidan buried his face in his hands, trying to will away the flood of conflicting emotions. “She said the Collectors were a front for the Reapers. She said that she was only with Cerberus because they were taking action to stop them.” He raised his head, frowning to himself and holding back tears.

“You keep saying ‘she said’.” Li observed. “You don’t believe her or something?”

“I didn’t, not then. But now... I don’t know anymore. I was angry, but that seems so stupid now. Angry at what? At Shepard for being alive? It was my most impossible hope realised. Maybe it was the way she greeted me. How could she be so composed? It took me a year before I could sleep without having nightmares. The doctor told me to throw out my holo of her ‘for my own good’ and I broke the door by opening it with biotics as I stormed out on him.”

“It’s only been about a month, you know, to Commander Shepard.” Li said quietly. “If she really was out of it all that time. I have a hard time if I lose one day to hangover-induced sleep.”

“I... I just don’t know.” Kaidan said wearily. “Let’s leave it for now, okay? Tell me what you’re going to do with the eezo I’m going to let you have.” Li’s face scales parted in a wide expression of cheer.

“Gladly.”


****


Thinking back to that day, Li had a feeling that Commander Alenko had gone to see Councillor Anderson for more than an official exchange.

“Attican Beta, eh?” Li began, treading carefully. “Theseus System, Commander?”

“Yes. Bounce us off a com buoy that connects to Zhu’s Hope as soon as we reach the cluster, let them know we’re incoming.”

“Aye aye.”

Kaidan rose from his seat and headed for the CIC. Sergeant Davis was squinting at the terminal in front of him.

“Davis.” The Whitehorse’s executive officer turned sharply and saluted Alenko.

“Commander.” He said, his voice as sharp as his movements. For a moment Alenko was tempted to lecture the sergeant about getting his eyes fixed but remembered that the XO had rescheduled his L5 retrofit three times for him without batting an eyelash. He could hardly hassle the XO until he’d bitten the bullet and gotten the implant.

“Page Yosomono and Finch, have them ready to go.”

“Right away, Commander.”


****


“Welcome! Welcome back to our colony, Lieute... oh wait I forgot. It’s Staff-Commander, now isn’t it?” Lizbeth Baynham was almost giddy at the site of Kaidan and his men, something he hadn’t really expected.

“Yes, but no one ever says ‘staff-commander’, too wordy for us marines.” Said Kaidan.

Corporal Finch shifted from foot to foot behind his Commander. Something he knew the man did when he was feeling bashful. Kaidan caught Lieutenant Yosomono’s eye, who betrayed his placid demeanour with the slightest smirk.

“Do it.” The expression seemed to say.

“These two are valuable members of my crew, Ms. Baynham. This is Lieutenant Yosomono and this is Corporal Finch. Finch was a pioneer colonist himself.” The man’s neck grew red as the bright-eyed scientist turned to look at him.

“Oh?” She said pleasantly. “Where was that?”

“V-voyager Cluster, ma’am.” He managed to blurt out. Lizbeth smiled.

“We heard that one of your colonists was seen on Illium, we had some questions for her.” The Lt.’s English was very good, except for the slight French accent that was added to it. It confused most of the people he met. Kaidan had once overheard Davis teasingly ask Yosomono why he didn’t speak Japanese with a French accent. “Because my parents taught it to me, not a Frenchman.”

“Shiala isn’t really a colonist, though she is very good to us.” Lizbeth said, indicating that they should follow her. “The geth damaged too much of the old research facility for us to use it anymore. Shiala had the idea of setting up living quarters out on the Skyway, since no one would be driving along it. The view is just breathtaking.” Lizbeth paused in front of the elevator console without summoning it.

“Is there something the matter?” Kaidan asked her. She hit the console and turned towards him, shaking her head.

“No, I was just thinking... I’m sure Shiala will tell you all about it, but we owe Shepard everything we have, and will have for generations. If she makes it back, will you let her know that we’d love to have her visit Feros, so that we can honour her actions properly?”

If she makes it back? Kaidan’s mind reeled. He nodded mutely to Bayhnam as she left and took the elevator with his men. As the doors opened on the Skyway Kaidan realised he’d been holding his breath.

“It seems Shepard was indeed on Illium... and at the same time as the asari. That’s fortunate.” Yosomono spoke evenly, untroubled. Kaidan sorely wished he could mirror his Lt..


****


“Commander Alenko, good day. Sit down, please.” Kaidan was surprised by Shiala’s appearance. Her skin was on the violet side of asari hues, but large patches of green were visible on her hands, face and neck. She saw him falter slightly at the sight of her mottled skin and waved a hand in dismissal.

“Oh, never mind it, Commander. You should’ve seen me when I was completely green.” She patted her head-appendages instinctually. “This is just superficial; I’ll be looking myself again in a few rotations. Shepard is an amazing woman.” The comment seemed off-topic to Alenko.

“Why do you say that?” He asked. Shiala smiled wistfully.

“I was sick, we all were. The colony was rid of the Thorian but we were suffering from side-effects anyway. We had contracted outside help, but...” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “Getting well was coming at high price... too high. Then there she was again. She squared away our contract problems. I didn’t expect her to ask about my troubles or care about them. She said she would help me before I could even dare to ask it. Shepard means a lot to m—us, to the colony.”

“Yes, clearly.” Kaidan said, finding it a strain to keep anger from his voice. What’s the matter with me? I’m not... jealous? Of what? Don’t be ridiculous.

“I hope she makes it back. It would be nice to see her again.” Shiala said; a hint of sadness in her voice. Kaidan refocused on the asari.

“That’s what Ms. Baynham said. What do you mean? Back from where? The traverse?”

“The Omega-4 relay. You didn’t know that?”

“That’s insane. No one uses that relay! When did you hear this?” Despite what he knew to be true, worry was taking root in his chest. The Alliance sent a few ships, then unmanned probes... nothing. They either never made it through or they’re trapped on the other side. Doesn’t matter. It’s a one way-trip. A suicide run.

“The information wasn’t supposed to leave Zhu’s Hope... but I figured you must already know. On Illium I convinced Liara T’soni to tell me, at the very least, where Shepard had gone. I wanted to know when I could send a message that would get through to her. She said perhaps never. Shepard’s vessel had gone though the Omega-4 relay.”


****


Kaidan sat on the edge of his bed, his elbows on his knees and the holo of Shepard hanging loosely in one hand.

“What’s not to like? Oceans, beautiful women, this emotion called ‘love’... according to the old vids, we have everything they want.”
“Well when you put it that way, there’s no reason they shouldn’t like you—us.”

“You’re a romantic. Did you sign on for the ‘dream’, lieutenant?”
“I read those books when I was kid. The man goes off into space to prove himself to the woman he loves—or, you know, for justice.”

“Do you, uh, make a habit of getting this personal with everyone?”
“No. No I don’t.”
“I’ll... uh, need some time to process that, Commander.”

“But why me?”
“I could never leave you behind.”

“You are a hard woman to walk away from.”

“Shepard, you make me feel... human.”

A knock on the door chased the haunting memories back. Kaidan considered answering... then clicked the holo on instead, staring as though hypnotised. The second, third and fourth knocks came and went unnoticed. The muted beeps of an omni-tool hit Kaidan’s ears a moment before the door slid open. The biotic shove he sent blindly towards the door was soaked into the kinetic barrier Lilihierax had set up. The barrier dissipated and the door closed behind him.

“Kaidan.” The Commander whipped the holo at his head. Li, who had reflexes that allowed him to dodge bolts sent flying by bursting pressure valves, caught the holo easily.

“Shit!” Kaidan cursed as he realised what he’d thrown. His panicked gaze darted upwards and eased when he saw the holo still intact in Li’s hand. “I’m glad it’s you, Li.” He rasped.

“I bet, Davis has shitty hand-eye coordination.” He turned the holo off and set it down on the nearby desk.

“No, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” Li pulled out the office chair and sat facing Kaidan, who let out a long sigh.

“I told myself I’d never drink away my problems.”

“So you figured you’d just drive yourself crazy instead?”

“She had scars.” The words were cryptic to Li.

“We all have scars, Alenko.”

“No.” Kaidan shook his head. “These were hints of cybernetic reconstruction. These scars had a faint orange glow when they were in the shade. I did that to her.”

“Bullshit. You didn’t do it. It happened.”

“I should have stayed. I could have let the pod go without me, followed her to bridge...”

“Hey, hey ease up on that. We may have FTL drives, but we ain’t got time machines.” He clapped Kaidan on the shoulder. “Seems like you believe what Shepard said, or maybe care more about her than the screwy politics over your heads. What happened on Feros? Why did we go there?”

“I went to see Anderson on the presidium- he’s been in contact with Shepard. He believes her about the Collectors and the Reapers. He told me he was doing what he could to keep the Council and the Alliance off her back. Apparently when she first showed up, the Council was accusing her of treason. Treason!” Kaidan recalled the spark of outrage the word had kindled in him and then the guilt as he thought: I practically accused her myself, the way I reacted on Horizon. “I asked Anderson how to contact her and he said he didn’t know. Apparently he hadn’t been able to ping a message to her since after she was seen on Illium.”

“So why not go to Illium?” Li asked.

“Because there was a connection that was closer.”

“On Feros.”

“Exactly. An acquaintance from one of our old missions had it on good authority that Shepard and her squad had gone through the Omega-4 relay.”

“Really? But nobody... shit.” Kaidan nodded at his reaction, the motion turning into a rueful shaking of his head as he grimaced under the weight of his emotions.

“I was so goddamn stupid, Li.” His voice was rough and bitter. “I lost her twice. I can’t... I can’t believe I lost her twice.”

The console on his desk flashed. Li glanced at it.

“Bridge. Yosomono’s at the helm, of course.” The ‘of course’ added because the Lieutenant always flew the Whitehorse when Li was off duty.

“Let’s hear it.” Kaidan sighed. Li tapped a few keys and the console beeped back in various tones.

“Commander?” Yosomono’s voice called to the empty air.

“Go ahead, Kori.”

“Sir, there is a very angry sounding man who insists I set up an interface with you. Says he’s the ‘Illusive Man’. I was going to dismiss it when I noticed it comes from a Cerberus channel. Should I ask the Alliance to triangulate?” At the mention of Cerberus, Li’s face-scales flicked so far down they almost touched his neck: surprise and dread. Kaidan felt the same.

“The hell? Why would the actual Illusive Man contact you?”

“Kori, go ahead and set up an interface in the debriefing room. And do not notify the Alliance.”

“Yes, Commander.”


****


“Staff-Commander Alenko. It’s good to meet you. I was glad to see you escaped harm when the Collectors hit Horizon. Shepard made us proud that day.” The Illusive Man’s behaviour gave away more information than he knew. His off-hand way talking hardly suited the rash action of contacting an Alliance vessel. Something had unsettled him- and he was veering around hard to regain his sense of control.

“You want something.” Kaidan said flatly. “It’s not to be allies, you’d use a different tactic.” The Illusive Man took a leisurely drag on his cigarette, staring Alenko down.

“I guess you could say I’ve got news for the Alliance, good news, even.” He smirked, letting smoke trail out of his mouth and nose without forcibly exhaling. “The Collectors are no longer a part of the Reaper threat. We hit them where they live, and we hit them hard.”

“Expecting us to throw you a parade? I still haven’t heard what you want.” He glared at the Illusive Man, his hostility towards him rising.

“Commander Alenko, it’s not about what I want. It’s about what the Alliance wants...” He paused to let his words sink in. “It’s about what you want.”

“You don’t have anything we want.” Kaidan said, his tone harsh. Once again the Illusive Man attended to his cigarette, completely aloof. He tapped it out beyond the vid-capture’s view. When he looked up, it was directly into Kaidan’s eyes.

“I have Shepard.” The simple statement unleashed a fury within Kaidan. It swamped his senses to the point where he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t form words. The Illusive Man watched Alenko’s face change and knew he’d succeeded. Without another word, he severed the com link to the Whitehorse.

Kaidan sank to his knees. He would later tell Li that he’d never been so afraid... of himself.


****


She must be alive.
It was in his mind the moment he woke up. He’d actually followed medical advice for once and taken a sedative to get some rest. Mercifully, he’d had no dreams.

Kaidan pinged Anderson from his desk.

“Alenko? I take it from the channel you’re on that this is a private matter?”

“Yes sir.” He explained briefly about what he’d learned about Shepard, then about the Illusive Man. “I don’t know what’s going on with them and court marshal me, sir, but I don’t care right now. She has to be alive. He contacted me directly. If she’d been killed on her mission he’d keep it quiet, and give anyone who asked the run-around.”

“I think you might be right. We were contacted down the line about a former Corsair. Word was he betrayed Cerberus and the Alliance by joining with batarian slavers. A Lieutenant Jacob Taylor. Cerberus was willing to pay the Alliance to detain Taylor if we should run into him. A fortune, by any standards... and they don’t care if we try him ourselves or hand him over.”

“How is this slaver connected?”

“I didn’t see it either, but then we heard about another bounty... same parameters but for Garrus Vakarian. Former C-Sec officer... also labelled a slaver. I asked Hackett to do a sweep of all our contacts looking for more Cerberus bounties. He found them. One sent to the Flotilla about Tali’Zorah, another to the salarians about a former STG operative, one to the asari embassy about a ‘Rogue Justicar’. I got off the com with Admiral Hackett only to have Udina call with more bounties the Alliance had received personally. They wanted Dr. Chakwas, Engineers Donnelly and Daniels and... you’re not going to believe this...”

“Considering what you’ve told me, sir, I just might.” Kaidan heard Anderson scoff his disbelief at the name before reading it to him.

“Officer Jeff Moreau.”

“Joker!” Kaidan exclaimed.

“I know. Separated, these bounties mean nothing. I don’t even know half the people they’re after. But when you gather it up and look at the group... well it starts to look--”

“Like a crew.” Kaidan finished, excitement tingling in his mind. “The kind of crew that only Shepard could bring together.”

“You’re right. They’re smart enough not to call for Shepard’s blood, the whole galaxy would know in a matter of minutes. But they want to cripple her. Even if her mission was truly a success as the Illusive Man claims, she’s in his bad books now.”


****


He tried to pull rank. Kaidan thought to himself after ending his call to Anderson.
He tried to get her to cross the line and she wouldn’t. He felt hope finding its way back to him. He smiled.
You weren’t ever really Cerberus, were you, Commander?

“You’ve always been Artemis.” He let himself say her name aloud, relishing the sound. No one called her Artemis. Most people didn’t even know it was her name. He’d known, but never used it. How it had become verboten in his mind he didn’t know. After all the Normandy crew were pretty tightly knit and Shepard’s squad even more so. It was “Kaidan”, “Ash”, “Wrex”, “Tali”, “Liara”, “Garrus”... first name terms. Except for “Commander Shepard”.

The night he’d spent with her in her cabin as they travelled towards the Mu relay was the first time he’d used her given name.

“I’ve been calling you Kaidan for a while now, why do you never call me Artemis? Don’t you like ‘Artemis’?”
“Oh I like Artemis... I adore Artemis.”

She’d laughed a little against his mouth before returning his passionate kiss.

“I’m named after a Goddess of Ancient Greece, you know. Artemis: goddess of wild animals and the hunt.”
“It fits. You are definitely one hell of a hunter.”
“Shall we get to the wild animal part, then?”
“Oh damn... yes!”

Throughout that night, her name was his mantra. Her name was a long breathy sigh at the back of his throat when he climaxed. Afterwards, he reserved her name for those intimate moments.

I love you Commander, my Goddess.

His terminal bleeped at him, apparently a critic of human sentiment. The message’s origin had been scrambled well enough to get his attention. It was tagged “ re: trust in Alenko”. Kaidan opened the note. It took him a second to realise there wasn’t data corruption, sentences seemed to have piled up on top of each other in their rush to be heard:

Kaidan Alenko? Mordin Solus. Crossed paths on Horizon. Was told you were trustworthy. Haven’t decided. Worked with Shepard to stop Collectors. Stopped them. Was amazed by results. No casualties. Normandy battered but intact. Suicide run without suicide. Can’t give details but tech obtained during mission. Dangerous tech. Abominable tech. Illusive Man wanted it. Shepard destroyed it. Naturally Cerberus gunning for us. Alliance still gunning for us? The Council? All important but not reason for contact. Stress high on crew. High on Shepard. Most finding coping mechanisms. Not Shepard. Concerned for her wellbeing. Most of crew concerned. Garrus familiar with Shepard’s history. Mentioned you. Tali seconded him. But remembering you from Horizon. Cold. Disbelieving. Won’t risk hurting Shepard. Need to be sure. Willing to help her? Come to Omega. Visit clinic in the apartments. Would like to be wrong about you.

“Bridge here.”

“Li, get us to Omega... yesterday.”

“Still haven’t installed that time machine, sir.”

“Lilihierax. Now.”

“Aye aye Commander. Didn’t mean to glib, sir.”

*****

[Author's note: just wanted to add that I'm not sure if I'm gonna keep this one going... I don't know, depends how my other stuff is going.]