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—
Normandy
Jenkins stood at attention in the cargo hall, scared out of his mind.
He had lost the laser rifle when one of the Thorian Creepers got too close and wrenched it out of his hands.
"There are, in total, nine infantry-grade laser rifles in existence, ten if we count the Mako, and you, Corporal Jenkins, just lost one." Shepard watched as the corporal got paler, sweat furrowing his brow. "You have two choices. First choice is I boot you off this ship. The second choice is you do a little exercise to become more responsible."
"I'll take the exercise, Commander." Jenkins screamed out involuntarily, his voice cracking, and Shepard nodded. "Are you sure, Corporal? It won't be easy, I'll tell you that much."
"I'll do whatever it takes, sir."
"Alright." Shepard took the cages Ashley and Kaidan were holding and handed them to Jenkins. "These are Private Tim and Private Tom. For the next month, you are responsible for their well-being. You will feed them three times a day, take them for walks, play with them, clean up after them, make sure they don't disturb the crew, and read them bedtime stories. You will write daily records of their activities and present them to me at the end of every week. Until your punishment is over, you are barred from joining the team for ground missions. Is that understood, Corporal?"
"Yes, Commander." Jenkins saw two little foxes inside the cages, with extra-large ears, who were looking around curiously.
Here he thought it would be something dangerous like a venomous snake.
"Dismissed, Corporal."
Jenkins took the cages and left, unaware of what kind of trouble he was in.
—
The briefing after Feros was a short affair, with Shepard still trying to get a better understanding of the visions from the beacon with the help of the cipher.
As they left the Citadel, he began to inspect the ship to check how the crew was doing.
Joker, for example, was grinning. "So, not only did you bang a matriarch, but you banged one of her followers at the same time? Was it just you three in the bed, or were there more of them?
Shepard crossed his arms, raising a challenging eyebrow. "Just the two, but only because the bed was too small."
Joker laughed, getting up from the pilot's seat, and mockingly bowed. "Oh Commander, you are a god. Please, teach this humble mortal your ways."
"Sure, let's start with PT. How does a fifteen-kilometer run sound?"
"Like a death sentence. I'll pass if you don't mind." Joker raised his hands, surrendering.
"Uh huh. I thought so."
Speaking of PT, he had revamped the ground crew's physical training, except for Wrex' since the Krogan didn't need it. He had been pushing them beyond the Alliance limits, and it was already yielding results, as they could keep up with him longer.
Wrex talked about his ancestral family armor and how he had finally tracked it to a Turian profiteer, and Shepard helped him retrieve it.
Garrus had an unresolved case regarding a Salarian doctor named Saleon, his horrific experiments, and his subsequent escape from C-Sec. They found him hiding on a ship swarming with Thorian Creepers, and as the Salarian tried to commit suicide by Shepard.
He knocked the idiot out with a punch, much to Garrus' protests, though Shepard had some words of wisdom for him. "Garrus, if someone isn't afraid of death, then killing them isn't a punishment. Locking them up in a four-by-four cell for the rest of their life, on the other hand, is much better."
"So what? Am I supposed to put everyone in prison where they could be let go with a slap on the wrist because of politics?" The Turian wasn't happy with the idea of letting the criminals get away like that, and the endless red tape and politics of the Citadel had frustrated him to no end.
"Oh no, if they are afraid of death, throw them out of the airlock for all I care, but if they are not, you have to be creative. But if you think they aren't going to be punished by the law, you take things into your hands, like I did with the Batarians. The Council wasn't going to do anything because of politics, and look how that ended for them."
The Turian nodded as they dragged Saleon away to hand him over to the Alliance. He technically didn't commit any crimes in human space, but with a word from Shepard, they would lock the Salarian up, throw away the key, and forget he existed.
While he was on the Citadel, Shepard found Admiral Kahoku worrying over his missing marines and agreed to look for them.
He found them in the Edolus in the Sparta System of the Artemis Tau Cluster, having been drawn to the planet due to a distress signal, and the marines were killed by a Thresher Maw he disposed of immediately.
Cerberus were getting on with their old tricks again.
Warning the Admiral to stay out of it, because knowing Kohaku he definitely would pursue this matter, Shepard hunted down the Cerberus unit responsible for it, eventually finding their main base where they had also been keeping Rachni, most likely taken from Noveria through their agents, and had avenged the marines, though it would be cold comfort to Admiral Kohaku.
Before he went to Virmire, Shepard had assisted the Alliance to drive the Geth out of the Armstrong Nebula and had acquired sizable data on their evolution, which Tali had requested as a pilgrimage gift for the Migrant Fleet, and Shepard saw no reason to refuse.
—
Normandy
Medbay
"Fennec Foxes, Commander? Couldn't you have found a more tame animal to saddle poor Jenkins with?" Upon learning just what kind of a punishment Shepard had in mind for Corporal Jenkins, Karin researched the Fennec Foxes, only to find out they were gremlins on steroids.
"Doc, the Council is bending over backwards for these laser weapons, and Jenkins just lost one of them. He needs to learn responsibility." If Jenkins succeeded, he would never forget this punishment ever, and he wouldn't lose his toothbrush again, much less his gun.
"I suppose you would know better, though I heard they are driving Jenkins up the wall." She had seen the corporal chasing after the little animals and was close to a nervous breakdown.
Shepard grinned like an imp. "I know, it's so fun reading his reports."
Too bad Corporal's punishment was coming to an end.
—
Citadel
Going back to the Citadel to inform Admiral Kohaku of the status of his marines and to give his team shore leave before setting course to Virmire, Shepard was called by the C-Sec, saying one of his men, Jenkins, was attacked.
Rushing to the scene, Shepard found the corporal leaning on the wall, with one eye closed shut, bleeding from his nose, one front tooth missing, and bruises all over his face, with a Turian medic standing over him to administer Medigel.
"Jenkins, what the hell happened here?" The bodies around painted a picture, but it wasn't clear yet.
"Commander Shepard." Detective Chalik, whom he had assisted in solving a matter regarding smugglers, greeted him first. "Your soldier was assailed by mercenaries looking to take his laser rifle. He fought them off bravely."
"What happened to the mercs?" If they weren't dead, Shepard was going to kill them anyway.
No one did this to a soldier under his command and got away with it.
"Well, four of them are dead, two are in critical condition, and the last one is going to need full dental surgery to ever think of eating anything solid." Chalik had seen the video, and the human had fought like a monster. It wouldn't have been that bad if he could have used his weapon, but the mercenaries had surrounded him too closely, and Corporal Jenkins had to resort to close quarters combat.
Shepard whistled. "Not bad, Jenkins, not bad at all." His little exercise had worked wonders, coupled with his new PT schedule.
"I couldn't let you down again, Commander." Jenkins couldn't afford to lose his weapon for the second time and fought with everything he had, remembering the hellish month he had spent running after the foxes.
"You did me and the Alliance proud, Corporal. You can rest now; I'll send Doctor Chakwas to check you over." Shepard put his hand on the laser rifle, and Jenkins finally let go and fell asleep, carried away by the medics.
—
Liara was in a state of indecision.
Commander Shepard had interfaced with a Prothean beacon and had basically the entire culture of the creators of the Citadel embedded into his mind, and if she melded with him, Liara too could have all that invaluable knowledge.
The problem was she didn't want to meld with the human who had, repeatedly, mated with her mother and an older sister figure.
Speaking of her mother, she was finally beginning to show signs of brain activity, and Doctor Chakwas was hopeful Benezia would wake up soon.
Another day, and she couldn't reach a decision again.
—
Normandy
The crew had gathered in the mess hall, eating their food, which was actually good compared to the usual chow served in the Alliance, all thanks to Commander Shepard.
While eating, they watched the news, with quite a curious last-minute report on the screen.
"A Bengal tigress had reportedly killed thirty animal traffickers all on her own. Initial reports say the traffickers attempted to sedate the tigress and take her away to be sold at an auction on the far fringes of the Alliance. Having killed the attackers, the tigress went out of her way to hunt the remaining traffickers, using highly intelligent tactics such as distractions and traps. Following the gruesome event, the mighty animal reportedly dragged the bodies around her territory, placing them as a warning against any potential future traffickers."
"Holy shit. Are we sure that is not the Commander's pet tiger or something?" Joker forgot to swallow his food as he watched the animal tear through the traffickers, dodging gunfire and even taking down a Biotic.
"Heck if I know." Addams muttered, equally shocked. If it was something more dangerous than a tiger, the Chief Engineer of Normandy would understand the slaughter, but seeing a big cat kill thirty armed people? That was a first for him.
The reporter on the screen pressed his finger to his earpiece, confirming something before speaking again. "We have received last-minute information confirming that the tigress was named Kira and at one time belonged to Commander Jonathan Shepard, the hero of the Alliance, who had released her to live in her habitat."
The mess hall was filled with the howlings of the crew, food all but forgotten.
—
Dark Space
Harbinger, the de facto leader of the Ascended, or the Reapers as the primitive Protheans had named them, did not feel any emotion owing to its synthetic nature.
"What?" Right now it must be malfunctioning, because Nazara, the watcher that was left behind to start the cycle when the time came again, had just informed Harbinger of something that had never happened before, at least with species that weren't the Leviathans.
"The human, one named Shepard, managed to break my connection over an Asari. I could not fight his mental fortitude." It took Nazara some time to get its systems back online from the backlash, which it still didn't understand how it was even possible in the first place.
Nazara was a god compared to the human, yet the human repelled it from the Asari's primitive mind.
Harbinger stood motionless, scanning through its information banks, which contained almost twenty thousand cycles worth of knowledge, to find if an event like this had ever happened before, only to come up with nothing.
"How?"
"Unknown. Transmitting the relevant data on the human."
Harbinger went over the data, closely examining the organic's actions, which got more ridiculous every second. In the twenty thousand cycles, the Ascended had perfected the organics of the galaxy; none with comparable feats existed.
Destroying an entire galactic government by himself, wiping out fleets, single-handedly killing more organics than anyone of his kind would be capable of, and now he had created handheld laser weapons and eezoless anti-gravity generators.
For the first time in one billion years, Harbinger was stunned.
This cycle would be more complicated than initially estimated.
—
Wanted to get some things out of the way to set up the pace for Virmire, and added some slice of life in the meantime.