Hey remember that excerpt I posted a while back regarding Shepard's and Ash's activities post Reaper war? Am having trouble with the Wrath of Thunder series, so thought I'd post another excerpt from another work here. Rate, review and comment please. Take place with a Destroy ending in mind. Negotiations between the quarians and batarians concerning a geth dreadought have gone south.Shepard hurled himself behind cover, as the hail of fire only seemed to intensify. Seconds later Ashley followed him into cover, albeit more gracefully, her powerful Phalanx pistol firing off two rounds. Shepard could have sworn he heard someone cry out, but it was hard to focus in maelstrom that whirled around them.
“Son of a ****!” he spat, as he heard a grenade go off somewhere. The negotiations had gone rather….badly. The quarian representative had all but snapped and hurled some obscure insult. The batarians had taken it rather badly and one of them slammed a rather sinister blade into the table. That had precipitated pistols being whipped out, more insults exchanged and then someone sneezed.
A simple sneeze was the spark that ignited the powder-key that was the standoff and soon geth dreadnought played host to a furious battle. Those series of unfortunate events had precipitated a shootout and then a major firefight. Around them, quarians marines and batarians soldier fought each other through the corridors and shafts of the derelict geth dreadnought. And both sides seemed to hold a grudge against Shepard; Balak because he hated Shepard personally and Xen because she saw him as an obstacle to quarians's glory.
Ashley had dragged Shepard out of the meeting room, the pair of them hurtling down the corridors as they tried to make their way
“So…” Ashley quietly slid over to him, her tone purposefully kept at the neutral “Who knew that both sides would seed a prized dreadnought with their own troops”
Shepard didn’t respond as he balefully stared back at her. Ashley had recommended that both leaders continue the talks at the
Normandy, but Shepard was loathe to invite hostile captains into his prized ship.
Ashley gave one of her infuriating smirks and then rose up and fired another shot at their pursuers. Someone screamed and then was silenced, as a torrent of bullets forced Ashley back into cover.
“Quarian or batarian?” Shepard asked, as the thump of the body echoed across the steel plates that made up the floor of the crosswalk they were on.
“Quarian,” she snapped “Bastard was packing a falcon”
Shepard sighed as one more soul was lost to the madness that gripped the entire dreadnought. Even since the fall of the Reapers, there had been a mad scramble among the civilizations to recover geth technology in order to speed up their own recovery. The quarians and the batarians had been among the most eager in their frenzied search, the former using their knowledge about the synthetics and the latter using the years of black-market experience to find hidden caches.
It had all come to head when fate had conspired to dump a quarian liveship and a batarians destroyer at the same location of one massive geth dreadnought. Wielding enough firepower to put down the
Destiny Ascension and still have enough left to wipe the floor with anyone else; both sides had quickly brought the bulk of their fleets to “secure” the dormant dreadnought. The prospect of another galactic war had frightened the galaxy and hence “Shepard the Negotiator” had been dispatched to solve the problem.
To be honest, it was to be Shepard’s last assignment. The hunt for Saren, the Collector base and the Reaper war had all taken their toll on his mind, body and soul. His implants were behaving erratically and sometimes he was wracked with headaches at the most random of moment. The doctor had recommended that he take an extended leave at the minimum. The galaxy begged to differ.
But that was moot as the batarian and quarian fleets moved to firing positions, as the combatants began trading fire with each other. All of them fighting over this damned dreadnought, their leaders willing to kill or sacrifice their own in order to gain their prized possession, willing to go to any lengths to secure their prize…
“Their prize…”Shepard whispered to himself, as Ashley plucked an inferno grenade from her bandolier and hurled it into an approaching squad of batarian soldiers. Their screams pierced the gloomy atmosphere of the dreadnought, as the flames burned through their armour and melted their flesh.
“We’re clear, Skip.” Ashley reported, as she ducked back down, “About twenty metres to the airlock, I’ll get Joker to bring the Normandy around...”
“Ok you take the
Normandy and then bring the Fifth fleet” Shepard replied, as he pulled himself to his feet. For a second he was taken aback as he saw charred batarian corpses and quarians with suit punctures. It never ceased to amaze him, how deadly Ashley was in combat.
“Screw that, Skipper” Ashley, as she rose up beside him, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Hours spent on the battlefield together, stolen moments of privacy, memories of romantic passion had conspired to tell Ashley what Shepard was exactly planning.
“I need you to make sure that the
Normandy gets clear and…”Shepard tried to continue, before being cut off by Ashley
“That worked once,” Ashley snapped back at him “Not this time. I’m hanging onto your crippled ass”
A pregnant pause came between them, as Shepard stared into her eyes, trying to intimidate her. What he saw…humbled him. Defiance, love, fear and ardour stared back at him and impulsively Ashley grabbed his face and pulled him into a desperate kiss. For a moment the dreadnought filled with murderous quarians and fanatic batarians faded away, the muffled explosions and roars of gunfire giving way to their private moment.
“Crippled ass?” Shepard finally asked when the pair gently came apart.
“You should see yourself run” Ashley quipped, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth “I’ve seen turkey’s with better grace”
“I love you Ash”
“Don’t I know it”
Modifié par survivor_686, 01 août 2012 - 12:38 .
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