Well you play that tarantella, all the hounds will start to roar
The boys all go to hell and then the Cubans hit the floor
They drive along the pipeline, they tango 'til they're sore
They take apart their nightmares and they leave them by the door
-Tom Waits, "Tango 'Til They're Sore"
----------------------------------------
The tether snaps him hard and Donnelly spins, seeing the stars cartwheel overhead. He slams into the white metal hull of the Perugia. Acting on pure instinct, he flails the clamping tool in his hand into the metal below and feels the mechanism bite in. There is a coppery taste of blood in his mouth. Held fast for the moment, he peers through his faceplate in panic. The world is filled with destruction. Debris streaks overhead. Forward of the ship, he sees a huge segmented black limb gesture lazily. A violet beam blazes out from the limb's tip. The cruiser Jakarta is sliced in half by the beam, and he can see the small human forms spilling into the void from here. Ahead of that is a giant black shape out of a nightmare...a glaring red eye that seeks him out...
----------------------------------------
Jack bounces the guard off of the wall like he's a rubber ball. She hears the man groan, and hears the crack of his bones breaking. Jack slings him around against the other wall, and there is more cracking and a final shudder as he dies. She races down the hall, feeling fierce, feeling unstoppable, feeling free. There is another guard in front of her, and just as she's about to punch the sonovabitch into oblivion a shot goes past her shoulder and nails the bastard right in the eye. The guard jerks and flops to the floor like a discarded puppet. She spins, looking for new enemies.
There is a man, tall and powerful, who stands in heavy scarred armor with an 'N7' logo emblazoned on its breast. He is casually holding a pistol with one hand. The man fixes her with eyes the color of tempered steel. Jack hears about a mission, hears that he needs her for a team. She agrees, with certain conditions. As they leave, she turns to look out the viewport and regards the ship they came in. It is a large, sleek craft which bears a hated logo. But it also bears its name proudly along its flank.
NORMANDY.
----------------------------------------
"So here's the situation, Marcus," said Shepard. "Jack is our new recruit for the ground team. I won't sugar-coat it, she's a criminal and a murderer and...let's just say she's anti-social. She wants that small subfloor space in Engineering for her quarters. I'm inclined to let her. I don't want her interacting too much with the crew for a while, until she's had a chance to ah, readjust and settle in. Is that going to be a problem for your team?"
Marcus Donnelly, Chief Engineer for the SR-2 Normandy, had learned a very valuable lesson long ago. When being presented with a frankly stupid idea by your superior officer, it was best to not show a single hint of irritation. He had acquired the fine art of plastering an impassive non-expression on his face and acting as if the idea in question was the most natural thing in the world. Bang two subcritical hunks of plutonium together to keep warm? Sure, give it a go. Have a violent maniac squatting in one of the most vital areas of the ship? Yeah, why not. He knew that Shepard was not dumb, quite the opposite. This must have looked like the best solution to the Commander at the time. And if Donnelly and Shepard had been alone, he would have tried to explain in greater detail why it was a bad idea. But unfortunately they weren't alone. Why this briefing was taking place in Miranda Lawson's office he couldn't guess. He would have preferred talking one-on-one with Shepard because he would feel freer to plead his case. And also because the Cerberus officer's icy blue gaze gave him the creeps.
"Well, Shepard," he said, "It may not work. We still have to have access to the area. I mean, it's not storage space. It's meant to be used. We'll need to get in there every so often to do maintenance checks, at the very least."
"How often?" asked Miranda. She had her usual little superior smirk plastered on her face.
Donnelly quashed a little flare of anger. "At least every three or four days, to make sure our PM is kept proper."
"I'll have a talk with her," said Shepard. "I'm sure she'll be accommodating."
The Commander's lips twitched into a slight grin. "Don't worry, Marcus, she's not completely feral. Just don't barge in on her without knocking. When we de-iced her on Purgatory, I saw her rip apart three YMIR mechs without even slowing down."
"Understood, Shepard."
----------------------------------------
The subfloor space was accessed by stairs. There were no doors. Standing at the top of those stairs, Donnelly realized there really wasn't a place to actually knock. "Heading down," he called out, and clumped down the steps trying to make as much noise as possible. He thought, wryly, that it was the same strategy as when dealing with grizzly bears. He thought back on Shepard's warning. YMIR mechs weighed at least half a ton each. He wondered what kind of a physical freak was Jack, to do such damage. He envisioned a wall of muscle and scars, with broken teeth and mismatched eyes like the mercenary Zaeed.
There was a soft grunt from below. Crap, had he woken her up? He reached the bottom and crossed into the red-lit, cramped space.
He settled eyes for the first time on Jack.
She was curled up on an inflatable mattress, facing the wall. Her petite frame couldn't have been more unlike his mental image. He stared in confusion at her bare and narrow back, which was covered with a crazy-quilt array of tattoos. This wee thing was Jack?
Jack turned over, and by the time she looked at him Donnelly had his impassive 'Chief Engineer' face back on. Her face was gorgeous, there was no other word for it. She had dark almond eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. Even her shaved scalp seemed designed to show off the perfect shape of her skull. The outer edges of her ears were encased in some kind of odd earring. She sneered at him, throwing off her face's proportions.
"You got five fucking seconds to explain yourself, assface," she said. Her voice was hoarse, as if she'd been recently shouting.
"Sorry to wake you, ma'am," he said.
"Oh, Maaaaam is it?" she drawled. "You think you're some kinda fucking gentleman?"
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"No, I'm a Chief Engineer Donnelly. That's even better."
"Yeah, whatever. I think you look more like an assface, Assface."
Donnelly shrugged. "We need to do maintenance in here every so often," he said. "I think Shepard might have mentioned it?"
"Yeah, the fucking Boy Scout told me." She swung her legs around gracefully to sit on the edge of her bed. She was wearing black combat boots and the baggy pants of a prison uniform. The pants were lashed to her hips with a belt much too big for her. Her stomach was slim and lined with wiry muscle, and also covered with more tattoos. She had taken a few more belts and made some kind of halter or bra that barely covered her nipples while leaving much of her breasts exposed. It was somehow more erotic than no clothing at all, and Donnelly suspected that was Jack's intent.
"So, Assface, do you really need to come in here? Or is this just an excuse to get an eyeful?"
Donnelly pointed behind her. "Right behind your bed is one of the main power cables to life support. If that breaks, we all get to die cold and in the dark." He gestured overhead. "Up here are the port and starboard plasma conduits. They feed energy to the drive core and contain ionized gas at about fifteen thousand degrees Celsius. We need to make sure that there's no abnormal wear in the conduits, or they'll break and you get to try breathing superheated plasma. I don't think that will work out so well."
Jack's eyes narrowed. "You makin' fun of me, Assface? Do you know who I am?" There was a blue glow around her head as she spoke.
"Yes, ma'am, I do know who you are. I can assure you that superheated plasma does not know who you are, nor does it care."
She stood, staring daggers at him. The blue glow spread around her, encasing her in a swirling aura. Donnelly had seen some biotics in action during his previous service, but he had never seen someone able to manifest a field like this. Which, in turn, explained how such a wee thing could take out three YMIRs. He kept his face impassive as she stepped closer and glared up at him. He caught a faint whiff of ozone. Jack's head barely came to his chin, and he probably outweighed her by fifty kilos. He knew, however, that she could flatten him without effort. They stood like that for thirty seconds. Then Jack snorted, stepped back, and looked him up and down. "Is that your engineer outfit?" she asked. "Plain blue coveralls? Everybody else on this fuckin' ship has the Cerberus logo plastered on their ass. Why aren't you wearing one of their uniforms?"
"I don't like them, ma'am"
"The uniform or Cerberus?"
"Both."
She stepped closer again. The blue glow died a little, but her eyes were still hard. "Well then, What. The. Fuck. are you doing on this ship, Assface?"
"I'm here because Shepard is here."
"Oh, great, another wannabe hero panting after the goddamn Boy Scout." Her blue aura winked out. She slapped him in the chest with the back of her hand. He felt the strength in that slap, even without any biotic enhancement. "Go do your fuckin' chores or whatever. But you see this area?" Jack pointed at the section of flooring around her mattress. "This is my territory, Assface. You can come down here to do your fucking job, but only you. Nobody else, none of your fucking minions. Do not step on this part of the floor. Do not touch my stuff. Do not speak to me. Or I will crush your balls into nothing. Got it?"
Donnelly just nodded. His face never changed. He pulled out his scanning tools and got to work. Jack turned away and regarded her bed. There was a few OSDs and a datapad scattered on the mattress, along with a few nutrient bars. That seemed to be the extent of Jack's worldly possessions. He saw her head drop a little.
"Er, am I going to have to move this? You said something about a main power cable?" Her voice sounded tired and a little embarrassed, probably because she was already violating the 'do not speak to me' rule. Donnelly looked over at her. Underneath the welter of tattoos on her back were two long, meandering scars that ran up just along either side of her spine.
"It's fine where it is," he said. "I can do continuity checks on either side, and we'll only need to move it if there's something out of spec."
"Okay." She didn't speak again. Donnelly moved with quiet efficiency, opening a few access points here and there to check on things. He then ran his fingers over a patched-over section of piping they'd welded in a little while ago. It only took a few minutes, and when he was done Donnelly nodded to Jack and tramped back up the stairs.
----------------------------------------
Donnelly blew out a great breath of air in the elevator. He hadn't been scared, exactly. Fear of lesser things such as his own death had been burned out of him during one very bad day about two years ago. However, meeting Jack had certainly been interesting. Her question lingered in his head. Why was he on this ship? He had a good reason, but was it good enough?
He supposed he could have asked Jack the same question, if he didn't mind spending the rest of his life as a eunuch. She was clearly pissed off at Cerberus. And yet here she was on a Cerberus frigate. He was sure that Shepard had done his usual 'Shepard-thing' with her, promising sunshine and rainbows and then somehow actually delivering on his promises. Or at least making you think that he had.
At least his maintenance schedule wouldn't be affected. He put the whole mess out of his mind and walked out of the elevator towards his quarters.
"Hey, Chiefy," said a raspy voice behind him.
"Hi Zaeed," he replied. He turned and gave the hulking mercenary a half-smile. Zaeed might be bit of a blowhard, but he was up front about himself and a very simple man to read. Donnelly liked that.
"You meet the new recruit?" asked Zaeed.
"Yeah, just now."
"Well, you're not walkin' funny so I guess it went well, eh?" Zaeed gave a gravelly chuckle. "Just step lightly around 'er. I know she's going to be in your baliwick for a while. The goddamn kid's like a handful of nitro."
"So I've heard. You were on the team in Purgatory, right?"
"Yeah." Zaeed scratched at one ear. "Purgatory was a bad place, right? Full of hard cases. The worst of the worst. And they were all shittin' themselves, every man of 'em, when we mentioned Jack. And then it all went down the khazi, so we let 'er out." He shook his head. "I know a good swath o' destruction when I see it, right? She made it look easy." Zaeed squinted at Donnelly with his mismatched eyes. "Just don't get yourself splatted, okay Chiefy? I'd have to find a new drinkin' buddy. Speakin' of which, are you off shift now?"
Donnelly laughed and nodded.
----------------------------------------
Jack lay on her stomach, kicking one foot absently against the wall. She scanned through an OSD with her datapad, pausing to make notes here and there. She was using the back of some printouts she'd 'appropriated' along with a pen for her note-taking; Jack didn't trust the ship's AI one bit. EDI sounded nice and pleasant, but that was just like Cerberus. They were good at sounding all understanding and comforting, and then they were even better at shivving someone at the soonest opportunity.
The files she'd gotten from Shepard were extensive but also fragmented, as if they had been heavily edited. She was sure the fucking cheerleader had something to do with that. Miranda might be beautiful, but she looked like a tool wearing that stupid catsuit festooned with the Cerberus logo. From the first, the Cerberus officer had looked at Jack as if she was beneath contempt.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time that Jack had been underestimated. She knew she could tease something out of this information. It would just be a matter of time. She would figure it all out, as long as she wasn't interrupted too much. Especially by that jackoff engineer. He seemed like a real wierdo. Big guy with a face like a used catcher's mitt. He didn't wear a Cerberus logo, which was a plus, but he was also way too willing to follow Shepard. She didn't trust the Commander yet. Shepard seemed like too much of a hero. And Jack knew that heroes always died in the end, along with anybody following them.
It was a little strange, though, how the engineer hadn't been scared of her. Even in the middle of her little dominance display, she had been looking right in his eyes and there had been no fear in him. She shrugged to herself. Maybe he was just too stupid to be afraid.