Quote:  Noveria.

“Faster! Run faster!”

Holding the shotgun in both hands, she runs through the door,
hearing the stomping of metal boots close behind her. Flickering and
chittering sounds surround her, glowing eyes under the faceplate
seeing the hint of motion before they drop in front of her.
Chittering, hissing with acid fangs, they stand on eight outstretched
legs to pounce.

Screaming, she swings the shotgun and fires, blasting one, swinging
the barrel into another as it leaps, sending the crittery crawly
thing flying and splattering into a wall. She turns, running
backwards as the roaring thing rears up on four legs, swinging out
its toothed dagger things of tentacles, hissing at her as it chases
with several of its friends.

A hand grabs the back of her hood and pulls her in, dropping to the
cold metal floor as the cock of the shotgun is followed with a blast,
and the door closes in front of the headless thing which was once one
of the monsters of this doomed lab.

“Gotcha,” Kal'Reegar says, extending a hand, “You okay,
Ma'am?”

Tali takes his hand, letting him help her up. Which is when five
more of the crawly small things drop around them.

“Spiders! Spiders spiders spiders spiders!!!”

Each scream is punctuated by a blast from her shotgun, five
green puddles surrounding her. The two Quarians suck in breath,
leaning against each other.

“I hate spiders,” she says, “Especially evil homicidal
spiders.”

“Yeah,” Kal responds, “You and me both, Ma'am. Get the
elevator, I'll see if I can check in with Shepard.”

It's no secret that Tali'Zorah nar Rayya vas somethingsomething
hates elevators. It is no secret that she hates spiders.

So, the scream she lets off is to no one's surprise when the door
opens, and the elevator is revealed to be filled with Rachni.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Quote:  “We just killed a Reaper.”

Garrus' mandibles twitch as he says those words. Next to him,
Kaidan Alenko nods, rolling his neck.

“Hells yes.”

Next to Kaidan, Ash Williams sways back and forth on her heels, and
claps her hands together.

“Few more and we're done.”

The three stand outside the main airlock. Purple light from Widow
filters through the artificial atmosphere and UV screens surrounding
the dock, peaking through the arms of the Citadel. Not five minutes
after docking, a human admiral with a stick up his ass that would
make a turian proud appeared and demanded to make an inspection.

“What do you think?” Ash asks, “Think he'll snap at the Krogan
squatting in the shuttle bay, or the two dozen quarian marines doing
chinups in engineering?”

“I'm going to guess,” Kaidan says, tilting his head, “The
drell with the weird plastic surgery. And the other drell following
him around.”

Garrus twitches his mandibles.

“I'm guessing he'll ask where the Mako went off to.”

Kaidan shudders. Ash grins.

“Ten-hut!”

Kaidan and Ash straighten up. Following their cue, even though he
technically outranks them, Garrus does as well. Boots on metal, and
walking down the walkway comes someone in the uniform blues of an
alliance officer.

Red hair cut to above her shoulder, some gray in it. Green eyes,
crows feet faint and smile lines at the corners of her mouth. Her
face, otherwise, is the same as her daughter's. Strong, classy, an
almost ever present smirk pulling at the right side of her lips.

If David Anderson were made the first human Spectre, it was more or
less accepted that Hannah Shepard would be the captain of the ship
that would take him from world to world. The years have been kind to
her. As loose as her blues are, she doesn't have the paunch, doesn't
have sag a woman her age would be entitled to. This, at least, is
what Garrus muses. But he knows Chloe and Jane would kill him for
continuing this line of thought.

For different reasons.

“At ease,” she says, the three relaxing, “Alenko. Williams.
Where's the CO?”

“Rear Admiral Mikhailovich has requested an inspection tour of the
Normandy, Ma'am!” Ash responds, “Commander Shepard is escorting
him.”

Hannah nods, fixing the cap on her head.

“...quarians? What is a company of quarian marines doing onboard
the Normandy?”

The airlock opens. The unshaven, dress uniformed man locks eyes
with newest arrival. Rolling her eyes, Jane Shepard clicks her heels
and salutes her mother.

“Admiral,” Hannar says, saluting, “Sorry to interrupt. Orders
from brass. I need the Commander, now.”

Admiral Peter Mikhailovich salutes, and nods.

“Understood. As you were.”

And he walks off, muttering. Shoulders slumping, Jane shakes her
head, nodding to her officers and VIP, before turning back to Hannah.
And spotting the gold pips on her collar.

“Captain pips?”

“Farragut's being promoted upstairs,” Hannah responds, “I'm
now the CO of the SSV Kilimanjaro. And on order of Admiral Hackett
and Ambassador Udina, your ride until the Normandy's patched up.”

blackaeronaut Wrote:*Reads GL's new fic on ff.net*

*Dissolves into hysterical screaming laughter. Multiple times.*

omg... omFg... Gregg... this one takes the cake.

Want MORE!!!

Quote:"I...well, I don't know how to say it. I just find you fascinating."

Necratoid Wrote:I'll second that on the whole shorter cut scenes thing... some of them are just inexplicable as their is no internal indication of who it involves.  There is an one line cuts that I think are Katsumi/John ones, but could be someone else entirely...

Quote:"I...well, I don't know how to say it. I just find you fascinating."

Its particularly weird and off... though you leave lots of random lines that I had to stop and wonder who said that.
On a side note... I'm pretty sure that shreddering a painting and reassembling it with nanotech should invalidate its value.  Though that could just be value dissidence on my part.

Matrix Dragon Wrote:I've been meaning to mention, the solution to the ME2 treason trial is quite clever. I was wondering how you'd stop it from happening. Having Shepard openly arrange to supply the Quarians with captured Geth equipment means that the project actually makes much more sense.

Matrix Dragon Wrote:So, instead of another warrior, it looks like Kova found a civilian. That's actually rather awesome.

OpMegs Wrote:So, my notes upon marathoning the FF.net bits of this:

- The Reapers self-identifying like Yozi was a stroke of genius. If anything ever lived up to their "Each of us is a nation" line and Legion's description of Nazara, it's the multi-soul structure of the Primordials. The fact that their names are as incredibly elaborate as the Yozi also amuses me. Though I find it interesting that Harbinger is apparently a Singular compared to the Many that form Sovereign.

Quote:AN:  Yeah, I basically decided that they're either primordials or really high level alchemicals, but more Primordials.  Also, bold text them.  First and Perfect Sovereign of Nazara, Resplendent Harbinger of Ascension, Jaded Gatemaker of Ages, Ageless Waking Undead Adjucator, Pale First Eternal Leviathan, etc.  And yes, the Harbinger thing?  On purpose.

Quote:- Sovereign being taken down is interesting, but I have to wonder if he's dead. The Leviathan of Dis was awake enough to take Kharshan in ME3, and the Reaper corpse in ME2 was still mostly alive until Shepard dropped it in a brown dwarf. And, well, if Harbinger ever needed to build Shepard's personal Nemesis, it'd be likely to incorporate the brain of someone driven half-insane with pain, rage, and humiliation over being broken by tiny flesh-things. A Reaper's bad enough. A *berserker* Reaper that wants nothing more than to KILL YOU DEAD even at the expense of its own existence is even worse.

Quote:Wouldn't it be hilarious if "Sovereign chases Joker progressively in angrier forms" is a recurring gag?

Quote:- The scene with Vigil was well done. It really does highlight that Jane is *tired*, and that she has the perfect chance to just let everyone else do the rest of the job for her. But she doesn't. Because that's not who she is.

Quote:Damn straight.

Quote:- I'm finding myself curious who it is that arranged for Thane's wife to be rescued. Someone else knows about the loop, because TIM isn't exactly one to consider sparing Mrs. Krios a worthwhile objective, while Jane didn't have nearly enough time to set it up. And whoever did it was a trained sniper. We can rule out Garrus, as he's a Spectre here and doesn't seem to recognize anything, which leaves people with rifle expertise.... and the only one I can think of that'd fit would be *Legion*.

Quote:Speaking of Legion, wouldn't it be hilarious if Legion did come back, shared the Upgrades with the rest of the Geth, and using their newfound intelligence the Geth factionalized into thousands and thousands of different factions, and a full half of them ended up following the Reapers this time instead of five percent?

Quote:- Vasir being Garrus' mentor rings some worrying bells, but one wonders if she's more on the up and up these days given that apparently Shadow Broker II: Yahg Boogaloo is instead working as a merc that Shepard's crew just blew up into Yahg kibble.

Quote:Sadly, that was not ManBearPig, aka Operative Klechu, aka Shadowbroker.

Quote:- I do like the amusing implications of Councilor Tevos' internal monologues. She's on good terms with Aria, because Aria is generally more bargainable with than Patriarch. Combine that with Wrex wondering if Aria actually is his old sparring buddy, and some interesting things could play out.

Quote:Aria and Tevos had some wild days.  Much of which is sealed by layers upon layers of encryption, but may have been the basis of one of those Asari Confessions videos.

Quote:- No sight of TIM since he authorized Miranda to blow her dad's head off. I have to admit I'm curious what he's up to, given he knows how badly his plan failed the last time.

Quote:I had a scene where TIM is asking Dr. Archer a) why the Geth attacked Project Overlord, and b) Why the Geth pistol whipped him three times, but that will be in a later chapter.

Quote:- Teenage Tali full of hormones is ridiculously amusing. Her internal monologue branching off at the sight of Kal'reegar is far, far too hilarious. "Cold shower?" "Oh, ancestors, yes."