Chapter 27: chapter 27
It had been close, less than two minutes left on the clock before they managed to leave the labs via the trams leading back to the main Peak 15 facility when the neuron purge went off, must have been some kind of emergency fallback solution of some kind if it didn't need manual input in order to go off, not like it really mattered anyway.
"Made it," Jane panted as she leaned against the side of the tram, "remind me to thank Alenko for the exercise routines when we get back to the ship."
"If we make back in one piece that is." Everyone frowned at this, turning to look at Jackson who was simply pointing a finger out the rear observation port of the tram as everyone turned to see what he was pointing at.
A mountain of snow, ice, building components and fire could be seen barreling towards the lower slopes at a freakishly fast pace (then again Noveria had heavier gravity than Earth) as everyone's eyes were drawn to where the main track supporting the tram was attached to the side of the mountain.
And then to the gaping abyss below the track.
"Well shit," John summed it up eloquently.
A dull roar could be heard now as the tram suddenly tilted, Jason taking it into account as he managed to stay on his feet with a nervous Tali in his arms before a loud screeching could be heard as well.
"The tram just jumped the track!" Jane yelled as said tram tilted dangerously to the side as it began to pick up speed.
Jackson was the first one to reach the command console and get a status report from the computer before it fizzed out of existence.
"No power, no brakes," Jackson glanced around before sighing, "and no seatbelts either, guess we'll be in for one wild ride."
It was a nerve wracking one at that too, somehow the tram avoided failing off the track and plunging into the bottomless abyss several thousand feet below or getting caught in the biggest avalanche Jason had ever seen in his life (which he had the privilege of causing in the first place due to his pyromaniac tendencies) as the somewhat tame ride in comparison to Jane's driving abruptly came to a screeching halt. Turned out the savior of the day was Jane, she managed to crawl her way to the manual emergency braking controls (fancy way of saying a deceptively small lever underneath a panel that said DO NOT OPEN) and apply said emergency brakes before the tram decided to take an express route through said facility.
"Everyone alive?" John asked as he dusted himself and kissed his wife.
"Eeww, could you please not do that?" Jackson whined as he too got to his feet and hauled Liara to her feet, who was a surprising shade of green for an asari that wasn't a clone from a Thorian.
Tali squeaked once she found herself engulfed in a biotic aura, which allowed Jason to carefully lift her off the floor without injuring her any further as Jason got to his feet.
"Made it," Jane huffed as she attempted to pry open the door, the tram had more or less come to a stop in the middle of the boarding platform, "now if I could just get this open."
"Boss Lady," Jackson warned as he cracked his neck, "step aside."
Jackson sized up the door with a critical eye before rearing back with one foot and using the all-powerful front kick of atomic proportions to not only open said door, bit to shatter the toughest glass in the galaxy, stuff that required a rocket launcher to even crack.
"After you." Jackson cheekily stepped aside and with a flourish motioned towards the now gaping exit with his free arm because the other was still holding onto the massive gun, which if Jason guessed correctly, weighed somewhere around six hundred pounds.
"We might need to double time it back to the Normandy," Jane said as she took point, "we got two injured as it is and we still need to coordinate a search effort to make damn sure not one of those things survived."
"Wait, isn't Tali the only one injured?" Jackson asked before Jane simply turned around and pointed at Jason.
"You've got some red on you." She deadpanned.
It was about that time Jason realized that he was also bleeding, left side of his chest and he figured one of his ribs had broken when he was playing landing cushion for Tali after the fact he gotten wacked by a Rachni Warrior a while back.
"Already got medi-gel working on it commander," Jason replied as he kept walking, "it'll heal."
The look he received in reply made him hang his head and sigh, "I'll go straight to Dr. Chakwas once we get onboard."
"That's right," Jackson made a whipping motion with his free hand, "do what Boss Lady says."
"Juggernaut," said individual turned to look at aforementioned Boss Lady, "since you have better ratings with the Mako, you get to drive our wounded back to Port Hanson."
Jackson of course snapped a wicked fast salute, "Yes ma'am Boss Lady ma'am!"
"Good, which means I get to drive the Grizzly…"
XXX
To this day Garrus could still not fathom how someone manages to nearly destroy an actual battle tank when no combat was involved as he joined his levo brother in arms in the act of shedding many tears over the condition of said vehicle once it arrived at the cargo bay.
Curse the day Jane Shepard got her driver's license. Spirits curse it.
XXX
"From what the Commander tells me it could have been far worse than it actually was," Dr. Karin Chakwas did not sound amused as she patted Tali on the shoulder, "it was a clean break and therefore a clean reset, you'll have to wear the brace for two weeks and don't even think about taking it off, even when you're sleeping."
"I am sooorrryy," Tali was of course high on pain medications as it was, "to causssee so muh trouble."
"Nonsense," the elderly door scoffed, "if anything the biggest headache I have to deal with is the one currently adjusting your medication dosage."
Looking up from what he was doing from the tone of her voice, Jason shrugged one shoulder, fighting back the wince as he did because his one broken and three fractured ribs did not like movement in the slightest, "It's causing an infection, so I'm lowering the dose by half now that the operation is over."
Tali giggled as her head turned in his direction, "Ttttthhank you."
With that she suddenly sneezed, coating the inside of her visor with what could only be nasal secretions, "Bosh'tet."
"I cannot prescribe anymore medications that your suit hasn't already administered," Chakwas replied in a motherly tone, "the best I can do is offer someplace quiet to rest."
"Going to take aaggggeees for sute scrubers to clean thisss out," Tali moaned as she shook her head, "uugghhh."
It was then Jason had an idea, "Doctor, with your permission…"
XXX
"So let me get this straight," Joker said as he jerked a thumb towards the airlock, "poor Tali got an infection and is now sleeping it off without her mask on so she doesn't drown in boogers and is doing it inside the decontamination chamber, which goes against so many Alliance regulations while the ship is underway in case you were wondering, is that right?"
"Yes," Jane answered as she gave her smart mouthed pilot a look that clearly said end of discussion before she smiled, "anything else?"
"Yeah," Joker then rotated his thumb around so it was pointing at Jason, who was snuggled in the co-pilot seat, "what's he doing here?"
Here to make sure you don't get tempted to peek at Tali to satisfy your curiosity.
"Seeing as how I cannot have my only medical officer waiting outside of the airlock when she is needed in the med bay, our resident medic has volunteered to be on hand in the event of a medical emergency seeing as how he cannot further aid the ground team in his current condition." Jane was practically beaming positive energy and shit by the time she finished.
"Right, so I get the trigger happy psychopath and a mysterious alien unsuited in the airlock?" Joker asked.
"Well he is more of the explosive kind of psychopath and he has the biotic skill to snap you in half without making too much of a mess," Jane replied as she reached over patted Joker on the head, "play nice."
With that Jane walked away reminding Jason he still had to clean up the kitchen, which was also the second reason why he was out of the med bay as he munched on a fresh baked chocolate chip cookie.
Garrus was still upset the delicious smelling dextro meal Jason had prepared wasn't for him either, though Jason promised to make the dish again because he didn't have the time to do it now.
"So, you blow things up, annihilate things with your biotics, build some pretty awesome guns, apply medical support to the ground team, fight anything that attacks you and yet you can bake the greatest smelling cookies," Joker hummed as he glanced over at Jason, "you officially scare me."
For an answer Jason simply picked up another cookie and ate it, savoring the taste.
"Aren't you the least bit-"
"No."
"Oh come on, it's not like-"
"No."
"I mean what could happen?"
Jason pretended to ponder that question as he finished his cookie before giving Joker a long look.
"You know she is an engineer and a technician right?"
"Yeah everyone knows that."
"So what do you think the first thing she is going to do when she wakes up?"
"I dunno, head to the drive core and work on it?"
"What if she decides to hack into the ship's internal security cameras and learn who was peeping on her while she was sleeping off a really bad infection?"
"Uh…"
"You should also know that she is a savant with not only a hacking program, but also with a drone that can blast through any body armor, kinetic barriers or shield walls right?"
"Well yeah?"
"Don't forget to mention a heavily modified shotgun designed to take down armored targets at close range, including Krogans, Geth, Rachni and the occasional slaver or two."
"Hhhmmm, I see, anything else?"
Knowing that Joker wasn't the least bit intimidated, Jason decided to move in for the kill.
"She is also the one that keeps your ship running properly so you can fly it, because without it, you would be stuck flying boring shuttle missions once a week."
"I NOW NO LONGER FIND MYSELF CURIOUS!" With that, Joker turned back to the controls in front of him and began humming a jaunty tune while tapping a few of the controls at random, suddenly content with flying the ship.
Jason handed him a cookie.
XXX
"WHY ARE THERE NO MORE COOKIES!?" Jackson shouted as he dropped the towel he was using to dry his head and turned to point at Garrus, "YOU TRATIOR!"
"What? I can't even eat levo food." Garrus replied as Jackson frowned, "You forgot didn't you?"
"Oh yeah, well if you didn't eat them, then who did?" Jackson froze as he turned around to see Dr. Chakwas sitting at the table munching on a cookie.
Realizing she was under intense scrutiny, Chakwas simply denied everything, "There was a lot of arm twisting in order for me to even accept this bribe and I have to admit, it is one of the best bribes I've ever had the privilege of being forced to accept."
"Jason bribed you with his cooking so he could get out of the medical bay didn't he?" Jackson asked rhetorically while Chakwas happily devoured her last cookie, "How did I not see this coming?"
"What I want to know is why he cooked both a levo meal and a dextro meal, even though he can't eat dextro," Garrus whined as he held up a dirty bowl and licked off whatever was inside, "oh this is good."
"What is it?" Jackson leaned over to examine it as well.
"I have no idea, but it checked out as entirely dextro edible and it tastes amazing." Garrus replied happily after he took the offered rubber spatula from Jackson so he could get the last few drops out of the bottom of the bowl.
"Since when you your brother cook?" Jane asked as she walked in sharing the last cookie with her husband, "Because I'm thinking about adding kitchen duty to his shipboard duties."
"Agreed," John muttered around the cookie he was devouring, "he'll have to every time he gets injured."
"Seconded," Alenko replied as he popped the last cookie into his mouth and licked his fingers, "damn that was good."
"I have to admit," Liara said as she daintily wipe the remaining cookie crumbs off her lips, "human cuisine always has a way of surprising me."
"Why are you all so cruel?" Jackson cried as Wrex walked in dumping an entire plate of cookies into his mouth, "I didn't get any cookies!"
Heads turned to look at Ashley, who was dipping her second to last cookie into a glass of milk as Jackson felt his left eye twitch.
"What? Milk makes eating cookies a thousand times better, everyone knows that."
It soon became known as the first fight over the last cookie on the Normandy and it wouldn't be the last either.
XXX
She was in heaven.
It was the only way to describe it, here she was lounging away on a seemingly comfortable metal floor (though she figured the meds had something to do with that) inside of a sterile environment with her visor removed so she could breathe in unfiltered air and more importantly, scratch her face!
Granted the tissues she used to wipe her nose every ten minutes felt amazing to her facial nerves, that and she wouldn't have to deal with snot all over face.
That and the meal she had eaten, Tali giggled as she glanced over at the airtight sterilized container sitting on the floor next to her that was now empty, had been the greatest thing that ever happened to her, that and the single most wonderful thing she ever got to eat.
Jason had told her it was the equivalent of something called chic-cyn soup as humans called it and said it would help greatly with her cold.
With that, Tali dozed off dreaming of this new soup and a certain human biotic with a rear end to die for, not that she would ever confess that out loud or else she would die of sheer embarrassment, though she entertained the idea of...
XXX
Jason abruptly stopped what he was doing and mechanically stood up and walked towards the mess hall.
"Hey, where are you going?" Joker asked, even though it came out as "Hmmphghsmmhfrahk," because his mouth was full of stolen cookies.
Jason blinked and rubbed his head, "That was weird, I suddenly felt compelled to strip naked and cover myself in that dextro soup I made earlier."
Both of them stared a look, "Never mention this again?"
Joker smiled, "Only if you have more cookies."
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