John comes to his mother's rescue

Nyxeris stared at her arm, eyes wide with open fascination. It was strange to see that look on her face. She’d really just tried to kill me. If Samara and Ashley hadn’t been here, my head would have been smeared on the wall somewhere.

I gasped. God, I needed to slow my breathing.

It was stupid of me to go about doing dangerous things without undergoing any sort of training. I mean, I could hack pretty well and I knew my way around a firearm, but I’d never actually been in a life-and-**** situation before today. It’d been scary, but also exhilarating. I don’t think my heart had ever beaten so fast in my life. Was this what Jane had gone through all those years in the Alliance and when she was hunting Saren?

John Shepard’s ****

Gold lettering from the pen had embedded itself in her Nyxeris’ skin, marring her like a brand. It was strange to consider how much the words I’d written on her skin would change about her. I’d never been powerful or wealthy. Mom and Jane were used to giving orders, but I never joined the military. I usually just kept to myself for the most part, buried in my books, technical manuals, or an Asari’s bosom. I never dreamed I’d be given such a monumental task. Jane was supposed to be the responsible one.

Nyxeris’ eyes which had just looked upon me with open hostility, fear, and desperation turned to look at me again. I recognized the devotion within them. I’d seen something similar in Samara and Ashley’s eyes. The pen pulsed warmly from within my armor’s storage compartment, as if to reassure me.

“Master. Oh Goddess… what have I done?” she whispered. Her eyes teared up. It looked like she wanted to cry, but was holding herself back. Ashley stood behind her, rifle at the ready just in case. Her brown eyes were firm, but I caught a flicker of concern within them. They flicked upward to look at me. She looked my body up and down, eyes narrowed as if checking me for wounds.

Samara stood next to me to my right. She still held Nyxeris suspended in the air in front of me in a cocoon of biotic energy, not a hint of strain or complaint on her face.

Liara occupied my left. She stared impassively at the woman who’d once been her assistant. The betrayal had to sting, but there was no hint of anything of the sort in her expression.

I put a finger under Nyxeris’ chin and tilted her head upward. She shuddered at my touch, but didn’t resist.

“What are you?”

“I-I’m your ****, Master. I’m your willing, obedient **** who will do absolutely anything you order me to do. Thank you for not killing me. Goddess, I thought for sure I was going to die,” she said. Her eyes widened. “Shit. Your mother…”

Mom?

“What about my mother?” I narrowed my eyes dangerously.

Nyxeris licked her lips nervously.

“After she visited Liara, I had her followed by a contract killer on loan to me from the Shadow Broker. The Broker hates your family, Master, so when I told the hitman to deal with your mother, he agreed.”

I grabbed her neck.

“You what?!” I shouted. Rage filled me. I squeezed her soft neck with my armored hand

Nyxeris’ eyes bulged. She didn’t try to resist me or grab at my hands. She just stood there and took my ****, sputtering for air.

“John!” Liara grabbed my arm. Her eyes were wide with concern. “We can’t kill her. We need to know where your mother is. There’s a chance that she might still be alive.”

Ashley nodded.

“She’s right. Your mother’s being guarded by some of the best marines I know. No way they’d let some two-bit hitman hurt her,” she said.

I released Nyxeris. She coughed and gasped. Tears streamed freely from her eyes, but I still saw the same devotion there that I’d seen earlier.

“God, I hope you’re right,” I muttered. “I’m gonna try to call her.”

I opened my omni-tool and brought up my mother’s contact information. I touched the call button. The screen winked for a few seconds, then a notification popped up.

RECEIVER NOT CONNECTED TO NETWORK

“Shit,” I muttered.

“What is it?” Ashley asked.

“My call isn’t getting through,” I replied. I glared at Nyxeris. “Where’s my mother? Who’d you send after her?”

Nyxeris swallowed audibly. She met my gaze feebly.

“The hitman’s a Turian with the codename Tetra. I don’t know much more about him other than the fact that he’s a contract killer and this is far from his first job. The last I checked they were in the Talerius District, near the market square. Take my skycar. It’s one of the fastest on the market. Startup code is 76341. Please hurry, Master. I’m so sorry…”

I was already moving. The security door opened in front of me. I glanced back to see Nyxeris on the floor typing commands into her omni-tool. Useful. If Mom doesn’t end up getting killed…

I shook my head. It wasn’t worth thinking about.

Liara, Samara, and Ashley rushed to follow me.

We made it out into the courtyard. The civilians were milling about as if there hadn’t just been a firefight in the building next to them.

“That’s the skycar. There,” Liara moved ahead of me, towards a purple skycar with a white strip down the middle. The sleek, oval-shaped vehicle certainly looked fast.

Liara was already typing away her omni-tool. The car opened. She hopped into the driver’s seat and the car began hovering inches off the ground. The engine made a low humming sound like a metallic insect.

“Come on!”

I hopped in the front passenger seat, Ashley and Samara jumping into the rear. The top of the car closed over us and then we were moving.

“You know where you’re going?” I said.

“Yes,” Liara replied as manipulated the glowing orange holographic controls. “The Talerius district isn’t far. We should be there in less than five minutes.”

“Good. I can’t wait to kill whoever it was that bitch sent after Admiral Shepard,” Ashley said. She fiddled with her **** rifle. It let out a low-pitched whine.

“Anyone who threatens my Master’s family deserves to meet the embrace of the Goddess,” Samara backed her up, blue eyes narrowed with certainty. The two women exchanged a respectful nod.

I glanced back at them. My two women were so beautiful and deadly. Their gazes met mine almost immediately. The sheer deference within them sent a tingle down my spine.

“You two ready?”

“Yes sir.”

“Yes Master.”

Despite the situation, I couldn’t help but smile at them. They were so incredible. They’d just saved my life and already they were willing to throw themselves back into the fray for me.

“What about you, Liara?” I glanced at the Asari in the driver’s seat. She weaved the car between buildings and ducked in-and-out of air traffic. Car horns blared like angry bird calls as we moved faster, the sapphire lights of Illium stretching into a blur.

We rounded a corner of a massive blue skyscraper and began descending. I caught flashes of blue and white light in what looked like a gathering of street vendor booths.

“I am ready, John,” she said, her voice firm. Her skin glowed with dark blue biotic energy. We landed behind two Turians wielding **** rifles. They were using one of the vendor booths as cover, firing down on unseen combatants.. The body of an Asari lay at their feet, eyes blank with blue blood pooling around her.

The monsters apparently didn’t care if innocent civilians died.

The Turians aimed their weapons at us. I unholstered my pistol. The M-11 let out a low growl as its mass accelerator came online.

“Those two are definitely hostile. I’m gonna hack them and try to overheat their rifles. When that happens, I want all three of you to go and take care of them. Then make sure my mother’s safe.”

“Got it,” Ashley said. “But what about you, sir? One of us should stay with you to keep you safe.”

“I’ll be fine,” I replied. “Just get my mother out of this alive.”

“Yes sir,” Ashley’s lips twisted into a grimace.

One of the Turians signaled to the other with a three-fingered hand.

They opened fire. The ends of their guns flashed blue as mass accelerator rounds flew at us at beyond-hypersonic speeds. Blue kinetic barriers flared along the surface of Nyxeris’ skycar.

“Bastards! Let’s see how you like this,” I opened my omni-tool and primed a sabotage program I’d been working on for a while now. I found the two Turians connected to the local extranet hub and sent the program away.

The Turians let out a surprised cry as their guns overheated suddenly, black smoke billowing from their rifles.

The top of the skycar opened.

Caught on the backfoot, the Turians were ill-prepared when Samara launched herself out of the skycar and blasted them with a field of biotic energy, sending them flying. They smashed into the vendor booth they’d been using as cover, toppling it over itself.

Ashley and Liara followed Samara, Ashley wielding her rifle and Liara a pistol. Without hesitation, they aimed their weapons at the still-moving Turians and unloaded into them, silencing them forever.

“Damn,” I muttered, mesmerized.

The two Turians we’d taken care of seemed to be part of a larger group. They’d taken cover throughout the market square and were raining down fire on figures in the middle of the square. I focused my gaze there and caught the telltale flash of Alliance blue-white armor.

The marines. They’d been following my mother when then the hitman and his henchmen attacked. If they were alive, then there was a good chance my mother was, too.

My women seemed to realize this as well.

Liara and Ashley had served on the Normandy together. The two worked like a well-oiled machine as they dispatched the men attacking my mother’s entourage. Liara would lift them from behind cover with her biotics, leaving them sitting ducks for Ashley’s **** rifle.

Samara fought alone, flashing between enemy cover spots in a blue blur of biotics before tearing into them with her raw power. There were scattered cries from the henchmen as they turned away from the marines to focus on her, which only left them open to the crossfire from the marines and Liara and Ashley.

Within minutes, the market square had gone silent.

My omni-tool crackled to life.

“All hostiles eliminated,” Ashley’s voice came in clear through the device. “The marine contingent wasn’t able to get any calls off. It looks like whoever was trying to kill them was jamming local communications so they couldn’t call in for backup.”

“What about my mother? Is she all right?” I said, unable to keep the urgency out of my voice.

“I’m fine, John,” my mother’s cool, authoritative voice joined the voicecall. “You have a lot of explaining to do, young man.”

I didn’t think I’d ever been so happy at the promise of a lecture.

“Where are you?” Hannah Shepard continued.

I sighed.

“I’m just outside the market square, by a skycar.”

“Stay there, then. There might be a straggler or two waiting around for an opening,” she ordered.

I nodded.

“Okay, I’ll-”

“John Shepard. How interesting to see you here,” a cold, flanged voice spoke from behind me.

I turned.

A tall Turian with black paint on his faceplate stared at me from behind the optical sight of a rifle. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

“Who’s that?” Mom’s voice crackled guardedly over my omni-tool.

The Turian manifested his own omni-tool. It glowed blue.

“The one with a gun aimed at your son’s head. His kinetic barriers’ll fail before he even has a chance to return fire against me, so if you want him to live I suggest you do whatever I say,” the Turian said. “If I see any of the Asari who helped kill my men, he dies.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the call.

“What do you want?” my mother said.

The Turian smiled.

“It’s simple. I’m not interested in killing your son. You, on the other hand… Come alone to the East side of the market square. If I see anyone with you, your son dies. Try to radio for backup and your son dies. If I even see anything that looks vaguely like a biotic attack, your son dies. Am I understood, human?”

“You are. I’m on my way. Please. Please, don’t hurt my son,” Mom said. The naked desperation in her last sentence was like a knife to the heart.

The Turian’s smile widened and I found myself hating him. I wanted this man dead. I clenched my hand around my pistol. A crazy plan began to form in my mind.

“Don’t even think about it, child.”

I glared at him.

“Too late.”

I triggered a quick command on my omni-tool.

The overload program I’d installed was second-rate at best, and would be useless against most top-of-the-line firewalls. Thankfully, the Turian hadn’t kept his suit’s software up-to-date.

He screamed as his suit’s power relays burst like a punctured fire extinguisher, sending bolts of electricity crackling throughout his suit, frying his haptic interface and kinetic barriers.

I raised my pistol.

The Turian fired his rifle. Hypervelocity rounds smashed into my hardsuit’s kinetic barriers, nearly staggering me with the **** of their impacts.

I squeezed the trigger. A single round from my pistol hit the Turian in his right eye, bursting it in a shower of blue blood before exiting the back of his head. He gurgled. His remaining eye flickered with momentary surprise before he fell backwards, dead.

I stared at his lifeless body for what seemed like an eternity.

Someone called my name.

A red-haired woman stepped in front of me. She looked so much like Jane, except older. Her green eyes were wide with concern.

“John. John, answer me!” she grasped my shoulders, jolting me from my reverie.

“Mom?”

She smiled.

“Yes, John. It’s me. We’re all here. It’s okay now. They’re gone.”

It was then I that I noticed my women and Mom's marines were watching me, concerned looks in their gazes, though Ashley looked... proud? She glanced over at the Turian I'd killed before looking at me again and nodding.

A loud metallic siren rang throughout the square. I looked up. Over a dozen skycars descended from above, red lights flickering angrily along their sides.

A voice shouted down at us through a loudspeaker.

“This is the Illium Police Department. Put down your weapons then remain standing with your hands in the air. You are under arrest!”