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Hallowed Truth	By : Spiritwolf71 Category: +M through R > Mass Effect Views: 3767 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Mass Effect and its world is owned by Bioware, I make no profit from this tale.

Chapter List
- 5
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- 7
Sam sat in the vehicle and watched as Alana paced back and forth in front of it. She knew the woman had no biotics but she could imagine that if she had they would likely be flaring about her body. She could not help but feel worried. The only thing she truly knew about this woman was that she was a killer. Even if she had not killed the Prime Minister she had already admitted that she was an assassin. Sam could only wonder how many people she had perished because of her.
Sam had been in the Alliance for a very long time and she had never killed anyone. Granted, during the war she had been aboard a ship and Shepard had refused to take the young woman on any mission. She was a communications specialist. A shadow broker in her own right, and she was very good at her job. She knew given the right circumstances she could help this woman, if she was not lying, she just needed the proper equipment.
She was scared, not that she was good at showing it. It was her mouth that had a tendency to run during fight or flight, not her legs and now she was stuck. She knew she was stuck, there was obviously something afoot, the Prime Minister was dead and the woman pacing before her was declared dead by the government. She had gotten herself into quite the pickle and she wondered if she would get out of it alive.
There was nowhere for her to go. If she turned herself in she was more than certain whoever declared Alana dead would make sure that she could not tell anyone the Marine was more than alive. Whoever was behind this ploy had been at her home so it was even unsafe to go there. Her office would be watched as well and that’s where her best equipment was.
They needed a place to lay low and plan their next move. They were lucky that most of the usual surveillance equipment had yet to be repaired since the war. Several satellites had been destroyed and only few had been replaced. It was hard to set up any kind of communication system with all the debris floating out in space and often falling to the Earth. Most of the more deadly debris had been removed quickly after the war, but there were still several smaller pieces of debris floating into the atmosphere often giving the night sky a pretty show.
The satellites that were out had to be specially enhanced with shield to avoid destruction by the debris and sometimes that was not even enough. They were constantly being replaced. Before the war one could not walk the streets without being detected. A hunt for a single woman would have been over almost as soon as it started.
Sam knew this all too well since she and her crew had originally been responsible for bringing the networks back on line. That was, until they decided to build another Normandy. For the last six months she had been working on a communications system for the new ship, called Vigil. They had wanted a communications system that would be close to par with the Shadow Brokers.
She had to laugh at that. She knew who the Shadow Broker was. They had tried to hide it from everyone on the crew but Sam was wiser than that. It had only taken her a week to figure out Shepard’s lover had that role, not that she would tell anyone. Her time aboard the Normandy was sacred and she would never forget it. She had never been a part of something so tight. Sometimes she longed to be a part of it again. She longed that things had ended differently and that Shepard and Anderson had survived. And often in her longing day dream, the Spectre had dumped the Shadow Broker and taken her as her lover.
One could not help but love Shepard; she was as beautiful inside as she was outside. She was not one to talk a lot, except for when she would wind herself up into a motivating speech, but most just followed her example. She was stalwart and never wavered from her goal. Sam had never seen so much determination in one person before. The woman just kept going no matter what hits she took.
The Spectre was caring and loving and cared about every member of her crew. She was loyal to almost a fault. As much as Sam had wanted the woman at one point she had realized that no one would ever truly have her. Not even Liara, who Shepard loved. Shepard was one of those people that would never stop. Where there was need, she would be there. Not even the beautiful Asari would be able to stand in the way of that.
Sam looked up again to Alana who was now simply staring off into the distance. She didn’t know if this woman had been lying to her or not, but if she had not, Sam could not help but feel sorry for her.
Her entire life’s history had been played out on the vid screens over the last couple of days, her years on Mindoir with her Mother and Uncle. Then the Batarians struck and she disappeared for seven years, only to be rescued by Cerberus. A lot of the reporters were already marking her as a Cerberus spy. That she was working for the enemy. That Sam did not believe this. Cerberus would never have let someone blow up one of their biggest laboratories just to have them become a Marine in the Alliance.
She knew Cerberus was big with the sleeper agents, and she knew there were several of them still out there; again she didn’t think Alana was one of them. She really did not know what to think of the woman and that scared her. She didn’t know if the woman would kill her. She said she didn’t want to but Sam had not pushed any buttons. It was actually not in her best interest not to go along with Alana for now.
Suddenly Lanie looked up into the air and then ran back to the vehicle and jumped in. “Fuck me,” She said simply. That was another thing, Sam had never heard a person swear so much, but then Sam could only imagine the environment in which the woman had spent the impressionable portion of her growing years. Swearing was probably a way of speaking in slave terms, just normal words to them.
Sam turned to where Sam had been looking to see two Alliance shuttle crafts coming directly towards them. The Marine had the hover craft up and in the air quickly but the shuttles had closed in. “Put your seat belt on,” Lanie ordered. Sam complied but found it funny that the woman would be concerned with her health. She had already said she was a survivalist, which meant she was only really concerned with her own safety.
“They are going to kill us,” Sam said as more of a statement than a question.
“No, they are going to kill you, Princess, I am already dead,” Lanie said, Sam made a face, she was not sure if she really liked being called Princess or not, however she did put on her seatbelt as Lanie moved the craft faster than she had even seen one moved before. She wanted to say she felt out of control but one look and Lanie and she knew the woman knew what she was doing.
“You know I never drove until I was twenty two,” Lanie said the vehicle sped to the high-rises in the city.
“Wh-what?” Sam asked and looked back; the shuttles were trying to flank them.
“Twenty two, yeah, they made us drive in basic training. I loved it.” Lanie smiled and Sam had no idea if she was joking or not. She paused as she looked back; the shuttles were almost in position. “My instructors said I was a little bit chaotic though.”
Before Sam even had a chance to ask what she meant by that the hover craft seemed to almost slam to a halt and shot down and to the left. Sam couldn’t help herself as a scream flew from her lips. Lanie smiled.
“You’re going to kill us aren’t you?” Sam asked. Lanie answered with a smile. Sam looked back as the shuttles were trying to avoid one another.
“The nice thing is a shuttle you pilot, a hover car you drive,” Lanie explained. “We are much more maneuverable.”
She was crazy, Sam decided that now. The woman was heading right into the financial district of Vancouver where traffic would be heavy. She was going to play cat and mouse with the shuttles that would not be able to move in the traffic at all. The only question was, were they willing to play, because Sam could tell Lanie certainly was.
Most large cities like Vancouver had several driving lanes in the business, financial district, three tiers of six lanes, three lanes going either way. The upper tier was for people who lived outside of the city, an express lane with no leaving it until you reached the outskirts into the Greater Vancouver area. The second tier was for those that lived in the suburbs and the lowest tier, which was always the busiest, was the downtown core. It was mostly filled with the bigger delivery vehicles. It was slow moving traffic all the time.
If one was rich enough to have a ground vehicle, there were still roads on which to drive.
Sam watched in horror as she realized that was exactly where Lanie was heading. She wanted to play cat and mouse with the shuttles. Which, admittedly, would work in their favour, but they could really hurt themselves, or someone else. Obviously, the Alliance personal realized it as well and opened fire.
“Shit,” Lanie pulled up hard to the point where they were going straight up and the bullets moved by them. “They need to build these things with rocket launchers,” Lanie commented.
“Most families do not have need for such things, sorry to say,” Sam said, her mouth opening and spewing words before she could stop them. “Rush hour is usually not a war zone.”
“You sit in that every day and you never feel like you want to blow someone up for being a rude driver?” Lanie commented as she made another sharp turn. Sam swore that she could not take much more, her stomach was already upset.
“Well, yeah, I have but,”
There was a sudden explosion and the vehicle dipped down on her side and the suddenly started going down. “We’re hit,” Lanie shouted.
“Really,” Sam retorted sarcastically, “Think I figured that one out.”
Sam watched in horror as the ground was coming up to meet them rather quickly. Lanie pulled up as hard as could before it smashed into the side walk and about twenty commuters. She limped the vehicle away from the main part of the roads. She held it together long enough to get to a park and then she tried to land it.
The vehicles power gave way as they were still ten feet in the air and they dropped, the vehicle filling with smoke. Sam looked back to see the shuttles still tailing them.
“This is not a good spot,” She said to Alana.
“No shit, get out,” She said dragging Sam behind her. She took a second to grab her gear and pushed the Comm Specialist towards the tree. “I saw a school, maybe they won’t chance opening fire, but I’m not going to take it. This park is very open.” She said annoyed.
The shuttle’s deployed and before Sam could say or do anything the bullets were flying. She looked to Lanie who still had a hand on her shoulder and was returning fire on the Alliance soldier. She felt her heart sink, this was all so wrong. How could she be fighting her own people? Why did they want this Marine dead so badly, where did this all leave her?
Lanie turned out to be a damn good shot, but then she wouldn’t be an assassin if she wasn’t. The marine pushed her behind cover then reloaded the pistol and continued to fire. She counted at least three soldiers going down. The others started to move back to find cover of their own.
“Run,” Lanie said and pushed at her. They both began to run back into the city from the park. She could hear the shots coming from behind her but the marine ran and covered her as best as possible. When they made it to the nearest street they ducked behind a vehicle. They only had time for a quick rest before Lanie had them running again. Sam’s legs were starting to hurt; she was not used to running for her life.
“Got ya,” said a man grabbing her from behind. Sam had no time to react before Lanie turned and fired. Sam felt blood and things she did not want to know spray all over her body. It was warm and slightly sticky and she was going to be sick.
Without warning Lanie yanked on her arm and pulled her into the back of a restaurant pushing an employee out of the way and shutting the door behind them.
They ran through and out the front. Lanie stopped as they did and grabbed a man that was just about to get into his vehicle. “Sorry,” the marine said grabbing his keys out of his hand and jumping into it. She waited for Sam to get in and hit the accelerator.
“I’m going to be sick,” Sam said as she felt her stomach lurch, she could actually smell the blood on herself.
“Go ahead, we’re dumping the vehicle in a minute,” Lanie said. Sam was confused and everything was happening in such a blur. All she knew was Lanie keep dragging her along when all she wanted to do was stop and give up. She wasn’t sure if she should be grateful or not.
As Lanie promised the vehicle stopped and they got out. She moved to another vehicle and hotwired it. She brought Sam over and tried to place her in the car. Sam stopped before they got in and could not hold it back any longer. She fell to her knees and vomited.
To her surprise Lanie knelt down and held her hair back, out of her face and gently rubbed her back. “Let it all out Sam, I’m sorry,” the Marine spoke in almost a whisper. Sam wanted to tell her it was most certainly all her fault but instead she threw up again. When she was done she was weak and exhausted. “Come on,” Sam was surprised at how gentle the Marine was when getting her into the car.
“I’ve never,” Sam stopped, she had never seen a person killed before, she had never seen a person kill someone, at least not up close and personal. It was almost as if a window had shattered somewhere she felt as though bad things were now crawling inside of her. “How can you kill like that?”
“Sam, it was you or him,” She said pulling out with the traffic, things seemed a little bit calmer. “He would have killed you. I would rather not see that happen.”
“Because you need me to hack into computers.”
“Because I got you into this mess,” Lanie looked straight ahead. “I wasn’t thinking about anyone but myself. I thought it would be a straight hack and then I’d be out of your life. I didn’t think they would have found me.”
Sam couldn’t agree more, this was her fault. Why did the woman have to bring her into it? Come barging into her life waving a firearm at her, threatening to hurt her if she didn’t do things. If they didn’t figure things out Sam knew she was as good as dead and that was Lanie’s fault as well.
She wanted to be angry with the woman and hate her, but as much as Sam being in danger was her fault, the whole affair was not. She had just been doing her job when she was screwed over, obviously by this Gary fellow. She had been forced on the run, which eventually lead to her killing Alliance soldiers.
She could only try and imagine what the Marine was going through. If she understood that then maybe she wouldn’t have been so angry. Her stomach was sore and her throat was burning, she was miserable and she blamed that on the Marine as well.
“Where are we going?” she asked finally as she noticed they were heading out of town.
“My Uncle’s best friend had a cottage on Lake Alouette that he never went to any more. He gave me and my Mother access to it and we went to it a few times. It’s the only place I can think of that Gary would not know about. We can get some supplies on the way up; you have any credits on you?”
“No,” Sam admitted. She didn’t think this was going to be a shopping day.
“All right, then when it gets dark I can run out and get us some supplies. I’ll try and get a hold of a computer as well,” It was quiet for a long time. “We’ll get through this Sam, I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you, this is not your fault, I shouldn’t have dragged you in.”
Sam simply nodded and wished she could believe the woman.
__
The shower had been more than refreshing however, washing off the blood of the man Lanie had killed had not taken the memory away. It did make her feel better to be clean though, she just wished she had her toothbrush with her. It was something Lanie had not thought as she went breaking into the closest grocery store. She did however get them some great food. Some chicken and some rice and then some snacks and some fresh clothes.
“Sorry bout the clothes,” Lanie said, “It’s a small hick grocery store with an attached gun shop; they hunt and fish, not much else.” She said when Sam emerged from the bedroom in her olive coloured cargo pants and green camouflage shirt. “It was that or some overalls.”
Sam smiled at the thought, and for the briefest of moments the image of Alana wearing only overalls flashed through her mind. She shook it away quickly.
“I see you have yet a second large hoody and baggy pant,” Sam said, she could. She moved over to where Lanie was cooking in the kitchen area of the cottage. “You look like a bum.”
“Well, that’s good cause that was the look I was going for.” The Marine smiled.
“What are you making?”
“Lemon chicken a la pilaf.”
“Pilaf?”
“You know, on the box, it always says pilaf.” Lanie pointed to the word on the box. Sam laughed and Lanie smiled to her, after the horrible afternoon they had it was nice to see the specialist laugh. “I hide the car under a tarp and got a fire started outside; I’ll cook the chicken there when it settles down a bit.”
She had grabbed the food and thought of trying to cheer Sam up. She could not help but feel horrible that she had probably ruined this woman’s life. She got the instant rice started and moved out with the chicken to get it cooking. Sam followed her and they sat on large stumps.
“This place in amazing,” Sam said.
“I was only able to come up a few times, I’m glad it survived the war. It’s great for hiking and fishing. The Mountain is Crickmer, it’s got a nice trail up it. I often thought it would be fun to take a motorcycle up there, not a hover craft type but a real one.”
Sam smiled at her, “I’ve seen you drive, I would advise against it.”
“Hey, I’m a great driver, just because you didn’t like my manoeuvres doesn’t mean they were bad.”
Sam continued to smile. She was right, she had gotten them out of a hotspot to day, but ribbing her about it seemed the right thing to do.
“So what was it like?” Lanie asked while she cooked the food, “Serving on the Normandy with the legendary Shepard.”
“I don’t know, she was an amazing woman, one of those people you would lay your life down for. You know, we all knew it was a desperate time but with her on the ship we all knew she would do it, she would save us all. It was very tight, like a family,” she looked to the ground, “I missed it sometimes.”
Lanie nodded, “I’ve never really been a part of a team,” she said, “I’ve assisted squads in missions, but I was never really a part of them. You know it’s funny too, you look at all the recruitment ads they have now and they all go on and on about being a team. I have no idea of what that is like.”
“Did you choose to do what you do?”
Lanie laughed sadly, “No, it chose me,” She flipped the chicken over. “I was a natural marksman and well, I didn’t have the best upbringing and I was very angry.”
“I heard, it was on the news, Mindoir.”
She nodded, “Yeah, being a slave is not much like being part of a team.” It was all she was willing to say at this time.
“Have you killed a lot of people?”
“Sam, I’m a soldier.”
“No, I don’t mean during a war, I mean as a sniper or an assassin, a war is not as personal is it?”
Lanie raised a brow, it was a fair question, but she had one to fire back, “Killing is killing is it not? I mean I do what I do for the Alliance and humanity as well as the council at times. Whether it is fighting in a war or an assassination, it’s not a personal thing. Is there really a difference?”
“I’ve never killed anyone, I don’t know,” Sam said. “Today, that was the closest I have ever been to someone being killed, it was,”
“Discerning, I imagine,” Lanie said, feeling guilty yet again, “If there had been another way,” she sighed, “I still would have killed him. Anything else would have taken too much time and been too much of a risk for us. I regret you were there, if that means anything,” she felt a touch of anger, “But I didn’t fucking ask for this either.”
“They picked you because of you, all your talk of survivalist and having no one. You were a mark as much as the Prime Minister,” Sam stretched slightly, “They could pin it on you and the only one that gets hurt by it is you. They didn’t care about your loyalty, hell you were part of Cerberus, which made it even better. I mean the last bit of news I heard they were blaming them.”
“It could have been, Sam, I didn’t exactly leave on good terms,” She said and shuffled the chicken around again.
“I have a gut feeling Cerberus is just a red herring.”
Lanie nodded slightly and checked the chicken; she took it off the pit when it was done. “Really Sam, I am sorry and thanks.”
Sam looked at her having no idea what Lanie was talking about, “What did I do?”
Lanie placed a hand on her shoulder and looked into her eyes, “You stopped me from doing something very stupid today. Something that would have certainly got me killed. That’s good work.”
Sam smiled slightly but the marine turned and headed into the cottage. Sam watched her for a few minutes and realized for the first time that she was suddenly very curious about the life and times of the woman that had both endangered her life and saved it.
- 5
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Hallowed Truth