Into the Pit

Chapter 23 of Ghost in the Machine

Daylight, reddened by the pyre, faded quickly as they descended into the mine. Nihlus kept a wary eye on Shepard. She was pulled taut. He could see it in the way she jumped at every sound, hear it in her dry voice and her clipped, monosyllabic responses. If it were anyone else, he’d write it off as edginess before a fight. But he had seen her prepare for deployment on Eden Prime. Shepard was the type to feel the pressure after a mission, not before.

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Gates of Hell

Chapter 22 of Ghost in the Machine

Two hours before the attack on Therum.

The atmosphere in the mess hall wasn’t going to improve Shepard’s mood, that was damn sure. She wasn’t hungry, either, but she was obliged to attend because there was no telling what would happen otherwise. Following Alenko’s advice, she had ordered all the officers to sit at the same table with all the aliens who had suddenly made themselves at home on the Normandy, but she was no longer sure it had been such a brilliant idea. The several meals they had all taken together during the two days of flight from the Citadel had been a study of intercultural screw-ups on so many levels that it was difficult to keep count even without the added angle of being constrained to a seat that granted a direct line of sight into Wrex’s mouth. He was sitting at the head of the ‘alien’ side of the table, to Shepard’s far right, and when he noticed human stares, he belched so loudly that the plates shook. Then he started picking his teeth with the three-inch talon of his index finger.

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Heads or Tails

Chapter 21 of Ghost in the Machine

Two hours before the attack on Therum

Shepard hated Therum long before she laid eyes on the desolate, maroon disk through the open viewports in the bridge. There was a nearly imperceptible tug in her gut as the Normandy fired the last thruster sequence to put them in orbit. The engines wound down, and time seemed to halt in the motionless silence.

And then, despite all her efforts, it started going backwards.

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