Miranda was annoyed. No, past annoyed, she was downright angry. She'd been looking for the Commander for hours. She had paged her, with no response. She'd gone up to her cabin, but she wasn't there. She'd asked EDI, only to be told "the Commander is not available at present." Now she strode into the CIC looking for her.

She bearded the yeoman at her terminal. "Chambers, have you seen the Commander? I need to run some report findings past her."

Kelly shrugged. "I'm sorry, Operative Lawson, but I don't know where the Commander is."

Miranda snarled internally and turned away. Crewmembers melted out of her way as she stormed up to the pilot's chair.

"Joker!"

"Ma'am, yes ma'am!" he replied, mock saluting.

"Cut the crap. Where's the Commander?"

"Ah." Joker turned back to his console, but not before she saw the grin twisting across his face. "She's down there," and he shrugged at the looming bulk of the planet below them.

Miranda blinked, and checked her omni-tool. "But… but… that's Neith. There's nothing on Neith. At least, not since the Commander wiped out the mechs, anyway. Why on earth is she there?"

Joker chuckled. "I believe she said the planet would be perfect for trying out more of the Hammerhead's paces."

Miranda blanched.

"Don't worry," Joker added. "She took Tali and Garrus with her. I think they said something about driving lessons."

"Oh dear god, no!" Miranda blurted, and turned and ran for the shuttle. If she could get there in time she could still salvage something…

oOo

Down on the surface of Neith, the Commander was having the time of her life. She had successfully negotiated several huge salt pans across the equator, squealing gleefully as the Hammerhead's jets had churned up spumes of water. She'd made the vehicle hop, spin and turn on its axis. She'd blasted inoffensive rock formations to pebbles with its ordnance.

"I think I'm getting the hang of this!" she yelled to her companions over the whine of overstressed turbines. "Let's try for the cliffs and see how she flies!"

Garrus and Tali exchanged apprehensive glances. "Uh, maybe you're not quite ready for that yet, Shepard," Garrus said.

Tali nodded. "You don't want to overstrain yourself, or wear anything out, or… or… run out of fuel, or something!"

Shepard waved a hand breezily. The Hammerhead lurched to the left, and Garrus leapt forward and caught the controls before they could more than scrape over the top of a low embankment. He looked at her sternly, but she only giggled. "Oops, my bad!" She regained control, more or less, and directed the vehicle towards the lowering cliffs, about 400 klicks to the north. "Hang on to your bustles, ladies and gents, here we go!"

Garrus sighed, and sat back down again. Tali muttered "oh, Keelah" under her breath and both of them secured their restraints even more tightly, if that was even possible. They were going to be in for a rough ride…

oOo

By the time Miranda had locked onto the Hammerhead's co-ordinates and had landed the Kodiak, Shepard had dragged her companions out onto the dirt, where they lay recovering. She was standing, hands on hips, surveying the smoking wreckage of the vehicle. She turned around at Miranda's approach and grinned.

Miranda inspected the damage, aghast. "You… you've… destroyed… project… resources… gah!" and she sputtered into incoherency.

Shepard shrugged, unrepentant. "Yes, well. It takes time to master these things." And she strode off around the side to pick up errant shards of fuselage, dodging flying sparks.

Miranda looked at Garrus, who was incredibly pale, for a turian. He was supporting Tali, who was on all fours. "Why didn't you stop her?" she almost wailed. "You know she can't drive!"

Garrus snorted. "I tried. It didn't work. In the interests of sparing the rest of the crew, I volunteered to come with her. Besides, we" and he gestured at Tali, who was quivering inside her envirosuit, "thought we'd be able to make repairs on the fly. Like we did in the old Mako." He shuddered. "Oh how wrong we were."

He glared at her accusingly. "You know, you could have implanted some, I don't know, driving abilities, when you brought her back. Her track history with the Mako was a matter of public discussion." He pointed a shaking talon at her. "She was crap at driving then, and she's even more crap at driving now!"

Miranda closed her eyes, counted to twenty, and sighed. "All right, all right," she said tiredly, "let's get this cleaned up and get out of here. Tali, are you okay?"

Tali quivered some more, and shook her head.

"She's turned her suit mike off," explained Garrus. He leaned closer to Miranda and whispered, "She threw up." He looked down at Tali in sympathy, and patted her back awkwardly.

Miranda swallowed. Hard. And again. "Let's get you out of here then, Tali."

Together, they lifted Tali up and bundled her into the shuttle. Then Miranda went back out and dragged Shepard in by the arm, seating her firmly on the seat next to Tali, and took the pilot's chair. She sealed the shuttle and blasted them back to the Normandy. Patching through to Engineering, she requested a team be sent back to clean up the mess of the Hammerhead. She could have sworn she heard Donnelly sniggering in the background as she signed off…

The Normandy opened to receive them, and she got everyone off. Tali staggered away to clean herself up, while Garrus melted back to the gunnery to recover. She grabbed Shepard before she could disappear.

"What on earth were you thinking!" she hissed. "You could have gotten yourself killed! Not to mention poor Garrus and Tali. And I'm not even going to think about how much the repairs to the Hammerhead will cost!"

Shepard shrugged and grinned, uncertainly. "It was all in a good cause, Miranda. I need to figure out the controls, you know, we might need them."

"Never again, Shepard. You take someone else to be the driver, you hear me?"

Shepard was crestfallen. "But Mirandaaaaaah!" she pouted, "I was just getting the hang of it!"

Miranda gave up. Walking away, she heard Shepard muttering, "Maybe I can find someone else to give me driving lessons… Jack should know how to drive! Yeah!"

Miranda mentally composed her final message to The Illusive Man, in which she resigned due to "intolerable mental strain and abuse"; and wistfully looked forward to drinking copious amounts of Serrice Ice Brandy, until even her genetically modified liver exploded from the ill-treatment, and she wouldn't have to worry about this shit any more.