AN1: a reviewer brought up a good point. Sam would've had to go through a background check if he was married to an Admiral, which would include medical records. My answer-He's Alpha Legion. If he couldn't forge a few documents, it's unlikely he would've gotten very far in the Legion. I'll admit, a lot of how Sam gets by with some of the things he does is 'because the premise says so', but 'how Hannah never noticed something was off' actually has an explanation. Hannah's in the navy, so she's gone a lot. For months at a time. Plenty of time to smuggle in a suit of armor and such. Also, who said she never noticed something off? She just hasn't made the 'my husband= Heavily armored crazy guy' connection. I haven't done a lot with her yet, but she knows there's more to his backstory than he's telling. She just lets it slide because it's in the past, and has no bearing on their life together NOW. Also, people tend not to think too hard about their home life- spending time with her husband is one of the few times she gets to turn her brain off and relax. If he was a mission or criminal case, she would find out a few things she hasn't relatively quickly, simply because she's actually TRYING to dig deeper. Sam's been on his best behavior for 30+ years, so it's not like people... 'disappear' in their neighborhood, or something else that would draw attention to him, so he's never warranted closer scrutiny.
AN2: Translations for last chapter: Eldar: I how do find clean room? (Further elaboration-clean room=bathroom/restroom) Tau: Stop hurting me! I come in Peace!
It's intentionally supposed to be bad, indicating Sam is nowhere near a fluent speaker. The words are accurate, according to online translators. For the Elvish, I moved the words around, in order to invoke 'you no take candle!' levels of how wrong it is grammatically to people who actually speak it. So, for example, the 'Tau' more accurately translated as Shuushi(stop) kizu(wound) Watashi(me)! Watashi(I) irashai(come) noite(move)[Sam means in] yasuragi(peace)!
AN3: I'm going to be doing a little 'retcon' to ME lore-
SPOILERS AHEAD: SKIP IF YOU WANT TO REMAIN SURPRISED: The Emperor is in this story. He's even bigger than Sam. So, a while back, he had a doctor (either posed as one or paid one off) 'discover' a 'rare form of gigantism' that would occasionally 'naturally' occur that would result in a Space Marine-sized (or bigger!) physique. This is a complete fabrication, designed by the Emperor in order to avoid suspicion. Sam, despite not knowing its origins, took advantage of it.
AN4: In this chapter, Sam uses a grav weapon. For those of you skeptical, Grav-weapons do, in fact, work this way in WH40K Canon. The more massive the target, the better grav weapons work. Because it amplifies gravity. WARNING: MATH AHEAD! In physics, m*g=w. M=mass. g=gravity. w=weight. Weight is how much gravity affects the object. For example, an Asari is roughly 70 kilograms. An earth-size planet has a g-force of 9.8 m/s. So, 70*9.8= 686 newtons. An Asari is approximately 1.8 square meters, so the pressure would be about 381 newtons/m2 (pascals), or about 0.055 psi. A Warlord Titan, according to one source, is 2,500 [imperial] tons, or 2540117 kilograms, and 60 meters tall. So, it would be 2540117*9.8= 24,893,146.6 newtons, and at 1500 square meters, that would be 2.39 psi. Under normal circumstances, it has 44 times the force acting on it than an Asari. Now, let's assume a grav weapon, on it's lowest setting, multiplies the gravity by, say, 100 times. In other words, an affected entity has 100 gs applied to it. So, an asari shot by one would have 70*(9.8*100)=6,8600 newtons, or 5.53 psi [38 kilopascals] This level of overpressure is equivalent to being on the edge of a shockwave of a bomb. Survivable, but with broken bones and other such injuries. A Warlord Titan, however, now has 248,931,466 newtons of pressure, or 240.7 psi [1.66 megapascals] (The most a modern submarine can withstand is 5.) So, in other words, the grav weapon applies a relatively meager additional 5.475 psi to a 'small' target like an Asari. It applies a much more substantial 238.31 Psi to the Titan. However, that is relative. For something that is built to withstand 1/20th of a Psi, an increase of five and a half PSIs is substantial from their point of view, thus the broken bones and injuries.
Feel free to check my work, or point out something I missed/misunderstood/am wrong about. I consider Math to be one of my worst subjects, so it wouldn't surprise me if I made a mistake somewhere, or if there is a special equation that calculates an entity's ability to withstand pressure that I'm not aware of.
TL:DR- Grav weapons work better on bigger things. Thus, the only weapon in WH40K with a 'stun' setting (that I know of) is the one that can also crush a battle tank like a soda can with no adjustments to the settings. Because that's how the Imperium rolls. Also, it's less of a 'stun' and more of a 'multiple bone fracture'. Because, again, that's how the Imperium rolls.
EDIT: Thanks to The Pyromaniac for checking My work! It turns out I converted Kilograms to grams when I shouldn't have. Pretty sure this is accurate now, but again, feel free to correct me!
Entropy Effect
Chapter 6
Tela Vasir looked through her scope at the Asari below. After doing some digging, it turned out the Asari wasn't a random victim- she had it out for the Shadow Broker. Guess who The Giant started to attack after meeting her?
Couple that with the fact that The Giant reported back to her, and it hardly looked like a coincidence.
And Tela didn't believe in coincidences at the best of times.
She lined up the shot with the Asari's head. A shame, but the Broker was compensating her for keeping his assets safe...and the Asari was making them unsafe.
Just as she fired, she felt like she was being crushed by biotics, before she was suddenly released.
"You are lucky you are such a scrawny little thing, and this just a pistol. Otherwise, you would have been slowly crushed to death. And we wouldn't want that now, would we?"
Tela tried to push herself up, only to let out a cry of pain. She definitely had a few broken bones. She looked up at her assailant. It was the Giant.
While she was struggling to get on her feet, He strode over to her and took off her omnitool, despite her efforts to keep him from doing so. He tapped a few keys on it, seemingly ignoring her. She used the opportunity to draw her sidearm and fired until the heat sink overheated, directly into its head. She smirked as she saw the barrier fall, only for the rounds to be deflected by its thick helm. The Giant chuckled.
"Nice try, but it will take more than a mere sidearm to penetrate my armor. Come now, get up."
She fought through the pain, and did so, surprised the Giant let her.
As if sensing her thoughts, it replied.
"I only ambushed you in order to recover your Omnitool. After all, there's data on the Shadow Broker in there, and I couldn't risk you deleting it."
Tela scoffed. "As if I'd be that much of an amateur. There's no sensitive data on there."
"He contacted you. Personally. That means I just need to back trace the call, and follow the comm buoys to find him. Much more efficient use of my time than looking for scraps of information that might lead to him."
Tela frowned. He was right. The Shadow Broker scrambled and encrypted the transmission, and used every trick that existed to mask its origin, but the simple fact that the transmission was able to be sent meant that it was possible to follow it back to its origin point, if you were smart and tech savvy enough.
And that meant one thing for Tela Vasir. The Broker was too important an asset to be allowed to be destroyed.
"You do realise that I have no option but to kill you now, right? There's no way I can let you do that."
"Of course. I want you to try."
Tela was taken aback. She'd heard that a thousand times before. Each time, it was filled with arrogance and bravado. Not this time, though. There was only sincerity in his voice.
"What!?"
"I want you to try and kill me. After all, Khorne is the god of honorable battle, among his other traits. While it's true that at the end of the day, he ultimately doesn't care where the blood offered to him comes from, the sacrifice of a skilled opponent trying to kill you is worth a thousand cowering weaklings. That, and I want to see what the vaunted Spectres are capable of."
Tela's eyes widened as everything clicked into place.
He was a professionally trained religious fanatic.
The reason the kills were so quick and clean at the start of his rampage through the Broker's base was that his training wouldn't allow him to do any different-not when there was an actual threat.
Once the threats were dealt with, then he could afford to fool around a bit. Take his time. The reason there was no calling card was that it wasn't done for fun, it was standard procedure for this guy's twisted religion. And she was next.
She was a Spectre. She was one of the best of the best. But she was also injured, and in close quarters with an opponent clearly specialized for CQC. That meant she had one shot. A biotic charge, followed up with a biotic punch to the abdomen, right above the belt, where there was no plating in the Giant's bulky armor. That should injure him enough to level the playing field a little.
She rushed at him, just shy of light speed.
And knew no more.
Sam shook his hand, trying to get the feeling back. He was impressed. She actually managed to fracture his arm. And crack the ceramite coating his gauntlet. An easy fix, but still impressive.
It was easy to tell what she was about to do. She was eyeing the relatively exposed power umbilicals of his Cataphractii armor, and she flared as she… did whatever it was that let her move that fast.
As such, he threw a punch right before she charged, running face first into his fist at relativistic speed.
As a consequence, he needed to fix his broken arm, and she needed a new head.
He sighed. That was… anticlimactic. Then again, he had long ago accepted that the grand duels so common in his own time were sadly missing from this galaxy.
Khorne would have to make do.
"Don't move!" A voice shouted from behind him. Sam turned, and saw it was a Turian, who had an assault rifle pointed at his head. A Turian he recognized from the Normandy photo.
"Garrus Vakarian. I am pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Cut the crap. What do you want with Liara!?"
"Nothing. She has already served her part in my plan."
"So, you tried to put a bullet in her head because she outlived her usefulness!?" Garrus growled.
"No. It was this Asari that tried to kill Miss T'soni. I intervened." Sam said, gesturing to the corpse of Tela Vasir. The he motioned to the discarded sniper rifle.
"The rifle is over there. As you can tell, the trigger guard is too small for my gauntlets. I would not be able to fire the weapon without either removing them or the guard, which would be obvious. I'm glad to hear she's unharmed. Let me guess- the barriers on the window caught the bullet?"
Garrus' rifle lowered slightly.
"Yeah, they did. How did you…"
"As Miss T'soni no doubt told you, I once dropped off an item at her apartment. I saw the...security additions at that time. And a kinetic barrier that has a building's power supply would take a shot or two to deplete, even from a high-powered rifle." Or what passed for high-powered in this galaxy, at any rate.
"I was bait, wasn't I?" Liara asked as she arrived.
"Liara! I asked you to wait in the car for a reason! This guy tried to kill you in the past!"
"Thank you for your concern, Garrus, but I need to talk to him personally. I need answers."
Garrus looked like he was about to reply, but Sam interjected before he could.
"To answer your question, Miss T'soni, It was a possibility I had planned for, yes."
"The data you acquired was random bits of miscellaneous files. Blackmail material, and the like. Useful to an information broker, but not for a person trying to find answers. You knew that before you gave it to me, didn't you?"
"I suspected as much, but I was hoping for something substantial."
"But you set it up to look like I was looking for the Broker. So he would send an assassin after me, and you could intercept and interrogate them."
"Very astute."
"So, you set me up as bait. It wasn't a 'possibility', it was your plan all along. You used me-"
"-As you tried to use me as your mercenary. I knew there was more you weren't telling me, even before I step a foot outside your office. So, that makes us even. In the end, we both got what we wanted- a viable lead to this "Shadow Broker."
Liara glared, but changed the subject.
"Very well. Next question. Why? Why do you want Shepard's body back so badly?"
"If nothing else, his mother deserves to see her boy one final time."
Liara's glare softened.
"Why do you care?" Garrus asked.
"Personal reasons."
"That doesn't tell me anything."
"It doesn't have to. I am only answering your questions as a courtesy. I am under no obligation to say so much as a single word to you."
"What do you want from us? Why are you involving us?"
"I want nothing from you. You merely happened to be a lead, and now, as far as I care, your part is done. For the sake of remaining on good terms, however, I will extend an olive branch. I am going to find this Broker, and I invite you to come with me."
"So, what? You'll come and knock on our door a few years from now, and expect us to drop everything and go on a vacation with you?" Garrus scoffed.
"If you don't want to go save your supposed friend, that's more than fine by me. I offered as a courtesy. And no, not a few years from now."
Tela's omnitool beeped. Sam read the message, and gave an unseen grin.
"We're leaving right now."
This stunned the two aliens.
"How? The Broker has taken every possible precaution against being found!" Liara exclaimed.
"I have been doing this for a very long time, child. This broker is clever, credit where credit is due, but I have spent longer than he has been alive outsmarting people who would consider him a dimwitted amateur. To me, his misdirections may as well not exist. Now, I ask again. Are you coming?"
Garrus and Liara shared a look. It took them about a second to decide.
"We're in."
AN5: To preemptively answer why Sam's even bothering to give the light of day to Garrus and Liara, the answer's simple- he doesn't want to alienate friends of his son, especially ones he (Commander Shepard) trusted so much. Sam is a former Astartes-a part of him still holds the concept of 'Battle-Brother' in high regard, and knows Shepard thinks of them the same way. So, he's trying to play nice with them.
AN6: Ugh. This has been collecting dust since Christmas. It always seemed inadequate to me, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Maybe it's how quick Garrus and Liara accept? Oh well. Rather than spend ANOTHER couple of months trying to fix it, I'm posting it. Maybe you reviewers can tell me what I'm missing, and I can fix it later. Sorry about the wait and the substandard chapter.