Author's Note: This is my entry for the August competition (a competition within a competition) at Aria's Afterlife forum, this month administered by Lachdannen. I wanted to write something humourous, so I pulled out two-sandwiches-short-of-a-picnic Jane Shepard and her crew from my previous humour story, "Losing Boo". If you haven't read that tale yet, you might want to check it out later. Or first. Or not at all.
The Galympic Games
"Can somebody tell me," Liara said, as a small turian child flew threw the air crying 'wheeeee!' as he reached the highest point of his arc, "whose bright idea it was to include Toss the Child in this little... event?" The crowd roared as the small boy hit the sand and bounced. Three officials quickly ran forward to measure the point of his first impact.
"Tossing the child out of the nest is a time-honoured krogan tradition," said Fleet Admiral Jane Shepard. Her blue-grey eyes, clouded only very slightly by the onset of cataracts, hawkishly followed the officials as they punched in the distance on their omni-tools. When 48m was displayed in large green numbers on the scoreboard, the crowd cheered again. The doting father performed a 360-degree bow to his audience in the massive stadium, then collected his offspring from the sand.
"Says who?" Liara demanded. 'Time-honoured krogan tradition' her shiny blue ass.
"Wrex. Surely you're not going to argue with the ruler of the Krogan Empire. Are you?"
Liara sighed and shook her head. "Shepard, last week Wrex told me that asari archaeologists babysitting a nest full of krogan babies so the parents could spend a night on the town, was a time-honoured krogan tradition."
A grin spread across Shepard's face, the age-wrinkles fighting against gravity. "I can't believe you fell for that."
"I didn't! Wrex is given to making up wild and unbelievable stories. You know this just as well as I."
"Yeah, but the turians weren't going for shot put, so this seemed like a good alternative. Besides, you would have liked Wrex's first suggestion even less."
"Why? What was it?"
"Football."
"That doesn't sound too bad." Indeed, she'd watched a few old clips of ancient Earth football games. It mostly seemed to be comprised of grown men throwing themselves on the floor and complaining about their ankles.
"Until you realise that's the method in which krogan offspring are ejected from the nest when they come of age. I knew the Galympic Committee would never go for kicking kids around a field. That's akin to child cruelty!"
"It's not akin to it; it is child cruelty, Shepard. And so is throwing them!"
"Nonsense. These are trained professionals. They know how to throw their kids safely, and the little 'uns have been working real hard on perfecting their landings."
Liara shook her head once more as the crowd let out a furious roar. A familiar figure strolled onto the pitch, his visage clear to Liara, who, like the rest of the Normandy's former crew, had been given a front row seat. The past fifty years had done little to change Grunt, except burden him with a little wisdom and a lot of children. One of the younger of his brood was sitting atop his shoulders, waving happily to the crowd who were cheering one of the most recognised krogans in the whole galaxy.
Looking around at her former shipmates, Liara saw the mark that time had stamped on each and every one of them. Garrus, who was holding Shepard's hand, moved much more slowly these days, his joints starting to feel the onset of arthritis. Joker, confined to a wheelchair, was dozing despite the thunderous cheers of the crowd, and a small stream of drool was flowing from the corner of his mouth. Tali, who needed to remain masked whenever she left Rannoch, was joined by her three grandchildren, each of whom showed their faces openly and proudly. Kaidan and James, best of friends despite some initial rivalry, sat grinning at the krogan spectacle out on the field, both possessing full heads of silvery-white hair.
The changes wrought by the passage of time did not stop there. Kasumi's back was bent in kyphosis and her finger bones gnarled like old tree branches. Traynor's smile didn't quite hide the horrors she still saw in her dreams. Miranda's once-fine figure was starting to sag. Jacob's teeth had been replaced by high quality dentures so he could still chew his food. Chakwas' body was little more than a frail husk which had to be wheeled around with the utmost care for bumps and draughts, either one of which might fell her instantly.
Of all the people assembled around Shepard, only Liara had come through the past fifty years unscathed by the inexorable march of the moment as it passed from one to the next.
For what is fifty years to an asari, except the blink of an eye? And these short lives; the briefest of candles, so many approaching their moment of extinguish.
When the crowd cheered again, Liara put aside her grim mood and focused on the krogan in the centre of the field. He hefted his child once. Twice. Three times. The little one picked up on his cue, wrapping his limbs around himself and becoming remarkably ball-shaped as his father threw him across the sand pit with all of his might.
The child flew. The officials ran. The numbers appeared on the counter.
12m
The crowd cheered, because that is what you were supposed to do in the presence of a hero. A saviour of the galaxy, not only once, but twice, and the sire of future potential galaxy-saviours.
"It really is a shame that krogans have such stubby little child-throwing arms," Shepard sighed. "I bet we don't even place in this event. Tali, are you sure I can't convince you to take part?"
"All of my children are too grown-up for throwing, Shepard," said Tali'Zorah. "And my grandchildren are far too precious to be hurled in some contest."
"Rest assured that had we been able to have children," Garrus said, patting Shepard's hand affectionately, "I wouldn't have hesitated in tossing them across a sand pit."
"You're so selfless and giving," Shepard beamed. "Just one of the many reasons why I love you so much."
Sensing an impending public display of vomit-inducing affection, Liara actived her omni-tool's Galympic Games Events Programme program and cleared her throat to get Shepard's attention.
"So. What event are we taking part in next?"
"Says here that Garrus is mud-wrestling," Kaidan guffawed.
"That's not until four o'clock. And I didn't see you volunteer for mud-wrestling," huffed Garrus, in an offended tone of voice.
"That's because James and I picked the Quasar event to compete in."
"Quasar." The disapproval in Tali's voice was compounded by a tut. "It's a pointless event."
"Nonsense!" said Vega. "It's the most dangerous competition available!"
"Exactly."
"She just doesn't appreciate the skill and dedication it takes to navigate a field of quasars without having your ship vapourised," said Kaidan.
"All I appreciate is how dead you'll be the first time a quasar pulse hits your engines and you're slowly cooked alive as your hull fails."
"Don't be a Galympic party-pooper, Tali," said Shepard. "I'm sure Kaidan and James will be fine. Anyway, next up is the Maw Rodeo. Wrex is getting geared up in the changing rooms as we speak. We need to offer him our support; it's been a few years since he encountered a Thresher. Do you all have your giant foam krogan-hands, to show your support?"
One by one, amidst much feet-shuffling and claims of stoves left on a home, the giant foam krogan-hands were pulled out of bags and donned by everybody present. Tali put hers on one of her grandchildren's heads. Traynor used Joker's to wipe some of the drool from his chin.
"Alright, looks like we're all ready," said Shepard. "Time to make our way down to the Thresher pit... not that we won't get good seats. Would somebody mind wheeling Joker and Chakwas down there? And mind the bumps and the draughts; we don't want to lose anyone on the way. Oh, Liara, you can carry Boo for me."
A small cage was thrust into Liara's hands, and she found herself looking at the beady black eyes of Shepard's allegedly fifty-year-old miniature giant space hamster, Boo. Shepard left no time for objection, so Liara tucked the cage beneath her arm and joined the procession of Normandy veterans as they followed Shepard like baby ducks being led to water.
o - o - o - o - o
"They must have cheated."
Liara, who was engaged in a staring contest with the hamster, looked up at Shepard across the large banquet table. "Who must have cheated?"
"Who do you think?!"
"I don't know. That's why I'm asking."
"I mean the hanar, of course. How else could they have won?"
"Umm... through rigorous training and the power of self-belief?"
"Don't try selling me that crap, Liara. They cheated."
"You'll have a hell of a time proving it," said Garrus. "Cheating is practically against their religion."
"Why aren't you angrier? That slimy hanar kicked your ass at mud-wrestling!"
"Well, he was about sixty years younger than me." Garrus held up his hands, as if that could fend off Shepard's ire. "Hey, don't look at me like that. You're the one who insisted on having the old Normandy crew take part. You threw that hissy-fit to make the Galympic Committee obey you, remember? You threatened to have one of them executed if they didn't count the Normandy as its own sovereign planetary nation."
"Yes, but, well... I thought we'd do better. I mean, we kicked Collector ass. Then we kicked Reaper ass. I didn't think it would be so hard to kick a few regular asses."
"We were a lot younger then."
"Look on the bright side," Liara said, hoping she'd picked the correct silver lining for Shepard's most recent black cloud, "at least we didn't lose anyone."
And it was a miracle they hadn't. Wrex's encounter with the Thresher had ended with him being swallowed by it, which actually made it easier for him to kill it, because although a Maw was all tough and scaly on the outside, the inside was soft and fleshy. Unfortunately, the point of the Thresher Rodeo event had not been to kill the creature, so Wrex had been disqualified despite his attempt to convince the judging panel that killing Thresher Maws was a time-honoured krogan tradition on Tuchanka.
It had been a close call for Garrus, too, who had slipped two vertebrae whilst wrestling and almost been strangled to death by his hanar opponent. Only his use of the 'safe-word' ("Enkindlers") had saved him from certain death.
Alenko and Vega's brush with certain death had been a lot more uncertain. The flight-monitoring team had lost communication with their small two-man fighter ship for over an hour, during which it was surmised they had perished and Shepard had started to requisition the appropriate memorial monoliths in memoriam of their brave flight. It turned out, however, that they'd merely take a wrong turn at the third quasar and been too embarrassed to stop and radio flight-control for directions. Shepard assured Liara that that sort of thing happened all the time on Earth, and then promptly cancelled the memorials and demanded a full refund.
In the end, the old crew had managed to win only a single medal, when Shepard had entered the still-sleeping Joker in a 'dribbling' competition and then coerced the judges into admitting that Joker was the finest dribbler in the contest despite the fact that he was not holding the basket ball and was not even conscious at his time of entry.
"I'd rather look on the winning side," Shepard sulked. She picked up a chicken leg from the plate in the centre of the table and tossed it into Boo's cage. The hamster merely watched it in confusion.
"Err, Shepard, I don't think hamsters are supposed to eat those," said Liara.
"Nonsense. Boo loves chicken legs. If he doesn't get one every night before bed, he sulks something awful."
Liara looked around the table for back-up, but it was useless. James and Kaidan were at the far end, quaffing ale and singing a song about a farmer's daughter. Chakwas had now fallen asleep and was challenging Joker for his title of dribbling champion. Tali was busy keeping her grandchildren out of mischief, and Traynor was snogging one of the asari competitors in a darker corner of the room. Wrex and Grunt were in the middle of a mass of krogans, and seemed to be getting in some early practice for the next Galympic child-tossing event.
"You know," said Garrus, eyeing the hamster thoughtfully, "when I first bought Boo for you, fifty years ago, I was unsure how you'd cope with him, after that unfortunate series of fish incidents."
"RIP Kelly Chambers," Shepard frowned.
"But I must admit, you've done really well with him. I never expected him to last fifty years... especially since that Boo-clone that you gave to Kasumi only lasted four and a half."
"Well, I am a much better pet owner than Kasumi. The trick is to give him a chicken leg every night, except on weekends when he likes a ribeye steak instead."
Liara was spared Shepard's attempts to convince her turian husband that she hadn't simply bought a new hamster every six months when she inevitably killed the old one through neglect or incompetence, by the arrival of one of the games officials. He whispered something into Shepard's ear which made her face light up.
Garrus caught her eye, his gaze questioning, but Liara merely shrugged. She had no idea what Shepard was upto now; that was half the challenge of being near the woman. Every moment could bring something new, exciting or lethal. Sometimes even a combination of all three.
Nobody had to ponder this new twist for very long. The official returned with a microphone, which he thrust into Shepard's hand, and Liara felt rising despair as the Admiral rose to her feet.
Oh goddess, please don't let this be karaoke. Not again. I don't think I could survive listening to Jane's rendition of 'Dancing Queen' again.
When Shepard pulled out her chair and, just a little shakily, climbed up onto it, Liara felt her dread reach a whole new height. Shepard had once done something similar in a bar on Thessia, during the Normandy's victory tour, taking the opportunity to subject the shocked asari population to her attempts at dancing. Shepard's dancing was terrible even at the best of times. When combined with a chair and a lot of alcohol it had resulted in a fractured collarbone and a severe concussion.
"Ahem," Shepard said. She tapped the mic with her finger a few times. "Is this thing on?" The room immediately quietened down. The krogans plucked their children from the air. The turians ceased bragging about coming second. The asari focused their gazes on the Admiral. The hanar dimmed their glowing. The rumble of monotonous elcor voices faded away. The quarians suspended their bargaining. The whole room was filled with an air of expectancy and the wheezing of volus breathing helmets.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Shepard continued, when she had the attention of the whole room. "Friends. Countrymen. Countrywomen. Countrychildren. As some of you know, I once saved the galaxy. I did this in the face of overwhelming adversity. When I first spoke of the Reapers, people called me crazy. And I'll tell you now what I told them then; just because somebody forgets to put their underwear on when they're dressing at stupid o'clock in the morning, does not make them crazy."
Liara closed her eyes and covered them with her hands. Of course, that left nothing to cover her ears with, so she could only listen in growing embarrassment as Shepard's speech continued uninterrupted.
"Just because someone accidentally puts their dress uniform on inside out does not make them crazy. I mean, have you seen the stitching on those thing? And the frills! Easy mistake to make. And just because somebody likes to recite humourous limericks about the young man from Venus whilst using the public bathrooms does not make that somebody crazy. And just because somebody touches an ancient mind-melding device and sees terrifying images of machine squids wiping out sentient space-faring species, does not make them crazy. A little unhinged, perhaps, but still entirely cognisant.
"Well, I was that person. They told me I was crazy. But do you know what crazy really is? It's knowing what you know, but ignoring what you know because other people think they know better. And I think you all know me well enough to know that I don't care what other people think, and I know that you know that I know how important it is to listen to your own heart, and to have the support of your friends.
"This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the day we kicked Reaper ass. I very nearly died that day. Again." There was a pause, and then Shepard scowled. "Laugh." The whole room erupted with laughter. "But it wouldn't have been possible for me to destroy the Reapers once and for all (or so we really hope) without your help. You. Your parents. Your grandparents. Your aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters... all of us, working together, towards a common goal. We accomplished what the protheans, and all those who came before us, could not. Thanks to me, to you, to all of us united, we will not be the protheans to the next generation of space-faring aliens. Thanks to each and every one of us, the galaxy will not remember us as a shadow of a memory. Instead, we bloom like trees, spreading our roots from world to world. Together, we have taken back our galaxy."
There was a wild cheer. Hands were clapped. Feet were stamped. Whistles were sounded. Krogan youngsters were tossed at Shepard, who managed to dodge them. The Admiral waited until the revelry died down once more.
"When the Council approached me and and asked me, as the saviour of our way of life, to come up with a fitting memorial for this poignant anniversary, I knew a hunk of rock or a humourous limerick wouldn't be good enough. When I told my idea to the Council, they told me I was crazy. So I took my underwear off, turned my clothes inside out, recited the one about the man from Venus with the expansive genitalia, and told them if they weren't happy with my idea they could go ask the other saviour of the galaxy to come up with something for a tribute.
"The Olympic games began on Earth in 1856, when a man called Mr Nobel ran a mud-wrestling arena outside his home in Sweden. From there, the games expanded to include other events, such as fencing, and ju-do-jitsuia, and fishing, and other such fine sports, and it was held once every four years, except on leap years it would be held in winter as well as summer. The whole point of the Olympic games was to bring people from different nations together and to promote the message of peace by pitting combatants against each other and then giving them Nobel Peace Prizes.
"My aim, in resurrecting these games, was to help enforce that message out here, where the peace has sometimes been tenable, where old rivalries have sometimes re-emerged, where we had to unfortunately exterminate the batarians as a species because of that whole ebola-virus episode. But despite the dark times, our triumphs remain. In us. In our children. In the future species which will claw, flap or hover their way into space to be guided by our wisdom, and our experience, and our humourous limericks."
Shepard turned, and gestured to everybody sat at the large banquet table.
"These are my friends. My crew. The people who got me through some pretty dark times. People who pushed me and pulled me and carried me when I grew too tired to walk. I bore the burdens of the galaxy, and they bore the burden of me. Without these people, I would not be here today. None of us would be here today. We would be just distant memories, echoes of civilisations long dead.
"I thought that I could relive some of my former glory by entering my crew into the Galympic Games. I'd forgotten that we're not the same people anymore. But they gave it their all, and that's more than any captain could ask. In honour of everything they have done, I would like to propose a toast. So pick up your glasses and don't go getting the dextro and levo champers mixed up. To the former crew of the Normandy; to friends present, and those sadly lost. Some of us went out in a blaze of glory. Some of us helped to pick up the pieces afterwards. And despite the fact that you let a bunch of cheating hanar jellies win the first ever Galympic Games, you're still the finest crew a captain could ever have. To you, my friends; it's been one hell of a ride."
Liara took a quick sip of her drink, and realised she wasn't the only one brushing a tear from her eye. All around the room people were misting up. Wrex was bawling on Bakara's shoulder. Even Joker was awake, and nodding with a smile on his face.
Shepard took her seat, and leant across to Liara.
"So?" the Admiral whispered over the din of the applause. "I practiced that speech all night. Boo helped a bit. What'd you think?"
"That'll do, Shepard," Liara smiled. "That'll do."