DISCLAIMER: Everything belongs to their respective copyright holders and I make no claim upon anything other than my own original ideas.
The Service
The shuttle was a commercial one - he had little need for his own personal shuttle these days and had sold his old one to some enterprising merchant from Kaira some years ago - but unlike usual, this shuttle was pleasantly uncrowded and he had a whole row to himself. It was the middle of the wet season in Paveria which meant that there weren't much tourists (not that this part Palaven was a top tourist destination by any stretch), which explained how quickly he was able to secure a seat on the civilian liner. He supposed he could've wrangled a spot on a military vessel - hell, with his clout he could probably commandeer an entire battle group - but he'd long ago lost the taste for the military life and had grown used to certain comforts such as leather seats and actually edible meals. Besides, the last time he'd been on a military vessel of any kind was that time he'd been asked to give a speech to cadets at his old academy in Long Reach, and the way he'd been mobbed by eager eyed recruits and fawning officers had left a sour taste in his mouth since.
A pleasant voice rang out from the speakers overhead reminding the passengers to find their seats. The porthole (really just a high-def vid screen designed to look like a window showing a feed from outside) showed a crowded take-off bay as shuttles waited their turn to ascend the atmosphere and dock with the space liner. It was raining heavily outside, with the wind buffeting the scrambling port workers and landing sky cars. Palaven was strange amongst garden worlds in that it didn't really have any seasons beyond the wet/dry seasons - except in the poles, where the weather was more wild and irregular or the equator where it was permanently tropical. This meant that rain was often a fact of life for most of the year, and most Turians had long grown used to sudden downpours.
His mandibles twitched slightly as he remembered the first time he had left Palaven. Of course, there weren't windows in shuttles back then (windows in spacefaring vehicles being a uniquely human innovation), but the scene was much the same. It was during one of their rare visits to the Citadel, where his father worked as a C-Sec officer. He'd been very young then but the memory was still clear as day to him - he even remembered the vids he got to watch on the liner (his mother usually forbade him from watching Diaries Of A Renegade Soldier at home out of concern that he might get 'ideas') and how he fought his sister for the seat closest to their mother. They were all ghosts now, his mother and sister died during the Reaper invasions and his father died of Verksis disease only a year after, during the earliest days of the reconstruction where medical supplies were so scarce that even basic anti-biotics were in short supply. Even now, so many years on, the reconstruction was still ongoing, despite the best efforts of the Hierarchy and the Turian people.
"S-sir?"
He looked up to see a young woman, probably fresh out of mandatory service, in a flight attendant uniform, looking at him with wide eyes.
"Ah, yes?"
"I-I'm afraid I'm going ask you to find your seat. We're about to take off and..."
He nodded politely and sat down, pulling up a report on his omni-tool to pass the time. After a few moments he realised that the flight-attendant was still there, standing over him. He gave her a questioning look.
"Yes?"
Her mandibles flared downwards as she suddenly started. Looking strangely sheepish she stammered an apology, "Oh-sorry-sir! It's just that I-I heard the news just this morning. I'm so sorry sir - he, he was a great man."
He stilled, bowing his head. "He was wasn't he?"
With another apology the flight attendant turned and bustled off to the crew quarters. He shook his head, as if dispelling a thought - a human expression, one he'd picked up a long time ago - and closed the report, suddenly losing taste for dry analysis on the effects of Rannoch agriculture subsidies on local food prices.
The shuttle was taking off now, though, this being a relatively new shuttle, the inertial dampeners meant that he barely felt the movement, the only indication being the rapidly disappearing ground in the viewport as the shuttle banked hard to the left as it followed its flight path. It suddenly stopped raining as they cleared the clouds, plunging the sky outside into an unfathomable darkness, the stars looking faint and impossibly distant. A wisp of a memory played in his mind. He was standing next to a fallen statue of Nehliak Gavarnt, the great unification era general, amidst the rubble of a ruined city. It was right at the beginning of the Dark Days, when the Turian's were attacked in their home planet for the first time in recorded history. The square was packed with the greiving and the broken: men, women and children who'd lost everything in the Reaper attacks and had nowhere else to go, what little shelters there were long ago being packed to over capacity. The crowd was stuck in a paralysed, numb silence, each person retreating deep within themselves, coming to grips with a strange new reality. Then, seemingly by devine happenstance, a peircing voice cut through the crowd as a lone female voice filled the air: *You and I, my dear, we are but motes of light in the vast and inky void / and I could live with the cold and dark, as long as I shine for you*; and seemingly as one, the words of this old South Paveran love song were taken up by mothers, daughters, friends and strangers - a communal tidal wave that reached to the heart of the Turian spirit. It was that night, and the nights that followed, that he learnt more about his people than his entire childhood growing up on the streets of Haepherus.
He blinked. The flight attendant was opening the shuttle doors motioning the passengers out - was it already time to disembark? It was uncharacteristic of him to lose track of the time like that. He shook his head again and got out of his seat, his joints protesting much more than he was accustomed to.
The liner was a human ship - a Merscht-Boeing Skyrider of some model, one of the largest civilian craft operating in Alliance space. It looked like a more bulbous version of an Alliance Navy's Cruisers - which made sense since Merscht-Boeing was the civilian arm of MB Aeronautics, who built most ships in the Alliance navy. He never really understood why the Humans were so fond of outsourcing such vital industries to private contractors - the Heirarchy had been building their own ships since time immemorial, and wouldn't dream of ever risking the handing of such a task to unscrupulous business men. Of course, he'd long ago learnt that humans had their own particular logic which worked well for them most of the time, and it wasn't like military ship schematics were that big of a secret in the intelligence community.
The ship itself was quite large, with an entire upper deck reserved for first class passengers. Most of the space was taken up by a quiet lounge area with a well-appointed bar staffed by a crusty looking batarian in human livery. A pleasant looking human female approached him as he entered the lounge area, providing him with the newsnet datapad he'd pre-ordered.
"Thank you for choosing to fly with SolStar Galactic, sir. We should be passing through the relay in 30 minutes and our total flight-time will be just over fourteen hours," she said.
Fourteen hours? Not too shabby. Back in his day a round trip from Palaven to Earth would've taken at least twenty. Of course, military ships could probably make it in ten - owing mainly to their priority relay access and superior mass effect drives. The relays themselves were little changed since the Reaper War, and beyond the discovery that the Citadel Keepers could be beamed through the network to repair damaged relays scientists were still no closer to figuring out their secrets.
Suddenly craving a strong drink, he made his way to the bar and signalled the bartender.
"A double tail of..." he surveyed the selection of bottles on display, settling on a human scotch. It was a particular favourite of ... of ... damn it. He promised himself he wouldn't get like this.
A voice to his left interrupted his thoughts.
"I don't know much about Turian emotions but you look bloody troubled there, mate." He was a human, tall and dressed in a tasteful and expensive looking business suit. Young, no visible signs of human aging. His accent was familiar ... something starting with...
"Austra-'alian?" he asked, stumbling slightly over the unfamiliar word.
The man blinked, and then laughed warmly. "Parammatta born and raised. How'd ya figure that out?"
"Ah, I once served on a ship with a woman with that accent, many years ago."
"Well it can't have been that long if you caught it so quick eh?"
He scratched an old scar on his mandible, "You probably weren't born yet," he said.
The man pursed his lips and made a curious high pitched sound - a whistle, he thought it was called, and smiled again. He gestured to the untouched scotch with his own glass.
"So, any particular reason for nursing your drink like that?"
He hesitated, unfamiliar with opening up to strangers. "Just remembering fallen comrades," he said.
The man suddenly quieted, a solemn look passing over his features. "It never gets easier does it?" he said. He gestured at the bartender and refilled his drink.
"You were a marine?"
The man nodded. "2nd Frontier Division. Signed up just as they rotated us out of garrison duty, can you believe that? Fought in the Taipen Rebellions in twenty-two-oh."
He nodded, familiar with the conflict. "I fought with some soldiers from the 2nd during the Reaper war."
"Really? Damn, that's when the 2nd was made, you know? Did you know Commander Williams?"
He paused, uncomfortable. "I met her once or twice."
The man straightened and raised his glass, "To the ones that didn't make it. Lest we forget."
He raised his glass too and repeated the words, though he felt an odd hollowness as he said them, his mind on one particular comrade.
They talked about all and nothing for a time afterwards sharing a few more drinks and a few more toasts. At some point the Australian introduced himself, but he found himself forgetting his name as soon as he'd said it. If the human recognised his name then he didn't show it, for which he was silently grateful. He was a marketing executive, the man, for a carbonated beverage company and was in Palaven to lay the groundwork for his companies entry into the Turian market on the back of their successful launch of their dextro-formula in Rannoch.
He was an easy-going and companionable drinking partner and he found himself shedding a little of the heaviness that had plagued him during the trip. At one point he'd even regaled his partner with some tales from his days as a C-Sec investigator. By the time he'd finished retelling the story about the bumbling Hanar mugger who tried to solicit donations to an Enkindler shrine at gunpoint, they were both convulsing from laughter. Soon they were the only ones in the bar and, after one last drink, they each bid their farewells and retired to their allocated cabins.
Suddenly alone, he found that sleep was not easy coming. After trying and failing for the better part of an hour, he finally gave up and pulled down a holo-screen and flipped through the shuttle vid service for a distraction, instantly groaning as soon as he came across the in-flight entertainment options. He'd almost forgotten that it was Commemoration Week. The entire menu was full of extravagant feature films and documentaries about the Reaper War. Going through the list he'd found no less than three documentaries based on their adventures and one particular movie based entirely on him. That movie was the bane of his existence and was almost singlehandedly responsible for elevating him from a respected, if minor, war-hero to an almost mythical figure, entirely ruining his plans for a quiet retirement. Some years ago a human journalist drudged up that particular part of his life and turned it into a lurid 'true account' novel which of course topped the Citadel Hourly best-seller chart for weeks. The film version, appearing scantly one year later was, of course, an instant hit and soon spawned an entire series of lurid sequels, creating an entire genre of 'Omega Noir' films.
With an irritated grunt, he swiped away the holo-screen and instead pulled up the agriculture report from his omni-tool. As he'd hoped, the dull bureaucratic prose soon lulled him to a blissful sleep.
The liner docked with New Cairo station just under fourteen hours later. He stepped out onto the station and was immediately lost in a huge crowd of people rushing in every direction. The Cairo was new type of human space station, designed as a sort of untethered space port, allowing larger vessels a central docking hub so they didn't have to solely rely on on-board shuttles to transfer cargo and people to the surface. It was a vastly more efficient system than the one still used by most of the Asari and Turian worlds, and he'd been lobbying the officials in the Infrastructure Ministry to build one on Palaven for many months now. Of course, the commonly held stereotype of that particular Ministry; that it was staffed by only the most obstinate and conservative of the Hierarchy's civil service held out, and he was met by stonewalling at every turn. Navigating entirely via his omni-tool, he made his way to the shuttle bay where he was met by an Alliance officer.
"Lieutenant Bradley Taylor, sir. I'm here to escort you," he said, shaking his hand. Lt. Taylor was a tall, solid looking man who, in his bearing, reminded him vaguely of another Taylor, long ago. As they made their to the specially designated Alliance terminal, he soon found out the reason why.
"I got word yesterday that my request to escort you had been approved. I must say it's an honour to meet you sir," he said.
"You volunteered for escort duty?" he asked, surprised.
"The minute I found out about it, sir. My grandfather always spoke highly of you."
"So you're Jacob's grandson?"
"Yes sir."
He stopped, as they were about to enter the Alliance shuttle, turning to face the grandson of one of his oldest comrades.
"Your grandfather was one of the most reliable and decent men I ever knew," he said, his voice low with sincerity. He'd been unable to attend Jacob's funeral, many years ago, due to work, and had regretted it since.
Lt. Taylor smiled slightly. "He always said the same about you, sir."
The shuttle ride to the surface was a quiet one, Lt. Taylor having sensed his mood and stayed thankfully silent during the journey. The porthole showing a brilliant view of one of the Earth continents spreading out from the far side of the globe. There was a storm system, probably a hurricane of some sort, it's roiling density obscuring most of the lower corner of the continent. He had to admit, the human home world was quite beautiful, in its own way. Of course, most of it was covered in the harsh blue (to his eyes) of liquid water, unlike Palaven which was mostly land. It probably looked even more beautiful to Humans, the same way other species looked upon their own home world.
As they approached the designated landing zone, Lt. Taylor pulled out a datapad, interrupting his silent thoughts.
"Sir, we're about to touch down," he said.
"Oh? Already?"
"Yes, we'll be landing in a US Airforce base outside of Chicago Metropolis. Then we'll be catching a skycar to the hotel."
"The service is...?"
"Tomorrow morning sir. Only friends and family. The official service is the day after."
They'd landed in the outskirts of a dense metropolis, in a field behind a military compound of some sort. The men here wore different uniforms than the Alliance white on blue he was used to.
A sky car touched down on the edge of the landing pad, and out of it came two humans he didn't know and an old quarian he knew very well. They met halfway, Lt. Taylor peeling off to confer with one of the human men. In a flurry of movement belying her age, the old quarian woman threw her arms around him, forcing him to crouch lower.
"Oh Garrus," she said, and seeing her here, now, after all this time suddenly brought back those memories he'd been keeping at bay throughout the journey.
"I still can't believe Sheperd's, that he's ..."
"I know," said Garrus, and they made their way to the skycar, to say goodbye to a friend.