Chapter Two:

Richard sighed, shouldering his duffel as he strode through the corridors of Arcturus. What do they want with me? There was definitely something more then what the brief was saying, even considering the prototype tech under the Normandy's hull.

He paused at the security to the docks; given that the Normandy was a 'secret project,' he had to submit to several rounds of security and biometric scanning. As he finished the retinal scans, he got his first look at the Normandy, berthed neatly in spacedock. She's beautiful. She reminded him of the birds-of-prey, the ones that had soared over the farm in the evening. She had the lines of a hunter; a great cat. She was a small ship, but one look at her design and he knew she had claws.

"Sir," the tech by the security bunker said; jolting him from his reverie, "the docking hatch is just to your left." Richard blinked, nodded to cover his embarrassment, and stiffly headed off.

He stood in the airlock of the Normandy; duffel over one shoulder, the case for his sniper on the other. Though it hadn't been considered standard, he'd trained on long rifles before escalating to sniper rifles while he'd done his N5 training. And no one expects a Biotic to be trained on a sniper rifle, he thought with a smirk. Everyone always thought he was an Infiltrator; until they saw the patch on his shoulder that marked his Sentinel training. Maybe it wasn't fair, but he enjoyed the confused look on their face. Since his amp didn't show under his hair - it was as long as military regulations allowed, to hide the scars - people didn't immediately realize he was a biotic, either.

"Logged," spoke the Normandy's VI, "XO Sheppard is aboard."

Inside, the Normandy was a bustle of activity. It was a totally different layout then what he was used to; with the airlock just behind the pilot's chair. The CNC was in the centre, with stairs going down to the second deck; and the comm room just behind. It was all still too clean, with the aura of a ship right off the factory line. The deckplates beneath his feet seemed to thrum with the Tantalus drive core, though he couldn't tell if that was strictly psycholoigical.

"Ah," said an older man, "stepping to attention and saluting crisply. "You must be Commander Shepard." Richard shifted his sniper case and returned the man's salute, "Second Officer Pressly, at your service."

"Thank you." Rich held out his free hand. "Commander Richard Shepard. Is there somewhere I can store this?" He nodded to the sniper case on his shoulder.

"There's gear lockers in the Garage," Pressly said, "I think the Captain would like to speak with you before you settle in, though."

Richard nodded. "I intended to report in anyway. Do you know where the Captain is?"

Pressly jerked his head to the comm room. "He's just dealing with a few last-minute reports, Commander."

"Right." Richard nodded, and set out to the comm room.

" - I can't keep the entire crew in the dark about this." He heard a voice saying. There was a response over the comm unit that he could make out, but as he stepped forward, he could see the tall form of Captain Anderson speaking into the comm unit.

"Fine. I understand." Anderson didn't sound happy at all. "Normandy out."

Richard shifted his weight from one leg to the other. "Captain."

"You must be Commander Sheppard." Anderson said, turning to face him. Richard managed a half-salute as he juggled his duffel and gear.

"Yes sir," he said. "Sorry for the informality, but I figured I ought to report in before I got settled. And Officer Pressly said you wanted to speak with me, anyway."

Anderson nodded slowly. "What have you heard about this assignment?"

"Not much." Richard admitted, mulling things over as he spoke. "It's supposed to be a shakedown run for the Normandy."

"Hmm." Anderson was distracted, his brown eyes seeming to gaze somewhere else.

"I've been suspecting there's more for a while now."

"I bet." Anderson said with a small smirk. "But I'm afraid you'll have to understand that information is on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know. Yet."

"Captain. . ." Ok, shooting my mouth off a few minutes into my assignment is probably -not- a good idea. "Permission to speak freely?"

"Granted."

"If I'm supposed to be your XO, shouldn't I know what the hell's going on?" Lack of information gets people killed. Although, sometimes too much information gets people killed, too. . .

Anderson at least had the decency to look contrite. "Sorry Commander, that's not my call. Now go stow your gear and get settled."

One hell of a start to a mission, huh? Richard mused as he headed down the steps to the mess hall and sleeper pods. Well, at least it means there's something interesting going on.