Pawns, Princesses, Tunnels

Joker looked up at the new CO of the Normandy when he walked up behind him. "I heard what happened to Captain Anderson," He started. "Survives a hundred battles, and then gets taken down by backroom politics…Just watch your back, Commander. Things go bad on this mission…you're next on the chopping block."

The commander pursed his lips. "Captain Anderson should be the one in charge. It's like I'm stealing the ship from him."

Joker looked back at his flight monitors, he'd been watching the progress of the supplies that Anderson had ordered before turning over command. "Yeah, the captain got screwed, but it's not like you could've stopped it. Nobody's blaming you." He looked back up at his superior. "Everyone on this ship is behind you, Commander. One-hundred percent." He pressed a few buttons. "Intercom's open, so if you've got anything to say to the crew, now's the time."

Shepard remained silent for a few moments, then seeming to make a decision, he leaned down to activate the intercom, "This is Commander Shepard. We have our orders: Find Saren before he finds the Conduit. I won't lie to you, crew, this mission isn't going to be easy. For too long our species has stood apart from the others. Now it's our time for us to step up and do our part for the rest of the galaxy...Time to show them what humans are made of. Our enemy knows we're coming, and when we go into the Traverse, Saren's followers will be waiting for us, but we'll be ready for them." Shepard straightened up. "Humanity needs to do this not just for our own sake, but for the sake of every other species in Citadel Space…Saren must be stopped, and I promise you all…we will stop him."

"Well said Commander, Captain would be proud," Joker praised, closing the comms for him.

There was a certain hardness in the Commander's eyes now, like his own speech bolstered his resolve. "He gave up everything so I could have this chance," he turned and started walking away towards the CIC. "We can't fail."

"Yes sir," Joker responded. He would've lying if he said he didn't have any reservations about the change of command, but with that speech, he felt…more at ease.

OOO

The Normandy Command deck contained the helm and the airlock in the bow, and the Combat Information Center (CIC) and the comm room towards the stern. The comm room also seconded as a debriefing room. The CIC, which contained the galaxy map and was overseen by Navigator Pressly, was unusual in terms of an Alliance ship in the sense that the commanding officer's station was at the back of the room and raised above the other stations. This allowed the CO to look over his or her subordinates. Normally, Alliance ships placed commanding officers in the middle of the room to facilitate communication. Given how the Normandy was of both turian and human design, however, human engineers decided to try the turian layout in order to observe how well it functioned within the human command structure. The Normandy was still a prototype.

Ashley, Kaidan, Garrus, Wrex, and Tali were all waiting for the commander as he returned to the CIC. "So Skipper," Ashley started, "what now?"

Shepard rubbed the back of his neck, "Calling me Skipper now, Ash?"

"Calling me Ash now, Skipper?" she quipped right back.

Shepard smiled, "First," he looked at every member of his squad, "allow me to formally welcome you to the Normandy SR1. We are going to be heading to the Artemis Tau cluster, following a lead given to us by Ambassador Udina concerning Matriarch Benezia's daughter."

"Any specific system there?" Garrus asked. "It has four."

Shepard shook his head, "No, this is probably going to take a while so get comfortable. Once I tell Joker to set the course, it will take us about two hours to get there, plus the time it takes to travel between systems which, worse-case scenario, will take about 30 hours not counting the extra few hours to scan planets…Any questions?"

The squad members looked at each other briefly before Wrex spoke up, "Yeah…where do we stay?"

He smiled again. "I'll show you around, you can decide from there," he glanced over at Ash and Kaidan, "you two can go and find something else to do if you want. You have a better idea of how things are and stuff."

"Understood commander," Kaidan responded, "I'll be in the mess."

"And I'll be in the cargo bay," Ashley continued.

They both gave a quick salute and left for their respective destinations.

As Wrex watched them leave, he asked, "We don't have to salute, do we?"

Shepard shook his head, "Don't worry about it, you're not Alliance."

OOO

Tali was excited; she was aboard one of the most advanced ships in Citadel space.

"And this is Engineering," the Commander said.

He had already taken them through the mess hall and the cargo bay of the Normandy, the latter of which was where Garrus decided to tune up the M35-Mako, a tank-like rover, after having a few ideas about calibrations. Wrex decided to watch him to see how uncomfortable he could make him. They also saw Ashley cleaning the rifles next to the squad lockers, into which Shepard had them unload their relevant gear.

During all that, though, Tali was patiently waiting to see Engineering. It was where she knew she could completely sate her curiosity about how this amazing ship worked…and now it was just her and the commander. Engineering housed the most important part of the ship, the drive core which contained a massive glob of Element Zero, eezo, as it is called by many; it was, in terms of all other ships and proportions, massive. She could not wait to discover all there was to learn about it.

"That drive core is massive!" she said in awe.

"It is," the Commander agreed, "though you'll have to talk to Engineer Adams over there if you want more information on it, I haven't had a chance to look at it myself yet."

She tore her eyes off the drive core and looked back at him, "I'll be sure to do that."

"Have fun…oh, and before I forget, I requisitioned a few new weapons for you and the rest of those guys out there, as well as some new armor. We're just waiting for the requisitions officer to get back."

New armor? "Does this ship have a clean-room?" she asked.

"Oh, yeah, that's right…quarians need those." He nodded, "Yeah. we have one, the med-bay, just talk to Dr. Chakwas…We also have dextro food, we had a turian Spectre on board before, though it's not sterilized, so you may want to talk to the doctor about that too."

"Thank you Commander."

Shepard's omni-tool beeped and he checked it, "Looks like the requisitions officer is back, so if there's nothing else you need on the Citadel…?" He looked back up at her, and seeing no response, continued, "Then I'll radio Joker and tell him we're clear."

Tali watched him walk away, however relatively abrupt it was, and thought, He seems like a good leader, taking care of his crew…kind of like a quarian, She turned around to face the drive core again, now, let's check this thing out…

OOO

Finally he left, was all Garrus could think after Wrex got bored with trying to intimidate him and decided to get something to eat, I was a C-Sec officer. I've put up with worse.

The cargo bay was a relatively large open area in the Normandy that they used to store, well, cargo. It had a strip down the middle that was used for in-space salvage operations, the gravity could be actively adjusted, and four support pillars, two on either side of the middle strip. The armor lockers were on the left along the wall, looking from bow to stern from the elevator, right next to a gun maintenance station that Ashley Williams was now working at. The Mako was along the wall to the right along with the requisitions officer's preferred area. There was one massive door that spanned the whole wall across from the elevator that also doubled as a ramp for loading and unloading things. Behind the elevator, there were two doors that lead to engineering.

"Hey, Garrus," it was the commander, "I got you some new armor and weapons, along with some mods."

Garrus looked up from his scans of the Mako, "Explosive rounds?"

The Commander gave him a single nod. "Yes." He also had his omni-tool up, but he wasn't looking at it.

"Cool, C-Sec doesn't support using those since they tend to do too much property damage, and bad publicity, but I've always wanted to try them."

Shepard smiled. "They cause a ton of heat, but they are powerful."

"Have to use them before they're gone too, there's groups out there trying to pass legislation against them."

Shepard's face morphed to surprise, "Really?"

Garrus nodded. "Yeah, all the chemical and radioactive rounds too."

The Commander looked shocked, "Really?! First they take the harpoon rounds, now those?"

"Strangely enough, it's mostly batarians that are for kicking them out."

Shepard closed his eyes, shook his head, then looked at his omni-tool, "Well, I can understand that I guess, they're usually on the wrong end of them…I guess we'll have to use them as much as we can before they're gone."

Garrus let out a snort, "I'll do my part."

The Commander looked back up at him. "I'll make sure you can…I'll be in my cabin if you need me," he started towards the elevator, "or around that general area."

OOO

The second deck of the Normandy was accessible from the both cargo bay, via the large elevator towards the rear of the ship, and from the CIC via the stairwells that wrapped around either side of the Normandy. The deck was comprised of the mess, the crew sleeper pods, the captain's private cabin, and the med-bay.

There were five terminals on the wall outside of the med-bay, right next to Shepard's armor locker, which the crew used for dispensing food. It was middle terminal that Kaidan was standing at trying to decide what degree of horror he willing to indulge in. It's not like military rations weren't completely bad, per say, but they didn't quite offer the degree of relish anyone could tolerate. The Alliance engineered the food to be packed with the nutrients they needed for their work along with being able to last for a long time in space. As a result, flavor suffered…horribly.

Kaidan sighed and selected the one he hoped would be the most bearable and sat down at the table. There was a monitor above the table that downloaded news and videos from the extranet almost every time they were within range of a comm buoy. Right now, there was some salarian video playing. Kaidan looked over to see Wrex sitting farther down the table just staring at his double ration.

"It's better than starving," Kaidan stated.

Wrex looked back at him for a moment before looking back at his food, "I've seen more appetizing stuff sticking to the bottom of my boots after a particularly nasty contract."

"Better get used to it," Kaidan took a spoonful of his food and took a bite, he'd been with the Alliance lone enough to where he didn't go wide-eyed every time he took a bite, "it's all we've got."

"You'd think since Shepard is a Spectre he could get some better stuff."

Kaidan took another bite and shook his head, "I'll talk to him."

Wrex looked back at his food and finally took a bite, "I will give it this: It does taste as bad as it looks."

"Heh, you could try the dextro stuff."

Wrex looked back at the food terminals as if considering the suggestion, then looked back at his plate, "I'm not in the mood for cramps…I'll manage."

OOO

The Normandy started the search for Matriarch Benezia's daughter in the Sparta system of the Artemis Tau cluster. The first planet of interest it arrived at was the planet Edolus.

"Commander," it was Joker over the comms.

Shepard was standing on his raised platform overlooking the galaxy map in the CIC, "Find something Joker?"

"Yeah, a signal from the planet's surface…Looks like an automated distress beacon."

"Any hint the doctor is down there or anything else?"

"No, Commander."

"Forward me the information on the planet."

"You should have it now, Commander."

Shepard glanced through the information and found no mention of protheans or any information a prothean researcher would find interesting, "Move on for now…We'll come back to this later."

"As you wish, Commander

The Normandy continued on to the rest of the planets in the system and sent the alliance the coordinates to a gas giant, Ontamalca, that contained an abundance of hydrogen, and the coordinates of a small deposit of plutonium on the planet Alsages.

Shepard sighed, "Head to the Macedon system, Joker"

"Course set," the pilot replied, "we'll be there in five to six hours."

While moving between the planets didn't take very long at FTL speeds, an hour or so to reach all the planets, it still took a few hours to get between systems.

"Got it, let's go get something to eat."

"I'll eat later, Commander."

"As you wish," he replied and headed down the stairs to the mess.

OOO

Ashley was sitting across from Doctor Chakwas in the mess, making small talk, "So, doctor, what've you been up to for the past few hours?"

The doctor took the last bite of her food, and then clasped her hands on the table in front of her, "Brushing up on turian, krogan, and quarian physiology…what about you?"

"I finished cleaning our weapons from Eden Prime and then decided to kill myself by eating."

"No need to worry about that," the doctor replied, a tremor of humor coloring her speech, "I'd bring you back before it came that far. What do you think about our new crew members?"

"The aliens? I've got a few concerns, but nothing worth mentioning right now."

"If you have concerns, you should bring them up to the commander."

"I might later…I want to let him get settled in first."

"Hey you two. Playing nice?"

Ashley looked over to see the Commander take a seat next to her with a full tray of military rations, "Yeah…Just talking."

"Anything interesting?"

"Not really," she paused to watch him quickly eat a few bites of his food, "How can you stand that stuff?"

Shepard took another bite before responding, "I was born on ships. I grew up on this stuff. I learned that the faster you eat it, the less time you have to deal with the aftertaste…but I could just be a masochist too."

"I might have to try that."

"It's good advice," Doctor Chakwas assured her. "I deal with it by treating it like surgery…one bite at a time."

"What's one bite at a time?" Garrus asked as he sat down next to Doctor Chakwas.

"Alliance rations," the commander replied.

"I'm not sure how the Alliance rations taste, but I assure you, the turian versions don't taste good either."

"The sterilized nutrient paste doesn't taste bad," Tali said as she walked up and sat down next to Garrus, rather timidly, with a nutrient paste tube."

"Ah, good," the commander said, "I was wondering if the requisitions officer got that stuff."

"I might have to switch over to that," Garrus teased.

"Unless she or the commander authorizes it, you won't be able to," Chakwas informed him.

"Yeah," the commander continued, "we synced it to her ID…and I'm CO of the ship."

"So you're telling me," Garrus responded, "that she gets to eat," he glanced back at Tali, and then back at the commander, "like a queen whereas I eat like a pawn?"

"Welcome back to the military, Garrus," the commander teased.

Ashley coughed as a bite of food went down the wrong tube.

"You okay there Ash?" the commander asked as he patted her on the back."

She coughed a few more times before responding, "I'm fine, Commander…the food zigged when I expected a zag."

"It takes time to learn how to eat this stuff fast."

Tali was silently watching the whole exchange before she finally sighed and said, "Garrus, I'll give you one."

Garrus looked back at her, "No need, Tali, I was kidding."

Tali powered down her omni-tool, "Oh."

"Not saying that you may not be a princess among the quarians, though, just saying I can handle the military food."

"I'm no princess…"

"That's…" Garrus laughed a little. "Never mind."

There was an awkward silence between the people at the table before the Commander finally spoke up, "So how have the pawn and the princess been settling in?"

Chakwas put a hand to her face, "Shepard."

Shepard took the last bite of his food and put his hands up, "What? Fine…I won't call him 'pawn' if he can beat me at a game of poker."

"Us at a game of poker," Ashley clarified.

"You in Tali?"

"Sure," she responded, "but if the dextro team wins, you don't call either of us 'pawn' or 'princess'."

"And if the levo team wins," Shepard retorted, "we go all out…Deal?"

"Deal," Tali and Garrus responded together.

Shepard brought up his omni-tool, connected to the players and began distributing the omni-cards, "You in doc?"

"No," she replied as she stood up, "I've got to go and bring Jeff something to eat."

"Why doesn't he eat down here?"

"He prefers to stay up there."

"Okay then, see you later Doctor."

Shepard was good at poker, even among humans, but there was one thing he forgot to plan for, turians and quarians have almost natural poker faces. After a few minutes of raising and switching out cards, it was finally time to reveal. Ashley had two pair and Shepard had a flush.

"Beat that Vakarian," Shepard challenged.

"Not bad, not bad," he responded.

Crap, Ashley thought.

"You know what you get when you buy a whole bunch of stuff that you don't need?" Garrus turned his cards around, "A full house."

Ashley sat back in her chair.

"Still gotta' see what Tali has," Shepard informed Garrus, "Remember…team effort, we could get a tie."

Everyone looked at Tali, and she slowly turned her omni-cards around.

Shepard sighed, and rubbed the back of his neck, "Good hand, Tali, good hand…you won't hear 'pawn' or 'princess' from either of us anymore."

"Ha," Tali laughed.

"We've got a few more hours before we reach the next system, want to start another game."

"Want to lay down some credits?" Garrus asked.

"If you say so…"

"I'm in," Ashley replied.

"Me too," Tali continued.

"Commander," Joker voice interrupted over the comm, "we just reached a comm buoy, there's an urgent message from Alliance Command coming in. I'll patch it through."

The experienced voice of a ranking officer came over the comm. "Shepard, this is Admiral Hackett from Alliance Command. We've got a situation here, and you are the only one who can handle it."

"What'd'ya need Admiral?" Shepard asked, lifting his finger from the button to start a new match.

"There's an Alliance training ground where we test weapons and technology in live-fire simulations on Luna. One of the VIs we use to simulate enemy tactics in the drills is no longer responding to our override commands…its gone rogue."

"'Gone rogue'? You're saying this computer's thinking on its own?"

"We're not stupid, Shepard. This is a virtual intelligence, not a true AI. It's not self-aware, and it can't access any external systems. We didn't do anything illegal here. Virtual intelligence support is critical to our military success. VIs process thousands of status reports and react in nanoseconds. No human can do that. We need you to fight your way through the training ground to the VI core and manually disable it."

"Don't worry, Admiral, I'll take that thing out next time I'm in the Sol system. Just keep your people at a distance until it's taken care of."

"I know Spectres answer to the Council, but you're still human. You're still part of the Alliance military, and right now we need you. The VI controls all the facility's weapons, drones, and automated defenses. You're the only one who can pull this off, Shepard. Good luck."

"Luna?" Tali asked.

"Earth's moon," Ashley responded.

"We'll take care of it after we find the doctor," Shepard clarified, "now back to our game…"

OOO

The Normandy was just reaching the planet Sharjila, and Commander Shepard was once again overlooking the galaxy map, "Joker, send me the data."

"Already did, Commander…there has to be a better way of doing this."

"I'll look into it…nothing in reference to protheans…note it and move on."

"Noted and moving onto Porolan, ETA ten minutes."

Shepard brought up his omni-tool and started fiddling with the settings of the galaxy map.

Eight minutes later, Joker came back up over the comms, "Commander, I'm picking up a strange signal in orbit around this planet."

Shepard powered down his omni-tool and leaned on the railing above the galaxy map, "Anything you can tell me about it?"

"Decoding signals is not my area of expertise, Commander."

Shepard smiled, "Have a little faith, man…Send it to the rest of the crew, see what they think."

"I have faith, Commander. Just not in signals…Message sent."

"Home in and try and see what it is."

"Already on it."

"Good man."

"Commander," it was Navigator Pressley from his station around the edge of the galaxy map, "I think I know what that signal is."

Shepard looked at him through the holographic imagery of the galaxy map, "Wha'd'ya got?"

"It looks like a signal from some sort of beacon. There's some distortion, which could mean the parts are getting worn and damaged…Comparing it to similar signals of modern make of all species, it looks…asari…and ancient."

"Good catch Pressley."

"Coming up on the beacon Commander," Joker informed.

"Good," Shepard patched into the comms in engineering, "Adams. Get a salvage team together, we're checking out an old asari beacon."

"Understood Commander," the lead engineer replied.

OOO

Tali was amazed at the efficiency of the humans in deconstructing and analyzing the beacon. As soon as Engineer Adams assembled his salvage team, they all put on enviro-suits and activated their mag boots. They then kicked any of the unshielded crew out of the cargo hold and depressurized the room.

Tali then watched as they checked to make sure there was nothing in the center strip of the cargo hold before deactivating the gravity in the strip and opening the massive cargo door. She then watched as the beacon slowly came into view and the Normandy lined up with it, and slowly overcame it to allow the salvage team to slowly shepherd it into place in the cargo bay before slowly reactivating the gravity. While she didn't hear the beacon hit the ground, since sound doesn't travel in a vacuum, she still felt it through the floor.

Tali jumped as she felt a tap on her shoulder before noticing it was the commander in his full combat armor and helmet.

"Sorry," he apologized after he patched into her suit comm.

She looked back at him, "Oh, it's okay, I haven't been in a vacuum for a while."

Shepard nodded, "It's easy to forget how quiet it can be. Enjoying the show?"

Tali looked back at the salvage team as they closed the cargo door and started analyzing parts of the beacon, "They don't waste time…They're not going to pressurize the room yet, are they?"

"Not yet, we aren't going to risk an alien virus getting into the air supply."

She glanced back at the commander, and then back at the salvage team, "Good…Is that the only environmental suit you have?"

Shepard looked down at himself, "What, my body armor? Yeah…it's not that uncomfortable actually. I'm told that the internal comfort was designed by a quarian company…even circulates air."

Tali looked back at him, "It circulates air? I'm jealous; this suit has nothing of the sort."

"I think that other suit we got for you has it."

"I may have to try it on then."

Shepard's eyes were smiling, "It's your suit…your choice…" he looked at the salvage team. "You can join them, you know."

She looked back at the team as well, "I wasn't sure; I thought I would get in the way."

"They would find a spot for you, I'm sure your skills would come in handy."

"Commander!" it was Adams in a simple grey enviro-suit. "I found an OSD in one of the compartments."

Both Shepard and Tali approached him.

"Looks like it contains the writings of a Matriarch Dilinaga," the engineer continued after interfacing with it with his omni-tool.

"Good find Adams," Shepard said. "Gather what data you can on this thing and send it to the alliance." He glanced back at Tali, "is there anything you want to see on this?"

"Not this time."

He gave a slight nod and looked back at Adams, "When you're done, space it and sterilize this room…you know, standard drill."

"Understood, Commander," Adams replied.

Shepard walked back to the elevator with Tali and waited for the door to close and the interior to repressurize and sterilize before taking his helmet off. "It's going to be a while yet before you can get back into engineering, would you like to help me hack into alliance databases?"

Tali was a little taken aback. "That's not a question one expects to hear casually..."

Shepard smiled obviously feeling the irony, "It's more fun than it sounds, I turned it into a game by adding an interface along with a few other things. I'll even push some credits your way for helping me."

She hoped she sounded optimistic, "I'll try it, but you don't have to pay me."

"I'd feel bad if you didn't get a cut for your part of the work, but trust me…it's fun."

OOO

In the Athens system, the Normandy found two more planets with gas deposits: an oxygen gas deposit on Proteus, and a helium-3 gas deposit on the planet Circe. They were now scanning a frozen planet, called Pharos, near the edge of the system with a large white circle in the southern hemisphere…a crater filled with ice.

Commander Shepard was waiting patiently on his perch above the galaxy map once again. He suppressed the urge to ask Joker if the scans found anything of interest on the planet below, he knew the pilot would keep him updated.

"Nothing on the planet itself, Commander," the Flight Lieutenant spoke over the comm, "scanning its moon."

Shepard didn't say anything as he watched their progress on the galaxy map.

"There seems to be some sort of base near the moon's equator…no energy signatures."

"Could the doctor be there?"

"There's a chance, but I doubt it."

"Might as well make sure. Ready a recon team. No more than four."

"You going down?"

Shepard thought for a moment, "No…no energy signatures implies no vehicles…there won't be any gunfire…just send a recon team…give them an hour"

"Understood," Joker replied. "Message sent."

Shepard left the CO station and walked up to the helm, up behind Joker. Through the helm window, he watched the moon get larger and larger as the Normandy pulled in for a landing. The base itself was simple in design like it was never meant to last a long time. It was also missing a huge chunk out of one of its corners.

Safe to say the asari is not there, Shepard thought as he watched four small people walk out from under the Normandy and slowly into the base.

"Commander," it was the leader of the recon team, "nothing of real interest here."

"Already?" Shepard asked.

"It's large and open in here…there is an insignia I don't recognize all over the place, though."

"Show me."

Shepard's omni-tool beeped and he opened the message, he didn't recognize the insignia either so he sent it out as a mass message to everyone on the Normandy.

A few seconds later, his omni-tool beeped again, "Commander," it was Garrus. "It's upside down, but that's the insignia for the Magna Colony."

"Anything you can tell me about it?" he asked.

"It was a colony that was destroyed during the Turian Unification War."

"You just knew that off the top of your head?"

"Required reading for the turian military," Garrus answered. "We have to know our history."

"Thanks Garrus…you can go back to calibrating that Mako's gun."

"It's as good as it's going to get until we actually use it…speaking of which…"

"We still have a long time before we find Saren…we'll use it soon…I promise"

"I'm holding you to that...Garrus out."

Shepard patched himself back into the ground team's comms, "If there's nothing else down there, you guys can come back."

"Understood, Commander," the leader replied. "Heading back now."

Shepard gave a single nod and started walking down to the mess, "Joker, chart a course for Knossos."

"Will do commander…ETA five hours."

Shepard shook his head and thought, She had better be in that system...I guess I might as well learn about the people I'm working with.

OOO

They only stopped at one other planet before finding a suitable planet that the doctor would likely find interest in. Therum it was called, and the commander knew absolutely nothing about it.

He was sitting in the mess trying to decide who to take with him to find the doctor when his thoughts were interrupted by Joker over the comms, "Commander…we have geth signatures down on the planet."

"Thanks Joker,' he replied, "is there anything you can tell me about it?"

"I'll forward the information to your omni-tool."

"Got it, thanks…"

Shepard quickly glanced through the information, A mining planet…that doesn't help at all…

Since he knew nothing about the planet, he decided to use what he did know: one, there were geth, and Tali was the closest thing they had to a geth expert, so he would bring her, and two, they had absolutely no idea what was down there. He had to play it safe, Wrex was his other choice. He sent out the messages via omni-tool and headed over to his locker to suit up.


One note I wanted to point out was that there are a few differences between the PC version of Mass Effect and the xbox version, but the most noticeable one is that the elevator on the Normandy moves about 75% faster on the PC version, which I am using.

Concerning Harpoon rounds…look on the wiki.

Normandy Descriptions tweaked from wiki

I apologize for how long this took, I was trying to figure out my life as well as doing a playthrough to get internal references for things that happened between missions, I took notes, but I think there are still more…so if there are any you found or would like to see, or would like cleaned up, leave a review or pm…I might go over this chapter again later.

Updated 8/8/15 with mostly cleaning and rewording…and a few things added here and there