Vas Messenger

Chapter Seven: Angaran Revelations ACT II, Loneful Nights

The following days were an oddity for the recent inhabitants of the Heleus Cluster and those native to Aya. Neither quite knew what to make of the other, with their situations often ending in attempted questions and hardly ever any answers. Iyali'Talaas and Syrus kept as guarded about their past as the angaran was about his people, and though both yearned to more about the other, barely anything was ever truelly uttered.

On the first day, the foreign spacetravellers spent their time discerning what truly was wrong with their shuttle, checking from severed wiring and faulty control panels to the missing outer shell plates that must have split on collision with Aya. The second day was spent salvaging what metal they could, but no matter which parts they found (often in bedded in vine-tangled trees or slow-flowing rivers), there was some confusion on which part was to be fixed to which side of the ship.

The third and fourth days were spent scouting local terrain and counting how many of their stolen supplies from the Nexus had survived the crash. Surprisingly, it was the majority of their food sachets and water containers. The fears of starvation and dehydration were at least for the moment put to rest. On the fifth day, thick, dark clouds had loomed over the horizon and it was not long before the spacetravellers found themselves settling inside their shuttle while the outside weather battered hard against the Messenger's outer walls.

Nestled safely inside their little alcove from the storm with the cockpit tidy and clear, the three life forms found themselves close to the shaded light of an angaran lantern. It was a strange, translucent orb that held a flickering bug-like creature inside of it. Tapping the glass with its pincers, its small body cast the chamber in a comfortable, amber glow.

From the end of the cockpit were the groans of a sleeping turian, head slanted against the armrest of his chair and a fine layer of drool leaking from the corner of his jaw. Storms had always been a strange thing for him, often being his preferred time of rest. Why, Iyali'Talaas often could not be entirely sure, only that he was the most anxious when left to sleep in a place absent of sound.

She could understand it, she mused, when staring through the front pane to the outside, following the small rivers of water with her finger. Quietness to her was safety, an ideal environment to ponder. To Syrus, it was listening out for the slightest movement, picking up on the strangest murmur that he couldn't quite place. It left him on edge, fearful, but with the lashing of rainwater and battering of the wind, there was too much noise to focus or worry. And so he slept, like the baby equivalent of a krogan falling asleep to the sound of its family battling beyond its crib.

Taking her hand from the window, she spied the traces of liquid on the metal of her suit and angled the droplets closer to her visor.

'What would the water feel like?' she wondered, observing the way the droplets cascaded across her fingers when tilted at just the right point. 'Would the water feel cold, or had the temperature of the shuttle warmed it?' Knowing it would be a long time before she could test that chance, she quietly rubbed her fingers together and leaned back in the pilot seat, kicking the edge of the console with one of her crossed legs.

"Why do you wear that contraption?" had come a mumble from the cockpit.

Her foot hooked onto the edge of the console and tipped her seat back at a crooked angle. "This?" she asked, gesturing to the neckline of her enviro-suit where her necklace lay.

Jaal Ama Darav shook his head. "No, your armour. I've never seen anything quite like it."

"And you will not ever I think, not in this lifetime at least. It's complicated and I would rather not talk about it, if that is alright."

"Ah, of course. My apologies."

Taking a module she had found in the storage section of her shuttle from the console, she began to fumble with the mechanism's peculiar locks and buttons, hoping that there was some part of it that unlocked its secrets. She had spent the majority of her time scanning it with her omni-tool, then when no sufficient data surfaced, she snatched a screwdriver from a walled toolkit and tried to pry it open.

When everything else failed, she had decided to leave it for a while, until another idea came to mind. It should have kept her busy for sometime, but when in the present company that she was in, she really should have expected the question that was soon asked.

"I don't believe you ever told me your name?"

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, glancing up into the window and spying the angaran's violet reflection in the surface. He was sat in the cockpit, large legs braced out across the floor with his rifle clutched in his hands. Yet it was his eyes that captivated her, deep and blue and dilated in such a timid curiosity that clearly begged to be satisfied.

"No, I didn't."

Outwardly confused, the angaran frowned down at his weapon. "I… Do your species not have names?"

"We have names, Jaal Ama Darav, I'm just unsure on whether to tell you mine."

"I believe you did promise me your name, or was that a lie, hmm?"

The quarian paused in her fumbling and swivelled her chair around until she faced him. "I never promised," she said, rolling the titanium cylinder around in her hands. "I teased that I might tell you my name if you returned. But if it means that much to you, you may call me Iyali'Talaas. Iyali'Talaas vas Messenger."

Jaal's angled face twitched. His mouth quickly scrunched into an uneven line as he attempted to pronounce the foreign words. "Iya… las von Messenger."

The quarian brought her hand to her breathing apparatus, muffling the laugh that followed.

The angaran's crown, however, crinkled along the thin bridge of his nose. "Did I say it wrong?"

"You said von."

"I'm afraid I still don't understand."

Iyali'Talaas' white eyes lit in merriment and she leisurely pointed to the lower half of her abdomen, "The word you said, 'von,' holds a different meaning in my culture's language than 'vas' does. Quarian names are a joining of two parts, the second being the home-ship the quarian is apart of and the first being the chosen name given unto them by a parent or guardian. My official name is Iyali'Talaas, 'vas Messenger' in a loose translation means 'crew of the Messenger.' Therefore my name means, 'Iyali'Talaas of the crew of Messenger."

"And von is different?"

"Entirely, Jaal Ama Darav. Von translates to 'one who has a weak bladder,' which can either be concerning or amusing. Therefore, in the context of my name, you basically stated that I had a weak bladder when on the Messenger."

Jaal's eyes rounded. "Ah, incredible. But… what is a bladder?"

The quarian's mouth opened and closed. She had to remember that he was different, and the lack of understanding with what that word meant either meant that he did not have one or that there was a mishap with her translator. Instead of deciding to press the issue, which may have resulted in their conversation inevitably ending, she decided to try a different tactic.

She spied the oddly mold-coloured weapon in his hands and the peculiar ghoulish glint it gave when lifted into the cockpit's shady light. The angaran's left thumb and fingers held the barrel rather perfectly, but something about it sent a chill down her spine, as if the energy encased within had been spoiled.

Despite her instinct, she leaned forward in her seat. "What kind of weapon is that?"

"This? It was a Kett weapon," he said rather proudly, raising it high enough for her to marvel. "But now it is mine."

The barrel was long to the snout, covered in thin, jagged spines the size of hairs on the skin and fixed to the remainder of the rifle by a circular case of amber energy, coiling around a silver thimble. A faint buzz circled the air around it, causing her sound processors to pick up on the resonating static.

Feeling her inner biotics react to the energy, causing her fingers to twitch in her lap, Iyali'Talaas gave in to her desire and shuffled away from it.

But there was no doubt. The species that created that weapon were highly advanced. Perhaps more advanced than the technological breakthroughs formed in the Milky Way.

"Malseh said your people are in a war with a species labelled as Kett. Apparently, they are the ones that chased us through the skies and onto your world. Who are they? Where did they come from? I'm guessing they haven't always been here, unless your people are the invaders."

"The angara are not invaders. We lived peacefully in Heleus until they entered our airspace over a century ago. Few remember the days before the attacks, and for most of us, fighting the Kett is all we have ever known."

"So, you don't know anything about them?"

"We know enough." He watched his rifle rather cautiously, and the grim expressions that passed his face made her wonder what memories he had with the Kett to cause such hatred. "Our experience with the Kett makes us naturally distrustful of all aliens."

"Then how come you're with Syrus and I?" she asked, reclining in her chair. "If you thought we were a threat, why did you fight for us?"

"Because I have to believe there are aliens out there better than the Kett. When the leader of the Kett came to Heleus, he demolished our sovereign state, took what he wanted as if it was nothing, as if we were nothing. Now, the Kett mercilessly abduct angara. Often we never see our loved ones again."

Snarling into his shoulder, Jaal leaped to his feet and began to pace rather quickly around the cockpit, leaving his rifle discarded on the floor and clenching his fists by his sides. "That's why the Resistance fights them everyday with everything we can. We have little choice. Either we fight, or we die."

Iyali'Talaas quietly placed her titanium contraption on the ground and rose to meet Jaal. She observed him closely for a time, specifically when he braced his left arm along the wall and rested his brow against the cold metal. His chest rose and fell like the tides of the sea, his heavy breaths frosted the air and rivalled the howling of the wind, but the quarian could feel the emotion he poured out into the space between them, and felt a sympathy she had not felt in a very long time.

"It could be attrition," she suggested calmly, swiping a hand across her omni-tool and highlighting several historical holograms over her wrist. "A ploy to weaken your forces. I've read about war tactics in a couple of historical logs. It's quite a fascinating read. These might help your people understand the Kett a little better."

Smiling at her generosity, Jaal raised his hand and lowered her arm. "It doesn't matter what the cause of this war is," said he as the omni-tool seeped back into her arm, "only that they're taking my people. I'm giving you a chance to prove that your people are not like them. I hope I don't come to regret it."

Iyali'Talaas shrugged, snatching the screwdriver and titanium contraption from the floor and tweaking the screws around the centre hinges. "Only the future can tell what our positions will be, I suppose, if Syrus and I manage to get off this planet."

"Do you truly not know how to mend your own ship?"

Cursing when the screwdriver slipped off the surface of the cylinder, Iyali'Talaas ringed her shoulders back and hit the cursed thing with the tool's keen point. "This technology is different to what I'm used to, Jaal Ama Darav. It is newer, more advanced than the scrap heap I managed to keep adrift over the years. Once you've pulled your ship apart and put it back together, you know what types of metals you can melt down to make new parts, what everyday appliances you could use to keep the ventilation system from rattling every half-hour. Did you know I managed to mend the hull of the Messenger Mark I with just a decade-old welding gun, some overpriced copper filling and a mile-wide supply of paperweights? But this-" she lifted the cylinder up, irritated that her act of aggression hadn't even made a dent, "this little conniving beauty, was probably crafted with more care and precision than a K-49 power core was back on Omega. Keelah, it isn't even half-rusted."

"May I, uh, see it a moment?"

"If you wish," she said, leisurely throwing it in his direction. "It's yours."

Surprisingly, Jaal caught the contraption rather quickly, and even more surprising, he did not take one look at it and throw it into the shadows. Instead, he cupped the cylinder in his palms as if a divine tool hand-crafted by the gods, marveling the gleam of its finish and the tiny indentations of its manufacturer's label.

Fiddling with it for many moments, it did not take long for the angaran to figure out the contraption's secret and twist it open with a light pop.

He slipped his hand inside and picked from the confines a long, thin bulb, held in an iron vase. "What is this?"

Taking the bulb from him and looking it over, Iyali'Talaas noticed the Nexus' trademark engraved over the base and then saw a tiny antenna fixed into the centre of the bulb. Around the antenna was a reflective surface and many entangled wires reached into the bulb's cover. "It's a beacon," she said, taking the original casing and slipping the beacon back inside, "for emergencies so the Nexus can find us."

Jaal frowned when she slipped the beacon into one of the lockers, not fully understanding why she hadn't activated it earlier. "Don't you wish your people to find you?"

"No. Syrus and I won't benefit from their company, and I doubt your people would want more aliens outstaying their welcome."

He gave a thoughtful nod. "I see."

"How did you figure out how to open that, anyway? You seem to have a skill for it. Were you a treasure-seeker in a past life?"

The angaran chuckled. "Not quite."

Both species quietly sat down around the lantern-light, realising for the first time that night that the rain had cleared and that from the windows was a sky of deep azure, alight in starlight.

Jaal cleared his throat, "Well, I-I like to tinker. To take things apart and figure them out."

"Tinker, huh? How good are you at tinkering, Jaal?"

He motioned to his weapon. "When I was given this weapon, I took it apart piece by piece. Then, once I had figured out its basic components, I put it back together. After a while I added my own modifications, enhanced its capabilities, made some… err… small calibrations and now it is one of the most powerful weapons in the Resistance. Needless to say, I am quite capable."

"Interesting, then perhaps you can do the same with the Messenger Mark II. If there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that space ships and energy weapons have similar, if not identical, schematic bases. Each have an outer casing, each have core components needed to be put correctly in order to function. I do not think you will have much trouble repairing this."

Jaal looked skeptical, hugging his rifle closer to himself. "And why should I help you?"

"The quicker you help us the sooner we will leave angaran space?"

"Tempting."

"You get to be the first of your people to pull apart a shuttle from the Milky Way and possibly get an advantage."

"You are giving away a chance for me to obtain leverage over your own people. Why?"

Sighing, Iyali'Talaas rubbed the edge of her helmet and tried to numb the pain of having to explain her reasoning once more. "I am being honest with you. I don't know how to fix my ship. I've mended all the parts that I can, welded the ruptures in the hull and returned the missing panels to their places but everything else is all new to me. I'm a pilot, a navigator, an explorer, not an engineer. Show to me a piece of a lost civilised culture, a relic or underground vault never been seen before. I have experience in that field, but this... this... without help, the Messenger Mark II is never going to fly again, and you'll have no choice but to guard me for the rest of your life."

"The technology of this ship also far surpasses the junkers I used to fly. This shuttle-craft is new, barely used. Need a part patched with scrap metal? That I can do. But this, this place, it took you mere moments to figure out what that cyclinder was. It took me an hour just to find a screwdriver. And Syrus-" She looked over to his slumbering form, half disappointed that his snoring had not ceased through the entirely of her and Jaal's conversation, and half embarrassed in the fact that his drooling had also not ended, now creating a thick, slow-dripping waterfall from his mouth to his shoulder. "Keelah, Syrus is as useless as a geth in water. Please, I need your help."

Iyali'Talaas counted the time it took the angaran to come to a decision in heartbeats: twenty it took in total, and still, the glare of pure uncertainty in his gaze made her wonder if her plea was truly for naught. It was not often she would ask for aid, but she was not vain enough to not ask when she knew she needed it.

Raising himself from the floor, glancing out of the window, it was a while before he finally turned to her with a less than satisfied frown on his face, "I suppose honesty would be a start…" he finally said, smiling softly. "Allow me to think this over. I will give you a decision by morning."

"Of course. You can take your time. There's no need to be hasty, especially if the Kett are still in the skies."

"Thank you. That is… very understanding. That's enough questions, until we've established a better trust with each other."

"Of course, Jaal Ama Darav. It might be nice," she smiled beneath her visor, catching the necklace around her neck and rubbing it with her thumb, "getting to know you better."