Chapter 13
Kevin's sleep session was long and comfortable. He wouldn't have even bothered to get up if the very idea that nine hours had passed by didn't practically cause him to fall off of the bed. He rubbed his eyes and looked at his bedside clock again to make sure he didn't improperly read the time. He hadn't. He was about to rush out of the bedroom until he noticed that his hair was everywhere. He couldn't go out into public like this. No sir. He de-robed and went to take a shower, simply because his hair was all out of whack. He wasn't typically a vain person, but when his hair was bad, it was bad. A quick douse and clean would be all that was needed.
He wasted no time when he dried off and slipped on a fresh suit. Now that he considered himself presentable, he scrambled out the door. He needed to get to the bridge. He needed to see where they were. He needed to know how much time he had left. Oddly, he really wanted to get one more shot at tech training and one more combat lesson in before they left. He couldn't understand why it was suddenly so important to him, other than the fact that he wanted to prove his adaptability to Arla, Tyr and Siri. Rather than question himself at this point, he focused on getting to the bridge.
The trip to the bridge was strangely unobstructed. There were no snappy salarian comments, no creepy stalking captains and no over-flirty explosive happy quarians in the halls. When he stepped into the briefing room at the fore of the ship, that changed pretty quickly. There wasn't one, but three quarians beyond the automatic door. Kar was hanging around the bridge as usual, and Tyr and Siri were having a conversation from opposite sides of the briefing room round table.
"How do you think the admiral will handle our progress?" Tyr asked his captain.
"Hard to say. He's not an irrational quarian, but I can't expect him to be ecstatic about our results," Siri responded with a hand resting against the chin of her helmet.
"And then of course there's explaining this piece of work," Tyr mentioned with a hand out towards Kevin as he entered.
"Who, me?" Kevin replied curiously.
"Yes, we'll certainly have to include him in the reports," Siri said, her tone ever so slightly less serious.
"You finally up?" Tyr prodded. "I don't know how you humans do it. If I was asleep for that long, I'd wonder if I had died in my sleep."
"I think I did wonder that. I haven't slept that long in years. Am I interrupting something?"
"Not at all," Siri said. "We were just wondering how to assemble our report to our superiors about this mission."
"Are we that close to the Migrant Fleet?" Kevin wondered aloud.
"We're still a few hours away from the Dholen relay," Tyr pointed out. "We've been in FTL comm buoy range for a couple of hours now, but the captain wants to wait to send any message until we're closer to the relay."
"I don't want to incite any panic or questions," Siri admitted. "Usually when a quarian ship returns to the flotilla from a long term mission this early, it generally means either they were unable to complete the mission because it was out of their ability to do so, or something went horribly wrong."
"Well then, I can understand your need for discretion," Kevin agreed.
"Anyways, Arla was looking for you a little while back," Tyr mentioned. "Probably about another one of your tech lessons. She told me to tell you to meet her in the entertainment room when you woke."
"Really? After all that happened yesterday?" Kevin asked, confused.
"Don't know what her reasons are, Folner, but she's been down there a couple hours now. Might want to at least tell her you're up," Siri suggested.
"Alright, alright. Can't be any worse than yesterday," Kevin sighed as he turned around to head out.
"Here's your knives, by the way," Tyr called out before Kevin left. He held out his and Arla's blades for Kevin to take.
"Thanks. I'll make sure she gets hers."
Tyr nodded to Kevin and then turned back to his captain to continue their previous conversation.
Kevin scratched his head on his way out the door. This was going to be another awkward social moment. He could feel it in his bones. He wasn't looking forward to this at all. It seemed all his attempts to be friends with Arla ended up in quarrels, and he expected that to be the outcome here as well. He wasn't gunning for that, but it would probably end up that way anyways.
When he activated the panel for the entertainment room and the door opened, he was slammed by a wall of loud pulsing music, strobing lights and dim atmosphere. Rather than recoil from the sudden change, he instead found it interesting that the room was completely soundproofed. He didn't hear any of it standing outside the closed door. The second thing he realized was that the music playing was his music. Was she going through his playlists? As he stepped inside, he saw a bobbing figure up at the equipment podium. He could only guess it was Arla. So this was what she was doing to pass the time? Play his music and just enjoy herself? That didn't sound like the Arla he had come to know.
As he got closer to the podium, the music began to fade out until it was no longer audible. After that, the lights all returned to the simple clean ambiance that he had set up the day before. Once the changes were quickly set, Arla stepped down the podium steps.
"Impressive setup you have, Folner," Arla said. "Bela told me it was slick, but I couldn't have known without seeing for myself."
"I'm glad you think so," Kevin said with a nod. "Which reminds me. I was supposed to set this up so Bela could enjoy it one more time before she left. Whoops."
"Oh don't worry, she was in here enjoying it a little while ago," Arla mentioned, her tone practically pointing out that she had covered for him.
"Right, thanks. So Tyr told me to meet you in here?"
"Yes. I assumed we would try to get one more tech and combat lesson in before we reached the Fleet. You took your time getting here, though. Now we only have time for one or the other instead of both. I figured you would want to learn more tech before I left, so we can head down to engineering when you're ready."
"Actually," Kevin interjected, "I was more hoping to try combat training again."
Arla let her head fall back in disappointment. "You do remember how that didn't go so well last time, right?"
"Yes," Kevin said bluntly. "However, Tyr pointed a few things out to me and I realized he was right. I have a different approach to how I should be teaching now. That's what you wanted, right? A better approach to being taught?"
Arla stroked the outside of her hood twice before letting out a sigh. "I offered you the chance to gain more insight on tech, but you'd rather teach me combat?"
"I have my reasons."
"Fine. If that is what you insist on, then we will do combat. We're already in the entertainment room anyways."
Kevin cracked a smile. Not the most positive response, but at least now he had his chance to employ a different method of instructing. And this time there was no Tyr watching over his shoulder to make him anxious. He and Arla approached the center of the room after Kevin placed the knives near the door to begin their combat training once again.
"How will we be working this out this time?" Arla asked in a little less irritated and a little more curious tone.
"We'll start out in a similar way," Kevin responded. "We'll practice some moves. Trust me, it'll be different."
Arla shrugged and shook her head, but made ready to begin anyways. Their training started out in the same way it did the day before. They began practicing a set of moves, but when it came time for Arla to predictably expose herself as she had done before, Kevin did something different. Rather than take advantage of her exposing herself, he yelled out a simple word.
"Freeze!" His voice echoed throughout the room once or twice before fading away. It worked, though, as both he and Arla held the exact positions they were in when he yelled it.
"Now stay like that," Kevin requested. "I'm going to point something out to you."
Kevin released his stiff posture and stood upright. He pointed out to Arla where she was over-exposed.
"See how open this side of your body becomes when you respond to my attack with a high punch with your right hand? Your goal is to make a counter that leaves your opponent with the least number easily executable attack points as possible."
"How do I know what that is?" Arla asked, still holding her position.
"I can show you some moves that greatly minimize my chances of successfully following up with a hit, but after a while I'm going to slow the combat down so that you can start coming up with better counters on your own."
"Okay," Arla simply said.
"If we back it up a little bit to where you countered my attack, I'll show you some alternative moves."
Kevin spent the next ten minutes or so explaining how certain moves he could make from the position he was in would be far more difficult to make based on his current direction of momentum, where is limbs were placed and how far away Arla was. At the time of her memorized counter, Kevin's momentum was down and to the right, which was why her high punch from his left failed so miserably time after time. He showed the quarian that by taking in these small details, she could more easily respond with more efficient and more effective counters. He demonstrated in slow motion how a mid-height kick from his right would be just as easy for her to perform, but would be multiple times more difficult for him to bypass and make an attack that connected.
"For typical fighters, that counter you had might work fine. For people who utilize their momentum to dodge attacks to find openings like me, a different approach is needed. Trust me when I say that figuring out your opponent's methods as early as possible is crucial to a hand to hand fight."
"That makes sense. You realized how I performed my combination moves the same way over and over. Once you predicted my exposed side, you won the move every time. . ."
"Exactly. One major concept I hold close is that being unpredictable is a key to winning a fight. Even if you start out unpredictable, if the opponent lasts out long enough to figure out some of your moves, it's only a matter of time before they take advantage of that."
Arla said nothing, but nodded instead to indicate that she understood his point.
Over the next hour or so, they continued this method of training. When that hour had passed, Kevin shifted from showing her some good counters to letting her make better counters on her own. He fought her with the same moves that always ended up with her exposing a side or a large attack area, but slowed his speed down by a third so that she had more time to think of and execute a counter different than what she had etched in her head. Towards the end of the second hour, this method was proving to work very well. Kevin had broken Arla's memorized habits on multiple move sets, and she was beginning to come up with counters that matched what Kevin was describing to her earlier. Ones that minimized his ability to counter successfully.
After two hours had gone by, it was decided that then was a good time to take a break. They were both panting from the constant stop and go exertion, and neither had any intention of going beyond any limits. They sat against the wall by the podium for a quick rest. Kevin was pleased with the near one hundred and eighty degree turn the training had taken from yesterday, and he was certain Arla was as well. They were finally getting somewhere.
"That last counter you made was unexpected," Kevin admitted after taking a seat. "I almost didn't have time to defend against it."
"That's because what you're saying makes sense now. I can see where I expose myself ahead of time, so I can actually focus on doing something different."
"It's working, I can tell you that. That's going to leave a bruise," Kevin said as he rubbed his forearm. Kevin could swear he heard the makings of a chuckle, but a full one had yet to be heard.
There was a time of silence while the two combatants rested against the wall. Nothing needed to be said, since there was nothing to be said. Kevin took this as a good sign. The rollercoaster that was his friendly relationship with Arla was back on a high point. At least, to him.
"I'm finding myself as curious as captain Kortel," Arla stated. "Why are you, a human, so openly hospitable to us? I don't get it. Everywhere I went on my pilgrimage, quarians were looked down on as the scavenger scum of the galaxy. Why are you different?"
Kevin chuckled. "I already told your captain why. I have a soft spot for quarians."
"What does that even mean? You're dodging the question."
"It's. . . A long story," Kevin admitted with hesitation.
Before Arla could make any more statements about Kevin continuing to dodge the question, the door opened and a quarian stepped inside from the hallway. It was Tyr.
"Well, this isn't exactly what I expected to find," Tyr said. "At least I'm glad to see you kids haven't had it out again."
Kevin and Arla stood from their restful positions and curiously stared at Tyr.
"When I found that neither of you had left the entertainment room, I feared the worst. Thought I'd let the captain down, too."
"What are you here for this time, Tyr?" Kevin asked without a hint of disrespect.
"The captain asked me to find Lieutenant Tavval. Apparently she wants to send the message off to the Migrant fleet now. She wants the crew with her in the briefing room when she sends it away. You might as well come too, Folner."
Arla and Kevin looked at each other and then back at Tyr. Arla flicked her head towards Tyr, indicating to Kevin that they should go.
"Alright, we're coming," Kevin confirmed to Tyr. He and Arla grabbed their blades, sheathed them and headed out to the briefing room with Tyr.
When they got there, all the other quarians were already present. Ralik had taken up his disputed position in the helmsman's chair, and it looked like he was trying to get Kar to stop watching over his shoulder like he did with Kevin. It was comical to look at. Kevin also noticed by seeing through the viewports in the bridge that they were no longer in FTL. The rest, including Kevin, Tyr and Arla, had all gathered sparsely around the round briefing table with Kevin closest towards the bridge.
"We're less than an hour away from the Dholen relay," Siri started. "I'm going to be sending a brief message to the Neema that we'll be arriving shortly. I wanted you all to stay here in the briefing room until we arrive."
"Yes ma'am," replied the quarians.
"Wouldn't it be better to just show up at the Migrant Fleet to minimize things, judging by what you told me earlier?" Kevin asked.
"Migrant Fleet Marine protocol generally assumes all unknown approaching vessels as hostile. We risk getting shot down. We have safeguards, but this is simply a better way."
"Ah. No, you wouldn't want something bad happening when you're this close to getting home," Kevin mused.
"A timely statement," a middle-aged man's voice boomed over the audio emitters in the briefing room.
Everyone, Ralik and Kar included, paused and looked around in utter confusion. Who was that, and where were they?
Suddenly the hologram projector in the center of the table spontaneously activated, and it projected the image of a man who seemed to fit the voice sitting in a chair facing Kevin. His hair was casually slicked back and he wore a lavish and expensive suit. He had a cigarette in one hand and glass of some beverage in the other. He just about projected the sense of a comfortable billionaire relaxing in his vista somewhere. The creepiest thing about this unknown man was that his eyes glowed a dim blue.
"Who the heck are you, and how did you contact my ship?" Kevin demanded.
"Your ship?" the man asked before taking a short puff of his smoking stick. "I seem to recall this ship belonging to someone else not too long ago."
"I don't know what you're talking about. Now answer my question. Who are you?" Kevin once again demanded.
The man in the chair was a calm man. He was not phased by Kevin's reactions and supplied no complexion cues or little inflections that might give away his intentions or thoughts. Kevin simply could not get a read on this man other than the fact that he presented himself in a way that implied he knew a great deal.
"There's no need for hostilities, Kevin. Not yet. After all, you did me and my organization a great service."
"What? What are you talking about? How do you know my name?"
"I know a lot more than your name. Do you remember a man by the name of Linus Werner?"
Kevin fell silent and his brows furrowed. How did this strange person know of that? He was alone in that room, and the only others that might have known where his bodyguards outside. But they were in Omega. Who would care what they brought against Kevin? The curious man continued even though Kevin did not answer.
"He was a very high ranking and very rich executive for a very large company. A company that supplied my organization quite well."
"So you're here for revenge then? Because I killed your front man?" Kevin asked, trying to gain a leg up on this mysterious character.
"Quite the contrary, actually. I owe you a small debt of gratitude. Linus Werner was an agent of mine, but as we found out, my organization wasn't the only one he was working for. He was a double agent, and needed to be put down. In that regard, you have my thanks. You saved me a lot of time and credits, and potentially more."
"So what is it that you want, then? You're good at beating around the bush."
The stranger snuffed his cigarette out in a small dish-like tray at the end of one of the arms of his chair. "To be frank, Kevin, I want my ship back. The Kellius was Linus' request, and though he supplied the majority of the funds by himself, it was designed and constructed by a few of my teams. The Kellius is Cerberus property, Kevin, and I simply can't have it and it's technology falling into the wrong hands."
"Cerberus? You're The Illusive Man?" Kevin shouted in surprise. Almost instantly, he noticed all of the quarians on the ship beginning to back away from him.
"Don't act so surprised. The facts have been in front of you all along, you just failed to, or didn't want to, heed the warnings."
"Then answer me this. How do you know who I am?"
"Information is my business, Kevin. I know a lot about many things. Despite this, you are a particularly important individual to my organization. The last remaining product of untold years of research. It's a shame you've turned out to be just another simple mercenary, given your abilities."
Kevin didn't say anything, but he knew right away what the Illusive Man was talking about. All those files on his drive. . . All those logs. . .
"The unfortunate truth is that you were given multiple chances to rejoin my organization and you rejected us each time, while still never knowing who it was you were rejecting."
"Probably with good reason, old man," Kevin snapped back.
"Regardless, you and your alien friends have learned too much from my ship. I am sending a team to bring the Kellius back. You will be given one final chance to rejoin our ranks, Kevin. If you are alone on the ship when they arrive, you will not be harmed and will be given the chance to work for us."
"You son of a-"
"Don't think I am doing this out of some sort of misplaced hatred for anyone. You could be an extremely valuable asset to Cerberus. Otherwise you and the others aboard the Kellius are massive liabilities. I can't afford to have them or you leaking information. I sincerely hope we can meet again."
Before Kevin could say anything to get a last word in, the hologram from the projector flickered off after The Illusive Man pressed on a unique haptic interface at his right side. Kevin was left staring at the table, completely stunned. He looked up after a while to see all the quarians on the far side of the room, some shaking their heads in disbelief.
"No!" Kevin shouted. "I don't work for Cerberus! He's playing games, he has to be! I-I'm not. . ."
Kevin shook his head and slammed a fist down on the table out of anger and frustration. Just then, the Kellius came to a grinding halt. Kevin looked back to Ralik to see what was going on, and he was again surprised. All of the haptice interfaces in the bridge were gone and Ralik was left with his hands up in front of him, confused as to what just happened. The terminals lining the neck of the ship were down, too.
"Terra, give me a full report on the ship," Kevin demanded from his VI assistant. There was no response.
"Terra! Acknowledge!" Again, no response. It was as if the entire ship was shutting down, and there was nothing he could do about it. This must have been how The Illusive Man planned on keeping the Kellius in place so that they wouldn't have to chase it down to bring it in.
That was when a dreadful realization, and its reality, dawned on Kevin. If the ship was shutting down, then the life support systems would go offline. If the life support systems went offline. . . Kevin drew in a deep breath to test his theory. He was right. The atmosphere within the ship was already starting to vent into the abyss of space. Soon there would be too little to breathe, and even worse, to little to keep his body in one piece.
Kevin did his absolute best not to panic. He needed air, now. He remembered seeing air tanks and breather masks in the med bay. That would last him a bit, but that would do nothing to save him from the upcoming vacuum. He was looking at a slow and painful death by vacuum, and that was not something he wanted to experience, ever. He looked to the quarians, all safe inside their environmental suits, and they simply stared at him as he faced his own death. He looked back to Ralik, and he was putting on his Eclipse hardsuit helmet that he had left in the bridge when he first came aboard.
Kevin didn't have a hardsuit on. Even if he did, he couldn't remember for the life of him where he left his breather helmet. He cursed his memory. Why does he always forget the important things? Kevin shook his head again and drew in as much of a breath as he could. From there, he broke out into a full on sprint for the med bay, hoping to gain a few precious moments of think time with a breather mask. Thankfully, the automatic doors still opened and the lights in the ship were still on, if dim. They were probably the only electronic systems still working.
When he got to the med bay, he noticed the panel on the door was off. Still fighting panic, Kevin pressed his hands in opposite directions on some of the decorative indents on the door in a desperate attempt to get it to open. To his relief, the door slowly slid apart, and eventually he was able to get it open enough for him to step inside. Already he could feel his face throbbing as his heart worked harder with the dwindling oxygen in his lungs.
After a frantic but short search, he found a breather mask. He pressed the clear mask to his face over his nose and mouth to create a seal and he turned the valve on the tank. There was a short hiss as the air from the tank escaped through the tube and into the mask, and Kevin took a deep, refreshing breath. He knew he'd only have a few minutes left. He could feel his eyes and ears begin to hurt as the lack of atmospheric pressure had begun taking its toll. To make things worse, the artificial gravity in the ship was nearly gone. With the mass effect core going to a powered down state, it could no longer create the high mass field that gave the ship artificial gravity. It didn't completely go away, however. He suspected that was so that the Cerberus agents could just walk onto the ship when they arrived.
Kevin began to search the med bay for something that might sufficiently protect him from the oncoming vacuum. Unfortunately, the combination of the panic that was now starting to set in and his eyes slowly being distorted kept him from seeing anything useful. Any training he had during his time in the Alliance to deal with emergency situations regarding loss of atmosphere went out the airlock. He was going to die.
Kevin turned around to see Ralik in his Eclipse suit approaching him quickly. Kevin didn't know what to do anymore. He waved his hands at Ralik so that he wouldn't have to see him perish. He was ignored, however, and Ralik continued to approach until he was nearly within arms reach. The moment he was, Kevin briefly saw a white armored salarian fist driving straight for his head.
And then everything went black.
Ralik picked the limp human body off of the floor. There was no hard impact from the fall, since the gravity had been severely reduced. He made sure to keep the mask on Kevin's blank face, just in case. He knew there was precious little time if he wanted to keep his friend from dying. He thought of several possible things he could do in order to stop the damage to Kevin's exposed membranes, but one idea stood out from the rest.
The decontamination chamber. It wasn't controlled by ship systems. It had its own internal controls, and it had to create a seal in order for the industrial strength decontamination process to work. Not only that, but it had to have a complete miniature life support system of its own in order to support whoever was inside when it sealed shut. With that in mind, Ralik quickly moved to the upright d-con chamber and set Kevin against the soft backing where the occupant would normally stand and lean against. That proved to be an issue, though, as Kevin was unconscious an wouldn't stand for Ralik. A curious – and convenient – feature in the controls, though, was that it had the ability to flatten out for long term d-con sessions. With a smile, Ralik engaged this feature. At that moment, another unfortunate problem surfaced. The device had no power. This could be easily remedied, though. All Ralik had to do was make an electrical connection from his omni-tool and his suit and omni-tool could supply some power to the device.
Once that was done, the controls for the chamber lit up, albeit dimly. It was enough power to function, but not enough to function at full capacity. In Ralik's mind, this was enough. All it had to do was seal and establish a stable pressure inside. Everything else was irrelevant. He pressed on the button to have the chamber level out, and it did so. Now Ralik could simply lie Kevin down and activate the d-con process. A large, curved and very darkly tinted glass slid down over Kevin's body and sealed shut. A low toned hiss emitted from the chamber, indicating to Ralik that it was indeed pressurizing as expected. Ralik let out a long, exasperated sigh. That was too close.
He looked up from the chamber and saw the quarian he knew as Bela'Merni standing in the open doorway, staring. He tilted his head at the girl and started giving orders.
"Don't just stand there, get your captain and the others and bring them here."
Bela nodded and she quickly left the room. Not more than a minute later, the whole quarian crew stepped into the room. Ralik was tied to providing power to the chamber, so he couldn't leave. He was glad to see that all the quarians did indeed decide to come into the room.
"We need to figure out what to do about Kevin," Ralik said, opening the floor for discussion.
"Pop the chamber. Let him rot," was Riik's immediate response.
"Stow it, Votis. Now," Siri snapped.
"He's with Cerberus, captain. He's not here to save us like we thought," Riik argued.
"We don't know that for certain," Tosh added.
"He put his life on the line for us. Why do that if he wasn't intending on saving our hides?" Tyr asked.
"Look, I don't like the idea of him being with Cerberus any more than you guys," Ralik stated. "The fact of the matter is, he's going to die if we don't help him. At the very least, he could decide not to jump on the Cerberus bandwagon."
"We could consider it as us repaying our debt for him saving us," Arla said. "We'd be even."
"If we must," Riik hesitantly. "I still don't like it. Their ship is on its way here, now. If Kevin wants to make it out alive, he's going to have to choose a side. Who wants to bet it's going to be theirs?"
"I said stow it, Votis," the captain said after some consideration. "Team, ideas?"
"Where is his hardsuit?" Tosh asked.
"It doesn't matter," Ralik pointed out. "Unless any of you have seen his breather helmet, his hardsuit won't mean anything."
"Is there anything we can use as a replacement helmet?" Tyr asked.
"We have replacement suit parts in the cargo bay, but there's no way I can make that compatible with his hardsuit," Tosh replied.
"Plus we'd be wasting valuable suit parts on a human that doesn't need an environmental suit," Kar added.
"He needs something, Welkas," Bela said, smacking Kar's chest.
There was a moment of quiet as they all attempted to come up with an idea to save this human's life, whether they wanted to or not. Suddenly, Tosh piped in.
"I have an idea, but some of you might not like it,"
Ralik looked up to Tosh. "Doesn't matter who likes it or not. What's your plan?"
"Ralik, do you know human anatomy at all?" Tosh asked.
"I do, but not enough to consider surgical procedures."
"That's fine," Tosh replied with a nod. "We're not aiming for surgery. I just need someone who knows what's what on a human body to help me."
"I can help you with that, yes. What do you need me to do?"
"For starters, go find Kevin's hardsuit and bring it here. I'll be right back."
"I can't," Ralik said, shaking his head. "I'm stuck providing power for the decontamination chamber. Since the ship's no longer doing that, I have to."
Tosh placed a three-fingered hand over the chin of his helmet. "Well, you can't stay that way. I need you for the procedure. Captain?"
Siri nodded, understanding the request. "Garloh, you'll have to take over for Dolannus."
"Understood, ma'am," Tyr replied and stepped forward without hesitation.
It took them a moment, but Ralik was able to get Tyr plugged in so that he was providing the small amount of power to the chamber rather than himself. As soon as he was sure that Tyr was set up properly, he swiftly made his way out of the room – but not before Tosh could. He rationalized that Kevin's hardsuit would most likely be in his quarters, so that's where he decided to look first. Luckily, that particular room wasn't far off.
He had to pry the doors open in a fashion similar to the way he saw Kevin open the med bay door earlier. When he got the door open, he was mildly dismayed to find another door at the end of the hall. After another strenuous effort, he finally gained access to the one room in the ship he had yet to visit. The master quarters. At first he was surprised at how open the room was, not to mention the three large viewports near the ceiling. After that, he found himself staring at the large amount of décor in the room as well. All the furnishings, the massive vid screen, the kingly bed. . . Kevin's been holding out on him! But he'd have to save conversation that for another time if he wanted to have the conversation at all.
At first glance, he didn't see the hardsuit anywhere. He subsequently noticed that there was a large closet on the far side of the room, and he headed straight for that. Upon opening it, he saw two hardsuits and no helmets. One was the suit that Kevin used, and that was all that mattered at the moment. He took the suit down from it's hanging spot and slung it over his shoulder. It wasn't so much that the hardsuit was really heavy, it was more that it was impossible to completely fold or compact it. With his objective in hand, or rather over his shoulder, he strode back to the med bay.
Upon arrival back in the med bay, he found that Tosh had already returned with something bulky in his hands and a box at his feet. He was arguing with a couple of the other quarians about something, though Ralik didn't care much for their stupid quarrels. He tended to block out anything they said that had any sort of less than pleasant tone. When he stepped up to Tosh, the argument fell away much to Ralik's relief.
"Set that on the bed over there," Tosh instructed. "We'll get to that in a minute. Captain, I'm going to need everyone except Garloh and Dolannus out of the room for the time being. We have a lot of work to do in a little time."
"You heard Rolush, team. Out. I'm sure there's something we can be doing about the ship elsewhere," Siri stated, shooing the other quarians out of the room.
Tosh let out a sigh of preparation and cracked his digits. "Alright. Let's get to work."