Thoughts from Andromeda part 26
By ElementalsAdvocate
…
Year 2819. In transit from Zheng He System to {Unknown}. Tempest, Pathfinders Cabin. 0834 hrs.
…
Scott walks into the cabin carrying a tray of food. He sets the tray on the coffee table before sitting down on the couch with sigh.
Finally, maybe I can get some peace and quiet. Galley's crazy first thing in the morning.
Scott scoops up some of the oatmeal and shoves it into his mouth. After chewing for several moments he swallows.
Ugh… six hundred years and this stuff is still inedible. Wish we had some cinnamon. I wonder if Drack might have some in his kit.
{Unknown. Scanning Drack's kitchen kit may provide answers.}
Heh… actually, scratch that. Probably not the best idea to go poking around in the gear of someone with a shotgun straight out of "Night of the Krogan Undead."
Scott sighs. Although… it might not be a bad idea to ask Drack if he has any suggestions on spicing up our MRE packs. Hopefully something local we can find anywhere in the cluster that isn't going to send half the crew into convulsions.
SAM, start recording. Maybe if I talk while I eat I can actually get this stuff down before Kallo needs me back on the bridge.
We left the Kallo stuck it out through the night, so Suvi took over the conn with me on the bridge while Kallo went to get a few hours of shut-eye. Since he's a Salarian, Kallo only needs a few hours of sleep every day. Still, he waited until he was sure we were in a pretty clear patch of space before he hit the sack. He cares.
It's been… interesting, working with a crew as varied as this. Back in the Milky Way, we all figured on working with aliens, but to the best of my knowledge, it was expected that each Pathfinder team would primarily stick to its own kind: humans with humans, asari with asari, and so on. Gah! Sara would probably whack me for that remark.
But it's true. And now, since the Initiative only has one scout ship, and after the beating the Hyperion's pathfinder team took on Habitat 7, our team needs the best, regardless of species or past plans.
So, the crew of the Tempest: first theres Kallo Jath, our pilot and navigator. Salarian, like Director Tann. But Kallo's much more likeable, or at least easier to get along with. He was a part of the team that originally designed and built the Tempest, so with his photographic memory, it's like he's constantly walking up and down Memory Lane with all his old friends. Which must be pretty sad, considering that the Tempest is the only ship of her class left anywhere, and the fact that none of his friends came with the Initiative to Andromeda…
Well, I hope I can help make him some more memories. Kallo's a good guy, for a salarian. He loves his job. Gets along well with just about everybody on board, especially Suvi Anwar, our defacto back-up pilot, and all around genius.
Suvi Anwar is our Science Officer and back-up pilot. She's human, about my age, Irish-Hindu origin, and… a little weird. She has this dreamy-droopy voice with an irish brogue that kind of dips down through your ear, like the sound you get blowing over the top of a long-necked bottle.
And smart. She's ridiculously smart. She's the same age as me and Sara, but Suvi's already got a list of doctorates as long as my arm. When I first came onboard the Tempest, Suvi sent me a 60 page document on Heleus soil samples she had researched and wrote herself, and she called it "barely more than a summary." And it was the abridged version! The full analysis took over 1400 pages! That she did herself! I can barely get through my Nexus reports on time, and she… phew. But she isn't an ass about it. She has this sort of… wide-eyed curiosity about the universe that seems to keep her humble. Which… kind of reminds me of Sara.
Damn.
Okay. Next is my Executive Officer; Lieutenant Cora Harper. Human, 26, former Alliance, former asari huntress, and a really strong biotic. The asari huntress part can be a little confusion since she's human, up until you find out that her biotics can rip through tank armor like paper. According to Cora, when the Systems Alliance found out how strong her biotics were, they signed her up for a Council-backed exchange program, and she ended up a part of an asari huntress team. Lots of missions all over the Milky Way Galaxy; rescue missions, assaults, sabotage, espionage, assassinations. Considering how many times she's saved my butt, thanks to the skills she learned while with the huntresses, I'm not going to comment.
Cora was… Dad's XO as well. And when Dad died, he passed over Cora to give the job to me. She was pretty frustrated about that. Well, no. She was definitely pissed off about that. First time I tried to talk to her when we first came onto the Tempest, she was so frustrated that she let loose with biotic assisted kick by accident, and sent a heavy crate skidding half-way across the hold. Not good.
But Harper seems to have settled down now. When she isn't attending to her duties, she tends to stick to the Hydroponics and Biology Bay, taking care of the plants that provide us with oxygen, food, and for Harper, some quiet company.
Then there's Liam. Liam Kosta is our teams Crisis Specialist, meaning he can do everything from shooting straight to providing basic medical care to running damage control. Basically, when trouble hits, he knows what to do to deal with it.
Kosta is 24, a born and bred Londoner. He started out as an engineer, and then moved into law enforcement because he wanted to make a difference. Bu he couldn't knuckle down under the system, so he transferred into Crisis Response; disaster relief, pulling people out of wreckage, that sort of thing. He got so good at it, that he was eventually invited to join a cross-species crisis response team, Heavy Urban Search and Crisis Response, or HUSTL. Instead of dealing strictly with disasters on Earth, he ended up hopping around disasters across Citadel Space. Pretty good job, according to Liam. He got to meet tons of new people, save lives, and feel good about himself.
According to Dad's notes, my father recruited Liam personally for the Pathfinder team. To hear Liam tell it, their relationship pretty much boiled down to Liam being British and chipper, and Dad grunting out orders all day.
Now, Liam's still chipper. He stays busy, coordinating between the Nexus and Prodromos, puttering around the Tempest and helping everybody with a little of everything.
Before we left the Nexus for Eos, Liam somehow finagled a small couch onto the Tempest and stuffed it into one of the aft supply rooms for a kind of chill out zone for everybody. Of course, the only one who seems to use it is Liam to watch his collection of old vids every night. He keeps sending me new suggestions every day of vids I should watch for "inspiration."
SAM, pause recording.
Honestly SAM, I don't really know what to think about Liam. He acts happy-go-lucky and upbeat. He's all over the place, acting like some kind of sheep dog, all panting and eager to help, looking for direction, and that's the problem. He went from engineer to cop to crisis response to the Initiative, all in the space of a few years.
And there's nothing wrong with that; Hell, I saw enough of my school friends go through the same thing while I went into the Alliance, but then again, I didn't have as many options as other people. Liam did, and he can't seem to knuckle down to any one thing.
That doesn't mean I don't trust him. Hell, after Habitat 7, I'd go through Hell and high water for the guy… but still. He isn't military; not the way I am, or Cora, or Drack, or even Vetra. At his heart, he's still a civilian, even if he can fight, even if he has killed. In the Initiative, a civilian venture, with everything going to plan, that's okay; but out there, out here, in the dark, where anything could happen… I don't know what he'll do.
What'll I do?
Ugh. I'm getting morose again. Cut is out Scott, it's not good for you, like this food is supposed to be.
Scott scoops up another mouthful of the oat mixture and swallows. Ugh. SAM, resume recording. Okay.
Next is Doctor Lexi T'Perro, our chief medical officer, and backs up Suvi on subjects relating to Biology, Anatomy, Physiology, and a lot of other things relating to the practice of medicine. She's asari, and… well, according to her file, she's two-hundred and seventy-five years old. Which, in human years is about late thirties to early forties I guess, though genealogically speaking, she won't be able to have children for at least another century or so. At least, that's if I understand the file on asari biology and life-cycle.
According to Lexi, her mother was a dancer on Omega, and her father was a turian bouncer at the club where her mother worked. When her father would get hurt at work, Lexi would patch him up afterwards. Since she showed a healers drive, Lexi's parents used all their savings to get Lexi off the station and send her to medical school. A few years later, her parents were killed in a turf war. "Made leaving the Milky Way easier," or so Lexi said. She's got a dry sense of humor too.
Lexi is an eminent professional, another person on this crew with a list of doctorates longer than my arm, with interests in krogan virility and alien anatomy. Not sexual though. She's one of those people who follow the philosophy of not getting involved with her patients or colleagues, which is just fine by me.
Medical personnel always have the down and dirty on people because they see people at their worst and weakest on board ship, and Lexi is no exception. She may not break "doctor/patient confidentiality", but she does pick up on things that are… "under the skin" I guess. Maybe I should ask her about Liam.
Lexi and Harry (Doctor Carlyle) are old friends. According to Lexi, she knew Harry "before he started complaining about his arthritis", which probably means somewhere around the mid-Jurassic. Heh. Though seriously, with medical advancements since the First Contact War, trying to determine someone's age by their looks is almost impossible. Harry's got silver hair, and complains about arthritis, and calls what we're doing "a young man's game." But he could be anywhere between forty and a hundred. Since the Alliance only joined the Citadel species less than thirty years ago, well, thirty years before we left the Milky Way, it can't have been that long.
Still, Harry was the one who recommended Lexi for the Initiative, and Lexi was the first person Harry called to replace him after the Habitat 7 fiasco. So far, everything's turned out pretty well.
Here's hoping it stays that way.
Vetra Nyx is our resident go-to girl for anything and everything the Tempest and her crew needs; most of which isn't in any official record, but up in her amazing plated noggin. She used to be a smuggler, up until she found out that Kesh, one of her frequent and best clients, was up to something big, and requested to get in on the action. That's how Vetra ended up in Initiative.
Vetra's a turian. Thirty years ago, if Vetra and I had ended up in the same room together, we'd have fought each other to the death. Now, I can't imagine how we'd manage without her. If I had to give her a title, it would have to be Quartermaster. Not only does she look after the Tempests stores and armory, but she can fight like hell.
Vetra is a really intense character. Not that shes up in your face about things all the time, but she takes everything seriously. I've seen her laugh and make jokes, have a drink with other people during Kasperek's wake back in Prodromos, but when the shit hits the fan, she is solid as a rock. The saying goes that "Palaven is made of iron, but turians are steel." Working with Vetra, I can believe it. She can fight, but the way she handles herself and the people on the Nexus… she's flexible, adaptable, resilient. She's got charisma, certainty, responsible, dutiful… heh. Sounds like the ideal turian to me. Which makes me wonder…
What did she go through to get this good?
Eh, putting that under "Think about later."
The thing that really got me about meeting Vetra was her facial tattoos. Most turians tattoo their faces with their colony or cluster marks and colors as a kind of sign of solidarity with their "own" people, or like humans, expressing their personal taste or code. Vetra has these broad bright purple diagonal lines across her face that form a kind of triangle across her face. The lines converge on her brow to form the highest point of the triangle, then bisect, cutting across her eyes and down to her jaw line and across her mandible, with another, thinner line just above that run parallel to the broad stripes. Considering her history, I can't imagine that Vetra's feels connected with any particular turian colony, even Palaven, so I figure that it has to be personal. Something to think about.
If there's one person on this crew that I don't want to fail, it's Vetra. She's here to work, to make the Tempest work, to make the Pathfinder Team work, to make the Initiative work and do what it promised to do. That's… some serious motivation, and more than a little scary.
Rounding out the civilian staff on this team is Gil Brodie, our Chief Engineer. Gil is a real life wrench monkey. Can't see a piece of equipment or tech lying around without wanting to poke at it, find out how it works, and then find out how to make it work better. Gil describes how he works and lives as "feel it, do it." He felt like joining the Andromeda Initiative, so he did it. Apparently, he didn't leave many friends behind in the Milky Way, and the only real friend he's got is on the Nexus. Don't know much more than that, we haven't exactly found time to talk.
Unlike the other professionals on the Tempest, Brodie doesn't have a list of doctorates to his name. Actually, his file is a little bare. Born on Earth, no parents, and started tinkering around with wrecked shuttle engines and other space parts as a kid. He doesn't have any formal training, but he had a lot of references and a lot of practical experience under his belt with cutting edge technology. According to his file, it was Kesh who nominated Gil for the Initiative, with Vetra as a reference. Bet there's a story there.
Anyway, Gil knows his stuff, and seems to get along pretty good with everyone. He calls Vetra and Suvi his "girls". Definitely want to know where that came from. But he doesn't seem to care for Kallo; Called a pilot's job, "a dead end." That… could be trouble.
Then there's Peebee, or Crazy Blue, or her real name: Pelessaria B'Sayle. Wow, that a mouthful. I can understand why she shortened it.
Peebee is not your typical asari. She's loud, obnoxious, bouncy, irreverent, irresponsible, nosy, and yet, she's taking on the Remnant with a kind of gusto that I've only ever seen in Sara when she talks about her Prothean digs. And that's… a little scary. Peebee's file is also a little bare, and she doesn't have too much that I could call formal training. But... the way she handled herself on Eos… at least she knows how and when to duck, and with that modified pistol she carries, I think I can depend on her to hold her own. I just need to be ready to duck when she does, in case the shot comes for me.
Peebee's set herself up just off the bridge, right outside the escape pods. Lexi says she has commitment issues. And Peebee leaves the room whenever Lexi turns up. Wonder what that's about? I didn't see her too much on the Nexus either. Why?
She said she came to Andromeda to do things that no one else had ever done, see things unseen, ride the very edge of discovery. I can definitely get behind that, but she's going to have to slow down a little for the rest of us, for the Nexus sake.
I can definitely understand the hunger to see what's behind the next corner. Yes I do.
Finally there's our new resident krogan: Nakmor Drack. Drack looks and feels like a dinosaur: the kind that could get knocked on his butt by a T-Rex, then jump back up, rip Rex's leg off, beat it to death with his bare hands, and then cook and eat the whole mess, grinning the whole time. That's Drack. He fights and he cooks. Ha!
You know, when I pictured my first meeting with a krogan out here, I expected things to take a turn for the worse. But somehow, not only have I got a krogan on my crew, I have THE krogan on my crew.
{THE krogan?}
The ideal krogan, the quintessential krogan, the distilled krogan; take your pick. Drack is over 1400 years old. This is a guy who was stomping around the Milky Way when the Roman Empire fell, when humans could barely imagine traveling across a country, much less between galaxies. Drack saw the Krogan Rebellions, saw first-hand the damage that the genophage did to his species. He's probably killed more people in his life time than anyone in the Initiative, except maybe another krogan…
… and Drack is Kesh's grandfather. God! If he finds out that I asked Kesh on a date… I don't think running back to the Milky Way will be far enough.
And he cooks. That's something I did not see coming. When most people think about krogan, they think hulking juggernauts rampaging across the galaxy, or the genophage that shattered them as a power in the Milky Way. I guess I knew some krogan did cook, but I had no idea that I was bringing a Shepard-given chef onto the Tempest. In the time he's been here, Drack's taken our supplies and turned them into food you can actually eat, instead of stuff you put in your mouth and just have to endure, like this oatmeal. And he's augmented them with what he's caught. When Vetra and Cora had to pick Drack up in the desert back on Eos? He was so slow because he was bringing in his larder.
Turns out, krogan have learned to take living off the land to the next level. To me, Eos was a radioactive sandbox. For Drack, Eos was just like Tuchanka, only with a lot more choices for food. Challyrion, kaerkyns, olloids, Desert Blue Tip buds and fruit, even small stuff like brush flowers and bark. Krogan are omnivores like humans and asari, but Drack…
I can't even imagine how a creature that big could work in our tiny galley. The first night after we left Eos, Drack cracked open his larder and cooked up what looked and tasted like an honest-to-God chicken soup, out of the guts of a challyrion he killed out in the Golden Wastes.
After we left Eos, I asked Lexi for her take on Drack. SAM?
{T'Perro: "I've never met someone so stubborn and so appreciative."}
Yeah… and that's another thing. Back when Drack first agreed to join up with us, I took a scan of him just in case. Over half his major organs have been replaced by cybernetics or biomechanics, or just aren't there anymore. He should have two hearts: he has one. He should have four kidneys: two are biomechanical replacements, and one real kidney doesn't even work anymore. Part of his spine has been removed and replaced. And on top of all of that, he's go that cybernetic right arm that looks like he ripped it off a geth colossus.
He's had it rough, and he looks it. He's tough, and he knows it. He's been hurt, and he keeps going in spite of everything, for 1400 years. And he's Kesh's grandfather. That's… wow. Just… wow.
You know something? I'm really starting to look forward to the next few days.
[Pathfinder?]
Yes Kallo?
[We just crossed the edge of our maps. We're in unknown territory.]
See any dragons?
[What?]
It's… nothing. I'll be right there. Just need to finish my breakfast.
[Better do it quickly. Suvi's getting some odd readings on the long range sensors. Could be Scourge.]
Understood. Be right there. SAM, end recording.
…
Authors Note: Voting is closed. 4-0 for Havaarl.