Chapter 37
They arrived in the Annos Basin in the afternoon. The salarian scout hailed them. Cassidy said, "Just passing through, Captain Minnon" "What? What do you mean passing through? The Widow relay is not active!" "We'll see you some other time, Captain. Normandy out." "Let's jump, Joker." "Jumping, Captain."
Cassidy held her breath as she watched the speed and position monitor that EDI put up for her. The transition to FTL was so smooth and the speed crept up with amazing swiftness and then evened out. Joker said, "ETA 4 weeks 3 days 2 hours, Captain. Kinetic barriers up and stronger than they've ever been. If you don't mind I think I'll go get a snack." "Feel free. Did you have your lunch up here?" "Often do, especially since you brought Samesh, Raja and Parveen on. Parveen particularly likes the view from here. Do you know she's been asking me about James?" "Has she? Well, it will be interesting to see how that plays out in the next 4 weeks, eh? We'll be our own soap opera." "Yea, 'As the Normandy Sails'."
They spent the time with multiplayer video games, ping pong, volleyball, poker, cribbage, backgammon, chess and billiards tournaments, group movie screenings, special dinner nights. There was Set, chinese checkers, checkers, euchre, hearts and bridge. Clowder even set up laser tag in the cargo bay (Cassidy only played if she was specifically invited). There was sparring and forms. There were dance nights, and since one the marines was a caller, they did square dancing and line dancing. Clowder was especially intrigued by the partner card games.
One day in the second week, as Cassidy was watching a backgammon game, James came to sit by her. "Hey, Lola, what do you know about Parveen?" "Samesh said she was in university for hospitality services and working for his restaurant for spending money before the Reapers hit. She likes Callista. Why?" "Honestly, I'm used to um, attracting attention from women fairly easily. But her, she treats me like everybody else, nothing special, you know? I don't know what's going on, I mean I haven't seen her with any of the other guys and not with any of the girls either."
Cassidy said, "Have you tried talking to her?" "Well, I can't seem to get anything out of my mouth when she's around." "What has she been doing for recreation?" "I've seen her playing bridge. I can't get my head around the bidding for that." "Hmm, maybe you could watch the bridge game and join in on the general conversation, see if you and she agree on something. Just a thought, something to try." "Yea, I see, avoid the tongue tying by talking to the group she's in. Yea, I can try that, to uh break the ice. Thanks, Lola." "That's me, a regular yenta now." James got up and went off. Cassidy smiled to herself over Parveen's tactics, then got up to join a volleyball game getting formed.
The next morning, Cassidy was teaching white belt form. Parveen was in the class, as well as Samantha and Tali (without her suit). Cassidy saw James out of the corner of her eye. When she came to a pause, she looked at him and said, "Would you like to join the class, Lieutenant?" "Um, uh, " "Get in line here, Lieutenant." "Aye, aye, Ma'am." She resumed teaching.
James caught up with Cassidy as she was leaving lunch. "Hey, Lola, why did you pull me into that class? You know I don't do that subtle shit." "1. You could use a little more grace in your movements. 2. You were looking way too stalkerish and 3. It gives you something in common with Parveen. She's taking to it like a duck to water. I might make her my assistant as we get into higher forms. See you at 0800 tomorrow."
In the third week she announced that the class would be testing in the class after next. She saw James get a slightly alarmed look on his face. She ran them through the form one at a time, correcting them as needed. Parveen's form was lovely as well as correct. James' was blocky and tentative. She asked Parveen to assist him while she worked with Samantha and Tali.
The next day, Parveen lined up next to James and gave him feedback when he asked. Cassidy asked them to sit outside the square and called Parveen up. Cassidy had them bow to each other. Then Cassidy set herself in the attack form which was the partner to the white belt defense form. She said "Go!" and timed her attacks so that Parveen was automatically blocking them as the form went on. When they finished, Cassidy reset Parveen to go again. This time Cassidy sped up her attacks a little so that Parveen would miss the blocks if she didn't speed up as well. Parveen got a slightly alarmed look as she just barely met the first attack and then a determined look and she watched Cassidy more carefully and confidently met the rest of the attacks. Cassidy bowed Parveen back to the edge then praised her quick adjustment. She backed up and asked Parveen to work with Tali and Samantha to work with James.
She tested them the next class and they all passed. James shook Parveen's hand, thanking her for the out-of-class help. Parveen said, "I was glad to be of assistance, Lieutenant." and caught up with Cassidy in the elevator. When the door closed, Parveen said, "Thank you, Captain, for pulling him into the class." "I had my own reasons, but you're welcome, Parveen."
She gave them the weekend off, then started yellow belt. Ensign Copeland joined them at this point, having demonstrated a very nice white form at the beginning, saying that he had just tested for white when the Reapers hit. She began with three elements, all attacks, that would be new to them in this form. When they looked to have gotten the idea, she got Ensign Copeland up and instructed him to throw one of the attacks, his choice. They bowed and Cassidy got into ready position, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet and said "Go". Copeland went for the front kick and Cassidy blocked it, knocking his kick to the side of her. She had Copeland do the next one and the then the third, showing the proper blocks all basically knocking the attack off target, which were all in the white form. She paired them up, Parveen with Copeland, Samantha with Tali. Cassidy partnered James, who was very confident with this part of the work. When they finished, Cassidy ran them through the first leg of the yellow form. After they had some time working on that, she bowed them out of class.
By the end of the week, they had the full form to work on. Cassidy reminded them that they were due to arrive in a few days, so class would resume when they had a chance.
That evening, the movie was Blasto 4. Cassidy saw James approach the seat next to Parveen. He inquired and was apparently accepted.
Arrival day. Cassidy watched from behind Joker as the speed smoothly came down and then they transitioned out of FTL, landing with the mass relay off to their left. She had EDI scan, but there was nothing. They approached the mass relay and began the repair process. It took them only a few days, as they did not need to collect reactants for this relay, just the pieces. The pieces were a bit further out, having had weeks more to travel, but they were traveling at sub-light speeds, so it would just be the work of 5 days herding pieces back to the relay then the 6th in which the relay would fuse the pieces back into full rings.
On the 3rd day of gathering wayward relay pieces, they were out toward Beckenstein, so Cassidy had them take a break to FTL to that system. There was a little flotsam in the system from a destroyed fuel station, ships, com satellites, and relays. They orbited the planet and Cassidy had EDI search for any energy signatures. "Captain, there is a weak distress beacon. "Take us there. We'll go in the shuttle. You'll stay in orbit unless we need you."
They approached the beacon. There was a circle of ten tents, with a fire going in the center. Cassidy saw several teenage girls come out of the tents and wave up at the shuttle. Cortez put the shuttle down just beyond the tents. Cassidy came out and one of the girls ran up. "Oh, thank heavens. We didn't think anyone was going to come after awhile." "Is this all of you?" "No, our troop leaders are out with two teams hunting and gathering. Um, just a minute, I can call them in." She pulled up her omni-tool and got the troop leader on. "Mrs Hughes, an Alliance shuttle is here!" "That's wonderful! We're coming in. You call Mrs Deepak, too, please." "I will." She cut that com and then pulled up the other troop leader, "Mrs Deepak, an Alliance shuttle is here. I already told Mrs Hughes." "Fantastic news, dear. We're coming."
"I'm Captain Shepard, what's your name?" "I'm, uh, Melanie Rand" "Melanie, how many of you are there?" "Oh, there's 17 of us counting the leaders. We were caving, the entrance is just a mile over that way. We spent 3 days down there and when we came up and called for our ride back, there was no answer, and the extranet went down and there was no planetary news. We figured it was the Reapers and we debated hiding in the caves, but we didn't have that much food with us. We've been living off some abandoned fields." "Melanie, take a breath. Get everyone who is here now to pack up their personal stuff and take it over there by the shuttle." Melanie went back to the tents.
Cassidy looked at Ashley. "No problem, Shepard. I'll get cots set up in my place and I'll move down to a room on 6." Samara said, "I, too, will move to a room on 6. The remaining girls can have the Observation Lounge."
EDI said, "Captain, if you will give us an hour, Clowder and I can prepare bunks from omni-gel generated parts." "Alright, EDI, let me know when you're ready." Cassidy went to sit by the fire. There was a pot sitting over it. Cassidy took the spoon out and stirred whatever was in there. "Oh, Captain, you don't need to do that, I'm supposed to be doing that." Cassidy handed the girl the spoon. "What's your name?" "I'm Abby Parcell" "Captain, are we all there is left?" "As far as we know, Abby, I'm sorry." "We kind of figured. When we still couldn't get a signal nor any coms besides each other, well after the first month, we dared to get the homing beacon going. Then still nobody came for months. We figured they had to be gone." "I'll stir the soup, is that what's in there?" "Stew, with meat from rabbits. We have traps out and mostly what we get is rabbits." "OK, I'll stir the stew and you go pack." "OK, I'll go pack."
After about 30 minutes a group returned from the forest, carrying rabbits, bags of fruit, sheaves of some grain, and bags of something small and round, nuts Cassidy guessed. The adult woman came toward her and Cassidy stood. "Wendy Hughes, and you are?" "Captain Shepard of the Normandy." "Oh, my goodness, Captain, I've never met anybody from the news, of course, you've been promoted since then, oh, I'm sorry, I'm babbling. Let me get these girls packing." and she went off toward the tents.
Cassidy sat down again. Garrus came and sat down next to Cassidy. There are no life forms even as big as a varren for 2 kilometers in all directions. They're probably avoiding this site, especially if the girls have been hunting. "EDI asked us to wait so she and Clowder can make bunks. We have one more group coming in, and in fact that would be them." Cassidy stood up and waited for the group to make its way around the shuttle. The adult came up and shook Garrus' hand and Cassidy's hand. "Vanna Deepak. We're so glad to see you!" "Captain Shepard of the Normandy, my XO and husband, Adviser Garrus Vakarian." "Oh, Captain, wow. Um, I'll go get the girls to packing." and she walked off to the other side of the camp.
"Let's see what this group brought in . . . bean pods, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, they must have found a garden or greenhouse. What else . . . a box of salt, a pepper grinder with peppercorns, a folded up rifle, and over here are chickens, no those are turkeys, I think, maybe they're a local variant. Hmm."
"Captain, we have 14 bunks and a cot in the old crew quarters and two cots in observation lounge." said Clowder on her omni-tool. "Thank you, Clowder. Samesh, we have some provisions coming up, some rabbits and some birds, like small turkeys. Some assorted farm and garden products." "That is good, Captain. Would there be any chance of you bringing in something like a cow or a pig or both?" "Let me find out, Samesh."
Cassidy told Garrus to stir the stew, then she went over to one side of the tents, "Mrs Hughes?" "Yes, Captain?" "Some of the stuff you have here tells me that there must be an abandoned farm nearby. Are there any food animals out there, cows or pigs or the like?" "Well there are fields and gardens but no structures. We figure somebody lived in town and commuted out here to tend the farm. That way is a big fenced-in field and there are oxen in it, but they stay out at the far end." "That way?" Cassidy pointed and Mrs Hughes said, "Yes, that way, in general." "Thank you, Mrs Hughes. You can get back to helping the girls pack."
Cassidy went up to Garrus. "Samesh would like a cow. There are some oxen in a field that way. Take Grunt. You shoot an ox in the head. Grunt can put it in the shuttle. Might as well get two if they're close to each other. Use your judgment." "Will do, Captain. See you in a bit." and Garrus messaged Grunt to meet him at the shuttle.
Cassidy watched the shuttle lift off and go. A couple of the girls came out their arms full of sleeping bags and duffel bags. "Where's the shuttle going?" asked one. "To go bring in a couple oxen." said Cassidy. "There's a whole herd out there, but its too far for us to drag one of them back here. Beside the others would probably attack us on the way back if we tried." said the other. "Sit down, have some stew while we wait."
The sun was setting when the shuttle returned Garrus and Grunt got out. There were two fairly big oxen in the shuttle. Grunt said,"I'm going to head up with these and any of that food that will fit in here." A half dozen of the girls got up and started taking the food bundles to the shuttle. Steve took Grunt and all the food back up to the Normandy.
By the time the shuttle returned, the tents were down and packed up and the stew was eaten, the dishes washed and packed. Cassidy said, "6 girls, their stuff. 4 tents. Ashley and Samara go with them." Mrs Hughes pointed counted out 6 girls. Those ran to grab their stuff and get on the shuttle. Ashley grabbed two tents and Samara grabbed the other two.
It took 2 more shuttle trips but they got everybody and everything onto the Normandy.
Dinner was a bit of a mad house. Samesh had a buffet going with plenty of choices, since he didn't know any of the girls' preferences. He and Raja kept cooking and refilling the buffet until he felt that folks had enough. Then Wrex and Grunt came to finish it all off.