GV: You really should come out of engineering to see what's happening out here.
TR: Can't. In the middle of diagnostics. Why?
GV: It's terrifying.
TR: Oh?
GV: The Commander has dragged T'Soni and Alenko down here for an impromptu biotics training session. They've pulled out a crate of drones that were apparently in storage.
TR: Drones?
GV: They've rigged the tracking lasers to improvise weapons fire. Kind of clever, actually.
GV: Though I can't say I'm thrilled about the barrages of biotic energy currently flying around the cargo bay.
TR: Oh dear, is your beloved Mako at risk?
GV: Very much so. The Commander tells me, and I quote, my "objections are noted but the Mako can shake it off."
GV: Damn it! That one almost hit me. I'm starting to consider crawling across the floor to try and make to engineering.
TR: Hah! I might consider pausing the diagnostics for that sight.
GV: It's good to know you have such high regard for my dignity.
GV: Huh. Now this is interesting.
TR: (All this distraction is really going to cause havoc with my numbers, you know.)
TR: Alright, what is it?
GV: She's getting Alenko to lead the drills now. He's clearly very confused and uncomfortable with being ordered to order around his commanding officer.
GV: He's doing okay, but he's crowding Shepard's side too much. She need space to maneuver and he's trying to cover her. He's instinctually trying to protect her.
GV: And … she's finally snapped at him. Now he looks like a kicked varren. And he's questioning her – says he doesn't see the point in running drills with a different the commander structure.
TR: I'm going to tell Adams the failed diagnostics are completely your fault.
GV: Fine, but listen to this: she's telling Alenko that, after we've caught Saren, she wants to use the Normandy as a base of operations. The idea is that Williams and Alenko would each lead their own teams.
GV: I mean, I can see what she's going for, but it would never work. First of all, spectre status is exclusive to her-it has to be, otherwise every spectre would have their own Saren-esque army. I can't imagine the Alliance or the Council would endorse a spectre with multiple teams. I gotta wade in here…
TR: Yes, that's a great idea, Garrus vas Normandy. You go ahead and tell the Spectre how to do her job. Let me know how that goes.
GV: Okay, I'm back.
TR: ….and…?
GV: It didn't go well.
TR: Surprise, surprise.
TR: Want to talk about it?
GV: Not really.
GV: Hold on, "vas Normandy?" Don't you mean "vas Vakarian"?
TR: No, of course not. Vas means "dweller on". Our names come from our homes – our ships.
GV: Huh. Never knew that.
TR: Guess you never took the time to chat about surnames with any of the quarian you arrested because they were "acting suspicious?"
TR: Oh, no. I'm sorry Garrus. That was uncalled for. I wish I could delete it.
GV: I wish I could tell you were wrong.
GV: I've learned so much from the Commander and from you and Wrex. I don't think I can go back to the old C-Sec way of thinking.
GV: Anyhow, I wouldn't be vas Normandy. This ship isn't exactly home.
TR: vas Citadel?
GV: Ugh, please no. I've never felt at home there – vas Palavan, I suppose.
TR: It doesn't work that way. No planets. Just ships.
GV: The Commander grew up on ships, you know. She'd probably be a "vas Normandy." Although humans have strange naming conventions…they seem to be able to call themselves anything they like. In the Hierarchy, children are legally required to take the surname of their higher-ranking parent. If both parents are at the same tier, there's a simple formula for determining rank based on ancestry.
TR: Yes, that sounds much easier.
GV: I can hear your sarcasm from here, you know.
TR: Excellent. Does that mean you'll leave me alone so I can finally finish these diagnostics?
GV: Alright, understood.
Chat ended.
Mom,
Liara has been intensely studying the training exercises you sent. I stopped by to check on her during rounds and she bombarded me with questions about the different scenarios. She rambled on for a good five minutes, gesturing at all the screens running simulations around her. I put a hand on her shoulder and she finally paused.
"Liara, you're a scientist."
She stared at my hand on her shoulder, and tilted her head sideways.
"….yes?" she answered hesitantly. "An archeologist, technically, which involves an intersection of several scientific disciplines, including –"
"—yeah, okay. Look. You're over-thinking this."
She blinked at me.
"You're saying I should…trust my instincts?"
"Definitely not," I smirked. "That's what almost got us both killed on Luna. No. I'm saying trust your …intellect, I guess. Combat strategy—especially small squad formations like these—are miniature logic puzzles."
"Alright, except—"
"Hey. Stop. Listen. In your research, you collect data points. And then you string them together by speculating theories, right?"
"If you wanted to grossly oversimplify my life's work…"
But a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, so I carried on.
"You use your data like…like mass relays. You leap from known point to known point. And then you move into the unknown space in between."
"I follow the analogy. This seems to have strayed far from our original discussion, however."
"Bear with me. Okay. So you need to start doing the same thing for combat. See your known data points. Then speculate the unknowns. Sometimes, you'll be wrong. But you're a good scientist, Liara. Most of the time, you'll be right."
She ducked her head at the compliment, looking at me from under her eyelashes for moment. I coughed, then turned to the nearest screen.
"One of your questions was about this pincer formation, right? What happens if we add in a couple of those geth stalkers into the scenario? "
She nodded.
"Data point: the stalker is, at some point, going to move to the ceiling at some point, which destroys the advantage previously offered by the person in the point position."
"Exactly, that's why I was wondering –"
"You don't need me to tell you, Liara. You know this. Data point: the person taking point is, say, me. You have two data points. So speculate. Theorize. Tell me what is going to happen the moment that stalker jumps up to the ceiling."
She smiled, locking her eyes to mine.
"Ah. You're going to sprint forwards."
"An excellent theory. So what do you do?"
"Lift the enemy on the right – you can concentrate on the stalker without dealing with the cross-fire."
I couldn't help but smile at her.
"You got it."
She looked away to the screens, as if seeing them for the first time.
"So for this scenario here—"
Spontaneity isn't usually my thing, but, suddenly, I knew what we needed to do.
"Okay, Liara, you know what, let's take a trip down to the cargo bay."
She raised her eyesbrows at me.
"We'll grab Lieutenant Alenko on the way. Let's field-test your theories."
A part of me wondered if Kaiden would be annoyed, but he only looked wryly amused as I dragged him and Liara down to the cargo bay. Vakarian looked up from whatever he was patching up on the Mako and his mandibles flicked in surprise. Wrex only crossed his arms and settled back on his heels – unabashedly watching us work. I ordered Ashely to unpack a crate of drones, got Kaiden to disable the live ammunition, and set the ground rule that the targeting lasers would count as a "tag."
And we ran maneuvers. Over and over. Just the three of us. Biotic powers only – pure strategy, no weapons. Liara was still awkward and clumsy at times—once, she apparently completely forgot Kaiden was behind the empty crate for the drones and almost lifted him along with the crate—but her flashes of brilliance increased in frequency the longer we ran the drills. I threw one drone across the room, only to have Liara biotically pull it into a singularity – and, as it spun, its targeting laser painted every other drone in the room. That one earned a nod from me, and she smiled in return.
I had ulterior motives for brining Kaiden, however: I sprang command on him without much explanation. He had no problems dictating orders to Liara, but struggled with me. The inversion of command was difficult for him. Finally, I explained my line of thinking to him, motioning Ashley over too, since it would affect her as well: I need more squad leaders. While we're catching Saren, I understand why it's necessary for me to go on every ground mission, since I am the only one with spectre authority. But once we have Saren and I can resume a less…frantic…pace of operations as a spectre, multiple teams working only make sense.
Not according to Vakarian, of course, who couldn't help but point out that the reason spectre authority doesn't extend to others is precisely to avoid the kind of "personal army" I appeared to be planning on forming. He didn't say it – but his unspoken "just like Saren" was obvious enough to irritate the hell out of me. The difference, I explained to him through gritted teeth, was that I wasn't planning on destroying the galaxy, or whatever the hell Saren is doing with the geth. The difference would be that Kaiden and Ashley could continue to operate within the Alliance command structure. If anything, this would give more oversight: an Alliance-Spectre joint operation – which was what Nihilus could have had from the start, if he hadn't decided to pull a "lone wolf" maneuver and get himself killed.
Vakarian didn't like that one – I know that Nihilus was something of a legend among the turian, and it was probably culturally insensitive of me to call out a hero's mistakes like that. But it's true. If Nihilus hadn't allowed his ego to get in the way, we probably would have captured Saren ages ago. Nihilus knew Saren well. He would know his movements, his patterns. One idiot decision and the cascade of failures has been galactic.
A lesson Vakarian himself could learn, actually. That comment about murdering Saren without a trial is alarming, to say the least. I haven't forgotten how he almost blew Dr. Michel's head off in that clinic. He took that shot, not because he wanted to save Dr. Michel – I have no doubt that he did, but that's not why he took the shot. He took the shot because he could.
Though…believe it or not…Vakarian's questioning of my long-term plans for the Normandy ended up not being the primary reason for wanting to throttle him today.
We ran drills for longer than we should have – our blood sugar levels were starting to crash before the end. At one point, I misheard a "dodge right" for a "dodge left" and end up running full-force into Liara. I didn't have my armor on, but we both crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs. Apologizing profusely, I managed to pull myself up and she was—well, she suddenly seemed very close. And she was smiling. I climbed to my feet, and grabbed her hand to pull her up after me: after all the exertion, it was very warm, and I suddenly realized that asari skin is covered in these almost-invisible…scales? No, that's the wrong word. Texturing? Part of my brain was still looking for the word while the other part realized I had held onto her hand for far too long.
"Commander?" Vakarian asked. "Are you alright? Your face is turning red?"
There was something of an incredulous guffaw from Ashley.
I played it off as smoothly as I could, though there was maybe more than a touch of irritation in my voice.
"Humans do that when they're exhausted, detective," I snapped at him. "We've been running nothing but biotics for over an hour and it's probably time for a break," I turned back to Liara – her expression was strangely calculating: the dangerous look of a scientist drawing connections between the known data points.
"Sorry about that, again," I said, turning to Liara, maybe too casually. "Let's call for today."
She nodded.
And, wow, okay, I really regret starting this message by addressing it my mother, because this is definitely…yeah…okay. I'm just going to stop typing now.
Message unsent.
Mom,
Thanks for the training program - used them to run scenarios with the biotics today. Went well.
Love,
Your daughter, Commander Camina
Message sent.