Interloper Rewrite: Chapter 25
Upgrades
"Michael, wake up. You slept through lunch; I saved you something to eat." I looked up blearily. Blurred features swam before my eyes.
"Liara?"
"You wish, out of bed, I need your help with something." I blinked away the haze of sleep. The short brown hair and narrow blue eyes of Corporal Steiner came into focus. She held half of a nutrient bar in her fist. "I got hungry on the way, alright, now move it." I shifted enough to put my feet on the floor. I hissed as cold metal touched my bare feet. Someone had taken off my boots. I rooted around for the things until Steiner pushed them towards me. "I swear, you're useless."
I stood carefully, trying not to rock my arm in its sling. I followed behind the marine yawning. "If I'm so useless how is it I'm supposed to help you with whatever it is you're doing? What do you need help with anyway?"
"You'll see." The Corporal led me towards the cargo lifts. In one of the monitors, I caught a glimpse of something familiar.
"Hey corp, where are we?"
"Parked over Luna, the Commander's down there taking care of some business. Took Chief Williams and Lieutenant Alenko with her."
"She didn't take more marines?" I asked, puzzled that the Commander wouldn't take a larger team down to deal with what had to be the rogue VI.
"None of us had clearance." Steiner shrugged. "You ask me, some officer's gone postal. Brass doesn't like that kind of thing going public."
We had arrived at the door to the barracks. Steiner motioned for me to go in ahead of her. I walked through the threshold to find the Normandy's entire marine company watching me, grinning ear to ear. The sight shook me a little, it was like running into a pack of predatory animals. Behind me, Steiner closed the door.
"Looky what I found, marines. It's the birthday boy."
Birthday boy? It couldn't be. What date is it? It's so hard to keep track out in space?
"January 5th, Earth Normal. Didn't think you could hide it from us did you?" One of the marines jeered. If that was the date, and there was no reason for them to be lying to me, I was now 24. My line of thought derailed as the first palm descended on my forehead.
"Happy birthday!" one after the other, the marines swarmed me, swatting at my head and wishing me a happy birthday. After each one had assaulted me, they withdrew. Corporal Steiner took to the fore. She unrolled a large roll of thick paper.
"Marines, secure the accused." Strong hands grip my elbows. They dragged me to a chair in the middle of the room. I struggled against them, but the men held me fast.
"What the hell is going on here?" I yelped. The marines just chuckled and belted me down to the seat. Steiner began talking again, speaking in a loud and slightly pompous voice.
"My fellow marines, before you sits Michael Liddle. He has been brought here on his 24th birthday to answer for the charges that have been levied upon him!" A few more cries of 'birthday boy' and several more colorful exclamations followed the proclamation. "The accused is charged with saving the life of our fellow marine, Richard Jenkins, ramming a Thresher Maw with a Mako, engaging in heated combat with slavers, launching himself into a vacuum to defend the ship, rescue of an evac pilot, and the second extinction of the rachni. For these and other charges, it is the decision of the Normandy marine compliment that Michael Liddle be sentenced to life as an honorary marine!" the room erupted with cheers. I flinched for a second as more hands rose above my head, but they fell on my shoulders, clapping me on the back instead of cuffing my head.
"What? What's going on?" I was bewildered by the rush of noise and sound, still half asleep.
"You're one of us now!" one of the marines belted. In the back of the room, someone was pulling bottles from a crawlspace. One was shoved into my hand and I drank instinctively. The drink was a bitter one, but the punch was enough to shake me awake. The rest of the cabin was drinking now. The whole scene was actually pretty festive. Someone pulled me out of the scrum of partying marines. Jenkins looked a little sheepish as he found us a set of chairs. I sat heavily.
"What just happened?" I asked.
"I wanted to warn you." Jenkins said at once. "It's kind of a tradition among us marines; we give each other shit on our birthdays. It's all in good fun though." He wasn't very convincing.
"How did you even know?" I asked, "I mean, even I lost track of time out here."
"Liara told us," He said. "She didn't know about the whole trial thing though." He added quickly, "Probably thought we were going to get you a present."
"I suppose she gets a pass then," I tried to say gruffly, but my heart wasn't in it. The cuffs hadn't hurt that bad, and it was nice to be considered part of the group, even if that group was a bunch of rowdy soldiers. Around the room, they chatted loudly. "I don't blame you, Rick." I said at last. The man seemed to relax and we both took a swig of our beers. A third marine walked up to us with a drink in her hand.
"Mind if I join you?" She asked. It was the biotic marine from among the new arrivals.
"Sure," Jenkins said. He seemed to know her, "Mike, this is…"
"2nd Lieutenant Isik. You can call me Rahna though." The woman winked at me. The name was familiar. "Welcome to the corp."
"Thanks," I replied, "So, how do you like the Normandy?"
"It's a nice enough post. It's an honor to serve under Commander Shepard, of course. Some of the stuff you've been doing has trickled down to us on Arcturus, even through the brass's red tape. And it's nice to see Kaidan again." That was when it clicked.
"You knew the Lieutenant from BAat, right?" I asked.
"Yeah, where'd you hear that? Wait, is the LT still talking about that?"
"He may have mentioned it," I said evasively.
"Yeah, we were both at Jump Zero together. Kaidan might be happy to chat about it, but I don't really like talking about it," Rahna said, "So, you ran over a thresher?"
"I helped," Jenkins said excitedly.
An hour passed before I was able to slip away from the party. As time passed, the marines became rowdier. Occasionally they would remember why they started partying to begin with and I would have to fend off a few more blows. The doors closed behind me, sealing off the noise. After the crowd and sound of my 'birthday party,' it was nice to walk alone through the ship. I took the cargo elevator down to the hold to avoid any wandering marines. The hold was empty, devoid even of the usually omnipresent Wrex. I moved over to the new Mako. The hull still held its dazzlingly white coat of paint. I ran my hand over the smooth metal. It was cold in the unheated cargo bay. I walked a full circle of the shiny warhorse. Every piece was untouched, seated neatly in its place. Inside, the troop bay still had a 'new car smell.' I walked over to the small tool bench that held the specialized equipment the Omni-tool couldn't stand in for. I withdrew the pot of black paint and a thin paintbrush. I carefully applied the thresher silhouette and the latest tally marks for every Geth destroyed. After the kill markers were done, I crawled inside the tank and ran my yellowjacket program. Hackett's aide had sent another update on the search for Admiral Kohoku. Nothing further had been heard of the so-called 'Phantom Flotilla.' I made a mental note to find a way to send some kind of gift to the aide once I had a little money. I flipped through my flagged extranet pages looking for other news. A few articles caught my attention, foremost of which heralded the rescue of the crew of the Hugo Gernsback and the subsequent trial of acting Captain, Ronald Taylor. From the look of the article, the mental degradation of the crew had been caught before it became permanent, and a few of the other officers had also survived the ordeal. They claimed that Taylor had held them against their will, which would have made me laugh had the article not had pictures of the crew included.
"Still trying to pull the galaxy's strings?" a mechanically filtered voice rang from the entrance hatch. Tali pulled herself into the Mako. "I thought I'd find you here."
"You're not going to hit me are you?" I asked, bracing myself.
"Why would I… Never mind. You didn't answer my question."
"I'm just reading the news." I said truthfully.
"The Gernsback was found irreparably damaged…. Crew thought missing…. Poisoned food…" Tali read along. "You certainly have an odd taste in reading… wait; you had a hand in this, didn't you?"
"I might have," I said, closing the browser.
"One of these days, you're going to have to tell us where you get your information," Tali said. Her earlier mistrust seemed to have abated somewhat. "But that's not why I'm here. Liara told me that you were born today?"
"That's right, it's my birthday. It kind of snuck up on me this year, with everything that's happened."
"I know, it's been pretty crazy since you picked me up on the Citadel. I understand you humans exchange gifts on your birthdays. On the Migrant Fleet, we have a similar tradition for the day a young quarian takes a ship-name."
"Tali, you didn't have to get me anything." I said quickly.
"Who's saying I did?" the quarian said cheekily. "Anyway, it's not so much a giving, but a sharing. We have to get by with so little on the Fleet, we don't give away flashy decorations, it's always something useful. I noticed back on Noveria, you had to ready each program individually before you used it. I though you could make use of a macro I designed for quick deployment of combat programs. Here, give me your arm." Tali took my arm and began rearranging panels on my Omni-tool with deft fingers.
"Ach, you still have all this junk on here." She muttered.
"I might still need them for something." I complained. With my lackluster aim and lack of body mods, the immense toolkit I had assembled was really all that kept me on par with the rest of the team.
"There is such a thing as over prepared you know. There. Hold out your arm s if you were throwing a punch, but keep the palm facing away from you."
When I did as directed, the Omni-tool lit up on its own. It overlaid a thin orange disk of light across my fingers.
"It's very pretty, what does it do?" I asked.
Once you load it up, it'll let you fire off a combat program without having to pick it from a menu first. Just make that punching motion and push a finger forward and it'll use whatever you have mapped… see, here's the loading interface." A rough outline of a hand had appeared. Each fingertip was encircled by an empty circle.
"Just drag from this menu… Yep you got it." I filled all five slots and powered down the program. "Remember to keep that thing turned off when we're not fighting." Tali reminded me.
"Thanks Tali, this is really brilliant," I said. "You came up with this all by yourself?"
"I have a lot of free time now that bosh'tet Dubyansky isn't even talking to me," Tali said darkly, "I heard you defended me though, thank you for that." Though I couldn't see beyond her mask, I got the impression that the girl was smiling at me.
"It's what friends do," I said.
"We're friends now? I thought we were just conspirators," Tali said in mock hushed tones, "Well, 'friend,' I'm starving, would you like to grab a bite in the mess?"
"Can't," I said glancing out of the hatch, "The marines might find me."
"Suit yourself." The quarian shuffled out of the tank and gave me a parting wave.
