A/N: Now these are the size of chapters I want to put out, and sorry about the wait. I'm writing a script right now, and school started back up again for me, so I've been hard pressed to find time. If I have time to write, it should be for what I'm being, real-world, paid to do, of course, so it's hard for me to actually get in the best state to write. This'll pass though.
Liara and Shepard interactions next chapter. Along with, maybe, Feros. I'm still working out all the kinks in this ensemble story. I'm not giving Liara and Shep enough time yet, Shep especially, least my gut feeling. I'm having constant doubts about how, exactly, to progress the plot of Mass Effect without wasting your time retreading exact details, but also without leaving out parts of the whole.
Hopefully I'll figure it out.
I'm sorry I can't respond to all the reviews, but some killer ones I'm really appreciating now.
Alyr Lin, I appreciate you taking the time to review every chapter, and yes, I agree, Vidette Lim is definitely more in line what I thought of Mai. Of course I'm hard pressed to have Mai be someone so, at least at a glance, so beautiful. It goes against her character and development. She's not beautiful, not because she isn't objectively, but rather the air around her, her outer shell, etc covers that all up.
Also the reviewer who dropped a review a few days ago: In regards to this line: "a shadow of complacency on her eyes". It is, purposefully, a little ambiguous, however it leans toward some self-awareness of Mai knowing it's unfair to ask that of him. Should she verbalize why she is possessive JD would detest of course. It's this play between her culture as a Spartan, and how it doesn't play well with certain social expectations. She is happy whenever JD plays by the rulebook that they both know, and, JD, of course, is the one going out of the way to break off.
Anyway, few things I want to point out: Of all the people that will change the MOST from the vanilla crew, it will be Tali in this story.
1-13
Networking
She was a pilot once, in another life. Mai had awoken on her cot that day with the sudden thought that she had forgotten to mention to Shepard, or indeed any relevant authority figure outside of some vague suggestion, that she had been a pilot. Compared to her active combat and assassination skills, it paled, but when compared to the pilots of the UNSC and even her fellow Spartans, she was a crack pilot. An ace, by any regard, but Spartans were too valuable to be pilots. She fell into that weird subsection however between clandestine and combat, enough so for her to spend an annoying amount of time field testing Sabres over Reach. To have settled back into the cockpit of one to take out the Covenant super carrier, it was oddly, warmly, familiar to her. According to information relayed to her during her debriefing, several Sabres survived the journey, and for that, she would become, fittingly, an expert about them.
They were valuable even without their flight characteristics, and yet, they were reflected upon Mai herself. The technology included in the Sabres were something of a mystery to ONI themselves and the military industrial complex. Some of Halsey's MJOLNIR technology had ended up within them, inexplicably, without an explainable oversight that left those in the know somewhat confused, but all that meant now was the Alliance had access to a test bed for technology that wrapped around to her armor.
She opened her eyes to a ceiling she had about to get used to, the familiar vibrato of the Normandy in transit greeting her as she looked between her feet:
JD had slumped himself against the wall by her again. His sleep shift had been quite a ways away, but again he had nothing substantial to do. He didn't mind however as he folded his arms across his stomach and napped by Mai.
It was the night cycle, the lights dimmed and activity low. She had, stealth training helping her even now, slid out of her cot, her footsteps silent as she passed JD. Glancing over at the other half of the bay she saw Wrex and Garrus in their respective sleeping spots, Garrus also maintaining a cot much like herself. The night shift requisitions personnel had become used to her, barely regarding her as they went on their duties.
Tali had a bunk in the core, much to Mai's disproval. As a Quarian she claimed that the sound of it was much soothing to her, and Shepard had abided by the request.
Mai was used to sleeping in her armor, more often than not, unused to working out the kriks in her muscles and bones as she stood and stretched, the pops of airs audible even in that quiet. Her hand had reached to the back of her head, feeling over the neural lace she was outfitted with as she felt her hair. There was a grit to it that betrayed its looks, she taking the rubber band she had found and rolling its length into a pony tail.
This was the longest it had gotten in a while, otherwise she had kept it cut by her knife unceremoniously. She had hesitated in doing just that. Having her hair longer, it was what most of the women did on the ship, and, if her orders were to fit in she relented.
Looking back to JD, his head had drooped one way before his body righted it for him, a sway to his brown hair making him scruffy.
She reminded him too much of sleeping Insurrection lookouts. A thought flashed by her mind: She would approach JD, feel for one of her knives and punch it right through his throat, her other hand over his face.
Firsts formed in her hands as she almost slapped herself for even thinking of that thought. How dare she think of JD like that, it made her grind her teeth, it made her, almost automatically, walk away from him by the impulse that she really was a machine who worked on instinct alone.
JD slept peacefully that night as Mai found herself in the elevator for no apparent reason, letting it slide all the way up to the crew deck.
During the war, the ships she usually fared on had been ONI sloops, inserting her deep behind enemy lines. They were quiet ships, secrets as thick in the air on the measure of her, and even that meant something as her routine of PT and maintenance went on undisturbed during transit. It was the deployments that put her on the frontline with the Covenant that put her on ships of the line, bumping shoulders with the main forces of the UNSC. On those ships, she was given free reign to roam. No one would stop her by reputation alone. Here though?
The elevator to the deck opened, and two Marines from Hitman on guard that night had tensed.
She had shot them daggers, but did nothing but stand and stare back at them as they looked away. If they shot her for simply existing, she would burn down the Normandy, JD withstanding. Distantly she had looked at the sleeper pods, the forms of Kaiden and Ashley among those sleeping that shift. She yearned for that simplicity of sleep, but until a pod had fit her, she was denied.
She had her lunches with JD. If anything she only ate when JD did, but there was a trap in that. Not one that he meant. JD wouldn't admit it but he had been hooked on tobacco, and with it, came the caffeine. She didn't partake in the cigarette, but the coffee that JD had always offered to her? She had taken. In a space age, top of the line ship like the Normandy, coffee came from a packet of grounds; all he needed to do was add hot water. Still it tasted like shit, but oddly enough she still drank it.
"You think it taste like shit?" It was one of the only times she had heard JD exasperated in her short time with him thus far, as if she insulted his cooking. "What do you know about good coffee Mai?"
She had gone for a rebuttal but came up short. She never thought of food as a matter of taste, but here, she had formed one.
Before she knew what, she was doing she had a mug and a fresh serving of the stuff. It might've otherwise burned her holding onto the mug as she did, but she kept her undersuit on despite it all. It wasn't like she didn't know what Shepard or JD had pushed her on in taking off her armor; she only thought it didn't matter as the slightly acidic taste went past her teeth and she sucked in spit to try and beat it back.
Coffee had to be made a pot at a time, a fact that was very much acted on that night.
Mai's omni rung, and she glanced down. It was the Normandy's messaging service. She had kept it on mute for the majority of her time onboard, as did JD, and the two had never used it save for messages from Kaiden or Shepard. Still, someone had ping'd her that night.
JOKER: I wired the coffee machine to alert me if someone makes a pot this late. Wouldn't mind getting me a cup spook?
Spook. It was the term that most of the crew had gotten around to referring them two as. A term she had known once in two different contexts, and one of them had been fairly impolite. Thankfully they meant it in the military capacity.
To hear it even from Joker, whom she had never said a word to, it rubbed her some sort of wrong, but it only made her remember who Joker was:
He was a pilot, and so was she.
With a breath through her nose she had gotten another mug and filled it, making her way up to the command deck, passing by people surprised to see her.
Getting onto the command deck itself, Shepard had been awake to her surprise.
The woman had been astute, noticing her footsteps, which in itself had surprised Mai. Her gait had been quiet by training and for someone to pick that up, it meant counter training.
"Chief Gul." She said quietly, overlooking the galaxy map. Notes and beacons of her own design had been drafted up on it, she typing away at the console provided to her. "That coffee for me?" She asked hopefully.
Mai shook her head, motioning to the cockpit.
"Ah, fair enough. To be fair I've been running Joker raw, but, well, galaxy's a busy place."
Shepard ran her hand through her hair, adjusting the bun she kept her fiery hair in. Her hip leaned against the railing of the very Turian-styled command stand she occupied. Reportings of the Geth popping up had been also directly wired to her, so she had to contend leads with them. An arduous task, but she was a multitasker at heart. Her first report back to the Council had been lukewarm at best, but to them, that was better than they expected.
Mai had moved on, letting Shepard plan out her voyages, finding herself promptly in the cockpit.
Only the sound of her sipping from her mug had alerted Joker that someone else had been in his space. "Hohly shit." He had jumped up in his seat when seeing Mai right there. His eyes were widen before he put on his usual laidback demeanor, stumbling as Mai reached down with his coffee cup. "How the hell-"
"Training." She answered quickly, glancing at her tech suit's shoes. Asides from the trials on the Montenegro when the Admiralty was first observing her, she'd never fought before in it solely. It was designed for her predecessors: the Spartan-IIs. The fact she had used it had only been an after thought, based on those who were worthy of Cat-II specification among the IIIs. It protected her from more than the enemy however. It protected her from herself. The first testers of MJOLNIR were utterly pulverized by the suit itself when using it, the suit had allowed humans to even don it, on top of her augmentations.
She had understood what Joker had, if only it came up in conversation she had overheard in the bay. She had been Joker's exact opposite. No one had known that her bones were of steel, but people assumed anyway, and that had put her apart from Joker's own. A syndrome that rendered his bones brittle, she saw, at the base of his chair, a cane. She'd never seen him walk around the ship, only posted up here.
He grabbed his coffee cup, taking a sip before placing it on his seat's arm rest.
"You ever consider joining a basketball team, or something?" Joker had asked her, turning back to the holographic controls of the Normandy. "If I'm not mistaken you might literally be the tallest woman in the Alliance right now."
"No." Mai had answered astutely, looking at the secondary stations in the cockpit. All empty at the moment. Kaiden had been familiar with some of these controls as far as she remembered.
"Got any hobbies? At all? Because even the most stone cold spook I know has stuff he likes to do for fun."
"Such as?"
"Collect Turian teeth."
She was pretty sure it was a joke. Then again she had remembered some Insurrectionists who, when they did contend with the Covenant, who used to collect the scalps of Elites.
"Don't have any."
"Turian teeth?"
Mai glared down at Joker. "Hobbies."
He didn't see her glare as he thumbed a few unknowable controls to her across the orange holographs with such ease. She was used to a control stick and pedals, not whatever this was as a pilot.
"Ah, suppose I understand," He took another sip of his coffee. "Flying is my passion. Can't really have a hobby if I do this every day… You enjoy what you do spook?"
A thought. She sipped her own coffee, considering what she felt. Did she like a mission completed? Yes. The efficiency of tactical pre-planning and not wasting one bullet more than needed. A base taken down without even an alert? She'd be lying if she didn't feel a rush of satisfaction from it. Though she thought deeper.
The feeling of her knife, tearing across the neck of a Sangheili. The way a Grunt's neck snapped when she pulled it just the right way. She smiled thinking about it. She enjoyed that feeling. "Yes."
Put into words however, the second she answered she had felt so present. More present then she ever had before.
She enjoyed the killing.
The way preplaced explosives tore open Insurrectionist vehicles. Dead men unable to get a shot off. Her innate ability to combat proven as she, alone, remained. Human or Covenant, it didn't matter.
A lump in her throat formed. She wanted to explain herself for some reason. Was she ashamed?
"You're really good with words, you know that. Is that why you and that other spook talk in hands?"
"How do you know that?" A demand, not a question. Her voice dipped deeper and Joker had mild doubts about bringing it up.
"Word gets around, you know."
Mai had growled in her throat a bit, simmered by another sip of her cup. Was it a secret they had spoken that language? No, she figured. To understand it? Something else. She could live with it. "I'm not good with talking." She explained, finally. "I'm more doing."
"The way they had to cuff you in after Altis? I believe it."
Right. He had been here. A skeleton crew of the Normandy had ferried her from Altis to Arcturus, and he, as always, had been the pilot. "You care about opsec at all?"
"I just find it odd that the Alliance is hiring Cerberus mercs or something or another into their ranks." Cerberus. An organization she had heard in whispers and vague mentions. Shepard was intimately involved, according to shadowy extranet articles. Not with them, per se, but more having done stuff to them. "That why you and the Commander so out of sync?"
She rose her eyebrow. "You think I'm Cerberus?"
"I mean you obviously don't like our alien crew members. You were on Altis killing the Covenant when they came just like that. And you've got some wicked training and gear with ya. What? Cerberus didn't allow to kill as much as you wanted so you left with your boyfriend down there?"
It was an interrogation in the tone of a standup routine. Bold words for a man within bone breaking distance, and, oddly, Mai could respect that. "Wrong place, wrong time. I got carried away. No, I'm not Cerberus."
"Good. Because I hate only two things in this life: People who are intolerant of other cultures, and the Dutch." He looked back at her, his face obviously expecting a reaction. None was found but Mai's usual stern look. "Really? Nothing?"
She shook her head, he returning to the controls. Shepard had been keeping out of the way of Council patrol routes. She had a nagging feeling that, given that some Spectres had been attached to those patrols, and some very obviously held the same opinions of Saren, that she would stay out of their way. It was up to Joker to correspond. "What're you doing up anyway?"
"Didn't need to sleep."
Joker's face scrunched. "Huh, never knew anyone who was happy to not get some sleep on a ship."
"Now you do." Mai had answered back, finally bouncing with the conversation. Normally she would just listen to JD as he slowly recounted his life to her, his explanation of why the way things were, or, at the very least, his life. She was a good listener, he told her, and she held it as a point of pride. He deserved at least someone to talk back to. Maybe Joker could be her practice. "How long did it take you to learn how to pilot this thing?"
"Shit," He sipped his coffee, almost offended. "Why should I tell you? You seem to be the type to run me out of my own job."
"Just curious, lieutenant."
Joker rocked his head. "Flight school I was fast tracked for the heavies, but I always preferred the nimbler frigates. I would prefer fighters, but in that line of work, if I pull any maneuver, I'd feel it in my bones. The Normandy's not too different, as far as control surfaces go, from the Block 0 standard interfaces with additional considerations to the stealth core. She controls like a frigate but with all the safeties off and, obviously, capable of fighter like flight." Terminology that Mai wasn't quite familiar with, but she could pick together well enough, looking out the window at regular space. It was odd, to her, not seeing Slipspace anymore. Traditional travel in this galaxy was by far more elongated an affair. Odder still was the fact there was nothing mechanical dictating Joker's piloting. It looked as if he was programming.
"Dogfight any?" She asked.
"What? Who?"
"Hm?"
Joker saw the confusion in her eyes. "The Alliance is the only navy that maintains fighter groups. The other Council races aren't acquainted with the idea of fighters like we are."
It was surprising to Mai. She had forgotten when her flight prowess emerged, but it was somewhere between her first stolen Banshee to her first gunrun with a Hornet.
"It's alright, I don't expect a meat eater like you to understand the higher intricacies of space combat." At least in this life, maybe not.
"You talk like this to everyone, lieutenant?"
"Only people who won't beat the shit out of me. Thanks for the coffee, by the way, I was expecting you to ignore it."
Mai had glanced at the co-pilot seat next to Joker, unoccupied. Perhaps it was indicative of his skill that he didn't usually need one, perhaps the situation didn't call for it. However, it was tempting to Mai as she felt the seat beneath her suit clad fingers. "Pay me back by teaching me how to fly this thing."
"What-?"
"Contingencies. What if you're not able to?"
Joker clenched his jaw. "Doubt it."
There was a certain nihilistic quality to Mai's voice when it went low: the voice of a woman who had seen the worst of humanity and had been tasked to do something about it. Absolute cruelty, designed by people she would never know.
"You don't know that." She spoke, her voice turning into a breath. It was then and there that Joker had learned the mistake of any ONI handlers; those, specifically, who she had seen as tactically negligent. She wasn't a person to say no to.
Days where he had just straight up skipped the sleeper pods had becoming more frequent as Shepard crossed back across the galaxy: chasing leads, making communications with Alliance intelligence agents and being reached out to by other Spectres on secure frequencies. It'd been days since Liara had been picked up, and she had mostly kept to herself on the crew deck. Now Shepard had been frantically going back and forth across the Attican border: hunting Geth.
The Mako had seen its use for that effort, that much JD had known as he woke up and, between his legs through the wheels, he had seen a Turian with his back on the floor, oil and grease covering him as he toyed away in its drive train.
His beady eyes had looked up from his perspective and saw JD looked down at him, now awake.
"Mornin'." Garrus had spoken simply, sliding himself back out as JD nodded at the greeting, looking over to his right: Mai hadn't been there. He glanced at his omni and the Normandy's chat log. Joker was spouting nonsense on Mai taking his job, some of the other navigation crew teasing him for it. Apparently, as far as he could deduce, had taken the time up in the cockpit earlier that shift for the sake of learning how to fly the Normandy. He wasn't quite sure how that figured, but it was something for her to do other than religiously go through a mental checklist of: Gear maintenance, PT, reading, and then awaiting orders until sleep. It amused him to think that Mai had cabin fever.
Getting up that shift, JD had rounded the Mako, finding Garrus at a diagnostics console propped up on it.
Tali had been out cold by Garrus's usual bunk space, her face down in the table that Garrus had claimed as his own for his stay here.
Shepard had taken them out on multiple planetside deployments, and, as far as Tali went, she had been ecstatic to do it especially concerning the fact they were Geth related. If JD hadn't known any better, she found joy in it, applying skills learned in her short time on the Normandy so far to battle. Still, she was only a young woman at heart, so it tired her so.
So much that she had fallen asleep sitting with her helmet against the table, her forehead against the glass of her own visor.
"Yeah, maybe you should go in her place, next away mission?" Garrus had greeted JD that morning with a gesture to the Quarian, he going back to the diagnostics console as he wiped some oil off his face, fading his blue markings.
JD nodded, taking a glance at the diagnostics. "You good at this?" He asked.
Garrus shrugged. The other crewmembers and Marines up and in the well deck had become used to the aliens now at this point, paying no mind to them out of the ordinary. They could only keep up the hostile Marine act for so long before they got bored of it. The Req Officer had given JD a tip of the head, and then Garrus, the two returning it. "I offered, and no one else wanted to take a look at the Commander's handiwork, so, well, yeah."
JD dipped his head down. Mangled metal, synthetic fluid caked onto some of the shocks… was that a rock from Therum still?
"Normally, I'd rather be working on the gun. That's more my speed." He motioned up at the cannon, but gave a shrug. "Still, anything I can do to give us a smoother ride, I'll do it for all of our sake."
It was a swipe at Shepard's driving ability, but then again, JD couldn't defend her in any measure. He hadn't driven so much as a civilian vehicle in his life, but that didn't stop him from, inwardly, thinking Shepard didn't known how to drive a Mako at any sense of comfort.
"You got a car?" It was a topic that JD asked. Many ODSTs had been gearheads, dreaming of their kit cars back home. "… You always live on the Citadel?"
An odd two questions, but Garrus had shrugged again, locking the console as it ran a check. He could afford time to take a break. JD had picked up a towel while he hadn't been looking, it given to the Turian as he appreciatively wiped his face down. Garrus had existed in his armor it seemed, not unlike Mai, but for him it was warranted. This was Turian Navy standard.
Tossing the towel by his table, the two had wordlessly decided to head up to the crew deck. Tali needed her sleep, and Wrex seemed busy on the ground, reading something on his Omni. He had somewhat mellowed out since getting his armor back, but only to Shepard. He still hungrily looked at Mai whenever she passed, that tension in the deck tasting like metal in the air.
"Eh, C-Sec gave me a car, and I usually used it if I wasn't just taking public transit." Garrus had finally answered, walking into the elevator and pinging the level up. "And nah, I've only lived on the Citadel for a few years, since I got the job."
They came up to the crew deck to talk, not wanting to bother Tali take in some shut-eye, however who they found quietly by the mess hall table instead had been their newest addition:
Liara T'Soni.
She had been given some backup uniforms from Chakwas, the standard outfit of Alliance science and medical personnel, and she had fit in it well enough as on the table that day, she hunched over notes and data pads.
"No… no… Merely anthropomorphizing of perceived gods. Latent tendency to bring down to our level…" She spoke to herself, liens of data going by her face as JD and Garrus appeared on the other end of the table. "Oh! Forgive my intrusion its'-!"
JD had held both hands up, shaking his head, Garrus vocalizing the shared sentiment. "Don't worry, Doctor T'Soni, just having a sit."
She had started gathering her notes anyway until she locked eyes with JD. It was a human ship, so she asked her permission instead as she paused. He only shook his head. "It's fine." He almost whispered.
"Okay." She had settled back down, although unhanding some of her notes and regarding them instead. "Thank you, again, for taking me on the crew. Goddess knows that this is the better place to be with me."
Garrus tipped his head one way for a moment. "Well, I suppose most places are better than Therum."
Liara had agreed in a short nod. "The life of an archaeologist is hardly one of comfort. I never thought that I'd be caught up in terrorism, of all things." She gazed at the Marine guard on duty. She had recognized some faces of Hitman, and vice versa. Apparently, she had been known to the Ryders, both on Alec Ryder's account and his daughter's as a researcher itself. Familiar faces, as vague as they were. "Nor get caught up with a Spectre."
"Shepard treating you alright?" Garrus posed, glancing at some of the notes on the table. It was a rhetorical of course. Shepard treated everyone right.
Liara nodded fondly. "I have to say. I haven't interacted with Humans much, but she certainly has earned her reputation on their behalf." Her hand gestured at the notes. "Clearance on hundreds and hundreds of records for dozens of organizations using her credentials. This alone should keep me busy for the next century, though I doubt we have that long."
She spoke in hushed, polite tones. One not heard often on a military ship. For JD, he'd go months at a time without interacting with another civilian. On the Normandy, it was every other day it seemed. He had seen his recent share of Asari on the Citadel, and, sparsely, back on Earth, however this close, a table across, the part of his brain that identified Humans to him didn't need to work that hard to recognize her as familiar. The tendrils coming out of the back of her head had been odd, but the rest of the shape was familiar. Of all the aliens there she wasn't a problem to his unconscious impulsions.
"Doctor, huh?" Garrus tried for conversation. "I hear Asari doctoral programs are a tad inaccessible compared to our own species."
Liara had rolled her eyes up, almost as if looking inside her own head. "Well, I suppose not. Not many people have the time to devote twenty years into such a degree."
"I thought two years was long enough for C-Sec." Garrus had agreed, scratching the back of his neck.
"You were C-Sec?"
JD had been thinking a lot about them, ever since the Citadel. More than just the fact Garrus had been a part of it, and his father. There was a certain pang of familiarity that scratched at him: almost as if his mother was calling out to him to reconsider his life choices again.
Garrus nodded at Liara. "Still am. Just with Shepard on this. Just making comment on some of the more… well, academic processes."
JD had spurred for a moment, a lump in his throat that came out as Garrus finished, crossing his arms and leaning back. "Barely passed high school. Me."
The idea of Marines being crayon eaters had been as true in that galaxy as it had in his, and he hadn't, at least looking at his transcript, not been much better. Truth be told he had a lot to think about leaving high school on Luna, between his father's death, the sudden fact that he had realized that Humanity had been at war, and the decision to sign up. Though that was a story for another time, and probably one he couldn't tell in present company.
Liara had anxiously shuffled. "School's not for everyone."
"Suppose." He licked his own teeth. "Probably didn't play my cards right to get into this situation." He gestured with his hands up at the Normandy, at everything.
The metal joint of Garrus's elbow had poked his arm. "Don't be like that."
A huff of amusement came out of his nose. "All I ask for is a simple life, Garrus." Saying his name on his own tongue had been new, he stumbling letting it off, but it had been a first.
Liara had chuckled at the buddy-buddy display. "I too thought of a simple life once, but given my species' long lifespans, I doubt I would've had the choice."
"You enjoy what you do?" Garrus motioned at the notes again.
"When it's not having me be a target of Geth, or getting caught up in my mother's sins, yes, generally. It's so enthralling to have such a field that can encompass you so completely. It's a purpose I enjoy having. Asari my age aren't usually so lucky."
Over a hundred, JD had almost scoffed. He had only been twenty-six and yet he felt a hundred.
They chatted like that, for a hot minute, simple things, topics, introductions if JD had known any better. Garrus and Liara had been well enough making the bulk of it, but he couldn't avoid it.
"West Virginia?" The translation to Asari and Turian dictionaries hadn't exactly been clean, but JD had clarified when asked about where he was born, according to his applied story. Liara had never heard of such a scandalous place.
"Mountain country, back on Earth. Secluded as it can be considering where it is. Quiet life."
Liara raised an eyebrow. "You left it?"
JD nodded. "Wanted to find a purpose." He echoed her words. It was a hollow truth, but a part of the whole truth. There were a hundred reasons why he joined the corps, and when standing alone, didn't seem great enough. Altogether provided his excuse.
Liara understood. They avoided the topic of her mother, both out of personal reasons and security, but if she did speak, Liara might've spoken of the great expectations placed on her; of growing up in the shadow of a renowned Thessian Matriarch.
"Special forces though?" It had taken a while to peg JD was indeed special forces along with Mai. Garrus had figured it first. He was no regular Marine, that much he knew.
"I'm good at my job." JD shrugged. "Same as Shepard, I suppose."
"Does it pay well enough?" It was a question from Liara that seemed odd. She clarified however as the two gave her a look. "Not many people understand that the value of money for the Asari are somewhat skewed, even in regards to the galactic standard. Long life spans tend to… depreciate value, and any income I make from my research is from Asari institutions. It's not much, admittedly. I mean, it would just be funny if- if-…" She sputtered off. A hint of awkwardness, but again, the mission debrief she attended had glossed over one thing: Apparently she had spent years alone in her research. "Sorry if I'm overstepping it's just-."
JD told her how much he made.
"Heh. Not bad." Garrus seemed almost jealous as Liara stopped stammering.
"As it should be, of course!" Liara, out of lack of better terms, agreed with JD's pay. "I mean, as a military man, actually fighting and defending our society to allow people like me to-"
JD raised his hands softly. "Wish it were the other way around, Dr. T'Soni." How many UNSC credits had gone into the war and not the progression into Humanity? It boggled his mind to think of what could've been done, with all that money spent, and all those lives wasted. He might've not understood the galaxy, but someone had to. Liara had been one of those people.
"Ah. Liara's fine." She shrunk back. "I told the Commander that Liara is fine, so same to you."
The two men had nodded appreciatively, but it spurred a thought from Garrus. "JD's not actually your real name, right?"
This conversation. It usually took less time to get to it from over curious ODST squad mates. He was prepared. "Stands for Jonathan-Jameson Durante."
Liara had ghosted the name on her lips as Garrus did the same in his head. "You prefer JD?"
He nodded. "Easier to call out in combat."
"Combat. Right." There was an apprehension to the mention of it by her. Both men picked it up.
"Speaking of which. Shepard clear you for deployments with us? Don't know why she would bring you down, but if you're needed…" Something unsaid by Garrus. If she was needed, she should expect a fight.
"I am." She answered, wavering. "My University hosts self-defense classes for researchers abroad like us, however past that it's… I can't- I'm not a soldier."
Their thoughts drifted to Tali. Spunky as she was, as young as she was, at least she was Quarian. That had meant an inherent hate of the Geth, and her own personal drive was by no means anything to slouch at. She would kill, and Garrus knew that personally by the partial headache he nursed when she threw a grenade at him. Liara though?
"How are you with Biotics?"
Liara looked passed them, at the Sleeper Pods and at Kaiden in one of them. "Lieutenant Alenko was going to speak with me about combat applications, just in case."
"Small arms?" Garrus went on. She shook her head. The Turian flashed a look at JD. They could do something about it. "We do PT, physical training, down in the Well Deck. Tali's working on it too, with us, so, if you want, and I think it's recommended, that you join us soon."
"Ah, training?"
"Better to be prepared." JD had said with a seriousness that betrayed their casual talk.
It was a daunting thing to ask a civilian: to train with special forces, but these were extraordinary circumstances. "Shepard has me researching, looking into the Reapers. However if I do find time…"
"By all means, Liara." Garrus rolled off her name naturally, and she appreciated it. The conversation didn't last much longer, but it was a half-hour spent well, gently talking to a woman whose entire life had headed into a new direction very abruptly, taking her attention away from apocalyptic messages and the end times foretold in prophecy. It was the right thing to do. For JD, more than anything, it was a glimpse at a new normal.
"I should really be getting to sleep," she yawned, gathering her notes again into a neat organization and then a bag. It was still very much the night shift above. "But, thank you, for introducing yourselves. Things have been so busy and I don't think I would've-"
Again, JD raised his hands. "Pleasures all ours." Garrus only nodded to agree as she went off to a sleeper pod, exchanging with the Marine coming out of it.
A few moments after she had entered, it sealing shut, the two men were left alone and still some time to kill before the Mako diagnostics came back.
He wasn't much for beating around the bush, but before Garrus could make comment on anything else, JD had stepped forward first, pivoting toward him.
"Let's say I'm interested in a job." Garrus had no eyebrows, but he did the Turian equivalent as his mandibles flicked a bit. "C-Sec."
"You're kinda in your prime for a special forces, you know that, right?" Why would anyone leave it? Garrus thought naturally. JD would think the same, but...
How many planets? How many people? How many battles lost and lives cast down had he seen? Too much. Too many.
"You get burnt out, after seeing what I've seen."
Garrus grinded his jaws. He got the point. How many Turian veterans had he known that spoke those same words in some fashion? So it was like that.
"Pays not the best. Hours are long. And if you start fresh, you're gonna be buried with a precinct that's way too large with little support." As if he didn't already know that, and even Garrus knew he was doing a piss poor job of dissuading. Not that he actually wanted to. It always looked good on a record to recruit more officers.
"And yet you still chose it." He fired back.
"Well my father was on the force."
"So I guess I'll be better off then?"
Fair. Garrus held back a laugh, and it was something the translators didn't need to even process. Laughter was the same in every language. "There's an application process, and you gotta get referred, but… Yeah. After this mission's all done and we get Saren to answer for his crimes, I can vouch for you."
JD tilted his head at him. "Would ya do that for me?"
"Don't see why not. You haven't done me wrong. You're obviously qualified, and you know your way around police work probably."
JD leaned back in his chair. "Dad usually kept his work and home life separated."
Garrus rolled his eyes. "Lucky."
The two had settled comfortably into their chairs, JD, for the first time, at ease with Garrus as he started recounting his father. On late nights he would return from duty, on his mental state on cases that took him far beyond the call of duty. Worse had been the nights, he had paused eating his own food, was when he had been forced to take a life.
He was already an ass, Garrus said, but the authority and responsibility only drove him further up the wall. It obviously put him at odds with him.
"My father, he taught me how to shoot." Garrus spoke quietly. "That I can thank him for at least."
JD nodded. "Mine too."
"If I can ask, how is he?"
It was a fluke. An honest fluke. No foul play. No evil doer who had wanted his father dead for all his years of service to the cause of law and order. JD remembered seeing his father wither away, and how it seemed so disproportionate from the cause of death: Salmonella. He had been taking some medication for his stomach at the same time he had eaten some undercooked chicken that had been brought into the department one day from a fast food joint. It took only a week for him to die. Cascading symptoms and symptoms which wracked his body far further than anyone could pin.
It was only mercy that JD and his mother had been at his bedside as he passed.
JD became a Marine only a week later, leaving his mother alone to grieve. A selfishness he would never forgive himself for.
"He's passed away." He said once, looking at the table. "Food poisoning."
"Oh." Garrus's eyes widened, a thoughtful look on his face as he drew himself back. "I'm sorry."
JD meekly offered a smile, his mouth open, as if to forgive Garrus, to explain, but nothing came out as he remembered his father.
Everyone had parents, he had once told Mai. Even a Turian.
"Sorry things are tense with your father." JD offered after a few moments.
Garrus had shrugged, moving on the conversation. "He's a man to be tense about everything."
JD had held his right hand flat, but moved up to his forehead, thumb touching it, mentally remember what it had been the sign for.
Garrus had shifted his mandibles, seeing him do that. "What does that mean? Is that something?"
He hoped Mai would forgive him. "Father. It means father."
With his three talons, Garrus had tried to emulate the shape, bringing it to his head and mimicking JD for a moment. "Huh."
"I learned how to talk like that while young." JD admitted. "I'm teaching Mai now."
Again, his mandibles flicked. Her name had sounded so… soft for what she was. To hear someone say it was odd to him as a Turian. "You mean you two aren't already acquainted like that?" It was JD's turn to raise an eyebrow as Garrus was coaxed on. "You two are… well, it just looks like you're close and I don't want to assume anything."
JD grinded his teeth as he gave an answer, not thinking too much of it. "We've been through a lot."
A battle. A war. An impossibility. The burden of a truth. Yes, they had been through a lot.
"I mean, you keep to yourselves, and even Chief Gul is rather cold to Shepard far as I can tell. She only really keeps with you." He knew it wasn't wrong, the way Garrus pointed it out, but he had never been as self-conscious about it until then, that night. Garrus had been facing toward the stairs up to the command deck, which was why he froze and JD turned around to see why:
It had been Mai herself, descended down the steps.
Mai had consolidated her knowledge, chunks at a time. Joker had been more than willing to teach her more than the interfaces and point her toward supplementary reading that he didn't exactly have the mind to teach, however she had politely declined that night after hearing him talk about the control surfaces of the Normandy. It was much too soon, even by her guess, to even think of sitting behind the seat of it, if that was what her intention was at the end of it.
She did say, once, what felt so long ago, that a plan was to just steal a ship, get weapons, and kill every Covenant on Altis. Though those days had long passed, she had finally figured. Her interest in piloting anything was just to see if she could, same as she did back home.
So a step at a time, and, in any case, she had other studies to attend to; to master first, stepping down the command deck to the crew deck, only to see two men, once occupied in chat, turn toward her.
Garrus Vakarian had frozen seeing her come down, as if caught red handed; or, perhaps, caught in her piercing gaze. JD however had been more used to it as he turned.
There was an urge in her to walk over, to join them, but with the way Garrus had frozen in her sight, in the way JD's shoulders had slouched and shown that he had been comfortable for once, she decided against it, even as he locked eyes with her.
Nothing needed to be said as he gave her a slight nod, and she returned it, opening the elevator down and proceeding.
When did she become so… particular about other people? About him?
She pushed that thought out of her head, rationalizing as the elevator proceeded down. She was more worried about him talking to Garrus, and how wrong it looked. Perhaps she was getting over dealing with non-humans in non-lethal ways, but on a personal level? She didn't think she'd adjust.
Her thumbs ran over the sides of her index fingers anxiously, she catching herself before her fingernails knicked her skin. The door had opened to a relatively quiet well deck, just in time to see a small fist slam into a table.
Tali's veracity had been making itself known in the recent days, between her insistence to be deployed with Shepard investigating any Geth-related leads she found, and her PT with the Marines of Hitman. She'd hold herself less, letting her throat echo out yells as she had finally been brought to speed on sparring.
"Watch your finger nails, and my visor is more sturdy than it looks." She spoke to the Marines sparring as she squared up herself. Naturally they went easy on her, the first time she was slammed onto the ground, softened only by a foam mat. Each session they went a little less soft however, and she went a little harder with her strikes.
That same hand whose palm had almost successfully landed a hit on Bannon, Hitman's most voracious Marine, had hit the table she had, last she checked, passed out on.
With the elevator opening Tali had immediately regretted doing that as Mai, wordlessly, emotionlessly, made her way slowly over to her.
"Problem?" She towered over the Quarian as the glow of her eyes betrayed a poker face.
"No."
"Doubt it." Mai glanced at the scattered tools and components that had been disheveled because of her fist, hitting the surface of the table.
"Nothing. It's just the Covenant-" Spartan Time. Hearing those words had made Mai's entire perception of reality real back before, like a whiplash, bring her back to the presence as every pore in her body, every breath of air she took in, fill her so much more deeply. "has somehow weaseled its way into the good graces of the Flotilla. My people."
"What do you mean?"
Tali had been awoken by an alert on her Quarian software suite, imbedded in each suit. She scrambled after for the extranet, seeing only an impossibility, and an indiscretion. She showed Mai the same news article she found:
QUARIANS RECEIVE GRACES OF CITADEL. THEIR FREEDOM PROMISED BY WAY OF BIRTHRIGHT. THE COVENANT AGREE!
Reading what Tali offered, Mai would've vocalized and given form to the same anger, breaking the table if she was allowed. She didn't though, letting it boil inside of her as she read that the Alliance, the Alliance, allowed the Quarian Migrant Fleet within Human Space, all so that they could start the integration of the Covenant into their military force. All for the sake of wiping the Geth from the Galaxy and reclaiming the Homeworld.
That meant the fall of containment. That meant a new galaxy; one where Covenant were not bound by their circumstances.
Damn them. Damn them all. Mai's thoughts were unkind as she hid it.
"I don't agree with it. Not one bit. The Covenant, they're not the same as us." To hear it from Tali though was almost as surprising. She held no love for the Geth, but for the Covenant? "These Sangheili, who do they think they are? Staking claim on Rannoch on the same measure of us? This is not their Rannoch!"
She held her own head in her hands, a headache unable to be touched as she, at that very moment, wished she could reach through her suit and feel her own skin.
"I'm sorry. I know with, at least with Shepard, you see everyone equally, inclusivity, all that, but-"
"I get it. I do." Mai had ground in her throat. "The Covenant is dangerous."
"No, no." Tali had shaken her head. "It's not that, even if they are. It's just that if our people, the Admiralty, is so easy to trust the first alien group to sympathize instead of ostracize us… What is our integrity as a people? For centuries we've operated alone. It can't be that easy of us to just accept their help like that. It just can't!" She stopped another fist short of hitting the table, but, secretly, Mai had wished she did. Her concern, her anger, arose from her own people trusting the Covenant so easy, as opposed to seeing the Covenant as a threat, however there was something cathartic to Mai there. It was nice to see someone be so close to understanding the Covenant, their threat, in a way she was used to.
There was much to think about in the coming days, and as Tali looked back to Mai, all the Spartan could see was her reflection in her visor.
With that many ships, it was no wonder that not every single one could be accounted for. Especially with many going planetside and landing by the Solace and in the Altis colony. For many Alliance personnel on the ground of Altis, it was their first encounter with a Quarian. For many more still, it was their first encounter with the species of the Covenant first hand, and the Prophet of Destiny had graciously opened his arms, literally and metaphorically, in welcoming the Quarians and reaching an understanding over what needed to be done in the coming months.
What the Admiralty above declared was true: They had come to build an army, and the Covenant was more than willing to provide.
Shastri had advised Destiny in a direct comm link that he highly discouraged such brash decisions, especially one which would bring his people to war, but in the end the Alliance had no say over the Covenant's decisions. They were, ever since standing before the Council, recognized as a new entity in that galaxy.
So, as Destiny and Fleetmistress Karonee returned to Altis with the Migrant Fleet, and the Quarians amassed themselves for history, in a secluded landing zone, far away from the hustle and bustle of the more active zones surrounding the affairs, more clandestine affairs were being settled.
"Kaal Roth."
"Valcion'Lyth vas Noria."
Two men shook hands as their crews stood behind them. Male Quarians had suits not unlike Elites, in some fashion, the Jackal noticed. The Quarian's ship had been a smaller corvette, crewed by a handful of other Quarians. A sloop by any other name, small enough to land on a beach away from prying eyes. Kaal himself had to nearly swim out that far, but it was no matter. He looked behind him as a dozen other Jackals gave the Quarian a once over. The Grunts couldn't care less. As for the two Hunters? No one ever knew what they were thinking.
"This all?" Valcion asked, his darker armor unkind in the cloudy day on Altis.
"I was told to bring what I needed." Kaal explained.
Valcion twitched behind his visor at the chattering Unggoy. "I don't know if I have enough provisions."
Kaal had some crates, unmarked, borrowed from scavenge other Jackals had picked off the waves. Inside had been gear, food, needed equipment. He glanced at his Needler, it topped off. He was ready for much of anything, always.
"Grunts they have their nutrient paste. We've got enough for a few weeks from them all. Bottom feeders they are anyway. The Hunters, well, they're self-sufficient. As for me and my pack, we know how to pack for trips. Don't worry."
Valcion had been doubtful, but alas, he was being paid. By who, he didn't know, but it was enough for him to even risk this as he nodded to his second command to let the loading ramp down.
The entire procession piled in, loading taking no more than five minutes with the Hunters helping. This group Kaal had gathered, it was his own raiding pack, and they had trusted him well enough on Reach. They would trust him now as they disappeared from the Covenant. For good reason however, if they needed the convincing.
Kaal had accompanied Valcion up into the bridge of the sloop, gazing out the windows to see the mass above and the pure chaos of the Migrant fleet just above the planet. "You know what you're doing, Quarian?" He asked. He was the seasoned pirate there.
"This many ships? We won't show up. Besides, traffic in and out of the system is heavy. They won't miss me."
It was true as the sloop raised itself off the ground, breaking atmosphere and heading into space, using the veil of the Migrant Fleet as cover as every single type of activity related to the preparation of a grand operation, a crusade, was being picked on over Altis.
"Shady money from shady people. I'm jaded, but not stupid." Valcion remarked as he sat in his chair, motioning to his pilot to make way to the Mass Relay. "But even then, something this scale? I don't want to be with the Fleet when we go into the Veil. It's suicide. Running you guys out of system to a drop off? That's the no-brainer. Give me and the crew enough money to disappear to Omega or something."
One of Kaal's compatriots had joined him on the bridge of that ship. It wasn't Quarian, they guessed. Salarian, perhaps. Every Jackal pirate worth his gun studied ships, and the omni tool on Kaal's wrist had been short of overheating with that information he was combing through. The sloop was, probably, Salarian in nature, obviously taken by some Quarian's pilgrimage.
"Why would you have a ship this small?" Kaal's partner had asked, gesturing to one of the Quarian "liveships" as it passed by. Massive by this galaxy's standards.
"I run pickups and cargo for Pilgrims. Fast and quiet. Honestly, I don't feel too appreciated enough by the fleet, but not all of us can be star citizens, can we?"
"I see." Kaal had understood, looking at the control surfaces. "Easy to fly?"
Valcion leaned back in his chair, disinterested. The ship was very much fast, it, without much fanfare, already almost out of the system with the Mass Effect relay ahead of them. The pilot seemed unbothered as he thumbed a holographic button and the ship hit the nav coordinates, the shift into FTL painless. Valcion wasn't paid to entertain as he hardly moved in his seat to talk to them. "Salarian software has auto-pilots and all that. They love their multitasking."
A racist assumption, perhaps. Just as it was racist to assume that all Jackals knew how to raid ships.
That was the simplicity of life however as Kaal simply looked back to the other Jackal and gave him a simple nod.
Valcion'Lyth vas Noria, nor his crew, had much of a chance to fight off a dozen Jackals in those tight corridors. Hardly any of them saw the way their gun barrels turned toward them so casually as they squeezed their triggers, painting plasma scorches along their bodies and the walls of the ship.
He knew in his gut he was making a mistake, but not like this as Kaal stuck the pink weapon in his face, and a crystal broke through his visor as he turned. The splintering shatter of the ammunition broke open his visor's surface entirely, but the shrapnel had already done the damage as it inserted into his head.
The Jackal that had come up to Roth had been an expert marksman, even by Jackal standards, so as three shots further rang out from his Carbine, the bridge crew had all slumped dead without any collateral damage. Their bodies slumping to the floor before the Jackal had even breathed another breath.
"S'easy. Usually our targets don't invite us in before we take the ship." The marksman snidely remarked as he looked the way he came. More Jackals, dragging the bodies of other crew members. This was as clean of a hit as any. Fifteen seconds maybe?
Kaal had pushed Valcion's body out of his chair as he took it, glancing at the information at the captain's console. Everything was going to plan, and not too long before things got even more interesting. "Usually galactic fugitives don't pay us for a meet and greet, face to face." He commented, looking down at the body. Thankfully Covenant weapons didn't allow much blood to spill. Still it was distasteful for him to look at. "Get the Grunts to dump the bodies when we exit FTL. I'll find out how to run this ship."
"Aye sir." The Jackals responded respectfully, if only for this reason, one so enthusiastically bellowed by Kaal:
"If all goes to plan, we'll be the richest Jackals in this damned galaxy!"