A/N - Sorry for the late post. May be selling house and moving. What with the house- and loan- shopping, pre-offer inspection, meeting with the selling agent...gaah. I need a VI to handle this crap.

2020 Addendum: Apparently someone else thought this was a good idea. . ?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8_cT1DRVMrcm9ib3RpYytraXRjaGVuK2hhbmRzJnQ9bmV3ZXh0JmF0Yj12MjM1LTEmaWE9d2Vi&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAKnfaPRWpOkYJvowFY7B42D2Ulyf1x6F3zmK683o4PbML7DMKSp_1pzyYhscbxeNE9_KNXziNpNcKhRsylOBorFzZvkONvpFKmOqDFwCbFAwVOkgYrr6Ld1YIeJ1ur5aKZ_iGnXW_AyxJEjK1hf9jj3tZMKeBcfNWqUbulKwukZE

*** Wards 1 ***

Shepard headed away from the two soldiers, manipulating his omnitool to start a VI analysis of the data from Fist's DCE. "Victor Indigo, clone the DCE, but locate all information about the Alliance or its personnel in this data and redact it. Name the cloned and redacted DCE 'Fist Files'."

A progress ring appeared next to the task name on his ARO; it glowed for long enough to let him read it, then dimmed to half its intensity, and shrank as it slid to the right. Its rate was relatively slow, so he turned to the right and looked out over the Citadel. Even from here the view was impressive and alien and beautiful all at once.

It looked like a city in a gently-curving valley, lit from the horizon by a bright milky haze. Much of the view was obstructed by nearby structures and "technorubble," but the relative size of moving lights – presumably aircars – made clear that he was seeing a distance measured in kilometers.

He considered checking the actual range to the end of the valley with his sniper rifle scope, but the smell of a hamburger distracted him. He looked up, realizing he had not eaten since the efficiency biscuit he'd had aboard Normandy, and that he was still relatively hungry.

The progress ring seemed to have sped up some, so he continued toward the door. On his left was a curving counter with self-serve kiosks and a single human attendant. Shepard's ARO tagged it as Tomorrow Terrace: a human-operated casual restaurant specializing in Earth's hamburgers, salads, sandwiches and desserts. Holographic color images rotated slowly, beckoningly.

He paused, realizing he had come into some money, then shrugged and stepped up to the counter.

"Hi, and welcome to Tomorrow Terrace!" The exuberant girl seemed much too young to be there alone. "Can I get you something?"

Shepard indicated the kiosk on the countertop. "Don't these work?"

"Sure they do. But I interact with people as much as I can." She pointed down at the counter, which on the side closest to her was lower, at work surface height. "I prepare the food right here by hand. I think it tastes better than when it's printed all at once."

"So you use printers?"

"Not if I can help it," she shook her head quickly. "If I get swamped, I have helping hands." She pointed down at the splashguard between herself and the Commander. A pair of VI-controlled hands comically wearing cooking mitts rotated up and waved at him.

Stunned, Shepard blinked once, and then found himself smiling. "That's…actually kind of cute. Hm. Well, let me handle my business first, and maybe I can bring my whole team back here when I'm done."

At which point he recalled that he was supposed to keep track of that quarian until Udina was ready for them. "Oh...crap." He grimaced and shook his head, touched his left thumb to middle finger. "Alenko, did we leave the quarian in the embassy?"

His suit texted his message to the Lieutenant, and a reply came back almost immediately:
K. Alenko: She was heading to the clinic. We still need to pick up Jenkins there, don't we, sir?

"Yeah, but I had forgotten about her. Out of sight, out of mind, I suppose. All right, we're still on to meet at the clinic. Thanks, see you there."

K. Alenko: Ack.

Shepard looked up again at the girl behind the counter. "Sorry."

The kid shrugged and smiled brightly. "No worries. Just having someone stand here helps draw customers."

With a glance down at his still-malfunctioning helmet, Shepard looked to his right. "Then you wouldn't mind if I just stood over at the end of your counter like I'm waiting for my order…?"

"Not a bit," she waved a hand in that direction. "Can I offer you a sample?"

"Well, normally I would be delighted, but I'm going to be using both hands."

"Oh, you don't have to eat it. But as people walking by see and smell food, they'll notice if they're hungry, which also draws customers."

Shepard looked at the girl anew, shook his head in admiration and smiled. "You are one sharp cookie." He stepped to his right, setting his helmet on the counter, and waved his omnitool over it. "Keep it up. Yes, I'd love a free sample, thank you."

"Comin' right up," she chirped, and stepped left, scooped up a small tray of thin-cut baked potato sticks, and slid them down the counter to stop right in front of Shepard's helmet.

His omnitool whirred and chittered as it worked; the smell of the warm food eventually made Shepard look up. This was no tiny sample, either; it probably would have taken both hands to carry it without the tray.

He searched the Alliance resources for repair instructions, then the manufacturer's. Both said only to replace the damaged helmet immediately, but nothing about how to get it unstuck enough to wear in the meantime. As he worked, he slowly ate some of the French-fry-like potato sticks.

At last he gathered the helmet, put the tray of potato sticks into it, and turned to go. "Thanks, these are great. Hopefully we'll be back within the hour." He gave her a thumbs up as he stepped backwards to the door. "Never give up!"

"Not me," she smiled, "Not ever!"

# # #

"This is going to be unpleasant," Udina growled over his shoulder.

"I have no doubt," Anderson said as they walked to the taxi stand outside the embassy lobby. Spending time with you always is.

"…and badly timed. I assume the Committee contacted you about Shepard's nomination. As a human, the Alliance will be expected to provide him with a means of 'discretionary transportation.'"

Anderson activated the doors on the taxi. "And the Turian Heirarchy is probably going to throw their weight behind giving him Normandy. Better a single Council Spectre have it than the Alliance."

"Of course, I can appreciate their position, but I think it's their way of poking us in the eye. It's not like dedicating a single-seat fighter to the position, they're asking for a whole frigate!" Udina touched the control, spoke to the taxi VI, "Council Administration, Prellik Janz's office."

Anderson shook his head as the doors closed. "If we make this work, it's not like we're procuring equipment for a single police officer. Spectres need more than just a fighter. You live in whatever it is, and for days or weeks, even months at a time. And you have to have someone else able to take it away if you're just being dropped in."

"That overseeing officer, Spectre, whatever he was…he went on your ship, not his own."

"I'm sure the Council wouldn't want Shepard stumbling on some classified info or technology. And the point was to watch Shepard in his normal surroundings. But Nihlus sure brought along enough just-in-case equipment." Anderson's VI chirped, and displayed some information on his omnitool: Spectre Agent Kyrick equipment transfer complete. It went on to detail where the equipment had been sent, listing tracking identifiers and such. "Hm. Looks like he has an unregistered heavy transport, a CT-160."

"Why don't the turians offer that up?"

"Nihlus is expected to make a recovery, though it might take some time and cybernetics. And Shepard isn't turian."

"But the Normandy's much bigger than that. It's not some 40-meter yacht, it's a very expensive, state-of-the-art frigate!"

Anderson turned and locked eyes with Udina. "Listen, Donnel. The turians aren't thrilled about a human Spectre. They're going to try to make it hurt us enough that we won't press for it, and you have stepped on their toes hard enough already. That's probably why they're going to insist on this. That ship is one of the few things in the Alliance about which the Heirarchy has any say. If you really want a human Spectre, you're going to have to give up something to get it."

"Don't lecture me on negotiating. I'm still looking for alternatives." He scowled, turned to look out the window. "Damned aliens."

Anderson's grin remained purely mental; seeing Donnel Udina annoyed was oddly satisfying. "I'm sure they're saying exactly the same thing."

# # #

With the trayful of potato sticks in his inverted helmet, Shepard surveyed the plaza. A step-down observation area faced an enormous Kiggs field to the right that looked out along the length of the Citadel, away from the nebula. The shadow cast by the presidium ring gave the impression he was looking over a vast city at night. Light from a nearby star cast other shadows, making lines of traffic lights visible on the ward arms.

DisplaiD scrolled out a banner from the left side of his visual field: Emily Wong, Washington Post.

As he looked to his left, he saw she had been leaning against a pillar; she stood, and waved hesitantly at him from the middle of the plaza.

He nodded, moved toward her, eating in earnest. She smiled as he came close enough to talk with. "Word on the street is that you've been busy."

"'Word on the street'?" He shook his head. "I don't know that it's even been an hour yet."

"Hey, this is the eighties," she said, "We're connected. Anyway, congratulations on taking down Fist; I was sure he was a big player."

"I think he accidentally killed himself trying to escape." He frowned. "It's not what I was trying to do."

"Well, what's done is done." She looked hopeful. "Uh…so did you find anything in his office that could help me in my research into corruption?"

"Probably. And I wanted to give it to you now, but I don't have a storage device I can just let you keep."

"Not a problem," she reached into a pocket, "How much data do you have?"

"Half an Exabyte, I think."

She looked genuinely surprised. "What did you do? No wait, never mind." She produced two PIRADs and an OSD, and handed him the largest one. "Here. This is a 2ExaByte drive. There should be enough free space on it."

Shepard took the OSD, held it up close enough to his omnitool flextronics that the "smart" metamaterial snapped into place as if attracted by a magnet.

OSD scanning.

No active processes.

He located the "Fist Files" icon and slid it toward the OSD, and selected Move from the options. As it began copying, he drew another potato stick out of the tray in his helmet. "Hey, I just got these from that little diner over there." He proffered the helmet toward her. "Have you tried them?"

"Are you kidding? I practically live on those things."

"Oh…then you've probably had enough."

"No, I love 'em," Emily shrugged. "Especially with wasabi."

His omnitool chirruped, Shepard removed the OSD and handed it to her. "There ya go. That OSD might have the information you're looking for."

She lit her own omnitool, clicked the OSD to it, and looked at its contents. "You must have captured his whole environment! This could be even bigger than I'd hoped!" She looked up from her gauntlet suddenly, looking around for anyone else. "Here, Commander. For your trouble." She adjusted her omnitool, and his ARO scrolled out another message:

Payment offered from Emily Wong: GCr38667

"I really really really appreciate what you've done," she continued, "We'll expose his whole network. This will help a lot of people when we take it to the Council Equity Authority. You have no idea."

He nodded absently, accepted the payment. This is a very different world, he thought. "Yeah…I kind of do. That's why I wanted to get it to you. But it's still nice to hear that it will help." He leaned the opening of his helmet toward her again. "You want some of these? I don't know if I can finish them myself."

She reached into the helmet and grabbed a small handful. "Thanks…so is your investigation over now?"

Shepard drew another warm potato stick out of the helmet and regarded it, then looked up at Emily. "My investigation hasn't really begun. Fist was collateral damage."

Emily stopped, potato stick halfway to her mouth and goggled at him. "What? What do you mean? Who are you after?"

"Hmm…I'm not sure how public it's supposed to be…"

"What if I just kept it to, 'A highly-placed and extremely credible source that requested anonymity'?"

"Ehhh…" Shepard's gaze wandered across the view of the Ward Arms, watching the moving lights of skycars and starships.

"What happened to 'transparency and accountability'?" She moved her head, trying to get his attention back. "Wait a minute. Are you investigating one of the Councillors?"

"I'm sorry…I just don't know what I can give you at this point. But what would my future cooperation be worth? Say…an interview when my investigation is over?"

"Exclusive? You talk to me before you talk to anyone else? That would be worth a lot to me, and my editor would be very happy to compensate you accordingly. How much were you thinking about?"

He shook his head, "I'm not after money, I'm just trying to make this a win for everyone."

Emily glanced down at her omnitool again; Shepard could see the gauntlet display was already filling with notifications. She looked back up at him. "Well, we need more like you. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find out what else is in this DCE." She turned left and stepped away quickly, working her omnitool. As she did, another window popped up:

Payment offered from Emily Wong: GCr38667

Accepted.

Shepard looked up from his omnitool, glanced after the rapidly-moving form of the reporter, and then out at the Citadel again. He shook his head. This is just a completely different world, he thought. I just got a month's pay for doing what I was going to do anyway.

He gestured for RTM. Captain, is this a good time to message you?

D. Anderson: Sure. Udina's doing most of the talking right now, and he sure knows his way around the bureaucracy.

Sir, do we seriously want to bring a quarian aboard as a civilian consultant?

D. Anderson: If we're going to be fighting the geth, it'd be a good idea to have an expert handy.

Yes sir, but quarian biology is very different from human biology. I don't know that we're equipped for it. I also have concerns about having an alien aboard a ship so new it hasn't even been fully serviced after shakedown. Technically, we haven't even been on our first real mission.

There was an unusually long pause. Shepard took a step down into what seemed to be a kind of viewing area that looked out over the Citadel. The backglow from the Syncee Bubble gave the scene a midnight blue/violet look, and it reminded Shepard of the first time he had seen a city on Earth at night…

D. Anderson: Commander, you have to realize that the asari were discovering the Citadel when Nebuchadnezzar was burning Jerusalem to the ground. Never forget this. We are the greenest of green beans at this table. They all know more than we do, have been here longer, and know how things work.

Shepard was still looking out over the view of the Citadel, the words of Captain Anderson glowing over it, noticing that RTM VIs often struggled with punctuation.

D. Anderson: If you learn only one thing from Udina, remember that he was the one who thought that bringing the quarian was a good idea. If she's volunteering to work with us for room and board, and she wants a crate of her very own, you make sure she gets the nicest crate you can find.

I'll put the paperwork through right away, sir. The printers and pods can probably be reconfigured.

Anderson was quiet for a moment.

D. Anderson: The quarians have had it tough. You want to win undying loyalty? Just be nice to 'em. Be a champion. Those little techies will turn lead into gold for you.

Shepard leaned forward on the rail, no longer seeing the Citadel.
You're talking like. Like you're getting ready to leave, sir.

D. Anderson: Aw hell, I don't mean it like that. I forget things sound different on RTM instead of hear me say them. I'm just talking about how to treat people. Though with Nihlus out of commission, I'm not sure who they'll get to mentor you. And. This situation might be about to change. We'll talk later, OK?

We'll talk later was the way Captain Anderson ended conversations.

Very good, sir. I'll be awaiting your call. Shepard was left leaning against the rail, looking out over a vast, advanced alien landscape. He sighed deeply, and had just noticed an unfamiliar but distinctive fragrance from the mélange of Citadel air when he heard a familiar voice.

"Commander?"

Looking up, he saw Ash and Kaidan approaching. His countdown timer showed he still had about three minutes before he was supposed to meet them at the clinic. He stood, turned to face them, waved a thumb over his shoulder. "I think this is the view we were promised." The two soldiers approached the rail and leaned on it as well.

The three of them simply stood there, gazing at the technological marvel. The scale, the complexity, even the sheer beauty was almost overwhelming.

Kaidan shook his head in awe. "Big place!"

Ash teased, "That your…professional opinion, sir?"

Shepard nodded without looking away from the scene. "This isn't a station. It's not even a city. How can they keep tabs on all of this? The Presidium may as well be on another planet."

"There is definitely a gap between their presentation and what's here," Kaidan agreed, "There must be millions here. It can't be possible to track everyone coming and going. At best, it's a nightmare."

"It makes Jump Zero look like a porta-john," Ash admitted, "And it's the largest deep-space station the Alliance has."

Kaidan nodded, still staring across the view. "Jump Zero is big. But this is a whole 'nother scale. Look at the ward arms. How do they keep all that mass from flying apart?"

Ash looked toward Kaidan in disbelief. "You're kidding, right? The whole place runs on FM. Tons of FM. They probably have to import it from other planets."

Shepard drew his Equalizer-VI, sighted the end of a ward arm.

42,521.6m, read the rangefinder.

Ash squinted at the rifle. "Hey, that's not a Volkov...but it uses the same chassis."

Shepard looked up. "It's a Haliat Equalizer." He turned and presented the weapon to her. "Here, try it. Most of their stuff borrows from other developers, but this is one of the few designs that doesn't trade reliability or accuracy for power."

Ash sighted on the tip of a ward arm. "Hm. Nice and stable. Modded?"

"Yes, actually. But even stock, it's as stable as the best Avenger, and hits half again as hard."

"Where'd you get it?"

"Mission with some turians. I was attached as a tech, to give the Alliance had some direct visibility. One time when the CO and I were talking, I found out he collected human weapons. Traded him my Striker-IV for that. It wasn't quite as stable without the mod, but like I said, it hits like a mortar."

"But it's a turian weapon, isn't it? Nothing to do with that…pirate warlord." She offered the rifle back to him.

Shepard replaced the rifle on his SmartPak, shaking his head. "Definitely turian. I suspect that the guy started using that name to cause confusion."

The three Alliance soldiers gazed out over the awesome view for a moment more.

"The Citadel represents more races than I thought," Shepard mused. "No wonder the Council treats us like outsiders. They gotta be careful; we're just another drop in a bucket they already can't carry."

Ash folded her arms across her chest and frowned. "They must figure us for one more gang of FNGs looking for a handout."

Shepard chewed a lip in thought for a moment. "I doubt it's personal. It's got to be a balancing act, like every other government. They probably just want to…keep everything running. It has to be hard getting all these cultures to work together."

"Or maybe they just don't like humans," Ash grumped.

"Why not? We've got oceans, beautiful women, this emotion called love…according to the old vids, we've got everything they want. Have you seen how many times aliens have tried to invade Earth?"

Ash smirked. "If you expect to get me in a tinfoil miniskirt and thigh-high boots, I want dinner first." She turned to Shepard with a saucy look on her face, and saw his startled and slightly baffled expression. Thinking she had made a mistake, she backpedalled quickly, "Uh…sir."

"That will be enough, Chief," Kaidan chuckled.

"Aw, it's all right," Shepard waved dismissively. "I can't see her in a miniskirt anyway."

"Damn straight you can't. She wants dinner first," Kaidan laughed. "My kind of girl!"

Shepard continued to look at the view for another few seconds, and finally said, "Well, we may just be a bunch of FNGs, but that doesn't mean we need to make it obvious. We keep gawking at the nebula and we'll sunburn the roofs of our mouths. Let's get going."

# # #

Stepping into the Clinic, they found Tali sitting on the floor with an open crate behind her, surrounded by techno-debris, and her omnitool gauntlet lit, but in her lap.

Shepard looked at her; his ARO displayed her name, but not advising on best form of address. "Tali'Zorah. I'm impressed; you caught up so fast you're already here."

Tali looked up at him. "Oh. Yes." He had no way to know she was smiling except the cheerfulness of her reply.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Doctor Michel had a new bed delivered, and I promised to put it together for her. But it looks like it's missing some parts, and there are some 'accessories' that it's kind of useless without."

"Missing parts? Isn't it new?"

"New? This?" Tali looked around at the array of parts. "No, this is last year's Stryker FullAuto. I think it's a Fifty-five. It looks like it was salvaged, because it's been used, but they cleaned it up and reboxed it…probably for resale."

Shepard's ARO began to paint the scene with multispectral analysis of individual components; the parts were indeed a few months old.

"But the manipulators are absolutely new; they only have a few hours on them." She held up an assembly that looked like a robotic arm with an octopus for a hand. "Underbed imager's new, too. I was about to put it together, but I didn't want to start until I had a good idea of what I have and what I need. It won't take long." She went straight to work.

"It's very kind of her, I hope there's not a problem," Doctor Michel's accent was distinctive as she approached. "And by the way, Commander, I never properly thanked you for saving me from Fist's thugs. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't been there."

Shepard could tell that he was being redirected, but played along. "I'm just glad you weren't hurt."

"Me, too. Now, is there anything you needed?"

DisplaiD had identified the Doctor and rolled out a three-line CV. "No, but thanks for asking," Shepard said as he read the short bio. "With you in this free clinic, I half expected you to be a recent grad, trying to get your residency. But you're a doctor. How did you end up here on the Citadel?"

"My parents brought me here when I was young. My father was a medic with the Alliance. I chose to keep the medical tradition alive, but not the military; fixing up wounded soldiers isn't my idea of fun." She seemed to catch herself too late. "Not that I don't want to help soldiers, but I don't have the heart to have so many injuries become casualties." She shook her head. "Which reminds me. I think your soldier will be fine. Jenkins, yes?"

Shepard indicated the young soldier. "Yes. So…how's he doing?"

The doctor turned. "I don't get a lot of combat shock here. It's really good that the other soldier brought him so quickly, so I can treat it like a SEPTSD case. I started him on a course of Neurelease. He should be done in a few minutes.

"Because he hasn't had any REM sleep since it happened, I am trying to restore him to a pre-event state. But I suspect that whatever traumatized him would do so again in the future." She turned back to look at Shepard. "Did he ask to go home?"

Shepard and Kaidan exchanged a glance. "Yup. Couple of times," Kaidan said.

"I'm sure we can get him desk work until the end of his commitment," Shepard said. He looked past the doctor toward Jenkins, lying on one of the beds with a white-and-green frame helmet covering part of his head and face. "Well, he's not dead, so that's good," Shepard said.

"And we have Williams as a replacement for a ground team," Kaidan added.

"Technically a fireteam, but only three…still not a full squad." Shepard mused. He lit his omnitool and summoned information as the doctor turned to the bed to check its analysis and status. "We have some weapon-rated specialists, but no one else combat-ready. Maybe the skipper planned to pick up a transfer or two while we were here?" He looked up hopefully at the biotic.

Kaidan shook his head. "If he did, he didn't tell me anything about it."

"I can hold my own in a fight," Tali was suddenly at Shepard's side.

He looked back to where he had seen her sitting a moment ago. The exam table had been neatly pushed against the wall after assembly; green status lights suggested it was ready for use. "That was quick. Is that thing ready to go?"

"As good as new." She still sounded unusually chipper, "I even downloaded the aftermarket VI for it. It'll help the doctor if there are too many injuries for her to handle alone."

Kaidan stepped over to the exam table, looking closely at it. "That was awfully fast," he shook his head in amazement. "I thought you said it was missing parts. You sure about this?"

"Sure I'm sure. It was missing the onboard GPC, so I reconfigured it to use the clinic DCE. You just have to know where to tickle them. I'd trust it with my life." She looked at Shepard again, tilted her head curiously, pointed at the helmet he was carrying in its crispy-potato-stick-carrying mode. "You're going to smell those things for days. You know that, don't you?"

"Not after we get back to the ship," Shepard looked down into it, ate the last fingerful of sticks and fed the tray into his disassembler, "I took a shot in the head in that last firefight. It saved my life, but now I can't open it fully, or collapse it. Probably have to get it replaced."

"Mind if I have a look at it?"

He shrugged and handed it to her.

Ash spoke from across the room, "Commander, you want me to stay with the Corporal and get him back to the ship as soon as he's done here?"

Shepard looked to the doctor. "Do you have a solid time on when he'll be done?"

Doctor Michel lit her omnitool. "Hm. He should be ready to go in a few minutes, actually."

Shepard glanced once more at the quarian as he walked over to the bed: Her omnitool was aglow, and she was turning the helmet slowly in her other hand. He spoke to Kaidan and Ash, "That reminds me. I wanted to take you all out for a meal. We haven't really had a chance to get to know each other, and being on the Citadel presents an unusual opportunity. I found a nice place on my way over here, but I didn't want to start eating, and then have to break away to go present to the Council. So if we can wait until after that, we'll eat then."

"I'm game," Kaidan said, "but I'm carrying supplements."

Ash grinned at him. "Never skip a chance to eat, sleep, or pee."

After a pause, all three found themselves looking awkwardly at Richard.

Sitting in a chair next to the bed, Ash subtly manipulated Richard's forearm just below the elbow and bent it up so it looked like he was raising his hand.

On the other side of the bed but still standing, Kaidan pointed at the unconscious soldier. "Look at that. He wants to eat, too."

Ash nodded in agreement.

Shepard chuckled. "If there's one thing I like in a team, it's teamwork."

There was an explosive *BANG* from behind him; Shepard turned instantly, pistol drawn. When he saw only the quarian, the pistol's muzzle went up toward the ceiling. "Did you do that?"

The quarian hardly had time to react to having a gun pointed at her; she reached down to the bed where the helmet had fallen, looked down and pointed at a particular place on it. "Sorry. The point of impact in the armor spanned at least six of the pleats. I didn't want to do them one at a time and damage it."

The helmet she was holding was halfway changed from its collapsed mode to hardsuit mode. Shepard's ARO informed him that the compactor struts he could see were glowing in the infrared. As Tali manipulated her omnitool, the helmet made soft whirring and sliding noises as it continued to morph slowly from one step to the next in its decompaction sequence, as if the helmet itself was unsure if it was going to work or not.

"Decompaction isn't all that hard, it's just complex, and normally it works very, very fast…like protein folding. In Keelish, we use the words for 'carbon' and 'folding', though the word means something more like what you do with a deck of cards." She was speaking very quickly as the helmet flexed in her hand, "The armor was bent against the pleat-ladder, so it couldn't fully open or close without jamming against the next one. I had to break it along all the pleats at once."

With each repetition, the helmet opened or closed a little faster than before.

Kaidan moved closer, squinting. "How are you doing that?"

The quarian held the helmet up a little higher so Kaidan could see, "When it's in Service Mode, you can control the configuration change, stop it at any point to figure out what's wrong. Normally, this stuff happens almost at once; the fold times for each assembly have a lot of overlap."

"You have an app for this?"

"Your VI will tell you about it if you switch to Service Mode. But you probably don't use it, so your VI may never bring it up. The Alliance just gives you another helmet, right? It's too easy to get a new one, so there's no value in learning how to make repairs. The reason you think of my people as scavengers is…" she cut herself off. "No. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that." She twisted her hand from left to right and back again, scrolling the helmet both directions through its compaction/decompaction cycle, and handed it back to Shepard. "There. As good as new. Well…except for the chroma-coat. The carbon self-heals because of the CVD...uh...never mind." She continued to point at it, stopping as her VI advised.

Shepard took it, turned it over in his hands, then squeezed his head back into it. His suit gave a two-tone signal as the connectors chunked into place, and the helmet immediately collapsed itself. After a pause, it decompacted back into place again, and its status light on his ARO switched from yellow to green.

He tapped the helmet thoughtfully, turned his head from one side to the other, touched a control on his omnitool to collapse the helmet again. "Well the value of being able to make repairs that fast and that thorough in the battlefield is almost inestimable," he extended his hand toward Tali, "Absolutely brilliant. Welcome to the team, Miss Tali'Zorah nar Rayya."

Tali looked up and smiled, and stood rather taller for a moment as she took his hand in the alien greeting he offered. "Thank you, Commander Stephen Shepard. I will do my best to be worthy of your welcome."

In the silence that followed, the doctor - speaking softly already, further muted by distance and orientation - said, "Welcome back, Richard. How do you feel?"

The Normandy soldiers turned and gathered quickly at his bedside.

Richard was blinking rapidly and looking around in confusion. "How did…uh…where am I?"

"You're in the Sector Twelve clinic, run by me, Doctor Chloe Michel. You've just awakened from a Tier Three Course of Neurelease. You may have some fuzzy memories about today, but you should be otherwise unaffected. And feeling much better after your nap."

"I feel...I think I feel hungry." He looked around at the other soldiers. "Oh…hi, Commander. Lieutenant." He smiled warmly. "Chief."

Ash's eyebrows rose as she pulled her head back slightly. "What does that look mean?"

"Different kind of hungry, I suppose," Kaidan grinned.

"Schweinhund." Ash's left hand shot out and punched him in the right shoulder; he reeled to the left but only laughed.

Shepard was still watching the young soldier. "Welcome back, Corporal. How do you feel?"

He shrugged and blinked a few times as he looked around. "Like I just woke up. I remember…the Chief brought me here right after the the fight, but it looks like everyone's here. Um, where's the head, sir?"

Shepard looked to Doctor Michel, who pointed out into the clinic foyer. "There's only one, but if it's in use, the door will have a red stripe."

Rich nodded and got up, seemed only a tiny bit unsteady as he stepped away.

"Maybe a standing meal is the best choice for now," Shepard didn't look up from his omnitool. "It'll let us leave in a hurry if we need to, but still get some food."

Kaidan exchanged a glance with Ash. "Sounds good to me. Better than waiting until after."

Doctor Michel had been studying the displays over the bed; she looked up at them and pointed antispinward. "If you're hungry, I should warn you that what Flux serves is about as appetizing as toothpaste. But there's a really good place just on the other side of the plaza."

Shepard was nodding. "That Tomorrow place? Yes, I found it by accident on my way back here. It is quite good. Always nice to get a recommendation from the locals, though. Thank you."

"It's my pleasure," the doctor held out a glowing icon. "I've posted the report on Corporal Jenkins to the Alliance hub for your ship's doctor. Here is a local copy so you don't have to try to find it."

"Thank you." Shepard took the holotoken and touched it to his omnitool gauntlet. "I suppose we'll be going now. Thank you for all your help, Doctor."

"Goodbye, Commander. Nice talking to you." She moved to her desk and picked up a tablet as Jenkins stepped out of the door on their left.

The young soldier's smile seemed faintly vacuous. "We're going to go eat, right?"

Shepard gestured toward Kaidan. "You been taking lessons from him?"

Kaidan raised an eyebrow. "Hey, I resemble that remark."

*** Glossary ***

Ack: short form of "acknowledged"

ARO: Augmented Reality Overlay, a sort of "Heads-Up Display" for real life. Glucose-powered cybernetics added to the frontal neocortex

CO: Commanding Officer

CVD: Carbon Variable Diamondoid - a material ideally suited to collapsible self-healing armor; strength of diamond without the brittleness

DCE: Distributed Computing Environment

DisplaiD: a social media app for financial exchanges and identification, etc.

Exabyte: 1000 Petabytes

GCr: Galactic Credits - standardized medium of exchange in Citadel space, and generally used around the galaxy.

GPC: General Purpose Computer

head: toilet

FM: Effing Magic

FNG: Effing New Guy

OSD: Optical Storage Device - relatively low-cost non-volatile data storage device, impervious to electromagnetic interference.

Petabyte: 1000 Terabytes

PIRAD: removable storage that can also function as secondary system memory.

REM: Rapid Eye Movement; in the context of sleep patterns, this is the stage during which most dreams occur, and the hippocampus "writes" long-term memories.

RTM: Realtime Messaging

SEPTSD: (pronounced "sept'-sid") Single Event Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Terabyte: 1000 Gigabytes