Aboard the freighter, Briar leaves the shuttle and is promptly greeted by the chaos of an unscheduled departure. The Marines are setting up shop in one of the empty hangars, because the crew quarters are either stuffed or converted into storage areas. The marines are constructing small field shelters as individual rooms, with 4 people sleeping in one of the rooms. Commander Daar is the only staff officer, that receives a room in the crew quarters. Briar has to share with a Lieutenant and two Ensings. Commander Daar snickers at Briar for having to sleep with the other Marines. They talk about the guard routes and where stationary guards should be positioned. Daar wants to guard the bridge and the storage facilities. Briar suggests additional on the engineer decks to protect the drive core and the other integral systems, like life-support and other stuff one might need.
Daar is very confident in himself: "I don't need your opinion. I know what I am doing, so shut up! Are we clear?"
"Yes, sir!", Briar answers, standing at attention.
Daar leans in and asks in a cutting voice: "Are we clear, Lt. Commander Mason?"
Still standing at attention, Briar answers: "Yes, sir."
Daar turns around and walked away and leaves Briar dumbstruck and worried. One single Marine walks up to Briar and asks as nicely as he can: "May I help you, sir?" Briar waves and says: "We are having minor discussions about the position of the stationary guards. We two disagree. And that's it." "Are we guarding the engineering deck. Please tell me, that we are finally learning from previous assaults", The Marine whines. Briar smiles kindly and shakes his head: "We are guarding the bridge and the cargo. Get your armor and don't forget your airtight helmets. Be at attention once the ship has left orbit. Spread the message, Marine." Briar turns around and drags his equipment to the lockers on the far side of the hangar. There he neatly orders his armor pieces and puts the guns in the designated racks. The ordnance officer walks by and gives Briar 5 thermal mags for each of his two guns, then he asks: "Need any grenades with that?" "No. I got my own. Just bought them", Briar answers and holds up his cluster grenades. The guy slaps his forehead and says: "Don't use those aboard the ships. I'll give you biotic grenades, to prevent any fuckups and they don't cost you 600 credits a piece. Here you go" With these words he drops three grenades into Briar's hands and moves on. Briar trails the man with his eyes and then puts them in his locker.
He wants to leave the locker, but decides to take his heavy pistol along, so he reopens his locker and takes his belt with the small gun in its folded state. He places it around his hip and closes the belt. Other marines don't have this kind of thing anymore, because they wear their armor when fighting, but guards, that do not wear armor still have belts for this stuff. These are equipped with emergency shields that can catch a single burst from an assault rifle, a shotgun blast or a shot from a high-powered sniper rifle. He knows this belt is of no particular use, but he prefers to still have it and his gun at the ready.
The Marines are settling in quietly. Briar and Daar didn't give any orders on the topic, telling people to deal with it themselves. Usually it works and everybody is happy and leaves the commanding officers alone. But today, two extremely buff marines are fighting about the last bunk in the quarters, closest to the small training ground, where there is a small fitness rack for the leisure time. Briar intervenes and places them far away on different ends of the hangar city. Another scrawny young marine is put in the now empty bunk.
Because the Alliance guard detail is not enough, the Ilium government sent an entire squad of Asari Huntresses along to protect the cargo. Apparently, the amount of Ezoo in the storage is enough to validate a lot of guards, but no cruisers to protect the ship.
The Asari commando, consisting of 5 very powerful biotics approaches Briar and the leader asks: "We, as a group, require lodging as well and would like to ask for assistance in finding a place, where we can stay."
"Of course, Miss... I am very sorry we weren't introduced, yet. My name is Lt. Commander Mason", Briar says, while smiling and offers her a hand to shake. The youngest of the Huntresses leans towards their leader and whispers: "Clasp his hand and shake it. It's a customary greeting among humans." The leader of the Huntresses leans forward and shakes Briar's hand, smiling. When they let go of one another's hand, Briar looks at her awkwardly, expecting her to introduce herself, until he remembers, that Huntresses/ Commandos never introduce themselves to people. "The housing for you and your team. We are already mostly booked, but I will check, whether there is still housing left for you and your team. Please follow me", he offers kindly.
The Commandos follow Briar through the cramped camp. In the back, closest to the humming life support of the hangar. "I hope you can deal with a little ritualistic humming and noise. Magazines can be obtained at the armory. Here is the pass to let you in", Briar says, while giving the leader a tablet with important data, like the time, when the chow opens, where the showers are, how to complain about another Marine and many other hints about, how to live with almost 100 Marines in a cramped environment. The organizers even included a document, that all sexual activity aboard the freighter, that does not serve only recreational purposes is strictly prohibited.
This includes:
- - The linking of Quarian suit environments (not because of reproduction, but the pharmacies are not equipped to deal with Quarian immune systems)
- Salarian mating and egg breeding (fucks up traffic in the engineering rooms, and the use of heat sinks for said activity is not recommended allowed. Seriously, stop fucking with our rules. 'Not recommended' means that your eggs are boiled within seconds of the slightest combat and the smell is just unpleasant. (The gunner, who found them, while cleaning the main battery, has PTSD now.)
- Krogan mating dances (cleaning details have filed enough complaints about blood in the room and a Captain had a mental breakdown, when it was insinuated, that there were way too many dead Krogans on his ship and he was asked to give the reason.)
- And to not be racist any other form of sexual activity, that yields pregnancy or a severe risk to the mission… I am looking at you Flight Lieutenant Moreau!
Briar shakes his head, while reading the document. The was changed several dozen times, so it could be published and still sounds extremely edgy…
'Oh my god, the Admirals in charge of ethics back home, must be really mad about something.'
The Leader steps forward and opens the door. The room is standard issue, with only four beds. She turns around and says in a snarling voice: "There are only 4 beds in here" She uses a non-standard Asari dialect, that many commandos use in their communication. The Commandos laugh and one of them makes a rude joke about illiterate humans and how even their youngest is older then most of the men combined. Briar learnt the dialect, while training commandos and says in perfect dialect: "I was going to offer another bed, but it looks like one of you will have to sleep on the ground." Then he turns around and leaves the five standing in the room.
Briar makes his way through the settling chaos and heads towards his small cabin by the training ground. The two Ensigns that Briar will be living with are standing next to the door and are snickering about a joke, one of them just told. When they see Briar approaching, they shuffle to stand at attention and look at the Lt. Commander with a mild interest. Briar answers the salute and walks through the door of the cabin.
It's a small room with two lockers at the back wall and two footlockers below each of the of the two bunk beds. There is a main light under the ceiling and each of the beds has a reading light. That is way more luxurious than anything, Briar had on other ships,
Then he takes his clothes bag to the foot locker underneath his bunk and dumps it in there. Then he takes the fifth chapter of "Blue and Bullets", the book about the Asari justicar in love with a Human. Its smutty, but well written, to the point where Briar starts reading and forgets to deal with the other stuff, he should actually be taking care of.
The protagonist, an Asari justicar, that almost reached the Matriarch age, goes to a small human colony to hunt an Ardat- Yakshi. When she arrives there, the humans of the colony are already dead. She hunts the Ardat- Yakshi through the mine of the colony and in the final fight of the first volume, ignites an Element Zero storage to kill her enemy. The explosion collapsed the mine over the hideout of the Ardat- Yakshi, but wounded the Justicar heavily and sent her into a coma. At the beginning of the second instalment, she is woken up by the sound of FTL engines on a human cruiser with a very angry doctor, changing her bandages. Afterwards she is on a very colorful and romantic adventure to see the universe and all of its perks. It the latest installment she and the doctor are finally getting closer to one another.
Briar is kinda into the story, because it is well written and researched, other than most human romances, involving other species. And definetly better than the Turian stuff, that involves half human and half Turian offsprings. After the first contact war, Turians published hundreds of different books, describing the humans, ranging from scientific publications to cheap porn. They were really interested in the new space faring species, that wouldn't take crap from anyone. There was even a publication on furries. Briar read about half of it and couldn't keep from giggling. To the Turians the "Furry" is a subspecies of the homo sapiens sapiens, that developed in the first decade of the 21st century. Briar laughed at the thought of it. He gifted his copy of the book to one of his bunkmates in basic training, who was a furry. He threw the book and the two had a fist fight about it.
He gets through to the second chapter of his book, when a Lieutenant busts in and looks extremely worried. The woman calls out: "Here he is!", gesturing wildly in the direction of Briar on his bunk. There is a brief hustle of steps and a sharp knocking on the door. Briar jumps up, straightens his uniform and asks: "Yes?" A young female Lt. Commander enters the small room, making it even more cramped with the two Ensigns and the Lieutenant in the room. She stands in front of Briar and makes a demand: "I want my own room. Make it happen."
Briar looks at the Lieutenant and asks: "Am I missing something?"
"Sir, she said, that it was under her honor as a Lt. Commander to share her room with officers of lower rank", the Lieutenant recites, standing steady and continues with an edge of spite, "That's what she said."
The new young Lt. Commander makes hell break lose and starts screaming racial slurs, insults and diminutive words at Briar and the young Lieutenant. The tirade is accompanied by gesture and several punches and slaps. Briar learned to not engage in such fights. Being the guy he is, the aftermath usually ends up terribly.
The situation defuses, when Commander Daar enters the conversation, making breathing finally impossible in this cramped little space and asks: "Are you disrespecting your superiors, Lieutenant?" The Lieutenant snaps into position, standing at attention and responds: "No, sir!" The room falls silent and everybody watches Daar. "Good", Daar responds and then looks at Briar, "get her what she wants. She asked nicely, I presume."
Briar nods, salutes and walks out of the shelter, that poses as his room. The other Lt. Commander follows him, with the Lieutenant in tail and smiles to herself. Briar walks up to the engineer in charge of building these cramped things and asks: "Do we have enough spare parts to build another shelter for our esteemed guest here? Her name is Lt. Commander..." "Elise Delafonte", the young woman adds. "Okay. I take a look", the engineer says, pretending to go through his manifesto, then looks up and says 'no' with a clean face. Briar snorts a laughter and says to Delafonte: "Can't help you, I'm sorry."
The Lt. Commander looks even more irate and starts to huff off towards Commander Daar and complains loudly to him pointing at Briar, the Lieutenant and the Engineer. Again, there are a lot of mean words sprinkled in and Briar can hear everything. She even insinuates, that Commander Daar will be fired by her daddy, if he does not cater to her every need. Commander Daar looks serious at first but then suddenly bursts into laughter. The complaining Lt. Commander is actually shocked. Then Daar regains his compusure and starts lecturing the Delafonte about it. In the process he points to Briar and the others several times.
Then he leans and looks at her very sternly. She kicks in a snide remark on how she knows his direct superior and that she'll get her way anyway. Commander Daar suddenly waves Briar and the young Lieutenant over. Briar speeds over, almost kicking a marine on the way. The Lieutenant follows just as quickly, only that she actually kicks the Marine. The Marine is a sport about it doesn't protest loudly about it at all.
The two stop in front of Commander Daar and Briar asks, standing at attention: "Yes, sir?" "Do help this good Lieutenant into the brig for insubordination and fraternization on the job", Daar says, pointing at Delafonte. Briar is just as surprised about it as the newly demoted Lieutenant Delafonte. She opens her mouth and starts yelling: "You can't do this you chauvinist fuckt..." Before she can get through her sentence, Daar points his overcharge tool at her head and asks: "Can't do what? I dare you to finish that sentence."
An awkward silence ensues, while Briar activates his omnitool and calls the two closest Marines over. The Marines, the two Ensigns, that stay in Briar's room come running and stand at attention. "Take this Lieutenant to the holding cell", Briar orders. The Marines step forward and grab the poor Lieutenant, that arrived together with Briar. Daar laughs and says: "No, that's the wrong one. This one." He gives Delafonte a nudge and smiles: "They'll take you to your private quarters. You'll like them. They are just for you." The two Marines grin and grap the former Lt. Commander by the shoulder and drag her away.
She screams and flails about, before disappearing out of view. The Lieutenant is flabbergasted, while Briar and Daar start laughing to relieve the stress. In tears Briar finally asks, between two laughs: "What are we going to do about the vacant spot as Lt. Commander? Promote the mascot of the ship? Lt. Commander Fluffy the Cat?" Daar answers over another burst of laughter: "Let's promote our good Lieutenant here. That should solve our issues. Especially with the nice Rear Admiral who is in charge of this operation." The lieutenant wants to refuse, but decide to talk her into it.
Daar: "You have to take it. It's a lot of honor in accepting."
Lt.: "I don't want to profit from the misery of someone else."
Briar: "Never seen anyone chicken out of a promotion before.
Daar: "The almighty Marines are actually scared of a deserved promotion. Here I am, fighting nepotism and all I get is an Interrogator and Marines, who can't say thank you to a promotion."
Lt.: "I don't want to thrive on the misery of someone else."
Briar: "You are not thriving on her misery, but on Daar's happiness. He wants to stick it to the children of Generals, who use their Daddy or Mommy to bribe their way through the Alliance. You can be promoted, or we'll find another Lieutenant to do it. That easy."
Lt.: "Fine. I hereby formally accept the offered promotion."
She salutes and walks away. Daar looks at Briar and says: "Great."
Then he leaves as well. Briar looks around and decides to go meet the main crew of the ship. The take-off is due in 5 minutes at sixteen-hundred. The Marines are gathering on the training ground and preparing for the briefing. Briar walks over and waits there, standing next to the spot, where the Commander is supposed to stand. But Commander Daar does not show up. The ignition is heard in the entire ship and the warning bells for the breach of atmosphere go off five minutes later. Briar decides to contact Daar on his omnitool via the ship's network. The Commander picks up and sounds exasperated.
"You have to do the briefing and we'll be using your guard pattern, Lt. Commander Mason. The father of Miss Delafonte is hounding me to help his little angel back into the rank of Lt. Commander. I am in a conference call with him, his boss and the boss's boss. God knows, how long this is going to take. Daar out", is the entire text of the call. Briar deactivates the call function and steps in the position of the Commander, with the other, newly-assigned Lt. Commander, looking at him in confusion. Briar announces: "Good morning. My name is Lt. Commander Briar Mason. I am sharing the spot as the second in command, because I will only assist this unit during this mission. The other Lt. Commander next to me is a friend you all know." Briar is interrupted by approving cheers and a woman that moves out of her designated position to hug the Lt. Commander. Briar lets it happen. Then he continues: "Anyway, we are supposed to guard the vital components of this ship during our travels. We'll have two guards at the bridge, four guards each of the cargo decks and two for the engine room. That makes 12 stationary guards. 8 more will follow standard guard patterns along the halls and protect the other decks." The Marines nod to indicate their agreement. "Twenty more on active standby in the shift. The others are on free time. The schedule is out. I only had you ID-numbers and specializations to work with. If you want to complain about the schedule, approach me, when I'm in my office. Do not try to gang up on me in some dark corner. We're marines, not petty criminals. Questions?"
One of the Marines raises his hand and asks: "Can we talk about the housing?"
"Why? Is something unpleasant? I am sure, that you should direct your complaints towards the 'manager' of the engineers that built them", Briar answer, "Any volunteers for the first shift?"
The thing, that happens every time this phrase is uttered: The soldiers fall silent and just look a little amused. Briar laughs and says: "I knew it. This is the reason, why I have a worked out a ready schedule. If I catch anyone sleeping on guard duty, I will be very unpleasant. Dismissed."
The Marines download the plan to their omnitools and read it. The first shift guards mumble unpleasantries and walk towards the lockers. The standby crew follows and the 40 men and women arm up for their first eight-hour shift. The remaining 80 Marines disappear into the depths of the barracks, that look like temporary housing on Arcturus station after the destruction of Eden Prime. Briar snickers and turns around to leave. A wall of blue is in his face.
One of the Commandos is standing in front of Briar and looking him in the eye. The Asari is exceptionally tall, towering an entire head over Briar, who already is taller than human average. The Commando has opened her upper armor to show more cleavage. She clearly is not the seductress of the team, as most men, even Briar, feel emasculated by her forceful presence. She tries a soft voice: "I really need a place to sleep. Can't you do something to help me with that?" Briar takes a step back, to ease the strain in his neck from looking up to see her eyes. "No problem. Just ask our field technician over there to take care of that. He should have a spare or two", Briar answers kindly and transfers a document to her omnitool. "this is a procurement form. Fill it out and sign your name there. He will want to see it." When the Asari Commando turns around to leave, Briar mumbles: "And put something on, god damn it." The Asari, already leaving towards the technician turns red, like a blueish shade of red, but clearly visible. She starts to fiddle with her armor to cover everything again. The new Lt. Commander looks around watches the scene in full view. Lt. Commander Jill Salazar, as Briar pulls from her fills, looks at Briar with a mildly amused facial expression.
All Briar wants to do now is read another chapter of his book. He leaves the training area as well and walks towards his room, when his omnitool starts beeping. A call from Daar. Briar picks up and a stressed-out voice asks: "You have retinal cameras, right?" Briar looks confused and asks: "One of my eyes has been modified to house a miniature camera, due to wound I experienced on the moon of Elysium. Why is that important?" Daar asks: "Is there a buffer, that saves the material, it records?" "Yes, sir. I have the last 50 hours, of my life saved on the storage in my omnitool. Again, I do not understand, how this is of any importance to you", Briar answers. Daar does not answer to the question, but goes on to ask: "The microphone in your ear is linked to it?" "Yes sir. The sound is synchronized to within a hundredth of a second and saved. Again: Why are you asking, sir?", Briar answers. Daar sighs in relief and laughs: "Delafonte's dad is busy tearing me new one, when I said, that you were involved, they got an Admiral, I never heard about, on the line. Her name was Admiral Yin-Chu. Admiral Delafonte called me out for lying and mocked me, but Admiral Yin-Chu insisted on your cybernetic implants and that the situation should be proven by them and the surveillance. Could you transfer me the data of that period to my omnitool?" Briar is a little speechless and looks at Daar. A snarling voice in the background announces: "Of course he is not allowed to force you to volunteer the information at all, as it is classified information of the N4 interrogations division." The voice pushes Briar over the edge. He hates entitlement even more than plain stupidity.
"All right. As my commanding officer, Admiral Yin-Chu has given me the direct order to send all audio-visual data of the last hour to this designated conference call", Briar intonates, before leaving sending the data package away.
Daar thanks Briar profusely and hangs up.