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Chapter 19
Stealth Reconnaissance One
To say that the Normandy was a beauty would be a dire understatement. Even for someone who had no experience whatsoever in deep space transportation, unless you included that three-night stay on the SSV Hastings, she immediately understood why so many regarded this particular frigate with awe.
It simply took her breath away.
The SR-1 sat calmly on its dock, a silent predator waiting for the right moment to wreck catastrophic damage. She could almost feel the quiet, soft hum coming from within; an attractive lull of sorts that was the only telltale of its mortality. The bright antiseptic bay lights reflected from its polished surface, causing it to gleam wondrously like the star of the main event. Comparing the Hastings to the Normandy would be like comparing an old, decrepit man to a young, handsome soldier in his prime. They were of such different standards it would be unfair to place them in the same category.
She could not believe this would be her home for the coming months... Oh her brother would be so jealous.
"Welcome to the SSV Normandy. My name is Charles Pressly, Executive Officer."
Upon exiting the decontamination chamber and onto the bridge she came face to face with a familiar looking middle-aged man with grey hair. She was immediately reminded of Colonel Tigh, the XO of Battlestar Galactica, with his circular bald patch, serious brown eyes and thick facial hair. It took her a moment for his name to click within her brain. Navigator Pressley…? She had almost completely forgotten his involvement in the trilogy, which was odd. Why? What had happened to-
Oh.
It took all her willpower to keep a straight face. Forcing a smile, she shook his outstretched hand, trying not to let his warm, firm and very much alive grip throw her off balance. "Thank you very much. It is a pleasure to be here."
"The Commander filled us in about your arrival. Dr Skylar am I right?"
"Ye-es." Her voice cracked and she coughed lightly to cover it.
Thankfully, he did not seem to pick up on her little slip. "It is nice to see another human member joining the crew. Perhaps you should settle in first, the crews' quarters are on the second deck." Turning to gesture at the two doors most left and right of the area they were on, "those doors will lead you to them. The Commander requests that you meet her in the com-room in an hour."
Not trusting herself to say more she just nodded as the XO turned to take his leave. Leaning slightly against the metal frame, she took a moment to compose herself. She hated how knowing the future was almost like a double-edge sword. It was different with Nihlus because she hadn't forgotten his very existence, so she was somewhat prepared, but with the XO… She couldn't believe he completely slipped her mind. There were times where she was very glad that there were some gaps in her knowledge, but moments like these weren't one of them. Shuddering, she quickly pushed the thoughts of the SR-1's impending doom out of her head; she couldn't allow any of this, be it Virmire or the destruction of the Citadel, deter her performance.
A day at a time.
Baby steps.
###
Lieutenant Commander Jane Amelia Shepard had faced many impossibilities in her short 29 years of life: escaping pirate slavers with almost nothing but scavenged weapons at age 16, upholding the front lines on Elysium with a group of untrained civilians and a simple pistol, being promoted to the first human Spectre… But nothing could possibly prepare her for this:
How on Earth was she going to get a full Alliance flight crew, a biotic Lieutenant, a Gunnery Chief, a krogan mercenary, an ex-C-Sec turian, a lost quarian and a gung-ho psychologist to not kill each other, not to mention work together? What possessed her to even accept all their offers of help?
Sighing, the Commander forced herself towards the cockpit.
Just the travel time from the Acturus Station, to Eden Prime and then to the Citadel took almost four full days. Almost 100 hours and Jane still could not get used to the view.
The magnum opus of turian and human engineering combined the best of both worlds, and delivered it in one shiny package. It was by far the most modern and magnificent of ships that she had the honor to serve on, no surprises really considering the trillions of credits the Alliance pumped into this. The fact that she was now in command of the top-secret frigate sent thrills of excitement, anticipation and horror down her spine.
In fact, the events of the past hour did nothing but sent thrills of excitement, anticipation and horror down her spine.
"I heard what happened to Captain Anderson." The scratchy voice of their helmsman jolted her out of her thoughts as she stopped beside his seat. Staring out through the large glass window to the endless galaxy beyond, she was once again reminded of how small they were, how insignificant in comparison to the vast nothingness before them. The pilot went on about backroom politics and chopping blocks, expressing his disgust for the unfairness of their ex-CO's situation and his concern for her head. They were sentiments she was already well aware of, and shared to a certain extent.
"Saren's out there somewhere, and we're going to find him."
Reaching over to the com-link that connected to the entire ship she cleared her throat and addressed her crew for the first time. Her crew, it sounded and felt wrong. Despite Joker's reassurance of them being 100% behind her, Anderson should be here, he should be the one standing in her place… But when did anything ever go as planned? "This is Commander Shepard speaking." They had no choice. No backup, no second chances. They were the only line of offense and defense the galaxy had, and she had to make sure her team knew that. "We have our orders: find Saren before he finds the Conduit. I won't lie to you crew, this mission isn't going to be easy…"
Her words flowed easier, stronger than she expected, and all she had to do was speak the truth. For the first time since the whole debacle started, she realized that they had a chance… A good solid chance to winning this thing, failure was not an alternative that the Universe could afford. Images of her ground crew flashed through her mind as she continued her speech, they had the potential to be the strongest team in the galaxy, and it was up to her to make sure they succeeded, no matter the cost.
"Well said Commander, the Captain would be proud." Joker said, looking up at her when she finished, clearly impressed.
"The Captain gave up everything so I could have this chance. We can't fail."
I cannot fail.
###
Sky had to admit: their CO had a gift with words. She could almost here the crescendo of strings, clashing to end in fortissimo at her final, determined 'we-will-find-him'. As she looked around from her position on the bridge, she could tell that the crews' morale, previously dampened by the lost of their trusted Captain, were now restored to new heights after hearing the words of their War Hero. She could even feel her own heart beating faster, adrenaline rushing through her blood at the thought of taking the terrorist down.
No wonder Shepard was, well… Shepard.
"Sky."
She turned at the sound of her name being called. "Commander." She greeted in response.
The Commander paused and she could almost see her purple eyes soften slightly at the lack of familiarity of that title coming from her. And then, in a blink, the purple depths hardened once again. "What do you think of the Normandy?" She inquired casually as she beckoned the woman to follow her.
The Normandy...? There were no words. Upon reaching the lower deck Sky was quick to find her allocated sleeping pod and dump what little belongings she brought with her in the lockers. She had decided to spend the remainder of her free time exploring the ship and she could not have been more impressed with what she had seen. From the Galaxy Map on the CIC to the drive core, she could not have, in a million years ever dreamt up something so magnificent. "It is- It's, well... perfect."
Shepard nodded, understanding immediately. "Come on. It is about time I got to know my crew."
Looking around as they slowly moved through the crowded ship it still surprised her to see how many people were present. In the game the other crewmembers were easily neglected, doing the same monotonous actions again, and again, and again. In fact, outside of the few key players and the ground crew, she had not paid any mind to anybody else. But here… Dozens of people busied themselves with countless tasks, running up and down between decks, constantly on the move.
"Is it always this busy?" she asked as she shifted slightly to let someone pass her.
"The Normandy was geared for trouble, thankfully. So we have more than just the typical skeleton crew."
Right, she did remember Joker and Kaidan expressing their suspicions on Eden Prime just being a shakedown run. "How many individuals are there on board?" She asked, curious.
"More than 50? I need to do a full roster check before we leave the Citadel, but I thought it be better if I addressed my team as a whole first."
The Commander led her to the briefing room: a large, circular area located at the back of the top deck that she recognized to be the place where Shepard could contact the Council. There were several seats set up around the room, all but three occupied with the current members of the ground team. Sensing some form of meeting about to occur, she sat down in the empty chair between Tali and Kaidan. Shepard stayed standing however, taking the time to study each member of her team carefully.
"I appreciate the fact that each and everyone of you volunteered to join us." She looked pointedly at the non-Alliance members of the crew. "Even though this is largely a human ship, I would like to assure you that you will receive the same respect and treatment from me as would any human on board. But I will not pretend that finding the Conduit, or taking down Saren, is going to be a walk in the park. For this mission to succeed, I need every single one of you to in your top form. And that does not just apply to physical fitness, but to have the ability to obey my orders, and work together. I will not tolerate any insubordination or discrimination amongst you lot. Any problems? You come to me. Any complaints? You come to me. If you have don't believe you can do that, you may leave the ship right now." Her voice was sharp and fierce, but no one moved, Sky was pretty sure no one even twitched.
"Good. We are headed to the Artemis Tau Cluster to look for a certain Dr Liara T'soni." Sky had to stop herself from clapping in glee. Good choice Shep, exact same move she would have made herself. "I will brief all of you at a later time. For now, go familiarize yourselves with the ship and its' members. And please, try not to scare anyone." Her last words were punctuated with a look at the krogan, who just shrugged innocently in response.
"That is all. Dismissed." She watched as they filtered out of the room one by one. "Wait, Sky."
"Hmm…?" The dark-haired woman stopped in her motion to head out the door.
Shepard cocked her head towards the helm, "I'm about to tell Joker to head through the Mass Relay. The last time you saw the Citadel from space was what- 13 years ago? I thought you might want to come take a look."
Sky blinked, before grinning excitedly. "Ooh definitely."
"So what do you think of the crew so far?" The blonde asked as they made their way towards the bow.
"Interesting choice of people I must say." Nothing I didn't already expect but... "But powerful nonetheless."
"You're okay with working with non-humans?"
"I'm not xenophobic if that's what you're asking." She smiled reassuringly at her CO. "Don't worry, I'm used to working with aliens. Even the krogan doesn't get to me."
Shepard stopped them just outside of Joker's eavesdropping range. "Sky... Are you sure you want to do this? It isn't too late to turn back."
"I am very certain Shep. Nothing is going to make me leave you now."
She wasn't sure how to feel about those words. Sure she was glad that the other woman held such blatant loyalty to her and the cause, but something deep inside of her still wanted to toss her out of the ship while she had the chance. Sighing, she finally nodded. "Alright…" This was it, she had to accept her sister's role in their little story.
"Joker." She addressed her pilot as soon as she stepped within the cockpit. "Set coordinates for Artemis Tau, keep an eye out for Prothean ruins."
"Yes ma'am."
###
Well that was certainly anticlimactic. Sky thought to herself as she jogged down the stairs towards the second deck. Traveling through the relay she expected some form of zooming, forceful impact, as depicted by Star Trek. She wanted the whole she-bang: the strong jolt, the stumble for balance, but the only thing she felt was a soft pause, a gentle wave spreading through the ship before they ended up on the other side of the galaxy. Sighing, she supposed it was too much to expect the Reapers to do anything half-heartedly. Not even the creation of Mass Relays.
"Hey." She called out in greeting as she spotted the person she set out to see idling by the control panel. She had a feeling she was going to find him here.
The brunette reached to wipe the sweat off his brow, before turning towards her. "Hey yourself."
"It's Lieutenant Alenko right?" she asked, feigning ignorance. "We didn't really have much of a chance to talk when we were running around the Citadel."
The biotic chuckled, before placing down the datapad he was holding onto the table beside him. "Yeah, we didn't. So you're the psychologist."
"And you're the L2."
Alenko raised an eyebrow at that, reasonably surprised. The grade of his amp was no secret, but he didn't think that the woman before him would have taken note of it. "How did you figure?"
From playing computer games. But instead of saying what she thought, as per usual, Sky shrugged, "Shepard's an L3. The base of your implant is different, so I just assumed. And the look on your face told me I was right." She winked, "I am a psychologist remember?"
The bemused marine just shook his head and smiled, "so how did you know the Commander anyway? Looked like you two have known each other for a while."
Back on the Citadel, Sky did briefly wonder what the blonde had told the crew about her, but from the looks of it, seemed like she didn't say anything at all. Perhaps she was overestimating the relationship between Shepard and her team, maybe she was too used to the free and easy friendships she saw in ME2. Turning her head slightly she pondered on how to respond. "Well… I've known her for almost a decade now. We were close, not sure where we stand at the moment though. But I'm looking forward to finding out." Quite a good reply, in her opinion: Non-committal, honest and straightforward. "What about you? How did you end up on this ship?"
"Where the brass tells you to go, you go. That's just what it's like being a marine. Not that I really minded." The Lieutenant leaned against the panel and continued in his low, gruff voice. "Top-secret invention, wonderful adventures. At that time, I wouldn't have refused even if I could."
"And now?"
"Saren is a Spectre. He was supposed to protect the galaxy. If you're asking about whether or not I have qualms about joining this mission, I don't. He deserves to burn for what he did on Eden Prime."
Sky nodded slowly, understanding. Kaidan's reactions were pretty much textbook soldier. "I heard it was rough in Eden Prime. If you don't mind me asking… What happened?"
Kaidan ran his fingers through his dark hair and sighed. "No, it's okay. You have the right to know what we're up against." Taking a deep breath he continued, "About everything that could go wrong, went wrong. It was supposed to be a simple shakedown run you know? Except we all could tell it wasn't. Not with Captain Anderson, the Commander and a full flight crew on board. Expect trouble, and trouble comes knocking. We were there to pick up a Prothean beacon, and yeah, a real life Prothean beacon. But Saren's geth got there before we could, and well, you should already know the rest of the story. Killed a member of our team, killed our Spectre, decimated the colony, almost murdered everyone, including civilians. And then I did the most stupid thing in the world and activated the beacon."
"How did you manage to do that?" Sky asked, frowning slightly in faked disbelief. Wow, she couldn't have been more thankful for those drama lessons.
"To be honest, I don't know." He sighed, rubbing his face with his right hand. She could tell that he was still feeling the guilt from what happened. Poor Kaidan. It wasn't like he planned for it to happen. "But the Commander pulled me out of the way. She got the full blast of it instead."
"Yeah I heard about that, the visions..." Well, she didn't exactly hear it from anybody. But it would be easy to claim that some other member of the crew said something right? "From what I heard, it also wasn't your fault."
"Yeah… That was exactly what the Commander said." Sky secretly cheered for the blonde on the inside. Kaidan would get over his guilt eventually, once he was used to pulling her ass out of the fire. That, or groping said ass. "But anyway, Eden Prime was a mess." Frowning, he crossed his arms in frustration. "I never understood how someone who so many trusted, could turn his back on them like that. How could a Spectre work with the geth?"
"Sometimes… People lose their way, some worse than others." It was true, she had come across many loss cases in the CCF, and some were just beyond saving, no matter how much she tried. "We can only hope to lessen the damage they have caused by helping those that have been hurt."
The brunette went silent for a bit, chocolate eyes glazing over as he thought about her words. "I guess you're right… Thanks for the chat doc. I really should get back to work. Hope you weren't psychoanalyzing me or anything there."
"No worries, always here if you need to talk to someone." Oh wow, she was starting to sound like Kelly Chambers. She suppressed a shiver at the thought of the bubbly, exuberant female. "And nah, I only use my special talents when I want something. I'll see you around kay?" Winking at the biotic, she waved and turned away.
As soon as she was sure he couldn't see her face she breathed out a huge sigh of relief. As far as she could tell, that conversation was a success. No embarrassing mistakes, no unintentional slip of information. She was just going to need some more practice with the whole 'acting' thing.
Grinning, she started for the Medical bay. It was about time she paid an old friend a visit.
###
Another chapter done. Can I just say, this was probably the hardest chapter to write thus far. There was so much to include I just didn't know what to include! Anyway, I hope to develop Sky's relationship with the crew slowly. I can see how it's going to take a while. Anyway, yay! First conversation with someone aside from OCs, Anderson or Shepard! =] What do you think? Did Kaidan act realistically enough for you? And as for the guy in Chapter 10, yeap, I'm sure you can all tell it's not Kaidan anymore. Didn't really want it to be him in the first place. But anyway...
As per usual, always interested to know what you think.
Thank you all those that were kind enough to review. Death-Dimension, Ursakar, PlutoAn, Helljumper 1337, S058, Liege Lord, Nanobot5770, Teresa Bells and an unknown anon for your kind words and incredibly advice.
Teresa Bells - I don't think I've ever completely finished an entire self-insert before, so I do understand what you mean my cringe-worthy. I found most too much for me to handle, Lord knows why I decided to write my own, and yet here I am. =P But thank you. I'm glad you're enjoying it. =] You are right on the dot when it comes to Sky's fighting abilities. She's not very strong and any extra weight just wears her down. I think giving her the ability to snipe would make her a little too Mary Sue. I want her to be able to keep up with the ground team, but thats it.
Liege Lord - Again, thank you SO much for pointing that out. =P
Helljumper 1337 - Will do my best. =P
Death-Dimension - That's a good idea. Funnily enough, that's an idea I've played in my head too. ;] We'll just going to have to wait and see huh?
Hope to see y'all in the next chapter!
Much love,
Fee
ps. OVER A HUNDRED REVIEWS? What is this sorcery? I never thought, in a trillion years, that anyone would even bother to pay any attention to the stuff I wrote. The fact that you guys supported me, there is nothing I can do to return that but say thank you thank you thank you thank you. I love you guys, honestly. You have no idea how much this means to me. Xoxoxoxoxo