March 7th
2186
8:21 AM
Aboard the Lincoln; Virmire
The business deal had gone surprisingly smoothly, under the circumstances. Kral collected all the red sand from the hanger and hoisted the crates out on his own. The buyer, a rep from a small time Terminus gang, seemed ragged and frightened, but nonetheless payed for it. Kral was grumpy afterwards, as he only got 100,000 credits for it, not the 200,000 he was expecting. Still, money's money, and a hundred K can buy a lot of weapons.
Since he had completed the deal early in the night, he had time to print out a crude brochure of weapons and armor from an admittedly sketchy supplier in the Traverse. It had a wide range of weapons, from leaked N7 prototype weapons to crude "garage guns," with high power but low reliability. Mostly, however, it was captured gang weapons and armor. He printed off 3 brochures from his personal computer, then dropped them off outside the bunks.
Melissa was the first to awaken. She hopped out of bed, cursed the fact that she left her suitcase back on Illium, and walked out the bunk door. She saw some slips of paper on the ground, and picked one up. It looked like a brochure, full of weapons and armor for "REAL LWO CHEAPPRICE!" She decided to ask Kral about it.
The mess hall was nearly empty, like usual. Kral was in it, preparing some sort of food-looking thing.
"Hungry?" he said, gesturing to the pan of grey-yellow goo with black bits in it. "It's varren steak and eggs."
"No, I-uh, I'm good. Thanks. Hey, you know, I've been meaning to ask you, what happened to the crew of this ship?" Melissa said, looking around at the empty tables and chairs.
"I dunno. Probably on other ships. You do know that I acquired this corvette legitimately, right? I bought it from an impound lot in the Terminus Systems. What, do you think I'm some sort of criminal?" He paused for a moment. "Never mind. Anyway, did you get the brochure I left outside you guys' door?"
"Yeah, I think. What is this, anyway?"
"Guns. Guns and armor. The shipment was handled well and I made a good amount of money off this. I've been thinking over what you guys said, and it probably is for the best that we try and help things. Besides," He smirked. "We might get some money out of it. You can pick out a set of armor and two weapons for yourself. There should be two other brochures out there too, for little miss asari and tin can. I don't imagine tin can will need much in the way of armor, so that should save me some money."
"Right, right. Say, uh, why are you doing this for us? You have no reason to help us do anything at all. Two of us are stowaways, and hell, another one you freaking kidnapped!" Melissa blurted out. Kral stopped for a second, letting the question hang in the air. After a minute of stirring the eggs, Kral finally spoke.
"Why don't you go wake up the asari and rouse the tin can, we can get started with training." Melissa sighed internally, then walked out of the mess and back towards the bunks. Truth be told, she was very scared at asking that, she still didn't know Kral very well, and that could've easily resulted in him flipping out or something.
The Lincoln was an older model ship, and some doors still had to be button activated. The door to the bunks was one of them, with only a few exceptions scattered around. It was also evident that the ship was getting old, as everything felt creaking and falling apart. The loud creak and hiss of the bunk door opening startled the half-awake Tarya. Just before entering, Melissa picked up the last two brochures off the floor. Tarya propped herself up on her elbows, still in bed.
"Hey, what time is it?" She said blearily.
"Around 9. Kral told me to fetch you and Zero, he said he has something big. He also left these brochures outside our door last night I guess. It's full of weapons and armor. He said we're going to start training today." Tarya sat upright, her crumpled undershirt hanging off her, a size too big.
"You mean he was serious about fighting the Reapers? Huh. Awesome." Tarya said, falling back down to the bed. Melissa walked over to Zero, curled up into power-save mode on the floor by her bed.
"Hey Zero. Are you, uh, awake?" Melissa asked. The small robotic ball stood up and extended.
"Yes. What do you require?" Zero said. Melissa was still slightly unnerved by him. He was loyal as a puppy, and it freaked her out.
"Kral sent me to tell you two that we're going to fight the reapers. He's going to buy us weapons, armor, and equipment. He printed out brochures for each of us," she said. She handed a brochure to Zero, and tossed a brochure at Tarya, who was already falling back to sleep.
Three hours later, Kral returned to the ship with a crate of equipment. The ship was still docked on Virmire, and Melissa, Tarya, and Zero figured that it would be safer to hang out on the ship than go exploring too far. After Kral left, there wasn't much to do. He powered down the Lincoln when he left, so the extranet routers were off.
There were still some small compartments around the ship with little bits and bobs in them, and Melissa found a full deck of human playing cards. The three of them spent an hour playing cards together, with Zero being forced to leave after four hands because he was winning too much. Melissa taught Tarya how to play war, and Tarya taught Melissa how to play a game called Palavan Draw, though with some minor changes because you normally bet your fingers when you play.
Eventually, there was nothing to do except talk to each other.
"So... What gear did you choose?" Tarya said.
"Oh, uh... Just a basic set of armor and a nice looking shotgun. What did you get?" Melissa said.
"Well, there was a nice set of Eclipse armor that I got, along with a really nice Cerberus Hornet SMG, which even though is used primarily by Cerberus, is a good gun." Tarya realized that Melissa had mostly lost interest. "So, what was it like on Earth?"
"Hot. Humid. Polluted. Better than here." Melissa paused. "Though probably not anymore." Melissa looked down at the tiled floor in the mess. An icy ball formed itself in Tarya's stomach, remembering what happened.
"Oh Goddess, I... I'm sorry, I forgot-" Tarya stammered.
"It's okay, really. My family is safe, and that's what matters. It's just weird to think that my home might be ash and rubble, you know? Like, I grew up there my entire life, and not once did I think 'oh, this place might be destroyed by Lovecraftian horror-squids from dark space sometime later, I should take the time to appreciate everything I have!'" Melissa blinked away some tears. "It's just weird to think about all the family heirlooms, all the precious items, and hell, even things like my box of albums and my collection of teen gossip magazines might just be gone. Ash in the wind, blowing into an anti-Reaper rebel camp and choking them. I don't even like teen gossip magazines. I just felt like one day, if the world ended, they might be a good indication of culture before." At this point, while Melissa was relatively calm, Tarya was on the edge of sobbing.
"Goddess... I-" Tarya broke down into light sobs. "I'm sorry. I know what it's like to lose a home. Back when I was still a kid, living with my parents, some people came after us. My dad was a high ranking ex-Cabal officer with the turian military, and he made a lot of enemies in his life. One of his most prominent enemies was a facist paramilitary group called White Glass. One day, after coming home from the store, I saw smoke pouring out of the apartment building where we lived. I sprinted into the building, past the pale, shaking receptionist, and up the stairs. There were three men with guns on my floor, all with characteristic white armor that I never saw outside of history text books. White Glass is a very old and powerful group, with ties to the first Worker's Rebellion on Palaven. I saw them, and the door to my apartment open, before they saw me. I sprinted down the stairs, outside, and to the police, before realizing that my parents were home. All my family and everything I owned was just... gone. However, I eventually found home at an orphanage and later on my own. There... there are no more homes on Earth. There is nowhere to go. There is no home to make. There is nothing." The two of them sat in silence, deep in their own thoughts for what seemed like eternity, until Kral showed up with weapons.
"Who ordered some Reaper-killers?" Kral joked, oblivious to the conversation that just occurred. The two of them just smiled, Kral's coming in proved to be a nice distraction from the horrors of reality for a short time, even if it is directly connected.
After another hour of sorting through the crates, and looking for Zero, who had wandered off after playing cards, all four of them were suited up and ready to fight.
Melissa had received basic CQB training with her biotics, considering her moveset had her in constant close quarters. Kral was a mercenary and pirate by trade, he understood how every gun worked and how to make them better. Zero had basic training programmed into him. The extent of Tarya's military training was when she shot at some bottles in a back alley and missed.
Kral set up some empty boxes in the cargo hold and drew people-shaped outlines on them with marker. The four of them agreed to take turns on the stack of boxes. Kral went first. He took up shooting stance, brought his Revenant up to his chest, took a breath, then squeezed the trigger.
A hail of bullets tore into the top box, right where the outline's head was. He smirked, stopped firing, and let loose with a Carnage.
The top box was shredded open. It was slammed off the bottom box, and hit the floor in pieces. Kral laughed.
"Ha! Let's see anyone beat that." Kral boasted. He set up another empty box on top of the one he destroyed. Zero stepped up to the boxes.
"We can do this." He glowed brightly for a moment, then appeared more ferocious. He lobbed a turret behind the boxes, which promptly opened fire on them. He fell to the floor, aimed his sniper rifle, and completely splintered the top box with one bullet. The shattered heavy-duty plastic exploded outward, leaving one small, slender piece embedded in another crate. Kral grumbled, and got another crate.
"My turn," said Melissa. She cracked her knuckles, crouched down, and exploded out. She hit the top box with a Biotic Charge, sending the box flying against the wall. After landing on top of the bottom box, she jumped up once, then hit the box with her fist, crushing it. The geth turret that was still behind the box provided shielding for Melissa after her Nova. "And I didn't fire one shot," Melissa said, confident in her biotic abilities.
Tarya was nervous, to say the least. She had nice armor and weapons, but she still never had any training outside basic biotic acclimation. She did what she could remember, and tossed out a ball of biotic energy. The top box appeared to melt, until she realized it was a Warp she threw out. She waved her arm again, willing her biotics to work, and a blue corona appeared around her. She decided it must be good, and charged at the box that was left. She fired into it as she was running, her Hornet spraying wildly. She jumped, and landed on top of the box, her Annihilation Field actually melting it. Everybody was impressed. Everyone was happy with their abilities. Everyone was itching for a fight.
And tomorrow, they would fight.
Whoops this totally isn't 15 days late or anything, no sir. Anyway, thanks for being patient, for all like 4 people who care.