Aethyta woke quickly; rousing from a deep sleep to nearly instant wakefulness as she had done every morning since her maiden days. She moved to stretch and found that her arm was inconveniently pinned beneath some light yet arresting weight. Curious.
She shifted over slightly, turning her head to seek out the cause for her inability to carry on with her established routine. The last hint of drowsiness was wiped from her eyes when she came face to face with a still-sleeping Benezia. When had that happened?
Aethyta's eyes followed the lines of her face, relaxed now in sleep; her typical stern expression had melted into a far sweeter expression, though those worry lines between her brows seemed to have taken up permanent residence. Her mind cast back over those last few hours last night, when she had snuck a glance or two at Benezia as she changed. Aethyta smiled wryly, they were acting like a pair of silly maidens, both of them; it was refreshing.
She could recall studying the lines of Benezia's form once more, taking in the changes the years had wrought in her, noting those details that had remained the same with fondness. She had nearly laughed aloud when Benezia caught her gaze in the mirror, scowling for all she was worth. Had they still been lovers, she probably would have made some provocative comment, raised a brow in that daring way Aethyta had never been able to resist.
Her nightgown was disappointingly modest, loose and opaque, but baring enough of her shoulders that Aethyta wished she could press her lips to the exposed flesh there, fanning over those places where she had once left little bruises in her eagerness. Bruises that Benezia had occasionally chosen to show off, blithely dismissing them whenever someone inquired, staring down her nose haughtily at anyone that dared to comment. Those had been the days.
How long was it since anyone had seen Benezia without that blasted headdress? It had sent a bolt of arousal straight to her core just seeing Nezzie peeling that horrid thing away, neatly tucking it in with her belongings. She looked every inch the asari matriarch wearing the damned thing, but Aethyta had conceived a passionate loathing for anything and everything Nezzie used to underline their differences years ago.
A soft snore cut into her thoughts and Aethyta stifled a very un-matriarch snicker. Benezia had been insulted at the implication that she snored, and further vexed when Aethyta confessed that she thought it was rather cute. That was probably something that a century would not change. She poked at Nezzie's stomach softly until the other asari curled away from her, snore stuttering to a stop. She had learned that trick fairly quickly.
It was good to know too that Nezzie still had that habit of wrapping herself in every available inch of covering until there was hardly any left for her partner. Aethyta was grateful she had arranged to bring a few more blankets along, those cold nights had been the bane of her existence for far too long.
She twisted carefully, rearranging herself until she could slip Nezzie's head from her numb arm; the newly restored circulation caused her to tingle and she flexed her fingers to speed the process along. Much as she would love to lie here and reminisce, her clock said they should be docking in less than an hour and she had to be ready for anything. Benezia wouldn't thank her if she woke tangled up in her arms, staring into her assessing eyes. She didn't have the time or inclination to deal with the cold silences and pointed looks today. Then again, they both had bigger things to worry about than sleeping arrangements.
Aethyta clenched her teeth at the sudden wave of rage that swept over her. There was no question that Liara was her mother's daughter; she had followed the kid's career closely all these years, feeling just a little closer to her with every report she read and every shred of news she could pick up.
Several things had become abundantly clear in that time. Firstly, Liara was much like her mother had been in her maiden years; earnest and dedicated, not arrogant, but conscious of her worth. Secondly, there was something of her father in there too. There had been no reports of head-butts or bouts of bar-tending and questionable choices, but digging in the dirt on backwater planets was not something Benezia could have tolerated for long. She had a love of cleanliness and order that precluded dirtying her hands unless no other choice was available.
Liara would probably deny it if she met her dear old dad, but there was a streak of wanderlust in her that was purely Aethyta. And the thought of some alien jerk-off crushing that sense of wonder with this spectacular stunt pissed her off to no end.
Aethyta turned back to the bed, tugging at the blankets until Benezia began to stir.
They had a lot of work to do today, and the sooner they were off the better.
Ashley's temper was dangerously frayed. Three hours now she had stomped all over the docks, speaking to anyone that crossed her path, quizzing them on their activities, their thoughts on the news of the 'misplaced' asari archaeologist and whether they had seen anything unusual in the time leading up to the ship's arrival if they had been there. So far she had come up with exactly no leads.
But of course she couldn't trust them to tell her the truth; to save their own hides or that of their friends and family she had no doubt every last one would lie through their teeth. Their nasty, yellow, teeth her anger supplied. Kaidan had said that he was going to request the records of any personnel that had been on sight in the past three days; wonderful. Now they would only have several hundred to sort through. It would only take a matter of months, surely Dr. T'Soni could afford to wait that long.
Ashley stormed toward the exit hoping that someone, be it foolish dock worker or hapless docent, would dare to stand in her way so that she could relieve some of this pent-up tension with a sharp reprimand. Hell, if Kaidan himself volunteered she wouldn't complain.
The door hissed open as she approached and none other than the object of her darkly spiraling thoughts stepped through, searching the tumult for a familiar face; his eyes lit up with relief when he finally spotted her. She'd fix that soon enough.
"You sent me here on a fool's errand!" She barked.
Kaidan lifted a dark brow quizzically, "Does the word "superior" mean anything to you?"
The bastard was nearly smiling, at the moment she couldn't care less about lines of command, "Glad you're happy, but I've wasted hours-"
"Not wasted. I found something, and it's thanks to your footwork. Do you want to yell at me a little more or shall we?" He gestured meaningfully to the door.
Ashley glared at him a moment longer, but he folded his arms and stared right back, perfectly at ease. His composure pissed her off more than anything else, but she stomped inside anyway; no use prolonging the conversation when there was still a metric ton of work to do.
Kaidan slipped in behind her, grabbing her arm to lead her down another hallway; Ashley pulled away reflexively, eyes fairly snapping with ill-humor. Kaidan took the hint and gave her a few extra feet of space.
"While you were out on the docks I went ahead and rifled through the scheduling for the past couple of weeks; it's fairly regular. They rotate shifts every two weeks or so, meaning if you're on duty the Tuesday of the previous week it should be the same for this one."
"And?" She unbent enough to ask.
"It's Tuesday."
Ashley ground her teeth, "I'm glad you've found something to laugh about, would you like to share it with the rest of the class?"
"When you logged the names of the people you spoke with today I ran them against the records and found a few discrepancies."
"Such as?" This was like pulling teeth, she wished he could just hurry up and get to the big reveal instead of drawing this out to crow over his own resourcefulness.
"A few of the shifts are switched; some cited a medical difficulty, which I need to cross-reference with the clinics in the area and their supervisors; there are a few that were supposed to be on duty today and aren't… and a few that shouldn't have been on duty until Friday, but were moved up to compensate for missing workers."
"When you say 'a few', how many are talking?"
"A little over twenty."
Ashley released a heavy breath, "At this point, I'd take anything beneath the triple digits. How are we going to play this?"
"You've always been better at the bad cop routine; I'll get to work on those cross-references and you can drop by to have a word with the sector heads about making their employees available for questioning."
"Done." Ashley veered away, almost running in her exuberance.
Finally, they were making some progress.
As you can see, this chap. is far shorter than normal. I'm sorry, but something's come up and I'm not sure if I'll be able to post again until Monday. Sorry!
Oh well, at least there's some plot advancement. Not every day will be six chapters, I hope. :)