Cass groaned, stretching as she sat up from her spot on the couch. The observation deck was empty when she sauntered in there last night, so she slept there, though not soundly. The entire night she had been tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable, nor quell the brewing storm of thoughts in her head.
Cracking her neck, the teen stood and shuffled over to the glass to peer at her reflection; fixing her tangled bed head by running her fingers through the mess, determining it presentable, the girl left the room in search of coffee and food.
Walking down the hall, the girl breathed deeply. This was so surreal; it was only so many months ago that she thought she would never see the Normandy again; and now here she was, walking the halls as if nothing has changed. Except, everything has changed; she's different, the crew is gone, and the Reapers are here.
Stumbling into the kitchen, the girl frowned at the lack of kitchen staff, or rather Rupert; sure, his food was mostly terrible, but he always made coffee in the morning…
Cass frowned, where was everyone anyways? Usually the crew deck was crawling with, well, crew.
Coffee would have to wait, something clearly was going on.
"Where is everyone?" Cass asked, shuffling in behind the pilot's chair. "Well, beside everyone being at their stationed positions."
"So you mean your ma, Liara and James?" Joker laughed.
"Well, yes." Cass frowned, upon looking at Joker's controls. "Where are we anyways?"
"Palavin, or rather Palavin's moon."
"Oh." Cass paused, "And why exactly are we here?"
"Well, The Turian counselor said the Turian's would agree to Earth if we could find their primarch, which hasn't been that successful since he might already be dead, so we need to find the next guy who's in line, or whatever." Joker explained.
"Oh." Another pause. "And how long exactly have we been here?"
"A while."
About to respond, the teen jerked to the right, grabbing the chair to avoid falling. "The hell was that?!"
"I dunno! Shit shit shit! Some of the controls have gone dark! EDI?" Joker's hands moving furiously over the control panel. "EDI? Damn it! She's not responding!"
Another jerk made the teen sway once more. "What's going on?"
"I don't know! EDI's off-line and everything is going crazy!" Joker replied, bringing up the communication system, he spoke. "Commander; Shepard; come in!"
"Can this wait, Joker? We're in the middle of a war zone." Shepard's voice came in through the com.
"We've got a situation on the Normandy, Commander. It's like she's possessed. Shutting down systems, powering up weapons. I can't find the source."
Cass frowned, and whispered to Joker. "We need to go down to the AI core, see if we can pin point what's going on down there."
"I'm sending Liara back to help." Shepard spoke then disconnected.
"Well, that was helpful." Joker said flatly.
Cass rolled her eyes. "I'm going down to the AI core, see what's up down there."
"Maybe, you should, um, wait for Liara?"
"Why?"
"Well, I just don't want to, well you know…"
"I know?" Cass scowled.
"Well, You're ma and all…"
"Just spit it out, Man!"
"Idon'twanttogetintroublewithyoumomifyougofdownthere." Joker spoke in one breath.
"Don't be a pansy; besides it's out best bet and I'm sure you don't want to lose EDI?"
Joker shook his head in response.
"Didn't think so. I'll be back." Cass stood and started down the bridge.
"Hey! Wait!"
"What now?" the girl frowned.
"You might want to take a fire extinguisher; there's a lot of heat showing up on my system in there…"
"Got it." Cass rolled her eyes once more before tearing off before the pilot would try to stop her.
"EDI?" Cass called out, entering the medical bay. Chakwas had left only a few moments earlier. "EDI? Hello?"
The girl frowned, her brow line creasing with worry. She wasn't really a technical expert, but somebody had to do something, right?
Grabbing an extinguisher from the wall underneath the counter, the girl's feet moved tentatively forward. Placing a hand against the control panel, the doors glided open. Sputtering as the smoke began to pour out, the teen raised an arm to shield her eyes from the smoke. Raising the extinguisher, the girl squeezed the trigger mechanism, unleashing the carbon dioxide upon the flames.
Pressing through the still clouded room; the girl jumped back, falling to her back, startled by the previously subdued robot, now standing in front of her; eyes gleaming orange.
"Oh shit."
"Cass." The Robot spoke.
"I- EDI?!" Cass' jaw dropped. "I- are you, um, in there?"
"Not all of me, but I have control of it. It was not a seamless transition."
"Seriously? Is that why you went all exorcist on us? You blacked out."
"Correct. When we brought this unit on board I began a background process to search for its information on the Prothean device. This eventually triggered a trap. A back up power source and CPU activated and the unit attempted physical confrontation. Fortunately I was able to gain access and repurpose it as I saw fit; during this process it struggled, thus the fire." EDI explained.
"Shit, EDI. That's pretty kick ass. But, maybe you should warn someone next time."
"Bringing the crew up to speed would have been counterproductive and all attempts to help would have been limited by reaction time."
"Wait, so if you're in there, are you still in the ship?"
"I exist primarily in the ship, for optimal control this unit could remain within the Normandy's broadcast or tight beam range."
"Does this mean you get to come on missions and stuff?" Cass asked excitedly.
"Yes, this platform can offer limited fire ground support." EDI answered.
"Sweet!" Cass fisted the air. "We should go show Joker!"
"Yes, Joker will want to see it."
"Cassandra!" Liara shrieked, practically leaping in front of the teenager to shield her from the machine.
"Oh. Hey Liara." Cass rolled her eyes.
"Dr. T'soni." EDI greeted.
Liara's mouth gaped, looking between the robot and the girl. "What's going on?"
"EDI took over the body; pretty sick, right?" Cass grinned.
"I- okay. Is that why the systems were going crazy, I came back as soon as I could-"
"Everything's fine." Cass interrupted. "EDI can explain it. I'm gonna go tell Joker. He's going to be SO excited."
Liara frowned, eyeing the robot warily while the teen sauntered out of the room.
Cass sighed, the solid hum of the ship's drive core very apparent down under deck four. It seemed so empty without Jack's foul mouth running at her along with grandiose ideas of being space pirates. Garrus was back at least, she had yet to greet him or her mother since they had returned with the Primarch a few hours ago. She had once again retreated, this time down in the hidey hole beneath the engine room; the cot still here, luckily. Maybe this would be where she could make her space on the Normandy. There was too much foot traffic on the Crew deck, and the hum of the engine and the constant vibration was comforting.
"Cass?" The mother made her presence know as she appeared at the base of the stairs.
Cass sighed deeply, rolling her eyes behind closed lids; not bothering to sit up from her horizontal position on the cot, she spoke. "Yeah?"
"I- How are you?"
"Fine."
"Liara told me you went down into the AI core alone."
"Yeah. And?"
"You should have taken someone with you, any other crew member-"
"Okay." Cass said, not really wanting to argue, not that her mother was wrong, if EDI didn't have control of the bot, well, it may have not been the best plan.
"Okay?" Shepard's voice lightened, the confusion evident.
"Okay." Cass repeated flatly.
"Well, um, Good." The commander stated awkwardly, walking over to the girl and sitting next to her legs on the cot. "I have some work to do; I think that maybe we should talk later."
"Sure." Cass frowned; of course they would talk. They were on a small ship, she'd be foolish if she thought she could continuously evade the woman.
"Great!" Shepard responded, much too enthusiastically for the teen's tastes. Leaning over Cass, the mother placed a kiss on the girl's forehead, doing her best to ignore the immediate stiffing of the girl's body as she did.
As her mother stood to leave, the teen did all she could to restrain the sigh that escaped her lips right before the mother was out of earshot.
"Who are you?" Cass spoke, her tone flat. She sat at the mess table, across from the fidgeting woman. Pushing the food around her plate, clearly distracted.
"Oh, um. Specialist Samantha Traynor." The office replied uneasily.
"Oh."
"And, um, I'm assuming you're the Commander's daughter."
"Yup."
"I- Are you alright?" Traynor frowned.
"Yup."
"Well, um, I should get going." Traynor responded awkwardly, absently rubbing the back of her neck, the woman stood and headed toward the elevator.
Cass sighed and continued to push the food around her plate.
"What are you doing?" Cass' eyes followed James as he continued to move up and down on the bar, doing pull ups.
"Working out." James huffed.
"Is this all you ever do? It's like another Jacob."
"Jacob?"
"Cerberus guy, constantly did sit ups. Abs of steel."
James snorted, dropping down from the bar, "Look at these." He flexed, pushing back his tshirt, exposing his bicep.
Cass rolled her eyes. "Wow." She deadpanned.
"Whatever. Like you're any better."
"Anyone can show off." Cass sniffed.
"Yeah right." James' eyes gleamed. "Let's put it to a bet, if anyone can show off."
"You're kidding? You want to fight me?"
"No! No, I don't want to fight you, your mother would kill me!" James exclaimed, throwing his hands up in defense. "I meant, like in chin ups, or push ups or something."
"So in other words you don't want to be beat up by a little girl."
"No, I don't want to be beat up by my hard-ass commander."
"Fine. We'll do it your way. Chin ups it is, muscles." Cass grinned wickedly, cracking her knuckles. "Let's do this."
"Ow ow ow! Fuck!" Cass cried, she should have opted for push ups, because here she was pulling pieces of skin off her palms the size of quarters. She should have taped them or worn gloves, but no, she had to be all tough and get coin sized blisters.
She had retreated back to her hidey hole after she had practically lost to James, she was at 50 when her grip started to lose, and he basically conceited when he saw her about to fall. Shrugging and calling it a tie, the Alliance officer laughed and went in search of grub, leaving the girl to herself and the humored shuttle pilot whose name she had yet to learn.
"Are you okay? What happened?" Shepard asked worriedly, rushing to the girl's side.
Looking up from her seat on the cot, the girl rolled her eyes. "I'm fine."
"You don't sound fine. What's wrong?"
Cass frowned, opening her palms and showing the now blistered skin to her mother.
"What happened?!" The mother cried, taking the hands in her own and examining them herself.
"Too many chin ups."
"Chin ups?"
"It's a long story." Cass shrugged, pulling her hands away from her mother. "So what's up?"
"Well, I think it's time we talked."
AN: So Sorry! I know I haven't updated in like 2 weeks, but my grandfather passed away and I've been incredibly busy between hospital visits and work and the funeral and everything. Also, sorry for the length, I know this is a little short, but I really wanted to get something posted. Please Review and let me know your thought and ideas! Thanks!