Chapter 6

Learning, Not Always A Bad Thing

After boarding the Normandy I take in the bridge, it's slightly bigger in real life and better lit then the game portrayed. Holy crap the galaxy map looks so awesome! Looking left I see Joker sitting with his back turned to us, looking right I see Pressly walking up to us. "Welcome to the Normandy. I'm the Navigator Charles Pressly." He seems to only be looking at me as he says this. "Shepard told me to expect all of you. If you would like I can give you a tour of the ship."

"I think that would be wonderful. Thank you very much. I'm Tali by the way." Tali says extending her hand in greeting. Pressly takes it slowly and give gives it a brief shake. Garrus introduces himself and shakes his hand as well then I follow. Pressly seems genuinely happy for me to be aboard, not so much with the others.

"Well this is the CIC or Combat Information Center, at the front is our helm. Our pilot is Jeff Moreau though he prefers the nick name Joker. Behind the star map is the conference and communication room." Walking down the length of the ship as he talks he points out things of interest. Going down the stairs we walk out into the mess area I see it's much larger than shown in the game. There is an actual kitchen area were Kaiden stands in the game. Down the hall of sleeper pods there is a door that Pressly says goes into a rec room. On the side were the stairs are there are actual bedrooms, reserved apparently for ground team specialists. He tells us we each have our own and that the name plate outside of the room will tell us which is which. The rest of this floor is the same with the med-bay and Shepard's room being in the same place. He tells us Doctor Chakwas' name. We then take the elevator down FYI it is actually that slow in real life. FML! We go into the launch bay and see the Mako and armory is much the same as I remember. Garrus gits a glint in his eye when he spies the ground vehicle, I promptly drag him away from it so that we don't lose him to working on it immediately.

We are then shown engineering which causes Tali to stop dead making me bump into her causing her to squeak in surprise. "Sorry Milo." She says embarrassment filling her voice.

"Geez Tali stop worrying about apologising to me all the time." I respond giving her a grin. Pressley just looks at us with a confused look at our familiarity. At this point he excuses himself and the others abandon me as well; Tali going to investigate the drive core and Garrus the Mako. Suddenly Shepard came over the loud speaker giving her speech and damn it sounded awesome, feeling pumped I look around wondering what to do. Realising that I still have a hole in my arm I decide to make my way up to the med-bay. Walking in I see Doctor Chakwas at her desk typing. Hearing the door she looks up at me.

"Hello Doctor Chakwas, I'm Milo Talon a new member of the crew."

Nodding she replies "Yes, I know I just the medical profiles on all the new crew members. I recognised you from your profile. So what brings you to my med-bay?"

Sitting on a bed I indicate my medi-gel covered arm. FYI Let me say again how awesome medi-gel is! I can't feel any pain at all and almost forgot about the wound entirely. "I took a hit when my shields went down when we stormed Chora's Den. Hit me in-between my plates."

"Hmm, it's not bad I think the gel did most of my work. It's clean and healing already." She proceeded to sew up the wound with a laser suture and told me "Try to not make it a habit of coming into my med-bay. I would prefer to not have to put you back together."

Nodding my ascent and saying good-bye I leave to get rid of my armor down in the armory. Going into the cargo bay I take off my armor put it away in a locker with my name already on it. The name plates are all digitalised by the way. You enter the name with you Omni-Tool.

Finishing putting my stuff away I realize Ashley was standing behind me. "You put away your gear in the same way a marine would. Did you serve?" She asks me giving me an appraising look now that I wasn't in my C-Sec armor.

"I was with a Biotic Commando unit when we first started using Biotics in the military. I left after I couldn't stand the abuse the rest of the military was giving us." She gives me a questioning look. "You need to remember this was when it was all new to us. Biotics were freaks, nobody liked us. They thought we could read minds and bull."

"Oh I didn't realize that happened." She says finally understanding. "Well I don't think you're a freak. At least not for your Biotics." She says nudging me in the ribs good naturally. "Maybe for hanging out with the Turian."

Oh so close to making me like you there Ash. Scowling at her remark I just walk away leaving her looking shocked not understanding what happened. Storming up to the mess hall I look for my room to go and vent. Storming out of the elevator I bowl Shepard over. "Oof." She says when I fall on her. "The hell Talon, usually you need to take me to dinner and a movie first." She says as I lift my head off the floor by her shoulder.

"Sorry I'm just a very forward kinda guy." I say as I prop my head up on my hand setting my elbow on the ground. Giving her my biggest grin.

"Hmmm nice." She says throwing a hand around my waist totally screwing with me. Then she promptly tossed me off her using my belt.

"Sad to say that's not the worst rejection I've had." Rolling over to watch her stand up. As she turned around and watched me I gave her my biggest shit eater grin I could muster.

Laughing she grabs my hand and pulls me up. "You'll have to tell me your worst sometime. So what's got you in a huff?" She says indicating the elevator that I had just stormed out of.

Not wanting to get anyone into trouble I simply said "Umm nothing just got message that ticked me off is all."

Looking a little skeptical she just shrugs and says "Ok. Let me know if you need help with anything."

"Thanks Shepard. I'll keep that in mind. So whatcha doin?" I ask trying to move the subject away from my problems. But lo and behold the elevator opens and Ashley walks out looking stunned at us and a little worried.

"Hey Milo can I talk to you?" Ash asks me.

Shepard see's the annoyed look I get when she says that but stays silent. "I guess so. Were you wanna talk?" I respond not looking her in the face.

"Ya let's talk in my room." She grabs my arm and pulls me to her room as I wave goodbye to Shepard.

Entering her room I look around and see that she doesn't have much for decoration except a picture of her family and some actual books which are kinda rare now a days. Walking over to them I read off the titles to myself. She has a lot of epic ballads and most works of Alfred Tennyson.

She clears her throat behind me and I say without turning around "So what do you want?"

"I wanted to apologise for what I said. I was being racist and I'm not actually racist I just have a few problems with Turians. I want to get past it and was wondering if you would help me?"

"You realize you still haven't apologised right?" I say turning and giving a small smile.

Blushing she looks down and mumbles "I'm sorry."

"It's ok. If you want to get past it why don't you hang out with Garrus and me sometime? We tend to play skillian five poker every week why don't you join us?"

"Ya that's sounds good. So if you don't mind me asking how did you and Garrus start out?"

"He was my trainer at C-Sec then after we became partners. We've worked for years together now and we just became friends." Shrugging my shoulders I add "I've always gotten along with aliens though I was raised to never judge and keep an open mind."

Looking thoughtful Ash ponders a moment then asks "So I noticed you checking my books. You read a lot?"

"Hmm?" I'm bad for books I get easily distracted and started reading the titles again. "Oh sorry; ya I'm big on books. I like old poetry and novels as well. I have some actual paper books left myself from some of my favorite authors." Shaking myself from my thoughts I turn and say "Well I'm going to find a replacement for my under suit since I gained new hole in it from that fight."

"Ok well let's talk again later." She says giving me smile.

Nodding I make my way back out to the armoury to talk to the requisitions officer in the cargo hold. That jackass actually does make everyone pay for everything even alliance standard issue. Jackass! Good thing I have plenty in my account from working at C-Sec. Getting my new under suit stored I turn around to have Shepard scare the crap out of me as she was standing behind me this entire time. Unlike Ashley she is very, very sneaky. "Holy crap! You almost made me need another visit to the med bay to replace the bones than just about jumped out of me." I say after I do a rather un-graceful jump.

Trying to cover a smile she says "Sorry thought you heard me."

"Don't worry he is just incredibly easy to scare when he isn't in combat. He's about as observant as a door knob. Scared him one time when he even acknowledged that I was there and then forgot immediately." Garrus shouts from somewhere under the Mako.

Damn his Turian hearing! "Oi! Beaky, shut it before I tell them about the Turian cross dresser at Chora's!" This earns a crash as he apparently jerked his head up right into the undercarriage and a stream of curses follows'. It did make him shut up though. Turning back to Shepard who is in stiches by this point. "So Commander what can I do for you? Need me to push ya down again?" I say wiggling my eyebrows at her. Now I think she's considering killing me but can't stop laughing long enough to do it.

"Thanks but I told you you'll need to buy me dinner next time." She says finally gaining control of herself. "I'm going around getting to know my crew. Mind talking for a bit?"

Nodding I move and sit on a crate "Shoot."

She proceeded to ask me about my training and time in C-Sec seeming to be working on the basic's first and not wanting to get to personal yet. "So your biotics seemed pretty powerful, are you an Adept?"

"Well yes but I try to be proficient with weapons as well and I've learned some vanguard moves as well hence my charge today."

Nodding she seemed to be taking in everything I'd said. Then giving me a look she asked me about my family. Not having much to say as everyone was dead in this time and from my time as well. "Well did you leave anyone special behind when we left?" She seemed rather coy about asking me this.

"No. I was married but my wife was killed six years ago back on Earth."

"Oh I'm sorry I didn't know." She apologises looking rather embarrassed.

Waving it off I simply say "Don't worry it was a long time ago. I'm fine. What about you? Got anyone waiting?"

Turning a shade of red to match her hair she says "No I'm too busy with the Alliance. Most guys don't like when you need to leave every few weeks for extended periods of time." She says the last bit with a bit of venom. Raising an eyebrow in question she says "I had a steady boyfriend but one time when I came home on leave I caught him cheating on me."

"The guy must have been cracked to have cheated on someone like you." I say getting myself another blush out of her.

"Well thanks. I umm appreciate knowing someone thinks so." She says looking very intently at her shoes.

"No worries I always did like red heads." I say giving her a wink. She actually squeaked at this and proceeded to beat a quick retreat saying she needed to talk to everyone else as well.

Walking hastily away she stops and turns around saying "Oh ya I was going to tell you were going to be looking for an Asari by the name of Liara, she's Saren's lieutenant's daughter." Since I wasn't there at the council meeting she gives me a run down on Benezia and the fact that she was the second voice of Tali's recording.

She then goes over to Wrex and tries to get him to say more than three words but seems to just annoy him when she starts talking about the genophage. Deciding not to get into this discussion just yet I leave the cargo bay for my room.

So were going to get Liara. This should be interesting.