Dalora Algre felt her hands burn as they strangled the large wrench in her hands. She was not in the best of moods. It had been a long day, she was tired and dirty and as much as she liked this wrench, it did not provide a very good outlet for the anger she was harboring for a certain wench in front of her.
She thought "wench" because her moral convictions wouldn't let her use a more foul word. She also realized she couldn't let out her anger on all Alliance pilots. Sure, a lot of them were cocksure and rash, but not all of them were bad. She herself was dating an Alliance pilot whom she thought was head and shoulders above most other men.
Except this one Alliance pilot had a bad habit of zealously flirting with other men and then finding ways to pester her as a lowly mechanic. She normally wouldn't care for rumors, or perhaps the blatantly obvious. Regardless, tts hard to keep things discreet when most Alliance pilots walking by had that particular flirt's name on their conversations. Normally, she wouldn't care but Theresa Robins was the type of person to grate on her personality; especially when she tried talking to her.
"Hey, are you the one that worked on my fighter yesterday?" Theresa asked her. Dalora wiped a bead a sweat from her brow and looked up at the pilot, her hazelnut hair that was tied in a bun almost matched her very own hair color which she kept tied back in a braid. Similarities of course, ended there.
"Yes." Dalora answered quickly before getting back to work.
"Well, make sure you do a better job. The routers do not seem to be functioning as quick as they could be." Theresa stated. Dalora drew in a deep breath before trying to answer as calmly as possible.
"You know, sometimes the problem isn't the mechanic's handiwork, but the abilities of the pilot who cannot operate the machine." the mechanic retorted. Theresa raised an eyebrow while she idly popped the bun on her head.
"Someone needs to chill out. You know, maybe you should cool down at the bar with the guys. I don't normally care for competition but you might just need something or someone to loosen up."
"No thanks. I'm sure I have better things to do." Dalora muttered, the long braid of her hair swishing like a whip as she worked furiously in trying to maintain the fighter she was working on. She was at least thankful that Theresa had left.
"Why should I compete for scumbags, anyway?" the mechanic grumbled.
Granted, life seemed to be in a bit of a rut for the mechanic. Sure, she was doing honest work for relatively good pay. It was an improvement over petty mercenary work. However, life just seemed like an endless stretch of barren land, even beyond the drama of her job. All of her time was spent working so she had little time to socialize, not that she knew anyone anyway. The weekly Mass she went to was fine, except that it was missing something. Actually, that something was really someone who was in fact missing from more than the Mass. He was missing in, well, everything. Of course, it wasn't his fault that he got recalled on a mission. Dalora sighed as she walked back to her apartment.
"God, I miss him..." Dalora whispered to her Maker. She was greeted by a small mew as soon as she stepped into the door.
At least one thing was going right today. Her new calico kitten had behaved itself and did not tear up the apartment like it usually did. The feline was given to her as an apology gift and also a companion to keep her company just before he left. Both of them had not expected the Alliance to so quickly throw him on a mission. He had been given the impression that brass wouldn't so frivolously send him anymore. Apparently, they were wrong and ever since that happened two weeks ago the gnawing pain of loneliness was a constant companion. As a matter of fact, it even got a hold of the kitten which apparently suffered from separation anxiety when she was gone.
It was kind of cute, really. She was anxious because he was gone and so he gave her this cat that became anxious when she was gone. Unlike the cat, she had to behave herself and not tear up everything in her path which the kitten was only just learning to do. Of course, the first few days of the deleterious behavior only served to give her the name she christened the cat with.
"Well, you were good today, weren't you, Fiasco?" she teased the kitten who was happily purring at her ankle. At least the little happy ball of fluff made things just a little bit better. She wasn't sure about how she felt with wet little kitten kisses on her toe but at least one of them was really happy.
Perhaps another problem was the fact that she had no clue where the shower, dinner, quiet time on her couch before passing off into sleep went. She wasn't even sure if she had a dream. In fact, it seemed like all she could remember was those previous night's event as some sort of faded recording and then suddenly finding herself back at work, same trusty wrench in hand with the same Alliance pilot jerks to deal with. Dalora sighed and let the hours just grind by.
Some time past lunch the mechanic solemnly stumbled back into the holding bay where yet another wing of returning fighters needed to be worked on. She sighed to herself as she chose a fighter that was all alone with no other mechanic to tend to it. It became apparent that this one had just recently been docked here. It still smelled of spent fuel and element zero. Popping open one of the component bays, she glanced at the internal hardware and began her usual diagnosis. She stopped when she suddenly realized this hardware was not part of Alliance regulations. Dalora also realized that she recognized them very well. Something skipped within her chest as she glanced up at the canopy, hoping, praying to find what she so desperately wanted it to be.
Her eyes fell on an intricately detailed, if small, emblem engraved just below the cockpit. The image depicted a screaming eagle, eyes fiercely pointed ahead as its body and feathers seemed to radiate an inferno of flames. Just above the emblem was the call sign and above that, the name of the pilot. "Flaming Eagle. Lt. Lucas Von Seraph."
No overtime work tonight. She wouldn't have it.
--
The Turian was so bored he could have cried. In fact, he could have bashed his brains out against the wall. At least it would have given him something to do. Something, anything, to break this mind numbing monotony!
Julland Sarrix realized he did not have a lot to complain about. Really, he was almost living one of his wildest dreams. Once, he had been disgraced field commander defrocked of his rank and transferred to productively rot as an officer at C-Sec. Somewhere in the ocean of paperwork, he wondered if he could at least live his dream again: to serve out there in the Council, taking care of the real problems, doing real justice rather than stamping tickets on common delinquents, loiterers and making sure Hanar had evangelical permits.
Now here he was, XO of a superb military frigate under the command of a Spectre that gave him a wide sense of autonomy and a fine crew to man the ship. In fact, the same frigate already came with a group of elite Asari marines who were very cooperative and respected him. He couldn't have even dreamed this up with his mostly bland imagination. It was almost too good.
Of course, the glitch in the system was that the Spectre was chosen for her medical skills. This wasn't a problem, it was just that her current medical skills were being employed to develop a high security top secret lab which served as research and defensive facility. The purpose was to house and secret a rather devastating virus here on the planet of Jartar. His problem problem was that there was nothing for him to do. Nevermind that the crew also felt the same way, he was getting a bad case of cabin fever on top of a testy type A personality.
It had been a big relief when the facility was installed with a virtual simulation chamber so he could practice and hone his combat skills but that could only keep him preoccupied ever so long. Practicing with his rifles at the range could only be interesting to a certain point. Gosh darn it, he needed to get out of this place!
Julland pondered this as he restlessly paced the hall. The Turian came to remember that a lot of things got done by simple vocalization. In fact, he was the second in command of the Shiloh. He could in a way call it his own frigate, even if Spectre and Doctor Jima'Riznah vas Shiloh was the one who really owned it. Regardless, when he spoke, things got done. Perhaps there way a way a certain workaholic Quarian could be persuaded to send him on some kind of mission, even if it was just an errand. He would go all the way to the other side of the galaxy just to pick up a cup of coffee at this point.
Julland found Jima in the central area of the new Gatekeeper facility. You couldn't miss her. She was a shorter Quarian with a white and blue environmental suit. Today, the Spectre also donned the white lab coat of a doctor. She had taken up the habit of wearing that thing claiming it gave her "receptacles to place things." These were normally called "pockets" but such wonders were hard to come by on Quarian environmental suits.
"Ahem, Jima..." Julland coughed, wondering how he was going to start this request.
"Yes, Julland?" Jima chirped pleasantly.
"I was...erm...wondering..." Julland nervously clicked his paw talons together. This was the problem, he was probably the battle hardened field commander but he would never try to intimidate or wrongfully manipulate Jima.
"Look, is there a way we can get out of here?" Julland blurted.
"What do you mean?" the Quarian asked, tilting her head. Julland wished that visor of hers didn't hide her facial features. By now he could be getting a huge clue on why he should make himself scarce if he was asking the wrong question. Well, it was do or die at this point.
"Look, I know you've been busy overseeing this project, but the crew have kind of been loitering around here. Talana is complaining her eyes hurt because the flight simulator irritate her eyes after using it so many times. The maintenance crews have gone so far checking the Shiloh inside and out so much they were forced to repaint the ship for lack of anything better to do. They've already polished it so many times they may have to repaint it again because they busted off the coat they just put on. Even Merjj has had the boys in engineering rewire the core in so many different configurations they probably found a few systems that no one has even thought about!" Julland explained, tossing his talons to the air. It at least felt better to get that off his chest.
"Hmmm..." Jima tapped a finger where her chin would have been as if in thought.
"You know what, Julland..."
"What's that?" the Turian asked cautiously.
"You're right. Let's take a vacation."