May 20th, 2186
Riley re-examined her back in the mirror. She had a sucker of a bruise forming between her shoulders where she'd slammed into the wall, the skin tender and angry looking. In a few days it'd be in full bloom with the purples and yellows without the tender application of medi-gel to hasten recovery.
All attempts to apply said medi-gel had resulted in many tubes thrown to the floor and a trail of gel slipping down her back. But not on her bruise.
She frowned, contemplating the merits of leaning against the wall and squeezing an entire tube all over her back. Definitely wasteful, but not any more than the catastrophe in her bathroom with the added potential of actually being effective. Her frown deepened when the door chime sounded.
She grabbed her towel and wrapped it around herself as she walked towards the entrance.
To say Kaidan Alenko was surprised when she bade him come in instead of making him cool his heels in the hall was an understatement. He followed her to the small bathroom at her insistence, arching an eyebrow at the tubes of medi-gel scattered across the floor. She stuffed another in his hands, turned around, and dropped the towel down far enough to reveal the bruise in its entirety. "You bruise it, you fix it."
After a moment, warm, callous fingers gently slid across her skin and she hissed, biting her bottom lip from the discomfort, minimized as it was by his exceedingly gentle touch - something she remembered from Eden Prime three years previously when he'd tried to make her understand what he was saying after the beacons message had been crammed into her brain, temporarily short-circuiting her language centers from the overload of raw data.
"Didn't realize I threw you that hard," he murmured as he applied a second layer.
"Doesn't help that I bruise easily."
"If it helps, you left a sucker of a welt on my neck."
She shrugged, and bit back a curse when her shoulder rolled into his fingers. The medi-gel couldn't work fast enough.
"All done," he stepped away from her and she turned around. "Prognosis looks promising."
She smiled gratefully. "Thanks."
Kaidan wasn't wrong. Despite the protection his collar offered, thin as it was, the welt on his neck looked vicious. Though it was a dull sort of vicious, as he undoubtedly had not encountered the same problem as she had in self medicating. She exited the bathroom, aware the Kaidan had stayed behind and shut the door after her departure, correctly assuming that she'd be changing now because waltzing through Jump Zero in a towel had a probability factor of less than half a percent.
She rapped on the door when she was dressed and slipped past him as he exited to brush her hair and apply eyeliner.
Her fingers brushed against her lipstick and lingered there for a few seconds before she shut the lid. The lipstick had a way of accentuating the scars on her lips, and she didn't like drawing any more attention to their existence than was necessary.
Her face couldn't seem to catch a break.
Of course she could go in for reconstructive surgery to get rid of the scars, but honestly she didn't really care that they were on her face. She just didn't like the questions.
Kaidan was waiting for her by the door.
"You ready to become best friends?" she asked and he frowned, ever so slightly.
Barely noticeable, in fact. If she hadn't been looking for it due to her own unsettled nerves on the subject, coupled with a ball of unease sitting in the pit of her stomach because despite having come all this way and agreeing to the Valkyrie program and everything that entailed, she wasn't sure if she was entirely ready for a new Drift partner.
She wasn't sure if she was ready to meet Williams in the Drift as she so often saw her in her dreams.
"Are you?" he asked.
Aside from the psychologist, he was the first person to ask her that. Unlike the psychologist, his concern seemed genuine.
"We're going to be late."
"We're going to answer the question, Riley."
He called her on her bullshit. She knew it. Didn't stop her from not liking it, but goddamn he was right and right now she found it so infuriating.
He was also blocking the door. If she pushed the subject, he'd probably move, sure, but he deserved an answer as it had the potential to affect him the most.
"Okay," she held up her hands and backed away from the door.
She paced the short distance of the room before settling on the bed, keenly aware that Kaidan was patiently waiting for an answer, that every minute she didn't say anything made them later for their first connection in the Drift to assess the strength of the Compatibility.
Not to mention after that, if everything went smoothly, they'd then take the Crimson Tactical out for its first official flight and stress test the system with the two of them aboard, ensuring what theories and equations were already 99% certain about but there was still that possibility for human error.
Finally she looked up at him. His eyes were full of concern and that made it almost harder for her say, "No. Maybe. Shit, I don't know."
Before she could say anything else, he crossed the distance and sat down next to her.
She breathed out. "Williams." Another breath. "Williams died while we were still connected. I felther die and I'm not sure I could do that again."
His hand found hers and squeezed in reassurance. "You don't have to."
"You were there when they said 'space Jaeger', right?"
Kaidan chuckled and let her subject change pass. "Yeah, I was there. Of course, I was never a Jaeger pilot, but I could still see the appeal."
"Why weren't you a Jaeger pilot?"
"They definitely wanted me to be, but the cards just didn't fall that way. Besides, I got the command you turned down."
"To be a Jaeger pilot."
He ignored her interruption and continued. "Well, then it was executive officer, but the Captain transferred out to a dreadnought after the battle at Terra Nova."
"We lost five cruisers that day."
"Even more people."
Riley sighed. "I can do this."
He looked at her, forcing her to look back through sheer will power. "Are you sure?"
"Yes."
With the right Drift partner, she could. Looking into Kaidan's eyes, she was sure she had the right Drift partner. Steadfast, rock solid, already reading between the lines of what she said and didn't say to discern what she really meant.
Plus the beacon thing probably wouldn't freak him out too bad since he was there when the data was unceremoniously dumped into her head.
He didn't let go of her hand until they reached her door, which was all too soon and yet felt like a lifetime, and Riley wasn't entirely sure what to make of the new input of data, suddenly keenly aware of the disbanding of the frat regs for Jaeger pilots, and by extension, Valkyrie pilots. Because couples in the Drift had some of the highest compatibility ratings, though none had managed to achieve 100% compatibility. Throwing two people with a mutual attraction together in the Drift was bound to cement lasting bonds.
After all, the asari likened it to their mating process.
Riley shoved the thoughts away to deal with later.
The lower half of Jump Zero had been completely converted for the Valkyrie Program, more reminiscent of the shatterdomes found on earth and other defensive positions in the galaxy she'd toured for refugee evac. Kaidan pointed out the differences, his voice occasionally nostalgic, but most often tinged with an undercurrent of bitterness that made her grateful for her late secondary eezo exposure. A few years earlier, and she'd probably have joined him at BAaT and suffered through a similarly tortured fate.
Of course, it never would have happened a few years earlier as her father had been very strict about letting her go groundside with the science teams before she was sixteen.
They finally reached the lab at the bottom of the hollowed out space, the guts of more Valkyries on display amidst giant engineering platforms, with engineers hard at work. STG, Cerberus, and Alliance personnel wandering the floors.
A Drift station, similar to the conn pod but without the physical connections where they'd connect to the limbs of the Jaeger, had been set up in the middle of the room. Left and right hemisphere separation, though from having read the many tech guides about the Valkyries, the left-right designations and loads was more about power distribution and weapons control than limb movement. The connection inside the Valkyrie would be more about the integration of their minds to control the vessel rather than actually fight. Body movements used to adjust thruster pods and target locks.
There'd been a lot of technical babble that had flown in one ear and out the other, but the gist Riley had gathered was that it workedand worked similarly to the jaeger.
Anderson wasn't amused at their tardiness, though he said nothing for which Riley was grateful.
"Shepard, Alenko, this is Operative Miranda Lawson, head of the research division at Cerberus and the brain behind the Valkyrie project."
"You designed the original Drift mechanism," Riley said as she shook Miranda's hand.
"I did, though it was unfortunate I was not there for the first test of the tech. Though I hear it's very fortunate that you were."
Riley shrugged. "The tech operating the board was shouting something about it overloading a single human brain, I figured two would even the load."
"You figured correctly. If only the Alliance board behind the project had listened to my initial suggestion to await further testing, that predicament might never have happened." Miranda started walking towards the central platform in the middle of the lab, and she and Alenko followed. "Of course, you're the first and only human to operate a Jaeger solo. It is feasible, though certainly not safe nor recommended, that you could fly the Crimson Tacticalby yourself, so long as a much decreased life expectancy or the possibility of brain hemorrhaging and aneurysm don't bother you."
Riley heaved herself onto the platform and moved towards the right side. There was no body to control, and the functionality was different enough that it might not matter, but that wasn't enough to convince Riley that there wouldn't be adverse effects to using the left side.
"I'm going to take the right, if that's alright with you."
Alenko nodded, following her up, and moved towards the left.
"Vulcan Fury's left arm was destroyed pre-Jaeger death, correct?"
Riley froze. "Yes."
The bite in her answer rolled off Miranda like marbles on glass as the operative moved towards the console and started readying the gear. It shouldn't have surprised her the Operative Lawson had done her homework concerning her history, yet it did.
Instead of the contraption found in the conn pod of jaegers that the pilots stood in as they operated the jaeger, there were two seats. The valkyries sported similar control mechanisms, but the Drift compatibility test didn't require the entire setup. Not when they would be taking the Crimson Tactical out for a test flight later this after, provided everything here went smoothly and Riley hadn't completely failed in choosing a partner.
The area in front of the seats was clear. According to the schematics she read, and simple experience from having served ship-side, consoles would occupy that clear space with data read outs, weapons, engines, and combat LIDAR.
She sat down in the seat next to Alenko.
The best thing about the Valkyries, in Riley's opinion, was the agility and maneuverability. Not to mention some of the crazier stunts the ships could pull without a crew on deck to worry about. Just two pilots, suited up and strapped in. Valkyries outclassed frigates in warfare strategy and tactics by a factor of ten.
She almost wished they were doing the initial Drift calibration in the ship itself and not just in a lab though with the risks associated with a new warship and the potential of chasing the RABIT, she understood the reasoning.
The metal brace settled around her head, cold against the skin of her forehead, clamping in place.
"Prepare for neural handshake," Miranda said from the control console in front of the platform. Riley steeled herself as the countdown began, counting backwards from ten.
She turned to Kaidan just as the VI countdown reached zero and said, "Don't latch on."