A/N: I had a lot of fun writing this chapter.
###
Kaidan looked quite attractive even wearing an apron and a pair of oven mitts. Obviously Taeri wasn't about to tell him that, instead enjoying the view as he bent down to slide a tray of something into the oven. When he turned back round he jumped, seeming not to have realised Taeri was standing there.
"Hey. Whatcha making?"
She looked round at the ingredients spread across the table as Kaidan shrugged.
"On our old ship one of the Marines used to cook breakfast for the whole crew once a week. I thought it would be a great thing to do on this ship, but I sort of got carried away buying ingredients on Arcturus Station."
"I'll say. What are you making, a three course meal?"
There was a pregnant pause.
"You're not, are you?"
"Umm ... Maybe?"
She chuckled as she walked round the counter and stuck her hands under the sink.
"What are you doing?"
She smirked at him.
"Looks like you could use an extra pair of hands. What are we making?"
He smiled at her and gestured to a group of ingredients set aside from the rest.
"The first course is a Greek dish called hitipiti. We have here some red peppers, and the dextro equivalent, blue firefruit. We need to half them and take out the insides."
She nodded, taking the dextro fruits and chopping them in half with a sharp knife then using a spoon to scoop out the watery pulp inside, leaving only the layer of flesh directly under the skin. Next to her Kaidan was chopping the peppers, cutting out the stalks then halving them and using his knife to scrape out the seeds and pale flesh. As they worked Kaidan struck up a conversation.
"So whereabouts did you grow up?"
She glanced up at him as she worked.
"Maio. It's a tiny colony, most people haven't heard of it, out on the Emaris/American border. You?"
He shrugged as he picked a couple of errant seeds out of the pepper he was preparing.
"Earth. Vancouver, to be specific. What was Maio like?"
"It was the best place in the galaxy to grow up. Most of the planet was ocean, with only five small islands in a little archipelago on the equator. The main island was the colony centre and spaceport, with all the modern conveniences, cinemas, clubs, schools, even an amusement park. The other islands were much less high tech. Hell, the island I grew up on we didn't even have internal combustion vehicles. Just a basic generator for power and heating, a comm array for extranet access and a crap-ton of farms. We were totally self-sufficient, it was amazing. Everyone got around on bicycles or animal-drawn carts. I spent most of my childhood running around the island in a bathing suit with a surfboard under my arm."
She glanced away for a moment, then got back to scooping pulp out a firefruit half.
"Of course, it couldn't last. This crazy Human billionaire decided he wanted his own private empire and what better than an island full of Atavira in bikinis? So this bastard sets up shop, builds himself an honest to God castle on a nearby islet and starts buying up the whole island one plot at a time, putting in paved roads and groundcars and aircars and towers and all that modern shit the island didn't need or want. Like all the other residents I didn't want to stay and watch him destroy everything special to me about the island. I packed up and moved to the city, got scouted by the Emaris recruitment office and here I am twelve years later. Last I heard the island was run by the Blood Pack."
He paused for a moment, unsure what to say.
"Damn. I'm really sorry about that."
She shrugged.
"Don't be. I've got enough holos and vids to remember the island I grew up on, not the island I left. I'm done with the firefruit."
Kaidan glanced around at her chopping board which was loaded up with halves of firefruit.
"Okay. Load them up onto Omnitrays and shove them in the oven."
He gestured over to a stack of glowing orange baking trays. Taeri raised one eyebrow.
"Omni-trays?"
Kaidan shrugged as he loaded up the peppers.
"No washing up if your utensils are all made of Omnigel."
He slid the trays into the oven and set the heat going.
"We need to roast the peppers and firefruits for 25 minutes at 180 degrees C. I'll set a timer on my Omnitool. Now we need to chop the cheese."
He produced several very large packets of feta cheese from the refrigerator.
"Here we go. These are levo and these ones are dextro, made from aur milk. We need to dice them pretty finely."
Taeri glanced at the packets in trepidation.
"How much are we making?"
"For the whole crew. It's usually one half pepper and forty to fifty grams of cheese per person."
She nodded as she opened the first pack of feta, draining out the brine and starting to dice it in quick motions.
"Have you ever noticed how lazy Council inventors are at naming things?"
Kaidan glanced up at her, his eyebrow quirked in a silent query.
"I mean, everything's Omni-something. Omnitool, Omniblade, Omnigel ..."
"Omnitrays?"
"Exactly."
Kaidan smirked slightly.
"It's because they're too busy sitting on their Omnichairs congratulating themselves."
She chuckled.
"Maybe if they got off their Omnibutts ..."
Both of them sniggered, glancing conspiratorially at each other.
"I can't believe I didn't see this before."
"Me neither. Do you think they use Omni anything else?"
Taeri leaned forward, still dicing feta cheese, and adopted the peppy tone of an Asari advertisement.
"Buy our all new Omnitoiletpaper! Save trees!"
Kaidan burst out laughing as she continued.
"Our new monomolecular sheet is guaranteed to use the minimum amount of Omnigel necessary to get your behind as fresh as an Omnidaisy in no time!"
Kaidan almost fell over, clutching his sides.
"Jesus, monomolecular sheets? Imagine the paper cuts!"
It was Taeri's turn to burst out laughing. Kaidan tapped his chopping board.
"Come on, we need to prepare this food."
Taeri was still giggling a little as she spoke.
"Omnifood?"
Kaidan looked her dead in the eye and said, completely deadpan:
"Om-nom-nomnifood."
Taeri didn't stop shrieking with laughter for five minutes.
By the time the peppers were done they had finished dicing the feta cheese. Taeri turned to him.
"Okay, now what?"
In response he pulled out two blenders.
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
He took his knife and sliced the peppers into strips, Taeri following suit with the firefruit. Once they were done Kaidan added three chopped pepper halves and dropped in feta cheese until the blender's can was around half full, waiting until Taeri followed suit with the dextro ingredients, then brought out a bottle of olive oil.
"Olive oil pretty much has no protein in it so we can use it for both versions. The oil's just to keep it mobile in the blender. We're looking for a chunky texture from the cheese but the peppers mostly blended."
He pulsed the blender a couple of times to demonstrate.
"Some people prefer to blend the peppers a bit first then add the cheese but I prefer to do it this way."
The last thing he did was to slice several chilli peppers and drop them into the blend.
"Firefruits are spicier than red peppers so you don't need any chillis in the dextro version."
Taeri nodded, frowning in concentration as she pulsed the blender until she got the texture Kaidan was talking about. They repeated the procedure until they had filled up several large bowls with the chunky dip, the levo one an orangey red and the dextro one a sort of white-mauve colour.
"So how do we serve it?"
In response Kaidan opened the cupboard under the hob to reveal an enormous stack of pitta breads of both chiralities.
"We warm those up and stuff the hitipiti inside them."
She nodded.
"Ah, OK. So what now?"
###
The entire crew were assembled round the dining table, breaking into a spontaneous round of applause as Kaidan and Taeri emerged carrying enormous stacks of steaks. They had all enjoyed the starter and were eager to see what the two of them had come up with for the main course.
"For the levo option," every Human at the table let out a cheer, "we have rare beef cuts coming from genuine cows, served with a red wine jus, roasted potatoes and a rocket and Parmesan salad. For the dextros," all the Turians and Atavira, as well as Tali, stomped their feet and cheered, "we have Macedyn smoked anserae cuts with a Pau berry wine jus, boiled chatta roots and a chatta flower salad."
They set the various dishes down on the long table and everyone started digging in amidst general murmurs of enjoyment. At one end of the table Ashley and Garrus were sitting either side of Nari, who was happily munching on a surprisingly large cut of steak. Ash turned to Nari and produced a bag.
"Hey, I heard you ran out of pages in your sketchbook so I bought you a new one."
From the bag emerged a large ring-bound pad of paper. Garrus glanced across at the substantial pad.
"Where did you get that? I couldn't find a single leaf of paper that wasn't for hygiene purposes on the Citadel."
Ash shrugged as Nari looked at the pad with wonder.
"I found it in an antique shop on Arcturus Station, still hermetically sealed in its wrapping. Set me back a few, but the hazard pay on this mission is stuffing my bank account like nothing."
Nari squealed and threw her arms around Ash, bouncing up and down excitedly.
"Thank you thank you thank you!"
She then peered at the cover of the antique sketchpad.
"Pukka pad Jotta. Why did they spell Jotter wrong?"
Ash and Garrus both examined the pad. Eventually Ash replied.
"I guess they were trying to make it sound gangsta."
Garrus thought about it for a moment then tapped a talon on the word Pukka.
"Looks like they spelled that one wrong too."
Ash leaned across Nari to punch Garrus's arm.
"You are a bad bad man, Centurion Vakarian."
Meanwhile across the table Anderson made a sharp chopping motion with his hand.
"I hear what you're saying and you have a point, but how can you even say that Chele Osindara was a better Joker than Heath Ledger? Have you even seen the movies?"
Saren growled slightly, immediately on the defensive.
"Osindara's performance in the 2118 version actually portrayed the Joker as a sentient creature with a solid emotional basis. Ledger's Joker was at best a cartoon villain, no backstory at all."
"I agree with that, but you're judging them on the basis of the script, not the performance. Osindara's delivery was bland and clichéd. I admit in the emotional scenes he was good but he didn't properly portray the Joker's core character."
"And I suppose Ledger did? His acting was overdone to the point of absurdity and his character had no obvious motivation whatsoever!"
Anderson threw his hands up in the air dramatically.
"That's the point! He was insane! Osindara was just a stock villain in corny makeup. Ledger managed to make the Joker seem inhuman, like a demon."
Saren frowned, pausing to swallow a mouthful of steak before replying.
"Come on, David. When have you ever seen someone behave like that in real life?"
Anderson waved his fork in small circles, brandishing it towards Saren.
"I knew it! It's a cultural difference thing. Turian films are always hyper-realistic, but Human films usually bend the realms of possibility for entertainment's sake."
Further argument was forestalled by the acid tones of Auhelu.
"If you two are quite done gesticulating with your cutlery, you're getting sauce on my shirt."
Both men turned around to Auhelu with identical 'oh shit' expressions on their faces, unwilling to meet the steely-eyed gaze of the Atavira priestess with dark red blotches on her previously pristine white top.
Lizzie chuckled at their predicament before turning her attention back to Joker and the holographic avatar of EDI, half-listening to their spirited discussion of drive cores as she put away a double helping of steak. There was always a moment in any mission where a group of soldiers became a team. She had a feeling this was that moment.
###
Liara muttered a litany of words that could curdle milk as she ducked behind cover. The Collectors had found a Prothean remote access console from somewhere and were navigating the baffling operating system with disturbing ease. The only way to stop them from deactivating the barrier curtain was to crawl up to a small vent, locally shut down the barrier curtain, knock the top half of the vent cover off and use a Sharp to snipe the Collectors off the console.
Of course as soon as she did that the Collectors opened up with a withering barrage of fire, the soldiers, snipers and heavies keeping her suppressed, the Vanguards and Domeheads waiting with biotics and rifles respectively raised, waiting for her to stick a finger out of cover. The reinforced Prothean material of the grate cover was providing some level of protection from their fire but it was only so long before they decided to expend a railgun charge to take her out, and while the three metre thick walls of the bunker may be able to withstand a blast from one of those weapons she doubted the thin vent cover would be as resilient.
The suppressing fire slackened, leaving her just enough time to wonder what was going on before a Collector head poked over the opening to the vent. Reacting instantly, Liara darted her hand out, grabbing the wrist of the arm bringing the SMG to bear and crushed it, drawing a clicking cry of pain as she pulled out a brace of high yield bombs and wrapped them around the unfortunate Collector's neck before biotically backhanding it out of the vent and right into the group trying to operate the remote console. She felt her lips pull themselves into a savage grin as she jammed her thumb on the detonator, then replaced the vent cover and triggered the security protocol, half a metre of dense Prothean miracle material sliding into position and blocking off the vent.
Groaning, she crawled backwards until she reached the other grate then dropped down into the facility, rapping her knuckles against Hasok's outstretched fist as she took a bowl of stew from him.
"Thanks."
He grunted as he levered himself to the floor beside her.
"How are you doing, kid?"
She grimaced and clicked her neck.
"Okay, I guess. You?"
He chuckled.
"I could go for a Harvester steak right now."
After a moment's hesitation she leaned her head against the bulky Krogan, Hasok smiling at the affectionate gesture.
"Stick in there kid. We'll get through this."
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A/N: Hitipiti is a genuine recipe I have made in the past, obviously with the names of certain ingredients modified to fit different planets. I basically made Atavira food a dextro version of Human food for laziness's sake. If anyone wants to try and make some, go ahead and PM me to say how it was ;)