It was roughly five hours till the ship was docked and ready for its guests to depart and El'Jaid proceeded to catch up on some personal time with some exercise. She was dressed in a gray sports top with matching pair of shorts. The N7 stripe running down her torso from the right shoulder of her top.
The Shuttle hold converted easily in to a small gym where the Ardennes' crew could work out. El'Jaid's typical routine included a combination of stretching, a light session of yoga, then three mile run, followed by push ups and crunches.
But as her routine gradually wound down, she noticed that the hold had gathered a small group of onlookers and joiners, or rather wanna-bees. The marines and crew all gawked and mimicked her as she had gone through her motions.
Kaidan had also joined for his normal routine. He walked in with a normal gate. He was dressed is a black tank top and gym shorts. Yet what caught El'Jaid's eye was where the natural part of him ended, and the synthetic part of him began. The line where his mechanical leg and the rest of him showed visibly. It looked like the leg of a human Skelton, but was built from metals and ceramic complete with servos for muscles.
She drifted away remembering how he had lost the leg, and nearly his life on a Specter mission gone horribly wrong. Rather than just amputate it and leave him with a stump; Miranda, and Chalkwas had quickly built in it's place an artificial leg. Since it was relatively seamless, Kaidan didn't even know he had lost it until he had looked down at it for the first time. After the initial shock; He was back up and running, literally, within a week.
After that Kaidan and Miranda became inseparable...
"Well looks like you haven't lost any of your edge." He said tossing her a water bottle. That caused her to quickly snap out of her daydream as she easily caught it.
She drank headily from the bottle. Looking around the hold, the entire off duty crew must have joined in. "This must be a favorite pass time for your crew?"
Kaidan laughed. "Well every one wants to be like Specter Shepard. You attract a lot of copy cats." He looked around as a few Marines haphazardly tried to twist themselves in to pretzels.
She chuckled at the spectacle, but then noticed a small group surrounding two individuals who were sparing.
"I didn't know the Alliance allowed full contact sparing." She pointed out.
"They don't before a major operation. But there has been quite the exchange of ideas coming out of that academy of yours. One was to let personnel fight each other in fully padded contact sparing. I think it was a Turian idea." Kaidan remarked, a smile on his face.
The two walked over to the marines having it out. A Judge was even keeping tallies on who was winning.
A smile crept across El'Jaid's face. "Care to have a go at it Alenko?"
Surprise caught him. "Wha...Your not serious."
"C'mon, it'll be fun." Her eyes flashed a dim red.
"You'll beat the crap outa me." Kaidan retorted.
"I'll play easy, and let you use your biotics to boost things to keep the playing field even." She said.
"Ok, but full padding. I don't want my wife to kill me for scuffing up her good work." He said pointing to his leg.
"Aww. Worried I'm going to give your shiny leg a dent?" El'Jaid chided.
"I just don't want to prove that you have a glass jaw. Besides...nothing is ever level when dealing with a Specter." He said with a rogue's grin.
"Deal." She said, her eyes flashing like an excited predator's.
[][][][][]
The doors to the medbay opened and Liara walked in dressed in one of her old green research outfits. The Long dress was comfortable, but she felt out of place in it while onboard the military ship..
Dr. Chalkwas greeted her with a smile. Miranda was with her seated.
"Good day Dr. Chalkwas, Miranda. How are you both?"
"I'm doing well Liara thank you." They both responded in unison, obviously they had spent a lot of time talking together.
The three of them let out a chuckle as Liara sat down to join them.
"I wonder why the Council wants to see Shepard." Miranda started out.
"Obviously its has something to do with Specter work." Chalkwas added.
They both looked towards Liara expected her to let them in on the details. She frowned with unease. "Unfortunately I don't know either. All El'Jaid told me was that the Council wanted to see both of us."
Miranda scowled her mind at work. "I wonder if it has anything with the galactic rebuilding effort."
Liara gave her a quizzical look. "How would Shepard have anything to do with that?"
Chalkwas frowned. "I don't have any idea, but the rebuilding efforts are going slower than anticipated."
"I don't understand..." Liara settled uneasily in to her seat.
"There is a lot of people who still don't want to believe that the Reapers actually existed. Many still want to believe it was the Geth, or some unknown species." Miranda said softly
"That's insane..." Liara let out.
"Maybe, but the result is that there are a lot of people who are angry with the Council. They feel neglected." Chalkwas added. "Humanity is collectively the most vocal."
"Maybe the Council needs you two as a diplomatic front to help calm things down." Miranda responded insightfully.
Liara thought about it and it did make sense. El'Jaid was a powerful military face, and Liara was the daughter of an influential Matriarch and rightfully accomplished for her own part, especially when it came to her knowledge about the Protheans and the Reapers.
Miranda's eyes flashed, and a smile curled across her face. "So, when is the date?"
"Wha..." Liara was caught off guard.
"When is the wedding day." Chalkwas asked keyed in to the new conversation.
"But how..." Liara blushed looking down at her feet. "We haven't even had any time to think or talk about such things just yet. How did you know?"
Miranda and Chalkwas leaned back broad smiles on their faces.
"We caught Shepard wearing her bracelet." Chalkwas said with a slight tone of a school girl.
"How about we go out when we dock tonight. Kaidan and I and you and Shepard. We can celebrate your engagement." Miranda leaned back, enjoying the moment.
Liara smiled appreciatively, "Yes. I think we would like that."
"Then its a deal." Miranda smiled warmly.
All of the sudden there was a rush as people emptied the mess hall en-mass, running for the elevator. The three of them craned their necks to see what spectacle could be unfolding.
"What's going on?" Chalkwas asked.
"Ah...EDI says that the Captains are fighting in the shuttle bay." Joker sounded over the comms.
"What the hell..." Miranda said getting to her feet quickly followed by Liara and Chalkwas. The three of them lashed out of the Medbay and took the elevator down to the Shuttle bay.
"...Take pictures!" Joker called out.
The Bay itself was packed with roaring spectators, and the three of them jammed them selves to look out of the view ports of the Engineering deck.
In the wide ring they saw El'Jaid and Kaidan trading a series of punches, kicks ,and jabs. Each landing a hit on the other, but nothing direct, just glancing blows.
El'Jaid threw a straight jab as Kaidan's Chest. He caught it and tried to twist her around, but she was too quick and turned in such a way that forced him to let go. She quickly dropped to a knee and tried to sweep his leg out from under him.
She connected and he went down, but he used the momentum to roll back and gain distance between them.
Chalkwas and Liara looked on amazed, and Miranda just stood there fuming. She turned to Sangre next to her. "How long have they been going at it."
Kaidan rushed forward on El'Jaid hoping to catch her off guard as she got up. He barely got an arm around her as she just flowed from his tackle, caught him and hauled him over causing him to crash down on the padded floor.
"About an hour now. Captain Alenko was winning." Sangre responded.
The two were up and at it again, trading jab for jab looking for the next weakness. The grins on their faces broad. El'Jaid hadn't had a good release like this a while and she could tell Kaidan was the same. Their breathing was ragged, their limbs burned with exertion.
They both broke away heaving. Planning their next assault.
But then the peace of the moment was shattered by Joker. "Ah Captain. I need you up at the cockpit, like NOW!"
El'Jaid and Kaidan stopped looked at each other and then took off running for the elevator. The audience parted away from them but soon groaned for the interruption and started calling out to the Judge to make a call.
"Its a draw folks!" The Judge called out. The audience groaned and booed.
Miranda, Liara, and Chalkwas caught the elevator as Kaidan and El'Jaid were in it. Both of the combatants still dressed in padding, sweat pouring from them, and slightly battered, but each with a canary eating grin plastered on their face. Kaidan heaved in air while El'Jaid was already calm.
Miranda proceeded to berate them both. "You stubborn, thick headed, jarheads! What were you two thinking? Where you even thinking?!" She yelled.
Liara just looked at El'Jaid. Her pupils a beautiful black. Liara could tell that while Kaidan had held his own, El'Jaid hadn't even begun to tire.
As soon as the doors had opened El'Jaid and Kaidan rushed forward to the cockpit.
Before them stood Esthasia. Before the Citadel had been scuttled, it had been a major Asari world, but it had been turned over by the Asari to be the new hub for Council politics, culture, and economic power. The majority of the planet was Mountainous in nature, but had huge enclaves near the oceans which held entire cities.
As Joker was busy flying, El'Jaid noticed they had picked up three 'friends'. They were three heavy Athena fighters flying in formation with them. One to each side and a third above them. They weren't the only ships being treated this way; scores of vessels of all types were waiting for escort.
"Glad to see you both come running. Bring the kids next time and we can make this a regular family thing." Joker called.
"What's going on Joker?" Kaidan asked gruffly.
"These three guys won't let us get any closer unless they have your okay to escort us in for docking."
Joker opened a comm channel to the lead fighter.
"This is Captain Kaidan Alenko, Commanding Officer of the SSV Ardennes."
"Captain, this is Flight Leader Vorees of Council Security. We need your authorization to lead the Ardennes in to dock." The flight leader said coldly.
"What is the meaning of this? I haven't had to deal with giving authorization before when docking." Kaidan sounded.
"Just a formality Captain. Nothing more." Vorees said
"I confirm weapons lock on us Captain." EDI cooed.
Jokers eyes flash, his hand near the switches to bring up the Ardennes' shields. "If they think they can just take us out they got another thing coming."
"Easy Joker." El'Jaid said scowling. She gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
A few tense moments passed as Kaidan thought of what to do. His jaw muscles bulged, but then he relented. "Flight leader, you have my authorization to take us in for docking."
"Understood, follow us. C-Sec will have a representative to greet you upon docking" Vorees said and the three fighters streaked in front of the Ardennes' leading it.
The tension soon faded and Joker was hot on the fighter's trail. As they entered in to the atmosphere is became apparent to El'Jaid why they had needed the escort. The path to the docking bay was a trench run. Any mistake would have caused them to go around for another attempt, which wouldn't have happened again for hours, or they would end up apart of the landscape. Neither really were appealing.
The docking bays were literally embedded into the mountain walls of Esthasia's Capitol. The Capitol was situated like an oasis near the sea, because immediately to the west of the city shear walls of rock jutted towards the sky. It was not uncommon to have warm torrential rain in the city and a little higher up freezing rain, and then a blizzard above that.
That is way it had become common practice for arriving vessels to be escorted in through 'trench' canyon runs to avoid the hazardous weather and wreckage that was scattered through the valleys of vessels that had long came before.
"Well good. Glad we got that sorted out. Does Garrus hire every 'Cop' who has a stick up his ass?" Joker retorted.
"You can ask him soon enough Joker." El'Jaid said nudging him.
"Thanks! I'll remember that! Now would ya mind and give me some air before I have to vent the cockpit? You two smell like a gym locker." Joker spat.
Kaidan, El'Jaid, Miranda, and Liara left Joker alone to do his work and walked back to the CIC.
The four of them stood at the elevator. Kaidan turned to El'Jaid and smiled at her. "I'd hate to fight you when you cut full loose." He said.
"You had me on the ropes a few times your self Captain." She smiled warmly but professionally back.
"Yeah...right. " He said smiling.
Miranda just shook her head still angry with them both.
Kaidan caught her hand, ever the 'white knight' type. "Can The Captain ask for your forgiveness?" He cooed to her, pulling her in.
She scrunched her nose and gave out an exasperated sigh. "Just move before I change my mind." She said feigning a warning. And they left El'Jaid and Liara standing alone.
The Asari slipping a warm hand around her love's cool sweat slicked waist, forgetting about the fact that they were on a military ship.
"You think they could have put in two elevators." El'Jaid sighed. Liara smiled mirthfully back.
Soon the elevator returned, they stepped inside, and the doors shut.
"I will never understand your need for violence El'Jaid." Liara said teasingly.
"Well I didn't hurt him." El'Jaid said mockingly.
She pulled Liara close to her. The Asari playfully tried to fight away from the dampness and rank that came wafting from El'Jaid. She kissed Liara's neck causing the Asari to squeal delightfully even more.
"I guess we both need a shower now." Liara cooed.
"Guess so..." El'Jaid played right back.
The doors opened and they stepped out. El'Jaid started to part ways to go to her cabin as Liara caught her hand.
"Now 'miss' T'Soni. We shouldn't be 'fraternizing'." El'Jaid neared closer to her. Her tone carnal.
"Hummm, good thing your a Specter, and I'm not Alliance Military then..." Liara purred.
A lascivious smile crept over both of their faces and they sauntered off back to Liara's quarters.