Chapter 21
Kevin paced back and forth on the lower level of his room lightly banging a fisted right hand against his visor. He must have sighed heavily at least eight times already. The amount of unrest within shocked even himself.
"What was that, Kevin? 'Now it's your turn for story time!' Gotta be kidding me."
He stopped pacing only long enough to punch the back of the long couch. His frustration level was higher than normal, and all because of the way he handled himself in front of Arla. He hadn't told the story of Nor's death to anyone. Not even Tarsil. It was supposed to be his own personal burden, something he'd carry with him to his death. The only fissure in his emotional walls. And he just revealed the cracks to a quarian who beat him at his own game.
"Guess you're out of the bag, Nor. Happy now? You better be. I almost cracked back there."
He sat down on the couch with both hands on his visor. He let out one last sigh and he calmed his breathing. After a brief moment of stillness, he looked up at the blank vid screen and talked at it. "Swore I'd never let myself get worked up like that again. So much for that. The whole ship probably knows now. I don't even know what I'm more upset at, Nor. The fact that I almost lost it in front of Arla, or the fact that you're getting into my head again."
Kevin shook his head. He knew he was being childish with all this fussing, but he still couldn't shake the aggravation. Another few minutes of silence passed by before he stood up.
"Alright, enough of this crap. Time to be the tough guy again. Besides, I have an ice-breaker party to set up for Ralik. That should at least provide everyone with ample distraction."
The need for sleep was nagging at the back of his mind, trying to coat him in fatigue. He wasn't having any of it, though. That recent internal storm left him high-strung, and he wanted to get everyone to loosen up before he slept, regardless. Forcing the weariness to the unseen reaches of his mind, he stepped through the normally locked go-to door into the entertainment room from the master quarters.
Inside the entertainment room, something caught his eye. It was his armor, but it wasn't where he had left it all. It was neatly arrayed by the door rather than haphazardly piled in a corner. He shook his head upon realizing that he left his armor off as well as the fact the forgot about it, but smiled at the fact that Arla actually bothered to do that for him. He walked over to the pieces and started to put them on. As expected, he had some trouble getting them on, but he was able to get them all on by himself.
He paused a minute to think. The idea he hatched while talking with Ralik was simple, yet effective. He would bring Club Kellius to its full potential and invite all his shipmates. That's right, he was going to host his own dance party. Judging by what Bela said days ago, they all enjoyed some level of that sort of atmosphere. Kevin didn't know if Ralik did or not, but the salarian would have to loosen up one way or another if he wanted to get a chance to socialize with his shipmates, and close-knit cooperative work was always important on deep space runs, especially if there were enemies involved. This, to him, seemed like one of the easiest ways to allow that to happen.
Fortunately, the setup would be simple. A well-mixed playlist, good lighting, cold drinks and participants was all he would need. The first two things could be taken care of without even leaving the room. The drinks he would have to gather from the mess hall, and the participants could easily be assembled by ship intercom. Without a moment of hesitation, Kevin manned the entertainment room's controls and started selecting songs that would mix will together, as well as assign pre-programmed lighting schemes and intensities that he figured would best fit the mood of each song. He had already witnessed this system's ability to blend everything together well, so the amount of work required to get it ready was nice and light. One last touch was to add an intro suitable to what he thought would be the start of the party.
When he was finished, his playlist easily exceeded fifteen hours of music – more than enough for all of them to wear themselves out. He took a few minutes to go over it all, making sure the progression was to his liking and the lighting sets worked well, and then clapped his three-fingered hands together.
"Now to get some spirits." Kevin said, happily distracted with having a small project to work on for the time being. He stepped down from the music station and headed out the door. As he was in the process of making the short trip to the mess hall, he saw the captain walking towards him from the other side of the hall. He wasn't really interested in talking to anyone right now, but taking an abrupt right to head down a deck to avoid her would most likely only increase his chances of running into someone he didn't want to talk tomore than Siri. She was slightly turned to head down a deck via the stairs on the far end of the hall, but opted to continue down the hallway when she spotted Kevin. Too late.
Kevin quickly shook off all of the evidence of his recent fit so that he could talk to his captain good and proper. He had already given himself away once, he wasn't going to let his internal struggles get the better of him a second time.
"Kevin!" She called to him as she trotted her way over to him.
Kevin was halfway inside the door to the mess hall when she reached him. "Oh, hey captain."
Siri paused as they stepped into the mess hall. "What are you up to?" she asked, curious and wary.
"What makes you think I'm 'up to something'? I'm just grabbing a drink."
"Remember, captain's intuition," Siri confidently said, waving a single finger back and forth.
"Playing that card again?" He asked as he reached the refrigerator where the drinks – both alcoholic and non – were stored. Upon opening it, he found a sufficiently large variety of high quality drinks.
"Call it what you want, but the fact of the matter is that I caught you doing something," she said as she leaned against the nearest stove.
"You caught me, what, grabbing a drink?" he said as he turned around with several bottles in his hands. Obviously far more drink than any one human would want to consume.
"A drink?" She laughed. "You're either suicidal, or expecting a lot of drinking buddies."
"Let's, hypothetically, say the latter."
"Then I would have to question where you plan on getting all these drinking buddies, since those kinds of drinks have levo-proteins in them."
"They do, but with these ones it should be negligible, even for quarians. You've probably only seen the lesser quality drinks. Less refined ones have more, but these are insanely expensive and have gone through equally insane amounts of filtering and prep, with the amount of proteins dropping through each cycle."
"That's assuming, of course, that people even show up to your little drinking social."
"Not a drinking social, actually. The drinks are more of a detail than a major part." Kevin put the bottles he held down on a table while he went back to see what else he could find.
"I knew you were up to something."
"That said, can you help me find drinks you guys brought along suitable for parties and fun times?"
Siri thought for a few seconds. "We do have some drinks traditionally suited for good times, but they aren't alcoholic. The admiralty board generally doesn't allow our home-grown plant-based drinks to be sent along for deep space missions. They'd rather keep it for themselves!"
"Well, what if we mixed your drinks with these?" Kevin suggested. "The proteins would become even more diluted and you could get the loosening up effect that you can't get with your stock drinks. As long as we point out that they've been spiked, I don't think the others will care too much."
"You are sneaky, horrible man for suggesting that my marines need to 'loosen up'. I like that idea. So are you going to tell me why we're preparing drinks for everyone?"
Kevin smiled under his helmet. "I was just going to host some good times for all. Probably with some loud music and fancy lighting. You know, something people could dance to."
Siri performed a type of slow motion nod that tended to go along with 'Oh, I get it now'. "When?"
"As soon as possible, which is to say, as soon as I finish setting up. I just need to find the portable drink chiller, wherever it is. There's a ninety percent chance that Linus would have one around here somewhere. . ."
"Who's Linus?" she innocently asked.
Kevin played it off like he didn't hear her and continued his search for the chiller. Fortunately, he was right. There was one stored off to the side of the kitchen. It looked like a pushcart with a large covered metal box welded to it. It was draped in cloths to give it a more refined look and to hide the mess of drink-related accessories on a shelf below the box. Kevin opened the cover and peeked inside. It was only deep enough to account for the tallest typical wine bottle, and contained scores of modular dividers that could be added or removed to accommodate varying bottle widths.
"Score. Found it." Kevin smirked and rolled the chiller away from the kitchen and next to the table where he had placed the bottles.
Meanwhile, Siri was gathering the drinks she had previously mentioned and she set the sealed cylinders of quarian beverage next to the bottles. Once Kevin rolled the chiller over, he and Siri started placing the beverages in the divided metal box. He spotted a small switch on the side and flipped it. The chiller hummed to life and then the hum faded away as the machinery in the device harmonized.
Siri closed the cover on the chiller. "So why are you planning all this? Now? Arla told me you were sleeping."
Kevin froze. "Told you?"
"Yes. You and her had another sparring session?" She leaned in and tilted her head, wondering if there was something else she should mention.
"Right. I should have figured she'd report that to you."
"Am I missing something here?" she asked as she started pushing the chiller towards the door.
Kevin quickly bolted to the cabinets and returned a stack of nice looking but fragile glasses. "Nope. Just don't want people to get the wrong idea, is all." He separated the main stack into stacked pairs and placed them on the shelf under the cloth draped over the edges.
"You don't have to worry about that. We all know Arla and you have a mutual agreement. Now stop avoiding my question."
Kevin took the pushbar on the backside of the cart and started wheeling it towards the door. "I just want to provide everyone a chance to relax and have fun. We can't head out into this mission tense and on edge, that won't give us a lot of mental space for the real tension when we need to deal with it."
"A valid point," Siri said, falling into step with Kevin.
"Plus, Bela told me that you all enjoy a club slash dance setting, and I can actually deliver that."
"She told you that, did she?"
"Yeah, why?
"Well, I suppose it's true. We do enjoy a good party every now and again."
"Should I be prepping something else in addition?" Kevin asked with genuine curiosity.
"No no, I'm sure you have the bases covered. Bela told me you were well-versed in 'dancable atmosphere', whatever that means." She laughed and they stepped out into the hallway behind the chiller.
"What else do you guys enjoy doing?" Kevin asked.
"As a group or as individuals?" She counter-asked, turning her head towards him.
Kevin thought for a moment. The latter was something that might be more interesting to hear. "As individuals. You know, when you aren't busy shooting geth or fixing things."
"Well. . ." There was a pause in her speech as she compiled a list in her head. "Welkas is probably the most obvious. He likes to pilot. Even before he was on his pilgrimage he was asking to help with anything that required manual interaction to move. That's what I heard, anyways. Votis likes physically conditioning himself as much as he can. Also probably obvious."
"A pilot that likes to pilot and a soldier that likes exercise. Come on, captain. Where are the juicy details?"
Siri gave him a brief stare for interrupting. "Something less obvious about Votis? He likes emotionally moving vids. Watches them more than the rest of us."
"Now we're getting somewhere," Kevin confirmed with nod. He stopped pushing the cart so that Siri could activate the door panel for the entertainment room.
"Garloh likes to play instruments. He's quite adept at playing a couple of traditional quarian acoustic instruments, and he was recently looking into a couple older human instruments on the extranet as well. A string gewit-ter or something. Bela likes, as you have already seen, to party, flirt and the like. What you probably haven't noticed, though, is that she's one of the best quarian singers I've ever heard."
"She sings? Have to admit, I didn't see that coming."
"Mmhmm. Loves it, too. Tosh is a little more expected, I think. He's a gamer. He has a large variety of games installed on his omni-tool for whenever he has downtime, which is to say, not very often these days. Interestingly enough, I think he likes playing with the developer toolkits and game editors more than he likes some of the games he plays."
"An engineer to every end, it seems."
"Indeed. Arla, believe it or not, is an incredible dancer-"
"Oh, I believe that," Kevin said without thinking.
Siri turned to look at him, not for interrupting, but because of his statement. She stared at him as if trying to read his mind.
"Wh-what?" he asked, a bit creeped out by the sudden stare-down.
"How would you guess that? Arla keeps that little detail tied and stored away."
Kevin stumbled a bit as he tried to defend himself. "I've. . . I've seen the way she moves. She. . . She has a very interesting fluidity to her motions."
Siri tilted her head and Kevin quickly realized that he wasn't helping himself.
"Hey, look, I pay attention to everything when I train someone for combat. Even the way she pivots her joints. Elbows, shoulders, knees, hips- Er. You get the point. All I'm saying is that she's not a rigid fighter."
Siri remained still and silent, ever increasing the awkwardness of the moment.
"Come on, tell me that didn't sound as bad as it did. I'm beginning to think you just like to see me fidget in this suit."
"Perhaps. . ."
"Perhaps what? Perhaps it did sound as bad? Perhaps you do like to see me squirm?"
Siri returned to a more normal stance and leaned on the side of the chiller. Kevin really wished he could read her face. It would make it easier for him to understand her ploy. Kevin, with a lack of better social options at his disposal, decided a quick de-railing to a different topic would ease things a bit.
"So why does Arla keep something like that under wraps, so to speak? If she's as good as you say she is, wouldn't her pride want that out in the open?"
"Of course it would, but it's a little different than that. You see, Kevin, dancers are held in very high esteem in our culture. Not just your average 'go to the club and dance' kind of stuff, either. She likes dancing in both a traditional quarian sense, as well as modern partying as well."
"I'm still not seeing why she'd hide this," Kevin stated, folding his arms.
"She doesn't want to be recognized for her ability to dance, Kevin. She'd rather be recognized for her ability to fight, to hold her own. Since fighters aren't typically held as high as dancers in our culture, if her natural abilities as a dancer were made known to more people, it would quickly overshadow all the work she put into being the marine she is today."
"I think I get it now. So why tell me?"
"A couple reasons. One is that you're a human. Your culture doesn't automatically put good dancers on a metaphorical pedestal, especially when it comes to military tactics. Second, you're now her squadmate. All of the marines know, and they all know how hard each of them has worked to get where they are. It would be a hugely dishonorable thing to do to go around telling everyone about it, so they know not to. Now that you're one of us, you know as well."
"Fair enough. So what about you, Siri? What do you like to do?"
"I like to make sure that all of my subordinates are in top shape, ready for combat, knowledgeable in the things of life learned though experience and. . . Content."
There was a moment of silence between the two.
"That's so cliché, captain," Kevin said mixed with a chuckle.
"I know, isn't it? One day, you will learn a thing or two about clichés. For now, though, I'll just let it be. I should turn the question on you, but I suspect you're ready to call in your patrons."
"That I am."
"I'll head down a deck and make it seem like I'm doing something important."
"Don't be late."
Siri headed out of the entertainment room and the door shut behind her. Kevin took this moment to place the drinks strategically – near the wall halfway across the room opposite the equipment booth. It was next to a couch and off to the side, but not so far out of the way that no one would notice it. All that was left to do was preemptively set the ambient lighting, set up the equipment to play and call everyone up. A few quick adjustments on the controls brought the light within the room down to a fairly dark point saturated with a deep blue. He set the music to his playlist and made ready to play just before he headed out of the room and towards the bridge. On his way up, he called upon the shipwide assistant.
"Terra, relay all emergency notices and warnings to the entertainment room, and make sure you cut the sound if need be."
"Acknowledged." The fact that Terra acknowledged his command must have meant that Tosh fixed his profile in the VI core.
"Remember, only emergencies."
"Importance filter has already been set to maximum."
"Can't you at least play along once in a while? You know, make it seem like you have a personality?"
"This VI does not have sufficient programming to emulate complex sapient interaction."
Kevin shook his head and continued forwards.
In the bridge, Kevin expectedly found Kar'Welkas working the controls. A quick peek out the viewport suggested that they were in the finishing stages of a discharge cycle. Kar looked up to Kevin from his seat, this time without being startled by his presence.
"Oh, hi, sir! I'm just finishing up this discharge before I run some more optimizations for the flight controls," he said as he looked back to the nice view of the ship-created aurora mixed with flashes of dancing bolts of electricity.
"How are things up here, Kar? Haven't really had chance to see how you were settling in."
"Good! I think. I was noticing some fluctuations in the-"
"That's great, Kar. Good to see you're handling the Kellius like your own flesh and blood."
"Of course, sir. Wouldn't have it any other way."
"Mind if I borrow the ship-wide intercom for a sec?"
"By all means."
Kevin leaned over one of the terminals just to the side of the main one that the pilot used. Kar hit a button on his interface and motioned for Kevin to go ahead.
"Attention all hands. There is an urgent matter that requires all of you to be in attendance. Yes, Ralik, that also means you. For the sake of space, we will be meeting in the entertainment room. That is all."
"Sounds pretty important," Kar said passively.
"You could say that."
"Am I supposed to be there too?"
"If I'm not letting Ralik off the hook, that means I'm not letting you off the hook either. Soon as you're done discharging and you get the Kellius back on the path, I want to see you in there."
"But- My optimizations?"
"Trust me, they can wait."
Kar sighed. "Understood."
Kevin turned and walked away from the bridge. He was glad, if not surprised, that Kar didn't even argue Kevin's assumption of authority. It would have made that entire conversation more difficult if he had. He was fairly certain that Kar would forget about that once he got to Club Kellius, though.
Kevin, being the first person to step into the room, headed straight for the control podium. He had an introductory setup that required timing and precise execution and he had to be ready to perform. He kept the lights dim and pulled up from the underside of the controls-laden desk what could only be called a 'classic' DJ microphone. He had seen it before, and even now he still considered it quaint. Despite that, it seemed to fit the mood he was about to set, and he only needed to use it once.
The door opened and several quarians strolled in, talking amongst themselves. They were Bela, Riik, Tyr, and Tosh. Soon after they moved into the center of the room, Ralik stepped in as well.
"Why is it so blasted dark in here?" Riik asked.
"You will see in a moment," Kevin responded, keeping the mic out of sight. "We just need everyone to be here."
Within moments, Siri and Arla stepped in as well, followed closely behind by Kar. Now that everyone had arrived, he could begin. At this point, it was all dependent on their moods, whether or not they were up for this sort of surprise. He hoped to God they all were, not just for the sake of the enjoyment of the others, but so he wouldn't look like an idiot standing up there.
They all sparsely congregated together in the middle of the room, looking up at him. The first thing he did was roll back the opaque flooring so that the in-floor lighting could be used. With any luck, no one would notice until he began in a few seconds. Thankfully, none of them did.
He started the first song at zero volume. He knew the song well enough in his head to match the song with the precise timing. On the four walled screens, he called up a digitized rendition of empty space, but with the stars – small white dots with small lens flares – far closer together than in any part of the galaxy. It was for effect, as a true example of open space would be boring. They began to move all at once, as if the room was quickly hurtling through space without the obscuring blueshifted distortions of FTL and the walls were viewports.
"I have called you all here for one reason," Kevin said over the sound emitters. The others looked at each other in confusion.
He started to raise the sound up in volume. First slowly, then with a sudden rise to typical club-level. As the peak of the volume increase hit, the airy, light sounds of the introduction of the song ended abruptly with a heartstopping kick.
"I have called you all here for one reason," spoke a human male's voice over the emitters. It wasn't Kevin – it was much deeper and was accompanied by a resounding echo.
In the background, some slow, timely beats were creeping up in volume. Those on the floor were now looking around instead of at each other, more confused than they were less than a minute ago. The stars' movement was slowly gaining speed and they began to stretch ever so slightly.
"To bring you to the farthest reaches of the galaxy," said the deep voice. Still the volume of the background beats continued to rise. Now what was background music was slowly becoming the dominating sound of the room couple with white noise made to sound like something was revving up.
"We don't need a wormhole or a rift. . ." Now the beats and white noise were matched in volume and still rising.
Below the onlookers, a collection of lights pointed straight up started to glow white and grow in intensity with the song. The quarians and Ralik all backed up towards the wall where the drinks were left upon sudden realization that the floor they were standing on was not a floor, but a window of sorts.
"We only need to do one thing:" The beats were fast and the white noise was reaching it's peak pitch. The 'stars' surrounding them had stretched out to become lines whizzing by them at fast speeds. In the direction of where the room was supposedly heading, a light blue glow had appeared and was quickly taking over the room.
Suddenly, the music ceased in perfect rhythm and the room was overtaken by the white light from the floor and the blue glow from the walls.
"Blueshift," was the calm and collected declaration over the emitters, which sparked a very different reaction from the room's systems.
Suddenly the lights in the ceiling and floor were in full dance track mode, pulsing, moving and generating colors all over the place. The blue glow on the walls had transformed from the classic look of FTL blueshifted energy to an over-dramatized, but very nice looking blue energy tunnel. At the same time as all of this, the emitters erupted in a furious wave of sound. Pounding bass, melodic synths and a well-mastered mix of other harmonizing sounds filled the room as the song burst into its epic, full form.
The quarians (and Ralik) were all taken aback by what just happened. Not in the sense that they were struck with awe by what happened, but more than the last thing they were expecting upon entering this room was to be faced with the scene that had just unfolded. They went from 'urgent matter' to 'dance music' in a little over two minutes.
Kevin dismounted his high position on the podium now that everything from here on was already set and automatic. He walked on over to the group backed up against the wall with his arms straight out to his sides in introduction.
"What is all this?" Tyr shouted, his voice fighting desperately to be heard above the music.
"I welcome you all to Club Kellius!" Kevin shouted back. Colored lights and laser shows reflected off of his pauldrons and other armor pieces, giving him a pulsing outline.
Bela, who was practically bouncing in place with the music in excitement leapt forward to give Kevin a hug. "Kevin, I think I love you! This is awesome!"
"If you feel you're too tense, there are drinks right behind you to help you loosen up." Kevin smirked, only realize afterwards that they couldn't see him smirk.
"Not bad, Folner!" Tosh shouted as he reached for the chiller and looked at its contents. "You even brought our celebratory drinks! How. . .?"
"Don't ask questions, just enjoy!" Kevin said.
Hesitantly, they crowded around the chiller and grabbed cylinders. Riik noticed the other, more alcoholic beverages and pulled one out. "Folner, what are these?"
"Human-brewed spirits! High quality stuff! Filtered so many times that the amount of levo-proteins in it are negligible!"
"I like your thinking! I think I'll just have to play the test subject this time!"
Kevin nodded and gestured toward the cups. Without any more hesitation, Riik poured a fifty/fifty mix into his cup, gave it a good swirl and flipped his tube down. He dipped the end of his tube into the beverage and took some in, giving his suit a moment to analyze the intake. He nodded and pounded his chest with a fist indicating both that the drink was safe to consume and that it was fairly strong.
"You lightweights better go easy on the spirits," Riik said over the in-suit comms to avoid fighting with the music. "This stuff is strong. Safe, but strong."
The others looked to what he was talking about and quickly noticed that he mixed his traditional quarian drink with other bottled one.
"Thank Keelah," Tyr said after trying it for himself. "I haven't had a good one like this for years. You did alright, Folner."
Everyone but Kevin and Ralik had their go at some amount of the mixed drinks. The two that didn't preferred to go without the quarian drink and just settled for a cup of alcoholic beverage.
Siri raised her glass. "I believe it is human tradition to have a toast, yes?"
"Go for it captain, let's hear it!" Kevin edge on as everyone gathered in a circle.
Siri paused for a minute and then leaned in with her raised glass. "To the Forverna. To those who we continue on for."
Kevin continued her toast. "To the secrets behind that relay."
Riik next. "To The Migrant Fleet."
Lastly, Bela. "To having a great time in a ridiculously small ship!"
Everyone nodded and laughed before the circle of glasses came together with a piercing clink that rose above the loud music. Each took their respective swigs and the circle broke its formation. As everyone went to do their thing, Siri approached Kevin.
"You always did like to make an entrance," she said, sipping her drink. "You did good this time, Kevin."
"Does that mean you're going to dance?" he asked with an elbow jab to her arm.
"I. . . think I'm going to finish my drink first," she said as she motioned her near full glass to Kevin.
"Suit yourself. You're the captain."
At that moment, the song had finished mixing in to number two and a new bassline took over the emitters before allowing the rest of the parts to join. Just as Kevin started bobbing his head, a hand grabbed his arm.
"I know this song, I know this song! Come on Folner, I owe you a dance for this!" Bela shouted. Siri preemptively took the cup from Kevin's hand as he was pulled from his place to the center of the dance floor to join Kar.
As Kevin joined in the festivities at the center of the room, he peeked over to see further reactions from the others. From here it just looked like they were chatting over a drink, and Ralik was actually in on the conversation this time. That was better than any of them leaving, at least.
A few songs later, Kar, Bela and Kevin were still the only ones on the dance floor. As the current song ended, Bela caught Kevin's attention and motioned over towards the collection of non-moving bodies.
"I think they need our help!" she shouted.
"I agree. Got a plan?"
"I'll grab Garloh and you grab the captain! They're the oldest, and they need to be reeducated in how to have a good time!"
Kevin nodded in agreement and they both looked upon their quarry with predatory focus. As the new song mixed in, Bela gestured to Kar to hold still for a minute and she and Kevin made their way over to the group. The two that were about to be had did not notice the approaching pair, since they were facing away from the dance floor while talking. While Bela worked on convincing the Chief to dance, Kevin slipped just behind and to the side of Siri. She still had a drink in her hand, but that was a simple obstacle to overcome. He casually reached around her, took the glass from her hand and set it down on one of the small tables juxtaposed to the couch.
Siri gave Kevin a false confused stare – she knew that he knew that she knew what he was about to do. Kevin understood, from her earlier hesitation, that she was unsure about the dance floor. Maybe it had been quite some time since she had tried. With that in mind, Kevin decided to forgo giving her the illusion of choice and he made the decision for her. He took her hand and pulled her to the center of the room, almost perfectly timed with Bela's attempts with Tyr. Siri resisted at first, but it wasn't much of a resistance at all and Kevin barely had to put forth effort to get her out on the dance floor.
"Alright, Folner, you got me out here. I suppose that means you want me to dance?"
"But of course. Come on, you can't seriously tell me that you don't know how to have a good time with your crew, can you?" He smirked out of habit.
Siri slouched briefly as she gave in, but it wasn't a slouch of negativity or exasperation. Merely a visual sign that she had willingly given up trying to fight it. "Alright, but I warn you, it's been a while since I've done this!"
Kevin looked over to Bela and Tyr, and she had somehow managed to get Tyr dancing long before Kevin and Siri. Regardless, now Siri and Tyr were a part of the main focus of the party. He stole a look over towards the remaining four, noticing that the chatters now broke into two groups. Arla and Riik in one and Tosh and Ralik in the other. He decided to let them be for now, at least for a few more songs. He wanted to be able to enjoy this too.
About five songs later, the four off to the side were still there. It was evident, though, that the music was getting to them. Each was showing some manifestation of their enjoyment of it – whether it was a tapping foot, bobbing head or a tapping finger. Again, Bela approached Kevin.
"Looks like we have to do all the work tonight, Kevin!" she yelled. "Thing is, I'm not willing to wait around for them anymore! It's not a full on dance party until we get everyone moving! I'll get Rolush, you get your salarian friend, deal?"
"On it!" Kevin shouted back as they simultaneously walked over to Tosh and Ralik.
"Oh look," Tosh said, "the 'fun brigade' is here to take us away." His voice was so neutral that he sounded disinterested. To Kevin's surprise, however, Tosh propped out his elbow for Bela to hook on to. She latched her arm around it without hesitation and they both headed to the dance floor where the rest of the party-goers were.
"Well that was unexpected," Kevin said, turning his attention back to Ralik. "Alright, your turn."
Ralik's expression went from placid to stark unprepared. "What, me? Come now, Kevin, I appreciate what you're doing here for me, giving me this chance to mingle and such. But really, that's not necessary."
"What's the matter, Ralik? Can't dance?"
"Well, I can, but. . ."
"But nothing." Kevin moved around behind Ralik and leaned his weight into the salarian so that he was forced to slowly stumble towards the center of the room.
"Kevin, no! Kevin, remember, I can't-"
"Yeah, I know. But you don't need mental preparation to dance and have a great time, Ralik. Trust me on this, alright?" He would have winked, but that would have proved pointless if Ralik couldn't see his eyes.
Ralik continued to fight him, but he also continued to be moved towards the crowd. Kevin knew that if Ralik really did not want to try, he'd be in a bit of trouble. Salarian STG operatives were deadly fast at close range, even for him. Inch by inch, however, Ralik allowed himself to be pushed into the dancing mass of quarians. Once the push was successful, Ralik sighed.
"Blasted human, you're stubborn," Ralik said with a lighthearted tone. He hung his head for about a second before he let the consistent and enjoyable beat of the music rule his movements.
"There we go, big guy. Now you're mingling." Kevin patted Ralik on the back and smiled.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Siri pulling Riik to the floor as well. That left one person standing on the outskirts of the pulsing room. She looked disappointed at having her conversational partner removed from her, but she did not follow. She stayed on the outside of the room. Kevin, again decided to leave it be for the moment. He was more interested to see if she'd come over on her own or not. He had a hunch that her pride wouldn't let her.
As the next, fast-paced song progressed, he occasionally looked to see if she was still there. He didn't want to send someone, but he didn't want her to leave, either. Each time he looked, she was there, standing by herself, looking more and more out of place each time. As the next song mixed in, a heavy kick and chorus-like synths jutted their way into foreground of sound. The bassline that started in resonated so deep that Kevin could feel his innards vibrating. It was at this point that the captain, not Bela, approached him.
"Kevin, I think Arla-"
"I know," he responded, cutting her off. He was already on his way from the crowd, too.
Kevin was right. Arla's pride wouldn't let her just walk over to the group of dancers on her own. He suspected that the thing Siri told him about her dancing had something to do with it too, but his suspicions weighed more heavily on her pride. Knowing a thing or two about pride himself, he knew that simply dragging her to the floor like he did with Siri was not going to work. This required a bit more finesse. When he stood in front of her, she looked up at him then immediately turned her head to look off to the side.
"Come to tell me to quit pouting?" she asked. To Kevin's ear, she was trying rather hard to sound firm and uncaring.
"So I hear you're quite the dancer," Kevin shouted. Maybe he was trying to sound suave. Whether he actually was or wasn't seemed to have been lost on Arla anyways.
Either way, it got Arla's attention quite well. Her head snapped to face him, then turned slightly to look at the crowd. "Hmm. I wonder who told you that," she said sarcastically.
"This is fortunate, really. I'm glad I was told."
"Why's that?"
"Because I was looking for someone who could dance with me." A gambit at appealing to her pride.
Arla paused, staring at him. "Why not Bela, or the captain?"
"Bela's a good flirty dancer, but that's about it. And have you seen the captain dance? She's alright, but. . ." He winced. He suspected his emotion was more accessible by his tone.
Arla let out a snicker at Kevin's brief snipe at the captain. "Slick, Folner."
Kevin offered a hand towards her. "I generally only offer once, so if you make me ask again-"
Without saying a word, Arla agreed by placing her hand in his and walking to the dance floor with him. The captain shot a glance over, a move that Kevin found impossible for him to miss, and nodded in both approval and appreciation. With almost divine-like timing, a new song suddenly kicked in, the mix designed to switch immediately over to the next song since the intro relied on a lack of mixdown.
"Now we have ourselves a dance party!" Bela cheered, unable to contain her excitement at having a full group of people to dance with this time.
And so began the full on dance party that Kevin was planning for. Finally the scene in front of him matched the scene he had set up in his mind – A bunch of quarians and a salarian all dancing and having a great time, Tyr and Siri dancing a bit oddly compared to everyone else, but no one seemed to mind, a great light show that washed out the fact that they were just in a square room on small ship while loud dance music pounded them from all directions – It was, in fact, good times had by all.
As Arla and Kevin started to dance among the others, Kevin became aware that Arla was holding herself back. She was a bit distant, dancing a small step away from everyone else. It didn't last long, however. The music caught up with her after a song or two and her natural skill at dancing became evident. What Kevin noticed then was something he wasn't expecting from her. She was a close body to body dancer, much like Maera was back on Omega. Interestingly enough, this was the form of dancing he knew the best and was most comfortable with, thanks to that asari. He didn't mind one bit, and even though he couldn't feel her the same way he used to be able to feel the skin contact of his dance partner, it didn't diminish the warming fact that he was finally able to dance body to body with someone once again. At the very least he was able to feel – not just see – the delicate, flowing, seamless motions her body followed as she danced.
Arla didn't seem to mind at all either. In fact, he could almost swear she enjoyed this more than he did.
Every now and then the group broke to go grab drinks. Everyone, being soldiers, was mindful of their intake so that they wouldn't overdo it. They were good, for people that didn't drink often, at keeping a light enough buzz to keep the fun and loose atmosphere. Once the drinking was done, they quickly filed back to the dance floor. Bela wasn't kidding when she said that they all enjoyed it. Even Ralik was having a great time, something Kevin hadn't seen from him since they left the Citadel. He could call this little plan he hatched a success.
Eventually, though, people began to get tired. Once one person showed signs of weariness, it began to spread like a hyper-virus. They all collectively decided when it was time to stop and give it a rest, and everyone expressed interest in getting some rack time right afterwards. The music continued, but the patrons were finally done. There was a single, multi-voiced wave of gratitude and thanks to Kevin for putting on the event. Everyone left as a group, except for Ralik who stayed behind.
"That went well, I think," Kevin said loudly.
Ralik silently nodded.
Kevin shot up to the equipment podium and shut the music and light show off. He brought the room back to its normal ambiance and shut the window cover under the floor. He caught a glance at the total playtime of his playlist, and it read that they had been dancing for almost six full hours. No wonder everyone was tired.
"Thanks," Ralik started. "You know, for doing all that for me."
"Getting mushy on me, Ralik," Kevin said as he continued to shut down some of the systems. "I wanted to have a dance party too, you know."
"Even still, I didn't think you were really going to assist me with personal matters of social inadequacies."
"We're friends, right?" Kevin finalized the shut down and stepped down to floor level. "That's what friends do. I just wanted to make it so I wasn't your only friend. That could get awkward, real fast."
Ralik chuckled in agreement and nodded. "So again, you have my thanks. Now, I'm going to go get some shut eye like the others. You should too, Kevin. You look ready to drop."
Kevin nodded. "I guess I am running a little ragged here. Wait, how can you tell?"
"There's more to a person than their face, Kevin. I think you learned that especially well tonight."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kevin asked accusingly.
"Sleep well!" Ralik shout as he turned around to leave.
Kevin would normally pester him and rip the information out through persistence and nagging, but he was, as Ralik put it, ready to drop. Once the door closed behind Ralik, Kevin unlocked the 'secret door' to his room in the wall with his omni-tool and stepped in. He found that one of the good things about having an exosuit was that he never had to worry about changing into some sort of sleepwear, which he was also to tired to be bothered with. He flopped down on the bed.
Unfortunately, there was still pre-sleep maintenance to take care of. While the armor on his suit didn't bother him much, the pauldrons were impossible to sleep in. After taking them off and setting them on the table next to the bed, he fell back onto his bed and laid there. He had all but forgotten about that thing with Nor, and he was able to fall asleep within seconds.