Chapter 22
"Are you going to fight me or what, Folner?" Arla asked as she approached in an offensive stance.
Kevin nodded and maintained a neutral stance of his own. He was having a bit of trouble tracking her movements, though that was hardly his fault. He had utilized the entertainment room's visual equipment to dim the ambient lighting and have quite a few lights flash quickly, change color and move around the room at random. The result was a mind-numbing mess of chaotic visual noise. It was a challenge for both of them, to practice under this kind of atmosphere. Tracking targets amongst a mess of other movements wasn't easy, and this was practice after all.
Arla and Kevin met halfway and engaged in a flurry of attacks and counterattacks. Interestingly, neither of them landed any hits at all, but it wasn't due to poor aim. They had become matched in skill level and neither could land a real blow. Her motions were a blur to him thanks to the atmosphere, but somehow he always knew where her next attack would come from as if he was tuning into her thoughts. That ability seemed mutual, of course. She dodged his just as he dodged hers.
That string of fruitless moves came to an end, though. Kevin landed a tightly clenched fist right in the center of her visor and the quarian immediately fell onto her back with a groan.
"God, that hurt!" she shouted angrily, her hands covering her visor.
"What, no 'Keelah!' this time?" Kevin mockingly asked, standing tall in his victory. He clapped his ungloved hands twice and the visual noise gave way to normal lighting.
"I think I should go get some medi-gel," she stated casually.
"You get a boo-boo and you need medi-gel? Come on."
Arla stood up and faced Kevin. Her visor was horribly cracked, a web of iridescent lines emanating from the point of impact.
"I don't think this is going to buff out," she said with laugh.
"My bad," Kevin said nonchalantly.
Arla pulled her helmet off and held it in front of her to examine the extent of the damage from the outside. Her head and face was deep purple, smooth, glossy and lacking in features, like a porcelain doll with an an unpainted head. She poked the crack in the helmet and the visor collapsed into shards falling to the floor. There was a light where her mouth was supposed to be that flashed intermittently when she spoke.
"Great. Now I'm going to die." Her tone denoted non-interest.
"You're such a whiner sometimes," Kevin said as he took a step towards her.
"Well, since that's useless, then I guess the rest is too." Arla tossed the helmet aside and looked at Kevin with a faint hue of red appearing on her smooth face. "Turn around, you can't look!"
Kevin sighed in exasperation and turned around as instructed. Less than a few seconds of staring at a wall later, she told him he could look. He did, and he bore witness to a body that matched her head and face – glossy, smooth and featureless. Even still, he felt anxious.
Arla walked over to him and stood face to face. Kevin, who had been in his old casual alliance uniform this whole time reached a hand up and cupped it around the back of her head so that his thumb could stroke her cheek. She looked up at him and tilted her head.
"Ugh. I feel sick," she said.
Before Kevin could respond with a witty statement, he saw her face and head start to bleed wherever he touched her. Kevin retracted his had in alarm, but the bleeding spread in the form of nonexistent wounds and punctures. Kevin quickly backed the heck up as far as he could go.
"What's wrong?" she asked without a care in the world.
"You're infected!" Kevin shouted. "You need immunoboosters!"
"It's not that bad yet. Is it?"
Kevin shook his head and accidentally triggered the door panel he had backed up into, which resulted in him falling backwards onto the floor of the master quarters. Arla started to walk towards him as if she were about to embrace him, but stopped suddenly when Kevin heard footsteps from behind him. A three-fingered hand reached down and helped Kevin to his feet.
"Who's she, Kevin?" Nor asked him.
Suddenly, Kevin felt trapped. This was not a good situation at all.
"Who're you?" Arla asked the quarian helping Kevin up.
Kevin lifted his finger to speak, but he was cut off before he even started by Nor's horrified realization.
"You. . . You touched her! Kevin? Why did you touch her?"
He couldn't tell if she was horrified at the aspect of him touching Arla instead of her, or the fact that he probably just killed Arla.
"I. . . I just. . ." Kevin couldn't get any of his thoughts straight. When he looked back to see Arla, he didn't see her there – in her place was Ralik, launching a fist at his face.
When Kevin woke up, his breathing was heavy. It was easy to tell since he could always hear it whenever it was faster or deeper than a normal breath. He sat upright very quickly, instinctively tossing off blankets that weren't on him. He looked around his room – it was as empty as it always was. He took a deep breath and smacked his visor with a fist a few times.
"GOD that was creepy," he announced to the silence. "Nightmares? Who even has nightmares anymore? That stuff is for the vids."
Kevin calmed himself down by turning his body and stepping off his bed. Instead of the cold metal floor, his feet were greeted by the warm soles of his perpetually mounted boots. Normally this would be an excellent time to take a shower, but. . . He didn't need to anymore. He let the visor of his helmet rest in one of his hands and stroked in an attempt to massage his face. As usual, this act was pointless.
"I'm pretty sure I didn't drink that much last night," he told himself.
He looked at the clock and it read that he had been sleeping for about eight hours. His stomach growled at him, audible even through the suit. Kevin wasn't going to waste much time with food on the mind, so he reached over to the table next to his bed and grabbed his pauldrons. With a final sigh, he attached the armor pieces and headed out the normal door to get some breakfast in the mess hall. As he sat down to eat, Tosh strolled in. Kevin guessed he had the same agenda.
"Morning," Kevin said with a brief, weary gesture towards Tosh.
"The time is eighteen seventy-five, galactic standard. Technically, it's late into the evening," Tosh analytically replied.
"Technically, we're not in citadel space, either. Come on, Tosh, lighten up. I'm pretty sure everyone on the ship went to sleep at the same time."
"A valid point," the quarian said with a lightened tone as he rummaged through the stores of dextro-protein based foods in the kitchen. He pulled out a sealed package, examined it and took it over to the table across from where Kevin sat.
"So what did everyone think of last night?" Kevin asked between 'sips'.
"I'm fairly certain everyone had a great time. To be honest, I found that a tad unexpected of you."
Kevin snickered. "Well, if you knew me, you'd actually find something like that pretty typical."
"Is that so? Well, then, it seems I'm simply going to have to strive to know you better. Unknown variables, after all, are just begging to be understood."
"So I'm an unknown variable? Wow. And I thought multi-billion credit corporations were good at viewing people as numbers."
"I'm not a complicated person, Folner. Not to myself, not to anyone else. I am certain that as we experience things together as squadmates, one of the first things you'll learn about me is that I am. . ."
"Blunt?" Kevin said jokingly.
"Yes, but not just to be blunt. I consider it a bi-product of working with technology so much. Digital interfaces present information as it is, not as someone might want it to be. I do the same. To say you are an unknown variable merely means that I don't know you that well, and on that, I'm sure the feeling is mutual."
"True."
"Mathematics has, since the beginning of understanding, striven to find the answer to all unknown variables. To find an unknown variable in the form of a person conveys a curiosity. An interest in finding out."
"So in layman's terms, it was a compliment."
"Sure," Tosh said as he sat back and worked on his own breakfast.
"Works for me," Kevin concluded as he finished off his food. "I noticed you and Ralik were getting along quite well last night."
"Likewise for you and Lieutenant Tavval."
Kevin ignored that.
Tosh continued. "I find that Dolannus and I have a common scientific curiosity for the unknown. I'm not exactly one to be talking about rigid exteriors, but once you get passed his, he's fairly enjoyable company. Not to mention he understands me when I talk about cutting edge modern theories and such."
Kevin gave him a brief look.
"I wasn't calling anyone else unintelligent. It's not a matter of intelligence, it is a matter of interest."
"I figured as much. Anyways, that's good. I was hoping Ralik could find someone else to pester besides me."
"Then I have fallen into a trap," Tosh pointed out.
Kevin smiled. "Welcome aboard, Tosh."
Tosh chuckled and bounced a finger pointed at Kevin up and down. "Oh, this reminds me. Don't ask me how, because I don't feel like taking the time to explain. When you have a moment, I'd like to show you something down in the VI core room."
"I've got time right now."
"You do? That would mean Tavval hasn't contacted you about the daily training I understand you two have resumed."
"No she hasn't. I was under the impression she was still sleeping."
"Regardless, let's make our way to the VI core."
"Right behind you."
Tosh and Kevin both tossed their trash down the mess chute and headed out into the hall. They passed by the captain on their way towards the stairs, but she simply acknowledged them instead of stopping to chat. Before they had even gone down to the second deck, Tosh had already begun.
"Did you know that the Kellius is equipped with hull refrigeration and emission collection sinks?"
"I do remember seeing something like that when I first detailed the hardware configuration. Still don't know what they're for, though."
"They're part of a complex system integrated into the ship." He paused as they stepped into the VI core room.
"What kind of ship system would use hull coolers and emission collection? Those don't seem to be hugely related."
"It's called the Internal Emission Sink, or IES, Stealth System. It cools the hull and captures the various emissions a ship creates to essentially make it invisible to everything except a visual scan. You may not have heard of it before, but you've probably heard of the ship that piloted the technology – the Alliance vessel, the Normandy."
"The Normandy? The ship that helped save the Citadel during the geth attack a couple years back?"
Tosh paused. "Geth attack. . .Yes."
"So we've had an advanced stealth system on this ship and I never knew? Come on! Sure would have been nice to know at least a few times already!"
"Indeed." Tosh turned on his omni-tool and started accessing the VI core. "I found this out while compiling a list of this ship's installed capabilities, making sure that the GARDIAN grid was active. The interesting thing about the IES is that it has attachments of code everywhere in it. It looks like it was supposed to remain hidden and locked unless a few conditions were met. Looks like your Cerberus friends didn't want just anyone finding out about it."
"Have we met any of those conditions?" Kevin asked, peering onto Tosh's projected screen.
"As far as I can tell, no, which is probably why neither you, Dolannus nor Welkas has found anything on the helmsman's terminals in the bridge."
"What are the conditions, then?"
"Here's what I know: One of the conditions is a hardware check. The hull refrigeration is active and can be used. The emission sinks are another story, though. From what I've been told, the system calls for a certain number of sinks based on ship size, thruster hardware and a few other things. We have some sinks, but not enough to complete the condition, like they never finished installing that equipment."
"More budget cuts."
"Possibly. The other conditions are activations from an external source as well as a myriad of relative variables and such. I can't figure out what those are without a point of reference. It's all just code, though, which means I can change it."
"Can we use it as-is?"
"Probably, but not without drawbacks. The original IES stealth system allowed the ship to run silent for a few hours and passively move for days without needing to vent. I'd have to run a few calculations, but I suspect our run time between ventings would be much shorter than that."
Kevin nodded, then went silent for a moment as he considered something. "Wasn't the Normandy a joint military prototype? How do you know all this? It's an interesting fact to point out considering you were also the one who grabbed that joint military leaked information regarding the Melkanis relay."
Tosh chuckled. "The relay information was half accident and half luck, much as it was for your contact that got it, I'm sure. As for the IES and Normandy information? I had a. . . A friend that was part of the crew of the Normandy for a while."
"Reeeeeeeally?" Kevin, suspecting a good story was about to be reluctantly revealed, folded his arms and leaned back on the edge of the T.E.R.A. Mainframe. "Who was this friend of yours that so conveniently infiltrated a military vessel?"
"She didn't infiltrate, she was brought aboard."
"She?" Kevin asked, tilting his head forward.
"Yes, she. We were childhood friends. Grew up on the same liveship together. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya was her name."
"That's right, I do remember hearing something about a quarian on that ship."
Tosh continued without any further prodding. "We were close friends. Even went on pilgrimage together. She had one of the most brilliant and beautiful minds. It was almost like we were bound together by fate."
"You keep talking past tense, Tosh. What happened?"
"One day on our pilgrimage, we followed a geth patrol to an uncharted planet. We worked together to get one to separate from its unit, when she disabled it. It wasn't completely out, so its memory core was still working somewhat. No one in the Migrant Fleet had collected data from a working memory core before, even partially. It's always deleted the moment the geth unit is 'killed'. We both knew that getting data off of that core would be a perfect gift for returning to the flotilla from our pilgrimage."
"I take it things didn't go quite as planned."
"The memory core wasn't nearly as salvageable as we'd hoped, but we did get a bit of audio from it. Turns out the audio proved that a turian Spectre had gone rogue and pointed out a couple of other things. Someone somewhere had found out about our handiwork, though, and we were pursued. Tali had the data on her omni-tool, so she planned on going to the Citadel to do something about it. She wouldn't let me come, though. 'It's dangerous enough as it is,' she said. 'I've got an idea, but I don't want to risk your life.'"
"Ouch. Heck of a way to get dumped," Kevin said.
"In the end, I agreed. She promised not to mention my name for fear that those that were pursuing us would come after me personally. We parted ways before we got to the Citadel. She contacted me periodically after that, talking about how the data from that core got her onto a military ship with a human Spectre on some special mission to save the galaxy. I honestly thought she was exaggerating."
"Until news of the geth attack hit the extranet."
"She told me that she decided to hang out in engineering. Typical for her. Over time, she had told me about a lot of the things she was learning about the ship's fancy brand new systems. One of them was the IES."
"It's a good thing nobody found out she was doing that. I'm sure leaking experimental military technology would have a hefty punishment."
"That's what I told her. All she said was that just telling me wouldn't hurt as long as she wasn't causing trouble. She can be such a stubborn girl. Anyways, she finished her pilgrimage right after that and went aboard the Neema. I eventually finished mine and asked for the Neema as well. I had hopes we could work together. Problem was, after she was permanently assigned to the Neema after the Normandy was 'supposedly' destroyed, she wasn't the same. She started taking on dangerous missions all the time. The last time I ever heard from her was a message that read: 'My old captain's back.' That was, according to the research timetable, when she was sent on a mission to geth space to investigate a rapidly dying star. I don't think she ever came back to the fleet."
"So you've given up?" Kevin asked, standing up straight from his leaning position.
"Yes. I have my own missions now. I've grown beyond childhood crushes and such."
"That's your decision, I guess. I, personally, would have chased her down."
Tosh stopped tinkering with his omni-tool and looked at Kevin. "There was word throughout the fleet that her 'old captain' was working with Cerberus, Folner." His voice had a hint more emotion in it now. Frustration, mostly. "Cerberus is bad news for everyone. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't chase her down. I wouldn't. They had already invaded the fleet once, I wasn't going to let that happen again. This is why it was not easy for us to just assume you weren't on their side."
"That does add a bit more perspective. Sorry, I didn't mean to play peanut gallery."
"It would be silly of me to believe that you already knew," Tosh said, his voice returning to analytical neutrality. He returned his attention to his omni-tool and started typing again. "But like I said, I've moved on. Just as we should be. If I find anything else out, I'll let you know. In the meantime, I am going to try and unlock this for us. Limited or not, I am sure it will be beneficial."
"Thanks," Kevin said with a nod.
For some reason, the word 'unlocking' sparked something in his head. His locked files on his storage device. If there was anyone who could unlock them, it was Tosh. Would he be able to trust this quarian who obviously despises Cerberus with locked Cerberus data, though? It could be that act of trust that might help Tosh understand this unknown variable better.
"Was there anything else you'd like to discuss?" Tosh asked in response to Kevin having not left yet.
"Actually, there was. I have a favor to ask, Tosh. A huge one." Kevin stepped a bit closer toward Tosh so that he could lower his volume without contending with the soft hum of the life support machinery.
Tosh stopped typing and looked at Kevin again. "Normally I'd say that we don't have time for favors, but you make it sound important."
"It is, to me. I have a set of files on a storage drive that are tightly encrypted and they more than likely pertain to a portion of my past that I don't know much about. If you were able to decrypt them for me, I'd be extremely grateful."
Tosh paused. "This is about what the Illusive Man said to you, isn't it?"
"Quite possibly. It's very personal, very sensitive data. You're the first person I trust with enough skill to do it."
There was a moment of silence between them as Tosh considered the request. After about a minute of thought, he gave Kevin his answer. "Alright Folner, I'll give it a look. I assume this is something you don't want the others to know about?"
Just as Kevin was about to reply, the door opened and Arla stepped in. "Ah. The captain said I might find you in here."
Kevin looked at Arla and then back to Tosh. "If at all possible. Thanks, Tosh, I'll send you the files later."
Tosh nodded to him and went back to working with the VI core. Kevin then turned around and headed out the door with Arla.
"You have incredible timing," he said. His tone made it difficult to determine if he meant that in a good way or bad way.
"What were you two doing in there, anyways?" she asked.
"Bonding. You were looking for me?"
"Yes, I wanted to see if you wanted to get each other's training out of the way early today."
"Why, do you have someplace to be?" he asked playfully.
"No, but. . ."
"You're telling me you were looking forward to it? I knew it, you love to train," Kevin pointed at her matter-of-factually. "Or you love to teach. I haven't figured out which yet."
Arla said nothing, presumably to stop the assumptions.
"Okay, I'll play your game, Tavval. So which will it be first? Combat or tech?"
She folded her arms and leaned back on one leg. "I don't care. Either is better than standing here thinking about it."
"Well then, let's decide here and now. From this point on, it'll be tech first, then combat second."
"I can live with that," she acknowledged.
With that decided, they both turned at the same time and headed down to engineering. They took the usual elevator on the left and walked to the workbench. It was oddly quiet in the engine room, probably because the sound of Ralik playing with his lab wasn't adding to the ambient hum of the engine. On the workbench, set before they even entered the room, was a simple combat drone. Its pieces were carefully arrayed on the bench with wires connecting each piece.
"You did fairly well on the exam last time, so I think we'll get into the more physical aspect of your tech training. Now I know you know how electronics work, but I'm going to start teaching you how it all interconnects. This is the same simplified combat drone you worked on last time. Its microfactured system provides good examples of both simple and complex interfaces between hardware and software. As we go on, you will be fitting the pieces together and making sure the connections are working, both physically as well as logically."
Kevin didn't speak, but rather nodded as he let his mind fall into absorption mode. This was a little different than last time – before now it was mostly understanding, now it had equal parts understanding and execution. Arla started by explaining to Kevin various things that he should be able to identify when looking at electronic internals. Not long after that, he was steadily working at the most basic pieces in the drone while Arla continued to point certain things out as well as detail basic procedures that he should be able to follow when working on sensitive equipment.
A couple of hours into the lesson, Kevin was starting to fall behind. He was not used to working on such small devices, much less as he was learning exactly what he was doing. It got to a point where Arla had to stop for a moment to allow Kevin to make some headway on his side of the lesson, particularly for him to figure out a few contacts that needed to be connected for the firmware in the drone to recognize and utilize the navigational equipment that allowed the drone to move.
Arla, who didn't seem able to keep quiet for a few minutes, started asking a question. "The captain told me you put on that whole event last night."
"More or less. She helped me get your drinks ready," he said without looking up. "You were really enjoying yourself."
"Keelah, why does everyone keep pointing that out to me?"
"Do you think that you having a good time is a bad thing?"
"No, I just. . . I don't know. I haven't been able to dance that freely in a long time. So yes, I did enjoy myself. I had fun. There, I said it." Suddenly, Arla wasn't sounding so sure of herself. There was a wall, a divider missing between them which seemed to allow her to talk more comfortably around him.
"Just because you're a marine doesn't mean to have to portray a cold, hard quarian that can't remember what fun is. I mean, come on. You're around my age, aren't you?" Kevin continued to carefully select his moves on the drone. One false move could short-circuit the entire device.
"Twenty-six," she replied. His age.
"People our age need to have fun. I swear its built into life itself, ignoring culture, race, species and gender. If we don't get to have fun, we start to become rigid. You know, like Ralik."
Arla didn't seem to take that as a shot about how she had been acting, but rather took it in like well given advice from an experienced family member. She nodded in thought and after a minute, she turned around to look around the room. Her sights rested on Ralik's lab and Kevin, curious as to what she was looking at, paused his project to look for himself. What he saw was Ralik at his lab, but not typing away or performing system maintenance. He was sitting in the chair, slumped over a counter on his lab, out cold. Or, more accurately, fast asleep. That would explain the lack of noise coming from the lab area. Kevin couldn't help but smile and shake his head.
"So. . . You'll do that again, right?" Arla asked. Her tone was now hushed so that she wouldn't wake the sleeping salarian she was now aware of.
"Dance with you?" he quickly asked, getting back to work on his little project.
Caught off guard by the nature of Kevin's response, she verbally stumbled. "Yes- I mean- No, I meant a dance party. You'll do another one, right?"
Kevin chuckled under his breath. "Another dance party? Sure, I guess. If the demand is high enough. I don't suppose I'll have to worry about that, though. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Maybe I'll have food around as well next time instead of just drinks."
"That sounds like a good idea," Arla confirmed.
She fell silent as Kevin continued to work on the drone, but by now she was beginning to become impatient. Kevin easily noticed the light tapping of her fingers on the workbench. It wasn't so much irritated impatience as it was anxiousness. Something else had to have been bothering her. At least that was one visual cue that Kevin could still pick up on. Meanwhile, Kevin was having a bit of indecision. He avoided one particular set of connections and finished everything else because he wasn't quite sure about three of the interconnecting wires. Nothing was directly labeled – he had to work on the knowledge that he had absorbed from Arla. This was the problem since he either forgot something she mentioned to him, or she failed to describe the situation that he had come across.
"Aren't you finished with that yet?" she asked at the crescendo of speed of her tapping fingers.
"Almost, keep your helmet on. Just. . . I'm not too sure about this setup here. It'll probably be a win or catastrophic-failure-of-the-system decision, too. Can't you help me at all, or is this another one of your exams?" Kevin's eyes were beginning to go cross due to staring at the minuscule tracks of electronics.
"You almost have it. Just finish that connection set correctly and you're done. You can test how you did by turning it on. We won't bother with fitting the sphere back together."
"Engh. . ." Kevin grunted in disappointment at his own indecision. With a mental push, he forced himself to pick one possible solution and stick with it. He made the connections and held his breath as he turned the drone on.
When the device powered up, Kevin was greeted by a very loud, constant screech. He, Arla and Ralik all jumped at the sound and Kevin fought briefly with it to shut it off. Once he was successful in that regard, Kevin kept a perpetual wince on his face coupled with a slightly lowered head.
"What in the white blazes of a neutron star was that?" Ralik shouted, looking all over his equipment. He turned to look at where the sound came from and spotted Arla and Kevin looking back at him.
"Can't a salarian get a quick nap down at his lab for a few minutes? Cloacas." Ralik shook his head and stretched.
"Ralik, you've been down here for hours," Kevin carefully pointed out. "You decided to forgo sleep after the party, didn't you?"
"What? Hours?" He looked at his omni-tool. "Crap. Bah. I'm going up a deck to eat. Please do not bring any squealing, malfunctioning pieces of equipment in there for the time being, alright?" Without listening for a response, Ralik took an elevator up and stormed out of the engine room.
Kevin looked back to Arla. "I guess this means I fail, huh?"
"Afraid so, Folner. Don't worry about it too much, though. This exam usually doesn't take place until at least another month of class, so I kind of expected you to fail," she said unforgivably.
"Oh, that's great. Expected to fail. Thanks for that. My ego could really use another boot to the neck, please!" He wasn't at all serious.
"We'll just try again tomorrow after another lesson," Arla said while she started collecting the bits of the now defective rendition of Tula'Rok vas Namor. "I'm going to make sure you pass that exam."
"At least you aren't giving up on me. I'm pretty sure the tech teachers back in highschool had given up on me by this point. I think they decided – without my input I might add – that I not go for an engineering scholarship."
"Well, you aren't the worst student I've seen, but. . ."
Kevin clenched his quarian-like hands around his neck. "Ow! Augh! My ego! Neck. . . Collapsing. . ."
Arla shook her head and stood from her stool. "I'll meet you in the entertainment room in five, okay?"
"Ego. . . Can't breathe!" Kevin grasped at the thin air around him, playing as if he was choking.
Arla sighed a lighthearted sigh and placed her hands on her hips. "Fine. How about. . . 'I am sure you will ace it next time! You are a fast learner! Do not forget to get your gold star for today!"
Kevin shot up as if nothing had happened this whole time, pumping a fist into the air. "I'm glad you think I'm such a great student, Ms. Tavval! I'll pass that test next time for sure! You'll see!"
Arla shook her head again, possibly loosening a snicker in the process. "Just meet me there in a few minutes, alright?"
"Done and done." As Kevin responded, he joined her on the elevator and headed up. When they exited, she headed for the crew quarters and Kevin traveled to the entertainment room to wait for her.
Kevin had already gotten a head start on removing his armor by the time Arla showed up. This time she was the one who brought water for them to drink and she tossed the bottles off to the side of the room just before she started working off her armor as well. Much like last time, Kevin found himself inadvertently staring as she did so, causing the speed of his removal of the final two pieces to slow to a crawl. It was no surprise, then, that she finished before him, but it wasn't until she finished that Kevin snapped out of it.
It's just armor, Kevin, he thought to himself. Get it together. Seriously, it's no different than a hardsuit. Also, don't trip on your pauldrons.
It wasn't long after this that they were ready and training. They were both beginning to get used to doing this more often and conversation before the training didn't need to happen anymore. Kevin better understood Arla's way of learning, so he no longer had to spend an hour or two gauging how she was picking up on the training. It was starting to get. . . typical. A bit of change between the last session and this was enough to keep her learning, and next time he considered introducing practice weapons for the beginning of armed CQC.
They trained for about three hours before they called it quits. They collectively decided to get some grub in the mess rather than just hang around in the entertainment room, even before they had a chance to slow their heart rates. When they stepped into the mess hall, they found that nearly everyone was already in there, sitting down for their own meals.
Ralik and Tosh were chatting away about something at one table, their omni-tools projecting images onto the flat surface in front of them. At the same table were Tyr and Siri, generally ignoring everything that the scientific duo was talking about and having their own conversation. Riik and Welkas were grabbing things from the kitchen and making their way over to a table where Bela was sitting by herself. Arla and Kevin were beginning to feel left out. Had they missed something? Just as they were about to ask, Bela noticed them and piped up.
"Ah. A man and a woman walking into a populated room together from origins unknown, panting heavily. . . It warms the heart, doesn't it? It's like something out of a romantic comedy!"
"Stow it, Merni. It's not like that and you know it," Arla said, brushing it off.
"It's alright, Merni," Riik said, joining in. "It's not like we need to know about all of their "activities", right?" The word 'activities' was aptly accompanied by air quotes. He, Kar and Bela laughed as they joined her at the table with meals in hand.
"Everyone's in such a great mood today!" Kevin said with over the top enthusiasm. Just as he finished, he turned to Arla. "I'm scared."
"Alright guys, enough," the captain said mixed with a laugh. "It's perfectly normal to walk into the mess hall with your trainer, breathing heavily."
There was a short round of silence. Enough to cause Ralik and Tosh to look up from their engrossing conversation.
"Depends on the training," Welkas added afterwards, unable to contain himself. The laughter resumed in full force.
Kevin noticed Arla trying to hide clenching fists. It was time to break it off or he figured Arla would get unnecessarily defensive. "Hardy har har," Kevin said as he walked towards the kitchen. "Good to see you guys haven't lost your sense of cruel and unusual punishm- Err, humor."
"Hey, if we didn't poke fun, things would get boring around here," Bela said.
Arla joined Kevin in the kitchen, searching for something to eat. "Bosh'tets," she said under her breath.
"Hey, lighten up. They're just joking."
"I hate being the butt of a joke. Always have. Especially when it comes to me and a-" She trailed off, realizing that she didn't want to finish the statement.
"Come on, you have a thicker exo-suit than that. I mean, you've had to deal with me for hours at a time over the past few days." Kevin grabbed a few things here and there and pulled something meaty from the refrigerator.
Arla stared at him with a blank, visor covered look for a moment before she nodded. "Yeah, I know. I just need to learn to let it drop."
Arla grabbed something for herself and returned to the long rectangular tables. She sat down on the corner seat of the joking trio's table next to the empty space between that table and the one the captain sat at. Meanwhile, Kevin was making something for himself in the kitchen. It was a simple meal, so it only took him about twenty minutes to make. When he finished and was bringing his meal out to sit with the rest, everyone was talking and laughing – even Arla.
"Crisis averted," he said to himself as he walked into the noisy crowd.
"What?" Kar asked him.
"You guys saved me a seat, right?" he responded.
"If you can call that seat saved, you can sit next to the science duo over there."
"Gee, thanks," Kevin responded with humorous sarcasm.
When Kevin sat down, he filled in the gap of people at the table. Since he went to the kitchen, the two groups – separated by the person-wide gap between tables – had crowded around said gap. Siri and Tyr at one side of one table, the gap, then Arla and Bela. On the other side, it was Tosh, Ralik, Kevin, the gap, then Kar and Riik. It was like a classic energetic family dinner with multiple conversations spanning the entire group. Everyone was sharing comical stories about each other's past, usually closely pursued by laughter.
When Kevin sat down, he immediately took the knife and fork he took with him and he start brutally destroying the tasty looking meal he made for himself. Brutally. This caused the conversations around him to cease as they stared in pseudo-horror at Kevin's apparent love for food.
Ralik, who must not have fully understood why he was doing such a thing, was the first to speak up. "Kevin, what are you doing?"
Kevin stopped and looked up. "What? I'm prepping my meal."
"That's not preparation. That's obliteration," the salarian responded.
"You ever use a straw before, Ralik?" Kevin asked.
"Yes, why?"
Kevin flipped his food-tube down. "You try sucking a well cooked solid food meal through one and tell me how it goes for you."
"I. . . Oh. Right." Ralik promptly shut up and activated his coping mechanism of 'going back to work' with Tosh.
Bela stood up from her seat, leaned over the table and slapped Riik on the shoulder. "See? I told you he'd learn fast. You owe me one armor polish."
"Fine, fine," Riik responded dismissively.
"While I'm wearing it," Bela added.
"For Keelah's sake, Merni. Really?"
"That's alright, Riik," Kevin said, pointing his now useless fork at him. "We don't need to know about all of your "activities", right?"
The group burst out into gentle laughter. Riik pointed at Kevin, his hand moving back and forth as though he were poking the air. When he failed to find a suitable retort, he let his hand fall to the table in the form of a loosely clenched fist, shaking his head and chuckling. Kar leaned over the gap towards Kevin and offered a fist, which Kevin subsequently met with a fist of his own.
"This isn't over between you and me," Riik playfully threatened.
They all remained at the table for about another hour or so, finishing meals, telling more stories and making more jokes. During this time, however, Kevin was steadily noticing something. Something important that he still hadn't done yet. Just about everyone except him and Siri had found a way to wear their Xelvas'taersh emblems.
Tyr wore his like a bandolier with the icon dangling on the front of his left shoulder. Bela, in classic Bela fashion, had hers wrapped tightly around her right thigh with the medallion hanging on the outside of the leg. Riik had his similar to Tyr's in the sense that it wrapped over his shoulder, but he didn't cut his short so that it wrapped like two bandoliers over each shoulder with the icon carefully placed so that it appeared to dangle from where the band crisscrossed over his chest. Welkas wore his the loosest, wrapped twice around his neck like a dual layer chain necklace with the emblem classically hanging from the bottom loop. Tosh's was wrapped several times around his left forearm with the icon dangling halfway – out of the way of his hand and his frequent omni-tool use.
Even Ralik had his on. His was wrapped around the spacer on his hardsuit that arced across his chest and the medallion dangled on the right side of the arc like a military medal. Kevin took mental note of all this and decided that he'd finally do something with his when he had a moment. For now, though, he'd just continue to enjoy the company of friends around him – something for years he never thought he'd have.