A/N: Alright everybody, new chapter is out! This one is more character interaction and whatnot, the next chapter through is Feros, so expect a long action packed chapter! But for now, I leave you with this.
Chapter 22
-Romance Tips-
I re-board the Normandy and open my Omni-tool, quickly locating Lorin's file and searching feverishly for the edit button. I know Aila said not to touch Lorin's file but I can pass up an opportunity to abuse my authority, plus I doubt Lorin put in the effort to fill out the form properly anyway. Hell he probably just gave up and told the lady to fuck off, I came pretty close when she kept asking me about my past. Not only could I not say anything about being from another universe, I'm not talking about my childhood. It was the past, that's where it will stay.
My inner thoughts are interrupted when I bump into someone and I turn to see Tali nervously looking at me as she rubs her arm.
"Sorry." She stammers as she tries to walk away from me, I don't let though as I take a quick stride towards her.
"Na it's my fault." I say as I wave my palm at her. "I wasn't watching where I was going, little busy with something." I smile as I wave my Omni-tool in the air.
"You know a quarian?" she asks, I look at my Omni-tool to see that Lorin's picture is still displayed.
"Oh, yeah." I say as my Omni-tool fades away and my hand rests in my pocket. "That my friend Lorin Nazza."
"You're friends with a quarian?" Tali asks, sounding a little shocked.
"Yeah, guys an asshole." I smirk.
Tali cocks her head at me. "I… you said you were friends…" she shakes her head, sounding very confused.
"Yeah, we are." I assure her. "It's just the guy as an ass, that doesn't mean we can't get along. Sort of… I mean, I guess we don't technically get along..."
"Are you sure you're friends?" she asks again, still not convinced. "It doesn't sound like it."
"Trust me, we're friends." I nod as we start to walk down the stairs.
"How can you be sure?"
"Well," I say as I twist my mouth to the side, thinking back to one of my fathers cobbled together moral lessons. "my dad always said there is a sure fire way to know if your friends with someone, and even if you love someone. Anybody in this galaxy that you would take a bullet for, someone who you would risk your body for them, they are your friends. The people you love well, you would die for them. Simple as that."
"That… makes sense." She says politely, agreeing seemingly only to not be rude.
"Yeah, my dad wasn't a scholar or anything." I smile, thinking back to the many 'lessons' my father taught me. None of them were bad mind you, but they were all thought up on the spot when my curious young mind asked seemingly impossible questions. "But he was a good human being."
"Was?" she asks hesitantly.
"Yeah, he passed away two years ago." I nod.
"I'm sorry." She says as she wrings her hands together. "I can't imagine losing my father."
When she says that I immediately remember Tali knelt in front of her father and what a wreck she was that day. There's a nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me to tell her, to warn her so it doesn't happen but I shut it out. Now is not the time or the place, I doubt she would even believe me. "I hope you never have to."
We walk down the stairs and Tali makes a calm break for engineering, but with nothing better to do and the fact that Tali and I haven't talked very much I decide to follow her into the Normandy's engine room. I'm about to engage her in another conversation but something immediately distracts me, Alex is on the far right wall using some sort of machine.
The machine is jutting out of the wall, and by the looks of it retracts into it as well. The machine is a simple glass box, three arms inside of the box whir around as they construct small parts like a 3D printer and assemble them into what looks like an ammo block shear for a gun. Alex is watching the code of the program scan across the terminal, each line appearing in conjunction with movement from the machine. This is a machinists, engineers, or any other metal working tradesman's wet dream.
"What are you doing?" I ask over Alex's shoulder. "What is that… magical machine?"
"3DCNCA machine." He says with a smile as he watches the machine create the shear, like he's watching his child ride a bike for the first time. "Beautiful isn't it?"
"I've never seen anything like it." I say in awe as I pivot my head around the machine, examining every inch. "Does it use CAD?"
"CAD 182." He nods as he opens his Omni-tool. Jesus, the last version of CAD I used was 13. "I sent you the download, have fun with that. I sure as hell am."
"I will my friend." I say as I watch the downloads progress bar crawl across my screen longingly. I'm about to walk out of engineering when I notice Tali standing at her station, oh yeah, I was going to talk to her.
I walk back up to Tali and tap her shoulder, causing her to turn around to face me. "Hey, what are you doing?" I ask as I nod to the terminal she was pecking away at before I interrupted her.
"I'm trying to increase the efficiency of the Normandy's inertial dampeners without drawing power from essential systems." She says, sounding like a kid in a candy store.
"Sound invigorating." I say sarcastically, a slight smirk tugging at my mouth. I can see Tali's eyes flicker back and forth as she stares at me silently, not quite sure what to say. "I was being sarcastic." I try to explain. "I'm sure it's interesting I just… I guess I was just being a dick."
"Did you want something?" she finally asks, sounding very weary of me as she rubs her hands together.
"Can you make a time machine?"
"No."
"Then no." I say as I look around, trying to see if I can see the awkwardness in the air. "I think I'll try this again later, see you later Tali." I wave before I walk away, leaving her to wonder what the hell just happened.
I walk out of engineering and bump into someone for the second time since I've been on the ship today, I look down to see Shepard looking up at me.
"Sorry Shepard." I say as I thumb towards engineering. "If you're looking for Tali she's in there, Alex too." I try to move around Shepard but she steps to the side with me, blocking me from leaving.
"I found just the person I'm looking for." She says, crossing her arms and staring at me which make me gulp loudly.
"When are we getting to Feros?" I ask quickly, subtly shifting my feet to get ready to run.
"Tomorrow morning, I talked to Chakwas and you're on the ground team." She answers. "Everyone is on the ground team actually."
"Great, cya Shepard!" I salute before juking to the left with a long stride. I feel a firm hand grab my wrist and then another pressing down on my elbow, forcing me to stop and get down on one knee to keep my elbow from hyperextending. I grunt as Shepard leans closer and whispers in my ear.
"I'm not letting you get away this time!" She sings softly, toying with my elbow so I can't focus on an escape. "They are up there again, talking about me." she says, now sounding frustrated. "Why are they talking about me?"
"I don't know!" I lie as my face twitches every time Shepard moves my arm. "You can't do this! You're Alliance, this is a huge abuse of your powe-Ahhhh!" I wince as Shepard tugs on my arm again.
"First off, you're not Alliance, so this is ok. Secondly, this isn't an abuse of power." She shakes her head innocently.
"This is, a literal, abuse of power." I grumble.
"Thirdly," Shepard goes on, ignoring me. "I can be nice, but I will get what I want at the end of the day. Now I asked you nicely the first time, so now I have to be a little more forceful. So tell me what they are talking about please!" she asks sweetly.
"I will not tell you." I sneer as I glare at Shepard. "Why do you even care what Art is talking about?" I ask, setting a verbal trap.
"I don't care what Art is talking about." She snorts.
"So it's Kaidan you care about?" I say as I look up at her, a smug smirk curling on my lips.
Shepard's face twitches, just ever so slightly but I notice. "Why, does it look like I care?" she asks, sounding surprisingly insecure. I think I may have struck a nerve, a sweet-for-Kaidan nerve.
"What's it matter if it looks like you care?" I ask, playing psychiatrist in order to keep Shepard from breaking my arm. "Do you care? I think you care, more then you even know. How long have you and Kaidan been work together?"
"Years." She says with a reminiscent smile. "We've been friends since the first day we were put in a squad together."
"And you want to be more then friends." I nod gently. However, when I say this Shepard stares blankly into the distance and her mouth moves as her eyes move with intense thought. The she looks at me with a smug glare, and my illusions of escape shatter.
"Nice try." She mocks.
"Goddamnit!" I snap quietly. I hear a door open behind me and I crane my head back awkwardly to see Alex standing in the doorway looking impossibly confused at the situation laid out in front of him. "Alex! Help me!"
"Nope." he says simply as he walks around us.
"ALEX!" I shout desperately.
"Noooope!" he calls out as he rounds the corner.
"YOU COWARD!"
"Just tell me what they were talking about." Shepard sighs.
"BREAK MY FUCKING ARM ANNE OF GREEN GABLES!" I roar as I glare at Shepard, but when Shepard leans forward half an inch my mind is changed. "I didn't mean it, please don't break it! Argh… Gee you're… nggah… so pretty!" I plead with soft pained sobs.
"Just tell me."
"You have issues Shepard." I shake my head at her. "How can you be so insecure with this shit? You're the first human Spectre, went through N7 training and might just be the most persuasive person in the galaxy, yet you can't talk to Kaidan about how you feel."
"I didn't have a lot of time growing up on a station to date." Shepard chastises me, as if I should know what her past is. Well, which of the three options is her past. "Then when I joined up there was even less time."
"So just flings for you eh?" I smirk.
Shepard smirks at this and rolls her eyes modestly. "Well, I wouldn't call them flings."
"Ruining men for other women eh? You dirty girl Shepard." I smile. There's a slight pause before my face grows serious and I stare at Shepard. "Now let me go." I mutter, tucking my lip into a snarl.
"Well, how did you tell someone you like them?" she asks, still pressing down on my arm.
"Are you serious?" I ask in pure disbelief. "You want dating advice from me?"
"Well I'm not asking Wrex." She chuckles. "And Kaidan has Art…"
"No." I say sternly. "Figure it out on your own, besides, I don't think my advice will work that well on Kaidan… and it's also meant for women."
"You can't adapt it to work on men?"
"Probably, but this is for you to do. Stop pussyfooting around and just talk to him." I sigh, growing very tired of this whole ridiculous conversation. "Now get off of me before I force you off." I warn, biotics sparking to life and tearing across my body like a gas fire.
"No need to get all flustered." Shepard scoffs as she lets me go. "We're touching down on Feros at 0800, don't be late."
I let out a huge sigh of relief and start massaging my arm, just lying there in blissful release as my fingers dig into the muscle around my elbow. I lie on the ground for a few minutes before I get up and walk over to the requisition table, the soldier not there at the moment for whatever reason. I look around and see a crate with my name on it so I reach over the table and scoop it up, taking out my new shiny armor and packing it away in my locker.
The locker next to mine opens and I turn to see Dylan putting something away. "Hey man, what's going on?" I ask as I lean on the weapons table.
"Nothing much." He shrugs. "What about you?"
"Just being assaulted by the commander for romance tips." I say nonchalantly.
There's a long pause before Dylan final shakes his head. "I'll bite, what are you talking about?"
"Shepard likes Kaidan." I explain. "Kaidan likes Shepard, neither have the balls to do anything about it. Shepard keeps seeing Kaidan and Art whispering about it so she decided to take out her insecurity on my arm."
"Huh." Dylan nods.
"Yeah, they should have called this ship the Love Boat not the Normandy." I chuckle. "It's like the fucking bachelor or something."
"Why do you say that?" he asks with a curious smile.
"Well, let's start at the top." I sigh in preparation. "There's Kaidan and Shepard, Art and Tali,"
"Art and Tali?" he asks. "Ian and Tali maybe."
"Yeah, it could be either of them I suppose." I admit. Both of them got involved with Tali, I wonder which one will in the end. "Anyway, Art or Ian and Tali, you and Ashley-
"What?" he coughs suddenly. "Me and Ash aren't… we're just friends." He stutters.
"Whatever you say Romeo." I smirk. "You're red face says otherwise though."
"Well what about you?" he asks accusingly.
"What about me?" I ask.
"You've been hanging around with Liara a lot, anything going on there?" he asks, smiling in anticipation of an awkward stutter fest.
"Why not?" I say honestly. "I mean, Liara and I have gotten to be good friends over the past week. I could see it being something more than that though, I can see that pretty easily actually and it's not like I haven't thought about it." I rant on, Dylan seemingly disappointed with my calm logical answer. "What's with the face man?"
"Nothing." He says as he shakes the disappointed look off his face. "I just expected a different answer."
"What you thought I was going to go red in the face like you?" I laugh, causing Dylan to scowl at me. "Oh come on man, you can't tell me you've never thought of you and Ashley being more than just friends."
"No, were just friends." He tries to convince me, but I read his story and know better.
"So if you and Ashley are hanging out, and she leans in for a kiss, you're not going to dive right in?" I ask, smirking with a raised eyebrow. "You would pull away?"
"Well…" he hums hesitantly. "I don't know."
"You do know." I nod, still smiling. "You're just scared of being rejected, which is fine."
"No I'm not." Dylan scoffs, forcing himself to smile.
"Here's Ash right now." I say as I point to the opening elevator door, the elevator containing one Ashley Williams. "Ask her if she wants to go to dinner on the next shore leave, I know a guy who can set you up with a nice suit."
"No, I'm not going to do that." he shakes his head adamantly.
"Scared?"
"No, I just…"
"What are you two gossiping about?" Ashley kids as she walks up next to us, causing Dylan to go quiet and me to grin wide.
"Nothing." Dylan says quickly.
"You." I say at the same time.
"Me?" Ashley asks with an unsure smile.
"No we're not!" Dylan snaps, wide eyed and red faced.
"Wow Dylan, your face is all red!" I say, feigning concern. "That weird how it does that, you two should talk about that. Bye!" I laugh as I walk away.
I here Dylan's stuttering conversation pitter out as I walk away, headed to the elevator to get something to drink. On my way up I decide to give Pac a call, I flick through the contacts and when I find his name a press the holographic call button. Eventually I am greeted with the cyan painted face of Pakiev Kratest.
"-Maverick, to what do I owe the pleasure?-" Pac smirks.
"Oh not much, thought I'd take time out of my busy schedule saving the galaxy to talk to the little people." I grin.
"-Mmhmm.-" Pac rolls his eyes. "-That's very modest of you.-"
"Yeah I know." I sigh. "Anyway, I got someone who might be of use to you."
"-You should really talk to Aila.-" he shakes his head. "-She'll be able to get you whatever company he has.-"
"No, it's just a guy." I tell him. "He's an armorer, I'm sure he knows weapons too."
"-We can always use more bodies.-" he nods. "-What's his name?-"
"Golum." I say and Pacs eyes narrow at me when I tell him Golums name. "Yeah, he's a krogan. Old too, I think he said he was six hundred years old or something, so he should know his stuff."
"-Alright, I'll give him a shot and let him know you gave me your word.-" Pac says slowly. "-We could use a second opinion with some of our projects, or we could put him on your team.-"
"What kind of stuff are you making?" I ask before coming to a realization. "Wait, I have a team?"
"-Yeah, Lorin's in charge of it right now.-"
"Ah Christ." I moan, shaking my head to the side. "How's that going?"
"-Surprisingly well.-" Pac says, sounding surprised and baffled at the same time. "-If he didn't get such good results I would have had him killed by now.-"
"No you wouldn't." I chuckle.
"-Probably not.-" he nods. "-I would do it myself.-"
"Well good luck with that." I laugh. "Can you tell me about the things you're working on?"
"-Hmm, right now we are finishing a prototype of a new fighter.-"
"Like a jet? Cool!" I exclaim. "Do we have the money to build an entirely new military fighter jet?"
"-Heh.-" Pac chuckles. "-With the amount of money Aila is making, yeah we can.-"
"Really?" I ask. "How much money are we making?"
"-Aila's got us over thirty companies that will help us research new technologies and hardware, which already make more credits then you would know what to do with.-" Pac nods with a turian smirk. "-Not to mention the few hundred feeder companies that are only there to make us money.-"
"That's, that's awesome man!" I say, baffled at the progress Icarus has made without me. "That's gotta be great for you, you could get some crazy shit for our guys."
"-Let's just say we don't have power in numbers,-" Pac says, sounding a little disappointed before perking up with a mischievous turian grin. "-But each one of our soldiers could have their own M35 Mako tank if I felt like it.-"
"That's fucking awesome." I grin back. "I'm headed to Feros soon, got anything for me?"
"-I can have a hundred pairs of boots on the ground in two days.-" Pac beams, impressed with his own accomplishments.
"Naw, too late man." I shake my head. "My boots will be on the ground tomorrow morning."
"-Well good luck with that, if you need any help with anything else just give me a heads up.-"
"Alright Pac, take care." I say before I disconnect my Omni-tool.
I start to make my way towards the kitchen, noting that Art and Kaidan are still talking next to the wall fridge. I squeeze past the two of them and start rifling through the fridge, shaking my head at the hushed whispers of Art and Kaidan who are still talking. This is ridiculous, what fluff has Art been filling Kaidans head with that he hasn't talked to Shepard yet? Arts approach might work with a shy nervous girl like Tali, but not with Shepard. Shepard is a strong confident woman who need a take charge guy, or at least I thought she was, apparently she's an insecure teenaged girl scribbling Alenko on her binder. I just… I don't know what the hell is going on anymore, the Normandy is fucking weird.
"Either of you two want a drink?" I ask with my head in the fridge.
"No thanks." Kaidan speaks up.
"I'll take a Tupari if there's any left." Art says into the fridge.
"Well, it looks like Ian missed one." I say as I fish out one of the sweet drinks and a water for myself. I toss the Tupari over to Art and start to walk past them, stopping to lean towards Arts face. "Knock it off." I warn him, getting a very confused stare back from Art.
"What?"
"You know what." I sneer as I shake my head at him. "Stop meddling with stuff Cupid, either drag it out in the open or leave it be."
"Drag what out?" Kaidan asks, sounding worried.
"You and Shepard." I say bluntly as I flop my head in his direction.
"What about me and Shepard?" Kaidan asks, his body tensing a bit.
"You know what." I sneer like I did before. "Don't be scared, just do it man."
"I don't…"
"Yes you do." I sigh as I walk off, leaving them to their thoughts. I check the time on my Omni-tool and see that I've got a few hours to kill before I need to go to sleep, I suppose I could take a look at my new CAD program. I'm sure with enough time I could make something cool, a mod or new weapon or… something, I don't know but it'll be a good time sink.
I set up a playlist of big band music to listen to as I research videogame weapons and materials, greats like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Nat "King" Cole and Sammy Davis Jr. After an hour or so of searching through some of my favorite videogames I come across the game RAGE and notice one of the most satisfying weapons in the digital world, the Wingstick.
After another hour I manage to get the basic design, the tri bladed boomerang folding using a spring loaded pin release in the center. That way I can fold up the blade into a 'V' shape with two of the blades over lapping. There are also a bunch of future materials that I can use instead of steel, materials that are lighter and tougher but are also expensive.
As I run stress tests and some assembly simulations I hear someone walking up behind me over the quite brass instruments and soothing vocals, the seat next to me pulls out and is filled with a body.
"What are you working on?" Liara asks as she leans closer to my Omni-tool.
"It's called a Wingstick." I say in a monotone voice as I stick my tongue out, focusing on designing a handle into one of the blades. "Like a boomerang and a knife, a kniferang."
Suddenly the bombastic intro to Sammy Davis Jr's Black Magic blasts through my wrist, suddenly enough to cause Liara's head to snap to my Omni-tool to see what all of the fuss is about.
"What are you listening to?" she asks curiously, tilting her head to hear Sammy belt out some awesome vocals. "It sounds very old."
"Yeah." I chuckle. "About two hundred and fifty years old."
"Most people our age don't listen to music like this anymore." She says, drumming her finger to the blaring trumpets.
I stop my work and look up at her, a goofy smirk on my face. "Our age? You're at least five times my age."
"You know what I mean." Liara smirks, rolling her eyes at me. "We're at the same maturity level then, is that better?"
"A little." I snicker. "You're still way more mature then I am, you're like a blue Indiana Jones, digging through ruins and solving mysteries."
"Indiana Jones?" she cocks her head.
"Oh yeah." I say as I lean forward. "He was famous on earth, known for some most famous archeological finds ever."
"Really?"
"For sure." I nod, trying not to smile. "They made a few documentaries on him, the first three were excellent but the last was stretching his legacy, even diluting it with fictional pieces."
"He sound interesting, I should look up some of his work." She says, making a mental note.
"Yeah." I snicker. "His work is inspiring."
"What are you laughing at?" she asks, smiling with me but not knowing why. "Was it something I said?"
"Ah don't worry about it." I wave off. "I'm just proving my maturity point."
Liara looks at me with a crooked curious smile, the same look kids have when they watch bugs move through the grass, wondering where they are going and what they are doing.
I go back to working on my Wingstick, fixing the new problem that would cut of my fingers if I tried to flick the blades open and Liara actually stays next to me. She asks about the program and about anything else that comes up, and I make the pleasant mistake of asking her about the protheans. She talked about them for well over an hour but I didn't mind, it was surprisingly interesting leaning about the things she had found out and how much of it was actually true based on what Javik says in ME3.
"You know." She says, crossing her legs as she leans back on her chair. "This music seems to have a theme."
"Yup, any guesses?"
"Love obviously." She says. "Every one is about love, good or bad it's about love."
"It makes the galaxy spin." I nod, closing my CAD program for now.
"Some people might disagree." She shrugs. "Some would think its money, or power."
"Yeah but what of money and power?" I ask, leaning on my knees. "It's the love of money, and the love of power. Love can be applied to pretty much anything, and no matter what it's what everything will boil down to."
"I never thought of it that way." She says, looking up in the aforementioned thought. "I suppose your right."
"A rare occurrence." I laugh as I stand up. "I'm going to bed, see you in the morning Liara."
"Goodnight." She says as she walks towards the med bay as I head to the snore pit that is the men's quarters.
Everyone was woken up at seven in the morning and we all move towards the vehicle bay, I stick around in the locker room to take my medicine once everyone is gone. Once I'm done that I head down to the armor lockers to find most people are just finishing up there buckles and straps. I quickly strip down and throw on my fresh gel armor, ignoring the protests and sarcastic catcalls. I clip on my armor and look over to see everyone all suited up.
All of the original squad is armored up like they usually are, Shepard in her N7 light armor, Ashley in her white and pink armor, Wrex in his red, Garrus in blue, Tali in purple and Liara and Kaiden in black. The fanfic boys though are all suited up in very different custom armor. Ian has his Blood Dragon style armor with a Dead Space folding helmet. Alex has black armor and the merc helmet from ME2 with the round eye holes, a red grinning skull painted on his face that matches up with the eye holes. Art has his own set of grey armor with bright orange vines and floral patterns painted on his shoulders with black tattoo like markings on his arms Dylans got a black set of armor with a small red hourglass over his heart and his helmet is styled with white scuffs and scratches as well as a red stripe running over where his nose would be.
"Alright people!" Shepard shouts, getting everyone's attention. "There have been reports of geth activity in the area, we are here to find out why! There are colonists in the area, there safety takes priority! Now, let's get going!"
Feros here we come!
[I]
ICARUS
-PERSONNEL DATABASE-
ID Code_A-01-S
Name: Aila Nadeous
Position: Syndicate CEO
Call Sign: Tycoon
Status: Active
Species: Asari
Height: 170cm
Weight: 58kg
Crest Color: Light Indigo Blue
Iris Color: Royal Blue
Skin Color: Indigo Blue
Facial Markings: None
Business Proficiencies
A-01-S has stellar managerial skills, when dealing with employees or companies. A-01-S thrives when put under pressure or when multitasking or micromanaging and seems to work better when put in conditions that most CEO's would find stressful. A-01-S has turned Haynes shipping into Icarus, a high level shipping company into a self-sufficient mega corporation. With the new streamlined Icarus, profits have increased 492.6% and continue to accelerate upwards. These profits have been used to help the growth of the other branches of Icarus by funding and the acquisition of smaller companies that have value.
Psychiatric Evaluation
Work Relations: A-01-S has excellent work relations with other A ranked Icarus employees and is kind to other Icarus personnel on the condition they work hard. A-01-S loses all focus on anything and become completely engulfed in her work, developing a "tunnel vision" effect that A-01-C has commented on, stating that "I could walk around naked in her apartment and she wouldn't even notice, she just stares at that Omni-tool like a teenage girl stares at her phone. I'm not joking, I forgot my clothes on the couch one day and walked out of the bathroom stark naked, she didn't even look up."
Personal Mental State: Icarus employee A-01-S is mentally stable, showing little signs of emotional distress that would be abnormal for someone who has gone through a similar life. A-01-S has moved on and accepted the fact that she was blackmailed from Nos Astra Sporting Goods, quickly forgetting about the whole ordeal completely when Icarus was formed. A-01-S has a strong friendship with A-01-C, and when questioned about their relationship it appears that A-01-S wants something more intimate then a simple friendship, A-01-C however is completely oblivious to this fact. This want for more intimacy could be because of Knight In Shining Armor Syndrome, as A-01-C has saved A-01-S from a hostage situation as well as gaining her the means to run a mega corporation once again. This added with constant close proximity, it would be very easy for A-01-S to acquire a "crush" with A-01-C.
BIOTIC LEVELS
F.D.S.R
Force: 1
Discrimination: 3
Surge: 1
Reserves: 2
B.P.L
Current: 1
Potential: 2
R/R
OBSERVER01: Thanks, and I don't want Mav to get too OP, especially this early.
Firespark15: Thanks!
ForgottenPrince: Thank you. It looks similar to the Cerberus logo, the main reason I used it though is it looks good and it could be put into text.
topricie97: I'm looking forward to Novaria, how'd you know I was going to try out some horror?
Orchidellia: Always good to see a familiar face eh? Don't worry, I took care of the armorer.
Redleafs16: Thank you, glad you enjoyed it! I've got a plan for that, making the military more formidable, and it'll spark up an AU. Now problem, I liked answering them and if you have more don't hesitate!
Dragonfire781: Thanks, hope this one stacks up. Icarus is developing behind the scenes, which is a little sad but will add little peaks when new tech just starts showing up. I will try!
Kaiya Smith: Just a delayed plan, Icarus still got him. I definitely want to separate Icarus and Cerberus, while they can be similar I want it to be clear that they have different motives. There's something coming up a bit later in the series that will definitely draw a line between the two companies, but that's a bit off in the distance.
Lanilen: Yeah, tons of SI's in this story! Glad you liked that part, it was pretty fun to write!
Spiritstrike: Great to see a review! Meditation might not be so bad, yoga though… a lot worse. DelVarO helped out with that conversation, glad you liked it. Yeah I thought it would make sense for Ian to ask about it, I mean I would ask for sure. It might get a little heated on that mission, tempers flaring and whatnot.
Possibly, love triangles could be interesting but it makes me nervous, I have no idea how they should work but I'll give it a go. No it's not bad, I'm sure there might be others who agree with you on that. Yup, Aila is definitely trying to catch Mavs eye, it worked but not in the way she had hoped.
I'm happy people are liking the [I] files, they really work great when I find it hard to write and need something to inspire me! You guessed correctly, D-02-C is the one and only Lorin!
Nope, I honestly can't believe it! But I'm happy nonetheless, good luck with the next one!
Definitely NOT a merc.
Yurei Hanatsuki: Got it and accepted it. Don't worry, Golum's all taken care of. I've never seen the show Leverage, but someone else made the same comparison so I might check it out.
general-joseph-dickson: But which asari?
V-rcingetorix: Glad you liked the file, and yeah it's staying at the end unless there's a good reason for it to be dropped in the middle of a chapter. Answer: Yeah they are, and I'm excited to write in Mav/Jack stuff, should be interesting to have them talk and/or fight!
Yeah, pretty weird anyway. I'd like to watch a Kingdom Hearts UFC fight, I don't know how it would work but I'm interested nonetheless.
I originally wanted Mav to have the amp but when I started to think about what it would do I immediately decided it would be too much. Yup, both Aila and Icarus are stuck in the background for now. Another answer: a lot of money, most companies stay in their field ei pepsi sticking in the food industry but if there were no limits, companies and shop could be acquired solely for profits. They don't have to have the Icarus stamp but they would be passing up money. It's hard to write in winning contacts and whatnot organically, I can't just have Aila call up Mav and say "hey got that company, bye" so I have to try to hint at it now and then, sort of like this chapter's conversation with Pac. Once ME1 is over they will be more Icarus time but until then I'm stuck in "hint" land.
Nas4a2: For sure, I know I would be fucking with my friends shit constantly. Yeah, I find it funny that Mav has no clue about Aila. Glad you liked the chapter, hope you like this one two.
CrimsonKnight117: Yeah, that didn't work out for him did it? And now Golum's all set.
DelVarO: Ahh don't worry about it man and I'm glad you like the chapter man. Who doesn't love a good drink with a buddy? Not everyone is getting along just yet, but one day maybe.
Yeah yoga is brutal man, who would have thought stretching would be so shitty. I agree, reach is way better!
Thanks dude, hope you like it. And possibly, you never know!