Eric POV

SSV Normandy SR-2, Crew Deck, Lounge

I was sitting in a chair directly opposite to Aleena. She had her focus firmly on the cards in front of her and the slight snarl gave away her displeasure. I took a glance at the other participants in this game of Skyllian Five Poker. Titus appeared to be frustrated by his hand, Joker was wearing a grin as wide as the Cheshire Cat's which meant he had nothing. Zaeed had a blank expression and was staring at others to figure out what they had. Rael was still wearing his mask so none of us could tell his facial expression, however, his body language shows that he has nothing either. So no one on this table has a viable hand. That means whoever wins this is going to have to make everyone believe their bluff

"So…Feros was crazy huh?" Aleena mentioned, trying to draw everyone's attention away from the game.

"Yeah it was! We made two new asari friends, met some really nice colonists. Plus those zombie colonists banging on the ship. That planet is just a bucket of fun" Joker added

"Try being groundside for some of these missions Jeff. You'd absolutely love it" the asari grinned. "I could use your body as a glass battering ram. Imagine the site of me throwing Joker against a Krogan warlord" she giggled

"Easy there Aleena. If you break me then would fly the ship"

"EDI, she's a lot funnier than you" Titus interjected

"See even the Turian with a stick up his ass agrees with me. Hell I could rip the stick and beat you to death with it" Aleena broke into laughter at her own insanity.

"I told you to be careful with this one Shepard. She's incredibly unstable" Titus whispered into my ear.

"Better she's pointed in a direction we can choose than at us" I argued

"Good point"

"What's going on over there?" Zaeed wondered

"Nothing" We responded simultaneously

"Well if the two of ya are done making out then we can get back to the game" Zaeed grouched.

"Shut it old man we all know that you've got nothing" Aleena dismissed.

"Old man! Me!? That's rich considering your probably older than my great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather's grandfather" Zaeed retorted.

"I'm not old I'm wizened" Aleena stated

"It wasn't wise to free fall from the top of the skyway to the main colony even if you could float" I added without taking my eyes away from my hand. But at the edges of my vision I could see Aleena flipping me the bird

"Just how old are you anyway?" Titus wondered

"455 this year"

"Damn! No wonder your earth women are so jealous of asari. You still look as good as they do in the vids. Maybe Hannah and Rylee should be taking notes" Rael lauded.

"What was that Rael?" Rylee mystically appeared behind the Quarian engineer

"Don't kill him Ry. He's my Chief Engineer and it would be a real bitch to find another" I still retained my focus on my cards.

"I'll just break a bone or two. And why don't you care he's basically saying human women are inadequate compared to asari" she pouted

"No… he said that Aleena looked good for her age Rylee."

I've been running this ship for just over a month now and the actual mission has been the easy part. I've been blown up, shot, thrown and burned alive and that has been the simple part. What's been difficult is balancing the personalities aboard the ship.

Zaeed is a mercenary. He has told me that the only reason he's aboard is because the alliance is paying him. When the credits stop coming in then he leaves. He was a likeable enough guy; you could drink with him and talk about the more grizzly topics you can't discuss with others. What impressed me was that he survived a gunshot to the face because of sheer hatred and a thirst for vengeance. What worried me was that every one of his stories ended with the phrase 'and I'm the only one who made it out alive'.

Rael is a good friend. He's slightly crazy but then again so was everyone else aboard the ship. I met him during shore leave aboard the when an asari matriarch was being racist. Elitist snobs like them had this tendency to pop up when I was around. As payback for Rael I convinced their pilot to leave without them so they could be stranded. We headed to Chora's Den after that and the rest in history. He was sort of childish in his sense of humour and his interaction with others but that added to his charm.

Aleena is a mercenary. Like Zaeed she was only as faithful as her next pay check. She was incredibly impulsive and unstable. She takes risks that to her credit work more often than not, but, she's too used to working on her own. She tends to end up nearly throwing me off of buildings or burning Wrex, Kieran and I. I told her to work with us in the combat sim and that's helped but she's still too brash. As a person she's fun to be around and I would love to hang out with her on shore leave. I like her as a person but not as a combatant.

Wrex was someone who was easy to get along with. He was the only mercenary on board who I genuinely believed would stay if the credits stopped flowing. I found him easy to understand. He was driven by his anger towards the Turians and Salarians for the genophage. It ravages the Krogan population and kills their offspring. Wrex was also one of the most intelligent fighters aboard the ship which made him very useful.

My first Executive Officer was Titus Vakarian. He is most probably my closest friend outside of Kieran. He is the most intelligent fighter on the ship. I rely on him for his tactical expertise on the battle field. He's also been a massive help in balancing the personalities. He's managed to actually befriend Wrex and Mordin as well as keep Aleena in check. I would be lost without him.

My third Executive Officer was Kieran Alenko. I've known him ever since we were 15 in London. I was an orphan living on the street when his family took me in. I'll always be grateful since his dad was the one who inspired me to join the alliance. I even managed to convince my partner in crime David Anderson to join with us. He was clever, funny, hardworking and to be honest the only sane person aboard the ship. He was a calming influence on Rylee and they seem to have developed a good understanding between them.

Mordin was the ships combat medic. He was a Salarian trained in medicine and what really tripped me up was the fact that he was only 17 years old. He had this tendency to speak at incredible speeds. He had an honest heart, but he was constantly at odds with Wrex over the genophage. Running interference between those two was quickly becoming a necessity for Titus, Hannah and I. Other than that he gets along well with others, especially Legion.

Legion was a geth unit who was being used as an experiment by the geth. The geth want to see if it is possible for a synthetic to integrate into society. It spent large parts of the day playing video games with Joker. Rael didn't trust the geth since the Quarians and the geth were on the cusp of war before the Council interfered. Me on the other hand actually liked it. Legion had this childlike curiosity about organic behaviour and he was often confused by the banter between the crewmen. The more I got to know the geth, the more and more I began to realise that Geth and Organics had quite a lot in common.

Benezia was an incredibly confident, bordering on arrogant. She was about 900 years old so she was almost a matriarch. Even though she was an incredibly powerful biotic, she insisted on staying aboard the ship and leaving the groundside work to the rest of us. This pissed Aleena off a lot, she took every opportunity to insult Benezia and T'Soni would rebuff her with a snobby remark. I didn't mind Benezia, she was always willing to talk and she would usually suggest options which would end in the least bloodshed. Her perspective will prove to be useful in the future

Samara was the newest arrival who we picked up from Feros. She was a Justicar, her very name struck fear to pirates and slavers in the Terminus System. The way most would describe her, you'd think that she's a 5 headed dragon that spits hot lava at people. All I saw was a gorgeous woman with tremendous virtue. I was initially attracted to her beauty and danger, but I was soon enamoured by her quiet determination and her willingness to do good. She rejected my initial advances but I believe that I could maybe have a chance with her.

And then there was the dynamic duo Rylee and Hannah. Those two are-

My train of thought was interrupted when Zaeed through his cards into the air and stormed away from the table. "What happened Scarface, did you have a bad hand" Rylee teased

"Shepard if she doesn't shut her mouth then she's going to be airlocked" the mercenary growled. His stormed into the elevator and angrily punched in the commands.

"Dramatic exits are almost impossible to pull off with pressurised doors" Joker drawled

"He's just pouting, he'll get over it." Aleena dismissed

The crew's gotten a lot closer ever since Namakli. The last mission on Feros required us to restore an entire colony to full strength. The colonists had been too scared to venture into the tunnels with Cerberus lurking around. On one of the pathways we discovered this disgusting, sentient plant creature called the Thorian. It sent waves of this powerful asari biotic and she proved to be a handful.

After successfully killing the Thorian the real asari emerged from the cocoon. It turned out the Cerberus had captured her in the Terminus System and sacrificed her to the Thorian in order to gain information about a machine. The asari was Samara, a Justicar. She had been hunting a fugitive on Illium when Cerberus blindsided her. She swore an oath to my cause and she joined the squad not long after.

The Thorian had given Cerberus information about something called a Reaper on Tuchanka. They were a race of super machines that were defeated by the Protheans about 50,000 years ago but at a great cost. The protheans were left extinct as a result of the reaper assault and their dying actions are revered by the galaxy today. Cerberus found a dead reaper on Tuchanka. There was information about the Leviathan on that reaper and we need to get to it before Cerberus.

"ETA to Tuchanka is 20 minutes Commander Shepard"

We all looked up from our hands and at each other. I could tell that we were being called away from our game in order to prepare for the mission.

"Too bad we have to go on our mission. Now I can't take your money" Joker moaned. We all proceeded to make similar remarks to that and shared laughter because we all knew the truth.