It paid to be the Pathfinder. Not many people could say the Nexus supplied them with a ship and a crew just for showing up. Sara hoped the new additions were as competent as they were nice.
Cora and Liam immediately made themselves at home. It was insane to know they were running out of commodities like food and water on the Nexus and yet somehow, Liam Kosta had allocated the space necessary to transport a dingy, drab couch to another galaxy.
"It was new when we left," he said like that explained everything.
Or maybe he just meant it to be irreverent and she was reading too deeply into the situation. But Liam smelled nice. Really nice. And Sara had never been one to turn down free beer.
So, she sat on his ugly couch and drank his beer. It probably would have been smarter to touch base with everyone. Introduce herself to the engineer or pilot, maybe get a feel for that turian, Vetra Nyx. It's what Scott Ryder would have done.
Not Sara. Sara Ryder got drunk and tried to subtly sniff her teammate's cologne.
Judging from the smirk on Liam's face, she was not as sly as she'd hoped. He didn't move away though, so she was going to roll with it and hope their exchange didn't get progressively weirder.
"ETA to Eos is fifteen minutes," came a voice over the intercom. High, reedy, male. Sara really needed to learn the names of her new crew.
"You heard the man," Liam laughed as he hopped to his feet. "Race you there!"
Cora was already on the bridge by the time Sara got there. "Habitat One," her father's second announced. "They tried to establish an outpost twice and failed both times."
"Well, third time's the charm, right?" Sara chuckled. She shot a glance to the pilot. Salarian, she'd hoped when she looked at him it would jar her memory.
Kallo Jath. Not that she would have known if she didn't have SAM in her head, supplementing the information. Kallo didn't need to know that. Or Suvi Anwar. The Andromeda Initiative was already a mess and with everyone skeptical over the fact that she wasn't Alec Ryder, Sara needed to prove their concerns were unjustified instead of validating them. She just had to singlehandedly terraform a planet while adjusting to an AI in her head that was far more advanced than anyone realized, figure out how to process losing her father while still being functional, and press forward with an alien race more hostile than the turians and humans after First Contact.
Real simple when all laid out like that. Sara burped up Liam's IPA.
Eos reminded Sara vaguely of Earth's middle east. Not that she'd ever been to the middle east, (or even Earth really,) but she'd seen plenty of patriotic Alliance action vids while growing up.
Dad would say it was propagandist horseshit, Mom would tell him to be grateful that the twins were finally occupied so that the two of them could have a moment together. Scott wanted to be a hero and Sara? Sara just liked them for the big guns and special effects.
Liam and Vetra joined her on the planet, though if they had opinions on Alliance action vids, their thoughts were elsewhere. Possibly on the endless rock chasms or the deadly radiation. Or the kett.
Cora offered to stay on the Tempest and keep watch. "So someone you know is leading the cavalry if things go south," was how she explained it.
Liam was pretty gungho about putting his boots on the radioactive ground and it did give Sara a reason to test Vetra Nyx, so she didn't argue the line up.
The turian was strangely maternal for someone who proclaimed to be a smuggler. Despite the rifle and kevlar, Sara's mind kept trailing to images of Vetra in the carpool lane waiting for her little sweet pea to finish up with his C-Sec Camp or whatever kind of activity it was that mommy and daddy turians enrolled their baby turians in. It was a bizarre disconnect that had Sara wondering if the other woman could really be so multi-faceted or if she was just cracking up.
They got lucky on Eos and did not need Cora's calvary. Their calvary arrived by way of a grumbly old krogan and an asari who was seemingly more socially tone deaf than even Sara herself. Sara decided that meant she and Peebee were going to be great friends. If for no other reason than to piss off Scott when he woke up.
By the time Sara interfaced with the monolith and Peebee tackled her to the ground, her buzz had worn off and she was nearing the introspective hell of debating whether to get water, snacks or just die alone before she inevitably slept it off and woke with cotton mouth and upset bowels. So, as Liam aimed his pistol at Peebee's skull, Sara was content to lay on the ground and contemplate her aching tailbone while a crazy asari attempted to convince them she wasn't. The radiation painted the sky in hazy layers of pinks and purples. It was almost pretty if Sara could forget its lethality.
"Back off, or I will put you down!"
"It's going to be all right. Trust me, okay?"
It felt like everyone had been telling Sara to trust them, lately. She supposed there was no real harm in adding one more name to that list. Besides, Peebee's open midriff and exposed navel seemed sincere enough. The asari leaned in on Sara's shoulders and used them to springboard herself up. Once standing, she extended Sara a hand as she made introductions.
It was obvious that Peebee needed Sara. Or SAM, rather, but Sara was the necessary gatekeeper. She decided to look for the positive and attempt to view it as as mutually beneficial. Peebee had been out of cryo longer and knew more about Eos and Andromeda. A self professed expert on the Remnant tech that attacked them (when the kett were unavailable to do so,) and the monoliths that stretched upwards tall enough to scrape the dusky skyline.
There was a curiosity, maybe envy over how Sara was able to interface with the alien technology so quickly. In another life, maybe six hundred years in the past and over drinks, Sara would have admitted it came as easy as it did, because of her AI and because she watched her father succeed once before. In these new and unprecedented times, however, Sara was pretending she was capable. She lifted her chin with a false confidence and uttered a phrase she sensed she would be doomed to repeat ad nauseam. "Hey. I'm the Pathfinder."