"I can't believe you passed on a chance to sleep with Peebee." It was just the two of them, so Scott had abandoned any decorum and was spinning around in their father's chair.

Sara squinted at him. "Why?"

"I don't know, it seems in your style. I know I would have if I were you."

"You would not!" She threw a pillow at his head.

It didn't even phase him as it ricocheted into the bookcase. "Sure I would."

"You?" she laughed. "With your lifelong hard on for Cora Harper?"

"Why not?" Scott stopped abruptly. "No strings, she said so herself."

"You believe that?" Sara couldn't stop the giggles from bubbling over. "You believe in her being discreet too, right?"

"Well, maybe..." whatever he'd planned on saying faded into a sigh. "Okay. Fair point."

"Besides, I had work to do," she insisted. "Not everyone got to sleep on the job."

"Just sleep with everyone on the job."

"I wasn't that bad!"

"Right, right." Now it was Scott's turn to laugh. "You said you went with a science outpost on Eos?"

"Well, yeah. " Sara shrugged. "It made sense."

"I could see how you'd think that with the kett swarming around and attacking every foothold we established," Scott deadpanned. "Just like your average Prothean dig site. I can't possibly think of any flaws."

"Sure, but without a science team working to figure out things like food and energy, we'd all die anyway," she snapped back. "It was a longshot, but it had the best outcome."

He raised an eyebrow. "Did it piss off Tann?"

"Breathing pisses off Tann."

"You know, I thought one of the selling points to Andromeda was to be rid of shitheels like him." Her brother stretched the full length of his body in the chair. "If Dad was around, he'd have some serious explaining to do."

"Sure, sure, but would he?"

"Of course he would. As soon as he got back from cave diving into an angaran temple."

It felt good to laugh, even though the longer she thought on it and on her father, it became apparent how little she actually knew about him. Alec Ryder had always been a cold and demanding man that she and Scott struggled to please. If given the choice between an evening with his kids or sampling algae on some pond in a remote cluster outside of Thessia, Alec would pick the pond scum every time without hesitation.

Just like he sacrificed his life for Sara's without hesitation. Anyone who didn't know him would say of course a parent would choose the life of their child over their own, but up until that moment it had all sounded like dog shit wrapped up in platitudes.

It was nice to finally have undeniable evidence that her father valued her, maybe even loved her. Had he been scared? Worried? All she heard was his typical matter-of-fact calm.

Sara shook the thought from her head.

She had to fill Scott in on what happened next, if she could even remember. More bureaucratic garbage and then they met the angara. It was disconcerting how SAM was capable of condensing so many of her life experiences into concise, orderly little bullet points as she struggled to even find the words to explain them at all.

On the Nexus, Tann was cordial, which left Sara with an almost instinctive suspicion. For as prickly as Addison was when they established the outpost Prodromos (that Sara could no longer pronounce without also hearing Liam echo the name indefinitely,) she had always been honest.

Tann was... what was it that Scott called him? A shitheel. It was a good word for Tann. The salarian had a knack for making pleasantries crawl beneath a person's skin and it always made Sara wonder at his latest motive.

His most immediate aim was a simple power grab. It was obvious by the way he bristled at Kesh and the safety officer, Kandros, intruding onto Pathfinder Hall even before Kesh called him out on it.

"We move on..!" Sara did have to give Tann credit for how he could steadfastly dig his heels in and flat out ignore any dissenting voices. He waved his fingers as if to shake free any ill feelings before he clasped his hands together. "What is your plan for moving on, Ryder?"

In that instance, Sara's plan was to say whatever was necessary to get her out of that room. There were too many strong personalities butting heads. They all wanted the honor of smiling and nodding as they patted her head without listening to what she wanted before they sent her packing to die on their behalf. Maybe once they succeeded in killing her, she'd get some holographic effigy that they could spin into some pro-Initiative propaganda.

Fortunately, she had SAM to listen to their bickering in her stead and extrapolate any pertinent information. Kesh and Kandros both wanted success and hope, though they disagreed on how to achieve it. Tann just wanted the accolades for Sara's hard work.

It made her wish Addison, with her brusque exterior and tired face, had been present. Almost.

"We have a lead on the terraforming network." It sounded more like SAM's words than hers, but it was something. Navpoints that lit up like constellations of stars inside that vault. Sara had watched them appear in the air with a hushed amazement and silently dared them to deliver on their promise.

Forget the Initiative, Sara Ryder needed something to hope for and cling to. How dare her father drag her all the way here only to leave her hanging by a thread?

That was wrong, she knew it was more complicated than that. It was always more complicated than that.

The navpoints were enough for Tann to chew on while Sara quietly exited. She left him and Kesh and Kandros to what she could only imagine as more quarreling. The Tempest was already refueled and primed to go with coordinates in place by the time she returned. She supposed her dad had made Cora his second for a reason. That the woman had time leftover to water plants onboard after organizing everything was pretty impressive.

Sara gave her second a nod of approval as she cozied into the captain's seat on the bridge. She raised a finger and watched as Kallo lit up his navboard.

"Onward," the Pathfinder declared.