As Jane reaches the top of the stairs, she's surprised to see both sides of the airlock open. Cautiously she walks aboard and looks around until she sees an officer.
"Good afternoon Warrant Officer."
The male officer turns around, startles slightly then salutes, "Welcome aboard sir."
"At ease. I'm Commander Shepherd, where can I find the Captain?"
"The Captain is in a meeting sir. He left orders that you be allowed to stow your gear in the officers lockers on the deck below us." Jane is about to nod when the man adds, "Can I just say, you're an inspiration to all of us red tags sir, Ma'am. We never thought a red tag could ever be selected as an N7."
Slightly uncomfortably, Jane sketches a quick salute, "Thank you for saying so."
Not waiting for another bout of hero worship, Jane heads to the back of the deck past two banks of manned stations, one on each side of the walkway, for the different sensors and systems on the ship. Each one almost a cookie cutter copy of the previous one, apart from the data being streamed to the stations.
At the end of the walkway is the command and control [CiC] of the ship, with a hologram of the galaxy currently displayed in the pit. Jane frowns and stands on her tiptoes as she looks back down the ship. At the far end she can see what looks like a navigation area. Which is not a very human design. Walking around the CiC a downward ramp is immediately obvious, so following orders, she makes her way down to the lower deck.
At the end of the ramp is a corridor leading fore and aft. Offset towards the stern of the ship is a narrow corridor, just wide enough for one person in armour to walk down comfortably. On the stern side of the corridor are two banks of lockers broken up by the doors to two cabinets that are set back from the lockers. It's likely the corridor was regulation width before they decided to put the lockers here too.
Walking over to the lockers, she touches her omni-tool to one. As she does, it buzzes and a computerised voice says, "Invalid locker bank. Commander Jane Shepherd is assigned to berth 3."
As she's frowning at the bank of lockers, one of the cabinet doors opens and a tall human soldier walks out with an N4 tag on his chest, and 2nd Lieutenant pips.
As the soldier turns in the other direction, Jane calls "Excuse me!"
The soldier turns around and salutes, "How can I help you sir?" Then his eyes see the red tag and widen.
Jane waves, "At ease Lieutenant. I was just wondering if you knew where the berths are."
The soldier relaxes, "Right this way sir. Can I say it's a pleasure to meet you Commander, you've been an inspiration for me."
Bemusedly, Jane follows the N4 down the corridor to the other end, where it opens up into an identical corridor to the other side, "Sorry about that Commander, informal policy is to exit the cabinets to the port side, and enter from the starboard side. I'm Kaiden Alenko by the way, and I'm looking forward to serving with you. To be honest, I thought you were a blue tag when I first saw you."
As they walk down the corridor they come to an offset door Kaiden says, "This is the sick bay, and just past this are the berths and hot bunks. Actually sleeping pods because bunks take up too much space."
Jane nods "Thank you. I think I can take it from here."
Kaiden salutes, "Thank you sir, I look forward to serving with you."
Jane nods as she walks past Kaiden into the berths. Inside this area of the ship there are doors on the stern side of the corridor, while the bow side has a wide corridor leading forward.
Finding berth 3 is as easy as counting the numbers on each door, and a tap of her omnitool sees the door slide neatly into the wall to the left hand side.
Inside is a narrow walkway only the width of the door. Just by the door on the right hand side is a shallow indent, just deep enough for a standard cabinet if you remove the coat hooks. On the left hand side is a narrow floor to ceiling wardrobe with three drawers at the bottom. Next to that is the bunk and desk that take up the last of the rooms 3m depth.
The desk itself is slightly inset to the bunk so that the supplied chair fits neatly and out of the way of anyone walking around. At the far end of the desk is a stack of five drawers.
As Jane walks into the room the door slides closed behind her. Turning around she can see the internal controls are set into the door itself, with a simple open and do not disturb button holographically displayed from a small emitter above the door.
Shrugging, she looks at the small alcove and the coat hooks. After a second she brings her palm up sharply to hit the underside of a hook. When it shifts slightly, she smiles and does the same to the hook on the other end. With that the whole row of hooks comes away from the wall to reveal two small keyhole slots where the hooks were.
It only takes her a couple of seconds to set up her cabinet in the alcove. As she tests the door, it opens smoothly into the room with only millimetres to spare as it passes the wardrobe door handles.
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With her equipment now stowed, Jane leaves her berth and curiously looks down the corridor that leads forward. At first she wonders why the corridor is so wide at nearly 3m wide. Then she notices the sleep pods on each side held by six robotic arms. With dawning horror she realises that the hexagonal pattern on the walls are actually chambers for the pods. After a quick count, she sees 48 separate hexagons split between both sides.
At the far end of the corridor is a small bulkhead, which leads to the head, with one waste management station, and three individual cubicles for non-suited individuals.
After taking advantage of the station, she frowns as she notices a distinct lack of showers.
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A quick check of her omni-tool shows that she has now been registered on the ship. Bringing up the ship's duty roster, she can see that the captain is still in a meeting, along with a VIP. Her own schedule hasn't yet been set, which is a little concerning, though she can see she's here in her capacity as a member of the N corps.
With some free time to kill before the ship is due to depart, Jane heads to the sick bay to introduce herself to the doctor.
She's not even finished walking into the sick bay when the doctor, a grey haired woman, looks up, "Good morning Commander, can I help you?"
Jane shakes her head, "Not really, I found myself with some free time after registering onboard, so I figured I'd have a look around."
The woman nods, "Well, I'm Dr Chakwas from the IHA."
Jane looks at Chakwas in surprise, "I thought this was a Systems Alliance ship."
Chakwas tips her hand from side to side, "Sort of, it's a joint project between the Systems Alliance, the IHA, and the Turians. Many of the crew have their own IHA ranks, and have been granted Systems Alliance ranks equivalent to their own. They're still working out my position as I don't have the qualifications the SA require for their doctors."
Jane nods, "I assume that means we're getting no magical support on this trip then."
Chakwas nods tentatively, "Probably, I've got a list of reading material longer than my screen to go through. We do have a new development from the IHA that's almost as good as magical healing is reported to be. Medi-gel, completely bio-neutral and you can either place it on a wound, or inject it, and it will form a scaffold around any part of the body that is showing clotting or inflammation markers."
Jane nods, "That will be useful. It was good to meet you."
Chakwas nods, "Likewise, before you go. I'd like to say thank you for what you did on Elysium, I have family there, and they only survived because of you."
Jane smiles, "I was only doing my duty Dr, but I'm glad they're safe."
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Jane taps her foot as the lift from the stern of the crew deck to the deck below it has already taken a good 30 seconds to go less than half the distance needed.
Finally in annoyance, she opens the emergency access panel. Her eyes widen in surprise when she spots a crank handle sitting in front of a fast spinning gear that's driving a chain. On the back of the door are some instructions that explain what's going on.
"Why would they use screws instead of runes… Oh right, joint project, the ship needs to be run without a magical crew or maintenance. But still, screws? Why not hydraulics?"
An amused voice from outside the lift says, "Because the screws also provide structural support if we have a gravity failure."
Jane turns away from the open compartment to see a balding human, "Engineer Adams at your service Ma'am."
Jane nods, "Jane Shepherd. What do you mean by structural support?"
"This lift is rated for heavy equipment. As we don't have magical assistance." He sneers the word magical, "We have to rely on physics. If our gravity systems shut down with a piece of heavy equipment in the lift, then the supports have to not only hold the lift steady, but also support the mass of the equipment during any manoeuvres the ship is going through. This lift is rated at 5 tons with a maximum of 6g acceleration in any direction."
Jane nods, "Impressive. Why not use hydraulics though?"
Adams looks at her as if she's a school child, "Because then the pipes, pumps, and holding tanks need to be rated correctly, and inspected regularly. A leak at the pressures caused by a 6g manoeuvre could be disastrous to the ship and crew. Not to mention the effect that having something with an effective weight of 29 tons smashing into the bottom of the lift shaft would have, as the hydraulic fluid being forced out of the failed pipe or joint wouldn't stop it."
Jane holds her hands up in defeat, "Ok, ok, you've made your point. I'll leave the engineering to those who are qualified."
Somewhat mollified, Adams nods, "If you'll excuse me, I was about to head up to the mess cabinet to use the facilities and grab some lunch before we lift off."
Walking off the lift, Jane deftly steps out of the way of a couple of technicians that are wheeling a large trolly load of ingredients into the lift. Slightly incredulously, she asks, "Is that going in the cabinets?"
The technician nods, "This lot is, as it's got fresh ingredients."
Jane shakes her head, "How are you going to fit that past the lockers?"
The technician laughs, "Simple, they've got maglocks holding them to the walls. We just unclamp them and move them out the way."
Jane nods in understanding, "That makes sense, thank you."
With that niggling bit of curiosity out of the way, Jane looks around the hanger deck while she's out of the way. To one side she can see a Mako infantry fighting vehicle, something that the IHA developed to support their own troops. Behind that is the quartermaster, and she can see that they're bringing in plenty of stock for that, including some I5 suits and a lot of I4 suits. On the other side is a backup mess where some technicians are installing a magical sink, while others are loading pallets of MRE's into storage units built into the walls.
Spotting a group of N-corps hanging around a bank of lockers, Jane decides to walk over.
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Jane smiles as she approaches, "Good morning gentlemen, ladies."
The soldiers all stop chatting and turn to her. When they see her rank they come to attention and salute, "Sir! Ma'am!"
Jane shakes her head, "At ease. I'm just looking around and getting to know everyone."
Everyone there relaxes, and the corporal says, "I'm Richard Jenkins, transferring in from the IHA, it's a pleasure to serve with you."
Jane nods, "Interesting, are all of you from the IHA?"
Jenkins shakes his head, "No sir, Rice, Peters, and Hope are from the SA. Can I just say that I'm looking forward to kicking some xeno butt sir!"
Jane groans, "Corporal, this is partially a Hierarchy ship too, so it's as likely that we'll be kicking human butt to defend 'xenos'."
Jenkins nods, "That may be true sir, but there are more xenos out there than humans."
Jane shakes her head and changes the subject, "Moving on, why are you all dressed for shore-side duty?"
Rice puts her hand up, "We've been transferred in from shoreside duty Ma'am. This is my first shipside tour."
Jane nods, "Have any of you ever been on a Systems Alliance ship?"
Peters puts his hand up, "Only as a passenger sir."
Jane nods, "If I'm assigned to this ship, and not just in transit elsewhere, I'll run drills on ships doctrine, so be prepared. Is that the armoury behind you?"
Jenkins nods, "Yes Sir!"
Jane smiles, "Thank you. As you were."
Turning around she spots a corridor leading behind the lift. As she walks away, the troops conversation starts up again.
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Walking into the engineering bay, Jane stops to stare in awe at the massive piece of machinery that dominates the stern wall. Between three massive claws is a brightly glowing blue ball of something. As she gets used to the sight, she's able to see the computer stations arrayed around that machine in an almost semicircle.
While she's watching, an access panel opens on the starboard wall, and an engineer steps out before straightening up. With a shake of her head, Jane resolves to come back later when she feels up to a headache.
As she's walking back to the lift, Jane stops and stares at the large Systems Alliance insignia inscribed on a panel directly behind the lift. The panel itself is inset into the wall by nearly a centimeter.
As an engineer passes her, Jane asks, "Excuse me, what's up with that panel?"
The engineer turns around in puzzlement, "What panel?"
Jane points at the panel, "That one right there."
The engineer runs his fingers over the edge of the panel, and the next one, "It's just poorly fitted, you've got good eyes to spot that. I'll make a note of it for the next maintenance cycle."
Jane nods, "Your welcome."
As the Engineer walks off, Jane is absolutely certain that it won't get reported, as a gap that deep isn't just poorly fitted.
Slowly she lowers her magic levels to the lowest she can safely hold them. It's not as good as a notice-me-not or disillusionment charm, but it does make her harder to notice as her presence isn't pressing in the world so much. Once she's happy that nobody's going to pay any attention to her, she touches the insignia and pushes a tiny bit of magic into it.
As she watches, the panel seems to fold away from the centre, until all that's left is a narrow shaft with a ladder heading down.
Turning around, she starts to climb down, noting that wearing any sort of armour would make this climb almost impossible. At the bottom, it opens up behind her into a long, low, chamber that seems to be running along the top of the spinal gun.
At the far end of the chamber she can see a dormant magical intelligence, and a large, clear, box containing a chunk of magicite the size of her double fists. On the floor below that are another four boxes containing similar sized chunks of magicite.
Jane makes her way down the chamber, being careful not to bump her head. Around a quarter of the way down, she comes across the first marble slab, with 'Stealth' written across the handle at the top. Next is isolation, time dilation, life shield, and hull. Finally, underneath a switch that can be set to 12 or 16, is a slab that says magical intelligence.
"It seems that the Systems Alliance had more involvement in your design than just the utilities, doesn't it girl."
As she turns around to leave, she sees a couple of expanded cubby holes where the ladder is. Each one is filled with potions of Living Death, enough to dose double the maximum crew for a ship this size.
Jane nods, "Definitely more involvement."
As she climbs out of the shaft, Jane checks her omni-tool and nods as she sees the Captain is now available.
Making her way back into the hanger, the bay doors are closed, and there are no technicians in sight. If she didn't know that there were storage areas built into the various walls, she'd never be able to tell.
Shaking her head, Jane makes her way up to the command deck.
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As she walks past various crew members, Jane breathes a sigh of relief when they don't keep throwing her salutes, instead going about their business. Back at the CiC the Captain seems to be talking to someone on the command podium, while at the bow of the ship a turian is talking to the pilot.
Not seeing anyone else to talk to, Jane walks over to the highest ranking person she can see around the CiC.
"Good afternoon officer."
The officer jumps in alarm and turns the half turn needed to face her, "Commander, I didn't hear you arrive."
Cursing to herself, Jane raises her magic levels back to Realm:2 norm, allowing her to appear more present to the people around her. "Don't worry about it, I was just wandering around the ship. I see the Captain is showing as available?"
The office, one Lt Presley according to his nametag, shakes his head, "Sorry Commander, Captain Anderson is only free to oversee the launch of Normandy's maiden voyage. He then has the next 4 hours blocked out for meetings and reports in the Captain's quarters."
Jane shakes her head, "Damn, I was hoping to find out what my duties are. Anyway, maybe you can tell me what's going on with the crew."
Presley nods, "The JSV Normandy is a joint project between the Systems Alliance, Independent Human Alliance, and the Hierarchy to push the boundaries of ship design. Because the Systems Alliance and the IHA invested the most money into the project, they are sharing joint command of the ship for the moment. I myself was a Systems Alliance officer, and I think this is a great opportunity for those like me with Prothean Syndrome. As if we can get more eezo ships maybe we'll get less naval crew leaving for the IHA Navy if they get infected. Like Captain Anderson there, his wife is a scientist and she got infected five or ten years ago now. As he had to choose between his career or his wife, he left."
Jane looks around, "Is that why nobody's wearing isolation suits?"
Presley looks happy, "Yes, it's great. For once it's the blue tags that'll need to wear a suit full time rather than us."
Jane nods, "I've been hearing blue and red tag a lot on ship, what's that about?"
Presley snorts, "Where have you been hiding, under a rock somewhere?"
Dryly, Jane says, "Sandhurst actually."
Presley looks closely at her face for the first time since she brought her magic back up, "Sorry Ma'am, I didn't realise it was you. They introduced the tags when they introduced mandatory suits for all shipboard soldiers and all N4's. That's also when they got rid of the PS classification. We've all decided to own the colour, and refer to ourselves as red tags."
Jane sighs, "What about troop doctrine?"
Presley shakes his head, "The Captain's IHA so we're following their doctrine."
Jane wanted to point out that the doctrine was introduced to save soldiers lives, to rail at the idiocy of the captain. Instead, the pilots voice comes over the ships comms, "Captain, we are approaching the relay."
Suddenly, the CiC goes from being a place where quiet conversations are taking place, to a hive of activity.
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A few minutes later, the ship passes through the relay into another system. A couple of minutes after that, Captain Anderson returns to his quarters, and the turian leaves the bow of the ship. As the turian passes, Jane frowns as she doesn't recognise most of the markings from Juvetana's brief lessons.
Shaking her head, Jane walks down to the bow of the ship where the pilot is busy on his console.
Leaning on the back of the chair, Jane says, "Hi, I'm Jane Shepherd."
The pilot doesn't look up as he replies, "Joker Ma'am."
Jane smiles, "Call sign, or did your parents hate you?"
Joker laughs, "Call sign Ma'am. Name's Jeff Moreau, but everyone calls me Joker."
Jane nods, "Call me Jane, except when it's official, then it's Commander Shepherd. How are you finding the ship?"
Joker smiles as he says, "She's great, and she flies like a dream. Even better, these are the most comfortable pilots chairs I've ever sat in. They're so comfortable I prefer to sleep here rather than the pods."
Jane laughs, "I can get behind that. The same's true of these isolation suits. Set them to sleep comfort and even a barracks floor is like the best bed you've ever slept on."
Joker snorts, "Want to know a secret?"
"Go on?"
"I'm wearing one myself, and all SA pilots chairs have waste collection built in."
Jane shakes her head, "I didn't know that."
"Yes, this is the one position where a single crew member could need to spend days at a time. So the SA started fitting all the seats with plumbing for when the ship's on alert."
Casually, Jane asks, "What do you think of the crew?"
Joker sighs, "I'm not sure. A lot of the grunts seem to have something against those that don't have Prothean Syndrome. Me, I sometimes think we're the lucky ones. I mean, sure we could do with the aliens keeping their noses out of our shit. But, in fairness to them, they have been landed with a load of our disgruntled citizens. You'll also hear a lot of them complaining that the SA keeps the best medical treatments to themselves. But look at me, I've got applications to sidhe clans across Alliance space, as well as a standing application to emigrate to Mars. I was born with Vrolik syndrome, and if me Ma hadn't had a suit failure early in her pregnancy, they'd have stuck a chip of magicite to her belly, and I'd have been born magical. Or they might have taken me to Sanctuary, and then given me back to Ma. Either way, by the time I was 8, they'd have vanished all my bones and regrown them with skeligrow. By the time either of those were viable, the precursor to the cure would have killed us."
Jane's eyes raise, "Taken to Sanctuary?"
Joker nods, "I know right, any adult can apply to be taken to Sanctuary to become magical. It's like filling out an immigration visa, as they want to ensure they're not giving magic to people who are already known to be criminals or abusers. Then they take you there for 30 seconds and send you home. Tada you're magical."
Jane shakes her head, "Why don't more people do it?"
Joker laughs, "Two reasons, Prothean Syndrome, and the risk of becoming a squib."
Jane nods, "That makes sense, my mother was a squib."
Joker's voice fills with awe, "You're that Shepherd. I heard your mother was granted expediated access because you failed the tests for the N8. That has to suck you know, to be selected by one of the gods, and then not be able to progress because of a technicality."
Jane swallows hard, "It did, problem is I didn't fail the tests. Also, they told me once, verbally, that mum had been selected at the same time they said I was going to be an N7. Then I entered hell and forgot about it. Then I get back and mums there and she takes her mask of, and all I can think is that she's just committed suicide."
Joker looks up briefly as he winces, "I remember that, it was on the news across the whole Alliance, and the IHA from what I've heard. It's one of the reasons so many of us look up to you. First you prove that we're as good as them, then you go and save Elysium, and once they've taken notice of you, some political bullshit keeps you from going forward. Probably some pencil pusher that looked at your age and said, 'Nope, too inexperienced, failed'."
Jane shrugs, "I can retest in several years' time. In the meantime I got to play with some new toys." Jane pulls out her engraving stylus, "This is a runic pen, they want to train some PS-N3's, I guess that would be N3's now, in runes so that they can use them in the field. You can scribe on pretty much any hard surface, then touch the green end to the runes and they work. Imagine being able to make the windscreen on a ground vehicle impervious and unbreakable so it can't get dirty, and won't break from shrapnel. Or a water rune so you never run out of water. A bubble headed charm over an area if there's an emergency on ship. Or even a mending array to close small holes in a ships hull. We tried a cooling array on a rifle, and it was able to fire full auto for a week before the small eezo supply evaporated from the magic."
Joker laughs, "I can think of a few times when I could have done with a cooling array myself before they got the I5's working. How much did they…"
Captain Anderson's voice comes over the intercom, "Commander Shepherd report to the Communications Room."
Jane whispers, "Where's that, as I haven't found it yet."
Joker chuckles, "Right behind the CiC, the door is hidden by a privacy panel."
"Thanks, I'll see you around."
Turning around, Jane walks aft to the comms room, and stops as she walks through the door. Standing in front of three holographic projectors is the Turian talking to three figures. It only lasts a few seconds before the call ends, but it's long enough to regain her composure.