Chapter 27 – Extra Set of Hands

March 12th, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Galaxy Map

Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix

My fingers danced across the console as I finished plotting the navigation points myself. Sure, technically I could have ordered Navigator Lee to do so, now that I was his commanding officer, but delegating wasn't something that I could just slide into. I much preferred to do my own work. Less room for errors.

We'd be meeting with the Blue Suns one relay jump away from the Amun System, in the Minos Wasteland. Although technically the Eagle Nebula was only one relay away from the Serpent Nebula, I'd decided to take a less direct route towards the Eagle Nebula, plotting a course that would take us through the Ismar Frontier and then to the Crescent Nebula.

Behind me my friends waited respectfully and silently for me to finish plotting the course. Percival had his arms crossed in front of his chest while Cade leaned casually beside the elevator doors behind me. Elektra was busy checking her nails which looked to have recently been immaculately done, even though we'd soon be entering combat in a few days. That was a very Elektra thing to do.

"By the way, your pep talk gave me the most delightful of chills," grinned Cade. "Inspiring, heartfelt, although I have to say it does sound familiar…"

"Thank God I packed extra underwear," added Elektra, still transfixed on her nails.

Percival rubbed his chin and looked thoughtfully at me. "You know what, Cade? It did sound familiar…."

I rubbed my eyes and stomped off the command platform. "Screw you, Percival, take your agent-in-command like a man next time," I grumbled.

"Or give it to me," Cade whined. "I've been a Spectre longer than Cloud has, you know how long I've been waiting to be made agent-in-command?"

"If anything, they should have put me in charge," Elektra said with a shake of her head. "You boys only know how to shoot and muck things up."

Percival ignored the other two and simply gave me a knowing smile. I wanted badly to warp it off his face.

"Cloud, listen to me man. This is your mission, and not just because the Council said so. Your actions and decisions aboard the Hippocrates were on fucking point, better than I would have made in the circumstances. You might not see it but I do, the councilors do, we all do," he assured me firmly.

I sighed. "Perc, I don't even know what to do, how to start… I never trained for command like you did, you know what kind of work I did before I joined the Spectres."

"But you do know what to do," Percival insisted. "You've got great instincts, even if you don't think so. What are your instincts telling you to do?"

Training rooms… drink… clean Snakebite…pass out and hope that those dreams don't come back… I thought.

I sighed and rubbed my jaw tiredly. "Get to know the crew, make note of who's new and who's not, ID strengths and weaknesses and get a feel for how they'd react in certain situations and what roles they'd be best suited to…," I conceded quietly. Not rocket science, it was what we were expected to do in any situation involving unknown personnel.

"Exactly," Percival agreed. He took a step forward and slapped a hand on my back. "Check the crew and check the ship. Don't be afraid to delegate. Also, don't be afraid to trust your subordinates, you know that we have a navigator who can input our routes, right?"

I nodded. He wasn't wrong. If I kept micromanaging and doing things on my own, or kept my crew in the dark, they'd never learn to trust me and would have or develop problems following me. It could lead to a breakdown of authority in critical moments that could be devastatingly costly. I had to learn to trust these people to do their jobs and to do their jobs well.

"Fine," I conceded. "I'll go make some rounds. Cade, do you mind taking my stuff to our room?"

My heart skipped a beat when I saw my friend awkwardly scratch the scales on the back of his neck and look to the ground.

"Yeah, about that…" he said with a cringe.

Percival cleared his throat and awkwardly rubbed his neck as well. "Hey captain? Friend? I'm a married man as you well know…,"

"—And I'd probably tear her throat out the first night," interjected Cade. "Not consciously of course, but say I have another sleep-walking episode and she said something that pissed me off the night before and—."

I narrowed my eyes and glared at the both of them.

Elektra finally looked up from her nails and gave me a big smile. "Hey roomie! Dibs on the starboard bunk, the one facing the door."

March 12th, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 3 (Medical Bay)

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Chief Medical Officer Rentea T'lana)

Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix

"Stop touching that!"

"Stop touching what?"

"That!"

"I'm not touching it!"

Rentea sighed in disgust and marched over to where her sister sat in one of the trauma beds, fiddling with a top-of-the-line hand-held precision medi-gel dispenser, designed to inject medi-gel into deep-tissue wounds. The little puppy cost tens of thousands of credits and had been one of the first requisitions that Rentea had made after witnessing firsthand the kind of wounds that those creatures tended to inflict on their victims.

"Honestly, don't you have better things to do than to mess up my work station? Why don't you go and introduce yourself to the Jaegers or something?" Rentea sighed exasperatedly at her unwanted guest.

Rayla scoffed and set down the hand-held dispenser beside her. "Mingle with those meatheads? Don't get me wrong, the Jaegers are excellent at what they do, but they don't exactly make for interesting conversationalists."

Rentea grabbed the dispenser and placed it back in its original location. "Then just go and train with them or something. I saw the way some of them looked at you, I bet they'd be itching to practice some hand-to-hand."

Her sister rolled her eyes and let out a light huff. "They're hardly my type. Loud, boisterous, trigger-happy — great for a night, gross for a lifetime, or so mom used to say."

Rayla turned and grinned wolfishly at her younger sister. "That Spectre on the other hand…"

"Which one?" Rentea asked curiously.

"Tall, smaller than the big, blonde one— the one with the icy-blue ones," she described quickly. "I've heard the stories, what I wouldn't give to take a little peek inside his mind…"

"Spectre Cloud?" scoffed Rentea. "He's not one I'd play around with, you didn't see him aboard the Hippocrates…"

"All the better," Rayla laughed merrily. "I mean, all three of them are hot, even the turian one. And you know I like them dangerous, not egg-headed and manicured and soft-voiced…" she trailed off.

Jaelen looked up from where he'd been quietly looking at samples through a microscope. "I'm right here Rayla," he said in irritation.

"Yes, you are!" Rayla grinned at the scientist. "And my sister loves you for it."

Rentea put a hand on Jaelen's shoulder. The salarian scientist looked up at her and smiled.

"How about we get you a real boyfriend, maybe see if that turian Spectre would be willing to trade up? Unless you want to just stick this one out for another twenty years," chided Rayla.

Jaelen tensed up and made to move out of his chair but Rentea pressed down firmly on his shoulder.

"She's just being Rayla," Rentea assured him. "You know she's kidding. She'd die to keep you safe, if only to keep me happy."

"Yes, Jaelen," agreed Rayla, "and only because you probably don't know how to."

Jaelen shook his head irritably and ignored the inciting asari, returning to his DNA samples. Just then the doors to the medical bay opened and in walked the Spectre in question.

His face might have been chiseled from marble for all the emotion it showed, and it looked like he had shaved off his stubble since leaving the Hippocrates. His glacier-like eyes softened ever so slightly at the sight of both her and Jaelen, and he moved up to stand a few steps awkwardly away, one hand running through his short, black hair.

"Rentea, Jaelen, it's good to see you guys," Cloud said softly. He was clad in full armor, although he only had his pistol strapped to his waist, as well as the two knives crossed beneath his lower back. He looked more gaunt than Rentea had last seen him all those weeks ago, amplifying the planes and angles of his face.

Jaelen smiled and rose up from his seat. He offered his hand which the Spectre immediately took and shook firmly with a small smile.

"Pleasure to see you again, Cloud. Must say, excited at the prospect of working together again on this troubling, fascinating matter; dangerous circumstances and threat to galactic safety notwithstanding," Jaelen gushed.

The Spectre nodded. "Likewise, I was hoping that the Council would include you in the roster. Are you heading up our Science and Research department?" Cloud asked.

"Yes! Head of small team, mixed of Systems Alliance and Salarian researchers, will be providing up-to-date analysis on any biological and genetic developments regarding the creatures and the DNA that you might encounter on the field," Jaelen rattled on enthusiastically.

The salarian biology specialist took a deep breath and sighed happily. "Had to be me, someone else might get it wrong."

Cloud smiled and for it second it made him look almost a decade younger. Not that he looked old, but with the way he acted sometimes you got the impression that he was much older than his twenty-eight or so years, definitely much older than his fellow turian Spectre.

"Had to be you," he agreed. "But hopefully you'll be safely stowed away on the ship, not down on the field in scything range of those synthetic monsters."

"Yes," sniffed Jaelen. "Am scientist—not a fighter."

Cloud then turned to Rentea and smiled at her next. Rentea brushed past her boyfriend and gave the Spectre a tight hug.

"And I'll be your Chief Medical Officer," Rentea told her newly-minted commanding officer. "Given my previous position as the Deputy CMO on the Hippocrates and the role I played aboard that death trap, I was also one of the Council's first pick."

Cloud pulled away and nodded lightly. When Rentea had first met him, she'd distrusted the blue-eyed Spectre. He'd coldly brushed away Jaelen's concerns and inquiries regarding his late brother and had displayed a single-minded focus on completing the mission. She hadn't liked him one bit, regarding him as yet another gun-slinging, trigger-happy council lackey who only cared about the mission, who couldn't give two shits about the people that he'd drag along with him.

Later on, as Rentea got to know him a bit, she realized that her initial assessment hadn't been completely fair. He was mission-oriented, moreso than his turian peer and even the former N7 Spectre, but he didn't do so at cost to the people around him.

He had proved that all the times he'd chosen to undergo solo operations aboard the ship instead of forcing the survivors to assist him, when he'd desperately tried to save that Jaeger who lost his arm, and when he'd willingly opted to stay behind to defend the corvette from the Chimera, before he'd known that Mardinus and Barthilas had already elected to make that sacrifice.

But he also had a darker side, a side that Rentea had glimpsed when he'd shot the late Captain Farragut in the head for threatening that female technician. He might have had a good heart beneath all that ice, but ice was still ice – when it got cold enough, it'd kill.

"And we couldn't have asked for a better one," Cloud replied. "There's no one else that I'd rather trust with the lives of my men."

Rentea smiled and nodded at the Spectre. Off to the side of the room, Rayla finally pushed herself off from the bed that she'd been seated at and confidently sauntered over to stand in front of the Spectre.

"Lieutenant Rayla T'lana, Asari Special Operations Division," she saluted smartly. Every last trace of arrogance and flirtatiousness had been wiped clean off of her sister's face to be replaced with business and professionalism.

The Spectre nodded and pulled up something on his omni-tool. "Ah, you must be the asari commando that the council told me about. Rentea's sister, right?"

"Older sister, by a few decades give or take," Rayla shrugged. "Asari High Command and the Council cleared me for 'compassionate leave', as long as my sister is on this mission."

Cloud nodded appreciatively. "Biotic capabilities in the 90th percentile range for asari commandos, specializations in assault rifles and sniper rifles, eighty-seven years of combat experience, and specialized training in HVT retrieval and protection, counter-terrorism, and long-range and deep-ground surveillance, correct?"

"Yes," blinked Rayla. She began to drop her mask of professionalism and the slightest of smiles began to tug at the corners of her mouth. "I've heard you're an accomplished biotic yourself, half the girls in my division are still talking about your stunt on Lusia—" she grinned.

"—How's your hand-to-hand?" Cloud interjected, cutting her off mid-sentence.

"I'm sorry?" Rayla asked.

"How's your hand-to-hand?" he repeated. "Your CV mostly highlights your long-range accomplishments. I want to know how your hand-to-hand is, how well you do in ship and building clearances, your CV doesn't say anything about you in that regard."

"D-d-decent, I suppose," Rayla stuttered. "I've done counter-terrorism in spaceports and such, and during the Reaper War I did wetwork on—"

Cloud made a note on his omni-tool. "I'm sorry if it seems like I doubt your capabilities, Lieutenant T'lana, but these creatures are more dangerous than anything anyone in the galaxy has ever seen bsefore, especially in close quarters."

He took a step closer and gently placed one hand on her shoulder. "They make the husks and the brutes you fought during the Reaper War look like 2-bit bad guys from some shitty video game. I need you to be at the top of you game, I don't want you to get hurt."

Rayla stood in slight shock as the Spectre typed in a few more things on his omni-tool. "Report to Captain Murgen on Deck 4, the Jaegers specialize heavily in close-quarters combat, hand-to-hand, and ship and building clearances, they'll get you up to scratch in no time."

He steered the centuries-old asari commando towards the door. Rentea and Jaelen could both barely withhold their laughter. He was right though, Rayla wasn't the best close-quarters combatant – she relied on her marksmanship expertise to keep targets at range, and then on her biotics and the brute force that it allowed her to deal with anything that did manage to slip by.

"Consider this a request, not an order," Cloud added. "A minimum of three hours a day until we hit Anhur and Captain Murgen gives you the green light. If you want, they have a damn good Biotic Specialist you can spar with."

Rayla tilted her head to the side. "How about you, Spectre? Wouldn't you make a better practice partner given your experience?" She asked innocently.

To Rentea's quiet amusement, it didn't look like he was biting. "I'll do my best to make some time, but my new duties might make that hard. Report to Deck 4, Lieutenant, I'll join you in a bit," he finished sternly.

Rentea and Jaelen both shared one last smile as they watched Rayla unwillingly exit the medical bay.

"How could you be so sure that she is inept at close-quarters combat?" Jaelen asked.

Cloud looked up and ticked his eyebrows up. "Hmm? Oh, I just contacted a few of her fellow commandos and asked about her, plus I was reading through all her mission reports via the Spectre Database. I didn't get through most of it yet but the ones I did read tend to indicate she tends to avoid fighting in close-quarters—."

The salarian's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "That's quite the detective work, Spectre—"

"—and she didn't have any scars or bruising on her hands, nor did she have a combat knife anywhere on her armor, nor did she ever certify any higher than basic hand-to-hand in training whereas she did so in her weapon specializations and—"

Jaelen held up his hand and the normally tight-lipped Spectre snapped his mouth shut. "I see, I see! We did not mean to question your judgment, we were only curious! You sure you're not half-salarian?"

Cloud sighed and rubbed his jaw with his hand. "I know, Jaelen. Sorry, I'm just a bit nervous, first command and all. I don't want to lose anyone because of something I overlooked, especially Rentea's sister."

Rentea made her way over to him and gave him an affectionate pat on the chest. "Rayla's been an asari commando for almost a century, Cloud. She survived the Reaper War, my sister knows how to take care of herself."

He nodded and swallowed. "I know, thanks Rentea."

"You'll do fine," Jaelen smiled. "There's no one else we'd rather have lead us."

The corners of the Spectre's mouth twitched upwards in the smallest of smiles and his look softened at our words. He'd be okay.

March 12th, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 4, Marine Quarters

Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Corpsman Vonderrius Flyssander)

"Gotta say, it's definitely a bit weird serving in a cross-species environment after half a decade in the Marine Corps," Jay quipped from his bunk. The short, stocky marine had one leg cocked up while the other hung haphazardly off the side of his bed, inconveniently occupying the airspace of the bunk below him that Fly was currently lying in. Fly brushed it away, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

"Aliens will be a catwalk compared to serving with your smelly ass," he grumbled.

"Speaking of…" Jay trailed off. The marine stood up and watched as an asari in tight-black commando leathers entered the barracks and headed straight for the captain, her head held high, oblivious of the stares that she was currently getting from the primarily male marine population.

"You're a pig, Jay," Soph said tiredly. The tech specialist was currently fiddling with her omni-tool on the bunk across from him, coming up with a new sabotage program at the behest of their captain.

A pair of booted footsteps drew the attention of the three marines.

"Am I going to need to have an alien sensitivity and sexual harassment talk with you, corporal?" sighed Second Lieutenant Accerrimus Burton. His mechanical prosthetic whirred beneath his armor as he crossed his arms. Beside him Gunnery Chief Rakiharu Kinzo shook his head disapprovingly at his tattooed subordinate.

Jay jumped up off his bunk and saluted. "Sir, no sir!"

Fly grinned as Jay sweated in place. The corpsman had very few pleasures left in life – watching his fellow squadmate get shit on was currently in first place. "Sir, who's the commando?" Fly inquired.

Accer looked at the asari who was now currently in a discussion with Captain Murgen. "The commando is Lieutenant Rayla T'lana, sister of our CMO, Rentea T'lana. We just received notice from Cloud asking for her to be included in our upcoming drills down on Deck 5, and to help her brush up on her close-quarters combat."

"Dibs," Jay quickly called out. We all shot him a venomous look and the already-short marine shrank a few more inches.

"We're going to start her off with Soph and then probably Second Lieutenant Chang, then once she's comfortable we'll put her up against larger, bigger opponents," corrected Accer.

"Ouch, looks like you're out of luck, Jay," quipped Soph. We all chuckled as the short marine bristled in annoyance.

"Don't forget, she's an asari commando who fought during the fucking Reaper War. I'm not sure if there's even anything we could teach her," added Accer.

Fly looked around the room, then notice something peculiar. He nodded at Rake to grab his attention.

"Chief, where's Gunnery Chief Teewin?" the corpsman inquired.

"Down in Deck Five already, he's putting that Verus kid through his paces," replied Rake.

"The one that was aboard the Hippocrates? The turian?" Jay asked.

The Jaeger nodded. "The one who probably still has the turian equivalent of acne still on his plates. Teewin says he's damn good though. The kid fought with the Spectres after we got the shit kicked out of us back in the Hippocrates' engine room and apparently did a bunch of cool shit."

Soph got up from her bunk and nodded in the direction of the doors. "Speaking of, there's the fearless commander now," she pointed out.

We watched as the familiar silhouette of our raven-haired commander walk silently through the doors like a ghost. His skin was pale – paler than we all remembered, the angry red scar on his right cheek only serving to enhance how ashen his skin now looked, but his eyes were as bright and cold as ever. It was hard to tell through his armor, but from the looks of his face he seemed to have lost a few pounds.

"Soph, you're drooling," teased Jay. Sophia glared at the marine and threw her pillow at him.

Fly watched as nearly every Jaeger in the room turned to silently appraise him. Those who had served with him and seen him in action aboard the Hippocrates merely nodded, while those who had been stuck on the Excalibur took a moment to study the man.

All three of the Spectres that they'd met were each undeniably deadly in their own right. The former N7, Percival, was renowned in the Systems Alliance for his actions at Bahak, and despite his friendly, open demeanor had proved himself a vicious combatant, especially during the machine room and their fight to the bridge.

The turian, Cade, was equally deadly, if not more so. Young and a bit brash, Fly had at first considered him nothing more than another boisterous turian operative with good aim, but that was before he'd seen Cade fight. The turian Spectre was crafty and sneaky, striking from afar with his prized Black Widow before using his booster jets to maneuver in close to eliminate the enemy. Over the course of the events aboard the ship, all of the marines had developed a healthy sense of respect for the turian Spectre that only tripled once they'd found out about his role in the Palaven Rebellions.

But Cloud? The stalwart biotic may have been silent out of combat, but in combat his actions made him the loudest person in the room. He fought with a level of cunning, skill, and viciousness that neither of his two fellow Spectres could never hope to match, combining biotics, gunfire, and knife-work into a dance that rarely ever allowed his fellow teammates to be anything more than clean-up. There had been dozens of times where Fly had witnessed him dispatch a saboteur and then silently gave thanks that Cloud was on their side.

The Spectre moved up and shared a few quiet words with the captain and the asari commando. After that he turned around and made his way towards us.

He grinned at Accer and pulled the young biotic into a tight hug. "You get a chance to practice with that amp yet?"

"A couple of times," laughed the biotic Jaeger. "Can't wait to start cranking out Singularities. This thing must have cost you a small fortune."

The Spectre shrugged. "Technically a bunch of Terminus pirates and a few gang-leaders paid for it. Where's Teewin?"

"Training the turian kid," replied Jay.

"Galen Verus?" Cloud asked.

"That's the one."

The Spectre nodded in surprise. "He's a good kid and a damn good fighter. We'll need him where we're going."

"There's going to be a whole planet-full of those creatures where we're going," shuddered Soph.

Cloud sighed and rubbed his brow. "I know, I'd hoped that we'd seen the last of them after the Hippocrates, but it doesn't look like we'll have such luck. Besides, there may still be survivors down on Anhur, we can't just leave them."

"We know, we all loved your little speech. We've got your back, Cloud," Rake assured him.

He smiled slightly and nodded at each of us. "Thanks," he replied. "I just hope your faith isn't misplaced."

"Don't you worry about us," Accer added. "Overwhelming odds, a rogue fleet, this is the shit I became a Jaeger for."

Cloud smiled appreciatively. "Thanks for the support. Listen, I've got to touch base with a couple more departments. If there's anything you need, don't be afraid to ring me directly, got it?"

"You got it, boss man," Jay quipped.

He nodded and turned away, slipping quietly out of the barracks and down the hall towards engineering. Sometimes it was hard to believe that just a few months ago, Fly was just another Corpsman attached to a marine platoon, doing combat patrols and squaring off against the occasional raider or pirate.

Now, he had fought against a horde of terrifying synthetic monsters, been honorably made a Jaeger, and was currently following four of the best Spectres that the Council had ever inducted on a mission to find a rogue fleet, save an entire planet, and stop a coalition of saboteurs from turning everyone in the galaxy into more of those salivating, red-eyed creatures.

If someone had told Vonderrius Flyssander eight years ago that he'd be in this situation, wearing the iconic black armor of the Jaegers and fighting beside some of the galaxy's greatest Spectres and not hauling hay on his parents farm, well, he'd have in no uncertain terms told them to stop sucking the glass dick.

March 12th, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 4, Engineering

Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Drive Core Technician Camilla Martell)

"I'd just feel a lot better if you spent a few hours drilling with it before we reach Anhur," muttered Cade over her radio. The flanging of his normally up-beat voice drooped ever so slightly, making Camilla feel slightly heartbroken at having to defer his idea for the fifth time.

"El cariño, I told you, I don't know if I have time. I need to familiarize myself with the new configurations they made to the drive core and the engines," she told him. "Besides, I'm not even sure I'll even be on the ground."

"It never hurts to be prepared, plus you have the highest tech and combat scores out of all the engineers on the ship. If we do end up needing someone down here, it'll probably be you…" the turian replied.

Camilla sighed and rubbed her eyes. She wasn't willing to risk this turning into a fight, especially not so soon after she'd finally gotten a chance to see him in person. "Dios mio, alright, how about I give you two hours tonight after dinner?"

"Already paged Accer, he's pretty good with the N7 Hurricane," Cade replied. "And maybe afterwards we can discuss dessert..."

The technician glanced up in alarm at the massive figure leaning on the railing in front of her, if he'd heard the turians words, he was making no indication that he'd done so.

"H-h-how about Elektra? I saw an N7 Hurricane strapped to her back, and aren't M-9 Tempests easier to use?" Camilla stuttered. The figure in front of her crossed his arms and starred silently at her.

"That she-beast? Spirits no. I can't risk you ending up like her – or worse, being friends with her. Also the N7 Hurricane is standard-issue for the Jaegers aboard this ship. If you lose or drop your weapon down on Anhur, at least you'll know how to use the replacement," her boyfriend replied.

Camilla pursed her lips and jumped at the chance to shift the conversation away from the line it'd taken prior and onto Elektra. The female Spectre has been… unexpectedly glamorous. Camilla had been hoping to get a chance to talk to her later, maybe figure out how she did her nails or the shampoo she used to make her hair shine like that.

"So what's the deal with her and Cloud? You've made it pretty clear that you hate her, but you haven't mentioned why."

Cade gave a long, sad sigh over the radio, and when he replied he sounded almost like a completely different turian.

"It's a long story, one that I'm not sure is mine to tell. Let's just say that before Cloud joined the Spectres he was involved in some funny business and she screwed him over."

"Oh my gosh," gasped Camilla. "He always seems so polite around her, and from what I've seen she's always wheedling up to him, I thought they were just exes or something."

"They have… history," Cade voiced awkwardly. "But anyways, don't tell him I said anything. You've seen how he is, I'm never sure how he feels about things like that getting out. Can't be good though."

"My lips are sealed," Camilla assured the turian.

"Darn… anyways, tonight after dinner?"

"It's a date," the technician replied happily. She hadn't gotten to seen him much on the Citadel and was looking to finally spending some time with her favourite turian.

"Bring your gun… You're great with the plasma shotgun, babe, but on Palaven they say that the hunter who knows only the spear soon starves,"

Camilla smiled and rolled her eyes at the turian proverb that the Spectre had likely just come up with on the spot. "Okay, whatever you say. Bye"

"Bye dear," Cade replied in farewell before disconnecting the channel.

Camilla also disconnected the channel and sighed happily. Growing up she'd heard stories of the tall, shark-toothed military species with their ruthlessness and their distinctive flanging voice. Fighting the people of her father to a stand-still back during the Krogan Rebellions, deploying the Genophage, the First Contact War, and then stalling the Reapers in the Trebia System during the Reaper War, Camilla had been taught to respect and fear the turians long before she'd ever met one.

The first ones she'd met had fit the expectations crafted by her father. A turian cruiser hovering over New Mindoir, rows of straight-backed soldiers exiting shuttles with precision and poise, looking every bit as deadly as her father had described. Camilla had never seen anything so alien – the way their mandibles shifted when they talked, their beautiful clan markings, and even the distinct flanging of their voices – everything about them.

And she had feared them at first. Feared their teeth, their hawk-like eyes, and the way that they stared at everyone like a hungry falcon would stare at a jackrabbit. Their professionalism and their military bearing only added to their fearsomeness.

That was before she'd ran into a Cade. Smooth-talking, flirtatious, and funny, Cade had broken every stereotype about turians that she'd ever been exposed to. The first time they'd ran into each other, Camilla had very nearly had a heart-attack after she realized that the turian understood Spanish. The next time it was to save her life, and she had repayed him by nearly melting his face off with the Geth Plasma Shotgun her father had given her.

Aside from that rocky start, Camilla soon grew to appreciate the bickering that Cade had engaged her in aboard the Hippocrates. It had kept her distracted from the horrors that they had encountered and from feeling the loss of her friends. He'd actually saved her at least three times counting the time he'd thrown himself on top of her and shielded her from the weapons-fire of a jumpy crewmember. Before she knew it, she was head over heels.

The tattoo also didn't hurt, nor did the blue clan-markings and the blue eyes. The lighter skin tone definitely also helped to make him look more friendly and approachable when compared to his darker-skinned cousins.

A gruff, deep voice jolted Camilla out of her thoughts. She'd been so engrossed in thinking about Cade that she'd completely forgotten that she currently had company.

"Your boyfriend's right you know," grumbled her father. The massive krogan pushed himself up off of the railing he'd been sitting beside and stomped his way over towards her, shaking the entire engineering deck and attracting the glances of several of her fellow technicians.

"I've turned you into an artist with that shotgun, but the Alliance shipped you off before I could teach you to fight with something else," Garm grunted.

Camilla blew an errant strand of hair from in front of her face and made a few more calculations on her omni-tool. "Tthe shotgun you gave me works just fine, and I'm wearing much better armor than I did aboard the Hippocrates. Did you also forget that I have nearly a dozen combat programs stored in my omni-tool?"

Urdnot Garm scoffed and held out a beefy hand, staring at his daughter with both his good eye and his dead one. With a sigh, Camilla pulled the insect-like shotgun from behind her back and handed it to her father.

The krogan activated it and sighted it up. He flipped it around to check for damages and checked the plasma core before deactivating it and handing it back.

"At least you're not slacking on the maintenance," he grumbled.

Camilla smiled at her father. "Of course, or else you'd never let me hear the end of it," she said playfully.

Garm crossed his arms and sighed. "I remember when I found that thing. A pack of Brutes had just ripped apart a pair of Geth Primes during the final push, Wrex was nowhere to be seen and they were eyeing me next," he rasped, his good eye glazing over as he recounted those events.

"I fired my shotgun but the heatsink ran hot after four rounds, barely killed the first Brute. That left three more and a Banshee that suddenly appeared out of thin air on my right. I tossed the shotgun and began to run—,"

Camilla smiled at her father, she'd heard this story at least once a year during the annual celebration of the ending of the Reaper Wars and dozens of times on her father's birthday. "And that's when you tripped over the Spitfire. You picked it up and checked the charge, it was full—"

"—And then I killed every last Reaper abomination in a fifty-yard radius, and then I spat on their corpses and took their fingers as trophies!" Garm finished loudly. He smacked a meaty fist against his chestplate, the sound echoing across the engine room and causing a pair of technicians nearby to jump up in fright.

Urdnot Garm calmed himself down and looked back down at his daughter, who was still smiling at his enthusiastic retelling of the Battle of Earth. He remembered when he found her all those years ago at that shelter back on New Mindoir.

Shepard may have cured the genophage, but Urdnot Garm's mate had taken her own life nearly a century before it happened, the shame of her stillbirths being too much to bear. Unlike many krogan, Garm had never taken another mate after her – had resigned himself to never knowing how it felt to hold his own child in his arms.

But that was before he'd found Camilla. Garm remembered the way that she'd laughed when he picked her up, the way her big, brown eyes hadn't shirked from his dead one, and the way she'd grabbed at his headplate fearlessly. The thought of someone, a turian no less, taking his daughter away from him shook him more than he'd admit. At least this particular turian could fight.

"The point is," he finished, "it doesn't hurt to have a back-up weapon that doesn't overheat after five shots."

Camilla nodded and grabbed her father's hands. Hers were nearly completely engulfed by the scaly, scarred, three-fingered ones that her adoptive father possessed.

"I promise, if you promise to sit down with Cade and chat with him like civilized individuals instead of attacking him like you did Cloud," Camilla said sternly. She hadn't quite forgiven her father for his bull-headed stunt, not completely Cade for standing by, although to be fair she ought not to have expected him to know that Garm was her father.

Garm's good eye flitted innocently up towards hers. "Is that the pale, human one?"

"Yes," she said firmly. "Cade told me he still has bruises on his chest."

The krogan grunted. "At least that one can take a few hits. I don't want my daughter sneaking around with a pansy."

Camilla rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Honestly dad, if you'd seen Cade fight aboard the Hippocrates, you'd know that he's anything but."

"We'll see," Garm grumbled. "You sure it's not too late to go with the other one?"

"Dad!"

The doors slid open and in walked the aforementioned Spectre, his customary half-grimace plastered on his face. When Camilla had first met Cloud, she had at first thought him to be part of some sort of advanced Systems Alliance android soldier program for all the emotion he showed, even compared to Cade – a member of a species that lacked almost any motor control over their facial expressions. Those eyes had looked right through her rather than at her, and Camilla had recalled that she'd been more than a bit scared of him. He'd seemed every bit as frightening and alien as those things aboard the ship.

But that was before they'd fought together, and before she'd learned that underneath that icy façade he seemed to have a good heart, always the first to put himself in harm's way, or the first to confront a danger. Without him, Cade, nor Percival, Camilla would have happily bet that everyone would have died aboard the Hippocrates.

"Good to see you, captain!" Camilla smiled. She walked up and pulled the Spectre into a hug that he returned. "Checking on the trenches?"

"Kind of, and technically I'm not a captain," he replied. "How are you settling in?"

She looked at her father, then at some of the other members of the engineering team working at various consoles. Other than her they'd all been a part of the original crew of the Excalibur. When she'd transferred over after the Hippocrates, all of them had gone out of their way to make her feel at home, avoiding asking her questions about her time aboard the doomed ship.

"Good, they've got us all bunking up on the second deck along with the command crew rather than the marines, which honestly is a relief. You wouldn't believe how badly some jarheads snore," she assured him.

He gave a light smile, as if to say that he understood. "Durandal-class Heavy Frigates are designed to comfortably house up to two platoons of marines, but you could squeeze in a whole company if you wanted to."

"Well thank god we've only got the Jaegers then, although Gunnery Chief Teewin sure looks like he could pick up the slack for a whole company."

Cloud chuckled and nodded his head in agreement, the big Jaeger was nearly six-and-a-half feet tall.

He then turned his stare onto her father. "How are you settling in, Urdnot Garm?"

"Good," her father grunted. Garm walked up so that he was a few inches away from the Spectre and towering completely over him, engulfing the human in his shadow. Camilla rolled her eyes and silently cursed her dad and cursed krogan machismo. He could be such a child sometimes, she only hoped that Cloud understood that this was actually her dad's way of joking around, and that he wasn't actually trying to pick a fight.

He didn't back away, instead he merely nodded at the large krogan. "With you, Private Verus, and Lieutenant T'lana on board, we've got the makings of a damn good specialist support team for when Spectres Kitiarian, Percival and I are otherwise pre-occupied. Is that Geth Spitfire your weapon of choice?" he gestured at the massive geth-made machine gun strapped to his back.

"I helped put the words 'suppressive fire' in the krogan dictionary," Garm rumbled ominously.

Cloud nodded appreciatively and looked up once more at the both of us, "I've got to go share a few words with Lieutenant Halvarsson. I'll catch you both at dinner, alright? And if there's anything you two need, let me know."

"Sure," Camilla replied. Her father merely grunted in the affirmative.

The Spectre moved past Garm, shouldering him aside in the process. As he made his way deeper into engineering, toward the drive core, Garm stared forlornly at the Spectre with his one good eye.

He turned to his daughter. "Do you think he'd want to try out my Spitfire?" he asked.

March 12th, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 4, Engineering

Currently en-route to the Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – Destination: Gelix

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Flight Lieutenant Valeria Fyordinarova)

"What is a ten-letter word for "to make or declare holy or divine""?

Val blew another bubble with the wad of standard-issue Systems Alliance Navy chewing gum that she'd been working on for the past half-hour. The taste, strawberry lime, had evaporated some time ago, leaving it a tasteless, bland mass of polymers that served no purpose other than to past the time by allowing her to try to beat her previous bubble-size record while she kept an eye out for any snags or complications on their journey through the relay.

"Hmm, consecrate?" she suggested.

In the navigator's seat to her left, Second Lieutenant Ronald Lee scribbled something into an old crossword book. "C, o, n… yeah, it fits, thanks Val."

"No problem. By the way, there's two 'C's…"

Naviator Lee stared dumbly at his crossword. "Oh…."

Val shook her head and sighed. How Ron had ever made it out of the academy – let alone find his way aboard a Systems Alliance Heavy Stealth Frigate — was an absolute mystery to the Russian pilot.

Not to say that he was bad at his job. Quite the opposite, in fact. Ronald was a gifted navigator, prone to fits of brilliance in combat situations and his simulation scores were some of the best in his class.

No, Val's disbelief in Ron's presence aboard the Excalibur stemmed from the navigator's inability to do even the simplest of tasks without muddling it up or getting side-tracked. She was sincerely impressed that he'd managed to literally find his way out the academy doors and into a frigate. The last time she'd taken him out shopping on their last shore leave for a pair of shoes, he'd disappeared when she had turned around for one second to look at a nice pair of pumps. She'd found him two hours later sitting in a vape store looking at the smoke.

Cade liked to joke that the navigator was a few bullets short of a full clip. Percival believed that it was all an act for the benefit of the crew. Either way, it was a quirk that Val had long gotten used to in her navigator.

It was getting to be a bit late. Dinner had ended some time ago the majority of the crew were already getting ready for the sleep cycle. The night-shift were already out and about. Val herself would be getting replaced with one of her co-pilot, Flight Lieutenant Chan, one of the shuttle pilots aboard the Excalibur.

Although Flight Lieutenant Chan was a much better shuttle pilot than he was a frigate pilot, he would nonetheless do in a pinch, at least until it was her shift again. To most of the crew she was still the de-facto main pilot of the Excalibur, something that Chan never disputed nor tried to displace. To her surprise, Spectre Operative Cloud had also been listed as an emergency pilot for the Excalibur, in the event that both her and Chan were incapacitated.

A set of footsteps behind her caught her attention, prompting Val to swing her chair around. To her surprise it was the Spectre himself, marching towards her, already clad in full armor. Val's heart got caught in her throat and she very nearly swallowed the gum that she'd been chewing. Was it just her or did he looked more tired than usual?

He moved up to stand beside her and looked out the cockpit. Outside the ship, ribbons of blue and white streaked past them as they travelled from the one of the mass relays in the Serpent Nebula to the relay in the Arrae System. They stood in silence for a moment, him staring out while Val chewed her gum, blowing yet another bubble.

Ronald suddenly got up and slammed his crossword book loudly down onto the console, causing Val to pop her bubble in alarm and Cloud's hand to fly to the Predator holstered at his waist.

"I've got to go to the bathroom," he announced abruptly. "Val, if you manage to figure out an eight-letter word for the procurer of illicit goods please let me know."

He got up and waddled out of the flight deck, leaving Val alone with the Spectre. Together they passed a few more moments in companionable silence.

"Smuggler," Cloud suddenly said. "The word the good navigator is looking for is 'smuggler'."

Val took it as an invitation to engage. She hadn't seen the Spectre much while they were all docked onboard the Citadel. He was still currently gazing out of the cockpit, seemingly entranced by the swirl of colors and light. Now that Val could get a closer look, he did indeed seem more pale and gaunt than he had prior.

"Taken down a lot of smugglers, have you?" she quipped.

The Spectre turned and gave her a peculiar look. She hadn't had a chance to contact him during their time on the Citadel, what with all the debriefings, briefings, and oaths of secrecy that she'd been subjected to. Val suspected that it hadn't been cakewalk for Cloud either, seeing as all that cloak-and-dagger stuff came with the territory of being in the famed Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. In fact, the only time she'd seen him was just as they were scheduled to leave the Citadel. He'd been standing beside his fellow Spectre and she'd waved at him. He'd waved back.

Cloud shrugged his shoulders and ticked the corners of his mouth upwards. "Sure, let's go with that."

Val felt a light sweat break out on the back of her neck as the silence was replaced with something a bit more awkward. She looked at him, desperately racking her brain for something to talk about, anything to bridge the rift that was slowly growing between them. What was there to say? That he looked a bit more pale and gaunt than usual? That he'd shaved since she'd last seen him?

"Have you had trouble sleeping or something? You look like shit," she spurted out automatically. As soon as the words left her mouth she regretted saying them. Who on earth wanted to be told that they looked like shit? Val cursed inwardly and hoped that she hadn't turned him off with her unflattering proclamation. She held her breath and awaited the worst.

But to her surprise, he simply let out a dry little laugh. "Thank you, Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova. And yeah, if you must know I've had some trouble sleeping these last few weeks."

Val breathed a sigh of relief and settled back down. "Is it still about the Hippocrates?" she asked.

He nodded and adopted what Val now considered to be his standard pose – arms crossed tightly over his chest, the slight tightening at the jaw, eyes gazing off into the distance. It was peculiar how quickly he'd retreat into that position every time someone touched upon something particularly sensitive to him. He was like a turtle in that regard.

"Yeah, and not just the Hippocrates I guess," he shrugged, "but also this mission, the defection, these monsters. I can feel the weight of all these lives depending on us, crushing us. I'm not sure if I can even move beneath it, let alone fight."

Val scoffed. "Well, it's not like you have a choice. Like it or not we're the ones leading the charge, and you're the one leading us. We don't get to pick the stories we're a part of, no matter how badly we want to sometimes. All we can do is keep on walking down the path and hope that the path ends before we do."

He laughed and Val began to feel the awkward rift between them slowly start to evaporate. Now they were just two soldiers talking instead of the awkward facsimile she'd created of them inside her own head.

"Didn't know you could wax so poetically, Flight Lieutenant. In my opinion you missed your calling. You're wasted in the Systems Alliance," he chuckled.

To be honest, Val had never wanted to join the Systems Alliance. She'd gone to university for art literature and had decided that she'd rather die than stay trapped on Terra Nova in some desk job for a greeting card company—or worse, for an art museum. The Systems Alliance had been the only ones willing to pay her to see the galaxy. Paired with excellent entrance scores and stellar simulation records, Valeria Fyordinarova soon found herself at the helm of a Systems Alliance Heavy Stealth Frigate, with no intention of ever going back.

Val could buy the idea that it was just the apprehension and consternation towards the mission at hand simply getting to the Spectre. She hadn't actually been aboard the Hippocrates. She'd seen the mission records, yeah. She had shuddered at them and had a few nightmares the proceeding nights but she hadn't actually been there, and so she couldn't speak towards how traumatizing the event could actually be. Nonetheless, she tried her best ease the Spectre's mind.

"We all believe in you, you know," she began quietly. "What you said over the channel? To the crew? About how everyone in the galaxy was depending on us? Well, they believe every word you said. They believe that freedom and safety is something that has to be continuously fought for and they believe that you're the one who is going to lead us to victory. They're ready to follow you through the gates of Hell themselves."

He smiled a bit more broadly that time and Val at last felt like she'd said something right. "Truth be told I'd rather have you fly us through, Flight Lieutenant," he replied.

He placed his hands on the headrest of her seat and continued to stare out the cockpit, into the sea of bright colors. Watching a relay transit could actually be very soothing, now that Val thought about it.

"And if you're having trouble sleeping, I've got some Thessian fruit tea that's supposed to work just like chamomile," she offered.

He sighed contently and nodded. "That'd be nice, Val."