Chapter 11
Despite the grumbling of the malcontents, the sudden influx of new population boosted the local economy. Work was plentiful and that only increased with 17 million people needing housing, food and services. Combine that with the fact that most of those 17 million new people were adept at engineering to at least a small extent and productivity skyrocketed in all sectors. As it was on t he Arcturus station, in most roles the Human workers complimented the Quarian ones, each taking on tasks difficult or impossible for the other.
This was especially true in Shipbuilding. Humans were stronger an could lift larger objects and move them farther, Quarians were nimble even with their helmets to fit into small places and make precision adjustments. On a smaller scale, humans were more dexterous with their five small fingers, but tasks such as welding and sheet metal bending the Quarians excelled due to their strong grip strength. This remained the case all the way to the top, Admiral Han'Gerrel was assigned command of the fourth fleet while Steven Hackett was given command of the fifth, their ship compositions matching their command style. The Fourth fleet was made mostly of larger ships, Cruisers, three dreadnoughts and one supercarrier, whereas Admiral Hackett's was smaller attack ships fighters, frigates and some light cruisers for escort. The First fleet is what would eventually give pause to the rest of the galaxy.
Commanded by Daro'Xen Vas Mayhem (she'd been reassigned to the Alliance flagship) and a human Admiral named Simon Chambers. Some humans might say that opposites attract and though worded differently, the Quarians had a similar idiom. That did not in any way apply with this partnership, however. When they weren't directing fleet maneuvers, devising strategic doctrine, and comparing notes on possible defensive scenarios against Turian, Salarian and Asari war fleets, the two tended to geek out about science experiments, extremely controversial hypothesis that only vaguely flirted with the concept of ethics, and finding horrible devious ways of destroying each other at Chess.
On Arcturus, newly minted Admiral Shala'Raan Vas Arcturus was pleased to note that of the 1200 Quarians that had finally settled on the station after the ship were all evacuated, only three had opted to stay on Earth. Many of them were out of commission for three to five weeks at a time, hwoever as nearly all had volunteered for military service, including Tali'Zorah.
Shepard found herself sitting alone in a diner idly swirling the straw in her milkshake around, wondering what Tali was up to. Every few minutes or so she thought she'd been free to pay attention to whatever she was trying to accomplish only to find her thoughts wandering back to Tali. It was strange how attached she had become to the young engineer, her apartment seemed cavernous and vacant without the tiny Quarian's goofy laugh or muttered "Bosh'Tet" after clumsily banging a shin on an end table.
"She'll be back in what a week right?" A voice centimeters away from her ear shattered her reverie causing her to shriek in surprise and jump to her feet.
"ASHLEY WILLIAMS I STAB YOUR TITS OFF!" she yelled.
"Wow, Stab my tits off? That's a new one." She laughed.
"Damn you I told you to stop sneaking up on me like that." She said. Ashley too was a graduate of the N7 program, though she'd gone through a year after Shepard. She found that in addition to her impeccable Mako driving, she was damn near silent on her feet and able to creep around and sneak through an obstacle course without being detected. Stealth had never been Shepard's strong suit but she performed admirably enough to graduate.
"Yeah yeah, whatever LT. Seriously though when are you going to ask her out?" Ashley probed.
"Who Tali? Come on, she's just a friend." she said, the pink slowly creeping its way into her complexion.
"Come on LT, I'm not sure how you fooled Kaidan, but I know you well enough to read between the lines." She said. Shepard's shoulders slumped.
"Come on Ash, I don't even know if she's into girls, and even if she is I'm human and she's Quarian." She reasoned. "Besides, I'm built like a steroid zombie, who'd want to be with someone like that?" She continued.
"Jane, you seriously need to take a closer look in the mirror. You've got curves I'd kill for and those abs, I'm straight and even I'd drool over them. I mean come on nobody can be as hot as me, but you're a distant second." She reassured her friend. Shepard spared her friend the customary punch in the shoulder that remark should have warranted. The compliment and summary ego boost made it worth it.
"How would I even go about asking her though? I mean we're roommates. "Hey wanna go out and watch a vid?" she'd probably just think I wanted to kill time.
"What if you did? You guys have been doing stuff together for months now, as far as I'm concerned you're already dating you just haven't realized it yet. Just talk to her, see if she's on the same wavelength, and take the plunge."
"I guess." She said, still unsure.
Meanwhile, in the training center that was set up after the the rebirth of the Alliance, as everyone was calling it, Tali was breathing hard hiding behind a burned out shuttle awaiting orders from her squad leader to advance. Three times today they've been through this course, and Tali was thankful for her suit's internal water reclamation and cooling systems.
"FORWARD!" her squad leader yelled, a short man who looked so young she thought he'd lied on his recruitment forms. His apparent youth matched his exuberance, as well as inexperience in leadership, as he had yet to successfully lead his squad through this training exercise. Despite this, everyone including Tali leapt from cover and rushed down the narrow alleyway. Tali stopped beside a doorway, her back to the wall and her shotgun at the ready while her squad lined up behind her and their leader waited on the other side. He held up his fingers and lowered each, then upon the last he screamed "GO GO GO" and burst in through the door, failing again to scan the inside before being cut down by dozens of paint balls from automated turrets.
"Keelah here we go again." Tali said, the frustration in her voice apparent in her voice.
"SENN! You're dead again!" Dunn shouted. Tali remained in position while the squad leader rose to his feet. There were still 45 minutes left in their alotted time on the course and Dunn was rapidly reaching the edge of her patience.
"Recruit Zorah!" She shouted.
"Yes Sergeant!" she shouted.
"Complete the course." She said.
"Yes Sergeant!" she said again, this time looking back at her squad mates. She whispered some quick instructions to the man behind her, and began typing commands into her omnitool. Within seconds a purple sphere appeared before here and rushed into the room, immediately being pelted with paint balls and rolling towards the far corner of the room. This distraction gave her the time she needed, shouting "Now!" she rushed into the room and before she was even through the door the first turret had been disabled and a second was only partially functional, she dropped into a combat roll and waited behind cover as her squad mates came in shooting the other turrets and finding cover. It would seem Tali had paid more attention when they were shown breaching tactics.
"Clear!" she shouted as she launched herself over cover and braced herself against the wall next to the next door, and her squad mates automatically lined up behind her. She repeated the exercise, but this time her drone was met with silence.
"Ok, let's go!" The recruit behind her said, but she held up a hand to stop him
"Negative. I don't trust this. Give me a flash-bang." Tali responded.
The recruit rummaged through his pack and handed her one without question. Over the course of the week they'd learned to trust the Quarian's instincts, especially in the face of their incompetent leader. She indicated by rapidly opening and closing her hand in front of her face mask to indicate what she was about to do, then cracked the seal on the grenade and lobbed it in, her hand pulling back just in time to miss being hit by several paint balls. The humans covered their eyes and ears and the Quarians activated their sensory dampers as the brilliant flash shone through the cracks and windows in the building, immediately following the loud boom that accompanied it they rushed in and repeated their performance in the previous room, each one taking out two turrets before rolling into cover.
Ove the course of the remaining 45 minutes they had, they slowly cleared each room, finally completing the course for the first time.
"The Building is secure!" Tali declared, checking her shotgun and turning the safety back on.
"Thank God I thought you idiots would never finish this. Jesus how long did it take you pukes to get through grade school? Get out of here and hit the showers, Zorah, Senn, stay put." Sergeant Dunn shouted. She was met with the customary "Yes Ma'am"s and "Yes Sergeant"s from the recruits. Tali remained dutifully standing at attention.
"Recruit Senn, What went wrong in there?" She asked.
"Ma'am, I rushed in without checking Ma'am!" he responded.
"Yeah no shit, my problem is you did it two times in a row before that too." she continued.
"Ma'am I have no excuses." He responded. He wasn't a bad kid, just a lousy leader.
"Recruit Zorah from now until I find someone better you're in charge of Dog Squad." She said
"Yes Ma'am." she replied, loud but without emotion.
"Go get cleaned up, Zorah." she said, and the new squad leader nodded and jogged off to the shared barracks space.
"Senn, I'm not gonna bullshit you, you are a piss poor leader." Dunn said, this time with a moderate volume and absolutely no malice.
"Yes Sergeant." He replied, his voice cracking.
"We're not in the habit of wasting good soldiers around here kid. I wouldn't want to follow you into a firefight, but I'd be happy to have you watching my back in one. Are you going to be able to follow Zorah's orders or are we going to have to reassign you?" She asked.
"Yes Sergeant No problems following her orders." He said, relieved. He'd expected to be discharged after his lousy performance.
"You're a good kid and your scores are higher than average, and you're a damn good shot I'd hate to see you wash out over this." Queeg'Naran offered, entering the changes into his omnitool. Queeg was usually the "good cop" while Dunn enjoyed getting her hands, well hand, dirty. Together they were an effective training team.
"Alright we're not going to sit here sucking his dick all day Naran. Go get cleaned up kid." She ordered and he saluted and ran off.
"So Naran" she said once Senn was out of earshot. "How much you want to bet we'll both be saluting Zorah this time next year?" She asked, cracking a grin.
"No bet." Queeg responded, laughing. With that they returned to their offices to finish off the day's paperwork. Back at the barracks, Tali stood in front of her bunk wringing her hands nervously, when Senn walked through the door. She looked over at him, he had a sad smile on his face. "Congratulations Tali." He said.
"Senn, I.." She started to say, only to be interrupted.
"Tali you're a better leader than I am. There's no shame in admitting that. I might be down but I'm not out, tomorrow I'll be ready for whatever fresh hell those maniacs have waiting for us." He said at the end giving Tali a genuine grin.
"Thanks, Senn." She said. She knew he was a good person, but having your failures put on display in front of everyone can turn a reasonable person into a vindictive jerk. He nodded and walked over to the shower, stopping when the others shook his hand or patted his back. This was the end of week three, tomorrow would be evaluation day when they would graduate and receive their assignments. Tali hoped desperately that she'd be reassigned to work with Shepard.
The tall red-headed amazon occupied the Quarian's thoughts more often than not. Silly as it felt to her, even though they were still on the same station barely two kilometers away from each other, she missed her friend. The others in training were great, and they could all relate with one another having grown up on ships and been in their prime when their society shifted from starving and desperate to standing proud beside their new allies. Still, she found that she ached for even a pointless conversation with her dear friend. Also she missed the smoothies.
Military rations were fine, the drill instructors were dismayed to find out that the Quarians were used to much less adequate fair on the flotilla, so mealtimes at the very least became pleasant break from the rigorous training. Quite frankly the most meager food offered in the facility was like a feast to the Quarians. Nothing could hold a candle to the smoothies though, or rather the person with whom she shared them.
She put her things away and prepared to sleep, having showered immediately after returning. One convenient thing about being Quarian was that co-ed showers were not a big deal, since everyone was dressed all the time. Noting the time and seeing that she had a few minutes before lights out, she activated her omnitool and activated the privacy features of her helmet, and began an audio entry in her diary.
"Today I became squad leader. It's a moot point since we graduate tomorrow, but at least it will look good on my service record. Senn looked so lost when he was demoted but I think he understood he really wasn't made for leadership. Enthusiasm is no substitute for skill. Thank the ancestors tomorrow we graduate, I can't wait to get out of here and find Shepard.
Shepard. I can't stop thinking about her. I've never had a friend like her before. She's so kind and funny, and pretty and I want to run my hands throug her hair and.. Wow. Where did that come from. Keelah am I falling for her? " she paused here to collect her thoughts. This scared her a little, not that she had feelings for another girl. Same sex relationships among Quarians were rare, but common enough to be accepted as normal, especially since there were such strict restrictions on procreation on the fleet, but this is different. She's a human. Humans and Quarians were too different, weren't they? Well there goes any chance of her getting to sleep any time soon.
"You know what? Maybe I am. It doesn't matter, there's no way she feels the same, but I can still dream about it. It makes sense, she was the first human I ever met, breaking open my life pod and helping me to my feet. I think I knew it then too." she continued, thankful for the privacy mode and encryption afforded to her by her suit's technology. She was barely ready to admit this to herself, let alone everyone else.
"Keelah I feel like a stupid hormonal girl." she said, giggling to herself. "Tomorrow we graduate, and I'll be able to see her again, at least I'll be able to talk to her and hug her again. And smoothies!" she remembered. "I should also write to father, and see how things are doing on Earth. Ok, I guess it's time to go to sleep for now." She said, saving the entry and deactivating her privacy mode. She plugged in her omnitool to charge and stretched out on her bunk, despite her earlier declaration she had little trouble falling to sleep.
The next morning, Shepard was awake earlier than normal, and frantically searching through her things for something she never thought she'd need working on a space station at the ass end of nowhere, the small and simple makeup kit she bought years ago when she was trying to rebound from the Melissa debacle. She had hoped to pick some up at the commissary but thanks to half her squad being away at training she had to stay way too late and the place was shuttered when she finally got off.
"Damn. Wait, Ash!" she shoved the mess back into her closet, which was itself a testament to how excited she was, normally she keeps her things impeccably organized. She ran to the table and grabbed the omnitool that Tali had given her before leaving for boot. It had taken her very little effort to adapt it for a human, and her work was used to start manufacturing them for everyone else, since they were so much more handy than a PDA. She punched in a few commands and soon a bleary eyed Ashley Williams appeared on the holographic display.
"LT What's up is everything ok?" She asked, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. A male voice behind her groaned and its owner could be heard rolling over in bed.
"Sorry, ash I didn't know you had company." She said.
"No sweat, what's up Jane?" She repeated.
"Remember our talk about Tali?" she asked.
"Yeah, wait, She gets back today right?" She asked.
"Yeah in an hour. God I can't believe I'm about to ask this, and you're not allowed to tell a soul, especially Kaidan." she said.
"Ok..." Ashley said, smirking. "I won't tell him about this at all." She said. Shepard was too nervous to register the glint in Ashley's eye.
"I need you to bring over some makeup and help me out." She said.
"Woah, wait what?" She heard the male ask as he sat up and to her horror saw it was Kaidan.
"Aww fuck me." Shepard said, groaning and facepalming at the same time.
"No thanks I think Tali's up for it though." Kaidan grinned, wincing slightly as Ash slapped him on the arm.
"Because of that you can clean up while I go help Shepard." She said, rummaging through her things looking for her not insignificant makeup stash.
"Thanks. Ash. Kaidan?" She continued.
"Yeah LT?" he asked.
"Go die in a fire." She said, shutting off the screen. He laughed as he got up and commenced with the cleaning.