2-12-3
Big Steve
Know what you're doing yet?
- Joined
- Aug 19, 2019
- Messages
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Doctor Opani checked in one last time on the infirmary before signing off for the day. The Gamma Shift nurse was fully briefed on the condition of the unconscious Quarian patient and possible special needs. She checked on Tali, asleep on the biobed she'd picked and with no issues showing on the biobed scanners.
Tired and hungry, Opani went to the mess hall, or rather the half that hadn't been turned into a sleeping area for the special forces troops they were carrying. She replicated a kipatiran, a warm baked pastry with a vegetable and cheese filling, and a cup of cool fruit juice. An empty table was easily found, even in this reduced space, and she went to work on her food.
She was mostly done when Barnes sat down with a late snack of a pastry she had heard him call a "hot pocket". A replicated "soft drink" still fizzed in a plastic cup. "Hey Doc," he said.
"Hello."
"So, Zack said something about us talking?" Barnes asked. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong, exactly. But I think that you may have been rude to our guest."
Barnes took a sip of his drink, which might have been an explanation for his sudden sour look. Or it may not have been. Opani waited patiently for him to respond. "Look, I'm acerbic sometimes, yeah, and I can be a jerk. But that doesn't change the fact that she has no training or experience with our technology and equipment. I don't care how good an engineer she thinks she is."
"She seems bright. Eager. This work is part of who she is."
"Sure it is." Barnes bit into his food and frowned. "Ugh. Christ, these replicators make anything and everything taste like ass."
"They always have," Opani pointed out. "Don't change the subject."
That prompted him to look at her, hard. "There isn't a damn subject, Opani. She's a kid and she's not working in my engineering department."
"Why are you so resistant to it?"
"For the same reason you wouldn't want some kid around who thought helping her daddy with bandages makes her capable of performing surgery," he retorted, and there was real heat in his voice. "In fact, that analogy works perfectly, because that's basically what you're asking me to do."
Opani was quiet for a moment, allowing Barnes to take another bite. She felt there was something about the way he was opposed to this, something more than the objections he was listing. "Why won't you give her a chance? You don't need her to run the reactor, just give her a task. Pair her with an engineer and…"
"No. That's final."
"Why are you being so obstinate…"
Barnes responded by standing up and grabbing his unfinished meal. He tossed it into the replicator and hit the reclaim button. Opani jumped up to do the same and followed him as he stamped out of the mess. "This is none of your damn business," Barnes barked back at her, already knowing she was behind him.
"This is personal," Opani shot back. "It has to be. What has that sweet girl done to you? Certainly you're not listening to the poison from the others about thievery?"
"No, no I'm not," he replied.
"Then why won't you work with her? Find her something to do? She can't be that much younger than you were when you started this. If you could imagine being in her place…"
Barnes whirled around so quickly that Opani nearly walked into him. "That's the problem," he said, his tone reflective of his broken patience. "Because I can imagine being in her place. Because I was in her place."
Opani looked at him with confusion. "What?"
"I've wanted to put together machines since I was a kid," Barnes said. Some of the anger had gone out of his face, replaced by the look of someone dredging through old memories. "I've always wanted to be an engineer. Like my parents. And I always thought of myself as one from the moment I passed my first engineering prep class in high school. And then everything with the Darglan Facility happened, and soon I was running ships and seeing myself as the engineer. But I didn't know jack crap about it, not really. I was still just the kid with a big head and ego ready to fry my brain out if it meant learning more about machines."
Opani remained silent.
"Then I met Scotty." Barnes smiled a little. "And I realized I didn't know jack crap. I still wouldn't know jack crap if he hadn't seen something in me and taught me what I was missing. Me being an engineer is because of him. It took a lot of time, training, and work to be able to do this job. So yeah, I get the girl's position because I've been there. I've been her. And I made enough mistakes back then to know what can go wrong if I let that girl work our most critical systems." He let out a sigh. "So yeah, I get where she's coming from. And that's why I don't want her in Engineering. The kid shouldn't have even been out here, dammit. She sounds college age, not fully grown up. She should be taking classes, not flying scouting missions."
"Her people don't have your ways, or mine. Keep that in mind."
"Then whatever it is they do for higher education. But my point stands."
"I see." Opani rubbed at her forehead. "Thank you for your honesty, and sleep well."
Barnes nodded and walked on to his quarters.
Zack retired to his room. It was the only quarters on the ship that had been fitted to have only one occupant, and that had been at the insistence of Scotty and of Captain Farmer back in the day. "The ship's commander needs his or her sleep" was their argument, and their recommendation was accepted.
It was only times like now that Zack realized why the two Starfleet men had said that.
He sat at his desk in his white uniform undershirt and boxers. Zack's face reflected his sleeplessness and state of mind, how upset he was at what had transpired. In his mind he kept flashing back to the Batarian ship exploding on the viewscreen. Several dozen Batarians had been vaporized in that explosion.
They were pirates, slavers, and in a straight battle he wouldn't have thought twice about their deaths. But this was different. He kept wondering about it. Wondering if he could have found a solution. A way to keep them safely contained on the Koenig, anything that might have seen them live. Anything that would spare him the knowledge that he had left those beings to die. That he had given the order.
His hand crept to his desk's computer control panel. He hit a key to activate his message recorder. "Computer, log this message, deliver when I give the word."
"Please list recipient."
Zack swallowed. "Clara Lydia Davis, currently residing on New Caprica, assigned to New Liberty Volunteer Corps as a nurse."
"Recipient logged. Ready to commence message recording."
"Begin." After a moment to compose his thoughts, Zack started speaking. He told her how much he loved her. He told her he missed her. As he did so, he thought about what he was saying, about his feelings.
He didn't want to hurt Clara, so he never told her about some of those feelings. About the occasional dreams where Clara wasn't the one in his arms. The flashbacks to the virtual world his mind had once been pulled into, where Julia Andreys had become Julia Carrey as he had fantasized about so often. He felt ashamed of the fact that a part of him would always be in love with Julia, no matter how much Clara deserved every bit of his love. It made him feel unworthy of both.
Soon he got into the purpose of the message. It was nothing less than a confession, as if she could forgive him for it and grant him absolution. "I've killed in battle, I mean," he said. "I haven't counted how many ships the Koenig has destroyed. I've got no idea how many people have died fighting my ship. But this wasn't that. I left those Batarians to die. To get blown up. Not in a fight, but as an execution. I… I keep thinking I could have saved them. I should have saved them, should have done something… I just don't know what."
Zack went silent as he thought on that. That he had no alternatives save tipping off the Batarians to the loss of their ship, and risking that whatever plan they had in mind would be put into action. He was tormenting himself over a decision that was a lose/lose situation. As Victus had put it, he did what he had to do. And he would have to live with that.
He felt a quiet urge. An urge that ashamed him, even as he imagined the fiery sensation of his father's tequila pouring down that throat. He shook his head to get the thought, the desire, out of it.
"I made the decision," he said quietly. "Now I have to live with it." He stared off into space, and into the corners of his own mind, and dwelled for a moment on his thoughts. "I can live with it," he decided. "It wouldn't be the only bad thing I have to live with." He drew in a breath before shaking his head. "Computer, delete that entire message."
"Message deleted. Would you like to try again?"
"No." Zack shook his head. "No, I don't think so." And with no further remarks, he slid into bed, wondering if he would be seeing that ship explode again in his dreams.
It was one of those nights again.
It had been weeks since Robert had dealt with the dreams that came to him, offering what he and Meridina believed were possible hints to the future. Now they were back and with a vengeance. He had glimpses of Fassbinder, the SS man thought dead on Gamma Piratus but recently determined to still be alive. The "Aryan ideal" German man's eyes went from deep blue to bright gold and yellow, darkness clinging to him and a sinister smile of triumph crossing his face.
Then it was the girl in red and gold again, crying out as her amber eyes shined with ethereal energy that sent power rippling over Robert. Nearby Julia was on one knee, stripped down to a sleeveless white undershirt and shorts, her face full of determination.
They were gone the next moment. Robert looked around at the Presidium of the Citadel, now beset by fires and smoking rubble. People cried out around him as, to his horror, shadowy figures with singular shining eyes impaled them on strange devices.
The Citadel Council chambers appeared around him. Broken metal forms were scattered before the platform leading to the guest podium. At the podium was a single figure, a Turian, covered in cybernetic enhancements and pieces. Robert had seen this image before. But never had he seemed so familiar.
"Our only hope to survive is to prove ourselves," the Turian said. "Servitude is preferable to extinction."
"We can fight them, we can win!" a Human voice urged. Robert briefly thought it was his, as it was a sentiment he felt within, but despite the haze of the dream he realized it was a woman speaking. And it was a familiar voice. "Can't you see? It's taken you over!"
Robert turned his head to face the direction of the voice. He felt surprise at recognizing the face. Shepard?
And then he was alone, in the middle of rubble and debris, his side hurting, and above him was a massive metal monstrosity with a glowing red eye staring down at him. It made a noise, as if the Devil was playing a trumpet through a synthesizer.
Maybe it was that noise that woke him up. Or maybe a part of Robert's mind was tired of the frightening imagery. Either way, he found himself sitting up in his bed. He quickly checked to make sure he hadn't woken up Angel, the instinct firing before his memory reminded him that she wasn't here now.
After the moment passed he found the dream was coming to mind again. The image of the cybernetic Turian was stuck in his head. He felt like he should recognize the figure. But the image blurred as he awakened, the dream distorted by that very waking.
When his omnitool display flashed the numbers 0402 at him, Robert sighed and laid back on the bed, turning to his side as he sought to get comfortable enough to sleep again.
In her life, Tali had slept on far less-comfortable things than the biobed in the infirmary, and her sleep had been quite restful. She woke up to find that only a single nurse was on duty, checking Kon's life signs. Tali did the same and confirmed for the nurse that he was still stable, or that his suit's sensors considered him stable, at least.
With her grumbling stomach in mind, Tali went to the mess hall and the replicator within. Only a few people were present in the room, mostly Humans wearing different uniforms from the ones she had seen Opani, Barnes, and the other ship personnel wearing. She remained clear of them and went to the replicator. She tapped the controls to see a list of dextro-compatible foods loaded into the system. The choices were as varied as she imagined they would be, and she selected a morning meal within seconds.
It was one thing to order the food, however, and another to endure it. She'd tasted replicator food before and knew that it never quite managed to taste proper, but this was utterly atrocious. "Forget it," Tali muttered to herself. She knew just what to do.
Nobody said anything when she returned to the replicator. First she had it reclaim her uneaten meal. But instead of walking away she activated her omnitool and interfaced it with the replicator. This let her run a diagnostic scan on the software and hardware. Seeing the latter made her grumble. She got onto her knees and pulled away the covering for the replicator's internals, revealing the various wires and cords that made up the device's guts. She went to work immediately on it.
Tali became so intent on her work that she was surprised when a voice said, "Are you sure you should be down there?" She swung her head over and up. Two humans, a woman and a man, were standing nearby. "I'm not sure Barnes will appreciate you messing with the replicator," the man said.
"I'm just fixing it," Tali answered. "The matter re-constitution system needs to be re-calibrated, it's completely off."
"Is that why everything's been tasting like crap?" asked the woman. There was something about the redhead with darker-toned bronze skin that Tali thought was interesting. She seemed to stand out compared to other Humans she'd met since arriving on the ship. "Because I've had replicated food before, this is something even worse."
"That's what I was thinking, so I was adjusting the internal systems and recalibrating the system. I think too many unrefined elements were being added. It would explain the taste."
"Well, don't let us interrupt you." The man nodded. "Your name was Tali'Zorah, right?"
Tali nodded. "It is."
"Commander Carter Kane, Allied Systems Marines." Kane offered his hand. Tali looked for a moment before carefully accepting.
"Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance."
Tali accepted Shepard's hand too. "I'm sure you want to eat. I'll be done in a minute."
As she went back to work, Kane said, "If Barnes finds out you're doing this, he's going to go on the warpath."
"I offered to help him keep his ship running well. He chose to ignore me. Well, he can, but I'm not eating terrible food because he and his crew can't be bothered to do a little maintenance on the replicators."
"Oohrah to that," Kane said. "I want my Marines to have edible grub, replicated or not. And they wouldn't let me bring a big store of MREs since we're all cramped in here."
"I just need to double-check this power line… connection to the computer switch looks good…"
After a few moments Tali slid away from the replicator. "Now try."
"Two mugs of coffee, black."
The requested items appeared in brilliant white light. Kane took one and handed it to Tali, taking one for himself. "Mmm. What do you think?" Kane asked after trying his.
"I'm almost convinced this is real coffee," Shepard answered. "Nice job," she said to Tali.
"Thank you. It was a simple repair." She stood up and put the panel back on. "Now I can enjoy my meal too."
Given how badly the mess hall replicator was acting Zack had opted for eating in his quarters with the replicator unit there. As always replicators didn't quite get the oatmeal and buttered toast right, and the milk tasted bland, but it was at least filling.
He was done with the toast and mostly done with the oatmeal. He eyed the closet full of uniforms, which he would be pulling on next, and turned his attention back to his report. He'd had a pleasant enough sleep given the events yesterday and time to internalize what had happened. He wondered if he would have been even more bothered had he been forced to look at the Batarians before they died. If he could have seen their fear.
Zack chose to ignore that for the moment and focus on what he saw on his digital pad. Hajar had been running the night shift and provided meticulous reports. Long range sensors had detected another Batarian ship that was on a different course. Analysis of its course had further refined Magda's calculated point of origin for the transmissions to and from the now-destroyed Batarian raider. Whatever they were looking for was going to be easier to find.
The question would be raised soon: what would they do when they found it? Attempt an attack, a covert landing of troops? Should he try to torpedo enemy ships still in their dock spaces, should it be that kind of facility (he suspected it was)? He really wanted to get Victus' special forces groups into the place to see if they could get their hands on any further information about the Batarians' plans and goals. But risking his ship unnecessarily was not something he could do.
As his final bite of oatmeal went into his mouth, a tone sounded on the ship's speakers. "Bridge to Carrey," said the voice of Lieutenant Apley.
"I'm here, Ap," Zack answered.
"We've got something on sensors. You're going to want to see this. I think we've found the Batarian base."
"Be right up."
Zack arrived on the bridge in time to find his command crew taking their proper positions. He went for his chair. "What do you have for me?"
"It's definitely a base," Magda answered. She gave her screen a close inspection. "I won't be able to determine how many ships are there until we get closer, but I'd say there are definitely a few ships, maybe as many as ten."
"Mass sizes?"
"Mostly raider-size. Maybe one or two cruiser-sized ones. I can't give you more accurate counts until we get within sublight sensor range."
"How long?"
"Two hours, twenty minutes," Apley answered.
"Okay." Zack nodded. "Status of our cloaking device?"
"Still operating within normal parameters," Magda said.
"Any sign of a graviton net? Tachyon detection grid?"
"Nothing. I'd be surprised if they could get something like that, even off the black market."
"Sometimes, Magda, I don't think anything would surprise me." Zack settled into his seat and, as he often had to, waited until they were in range.
Barnes ate breakfast in his quarters and double-checked the day's scheduling. Provided there were no alerts - and he expected there would be -- someone would finally be getting to the mess hall replicator by about 1200 to fix it. It was the earliest he could get a repair tech to the job given the niggling little fixes needed from the fire they'd taken the prior day.
Ensign Ling arrived by the time breakfast was done. The Gamma Shift officer was that shift's Engineering Officer; now Ling would sleep in here due to the need for hotbunking. "Ling," Barnes said. "So, how's the husband?"
"He's fine. Our daughter starts school in a month." Ling sighed. He was mostly East Asian in appearance, but the darker tone to his complexion and the shape of his cheeks was from an African grandparent "I had hoped to go get some leave time, but in this line of work, with a war?" He chuckled and hid his obvious sadness. "Unless we're sent somewhere near Sirian space, it's not happening."
"Woh, sorry to hear that," Barnes answered. "The replicator's edible in here by the way. I'm hoping to get the mess hall unit fixed sometime today."
Ling blinked. "What do you mean by that? It's been fixed. I don't think it's ever been better."
Barnes had been turning away from Ling. That made him turn back. "What? What do you mean it's fixed, there was no scheduled…" He frowned.
"Everyone's saying that Quarian survivor we took aboard did it this morning. And I'm telling you, sir, the food's never tasted better. It made my noodles taste more like noodles than liquid polymer, and… sir?" Ling watched as Barnes literally stormed out of his quarters. He might have gone after him to find out what was going on, but with everything going on and knowing that at any time he might be called back to his post, Ling decided to climb into bed instead.
Tali couldn't be too surprised that word swiftly spread on the small ship of her fixing of the mess hall replicator.
What she hadn't expected was the number of people coming to her to fix small things.
"How did you get your omnitool memory so full in the first place?" she asked the Human crewmember sitting in front of her in the mess. Tali looked over the results of the scans she'd had to run on the offending omnitool. "It looks like you were trying to load half of the ship's data into it."
"Our multidevices used to have two hundred megaquad storage capacity," the girl protested. "This thing locked up at just a quarter of that."
"An omnitool shouldn't be storing that much data," Tali said. "It's built with wide-frequency range data-streaming capability. Aside from vital programs and applications, everything you load onto it should be remotely accessed from dedicated data servers."
"Well… I'm still getting used to that," was the sheepish response.
Tali sighed and shook her head. "Never mind. I remember one of my friends, Mela, he once overloaded his omnitool trying to generate a welding flame. We had to spend a day fixing it. This…" She tapped a few more keys. The screen on the young crewwoman's omnitool unfroze. "...just needs a hard reboot cycle. There, your memory buffer is clear."
"Thank you. It might have taken all day for me to get it fixed by the tool shop," the girl said, her voice warm with gratitude.
Tali watched the girl leave and felt content. While she had wanted to help maintain the ship more directly, helping a ship's crew with repairs was at least a decent activity for her. Her father would be far happier than he would with the thought that she was doing nothing of use.
It looked for the moment like no one else was coming to ask her anything. Tali began to relax.
She stopped relaxing when the door slid open and Barnes entered. His eyes focused on her with clear frustration and anger in them. "You!" He stomped up. "What the hell were you doing?!"
"Excuse me?" Tali asked.
"Oh, don't give me that. I've heard all about the mess hall replicator. You're a guest on this damn ship, you do not open up equipment and start fiddling with it to see how it works!" Barnes slammed his hand on the table. "One thing wrong and you could cause food poisoning, or worse, to anyone who…"
Tali stood up. She wasn't as tall as Barnes, but she didn't have to incline her head so far to face him directly. "Listen, I've had enough of you thinking I'm that incompetent. I know replicator technology too! Lan'Durah taught almost everyone on the Rayya about them when he brought the technology back from his Pilgrimage."
"Oh, really. Alright, let's play this game." Barnes activated his omnitool and went over to the replicator. "Let's see… matter stream regulators… within proper limits. Control systems… responding normally." Barnes' voice started to lose its angry energy as, bit by bit, his diagnostic showed green fields for every part of the machine. "...matter re-constitution matrix… calibrated correctly." He started to mumble. "Damn, like it's fresh off the…" He cleared his throat. "Computer, Barnes Order Number 4."
The replicator obeyed and a cup of hot cocoa with a marshmallow appeared. He took the marshmallow and dropped it into the frothy brown drink. After giving it a moment to melt he sipped the hot fluid. And there was no mistaking the look of shock on his face.
It tasted… good. Better than normal for a replicator, almost like the real thing. "Last time I tried this it was so hot I almost burnt my tongue off," he mumbled lowly. He took another drink and savored the warm, chocolate flavor on his taste buds, touched with the creamy remains of the marshmellow. Slowly he glanced toward Tali. She had crossed her arms. And he was certain there was a satisfied look under that featureless faceplate of hers.
"Well." Barnes coughed and set the cocoa down on the replicator. With a tap of the key the system reclaimed the beverage. "Um… crap." He rubbed at his forehead and couldn't help but notice everyone was looking at him. "Yeah, I've got nothing. I'm the asshole here. That's… hell, that's work worthy of my best, of Scotty's best. Recalibrating the matter re-constitution system to that level… it's brilliant. I'd love to…"
"Quarian!"
All eyes turned to the entrance to the mess hall. Three Turians entered, Guard Captain Vidinos in the lead. All focused directly on Tali. "Where'd you put it?"
"Put what?" Tali asked, confused.
"The auto-spanner that went missing from the toolkit of my squad's gunsmith," Vidinos answered. "Where did you take it, Quarian?"
"An auto-spanner? Why would I need an auto-spanner, why would I take yours?" Tali stood her ground as Vidinos and the men with him walked up to her. They spread out enough that they were clearly cutting off any avenue of escape. One of the Turians activated their omnitool and began to scan her.
"It's a new model, just issued by Palaven Command," Vidinos said. "The kind of new technology you Quarians just love to get your hands on. So, I'm going to ask again… where is it?"
"I don't have it, I wouldn't want it."
"I'm not reading it, sir," the Turian with the scanner said.
"Any interference?" Vidinos looked to his man. "It wouldn't surprise me if her suit is shielded to prevent people from finding things. It's how Quarians would operate." As he spoke, Vidinos seemed oblivious, or perhaps simply uncaring, about the looks he was getting from the others in the mess hall. Barnes was staring at him in near disbelief.
"There's no null spots, sir, nothing to show shielding. She's clean."
"There, you see?" Tali said, her voice laced with irritation. "I don't know what problem you have with my people, but you can't just accuse me of being a thief…"
"I've been around enough Quarians to know what you people are like, always looking for new tech to take home, not caring who it belongs to," Vidinos retorted. He nodded to one of his men. "We'll find where you hid it. I'm sure you'll tell us after time in the brig."
By this point one of the other Turians grabbed Tali by the arm. "Hey!" she cried. "Let go!" A second Turian grabbed her other arm. "You can't do this! I didn't take anything!"
"Of course you didn't. That's what your kind always say." Vidinos turned around. When he stepped, his men stepped, and they began to pull Tali with them despite her struggling.
Vidinos only managed three steps before Barnes moved in his way. "Hey, Vidinos, I don't know who the frak you think you are, but you're damn well not a senior officer of this crew, and you don't have authority to put anyone in the brig without our say-so."
"Stand aside, Lieutenant, I'm the superior officer and you're out of order."
Barnes got into his face, scowling with fury. "Hey, asshole, I'm a frakking senior officer on this ship. I'm the Goddamned Chief Engineer. I don't have to do jack crap if you say it. Fact is you don't have jack crap for authority on this ship, I do, and I'm frakking tell you to let her go."
Vidinos may have noticed the gathering personnel, or he may not have. His soldiers certainly did see as the other half dozen Alliance crewmembers and Marines in the room started to move toward Barnes. But all Vidinos did was glare into Barnes' eyes. "I don't know why you care about this suit rat" - and the emphasis made it clear Vidinos intended to fullest meaning in the slur - "but I've got three of the best special forces soldiers that the Turian Hierarchy has to offer, and I'm not letting the Quarian get away with stealing from us. We're taking her into custody, either in your brig or in our barracks. If you've got a problem, take it up with Victus."
"I'm not letting you take her anywhere."
"Who's going to stop us? You?"
"How about me?" another voice declared.
Shepard stepped up beside Barnes. She directed a glare of her own at Vidinos. "Lieutenant Barnes is right, Vidinos," she said to him. "On this ship, he's got the authority, not me and not you. So do what he says before he has you dragged to the brig."
Vidinos' mandibles twitched. If his face had the same muscles as a Human's, he would be scowling, and Barnes and Shepard were both certain of that. "I want that auto-spanner found," he said. "It's property of the Turian Hierarchy."
"I'll have my people look for it when they can," Barnes said. "Now move on, you're causing a disruption."
"Let the Quarian go, men," Vidinos ordered. His troops obeyed. "I'm sure these Humans will learn the same hard lessons we did about the Quarians, right around the time the Quarian strips their ship bare."
With that parting remark Vidinos and his men stepped past Shepard and Barnes. They moved on to the exit door.
Kane stepped in before they could leave. The faint semblance of a smile crossed his face. "Hey, Guard Captain," he said. He brought up his right hand. It was gripping a tool that looked like a ratchet wrench with a small specialized motor assembly embedded in it. "A member of the Koenig crew found this and gave it to me. It looks like someone left some fancy new auto-spanner in the armory over the course of the night. I thought the mark looked Turian, so…" When Vidinos moved his hand toward it Kane held it out and let him take it. "It's not bad either. Not as good as our latest, I mean. Ours has an auto-adjustment setting so we don't have to change the spanner socket out. One size fits all. Maybe your people should look into buying some from us."
Vidinos turned away to walk past Kane. He stomped out of the mess hall with his men just behind.
"That guy is an ass," Barnes grumbled.
"A bigoted one." Kane nodded to him. "It's a good thing one of your people found this. Guys like that can cause a lot of trouble."
"Did that asshole really think he'd get away with attacking us?" Barnes asked Shepard.
"Maybe. Sad thing is, Vidinos is a damn good spec forces officer," Shepard said. "It would be a lot easier to hate his guts if he were an incompetent idiot too."
"Life would be a lot easier if all the assholes were incompetent too."
"Yeah. If only." Barnes turned to Tali, who was now seated. His face was turning red from shame and embarrassment. "Hey, kid… Tali, right?"
"Yes," she answered.
Barnes drew in a breath and walked up to her. He slid onto the bench for the next table, facing her instead of said table. "Your work on the replicator was great. I mean, it showed real ingenuity, a bit of creativity…"
Tali remained silent. But the way she kept her arms crossed was anything but silent.
"Aw, hell… I was an idiot, okay?" Barnes said. "A big dumb idiot asshole who assumed and didn't check things out. You still want to work in Engineering while you're here?"
"I would. I'm a Quarian engineer, and it feels wrong for me to not help maintain a ship I'm staying on."
"Fair enough." Barnes extended a hand. "Let's get down to Main Engineering. Poniatowski and I will see where we can put you."
Tali's posture relaxed slightly. "Thank you," she said, in clear relief.
The quiet on the Koenig bridge ended in the final minutes before their arrival. "I'm getting short-range scans of the system. Passive only." Magda went to work at her Ops station.
Zack turned in his chair to face her. "What do we have?"
"It looks like an A1-grade star," Magda said. "Reading four planets and a thin asteroid belt between the first and second. Three of the planets are gas giants, the innermost planet looks like it's a D-grade barren world, no atmosphere." After another few seconds Magda's attention clearly focused on one of her screens. "I'm detecting a faint power signature near one of the moons around the third planet."
"Just one signature?" Zack asked.
"With passive-only sensors, I wouldn't necessarily pick up ships in standby mode," Magda said. "Until we get closer I can't tell you anything more."
"How much closer?"
"Sublight range."
Zack thought on that. The Koenig's Darglan-designed cloaking device was just as good as something the Romulans could field, if not better, but there were still plenty of ways to give themselves away depending on what the Batarians might have with them. "What's the fourth gas giant like?"
"It's an ice giant-type. Methane, ammonia, water, and sulfur are the primary components of the atmosphere, various other elements. The magnetic field is on the higher end for ice giants, though, approaching small Saturn-type gas giant level. I think there might be a higher quantity of ferrous minerals in the convecting parts of the giant, but we'd need better sensors, or a probe, to confirm."
"Not really what we're here for." Zack thought of that. "Could we use the fourth planet to hide ourselves more effectively?"
"Let me examine the four moons first. Their orbital pattern and magnetic fields are…" Magda let the sentence hang. "Wow. It looks like one of the moons is actually conducting its own small mass effect field. I'm guessing a high concentration of eezo being subjected to electrical activity from other minerals. Maybe even a naqia deposit… yes." Magda looked to Zack and nodded. "I'll relay the coordinates to Apley, but if we stay in that section we should be hidden from any scans they can throw at us."
"And our scans?"
"Well, active scans might still get picked up." Magda went to work. "But maybe… I might be able to make a few light scans and make them look like routine electromagnetic activity from the fourth planet's system."
"If you can."
Things went quiet again until the thrum of the warp drive disengaging filled the ship. Apley's hands moved over the sublight controls. "We've dropped out of warp at the north pole of the ice giant. I'm moving us to the point that Lieutenant Navaez specified."
"Sensors are showing an artificial structure in orbit over the third planet's outermost moon," Magda said.
"On screen."
The holo-viewscreen activated and showed the image of a squat structure with a crater-studded moon framing the bottom of the image. The white light of the system's star was currently coming from the side of the image, illuminating half of the gray and brown-hulled station in pale sunlight. Several arms were erected from the middle of the central structure downward, making Zack think of a jellyfish crossed with an umbrella. Ships were visibly attached to most of these arms, but the central arm continued all the way down to the moon. "Is that a tether to keep them attached to the moon?"
"I'm getting heat sources from that central shaft," replied Magda. "It's a lift system. Actually, I'm starting to wonder if the base is actually on the moon. Even if it isn't, I'm betting they're mining the moon as well."
"Could pirates build something like this?" asked Sherlily. "I mean, it's easy to build a station, relatively speaking. But tethering one to a moon? Where do you get the resources for this?"
"It's not hard to guess," Zack murmured. "But proving it is another matter." Zack looked over the image. "You know, this place looks like it could have a lot more ships."
"Maybe they're protecting other assets in the area?"
"Maybe." Zack thought of that. "Or maybe there's more to this than we think. I mean, you don't build a base this big unless you've got enough ships to make it worthwhile. There's what, five there?"
"Four. And what looks like a partially-completed ship on one of the berths." Magda shook her head. "In fact, it looks like some of those docks might be construction docks. This might actually be a shipyard."
"If they're getting a lot of technology from other universes, that makes sense," Zack noted. "It gives them somewhere to build new ships using that technology." His eyes remained focused on the base. "Can we get life sign scans from here?"
"Not enough to say what's in there, just that there are living things aboard," Magda said. "We'll need to get closer, or use active sensors, to get more information."
"Not right now." Zack shook his head. "I don't want to give away our presence. Continue what scans you get, I want every bit of knowledge we can find about this place without giving ourselves away." Zack tapped his comm control on his chair. "Bridge to General Victus."
Only a moment passed before the Turian general replied, "Victus here."
"General, we've found something, a space facility of some sort. We're taking scans now, and we should have something for you and the other commanders in an hour or so."
"Very well. I'll have the team commanders in your conference room in ninety minutes. Victus out."
"Ninety minutes, Magda," Zack said. "No pressure, right?"
"No, sir," she breathed, ignoring the fact that there was, indeed, pressure. "No pressure…"
Tired and hungry, Opani went to the mess hall, or rather the half that hadn't been turned into a sleeping area for the special forces troops they were carrying. She replicated a kipatiran, a warm baked pastry with a vegetable and cheese filling, and a cup of cool fruit juice. An empty table was easily found, even in this reduced space, and she went to work on her food.
She was mostly done when Barnes sat down with a late snack of a pastry she had heard him call a "hot pocket". A replicated "soft drink" still fizzed in a plastic cup. "Hey Doc," he said.
"Hello."
"So, Zack said something about us talking?" Barnes asked. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing is wrong, exactly. But I think that you may have been rude to our guest."
Barnes took a sip of his drink, which might have been an explanation for his sudden sour look. Or it may not have been. Opani waited patiently for him to respond. "Look, I'm acerbic sometimes, yeah, and I can be a jerk. But that doesn't change the fact that she has no training or experience with our technology and equipment. I don't care how good an engineer she thinks she is."
"She seems bright. Eager. This work is part of who she is."
"Sure it is." Barnes bit into his food and frowned. "Ugh. Christ, these replicators make anything and everything taste like ass."
"They always have," Opani pointed out. "Don't change the subject."
That prompted him to look at her, hard. "There isn't a damn subject, Opani. She's a kid and she's not working in my engineering department."
"Why are you so resistant to it?"
"For the same reason you wouldn't want some kid around who thought helping her daddy with bandages makes her capable of performing surgery," he retorted, and there was real heat in his voice. "In fact, that analogy works perfectly, because that's basically what you're asking me to do."
Opani was quiet for a moment, allowing Barnes to take another bite. She felt there was something about the way he was opposed to this, something more than the objections he was listing. "Why won't you give her a chance? You don't need her to run the reactor, just give her a task. Pair her with an engineer and…"
"No. That's final."
"Why are you being so obstinate…"
Barnes responded by standing up and grabbing his unfinished meal. He tossed it into the replicator and hit the reclaim button. Opani jumped up to do the same and followed him as he stamped out of the mess. "This is none of your damn business," Barnes barked back at her, already knowing she was behind him.
"This is personal," Opani shot back. "It has to be. What has that sweet girl done to you? Certainly you're not listening to the poison from the others about thievery?"
"No, no I'm not," he replied.
"Then why won't you work with her? Find her something to do? She can't be that much younger than you were when you started this. If you could imagine being in her place…"
Barnes whirled around so quickly that Opani nearly walked into him. "That's the problem," he said, his tone reflective of his broken patience. "Because I can imagine being in her place. Because I was in her place."
Opani looked at him with confusion. "What?"
"I've wanted to put together machines since I was a kid," Barnes said. Some of the anger had gone out of his face, replaced by the look of someone dredging through old memories. "I've always wanted to be an engineer. Like my parents. And I always thought of myself as one from the moment I passed my first engineering prep class in high school. And then everything with the Darglan Facility happened, and soon I was running ships and seeing myself as the engineer. But I didn't know jack crap about it, not really. I was still just the kid with a big head and ego ready to fry my brain out if it meant learning more about machines."
Opani remained silent.
"Then I met Scotty." Barnes smiled a little. "And I realized I didn't know jack crap. I still wouldn't know jack crap if he hadn't seen something in me and taught me what I was missing. Me being an engineer is because of him. It took a lot of time, training, and work to be able to do this job. So yeah, I get the girl's position because I've been there. I've been her. And I made enough mistakes back then to know what can go wrong if I let that girl work our most critical systems." He let out a sigh. "So yeah, I get where she's coming from. And that's why I don't want her in Engineering. The kid shouldn't have even been out here, dammit. She sounds college age, not fully grown up. She should be taking classes, not flying scouting missions."
"Her people don't have your ways, or mine. Keep that in mind."
"Then whatever it is they do for higher education. But my point stands."
"I see." Opani rubbed at her forehead. "Thank you for your honesty, and sleep well."
Barnes nodded and walked on to his quarters.
Zack retired to his room. It was the only quarters on the ship that had been fitted to have only one occupant, and that had been at the insistence of Scotty and of Captain Farmer back in the day. "The ship's commander needs his or her sleep" was their argument, and their recommendation was accepted.
It was only times like now that Zack realized why the two Starfleet men had said that.
He sat at his desk in his white uniform undershirt and boxers. Zack's face reflected his sleeplessness and state of mind, how upset he was at what had transpired. In his mind he kept flashing back to the Batarian ship exploding on the viewscreen. Several dozen Batarians had been vaporized in that explosion.
They were pirates, slavers, and in a straight battle he wouldn't have thought twice about their deaths. But this was different. He kept wondering about it. Wondering if he could have found a solution. A way to keep them safely contained on the Koenig, anything that might have seen them live. Anything that would spare him the knowledge that he had left those beings to die. That he had given the order.
His hand crept to his desk's computer control panel. He hit a key to activate his message recorder. "Computer, log this message, deliver when I give the word."
"Please list recipient."
Zack swallowed. "Clara Lydia Davis, currently residing on New Caprica, assigned to New Liberty Volunteer Corps as a nurse."
"Recipient logged. Ready to commence message recording."
"Begin." After a moment to compose his thoughts, Zack started speaking. He told her how much he loved her. He told her he missed her. As he did so, he thought about what he was saying, about his feelings.
He didn't want to hurt Clara, so he never told her about some of those feelings. About the occasional dreams where Clara wasn't the one in his arms. The flashbacks to the virtual world his mind had once been pulled into, where Julia Andreys had become Julia Carrey as he had fantasized about so often. He felt ashamed of the fact that a part of him would always be in love with Julia, no matter how much Clara deserved every bit of his love. It made him feel unworthy of both.
Soon he got into the purpose of the message. It was nothing less than a confession, as if she could forgive him for it and grant him absolution. "I've killed in battle, I mean," he said. "I haven't counted how many ships the Koenig has destroyed. I've got no idea how many people have died fighting my ship. But this wasn't that. I left those Batarians to die. To get blown up. Not in a fight, but as an execution. I… I keep thinking I could have saved them. I should have saved them, should have done something… I just don't know what."
Zack went silent as he thought on that. That he had no alternatives save tipping off the Batarians to the loss of their ship, and risking that whatever plan they had in mind would be put into action. He was tormenting himself over a decision that was a lose/lose situation. As Victus had put it, he did what he had to do. And he would have to live with that.
He felt a quiet urge. An urge that ashamed him, even as he imagined the fiery sensation of his father's tequila pouring down that throat. He shook his head to get the thought, the desire, out of it.
"I made the decision," he said quietly. "Now I have to live with it." He stared off into space, and into the corners of his own mind, and dwelled for a moment on his thoughts. "I can live with it," he decided. "It wouldn't be the only bad thing I have to live with." He drew in a breath before shaking his head. "Computer, delete that entire message."
"Message deleted. Would you like to try again?"
"No." Zack shook his head. "No, I don't think so." And with no further remarks, he slid into bed, wondering if he would be seeing that ship explode again in his dreams.
It was one of those nights again.
It had been weeks since Robert had dealt with the dreams that came to him, offering what he and Meridina believed were possible hints to the future. Now they were back and with a vengeance. He had glimpses of Fassbinder, the SS man thought dead on Gamma Piratus but recently determined to still be alive. The "Aryan ideal" German man's eyes went from deep blue to bright gold and yellow, darkness clinging to him and a sinister smile of triumph crossing his face.
Then it was the girl in red and gold again, crying out as her amber eyes shined with ethereal energy that sent power rippling over Robert. Nearby Julia was on one knee, stripped down to a sleeveless white undershirt and shorts, her face full of determination.
They were gone the next moment. Robert looked around at the Presidium of the Citadel, now beset by fires and smoking rubble. People cried out around him as, to his horror, shadowy figures with singular shining eyes impaled them on strange devices.
The Citadel Council chambers appeared around him. Broken metal forms were scattered before the platform leading to the guest podium. At the podium was a single figure, a Turian, covered in cybernetic enhancements and pieces. Robert had seen this image before. But never had he seemed so familiar.
"Our only hope to survive is to prove ourselves," the Turian said. "Servitude is preferable to extinction."
"We can fight them, we can win!" a Human voice urged. Robert briefly thought it was his, as it was a sentiment he felt within, but despite the haze of the dream he realized it was a woman speaking. And it was a familiar voice. "Can't you see? It's taken you over!"
Robert turned his head to face the direction of the voice. He felt surprise at recognizing the face. Shepard?
And then he was alone, in the middle of rubble and debris, his side hurting, and above him was a massive metal monstrosity with a glowing red eye staring down at him. It made a noise, as if the Devil was playing a trumpet through a synthesizer.
Maybe it was that noise that woke him up. Or maybe a part of Robert's mind was tired of the frightening imagery. Either way, he found himself sitting up in his bed. He quickly checked to make sure he hadn't woken up Angel, the instinct firing before his memory reminded him that she wasn't here now.
After the moment passed he found the dream was coming to mind again. The image of the cybernetic Turian was stuck in his head. He felt like he should recognize the figure. But the image blurred as he awakened, the dream distorted by that very waking.
When his omnitool display flashed the numbers 0402 at him, Robert sighed and laid back on the bed, turning to his side as he sought to get comfortable enough to sleep again.
In her life, Tali had slept on far less-comfortable things than the biobed in the infirmary, and her sleep had been quite restful. She woke up to find that only a single nurse was on duty, checking Kon's life signs. Tali did the same and confirmed for the nurse that he was still stable, or that his suit's sensors considered him stable, at least.
With her grumbling stomach in mind, Tali went to the mess hall and the replicator within. Only a few people were present in the room, mostly Humans wearing different uniforms from the ones she had seen Opani, Barnes, and the other ship personnel wearing. She remained clear of them and went to the replicator. She tapped the controls to see a list of dextro-compatible foods loaded into the system. The choices were as varied as she imagined they would be, and she selected a morning meal within seconds.
It was one thing to order the food, however, and another to endure it. She'd tasted replicator food before and knew that it never quite managed to taste proper, but this was utterly atrocious. "Forget it," Tali muttered to herself. She knew just what to do.
Nobody said anything when she returned to the replicator. First she had it reclaim her uneaten meal. But instead of walking away she activated her omnitool and interfaced it with the replicator. This let her run a diagnostic scan on the software and hardware. Seeing the latter made her grumble. She got onto her knees and pulled away the covering for the replicator's internals, revealing the various wires and cords that made up the device's guts. She went to work immediately on it.
Tali became so intent on her work that she was surprised when a voice said, "Are you sure you should be down there?" She swung her head over and up. Two humans, a woman and a man, were standing nearby. "I'm not sure Barnes will appreciate you messing with the replicator," the man said.
"I'm just fixing it," Tali answered. "The matter re-constitution system needs to be re-calibrated, it's completely off."
"Is that why everything's been tasting like crap?" asked the woman. There was something about the redhead with darker-toned bronze skin that Tali thought was interesting. She seemed to stand out compared to other Humans she'd met since arriving on the ship. "Because I've had replicated food before, this is something even worse."
"That's what I was thinking, so I was adjusting the internal systems and recalibrating the system. I think too many unrefined elements were being added. It would explain the taste."
"Well, don't let us interrupt you." The man nodded. "Your name was Tali'Zorah, right?"
Tali nodded. "It is."
"Commander Carter Kane, Allied Systems Marines." Kane offered his hand. Tali looked for a moment before carefully accepting.
"Commander Shepard, Systems Alliance."
Tali accepted Shepard's hand too. "I'm sure you want to eat. I'll be done in a minute."
As she went back to work, Kane said, "If Barnes finds out you're doing this, he's going to go on the warpath."
"I offered to help him keep his ship running well. He chose to ignore me. Well, he can, but I'm not eating terrible food because he and his crew can't be bothered to do a little maintenance on the replicators."
"Oohrah to that," Kane said. "I want my Marines to have edible grub, replicated or not. And they wouldn't let me bring a big store of MREs since we're all cramped in here."
"I just need to double-check this power line… connection to the computer switch looks good…"
After a few moments Tali slid away from the replicator. "Now try."
"Two mugs of coffee, black."
The requested items appeared in brilliant white light. Kane took one and handed it to Tali, taking one for himself. "Mmm. What do you think?" Kane asked after trying his.
"I'm almost convinced this is real coffee," Shepard answered. "Nice job," she said to Tali.
"Thank you. It was a simple repair." She stood up and put the panel back on. "Now I can enjoy my meal too."
Given how badly the mess hall replicator was acting Zack had opted for eating in his quarters with the replicator unit there. As always replicators didn't quite get the oatmeal and buttered toast right, and the milk tasted bland, but it was at least filling.
He was done with the toast and mostly done with the oatmeal. He eyed the closet full of uniforms, which he would be pulling on next, and turned his attention back to his report. He'd had a pleasant enough sleep given the events yesterday and time to internalize what had happened. He wondered if he would have been even more bothered had he been forced to look at the Batarians before they died. If he could have seen their fear.
Zack chose to ignore that for the moment and focus on what he saw on his digital pad. Hajar had been running the night shift and provided meticulous reports. Long range sensors had detected another Batarian ship that was on a different course. Analysis of its course had further refined Magda's calculated point of origin for the transmissions to and from the now-destroyed Batarian raider. Whatever they were looking for was going to be easier to find.
The question would be raised soon: what would they do when they found it? Attempt an attack, a covert landing of troops? Should he try to torpedo enemy ships still in their dock spaces, should it be that kind of facility (he suspected it was)? He really wanted to get Victus' special forces groups into the place to see if they could get their hands on any further information about the Batarians' plans and goals. But risking his ship unnecessarily was not something he could do.
As his final bite of oatmeal went into his mouth, a tone sounded on the ship's speakers. "Bridge to Carrey," said the voice of Lieutenant Apley.
"I'm here, Ap," Zack answered.
"We've got something on sensors. You're going to want to see this. I think we've found the Batarian base."
"Be right up."
Zack arrived on the bridge in time to find his command crew taking their proper positions. He went for his chair. "What do you have for me?"
"It's definitely a base," Magda answered. She gave her screen a close inspection. "I won't be able to determine how many ships are there until we get closer, but I'd say there are definitely a few ships, maybe as many as ten."
"Mass sizes?"
"Mostly raider-size. Maybe one or two cruiser-sized ones. I can't give you more accurate counts until we get within sublight sensor range."
"How long?"
"Two hours, twenty minutes," Apley answered.
"Okay." Zack nodded. "Status of our cloaking device?"
"Still operating within normal parameters," Magda said.
"Any sign of a graviton net? Tachyon detection grid?"
"Nothing. I'd be surprised if they could get something like that, even off the black market."
"Sometimes, Magda, I don't think anything would surprise me." Zack settled into his seat and, as he often had to, waited until they were in range.
Barnes ate breakfast in his quarters and double-checked the day's scheduling. Provided there were no alerts - and he expected there would be -- someone would finally be getting to the mess hall replicator by about 1200 to fix it. It was the earliest he could get a repair tech to the job given the niggling little fixes needed from the fire they'd taken the prior day.
Ensign Ling arrived by the time breakfast was done. The Gamma Shift officer was that shift's Engineering Officer; now Ling would sleep in here due to the need for hotbunking. "Ling," Barnes said. "So, how's the husband?"
"He's fine. Our daughter starts school in a month." Ling sighed. He was mostly East Asian in appearance, but the darker tone to his complexion and the shape of his cheeks was from an African grandparent "I had hoped to go get some leave time, but in this line of work, with a war?" He chuckled and hid his obvious sadness. "Unless we're sent somewhere near Sirian space, it's not happening."
"Woh, sorry to hear that," Barnes answered. "The replicator's edible in here by the way. I'm hoping to get the mess hall unit fixed sometime today."
Ling blinked. "What do you mean by that? It's been fixed. I don't think it's ever been better."
Barnes had been turning away from Ling. That made him turn back. "What? What do you mean it's fixed, there was no scheduled…" He frowned.
"Everyone's saying that Quarian survivor we took aboard did it this morning. And I'm telling you, sir, the food's never tasted better. It made my noodles taste more like noodles than liquid polymer, and… sir?" Ling watched as Barnes literally stormed out of his quarters. He might have gone after him to find out what was going on, but with everything going on and knowing that at any time he might be called back to his post, Ling decided to climb into bed instead.
Tali couldn't be too surprised that word swiftly spread on the small ship of her fixing of the mess hall replicator.
What she hadn't expected was the number of people coming to her to fix small things.
"How did you get your omnitool memory so full in the first place?" she asked the Human crewmember sitting in front of her in the mess. Tali looked over the results of the scans she'd had to run on the offending omnitool. "It looks like you were trying to load half of the ship's data into it."
"Our multidevices used to have two hundred megaquad storage capacity," the girl protested. "This thing locked up at just a quarter of that."
"An omnitool shouldn't be storing that much data," Tali said. "It's built with wide-frequency range data-streaming capability. Aside from vital programs and applications, everything you load onto it should be remotely accessed from dedicated data servers."
"Well… I'm still getting used to that," was the sheepish response.
Tali sighed and shook her head. "Never mind. I remember one of my friends, Mela, he once overloaded his omnitool trying to generate a welding flame. We had to spend a day fixing it. This…" She tapped a few more keys. The screen on the young crewwoman's omnitool unfroze. "...just needs a hard reboot cycle. There, your memory buffer is clear."
"Thank you. It might have taken all day for me to get it fixed by the tool shop," the girl said, her voice warm with gratitude.
Tali watched the girl leave and felt content. While she had wanted to help maintain the ship more directly, helping a ship's crew with repairs was at least a decent activity for her. Her father would be far happier than he would with the thought that she was doing nothing of use.
It looked for the moment like no one else was coming to ask her anything. Tali began to relax.
She stopped relaxing when the door slid open and Barnes entered. His eyes focused on her with clear frustration and anger in them. "You!" He stomped up. "What the hell were you doing?!"
"Excuse me?" Tali asked.
"Oh, don't give me that. I've heard all about the mess hall replicator. You're a guest on this damn ship, you do not open up equipment and start fiddling with it to see how it works!" Barnes slammed his hand on the table. "One thing wrong and you could cause food poisoning, or worse, to anyone who…"
Tali stood up. She wasn't as tall as Barnes, but she didn't have to incline her head so far to face him directly. "Listen, I've had enough of you thinking I'm that incompetent. I know replicator technology too! Lan'Durah taught almost everyone on the Rayya about them when he brought the technology back from his Pilgrimage."
"Oh, really. Alright, let's play this game." Barnes activated his omnitool and went over to the replicator. "Let's see… matter stream regulators… within proper limits. Control systems… responding normally." Barnes' voice started to lose its angry energy as, bit by bit, his diagnostic showed green fields for every part of the machine. "...matter re-constitution matrix… calibrated correctly." He started to mumble. "Damn, like it's fresh off the…" He cleared his throat. "Computer, Barnes Order Number 4."
The replicator obeyed and a cup of hot cocoa with a marshmallow appeared. He took the marshmallow and dropped it into the frothy brown drink. After giving it a moment to melt he sipped the hot fluid. And there was no mistaking the look of shock on his face.
It tasted… good. Better than normal for a replicator, almost like the real thing. "Last time I tried this it was so hot I almost burnt my tongue off," he mumbled lowly. He took another drink and savored the warm, chocolate flavor on his taste buds, touched with the creamy remains of the marshmellow. Slowly he glanced toward Tali. She had crossed her arms. And he was certain there was a satisfied look under that featureless faceplate of hers.
"Well." Barnes coughed and set the cocoa down on the replicator. With a tap of the key the system reclaimed the beverage. "Um… crap." He rubbed at his forehead and couldn't help but notice everyone was looking at him. "Yeah, I've got nothing. I'm the asshole here. That's… hell, that's work worthy of my best, of Scotty's best. Recalibrating the matter re-constitution system to that level… it's brilliant. I'd love to…"
"Quarian!"
All eyes turned to the entrance to the mess hall. Three Turians entered, Guard Captain Vidinos in the lead. All focused directly on Tali. "Where'd you put it?"
"Put what?" Tali asked, confused.
"The auto-spanner that went missing from the toolkit of my squad's gunsmith," Vidinos answered. "Where did you take it, Quarian?"
"An auto-spanner? Why would I need an auto-spanner, why would I take yours?" Tali stood her ground as Vidinos and the men with him walked up to her. They spread out enough that they were clearly cutting off any avenue of escape. One of the Turians activated their omnitool and began to scan her.
"It's a new model, just issued by Palaven Command," Vidinos said. "The kind of new technology you Quarians just love to get your hands on. So, I'm going to ask again… where is it?"
"I don't have it, I wouldn't want it."
"I'm not reading it, sir," the Turian with the scanner said.
"Any interference?" Vidinos looked to his man. "It wouldn't surprise me if her suit is shielded to prevent people from finding things. It's how Quarians would operate." As he spoke, Vidinos seemed oblivious, or perhaps simply uncaring, about the looks he was getting from the others in the mess hall. Barnes was staring at him in near disbelief.
"There's no null spots, sir, nothing to show shielding. She's clean."
"There, you see?" Tali said, her voice laced with irritation. "I don't know what problem you have with my people, but you can't just accuse me of being a thief…"
"I've been around enough Quarians to know what you people are like, always looking for new tech to take home, not caring who it belongs to," Vidinos retorted. He nodded to one of his men. "We'll find where you hid it. I'm sure you'll tell us after time in the brig."
By this point one of the other Turians grabbed Tali by the arm. "Hey!" she cried. "Let go!" A second Turian grabbed her other arm. "You can't do this! I didn't take anything!"
"Of course you didn't. That's what your kind always say." Vidinos turned around. When he stepped, his men stepped, and they began to pull Tali with them despite her struggling.
Vidinos only managed three steps before Barnes moved in his way. "Hey, Vidinos, I don't know who the frak you think you are, but you're damn well not a senior officer of this crew, and you don't have authority to put anyone in the brig without our say-so."
"Stand aside, Lieutenant, I'm the superior officer and you're out of order."
Barnes got into his face, scowling with fury. "Hey, asshole, I'm a frakking senior officer on this ship. I'm the Goddamned Chief Engineer. I don't have to do jack crap if you say it. Fact is you don't have jack crap for authority on this ship, I do, and I'm frakking tell you to let her go."
Vidinos may have noticed the gathering personnel, or he may not have. His soldiers certainly did see as the other half dozen Alliance crewmembers and Marines in the room started to move toward Barnes. But all Vidinos did was glare into Barnes' eyes. "I don't know why you care about this suit rat" - and the emphasis made it clear Vidinos intended to fullest meaning in the slur - "but I've got three of the best special forces soldiers that the Turian Hierarchy has to offer, and I'm not letting the Quarian get away with stealing from us. We're taking her into custody, either in your brig or in our barracks. If you've got a problem, take it up with Victus."
"I'm not letting you take her anywhere."
"Who's going to stop us? You?"
"How about me?" another voice declared.
Shepard stepped up beside Barnes. She directed a glare of her own at Vidinos. "Lieutenant Barnes is right, Vidinos," she said to him. "On this ship, he's got the authority, not me and not you. So do what he says before he has you dragged to the brig."
Vidinos' mandibles twitched. If his face had the same muscles as a Human's, he would be scowling, and Barnes and Shepard were both certain of that. "I want that auto-spanner found," he said. "It's property of the Turian Hierarchy."
"I'll have my people look for it when they can," Barnes said. "Now move on, you're causing a disruption."
"Let the Quarian go, men," Vidinos ordered. His troops obeyed. "I'm sure these Humans will learn the same hard lessons we did about the Quarians, right around the time the Quarian strips their ship bare."
With that parting remark Vidinos and his men stepped past Shepard and Barnes. They moved on to the exit door.
Kane stepped in before they could leave. The faint semblance of a smile crossed his face. "Hey, Guard Captain," he said. He brought up his right hand. It was gripping a tool that looked like a ratchet wrench with a small specialized motor assembly embedded in it. "A member of the Koenig crew found this and gave it to me. It looks like someone left some fancy new auto-spanner in the armory over the course of the night. I thought the mark looked Turian, so…" When Vidinos moved his hand toward it Kane held it out and let him take it. "It's not bad either. Not as good as our latest, I mean. Ours has an auto-adjustment setting so we don't have to change the spanner socket out. One size fits all. Maybe your people should look into buying some from us."
Vidinos turned away to walk past Kane. He stomped out of the mess hall with his men just behind.
"That guy is an ass," Barnes grumbled.
"A bigoted one." Kane nodded to him. "It's a good thing one of your people found this. Guys like that can cause a lot of trouble."
"Did that asshole really think he'd get away with attacking us?" Barnes asked Shepard.
"Maybe. Sad thing is, Vidinos is a damn good spec forces officer," Shepard said. "It would be a lot easier to hate his guts if he were an incompetent idiot too."
"Life would be a lot easier if all the assholes were incompetent too."
"Yeah. If only." Barnes turned to Tali, who was now seated. His face was turning red from shame and embarrassment. "Hey, kid… Tali, right?"
"Yes," she answered.
Barnes drew in a breath and walked up to her. He slid onto the bench for the next table, facing her instead of said table. "Your work on the replicator was great. I mean, it showed real ingenuity, a bit of creativity…"
Tali remained silent. But the way she kept her arms crossed was anything but silent.
"Aw, hell… I was an idiot, okay?" Barnes said. "A big dumb idiot asshole who assumed and didn't check things out. You still want to work in Engineering while you're here?"
"I would. I'm a Quarian engineer, and it feels wrong for me to not help maintain a ship I'm staying on."
"Fair enough." Barnes extended a hand. "Let's get down to Main Engineering. Poniatowski and I will see where we can put you."
Tali's posture relaxed slightly. "Thank you," she said, in clear relief.
The quiet on the Koenig bridge ended in the final minutes before their arrival. "I'm getting short-range scans of the system. Passive only." Magda went to work at her Ops station.
Zack turned in his chair to face her. "What do we have?"
"It looks like an A1-grade star," Magda said. "Reading four planets and a thin asteroid belt between the first and second. Three of the planets are gas giants, the innermost planet looks like it's a D-grade barren world, no atmosphere." After another few seconds Magda's attention clearly focused on one of her screens. "I'm detecting a faint power signature near one of the moons around the third planet."
"Just one signature?" Zack asked.
"With passive-only sensors, I wouldn't necessarily pick up ships in standby mode," Magda said. "Until we get closer I can't tell you anything more."
"How much closer?"
"Sublight range."
Zack thought on that. The Koenig's Darglan-designed cloaking device was just as good as something the Romulans could field, if not better, but there were still plenty of ways to give themselves away depending on what the Batarians might have with them. "What's the fourth gas giant like?"
"It's an ice giant-type. Methane, ammonia, water, and sulfur are the primary components of the atmosphere, various other elements. The magnetic field is on the higher end for ice giants, though, approaching small Saturn-type gas giant level. I think there might be a higher quantity of ferrous minerals in the convecting parts of the giant, but we'd need better sensors, or a probe, to confirm."
"Not really what we're here for." Zack thought of that. "Could we use the fourth planet to hide ourselves more effectively?"
"Let me examine the four moons first. Their orbital pattern and magnetic fields are…" Magda let the sentence hang. "Wow. It looks like one of the moons is actually conducting its own small mass effect field. I'm guessing a high concentration of eezo being subjected to electrical activity from other minerals. Maybe even a naqia deposit… yes." Magda looked to Zack and nodded. "I'll relay the coordinates to Apley, but if we stay in that section we should be hidden from any scans they can throw at us."
"And our scans?"
"Well, active scans might still get picked up." Magda went to work. "But maybe… I might be able to make a few light scans and make them look like routine electromagnetic activity from the fourth planet's system."
"If you can."
Things went quiet again until the thrum of the warp drive disengaging filled the ship. Apley's hands moved over the sublight controls. "We've dropped out of warp at the north pole of the ice giant. I'm moving us to the point that Lieutenant Navaez specified."
"Sensors are showing an artificial structure in orbit over the third planet's outermost moon," Magda said.
"On screen."
The holo-viewscreen activated and showed the image of a squat structure with a crater-studded moon framing the bottom of the image. The white light of the system's star was currently coming from the side of the image, illuminating half of the gray and brown-hulled station in pale sunlight. Several arms were erected from the middle of the central structure downward, making Zack think of a jellyfish crossed with an umbrella. Ships were visibly attached to most of these arms, but the central arm continued all the way down to the moon. "Is that a tether to keep them attached to the moon?"
"I'm getting heat sources from that central shaft," replied Magda. "It's a lift system. Actually, I'm starting to wonder if the base is actually on the moon. Even if it isn't, I'm betting they're mining the moon as well."
"Could pirates build something like this?" asked Sherlily. "I mean, it's easy to build a station, relatively speaking. But tethering one to a moon? Where do you get the resources for this?"
"It's not hard to guess," Zack murmured. "But proving it is another matter." Zack looked over the image. "You know, this place looks like it could have a lot more ships."
"Maybe they're protecting other assets in the area?"
"Maybe." Zack thought of that. "Or maybe there's more to this than we think. I mean, you don't build a base this big unless you've got enough ships to make it worthwhile. There's what, five there?"
"Four. And what looks like a partially-completed ship on one of the berths." Magda shook her head. "In fact, it looks like some of those docks might be construction docks. This might actually be a shipyard."
"If they're getting a lot of technology from other universes, that makes sense," Zack noted. "It gives them somewhere to build new ships using that technology." His eyes remained focused on the base. "Can we get life sign scans from here?"
"Not enough to say what's in there, just that there are living things aboard," Magda said. "We'll need to get closer, or use active sensors, to get more information."
"Not right now." Zack shook his head. "I don't want to give away our presence. Continue what scans you get, I want every bit of knowledge we can find about this place without giving ourselves away." Zack tapped his comm control on his chair. "Bridge to General Victus."
Only a moment passed before the Turian general replied, "Victus here."
"General, we've found something, a space facility of some sort. We're taking scans now, and we should have something for you and the other commanders in an hour or so."
"Very well. I'll have the team commanders in your conference room in ninety minutes. Victus out."
"Ninety minutes, Magda," Zack said. "No pressure, right?"
"No, sir," she breathed, ignoring the fact that there was, indeed, pressure. "No pressure…"