The coffee was black, and nearly boiling. Kosso drank it down all the same, grateful for the way the warmth settled in his chest before radiating outwards into his sore and aching limbs. No wonder Steve's obsessed with this stuff. It had been nearly a day since Nova had jumped off the side of Luek's flooded yacht and into the cargo bay of the Tyrus, but Kosso still felt wet and cold, as if the Kahjean sea still had its tendrils wrapped around him. He'd thrown away the water-logged suit he'd been wearing, wiped every inch of his drenched body with the driest towel he could find. Hell, he'd even found a warm place below the engine room, where the heat from the surrounding vents had drawn clouds of steam from the cracks between his scales as he lay for hours, baking. And still he couldn't shake this feeling of dampness, this chill that followed him around.
He wondered if anyone else felt it. Glancing around the mess hall, he noted that the last of the team had shuffled in, most of them looking as weary as Kosso felt. His eyes didn't linger on any face for too long; his glasses were broken and mangled, and were probably resting somewhere on the ocean floor of Kahje by now. He felt practically naked without them, though he did his best to appear unfazed as he addressed the team.
"So." He began, pausing to take another sip of coffee, "obviously, that mission did not go as planned. But we got the information we were after, and we all got out in one piece. That's what matters. Thanks to the efforts of certain members of this team, Luek's ship was stabilized long enough for Kahjean rescue services to arrive and get most of the party guests to safety. So far, the officials are blaming the sinking on a mechanical error, and if any of those guests saw us hightail it out of there on the Tyrus, they apparently know enough to keep their mouths shut. And Luek..." He glanced over at Tanya, their eyes meeting for a single second. "...well, we don't have to worry about Luek.
"I've already started divvying up the information to interested buyers. There's a lot of negotiation to be done, and it's still too early to tell just how much we're going to make off of this little venture, but it looks like we won't want for profit. Everyone will get their fair share, and we'll have a bit left over, as usual. The reason we're gathered here now is so that we can discuss the best course of action for spending our hard earned money. But first..." He gestured idly at the heavily armored human standing near the doorway, the only face that wasn't familiar to him.
"Who the fuck is that?"
Said heavily armored human was rubbing his sore neck -caused by the sinking ship suddenly throwing him across the security room when Luek's fail safe went off- and muttering sarcastically past a cigarette, "didn't go as planned? Coulda fooled me."
Hearing the Drell's inquiry, Mark made a show of looking over both shoulders before gesturing to himself with an index finger.
"Oh, you mean me. Just some dude that didn't feel like drowning so I hitched a ride."
He jerked a thumb in Roland's direction, ready to shift the responsibility of an explanation to him.
"He said I could. Name's Mark, freelance mercenary extraordinaire."
He took a draw on the cigarette as he gazed about the interior of the ship appreciatively before blowing the smoke out the corner of his mouth, away from the other occupants.
"This is a pretty slick outfit you guys are runnin. And seeing as my contract is null, now that the fellow I was hired to keep alive is less so do to your shenanigans," Mark decided to avoid mentioning that he'd basically been fired well before anything had gone down... and that he didn't actually know if his charge was dead or not.
"I figure I can make that money back by working with you guys for a while."
He jerked his thumb in Roland's direction again, "That was his idea too."
"Did your parents never let you keep a stray dog when you were a kid, Roland?" Tanya asked from the corner of the room, stirring a tea that had the faint scent of a mint liqueur. Bandages and stitches were seen across her face and neck, as well as her hands and arms, the result of the first aid that came after the mission. Despite the cuts and being sore as hell from being battered around by Poseidon's fury, as well as hating the fucking name Aurelion, she seemed no worse for wear. Above Tanya was one of the paintings she hung in the mess hall, which was titled, "Giddy Up", featuring a pair of krogan dressed up like 20th century horse jockeys, racing around a track with determined expressions riding comically undersized varren. The engineer's steely eyes bore into Mark. "Last time I saw this sod was him at the bar, drinking in the same uniform as his asshole co-mercs we killed before punching what I have since learned was his boss in the face. I thought we were trying to build Nova's reputation, not pick up Cro-Magnon man here with the crap attitude. If we wanted to pick up a mindless thug, we could have spent five minutes in Chora's Den and picked out the ugliest bastard there."
Tanya turned back to the group. "Regardless, please tell me this is a bad joke, because otherwise what the fuck? We're already running along on a shoestring budget as it is, and Mister Pugilist over there, last I checked, is another mouth to feed who hasn't put a single credit towards the operation of this ship. I don't know about you guys, but I'm out a shitload of credits from that last op. Excluding about 6k worth of fancy people clothes, I also have to put together a new omni-tool and reprogram and rearm 'Shithead', which after Luek's office, I'm in no hurry to do." she drank from her tea, shaking her head. "So I'm not too keen to split my keep with some asswad I don't know who's going to bite into my cut of the profits while fucking around in our home." she looked back at Mark. "Some offense."
Mark stared unflinchingly back into the mohawked woman's eyes while he continued to draw on his cigarette. He offered nothing more than a shrug and a "None taken," in response to her final comment. He'd heard worse over the years.
Steveo had reclined back into his seat, with a look of great physical discomfort pasted across his countenance.
His right arm was wrapped tightly in some crimson red affair that passed very narrowly for a sling, and the mottled scars that had settled his face- Wounds that were meant to have healed years ago- almost seemed to throb as though the Kahje’s sea had torn them anew.
That damned ocean… that damned red, felt atrocity he’d called a suit.
He’d showered nine times since his return- he’d counted, oh how he’d counted- and he still didn’t feel clean.
Even now, pieces of that gaudy material clung to his form like leeches feeding upon the last of a dying breed: Even as they sat, and spoke, he harboured a deep, ghastly itch, intangible without the assistance of his bandaged arm.
And oh, what an embarrassment *that* had been, swirling hopelessly around in the stygian blue with only one good limb, his legs weighed down by his disastrous attire one arm rendered totally unusable, snapped by the impact of the water, and powerful currents awaiting him.
Steveo had not had a good time.
This had not been a fun adventure at all.
He turned to Mark just as Tanya and Kosso had, and scowled toothily.
“I just had to shower a grand’s worth of very tacky, but very expensive materials away. I am malting damn it,” he grumbled bitterly, eyes narrowed, “I’m with Tanya on this one. We can’t afford to be adopting strays, especially not strays that were probably shooting at us not twenty-four hours ago.”
He then glanced down at the table before him, on which there sat a small mug of steaming coffee.
It tasted like shit. Everything tasted like shit.
Everything tasted like sea water.
“Anyone else up for a game of airlock jettison? As tradition dictates, new guy goes first.”
The new guy chuckled as he ground out the butt of his cig on one of the plates covering his left shoulder, the streak of ash barely noticeable amidst the heavy carbon pitting and damage caused by years of combat. He wasn't surprised by their suspicion, he was glad for it really. It meant they weren't naive fools and could survive at least one more mission. Nor was he bothered by the insults, you didn't survive in this line of work by having thin skin, and his was about as thick as a krogan's.
"Well aren't you guys a right bunch of tulips shifting in the breeze. And here I was thinking I was the grumpy one."
Mark crossed his arms and leaned against a nearby table, appearing as unthreatening and unprepared as possible. He doubted the salarian's remark about the airlock had any real merit to it, but if it did, Mark wouldn't make it easy for them.
"A: If I had been shooting at you on the yacht there would be no 'probably' about it. You'd have one or more brand new holes in you. And B: I can take care of myself. I don't need your hand outs. I said I'd work with you, not that I'd rely on you for sustenance, jeez."
He pulled his flask from its pouch on his hip as he spoke, and took a swing of the whiskey that sloshed inside before glancing back at Tanya with a raised brow.
"And the reason anyone hires me over the ugliest bastard in Chora's Den, kid, is that no one there aside from a krogan is likely to have over twenty years of combat experience under their belt. I make slightly less of a mess than krogans too. Besides, from what I saw of that, I'll reluctantly use the word 'operation,' you guys could use a little help. As tall, green, and scaly mentioned, it was kind of a shit show. And by 'kind of,' I mean one biggest shit sandwiches I've ever seen."
He absent mindedly scratched around the scab on his temple which had already started to itch.
"Just sayin."
Tzvi’s form hugged her bottle of water like a shroud. At a glance, she was level. No nervous tics, no slouching. The young quarian didn’t squirm or hide in the back corner. But the head hung toward the comfort of the object in hand.
Mess-ups she could handle. But Tzvi was still shaking off the moment Luek pressed the big self-destruct button on his stupid, overpriced ship. Its first lurch chucked her across the hallway and crashed her into a wall with a rattle, smacking the helmet and mask in the run. Tzvi remembered a booming clang and a sharp crack, and knowing the mask had shattered. There was a string of slurred, weak and hollow whines and murmurs under the rush of the ship that Tzvi would never admit she uttered. It was a long time before she had regained balance enough to reach for and see the faceplate, and feel her face uncut.
The next thing Tzvi did was shout in frustration. All the work to make that progress, gone, in one flicker of the lights. The rest of the job was rushing to fix the main power systems and revive anything else that’d give them an edge on time. After a trip that nearly ended trapped on a drowning ship, to die once the oxygen supply ran out in her suit or another of the ship’s swings cracked her neck, she barely sipped her drink.
The bottle made more for an excuse to occupy her hands without a gun or random piece of equipment, and avoid the fingers fidgeting with nearby subjects. Most weren’t doing better. Steveo switched from clawing at one spot of skin to slowly grating the entire arm away with small scratches back and forth. Tanya and Kosso looked like they took a dare to survive a giant blender for five seconds. Tanya swept the troubles off like rainwater, or faked it well enough. Kosso would have benefitted from focusing on a water bottle.
Tzvi laughed softly at the shared sentiment about their latest hitchhiker. But with Mark cheaply shoving the spotlight of blame to Roland, the guy that saved his rear in the first place, the medic wasn’t going to hear the end of it. Tzvi didn’t join in to add a layer of dissent.
What got Tzvi’s attention was “airlock jettison.” The only thing Mark had in his favor was: he hadn’t tried to steal the spaceship, he hadn’t shot them on the sinking ship, and he had put in effort during the emergency. That was only when the raggedy joke-bodyguard’s life was on the line, but that at least merited a drop-off at the next civilization. And the small credit where credit was due.
It was unfortunate, she reflected with Mark's latest response, that the credit was due to Mark. “Hey now, 'grandpa,'” Tzvi warned lightly, working to stay friendly, and japed, “You decided “bodyguard” had been redefined to “bar,” ‘member? Getting fired and failing to stick around to make sure the employer doesn’t drown makes for sketchy qualifications, and makes those jabs about how a job gets done a little silly.”
“But -” Tzvi paused with a glance at Nova, then Roland. A part of her mind regretted continuing, “ - our friend here isn’t that bad.
“He did good on a solid agreement to help us finish the job and get out, and he was a significant part of the three of us -” Tzvi loosely circled a pointing finger from herself to the two others, “working fast enough, not dying, and keeping everyone alive. That’s worth something. A lot more than the airlock.”
The ship's self-destruction was not a good experience to say the least. Having been forced to shoot the guy she'd taken 'prisoner' in the aft security hub, and the engine room having detonated as one part of the sequence to breach the hull of the ship, Mari reckoned she was lucky to be back on the Tyrus, let alone in one piece - not that anyone would have missed her, but that was beside the point. The engine room's detonation had injured Mari's shoulder after she had been thrown against a wall by the force of the explosion, whilst some glass fragments from the camera screens had become embedded in her thigh. But she wasn't the worst off by a long shot - pure, blind luck had spared her something like Steveo's broken arm or Tzvi's cracked mask. Her outfit, too, was water-logged to hell, but unlike people such as Kosso or Steveo, Mari had elected to try and get her outfit to dry out in her room - a plan that so far hadn't worked all that well, it was still damp. Tired, irritated, still trying to shake off the feeling of clamminess that had overtaken her whilst she was in the seas and above all cursing her luck that the scumbag jellyfish had had the nerve to self-destruct his ship, it wasn't too far from the truth to say that she was in a very bad mood. The others were too from the looks of things.
Marianna sat on one of the chairs in the area that the team had earmarked as a 'briefing room', looking down at the floor with a shotglass in her hand. The team members were trying to decide on the fate of this new human mercenary. Sure, he was probably quite handy in a tight spot, and perhaps he was a veteran of goodness knows how many years of combat, but Mari did concede that Tanya had a point: this Mark guy was an unknown quantity, he was a newcomer on a ship that had already had its fair share of controversy and division between the crew (courtesy of her own stupid bloody actions, Mari thought grimly). Could they risk it? Marianna said nothing, not even caring about the arguments for or against. Kosso wanted him out. Tanya wanted him out. Steveo wanted him out of the airlock. Tzvi was arguing for retaining the guy. The rest either hadn't spoken up or were adopting Marianna's attitude towards the debate, a distinct feeling of 'I don't give a damn'. She downed her shotglass of vodka in one, placing it quietly on the floor and continuing not to speak. It was probably best that she didn't - after all, she felt as if she didn't have the right to help the team decide on this, she'd gotten herself in plenty of shit already. Kosso probably still was out for her blood, Tanya and Roland were likely to be lukewarm, the rest she didn't know or care about... Damn her stupid fucking mother, and damn her stupid fucking mission! It made total sense to send someone into a fucking merc group and pressure to inform on them whilst telling them that they didn't need to do anything of the sort, of course it did!
Mari sat back in her chair and sighed, thinking to herself whilst remaining silent. Typical. We have some people who want this guy gone. She glanced at Tanya and Kosso. And we have some people who owe this bastard their survival most likely. She glanced at Roland and Tzvi. It's your average stalemate - some people want him to stay here, and some people want him out, and there's not a damn fucking thing we can do because of this team's damn leadership system, where 'everyone has an equal say, but some are more equal than others', which means we'll end up having Tanya and Kosso overrule everyone else by virtue of them somehow being magically superior to everyone else or something, it's probably how this shit works. So, might as well pack your bags, new guy, you'll have to take the long way home. Personally speaking, Marianna was in favour of keeping the guy - he was another gun after all, and he looked ready for a fight. He'd argued his case pretty well, but Marianna just didn't care to debate this kind of thing. Why couldn't they just do a simple 'thumbs up to keep him, thumbs down to make him leave'? She thought about bringing that up, but again, probably not the best timing for someone with no small amount of suspicion on them already.
Kasyra’s head hurt. Her body hurt. Everything hurt and moving seemed like a really bad idea. Somehow she’d managed to get off that damned excuse for a ship alive. Banged up and sore, but alive. She hoped with all her being that this didn’t become standard fare. Once she’d gotten back onboard the Tyrus she’d had to strip away all the decoration from her suit and check it over completely - head to toe, every seal and panel. While she’d managed to avoid the horror that Tzvi had suffered with a damaged helmet, she had still suffered several small suit breaches when she’d taken a dip in Kahje’s roiling water. With suit breaches came infections and allergic reactions, but of course that wasn’t all she had to deal with. She’d had a few too many glasses of the very drinkable dextro-alcohol while she was ‘distracting’ the people, and in doing so had managed to distract herself right of being useful to the team when everything started exploding. Now she was paying for it with a constant dull pounding in her skull. She really just wanted to sleep, but there was a meeting she couldn't miss. She’d managed to drag herself along, her suit still bare of any decoration or fabric.
Kasyra didn’t really have a thought out or well-formed opinion of the new guy - largely because right now she didn’t have any solid thoughts at all other than about how much it all hurt, but she was damned if her voice would remain unheard. “Well I think-” she began, flinching at how loud her voice sounded in her her ears as well as how far off the tone was because of the infections that were running their course even now. She continued with a quieter voice “We should keep him. Why not?” She asked rhetorically. “He has a very good right hook…” She probably wasn’t entirely making sense, not even to herself. “And because Kosso needs new friends…” She said to no-one in particular, her less than serious tone making it evident that she wasn’t entirely herself. She greedily eyed the bottle of water that Tzvi had - she’d not made it as far as the mess before the deafening sound of her footsteps had demanded she sit down somewhere - thankfully at the table everyone was meeting around.
Roland was sitting on the ground, cradling his head. He was on the ground, and no longer swimming in Kahje's blue depths. Yet, he could still feel his head spinning as if he were still flapping about in the water. He hadn't been in a fight the entire time he had been on the ship, but he still had come out of it worse for wear than some of his other group members.
It had been when the four of them had been proceeding from the bridge to the engine room. He had been relieved, at the time; it wasn't his fault that they were in the mess that they were, and that had brought about some unconscious pride. He hadn't been paying attention when they had been crossing the main foyer as panic had only just begun to set among the crowd of people there. The guards had been doing their best to control the situation, but the hanging unknown eventually beat itself into the mass's minds and everyone had been scurrying to an exit in blind terror. Roland had been knocked down, and trampled underfoot in this stupor, and had it not been for this new arrival who had decided to pick his ass up -- the same man that many of his fellow cohorts were now fervently against allowing in -- he probably would have remained there to die.
Still, he was there now, concussion apparent, and a biotic amp loose within his head -- both injuries just daring him to fall asleep without proper medical aid -- taking the arguments that were going about the room with only so much as a grumble. He could feel his brow twitch with both pins that Mark had put on him, and a wish form that this guy would just shove a sock in it before he digs himself deeper into his own grave. He could feel a built in sigh (withheld) as Tanya and Steveo elected to get rid of the guy; both rather colorfully. And his eyes were rolling on their own as Tzvi and Kasy both put in their own half-hearted arguments for why the freelancer should stay, or at least not get killed by jettison. With one deep breath, Roland finally stood up shakily with the support of the wall next to him to say his piece.
"Look," he addressed them all, garnering all of the team's attention, "the guy has proven his worth. He didn't shoot Tzvi, myself or even Kygg in the panic that Luek's little stunt had brought, hasn't tried contacting anyone outside of the team since we've met him -- and trust me on this, I had asked Tzvi to monitor his omni-tool's communications -- and has even risked his own hide to save my own. The guy is an uncouth, miscreant, sure, but he has proven himself to me, at least, and deserves a chance to prove himself to the rest of you before we decide to just let him go."
Mark could only shrug and nod in agreeance with Roland's politely accurate description of his character. He thought back on their rush through the skewed and flooding halls of the yacht, and the moment he saw Roland get knocked aside by the crush of panicked guests. In moments and without a second thought, he'd roughly shouldered the crazed socialites aside and hauled the medic to his feet so they could get the hell outta there. It had been almost instinctual, and it was weird because he hadn't done anything like that in... decades? Yeah, back when he was with the Alliance. He'd never had a reason to, working almost exclusively on his own or with scumbags ever since he'd been discharged. He'd never looked back when one of the Suns or Eclipse mercs took a slug instead of him.
Though he obviously didn't show it, he'd enjoyed the frantic escape. His adrenaline hadn't pumped that fast in a while, and being part of a worthwhile team again, even if unofficially, brought out the old soldier in him. And the soldier in him didn't leave a man behind. He'd forgotten what it was like to have allies you could count on, brothers and sisters of war who had your back when shit hit the fan and it was just the two of you holding your trench against all comers. He hadn't realized how much he missed it.
Well, this is going about as poorly as one would expect. Tanya thought, finishing off her tea after listening to the others. The general mood in the room was decidedly sour, and not just because of Mark. It was a victory; they got the information and they all came back alive, but Tanya had seen faces like the ones she witnessed in the dining hall, standing or sitting in decided malcontent like they suffered a crushing blow. It was a lot like when the 63rd was finally pulled off the front lines during the liberation of Mindoir, only Nova didn't lose a lot of their friends in the process. Tanya looked at her hand, turning over to inspect both sides. Usually after a particularly stressful mission, she had the shakes, but she was oddly calm, at peace with what happened. If anything, she was somewhat elated at having survived such an ordeal and the team managed to keep the boat from capsizing long enough for rescue to arrive for the civilians. That was a cause worth celebrating. She decided to tap into her past, before she became a PTSD-ridden wreck that had to leave the Systems Alliance Marines, where she was well on the path to getting promoted to Sergeant. It was a part of her that the others apparently looked up to, and on her better days, she was reassured, confident, unflappable. Leadership material. The aimless souls nursing crappy coffee and tea needed direction, it seemed.
"Our esteemed medic, the quarians, and the Caveman in question all bring up some good points." She said, looking around the room. "My reservations still stand, but not everything has to be so black and white. Roland is personally vouching for Caveman's integrity, and Kassy and Savvy both say he's a competent fighter." she turned to Mark, raising an eyebrow. "Even though our mission turned to shit, we still managed to pull it off, and the fact it went wrong is no fault of anyone here. If anyone was going to guess that our hanar friend was a murder-suicide fanatic who would have blown the fuck out of his prized luxury yacht with a shitload of potential investors, I'd have laughed in their face because it made no fucking sense. Happened anyways. These guys say that they might be dead if you didn't pitch in to help, and while you pretty much fucked over your old boss, you may be the reason this ship's not a lot more empty now. For that, you have my thanks. It's nice to not have to say goodbye to friends." she said, moving towards the counter top, placing her cup and saucer on the stainless steel surface. She crouched down, opening the door of the mini-fridge and reached inside, pulling out several bottles of beer, that she handed out to those who could drink it as she headed back around the room, giving the second last one to Mark -who eagerly accepted with a smile and a wink, just to piss her off- before twisting the lid off her own. She continued,
"Everyone here looks pissed, lost, or filled with contempt because of what happened. We took the job, knowing the risks, and we had no idea that it was going to be that dramatic. You see the cuts and bruises on Kosso and I; Luek's private study fucking exploded and flooded, and both of us are probably going to be picking out shards of glass for a week. I managed to get the data out, and Kosso kept me alive while I did it. If the two of us, who were ready to kill each other before the mission launched, could watch each other's back like that, and the fact that each of you did your jobs damn well, and we managed to all get out largely intact and alive... why are we all so pissed off? We fucking pulled off something so insane, I barely believe it happened. And if Kosso's right about this information, for the first time since we started this outfit, we're going to be ahead of the game. We knew we were going to have to expand one day, and while I want to see some of the money go towards a shuttle and an IFV, we're going to have to expand our membership if we want to pull off the bigger jobs. I may not like it, but I'd be a damn fool if I didn't at least consider what Caveman has to offer." she said, turning back to Mark. "As stands, we don't have a lot in the way of straight up muscle. Tillus and Jeanna are both considering leaving Nova for personal reasons, one of whom was offered a job teaching biotic kids, and we're going to run into situations that need tough, experienced fighters, even if they belong to another epoch."
Tanya drank heavily from her bottle before placing a boot on one of the chairs, resting her arm across her raised knee. Her eyes darted from person to person like a hawk. "So, some of us want Caveman, others want him gone... including Steveo's hard-on for hilarious murder." she chuckled. "The way I see it, we're stuck with Caveman until we get to port next, so why not put him on a probationary trial?" she asked rhetorically. "Let him tag along for a couple missions, prove he's with more than the sack of bricks he looks like, and if he actually gels, we offer him a formal position. If not, next time we go for supplies, we kick his ass to the curb. I propose a couple stipulations to ease my concerns about him. Firstly, we dock a third of his cut from each of the mission, this goes to a slush fund for maintenance and equipment procurement. Second, we can set up temporary accommodations down in the cargo hold. We still have a lot of empty, stacking storage crates that could be made into temporary accommodations, as well as those old military cots and foot lockers we had while we were renovating the Tyrus. We stick him there for the time being and his life's limited to whatever he can stuff into a foot locker until he's formally accepted onto the team. Third, and perhaps most importantly, he doesn't get to vote on anything that concerns the team until he's commissioned. He gets to say his piece and offer whatever sage wisdom he brings from the Paleolithic era, but no vote." she explained, punctuating her point with a drink. "I still don't want to split my cut or feed another mouth, but if we can survive Titanic part two and walk away with some rather expensive merchandise in the process, like hell we can't figure out shit out."
“I like him’ah,” chimed Kygg.
The vorcha sat comfortably in the mess hall surrounded by his peers, perched upon a chair that faced the wrong way. His arms crossed upon the back rest, one hand holding a glass that contained a smooth brown liquid that fizzed ever so slightly. He had taken a leaf out of Marianna’s book and had gone for the alcohol approach, trying a new cocktail of his own design to settle his nerves after their previous mission. He didn’t care how ridiculous it sounded but ryncol, cola, and the tiniest dash of cranberry juice tasted delicious, albeit probably unsuitable for consumption by anyone in Nova other than himself. He swallowed a mouthful of his drink, straightened his posture, and spoke again.
“I think he more than proved himself’ah on Kahje,” he hissed. Kygg smiled, fondly reminiscing about their previous mission on Luek’s ridiculous yacht. It had been an awful lot of fun wrecking the hanar’s ship and Kygg had found out, much to his surprise, that Mark could punch like a krogan. That was a trait that Nova couldn’t afford to turn down. He looked a little like a krogan too, Kygg thought teasingly. “But Tanya has point’ah. We could use more muscle, yes, but it’ah doesn’t make sense if we don’t all trust him’ah. So if we’re even going to contemplate’ah bringing him along we need to fix that’ah.”
He wasn’t sure if his opinion was going to have any impact on this debate (and usually there was good reason for that) but Kygg was going to try to fight for Mark regardless. After all, he felt somewhat responsible for bringing the human on-board the Tyrus in the first place and thought that he deserved to stay at least for a little while. They could definitely find a use for him, even if it meant cleaning the ship’s toilets and fetching Kygg chocolates. Maybe I should bring up that last part to Tanya? thought the vorcha.
Kygg stood up from his chair, now leaning against it casually. Unlike most of the crew he wasn’t moping around and exaggerating his injuries in an attempt to get the sympathies of the crew, so moving about was as easy as it had ever been. While he was far from in perfect condition after the destruction of that blasted hanar’s boat, taking a rather painful blow to the side of his abdomen that had bled a considerable degree, it was nothing permanent and he was reassured by the comfortable tingle of medigel as it soaked into the fresh gash. The tiny nicks and scratches he had sustained had almost entirely healed over too, thanks to Kygg’s superior healing factor.
It had made him hungry though. Healing so quickly worked up an incredibly appetite and, while Kygg was all in favour of letting Mark stay aboard the ship to be put to good use, he would happily kill the man where he stood if it meant they could stop for some batarian fast food. Kygg wiped away a thin sliver of drool as his mind wandered to the thought of varren burgers…
“Yes!” yelled Kygg, no longer lost in thought. “I support’ah putting him on a trial run for a mission or two’ah. Those who think the varren bur- human should stay can are happy, and those who’ah don’t trust ‘Caveman’ can have their fears reassured. Everybody wins, sort of’ah.”
A great, toothy grinned crawled onto Kygg’s face. “Wait, who suggested airlock jettison’ah? If he beats my’ah best time then I can kill him, yes? Good.”
Mark's beer was down to the dregs after a few deep gulps. It went down a lot smoother than his usual, and at least he wasn't the only one eager to hit the bottle. He stared at the ceiling and rubbed his stubbled jaw line as he listened to Tanya's proposal. It sounded fine for the most part, he wasn't much for luxury, so the cot was whatever, and he was certain his abilities would prove to be more than adequate. He had bristled at the mention of only getting a third of what everyone else would be though. But he wasn't really in a position to negotiate, and he wasn't exactly desperate for funds either so he left it alone. This Tanya though, it seemed likely that they would be butting heads often, what with her mouth being bigger than the boots she was wearing. But there was one only one place he knew of that made women that hard, Alliance. So he had to give her props for that at least, and assume that she wasn't all bark. Not that he'd tell her that.
He wasn't sure what to think about the bar tending, thumbs-up-giving vorcha who seemed of two minds on the subject, aside from the fact that he was a crazy motherfucker. But then, most vorcha were it seemed.
"All right short stuff," his gaze falling back to Tanya after glancing across the faces of the other crew members, "If everyone else is okay with it, you've got yourself a deal."
Tzvi kept quiet. Tanya was right. The last-second scramble to salvage the mission saved the job and their lives, when, by all rights of luck and logic, it shouldn't have. It was a memory worth having. It was worth a whole 24 hour party with enough mind-alterating food and drink to make a krogan keel over. It was proof that Nova had a shot when the universe tried to pulverize them and didn't throw 'em a bone out of pity.
'- I thought I was a goner.'
For a minute, Tzvi swore she was good as dead, breathing on borrowed time. When it turned out there was a fighting chance, she'd waited for the ship to correct the fact with every creak. It wasn't the first time she'd expected that final blackout, but Tzvi had received it just as poorly.
The quarian harshly squeezed the bottle as the image hit her mind. She couldn't shrug off the frayed nerves. It was just a surface crack and a bang of the head. This was ridiculous.
"I'll get some water for you," Tzvi said low to her delerious roommate that had looked the bottle's way before, the one melting into her chair and half-the-time looking through whatever object her eyes set on. Bonus to helping out Kas, fetching a drink made a good distraction and a short escape.
Kygg was speaking by the time Tzvi had drifted back in. It was enough to catch up on the meeting. Tzvi gingerly placed the new water to stand against Kasy's lap and belly, and piped up after Mark, "Sure, why not, give Mark a test run. Best bet for all of us; we'll see if it works for both sides."
It was worth a chance, even if Tzvi didn't think much would come out of the trial.
The ship decided to join the meeting and squealed three quick beeps in alarm, a red light blinking rapidly in turn. Then it paused to calculate something. Then a loud sailor's whistle swiveled in. Cap'n wasn't quite itself when it chipped in.
"Ahoy, privates! A ship sends an SOS our way. Time to reach: 30 minutes. Her masts are down and her hull breached by cannon balls! She's dead in the water and sinking! Time to move out! Set course to pillage its corpse and capture the prisoners of war!! Go go go!"
Mark glanced up as he heard what he assumed was the ship's VI talking. He responded to no one in particular as he withdrew his flask,
"You said he could be anything so he became a pirate huh? Cute."
The quarian groaned in pained defeat. 'Time to jump back into the fun already?' Tzvi elbowed Mark, "What luck! Guess you're getting that trial early."
The elbow jostled Mark's drinking arm slightly as he was taking a swig and he desperately tried to hold it in as his body instinctively tried to cough it back up due to the fiery liquid not going down quite right. Making a full recovery, he wiped a stray drop from his chin with the back of his hand as his attacker jauntily walked off.
"Well that was fast. Looks like I'm gonna have my work cut out for me around here."