[SSV Mashhad] Time for a break

It was all practiced, every motion. Wake up, take a shower, comb your hair and tie it, brush your teeth and get dressed for the day. Only this time, it was systems away from home, and the extravagant luxuries of her high-end apartment were nowhere in Sarah's vicinity. The woman stared into her bathroom mirror and raked a brush forward against her scalp, easing her cropped hair neatly.

Five minutes.

The woman stood before her superior's desk, a man at least five years her junior. Striking up a salute, she went rigid in formation and spoke as clearly as she could. "Second Lieutenant Sarah Thompson reporting for duty, sir." She had an inperceptible hard swallow of anxiety. Staff Lieutenant Fitzsimmons looked up from his desk and his datapad and was quick to rise.

"Lieutenant Thompson, at ease. I trust getting used to the ship didn't take much time for you at all?" He swept around to the other side of the table and activated his visor, the man's short brown hair marked with the pepper of premature grays and white. "I mean, it's been ages since you've been on a ship, right? Like riding a bike, right?" He looked up from his datapad and leveled a flat stare at her, gauging the woman's reactions.

Sarah lowered her arms by her sides and blinked a few times in a the span of seconds. She exhaled briefly. "I, yes, sir. It's been some time indeed." She twitched a brow, grasping her wrist tightly behind her back with a vise grip. "Do you know of the last time I was stationed on a ship, sir?"

Fitzsimmons gave what could only be a knowing stare. "Your previous employer isn't of my concern. Officially, I don't know anything, and the black lines in your dossier mean I don't have to know officially." He offered over the datapad in his hands to the woman.

"This is what we've got so far. I want you to look over it and be prepared for any of the contingencies outlined in the report. We know next to nothing about what's left on the other side, apart from a few data packets sent through. I wish I had more to give you, but I don't at this time. Read what we've got, I want you to memorize everything about our major colonies in the area."

Thirty minutes.

Sarah found herself entering the rec room, which appeared to be heavily occupied by soldiers playing a video game on the far side. Finding a drink from a cooler, the biotic pressed onward, hoping to meet some of her colleagues. "So... uh. What are you guys playing?" She asked, digging her nails into the couch cushions slightly.

"Damnit," Lakshika Rajapaske muttered, glaring at the controller like it had done her a grievous wrong. On the HV, her in-game avatar slumped to the ground as the woman beside her's character ripped his sword free of her chest.

"You can't keep up with these skills, Raja," The American declared cheerfully-to the entire room, with a toss of tight black curls, "It's okay, not many can."

"It's Rajapaske," The girl muttered, going to the respawn screen.

"Whatever."

"Says the person with the hyphenated name. How about I just call you Thul?"

"My name is just too awesome for you. You wish you had a hyphen." Thullier-Wright smirked at her.

The other woman was nice and didn't mind how quiet Lakshika was, but sometimes she really did feel like punching her or something. 'Raja' reminded her of her old unit and the war-and no, she wasn't going to think about it.

On the screen, Thullier-Wright's character cartwheeled back and the man on the other side of Rajapaske said quietly, "Maybe if you stopped bragging, you might actually win."

"Fuck you, Yang."

"You're not my type but thank you."

The Marines' banter was interrupted by Sarah's arrival. As one the three of them scrambled to their feet and saluted.

"Ma'am," As the highest ranked of the three it was apparently Rajapaske's job to speak, "'Sunrise Over A Thousand Empires, ma'am. it's a hack and slash ma'am."

"At ease. Is it okay if I sit on the far edge of the couch? I'm not asking to play." She took a brief swig from her drink. "I was hoping to write a letter, these ships have QEC, right? Or cross-buoy?" She spoke with the friendliest tone she could, and quietly, imperceptibly, gauged the reaction of the three soldiers before her.

"My name is Sarah, by the way. You can call me Second Lieutenant Thompson if you really would like. I'm on break." She huffed, blowing briefly at the short-as-could-be bangs on the top of her forehead. "How'd you get a game system on the ship? I only brought a datapad that has a library's worth of books on it."

Clack.

Clack.

Clack.

"Gah, fucking hell you mrgh."

Clatter.

The far corner of the rec had been hastily tidied (if you could call it that); the boxes shoved against the walls, the random possessions that adorned the room swept away to clear a flat open expanse. For what you might ask? For an entirely different and somewhat more literal kind of hack and slash. Sanageyama on the right; his practice blade, little more than a tightly woven bundle of rods, resting across his shoulders. The hem of his jacket brushing his ankles. Another Recon Marine on the left; an identical practice sword at his feet, cradling and rubbing his smarting hand. Mouth open to continue the flood of obscenities.

You could hear the click as he snapped it shut, finally noticing the officer in the room. Locking to attention, quietly praying he didn't fuck himself over, breathing a silent sigh of relief because thank God this 2ndLt wasn't a hardass.

Sanageyama just nodded, vaguely disinterested but shying away from outright offense. In the silence that fell after Thompson's entrance he nudged the practice blade back over to the marine with his foot.

"I...fuck no man. What's your problem?" The man hissed back.

"You were holding it wrong."

"So you smashed my fucking hand?"

"I could have smashed your face instead."

"Well congratufuckinglations on not being a complete deuchebag as you teach me the ways of the sword oh sensei."

"Do you have something to say to me?"

"It's a fucking sword, it went out of style four hundred fucking years ago. I'm just doing this shit to not be a dick."

Sanageyama sighed and tilted his head back, boneless, unruffled. His arms dangling across the plastic bar.

"In the time it takes you to make a significant dent in their barriers a military grade full conversion cyborg can swing a HF machete hard enough to shatter your shields in one hit. They can bisect you through your armor in two."

"...oh."

"Mmm."

"Well shit."

"Your form's not bad. Your stance is just fine. Main issue is that you keep your upper body too locked up, too rigid, and it restricts your range of motion. Again?"

The marine stooped and picked the practice blade back up, holding it markedly more loosely. Sanegeyama grinned and unslung his own.

"Yeah. Again."

Kai was already there. Maybe he'd sneaked in while nobody was looking. Maybe he'd always been there, and was just a lot better at being anonymous than he gave himself credit for. Either way, the cyborg was curled up into a little ball on some cushions in the corner, plastic-cased hands hovering in the air over an invisible haptic display. His face shield was deployed, the white ballistic armour hiding his features from view. You might think he was doing some horribly important last-minute coding or checking.

He was actually trying out a JOTOR port on his new visor.

He needed some downtime too, you know! Plus, you know. Kept his mind off his nerves. Still, he found himself tabbing out of the game window every now and then to sneak peaks at the duelling pair through the opaque whiteness of the ceramic face shield. Possibly because the term 'full-conversion cyborg' was like a magnet to his attention.

Downtime on a ship in transit. The community rooms. How different that could be. This marked Freh’a’s first extended stint on an Alliance ship and a lot of the procedures were new. Well, not completely, it was more like the subtle differences to, say, turian ships that made it just that little bit more alien. But never too late to learn something new, right?

Rather than resting in her bunk alone, why not mingle a bit; get an idea of who everyone was? Where could you do that better than in the rec room. Vid-games weren’t interesting her much so she didn’t interrupt Rajapaske and her comrade, but the more physical activities seemed interesting enough to stroll over to where wood was clacking against wood.
Her recent introduction to human fencing techniques had made her investigate further so she recognized the makeshift shiani the two were using. Those two again.

She stopped for a moment, watching. After briefly thinking about how she could possibly have toyed around with her songblade in here (she could not, too little space to do it properly) eventually moving on. She should find out more about training facilities for biotics on this ship. Freh’ya ended up where Sarah had now taken a seat and was chatting with the private first class.

She just overheard her comment about communications, which was relevant to her as well. Writing letters, a favorite past time.

With a casual “Hi” , she dropped into a free chair. Looking at Sarah, she had the feeling this woman was a biotic. Maybe she would know her way around the workout areas. For now she waited for an opening in the conversation, relaxing in the chair, looking from the Alliance Lieutenant to the game on the screens.

Lyra Palmer sat in the corner, idly dividing her attention between the pair whacking at each other and reading from her omnitool. It was quite clear that she was paying far more attention to the pair of persons and judging by the curious look on her face it was probably clear that this was the first time she was getting a chance to look at a mech suit/person/whatever in action up close.

The marine's style, all credit to him, was functional if simple and uncertain. A half second of thought for adjustments. A precious moment before selecting and settling on a move from the basic repertoire of slashes and jabs and blocks Sanageyama had drilled into him over the past half hour. Mildly promising but not ideal. Passable for the but coarse, unrefined. Which was rather to be expected of course, considering that this was the first time he'd really even held a sword, even a practice blade, and attempted to actually fight someone with it. All throughout the mercenary's attitude was one of a coach. Rewarding properly executed moves with a forfeited hit, coaxing and directing and explaining as they clashed again and again. The reasons behind particular movements, the why of given forms (of which there was apparently a surprising amount).

Progress was made. Slow, grinding, and miniscule, but progress nonetheless. And, most importantly, at the end; when the recon marine tossed the bundle of rods back and drifted over to his fellows around the console, the parting words were, if not necessarily friendly, at least warm.

"That...actually didn't completely suck."

"And neither did you!"

More or less.

Sanageyama stood there for a moment, adjusting his coat, brushing back part of the unruly mass of hair that had flopped forward during the bout before glancing about at the circle of watchers that had gathered about the makeshift ring. He tossed up the marine's sparring blade, catching it by the middle.

"Anyone else interested?" Turning in place, leveling the hilt at the assembled people.

It settled, pointing at Kai in the corner. "How about you Relicae?"

In certain parlance the word might have been harsh, heavy, ugly. The way Sanageyama spoke it was like a nickname, a pet name, soft and familiar.

"You can sit wherever you want, ma'am," Rajapaske said slowly, glancing back at the screen in time to see Yang's character eviscerated. Dramatic gouts of blood splattered across the screen, "There are trans-buoy communicators available for vid-messages, ma'am. The QEC is restricted to official communications," She'd never even seen the QEC. Stood guarding the door a couple of times though.

At the introduction, she said, "I'm PFC Rajapaske and these are Privates Yang and Thullier-Wright, Recon." If she said the last with pride, well, they'd been through the pipeline and earned it. "Consoles are part of the Mashhad's entertainment equipment, ma'am."

At Freh'ya's arrival she nodded to her, "Hello."

It was about then that the Recon Marine who'd been sparring with the Titan merc came back over, thumbs hooked into his thick uniform belt, "So, I am now a ninja-Oh. Hello ma'am."

"Freh'ya, Lieutenant, this is Private Waharoa." The last member of her fireteam. He'd been a PFC like her before he'd been stupid and gone blindingly drunk one evening and ended up cussing out a E-7.

...She kinda wanted to try the whole sword thing out because it was kinda cool, but she had to be a good team leader and not leave her guys with the officer. Also she didn't really want the 'tiny and eternally angry ninja' nickname Gestran had given her to return.

Oh Keelah he just pointed at me why did he have to point at me just act natural and maybe he'll go away.

The AR visor over his face was certainly a bonus to hiding his anxiety, but Kai had never been too flash hot at hiding his body language. So he would up looking like he was trying way too hard to be casual. He paused the game and tabbed out of it, just in case.

"I'm good. Good. I'm good." Did his voice just crack, or did he imagine it? Could his voice crack any more? He pursed his lips and attempted to nod sagely.

Beyond the rec rooms open doorway, a distant echo stirred among the Mashhad's cramped corridors.

"Now I'm... ... legion... ... bad guys like a boss.
Dying for... ... ... be a terrible loss.

Jumping out of starships... ... homeworld.
Hierarchy Leapers... ... ... your girls!

Fifth Legion! Fifth legion! ... ... Oh!
Fifth Legion! Fifth Legion! ... ... ...low!"

The broken sinusoidal wave of the chant's intensity began to spike higher as the source of the echoing cadence, a rather obnoxiously loud turian, drew ever closer to the rec room.

"Dropping down on Thessia, lost my...
Found me an asari girl to play on my...
She ain't just another chick like all the rest.
I just gotta hope that she don't ingest!

Jumping out of starships over your homeworld,
Hierarchy Leapers getting all of your girls!

Fifth Legion! Fifth Legion! Oh oh oh!
Fifth Legion! Fifth Legion! Layin' you low!

Oohhh!

Woke up with a quarian in my bed,
Wanted me to get that bucket off her head."

With the chant's clarity reaching a peak, its turian source stuck his head round the door of the rec room and grinned broadly. Without breaking stride, the sergeant - clad in a lightweight PT vest and running pants - jogged into the room, hugging the perimeter.

"Just when I was finally gonna see her face,
Legion pulled my ass back up into space."

Without missing a beat, he threw an exaggerated salute on the direction of Lieutenant Thompson, whom he at least had the good grace to recognize as an officer. Maintaining a steady pace around the already cramped room's periphery, he threw his head back for an extra loud rendition of the chorus.

"Jumping out of starships over your homeworld
Hierarchy Leapers getting all your girls.

Fifth Legion! Fifth Legion! Oh oh oh!
Fifth Legion! Fifth Legion! Layin' you low!"

And with that, a grin in Kai's direction, a fist thrust into the air for the general benefit of everyone in the room and an admittedly impressive, theatrical, mid-run bow towards the soldiers seated at their console, he continued jogging right back out the way he came.

"Krogan lady took me on a rutting rampage,
Wanted me to fuck away the Genophage."

His voice continued to resonate around the corridor as his chant slowly faded with increasing distance.

"Took - Woah, watch your back there, bro - took about an hour till she got bored
Told me two would never be as good as four.

Jumping out of... ... ... homeworld
Hierarchy..."

And with that, almost as soon as he had arrived, Nem was gone.

The sudden attention caused Sarah to instinctively go rigid at the series of salutes. "Oh- Hello, everyone! At ease, for the .. next half and a quarter hours." She checked her omnitool to verify her statement. "I'm 'n break." Sarah plopped down onto the far end of the couch. "It's a pleasure to meet you all. The game looks fun, but I'm mostly a terminal gamer kind of gal. I've got my own haptic interface and a Terraformation game that was in a small extranet magazine. You looking forward to a few months of playing the same games over and over?" She glanced over, activating her own omnitool to bring up a small email program. Popping a button on the side of her occular visor, she began to draft a few emails.

Most of them were to her sister-in-law to be read to her baby, one was a short premature Valentine's for a certain someone. Leaning back into the chair, she shifted one left over the other, then turned her attention to the Asari. "Oh. Hello. Sarah Thompson. How can I help you?"

Freh’ya raised a hand to greet the arriving private. “Hey, pleasure to meet you. So you’re the recon team of the PFC?” Yay, she hoped she had it right this time.
“I haven’t seen any plans yet but it could very well be we will end up working together, I have vanguard classification. I am used to have my own team but lately they keep sending me out on my own on these collaborative assignments.” She had already been wondering about the organization of this trip. Hopefully there would be more detailed briefings and planning than on that last combined mission.

Then that turian passed through… Freh’ya laughed at the old turian chant.
“Hey, I wonder if he also has a stanza about humans in there …”

When Sarah addressed her, she looked at the human offcer. She was very sure but not completely certain if this human was biotic.
“Hey, I am Freh’ya, Nevos Guards Speaker. Dunno if I need any help, just was curious to get to know who I will be working with.” She made a very small pause. “You seem to be a biotic, maybe you would know how training facilities work in that regard on this ship. This is my first time on an Alliance vessel.”

"You should schedule yourself. There's an exercise room just down the hall, if I recall correctly. Biotic training and aptitude is in a room adjacent to it. I'm fairly new myself, this ship's the first time I've been on a tub this big." She finished her Valentine's, sending it off via the extranet to a 'Paul'.

She clasped her hands together over her knee. "Anyway, yeah. I am a biotic."

Palmer sat there for a second, pondering the offer. Nobody else seemed to be accepting it and then the turian ran through. One of her eyebrows was raised and then she shook her head. Still might be a good running buddy.

There was only so much she could learn by observing wasn't there? She stood then, tapping her right hand against her thigh as she moved towards Sanageyama. Yeah, I'll do it for a bit.

For a moment Sanageyama considered pressing the issue, coaxing and encouraging the teen by turns to take up a place in the center of the ring. He could use a friend yeah? Well really everyone could use a friend but Kai was here, alone, and busy doing his best to try and melt through the deckplating soooooo call it a touch of intuition or a Rainreaved childhood but he was going to go with the idea that the quarian needed one more than most.

More than he needed to be yanked up in front of a crowd of people and thrust into the spotlight even.

Calloused hands, warm and nimble and without a trace of wiring or ceramic, lightly flicked the practice blade back. "Alright then but-"

Enter: a singing turian, the embodiment of good natured affection. Behold as he completes his circuit, stunning and amazing with his witty songs and infections cheer. Contain the applause, bask in the spectacle. Life affirming. Smile rousing. Oh so very catchy. A moment, precious, priceless.

Exit singing turian, voice dopplering in his wake. Brace for applause.

Blink.

Blink blink.

Sanageyama let his arm fall from the bemused, awkward motion that could only vaguely be construed as a wave.

"Uhhh...huh. Right. As I was saying: but I'll hold you to one later then, alright?"

Without looking he tossed the spare blade to Palmer. A hilt traced arc. Parabolic. Easy pluckings.

"So." Pacing back, settling into a relaxed, languid stand; all loose limbed and light, "any experience or would you like some sets before we begin properly?"

"Thanks for the advise, Sarah," Freh'ya nodded. "If you ever want a workout partner, I'd like to do a few exercises some time...." She left the question wide open. One could never know if others wanted that or not. The alliance was at least a bit more open with their biotics than the turians. But maybe that decision to get turian basic instructors first was giving them a bit of an awkward direction. What little she knew about human biotics in the Alliance seemed like an up and down story of sorts, currently on the upwards trend though.

"What's your role on this mission, are you a team leader?"

"Oh. I'm a custodian." She shifted uncomfortably. "It's my job to ensure that the hallways are nice and clean. I use lemon spray and mobile laser-scorching cleaning devices. They're really neat, you should come by the closet and see them sometime." She offered the Asari a smirk. "As for the workout partner, I might take you up on that. I'm up early, though, and I'm religious about my runs."

Palmer shrugged as she caught the blade. They had tested her with the blade at N school but she hadn't taken it very well. Sniping and shotguns were more of her work, something that had become very apparent in her sessions with it. Still, she had taken a few courses on it. Yeah, I've got some experience. Not much though. Undoubtedly not as much as he did but certainly more then the recon marine he had just been with.

She took up a position opposite Sanageyama, stretching out her legs and arms as she did so. This should be fun.

“The janitor, eh?” Freh’ya asked, looking up and down the Lieutenant. “As a biotic you probably know the trick with reave and warp to get rid of even the most persistent stains, right? That’s how our janitors do it.” Obviously she had understood the joke.

She still wasn’t clear what the LT’s role was but obviously not everyone wanted to talk about their duties.
“Sure, I have no problem with getting up whenever necessary. So, you’re a runner? Have you figured out a route to run around the ship or what? I’d probably get lost or end up where I should not but I’m game. Accompanying the janitor should be excuse enough for me, right?” the asari replied with a chuckle.