Multi fic returns
The story of Fuzzy Britches and Lucy will continue sometime in this post?
But right now, I need to jump around chronologically some more.
Previous posts at the tag, or here and here. They get unlocked after a day or two, too.
DUDE BRO
The N7 were out in the trenches even before the War got under way. Grandma Hazel knew there were others like her out there, taking in names and, in some cases, trainees. She spent a good part of her day looking over the contacts that her N7 brought her, and it was soon that she noticed some patterns.
Dejah and T'o sent in a pretty solid mix of people--mostly human, and, she suspected, mostly trainees they were familiar with. Dejah's lists often included turians, though, and Grandma Hazel began to think that either she had a fetish, or she just liked to tweak Hazel's weakness. Fine, though, the girl could have her fun for right now, as long as the turians ultimately turned out to be useful. Valun and Vermillion also sent in a good solid mix, including a few names that were recognizably quarian. She occasionally pondered if that was Valun or Vermillion's doing; Vermillion had a spark, it was true, but Valun had a way of getting to know the most unusual people. Creatures. Whatever.
Furong was all over the map, but that was no longer surprising to Hazel; it was just the nature of her deep cover training. She crossed off the volus names, but made special note of the asari; biotics were prized for any force, and the nature abilities of that race were too good to pass up, no matter her personal feelings for them. She would just have to find them rooms in their own little section, where they wouldn't try to vamp any of the other races. Furong's lists also included names that could only be krogan, and in that case, Hazel simply didn't want to know.
It was Geop and Doe's lists that made Hazel want to throw her hands up. It wasn't that they weren't finding good candidates, it was just the nature of those candidates. Geop apparently had certain...thoughts...about what their squads were going to be made up of, and it had nothing to do with good soldiers.
She let him work, though; she had the final say, and even if she had to cross off a third of the possibilities they sent in, that was still more than she was going to find on her own. Between the three teams and Furong, they were going to get somewhere.
But after one list he sent in, she had to get him on the horn and figure out what was going through his head.
"To what do I owe the pleasure, Meemaw?" he asked, all warmth and politeness once he finally answered the response. Like Hazel, Geop had some Deep South roots, even down to retaining a hint of the accent. She didn't want to admit an affinity to him just based on that, but she'd been alive too long to overlook all her flaws. His folksy good nature didn't charm her in the slightest, but it did make her feel...comfortable with talking to him. Being straight with him, in the grand Petra family tradition.
"I got the results of your latest hunting trip," she said. Wasn't much of a code, but it was what they had for now. "You wanna explain some of this to me?"
"Sure, Meemaw. Lay it on me."
"I got the results of your latest hunting trip," she said. Wasn't much of a code, but it was what they had for now. "You wanna explain some of this to me?"
"Sure, Meemaw. Lay it on me."
"Who is Dude Bro?"
Geop cracked a smile. "I was wonderin' when you were gonna ask about that."
"I asked. So tell."
"There's kind of a story--"
"Then get tellin', boyo, I ain't got all day."
He nodded. "You know me and Bob got an invitation to visit a hanar training camp, right?"
"You got a what." She couldn't make her voice any flatter.
"An invitation to visit a hanar training camp," he continued, as if that were something every Alliance soldier got every day. "The hanar are interested in Alliance trainin', Meemaw, and since we've been talkin' to them--"
Hazel let out a hard sigh. "You're not diplomats, Geop. You're /Marines/."
"Meemaw, we're N7. We know more than the average grunt, and we know our place," he said. "Give us some credit."
"Credit goes where it's due, Geop. And really--hanar? You know the /Blasto/ movies are fiction, right?"
"We'll argue about that later, Meemaw," he replied, voice still easy. "And the hanar training grounds are mostly for drell."
Hazel's mouth thinned out. Ah, there was the crux. "Not every drell is an assassin, Geop." And assassins weren't what they needed for this anyways--they needed /soldiers/, not some sociopathic idiot or one with a secret death wish.
"Oh, I know, Meemaw," he said, finally sounding a little disgruntled. "But most of them are biotics, and we need all of those we can get."
She couldn't argue with that. Yet. "Carry on."
"So me and Bob get down to the camp, and we're watching the recruits go through their training exercises," he said. "They're learning to set up biotic explosions--you ever seen one of those?"
"Human military, Geop."
"Welp, they're amazing. Do a lot of damage, even when applied to some LOKI and YMIR mechs. Used to watch human Sents practice with 'em, and seen asari pull 'em off, too. But Drell have Reave, Meemaw, and that's almost instantaneous. Set up with Pull, hit it with Reave or Charge--BOOM." His eyes lit up like he'd just seen one. "Area of effect, too, if you do it right."
"Handy," she admitted. She would have to look into this; if he wasn't exaggerating the effect, then she'd have to put her teams on looking for more biotics. Or at least, finding more biotics who knew how to do something like this.
She should also get on Li to get those practice chambers in order. Those who didn't know would have to learn.
"Bob hadn't seen one, either," he continued. "And--well, you know Bob, he can't help making comments on things."
"Sounds like no one I know."
"He was fascinated," Geop continued, ignoring her comment. "And when they brought out the gel babies--"
"The what?"
"They're some sort of ballistic gel target on a robotic frame," he said. "The hanar have a word for 'em, but closest thing I've seen to it are the gel babies used in weapon's testing. Anyways, you set one of those up on biotic explosion, and depending on how much damage they take, they can really explode." He demonstrated with his hands. "Gel and parts flyin' everywhere. I can see if the Alliance--"
"Point, Geop."
"Right. Right. So first time one of them explodes, Bob lets out this loud 'DUDE!'--bet they heard him down at the range, it was so loud--and next one goes off and he goes 'BRO!', almost as loud as the first. I knew what he meant, but I could tell the hanar and drell with us weren't so sure. He says it a couple more times before he finally gets it under control, I don't think he even knew it was coming out of him. Anyways, after that the test was done, and he went down to talk to some of the drell, and a hanar asked me what those words meant."
Hazel's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Geop, what did you tell them?"
He chuckled. "Not that my buddy was an idiot acting like he'd never been at a range before, Meemaw," he said. "I explained that, well, humans have lots of exclamations for when they are surprised or awed, and what he'd heard had been that. The hanar thanked me, and I thought that was the end of it." He shook his head.
"Not the end of it, I take it."
"Nope," he said. "Right as we were leaving, one of the drell we'd been watching comes up to us. We'd nose the idea about that the Alliance might be interested in some cross-training exercises--totally harmless rumors, Meemaw, don't give me that look--and were taking names for that. All for you, of course." He smiled winsomely.
"You're twenty years too young, Geop."
"And don't I know it," he said with a wink--a goddamn WINK! God's blood, she was gonna isolate Dejah from the rest of them, too--before continuing, "So this drell comes up, and says he's interested in this Alliance project. And he says to us--right there, in front of the pilots--that 'Among the humans, you may call me Dude Bro'."
Hazel's mouth twitched. "You're serious."
"As a colony drop, Meemaw," he said. "Everyone got real quiet then, and I made sure to get his actual drell name on the roster, too, but--among the humans, he wants to be called 'Dude Bro'. So that's what we wrote down. Seemed real proud we did, too."
She shook her head. "I'd like to say this kind of thing would only happen to you and Bob, Geop, but you and I both know that's not true."
"And that's what makes it interesting, ain't it?" he replied, grinning like a kid again.
"On your end, perhaps," she said. "And that's enough comm channel time wasted. Geop, you and Bob should rotate around to the Terminus systems next. I'm sure you'll find something equally interesting out there."
"Like Ilium." His eyes shown again.
She pointed at the screen. "Don't go embarrassing the Alliance."
He held up a hand. "On my solemn honor, Meemaw. I will not embarrass the Alliance anymore than, say, Furong or Dejah."
She groaned. "Get off the channel, Geop."
He winked. Again. "Over and out, ma'am."
THE NOT N7
/There never was enough time,/ Hazel thought as she stood on the platform. The first few handfuls of recruits waited on the floor below her, milling around, some talking with each other, some staring at the ceiling or walls, and some with a greater space around them than others. One of those was an Asari, the one who called herself "Nyssa," but to Hazel's surprise, one of those was not the krogan. Fuzzy Britches, for all his ridiculous name and nanite blade sharp tongue, was talking to one of the quarians, clawed hands moving in small, expressive shapes.
/And the universe has a sense of humor,/ she added to herself as she stepped up to the miked spot. Li and one of the other quarians--Nerium? Narium? something like that--had hooked up an address system for her that didn't require an actual mic on her. The damn things never seemed to work, and shouting in this bay would only make for an echo. Decent compromise, but Li was good at those for a turian.
The recruits weren't supposed to go out on missions until the War actually kicked off. But Cerberus had had other ideas. And since the Alliance wasn't about to openly declare war on them while everything was still tricky with the damn batarians, it was up to squads like hers to see to squads like theirs.
And it was up to her to make them ready for it.
She cleared her throat, and the mic broadcast the sound to the room. The milling and chatting sounds died away, and all their attention came to rest on her.
God's body, she hated giving speeches. She wasn't any good at it, and no one in the military had ever asked her to be. She made her soldiers move by telling them to move, not by tweaking some sort of ephemeral motion in their hearts and minds. Not her job. Not her duty.
So if these kids--and not-kids, in some cases--were expecting her to speak to them that way, then they hadn't learned a damn thing about her since they'd gotten here, and it served 'em right to be shocked.
"You know me as Grandma Hazel," she started. "But my full title is Chief Engineer Hazel Stone, N7 Marine. I enlisted in the Marines when I was 17 years old. I enrolled in N7 training when I was 20. I have been a Marine for more of my life than I've been a civilian, and I will tell you all something right here and right now: you are not N7."
She pointed at Dr. Stone. "That there, that's Dr. Edith Stone. We served together on the SSV Montevideo for years. Kept in touch with each other, and stayed friendly, in the many years since. She's someone I can honestly call a friend. But no matter how long that relationship lasts, no matter that we're both military, just knowing me doesn't make her N7. Ever."
She leaned forward. "And the same applies to each one of you. Being recruited by an N7 Marine doesn't make you N7. Working under the supervision of an N7 Marine doesn't make you N7. We may give you the weapons for it, but none of you will ever wear that patch on your armor."
She rocked back. "In fact, you may not get to wear that armor for more than a few missions. We can only guess at what's out there right now. Cerberus has always played its cards close in, and it is you who are about to experience those cards. You, who volunteered. You, who stayed, even when we told you what little we know about what we're up against."
She shook her head. "I cannot wave a magic wand over all of you and poof!, give you that rank. And I wouldn't even if I could. Humanity has to hold onto something of its own, the same way all of your races hold onto things of their own."
She took a breath. "But you have brought those talents of your own to this pool. And it's not just for the benefit of humanity, but the benefit of all your races. Remember that: humans may have gathered you in, and humans may boss you around, but this is being done for the sake of the galaxy. For you, and your children, and your children's children, all of us are fighting now."
"I can't call you N7, because that's not your place. Your battles will be small, and hard fought, and not all of you will survive. There is no might of a warship waiting to bail your asses out; there's only our small crew to send you out and receive you back. We will patch your wounds, we will keep you fed, we will watch over your weapons and we will keep your bunks open for you when you get back. As of right now, all of our lives are in trust to each other, in their own different ways."
"I can't call you N7. But I can recognize when the spirit of that group when I see it. What we do here, what we do for the galaxy--each and every one of you volunteered for that. That is a spirit I can recognize as N7. And though I may dislike each and every one of you in your own way, understand that I honor that spirit within you."
"Godspeed--or whatever you've got looking out for you--to all of you. You have your assignments. Time to get to those shuttles."
But right now, I need to jump around chronologically some more.
Previous posts at the tag, or here and here. They get unlocked after a day or two, too.
DUDE BRO
The N7 were out in the trenches even before the War got under way. Grandma Hazel knew there were others like her out there, taking in names and, in some cases, trainees. She spent a good part of her day looking over the contacts that her N7 brought her, and it was soon that she noticed some patterns.
Dejah and T'o sent in a pretty solid mix of people--mostly human, and, she suspected, mostly trainees they were familiar with. Dejah's lists often included turians, though, and Grandma Hazel began to think that either she had a fetish, or she just liked to tweak Hazel's weakness. Fine, though, the girl could have her fun for right now, as long as the turians ultimately turned out to be useful. Valun and Vermillion also sent in a good solid mix, including a few names that were recognizably quarian. She occasionally pondered if that was Valun or Vermillion's doing; Vermillion had a spark, it was true, but Valun had a way of getting to know the most unusual people. Creatures. Whatever.
Furong was all over the map, but that was no longer surprising to Hazel; it was just the nature of her deep cover training. She crossed off the volus names, but made special note of the asari; biotics were prized for any force, and the nature abilities of that race were too good to pass up, no matter her personal feelings for them. She would just have to find them rooms in their own little section, where they wouldn't try to vamp any of the other races. Furong's lists also included names that could only be krogan, and in that case, Hazel simply didn't want to know.
It was Geop and Doe's lists that made Hazel want to throw her hands up. It wasn't that they weren't finding good candidates, it was just the nature of those candidates. Geop apparently had certain...thoughts...about what their squads were going to be made up of, and it had nothing to do with good soldiers.
She let him work, though; she had the final say, and even if she had to cross off a third of the possibilities they sent in, that was still more than she was going to find on her own. Between the three teams and Furong, they were going to get somewhere.
But after one list he sent in, she had to get him on the horn and figure out what was going through his head.
"To what do I owe the pleasure, Meemaw?" he asked, all warmth and politeness once he finally answered the response. Like Hazel, Geop had some Deep South roots, even down to retaining a hint of the accent. She didn't want to admit an affinity to him just based on that, but she'd been alive too long to overlook all her flaws. His folksy good nature didn't charm her in the slightest, but it did make her feel...comfortable with talking to him. Being straight with him, in the grand Petra family tradition.
"I got the results of your latest hunting trip," she said. Wasn't much of a code, but it was what they had for now. "You wanna explain some of this to me?"
"Sure, Meemaw. Lay it on me."
"I got the results of your latest hunting trip," she said. Wasn't much of a code, but it was what they had for now. "You wanna explain some of this to me?"
"Sure, Meemaw. Lay it on me."
"Who is Dude Bro?"
Geop cracked a smile. "I was wonderin' when you were gonna ask about that."
"I asked. So tell."
"There's kind of a story--"
"Then get tellin', boyo, I ain't got all day."
He nodded. "You know me and Bob got an invitation to visit a hanar training camp, right?"
"You got a what." She couldn't make her voice any flatter.
"An invitation to visit a hanar training camp," he continued, as if that were something every Alliance soldier got every day. "The hanar are interested in Alliance trainin', Meemaw, and since we've been talkin' to them--"
Hazel let out a hard sigh. "You're not diplomats, Geop. You're /Marines/."
"Meemaw, we're N7. We know more than the average grunt, and we know our place," he said. "Give us some credit."
"Credit goes where it's due, Geop. And really--hanar? You know the /Blasto/ movies are fiction, right?"
"We'll argue about that later, Meemaw," he replied, voice still easy. "And the hanar training grounds are mostly for drell."
Hazel's mouth thinned out. Ah, there was the crux. "Not every drell is an assassin, Geop." And assassins weren't what they needed for this anyways--they needed /soldiers/, not some sociopathic idiot or one with a secret death wish.
"Oh, I know, Meemaw," he said, finally sounding a little disgruntled. "But most of them are biotics, and we need all of those we can get."
She couldn't argue with that. Yet. "Carry on."
"So me and Bob get down to the camp, and we're watching the recruits go through their training exercises," he said. "They're learning to set up biotic explosions--you ever seen one of those?"
"Human military, Geop."
"Welp, they're amazing. Do a lot of damage, even when applied to some LOKI and YMIR mechs. Used to watch human Sents practice with 'em, and seen asari pull 'em off, too. But Drell have Reave, Meemaw, and that's almost instantaneous. Set up with Pull, hit it with Reave or Charge--BOOM." His eyes lit up like he'd just seen one. "Area of effect, too, if you do it right."
"Handy," she admitted. She would have to look into this; if he wasn't exaggerating the effect, then she'd have to put her teams on looking for more biotics. Or at least, finding more biotics who knew how to do something like this.
She should also get on Li to get those practice chambers in order. Those who didn't know would have to learn.
"Bob hadn't seen one, either," he continued. "And--well, you know Bob, he can't help making comments on things."
"Sounds like no one I know."
"He was fascinated," Geop continued, ignoring her comment. "And when they brought out the gel babies--"
"The what?"
"They're some sort of ballistic gel target on a robotic frame," he said. "The hanar have a word for 'em, but closest thing I've seen to it are the gel babies used in weapon's testing. Anyways, you set one of those up on biotic explosion, and depending on how much damage they take, they can really explode." He demonstrated with his hands. "Gel and parts flyin' everywhere. I can see if the Alliance--"
"Point, Geop."
"Right. Right. So first time one of them explodes, Bob lets out this loud 'DUDE!'--bet they heard him down at the range, it was so loud--and next one goes off and he goes 'BRO!', almost as loud as the first. I knew what he meant, but I could tell the hanar and drell with us weren't so sure. He says it a couple more times before he finally gets it under control, I don't think he even knew it was coming out of him. Anyways, after that the test was done, and he went down to talk to some of the drell, and a hanar asked me what those words meant."
Hazel's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Geop, what did you tell them?"
He chuckled. "Not that my buddy was an idiot acting like he'd never been at a range before, Meemaw," he said. "I explained that, well, humans have lots of exclamations for when they are surprised or awed, and what he'd heard had been that. The hanar thanked me, and I thought that was the end of it." He shook his head.
"Not the end of it, I take it."
"Nope," he said. "Right as we were leaving, one of the drell we'd been watching comes up to us. We'd nose the idea about that the Alliance might be interested in some cross-training exercises--totally harmless rumors, Meemaw, don't give me that look--and were taking names for that. All for you, of course." He smiled winsomely.
"You're twenty years too young, Geop."
"And don't I know it," he said with a wink--a goddamn WINK! God's blood, she was gonna isolate Dejah from the rest of them, too--before continuing, "So this drell comes up, and says he's interested in this Alliance project. And he says to us--right there, in front of the pilots--that 'Among the humans, you may call me Dude Bro'."
Hazel's mouth twitched. "You're serious."
"As a colony drop, Meemaw," he said. "Everyone got real quiet then, and I made sure to get his actual drell name on the roster, too, but--among the humans, he wants to be called 'Dude Bro'. So that's what we wrote down. Seemed real proud we did, too."
She shook her head. "I'd like to say this kind of thing would only happen to you and Bob, Geop, but you and I both know that's not true."
"And that's what makes it interesting, ain't it?" he replied, grinning like a kid again.
"On your end, perhaps," she said. "And that's enough comm channel time wasted. Geop, you and Bob should rotate around to the Terminus systems next. I'm sure you'll find something equally interesting out there."
"Like Ilium." His eyes shown again.
She pointed at the screen. "Don't go embarrassing the Alliance."
He held up a hand. "On my solemn honor, Meemaw. I will not embarrass the Alliance anymore than, say, Furong or Dejah."
She groaned. "Get off the channel, Geop."
He winked. Again. "Over and out, ma'am."
THE NOT N7
/There never was enough time,/ Hazel thought as she stood on the platform. The first few handfuls of recruits waited on the floor below her, milling around, some talking with each other, some staring at the ceiling or walls, and some with a greater space around them than others. One of those was an Asari, the one who called herself "Nyssa," but to Hazel's surprise, one of those was not the krogan. Fuzzy Britches, for all his ridiculous name and nanite blade sharp tongue, was talking to one of the quarians, clawed hands moving in small, expressive shapes.
/And the universe has a sense of humor,/ she added to herself as she stepped up to the miked spot. Li and one of the other quarians--Nerium? Narium? something like that--had hooked up an address system for her that didn't require an actual mic on her. The damn things never seemed to work, and shouting in this bay would only make for an echo. Decent compromise, but Li was good at those for a turian.
The recruits weren't supposed to go out on missions until the War actually kicked off. But Cerberus had had other ideas. And since the Alliance wasn't about to openly declare war on them while everything was still tricky with the damn batarians, it was up to squads like hers to see to squads like theirs.
And it was up to her to make them ready for it.
She cleared her throat, and the mic broadcast the sound to the room. The milling and chatting sounds died away, and all their attention came to rest on her.
God's body, she hated giving speeches. She wasn't any good at it, and no one in the military had ever asked her to be. She made her soldiers move by telling them to move, not by tweaking some sort of ephemeral motion in their hearts and minds. Not her job. Not her duty.
So if these kids--and not-kids, in some cases--were expecting her to speak to them that way, then they hadn't learned a damn thing about her since they'd gotten here, and it served 'em right to be shocked.
"You know me as Grandma Hazel," she started. "But my full title is Chief Engineer Hazel Stone, N7 Marine. I enlisted in the Marines when I was 17 years old. I enrolled in N7 training when I was 20. I have been a Marine for more of my life than I've been a civilian, and I will tell you all something right here and right now: you are not N7."
She pointed at Dr. Stone. "That there, that's Dr. Edith Stone. We served together on the SSV Montevideo for years. Kept in touch with each other, and stayed friendly, in the many years since. She's someone I can honestly call a friend. But no matter how long that relationship lasts, no matter that we're both military, just knowing me doesn't make her N7. Ever."
She leaned forward. "And the same applies to each one of you. Being recruited by an N7 Marine doesn't make you N7. Working under the supervision of an N7 Marine doesn't make you N7. We may give you the weapons for it, but none of you will ever wear that patch on your armor."
She rocked back. "In fact, you may not get to wear that armor for more than a few missions. We can only guess at what's out there right now. Cerberus has always played its cards close in, and it is you who are about to experience those cards. You, who volunteered. You, who stayed, even when we told you what little we know about what we're up against."
She shook her head. "I cannot wave a magic wand over all of you and poof!, give you that rank. And I wouldn't even if I could. Humanity has to hold onto something of its own, the same way all of your races hold onto things of their own."
She took a breath. "But you have brought those talents of your own to this pool. And it's not just for the benefit of humanity, but the benefit of all your races. Remember that: humans may have gathered you in, and humans may boss you around, but this is being done for the sake of the galaxy. For you, and your children, and your children's children, all of us are fighting now."
"I can't call you N7, because that's not your place. Your battles will be small, and hard fought, and not all of you will survive. There is no might of a warship waiting to bail your asses out; there's only our small crew to send you out and receive you back. We will patch your wounds, we will keep you fed, we will watch over your weapons and we will keep your bunks open for you when you get back. As of right now, all of our lives are in trust to each other, in their own different ways."
"I can't call you N7. But I can recognize when the spirit of that group when I see it. What we do here, what we do for the galaxy--each and every one of you volunteered for that. That is a spirit I can recognize as N7. And though I may dislike each and every one of you in your own way, understand that I honor that spirit within you."
"Godspeed--or whatever you've got looking out for you--to all of you. You have your assignments. Time to get to those shuttles."