Common Area
”Find anything edible. If you can make something not fish, I'd be grateful. I come from a water planet. I have seen enough fish to last me a lifetime.”
A distinctly drell voice chimed in behind the crouched Tonka. By process of elimination, it wasn’t hard to figure out who was speaking. The krogan responded by pulling a large vacuum sealed fish, its fileted white flesh frozen solid, and smacking it down on the counter in front of the drell. “Guess you don’t want that then.” He replied, digging in deeper and discovering something that he couldn’t readily recognize past it kind of resembled beef, but it could have just as easily been one of those so called “space cows” that are found on Ontarom. It would have to do. He produced the oversized slab of meat and set it next to the fish, where it settled with a heavy thump next to the fish.
Tonka regarded the sudden gathering with detached curiosity, although his gaze lingered on the vorcha for a few moments as he found himself momentarily surprised anyone would take a chance hiring on a vorcha in any capacity. He knew from working with asari that it was something of a popular trend on asari worlds to adopt vorcha children and raise them in a civilized manner, some of whom ended up defying their stereotypes as gibbering violent idiots who amounted to little more than cannon fodder by actually being fairly competent tradesmen, but Tonka had never met a vorcha in a social setting. About the extent of his interaction with the species was usually demonstrating why piracy was a very dangerous occupation when the ship you’re trying to plunder is carrying someone who made a sport out of shooting running pyjaks at 1,500 meters and wrestled varren for fun. He didn’t mention any of this fact to his peculiar crewmate, instead his large crested head simply nodded politely. Maybe finding the vorcha pants that fit would make him presentable.
"You know if I had known that this ship would have been heading straight for Omega, I wouldn't have bothered sneaking onto that ship to Ilium. I could have just waited for you guys to have shown up at home."
It surprised Tonka that the vorcha was capable of speaking articulately without the hissing staccato of nonsense that their species was particularly well known for. Did he pretend to be a turian over voice communications with Lazumi to get the job? There were so many questions that needed answering.
Instead of asking these questions, Tonka simply replied, “If you simply waited on Omega, you wouldn’t have even looked at this ship twice, except maybe to wonder if the crew had anything resembling dignity or standards.” He said, peeling away the vacuum seal and beginning to free the mystery slab of meat.
“Even the Sherana is in better condition than this, and she’s well over three hundred. Of course she wasn’t a pile of junk the moment she was built either. This thing… Well, you don’t see a lot of Volus ships in the fleet. Sure they’re easy to get, but they are designed to fall apart after a decade or two. On the fleet we have a name for ships like this. ‘Spare parts deliveries.’ I’m just hoping this particular spare part delivery has a few years left before the planned obsolescence hits and all the critical systems start failing… my name is Kasyra by the way.”
The quarian was the next curiosity, they were around, certainly, but most kept to themselves or tried to finish off that to-do list that their pilgrimage demanded. Tonka didn’t really have any negative opinions about the quarians, they were simply another species that got screwed over collectively for one reason or another, and like the krogan, people blamed them for their own mistakes. He didn’t see too many quarians do things like headbutt people to assert dominance or throw belligerent shrieking pyjaks through the table for being annoying, which was too bad. He always enjoyed when small, frail people were scrappy. He approved of her assessment of the Borealis, which was much in line from what he’d observed. The thing was barely space worthy, and he doubted any of the emergency systems were working like they should. It was telling when a quarian tells you that their people wouldn’t even touch a ship, and they were the kind of people who operated equipment that made people who renovated vintage sky cars look like futurists in comparison.
“The volus tend to make licenced and terrible knock offs of turian designs, although it beats me what this thing was. Take it from me; you don’t want to trust your life to volus engineering. Had a rifle once, didn’t shoot it more than ten times before I cracked the stock in half over someone’s back. Cheap piece of crap.” He said as a general comment to anyone listening, implanting himself in the conversation as he worked. The slab of meat needed some encouragement to get free, and Tonka was seriously debating how sanitary the counter was. He decided against flipping it over as his stomach protested. He wasn’t sure if it was warning him against what was to come or if it was simply hungry. It wasn’t a language that held much of a distinction in his books.
"Fish would be nice, it's gotta be something nice for the maiden voyage for the new crew. Of course we'd need something for all onboard. Don't think a finely cooked fish would go down well with Kasyra here. I'm Valiss, not the only asari onboard it seems." a newcomer said, making herself at home and sliding into the group with ease.
He didn’t respond to the asari right away, although he appreciated the sentiment. He stared at both slabs of meat in front of him and frowned as a realization dawned on him; neither had labels and it was impossible to tell what was dextro or levo friendly. For all he knew, cooking either meal was asking for half of the crew to be fighting for position for a toilet for the remainder of the trip. Deciding that was worth the risk and entertainment value alone, he held his tongue and didn’t bother to suggest anyone scan the chemical composition of the cuts.
“The drell doesn’t want fish, but you do. We’ll do both, lots of mouths on this ship and I eat enough for two.” He said, regarding the oven and tentatively turning it on a defrost setting. By some miracle, it hummed to life almost immediately. “Damn, and I wanted them raw.” He mused in mock disappointment. Another new voice chipped in, in an almost apologetic tone that more or less conveyed she didn’t want people stealing her food. What kind of socially ill-adjusted weirdo brought their own food on a ship, and she actually trusted people not to steal it?
"My name is Alex. Please leave my ration meals alone. I do not wish to allow my appetite to become a burden on our supplies...and I am not a happy Vanguard when I am hungry. Thank you for your time. I am sorry to have interrupted." she said, not sauntering off like some middle manager who had just announced that the printer was now going to use extra-glossy pages for some ass-kissing report to the regional manager like he expected. Tonka regarded her for a few moments and decided that at some point, he was going to relocate her rations just to see what kind of volatile reaction would occur.
Maybe one of the engineer’s tool boxes, he decided.
“So, since everyone professes how much they think this ship is going to be the death of them, I noticed absolutely no one is in a rush to try to do anything about it.” Tonka observed, looking for roaster pans. “Did I miss the memo where this is a suicide cult?”
Nyxella
TokyoPewPew
Tlaloc
Dervish, am I your dirty little secret?