So anyway,
I started blasting Nero was gonna head off to get the lowdown on the layout of the long walk of the ship. Except, he
had been interrupted at about the doorway when Amy suddenly called out. He had been kinda' tuning out because the focus was on Navi's breakdown, and therefore a good time to be elsewhere, but he stopped when the self-appointed ship's morale officer wanted their attention for something. Must've been
because of Narvia, 'cause she was talking about...well...therapy. Plenty of people would've said he needed some, but then plenty of people would be told to mind their own fuckinbg business. They'd had a guy, back in training, who was essentially the base shrink whose job it was to certify that Nero was ready and mentally-suitable for combat. Needless to say, he was shown to be rather anti-social and the doctor warned the officers on-base that Nero wasn't likely to respect any of them or a real chain of command, but only do what you set him out to do in order to 'rub their faces in how impotent they are'.
The reason that he didn't get on with people and that therapy wouldn't generally work was that he knew, going in, that they didn't care about him, so he owed those people...nothing. The good news is that time away from the war and with people roughly his own age that could relate to his situation had had the effect of him being not a total shithead. If he were older, he might've called the posse - the Star Marines - 'old war buddies'. As it stands right now, they're a mixed bag of 'fellow soldiers', 'close associates', and even 'friends, I guess'. And let's be clear here, this was a step up from just being 'people I tolerate'. He was even willing to put Moonstrike alongside how he viewed the Marines, assuming they let him be himself here. Anyway, what all of this was leading up to was that Nero didn't hold much faith in any kind of therapy, but he
did find Amy interesting...because she actually seemed to care, which was unexpected. She was basically volunteering to be vented at. That wasn't too bad. He'd done about same, here and there, to his group, as is. Still, the added offering of biscuits
now was a bit much, considetring that he'd eaten a few things already. He was about to reply to that when he heard Navi say the magic words: Greasy Kebabs. Nero's face lit up with that.
Oh, fuck yes."Kebabs? Save my biscuit for later, Ames. If we're having kebabs, I'm gonna need it then. I'll be in to chop the meat later, Nav."Like we said, Nero gets along with the other young soldiers. And that was when he wandered off, cranking some music on his Omni-Tool.
But yes, he was off and starting to get an idea of where everything went and where on board the ship while they were presumably getting ready to go to, and heading off for, Maiden's Reach. He wasn't in any terrible hurry. He was taking in all the ductwork and where it went, including where people could and
would hide, and his Omni-Tool was on Map Mode, scanning the physical area to just give him a full 3D map where his eyes might - shock of all shocks - actually miss something. It was a while later that one of the crew addressed him in a hallway. It was that one girl that had bits implanted in her to interact with machines. You'd think that Nero wouldn't have seen that, but you're wrong. As what basically equates to an assassin, Nero was given a series of targets to look out for, just in case. They didn't know for sure how the Rau've operated, but they had to give him
some army intelligence to work with. Part of that included being able to identify tactical officers with implants to control machines directly with their minds, coordinating turrets and other weapons. His stealth was used to get past such secure locations and open the path by killing the operator. Anyway, it didn't take a genius to figure out that plugs in head meant brain acts as computer, or that this musta' been a strain, since she wanted Doc Millard.
"Well, I ain't seen 'im, but if I were him, I'd be hiding the rest of my ciggies from Ari before she takes them all. She doesn't like unhealthy stuff."So, he was basically saying 'If not the medbay, probably his quarters'. Speaking of which, Nero had spotted a room close to a duct he could leap into at a moment's notice. It was perfect!
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