Claire's opinion of Galen - what was his title, anyway? - was darting up and down like an photon trapped in an oscillator. Turning up drunk, stinking in booze was not a great start, but dismissing the Council like that was a ballsy move, and one she appreciated; that Asari could have probably gone on for another twenty minutes. The mission orders were ultimately irrelevant; they were for her commander, not her, and the details that she was going to need would be given to her as and when they were pertinent.
As it was, she had enough on her plate without worrying about non-specific briefings. She gave a crisp salute, said "Aye, sir," before turning on her heels and marching towards the waiting crew outside the council hall. If any of them knew what they were about to get into, they probably would have hidden, or run away - no such luck for these poor buggers. When she emerged, Claire was wearing the steely, stern face that she had used on a thousand training exercises, and the air was positively electric as she began to speak.
"ATTEN-TION!" Instantly, nearly two hundred faces turned in her direction, turning on the spot in the manner their various militaries had trained them. Damn - I've no idea if these aliens are following drill. I guess I've got some reading to do. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am Major Moore, and while you are serving aboard the Normandy I will know everything ye do. I will be watching when y'eat. I will be watching when ye sleep. I will be watching when you're getting off whatever parts of yer anatomy nature has seen fit to give ye, an' if I am unhappy, I will make you unhappy! If you work hard, follow your orders, an' leave your thinking t' officers above you, I will be happy, which means you will be happy! When you have a problem, you come to me, because God 'elp ye if I 'ear about it from anyone else. Am I understood?" No response came. "Aye or nae?" Again, nothing. Evidently none of the crew had ever been to God's Own County. “YES - OR - NO?!” This time it got through - a resounding ‘Yes’ came back, and Claire got about the task of shepherding these buggers to the Normandy. “FORM - THREE - FILES!” After a few seconds of awkward shuffling, they got it done, although seeing the krogan queued up behind a rather short quarian was pretty damn amusing.
Galen found it amusing as the old human woman yelled at the soldiers. "Good job, major hard ass." He said with a cocky smile. The major's face said it all, she didn't like that. "I think the robot arm scares them." Once he was sure that she was thoroughly annoyed he put his hand forward. "After you." Hotstepping down the stairs towards the column, Claire took her position at the head of the line and barked, “WHEEL - RIGHT!” They did so, and the line was pointed towards the rather long other way to the Normandy - up the stairs. “FORWARD - DOUBLE TIME!” With that, the company set off at a jog, following the whining of the Major’s leg. Twenty minutes and an eternity of stairs later, they were finally flooding into the Normandy, and as much as she wanted to remain distant and professional, Claire couldn’t help but be overwhelmed.
She was a beauty; sleek design, larger than the previous two, and the history practically oozed from her like ions out of an engine port; when she finally put her foot aboard ship, it was like stepping across a canyon a mile across into an entirely different universe. The artificial lighting, the slight rumble of the engines’ vibration, it all made her feel terribly out-of-place: Claire was a groundpounder, a crawler, a mud warrior, and being aboard any ship - let alone one with such a history - shook her nerves to pieces. “Get t’yer stations, I want us ready to leave in ten minutes! If we’re not prepared t’ get int’ big black when I get back I’m going t’ start busting heads!” With that, she turned on her heels from the command position at the back of the Turian-style console and made her way towards the Captain’s quarters. Galen had to admit he was impressed by Claire's show of authority. He left her to her duties and walked to the back of the CIC to the elevator behind the colorful galaxy map. The inside of the ship was a beauty, it let off a human style blue tint that solidified its claim to be a successor of the first Normadies.
"Welcome aboard the Normady SR-3 Captain Kaiser. I am the Spectre Artificial Defense Intelligence, SADI to organics." A female synthesized voice proclaimed over the nearest intercom to Galen.
"I see we get our own AI, I was wondering if they had included one." Galen spoke back feeling kind of silly speaking to a voice with no body.
"Yes, I am specialized for cyber warfare and.."
"Yeah, I don't care. Just keep us alive during a fight." Galen cut off the synthetic voice.
"Yes Captain." If an AI could be annoyed, SADI didn't show it. Galen entered the Normandy's main elevator and rode it up to the Captains Cabin. He smiled when the door to the cabin slid open and the blue luminescent light from the aquarium lit up the room. It had been designed as an exact replica of Shepard's original room, it even had a pre-built model of the SR-3 hanging on the glass display wall. The knocking interrupted Galen as he soaked in the history of his room. He let out a loud sigh that he was sure his visitor would hear from the other side of the door. He turned and opened the door to see the half burnt face of his XO.
“Sir, a word,” said Claire, with about as little patience as she could muster without being overtly rude.
"Yes major, what is it?" Uninvited, Claire stepped into the Turian's room, and had he not been a goliath compared to her, at that moment, one might almost have thought she was going to beat seven bells out of him. As it was, maybe that wasn't quite so far from the truth.
"Sir, I'll be brief. However you choose to conduct your own life is your own business, but while we're on t' same boat, the men and women on here are my responsibility, and I will not allow their safety or t' mission t' be compromised by you..." It was impossible for her to hide her disgust at this point. "...and your rampant alcoholism. Now listen t' me, sir, because I'll not repeat myself. If I find you drunk on duty again, I will personally kick your arse, have you confined to quarters, turn this boat around and dump you back at whichever hole in the Presidium you crawled out of, and I'll make sure y' never serve on anything more important than a toilet." Through all of this, her voice remained calm, measured, as though the parts of her brain choosing which words came out of her mouth were completely disconnected with the part that worked how just how they were going to be said. "Anything else, sir?"
Galen stared in silence at his XO for a few seconds. His mandibles twitched in anger as he stepped forward until he was almost touching her. He blew a breath out of his nostrils onto the top of her head as he stood over her. "You think you're tough shit don't you?" Galen said with a growl. "You want to know why I drink? For ten years I served in the Turian military and I never failed a mission. I was an officer that entire time so you can bet your synthetic ass that I know what I'm doing." He paused before stepping away from the major. "A few years ago my best friend's ship was destroyed in a battle with some Cultist terrorists. He died. Then my pregnant wife, his sister, killed herself. So I'll be damned if I let some old ass human bitch second guess me before we have even landed on our first mission!"Then Galen took a deep breath before grabbing a bottle of brandy that the council had left for him next to his private terminal. He popped the cap off and took a long swig. "Make sure you get your information right before you make yourself look like an ass." He said before taking an even longer drink. "Why don't you write that in your damned notebook?"
To say Claire was disappointed was an understatement - personal insults aside, he was letting other things get in the way of his professional judgement, and while her heart went out to him, there was no place for sentimentality. Perhaps he never got over it - perhaps he just needed some time to grieve, but that wasn't forthcoming - there were people depending on him, and pickling his liver was not the way to go about operating a successful vessel. "Sir..." Claire caught herself. More than anything she wanted to tear this stupid man's mandibles off and make him memorize every name in 'that damned notebook', but if he wasn't going to be a professional, she had to be. "I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear you making excuses for putting my people at risk. I don't care what yer past record is, sir, I care about what's going t'happen, and you haven't filled me with confidence. As far as t'rest of t'crew are concerned, this conversation never happened, but I meant what I said, sir. I suggest you ask yourself whether your wife an' bairn would approve." Without waiting for a reply, Claire gave a crisp salute, turned on her heels, and marched out, grinding her teeth as she went. "Stupid squidface," she muttered, as she returned to the command deck - the crew were doing their best to get everything running, and if they knew the state their commander was in...well, they didn't need to. They had enough troubles without that adding to their backs. Straightening her beret, Claire slid her notebook into the large pocket on her fatigue trousers and held her arms behind her back.
You're not going to add a name today, Claire. Not today.
That, at least, brought the steel-haired veteran a little comfort.
Galen watched her as she left. For a second he felt like apologizing, then he took another drink.
"SADI." He said after putting his bottle down.
"Yes Captain."
"Tell the pilot to set a course for Skal'kus. And get that damned Salarian up here, I need to know what we're flying into."
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