#but it’s not wrong to say it’s the law of the land—Chakwas (the doctor) comments on it at one point

[akuzeisms]

  CONTINUED     ⤷ @grownpale

At this point, she was surprised he’d joined her. Pleasantly so, but she was. Their reunion was more than awkward, but he was one of the last people she expected to agree to what was… well, effectively about to be a suicide mission. And that was assuming they even found what they needed to about the Collectors; they were still working on that part. Right now, she needed people—people that she could trust.

“Uh… Kat’s—fine.” Rubbing her neck awkwardly, she smoothed her hair down over her shoulder, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “I mean, technically I’m not Commander any more, since I’m not active duty. Not with the Alliance, anyway.” Sure, she was in charge of the ship—its commander, in a sense—but she felt odd having him call her that. It felt too formal, too unfamiliar, even if she’d earned that level of respect.

Nevertheless, if he wanted to call her that, she wouldn’t fight it. “Uh… anyway, the airlock here leads to deck two, so we’ll start… here, I guess. To the left here is the bridge—not cockpit, though if you call it that, Joker will probably giggle like a little schoolgirl about it for a week,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. Peering around the corner, she could see their pilot’s chair was empty; now that she thought about it, Joker had mentioned something about eating a real meal on the Citadel. “Joker’s our pilot. Well—Joker’s his nickname. Flight Lieutenant Jeff Moreau.” Leading him down the long path away from the bridge, she stopped in front of the large room before them.

“And this is… well, where all of the action happens, mostly: The CIC. Galaxy map keyed to biometric data, so only I have access to it unless access is needed by someone else for whatever reason. Oh, I should also mention that, uh… the ship itself is equipped with an AI. Shackled, but… yeah.” Even still, she was wary about EDI, even if the AI had proven useful. “So if there’s any questions you have and I’m not around, EDI probably has the answer.” She led him around the CIC, pointing first to one side. “Armory’s over there. I’ll let you look around there later; Williams offered to get you set up with some gear. She’s… a bit of a firearms enthusiast, so if there’s something in particular you want, she’ll find a way to get it. Other side is the tech lab, and Mordin said he’s working on something, so we’ll visit that… later, probably.” Better to leave the overly chatty salarian to his own devices, after all.