The Runaway and The Duct Rat ch 2
AO3
Lucius woke up with a start and sat up quickly. Immediately a wave of nausea hit him and he let out a groan.
"Easy there, you've been in stasis for much longer than planned. Try not to move too much until you get your strength back."
Lucius looked over at the turian doctor scanning him. Another turian passed him a cup for him to drink while the doctor checked his reflexes.
"How long has it been?" Lucius asked, surprised at the raspy sound of his voice.
"A little less than two years. There was an incident that happened when the Nexus arrived but things have begun to improve since the pathfinders have taken control of it."
It took Lucius a couple of minutes before he could walk around without stumbling but once he could walk properly he was directed to the transporter that took him and a few other turians to the Nexus.
"Welcome to the Nexus, all new arrivals must check in and register with immigration before freely wandering the Nexus." The chipper asari VI directed as soon as he stepped off the transporter. Lucius looked around as he waited in line and was curious when he saw some aliens he had never seen before. He assumed they were a new species native to Andromeda.
"Can I get your name?" The female turian asked him once he reached the front of the line.
"Lucius Sparatus."
The turian typed in his name and heard an alert go off on her computer.
"It looks like you're tagged as part of the turian pathfinder's team. I'll let pathfinder Rix know you're awake, just wait over there please."
Lucius took a seat on a nearby bench and watched both familiar and unfamiliar faces walk by. Even as he sat there he could see some turians eyeing him and he knew why, they probably still remember the articles on the net before he went into cryosleep. How the son of the turian councilor had joined the Andromeda Initiative.
"Sparatus?"
Lucius looked up to see Avitus Rix approaching him. He quickly stood up to shake his hand and follow him as they walked away from immigration.
"It's good to see you're finally awake. You're the last member I recommend to my team so we'll be able to start the debriefing for our next mission."
Avitus led Lucius into pathfinder HQ where Ryder and her team waited with the rest of his team.
"Everyone, this is Lucius Sparatus. He's the last member of the team so we can get started."
Ryder nodded and activated the holoscreen in the center of the table. The star map of Andromeda lit up the screen as a select few planets were highlighted.
"So, to get everyone up to speed. The original turian golden world has been rendered uninhabitable due to a dark energy cloud we call the scourge."
An image of the scourge was projected onto the screen along with a cluster of rocks that Lucius assumed were the remnants of H-047c. Avitus stepped in and zoomed in on one of the highlighted planets.
"We've sent drones out to the remaining plants in habitable zones and have found a couple that have shown signs they could sustain dextro based lifeforms. Our mission is to visit these worlds and determine if any of them can be a suitable replacement for the turians."
"We've also been tasked with checking the golden worlds of the quarian, batarian, volus, drell and hanar to make sure it's ready for when their ark arrives." Ryder added. "We still haven't received any signal from the Keelah Si'yah but it'll make things easier on the Nexus if their worlds are ready for them."
Lucius read through the document Avitus sent to everyone containing the information of each person on both teams. From what he could see, Avitus's team will focus more on guarding the geologist and botanists that will be accompanying Ryder's team while half of Ryder's team will focus on scouting and the other half will also be on guard duty. As he continued to read, he could hear the doors behind him open and someone step inside.
"Sorry I'm late. The last of the supplies have been loaded on the Tempest. We should be ready to set out whenever you are."
The woman walked up and stood next to Lucian. While he couldn't see her face due to the hair that framed her face he could see streaks of red in her brown hair that was pulled back in a messy ponytail. She wore a tank top and military fatigues which allowed him to see the multiple scars that littered her well defined arms as she crossed them across her chest.
"It's fine Nat, you know most of this information anyway." Ryder said as she sent a file to everyone's omni-tools. "I've sent everyone a file with everything the drones have collected on what we might find on the planets. We'll be meeting at the Tempest to take off in an hour."
After Avitus told everyone they were dismissed, Lucius made his way out of the room to find something to eat. He didn't get far before he felt someone tap his shoulder.
"Hey, turian."
Lucius froze at the familiar call. For a second he was back on the Citadel and he imagined turning around and seeing those blue and brown eyes again.
"Hey, you ok?"
"Oh yeah, sorry I'm-"
He turned around and green eyes met blue and brown.
"-fine."
The woman raised an eyebrow but gave him a smile. There wasn't a missing tooth but he could see a small scar on her bottom lip.
"I haven't seen you around here before. Did you just wake up? I know this great place that'll get rid of that cryosleep nausea."
Lucius let her lead him away as he thought about the girl from years ago. He couldn't help but think the world was playing a sick joke on him. The last time he saw that girl, she couldn't afford a sandwich and yet this woman reminded him of that girl. He was almost tempted to ask if she used to crawl around air vents as a kid but he kept it to himself, no need to start his new life on Andromeda insulting a human that looked like she won a fight against a thresher maw.
He followed her into what looked like a small shop where a krogan stood behind a counter. When the krogan saw the woman he let out a loud laugh.
"Nat! It's been forever! I was starting to think you just moved to Elaaden for good."
Nat laughed and reached over the counter to hug the krogan. "You can't get rid of me, that easy old man. If I wanted to get away from you, I would have stayed back on Tuchanka"
The krogan laughed again and looked over at Lucius. "And who's this? A friend of yours?"
"I'm Lucius, I recently woke up from cryosleep."
"That's right, can I get two of the usuals, one being dextro friendly of course."
"Coming right up."
Nat gestured for Lucius to sit down as she took a seat. She opened her omni-tool and he could see she was looking at their mission documents.
"So, what made you decide to join the initiative?" She asked, looking up at him with a smile. He didn't know if he wanted to tell her why he really came and decided to keep it vague.
"I felt like I needed a new start, what better way to start over than a new galaxy. What about you?"
Nat looked over at the cooking turian and looked back at him. "That old grump over there is Korten Craw, he adopted me when I was a kid. I grew up on Tuchanka and took on the rite of passage to prove my worth to his clan. I was accepted and lived with krogan most of my life. When dad got recommended to join the initiative he insisted I was allowed to join too."
"And they should feel lucky that you accepted. I don't see anyone else other than that turian Kandros keeping these pyjaks in line." Craw commented as he placed two large bowls in front of them. Lucius could feel his eyes beginning to water from the overpowering spices in the soup. Not wanting to be rude he carefully sipped a spoonful but immediately began coughing as his tongue burned. As he tried drowning the spice with a glass of water he watched amazed as Nat casually slurped up the noodles and sipped the broth.
"Do you even have any feeling in your tongue left?" He asked as she continued to quickly finish her soup.
"Bah, you turians just have a sensitive palate. If i tried to make it spicy, you wouldn't be able to breathe around it."
"Don't listen to him," Nat said, wiping some stray broth with a napkin. "It's pretty spicy but I'm used to his overseasoning. Just let it cool for a bit and the spices start to fade."
Taking her advice he let the soup cool and after another tentative sip he found he could handle the spice this time and began to dig in. While it was still slightly too spicy, he had to admit it was delicious.
"So after you're done, how about I show you around the Tempest."
Lucius nodded, not trusting his voice after eating so much spice and opened his omni-tool to transfer the credits for his food until a hand over his, stopped him.
"It's fine, it's on me."
He didn't know what to say and instead looked at their hands. Her hand was rough, covered in calluses and tiny scratches. Even though he was the one with sharp talons, he imagined she could do a lot of damage with a well placed punch.
"Well then, let's go!"
Nat stood up and led Lucius down to the docking bay. Most of the teams were down by the Tempest and Lucius could see Ryder was talking to a female turian.
"Hey Ryder, Vetra. I'm taking Lucius in to show him around the Tempest."
"Alright, show him his bunk while you're at it, we should be leaving soon." Vetra said, nodding to Lucius before returning to her conversation with Ryder. Once they were inside Nat gave him a tour around the ship and introduced him to Ryder's crew. Once they were done she led him back down to the cargo bay and to an empty room near the back.
"This will be your room. It used to be Vetra's but since her and Ryder became a thing, she has been living in Ryder's room. I'd say your lucky, the rest of the turian team will be sharing the crew quarters with the rest of us."
An alert over the comm signaled the Tempest was getting ready for takeoff and Nat grabbed Lucius's hand.
"Come on, you have to see the view as we take off, it's the best view ever."
Lucius let her drag him up to the bridge where he could see through the front windows as the Tempest slowly rose and watched as the lights of the Nexus turned into the vast collection of stars. He didn't know if it was the unfamiliar stars or watching Ryder open the galaxy map for Andromeda but it was at that moment it really sunk in.
This was the beginning of his new life.
