#revised first draft

Tagged by @monsterrae1 for a six or seven sentence sunday… and sharing again a bit of the andromeda re-write due to circumstances 🙃. thanks for the tag lovely!

Tagging with no pressure @quietborderline @tkwritesdumbassassins @alyxmastershipper @outtoshatter @westernlarch @missanniewhimsy @whimsyswastry @megasaurus-regina and anyone else who wants to play along.

Banner by radio chatter, chapter art is mine.

Title: An Andromeda Tale, Book One, Chapter One—rewrite edition (DRAFT).

Fandom: Mass Effect Andromeda

Pairing: Endgame MRyder (Reyes Vidal/Scott Ryder) various others

Fic Summary:

Scott Ryder never saw his life going this way, not that anyone ever asked him his opinion. Now he's pathfinder with too many people depending on his young shoulders and trying to figure out what he actually wants for himself. Reyes Vidal, man of mystery, former pilot and now sometimes smuggler. Who knows where he came from or his motivations but he's come to Andromeda to change his destiny. What neither Scott nor Reyes could have predicted is what their lives would be once they came to Andromeda.

Tags/warnings: this is a revised first draft—meaning that things are probably still going to change further. I’ve aged up both Reyes and Scott for this fic by a few years (not hugely).

2818 CE July 2nd

Reyes Vidal, Shuttle Pilot, callsign Anubis 

Location: Andromeda Initiative Shuttle

Status: Increasingly concerned about Initiative short and long term viability

Things were not going as they were supposed to. It's been six months since the engineering and transportation crews awakened to find that the planned arrival in Heleus had not gone according to plan. This was followed by more awakenings than were reasonable, given the dire supply situation. 

A major blow was dealt to the Initiative when the Nexus crashed into the Scourge. Jien Garson and several other high-ranking administrators had all perished in the accident, leaving the Andromeda Initiative without an experienced guiding hand to see them through what had been anticipated to be a critical moment. 

The current administration had made the questionable decision to awaken more and more people than they should have. The resources available with the hydroponics farms were significantly reduced as the entire section had been damaged in the collision that had halted the Nexus—or perhaps the awakenings were not part of the administration's plan if rumors were true about the unauthorized awakenings. 

Decisions coming from the top were slow and of questionable value. Tensions were running at an all-time high between the security and administration teams and everyone else as supplies continued to run low or go missing. Hoarding was starting to be reported, and two humans had been punished severely by security last week for hiding rations.  

Reyes had been one of the first pilots awakened to run exploration teams to and from different planets and had a first-person view of how bleak things were on that front. He'd been the pilot of one of the eight expeditions to explore worlds to see if they were habitable. The system and planet he'd been sent to was a barren wasteland without a breathable atmosphere. 

Two days ago, there had been an announcement from the administration suggesting that people needed to start volunteering to be put back in cryosleep or there would be mandatory re-entrants. 

No one had volunteered, and the atmosphere on the Nexus had been balancing on a knife's edge since. 

Supplies would run out within two months at current usage rates, and selective rationing and meal skipping had been in enforcement for the last two shipboard weeks. Sloane's security forces had been harassing the scientists, who were barely restrained as Corvannis and his cohorts spread malcontent and disagreement with the admins among the other personnel.  

Repetitive threats from the "professional" security staff run by Sloane Kelly had encouraged him to keep his head down and out of the trouble brewing as a valuable pilot with a military background. It wasn't hard to read the tea leaves that a power struggle was going on way over his head. 

The scientist team he'd just picked up from Eos had a defeated air around them and were quiet on the transport despite attempts from the administrative analyst to engage them in idle conversation. Not all of the team had left—three scientists insisted on staying no matter what the analyst had said. 

Leaving the three scientists behind had left a bad taste in his mouth. Reyes wondered if he was leaving them to die on the planet. The last attempt from the analyst to get them to get in the shuttle—that he'd overheard—had been a threat that no further help would be coming and that staying was a death sentence from either the environment or the hostile alien raiders. 

That threat finally got the scientists and engineers to mostly pack it in. As they boarded the shuttle, every one of them refused to make eye contact with Reyes or his co-pilot, Kenax.

He wasn't supposed to have heard what the analyst said. He wasn't supposed to have heard a lot of things lately. 

Scuttlebutt had it that the administration was going to employ the Krogan as mercenaries if things got worse. Reyes had never had a problem with a Krogan and didn't want to find out how painful a disagreement with one could become. His limited interactions with Kesh aside, he'd rather not get anyone's attention that way. 

Entering the course corrections for the Nexus, Reyes takes a deep breath before making eye contact with Kenax. For a Turian, Kenax is a solid pilot with an eye for barely staying on this side of trouble and a penchant for discussing the merits of different sniper rifles. Reyes hasn't worked with many Turians before Andromeda, but it appears that Turian stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. 

Kenax taps on Reyes' wrist as he finishes inputting the course correction. "Be careful when we get back," he says while glancing significantly back toward the hold where the analyst is trying to get the most senior scientist to engage with him in discussing his favorite types of cheese loudly. 

As if there is any more cheese to be had left on the Nexus to dream about eating.  

Reyes would consider crime if it got him some cheese instead of another chalky protein bar that claimed to taste like chocolate. 

"I plan to stay out of things," Reyes murmurs back.  

"Before we left, there was talk of a meeting to discuss things without admin present—I'd stay away if I was us," Kenax returned his attention afterward flight display. "Us pilots need to stay out of the gunfight when it starts. There'll be enough of a mess to pick up afterward."

"I thought all Turians were genetically inclined to trouble and gunfights…."

Kenax's mandibles flare in the turian version of a smile, stretching the three vertical black lines of his colony marks on the right side of his face until they are crooked. "Us Turians like odds in our favor and keeping our friends at our backs. Kaetus—Sloane's pet—has been implying something will happen soon."

"I'm glad it's you referring to him as her pet and not me," Reyes says with a mischievous and flirtatious wink that he knows Kenax won't take seriously. "I'm going to stay out of things. I plan on helping out the engineering teams with the hydroponics repairs when we get back since the life support repairs are mostly done. It's not like there's any shortage of repairs that a part-time mechanic can't help with."

Not taking the bait, Kenax flares his mandibles into an even bigger smile that resembles staring at a friendly shark. "Yes, your tendency to get completely covered in grease and oil while repairing all things mechanical should keep you out of trouble. It's a good thing I'm not your type. But stay out of the levels below Operations for the next few days."

Exchanging knowing looks, Reyes focuses on the nav panel as they make multiple small jumps to navigate around the odd dark energy tendrils that ensnared Heleus back to the Nexus. 

Reyes trusts that Kenax's connections as a Turian are probably a lot more accurate than the reluctantly forced camaraderie that exists between the three human pilots he shares quarters with. he generally spends more time with Kenax than with the other humans as they have been hot racking until 'more resources can be secured' and more living units provided with power and water. 

Neither Reyes nor Kenax speaks further. They worked well as a team despite never having met before arriving in Heleus and being assigned co-pilots. 

When they reach the limits of Nexus flight control, Reyes hails the flight deck and gets assigned a docking bay which they then guide their shuttle into with minimal fuss and effort. 

As they unstrap from the pilot cradle, Kenax gives Reyes one more significant look before darting his eyes to the human analyst in the back, who was now escorting the scientists out of the airlock and into the bay. "Stay out of trouble, my friend. There are dark clouds on the horizon."

Feeling a forbidding chill that causes a shiver to run down his back, Reyes nods and clasps hands with Kenax in farewell. "And you stay out of it as well, my friend." 

Pausing at the end of the airlock, Reyes watches as his passengers all exit the bay under the close watch of the analyst and several security guards. There is a general lack of people in the area, which is unusual. 

Something is up. 

Kenax glances back again, wondering why Reyes hasn't followed, then turns around and follows the guards out of the bay without drawing attention to Reyes' remaining behind. 

Returning to the shuttle, Reyes grabs his old flight jacket from where he had stowed in his pilot's chair compartment during their preflight checks. It was his Uncle's old leather jacket and is frayed at the cuffs, and he could get a newer Initiative-branded one; however, Reyes swears it still smells of home even though he'd left home behind for Andromeda six hundred and some odd years ago. 

The jacket is one of his few personal possessions and had taken up almost a quarter of the limited extra weight allowance he was granted as a lowly pilot. Pulling the jacket on over his flight suit, he grabs his small flight pack and hits the latch to close the shuttle airlock, initiating shutdown and sleep mode for the engines. 

As the shuttle settles into an electronic version of sleep, he hurries away toward hydroponics instead of stopping at his quarters like he usually would upon returning to Nexus.