Shepard did not close his cabin door tightly. If he had been assigned to this ship and this crew, then he needed to make it clear from the start that the new senior officer was available for communication. Let them see that the door to the executive officer's cabin was slightly open, that he was hiding nothing from his new colleagues, always ready to help, always ready to answer a question or talk.
Even as Shepard walked away from Chakwas, he felt the wary, studying, questioning, and puzzled—every sort of look, in short—of his new shipmates on him. He considered it normal: a new person in such a position always attracts heightened interest from the old hands. After all, he was now effectively the second officer after the ship's commander. Everyone aboard who was below him in rank and status would, one way or another, have to settle an important question for themselves: how to interact with John Shepard now.
Of course, they would not settle it immediately or quickly. And far from all crew members would come to a final decision right away.
Anderson had helped him a great deal by giving him the chance to work with the "big" reader in advance and study the "small" one. And now he had left him the materials from both the small and big readers for personal use, so to speak.
Copies of the files were stored in one of the ordinary readers lying right on top of the neat stack.
The new, never-before-used desktop omni-tool of officer class also appealed to Shepard. The commander valued his executive officer and wanted him to have the best possible tools for his work.
Shepard unpacked the bag Dayna had packed for him, which the frigate's watch crew had already delivered to his cabin. He put some of the food into a small fridge and stowed the rest on the shelves of the kitchenette cabinet.
As was proper, the cabin had a small six-place service set—just right for tea or a shared meal among the ship's officers. It would be very useful during discussions of many issues and problems: nice civilian-standard tableware relaxed people a little, while also creating a more acceptable atmosphere for conversation.
Settling into the chair, Shepard spent a few minutes getting comfortable. This chair would be his work chair for a very long time now; he would have to spend many hours in it. He needed to get used to it.
Making himself herbal tea in a large half-liter mug, Shepard took the mug by the handle, stood, and walked over to the porthole, which was covered by an armored shutter.
Of course, he could have entered the code on an omni-tool—desktop or wrist—to retract the shutter, but instead he switched on the wall screen and selected the sensor camera built into the cabin porthole from the menu. It was faster, and the image of Arcturus Station could now be changed within a wide range.
For several minutes, Shepard stood motionless, getting used to the view and coming to terms with the thought that he had once again been assigned to a ship and was now the commander of the landing unit of a special reconnaissance frigate. And not merely a special forces officer holding the rank of captain, but the ship's executive officer.
There was no need to force his acclimation; Shepard let his gaze move calmly and unhurriedly over the station's outlines. He watched military combat and support ships, cutters, shuttles dock with and depart from the giant "pancake" of the station's docking complex.
While he had followed Anderson like a "shadow" during the commander's walk-through, he had tried to keep quiet, but he had looked around carefully, memorizing as many details as he could. Anderson likely approved of that behavior in his new executive officer. He clearly valued brevity more than eloquence, though, as it turned out, he also valued people who could speak clearly and to the point.
If he—the best graduate of the N7 Academy—had been forced to command the crew and ship of a problematic vessel, then, as the walk-through showed, Anderson had handled the difficult task to the full. In a short time, he had brought both ship and crew "back to their senses," up to standard, tightened them into the proper framework, and compelled—and not only forced—them to work the way they should.
Now Shepard would have to maintain and develop that state of affairs. And, as he felt, he was ready to do it the right way. Ready to learn a great deal from Anderson.
Tearing himself away from watching Arcturus Station, Shepard activated most of the cabin systems and control panels and configured them to his needs.
Maybe Major Chakwas considered the executive officer's cabin Shepard had been given to be a "nook." Everyone perceived the world differently and had different priorities.
Dimming the general and overhead lights to a minimum, the captain turned on the desk spotlight, sat down, and pulled the stack of readers closer. Working with documents was now becoming one of the main parts of his job in the new position.
Right now he tried not to think about how abnormal it was to combine the duties of a ship's executive officer with the duties of the frigate's landing team commander. Yes, he had been taught to accept such situations calmly; in a critical situation there was no time to think about bureaucratic paper norms. And yet a little worm deep in his mind clearly signaled: abnormal, abnormal, abnormal.
Reading line after line of text files, Shepard typed on his desktop omni-tool keyboard, filled out document forms, and noted that crew members passing his cabin door involuntarily slowed down, and sometimes even tried to peek inside.
Fine by him. That was why he had left a gap. Let them look, let them listen, let them get used to it.
Over the shipwide comm, the watch officer informed the Normandy's crew that fifteen minutes remained until departure. As the executive officer understood, the frigate's departure time was constantly being adjusted, but for the first flight of a brand-new ship that still had prototype status, that was normal.
Shepard noted the new departure time on his wrist omni-tool and spent another ten minutes finishing the last reader in the stack. He made it, even though each reader contained a very large number of files and an abundance of information.
Rising from the desk, the captain changed into light combat armor as a matter of habit.
A launch was a launch. If he was about to go to the Galaxy Map, he needed to be ready for surprises. Yes, it might seem unusual to the ship's crew, but as executive officer he would now make sure that light combat armor became normal for everyone aboard the frigate.
Anderson would not object. He would understand it correctly. And the rest of the Normandy crew would have to get used to it. By the way—why "the frigate's crew"? "The Normandy's crew." That would be clearer, sharper, and more correct.
Leaving the cabin, he closed the door completely. He felt the puzzled looks of the crew members on him. Fine. They would get used to it. And then they would be surprised themselves that they had once made do with dress uniforms instead of armor.
Helmet clipped to his belt, and forward—to the Map.
A few dozen steps, and ahead was the platform on which the Galaxy Map was mounted.
Anderson raised his head from the displays embedded in the Map's frame, nodded, and swept his assistant's figure with a careful, even probing look.
"No chairs," Shepard thought. "There should be at least two chairs here, by the Map. Standing is fine—keeps you toned, in a way—but the flight ahead… will be difficult. Chairs wouldn't hurt."
The executive officer took up position beside the commander and joined the ship's special comm network. A standard departure procedure. Nothing unusual.
The turian Spectre did not appear in the CIC. Either the Normandy crew had already trained him "not to get in the way," or it was something else.
Many consoles in the CIC's "necklace" were empty. Yes, in the readers Shepard had studied there was plenty of information about problems that had arisen precisely because of an understaffed crew. They took aboard those without whom the ship could barely function at all, and the rest… were left behind on the docking field, from which the Normandy had traveled to Arcturus under various pretexts.
At the CIC entry portals, military police stood frozen in their dull uniforms.
They were interested in the new executive officer too. They sensed he did not like their presence aboard. They understood themselves it was abnormal. But—orders, service, protocol, ritual.
Twelve MPs in place of twelve ship specialists. It would come back on them negatively. Very negatively. Shepard was sure of it. Certain of it.
The frigate eased away from the station and cleared the "outer roadstead"—the space set aside for ships whose presence close to Arcturus was not necessary.
A turn, and the ship settled cleanly onto a course toward the relay. It accelerated. This maneuvering and acceleration, as Shepard understood it, would take several hours.
From Arcturus, you could, of course, depart in an emergency. This was a military station. But this was not that situation, not that case. So the Normandy left calmly. By the book, as specialists would say.
Anderson watched as the executive officer worked the controls and screens at the Galaxy Map. Yes, the main space here was taken up by a holo-display that usually presented all navigation data in three-dimensional form. There were more than enough ordinary displays and panels built into the Map's frame as well. Some were hidden; some were half-hidden. Only those currently in use were active, and those whose information mattered right now. The rest were dark, put into standby. Or deactivated entirely.
"Ship is on course. Takeoff and departure are complete," the frigate's chief pilot, Moreau, reported over the commander's speaker audio channel.
The shipwide comm repeated the report. The information was public, so no isolation was required.
"Copy," Anderson replied, as was his habit lifting his eyes to the ceiling for a few seconds. That was where the camera sensors and microphone arrays were traditionally located. "Shepard, you're dismissed."
"Aye, sir," the captain nodded and stepped down off the platform.
That was it. For the next few hours, there truly was nothing urgent or mandatory for him to do. He ought to walk the ship himself, but… for several minutes now, a sense of danger had not left him.
No, the danger did not threaten the ship or crew. There were no signs of that. None—none of those he knew, even in theory.
The danger threatened him personally. Not from the crew, no. From within. And that put him on edge.
Deciding to tour the ship alone now, Shepard strained his memory, trying to recall whether this small reconnaissance frigate had any space that, right now and in the immediate near future, would not be occupied by someone from the crew.
His memory supplied the coordinates of a small lounge, and the captain decided: if he got worse, he would not go to the medbay; he would try to reach that compartment with the panoramic porthole.
So far the ship's commander had not ordered every porthole sealed with armored shutters, so that lounge porthole was likely open too. A big one—if Shepard remembered correctly. Probably that "window into space" was exactly why the room was called a lounge.
Moving from post to post, compartment to compartment, exchanging short, strictly businesslike phrases with the crew, Shepard tried to keep the route to the lounge in mind at all times.
When he left Engineering, the sense of danger vanished. Only the understanding remained that it could return later. In a few days. Maybe sooner.
It returned. Exactly a few days later. At the same hours.
All those days, Shepard felt the threat of its return inside himself. And when it hit… he tried to get to that lounge as quickly as possible.
For several minutes he stood there, catching his breath from the overload caused by the fear of not making it in time.
The feelings and sensations were too new. The state was too new. No matter how he tried, he could not find analogues for it in his memory.
Probably several pages could have been filled with descriptions of that "cocktail," but in those minutes—when it was crushing him in the lounge locked by code and by lock—there was no time for detailed descriptions.
Fortunately, according to the daily schedule, he had "free hours" he could spend as he wished. Within what was permissible, of course, but…
Those days… it was good that the military reconnaissance ship had no need to race headlong along the route to the point of exit into the operations area.
Shepard methodically, no longer in overview but in depth and detail, familiarized himself with the ship and crew. He never liked thinking of himself as all-knowing and had found plenty of supporters of that position among those who had taught him at the Academy.
A new ship, a new crew, a new team required working in. Required study. Required attention. So all of that had to be given and ensured. That was what John Shepard did for several days, until the moment when it hit him.
It was hard to describe everything he experienced then, over those hours. He had to consider the possibility that it was an echo of Akuze. Most likely that was what it was. He did not remember anything else in his life that was as complex and ambiguous—perhaps even something he himself had not fully understood the way he should have.
Yes, when he felt it rolling in and walked at an unhurried pace toward that lounge, he already sensed that his squadmates were looking at him with anxiety and confusion. Not all of them. Some. Looking with worry—but believing he would handle it.
For some reason, at the time, Shepard felt that Chakwas would not be able to determine precisely and fully what was happening to him. It was a good thing he did not lose consciousness and did not suffer particularly severe physical weakness. But the fact that he went noticeably deaf for several minutes… or maybe for several dozen minutes… that happened. It did. And the outward sluggishness happened too.
He came out of that sluggishness, that deafness, slowly as well. Unhurriedly. And what was there to hurry for, if he was still alone in that lounge?
The "free hours" were not over. The lounge door was closed. No one interfered.
If the executive officer needed to be alone somewhere other than his cabin—no questions asked. The lounge was empty; it hardly even had furniture. So the Normandy crew did not disturb him. They understood, somehow. And how—he did not even want to ask. Every sentient being, as was well known, had their own understanding. Personal, individual. Few remembered that consistently and clearly, but they should have.
What Shepard gained in those hours, he did not fully realize right away. It had put him through the wringer, hard, in those secluded hours. And learning to use everything he had gained quickly and fully, as he understood, clearly would not happen. He would have to master it gradually. Perhaps even situationally. Did he know then what he had received? No. He did not know, but he had to use part of that gained potential very soon. As it turned out, it would be used to overcome the abnormality of the situation with the ship, the crew, and the assignment—a situation that had already begun to annoy him.
And back then he went deaf and half-blind, holding himself on his feet with enormous effort, feeling himself being twisted. Twisted from the inside. Not only physically, but morally, emotionally, spiritually. Transformed, supplemented, changed.
Some of it he could track, some he could not, because no human resources and capabilities were enough for everything that was happening to him then. Normal human resources and capabilities. Familiar ones. Standard ones.
Only later—not after hours, but days—did he understand that alongside those resources, he now had entirely non-human ones, and by some signs, extra-galactic. But in those minutes, he wanted very much to remain the same human being. And, as it turned out, he managed.