trans_9 | A Return

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A Return

The man sat at one of the mess hall tables, eating with one hand and tapping on the omnicomm on the table with the other. He wasn't just tall, he was big, broad across the shoulders and built like a tank underneath the plant suit. The pale skin of his neck and face was laced with scarring. He was entirely focused on what he was reading, brow furrowed slightly.

There were only a few people on the ship that might have recognized the Master Chief without his armor.

He had been asleep for a long time, that much was clear.

It was making things difficult.

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Another fellow is eating in the mess hall, his scarred form even more enormous than the Chief, grossly genehanced and somewhat equine in appearance. He looks up, noticing the scarring and the clear signs of war writ across the man. This is about as close as Erhart gets to respecting anyone, and he favors John with a nod.

It was the movement that caught his attention. The Spartan's eyes flicked up from the screen. He didn't know this other man, but he was large. Large like Cargn was. Possibly someone of similar origin? It was never a sure thing on the ship.

He returned the gesture.

"I have not seen you around before, human, but you clearly have seen war." His voice is deep, and somewhat grating, but there is curiosity in it, and no insult seems implied by his reference to the Chief as a human, it seems more a mode of address than anything else, "Were your wars here, or from before?"

"Both," he replies. "I've just been in stasis."

"I see. Are you still disoriented? The Medicae here are fairly competent, if you need me to fetch them."

His bulky face looks slightly concerned, if an Astartes can ever be said to concern themselves with mortal considerations. He hates to see warriors not at their best, especially human ones.

"That won't be necessary. I'm fine," the Chief replies. "I'm just behind the times. Things have happened and I need to figure out what those things are."

"I have been here less than 6 months myself. There have been various undertakings to planets, but more importantly.... An abominable intelligence known as Shodan overtook the ship. It murdered many of those in the pods, though we struck it down with righteous anger in the end." His voice is a low growl as he relates that portion of the tale.

That made two AI revolts that the Chief knew about on the ship. Great.

"That wouldn't be the first time that happened," he said. "I've been here..."

He exhaled. Time distortion, as ever, made only an estimate possible. "Two years. At least."

It was probably longer but he'd be conservative with the guess.

"It was not? Interesting. Were you present for the first engagement with an Abominable intelligence, then?"

He considers the length of time. 2 years. Not much for an Astartes. But for a human? A considerable time, from their point of view. He does his best to nod companionably, though the overall effect is mechanical.

"Yes. It was during the push to kill some pirates that had hijacked the ship."

He glances at the screen again. Good, someone had summarized that particular incident.

"Catching up on the latest news?" Zouichi already figured the answer was yes, but hey, conversation. Something he was working on.

He didn't recognize Master Chief without the armor, obviously, although he might from the voice.

"You could say that," said the Chief. He looked up.

...This person. He'd seen him before. The Chief couldn't remember a name but he had a faint recollection of the man's face.

"I just woke up."

That voice... wait a minute... waaaaait a minute...

"...Master Chief?"

Wow, dude. You looked different without the armor.

"Yes." He nodded.

"I've seen you before."

It was an ordinarily inflected statement, but also plainly a question.

"Kanoe Zouichi. We talked once in your office. ..It was a while ago."

Clearly they were both big talkers and great at communication.

He nodded once, a short gesture.

"Nothing disastrous since then?" he asked, glancing back to the stream of commentary on the comm.

"Depends on what you mean by disastrous. We're still alive. There was a robot army attack; a bunch of people in the pod caverns died. There was a clone planet where everyone tried to kill the mission team. There was a giant space battle on a moon called Lirath. A million other little things, and..." Zouichi nodded toward the comm.

"That, of course."

"Business as usual, in that case."

Actually all of that was bad and he was going to have to get the story after he was done dealing with this, but it wasn't precisely surprising. Everything had been quiet so far, so that meant they had to have overcome.

He'd find out about it eventually, he was sure.

"I think I can help some with this." He tapped a finger on the edge of the screen.

"Guess so." And then Zouichi examined him much more closely. "If you've been around for a while, we could use anything you remember. Really. Sakura's having a meeting later, in case you haven't gotten to that part."

The Chief nodded.

"I've seen. I intend to be there." Well, as long as nothing got in his way. You never knew with Stacy.

"I hear there are Daligig on board."

He kept his tone carefully neutral as he said that. The ship had ears everywhere, therefore so did they.

Zouichi nodded. "Yeah. That's more or less common knowledge. They've been aboard for quite some time, doing repair work."

Of course, they'd been here for... what, months?

"Good. We had some things that were in need of repair. I think I have a few questions for them," he said.

He wondered what had happened to them being unable to assist.

"It seems like things have changed."

Zouichi rolled his eyes. "If you can get past the posturing? Be my guest. Maybe you could find out what they're planning to do for that woman they beat up."

A sympathy card would be nice!

His eyes narrowed, but only slightly.

"What happened?"

"One of the crew got antsy and attacked one of the Kessek bodyguards. Naturally, the fact that she posed absolutely no threat to them meant that they needed to knock her down and break her legs when she was down. Medical carried her off in a stretcher."

Evidently, the Daligig were just as good guests as they were providers of helpful information.

Evidently.

It took him a second to compose a sentence that couldn't immediately be construed as a threat to their benevolent saviors.

"Have they given any indication of leaving?"

Oh, Chief. Zouichi knew how you felt. ~~Silent mental brofist~~

"Nope. They've just been pretty much holed up on restricted areas."

"I wonder what they could be doing in there."

They were pretty much on the same page with the anti-Daligig sentiment. It felt good. The Chief hadn't entirely trusted them to begin with, and this bullshit was not helping at all.

"Hopefully we'll find out something about it. Save them the trouble of having to come out here every time we need a fuse changed."

"I don't know. And that worries me." Zouichi frowned.

"This is the first time they've come aboard the ship, isn't it? Or were they here before I woke up?"

"This is the first time. They told us it would take two or three years for them to reach us and that we were on our own."

Zouichi nodded. "Another untruth. Or perhaps half-truth. Wonder how many more they've got up their sleeves."

"By the way, the pirates that took over the ship -- did they hijack it, or salvage it?"

"I'd thought she was going somewhere. A crew's a formality for Stacy; she can go under her own power."

He shrugged a shoulder. "There was no crew awake when the pirates came into the picture, according to her."

"Yeah, I can tell. Public relations doesn't seem to be the ship's strong point." In any case, Master Chief had confirmed the story Leon had been telling -- although Zouichi still wondered how the story had gone from 'pirates salvaging the ship' to 'pirates hijacking the ship'. There was a fairly large conceptual difference between the two of them.

"So by some means this ship, with all the people asleep on it, was left derelict for whoever to find. And our allies, who were significantly closer to us than they let on, finally pay us a visit..."

"...And lock themselves up in the restricted areas and don't tell us things," he finished.

He was sure it was a reason. There was always a reason. In this case it was probably one that the Daligig were not eager to share and the crew would not like if they heard it.

"I don't like it," said Zouichi, frowning, "But I guess we'll find out more later."

He'd mistrusted the Daligig from day one, more or less, and he wouldn't be surprised if Sakura's demonstration gave him one more reason to do so. "Anyway, I should get going. But welcome back."

There were only a few people who would recognize The Chief without his armor. Even fewer who would dare to clap him on the shoulder in greeting.

"Welcome back, Chief."

The Chief did tense slightly at the unexpected touch, but he didn't startle.

"Good to see you, Kennedy," he replied. "You've all been busy."

While Ashley never made it a point to go to the mess hall for any reason except for a patrol, today was different as she wasn't very much in a talking mood. As far as she knew, Shepard was back in the the pods. This made it the second Shepard from a world like hers to return to the pods, and she was not very happy about it. But there were people here she respected just as much such as Samus as she walked to one of the tables and spied a familair figure.

"Chief."

"Williams." He nodded. It was good to see a familiar face, albeit not one he'd known well.

"Getting back to the ship, sir? I'm guessing the AIs couldn't hold you for too long." Ashley was not often teasing someone who was technically her boss alias commanding officer.

"At least they picked a good time." He gestured slightly to the omnicomm.

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