EDS (Earth Dating system) – October 02, 2185
Location: Occupied Harsa
Stellar Orbit: Harsa system
The Normandy vibrated, but not in its familiar manner. A large part of what had made the stealth frigate hum in the particular way that it had was its hull and armour composition.
But now, the molecular weight of the outer hull was several times heavier than what had previously wrapped the craft, and the vibration was substantially less noticeable, and in that familiarity being removed, somehow more noticeable.
Shepard stood in an at ease position behind Jokers' chair with his hands clasped on the small of his back. He was in his full N7 kit, just in case. The other soldiers behind him, three of them Alliance, the other two being Garrus and Samara, were likewise in their full kit, with only Samara subjecting herself to wearing elements of material from Praetoria.
In Samara's case, wanting to maintain the lithe standards of her previous approach, she had custom fabricated plates of titanium armour made to wrap her chest, abdominals, shoulders, and thighs in overlapping darkened chrome lines.
Both her and Garrus had the buttstocks of modified BR55N's sticking up over their shoulders, further showing their appreciation of the gear made available through their new affiliation.
Shepard couldn't entirely suppress the wave of unease he felt about so much of their ways being so quickly modified. But he ignored what he couldn't suppress with the rationale that converting to more effective weapons and armour only made sense.
The thought carried his eyes briefly down to his hip, where one of the Praetorian M6H pistols was magnetised with several pouches filled with magazines ready further around his hips.
"Prepare to drop out.... Iiiiiiiiin, uhg, soon?" Jeff called, shifting from a curious tone to a perturbed one as he studied his flight controls.
"Steady as she goes, Flight Lieutenant," Anderson admonished politely.
Shepard suppressed the urge to support his pilot the way that Anderson had. Instead, he took the opportunity to learn more from Anderson's tact.
Anderson never seemed as concerned about having casual friendships with his crew, but he clearly cared for them by the way that he responded to them.
It was a command tactic that Shepard knew he needed to pick up on, with his previous methodology being all about befriending his crew. While he knew that he had his crew's loyalty, he could also see that the approach had eroded certain levels of his command presence.
The flashing whites, blues, purples and greens suddenly ceased coming through the forward viewscreen, and the glass was immediately populated with sensor data and holographically overlayed details.
"Stealth suite active," EDI announced calmly.
Shepard almost wished he were outside in vacuum to witness the Normandy's new stealth system used for the first time.
As it were, he had to imagine the tiles that covered his -Anderson's- ship shifting their colour and mass through a mixture of holographic and element zero technology, some of it inspired by Cerberus, yet again.
The shift would make the Normandy look nearly absolute black in the void, and the change in mass from the plates would reflect any passive scanners and most active ones that weren't directly painted on them or didn't rely on gravimetric readings.
"Break it down for me, Flight Lieutenant," Anderson grunted.
"Aye, Captain." Jeff agreed. He peered at the viewscreen closely for another moment, then pulled the Normandy gently to port. With a nodded gesture at a barely visible cloud of matter distantly sparkling. The holographic display circled it while low powered mass scanners provided numbers on the screen. "That's what's left of the Relay."
