Ch.8: New Traditions, Old Wars
- Location
- California
Honestly, given how much Kancolle plays on the spiritual-side of navies and maritime traditions, I'm surprised by how rarely I've seen anyone play around with the stranger such ceremonies. Such as the equator-crossing ceremony, which I've always found especially amusing. So, as it provides an excellent chance at more shipgirl antics, here's a ME-flavored spacer version of an equator-crossing ceremony!
Seriously, anyone who is unfamiliar with them, just look up the traditional USN and Royal Navy equator-crossing ceremonies. Sailors are weird, man.
Seriously, anyone who is unfamiliar with them, just look up the traditional USN and Royal Navy equator-crossing ceremonies. Sailors are weird, man.
Mallex was awoken the next morning as Ashley's omni-tool blared its wake-up alarm. Blinking sleep from his eyes, the Turian rolled over in the spacious-for-a-warship bunk and checked his own 'tool.
And frowned. It was nearly two hours earlier than Ash usually woke up, even with Spectre duties added before her morning exercises. Yet the bunk shifted as his fiancé rolled to her feet.
Mouth still dry from a long night's sleep, Mallex mumble-coughed a question.
And got a response from an Ash who sounded much more awake than he felt at the moment. "Didn't I tell you last night?"
Mallex coughed again, to clear his voice for action. "Nope." He…wasn't at his most eloquent this early in the day.
"Warsaw reminded me yesterday afternoon, and I cleared it with the Skipper. None of the older ships have graduated as real spacers before."
"What?" a faint memory tickled at the corner of Mallex's still-half-asleep mind.
"They haven't done a Relay walk before."
"Oh." He sagged back into the human-style thick padding of the bed. Even as he knew that he would want to be awake to see this, he felt that some complaining was still in order. "Must all Human ceremonies start this early in the morning?"
"Only the good ones. You going to get up and help, or no?"
"I'm up." Mallex rolled to his feet and stretched, unleashing a staccato burst of pops as his spine complained at the lack of support given by the soft bedding. He'd have to do something about that, eventually.
It took nearly twenty minutes for the two of them to get into their armor — Normandy was a warship, and anywhere in the galaxy could be a warzone by now. It would likely have taken less time if they hadn't 'helped' each other into their respective underclothes, of course. Even after years of intimacy, the sheer mutual — and literal — alien-ness of the Human and Turian body was still enough to distract Mallex and Ash.
Not that he was complaining, of course. Humans might be even more flexible than an Asari, but there were spots on Mallex's body that Turian physiology and years of military service had conspired to put beyond the reach of his talons. So, naturally, those spots itched.
Eventually, they both managed to pile out into the hallway, where Mallex followed Ash as she led him along. He flashed a hand-gesture at her to let her know that his helmet-mounted camera was now recording. This sort of personal-interest — or 'Human interest,' as the case may be — story always drew viewers, and it had been drilled into trainee-reporter Mallex's head how important it was to make the soldiers on deployment more relatable to the viewers at home.
Mallex figured that that applied double to ships-turned-Spirits.
"So, where do we start with the 'Relay walk' ceremony?"
"First, the 'softshells' — everyone aboard who haven't jumped through a Relay before — are woken up early with a 'surprise' emergency battle-depressurization drill." Ash flashed a grin at him as they walked. "Warsaw walked them through last night what to do for that, just to be safe."
Mallex nodded along. He well remembered the time on his first trip to a Human colony — again, Shanxi didn't count — when he had been saving credits precious to a very-junior journalist by travelling cheaply as a passenger on an Alliance-flagged freighter. The crew had been more than a little cold towards the sole non-Human aboard, and had seemed quite happy to surprise him with a pressure-suit drill just after midnight, ship's time only a day into the trip. That he'd cheerfully gone along with the whole ceremony had really helped to break the tension, then.
As if on cue, the emergency klaxons sounded throughout the Normandy, red lights flashing along the edges of the floor. Hatches along the passageway slammed open as officers and crew poured out, already wearing their face-masks and vac-suits. They had known that this was going to happen, after all.
Mallex and Ashley followed the crowd towards the mess hall, but stopped at the intersection of the corridor that lead towards the ship-Spirit quarters. They wouldn't want to miss this, after all.
He didn't have to wait for long.
"WOULD SOMEONE CEASE THAT INFERNAL RACKET!?" bellowed Thunder Child, impressively loud given her small stature. Her oxygen-mask hung around the small torpedo-ram's neck, and her emergency vac-suit was on backwards.
All the same, the procession of bleary-eyed ships that followed her made their way towards the mess hall quickly enough. The purple-haired destroyer was hastily dragging a brush through fur still in disarray from the interrupted sleep, while the destroyers' one-eyed minder was wrestling with one of her other charges, attempting to fit the wriggling Spirit into her pressure suit properly.
"Are we sinking, nanodesu?"
"It's a space-ship. They don't sink." Explained Anglerfish.
For her part, Sendai seemed wide-awake and aware enough to notice Mallex and Ash waiting at the end of the hall for them. "Looks like it's a drill, I think. Unless…" her eyes lit up "…maybe a night battle?"
Ash just grinned through the clear visor of her helmet as the procession filed past. In the rear, Monitor was wrestling with a rather grumpy-sounding Virginia, trying without much success to fit a face-mask over the black-armored ironclad's helmet. "You heard the lady, Yankee. 'Tis but a drill."
"And so the proper steps must be taken! Now take your dum grov helmet off!" Monitor lapsed briefly into a language that Mallex's translator marked as non-English.
He and Ash shared a smile as the chattering crowd of Spirits disappeared around the bend in the corridor. They followed afterwards, slowly enough to allow the milling group to get settled into the mess hall before they arrived.
Given that the group of ships had only been introduced to the emergency vacuum drills last night, Mallex was impressed by the absence of actual panic or even worry among the throng of Spirits spread around the Normandy's large mess hall. They mostly just seemed annoyed at being woken early.
The Spectre and the reporter leaned up against the bulkhead at the side of the door which closed behind them, waiting. They knew what was coming. After perhaps half-a-minute of hushed conversation among the ships, three loud booming knocks echoed across the room, coming from the aft hatch.
All conversation stopped. Eventually, the hatch hissed open, and in walked one of the crewmen. Mallex couldn't recognize who it was inside the black-painted suit thanks to the very-polarized visor, but the elaborate frills added onto the helmet and the extra pair of non-functional arms dangling from beneath the Human's actual arms did do a decent job of making them look alien.
Mallex grinned. 'Alien,' yes, but 'Prothean,' no. Admittedly, it was only a few years since Dr. T'Soni's publication of recovered Prothean records showed exactly what the ancient alien race had actually looked like. The Alliance's initiation ceremony for proper star-sailors had already become entrenched by then.
Around the compartment, the stunned silence was broken only by a single, flat word from Scharnhorst. "What."
The crewman boomed in a clearly digitally-altered, sepulchral voice "I AM THE PROTHEAN GHOST! WHO SEEKS TO TRAVEL MY REALM AND YET HAS NOT KNOWN ITS EMBRACE?"
"A ghost-ish thing has arrived? Oh! We already have two kinda-ghosts aboard. They're 'Spectres,' poi!" Yudachi giggled.
Lexington sidled up next to Ashley and Mallex. In a low whisper, she asked "Let me guess: this is like some sort of equator-crossing ceremony?"
Ash nodded, and the two women shared a quick grin before the carrier shuffled back to her group.
"THOSE WHO TRAVEL MY RELAYS MUST FACE THE KISS OF VACUUM, OR PAY A TERRIBLE PRICE!"
"'Kiss of vacuum?'" Revenge crossed her arms with a smirk. "I'm not snogging some Dyson dust-sucker, if that's what you're asking."
"ONLY A TRUE SAILOR OF THE STARS KNOWS WHAT MAY SATISFY MY DEMANDS! I GO, TO AWAIT YOUR CHOICE!" The 'Prothean Ghost' raised its hands and backed through the hatch.
Before the muttering throughout the mess hall could break out into an actual cacophony of conversation, Warsaw stepped through the same entranceway, beaming. "So, who's game?"
"What was that?" asked Surcouf.
"The Prothean Ghost, of course! He who rules over all of space, and especially the Relay Network!" answered the Alliance cruiser.
"Isn't that the Reape—" began Glowworm, before Olympia softly nudged the destroyer. It figured that the veteran warship would understand best the value of a morale-raising ceremony in the face of a growing war.
The old protected cruiser asked "I don't suppose this Ghost would accept a reference from King Neptune?"
"I'm afraid not. Only two things can satisfy him. The first option is a space-walk in hard vacuum, from one airlock to another along the hull."
"In space, nanodesu? That sounds scary. What is the other choice?"
"Those who refuse the Kiss of Vacuum forfeit their dessert for the remainder of the voyage!" Warsaw cackled.
Mallex frowned, and muttered to Ashley. "I was told that it was alcohol that one lost if you refused the Ghost."
The Spectre smirked back at him. "We changed it a little for this crowd. Most ship-Spirits don't really care about booze that much, but all of them need their desert."
Indeed, looks of outright horror emerged all across the compartment.
"Not the chocolate!"
"But how can I call it a meal without pudding?"
"NO ICE CREAM!?"
Surcouf drew his sword — which he had buckled on over his vac-suit — and flourished it overhead. "To the airlock!" He led a stampede out of the room.
An EDI avatar appeared next to the hatch through which all of the Spirits had disappeared, as everyone left in the room exchanged amused glances. After only around twenty seconds, the procession re-appeared. "Oui. This way, then." Surcouf received an elbow in his ribs from Revenge as they followed Warsaw along the correct route.
Lexington and Scharnhorst hung back, and waited for Ashley to catch up. "So, the 'Prothean Ghost?'" asked the carrier.
"Couldn't exactly expect King Neptune to take up double-duty in space." Said Ashley with a smile. "But sailors are sailors, so they came up with this back in the 2150s. Any softshells who want to use the Prothean Relays must be christened into proper Tardigrades along their journey."
Scharnhorst chuckled. "'Tardigrades.' Earth's little 'vacuum-bears,' yes?"
"Hey, I didn't come up with the name. Guess it fits, though."
Mallex had a comment of his own. "How long do you bet it will last, now that we know the Protheans didn't actually build the Relays?"
Ash flashed a smirk at him. "Well, the dumb-looking 'Prothean' suit shows no sign of changing. And I doubt anyone wants to dress up as a Reaper, anyways. Doesn't look as cool."
Lexington also looked at Mallex. "Are there any similar traditions for your people?"
"No similar single ceremony, no. But any recruit into one of the Hierarchy's Legions isn't a true Legionnaire until they've faced combat and are blessed by the Legion's priests. They have to stand watch for an entire day afterwards, and if they fall asleep then they have to wait until their next combat deployment to try again."
Scharnhorst clasped one hand to her chest and sighed theatrically. "Ah, truly if there is one thing which all military cultures are held together by, it is the hazing of new recruits."
The group shared a laugh, as they turned the corner to see the pushing crowd outside the Normandy's port-midships airlock. The small compartment could hold perhaps only four at a time, and Warsaw stood outside it along with a smiling EDI avatar, the two making sure that nobody entered the airlock proper without their safety equipment.
The bare-minimum safety equipment: an emergency vac-suit to keep pressure on one's abdomen while leaving the outer limbs exposed, and a face-mask which covered only the eyes, nose, and ears. But not all of the Spirits accepted the mouthpiece.
"I am a cruiser-submarine of the finest design!" protested Beluga, the Abyssal stubbornly refusing to don her oxygen mask. "I can hold my breath well enough, thank you very much!"
"You ever try that in vacuum, though?" asked Warsaw. "Whole different experience."
"Then it is one that I will find out for myself!"
"All right. But if you let go of the rope, then you will float through space, all alone, forever!"
A voice rose from the waiting crowd. "'Forever,' nanodesu!?"
"Well, 'forever' or 'around a minute, until the waiting shuttle comes to grab you.' Whichever comes first."
Olympia snorted. "Safety precautions? It's hardly a proper hazing then, would you not say?"
EDI's avatar shrugged. "Alliance regulations and common sense do not align all that often, so when they do it is best to follow along."
A round of laughter swept the corridor, even as the first four volunteers packed into the airlock. Warsaw turned to Gagarin. "Want to bet how many of the subs actually manage the trip without freaking out and losing their breath?"
"A sucker's bet, that. Only one of them'll make it."
"Oh? Who do you think?"
"Anglerfish, of course. She's nuke-powered." Gagarin held up one finger for emphasis. "She doesn't really need to breathe at all, so I bet her avatar-form doesn't have the same reflexes for it."
"Hmm. Say, fifteen credits to the winner of the bet?"
Ashley pushed her way through the crowd — an impressive feat, really — while dragging Mallex along. "Camera crew, coming through!"
"Ah, video evidence! Just what we need." Warsaw ushered them through as soon as the airlock had cycled. Already in their vacuum-capable suits, both Ash and Mallex linked their vac-boots to Normandy's hull and grav-fields as soon as they stepped out onto the hull.
A procession of three submarines were working their way hand-over-hand along the rope which arced over the swell of Normandy's dorsal hull, towards her starboard-midships airlock. With their simple emergency space-gear, they floated above the ship like astronauts of millennia past, while Mallex and Ashley simply walked along the hull, observing.
Surcouf had his eyes screwed shut even behind his face-mask, but was making the fastest time along the rope. Behind him, Beluga noticed her observers and flashed them a smile, waving one hand in front of her face to emphasize that she had no mask on. A faint mist of vacuum-boiled moisture hung around her eyes and mouth. In the rear, Anglerfish had stopped moving along the rope entirely, holding on with one hand while she gazed all about in wonder.
Mallex couldn't blame the submarine – his first time staring out into deep space with his own eyes had been a similarly-shocking experience. It really was one of the most unsettling sights possible to any member of a species which had evolved to live on a planet. The sheer emptiness that was the rule of the universe rather than the exception could only be fully understood by one who had stood outside of a ship as it travelled through the void, billions of kilometers away from anything else.
The nuclear-powered Abyssal flashed an ear-to-ear grin at Mallex, her voice carrying through via the radio receiver in his suit. "SPAAACE!!" The next four softshells came up along the rope, and Hibiki poked at Anglerfish to keep moving. The four destroyers were all smart enough to wear the full safety gear offered.
Mallex walked along as the procession neared the mid-point of the journey. Against the backdrop of the stars, the small almost-human-shaped figure who floated just off of the Normandy's hull was hard to see, even for one who knew that he would be there.
Indeed, the Turian doubted that any of the softshells had noticed the 'Ghost' until his voice boomed across the radio waves, reverberating in the small, tinny speakers mounted in the emergency face-masks. "BEWARE, FOR THE VOID HOLDS MANY DANGERS!"
With a faint blue glow of biotics, the 'Prothean Ghost' tossed a very small throw towards the leading figure in the group. Surcouf held on tight to the line as he was — gently — nudged to one side. The Spirits who followed along behind him were not all as unfazed.
As the rope twisted under the biotic impulse, Beluga lost her single hand-hold on it, and floated away from the Normandy. A puff of crystals flew from her mouth as she let out a shocked gasp, wriggling and gyrating helplessly as she tried to reach for the rope which was growing ever-further out of reach. Mallex eyed the Normandy's shuttle where it sat a few dozen meters back, at-the-ready. Would it be needed?
Anglerfish looked up as her fellow Abyssal floated away, but did nothing. More clouds of exhaled breaths shot out into the void as Beluga shook a fist at the Seawolf-class, which only made her free-fall gyrations more chaotic. Her breath-clouds were getting smaller and smaller.
Just as the shuttle visibly pulsed its engines and closed, a pair of hands grabbed the wildly-rotating Beluga. Surcouf held on to her tightly, while holding onto the guide-rope with his leather-shoed feet. The two submarines were hauled back to the rope, but Beluga's panic only intensified, both hands going to her throat as her chest heaved, trying to suck oxygen out of the empty vacuum.
Surcouf ripped his emergency mask off, and pressed his face to Beluga's. The Abyssal's struggles froze for several seconds as the two submarines shared a breath. Then Surcouf grabbed one of Beluga's hands and pressed it to the rope, before re-attaching his mask and proceeding along towards the next airlock as if nothing had happened. After several stunned moments, Beluga followed, and the procession continued.
As it was, no further incidents happened as the Normandy's entire complement of softshells completed the vacuum walk. Or at least, no other incidents that were as interesting or camera-worthy: Lexington had stopped near the midpoint to look around at the stars, and seemed to get lost in her wondering until Ashley walked up to tap her hand.
But the fun continued when Mallex exited the Normandy's starboard airlock.
"Just because you're French doesn't mean you have to go kissing people!" protested Beluga, cheeks glowing red.
"You were choking, my friend. Would you prefer to be waking up in the medical ward, perhaps?"
"You had an oxygen mask. You could have just handed that to me!"
Surcouf glanced down at the oxygen mask hanging from his neck as if only just noticing it, and then shrugged. "But then you would not have learned such an important lesson about holding one's breath, no?"
"Hmmph." Beluga crossed her arms over her chest. Her face grew even redder, and she glowered down at the smaller French submarine-cruiser. "But that doesn't excuse using tongue."
Glowworm wolf-whistled at them, which devolved into a coughing laugh when Beluga whirled to glare at the destroyer-Spirit.
For his part, Surcouf finally did look honestly apologetic. "My apologies for that; it was not my intention. But the sudden vacuum on my lips made my entire mouth numb, you see."
Beluga reached up to run one finger over her own lips as they twitched, searching for a response. A brief frown flashed across her face, followed by an even-briefer smile, before she visibly forced it back into a frown. "Oh. Well, thanks for the intended help, at least."
From down the corridor came the 'Prothean Ghost,' holding a stack of papers in one hand. "YOUR ENTRY INTO MY REALM HAS BEEN APPROVED. BEAR THESE CERTIFICATES WITH PRIDE." He handed the stack to Lexington¸ before leaving.
Mallex craned his neck to get a look at the 'certificates.' In very official-looking paperwork and language, each sheet pronounced one of the Normandy's former-softshells as a proud member of the 'Ancient and Honorable Order of the Tardigrade.' At the bottom of each sheet were two signature-lines. One bore a stylized 'P.G.' and the other held the no-nonsense signature of Commander Shepard.
Grinning, Lexington began handing out the papers to their respective recipients, before leading the entire procession back to the mess hall. Most of the newly-promoted Spirits traded rushed conversation as they recounted their scary experience, and Mallex noted happily that Beluga was walking closely to Surcouf's side. The Turian thought he'd guessed right as to why the Abyssal submarine-cruiser had been especially flustered at the deep-space kiss. He was glad to see more evidence that he had been right. His ability to read Human women hadn't led him wrong with Ashley, after all.
The only less-than-fully-happy face was that of Yuri Gagarin, as she wordlessly handed a credit-chit to the smirking Warsaw.
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The party returned to the mess hall perhaps an hour after they'd left, to find that Gardner had been busy in their absence. Plates of various desserts lined each table, and an entire refrigeration-pallet of ice cream had been hauled up from the stores to stand ready behind the serving counter. As shouts of joy erupted from the arriving Spirits, Mallex and Ash stood to one side of the hatch as the ships charged past towards their waiting rewards. Only Lexington stayed behind, the leader of the Spirits standing with the Spectre and the Turian for a few moments. "You know, we didn't use to reward the pollywogs this well, even once they became proper shellbacks."
Ashley chuckled. "We still don't, not for most sailors. But most sailors aren't as adorable as that." She nodded towards where Tenryu was already returning to her seat, five bowls full of massive mounds of ice cream balanced skillfully in her arms. Her sub-group of destroyers managed to pause in their devouring of chocolatey desserts long enough to reach across the table and tightly hug their one-eyed minder. Carefully, though, so they didn't stop her from handing out the ice cream.
"Fair point, there." Lexington nodded. Then her amused grin broke out into a giddy smile that spread across the carrier's face. "Still, SPACE! Just wait until I tell Lake Champlain!"
Mallex and Ash shared their own smile as the starry-eyed carrier walked over to her spot at a table. Mallex was the first one to speak. "I know that they're each technically old enough to vote in a Republic election, but they can be so child-like, so…adorable."
"Coming from a man whom I've heard swear off ever having children of his own, that's quite the compliment."
"I don't mind kids when they're being cute; what I don't want to deal with is when they're not."
Ash's response was cut off as the hatch hissed open beside them. Through it stepped Jacob Taylor, the Cerberus operative also smiling at the happy scene within the mess hall. "LOOKS LI—" he accidentally continued in the deep tones of the 'Prothean Ghost,' before catching himself with a cough. "Looks like everybody ended up enjoying the experience after all."
"I would say so." Responded Ashley. "Told you that whip-lashing Beluga off would make for one hell of a team-builder. Good throw, by the way."
The three of them chuckled, before grabbing trays and setting off for the small, dessert-less corner of the serving line where the actual breakfasts waited. Ship-Spirits may be fine with dessert for breakfast, but mortal bodies needed actual food.
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An hour out from the Relay that would catapult the Normandy to the Trebia system, Shepard called another meeting of the ground-team members.
"We finally got word from Hierarchy Command as to the situation in their home system." The Spectre began once everyone had filed into the briefing room. "They lost most of their QEC systems in the initial attack, and the only one which was linked to something that could get a message through to us was an ultra-low-bandwidth backup pair. So we don't have a live-feed of the battle ready for when we exit the Relay."
Ashley nodded grimly. "'Initial attack' and 'battle.' So the Reapers stuck around in Trebia, huh?"
Shepard shook his head. "Only a few of them, enough to oversee the fighting."
"Then who is it?" Mallex blurted out, worried. For all that he had spent little time on Palaven since leaving for Basic so many decades ago, he still considered it his Home. Every good Turian did.
Shepard let out a breath. "Just as Sovereign explained at Virmire, the Reapers 'Herald a Revolution of the Created.' I guess they couldn't get the ear of the Abyssals around Sol," the Spectre nodded at the three Abyssals in the compartment "which might explain why they didn't hang around. But in the Trebia system, they found enough who would listen to them. So while the Hierarchy's Home Guard is fully engaged, most of their foes are not Reapers."
Frowning, Mallex thought back to what he'd learned about how ship-Spirits had first appeared on Earth in the early 21st century. How the Abyssals and even many of the first ship-Spirits had emerged, guns blazing, near the nations that they had been fighting at the end of their steel-hull lives. But who had fought in the Trebia system? Certainly Turians had warred amongst themselves almost as much as Humanity had, but all now bowed to the Hierarchy. Mallex could not picture any Turian Spirit, no matter how ancient, fighting against the united children of Palaven. Which left—
Realization dawned, followed shortly by horror. Before the shocked Turian could get so much as a single word out, Shepard made eye contact with him and nodded solemnly.
"The Krogan Rebellions have returned to Palaven."
And there we go! While canon Reapers indoctrinated individual people, Abyssal-Reapers here can stir entire fleets of warships to rise up and help complete the Cycle. I hope you don't mind this chapter being a bit short, but it seemed like such a good dramatic moment to end it on, and I'd rather not cut it off in the middle of a fight scene as will follow pretty much immediately afterwards.
