firstofitskind | Spaceship Parking & Beyond, Sunday Afternoon

Spaceship Parking & Beyond, Sunday Afternoon

Liam had made plans with Kaidan and Verity to go on something of a joyride today, so he'd shown up at the junkyard early to give himself time to do an extra-thorough pre-flight check.

The virtual glass shimmered and became permeable as the shuttle recognized his biometrics, and he sat down in the pilot's seat and brought up the HUD.

ID core, optimal; conventional drive, optimal; weapons, optimal; communications, online; backup controls, online... everything seemed to be in working order. Now he just needed his passengers.

[ooc: for them what's mentioned!]

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"They still might," Liam said thoughtfully. "There are records at the station of people who've been cut off from their reality suddenly finding ways home."

And there was Kaidan, getting homesick as hell for a moment before he could shunt it. He badly wanted to go home, to lock himself into the starboard observation deck on the Normandy and refuse to ever come out. It was a stupid, childish, selfish desire, but it also was what it was, so he acknowledged it and let it subside after a moment.

He couldn't go home. Not for good. He had responsibilities to people here, things to see through. He'd just hired three teenagers for the shop. A weekend home, though. Wouldn't suck.

"It'd be nice. At least I know they're trying," he said after the moment had passed.

And Liam, conversely, didn't have a home to go back to. People, yes, that he missed, but their destinies and his own were no longer as closely linked as they once had been.

There was also that little matter of being considered legally dead on Earth.

And someone in particular who he was pretty invested in spending the rest of his life with, and that meant if they left Fandom it would be for her reality.

"Yeah?" he said, gently. "You've got some form of communication, at least, then?"

"Home? No," Kaidan answered. "I hop in and nag the gnomes every so often. They're trying to find a good spot for the other end. My galaxy just finished a war, apparently that made things less than ideal for the gnomes."

After a minute, "I found out cell phones can work ..somehow.. to other realities. Sent an email to a friend. It didn't bounce, so.. I guess I'm hoping it gets through. Part of the problem might be that this version of Earth is so far in the past from my timeline."

"Oh," Liam shook his head. "Right. The gnomes." He made a bit of a face. "That's still so weird."

"Tell me about it," Kaidan said dryly, "My first trip to and fro to another reality, on the return leg I got kidnapped by a pissed-off singing fish entity the second I stepped through. I think it's given me a complex."

"The Portal Network would never," Liam said solemnly.

There weren't a lot of things Liam preferred about his own reality to this one. The Portal Network was one of them.

"Oh, I don't think Portolocity did it, I blame the fish," Kaidan said. Unaware of the difference.

"Wouldn't surprise me if they were in cahoots," Liam said. Yes, he just used the word 'cahoots' in all seriousness. Shut up.

"The Portal Network's my Earth's version of long-distance transit," he clarified. "No gnomes."

"Cahoots?" Kaidan raised both eyebrows and grinned a little. So nah to that shut up.

"Ah. Is it more reasonable without the gnomes? Because they're not all that helpful."

"It's a perfectly ~~cromulent~~ good word," Liam said primly. "And the Portal Network's not without it's issues, but it's certainly more reliable. It uses ID space, same as the shuttle." Hence why he'd been curious as to whether Kaidan's reality needed ships to use their Mass Effect drives or not.

Kaidan grinned a little harder at Liam's defense of the word. "So it blinks people back and forth also?"

Edited 2018-09-12 03:54 (UTC)

Liam nodded. "One of the few Taelon legacies that I'm told people are reluctant to give up. It's pretty rare to find a city anywhere on Earth that doesn't have at least one Portal Station."

Edited 2018-09-12 03:57 (UTC)

"I can see why," Kaidan allowed, "We don't have any planetside Relays. The only planet-to-planet travel is by ship. Shuttles and ground vehicles only, dirtside."

"It's not perfect," Liam allowed. "But it's certainly better than plane travel." Not that Liam had a lot of experience with that, his first time on a plane had been with the school trip in the spring.

"I prefer shuttles, but usually prefer 'em best when I'm driving," Kaidan said.

"Can't argue with that," Liam admitted with a rueful grin. "I've never actually been just a passenger in one, myself." Which was why agreeing to give Verity piloting lessons was a Big Freakin' Deal.

"If we're on op, usually the LT is the pilot," Kaidan said, "I'm usually in armor waiting to jump out a door. Downtime, though, nobody flies me around but me. Only time I get the chance."

Liam nodded. "Most Companion-Protectors had a pilot assigned to them as well. But the idea... never sat well with me," he admitted. "So I always piloted my own shuttle." No Implant, no skrill, no pilot... a lot of exceptions had been made for Liam. And if Da'an hadn't been as high-ranking as he was (and if Zo'or hadn't secretly been hoping all those exceptions would lead to Liam's- and by extension Da'an's- untimely demise), he doubted he would've gotten away with it.

"Yeah. I mean, it's not that I don't trust my crew, but I guess I'm a little bit of a control freak," Kaidan admitted.

A huge bit. A huuuuuuge control freak.

Liam just bit his lip and said nothing, eyes wide and innocent.

Kaidan eyed him for a minute and then laughed, "Oh, shut up. Shut your entire face right up."

"Did I say anything?" Liam asked, still the very picture of innocence.

"Your face said plenty," Kaidan chuckled, "And it's still saying it, smug man."

“I’m just saying, ‘a little bit’ might be a little bit of an understatement,” Liam said with a laugh.

Re: In Spaaace!

spectre_alenko - 2018-09-12 14:39 (UTC) - Expand

Re: In Spaaace!

firstofitskind - 2018-09-12 15:49 (UTC) - Expand

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