Ashley Williams of the Alliance Marine Corps had thought her promotion to 2nd Lieutenant would finally get her assigned to a ship. She preferred the constant hustle and bustle of running around the galaxy with Shepard on the Normandy as opposed to the many boring ground operations she had been assigned to. Despite her impeccable service record, she had been more or less stuck on the ground: part of lingering punishment for her grandfather's surrender of the Shanxi garrison during the First Contact War. After almost two years of patrolling terrain that hardly ever saw any action, she was finally up for reassignment. Imagine her excitement when she found out that she was indeed going to be assigned to a ship!
Though imagine her disappointment when she found out the ship was the Normandy SR-2; which had been grounded for the retrofit. Great now she got to play consultant rather than soldier. Brass had insisted that she would be a necessary part of the retrofit team, due to her time spent on the original Normandy. Didn't they keep schematics for things like that? Why the hell did she need to waste her time on a ship that was going to be kept in the docking bay for the next six months?! But Ashley was a good soldier and always did as she was told. So here she was, trying her best not to complain as she meandered about the new Normandy.
It was little consolation that Joker was around, he was the only person that the AI seemed to respond to and was part of the retrofit team as well. The pilot was fairly friendly; he and Ashley would often reminisce about their time served on the original Normandy. It was good to have a fellow soldier around, albeit one that could barely hold a gun; but at the end of the day he was still a marine like her. It wasn't like he was one of these eggheads she was surrounded by that constantly came around to ask her questions: Was the Weapons Bench 3 meters from the wall or 4 meters? Hell if she remembered something so trivial!
With a sigh, Ashley made her way upwards towards the CIC to check on how they were coming along with the Galaxy Map. Perhaps the only nice thing about being stationed on a grounded ship was that she no longer had to keep her long, brown hair pulled back into a tight, regulation bun. It gave her a little more of a feminine appearance, which she secretly enjoyed. And she felt like all these Alliance nerds appreciated it as well; it seemed to make her less intimidating to them and more approachable.
Maybe if she put her hair back up, they'd stop asking her so many stupid questions. Hmm
Specialist Traynor. How are you coming along with fixing the private message terminal? Ashley tried to offer the Specialist a friendly smile. She could get so shy at times, the Lieutenant couldn't understand why.<|im_end|>
Eating a slice of strawberry cheesecake on the GIC was certainly a practice frowned upon by the Alliance's rules and conventions. But, specialist Samantha Traynor was familiar with all the ins and outs of protocol. It was part of her job after all, and she knew every loophole in the book. Eating what and where she pleased was a-okay as long as the craft wasn't in active service, and the Normandy wouldn't be ready for months at this rate. And thank god there was a confections shop not too far from where the Normandy was docked.
Samantha's fork took out another bite of cake and she promptly popped it into her mouth. It was one of the pleasures that this job brought her. The other great benefit was getting to work with-
Specialist Traynor. How are you coming along with fixing the private message terminal?
Ashley's voice almost made her choke on what she'd been eating, and the dark-skinned woman fumbled to keep hold of her fork. She turned and smiled nervously at her superior officer "A-ah, y-yes. I finished re-establishing the extra-net connection an hour ago, so it should work brand spanking new." Samantha said. She quickly realized she forgot to salute and promptly pressed a hand to her forehead...accidentally stabbing her forehead with her plastic spork. "Ow..." she grumbled as she awkwardly pulled her hand back.
There was a good reason she was so nervous around Ashley Williams, and it could be summed up with the thoughts running through the specialist's head right now.'Ass ass ass ass. I would use your ass as a pillow. Ass.'<|im_end|>