Cause and Effect 28

--Deep Thoughts--

--

The music at the only club catering to enlisted servicemen pulsed and throbbed. As was Shepard's custom, she sat with a drink and a couple now-empty fruit skewers as far away from the blasting music as she could get. Rather than toying with her omni-tool-and partly to give O'Conner a reason to make faces at her-she sat with a logic puzzle before her, deep in thought.

This one was difficult, especially with all the distractions around her. Fortunately, Shepard enjoyed a challenge. The realm of deep thought blocked out most of the music, making the noise level bearable. O'Conner never gave up trying to thrust Shepard into the realm of 'having fun'.

For the past six months or so, O'Conner had actually been running hot and cold with regards to going out looking for the ever-elusive concept of 'fun' every time they hit Yamamoto Naval Station. Tonight was party business as usual, and they were heading out into the Traverse in a couple days. It seemed to Shepard O'Conner was determined to live an entire lifetime of dancing and flirting into the last days of liberty before heading out to battle intergalactic scumbags.

Shepard had not yet asked why, but was beginning to be very curious.

She, personally, could not wait to get back into the Traverse. The last stint was spent rooting out mercenaries trying to put down roots on some of the uninhabited worlds. The last bunker they cleared contained several kilos of Red Sand. Shepard did not know any biotics personally, but the stories about Red Sand-and how it often ended for those caught in its web-left a bad taste in her mouth.

It was just like the drug wars of the twentieth-something no one could win. But people still fought the good fight. In that same bunker were also several crates of high-credit weapons, which should not have been there. The Alliance was already moving to find out exactly where those weapons came from.

She did not pity the idiot who wanted to make a few credits by selling not-really-surplus. The idea of the Alliance's own weapons pointed at the Alliance's own marines-her and O'Conner particularly-made her want to smash the seller's face in.

It was terrifying work, sometimes, but at the end of the day (once everyone was safe) she knew she could not do anything else in the galaxy but a soldier's work.

She added a few Xs and Os to the grid. If she had to be deep in thought, these were not thoughts she wanted to have. The wish to keep the evening pleasant made banishing thoughts of weapons, Red Sand, and scumbags easier.

The fizz in her drink made it easier. Too bad she was out of fruit skewers, and of no mind to fight her way up to the bar. She had learned a lot in the last two years of hanging around with O'Conner, and elbowing her way up to the bar without being politely timid was one of them.

Had it really been two years? It was '73, it must be. How time flew.

O'Conner chose this moment to break away from the dance floor, to check on her friend, as she usually did every so often. Shepard was liable to crawl into her shell, if she had not already. Looking closer, O'Connor decided Shepard had not-she was simply thinking hard.

Which was not something one ought to do at a time like this, in a place like this.

Shepard might blow a fuse.

Rather than irritating O'Conner, it amused her. She liked Shepard enough to overlook her peculiarities. And O'Conner understood, that for Shepard to come to a place like this, was progress the likes of which she never expected to see when she first met Shepard.

Things like those Shepard had seen would not leave a person the most sociable of creatures, but here she was. Perhaps why she took so much trouble to keep Shepard from becoming a duty-oriented recluse. Such an existence seemed impossibly bleak-and quite unhealthy-to O'Conner's view of life. Life was exciting, something to be approached with enthusiasm.

"Shepard, what are you doing?" O'Conner dropped into the chair across from Shepard, sweaty from exuberance on the dance floor. She never did anything halfway, whether it be professionally, or dancing at a club.

It was this exuberance Shepard half envied.

"Thinking." Shepard glanced up from the logic puzzle on her datapad. Truthfully, her thoughts had again drifted to the point she forgot about the puzzle. Now her attention came back to the present, the noise in the room pounded more noticeably against her eardrums.

"You're the only person I know who would take a logic puzzle to a club." O'Conner shook her head, but peered at the puzzle, a grid full of Xs and Os.

"Lucky thing, huh?" Shepard added a few more Xs to the grid.

"Hey Shepard?"

"Hm?" Shepard added an O.

"How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" O'Conner asked slyly.

"As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood," Shepard enunciated carefully, the unpleasant visage of Mike Yamada swimming before her eyes. She could still hear his alliterations while 'toughening up' his recruits. Albeit Yamada and woodchucks (or comments about them) were never found in the same room.

O'Conner stuck her tongue out at Shepard, who pretended not to notice, before she swept back to the dance floor.

Shepard, alone again, smiled complacently. A stupid answer for a stupid question. But she and O'Conner both registered the flicker of a sense of humor, which O'Conner was forever trying to dredge.

With a sigh she put her datapad aside, took a sip of her nonalcoholic beverage, and followed O'Conner onto the dance floor, earning an approving whoop from that individual.

Deep thoughts could wait. It was time for, to coin O'Conner's phrase, a human tribal dance. An exuberant one.