Out of the Twilight | Mass Effect

3

As the crew of the Sevrum began the landing procedures, Desolas paid rapt attention to Dr Gaines's lecture on the care and raising of a human infant. It was fairly similar to raising an infant turian, though he was told that she would be much weaker than a turian infant, and for longer. She had said there were several books on the subject, but when they attempted to translate them, they were gibberish. Until they could fix the issues with the text translation, he was dependent on the humans' expertise.

But it had been made official. Andra Shepard was his child, as far as the Hierarchy was concerned. The humans who had accompanied them would join the scholars in Cipritine to add their knowledge to the turians', and that meant that they would be accessible to him and his daughter.

Desolas spent the first few minutes once the ship landed arranging for the garvansaag ceremony, and for time off for both himself and Antoria. Once done, he gathered up Andra and started toward the bridge. Once the door to his quarters opened, he was immediately approached by Dr. Gaines.

"We might have a problem. We were supposed to be getting a shipment of formula for Andra, but there are some delays while the politicians deal with getting humans out on the galactic stage. They won't send anything for months."

Desolas felt the first twinge of worry. "How much food do we have for her?"

Dr. Gaines sighed, "Maybe a month, month and a half. I'll see what I can do, but there is no shipping between our people yet, so it doesn't look likely that I can get some in."

The Sevrum's doctor, Tulius, chimed in. "There might be other issues, as well. Unless you keep her in an envirosuit her whole life, Palaven's radiation will kill her. Not to mention, she's levo, and infants have a bad habit of placing everything they encounter into their mouths." Desolas groaned. He hadn't thought of that. "Fortunately, Dr. Gaines and I have possibly come up with a solution. We just need to run a few more tests, and then we can implement them."

"Good. As quickly as you can, please." He continued on his way, signaling to Saren as he passed to collect his things.

Saren rose and trotted after him. "I've put in for leave after the ceremony. I'll transfer you to General Septimus Oraka. He'll see you through the rest of your training," Desolas said once Saren had caught up.

Saren started to protest, but stopped himself. Arguing with a superior officer was a good way into a dead-end position, even if that superior officer was one's brother. Instead, he sighed and accepted his brother's decision. Oraka was a good general, just more cautious than Desolas.

Desolas watched as Saren accepted the decision and grinned to himself. Saren had been chafing under the other commands and needed to serve under a competent officer to truly show what he was capable of. He had discussed the transfer with Oraka on the return trip, and Oraka was going to place him in charge of a small team once the transfer was completed. Saren had shown a gift for command on Shanxi, and an aptitude for solo work. Oraka would help him on the path to becoming a Spectre.

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A few days later, Saren watched, solemn, as Desolas and Antoria pledged themselves to each other. He held the infant, Andra, and found himself strangely drawn to protect her. He guessed that it was an evolutionary protection, as she wouldn't be able to do anything to protect herself for several more months yet.

The doctors and geneticists had found a way to modify her genes to survive Palavan's harsh radiation and consume dextro foods without harm, though the humans thought she'd be short for a human as a result. She hadn't seemed to take any harm that Saren could see, and she wriggled and crooned to herself throughout the ceremony. The humans had called her a "remarkably happy baby", claiming that most human infants spent large amounts of time crying loudly. He couldn't believe that anything as tiny as Andra could possibly be as loud as they were implying.