"What the fuck was that?" Cora exclaimed, her back pressed against a big rock when she was catching her breath after the battle. "We barely made it!"
Scott was in a similar position. He leaned forward, putting his hands on his knees, taking big gulps of air to soothe the tensed muscles and hard-beating heart. Sweat poured on his face and over his eyes, making his sight blurred.
"I... I don't know." He preferred to ignore the 'barely made it' part for now. "I've never seen any Remnant like that. Peebee?"
The asari barely heard him. She was looking into the sky, following a shrinking, squid-like shape of the Remnant. She was always fascinated by those machines, and this one was the most interesting of them so far. She was already thinking about how to name it. Kraken? Cthulhu?
"What? Ah, yes. I mean, no. I've never seen it." She responded before shaking her head to fully return to reality. "We have to research it. Try to discover its function, and if it's able to bring us more problems." The ever-lightheaded asari could be surprisingly serious about the Remnants.
"Roger that," Cora confirmed. "We'll mark the location and let the excavator team recover the leftovers..."
"No!" The asari's voice was like a whip. "I'm not trusting those Initiative eggheads with such an important job. They don't know shit about the Remnants!"
"She's kinda true, she's the best Remnants expert we have." Ryder took Peebee's side. "And we're the Pathfinder team. If there's more of those, it's the most likely we'll encounter them first. It's in our best interests, Cora."
"Of course it is." The human biotic said in a mocking tone. Young Ryder'd always been loosely following the regulations, which had often brought him to the same side as Peebee. But it was also a quality he got from his father, and Cora smiled sadly remembering her mentor. Even if she was on the other side of the spectrum in this matter.
Neither Ryder nor Peebee didn't answer her though. The asari immediately started inspecting the battlefield, looking for anything that the huge Remnant left behind or that had fallen from his body during the combat. Soon, the whole trio was collecting his leftovers, including both small and big parts, and loading them into the Nomad. It was a slow job, as every part had to be carefully scanned and examined to determine if it was not explosive, radioactive, or dangerous in any other way.
After some time, however, they managed to collect all that there was to collect, and now looked at their vehicle. Something was off, something they didn't notice before...
"Ekhem." Cora was the first to break the silence. "How are
we
going to fit in?"
Ryder looked again and hit his own forehead with an open palm. While collecting, they completely overpacked the Nomad. Not only its trunk was full, but also most of the cabin. One huge element had taken one of the chairs in the front row, and a lot of the backseat had been filled with another. It left only two seats available for a squad of three - one belonging to the driver and another right behind it.
"Oh shit," Ryder swore. "Well, I think we have to leave some parts behind. Peebee, what we can get rid of?"
"No way!" The asari protested loudly. "I don't know the tech, so I also don't know what's crucial and what's not."
"So what do you propose?" Cora asked. She enjoyed that the thing she was against proved to be problematic, although she hid it well.
"You'll stay here," Peebee responded carefully. "Me and Ryder are gonna take the parts to the colony, and will circle back for you."
"That's not an option." Scott intercepted before Cora had time to retort. "We came here as a trio, we're leaving the same."
"So how it's going to be, Pathfinder?" The human biotic changed her tone to mockingly professional.
"Well..." To the girls' surprise, their commander's face turned slightly red. "You can sit together in the backseat..."
"No way!" Peebee opposed. "There's not enough space to even squeeze together, and I'm not gonna sit on her lap." The antipathy between those two women was well-known to the whole crew.
"No, that's not a terrible idea." Cora unsuspectedly agreed with Ryder. "But as you two wanted to take the Remnant's leftovers with us, it'd be me who would take the wheel while you two squeeze together in the back row. Deal?"
After a moment, both Ryder and Peebee nodded. That proposition sounded reasonable. The asari was probably light enough to not disrupt the Pathfinder too much, and she and Cora would have some space and a barrier between them. Sure, it wasn't ideal, but compared to other options...
Cora laughed internally.
That's what you get for messing with me!
She thought that the ride would be torture for her squadmates, while she would have the comfort of being in the driver's seat. Not suspecting how the reality would unfold, she opened the back door and made an inviting movement toward the seat.
"Ehhh." Ryder allowed himself for a sigh. "Just let me get off my armor, I can't sit in it in such an arrangement,", he said, adding in thought that it would be too uncomfortable for Peebee to sit on his hard, armored body.
Not waiting for any comment, he started unarmoring himself, oblivious to the glances his female squadmates threw at him. But he was a handsome, quite muscular individual, and the skin-tight Initiative uniform showed it perfectly. Peebee even allowed herself to bite her lips a little, realizing that she would be very, very close to this man during the ride.
Finally, all of Scott's armor hit the ground, and he collected the parts and threw them into the vehicle, after which he climbed inside himself. Too embarrassed for some jokes, he just waited until Peebee joined him on his lap, wiggling her butt a little to get comfortable.
Cora closed the door for them and next moved to the front, hopping in as well. Sitting behind the wheel, she looked back at her friends, and seeing how tight they were, she moved her chair as much forward as possible - she might've been harsh before, but she didn't really want them to suffer.
"Is that better?" She asked looking back again. Scott showed her a thumb up, and Peebee wiggled her butt again, being able to straighten her legs and enjoying the freed space between two rows of chairs.
