When Reese--Commander Amari--looked his way he smiled and nodded to her, confident and certain. He was right behind her as they hustled to suit up, though less because of any attraction and more because he wanted to impress her. It was a new feeling entirely, to want to impress his direct superior. He usually thought whoever was passing along orders was full of shit, a drone with no creativity or thought of their own, but Reese had proven otherwise.<br/><br/>He pushed aside thoughts of his C/O as he reached his gear locker and let it scan his retina--how the hell they'd gotten<i>that</i>--and began to pull out his armor. He paused at the right shoulder piece, decorated with a single broad white stripe. He'd had the paint job adjusted to make room for the red strip that would designate him as N7. He had been so eager for it, so ready for it. A chapter in his life that he had to close for good now. Cole turned the armor over, inspecting the magplates that would attach it to the rest and hold it all in place, the wires and lines beneath the plating that channeled dark energy according to his whim, and he smirked as an idea formed in his mind.<br/><br/>So he couldn't have a red stripe. Fuck it. Red wasn't his color anyway.<br/><br/>"Vanes, ready," he responded when called, stepping into line with the others. Along the right arm of his armor was a freshly-painted strip of paint, electric blue and designed like a jagged lightning bolt that dipped back and forth over the straight white stripe. His armor wasn't the standard issue mid-range gear usually handed to Infiltrators; he had specialized it, tweaked it, ordered customization that the Alliance would call problematic but which he called effective. He slid his helmet over his head and tipped the visor down into place, for all intents and purposes a solid piece of metal, but a trio of lights flickered over where his left eye would be, then a fourth over his right, all lighting up bright blue with soft electric hums. The light faded to a dull glow, much less obvious, and inside the helmet he blinked as his HUD fired up.<br/><br/>"Arty, you up?" he whispered, and the VI built into his systems appeared in the corner. "Designate new friendlies." His eyes fell on the Commander. "Commander Amari, Reese, squad leader." Next he looked to Faustus, who was wearing a fairly normal set of steel-grey turian armor with purple crosses on either shoulder. "Iulian, Faustus, field medic." He looked around for Calypso, but had to check a few times before he spotted her, standing still and ready in her armor.<br/><br/>Where Calypso herself was a fairly average asari in height and build, in her armor she was big enough to give most krogan a run for their money. He had seen prototypes for the ATL-45 walkers back during his N7 training, but what she was wearing looked like a hybrid between one of those and a heavy-plus set of combat armor. She was at least eight feet tall in it with no visible head or helmet. Instead a small bump across the shoulders indicated where her head would rest, and the rest of the thickly armored suit wrapped like a heavy-duty glove around her. Her lower arms extended about twice as long as the upper arms, and where the right arm terminated in a hand with three fingers and a small cannon, the left was just raw weaponry. He could recognize a grenade launcher, rocket launcher, and some kind of energy projector, all built into one limb. "Jesus fuck," he whispered, and Arty's owl avatar blinked at him.<br/><br/>"No, that isn't 'Jesus fuck'. Designate: Calypso, heavy assault." With one last glance at the suit of armor that would make a krogan blush he glanced at Talyet and marked him, too, so that all of his squadmates had their vitals along the side of his display. Just in time, too, because Reese had begun her countdown.<br/><br/>In the cockpit Suni's hand tightened on the controls, easing the ship forward and toward the event horizon for the relay. The rings had begun to swing, somehow both ponderous and terrifyingly swift, and the eezo at the core of the gigantic machine glowed brightly. In three... two... one...<i>foom.</i>She watched the energy lance forth to seize their ship and then closed her eyes as they were hurtled through space so rapidly that stars all became a colorless blur. "AIDEN," she said through grit teeth, "find and play my flying music."<br/><br/><i>Commander Amari has told you before that your choice in music does not truly aid your flight ability, Suni'tallah.<br/>
</i><br/>"Put it on or I'm going to smear Pol's shit on your display pip. And engage stealth drive as soon as we hit realspace."<br/><br/><i>Playing Suni'tallah's library: Fly And Die.<br/>
</i><br/>The Anzio burst back into 'real' space with a small tremor, and at the same time a voice boomed through the PA.<i>MOVE, BITCH! GET OUT THE WAY, GET OUT THE WAY BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY! </i>Suni whispered along under her breath, eyes focused on the displays and the naked space before her. An instant later she took the ship lateral, twisting away from a defensive turret. Her thumb flew to the defense rockets, a cluster thumping away through space to destroy the Geth drones before they could turn to fire on her ship again. "Commander, we have contact," she announced over the sound of the music. "Two stationary defense turrets, neutralized. Picking up additional on scanners--reading dreadnought-class vessel, plus twenty smaller. Hold on, no... correction. Not a dreadnought. Space station, geth design. Positioned defensively just off the relay.<br/><br/>"Stealth drive... holding. The other smaller ships might have seen us, but only for an instant when I took out the drones." She paused, and then touched a flurry of holographic buttons. Part of why Amari valued Suni was for her forward thinking--often the quarian knew what her orders would be before they were even given. "Taking us in toward the geth station. All decorum aside, ma'am, there's something very fucky about this. Shuttle ready to dock ETA one mike."