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Admiral Hackett’s supernatural knack for sending the Normandy’s crew off on a mission that seemed straight-forward before turning into an absolute shit-show was at least funny this time…
“Get back here, you little motherfucker!”
Kaidan watched Shepard chase a tiny clever creature down the slope, making a Herculean effort to not double over in laughter at the spectacle. Ashley, on the other hand, showed no such restraint.
“AHAHAHAHA! Bob and weave, Skipper! Bob and weave!”
“This will only end in tears,” Kaidan smiled and shook his head, bending down next to the little monkey-like being at his feet. “Come here, little guy, I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The monkey inspected Kaidan’s offered hand with suspicion, keeping its distance and sniffing the air. It looked up at him and chirped indignantly.
Ashley peeked over Kaidan’s shoulder, “They are really cute. Do you think Shepard will let us bring one back to the ship?”
“You really want to subject it to Shepard’s driving?” The monkey inched closer to Kaidan and reached out a small finger to touch Kaidan’s before yanking its hand back with a squeak.
He could hear the snort of Ashley’s laughter through her helmet, “Yeah, you’re right. That’s animal cruelty.”
The monkey gained some more confidence and touched Kaidan’s hand again, this time clutching his finger. Kaidan couldn’t really feel it through the layers of armor, but the haptic feedback told him that the little thing was stronger than it looked.
“Looks like you made a friend, LT.”
Kaidan leaned closer in; it certainly didn’t have the data module they were looking for, but when he tried to pull his hand back, the monkey didn’t let go. “Hey now, I need that back.”
“Problem?” Ashley snickered, walking around him. The monkey ignored her and yanked harder on Kaidan’s hand. “Aww, it’s shaking your hand like a little businessman!”
Ashley snickering devolved into a full-on guffaw. Kaidan craned his neck to look up at her. “What?”
“A little businessman…” Her shoulders shook from laughter. “Monkey business!”
Withering looks lost much of their impact under a helmet, but that didn’t stop Kaidan from shooting one her way as he stood up. The monkey grabbed onto Kaidan’s wrist and climbed hand over hand up his arm and onto his shoulder.
Somehow, Ashley laughed even harder. She stumbled back and caught her foot in the uneven terrain, landing solidly on her ass. It did nothing to deter her enjoyment of the situation.
Kaidan felt around blindly for the monkey on his shoulder. A happy squeak echoed in his helmet and it leapt to his other shoulder. He sighed, “A little help, Chief?”
Ashley picked herself up of the ground, “Come here, cutie.” She paused, “To be clear, I’m talking to the monkey, sir.”
The sighs became wearier. “Copy that. Just help me, please.”
“Let’s leave the LT alone, okay?” Ashley reached for the monkey, who responded to the advance with an annoyed chitter and climbed atop Kaidan’s helmet, clinging to his faceplate. She put her hands on her hips, “Can you just, I don’t know, shake it off of you?”
“I don’t wanna hurt it.” He didn’t want it to start sticking its hands where it didn’t belong and messing with his seals, either. Kaidan checked his environmental reading on his HUD, all normal, at least for now.
He reached up and got his hands around the creature, pulling it down in front of him. It gave him a pitiful whine and big sad eyes. “Oh, don’t look at me in that tone of voice.”
The monkey replied with another mournful sound. It was not above guilting, it seemed. He bent and placed it back on the ground, patting its head. “Okay, let’s keep searching.”
They began to walk down the slope in the direction that Shepard headed. A pair of chirps stopped them in their tracks. Turning, they saw a second monkey had joined the first one that had taken a shine to Kaidan and were following behind them.
“Well, that wasn’t on my list of expectations for today,” Ashley mused.
“Did you already check that one?”
She shrugged, “I’ve lost track of which ones we’ve searched and which ones we haven’t at this point.”
“Fair enough. Come on.” He continued down the hill tracking Shepard’s transponder.
Out of the corner of his eye, a couple more monkeys popped up from behind rocks. And then a few more.
And a few more.
Kaidan checked his HUD again and there was now a line of about a dozen tiny red dots following behind them. “Chief…”
“Yeah, I see it too.” Ashley couldn’t keep the humor out of her tone, “I think they like you, LT.”
He huffed, “They’re following the both of us.”
“Oh no, I don’t think they give a flying monkey fuck about me at all. See?” Ashley veered to the right as Kaidan continued straight ahead down towards Shepard’s marker and, sure enough, the monkeys stayed alongside Kaidan, ignoring Ashley completely.
“This is the cutest shit I’ve ever seen.”
The monkeys squeaked out their agreement, much to Kaidan’s chagrin.
Shepard’s voice came through on the comm, “Alenko! Williams! I followed one of these damn things into a cave. Get down here.”
“Aye aye, be right there.” Kaidan glanced over his shoulder at the parade of monkeys trailing him, “We’ll, uh, have some company.”
“Company?”
“The monkeys have unionized and have made Alenko their leader,” Ashley relayed to Shepard, full of mirth.
“Uh huh… Unionized. Are they business monkeys now?” There was a pause on the line. Kaidan wished his helmet wasn’t in the way and he could rub the irritation out of his temples – he knew what was coming.
An eruption of laughter broke through the comm channel. “Monkey business!”
Ashley dissolved back into laughter and Kaidan’s shoulders slumped. It was going to be a long, long day…