AN: Hey. Been a while, hasn't it? I don't really have anything to say for myself other than I don't like the material I wrote for Mass Prelude and have decided to scrap it pretty much entirely and start over. I want to write it with the know-how and creativity I have now, and in a less derivitive manner. Hopefully I can make good on that.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

I groan and roll over towards the incessant chiming, reaching out to slap limply at it until it stops. It's the first time I've gotten up to an alarm in a while. Cracking my eyes open and squinting against the purple-hued light filtering through the blinds, I peer at the time on the orange holo-clock. 6:30, standard galactic time. Right, time to get up.
It's only been a week since I've moved to the Citadel, shining capital of civilization that it is, and I have to say it's just as grand as the vids tell you it is. I slowly drag myself out of bed and stretch, yawning wide as I peek out of the nearest window to take in the view. From the second story there wasn't much of a view of my Ward-Zakera Ward, I think it was-but a couple arms of the Citadel were easy enough to see, ghosting silently through space on a background of purple-white nebula. God, this place was gorgeous.

I tear myself from the window and plod back into the apartment, slipping into the bathroom to get ready and ponder the day. Today was technically my first day on my new job-I was starting my training with Citadel Security in about four hours, even though they probably weren't going over much I didn't already know. Still probably best to pay attention. A quick shower and a toothbrushing later I was settled on the floor of my living room and chewing on a granola bar, flicking on the morning radio so I had something to listen to while I got all my stuff in order. ID, biotic ID and registration, Alliance Vet card, cybernetic registration, gun license, credit chit...all there. With a little gesture I pull my wallet into my hand and stick all the cards inside, stuffing it into my pocket and turning my eyes down to my omnitool. The news was more of the same even on the Citadel, it seemed. Minor crime reports, piracy updates, some cutsey story about one company or another donating to a colony. Guess even life on the galactic capital could be bog standard. It beeps quietly and I tap the notification to read it. 7:30, it was time to go.

I heave myself to my feet and grab a jacket, throwing it on as I step out into the sounds of the early morning rush hour, padding down the stairs and slipping into the flow of foot traffic. Mingling with so many other races was still a little jarring to me, honestly. It was strange to have a turian on my right, an asari on my left, another human in front of me and god knows what behind me. Not that it was a bad thing-if I wanted to just see humans all my life I'd have stayed on Earth.

It's a short walk to the nearby transit station, an even shorter ride on the cab and then I'm there. The elevator is big enough to fit three elcor and proudly bears the sigil of C-Sec above it, illuminated in the same purple-blue as most of the Citadel. I break from the crowd here and step into the elevator, tapping the down button as a few other people file on and checking the time again. 7:45, just about 15 minutes early. I take a once-over of my messages and close the screen as the elevator dings to a halt, stepping off and peering about the lobby of the C-Sec Academy.

The place was busy, to put it lightly. There had to be dozens of people walking through here-mostly turian officers, but there was a sizeable group near the reception desk. The human receptionist glances up and smiles as I approach.

"Hello there ma'am, are you here for orientation?" He asks, swapping a few windows on his terminal as I nod.

"Yeah, I am. My name's Meryl Hofford." I reply, already fishing out my ID and info cards to hold out to him. When our hands brush he falters and I follow his eyes as they flick down and chuckle a little, rolling up my sleeve to reveal the smooth white metal of my arm. "Cybernetic. Lost it in an accident a while ago."

"Right, I...sorry." He politely glances away as I roll my sleeve back down and checks my information over. "...You're all good, Miss Hofford. Orientation starts in about fifteen minutes, go ahead and go through the door on your right."

I give him a nod and a "thank you" as I take my cards back, slipping past the small crowd excitedly chatting about their acceptance and into the room. It looked like a fairly large conference room, with a raised stage and a screen on the far wall. Rows of seats were already being filled by what look like recruits just like me; casual clothes, no uniforms, and no idea what they're getting into. I've got an edge in that at least. I move towards the front of the room and take my seat, getting comfortable as I check the time once more. 7:46. Well, the constant clock-watching probably wasn't going to make time pass any faster. I peek around the room to look at everyone filing in. Most of them are turians, unsurprisingly. There's some asari mixed in too, with the occasional salarian and human. Uniformed officers are starting to pack in too now, and it's not long before the room is full and quietly bustling. I glance down to my omnitool again out of habit.

8:00. And not a moment too soon, a turian steps onto the stage and takes his place behind the podium. I recognize him from the news, now that I'm thinking about it. Executor Pallin, I think his name was? He takes his place at the podium and I can already feel myself start to lose focus. I've never been good with lengthy orientations, I just want to get a uniform and get started. It's short at least; just a quick introduction and a rundown of what all was expected of us, what our role was, what C-Sec stood for. When he finished his speech and dismissed us I stood and followed the flow out towards the exit, only to be stopped by one of the turians flanking the exit.

"Merryl Hofford?" she starts, stopping me with a hand on the shoulder and giving a gesture to the side, "If you'd stay here please."

I blinked and paused, slowly stepping to the side of her as I frowned a bit in confusion. "Uh, okay. What for?" I can't think of any reason I in particular would be pulled aside. Well. Except for all the military records. And the very obvious cyber arm. I probably should have expected this, actually.

"You're on the accelerated course, just step aside and wait for the instructor to get you."

Oh. Well, that's a relief, actually. I relax a bit and nod, shuffling to the side and opening my omnitool again while I wait. About a dozen others are stopped like me, moved aside to wait for someone to come get us. I let my eyes sweep them as they come, hazarding a guess at why each of them had been pulled aside. An asari had a patch on her shirt that looked like it was from a military academy, but she looked too young to actually have served. One of the two salarians looked normal enough. Suspiciously so, actually. If I were the suspicious type I'd have pinned him as an STG agent, but that was probably a stretch. Probably. The other human in the group, a tall, sort of gangly-looking kid that looked like he was completely on edge, was sticking close to me when he could help it. Having another human in the group was comforting to him if I had to guess. The other six of them were turians, which seemed to be a running theme in C-Sec personnel now that I thought about it. They all seemed like what I'd expected, at any rate. Talented, if inexperienced. Probably the ones that they wanted to get shipped out into the field as soon as possible.

It doesn't take much longer for a pair of officers to slip into the conference room and round us up, directing us down a few hallways before a few of us were ushered into smaller side rooms. It was fairly bare, with just a few filing cabinets aside from the desk. The turian clerk glances up at me with a smile as she pulls out a few forms, gesturing for me to sit. "Hi there, welcome to C-Sec. My name's Panaea Calptros, I'll be handling your final application here. Your name is?"

"Merryl Hofford, pleasure to meet you, ma'am," I reply with a smile of my own, extending my hand to shake hers as I settle in. "Final application, huh? I thought I was already signed up."

"Oh, you are. This is just to figure out which course we want to put you through-officer, detective, forensics, so on." She clarified, pushing the paper towards me before glancing to her terminal. "So, Miss Hofford...you served with the Systems Alliance for ten years, it looks like. Military service is always a bonus here. Though..." she pauses for a few moments and her mandibles click thoughtfully, "it doesn't look like we've been given your records yet. Would you mind listing off any certifications or experience so I can write them out here?"

I can't help but snort, a sheepish grin forming on my lips as I start filling out the forms. It's pretty standard, just background confirmations, military experience, education and such. "Oh god. Do you want the important ones or the whole list?"

She looks up to me with a perplexed expression. "Er...all of them?"

With a bit of a laugh I glance up to the ceiling, tapping my fingers as I went over the checklist in my head. "Right. I'm fully certified in combat driving, assault procedures, close quarters combat instruction, parachuting, zero-G combat, first response and combat medicine for human and alien biologies, combat diving, jetpack and jetboot flight, and basic linguistics in the five most common Citadel space languages. I completed the full Ascension military course at Grissom Academy and got a couple degrees while I was there. A Master's in Xenoanthropology and a Bachelor's in Human Anthropology." I look back down to her as she sort of blinks at me. I get that a lot. "That's all I can think of. At least, what I'm allowed to tell you."

"Right. Okay. That's quite a bit more than our usual applicants." To her credit, Panaea is being extremely professional, glancing back to her terminal to start typing out what I've told her. "You've completed the Ascension course, you have two degrees...can you tell me where you received those certifications?"

This is my favorite part. I know I'm grinning at this point as I quip, "Nope, that information is classified. Unfortunately you'll have to ask the Alliance for my records."

She gives me an incredulous look, eye plates raising. "You...You're serious? You really can't tell me?" I nod and she stares at her terminal for a moment before typing something in and lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Are you...were you some kind of special ops?"

"I can neither confirm nor deny that," I reply, but I grin and wink at her to make sure she knows that yes, I am definitely confirming that.

"Shit," she murmured, scrolling through what she had written down. "We'll have to contact the Alliance for that information, then. If we hadn't already been told you had an honorable discharge I probably would have sent you right out of here, to be honest." She leans back in her chair and seems to mull it over. "...well, if what you're telling me checks out, I think I know exactly where we can use you. C-Sec Special Response. You're the guys raiding drug dens and arms deals, breaking up violent crimes before they happen; technically you also take point during riots, but we haven't had one of those in ages. It's a tough course, but it seems like you'll do just fine."

"Special Response, huh..?" I murmur almost to myself, reclining back and tapping my fingers on my knee. I think back to what my sergeant had told me. 'Live the quiet civvy life.' No, it didn't seem like that's what I was going to be doing. A desk job wouldn't keep me occupied, working as a street cop probably wouldn't either. I definitely didn't have the chops to be a detective or work in forensics. Working what amounted to SWAT was probably the closest I'd ever get to Alliance work I'd ever get, unless I wanted to live the mercenary life. "...Hell, that sounds like a blast. Sign me up then, when do I start?"

"You'll be doing proficiency drills all week," Panaea explains, reaching into one of the drawers to hand me a schedule, which I trade for the now-completed forms, "firearms, athletics, procedure, the works. Once they know where you need teaching they'll decide what classes you're taking and get you situated in your division. Of course, there's no guarantee you're going into High-Risk, they might decide you're better suited to another division. I wouldn't sweat it, just let your results speak for themselves."

I chuckle a bit at the decidedly turian suggestion and stand as she does, reaching to shake her hand again before stepping to the door. "Thanks for the tip ma'am, I'm sure I'll be fine," I call back as I step into the hall again, letting one of the other recruits in as I move to lean against a wall. Opening my omnitool I glance over the schedule in my hand, making sure to note down the times for each drill and when I had to be in. It looked like we would get a tour of the facility, a uniform, locker, and temporary badge before finishing up with a simple firearms test. A little smile creeps onto my lips and I debate going easy on the shooting for the sake of the others. Nah, I finally decide. It's not a competition anyways, the only thing that's at stake is pride. I busy myself with tweaking my schedule for the week as I listen in on the chatter of the other recruits.

Once the interviews wrap up we're taken on a roundabout walk of the entire C-Sec Academy building, shown all the facilities and department locations. Special Response is on the bottom floor, deepest in the Lower Wards. Makes sense. The Lower Wards tend to give C-Sec the most trouble, from what I've heard on the news. We make a pass by one of the employee entrances so we can get our temporary badges, snag a uniform and get assigned a locker to stash it in-we won't have to wear them today, just show up in it tomorrow. Eventually, after the long roundabout tour, we arrive at the promised land.

The shooting range here is compact and immaculate, as expected, with a small armory tucked into the corner that you can check weapons out of. There's a viewing window at the back of the range, elevated a bit so you could see down the lanes more clearly. There's actually a decent crowd there, about a dozen officers watching us as a single pistol and two thermal sinks are laid out at each of the lanes. Slipping on the protective visor and popping in my earplugs, I pick up the pistol to give it a quick once-over. It's an M-3 Predator, pretty standard and reliable. Probably standard issue to most officers. The other recruits are already loading their sinks in and pushing the go button, shots ringing the air as holographic targets pop up and down. 24 targets, 48 possible points, it looks like. One target for each shot two sinks gives you, one point per hit, two points for headshots or direct center mass.

Satisfied with the evaluation, I load the sink into the pistol, scan my badge into the console and take in a long breath. The start button is pressed and I level the pistol down the range as the timer ticks down. Three. Two. One. The first target materializes and I let the muscle memory take over to send the shot through the torso, mentally adjusting for the weight of the weapon and the way the recoil shifted my aim. It had been a long damn time since I'd fired a gun-the first time since I'd tried shooting with my new arm. But it seemed like I was still a natural. I get surer of my shots after a few and shift my aim for the head, putting rounds through the center with triumphant pings before the next appears, and the next. Twelve shots in and I pop the sink out before the target is done vanishing, slamming the new one home so fast I actually have a few seconds to wait before the targets are back up and I can keep shooting. The last one blinks out of existence on the twenty-fourth shot and the booth buzzes at me to let me know the test is over. I release the breath I was holding, pop the sink out of the Predator, and set it down on the table as I take a few steps out to glance over at the little screen with my score on it.

45/48. Not bad at all. I give an approving nod to myself as the other scores start to filter in on a little graph. The highest score belongs to me, but I'm not actually surprised. It's doubtful the rest of them have had the kind of training I got. But still, their scores are nothing to scoff at. 40, 38, 34, the lowest is a flat 24 with a 100% accuracy rating. They're good and they're only going to get better.

It takes me the entire score list to realize there are a lot of eyes on me and I look up to glance around, finding several other recruits whispering and glancing between the scores and myself. Whoops, that is sort of the thing that draws attention, huh. I spare a glance behind me to the viewing platform and find that they happen to have their own score feed and are nodding at it approvingly, though one turian is giving me quite the stare through his visor. I give him an informal two finger salute before strolling over to the other recruits as they gather up around the instructor, and he gives me a nod as I approach.

"Hofford. Nazgatus. Janure. Congratulations on taking the top three scores." He glances between each of us as he speaks- me, a turian woman who gives me a polite nod as I meet her eyes, and a relieved-looking asari. "I hope to see you all continue to improve. Now, that concludes what we have for today, if any of you have questions, stay behind and ask them. If not, you're dismissed. Same time tomorrow, don't be late."

That's all I need to hear. I quietly step back so other recruits can take my spot to grill the instructor, exiting the range and checking the time. It was only 1:20, there was still plenty of daylight. There was plenty that needed doing anyway, most importantly getting furniture for my new apartment because I was very, very sick of sleeping on the floor. A short elevator ride up and I was heading down the street under the purple-white light, merged in with the rest of the foot traffic as a grin slowly split my face. Maybe this would be better than I thought.