A/N: The year is around 1200 CE, so way before humans and only about 400 years after the end of the Krogan Rebellions. The tech would be slightly more primitive than we see in the games, but come on … they have space travel and mass relays, it's not gonna be noticeably primitive. Also, this is before the quarian/geth morning war. It was the war, decimation and exile from their native ecosystem that made them have to wear the suits and only venture away from the Flotilla on pilgrimage. They had a Citadel embassy before that, too, so I figure they were probably more like any other race before the whole mess - hence their appearance here.

Mass Effect is owned by Bioware.

"Aw, damn."

Cambir c3 sprawled before Ruuk in an untidy mess. More specifically, the shipyard sprawled, but beyond the piles of shipping containers, equipment and parts and pieces of prefab buildings, he could see the roofs of the actual settlement stretching in tidy rows toward the foreshortened horizon. They glittered icily in the first rays of sun to peek from around the moon colony's gaseous primary planet. Nightside chill made the air cold enough for frost, and it would be many hours before the air warmed enough to be called comfortable by any species' standards.

Krogan hated the cold.

Ruuk shouldered his bag and began to walk toward the terminal. Another krogan emerging from the shuttle - Gatatog, by his coloring - cursed soundly at the cold, as well, and Ruuk smiled to himself. He wasn't the only one to mistakenly equate "habitable biosphere" with "reasonably comfortable." Several armed and armored asari and turians, a couple of batarians and an elcor also disembarked, along with an asari family who must have been company employees. The family split off and made their way purposefully in another direction. The rest of them, fellow mercenary hirees like himself, trudged along after Ruuk. He forced himself not to alter his pace when the turians fell in behind him, but he did tilt his head so that he could keep one eye on them. If he had known he would have to endure them for the entire trip from Illium, he would have booked a different ship. He had tried to lose them on the shuttle at Hekate, but flights to Cambir were so limited that he had been forced to take what he could get or miss the deadline for appearance.

He had listened to them chatter on the shuttle. The asari gossiped like hens, with one of the turians joining in almost as avidly. It seemed the three of them had served contracts together before and were catching up on the time in between. The other krogan had stared at them in hostile silence, then disappeared toward the cargo compartment. The other turians and even the batarians were baited into conversation, but he and the elcor had put their heads down and pretended to be asleep. He might have to work with them, but he was not going to start socializing with them. The elcor, though, was a curiosity; Ruuk hadn't seen many elcor mercenaries. They tended not to be able to react fast enough to the changing situations of a typical mercenary's life and were more apt to be hired by private armies, where their solid presence and heavy armament could be emplaced and defended and their lack of mobility was not such a detractor. He found it strange that a corporate colony would hire such an asset … but perhaps the Illium interview officer had been indiscriminate in her hiring. Maybe she thought she was covering as many bases as possible, or maybe she hadn't known of the elcors' strengths and weaknesses in combat and saw only a brightly polished resume. It would be interesting to see how things panned out.

"Shogo?" asked the other krogan, stepping up beside him. Up close, he was older than Ruuk had first guessed. Two points of his crest were missing and there was a deep gouge across a third. His dark eyes were difficult to see in the shadows of his face. Ruuk shook his head.

"Nakmor."

"Huh. I had a shield brother of Shogo once. You could have been his son. Gatatog Rilek."

"Nakmor Ruuk," he replied in turn.

"You learn anything more from those squalling pyjaks? They didn't tell me they were hiring turians," Rilek complained, turning his head to glance back at the aliens with one eye.

"They hired anything that could point a gun. And no. The asari who hired me played it close to her chest."

The older krogan chuckled lewdly, mostly to himself, as they entered the terminal building. It was decidedly warmer inside and Ruuk was glad to inhale a lungful of air that didn't burn all the way down. The interior was a single large room where a number of quarians and a few asari moved among more crates and containers, checking them against lists as they moved down ordered rows. The presence of so many quarians surprised Ruuk; then again, with only a couple of relays and a shuttle between this system and their own, he supposed it made sense that they would be in attendance here.

The far wall housed a line of doors and a stairwell leading down. Ruuk spotted unarmored turians descending as they entered. "Well," said Rilek beside him. "Maybe this will be entertaining after all. Turians to accidentally shoot and asari and quarians to … liaise."

"Sirs?" A sallow salarian approached as the last of the group trickled in through the door. Rilek's expression turned hostile once more and he glared at the salarian with undisguised disgust. The shorter alien appeared not to notice. "Just in from Hekate shuttle? Please, follow me. Liaison Nara Lessia expects you."

"Diverse group for an asari company," Ruuk noted sourly. Rilek grunted something uncomplimentary and gestured that he should keep an eye on the turian mercenaries behind them while the elder krogan kept on point. He obediently fell back, letting the rest of the new hires proceed him before he joined the group again at the rear. The gossipy turian and his two asari cohorts regarded him disfavorably as they passed.

Ruuk took the opportunity to look around as the salarian led them through the room toward one of the doors on the far wall. Most of the containers in the room were still sealed, plastered with bills of lading and caution labels dictating that their contents were fragile or caustic or vertically oriented. A few, all along the row closest to the doors, were in the progress of being unpacked and disassembled, and their contents ranged from household appliances to electronic parts to a pair of massive generator cores. The room was bright, and the workers he saw moved confidently and appeared not at all worried by the troop of mercenaries coming in their front door - nor of what the mercenaries might have been hired to fight. It looked like a scene on a core world, rather than a primitive moon colony on the fringes of the Traverse. Were they that stupid? Or just that naive?

The salarian led them through the door and down a surprisingly long hallway, then into another room lined with lockers and more doors. One of these led into a medium-sized office, behind whose desk sat a harried-looking asari. She looked up as they entered and then stood. She was tall for her species and looked old enough to be into her matron years. Dark facial markings gave her a perpetually angry look.

"Welcome to Cambir c3. My name is Nara Lessia, and I will be your liaison to the Company Commander onsite. You will deal with me for everything from duty roster to potty breaks unless we are in a combat situation. If there is fighting, you answer to Commander Emirus. Any questions?"

She looked them over. None of the mercenaries said a word or even shifted. Back beside him, Ruuk saw Rilek's eyes narrow in amusement.

"No? Good. Ziva will show you to the barracks. Stow your gear and meet at the mess in two hours for introductions and orientation. After that you are free until your first duty shift tomorrow. Make sure you sign in on your way through, or the Company can say you missed curfew."

"Why don't we get one of those introductions out of the way right now?" asked a tall turian entering from a side door. His armor was Company white and red, but the colony marks on his face flashed brilliant yellow, and behind them were piercing eyes almost the same color. He moved with the grace of a practiced warrior and Ruuk tensed involuntarily, his hands clenching into fists at his side as energy prickled along his spine. "My name is Janar Emirus, and I am the Commander of the Guard of Cambir c3. You may address me as 'Sir' or 'Commander.'"

"Like hell I will," Rilek growled.

Every eye in the room snapped to the two krogan.

"You have a problem with that, krogan?" Emirus' voice was smooth.

"Damn right I have a problem! I killed every turian I could sight for a longer than you've been alive, whelp. I'm not about to start taking orders from one now."

Emirus and Rilek stared one another down. Rilek's face pulled back in a snarl, but Emirus remained impassive. The turian's eyes flickered to Ruuk.

"And you? Are we going to have a problem?"

Ruuk liked it about as much as Rilek did … but he needed the job. And he had signed a contract. Honor and glory, taunted the remembered voice of his battlemaster. He forced his muscles to relax. Acid boiled in his stomachs, but he gritted his teeth and growled a negative.

"I gave my word. I'll do what I was paid to."

Emirus tilted his head. "A krogan with honor. Fascinating." His eyes went back to Rilek, still seething beside him. "If it were up to me, your kind would not have been on the hire list. You can catch the shuttle back to Hekate in one hour. I will see the rest of you in the mess in two hours."

He turned and left the same way he had come, and Rilek glared hatefully at Ruuk as he turned to exit back toward the hall. "I was wrong, boy," he said. "You could never have been my shield brother's son."

"Noooo, you were General Kryik last time!"

Ruuk tried not to listen to the voices in the schoolyard across the road. It was recess at the colony's small school, and the children had been let out to run off extra energy in hopes that they would settle down again for afternoon lessons. That meant - he thought - that he had about three hours left of his shift. His interminable, stupidly boring, ass-freezingly cold shift. It was day six of lunar night and the illuminated crescent of the planet hung high in the sky overhead, shedding light but not much warmth. Between the primary and the two inner moons, the colony was lit almost as brightly as true daylight. It played merry hell with Ruuk's sense of time.

"It's your turn to be the Council!"

"But I was the Council last time. I wanna be Kryik!"

He knew what came next. It had been the same every day for the past week. Whomever won the rights to be the turian commander was begged and pleaded by the "Council" to save them, to fend off the krogan taking over the galaxy and give them back their homes, hurry, please, save us! He didn't know if it was because they were learning about that era of Council history or if it was simply because Lessia had seen fit to post him here, across the street from a classroom full of mostly turian children, too big a temptation to resist poking the varren. Even some of the quarian children had begun to join in.

"General, request permission to begin strafing run."

"Permission granted, Commander. Make it hurt."

A squadron of children zoomed around the schoolyard, holding their arms out and providing their own sound effects. A piece of playground equipment played the role of a hostile moon and the Commander reported success as he and his fellow fliers circled around it. There was more chatter and banter as the children attacked other hostile forces, swooping and running all around the yard. Ruuk watched their progress from behind the impassive mask of his helmet. Every day they came just a little bit closer. It might have been cute if they hadn't been playing out that particular episode of their shared history.

"Weapons lock, sir!"

The children swarmed toward the street and his position, most of them looking anywhere but at him: all but the turian child in the front, the one who most often argued and won his right to play Commander Kryik, who stared straight at him and lifted his fist to throw -

Why you little pyjak …

The company paid him to guard. Not to have rocks thrown at him by pups.

He broke his stillness and roared, and the children squealed and screamed and scattered. The little Kryik ran with the rest and the school's teachers peered over the schoolyard to see what was going on. Soon enough came the tearful explanations. A turian woman gave him an evil look as she rounded up her flock. The asari teachers merely shooed the children back inside. Bitter heat welled under Ruuk's hearts. He was sure he would be blamed for this later.

"Are you out of your mind?" Nara Lessia stood behind her desk, her hands on her hips and her brows furrowed into an angry line. "Threatening children?"

"I didn't threaten them," said Ruuk. "I scared them."

"What the hell were you thinking? They're kids!" Lessia paced, one head raised to her head now as if to fend off a headache.

"I was thinking I didn't want to have rocks thrown at me."

"You're wearing armor. They couldn't hurt you." She stopped and glared at him again, clearly unimpressed by his line of reasoning.

"Not the point. You're the one who posted me in front of a turian training camp." Ruuk stood by the door of the office. As he expected, he had been summoned at the end of his shift to face the wrath of the company representative. At least it wasn't Emirus. He doubted he would have been able to rein his temper if it had been the Commander dressing him down instead of the Liaison. It would have ended badly.

"It's not a training camp it's a sch - forget it."

Ruuk waited as she sat back down behind her desk and proceeded to ignore him for the next full minute. She sat quietly, eyes closed and back straight. When she opened her eyes again she seemed calmer.

"Why are you here, Nakmor?"

"Here to do a job."

"And does that job include frightening children?"

"If I have to." He returned her steady regard. She had done well enough so far. She understood the animosity between the krogan hires and their turian counterparts. She had seen to it that they were quartered on opposite ends of the barracks and shared no postings. The one time a turian merc had outspokenly objected to sharing the jobsite with krogan she had arranged to have him transferred to another facility. If you couldn't do the job to the best of your ability, she said, then at least have the grace to step away from it. Even if the job involved doing things you didn't like. Ruuk had agreed with her sentiment. He was still here, after all. He didn't like it, either.

Emirus, surprisingly, had backed her up. Something about civic duty and honor. He hadn't paid attention to what the turian said.

"And tell me: how does frightening children get the job done?" she asked. She folded her hands on the desk in front of her and waited.

"They'll jump when I tell them, won't they?"

Lessia smiled. "That or throw rocks at you." She sighed. "Alright, Nakmor. I am aware that that probably wasn't the smartest post to assign a krogan. I am aware of how little you and the turians care for each other, and I concede that there is a large turian population here and a subsequently large population of turian children. However..."

Here's the fun part, he thought. He wondered what it would be. Harassing the population he was supposed to be guarding? Willful negligence of duties? They could probably label it abandonment of post if they wanted to get snippy about it. Whatever it took to be grounds for dismissal and breach of contract.

"There's not a post on this rock where you're not going to deal with them at some point or other. I put you in that place because you seemed less opposed to the idea of being paid to guard the enemy than some of your fellow krogan, and frankly, I want a krogan there."

She might as well have said she found a baby thresher maw and wanted him to rear it until it was big enough to ride to war against the Council. It certainly wasn't what he had expected to hear. He doubted Emirus would be behind her this time.

"I'm sure you noticed that we are back of beyond. We might as well be in the Terminus out here." She looked at him until he nodded. "I have two daughters, Nakmor. They're maidens now, out exploring the galaxy on their own and making names for themselves, but I understand what it meant for those families to bring their children to this colony and trust the Company to guard their safety. I want to set the biggest, baddest thing I can over them to protect them.

"They didn't give me a budget for mechs, so krogan will have to do."

"She said what?" Urdnot Brol looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Said she wanted krogan on the kids. Scare off trouble."

"Hah!" Brol slammed back the last of the ryncol and set the bottle on the floor none too gently. Ruuk was surprised it didn't shatter on the concrete. "There might be hope for her yet. You said she had kids? Wonder what the fathers were," he mused, a calculating look entering his eyes.

"Doubtfully: she should have picked me." The two krogan got together most afternoons after their shifts ended, along with the elcor who had shared Ruuk's shuttle. Between them they were the least represented of their species on the colony: the elcor represented his kind solely, but three other krogan besides Urdnot Brol shared the barracks with Ruuk. The two Khels, Toros and Talan, were still on duty, and Ganar Sheil was asleep before his post on the 30-7 shift. Ruuk was not unhappy that he rarely had to talk to the others. The Khels were little more than splitplates, barely able to arm and armor themselves, let alone have anything interesting to say. The Ganar … the Ganar was crazy. Even for a krogan. The whole clan was.

"Ah, don't feel bad, Caloun," Brol said. "They'd probably think you were a tree and try to climb you."

"With growing fear: they wouldn't."

Ruuk smirked. "I'd take the rocks."

"Beats pyjak crap." Brol picked the bottle back up and shook it. He looked disappointed to find it was still empty and got up to find another. Ryncol was a rare commodity on the colony - being toxic to other species meant the colony supply officer neglected to order any - and Ruuk guessed that Brol had brought in his own stash in his weight allowance. He was unsurprised that the other krogan declined to share. "Did you hear Forsan quartered a trader because some idiot flung pyjak dung at the clanleader?"

"Uncomprehendingly: how was the trader implicated?" Caloun asked. The elcor was relaxed on a cushion, massive hands wrapped around a mug of something greenish and grassy-smelling. A true gentleman, he had offered to share his stash. Ruuk had passed. Caloun sipped at it delicately through a straw.

"The trader was the one that let the pyjaks loose on Tuchanka," Brol explained. "Claimed they were stowaways. Didn't help him."

"Serves him right," Ruuk said. A disgusted look spread over his face as he imagined packs of the little pests marauding all over the planet. No place would be safe, and the ruin of the subsurface would make perfect hiding places for the vermin. They would never be rid of them. "Pyjaks. Now I'm never going back."

Brol chuckled as he sat back down, fresh ryncol in hand. "Maybe the radioactivity will kill them. Or the heat." He shrugged. "Something for the varren to eat, anyway. When's the last time you were on Tuchanka?"

"Haven't been back."

Brol squinted at him. "You're biotic. So what, couple or so hundred years? You should check in now and then. Reassure your clanleader you're still his," Brol said. "Unless you're not."

Ruuk replied with a grunt and left it at that. He liked Brol, but he was way too talkative. Almost as gossipy as an asari. Brol appeared to take the hint, and turned his conversation to the elcor.

"How about you, Caloun? What makes an elcor turn merc?"

Ruuk pretended not to pay attention. Gossipy krogan or not, it was a question he had wondered about, too, and Brol had brought it to light.

"With great regret: I am much more adventurous than most of my people. Life on Dekuuna was far too slow."

It was the tenth hour, less than midway through his shift. So far the day's excitement had been limited to the withering look the turian teacher had bestowed upon him on her way into school this morning. She was probably still disappointed that he hadn't been relieved of duty and thrown offworld after the 'incident' a few days past. He wondered what sort of explanation Lessia had given, then decided it made no difference. Her word wasn't law, but it was the next best thing in matters mercenary, and evidently Emirus had not seen fit to argue with her about it.

Recess would begin soon. He wondered who would be Kryik today.

"Alert: unidentified incoming vessel."

Ruuk snapped out of a half daze and listened carefully. Planetary night had fallen yesterday and the colony was the darkest it ever got. Overhead, the black bulk of the planet blotted a neat circle out of the glowing ribbon of the galaxy.

"Bearing: 10.25.12 +03.06.27. Vessel has failed to respond to hails and may be regarded as: hostile intent. All facilities initiate lockdown procedures."

The VI repeated its warning, and throughout the colony red lockdown lights sparked to life along the streets. He heard shouted commands from the vicinity of the barracks, and he thought he saw the shape of Caloun the improbable elcor silhouetted on the roof of the warehouse. He looked up but spotted no ship against the sky. The intruders had waited until they would be least visible to approach the colony.

Ruuk risked a call on the mercenary band. "Caloun? Anything?"

"Negative," the elcor replied, dropping the customary inflection words. "My VI estimates they are still in high orbit."

"Dropping fast," said another voice. "Company has a lock. Batarian tech drive signature, unregistered."

Probably pirates. They had all expected it would happen sooner or later. Probably more than once. It was, after all, the reason the company had hired mercenaries to start with until they built up their guard.

"Show time."

"Incoming!"

The sky lit up to the east and the earth shook as something detonated close to the ground. Smoke billowed over the colony. Ash and dirt rained down. Two more projectiles streaked and whined overhead and then impacted close to the first. Their thunder shook the buildings.

The bastards are bombarding us! What kind of idiot pirate bombs the target before he gets to loot it?

"Impact due east, just outside the city," said Commander Emirus. "I believe they're trying to scare us."

Even over the comm Ruuk could hear the howl of a platoon of angry turians. He was glad to have them on his side, for once … though if the pirate crew included krogan, he doubted they would stop and ask for identification before shooting.

Fair enough. If he suspected a turian target was a pirate, he wouldn't hesitate, either.

"Orders, Commander?" Brol's voice. He sounded like he spit the title out between his teeth.

"Stay put! The VI detected shuttles landing west of the colony. That puts them at our position first. Plan Beta, and regroup at the cannery when you're clear."

Ruuk hunkered down under cover, relying on positions around him to announce contact. Fresh heatsinks in all guns. Shields at one hundred percent. Biotics tingling beneath his skin. He was ready. It had been weeks since he'd had a good fight.

"Contact. North side. Batarians and vorcha."

"Contact, south side. Shit, they have incendiaries!"

"What the he-"

"Bravo! Report! Bravo!"

Brilliant flames reached toward the sky to the south. Ruuk thought it was the clinic. Why would they torch the clinic? They would lose the drugs. Pirates loved drugs. Panicked screams echoed up from the burning building, and dimly, he saw what he took to be fleeing civilians being pursued by other humanoid shapes and the unmistakable bandy-legged gait of vorcha. They were far away, safely out of effective weapons range.

"Slavers," he hissed. He wasn't aware he had been comms free until he heard Emirus grunt in agreement.

"Change of plan. Alpha, Charlie, Delta: fall back to the nearest lockdown facilities. Defend the civilians. Nakmor, Urdnot, Ganar, on the school. Caloun, target those shuttles. Khels, I want you both on elcor defense. Echo, with the Khels. The rest of us will hunt these bastards."

A vorcha popped up down the street and Ruuk put a slug in its face before it knew he was there. It went down, but it didn't stop moving. Ruuk hit it with a shockwave just as another one screamed in glee and and charged toward him. He roared at it and charged back. With biotics on his side, the vorcha flew backward and landed with a smack against the wall of a garage. He smashed it with his fist until he was sure its regeneration would fail.

"Nakmor!"

Ruuk whipped around at the sound of his name. Brol and the Ganar stalked down the other end of the street. Both of them had their rifles armed and watched their backtrail carefully as they approached. It was alarmingly open, only a few parked cars and transports for cover. The colony was not yet old enough to have accumulated the detritus of most urban battlegrounds.

Ruuk dropped the dead vorcha and turned to face the other krogan.

"Quiet so far," he said. A smile stretched itself across his face. An answering smile arose on Brol, but the Ganar looked like he had swallowed a pickled varren.

"I'm going hunting," he said. "Only a coward is forced into defense."

A streak of light and a deep boom signified Caloun's initial success, and the Ganar took off on its trail. There would be slavers in that direction. Maybe turians, too. Brol watched him go.

"Where's the doors?" he asked.

"North and east. I'll take east," said Ruuk. Brol nodded and trotted toward the playground, taking cover behind some sort of big rock thing. Ruuk had watched the children climb all over it just yesterday.

A shot rang off the wall to his left and Ruuk dove for cover as a pair of batarians rounded the corner up the street. Followed by a vorcha. Followed by another vorcha. The last one caressed the ungainly weapon in its hands and giggled to itself, and Ruuk charged the thing before it could point it at anything flammable. His biotics exploded on impact, and the slavers were knocked down and stunned. He threw a fist at the vorcha first, followed by a one-handed shotgun blast that made a moot point of regeneration. He didn't envy whomever got the job of cleanup. It would not be fun.

His shields pinged as the batarians recovered themselves enough to take action. Ruuk gave one of them an introduction to the shotgun, too, and then ducked behind a car to let his shields recharge. A rattle on the pavement and a sharp whine made him roll away just before the car flew apart. Shrapnel whizzed by him, and he felt one chunk hit his shoulder as he came to a stop. A high-pitched laugh announced the arrival of at least one more vorcha.

"Urdnot! You busy?"

"Little bit." The crack of his rifle and answering reports lent credence to the claim, and Ruuk bit down on a curse. The remaining batarian was throwing another grenade when Ruuk looked back at him, and he blew it back toward the slaver with a shockwave. It exploded almost in the batarian's knees and he went down screaming as both his legs were reduced to boneless goo. But the vorcha. Where did they go?

"Stupid krogan! Not stop Kazit!"

Ruuk ducked again. A gout of flame narrowly missed him. The vorcha squalled in disappointment and moved to try again. Another boom resounded from the southwest.

"Shuttles destroyed," reported Caloun.

The vorcha heard him, too. It howled in fury and sprayed the flamethrower wildly, and Ruuk was forced to scramble out of the way if he didn't want to be toasted. He charged the vorcha before it could reorient on him and yanked the nozzle out of its hands.

"Kill you all!" it screamed, and Ruuk shut it up with an uppercut to its chin. Another concussion shook the street. Ruuk looked up to find the other vorcha standing over the dead batarian, stripping grenades from the slaver's body and throwing them toward the school building. The thick wall was threaded with cracks and the armor shutters were dented. A dead calm slipped over him, only to be ripped away by a blood-tinged haze of overwhelming rage. The school was his territory. How dare they attack it? How dare they attack children?

Children were sacred. Even alien children. Even, gods forsake him, turian children.

Ruuk lost track of what happened when. He knew the flamethrower vorcha, the one that threatened to kill everyone, died when the tank of its weapon ruptured. He dimly recalled firing pistol rounds into it. He wasn't sure if that was before he charged the grenade-throwing vorcha or after. Said vorcha got the same treatment the first of its comrades had, a faceful of shot. He realized at some point that the building was on fire. He wasn't sure how it happened. Another batarian emerged from the smoke around the corner by the playground, and something tickled Ruuk's memory as wrong about that. Wasn't that side supposed to be safe?

The batarian saw him and brought up his rifle. Ruuk threw a pull and yanked him off his feet. He introduced him to the shotgun, too.

Voices penetrated the haze. Screams. Panicked cries. Children. Someone was beating on the door. It was warped in its frame and jammed shut.

The rage dropped.

The north side of the building was on fire. He couldn't see Brol, but he did see the sprawled shapes of several more slavers. He couldn't take the time to investigate. He had to open the eastern door.

He charged it, dialing down the biotics so as not to harm anyone inside, but he succeeded only in bruising his shoulder and knocking the wind out of himself. The door remained stubbornly jammed. He pulled. He slammed his shoulder against it again. He cursed at it. Then he took his pistol and aimed very carefully at the locks. The slugs pinged and ricocheted, but the locks broke. He slammed into it again with his shoulder and nearly fell into the room. Startled faces stared down at him. Children cried somewhere behind them.

"Get out!" he roared at them.

The teachers hustled the children before them while he picked himself up. Older children led younger ones out. Ruuk could only hope he hadn't sent them out into another wave of slavers. The roof was engulfed almost fully, but he looked to make sure the children had all made it out. Little Kryik dashed by him holding a quarian girl by the hand. The boy was terrified, but when he saw Ruuk a flicker passed through his eyes. He pointed back to a door with a "closet" placard on it. Ruuk growled at him and the boy ran for his life.

He went to the closet door and pulled it open, and two little turian children whimpered at him from behind the mops. The air was getting hot. He knew turians came from a hot world, but he doubted they could stand much more.

"Come on," he told them. "You've got to get out."

He held the door open for them. The way was clear.

"It's not far," he said when they didn't move.

They stared at him and snivelled. One of them held his arms up to Ruuk. The other one hiccuped and did the same. Ruuk stared back. Him?

"You can't be serious."

The children waited expectantly.

Ruuk took two steps forward and grabbed one in each arm.

"Echo?"

"No contact, sir. I think we got them all."

Commander Janar Emirus breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you all. Excellent job. I want a pair of men from each squad to patrol the colony. Let's not have any surprises."

"Yes sir," came the replies.

Emirus thumbed off the comm and regarded the mercenary before him. "Not any unpleasant surprises, at least. Nakmor. We seem to have a problem."

"Sir?" Ruuk was too tired to argue. It was a good fight, though. After he had gotten the children out, he went back to the north side and found Urdnot Brol unconscious near a threesome of dead batarians. The other krogan was burned and would have some terrific new scars, but he would recover. The teachers had grouped the children in the garage across the street until they could be taken to a more secure location and reunited with their families. There hadn't been any more slavers. All of the children were safe.

"You lost me a bet," Emirus was saying. "The Liaison told me you wouldn't let our children come to harm. I didn't believe her. I wanted to have you dismissed. Most of those children are turian."

"Yes sir," he agreed. His armor still smelled like smoke.

"Tell me why," Emirus insisted.

"Our children are our future," he said. He knew it was cliche as soon as it left his mouth. But he was tired. And besides, it was true. Especially so for krogan. The turian would understand that. He just hadn't understood that it was true for all species.

Emirus clasped his hands behind his back and gave the krogan a long, long look. Ruuk kept his gaze on the wall behind the Commander's head. Turians. Always so damned dramatic. In his peripheral vision he watched a team of civilians putting out a blaze on the ruin of one of the colony support buildings. They moved as team and appeared to know what they were doing, but the building looked to him like a total loss. They hadn't even finished building to begin with, and already they would be rebuilding - and it wouldn't be the last time. Lessia was right. They might as well be in the Terminus out here. Pirates and slavers saw young colonies as irresistible opportunities. The corporate heads of Thieris Trade had to be insane to plant them here.

"You have my respect, Nakmor," Emirus finally said. "I will authorize appropriate combat bonuses to your account."

"Thank you, sir."

"If you keep calling me 'sir' I'm going to suspect that you're not actually krogan, but some sort of ... krogan-shaped … thing." Emirus almost smiled. "There's also the matter of your contract. I believe the officer on Illium said four months with the option to extend. I'd like to offer that extension. I can always use people I can count on."

Ruuk met the turian's eyes. The turian met his. He seemed sincere. It was even more bizarre than when Lessia admitted to purposefully posting him to guard the school. Ruuk was silent, still too surprised to answer.

"I don't believe me, either," Emirus agreed. "But the offer stands. You kept your word. You did what needed to be done. I believe, now, that you will continue to do exactly that. I would be glad to have you in my command."

Ruuk shifted uncomfortably. It sounded like the turian Commander genuinely meant what he said: that he respected Ruuk. A turian respected a krogan. Surely the galaxy would cease to exist tomorrow. The worst part was that somewhere, deep down where the light didn't shine, a tiny nugget of respect had sparked for the turian Commander, too. He attempted to squash it.

"Well?" prompted Emirus.

Ruuk dipped his head in a nod. He would regret this, he was sure. For now it seemed like the right thing to do.

"Yes Commander," he said. "I will stay."

* * * end * * *