Turian Embassy, Vancouver, March 2186 CE

Engineer Barrett stared blankly at his holo terminal from behind his desk. Having just come from another mentally draining meeting he took the time to organize his thoughts and priorities. He had transferred from the Operating Forces of the Alliance to a attaché position with the Turian Embassy on Earth after being promoted to Gunnery Chief. This was seen as the 'mandatory' office duty expected of every enlisted Alliance Marine if they were to make the transition to Officer. He was still four years from being able to take the necessary tests and stand a promotion board before moving up. So he figured he'd get his desk duty done with early on so that he could get back out into space before promotion time came.

He was a widower with no children, having lost his wife of 4 years on Eden Prime he had kept to himself and focused his grief into his work. He often overtaxed himself beyond his capabilities at times but still made mission through a contorted dance of networking and under table coordination. It typically worked out when fellow Alliance members around him were up to par, which was by and large the majority of the Alliance, but there was always that one lazy incompetent idiot who dropped the ball. His current assignment had him coordinating multi species construction projects on Earth and elsewhere. Gone were the days when he worked on achieving the opposite while in the Fleet. Alliance Marine Engineers were typically tasked with two roles; Support, construction, and infrastructure or Demolitions, Counter Mobility, and Assault Breaching. Max had come from the latter role prior to being reassigned.

He was an only child and both parents were Alliance Military as well. His father was stationed on the Citadel as a Staff Commander working at a small Headquarters detachment for the 63rd Scout Flotilla and his mother was based on the SSV Hong Kong as the XO of the ship. When they had first met, they were both newly minted Ensigns attending the same Academy. They had somehow made it work and had Max along the way. He had grown up following his parents from assignment to assignment having never been on a planet until he was 13. When he turned 18 he joined the Alliance the week after he finished boarding school on Eden Prime. It was there that he met his now deceased wife Aubry, figuring if his parents could make it work, so could he. Unfortunately she was not Alliance Military and could not be assigned with him on ship duty so she stayed on Eden Prime. He managed to be home 6 months out of the year. But there were times when Combat Operations would edge into that time. It was during one such Operation that news of the Geth attack found its way to him he had learned she had died. Prior to these events he had had aspirations to cut his Military service short and settle down on Eden Prime working R&D at Kassa Fabrication. But now the Military was the only family he had.

Presently the terminal chimed rousing him from his reverie. It was a message from one of the Engineering teams he had out helping with reconstruction efforts on a remote colony in the Terminus Systems. Evidently there was still active Collector Tech influencing equipment in the area. The lead of the project was requesting Specialist assets to locate and destroy the nuisance. He fired off a reply and notified the corresponding Sections of the impending task. There was a knock on the door just as he started working on another project so he turned down his radio and pivoted in his chair to the door and beckoned whomever it was in.
A clerk from the Turian front office shuffled in datapad in hand and approached.
"Gunny I wanted to ask you if there were any changes to the calendar for the next 3 weeks from the section head meeting"
Max leaned forward in his chair and rubbed his eyes
"Nothing of note, however I just got a message from Fehl Prime asking for Specialists to deal with some Collector tech interfering with operations" he said through balled fists.
"Would you like the Hierarchy to handle this or does the Alliance have it?" The Young Turians' mandibles twitched noncommittally.
Max thought for a moment about the timelines involved and looked up at Ventrus Actus. He fidgeted nervously, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Ventrus was a young Turian with a spotty family history. His older brother Tonn had disappeared on Tuntau some years ago and it was suspected his Pirating predilections had caught up with him. Max had mused how Ventrus had managed to work for the Turian government given his family's history but he ultimately decided that there were just certain cultural nuances that would always elude him. Max was largely indifferent to Turians due to the fact that he was born 2160 and had joined the Alliance well after the Relay 314 incident. He had, however, joined when the Skyllian Blitz was the cool place to be and was rushed through basic training and stationed on the SSV Agincourt just in time for some combat duty during the push on Torfan.

Max looked up at the ceiling. Taking in the random patterns the stained glass windows cast on it.
"Well I have only one detachment just returning so I would like to give 'em the chance to rest and rearm before the next mission. That is if you don't think your highers' will mind."
Ventrus scrolled through something on his datapad and nodded absently when he found the relevant information.
"Ah yes we actually have a new class of Specialists who just graduated two months ago and their commander has been itching to break them in. I'll make the necessary calls. –Say, what do you have planned for the weekend?"
Max was slightly taken aback by the question. During the time he had been there he had yet to interact with the Turians outside of working hours. He preferred the solitude of his apartment working on his hobby and schooling up for his next round of qualifications. Come to think of it he couldn't recall doing anything casually known as fun since he landed on Earth.
"Nothing so to speak. What do you have in mind?"
"Well a small group of the other permanent staff managed to book a shuttle ride out to the west coast. I hear the weather is nice year round for the most part over there. How's a weekend trip to San Diego sound?"
"Sure, I'm down"
"Excellent, I'll send you the details right away." With that he spun on his heel and made to leave but Max interjected before he reached the door.
"Hey. Adjutant Actus, who else from the Attaché office is coming?"
Ventrus froze mid stride and said over his shoulder "Just you, and you can call me Van." And with that he gracefully exited in one smooth motion. Max stared after him for a while and thought to himself.
What the fuck did I just get into?

-

Max polished off the last of his now lukewarm coffee just as he finished up for the day. The sun had gradually moved the ceiling show of multicolored light to a miasma of splotches now swathing the floor. Max thought the stained glass windows a bit eccentric and out of place with the mostly sterile off white of his office. It felt like church at times but out of due respect for accommodating is Alien guests he thought better of saying anything.
At the very least I can ask for a office that doesn't face direct East. The first few hours of the day make me feel like I'm having a bad trip on something.
The day had been a usual routine of mundane dealings but Max could not help but feel slightly anxious about what tomorrow would bring. It would be the first time he'd been alone with a group of Turians, at least for the shuttle ride portion.
So how do you have small talk with another species that you have nothing in common with. "Hey there Van, how do you like the local food? Well you shouldn't because it will fucking kill you." I kind of feel bad for them, everything they eat or even use to groom themselves has to be imported. Must be a huge pain in the ass, "Oh sorry Mr. Turian but your order of butt cream and mandible paste couldn't make it because there are only 50 of you on this whole planet probably and centralized mail being the shitheap it is sent it to the school of deaf and blind kids on planet Dingus who are probably going to set the record for toilet flushes per minute afterwards."
He glanced at a vintage analog clock on the wall, one of the only things adorning his office aside from a small figurine of Felix the Cat running with a bomb on his desk. Tt was 1704, time enough to hit the gym before heading home. So he slipped out of his fatigues and donned some black basketball shorts and a navy blue tank top with the Alliance Marines logo on the chest.
Friday, Cardio day!

On his way out he stopped by the CO's office to check if there was anything else for him. Lieutenant Commander Roger Mattis was hunched over his terminal, narrow reading glasses perched low on his nose. He was old for his rank, having already gone grey due to the fact that he joined the alliance in his thirties. He had lost his entire family on Shanxi and was waiting at the recruiting office the moment it reopened after the colony had been liberated. His fatigues hung loosely on his small frame and years of experience etched his face which naturally bore a frown. He looked up when Max entered and stood up to stretch before addressing him.
"Gunny! You cutting your losses for the day?"
"Yes Sir, unless you have anything for me"
"Nope, enjoy your weekend. And try to get out."
"Actually I wanted to let you know that I took up an offer to go to California with some of the Staff"
Mattis raised an eyebrow while raising his glasses higher on is nose.
"Anyone else coming from us"
"No Sir"
"Well well then, my personal reservations about our current guests aside, keep in mind that you will be the unofficial Human representative. It goes without saying you should mind your P's and Q's"
"Absolutely sir"
"That will be all then. -Actually one last thing, we've been getting flooded with intel reports of stellar objects behaving in a most non-Newtonian way out in the boondocks of the galaxy. The call hasn't been made to up our alert status just yet but let's stay accessible if anything does come down the pipe."
"Aye Aye Sir, see you Monday"
Max about faced and exited smartly. Making a beeline for the elevator Max noticed Ventrus was still at the reception desk across from the elevator entrance.
"Hey Van I got the email, I'll see you first thing in the morning at the shuttle bay" Van waved at him from behind his console and replied "We'll be there with drapes on"
Idioms will never be mastered by the Turian race. Max mused amusedly.

He entered the elevator and selected the 10th floor, 15 floors below the Embassy suite, and leaned on the wall next to the panel. Just as the elevator door was about to close a three fingered hand tripped the obstruction sensor and was soon followed by Alarees in a dark green sweat suit. She stopped in the doorway and eyed Max, her disposition utterly inscrutable. She looked at the panel and nodded curtly. After taking up a spot behind Max the elevator door closed without further incident and the trip down commenced in deafening silence. Max could feel her cat like electric blue eyes tearing holes in him but he refused to budge or acknowledge her aside from the cursory nod when she entered.
There is just something up with that one. Maybe it's just a race thing, perhaps it's taboo for Turian women to speak to males of other species.
Aside from a few encounters in passing Alarees Jorst was the first female Turian he had ever had dealings with. And by dealings he meant terse replies and piercing stares. He had talked to other humans in his office about her and the attitude seemed to be universal. The doors opened and she shouldered past him turning down the hall towards the gym.
Well this is new

He paused a second before exiting and kept his distance. She entered the gym proper while he went into the changing room to drop off his duffel bag. After putting in some earbuds he entered the gym and looked through the partially opaque glass dividers separating different sections of equipment to see Alarees already going full tilt on one of the only 3 treadmills in the gym. Her baggy pants billowed with each long stride and her mouth was agape, mandibles splayed wide enabling her to get maximum airflow.
Well that would be a terrifying thing to see coming at you.
Iron Maiden's Run to the Hills just so happened to start playing in his earbuds. Max grinned at the timing and set about doing some warm ups hoping that this little display would dissipate before he got on the treadmill as well.
Aside from a Salarian in in the steam room there was no one else in the gym. The stark white lighting and gun metal grays of the facility were made especially eerie by the lack of activity, which was typical of Fridays in the consulate building.

5 minutes later she had not slowed her pace so he resigned himself to just get it over with. He mounted the machine farthest from Alarees, his presence seemingly not to register with her as he walked by. He trotted at an 8 minute mile pace until his heart rate got in zone and then steadily amped up the mass effect field until he was running at nearly 3 G's. His already bulky frame hammered the machine with the additional stress load as he sped up, keeping a steady 6 minute pace.
"My frustration, my conversation. Why are we even here? The abuse that we use, I do no longer care."
The 21st century metal blared in his head as he found his groove. The frantic dash in his peripheral vision altered subtly so he chanced a sidelong glance and noticed Alarees eyeing him through the wavy distortions of the mass effect field. She looked down at her console and tapped some commands causing her mass effect field to snap on. She then ramped the speed up to her previous madcap pace.
It lasted for all of 2 minutes, her movements becoming increasingly uncoordinated and sluggish as she wore on. She eventually smashed the stop button and jumped, if not a little too spiritedly due to artificial gravities' release, off the treadmill and ambled out of the gym.
Max continued for another 15 minutes, managing 8 and 6 minute mile intervals every 5 minutes in order to keep his heart rate from settling. He finished up to the tune of Go with the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age. He stopped the machine and gingerly stepped down, his joints grateful for the respite. As he set about doing a cool down routine he thought about Mrs (Ms?)Senior Cabalite Jorst.
I need to do some research on this one. Obviously something has come up. Unless I'm being paranoid. Fuck man, if only I could only read the stone faced assholes.

He showered and changed into some comfortable pants, long sleeve shirt, and zip up hoodie. He checked his M3-Predator Compact and slipped it into his waistband holster and left the Consulate. While waiting for his sky car Max couldn't help but feel like he was being watched. He attributed it to his encounter with Alarees but the feeling persisted well until he was home. After reaching his apartment he quickly armed his alarms and toured the 3 bedroom residence. Satisfied that there were no proverbial boogey men lurking in the shadows he settled down behind a workbench in one of the bedrooms he had converted to his own personal workshop and set about one of the few hobbies he partook in, artifact restoration. In his case he collected and restored firearms from every civilizations early industrial ages. His current focus was a blunderbuss from the colonial era of American history. Such examples were easily faked but he had contact with a reliable artifact gatherer who had yet to give him a lemon. -Lemon being relative term due to the fact that he only took on samples that were non-functional or in the later stages of decay. He figured he didn't have the money to buy mint examples from collectors and the guns he worked with would never be as valuable as those examples given the amount of work needed to get them working.
Max had developed a small cult following that bought up the odd and obscure guns he restored due to the fact that they could actually use them at ranges with no fear of destroying a priceless relic. He turned a tidy profit and sunk most of the money back into the tools he needed for his hobby. His most prized tool was a highly modified Serrice Council Omni tool that he had to limit himself from using due to the fact that it could do almost all the work for him.

Max pulled out a small plastic bristled brush and dipped it in solvent before setting about busting rust off the barrel of the Blunderbuss. It was an ornate example that had many different types of water fowl engraved along the barrel and receiver. Its wood stock was a rotted husk of its former self, there was only a tiny portion that still had its gold inlay. He paused to take a break after a while and looked out of the floor to ceiling window his bench sat next to. The sun was nowhere to be seen but its residual light cast impenetrable shadows on the alley and street below. His wall mounted display cases glowed with the orange afterglow of the sunset. Looking as if the weapons inside were dipped in lava. The hint of movement on a aircar landing platform across the street from his window momentarily drew his attention. The landing lights cast hard shadows along the back wall of the landing pad. He gazed absently at it and saw the light from the inside of the building spill out of the doorway and on to the landing pad with the exit of a slight figure. No aircars had landed since he entered the workshop as far as he could recall. The windows of his apartment were only only partially shuttered so he tapped a command on the wall and made the window opaque. He turned on a display and tuned into ANN just in time to catch yet another report about the destruction of the Alpha Relay.
"- has still been no communication with anyone in the Bahak system despite com buoys receiving a signal from buoys that were outside the radius of the blast. In route search and rescue teams, launched from the Artemis Tau relays, are still months away. At this point Council officials are cautiously optimistic about survivors. On a related note Commander Shepard still remains in Alliance Custody while the Batarian Hegemony continues to appeal to the Council that she be remanded to them to face trial for what they are calling 'Yet another act of repression and genocide inflicted upon the Batarian peoples by the Human race.'
The Council is steadfastly refusing to hear the appeals citing the closure of the Hegemonys' Embassy in 2171 and their refusal to follow Council guidelines for official diplomatic recourse."
Max couldn't help but smirk at the fact that even when such a horrific incident to befell the Batarians, the council still tells them to go pound sand. His mood darkened as the thought of Batarians caused memories of Torfan and the Treshaca Raids to bubble up from the depths of his mind.

Anti Air fire lancing out to swat them from the sky as they made their final approach. The shells blossoming to form fiery walls of death as they juked and jinked to avoid salvo after salvo...

Sondoval going limp on the launch ramp of the shuttle just as they touched down. A sickening wet gurgle played out over comms as his dying breath was played for the whole squad to hear...

He was gone by the time they dragged him back into the shuttle. The snipers bullet had punched clean through his neck and severed his spine and vented his carotid artery into his airway...

The thought of drowning in your own blood enraged Max and he along with the remainder of the squad launched from the craft and set about making their displeasure known.

Sandy, what the fuck were you doing with your barriers down before touchdown. I couldn't even look the Lieutenant in the eye when he asked how you died. You were my best man, the only one I had left who knew Her-
He shook himself from the path he was going down and looked down to see he had scrubbed the bristles from the brush to the head and was putting circular scratches into the metal of the barrel with the handle of the brush. He put the Blunderbuss back in its box, turned off the news screen, and went to bed.

After what felt like an eternity of tossing and turning he fell fitfully to sleep.