Chapter 1: Unfamiliar Surroundings

For the third time in the past hour, a group of four-eyed aliens approached the wandering figure, gazing longingly at his unique armour and the heavy looking rifle that he held calmly in his hands. As with the two groups before them, a sudden change seemed to come over the aliens as they drew near, causing them to withdraw. Why bother the lone individual? He was not troubling them in any way, and besides, the unfamiliar gun looked absolutely deadly.

The figure casually walked past them, the dull white plates of their armour faintly reflecting what dim light managed to penetrate the grime of the surrounding air. The armour covered their entire body, including their face, making the individual extremely imposing. The bulky rifle that they held in their hands was mostly black, with a grey section before the stock which housed the ammunition for the weapon. Ammunition which the stranger had in plenty and that he would probably have to use if many more of the inhabitants were like those that he had encountered so far. A dark brown hooded cloak that the man wore completed the image of one who was both mysterious and deadly.

As he turned the corner at the end of the corridor that he had been walking through and so left the members of the unfamiliar race behind, the figure uttered a sigh. Nothing was recognisable. Well, nothing except the atmosphere and a few aspects of the place's appearance. Regarding the latter, his current location reminded him somewhat of the lower levels of Coruscant. There were neon signs that barely functioned, groups of figures that glared suspiciously at others as they passed, and refuse was left to rot outside the doors of dingy apartments. As for the former, the same atmosphere of despair and hopelessness lingered like the filth clogging the air, a fitting metaphor, the man thought grimly.

Unfortunately though, while the emotions present and look of the place were familiar, albeit in an unpleasant way, the various races he passed were not. Most obviously (since they had been the only ones to accost him so far) there were the four-eyed ones who seemed to hate him (though to his knowledge he had never met one, let alone done something that could have turned them against him as a species), who also seemed to take issue with most of the other races that he had passed. They were not all that dissimilar to Sith Purebloods as far as the man could tell. They carried themselves with the same attitude of smug superiority that the primary race of the Republic's great enemy, although they were dressed far more shabbily than the Sith Purebloods that the man had met.

Secondly there were the ones that strongly resembled human females, except for their short tentacles instead of hair. Perhaps they were from a similar world to Ryloth, which had birthed the Twi'leks? Regardless, he had seen not any males of this species, which was certainly curious.

Thirdly were the avian looking people who interestingly enough possessed mandibles that opened and closed during conversation with their fellows and with members of the other races. They also seemed to have an armoured carapace that looked like it would make a formidable defence against physical blows such as unarmed strikes. Their small, beady eyes followed the man suspiciously as he walked past a group of four of them who were in conversation with one of the blue female aliens, examining the weapon he carried and also the armour he wore. These seemed like they would pose a greater risk than members of the four-eyed race. Members of the latter had analysed his equipment with a hunger born of greed, the desire to take his possessions for themselves, either for monetary gain or just because they liked the look of them. This avian race however seemed to be sizing him up, looking for weak points. All those he passed seemed to do it almost subconsciously. Did their race have mandatory military service? They looked at him the way that trained Republic or Sith Empire soldiers examined an enemy before engaging them, hoping to discover any weaknesses present within an opponent before striking.

There were many other unfamiliar races as well. There were hissing skeletal looking aliens who seemed to possess the ability to talk in short, broken sentences only, huge lumbering brutes with armoured crests who seemed to command the skeletal beings, and many other species, who for the most part gave him a curious look and moved on.

The figure made his deductions about each species by analysing their appearances and body language, occasionally touching their minds with his own in order to learn more. He was extremely careful with both techniques however; he was in a mostly unknown place and so did not wish to engage in violence if it could at all be avoided.

This caution was why he had avoided fighting the four-eyed aliens that continued to harass him the first time he had been approached by them. As he had stopped by a viewport to examine the stars outside (to his irritation realising that he recognised nothing that could help him deduce where in the galaxy he was), he had been drawn out of his thoughts by the approach of one of these individuals. His greeting received little more than a glare from the man, whose sneer stretched an unpleasant scar across the right-side of his lips obscenely.

Unfortunately, the alien's response had been in a language that the man had never heard. Worse still was the fact that the man had greeted the stranger in Galactic Basic, the main language used in Republic space, yet the alien clearly had not recognised it, else he would likely have responded in kind.

After a few seconds or so of total failure in communication by both men, the alien had barked out an order. Within ten seconds the newcomer had been completely surrounded by no less than six other members of the same race, who glared at him like he had done them some great insult. The presumed leader of the thugs smirked as his cronies closed in, leaving the man little alternative unless he wished to resort to violence. As he did not, he locked eyes (as well as he could considering the other man had four) and spoke clearly and calmly.

"You and your friends do not wish to harm me."

The leader froze for a moment and then replied in a monotone in his strange language, presumably repeating the command.

"You will all depart and reconsider your attitude towards strangers."

The leader nodded, as did his followers and the seven of them turned and walked by the man like he wasn't there, within less than a minute vanishing around a corner like a bad dream.

By the time that the man had stopped seeing new races, a further two hours had passed, meaning that he had been wherever he was for three hours in total, and he seemed to be in no better position than when he had started. None of the new races spoke Basic, and while he had encountered some fellow humans during his exploration, they had looked at him with bafflement when he had attempted to engage them in conversation.

There was however one small ray of hope. It seemed as if all of the various races on the station (it was presumably a space station, due to the viewport that he had encountered earlier and the fact that there were none of the more common signs associated with travelling via either hyperspace or through the use of sublight engines) along with the humans, were capable of understanding one another, even though each species spoke a different language, if their differences in vocal range were any indication.

It stood to reason then that everyone on the station had some kind of translator on them, in order for communication between such a diverse collection of races to be possible. This meant that not only did such devices exist on the station, but they must also be readily available and easy to obtain. Yet the question remained about how to get one. The thought of stealing from anyone disgusted the man, particularly as most of those who glared at him seemed to do so more from fearful suspicion and less from actual malice.

Yet he could not buy one as a result of both his inability to understand anyone around him, and the fact that he had no currency on his person. Whatever had brought him to this place had left the man with his clothing, armour and weapons, but nothing else. For the first time the man found himself wishing for another group of the four-eyed race to confront him so that he could manipulate one into giving him a translation device. Given that he had only just reached his conclusion regarding the translator, he had not thought to get one from any of the three groups of thugs that had troubled him earlier and since then he had been left to wonder in peace.

As he reflected on what could be done to obtain a translator without stealing it from a passer-by or a shopkeeper (if they were even any on the station), he reached an intersection in the station's dingy corridors. There was nothing ahead of him but a filthy, metal wall of the same kind as the walls of the corridors that he had gone through earlier, with there being two possible directions to go in. The man hesitated, left or right? He could no longer just follow the corridor in one direction as he had been doing before and he could not read the garish signs that marked where each corridor led.

His musing was interrupted when something small and blue smashed into his chest plate with a sharp cry. Startled, he glanced down to see a figure in an environment suit of a strange design shake their head to clear it before looking up at him in fright. Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that this was a member of yet another unfamiliar species. She (he assumed that it was a she as the contours of her body were similar to that of a human woman) had only three digits on each hand, but aside from that, from the torso up she could have passed for human. Her legs however were very different, with shins that gracefully curved backwards to meet her ankles and then her feet, which like her hands possessed only three digits. Overall then, the stranger seemed like a combination of a human, one of the avian race (with the number of digits and leg structure he had noticed earlier), and finally one of the short and round aliens that he had glimpsed briefly during his exploration, due to the enviro-suit. In short, she was very much new to him, like everything he had encountered so far.

As the man continued his musing regarding this new acquaintance, the woman slowly backed away from him, hands raised in a non-threatening manner, pleading softly in her unfamiliar language, a musical lilt present to her words, along with a slight distortion from speaking through a helmet. The man didn't need a translator to know that she was afraid of him; he was much taller than her and between his armour and rifle, likely also terrifying.

As he inspected her closer, the man realised that she concealed her face behind a near-opaque blue mask that was several shades lighter than the dark blue of her suit, with her eyes glowing brightly through it and the tip of what appeared to be a petite nose just visible. His own mask by contrast was the same dull white as the rest of his armour, with an ice blue visor at eye level for sight and a vocabulator built in just in front of his mouth so that his voice could be heard clearly, although with a slight hint of static. The woman was also very thin, to the point of being half-starved for a human, and a desperate air seemed to cling to her. She was in short a rather pathetic sight, even among the dreariness of the station. The man opened his mouth to reassure her.

"It's all right, miss."

At his words she seemed to shrink back even more, backing up against the wall of the intersection opposite him. After a moment she began trembling and started sobbing slightly.

The man felt a sudden swell of pity, the woman was clearly in a dire situation, running away from someone or something probably, and had crashed into him of all people. The one person on this force blasted station who couldn't reassure her due to something as simple as a language barrier. He paused for a moment and then, against instincts that had been screaming at him to be cautious since he woke up in this damn place three hours prior, the man slung his rifle over his back and slowly held his hands out to his sides.

The woman's sobs slowed upon seeing this and she cautiously took a step in his direction, only to freeze upon a harsh shout echoing from somewhere just beyond the left corridor. She swiftly glanced in that direction, then at the right corridor and then back at him. Seemingly making her mind up, the unnamed woman quickly darted behind him, gasping slightly in pain as she did so. The man tilted his head as she moved, examining the way in which she ran, the reason behind her action quickly becoming clear. The man hadn't noticed when she had first appeared, as he had been lost in thought, and had been too concerned with trying to communicate with the woman after to notice, but she was limping heavily, favouring her left leg. Clearly she had received some kind of injury to her ankle or foot.

The man glanced at the various corridors around him. If she had tried to run then whomever she was running from would likely have caught her, hence she had hidden behind him for protection. The man calmly squared his shoulders as a second shout followed the first and seven of the now unfortunately too-familiar four-eyed aliens rounded the corner and came upon them, the same seven that had troubled him earlier.

Clearly Master Dorass was right about my ability to persuade others using the force needing work.

The seven stopped as they recognised him, before throwing curses at him in their guttural language, several brandishing weapons that resembled blasters but were less bulky, also differing from his own weapon in seeming to be built out of some kind of low-grade plasteel or plasteel equivalent. Their leader held up one hand and they fell silent at his command. He then stepped forward, pointed to the woman behind the armoured man and grunted something that made the woman cry even harder than before, then looking back at the man who shielded her.

He's afraid. He knows that I did something to him and his men, but not what. He does not want to test what I am capable of and so wants me to let him take her without fighting me.

The four-eyed alien stood waiting for an answer and so the man indulged him.

"No."

The leader sneered at him, clearly recognising the defiance if not the meaning of the word and turned to his men. The man weighed his options.

I let them leave last time, gave them another chance and they have continued to cause trouble. Regardless of what this woman may have done, I doubt that it warranted seven armed thugs. If they leave here then they will only continue to cause misery and perhaps try and hurt this woman or others again in the future.

As the leader shouted to his men the man swiftly raised one hand and the seven were thrown back by a wall of incredible force, smashing into one another and then the wall behind them. Three were killed instantly, the other four bellowing in pain and rage while trying to pick up their weapons, which they had dropped during the telekinetic blast. Within an eye blink, the rifle was off of the man's back and in his hands, bolts of scarlet energy hissing through the air and blasting three heads to bloody mist in less than a second.

The leader roared and sprang up from the floor, managing to sidestep the shot that was then aimed at him with surprising grace, considering the sloppiness of his men, and grabbed onto the man's rifle, causing the two of them to wrestle over it. The armoured figure slammed his head forward, his mask crashing into the four-eyed one's face and causing his nose to break and blood to flow freely. He then rammed his knee between his opponent's legs and as the latter began to fall back, threatening to take him down to the floor with him as they both still held the rifle, he released the weapon and let his hand fall to his hip.

Thinking that he had won the struggle over the weapon, the leader, gasping in pain from the two blows that he had received, aimed the rifle at its owner as the latter drew a silver and black cylinder from his belt. The leader laughed at the sight, even as a blade of sapphire energy ignited and swiftly cut his head from his body.

The armoured man calmly walked forward and picked up his rifle from where the headless four-eyed alien had dropped it. He then slung it back over his back and turned off his blade, attaching it to his belt and then concealing it under his cloak. He gazed around for a moment and reached out with his senses, confirming that there were no others with hostile intent in the immediate area. He then turned and walked back the way he came, stopping in front of the alien woman, who was now completely hysterical, crying in a ball in the middle of the floor.

The miserable figure looked up at her saviour as he approached, before trying to speak though her tears, begging for him to let her live and trying to back away. The man followed her, not saying anything and then slowly extended his hand towards her. She looked at it in confusion for a moment before slowly, hesitantly, reaching out and grasping onto it, her eyes searching his mask for any sign of deceit. The man then gently placed his other arm under her elbow and slowly lifted her onto her feet. The two of them stared at one another for a moment as the still crying woman slowly calmed down, the terror she had endured slowly fading. Still struggling to speak, she took a deep breath to steady herself and then spoke.

"Th-thank you for s-saving me hu-human."

At least she assumed that he was human. She could see that he had the same body shape with five digits on each hand, the same leg structure, and a broader frame than a quarian male would have. Yet, he was far taller than most of his species, standing head and shoulders above her, and he would have being imposing even without being fully armoured and carrying such strange weapons. She had never seen anything like the rifle he had used to such devastating effect and less still anything like the blue energy sword that he had concealed on his person. He had also moved with a speed and grace that had been astonishing, every move that he had employed against the batarians that had hounded her having been perfectly calculated.

The man responded, presumably with a question given the tone that he used and the way in which he slightly stressed the final word, but none of it made any kind of sense to her. The quarian frowned to herself, was her omni-tool broken?

She slowly held up a hand to the human to show that she wasn't a threat and then activated her omni-tool, glancing at him in surprise as he seemed to freeze slightly in shock as a result of her doing so. Her confusion deepened. Humans had been a part of the galactic community for decades, keelah they had obtained a council seat just two years ago! Yet this human seemed like he hadn't the slightest clue what an omni-tool was!

Then it struck her. Perhaps it wasn't her omni-tool that was at fault, perhaps he didn't have one! Swallowing her disgust, the woman knelt down next to one of the dead batarians and lifted his arm, gently removed his omni-tool and the let his limb drop back to the ground. She turned to the human, who was watching her curiously and held up the device to him. The man tilted his head at her in confusion and she pointed to her mouth and then ear before offering the omni-tool again. The man nodded in understanding and then held out his arm to her.

The quarian blinked slightly in surprise. He didn't even know how to attach it? Was this human from some kind of backwater colony? Even on the Flotilla, where resources were sparse, every pilgrim was given an omni-tool of some sort, even though they were normally very outdated. Shaking her head slightly, she gently attached the device to his wrist and enabled its functions.

Stepping back, she locked eyes with her rescuer and addressed him calmly and clearly. "Can you understand me now?"

The human recoiled slightly in shock before glancing at his wrist in wonder. He then looked back at her and spoke again in his unfamiliar language.

The quarian groaned internally. It seemed that the human only spoke a language that was not included in the batarian's translation software, probably a local language that was only used by a small human colony and so was not widely known. She stepped forward and gently took a hold of the human's wrist again and then input a few new commands. She then released the man's arm.

"Nod if you can understand me, please."

The human nodded once at her command. The woman opposite him smiled for the first time that day. "Thank you, I have enabled a function on your omni-tool, the device on your wrist which acts as a translator. Please speak as much as you can so that it can construct an understanding of your language, which in turn it will translate into mine and so allow me to understand you. It shouldn't take more than a few moments of your time."

The human nodded again and began talking. The quarian was struck by how odd his accent was. It seemed cultured but did not match with any human that she had heard in person or via the Extranet. Further proof that he was a member of a smaller group of humans who lived in a somewhat isolated colony somewhere then. She shook herself out of her musings as the human's voice suddenly seemed to shift, the software doing its work.

"-tion, there is peace, there is no ignorance there is knowledge." The human looked like he was about to continue but the quarian held up a hand, a feeling of excitement beginning to rise inside her.

"I'm sorry, what did you just say?"

The human tilted his head at her and then spoke again, "There is no emotion, there is peace, there is no ignorance, there is knowledge". He paused for a moment. "You understood that?"

She nodded tentatively, "The translation software must be working well, thankfully. It was getting a little frustrating not being able to understand you."

The human laughed, his deep voice gently rolling off of the walls around them, "It was wasn't it? Whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?"

"Sh-Shaela. Shaela'Tole nar Kilal." The fear had returned. He had needed her before when she had helped him with the translator, but now that she had done that… had he just been using her? He had killed the batarians that had chased her with no effort, what if he was going to do the same to her? Quarians had a reputation among the other races and she had been running away from them when she bumped into him. Oh keelah, he probably thought that she was a thief!

The human clearly noticed her rising fear and sought to calm her. "It's okay now, Shaela," he spoke softly, "I'm not going to hurt you and they can't, not anymore." He gestured to the dead batarians, whom Shaela had completely forgotten about in her attempt to bridge the language barrier between them.

Shaela took a deep breath to steady herself. If he had wanted to hurt her then he could have already done so the instant that she had completed her task. He had no reason to keep talking to her if he had wished her harm and she doubted that he thought that she could have done anything to stop him if he had tried. She remembered the strange but powerful weapons that he had used along with… biotics? Invisible biotics? Did such a thing exist?

"How did you… I mean there were seven of them and you just tore through them like they were nothing! What was that rifle, a-and that laser sword you have and how did you throw them like that? Was it biotics? Why even help me? N-not that I'm not grateful, it's just that I've never seen anything like that!"

The human seemed lost for words for a moment as a result of her barrage of questions and took a moment to collect himself. Then he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall behind him and responded with a joking tone, "You ask all of these questions, yet you have yet to do me the courtesy of asking me my name after I asked you yours."

"Oh keelah, I'm so sorry! That was so rude of me and you saved my life and I'm sorry that I'm talking so much again, just sorry, sorry!"

The human smirked under his mask, not that Shaela could see. He then uncrossed his arms and introduced himself. "I'm Rassen. Jedi Knight Rassen Voratt."

Shaela opened her mouth to respond, but Rassen beat her to it. "I've already gathered that you have many questions. I do to, believe me. However we should probably leave this place before we continue this discussion. Those seven probably had friends and I imagine that they will be missed." Rassen paused for a moment and then glanced at her left ankle. "I noticed that you were limping earlier, do you need medical attention?"

"I… oh keelah, I completely forgot about that!" Shaela gently shifted some weight onto her left leg and winced at the sharp stabbing pain that suddenly throbbed through her ankle. "It's not too bad, I can make it back to my apartment I think." She managed to grit out.

Rassen clearly wasn't convinced however. "Like I said, those seven likely had friends and with the way that you can't apply too much weight to your left leg you clearly aren't going anywhere too quickly." He seemed to think for a moment. "Is it at all possible that, if it's not too much trouble, I could help you back to your apartment and stay there for a short while?"

Shaela looked at him in surprise. Aside from his obvious unfamiliarity with omni-tools she had assumed that Rassen had been on Omega for at least a while. How else would he have acquired such unique weapons if not from the station's rampant black market? She allowed her confusion to enter into her voice. "You don't have anywhere to go yourself?"

"No, I woke up in this place three hours ago according to my chronometer and have no idea where we are beyond the fact that it is probably a space station. I also don't have the slightest clue as to how I got here. I take it that you know where we are?"

Shaela nodded, "We're on Omega, it's a very important space station in the Terminus Systems. I have an apartment not far from here, it's the least that I can do after you helped me."

Rassen smiled beneath his mask. "It was my pleasure Shaela. Once we get to your place I will gladly answer your questions and would like to ask you a few of my own if that is acceptable?"

Shaela nodded to him, "It is. Like you said though, we should probably go now, I don't want any more trouble for today."

Rassen followed her as Shaela started walking down the corridor that led to the right. He hadn't a clue what the Terminus Systems were and had never heard of Omega either, but for the first time in the past three hours, he had some hope that there was at least some good on this damn station.