CHAPTER ONE: GONE CLUBBING

Flight Lieutenant, O1 Teera blinked tiredly at the dull, orange glow of her assigned terminal, the light illuminating the apathy in her exhausted brown eyes. She put a hand to her forehead and began rubbing to alleviate the mild headache she was getting from staring at a computer screen for only spirits know how goddman long she'd been in this miserable, grey box of an office. The C-Sec Debarkation office was about as utilitarian and depressing as a room could get, and she'd been in here from morning till dusk for the past two weeks now.

She began wringing her hands to escape the agony of her carpal tunnel and listened to the nearly cacophonous death that was the bleak silence of her temporary office...except for the muffled hum of the utterly dogshit, nigh Prothean era ancient ventilation and the exasperated breathing of her nearby C-Sec liaison...who was named...whose name was…(Uh…"Martha?" "Marithia?" "Marathon?" "Cunty McCunterson?")...certainly a name that she remembered.

"What's her bloody name?" Teera's overt whisper prompted the liaison to turn her blue head over at her turian coworker. Teera played ignorant. Eventually, the liaison lost interest and resumed her own miserably drab work at her own miserably drab terminal.

Teera inwardly snickered. Her hands and wrists were absolutely mangled, though. She removed both the gloves of her uniform, exposing the tawny scales of her taloned mitts. She started working out the kinks in her hands while contemplating the absurdity of turian "decency." Showing one's talons in turian society was supposedly telling of one's barbarism and indecency. She smirked and began shaking both hands vigorously over her desk to get some blood flow going, nearly knocking over her cup of quiderx juice in the process. She cursed under her breath. The blue concoction was the only thing keeping her awake right now. Well, that and her infantile sense of humor.

She began tapping her mandibles with her talons, pondering what she was supposed to be doing. She lost her track of thought and began tapping a beat on both her mandibles in sync with the hum of the ventilation and her co worker's breathing, playing a mad drum solo in her own cosmically fun-deprived mind that nearly sent her into a fit of giggles. She caught herself, muffling her snickering enough only to warrant a brief glance from her blue cohort. The straight-laced squidhead was enough a tool to merit any number of billets within the turian military. But what was she supposed to be doing again?

"Fookin' 'ell...what was I...uh…" The little, brown turian remembered.

"Right. Volus ship. ID. Gross weight...somethin' else…" She glanced from the footage of her terminal's security camera window over to her own word processor window...back to the footage...and then to the customs window that displayed the ship's basic information.

She began typing out the info in earnest finally:

Volus merchant vessel docking/debarkation approval

Ship Class: Mercantile vessel/cargo

Ship Citadel ID: MD4-2344457

Ship Name: Velasko

Ship Owner: Hen Forl

Current captain: Hen Forl, the thickest cunt to have ever drawn breath.

Gross weight: fart

Cargo weight: cockshite

Military past/current status: I am extraordinarily bored right now.

Armaments: I'd rather huff metal solvent until I go blind than continue to do this.

Cargo classification: If the Reapers came back to vaporize me right now, I'd be ecstatic.

By this point, Teera was audibly cracking up at her own jokes. Of course, she couldn't submit this "information" officially to C-Sec. She groaned and proceeded to delete her noncommittal handiwork. This was agony. She wasn't cut out for this garbage. She was a damn pilot. And not just any pilot. She was objectively the finest pilot in the turian military. Maybe even the galaxy. And here she was...typing away like any other gormless, slack-jawed office drone. But she had to endure. She and her carrier group were only here for another three days until they deployed again.

Thanks to the "generosity" of her carrier group's commander, Admiral Cockmunch, the entirety of her unit had been forced to assist C-Sec with some of their clerical work while housed in the C-Sec barracks in the Upper Citadel in return for their "hospitality." Of course...this was her first time ever visiting the Citadel...so of course...she'd had little to no chance to see any of the sights. Her shift was almost over...but she still had three more days of this varren cockery. Just three more days...three more days…

"OI! CUNT!" The sudden expletive shout caused Teera and her asari counterpart to jump.

The turian girl turned. It was her immediate superior, Dexra. First Class. An O2. The tall, grey turian woman clad in the same light grey with light blue highlights naval uniform as Teera was laughing as she strode over to her subordinate's desk.

"Hehehe...did I get the vernacular right, English?" Teera clicked her mandibles in irritation. (Yer fookin' gay, mate.)

"Yeah. Proper ape you are, ma'am. You've come a long way. Well done." The asari liaison glared angrily at the grey turian for her disruption. Much to Teera's delight, Dexra ignored her.

"I like to think so. Human culture is so complicated. Hundreds of languages and nationalities. Spirits." Teera smirked at the irony of Dexra's statement. The tall woman's dark blue facial tattoos were the same as her parents', denoting allegiance to the Parthian Colony as a carryover from the Unification Wars. This was a very long time ago. Humans had no such similar span of time to squish all their cultures and allegiances together in the same grey-on-grey mishmash that was the Turian Hierarchy. There wasn't any single human culture.

"That's why I wouldn't even bother trying to learn it all, were I you, ma'am. It'd take ages."

"Vernacular's fun to use, though." Teera liked her superior, despite her constant references to her subordinate's unique heritage. She was one of the few turians beside herself that knew when to lighten up once in a while. The two were on friendly terms...perhaps...to the point where their command could see their association as "fraternization"...but that was a problem for Future Teera. Current Teera didn't much care.

"Anything's fun when it's a novelty. Anyway…why'd you come in here again?"

"Duty's over. Liberty is now. We're exfiltrating this hellhole." Teera glanced at her terminal's clock. Yep. Shift was over. They were free. Dexra got another scathing look from the asari ten feet away from the pair. She was ignored once again.

"Tits. Let's get outta' here."

"Wanna' hit up Chora's Den?"

"The strip joint? Didn't it close down after the geth fucked it up?"

"Well...yeah. But it's been reopened. And it's better than Dark Star or Flux. Better drinks. Better music. If you don't want an eyeful of stripper ass then don't look." The asari C-Sec officer was beyond irritated once again. And again...neither of the two turians cared.

"Change over and meet you there in an hour?"

"You got it."

"Oh...cocks. Forgot. Have to finish this debark shite 'fore I can go."

"Like hell you do. We're done here. Can you honestly tell me that you'd want to stay here a minute longer than you have to out of your misguided, self-imposed obligation to duty? An obligation that pretty much amounts to being a glorified, sapient word processor for some lazy ass Citadel cops?" The now fuming asari almost turned to say something...then reconsidered. Teera smiled.

"I'd hardly call 'em "lazy." In fact...no idea how they keep this up for twelve hours a day." Dexra leaned over to her friend to whisper.

"Well...you're about to find out if you look over there at your C-Sec buddy for a second." Teera curiously glanced over at the asari.

The woman quietly opened her desk drawer and procured a lightly rattling bottle of prescription pills. She looked over at the turian duo to make sure they weren't watching...the pair pretended to maintain a gossipy conversation in response. The asari relaxed, discreetly opened the bottle from under her desk, and popped one of the pills in her mouth. It was likely a powerful stimulant...some sort of amphetamine derivative for which Teera had a suspicion the asari lacked a legitimate prescription The officer swallowed the pill, shuddered briefly, and continued her typing as though nothing out of place had just occurred. Teera cringed and turned back to her friend.

"Yeah...let's get the hell out of here." Going to a seedy club in the Lower Citadel suddenly seemed like an attractive alternative to hammering out lines of text like a drugged out zombie all day. Hypocrisy at its most blatant. The drug wasn't exactly red sand, but it was a close second. Then again...weren't Asari immune to the effects of sand blasting? She got up from her desk and followed her friend out, not bothering to take her cup of quiderx or to even tidy up her desk. She'd suffered enough already.

"Yes. Let's."

Chora's Den was positively booming with energy. The heavy bass had Teera nodding her head to its pounding rhythm as she and her friend confidently strode across the neon pink and azure club, sacheting their hips as they walked in their somewhat revealing civilian clothes...well...revealing as far as turian wear went. Dexra was especially blatant with her show of femininity. Teera knew what was up. Her superior was here to get trashed and laid. Not necessarily in that order. It was understandable. Their carrier group was leaving the Citadel in a mere span of days, and Dexra wanted to make good use of what little liberty she had.

The tall, grey turian was sporting a scandalously short burgundy skirt, tight shirt, and thigh highs. Her ample hips and ass were fully accentuated along with a generous display of leg. Form fitting clothes were an absolute no-no for turians. What Dexra was wearing was the kind of dress that would literally get her arrested on a turian-controlled planet, but on the Citadel? Fair game. Dexra's choice of dress was made all the more uncomfortable for Teera by the fact that the grey turian looked kind of a like a genderswapped version of her father. She shuddered at the thought.

Teera's own clothes were a bit more modest. Dark grey jacket over a more conservative skirt. But still revealing enough to maybe warrant some attention. She wasn't stripper chique, but she clearly wasn't there to discuss the specs of the upcoming model of Navy fighter with the club's drunken patrons. And hey, her accent made her a novelty. A practical assurance of getting male attention. The two young women slid through the crowd of dancing patrons and sidled up to the counter of the bar. The batarian bartender was expertly mixing drinks in front of a view screen showing a feed of current news of all things. Not the kind of shit that put one in a fun sort of mood. Teera read a scrolling headline about a terrorist group of batarian separatists or something. A mugshot of some high-ranking batarian terrorist popped up...he looked a lot like the bartender. She snickered. Did that make her a racist? Well it wasn't her fault all batarians looked the same, right?

Teera took a seat at one of the stools while Dexra flashed two fingers at the bartender. He nodded and began pouring the two ladies each a drink. He slid them each a glass of potent turian brandy. Without hesitation, Dexra turned hers up all at once and triumphantly slammed her glass on the counter. The bartender grinned at the display. Teera was in no such hurry to black out and end up in an alleyway minus her panties. She turned to look at her friend to find that she had begun chatting up a handsome turian who had seemingly teleported next to her.

The two proceeded to the dance floor and began grinding as per usual of all horny lushes. Teera shook her head and smiled. Dexra didn't need a wing girl at all, it seemed. She lowered her eyes to her drink, watching the effervescent bubbles rising to the surface of the powerful, blue concoction. What was it with her fellow birds and the color "blue?" Blue quiderx. Blue blood. Blue uniforms. Blue this. Blue that. Everything a shade of fucking blue. But her train of thought was disrupted by the heavy movements of a nearby patron. An utterly massive person had just taken up the bar stool next to her. She turned to get a proper look at this gigantic individual.

The man seated next to her was one of the biggest humans upon whom she'd ever lain eyes. She nearly mistook him for a weird looking krogan at first. Even while seated, he towered over her by comparison. She was pretty short for a turian, but that hardly mattered when her height was compared to this bestial figure. He was roughly the height of the average salarian. At least a head taller than the average turian male. Easily over 200 cm tall. And he wasn't slender by any stretch of the imagination. Epic rolls of muscle were apparent under the tight fabric of his light blue Hawaiian-style shirt. The very fair white skin of his massive, heavily veined forearms looked stretched to the limits of its elasticity in containing such muscle. The man had what she knew to be "dirty blond," longish hair gathered loosely behind his gargantuan head. He had highly pronounced back muscles bunching up the fabric of his shirt betwixt the nooks and crannies of their contractions. The broadness of his powerful shoulders were very nearly absurd.

The man rotated in his stool towards the barkeep and ordered a drink with a cavalier grin. He was wearing a pair of circular sunglasses that seemed kind of odd to wear in the dim, sultry light of Chora's Den. He was taking puffs from a thick cigar that he'd procured from the front pocket of his garishly bright shirt. His sharply masculine jawline was covered with thick beard. He looked like a statue of a famous figure in some ancient human culture what with his absurdly manly features….as though they were chiseled out of stone. Like a parody of masculinity itself. Teera could see that nearly every inch of his exposed skin was covered in some sort of scar. Pink lines of damage crisscrossed his stark white flesh. (Shrapnel? Knife cuts?) Blotches of former agony displayed a history of entry and exit wounds. Splashes of burn damage everywhere. She could see deeply pronounced scars streaking across his handsome visage over his nose...down both his lips...across his left cheek.

This man was a soldier of sorts. Definitely a veteran of the Reaper Wars. Was he here on shore leave? Mercenary? He was wearing black combat boots and drab, brown military trousers. Yeah. He had to be something like that. Well, whoever he was, he was pretty goddamn attractive for such a grizzled, scarred up tough guy. That gentle, good-natured smile on his face...she noticed the little freckles dotting his scarred but fair skin. Despite his brutish appearance...he was actually pretty cute. As intimidating as his appearance was, his demeanor was nothing but gentle and jovial. Her heart fluttered a bit. She self-consciously straightened herself up. He might have been a bit too muscular for some girls, but he was definitely her cup of tea. She frantically began forming a plan of approach in her head. The pounding music and sensory overload wasn't helping her thought process much, but she had a few good ideas.

Buy him a drink? Introduce herself afterwards? No. She'd lived on a human colony for the entirety of her life before she'd left for the service. She knew human (Well, English.) culture well enough to know she wasn't supposed to do that. Men were supposed to buy women drinks and make the approach. Then how the fuck was she supposed to let this guy know she was into him? Throw something at him? Wave? Fart? Sit in his lap? Grab his dick? Scream a racial slur at him? (Oi! Pyjak! Nice arse! What would Dexra do here?) But her plan of seduction was halted by the unwanted arrival of a third party.

An asari stripper sidled up to the big man, parted his knees and slid herself up to him. Waist to waist. Groin to groin. One of her petite, blue hands began sensually massaging the man's powerful left thigh. He seemed to like her attention. Anger and jealousy clouded Teera's mind. Yeah...she probably wasn't going to even approach the guy at all, but she would've appreciated having the option available. Leave it to a squidhead to ruin the moment. She continued watching the pair out of the corner of her eye. The stripper leaned seductively forward to whisper something into the big man's ear. He nodded and tilted his head in a direction. The asari's smile disappeared entirely. Had the guy told her to piss off?

The stripper took her leave and began walking across the dance floor towards the direction of two massive krogan bouncers who were probably guarding the management back rooms. She approached the one on the left and whispered something in his ear. The krogan took a light hold of her hand and left his post with her, prompting the other krogan to adopt a look of bewilderment. Was she giving him a lap dance or something? While he was at work? The fuck was going on? Something wasn't right. She turned her eyes back towards the brute next to her.

This guy was up to something. She hadn't noticed it before, but the subtle cues of his body language...something was off. His forehead was coated in a sheen of light sweat. His right hand that was holding his drink was shaking a bit. His left eyebrow was twitching. His body was swaying back and forth slightly in his stool...was he drunk? And his smile. It no longer felt genuine. Hiis affable manner was...too affable. As though he was trying to be as obvious and overt about it as he could...to deflect suspicion, maybe? Underneath his facade of geniality, there was something cold. Clinical. Angry even. She began to feel afraid.

She looked around the club, desperately trying to find her friend so they could get the fuck out of this place. Something was about to go down. Teera knew she was an immature, silly person, but she was a pilot first and foremost. Her instincts had never led her astray before, and right now...there was a veritable alarm klaxon going off inside her head. She couldn't find Dexra and her new paramour anywhere. Had the two run off to do the deed in a room somewhere? She cursed, praying that the massive individual next to her wouldn't notice her near panic. He appeared not to. He finished his drink, rose from his seat, and put out his cigar in a nearby ashtray, still sporting that mask of a grin. He left the bar and headed towards the now solitary krogan bouncer.

Teera's curiosity had now gotten the better of her. Was she about to witness tomorrow's news in the making? The big man had begun talking to the krogan. The krogan began posturing, trying to intimidate the blond giant. The human was entirely unfazed. Eventually, the krogan seemed to relent and pointed towards the back room, prompting the human to start walking in that direction. The krogan followed him. Teera was frightened. But she had to know what was happening. Dexra was nowhere to be seen in the club anyway. She left the bar and headed towards the back room herself, making her way through the dancing crowd of drunken imbeciles until she'd made it to the narrow corridor leading to the club's management rooms.

She followed the length of the corridor to the now muffled pounding of the club music's rhythmic bass, taking note of the refurbished metal walls that had replaced all the old explosion warped, slug riddled walls. They'd done a nice job of unfucking the place, but it seemed as though history was about to repeat itself. Why was she doing this? She'd done some stupidly risky shit before in the cockpit of her fighter. No doubt. But this was something else entirely. She wasn't a soldier proper. Not a cop. If anything serious went down, she was screwed. And yet she continued down the corridor. Why? But the sudden sight of something truly horrible had stopped her dead in her tracks.

She'd reached the big door leading to the management office. It was closed. And leaning up against it was the ravaged body of the same krogan bouncer that the big man had talked to before. Only now...his throat was torn open. Bright orange spurts of blood were streaming down his burgundy colored armor and congealing in a dark orange pool. It was the same color as her terminal in the C-Sec Debark office. The man's body was twitching, kicking its feet uncontrollably as the big krogan died. After a few seconds had passed, the light faded from his eyes. His body lay still. He had died with his eyes open. There was blood everywhere. On the walls. Streaking down the corridor all the way to the door. Splatters on the ceiling. Everywhere. Teera wretched and tried to control her sudden nausea. The krogan's body looked as though it had been mauled by an animal. She had never seen a body so badly brutalized. How could a sapient, conscious person do something so awful to another? Teera could scarcely breath from her terror now. Why wasn't she hauling ass back the way she came? But she couldn't. She had to know. She examined the damage on the body.

Both the man's arms had been pulverized. The dull burgundy armor covering his hands and wrists was crushed like a tin can. The imprint of human fingers was clearly impressed upon where the krogan had been crushed. She shook her head. There was no way. No way any human could have done this. Even another krogan couldn't have done this. But here was the evidence. The eyes of the man were bloodshot. Wide open, utterly shocked, and completely terrified. Much like her own at the moment. Against what tiny fragment of herself that constituted her "better judgement," Terra placed her head against the closed and locked metal door to listen to what was happening on the other side.

She heard a man whimpering. Weeping. Sniveling. He was begging for his life.

"Nonononono...please, God, no...don't fuckin' do it, man…please don't…" Another voice responded. A rougher, deeper voice.

"Be quiet." Teera heard a sudden Thunk! And then the unmistakable sound of a body crumpling to the floor. She knew the first noise. It was the discharge of a suppressed mass accelerated firearm. She'd been shooting with her mum and dad long enough to know the sound.

Teera's terror finally overrode her morbid curiosity. She turned and started sprinting down the corridor towards the dance floor. She had to grab Dexra, wherever she was, and get the fuck out of there. Then what? Go to C-Sec? Notify her command? But it wasn't meant to be. The sudden harsh, gasping hiss of a pressurized gas began echoing in the corridor. The fire suppression system had been activated. Clouds of thick, white gas were spraying in torrents from every conceivable angle in the ceiling. She began struggling to breathe. In the enclosed space of the narrow corridor, the gas was beginning to choke her. People on the dance floor began screaming and hastening towards the club's exit.

Teera collapsed to her hands and knees. The jets of white carbon gas were choking the life out of her. Apparently, the people who installed the fire suppression system didn't understand that maybe the fire would be the least of peoples' worries in such an enclosed space. So...this was how she was going to die? She began to weep. After all the close calls, after all the high stakes combat missions she'd flown...she was going to suffocate in a white cloud of gas that was intended to save people from burning to death. She began laughing hysterically through her tears. She would never see her parents again. Her friends. This was her final moment. Black tendrils of darkness began creeping around the edges of her vision. She was going to black out after all. Dexra could've saved her credits on Teera's drink.

But her lamentations were interrupted by her suddenly being lifted bodily into the air. A powerful arm had grabbed her around her slender waist and hoisted her off the ground as though she weighed nothing at all. Was she being rescued?

"P-please..." It was all she could say through her fit of coughing panic.

She didn't want to die like this. She weakly placed a hand on the arm carrying her, trying to intangibly convey her plea for salvation and gratitude for any attempt at doing so. The arm was rock solid. Extremely warm to the touch. Almost hot. Her dizziness had played havoc on her motor skills. One of her talons on her left hand had sliced through the thin fabric of her glove. In her clumsiness, she had accidentally slashed the powerful arm of her savior. But her rescuer paid this injury little mind. She was being carried away from the corridor towards the open air of the dance floor at an absurd speed. Suddenly, she could breathe again. She inhaled and sputtered.

She was in the open air of the now empty club, the alarm klaxon echoing throughout almost in sync with the pulsating, electric rhythm of the music that was still playing. Her rescuer gently set her down on a nearby couch. She somewhat regained her senses and looked up at her hero. She was seized by terror at the sight of who it was. It was the massive, blond human from before. He was blankly staring at her as she sputtered and coughed. He was now dressed in the standard speckled blue camo of a Systems Alliance military uniform. A military cover was seated on his large head, the bill pulled down low over his eyes. He was no longer wearing his sunglasses. His intense, ethereal blue eyes would have been truly beautiful and stunning were it not for their utterly terrifying, stone dead gaze. Like a robot. No emotion. Dead. He wasn't looking at a person. He was looking through her. Teera could see the deep cut she'd made on the man's arm. A thick torrent of crimson was pouring from it and dripping to the floor. She quickly stammered an apology through her coughing.

"S-sorry...I didn't m-mean…"

The man only continued to stare. In her terror, she had put out both her hands in front of her to weakly protect herself from her inevitable death. He was going to kill her. He had only carried her away from the smoky corridor to murder her here. Her sense of reason had been impinged by fear. Through her coughing and tears she began begging meekly for her life. She couldn't possibly hope to defend herself from this monster.

"I...I...please...I didn't see anything!" It was a lie. She had seen a lot. She had seen his face. She was a witness. And he knew it, too.

"I'm sorry…" It was all she could say. She couldn't think of anything else.

Remarkably...the man's gaze softened. His body relaxed. His eyes filled with an unmistakable sadness. He reached over to his left wrist and activated an omni-tool. The familiar orange construct beeped quietly...and then the massive image of the man nearly disappeared entirely. He'd cloaked himself. She watched his camouflaged silhouette disappear into the slowly dispersing white haze of the fire suppressive gaseous agent. He had left. She collapsed into a terrified heap on the couch and began shivering. How close had she come to being reduced to a bloody, blue smear on the floor of a seedy strip joint? She covered her face with her hands and rolled into a pathetic ball on the couch. She was ashamed. She'd never been so scared in her entire life.

Some badass pilot she was. People had died. And here she was cowering on a dirty couch upon which probably countless numbers of asari asses had sat to initiate countless numbers of lap dances. Could she have prevented any of this had she simply run to find a C-Sec officer the second she sensed trouble? No. The entire ordeal had lasted less than five minutes total. The scarred blonde giant was incredibly fast. Obscenely so. There was nothing she could have done. Teera wiped the tears from her eyes and tried to regain her composure. She calmed herself a bit...but a sudden flood questions filled her mind. Why did that man do all this? What was he after? Why didn't he kill her? Is it because he felt sorry for her? She sat upright on the filthy couch. It reeked of stale cigarettes and liquor, and her face was a bit too close to it for comfort. She clasped her hands together and crossed her legs, trying to get her story straight for the inexorable onslaught of questions C-Sec investigators would have for her.

"TEERA!" The little, brown turian jumped and looked to see who had just called her name.

It was Dexra. Her superior had come back to the club accompanied by her newly acquired beau who had a snubnosed Predator pistol drawn. Turns out he was an off duty C-Sec officer. Dexra sure knew how to pick her paramours. The grey turian pilot began tending to her friend, pelting her with questions as to what happened while the cop called for backup on his omni-tool. Then he began scanning every part of the room with his weapon drawn. He entered the corridor from which Teera had just departed. After two minutes time had passed, he returned. His face was filled with shock. Horror. Disgust. He had never seen anything like this.

"Teera...are you alright?! What happened? Atrix! What did you see back there?!" Dexra's questions were frenetic. Tense. She was scared, too. She knew something awful had just happened. She felt it. The dark grey turian cop just shook his head. Dexra shot him a puzzled look.

"Atrix! What did you see?!" She received no answer. She turned back to her friend.

"Teera. Please. What happened here?"

"I...I'm not sure…"

And it was the truth.