Mist fogged up the windshield, the wipers doing little to purge the ever-growing fixation on my tunnel vision. Droplets beaded and merged, accumulating into masses greater and greater until they could bend to gravity no more, sliding down the clear glass and leaving troublesome streaks in their paths.

Spray mixed with a hint of sunlight. Fire evaporated water. I could almost taste splendor.

Tiny moments of euphoria interspersed between drab and tedium. Accompanying highs and lows that put me into a sense of constant alert.

It was the skidding of tires on wet pavement accompanied by the momentary panic that I was about to lose control did I finally let up on the accelerator, my foot feeling like it weight ten times its normal weight. The car jerked once and steadied as the wheels worked to dispel the inertia that had been steadily growing with my speed. Regaining the initial line of the vehicle back, I huffed out a quiet breath in victory – and fear. It had been a long time since I had felt actual g-forces pressing me in one direction and that unpleasant sensation of panic bubbling upward like bile seeped into my throat. I tasted bile. Apparently I was a little rusty at driving.

Supposed to be like riding a bike, right? One could always count on me to make the impossible possible.

My knuckles were white as I gripped the steering wheel of the car – an actual car, not a hovercraft, a shuttle, or a racing ship. The surface was leather, well worn, and yielded comfortably in my vice. The rumbling feedback that travelled up the steering column into my arms from the wheels on the ground only served as a reminder of the vehicle's necessary relationship with ground contact. Starships did not vibrate quite so heavily, after all – they were not limited to an earthly body.

The road I was driving along was spectacular, but quite dangerous at the speed that had been going. It twisted and turned as it hugged a cliff wall hundreds of feet high, the flaky brown stone crumbling away from the constant winds smashing against its nearly vertical face. On my left side was nothing but a drop off into the deep blue depths of the Pacific Ocean, sharp rocks spearing the surf and angled to impale any trespassers. I truly wondered if the flimsy steel guardrails lining the highway were enough to prevent cars like mine from going off the edge.

If I looked to my right, just above the lip of the cliff, I could see the brambly green pine trees tower amongst the boulders that were all lined up, as if they were prepared to pounce upon the road at any second. I could smell the evergreen aroma even through the windows of the sedan, sharp yet soothing. Eucalyptus mingled with the pines – the pungent but not rank scent flooding my nostrils and bringing thoughts of home to the forefront of my subconscious. The ocean churned and broiled on my left, powerful waves smashing into the sides of the continent, sending up gigantic plumes of spray that only added to the thick, morning fog. The sun struggled to pierce the misty covering, its glow diffusing and creating a landscape of surrounding white fire.

I passed a speed limit sign that read 50 MPH, but my speedometer was currently reading 65. There were no straightaways that I could perceive past the constant turns, but my foot seemed to mash the gas pedal of its own accord once again, as if my body was constantly cheering, "Speed up! Speed up!"

Foolish, but the panic had faded and the need for thrill gripped my veins, sending ice water into my blood.

Thankfully, there was no traffic crowding the coastal road. It appeared that I was the only soul occupying the highway, to my knowledge. Odd, Highway 1 was always known for being a popular road – the epitome of the term "scenic route." With each blind turn I made, plowing my car through the fog with its automatic beams trying to slice my way through the vapor, I was half-expecting to be facing an oncoming vehicle, or a police cruiser just waiting to bust me with a speedtrap, but the emptiness remained for the next twenty minutes. Despite myself, I depressed the clutch and reached down for the gear level, throwing caution to the winds as I shifted the knob up a gear, hearing the transmission begin to spool up just a tad bit faster from my actions.

Another turn brought me back out into sun and with it my hopes rose. The constant environment changes, the responsiveness of the vehicle, the smell of trees and the sea. It was beautiful.

A smile was beginning to sneak up on me until a flicker appeared in my peripheral vision, just down the road a bit – another vehicle? Finally, a sign of life! If anything, I increased the pressure on the gas and sent the car screaming down the road, desperate to find out for myself if I was truly alone. I yanked the wheel a bit after a particularly tight turn only to find that I had failed to gain any ground at all, only stuck watching as the car in front of me just reached the next turn to disappear from my sight.

This continued on for the next few miles. Every time I felt I was getting closer, it would turn out that I would only have a fleeting glimpse of my shadowy rival before they would make a turn and lose my gaze.

"What the hell am I even doing?" I grimaced to myself as I maintained my death grip on the steering wheel. What kind of eternal game had I jumped into? Was I destined to always follow this car – to never know who or what I was chasing?

Why was I even participating if I did not know the goal?

"I'm not sure," a voice unexpectedly piped up. "I would have thought you would have known from the start."

Heart in my throat, my head whirled to the side, finding that the passenger seat that I had thought to be vacant was actually occupied. Strike that, it had been vacant. Yet despite the fact that there had been no conceivable individual or concentrated mass of atoms that occupied a set space in the seat next to me, matter had apparently appeared out of thin air to coalesce into the form of a person.

Impossibilities all around. These things should not surprise me so much.

Despite the brightness of the morning blazing through the windows, the occupant was draped in a shadow that unnaturally coated their entire form. It was like the light refused to touch that spot for fear of revealing something that no one should look upon. The stupidest thought of wondering if light could even feel fear popped into my head, but there was no scientific way to describe it and the logical part of my brain was self-destructing trying to accept it. As much as I tried to peer through the black veil, I could spot no distinguishing features about this person, other than the fact that their voice, and slender form, told me that it was a woman who was seated next to me.

"Who the fuck are you?" was my panicked rasp, not noticing that the car was beginning to drift from its lane, the steering wheel allowed to roam from my grip which had slackened.

"Someone close to you," was the cryptic answer.

"…Nya?" I guessed, making a few hasty jerks on the wheel to keep the car in line.

The shadow shook its head. "It is of no consequence. Ultimately I am of your creation."

"What does that mean?!"

The shadow turned its face towards me. For the first time, I could spot a defining feature that my gaze could latch on to: their eyes. They glowed unnaturally, but not with an evil flicker. Their soft glow spoke volumes of sadness, joy, love, and regret.

"You constantly chase the car," the shadow observed as it waved a hand towards the road. "You are trying to decipher my appearance. You cannot do both at the same time."

My arms were trembling as I took panicked glances from both the shadow towards the road, where potholes were now starting to appear from poor maintenance. "Who are you?"

"Someone you love."

A throaty laugh emitted from the backseat. There was another person in this car too? Now I turned my entire body to face the newcomer, only I was surprised to see that unlike the individual in front, this occupant was not covered in shadow. The light fell across their face, or rather their visor, revealing a sickening green color with dull silver accents warped around their enviro-suit. This was impossible, I realized, because this person had been dead for a long time. My wrist twinged as it remembered the tickle the knife had made when it had cut my limb off. I recalled the initial gout of blood, followed by the numbness as this man had prepared to sink the blade into my neck.

"Vhen," I hissed.

"I'm pleased to see that you remember me, human," the quarian chuckled, leaning forward so that his foggy expression sent daggers in my direction.

Enraged, I teetered on the edge of clambering over the seats to tear this man's throat out. Vhen had tried to kill me several times in the past, very nearly succeeding, that to find him here in such close proximity to me immediately sent my blood into a boil.

"I'm dreaming again," I realized as it was the only way to rationalize this entire mess. "There's no way you're here, you bastard. I saw Nya kill you. You're dead."

Vhen shrugged and leaned back in his seat in an unnaturally casual manner. "And now so are you," he sneered.

Realizing what he meant, I turned back in my seat just in time to watch the front of the car smash through the metal barrier effortlessly, the only object between the road and the immediate drop into the ocean. Weightlessness took effect immediately and I plastered my hands to the ceiling in an effort to keep myself planted in my seat. The blood rushed to my head as everything went topsy-turvy. The urge to vomit was overwhelming but it was too late as I could only sit, rigid, as the churning blue waters of the Pacific raced up to meet the car.

The impact threw me against the steering column, shattering my ribcage and causing my broken bones to impale my lungs, my stomach, and my heart. I coughed a large mist of blood onto the inside of the windshield, only allowing me a second to scream out before the glass shattered from the brute force, granting cold ocean water to pour into the interior – a wall of white.

As the saltwater blistered my eyes and throat, the last thing that I heard was Vhen's evil laugh, doomed to ring in my ears.


"…And now so are you."

"…I'm dreaming again."

My breathing picked up to a quicker pace than normal, allowing me to be roused less violently than one would imagine. My eyes opened wide instantly, the surroundings of the room coming into focus within seconds. The chronometer on my night stand read that it was early in the morning, about an hour before my usual time to wake up.

This damn dream again, I groused as I rubbed my eyes, as if the action could wipe away the images that had etched themselves into my sleep. Same outcome, same players. Same old plot.

With an annoyed grunt, I rose out of bed, gently lifting the arm of the sleeping quarian away from my chest as I departed. Nya, her eyes closed behind her visor, emitted a sleepy whine as my warmth left her. She curled up into a fetal position underneath the thin sheets of the bed, more in response to being alone than being cold – her enviro-suit did a good job in trapping heat to warm her body anyway.

Nya's hood was the only thing that adorned her right now, apart from her suit. Everything else, her boots, her belts, the sheets of fabric that defined her image were all discarded so that Nya could sleep comfortably in the bed beside me, just the supple black material of her suit being all that separated her from me. She looked vulnerable without everything else on, thinner. Nya looked more streamlined this way – her quarian form perfectly outlined that it took little effort on my imagination to visualize her outside the suit.

God… just the mere notion of recalling her outside her suit never failed to awaken something in me, something that I have never felt with another partner before. Was this lust? Desire? Or some form of love so powerful and raw that it seemed to eat away at my heart? How did this quarian cause me to become such a hopeless romantic?

Before I could mentally wax on about the benefits of extraterrestrial love, I finally strode into the bathroom, almost tripping over Nya's boots, and turned on the water so that I could wash my face. Soaking a towel, I dabbed at myself and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. My short hair was all tussled from sleep, the shirt that I had chosen to don was slightly disheveled, and my beard looked a bit scraggly. All things that could be easily fixed after a shower, but I had not fully shaken off the effects from sleep, as evidenced when I tried to hold back a particularly strong yawn.

Enter the coffee.

Sneaking into the kitchen as not to disturb Nya's rest, I activated the coffee machine and was soon rewarded with a cup of a piping hot brew. Black, no cream. The rich scent of the coffee alone was leagues better than what any house chain could offer back in 2015. Apparently technology had caught up to the point where anyone could be their own barista if they were willing to drop a pittance for it. Now anyone could be a coffee snob.

I continued on with my morning rituals, depositing myself in front of the vidscreen, using the controls on my omni-tool to switch to a news channel and see what was up in the galaxy today. As usual, it was all junk – mostly recaps of late night talk-show punchlines or other assorted celebrity gossip. Flipping through channels in an effort to find something meaningful, I kept on getting just the bare minimum when it came to newsworthy stories.

Basically, everything was hunky-dory for the most part in the galaxy. Race relations were at an all-time high, the damage caused by the war was being swiftly repaired, the krogan were beginning to take a voice in politics, the humans and turians recently announced a new trade partnership, and so on and so forth. The mantra of reporting bad news for popularity seemed to have died out overnight when the war ended, with public opinion clamoring for more of these feel-good stories by the truckload. We as a society desired to feel good once more in the wake of so much loss and this was the attitude that had been reflected and picked up on by every facet in the media, government, and our day-to-day lives. Considering the current political climate, the citizens were getting so many of these sugary-sweet stories that it would be enough to rot their teeth.

Fed up with channel surfing, I finally settled on a station so that I could sit back and enjoy my coffee in relative comfort on my sofa. I waited until there was a lull in the conversation so that I could take a moment to stretch my limbs in preparation for my morning assault on the treadmill.

The apartment had been mine for as long as I could remember since arriving in this galaxy. It was not penthouse sized but nowhere was it near the level of a crappy studio apartment. It was a three-bedroom, two bathroom layout. One of the bedrooms was used for me and Nya, obviously, while another was for guests and the third I had converted to a rec room. The kitchen contained every appliance one might ever need for cooking, and the living room was substantial enough to allow space for a few activities. It even came with a balcony for gazing across the Citadel ward, lazily staring at the lanes of traffic darting in front of the stars.

Over the past few years I had taken the liberty of swapping out some of the more gaudy looking furniture for some pieces that resembled more refined and modern sensibilities. The couch that I was on now – black leather. The bed now had silk sheets. A few paintings depicting some modernistic splotches (clearly the artist had been a middle of a stroke) had been hung on full display for some added color. The bathroom had been remodeled with polished onyx forming the shower. Basically all my efforts had gone towards repairing the frankly hideous accoutrements that had adorned this apartment – my guess is that the original 2180s Sam was not in touch with his feng-shui, or had been provided any assistance from the feminine persuasion.

Speaking of said persuasion, Nya walked in from the bedroom, her gait slow and sleepy, and gently sat down next to me on the sofa. She had not added any of her usual accoutrements to her suit and she looked very cute in her rather bare form – very intimate from her perspective. She reclined into the leather cushions a bit, the material crinkling in protest, and scooted so that our bodies were leaning against the other, each a reassuring presence.

"I thought you were asleep," I noted out loud. I placed a hand on her thigh, making sure that some part of my body was always in contact with her. To touch a quarian in this manner was only reserved for lovers in their species – it only served to remind me that I alone had been provided this right, to see this woman in her most private and personal of moments.

I was one lucky son-of-a-bitch.

"Only half-asleep," Nya said as she placed a hand upon my limb, adding more heat. "I noticed right away when you had left."

"Sorry for waking you. I was trying not to disturb you."

Nya shook her head. "That doesn't matter. I was just worried about you that I figured that you could use some company this morning."

I blinked. "Huh? Why would you be worried about me?"

"Well… since we just came back from your father's funeral yesterday, I was wondering if you were doing all right."

Oh yeah. That. Truth be told I had not been thinking much about the funeral at all, having done everything in my power to seal that event off from being easily accessible in my mind. It held no power over me and yet I was surprised to discover how effectively that day had been cordoned off from my memory.

"Wasn't thinking about that," I said. "I'm actually not all that upset about yesterday."

Nya looked morose, like she was saddened and confused that I was not feeling any pain from the loss of my father. Was she wondering that I was broken? That I was experiencing a debilitating lack of emotion at a crucial time? Nya had barely known her family and the bonds between family in quarian culture were far more different that a normal human's perception. Quarian families could be fragmented, strained, but they never broke, never splintered from their clan.

"I loved my father," I assured her. "I remember him with only fondness. But here, I have nothing to draw from. His passing in this place is not why I'm… on edge this morning. I… I only think..."

"Were you having another one of your dreams?"

That caught my attention. Bemused, I looked at Nya to find her serious expression staring me down, almost like she was daring me to deny the claim. But the two of us both knew the other to the point where we could not get away with lying or evading certain questions that were important to our development as a duo. We could read each other like an open book.

Yet… there were still certain questions that had yet to be asked outright, but the less said on that, the better.

"You could tell?" I asked her, despite knowing the obvious.

The quarian nodded. "You were tossing and turning slightly in your sleep. You're never like that unless you're dreaming about something."

"Guess you've got me there."

"Was it the same dream? The one about you crashing your vehicle in the ocean?"

I scratched my chin thoughtfully, my eyes glazing over for a second. "It's been happening a lot more frequently these days. I'm always driving this car along a coastal road when suddenly, I'm distracted by people in the car – that bastard, Vhen, and some woman I don't recognize. The end result is always the same: the car crashes over the side and ends up in the ocean. That's when I always wake."

Nya gave a bitter sigh and began to run her fingers through my hair. Even though they were gloved, the gesture was still intimate enough that I closed my eyes in bliss, enjoying the feeling of her touch upon me.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

My lip curled in concentration, all the tension that had been wired tightly in my joints starting to loosen from Nya's soft massage. "To be honest, not really. It's been going on for so long that I'm not sure what to think at this point."

"You want to know what I think?" she whispered tenderly, her helmet coming to within an inch of my face. Behind her mask, Nya gave a devilish smile and slowly swung her leg over me, pinning me down to the couch as she continued to rub my scalp tenderly.

"Mmm," I murmured contently as my hands found her prominent hips. "By all means, share."

"I think you need a vacation."

"A vacation?" I cracked one eye open. "Huh, I never considered that. But we just had a vacation anyway."

"To someone's funeral," Nya grumbled. "That doesn't count. I was thinking that we'd just leave for a few weeks and travel the galaxy together – someplace other than Earth." Jabbing insistently at my chest, she continued. "And that was the first time in months that you've actually taken time off to do anything but work. You – need – a – break, mister."

"Do I seem stressed out to you?"

Nya leaned back, her hands sensually beginning to caress my chest. Sucking in my breath from the slightly tickling sensations, I twitched slightly and tried to avoid my wife's proud stare.

"Stressed. Tense. You're all wound up. Are you going to continue arguing or shall I make more points to support my claim?"

"Ah, perish the thought." Closing my eyes again, I leaned back as I clasped Nya's hands. Her sitting on my lap with her fingers touching me did feel good, I had to admit. It was like her presence melted away all the frost that had permeated my bones from the night before, flooding me with the idea that a break from routine was actually sorely needed. "I don't know…" I said teasingly, my mind made up. "The hospital-,"

"You've got more than enough vacation time accrued," Nya reminded me with a stiff squeeze of her fingers upon mine. "And besides, Rie is more than capable of handling your workload."

Rie was my assistant at the hospital and another arthroscopic surgeon. She was a good friend to the both of us and we often hung out a lot with her and her boyfriend. Of course Nya was correct in inferring that Rie could pick up the slack in my absence as she was experienced enough to handle any challenges that came her way.

"And before you ask," Nya pressed, "I've got plenty of vacation time as well. C-Sec gives me two weeks per solar cycle."

"All right, all right!" I laughed, amused at the woman's dedication. "You've made your point that taking a vacation is a feasible option, but more important is the destination that you had in mind. That's the real answer – do you know where you would like to go?"

"I… hmm. Now that you mention it, I guess I've always wanted to visit-," Nya's train of thought broke off as a breaking story on the vidscreen was finally portraying something of interest, the sounds creating a distraction that ruined the playful moment between us. "Oh Keelah, not again."

I too became hushed as the latest broadcast from the rebellious quarian Admiral Xen was being relayed across the channel. The muscles in Nya's arms hardened in anger and she leapt off my lap, nearly kneeing me in a sensitive place. I scooted closer to her so that I could restrain her from attacking the screen outright, holding onto her shoulders for support. The disgust of the news anchors was barely veiled as they had no choice but to watch the ramblings of a warmongering maniac. We chose to watch willingly but it was in rapt horror as we looked on at what not-so-subtle rhetoric that Xen was spouting up this time to give more so-called credibility to her "cause."

The reputation of Admiral Daro'Xen vas Moreh had been relatively unfamiliar to me until almost a year ago. During the Reaper War, she had built up a career of being a shrewd and manipulative leader, an expert in cyberwarfare and subterfuge. Xen headed the Special Projects arm of the quarian military and was responsible for the development of several anti-synthetic countermeasures during their campaign against the geth on Rannoch. Her actual stance for launching a campaign against the geth has remained cloudy to this day; but the general consensus from the rumor mill seems to have been that her level of support was marginal at best and in her mind the offensive was more of an opportunity to test out the weapons she had been developing in the interim. A quick read-through of her biography had struck me that Xen would easily sacrifice thousands of her fellow quarians if it meant that her ultimate goals were achieved.

Nothing was cut-and-dried with Xen. The ends always justified the means, even if thousands had to die to achieve those ends.

Such a hypothesis was certainly in line with what actions the admiral had recently accomplished and instigated. After all, what insanity would drive someone to initiate a conflict right after the most devastating war the galaxy had ever seen just ended? Maybe Xen was just more pragmatic than anyone could figure – it was the best time for someone to seize control now that every race's military effectiveness was at a critical low.

The Second Rannochian Civil War was not a popular war by any stretch of the means. Quite understandably, not one of the Council races were doing anything to assist either side of the conflict – from their standpoint, any outright warfare was deemed unacceptable and any participation whatsoever was to be heavily condemned and sanctioned. The civil war started when Xen and her Loyalist forces staged a relatively bloodless coup to overthrow the flotilla's Conclave and take control of all the quarians' military power by force. In Xen's eyes, the Conclave was headed in the wrong direction with their plans for reconstruction. Xen's idea was to use the remaining geth population, the ones not disabled during the war, and bring them back under quarian control to assist in the uplift process. The Conclave, cautious at the prospect of reactivating dormant geth as well as using them for servitude now that their messy history had come back to light, had blanched when this plan came up and quickly rejected it. Xen had been so sure about the success of her grand idea that she was willing to do anything necessary to make sure that it was carried out. Not one member of the Conclave, sadly, would have predicted that Xen would have resorted to violence to give her ideas substance.

And so on it went. The civil war on Rannoch was not proving to be a costly campaign… yet. For the time being, it had been made up of a few sparse clashes that left only a few dozen dead. The few remaining geth units that had not been rendered inert (by not possessing any Reaper upgrades) had obviously chosen to side against Xen, favoring their newfound freedom, but that only seemed to enrage the admiral more. Pundits were predicting that Xen was going to make a dramatic statement if her little "experiment" was going to continue flickering and waning like a dying candle. She had the force, but none of the charisma to back it up.

Ironically, Xen's actions had only served to further the gulf that the quarians had been steadily repairing between them and the other races of the galaxy. Many people were now reverting back to looking upon the quarians with scorn, as if they were silently chastising them from stupidly fighting during this period of healing. This was a viewpoint that many quarians understood – they hated the fighting the most. Many quarians had chosen to leave the flotilla entirely, immigrating to other planets or the Citadel just to escape the conflict. At least most people were sympathetic to the immigrants pouring into the docks day in and day out. They knew what it was like to run from a war before.

Such news never failed to send Nya into a rage, partly because she had once served under Xen during what appeared to be the admiral's most rational years and partly because she felt ashamed that her former commanding officer could betray her people out of pure greed. Quarians could be described many ways but loyal was a trait so fiercely engrained into their mantra that it might as well be written in their DNA. They were devoted to their crews, steadfast to their morals, and unflinching with their love. To break that bond was considered… monstrous.

"And that's enough of that," I loudly said over the broadcast as I shut it off, leaving a blank screen. "We don't need that kind of negativity to start out the day, do we?"

"I just…" Nya was struggling not to say something about what we had just watched together, but she eventually realized there was no point in bringing it up because I was just going to agree with every word she said. Yet she still drew enough vitriol for one last outburst. "I hate that bitch. We just got back our homeworld and she's so focused on tearing it in two!"

"I know, honey," I gave her a one-armed hug. "I know. The funny thing is that I thought I had left all these idiots behind in the last century. I would think that a hundred plus years would instill a shred of intelligence into these people. But maybe I'm incorrectly attributing human characteristics to quarians. Maybe not everyone has figured everything out yet, even after winning a war."

"Even so," Nya protested, hands gesturing fruitlessly at the blank screen, "openly rebelling against our own people? You don't just get exiled for that, Xen is going to be executed if she gets captured! It's been more than seventy years since the fleet has had to do that to a fellow fleetmate."

I bit my lip in consideration. "Does that upset you, knowing that your people will carry out their laws to the maximum effect towards someone who is, by no point of contention, a traitor?"

Nya turned back to me, eyes awash with a distant anger. "No."

As quickly as it had come, the rage faded. Nya's eyes seemed to clear, like she was waking up, and she slumped a little bit on the couch. In an effort to cheer her up, I tightened my hug around her, noting that her breathing was getting deeper and longer between inhalations. She was calming down.

"Look on the bright side," I said, "it's not a full-blown conflict. You still have a homeworld, and I hear that your tourism industry is booming at the moment."

"Rannoch tourists?" Nya was intrigued. "Why would they want to visit at this time?"

"Are you kidding? Travelling to Rannoch is cheaper than ever. Word on the extranet is that the quarian embassy is still offering passes to Rannoch at a major discount. I remember that they used to run for 10,000 credits a pop. Now they're down to something like 2,000. The war may drive potentials away but the drop in cost is a boon to the miserly."

"I wonder if there's still a waitlist."

The quarians were notorious for being rather skittish around aliens for the last few centuries; expected as to the inherent danger from the foreign pathogens we carried around that could cause death for any quarian with a bad suit seal. Outsiders were not allowed onto their flotilla for any reason except for very special circumstances. With Rannoch, the quarians were cautious as to how their homeworld's ecosystem would react to the pathogens brought by non-native individuals, so they quickly imposed a pass system for any potential visitors.

The way it was set up was that anyone who was not a quarian or did not have a permanent residence on the flotilla to begin with had to sign up for the pass program through the quarian embassy on the Citadel. It involved the credit fee plus a background check in an effort to keep a thorough accounting of who visited their planet. Until their society could become more acclimated to receiving visitors who wished to step foot on their planet, the quarians were going to be using this system for a good long while.

Since there was nothing for us to watch – obviously due to the blank vidscreen – I took it upon myself to disengage from the couch first. I cracked my neck, getting a few of the kinks out before I announced that I was going to start on my morning treadmill run.

Before I did that, I halted in place as I took my wife's words to heart. A vacation did sound like a good idea. Aside from the funeral, my life had reached a kind of monotony to it – not that I was complaining, but the routine of getting up and going to work wears down on everyone eventually. It was peaceful, less chaotic than what my life had been a few years back, and as much as I relished it, I could not help but feel that I was sinking too much into tedium. Life's more than going to work and cashing a paycheck – there's an entire galaxy out there and so many things to do than just work! People need time to recharge, clear their mind. After all, this could be the perfect opportunity to visit an exotic planet, check one more item off the bucket list so that I can put my former, less technologically-advanced life to shame.

Now, figuring out exactly where to go was still the question at hand. That could suffice for a bit more thought on the matter.

"Sam?" I heard Nya call out behind me.

"Yes, dear?"

The quarian uncrossed her legs as she too stood up from the couch. "I was just wondering… if you…"

"Yes?" I said again, arcing an eyebrow.

"I mean… it's today of all days that I…"

Where exactly was she going with this?

"Nya," I said gently. "Just say what you want to say. What, do you think I'm going to laugh at you or something like that?

A faltering noise came from Nya's throat as her windpipe momentarily closed up. "Never… never mind," she sighed. "We can talk about it later."

A frown graced my features. It was unusual for Nya to be evasive with her words like this. Did I say something wrong? For one of the few times that I had known her, I could not figure out what Nya was inferring. I know that I was probably reading too much into it, but I could not help but feel inadequate in that moment.

Why I felt that way was odd, but it was like I was letting this notion of failure slowly trickle out after being held back for a long time.

I was getting stressed out again, judging from the increased beating of my heart. I needed to get on that treadmill soon.

In the rec room, I switched the contraption to start slow for thirty seconds and then build to a steady running pace. I was not wearing proper gym attire, but the pajama shorts and tank top would suffice just fine for the activity level that I was going at.

The gravity on the Citadel was less intense than Earth's and as such, muscles tended to atrophy quicker the longer one remained on the station. Kind of hard to avoid if you lived here. As such, the need to exercise a bit more often was a routine that I worked in each morning. A couple miles on the treadmill each day would focus on my calves and occasional free weights would keep most of my other muscle systems in decent condition. I looked fine for my age; I was not overweight, I had a fair amount of definition in my torso muscles, and by all accounts I was an exemplary model of a healthy human.

Plus it was also gratifying having a loved one compliment your figure every so often. That was probably the only motivation I needed to embark upon these drills.

Unfortunately, I had only started to reach my peak speed on the treadmill when all of a sudden, my shoe pushed off from the rubber surface and never connected with the ground again. Frowning, I tried to keep my involuntary panic down as I suddenly became weightless, completely severed from the ground. Floating in place, my limbs waved frantically in the air as I instinctively tried to swim back down to the ground in something resembling a breast stroke. It was only after a few seconds of "swimming" did I realize that those kinds of actions were not going to do me any good here.

I heard faint giggling over by the doorway and I craned my head to spot Nya in the hall, her feet conversely on the ground from where she stood, her omni-tool open and connected to the apartment's systems.

"What the hell?" I muttered as everything slowly began to click. "God damn it, Nya. Again?!"

Now Nya was laughing harder. "If your reactions weren't so amusing maybe I wouldn't cut the artificial gravity every now and then."

"Notice how amused I am," I said, my face conversely locked in a disapproving scowl. Truthfully, I was finding it hard not to break into a grin at seeing Nya laugh. "You're quite the comedian."

"What? Are you not enjoying yourself?"

"I'm finding it to be a little difficult," I grumbled as I was now helplessly turned upside down in the zero-g room. Thankfully, all of the exercising equipment was bolted down to the floor so there was no danger of a free weight spinning through the air and clobbering someone in the face. "Can you let me down now?"

"Hmm," Nya simpered as she crossed her arms, gazing at me wickedly. "I think not. You haven't said the magic words to me yet."

"Please?" I said with no small dose of sarcasm.

"Nope. Not what I was looking for."

"I love you?"

"I love you too, but you're still not there yet."

Of course I knew what she wanted me to say at this point, but my brain wanted to be difficult for a few more minutes instead of admitting defeat outright.

"How about… I will go down on you for as long you want tonight until you scream my name over and over again?"

"Oh?" Nya looked intrigued. "That's tempting, but still not the right words."

"Why you little…" I feigned being angry as I flailed about in mid-air. "When I get my hands on you…"

"Ooh, scary," Nya chuckled lowly, but she took a step forward and launched herself into the room with a careful push of her foot, giving up her right to gravity as she carefully met me in the center of the room. Our arms reached out and caught each other, allowing me to pull her in close and whisper those two words that she had been wanting to hear this whole time.

"Thank you," Nya whispered.

The two of us were one mass, our inertia causing us to lazily spin around in the middle of the rec room. Looking past myself and imparting onto the scene, everything was so hopelessly cheesy that I swore that Nya had to have been inspired to do this sort of stunt from a vid. She was always turning off the gravity at inopportune times just so that she could get in close and steal my body heat while we let no other forces weigh down on our shoulders.

She put so much effort into trying to be romantic with these little stunts that I could never find it in myself to be mad at her. Hell, it went above and beyond what most married couples did anyway. Another reason to be thankful.

Maybe the atmosphere was a little too romantic because Nya's hands slowly were reaching towards the clasps on her visor, eager to discard it in the heat of the moment. She would have gone through with it too, had I not gently grasped her wrists.

"Someone's a little anxious," I noted out loud, ignoring the spinning sensations that were starting to give me a headache.

"I… I…" Nya tried to defend but could only manage a shaky laugh. "Just for a second? Please?"

"You know I normally wouldn't argue," I said, meaning every word. It was not like I got a chance to see Nya's face every day. It came with being a quarian – she had to remain in her sterile environment or else she could get deathly sick. Never mind the fact that she was in close proximity to me anyhow – we lived together and her immune system had long adapted to my germs by now. I had even paid extra for the apartment to have better filtration systems to minimize the risk of infection, but still it would not be enough. Nya would get sick every once in a while despite how cautious we were, and after one particularly disastrous week in which she had to remain bedridden due to a stray pathogen in the air, being cautious was all I could think about.

"My fever broke a week ago," Nya protested. "I'm fine."

"Yes, you're fine now," I indicated with a teasing poke to her sternum. "But if you take that visor off and you do end up getting sick-"

"But I won't-"

"Nya," I said firmly, cutting her off. Once she fell silent, I maneuvered by body downward a bit so that I could slowly place a kiss on her throat, my lips planting themselves on the ribbed rubber covering. My wife sighed happily, encouraged at the contact on an intimate area. "If I could see your face all the time – if such a thing were possible – you know that I would take that chance. But we can't, and you need to stay safe as much as possible."

"I hate being safe," Nya pouted.

"I know. But we've already planned to make tonight special, remember? Why ruin the moment by offering a tease of what's to come right now? And, let's just say you do get sick if you expose yourself briefly, then all the preparation that we've done for tonight will have all been for nothing. Now, do you think you can wait until later today to show me what you're obviously keen to reveal?"

Nya nodded her head emphatically and all thoughts of inadequacy vanished from my head, along with my headache. "I… yes… yes, of course. I'm just… I'm just so excited, Sam and I want to make tonight special with you. And… well, that promise that you made just a few minutes ago still stands, I assume?"

"All that and more," I said, already visualizing the sequence of events in my head, followed by my brain attempting to quash the smutty thoughts before I could snap and end up taking Nya on our bed much earlier than anticipated.

Her omni-tool opened and Nya positioned a finger over a holographic button. "Ready for me to engage the gravity?"

I looked down and saw that our orientation had gradually positioned our feet almost perfectly perpendicular to the ground. Guess now was as good of a time as any.

I nodded to her and we dropped a foot to the ground a second later, our knees bending slightly to take the impact.

"Interesting way to start the day," I said in a bemused fashion, mockingly dusting myself off out of reflex.

"You're getting back to your exercises?" Nya asked.

"Just so long as you don't interrupt me again," I flashed a grin at her. "I've still got to get ready for work, speaking of which…" I reached out a hand and briefly intruded into one of Nya's pockets sewed onto her enviro-suit, withdrawing a silver object in the shape of a shield and gently adding the decoration to Nya's suit. "…you need to get ready as well."

The C-Sec Patrol Division's coat of arms were displayed proudly upon the badge, a pair of wings spreading wide from the main insignia as if they were destined to rise above the regular rank and file – where my Nya had always aspired to be. Saying that she was one hell of a pilot was an understatement. I got to see her skills in action for myself during the war and I can attest in my own biased opinion that she was the best pilot that C-Sec had on the force today.

"You act like my job is glamourous every waking hour of the day," Nya snorted. "Barrel rolls, corkscrews, flying in those advanced maneuvers and such. It's all just paperwork most of the time. You've been watching too many vids."

"What?" I feigned shock. "You're telling me that you don't spend your days out in your shuttle, bringing down bad guys and looking pretty for the cameras?"

"'Pretty for the cameras?'" Nya laughed in disbelief. "Now I know you've been watching too many vids. Besides, even if that were true, they'd never put me in front of the cameras."

"And why the hell don't you think so?"

Nya blinked. "I mean… look, Sam. I'm a quarian. Enviro-suit and such? I don't really have that much sex appeal for the teenagers that watch those cop shows on the net."

"I don't know," I cupped my chin as I gave Nya a once-over, making sure to stare quite obnoxiously at where her suit curved in the right places. "I'd certainly have sex with you."

"You idiot," Nya sighed as she aimed a playful roundhouse at my face, which I easily ducked. "That's not the point I'm trying to make here!"

"Keep talking like that and I'll be sure to make a few points of my own," I waggled my eyebrows mischievously.

Nya shook her head in exasperation and began shoving me back toward the treadmill – a rather difficult endeavor with the both of us laughing heartedly. I was still staring at Nya the entire time, making a point to widen my eyes to make it look like I was staring rather hard at places it would definitely be considered inappropriate to glance at in public. It was not difficult for Nya to pick up on where my gaze was directed and that only made her push me back into the rec room harder before she could lose control of the incredible self-restraint she had imposed on herself just a minute ago.

"Get back to your exercises, you unbearable human!"


Two hours later – Citadel Huerta Memorial Hospital

The operating room was sufficiently freezing, as always. I realize that the cold is designed to facilitate a more alert state in the doctors performing their various procedures, but as someone who prefers a typically milder climate, I hated it. Damn our useless human bodies for reacting to temperatures in such preprogrammed manners.

At least there was some soothing music in the background that gave me a distant point to focus upon.

There were four of us in the room at the moment. Five if you counted the human patient who was lying face down on the specialized (and cushioned) bench, unconscious. The anesthesiologist was monitoring the patient's level of awareness, making sure that he would not suddenly wake and be privy to the goings-on during his surgery. I have never had that happen to me before but many of my peers say that such an event, when it does happen, is frightening for both the patient and the doctors.

No wonder so many of us become alcoholics.

The jumpsuit that I was wearing was doing an admirable job in staving off the worst of the cold, but it came at the expense of me looking like a dork. I never figured out why but apparently the universal dress code for all medical professionals in this galaxy was to wear a form-fitting bodysuit that hugged every square inch of our skin tightly. Apparently it was to facilitate loss of nerves and keep our bodies consigned and stable. It tended to ride up in the crotch area a bit too, but I probably should not touch on that too much.

If the bodysuit was not causing any fashion alarms to go off, then perhaps the eyepiece that was affixed to my head would. The electronic gizmo was fastened around my ear and a clear piece of electric blue glass in front of my right eye wirelessly fed me data on the patient in perfect clarity, giving me an unobstructed and instantaneous view of the vitals at hand: blood pressure, oxygen levels, brain activity. I may look ridiculous right now but it was worth it at the expense of such important knowledge.

One of the nurses hovered in the background, only there to provide additional support should the need arise. I did not think that we would need the help anyway, Rie and I had this sort of thing down pat. After fifteen successful surgeries together, I would say that the two of us made a pretty damn good team. We had been working long enough that the trust we placed in the other was well-founded.

Riena, or Rie as she liked to be called by her friends, was screwing up her eyes in concentration as she carefully cauterized a torn tendon in the human's elbow with a laser scalpel. The site had been sterilized, cleared of blood, and the inside of the man's arm looked like something you would find out of an anatomy textbook. Pink muscle, yellow tendons, the slight white pulp of a fat deposit. I watched every move that Rie made, but her astonishingly steady hands very quickly dispelled any minute doubts that she would get the job done. Hell, I was mostly taking bets with myself on how quickly she would be able to complete the surgery.

Guess I owed myself a hundred credits; this was a new record for her.

Rie, for lack of a better word, was my protégé of sorts. Technically her official job designation was listed as a doctor's assistant, but she had already obtained her doctorate at Cambridge just a few years ago so the prefix 'Doctor' was attributable to her. Due to the location of her schooling, Rie tended to speak with a slight British accent, the effects interesting overall mostly in part to the fact that Rie was a turian.

She stood half a head taller than me, hazy yellow eyes punctuated by dark black slits. White face paint marked her features, two lines running across her eyes and thick strokes upon her mandibles. Rie looked distinctively less avian than the males of her species, as her crest and mandibles were distinctly less pronounced and more rounded. It looked like she always had this sly sort of smile on her face, like she always knew what dirty secrets you were keeping from her and how she could use such information to her advantage. Fortunately, Rie was nowhere near that sadistic as she may seem because I considered her to be one of the friendliest turians that I had ever met.

Apparently many people found the qualities of turian females rather attractive, which meant that I would be the one subject to deflect and beat down any unprofessional queries from colleagues referring to Rie's relationship status (which her social media pages clearly outline front and center that she was taken). This was a constant occurrence and it would only end with me making the same comment that Rie was already engaged, to an ex-human marine named Chandler (another good friend), and thus had no time to deal with other silly people.

I had met Rie over a year ago in this very hospital – bumping into each other quite by circumstance. I had been on one of my breaks, grabbing a wrapped snack filled with carbs from a vending machine. As I had been walking back toward my office, I noticed this female turian get rudely rebuffed from one of the surgeons, nearly chasing him into the OR – near tears. She had been pleading for an interview with this hospital for months, according to her, but no one in the building was going to give her the time of day. Intrigued, a bit of white knight peering through me, I had approached the turian, asked her for her name, and invited her in my office for an informal chat.

After a quick read-through of her resume, I was surprised that more people were not snatching Rie up to work for them, except that I knew that the current job market for new doctors was relatively overcrowded right now and no one was hiring. Yet I worked for this hospital, already had a residency under my belt, and it had occurred to me that I had not picked up anyone to train under my wing yet, despite the length of time that I had been here. After all, arthroscopy was not considered to be the most glamorous of the surgical arts, nor the most challenging. We repaired limbs, yes, but nowhere was our work close to life-saving. Add to the fact that most of the staff jokingly referred to me as the "Old Man" due to my refusal to use surgical machines for any operation, and you can see why the ribbing would arise now and then.

Well, excuse me for being a bit different! I had tried the machines early in my career here before, and they worked fine, it was just that I was inherently more familiar using the tools in my own hands rather than trusting a machine to do my job. Blame 2015 for being so comparatively primitive.

Using our hands, pah! Whoever heard of such a thing?

In any case, Rie had the experience for the basics of the job at hand as Cambridge has one of the most elaborate medical training programs on Earth (perhaps in the galaxy) and during our initial conversation, it became immediately clear that I was talking with an immensely talented individual full of knowledge and a desire to learn that I realized that I had to have her on my team. I had never hired anyone before nor given an official interview, but it felt right granting her a job on the spot. Just few signatures on a tablet later and Rie was officially an employee of Huerta Memorial Hospital's arthroscopy team.

Rie had given me a gigantic hug then and there. Yet another example giving my life meaning, despite my early objections to the contrary.

Ever since that day we had been fast friends. Rie had taken to the work very quickly and I appreciated having a fellow individual to talk shop with every day. As much as I love Nya, she could never get into the gritty details of this job the way Rie could, but then again, I would always struggle to follow along whenever Nya's conversations dealt with the inner mechanics of spaceship engines and other assorted statistics. I did well in school but nowhere did I ever have to deal with such complex concepts of avionics, spacecraft structures, and astrodynamics. With Rie, at least she would get all of the terrible doctor puns I was prone to make.

"Aaaand… done," Rie said with finality as she pulled away from the repair site, the flanging effect in her voice becoming slightly more apparent from her pride.

I came over with a light and leaned over to inspect Rie's work. I did not see why I should have been worried at all. Flawless work, one could hardly notice the stitched up tear in the tendon. Maybe next time the unconscious human would learn not to attempt to lift full beer kegs over his head while heavily intoxicated in an effort to impress members of the opposite sex.

Well, his stupidity was paying my bills so maybe I had no right to judge.

"Textbook right there," I said. "Go ahead and sew him back up."

"Sure thing, Sam," Rie's mandibles twitched in response to the praise. "Now can you please turn that dreadful music off?"

"'Dreadful?'" I repeated in mock horror, gesturing to the speaker where the soothing orchestral tones were wafting from. "The hell you say! This is Tchaikovsky – one of the all-time masters! You're telling me that you think Marche Slave is dreadful?"

"Eeh," Rie shrugged as she finished cauterizing the entry site. "Not really my thing. If it didn't mess with our nerves I could stand to have some dance music in here – or at least some turian marches."

"I've heard your turian marches. They're nothing but a bunch of screeching war cries that are partially drowned out by the obnoxious drums your species loves so much."

"What's wrong with that? That's good music."

"No, it is not," I shook my head emphatically. "That's hardly music at all. This – Tchaikovsky – is what all music should inspire to be. This has texture, it has color, it uses all the elements of an orchestra to blend together into one seamless whole. That is interesting – that is true music."

"Hm," Rie considered, but she wasn't won over. She gave final glance at her work, nodded at the nurse to wheel the patient out once she had deemed it acceptable, then began stripping off her gloves. "You ever try to catch this guy in concert?"

I was organizing tools and had not properly heard the question. "Who?"

"Tchai-something-or-other. The guy you were talking about."

"Oh," I began laughing. "I'm never going to see Tchaikovsky in concert. The guy's been dead for a long time."

"How long?" Rie asked.

"Give or take three centuries."

Rie's jaw dropped a few inches. "You're telling me that this guy composed this music three centuries ago? Without the aid of any music software whatsoever?"

"Now you understand why he is considered one of the masters," I smirked. "The man was a genius, plain and simple."

Meanwhile, the turian was shaking her head. "I… I never knew. I just assumed that he was using a program to map out the music he wanted to compose."

"Nope. Just old-fashioned pen and paper."

"Huh," Rie muttered, dumbstruck for the day. Maybe there was hope for her after all.

I walked over to the sink and began setting the tools aside to be washed. "You can go inform the young man's family about our progress," I jerked my head back to the door. "I'll stay here and clean up."

"You sure?" Rie clarified.

I waggled a finger. "Don't think that you're going to be getting out of your duties so easily. We still have all this documentation to run through."

"Wonderful," Rie sighed. "I love paperwork." She tugged at the collar of her medical jumpsuit and let out a sigh before she turned to me. "Everything's still on for tonight?"

"Oh yeah," I grinned. "I still haven't told Nya the plans for this evening."

"She thinks she's just going to spend the night in?"

"Well…" I said sheepishly, "that's what we will do eventually, but I-,"

"Never mind," Rie held up her hands, cutting me off. "I don't want to hear it."


"Shuttle One-Mary-Twenty-Three, please advise current situation and heading. Over."

"Respond to that for me," Nya snapped at her co-pilot as her hands blurred away at the shuttle's control panel. Unfelt, the UT-47 Kodiak shuttle, decked out in the traditional C-Sec blue and white, snaked expertly through the service tunnels, narrowly managing to avoid smashing into the wall, walkways, or any other obstruction that could possibly ruin their day. These sort of maneuvers would generally produce some sort of uncomfortable g-forces but the lack of any effects on their bodies meant that the inertia dampeners were working perfectly.

Nya's fellow turian officer touched a control, his face panicked between glances at what Nya was doing to the craft and trying to formulate the thoughts in his head into a coherent sentence. "This… this is One-Mary-Twenty-Three, dispatch," he managed to blurt out into his radio. "We are currently running an intercept course on our marks. Projected line of sight in eighteen seconds."

"Acknowledged," the person on the other line spoke calmly. "Be advised. Target craft is now over the Presidium. Use of on-board weapons is prohibited due to potential collateral damage."

"Damn it!" the turian slapped at the dashboard. "How the hell are we going to stop these guys?"

I have an idea, but you may not like it, Nya thought grimly.

Tilting the shuttle gradually to the right, the Kodiak streamed out of the access tunnel, screaming across the lake of the Presidium and sending up plumes of spray from its wake. Above them, the bright yellow skycar was easy to spot due to its color and the fact that the occupants inside were firing their guns wildly in all directions.

In a break from her routine, Nya had to concede that the day at her job had already gotten off to a poor start. She had barely spent half an hour at her desk, rummaging through her mailing list, when dispatch had gotten on the horn about a hold up at one of the Sirta outlets – Nya's precinct. Officers on duty had reported being pinned down by gunfire while four criminals – all human - had fled to their escape vehicle, having hacked their way in to a substantial amount of credits.

Once word of the crooks using a vehicle to flee with their haul had been reported, the station had given the official scramble alert to all Patrol crews, meaning that it was now Nya's turn to stop the bad guys. Three shuttles had lifted off from their station with reports of additional backup incoming from the lower Wards. So far, Nya's shuttle was the first one on site as it matched the skycar's altitude, but with the weapons restrictions in effect, shooting the ship down was not a viable option.

Damn it, Sam, Nya thought. You're never going to let me live this down.

"Any ideas?" the copilot asked as he began to grip his armrests for support. The criminals had noticed that they had the cops on their tail and had opened fire on it. Pings were resounding throughout the hull of the shuttle but the craft itself was heavily armored. It was going to take more than a pistol to punch through the hull but Nya was not assuaged by that. Getting shot at is an unnerving experience in any case.

"Scan ahead for a safe zone," Nya said. "Find me a place to shoot these guys down without any civilians getting in the way."

The turian tapped away at the console before uttering a defeated sigh. "It's no use. These guys are just running in circles. They must have figured out that we can't shoot them down in heavily populated areas."

"Dispatch, what are our options?" Nya yelled.

"Target ship is still flying too erratically to risk weapons discharge. A Mantis gunship equipped with electromagnetic rounds is en route to disable the skycar. Also be advised, reports from the ground units indicate that the subject are likely under the effects of a hallucinogenic compound – any attempts at detainment will most likely be met with heavy resistance."

"Oh great," Nya's copilot groaned. "Now they're telling us that these guys are high?"

This was a bad sign. People under the effects of drugs lacked the cognitive abilities to make intelligent decisions first and foremost. Side effects could range from increased adrenaline that limited the pain receptors, hallucinating images, or the activation of latent biotic abilities in specific individuals. No wonder these guys were acting so erratic.

"How long until that Mantis arrives?" Nya asked.

"Current trajectory places the ETA at two point three minutes."

"Too long," Nya gritted her teeth, maneuvering the shuttle to avoid drifting into the main transit lanes. "Someone's going to get seriously hurt if we keep this up for much longer."

Up ahead, one of the wobbling skycar's doors opened and a human male, thin with a shaved head, an elaborate purple pattern covering his face, stuck his entire upper torso out the side, a shotgun clenched in one hand. The human tried to level the weapon at Nya's shuttle but the wind plus their speed meant that his aim was going all over the place, not to mention that the impaired pilot of the skycar was finding it hard to fly in a straight line. Still, when Nya saw the blast of flame erupt from the shotgun, her heart gave a jolt and she jerked the shuttle to the left, out of the human's line of sight.

"Aw spirits," the turian beside her groaned. "You saw the tattoo on his face? He's a damn cultist."

"Yeah… I did," Nya sighed.

She had not gotten a good look at the pattern that had been permanently inked onto the man's features, but Nya had seen enough cases with the same distinguishing mark to know that such a symbol meant trouble. The purple color always gave it away.

The end of the war had not brought complete peace on the galaxy as many would have predicted. While many of the major conflicts ended almost overnight, there existed some individuals who believed that the Reapers were the actual saviors of the galaxy and that they had been made into martyrs through their destruction. Within months, the gang calling themselves the Ascendant had quickly become a nuisance for the Citadel's inhabitants. They took to tattooing patterns of the Reapers on their faces, brutalizing random individuals on the street, and generally causing mayhem and havoc wherever they went. The Ascendant cultists were a societal plague and all of the Council races were quick to condemn the actions of the group.

But for every crazed individual that was put behind bars or killed, more seemed to just spring up out of the woodwork and resume operations as normal. It drove Nya absolutely nuts to deal with these guys on a weekly basis.

The skycar's driver seemed to get the idea that he wasn't going to shake his pursuer quite so easily and stupidly decided that he wanted to make things a bit more interesting. The craft shot down to the lake, barely skimming a few feet above the shimmering surface. It weaved from side to side, as if daring Nya to take the bait and follow him on a destructive game of cat-and-mouse.

Unfortunately for the crook, he had no idea what kind of a pilot he was dealing with and Nya smiled as she realized that her mark had made a fatal mistake.

"I'd brace for impact if I were you," Nya announced as she sent a boost of power to the Kodiak's engines, causing it to surge forward slightly.

The turian's eyes widened and he emitted a quiet "Fuck!" as he realized what Nya was about to do.

Now the Kodiak was positioned above the skycar, trapping it between her and the lake. Nya killed her vertical boosters by half and the shuttle dropped down so that its underside was only two meters away from the skycar's roof. The criminals, sensing that this position was not ideal for them, began to edge their ship to the side so that they could get out of Nya's shadow and regain altitude to make it back to uncontested airspace.

Which was exactly what Nya had been hoping would happen.

Viciously, Nya activated the jets on the Kodiak's roof and the shuttle shot down to the ground, the undercarriage violently slamming against the top of the skycar's engine with a heavy crunch. The impact caused the skycar to tilt upward suddenly, and it quickly started to arc in a lazy circle, smoke pouring from the back. The craft itself was sluggish and losing altitude as its pilot fought the controls. It would prove to be a useless effort as the skycar finally had its engine cut out and it landed with a heavy bang in one of the many parks lining the waterfront, tearing gouges in the grass and throwing up dirt and debris while it skidded. The area had been cleared of pedestrians who had been wise enough to stay out of the way, thankfully.

"Target vehicle down," the turian radioed in. "Repeat, target vehicle down at the fifth precinct, Presidium."

"Roger that," the radio squawked. "Remain on site for detainment. Backup will be there momentarily."

Seconds later, the Kodiak landed on the ground a few dozen feet away from where the skycar had crashed. The engines whined as they were put into standby and the copilot removed his safety belts so that he could maneuver into the tiny cabin. Levelling his service weapon, he took a breath to prepare himself before he hit the switch to open the shuttle doors.

And then a whole mess of things happened all at once.

There was a harsh bang as Nya recognized the telltale sound of a mass accelerator weapon, as did her copilot who dived out of the way just in time to avoid being turned into swiss cheese. Bullets pockmarked the door on the opposite side of the craft as they surged through the cabin, the harsh pinging sounds threatening to deafen the two of them.

Nya twisted around in her seat, pistol in hand from her holster, but found that her safety belt was jammed and pinning her to the seat. Fighting not to let panic overwhelm her, she tugged at the belt calmly and struggled to undo the straps keeping her tightly in place. Eventually she gave up for the moment and focused on providing cover fire for her fellow officer, her position fortuitously giving her a good angle at the carnage outside.

Even from this distance, Nya could see that one of the cultists was already dead, slumped in one of the skycar's rear seats with blood streaming down his face. He must not have been wearing his restraints and was killed during the crash, she reasoned. The neighboring passenger, conversely, was still alive and working to extricate himself from the wreck. Nya grunted as she tried to line her pistol up but her first shot missed, the blast echoing uncomfortably in her ears.

The cultist whirled around as the bullet shot by his head. Even in this chaos, the human managed to lock eyes with the quarian through her blood-red visor. The purple tattoo on the man's face seemed to undulate and become alive; his eyes blazed with a touch of the unknown as he fought to remember this moment through all of the drugs swimming through his system. Scratching at a sore on his unshaven face, the human took a shaky breath and ducked down behind the skycar and Nya realized that he was now heading for the elevator banks, rapidly maneuvering out of her line of fire.

Nya cursed, lamenting that one had escaped. She returned to fighting with her belt, noticing that the plastic tooth locking the contraption in place had bent, preventing her from freeing herself normally. Her thoughts drifted to using the knife at her waist to cut herself free but she was forced to ignore it as the gunfire reports grew closer.

A bullet hit the door near Nya's copilot, sending up sparks, and he recoiled but managed to return fire for that little transgression. A rumble of approval shook up the turian's throat as a sound that Nya recognized was of pleasure.

"One down!" the copilot crowed.

"Fan…Fantastic," Nya shakily breathed, fingers now weakly tugging some more at her belt in a useless manner. "Was that all of them?"

Before the turian could respond, a small cylindrical object clattered and rolled its way into the shuttle interior. The two of them barely had time to cry out as the flashbang detonated, filling their eyes with a magnificent burst of luminescence, searing heat from the magnesium striker, and a harsh ringing noise that overwhelmed their ears. Nya clenched her eyes shut as spots danced across her vision and let out a frustrated scream, drawing her body into a ball as best she could.

Nya's mind was awash in a fury as she tried to make sense of the situation before it was too late. Her mind pivoted and settled in to the perspective of her enemy. If it were her, she would have used the flashbang to disorient her enemies if they were located in a fortifiable position. Once they were disoriented, she could use the distraction to close the gap between them and insert herself behind cover and render their defenses useless. Only then would she be able to overwhelm the opposing force and take the position for herself. Nya had been thinking so hard about the possible outcome of the encounter that she was not at all surprised when she felt the chassis vibrate subtly from the footfalls of an individual.

Despite knowing what would happen, fear threatened to strangle Nya on the spot. Keelah, he's in this shuttle with me. He's right there!

Still struggling to see past her ruined vision, Nya lifted her pistol at the same time a frightful, snarling face peered through the frothing glow that had begun to boil away at the edges of her eyes. She roared at the same time she clenched down on the trigger frantically, the recoil barely bucking the gun upward in her death grip. There was a moment of tranquility that vanished as soon as Nya felt a hot liquid splatter against her visor and enviro-suit, followed by a muffled thump of a falling body. Nya wiped away her visor and was dumbstruck when she could see that her palm was colored bright red. Only then did she look down at herself.

She was completely covered in blood. It had coated her torso and dripped off her in rivulets. Horrified, Nya could only dumbly gaze at herself and the disastrous change that had transpired to her wardrobe. The effects of the flashbang were mostly gone and Nya could see the limp body of the cultist lying prone on the floor of the shuttle, a huge pool of blood spreading from his head.

"I…" she fought to keep the words from tumbling out in a tangled mess, "…need… a vacation."

Shaking free the paralytic effect on her limbs, Nya plucked her knife from its sheath and sliced through her safety belt effortlessly. Lifting herself out of her seat, knees aching, she was helped out of the shuttle by her copilot. She tried not to look at the corpse as she left.

The two officers found a bench and sat themselves upon it. The turian was nursing a scratch under his eye and Nya looked like she had waded through a slaughterhouse. They just sat in silence, ignoring the plumes of smoke wafting over them and the annoying trill of sirens cutting through the air. They sighed as they gazed up at the trees and the tranquil lake as everything began to return to normal, Nya's exhaustion beginning to take hold and threating to have her keel over on the spot, the myopia encroaching. She slumped in the bench, reclining in relief and emitted a gigantic sigh as she focused on keeping herself calm, managing to miraculously stave off the shock that would have consumed a lesser being.

As additional C-Sec shuttles began to land at the site, the turian gently put his hand on Nya's arm – a sign of comradeship and respect – before he stood to greet the new arrivals.

"Happy birthday," he mumbled to Nya almost as an afterthought.


A/N: One more chapter of fluff is all you people get before I start to tap into my dark side. If you thought that I was going to go easy on Sam and Nya this time... think again.

Segueing a bit, as a soundtrack junkie, I tend to utilize a lot of music when constructing these chapters. It helps to put everything in perspective during writing and visualizing these scenes so I thought I might share a few pieces of music that I think go very well with the chapters. If you'd rather me not include these music recommendations after every chapter, just say so and I'll shut up.

- Progeny Intro (Sam's Theme): "I Live (Electronic Version)" by Brian Tuey/Jack Wall from the VG Call of Duty: Black Ops III. Personally, I'm finding that a traditional orchestral soundscape is not appropriate to define this story as I consider Sam and his thoughts to be more chaotic - thus there will be a lot of ambient tracks to describe and define his thought process.

- Nya's Police Chase: "The Only Way Out of This" by Hans Zimmer and Andrew Kawczynski from the movie Chappie. Case in point, another electronic track - this time with a bit more oomph to it. I'm quite partial to the driving tempo and those swerving synth tones in the middle - figured that it would be good to go with a chase scene.