Author's Note: For those of you who are returning, welcome back! I hope you enjoyed chapter one and are going to enjoy chapter 2. Thanks to those who are following this story, those who have put it in your favorites, and a special thanks to DestinyIntertwined who reviewed chapter one. Anyways, see you guys next week, same place.


Mark didn't wake up Ali. He stayed dutifully at the window all night looking out for trouble until the Citadel lightened with the early dawn. Ali charged out of his room dressed in one of his long shirts and punched him in the shoulder blade causing maximum pain with minimum damage. "I thought I told you to wake me up," she spat when he finished howling in pain. Thane got to his feet getting ready to leave the room. "You, sit down," she ordered pointing at him.

"I wasn't aware that was an order," Mark said with a cocky grin while working the pain out of his shoulder. She snorted shaking her head at him.

"You're so full of shit."

"Thank-you." He smiled wanly before putting on a more serious face. "Besides it's not like I have to be at work this morning or something. Settle down, Ali." She narrowed her eyes dangerously then turned her glare on the Drell who had dutifully sat back down.

"And you, why didn't you wake me up?" He hesitated glancing between the two humans. He wasn't used to dealing with conflict that didn't have something to do with a hit.

"I don't feel comfortable putting myself in this argument." Mark bit back a chuckle when she gave him a death glare over her shoulder.

"Men," she muttered stomping past them both into the kitchen where she started making coffee.

"She kind of has a stick stuck up her ass about being the boss," Mark warned as quietly as he could.

"I heard that," she called.

"And she has the hearing of a cat," he shouted his mouth turning up in a cocky grin.

A few minutes later, she walked back into the living room cradling a mug in her hands. She took a sip before looking between the two men who were staring at her. "Do you have an alternate identification?" she finally asked looking over at the Drell. He was at a momentary loss because of her change in mood.

"Yes."

"Then be ready in an hour."

"I will get your new ID ready, Ali," Mark said taking a small bag out of her pack. She nodded grabbing her pack and moving back into his room to change.

"Is she always that," Thane drifted off for a second thinking of the right word, "Lively in the morning?"

"Usually she is worse. She must be losing her edge."


Ali stepped out the bedroom sliding her pistol into the holster at her hip. Her knife was all ready in the sheath across her lower back. There was also something he couldn't identify on her thigh. It was short and black. It looked like it was made of metal, but as he kept staring, he still couldn't figure out what it was. "You kept the uniform?" Mark asked with laughing eyes but he wisely kept the smile off his face.

"That's because it looks brilliant." He chuckled taking a scalpel out of a bowl of boiling water.

"Who do you want to be this time?" She smiled faintly leaning against the kitchen counter moving the bottom of her high ponytail off her back and over her left shoulder out of the way. Pulling down the zipper on the front of her armor a little, she peeled it off her shoulder getting it out of the way as well.

"Oh, surprise me." She glanced over at Thane who was standing in the shadows and smiled at him.

Mark pushed the remaining hair out of the way making sure to let his warm hands brush against her soft skin just to see her react. She tensed almost imperceptibly and unconsciously leaned into him. With a faint smile which he immediately wiped from his face that Thane noticed anyway, he quickly slit a vertical cut into the back of her shoulder and pulled the chip out with a pair of miniature pliers. It was about an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide. The strip was flexible like a piece of scotch tape but was a computer chip with glowing bluish, green circuitry. He coated the new chip in medigel and smoothly inserted it. She rubbed a little more medigel on the cut putting her armor back into place and pulling on a pair of gloves. "It's almost like you've done this before."

"Oh, only a few times," he joked putting the scalpel and pliers back into the pot of boiling water. He pulled the instruments back out of the water and placed them back into their bag and stuffed it in her pack. Mark smiled again giving her a sly look. "Poor, Ali Winters, she never stood a chance," he said holding up the used strip before setting it on fire.

"I liked her too." Thane took a step out of the shadows and looked between the two humans. Mark caught the look from the Drell and cleared his throat. "Who am I now again?"

"Let's see," he murmured scanning her with his tool. "Ali Daniels. You were born on one of the colonies. Moved here a few years ago when you made enough money to get off the streets. You work as a receptionist for a well known company that doesn't actually exist."

"Hm, Ali Daniels, I like it. I should stick with it for a while." He smiled at her.

"I like it too. It suits you." He sobered slightly and glanced up at her through his eyelashes. "Be careful and make it back in one piece, Ali," he murmured. She smiled and pulled him into a hug.

"You know me."

"Exactly."


"Were you two ever together?" Thane asked while they were in a cab. She looked over at him in surprise.

"No, never. Maybe at some point we thought it might happen, but it never did. We take care of each other, always have." She hesitated a moment before meeting his dark eyes. "What's the plan?" He nodded knowing that she was uncomfortable with the subject.

"Though I was initially contracted by the Hanar, I met with a point of contact on Illium. Maybe we can persuade him to tell us who ordered the initial hit. I suggest we start there."

"So you were trained by the Hanar?"

"Yes, my family was honored to be asked to hand me over as a part of the Compact that saved my people from their dying world. They send me out to take the lives of their enemies. The man I killed that night was hiring mercenaries to attack Hanar civilizations on the edges of our system. He wanted to be the one who came to the rescue and kill the mercs, so he would garner support for some sort of office."

"That's horrible. How many died before you killed him?"

"Too many, and they all lay heavily on my conscience."

"So we will have to get passage on a ship bound for Illium," she said after a few silent moments.

"The next one leaves tomorrow."

"I will get the tickets. A Drell is too noticeable."

"I would feel more secure if I went with you."

"It's not up to you. A Drell and a human together is too conspicuous. If I go in alone there is less of a chance of anything happening." After a few moment's hesitation, he nodded silently starting a prayer to Arashu for her protection.

Ali walked up to the ticket booth. She had left all her weapons except her knife with Thane, so she would seem normal. The Asari greeted her then began to order the tickets while Ali slowly scanned the room. "Just scan your ID, and everything is all set." She pushed the button on the console letting the scanner do its work, and the tickets showed up on her omni-tool with an almost imperceptible, "Ding." She said her thanks and started across the room. Two Turians walked towards her, one stared down at his omni-tool while the other flicked at his pistol nervously. Ali quickened her pace until she was out on the street and around the corner before grabbing her knife. Turians. This mercenary group obviously didn't know who they were messing with. Humans, Turians, and Salarians were the easiest things to kill because of minimal armor and no regeneration. Turians were the hardest of that group because of their natural armor an adaptation to Palavan's environment, but if you got the knife it just right, it was like slicing through butter. If these people wanted to kill her, they needed to send in something with a little more kick like a krogan. She could kill one or two with little trouble, but if it was a pack, she would be overwhelmed in no time.

The hairs on the back of her neck rose, and she narrowly dodged the bullet. Well that was close. As the other charged ignoring that the first could have easily killed her with another few shots because she could not dodge bullets like some kind of freak, she felt herself smile at their own stupidity and leapt to the side launching herself off the wall bringing her knife down as hard as she could. Luckily he wasn't wearing a helmet, and it cleanly sliced through his skull and plating; and he fell dead. Without taking a breath, she kicked the pistol out of the other Turian's hand and jammed the knife into his neck. The body had barely hit the floor by the time she was around the corner moving down the street to the cab where Thane waited for her.

Thane saw the blood on her hands first before he looked up at her. "Are you all right?" he asked concern in his eyes.

"Yes, just a few Turians who thought I would be the easier kill. They shot first, so I had to fight back." She smiled sadly. "I didn't see a way of letting them live."


Thane glanced up at Ali who was sitting with her knees pulled up to her chin as she read through the news on her omni tool. She was sitting in the middle of the bed, and as he insisted, he was on the floor where he was supposed to be meditating. His eyes traveled up and down her body. She was wearing an over sized shirt that slipped off her shoulder and jeans. Her loosely curly orange hair fell in a curtain around her face, and her brown-hazel eyes were darting over the words of the news lines. Realizing he was staring opening, he looked down at his hands. He had never been with many people of different species other than Drell and the Hanar. She sighed and threw the datapad onto the end of the bed away from her. "Is there any news about your friend?" he asked quietly looking up at her again.

"No, but I suppose no news is good news."

"Indeed." She ran her hand through her hair pushing it out of her face before glancing over at him.

"What are we going to do when we get to Illium?"

"Gather intel on our next step."

"How do you propose we start that?"

"Make contact with the person who hired me and follow the paper trail to the one who actually hired me." She stared at him for several seconds thinking everything through.

"What do we do if he refuses to talk?" There was a long silence as he just stared at her, and she nodded slowly understanding what he was getting at. "If you don't mind, I am going to get some sleep. I know I will not be able to sleep on the ship with all the noise."

"Frigates don't make too much noise."

"To a genetically modified human being it is." She turned over and closed her eyes without putting the sheets over her or turning off the light. He waited until her breath slowed and evened out before getting to his feet and turning off the light. When he passed her on the way back to his spot, he gently placed a blanket over her.


Thane quickly scanned the small two person room of the frigate looking for ways of escape. Ali squeezed past him since the room was narrow and put her bag in the overhead. He caught her scent when she passed: cinnamon and vanilla. It made him tense and suck in a breath. She sat down on one of the benches and took out a datapad. He sat down on the opposite side and looked at her warily. "I am curious," he started. She looked up at him putting down her datapad. "Can you tell me about this place that you and Mark were raised in?" She shrugged.

"I guess so. The Facility was initially government owned. I have a feeling they went their separate ways near the end since the Alliance destroyed the base. The people usually took a young child from their parents if they received certain scores on tests. Don't ask me what the tests were meant for or how they got the kids away from their parents. I was taken when I was born. I've heard that my mother died in child birth, and I've heard that they told her I died. Either way, I was taken from the hospital and trained since then.

"There were many different classes that children were sorted into like soldiers, tech, biotic specialists, assassins, infiltrators, spies, and what not. A select few were trained in all of them. I was one of them. It took about a year give or take to master every class. Once you mastered them, you were allowed out on jobs. It made it so that you weren't overwhelmed on your first job." He listened without interrupting and nodded when she finished.

"What about the people there?"

"It wasn't just us. We were called 'Next Generation Soldiers' by a lot of the others. There were a bunch of teachers and trainers. And of course, there were the Handlers."

"Handlers?"

"Yeah, each soldier was assigned a Handler. Their formal jobs were to keep us under control, but it went a lot deeper than that. From the beginning, we learned to trust them with our lives because we were housed with them until after ten years of age. I slept on a mat in the corner of the room. The Handlers were also the justice and punishment system in the Fac. When we did something against the rules or were disrespectful, it was up to your Handler to exact the punishment they felt was due."

"And what did that entail?"

"Physical punishments mostly. Like beatings. Sometimes, if it was really bad, then-" she trailed off as looked into the distance like she wasn't even there. Thane let her drift not wanting to interrupt her memories. All at once, she blinked and took a deep breath releasing it slowly. "Sorry, sometimes, it's difficult to talk about."

"I apologize if you do not wish to discuss the subject further we can talk of other things," Thane murmured. She smiled at him.

"No, sometimes it's better to talk about it, right?" Ali looked into the distance again and continued. "Both the women and the men were broken in the day we turned ten."

"Broken in?"

"Sexually. When our Handlers sexually punished us, it was the most absolute thing they could do to show us we were in the wrong." There was a long silence. Thane didn't know what to say, so he took her hand in his as silent comfort. He wasn't expecting how soft her skin would be against his scales, and he immediately wanted to know more about her. To help her heal from this past she was telling him about. To hear about her entire horrible past, so that maybe if she gave him her hidden pain, he could bear some of it for her. Then he was struck by the utter ridiculousness of what he was feeling. To feel this for a woman after so little time and for a woman of a different species no less. It was not real, was it? It couldn't be.

With a quick shake of her head, Ali smiled at him and gently pulled her hand out of his. "It's in the past. Done and over with. They can't touch me ever again." He was amazed that she could still put on a smile even after everything she had just told him. "Besides, it wasn't all bad. If it was all bad, they wouldn't have gotten the soldiers they needed out of us. In the mornings, we had combat training when they taught us how to be the killers they wanted us to be. In the afternoons, they taught us how to get close enough to do the killing: manners, etiquette, knowledge, and history. Then after dinner, we had free time. We could do whatever we wanted for those few precious hours. Go running or walking through the couple thousand acres of the Fac. It was all fenced in of course, but it was a change from the whitewashed buildings. We could visit the library and read. There were a few common areas which had pool, foosball, arcades games, and ping pong. Sometimes the Fac even had preapproved movies we were allowed to watch. Those were the times that made all the bad things worthwhile, you know?" He found himself smiling at her as well. "Now tell me about you. You were trained by the Hanar under the Compact, correct?" she asked changing the subject.

"Yes, it was a great honor to my family."

"When were you taken?"

"I was six."

"And your first kill?"

"I didn't make my first kill until I was twelve. How about you?"

"Mine was when I was fourteen. Well, my first contract kill. I had killed plenty of men before that, but it was in battle. I wasn't there to kill."

"When did you kill your first man?"

"Oh, I can't even remember." He smiled seemingly at a private joke and nodded.

"What was it like?" She chuckled and shook her head obviously remembering it.

"Hard," she said simply still with a gleeful smile on her face.

"Because you were taking the life of another living being?" She snorted and raised her eyebrows at him.

"No, in my dossier, it didn't say that he was a master in three different kinds of martial arts. It was very hard to take him out. The second one was much easier. I just waited in his office and shot him." He laughed as well. "What about you?" His eyes sobered slightly, but there was still a small half smile on his lips.

"No, it wasn't difficult at all. My body was trained to take a person's life."

Thane decided to change the subject. "What kinds of jobs did you do for the Fac?"

"That, Sere Krios, is a story for another night. You don't want to hear all the woes of my life in one sitting."

"Deal. I do expect to hear everything about you though, Miss Daniels."

"Please, it's just Ali." He nodded before lying back on the couch opposite her putting his hands behind his head.


Ali turned over and sighed. She couldn't sleep over the noise of the engines, and it was killing her. Getting out of bed without a sound, she left the room and walked down the hall towards the ship's common area. She sat down on one of the couches pulling her feet up underneath her. Closing her eyes, she took several calming breaths, and when she found she was still too antsy, she stood up sinking into a Tai-Chi ready position. Her movements were fluid as she flawlessly went through the first form before going deeper into the ready position and starting on the second form. As she started the third, she heard footsteps coming down the hall. Heavy footsteps like the people making the sound were wearing or holding something heavy. Opening her eyes, Ali saw a few Blue Sun mercs come in through one of the doors. Not missing a beat, she slid behind a couch, the first few silent shots missing her narrowly. Damnit. Can I not get fifteen minutes of peace?

Like most mercs, they decided to push their advantage thinking just because they have armor with paint on it that they were unstoppable. And thinking she was just a little girl, they thought she was going to be an easy kill cowering behind cover just waiting for death. Well, she was waiting but not for what they thought. When the first one came into view, Ali lunged to her feet grabbing the human's head snapping his neck in one smooth motion. Pushing the next one's pistol away from her, she reached out swiping the closest thing she could find which was a datapad from a side table. Ali shoved the edge of it into his neck finding she needed to put extra force behind it to get through the armor around his neck. Wincing at the sound his windpipe made when she crushed it and the gargling noise coming from him as he fell to the floor, she pushed herself past him trying to push it out of her mind. She flung the pad making the Turian in front of her lose focus trying to dodge it. Moving to within hugging distance of the Turian, she grabbed his mandible and yanked him painfully to the floor before grabbing his fringe and chin breaking his neck.

Glancing around the room and taking in the destruction she had caused, Ali closed her eyes as if in pain and collapsed. Her breathing came in short gasps, and she put her arms over her knees. Deep down she knew she should be getting rid of the bodies before anyone found they couldn't sleep and came to the common area as well. She just couldn't bring herself to do it. Everything she had worked so hard at suppressing was coming back in full force. It was like she was at the Fac all over again, killing people that she didn't know. That hadn't done anything to her except threaten her own life. Was she really that selfish? Did she have a say in who died and who didn't? No, you don't Alisa. You have no more right to go on living than these mercs. And you have even less than a right than any civilian on this ship.

Ali glanced around the room again shaking off the sudden dark turn her conscience had taken. She wrote it off as being out of practice with all the death her own hands could cause. Getting to her feet, she hauled one of the men up by his armpits and dragged him to the nearest airlock. When she was done disposing of the bodies, she went back to the room finding that she was relaxed enough to sleep but dreading that she was probably going to have nightmares.


"There were Blue Suns here on the ship? How did they know we would be here?" Thane asked the next morning when she told him what happened.

"I don't think they did. Maybe mercs were placed on every outbound ship to try and take us out. They seemed like they were just doing a routine guard cycle."

"And you took them all out without firing your weapon?" he asked slowly. Her brow furrowed.

"There were only three of them. Two humans and one Turian. It wasn't that hard."

"Your hand to hand rivals mine." She grinned at him.

"I was trained since I was born. Some of it was bound to rub off."

"What were you trained in maybe I have heard of it?"

"Let's see the Filipino style of pekiti-tirsia kali and eskrima, American boxing, Chinese tai chi, Israeli karav ma ga, and a little Asian kung fu," she listed. "They taught us that many different kinds because they wanted us to be able to fight anyone in any situation."

"I have heard of a few of those particularly tai chi, boxing, and kung fu because of old vids but not the other ones."

"The Filipino styles are a little more of a dirty fighting. Nerve clusters, joints. Getting in close and being able to fight with anything in the room even a pen. Fast take downs with minimal movement and force. It's pretty hard when you first start out but very rewarding once you master it."

"I might have to watch a few vids. I can always improve." She gave him a look before shaking her head. "What?"

"Nothing. I thought your style was very effective. There is no reason to change it." He put his elbows on his knees clasping his hands in front of him before a small smile flickered across his lips.

"That's very intriguing. Thank you for the complement."

"No problem."


It was a few days later when the intercom crackled to life and announced, "We are landing at Nos Astra in five minutes. Thank you for flying with us today and we hope you enjoy your time on Illium."

"Let's get to this contact of yours, shall we?" she asked picking up her bag.

"Indeed."

"My contact frequents a club called The Fade. It's in the less than high-end side of Nos Astra where the rich business people go to have a taste of the other life without reporters following them."

"That was a nice way of saying the slums, Thane," Ali joked as they walked through the markets near the docks.

"I will not be able to approach him. As soon as he sees me, he will either bolt or tell the people who are after us where we are."

"That means I have to do it."

"I am afraid so."

"Where is this place again?" He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off with a gesture. "Nevermind, send the directions to my tool and meet me there. I have to find something to wear." He cocked his head to the side, his brow furrowing slightly. She winked in answer before walking away leaving him gaping after her.