July 1st 2264

System:Sol

Location:Jump Zero

"Wake up Dale." Called a familiar voice. Dale tried to ignore him and rolled over, he had sneaked out again last night to place some firecrackers to make some of the Conatix Workers **** their pants hen they woke up in the morning. Now he was kind of regretting he had done it so late. He felt a pillow impact his face.

"Fine, you win Kaidan." He grumbled annoyed that one of his roommates had to insist waking him up in the morning. He sat up and yawned. He was grateful that he was at least smart enough to realize that it may have been a good idea to change into his biotic clothes last night. Him sneaking out and being drunk tired in the morning wasn't a uncommon occurrence. He looked up angrily at Kaidan.

Kaidan shrugged. "Hey you can wake up now or take an extra mile of running. Your choice." Dale put on a cocky grin.

"I would just put them on the ground without touching them, and remind them why I'm allowed to get away with all the crap I pull." Hendel his other roommate just shook his head to get away the drowsiness.

"I still don't think they're just going to let you sit around all day. Even if your do happen to be Conatix's prize student." Kaiden said shrugging again.

"Well today is Saturday," Dale said propping his feet on the wall, "can't think of a better day to test your theory." Kaidan just chuckled and turned to walk out mutter "fine try it."

Two figures appeared at the door.

"Weren't you guys suppose to be ready a good ten minuets ago." Christi said accusingly placing her hands on her hips. Kaidan pointed his thumb over his shoulder at Dale.

"Well that certainly explains a lot." Rahna said smiling at Kaidan. "Guess it comes with being only ten." With that Dale stood up and walked over to Hendel. He tried standing on his toes but the ten years old was still about an inch shorter than the thirteen year old.

"Please don't tease him Rahna." Hendel said still tired. "Last time you keep using that tease and he cut off the bottom of our shoes and glued them to the bottom of his shoes." Hendel said.

"Worked though." Dale said shrugging.

"Hey all of you out now!" One of the Conatix instructors yelled at them from the hallway.

"As you wish." Dale said with a mocking bow, with that he hit Kaidan in the back with a biotic push. Causing him to fall to the floor and earning a few laughs from everyone else.

************

After morning runs and training everyone headed to the cafeteria for lunch. While the biotic children kept to certain tables and Conatix employees to others. They still received their food from the same line. And often times when an employee got on Dale's nerves or just when he was bored, he would fill the room with laughter by having their food end up on top of them. Today an Conatix employee had gotten Christi's face and screamed at her for joking around to much during runs. Not the smartest thing to yell at Dale's best friend. To make the situation even better the employee was getting soup and pasta today. As Jose would say. Excellente' (AN-I know I'm spelling that wrong and apologize, and I don't mean to offend anyone by that)

Dale waited until he put a soda can on his tray. Making sure that the taller and older kids had his flanks he quietly put out a biotic push. Knocking the legs right out from the unlucky employee's legs. He landed on his back with a thud, followed closely behind was his pasta hitting him in the chest. Followed by his still burning hot soup landing where it would do the most damage. And for a great finale his soda can came down and hit him square in the head with a thud. Dale and his friends quickly turned away, but they all failed to suppress their laughs. Not that it mattered seeing that everyone below the age of fifteen started laughing. And most of the people above that age joined in. The employee sat up letting out a very beautiful string of four letter expletives, before gingerly standing on his feet.

"Okay which one one of you biotic ***holes did this." He yelled, looking around. He saw Christi giggling and walked over to her. He shoved her to the ground. "You think your little Jedi trick there was funny!" He screamed in her face. Dale felt his body fill with rage. He ran up to the man since he needed time to use biotics again. The man was caught off guard and fell to the ground as Dale tackled him.

"Dumb**** I'm the one who shoved you!" Dale yelled pointing at himself.

"Probably shouldn't of said that." Kaidan muttered behind them.

"Shut if you know what's good for Alenko!" The man said standing, he started to walked towards Dale his hands balled into fists. Dale raised his. Rahna ran in between them.

"Listen," she said in a soft voice, "I'm sure if we're all nice to each other here no one has to fight." She said holding out her arms to separate Dale and the Conatix employee. The employee simply pushed her arm out of his way. Dale took a breath and tried to push him with a biotic shove. That was unsuccessful. Depending on how you looked at it. With a gasp of shock the man started floating into the air. Unable to gain control of his movements. Dale smiled. Not sure what he just did but happy with it none the less. He walked over to the soda can and picked it up to hurl it.

"I think you won this battle. Better to stop while you're ahead." A rough voice said behind Dale. He turned around to see two people standing behind him. One they all new, John Coan. The CEO of Conatix Industries. The other was wearing an Alliance navy uniform with a Rear Admiral insignia.

"Dale Eisenhower, this is Rear Admiral Steven Hackett." Coan said. Many of the Conatix Employees saluted. Dale shrugged just for the hell of it.

"Hello Rear Admiral. What brought your to this hell hole." Dale said with a obvious forced smile. To his surprise the Rear Admiral smiled back.

"Politics when you get to the heart of it. Or because the people at hell hole command (Arcturus Station) ordered me to."

"I apologize about Dale's behavior, Admiral. He has a bit cynical sense of humor. But hes the best biotic we have right now." John Coan said politely to Hackett.

"I don't mind. Its nice to actually have people who actually talk to you like human beings instead of robots whos only purpose is to be polite to you." The Rear Admiral replied. As he talked the Conatix employee finally fell to the ground in the background with a thud. A minuet later a moan was heard. Not that anyone payed attention.

Dale looked at the Rear Admiral and then to the CEO. And then pointed a thumb at Hackett. "I like him, seems to actually think like a soldier instead of a politician. That's rare."

"The Alliance is filled with many great soldiers. They are the protectors of Humanit-" He was interrupted by Dale closing his eyes and snoring. Hackett turned to Coan.

"I like him. If all you biotics turn out like him then the Alliance might actually have a shot of defending a colony or two." The Admiral ended his sentence with a bitter voice.

"What's up?" Christi asked. The CEO was about to get onto her about not respecting but the Rear Admiral held up his hand to silence him.

"A couple of days ago one of our colonies in the traverse was attacked. Xanadu. There was only a small garrison there. They along with 90% of the population were wiped out!"

"Who did it? Batarians?" Kaidan asked.

"From what our cameras captured and transmitted yes. Though they seemed to have a small band of Mercenaries with them."

"Well that's nice to know. Now how 'bout we actually go and attack the ***holes on their own turf." Dale said questioning the Read Admiral.

"Show respect to the-" Once again Hackett held up his hand.

"Wish I could tell you why. It is a mixture of politics and people not having the guts to get the job done. Sadly that's been the case to often lately." The Rear Admiral replied.

"Yes maybe it has been." The Conatix CEO mumbled. "Speaking of doing what it takes to get the job done, I'll need to speak to you on some arrangements. To help- speed up the training and exploration of Human biotics." Coan said. For some reason Dale didn't like the sound of that.

"Yes you asked me to talk about that earlier. Lead the way." The Rear Admiral said motioning for the CEO to lead the way. Dale turned around and looked at the employee that he made float into the air and chuckled.

*******

Dale slipped out from the sheets on his bed and made his way to the door. Today he as planning on hacking into thee computers mainframe. They hadn't really been allowed to communicate with their families since this whole thing began. So often times he would hack into emails and block them. It would take them hours to get it open the next day. It always brought a smile to his face. Sneaking out at night wasn't unusual for him. One thing that was, was seeing Scott his last roommate sitting up in his bed with his head in his face. He had been silent for most of the afternoon which was unusual.

"What's up Scott?" Dale asked. Scott shook his head before looking up.

"My family lived on Xanadu. I was born there and that's were I last saw my family. An now they're dead!" He said tears streaming from his eyes.

"You don't know that." Dale said, he knew that the Rear Admiral had said 90% dead but his family still could of made it. "They could of-"

"The Admiral told me in private just before he left." Scott muttered.

"Sorry dude." Dale muttered, feeling sorry for Scott. His family was still safely on Earth. Scott didn't have a family anymore.

"Yeah, maybe," Scott muttered, "but you don't know how I feel so just god **** leave me alone!" He said angrily. Dale nodded at least understanding when someone needed to be alone. They usually locked down the doors at night. But by removing the control pad he could unplug a wire or two and open the door. They had once tried to weld it shut. But that ended up frying all the circuits. Then they tried to put a metal cage over it. He was able to cut through that. In the end they just had to deal with his midnight walks.

His walk to the library was uneventful. Why the library Christi asked when he first told her about it? Mostly it was due to the fact that the whole station ran on one mainframe. Or at least all the areas he wanted access to. He couldn't get to the life support systems, but he rather not suffocate himself anyways.

He had made hacking into an art. Sure a Quarian might be able to do it better. Or maybe an Alliance soldier that trained in hacking. But for him, hacking into the emails of the guards and employees was easy. And truth be told fun. Within five minuets he had change the passwords on all the employees extranet accounts. Then he had the employees that got on his nerves by a copy of Two-Quarters, horrible rap music. And after all that he sent a message to the wife of the employee that had screamed and shoved Christi. Stating that he owed some women a lot of money for their "services" (A/N high five to anyone that knows the reference)

It was on the way out that he ran into unexpected trouble. It simple terms that guard that he had just turned into a scapegoat was standing outside his room. He didn't look happy. Dale didn't know how he could of found out about his small prank so fast. 'Or maybe hes just here for a little payback.' Dale thought. Fine by him, he loved throwing idiotic ***holes against the wall.

"You're lucky that the CEO knows how valuable you are." The employee said shoving Dale in the chest. "If you weren't Conatix's only sign of advancement I would slam your head against the wall."

"Before or after I send you into the wall with a biotic push." Dale said smiling.

"Chief Gomez told me to order you back into your room. And that if you keep this up you'll be running extra laps with no desert for a month!"

"Scary." Dale muttered.

"Dumb kid." The employee muttered then to Dale's surprised he smiled. "I guess your parents were right after all. Seeing how they new you would turn into a psychopath. Good thing they got rid of you. Bet they breathed a sigh of relief when you left." Dale didn't reply. The employee -dumb s*** Ackermon is what Dale and his friends called him-, smiled and walked away.

Dale didn't understand. His family wasn't glad he left right? He thought they were sad not relieved. Why would they think he was a psychopath. Why- why would his family think that their loving SIX YEAR OLD son was going to KILL them in their sleep! That's not why they allowed him to come here. Right?

Hope you enjoyed it. Its my first fanfic so please read and review with constructive criticism. I'm planning to have a few more Chapters in BAat before heading off deeper into the Mass Effect universe. I am also planning on having this FF to tie into Mass Effect 1 and 2 and most likely I'll just have to try to make ME3 up. Also high five to anyone that can figure out what I named Dale's family after. Here's a hint. His father is named Mitch and I got Dale mixed up with Dean :p.

Also while I'm not planning on (at least ME1/2 wise) having my OC characters interacting with Shepard. But in the Galactic perspective I am writing this off a Paragon play through.