Shepard had worried that she'd have a hard time working with Vakarian out in the field, that she wouldn't be able to trust him at her back. She'd kept a careful eye on her reactions on the way in to Zhu's Hope, but after that first scrap with a geth scouting party, she realized the worry was unfounded. With his helmet on, Vakarian was just another voice on the comm.

She found herself impressed with him. He was calm under fire, and worked well in a team, putting himself in the right position to set up a crossfire or guard her and Alenko's backs without being told. He had a knack for seeing which enemies needed to be taken out first, and he did his job efficiently and professionally, without any extra fuss. She'd heard before that C-Sec only recruited the best, but Vakarian was making her believe it.

Now they were huddled near the entrance of the ExoGeni headquarters garage, keeping their heads down while he lined up a shot on a geth on the far side. Everything was very still, and then there was a deafening crack.

"Headshot," said Vakarian, with nearly tangible satisfaction. It was just about the first thing he'd said on the mission that wasn't strictly professional, and she grinned. Some things were evidently universal.

Never did know a sniper who didn't have an ego.

"Nice work. Let's move."

One frightened ExoGeni employee, a dead krogan, and a spoofed employee ID later, and they were on their way back to the colony. There was a cold anger gnawing at Shepard's gut. She'd seen a lot of ugly sights, but the callous greed of the corporation's actions was repugnant in a whole new way. Alenko and Vakarian were silent, taking out the geth they passed just as efficiently as ever, but there was a sharpness to their movements that hadn't been there before. There was a mood over the whole team like the sharp scent of ozone before a storm.

They were, at least, spared from having to massacre the colony for the moment, but Shepard did not put overmuch faith in the hope that killing the Thorian would return the colonists to normal.

When they found it, they all came to an abrupt halt, staring. ExoGeni had described the Thorian as "plantlike." It was not the adjective Shepard would have chosen. It was enormous, and the growths extending from it looked more like tentacles than roots or vines. It seemed to breathe, a resonant, wet sound echoing against the chamber walls, the tumorous mass at the center slowly drifting up and down in time to the noise.

"That's the Thorian?" said Alenko.

"This… was not covered in my training manuals," stated Vakarian dryly, still staring up at it.

If the Thorian hadn't occupied most of her attention, it would have shocked the hell out of her. Whatever else she'd thought about turians, she'd never imagined they had much of a sense of humor.

There was no more time to contemplate it than that, as at that moment, the Thorian somehow vomited up a live asari. Things degenerated quickly from there, and they were soon caught up in a frantic, fast-paced fight through the atrium, no cover but the curve of the walls and the space their weapons bought them. The Thorian had an apparently endless supply of thralls and the asari didn't seem to stay dead. She was seriously contemplating the wisdom of beating a hasty retreat when one of the thick fiber bundles suspending the Thorian's central mass caught her eye.

"Cover me!"

Alenko and Vakarian obediently flanked her, working in tandem, and she set her sights on the ropy tangle. She put three rounds into it at close range, leaving it tattered and oozing, and hacked through the rest with her combat knife. It parted with a snap, and there was a groan as the Thorian's bulk dipped lower.

After that, they took turns at hacking through the Thorian's holdfasts, one doing the cutting while the others covered them. They developed a rhythm as they went, and made short work of it. At last, the Thorian plunged into the pit below. They mopped up the last of thralls and all stood for a moment facing each other, breathing hard and spattered in ichor and glad to be alive.

Much later, back on the Normandy after everything was over, she found Vakarian in the cargo hold, sitting in a quiet corner, contemplatively cleaning his gear. She watched him for a moment from a distance, thinking. It had almost been a shock when he'd taken his helmet off after the fighting was done. In combat, it was easy to work with him, easy to treat him like any other soldier, easy to forget about his plates and mandibles and sharp teeth.

It was easy, but it was dishonest.

She walked up and settled down beside him at the bench at a respectful distance, reaching for her own gear.

"Vakarian. Nice work today."

He regarded her for a moment before replying. "It was good to get out in the field again."

"You a glutton for punishment, or just an adrenaline junkie?"

His mandibles flared briefly outwards. She determinedly kept her eyes away from his teeth and mentally cataloged the movement. Was he amused? Annoyed? Something else entirely?

"Neither. At least, not more than any other soldier." There was that flash of dry humor again. His voice sobered and he continued. "That was an ugly situation with the colonists. I'm glad we could do something about it. A lot of times, something like that happens and you only find out after it's too late."

"You see that kind of thing often in C-Sec?"

"Yeah. Not on that scale, but more often than you'd think. Corporations don't look out for anyone but themselves." She couldn't tell anything by his expression, but it was easy to read the bitterness in his voice.

There was a short quiet for a while, both of them cleaning their armor.

"What do you think about this business with Saren?"

She'd already asked the others for their opinion. She needed to know where her team stood, if they would follow her into this. And for better or worse, it looked like Vakarian was on the team.

"It sounds crazy. But so does the Thorian." He paused momentarily, tightening a fastener in his shoulder guard. "For what it's worth, I don't think Shiala was lying."

Her lips tightened. "I don't either." She swiped the rag over her greave and eyed him critically. He held himself a little stiffly, she thought. "You been to the medbay yet? Seem to recall you had a close encounter with a charging krogan back there."

He rolled his right shoulder, mandibles set forward and down. "No lasting damage done."

He hesitated a moment before speaking again. "What about you? With the…" He trailed off and tapped a finger against the side of his head. "It looked pretty rough."

"The Cipher?" She grimaced. "Got a headache the size of the Citadel, but nothing I can't sleep off."

He nodded, and they finished their work in silence. And while it wasn't quite companionable, neither was it as uncomfortable as she'd thought it would be.