By the time Cole had gotten back to his hotel room, packed up the modest belongings he'd brought along with him, checked out, and taken a public monorail back to the Agency building, an hour had already passed. As he strolled into the building's shuttle hangar with his luggage slung across his side he could see that Ardarius was already waiting for him.

The sandy turian was speaking with another member of his race, a beefy white and brown male adorned in an orange service suit. They turned to face him as he approached, the uncomfortable feel of their gazes focusing in on him.

"It's good that you made it," Adarius greeted with a slight nod, "Tris was just about to show us to the ship. It's all fueled up and ready to go. I take it you still have the coordinates of Uhlan saved on your omni-tool?"

Cole flashed a forced smile and tapped the machine on his wrist. "Got it all in here."

"Good. Tris, would you mind showing us the way?"

The plus sized turian smirked and gestured for them to follow him. "Right this way gentlemen, right this way."

He led them down a short line of launch pads and maintenance rails.

A recurring sight on the platforms, and what appeared to be the standard requisition ship for the Hierarchy Intelligence Agency, was a vessel of striking turian naval design. Its exterior was an impressive layering of metal plating gradually pushing outwards with each succeeding layer, closely resembling the feathers of a giant iron bird. Its symmetrical shape pierced forwards like a fighter craft and resembled the aerodynamic 'T' structuring that most turian military vessels were known for.

But despite the similarities, it was painted an unassuming drab gray, removing the distinction and attention that Hierarchy Military colors might attract. To the casual observer, they'd appear like nothing more than menial spacefarers, their ship one of many built in the turian style like other private shuttles on the market.

Tris stopped in front of one of these shuttles and motioned to it proudly. "Here she is, standard XR28 Light Shuttle. Little diddy's got full life support systems, standard FTL drive, short range and long range scanners, and minor kinetic shielding just in case you run into any trouble along the way."

Ardarius grinned. "You don't need to give the whole rundown whenever I take one out. I'm pretty sure I got the whole thing down by heart at this point."

"Oh, but I gotta reason now," the big turian replied with a chuckle, "your friend here needs to know just what these things can offer." He looked to Cole. "But I bet the Alliance's got some nicer craft for you guys to take around, eh?"

Cole willed a laugh and shook his head. "No, it's about the same. Except for the shielding. That's something I wouldn't expect them to hand out to standard agents. I know I never got one."

"A lot of the Agency is made up of Hierarchy officers who've shown enough distinction to move up into Intelligence work," Ardarius explained. "These guys, myself included, would prefer a little extra insurance just in case things turn sour when we least expect it. Better safe than sorry after all."

He looked to Tris and nodded. "Thanks again for setting us up. I'll buy you a drink when I get back."

"I'll hold you to it," the turian called back as he began to step away, "You know how much I hate being disappointed." The two waved each other goodbye, leaving just Cole and Ardarius to their ship.

They boarded without another word. The shuttle was spacious enough, with a consistent color palette of whitened yellow across the floor, ceiling, walls, and sparse furniture.

They set their things down in the vessel's center atrium and immediately walked into the cockpit for take off. Ardarius took the ship's center controls while Cole sat beside him in the not quite necessary copilot's chair.

The turian began checking the systems and flicking switches in preparation for takeoff.

"Looks like he really did take care of everything," Ardarius muttered as the ship's repulsors whined to life. "That's a first."

The craft abruptly rose from its resting position. With a sudden lurch forward it took off in a single burst of its engines, speeding out of the hangar and right over the center skyline of Palaven, slowly arching upwards into the higher atmosphere.

They could both feel the pull of G's against their bodies, no amount of shielding or flight manipulation entirely masking them from the grip of gravity. However, after just a few moments of this, the ship evened itself in its speed. They comfortably cruised over the planet's orbit, speeding off without a hitch to the system's nearby mass relay station.

"You know how to pilot a ship?" Ardarius said with his hands still on the controls.

"Only Alliance ones I'm afraid, and the non-military ones at that."

"Did you serve?"

Cole shook his head. "Thought about it out of college but decided I wasn't the type for it. I never was very good at being folded into a group, especially one as large as the Navy." He paused. "I take it you did?"

"Yep. Hierarchy 58th Fleet. Saw action on Nespis V and VII. Got a pretty nasty wound on my left leg during a recon op. It healed, though, and I was back in active duty in less than a month."

Cole raised an eyebrow at this. "So does that mean you're done with your required service?"

"I hope I don't look like I'm forty-five if you're asking that," the turian replied with a smirk. "No, I'm still serving it's just that working with the Agency is part of it now. I was recognized by my CO for what happened on Nespis, and was recommended for transfer into Intelligence work. I was hesitant at first, wanted to stay with my buddies until my time was up. But they pushed me to it saying 'It wasn't every day you get these opportunities.' So, I took that advice to heart and here I am five years later." He paused. "Mind if I ask how you got in with Naval Intelligence?"

"Not at all," the human beamed brightly, more than happy to share. "I studied political science in college and got a job as a small time aid to a small time governor to a small time colony out in the Terminus Systems."

"That sounds pretty normal."

"It was pretty routine work, I'll give it that...until I came across some files alluding to the governor's involvement with batarian slavers. I immediately turned the creep in. Naval Intelligence was impressed with how I'd cracked the case without any reason to do so. They offered me a job, a minor one anyway, and I accepted. Taught me how to fight, taught me how to use a gun. Real interesting how they-"

"Hold on," Ardarius interrupted as he looked down at the controls and out the viewscreen. "It seems like we're coming up to the relay. Get ready for the jump."

"Oh good God," Cole mumbled, tightening his grip on the chair. "This is always the worst part."

He shut his eyes for a majority of the short duration. The mass effect field's pull rattled the ship aggressively, swinging their traction into the relay's side, torrenting the shuttle in a burst of speed as it was catapulted into space and time in less than an instant. He always hated that moment in space travel and prayed that someone would invent a method of space travel that didn't wrench his body like an earthquake.

"You can open your eyes now," Ardarius jested, "we just passed through."

Cole sighed in relief and leaned back in his chair. "Oh, thank goodness. At least, that's the last time we'll be going through one of those until our trip back."

Now with the ship on a pre-assigned course to a string of relays that would eventually take them to Alliance Space, Ardarius slid his hands off the controls and swung his chair around to face him. "Do you have something wrong with space travel?"

"Not anything below mass relay speeds. It's when you get to that level of FTL travel that the window of things going wrong jumps farther than I'd care for it to be. 'Official' studies can go on and on about how thorough Prothean technology can be, but anybody who knows better can always be there to say: 'if something can screw up, it will.'"

"Don't you think that's a little paranoid? Ship collisions are just about as common as a random hull breaches."

Cole grinned wryly at this. "Ardarius, as you'll come to realize, I'm a very paranoid guy. But I think I'm gonna check out the ship for now, get my bearings while I can." He stood stiffly out of his chair and began to fiddle with his omni-tool. "I just forwarded you Uhlan's coordinates for later. Just in case you need to punch them in while I'm busy."

"Alright, I'll be here if you need me."

Cole stepped out of the cockpit and closed the door behind him.

The atrium was brightly lit from above with white lights reflecting well off the interior decorating. There was a small kitchen area to the far right of the room and a long table by the center with encompassing bench seats. Their sleeping quarters led in from a separate door at the room's rear, the airlock to the left and the engine room to the right.

He picked up his belongings and went into the sleeping area, discovering it was a set of six single beds attached by the headboard into the walls. A foot locker sat at the end of each cot while a single restroom was at the side of the room.

Cole sighed. He should have expected communal living arrangements among a turian vessel even if it wasn't technically a military one. He'd be fine though, his college experience reminding him of how to share a room with a stranger.

He chose the nearest bed to himself and stowed his stuff into its chest. Yawning, he opted to lay down on his claimed bed and rest for a moment, feeling the sudden weight of the day begin to pile onto him. He shut his eyes for just a moment and was taken away into a deep slumber as soon as his head hit the pillow.