Ava sat in the cold steel chair. The mess was dark, the main crew were in the sleeper pods. She pressed the cool glass of her drink to her forehead. The scotch contained within sloshed against the side. On the table in front of her sat a half empty bottle. She sighed, the dreams had gotten worse. She always had nightmares, but not like that. Her squad...Saren. She downed the glass shaking her head as the drink burned down her throat, she didn't even know why she drank, it didn't help with her metabolism it was out of her system in minutes. Humans did it and she had just picked it up.
"Drinking alone?" Ava looked up. Shepard was leaning against the stairs.
"Couldn't sleep." Ava whispered.
Shepard walked over and sat down across from Ava, "welcome to the party"
"You too?" Ava pored another measure into her glass. "Yeah, had a mixture of insomnia and nightmares since 15, care if I have a drink?"
"Fifteen?" Ava raised an eyebrow, she slid the bottle over to Shepard who took a swig.
"Yeah, Batarians came to my home colony, Mindor. Killed or enslaved everybody there but me. I hid in a barn with a shotgun...I could hear the screams outside, cries of pain, pleas for help. And the Batarians laughing. The bastards were laughing. One eventually found me so I blew a hole in his chest, it was my first kill." She took another swig. "Your, squad dying, is that what's causing yours?"
Ava caught the bottle "yeah, that and a load of other shit."
"Like what?"
"Well there's being kidnapped at age 6 by Salarians where I was experimented on for six years, its how I got my biotics. Not exactly normal for a species that hasn't discovered Ezzo. Then there's watching the other Raloi who were kidnapped be eliminated one by one to get rid of any evidence. I escaped at age 12, found a shuttle took it to omega. Was a petty their for a year then got into a mercenary group. Been in he black hand for 7 years...I have a lot of corpses."
Shepard leaned back "do you hate Salarians?"
"Do you hate Batarians?" Ava retorted.
"Yes." Shepards answer was cold. Then she laughed "they don't call me the butcher of Tofren for nothing!"
"Then I think you know my answer." Ava calmly said.
Shepards face calmed "Yeah, I do." She raised the bottle "to lost friends and silent demons"
"To lost friends and silent demons."
()()()()()
Shore leave. The Normandy being a small ship had to be re-supplied. So they were at the citadel and so the crew was on shore leave. Garrus walked over to Ava who was leaning against a bulkhead.
"Hey Ava" she raised a freshly sharpened claw "Hey Garrus" she looked at his fidgeting "what do you want?" She winced she hadn't meant to sound so harsh.
"I was wondering if you wanted to look at sniper rifles, I hear Armax is coming out with a new line." Garrus made a hand motion towards the air lock. Ava smiled, "sure, I'd love to look at implements of death and destruction." Garrus's mandibles spread in distress. "I'm actually being serious." Ava laughed "let's go."
()()()()()
"Ooh look this scope tracks thermal signatures" Garrus held up a sleek black tube. Ava who was rummaging through silencers laughed "two things, one I have a prosthetic eye that can do that, and two we are fighting Geth, they don't exactly have thermal signatures do they." He dropped the scope, good point. Ava ran her omnitool over a silencer as Garrus looked at another scope. "Spirits!" Ava spun hand reaching for her sidearm "what!"
Garrus laughed at her tensed pose, "this scope has a smart VI that tracks kill counts." Ava grinned snatching it from him. "Alright then I think we have some goodies to get" he laughed and picked another off the rack. "Game on"
()()()()()
Shepard and Wrex were coaching Tali and Liara on the finer arts of shooting things and biotic combat. Wrex had taken Tali's shotgun modded the hell out of it and brought it back to her, he'd forgotten recoil. Poor Tali was thrown off her feet. The entire squad was now at the shooting range. Pizza of levo and dextro versions was served along side human beer and Turian ale. Wrex had a bottle of ryncol. Ava and Garrus were modding their sniper rifles as Kaiden and Ashly argued the merits of biotics vs muscle.
Ava checked her new scope, she fiddled with the settings. Hm infrared, no, night vision, no, kill count party version? "Hey Garrus, I think we can link the scopes."
He grabbed the rifle and fiddled with it, they had already linked it to their hard suit computers so any kill counted not just rifles. "There lets go try them out." Taking the two slots next to the very exasperated Shepard who was explaining to Liara that turning your head and closing your eyes really hurt your accuracy. The two fired in silence.
()()()()()
Back on the ship Tali approached Ava. "What you did with the Krogan was really impressive." Ava nodded "thanks."
"Iwaswonderingifperhapsyoucouldteachme" Tali squeaked.
Ava flicked her wings "what?"
Tali took a deep breath "I was wondering if you could teach me"
"To kill Krogan?"
"No! Well yes but more along the lines of just hand to hand in general!" Tali was wringing her hands.
"Of course, you have a knife?" She motioned for Tali to follow her.
"Yes"
"Then lets begin."
Authors note: sorry for such a short chapter It's kinda a filler. Anyways please read and review.
