Chapter 9

Fredrick grunted in approval as he managed to remove the last stain from his seats with a generous application of cleaning agent, both Ril and him had dirtied the interior with both the hydraulic fluid, mud, ash and Ril's footsteps from when they first met, he didn't really know how he had allowed all this dirt to accumulate.

No matter now, he had finally cleaned the ship, and could return to do doing..not much..He was waiting for Ril to finish her shower before breaking into open space as he was still in orbit over Watson.

During that time he had looked up advice on things he needed to keep in mind when employing Quarians.

He had learned well after initiating some sort of duel with a Krogan that traditions and manners were things one needed to know about.

Three days had passed since they had met and he felt it appropriate to learn a little about her culture as well, that way he could guarantee he wouldn't offend her accidentally and could hold a conversation, it had absolutely nothing to do with impressing her. After more repairs(turns out just removing the damaged component doesn't work you need to replace it.) the ship had finally become space worthy, though the two had ended up covered in hydraulic fluid yet again when Ril had accidentally severed the wrong pipe much to his amusement.

While the extranet didn't contain much information and the thread he had started on the popular 'Commune!' forum only yielded responses ranging from "Bolt down your valuables" and hundreds of pictures of supposedly suit-less Quarians.

He had come into contact with one user who had supplied him with more than enough information about Quarian customs, She had been thankful and amazed when he recurred his tale of 'heroism' and 'kindness' (though he left the cowering in his ship bit out) and had even given him advice over what nutrient paste to buy!

Fredrick made a mental note to thank 'PurpleShotgun_SR2' for her assistance in the future, though with the unreliable Extra-net access he had it was a miracle he had stayed connected for as long as he had.

With a few gestures of his arm the haptic interface flickered back to life with that familiar orange gleam, he pushed the flight data to the side with a wide swipe and opened up an Extra-net session.

He grunted in disapproval, No interesting replies to the thread, just more pictures and cheeky replies, though the morbid monstrosities posted didn't much look like Quarians at all, one had five leering eyes but from what he'd seen of Ril she only had two and hers glowed white not that colour he could only describe as 'phlegm yellow', And this picture had a long curving nose that connected to it's chin, it looked absolutely ridiculous but Ril's mask was transparent enough for him to see, at times when the light was angled just right a small pert, maybe even cute nose.

Then again many things about her were cute, the way she sprawled out on the bunk like a big cat and the way she had rested her head on his chest. He switched back to the flight data and noticed to his great amusement that the shower Ril was taking had already consumed over half his water supply, though recyclers and condensation aggregates made it a trivial matter.

He wondered if they even had showers on the flotilla, maybe they didn't and she was enjoying it as best she could.

He chuckled and went back to studying data, and trying to plan for the outrage Admin would no doubt have over his choice in co-pilot, though he was well aware of the terms he had signed up for and it wasn't like most of the colonists could distrust him anymore than they already did.

Ril groaned as she managed to finally get her legs unattached to each other, her thigh muscles flexed under the suit, the material stretched and finally gave up and released her legs with a loud *pop!*, the sticky hydraulic fluid and mud mixture that would make a great adhesive was almost completely washed away courtesy of the shower she was enjoying, immensely.

Fredrick had showered before her, she had insisted he go first since he was the captain and he had insisted that she go first, when she asked why he had simply shrugged and said something about being polite.

Ril didn't know much about politeness, sure she had bowed and opened doors a few times but this was the first time she was being the subject, It was...new and not entirely unpleasant though she tried to not enjoy the human's hospitality to much out of a sense of guilt, but Ril found it hard to ignore the wonderful warmness of the water trickling down her suit, It relaxed her, for but a moment she was home on the fleet in warm bliss, enjoying the comfort of familiar hallways.

But she noticed to her surprise that the fleet didn't seem very appealing now.

Before, when her little kiosk was demolished,when she was expelled from the citadel by an angry mob the fleet and the hope that she could one day return there had kept her going, but now, now she enjoyed herself for one of the first times since she opened that old shop Keelah she had laughed and giggled more than the last year combined! In only a few days!

As the water formed little streaks on her helmet, she realized all this was Fredrick's doing, he had singlehandedly turned her pilgrimage around! A smile started growing on her lips, it felt good to have a friend, Human or Quarian didn't matter once you thought about it, besides he looked quite similar to quarian males..but with soft pink skin mounted on a strong frame instead of Quarian slenderness..and dull eyes that seemed to glow nonetheless, and that hair, she just wanted to run a hand through it!

What was she up to? Keelah thinking about the human like that, her family would no doubt disapprove. Maybe it had been too long since she used a certain suit function? Yes that was it, it had nothing to do with that perfect kind caring being in the compartment beyond the airlock.

She noticed a stain remained on her inner thigh, Her hands traveled down and started scrubbing with the brush Fredrick had lended her, the stain was easily removed, dissipating like a cloud of smoke on a clear sky, yet the brush remained on her thigh slowly moving upwards.

Those odd five fingers...

It took another half an hour before Ril finally left the shower, Fredrick noticed the way she swayed slightly and bumped into the edge of the bunk, he smiled, she had probably dozed off in the shower just like he often did .

"Enjoy the shower?" She nodded enthusiastically and sunk down in the seat next to him with a sigh sounding utterly relaxed, yeah she definitely dozed off he thought with a smile.

He could use some sleep too, running like a madman and the heat of the wreckage had made him tired not to mention three days of attempting to find out how to remove the dent from his broken pressure tube, he had solved the problem by scavenging a sledge hammer from the colony and forcibly removing the dent, though he had contemplated going to the wreckage and finding a new one at first but had heard sounds of working and didn't want to bother what probably was a recovery operation from the company.

Though he still didn't understand why the ship had crashed, VI pilots were incredibly safe, maybe Ril knew? She had grown up on ships after all and she seemed to be clever.

"Ril?" She turned her head to face him, not lifting if from the seat. "you know why that ship crashed?"

She shrugged and shook her head in a silent"I have no idea."

"Maybe a meteorite? Or pirates?" He frowned as she spoke, pirates made sense, shooting drone freighters was common since they were armed with quite a few GARDIAN turrets, after they had crashed the pirates could loot the wreck safely at their own leisure, the fact that they carried a lot of cargo meant much would survive the crash.

Ril could be right, there was no way a meteorite had managed to penetrate both the barriers and the GARDIAN batteries. But that meant the pirates must still be present, on Tirala no less, that recovery operation suddenly made much more sense.

It appeared Ril had come to the same conclusion "We need to go." she said in a remarkably calm voice.

Fredrick wasted no time in plotting a course, with shaky hands. But as he engaged the thrusters the screen lit up, at first he ignored it eagerly trying to get as far away from Watson as humanly and quarianly possible Pirates weren't known for their hospitality after all.

But the glow turned into angry red blinking and he spared a precious moment to look at it.

"Urgent comms request" it read, Fredrick hesitated, looked at Ril for some small bit of reassurance and pressed the interface to initiate the communication.

"Hello? This is Utility craft CADF-1138, who is this." The audio crackled, as if a microphone was hastily donned."

"This is an Alliance cruiser! Detail your craft's passenger count, cargo, destination and armament or we will open fire!" The gravelly voice on the other end barked out with impressive fervor. Fredrick shuddered, a cruiser could destroy him in a heart beat he better comply, but something wasn't right...he didn't know what but something was off.

"Identify yourself, you do not have authority here." It came to him quickly, this was the Terminus! the Alliance didn't have any authority here and why did it just call itself 'Alliance cruiser' and not by name.

There was a long pause, then the person at the other end spoke with that odd gravelly voice "Detail your passenger count, cargo, destination, and armament or I will reduce your ship to a cloud of space dust!"

He relented, whomever was speaking could have the capacity to destroy him, he certainly didn't lack willpower and nothing could be gained by provoking him, at worst they could escape via the relay close by.

"This is a utility craft, we have no weaponry, we are heading for the relay and carry little cargo, there are just two of us on board." Ril leaned in after he was done talking and whispered "I don't like this Fredrick.." Then she added "I think he's a pirate Bosh'tet."

Fredrick nodded though he had no idea what a 'Bosh'tet' was but he was about to reply that he shared her suspicions when the 'Alliance cruiser' captain spoke up, apparently he had heard their conversation.

"Fredrick huh?, that sounds human" He chuckled, deep and unsettling"and I do believe I heard a Quarian too...hmm those are rare..."He paused and continued, his voice firmer and more malicious. "Surrender your ship, and you will live."

Ril and Fredrick exchanged an uneasy glance, they both knew what would happen if they surrendered, this was obviously a pirate and that meant slavery or death.

Fredrick thought for a few seconds, his fingers trembling, then he made his decision and started plotting a new course.

"What are you doing?" Ril asked, she was scared and looked at him with pleading eyes, he was scared to and his voice reflected that. "I'm getting us out of here."He attempted to push as much bravado and firmness in his voice as possible, but he didn't feel anything other than mortified Ril nodded, grateful for his decision and patted him on the shoulder before settling down in her seat.. With a final tap to the interface Fredrick started charging the FTL-drive.

The pirate was of course well aware of his intentions, The Batarian intended to disable the small craft, but there was no way the projectile would hit before his quarry jumped away, his best option was to intercept them at their destination, The relay.

With a bright flash that was nearly drowned out by the blue glow from the relay did Fredrick, Ril and his ship cease FTL travel they had ony travelled for a minute or so but were still deeply unerved and nervous. He anxiously scanned their immediate surroundings with the onboard LADAR while Ril looked out a view-port, after he studied the appropriate screen and it'd outputs he exhaled loudly, the pirate was nowhere in sight and they were just a few relays from Horizon. Ril sighed in delight,

"Keelah..that was too close for comfort.." Fredrick couldn't help but agree, that was way too close. Ril said something but he didn't pay attention, there was a small silvery speck alongside the relay, he squinted and tried to make out what it was the LADAR wouldn't have picked it up thanks to the Relay's interference.

He shuddered as he realized what the object was, in front of them was a Turian frigate, complete with a black coating of paint and pieces of the 'Sandholm' trailing it with long cables attached, no doubt recovered from the crashsite.

"Give up, you are far more valuable alive.."

The pirate had apparently caught up with them and his voice boomed over the loudspeakers that Fredrick had yet to turn off, he froze, as a prey animal facing a predator, cornered.

Eventually he turned off the thrusters and sighed, it was over, they had lost..but at least this way they would be alive.

"What are you doing!" Ril yelled at him, her outburst sounded more sad than angry.

"I'm giving up..we don't have a chance.." He sighed again, there was nothing they could do.

No reply followed instead The frigate advanced, a docking tube revealed itself from underneath a hatch in the hull like a proboscis on a giant mosquito, soon the walls reverberated with the frigate's mass effect core interfering with their own, the tube started extending.

"Do something!" she shook in her seat "Please get us away from him!" Ril's sharp yell snapped him out of it, the tube was nearly connected, Ril looked at him with those little orbs of light, but they looked far from happy or surprised as they usually did, they looked terrified.

"I don't know how!" He had no idea, the irate would shoot them no matter what they did, if they styed in the ship they would no doubt be caught with a stun grenade.

Suddenly it clicked, like an ancient light bulb igniting, they were in front of a relay, almost parallel to it in fact, if he could just start up his engines they might escape before the pirate could demolish them! And once out of the relay there would be no way the pirate could know what relay they connected to!

"What are you doing?" He furiously pressed more buttons and gestured to the interface, moving icons and coordinates, traveling and plotting a course through a relay was complicated.

"I'm not really sure." The plan had looked good in theory, problem was he had a frigate blocking the normal route and he was forced to plot his passage through the channel only used when there was lots of traffic coming through, The small ship trembled as the docking tube finally made contact, it wouldn't be long now.

"There!" he pushed the button as fast as he could, the thrusters engaged and burned the frigates hull, but they didn't move..at first, but when the relay 'grabbed' the small utility craft the docking tube was ripped out of it's socket, slammed into the rear of his truck with a resounding *clang!* until ripping the outer airlock's door off it's hinges. The sound was incredible and Fredrick released his choke hold on the dashboard to cover his ears, the ship shook and stumbled along the length of the relay like a drunken Volus as the pirate frigate rotated and reacted to it's prey's defiance,firing a GARDIAN laser burst at the truck just before they entered relay transit, melting one of the engines and causing the ship to careen into space trailing smoke and debris.

The laser-burst from the pirate vessel would have done far more damage since it's target lacked barriers of any kind, but the gravitic emissions from relay travel snapped the ship in half like paper,scattering debris into empty space and abruptly ending it's barrage, the emissions ripped the frigate's core out of it's hull with ease along with many of it's crew, finally the ship couldn't take more punishment and exolded in a bright red flash..

The last thing Fredrick remembered was a faint red glow that quickly faded into cool blue then the dashboard greeted his head and everything went dark.

Okay, this was way longer than I planned for, I'm not that happy with it since in my mind there's this epic scene with lots of special effects and lasers but here it's just..pew, boom done.

So meh..but I just can't write action.

I don't know why people thought there were gonna be reapers, sory to disapoint but they will appear later.

Samantha rose

I'll be sure they get to play doctor sometime!, thanks for the review!

water

I tried to keep that in mind in this chapter, I hope you approve, thanks for the review!

That goes for every reviewer!

Remember to review though! Reviews make me happy and motivates me to write (and feedback is always nice!)