2173 CE – October 26thGagarin Station – Training Field15:46 PM

Shepard plunked down the crate on the short side of the field beside the others and wiped the sweat from her brow. Some 20 meters behind her Dmitri tottered along with one crate under each arm, complaining loudly. She ignored this, and started to loosen the lids off their plunderage.

"You know, If Vyrnnus was aboard the station, you would never dare this," he gasped as he dropped off the last crates.

"And if I didn't suspect that you had at least one finger in the vandalism done to my room, I wouldn't make you carry these up here," she replied dryly.

"Paranoia, that is your problem."

She turned around and raised an eyebrow. He shrugged, feigning innocence, and she narrowed her eyes and bored them into him. He shrunk a little, but persisted commendably.

"It's the turians, they are all bad. No sense of humor at all."

"Really? I thought it was pretty funny." She returned his innocent expression.

Dmitri wasn't fooled. "They are evil, you can see it in their scales."

"Mhm." Shepard flipped off the last lids.

He looked inside, and made a face. Hundreds of baseballs, tennis balls, softballs and other assorted circular objects littered the crates. It was commander Vyrnnus private store for training biotics, and they had raided all of it.

"Are you sure about this? It looks amazing, yes, but it will hurt like hell."

"It's my thing. You can crack concrete blocks, I can make the pieces fly."

"You just want to show off in front of your fans," he jeered at her.

"That too." She winked back.

Dmitri feigned surprise. "What? Never have believed you wanted to joke around with the birds, Shepard."

She straightened up and reflected on his words for a while, before coming to a unpredicted conclusion.

"Let's not say that word anymore, okay. These boys are not that bad. For turians, I mean," she said hurriedly.

"Who are you? Where is my mean friend?" Dmitri poked her in the shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Shocking. Let's just get ready. Nobody plasters my room with porn and gets away with it."


Captain Corinthus flicked his eyes from the students practicing throws and leg swipes to his datapad, detailing station inventory. The lesson had been relatively uneventful so far, and that made it possible for him to get some of the more boring aspects of his position as an instructor done as well. He was beginning to think Shepard had risen above petty revenge, when a shrill whistle sounded over the pitch. Shepard could be seen lining the students up on the opposite side of the field. Corinthus saw several open crates displayed on the short side where he sat, and frowned his brow plates. Whatever she'd planned, he was glad he wasn't on the field right now.


"Well, I must say I'm impressed, rookies. We're the leading group in hand to hand, you're all making steady progress. So far, so good."

There was a line of flaring mandibles and proud grins.

"Sadly, it has come to my attention that some of you have way too much free time on your hands. And since idle hands do the devil's work, there's no wonder some rather sinful stuff appears where it's not wanted."

Several chuffs and snorts was heard along the lined up students, and Shepard distinctly saw many eyes darting to Chellick before looking straight ahead. Not all of them turians, she noted. Interspeices cooperation, or simply collusion? No matter, they would all suffer the consequences.

"So, I'll have to implement a much harder regime. So far you've fought one on one against each other. Now, you'll all fight me."

Both the turian and the human students now exchanged worried looks. They knew her well enough to sense a trap. She smiled a reassuring smile that did nothing to ease their minds.

"Not to worry, boys. The first one will be easy. I'll just stand over there," she pointed to the other side of the field, "and you guys try to tackle me to the ground. I won't use my biotics on any of you in this exercise."

She emphasized the word you very little, but her main culprit caught it. The other students relaxed a bit, but Chellick's green eyes had already observed the arranged crates and he remained as tense as ever.

"Just knock me down, and you've won. If you flee the field or fall down, you're out. Show me what you're made of."

She started backing away with a big inviting smile on her face, and the students glanced at each other, anticipatory smirks spreading, readying for the charge across the field.


Corinthus observed with apprehension. Shepard couldn't possibly fight off the entire group of her own without biotics, but the amount of power needed to subdue this crowd could possibly kill her. This could bring both the Alliance and the Hierarchy down on him, and he deliberated on whether or not to stop this experiment, when Dmitri Basanov suddenly appeared at his elbow.

"Captain! Come to see the show?"

"Basanov. Do you know what she's going to do?"

"Ah, probably liquefy her brain and make Vyrnnus very happy."

"That's not-.. what?" Corinthus stared at him.

"It was joke! Shepard is great at manipulating objects."

"It would take quite a few objects to stop those students. She trained them herself."

"Yes, hundreds, but Shepard is trained by Vyrnnus. He is not very fond of Shepard, and makes her do twice as much as the other biotics."

Dmitri turned to the field with a look of pure delight on his face.

"We will either see a spectacular sight, or a horrific death." He pondered this for a second.

"Maybe more than one deaths."

Corinthus wore a blank expression as he caught up with the information. "Hundreds?"

He turned around and opened his mouth to call it off, when the field around Shepard started to flash with a biotic glow, and the students charged her from the other side.


Shepard felt the biotic field around her expand as she spun the vortex around herself. It felt like time slowed down as the swirl helped the uplift of the balls in the crates, and they started to spin around her like debris in a tornado. The first of the students hesitated shortly before throwing themselves into the biotic whirlpool. Shepard realigned her focus and caught the students in a roiling eddy, smacking them repeatedly with dozens of balls. Cries and yelps erupted from the first wave, and they broke formation and dived for the baselines, escaping the storm. The second wave of students halted their advance up the field, and she refocused on them. Already she felt the strain of holding that many balls in the air at the same time, and the dizziness warned that she had to keep this as short as possible.

As she shifted her eyes from one to the other, the students were already ducking and weaving the occasional stray projectile that escaped her vortex. She felt lightheaded, and decided to push for an early victory. Her hands extended, and a barrage of flying balls shot over the field, making her students squeal and scatter to the sides. Every time one was hit, there was a loud 'whack' that made even her flinch, and a pained outburst. It reminded her of the occasional old-style game of paintball she used to play on Arcturus, and recalled vividly getting hit by the small paint-bullets. This was going to show for days. She grinned at the thought.

It took less than 10 minutes for her to clear the field, and to her great schadenfreude the last man standing was Chellick, dashing around the field like a madman to many cheers from his defeated co-conspirators in the sidelines. Shepard followed the scurrying turian with a hail of balls, hitting him in the back whenever he zigzagged too slow. Despite having reduced the number of opponents on the field to one it was still exhausting. Shepard felt a small trickle of nosebleed and knew she was playing it close. She dropped all but one soaring tennis ball, and fell to her knees, coughing and clutching her chest. Chellick stopped immediately, and even though he was gasping for breath, he gave her a look that reminded Shepard of genuine concern. It made her hesitate, and he took one step toward her. It was a spontaneous reaction from him, countered by one from her; the tennis ball smacked him right in the crest, and he staggered before toppling over.

Laughter erupted from the sidelines, and spread applause for both Shepard and the last turian standing sounded around the field. She saw both Corinthus and Dmitri clapping, and decided to go for the coup de grace. She hauled herself to her feet, flared her bio-field to life again and made a run for the downed turian. A couple of meters away from him she somersaulted herself in the air with her biotic lift and used slam to propel herself downward against the prone position of Chellick. Corinthus, Dmitri and the other students shouted from the sides, but to no avail. Shepard slammed down with both feet on either side of Chellick's face, and the turians wild eyes stared fearfully at her. Shepard's face broke into a tired grin, and her eyes met Chellick's. He took several deep breaths, before giving a huffed chortle.

"You're crazy Shepard, you know that?"

"I'm just krogan-trained." She stepped away from him and reached out a hand. He flared his mandibles and let himself get pulled to his feet by her, before having to support her when she started to sway. Chellick leaned down and whispered in her ear as he held her; "Your eyes, Shepard. They are filled with blood."

She made a small groan. That last trick had been stupid. Using biotics on oneself should only be used sparsely, and she'd done it for fun. Now the blood vessels in her eyes were most likely ruptured, which meant she would look like a damn vampire for weeks. She heard footsteps approaching, and saw captain Corinthus drawing near with a thunderous look on his face. She quickly turned to the group.

"There were 223 balls in those crates, I expect all of them found and returned to their rightful place. Dmitri Basanov, that guy over there will help you."

She had no more time as Corinthus had arrived and grabbed her by the shoulder, dragging her away from Chellick and off the field.

"Every single one," she yelled as they disappeared through the exit, and the green eyed turian looked wistfully at the door where she'd left, before joining the others in clean-up duty.


2173 CE – October 26thGagarin Station – Locker Rooms20:14 PM

Shepard thought she could almost hear the flanging angry voice of Corinthus down here in the locker room, but that was most likely due to the faint echo in her head of every little noise nearby. Her mouth was dry, and she opened the door to her own cabinet and pulled out three painkillers and a bottle of water. In the reflection of the mirror she could see the sclera of both eyes had turned blood red. The doctor had said the damage was only superficial, but reprimanded her and told her not to do it again. Placing the pills on her tongue to dissolve somewhat, she closed the door and unscrewed the cork, taking a sip. The captain had been furious, not only for the game of biotiball she played on her rookies, but for risking her own life in 'the most foolish display of insipid arrogance and human idiocy' he'd ever seen. All in all, she figured she'd gotten off easy. Vyrnnus would have invented an inspired form of punishment as well, Corinthus merely called her an idiot. Today she knew it was deserved, and she put her forehead against the cold metal. Dmitri was right, she could be such a shameless showoff sometimes.

The feeling of her head against the locker was familiar, the strained sounds of someone grunting and wheezing was not. Shepard still felt a little dizzy and scraped her hand against the row of lockers as she went searching for the person making the noise. In the far corner of the turian's designated area, she found Chellick. He was bare-chested with his back to her, trying to bend his arm behind his back to apply medi-gel to the dark blue areas under his sloping cowl. Perhaps it was the pain killers kicking in, but she felt genuinely sorry for causing those marks. It was only right she help out, right? He was bending and contorting his body in some disturbing ways, causing the plates and the hide between them to shift in a fascinating pattern. She'd never seen a half-naked turian before, if she discounted those pictures from the Fornax magazine, and it was a captivating view up close. It reminded her that she really needed to throw those pages away instead of hiding them under her civvies. Shepard couldn't for the life of her think of a reason why she'd kept them. It must have been that the trash bin was full. That was probably it. It was definitely it. Chellick was too busy to notice her presence, and Shepard realized that she was ogling his plates instead of helping. She cleared her throat, and he spun around.

"Shepard! I, ah.. can't seem to reach. We're a bit less malleable than humans, so.." He noticed he was babbling, and closed his mouth plates.

"Need a hand, Chellick?" Shepard felt like she was floating on a small cloud of selflessness.

"Nnngh, huh?" He looked thoroughly confused.

"With the medigel? I caused that, so it's the least I can do. If you want me to, that is."

He studied her face intently, trying to find if this was some sort of joke, but he found no trace of trickery in her demeanor, and decided to risk it.

"Uh, sure," he said, handing over the medigel.

"All right, hold still. If it hurts, let me know and I'll stop."

She slathered the gel on her hands and started to gently stroke the gelatinous fluid on his back plates and in the seams between them. Chellick let out a relieved sigh.

"That feels cool. I really appreciate this, Shepard." His flanging voice was warm.

"No problem." Shepard squeezed out more gel and applied it to his lower back.

"Let me see if I can really work it in there."

"It's really not as bad as-... wooheey!"

Chellick started squirming under her hands.

"Will you stand still, silly turian. You'll get gel on both of us."

"But, but that's my waist!" He almost wailed.

"Yes, and it's several shades of royal blue. Unless I get some gel on that, you're in for a world of hurt. Now please stand still."

Chellick forced himself to remain still, but he kept jerking and wriggling under her careful ministrations. Shepard gently kneaded the suede hide with light blue abrasions, and went on to stroke her thumbs tenderly over the darkest areas. Apparently Chellick had been hit more times than she intended. For a long while she absentmindedly kept stroking and kneading Chellick's lower back and waist, when a sound coming from the turian caused her to snap out of it. It sounded like he was giving off a low hum, and his entire body felt like it was vibrating under her fingertips.

"Are you all right? Am I hurting you?" She got no reply, just a continuous low rumble, and Shepard was worried the damage to his plates was deeper then perceivable to the naked eye. She stopped stroking him. That seemed to wake him from his trance.

"Huh? No, I'm fine. I, uh.." His voice gave off some odd trills and a sound she could have sworn sounded like a growl. When he saw her giving him a strange look, he composed himself.

"I'm good, Shepard. Thank you for your, ah, help."

"Anytime, buddy."

To her own surprise, she meant it. She wondered how strong those pills were, to make her this friendly with a turian. He handed her a towel and she wiped her hands clean of gel.

As she turned to leave, Chellick was shifting his weight from one foot to the other. She'd seen that before among his fellow turians when they were getting ready for an unpleasant encounter. If she was lucky, she'd get out before-..

"Wait!"

Too late.

"Shepard, I need to ask you something."

She still maintained some of that floating feeling of benevolence, and turned to him with a smile.

"Yes?"

"Would you ever, uh.. Have you ever thought of a turian, ah.." He shook his head, and steeled his resolve.

"Would you let me court you?"

Chellick's words came fast, as if he expected her to make fun of him.

"No." Her reply was soft.

"Why?" he asked in a low voice.

His green eyes met her bloodshot ones, and she knew all the reasons that would be a tremendous mistake. He was an alien, her mother would have a stroke, it was fraternizing with a possible enemy, he was spiky, she was soft, he had no lips, for crying out loud. All of these things and more ran through her mind, and she decided it was best to be honest and blunt.

"Captain Corinthus has forbidden it."

Chellick and Shepard stared at each other, both equally stunned at her words. Shepard could think of no other reason for that stupid excuse than a severe case of head trauma from this afternoon. That turian doctor had probably only ever read a small pamphlet on human anatomy, because she was clearly concussed. Add to that those pain killers, and in five seconds she might be smooching Chellick like he was the last male in the galaxy if this went on.

"Is that true?" He sounded guarded, but hopeful.

Shepard told herself she should also tell him that she'd never consider dating one of the aliens that killed her father, but the words stuck in her throat. That was not Chellick's fault. He was fun, and a good sport, and things were a lot easier when she disliked all turians just the same, her brain added.

"Yes. Because I'm a trainer, I can't get involved with students in my group." Lying by telling the truth, she thought. That was new for her. Chellick however, accepted her words readily and waggled his mandibles with a happy chuff.

"That's a relief. I was worried it was because I'm a turian."

For some reason she felt like crap. That was precisely the reason, and now she couldn't tell him.

"I mean, we were enemies, but we're here to build a new future, right? I'm sure many people would disapprove, but I'm glad you're not one of them."

For every word he spoke, she saw the hole she'd dug for herself get bigger, and there was no getting out. If only he wasn't so damn nice .

"And it won't be a problem next year, when I'm no longer your student."

Shepard knew a lost cause when she saw it. Chellick was okay, and she could at least banter a little with him.

"Next year you'll probably be plates deep in a turian first-year you've impressed with my fighting moves, Chellick. Don't expect me to hold my breath."

"Plates deep, huh? So you really did study those pictures. That's.. very interesting, good to know."

There was a sound of clanking metal as the lockers started to vibrate, and Chellick took a step back.

"All right, all right, just kidding."

That little display took what little remained of her strength, and she leaned heavily against the door frame. Her body would remember this day for weeks, and Vyrnnus would be back soon.

"I need to get some rest, buddy. See you later."

"Sure, Shepard. Sweet dreams, as you humans say it."

As she walked out, she wondered about that remark. She wasn't familiar enough with turian expressions to spot if his flared mandibles was more than a smile, and right now too tired to really care. It was likewise too late to take out the trash, she thought, and the reasoning behind that stray deduction made her blush. Happily there was no one there to see it.


2173 CE – November 20thGagarin Station – Captain Corinthus' office18:09 PM

The images hung on the walls outside Corinthus' office had always fascinated Shepard, and while she was waiting for the captain to call for her, she wandered along the waiting room studying them. They depicted mostly scenes of war, turians fighting or dying, locked in a deadly embrace with enemies of all speices, but in the background of most of these paintings there was one or several ghostly figures. In one memorable picture there was a turian cruiser locked in a dogfight with another vessel, but above the cruiser was a figure of an even larger turian ship, almost hidden in the dark backdrop of the galaxy. Shepard didn't hear the captain coming out of his office, and he observed as she was lost in contemplation.

"You like turian art, Shepard?"

Pulling herself away from the image, she turned to face him.

"It's very interesting, sir. Almost all of them seem to have a hidden figure somewhere in the frame."

"Do you know why?"

"Something to do with religion, sir?"

"Something like that. It's a depiction of the spirits belonging to that unit, or that place. I admit my interest lay mainly with military images, but that's not all there is to our paintings or art. Will you step inside please?"

When they were inside he indicated for her to sit down, and he seated himself behind his desk.

"You have yet to have your operation, Shepard. Any particular reason?"

"No, sir. I just wanted to delay it until after thirex, so my guys were better prepared. I'm scheduled for the surgery on the 23rd, if there's no delay."

"Hmm, yes. About that, congratulations on your group coming first again. Sorry to pull away from the celebrations, but this is important."

Corinthus tapped his talons on the desk, and the slight scraping noise gave Shepard a small tick in the corner of her eye. The blood from the burst vessels in her eyes was almost gone, but there was still a small red hue covering the whites of her eyes. Both Dmitri and Chellick had commented on her now looking like a krogan, and from the look of Corinthus, that had occurred to him too. When he just kept tapping and said nothing, she began to get nervous. When he finally broke the silence, he was very serious.

"Shepard, I need to tell you something. You need to hear me out, and not run out the door before you've heard it all. Are we clear?"

She nodded and braced herself for the worst.

"While training in the obstacle course this morning, Dmitri Basanov had an accident. He's fine," he added when he saw her jump out of her chair, "but he's been unconscious for several hours. He woke up about two hour ago."

"Why wasn't I told? He's on my team?"

"He's on your biotics team, Shepard. That's commander Vyrnnus' sphere of influence. Not mine."

She glowered at him.

"This is Vyrnnus' doing, isn't it? He did it!"

Corinthus was faster than her and blocked the door, preventing her from storming out.

"No. Basanov lost his grip and fell from the monkey bars. There was no biotic exercise involved."

Shepard refused to believe the captain, and tried to pry herself past him. Corinthus merely leaned against the door, and her escape was shut.

"Listen, Shepard. You will gain nothing from yelling at Vyrnnus, besides landing yourself in trouble. He wants you to make a scene, so he can make an example of you."

Corinthus and Shepard glared at each other, him feeling unnerved by her red stare and her feeling unease at the slow blinks he made with his deep seated eyes. To his surprise, she took a step back first.

"I want to see my friend," Shepard said with a cracked voice.

"I'll take you down there. But you will not make me regret this, understand?"

She agreed in a monotone murmur, and he stepped away from the door, offering her to exit first. Corinthus led the way to the hospital ward, with Shepard trailing silently behind.


2173 CE – November 20thGagarin Station – Hospital wing20:17 PM

The beeping monitor was getting on her nerves, but the dim lights was soothing. Dmitri was lying in a secluded area, and she figured it was because he was a biotic. The cast on his leg already carried several signatures, and she noted some of them were turian. She shook her head imperceptibly. She'd been the last to know about Dmitri's accident, and she placed this fact squarely on Vyrnnus' shoulders.

"Hey Shepard, did you sneak me some food?" came Dmitri's weak voice from the bed.

"For being this clumsy you don't deserve any food."

He gave a small laugh, then winced when it caused him to move his leg.

"Cruel again. I'm sick, you must take care of me."

"Right. Who's gonna take care of me, when I become your bedmate in two days?"

"Bedmate? Oh, the implant. I remember now." Dmitri gave her a sad smile.

"Shepard, I need to tell you something."

"Oh gods. You and Corinthus just have an endless supply of bad news. All right, lay it on me."

Dmitri looked down at his hands.

"I'm not getting the implant. I'm not even staying on this station after my leg heals."

His hand fidgeted with the controller to the bed, and started raising it up so he could sit up and speak to her.

"You're leaving? Because of a broken leg? Come on, Dmitri, that's no more than a small bump in the road. Hey, I can break my leg and we can have a crutch race every weekend."

Her mind refused to consider his words seriously. There was no way her best friend would abandon her alone here on the station.

"Please."

The low plea made her shut up.

"I have been allowed to talk to my parents today. My mother was crying the entire time. She never wanted me to come here. My father wants me to join his company."

"What do you want?" she asked quietly.

"I'm 16, I want to get laid."

They both chortled, then sunk back into melancholy.

"Mother is very sick, Shepard. Something in the ship that landed beside our village. I became biotic, father became rich selling parts of wreck, and mother, she just got bad end of the stick."

He stared into the ceiling.

"She worries too much. I worry for her."

Shepard closed her eyes to prevent tears from starting to fall, but it failed.

"Then you must go home, Dmitri. Spend time with her." She struggled to keep her tone even.

"Shepard..."

"I just.. fuck you, Dmitri. Fuck Vyrnnus, fuck this station, fuck everything."

His bed sheets were clutched in her fists, and she made no attempt to hide her tears. He was infuriatingly calm, and he placed one of his large hands on top of hers.

"I know.."

She started wiping the tears away.

"Everyone wants to fuck me. That's why I fall off monkey bars. No strength left in arms."

Against her will, she started to grin through the tears.

"Are you seriously making fun of the fact that you're ditching me alone here?"

"If it works.." He rubbed her hand.

"I really hate you right now, you know that?"

"Yes, I know that too. I don't hate you. Dislike you, maybe."

When she didn't reply, they both sat quiet and listened to the beeping noise of the machinery for a while.

"I will stay until after your operation," he finally said.

Her fingers interlaced with his, and gave him a soft squeeze.

"Thanks."

Between good friends there was nothing more to say.


Author's note

Sorry about the mix-up with chapter 8 guys, I screwed the pooch, that's on me. A special thanks to the people who noticed this and let me know. They should be back in order now :) To show my appreciation, I'm gonna release another chapter. Enjoy!