The best benefit to serving on a cruiser class, she had found so far, was that she had access to a combat sim room. In fact, all soldiers were expected to log so many hours a week in it in order to keep their skills sharp. However, that was never a problem, as the turians seemed to thrive on combat. The sim room and the sparring ring were by far the favored places to find them.

The mission she had programmed in was nearly finished and her second round wasn't until later in the evening. Lily ducked as a bullet whizzed over her head. A grin crossed her face as she finished off the last batarian pirates from the program and stood up with a sigh. As she left the room, she nodded at the group of turians who entered.

She sat down on one of the benches to watch the sparring ring while she waited for her next turn in the rotation of the sim room. Currently, Garrus and another male turian were in the ring. She winced as Garrus took a blow, but it didn't seem to faze him. The pair of them were happily wailing on each other.

"What? You aren't waiting for a turn in the ring?" a familiar voice asked.

Lily smiled over at Corporal Roka. "No, Corporal, I think I'll wait until the crew is a little more comfortable with me. I'd hate to get in there with someone who wants to show the upstart human where her place should be. Besides, most of the moves I would use in a real fight aren't allowed in the ring."

Roka snorted, "Please, when we are off duty you can call me Ceryx. And what exactly would you do if it was for real?"

"I'm Lily, and ah, well, I'd grab hold of both mandibles and pull them apart as hard as I could. While they are reeling from that, well, you finish them off, preferably with a gun."

One hand flew up to cradle the mandible closest to her. "Ouch! That's just mean!"

"Like I said, I would only use that in a real fight, although I would prefer to shoot them before they got that close. Right now, I'm just watching my friend in the ring while I wait for my next round in the sim room."

"Oh? Which one is he?"

"The grey one with the blue colony paint."

Ceryx studied the one she had pointed out; he must be the friend from basic she had mentioned. He moved well in the ring; young and frankly, everything he was not. He tried not to let that get to him.

"You know, I have the sim room next, want to join me?" he asked.

"I'd love to."

"Any preferences?"

"Oh, surprise me. I haven't tried out all the different scenarios yet."

They didn't have too long of a wait before the room cleared once more and Lily and Ceryx could enter. She picked up her choices in the mock weapons and waited while he programmed their mission. The surroundings turned into a lush tropical forest, complete with exotic animal noises. She took up a spot behind a fallen log.

"Oh! I haven't tried this one yet. Who are we fighting?"

"It's a surprise," he said. He picked up an assault rifle and placed a pistol on his hip before he crouched down beside her.

Lily placed the sniper rifle up on the top of the log, ready for when the first wave of enemies showed up. Ceryx grinned at her and her first choice of weapon.

"So I get to be bait while you sit back here and snipe them all?"

"Don't worry, I'll protect your fragile engineer's ass," she said, giving him a grin of her own.

"Ha! I'll be saving your ass when they creep up on you. Damn snipers squeal when someone gets too close."

She gave a snort of derision. "I do not squeal. Squeak maybe, but never squeal."

He laughed and then out of the corner of his eye he caught the telltale shimmer of a geth hunter stalking towards them.

"Hunter on your right, Lily."

"Ooo geth!"

Her first shot stripped the machine of its cloaking shield and in a matter of seconds, a second one took the machine down. He tore his eyes away from watching her and glanced back at the field. He turned to find a trooper jogging towards them. He popped out of cover and sent several short bursts from his rifle until it dropped. They quickly fell into a rhythm as the speed of the enemies increased. She picked off what she could from a distance and he dealt with those that got close enough for him to take care of. He could see why she was one of the rare humans picked to serve on a turian ship. When the last one fell, he gave a disappointed hum.

"We should do this again sometime. I forgot how much fun it is to fight with someone."

"You know, I have the room next if you want to go again."

"How did you manage that?"

"Oh, when I put in my requests they both ended up on today's rotation."

"Sounds like fun. What are you going to program it for?"

"Oh, I figure I'll just put it on random and see what happens."

He groaned. "Spirits. If I remember right there are some really odd things available."

Lily opened the panel, put in her access code, and set the program on random. She had just turned back to Ceryx when the room's temperature suddenly dropped and the scene changed to a wintry forest. Snow crunched underfoot and the cold air blowing about them revealed their breath.

"AArrrggghh. This is fucking cold!" Ceryx said as he attempted to escape the wind by huddling behind a rock.

"Whose bright idea was it to put this in the machine?"

"Got to cover all possible scenarios," he muttered. "You do know we evolved in a far warmer climate, right?"

"Don't care much for the cold, eh?"

"That is an understatement," he muttered.

Lily set up her rifle on the rock beside Ceryx. From his hunched shoulders to the tightness of his mandibles against his face, every inch of him radiated discomfort.

"Sorry. I'd offer to buy you a cup of hot cocoa afterwards, but I can't even find one for myself."

He gave a soft sigh. "Repeat after me: 'I will not put the program on random ever again'."

She put a hand over her chest and said, "I solemnly swear, I will not put the program on random ever again."

He laughed for real at her words before turning his eyes to the field, waiting to see what enemies the machine would spew at them. He saw the first movement in the shadow of one of the trees.

"Lily, over there," he said as he pointed out the spot.

She sighted the shadow he had indicated and waited for what he had seen to appear. Not one, but two enemies moved back among the trees.

"Shit, I see at least two back in there, human and batarian."

"More coming from the other side. The program must have ratcheted the difficulty up a level!"

She kept her gun trained on the area as she waited until one of the shadows moved into her sight. Ceryx's fingers flew over the keyboard on his omni-tool, his back still hunched against the rock.

"There. I've got a few surprises ready to go."

"What do you have on there?"

"A defense drone and an overload program that will cause their guns to jam."

"Nice! Nothing like a little adrenaline to warm the body."

"I can think of better ways to get warm, but it will have to do," he murmured as he peered out over the rock.

Their opponents were sticking to the shadows for the moment, making their movements hard to track.

She wondered if she was missing something. Was there some subtle meaning in his sub-harmonics? Nothing else to do but ask, so she pulled back to look at him. "Were you, uh, flirting with me?"

He gave a soft laugh. "If you have to ask then I'm not doing it right."

Relief that she hadn't laughed or said something along the lines of 'not in an asari's lifetime' made his sub-harmonics hum with pleasure.

"Well, since I can't hear that whole second meaning you guys can do, I try to make sure I'm not misreading anything."

"I'm well aware of that. Perhaps you should shoot that guy over there before he shoots us."

"Crap!"

Lily returned her focus to the mission and soon got caught up in trying to stay ahead of the waves of enemies. The drone pulsed to life beside Ceryx, providing more cover fire for them. The pace quickened and they just barely kept ahead of the waves the program sent at them. Then just as abruptly as it had started, the program stopped, and a computer voice stated, 'mission completed'.

The room turned back into a non-descript gray box and they stood up stretching.

"You know, if this had been real...you would have had a snowball down your cowl," she told him with an impish grin.

Ceryx tried to maintain a scowl but instead he laughed at her expression.

"Noted, therefore I'll make sure never to be anywhere where there might be snow with you."

"It would be fun!"

"Right, because the feel of snow on my skin would make me so happy."

"It would! It's invigorating!"

"Somehow I think your tune would change if I dumped some down your shirt?"

She laughed. "Possibly."


Garrus looked around for Lily after he had finally finished all his matches. It was chance that had him looking into the sim room to see if she was in there. He was a little surprised to see a turian at her side as they fought through the enemies in a snowy landscape. A scenario no turian would willingly choose, so she must have invited him to join her. The program ended, but they didn't exit it right away; they stood talking for a moment before they made for the door.

They exited the room laughing, and Lily nearly ran into Garrus who had been watching at the window. She grinned up at him.

"Hey! How did your match go?"

"Oh, well, I moved up a ranking," Garrus said as he shrugged his shoulders. His eyes slid over to the turian at her side. He didn't remember seeing him around, but the ship was big. However, a barefaced turian would have stood out in his memory.

"Oh right, Garrus, this is Corporal Ceryx Roka. Ceryx, this is my friend from basic, Private Garrus Vakarian."

Ceryx tamped down on his disappointment. He knew that name. Titus Vakarian was a high-ranking turian and highly placed in C-Sec. Everyone knew not to get pulled in front of him while on shore leave.

The two of them mumbled a cordial hello under Lily's watchful eye. She smiled at them both.

"Well, thanks for the missions, Ceryx, and see you tomorrow."

"Anytime, Lily, I enjoyed it."

Lily walked off with a wave of her hand to them. It took a second for something to sink in for Garrus.

"Wait. She told you her first name?"

"Yeah. What's the big deal?" Ceryx asked, confusion laced through his sub-vocals.

"Because she refused to tell anyone for almost the whole year of basic. She only told me right before we left," Garrus replied gruffly.

Ceryx grinned, "Well, it was nice meeting you. Good night."

Those were the words he said, but Garrus heard the other man's pleasure at what he had told him. He wasn't sure why, but that bothered him.

He was still mulling over everything when he returned to the crew quarters. Lily was already in her bunk, a datapad in her hand. He stripped off his armor and stowed it. A bonk on his head brought his attention to the woman who slept above him.

"Your turn. Don't cry too hard."

He took the pad and crawled into his bunk to see what her move had been. Instead of thinking of the game, he was pondering why she had given the Corporal her first name.

"You told him your first name? I thought you hated it?"

"Turian ship, full of turians who wouldn't know what a lily was if I hit them in the face with one."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense. Ah, and I see you made a strategic error."

He rapped the edge of the bunk with the pad and she grabbed it from him.

She cackled in delight. "A-ha! You fell into my trap. I believe this game is mine."

The pad dropped back down to him and one glance confirmed she had indeed virtually guaranteed her win for this round.

"How about, whoever loses the most games has to buy dinner for the winner when we get our first shore leave? Well, assuming it is somewhere we can get decent food," he said.

"Oh, you better start saving now. I plan on having the biggest steak I can find, oh, and for dessert, one big ass hot fudge sundae."

"Ha! I'll be having the biggest plate of dyreng you have ever seen."

She leaned over to look at him with a grin on her face. "Considering I don't think I've ever seen a plate of dyreng, that will be a really small plate I think."

He smacked his forehead. "Fine, it will be the biggest plate of dyreng I've ever seen."

"Better work on your game then, turian."

"Don't get too cocky, human."

~Thanks to Mordinette for all her work as my beta and thank you to the readers for your enthusiasm for this story. Thank you, I appreciate it!~