Despite the rough conditions, I managed to sleep for all of five hours within that stuffy bunk, so that was definitely some sort of victory for me. Apart from some shuffling on Nya's end, the cramped room remained relatively silent during that period. Upon my waking, I found myself the sole person to occupy the area, Nya apparently having left when I was still dozing. Trying to find ways to keep my mind from becoming bored, I dinked around on my omni-tool for half an hour, looking at missed messages and playing a few games of sudoku before I decided to rise from my bunk and take a look around.

The rebreather was still around my face, the skin now feeling raw where the suction from the mask created an airtight seal. Chafing was a killer and I had no moisturizing cream on me. Thankfully, I would only have to wear this for one more day, then after that I could finally chuck this damn thing into the nearest waste receptacle. I was not going to complain while in company, but there is definitely a good reason why people do not like to wear rebreathers constantly.

Once I sat up, however, I had to bend over in such a fashion to avoid bonking my head on the next rung of the bunk, but that in turn caused me to wince as a jolt of stiffness emanated from my torso. I cursed under my breath and lifted my shirt slightly so that I could take a good look at the small mass of white scar tissue just to the left of my navel – the last remnant of my gunshot wound. Sighing, I began to massage the sensitive lump. That injury would probably never be the same, and although most of the damage had been repaired, there had still been too much trauma on some of my nerve endings which caused the area to have a lessened threshold for touch sensitivity. It also flared up if I put pressure on it the wrong way – nothing major, but simply irritating when the injury decided to make its presence obvious.

Just then, the door slid open and Nya walked in with two food tubes, humming a light ditty. She stopped in her tracks as she immediately spotted the blazing white scar imprinted into my skin as I still continued to lift my shirt. I felt like a deer in front of headlights as Nya stared at me for a bit, a little anxious at being scrutinized so closely. Maybe if she said something so that I could know what she was thinking, then I would not have to be concerned at all.

"Whoa," she breathed, giving away a curious vibe on her end as she continued to stare at my scar. "How did you get that?"

"Gun shot," I answered matter-of-factly, surprising myself with how nonchalant I was. After enough time, it was apparent that I had transitioned from taking such an event like my attempted murder seriously to a droll and light-hearted manner that oozed an air of 'Don't worry about it.'

"And I thought I was the one with the monopoly on scars," Nya murmured as she set the two food tubes on the desk between us.

"You never were," I smirked. "I had garnered this before I even met you." I let my shirt fall dawn and flashed Nya a sheepish grin directly. "Shows how much rotten luck I had. And before you ask, no, I don't recall how it happened."

"Not even a little bit?"

"The best guess that the doctors and I could come up with was that I had accumulated some sort of amnesia with regards to the trauma, causing me not to remember the event entirely." That was a half-truth, seeing as my consciousness as of now had not inhabited this body at the time I was shot. "Took a few zaps to stabilize my heart and a dose of medi-gel to seal the wound."

"Well, it's better than having a doctor cut you open just so he can cauterize a puncture in a deflated lung all the while fumbling about in your central chest cavity. Thank the Ancestors I was out cold for that."

I bit my lip. "Yikes. Were you able to see the aftermath of the surgery when you awoke?"

"Yeah," Nya nodded. "It was just an incision right here." She traced a line going straight down the middle of her body, just below her breasts. "Tiny little thing. I almost hit the doctors for making such a big deal out of what looked like a small, insignificant cut. Apparently it was necessary otherwise I would have started to drown in my own blood or go into cardiac arrest from high blood pressure. So, thanks again for that."

Rather sheepishly, I looked away. "I just did what I thought was right," I mumbled, fully knowing that my subconscious was roaring in laughter at my expense. I lightly tapped my own wound. "You had it far worse than me, though, and getting shot is not exactly considered to be a slight injury at all."

Nya cocked her head. "Not that much splash damage, from what I could tell on you. The scarring seemed to be rather neat and clean. Shields took the brunt of the impact, correct?"

I raised an eyebrow and nodded. "You hit the nail right on the head," I said before I realized that the idiom probably would not register for quarians. "Uh, I mean yes, that's right. Pretty good eye for that sort of thing. Perhaps your skills extend far beyond piloting," I said admiringly. "You seem to have the aptitude for medicine at least. Have you ever considered that as a career?"

Nya uttered a series of polite laughs. "Oh, not a chance," she said in amusement. "Piloting's way too much fun for me to give that up. Plus, I'm not a fan of having to deal with blood and guts all the time. Had I known that we were going to discuss this the first thing when you woke up, I should have held off in bringing you breakfast."

"No, it's fine," I grinned tightly as I reached for my food tube – I was starving at this point so even the mush in the clear cylindrical container looked somewhat appealing. "But being a doctor doesn't mean you have to work with sewing up stab wounds or pushing someone's intestines back into their abdomen. Take for example what I want to do – I'm only going to be dealing with repairing muscles, ligaments, and cartilage which, admittedly, is going to involve epidermal incisions, but the procedures themselves are very safe and less gory than having to deal with all the crap in the middle." I waved my hand about my torso for emphasis. "Put it this way, if you were having any heart palpitations or digestive troubles, I would be the last person you would want to be operating on you."

We both shared a light chuckle before I inserted the wide straw into my own food tube and slotted it in through a tiny port at the base of my rebreather. I took my first draw of the nutrient paste and let the taste of the substance sink into the taste buds of my tongue before I swallowed. I was careful not to make too much of a disgusted look, but I still was unable to hide my feelings for the food. The paste itself had the consistency of refried beans but the taste was far less pleasurable. It was slightly sour with a bitter edge, yet there was amazingly little flavor.

Nya actually seemed to be amused at my reaction. "I know. Terrible, right?"

"It's…interesting," I lied poorly. "I don't really know what I was expecting, but I can say with certainty that I've had much worse before."

"Well, on the flotilla it's all we can safely eat with what our current stocks of food allow. I'm sorry that we could only give you this to eat, though."

"No, no!" I quickly waved my hand, now feeling immeasurably guilty. "Don't apologize for things out of your control. I'm not trying to appear ungrateful – I actually really appreciate the hospitality you've shown me. In fact," I added, "I don't even think I've properly thanked you yet for showing me around the other day. Really, I enjoyed your company, so…thank you."

Based on how Nya's back straightened, I don't think she was expecting me to be this effusive towards her. You'd think that no one had ever paid her a compliment in her life. Christ, what a messed up galaxy this was.

"O-Oh…" Nya faltered like she had just awoken from a deep sleep. "You're…you're welcome."

I smiled to give some backbone to my words, trying to make sure that everything that I did put Nya at ease. We had both run out of things to say for the time being so we delegated ourselves to eat our tubes of paste in silence. It was weird if I took a mental step backwards to look past what I could see with my own eyes. Here was a human sharing a meal with an alien in her own room on board a spaceship in some godforsaken quadrant of the galaxy. If someone were to take a picture of this moment and send it back to 2015, I'd imagine that it would be considered a groundbreaking moment for humanity. For me, this was a normal as things could get.

I don't think that I ever could have predicted just how accustomed I would become to a universe like this in such a short time span. I mean, nothing really surprised me greatly anymore these days. I had gone from spending my days nodding off in college classrooms to flying around in the far reaches of space that could have only been glimpsed by telescopes in the past and engaging in extended casual communication with people of various races other than my own. You really can't get more far out than that. Was this why I had the ability to be sent here? Because I could adapt very well to my environment, whatever the circumstances?

Was I the only one like this in all of existence?

Not wanting to be rude, I polished off the contents of the tube, managing to hold back my grimace as I swallowed the last of the foul paste down. Wish I had some water to wash it out. In contrast, Nya seemed to at least tolerate her own food with little discomfort. Figures, given that it would be all she's eaten for all her life. Now I was imagining her reaction if she were to try out bacon for the first time. Such a strongly flavored food like that would probably be overwhelming to someone with as diluted taste buds as Nya's – having been forced to consume gruel all her life. After all, everyone loves bacon. My guess that she would be moved to tears upon a first tasting and I made a mental note to look up dextro alternatives to bacon when I got back home. Just a bit of light reading for the time being.

"Can I ask you a question?" Nya asked after she set her empty tube down.

"Why yes, they're real," I replied airily and had a good giggle at Nya's predictably confused reaction. "Sorry, bad joke. Sure, you can ask me a question."

The quarian crossed her legs as she adjusted her position. "You made it clear earlier that you have some piloting experience and I just wanted to know for what ships. I mean, your ship that my people are fixing right now, it's just a yacht that can be driven by any autopilot. It's not the most maneuverable or the most powerful model available, so I don't think that it's your go-to ship for piloting."

"And you'd be right," I said. "I just use the yacht when I want to spend long periods away from home. Usually, when I'm feeling an adrenaline rush, I'll take out my sport cruiser – a Cuval 8311-XHT – and-,"

"Sorry," Nya interrupted. "A Cuval?"

"Yeah, why?"

Nya's eyes visibly widened. "It's just…I've always liked the design and specs of Cuvals. They're great for joyriding – not the most powerful on the market – but definitely very fun ships to fly from what I've heard. My people are great ship-builders…or were, but you can't beat turian-designed craft."

"Well," I reclined, "the next time you're out near the Citadel I'll let you take it for a spin."

"Seriously?" Nya gaped.

"Seriously. You've been at the piloting game for longer than I have so I wouldn't mind letting someone more experienced than I put that thing through the motions. You probably know a few crazy moves that I'm not privy to, I'll wager."

Nya's head tilted before she leapt to her feet, her eyelids slanted in anticipation. "Follow me," she beckoned and walked out the door. Quizzical, I dutifully obeyed and walked down the usual maze of cavernous halls and dusty airlocks. We finally came to a set of double doors, behind which was a maroon-suited quarian sitting on a stack of crates, apparently managing the entrance to a separate room beyond. The quarian was initially glancing at a holoscreen on the wall, which projected some sort of foreign sports program that I could not name off the top of my head. Based on the static marring the picture, I could guess that the only kind of content quarians could receive way out in space were pirated extranet signals. On the other hand, it probably saved them the trouble of having to deal with any telecom companies and their nefarious penny-pinching deals.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"A pilgrim about two years ago came back with some very useful technology that we implemented once we accumulated all the parts according to the specifications," Nya said, building up to the answer. "That technology went towards the production of engineering an industrial-grade flight simulator which we installed on a few ships – with technicians programming in extra scenarios to add to the experience every so often. Pilots need to log required hours on it before they can receive a suitable grade. That way, new trainees don't get to risk actual ships and they can refine their skills on a virtual craft."

The process was almost identical to the training airplane pilots had to go through, I noticed. Simulators had been all the rage back in my day because they presented significantly less risk rather than handing a rookie the keys to a jumbo jet and hoping for the best. The beauty of technology was that it promoted safety and it was remarkable just how alike the ideas of separate cultures turned out to be.

She then walked up to the guard, cleared her throat and said, "Hello. I was wondering if I could borrow the simulator for half an hour today, please."

Nya was up on her manners, I could certainly give her that. Unfortunately, they seemed to be lost on her fellow shipmate. With a disinterested grunt, he could not even spare her the courtesy of looking directly at her. "Sorry. Everything's booked up for the day."

Something about that man's tone told me that he was lying, but Nya's shoulders slumped in disappointment like she actually believed the man. That wasn't fair – she had been anxious to show me something on the simulator only for her to get locked out of actually doing it. Apprehensive, I looked out into the room beyond to see for myself. I certainly don't know what that other quarian was talking about, but I could see a beige pod of sorts supported by a hydraulic rig with a pair of steps leading into a cramped inner chamber. The door to the simulator was thrown wide open, revealing absolutely no one inside. Completely booked? Yeah, right.

What was insane about this was that Nya did not seem like she was going to protest this obviously erroneous claim. I made a strangled cough of incredulity, making sure that the word "bullshit" could be heard by the man, but not to Nya. The guard glanced up and gave a start, kind of like he had no idea that I had existed before until now. He caught my cold stare (of which Nya could not see because I was standing behind her) and managed to glean from just that look that I was not buying the horse crap out of his mouth.

"Actually," the man corrected himself as he activated his omni-tool and thumbed through a most likely unrelated page, "I do believe that the simulator has an opening for a full hour right now. They…uh…the appointees canceled at the last minute."

"Huh. That's certainly convenient," I said in a light tone, not caring how unsubtle I was.

"I'll say," Nya said. "I was about to think that I had built all this up for nothing."

She had actually believed the man's statements in the beginning. Poor thing.

The simulator was a bitch to get into, though. Nya was able to clamber in easily due to her limber frame but the fact that I was a bit broader than her due to my larger human proportions, which admittedly were already big to begin with (not saying that I'm fat), made my attempts to sit in the co-pilot's seat to be a bit of a faff. By the end, I had banged the top of my legs several times while maneuvering into position, wound up with a sore bottom from where I had sat upon the wrong object, and Nya was next to me unsuccessfully trying to stifle her laughs.

"Am I just that entertaining?" I asked mirthlessly.

"I'm…s…s…sorry!" Nya burst out between peals of laughter. She looked ready to apologize again before I joined in with chuckles of my own. They say laughing at your own expense is good for you, you know.

"All right," I grumbled as I began to buckle up my safety belt. "Let's get this show on the road. How does this thing work, anyway?"

Nya's hands were a blaze as they skimmed over a holographic console that just ignited, bathing the pod in a fiery orange glow. She hit the door control, sealing us inside and making the warm light ever more apparent. A menu screen then popped up on the wall, displaying to us the settings of the scenario that Nya was currently readying.

"So, what this does is create a realistic simulation of any type of ship," Nya explained. "The pod itself is designed to give off some semblance of acceleration, despite the fact that every craft has dampeners on it, for those seeking…a little more thrill. I think we'll go with that today, sound good to you?"

"Hey, whatever you want," I shrugged.

"Fantastic. Now, did you want a slower sort of simulation or one with lots of action?"

"It's all up to you. Pick one that you feel best allows you to show off."

"Fast-paced action it is. Um…you might want to hold on."

"Hold…on?" I was perplexed until panic set in unexpectedly. "Wait! When is the simulation start-motherfu-!"

Without warning, Nya yanked at a control, causing the housing of the simulator to vibrate harshly as the simulation began instantaneously. The sensation reminded me a lot of those motion simulator rides they had at every amusement park, only this one had much better graphics, mechanisms, and was more intuitive with its scope of control. The screen flared to life, barely showing the rigging of a nearby cruiser before a flash of a virtual explosion materialized in front of the faux viewport. Great, now I'm in a video game world playing a video game. Gulping, I clutched at the armrests as Nya expertly banked the "craft" to the right, evading the rush of oncoming enemy fire from fixed weapons emplacements. Crystalline shards of hull glinted in front of the canopy, sparkling and tumbling in the zero gravity. Squinting my eyes in terror, I could only see the rush of stars skimming by my view until Nya leveled the simulator out, revealing the setting for the engagement.

All I could see was a landscape on fire. Ships were parked so close to each other it seemed like a passenger could reach out and touch their neighbor. And every single one of them was cratered and pockmarked by weapons fire. Multicolored beams of boiling plasma zipped by, creating a tangled web of destruction. I could not tell which ships belonged to whom, but it was only after one of the closer cruisers sent a couple of virtual missiles in our direction did I get a vague sense of who the bad guys were.

"Uh…" I began as Nya sent the craft into a series of complex loops to throw off the missiles' tracking systems. "What exactly is the objective here?"

"Simple," she said tightly, concentrating entirely on flying. "Hold out for two minutes and don't get shot."

"And what happens if you do get shot? I mean, obviously we aren't going to die, but how does the simulator take that into account?"

Nya took a second to respond as she whipped the craft into a corkscrew while raking her main guns across the prow of a passing fighter in an admirable maneuver, causing its fuel tank to rupture and detonate. "Well…the simulator is programmed to punish failure, so the seats will electrocute you for a short period of time. You don't have any heart problems, do you?"

My face dropped what felt like a meter. I have a perfectly healthy heart, mind you, but in no shape or form would I have signed up for this had I known that an electric current would be passing through my body. For a few pulse-pounding seconds, I forgot the televised battle, the rumble of the simulator, and the bass rumble of distant explosions in my eardrums.

Finally taking a glance at my horrified expression, Nya gave a bout of delightful laughter. "Just kidding!"

Exhaling in relief, I clenched my jaw shut as Nya resumed her expert piloting, skimming in between pylons and hitting crucial points on enemy dreadnoughts. "Not funny!" I called out.

"Come on, you have to admit it was at least a little funny!"

"Only at my expense!" I retorted before I bit back a strangled curse as Nya deliberately dove through a ball of fire of what had previously been a fellow wingman. "Somehow I'm getting the idea that you're flying so brazenly just to get a reaction out of me."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Nya wheedled.

She then sent our craft straight down a trench of what I could tell was a geth ship, evading turret fire from above. With a series of quick commands, we skimmed through the metal canyon, barely missing jagged barebones structures of exposed interior pieces. Nya fired a couple of missiles down the lane, careening them into an ion oscillator at the exact same time a nearby turret fired, causing the projectiles to drop underneath the shields at the precise moment. A brilliant explosion of blue and yellow blossomed from the impact site and Nya hurtled us sharply to the left to escape the conflagration. Before I knew it, the timer in the corner of the screen ticked down to zero and the craft jumped effortlessly into the swirly blue expanse of FTL speeds.

It was over. Nya had done it.

"Well, that was fun," she said as she stretched her limbs out in victory. I don't think she had even broken out in a sweat. I, meanwhile, was still clamping down onto my stiff seat, my muscles tight from nervousness.

"Talk about visceral," I croaked. "They really went all out in the realism department."

"Of course I doubt that there will ever be as big of a battle in real life as the simulation depicted, but it's good practice just in case that eventuality does arise. Do you want to give it a try?"

"I…what?" I said, certain that I had misheard her. This was unexpected.

"Go right ahead!" she urged as her fingers blurred at the keyboard once again, setting up the console for the main controls to be projected in front of my seat this time.

I balked as I struggled to make sense of the situation. This was like being handed the keys to a Ferrari when all you've been driving for your whole life was a Toyota. This was a simulation for a military craft, not some joyriding glider – those were two very different animals. As such, I was having trouble finding the proper button that started the damn thing.

"How do I…?"

"Oh, let me get that for you," Nya leaned over and flicked a control near the top.

The screen booted up once again, giving me access to the starry backdrop. I found the control for the throttle and gingerly edged it forward. Obviously it was more sensitive than I realized because the craft shot out of the hangar like someone lit its ass on fire. Yelping in alarm, I hastily tried to bank the craft around but again, I had underestimated the sensitivity of the controls. Instead of a gentle pan, the craft whirled on a dime and rocketed directly towards the side of a ship that I had not even seen coming. I had little time to throw up my hands in reflex before the virtual nose of the ship crumpled in a split second only to be consumed by a blistering wave of flame. The screen abruptly darkened and the controls blinked in reset.

"I…think that could have gone better," I mumbled timidly.

"Obviously," Nya chuckled. "You died."

This was a blow to my pride, not because Nya was laughing at me, but because I had failed so spectacularly. I used to be a casual gamer a few years ago and, by extension, this was simply a giant video game. That sort of pedigree was apparently not enough to earn me the skills to succeed here, as evident by my pathetic run. Not even thirty seconds had passed before I had flown the craft into a battleship the size of Hawaii. You can't get more pathetic than that.

"I want another go," I said as I flipped the switch once more.

The screen reset for a third time and I made sure that all of my movements with the craft were done in millimetric increments. That didn't help as my jerky reactions to the sudden chaos enveloping the area around me were wreaking havoc with my otherwise calmer flying style.

"Someone's got a lock on you," Nya piped up as a caution symbol began to flare up. "Evade. Evade."

"How?!" I groaned as I clumsily began to put the ship in a dive. In no way were my movements as precise as Nya's, but it was all I could do to prevent from being smashed into paste at any moment. Miraculously, I passed between the spread of a turbolaser grouping, barely evaded a head-on collision with a geth squadron, but still the missile headed on course for me. "Should I try spinning?" I asked before I sarcastically added, "That's a good trick."

"Begin a reverse loop when the missile is two kilometers out," Nya said helpfully. "That way the missile's tight beam will momentary lose its lock on you, allowing an escape."

Grimacing, I held down the trigger button and felt a rewarding burst of pleasure as the guns raked open the hull of an enemy troop carrier and puncturing the propellant lines. Purple flames streaked out momentarily before the lack of oxygen snuffed them out, but the shuttle itself was dead in the water. I guess this round won't be a shut-out like my last effort.

I glanced at the time. Only thirty six seconds had passed. Eighty-four more to go, oh joy.

However, when I was looking at the time, I had failed to notice that the missile had closed the gap at an alarming rate. Panicked, I yanked the yoke back just like Nya said, beginning the process of a loop. The stars whizzed by and I started to feel the onset of motion sickness creeping up on me.

"Ah, too early, Sam," Nya clucked.

Jesus, I should have asked for an easier module. There were so many things that I needed to account for that my brain was overloaded with stimuli. It also didn't help that my loop somehow took me perilously close to the side of a nearby carrier – perhaps a bit too close for comfort. The simulator made a nasty shudder as all I could see for a terrifying second was the gray blur from the hull only to shy away to present back to me the view of the stars. Only this time, the craft began acting erratically, now corkscrewing without any input from me. The rate of spins was only increasing and I was feeling sicker than ever.

"I think you sheared your wing off," Nya commented in amusement. Even though I was making a hash out of flying this thing, she was still uncannily calm. I, on the other hand, was dripping sweat and terrified out of my paltry mind trying to make sense out of my surroundings.

Even though it would have helped nothing, I shut my eyes so that I would not throw up from all the spinning, but not before I saw the head of a blue-streaked missile head directly for the canopy only to detonate spectacularly. As the simulator righted itself, I slumped at the reprieve.

Nya was clutching her stomach from laughing so hard at watching my intense reactions. Even though I could hardly muster the courage to laugh along with her, I was glad that we were able to do this together. It was nice to hear laughter from Nya, knowing what she had been through and that she rarely got to share experiences like this with anyone else.

Once my clamminess died down, we extricated ourselves from the simulator (I had to work a bit to get out) and exited with all smiles. As we strode by the guard though, I glanced at him and expected him to give a passing comment in regards to our departure. Instead, he seemed completely rapt with attention at watching his pirated channels. Taking a moment to glance at the screen, I stopped in my tracks as I realized exactly what I was looking at.

The scenes of devastation being projected were not from a movie or our simulation recordings, but from an actual broadcast. Even distorted, I could still pick out the familiar scenery of the Citadel and just how ravaged it was. Recorded stills showed that trees had been toppled near the embassies – their trunks splintered, windows along storefronts were smashed from weapons fire, and apparently someone had parked a Mako tank near one of the elevator bays for some reason – and it had been rolled. It looked like the Presidium had been turned into a war zone and not even the Citadel Tower had been spared from the havoc. The sculpture in the middle of the water feature was ruined, completely smashed to bits. A few sparse fires smoldered next to gigantic pieces of what appeared to be a ship. The big window that ordinarily served as the barrier for the Council meetings was completely broken – most likely caused from the previously seen debris casually slamming into the side of the tower. Right then, I knew that the destruction that I had deliberately been avoiding had finally occurred on board the station. The Reapers had made their presence known to the galaxy and that Commander Shepard's journey had only begun. A victory at the moment, but only the start of the war to come.

"What happened?" I asked anyway, trying to make it seem like I was clueless to the current (or should I say future) events.

"You didn't hear?" Well, of course we didn't. We were in the simulator the whole time, genius. "The Citadel was attacked," the guard mumbled in awe. "They aren't sure, but some reports say it was the geth."

"Geth?" Nya was horrified. "Why would geth attack the Citadel?" She walked in front of me to get a better view.

"No idea," I lied. "Shit…I could have been killed if I stuck around there."

I definitely was not going to win any Academy Award for acting, but Nya's attention was so focused on the possibility that her people's hellspawn had finally risen up and wreaked havoc upon the civilized galaxy that she did not catch the obvious clues that I was projecting.

She stumbled backwards and laid a hand on my arm for support. "I…I…I'd better check in with the captain. I need to know what our plan is going to be if the geth were really involved."

"I'll wait for you back at your room, then," I patted her hand for assurance. "It sounds like it'd be best if I got out of the way for a bit."

"Right. I don't know when I will be back, though."

"I'm the unexpected guest, remember? You don't need to revolve your schedule around me. Take all the time you need."

Nya gave a thankful nod of her head before she bustled off down the corridor to the left. I headed in the opposite direction, back towards the lift that lead to the living quarters. In the small box of privacy, I allowed myself a small smile of knowing. If I remembered the games correctly, I probably would not have to embark on a journey like this for quite some time. Everything was proceeding according to plan and I could breathe easily for the moment. I evaded potential death and now I had at least a couple years before the next ugly conflict could rear its head.

Little did I know that the next ugly conflict would rear its head in approximately three minutes.

I was on my way back to Nya's room, hands in my pockets, gaze flitting from one quarian to the next as I passed them by, with my mind rather blank at forming whatever opinions I had toward the subject that I was currently musing over. Perhaps that was why I was so susceptible and distracted when I should have seen the next series of events coming.

Reaching the door to her room, I hit the switch for the entryway to open and as soon as it slid to allow me passage, I could feel a pair of footsteps resonate on the metal grate behind me but I foolishly disregarded them as belonging to a passerby. Two three-fingered hands then placed themselves firmly on my back and gave a hard shove, sending me sprawling to the ground and almost causing me to break my neck as I landed just inches away from the desk. My forearms felt raw as they were skinned and my knees jolted painfully.

Snarling, I groped at the sides of the bunk to haul myself up, but a kick to my ribs sent me down again, stunned. The hands groped at my shoulder to turn me around and I hissed in response as a familiar, green-tinted visor returned my furious stare.

"Vhen!" I grimaced. "What the fuck?!"

The quarian punched my gut, a cheap shot. It produced the effect he was intending, which was for me to painfully rasp as the wind was knocked out of me. Even though he was smaller than me, he sure had a lot of strength in him.

"Don't think that I don't know what you're trying to do," Vhen growled, trying to be menacing. "I'm not as stupid as you think."

Coughing and spluttering, I screwed up my face in confusion. "What the fuck are you talking about, you lunatic?!"

Vhen now grabbed at the collar of my shirt, bringing my face closer to his visor. Looking back, I'm sure that I could have laid the man out with a few answering blows of my own, but I was still too incapacitated and befuddled to even consider mounting an attack against him.

"What am I talking about? I'm not being cryptic, we both know what's going on here."

"Then enlighten me," I hissed as I put a hand over my ribs, where I was sure a bruise was now forming. "I'm quickly losing patience with you."

"You've already lost mine," Vhen retorted acidly. "I don't need to explain myself to the likes of you, so I'm going to tell you this just once: stay away from Nyareth."

I think I busted my gut in uttering my hysterical laughter after a pregnant pause. Of course, since it was all wheezing on my end, it sounded like steam escaping from a kettle.

"That wasn't supposed to be funny," Vhen was not amused.

"No, it wasn't," I agreed while wincing from my aching ribs. "You just don't know how ridiculous you sound, kid."

Vhen uttered a string of words in his native language before he shook me hard. "Don't you dare call me a kid! I'm twenty years old, bosh'tet!"

I slapped his hands away. "I've got five years on you, junior. You're just as immature as a teen pop star. Tell me this, why the fuck should I stay away from Nya just because you, of all people, said so?"

If I could see beyond the visor, I would have observed that Vhen's face turned a nasty shade of red. He then gave my face an open slap that was meant to be insulting than injuring before he delivered a kick to my shins. Now thoroughly annoyed, I took a swipe at him to drive him off and the quarian jumped back, evading my half-hearted blow.

"N…Nya?" the man uttered in a whisper. "You're…you're on a nickname basis with her?" Before I could suitably respond, Vhen gave a keening roar and punched the wall next to him. I finally stood up from the floor, uncertain on how to proceed. I was still not sure if Vhen had gone completely mad as of yet. "How? How can it be that she has opened up to you more than she ever has with me in less than a day!?"

"I don't know," I responded mockingly. "Maybe it's because you're an asshole?"

He then pointed an accusatory finger at me. "You're just trying to take her for yourself! You're a human and that means you're just going to end up hurting her!"

I sighed and crossed my arms in exasperation. "Does your ass get jealous of all the shit that comes out of your mouth? You've got some issues, boy. I've met rednecks less racist than you and that's just sad! Despite what you may think, most humans are not the type to deliberately take advantage of their hosts, I assure you. Besides, why should you care about Nya anyway?"

"Because I love her!" Vhen hissed as he took a step closer, his hands pounding on his chest. "I'm the one who loves her and she's given you more attention than me! How is that fair?!"

I think that my face transitioned from shock, to confusion, to incredulity, and to utter skepticism in the span of five seconds. Whatever reaction or utterance Vhen was expecting, it probably was not the cross between a choke and a gag that came from me as I attempted to laugh and breathe at the same time. In retrospect, it was hilarious. At the moment, it was not.

"You…you?" I repeated in a high-pitched voice before I coughed again. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Does it sound like I'm joking?"

"I can't tell if you're hopelessly deluded or that…" I blanked as an idea just came to me. "Ah. I see now. It all makes sense now."

"What makes sense?"

"The attitude, the abuse, the constant insults towards her. It's so obvious. You're negging Nya."

Vhen blinked. "Negging? What is that?"

Huh. Either that did not translate correctly or it was a word that only humans had in their vocabulary. "Negging, you uncultured dunce. It's a courting strategy where you try to undermine someone in a backwards way to make them more vulnerable to their advances. That explains why you've been rude to her all this time. As a child of an exile, Nya apparently has been friendless and you thought that you could position yourself appropriately by ruining her self-esteem even more. That way, with you the only person willing to communicate with her, albeit in a negative fashion, she would feel drawn to your presence."

"I don't see how that makes any difference. Her bloodline is tainted and I believe that I'm helping her by being the only friend she-,"

"Why don't you shut the fuck up right now?" I interrupted savagely. "You're just trying to justify your manipulative tactics when in fact you are already doomed to fail as such psychological fashions have been proven to backfire tremendously. Your strategy is not going to work no matter how much you try to convince yourself otherwise. Nya doesn't like you, kid. Already I can see that she's not someone who can be easily manipulated emotionally. I've observed a portion of the hardships that she's had to face and your insulting attitude is not going to tip her over the edge. You're only making yourself look more despicable in her eyes. Actually, if you want my honest opinion, whoever's willing to fuck you is just too lazy to jerk off."

The multiple disparaging comments finally did the trick. Vhen shoved me hard against the side of the bunk and leaned in so close that, if he was not helmeted, I would be able to feel his breath on my face.

"She will not sleep with you, do you hear me?!" he quietly growled. "I swear, if I see you with her again, I will kill you."

It was odd, interpreting this sequence of events. For one, Vhen's general attitude angered me to no end, so that was strike one. Strike two was his physical violence aimed in my direction, not to mention the threat of future assaults leveled at me. Like most people, I don't really take kindly to people threatening to kill me, especially if the one threatening me is a hormone riddled young man just out of his teens with a stick up his ass. And there was strike three, which was a doozy. Vhen was implying erroneously that my entire motive to spending time with Nya (which had not been completely my choice, mind you) was under the pretense that I could sleep with her. What a crock of horseshit. The outrage flooding my brain was rightfully deserved.

Perhaps it was the fact that Vhen was implying that I (and, in his eyes, Nya) could fall for someone in less than a day that was unbelievable, or maybe it was that I could somehow fall for a quarian at all. To hell with the quarian part actually, falling for anyone at this point, especially for me, was a concept so outlandish and so potentially devastating due to the fact that I could be breaking my own personal promise that I reacted with shock and anger.

Forget about me not trying to get involved with the main plot. This went way beyond that in a deeply private way. Something within me stirred, horrifying me to my core. Energy welled up from the fissure, surging through my muscles and into my hot blood.

Positioning my arms underneath Vhen's, I pushed hard against the quarian's chest so powerfully that he was practically thrown back out into the hallway. He did not fall, but stumbled so severely that it looked like he would tip over at any precarious second. I followed with my arms raised, ready to deck him, and Vhen scrambled back timidly. It was interesting, now that he had lost the upper hand, Vhen seemed smaller and more scared than he was when he was threatening me. Not so tough now that I was swinging the bigger stick, eh? He seemed to be weighing the options of taking me on in a fight as he had combat training, but I was bigger and had more power with my blows.

I expected Vhen to run. What I did not expect was for him to bellow at the top of his lungs, "Guards!"

Instantly, I found myself surrounded by five quarian soldiers who had seemingly appeared out of thin air. They leveled a variety of weapons at me and I could tell that they were not playing around. The random pedestrians that had been ambling about in the corridor at this time halted in their tracks, naturally drawn to the commotion. Vhen took the time to slink off behind the marines while they formed a circle around me. One of them shouted for me to put my hands up and I reluctantly complied.

"All right," I muttered in a semi-snarky manner. "All right. So that's how it's going to be."

"Corporal, explain the situation." one of the marines said to Vhen.

"The human here assaulted me," Vhen said snidely – like he was proud of having an excuse to rat me out. "He would have done serious damage to me had you not shown up. Arrest him!"

"You piece of shit," I blurted out, forgetting that anything I said could be used against me at this point.

The marine's gaze never wavered, nor his weapon. "We have no jurisdiction over the human, corporal. Did anyone else see what happened?"

Vhen balked. "Well…no. It all happened in the room over there."

"Then it's hearsay and we have no recordings to prove anything. Anyway, we have a report from the engineer crew that this human's ship has been repaired and the credit transfer has completed successfully. Legally, without definitive evidence we cannot hold the human against his will. All we can do at this point is send him off away from the fleet in his ship."

"Fine," Vhen dusted his hands. "Works for me."

Two marines moved to take my arms and frog-march me back to the hangar. But we had hardly gone five feet before a familiar voice piped up from the back of the growing crowd.

"Wait!"

The marines turned, giving me a clear view of the woman who was pushing her way through the mass of bodies. Vhen moved in an attempt to block Nya but she handily shouldered him out of the way, but not before the other soldiers deliberately stepped in front of her way.

"Let go of him!" she urged to her fellow shipmates. "This human is no danger to any of you."

"This crewmember of yours says different," the lieutenant shrugged as he tilted his head in Vhen's direction.

Nya looked at me, her eyes silently pleading for an explanation. Vhen stepped forward to recount his false version of the story but Nya never so much as gave him a glance.

I lifted my hands in defeat, but never looked away. "It won't make any difference what I tell them, Nya. Their minds appear to be made up already."

"This human is a liar," Vhen loudly accused. "He is dangerous, volatile, and should be removed from the Xonna at once."

"Be quiet, Vhen," Nya silenced as she forced her way through the blockade of marines. She walked up to one of the soldiers holding me and pried his hand off my arm with a rather strong grip. The other soldier backed off and Nya looked up at me expectantly. Right then I could tell that she knew that my version of events, even though they had been unspoken, were representative of the truth. We were both all too aware of Vhen's reputation to take anything he said seriously and I admired the dedication and trust. "You didn't strike him first, Sam!" she whispered to me. "You have to tell them!"

I shook my head determinedly. "I'll be fine, Nya. It's not that big a deal. They're not going to execute me or anything like that so I'm not going to bother damaging any more relationships than I have to."

"But you can't just let Vhen do this to you!"

Oh, but I can. Nya did not realize it yet, but this would only give her more reasons to dislike Vhen. Perhaps this was the moment when she would come to hate him. I knew this – but everyone else was blind to the fact. In any case, Vhen's plans would never come to fruition and all I would have had to deal with was a bit of public humiliation. If I left here today, Vhen would lose his ultimate goal and I would win from his failure.

"They're not going to budge on their stance. I'd rather comply with them and leave peacefully. Don't get involved, Nya, please. I'd hate to see someone like you get dragged into this."

Nya pounded my arm miserably. "It's not fair! You didn't do anything wrong! They can't just separate us – not when I just met you!"

That gave me a pang. I knew very well where Nya was coming from. She had left her parents behind when she came to the fleet for the first time. I had lost my sister from circumstances outside my control. We both knew what it was like to be deprived of people close to us. I might have been the one person in years that she had opened up to like this and now we were being forcefully pulled apart once more. I guess I had finally met someone in this galaxy that has had just of a tumultuous past as me.

"Don't worry," I patted her hand, feeling her trembling through the suit. "Knowing our luck, there will be another opportunity for us to meet." I gave her a warm smile. "If you ever make it back to the Citadel, just let me know and I'll find you."

Nya, to her everlasting credit, did not even seem close to crying. No, she was too self-controlled to show such strong emotions in front of strangers. In response though, she raised her arm, glowing from the omni-tool wreathed around it, and held it near my left arm. A light on the back of my hand flashed orange once, then green. Nya's omni-tool deactivated and she lowered her arm back to her side.

"What was that?" I asked her.

"I linked our omni-tool addresses so that we can talk to each other," Nya said. "That way, we'll always be in touch."

I glanced at my hand in awe, now considering the subjective power that lay at my fingertips. Linking addresses, now why didn't I think of that? Maybe it was because that I still did not have quite as much of a grip at all of the newfangled technology around me. I've become an old fogey, it seems.

Nya grabbed at my hand one last time to say goodbye, as it seemed that neither of us could muster up a proper parting statement. I held her hand tenderly, noting in my peripheral vision that Vhen was steadily getting more and more incensed over by the far wall. After what seemed like an appropriate amount of time, I finally released my grip on her fingers and voluntarily walked down the hall with the two soldiers continuing to escort me. I did not look behind me because I did not want to see the expression of hurt reflected in Nya's eyes.

It would be over a year before I would see her again.

A/N: First chapter of the New Year and I'm still not even halfway done with writing this thing. I'm just very grateful for all the kind things people have been saying about this story, seeing as I intended it to be a light chance to experiment with prose and characters. Now look, it's become my most favorited and followed story. Funny how some things work out.

The review issue concerning a few of them not showing up due to a site error just a few days ago has been resolved, so you can be assured of that function working properly again now.

Also, since I like to utilize music to provide good reference points for my writing, I like to assign pieces of music to certain characters in order to help me with visualization. Harry Gregson-Williams' "Mars" from the film The Martian I think serves as a suitable theme for Nya as it's a simple piece, light on instrumentation, but also feels rather lonely yet it still contains a shred of hope underneath the subtext. Expect to see her popping up in more chapters along the way - she's still got her own character arc to undertake.