Persecution Complex Ch. 10

Thealon sat in the mess hall with his meal in front of him as he stared at it blankly, absorbed in thought. He had brushed up again on all current and past events, through the codex they had received from the quarians and what this galaxy called the extranet. He learned of the geth and realized his previous thought of the quarians and their exile was terrible, he found it worse upon rereading the codex article. He had thought they were exiled 200 years ago when in reality it was 300, 300 years without a homeworld, with nothing but a degrading immune system and the biggest fleet in the galaxy in which you have nothing to do but fly around with in only certain places. Along with that he had read things about the geth and their involvement in the attack on the Citadel and their supposed flagship Sovereign.

Here is where things got very interesting in Thealon's mind. This human, Commander Shepard had attacked a planet that was being used by a rogue Spectre, Saren, in his head a police officer with diplomatic immunity, it didn't sit right in his belly really to have a force like that. But that wasn't for him to decide, anyway, Shepard infiltrated Saren's base of operations and spoke to this flagship and learned of the 'truth' of the Reaper threat. The sketchiness begins at this point really, because Shepard, the one who spoke with this sentient starship doomsday device, knew of this true threat but upon the death of Sovereign, Shepard was ridiculed for his thoughts that the Reapers existence. They, as in the Council and everyone else who ignored Shepard's warnings and words, dismissed the existence of the Reapers. Claiming that Saren was very persuasive and had convinced the geth into believing his ship, that apparently he must have built in secret, was one of their Reaper machine god race.

Even as Thealon looked at it he felt like backhanding some sense into the council and everyone else, he was new to this galaxy and he could see through the sham that the Council blamed on Shepard's 'post-traumatic stress'. And no more than a few months later, Shepard is killed in an ambush by an unknown enemy force that disappears afterward. It's been two years since then and there have been reports of missing colonies on the edge of the terminus system, a part of the galaxy outside Citadel, and therefore Council, jurisdiction. Human colonies. Thealon had felt a pang of sorrow as he was reminded of that Gods forsaken war, he hoped this was not the same though.

Several fingers were pointed at batarian slavers, but there was no sign of battle or struggles, nothing seems to be put out of place other than missing timeframe footage from security cameras. Oh and every single man, woman, and child seemed to have just gotten up and left without a trace in the world, suspicious, he hoped to Gods so.

But as he thought he heard a tray slam down beside him, followed by two more, he looked up and saw the Spartans joining him.

"You know, the food's going to get cold if you keep staring at it like a hot date," Sloan said with a smile and Thealon chuckled with a smile and shook his head a little.

"On a side note, you feeling alright Thealon?" Ellenor asked, concerned.

Thealon shrugged with something of a frown, "Just thinking again, going over what we know," he said and finally took the first bite of his food.

"Anything we can use to help us?" Vlad asked.

Thealon thought about it and shook his head, "No, not that I know of right now, but we need to plan what our next move is, figure out what of importance we can be of here." They all seemed to frown at that, "At the moment though, I think our first priority should be sorting out when we feel like we should reveal ourselves to this Citadel. We met with the Council no more than a day ago so I say we give it one or two more before we do anything and we can just work it out from there." The Spartan's all watched him and nodded and glanced between themselves.

Ellenor gestured with her head to Thealon when she was looking at Vlad, "Um," he cleared his throat, "Thealon, we uh, we noticed you seemed to be avoiding certain questions. At first we thought nothing of it, but on the Citadel when the...who are they, the blue women with the tentacles?" he said with a gesture to his head when looking at Sloan.

He shrugged, "I think it was asari or something?" he looked to Thealon for confirmation, he nodded.

"When the asari asked you about our technology you hesitated when you were talking about what happened to the slipspace drive," he said watching for any signs Thealon might give up in his body language.

Thealon closed his eyes and sighed, he should have known he couldn't dodge this forever, "After we had dropped from Slipspace," he began quietly, "Ruby ran multiple checks on the drive, she found it was sabotaged, whether by a signal or directly is unknown. Were we to activate the drive now it is sure to work, but if we wish to return home we may need to replicate what was used in order to do so. And to figure out how to do so, we need to figure out who it was and without any evidence about what caused the sabotage as well as motives, we have nothing." The Spartans stared at him, all of them had straight faces as they listened and understood.

"So what do we do next then?" Sloan asked, "I mean, how will we find a way to find this guy?"

Thealon shook his head, "I wish I knew, but right now, we need to think about what's in front of us and the most immediate threat." Before they had the chance to try and correct him, "And yes, I know what you're about to say, but Ruby doubts that if they're aboard they'd do anything at the moment, nor has she detected anything in the system, and I trust her."

The Spartans nodded, they looked among each other and at Thealon as they finally began to eat their meal. "What do you think we can get from this Citadel when we reveal ourselves?" Sloan asked, "I mean sure, we'd be the talk of the place and surrounded by press for a while, and it makes a good supply post, but do you think it'll really help us in the long run?"

"Well that's just it really, we'll need supplies, we'll need information, but for what I do not know. For now though it is good to be in the Council's favor, now we don't have to do any recon missions aboard the place to map it out or shady operations to get what we need. If we were to get caught, questions would arise, tensions with those, and soon mistrust and unwillingness to cooperate," Sloan thought about it for a second before nodding.

"So tomorrow huh?" Vlad asked after a minute of silence.

"That's the plan," from there I think we'll dock for maybe two days at most and then head to the planet known as Illium. From what I've heard it's just a shiny Omega really," he said and Ellenor frowned a little but it quickly disappeared, "but we're going there for information. I have a theory, a very outrageous and wild one, but if true then it will be beyond comprehension," he said.

"Pft," Sloan said messing with his meal, "with what happened at Requiem nothing will surprise me at this point."

"Ah, but this and theory go hand in hand," he said and Sloan gave him an odd look, a curious but cautious one as he glanced as his fellows. "If we were capable of getting here through Forerunner technology, accident or not, that wasn't even a full-fledged Forerunner drive. They were far beyond any of our technological advances by hundreds of years, who's not to say they may have come here once, maybe twice?"

"No offense sir," Vlad said cautiously, "but that's a pretty wild accusation."

"It is, I will not deny it, but possible isn't it? And if I am wrong, then I am wrong, and we would just have to find something else to do, but if we do, we're talking possibly live Forerunners who have survived the firing of the Halo's."

"Or we could run into more of those Prometheans," Sloan said with a cocked eyebrow.

"Maybe, maybe not, only time will tell," he finished with a shrug. "As I was saying, however, we will head to Illium in search of information, there is plenty to be shared if you know how to obtain it."

"And how do you plan on obtaining it?" Ellenor asked suspiciously.

"By asking, surely," he said with a smile, "who wouldn't want to help the new guys in town, work out a contract with a deadly catch, obtain some technology, trade information maybe. While we are upon the verge of a path I do not wish to take, it is one I fear we must for hopefully a short time, I do not wish to dishonor myself and my old friends through a hypocritical act such as the ones we will take." He sighed, his smile long gone from his face, "But I fear it must be done, lest we just wander this galaxy endlessly."

The Spartans nodded, he had told them many war stories and they figured they knew of the one he was talking about. "Well whatever you decide Thealon, we will be backing you 100 percent, Ship Master, sir!" Ellenor said with a salute, Sloan and Vlad doing the same.

Thealon had a sad smile on his face, but nodded and resumed eating, "Feet first into Hell itself."

Drex was sitting at his console on the bridge when Thealon walked in, everyone looked at him expecting the words the wished to exit his mouth, and they did. "Everyone bring us closer to the Citadel, Ruby, deactivate all stealth systems, it's time they learned of our presence." Drex had a smug smile on his face as he turned around and flipped three switches and looked out the main viewing port as he saw the space station increase in size.

"Unknown ship, this is the Destiny Ascension, flagship of the Citadel defense fleet, state your business and name," came a female voice over the intercom.

Thealon pointed to Ensign Forrel and the woman nodded and activated the holoprojector, a woman bathed in blue and with tentacles on her head stood at attention. She was very surprised when she laid eyes upon Thealon though, her posture showing, "I am Rioc'Thealon of the Destroyer class vessel Nero…"

"We mean no one any harm, we simply wish to negotiate a truce with your leaders and a place to gather supplies," Sallie L'Faide looked at the figure with awe from her spot on the command deck of the Destiny Ascension. Everything about him screamed military and obedience, he was fairly intimidating as he stood to scale with her asari captain, easily putting a foot or two on her.

Sallie felt an elbow nudge her ribs, and flinched at the feel, she hated it when people did that to her, it just felt so weird. She looked at her friend next to her, Rya, "Pst, Sallie," she said with a childish smile on her face. "I know we just met the guys, but he's quite the hunk of meat, don't you say," she said with a wink and girlish chuckle as Matriarch Lidanya spoke with the alien.

While Sallie had to admit, she liked the looks and the formality of the alien, this was a formal meeting, and she wasn't going to commit to anything till she learned at least a little bit about them. "How big is that thing anyway, seems pretty small from this distance?" She asked Rya being as how she had the view of the forward cameras and the rangefinder, Sallie just was in charge of communications.

Rya shrugged and pulled up a view, "Well it doesn't look that big," she said with another shrug and Sallie leaned over and took a peak. It was very interesting ship, nothing like anything she ever had seen before but it did seem like it was a little while out. She looked at the alien as he continued to converse with the Matriarch, she wondered how it was they understood each other, what kind of technology they had, they had remained completely undetected until only a few minutes ago and that was just out of complete nowhere. Who knew how long they could have been watching, or just how long ago they had actually arrived and how.

She was so caught up in her thoughts her face burned with embarrassment when Matriarch Lidanya shouted at her to come back from 'La-La Land' and send word to the Citadel. When they had got a reply, Sallie relayed the message to the Matriarch and looked at Rya and almost laughed. Her eyes were just so wide and her mouth had fallen a little as she looked at the screen, Sallie looked over with a smug smile to see what the fuss was about when she too found herself with the same face.

The ship was MASSIVE, easily almost three times the size of the Destiny Ascension, a.k.a. the largest ship yet seen by man, asari, turian, etc. Sallie looked out the main port and saw as many of her fellows basically got out of their seats as the ship closed in for a pass, not only was it massive, it was fast.

Sallie fell back in her seat and placed a hand to her forehead and laughed stupidly as she thought about the last about 15 minutes, "Rya, I think I'll take you up on that offer, drinks on the Citadel?" she asked. Rya looked at her confused for a moment before she caught her drift and smiled and winked, they fist-bumped and both sat back in their chairs with satisfied smiles.

Drex walked out of the Citadel Tower elevator with Thealon, Kamau, and the Spartans as they took their first technically legal steps onto the Presidium. Thealon breathed a sigh of relief and turned to them, "All of you may do as you please for a day or so and before reporting back to the Nero, I will head back and inform the crew of the same thing," he said before smiling, "Enjoy." With that he turned and walked back to where the Phantom waited to take him to the ship, avoiding several reporters in the process. A minute or so after he went up the gravity lift, some of the elites and humans that were aboard dropped down, well the elites just decided to jump, but none the less. Drex stood next to Kamau as the Spartans just went off together, some of the Sangheili that dropped down came over to them, but none that dropped out went off without at least one other partner.

Drex smiled beneath his mask and gave Kamau a nudge, "Come, Kamau, you and I haven't a drink in ages, and this is quite the occasion no?"

He could tell the Sangheili was amused but nodded, "Indeed friend, let us decide if the Gods gave this galaxy good brewers," he said, "I'm not one for drinking, neither of us are, but we can both agree on a good drink." With that they wandered around for a while, making sure they kept an updated map with them so they didn't get lost before they found what they assumed was a bar, after of course they realized they had something of a crowd following them.

"Quiet sons of bitches when they wanna be," Drex commented to one of his Sangheili companions who nodded and glanced back at the small crowd as they walked into the bar. "I sense a reoccurring theme with bars in this galaxy," he said to Kamau as he saw the strippers dancing on poles and tables above and around the bar.

"At least our dancers have pride," Kamau scoffed as they found a seat at the bar while the others just moseyed around, seemingly avoiding any woman in a tight clothing as much as possible.

A fine looking asari came up to them with a smile and placed her arm on the bar, "You the new guys huh?" she asked with a voice to match as Kamau and Drex removed their helmets and set them on the bar. Kamau nodded, "Alright," she said with a sly smile, "amino- or dextro-?" she asked, they were confused for a moment when they realized she was talking about their protein make-up.

"Amino," Kamau said, "Anything you got I would guess," the asari winked.

"I think I got just the thing for you guys," she said and reached down and pulled out a cylindrical bottle with a neon orange liquid and two shot glasses and poured them each a glass. "Cheers," she said with a smile and the two of them raised the glasses and drank the glasses, relatively unaffected by the drink, but it did have a nice taste. She seemed a little surprise at how unaffected they were, "No offense guys, but, heavy drinkers?" she asked.

"Hardly," Drex said with as smile and the doors opened to allow a small group of asari to enter the bar, many of them going about their business, but two walked over to the bar and sat on either side of Kamau and Drex.

"Hey guys, new in town huh?" the one beside Drex asked with a kind, but daring smile.

"One could say," Drex replied, nodding to the bartender, Kamau as well.

"This bottle's on the house just for you two, how's about?" she asked and the two nodded again, they had forgotten about that. The bartender poured the two of them another glass and the two asari ordered their own drinks, Kamau and Drex again swallowed their drinks and set down the glasses, again unaffected.

The two asari looked a little surprised but both smiled, "Heavy drinkers much?" she asked.

"Psh, that's what I said," the bartender said as she cleaned a glass and served a drink to a human a little down the bar.

"Why do you ask?" Drex asked the asari, "Miss…?" he said swirling his hand a little bit.

"My apologies, I'm Sallie, Sallie L'Faide, and this is my friend Rya," she said shaking Drex's hand as he held it still for her.

"Hello," Rya said seductively to Kamau, his raised an eyebrow as he looked at her as the bartender returned and poured them all glasses as Sallie and Rya quickly drank their purple liquid drinks.

"So what is so special about these drinks that we are accused of being heavy drinkers every time we take a drink?" Drex asked Sallie but expected the answer from the bartender.

He was not disappointed, "It's one of the best drinks we have, has a pretty heavy kick to it, the fact you two don't seem to mind drinking it at all just…ya know," she said and the two Sangheili shrugged.

"Where we come from the drinks burn your throats and boggle the mind if you're young. Truthfully though, I don't think either of us have had a drink in what, thirty years?" Kamau said.

"I wouldn't count that time, bloody human tried to poison us," Drex said sipping his drink.

The three asari were extremely confused, "Wait, how do you know humans if you guys are new here, what haven't the humans been telling us?" Ria asked in sudden interrogation mode.

Kamau calmly finished his drink, "It's a long, boring tale, and one I do not think you will understand," he said looking at the asari.

"And why not?"

Kamau sighed and shook his head, "Very well then, it began, for us, about 60 years ago…"

And so Drex and Kamau sat at the bar having very few drinks when their bottle was finished between the two of them as they explained to the three asari the perils of their war with the humans. They explained their religion and corrupted Prophets, the discovery of the Halos and the learning of their true purpose, they explained their war with the parasite and the human hero John-117 and their Arbiter. They explained the ending of the war and even pulled out their handheld holoprojectors as they told their tale, they had a couple more people listen in or huddle around as they explained. They showed them of the Flood, the ark, the Halos, everything, everything until they finally finished by telling them of how they showed up to how they got to this galaxy and how they found the Citadel.

"And so concludes the marvelous tale," Drex said with a scoff and had, what he planned on, his last glass.

"Shee-it," one of the humans who had gathered said.

The bartender, thankfully, started clearing the crowd out, "Alright people, stories over, leave the guys to their drinks, come on," she said and the small crowd eventually dispersed.

"Thanks for that," Kamau said.

"Anytime," she said kindly with a smile and a wink.

"That…that's a lot to take in," Sallie said as she thought about the story.

Kamau scoffed, "Try being right dead in the middle of it, I won't go into detail, but it's not fun," he said finishing his last glass. "I think I'm done for now," he said, "Thank you for the drinks."

"No problem dear, name's Selera Liran," she said and they bowed their heads.

"I am Kamau Orthel, and this is Drex'Yulta," Kamau said and the bartender nodded.

"Well you two are welcome here any time," she said and they nodded.

"Don't expect to see us too much in any case, but thank you," Drex said.

Drex and Kamau both put their helmets on and Rya, who up to this point was relatively quite a bit drunk, smiled as she touched the side of Kamau's helmet, "You're like one big, buff, quarian...I like it," she said with a smile.

Kamau gently grabbed her hand and lowered it, "And you ma'am are quite drunk, I'd hope your friend is not or else I think the responsible thing to do would at least walk you back to some of your friends."

Sallie looked up, she had been having few drinks and was still thinking a bit when she noticed Kamau was referring to her, "Don't worry, I'm still fine, just a little tired is all. Come on Rya, I think we'd better head back before Matriarch Lidanya throws a fit, been nice meeting you two," she said getting up and wrapping an arm around the other asari's shoulder and nodding to them before carrying her away.

Kamau watched them walk out before looking around the bar at some of the other Sangheili, they sat at tables mostly with their helmets on the table, conversing between either themselves or others. One was leaning against a wall watching everyone as a waitress came up and offered a drink, he declined and the human shrugged and walked away.

"Well I think we had better get to the phantom, hopefully we can still remember the way, thank you again for the drinks, it's been an honor," Kamau said and Drex nodded and got up with him.

"Honor's all mine, you two seem like a good bunch, I live around here if you ever wanna talk, good luck," she said and the two of them nodded and walked to the door. All the other Sangheili noticed and dropped what they were doing, ending conversations respectfully and following Kamau and Drex. None of them were drunk from what they could tell, they knew not to do such a thing, not that any of the drinks here seemed half as strong as a Sangheili brew, but they were alright.

"I could use relaxing vacations like these more often, that felt nice," Drex said and Kamau shrugged and they continued their walk back. Some of the other Sangheili were already aboard the phantom when they got back, most of them asleep as they had waited for the others to come back. Drex, Kamau, and some of the other Sangheili sat down and waited for, by the looks of it, only the Spartans to return.

After a while Kamau got up, unable to sleep he decided to go for a walk, one of his men saw him get up, "Would you like some company sir?" he asked Kamau shook his head.

"No thank you, I just need some air, I shouldn't be too long," he said and the elite nodded before sitting back and kicking his legs up, returning to trying to sleep. Kamau decided to just take the gravity lift, it was quieter than having to ask the pilot to open the doors so he could jump, and just far less of a hassle. He activated a bread crumb trail on his HUD so if he needed to find his way back when he was lost he'd just follow the arrow. After several minutes he found himself in familiar territory, it was darker out and less people, but the basic landmarks were distinguishable enough.

He was walking down a pathway when he heard bickering, curiosity got the better of him as it piqued a gut feeling. He activated his suits camouflage and snuck to a wall and flattened against it, he could now make out the fighting as he peeked around the corner carefully. His eyes narrowed as he saw what looked like the two asari from earlier, they were being cornered by a big alien and he thought a turian, the larger alien was obscuring his view. If his memory served him correctly the larger alien was a krogan, and if the other was in fact a turian then it may be a hard duel, hopefully it didn't come down to that, but he hoped they had their fair share of drinks.

"Come on ladies, we only wanna play, we won't hurt you," the confirmed turian said with a laugh.

"Much, heh heh heh," the krogan said in a deep voice, the asari, Sallie, the only one upright as Rya seemed unconscious on the floor, stood and held a defensive pose.

"Leave us alone, and none of you get hurt," she threatened as she glowed blue, interesting Kamau. The turian seemed to ease off a little, but didn't give in and the krogan simply laughed as he made his move and tried to grab her. Sallie quickly focused on her target and punched the air in front of her, a blue bolt came flying from her hand and shoved the krogan back a little, but it only seemed to make him angrier.

That's when Kamau made his move, he rounded the corner as the turian grabbed the asari's hand and pulled her toward him. Kamau grabbed the korgans shoulder and swept a leg in front of the aliens left one and slammed him to the ground head first as his camo deactivated and the turian and asari looked at him in shock as he drew his fist back.

He smashed his fist into the turians face and grabbed his arm with the same hand and threw him off the girl, which he shoved to the ground with his other hand as the krogan got up and roared in anger as he charged Kamau. He grabbed the krogans fist as it came down and continued its momentum away from him, doing so with the next fist and sidestepping around the alien as he tried to head-butt Kamau.

He placed his hands on the krogans shoulders and drove his foot into the back joint of the krogans left leg and it crumpled, he threw him forward into a wall as he shoved a fist from the turian aside and caught him with a left hook as he held the turians arm. He backhanded the turian and kneed him in his groin region, not sure if it would have the same impact as it would on a human, it didn't. He did stumbled the turian a bit and cause him to hiss in pain, but he hit Kamau in the face, not doing much if any damage but he did get a hit on.

Kamau instead decided to used the turians thin clothing to his advantage, trying to hurry as he heard the krogan groan as he stirred, and jabbed the turian in the side under where his ribs would be. Contrary to the rest of the turians body, it appeared that that spot was a bit softer than the usually hardened carapace that was the rest of his body. The turian crumpled under this blow and Kamau quickly finished him off with a kick to the face as he fell.

He turned quick enough to catch the krogans hands as they came down on him, putting the both of them in a power struggle. Kamau had no doubts in his strength, but he could feel the krogan slowly overpowering him and he decided to try a very risky move he only had to do very few times before. He slackened his arms slightly and moved his right leg back behind him, the krogan, expecting full powered resistance, stumbled forward with shock in his face. Kamau quickly used the leverage his right leg was positioned in and shoved the unbalanced krogan with all his might and successfully threw him back a bit.

Enough to pull his right hand in and punch the krogan in the face, following it up with the same fist going the other way. He had read about their quick regenerating nature and hoped what he was about to do would be enough for him to finish off the krogan enough to leave the asari alone.

He snapped his arm down and as his energy blade drew, he shoved it into the krogans chest and pulled it out before slicing at his thigh and roundhouse kicking him in the face, throwing him into a metal dumpster and then slamming onto the ground groaning. Kamau turned him over a little, he was unconscious and wasn't bleeding too badly, he should be alright.

His attention snapped to the turian as he got up with a groan, Kamau snarled and the turian stumbled in fear, running into a trash bin before getting up and running. He looked around a little before deactivating his wrist blade and looking at the asari and her friend.

"Are you alright?" he asked gently glancing at the krogan one last time just to be safe, the asari doing the same as her friend roused from her unconsciousness.

"Yes. Thank you…I don't know why they were…what they were…no I guess I know what they were going to do, but it just…" she shivered and Kamau nodded and he knelt down and rested a reassuring hand on the asari's shoulder as he picked up Rya. "They just jumped out of nowhere, the krogan hit Rya so hard she just went unconscious and…well I guess you saw what happened after that," she said standing with jelly legs, catching herself on Kamau for a moment as he held Rya in his arms. She nodded after shaking her legs a bit and taking a deep breath.

"It is alright, I did not expect things to be too much different here then anywhere else, no matter where you are, no matter what your honor or name demands of you, there are those who will get the better of a female if they think they can get away with it." He looked at her for a moment as he saw her thinking about something, he looked ahead of them, "I am glad you are safe in any case, I assume the walk home did not go as planned?"

"Huh? No, not really, I got lost because we had to make out way to the transport station and the normal route was blocked and we ended up here."

Kamau nodded a little and they walked in silence for a moment before Rya decided to finally actually wake up instead of almost coming out of unconsciousness. She groaned, "Ah my freaking head," she moaned grabbing her head and looking around before looking down in surprise and looking up at Kamau. "I remember you?" she unconvinced for a moment before thinking about and smiling and placing an arm on his shoulder as he carried her. "Well big man, we heading to my apartment or something?" she asked.

"One could say, Rya," Sallie said with a snort and Rya, in shock, looked at her friend.

"Sallie, wait, what the fuck happened, why does my head hurt and why does hunk here have me in his arms?" she said pulling herself closer to his visor. He looked at her and raised an eyebrow before focusing his attention back on their pathway to the asari's homes.

"Well, you dumb-butt, you wanted to flirt with the new guys, got drunk, we got lost, you were no felt, we were jumped in an alleyway and you were punched in the face by a krogan and we were almost raped when 'hunk' here," she said with air quotes, "saved both our asses."

Rya had a strange look on her face, she puckered her lips a bit as she thought and looked at Kamau before smiling smugly and looking at the other asari, "Well hey, you agreed to come along and flirt with the new guys," she said.

Sallie visibly blushed, "That's not what matters right now!" she snapped and crossed her arms and looked away, flustered.

"Cool your jets num-nut," Rya said before fluttering her lips in boredom and resting back against Kamau's arm until she turned her attention back to him. "So you've been awfully quiet, why'd you save us?" she asked.

He looked at her, "Would you prefer I left you to most likely still be getting raped this current moment, she shifted uncomfortably in his arms and rocked her head back in thought and embarrassment. He sighed, "Apologies, I just felt like since the situation could be stopped it should have been, and it was, it's in the past now."

"Yeah…but like you said, if you hadn't stopped it that 'past' even might still be a present one," Rya said with a shiver and looked ahead. "Where are we going anyway, we've just been…you guys just seemed to have been walking aimlessly since I got up, love my company so much you want it to last as long as possible?" she joked with another smug smile.

Kamau cocked an eyebrow, "Still haven't reached the hangover stage, hm?" he asked.

"Offensive!" Rya said balling her fist in the air as she let her head hang on Kamau's arm, hers eventually falling before she sighed, "No."

Sallie laughed a girlish laugh before clearing her throat but still failing to hide her laughter, "Just make a left up ahead and we should basically be there," she said and Kamau nodded and rounded the corner.

There was a small bench next to what looked like a bus stop of some sort, he set Rya down on the bench and she sat up and stretched. Sallie sat down next to her and took off her boot and rubbed her foot a little, "And here I thought I was taking you home," Kamau said looking around with crossed arms.

"Well in a way you are, we work on the Destiny Ascension and the next transport will hopefully take us back to the docking area. Damn this is going to be one hell of a story," she said with a deep breath as she had put her boot back on and leaned back on the bench and closed her eyes a little, Rya having already fell asleep.

It wasn't too long before it was obvious Sallie had also fallen asleep, Kamau smiled a bit to himself and stood on the sidewalk with his arms still crossed as he waited for the bus to come pick them up. After about ten minutes he saw it arriving, it came to a stop in front of them and the doors opened, a human sat with confused look on his face and Kamau nodded to the two asari and nudged them up.

"Alright, I've babysat you long enough, your ride is here," he said and Sallie stirred and looked at the Sangheili in confusion before looking at the bus driver and snapping herself out of her daze and waking Rya.

When Rya got up and the two stood and stretched Sallie looked at Kamau as Rya sheepishly got onto the bus, "Thanks again," she said with a small smile and Kamau nodded.

"Try to make sure you take better care of yourself, for your own sake," he said and she nodded and got on the bus, the driver looked at him and he shook his head. The human nodded and closed the doors and the bus took off.

Kamau watched it for a minute or two before releasing a sigh and walking back to the phantom.

Jack was lazily flipping the channels in the mess hall with her head resting on her fist as she felt boredom slowly destroying her mind. "Junk, junk, whiny bitch, junk, kids shit, junk. Ah! What the fuck? Junk!" she cried as she flipped the channel quickly to see a news report about a giant ship sitting outside the Citadel. "Ju-ooooo," she said mischievously as it switched to just how big the ship was as it passed the Destiny Ascension, easily two times bigger than the largest known ship to date. She began fantasizing about raiding the ship with an evil smile on her face, Garrus walked by and stopped with a strange look on his face as he looked at her.

He looked at the screen and his head cocked back in surprise, then he looked back at her cautiously, "You worry me sometimes, you know that," he said but her smile just widened a little more. He whistled to himself as he scooted away back to the main battery.

The view changed to a smaller, really weird, rounded ship as it floated above the ground and deposited several figures onto the ground as some of them just decided to make the twenty-or-so foot drop and look around before following what looked like their leader. She heard the elevator open and saw Shepard walk by and look at her then the screen, he looked content about something and crossed his arms and watched the screen.

After a minute or two of watching, Shepard looked at Jack, "There's no way this is interesting to you," he said and she just kept smiling as she watched the screen. Shepard looked back and the camera changed to look at the massive ship again, "Oh I see, you really think you can take that?" he looked back at her with a smug smile.

"Course I can Shepard, has your head been up your ass lately or have you been too busy staring at the cheerleaders?"

Shepard raised an eyebrow and shook his head, "Whatever the case, we'll be at Horizon in a couple hours, make sure you're ready, I'll go tell ugly he's coming along too." She just waved a dismissive hand and he walked over to the gun battery to see Garrus watching the same thing, "You too?"

"Hey, I'm just watching it for the new guys, I'm not planning on raiding a ship two times the size of the biggest recorded ship up to this point," he said holding his hands up as if surrendering.

They both watched the screen for a minute, "They kinda remind me of turians," Shepard said curiously.

"Oh yeah? And what brought that on?" Garrus said with a cocked eyebrow.

"Well look at them, they're tall, well maybe taller than…" the aliens stopped in front of the Council and it was obvious that they were taller than even the turian Councilor. "Well…taller than turians, but they got the mandibles, the two big toes, and they seem pretty militaristic, just like turians hm…?" he said with a smile as he turned his head to Garrus.

"Come on now, that's four mandibles, not just two with a jaw bone, besides, I'm much more good looking," he said with a small bow. "And that one on the right looks more like a quarian than anything," he said pointing at the screen.

Shepard cocked an eyebrow, "I've never seen a golden quarian with armor on," he said.

"Shepard you've never seen any other quarian besides Tali and that one guy on Omega," Shepard shrugged and pointed at him.

"Fair point," he said and continued watching for another minute or two before looking back at Garrus, "We'll be at Horizon in a couple hours, planning on taking you and Jack with me," he said and Garrus nodded as he continued to watch the meeting.

"Alright, I'll get my stuff when we're almost there," he said and they sat in silence minus the sound from the video. "You think the Illusive man will think about getting you to try and get one of them?" he asked.

Shepard thought about it, "Maybe, maybe not, we're gathering a team of the best of the best, these guys are new, they haven't shown any of their skill yet. If and when they do we'll see, but in any case I'd think it would be hard to get any of them if they're all just hanging around in their ship."

Garrus just shrugged, "I don't know, they seem like they'd be able to do some damage maybe with a ship that size. Makes you wonder how they got around without us noticing sooner in the first place," he said and Shepard frowned, it was a good point and for some reason he was taken back to Omega when he thought he saw something but then that strange flashbang went off.

"In any case," Garrus said pulling Shepard back to reality, "I think we'd be good with or without them, I mean come on, I bet I can take the Collectors single-handedly if I so chose to."

"What are you going to kill them with, your rugged good looks, last I checked you caught a rocket to the face good ser."

"I'm glad you finally admitted it," he said with a grin and looked at Shepard, "Glad you're the one leading us Shepard, wouldn't have preferred anyone else…other than myself of course." They laughed and Shepard punched his arm a little before patting his shoulder and walking out, his smile hanging for a little before fading for a reason he just didn't know. Something just didn't feel right, but right now he had to worry about what was ahead, if TIM decided it was necessary to hire one of the new guys, then alright, but why didn't that sit well in his stomach.

He sighed and walked back to the elevator and pressed the button for the CIC, he may as well get ready himself, he didn't know why Cerberus was stupid enough to put the armory on the CIC instead of the cargo bay, but whatever, nothing he could do now. He leaned against the back of the elevator and rubbed his eyes, all this was putting a lot of stress on him, he really could use Liara right about now. Thankfully he had found where she was, she's an information broker on Illium according to what he had pieced together and hopefully, after this particular mission was over, he could pay her a visit. Hopefully he could find something to say to her after all this time, maybe she hadn't moved on, found someone new. He was dead for two years, he couldn't blame her, he wasn't even sure he could give her the life she wanted, him being in the Alliance and all.

He sighed and the elevator doors opened, he just stood there for a minute before pressing the button to his cabin, he just needed some alone time right now.