Chapter 21

The trees became a greenish blur as they zoomed past, the wind howled around the nimble utility craft speeding past through the warm air of the sunny day.

It had been four days after the attack, his ship was repaired and Fredrick had, for once; work, and plenty of it.

Practically everything was broken on the colony, scorched and short circuited parts rattled in the flatbed of his hovertruck. He even had to retune the mass effect fields to keep the vehicle from leaning.

Ril was napping in the passenger seat, sleeping soundly as he piloted the small vessel, light synthetic snoring supplying the cockpit with a pleasant, soothing ambient noise.

A nice and calming distraction as he guided his shuttle towards the next area and his next task; fixing a broken communications relay hidden deep within the woods. The mast had recently ceased functioning; curiously enough as they were built to last.

He carefully adjusted the skimming height to clear a piece of wreckage as he passed the crater it had formed.

Whatever the origins of ship that attacked Horizon was, it had been clear how badly damaged it had been as it had left, fled the colony.

Debris had rained down upon the planet long since it disappeared into space.

Like he did with the others Fredrick marked the location of the scorched chunk of metal for hazmat to deal with.

For some reason one wasn't allowed to go near them.

He shrugged; Fredrick had plenty to do and had no interest in examining the debris.

The leather of his seat creaked as he adjusted himself on it. Being in his ship once again after being stranded in space was still uncomfortable, even if he had crammed as many spare parts he could requisition into the various compartments.

The navigation VI beeped just as he looked up through his windshield, through the tree line stood a large tower, missing most, if not all of its antennae.

Still standing proud the large construction appeared otherwise intact, a curious occurrence different to the blasted and sometimes utterly demolished generators and other material he'd been charged with assessing and if possible, fixing.

"Ril, wake up, we're here.." He gently shook the quarian back to consciousness, her green visor soon lit up with a pair of glowing orbs as he squeezed her shoulder.

The luminous marbles blinked and focused onto him; their owner yawned and stretched like a cat in her seat.

He smiled and returned his attention to the control yoke; the VI released control and allowed him to fly the ship again.

"Morning Ril." He could hear a lingering yawn in her throat as she talked to him.

"Good afternoon you mean..."

He chuckled. "Yeah, you really sleep a lot."

"It's not my fault you humans have such an odd circadian rhythm." she said in mock exhasperation.

"Well I'm happy to serve as your mattress in any case." her eyes narrowed in an affectionate smile, or whatever face she did when one would smile, he smiled back before returning his attention to the landing of his ship.

"Thank you."

There was a clearing right beside the tall tower; filled with grass and surrounded by trees, the field made a perfect landing site.

A dusty road long since overgrown lay forgotten under the vegetation as Fredrick eased his vehicle down onto the grassy patch of land.

The sun's bright rays reflected in the vessel's wind-screen as it came to a rest under the cloudless blue sky.

"Well, we're here." The seat creaked as he and Ril rose up, the quarian stretching once again.

Fredrick stepped out onto the green carpet of plants, the life of the clearing was almost palpable, birdsong and insects chirping in the bush as he left his ship, offering Ril a hand she too jumped off the precipice.

The massive comms tower dominated the area like the fin of some great underwater beast, it protruded from deep within the soil, standing proud and rigid it reached up for the heavens.

At nearly 50 meters long it was an impressive sight.

It's grace was diminished by the lousy condition it was in, rust had began to seep in under the paint and its former luster was marred by great spots of dirt at the bottom.

"Keelah, it's taller than I thought." Ril commented from beside him..

"Yeah, though it's supposed to be taller." He raised his finger and pointed to the top of the decaying metal construction. "See that spot right there? There's supposed to be a few antennae there, they're really big."

"But there aren't any.."

"Yeah…"

"Did they fall off? That tower looks all rusty." She huffed in disapproval. "This state of decay would be unacceptable on the flotilla."

"Well, we're not on the flotilla." Fredrick leaned back and tried to see the top of the massive construction, to no avail, the sun blinding him.

He sighed.

"Looks like we have to climb up and see what's wrong with it.."

"Can't we use your ship?"

"No, I think the wind is to strong. Wouldn't wanna risk it, besides if I even scrape the paint it's coming out of my pocket."

"That's not very fair."

"Well, being a colonist rarely is, come on."

He forced the door open, it grinded against long since unused hinges, but didn't offer too much resistance.

Inside it was pleasantly cool

Cold grey metal lined the walls, visibly rusty spots stained the seams between panels.

A long ladder stretched far up, a rack of safety harnesses stood proud next to said ladder, and a long safety rail. Fredrick could swear he smelled urine as he and Ril ventured into the small dank room.

"Keelah, that's a long way up…" Ril mumbled behind him, he chuckled grimly.

"Yep, it'll be a long climb.." He reached for the harnesses, old and worn Fredrick examined them carefully. Whatever idiot had decided all equipment be housed in each tower deseved to be shot as Fredrick discarded a faulty one.

"There, these should do…" He examined Ril's body, she had been awfully quiet during their stay in the tower so Fredrick attempted to just glance at her to measure the quarian's bodytype, he doubted her thick fingers could fit into the harness and adjust the fitting.

But he had found a problem and his gaze lingered at her supple waist and wide hips.

"Uh, Ril?"

She turned to face him.

"I- I don't think you'll fit in one of these… " he thought it over, examining the device more thoroughly testing the clasps and the fitting of the loadbearingstrips of reinforced fabric.

"Your waist is too thin, and your hips are too, well wide." he tried to clasp it around her waist, but it merely slipped down on her hips which rendered the second segment rather useless. Her upper body was far too compact and while he could compensat for her waist, or hips; he couldn't do both.

"I'm sorry but I don't think this thing is made for your, shape..." Ril chuckled as he continued to fiddle with the rebellious object, eliciting an amused giggle from the quarian as he fumbled with her suit and it's many overlapping cloths and pockets.

"I'm sorry." He said and retreated with the ill fitting item.

"You know, even if it did fit, my legs can't climb your human ladders." he could hear the grin in her voice. "I wanted to tell you sooner but you were to busy staring at my gap." her grin transformed into a giggle.

"W-what! No-no I just tried to, erm, the harness. Wait. Gap?" he hurriedly looked away from her body, hoping intently he hadn't done something quarians deemed taboo; the teasing giggle in her voice suggested otherwise.

"You'll find out..." He felt his eyes blinking, doing a doubletake at the quarian who merely acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

"Well, I'll just see if there's anything wrong with the... tower..." she shifted her weight onto her hip and tilted her head, obviously amused at his stuttering.

Fredrick didn't answer, flashing red.

He quickly donned the collection of straps and belts. It clicked into place effortlessly into his work suit's loops and latches designed for just that.

He tested the fitting by repeatedly pulling on the device that would save his life if he fell.

"Right, you just... wait by the ship or something."

She nodded, her little head bobbing up and down inside the helmet.

"Just be careful." There was no hint of the previous teasing in her voice, just genuine concern.

He smiled as reassuringly as he could at the young alien and reached for the first rung of the ladder.

"I will."

Ril's legs swayed as she sat on the treshold of Fredrick's ship, occasionally she used her dextroues toes to pick at the grass or pull out a few plants which she had piled in a neat pile next to herself.

But mostly she spent her wait toying with her omnitool.

The orange glove flickered into life, she sighed and laid down; feet still hanging outside the craft.

Surfing, that's what her human had called it. Lazily browsing the etranet didn't seem to have much in common with riding on large boards onwater.

There were a few fun videos around, one of a particularly talented hanar that could act as a colorless Tv for the audience.

But otherwise not much caught the interest of the quarian.

She had no messages or any other signs of her family wanting to talk to her, Ril was a little saddened by it.

Her family, her clan too, had always been known as hardliners.

Strict when it came to rules, such as no communicating during pilgrimages.

But she was also relieved, she had no idea how she could eplain her- Involvement- with a certain human to her mother.

Lazily she began digging her toes into the soil while she stared up at the roof, things were getting boring.

Fast.

Perhaps she could have shown a bit more enthusiasm with the harness, it felt good to have his hands on her hips too.

But a fear of heights and improper leg shape forced her to quickly abandon those ideas.

She was also a little concerned, while it had been a few days she still found herself waking up to Fredrick clinging to her while asleep, Nightmares, she had of course stroked his hair, hugged him tight. and whispered words of comfort until his death grip relaxed.

But she didn't see much improvement, and on the mornings he was as cheerful as ever.

Perhaps she had teased him too much. A voice in her head suggested otherwise. But a burning desire to make absolutely sure he was okay snuffed out the voice, maybe she too was a little traumatized? the sight of such suffering had not been pretty, but Ril had seen worse on Tirala.

Her human hadn't and it was no secret to her.

"Ril? Ril are you there?" her comms suite crackled to life, she pushed a button on the side of her helmet; A real button, primitive.

"I'm here.." She yawned, the quarian epected another update on how tiring it was too climb, but was surprised when it didn't come.

"I've found something, I'm at the antennae. well, where they should be.." the wind blew into his omnitool, obscuring his voice.

"They've been disassembled, there's no burnmarks or anything."

"What? but, how?"

"I don't know, I talked to Control and they say they haven't ordered any disassembly."

"Are you sure?"

"Yea, there's even a few screws here. Whoever did this didn't care about stealth that's for sure." He huffed.

Ril moved out of the ship, taking care not to dislodge her little collection of weeds and dirt.

She moved her helmeted head skywards, quarian helmets came with advanced sensor suites and she used hers to zoom in onto the tower's top.

"Then where are the antennea?" she asked, gzing at the large metal spine protruding far into the sky.

She saw Fredrick scurrying around, like the "monkey" she had seen on the extranet

She found the climbing primate very amusing.

"I have no idea, they're like a hundred meters long! you don't just lose things like that!" She found herself nodding, he had a point true enough.

"what should we do?"

"I don't know, Control and Admin are too busy to investigate, I guess we-" A sudden burst of radio chatter interrupted him, the sound was faint in Ril's earpiece and she wondered what was going on."Hold on."

A long silence followed, she could still hear him talk with the voice, but couldn't discern any words from the buzz.

"Right, we should move, Control says another tower just went offline!" he suddenly said, startling her.

"Keelah.."

"Yeah, you go ahead and start the ship, I'm on my way down."

"Start it, b-but it's your ship.." She could hear his heavy breathing as he hurried down the ladder, between breaths he spoke, a smile in his voice.

"Of course you can, I trust you." the words put a warm feeling in Ril's suit and she skipped towards the controls.

I hope you enjoy, this is a new story arc in the making.

Review and stuff please.