Author's Note: Just a quick interlude of their vacation. Things pick up next chapter. Mordin and Shelly are for that one writer who keeps filling my Facebook feed with hermit crabs and mermaids. You know who you are. ;)


Shepard sighed, digging her toes into the sand. Sipping at her drink, she tilted her head enough to see Garrus. "Well?"

"I suppose it beats getting shot at," he said, staring out at the surf.

"You don't like relaxing on a beach?" she asked, setting the drink down and shifting in her folding chair.

He waved one hand at the fairly barren expanse of sand and waves. "For a human, I suppose this is nice. You don't have to worry about sand getting stuck under your scales."

She followed his gaze out onto the water. "Garrus, stop thinking about sniping the seagulls," she chided.

"But they stole your lunch! I can't exactly go take them into custody." She snickered as he flailed his arms as though drowning. "Besides, they smell like vorcha."

Her laughter echoed up and down the private beach, causing Mordin to look up from his perusal of a veritable cornucopia of terrestrial shell life, including one that made a break for freedom. "Must find appropriate name for you, sample number seven," the salarian muttered as he retrieved the hermit crab and returned it to the pile.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" Wrex asked.

The salarian blinked at him. "Vacation. Downtime, use time to purge oneself of stress hormones and prepare for conflict ahead. Likely to be strenuous psychologically, thus necessary to be at ones best." He smiled at the hermit crab as it gingerly crawled across his palm. "Studying shells relaxing. No species destiny rests on my research."

"I still say it looks boring," the krogan muttered. "Hey, Shepard! How long are we going to sit out here?"

"You could always go sit back inside," Garrus taunted, before Shepard smacked his chest lightly.

"We'll head back around dinner time. Thane and Samara should both be back by then, and we leave first thing tomorrow morning," Shepard called back. "Has anyone seen Jack and Vega?"

"Headed over that dune, talking about wrestling contests," Mordin said.

Wrex jumped to his feet. "Hah! That's more interesting than watching enough water to drown the Citadel."

"I wonder if Tali and Liara have finished their shopping trip yet," Shepard said.

"They brought Kasumi and Keiji along, so it's debatable how much is actually being paid for," Garrus said.

Wrex came back down the dune. "Never mind." He flopped back onto the hot sand with a grunt.

Mordin looked up from petting his new crab. "More than one way to blow off stress," he said. Shepard choked on her drink, coughing as the alcohol soaked into the beach. "Name Shelly," he decided. The hermit crab waved a tiny claw at him, and Mordin tapped his fingertip against it.

Garrus patted Shepard on the back until she stopped coughing and leaned back in her chair. "Let's never speak, or even think, about that again."

He glanced at her, then over to Mordin and Wrex, and back again. "I think I'm missing something here."

"Nothing you want to know, Garrus. Trust me," she said.

"Alright, if you say so." They rested in their chairs for a moment longer before a faint buzzing noise filled the air, slowly growing louder. "What is that?"

"Sounds like an aircar with a bad motor," Shepard said, peering around at the sky.

A moment later, it came into view, flying backwards with Zaeed leaning out the driver window, blazing away with an assault rifle. Following behind him came another aircar, two humans leaning out the back window. One of them, hit by two rounds, lost his grip on the car to fall screaming to the sand, bouncing until he crashed through Mordin's pile of shells. Frowning, the salarian grabbed him by the hair, lifting his head just enough to check consciousness. "Recommend you stay down, or I will feed you to Shelly."

The hermit crab waved both claws menacingly from the inside of his tiny shell, and the human chose that moment to pass out. Scowling, Shepard reached out with her biotics, tripling the gravity on the nose of the aircar, sending it crashing into the sand behind her. Zaeed slowed down and stopped, finally coming back to them and setting the damaged aircar down. "Thanks for the assist, but I could have taken them."

"Zaeed, what the blazing fuck do you think you're doing?" she hissed.

"Yeah, what the hell!" Jack shouted from the top of the next dune, naked aside for some sand stuck to her legs and forearms.

"Damnit, Jack, put some clothes on!" Shepard shouted back.

"Fuck off, you know you've wanted to see these tats since I came on board!" Vega said something from behind the dune, causing the biotic to flip him off.

"Zaeed?" Shepard said, pointedly not continuing to look at Jack and the strategically placed flaming arrow tattoo.

"There was a bounty on these three for smuggling Red Sand," he said. "Worth twenty-five thousand goddamn credits. Figured since we weren't going anywhere 'til tomorrow, I had the time to track the fuckers down." As the driver attempted to lurch out of the car, Zaeed calmly slammed the door on his head.

She scowled over his shoulder, and launched the third one thirty feet into the air before he could bring his weapon to bear with his one good arm. "Fine. I get ten."

"Five for me," Mordin called out, attempting to collect his scattered and shattered shells, as the hermit crab tugged on a tuft of hair from the drug trafficker's head.

"Goddamnit," Zaeed muttered. "Sure, why not. I only did all the work." He spat on the unconscious driver. "Will you at least help me get them back in the aircar?"

Shepard sighed. "Sure. Why not." Turning around, she now got a full view of the 'Can't Touch This' across Jack's bare ass. "Damnit, Jack!"