I stepped out of the elevator into the loading bay, a quick glance around told me I was the last to report for the training session that Shepard had scheduled for today.

Everyone in the room had been waiting for her it seems, Wrex was in his usual spot beside the lockers, looking as intimidating as he could; Garrus and Tali were sitting together on a crate beside the Mako, chatting away quietly; our newest member, Dr. Tsoni, was sitting on another crate on the other side of the Mako, her hands folded in her lap and watching something with a quiet fascination.

My eyes followed her gaze, when I saw what she was looking at so intently I smirked.

The CO and XO were sparring, and they were both pretty good. Not as good as me, but good.

I took the chance to see how they fought before we actually started the training session; I knew from their files that neither of them were exceptional in the hand-to-hand category, but I had never really seen them in action.

The Commander was fast, very fast, his hands struck out at Kaiden in swift strikes and the occasional chop. He didn't use fists, instead he stabbed with straight fingers, struck out with open palms, or chopped with the side of his hand; the strikes usually coming in three's. I guessed it was a variation of the mantis-style of martial arts. Each time he made an attack, he advanced towards Kaiden, trying to push him into the support beam behind him or unbalance him.

But the Lieutenant stood before the strikes like a rock before the storm. He was using the marine hand-to-hand I knew so well, if not as good as I could. He was staying almost entirely defensive, almost out of necessity. The only punches he threw were to keep Shepard from getting too close, and even then Kaiden still took the occasional step back.

From the way they were moving, Kaiden had been knocked on his ass by Shepard a couple times, and I'd be willing to bet it was when he got too close… The lieutenant was not an easy man to shake, and he was avoiding getting within three feet of the Commander like the plague.

Combat assessment done, I took a long moment to appreciate the view of two attractive men sparring with minimal clothing. Kaiden had a nice face, a chiseled body, and a very nice ass too. He had stuck with the tight blue shirt that he usually wore on the ship, but had rolled up his pants to about mid-calf, showing off a little hair-less leg. Not shaved, hairless, definitely because of his ancestry. Made me wonder how little hair he had on his body.

Mason though… some girls would be turned off by those scars, I think they added character, and with those eyes, he definitely beat the lieutenant in the 'cute face' category… but I wasn't really into slim men, he still had the upper-body V that guys get when they work out enough, but he just wasn't as broad as most military guys were at the shoulder. He could still wrap his arms around me without much problem; he just wasn't as wide at the shoulder as say, Alenko.

His sleeveless black shirt was tight enough that I was reminded that he wasn't exactly skinny, just lean. If I cared to (and I sure as hell did) I could watch his muscles shift under his skin and clothes with each movement. His pants had been rolled up as well, and like the lieutenant, he was showing off a bit of hairless leg.

But unlike Kaiden, there probably should've been hair on his legs, but even from here I could see large patches of shiny burn scars on his legs, overlapping with some on his left that were the same dark gray as the dark crescent over his eye. I'd bet my ass that he didn't have to shave his legs.

After another quick exchange, Shepard glanced over and noticed me; Kaiden took the opportunity to step closer and swing a punch at him.

The Commander's hand shot out, catching Alenko's forearm even as his leg swept Kaiden's out from under him, and as the lieutenant fell, Shepard's other hand shot out and grabbed the front of his shirt, pushing the larger man to the ground but not letting him slam into the deck.

That left the Commander crouched over Kaiden, one hand pinning Kaiden's arm above his head, the other at the lieutenant's throat.

I blinked a little as Mason helped Kaiden up, 'Okay… the Commander's better than he looks…'

As the lieutenant rubbed his arm Shepard spoke, "Alright, now that everyone's here, we can actually get started."

We all gathered around him at this point, "Okay, long story and explanation short, we're all good at different things, so we can learn something from training with each other. Here's the set up and plan for today: Garrus, I want you to teach Tali what you know about hand-to-hand," when the turian didn't disagree, the Commander went on, "You have similar enough body structures that she'll benefit a lot more learning your style than from either Ash or Wrex."

"Speaking of whom," he turned to me, "Ash, I want you to fine tune Alenko's style. But," he turned to Wrex, "If you don't object, I want you to join them. I know there isn't anything she can teach you to use… but you can learn how a number of humans fight in close quarters."

He snapped back to me, "I know Chief, you don't want to trust him completely just yet, but I want you to learn how most Krogan fight from him," I guess it must have shown on my face how little I wanted to do that.

Mason looked back and forth between Wrex and me for a moment, and when no major objections came, he turned to Tsoni, "Liara, for today I'm going to get an idea what your strengths are for myself, so you're with me for today."

"This set up is probably only temporary, everyone's going to eventually work with everyone else to learn from each other, it's not just teacher student here. I'm going to learn things from others as well as teach, and so is everyone else," he swept his eyes over all of us assembled, and I could actually watch as each of us momentarily stiffened under his gaze, "Are there any objections or comments?"

After a quiet moment, he continued, "Good. Then let's get started."

The Commander had gotten me to change into something lighter than my usual outfit, thankfully one of the several women aboard the Normandy was my size, so I was able to change into a blue shirt and a pair of blue pants several shades darker than my skin.

I had gone back upstairs to change, and when I came back down I found that everyone else had moved on to their various tasks. Gunnery Chief Williams was walking Lieutenant Alenko through a series of movements as Wrex watched; Garrus was correcting Tali on her stance as she held her unloaded gun; I looked around for Shepard and found him off to the side, using his omni-tool to adjust a pistol, a shotgun, assault rifle, and sniper rifle lay beside him.

I walked over to him, standing in front of him awkwardly as he finished up on the gun. Luckily it was only a few more seconds before he slapped a strangely colored clip into the pistol and looked up at me, "Alright, first up is the guns."

He picked up the compacted assault rifle next to him and held it out to me, "First we're going to see how good you are with this."

It was a bit heavy in my hands, but I looked at it curiously, voicing my concerns, "Um… Commander… isn't it unsafe to shoot these weapons inside of the Normandy?"

I looked up to see him setting up a target across the bay; Shepard looked up at me and smirked some. I could feel my cheeks darken a couple shades as he walked over.

He picked up the pistol he had modified without a word, aimed it at his foot and pulled the trigger!

I yelped and almost lunged at Mason to stop him from hurting himself like that, but he held up his other hand and pointed it at his foot. I jerked to a halt and followed his finger; his foot was covered in green, but otherwise unhurt.

"Oh…"

"Exactly. Now, first I want you to take several short, controlled bursts at the target…"

A little over two hours later, the target was covered in a number of splotches of different colors. And some were, embarrassingly, on the wall behind the target.

The Commander had sat beside me as I had shot at the target from various positions with all of the weapons in turn. He had smiled and encouraged me the entire time, and I'll admit that I needed it. I was being evaluated by the first human Spectre, a living legend, and an exceptionally good shot. I was more than a little nervous.

I had finally finished the testing with the shotgun, the final weapon I had to use, and looked over at him.

He stared at the target for a moment before he turned back to me and held out his hand for the gun, which I handed over happily.

He set the gun down and stood, "Alright, next we'll see how well you don in hand-to-hand. I'm going to assume that you haven't had any actual training…?"

"I never thought I'd be part of an effort to track down a rogue Spectre, just examining Prothean artifacts in ruins… so, no Commander. I have no hand-to-hand training."

"Didn't think so," he walked onto the walkway out of the elevator, where the other two groups were already training, "Come on."

I followed after him and glanced at the others, Vakarian was correcting the Quarian's stance as she held a shotgun not far from us. The Krogan and the Lieutenant were going step by step through some combat motions as Chief Williams walked them through it, they were not far from the hanger bay doors.

A light tap on my shoulder jerked me back to the present situation and made me look back at Shepard embarrassedly; my gaze met a much more serious face and tone, "First rule: Don't lose track of your opponent."

Several minutes and bruises later, the Commander had us stop. He had not been overly harsh with me, nor had he harmed me unnecessarily, but he had not been gentle either. My clumsy attempts at close combat had met swift and decisive retaliation.

I sat down on one of the crates by the Mako, and I could feel the perspiration dripping down my face.

A sound caught my attention and I looked up to see that Mason had gotten me a bottle of water and was holding it out for me.

I hadn't realized how thirsty I was until I had the bottle to my lips and was guzzling it down. It tasted unusual, a bit salty, and a part of my brain noted that it was probably mineral water.

Eventually though, I had to breath, and pulled the bottle away, gulping down air in place of the water.

The warmth beside me made me turn my head; and there Shepard sat, idly sipping at a bottle of water similar to my own. I looked around the bay to find that none of the others were pausing, Garrus was correcting Tali's holding of a pistol, and Chief Williams was running Lieutenant Alenko and Wrex through another set of maneuvers.

Shame washed over me, I was supposed to be a part of this group, the ground team, and I wasn't even able to keep up with the rest of them in practice training.

"What are you good at?"

"Hu- Wha-? What are you talking about Commander?"

He looked over at my confused face and repeated slowly, "What are you good at?"

'I thought I already told him this…' I replied hesitantly, "I have some measure of talent at biotics…"

"Have you ever had any military training?"

'I know he should know that one, but I guess I'll play along…' "No, I haven't Commander."

He smiled, "Then don't get so down in the dumps when you don't measure up at everything everyone here can do. Just because you can't do two hundred push-ups followed by an equal number of laps around the Normandy doesn't mean anything," he paused as a thoughtful look crossed his face, "Actually, I don't think I could do that either…"

The Spectre shook his head some and continued, "Hell, you could probably run circles around Alenko, Wrex and I when it comes to biotics. I wouldn't doubt that you can pull off more powerful biotics for longer periods of time than anyone here. So don't feel so bad when it comes to things like this, besides, this isn't even all out training yet, just an evaluation… all I'm trying to do is see where your strengths fit in with the rest of us."

I was left speechless for a moment, "T-Thank you Commander…"

The dark haired human smiled warmly at me and I could feel myself smiling back; we stayed like that for a long moment before his eyes swept over the bay. When they did, I watched as those emerald orbs of his danced with mirth.

I followed his gaze to find Chief Williams and Lieutenant Alenko sparring, much more heatedly than before, with the Krogan watching with an amused grin.

I looked back to Mason, "Commander…?"

"It looks like Wrex asked who would win, Ash or Kaiden, and they obliged him with a little sparring match…" 'Oh… well, that makes sense… I guess… but why does he find that so funny?' "But I'm willing to bet that Wrex won't leave it at that…"

He looked over at me finally, having spoken while watching his human companions spar before, "Most krogan view everyone through their ability to fight, and judge everyone, including friends and allies. Ash is going to win that match, and then Wrex is going to eventually bring up who's the better between them, Ash and Wrex that is."

My brow furrowed as I considered what he had said, and I looked over at the mismatched trio of two human marines and a krogan battle-master. I came to the conclusion that if what Shepard said about krogan nature was true, then his assessment was likely correct. But still… what was so amusing about this?

I turned back to him, "Still… what is so funny?"

A smirk slowly formed on his face, the end of the crescent scar over his right eye curling up and out, "Wrex thinks that he's got everyone here beat when it comes to the closer combat. While I'm better at biotics than him; both Garrus and I are better than him whit the sniper rifle; Alenko, Garrus, Tali, and me and better than him when it comes to messing with tech; and everyone here has more training than he does when it comes to first aid… he's tough as hell and should be able to kick all our asses at close range, biotics notwithstanding."

His smirk became a full-blown grin, "But I'd be willing to bet that when Ash and him spar, he's going to be the one getting his ass kicked, not her."

A loud thump interrupted my processing of that little bit of information, and I looked to see the Lieutenant face first on the floor, with Chief Williams holding his arm behind his back, "Say uncle!"

"Uncle! Uncle!" the Chief leaned in, her 'Hmmmm? What was that?' almost inaudible from here, though Alenko's response was not, "Uncle damnit! I said Uncle!"

Chief Williams got off of her commanding officer with a, I believed the term was 'shit-eating grin', "Told you I could beat him."

I could see Alenko's lips move and barely heard his muttered, "So did I."

Their krogan companion grunted, then his deep croak of a voice echoed across the bay, "Not bad… but I could beat you."

"Oh really?"

"Say Uncle! Say Uncle!"

"Alright! Uncle! Uncle damnit!"

Ash let the larger Krogan up; grinning widely at Wrex as he rubbed his snout, the same snout that had been roughly pressed against the floor a few moments ago.

The krogan huffed some, rolling his abused shoulder, the tendons would be sore for a while from being wrenched in a direction they weren't supposed to, but he would be okay.

Here he was, a krogan battlemaster, several centuries old, and a human marine had wrestled him to the floor, several times.

His first lunge had gotten his arm grabbed and flipped over her shoulder onto the floor, then he had the same arm wrenched behind his back. So had his next lunge.

This third exchange he had let her come at him, which she had made it look like she was going to lunge for him; but when their arms locked, her leg swept Wrex's out from under him and he ended up with his nose to the deck and both arms behind his back.

"Care to go again Wrex?"

The krogan spun towards her and snarled, but stopped when the Commander's voice rung out in the bay, "Careful Chief, if Wrex was using his biotics you would be getting your ass handed to you…"

The Gunnery Chief scowled this time, and the battlemaster smiled, "But you have to admit Wrex… you're getting your ass handed to you without them," and their expressions reversed once again.

Shepard smiled at them both, "Anyways, the point's been made, you two can duke it out on your own time… not during training."

"Well I thought we were supposed to duke it out during training," Wrex grinned openly.

"No. The whole point of this training is so you learn other people's tricks and make up for whatever area's you are weak in or strengthen what you're already good at. The point is not to kick each other's asses. Like I said, you can do that on your own time," he ended his little speech with a small grin.

The two most antagonistic members of the Normandy crew gave each other a quick glare before moving on.

As everyone resumed training (Tali and Garrus had stopped training to watch Ash and Wrex 'duke it out'), the Commander keyed the com in his ear, "Joker, give me an update on how long till we reach Ferros."

"Given the conduits we have to reach and the distance between them… I'd say we have about twelve hours Commander."

"Thanks Joker, Shepard out."

He turned to the asari scientist, "Now, let's work on how you're holding that pistol."

A.N.): I'm not exactly happy with this chapter... It didn't turn out as good as I expected it to... I had some things planned that just didn't work out as I started writing it. Anyways, I decided to post it up as is instead of working on it for another week and making my readers wait even longer for the next chapter. So onward into the great beyond!