"Now you be a good pet and eat something while I'm gone," Ilara told her, her voice patronizingly sweet even as her eyes ran hungrily over the Spectre's body. "I have to clear out a few rats who moved into our home while I was away, but I'll be back for you soon enough. Your new life starts today."

It was a life that Ashley knew was likely to be pretty damn short, but that didn't stop her gaze from drifting to Ilara's remarkably firm ass as the other woman left the room. It had been two days since her failed attempt to challenge the Ardat-Yakshi, and they had finally landed on Helfstra, a mid-sized colony in the Terminus started by some outlaw salarians but now home to a variety of species, including apparently her captor. The Reapers hadn't gotten around to attacking it before the end of the war, so a lot of refugees had ended up there; some of them were probably the "rats" that the asari was troubled by.

Ashley, however, had a different problem. Gnawing in her gut was the feeling that if she allowed herself to be brought into the asari's compound, she'd probably never leave. Ilara might be insane, but their brief battle had also proven she was too strong to beat in Ashley's current state, and once inside her lair, escape would be much harder.

No, if the marine was going to make a move, now was the time. Her options, however, were severely limited. Her restraints were no stronger than before, indeed, Ilara had even removed the cuffs around her wrists after her submission two days earlier, but that hardly mattered. The sealed door was an impenetrable barrier to someone without an omni-tool to hack it or the weapons to blast their way through. That meant Ashley had to get someone else to open the door for her, but no one ever came to see her except Ilara and she could neither talk her way past the asari nor best her in combat. She had to get one of the other crew members to come into the room, and she could only think of one way to make that happen.

Her plan rested on the assumption that she was being watched. Ilara always seemed to know what she'd been up to in between their little talks, so it was safe to say that there were cameras inside the room; Ashley just had to hope they were being monitored while the asari was away. It was a risk, but one she had to take.

After waiting a little while to make sure Ilara had left the ship, Ashley overturned the end table next to the couch she slept on and with a strong jerk, snapped one of the legs off. It was an ugly thing she leveled at her stomach, a jagged piece of wood with splintered points everywhere, and she tried her best not to focus on what was going to come next. This was going to hurt like a bitch, but steeling herself with a whisper of, "For Sha'ira," she plunged the make-shift weapon into herself.

She hadn't been wrong about the pain. The broken end of the table leg pierced her skin, and she grunted as the blood started to flow out of her torso, the wood slipping from her grasp as she crashed onto the floor. With every second that passed, she could feel herself getting weaker and with what conscious thought she could still muster, the marine silently prayed that someone was coming because if not, her only consolation was that she probably wouldn't be around long enough to realize her mistake.

Fortunately, it didn't come to that. No more than a minute or two after she'd stabbed herself, the doors slid open, and in stormed the krogan bodyguard who'd dragged her onto the ship. The massive alien kicked the wooden stick across the room before kneeling down next to Ashley. She'd never seriously considered using it as a weapon anyway. While the marine had killed her fair share of krogan, taking one on while bleeding and largely unarmed didn't exactly strike her as a good idea. Frankly, neither did what she had planned, but what the hell choice did she have but to try?

The krogan rolled her over onto her back before whipping out a medi-gel dispenser and applying the soothing substance to her wound. Cool relief started to blot out the pain, and the krogan exhaled, a sound equal parts relief at not being blamed for her death and annoyance at the inconvenience she'd put him through. "Stupid bitch," he growled, "You really can't take it any more, you go for the throat. That'll do the trick."

"Dying wasn't my plan," she gasped, breath starting to return to Ashley as the medicine did its work. "Needed to talk to you."

"What could I want from you?", he spat. "You're just glorified lunch meat."

"So are you."

"The fuck are you talking about?", the mercenary laughed. "Ilara doesn't eat the help. Just precious little pets like you."

"She's not the one who's going to kill you," Ashley replied, doing her best to keep her voice level through the still-sharp pain. This, right now, was her one shot. If she couldn't convince this krogan of what she was saying, she was dead, and with that thought foremost in her thoughts, she fixed her brown eyes squarely on his reptilian ones. "Do you know who I am?"

"Like I said, the boss' lunch."

"Maybe, but I'm also Ashley Williams."

He gave her a dismissive look. "That supposed to mean something to me?"

"It means I'm a Spectre and more importantly, a close personal friend of Commander Shepard."

"Bullshit!", he spat, but she could see a flicker of doubt in his yellow eyes at the mention of the skipper's name and she pressed her advantage. She hated trying to get by on Shepard's reputation, but right now it was all she had.

"You really think so? Look me up."

The krogan pulled up his omni-tool and as an image of Ashley's Spectre induction ceremony appeared in front of him, she could see the surprise on his face. "You're really friends with Shepard?"

"Yep. The woman who beat the Reapers. The woman who, you may have heard, is still alive. She knows where I went, and if I turn up missing, she's going to come looking for me."

He hesitated. "How's she going to find you here?"

"The Shadow Broker. Another close friend of hers." Ashley suppressed a little smile at the thought of just how close. "They're going to track down this ship, and believe me, Shepard's going to be pretty pissed off if she finds out I've been eaten by your boss."

"Well, maybe we'll just kill her when she gets here." There was a note of bravado in his voice, but Ashley could tell it was almost entirely fake.

"You're going to kill Shepard?" She gave the krogan the best shrug she could manage in her weakened state. "Saren Arterius tried. The Geth tried. The Reapers tried. Go look for them now. She's going to turn you and your boss into chopped liver."

By now she could see full-blown terror in his eyes. "Ilara knows about this?", he sputtered. She'd never seen a krogan quite so unnerved, let alone by the thought of one human woman, and she felt a little flutter of pride on behalf of her species.

"Yep, she knows exactly who I am. But as you might have noticed, she's insane, so she doesn't much care. You, on the other hand, I'm guessing aren't being paid enough credits to commit suicide. Help me escape and we can both get the fuck away from Ilara and live to a ripe old age."

"She'll kill me."

"So will Shepard. Which of them do you think you've got a better chance of escaping from? The most feared Spectre in the galaxy, or some crazy asari pirate?"

The krogan paused for a moment, considering his options as she held her breath. "Fine, but I get this ship when we're done."

It took every ounce of willpower Ashley had not to show just how much relief she was feeling. "Deal. I just need you to take me somewhere, and then she's all yours. Who else do we need to worry about on-board?"

"Most of the muscle is with Ilara killing squatters. All that's left is one jumpy salarian pilot, a couple of turian deserters, and a quarian servant. Nothing that should be a problem for a mighty Spectre," he added sarcastically.

"I'm not exactly at my best, you might have noticed. But I'll make do. What about prisoners? Who's here?"

"Just that asshole Zaeed. Ilara sold off the rest before we left, but she's still waiting for payment on that one. The turians are guarding him."

Ashley pulled herself to her feet. She still felt weak from the self-inflicted stab wound, but the medi-gel had done its work well enough, and now she had to do hers. She was glad for the chance. After two days of lying around that damn room stewing, the urge to get back into action was far stronger than the pain. She'd deal.

It was the turians they encountered first. The two of them were in the other longue, sitting around a small table taking shots of some dark purple liquid while over in one corner, Zaeed sat chained to the wall. He hadn't been extended the same courtesy as Ashley, a collar fitted around his neck, a gag in his mouth, and fetters on his wrists and ankles. When the door opened, it was the krogan that the two turians saw first. "Hey, Gorax," one of them asked, "Is that stupid bitch okay? Because I don't want to be the one to tell Ilara…"

He stopped in mid-sentence as he saw the woman in question standing behind the krogan. "What the fuck is she doing out of her room?"

By way of an answer, Gorax raised his shotgun, firing a round into the chest of the turian. The shot blew through his armor in a shower of dark blood, and as he fell, his partner went for the pistol sitting in front of him on the table. He wasn't fast enough. Ashley sprang forward and even as his hand wrapped around the gun, she overturned the table and sent it crashing on top of him. The turian tried to toss it off, but by then it was too late. The krogan had reloaded, and a second blast of his shotgun blew off most of the mercenary's face.

"That was direct," Ashley deadpanned as she picked up the pistol from the dead turians. "I thought you might try to persuade them to side with us."

Gorax snorted. "It'd take too long. Who knows when Ilara's getting back. Besides, have you ever tried to reason with a turian? Useless waste of time."

From over in the corner, Zaeed looked up. If the mercenary was surprised by this turn of events, her didn't show it, instead grumbling through his gag. Ashley took it off and he complained, "About goddamn time you came to rescue me."

"Don't get your quad in a bunch," Gorax growled. "I still haven't decided if I'm going to shoot you for what you did to my head the other day."

"Don't," Ashley advised him as she found the keys to Zaeed's restraints on the other turian corpse. "He's a friend of Shepard's too." She may not have liked the man, but she was still a marine. Nobody was getting left behind.

The rest of the take-over went smoothly enough. The quarian cleaner was only too happy to run when given the chance and though the salarian made a few sputtering protests about what would happen to them when Ilara found out what they'd done, in short order they'd deposited him on the runway as well, and their newly-stolen ship was lifting off from the surface of Helfstra.

While Gorax busied himself surveying "his" ship and Zaeed looked for their weapons, Ashley was left alone in the cockpit. Since the auto-pilot could handle their assent, she started rifling through the computer files the salarian had been good enough to give her access to before his abrupt departure. Ilara had told her that she'd been outbid for Sha'ira, which meant that hopefully, there was some record onboard of who did have her. A little searching turned up the extranet log of the auction, but unfortunately, there was no identity given to the buyer –the word still made her sick –of her beloved Consort, just bank account information.

Of course, she knew someone who could help her out with that and after typing the number she needed into the comm system, it was only few seconds before Liara T'Soni was starring back at the marine, concern and relief mixed on her freckled face. "Goddess, Ashley," she blurted out when she saw her, "What happened to you? I haven't heard from you or Zaeed in days."

"Uh, yeah, things kind of went sideways," she told her friend. "We ran into this asari, an Ardat-Yakshi actually." She blushed slightly, embarrassed at the memory of how easily she'd been taken. "We were captured, but we're free now, and I need one more favor. Sha'ira got sold, but I only have the bank account information for the person who bought her. I was hoping you could tell me who it belongs to."

"Of course," the Shadow Broker replied. "Send it to me."

As Ashley transmitted the files, Shepard stepped into view on the communications screen. The commander looked considerably better than she had the last time they spoke, wearing slacks and her N-7 hoodie instead of pajamas. "Ash," she smiled, clearly just as relieved as her bondmate, "Thank God. I was about a day away from coming after you myself, Alliance assignments be damned."

Liara shot her a concerned look and she backtracked. "Okay, maybe a day away from sending someone else after you." She rolled her eyes. "Between her and Doctor Chakwas, I swear it's like a conspiracy to make me get well."

She was smiling when she said it, but a minute later, her bondmate stopped typing and Shepard's expression changed. Shooting a puzzled look at a screen Ashley couldn't see the commander asked, "Wait. That's who bought Sha'ira?" Liara nodded and Shepard frowned in disbelief. "That's not possible," she told them. "Donovan Hock is dead."

So, there it is. Let me know what you think of the reveal as well as Ash's escape plan, and I hope you're still liking the story.