The crash of metal against metal echoed over the area. The sound, like two ships colliding at sea, was near deafening, and the sparks that flew from the contest of strength looked like someone was trying to weld something. The crash was followed by a scraping sound, as the long length of metal was pulled against the edge of its opposite, sliding across it to keep the second weapon in its place as the first wielder used the leverage to push herself backwards, landing a few dozen yards away, her feet landing heavily on the ground.

The larger opponent facing her gave the girl no quarter, the instant she danced away, he advanced, his weapon, a blade almost as long as he was tall, flashing in the afternoon sunlight as he slashed out with it. The girl's blade, smaller, though not by much, came up with a frightening speed, seeming to just teleport into the positions she needed. She caught the first slash with the side of her blade, angled so the force of the impact was slid across the length of the blade, before she spun on her heel, putting as much force as she could behind a counter stroke.

The man she was fighting leapt backwards, his body just getting away from the blade's tip as he retreated, and then he'd his sword to his side as he studied her stance. The girl could have pressed her attack, but was just aware enough to put a bit of distance between her and him, side stepping an outside who had come to watch their duel, and the cart he was pushing. The man, in full armor so obviously a soldier, backed away from the fight as he realized he had gotten too close, and instead stopped over a hundred yards away, giving the two combatants ample room with which to maneuver.

They took full advantage of it too, the girl suddenly circling around her foe, using her greater agility to her advantage to get inside his guard, as he was only just able to move his blade to intercept hers. When the two weapons clashed now, it was different though, the man held his blade almost perpendicular to his opponents, causing the girl's blade to slam hard into his, and stop. This startled the girl, as she had been expecting something else, and while her mind, in that half second pause, considered what this meant, the man acted.

His blade was held in one hand, but with the other, he reached down, dive rolling forward, and causing the girl to tumble a little, all of her weight having been leaning against his blade. Then, before she could react, he grabbed her ankle, pulling on it, and causing her already overbalanced stance to collapse, her sword tossed aside to avoid falling on it. The blade landed heavily on the churned up turf, striking the ground hard, and leaving an impression of itself in the earth. Before the girl could rise to continue the fight, the man, her opponent, held his blade at her throat, and the girl paused, to look up the length, and stare into his face.

"Now would be a good time to concede," he told her bluntly, and the girl just stared up at him, her green eyes burning with passion to continue the fight. She closed them, however, and after taking a deep breath, she nodded her consent, allowing the man to help her to her feet, where she began to dust herself off before going to retrieve her weapon.

On the cart, still hanging back as the two collected themselves, Arus Vakarian was speechless. He'd seen many of the Terrans in their trip across the colony, some of which turned from daily tasks to stare at the cart, while others ignored them as they went about their day. But they'd all seemed ponderous. Huge, imposing, and powerful, but ultimately slow. Then they'd come into sight of this place. The two combatants locked in a struggle dancing around each other. The speed with which they moved was astonishing, so much so that he expected to hear sonic booms coming from their weapons as they moved.

The duel had looked dangerous too, and for a moment, he wondered if it was too the death, but then it had ended peacefully, and he got to have a good look at the two. They wore clothing he would describe as a jumpsuit, if it were left to him. They appeared to be form fitting, with not a piece of angle that hung loose, and oddly white, which while it fit the female's skin tone, contrasted greatly with the male's, who's skin was a much darker shade of red instead. Also, as they rose, he noticed a height difference of about a dozen feet between them, though had they not been side by side, he doubted he would have done so.

"Heh, she's getting better," said Shepard as the girl and the man both held their weapons in front of them, and then did something that made the things seem to fall in on themselves. Arus was shocked as the blades, seemingly solid, especially considering all the punishment he'd just seen them take, proved to be hollow on the inside, plates of the blade slipping into place easily, before the two long arms of the crossguard folded up as well, and then slipped into the side of it, turning a rather large blade, into something that fit easily into a hand and then was placed on a belt.

"Thank you teacher, for the lesson," he heard the girl say, her voice having that odd, too loud echo effect like the sergeant from before. She then bowed at the older man, who returned it.

"You are welcome, my apprentice. Now, shall we see what this fellow has to tell us?" he said, and the girl turned, seemingly startled to see the soldier, despite having adapted to him during the fight. She then smiled, and nodded, walking to them with the man's arms at her side.

"Hello, what brings you to this home today, Corporal?" asked the man as they grew closer, and rather than respond to the question, he merely gestured towards the cart he'd been pushing, which the two looked down on, finding the shapes in the bottom moving as they got closer.

"That was quite good honey, but you know I told you last time you should keep your guard up, and only throw your all into an attack you expect to end the fight," admonished Shepard as she stepped off the cart onto the ground, looking up at the girl.

"Mom?" she said after a few seconds, a bit incredulous at the sight of her.

"Heh, that's Commander Shepard to you young lady. So, how goes the training?" she asked of the man above her, and he got a contemplative look on his face for a moment, before nodding.

"It goes quite well. The young Ms. Shepard is quickly mastering all I have to teach," he said, and the girl beamed with pride at her teacher's words, smiling up at him, and then down at her mother.

"So, who is this guest you've brought with you? I assume it's one of our visitors from the stars, a tur-something or other," he said, squatting down towards the tiny thing to get a better look. At the same time, Arus got a better look at him, his orange hair, like rust on his head, though cut so short that Arus had thought him bald at first.

"Turian, actually. Might I introduce you to Lieutenant Arus Vakarian, my bunkmate for the past two weeks, and a family man himself," as she said this, the girl got down on her knees, not squatting like the older man, and offered him her hand to shake, only to think better of it and instead hold out her pinkie, which he was only just able to get both his hands around, shaking it as politely as he could in a gesture Hannah had told him was of greeting, while staring into the deep green eyes of the girl, and the soft face framed by her red hair.

"Arus, this is my daughter, Jane, and her sword instructor, Evelyn Gordon," and the taller man nodded in greeting at the tiny thing.

"That's Flash to my friends. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant Vakarian," he said.

"And likewise, Mr. Gordon. That was certainly an impressive display before. Tell me, how do your swords do that?" asked Vakarian, and Gordon seemed puzzled for a moment, pulling the blade from his hip and holding the folded weapon in his hand.

"Do what exactly? Sing in the air? Dance on the winds?" he asked, flicking his wrist so the blade deployed, unfolding quickly. Plates of metal slammed into place, clicking like clockwork, with the crossguard, two outstretched arms, unfolding first, while the blade bloomed from between them, soon leaving the man with a sword at least as long as he was tall.

"That, the whole, folding, unfolding thing. It's a rather unique design," commented Vakarian, and the man shook his head standing up to his full height, and then lowering the blade so that the tip was right next to the turian.

"Oh, not so unique for a Terran. The sword is hollow on the inside, as you might have seen, and held together by some kind of cable inside. Not entirely sure I understand all the pieces myself, but then, I'm a blade wielder, not a smith or weapon designer," and with that, the man suddenly leapt away, landing heavily enough that the two tiny ones nearly fell of their feet. They kept their eyes on the man though, as he twirled the blade in his hand. The edge seemed to sing, as he said, the wind blowing from the thing, as it faded into a silver blur, before stopping, just an inch or so from Vakarians face. To his credit, the turian's only response to this, was to reach up and hover his hand over the weapon's edge, afraid to touch it.

"Brave for a micronian," commented Gordon, as he pulled the weapon back, and then brought it down to the ground so the turian could see the grip on the handle.

"The shape of the weapon is called a claymore, a common two handed blade back on Earth before the Robotech Wars. As for the folding thing, it's a bit of Praxian tech that the Zentraedi brought with them from the M51. It involves an inner layer of the blade coated with magnetic material, and a small rod core of the same," as he spoke, he did something to the sword's hilt, and the panels began to fold inward again, this time close enough that Arus could see the difference between the inside of the small panels, and the outside of them. Namely that while the outside had a silver sheen quality to it, the inside was a dull green color.

"In the hilt is a small magnet that sends a charge up through the rod in the middle. Twist to the left, it repels the plates, pushing them away. The blade becomes it's full length, the magnet and the design of the various pieces keeping it in place. Turn it back to the right, and it attracts the plates, causing them to collapse in on themselves, and then folding back into this shape," as he said that, the sword finally finished, and he moved his hand so the turian could get closer to the weapon.

The handle, hilt he supposed, was not quite as smooth as it seemed from a distance, with plenty of small bumps in it to provide traction for the wielder's hand. Even folded up though, it was still over a foot taller than Arus himself, and while he was watching, the thing was slowly starting to sink into the ground via sheer mass. Showing a bit more bravery than he would admit, Arus walked straight up the the thing and put his hand on it, feeling the slightly warm metal beneath his palm, before stepping away, and allowing Gordon to clip it to his belt again.

"A very interesting weapon indeed. Though quite heavy," he commented, and Gordon nodded.

"A bit, yes. My blades one of the lighter models, only a few dozen tons. The military tends towards the heavy weapons though. Miss Shepard here already uses a sword of one hundred ton weight, and hopes to be up to half again that when she joins in a few years," said the man, gesturing to his student, who blushed and tried to look away.

"One hundred...tons?" said the turian as he went over that in his own mind. He'd piloted small transports that didn't mass that much, and these people, these monsters, were able to swing that sort of weight around with speed like that?

"How does the blade not collapse in on itself with that sort of weight?" he asked at last, and Gordon just shrugged down at him as he got back on his feet, and helped Jane to hers.

"I honestly couldn't tell you. I know how they work in general, but you'd have to ask a smith the details. Now, I only have a few hours of daylight left, and want to run through a few exercises with Ms. Shepard, if you'll excuse me," he bowed towards them, though it seemed more like he was blocking the sky overhead, before he started back towards the ground they'd been training on, quickly whipping out his blade with a lightning fast wrist flick, a motion Jane Shepard mimed, and then charged at him again, the sound of crashing vehicles coming from them, as they both got back in the cart, the Corporal pushing them towards the front door, and then pushing a button nearby.

"Yes?" came a voice from a speaker above them.

"Corporal Warren Keffer, of the Agamemnon. I'm here to escort your wife and her visitor," said one pushing the cart, and one could hear a result of noise from the speaker before it cut off with a click. For several seconds there was nothing but silence, before the door in front of them opened, rather dramatically, and a man was standing there, looking first towards the Corporal, then at the cart he was pushing.

From the vantage point, Arus could tell this man was different than most of the Terrans he'd met so far. He didn't wear a uniform like Shepard did, or the suits the two sword wielders nearby were. He also didn't wear a work suit, like the Terrans they'd past on the way there, wearing what Shepard had identified as mostly blue jeans and t-shirts. No, this man was dressed similarly to Representative Hayes, a smooth set of clothing, two pieces, with a jacket up top, and pants down below. No seam or ripple other than his body blemished the clothes, which, unlike Hayes white ensemble with blue lining around the joints, was a dark shade of brown, with lighter brown lining.

"Honey?" he asked as he looked around, finally looking down, and squatting on his heels to stare into the bottom of the cart.

"Hello, Adam," said Mrs. Shepard as she stared up at her giant husband.

"Hello, Hannah," he said, smirking as he offered her a hand. She climbed on, motioning for Arus to follow her, and soon, all three of them were sitting at a table on which sat several books. Well, several was putting it lightly. In the turian's sight were about three dozen books, of varying sizes, while along each wall he could see were even more tomes, at least five book cases worth, and even those were overflowing a bit.

"Heavy readers, I take it?" he asked Hannah, and the human woman nodded.

"It takes the mind off things whenever there's no work to be done for a soldier or a colony administrator," she told him, then smiled as her husband came back, carrying a huge cup that was steamed a bit for himself, as well as two smaller containers, which he set down in front of them.

"You're in luck, Arus. This is an agro world, so we raise all sorts of crops here, including some special varieties of coffee beans that should be perfect for a dextro based life form such as yourself," he said, and pushed the container towards him. The thing was more like a bucket than a cup, and was not quite overflowing with liquid contents, steaming only a little less than the Terran's own.

"Unfortunately, I didn't really have anything in your size for cups, so you'll have to make do with some thimbles I found laying around," he said, before sipped at his cup. The look he got on his face afterward made the turian think the thing was some kind of drug. His hypothesis seemed even more correct when Hannah got a blissful look on her face after carefully sipping at her wide cup. Still, it would have been rude to refuse, and he doubted it would kill him.

He reconsidered that last bit a moment later, as the stuff touched his tongue, burning the sensitive bit of flesh, and nearly causing him to drop the bucket sized container. He was able to hold himself together long enough to set it down at his feet however, and then blow cool air over his mandibles, trying to cool the inside of his mouth. The two Shepards seemed to find his discomfort amusing, and after recovering a little, he laughed with him.

"Careful, it's hot stuff," said Adam, grinning.

"Your warning is most appreciated," said Arus, who blew on the container for a moment, blowing away the steam, and cooling the top layer of liquid just a bit. Picking it back up, he sipped it again, and this time actually tasted the beverage. It was...not bad. A bit bitter, but otherwise fine. He also quickly recognized that he was more awake afterward a moment. The stuff was a stimulant, if a light one.

"Not the worst thing I've had on this patrol," he commented, before gulping down a few mouthfuls, and setting the thimble aside. The two Terrans took their drinks a bit slower, but soon they set theirs down as well, and the three began to talk. At first, it was of course, Adam asking questions of the turian, every once in a while having to be told to lean back in his chair, as having him hanging over Arus made the micronian just the slightest bit nervous, for obvious reasons.

Topics ranged from where he was born, which happened to be on Palavan's smaller moon of Nanus, to when and why he'd joined the military. The latter proved to be of an interesting discussion topic, as apparently the universal draft of the turians, where everyone served for at least a few years of their lives, was not an unknown concept to the Terrans, who'd had something similar in their early days, just after the Federation was formed, but now looked on military service as something only a small fragment of their population needed to do.

When it was Arus' turn to ask questions, he reciprocated with questions on family and friends of the Shepards. It turned out that Hannah was a spacer born. She'd literally been born on a ship traveling between worlds, and had lived the first few years of her life aboard them, before joining the military so she would never have to leave them. Her husband, meanwhile, was a bit different. He'd been born on Earth, somewhere in the Pacific Desert, though he couldn't remember where precisely.

Of course, the topic then turned to how they met, which was typical as such things went. Shepard was a young officer at the time, barely out of her cadet stripes, and ready for action. Adam was just starting to work his way through the ranks of civil administration, an Undersecretary to the Senator of Titan. Shepard had been assigned to him as a guard on a particularly dangerous world, and the two had found common interests, that soon turned into interest in each other. And now, about fifteen years later, they had two children, and were living happily on the frontier.

"Children, that reminds me, where is this Jon you spoke of before? I thought I'd get to meet him along with Jane, but I haven't heard anyone else in this house," asked Arus, and Adam turned to look away, scratching at his ear in a way that even the turian could see he was trying not to say anything.

"Adam?" asked Shepard. Not that she hadn't noticed her son wasn't present in her home, but she'd been hoping to see her husband alone about that some time later. With Arus bringing it up, she might as well get the answer.

"He's in the infirmary right now. Not hurt or anything, not him," said the Terran, somehow looking sheepishly down at his wife, who currently couldn't even bite his ankle if she wanted to.

"What happened?" she said with a sigh as she stared at him, and Adam laid out the story. Apparently Jane and Jon had been in school earlier that week, when the governor's granddaughter had said something insulting to Jon. The boy had, according to Adam, as usual shrugged it off. Then the girl pushed him, into the dirt, and tried to start a fight. Jane, seeing her little brother try to play the big man and just walk away, had intervened, and she and the girl had come to blows. Blows that ended with the other girl having a broken nose.

"Alright, so what's being done to punish her then?" asked Hannah at the end of the tale, and Adam just shook his head.

"Jon insisted that I don't, that it was all his fault for not stopping the fight before it began. Heck, Ashley even came here to apologize to both of them, with her grandfather of course. Jon then went with them to the infirmary to just sit with her," explained Adam, and his wife just sighed at him, shaking her head.

"That boy would try to make friends with a t-rex if he ever saw one," said the woman at last, and conversation continued until, at long last, the two parents just stared at each other for a while. Conversation resumed, moving onto less charged topics, until, as the hours moved on, Hannah yawned. Outside, the sun was still shining, but then, Shanxi had a seventy-two hour day/night cycle. Looking at the clock, Hannah did a quick calculation in her head, and decided it was time to return to the ship, and to a bed.

"You sure you don't want to stay here? I mean, why not sleep in your own bedroom for a night, before we have to leave?" offered Arus, looking around and figuring there had to be more than enough room around here. Of course, he had been expecting a speech about duty or something, only to instead get a laugh from the pair.

"You really should pay attention more, Lieutenant Vakarian. I mentioned before that beds weren't something I was used to, don't you remember?" she asked, and Arus thought back to that first night in their shared quarters on the Talons. He'd assumed, naturally, that what she meant was the style of bed, now that he thought about it though, she had seemed to be talking more generally.

"I'm going to infer from that statement that means Terrans don't sleep...yet I saw you do it several times," he mentioned, and Hannah nodded at him.

"Terrans, when we're normal sized, have protoculture in our bodies. That stuff is like a small sun, and it makes us big, tough, and more importantly, keeps us energized. As such, eating and sleeping are optional activities, and most of us don't really see the point of the latter at all," she explained.

"Wait, if you don't have to eat, why do you have this coffee stuff?" he asked, kicking at the container still half full of the murky brown liquid at his feet.

"That's because some of us still like to do it. It's not necessary, true, but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable once in a while. Most Terrans though, they subsist on a diet that's just a protoculture slurry every time they feel a little groggy. A glass or two a month for some, others once a day, depending on how much they work themselves," explained Adam to the tiny man, walking away for a moment, leaving him just staring after him, before returning and showing off a sealed bottle with glowing liquid inside.

"So, you just drink that, and it makes you big?" asked the turian.

"No, not at all. The process of becoming a full sized Terran involves pumping protoculture into every cell in our bodies. If you or Hannah drank this stuff, it would probably kill you by setting you on fire or something," mentioned Adam, before walking away to return the bottle. When he returned, having no more questions for the day, Arus said his farewells to the man, who held out his hand to help his wife and her guest outside, setting them down gently beside the cart they'd come in on.

Soon, they had the Corporal pushing them again, winding their way through the dusty roads of the town. As they left, Arus spied the young Ms. Shepard continuing her lesson with that enormous blade, still going just as fast, though sweat was pouring down her brow a bit. How long could she keep that up? Had she been doing that during the hours he'd been talking with her parents? The implications were just staggering from a military level, of soldiers that were not only massive, but required no food or sleep. Supply lines wouldn't be an issue at all.

Then he began to think farther about the colony he was on. Turians, Asari, Salarians, even Krogan and Batarians, they expanded because they had to, because they needed more resources or just space. These Terrans on this colony though, they were here because they wanted to be. This whole world was just for the raising of a luxury good back at home, and the people out here just wanted to be somewhere they could stretch their legs.

A species like this, that didn't need the same things they did, that expanded just because the space was there, and why not use it. That was horrifying in a way, and yet, they kept going farther. Exploration, in a way his people never had before. Pushing at the boundaries not because of a physical need, but because of a mental one. A need to push at those boundaries just because they were there. Still thinking of this, he came in sight of the ship, still guarded by the eight huge forms in armor, and began to wonder if the galaxy itself would be big enough for them.

(Author's Note:

As we go farther with this, I do begin to wonder, so I'll ask my readers. Do you think this should all be one fic, or at certain points should I stop this part, and start a new fic as part of the same story. I do have an idea of where to do the stopping, but would like some opinions on that from my readership on whether that's a good idea or not)