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Citadel
Docking platform


The drink, it tasted well. But luckily she did not order a third for a request pinned. The answered.

"Yes, Asora?" The asari asked, she knew who was one the other line. A informant, news traveled fast and C-Sec agents needed to know.

"Whitfield. Meet him on the docks. He's looking for the doctor." It was a salarian a quick paced voice. Fast and straight to the point. Like all of their race.

"Thank you."

The simple conversation was over. But she had learned a lot. Whitfield was the new human Specter and this bit of information made it.. Ultra juicy. She'd snuggle her way towards the Captain. The human had a good record, she had read it of course.

She'd go. The asari's lifespan was long thus this simple joining of a mission would be of no real bother at least to her schedule. A missed class wouldn't be missed for this good reason. Making an impression on a Specter was a great achievement even if it just was to a human Specter. Already a turian specter had taking kind interesting and her fellow race. A human added to this would certainly bring her step one closer to her achievement.

The bar was left and she fled without notice heart beating like a little girl which she wasn't. Her appearance was close to one but no she was wiser. It was like Christmas with a huge treat waiting under the tree. One step closer to becoming a Specter! Of course, she remembered if she could maneuver around and make it on board his vessel...

Returning to her apartment through the nearest rapid transit station a way to remove herself from the crowds and anybody else who may come up with an offer or a tip. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to be distracted.

The apartment was in pristine condition. The keepers moved objects and were within it almost more then she.

The open apartment had little furniture and the sterile white colors softened her mind against the dark gorgeous sky. Not faked like the rest of the Citadel.

In a swift minute the asari tossed away the glamorous mask of herself. No, the dress was shed and the body of a warrior appeared. The black armor clad officer left her apartment as swiftly as she had entered. Checking then double checking her equipment. Everything was in order except Captain Whitfield. Now, that'd be interesting.

It was only several moments that she had arrived. One elevator before Captain came towards the dock. During her few minutes alone she watched over the man's ship. It reminded her of the former Specters craft. The Alliances best, of course it wasn't just the Alliance who helped develop it. Turian's had their hands in it as well. The galaxies races were bonding unstopped by the Reapers.

As the Captain's elevator came she sent of final reports of her departure. If she didn't do this if she didn't get on this ticket many would be annoyed. But if not they wouldn't miss her. It was an honor to be with a Specter and hopefully C-Sec would understand. She wasn't giving them much of a chance to approve did they? There was no investigation to look over or nothing important afoot. In truth this was becoming a lucky break.

"Hello Captain." The asari was quick to speak but she did so calmly, slowly. The red skinned women looked at the armored Specter. Ah.. Yes, this was a soldier.

Alliance Dock
Citadel

Red, the name rung one name to whom would say it. Ali. For the luck of her, her face could not burn a darker red in annoyance. She was with him? Oh, she should have suspected. The Council's decision in this had not reached her yet. Probably because she was to busy taking a drink. Thats why she kept away from bars and alcohol. They distracted you and this happened to you.

"Hello Alia." The red asari nodded pleasantly. Not giving away a hint of annoyance. It was hard to do. Few knew what she had gone through and little afterwards could block. Of course such scars had their consequences but every asari had their own. When you lived a hundred decades the lack of emotional troubles meant the lack of living. "I was here to speak to Commander Whitfield."

Turning, snapping away from the annoying asari she nodded pleasantly to the capture. Smile trickling across her lips. "Sir, I am officer Asora." Now, hopefully that would mean something. To the human race it was a reasonably known name. The red asari who faced the geth with humans as comrades. Or not. Asora was not the type to gloat but with Whitfield's ability to access whatever information he could maybe her name would appear. Hopefully for the better of her.

Widow Cluster
Citadel Station
Alliance Docking Bay

Alia regarded the younger asari as something of an upstart. She was not one to follow most social protocols, and she couldn't spend time with officials worth a damn. It wasn't that she was a bad officer, or inexperienced. She had pulled her weight on the Special Response team on C-Sec. But her methods were... unsavory. As long as the mission was completed she didn't care who got in her way or who got hurt in the process. Alia didn't like her. And for reasons that Alia couldn't quite make out, Asora didn't like her either. She knew well enough about Asora's aspirations. Most of the C-Sec officers who had worked with her did. Pallin hadn't mentioned her when he had given the assignment to Alia, and he would have contacted her if Asora was also being assigned. This meant that Asora was here on her own. And if she was here on her own, then she had an ulterior motive.

"Fine, whatever. I'm not going to get involved with another one of your schemes."

Asora had been on Eden Prime when the Geth attacked, and she had helped to fend them off. Of course, she hadn't fought for noble reasons, she fought like all of the humans on the planet, for survival. Alia didn't blame her, but Asora had taken advantage of that and had more or less forced herself into the niche of "humanity's friend". Technically, Alia no longer worked for C-Sec, but that hadn't made a difference to Pallin. Of course, she owed a few favors to people in the offices, but that could be said of anyone who worked there. It was how the game was played. For Asora, a favor meant nothing unless you helped further her goal of becoming a Spectre. In all of Alia's 240 years, she had only met one other person like Asora. She wasn't red, but she had a similar disposition. It had been in basic on Thessia. She had been among the few who had mustered out during training. She simply wasn't able to make the cut. The poor girl had done nothing but try to show off and impress the NCOs. Bad idea. She had wanted to prove that she was the best and that she could handle anything they threw at her. In the asari military, individual determination was a good thing, but individuals who broke the rules to get things done quickly weren't. The same could be said for every military.

She turned her back on the red asari and continued to the ship. While it might not have appeared that way to Whitfield, it was a sign of disrespect. Alia wanted nothing to do with Asora or her lust for becoming a Spectre. She knew that her name would most likely never be put forward as a candidate, if it was, well... it was unlikely that another Spectre would accept her. She was too willing to break laws to get the mission done. She would rather shoot someone than negotiate. She wasn't the kind of person that the Council wanted, or needed, to protect the Traverse.

Serpent Nebula
Widow Cluster
Citadel Station
Embassy Access

Fayt looked at the Turian with fury. "Just because you were in the fight against Soverign doesn't mean you should want to die. I was there too, just like hundreds of other soldiers, many of them are space particles now. I saw all the people I've known since i joined the Alliance die. The ship I was originally stationed on was destroyed. My best friends were on that ship!" He was pissed.

Fayt didn't like seeing soldiers getting drunk for other purposes than celebrating. Well, technically the Turian was celebrating, but it wasn't a good celebration. "You need a cold shower. A sober soldier is a good soldier." He sighed. "You have a name? Mines Fayt." He extended the hand towards the Turian for him to shake it.

Serpent Nebula
Widow Cluster
Citadel Station
Embassy Access

Fayt did the expected thing and followed. He caught up to Nihlin. "I'm sorry too. I didn't mean to yell at you. It's just I hate Soldiers not acting properly. But you have to admit, you need to stop drinking." He thought while he walked along. "Hey, you can stay at my place for a bit. I'll be leaving an a few days to be stationed on a new ship though, so it's only temporary. I have an extra matress and a second room. You can sleep there. Interested?"

Milky Way Galaxy
Sentry Omega Cluster
Hoc System
Artificial Crater, Virmire

A sitting figure encased in a bulky suit of armor sat at the edge of the radiation-filled circle, it's legs hanging over the lip of the nuclear blast zone like a child sitting at the edge of a pond. Kicking a rather small rock down the incline, the armored figure's glowing eyes tracked the stone's bouncing, rolling trajectory deeper into the crater. The rock finally stopped two hundred feet away, soil erosion due to weather patterns already having dulled the previously smooth semi-sphere the bomb had scooped into the planet. There had been life here once.

Hefting up it's legs from the crater using it's arms as support, the armored figure let out a grunt inaudible to the outside world and hauled itself upright. It stood there for a few seconds, dusting itself off, before beginning the long walk to the center of the fallout zone. The radiation meter on the figure's omni-tool began to beep insistingly, the sound becoming louder and faster until it was suddenly cut off. Again inaudible to the world outside it's helmet, the person inside the armor spoke.

"Shut up."

The sky overhead, once a beautiful blue hue, was now nothing more than endless grey cloud. Billowing, roiling, almost boiling in intensity, occasional flashes of lightning interrupted the moaning wind with thunderous cracks. The hundred kilometer-wide storm created by Shepard's bomb had forever distorted a part of Virmire's natural cycle. The storm would take another two days to pass, and then there would be nice weather for a few weeks. At least, until the storm's next passing...

A quarter of an hour passed, then half an hour. Then an entire hour clicked past as the armored figure continued it's slow, clunking walk to the center. Sunken footprints took shape in the mud, the dirt making way for ceramic as acid rain eased it's shifting. The closer the figure got to the center, the more it waded into mud and the small lake in the crater's center. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the beeping from the omni-tool resumed.

"I thought I told you to shut UP."

The figure continued to wade deeper into the mud. The beeping continued to grow slowly louder, and the acidic water was continuing to rise above the figure's waist. Now chest-deep in mud and water, the person let it's torso fall forwards and adopted a slithering motion, sliding gracefully through the dredge and muck. Now only a few hundred feet away from the center, the beeping was so loud and insistent that it was unbearable. The figure stopped it's graceful motion and began treading water in the acid lake. Raising it's omni-tool to it's helmet sensors, the figure inside yelled again, knowing full well it was the only one that could hear itself.

"CEASE YOUR IMPERTINENT NOISE MAKING!!!".

Then the person inside stopped moving completely. The omni-tool was showing something almost impossibly amazing. Impossible in it's potential impact. Impossible in theory. And now impossible to disprove. The figure dove straight down, through the muddled waters, through the mud, through the thicker sludge that lay underneath the lighter stuff, and all the way down to the glass shards that marked the edge of the nuclear explosion's concentrated blast. Unsheathing a cutting laser holstered on it's back, the armored figure then scraped itself a narrow corridor of muddy dirt in the solid stuff, and set to cutting a piece of glass free. The water around the figure suddenly spiked in heat as the tool activated, and hundreds of thousands of small bubbles shot up towards the lake's surface as the water around the laser boiled and evaporated.

Working through this blindness, through the oppressively heavy dirt and mud and water, the figure continued to cut until it had created a small circular incision in the glass. Letting the cutting tool drop onto the lake bed next to it's feet, the figure then stomped on one side of the glass circle, to no avail. Stomping again, it took a small look and shook in frustration as the circle refused to budge from it's location. Stomping repeatedly now, the armor on the bottom of the figure's boot was beginning to crack the glass when it's temper finally ran out and it grabbed the cutting tool at it's feet. Heaving it up like some primitive blunt weapon, it began hitting the glass circle with the heavier end of the tool with relentless brutality. Pieces of glass flew apart in shards, the metal on the laser cutter began to bend, and finally a small amber shard of glass shot right into the armored figure's helmet sensor.

Bouncing off of the optical sensor there, the figure froze in surprise, and finally looked straight at the shard in front of it's eyes. Grabbing it with one hand, the other one holding the battered and now useless cutting tool, the figure struck a victory pose before putting it's arms to it's sides and swimming back to the surface.

Virmire had just gotten a little brighter.

Serpent Nebula
Widow Cluster
Citadel Station
Alliance Docking Bay

Roland nodded his head disregarding the insignificant incident, "It's no problem, really." Later he would find out about this little confrontation from Alia and see her side of it, and then have a little talk about manners. Shifting his weight to his right foot, the Captain took a deep breath in, raising his chin ever so slightly. His eyes had become trained on Asora's, his lips twitching at the corners into a tiny smile. "Alright Asora, what is you wanted to speak with me about? I'm sorry to rush but I've got a mission of my own."

Whitfield took his right hand off his hip and crossed his arms, not in defiance but in a gesture that he would wait until she had explained herself. Now after seeing the confrontational behavior between Alia and Asora, Roland had an idea of what was going on; she wanted one of two things.

Milky Way Galaxy
Serpent Nebula
Widow Cluster
Citadel Station
Alliance Docking Bay

Whitfield nodded his head while he listened, weighing his options and the good versus bad effects it would have on the mission. When it came down to it she would be able to hold her own, and he knew that as well. However, allowing her to be a part of the squad would most definitely jeopardize any relationship he had with Alia already. Already there were tensions and he hadn't even said yes yet. Whether or not this was a bad sign Roland wasn't one to be superstitious, especially in a Galaxy as large and phenomenal as the Milky Way. Reapers, geth, mercenaries, pirates; the galaxy was fraught with danger.

"Are you willing to endanger yourself, Asora?" asked the Captain pretty straight forward. When he asked this question he had placed his right elbow in place on top of his left arm which still remained in the same position as if his arms were crossed. It was a small habit for him to rub the stubble on his chin when worried slightly, but no one had taken notice to this yet which was a good sign. No weaknesses.

"We've all had to make sacrifices, and the journey only gets tougher."

Whitfield's expression was true and caring, his eyes the most worrisome of his features. Unfortunately for most humans their eyes did give away their emotions, even when they tried their hardest to keep them locked away. It wasn't very typical for a human these days to be even the smallest amount concerned about an asari, or any alien's well-being.

"I won't ask you again because I know you've made up your mind," he said. "There's no telling what will happen out there."

Again the Captain had cocked an eyebrow, unsure that the asari was asking to be a part of the squad for the right reasons. He had to be absolutely sure that she was going to be on his side for this; he did not want his chance cut short, and he did not want the mission compromised. Living on the Citadel and working for C-Sec was a good life, even if it meant a few boring little adventures in the Wards time and again. Personally, Whitfield would have rather pursued the quiet life rather than be caught in a fire fight, but fighting was what he was born to do.

"Are you sure you want to leave this all behind?"