Love and War

First topic message reminder :

"I swear to even the Asari goddess that when I get out of here, that lizard Kandros will wish I was an exile for what I'm gonna do to him!" Quinn Talos raged as she was unceremoniously shoved into a holding cell on the operations deck. The dark haired woman paced for time, thinking it was would all be straightened out once Tann got wind of what Kandros had done. She should have known better. As far as she believed, human's still weren't exactly favourites of the other alien species. On earth Quinn had an excellent service record within the Alliance, just as most members of her family did, but she had wanted more. She wanted to explore, to see things no human ever had, which was why she signed up for a place on the Andromeda Initiative. The only problem was, she wasn't the pathfinder, and her superiors didn't believe in security personal leaving the Nexus. As well as she performed her job, the call sign 'Cutie', thanks to her unfortunate initials, meant she wasn't exactly taken seriously. Quinn was slumped on the floor with her back against the wall now, glaring at the Turian guard outside the forcefield. She had fought her hardest for the safety of everyone on the Nexus, and this was her reward; being called a traitor and about to be dumped on some godforsaken planet with the rest of the exile scum. All because Kandros feared losing what little power he had to her. The asshole can keep it, she thought bitterly.

Kandros grinned, watching the sway of her hips as she walked ahead of him. Of course he was jealous. He was jealous of anyone who looked at her.

Quinn nodded in agreement as she clipped her own sidearm against her thigh. "Not just mine." she breathed as their shuttle finished docking.

Though he didn't know it yet, Kandros had plenty of reason to be jealous. Someone was about to rip apart their happiness before they'd even achieved it. 
Kesh found Kandros as they were handing over the codes to the new residents, her face grim. "The new security director needs more training. You need to come with me. I refuse to stand for this." She muttered. 
It should have been a warning sign but Maggie was far too excited to get on with their new life to notice. "Go on." She smiled at her lover. "I'll make sure we have snacks for the trip." 

Tyros was almost giddy. He couldn't wait to see his chosen mate smile again. She was going to have her answers. He didn't care about his own. He'd stopped caring a long time ago in fact. He only wanted her to be happy and if this meant seeing her smile again, he'd tear galaxies apart to do it.

Kandros was complaining to Kesh the whole way, about how it was no longer his job to worry about any of this. "Tann should be dealing with this, Maggie and I are no longer even a part of the initiative!" He insisted, feeling like this galaxy had brought nothing but bad luck since they arrived. Bad luck that was until Maggie came along.

Quinn's face was hidden behind her helmet for the first time in a while. She didn't trust the air on the Archon's ship. Everything seemed too quiet, and she was afraid to hope in the same way that Tyros was. "Do you feel that?" She breathed. "It's... still. Should a kett ship feel like this?"

For the next several hours Tann would take from Maggie what she had refused to freely give him. With his hand over her mouth he kept her from crying out to Kandros and when he was done she did nothing but lie there. 
"I told you I was in charge. And that means of everything." He hissed as he finally spilled himself inside her. "Never forget that, girl. Wheverever you go...you will always be under...me..." He purred, his tongue sliding between her lips. 
Then he got up and simply replaced his clothing, leaving her lying on the bed she and Kandris had once shared. 

"No." Tyros stomach felt as if it were going to drop into his boots. It should have been alive with men ready to attack them. This silence was deafening. "This is not right at all."

Kandros had been about ready to strangle his replacement as this was happening. He felt he was repeating himself far too often for someone who was supposed to be trusted with the safety of the entire nexus. "Who did you say trained you?" He finally asked suspiciously. The poor man would be in pieces once he found out what had been happening to the woman he loved.

Quinn nodded, glad they were both on the same page. "Think maybe the pathfinder found this one too?" She breathed.

"Tann..." the young turian muttered. In truth he was not the new security chief. The salarian director had simply put him there as a distraction and paid him well for it. "Look...I can't do this any more. I'm not going to let you yell at me anymore. I'm going back to the ship yard." That said he got up and simply left.
Tann entered a moment later, looking like a cat who'd gotten the cream. "Sure I can't convince you to stay, Kandros?"

"There's no doubt." Tyros said, running his long fingers over a bullet hole on the wall nearby. "Damn it. This isn't what I wanted to see...perhaps they are just licking their wounds further in?"

Kandros had been about to tear into Tann, until he saw that odd expression he wore. There was no love lost between the two men, and Kandros found it odd that Tann would ask him to stay. That would have been suspicious enough in itself, even if the younger turian hadn't just confessed that he wasn't even the security chief. Of course, he would never have dreamed the truth was something so utterly disgusting. "Maggie is waiting." He told the director through a clenched jaw.

"Kett are pretty good at that." Quinn mused, laughing quietly as she passed Tyros. "Whatever happened though, the computer core looks intact. That's something, right?"

"Indeed." Tann purred, a twisted smile on his thin lips. "Go if you must, turian. You will be nothing out there in the galaxies." He turned his back on the other man, still smiling. 

"I suppose." Tyros was the one in a dark mood now as he walked over to the computer and began to speak in the kett language.

Kandros felt the sudden and burning need to see Maggie, almost breaking into a sprint back to their room in his haste to find her. "Maggie, we need to leave. Now!" He called as he burst through the door, having not even set eyes on his lover yet.

Quinn had reholstered her weapon and removed her helmet, setting it down on the console next to where Tyros was working. "Better than the last three, their cores were fried by the time we got to them."

Maggie had managed to replace her clothing, stuffing the torn bits of her suit down the garbage hatch. Her hair was a mess and she was trying hard to drag a brush through it, tears sliding out of her eyes as the bristles got caught in the tangles. She didn't answer Kandros, in fact she practically ran from him.

"Good point. This one is..." the ship came alive, kett mechanic voices beginning to fill the hull.

"Maggie?" Kandros moved closer, intending to take the brush and gently coax it through her hair as he had many times before. Never for a second did he think she would recoil from him.

Quinn lifted her gun instantly, thinking the voices were other kett closing on their position.

His fingers barely touched her hair and Maggie all but came flying off the chair. The brush slammed into his talons as she swung it in defense. "We need to go!" She yelled at him, forgetting her bag as she ran for the door. 

"Alive." Tyros finished, the lights around them bright enought to allow him to ytype without needing to speak now. "It's all right quinn. We are safe."

Kandros didn't know what he had done this time, but held up his hands in a defensive manner. "Maggie, what's happened?" He breathed, wise enough not to advance on her. "You told me to help out..."

"People always say that... right before the shit hits the fan..." Quinn breathed, not lowering her weapon.

Maggie said nothing. She kept the hair brush in her hand, brandishing it like a weapon as she exited the apartment. Her legs shook as she walked and she fought to ignore the agony of every step. 

"Hello, Quinn. How are you?" The computer growled at her in the kett grutteral tone. "What is it you require?"

Kandros was straight out the door after her. He knew his lover well enough to notice the strained way she was walking. "Maggie, tell me Tann wasn't here while I was gone... please..."

Quinn spun around, her weapon aimed at the computer terminal now. "Did you make it do that?" she asked Tyros rather fearfully.

Maggie didn't answer. She didn't dare to look at him. She couldn't lie to his face. She'd done enough of that. "We need to go..." she whispered. "I need to get away from here..."

"Yes. Are you mad?" Tyros asked uncertainly.

Kandros nodded, wise enough to know that pressing Maggie too hard would only push her away. "Say the word... and i'll take his head with us." He breathed.

"Why?" She breathed. "What if it finds out I'm... abnormal?" The young woman added, clearly still not accepting of her genes being anything but human. She still lived with the thought that the kett had done something to Tyros, changed him somehow. How else could she explain his memories of the quarian ark?

Maggie didn't say anything at all. Tann had taken her safety net. She no longer believed the Salarian could be beaten. There was no goodness left in the galaxy. 

"What is abnormal to you?" Tyros asked her, cocking his head. His long fingers hovered over the console, waiting for her answer.

Her silence made Kandros realise how very wrong things had gone. He continued loading things into their shuttle in silence, trying to figure out a way to help his lover.

"My genes were tampered with, Tyros." she breathed. "Maggie got sick because quarian and human DNA is simply not meant to mix... I'm a lab grown anomaly."

As their shuttle took off Tann was there in the hanger, waving them off. Maggie curled into herself at the sight of him, holding onto her own slender legs and burying her face in her knees. The salarian smiled like the cat who'd eaten the canary. 

"That does not mean anything is wrong with you." Tyros said, shaking his head. "Either of you. Your mother was in love and tried to create a product of it. The human who raised you tried to punish you all for that. Even the quarian who gave you life. That does not make abnormal. It makes you...interesting...wonderful. perfect for me." He gave her a smile, hoping she would return it.

Kandros saw that strange smile, and again it filled him with burning hatred. He wanted to tear something apart with his bare hands. "I don't need you to tell me what he's done, I don't want you to have to relive it." He told his lover firmly. "but I wont just let this go, I promise you, Maggie... that monster's head will be on a pike sooner rather than later!"

Quinn felt tears well up along her dark lashes when Tyros spoke such passionate words. No one had ever said anything quite so beautiful to her. She blamed her mother just as much for all of this, as she had stood by and let her husband treat Quinn the way he had. All that aside, Tyros had indeed managed to make her feel better than worthless, something she had sorely needed. She didn't smile at him, instead she set her weapon down and threw her arms around him, showering his face with kisses.

Their first night on Eos was a strangely quiet one. The pathfinder and some of her crew was there to greet them but Maggie didn't seem overly impressed as she might have otherwise. She retreated to bed early in fact, locking herself in the guest room and shoving furniture against the door for good measure.
"Your girlfriend  doesn't seem as animated as you described her." The asari doctor named Lexi pointed out as she sat beside Kandros on the patio outside. "Did the two of you get in a fight?"

Tyros laughed warmly, hugging Quinn as tightly as he dared. "There you are." He breathed. "I thought I'd list you for a while there and..." He paused long enough to devour her lips in a hungry kiss. "I love you too."

Kandros wasn't looking out at the landscape of his new home, instead he was simply staring down at his hands were they rested in his lap. He had spent so long keeping everyone safe, but when it had come down to it... he had failed the one who mattered most. "Not exactly..." He replied heavily.

Before Quinn could respond to the loving sentiment, blood suddenly dripped past her lips, her lavender eyes wide with surprise. Behind the unfortunate lovers was a female kett, no more than a few feet away with a pistol in her hand. She had been close enough to fire a shot in the vulnerable spot were Quinn's armour separated slightly to allow for movement. 
"Humans, such a vulnerable species to have crossed the dark space between galaxies." She purred. "They have no biological qualities that make them special, and yet... Are proving to be a rather large thorn in the Archon's side."

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lexi asked, resting her hand on his wrist. "You seem so lost. If this world is not what you two hoped, there are six more to explore. The pathfinder and her lover Jaal are heading to Havaral at the end of the week." She suggested. 

Tyros could barely react. His arms slid around Quinn and he followed her to the floor. "No...no..." His fingers shook as he brushed the blood off her lips. 
His head shot up and he glared at the female kett. "What is wrong with you?" He barked. "What have you done?"

Kandros shook his head, but didn't push Lexi away. "Wherever we go... She'll still remember that I failed her."

"You brought an alien trespasser, what else should I have done?" The female replied, her weapon not lowered. She watched Tyros for some moments, then her eyes narrowed. "The failure..." She finally breathed, her gun now pointed at his own head. "I should have known."

"I don't think she blames you. Whatever happened it will take time to get over but if you don't do it together, you will lose her." Lexi said gently. "Don't stop being her rock. She needs that. Find someone to be yours until she is strong again so you don't crumble too."

Tyros laid Quinn down and shoved to his feet, shaking with rage. He pulled out his shot gun and aimed it at the kett woman, his teeth barred.

"How can I trust someone enough for that after what happened?" Kandros asked honestly, finally lifting his piercing blue gaze to meet hers.

"Oh please..." The female scoffed. "If you were any kind of success, you would see that she is a danger to our people! Putting her down was the only kind thing to do, unless... you thought we would make a weak creature such as her, one of us?" She added, not realising that Tyros didn't remember the truth about what had been done to him.

"It will be hard but you have to try. If you love her you have to." Lexi said, her tone firm but gentle. 

"What the hell are you talking about?" Tyros snapped, stepping closer to the woman. Both their weapons were now aimed at deadly range. One wrong move and it was the two kett would be lying dead on the floor. Not that anyone would notice.

"Maybe I'm not as strong as she thought I was." Kandros confessed. "I promised I would never let anyone hurt her. I never thought Tann would be the one I was supposed to be protecting her from."

The female looked at Tyros as though he were stupid. "Take any genetic superiority and evolve her to be like us." She breathed. "But humans... they have nothing we need. Unless you count their tenacity, which U doubt is a genetic trait anyway."

"I always wondered about him." Lexi confessed. "Did he...." She didn't finish, by the look in the turian's eyes she didn't have to. "Nevermind. You are away from all that now. Just listen to what I said. It will be fine. If you need someone to talk to I'm here." 

"Evolve....are you saying?" Tyros' mind wasn't wrapping itself around this as well as it should. "You're not like asari. How do you...we evolve?"