Love and War

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"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.

"She knew I would hear." Kandros commented. "I'll get the vaccine, anything you need." He swore. "No one will ever know, and if they find out... I'll kill them before I let you go back into cryo."

Quinn couldn't feel the ground beneath her feet, and started kicking her legs, trying to force whoever had grabbed her to quickly to drop her.

"It's okay, Tiran." Maggie told him, turning onto her side. She was tired. She felt like she hadn't slept in years. "I'll be fine. I don't need food or vaccines. Just sleep. You can go now..."

She would have no such luck. She would find herself staring into the face of an exalted kett. The alien was looking as if he'd never seen anything like her.

"You always think you know best." Kandros breathed, the bed dipping as he lay beside Maggie and pulled her against his chest. "You'll get your vaccine, if I have to pin you down and force it on you."

Quinn was almost certain her heart stopped when she looked into that alien face. She had seen the state Kandros had been left in at the hands of one of these creatures. The young woman was fighting all over again, her lavender eyes filled with fury as being handled this way.

"Who is the one being the know it all now?" Maggie yawned, closing her eyes. "Just don't take me back that salarian doctor. He scares me."

"You are strange, creature." The kett growled at her. "Why hide in wreckage?"

"Why? Did he do something to you?" Kandros asked, clearly ready to hurt the other alien if he had.

"I was taking a personal moment." Quinn replied rather flippantly. "Put. Me. Down!" She insisted, her pistol unholstered and aimed at where she hoped this creature's heart was.

Maggie opened her eyes, surprised by the passion in his voice. "He kept trying to call for a stasis pod. Kept asking questions about us and how much you knew about my illness. Just so you know...turians can't catch it." 

"Bathroom? Is that what your kind call it? I thought...i heard there were rooms for that." The kett said in confusion. His voice was almost gentle. "And I will not. I am keeping you."

"It wouldn't bother me if I could, you know that." Kandros assured Maggie gently. "Next time I see that damn salarian... he netter hope we're not near an air lock!"

Quinn was far from gentle. She was having the mother of all bad days, and fired her pistol without an reply.

Maggie laughed. Kandros alone knew she loved a good air lock joke. Even if she knew he wasn't joking about this. "You know salarian are nosy. He didn't mean anything." She yawned again. 

The kett slammed her up against one of the thickest beams, continuing to do it until her body was limp in his hands.

"And I'm really a drell." Kandros snorted. "Just get some rest, I'll have Kesh have your vaccine ready for you when you wake up, okay?"

Beneath her helmet Quinn smiled slightly before she blacked out, finding it oddly amusing that she had fled Ardwin only to land herself in even hotter water.

"It's not so simple." Maggie whispered, believing her sister had kept her promise and told no one about her sickness. She truly believed in the next few days she was going to die. 

The kett tossed her over his shoulder and carried her out into the badlands. It would take even Ardwin awhile to figure out what had become of Quinn.

While Maggie slept, Kandros was in Kesh's office, arguing with her about use of supplies without explaining why. Like Quinn, it seemed Kandros wanted no one to know the truth.

In all her years of service Quinn had never been taken captive before, this was somewhat of a crush to her ego.

"Kandros, you know Tann is keeping close watch on everything going out. Especially since the human path finder found someone in the home office smuggling out our supplies and seeking them. And then there's the decscension in your own ranks..." The female krogan was shaking her head. "There's no way you're going to get that stuff here after all that.
"You know for the last month or so you've been acting a bit strange...maybe it's time you had a psych eval done. You also don't look like you've slept in a few days. At the very least you should do that.  Clear your head before you get booted off the Nexus with ypur second in command."

The kett was rather cheerful about his catch. Even with the sound to his stomach. He carried her to an abandoned water filtration station amd locked them both inside.

"She was a traitor." Kandors pointed out, perhaps a little too firmly. "All I am asking for is use of a few science materials, I'm not asking you to do anything illegal here Kesh." The proud turian was close to pleading now. 

Sometime later as Quinn's eyes fluttered open she had a hard time recalling what had just happened. She knew she was on Kadara, so why was she now locked somewhere in the dark? The memory suddenly slammed into her and she groaned loudly.

"Why?" Kesh asked, cocking her head to the side. "What is so important about these things, Kandros?" 

Quinn was tied to a post in a room with little more than a bed in the corner. The kett who had taken her was seated on in, struggling to read in the tiny light provided by a lamp by the lamp nearby.

"I... Can't tell you." Kandros replied, looking much like a shamed puppy. "I made a promise, and you know how I like to keep my word."

Quinn was deciding her next move. She had never heard of a Kett taking a human for anything other than experimentation. "People will know I'm missing." She told the alien bravely, even if it wasn't true.

"If Tann finds out it's all on you." Kesh said, handing him the data pads he needed. "I hope it's worth it." She added, clucking her tongue.

"If they cared you would not be on Kardara, talking to yourself while you used the bathroom beneath rubble." The kett told her without looking up. "And besides, everyone is afraid of me. What are they going to do?"

"I'm sure I can fit more than one salarian into the same air lock." Kandros replied with a smirk, knowing Kesh wouldn't follow what he meant.

"I wasn't talking to myself, I was making a call." Quinn corrected haughtily. "And believe me... you're a pussy cat compared to the things i've seen in my own galaxy."

"Now there's a thought." Kesh may not know what he meant but she too had a problem with salarians. A galaxy away and they were still being cruel to her people. "Are you sure you're all right?" She asked her friend again, worried by the exhausted look in his eyes.

"If you say so." The alien shrugged. "Are you done talking? I'm trying to learn to read this strange language..." He muttered.

"It's been a long day... what with losing my second and everything." Kandros replied, genuinely feeling bad for keeping things from Kesh.

"I'm not going to shut up until you let me go." Quinn assured her captor before bursting into a rather loud rendition of a krogan drinking song.

"How is Maggie taking it?" Kesh asked, shaking her head. "The human loved her sister. I swear...i have never seen one of their kind so...oh what's the word...Drak would call it disgustingly sweet."

The kett had never heard such a sound and tried hard to cover his ears. "That is a monstrous noise!" He roared. "Shut your mouth!"

"What's that human expression... chalk and cheese?" Kandros added with a chuckle. "I can't believe they share genes they are so different." He offered Kesh a grateful smile and picked up the data pad she had prepared. "But with Quinn gone, it's up to me to look out for her sister now."

Quinn simply began to sing the second verse even louder. She was rather apt at being annoying.

Kesh gave Kandros a suspicious look as he left her office. The turian she knew hated humans. It wasn't like him to offer protection to one. Even if she'd been the reason he'd survived a kett attack. 

The kett threw his book at her, the hard back hitting her in the forehead. It turned out to be a human informational about how to please ones partner.

Kandros hovered around the science lab until finally the asari doctor had left. He had only a short window, but with all the supplies already collected he just hoped the medical VI could do the rest for him.

Quinn looked down at the book, then back up at the kett with horror on her face. The young woman was quick to redouble her efforts in trying to pry her wrists free from where they were bound.

The salarian doctor waited for Kandros to leave Maggie's apartment, using his own omni tool to sneak in. There was something seriously wrong with this human and he had to find out what it was. If that meant dissecting her in her own bed so be it.

"What is wrong with you?" The kett growled, getting up and collecting the book. "You think you'd be happy to see an artifact like this. What does it say?"

Just as the salarian was letting himself in, Kandros was cursing at the VI for not doing what he wanted. It would be a little while longer before he finally had a weeks supply of vaccine to take to his lover.

"I thought the kett were smart? Can't figure out our primitive language?" Quinn mocked.

When Kandros finally returned he would hear Maggie's screams coming from inside the apartment. The salarian had already started his work. When he got inside he would find the alien covered in his [size=38] lover's blood.[/size]


[size=38]"I am afraid not. I'm what my kind call a reject. I failed to master all that the Archon thought our kind should. So...i was slated for death but I escaped..."[/size]

Kandros didn't even stop to ask questions. He shot the salarian without hesitation and was moving across the room with all the charge of a krogan in bloodlust. Kandros jumped on the other alien and was slamming a fist into his face over and over.

"And you decided to take a pet?" Quinn snorted, clearly not a soft touch when it came to the troubles of others.

"Kandros!" Kesh grabbed for the turian's arm. "He's dead! What the hell is happening here?!" 
Maggie moaned softly, crawling toward the edge of the bed. Like always she was more concerned about her turian than herself. "He...attacked me...Kandros...saved me..."

"You have somewhere else to be?" The kett asked. "Seems to me like everyone else on this planet you are here because no one cares about you."

Kandros was breathing heavily, his piercing blue eyes still filled with rage as they looked up at Kesh from where he was still straddled across the corpse of Maggie's attacker. It almost seemed like he didn't know what had just happened.

"I have everywhere to be." Quinn corrected. "It was my first day of freedom in this galaxy, and you took it away!"

"Tiran." Maggie's fingers rested on his face. "Look at me." She was worried about him. She hasn't seen that dark look since the night she'd found him on the kett ship. "I'm here. Where are you?" 

"You're sadly mistaken if you think there is freedom here." The kett snapped. "Until the Archon is gone we are all just puppets and game pieces."