Mass Effect 1. Chapter 1

_Authors Note: So this is my first Fan Fic! I hope you enjoy it! Please i beg of you leave constructive criticism and suggestions to make this story better! I don't have a set in stone update schedule yet, but I will try to update as much as I can. I can say this though, a new chapter will come out this weekend and it will be MUCH longer than this one. So please enjoy! _

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Kale'Xaren was ready to get the hell off this ship.

The day has finally come to embark on his Pilgrimage, the passage into adulthood for young Quarians. Although most young Quarians are usually excited for this day, Kale was more eager than most of his fellow ship mates.

He just wanted a way out, a new beginning, a fresh start to leave behind all of the pain and misery of living on his liveship known as the Graaf.

Kale had been preparing for his Pilgrimage for weeks prior, studying the galaxy and all his needs for survival. He had become obsessive over it. He wanted to be fully prepared for what he might encounter out there.

As Kale sat in his living quarters alone waiting for his departure ceremony to start, after checking his gear for probably the thousandth time, he sat there thinking about this supposed "Great Journey" he was about to embark on. A Quarian during their Pligrimage is supposed to find something of value and bring it back to the Migrant Fleet. Kale however had no intention of doing this.

He wanted to leave the fleet forever.

Of course he told no one of this, not even family or friends.

Ah, friends.

Something Kale doesn't have on the Graaf

His father isn't even a friend to him especially ever since his mother died.

Suddenly his father stepped into the room, "Ah, Kale! Today is your big day! You ready to go to your ceremony so you can be on your way?

Kale's father Fer, seemed to be extremely jovial by his statement.

Too jovial.

Kale knew that Fer wanted him gone. He knew he was just a nuisance to his life. Fer expressed this almost everyday by reminding him that he was a "Mistake" for being born and that he hated the responsibility of taking care of him. It may not be necessarily verbally, but by the way Fer acted everyday and his daily mood, he knew it was what he was thinking under the mask.

"Yeah of course, lead the way … father"

Kale hated calling Fer father, due to his unloving nature and just lack of attention towards his own son. However, Kale wanted to be on his good side today.

Fer'Xaren turned around and went out the door he just came in with Kale following shortly behind. They went down the hall of their living quarters towards an elevator. Fer opened the elevator door and stepped inside followed closely behind by Kale. Fer then hit the button for the hanger bay and then the elevator slowing starting to make its decent.

They both stood their in silence for as short while. This was normal for Kale and Fer. Kale usually did not speak to his father unless spoken to thus the silence commenced.

Kale thought about how great it will be to finally be away from this man. For the 18 years of his life, he had to listen to this man and do what he told him to do.

Kale for what felt like the first time in his life was finally at bliss.

Kale never had the chance to ever have this feeling due to him always trying to please his father so he could feel loved just once. Not having any friends also didn't help very much at all either. For some reason, Kale was just bad at talking to other people and when he finally got someone to talk to him, they always felt awkward around him and usually proceeded to walk away from him. For many nights over the years, Kale cried himself to sleep due to his lack of friends, an unloving father, and this suit he was stuck in.

The suit.

"Don't even get me start-" Kale's thought cut short by the elevator door opening and Fer leading the way once again down a hallway that lead to the hanger bay where the ceremony was being held.

Even though the whole crew technically comes to this event, he knew most were there just their because they had to. He even knew some were even glad for him to be leaving.

He hoped one didn't think that way however.

A young Quarian girl, Rayne'Verr, had been on Kale's mind as he entered the hanger to the ceremony. He scanned the crowd of the crew looking for her (It was hard due to everyone wearing suits) however Kale knew which was her. She had a dark red hood and mask with an elaborate suit design, with a dark red and gold stripes and designs all over. Even though he has never seen her real face ( No Quarian sees anyone's face actually unless they have a very close relationship) he fell in love at first sight.

Sort of.

There's one problem.

They have never actually met.

And now Kale is about to embark on his Pilgrimage in which he has no intention of returning.

Funny how life works out like that.

As Kale and Fer enter the hanger bay, they are greeted by a loud applause by the whole crew. Fer walks to a center stage placed in the middle of the room with a small shuttle behind him ready to take Kale on his Pilgrimage. Kale is also next to Fer center stage as Fer starts to make a speech to the crew:

"Today we celebrate one of our own leaving for their pilgrimage. It just so happens that my own son is doing so today." Fer looks over at Kale as he says this and Kale swears that he sees him smile at him although impossible to tell due to the mask.

"As captain of the Graaf, I wish my son good luck on his pilgrimage and present him with these gifts to aid him on his journey to bring something of great value back to the Migrant Fleet" Fer waves his hand over to three Quarians standing nearby holding small boxes containing food, credits, meds, and other useful items. One of the Quarians is also holding an immunity-boosting injection needle, which is crucial for survival outside of the fleet. The Quarian injects Kale with the immuno-booster and walks away as the other Quarians give him his other gifts.

"My son has chosen to start his pilgrimage by going to the Citadel. My advice to you is avoid C-Sec as much as you can since they find Quarians to be shady figures." Fer says to Kale. Kale nods in return to his statement.

Fer then begins ramble on about how proud he is that his son is finally going his pilgrimage and he has grown up so much. Kale chuckles at this as he knows he is just saying this appease his crew.

Can't have a captain that doesn't even want his own son.

"…and with that, all I have left to say to you son is, keelah se'lai and may your ancestors give you strength during your pilgrimage." With that, the entire room erupts in applause as Fer leads Kale towards the shuttle with his gear and multiple gifts.

Just as kale enters the shuttle he takes one last glance at the crowd and miraculously sees Rayne, clapping. Kale stares at her for awhile, almost too long and Fer takes notice and gives Kale a slight nudge to get in the shuttle.

Not even bothering with anything as affectionate as a hug, Fer says one last thing before the shuttle door closes: "Goodbye Kale, and keelah se'lai."

"Hmph. Some great final words for your son", Kale thinks before the shuttle door closes before Kale can even respond. Kale sits down right as the shuttle takes off and flies away from the Migrant Fleet. Away from Rayne.

The shuttle then approaches a Mass Relay and goes into FTL travel.

As the shuttle speeds away at FTL speeds, Kale can't help but think about Rayne and how much he already misses her.

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_Please review so you can tell me what you think!_


	2. Chapter 2

_Authors Note: Sorry for not updating over the weekend! I was just a little busy and you know, laziness. As promised this chapter is much longer. Hope you enjoy it!_

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Kale'Xaren was completely amazed by the view he was experiencing.

He had never been to the Citadel before. In fact he had never left his own ship before.

As the shuttle flew away from the mass relay, it made its decent to one of the lower arms of the Citadel. Kale could see remains of a huge ship that he could not recognize scattered around the space in the middle of the Citadel. He also remnants of lots of smaller ships that he recognized as human Alliance, turian, and some asari ships and even a few geth ships. There were many clean up crew ships scattered along the Citadel cleaning up all the ship parts and scavenging what they could from what remained.

Kale had read on the extranet about a huge battle at the Citadel about a week ago involving geth but he never really paid attention to it. He figured it was just a few geth who decided to attack the Citadel, but when he saw the remains of the unknown ship, he knew it must have been something bigger than just a few rogue geth.

The shuttle flew towards a lower ward, which looked like a…less desireable part of the Citadel. It landed on a pad next to a building that looked like a refugee center. Kale sighed as he saw a very, very long line extending out the door of processing that allows people to enter the Citedel.

Kale grabbed his equipment and exited the shuttle, thanking the pilot as he left. He took a look at the line to see if it was moving along quickly and discovered that it was very slow and noticed many aggravated people of all races shouting at the front of the line for it to hurry up.

"Can this go any fucking slower!?" yelled an angry looking Krogan. Kale unfortunately was directly behind him and proceeded to slowly back away from him.

"This can't end well" Kale breathed under his mouth as he backed away. Kale backed away a little too far and accidentally stepped on the foot of the person behind him. A very big foot.

"Watch where you're fucking going you stupid Quarian!" said the man behind Kale who also happened to be krogan. "Do that again and there will be problem between us!"

"I'm very sorry sir I didn't mean to-"

"Ghalk! Finally your pyjak self made it here!" said the Krogan in front of Kale who now was walking towards Ghalk and the very frightened Quarian. "Who's your little friend here?"

"Just some stupid Quarian who stepped on my foot." Ghalk said as he he pointed his finger at Kale.

Kale was just about scared out of his mind as Ghalk pointed at him. Rapid fire thoughts ran through his mind as he thought about all the possible outcomes of this situation. None of them involving Kale coming out unharmed.

"Eh-Um-Hey sorry I didn't mean to step on your foot I was just backing up and I didn't mean to get in your way or anything and I- "

"Shut the fuck up!" Screamed the unnamed Krogan. "Quarians talk too much! You're making my head hurt!"

"Should we teach this pyjak a lesson Plehk?" Ghalk said to the now supposed Plehk. Kale realized this was completely unreasonable but he wasn't able to tell them that. They were Krogan after all; any excuse to fight is good enough to send someone to the infirmary.

Or worse.

"Sure why not? I've been itching to fight since I came to this station" Plehk said what Kale was hoping he wouldn't.

Kale didn't even respond to this and ran away as fast as could towards the entrance of the building. He passed many angry refugees on the way screaming insults at him but he didn't care. Getting killed by Krogan five minutes after his Pilgrimage started was not on the agenda today.

Kale reached the entrance of the refugee center and attempted to open the door but was grabbed very forcefully from behind by large hands.

"Damn it so close" Kales thought as he was thrown against the wall and was now face to face with the Krogan.

"Though you could get away from us you little pyjak?" said Plehk as he punched Kale directly in the stomach. Kale writhed in pain as he fell to the floor and attempted to give the Krogan a sympathetic look but then quickly remembered he couldn't see his face and looked down instead.

"Please, I don't mean any trouble. I'm just trying to-" Kale let out a ferocious cough before he finished, "get into the Citadel like you"

"Aww little pyjak here wants us to let him go! What do you think we should do about that Plehk?" Ghalk sneered as he looked at his companion.

Ghalk didn't even reply to his friends question as he kicked Kale hard in the stomach again and receiving a cry in pain and more coughing in return from the injured Quarian.

"That" Ghalk finally replied to his companion.

Kale who was still writhing in pain on the floor, looked at all the other people in line and wondered why someone was letting this go on.

"I get why they don't want to get in the way of two Krogan but they could at least do something" Kale thought as he saw most of the people in line either look away from the scene or capture the whole event with their omni-tools. Kale could feel himself nearly blackout just before one of them said:

"Good choice!" Plehk yelled "Should we finish the job Ghalk?

"Why not?" Plehk smirked to his friend "All this fighting is making me hungry. After this we should-"

"C-Sec!" Screamed a turian C-Sec officer followed by four other officers who commenced to tackle the two Krogan and put cuff s on their hands. "You are under arrest!"

Unfortunately one of the tackled Krogan resisted arrest and was screaming obscenities at the officer while doing so. He managed to throw off two C-Sec officers and stood up to completely decimate the other two officers on his friend.

"Use the tranq!" Screamed the turian as at least seven tranquilizer darts hit Ghalk rapid fire. Ghalk fell to the floor moaning, out like a baby and Plehk also started to make fuss with the other two officers on top of him. Plehk was shortly dealt with by more tranquilizer darts. The two Krogan lay on the floor moaning as all of the C-Sec officers stood up re-cuffing the Krogan. Obviously C-Sec grade hand cuffs were not Krogan proof.

This whole time Kale lay on the floor on the brink of passing out as the whole scene played out in front of him. His suit was not used to the force of getting punched and kicked on, especially by the force of a Krogan. This was Kale's first fight ever and he obviously didn't do a very good job. The turian C-sec officer from earlier walked over to Kale knelt down to ask if he was okay. Kale couldn't respond however, as he blacked out right then and there.

"Get this one too Huerta!" Yelled the C-Sec officer as a floating stretcher showed up, followed by paramedics picking up Kale and leading him to the hospital.

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Kale slowly opened his eyes to see that he was surrounded by doctors and nurses. He felt a sharp pain in his stomach as he attempted to sit up from the bed.

"Great. First day of my pilgrimage and im already in hospital. Just my luck." Kale though as he grabbed his stomach in pain.

"Oh don't do that you still need to recover" Said one of the doctors "Those Krogan appear to have broken several of your ribs. You will make a full recovery but you need a day or two before we can get you back on your feet again."

"Fucking-Fantastic" Kale thought. He barely had enough credits for food let alone a few days at the hospital. "Isn't there any way I could just leave now? I don't really have the credits to stay here for that long, doctor." Kale asked to the doctor as she looked at her data-pad to see the condition he was in. The doctor sighed and waved everyone else out of the room so that it was just her and Kale.

"Well, your suit can take care of most of the healing but you still need pain killers and lots of bed rest. Unless you have somewhere else to stay, the hospital is your best course of action." The doctor then proceeded to inject a painkiller into Kale's arm which made Kale feel better immediately.

"Please doctor, I can't stay. I feel much better now that you gave that pain killer. Just give me the bill and I will be on my way." Kale attempted to stand up after he said this which was huge struggle on his part. He eventually was able to stand up but only with the help of the doctor.

"I understand your financial situation but I highly recommend that you-"

"NO! I have to leave!" Kale practically screamed at the doctor as he pushed past her to leave. Kale was tired of being pushed around and told what to do. Holding his stomach in pain, Kale walked out of the room towards the front desk of the building to pay for his bill with what little money he had.

Then Kale realized something.

He didn't have his bag full of equipment with his credit chit in it. He quickly turned around to head back inside the room he just exited when he suddenly collapsed on the floor in front of him blacking out once again.

The last thing Kale sees right before he completely blacks out is the doctor that he just yelled at run to his side and call for more nurses to help. He swears he then hears a very familiar voice along with the other the other people surrounding him to help him.

Kale doesn't get ponder about this familiar voice as he proceeds to completely black out.

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_Please tell me what you think! Next chapter will probably be out in a day or two so stay tuned!  
_


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note: What!? Two chapters in one day!? Unthinkable! I think I am starting to get the hang of this. I think it is safe to say that you can expect updates often. Hope you enjoy this chapter!_

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Kale'Xaren was back on the Graaf.

Kale looked around him, he was sitting in a desk in his classroom from high school. All of his fellow classmates surrounded him in their desks as well staring intently at the front of the room watching one of their classmates give a presentation for an assighnment.

Kale recognized this student as Rayne.

He stared intently at her as she gave her presentation on… "Who gives a shit" thought Kale as he just stared at her awkwardly with his elbow on the desk and his hand on his head. Kale daydreamed about how amazing it would be to just talk to Rayne and ask her out and date her and maybe even-

"Kale'Xaren you are next to present!" The teacher of the class cutting Kale's daydream short. Kale didn't realize that Rayne was already done with her presentation as he slowly warped back to reality.

"Oh Shit" Kale said under his breath as he remembered he had to present his half-ass presentation right now. Plus he hated talking in front of people; he stuttered like a babbling idiot.

Plus Rayne was sitting right there.

"Fuck my life"

Kale stood up to go and went to the front of the room to show his presentation to the class. He opened his omni-tool to open the presentation and displayed it on the large monitor in the front of the room.

Kale's presentation was about the history of the geth war and how the Quarians were exiled from their own home planet, Rannoch. Everyone knew this history very well, but the assignment was to chose a part of Quarian history and present it to the class. Kale knew making everything would be easy but presenting it would be a bitch.

He hated school with a passion. They always put him in these awkward situations.

Or so he thought.

"Um-ehh-yeah-Umm my uh-presentation is on the q-q-quarians being uh-exiled from our home planet of Rannoch." Kale's body was literally shaking from him being so nervous.

Some people in the class snickered at Kale's nervousness. People Kale hated. It made Kale's heart sank even deeper when he even saw Rayne laugh a little. However, Kale somehow pushed on and finished his introduction.

He then went on to show an information slide on the monitor which showed some pictures and info on the Quarian peoples exile from Rannoch. He also showed a few pictures of Geth. As the presentation went on, Kale's speech only got worse with more and more stuttering. Eventually, some kids just burst out laughing completely which made Kale completely freeze from his presentation.

"Hey everyone shut up and let him finish!" This unexpected outburst was not by the teacher but by Rayne.

Rayne

"Keelah…" Thought Kale. This completely stunned him and caused an awkward silence in the room for a little bit longer than anyone would have liked.

"Well are you going to finish Kale?" The teacher said as Kale was brought back to reality.

"Oh yes! So the Quarians…" Kale was able to finish flawlessly without stuttering which stunned everyone in the room. It even stunned Kale a little bit too.

Kale concluded his presentation and the class applauded in most likely mock respect as Kale went back to seat.

"I can't believe Rayne did for me…" Kale thought as he sat back down and someone else's presentation started. "I don't think I could have gotten through it without her help… I should have thanked her"

"I SHOULD HAVE THANKED HER."

"FUCK"

Kale almost screamed in the middle of the class as he ridiculed himself for making this stupid mistake.

"That could have been my chance! Now I will never get another one" Kale sat there with his head down in sadness, too ashamed to think anymore about what just happened.

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Kale awoke from his dream sad as he remembered that moment in the class vividly.

It was the only interaction he ever had with Rayne.

Well sort of interaction.

Hard to explain.

Kale and Rayne have never properly met, but she knew who he was, especially after his Pilgrimage ceremony.

But they had never properly talked together, Kale was just too nervous to ever talk to her.

Kale hated thinking about it and as he sat there in same hospital bed he was previously in, he wondered if he will ever see her again.

The doctor who had examined him before suddenly walked inside Kale's room looking at a data-pad. She looked up at him suddenly and was suprised to see he was awake.

"Oh you're up! Good, I just got back with your analysis of your health." The doctor said as she looked at her data-pad once again. "It turns out the blows to your stomach not only broke some of your ribs but also caused a misbalance of chemicals in your suit, thus causing you to black out once again. We have fixed the imbalance though and you should be fine now. You were also out for at least..." The doctor scrolled down her data-pad, "3 days"

Kale was a bit taken aback by this and shouted a bit too loud: "3 days!?"

"Yes, but you are now fully recovered and are able to leave whenever you want." The doctor said coolly.

"Bu-bu-but (damn it stuttering) I can't pay for this stay! I don't have enough credits! What am I-"

"Calm down! The fees have been paid for by a friend of yours"

"By a friend of-"

Kale was cut short by another person entering the room. Kale nearly blacked out for the third time.

Rayne entered room nonchalantly and walked up to Kale's hospital bed. The doctor smiled at this and proceeded to walk out of the room to leave them alone.

Kale was absolutely speechless as Rayne sat down on the chair next to the bed. A million thoughts were running through his head at once as glanced up and down at Rayne, making sure it actually was her. He just couldn't believe his eyes. However Kale was staring at Rayne for quite some time and had not said anything and this made Rayne feel a little uncomfortable. She finally spoke first:

"So…Kale…how are you?" Rayne said this fairly awkwardly but at least she broke the ice.

Kale was completely in dreamland when he was suddenly blasted back to reality when the one known as Rayne actually spoke to Kale'Xaren nar Graaf. Kale made a very feeble response:

"Oh! Uh-em-fine! Thanks for asking! I feel much better! Um-eh how are you?"

SHIT

FUCK

THAT SOUNDED RETARDED WHY DID I JUST SAY THAT.

"Um fine… I guess…." Rayne said awkwardly once again.

"Hey uh-Rayne I'm sorry, I just um… I… didn't expect to uh-see you here that's all" That could have been less awkward, Kale thought.

"Oh yeah sorry about that! Rude of me not to even explain myself. I recently embarked on my pilgrimage as well. In fact the day after you left" Kale remembered hearing about this from other people in his class. Everyone goes on their pilgrimage but not all on the same day. Each person per class goes a different day, usually correlated directly after one another.

"You see I also chose to go to the Citadel; I want to be a doctor one day and I hope I could receive some insight at the hospital and possibly someday bring back advances in medical science back to the fleet. However, I was volunteering with nursing and noticed your name on the patient list. I visited you before, but you were out cold. The doctors explained to me what was wrong with you and also told me about how you couldn't pay for your bill."

Kale was listening intently and didn't interrupt her at all. He nodded at her to continue going.

"I was actually given a fair amount of money as gifts for my pilgrimage. More than enough to pay for the bill, so I just figured I should. I knew that you just started your pilgrimage and didn't want you to already be broke already, so-"

"Thank you, Rayne" Kale cut her short. He felt he needed to. He owed so much to her now. "I will pay you back don't worry."

"No it's fine you don't need to." Rayne said firmly.

"Are you sure? I feel rea-"

"Kale, you don't its fine" Rayne said with sincerity that Kale hoped was real.

"Thanks" Kale said with a smile that he wished she could see. She chuckled a little bit to this and proceeded to get up.

"You ready to get the hell out of this hospital Kale?" Rayne said with smile that Kale swore he saw

"Hell fucking yes"

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Expect a new chapter tommorow! Please follow my story for updates on new chapters! Also as always, review so you can tell me what you think! Please your feedback is extremly helpfull, no matter what it is. Thank you!


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Note: This chapter is a bit different than the other ones. Hope you enjoy it! _

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**2 weeks later**

Kale'Xaren and Rayne were sitting in a small café in the lower Zakera wards.

It had been 2 weeks since Kale left the hospital and he now felt absolutely no pain from the incident with the Krogan on his day. He can thank that to modern medical science and the suit he was wearing.

Ah, the suit.

Kale's suit took a bit of a beating from the incident; the doctors had to replace the chest plate due to a huge crack on the inside of the suit plus rebalance the chemicals in his suit.

"Quarians have so much shit they have to worry about" Kale spoke to Rayne as they were talking about his previous injuries. "Not only do we have to worry about our physical bodies, we also have to worry about our stupid suits as well. I seriously hate this suit so much! I want to fucking get out of it! But I can't! You wanna know why? Because I will die if I do! It isn't fair! Keelah!"

Rayne could tell he was over reacting but she also felt the same way. Maybe not as…vocal as Kale is but it still bothered her. She was surprised Kale was being so open with her. They had only properly met a week ago and he was so quiet and nervous. That's how Rayne remembered Kale being for as long as she knew who he was. Rayne didn't realize he talked so much.

"Yeah I don't like it either…but I don't see a solution to the problem coming anytime soon"

Kale appeared to be angry about this whole ordeal which he was, but he was honestly just happy to be talking with Rayne like a normal person.

Well sort of.

Kale and Rayne had been living in a Turian shelter together while they both waited to get enough money so they could get a trip off this station. They have had lots of time to talk together since the Krogan incident and discussed their future plans. Kale confessed to Rayne about how he wants to explore the galaxy and make a life for himself.

He did not however tell her he was not going back to the Flotilla

Kale also told her that he would like it if she came with him, making the excuse of being "lonely" out in the galaxy.

"Wait a minute, why did you come to the Citadel if you want to explore the rest of the galaxy? You could have chosen to start anywhere you wanted." Rayne asked when they had this conversation.

"Because it's the outlet to the rest of the galaxy! And I could meet new people to help on my journey… well it seems I already did find someone." Kale chuckled at this kind of nervously.

Rayne saw his flirting from a mile away and replied: "Well I guess I could come with you… but what will I be doing while you 'Explore the Galaxy?'" Rayne made air quotes with he fingers on the last part. She could see his intentions for wanting her come along and she wasn't really sure what to think about it. She had been in relationships with other people before, but they had never worked out. Rayne wasn't really sure if she was ready to be in a relationship again.

Especially with a guy she pretty much just met.

Although exploring the galaxy does sound like fun, being a doctor was always the dream of her parents not hers. She only went to the Citadel to study to be a doctor to appease her parents. Rayne cared about her parents very much but didn't care about what they wanted her to do. The thought never crossed her mind to go against her parents but now that she met Kale…

She made her decision.

Kale was fumbling to answer her question from before, thinking of various lame reasons for her when suddenly Rayne cut him off:

"I'll go with you."

"Y-You will?" Kale asked hopefully with slight joy in his voice

"Yes" Rayne said almost hesitantly

Kale nearly jumped in the air with joy at this but decided it wouldn't look good in front of Rayne. Instead he attempted to sound cool by just replying:

"Sounds good!" He failed miserably "Well now all we have to is save up enough money for two tickets to get the hell off this station. I don't have enough money for even one ticket and you said you had less than me after paying for my bill at the hospital so yeah. We should get jobs or something."

"Alright sounds good but where exactly would we go?" Rayne asked

"Ummm-eh I'm not sure we can figure it out later." Kale spoke nervously as he realized he didn't think that far ahead.

"Ok" Rayne trusted Kale to know what to do.

Well that's debatable

"Well you better figure it out soon, I don't want to be waiting around forever"

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Rayne remembered this conversation from a few days after they left the hospital as they were still sitting at the table in the café. Kale had been rambling on about some non-sense that she wasn't following very well.

"Keelah he is so nervous" Rayne thought to herself as he was still talking. She looked up and down at his navy colored suit with a black stripe design and was examining it closely. She never really looked at his suit with such detail until now.

"Kale!" Rayne shouted at him from across the table interrupting him, "Calm down! Has anyone ever told you that you talk so much?" She said with a little giggle.

"Oh-eh-sorry, I'm just a little bit nervous for some reason. I talk too much when I get nervous." This is the quality that Kale had that prevented him from ever having a friend. People just found him too annoying.

"Well you reason to be today, you asked me out on the date." Rayne said in playfully with a little laugh.

"Hehe yeah…" Kale said scratching the back of his head even though he couldn't feel it. "Well it's not really a date-uh I mean it is but uh-wait I mean it isn't uh-erm-I just thought we should c-celebrate us finally getting enough money to l-leave the C-citadel."

Kale was beyond embarrassed and was blushing profusely. "Good thing she can't see through my mask hehe" Kale thought.

Rayne couldn't help but laugh at his nervousness. She thought it was kind of cute. "Its okay Kale, I was just messing with you! And you're right, I'm so glad we finally get to leave this stupid station. Working in a ship parts shop was not what I envisioned to be doing on my pilgrimage. Reminded me too much of home."

"Yeah being a janitor for the local levo restaurant is not what you call 'fun'. I couldn't even eat the damn food." Kale said with mock frustration. They both worked mindless jobs, but they knew they weren't staying for long.

However tonight was not a night to bitch about there jobs. They were finally going to eat some real dextro food instead of a tube of nutrient paste every day.

"So uh what are you going to get?" Rayne asked after she chuckled a little bit from Kales last comment.

"Oh um I think I will get the dextro pizza… What exactly _is_ a pizza?" Kale asked curiously to Rayne while looking up from his menu.

"Its some human food that is shaped like a circle, I think. It says here we can share it though, do want to just do that?" Rayne asked backed to Kale.

"Yeah sure!" Kale excitedly replied back to Rayne. Just then the waiter came up to both of them and took their order of the strange new food they discovered to be known as pizza.

"So have you decided where we are going yet?" Rayne asked after the waiter was out of earshot. Rayne still couldn't believe he hadn't decided where they were going yet. It had been over a week since they got jobs and Rayne asked Kale this question just about every day since.

"Actually, I have" Kale replied with confidence "I have decided we should go to the Turian home world of Palaven. I figured it would be a safe start since the native population also eats levo. Also I think it would be interesting learning about the turians. Besides maybe we could find a friend or someone who has a ship that could take us to other planets. Keelah! I can't wait!"

Rayne noticed that he was obviously was very excited about this but Palaven? Really? Doesn't sound very…adventurous. Rayne decided she would pick the next place.

"Ok sounds cool. Glad you FINALLY made a decision." Rayne laughed a little at this. She was also excited to leave but she was wondering more about Kale than the trip. Over the past few days, Kale started to grow on Rayne with his cute nervousness and his terrible attempts at flirting. She started to actually care about him. Now that they were going somewhere else that could be potentially dangerous, she was worried for him. Kale wasn't the strong looking type and most likely wouldn't last in a fight. That was evident in his first day experience on this station. She was starting to doubt if Kale realized what he was getting himself into. She sure as hell didn't know either, but at least she knew what the risks were.

Kale exclaimed excitedly at her response and proceeded to ramble on to her about the planet and the turian race as a whole. Kale didn't even allow Rayne to responed as he just kept talking.

And talking

AND TALKING

"Ah he is doing it again." Rayne thought to herself as she let out a little sigh.

Before Rayne was about yell at Kale for the second time that night, the waiter came back holding a fairly large looking dextro pizza. It had no particular toppings on it, just a lot of colored dextro blocks with dextro sauce underneath. Kale finally stopped talking to look at the pizza in awe.

"Wow that looks good! Now uh how do we eat it?" Kale with said pure curiosity as he was still confused about this strange human food.

"I think we eat it as slices. See how it is cut into slices like that?" Rayne pointed to the pizza as she said this.

"Oh uh ok" Kale reached over to grab a slice and picked it up gingerly with both his hands being careful not spill any of the toppings off the slice. Kale remembered that he awkwardly had to slightly lift his mask to eat this food. He slightly took off his mask just a little bit so you could only see his mouth and quickly took a bite, and hurriedly put his mask back on. However he didn't realize how hot the pizza was and burned the inside of his mouth a little. Kale screamed a little at this, making Rayne nearly double over in laughter as she just finished her own bite of the pizza. Finally the food was able to go down Kale's stomach.

"Ahhh! That was so hot!" Kale said in slight pain and embarrassment. "But really good!"

Rayne couldn't stop laughing at this as she put her hand over her mouth (Well the place where her mouth would be on her mask). Kale put his head down in embarrassment and also began to laugh a little. The rest of the night went on smoothly and without any more events like Kale's. They both made small chat between bites, but they were few and far between as they devoured the levo pizza. They had never experienced something so tasty in their lives and they took complete advantage over this by eating the entire pizza.

"Wow I am so stuffed!" Exclaimed Kale as he held his stomach in happiness.

"Me too" Rayne said with a chuckle. The waiter then a came with the bill which Kale paid for of course (It was a date after all!)

They both left the café with full stomachs and happiness as they headed back to the turian shelter to get prepared for their departure tomorrow.

Kale asked nervously right before they went to bed that night: "Did you have eh-fun tonight Rayne?

Rayne sat down in her cot and replied:

"Yeah, Thanks for dinner Kale." She said with a smile.

"Oh good!" Kale replied excitedly "Well goodnight! See you in the morning!"

Kale then layed down in his own cot near Rayne's and quickly fell asleep.

As Rayne saw Kale fall asleep, she thought to herself as she rested her head on her pillow that night right before she slipped away form consciousness:

"Am I really falling for this guy?"

* * *

_I know this chapter was pretty fluffy but don't worry! It will get more serious next chapter! Next chapter will be out maybe later tonight if I feel like it but definetly tommorow if not. Please review so you can tell me what you think!_

_P.S: Sorry about any mistakes and typos from earlier! I have made sure to proof read my chapters completley now so you shouldn't find anymore mistakes. _


	5. Chapter 5

_Author's Note: Well this is my longest chapter yet! This chapter is very different from the rest, be prepared ;) Hope you enjoy it!_

* * *

Kale'Xaren and Rayne'Verr were sitting together on a large civilian refugee ship.

The ship contained hundreds of people of all races although, mostly human. Since Kale and Rayne wanted to leave the Citadel as soon as they could, they got the cheapest tickets on a refugee ship that they could find. This ship was indeed going to Palaven…On it's last stop. The ship was making many stops along the way to human colonys, Earth, Sur'Kesh, and then finally Palaven. This however did not bother Kale and Rayne, as they sat together surrounded by 3 humans and a turian.

"I can't wait to finally get back to Vancouver" Said one of the humans to a female human. "I've been trapped on that stupid station for too long."

"Yeah me too, it's been years since I've been to Earth." Replied the female human.

Kale noticed that they must have been a couple due to them holding hands. Kale had never really met a human before, besides the doctor in Huerta. He knew almost nothing about them except the strangeness of the way their food looks. The couple continued to talk about Earth and things they missed and Kale just couldn't withstand his curiosity. He waited for a break in their conversation before asking:

"Excuse me may I ask, what is Earth like?" Kale a little bit too directly to the couple. The man was about to say something when the turian sitting on the other side of Kale responded as well:

"Yes, I would like to know also. I don't know much about you humans."

The man nodded his head and began to explain:

"Well there are many cities scattered across the entire planet. There's no particular capital of Earth however each nation is under affiliation with the Systems Alliance. The economic system is-"

"Right, right but what about the environment? What kind of plant life? What does it all look like?" The turian intervened obviously not caring about the social and political aspects of Earth.

"Well there are tropical rain forests with thousands of trees and wildlife, barren deserts, high snow-capped mountain tops. Earth has a little bit of everything." The man replied plainly.

"Ah, interesting. A nice change to just seeing silver on Palaven for your whole life." The turian replied again. It appears that this turian just left Palaven. Kale read in the travel schedule that this ship goes from Palaven and back to the Citadel to then goes to the other planets again to start the cycle over. Palaven was just the last stop before it went back to the Citadel. This turian was traveling to Earth, alone which Kale thought was odd.

"From the way you described it, Earth sounds absolutely magnificent!" Kale replied to the man.

"Well its not as good looking when all you see for miles is skyscrapers" Countered the man with a chuckle.

"Well that doesn't hinder me from going!" Replied the turian "A new color palette for my eyes to see will be a nice change."

"Glad your visiting then!" Replied the man. The man was about to say something else when he was interrupted by being flung out of his seat and hitting the wall to left. In fact, everyone who was seated was flung to this same wall. Before anyone could ponder about what just happened a loud speaker came on in the room and V.I spoke from it.

"_Attention guests: Mass effect fields are temporarily out of order. Cabin gravity has been drastically reduced. Power has been reverted to the drive core for unexpected faster than light travel" _

The V.I repeated this statement again before the captain of the ship came on the loudspeaker this time:

"Attention passengers this is your captain speaking. We have been pursued by an unexpected vessel and are attempting to flee by engaging in FTL travel. I am sorry for anyone who was-"

The captain wasn't able to finish was sentence as large explosion shook the entire ship causing a hull breach. A huge yellow beam ripped through the entire front end of the ship, causing the front of the ship to completely split off from the rest. Since this was a civilian ship, it had no kinetic barriers, no outer defense guns, and no ship security. The ship was completely defenseless against an attack.

As the ship began to lose oxygen and gravity, people around Kale and Rayne died horrible deaths by lack of oxygen. Due to their suits, Kale and Rayne did not need outside oxygen and were the only survivors in this new graveyard. Kale was now floating away from where he had previously been laying with Rayne following closely behind.

Kale was completely frozen with fear. It all happened so fast, he had no idea what to do and just laid there stock still as gravity took its place by having his body float along towards the great empty void.

Rayne however was not taking death for an answer. Noticing that Kale wasn't doing anything, she grabbed him be his arm with one of her hands and grabbed a nearby hand rail with the other. She noticed on the corner of her eye, a series of escape pods lined along the wall.

"If only I could just make it to those, we will be fine" Rayne thought as she looked back up at Kale who was still frozen in fear. She knew the only way they could make off this expired ship alive is if they worked together, so she decided force would be the only way to convince Kale to act.

"Kale! We need to work together to get out of here! Fucking grow a pair and grab on to the hand rail over there!" She motioned towards the hand rail a little farther up the hall, the same one she was holding but a little farther down the hall than her.

"Eh-Uh Ok!" Kale said instantly as he was suddenly brought back to reality. He grabbed the hand rail with his free hand and looked back at Rayne. "Ok, now what?"

"I'll let go of your arm now and you need to grab onto the rail with your other arm." As she said this she let go of Kale's arm and grabbed the hand rail with her now free arm. Kale was a little slower to react but still managed to grab on the rail with both hands. "Ok now shimmy your way up the rail to those escape pods"

"Ok" Kale replied with fear behind his voice. He looked at where the escape pods were and saw that there was about fifteen feet of distance between him and the escape pods. He started to move very slowly, it was hard to maneuver in low gravity but he could have moved a little faster than he was.

The entire time, Kale was thinking about how shitty of a situation he was currently in. Before he thought the most frightening thing that ever happened to him were the two Krogan beating him up. Nothing compared to this.

This whole time, the mysterious ship that fired that devastating yellow beam began to move closer to the destroyed ship to board.

Rayne was directly behind Kale and was moving at a reasonable pace towards the escape pods. She was able to easily move one hand after another along the hand rail and she eventually caught up directly behind the freighted Quarian in front of her.

Rayne spoke to Kale as quickly but as calmly as possible: "Kale, please hurry we need to get out of here!"

"Ok, Ok! I'm going!" Kale practically screamed at Rayne and picked up the pace slightly. They were now about six feet away from the escape pods when suddenly they both fell to the floor with thud. Normal gravity suddenly returned back to ship and all of the expired bodies of the passengers with their luggage fell to the floor as well. A blue shield erupted around the entire ship thus emitting a temporary mass effect field around the entire ship.

"What the fuck just happened!?" Kale said rapidly. Rayne didn't respond to this however as she grabbed Kale's hand and ran towards the escape pods. She typed in on the terminal near the closest pod to open and rushed inside with Kale closely behind. She then closed the door behind them and typed into the terminal to launch the pod.

Kale was about to sit down in one of the seats in the pod when he saw a strange figure out the window of the door to the pod. It wasn't anything Kale recognized but it had four eyes, brown skin, and a weird triangle shaped forehead. He saw more of the strange looking creatures accompanying the other one holding large pods. Lots of them.

One of the creatures saw Kale through the window and pointed at him. It proceeded to fire its weapon at the pod causing Kale to get down to protect himself from the bullets.

"Rayne! We have to go now!" Kale screamed at Rayne as she pressed one last button on her terminal and the pod shot out of the destroyed ship before the creatures could even get close to their pod. Kale and Rayne quickly sat down in their seats and put the overhead bars over their bodies. The pod shot towards a nearby planet, which Rayne and Kale didn't pay attention to what it was when they started to originally pass by it in the now destroyed ship.

On the side window of the pod Kale could see outside an utterly massive ship still attached to the now decimated civilian ship. Kale didn't recognize the ship at all. It was cylindrical in shape but had almost rocklike formations jutting out of it. He also saw the huge beam cannon at the front of the ship that he assumed caused the destruction of their previous occupied ship. Kale couldn't see the ship any longer however as the pod started to enter the atmosphere of the nearby planet.

* * *

"Ok, Ok, ok…..ok . .Happened?!" Kale began to have almost a nervous breakdown as he screamed this to know one in particular but hoped Rayne responded to this. The pod crash landed on a terrestrial planet however, it was likely uninhabited as Rayne had done a local scan of the area with her omni-tool for any signs of civilization. They both were now standing on the ground of the planet looking around them.

"Calm down Kale! We will get out of here! That pod has a distress beacon and I already activated it don't worry!" Rayne attempted to reassure Kale which seemed to have worked a little bit but he was still shaking a little bit.

Kale took a deep breath and calm downed a little but was still a bit shell-shocked from the whole incident. In the span of about fifteen minutes, the ship he was just sitting on blew up by weird brown looking _things _and everyone in the ship died and now him and Rayne were crashed landed on an unknown, uninhabited planet. Well it was unknown to them. The memories of previous moments from before replayed in Kale's head again and again like a movie real and Kale realized one thing.

He looked like giant pussy in front of Rayne.

Kale then proceeded to ridicule himself for not growing a pair like she said and acting on saving the day. Kale was just so tired of being the victim. He wanted to do something about it but didn't know what to do instead he just apologized to Rayne.

"Hey Rayne, I'm sorry I screamed at you just before and uh-erm- freezing up like that back on the ship I was just so scarred and didn't know what to-"

Rayne interrupted his rambling by walking over to Kale and giving him a hug.

"It's ok. I was scarred too, Kale." Rayne spoke into his ear. Kale was so surprised by this that he almost forgot to return the hug she gave him. Rayne then broke the hug and backed away a little. "Ok lets see if that distress beacon worked."

Kale was still reveling over the fact that she just hugged and almost forgot to reply to Rayne. After that hug Kale was completely calm.

"Oh-uh yeah lets go do that." Kale said nervously.

They walked over to see where they placed the distress beacon on the ground and noticed that it was flashing a light and was indeed working. Kale and Rayne both looked up expectantly at the sky but only saw the remains of the former civilian ship raging down in the atmosphere.

"Well I guess we will have to stay here for the night" Rayne said slightly worried. It appeared to be about mid-day where they land on the unknown planet. They never really noticed their surroundings fully and began to take it in. They were in a slight clearing surrounded by lush green forests. There were also huge mountains nearby their crash site as well as some in the distance.

"Um ok. Will we just stay in the pod then?" Kale asked.

"Yeah I think until someone-" As if on cue a shuttle flying towards them was seen in the distance by Rayne. "Well looks we don't have to wait at all"

The shuttle then reached the crash sight and it could now be seen that it was a human Alliance vessel. It landed close to the pod and 3 soldiers holding rifles stepped out. The one soldier who appeared to be the commanding officer spoke up: "You guys send that distress beacon?"

Rayne replied first shocked by how quick they arrived: "Uh yes, thanks for responding to our distress beacon. The ship we were previously on was attacked by some unknown vessel. We think we are the only survivors. Um…" Rayne hesitantly asked: "How did you guys get here so quickly?"

The soldier replied plainly: "We received a distress call from a civilian class ship and responded immediately to it. Our ship arrived from the mass relay however to find only a ship graveyard. Then this distress beacon was discovered shortly after we arrived."

"Oh uh makes sense" Rayne replied awkwardly "Can we um-please go now?"

"Yes ma'am" The lead soldier replied and quickly lead the two Quarians into the Kodiak shuttle. The shuttle then took off towards the sky. Kale couldn't help but think how weird the whole situation just was. Five minutes after they crashed and they are saved? Too weird. Besides Kale was looking forward to a night alone with Rayne…

"Where will you take us?" Rayne asked the lead soldier quickly ending Kale's dirty thought.

"To the med-bay of our ship to make sure you are ok, then questioning to see what you know about this unknown enemy." Said the soldier firmly.

"Great" Kale thought. He was terrible under pressure let alone a military interrogation. But he felt that he could help them because he did know a little bit about what happened. However, Kale was still a little traumatized by the whole ordeal and felt he needed to either faint or throw up.

Or both.

"Excuse me sir can I get somewhere to rest, I don't feel too well" Kale finally spoke to the soldiers. "I uh-I –uhh needdddd to-"

Stressed out from the whole day and the sudden changes in gravity so quickly caused Kale to faint. Plus fainting was just a common thing for Kale these days. Rayne also didn't feel too well but did not faint. One of the soldiers went to help him up and asked Rayne if he was ok.

"Yeah he's fine he does that often"

* * *

_Hopefully you were able to catch on that I added the Collectors into this crazyness! Tell me what you think about it all! This story will from now on will have serious parts like this from time to time. Next chapter will be out tommorow!_

***UPDATE* 4/2/14**

Click on my profile to read my note about when the next chapter will be out


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note: UPDATE! UPDATE UPDATE! Thank you for being patient with this story! (If you were waiting) My computer problems are officially over! Anyways, Please enjoy!_

* * *

Kale'Xaren and Rayne'Verr were sitting in an interrogation room on a human Alliance vessel.

"What do you mean you don't know what they are!? You saw them yourself!" Screamed a very frustrated Lieutenant Johnson Morris. "Tell us what we are dealing here!"

"I told you already I don't know what they are! They didn't look like any species I had ever seen before!" Kale replied frustrated as well. "Please! I don't know anything beyond what they look like!"

The Lieutenant sighed and put his hand against his head in frustration. He looked at his interrogation partner next to him who also looked very frustrated over the whole ordeal. The lieutenant then turned to Rayne, who was seated next to Kale in the room. The lieutenant and his partner were seated as well but across from the quarians between a small table.

"You, lady what-"

"My name is Rayne you bosh'tet!" Rayne yelled at the lieutenant in disgust.

"Sorry uh-Rayne, tell us what you know about this whole incident." The lieutenant replied clearly embarrassed.

"I TOLD you already! I didn't see any of the creatures my friend here described. I was busy trying to get us the hell off that ship. I did however, see the massive ship that was attached to the ship we just escaped. That's all I know!" Rayne was tired of this interrogation as she could tell it was getting nowhere. They weren't under arrest, but they may as well been. The civilan ship was human owned and when only two quarians survive with no evidence of what caused the destruction of a ship, the Alliance had reason to be suspicious.

"Where exactly where you two going anyway?" The lieutenant asked attempting to try a different approach. "Records of the ship say that you two booked tickets to fly to Palaven. Is that correct?"

"Yes" Kale said this time, wondering where the lieutenant was going with this.

"What did you two-" the lieutenant pointing to both of them, "plan on doing once you got there?" The lieutenant asked this very suspiciously.

Kale and Rayne turned to look at each other. They both knew where this was going.

Trying to choose his answer carefully as to not arouse suspicion, Kale spoke to the gleaming lieutenant:

"We were uh-wanting to uh-just visit as tourists. We are just interested in the planet and the turian species as a whole and we just wanted to learn more about them." Kale said sheepishly and in a very unconvincing tone. Rayne also nodded her head in approval at the lieutenant to confirm the story.

"Yeah…right sure you were." The lieutenant said very coyly. "You wanna know what _I_ think you two were doing?"

No one dared answer this redundant question. The lieutenant said this with huge grin as he was about to state his claim.

"I think you two are bunch of fuckin' liars! I think you two wanted to blow up that ship and make it look like an attack! You planned it out perfectly! You both know you could survive in open space and be able to escape from the ship if you could. I also think you first hijacked the ship, then sent out a fake distress signal from the ship, then blew it up and escaped." The lieutenant ended his accusation with an angry smirk. His partner shook his head in approval and made a similar face to the two quarians.

"Are you out of your fucking mind!? What evidence do you have against us for this?!" Kale screamed out of shock and horror. "Why don't you believe us we are telling the fucking truth!"

Kale was over-reacting a little but he had good reason. He was getting accused of blowing up one of the human's ships.

"All of the evidence in the world!" Replied the lieutenant with a little laugh. "There is absolutely no evidence on that ship of an outside attack and you both are the only survivors of the supposed 'attack'. There is also no such evidence of these 'creatures' you have described to us, and no evidence of a ship of the scale you described in our records. You two are about to be-"

"Lieutenant Morris, sir! You are needed at the bridge immediately!" The lieutenant's rant was cut short by the yeomen's voice through the lieutenant's earpiece. The lieutenant didn't know what to think of this but knew it must be urgent if the yeomen calls for him during an interrogation. He motioned for his partner to get up and go with him to the bridge.

"Looks like we are cutting this interrogation short…for now." The lieutenant said smugly as him and his partner left the small room.

Kale and Rayne were just left in the room alone stunned as they were both attempting to grasp what just happened.

* * *

Lieutenant Johnson Morris arrived at the bridge a few minutes later, ready to chew someone out for interrupting him during his interrogation. He arrived at the bridge of the ship to a lot of commotion and many officers filing around the bridge frantically. The Captain of the ship noticed the Lieutenant entering the room and motioned for him to speak to him. The lieutenant made his way to the captain avoiding people running by him.

"What's going on sir?" The lieutenant asked after saluting and finally making his way over to the captain. "I was in the middle of an important-"

"This matter is much more important than your interrogation, lieutenant." The old captain interrupted. "We have received another distress call involving an unknown ship. However, the ship that sent this call was an Alliance vessel, the SSV Normandy. We are currently responding as we speak."

The lieutenant was a little taken aback by what the captain just said. It can't be a coincidence that two ships in a row were attacked by an unknown ship.

"Has the Normandy responded to any of our transmissions to help them?" The lieutenant finally responded after a long pause to take it all in. He may now have to reconsider his theory about those two quarians, the lieutenant thought. They won't know for sure though until they see the Normandy itself.

"Negative" The captain replied plainly, "We are currently intercepting the ship as fast as we can to investigate."

The ship suddenly was taken out of FTL travel and arrived at the Amada system and closed in on the nearby planet, Alchera. There seemed to be no evidence of the Normandy, however in far distance there was a massive ship on the sensors. The captain noticed this and told the nearby officer to get a closer look of the vessel. The entire bridge then saw up close a picture of the ship. The lieutenant was able to make details of the ship described by the quarians. He now officially believed the quarian's stories.

"Captain! The ship is about jump to FTL!" Shouted a nearby officer in his station.

"Quickly! We need to intercept that ship! Divert power to engines! Pilot, get us in closer!" The captain shouted these orders quickly and the ship responded to the officer's commands by moving forward toward the unknown ship.

"Captain! That ship is massive in size! We don't have the firepower to take on a ship of that scale! The quarians that I interrogated said that ship destroyed their ship in a matter of seconds! I advise we don't intercept the unknown vessel!" The lieutenant said this frantically to the captain as he said this, hoping the captain would actually listen to him.

"Negative lieutenant! We need to find out what hell killed our people! Pilot! Continue intercept!" The captain said this back to the lieutenant without even considering his warning.

"Captain! We are too late the ship just entered FTL!" The same officer shouted to the captain before.

"See if you can track its destination!" The Captain yelled back.

The officer typed away furiously at his terminal for a few seconds, but came up with frustrating results.

"Captain, the ship's signatures are untraceable!" The officer replied a little disappointed.

"Damn it! Search for any trace of the Normandy!" said the Captain angrily. The Captain then turned back to the lieutenant. "Lieutenant, get back down to that interrogation room and bring those damn quarians up here!"

"Yes sir!" The lieutenant saluted and then practically ran out of the bridge, back down to the interrogation room.

* * *

Shortly after the lieutenant left the room, Kale and Rayne still sat there in the room. No one had come in to take them to a cell or anything so they just sat there waiting for something to happen.

Kale realized the situation was very bad. He and Rayne are about to accused of hijacking a ship and murdering hundreds of people.

And he really didn't have a good explanation for the Alliance to think otherwise.

"Keelah…" Kale finally said breaking the long silence, "We got ourselves in a pretty fucked up situation."

"You can say that again" Rayne responded back to Kale who was also very distraught over the whole situation. "We didn't do it though! You know that!"

"I know, I know but you heard the lieutenant! They didn't believe our story! Kale replied very scared. "What's going to happen to us? Are we going to go to prison or-"

The ship suddenly was rocked a little as it entered FTL at very violent speed. Most of the ship's power was being diverted to the ship's drive core to go through FTL as quickly as possible. Kale and Rayne noticed this and looked at each other with confused looks.

"Why did we just go through FTL?" Rayne asked to no one in particular as she stood up to see what was going on. "And so quickly for that matter?"

"I don't know…maybe-" Kale was interrupted by the ship suddenly exiting FTL and moving very quickly. Almost as if it was intercepting something.

"What is going on!?" Kale yelled as he now got out his seat and moved towards the locked exit of the room. He then started to knock on the door and screaming for someone to answer.

"Kale! Calm down! Someone will come down and explain all this…I hope." Rayne shouted at Kale and pulled him away from the door. Kale reluctantly complied but was still very frustrated.

"What kind of military is this!? Accusing us of something so ridiculous and then just storming out of the room! Now we are going somewhere at a very fast rate with no explanation! What the fuck is going on!? Kale yelled out loud. He was just so angry with whole situation. He expected the Alliance to be more helpful but instead they turned out to be his enemy and seemed to only care about their own interests. Kale awoke in the med-bay earlier that day receiving a lots of treatment and nice doctors helping him. But after about five minutes to make sure he was ok, he and Rayne were practically forced into the interrogation room, being talked to death to over analysis every part of their story that they would both like to forget.

Kale just held his head in frustration and let out an annoyed sigh. Rayne didn't reply to his angry rant and instead put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. They both looked at each other for a few seconds before Rayne eventually came closer to Kale to give him a hug. They had been through so much together so far and getting accused of blowing up a ship was just icing on the cake. They held the hug for a good thirty seconds before they finally broke apart. Kale felt almost completely calm after it and was actually a little happy.

However all happiness completely went away as the door suddenly opened and the lieutenant reappeared in the door way, this time without his partner. He had a very blank stare, as if he saw satin himself. "Maybe he did" Kale thought to himself with a little chuckle. Kale and Rayne both just looked at the lieutenant who was still and the doorway as if he was deciding what to do.

"You two need to come with me." The lieutenant said this motioning for both of them to follow as he left.

Kale and Rayne both looked at each with confused looks before following the lieutenant.

"Excuse me lieutenant." Kale asked as they were led out of the room towards an elevator. "What exactly is going on?"

"There's…been a complication." The lieutenant said hesitantly "I'll explain everything once we get to the captain."

"The Captain?!" Both the quarians thought simultaneously. They were both scared yet curious as to what is going on. They both suspect the worst as the lieutenant didn't wait for them to respond and went into the elevator with them following closely behind.

The party of three stood there in the elevator as it slowly started to make it's decent to the bridge.

* * *

_Please tell me what you think of the story so far by reviewing! Next chapter may or may not be out tomorrow, I will be a bit busy because it is a Saturday but if it doesn't come tomorrow, definitely expect it Sunday!_


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's Note: This chapter was slightly difficult to write for me and I don't know why... anyway, please enjoy!_

* * *

Kale'Xaren and Rayne'Verr are at the bridge of the human dreadnaught.

The bridge was fairly large with about twenty or so crew members hurrying about doing there assigned jobs. Kale remembered how he had been on the bridge of his own ship with his father. However it was nothing like this. Quarian bridges tended to be much smaller with far fewer crew members. Kale only knew this from the experience of the one ship he had been on for his whole childhood, however his home liveship wasn't a military vessel. It only housed other quarians yet it did have some defenses, just not as much as an Alliance dreadnaught.

The lieutenant crossed the room with the quarians shortly behind him. The captain stood waiting near the front of the bridge with all the pilots, looking out the front window.

"Captain, I brought the two quarians you requested." The lieutenant said this as he saluted the captain once more.

"Good, at ease lieutenant." The captain appeared to be about in his late fifties or early sixties, with full grey hair. He had a very stressed and angry look on him as Kale and Rayne approached him.

"May not want to piss him off." Kale thought to himself.

"Now I know, we were accusing you two earlier of blowing up that ship but from what from we just witnessed, we have reason to believe your story was true after all." The captain spoke without even bothering to address the quarians. "We just received another distress call from a ship. This time one of our frigates. We arrived to the scene to see no sign of our ship but the ship that was described by you two attempting to flee the scene. We attempted to pursue the ship but it initiated FTL travel just before we could engage it. We are now attempting to search for the wreck of our ship for survivors."

Kale and Rayne took all of this in with shock but also a lot of relief. They were hopefully no longer in trouble and finally able to leave. The captain paused for a few seconds as if regretting what we was about to say next.

"On behalf of the Alliance and-" The captain made a slight pause before he finished and looked down quickly and back up attempting to hide an embarrassed face. "-myself personally…I would like to sincerely apologize for holding you two captive and assuming you blew up a ship. You both are now free to go and we can provide transport to wherever you like." The captain finally finished with a stern yet slightly embarrassed look on his old face. The lieutenant also made a similar face, also clearly embarrassed by the whole situation.

Kale and Rayne both looked at each other in shock before responding. They were actually not going to prison and free to go. Kale finally spoke up to thank the captain.

"Eh-uh thank you captain for your generosity. We are both sorry we caused your ship trouble." Kale spoke with a nervous tone, still shocked by what had just happened. The captain nodded his head in reply to this and then turned his head to the lieutenant.

"Lieutenant please escort both of these quarians to the hanger and have a shuttle take them wherever they please." With this the captain turned back around and looked outside the front window once more seeing the ship get closer and closer to the planet Alchera.

The lieutenant was about to argue that they needed all of the shuttles they could to search for the Normandy, but the captain was clearly not in the arguing mood today. He decided it was best to just follow his orders for once and motioned for the quarians to follow him once more. The party of three then walked back towards the elevator they just came from and entered the elevator. They then slowly started descending the ship towards the hanger bay.

Kale now finally had some time to think after all that just happened. He wasn't sure what to do anymore. He no longer had a plan or an idea of where they were going. He knew he didn't want to return back to the Graaf and just give up but he was now reevaluating his life decisions. He had a near-death experience and almost got sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. The galaxy wasn't as nice of a place as Kale thought out to be. He decided he would have a talk with Rayne about this later.

The elevator finally arrived at the hanger bay and the party of three stepped out revealing a large hanger with many shuttles in it. One shuttle was open, ready to leave to decide where Kale and Rayne would go next. The lieutenant and led them to this shuttle and just before he walked away to leave, said he was also sorry for what happened and said good luck to wherever they were going. Kale and Rayne stepped inside the shuttle and sat down in the passenger seats. The shuttle pilot asked from the front where they would like to go. Kale and Rayne both looked at each for second as if about to discuss where they should go. Rayne instead spoke up before Kale could.

"The Citadel, please"

"Yes ma'am" The shuttle pilot responded as the door to the shuttle closed and took off away from the ship.

Kale was slightly surprised that she decided to go back there. He then realized it was a good place to figure out their bearings and decide their next decision. He figured Rayne didn't really trust Kale to make any more major decisions like this due to the result of the last but nobody could have predicted what happened. Kale decided not to go against her decision and just sat there quietly.

"So…you're not going to say anything? I thought you wanted to go Palaven and 'explore the galaxy'." Rayne said this with slight sarcasm in her voice. She was clearly annoyed about the whole situation but didn't blame Kale for what happened. She hoped Kale learned slightly from this experience and realized the galaxy wasn't a nice place after all. Rayne just wanted to be in control of the decision making now and was wondering if Kale had a problem with it.

"No I'm fine with whatever you want to do. I think I've had enough of the galaxy for a little while." Kale said this with a little chuckle but still a little nervous. He decided he should address what he really thought. "I uh-I'm sorry Rayne for everything that's happened. You can make the decisions from now on because I'm clearly not able to." Kale said this with sadness but now accepted the truth. Maybe he really wasn't ready for the galaxy.

Or maybe he was just bad at making decisions.

Rayne was about to just say it was okay and tell him off a little but realized he really did look beat up over it.

"Kale! It wasn't your fault! No one could have known that ship would attack us! It doesn't mean you are bad at making decisions. Stop beating yourself over it. We will get through this. I don't think I should make the decisions alone. We should both make them together." Rayne yelled this at Kale who was just looking at her with his head slightly down. Rayne realized now how much this affected him and decided to not be fully in control over the decision making.

"I know it's just…I feel like it's still my fault somehow. When you needed my help I froze up and was too scared to act. I wasn't there when you needed me." Kale said this with sorrow and his head down. He hated the fact that he was scared then and also for most of his life. He wished he was stronger than he was. He wished he could be stronger for Rayne.

Rayne looked at the sad man in front of her. He obviously still felt guilty about the whole thing and yelling at him wasn't going to make him feel any better. She reached over to give Kale a hug for second time that day. He hesitantly accepted it this time which surprised Rayne a little. She then whispered into his ear:

"It's okay Kale. I don't blame you for anything. It wasn't your fault. I was scared beyond my mind at that time too. I understand that you are still new to the galaxy but so am I. You don't need to beat yourself up over any of this." Rayne finished this with a tighter hold to her hug. She wished right there she wasn't in a suit so she could kiss him.

Kale didn't know what to think about all this but to accept her answer. She obviously didn't blame him for anything and that made him feel much better.

The hug also helped.

"Thanks Rayne" Kale said so softly that Rayne only could hear this. She finally pulled away from him but didn't completely let go of him and grabbed his hand to hold as a sign of affection. Kale didn't hesitate to allow her to do this and held hers in return. He then decided he should tell her something he should have said a while ago.

"Rayne, I need to tell you-"

"Kale" Rayne interrupted

"Y-yeah?"

"I know" She replied quickly. She then gave his hand a little squeeze to assure him. She felt the same way towards him and she felt he didn't have to explain it to her. Kale had grown on her so much that she finally decided she wanted to be in a relationship with him.

Kale didn't know what to think of this. He was about to tell her about how he planned to never return to the flotilla. But now…he realized he had the girl of dreams. He didn't want to ruin it by telling her this. He decided to just go along with it as if confessing his love for her was what he was actually about to tell her.

"Oh-uh okay" Kale said with a little chuckle. He truly was happy about what just happened. He finally had a girlfriend and it was with the most beautiful girl he knew but he hated not being honest with her. He decided to tell her when the time was right.

They both just kind of sat there looking at each other awkwardly for a few seconds until they heard the pilot say they just entered Citadel airspace. They were so engaged in their conversation and thought, that they didn't realize when they had gone through the mass relay. They both suddenly stopped holding hands momentarily to stand up and get ready to leave. The shuttle then started descending towards the refugee center Kale went to on his first day at the Citadel. When Kale looked out the window and noticed this, he gulped slightly and hoped there were no angry Krogan this time.

The shuttle then landed and opened for the two to exit. Rayne thanked the pilot for the ride and the two were on their way towards the entrance to the building. Luckily, there was virtually no line at the center today. Kale was wondering what was up until he looked at a nearby clock and noticed it was very early in the morning. Kale then realized something in horror and stopped walking immediately.

They didn't have any luggage, passports, money, or anything. They lost it all on the now expired ship. Kale didn't ever notice this because he was in too much shock to ever care or notice. Rayne noticed his sudden stop in motion and asked him what was up.

"Rayne," Kale said this in shock and turned to look at her. "We lost all of our stuff in the ship including our passports! How are we going to get into the Citadel!?

Rayne was also suddenly shocked as she realized this. She then remembered something that gave her a sudden surge of hope.

"Kale, we don't need any our passports! The centers bio-scanner will recognize us and-" she then reached behind her back into a small pouch on her belt pulling out two small data chips before finishing, "-I made spare passports for us both just in case. I did it while you were still recovering from your injuries."

Kale now was fully convinced that Rayne should be the one making all the decisions. She planned ahead where Kale did not. He decided to push past this though and just thank Rayne instead for saving their asses. She gave him his passport in response and they both started walking towards the refugee center together. Kale decided to be a little bold and reached for Rayne's hand as they walked together. Rayne looked up at Kale and accepted his hand, giving him a slight rub with her thumb and a squeeze.

Kale swore that he saw a smile through her mask as they both walked through the doors to the center and gained entry to the Citadel.

* * *

_Please review to tell me what you think of this sudden advancement in their relationship! _

_*P.S*: I would also like to make a note that this fic will not be intertwining with any important canon characters in the Mass Effect universe (Shepard, Squad mates, etc.). They may be mentioned through events, but they will not be part of my character's stories. I will however, use the main events of the game in this story as seen the last chapter. Just wanted to put that out there for anyone that may be curious. Thanks!_

**_Click on my profile to read about my hiatus _**


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