Commander Shepard had saved Zhu's Hope again, and Shiala couldn't have been any happier. The former commando had been fighting this battle for so long. She had willingly indoctrinated herself into the mad Saren's thrall, put the colony and the galaxy in grave danger. Her green skin was a permanent sign of the mistakes she had made. But the colonists had accepted her with open arms despite her actions. She owed it to them to do something for the colonists.

And Commander Shepard just swooped down once again to help, this time with his words instead of modified grenades. She didn't hear much of the conversation, but after talking to Shepard, the representative for Baria Frontiers had quickly altered the contract, stopped the "need" for invasive surgeries and the egregious fees that came with refusal and briskly walked, tears in her eyes. Shiala thought the Commander had intimidated the other asari at first, but on a closer look she could see that a great weight was off Erinya's shoulders.

As the Commander walked back to her, a great warmth spread through Shiala's chest. She never really took interest in humans before, especially not the males, but she could not deny that this human was truly special. So as she thanked the Commander, she put her hand on his arm, thick and solid even factoring his heavy armor.

"Maybe sometime, when I'm not organizing the colony and you're not...doing whatever you do..."

She stroked his arm, turned and left, her eyes lingering as long as possible. She even added a little...what was the human expression...sha-say to her hips as she walked away. The offer was there, for the Commander to simply take.

But that was a few days ago. She had told the colony the news, and was packing her things to leave for back for Feros. The Normandy was still parked on Illium, and judging from the sudden spike of news stories involving massive body counts and property damage, she knew the Commander was still there. Shiala would chastise herself immediately afterward, but she still hoped he would-

The door buzzed, shaking Shiala from her thoughts. Chiding herself again for losing her commando edge, she walked to the door and asked who it was.

"It's Commander Shepard," she heard the voice of the man say, "would you let me in?"

"Of course, Commander, just-" the door opened and instead of the Commander she found a woman, about to his nose in height, with black hair and a skin-tight white catsuit. Shiala recognized her from a few days ago, she was with the Commander. Then Shiala saw that the woman's Omni-tool was on and the Commander was no where to be seen.

An asari commando would have had her pistol ready to greet her visitor with a biotic throw and two shots to the head, but Shiala had not been an asari commando for two years. The woman in front of her used that to her advantage and threw a warp field at her before the green asari could even pull out her gun.

The biotic energy ripped at Shiala at a molecular level, slowing her movements as she drew her pistol enough so the heeled foot of her attacker kicked it away.

"Good evening, Shiala," her attacker said with a strange human accent she had never heard before. "We're going to have a little chat."

"W-what the hell do you want?" Shiala hissed through her mouth as she reached for her knife in her boot. The woman then took her hand with her biotics and lifted her into the air.

"What I want is very simple," the woman replied as she aimed her pistol down to the ground. "I want you to go back to Feros, do your good work, and leave Commander Shepard alone."

"Wait...what?" Shiala looked at her attacker with more scrutiny, and she remembered that when she met the Commander again, he was with the Turian that was on Feros with him two years ago, and a human woman who looked at the asari like a bug under her heel. "You...you attack me because I made a pass at your would-be boyfriend? Listen you stuck up bit-"

"Then I shot her in the face and sold her organs to Illium's black market."

Miranda Lawson looked at Commander John Shepard with a perfectly indifferent face. Meanwhile the commander seemed to suddenly lose the talent to chew his food as he looked at her, slack-jawed. He swallowed, looked around to see if anyone was watching them as they had their lunch in the Normandy's mess hall. The great Commander Shepard looked like he was ready to jump out of his own skin.

"Miranda, that's...you can't possibly be..."

The operative looked him square in the eyes, and gave him a smile. The commander looked at her and suddenly couldn't stop laughing.

"Okay, okay, well played, Miss Lawson." Miranda mimed a sitting bow and softly giggled to herself. Shepard got the giggles out of his system and stared straight into her eyes. "You know, in retrospect, I should have realized that there was no way you could have possibly have done that."

"How so?"

"Because there's something about your story, your actions, that simply didn't add up." Shepard took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. "Something that may have been true before, but simply isn't now." Miranda smiled, squeezing her hand back and adding her other hand.

"And what's that, Commander?" Shepard leaned forward, Miranda following suit, and Shepard's lips brushed against her ear-lobe.

"There is no black market in Illium."

Commander Shepard, the complete and utter ass he was, quickly slipped his hand out of her grip as he laughed and power-walked to the supposed safety of the Main Battery.