"The elcor make hallucinogenic<i>chocolate?</i>" he asked, shocked and intrigued all at once. He folded his arms and turned to look over the bar once more. Ilium... he had never thought about going there before. A relatively lawless asari world, what was there for a career soldier, beyond the allure of blue women who didn't even have gender in their culture? He could get ass anywhere he liked, and with less risk of getting scammed or murdered. The thought made him chuckle--as if the Wards could be any less dangerous in their own right. Even in the beating heart of civilization there were wild lawless places.<br/><br/>Her comment about looking for a date made him smirk wide, and he shrugged as he turned to her. "Well, in a way, weren't you?" he quipped, and was met with an eyeful of exceptionally tone ass and a pair of guns strapped to naked thighs, and he honestly had a hard time deciding what was more immediately arousing. Still, he didn't let his gaze linger, and turned away before she had even finished dressing. It wasn't that he was skittish around women--far from. The ICT knew all too well that repeated near-death encounters required some sort of release, emotional or otherwise, and had turned the other cheek when the people enrolled in the course had sought solace in red lights and legs that opened for a hundred credits or less. Cole was no stranger to such things, and if she'd been anyone but his commanding officer he might have kept on looking or even made a comment, but there were some things a soldier just didn't do.<br/><br/>Not that he really was a soldier anymore. Or was he?<i>Damn,</i>he thought to himself,<i>I should have detoured before I came here.</i>Thinking was always easier with an empty scrotum, a somewhat crude saying one of his drill instructors had shared on the sly.<br/><br/>Together they stepped onto the elevator and back down to the CIC proper, where he retrieved his gear--which was now adorned with a holographic pip and a floating set of quarian text that, if he had to guess, was not a welcoming phrase. He flicked it off his shoulder strap and turned back to Reese. "If my preference matters and the space is available, I'd like to be positioned somewhere near the main gun. Something about ten-kilo tungsten slugs flung at a fraction of the speed of light just comforts me."<br/><br/>"Ha! Man after my own heart." He turned to witness the least asari-like asari he'd ever seen. She looked older, but a beautiful sort of old, placing her squarely in the Matriarch stage of her life. She wore a vest with a high collar, and her arms were covered in intricate white tattoos, which, when he looked closer, were a series of faces--human, asari, turian, salarian. A couple of elcor, a small quartet of drell, and the shapeless blob of a hanar even graced her skin. She wore hip-hugger blue jeans, authentic denim jeans, and leather cowboy boots. A cigar, fat and smouldering, stuck out of one corner of her mouth. She grinned as she marched up to the pair and thrust her hand out for Cole to shake. "I'm Calypso, weapons specialist and demolition fetishist. Fuck, Amari, you didn't tell me the new guy'd be so cute."<br/><br/>"Does everyone on this ship gauge based on looks at first?"<br/><br/>"Nah, Suni doesn't, either does Pol. No, I take that back, Pol might find you scary. He's a big baby, surprised he even got out of his egg, or however the hell krogan do it." She took a drag off her cigar and tapped the ashes onto the metal floor at her feet. "I know, commander, I know--go get laid before we leave. Already done, mind's clear and sharp as ever. Bosco wanted to talk to you before we ship out, by the way, he's got a new set of rifles fresh from that freak flagship that we oughta pick up."