Master Sergeant Kaan Burakagzi had been assigned to the citadel for six months. The six longest months of his nineteen year career, marked chiefly by the politics in the upper echelons of LRS leadership and mind-numbing boredom. The latter was something he was accustomed to; the hurry-up and wait attitude of humanity’s military had not changed in hundreds of years on that token. However, a sheer lack of comradery was beginning to wear thin. His commanding officers had sent a memo around, in a back-room and entirely unprofessional sort of way, that he not to be gotten too close too and treated with ‘kid gloves’. That was a joke, every day it was one menial task after the next, or hours of sitting in an operations center in front of a communications array that had sat mostly silent for the previous six months in any case.<br/><br/>Compounding matters, he had spent several hours every week speaking with some kind of a mental health professional. An Asari who tried desperately to brand herself as something other than a medication dispensary. Punctuating the two hour long sessions were the medical scans, consultations, physical therapy, and the repeated stress and proficiency tests. He saw through these supposed ‘routine’ checks on his ability to function in his role, and resigned himself to living out the last year of his foreseeable career sitting on his hands. Today, however, he’d been milling over a message he’d received earlier in the week on his private terminal. It had to be better than what he normally did in the evenings. But first, he had yet another firing line functions assessment to attend to.<br/><br/>As with every previous such test, he reported to the range, kitted himself in his gear and moved to the firing line for a sequence of tests that ramped up in stress and difficulty over time. Starting with a simple range-zero and calibration, followed by a series of targets that appeared in a random sequence at a variety of ranges. Today he had a larger audience than usual—which was to say, he normally did not have an audience save for the drone that monitored his progress and reported his performance and vitals to the evaluator. It was a group of SRS soldiers, wearing crisp new uniforms and sporting haircuts that were a little higher and a little tighter than your average SRS grunt. Their ranks were also, relatively speaking, lower in the pecking order which meant that there would be an NCO around somewhere.<br/><br/>A voice chirped in his helmet, “Hey, want to do me a favor?”<br/><br/>It was a familiar voice from long ago, “Sure thing, Riddles. What do you need?” Kaan asked genially, genuinely happy to have finally bumped into someone he knew on the Citadel.<br/><br/>“I got a fresh set, I’m sure you see them over there playing grab-ass. Do you mind if they observe?” Riddles asked carefully.<br/><br/>“No worries,” he replied grinning under his helmet. “I’ll push it today, yeah?”<br/><br/>“I was counting on that, it’s always nice to see experience trump youth, eh?” Riddles said with a chuckle.<br/><br/>---<br/>Kaan pushed his body to the limit, soaring through each exercise in a record time he hadn’t seen in years. He felt invigorated, no one challenged him on the Citadel; they were either too afraid of his ribbon rack or worried he was going to fly off the chain. He knew his temper was legendary in some circles, but he had softened a lot over the years and only chewed out those soldiers that really needed it. After a quick chat with his old friend, and a short round robin with the young soldiers about what it was like to actually be in the field, he bid them a farewell. Kaan knew he would seem desperate, lonely, or crazy if he lingered any longer. Besides, it never hurt to give an impression to soldiers than a senior NCO’s time was valuable and finite. This was normally true, but in his case it was not.<br/><br/>He returned to the equipment room, and checked in<span style="font-style: italic">most</span>of his gear, but requested authorization to sign out his side-arm. A few tense moments passed, but the chief armorer was as Navy guy, and didn’t much care for the bonus reputation he knew that Kaan had received from his higher ups. It was nice to see that reputation and performance were still worth something to someone, even if it was well outside of his chain of command. Kaan placed the sidearm in a holster, and bundled the weapon up in his jacket before returning to his apartment to prepare to answer the mysterious missive he’d received.<br/><br/>---<br/>Kaan dressed in simple and casual civilian attire and donned his long brown jacket, under which he holstered his sidearm. Leaving his quarters, Burakgazi hailed a cab for the Commons and located Apartment 5631B. He was surprised to see the door open as he approached it, and he wondered for a moment if the door was equipped to scan his access credentials.<br/>His stomach tightened for a moment, and Kaan glanced at his watch. On the other side of the door was a room with several people milling. He scanned the room and played it calmly, he was not the only one to get the invitation, but now several curious eyes were upon him. The occupants of the room hailed from different species and backgrounds. He saw an Asari, a Quarian, and a Turian. It was somewhat strange to be the only human in a room, but then perhaps it would have been more strange to see more humans in this part of the Citadel.<br/><br/>“Good evening,” He said nodding to the Quarian, who to him presented a known quantity and structure to his motivations. Kaan passed by the Quarian with little more than a nod and found an empty chair near the wall, where he could see the door and everyone else.