If there was one thing Nihlus envied about humans, it was their ability to pinch their cartilaginous noses. Being used to the sweet and sickening scent of the swamp by no means prepared him for the reality of an on-site examination of a bloated corpse, which currently was managing to attract more insect-like life than their three bright LECs put together. He looked down at his sludge-and-who-knows-what-else-covered hands. Perhaps it was for the best. That stuff can’t be too good for his face.
“Pass me the pank bone.”
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“Left!” He shouted over the hail of gunfire.
Saren jerked their vehicle sharply to their right.
“LEFT! LEFT! LEFT!”
Nihlus closed his eyes. Two seconds later, he opened them again and was relieved to discover that they were still in relatively good shape. Relatively good shape being him firing a machine gun while Saren’s riding what amounted to a unicycle into the thick of battle.
—
Continue reading [11]
A figure of a pink-armoured krogan walked over to him and sat down on his cot. Its outline was as fuzzy as a, what was it, a cat? A tabby cat that had been recently washed and blow-dried.
“How are you doing?” It said. It now resembled a quarian wearing a cargo crate head-dress.
“Not good.” He clapped a hand to his forehead. “Am I on the Fleet? Where are the girls?”
Continue reading [10]
The window was open, just a crack, letting the star-filled night slip in. It would normally be a security risk, but this was a small turian town in the middle of nowhere, and he’d bested the leader of the local regiment in a friendly sparring match right before they had lunch together. This was not an apartment on the Citadel. This was not a stardock on Ilium. This was not a private residence on Omega. And so, paradoxically, it was okay. It was okay to leave the window open and the original encryption in the door. It really was okay.
Even Saren had agreed. Provided that a pistol was within easy reach.
Continue reading [09]
Nihlus paced back and forth in the small cabin, gnawing on his talons. Saren was sitting beside the bed, balancing a tray of delicate instruments and the readout panel of the compact scanner on his knees.
“How’s the readout?”
Saren shook his head, then bent over the screen once more.
“Anything I can do to help?”
Saren paused in the middle of picking up a minuscule probe, then turned and said, “Water.”
Continue reading [08]
Nihlus didn’t do mornings. Unless, of course, he hadn’t slept the night before. Which he hadn’t.
The mist was still all around the campsite–it wouldn’t die down until around noon, at the earliest. But that was fine with him. Not being able to see three metres in front of himself also meant that nobody else could, either. He’d even caught breakfast that way. At least, he’d caught two amphibious critters that looked reasonably close to the ones pictured in the decade-old guidebook. A fire was okay, too, since everything was so wet that he couldn’t possibly cause an accident, and the mist would hide the smoke. He loved this dextro planet.
Continue reading [07]