Dexivea Vicril did not have this in mind when she wished to be apart of first contact, at only eighteen she had completed her medical training as a combat medic and was in the process of getting her doctorate in xeno biology.

So while other turians were learning how to shoot she was learning how to stop turians and aliens from bleeding to death, the Hierarchy of course focused her training on turians and volus however other races were covered as well. 

The Hierarchy was supporting her xeno biology training of course, not many would try and learn xeno biology while already being a talented combat medic 

She grew up watching vids about turian first contact and had become obsessed with learning all she could about life in all its forms. Her last thesis was about the Rachni and how first contact, under any circumstances was doomed to fail due to the biology and communication of a hive mind insect race, let alone one capable of space flight.

So here she was serving as a combat medic for the Hierarchy on some alien planet, finding out about a new race the worst way possible, though war, so far she had yet to see the aliens but they had kept her busy with the traps they had set up. 

She found that this race seemed to focus on maiming the enemy, at first the turians thought they had a problem with killing but as more and more reports came in it became clear that this was not the case. 

The aliens were creative in their traps and designed them to maim instead of kill as maiming would take down at least two soldiers instead of one, the one wounded and the one helping them back for help. 

Dexivea never had so much work to do before and when the aliens started using a sticky flammable gel like substance, the burns that gel would leave behind was horrific on top of the sight of turians being left in the open as bait, screaming in agony will haunt her for as long as she lives. 

Urban warfare is never easy and this species seemed to excel at it and the forests outside of the city limits and closer to farmlands were a lot worse

From snipers, explosive traps, swinging logs, spring loaded spikes, spike pits and in the city they even used the sewer systems to move around. 

She had lost count how many legs she had to amputate due them being crushed or impaled, some patients she had to get Telio's help to either dig them out or in one case defuse the live explosives waiting for someone like her to try and help.

One alien Dexivea had come across was a furry varren that while didn't have the same bite force as a varren did but made up for it by being fiercely loyal and intelligent enough to follow simple commands.

The wounds those animals inflicted were not as severe as a varren's would be but we're painful enough to require treatment, so far she had yet to get a sample, well one that hadn't been blown to pieces anyway. 

Dexivea had been assigned to a engineer team to help disarm the traps, many of which would still have a turian trapped in it. 

Dexivea looked at one trap a turian had gotten stuck in, according to Telio Mactus the engineer in charge the trap was triggered by a trip wire and fired a steel bolt, much like a crossbow would, the only difference is this one would try and retract after firing. 

Dexivea felt the screams from the older turian soldier could be heard by the fleet in orbit.

The bolt had impaled the turians stomach and pinned him to a tree, the bolt trying to retract just meant it was causing even more pain then was intended.

Once Telio had dismantled the trap and while he complained about sadistic aliens Dexivea went to work. 

It took two other turians to carry him, while he was fading in and out of consciousness.

They had ended up on a riverfront with businesses lined up overlooking the water, cafes they looked like to Dexivea. 

"CONTACT!" one of her squad screamed.

An alien burst from the near by river, grabbed ahold of the injuried turian before dragging him into the water and under, one turian fell into the water with him and was now panicking trying to get out of the water again before the kynost came back

The whole attack took less than a few seconds, the squad fired into the water while dragging the only turian in the water still alive but no sign of it the injuried turian and due to their inability to swim this attack terrified the survivors.

The aliens even attacked like kynost do, the most feared ampibous predator on Palaven. It watched from the water, before it would ambush it's prey and pulled them into the water to drown.

Dexivea looked at the river and tried to think what she knew about this new species, she knew that a name the soldiers had been calling the aliens evolved Pyjaks.

Her mind burying itself in her work to hide her fear, while they had a similar body structure to asari or batarians they lacked the flexibility and biotics of asari and the raw strength of batarians they made up for it with endurance and creativity.

The way they fought was attrition, slowing the battle down and wearing down their enemies, with a grim respect she knew that they likely hunted prey the same way. 

The squad said a few words for their lost squadmate but all of them wanted to keep moving.

As they moved away from the riverfront buildings, they could hear a sound, quiet but it was there. 

Dexivea's eyes went wide as she realized it was two alien's talking, using her sub harmonics to let her squad know she heard something.

As one they slowly pin pointed the sound and moved into position but before they could move, a small alien puer ran and despite its size it moved quickly.

Moving quickly the squad chased after the puer and soon cornered it in an alleyway. 

Dexivea finally got her first look at the alien, it stood at the same height as a volus, hands like an asari but pale skin and short fur on its head. A smell reached her nose and when she saw the puddle of liquid near the feet of the alien, she knew the alien was terrified.

Dexivea tried her best to look as unthreatening as possible and slowly moved forward talking to the alien as if she would a wild creature, knowing it wouldn't understand her anyway she focused on her tone. 

The rest of her squad at first where unsure of what she was doing but even her commander followed her lead, no one wanted to fire on a puer and this one was young based on the reports of the height of the adults. 

"Pslaee t'dno uhtr em" the small alien said to them in its strange guttural language. 

As Dexivea got closer it started throwing trash at her, mostly bottles, the puer had quite the aim when throwing bottles, it kept repeating the same thing over again before Dexivea got close enough to grab the alien.

Dexivea held the alien close and stroked it's head, she had held it in a way that it couldn't escape but that hopefully it would be enough to calm it down. 

"Looks like you got a pet Pyjak" Telio laughed the others joined in.

Dexivea shot him a look before she continued to calm the puer.

"Opts!" another alien voice rang out. 

The squad turned and saw a older alien this one holding a gun, it looked similar to the younger alien but was wearing armour. A soldier. 

The squad had their rifles aimed at the alien in less than a heartbeat.

"E'sh ym horbtr, plsaee t'dno uhtr ihm. I lilw urernrdes sujt t'dno uhtr ihm" the older alien said in that strange language of theirs. 

The older alien was pointing to the puer and kept saying "Plsaee elt ihm og" 

Dexivea looked at the puer before looking back at the older alien "I think they are related" she said before she noticed the new aliens actions. 

"It thinks we are holding the puer hostage" Dexivea said disgusted at the realisation as she placed the young alien down. 

Her squad paid more attention to the older alien as the alien lowered it's rifle and slowly raised it's hands above it's head and lowered itself to it's knees.

"T'dno unr!" it told the puer. 

At once the puer slowed from a run to a walk, when they were closer they spoke to each other before the puer raised its tiny arms and kneeled. 

Telio paused for a moment "They are surrending just like that?"

When they searched the bigger alien they found tools, a shovel, cable and steel bolts. 

This alien had set the crossbow trap from before, or one just like it anyway. 

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Telio immediately removed his pistol and went to shoot the alien when it was on its knees. 

Dexivea had only just managed to stop him before the gun fired. 

"My orders have are clear, I must learn all I can about them and assess them for the Hierarchy" she explained.

Telio looked at the alien, still with his pistol to its head and before he could say anything the puer tried to shield the older alien, who was now trying to get the puer to move out of the way. 

"If you shoot it, the puer will likely never say a word to us and you will have to explain why we had a great chance at knowing the locations of traps and landmines" she explained to Telio "can you kill a puer sir?"

Telio paused before putting his pistol away "I don't like this, why surrender?"

Dexivea looked at the two of them as the squad moved forward and secured their weapons "It's because of the puer, it must think this is the best way to keep them safe"

Telio turned to her "What makes you so sure? This is a new race after all"

Dexivea sighed "Logic mostly. The older one did not show themselves until the puer was caught" she said as she scanned them for biological threats and found none. 

"They have similar facial structure and fur colouring, as well as eye colour" she explained matter of factly "and so far as the only xeno biologist in the field at this time, these two are now in my custody"

Telio paused and looked at her with disbelief, he was technically in charge of the squad, however Dexivea was allowed to take prisoners if it was thought it was needed and since no one had caught a soldier yet, the value of these two could not be ignored. 

"Fine, but I expect the two of them in the decontamination showers as soon we reach base camp" he ordered. 

Dexivea snapped a salute before looking at the two aliens. 

Base Camp

Base camp appeared to be some office for law enforcement, so it suited the needs of the turian invaders.

Dexivea was walking behind the two aliens and watching them, feeling more confident in her earlier assessment of the two being related.

The older one, if she was accurate would be young but old enough to be given a weapon, his posture and the way he was looking around however told her that he was a trained killer and based on what Telio had told her was an combat engineer.

It stood just tall enough to reach her lower mandibles and had a wide body while the puer stood just under her waist and had a skinny body. 

As expected the two aliens, even in cuffs got plenty of stares and while the puer was scared of the attention, the older one was staring back much like a caged varren would.

When they came to the decontamination showers they stopped. 

Dexivea took a deep breath, this could go so many ways of course it didn't help that other turians were now watching them, mostly for curiosity sake as many of them had never seen one up close never mind without armour on. 

Dexivea pointed to them and then to the showers, the puer seemed to be shy and covered itself up as much as possible.

The older one tried to ignore the stares, it's earlier bravado now gone and appeared to understand what the shower was for and seemingly was trying to calm the puer.  

External genitals, inital indictation both subjects are male, older one has more fur or hair than the young one. 

Aliens appear to indeed to have evolved from a primate species although highly unlikely from pyjaks.

After Dexivea had quickly typed in her observations, the next part was a check up and to make sure they were not hiding anything.

This was where the older male really fought, every time Dexivea went to get closer to the puer he would stand in front the younger male and shake his head before tapping his chest.

"Oyu anc od yanihgtn ot em, utb tno ot ihm" the older male would say.

Dexivea looked at them and tried to work out what it was trying to tell her, so she held up a empty needle and said "Blood test"

The older male frowned at her and shook his head "Otn ihm" he said as he stepped forward.

Dexivea stepped closer, the guard detail tensed and readied their rifles, Dexivea dismissed them he was still in cuffs after all and she suspected he wouldn't do anything to risk his pahir or fraten whoever it was to him.

She didn't need to find a vein so it only took a moment, once she was done she showed him the blood and what she was doing with it. 

"Blood test" she said slowly and as she suspected it confirmed that he was a Levo based species.

He nodded his head and allowed Dexivea to take a blood sample from the puer and after that as long as she did it to him first he was okay with her examinations even if he did become tense when she had to be more hands on with her examinations.

Skin is soft to touch, subject appears to excrete a fluid from skin during heat, stress and/or possibly fear, fluid does have a unique scent, possible uses for tracking, fluid likely helps regulates body temperature. In this case subject appeared to become stressed during examinations of vitals and genitals, likely due to fear of turian talons which subject's skin would offer no protection against.

Dexivea viewed herself as a professional and would treat these aliens the same way as any other race or even turian, they were in her care and despite whatever was going on around them they were her patients.

Dexivea made sure her two patients had a change of clothes, sadly they only had clothes for the Council races but they looked like they would fit

Turian patrol fleets often dealt with slavers, pirates and other criminal elements and often civilians would be rescued. Due to this all ships had limited supplies, clothes for other species, toys and games for puer. 

Dexivea offered the puer a change of clothes, despite her best efforts the alien avoided all asari clothing no matter how well it would have fitted and instead wore salarian clothes instead. 

The puer looked up at her and while she could tell it was still terrified but likely didn't know what she wanted from him.

Dexivea tried to relax the child, so despite the protests that Telio would offer if he saw this, Dexivea placed all the toys and games on the floor and she sat down, she also made sure the older alien could clearly see what she was doing. 

The puer looked at her before looking back at the toys, taking a chance Dexivea reached forward and grabbed a model ship she noticed he was looking at and offered it to him. 

The puer looked at the ship before looking at her before back at the model again and slowly reached out to grab the ship from her, to her surprise when he did take it he stayed where he was and just looked at the ship.

Subject appears trusting if given reason to be, no indication of fear or stress as before, appears curious at surroundings.

"Khtan uyo" the puer said looking at her before he pointed to a dyitan cube "Ahws't htta?" it asked. 

Dexivea looked at the puzzle box, now this will be an interesting test. A dyitan cube was a small cube designed for turian pueriti, salarians called it a simple puzzle box which just seemed wrong somehow. 

Surpisingly the puer could not solve the dyitan cube for the same reason why some other races couldn't.

Their eyes couldn't detect the colour changes meaning their eyes were not as good at detecting certain colours likely seeing in a different spectrum to that of turians.

Standing back up she left the toys with the alien and left, these aliens could prove to be a fine client race if that's what the Hierarchy wished.

Dexivea walked over to the older alien's cell and after talking to the guards about letting her in, she entered.

This was not a puer she was dealing with now, this alien had killed before and would again if given a chance.

Dexivea looked at the cuffs and ordered them removed "Don't do anything stupid, I am the only one keeping you and the puer safe"

The alien rubbed his wrists and looked at her "Atne" he said while pointing to himself. 

Dexivea paused and copied the alien who shook his head and pointed to himself again and said the same thing again but slowly "Nate" he said.

Dexivea pointed to him and said "Nate?"

The alien smiled and pointed to her and Dexivea did the same thing but with her own name "Dexivea" she said pointing to herself. 

Nate paused and tried to copy her name "Edxeviae?"

Dexivea shook her head and repeated her name again. 

Nate tried to say her name again "Dexivea?"

Dexivea nodded and said her name again before pointing at him and saying Nate again. 

Nate smiled again and pointed to the puer and said slowly "Kurt"

Dexivea was pleased with herself, she now knew the two aliens names before translations were completed.

Nate pointed to himself and then to the puer again and slowly said "Hoo-man"

Dexivea paused again and pointed to the two aliens "Hoo-man?"

Nate made a face, made a small noise and said it again "Human"

Dexivea couldn't believe this, she now knew what these aliens were called "Human?" Nate nodded confirming that is what he was trying to tell her. 

He then pointed to her and then the other turians he could see from his small cell. 

"Turian" Dexivea said pointing to herself and the other turians.

Nate looked at her and said "turian" he was quiet for a moment before he said something else "Hyw ohsot?"

Dexivea was confused now so she repeated him and he slowly said it again but this time he made his hand look like a gun and he pretended to fire it "Turian ohsot?" he seemed to ask

Dexivea was slowly getting the idea "Why did we shoot?" she asked, knowing he wouldn't understand anything she said but she tried anyway "Human broke law" she said simply. 

Nate frowned before something caught his attention, a turian general approaching the cells. 

Dexivea immediately left the cell and saluted the general, this one Dexivea did not know "Sir, the prisoners have been decontaminated and I have started making progess in translations"

The general seemed pleased "What can you tell me?"

Dexivea stood a little straighter "I have written reports but I can tell you that they are called 'humans' and the bigger one is called 'Nate' and the puer is called 'Kurt' and surrendered after we had caught him. An effort to protect the puer"

The general pondered this for a moment "So they are loyal to their families?"

Dexivea made a sub harmonic sound meant confusion "These two are at least"

The general looked at her "You have done a great job, these two will be moved to a more secure position. I will be sure to recommend you get a promotion for this"

Dexivea stood up straighter "With respect sir, I would like to stay with them. The older one I feel will be in danger without me here and they know me, I might be able to build a dialogue with them, like I already have"

The general looked at the older and much bigger alien known as Nate "Why do you say that doctor?"

Dexivea paused "He was caught with tools used to make those traps, many turians have seen the worst of those traps"

The general pondered that "Fine, the two prisoners are yours but I will be sending experts to assist you but since the prisoners have already started talking to you, I see no reason to stop that"

Dexivea could barely hide her excitement while she saluted him "Thank you sir"

The general saluted her back "You have done a good job here Medic Vicril" he said clearly knowing who she was. 

Two days later.

Dexivea had be given a small office near the cells, so she could watch her prisoners while still operating on any wounded that came in. 

Nate appeared to make a mark on the wall of his cell for every turian that Dexivea couldn't save.

Dexivea knew what he was doing, mind games with the enemy, he couldn't do anything else so he counted her failures, she tried not to let it bother her. He was her prisoner after all. 

Besides while Nate might have been trying to annoy her, Kurt on the other hand was always trying to show her drawings he had done or getting her to play with him and even would run to her and away from other turians. 

Dexivea tried to be emotionally distant from the alien puer but when she did, Kurt would be depressed and refuse to eat. 

Like now, they were being moved and while Kurt was happy to be standing near Dexivea, Nate however would stand facing the bars of his cell and just wait. 

His guard detail using law enforcement shields they had found in the building and to her surprise, Nate did not back down instead seemed to be waving them towards him and when the cell doors opened the guard detail rushed in and Nate ran towards them. 

A minute later the guards dragged his unconscious body from the cell, Dexivea kept Kurt from seeing that. 

Nate woke up later on a shuttle, heading back to the fleet. 

"I know you don't understand me but they are moving the two of you. They want to see you at the Citadel and maybe we can convince your species to give up" Dexivea explained. 

Nate's face was swollen and one eye was a shade of purple that was close to an asari skin tone and his nose was dripping blood. 

Puer = Child.

Kynost = Palaven predator hunts like a crocodile.

Dyitan cube = Small turian puzzle box for infants, turians see in a different spectrum to to other races, used a way to test other species eye sight.

Pueriti = Infant under 1

Pahir = Son