Sorry for the massive delay in updates, I've had no idea where to go with aspects of this story for a while and worried that I was starting to stagnate.
Anyway, on with the show.

***

Cera hung back from the throng of recruits gathering outside the briefing room. Most of the various candidates were still in the cliques they had formed when they arrived, but she noticed a few of the others who, like her, were remaining fairly solitary. When they were all ushered into the room, she took a seat between a turian and a human male that she'd observed as keeping to themselves.

Commander Shepard stood at the front of the room, hands behind her back in that trademark posture, next to her Turian husband and a human man Cera vaguely recognized as being from Shepard's original squad on the mission to track down Saren Arterius, rogue spectre and indoctrinated reaper slave. Up close, the woman was even more beautiful than she'd looked in the vids Cera had seen. Perhaps beautiful may have been the wrong word. Shepard wasn't a classically gorgeous woman, not an hourglass-shaped femme fatale, but she looked strong. A crueller person may have described her as 'handsome'. Her hair fell in a sleek chin-length bob that picked up the artificial lighting of the room, and her slight frame was offset by her impressive height. She was around shoulder-height against Vakarian, and he was clearly over 6 feet tall, on the short side of average for a Turian male. Cera had to admit they were a good-looking couple, even though she didn't usually find aliens or other women attractive. Well, there was that one time in college, but...

Cera was jolted from her thoughts as the Commander began to speak.
"As you're all probably aware, I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favourite briefing room on the Citadel... " Shepard's face wore a wry smile as she observed the candidates. As her posture relaxed, a few recruits dared to release the chuckles they had suppressed while others simply looked aghast at her display of humour. Indicating the men at either side of her, she continued,
"This is my husband, Garrus Vakarian, and this is Kaidan Alenko,"
She looked around. Her tone took on a more precise and military air to it, the pace of her words picking up as she projected her voice to the back of the room. She wasn't shouting, there was no strain to her voice, it was simply loud.
"You are here at the Horizon Spectre Academy because you have been nominated on the grounds that you have Spectre potential. As you may or may not be aware, under the old system it was up to individual races' governments to decide on spectre candidates, before submitting them directly to the council. This academy is now the step in between. Over the coming weeks you will undergo training and simulations in order for us to decide whether you have what it takes to be a Spectre.
"Today, since we are still settling in and waiting for some of your instructors to arrive, we will all be taking part in some trust exercises. You will all be working very closely and some of the challenges to come may have you in situations that you might not want to be in with a perfect stranger.
"I also hope I am clarifying unnecessarily, but xenophobia of any sort will not be tolerated at this facility," She looked to the humans and the turians, huddled in their respective groups on opposite sides of the room. "That means no re-enactments of the First Contact War, boys and girls."
Vakarian coughed and muttered into his fist in a less-than subtle manner. "Relay 314 incident."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Vakarian," Shepard flashed him a grin and turned back to the group, dramatically rolling her eyes. "Fine, no re-enacting the Relay 314 incident. Get yourselves into groups of six, grab a coffee and have a chat. We will get started in 10 minutes."

Cera looked to the human male to her right and the turian to her left. Seems like a sensible place to start, she thought, steadying her nerves with a dose of false-confidence. Standing up, she pulled her chair forward with her and swung around to face them, before sitting astride the chair backwards. "Hey. You guys are with me, any objections?"
The men both shrugged and sat back in sullen silence.
Okay, thanks for making my life easy here, boys, she sighed internally. She looked between the pair. "I'm Cera. Cera Henderson. And you are?"
"Lantar Sidonis." The turian answered first.
"Mark Babineaux." The human chipped in.
"Nice to meet you both. So, we need to more people for our group, I suppose we ought to get on to that. I don't fancy seeing Commander Shepard when she's angry!" Cera giggled, her nerves betraying her.
Just then, a pair of young asari that appeared to be twins, came over to their little gathering. The one on the left asked in a small, shy voice. "I don't suppose you would mind if we joined you? It's just almost everyone else seems to have organized their groups already. Well, apart from him," she looked over in the direction of a tall, well-built turian who was leaning against a wall, doing his best to look bad-ass and intimidating. "But he doesn't look particularly friendly, if you don't mind my saying so."
Cera looked at the girl and smiled. "Sure, grab a seat. Also, I'm sure he's fine. Looks like the macho type. Full of bravado, but I bet his bark is worse than his bite. My name's Cera, what are yours?"
"Mirabelle and Marianne Urdnot." Her expression held a little anxiety that hinted she was expecting to be quizzed about their very Krogan surname.
"Pleasure to meet you both. This is Mark Babineaux, and this fine example of a Turian is Lantar Sidonis."
"Nice to meet you." They inclined their heads respectfully, and spoke in unison.
Cera had decided to test her theory about the turian, so she looked over at him until he happened to glance over in their direction. She met the challenging stare he gave her and made a beckoning gesture, smiling sweetly at him all the while. He looked away, visibly shaken, before regaining his composure and stalking over to the group.
"Yes?" he asked, seriousness radiating from him as much as the musky smell of his cologne, which she had to admit, was kind of sexy.
"Sit down," Cera offered, making no attempt to hide the amusement playing across her face. "You appear to be on your own, sans-group, so to speak, and we need an extra person. A mutually beneficial arrangement, I guess?"
The sigh he gave ran through his whole body, as he scanned the room and saw everyone else paired off. No escape. "Sure." He pulled up a chair.
"I'm Cera Henderson. Meet Mirabelle and Marianne Urdnot, Mark Babineaux, and Lantar Sidonis." Cera indicated the asari twins, the human man, and the other turian in turn.
"Matteus Kendrial." He snapped.
He really couldn't have been more passive-aggressive about it if he had tried, Cera thought. Her curiosity peaked. Perhaps he really is trying. What is his game?

Some time later, when Shepard wandered back into the room, a steaming mug of coffee emblazoned with the new United Races Council logo in one hand and a folder in the other. She sat cross-legged on a table and placed the mug and the folder down to either side of her. The chatter throughout the room cut off abrubtly as she cleared her throat.

"Trust exercises, boys and girls!" she declared loudly, voice demanding the attention of everyone in the room. "These will help your team building, as well as your personal confidence. But first, it appears I need to go through the teams you have formed. Some of these exercises will function best when used on mixed-species groups and so," she pointed to the human, turian and asari cliques, "you guys need to swap a few members. Nice to see the loners eventually banded together though. Best teams form that way. Hell, I defeated the reapers by picking up waifs and strays!" She shot Cera's group a glance and winked.
Shepard walked over to the other recruits and separated them into mixed-species groups; two asari, two turians, two humans per group. Quite a few of the candidates were visibly uncomfortable with the change, but none of them had the backbone to openly go against the commander's orders. She made a mental note of which candidates looked particularly pissed off at having to leave their friends in case of any problems later.

Vakarian spoke up. "We will begin your first exercise You will split into pairs and one of you will set your Omni tool to stopwatch functionality. You are going to spend 60 seconds staring into the eyes of your partner. Once the you have completed a full 60 seconds of eye contact without laughing or looking away, you will switch partners. When everyone your group has done so with everyone else, we can move on. Begin."
"Garrus, you sound like my old drill sergeant. Relax a little." Shepard whispered into his ear when she crossed the room to observe the candidates with him.
"I am relaxed, but if we all seem too friendly they won't take this seriously." He frowned, placing a hand on her arm.
"Nah, they'll take us seriously regardless. I am Commander Shepard, after all. They will just think you have a stick up your ass if you keep acting like that."
"Well, it's the stick up the ass or the stick or I beat people to death with, your choice." He chuckled.

Cera looked into Matteus's eyes and tried to maintain her composure. He was glaring at her as if he was attempting to bore a hole through her skull. She was supposed to be intimidated, afraid. Unfortunately, her instinct was to laugh. He wasn't effortlessly cool. He wasn't really a bad guy. He was just trying way to hard to look like one. "Lose the death stare, Kendrial, and maybe I can take you seriously." She muttered teasingly under her breath.
He looked startled for half a second. "Shut up human."
"Ooh xenophobe, now, are we? Nice." Her whispered tone was mocking.
"No."
"Then why address me as 'human'? You know my name."
A frown set in on the Turian's face and he settled into stoic silence.
Oh yes, Cera thought, this was going to be fun.