Vas Messenger
Chapter One: Nexus Arising
She was born in the heart of the crown jewel of the galaxy, dwelled within a towering silver city adrift in a starlit world, held on the edge of an empire of light and commerce known to the heralding populace as Illium.
On the surface, there seemed to be no trouble in this world, only peace and prosperity, with a rich culture born down through the ages. To the younger generations, there was the potentiality for a wisdom to inspire any matriarch and a thirst for knowledge that would have had any contemporary scholar writhing in jealousy.
But it was beneath the sheen and glamour, hidden under the blinding serenity and fruitful commerce that held the true intentions of Illium's leaders, of the culture rich in fortune, only for blood and wine to leak from the silver and gold core.
From the very beginning of her existence, her fate had been set. She was the promised child to a noble descent with parents known throughout the city for their ties to weapon dealing and black market trade. She was to be observed from the very instant of her existence. Every flicker of her pale white eyes, every asymmetrical freckle upon her silver skin, every gesture and word was noted, and a scheme of her fate was laid bare before her, so intricate and masterful that it held a future with the most potential to come to pass; completed before she could even begin to walk Illium's earth.
But amid the rivalry of her brothers, the shackles of expectation straining her hands and the beating breath of reality baring her down, her light in the realm of studies and law had gradually begun to flicker as candlelight upon a gentle wind, the once dawn of that luminescence gently descending into eventual shadow.
And so when she was young, barely old enough to be labelled a maiden, she stowed away upon a cargo ship and journeyed far from Illium. She remembered the distant lights of her silver home fading from view when she sought a fate that not even a prophet could foresee.
That decision had led her far into the galaxy, from distant moons to vast star-ships, learning throughout her years until she reached Earth's Galactic Space Station, one decade later.
.
"Congratulations on your successful acceptance into the Andromeda Initiative."
Iyali'Talaas vas Messenger was not the first, nor the last, to observe the enormity of the steel spacecraft wavering in the moon's orbit from her place within the space station. She gazed over the lights of the many windows that lay aboard and the star-cut back that tore the veil of space around it, as though propelling its great wings through translucent waves while resting above the silver body of Luna. It floated with a grace of truly masterful engineering and craft, flickering with more than possibly a thousand denizens already on board.
'A testament to an age of great ingenuity,' she thought amusedly, though in truth she was in awe. 'She could fly thousands, perhaps millions away from the dull expanse of the Milky Way, away from the vague and familiar, into a thousand-thousand lost stars. And I am to be one of her passengers.'
It was a truly marvellous star-ship, the Nexus, as shimmering and beautiful as she wished her Messenger had once been, before it had landed several years prior into the mountains of a local trading port, now left to stone and rubble.
The quarian, for that was what she was, a species so far from human yet also peculiarly similar, gently drew circles into her necklace, quietly snagging the ink-shaded armour of her enviro-suit with the chain, while absentmindedly following the engravings with one of her two fingers.
The shard of her Messenger thrummed over the metal and sanguine shawl covering it, lighting up upon the familiar touch. It was only a small piece of her ship's heart, a piece she had ripped from the wreckage that at the time, was no more than a tiny lifeless husk. Yet with determination and great effort, she had managed to mend the broken circuits and replace the shattered ruby at its centre, all of which allowed the core to oscillate and glow, maintaining some amount of life to her once prideful memory.
The little trinket was enough to give her comfort and warmed the leaden swell of pity in her breast. If it was not for it and her friend, she doubted she could have made it to the station's docking bay intact, or at all.
The chamber she stood in was but one section of a greater, grander vessel, clamped onto the hardened rocky terrain of Earth's moon with the towering blue and green crescent just out of reach. Passengers from other civilisations landed onto the station's main docking bay via angular shuttles, their eyes twinkling in wonder of the station's bright lights and many doorways. They all left as swiftly as they had came, separating once their loved ones had been found.
The last the quarian had seen of them was when they had passed, her last sight being a vivid movement out of the corner of her visor, where the shadows scurried across silver floor with their cases chasing soon after them. The passengers had followed their uniformed guides without complaint, she had noticed, before their disappearance, as if a deity beckoning them to some mystical assignation among the stars.
Yet when Iyali'Talaas had first arrived, she had to admit that the space-station had been more than what she had expected: walls of white and silver, clean and reflective, with holograms lighting the way through each separate corridor in variations of shuddering blue and green streams, advertising the initiative, space-travel and requirements for the expedition. Even the founder of the Andromeda Initiative herself, Jien Garson, spoke to all those who passed her holographic emulation. It was all so exciting.
But, alas, her excitement soon began to dissipate due to the constant footsteps, chatting and noise that came from the oncoming crowds of people, so she and her friend had found a secluded area far from their prying eyes and waited for when their name was called from the registry office.
She needed the silence, away from the pulsing, spine-curling screams and questions reverberating from the great, glassy dome of the ceiling. She took a deep breath, tasting the cold recycled air of her enviro-suit and allowed herself some relevant peace of mind; clarity with her thoughts.
Her awareness, however, soon drifted, falling out of sync with the scene of dark and twinkling jewels beyond the window, to the stranger shifting impatiently behind her. The quarian tugged on her necklace chain in thought, only to chew her bottom lip when the stranger's shadow shaded the brilliance of the Nexus. Gradually turning from the window, brows laboriously drawn, she stilled at the look of the officer and poised her spare hand along the sharp curve of her hip.
"Did you hear me?" the officer asked upon her silence, voice gruff and chiselled. She half-wondered if he was a hardened war veteran. She saw wars in his scars and wrinkles, though humans were terribly weak in her eyes, and bruised each time their tongue clattered against their teeth.
The officer regarded her in a mindful manner, folding his arms into a tight knot, though his uniform seemed far too stretched and rippled at the seams.
"Clear as crystal, officer," the quarian smiled, gently bowing her head. "It's a true pleasure being on such a fine craft, though I would prefer to be on the ship beyond this stationed vessel."
The officer returned her smile in kind, not that he could have seen hers behind the shaded visor of her helmet, and unbound his arms to scratch the back of his neck. "I bet you would, miss. Heck, I'm glad you think so. I've seen too many nervous civilians here for one night. Don't know whether to pity the poor fools that can't seem to make their mind up about being here, but it's too late to back out now for them, I guess."
"They have second thoughts on this?"
"Aye, but who wouldn't? It isn't like this is a two-way trip, miss," the officer sighed, peering out to the cluster of humans huddled together by the loading sections of the station. Their hands were held and heads were raised high to the monitors hung from the ceiling; waiting, it seemed, for their name to be called out. "But, I doubt you've come here to listen to an old man ramble. You can call me Hollier, Corvin Hollier, and for now and all intensive purposes, I'll be your leading officer on our little voyage into the unknown."
"Into the unknown, he says," a turian muttered, gaining the attention of Iyali'Talaas and the officer. Braced against a pillar was a peculiar creature, tall and bird-like in appearance with a heavy layer of armour plating keeping his thick carapace from being exposed. His talons twitched against the metal, his beak-like maw curled into a deep scowl, but though the turian's gaze remained focused on the overlook, his voice, deep with the tint of a distinctive flanging effect, was directed, unmistakably, at them. "Spirits, it's like he's explaining water to a hanar. This isn't our first journey into the unknown, likely won't be our last at the rate we're signing up for suicide missions."
The quarian's fingers tugged her necklace, lips tight when she frowned. "That's no way to talk, Vitarian. Leave the matter be."
"Oh please, Iya, we've seen more stars than any of the walking souls on this ship," snorted Syrus, leisurely falling back upon the pillar with a thud and raising his head. "Might as well give it to us straight, human. No need to glory-coat this little expedition of yours."
"If you're gettin' cold feet," the officer said, throwing his thumb back to the closed door of the entrance way, "it's too late to turn back. As negotiated in your contracts before the meet, the Initiative has already saved places for you aboard and all preparations have been made. There are personnel that could take your place, of course, but none with the prowess we saw during your training, turian, nor your biotic assembly, miss. You're useful assets, no doubt about it and your place on the shuttle is non refundable."
"Sounds more like a prison than an expedition," Iyali'Talaas whispered, pressing her gloved hand over her chest in an attempt to subtly subdue an old, pale fear of forced imprisonment.
Syrus' gaze softened upon the action, following her line of sight to the universe beyond them.
She stared at the glimmering star-ship in the distance, observed how the sun illuminated its silvery bow. If that was to be her new home, she would be contempt with it, she had decided, for it was far better to be on a vessel filled with unfamiliar faces than to face those of an ill-fated past that wished nothing other than her death.
"We made our choice when we signed your papers," she said, returning her attention to the officer before her. "We're at peace with it. And it isn't like we were given much of a choice."
Corvin Hollier let the side of his mouth wry upwards, but it seemed that part of her remark did not bode well with him. His face fell sour, reminding Iyali'Talaas of a time when she tried to savor the taste of a century-old brand of turian brandy without spitting the substance from her tongue. "A bad background, huh? Reaper followin' your shadow?"
The question, for the briefest moment, changed the atmosphere between the two to something decidedly chillier, and Iyali'Talaas felt her guard rising, fingers itching for her shouldered rifle.
Syrus noticed the stiffening of her stance and gently clicked his mandibles, calming her nerves and causing her shoulders to sag just a little. "Something like that."
A knowing nod was her answer. A dark shadow had crawled over Officer Hollier's marred face. "I know that all too well," he said, stroking the tips of his grey beard. "Andromeda might be a god-send then, figuratively or literally depending on how we do during our flight. But, apologies. This is a momentous occasion for you two. Wouldn't want to ruin it. Now, for the briefing."
"You mean like you already have? I mean, the chat has been pleasant so far and all. I wasn't planning to do anything in next decade, so why end this little discussion now?"
"Alright, turian, that's enough out of you. This is important so you're goin' to want to listen to what I have to say."
Curious, the turian humoured his potential superior, touching the outer shell of his face-plate to dim his shaded specs.
Taking that as confirmation, Officer Hollier stepped away from the two species and angled his left arm out, pointing directly towards the ground. Hovering his right arm over his left, his omni-tool - a powerful hand-held device of a computer microframe, sensor analysis pack and manufacturing fabricator - automatically activated, illuminating his arm with a golden terminal.
The officer pressed his fingers into the keys, plotting objectives and reading his prepared speech simultaneously until a fabrication lit up before Iyali'Talaas and Syrus, shown before them as the Nexus, floating just a few inches from the floor, with several smaller star-ships near its proximity.
The officer cleared his voice and recited his speech, "This journey is a major milestone for all of humanity as well as any other species in the Milky Way Galaxy. You are about to embark on a voyage unlike anythin' ever attempted before and make no mistake, this is a one way trip."
Peering up to discern their reactions, only to find mild contempt, he continued, "Six hundred years from now you will awake from cryostasis on the outskirts of the Andromeda galaxy. Our research teams have spent the best of this cycle's technology on preparing the voyage to be ready for any opposition, but not everything can be calculated. You will be asleep for a very long time and chances are the planets will have changed from what research we've already gathered, perhaps dramatically. The ship you see in the centre is the Nexus, which is the central hub of our little community. Separated from that are five arks: the Hyperion, Natanus, Parcero and so on. You both, with your history in extensive field work and combat, will be aboard the Nexus during your voyage, and will be among the first squads tasked with accompanying the Hyperion's objective in exploration for potential colonisation.
"I'm not going to romantisize this for you. The other officers here will tell their subordinates that the flight to Andromeda will be smooth-sailing, that there are no substantial threats. Let me be the one to tell you that they're all liars. The truth is, we don't rightly know what will be awaiting us. Hell, we might not even make it a third of the way before our engines burn out, an asteroid hits us or we're knocked off course from our planned trajectory. All I can tell you is that we have a chance for a better life. An adventure of sorts. And if we do make it to the golden worlds, then I'll happily buy you both the first round of drinks. I can't ask much more of you than that."
He swiped his hand out and the star-ships faded. "You knew the stakes before you signed the papers, just like you rightly said, miss. Whatever you're running from, you can be sure that it won't be following you. Heck, it'll probably have died out when you wake up from your beauty sleep in six hundred years time. Got to unload some amount of weight from your conscience, huh?"
Iyali'Talaas could only nod. If anything could put her fears to rest indefinitely, it would be that knowledge.
"I just have one question before I send you on your way. Normally, with your criteria, you would have been placed on one of the arks with the remainder of your people, not segregated and confined to a primarily mixed set of species aboard the Nexus, who I have to say, are higher up the chain of command than myself. But there have been some complications, and it's well known that no quarian ship will be flying to Andromeda anytime soon.
"So I have to wonder how you managed to request to be on the Nexus and to ask, what made you decide to join the Initiative? Aren't your people susceptible to health risks? What if your suit were to break or need patching while you're in cryostasis? Wouldn't you prefer to be with your own people?"
The quarian's arms roughly folded, fingers tapping the crooks of her elbows. "I'm not sure how that is any of your concern."
"You're part of my crew now, miss. Your health is my concern as if your friend's. If you need any specialties due to your circumstances, I'm going to need to know for the logs."
"I've not been with my people, Officer Hellion, for over twelve years," she whispered, a sharp hiss resonating through her voice emitter. "I've lasted longer than I would have with them, I've learned to adapt without them and I'm sure that if my suit breaks that I'll have more control over the effects your atmosphere has over my body than they would have on theirs. I requested to join and my request was accepted, despite the potential of no other quarians being with me."
"That may be, but you'll be alone out there, away from the rest of your people, in a new galaxy, no less. Doesn't that frighten you? Most would find it lonely."
"I do not find companionship solely among those of one specific race, officer. Despite what it may seem, it is better this way. Syrus is all I need. Let that be enough to sate your curiosity."
The officer, to the quarian's uncertainty, did not seem surprised by her reaction. In fact, he only regarded her with mild interest, his question not having been completely answered, but that, perhaps, was enough for him for the moment. He flicked his omni-tool back online, searched through the data files to extract the security procedure. After activating and scanning the quarian and turian's omni-tools, he transferred the encryption code to their systems, granting them security clearance to proceed onto the next stage of their journey. Their omni-tools flashed green before vanishing.
"There you go. You're now free to join the Initiative."
The quarian glanced down at her arm before peering behind her. Butterflies fluttered in her gut upon the sight of the Nexus, the star-ship only seeming a few steps away. She had waited so long for such an opportunity, and now that it was within mere walking distance...
"Not far now, kid. Not far now," whispered Syrus, placing his talon softly upon her shoulder.
Iyali'Talaas quietly stared at their reflections, adding to memory what they looked like in case it was the last chance she would get to see them in that way. She took a deep breath and laced their fingers.
Only time would tell, six hundred years later, in Andromeda.