Chapter 1: Origins

-2183-

Kari shifted nervously as she listened quietly to the gentle slightly warbling voice of the Captain as she stood on the in the hallway near the docking port, giving the others their instructions. There were many people gathered here today, relatives and friends all eager to see them off.

She and three other young Quarians were about to embark on their pilgrimage, a Quarian tradition born of necessity on the Migrant Fleet. Each Quarian had to bring back something useful, be in food, resources or knowledge that would help their people. It was the moment which a child became an adult, and they would leave the ship of their birth. It was a sobering moment for any young Quarian... It was Kari's last day on the Vanya.

She had spent her life on the Vanya, from even her earliest recollections, she remembered the sights and sounds of the ship, the gentle hum of the ship's engine, incessant whirring of the life support system, creaky old fans moving the ship's sterile air into large scrubbing CO2 cylinders and back out into the living quarters. Living on the Vanya had always been cramped. What little deckspace that wasn't taken up by equipment had been repurposed as storage or living quarters. Only in the social district was there any semblance of what most species would consider a "livable" amount of free space. These were the conditions Kari had grown up to, and had never really bothered her.

But today...well today was different. All eyes were on her. Or at least...that's what it felt like. Kari scratched the back of her head, the deep navy blue fabric of her suit pressing ineffectually against her scalp, allaying the imaginary itch her mind had conjured. She had always liked the colour purple; it reminded her of the Void, silent and comforting. She had been on a few EVA's in her life, mostly to repair damaged components from the occasional meteor shower, but when she was walking on the surface of the hull, with no sound but the deep rise and fall of her breaths, it was a sublime experience.
And then there were the vids of the homeworld, and the great sapphire oceans reflecting a deep violet night sky.

"Kari'Vereah." the Captain's voice pierced the pensive veil of her thoughts, startlingly her.
"Y-yes?" she stuttered her voice was timid and demure, almost if she had never expected this moment to come.
"What world do you choose for your Pilgrimage?" Admiral Lia'Raan spoke softly in comforting voice.
Kari stuck on her words for a moment. She had considered several worlds to travel to, each of them offering unique and alluring prospects for any potential pilgrim. Yet there was one world that had stuck out in her mind, one that she wanted to see more than all the rest. One that had oceans…

"I choose Eden Prime, Captain Raan."
There were a few whispers of surprise at her choice. Most Quarians chose worlds that were more populous, or settle by older species. A Turian colony or an interspecies location is what most of her people would choose, they were more convenient, increased the likelihood of finding something useful for the fleet, and there was the boon of having dextro food readily available. Indeed, the only other Quarian that had chosen a distinctly human colony was Veetor'Nara, and he wasn't quite…there.
Kari wasn't really sure she was entirely lucid either, but still, a human agricultural world was far more appealing to her than a crowded metropolis.

"Are you sure, Kari?" Raan finally spoke, her voice bearing a slight whiff of incredulousness.
"I-I am" Kari responded bowing her head slightly, as if expecting a scolding.

"Very well, Kari'Vereah. Your ships is loaded with provisions and all the tools you will need for your Pilgrimage…and remember, whatever you acquire…it must not bring harm to another."

Lia'Raan let those last words hang on the air for a moment, it was a warning commonly given and everyone on the Migrant Fleet knew the punishment for breaking the one rule of the Pilgrimage.

Raan smiled warmly, and wrapped her arms around the young girl in a warm embrace. "Keelah Se'lai, Kari. May the ancestors guide you back to us."

"Keelah Se'lai." Kari softly repeated as her friends and family drew in around them to give their loved one their farewells.
Even then Kari couldn't help but feel an itch.

"Booyah!"

"Bloody hell."

James couldn't believe his luck: another bomb out. He had to be the worst player ever at Skyllian Five.
"Yeah that's right, Frost. Read em and weep!" Thomas grinned toothily as he dramatically raked in the chips into his pile with a large sweep of his arm.
"This is why I don't play games of chance." James snorted derisively. "I can't believe you talked me into this, Rose."
Keira chuckled, as she took another sip of her drink, before laying her cards down on the table. Three pair, a good hand, but still Ace had them both beat with a straight.
"I warned you, Lieutenant, Mr. Blackburn is very good at games of chance." Bishop chided in his deep central European accent from behind his box glassed that sat perched on his nose like a finch.
"Why don't you play, sir?" Ace chimed in, still with a smug grin plastered across his pale, slightly freckled face. "I bet you could give Staff Sergeant Baines a run for her money. Of course, you will to the master nevertheless, but at least you can have the joy of coming in second."
Bishop shook his head, an impish smile on his lips as his eyes returned to the datapad he was reading.
"I'm too old for poker, Mr. Blackburn. I only gamble my life now, not my money."
Ace grinned. "Oh well, I can still take the LT's money."

"Oh no, I'm not going to dance to this tune anymore…I'm out." James said as he dropped his cards onto the pile and pushed his chips to Keira.
"I'm going to go find something else to do, something I'm good at." James said as he stood up, grabbing his drink and his N7 baseball cap.
"Well…try not to get a hand cramp." Thomas snorted. "Very funny, Corporal…" James shot back, "I think the latrines are due for a good scrubbing, don't you think, Staff Sergeant Baines?
"Oh I agree, LT." Keira returned in a matter-of-factual tone of voice, despite the wolfish grin on her face. "Wha- …dammit." Ace's smug grin disappeared as he realized what he had just stepped into.
"Com'n sir, you can't get mad just cau-"
"Oh I can, Corporal, Officer's prerogative." James kept his face straight as an arrow.
James furrowed his brow and evened his voice into the hard commanding tone of an officer giving an unpopular order to his troops.
Ace hung his head and sighed, realizing his defeat. "Yes, sir…"
"Oh and while you're at it, send in a requisition to HQ for those little soaps. You know, the ones with the N7 stamped on them. They make a better lather than the standard issue ones."

"…You're fucking with me aren't you...?"
James smiled. "Good man, Mr. Blackburn. Good man." James gave Thomas a curt but patronizing pat on the head and left the crew lounge to the sound of laughter and Keira's mockery. "Told you not to piss off the LT."

James smiled as he walked down the corridors, the sounds of the crew lounge fading out as his boots tapped a sharp cadence of lonely steps down the gunmetal grey deck plating. It had been a little more than a year since he had been posted to the SSV Halcyon, one of the Alliance's older models of frigate, the Halcyon herself dated back just prior to the First Contact War, designed and built during the Alliance's aggressive expansion following the discovery of the Prothean archives on Mars and the original founding of the Alliance. The Halcyon was a nimble little thing, and she had aged quite well. The boys at Luna base kept her up-to-date with some of the best tech around, but it was no secret she was getting old. It wouldn't be long before they mothballed her, or scrapped her for the new SR-models that command had been co-developing with the Turians.

Turians. James had heard many stories about them. His father had been at retaking of Shanxi. It had been a bloody fight, the Turian's sense of honour and duty called them to stay and fight, even when all hope of victory had been lost. The Alliance had ended up driving the Turians from the planet with heavy causalities, but they had gained the respect of those who fought against them. Of course not humans felt this way; his mother had lost a dear family friend during the siege, and still held onto some bitterness even to this day. However, it had been his father's stories of war and serving the Alliance that had first enkindled the desire in him to become an N7.

N7. He still had a hard time believing it sometimes. Ever since he was a kid, no more than four, he had wanted to be one. The Alliance's Elite…Special Forces, making the galaxy safer for humanity ,seeing new worlds, meeting strange aliens and get to kill them, or at least as the unofficial recruitment idiom had said. And still, here he was…twenty two years later….He placed his hand on the bulkhead, letting his fingers move down the metal, feeling the slight imperfections: bumps, cracks, soft vibrations of the engines and mass-effect core. It seemed surreal, and yet all too real. He had his purpose, the only thing he had ever truly wanted. Right here.
Well- James chuckled to himself -one of the two things he had ever wanted

Suddenly, there was an increase in vibrations, and James felt the deck plating shift beneath his feet.
They were turning….and accelerating…The ship's klaxons blared,
"Attention: All hands to combat stations. This is not a drill."

The silence of the Halcyon's corridors was broken by the thudding footfalls of boots. Frantic and surprised voices filled the hallway, meshing together into one single unintelligible mass of sound as the red emergency lights built into the Halcyon's hull flicked out their pattern of warning: he knew it by heart
One-two-one: Unidentified hostiles, prepare for hard contact.
"Raiders…or worse..." James thought as he made his way towards the CIC, pushing past other crewmembers hurrying to their stations in varying states of disheveled dress. He even saw one of the ship's engineers, LtC. Hurrez rushing to his station with nothing but a loosely tied robe on.

"What's going on, sir?" someone asked further down the corridor, the bend of the ship keeping them just out of view. "I don't know, Ensign, but we will find out soon enough." It was Captain Abendroth's voice, Bishop's voice "Captain!" James yelled over the din. "Lieutenant Irving!" the older man responded, waving him closer and nodding to the young navy ensign to get moving.
James looked at Bishop with growing concern, he could tell by the old German's furrowed brow he knew exactly what was happening.
Bishop's gaze's met his, James words came slowly and quietly, but he already knew what that look meant.

"What happened?"

To say Eden Prime wasn't what she expected, was an understatement for Kari'Vereah Nar Vanya. It was better….
As soon as she stepped off the deck plating onto the verdant world the first thing she realized was how bright it was
It was like staring directing into the heart of a drive core, the powerful pulses of electromagnetic radiation blinding her. The protective mass effect fields around a core would prevent any harmful radiation from leaking through, but the visible spectrum passed through unhindered.
"Keelah…" she muttered to herself, not audible enough to be heard outside her suit as she raised her arm to block the rays of Eden Prime's sun. She stepped forward, his feet leaving the small deck her shuttle and clanking out awkwardly onto the steel gangplank that rank up to the docking pad. It was simple; open aired and spoke volumes of the world itself: an agricultural backwater without even the luxury of a properly enclosed spaceport terminal.
Yet, Kari's mind was flooded with new sensations, sights and sounds…smell even, although heavily filtered, of a new world. The first planet she ever set foot on…she tried to wrap her mind around it.

Of course, they had told her about what to expect; her limbs felt heavier; her eyes weren't accustomed to the mid-summer sun still high in Eden Prime's sky and her balance was slightly off, enough to cause her to trip over her own feet more than once.
Keelah, It feels like I'm a child again.
She thought, remembering those first unsteady steps in her evirosuit, her mother and father watching with pride as their daughter grew from a child into an adolescent. In all honesty she still was just a child, only twenty years of age and here she was, taking those first awkward steps again…only this time, her mother and father weren't here.
The thought struck her with some sadness, her parents weren't here… they couldn't see her now, taking her first steps on her Pilgrimage, her first time on a planet. The cold metal floors of the fleet are all she had ever known, and here, right here…just a few feet below her...was dirt real dirt and grass. It wasn't the homeworld, but by the stars, it felt like it. She wanted to see more, she had to see more, it was too much for her to bear.

Kari lowered her arm, hesitantly, her eyes still recoiling at the harsh flood of light, but they stood their ground…as the vast horizon opened up to her.
For miles and miles on end, green verdant valleys and hills rolled across the landscape. Tilled and plowed rows of hundreds and thousands of kilometers of arable soil had been sown. Grains and grasses, legumes and berries as far as the eye could see. There were large towers, white and pristine rising out of the fields that reached up and touched the sky and winding dirt roads for harvesting equipment that seemed to stretch on for eternity.

Kari wasn't quite sure what to make of it all; her mind was so full of data, so full of questions. Her curiosity was going to get the better of her timid nature, she could already feel it. This was what she wanted. Wide open spaces, a chance to see the natural wonders of the universe in its entire splendor…and of course…the chance to study it. Like any proper Quarian should! Well, Quarian scientist maybe.

"Welcome to Eden Prime." A voice broke her line of thought.

"W-What...huh?"

"I said 'Welcome to Eden Prime.'" The voice repeated. Kari looked down the ramp for its point of origin. It was a rather small, bare-headed human. He wore thick frame oval glasses and had a voice that sounded like nutrient paste that had gelled over from sitting out too long: bland and rather tasteless.

Kari was taken a bit aback for a moment, as this was her first encounter with a human, and it wasn't at all what she expected. Luckily, her suit's visor obscured her look of shock and slight disappointment.
"Name please." The man asked, in the same dull monotone, his body language indicating he didn't care in the slightest, and to him, this Quarian was just another batch of paperwork to be filed.

"Kari'Vereah Nar Vanya." She stated after a moment's pause.
"Spell that please." He droned in response, and Kari began to wonder if she had landed on a Geth colony by accident.
Nevertheless she obliged, and gave all the necessary details that he required from her.
"Very good Miss Ner'Vana." He finally stated after he finished punching in the few characters into the registry.
"It's Nar Vanya…and that it's my n-" she began with a slight hint of annoyance, her frustration starting to overcome her demure nature.
The man interrupted her, "There's just the matter of the anchorage and administration fees." He said, holding out his hand expectantly, not bothering to make eye contact with her.

"Oh- right… just let me-" Kari reached into her pocket and hardly before she had gotten her credit chit out, the man snatched it from her and swiped it across the terminus on the side of his datapad.
After a moment's pause, he returned the small piece of plastic to her hand and gave a cold bow.
"All is in order, thank you for visiting Eden Prime, MissNer'vana and have a pleasant stay."
Before Kari could say anything else, he turned on his heel and made his way down the gangway to the next ship.

Kari frowned slightly, as she carefully replaced the credit chit back in her suit's pocket, as she grumbled in Quarian.
"Bosh'tet." She muttered…but then instantly regretted it. Even though she felt annoyance, remembered that he was just a low-level functionary…having to do the same routine, hundreds of times a day for year after year.
She even began to pity the man a little bit as she went back aboard her ship and started to gather her supplies and personal belongings.
Still, she had to admit, if that is what humans were like, then she could see why some other species disliked them, but then again…he was the first alien she had ever met.
It seemed like just her luck, for her first contact with an alien race to be a disaster.

She sighed heavily.
Hopefully it will be better from here on.

Deep down, a part of her scoffed.
Maybe I should have chosen a Geth colony…

Artwork Julius Lattke