Chapter 1: The Baby and the Battlemaster
"Secure the perimeter! Don't let the krogan-"
A well aimed blast from an M-11 Wraith shotgun was more than enough to silence the Cerberus trooper who quickly slumped to the ground as the krogan wielding it continued his advance into the facility. A small army of troopers and engineers were actively attempting to bring him down or at the very least slow him down. As the intruder surveyed the battlefield, he couldn't help but chuckle to himself. This was going to be fun.
Drax was a krogan who enjoyed a good fight, which wasn't unusual for his people, but there were also several details that made him a bit of an anomaly when it came to the krogan. The first was the fact that he was a battlemaster, a dying breed among the krogan. However, with the genophage now cured, there could possibly be a resurgence of their kind in a few generations. He was also a man with no clan nor a desire to join one. He'd left his home planet of Tuchanka centuries earlier and had only returned once since. Like many krogan he'd returned to his home world after Urdnot Wrex and Commander Shepard had succeeded in curing the genophage. He'd wanted to see for himself whether or not his brethren had truly been cured of their curse and also surmise whether Wrex would truly be able to lead them to a new era of prosperity. The old man and his woman, Bakara, appeared to have been up to the challenge, but Drax himself had no intention of staying behind to see how things played out. When the opportunity to serve in one of the special operation units during the Reaper War presented itself, Drax jumped at the chance to get his hands dirty.
Normally he spent his time working as a mercenary in the Terminus Systems, but the reapers had posed a threat to everyone. Drax was almost impressed by the arrogance of the giant synthetic invaders, they had managed to piss off every sentient being in the galaxy and didn't seem to care. That arrogance of course proved to be their downfall, as a single organic managed to kill them all and a human at that. Drax continued his advance into the facility shrugging off the gunfire that his barrier was absorbing while he mowed down the troopers who continued harassing him. After sending four of the nuisances crashing through a nearby wall with a throw field, he noticed another engineer setting up a turret.
"Annoying pyjaks." he mumbled before tossing a lift grenade that immediately destroyed the turret and killed the engineer as well as the troopers who'd gathered nearby.
He had to hand it to Aria, this little excursion had definitely been worth his time. "Don't fuck with Aria, indeed." Drax chuckled as he hit another nearby trooper with a warp followed by a throw field triggering a biotic explosion that thinned the enemy ranks further. The pirate queen of Omega hadn't forgotten Cerberus' attempt at ousting her and now that the war was over she'd made it her personal mission to exterminate all traces of the nefarious organization and she was paying good credits to anyone who was willing to follow up on her information and "clean house" a task that Drax had no problem complying with. He'd already fought the bastards on several occasions during the war.
After entering a rather narrow hallway, Drax found himself surrounded by several centurions and even more troopers. As the centurions closed in on him preparing to strike with their batons, Drax detonated his barrier sending his would be attackers flying while he drew his M-77 Paladin heavy pistol and quickly executed the stragglers who'd managed to avoid his detonation.
"You're starting to bore me now." he commented casually as he kicked through the bodies of the fallen soldiers and made his way into an unusually large antechamber. As he did so, a pair of atlas mechs began advancing from each side of the area accompanied by several guardians and even more troopers. "That's more like it." Drax said with a smile before killing a trio of guardians with three well aimed shots from his Paladin that breached the openings in the massive shields that they carried. Afterwards he tossed several lift grenades at each of the mechs while circling the antechamber moving behind a nearby pillar as he fired his Wraith repeatedly at one of the giant mechanized hazards.
The mechs returned fired immediately and Drax found himself dodging several rocket blasts that quickly tore through his cover. "My turn!" he yelled after erecting a barrier around himself once more and blasting a trooper who'd been flanking one of the mechs with a warp. He instantly followed up the attack with a throw field that created a biotic explosion that brought the nearby mech to its knees. He tossed another lift grenade that finished the job and watched gleefully as the mech exploded killing even more of the opposition before turning his attention to the final mech.
Drax drew his Paladin once more and focused his shots on the cockpit of the mech as he rushed at it. His barrier was absorbing an absurd amount of damage as the panicked pilot inside the machine repeatedly fired rockets at the advancing krogan battlemaster. Eventually his barrier collapsed, but at that point it was too late. His relentlessly well aimed shots had breached the cockpit of the mech and after he'd gotten close enough, Drax quickly reached into the machine and pulled the shocked pilot onto the floor where he crushed his skull under his immense boot before lobbing a grenade inside the now abandoned cockpit for good measure. The mech exploded in spectacular fashion as Drax continued his advance deeper into the facility gunning down the scattered remnants of resistance along the way.
It wasn't long before he found himself outside a massive door that led into some kind of laboratory. The door was obviously locked and Drax was fairly certain that the occupants wouldn't be keen on allowing him inside. Suddenly a voice began to resonate across the entire facility to confirm his doubts.
"That's as far you go krogan. You've caused considerable damage here today, but it's nothing we can't recover from. You have no hope of breaching this door and your kind aren't known for technical expertise, so I highly doubt that you'll somehow-Wait!? What in blazes?!" the voiced was abruptly stunned into silence after its owner had presumably witnessed Drax nonchalantly tear off the rocket arm of a nearby atlas mech that had obviously been in the process of being repaired at some point. The krogan then aimed the immense firearm at the door that was currently obstructing his progress and prepared to fire.
"Are you out of your mind?!" the voiced shouted as panic began to spread through the man's tone. "Clear the door! We have to secure our research and get 'it' to safety! Hurry!" the man yelled to his subordinates.
Moments later the door was blown open and a rather large and annoyed krogan was now shooting his way inside the lab. The resistance that he met was pathetic at this point, merely a handful of troopers and scientists with handguns. Drax quickly killed everyone in sight before firing a shotgun blast that tore through the legs of a man who'd attempted to flee during the confusion.
"Damn you krogan!" the wounded man spat as he looked up at Drax who stared down at him as he made his way forward. "All of our work, research, everything...destroyed by a lizard's rampage." he added bitterly. Drax quickly fired a round into one of the man's elbow joints as repayment for the insult before surveying the laboratory that he now found himself standing in.
It was full of the usual trappings that he'd seen inside research labs, computers and a bunch of high tech contraptions the he couldn't be bothered to investigate. His lady would've likely loved to get her hands on a few of the gadgets that were lying around, she was the technical type and brains of their operation. She was also the worrying type and Drax had a job to finish. He was about to finish off the wounded scientist when he suddenly took notice of the walls in the lab. They were lined with shelves full of jars that contained a blue, luminescent fluid. They also held something that managed to shock the battle hardened krogan, a feat not easily achieved. Each and every jar contained what appeared to be human infants, actually embryos, at varying stages of development. They also appeared to be lifeless and in many cases mutilated and deformed.
"I always knew you bastards were scum but even I couldn't imagine you'd go this far." Drax remarked coldly as he scanned the lab further. Further inspection revealed tanks that held the lifeless forms of infants suspended in even more blue fluid.
"Judgment from a krogan, truly hilarious considering your people's history." the scientist replied sardonically as he laid bleeding on the floor. "A history of pointless barbarism that the council utilized to quell a galaxy wide threat and ultimately had to curb with the genophage. I wonder how things will turn out this time." he added.
Drax ignored him and continued eyeing the lifeless children. It was like watching the effects of the genophage let loose on another species. Cerberus had always claimed to have humanity's best interest at heart and yet they'd committed the worst atrocities on their own people.
"I don't expect you to understand krogan. Progress can't be made without sacrifice and for humanity to reach our pinnacle, any sacrifice is necessary. Do you think we did this without having a goal in mind? What we achieved here could have propelled humanity to the upper echelons of power and influence in a few generations. But The Illusive Man's madness and Petrovsky's failure insured our demise." the scientist lamented.
"I thought you were all on board for getting reaper tech upgrades. Wasn't that your goal? To control reaper power?" Drax asked coldly as his silver eyes burned into the man now lying helpless on the floor.
"You think we all subscribed to his insanity? I'll admit plenty enough did, others went on the run and some joined Shepard and the Alliance. But there were those of us who remained and played along in order to continue our research. If nothing else, we had to make sure that reaper implants didn't end up tainting what we'd accomplished." the scientist explained.
"And just what the hell did you accomplish?" Drax growled as he once again took in the sight of the lifeless infants.
"Perfection, krogan. Each of these lifeless shells represents a failure but also progress. We learned from each one and improved every iteration. If we'd had more time, the things we could have achieved!" the scientist replied quietly.
There was regret in his tone, but not for the dead children that decorated the lab. It was for the lack of time that he and his colleagues wouldn't have to carry on their deranged pursuits and add even more small bodies to the collection. "I'm gonna enjoy blowing this place to hell." Drax remarked angrily as he began to unpack a rather potent explosive that he'd been carrying. As he began setting the bomb, the wounded scientist made a final plea.
"Before you commence doing what your kind does best krogan, at least honor my final request. Take our only success from this place and see to it that he lives. He represents everything that we could become and I'd at least like to die knowing that the last two decades of my life haven't been wasted." the man said between labored breaths. He was bleeding out and struggling to remain conscious. He directed Drax to a small stasis pod in the center of the lab. After making his way over to the pod, Drax looked down to discover a very small, dark skinned infant sleeping inside.
"Decades and billions of credits went into creating that child. With more time and resources we could have engineered even more." the scientist commented weakly.
Drax examined the sleeping infant curiously. "So what makes him so special? Aside from the fact that he didn't die?" he asked.
"Everything, krogan" the scientist replied in a weak and annoyed tone. "He was grown from a perfected human genome. His physical abilities will all be 'superhuman' to coin an antiquated term. He'll be much stronger and faster than a typical human or even a human in peak physical condition. He will never suffer the indignities of old age and while he won't have a krogan's level of regenerative ability, he will heal faster than an ordinary human. His lifespan will rival an asari's and his biotic power will be on par with a matriarch's or even a battlemaster's." the man added. He'd placed an extra emphasis on the last part in an obvious jab at Drax. "I saw the security footage of your assault on this place, krogan. You're among the last of a nearly dead breed, but you represent the apex of your species. Hate me if you will, but I regret nothing. We weren't the first to delve into this area, one of Cerberus' biggest backers dabbled in genetic engineering to create his 'daughters' and another of our cells succeeded in creating the most powerful human biotic in the galaxy. One of your own people created a genetically perfected krogan who ended up aiding Shepard in destroying the Collectors and fighting the Reapers. So don't you dare judge me krogan. Hate me if you must, condemn me if you will, but don't judge me.
Drax simply glared into the defiant eyes of the dying scientist as he continued to bleed onto the floor and drew his final breaths. "Well, at least Okeer will have some company he can relate to." he finally remarked dryly. Afterwards, he opened the stasis pod and lifted the infant into his free arm before making his way back to the bomb. He quickly armed the device and began making his escape. He had five minutes to get clear of the facility and he planned to do just that. Unfortunately, there were still a few scattered troopers who were too stubborn to quit.
Drax erected a barrier around himself and the infant that he was carrying and fired a few rounds from his Paladin killing several soldiers as he barreled his way to the entrance of the facility. As he made his way outside, a trio of troopers attempted to get the drop on him. A string of vicious blows with his free hand was all it took to bring them down and solicit a laugh from the baby he was carrying.
"You're my kind of kid, whelp." Drax said affectionately as he made his way to his shuttle. After securing the infant and himself inside, he immediately took off and not a moment too soon. He'd barely managed to pilot the shuttle away from the blast radius of the explosion. After entering the familiar void of space, Drax released a sigh of relief before glancing at the infant next to him. "Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to explain you to Vera." he pondered out loud as the infant chuckled.
Inside a hollowed out satellite that drifted within an asteroid belt at an undisclosed and inconspicuous area of the galaxy, a rather irate quarian had begun pacing inside her workshop. Vera was atypical for a quarian, she no longer had a ship that she recognized as home and there was no ship in the flotilla that would likely have her. Of course, those circumstances were a thing of the past now that the quarians had returned to their home world thanks to Commander Shepard's intervention and his brokering peace with the Geth. Right now millions of quarians were repopulating Rannoch, but she wasn't one of them. She had her reasons for choosing not to return to the flotilla after she'd undertaken her pilgrimage and she had no regrets. She had been more than happy to hire out her services as a wandering tech specialist and she'd made a fairly comfortable living doing so, until the Reapers showed up. It was hard to make a profit when your clients started to die left and right. Fortunately for her, the human alliance had been hiring specialists to join their special operations teams that had unofficially been dubbed N7's.
Obviously the ragtag bands of soldiers that had been assembled weren't part of the alliance's elite special ops division, but the missions that they'd undertaken during the war more than qualified them to use the title. She still cringed when she thought about the fights that she'd been involved in with not only Cerberus, but the reaperized husks of several species. The banshees still gave her nightmares. Despite the horrors, that was also where she'd met Drax and somehow found herself partnering with a krogan battlemaster and eventually falling for him. They were an unusual couple to say the least but somehow they resonated with each other and she was happy. The rest of the galaxy could stare and gossip as it pleased, she couldn't be bothered. Drax on the other hand was more than prepared to kill anyone one who so much as smirked in their direction. It had been one of the biggest reasons she'd convinced him to settle down in such a remote place. The body count that he had been racking up on Omega was starting to get Aria's attention and not in a good way.
The idiot had been gone slightly longer than she'd expected which wasn't unusual, but the nature of the job that he'd accepted had her concerned. Mopping up the remnants of Cerberus and getting paid to do it wasn't a bad deal, but she didn't trust the pro-human organization to die easily or play fair. They had demonstrated on numerous occasions just how far they were willing to go to achieve their ends and Drax wasn't what anyone would call cautious when it came to battle.
"Hurry up and get back here you bosh'tet!" she mumbled while sorting through a list of technical blueprints. The only upside to Drax's absence was her increased free time which had allowed her to work on a few of her designs for upgrading the security and stability of their dwelling. Setting up a base of operations inside an asteroid belt had definitely been one of her more ingenious ideas. It was secure, unassuming and almost completely undetectable, even more so with the modifications she'd made. It was their own private little corner of the galaxy, spacious and conveniently distanced away from the hustle and bustle of a city or spaceport.
"Rico, transfer these updated designs to my personal storage and let me know when Drax begins making his approach." she said wearily.
"At once mistress." a small, yellow, square shaped VI replied in a courteous manner as it floated into the room.
"Rico, I've told you a million times, just call me Vera." she added with a note of exhaustion in her voice.
"Of course Mistress Vera." the VI chimed.
Vera simply sighed before returning to her designs. Reprogramming him would simply be too much of a hassle and Rico was the best VI assistant she'd ever created. He was one of the main reasons they'd managed to get everything inside the satellite up and running so smoothly.
"Why are all the men in my life so troublesome?" she whispered to herself.
"Mistress Vera, Master Drax's shuttle is making its approach now." Rico informed.
"It's about time!" Vera replied angrily, but with an immense amount of relief. She immediately made her way to the hangar of their base where she promptly got the surprise of her life. Standing before her was the large and familiar form of her boyfriend and partner with what appeared to be a human infant cradled in his left hand.
"So, what's for dinner?" Drax asked casually as he made his way over and wrapped his free arm around Vera.
"Explain. Now." Vera replied instantly after freeing herself from his grip.
"What? Oh, you mean him?" Drax said defensively while motioning to the infant in his hand. "Well, it's a really boring story actually and it's been a long trip. Your bomb went off without a hitch by the way-"
"Drax!" The quarian woman was not going to be distracted from the obvious and Drax knew it.
"Alright..." Drax responded reluctantly. He went on to explain what he'd discovered inside the Cerberus facility, although he left out the more graphic details but he was fairly sure Vera had guessed them and also recounted what he'd learned from the scientist.
The quarian woman immediately began to pace the hangar. "What were you thinking? We can't keep him! Neither of us knows a thing about raising children! Especially a human child! A genetically engineered superhuman child at that! Keelah!" she shouted angrily.
"What was I supposed to do?" Drax replied defiantly.
"You could have made arrangements to give him to the alliance or Grissom Academy or an orphanage on a colony somewhere!" she said while glaring at him.
"Huh. Never thought of that." Drax replied casually while scratching his chin.
"Honestly, Drax." she added in an exasperated tone. "Well it's not too late, I can get started on the arrangements and then-"
"Vera, I want to keep him." Drax said firmly. "The whelp's better off with us and there's no guarantee that whatever's left of Cerberus won't be tracking him, especially if they know that those bastards were successful and they believe he's alive." he added while looking down at the baby cradled in his hand.
Vera looked at him for a long time. It was moments like these when Drax truly surprised her and reminded her why she'd fallen for him. She knew how persistent Cerberus could be when it came to human biotics, she still remembered the info she'd learned about their pursuit of the Grayson girl on the flotilla. Finally, she released a sigh. "So we have a son now I suppose. I'd better brush up on human child rearing practices and start learning what I can." she replied warmly.
"What's to learn?" Drax laughed as he handed the infant to Vera. The child immediately looked up at her and smiled as she held him. "A whelp is a whelp, regardless of the species. I'll find him something amino based with tits that he can suckle and that'll be that. The poor brat would probably prefer yours though, a shame you aren't compatible and I'm not the sharing type anyway." he added jovially as he left the hangar.
Vera simply shook her head as she gazed down at the child in her arms. "You're really in for it now little one." she said gently while stroking the baby's cheek. After a few moments she noticed that the child's stomach was making strange sounds and that his diaper was quite full.
"An empty belly and a dirty diaper, Keelah, I'm going to kill your new papa!" she said angrily before storming out of the hangar after the krogan as the baby she held took in his new surroundings. In the many years to come, the hollowed out asteroid would be the first thought that came to mind whenever the youngster thought of home.