Rediscovery
Chapter 1: Unfamiliar Family
His first memories were of the Citadel, its glimmering, silver arms grasping for infinity across a cloud of pale magenta. A million lights, from apartment windows to a dreadnought's drive core, refracted across the purple expanse, while starlight from Widow sheathed the impossibly lone and large station in a vivid haze.
This scene had replayed countless times in his life, from the beginning of his memory to only a few days ago. Life as the son of a freight company owner gave him plenty of time in space, and the galaxy had an inexhaustible supply of wonders.
For years the sight of the Citadel had been much the same each time, but it never failed to impress. Abruptly, it had changed a few years ago, in 2183, when the geth had attacked. He wasn't there for the battle, and for that he was glad. The devastation was immense, clear even from behind the strict no-flight cordon established following the attack. For a few days no ships had been allowed near the Citadel, apart from those called in to clear out the remaining geth and later a small army of military and civic engineers. Most ships stuck behind the cordon simply left for other systems, but the MSV Longhaul, the name, fitting if uninspired, of a vessel in his father's small fleet, happened to be shipping a wide variety of luxury foodstuffs. Instead of joining the constant stream of departing ships, his father, the captain on this particular run, wrote off some of the stock, preselected by the clients, as "unsuitable for consumption" and in doing so provided his crew with several meals well above the standard for spacers' fare. Besides, he had said he wanted to remain near the Citadel, should there be need, however unlikely it was, of a freighter with food and room to spare.
After the attack, it was a slow but steady process of repair. Large swathes of wards were devastated, particularly those bombarded by debris after the immense and supposedly geth ship was destroyed by the Alliance fleets. Gradually the Citadel regained its characteristic lustre, though the damage was so widespread and diverse that it would take several years for full repairs. The official line claimed five years, but opinion on that depended on the speaker's take of the Council, or rather its new human representative. Regardless, progress was continuing three years on. That was clear to him now, as he idly gazed around the Presidium from one of the many commons areas interspersed between embassies and corporate offices. Craning his neck, he looked up at the two slopes of the Presidium that faded into the projected blue sky. Ask someone living under a rock if anything had happened at the Citadel, and the last thing they'd say would be a space battle. As he was looking up, a metallic-red skycar descended from the ever-present stream of traffic and approached the landing pad on the terrace below him. That was his ride, and he set off down the stairs as the car came to a gentle halt on the scuffed surface. Whatever she had been before, it undeniably involved a knack for piloting.
In the driver's seat was an asari, as blue as the stereotype, with a few pale facial colourings unique to her species. She lounged in the seat with the arrogant grace that only an asari could affect. It was all a front, of course, but she was still rediscovering herself and everything around her.
"It's not often Kal takes this day off," said Enyanna as Jason stepped into the skycar. "Glad you could make it, Jay."
"Did you ever doubt me, Eny?" he responded.
"No," she said, "but I would if you were the one driving." They laughed as the skycar ascended smoothly and set off for Kithoi Ward.
It occurred to him they were an odd group, the three of them. With the two of them, anyone would just see a human and an asari, a not uncommon sight in the more cosmopolitan regions of the galaxy. But the three altogether were a family, a father with a related son and an unrelated daughter. How the two had become three was a product purely of luck. Eighteen years ago Kal had not known of her whatsoever, and Jason was too young to have known much at all. His father, then only a First Officer in the freight company, was on the usual freighter journey, and had found her on the edge of a star system. The chance encounter arose from the system's outer asteroid belt, which shifted constantly and so tended to disrupt approach paths to the relay. They had diverted and on that path they found her. She was the only person in a husk of a ship that had barely enough life support to justify the name. All they had to identify her was the armour she wore; a soldier, then, or mercenary. The signs of a battle lost, or narrowly won, were scorched and gashed across the ship, so mangled that its make was uncertain. The freighter crew brought her on board, only to find that she knew no more than they. When she regained consciousness, it was clear she had severe amnesia.
The years had then passed steadily, and she had decided early on to stay with Kal and the spacer's lifestyle, to which she attuned at a surprisingly quick pace. She grew restless at times, but quickly cooled down. Her sense of trust, for a time muddled with the rest of her lost self, returned, and she remained, not knowing where else she could go. Kal grew to like her as a person, and so at first she was like a caretaker, a mother of sorts, to Jason, watching over him when Kal served on shipping runs to the more dangerous areas of the Attican Traverse, and then like a sister as he grew into an adult. They all had learned a lot in that period of time, most of all Enyanna, whose memory returned slowly in tantalising fragments, single threads that alluded to a larger tapestry, but by themselves offered little.
But she was family now, and as any family does, she and Jay were going to celebrate their father's birthday with a nice dinner.