The Destiny Ascension had seen better days.
Huge holes dotted the dreadnought's hull, with only thin mass effect fields separating the interior to the vacuum of space. The pleasant blue glow that surrounded the massive ship's main engine was gone, replaced by only dim flickers. Both of the ship's trademark fins were broken off completely, and the fires that had raged on almost every deck painted the dreadnought with zebra-like scorch marks.
And something else, crudely painted on the starboard side; three outlines of Destroyer-class reapers and one of a Sovereign-class. All circled with a crossed line through them.
The ship seemed like a serene fish, slowly orbiting Earth amid the wreckage of the the battle just weeks prior. The Battle of Earth. Where the entire galaxy faced down the reapers.
And won.
The dreadnought had seen only minor repairs since the Crucible fired, with most attention being devoted to the ruined Citadel. As it stood though, the Destiny Ascension was still the most viable location to coordinate the diverse fleets in the Sol System.
"You better have a good reason getting me onto this piece of shit," Commander Ka'hairal Balak grumbled as he entered through the main airlock.
"This 'piece of shit' saved your life," Primarch Adrien Victus replied, walking behind the surly batarian.
"Hmph. Goddamn reaper got a lucky hit."
Victus dropped the conversation, catching sight of Admiral Hackett in the command room. He gave the human an Alliance salute. Hackett replied in turn as Balak walked past without paying any heed.
"Primarch."
"Admiral. How's the K2?"
"I got a line from the engineers this morning. It's a 50/50 chance it's going to the scrap heap."
"Best odds I've heard all day. And I see you've met our supreme commander of the batarian fleet."
"And don't you forget it!" Balak called back over his shoulder.
Victus looked over Hackett's shoulder to see one of the many holes in the ship, torn right into the command room. Beyond that, the silver glint of several turian cruisers.
He frowned. "Is this really worth calling all of us here for?"
"This isn't another Citadel status report, Vic."
"Really? Well now I'm curious. Is everyone else here too?"
"All in the war room."
"Well, after you."
Hackett turned, but stopped short when Victus called his name.
"Have they found—"
The admiral paused and gave the slightest of nods before moving forward. Victus followed. It was only a short walk from the command room to the war room, a roomy space dominated by a low, curved table in the center. Standing around it were Matriarch Lidanya, Admiral Han'Gerrel vas Neema and 390-88, the representative of the Geth fleet that responded to the name Julius. There was also Commander Kherl, leader of the Salarian Third Fleet.
Balak, of course, stood in the corner with folded arms.
The Geth Juggernaut's red eyes lit up with its words. "All major and minor tactical commanders present. Hello, Admiral Hackett and Primarch Victus."
Balak opened his mouth several times as if to say something, but simply grunted and stayed silent.
Hackett and Victus saluted the group.
"I'm glad all of you could make it," Hackett said, "I know we all have mountain of paperwork to get back to, but I can't spare to leave any details out on this."
The admiral's omnitool flickered to life, interacting with the table as it sputtered to life. The room darkened as a holographic display shimmered into existence above the table, bringing a map of the galaxy into view.
"First, current events. We're still finding stragglers, but I can say with some certainty that almost all known survivors of the Battle of London have been accounted for. 95 percent losses, most KIA."
Light played across the admiral's craggy face as he looked up. "However, I received confirmation not two hours ago that Commander Shepard has been found. Alive."
To a normal observer, it would have seemed the assembled soldiers barely reacted. A twitched mandible, a halted breath. But to Hackett, they might as well have jumped ten feet in the air.
"Medical status of Shepard-Commander?" Julius asked.
"She was conscious when they found her, but she's out right now. Medics don't have a damn idea how she survived. They're pretty confident in a full recovery, but not for a few months. Maybe even years."
Victus raised a claw. "While we're all glad Shepard is among the living, that can't be the only reason you called us all here. What else?"
Hackett cleared his throat. "As you're all well aware, the Crucible fired. As far as we can tell, the casualty rate for reapers caught in the blast was 100 percent. That goes for both ground-based units and the reapers themselves, and it's assumed to have been galaxy-wide. I'll now give the floor to Julius."
Julius stepped forward, quickly activating its own omnitool. The galaxy suddenly flared with bursts of red energy, a fireworks display across the entire galaxy.
"Crucible Event overwhelmingly successful in diminishing Old Machine threat. But new information necessitates investigation."
The red suddenly vanished, replaced by bright white lights sparsely dotted across the Milky Way.
"Highlighted are unactivated mass relays. New information obtained of past cycles implies that Old Machines would investigate unactivated mass relay systems for possible civilization, but were of low priority during harvest.
Furthermore, a single mass relay was destroyed by Shepard-Commander six months prior to Old Machine invasion. The system was destroyed, however, surrounding batarian systems were not, and went dark several months prior to invasion of Khar'shan. Batarian Hegemony censored these events, believing them to be slave caste uprisings."
"I guess they weren't, were they!?" Balak hissed from his corner.
"This is all very interesting," Kherl droned, "But not exactly helpful."
"Affirmative. However, incident occurred 9 hours prior that necessitated this meeting. Displaying recording."
The Milky Way dissolved into the pitch blackness of space, with only tiny dots of light strewn about the curtain of darkness. In the center, an angry red dot, a supergiant.
"Recording from Great Ancestor 11. Edge of system Hos'of. Great Ancestor 11 was deployed to salvage Batarian State Energy infrastructure."
The matriarch squinted. "I don't see anything."
The juggernaut flicked its omnitool, and suddenly the supergiant grew several leagues larger as the picture zoomed in.
Han'Gerrel shrugged. "What? Is something wrong with the sun?"
In a very human-like motion, the geth shook its head and zoomed in even more.
There, blurry but unmistakable, was the cuttlefish-like profile of a reaper, a dark shadow against the star's unceasing light.
Balak stepped forward. "So what? You saw a dead reaper. There's a dozen out the window right now!"
"Negative. Reminder this is a recording."
At that moment, the reaper sprang out of the star's light at an impossible speed, disappearing entirely. Hackett was unfazed, but everyone else in the room reacted with either hitched breaths or outright curses.
"Confirmed Old Machine active remnant. Threat to rebuilding efforts is non-insignificant."
"NON-INSIGNIFICANT!?" Balak bellowed. Before the others could react, he vaunted over the table and drew a gun to the geth's face. "THOSE PIECE OF SHIT MACHINES DESTROYED MY HOME! MY CULTURE! AND THEY'RE JUST OH-SO NON-INSIGNIFICANT!? I SHOULD KILL YOU RIGHT NOW!"
"The damage inflicted by your sidearm on this platform would be minimal."
Without another word, Balak gave a frustrated grunt as he threw the pistol as the Geth's head. It bounced off with a clank, and the batarian stormed out of the room.
Hackett watched the frumpy commander leave. When he was out of earshot, he turned back to the others.
"I had a feeling that we didn't kill them all, but I couldn't have us wasting resources on a wild goose chase until I had something solid."
"Consensus believes that Old Machine remnant attempting to contact other Old Machines. Other Crucible survivors unlikely, but possible; further calculations needed."
"So it's running scared," Victus observed.
Hackett nodded. "I don't think I have to tell any of you how huge this is. We have good reason to believe that there's no way it can re-activate the reapers killed by the Crucible, but any reaper still alive out there is a threat we have to crush immediately."
"What do you expect us to do?" Kharl asked. "If this gets out, they'll be mass panic! And even if we corner it, we're in no shape for a slugging match!"
Matriarch Lidanya grimaced. "I must agree with Kharl here. I would recommend Commander Shepard for something this significant, but—"
"—She's in no shape to be walking, much less fighting." Hackett continued.
"You have that look in your eye, Hackett," Victus stated, "What are you planning?"
"Shepard may be a no-go. In fact, most of Shepard's ground team during the final push got hit hard. Miranda Lawson and Justicar Samara were confirmed KIA, and most others are out of commission for at least two weeks. However, Zaeed Massani and Garrus Vakarian were relatively unharmed."
"Vakarian know Shepard's alive?"
"He does not. I was going to break the news to him as soon as this meeting adjourned."
"Good luck prying him away from Shepard."
"I'll let him know Shepard's being taken care of. And Zaeed will be easy enough to recruit."
"What do you plan for them to do, exactly?" Kherl asked. "They're both good, but I'm not seeing how they're going to hunt a reaper."
"Well," Hackett admitted, "about that. I suppose you all remember about that capital reaper going down over Noveria."
Victus nodded. "Mhm. Heard the planet's defenses got some kind of lucky hit."
Kherl snorted. "That whole story sounded weird but I was too busy with the war to look into it. You know something we don't, Hackett?"
The admiral took a deep breath. "I do. What I say doesn't leave this room."
The assembled commanders nodded.
"This starts with us raiding a Cerberus laboratory about four months before the reaper invasion..."