Sorry, no excuse. Note to self: Do not wait until the last moment to start editing your work!
Yes, I did that. Twice.
Hope it was worth the wait! Sorry again. Fun fact of the day: the age old debate, is instant messaging more like writing or speech? According to linguist Niomi S. Baron, based on a pilot study, and information on previous studies, IMing is closer to writing, with several things that resemble speech. The interesting part? Feminine IMs were the most like writing, while the masculine resembled speech far more.
Eden's mind whirled as she left Ashley's quarters. Three years. Three years, and so much had happened. After the destruction of their main base, Cerberus should have simply collapsed. They were leaderless, their resources had been scattered...hell, they'd been indoctrinated. It didn't seem possible that they'd be able to return in such strength.
But apparently they had, and in the past three years, had waged war against their enemies.
Growing up an orphan, Eden had a lot of experience in sneaking around when she wanted time to herself. With her tactical cloak, she had it down nearly to an art form, and quickly slipped past people unnoticed as she considered the facts:
Cerberus was attacking on too many fronts. No matter how many resources they had, they had to be stretching themselves thin with their simultaneous attacks. But what was the point? If they were trying to create a screen against their true objective, they weren't leaving much to work with. But nothing else seemed to make sense. The Alliance was far too large an organization simply on its own to be worn out by the constant attacks, and with everyone else Cerberus was attacking, they weren't endearing themselves to anyone else.
First things first: where was Cerberus getting all their resources? A quick check on her omnitool revealed what she'd already feared: the Reaper War had left a large vacuum of power, and there was no shortage of scumbags who were willing to fill it up. Cerberus could easily have put opperatives and sympathizers in those positions, generating funds and resources to fuel their nightmares.
But it didn't explain their numbers. With pretty much everyone indoctrinated to the point of mindless slave, they'd need a lot of fresh recruits to come up with the master plans. Not even mentioning those they'd need to run armies, research, espionage...the list was long, and Eden couldn't fathom how they'd managed to fill it.
Her thoughts were interrupted when her foot hit something solid. She look up, suddenly realizing she was in the Normandy's main gun battery. Belatedly, she realized it was where she often went to consolidate her thoughts, or discuss things with Garrus. She wasn't sure whether or not she was happy he wasn't there at the time. She wasn't sure how to talk to him about the whole...gone for three years.
Time travel is not what its cracked up to be. She thought grimly. She decided she'd better leave before Garrus showed up and confront him later, when she'd had more time to think things over.
"Well, I guess this is the second time you came back from the dead, Shepard. Are you planning to make a habit of it?" Eden jumped, berating herself for getting too caught up in her own thoughts to have missed the turian coming in behind her.
She took a deep breath, both dreading the conversation, and glad to finally get it off her shoulders. "Well, last time we had three different merc organizations trying to kill us," she said, trying to a lighthearted tone. "I think it turned out a little better this time. Only one guy...with a lot of grenades."
She could hear Garrus sigh behind her. "Spirits Shepard, it's been three years. After the war I'd hoped...but nothing ever happened. Not even a body."
Dammit! She was not going to cry. "I promised I'd be back," she said quietly. She let out a sigh of her own, leaning forward on the gun battery. "I wanted to tell you," she said finally. "I promised myself, as soon as I was healthy, I would convince the Doctor to let me at least leave a message, something...but then everything happened so fast." She sighed again. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.
Still staring at the gun, she couldn't yet muster the will to face Garrus. "I thought it was only a few months," she said finally. "I would come back, and find nothing much had changed, aside from the Reaper threat being over." Finally mustering her courage, she turned to look at the turian. "Is that selfish of me? Wanting everything to be like it was before?"
Garrus gave a quick laugh. "I'd say that's very human of you," he replied.
Eden managed half a smile, turning back to the gun. "I'm not sure that's a very good thing," she admitted. She could feel the distance between them, almost like a physical object, pushing them apart, and for the life of her, Eden wasn't sure how she could push back. She knew it was the second time this had happened, her coming back from the dead and all. In some ways, this distance was her fault, she decided. If she'd tried just a little harder for the Doctor to let her talk to them...
"Shepard, Commander Williams is looking for you. I would suggest returning to her office."
"Thank you, EDI," Eden responded, not completely sure whether or not she was upset at the interruption. Turning back to Garrus, she asked, "Talk later?"
He sighed, obviously unhappy at the turn of events, and nodded.
As Shepard once more made her way to Ashley's office, she couldn't help but wonder if she'd ever truely feel like she was home again.
When she reached the office, the door automatically slid open, revealing a tense Ashley sitting behind her desk, Wrex standing off to one side, and the Doctor sitting haphazardly on the other chair, his feet propped up on the desk, eating an apple.
Despite the obvious dire atmosphere, Eden had to swallow a laugh at the comical sight. She couldn't however, stop the astounded blink. "What in the name of sanity do you have on your head, Doctor?"
"It's a fez!" He said indignantly, turning slightly her way, before talking another large bite of the apple.
Ashley waved Eden in. "I just got a report from Admiral Hackett," she said straight away. "The Citadel Relay was mysteriously activated, and something came through. The reports say it was like a giant black cloud that absorbed everything they fired at it, and it barely even slowed. Now I was told from the three of you something was coming, so now I want answers: what the hell was that thing, and how did it manage to wipe out nearly the entire fleet there?"
Everyone turned to look at the Doctor.
He sighed, tossing the apple away, and stood. "It's called an Ur'randur," she said finally.
Shepard blinked. "A what?"
"Galaxy Eater," he simplified, walking a few pacing toward the wall. Turning around so he could face all three of them, he continued, "Ur'randurs are creatures from another world. A world unlike anything you can imagine." As he spoke, he moved his hands, as if to describe things simply by the motions alone. "There's nothing like light there, nothing that we could see, touch, feel, if we were even able to survive entry. It's a world so foreign to our own, simply to touch anything in it would mean death."
"So how come we'd die there, but it seems fine here?" Wrex interrupted.
"Good question!" The Doctor said, turning to face him. "Think of it like a black hole: it draws everything into itself, crushing it with incredible gravity, yet everything that it draws upon makes it stronger. While Ur'randurs don't actually have anywhere near as powerful gravity as a black hole, they operate on the same principle: they consume energy from this world, and that makes it stronger. And we're all pulled along with it."
Ashley crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair. "So if it's from 'another world' as you say, then how did it get here?"
The Doctor shrugged, almost as if to say it wasn't a big detail. "Well, lot's of things could have done it. Someone playing with things they don't understand...or with things that they do, but we'd rather they not...ahem. A cataclysmic event, generating intense, raw energy of just the right frequency could have created a temporary rift...there are several other ways as well, and it could even have been simple coincidence. Really, it doesn't matter how it got here. What matters is sending it back."
"...And somehow I get the feeling it won't be that simple," Eden stated, leaning back against the wall.
"Far from simple! See there is an infinite number of worlds out there, and the probability that we'll send it to the wrong one, even if we could figure out how to break the lines between worlds...the possibilities are virtually endless! We'd need something to anchor our 'rift' to, to make sure it goes to the right place, and then there's the problem of actually creating a rift...there's no simple solution."
Eden watched the Doctor pacing as he went through the explanation. There was something about the way he was talking that tugged at something in her mind, but at the moment, it eluded her. "So what does it want?" She finally asked. "Hell, how did it activate the Citadel Relay? It wouldn't have done it if it didn't have a plan."
"Oh it has a plan," the Doctor said darkly. "You wouldn't think it, but Ur'randurs are very, very smart. The only thing that blinds them is their lust for food. You see, they can survive on very little, as food of any kind is very scarce in their own world. But here they can eat everything...it's like a little kid in a candy shop: they want to eat anything they come across. Stars, planets, dark energy, everything is tasty to them.
"The Catalyst figured out what is was, and what it wanted, and it started sending out Reapers to slow it down. But that destroyed many of its own forces, so it sent the Collectors out to begin creating new Reapers. Even then, it must have realized it would have to end the Cycle, since the thousand or more years spent cleaning up every little bit of evidence would take far too long, and by then, the Ur'randur would have found it, and activated the relay. The only chance it had was to try to create a solution to end the war, once and for all."
"I didn't get much of a 'helpful' vibe from the Catalyst," Shepard said dryly.
The Doctor shrugged. "It was programmed a certain way, and it was trying to work against its nature. It could only do so much," he supplied. "In any case, it was too late, and before the Reapers had a chance of returning, the Ur'randur reached the Catalyst, destroyed it, and activated the relay."
"Wait, wasn't the Catalyst on the Citadel?" Ashley asked, all but talking the words out of Shepard's mouth. The Doctor shook his head.
"The Catalyst was in direct communication with the Citadel," he explained. "But it couldn't be stored in such a small space. The machinery that made up the Catalyst was giant, about the size of a small moon."
"So this thing is smart enough to open the Citadel relay. But what does it really want?" Wrex asked, looking a little irritated at the long discussions that hadn't amounted to anything solid that they could do.
"It wants the world," the Doctor said eerily. "For creatures like that, nibbles aren't enough. It's going to keep on feeding off this galaxy until it consumes it, then it will move onto the next, and the next, until there isn't anything left. And then it's going to start nibbling at the edges of the world, until it shatters apart." Taking a deep breath, the Doctor turned back to them. "But it won't die then, no. It will drift in between worlds, until something pops it back in. And then, smaller, weaker than ever, it will be desperate to feed, and the whole cycle will start all over again."
Eden shifted, trying not to imagine what that entitled. "But you have a plan," it was more a statement than a question.
The Doctor nodded, showing just the touch of a smile. "Oh, do I ever."
