Omega's Child
(Khentu Emrys)

Date: 7/14/2185
Location: The Arena, the Deep District, Omega

The first inkling I had that anything was wrong was the ripple of sporadic gunfire, a sound that I'd once learned to tune out suddenly out of place in the background of the Deeps.

Laila and I had stopped by Ignatius' new school, mostly to introduce myself to the two freshly arrived priests from Earth in the hopes of convincing them that I wasn't the Terminus cannibal that Alliance News had led them to believe all of us were. August Miller and Owen Gonzalez, to their credit, seemed to be taking well to living in the middle of an Omega gang. When gunfire erupted right outside, Miller went the floor and Gonzalez shifted right to put himself between the children and whatever was going on out there. My pistol was in my hand as I moved towards the window, trying to figure out where exactly it was coming from.

"What the gods' names is…" My question was interrupted by the brilliant blue explosion and the smell of ozone that let me know that someone had flash-stepped through the window. There was an incredible ringing in my ears, and all the breath left my body in huff as I hit the far wall, and then the floor.

As my eyes refocused and the ringing subsided, I was acutely aware of someone's boot on my chest, and a gun in my face. Flicking my eyes around, I saw eight well-armored figures in the room, covering the others. Ignatius' eye was swollen shut where it looked like someone had struck him with a rifle butt, and Laila was cradling an obviously bleeding arm, with another bullet hole clean through her shoulder. Fortunately, no one was dead or otherwise seriously wounded.

The newcomers wore brown and yellow armor, with a golden emblem on their shoulders of what looked like some sort of dragon swallowing a sword. I had no idea who the fuck they were, or how they'd gotten here, but the fact that we were being kept as hostages instead of corpses was good. It meant we had time.

The slender figure atop me, and the only non-Batarian in the room, if the cross-visored helmets were any indication, reached up a hand and raised the drop-visor on her welding-style helmet. She was an Asari, and a long scar ran across her obviously-cybernetic left eye.

"You Khentu Emrys?" She asked, her voice a bit rough, with no real accent I could place.

"Fuck you." I grunted back.

"It's him," one of the Batarians in the corner chuckled.

"My name is Maya B'Theran," the Asari continued, now removing her helmet completely to stare at me. "I'm the leader of the Maw's Wrath."

"And I don't give a shit," I retorted.

"By now," She went right on, talking as if she hadn't heard me, "I have three teams securing your Docks and the Main Lifts. You will take us to your Comm station. You WILL order the rest of your people to stand down, in order to avoid any unpleasantries. Do this, and I promise your people will be safe, and you will live."

I couldn't help but snort. "Bullshit."

The face above me arched an eyebrow in confusion.

"You've made three mistakes, Asari."

She slowly bent to press the cold barrel of her pistol against the center of my forehead.

"Do tell," she smiled dangerously. I heard Laila take in a sharp hiss of breath, no doubt warning me against doing something incredibly stupid.

Which of course I ignored.

"One," I started slowly, raising a middle finger to begin the count, "you know you can't afford to leave me alive, and I know it. So telling me that you plan on leaving me alive tells me that I can't trust anything else that tumbles out of your mouth."

"Smart monkey," rumbled the Batarian in the corner again, earning him a sharp glare from… Maya, or whatever she said her name was.

"Two," I continued, "you assumed that any of my people down here would obey anything as stupid as an order to surrender to strangers they don't know and have no reason to trust, you stupid whoring thundercunt."

Maya B'Theran lifted a hand, and the flickers of warpfire began to curl around her fingers as she continued to smile at me with the grin of a pleased sable-cat.

"And third?" she purred softly, "please, enlighten me."

"You stupid fuckers pointed a gun within a thousand meters of that Krogan baby in the corner."

For the first time since she had put me back on my ass, a look of blank confusion crossed the face of the Asari leader of the Maw's Wrath as she glanced up at the young toddler in question.

"Wha…?"

The Wall to our left disintegrated as The Bloody One entered and the three Maws closest to the Krogan babe dissolved in chunks of bloody confetti.

"Fucking Goddess!" B'Theran had just enough time to snarl and throw up a barrier as the mech opened fire with its arm-mounted cannon. The force of the gunfire physically pushed her backwards off of me. That might have been comforting, except then I saw Blood's other arm shift up, grenade launcher at the ready.

Which spelled death for everyone on that side of the room, not just the Maws.

"Oh shit!" I shouted, lurching up to grab the closest dumb-founded Batarian in the brown-and-yellow armor, hurling him between me and the orb of blue energy that surrounded his leader. The explosion that followed hurled both of us against the wall. When we hit the floor, I scrambled for the pistol on his hip, but when I pulled it free, I noticed the neat hole a piece of shrapnel had sent through his visor and into the unsuspecting bastard's brain.

Blood, on the other hand, merely moved through the newest hole it had created in the wall, hurling itself after the Asari bitch, who had been blown out said hole in the explosion. That gave me another moment to look around at the room.

Ignatius and Osman had both managed to overpower their two guards, who lay sprawled on the floor, groaning. Laila was pulling her dagger from where she had stabbed it into the groin of the Maw that had been standing over her. Almost casually, and holding her right arm against her body, she collected his rifle and sent a round into the groaning, retching figure writhing in agony.

"Anybody got comms?" I asked after replacing my helmet and getting only static. There was a moment as each person tried their own helmet's or Omni-Tool's communicators, but they only shook their heads in answer.

"They're jamming us somehow," Laila hissed.

"Barnabas, you and Adrian run to the Comm and raise the alarm," I snapped, stooping to gather my own gun from where I had dropped it when I had gotten thrown backwards. "Get Jehu and the others on the upper level guns and have Bacro send runners for the general recall for the patrols."

"Lord," the young turian and Batarian boy nodded and then they were out the door in a flash.

"Oz, escort Miller and Gonzalez as they take the rest of the kids to the food cellars," I continued. "You get them in the storerooms, lock the doors. As long as you have air, you don't come out. Not until you get the all clear from me."

Osman said nothing in reply, but nodded once and got moving.

"What's the plan?" Laila asked, as the rest of the room's occupants fell in beside me.

"We secure the Arena first," I nodded. "Then we move out to recapture the Docks, if there was a grain of truth in what the bitch was gloating. Ignatius, you have these guys?"

Ignatius moved to secure the hands and feet of the two survivors in the room.

"I got these," he grunted. "Go."

I nodded, and Benji opened the door, and we moved out, fanning out to cover one another.

Chaos and screams filled the Promenade, along with the sporadic thunder of gunfire. The Maws had clearly expected for the residents of the Deeps to behave like any ordinary citizens of Omega: to duck and cover, waiting for the firefight to pass them by and discover who were their latest overlords.

They were very, very wrong. These were pissed off folk, driven from every home they had ever had to wind up down here. And they would be damned to whatever afterlife they believed in before they would let any "Uppers" take it away from them.

Thus, here and there, a swarm of civilians could be seen piled onto the foreign gunmen, stabbing, bludgeoning, and clubbing savagely until the prone figures stopped moving. But the multiple bodies scattered around the Arena showed how heavy the price had been.

I lifted both pistols and sent rounds into the back of a Maw who was trying desperately to clear a field of fire in front of him. Both shots went right through the plate on his back, and he crumpled.

"Looks like the fuckers who hit us up there had the best armor," Laila scoffed, taking down another brown-and-yellow figure coming around the corner.

"Looks like," I nodded. "Keep your eyes out for…"

Another wall in front of us… dissolved, I suppose was the best word for it, and Maya B'Theran rolled as she bounced off the ground, biotic barrier enshrouding her form. She actually ignored the shots we began to send her direction, keeping her focus entirely on the jaw-droppingly huge battle mech that still braced less than a hundred yards away. Blue blood was flowing freely from her nose and beginning to drip from the corners of her eyes, by the looks of things. Screaming defiance, she began to charge forward, flashing warp-fire from the palms of her hands like tiny needles. Blood merely shifted the massive spiked shield from his back to his arm and began firing his arm-mounted cannon.

"Spirits," I heard Laila mutter in awe as the Legends nearby slowly stopped firing, watching the two figures engaging in a ridiculous display of firepower vs. biotics. Whoever this bitch was, her biotics were way above anything I had ever seen. Blood sidestepped a biotic warp with a dexterity that no mech its size had any right to, and swung the shield like the Gates of Hell, batting the comparatively tiny figure in front of it like a bug, and then engaging the rocket boosters in its feet after her.

"After them!" I called out. "Don't let them out of your sight!"

Not because I felt Blood necessarily needed in backup, but more because I was concerned the berserker mech would demolish most of the Arena before the damn thing stopped. After months of careful, meticulous repression and control, the Murder Mech of the Deeps had finally been given an outlet for his homicidal sub-routines. The fact that that target was an Asari, a race for whom the mech had a wanton racist hatred, was just icing on the cake.

And that cake was apparently made of destruction and mayhem. At every corner we fought our way around, there were always two or three other Legends who had jumped into a storeroom or one of the market stalls, tying down the half-dozen Maws who were apparently supposed to secure those areas. I paused to listen to the ratta-tat, ratta-tat rhythm of the bunkers on the highest levels opening fire, and I could see the tracer rounds streaking out in the direction of the Docks.

"This is ul Cokat. Pillars damn it, can anyone hear me?!'

"This is Emrys," I spoke up, breathing a prayer of thanks to whatever spirit or god that had decided to be our friend. "What's your status?"

"Killed some chenethta that was trying to set up a jamming relay," Jehu's voice answered. "I don't know what desert these bastards came from, but there seems to be an awful lot of them between us and the Docks."

"Are there any signs of a firefight still going on at the Docks?" I asked, thinking of Chell and her squad, and hoping they hadn't been caught with their pants down like I just had.

"Affirmative, Lord," came the answered. "The poor bastards seem to be trapped between us and whoever it is that's making a… Sacred Pillars."

At that moment, a MUCH more powerful series of shots, these sounding like massive thumps, could be heard above the din all around us.

"Jehu, what the fuck is that?" I half-yelled into the comms.

"It's the Fury!"

I blinked slowly, unable to believe what I was hearing.

"Say again?"

"I mean the Pillars-blessed Fury is coming into the Docks, guns blazing. Those bastards are running for their lives!"

The Fury? They weren't supposed to be here for another week, but I wasn't going to waste any time complaining about it.

"Follow me!" I called out to those closest to me. "Push for the Docks!"

From what I could see and understand, we had the bulk of the Maw's Wrath trapped in the open, in the wide service road between the Deep Docks and the Arena proper. As much as I wanted to secure the Arena first, this was an opportunity that we couldn't pass up.

When we got to the Dock Gate of the Arena however, I saw that the Maws who were left had realized the same thing, and were running pell-mell for the Arena; their only hope of avoiding the Fury's swivel guns.

Amun-Ra, if those are the small weapons on that beast, what the hells would those giant cannons do? I asked myself, seeing one of the ship's weapons blow a group of Maws level-high, one of them still screaming until the moment he hit the ground.

"Fan out!" I called, motioning furiously left and right. "Pick your targets, center mass!"

In the next few minutes, another major flaw in the Maw's plan to take over the Deeps revealed itself: they apparently had expected for someone this far down Omega to be equally- or worse-equipped as themselves, with second-hand shield generators covering cheap plate and re-worked welding helmets. Our new SBC-made carbines went through most of their protection like it wasn't even there... by the gods, in a few occasions the shots actually went through one person to kill the fucker behind them as well.

That was certainly worth the trade, I grinned as another of my shots went through a turian's head. Certainly, they seem to be saving our asses right n…

"Get down!"

Something hit me hard from the side, knocking me clear of a rocket that I had never even seen streaking towards me. Muerta clutched a shotgun in her cybernetic arm, and her right arm was… Glowing? I looked around to see that we were beneath a biotic barrier that withstood the shots that peppered its surface. Tackling me clear of the rocket had also exposed us to the small-arms fire of the incoming Maws.

"Anytime you want to move…" came the Quarian's voice from her helmet, and it sounded strained and thin. I rolled to my feet, and the two of us moved towards an undamaged pillar, where she finally dropped the barrier.

"I didn't know you were a biotic!" I marveled, "Hells, I didn't even know quarians could be…"

"Not the time!" she hissed, pulling a launcher from the small of her back and fitting a grenade into the weapon. "Shoot now, talk later!"

By now, the Maws were close enough that we could hear the frantic shouts and orders being given by what officers or leaders that remained.

"TO the DEATH!" I heard a Batarian roar. "KILL THE KARKING…"

Then a glowing line of super-charged nanofilament thread from one of our Cutter rifles cut off both his sentence and his head.

The problem with the Nakmor Krogan who had joined us wasn't that they had scoffed at our improvised weapons: it was that they had LOVED them. They had taken the weapons' most brutal characteristics and put their own Tuchanka-style spin on it.

The result was somewhere between 'sickening' and 'bloody terrifying.' Nakmor Syed leapt over a concrete pylon, raising one fist to fire his wrist-mounted crossbow. The half-meter-long, solid-steel bolt went completely through one Maw and pinned another to the ground as the Nakmor battlemaster chuckled in sheer glee beneath his helmet.

"Fall back!" came the yell from another Maw trying to regain some sort of control over this rout, but that only made him a target for Chell's javelin that she hurled with speed, skill, and precision. A good dozen more Maws died horrible and painful deaths before weapons began falling, hands began raising, and knees were bending as gang members in brown-and-yellow began begging and blubbering for their lives. As suddenly as it had begun, the sounds of gunfire and combat around the Patriarch's Grand Arena ceased.

"REGROUP!" I called out, stepping out slowly, keeping both of my pistols trained on our newest prisoners, in case somebody felt like being a hero today.

"Muerta," I called, and the suddenly-biotic quarian turned towards me. "Get these prisoners secured. Laila, get that arm patched up. Ben, you get a squad together and make a full sweep of the Markets and Promenade; Horatius, make sure these fuckers aren't hiding concealed weapons anywhere."

As the Legends around me scrambled to obey, I sighed deeply and allowed myself to take in the carnage all around me.

What the FUCK just happened?

Bereft Mother
(Nakmor Chell)

Location: Grand Arena, Deeps District, Omega

"Ancestors have mercy."

I felt the prayer escape me in a breathless whisper as I neared the… I could only describe it as a crater in the center of the Training Field. In the same location where Patriarch had watched the condemned fight to the death for his own amusement, the Bloody One had made his final confrontation with the Asari leader of the Maw's Wrath.

The battle had been, from the fragmented bits we could gather from the few spectators who had witnessed it, a spectacular display of brilliantly white-blue biotics versus massive firepower, coupled with brute strength. There were bits of gearwork, machinery, and melted armor littering the training ground. Khentu stepped over what looked like had been part of The Bloody One's shoulder armor to stand at the edge of the crater.

Maya B'Theran stood motionless against one of the concrete barriers that were now strewn haphazardly across the ground. The expression on her face was surprise and confusion as she stared the stump of The Bloody One's right arm that pinned her in place, like an insect in a collection. It was as if she couldn't comprehend how the twisted hulk of metal and wiring in front of her had managed to win this fight.

By the looks of things, that had been her dying thoughts as she had bled out onto the black sand. Her eyes were a dark blue where broken blood vessels had hemorrhaged blood, trying to compensate for overclocked biotics. Her arms likewise were scarred from where her own warpfire had burned her, her mental focus failing under the sheer strain of whatever she was trying to do.

I had only seen biotics on such a scale once before: on a holo that had been distributed from one side of the Terminus to the other, showing Aria T'Loak wading through Ganar Yulaz's berserkers on her way to reclaim her station.

No, twice before: when Waz had done… whatever she had done to stop the Lift from crashing and killing us all.

Khentu only gave the dead Asari a cursory glance before making his way to stand next to the pile of broken machinery that was all that was left of The Bloody One. The left leg was completely gone, and the right was twisted beyond use, and probably beyond repair. Firing its right arm at the Asari leader had been, by the looks of things, the very last weapon in its considerable arsenal. The mech's heart had been torn open by warpfire, sparks and fluids dripping in equal measure, and even I could tell that its systems were failing rapidly.

"Bloody One?" Khentu asked, and there was a tenderness in his voice, as if he was approaching a wounded animal. Which I suppose was apt, given the circumstances. "Are you… still here?"

There was an ear-splitting whine as feedback looped and a harsh voice grated in Old Krogan: "Is she dead?"

"Yes," Khentu replied in the same language.

"So it has always been," came the reply, and the voice seemed almost mournful. "Never have I met an enemy worthy of ending my life... that one was the closest... unfortunate."

There was a harsh grate of metal-on-metal, and the hulk slowly turned, as if look up at the human.

"I am old, Khentu Emrys," The Bloody One continued. "I was made for war, and in war I have served, warlord after warlord… Emperor after Emperor. Credak, Moro…Shiagur… Yulaz. All dead now. All gone… gone with the dying stars."

Khentu and I shot a look at one another. This was the most words we had ever heard the giant machine speak in the entire time that it had been with our company.

"Nakmor Chell," it rumbled on, "The Heir is safe?"

"Safe, ancient One," I nodded, giving the hulking machine the title usually reserved for clan shamans or elders. "Thanks to you, and your efforts."

"I have fulfilled the final command of My Emperor?"

Khentu raised an eyebrow in question, but I nodded in reassurance, pretty sure I knew where this was going. I reached out a hand and placed it gently on the ruined chassis.

"You have, Ancient One," I nodded again. "You have fulfilled your orders and fought with valor."

"Then I have but one more request to make of you, Lord of Legends."

"Name it," Khentu replied immediately.

"Do not repair me," the battle-mech said. "Let this be my final battle...my final victory. Let me pass on, to whatever fate awaits me."

Khentu looked around at the wreckage around us, and then laid a hand of his own on the machine.

"So let it be done," he said slowly. "Go to your rest now, Bloody One; your name will live on in glory."

"I will make your name and your deeds known in the Empire that is to come," I added softly.

There was no answer, only a low whir of machinery that built to a crescendo, and then tapered off in a whine.

So passed The Bloody One, perhaps the oldest AI in the galaxy.

Behind us, there was a solid thunk of steel-on-steel. We turned to see Syed and several other Nakmor Krogan, saluting the victorious dead with fist on breastplate. Khentu drew a deep sigh, and then clambered out of the large crater.

"Report," he said, his voice hardening.

"They lost sixty-eight dead, forty-nine wounded or prisoners," Syed answered.

"Our own losses?"

"Seventeen Legends killed, thirty-five wounded, fifteen of them grievously so."

"And the civilians?" Khentu asked.

Syed's brow-ridges furrowed.

"We are still making a full tally," he shrugged. "Perhaps as low as seventy, perhaps as high as two hundred, if you count the slaves that rose up to join us at the Docks. More dead than wounded for them, I'm pretty sure. No armor or shields, so... saw at least a dozen who'd bled out before anyone could even try and save the idiots. Might be quite a few who took the chance to run, though; be a shift or two before we get a proper count."

Khentu glanced over at the collared human behind my brother, who still held a Cutter rifle, in defiance of the regulations against armed slaves in the Deeps.

"Matthews," he nodded, recognizing him as one of the main leaders in the slave community. "Why?"

The slave merely brought the weapon across his chest in a parade-ground salute.

"You've done right by us, Emrys," the man answered, "We couldn't just stand by and not do right by you. Capt. Roger Matthews, Zadith Ban Militia, reporting for duty, sir."

"His people fought well at the Docks even before they could secure weapons from the fallen," I rumbled in addition to his words, while smiling at the confirmation of his identity, and why ul Yesh had been so anxious to get rid of him and his comrades.

Khen nodded slowly, and the lifted his wrist to activate his Omni-Tool. With a click of a button, Matthew's collar made a loud beep, and then fell to the ground as the magnetic locks deactivated.

"Captain, call your men into formation," Khentu ordered, "You're in the Legends now."

The man saluted again, and Khen walked past him back into the Arena's promenade. Row after row of Maws knelt, some of them with Med-packs none-too-gently applied to wounds. Khentu pointed, and one of the better-armored ones was dragged unceremoniously to the front.

"Name?" he asked curtly.

"Meshed ul Amaan, Raddaq," the Batarian nodded, head inclining so far to the left I thought he was going to pull a muscle.

"Alright, Mashed," Khentu acknowledged, "First question: Where did you lot come from?"

"Kima, my lord," came the answer. "We repaired and came down Lift 992."

Khentu shot a glance at the rest of us. That was the same fateful lift by which we had first been deposited into the Deeps.

"Second question," he continued, "How did you get past our patrols?"

The Batarian looked away, pointedly not making eye contact with the human standing over him. None of his comrades were either, each of them pointedly looking intently at the ground in front of them. Laila looked up, and her mandibles flared slightly in unspoken dread.

"You didn't sneak past them, did you?" Khentu asked at last.

The barest of head-shakes was the only answer.

"We need to get to the Villa," Laila said quickly. "I'll get a patrol and…"

"You're wounded," I countered. "You should rest here, and get…"

"I'm going," the turian hissed, her face hardening. "She's out there, and I'm not going to…"

"Laila," Khentu cut her off, in a tone of voice we had not heard for a long time. It was the tone he used when all patience had run out, usually right before he started killing people. "Chell's right: Time is of the essence. If we have to rescue prisoners, your wounded shoulder will slow us down. I KNOW," he said before she could utter a protest. "I know how you feel, but the best thing you can do for her is to take command here, and get that shoulder patched up."

Khentu then turned to me and Syed.

"Get me twenty warriors," he ordered crisply. "We're moving out."

Holy Warrior
(Father Ignatius)

Location: The Villa, Deeps District, Omega

Date: 7/15/2185

Khentu and the others ran up. The buildings in the Villa, or at least everything that wasn't made of concrete or stone, were smoldering piles of charred timber. Rubble and debris were everywhere, but there was one thing copiously missing.

Syed came up alongside Khentu.

"Where are the bodies, Lord?" he asked, confused.

"I don't know, Syed," Khentu's voice was tense, and strained.

Muerta'Harell was using her metallic arm to poke at the smoking remnants of a hut.

"They couldn't have taken everyone," she said slowly. "There's no way they would have taken this place by surprise. Not somebody like Waz, anyway. Then why would they bother clearing away the bodies of the fallen Legends?"

"The quarian's right," Syed nodded. "Don't make any kind of sense…"

Chell and Osman ran up to the party.

"The armory has been ransacked, but it's as abandoned as the rest of the fort, Emrys."

"KHENTU!"

All of us whipped our heads towards the shout and we took off at a run. Drella had stopped at the edge of a precipice. She looked visibly blenched, while Hadasi was kneeling at her feet, retching horribly. The rest of us slowed to a walk. I think we knew in our gut what was at the bottom.

"God and saints have mercy," I said slowly, crossing myself at the sight.

The Legends patrol and the Villa's small garrison lay in long line, tossed into an abandoned access tunnel.

Khentu swallowed hard and made his way to the pile of bodies, followed by Chell. He turned the only Asari in the bunch over.

Waz's throat had all been slit, with an identical wound to the rest of the bodies; several different shades of blood had made the metal panels beneath our feet slick to the touch. But it was not the merciful, long, thin slash across the neck that one does to slaughter a sheep or ox. It was a ragged gash, torn from the neck downward to the center of the chest.

Chell turned to look back up at the rest of us.

"It was neither quick nor painless for them, Khentu."

Curses and low growls escaped from the group of Legends quickly forming around us. Khentu stood silently, his hand clenching and unclenching. Then a hand went up to the helmet.

"Laila."

"Did you find her?" came the response over the radio, the words laced with a heartbreaking hope.

"Kill them all."

"Khentu…" I began.

"KILL each and every one of those motherfuckers," Khentu hissed, "And tell Jesse to bring everyone to the Villa."

"What's the plan?" Chell asked, and her tone was low and even as Khentu cut the line before Laila could ask anything else.

"They came down the shaft," Khentu replied. "We're going back up. And then we beat, burn, or put a bullet into EVERY last son of a bitch what wears a Maw's Wrath mark."

"Khen," I cut in, fighting the burning desire in my own heart to do exactly that, "This is not the time for revenge. This is a time for mourning."

"That's where you're wrong, Father," Khentu answered, and his tone was dark, dangerous, and full of pain. "This is EXACTLY the time for revenge. If we do not, then this is only the first of many attacks to come. They have come against us, unprovoked, and wrought war and death upon MY PEOPLE. MY CLAN. And now I will go up and send a message to the rest of the station: The Legends of the Deep are NOT to be fucked with."

"Blood-Right of Vengeance. Sa, it is good, Lord Emrys." Syed rumbled appreciatively. "We will take the FULL blood-price for our hurt, our wounded, and our slain. It is the Terminus way."

Khentu slowly reached and drew his gun out of his holster. Then, just as slowly and deliberately, he replaced it, and turned back to me.

"Father…" he said, and the pain in his voice was redoubled. "Could you… would you mind...?"

"I will lay these souls to rest, my son," I replied quickly. However much I wanted to go with them and get whatever passed for justice for my friends and comrades that lay dead here, the Scriptures were clear on that account: 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord.'

As they slowly moved away, a few of the Legends began turning over the bodies of our fallen. I reached behind my back and undid the well-worn pouch that held the symbol of my office. I draped the now-tattered stole over my shoulders, and made the sign of the cross in the air. Only a few of these were human, and a fewer number of them were of my flock, but the same God Who made us all would keep their souls in His care. I made the sign once again, and began the prayer I had said all too often since I had first come to Omega:

Requiam aeternam dona eis, Domine,

et lux perpetua luceat eis.

Requiescant in pace.

Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,

and let perpetual light shine upon them.

May they rest in peace.

Amen.

Author's Note:

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." - Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, after the success of the Pearl Harbor attacks.

My thanks to Katkiller-V, for his beta-reading skills, and the use of his Mass Effect alternate universe.

As always, please leave your thoughts/suggestions/constructive criticisms in the reviews below, even if it's a simple "Good job, I enjoyed it."

Rock on, my friends!

-Tusken1602

Reviewer Responses:

BJ Hanssen - I will confess there were good moments, yes, but not enough of them to save the game, sadly. I'll have to check out the novel though, I haven't read it yet!

SomeDudeThatReads - Well put, my friend. Yeah, the Maw's entire plan was stupid, even before they ran into a shipful of krogan and the most homicidal mech in the galaxy.

Artech- Hope i didn't disappoint!

seabo76 - You called it. Welcome to Omega.

EE-RAH!