Operation Homecoming

Talwyn Apogee shivered as she looked at the vaulted ceiling of the Court of Azimuth. The last time she was here, she had very nearly lost a dear friend.

"You're sure this was the position of the energy signature guys?"

Cronk, a rusty old warbot, clattered up beside her.

"Absolutely, Miss Talwyn. My sensors are as sharp as razor claws".

"Yeah, sharp as razor claws with flat batteries!" added Zephyr, slapping Cronk on the back with a loud clang.

"I detest that!"

"Ugh, will you guys just focus please?" pleaded Talwyn. She went back to thinking how it was Fastoon, of all places in Polaris, that Cronk had detected repeated energy pulses over the past month. The home planet of the lombaxes, the location of their retreat from this dimension, and the site of Emperor Tachyon's defeat. It seemed the desert planet was the centre of the universe. Talwyn knew this was not the case, though, seeing as the Great Clock was not within fifty feet of here. Talwyn sighed. "There's nothing here, guys. Come on, let's make sure the Station hasn't been hit by pirates while we've been away".

Cronk and Zephyr followed Talwyn towards the only door in the wall of the massive circular room. Then Cronk stopped.

"Uh, Miss Talwyn, the energy signature has-"

Cronk was cut off by the sound of an explosion coming from the centre of the Court. At the same time, a blue light appeared.

Talwyn stared in amazement at the sight. The portal was identical to the one Tachyon had conjured with the dimensionator years ago. She could even see those same buildings faintly outlined within.

"Run! It's the apocalypse!" cried Zephyr.

"The zombie apocalypse!" corrected Cronk in a similar manner.

"Would you two just calm down?" The two warbots stopped their panicking, though they still kept their distance from the portal.

Talwyn approached the portal cautiously, but froze when she heard voices coming from it.

"Well, do we have any volunteers? Nobody? Come on, it's not like it'll save our race from extinction or anything!"

"I will"

"Urgh. Very well".

The voice that said 'I will' seemed familiar to Talwyn. But the voices were muffled, and so she could not quite place it.

Then a large, stocky figure stepped out of the portal. Because of the brightness of the light, they were silhouetted. Talwyn decided to find out who they were. If they were a threat, she, Cronk and Zephyr would become Polaris' first line of defense.

"Who are you?" she demanded, raising her blaster to where she could make out the newcomer's head. Cronk and Zephyr did likewise, though from a larger distance.

"Cronk? Zephyr?" the now very familiar voice said. "And… Talwyn?"

Before Talwyn could react, she found herself being crushed in a bear hug. "You've grown so much" whispered her assailant.

"…Dad?"

Max Apogee let go of his daughter and grinned widely.

"My baby girl" he commented affectionately.

Talwyn was lost for words, so her only action was to give her father a bear hug in return.

"Mister Apogee!" exclaimed Zephyr. "You've returned! I knew you would, I knew it all along".

Talwyn let go of her father and smirked at the bizarre situation. Even with her long-lost father returning, Zephyr couldn't resist a chance to brag. She was about to say something when her father held up a finger to silence her.

"Hold on, Tal, I've gotta do something or I'll be in a fair bit of trouble with Jerec". He turned around and stuck his head through the portal.

"In case you folks haven't realised, the portal works like a beaut", Talwyn heard. Max pulled his head back out again, to be followed by a golden-furred, brown-striped lombax.

"Oh. Hey, Talwyn" Ratchet said casually. "Your turn for a family reunion now?"

For the next four hours, Talwyn could not find a single opportunity to say anything at all as thousands of lombaxes filed out of the wormhole. They were coming home after all these years.

The last lombaxes to step out of the portal before it closed were two young males, one pure white and one pure black. They had their arms over each others' shoulders and massive grins stretched across their faces.

"It worked! I told you it would work! Did I tell you it would work?" boasted the white one.

"Only about ten thousand times".

"And you still said it wouldn't work".

"That was my way of saying that I don't appreciate being tied down".

"What else were we going to do? Just let you get flung into the portal, leaving the rest of us behind?"

Talwyn sighed. She always missed out on seeing the truly exciting stuff happening.

"Jerec, could you find a safe spot to put this, please?" said Angela, handing a datapad to him. He accepted it.

"What is it?"

"It's all my research. You didn't think I'd just leave it behind, did you?" Jerec was about to answer when he was forced to dodge a child who bolted past, playing some sort of game in the courtyard.

"Of course not. I know just the place". Jerec kissed Angela on the cheek, then marched off while Angela went about her arranged chores in making the arrival of twenty thousand lombaxes as smooth as possible.

After a few minutes on foot, Jerec arrived at the entrance to a large, ruined dwelling. The basic structure was still intact, but scorch marks could still be seen on the sandstone walls. Jerec entered respectfully, not wanting to disturb the silence of his childhood home. Everything was as he remembered it. A chair or table here and there had been toppled, but otherwise his three-year-old self could have lived here just yesterday.

Jerec headed to the kitchen, where he knew his family's safe was kept. Then his foot caught on something and he went sprawling, the datapad flying from his grasp.

Jerec was unhurt, and he looked at what had caused him to trip. It was a dusty lombax soft toy.

Rexy? thought Jerec. He had no idea how he had managed to remember his pet name for his old companion. He picked up the toy gingerly, aware that the seams were old and could tear apart at any time. With a throbbing pain in his chest, he remembered the last day he had seen Rexy.

"Mummy, what's happening?"

"We have to go, son. There are bad people".

Bad people, his mother had said. More like monsters.

Jerec shook his head and placed Rexy on the kitchen table. He then looked for the datapad. It was lying on the ground just a short distance away. He picked it up, and noticed it had been activated, probably bumped when he dropped it. The screen showed a list of project headings. Jerec was just about to switch the datapad back off again when he noticed the label of the last folder accessed.

It said 'Zander'.

Jerec frowned. Why would Angela's files on Zander be different to the ones further down, labeled 'Operation Homecoming'?

Seeing no harm in it, Jerec opened the 'Zander' files.

As he read, a vein on his temple started to throb.

The reason for my 'flash forward' in this chapter was that I found not much was truly happening, besides that which you can probably guess is happening in the background anyway. I wasn't about to write three chapters on how the lombaxes built Zander's restraints to keep the portal open, after all. Even here, I glossed over some of the more mundane details of the lombaxes returning.

And yay! The Apogee gang are here! As a family!

What will Jerec do next? I think it's pretty safe to say he'll get a bit mad, at lots of people. You'll just have to wait for the next update to find out where this story will take him. Just bear in mind that he and Leliana share equal power as consuls... and that he is a DUEList. If that's not a hint, I don't know what is.

Another set of apologies about the scarce updates recently. I've been under a lot of stress with starting uni soon and haven't been in the writing mood much.