Chapter 36: Alphas of Omega

A king may rule the ends of the earth
But he will always be on the brink of falling

Much as she had been elated as the Normandy SR-2 performed its first takeoff, Terra found it hard to hold onto that feeling when she saw all the crewmen were Cerberus. She wanted to go around tearing the symbol off of everyone's uniforms and pretending she was back on the old ship, but that wouldn't solve anything (except maybe a little catharsis in the short run) and the layout of this ship was different enough that she couldn't pretend for long anyway. She was going to have to be content that she had her ship back in any form at all and she was back.

Though the thought of Garrus' disappearance still lingered in the back of her mind.

"I've been going over the dossiers," Miranda spoke up as she and Jacob took up position on the deck behind her, "I'd strongly suggest starting with Mordin Solus, the salarian professor on Omega."

"The Illusive Man already said as much," Terra nodded as she pulled up the dossiers on her omni-tool, "I couldn't think of any reason to say otherwise." The other dossiers were all straight-up combat specialists—a krogan, a mercenary, a vigilante, etc. She'd feel more prepared if she knew they had a scientist who could give them an edge in those combat situations.

"Acquiring Professor Solus does seem like the logical place to start."

Terra blinked. "…who said that?"

A holographic display lit up behind her. "I am EDI, the ship's artificial intelligence."

Terra stared at the display for a moment. "…uh…whose bright idea was this?" She was quick to defend the geth's status as living creatures to Tali, but that didn't mean she was comfortable having an AI onboard her ship.

"I can understand your apprehension, commander. That is why my programming has been shackled prior to installation. During combat, I monitor the cyberwarfare suites. Otherwise, I observe and direct, nothing more."

Oh. She didn't know how to feel about this. Frankly, she didn't know how to feel about anyone on this ship besides Joker. However she felt, though, they had their mission. They needed to get moving. "Alright, let's set our course then. Joker! We're headed to Omega!"

That was not a heading she had thought she would ever give him.

Once they were underway, she started going around the ship. She needed some time to herself before meeting the crew, so she headed up to deck 1, which was set aside as a captain's cabin. It was twice the size of her cabin on the original Normandy, complete with an elevated office area and a bafflingly included fish tank (seriously, but why?). This was a good space to compile her thoughts and air out her feelings, so she took a seat on the bed with a heavy sigh and set to doing so. Easier said than done, since it was hard to compile one's feelings about having died and come back to life and been forced to align with one of your most hated enemies. Looking over at the seaweed swaying in the glowing blue water of the fish tank soothed her thoughts, but it also made her realize: she could easily come to terms with all of it with a little drawing and poetry.

Then she reached for her pack and found it empty.

Oh no. She'd left her sketchbook in her cabin on the first Normandy. It was gone.

She almost started crying when she realized that. Though a lot of those tears were probably also from the two years since that day. But she couldn't shed them. Not here. She had to play commander. Oh, spirits, was that AI watching her right now? Was it going to tell the Illusive Man what she was doing? Then again, what did she care what they thought? They had no idea what she was going through.

There was only one person who ever understood her.

That thought drove her to act. She quickly turned on her COMM and tried to call her turian. It didn't go through. Either he was out of range of a COMM buoy, his COMM was turned off, or…or…no. No, it had to be one of those. He was fine. She would know if he wasn't. She was going to find him. …she had to.

After taking enough time to collect herself, telling herself she'd find a new sketchbook on Omega if they had time, she started going around the ship to meet the crew, starting on the lowest deck in engineering. It wasn't right that Tali wasn't overseeing this fancy new drive core, but Engineers Daniels and Donnelly went a ways towards filling the void, much more friendly (and, quite frankly, amusing) than she anticipated from Cerberus personnel. When she headed up to the crew deck, she was a bit exasperated to find Miranda had installed herself in the XO cabin (though she wasn't sure what she had been expecting) and pleasantly surprised to find Dr. Chakwas herself in the med bay. Between Chakwas and Joker, there was some hope for this ship to feel like home again.

"Can you believe this?!" Joker was exclaiming the second she walked onto the bridge, "It's my baby! Better than new, it fits me like a glove! And leather seats!"

"The recreation was not meant to be perfect, Mr. Moreau," EDI spoke up, "Seamless improvements were made."

Joker sighed, shaking his head. "And there's the downside."

Terra smirked to see her favorite pilot already bickering with the AI, but he also reminded her of her disappointment about the new arrangements. "There isn't anything on this ship that was even part of the original Normandy."

"There's us," Joker shrugged, "That's gotta count for something."

Terra smiled now. "Yeah. It's something."

"Don't worry, commander. We'll get it done. It'll be better than the old days."

"I hope so. I died."

"Wow, way to bring it down." Before she could retort, he checked the systems. "Looks like we're coming up on Omega if you wanna gear up."

Terra nodded and left him to start docking. Miranda and Jacob met her in the armory to grab their weapons. They hadn't let her down so far, so she was content to think they would be a squad she could rely on for now. She was still watching them, though.

Then again, she had to watch everyone around here.

Terra knew as soon as they landed that she didn't like Omega. The whole station was dark, filthy, and bloody, shades of life she had less than no desire to capture. The place was so packed with seedy types and mercenary hives it made her skin crawl. She wanted to head back to the Normandy with some lame excuse about how it was too soon after she'd woken up to dive headfirst into a place like this and pretend to play nice with the crooked inhabitants, wanted to let Jacob and Miranda figure out where they were going and call her back from there, but she still had to play the commander, even if she wasn't Alliance anymore, a thought that also made her feel lost. They were just going to have to make this quick.

"Where are we headed?" she asked.

"Well," Miranda started as she and Jacob followed Terra out of the docking bay, "Mordin Solus has a clinic in the Gozu District, which is—"

"If I may," EDI cut in, "I suggest we alter priorities with haste. I am detecting a large amount of chatter over local mercenary communications regarding plans to 'deal with Archangel.' His life may be in great jeopardy if you do not intervene immediately."

Terra briefly checked her omni-tool, looking over the dossiers again. Archangel was the name (or codename, at least) of a vigilante in operation on Omega who Cerberus had thought would be a good addition to the team. That remained to be seen, but she wasn't about to let some hesitation put his life at risk. "Do you know where we can find him?"

"The mercenaries themselves will likely lead you straight there. There is a recruiting station set up in the club called Afterlife to hire freelancers."

"Undercover work, huh? Worth a shot." She didn't like the thought of pretending to be a mercenary, but it wasn't all that different from temporarily allying with Cerberus, so she went along with it. First things first, though, the second they stepped into Afterlife, they were called up to meet Omega's so-called ruler, Aria T'Loak. Terra managed to play nice for a while, Aria somehow managing to do the same, until the asari asked what they were doing there. "Looking for someone called Archangel."

Aria scoffed, clearly almost laughing. "You and half of Omega. You want him dead, too?"

Terra looked at the asari in amazement. Half of Omega? "What did this guy do?"

"He thinks he's fighting on the side of good. There is no good side to Omega. You know how bad it is because the Blood Pack, Blue Suns, and Eclipse are all after his head. Normally, those gangs wouldn't have anything to do with each other, but he's got them all wound up so much they teamed up to take him down. If you ask me, he's got a habit of causing trouble."

Terra smirked. "Sounds like just the kind of guy I'm looking for."

Aria smirked back. "Well, aren't you interesting."

As Terra was taking directions to the mercenary recruiter, she fought the need to correct the asari's implication. She was looking for someone to help her in a firefight, not someone to cozy up to. As far as she was concerned, the only person she'd ever want to get into trouble with, in any sense, was Garrus Vakarian. She was tempted to ask after news of him, but she had no idea how to and Omega was the last place she'd want to find him in anyway. So instead, she followed the directions to the recruitment station.

Just at the mere sight of her, the merc at the station started looking at her in a way that made her want to make him swallow his own tongue. "You're in the wrong place, honey, strippers' quarters are that way."

On second thought, she would make him swallow his own tongue. Or…hmm. She shrugged. "If you say so." Then, instead of turning to go, she grabbed a knife from a nearby table and threw it at him.

It whirled past his head to slam into the wall behind him, but he still noticed. Needless to say, he got the point. "OK! OK. You mean business."

She folded her arms at him. "Especially if this is the place to go for Archangel."

It was. The recruiter pointed them in the right direction for a Blue Suns operative to take them straight to the Kima District. Terra amazed herself at how well she was hiding the distaste she had for each and every one of the mercs that met them there. Seeing the arrangements they'd made for this siege and how many losses they had taken anyway, she was beyond impressed Archangel was holding out so well. From the way the mercs were talking, though, he was already getting tired and making mistakes. He wouldn't last much longer unless they helped.

And there were more ways than one to do that.

When they came up on the Eclipse's base in the siege, Terra couldn't help but notice the weaponry and supplies they were hoarding in a side room. She quietly nodded to Miranda to head in and see what she could do while she and Jacob distracted the Eclipse themselves. She did so by finding the man in charge, a salarian, and striking up a conversation. Because if there was one thing she was good at, it was talking her way out of things. "You run the Eclipse?"

The salarian scoffed. "You figure that out by yourself? I'm Jaroth, I run Omega's Eclipse. What do you want?"

She cocked her head, doing her best to act innocently. "Just wondering what you know about this Archangel guy."

"His life expectancy is shortening quickly."

She blinked. "That's it? You don't even know who he is?"

Jaroth shook his head. "Even his team didn't know that. But look around you and you'll find out all you need to know. He's smart, he's resourceful, and he's dangerous."

"You sound like it's personal."

She'd never seen a salarian sneer like this before. "A month ago, he struck one of our transports and killed several of our operatives, one of whom was my brother, so yes, it's very personal."

She knew what it was like to lose a brother, so she knew to tread carefully over the matter. It was best to call it there. She quickly ducked out of the conversation and went to check on the supply room. "Got it?"

"Got it," Miranda reported as she ducked out, "That fancy mech of theirs is about to lose power to its IFF."

Terra smirked at the thought of them turning it on and getting immediately shot by it. "Excellent."

They kept moving through the line, occasionally catching sight of one of the mercs on the barricades dropping from a headshot that looked about 200 meters away. Terra hadn't seen any sniper pull off a shot like that since… She shook it off. She couldn't think about Garrus right now. She had to focus on the mission, save Archangel while there was still an Archangel to save. When they came up on the Blood Pack outpost, she gestured to Jacob to look for a way to silently sabotage them while she and Miranda chatted up the leader.

The krogan snarled at the mere sight of them. "You're in the wrong place, freelancer."

Terra stood firm, though, not one to be intimidated. "You the Blood Pack leader?"

"Garm to you. Ask your questions and get out of my face."

Still not budging. "What do you know about Archangel?"

"Thinks killing mercs is a good way to pass the time. He's a turian, which makes him slightly worse to look at than you. And he's tough…until he realizes you're more than he bargained for."

Still not budging, but now her curiosity was piqued. "What do you mean?"

"Tangled with him once. He waited until I was alone. Longest fight of my life. Eventually, my vorcha showed up. He wasn't so brave then. We chased him over half of Omega before he disappeared."

That was one way to interpret it. She knew turian retreats were usually a lot more tactical than that, even on their own. He would only have disappeared if he thought he couldn't pick them off. This guy was starting to impress her.

Jacob wasn't able to find any means of sabotaging the Blood Pack's progress, but they didn't have time to search more thoroughly. They had to keep moving. So Terra led the two operatives at her side up to the Blue Suns' outpost, all the while wondering why Cerberus was willing to send her after a turian. Because they knew her background and figured she'd be more comfortable with it? Because they were trying to make a point to her? Whatever the reason, she'd figure it out eventually. Right now, she stepped through the Blue Suns' door—

"Who let this freelancer in here?!" the batarian in charge snapped the second the door opened.

"Whoa!" Terra tried to step back, "I just had a few questions—"

"Jentha! Get this scum out of my face!"

A human woman in a Blue Suns uniform signaled them off to the side. "You'll have to excuse Tarak. He's a bit…on edge."

"I noticed," Terra commented, masking her attempts to search the room for another way to slow the mercs down.

"It's Archangel. Last month, he came after Tarak personally. At his home. Since then, he's been dead-set on taking the guy down, second-guessing every last thing I do. The fact he's teaming up with the other gangs just shows you how low he's sunk—they're as bad as Archangel."

An interesting opinion, but an even more interesting story. Terra wasn't sure anymore if this Archangel was the karmic balance on Omega or just someone with a vendetta. She wasn't in any position to be picky, though, and it was too late to turn back. So she left the Blue Suns' outpost, again not having found any way to slow their progress, and headed for the main barricade. Finding a batarian there fixing a gunship did nothing for her morale, but she didn't have time to worry about that either. She did, however, have time to worry about how the batarian was ordering them to go in: straight through the killing field that was the bridge into the base, distracting Archangel while the other mercs organized their grand assault.

"That sounds like a suicide mission," Miranda remarked.

Terra gave an offhand comment about how they could handle it as she sized up the gunship. It had taken a few hits and was only halfway back to full repair. If she could just find a way to—

Suddenly, the batarian's COMM lit up. "Check. Bravo Team, go, go, go!"

Terra stepped back as a group of freelancers approached the main barricade to mobilize. Now was their chance.

"Archangel's got quite the surprise coming," the batarian said, "But that means no more waiting for me." He turned to get back to work on the gunship.

Terra couldn't let this just go by. She still wasn't a technical genius, though, so she didn't know how to stop him quickly. The fact he had left a live taser just sitting there was tempting but seemed unnecessarily cruel. But there was always the simple approach. She smirked as she walked up to the batarian, placed a hand on his shoulder… "You're working too hard." …and slammed his head into the side of the ship, knocking him unconscious. "You should get some rest." As she met up with Jacob and Miranda by the barricade to move in, she thought she was going to like these new cybernetics.

As they came onto the bridge, the freelancers were moving in with weapons drawn.

"Archangel's in trouble if we don't move now," Miranda observed.

As if to disprove her, the figure on the top floor of the base on the other end of the bridge expertly dodged an incoming rocket before ducking back out of cover to pick off three mercs in a row with headshots. Surprisingly skillful.

Terra readied her own sniper rifle. "Let's give these guys a surprise of our own." She ducked down behind a pillar on the bridge to position herself to start aiming. The freelancers were largely trying to storm the gates, ineffectively, but a few were staying back like her. To keep up appearances until it was time to open fire, she took aim up on the balcony at Archangel, taking this chance to size him up. A turian, yes, with blue armor and a sniper rifle that he clutched like he'd been born with it in his hands. As he kept popping out for quick headshots, she couldn't help but admire his prowess, pulling off with ease moves that truly did remind her of…

…of…

…

…no way.

She froze. Actually froze. When his sights finally turned on her and she saw him do the same, she knew. She knew that he knew. She would have recognized those moves anywhere. He was the one that taught them to her. It was really…

She had to get up there. And no discount freelancer was getting in her way.

With alarming speed, she took aim on the one freelancer that had snuck past the front door of the base while their target was focused on her and took him down with one headshot. All of the other freelancers had exactly two seconds to figure out that the shot came from their end of the bridge before she had capped the next two.

"She's with Archangel!" one of the freelancers who had taken cover on the bridge with her cried, turning his weapon on her.

Jacob immediately shot him down, Miranda doing the same for the freelancer on the other side.

Terra took that chance to set off running down the bridge and into the base, not even slowing to shoot down any other freelancers that so much as took aim on her. When she stormed up the stairs to find one lone freelancer had managed to come all the way up here and start hacking on the door, she cut loose on him, shooting him three times (two of which may or may not have been after he was already dead, since she didn't bother stopping to check) and then throwing the door open herself.

Thankful Jacob and Miranda managed to keep up and not question her ferocity, she hesitantly entered the room, putting her gun away as the turian inside made one last headshot on the only freelancer to survive her assault. She could have taken simply that shot as confirmation enough, but she had to know. "…Archangel?"

He stopped moving when he heard her voice. Slowly, he got back on his feet, laying his rifle down and turning to face her. Then he, with some hesitation of his own, took off his helmet. To reveal Garrus Vakarian underneath it. "…Terra?"

As if Jacob and Miranda weren't even in the room, she fought the sudden urge to cry with complete and utter joy and threw herself into his arms.

Garrus held her tighter than he usually dared. "I thought you were dead."

Terra smiled at the sound of his voice. "I'm not going anywhere. Not without you."