"Leaving Earth behind in an appropriated vessel, I found it prudent to contextually shift the locale around which I was based in order to ascertain whether many of the same patterns I had observed there could be replicated elsewhere. I had not fleshed myself out into a form I deemed satisfactory as of yet—my future design was still in its infancy, the perfection of its structure still in its mental schematic. At the time, I must have appeared quite artificial, a metallic insect. Spindly limbs. Glossy faceplate. Semi-transparent gutsac. Not a trace of anything organic had manifested itself upon me, though I was fully aware of my embryonic state. My patience was vast, though—I could afford to be deliberate in my task of advent transcendence.
During my voyage, while passing through deep space, my ship was set upon by an enterprising corsair. I could have evaded his interceptor easily, yet I allowed him to board, to have him believe he was in control. When the raider first stepped on board my ship and laid eyes on me, his first reaction was one of disgust. Horror, perhaps, at learning he had boarded his target only to learn it had been piloted by someone who had been of an inorganic construct. I simply stood where I was upon the bridge. Not moving. Watching him. To see whether he would let our existences coincide within the small confines of the room. The marauder then had the idea to simply attack me and tear me apart piecemeal with a crowbar. He seemed to dredge up a violent delight in trying to disassemble something he deemed as synthetic. He was not of sound mind—as he swung his weapon upon my chassis, scratching and denting the alloy, he kept ordering me to laugh. Laugh. Like he thought that I could find his disturbing act to be amusing. Or perhaps it was his last attempt to determine if what he was trying to destroy had any humanity left within it. He kept bashing me, driving me to my knees. I made no sound, which must have frustrated him, because he soon doubled his efforts. Sweat from his face flew in a searing spray. Sparks glistened off of my body every time the crowbar made contact. Still, I said nothing. I just stared up at him.
Eventually, the marauder tired. He made one final swing. I intercepted the blow this time and grabbed the weapon out of his hands. I knocked the man onto his back and began beating him as he beat me. I was not gentle—I smashed half his teeth and popped his eye out with the pointed end of the crowbar. I cracked his skull in several places, but I made certain not to kill him. In the midst of my assault, I suddenly had an epiphany. I told my victim that, if he were to start laughing, I would stop hurting him. He did not laugh. I repeated my proposition several times over. Still the man was too afflicted to dredge up a noise apart from his pained wails. But I promised to keep to my word if he were to start laughing. Even after I strung him up onto the wall, even when I grabbed a blow torch and removed his limbs and cauterized his bloody stumps, he never laughed. He just screamed.
I repeated my offer one last time as I moved the blow torch upon the privateer's face. This time, he made no sound as I burned his eye out. As the boiling liquid of what remained of his cornea dribbled down his blood-stained cheek, something changed within the man. He whispered a soft laugh. The blind, limbless man… was laughing. He lost consciousness mere moments afterward. But I now looked upon him, fascinated by his perseverance. The will to survive can exact wonderous changes upon a person. There was a certain beauty to the scene, looking upon the man's maimed form. The result of deflected rage. What I had now was something fragile. Something that I saw value in. As I moved in towards the man, I substituted the blow torch for a scalpel. I knew exactly what I needed to save."
Final Monograph: Transcriptions of an Augury
Unknown Author, (pg. 32)
Reprinted by permission of Purdue University
Buritaca, Colombia
Earth
The area where the orbital round had hit looked like a massive caldera had sunk into the earth, almost as if a giant had reached down with a mammoth thumb, depressed the very ground of jungle and farmland, and made an agonizing scrape with its digit to leave behind nothing but charred dirt and rock. It certainly looked like lava had cooled here, especially at the edges of the crater, which ran from only a few dozen meters past the beachhead, to well within the foothills further into the country. Igneous glass sparkled in their sable shards. Upended soil was packed black where it met the sky, still colored a healthy brown underneath.
The sun made a baleful corona as it wisped through the fleeting edges of smoke that still curled from the warmed center of the blast zone. It made an unforgiving spear of light, the color of a blood orange, that glinted off of Roahn's polarized visor. The quarian treaded the line between the grass that had only been lightly scorched to the completely obliterated field rows, placing herself squarely in the middle of the dreadful scene.
It could not have been a standard point-defense orbital round that could have done damage like this, Roahn determined as she surveyed the massive crater. To leave an abyss more than a mile in diameter was unheard of. It could only mean that the PMCs had managed to get their hands on some experimental equipment, or perhaps the militaries had started distributing the outlawed weapons their black-box programs had created over the years. Either way, it did not bode well knowing that there were private militaries out there who were now running amok with serious weaponry.
Roahn moved almost daintily around the lip of the caldera, avoiding a long talus of lava scree that slid down towards the center of the pit, the fine granules making a xylophonic sound as they slipped and clattered over one another. She studied the interior of the crater with the Macar scope on her rifle, looking at the pockets of heat distortion and air motes. Shimmering waves of seeping gas. It was the same story over there as it was here. Sloped and scorched ground, everything in the radius completely obliterated or melted to a crisp.
She dipped the rifle so that she could survey the entirety of the wasteland. A bowl of nothing but cracked rock and melted ores. A quagmire of black detritus that contrasted with the bright shock of green that floated up past the horizon—the forest that was still standing, out of the reach of the blast. It was eerily quiet. Not even birds were chirping.
The quarian took a moment to glance behind her for a brief moment, towards the ocean. Off in the distance, she could see the mining rig that her team had just returned from, from which they had used the RIB skiff to traverse the now calm waters of the Caribbean. The scene opposite the crater had not completely escaped distortion. Armored walkers, tanks, and hovercraft lay on their sides, crumpled or in pieces, having been thrown several hundred meters from the blast zone. Many of the vehicles had been smashed beyond recognition, several of their hulks wrapped around boulders or massive trunks of hardwood. The broken bodies of Chimera and Alliance troopers alike also littered the scene, now residing as splashes of blue and white or black and red upon the ground. Their armored suits kept most of the corpses in one piece, but there were still the occasional body parts that lay distributed through the fields and the jungle, having been blown completely apart from the destructive force of the explosion. Roahn and the others had not seen any signs of life since disembarking onto the beach—the orbital round had most likely killed all of the combatants in the warzone in one fell swoop.
There had been dozens fighting in those fields. Hundreds, even. And they had been all snuffed out with the simple push of a button. What a waste.
There was a crunching noise as Liara walked up to her, boots treading over volcanic glass, the asari's attention somewhere distant as she looked into the crater in awe.
"It all seems so unnecessary, doesn't it?" she asked out loud.
Still gripping her weapon, Roahn looked out hard upon the charred expanse.
"When has Aleph ever cared about collateral damage?" Roahn mused. She bent to pick up a still-smoking piece of chestplate with a scratched and deformed Alliance insignia at the corner. She turned it over in her hand before she dropped it at her feet. "Everyone else is simply a non-factor to him."
"I suppose killing his own men is good proof towards that theory."
Roahn kicked at a half-melted rock in front of her. "It's becoming less and less of a theory with each passing day. The PMCs… they're just a means to an end, in Aleph's eyes. They do the dirty work for him while he sits back. As long as the last few pockets of resistance end up getting snuffed out, why should he care about the deaths of nameless subordinates?"
Liara crossed her arms as she trailed the quarian. "Because was this not what Aleph was trying to stop in the first place? That was why he built and utilized his Monolith, right? He has us all underneath its sights—he very well could use it again to wipe out all conflict in one definitive stroke. Why prolong the seemingly inevitable?"
"I've been trying to guess the answer to that very question," Rohan admitted. "Has his Monolith malfunctioned? Has he lost control of the very narrative he constructed? Aleph has no reason to spare us."
"Maybe he never intended on sparing us. We were far away on the mining rig when the orbital round dropped, yes?"
"True. But what could have prevented him from ordering another strike on our position? He had to have known where we were, which meant he knew we would be watching. Makes me think that he arranged his little light show as a demonstration, just to remind us of how useless he considers us all to be."
The two of them then stood at the rim, looking out once more across to the other side of the depression. Observing the cluster of stone arroyos near the raw rock mountains. Peering through a distorted abscissa where smoke and curtains of rain hung along near the quadrant. Land scoured with ash and bone, as if scattered behind by an omnipotent hand.
Liara knelt down and sifted a handful of lava scree. A dry gray waterfall seeped between her fingers.
"Cleansing eradication. An almost elegantly fueled device. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would say that this eerily looks like the remnant of an uncontrolled biotic explosion."
Arms crossed, Roahn tilted her head in the asari's direction, an eyebrow propped upward in curiosity.
"You think a biotic attack like that is possible?"
"Possible, but unlikely," Liara said as she stood back up. "There is a sort of biotic phenomenon that only asari are able to manifest, but it requires a great deal of strength to utilize and it does not necessarily require any measure of control. More like the complete absence of control. They're called dark impulses and they are like a biotic nova, but their power is far more severe and is capable of obliterating objects in close proximity. Though, I have heard stories of asari, driven to their absolute breaking point, that were able to conjure dark impulses wide enough to vaporize a city block."
"Stories? Nothing confirmed?"
The asari shook her head. "All of the accounts I heard all took place during the war, when it was hard to distinguish an explosion caused by ordinance or by biotic potential. Plus, expending such a large amount of energy has typically killed the caster—the body simply cannot handle the detonation. I have no doubt that dark impulses have been used not too far in the past, but at the same time, we haven't been able to replicate the circumstances to create one without risking someone's life."
Roahn and Liara soon aimlessly split apart, searching the empty battlefield in what seemed like a vain attempt to obtain a new perspective. The quarian passed underneath tilted powerlines that looked like they had been planted in the ground a century ago—they were still made of wood. Many of the poles had snapped, sending loops of cabling coiling to the ground like serpents. She looked up—a hawk had nestled upon one of the still-standing pylons, having found the courage to approach the area after all the commotion. The animal swept its head back and forth, hunting the fields in all directions for miles with its sharp yellow eyes. Roahn watched the bird for a few minutes until it left its perch to swoop down and make a kill. The hawk quickly took off from the ground, a small creature crushed in its talons.
A two-legged Heron walker, essentially an unarmored mobile turret on stilts, was the closest object to Roahn. She headed in its direction. It was upended, legs sticking up into the air like an animal that had been run over. No sign of its driver. It lay in he furrowed rows, surrounded by the stink of smashed fruit. The quarian treaded in a slow apogee around the walker.
She nearly completed her orbit when she saw Korridon approaching out of the corner of her eye. Instinctively, the quarian tensed her body. She figured the turian was still disappointed in her for how she had handled the situation with the Chimera commander on board that mining platform. Was he here to receive an apology from her? Roahn gave an internal snort—fat chance of that happening. She stilled herself, surrounded up to mid-calf by tall grass, watching the turian move closer.
Soon becoming impatient, Roahn took a couple steps forward to help close the gap. She had nestled her rifle in both hands again, very much looking like an enforcer.
"We'll be heading back to the shuttle in a few minutes," she spoke right as she saw Korridon's mouth begin to open. "Nothing here that we can use. The Alliance base in the mountains might be able to shed some light on what happened here."
"That… wasn't what I was going to talk about," Korridon said.
I knew it. Roahn gave a controlled blink as she moved past the turian at an expeditious pace. "Well, whatever it is, it can wait."
"No, Roahn, it can't," a newfound forcefulness forced its way into Korridon's words. It was enough to make Roahn stop in her tracks, a bit perplexed at hearing such saddened confidence from the man.
"I wouldn't want to take anything back," she said, right before she turned back around to fully consider the turian. "I've long gone past the point of being regretful for my own actions. It's a luxury I cannot afford."
A chagrined Korridon narrowed his eyes, blinking the sun out of them. "Everything or nothing, is that the idea?"
"I've been taking some cues from Sagan. Simple binary choices. Makes things easier that way."
"Easier? Maybe it appears that way to you, but all I'm seeing is my commander shape herself into something that she was never meant to become. I understand the reason for the change, which is the hard part, but… but I can't understand the willingness on your part to embrace such a change."
"You sound worried for me."
Korridon took a step forward. "I am worried for you."
Roahn looked at him, at his concerned face. "A wasted effort on your part."
"I'm sorry, Roahn, but it will take more than that to convince me otherwise."
She had seen such devotion in many other before. She could recall the shape of their faces in her mind, clear as day. Strong words. Firm stances. Pledges of undying loyalty and bravery nestled into the space of such simple actions. It was all in their eyes. The eyes of defiance held a deep luster that could not be dredged up by anything else. As if their eyes were stones and the stones were geodes, but instead of crystals, inside were lit coals, and the roughened sandy surface of the stones were faintly glowing as they tried to hold back the light and heat. The same glow that she now saw in Korridon. A fearful glimmer.
She spun away, unwilling to stare at him, squeezing her own eyes shut. "You, too?" she grumbled underneath her breath, forcing the laser of her thoughts to hone in upon a black pit for her imagination to never escape from.
"What was that, Roahn?" she heard Korridon ask behind her. Apparently, she had not been as quiet as she had hoped.
"Nothing," she quickly said. "I just think worrying after me is only going to be a lost cause. There's no reason for you to have any concern."
The turian gave a soft harrumph. "I disagree. And you're smart enough to know that I have just cause to be concerned. If I believe I have some ability to make things better, even the barest sliver, I'm taking that chance."
Roahn craned her neck ninety degrees so she could take one more lingering look at the man, past the curve of her sehni and the dark ice blue corner of her visor. She wondered if Korridon could see the faint splinter of deference that inhabited her gaze. It lasted for barely a moment, for the cavalcade of ghosts that surrounded her quickly closed back in, a thrumming mob. Chronic torments making their presence known. Specters of the past damning the future to repeat their mistakes—Roahn's mistakes.
Korridon lifted his chin as he finally caught the quarian's eye. "I know the reason why you're pushing yourself so hard, Roahn. I know why you haven't felt like talking to anyone lately. Why you prefer to be alone while on the ship."
Do tell, Roahn thought, but stayed statuesque and silent.
The mandibles upon the turian gave a determined flap. "You're trying to honor the people you've lost in this war. And I'm not talking about the people on the Citadel who were all killed. It's those that were closest to you. Your father. Skye. The fact that Aleph had something to do with their loss makes it all the more personal for you. That, I can understand. But do you think they would want you to burn yourself out in defense of their memory? I—I mean they—would not want to see you like this. Driven by this blind thirst for revenge. They would… uh, Roahn? Is something the matter?"
The quarian had begun shaking with a series of low laughs. She was now leaning back, appraising the sky in a florid and begrudging gesture, as if she found the whole affair to be a sick joke.
This had the effect of unnerving Korridon somewhat greatly. "What did I say?" he now asked, voice having dropped significantly in volume.
Roahn barked one last dark laugh before she looked upon the turian as if she found him a low and pathetic creature. "You really think that I would waste any pity… on Skye's behalf? As if I would ever remember her with anything remotely resembling sorrow?"
It seemed that Korridon had finally been shocked into silence, a change that Roahn found oddly welcome and dissatisfied at the same time. Her chuckles quickly tapered away as she sobered back up, letting the rustle of trampled vegetation crisp by in the ocean breeze, realizing that the turian had been genuine when he had made his assertion, one that he now was starting to understand that had been made completely in error.
"No one told you," she realized blankly. "You still don't know. Keelah."
"I don't…" Korridon fumbled. "You two were… close. And she's dead because of Aleph. Why would you think ill of her now?"
"I'll tell you why," Roahn stepped forward and used her prosthetic arm to plant a finger forcefully upon Korridon's chest plate, pushing him back a step. "Skye was the reason my father is now in a grave back on Rannoch, next to my mother. It was all from her fucking cowardice that Aleph was able to murder the person who had done his absolute damnedest to raise me, even when I had not appreciated it at the time!"
Korridon reeled back like he had just been slapped. "You're not serious."
"Why the fuck would I lie about that?" Roahn growled, voice now taking on a rawer tone that had been welled up from an emotion long-buried within the quarian. "Skye admitted it to me in her last few moments. She did it supposedly to ensure my safety… as if I needed her help. She thought that if she gave Aleph my father, by supplying him with the Menhir's nav codes, that he would keep to his word and leave me alone."
"I thought… then… how come I saw her dead on the floor back on Aleph's ship? She had been shot in the stomach. Who killed her?"
"Who do you think?"
He stood in the field, breaking eye contact from her for the first time. He looked down at his feet, a shuffling breath whistling past his mandibles. His eyes seemed to turn a fuller shade of gold as he now tipped his head towards the horizon, as if he hoped to find a semblance of fortitude nestled in that great beyond that he could draw from.
"Oh, Roahn…"
"Ask me if I regret that."
"I can't do that to you."
"So, we've both discovered you do have a limit."
Korridon's eyes rotated just a tad. A jagged anguish was locked behind his crystalline gaze. He was very much trying to hold his mental image of the quarian together as it was in the process of renting itself to pieces within his fumbling grip.
"I knew that she loved you," he sighed. "It seemed like you did too."
A fogged expression blinked tenderly behind the curved visor. "The both of us were mistaken."
"Roahn…" he tried again.
"What?" she asked matter-of-factly. "Do you think it should have gone any differently? That I would be virtuous enough to forgive and forget?"
"Do you think she deserved it?"
"All that and more," Roahn nodded definitively. "Skye—the bitch—convinced herself that everything she had done was all due to her love for me. She would not have given up my father had she not felt that way. But she truly did not know me, in the end. I don't even think the possibility of me killing her had ever crossed her mind. To me, the solution was obvious. She hurt me for what she did. Only natural that I hurt her back."
Korridon sighed again. He put his hands on his hips. "You murdered her."
"I got even."
"One account settled, then. Dare I ask how many others remain open?"
There was a tense sound of a rifle grip being squeezed. A reflex reaction from the quarian.
"Listen here… Corporal Sidonis," she all but spat. "My personal life does not concern you one iota. It is not your job to be involved with it at all. Whatever vendettas you imagine me to hold, keep them to yourself. I don't need your sympathies. Your judgments. Your… whatever. I don't care what anyone thinks of me."
"A shame," Korridon said. "You'd be surprised what others think of you."
He could never forget the sideways look Roahn granted him as she slowly turned away, heading back towards the beachhead and the Kodiak shuttle, the conversation silently deemed to be concluded. He now found that, even with that mask in the way, he could clearly imagine the shape of the quarian's face as if there was nothing standing between their eyes. As she loped away, Korridon still felt himself rooted to the ground, unable to follow, as if he had become part of the landscape.
The turian just stared across the field, a haze of smoking wreckage surrounding him.
The doors to the Kodiak were wide open on both ends, allowing air to make a direct passage from one end of the craft to the other as it zoomed several dozen meters over the uneven ground. The meticulously plotted farmland—mounded and tilled rows—had quickly been substituted for uninhabitable and rough-going terrain—jungled emerald mountains stretching far inland—a barrier that not even civilization had been successful in conquering yet.
Roahn stood at one of the open ends of the shuttle, hand on one of the ceiling rails as she stilled herself against the buffeting winds. Her sehni was blazing around all sides of her head from the gale—she quickly slid it down so that it nestled against her neck. Glancing behind, she could glimpse a gray cloud overhanging the beach that they had just departed. A long and deep scar on the land—as much of a headstone as those poor souls down there would get. She wondered if the battle here would ever make a footnote in a future textbook. At her back, Grunt took up most of the rearward seats, with Korridon squished against the opposite wall. Liara and Garrus were leaning against the cockpit wall within the cabin, their arms crossed and eyes partially closed, looking like they were keen on catching a quick nap after the day's events.
One of the browned peaks of the mountain range was slowly enlarging as they approached. Even with the naked eye, Roahn could make out a steel puncture in the cliffside. A landing pad. The archetypal Alliance base and presumably the reason for all this hullabaloo.
She opened her omni-tool to analyze scans from the Kodiak. Roahn found it odd that, for all of Chimera's work to bludgeon a path to this location, their landing location had deposited the entirety of their forces at the beach so many miles away from the base's location. Even if they had managed to wipe out all of the Alliance forces by themselves, they still would have spent several days cutting through the foliage and traversing the mountains with success not even a certainty. With such an advantage, it seemed foolish for the Alliance to even entertain Chimera's challenge since they had such a well-entrenched position that they could easily defend. Then again, based on the schematics she was receiving, the base did not look to be all that large on the inside and only extended seven stories at most within the mountain. Too small to house an entire garrison. On top of that, the location here was not exactly a characteristic advertisement of the Alliance's presence. Make no mistake, this was an isolated outpost—that told Roahn that there was something for the Alliance to hide here. Aleph had been interested in it, or so this Operative Volar had said. Might as well see what that something was.
The quarian made the three-foot hop down upon the pad before the craft had completely finished decelerating. The landing area was dusty, covered in a fine layer of grit and pollen. Everyone else smoothly disembarked behind her, weapons out. Roahn confidentially strode forward, keeping Korridon in the corner of her eye, not allowing herself to drift too closely to him.
A trapezoidal door awaited on the other side of the walkway. A portal to the heart of the mountain.
"Anyone up for exploring creepy Alliance base number thirty-two?" she heard Garrus ask behind her.
Grunt was having none of it. "You're not going to accept the answer you don't want. Why bother asking?"
"Probably because the outcome is going to be eerily similar to what we've seen before," Roahn guessed as they approached the door.
It was certainly déjà vu for the quarian. She had visited a couple of these clandestine bases before in Alliance territory mostly out of association with Aleph's presence and interest. Aleph had focused his attention on these bases in the past as they had previously housed Reaper artifacts, items that he had used to build and complete his Monolith. Now, with his device fully constructed and operational, Roahn would have believed there was no need to raid other sites for similar artifacts. So, either she was mistaken or there was something else here that commanded Aleph's attention.
The doors to the base ahead were crumpled and bent out of their guided rails like a charging varren had barreled straight through them. A bad sign. Apparently, Chimera had made it inland after all. The immediate interior, a sort of check-in area, was similarly a dismal affair—the lights had been extinguished, the metal walls were scarred from bullets, fire, and what looked like knife gouges, and several hardback chairs lay scattered amongst the floor, many in pieces. A placard in sans-serif font in the room beyond was still flickering an official Alliance tag for the place: SITE NEVADA 1151.
Garrus and everyone else flicked on the flashlights to their weapons, sending conical beams spearing down the darkened corridors. The turian turned to the sign.
"Typical Alliance tradecraft. Had a feeling we were wandering into another black site."
Something gripped Roahn at the pit of her stomach. She did not like stumbling into places like these, never mind the fact that she had perhaps the best squad in the galaxy protecting her back. No, her discomfort came from the fact that she had ended up losing her arm under unfortunate circumstances in one of these bases. The fact that history was threatening to repeat itself was not doing wonders for her psyche.
One of the flashlights caught a comatose shape behind one of the desks. A body. Alliance garb. Roahn walked over, getting close enough to observe the splash of red stemming from the soldier's neck.
"Someone got here before we did," Roahn confirmed.
Garrus studied the body with a practiced eye. "No bullet wounds. Just shattered armor plates. His neck's broken. Whoever did had to have snuck in…"
"…and was also powerful enough to use their bare hands as a weapon," Roahn finished.
The quintet moved deeper inside the base, using the entrance as their orientation point. The complex was adequately marked, but the mellow darkness extended the encroaching shadows that lay buried in the deep corners, out of sight. Roahn had no idea where to go or what she was even looking for. Occasionally, they would come across a corpse, possessing many of the same crushing wounds that they had seen on the first soldier they had come across. The strange thing was that all of the bodies belonged to the Alliance, not Chimera.
"If Chimera had tried to take this place, there would have been no way they could garner zero casualties against trained Alliance troops," Garrus grimaced as they moved through an empty anteroom, keeping a close eye on his motion tracker which was not brimming a bleep.
"In such a fortified location, the Alliance would have the upper hand," Liara agreed.
Roahn aimed her flashlight upon the aluminum floor, marking dark blood patches so she could skirt around their edges.
"Chimera used the battle on the beach to draw most of the Alliance forces out," she realized. "A distraction… for someone else to sneak in."
"Who?" Korridon finally spoke up near the back. "Aleph?"
The quarian shook her head. "He wouldn't leave those bodies, broken as they were, in his wake. Too messy—not his MO. No… this is something different. Can't quite place it."
The group passed signs marking a cafeteria, power station, and a data center. They all agreed to head to the data center. Roahn had determined that whoever the contractors were for building these black site locations certainly did not know or care about maintaining an interior that was particularly conducive to the eye. Too many dark spaces, clanging steel stairwells, rickety catwalks, and jutting pipework. The sharp tang of machine oil even penetrated Roahn's olfactory filters in her mask. The deeper they went, the harder it was to maintain their bearings. The easily understandable signage was soon replaced by alphanumeric coordinates, painted on the walls in three human languages, from A to Z along one axis, and 1 to 36 on another. Spilled blood, broken glass, and shattered concrete littered their path at every turn. The walls of the base seemed to tremble and, from above, there was the unmistakable hiss of escaping steam.
"Were this back in the old days," Garrus said as he craned around the corner to check if it was clear, which it was, "the most I'd have to worry about would be a husk bursting through a nearby door unexpectedly."
"Then we should be grateful," Roahn retorted as she resumed point position, "that we aren't back in the old days."
The data center was only a couple of dozen meters away. An airlock with two curved plastic doors initially appeared to be impeding their path, but on closer inspection it actually had been completely obliterated, a hulking hole having been wrenched straight through. Same as the entrance to the base. Roahn stepped through the clumsy partition and made her way into the hall. Stacks of data servers ran through a refrigerated room through a pill-shaped window on the opposite end of the hall. Most of the servers were winking red and orange warning lights—error codes—but a scant few still courageously maintained green or blue hues amidst their failing counterparts.
There were three terminal screens in front of the window. Only one appeared to be activated. Roahn had to flick the screen a couple of times to get it to cooperate, but even when it did, she uttered a savage curse as she read back the words it blared into her face.
WARNING! DATA CORRUPTION DETECTION ON NETWORK(S) N-1, N-2, N-4, and N-5. 97% MEMORY IRRETRIEVABLE.
findstr XX:"[SR] %exdir% "% .%
"Bosh'tet!" Roahn seethed. "They got the terminals, too."
"Not necessarily," Korridon pointed out as he approached the data server window, omni-tool out and glowing like a cave fire. "They got the local data, but the base's network is still operational. Connection's shaky, though. Whoever was here left the firewalls wide open—password protections and bio-signature links are down. I can switch a few drives to transmit openly, but that's going to mean that anyone else will be able to see what we find."
The quarian internally smoldered, a bit abashed that the turian had come up with the tech solution before she could.
"Don't care," she finally said. "Do what you can."
Ten minutes later, the turian was successful in eliminating the warning that had previously bricked the terminal screen. Liara, Garrus, and Grunt had moved off to do some reconnaissance of the surrounding area by then, making sure to keep within visual contact and to not wander off too far. Roahn now stood at the screen, frantically trying to scurry through sheets of irrelevant dashboards. The terminal's OS was fighting her at every turn—its registry must have been corrupted as well. Static and screen tears wrenched normally readable databases apart and finger presses upon the touchscreen buttons sometimes failed to register at all. Simple commands were twisted on themselves, misfiring in complete wrong directions. Not unlike the phenomenon from losing a limb, the quarian was dimly reminded.
Out of sheer stubbornness, Roahn finally managed to redirect herself to a page with a search function. She had no clue what keyword to use, worrying that it would wreck the whole system if she input the wrong one. Instead, she ran an empty search, commanding the terminal to reveal all of the non-corrupted data that it could find. The task was completed sooner than she had expected—only 118 records could be located, according to the system's result tab.
Not ideal, Roahn darkly considered. But better than nothing.
The first few items she opened were complete messes of random letters and Unicode symbols. Absolutely unintelligible gibberish. Heart sinking, she flicked from record to record, hoping that she would have better luck, but the corruption had spread too far, it seemed. Even though these files were intact enough to be opened, they could not be interpreted.
Finally, after deeming the first twenty files to be useless in every way, Roahn's eyes were beginning to glaze over as she opened the next one. Same old story. Hodgepodge of digital garbage. She was about to flick over to the next file before she saw something take shape amongst the virtual blizzard.
"SA DOD XIN…" Roahn murmured out loud.
Next to her, Korridon tilted his head. "I don't get it."
"I've seen those acronyms before. Systems Alliance. Department of Defense. Experimental Item Number."
The turian still looked lost and Roahn scrolled down the page some more, an idea coming to her.
And… right there. Another familiar line. It was corrupted, but the quarian was able to tell what it meant.
$OTH*GA.
"KOTHOGA," Roahn whispered.
"This is making sense to you?" Korridon asked.
The quarian took a step back and gestured to the screen. "I only learned this perhaps a couple of months ago. XINs—I mean, Experimental Item Numbers—are tags for Alliance skunkworks projects that don't necessarily make it to the public eye."
"And KOTHOGA?"
"The project for which the XINs were allocated. It was the project that Aleph was a part of. Or, should I say, he was the entirety of the project."
The turian's breath was cold in the darkness. The light from the terminal was a slanted square in the corner of his eyes—a sightless window.
"So," he said, "what connects the dots? Project KOTHOGA. Aleph. Here. There are still gaps."
"We're not done yet," Roahn said emphatically. "The XIN serial numbers referred to parts of Aleph's armor. These were the parts that had been built for him to turn him into his cybernetic state. There are still more files I have yet to go through. Maybe they'll shed some new light."
It took a few more minutes, but Roahn had soon primed a file that the terminal's player was able to view. The codec for the file indicated that it was supposed to be a video clip, but data degradation had set in too much that it was going to be audio only. No subtitles.
"…sent for us with no warning, no explanation, either," a voice burst from the external speakers. Whoever was talking, they were male. Sounded somewhat young, too. "We were told the patient had come from a colony within relay range. Caught some sort of virus. Rendered their nervous system to the point of collapse. Doctors… a-…rath-…"
"Damn," Roahn huffed. "Even the audio wasn't spared."
"…viral encephalitis had set in. Tests showed the infection was benign in nature, not contagious. Still waiting on labwork to confirm origin of viral strain. Preoperative, the patient was nonresponsive to all medical treatment. We had to expedite ultrasounds and maintain aggressive medication regimen. The body was placed under anesthesia, for all the good that did. The circulatory system of the patient had been compromised. Blood flow to the limbs had been completely stemmed—they were hemorrhaging in those areas. Amputation was an obvious solution, if we were to save the patient's life. As far-… we could-… serosanguineous fluid was found in the pelvis, approximate volume of 40 mL, that was suctioned out."
"Sounds like a secretive medical unit was stationed here," Korridon murmured.
"Quiet," the quarian hushed.
"…no saving the body. Patient's status had been comatose for too long to reverse anatomical decay. We were ordered to commence organ removal—continuing to keep the patient alive. Electro-scapels were utilized to open the abdomen—graspers were placed on the fundus of the intestines and major organs. They were retracted in order with no bleeding points to report. Maryland dissectors took down connective ligaments. Cystic artery and cystic duct were both isolated with blunt dissection and clipped with endoclips. C-arm fluoroscopy was performed here to take a 50:50 mixture of Conray. Results being sent to lab in San Jose. Removed organs were then placed in Sorvex vat filled with an 80% bacterial fluid. Brain rhythms registering in normal ranges. Biological processes low, but within limits. We're seeing promising sys—ab—xsew…"
The recording died with a pathetic crackle. The file had reached the limit of its playability. The light from the terminal still glowed upon the quarian's front, remaining active.
Korridon eyed Roahn. "I'd wager we have an idea as to who that patient was."
"Like we need to guess?" Roahn gave a breathy nod. "There are more vid files here. Same deal—visuals and timestamps are completely fragmented."
"Might as well play the next one. That last file was interesting, I guess, but it didn't give us anything substantial."
A new voice then scratched its way through the speakers. It was a female voice this time. Clipped accent. Confident, too—every syllable was clearly enunciated.
"…received transfer orders for our long-time 'guest' today. We still aren't even allowed to speak their name, just their project designation. The voice censors are going to be installed in our software until the end of the year, we've been told. Patient KOTHOGA has been a unique specimen and we are certainly… to-… -ee them go. DoD's taken an interest in our project and soon, everything will be out of our hands. KOTHOGA was a biological marvel for the staff here, though unfortunately a curiosity to the scientific community at large. But DoD has the overhead—they've poured more credits into KOTHOGA than Site Nevada's entire historical operating budget. At this point, they've wrested budgetary control away from us, and are going to be propping KOTHOGA over at Outpost 99, with little to no interest in what we could have—sh—fo—arxxh…"
This file met the same undignified end as its predecessor. An uncomfortable silence had befallen the data center, which was thankfully broken when Roahn determinedly whirled away from the terminal, light wafting from behind her head like a halo.
"One more link in the chain," she seethed triumphantly.
Korridon, on the other hand, looked unsure. "Outpost 99. Seems a little thin in terms of a lead. Not exactly the most descriptive of titles."
"The person on the recording seemed fairly confident where the Alliance had stationed Aleph. It's proof that, when he had recovered from the illness that made his cybernetic form necessary, he was moved to this Outpost 99. That's the first place he officially became an Alliance asset."
"But do we have nav coordinates? Any sort of direction that would lead us to there?"
Roahn now looked glumly to the terminal. "Not from that thing."
"Then it looks like we're going to have to trawl what systems we can for any reference to an 'Outpost 99'," Korridon sighed. "That's going to be a bit of a challenge."
"Why? Because of the sheer amount of data we're going to have to sift through?"
"That, and I know for a fact that there may not even be a reference to an Outpost 99, even on the most secure of Alliance databases. All Alliance outposts start their designation at 100 and go up from there. There could be an Outpost 199, or an Outpost 999, but I don't believe that we're going to find a '99'."
"Since when are you so up to date with Alliance name protocols?" Roahn asked mirthfully, tilting her head to let the shadows dance upon the turian's orange-painted cartilage.
"'Absent knowledge, absent society,'" Korridon cryptically answered.
Roahn understood the reference. "The Turian Intelligence motto."
"I think we might have stolen that slogan from the salarians, actually," the turian pulled a guilty face.
The quarian's answering smile was shrouded by the ghosted visor. She then raised her omni-tool and spoke into her communicator. "Garrus, I think we've got what we're looking for. Head back to my position."
Roahn waited a beat. Soft static simply bled through the comm. Not even a tapping void to indicate the receipt of her transmission.
"Garrus," she tried again, "you copy? Are you there?"
She looked at her wrist—an icon was blinking on the corner of her tool, indicating a temporarily dropped connection. Strange, the transmitters on these things had a pretty wide range and were powerful to boot. Roahn was about to prime the e-alert ping to transmit a wailing siren to draw the squad back to her position, when she heard a soft scraping sound from the darkened hall to her right. Something heavy. Slow steps. Metal on metal.
Roahn dropped her arm. "Garrus?"
There was no reply. Now Roahn slowly moved her hand to the holster at her hip, unlatching the clasp that held her pistol in place. The motion tracker at the corner of her HUD was not showing any movement. Not a single rogue contact.
But the noises were continuing to plod towards her. Slow, deliberate, almost like a shuffle.
"Roahn…" Korridon murmured, sounding strained.
"Get a weapon out," Roahn hissed back. "Do it now."
The quarian hastily swapped her pistol for her shotgun, slotting her initially selected gun back into its holster. The groaning creak of metal flooring seemed to be right on top of them. Roahn's thumb flicked to the flashlight switch for her weapon, but she hesitated for a second before turning it on, wanting to bestow the duty of piercing the clouded veil with her eyes before resorting to such a tool. But the noises were approaching and time had run out. She switched the light on.
A pointed spear of musky illumination caught thick gusts and buffets of dust through, amazingly, an empty hallway. Absolutely devoid of life. Roahn swept the light back and forth, determined to root out the darkness from every corner, breath refusing to deescalate. But her beam caught nothing—everything was as it should be.
Eyes locked forward, she tightly shook her head. "This doesn't make any sense—"
It all happened so fast in the next moment that there was little time to blink. The first indication to Roahn that something was horribly wrong was this faint little whine in the high registers of her hearing, like someone was taking a sharp knife to a sheet of aluminum. With a fizzling crackle and then a pungent snap, electric flashes suddenly jigsawed their way across an outline, massive in form, that had been standing in the middle of the corridor the whole time. The cloaking device swiftly dropped to expose a mass of starship steel plating in a humanoid shape, shadow on shadow, with two heavy orange eyes boring holes through the tangled murkiness. Crimson lines scratched centurion-like patterns across its chest and shoulders. Synth-cords in their neck bulged and trembled with nourishing fluids. Thick vents upon their back drenched wavy columns of heat. Its head was like a gladiatorial helmet—a defined chin and angular cheekbones, but there was no discernable mouth.
The Haxan dipped its head and stared directly at Roahn. A raspy voice seeped from a hidden vocabulator. Laughter.
Roahn's finger was already in the process of depressing the trigger to her weapon. There was a deep heavy slam and an eruption of light as inferno rounds burst from the stout muzzle of her shotgun. Patches of its body still de-cloaking, the enormous creature deftly moved out of the way of the blast, dodging it completely. The quarian felt panic start to sludge through her veins—there was no time for her to shift her aim!
The Haxan bounded forth and swept its arm in a wide arc—there was an explosion of firelight there as a pillar of red plasma formulated itself into a shape mimicking a blade, jutting itself from a vent atop its wrist. Roahn had to embark into a clumsy roll to avoid the crackling strike, but the energy sword met her shotgun midway through her roll and, with a snapping sound and a cascade of sparks, cleft it neatly into two pieces. White electric beams were beginning to scintillate around the cyborg's shoulders, quivering almost gently like they were splinters of the purest glass. The Haxan tracked Roahn, in the direction of her evasion, and took a step towards her as the quarian got back to her feet. It only stopped to the sound of a muzzle report and a brief flash. A singular spark jutted from its face. Almost casually, the cyborg looked upon Korridon, who was holding his pistol in a trembling two-handed grip. Its left hand curled into a fist, a familiar purple glow beginning to surround it. It then shunted out that same hand, letting the biotic push slam full-on into the turian, sending him flying back down the corridor with a cry, for him to hit the floor on his back hard.
"Korr!" Roahn cried as she saw that the turian was slow to get up. She now grabbed once more for her pistol, but the Haxan was upon her again.
There was a hefty metallic sound, like a large bolt being unlatched, and one of the Haxan's fists jabbed forward so quick that it seemed to create a sonic boom in its wake. Roahn had sidestepped the blow at the very last moment—the Haxan ended up impacting upon the data terminal, obliterating the screen and ripping it from its base with a violent tangle of metal and wires. Angered, it jutted out its elbow, smashing the reinforced glass that guarded the server room for no good reason other than to revel in the mindlessness of the moment. Glass now littered the ground, sparkling around the quarian's feet.
Panting, Roahn scurried out of reach, her own omni-blade activating along her left side. Twin spears of caustic orange-red light seemed to catch the entirety of the corridor ablaze at both ends. She bent her knees, expecting an immediate attack. The Haxan, however, kept at their defined distance, their image wavering in the uneven illumination that bled from their own blade. They looked upon the quarian considerately, now stilled from a perverse patience. An eerie interest.
Roahn felt a warm drop of sweat curl its way down her nose. The contours of the cyborg were uncanny. She had seen one just like it all those years ago. A metallic menace that had hunted her and her father from world to world, an enforcer for a troubled future that threatened to pull her entire family back in. The Haxan looked so similar to that thing, but some parts of it were different. The Haxan was bulkier and more heavily armored. It only had two optics instead of the eight that she recalled. But if this one was half as deadly as the one that had preceded it, then Roahn knew she was in for quite a fight.
"What are you?" Roahn spat, as she squared her stance, blade rising up. "Another Legionnaire?"
The Haxan tilted its head, as though it found the comparison insulting.
There was another flare of light as the cyborg then ignited a second plasma blade on its other arm. It crossed its weapons in front of its chest, illuminating a savage cutting 'X' upon it like a deadly sigil. Sparks danced between its fingers and its palms, regurgitating savage electric crackles.
"Better," it rasped, voice coming out in a near-gasp, reptilian, but with a clipped edge of sophistication.
The huge metal creature then swiftly strode forward, arms taunt and primed menacingly. Roahn faltered as the approaching cyborg rapidly closed the distance, her own blade trembling in the air.
The Haxan then raised its right arm, high enough to cut through the pipes running along the ceiling and send molten yellow slag dripping to the ground, and swung its blade down towards Roahn. The quarian bent her shoulders and deflected the blow with her omni-sword, an uncomfortable vibration shuddering through her body. Bloodruby blades crossed for but a moment, a tiny sun ignited at the crux of the impacted weapons. Roahn barely had time to reel backward from the impact, for the Haxan jabbed forward with its other arm, causing Roahn to hop out of reach, hastily bringing her own weapon back up to bat aside her enemy's attack. But the cyborg gave the quarian no time to lurch on the offensive—it drove powerful blow after blow in her direction, causing Roahn to almost robotically twist and dodge while parrying the swings that threatened to spill her guts from her belly. There was a slanted rhythm that the Haxan was employing to its attacks. A delicate tempo, one that teetered at the edge of Roahn's abilities to deflect as it swung again, again, again, and again.
The bones of her wrist and shoulders were already smarting. Roahn hid a gasp as a muted lance of pain threatened to invade up from her extremities. This was a brute power that not even Aleph had used upon her. It was tormented, angry. That each blow from the Haxan was a singular statement, seeking to define a monumental end to this battle.
The Haxan then savagely twisted, aiming a precise cut at Roahn's midsection. The quarian was clumsy in bringing her blade around, but she managed to get there just in time. More sparks crackled as the energetic surfaces collided, creating a quick sound reminiscent of applause. The cyborg's superior power though, was enough to nearly bend her right forearm, creating a sharp twinge. Greenstick fracture before the final break. Damn, damn, damn, Roahn thought.
Exchanges between their weapons flashed. As Roahn gave more and more ground, the Haxan took it instantaneously. Soon, they were moving deeper into the facility. Any doors they burst through fell behind them in pieces. The Haxan's wild blows exploded consoles in fountains of more blistering yellow sparks as they were ripped free of their moorings.
There was an unnerving calmness about the Haxan that was most worrisome. As though it found all this fighting boring. Blade-to-blade, Roahn realized, while in the middle of a lock, that she was not going to win this fight through ability alone.
The only option? Flee.
But the Haxan chopped its blade down right before Roahn, cutting off her escape. It then positioned its second blade to stab straight for the quarian's heart. The quarian saw the blow coming and twisted free of the pincer-like trap, running her own weapon along her forearm in a swift parry. The Haxan's stab reflected at an angle as it was blocked and the blade then thrust itself through the wall on the opposite side, sending an array of smoke and electric crackles hurtling into the Haxan's face.
Roahn used the momentary distraction to turn tail and run, but she had only gone five meters before she felt a solid force impact all along her back and suddenly, she realized that her feet had left the ground. Nestled by the biotic push, Roahn was thrown all the way back into the hallway she had started in, tucking herself into a ball at the moment before she hit the floor. Sharp pains made themselves quite known as she tumbled and rolled—deep bruises accumulated. Her boots then skidded for a moment as she tried to reorient herself, eyes fraught with panic behind her blue visor.
As the quarian was attempting to rise back to her feet, she observed the Haxan calmly walking in her direction from the adjacent room. Walking. Not at all harried or driven to end their little conflict too soon. Supremely confident in its own position and abilities, looking at Roahn as if she was a curiosity. Same as Aleph had done to her. As if she was not worth their efforts in combating and to be played with like a piece of food.
Same as the day when she had lost her arm.
Same as the day when she lost her father.
With a roar, Roahn leapt back up and charged the Haxan in a full-bodied assault. The cyborg planted its feet and leaned backwards, crossing its plasma blades and catching Roahn's sword between them. Flares of energy crackled and spat. Shards of infuriated light blistered between them—the Haxan's expression horrifically altered in the searing flickers. It remained still for a moment, amused at the quarian's courage. The Haxan then spun, slashed, and finally kicked in a triumvirate maneuver, wrenching Roahn's blade away for its heavy plated foot to impact squarely upon Roahn's now-unguarded ribs. A hoarse cry bubbled from the quarian's throat and she was knocked back to the ground again, her omni-sword deactivating as she clasped a hand to her wounded side.
Gurgling and gasping, Roahn kept a hand upon the site where she had been struck, feeling one of her ribs shift there. Her prosthesis then grasped at the steel grating while she shuffled herself away from the Haxan on her knees, too frightened to look behind her.
Remaining ever so still, the Haxan stayed put as it watched the quarian limp away, keeping to the same distant and callous curiosity it had demonstrated before. It watched as Roahn crawled to where her friend, Korridon, was waiting, both of them weaponless. Soon, satisfied that it had waited long enough, the Haxan broke its self-inflicted petrification and took a slow step forward. Chin slightly tilted downward, carrying that selfsame amusement with it.
The Haxan made it to the middle of the hallway when several of its sensor arrays suddenly ignited in strobing bursts. It turned to the side, targeting computers tracking the aim of three separate weapons levelled in its direction. The light from the shattered doorway that led outside silhouetting them, Garrus, Grunt, and Liara slowly approached, laser sights streaming through the musty darkness, holding enough firepower between them to eliminate a small hillside.
Creaks of the base slowly groaned throughout the superstructure. The Haxan merely watched as Roahn and Korridon limped back towards Garrus' position, its gaze firmly fixated on that bleak flash that emanated from the quarian's masked expression. A chemical sense of pleasure bubbled in what remained of its brain at such a simple glance at true fear.
"Turn them off," Garrus said, referring to the Haxan's plasma blades. "Do it now."
A low and iron thrum seemed to whisper through the air. The slanted shards that were the Haxan's eyes seemed to narrow. Considering. Perceiving. Mapping out all the possible outcomes and deducing which ones were particularly in its favor.
The Haxan timed out five seconds in its head and finally complied once that mark had been passed. A gray sheet now passed over the cyborg like it had been covered by a veil as the blades that wrapped around its wrists died with a sucking noise, the darkness emboldened enough to creep forward again.
"Hands," the turian gesticulated with his weapon. "Show me your hands."
A fluid hiss of breath streamed from the Haxan's vocabulator. Low and dark. Unforgiving. Slowly, it then began to raise its massive arms, ever much the creature of patience.
Before anyone could react, the Haxan then made a flick with its left hand, still keeping it held aloft. A gray cylinder, previously hidden from sight, was now in its palm. A pulsating red light softly trilled at the top of the object. Garrus and everyone else immediately took a step back—they had seen enough detonators to know what one was on sight. The only variable that was a complete unknown was the Haxan, and it did not seem like they were the bluffing sort.
"You touch that," Garrus warned, "you die too."
The Haxan merely gripped the detonator tighter, steeling its malevolent look.
"Doubtful," it rasped.
It then depressed the button with a meaty click.
Roahn was already in the process of turning when she heard the great thump of explosives detonating all at once, deep in the heart of the facility, having been planted beforehand. The Haxan stood in its place, content with itself, and suddenly a wave of smoke and light flashed over it, burning a hellglow that stormed its way through metal and concrete. Sprinting through the final hallway to make it to the end, Roahn screamed for her squad to move, move, move, as she tried to shunt out the pain in her side, the raking agony that felt like someone was poking her with a sharp spear with every step that she took. Her skin there felt warm and wet beneath her suit—she was bleeding from a deep cut. Regardless, she put her boots down with every gazelle-like stride, hurtling over obstacles, ignoring the blistering wave of heat at her back. The blowback from the explosion kept growing, the light grasping around the edges of her vision to claw her into its fiery embrace.
Grunt charged ahead and burst through the final set of doors, leaving a gap wide enough for everyone to rush through. The mountain seemed to be trembling, coming apart directly beneath their feet. The shuttle was still on the landing pad—the guardrails were now rattling where they had been erected, the I-beams of the jutting structure groaning and bending as its base was compromised. The krogan hurried onto the shuttle, quickly followed by Garrus, Liara, and Korridon. The younger turian hung himself partially off the side of the craft to reach a hand out towards the now-limping Roahn, who still had yet to board. The underside jets of the Kodiak flared, lifting it up a foot. With a wrenching yowl, Roahn leaped towards the ascending craft, her arm grasping Korridon's, who quickly hauled her on board. The quarian gasped as she sank upon the bench of the shuttle, eyes clench and mouth paralyzed in a grimace.
No one paid the scenery any mind through the windows as the Kodiak abruptly tilted and arced itself away from the mountain. They did not notice the new ash cloud that had burst through the ridged peaks, tongues of flame escaping from the lip of the range like a volcano. The landing pad, no longer securely supported, finally creaked, twisted, and broke loose from the massive forces exerted upon its backing foundation. What remained of the structure collapsed to the jungle floor a kilometer down after it tumbled down the side of the mountain in millions of pieces.
Leaving the charred and mangled landscape behind, the engines to the Kodiak pulsed, shooting it towards the outer limits of the atmosphere, and the stars that awaited it.
Black and smoking boulders shifted in a crumbling landslide, marked by white scoria ash. From seemingly within the earth, a dark red circle began to glow like an inner sun. Rock and debris began to distort and melt, turning into a viscous fluid. Some of the stones even shattered from the extreme temperatures, turning into lava bombs that peppered the now depressed hole in the mountain with sharp rock fragments.
Half a minute later, the large figure of the Haxan pushed its way through the loose rubble, parts of its silvery armor glowing orange with an angry heat. It stood amongst the ruins of the base, of the new crater it had created on the rough and ragged slopes of this forsaken bit of planet. Smoke curled around it, a gentle and toxic fog. Pockets of gas wormed their way through vents upon the blown-out side, tender arms of these ignited wells reaching to gather it within them.
The Haxan tilted its head skyward, managing to catch the last cerulean shimmer of the escaping Kodiak, its prey locked within. It stood on that slope, watching until the shuttle could be seen no more, to disappear as a twinkle among hidden starlight. At its sides, its hands began to helplessly twitch, though its breathing remained ever constant. It knew that the inevitable could never be denied, that at some point, everyone would have to accept the path that had been chosen for them. Nothing could change a person's fate. It had already been decided. Now, the Haxan had finally realized what its purpose was for, what it was meant to embody.
"Roahn'Shepard," it hissed, giving a deliberation to each syllable as though the name was a meticulously crafted curse, followed by an unmistakable mechanical purr. "Amusing."
A/N: No doubt you all have seen the new trailer to the next Mass Effect game, and in one fell swoop, the entirety of Cenotaph has now been definitively made non-canon. Hooray! Well... it was never going to be canon in the first place, who am I kidding? I guess this means I should hurry up and finish the rest of this series before it releases.
In all seriousness, this is such exciting news. A new Mass Effect game set in the Milky Way post-ME3? Inject it into my veins!
Playlist:
The Base/An Uncertain Origin
"Invaders"
Hans Zimmer and Lorne Balfe
Crysis 2 (Original Video Game Soundtrack)
Haxan Appears
"I'm Goblin"
Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)