"It is daunting to consider the fact that a person's life could be defined based upon the people they meet during the course of their life. Chance encounters, perhaps initially dismissed, might prove to become crucial toward one's development. It serves to prove that we lack a certain amount of control over our own selves, that our trajectory could change at a whim, and that one course in our minds—one that we initially believe to be permanent—adjusts itself in response, automatically, and without our conscious input.
In my case, one such origin point towards my current circumstance can be traced back to such a person: David Anderson, the first human councilor, and noted Alliance admiral. His appointment towards the high office came with the benefit of being able to access the projects that were initially classified to his rank. This included the project for which I had been placed under. Back then, I was only a sac of organs trapped in an endless nutrient tube. The councilor had been provided with a tour of the facility where I was housed and chanced upon me, taking a sudden interest in my pathetic form. We struck up a dialogue; he wished to know what I wanted most and what he could do to help me. No one had asked such things of me before. I merely responded that I wanted my life to have a purpose. I wanted to have control over my own will again. I wanted my freedom. There had been no reason for the councilor to feel fear at all in my presence—perhaps he saw in me a kindred spirit. Perhaps he glimpsed the personification of raw desire and potential—a pure yearning to prove my worth. He immediately ordered the construction of a new body, my initial form, and for me to be placed inside it. All I had to do was ask… and he gave me everything.
When I had learned that Anderson had passed on board the Citadel in the final minutes of the war, I felt no remorse for his memory. Anderson would not have wanted sadness. The man had gone out exactly as he would have wanted, to have his mere existence become an insult towards the Reapers. It did not stop me, however, from regretting that I could never thank him one final time, for showing me a modicum of kindness and for fostering—albeit unintentionally—a bold new future twice over."
Final Monograph: Transcriptions of an Augury
Unknown Author, (pg. 60)
Reprinted by permission of Purdue University
Menhir
Captain's Cabin
Garrus coughed into the back of his hand. Burning in his esophagus and deeper. Far deeper. Not the usual sort of discomfort that would succeed a night of heavy drinking, for example. No, for the pain itself was genetic, scrawled over his original code to create a new tapestry of his foundation. Heredity in flux—bodily error codes being thrown up all over the place.
He pulled his hand away. The skin on his palm was flecked blue.
Great.
The turian headed to the bathroom and filled a cup with water, but not before another coughing fit overtook him and he sagged against the basin, hearing his own explosive upheavals being echoed straight back into his ears. Roughed and hollow. He did not know how long he remained there, but by the time he finally lifted his head away, the sink was half stained with his own blood. A grim acceptance started to fall upon Garrus; he simply placed his hands on both sides of the sink, propping him upright, and he balefully stared down into the unwashed bowl, ignoring his reflection in the mirror, looking at what he had just deposited.
There was a metallic taste in his mouth and he was starting to feel dizzy. He did not think he had lost that much blood in such a short amount of time, but his body was telling him otherwise. After a few minutes had passed, Garrus washed out worst of the damage in the sink, consumed a fair amount of water to wash away the blood, and dabbed at the edges of his mouth with disposable cloths to scour away the blue flecks that had accumulated at his edges.
In a cruel sense, Garrus dimly considered, he now understood what it felt to live out the final days of his best friends. Tali had lived her last minutes, shallow breath after shallow breath, tied up to machines in a sterile hospital, fighting to push back the encroaching tide of radiation sickness. It had been eating away at Shepard for who knows how long, too, but other forces had gotten to him before the cellular decay could, which had perhaps been the most merciful stroke.
This… churning of his insides. A boiling sensation around his gut and intestines. It was almost as if he could imagine his cells rotting away, disintegrating as the radiation tore them apart. All from such a tiny shard of polonium.
With a shaking hand, Garrus ran his fingers down his face, lightly scratching at his carapace. Producing the vaguest of sensations to distract him from the cramping near his stomach. Some days he could fully ignore the pain, drive it down with drugs. Today would be one of the bad days, he anticipated. And they were only going to get worse, from every passing moment until it would finally take him.
Anything to avoid the hospital bed, Garrus promised himself. Better to go out on my own two feet than in a hospital bed. I can't go like Tali did. I can't fight like that.
Liara was walking into his room at the same time he was heading out of the bathroom. The asari's eyes flicked to the sink just behind Garrus, not missing the scratched remnants of dried blood that Garrus had failed to clean out completely from his sloppy efforts.
She then looked back up at him, admonishment practically radiating from her steel blue eyes. Silent rebukes, for she intrinsically could put together the pieces in an instant within her head. It was all in how Garrus carried himself, how he held a stoic front together, a disguise to fool everyone else into thinking that everything was okay in his own little world. But nothing could get through Liara. Not with Garrus. She had known him too long for there to be any secrets between them. He could hide the pain from others—not from her.
Garrus tilted his head, expecting the asari's vocal reproach, but none came. Chiding him was not why Liara was here in the first place, at any rate.
"Sagan's brought the Menhir out of the relay system," she said methodically, but the tone of her voice was rather strained. "We have 71 Orr on scopes right now. We'll be in gravitational range in twenty minutes. Estimated."
The familiar periwinkle hue of the Serpent Nebula was already seeping through the cabin's skylight, turning the interior of the room a thin shade of mauve.
"Feels weird being back," Garrus admitted as he stared up towards the ghostly arms of the cosmic phenomenon. "Haven't been in this system since the war. Back when the Citadel used to be here."
He then moved towards the queen-sized bed at the far end of the cabin. The turian's armor had been laid upon it, looking strangely small without an owner donning it.
"The crew," Garrus continued. "Are they ready?"
"Down in the hangar bay," Liara affirmed. "Waiting for their captain."
"Hmm," the turian said and that was all he had in response.
Garrus then sat upon the bed so that he could slide his feet into his boots. He did this slowly, deliberately, to allay any discomfort that still lingered within him. It made it easier to hide his grimaces that way. He bent down and clicked the three latches on each boot, snugly securing them before he moved to his shin guards. He lined the interior notches against the ones on his bodysuit. Magnetic panels snapped the armor pieces to his body and automatically tightened upon registering their connection.
The turian proceeded with his ritual in absolute silence, in almost a religious sort of fervor. Liara stood by at the foot of the tiny staircase that led down to the lower half of the cabin, simply watching. Garrus slowly intruded himself into his cavernous chestpiece once he had dressed himself up to his waist. He had to spend a few minutes linking the electronics—his shield generator, software drivers for his weapons, life support calibration—before he started on anything else. He brushed at a faint mark that had been scraped onto the lower left side of his armor. A close call on Tuchanka—lucky strike from a marauder after an EMP burst had momentarily fried his shields. Garrus had learned to not be quite as hasty in his full-frontal assaults from that point on.
His shoulder pads were then connected and fitted at their sockets. He slid on his gauntlets and forearm guards soon after. The turian made sure that the armor for his hands had no play in them whatsoever, giving him as fierce of a grip as he would have without them. The scrapes and scratches that resided upon the armor like tattoos told stories, tales of the wearer skirting death time and time again. This was armor that had seen its master's blood spilled upon it, the very blood it had been designed to safeguard. Today, it would be called upon to perform that same service, just like it would receive the same call not so far into the future.
As Garrus was fiddling with his eyepiece, a piece of curved glass based on a Kuwashii visor, Liara walked away from where she had been leaning against the wall, her eyes never having left her friend.
"The Alliance went to great lengths to hide this planet, and their outpost, from the galaxy," she said. "Yet another case of offering friendship in one hand, while hiding the knife in the other. You think they actually discovered anything of note in that place? Who knows what could be down there…"
"We'll find out soon enough," Garrus did not look up as he tugged at the bodysuit at his wrists, in between the thick plates of armor. "But, honestly? I don't really care what we find. What's more important is the 'if'. If we find something. And if that something leads us closer to the end of all this. At this point, that's all I want to find."
He stood, keeping his eyes shut throughout the action, and stifled a string of coughs. Liara noticed his thin wheezes and moved closer, placing a hand upon his chestplate.
"Don't make us go through this again," she whispered, almost urgently. "Not with you. If you need to wait to get better, then wait. This is not worth killing yourself over."
Garrus slowly looked down at the splayed hand that Liara had upon his chest and gave a long sigh. He did not peel it off. The simple pressure she applied was a valuable support that seemed to be the only thing keeping him on his own two feet. He knew it and she knew it. The turian could not hide the momentary flash of sadness that marred his features, a subtle proclamation of his own shame towards his circumstance.
"It's not that simple…" he began to say.
Liara's gaze turned hard. "I've heard that too many times to believe it."
"But it's the truth. I wish the solution was as obvious for me as it is for you. You're probably so very right, Liara. But I can't stop. I don't know how. I feel ill just remaining still."
"Because you imagine yourself carrying the weight of billions on your shoulders," the asari said. "You mix your pain with theirs, thinking it's easier to manage that way."
Garrus eyes looked cloudy, as if he was slowly becoming lost right in front of Liara.
"What else should I do?" His arms weakly raised a fraction at his sides.
The eyes of Liara never departed from his own, but there was a slight faltering of color in the woman, a regret at the circumstance at being posed such a question but lacking the qualifications to back up her own opinion.
Instead, she firmed her stance after taking a breath.
"I love you," she said. "Like Tali loved you. Like Shepard loved you. Like Roahn loves you. We've all been through so much, together. To suffer through… to even imagine the possibility of working yourself to your death—perhaps even needlessly—would… would be too much. You did not deserve this."
Garrus' mandibles gave a singular twitch as he narrowed his look. "Afraid that it never really mattered, what I deserved."
"The point is that you were meant for so much better. A life to live freely, without a heavy conscience. Shepard would not have asked you to give so much."
The turian's affixed glare caught Liara off guard. It was almost as if he was saying 'How dare you presume to think for Shepard' before his stare softened. Feeling guilty. He looked back at the plum dust clouds swirling by through the skylight, a low thrum reverberating through his throat, before he spoke in a soft growl.
"No… he would not have been the one to ask, Liara. But he would have offered the entirely of himself—freely—without asking for anyone's opinion. That was his burden of command; no one to definitively tell him 'no.' I could never have understood it had I not been offered to stand in similar shoes. And I can't help but feel angry at myself for being so ignorant at not realizing the full extent of his duty. The sheer hubris of me to even imagine I could match it… but I can't take that decision back. I wouldn't, even knowing what I know now."
"Garrus…" Liara breathed.
The turian cut her off with a curt shake of his head. "I don't care that I'll never be what Shepard was. But my conscience will never be lightened if I don't try to be. I owe that to that man. That, I know for a fact, is what I deserve."
71 Orr
aka Outpost 99
A quick glance out the window showed that 71 Orr was not a planet with a whole lot of defining features. The atmosphere was thin, with a sky the color of melted silver. Being adrift for millennia had completely reduced the planet's crust to the bare essentials: dirt, rock, and frozen particulates of water. Invading tinges of color from the surrounding nebula very frequently interrupted the skyline, like gaseous veins singed by delicate fire chroma of the stars inside the phenomenon. But it was clear that, if it were not for the planet's very irregular orbit, there would be little here that would make it a waypoint of interest to anyone with the exception of mining companies.
The prospect of infiltrating a top-secret Alliance outpost had certainly lost its allure for Roahn. After busting so many of them in such a comparatively small amount of time, the novelty had certainly worn off in short order. That was not to say that she was feeling no amount of anticipation in this moment, just that a small tinge of boredom had begun to infiltrate her normally attentive consciousness.
Some small relief in regards to her upcoming incursion was that Outpost 99 was a facility greatly reduced in size compared to the ones that she had visited on Earth, Luna, and Triton. It certainly was deserving of the moniker 'Outpost' as external scans could only pick up a singular structure that had built half-sunken into the ground and then re-covered with dry and frozen topsoil. A landing pad—field might be a more accurate term—had been flattened near the building, long enough to accommodate a sizeable frigate. An autonomous landing gate was connected to the domicile, constantly scanning for entry points on arriving craft so that its wheeled base would move forward and connect the docking tunnel at the appropriate location.
The Menhir had summarily landed on the field, throwing up a shockwave of gray dust, and had already completed the handshake protocols to the jetbridge, allowing immediate access to the outpost beyond. No need to have used the Kodiak for this mission, as that would provide some reassurances to the squad venturing inside the facility that the full might of Umbra Team could be mobilized in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.
Before disembarking, Roahn had sent out a few scanning drones from the safety of the Menhir, not wanting to stumble upon any unexpected surprises like last time. The drones—digital wire-frame spheres—zoomed off down the halls and began subjecting the interior of Outpost 99 to a bevy of wavelength scans: infrared, UV, sonar, radiometric, amongst an array of substantial suites.
In less than two minutes, the drones had compiled a 3D map of the facility that now appeared on everyone's omni-tool to peruse. The outpost, just like Roahn had figured, was not all that large on the inside and was only comprised of four rooms. Small-scale, not built to house a garrison. The nature of which awaited them within was not immediately apparent from the scan, but the drones had picked up faint traces of still-active electronic equipment. Nuclear power source, Roahn figured, if the tools inside still had power. One fortunate bit of news was that there was nothing to indicate that any mercenaries or cyborgs were waiting inside to perform an ambush for whoever came knocking—none of those scans had been tripped or had registered alerts of interest. Roahn would still remain on edge, but she allowed herself a small feeling of relief, knowing that there was nothing to hassle her in this place.
At the risk of having redundant roles, Garrus had whittled his squad down to just him, Roahn, and Liara for this quick mission. A last-minute change on his part, but he could afford to skimp on the brawn when he had a pretty good feeling that they would not be walking into the arms of an awaiting army.
The three headed across the jetbridge, which creaked with every step they took like a percussion section out of tempo. The interior of Outpost 99 was not much to look at—but at least the motion sensors were functioning enough to activate upon detecting the trio. Scattered and strobing lights flashed to reveal a cramped entryway, quadrilateral-shaped, with everything covered in a thick layer of dust. Everyone's O2 sensors were detecting that the air here was stale, but slightly breathable, yet that was not enough to dissuade any of them from removing the coverings they had either placed over their heads and faces, keeping all of them locked within their own safe atmospheres. The polarized "Y" of Garrus helmet refused to let his eyes peer through the blackened slit, the clear bubble Liara's gas mask slightly fogged where she breathed out, and Roahn quietly sucked in her own breaths back behind the gentle curve of her helmet, slightly miffed. In spite of the lengths she went to venture outside her enviro-suit, she was continually frustrated at the fact that she could never part with it for long, out of necessity. What good was having a fully functioning immune system if she could not reap the advantages for long?
Despite the clear indication that no one had been here for quite some time, Roahn was surprised to see that everything was perfunctorily in place, as if someone had stepped out with the intention of quickly coming back. There were no strewn cables along the ground, scattered datapads that skewed the desks, or any misalignment in the electronic wallboards that had otherwise been crudely bolted onto the sides of the facility. But what was also of interest, that Roahn soon noticed, was that the interior lacked a certain aesthetic: personal touches. There was nothing to remotely reflect that any hint of individualization had taken place here. Any normal person would be naturally driven to stake a personal claim to their territory, whether it be in the form of posters, drawings, pictures, or any other specific statements that would act as a signature for visitors, to let them know whose domain they had entered.
"Nothing out of place, not even any trash," Garrus noted, mirroring Roahn's sentiments. His helmet caused his voice to have an additional layer of granularity. "Almost as if no one ever set foot here."
"Aleph has no use for trinkets or cheap baubles," Roahn said as she wrote a thick line in the dust alongside the doorframe. Her fingertip came away chalk-white. "He's never been one for splendor."
The four rooms in total amounted to the entryway, a tight living quarters, a closet, and an office with a workstation. Roahn and Liara headed for the office while Garrus took the living quarters. Inside the office were sprawling towers of what Roahn could immediately see were sets of complex listening equipment. The bundles of cabling that speared into the back of each unit had been meticulously zip-tied and routed towards the center console—an actual physical keyboard and grid-like set of nine flatscreens. Primitive tech at first glance, but at the benefit of legendary reliability. Interestingly enough, beyond the desk was a wide window that opened up past the facility's mound to stare out towards the jagged hemisphere, giving the occupant a view of both the planet and the magnificent nebula. Aleph may have lacked the desire to spread his personal stamps abound, but he certainly did love a room with a view.
"This is old tech," Roahn marveled, remembering her days of wild-eyed wonder while sifting through her mother's workshop. She tapped at one of the screens. "Several decades at least. It had to have already been outdated by twelve generations when it was actually built—military hardware stays deliberately behind to reduce threats of obsolescence."
Roahn then examined the thick columns of gray electronics, nudging the matte faceplates, flicking at the physical buttons, and following the path of the cabling around the room.
"The tech's not advanced enough to be compatible with more cutting-edge software," she said. "The radomes on the roof here are small, not easily detectible. It contributes to the theory that Outpost 99 was set up to only monitor local communications in the system. Well within range of the Citadel. But the outmoded electronics also mean that newer systems won't be able to pick up the wavelength tracking that this place emits."
She let her hand trail down the side of the metal shelving as she looked down at the lone chair in front of the desk. It lacked any substantive padding and wires trailed out from the bottom of the seat, the silver circles of input jack ports now visible upon the spine and armrests of the chair. The quarian let herself imagine the spindly initial form of Aleph in that very spot, endlessly toiling away as cables and wires connected him to the chair and the facility itself, perhaps hunched in front of the screens, staring wide-eyed into the cyberspace of data, listening to the hum of the electronics all around him. This room must have been filled with the constant clacking of prosthetic fingers against mechanical keys. Chattering away like an endless hailstorm. His first taste of a galaxy completely open to him.
"The Alliance must have built this place immediately after Relay 314," Liara said, referencing humanity's first contact incident. "A species with every right to be paranoid comes across the perfect perch to set up a listening post and takes advantage of the opportunity. I assume you're familiar with the Alliance's Project STALWART PORT?"
"Enlighten me."
"Code name for their top-secret surveillance project. Only a handful of people were even aware of its existence when the idea was broached. The assignment was to build listening posts at certain locations with the specific intent of spying on the other Council races. After the disastrous introduction to the turians I suspect the humans wanted to make sure they were not surprised by anyone ever again, even if they approached under the guise of friendship. The project was abandoned early on when it was reasoned that sending nuke-armed probes through the relay network on stealth recon missions would yield better results. As far as I know, there were no official locations built under STALWART PORT's reach."
"Official?"
Liara's head turned in a shallow arc, a thin smile on her lips. "Wouldn't be the first time a government has kept something off the books."
Roahn crossed her arms, visor hiding a scowl. "Perfect place to hide another of the Alliance's dirty secrets. Who knows the scope of the damage caused by Aleph from all the years he spent holed up here, spying for the Alliance, compiling the data from the signals he intercepted?"
"And this was the last place the Alliance tagged him before they lost track of him?"
"I don't have an exact timeline of the events, but between the end of the war and until a couple decades ago, he vanished from all contact entirely. He probably used the relocation of the Citadel as cover for his escape when the Reapers arrived in-system, but who's to say for certain?"
Roahn's head then twitched back towards the desk, her blood chilling for a terrible second. Someone was now in the chair, seemingly having appeared out of nowhere, but Roahn relaxed, her gut unclenching, when she saw that it was just the image of her mother. Liara kept musing to herself, unable to see the specter. Tali then turned in the chair, looked straight at her daughter, and playfully gave her head a tilt in the direction of the monitors. Something worthwhile in the databases, perhaps? Something easily accessible?
Flicking her back towards the door had the effect of causing Tali's image to vanish from sight, relegating the chair back to its previous empty state, but Roahn did not react to the departure with sorrow. She looked back to Liara, who was similarly examining the tall black towers of sensitive equipment, puzzling over the curious markings upon the controls in the guttural human language.
"Liara," Roahn said, doing an admirable job at keeping her voice level, "Garrus has kept quiet all this time. Why don't you go see if he needs any help where he's at?"
The asari straightened, obviously puzzled over this request.
"You sure? You've got everything handled here?"
Roahn momentarily paused, uncertain of why she had said such a thing, but all she knew, all she was adamant about was the sheer instinct that she would make the final stretch all by herself. It was instinctual for her.
"I've got it," she assured. "I just want to check on one thing."
After the asari had left, Roahn set to work rummaging underneath the desk. The main database console was a prismatic brick in matte steel finish, with a bevy of old-fashioned LED lights waiting darkened and abandoned on its face. Roahn had to feel around on the back for any cords that were out of place. Her fingers came upon a switch—she used her suit's wrist cameras to project a feed into her helmet. She stared at the odd symbol imprinted upon the switch: a circle with a line going through the top. Very strange, but there was nothing else back here that otherwise drew her attention. She flicked the control.
She was immediately rewarded with a low hum—all the diodes flashed simultaneously and the console unit began to warm. Roahn maneuvered her way into the desk chair and saw that the console screens had all ignited. Tiny cursors in the corners were winking as one, awaiting the input of a long-awaited command.
Roahn recognized the programming language right off the bat. Even though the hardware was old, the Alliance had kept it reasonably up to date for the time the base was operational. Granted, the software was older than her, but that was besides the point. In no time, she had the entire directory up and at her disposal. Roahn theorized that either the Alliance placed very little security parameters in the system here, either out of sheer cockiness in believing that no unauthorized person would ever set foot in this place, or that the amount of time being switched offline and disconnected from the main Alliance server had degraded the protocols somewhat badly and inexplicably.
All the files were arranged alphabetically, using a simple alphanumeric key. Most of them were audio clips, probably shreds of conversations plucked out of space by Aleph's greedy fingers to be collected and collated into a weekly report. Roahn swiped her fingers on the motion sensing pad in frustration, turning the ordered list into a cascading flow as the files zipped by faster than she could blink.
Something is here. Something that should be obvious. What am I missing?
At the top of the file window, Roahn scanned the array of filters before her and clicked a couple of times on each one in the vague hopes of finding a pattern. File name, clip type, length, view count…
View count.
Arranging the files by the number of times viewed revealed a stark outlier. Every single file on the server that she could see had a view count of just "1". Every single file… with a notable exception. One particular video clip stood proudly at the top, the tallied count of its total views standing out at a colossal "13,484." A file that had been played time after time again. On repeat. For days on end. Like verbal white noise, simmering in the background.
Aleph had played this file for a reason, Roahn figured. There had been something on it that had piqued his interest. Put it on an endless loop so that he would never forget the information upon it, to have every single word and slight little noise seared into his brain.
There was little hesitation on Roahn's part as she commanded the console to play the file.
A tiny window popped up on the middle screen. Distorted digital snow for a few seconds before the image finally consolidated into something tangible.
In the vid, two men in medical garb, Alliance issue. Both human. One graying, the other with a thinning head of hair. Standing next to a partition in a medical theater—delicate instruments on aluminum trays could be glimpsed just beyond, as could vertical tubes large enough to house a person while white frozen gas billowed about the operating room through the chilled glass.
The two doctors were engaged in idle chit-chat. Or so it seemed.
"—Trask Base has confirmed. We're going to be heading into a code purple in the next two hours. Rest of the team's been informed—you're the last one," the gray-haired doctor was saying.
The thin-haired doctor put a hand to his chin. "When was the last time you were in a code purple? Must have been months."
"Years, maybe. And certainly not here."
"Transport crew sent over a diagnosis? We using rad or biologic suits for this one?"
The senior doctor shook his head. "Radiation's a non-factor. We'll be in our biosuits. Got an unknown pathogen in play—supposedly it's a tricky bastard."
"How tricky?"
"The poor sap they're bringing in had to be put in cryo, it was so bad. Whatever it is, it was eating away at their eyeballs, last we heard."
"Jesus."
"I know," the first doctor said as he flipped on a pair of medical goggles. "Exciting, isn't it?"
The second doctor turned away, considering.
"Nature of the infection means that it's localized to the nervous system. Could either by caused by a virus or prion. The patient—they someone important?"
Again, the first doctor gave a definitive shake of his head. "We weren't sent over any Alliance ID. The patient's not the subject of interest. It's the infection, or rather, what caused the infection that has command so intrigued."
The junior doctor gave a harsh laugh. "We're being gifted a guinea pig. Where'd they pick the patient up?"
"Caleston Rift," the superior man said after checking his omni-tool, tone indicated that the location held little interest to him, but to the quarian watching it after the fact, it meant everything. "World called Rotev."
"Rotev," Roahn whispered, her vocabulator just barely blinking to her hushed voice.
On the screen, the second doctor gave a shrug. "Never heard of it," he said before he tilted his head. "The Alliance has colonies way out there in the Rift?"
"The colony wasn't ours. The emergency was radioed in after being bounced off half a dozen signal relays."
"Independent corporation, then?"
"Colony wasn't even run by humans, but that's the limit of our need-to-know basis. Don't ask me how a single human managed to wind up in the middle of a planet hardly anyone knows about, because I don't know."
"I won't ask then," the second doctor said as he threw on a lab coat. "I'll go ahead and prep the med-suite to thaw the patient out as soon as they arrive. No telling what the temperature limit is on the infection to activate, so I'll program drones to be on standby to stabilize."
"Very well. Once you have everything prepped, I'll be taking cell specimens as soon as we can get samples that are pharmacologically viable. We'll need to formulate treatment before cortical atrophy can take place. Relieve any excess pressure around the brain. You'll need to—"
Spasmatic noise drowned out the latter part of the conversation, the file itself being too corrupted to proceed further. Roahn sat at the desk, hunched forward, as though she expected the screen to gift her additional knowledge. She then leaned back, breathing tightly, realizing that she had indeed been bestowed something powerful. Something important, indeed.
"He came from Rotev," she said out loud.
One more location on the endless treasure hunt. But at least she now had a definitive endpoint from where the Alliance had kept tabs on Aleph all this time. His origin began at Rotev—surely the answers she sought were there.
There was a knock at the doorframe. Roahn nearly jumped in her seat as if she had been shot. Garrus stood there, looking somewhat concerned, Liara filing out towards the exit behind him.
"Wasn't anything in the other rooms that was to our benefit," the turian said. "Daresay I ask that the drives here contained anything useful?"
Like a deer in headlights, Roahn blankly looked back at her captain. Her lips almost moved of their own accord, to confirm the discovery she had just highlighted in an effort to produce the antithetical effect of producing results outside of his illustrious hopes.
But something stayed her voice. As if wind refused to whistle through her throat.
For one fleeting, hopeless, insane moment, Roahn had the inclination, one that she acted upon, to stay mum in the face of a greater calling. Her visor shielding her from intense contemplation, her momentarily abashed expression could not be glimpsed or known by anyone other than herself, allowing her enough time to bring her impulses under fierce control. Her mind travelled to times far less conducive to her situation: her mother withering away in a hospital bed, her father screaming as he was chained against the Monolith, Skye jolting as a bullet passed through her stomach. It was as if she could take all those memories and impart them upon Garrus—for one horrific second, she could see half his face coated in blood, before another blink washed the imperfections away. The very thought left her shivering, to know that the man right in front of her could be in more pain than he already was. And she decided, in that moment, that such a thing could never come to pass. No more people would get hurt on her behalf. This was not their fight, but hers.
If her whole life led towards this moment, deciding the fate of everyone she ever knew, everyone she ever cared about, then she would have proclaimed its relative worth to be substantial. It was not that everyone else was a distraction to her, but that she had gauged the amount of pain she had deemed to be acceptable and found herself with a relatively large amount of credit. If she even remotely had such power to forestall such unacceptable consequences…
She shook her head. "No," she said, hollowly. "Console's useless. It's a dead end."
Roahn half expected Garrus to challenge her claim, to be dubious towards her conclusion. To her surprise, he accepted her statement without question, a frustrated sigh escaping from his own mouth.
"I was afraid as much," he grimaced, not necessarily in her direction. "Just… grab what you can and make it back to the Menhir. No real reason for us to linger any longer."
His fraught concession was almost enough to concern Roahn. Almost.
"You… don't want to see if we can delve anything from these drives?" she asked. Best to keep up appearances.
Garrus' shake of his head was confident. His mistake. But it was quite clear that the turian was hiding his frustration.
"I trust you. If there's nothing there… there's nothing there. Make a clone of the database and then report back to the Menhir. We're not sticking around any longer than necessary."
Roahn nodded and then stood. Her legs felt like they were lined with lead.
"Next order of business?"
"Rendezvous with Cirae. It's about all we can do at this point. Hopefully she's had better luck with her leads than we have."
Atoll Stoa
Conference Room Talat
It was hard for Cirae to keep from feeling uneasy, sitting at the circular table. Fourteen people in total—herself included—all positioned like spokes on a gear around the table made out of a polished volcanic rock, with white veins of marble melted into the cracks and sealed over with varnish. She tried to keep herself poised, but this chair was uncomfortable and lacked appropriate padding.
The natural color of her blue skin acted as a splash of vibrancy that otherwise brightened up the dull gray and beige of the conference room. It was brightly lit here, which made Cirae long for the private and darkened desks she had been using while on the Galactic Assembly. While that previous governing body had convened in a tiered amphitheater, the United Synod's highest council chose to conduct their business in a slightly different setting. The conference table sat at the lowest level of the room, also circular, like it was at the bottom of a sloped dish. Unlike the Galactic Assembly, which was closed off to the public, there was a separate level above the ground floor, ringing around the room, that offered seats to whomever wanted to sit in upon the meetings. The forum was oddly public and the notion of having so many studious eyes potentially upon her caused a crawling sensation to make its way along the asari's back.
Cirae glanced up—James and Jack were occupying one of the seats in the front row of the ring, the two having filed in upon learning of the upcoming gathering of legislators. She tipped them a vague nod as she caught their eyes.
She then studied her fellow councilmembers.
Four humans, three asari (counting herself), three turians, two salarians, an elcor, and a raloi. Cirae was disheartened to learn that five of the members had not come from a career in politics, but had been instead involved in other areas not related to legislation. They had either been executives of well-known corporations or notorious business consultants. One of them had even been the CFO of a large bank back on Earth. A bank!
Cirae had not exactly been pleased to learn the backgrounds of her fellow politicians either, come to think of it. One of the humans had been the Secretary of the Interior to a vastly unpopular electoral candidate. A salarian here had been a campaign manager for an incumbent which massively failed in securing a substantial portion of the popular vote. The other salarian and one of the turians had been previously jailed for accepting political bribes. The elcor was a known pushover. The list of their "achievements", or lack thereof, read like a laundry list of resume padding. It was complete crap. Now she knew why Pry'cor held such contempt for her comrades at this table.
The raloi was seated directly to Cirae's right, drawing heavy breaths around the two tubes at the corners of her beak. The two had shared wearied glances since arriving in the room together, watching everyone else slowly file in. The asari suspected that Pry'cor had no desire to interact with her colleagues, much less look at them, which was probably one of the reasons why she kept to the kitchens in her spare time. Naturally very skittish, this one. Cirae was far more used to the networking aspects of being a politician—either that or she took the people of this galaxy for granted, unlike the raloi, who had yet to become acclimated to all of its quirks—and had used all of last night to schmooze with most of the people who were now seated among her. This way, they could skip the formalities of what all new members of a group had to undergo, which included having to introduce herself and her background, along with verbally noting what was her favorite vid, what was a fun fact about her…
The table was filled with pitchers of water. Cirae grabbed herself a glass and poured it halfway full. Pry'cor then tapped at a chime button, producing a light bell that rung about the room. Slowly, the chatter from the risers died down to a simmer, and finally a murmured silence.
Cirae looked around. They did not have a secretary or any other person around to record votes or tally participation. Perhaps the Synod was so hastily put together that they had not smoothed out the roughened edges of this barebones government. Still, the sloppy hierarchy was not a good omen.
Pry'cor began the meeting with her raspy timbre.
"Councilors, thank you for attending. To the people respectfully seated above, know that you are witnessing history today. I welcome the honor of working beside my newest colleague, Cirae Idetha, who I'm told you've all met prior to this convocation. Still, we should be courteous in welcoming her with a greeting that someone of her stature deserves."
The room burst into applause. Ciare wanted to slink into her seat and melt into a puddle. She had not even spoken a word and already all eyes were on her. Not a good start, but from the way that people were kindly looking upon her, she deemed there were more unpleasant fates to be dealt.
The raloi lifted a taloned hand to signal the applause to cease. "No doubt we are all looking forward to working with you, Councilor Idetha—"
Councilor Idetha. Okay, she liked that.
"—and that you will appreciate the timing of your arrival for being present at such a formative moment."
Cirae tipped her head in acknowledgement. Never an inopportune time to show gratitude. The raloi had a good composure about her and commanded a good cadence to her speech, knowing what words to use at the highest lulls of silence in the room around her.
Pry'cor then raised a hand, engaging a rectangular screen in front of her. She tapped at a few icons to bring up a document, which now similarly flashed upon everyone else's screen as well, lighting another ragged ring around the table.
"Pursuant to the charters that manifested this United Synod, I call up the resolution S-Res. 20, dubbed in the local tabloids as the Atoll Stoa Affair, to begin immediate proceedings to sue the warring belligerents—known as the Thrustrian Confederates or by simply the Radius, as I believe they're preferring to be called now—to initiate peace talks with the United Synod. I ask for immediate consideration in this council."
Cirae's fingers began to curl on the table. So, this was the resolution that Pry'cor had been referring to during their meeting back down in the kitchens. The so-called Synod's hare-brained attempt at locating a patchwork conclusion to a war in which they would certainly find no favorable circumstances. Then again, the "councilors" here were all people that had probably never been in combat before. More like they were worried about what this war was doing to their financial interests. Won't someone think of those precious He3 wells? Conflicts of interest were plentiful here, almost certainly.
She staggered a breath. This was fine. As long as Pry'cor was heading this, perhaps the two of them would be able to force a passionate argument in defense of letting such a resolution die in this room right here, right now. As long as they had a chance to make their positions known in this public forum, to get evidence on the record, they had a very good chance.
Yet it seemed so odd that Pry'cor seemed so calm, Cirae noticed.
"There will be no yielding of minutes to exchange remarks," Pry'cor said evenly, which already began to alarm Cirae. Something was wrong. "No extraneous material will be submitted, either. The resulting motion is quite clear-cut. It is in the perspective of many at this table, that continuing to support a war in which victory increasingly looks out of reach is not a viable path for the citizenry of the galaxy, nor its infrastructure. After enduring so much, finding a swift and amicable conclusion to a needless conflict could be considered the sensible course of action. We have not gathered here to manage the circumstances of pursuing such dramatic action. If an accepting vote has been gathered, then it will be our just duty to engage in proceedings right away. With that said, I shall officially order the question on the resolution—adopting S-Res. 20. Simple majority is needed. Begin votes with a show of hands."
A smattering of hands rose around the table. Cirae watched them all, judging them. Cowards.
Eight hands in total. A disappointment, but the real vote had yet to come.
"The question has been taken," Pry'cor announced.
One of the turians tapped the table with a slender finger. "Councilor, on that, I demand the vote on the question."
The raloi seemed to ruffle out of a nameless emotion. "Vote has been ordered. Simple majority—same circumstances. Those for?"
There was an immediately surging of hands all around the table, so fast it seemed to Cirae like spears had just punched out of the ground all around her body. All of them. Every single one of them had their hands raised.
Even Pry'cor.
Cirae turned her head, mouth falling open a couple millimeters. The raloi momentarily glanced over at her before staring back forward. A careless shrug. Static fizzled in Cirae's brain, hopelessly lost. All this time, she thought she had been sitting next to an influential ally. Now it was apparent that Pry'cor was just like the rest—self-absorbed and so unabashedly stupid. Only she had been more snake-like in her approach, lulling Cirae into a sense of security before she struck. The asari was so flabbergasted that she was almost impressed at the garishness of such a move.
Holding back a smirk, Pry'cor unleashed a quiet chuckle through the gaps in her beak. The feathers at her head twitched as she gave a preen.
"And those opposed?" she seemed to sneer.
A light snarl twisting her lips, Cirae defiantly raised her hand. Fine. She would be tied to this folly if it was going to come to that, but she would let everyone know what stance she had taken the day everything went to hell. She could at least be proud she never lost her conviction. Never whored herself out to the lobbyists and the capitalists. In her mind, she imagined her raised hand to be a loud "Fuck you" to Pry'cor. A solemn promise that she would not let this humiliation turn her docile.
Of course, she could always just say the words to Pry'cor right now, but that would hardly be fitting the sort of decorum that politicians were expected to embody, now would it?
"The ayes have it," Pry'cor said proudly as she switched off the screen in front of her. Already washing her hands clean of this debacle. "The Synod will next begin to introduce detailed proceedings for our forthcoming contact with the confederates in our upcoming congress. S-Res. 20 is passed. You can be proud, everyone, for you have just secured the end to this war."
For the second time today, the room rang out in thunderous applause. All except Cirae, James, and Jack, who were sitting in a stunned silence as the raucous crowd clamored their approval.
A fucking sham, the asari darkly thought. If this were a vid, this would be the part where she would rise from her seat, confront Pry'cor in dramatic fashion, and proceed to launch into a speech that called out every single member of the Synod for their stupidity and short-sightedness for giving up on themselves, and the galaxy in circumspect. But since life could not be nicely wrapped up in a two-hour running time accompanied by a fitting soundtrack, Cirae remained in her seat, well aware of her place in this government. Her ever-shrinking place, it seemed.
Still proudly grinning, Pry'cor held up her hands to bring about an end to the celebration. Cirae absolutely could not stand the smugness that radiated from the raloi—it was hard to keep the urge from slapping the taste out of Pry'cor's mouth from becoming more than just a fantasy in her head. Hard to believe she had just been in awe of this woman hours earlier.
"Sometimes it is unfortunate that we must deal with the larger items first during our sessions," the raloi said. "It gives the appearance—and the sensation—that such other matters could be deemed as… auxiliary. But let our minds clear for now. There will be far more chances to celebrate the good news. We still have plenty to do today."
Do we really? Cirae nearly crossed her arms. Pry'cor did have a point that anything else that was going to be discussed today would be small beans compared to the disaster at the start of this damn thing.
The raloi now consulted her notes, but did not share the same documents with the rest of the councilors. She then leaned forward and folded her taloned hands together.
"Today, we will be presiding over a complicated matter. It had recently come to the attention of the Synod that two individuals had infiltrated the Atoll Stoa with the explicit intent of destabilizing the foundations of our union. Whether the terms of their sabotage were in the form of subterfuge or destruction of property, we will soon find that out together. Fortunately, they had been caught and jailed before they could enact any part of their plan. Today, we shall be hearing their testimonies, but make no mistake, we will be deciding their fate judiciously. In this very room."
On the next level, James and Jack shared a look. The brig. The guard said there had been two prisoners there.
Down below, Pry'cor beckoned with a hand in the direction of a side door. "Bring in the prisoners, please."
Ten seconds later, two human guards in Synod armoring came tromping out in a relaxed but even gait. Between them were two other humans, comparatively diminutive due to their own lack of armor plating. The uniforms the prisoners wore were Alliance dress blues. Cirae could see that, between the two of them, they had amassed quite the impressive array of campaign ribbons and medals. Alliance saboteurs of the free navies, then, or perhaps more of Aleph's cronies? Judging by their accomplishments, amateurs had not been sent out to disrupt the Synod's proceedings (though the asari probably would have not minded, in the long run, had they succeeded in whatever they had attempted to do.)
However, once Cirae got a better look at the faces of the prisoners, she instinctively frowned. Not because they looked particularly fearsome, but because they looked oddly familiar to her. She had never seen these people in person before in her life, but that did not mean that she did not know them.
And others were having the same reaction, judging by the shocked expressions James and Jack were currently donning on the floor above. Cirae arched an eyebrow at the conduct of the soldiers—they certainly had gotten themselves into quite the agitated state.
Meanwhile, Pry'cor had not appeared to have noticed any of the discontent that was brewing around her. "This council calls the accused to the stand. For the crimes of espionage against the United Synod, this council formally decrees the sentencing of the participants: Command Chief Petty Officer Samantha Traynor, and Major Steve Cortez—"
"Oh, the hell you will!" James shouted right as he vaulted over the second floor's riser, Jack hot on his heels.
The two landed on the story just below, upon one of the tiered staircases, biotic pressure zones generated by Jack cushioning their falls. The guard closest to the entrance turned, almost lethargically, to see more than two hundred pounds of solid marine marching his way. The guard put a hand on his gun but did not withdraw it, splaying out his other hand as a first-line defense to halt James' advance.
"Stop, or I'll—" he was in the process of saying, right before James hurled a haymaker onto his chin.
"You'll do no such thing," James spat after the guard had spun completely around from the force of the blow and hit the ground in a meaty splat. He did not get up.
The other guard, frantic, now tried to get his gun out quicker than his compatriot could. His efforts were to no avail—Jack thrust out an arm and in the next second the guard was hurling backwards through the air, like someone had pulled on a rope tied about his waist, and did not stop until his back hit the far wall, knocking him unconscious.
The room was now in uproar. Councilors around the table had leapt from their seats, aghast at the sudden violence. Not Cirae, though, as she was reveling in her own little portion of the table with a pleased smile as she watched. Civilians at the top were shouting and tittering in a bubbling panic. James ignored the hubbub as he reached Cortez and Traynor, but not after pilfering the gun and keycard from the guard he had just knocked out.
"How is this—" Cortez started to speak as James unlocked his cuffs, but the taller man shook his head.
"Esteban, if I had time to tell you everything, I would." The cuffs collapsed between the two men with a satisfying clatter. "Let's just say it's not completely a coincidence."
"That's good enough for me, I guess."
Cortez had aged somewhat gracefully. Come to think of it, James noted, he barely had aged at all. Aside from the slightest of creases at the corners of his eyes, the man looked the same as when he had seen him last. Same for Traynor, though the woman had altered her hairstyle into a tight bun, lifting her hair away from her face and piercing eyes.
"This was a setup from the start," Traynor was saying after she had also been freed from her manacles. "The Alliance, the free navies, sent us here to negotiate a coalition with this council—we committed no espionage!"
Jack came over, gun from the second guard in her hand, and grabbed Traynor's arm so that she could hand her the weapon directly.
"Betrayal, huh? Congrats—you're part of the club, now."
At the same time, Pry'cor was desperately trying to bring order back to the room as she pummeled the chime button, which barely registered as a dim ring above the ruckus.
"What is the meaning of this?!" she was saying over and over again in between muttering curses in her native language. "I'm warning you—guards! Guards! We need—ah, vahlk'ihr, we need backup in the main conference room right now!"
Cirae sat watching the spectacle, finding it oddly amusing watching Pry'cor implode like this. Politics, in all its serenity. The raloi was spluttering, her words falling on deaf ears. How very ironic. The asari was actually debating the timing to the conclusion of her little charade of pretending to be a part of this Synod, now about to depart from her chair and join the little ragtag group that was formulating on the other side of the table. Those were some people who had a clear idea of what they were fighting for. They may not have looked like much, but they were certainly holding some of that hope that Cirae longed to possess. Forget how desperate things may seem—one of the things she had been taught ad nauseum in the military. Well, with the answer to that issue staring at her in the face, what else was there for her to do?
The arrival of a red-faced Avi put a momentary delay on that line of thought.
Cirae tracked the human out of the corner of her eye as he sprinted through a side exit, undoubtedly poorly guarded, hence his sudden appearance. His head comically whirled about the room until he finally noticed Cirae, now practically hurling himself towards the asari, pushing past the throng of councilors that were clumsily attempting to file out of the room, sensing danger.
"You got here just in time," Cirae drawled as the huffing human slowed to a stop and knelt to a knee next to her. "Things have just started to get rather interesting around here." She gave a distinct nod towards the four humans in a center—the armed mix of Normandy compatriots.
"Cirae…" Avi spluttered, "we've got a massive problem."
"Don't I know it, but I don't think there's anything we can do about this right now—"
"No!" Avi urged. "It doesn't have to do with this! It's… there's a spy on this ship!"
The asari snapped her head around, eyes hard as diamond.
"We were about to scapegoat two innocent people for doing just that. Talk about projection. Who's the spy, Avi?"
Avi was still catching his breath. "I… I don't know…"
"You must!"
"It's Volar, obviously… but we don't know who Volar is. But… they were giving the confederates everything. Fleet locations, ship movements. They have got to be a high-ranking member to be giving out such information, which means that Volar is on this ship! You need to—"
An appalled silence seemed to wash over the asari as even Avi's voice trailed away. The pieces all now fit together in her head at once, producing a satisfying understanding within her. There had been a blinding filter that had thrown over her the entire time she had set foot on this ship. A foolish mistake. But it had been a trap that she had easily fallen into, the lure itself tantalizing and approachable.
Idealism is not seen as a vaccine around here, Cirae.
This had been about her beliefs from the very start. Her biases, her understanding. That trailing pain of being taken for granted at every step of her career, being constantly downtrodden. So when one person seemed to rip right through that with words of trust and support, she had completely let them in. She had been so eager to find a like-minded individual that she could not have glimpsed the knife they had been hiding behind their back.
You know you'll be fighting an uphill battle on this, right?
As if in a daze, Cirae stood from her seat, turning gradually to her right. Pry'cor was still attempting to regain control of the room as she alternated between shouting for backup and throwing out a string of curses as if to proclaim, 'Won't someone rid me of these turbulent hooligans?'
The raloi appeared to notice that a specific set of eyes had been levelled upon her. She turned as well, spotting the angered asari standing just feet away, whose eyes were spitting blind sparks as if she was about to unleash the fury of a thousand suns.
"Vortreg. Raloi. Pry'cor," Cirae all but spat. "You said it yourself. You have been called many different things and all were true. Is that still relevant… Volar?"
As things continued to deteriorate in the room as more confused guards began to turn up on the scene, the raloi impossibly grinned.
"You know, until you showed up, I had a feeling I might have been able to get away with it," Pry'cor sneered. "You really have made the rest of this council appear like blithering idiots. Which they are. Oh, don't stare at me with that pathetic 'How could you' look, Cirae. It's beneath you. This… all of this, was a very simple bargain for me. Or, should I say, all raloi."
Cirae gritted her teeth. James was shouting in the background for the guards to put their weapons down. Jack was joining in as well, a biotic glow slowly warming her frame.
"You stupid bitch. You didn't even give this a chance. We offered you a hand and you spat on it—"
"See, that's the problem that all you aliens have," Pry'cor spoke louder over the din as she affixed an accusatory finger towards the asari. "You look at someone like me and, before you even can comprehend it, you have judged me. You think you have the benefit of experience that presumably makes you more intelligent than someone like me. Or even worse, that you feel so enlightened that you automatically imagine my race to be inferior to yours."
"That's not true—" Cirae raged.
"I've read your people's history! I know what your people hid in that temple, Cirae! You can downplay their culpability—and yours—all you want, but it doesn't change the facts. I'm sure it must be easy for you to take your life for granted, especially when you've done your damnedest to censor out your people's missteps. Your atrocities. And then you dare to uplift yourselves as the bastions of civility and lawful order in this galaxy. The fact of the matter is that the asari have repeated this process time after time again. They did it to the krogan. They did it to the turians. To the humans. And now you're doing it to me. Yet you continuously and blindly believe that you are morally superior, that your natural life span makes you the ideal heirs to the galaxy. The raloi will never be part of such a cycle. I vowed to never place the lives of my people into the hands of fanatics."
Glowering, Cirae took a step forward, electric crackles squeezed between her clenched fingers. "And yet you have allied yourself with the most preeminent of fanatics. Someone who couldn't care less about slaughtering your people with the flick of a finger!"
"That is your assumption to make. Only you fail to realize that Aleph has yet to harm any raloi. On the contrary, he offered my people his protection."
"The word of an executioner—"
"—the word of an augury!" Pry'cor coldly corrected. "What makes you better than him? It was not because of Aleph that my people had to destroy their satellites, go into hiding, devolve ourselves into a more animalistic state in the hopes that our perceived simple-mindedness would fool the supposed judging minds of the Reapers! Did you think the raloi would emerge, grateful, if the Reapers ultimately found us to be too backward to uplift?! You ended up winning that conflict, with your technological infrastructure damaged, but still at a reachable tier for you. Yet when the war ended, the raloi were worse off as a result. No, we had not suffered the same sort of cataclysm that had come upon you, but our technological ascendancy had been stunted! It took us bludgeoning through centuries of civil warfare and internal strife to even make the leaps and bounds that led us towards the stars! And you made us destroy all that progress in an instant!"
Recalcitrant, Cirae felt her throat tighten. "That decision was made to ensure your survival."
The raloi feigned a harsh laugh, throwing her head back as she did so. "Really? Perhaps you did not want to risk a new upstart on the galaxy quite so soon. I wonder if you ever questioned, after more than thirty years, why the Council never bothered to reestablish contact with my people once your governments had been made stable? Were we so unimportant in your eyes? After all, it was from the Council's indecision that cost the galaxy everything. Oh yes, I read about that too. How they completely and repeatedly disregarded warnings over and over again about the Reapers. They had years to prepare and had all the information at their disposal. But their posturing doomed the lives of billions and put trillions more in danger. To think that we could have shared such a fate. And you still want to claim responsibility? That, to me, is unacceptable."
"Burn it all down and start anew. That's why you're here, I reckon? Aleph had you infiltrate the Synod to skew with the other side?"
"Cirae," Pry'cor pretended to look hurt, the dark violet of her eyes sparkling, "I thought you knew by now, a vortreg serves the people, not themselves. I made the only deal that would ensure my people's ascendance back to the way things were. A decision that would have been expected of any vortreg. I am merely playing the part."
Heart pounding, Cirae's sucked in breath with agonized lungs as she now approached to just out of arm's reach of the two-faced raloi. Her years in politics had acted as a primer to suppress her emotions, but they were close to bursting violently free at this moment.
"I want you to know," she hissed, "that if I were in your position, I would probably be saying the exact same things to you right now. The lives of all those people were on the Council's hands. If I had the power, I would have wholeheartedly been leading the charge to call for the prosecution and imprisonment of every single councilor for their failure. Their malicious ignorance nearly brought about our ruination. They did suppress information that caused the deaths of billions. They did try to cover up evidence under the guise of 'not wanting to cause a panic.' The whole war could very well have gone off in another direction had they only acted sooner."
Cirae took a breath.
"I will forever be tormented by our failings as a government. What we did was inadequate. It was deficient. It was criminal. But…" Cirae paused, "…we had the chance to build something better once the dust finally settled. A new galaxy. Yet Aleph decided the foundation of that galaxy was already unstable. He took it upon himself to destroy it rather than let us attempt to fix it."
Pry'cor smirked. "Bold of you to assume that you could have had the foresight to correct such mistakes."
"It shouldn't have been his decision to make."
"Too late to change the past. You'll just have to live in his new galaxy."
"It was made in haste. Because the both of you forgot one critical thing."
Now the raloi seemed amused. "And what might that be?"
"We won the war. United and free. You're still alone. As alone as you were when we cut you off from the whole galaxy, thinking one day the raloi would prove their worth. A pity to see that our beliefs have been misplaced."
Pry'cor's eyes bulged from her sockets in an indescribable anger. The skin of her face turned a nasty shade of purple. It looked like she was about to strike Cirae, hands twitching at her sides, when in the next second, the lights to the conference room darkened before crimson emergency lights flared up like the luminescence from torches. The area turned the color of blood—it was as if the walls were dripping the savage hues.
Immediately, the shouting and clamorous panic ceased in favor of silent apprehension. Everyone automatically froze in place, becoming statuesque. Off in the distance, an alarm could be heard wailing. Klaxons began spooling up, slicing the air with strobes of blinding white light.
"What the fuck is that?!" someone in the crowd, possibly a guard, yelled.
"Proximity alert," another voice, lost in the shadows, offered. "We've got bogeys in atmo."
"Pull up tac-screens!"
A hologram of the planet Vanderpol quickly blipped into existence above the conference table before heavily zooming in so that only a slight curve of its spherical shape could be perceived. The Atoll Stoa's icon was planted firmly in one of the oceans, its beacon twinkling the color of gold.
What was more concerning were the thirty other contacts on the scopes, colored the same cardinal shade that was warping its way around the walls, slowly encroaching onto the stratosphere of the world in which the ship was now apparently trapped.
"Goddamn it," Jack sighed as she stared upwards at the display.
"It's a confederate fleet," Traynor said.
"No…" James said as he took a step closer to the table. "It's a lot worse than that."
He was looking at the two contacts leading the enemy pack, hurtling towards the planet as their entrance approach pushed them through the atmosphere in twin cones of heat. Both were easily, and sadly, recognizable to the four-member squad. The largest one was immediately apparent due to its squid-like contours and its overtly massive size in comparison to the surrounding ships it was accompanied by.
Ministry.
The other pack leader was far more diminutive, but no less recognizable. James and everyone else ought to have known it. For they had been guests upon the familiar streamlined vessel once upon a time, its profile sleek and angular, like a raptor in a death dive. Yet, alongside the profile of the Reaper, what should have been a hopeful symbol now echoed the specter of dread.
The Normandy.
A/N: New week, new president, new chapter. Crack open the champagne, politics are about to get a lot more boring (but not in this story!)
.eedrayoB fehC taE .emit ruoy etsaw uoy edam tsuj I ,ahaH
Playlist:
Outpost 99/Medical Admission
"Masks On"
Mac Quayle
The Last of Us: Part II (Original Video Game Soundtrack)
The Volar Vortreg Pry'cor
"Disc Wars"
Daft Punk
TRON: Legacy (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)