"Despite what many obscurantists may have claimed, at no point did I ever attempt to offer a revisionist agenda for others to adopt. There is nothing more damaging to a collective than the distribution of so-called 'alternative facts.' I prefer to refer to them by what they really are: lies. If my direction had indeed been based on lies, if we take the accusations at face value, then that would be an admission that the position I chose to adopt was nothing more than a paper tiger.
There is a reason why I never fabricated a manifesto synonymous with my actions—it was because I did not want my words twisted and mutilated beyond their original context. Whatever my beliefs might have been, putting them on a screen, on paper, would not have provided them with the permanence that I would have intended. Individuals are drawn to the idea at finding meaning where there is none in their crusade to 'read between the lines' and preach their newfound truth to an accepting audience also intrigued at the prospect of not believing what their eyes are capable of interpreting. The entire concept is ridiculous, obviously. If I had indeed released a policy of my own for others to pore over at the time, I would have made it a document absolutely unimpeachable in its message. I would not have gone to the trouble of interlacing secret meanings within the text to form an elaborate cipher. But unfortunately, I could not trust the simple denizens to not make ravings out of my language. They would have to interpret my intent through my actions alone. Sometimes silence speaks volumes louder than words.
Then why have I documented myself now? Why release my stream of consciousness so long after the fact? Precisely because in all free-thinking species, the mind yearns for completeness, for comprehension. When truth fails to act, lies fill in the gap. My hope is that I have provided enough truth to set the lies afire, to burn them to smoldering cinders, right down to their roots so the lies no longer grow and bloom. That my accounts would act as the final piece to an elaborate puzzle, solidifying any plausible conclusions that might have been reached, but in the absence of proof, have gone classified as purely theory. It is liberating to go through life with everything a certainty. My only wish is that others share in this freedom with me, to seek out the maxims that define their lives.
Do you now understand? My manifesto was not the words I either wrote or said. I am my own axiom, and the verisimilitude others have gleaned from the effect I made upon the galaxy was the dogma that had been preached in its absolute silence, as one's own certainty is all the more powerful when it is self-created, rather than foisted upon oneself."
Final Monograph: Transcriptions of an Augury
Unknown Author, (pg. 164)
Reprinted by permission of Purdue University
Normandy
Conference Room
The glass table, rimmed with chestnut, had once been part of an elaborate holographic communication system, built by the skunkworks designers of Cerberus as part of a demonstration of the beautiful intermingling of function and form. The Alliance had seen little use in such a copulation, as they had ripped the table out from its housing during the Reaper War, having placed it in a newly created room adjacent to where it had originally stood to serve as a conference table and a conference table only.
Only recently had Admiral Huston seen to replicate the circumstances of the table's initial integration by allowing it to retreat into the floor whereupon the full-body scanner could digitally replicate his image on another emitter, thereby surrounding the caller with a virtual environment. All in the name of immersion.
Huston now stood upon the table in its descended formation, the turian general Corinthus next to him. Huston adjusted the cap on his head and dusted the sleeves of his naval jacket.
"You ever use one of these?" Huston asked his compatriot as an ascending waterfall of amber light began creeping up their legs—the body scanner.
Corinthus shook his head. "Turian military was never so ostentatious."
"It's not all it's cracked up to be," the admiral admitted.
"Yet another amongst the endless array of human idioms?"
Huston deliberately betrayed a smirk for a quick second. "We are predictable to a fault, it seems."
The light of the scanner enveloped them without any irritation—a caress of cold flames. Huston and Corinthus were now standing in a bare room, completely devoid of the tiniest detail. They looked at their feet—the floor was black and untextured. It was like they were walking into the most rudimentary of ray casting environments, devoid of any personal touches whatsoever. Looking out in the distance produced no immediate results, either. To the two men, the lack of any perceivable environment was somewhat disorienting. They could still see their own bodies as clear as day, but the arena upon which they were spectators was so featureless it was as if they were bearing witness to the manifestation of a nightmare, almost.
"What the hell is this?" Corinthus grumbled. His voice was unnaturally clear to Huston's ears, despite the natural flanging that marred his words. "Nothing in the environ's loaded."
"Seems you're not the only one who's not predisposed to ostentation," Huston added. "Man of the hour is late to his own party, too."
The turian general spared a glance, eyes moving quicker than his head, as if he were fearful that their sinister host was somehow listening in.
"A ploy for our attention."
"A cheap one."
"Mmm-hmm."
Huston grimaced. "The presentation is always the point when it comes to Aleph. Effective psy-ops, if not a little rudimentary."
Corinthus considered his cohort for a second. "You haven't seen him in person since he invited all of us to his ship that one time, have you?"
Now Huston turned his head. "I haven't, that's correct."
"Haven't talked to him? Even heard a recording of his voice?"
"Not a thing."
The turian's mandibles twitched twice. Huston knew enough about turian body language to realize that Corinthus was pondering this information intently.
"I just don't know," Corinthus said. "After all that's happened and… he picks now to call?"
"It's all politics. My guess is he's consolidating."
"Consolidating what?"
Huston allowed his mouth to flatten. "What do you think? Us. His forces. Anyone in his position would do the same thing. Stabilize and amass all forces in proximity to bolster the array of recent losses suffered at the hands of the vigilantes."
Corinthus tapped his knuckles on his forearm. He looked straight ahead. "You're referring to the devastation of several of the PMCs. Only a matter of time before they failed spectacularly. Maybe Aleph finally wised up, realized they couldn't be trusted. It's why he needs to 'consolidate.'" He folded his hands behind his back. "Did he ever tell you how to activate the Monolith yet?"
"I didn't get anything out of him or his cronies," Huston shook his head. "Somehow I'm doubtful today's the day he decides to be so generous."
"I still don't understand why he ever bothered giving it to you in the first place."
"If I ever find out, you'll be the next to know."
The conversation between the two was then thrown to a halt as an object suddenly appeared without warning in the midst of the infinite abyss, five meters away from where they were standing, like a bad texture abruptly loading in. A man now sat in a reclining position on a bed with metal restraints looped around his head and limbs, his features in such high definition and lit so well it was as if a spotlight had been thrown upon him to pick him solely out from the field of murky black glass. The prisoner looked out of place, almost as if his bed was floating in the deep compared to the poor texture of the hall he had been pushed into.
Huston and Corinthus quickly shared a glance before studying the bound man, unable to move out of their little restrictive amphitheater. The man was human, shaved bald, with multiple fresh cuts crisscrossing their way across his scalp. Many of the wounds were still bleeding. Multiple tubes had been inserted into points at his wrists and neck, looping away out of sight behind the chair. His breathing was erratic, judging by the trembling of the thin gown he wore, and he seemed to frantically surge against his bonds on occasion to no avail. His eyes scanned all around him, but never focused on the admiral or the turian general, strangely enough. Aleph must have set the prisoner's view to private on his side of the call. This was to be a one-sided demonstration, it seemed.
A simple subtitle warped into the air, floating before Huston and Corinthus, in block text, glowing lime green: "C. Quintrell – Colonel | Congregation"
"Enemy combatant," Corinthus murmured. "A spy in our ranks?"
Huston shushed him with a hand, his eyes now etched like diamonds as he watched the scene intently.
A corona of small rectangular screens, no bigger than datapads, began hovering in the area over the prisoner's head. The man's eyes bulged as he tried to look away from the screens, but to no avail—Huston could now see that there were metal clamps physically holding the man's eyes open. The screens were slowly rotating in both clockwise and counterclockwise motions, with the nexus being the prisoner's head. A variety of images were being displayed upon them, not one screen emitting a duplicate. Images of plants withering in sped-up motion. Hyenas feasting on a kill. X-rays of a crowbar prying apart teeth. Blood spewing as a razor wire looped around a neck, biting into the carotid artery. Sweat flinging from a topless asari as she flung her head back, uttering a muted howl.
"What a vivid imagination," Huston grumbled under his breath.
There were other voices, too. Flat, robotic. The sort of tone only the most basic VI would have. They were all talking over one another. All centered around the bound man. Asking the prisoner questions. The overlapping cacophony was the soundtrack to the bevy of assembled clips, giving the entire scene a touch of the bizarre.
"—been faced with a decision that threatened to compromise your moral—?"
"—provide the location and system of the political and military commanders of the rogue terrorist faction known as the Galactic—"
"—how many combat medals have you earned and do you think you deserve—?"
"—there a moment where you saw someone slip something into a nearby drink and you failed to—?"
"—provide the location and system of the political and military commanders of—"
"—you find a woman passed out on your bed, what do you—?"
"—considered a moment where the concept of due process was inappropriate to match the scale of—?"
"—carry out a dark fantasy you wish to confess—?"
"—are you able to provide the location and system of the political and military commanders—"
"—believe that she enjoyed you using her body—?"
"—of the rogue terrorist faction known as the Galactic Congregation?"
Huston had to turn away and rub at his eyes for a brief moment, feeling dazed himself from the verbal assault. When he looked up again he could see the prisoner's lips moving, but he was unable to hear what was being said. The prisoner looked to be spilling his guts, an inevitability considering the unique torture Aleph had set up in addition to all of the drugs that had been flowing into the human from the morass of tubing, addling his mind beyond comprehension.
Five minutes later, Huston watched, stone-faced, as the prisoner suddenly began to seize. All of his veins were bulging beneath his skin and his tendons threatened to split at his joints. The man's part in this sad tale had apparently come to an end. The prisoner thrashed and retched, their eyes bloodshot and nostrils gushing a dark liquid. They expelled something foul from their mouth, their lips cracked and weeping with a clear fluid. All of the screens surrounding the prisoner winked out in unison as the man's flailings slowed and finally ceased. The overdose had worked quick. The soft sounds of something dripping were allowed to puncture the stillness. Huston stared at the dead husk of what had used to be a live human, limp within its restraints.
The lights then darkened and the body vanished into the squall of adumbrations. A new display then popped up in front of Huston and Corinthus, this one showing a basic wavelength pattern.
"Outcome of interrogation: 91.2% successful," the cold voice of the VI intoned to the two men, its inflection hardly wavering. "Data from relay transit metrics confirmed. Galactic Congregation forces massing on WORLD: Rema. Designation of central garrison in METRO: New Sura. Grid coordinates of METRO: New Sura on WORLD: Rema unknown. Prisoner expired after prematurely bypassing blood toxicity threshold. Value of information: acceptable."
Huston's eyes narrowed. Yet one more proxy relaying dispassionate results. Aleph had been thorough in automating his systems to ensure he did not have to waste any time talking down to the peons beneath his notice. It was almost a relief for Huston to be spared his host's presence, but at the same time, this was a massive insult.
But the VI was not done. "Recommended assignment: assemble all task forces into single strike fleet. All Private Military Corporations are hereby dissolved and reincorporated under one entity—authority of command transferred to senior military personnel. New mission: utilize combined troop force and ordinance to enact invasion of WORLD: Rema. Acceptable outcome: complete destruction of all Galactic Congregation forces on WORLD: Rema. Anticipated consequence: annihilation of Galactic Congregation resistance, final victory achieved. Failure to carry out assigned orders will result in termination. Variable outcomes unacceptable and will also result in termination. Individuals determined to disobey assigned orders will summarily be destroyed. Provide verbal acknowledgement to complete this message."
Huston acknowledged. So did Corinthus. But neither man was at all happy about the arrangement. It was bad enough that they had to receive their orders in this fashion. Being threatened at the same time just seemed outright disrespectful. And they had no doubt Aleph was capable of delivering his threat, but what was he expecting to achieve by being so brusque? If he was expecting to forge an empire from the ashes of the Congregation based on mutual trust, then it was clear that a long road awaited him should he eventually decide to start down that journey.
The holographic environment then began to dissolve from the borderless edges, swiping its way towards the matte circle in the center of the room in two seconds. The men were abruptly thrust back into the real world, blinking in the altered lighting and the enhanced definition that had suddenly regained upon themselves.
Human and turian spared each other a long glance, each one thinking the same thing. The day they had been wondering about had finally come around, it seemed. The PMCs were no more, finally consolidated into the fighting force that should have always existed in the first place. All of the rocks had been turned over and the Congregation's time in the sun was to come to an end. Perhaps it was for the best. Huston had always known how this would have ended, but the shape of the events that led to this moment had always been far out of reach. Beyond his line of sight. Invisible to all except one person. And now the final edges of the shape had been revealed to him—he was allowed to breathe again.
"I'll be performing an accounting of my current fleet strength," Huston told Corinthus. "Space and ground forces both. You'll have the final tally within the next forty-eight hours."
"Mine will come through in around the same timeframe as well," the turian said. "Rema, eh? They picked a real backwater to make their final stand."
"Where they choose to die makes no difference, I guess. It happens to the best of us."
"Right," Corinthus nodded sagely, his voice a rasp.
Both men figured the other had more to say on the matter, but neither one of them spoke. Interactions with Aleph, even with one of his proxies, tended to have an unnerving aftereffect.
Huston slowly turned around, fingers grasping the heavy fabric of his collar. He slowly walked to where the Haxan had been standing the entire time near the frosted glass wall that separated the conference room from the hallway, its rigid poise exacerbating its seemingly ever-judgmental nature.
Stars that hurtled by the windows shifted red in wavelength. Huston stepped up to the Haxan in an unamused expression of his own. The Haxan tipped its head down, as plaintively as if were studying an insect scurrying on the ground. Huston tried not to think of the comparison.
"You're aware of our new orders?" he asked the cyborg.
The Haxan kept silent, the synthesized sound of its breathing the only constant.
"Good," Huston said. "Because you'll have no more chances to make another colossal goatfuck like the one you just perpetrated. Besides, whatever scores you apparently still have yet to settle, you'll get your chance at our mutual destination anyway."
The Haxan was doing an admirable job in keeping its reactions in check. No biting quip. Not even a disgusted huff escaped its vocabulator. For a moment there, Huston was actually impressed at the Haxan's candor, only coming to his senses once he realized that his previous interactions with the Aeronaut had so thoroughly lowered the bar that anyone who didn't reply back to him with snark or sass was automatically met with an alleviated sense of the familiar from him.
It had not escaped him that something about the quarian commander, Roahn'Shepard, drove something within the Haxan. A programming quirk that Aleph had instituted, perhaps? Or something deeper than that? Either way, Huston had come to the conclusion a while back that he was never going to be privy to the answer, whatever it was, but yesterday's events had sure put him on alert whenever discussion tended to make its way around the topic of Shepard's spawn. Still, to be safe, after that last debacle Huston had gone to the trouble of locking out the Haxan's access to the Normandy, effectively stripping the cyborg of any command properties. It had been an oversight to let the Haxan have free reign of the ship, Huston realized, but at least there had been a chance to correct such a mistake instead of him having to regret the power of foresight in the most inopportune of moments.
Continuing to stare up at the Haxan, Huston was not an idiot in that he felt any urge to goad the Haxan any further for his own amusement. He just felt it was best to take its silence as acceptance and move on.
He continued walking past the polished frame until he stood in front of the significantly more diminutive figure that had been standing to the cyborg's side, so small that they had been completely overshadowed by the fearsome henchman.
"And you?" Huston arched an eyebrow as he addressed Pry'cor, the raloi's iridescent feathers shimmering darkly in the unwavering light, "is the current slate of directives also to your satisfaction?"
The rounded and weeping-violet eyes of the raloi peered upward. Huston could see that her pupils were actually made up of two black crosses to create an almost pinwheel shape. The red warpaint applied in quick marks to her beak looked maroon from the altered filaments above her head.
Providing a slow blink, Pry'cor gave a shallow but long nod for the human admiral.
"It will be satisfactory," she said. "Before our business is concluded, I will ensure that the accounting for my own score will be settled. This is the word of a vortreg. It is my duty to serve."
Rema
The Congregation commander glassed the surrounding mountainscape with his macros, studying the land and all that lay before him. His helmet was snugly about his head, armor a good fit around his body just as it was for the four other men that was part of Patrol Squad 55. A rifle with a heavy barrel had been strapped to his back—the only custom component on it was a laminated stock colored a deep walnut. The wood was fake, but at a distance it looked real.
The men stood atop a weathered stone top the color of tanned hide. Some of them were addressing the other areas of the floodplain with their rifle scopes, scanning the shadows of the ridges of the range that skewered the makings of a rough valley. Some of them quietly hummed. One hawked and spat on the ground. The light ATV that had ferried them from home base sat diminutively at the foot of the weathered bluff, its tires sinking into a soft river of volcanic sand that had been deposited there by an ancient force long before any of them were even thoughts.
The commander made no noise as he slowly adjusted his sights through the macros. He had set them to the same power as the scope on his own weapon. He lifted the macros away from his face for a moment and wiped his eyes. He gazed upon the shifting landscape. There was a shimmer of wan orange that seemed to hang about the air of Rema like a perpetual haze. To the east he could see the thin definitions of tiretracks that had marked their path through the rolling taluses. In that direction, New Sura, and the ever-growing battle force just a shade under twenty miles away—the only city amongst a legion of peaks and barrials. To the west lay miles and miles of uninhabitable headlands, defined only by savage peaks and craggy slopes. Beyond that, nothing out there but withered grass and scrub.
A dry breeze caressed Patrol Squad 55, offering no relief. The commander checked his map, confirming his current location—Grid C43—and double-checked the breadcrumb trail that he had been assigned to follow while on reconnaissance duty. The route itself was not an issue—it had been traversed several times already by other patrols, so that was not what was on his mind. No, it was the sheer uneventfulness of drawing recon duty in the first place. The commander was professional down to his bones. He would never gripe in front of his men. But that did not mean he was human enough to mentally bemoan the fact that his duties here, while important in many ways beyond the obvious, resulted in mind-numbingly tedious periods of sheer boredom that was impossible to rectify, even amongst his own—
A scattered boom trickled in like the sound of a scattershot's blowback. A bass thud then rolled down the volcanic mountainside. The men of Patrol Squad 55 looked in all directions in confusion, frozen in their places from the noisy report. The sound of a heavenly fusillade, the commander thought inanely.
"Sir," one of the men pointed out towards where the floodplain met the rising slopes.
The commander turned in that direction. A geyser of dust was seeping into the air, the tip of the plume barely rising out over the ridge. Thick, chapparal brown with a core of cinder gray. Had to be a mile tall and growing.
He raised the macros and looked out over the desolation. The origin of the earthen jet was shadowed by the displaced dirt and baked clay that now rained down in a brown sleet some five miles away. The commander frowned. He already knew what it was and the sinking of his heart merely served to prove his suspicions. Were it so easy to cast the blame on volcanic activity (this part of the planet had been inert for millennia), or from military exercises (they were the only squad in the grid and no fleet strikes had been called out), there was no turning back from accepting the inevitability that his superiors had been saying was due.
"Shit," he said to himself. He then waved the other soldiers to get back to the ATV, which they did so on the double.
The ATV was four-wheel drive with enormous all-terrain tires. Shrubs and bushes crackled underneath the weight of its wheels as it pounded through the lowlands, the crinkled mountains appearing like burnt paper in the light of the afternoon. It took ten minutes to cover the five-mile stretch, and even then the vehicle could not ascend the rest of the way. The members of Patrol Squad 55 had jumped out of the ATV before it had finished rolling to a halt and started to scale the ridge where the geyser had originated.
When they approached the blast point, all five of them had their rifles unslung and their safeties off. There was only the crackling of their boots in the grit as they walked, the wind too soft to be heard. They traversed a small halo of mounded earth, looking down in the freshly made ditch.
Someone gave a low whistle.
Right in the center of the hole, a thick spindle of metal sat plaintively blinking a sinister red light. Only the top of the object was visible, the rest buried deep in the planet's crust after its rapid descent from outside the reaches of Rema's atmosphere.
The commander had seen such long-range probes before on the ships he had served on prior to coming to Rema. They had limited traversal range and were expensive as hell to build, but a single ship could launch one from the other side of the galaxy and it would still manage to make its way here thanks to a sophisticated navigation chip housed in a seismic-proof CPU core. But their scanning capabilities were second-to none. One probe would be able to display, with minimal noise, the entire area in a five-hundred-mile radius. Topography, sediment layering, even rudimentary heat clusters. An impressive amount of information for something that had to be flung into the dirt. But it confirmed the worst of the commander's fears. A probe like this would not be sent into deep space like this as part of a guesswork exploratory operation. Deployment of these was only when an enemy force was seeking to confirm something. Confirm an opposing force's presence, to be specific.
And, with the city of New Sura well within the five-hundred-mile radius, the commander knew that the timer to Armageddon had just started counting down fifteen minutes ago.
He waved his squadmates back and produced a grenade from his belt. The commander waited until the four other soldiers had made it halfway down the bluff. "Fire in the hole," he announced, right before he lobbed the explosive into the air, whereupon it hit the rim of the depression and gently rolled on in where the probe was sitting.
The probe went up in a yellow fireball, but the commander had been making his own way down the ridge and therefore didn't see it. A column of choking black smoke now brushed the razor edges of the mountains as it rose like puffed cotton. As it burned, smoke towering amongst the mixture of peaks and plains, the men by the ATV were all crowding around the vehicle and its radios, each one hung onto every dreaded word that their commander was now recounting to their superiors over the e-band, their breath all seemingly catching in unison.
Vakarian
CIC
"I won't lie by saying the news doesn't look grim."
Roahn turned to face the leader of the Congregation, the galactic map seeping an electric hue upon half her face, throwing the other half into shadow. "I don't think anyone was expecting a different result, to be honest."
Cirae conceded that point with a stiff nod, silently fascinated at the shape of the quarian's features. "All the same, commander, you're not the one who has to try and placate over a hundred differing opinions. There are a lot of people who are… deeply unhappy, let's say, to be betting everything on a last stand. The Congregation agreed to this course of action, but a lot of arm twisting had to be done."
The armored quarian folded her hands behind her back and paced a few steps towards the elevator. "But they are in line?"
"As straight as I could make them."
Hardly a comfort, but an answer Roahn could accept. She had the inclination to grimace at the fact at how easily everyone had appeared to have forgotten what galactic unity had been able to accomplish once upon a time. Almost conveniently so. She bit her tongue, realizing that such comments would not help anyone. Especially not now.
Seeing as she had no choice but to absorb that answer with an absent nod, Roahn abruptly graced the holographic display with her attention. The galaxy map, blazing before them, was telling a rather dark tale. Multiple red arrows that traced relay routes were slowly seeping their way towards a singular system near the unfurling of one of the Milky Way's curves. All pointing towards the zone which was tenderly pinpricked with the word "Rema" above it. Next to all the arrows, a counter in sinister block text was displaying icons of ship strength and estimated troop numbers—fleet ratings. Numbers that a crestfallen Roahn knew amounted to a result far larger than their forces could boast. The Radius was forming quickly, all converging upon the final bastion for which the final stand had been selected. They had found the heart of the Congregation and were looking to crush it beneath its metal heel, to stamp out the lingering flames of the resistance once and for all.
Her eyes flicked to the yellow point upon the map that was serenely blinking upon one of the circular systems—the Vakarian's beacon. Since completing its last assignment, it had linked up with the Atoll Stoa to resupply and to give the crew one last chance at R&R. The two ships, linked via umbilical, were now both hurtling through FTL, currently en route to the closest relay that would take them to Rema, the largest stronghold of the Congregation.
Cirae tilted her head as she scanned the display. "By the goddess. It's just difficult to even imagine. They really are coming. Every single one of them."
"Yeah," Roahn said hoarsely. "Aleph's making his move. I guess this is it."
"Moment of truth. No more acting in hyperbolics."
"Yeah," Roahn said again.
She tried not to think about the legion of death-cruisers screaming their way through the network and FTL, their brows brimming with ancient starlight and helmed by bloodthirsty captains eager to spin up slaughter. Thousands and thousands of ships, sunscarred and bristling with guns, with Ministry leading the charge. A fleet upon their final hellmarch at the bidding of the galaxy's most notorious and genocidal maniac. Roahn took a breath, her chest unclenching but only for a scant precious second.
"Some small comfort is that we were able to see this unfold as it happened. More than ten thousand enemy ships all visible to us at once and they can't do a thing about it," Cirae said as she slowly shook her head at the map before gesturing to it. "The Radius' fleet data—it couldn't have been easy to obtain."
"Depends on who you ask," Roahn shrugged, memories of the Haxan firing wildly at Korridon through the asteroid belt not at all easy to purge. The turian had lied down for several hours afterward to wean himself off of the adrenaline surge.
"Right now, I'm asking you."
Roahn appraised the map again. There were significantly more red sectors on it than blue. Not much room for strategic improvisation with these conditions. The walls were visibly closing in and the only recourse was to entrench and flail back. Not exactly a bulletproof plan, but when the options were already so limited, what recourse was there to experiment with?
"I'm not really concerning myself with the difficulty of what happened already," Roahn said, limply gesturing to the map with a hand. "Right now, there are other things to concentrate on. The point where our futures converge is about to meet a crossroads. From that point on, nothing will be the same."
"Of course," Cirae said. "I just… not wanting to state the obvious—" she tilted her head in the map's direction, "—but good news, recollections of our victories, are in a boom market. Every story of misery and torment just serves to weigh us down—already I've been hearing murmurs of morale issues among the militias. People who are afflicted by the near-constant stream of bad headlines. You see my point of view?"
"I do, but what good is that kind of news when we have to level it out with the truth later on? We managed to steal the fleet data, yes, but in doing so it seems we've kicked off the Radius' plans to wipe us all out for good. Only a planet's worth of people—not even, really—will need to be told that they very well might be about to die. We're not facing off against an enemy unknowable in their motivations—this enemy was born from our own cycle. We're facing people. People driven to this point out of their own volition. Not everyone will be able to demonize them. Certainly not to the extent that they did with the Reapers."
Cirae's brow creased in thought. She relaxed her posture and shifted her weight from foot to foot.
"But you're different from them," she mused. "You're still here, fighting. You're doing this because you think we'll win."
Dust shimmering in the light of the hololamps appeared suspended like gentle snow. It swirled around Roahn's head as she studied the ground in front of her, before she raised her gaze again. "I have to," she whispered. "Otherwise, everything I've ever done would have all been for nothing."
The asari provided a polite smile. "That all?"
"Of course that's not all," the quarian snapped back, annoyance folding across her features. "But it's all that I can force myself to think about. Everywhere I've gone, all around the galaxy, I've been a witness to the most depraved examples of psychopathy that you couldn't believe. Atrocities so vile carried out without discrimination… friends and family slaughtered without compassion… and that's only a prelude to what Aleph has in mind. His forces… his Monolith… it's all been a giant cage to keep us in place. At no point have we been given the remotest inkling that we could ever hold our own against the Radius. Maybe that was always by design."
Roahn gave a pause, but continued. "But now… we've been given a chance to bring this all to a close. On the battlefield that we've dictated, for once. Aleph wanted us to roll over and submit to his rule without a fight. After the Citadel, he thought the resulting war would have been swift and a simple affair to put down and crush underneath his boot. But his ascendancy never reached its peak, because he miscalculated what the people in this galaxy were capable of. Aleph wanted to unite our galaxy through violence. In the process, he permanently fractured it, and now he has to live with this part of the galaxy united against him. He wanted all of us to cower in the shadows in the fear of his rule. Instead, he's been met with a bonfire that he could ignore no longer, for it has raged out of his control. That's why he's sent all his fleets here, Cirae. He's afraid. Afraid of his grand design spiraling out of whatever balance he has decreed for himself. We were the outlier that broke the mold. We were the virtuous that refused his material temptation. We have the one thing that the Radius completely lacks—a reason to fight. Not just for ourselves, but for our futures…"
For my family, the thought unexpectedly popped up.
"…and for the memory of those that came before us—the ones who broke the Reapers' original cycle. We were given the gift of a morrow free of being fearful of the inevitable. We have a responsibility to build upon that. To make the galaxy we had always dreamed of. That's why I'm here, Cirae. I'm still fighting because… because I want to see that galaxy that my father promised me."
Suddenly, Roahn realized that she had been stepping closer and closer to Cirae as she had been talking, her expressions becoming more and more animated. Damn it. Without a visor in the way, she forgot that others could see her comparatively exaggerated features when conveying her thoughts, as they often did.
She composed herself, flicked an apologetic glance towards Cirae, and leaned against the railing of the CIC.
"I'm standing as close to where my father once stood," she said. "On the precipice of war. I was assured that my life would be nothing like his. Now look. Mistakes are unfolding once more in sequence. A commander—a Shepard—at the forefront of a fleet once more. Staring the next war in the face. Why wouldn't anyone make the comparison when it is so obvious? Damn it, there was never supposed to be a next time, Cirae."
"Sometimes we were never destined for that kind of choice, Roahn."
Roahn raised a fist to her collar, taking a deep breath through a strained windpipe.
"All my life, I've had choices taken from me. From people who thought they were doing what was best. From people trying to exert their will on me." She looked at the asari. "Don't you think, just this once, I'm entitled to write my own destiny?"
Cirae looked past Roahn, past the galaxy map, and to a point just two feet to the right of the ribbed tunnel that led to the cockpit. Staring over the younger woman's head. Into infinitude. Through sightless eyes. Turning things over and over and over until they all fell into place. Then she met Roahn's eyes.
"If you're entitled to be the master of your destiny," she said, "then so is everyone else." Cirae then took Roahn's hand, eagerly grasping the quarian's mechanical limb between her sleek blue palms. "Remind them of that fact."
Roahn blinked, not comprehending just yet.
The asari glanced up towards the ceiling. "It's time. Tell them what to expect, and they will follow."
There were no doubts left to reveal themselves. Roahn felt something in her chest rising. "Let's go upstairs."
She was soon sitting down at her desk in her cabin, Cirae leaning over her for a moment, punching in a code to the wideband CAW-channel. Soon, a matrix of varied displays popped up in distinct tableaus before the two. Images of bridges on various ships, of companies of soldiers manning crumbling trenches, of civilians milling around information centers on distant worlds. They were not recordings, but live footage, and everyone in the feeds was looking towards the closest screen they could find or were all crowded around their activated omni-tools, tuned to the same channel.
"Can they all see me?" Roahn asked.
"Press that button right there and they will," Cirae pointed to a control on the console's keypad.
And my face will be the most recognized in the entire galaxy, Roahn realized. Her visor was resting within arm's reach upon the desk, the curved glass face directed partially upward so that the light fell victim to a shape more liquid in nature upon it. She almost reached for it but stayed the reaction at the last second. This felt… right. For her whole life it felt like she had been hiding something. Keeping a part of herself locked away. But now it was the time for such barriers to be destroyed, for her last lingering inhibition to be truly conquered.
Cirae stepped out of shot, near the wall. "You'll be great."
Roahn took a breath. "I hope so."
She lifted a hand, envisioning how determined her father would be poised in this moment. How he never hesitated to take the reins, not when it involved the lives of his friends and family. Not when he was in a position to do something. Roahn reached over and pressed the haptic button.
From beyond sight and imagination, millions of screens all flipped to show the same image. Of a curious spectacle—a raven-haired woman with pale gray skin, eyes the green color of sea ice, sealed up to her neck in an armored bodysuit. An alien unlike any they had seen in the flesh before. Those millions peered intently at the woman, only starting to realize that they were looking at an unmasked quarian. Across the galaxy, a collective hush washed forward, shock and foreboding paralyzing their bodies. What was happening? Who was this?
The counter in the corner of Roahn's own screen was showing the number of people tuning in—millions and millions of pairs of eyes all focused on her. She gave a slow inhale through her nose, pushing out all distractions. There was nobody here. It was just her and the screen.
The words, ad hoc though they might be, seemed to flow as loquaciously as though she had been rehearsing from a script prepared and edited over a period of weeks.
"People of the free galaxy," her clear voice seemed to echo through the ansible, "this is Commander Roahn'Shepard of the Vakarian. All of you knew my father, John Shepard, and my mother, Tali'Shepard. Heroes. Legends. People who have defined not only the zeitgeist of our age, but have accomplished the greatest feats in this galaxy's history since the beginning of time. I have… held off on this moment for a while, because I knew, instinctively, what would be expected of me from every one of you. I've come before you now not because I believe I could meet those aspirations, but because there will not be another chance to tell you all of what will be… our defining moment."
The beings in the tiny video widows on Roahn's screen scrunched in closer to one another, forming tight crowds around whatever display was in sight. Roahn noticed the rapt attention in the corners of her eyes and drew her spine straighter, fingers making rigid claws as her hands lay upon the desk in front of her.
"Nearly thirty years ago," she said, "a gift was given to all of us. It was the freedom from the yoke of annihilation that had been laced over our necks from birth. Now, a new oppression has revealed itself—but it is not the intractable directive to impose a ruthless order upon the galaxy's inhabitants. No, it is our thralldom in the face of tyranny. The tyranny of the opportunistic attempting to make the galaxy in their selfish image. To plunge us all back into an abyss of fear." She shook her head. "But fear cannot easily take hold of those that have previously cast off its shackles. I will not let that abyss consume me. Not while I have glimpsed the light of empyrean suns, that fateful morning that was promised to us all those years ago! Those that oppose us wish to push us back into the shadows, back into that fear. Today, I will say to you this: I will not move."
Her voice was no doubt echoing across the legion of ships, many of them boosting the signal to the outer reaches of the system. The crowds on the screens began to thrum, unable to tear their eyes away from the quarian reflected on millions of displays. Embedded in the spines of nebula belts, across sheets of venerated starlight, upon worlds gleaming with crystal cities, featureless deserts paved over the bones of ancestral forefathers, through timeworn forests deep with moss and cold, scarves of waves descending upon the baked coastal boundaries, whether it be human, quarian, krogan, salarian, hanar, turian, drell, volus, elcor, synthetic, or any manner of life capable of understanding Roahn's words, wherever they could be heard, they listened. They listened and took them into their minds, their souls. Seeing the resemblance. That uncanny resemblance. Within every spectator, a similar conflagration like a widespread burst of cosmic power, began their ember warmth.
"Our moment of glory approaches. The moment where we finally step out of the shadows—the umbra—for good, and embrace that light that had always been meant for us. For this is how it was meant to be. Once, we seized our destiny. Once, we were immovable in the face of abject terror. I ask you to stand with me again, to plant your feet in the dirt, on the deck, with your weapons in hand, and howl at the sky with all the fire in your hearts, proclaiming this: that we will not move. That fear is not meant for us! It is for those that are coming to destroy you, because they are the ones afraid of what we might become. Of what we are!"
Roahn was beating her metallic fist on the deck in time to her punctuated declarations. The millions of beings watching her made similar movements, many of them loudly roaring their adulation. Even the trained military personnel, previously advised to display staunch stoicism, broke formation in that they also joined in the rancor, their roars echoing through their ships, across the depths of space.
"Seize your destiny once more!" Roahn shouted. "Become immovable. Grasp that future that others would steal from us, because we are its rightful owners. The Radius wants to impose fear on us? They will find themselves vastly outmatched. Protect each other. Fight for this galaxy—your home—because it's all we've got. I will meet you all in the light of that sun. All units… prepare for battle!"
The comms went absolutely berserk with noise. The sound of worlds united in the adrenalized frenzy of an envisioned victory. Roahn could see it all on the screens after she had signed herself out. Sleek asari jumped up and down, several crackling with biotic power. Brawny humans encircled as they bellowed war songs. Turian praetorians defined a percussive march, a militaristic beat slamming through the halls of their ships and into their hearts. Quarian marines lifting their weapons, glares scourging off the barrels of the polished firearms like a twisted candelabra. For a brief and tiny point in time, a singular moment of solidarity that linked the stars together, their fear was truly eradicated as they shared in the thoughts of their true halcyon.
For a Shepard was with them.
Roahn smiled as she watched the revelry for a few more moments before she shut the display down. Her thoughts were with the troops instead of herself, grateful that they were knowing hope for perhaps the last time. She stood from her chair, a low breath escaping her. Cirae was still standing over by the wall, only a knowing look reflected upon her. One that clearly was saying, I told you so.
Waving a hand to bring up the fleet board, which showcased two maps of both the planetary topography of their destination along with the immediate space in its orbit, Roahn gestured for Cirae to come over. The glowing grid lines of the hologram blazed thin searing bars that cast no shadows beyond the display case. They looked at the indexes of information, with all of their available assets—ships, men, firepower—on display as simplified metrics. A condensation of their work, all formatted into a blurb, essentially.
"Right," the quarian said as she folded her hands behind her back, "let's go over the plan one more time."
Rema
The Vakarian came into Rema's orbit at midday. It appeared just over an anvil of stormclouds, the spire extending high into the stratosphere as the dark swirls below lashed the baked ground with savage rain. Rotating lazily to begin its planetary descent, the ship was momentarily graced with the sparkling of warships and the flurry of fire-like motes of attack vessels snapping between them in their combat exercises. The sight yielded a modicum of comfort to the crew within. Extending far beyond the curve of the planet, a dotted belt of Congregation ships made a protective shield, the participating vessels numbering a few thousand of destroyers, cruisers, and carriers. Guns of the damned, locked in their perpetual current. An armada by any other definition—for the untrained eye, an invincible one. But against the Radius' full strength? It would just have to be enough.
Piercing the atmospheric bubble to be cradled by the gravitational pull, the Vakarian shot through the sky, appearing as the tip of a heated razor. The furrowed peaks and valleys below looked like old parchment from this distance. Or aged skin. The limp and ill-defined cirrus clouds were shredded in the Vakarian's wake as it descended further and further, rivers and lakebeds winking white back up at them, fields of fertile grass and wildflowers appearing as a phantasmagoria of intense color. Distant storm fronts spat hot lightning at the rim of the world, seemingly carving out the very edges for sight to define.
The young sky turned the sun the color of a dying coal. The Vakarian's flaps extended and the ship began to slow. They were now barely clearing the height of the world's tallest mountains. They flew through craggy volcanic prairies and shearing faultplains of black glass. The latest descendent of the metal and galactic aura roared along the movements of Rema itself, following paths that had been set in place from the moment of the world's birth.
Arcing around a snowcapped sierra taller than the highest peak on Rannoch, the Vakarian lay claim to a dried-out lake bed nearly fifty miles long end-to-end. The shores of the lake were cracked and rimmed with salt, reminiscent of a cocktail glass. The mountains rose up around three-quarters of the lake's edges, appearing as a bowl with a shattered side. At the shallow end of the valley, no more than two miles from the nonexistent lake's edge, sat a glittering city.
The metropolis of New Sura.
Perhaps an unremarkable example amongst contemporaries in an extraordinary galaxy, what was altogether impressive about New Sura was its existence as a testament to hardiness. A bulwark able to survive the lapping waves of warfare.
Draped in the shadow of a hooded mountain, New Sura was the exposed crystal from an otherwise cracked geode in the forests of surging rock. The stone walls of the bluff sloped down to where a turreted wall a quarter of a kilometer high had been erected in a hemisphere around the city.
Four square miles in size, New Sura was undoubtedly more than some backwater outpost, but a far cry from a sprawling cityscape like the ones on Ilium or Earth. Still, the infrastructure was impressive in its own right. New Sura had been built on an incline, with the city sloping up the ridgeline the closer one got to the mountain that hurled it into shadow for half the day. There were wide avenues lined with storefronts, gridded alleys that looked like ley lines, neighborhoods of blocks topping at six stories tall, and one gleaming spire shaped like a curved spear near the middle that looked like a control tower. Globules of light seeped through the reddening day—burnglow from the streetlamps caked with dust and ash. Even from above, the streets were seen to be filled with commotion. Vehicles and pedestrians dotted the paved roads. There was no rhyme or reason to the architecture—some areas looked like any other Presidium neighborhood, while others had been modeled out from ancient topographies from memories long discarded. Materials of steel, of clay, of lattice, of wood. A cobbled-together mimeo of the modern and the rustic to salvage replications of forlornness. New Sura had been modeled by trillionaires, after all. It made sense that they wanted to have their sanctum encompass all snippets of civilizations they either respected or fetishized.
Upon the other side of the wall, extending out into the desert, sat monumental hangars. Ranks of troopers in formation made blocks out in the white floodplains. Landing craft on assembled launchpads surged muscular dust clouds as the blue hue of their engines profoundly roared across the flat staging area for the Congregation's defensive force. Tanks and walkers in the hundreds were already being rolled out, with construction vehicles carving out black trenches from the eternally parched earth. Ordinance was being erected atop assembled mounds—turrets, launchers, radar installations—surrounded by bulging sandbags and humming shield generators. VTOL craft near the dry lakebed sat in their designated grids, attended to by legions of engineers. Heavy-lift copters shuttled I-beams and reinforced materials over the roofs of the neighborhoods from taut iron cabling, ferrying the precious armoring to bolster key areas.
As she beheld the area all from her tac-map in the safety of her ship, Roahn's blood began to sing.
They had found their footing. Time to dig in.
The end was approaching.
Rema
New Sura Perimeter Wall—Sector 3.3
The wall that surrounded New Sura had not been intentionally designed as a first line of defense. A one-way highway had been erected atop the structure with sloping exits leading to the various neighborhoods of the city. The turrets and barricades that now rimmed the edges of the elevated road had been recent additions—elements of the Congregation's efforts to fortify the stronghold however possible.
The crew of the Vakarian trudged across the dusty highway, skirting between a few of the plastic barriers to peer over the edge. Below, they had an unobstructed view of the staging area where the transports from the fleet high above were making their runs. They could see where several mechanized divisions were running calibration drills on their weaponry off to the left. Directly in front of them, engineers were erecting B-mortar emplacements. And off in the distance, the uninterrupted and sparse plains of the Krignlau Basin, the mesas and peaks twenty miles away carving a torn shape of the sky.
Roahn turned around, facing her crew, helmeted once more. The control tower of New Sura glittered past the assembled group—a steel needle embedded through the rock and clay.
She jerked a thumb behind her. "Fifty-thousand square-miles of salt flats known as the Krignlau Basin. Twelve hours from now, it's going to be a warzone. We've got emplacements set up all around us to reach ten miles in any direction. With the placement of our weapons and the formation of the natural terrain, we've blocked off most routes of attack—only way forward for the Radius is to hit us straight on. From the front."
Kasumi placed her hands upon the lip of the wall and leaned out slightly, studying the mortars and rocket emplacements. "Nice guns. Figure they're going to give us enough of a screen to ward off enemy bombardment."
"Still," James mused as he gazed off towards the distant horizon, "the Radius would have to know that moving their armor across a highly visible terrain is going to put them at a tactical disadvantage. That basin's so flat our scopes will be able to pick up movement straight to the other side. The Radius will have no cover, so don't you think they'll try and pick a landing area that's a bit more strategic?"
Roahn shook her head as she pointed to the bluff immediately behind the city. "We've given them no choice. The high cliffs are impassable from the other side on foot. Anti-air in that direction cuts off any landing craft assault, too. Only route into New Sura is from the surrounding salt plain."
"Got it, but what's preventing the Radius from parking a destroyer overhead and simply erasing us off the face of the planet with a single bombardment strike?"
"Our fleet," Korridon piped up as he sat upon one of the barricades. All eyes whipped in the turian's direction, who seemed startled for a moment at how much attention he had garnered, but quickly recovered. "We've ordered our ships to place themselves in a tiered system, similar to what we did at Messier 78. The tiers are positioned in a diagonal formation, with one tier at pos-z from null and the other at neg-z from null. The fleet is oriented at such a way that it covers New Sura and our troops completely, preventing any enemy fleets from moving overhead to bomb us to oblivion."
Someone did their reading beforehand, Roahn noted with a slight grin.
"The salarians have also lent a couple of their interdictors," she added. "They'll be running a defense screen that will deflect any incoming fire that does manage to make it through our fleet. They have deployable tech shields that can be arranged in a grid-like formation."
Jack then stepped forward. "So the Radius lands far away in the desert, all their forces funneled directed to this one spot. Our fleet keeps them occupied from above and takes care of the fighters and the frigates. I can only guess what's going to happen when the bastards finally do reach us…"
"That's the simple part," Roahn said as she rotated slightly on a heel, looking out longingly towards the heat-warbled line that separated salt from earth. "We fight to the last man."
An ominous note seemed to seep across everyone, one that they had all felt beforehand. They wore it on their faces, in their body language. A familiar response, like the satisfied cravings for a drug. Only this drug was dread, and its high left a foul taste in everyone's mouth.
"We don't have enough room behind the city walls to fortify for a siege. All our armor, our foot soldiers, will be out there, giving their all against the Radius. Tanks. Rovers. Mechs. Short-range craft. We're throwing everything we've got at them, deploying every single scrap of ordinance, so that we can weaken our enemy's advance before they reach our forward positions."
"I've already decided that I'll be with the troops on the front lines," Roahn continued, gripping control of the conversation before it was ripped out of her hands. "There will be no more commands that I can give you from now on. I won't order any of you to your deaths. If you want to join me down there, I will accept your arm. But if you believe your skills will be better suited elsewhere, you are free to go wherever you wish."
Immediately, Grunt stepped forward, with Cortez having to duck out of the way to avoid being knocked over by the krogan's massive bicep.
"I've faced hopeless odds before," Grunt said, his icy eyes narrowed as he dredged up his anger to fuel his words. "What would it say about me if I backed down now? I will be with you, commander. It is where I belong."
"He stole the words out of my mouth," James said as he prodded his own chest with his thumb. "I'm no use to anyone running strategy. Give me a weapon and a post and I'll hold it twice as long as anyone else."
Now Jack edged around Grunt's bulky frame.
"He's always itching to start a competition with someone," she tilted her head in her partner's direction. "I'll be making a match with all of you on the field. Because…" Jack glanced around the group and unleashed a shuddering breath, "…aw shit, I'm really going to say it? Because… you're my family."
James threw an arm around Jack's shoulders. The woman had to bite her lip to keep her cheeks from tinting just the slightest shade of red.
Liara watched the two and dipped her head, a smile of her own forming, before she appraised the quarian.
"And to think that I am now here because I wanted to become a great archeologist. Sometimes I wonder which of my choices was responsible for putting me on this path. But it led me to the most wonderful moments of my life. Moments that I could never have dreamed of. I'll fight for those moments, Roahn, because that's the only choice I want to make right now."
The group waited a few thoughtful beats, not wanting to upend the respectful silence. After a predetermined amount of time had passed, Sagan raised his head, the flaps surrounding his optics giving singular twitches.
"My physical presence aboard the Vakarian would greatly contribute to the projected fleet strength, commander. It would be recommended that I helm the ship in order to be of greatest assistance."
Roahn provided the geth with a nod, but it was Traynor who spoke next.
"Being aboard the Vakarian would allow me to parse out the cyberware bitstreams to allow Sagan to operate at his full functionality."
"With respect," Sagan protested, an ability that he had never demonstrated until now, "the Petty Officer's ability to sufficiently analyze and decipher—"
"—I can still multitask and provide strategic support that isn't just based on formulaic deductions!" Traynor shot back.
"Enough!" Roahn raised a hand. "The both of you know your strengths. I trust the two of you to come to an understanding. But Sagan—don't overexert your runtimes. If Traynor has the opportunity to reduce your cyclic workload, you provide her with that option. That clear?"
The major/minor lens assemblage of the geth aligned in the twelve-o'clock position. "Acknowledged," the geth said crisply.
At the edge of the group, Sam crossed his arms and looked out towards the curving boundary of the perimeter wall. "My aim's not good enough to be of much use to you guys," he joked. The man then pointed out an area where a few prefabricated hubs were being set up. "I bet one of those is a forward medical station. I can position myself there. Make runs for the wounded and the like. I'd be of better use there than in a trench."
The logic was sound and no one made a motion to disagree, but by then Cortez was clearing his throat as it was now his turn to speak.
"I'll stick to providing logistical support and maintenance in one of the engineering divisions," he said. "James still hasn't let down the fact that I… had some difficulties way back when on Earth."
"I'd say your skills were the one to let you down first," James sniggered, causing a stir of stifled laughs among the group.
Cortez rolled his eyes. "Like I said."
The diminutive woman standing next to Roahn cleared her throat. The wife of their beloved former captain pushed their hood back, exposing their shiny hair tied in a neat black bun. Kasumi waited until she gathered her courage, memories of her time on the Normandy all coming back to her in a rush.
Roahn gently placed her hand on Kasumi's shoulder. The human looked up at her commander and brushed her fingertips against Roahn appendage, a grateful smile coming to her.
"I've always been ready, Roahn," she whispered. "You'll find me out there, too. Here. There. And everywhere. Nothing else that I'm good at, right?"
Giving Kasumi's shoulder a soft squeeze, Roahn then looked to the final person who she wanted to hear speak. The young turian in the middle of the throng shifted nervously on his feet, never having quite gotten used to being the center of attention. "I…" he started to say, but every thought he held threatened to spill out of him at once, staying his words and making him shiver with anticipation.
"I'll protect him," Kasumi said at Roahn's right. The human looked back to the quarian. "I won't let him out of my sight."
"Thank you, Kasumi," Roahn said.
Korridon cracked his jaw open a millimeter, as if he was about to say something of his own accord, but shut it closed a second later, the words refusing to materialize. It was as if he could put off the inevitable with his eyes, that he could look at Roahn and that she would know what he meant. The warm mountain breeze wrapped around him, making him feel starkly exposed. In this moment, he considered Liara's words, how everything in his life had led up to him standing here. On this world. With this group of heroes. He also began to wonder what had been the catalyst that had set him off on a path he could not deviate, from a life of ignominy to falling in love with such an accomplished woman. He had been plucked from isolation and thrust into the spotlight. Why had she chosen him? Perhaps he never truly understood what the answer was. Why him?
Their gazes lingered upon one another. With a micro-nod of her head, Roahn slowly blinked. Like she was saying, we'll have time later.
Roahn then clasped her hands, fingers shaped as if they were about to deliver a reverent prayer. She held each person in her eyes, holding them there in her warmth and admiration. Brothers and sisters. Dear friends. Valued comrades. It seemed words were limited in describing the love she felt for each of them. What a team. What a monumental and fantastic team.
She breathed a wry chuckle. "No speeches," she said. "Not to you. For those who were once in my position… I couldn't compare."
"You had no trouble speaking to the entire galaxy, though," Sam quipped, earning him a sharp poke in the ribs from Liara.
Smiling, Roahn acceded with a vigorous bob of her head. "They weren't you, which was why it was easier then. But all of you have given me so much. Your trust. Your skills. I've… I've never properly thanked you all. I couldn't have been more honored to be your commander, and… and I…"
Her voice began cracking, sentences turning choppy. The crew of the Vakarian silently closed in around the quarian, soundless and devout in the presence of the armored warrior.
Deeply inhaling, Roahn raised her head. "I want you all to know… I couldn't have asked for better. It was my privilege to lead you. This isn't a farewell, though. Not even close. Because when this is all over, I will be there with you to share in that new dawn. You deserve no less and I don't plan to let you down. My friends… my family… thank you."
No one spoke in the immediate interim. There were no loud sounds of jubilation or support. Just a venerational silence. Many of them were silently nodding as they stared at the ground, overcome in the moment and fearful of locking gazes with one another. For they may have been the select few who truly knew the stakes at hand and what their responsibility entailed. There was nothing to celebrate or to memorialize. Right now, they all shared in the quiet surge of energy that seemed to emanate from each of them in an invisible web, a charged and thrumming beat that supercharged their hearts and overclocked their minds. Like they gained strength from being in proximity to each other. Now weary smiles were shared amongst them, recognizing that energy for what it was. Knowing how fortunate they were to have made it so far. Deep down, each of them believed they could go a little farther.
Roahn reached out to pull Korridon close, yanking him through the center of the group, but she still looked upon the team, continuing to address them as one.
"I'll see you off at your posts at sunrise. For now… enjoy the evening in the city. Relax. Do anything you can to take your minds off what's coming. Good luck to all of you and keep each other safe."
A/N: There will be one more chapter of downtime before things start kicking off, perhaps for the last time in this saga. It's almost bittersweet, knowing that I've spent so much time writing these characters and that, sooner or later, it's all going to come to an end. Hard to believe that the idea for this entire series can be traced to a single line from a deleted sequence of dialogue in ME3. It really was just that simple.
Ah, enough waxing nostalgic from my end. I've got my sinister nature to uphold here ;) Hope you guys liked the chapter and I look forward to any thoughts you might have on it or on the story as a whole.
Playlist:
Destroying the Probe
"It's a Dangerous City"
Hans Zimmer and Steve Mazzaro
Chappie (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The Commander's Address
"Into the Water"
Alberto Iglesias and Federico Jusid
Exodus: Gods and Kings (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Rema Overhead
"Norman"
Steven Price
Fury (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
The Crew Dismissed
"The Fifth Heaven"
Graeme Revell (feat. Emma Shapplin)
Red Planet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)