Cenotaph III: The Mausoleum

by Rob Sears

The galaxy has been shattered. A malevolent foe has achieved what the Reapers could not do: eradicate all hope. But there are those that still resist, that push back in the face of futile odds. It will now be up to Shepard and Tali's daughter - Roahn - to figure out a way to restore that hope, unite their lost allies, and pursue their enemy to the universe's very edge.

31. Chapter 31: The Valkyrie's Vehemence

"No doubt you, the reader, have incurred an interest into the one topic I have not yet broached. You have weathered my metaphorical anecdotes, the multitude of tribulations I had encountered that had helped to define my worldview. Perhaps you might have skipped ahead already, hoping to catch a glimpse at its mention. You are anxious to see if I speak of her. If I ever mention her. Would it despair you if I revealed that I will not? That any reference to her comprises only oblique allusions that heavily insinuate her presence but never definitively act as a confirmation of her involvement?

I anticipate that I will incur accusations of narcissism from this decision. Others are surely bound to express their disappointment. For while it may seem like a blatant oversight for excluding any and all mention of my interactions with her, the fact of the matter is that there is nothing I have to mention that would reveal any additional insight that will have already been unveiled on that particular subject. Still, I can understand the desire to possess the contrary perspective on the matter for the purposes of historical cataloguing, but there are some things that, as unbelievable as it might seem, I would jealously keep private. The matter is not mine to divulge, to put it simply. That privilege always belonged to her."

Final Monograph: Transcriptions of an Augury
Unknown Author, (pg. 172)
Reprinted by permission of Purdue University

---

Rema
Fueling Refinery Stack 07

Silver columns flared pale flames in the choking darkness of the smog-drenched day. The sharp fans of flame arced higher than two-story buildings within the glimmering forests of the thin stacks, each one a couple of hundred meters tall. The safety valves of the refinery had been released prior to the battle that was currently raging down in the great salt valley—the pressurized gas bleedoff seeped out in the form of an invisible, watery wave for only an inch out of the gigantic nozzles before the pilot flames rippled across the relieved gases in wonderous combustion, creating a spectacled maze of gleaming metal and bright yellow conflagrations like massive candles.

The refinery was an imbroglio of catwalks and pipes all interconnected to form an aimless and inorganic thicket. The only reference markers were chipped slatherings of paint in the form of bright arrows and meaningless symbols that gestured to arcane destinations within the miscellany. For the band of krogan that meandered their way through the plant, the offered directions were lost upon their war-addled minds and were thus only getting more and more agitated as time went on without encountering an enemy for them to slaughter. While krogan were not simple creatures by any stretch of the imagination, there was no argument that their species was the one most attuned to war and of the pressing need to act upon urges that other cultures would certainly see as less civilized.

At the head of the pack, Urdnot Hund was keenly aware of the rumblings that were occurring just behind his back. His followers, like himself, were restless. They were lost in this maze, the throbbing of the blood rage beginning to uselessly depart them, leaving nothing but a restless hunger behind. They had come to this planet with the goal to wage war… but what was the use when they could not find anyone to join in battle against them?

Hund was a proud krogan and figured that he could make do without needing to stop for a moment and consult the reference markers for directions. But as time went on and the deeper into the facility they wandered, Hund was getting second thoughts. All of the processing units in this forsaken place all looked exactly the same, from the cadaverous dressings of catwalks that encased superheated tanks of the atmosphere distillers, to the thickly set junctions of steel piping at the hydrotreaters that looked like massive drive cores, each one of them several stories tall and all connected by a collection of bridges, adding more real estate to the already cluttered verticality of the facility.

One of his warriors made an idle comment under his breath—Hund could not make out the entire sentence, but distinctly heard the words "missed… turn" and "think he's… going." He whirled to face the offender, the massive club he gripped in a spiked gauntlet now partially raised, razor edges upon the weapon sparkling red sunlight like it was brilliant ruby jewel.

"Confident in our orientation, are we?" he hissed sarcastically, reptilian eyes narrowing. "Perhaps you would like to take charge? The opportunity has been provided to you."

Hund was pleased to see that the warrior who had spoken out of turn almost immediately broke eye contact with him, now apparently finding that the grated walkway they were standing on to be of much more interest. Hund's satisfaction quickly cooled into dire disappointment as he took stock of the cowed krogan. No spine to this one, he thought. Is this what I have to use? Nothing but meek invertebrates. This one would never have survived the trials—should not have survived! Bakara was a fool for eliminating the Rite!

He could only bemoan the choices of his predecessor amongst only an audience comprising of himself and so ground his teeth to his own private agitation.

"You do not speak to your defense?" Hund asked.

The warrior briefly lifted their head. "I… am mistaken. My words were delivered in passing."

"Then you will do well to remember not speaking out of turn in the future."

"Yes, overlord," the underling nodded vigorously.

But Hund's attention had already moved beyond the inexperienced warrior and onto the more pressing matter of finding a way out of this damnable place! Stupid though the young krogan had be to talk idly, Hund was infuriated to admit that he may have had a point. But after that little exercise in demonstrating his authority, Hund realized that he had just handicapped himself—to stop for a moment to consider a logical directional course would just make him look weak in front of his men after he had so thoroughly shot down the idea. There was nothing for it; proceeding blindly on was his only option.

After ten more minutes of considerable delays and wrong turns down winding passageways, fenced in tunnels, and through hissing alleys filled with jutting pipes, Hund finally reckoned that he had found a route that would lead him to the Congregation's main front. A tall staircase now loomed in front of him—he took the stairs two at a time. To his right, the fiercely armored krogan could see the battle off in the distance about five miles away where brief red strokes from laser cannons, gentle white crests from rockets, and lazily hovering attack shuttles orbited a glittering plain that jumped with tracerfire.

Hund was barely winded by the time he reached the end of the metal steps, which led him to a narrow and long bridge that passed over a series of six open steam tanks. The gargantuan drums belched salt-white pylons of scalding steam, completely engulfing half the bridge in a cloying fog.

Then, a dark shape suddenly manifested amidst the steam. Hund narrowed his eyes. From out of the scorching clouds, a large shadow grew in detail until Grunt slowly burst through the vaporous barrier, dripping with condensation and serum-like bloodtrails garnered from his foes. The krogan hero gripped a scimitar-knife with one hand, the gold blade shimmering flatly amidst the curdled mixture of ash and dampness.

Behind him, Hund heard a sharp intake of breath from the same warrior he had chastised not just a moment ago. "The tankbred…"

Hund's reaction was more out of reflex than rational thought. With his morning star clenched in his right arm, the krogan whipped around and immediately smashed the spiked weapon right into the side of the ingrate's face. The blow was so fierce that Hund had popped his target's eye out—the organ was now dangling by its optic nerve, glistening with fluid. The spikes of Hund's club stuck into the flesh of the krogan for but a moment, the younger warrior gurgling as he failed to realize he was dying. The overlord then ripped his arm back in the next second, taking away half of the other krogan's face with it, and leaving a ragged hole upon which gore dribbled over jaw bones of such stark whiteness they seemed to glow.

Turning back to face Grunt, Hund saw that the younger krogan wore just the barest hint of a self-satisfied smirk. Grunt soon let the brief moment of amusement die off, leaving just a cold visage levelled at the traitorous overlord. Hund began to plod over to the Vakarian crewmember, shaking the bits of gore from his morning star, ignoring the series of thuds from the man he had just killed toppling down the stairwell to land somewhere at the bottom.

"Move aside, tankbred," Hund called as he closed the gap across the bridge. "You are impeding the path of your overlord."

Grunt gave a tremor that Hund did not recognize constituted as immense fury.

"You… are not… my overlord."

A twitch of irritation flashed at the corner of Hund's mouth. "Still the rebellious pup," he chuckled. "I wonder what made Urdnot Wrex decide you should have the right to take his clan's name instead of casting you out for what you are. But I'll allow you this chance to save your hide. Drop your weapon, swear fealty to my rule, and you shall survive this day and many more after."

The words found unreceptive ears. Grunt swelled in indignation, steaming just as hotly as the vents behind him in response to the ultimatum.

"'Save your hide,'" Grunt growled. "That is something you're particularly good at, aren't you, Hund?"

"Careful, tankbred. My patience wears thin."

But Grunt was not keen on listening to the elder warrior. "You let her die, Hund. You were there, with Bakara, and you did nothing to save her when she was killed. You let her offer her son up in a Rite that had no business being performed all because you knew she would pay the price if he were to fail. And that you would reap the rewards in her absence."

The veneer shifted upon Hund, the previously benevolent posture hardening into something far fiercer. "Bakara threatened destruction upon all krogan," he spoke loudly. "She would have pledged all of the clans to fight against Aleph and his assemblage. What would have happened to our people if she had forced us all to break away? We were neutered once for our past… 'transgressions.' Another genophage upon us can easily be synthesized… or something far worse. What Aleph offered me… not even you would have refused."

Grunt took a powerful step forward, the hand holding his blade quivering anxiously. "She was clan Urdnot. Your loyalty should have been to her. Your corpse should have lined the path between Aleph and her, if that was what it took."

"You weren't there, tankbred. You did not see the level of control Aleph exerted. I did what I had to in order to ensure the survival of all krogan."

"Liar," Grunt snarled. "You only did nothing because you were too weak to face him yourself."

Grunt was already charging before he finished his sentence, Hund following closely after. The elder warlord's blood was boiling—to be called a coward in front of his own men, never mind if the whelp was right, was an indignation that would not stand! They sprinted across the catwalk, the joints of the bridge rattling with each massive step, cloudtrails continuing to stream from Grunt as he unleashed a vengeful roar.

The weapons of the two krogan met in a flurrying cascade of sparks and a grisly screech of Tuchanka steel. Their bodies collided a half-second later, producing a tremendous crash that sounded like the crackle of a sonic boom.

Krogan battle had long lost the art of subtlety or any poetic resonance that had typically accompanied the development of the other races. Fights were not meant to act as metaphorical clashes of ideologies, or at least they were not considered that way in the heat of the moment. For a krogan, there was only one true goal in mind: to survive through the act of slaughter.

Hund smashed his crested head against Grunt's rocky temple. Orange blood splashed against the grated ground and dripped through to the ground below. The younger krogan responded by throwing several punches into Hund's ribs, but the overlord's iron red armor was as thick as a thresher maw's hide and reinforced with a rudimentary combat chassis that prevented undue flexing. The armor dented slightly, but it felt to Grunt like he was just punching a solid wall. Hund's other arm wrenched his weapon out of the lock with Grunt's knife and whipped the spiked end towards his opponent's face. Grunt had to flinch back to avoid losing an eye.

Now they were apart, but both did not seem winded. Hund then stepped in after sizing his opponent up some more, taking note of any weaknesses, before he came in with his morning star again. He tried a series of wild swings, without grace or fluidity, in the vain hope that he could somehow catch a swath of Grunt's skin and peel off his muscle and tendons along the backswing. Ordinarily, Grunt would have been happy to have met Hund's charge head-on, but he had done some quick analysis of his foe as well. Hund was krogan to the core. A brutal form of infuriated muscle, only sure of his own mass being able to compensate for anything else that resembled skill. It made him predictable. And stupid.

Grunt danced just out of reach of Hund's swings, denying the elder krogan any leverage. The morning star clanged as it bashed against the guardrails and fenced boundaries of the catwalk, missing Grunt every time.

"You can't dance away forever," Hund hissed as he made another surging stab forward.

Grunt sidestepped the blow and moved in to attack, but Hund was quicker than the younger krogan realized. With a flash, a knife appeared in the warlord's empty hand and he twisted in a wrenching maneuver while shunting his blade forward between a gap in Grunt's armor. The young warrior roared, but anger could not combat cold steel. Hund used the opportunity to wrench the blade out of Grunt's body, sending up a spit of blood, and gave several more stabs in quick succession, though many of the wounds were glancing blows that bled shallowly. Hund was not the most methodical of fighters, but he knew that if a combatant lost enough blood, they would eventually expose themselves to nastier blows. If this battle had to go on for a while, then so be it.

Hund flipped the knife in his hand and levelled a savage blow towards Grunt's face. The bloodstained warrior raised a forearm and the blade stuck in his thick muscle. Grunt's eyes flickered slightly as the knife hilted itself into his left arm, but he did not make a sound of pain. The young berserker still held his scimitar—he curved a scything arc towards Hund's neck, but the overlord's morning star was raised to catch the blow, but it was just in time.

The blade in Grunt's arm was now producing a grisly flow as it turned the catwalk slippery with his blood. Try as he might, though, Hund was unable to extricate the blade from Grunt's limb. And with his spiked mace captured in a tortured skein with his opponent's blade, he could not reach for another weapon without depriving himself of one.

Grunt just watched with a cruel smile as Hund frantically tried to jerk his knife out from Grunt's arm. He kept his arm raised, imagining that his forearm was clenching all around the blade to prevent Hund from retrieving it.

Looking from Grunt to the embedded knife and back to Grunt again, Hund was becoming increasingly desperate. His nostrils flared in an impotent rage and his eyes seemed to quiver in their sockets. He was becoming deranged. Rapidly.

"You…" he shouted, flecking Grunt's face with spittle, "…you are an abomination!"

A dry burst of wind sent the wall of steam billowing upon the krogan warriors. Condensation beaded upon their bloodied brows. The smell of metal sparks and stale death wafted in from the smoke-pillared battle plain just miles away and a crackle of thunder momentarily parted the sky.

Grunt just gave a soft snort and narrowed his eyes. Hund looked up at the calm exterior of the young warrior and realized that he had been baited.

In the next heartbeat, Grunt twisted the scimitar in his right hand. Hund's grip on his morning star had been poor and the dislocating motion traversed across the long and unwieldy spikes and finally down the shaft and into the handgrip, yanking it out of the overlord's hand to send it sailing through the air in a wild arc. His weapon freed, Grunt then made a strong slash down to where Hund's hand was still trying to lurch the knife from where he had stuck it. The razor steel met little resistance as it passed through Hund's fingers—bits of the krogan digits bounced upon the walkway, blood drops bouncing in a symphony of agonized surprise.

Hund staggered back a step and looked dumbly at his maimed hand, blood now gushing from his three tiny stumps. Grunt offered no respite for his foe as he made a sweeping parallel cut aimed at head-height. A flat blur of gold fluttered towards Hund's agape mouth. There was a thick noise of flesh and bone being sheared in an instant. A low wail spluttered from the overlord's throat as a deep wound from his mouth ejected a gory mass of blood and other putrid fluids. Then, the surface tension broke and the jaw abruptly dropped away to dangle in a hinge-like fashion, a hideous display. Grunt had completely severed the tendons and the cartilage that had held one corner of Hund's jawbone in place.

Immediately forgetting about his wounded hand, Hund reached up as if he could somehow push his flapping jaw in place. There was something uniquely appalling about witnessing the krogan's mouth abruptly skew diagonally. His lower row of teeth swayed at the complete wrong angle, nothing but frantic gurgling noises spewing forth. His eyes grew wider and wider with panic and pain, only to be amplified further when Grunt stepped forward after calmly prying the knife from his forearm, and reached out to grip the disconnected end of Hund's jaw.

Ice blue eyes peered into obstinate and dark ones that shone like wet rocks. Hund tried to say something but it came out garbled through his ruined mouth. Only the victor would have the right to speak.

Grunt leaned forward, no forgiveness emanating from him. "I am krogan," was his cold retort.

And with that, he tightened his grip upon the severed jaw end and, with a great wrenching motion, ripped out Hund's entire lower jaw.

Two earsplitting crunches later and it was done.

Hund's scream reached a pitch that Grunt never imagined krogan vocal cords could reach. It was so shrill that even Hund's lackeys all jolted and winced. Jagged cuticles of bone now poked out at the corners of where Hund's jaw had once been, blood splashing out around them and gurgling with a plentiful volume. Hund's tongue lolled in midair like a thick vine, supported by nothing. The warlord's eyes went wild for a moment before the light abruptly dimmed and he swayed on his feet. Something then seemed to leave him and Hund's eyes began the slow ascent towards the back of his skull and his knees lost all their rigor. He crashed in a heap at Grunt's feet.

Grunt was already walking over Hund's corpse, the dead man's jaw still clenched in a bloody fist. A crude trophy. A dark rage clung to the young warrior like a cloud, and he menacingly treaded towards the clustered squad of Hund's underlings, who stood at the head of the stairwell that led back down into the labyrinth of the refinery.

He halted just scant meters away. Grunt eyed each of the krogan before him, noting their astonished expressions, their hesitation so palpable it could almost be tasted. With a scowl, Grunt bent his arm and tossed the severed jaw towards them in an underhand throw. The objected bounced once upon the ground and landed upward, the white pointed teeth glinting towards the sky as they were now housed towards infinitude.

"You saw what he decided to fight for," Grunt pointed an accusatory finger where Hund now lay forevermore. "It brought him to an end fit only for someone of his caliber. Will you take up his cause and try to kill me like he did?"

No one answered, all of the krogan seeming distant. They could only look to the body of their warlord lying in pieces. Their realities were slowly uncoupling before their eyes. Such harbingers of destruction had only promises of conflict to bring to the masses, opportunities for the ones they led to make legends of their names and inscribe them into the chronicles for all of time to remember. Hund had been one of those harbingers and he had been struck down, well before he had picked up a chisel to make the first mark.

Grunt then raised his arm, the one holding his bloodied scimitar. "Or will you follow your overlord to glory, to fight enemies that we know we are fit to destroy? For the krogan way is not to stamp out the pyjack despite it being a pestilence. It is to rip out the heart of the maw, to kill the scourge before it can kill us. You know who is truly the worthy enemy. Now… kneel, or die. Your choice."

Only the sounds of battle in the distance were allowed to puncture the moment. The grouped krogan never took their eyes off of Grunt, but they all thrummed with a seemingly impossible choice. But then one soldier in front fell to a knee before the young warrior, a hardened fist propping him up as he drooped over as far as he could go. Then another krogan dropped. Then another fell. And another, until all were genuflecting before Grunt, all chanting the same bass-y phrase before the victor.

"Overlord Grunt."

"Overlord Grunt."

"Overlord Grunt."

---

Trench Complex Sector 9B

Korridon was in a nightmare.

The smoke and dirt that had been kicked up by the scuffing of the mechs and tanks had finally thrown an eerie night upon this corner of the world. Conflagrations spiraled in brutal displays of vivid whites and reds, while arcs of static electricity in the deadly clouds threw all hues grayscale in split-second shards of time.

Bullets spat by him, ripping apart the air in their concussive wake. The ground burst at his feet, flintsparks rippling up like the eager fingers of flames ready to bloom. He ran, his lungs swelling close to the bursting point, his exhalations emitting in ragged gasps. The turian scrounged up bursts of energy as he sprinted across the battlefield, leapt over trenches, and dodged all manner of ordinance spewing from the Radius arsenal at his back.

Upon his wrist, a singular red dot was rapidly oscillating. The signal to retreat to the next defensive line. Unfortunately, that put Korridon a little less than a quarter of a mile outside of its boundary. He hustled between smoldering wrecks of armor and person alike, his feet kicking up small storms of ash. Ahead of him, a small river of light barely washed through the smoke maze, a very tender tear that he constantly hurried towards, the veins in his neck throbbing in agony.

In the darkness, Korridon's foot struck a rock and he nearly went tumbling into a nearby trench. He regained his balance at the last moment and managed to awkwardly jump into the cut in the ground. Flurries of formless shapes—armored soldiers—all around him lacked definition or color. They moved in writhing masses, like soulless ghouls climbing and slipping over one another in an oily clump. He was not sure if he was among enemies or allies. Korridon warily lifted his rifle, but quickly lowered it when he saw the ragged Congregation insignia scratched upon the shoulder pad of the closest man—an asari officer.

"Front line's just ahead!" she had to holler into Korridon's face in order for him to hear what she was saying. "Keep pushing up the ridge—you'll make it—"

Something streaked by Korridon's head, too fast for him to react. An explosion then resonated as a vigorous wafting of energy and light, followed by a cacophonous roar. Razor shards of blasted rock and dirt screamed past the turian's body, each airborne missile smelling faintly of magma. The asari was not as lucky. One fatefully shaped fragment sliced straight on, spinning like a cutting blade, until it met the asari's forehead. The rock cut straight through the bone and popped the top of the asari's skull off like a shaken can of beer. A dark mass spewed from the alien's open cranium pan, dark against the cutting gray sleet of smoke, and she dropped at Korridon's feet. With a gasp, he stumbled against the side of the trench and slid down about halfway, unable to take his eyes from the asari's corpse.

There was a low rumbling noise and the pebbles at the lip of the trench began to dance in a staccato beat. The cause of the churning vibrations quickly revealed itself in the form of a Radius-colored Chronos-type mech. Korridon looked up to see the blue seepage of display-glow emit from the digital glass, the outline of the pilot within holding the twin toggles of the massive war machine. The damn thing was just over his head. Korridon pressed himself flat against the trench wall, hoping the mech pilot had not seen him. He dared not take a breath, lest that thing had focused audio receptors. Spirits, he should have kept on running when he had the chance!

Slowly, Korridon looked up, dreading the imagined sight of the maws of the mech's guns bearing down upon him, the controller of which would undoubtedly take great pleasure in spreading his remains as a filmy paste upon the already soaked landscape.

What he imagined had been looming over him was not what reality turned out to be. At the perfect time, Korridon spotted a sleek ViPR walker slide out from the burning haze, a series of rockets already emitting from a wrist launcher. Korridon saw the incoming impact and hurled himself into the mud, turning his head slightly to the side so that he would be able to breathe. The world rattled as the Chronos exploded and Korridon heard dim thumps as flaming pieces of the wrecked machine landed around him, some glowing parts hissing as they landed in the putrid water, but none actually hit him.

Until he was sure it was over, he slowly stood on shaking legs. His front was smeared with brown grime, but he was on his own two feet and alive. That had to count for something.

The ViPR that had just saved his ass came over and pushed aside the half-shattered hulk of the mech it had just destroyed. It quickly knelt next to Korridon—shelter within the permanent penumbra. The turian gaped up at the sight, feeling microscopic next to the hulking thing.

"Saw your contact get swarmed," Kaidan's voice burst from the ViPR. "You good to go, soldier?"

Korridon nodded on instinct, eyes wide. "Think so," was all he could say.

"Glad to hear it. Roahn would've killed me if something had happened to you."

The name surged forth a welcome warmth within him. Korridon gave a start and a tiny noise, something in his stomach dropping and his mind clearing as if he had just awoken from a long slumber. The battle around him dimmed and grew fuzzy for a heartbeat, and his aches, pains, and scars seemed to wash away as he was offered this one chance since the battle started to remember why he was here and what he was fighting for.

"Do you know where she is?!" he pressed Kaidan, adrenaline now spiking through every vein. "Roahn! Where is she?!"

The ViPR lifted a limb, the appendage bristling with weaponry. "Last contact I had on her put her near the city's eastern edge. She's with the advance force now, carving out a def—"

The outstretched arm of the mech erupted as if a thunderbolt had chosen this exact moment to land amidst the shattered plain, but as the pieces of the ruined limb continued to clangorously crumble, Korridon was able to spot an incoming Radius armor force making it over the nearby hill—tanks and walkers, and a whole mess of heavy infantry. Inferno-light folded over the battlefield, sweeping through the parched mesas, and a massive firestorm of missiles pounced forward with enough explosives in them to carve out a piece of the world.

Kaidan's ViPR turned—too slow to meet the enemy. Blossoming fireballs ripped holes in the joints of the walker, scouring away shields and melting armor into gelatinous fragments. The ViPR staggered back, trying to swipe away some of the incoming missiles with laser counterfire. But the projectiles were too numerous to be brushed away so easily. A cavalcade of hemisphere-like eruptions carved craters of glass, disintegrating flesh and rock within their rippling reach. More and more pieces of the ViPR rained down as antimatter fire ripped the weak points to shreds and spraying detritus in the form of crumbling obsidian. Still, Kaidan fired the weapon of his ViPR at his attackers, his cannons pounding on full auto. Continuous chains of firehot lead surged across the field and pounded two Makos into fragments. But it was not enough to stem the flood of damage to the mech, something that both the pilot and Korridon knew fully well at some intrinsic level.

Korridon was about to hop out of the trench to help the stricken Kaidan, but the ViPR lifted its one remaining limb, warding the turian away.

"You need to get out of there!" Korridon screamed, the wind whipping up a storm around him. "Let me help you!"

From inside the mech, Kaidan chuckled. "Can't. Auxiliary power's been knocked offline. Escape pod's malfunctioning. I've got enough juice to run this thing for two more minutes. Maybe."

"Then get yourself to the defensive line as quick as you can! I'll get some engineers and we can pry you out of there!"

"Not an option, I'm afraid," Kaidan sighed. "Knocking out the auxiliary's meant that the fuel cells on this thing will overload when it dies. This thing was meant to run quick and dirty. Can't risk a partial meltdown near so many of our own. Doesn't seem like there's much of a choice now, to be honest."

Slamming his arms over the rim of the trench, Korridon unwieldly kicked his feet into a couple of footholds as he began to haul himself up and out. "If you think I'm going to let you—"

The barrels on the ViPR's arm rotated and out plonked a metal orb that dazzled an electric blue color. The sphere rolled to a halt just feet from Korridon—a second later the blue became almost blinding and the portable shield generator immediately encased the turian in a sapphire dome, an impenetrable barrier from all sides.

"No!" Korridon roared as he rushed the shield, but his shoulder bounced off the sparking surface, sending him to the ground. He leapt back to his feet and began pounding upon the barrier with his fists, but they uselessly rebounded away. Damn that human! The combat generator had a two-minute timer on it. Long enough for Kaidan to do whatever he was thinking of, leaving Korridon trapped here until that timer ran out.

"That's why I wasn't asking," Kaidan said as his ViPR lurched to its feet. "Go on and find her, soldier. Make it off this place alive, you hear?"

"You asshole," Korridon said, but it was in the form of a throaty rasp, no malice behind it.

The walker turned towards the still incoming Radius column. Sparks and molten copper from flaming wires dribbled to the ground. The joints of the ViPR stuttered and halted like it was moving in stop-motion, and an unearthly amber glow was now beginning to charge upon the back panel of the walker, the one marked with the universal symbol for radioactivity.

"See you in a little bit, Ash," Korridon swore he heard Kaidan mutter over the open channel.

The turian was about to take out his rifle and blow the shield generator to smithereens in a final act of desperation, but as soon as he had finished unfolding the weapon, he looked over to find that Kaidan had gone. Through the encroaching effluvium of hellish exhaust, he managed to spot the ViPR charging the Radius line, its malfunctioning weapons refusing to fire. Just the one man in his mech knowing the score and doing what needed to be done.

The greasy haze then blew in and obscured Kaidan from sight, leaving Korridon staring at his own watery reflection against the barrier. Not long after, a golden glow, obscured and murky, momentarily brightened as a second sun no more than two miles away. On his tac-map, a swarm of red dots simply vanished… as did a singular blue dot. Korridon did not have to question what had happened. He simply drooped his head, a solemn vow only being voiced within his head as a final measure of respect for the man who had held him back. And when the shield generator finally ran out of power, allowing the cordite nebula to seep back into his eyes and nostrils, he ran back to the city with a renewed purpose, a tormented vigor, and the sedate promise that he would find the woman he sought and protect her to the best of his ability.

He owed Kaidan that much.

---

New Sura Outskirt Division

The rifle stock jagged back into Cortez's shoulder as he fired three-round bursts at the denizens jumping out of the smoke and into the trenches. Dark Horizon and Radius troopers fell as the bullets chewed into them, many of them collapsing upon one another only to be trampled by their fellows in their desperate quest to rout the defenders. A sniper mounted a barricade and levelled a shot at Cortez, just missing him. The sharp snap of the bullet displacing air next to his head was enough to make his ears ring. He fired back and two rounds hit the sniper—one on the gut and one in the head. Another PMC squad rounded a far corner of the trench and Cortez cut them all down with a swift sweep of his weapon.

The cauldron of battle bubbled and churned. Practically the entirety of New Sura's outskirts was nothing but shattered rubble, the break in the natural landscape a casualty amidst the frantic firestorm of privateers and pissed-off rebels.

A couple of officers next to him resorted to throwing grenades. Cortez figured he'd better join in and lend a helping hand. He unclipped one of the round devices from his belt and pressed the arming switch once. As he ascended a hill of soft sand, his eyes were narrow slits, attuned to direct his throw to the area of greatest possible mass of enemy bodies. He would have to make his reaction in microseconds—timing was everything.

His head broke over the top of the mound, revealing an endless plain of marching warriors in their black garb. Cortez immediately spotted a cluster of five men grouped together—he turned his body slightly and let the grenade fly. There was no time to wait around to see if the explosive would have that much of an effect—he was about to jump back down into the safety of the trench when a bullet hit his leg.

Cortez's leg lost all feeling and he tumbled down the rest of the slope to end up in a crumpled heap at the bottom. In a daze, he sat up. His leg was radiating with white-hot pain and blood was pumping out in an arterial beat. It felt that someone had packed his thigh in a cast of red-hot gravel. Quickly, before shock could take hold, Cortez initiated his armor's medi-gel function and a feeling of a thousand tiny needles stabbing his leg soon emitted. But the bleeding soon stemmed to a dry trickle.

He almost punched the ground in anger. A thought came to mind—that James was never going to let this one down when he heard about it. In the air and on the ground, he just could not get away scot-free, it seemed.

The world came back into focus and the whistling of airborne ordinance sparked clearly into Cortez's ears again. His rifle, previously separated when he had been hit, was lying within arm's reach. Cortez leaned over and reunited himself with the weapon. Even lying partially on his back, he still had a good angle on the innumerable PMC commandos surging all around his position—breath hissing through his clenched jaw, Cortez fought to control his shaking and slowly brought his rifle up again, now loosing singular shot after shot, careful to conserve his ammunition. Across the way, several Radius troopers spun and dropped, as if they had been yanked in different directions from invisible strings. Cortez then saw a heavy enemy trooper march forward, an arc projector in their hands firing on full auto, spewing vines of blistering electricity that clawed at the ground several meters away. He lined up his gun and shot the trooper several times in the hip—the wounded man spun, their finger still clenching down on the projector's trigger, and several of the trooper's own soldiers disappeared in cataclysmic hazes of ozone and meat with distinct pops.

His gun coughed and the spent heat sink sailed out of the open port. The slide remained open—out of ammo.

A Dark Horizon engineer then chose that moment to drop into the same trench Cortez was occupying. Mud and pooled blood splashed around the soldier's shin guards. They were holding a shotgun with what looked like a shop-made suppressor screwed over the barrel. They pointed the ridiculous weapon at Cortez's head. The pilot screwed his eyes shut. Oh well, at least I get to keep some of my dignity—

A sharp whispering sound seeped just over Cortez's head. On instinct, he opened his eyes again to spot, impossibly through all of the smoke and airborne matter, the flat blur of a tumbling knife hurled upon a fateful journey. The engineer raised his head, too late to react in time, and the knife sank into his neck. Immediately, a thick jet of dark liquid spurted out and hit the far side of the trench wall. The soldier's hands dropped the shotgun and frantically tried to reach the wound, but the blood pressure in their brain dropped before they could do anything at all. They fell, face-first, hammering the knife further into their neck once they hit the ground, the final insult.

Cortez then felt arms grasp at his shoulders. Someone was hefting him up. "I've got you," Kasumi was saying to him as she threw his right arm behind her head. "Come on, give me a hand, here."

Numbly, Cortez did as he was told. With his good leg, he tenderly pushed himself up as Kasumi took the weight off the bad side of his body. He was limping quite badly as he could hardly make a move with his wounded leg, but he was able to awkwardly hop with the woman's assistance. Together, they headed up the hill towards New Sura and safety.

Reinforcements streamed around the two and, a few minutes later, the first of the defensive barricades and packed-clay pillboxes came within sight. Strong rays of light broke through the smoke front, momentarily blinding Cortez as he felt a burst of heat blast at his skin.

He gave a glance to his rescuer and softly laughed in disbelief. "Has anyone ever told you that you always show up at the strangest times?"

Kasumi returned the amusement with a chuckle of her own as she waved two corpsmen over from the closest medical tents to assist her in getting the former pilot to safety and a suitable treatment.

"Once or twice, now that you mention it."

---

Central Front

"Stop! There they are!"

Sam slammed his foot on the Mako's brakes while his turian counterpart—a fellow by the name of Alvox—leaned over from the backseat and pointed to a dim outline just past the digital canopy. Visibility outside was close to zero, thanks to the smoke and dirt being kicked up by the treads of the heavy armor, but the tank had other spectrums in its arsenal to make imaging and navigation a breeze. Right now, Alvox was pointing to where their preprogrammed NavPoint had directed them to their latest medevac passenger, which according to the map, was just scant meters from where Sam had parked the Mako right now.

"All right," Sam said as he tapped on the tank's electronic parking brake—an old habit. "Go out there and grab 'em. I'll join you shortly."

He then hit the switch that opened the Mako's rear compartment. Alvox and an asari medic crouch-walked through the cabin of the tank and hopped out into the swirling maelstrom of streaming flames, putrid smoke, and the crackle of lightning overhead. The medics then made their way to a fallen Congregation commander who had situated himself in the shadow of a large rock formation. The wounded man's omni-tool was still pulsating around his arm, the dual-frequency locator beacon continuing to silently ping away.

Sam continued to setup all of the necessary security features before he left the vehicle. He took a worrisome glance at the map, noting that a mess of red Radius contacts were gradually making their way closer to this position. They needed to evac the wounded right now or they were going to get overrun in the next three minutes. Muttering grumbled curses under his breath, he extricated himself from the pilot's seat and maneuvered down the interior cabin, trying not to slip on the drying blood that had amassed in a hideous rainbow upon the metal floor. Contrary to expectations, Sam felt that he had actually done quite well in being able to maneuver a vehicle as historically clumsy as the Mako had been purported to be. Despite the odds stacked against him, he had managed to bring back five people back from the battlefield already when he had been at the helm of the tank. Admittedly, he had run a few people over in the process of making his runs from the medical station and back, but he did take comfort in the fact that all of the individuals that had been crushed under the Radius tires had been bad, so he was not worried about his conscience suffering as a result. The Hippocratic Oath only extended so far.

He was about to step outside the tank to join his comrades when he suddenly heard a shrill alarm emit from the Mako's control panel. He whipped his head around to spot a stark red light on the console rapidly flashing. Proximity warning. Enemy beacons were now less than fifty meters away. They were too exposed with the tank parked out here. If the Radius had any thermals handy, they would be showing up through this storm like a campfire in the middle of a field.

"Shit," Sam spat. He then wheeled about and hurried out into the storm. Sand and particulates pelted at his skin, stinging his eyes. He threw up a hand to protect himself. In this fury, he could barely see his allies, who still looked to be preparing the wounded for evac. "Hey!" he screamed. "We got incoming contacts! Get the fuck back on board! Now!"

Alvox shouted something that Sam couldn't hear. Sam groaned in agitation and took several steps closer, but kept a watchful eye on the Mako behind him, not wanting to venture too far from the vehicle lest he lose it in the storm. Right now, it looked like Alvox and the asari had bundled their patient onto a stretcher and were now finally on their way back to the tank. Sam agitatedly waved his arm in a beckoning motion, struggling to peer through the airborne morass.

"Come on!" he shouted at the approaching figures. "Come on! Let's go, let's go, let's—"

Something fluttered against Sam's face, something ethereal almost and not an object thrown up from the storm. His hearing then seemed to shut off like a switch had been thrown and a second of brief incandescent heat burst against his skin. It only took him until the next second to realize that he was airborne.

He hit the ground hard and rolled, only stopping inches from being smashed against the Mako's rear tire. Groaning, he lay on his stomach, the skin on his fingers burnt and blistered. Sam then raised his head, his cheeks faintly stained with soot. His ears were producing only a low ring—he yawed his jaw several times to try and fix the distortion, but ringing continued. He just hoped his deafness was not permanent.

Feeling like his entire chest area was bruised, Sam unleashed several yowls as he staggered back to his feet—he could only hear these as muted vibrations within his skull. Words were unintelligible. Gasping, he finally righted himself and threw a hand against the Mako to steady himself. Things occurring through his eyes were in a state of chaos. It was like he was viewing the world through a lens when the shutter timing was all out of whack and that several frames were missing. Ten meters away, he could see the blurred and blackened crater where the high-ex mortar round had slammed right on top of his squad. Alvox and the others… Sam could see nothing remaining of them. A tired feeling overcoming him, Sam closed his eyes and sagged against the tank, almost at the point of inviting doubt to reside in his head.

You're still alive, jerk. Others still need you. Your family. Your crew. Stop moping and do something, for once in your life!

Momentarily considering that he was not all that good at providing himself with the best pep-talks, Sam's eyes flew open and he staggered around the tank and limped his way inside, shutting the door behind him. It was quiet inside the Mako, but the ringing in his ears still refused to leave him. Regardless, Sam stumbled through the cabin until he found himself back into the driver's seat again. His injured hands cried out in pain as he attempted to fumble his way through the series of switches—he had to put some salve on them, which immediately made the burning feeling fade away.

"Fuck," he simply said. Okay, he heard some of his own voice that time. The definition in his speaking was still impaired, but there was already a noticeable improvement. Relief sank into him and he redoubled his efforts in getting the Mako ready.

Sinking into a momentary state of reset, Sam deactivated all of the idle security settings to the Mako and rearmed the tank's auto-cannons. With one hand on the yoke, he slowly pressed down on the pedal and guided the tank off towards the eastern perimeter of the battlefield. There was a makeshift motor pool there that he could use to rearm and refuel, he recalled. They would even have a small medical station there that he could use to collect his bearings before heading out again. It sounded like a plan and he rapidly had it all formulated in such vivid detail in his head that he almost did not realize until the last possible moment that he was about to run over someone on his own team.

Sam swore and yanked the wheel to the right just in time to avoid adding a friendly-fire notch to his belt. He hit the brakes again and the Mako stuttered to a halt, the sudden deceleration throwing his injured chest against his seatbelt, producing another slew of curses.

Something about the nearby beacon's navcodes—the ones that belonged to the person he nearly ran over—looked familiar to Sam. He squinted at the contact for a few moments before he suddenly unstrapped himself and pushed aside the roof hatch. They were back on the salt plain, having broken free of the calamitous vortex of fire and debris that hung over the field like a massive specter. Sam, half exposed as he protruded from the Mako's roof, turned in place to find Korridon picking himself up down on the ground below, the dirt and bloodstained turian looking quite pissed off at nearly being the victim of the human's careless driving.

Korridon looked like he was about the curse the man out, for he was spluttering with rage. Sam immediately took on a sheepish grin and raised his hands in surrender. "I know. I know. You don't need to say anything."

"Clearly, I do," Korridon fumed. "I have enough shit to worry about and I have little capacity to concern myself with the possibility of my own ship's medic running me over with a tank!"

"I'm sorry, okay? Can you just get in the Mako? This isn't the best position to be stuck in."

"No! Not before I've said my piece. There has to be at least seven different passive sensing systems on board that thing, yet you've somehow ignored them all and, in the process—"

"I said I'm fucking sorry!" Sam shouted from the Mako, his hands gesticulating animatedly. He took a worried glance towards the anvil of smoke laboriously making its way to the swath of rolling hills that nestled New Sura against the hardened cliffs. "There's no more time for my apologies. Are you getting in this stupid thing or not?!"

Korridon, down below, glowered at Sam, his eyes burning with anger. He then shook a finger towards the human. "We're not finished with this discussion," he said, but he moved to the rear of the tank anyway, where the hatch had been laid open.

Oh… yay, was Sam's thought.

"Turns out all it took was getting laid to give him a spine," Sam quipped to himself with a grimace, making certain that the turian wouldn't hear.

Sam settled back into the driver's seat at the same time the lanky turian awkwardly inserted himself into the passenger's side. Once he was finished strapping in, Korridon narrowed a long glare towards the human, obviously debating whether or not it was worth it to continue the medic's deserved chastisement. His eyes caught Sam's hands gripping the steering wheel and a thought came to mind.

"Give me the wheel. I'll drive."

A laugh of pure surprise burst from the dusty man's throat. "Go to hell."

"Hey, at this point, I'm convinced an elcor could do a better job of steering."

"You'll get the wheel after you pry it from my cold, dead hands, boy," Sam snapped. "Now, shut the fuck up and be a quiet passenger. We've got to get to the eastern front before it becomes overwhelmed."

Korridon leaned over and turned his head. "You're headed to the eastern front, too? That's where Roahn is."

"Well, then," Sam said as he reached over and tapped the gear selector, switching the Mako into its high range, "that just gives us another reason to make it over there in one piece. Without arguing."

"Fine," Korridon scoffed. "As you wish." Under his breath, he muttered, "Maniac."

"Asshole," Sam retorted in kind.

With a bouncing of shock absorbers, a growl of fusion, and the muted roar from the wheels, the Mako kicked up two wide streams of cascading dirt as it lurched forward like a hungry predator, reaching speeds of over a hundred miles an hour in less than four seconds on the parched terrain. With the endless flat salt fields extending to their right and the expanse of alpine bluffs to their left, Sam and Korridon sat in utter silence as they floored it through the wide mountain valley, the burgeoning sun carving chandeliers of light shafts through the smoke-scarred skies behind them.

---

Control Tower

Rapid red and white emergency lights threw the entirety of the tower into strobing bursts of blood-vessel-like oscillations while horrendous klaxons wailed in the background. Technicians scrambled to and from their stations, most of the personnel clearly unnerved by the change in atmosphere. The thirty-meter-wide holographic projection showed both the planet Rema in all of its cosmic brilliance, the battling starships dancing within the orbit of the world, and the topographical layout of the city and the entirety of the battle theater, where complicated icons and symbols warred against each other in spasmodic flashes of light.

An entire platoon of Congregation commandos rapidly made formations in front of the double doors on the lower level—the main entrance to the tower. Behind them, the holoprojector acting as a flimsy barrier, Cirae grabbed a passing sergeant, a worried look on her face.

"What's happened? Were we hit? The whole place just jumped to readiness level 1!"

"Ma'am, we have a perimeter breach," the sergeant replied, unable to remove the hitch in his voice, which alarmed Cirae even more. "Something's just passed through all the security checkpoints in less than a minute and it's on its way up here. You need to leave. Right now."

"Something? Do we have a reading on what it is? Aleph? A kill squad?"

"Unknown at this time," the sergeant said and waved two orderlies over. "All we know that it's only one contact." To the orderlies, he now said, "Take her to the auxiliary exit and get her into one of the secure bunkers right away."

The orderlies relayed their compliance and respectfully began to lead Cirae towards the small staircase that led to the tower's upper level. The tower was connected to the massive cliffs through a series of skybridges. If the sergeant's estimate was correct, whatever was coming their way would be using the primary bridge… and they sure as hell did not seem to care at the level of ruckus they were causing, as their intrusion was being picked up by no less than thirty-six different sensors. Cirae was of one mind to say the hell with it and simply remain here to face her attacker—running at such a time seemed so cowardly and a bad precedent, seeing as the whole purpose of staging the army here was to deliberately press their backs against the wall. But her more logical side knew that needless deaths had to be avoided at all costs. This was not a game, never had been. There was no reset button, no chance for do-overs. If they were going to do this, then everything needed to be done perfectly. And if that meant that her survival had to come at the expense of others, then the decision was obvious.

She was about halfway up the stairs when a commotion from the main entrance drew her attention. It sounded like the entire building was being wrenched apart just behind those doors, or that a rampaging animal was going on a tear back there.

"Welders! We need welders at the door!" an asari lieutenant screamed out. Two salarian engineers broke from their ranks and darted forward, their omni-tools already activated with the requisite programs.

As soon as they reached the door, though, the threshold suddenly burst apart—the two halves of the door flipped open with such force that it caught each engineer and crushed them against the wall just behind, sending out sprays of thick green blood along with the terrifying sound of crunching bone. Through the crucible of debris, sparks, and smoke, the Haxan burst into view, its armor dented and scratched in several places. The corner of its jaw wept electricity and its left diode was faintly flickering. It scanned the array of rifles aimed in its direction, but no consternation could be discerned from its obstinate glare.

"Not here…" Cirae could hear the Haxan muttering repeatedly. "She's not here…"

"Open fire!" someone yelled out.

The room erupted with the sound of thirty-six rifles producing reports all at once, the noise so deafening it ripped the breath right out of Cirae. Bullets tore into the Haxan, ricocheting off of its thick armor, pushing it back several steps. The hall of the skybridge just behind it began to get chewed up by the amount of firepower streaming past the cyborg—the walls became dotted with fragmentation pinpricks and the large decorative planters shattered and spilled soil upon the floor.

The Haxan snarled, considering each hit upon its form an insult. It lifted an arm to protect its face and hunkered down for a moment before it pushed off and lashed out. The Haxan had no weapon out, but it was in too crazed of a state to even think of using one for its first strike. It sprinted for the closest soldier and swung a tremendous blow with a fist. Blood hurled in a frightful splatter as the Haxan's blow internally decapitated its first victim, the soldier's head now lolling upon its neck without support.

Focus fire smashed against the Haxan's torso. It moved out of the way in a deadly twirl, its two omni-blades now extended out from its arms. The Haxan took a momentary knee, barely moving its head out of the way of incoming fire. It swung its arms behind its back, like a sprinter in the process of crossing the finish line. Over the din of chattering weapons, there was the electric sound of its lungs automatically inhaling.

Then it lunged.

The soldiers all balked right before the Haxan smashed into the assembled group, its reinforced armor breaking bones, shattering limbs, and pulverizing organs as it carved a path into the melee. Then, the cybernetic organism embarked into a wild and artless choreography in which it embodied a buzzsaw—scrambling, twisting, clawing, slashing. Its blades hurled about faster than the eye could track, parting limbs and heads from their bodies in cyclonic whips. Blood hurled about and drenched the floor—several soldiers ended up slipping and falling into the gore of their friends. Those that had fallen, the Haxan simply stomped upon, caving in their skulls and killing them outright.

A witness to the slaughter, Cirae teetered against the side of the staircase as she helplessly watched the Haxan rip apart the platoon below her. She was watching the most hateful breed of life impose its own agony unto those that wronged it. There was nothing the soldiers could do to stand against the Haxan's assault. It was simply too strong, too fast, and too enraged for anything to slow it down or hurt it.

One turian lieutenant tried to leap upon the Haxan, a sticky grenade in their hand. The cyborg simply ripped him off and brought down a blow so hard upon the man's head that both his eyes popped from their sockets, their forehead now a bubbling crater. An asari tried to gather enough energy to lay down a warp field—the Haxan crossed the gap and closed its fingers upon her throat so tightly that its metal digits breached the flesh barrier and burst both arteries at the same time. An explosion of dark blood like a water balloon burst from the asari's neck and mouth. After the monstrosity had finished hurtling away the asari's dead body, it then swung its massive palms together and caught the head of a human right in between them—the head simply disappeared under a spray of bone and gore, showering the Haxan with the clumped carnage. A bit of brain splattered against the enforcer's defined metal cheek—it casually wiped the offending bit of meat off.

Cirae had seen enough. She did not hold any slightest bit of overconfidence to her abilities and knew for a certainty that if she lingered here any longer, she was dead. Her orderlies were, for the moment, distracted, as they were in the process of attempting to plug away at the Haxan from the upper level with their pistols, for all the good that was going to do. Her heart in her mouth, Cirae ran past her escort and towards the armored doors to the auxiliary pathway. She punched the unlock code, unclipped her own pistol from her belt, and let out a wan sigh as the doors parted to reveal—

"Hello, Director," Pry'cor hissed.

The raloi exploded from the door, two thin razors that looked somewhat like sabres to Cirae each clenched in a hand. The asari ducked just in time to evade the first slash from peeling her face away from her head, but the second raking cut seared just a little too close for comfort—Cirae hissed as she separated away, a fresh line upon her arm weeping blood. Whatever Pry'cor's swords were made out of, they could cut through polymer armor.

Cirae sucked in a breath at the sight of the raloi. Pry'cor's crest of turquoise feathers twitched madly with anticipation and the crimson streaks of warpaint that adorned her beak seemed to glow like magma veins. The gemstone-like warp of her eyes brimmed with an unearthly energy and the raloi's hands trembled (nerves, perhaps?) where they gripped her swords.

"Pry'cor," Cirae sighed, dimly aware of the continued noises of the Haxan's rampage down below. She was trapped with certain death down below and this fighting-mad raloi in front of her. "I wish that I could say that I was surprised."

"You just might," the raloi retorted. "The day's not yet over."

Whatever quietus had been established between the two was shattered in the next second as Pry'cor aimed a series of tight thrusts towards Cirae's left side. The asari peeled away from the interior of the control tower and began to backpedal down the skybridge. She lifted her pistol to get a shot off, but the raloi rushed forward and a flat gray blur caught the side of the weapon, knocking it out of Cirae's hand with a wild spark. Now the asari was without a weapon, something that Pry'cor seemed immensely pleased to see.

Pry'cor maneuvered an overhead chop down upon Cirae, the kind designed to cleave tremendous gashes in her target's clavicle and would split them down to the sternum. But Cirae dodged the blow, a vibrant azure glow surrounding her hands—the asari gave a gentle push and the incoming blade was nudged aside, a seemingly innocuous blow, but the resulting strike might as well have been a mile off its target. The raloi snarled, assuming that she was being taunted, and raged another blow towards Cirae's neck. But the asari repeated the process, one hand sweeping upwards so that the slice passed an inch from her scalp, while her other hand then shunted out, a wall of force catching Pry'cor perfectly around the torso, and lifting her off her feet several meters. Pry'cor landed on her back and skidded for a couple more feet, blinking in a daze.

Cirae dared not advance, instead lowering her stance and digging into the spot she now occupied. Glowering, Pry'cor slowly rose from where she had been thrown, perplexed at the asari's strategy. The raloi had been expecting a raging storm of anger to match her own demons that she had crafted and formulated into a battle-persona, pushing everything else aside except for the desire to achieve her own victories. Instead, what she was facing against was… nothing. There was no embodiment of hate or revenge to fuel her own hunger. Why did Cirae not attack?

"I've been thinking about this day since we left each other," the raloi murmured, angling her blades into a prepared moveset.

Fists clenched and crackling with biotic power, Cirae nodded. "I know."

"You know… and yet you do nothing?"

"I don't need to do anything."

"Why not?" Pry'cor was genuinely puzzled. "This has to happen, right? We're just the mistake you people had wrought. Now's the chance you get to sweep my people under the rug. Again!"

Pry'cor advanced, whirling her blades above her head before she swung diagonally at Cirae. The asari reached up and slapped one sword aside and turned to meet the other blade. This time she was not quick enough—the sabre slipped through her defensive screen and raked a devilish red-purple line across Cirae's thigh. Staggering backward, Cirae cried out and clasped a hand to the wounded area. Her palm came away slick with blood. As Pry'cor prepared for another strike, Cirae slowly clenched her hand together into a fist. Blood squirted from between her fingers. An unearthly crackle of lightning inhabited the corner of one eye.

She took a deep breath, feeling her cells swell with power. A graceful curve of energy slid under her skin and collected near her fingertips. It would be such an easy effort to just lash out and destroy her foe in an instant. All the power of the universe right here in her palm. Spacetime to be abused and ripped apart at her leisure. Matter had no chance in the wake of such overwhelming energy.

Yet, she let the feeling die away, feeling empty afterward. This was the trap that Irissa had fallen into perhaps centuries ago, she realized. The self-centered thinking. The reactionary escalation of atrocities. For that was what the repeated indoctrination of asari centricity had devolved her own people into: mindless fanatics, no better than Reaper thralls. Millenia upon millennia in which the prime-toted thought was to always put the asari first and everyone else second.

This was to be a new era, Cirae thought.

Another savage blur passed by her face. Cirae flinched away, now focusing on the enraged raloi that was now driving her back. Pry'cor was a whirling dervish, executing tight sets of complicated moves that had the ultimate aim of skewering Cirae and leaving her dissected corpse to rot in the desert sun. The asari raised her hand and blocked the first blade, then the second. The sabres sang as they bounced off the biotic fields that encased Cirae's hands. This only served to make Pry'cor angrier, thinking that Cirae was mocking her.

"Why won't you fight?!" she screeched. "Pick up a weapon and fight me, asari!"

Pry'cor slammed her blades down again in a double-weapon strike when she did not get an answer. Cirae barely blocked it just in time, but not before one of the incoming swords carved a small gash on her scalp. Blood dripped into her eye, creating a solemn crimson line upon her face. Pry'cor was sinking into her practiced routine now—she feinted, switched stances abruptly, and widely swung in an attempt to cut Cirae's knees off. The asari scooted out of the way just in time—one of the swords nicked off her shin guards. But the raloi was already spinning to the side, blades back up in another whirl, only to hit empty air again. Clearly, she was unwilling to let her anger sputter out so easily.

Evading a savage thrust, Cirae suddenly found a pressure at her back. She had come up against one of the skyway's picture windows. There was no time to admire the view below her—Pry'cor was charging at her again. Cirae's eyes honed in on the points of the sabres, counting out the last few seconds in her head before she hurled herself to the side.

Too late for Pry'cor to stop in time.

The raloi's blades touched the reinforced glass… and went right through them. Instantly, a spiderweb of cracks burst against the pristine construction of the window, turning the barrier translucent for less than a second before it shattered.

The wind blew the razor-shards inward, filling the air with deadly glass knives. Pry'cor yelled in frustration and began spinning her blades in a propeller-like fashion, cutting away the largest of the pieces before they could touch her. Cirae grunted as one particular shard spun her way and nicked off part of her pinky finger. She pushed aside any concern to her wounds, for it was time to finish this. With the remains of the window still whistling around the hall in their airborne fashion, the bloodied asari took a powerful step forward and made a sweeping motion with both hands. At the same time, a slab of biotic force rose from the ground underneath Pry'cor's feet—it surged the raloi straight up off the ground with a panicked yell. Pry'cor's back hit the ceiling and she gagged as the wind left her lungs. Her blades also flung out of her hands and clattered to the floor. Cirae then dropped her hands away and the stunned raloi fell back down to the ground to land amongst the jagged pieces of glass, some of which cut into the dry palms of the avian alien.

Lifting her head, Pry'cor groaned as she slowly rolled over onto her back. Cirae was standing over her, one of the raloi's blades in hand, the sharpened tip pointing directly at her neck.

Pry'cor looked at the sabre and back to Cirae. She slowly released a withering sigh. "Finish it," she said. "It's what you want, isn't it?"

Both hands readjusting their grip on the sword, Cirae's head minutely shook back and forth. "What do you know of what I want?"

"This is how it goes, Cirae. How it was meant to be. The raloi don't fit into your plans. We tried to find our place in your galaxy. Turns out there wasn't enough room. Now, we will pay the price for our impudence. Now… finish it."

Cirae's palms felt sweaty against the leather grip of the blade she held. Only it was not sweat but her own blood. The stump of her little finger throbbed as it pulsed a dim stream of blood upon the handle, turning her fingers warm and slippery. Fat drops raced down the edge of the blade, staining the rippled metal.

"Then…" Cirae breathed, "…what made the first time different?"

Pry'cor stared at the asari, uncomprehending.

"The first time," Cirae emphasized. "When the raloi were invited to see the Citadel. Before the war. Clearly, we saw something in you then. Something that we felt made you ready to join everyone else. What makes now any different?"

"You speak of the past with a child's eyes," Pry'cor spat, but her attention no longer lingered upon the sword in Cirae's hands. "Naïve and hopeless. Your Council claimed to influence our self-imposed exile for our own safety, though they never once thought as to how that would have affected our culture. Our infrastructure withered. Our economy collapsed. Wars broke out on our planet—seemingly insignificant affairs for you while the Reapers were harvesting your people, but for us, we were in a holocaust of our own. We may have been responsible for our own destruction, Cirae. But you helped bring it about."

Cirae took a breath. Then she nodded.

"I know. Believe me, Pry'cor, I know. That government forgot about you because the memory of your people was an inconvenience to them. I was a part of that government for a while, because I hoped to change it from the inside at one point. I was just as you said: naïve and hopeless. In over my head amongst the corrupt and the criminals. I didn't fit into their plans, either. Which, as it turns out, is why I'm here now."

Without warning, there was a loud rattling noise as the sword dropped from Cirae's hand to land next to Pry'cor. The raloi jumped and now stared upon the fallen blade, not knowing to determine if Cirae had gone mad or was being driven by something else entirely.

Still standing tall, Cirae wiped away a patch of blood that had dripped into her eye again. She then angled a hand towards the raloi, a weathered blue-scaled palm.

"We don't need to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can begin to right those wrongs today. For all of its faults, the Council saw potential in the raloi, Pry'cor. It saw a people whom they very well knew had the capacity to be their peers in the future. They saw a bright race, a young race, but one eager to take the responsibility of being a member of what had already been built. There's still time for you to show the galaxy your worth, Pry'cor. With your help, we can make things right. Together."

The raloi fell rigid, peering intently at the offered hand. Wary. Hardly daring to hope. A multitude of past betrayals weighing her own limbs down, fighting to hold her back. Pry'cor then looked up at Cirae again, no longer thinking in the past before this moment. It was as if she could see the future clearly for the first time, one where there existed a bright spark of light. Something to be savored.

Pry'cor lifted her head, something unlocking behind her eyes.

Cirae smiled in return, but then a curious look befell her. There was the brief swirl of smoke just behind her and in that instant, she realized what it was.

"No…" she whispered.

A fierce orange blade suddenly burst from the asari's chest, blood hissing as the edged weapon carved right through Cirae. Pry'cor sat bolt upright with a gasp, the impaled asari reflected doubly in her eyes. The head of the Haxan now peered over Cirae's shoulder, the cracked and damaged faceplate hissing malevolently as it appraised its skewered prize. With a flourish, the cyborg whipped its arm back, the omni-blade disappearing from the asari's body. Supported by nothing, Cirae toppled and collapsed. She limply rolled over, looking at Pry'cor all the while and not her killer. The raloi fumbled with words, not knowing how to respond, her hands grasping uselessly at nothing as she edged her fingers towards the fallen woman.

Cirae weakly coughed, red bubbles clinging to the corners of her mouth.

"Still… time…" Pry'cor could hear her utter. So faint.

In the next second, she was gone.

The Haxan stared at its armored hands for a moment, watching the blood of Cirae Idetha dry upon them. Her blood joined the blood of dozens that had marred the battered Haxan's frame already, a temporary trophy to mark a forgettable victory. The deep black of its armor seemed to shimmer like the bottomless well of a singularity.

It then focused upon Pry'cor, who was still lying on the ground. The Haxan cocked its head, as if it was seeing the alien for the first time.

"Couldn't even handle one politician, then?" A noise that mimicked a chuckle rasped from its ruined vocabulator. "A pitiful display."

The Haxan turned away, no longer interested in addressing the raloi. Pry'cor watched the hulking machine leave, back towards the main control tower room, before her eyes found the sword that Cirae had dropped upon the ground, which now lay between their bodies. An arthritic pain wreathed around her knuckles and jaw so tightly it came in the form of a savage burn. She then reached over and closed Cirae's glassy eyes.

"A better vortreg than I was," the raloi whispered to asari.

Pry'cor then leapt to her feet, the sword plucked from the floor. Breaking into a soundless run, she launched herself towards the Haxan, mouth open in an expression of utmost rage, and fiercely jammed the sword downward in a backwards grip. The blade sank between two of the Haxan's spinal column plates as easily as sinking into a soft belly, which immediately severed the wires attached to the shield generator, which collapsed the invisible barrier around the cyborg with a crisp sound of crackling ozone. A fusing burst of aquamarine energy detonated, blowing out part of the Haxan's lower back in a noxious smoke cloud. An electronic scream roared from the Haxan and the force of the explosion caused it to stagger forward—too far—and it stumbled against the second floor's railing and flipped over it, sending it flailing to the level below. It smashed squarely upon the round holoprojector and cracked the lens—tortured images of battle fleets and the mock representation of Rema flashed around the prone cyborg like a sinister strobe light.

There was a period of stillness. Then the Haxan snapped its head up with a snarl. It twitched its wrists and suddenly two heavy pistols were in its hands. It looked to find Pry'cor standing on the level above, the raloi panting heavily as she realized that she had now unleashed a terrible danger unto herself.

"Cunt," the Haxan hissed as it raised both arms and fired. Pry'cor had to hurl herself to the side to avoid both shots and the ceiling above her glowed and bubbled as it melted.

Hydraulics groaned in protest as the Haxan slowly got to its feet. It was about to leap up to the second level to pursue the raloi when it suddenly detected movement right in front of it. In amusement, it brought its head back down to level. Three individuals were now making their way across the first story skybridge, each one bristling with the dust and treated ash of war. Enemies of the new order, all.

The Haxan billowed a laugh as it lifted its two magnums into the air—a mock salute—and nodded towards James, Jack, and Liara as they entered.

"Still Roahn refuses to show herself? She sends you all in her place?" the Haxan rasped before it rippled a metallic shrug. "No matter. The three of you will do… just… fine."

---

Two minutes prior…

The ride up to the control tower had been one of the longest in Liara's life. Second after grueling second had passed, only intensifying the anguish and rising panic that threatened to spill over the asari's mental breakers. By the time the lift doors already opened, Liara could only mournfully gaze with dismay over the level of carnage that had ripped apart the skybridge before them. Bodies had been strewn about in pieces, blood had splattered over the enormous windows of the bridge which were cracked and smashed in several places, and the decorative wood panels upon the walls had been smashed into timber which lined the floor with woodchips.

No, we're too late! the asari thought.

And across the way, the culprit of the destruction awaited them with an unnerving patience. The Haxan rose amidst a pedestal of fragmentary light, two smoking weapons each clenched in a massive fist. A brooding mass of synthetic muscle and cold, automated willpower. Liara's thoughts immediately harkened back to Berlin and of their struggles they had endured against the Legionnaire. It seemed almost yesterday they were back in that wintery city. The Legionnaire had been formidable in his own right, a creature driven by the most primal of directives, carving its way through roadblock and building to find some semblance of its destiny through conflict.

The Haxan, however, was not like that simple-minded thing. The Haxan was larger, better armored, and far more intelligent. The body of a former teammate may be in that thing, but from what Roahn had told her, they were too far gone to be reached at this point. And… the creature was insane. That made it all the more dangerous.

Liara heard the Haxan utter a throaty challenge, but she barely heard it. Her hearing had been replaced by the subtle thrumming of her heartbeat in her ears, keeping her veiled and partially deafened by her own bloodsong.

The trio approached the room, the Haxan letting them enter. The chaos in the control tower was far worse than the hallway, which was now beginning to stink with the smell of spilled intestines. Halved corpses lay crumpled in every nook and cranny, and several severed heads loosely rolled upon the ground, the gray eyes of the victims still wide with surprise.

Slowly, without calling out amongst themselves, Jack and James began to flank the cyborg upon treading into the room. The Haxan momentarily tracked their movements but later disregarded them as if they were not even in the room. From the rearward staircase, a curious alien emerged, holding a pair of metal swords. Liara was momentarily thrown as she realized that she was looking at a raloi, but such marvels were to be saved for later as she now saw that the alien was also taking up a position against the Haxan, a shivering but determined look etched upon its beaked face.

The Haxan's unreadable eyes momentarily analyzed the quartet taking up positions against it. Summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of the group. The layout of the room before it. If it was concerned, it certainly did not show it.

"It has no shields," the raloi called out in an exotically accented warble. "It's vulnerable!"

"Am I?" the Haxan rasped. "Strange that you forgot that even the most innocuous prey is most dangerous when cornered."

James fired first, the ruby-red onslaught of flak pulverizing through the air in a wet comet trail. The Haxan ducked the blast, expecting the first move to come from the most seasoned of its opponents—the display panel beyond shattered into fibers of synthetic glass. Leaping down from its pedestal, the Haxan rushed towards James, its strategy to quickly dispatch the leader amongst the crew to demoralize the rest. The cyborg's pistols flared in tandem, one bullet jerking the soldier back a step before the second bullet shattered his shields completely. The handguns glowed the color of cherry—frantically dissipating the heat at a pace too slow for its owner. They were discarded to the ground, the Haxan now favoring their twin omni-blades that emerged from their forearms. James ducked a wild swing from the Haxan and tried to disengage, but the metal monster reared up a foot and momentarily filled James' view with its sole before it collided with his forehead in a sickening crack. The marine hurled through the air, bleeding from a gash between his eyes.

Pry'cor tried to close in on the Haxan, but dwindled as the cyborg whirled, which now turned its fury unto her. While James tried to stumble to his feet in the background, the Haxan's thrusters flared and the two-ton titan surged forward so fast that wind battered at the raloi in a frantic haste to get clear of the rampaging demon. Pry'cor rolled out of the way of the charge just in time, but the Haxan was already upon her once it had skidded to a halt. The Haxan raised its arms high and Pry'cor barely got her blades up to meet the introductory slam of omni-blades, the force so great it nearly smashed the raloi's own weapons back in her direction.

"Aggressive. Ambitious," the Haxan sneered. "Where have I seen this before?"

Raking away to execute a complex combination of light strikes, Pry'cor howled as she unleashed the first few moves from her prepared fight, only for the Haxan to carelessly bat away both weapons like it had anticipated every twitch of the raloi's muscles. Seemingly bored with the fight, it then lashed out with a heel and it impacted into Pry'cor's kneecap and drove it backwards with a crunching noise. Far beyond a simple dislocation. Pry'cor turned white and toppled to the floor, grasping at her crippled leg.

Something whistled in the Haxan's direction, a telltale whisper of the cosmos unlocking. The enforcer turned just in time to see Liara swipe out past the broken projector—a pulsating singularity appeared in the room between them. Pieces of the broken room and other debris tumbled through the Haxan's feet, now hopelessly caught in the miniature gravity well, the dark conflagration sparking with white and purple hues as the beckoning blackness hissed and throbbed.

The mercenary charged forward, towards the singularity, and plunged its hands straight into the maw. Crimson swirls burned around the intruding limbs and the sphere of dark energy stretched as the Haxan wrenched the contours of the vortex out of proportion. With a strained roar, the singularity was ripped apart and a micro-pulse from the object's rapid deterioration rippled, shaking the entire room for a moment. Remnants of the singularity clung to the Haxan's fingers, fragments of the dark energy that had not yet been expended. The Haxan bellowed again, clenching both of its hands together to form a massive fist, and slammed them both down onto the ground, activating the excess energy and exploding it forth in the form of a gigantic biotic shockwave. Liara had been completely unprepared for the counterattack and looked helplessly upon the onrushing biotic wall. Her body was easily plucked up by the incoming force and thrown against the far wall, whereupon she smashed against the shattered surface and slowly dripped to the ground.

The Haxan snorted, allowing itself a moment of amusment. It then gave a snarl as a sudden burst of flared energy smacked upon its shoulder blades, driving it head-first into a nearby pillar.

Picking itself back up, it turned around to face Jack, who was now sprinting towards the monster, hands radiating with glowing power.

"You like that, bitch?!" Jack howled as she weaved her hands back and forth, unleashing projectiles of unquantifiable force that flew eagerly towards the Haxan, intent on cutting the cyborg to ribbons. "I'm going to turn you into a suit of armor to adorn some rich bastard's foyer! I'll rip out what's left of you in there and put it all in the fucking ground!"

Multiple biotic throws smashed against the Haxan, driving it back step after step. It grunted with each blow, its armor getting more and more dented as Jack hurled everything she had at it. One such reave targeted the cyborg's hand, which electrically spasmed as the inorganic components began malfunctioning in caustic brilliance. Another shockwave aimed at its knees threatened to sweep the mercenary off its feet as it teetered heavily. A carefully-placed slam caught the Haxan's chin and drove its head upwards in a powerful uppercut so hard that part of the carbon lining in its neck tore, exposing ligamental shock absorbers and arterial coolant tubing.

The stunned Haxan staggered backward, momentarily incapacitated. Jack then bent forward, an azure outline brimming around her frame, her eyes now lighting up with the same intense hue. With a stamp of her foot, she spat forward at the speed of a bullet from a gun, a blistering streak of indigo acting as a lingering trail, hands clenched so hard as they raised themselves up, electricity flitting between her fingers, as if she were to wring the life out of the Haxan with her bare strength, a burgeoning shockwave brimming in all of the cells of her body. The charging woman only existed in her physical form for a microsecond, matter and time pushing aside to let her by, heedless in the wake of iron will as Jack prepared to strike her killing—

In the middle of her charge, Jack swore she saw the Haxan focus its gaze upon her. How was that possible? she thought. There was no way, even a cyborg, could track something at such speed! But the Haxan recovered so fast—faster than Jack would have thought conceivable—and whipped its arms up with two columnar blurs and caught the biotic's hands within its thick metal paws. The Haxan squeezed and Jack heard the shattering of her bones long before the pain hit. There was a moment of stark silence, with the now still Jack staring up at the mercenary that continued to imprison her hands in its clenched grip.

"You were saying?" the Haxan asked, bearing down on her like a sinister god.

It was only then did Jack realize that she was in greater danger than she had thought. The shockwave she had been building in the midst of her charge had not dissipated. It had simply not been able to—the nerves in her hands had been severed when the Haxan had crushed them and the force was continuing to dilate in power, two tiny stars lodged within her palms, growing hotter and brighter and larger and stronger, the biotic energy having nowhere else to go. Two bulbs of blinding white light began to burst through the gaps in the Haxan's hands as they continued to hold onto Jack, the mercenary refusing to let go, knowing what was going to happen next, right as it dawned upon Jack with a terrible pang.

Her fingers felt like they were on fire. Like nerves were being scraped raw. Flames chewing on her flesh. But it was not the pain from her crumbled bones that brought the heat of scorched liquid sand dripping into the caverns of her mind.

It was the uncontrollable force that had finally been allowed to escape.

Jack just sighed.

There was a flash and a muted twin booms enveloped the room. Acrid smoke that smelled of haze wafted from the Haxan's fingers. The cyborg finally let go of Jack. Pieces of charred meat, some of it still streaked with ink markings, dribbled from its palms. Jack stumbled backwards, her pallor clammy and pale, as smoke enveloped where her hands had been blown off at the wrist. Sinking into shock, her legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor, shaking spasmodically.

From the Haxan's arm sprouted a red bar of plasma. It angled the omni-blade toward the fallen woman, its cracked faceplate brimming with anticipation.

---

Across the room, James had watched the entire scene play out while his head oozed pain and swam in a murky filter, his head wound making him see triple. By the time he had finally stumbled to his feet, the raloi had been crippled, Liara flung out of sight, and Jack—

God… Jack…

The maimed woman was partially delirious, the charred stumps of her hands continually wafting a bitter curl. The Haxan stood over her, its back partially turned to James.

The marine looked to his fallen rifle just feet away. He then looked to the Haxan. There was no time. He couldn't just shoot the creature—bullets had no effect on it. His grenades weren't an option, either—Jack was in the blast zone.

There was nothing for it, and the most instinctual urge took over his body as his vision cleared in one glorious instant. He sucked in a breath, his tormented lungs feeling like they had just been stitched together with razor wire, and sprinted towards the Haxan, arms groping forward, sweat cold on his neck, eyeballs swollen, and threw himself at the machine.

The Haxan's arm sliced forward. There was a sharp searing noise followed by a surprised gasp.

Jack cracked her eyes open in response to the noise. She slowly focused back into a nightmare. James was now standing in between her and the Haxan, the marine's hands locked around the cyborg's protruding arm, using all of his strength to push the demon back, so much that the man's arms were visibly shaking.

But at James' back glowed the magmatic blade that jutted out from through armor, flesh, and bone. A crackling sound billowed around the exit wound, the meat of James' body blistering and bubbling around the Haxan's omni-blade. Jack screamed, a wordless note, ripped from her fugue in the face of the terrifying sight.

His hands still fighting to push away the arm that had impaled him, James mustered a look back, a stone-like grin clenched upon his face. His eyes connected with Jack's, and in that moment his face softened.

"It was… an easy choice, honey."

The Haxan reared its free arm back, its second blade now appearing at its wrist. "Aren't I lucky?" it rasped, right before it plunged the weapon through James' heart.

Jack stopped screaming, well after James had fallen to the floor next to her, that smile still on his face in all of its ghostly handsomeness. She reached out to touch him, even though she had no fingers to do so with, her face crumpling as she began to uncontrollably weep while lying on her side.

Regaining its composure, the Haxan crossed both of its blades together, producing a massive spark, as it slowly began to walk back over to Jack.

"Now," it purred, "let's try this again—"

Rather embarrassingly, the Haxan had completely forgotten all about Liara in the melee. It had assumed it had knocked the asari unconscious during their bout, but apparently that was not the case, as a burst of white fire claimed a part of the cyborg's vision in the form of the onrushing Liara approaching it at a speed that could reasonably be described as terminal velocity.

The room turned upside down as the biotic charge sent the Haxan flying, hurtling across the room and into the large poster window, shattering it and sending it straight through to plunge right out of the control tower.

For a brief moment, the Haxan flailed as it fell through nothingness.

Hot desert air and the beginning wisps of smoke infiltrated the Haxan's air scrubbers. The surface temperature of its alloy already began to rise under the gaze of the sun. It was falling headfirst towards the ground now—it looked down, which was really up, and saw that Liara was still there, her hands splayed upon the battered Haxan's chest, eyes dripping with white flame, continuing to push the cyborg in its fateful plunge.

The Haxan's internal gyroscope was able to indicate which way was up and it flared its orienting jets to flip it back upright. It hit the ground all too soon, its powerful feet sinking a foot into a rigid and angular swath of vibrating metal with a tremendous clang. It looked up, noting that the background of the multiple infernos and the crumbling mountain range beyond continued to shift, as if the land itself was moving. Then the Haxan realized that the background itself was not moving. It was. Somehow, of all the damn luck, it had landed upon a passing Radius shuttle. The wind ripped at its frame, hard enough to shift its upright stance at just the slightest angle. It magnetized its boot soles to the shuttle's roof to be safe.

A noise behind it drew its attention. Near one of the stabilizing wings, Liara was struggling to remain upright. The Haxan mentally frowned, annoyed that the asari had not taken the hint just yet. Liara grabbed at one of the flexible suspension columns of the wing, breathing heavily, but was soon able to position herself in the shadow of the shuttle's airframe, protected from the rippling of the wind.

Confident and assured in its abilities, the Haxan began to stride down to where Liara was, extending its omni-blades once more. Energy took on the sharpened forms in less than a second, galvanized particles spitting from the protrusions like hot embers. Smoke washed around the brute, an impassive living statue. It wished it had its pistols with it so that it could just blow the asari's head off and be done with it, but the circumstances called for things to get a little close and personal.

"You're unarmed, asari," the Haxan called out. "Nothing left but your biotics. I was at your mercy when your band outnumbered me and now I've whittled you down to one. Might as well jump. Kill yourself in disgrace. It'll hurt less compared to what I'll do to you. And I will get to you."

Liara tried to stand under her own power, but between her injuries, the savagery of the wind, and the rocking of the shuttle underneath her feet, she had no choice but to cling to the wing in desperation, shadows and light playing across her face as the craft lazily banked in a stomach-churning turn. She looked on with trepidation towards the Haxan, which continued to march in her direction. That thing was fueled by a thermonuclear reactor of hate and Liara knew she was mere wheat in the face of an oncoming hurricane. To square off against such a sinister embodiment would only beckon the wrath of flack in the form of raining blows, fueled by the supercriticality that was going haywire in what remained of the sac of organs within the Haxan's shell.

The Haxan stepped down. It was now level with Liara on the wing. "One last chance," it said. "Jump now, or I'll make you hurt forever."

A grimace made its way to Liara's mouth. She pushed away from the stabilizer and staggered onto the open curve. The wind nearly buckled the asari to her knees, her combat skirt whipping at her thighs, but she soon straightened, that same hellblaze inhabiting her eyes in all of its glory, turning them into pits of white lava that belched a cruel and potent flame.

"You forgot the third option," Liara just said.

Then she clapped her hands together, a sizzling orb of deep, deep purple slowly expanding between her palms. The asari's arms shook in their sockets as a thin mist that tasted like metal seemed to exude into the air. She grunted as the energy in the dark impulse began to build, the simmering wrath of a thunderstorm housed in her very palms, some of the stray bolts striking her fingers and numbing the flesh there, producing tangled web-like scorch marks.

Just feet away, the Haxan faltered as it looked upon the sight of Liara summoning her assault. "You fool," it hissed, recognizing the threat. "You'll only kill yourself."

Liara just stared through the void that was in the process of metamorphosing before her eyes.

"And you. I hope."

The savage fire that bled from Liara's eyes turned jagged and fierce. Tears dripped from her lashes in an uncontrollable fashion, boiling crystal droplets that seemed to pop and simmer. Smoke rose from her palms as she continued to pour all of her strength, all of her will, into this final embodiment. The sky seemed to darken and a taste of ash now inhabited the asari's mouth. But she kept holding onto the impulse, letting it grow, letting it fester. Purging her mind of all the hatred and bile she had ever locked inside of her and pushed it into the channel where the ethereal became reality.

The Haxan shifted its weight from foot to foot in uncertainty, not from the rocking of the shuttle it was perched upon, trying to determine the danger. It then decided that it needed to stop this—right now. Blades unsheathed, the Haxan bent its knees and took a flying leap towards the asari.

But Liara smiled.

She then slapped her palms together, crushing the dark impulse between them.

There was a pulse of brilliant fire that had neither color nor heat. It encased asari and cyborg both in an instant. Within the air, a nova tinged with faint indigo hues pulsed with the light of a thousand nuclear bombs, though the radius of the explosion hardly reached more than a quarter of a mile. A sweeping Praxis effect billowed from the nucleus, knocking a Radius fighter squadron off course, and shaking the cliff walls so hard that rock formations cracked from the sheared face. The clouds that had been just overhead parted at rapid speed, pushed from the massive displacement of air that the explosion had generated.

The shuttle that had been at the epicenter fell to the ground, parts of it carved away like a giant had taken a bite out of it. It landed amidst the blistered fields, sending up a plume of ash and dust to rise into the city of steel and concrete. The lights of New Sura darkened before they flared back up again a minute later. Upon the detonation of the impulse, a serene quiet had finally overtaken the battlefield since the fighting had started. Each and every soldier had ceased firing upon their enemy and had glanced in their confusion towards the phenomenon, not knowing if they were the one being attacked or if they were the attacker anymore, for the world had flashed in one solid hue for a long moment, a simple shard of the war carved in all of its terrible beauty.

---

The infinite of Rema's geodesics snapped into being through a virtual haze of an ugly red filter. The fabric of underlying tasks blazed in a matrix of workmanship, resetting systems one by one, isolating darkened areas that refused to light amidst the translucent planes of color. Subprograms commenced in sequence, their inscrutable code filtering by at speeds no living being could interpret.

But the Haxan was not alive. Not really. It understood, at some subliminal level, that it only felt echoes of what constituted life, as its entire existence had since been made into a simulacrum meant to reflect the dispassionate linings of fate.

It also understood that to be beholden to such sinister interpretations of life meant that it had not yet lost sight of its purpose.

Its destiny continued to await.

With a bass rasp, the Haxan sat up, loose rubble knocked from its frame and streaming down from where it had pooled in the crannies of its chassis in brown curtains. It slowly looked around to get its bearings back. The flat sprawl of the scarred desert sat before it, though with several hundred pieces of broken shuttle conglomerated around it, along with the remains of aero-grav fighters and treaded tanks in their ripped death poses. The battle continued to undulate just a few miles to its right. Whatever that asari had done, it had knocked the Haxan well away from the city.

A diagnostic flipped up into the corner of the Haxan's HUD. In the bloodless dark where the silicon filaments that formed the cyborg's eyes resided, the crude anatomy of the Haxan's own body entered the screen. The mandala showed worrying damage to several of its hydraulic actuators in its legs, and several of its balancing sensors had also been irreparably knocked offline. LIDAR and stereo were malfunctioning as well and were not looking like they could be easily patched up. One of its optics was on the verge of shutdown—which explained the irritating flicker the Haxan was currently experiencing—which meant that its depth and RGB comprehension was compromised.

The Haxan slowly got to its feet, emitting a tender grunt that was the most organic noise it had made in some time. It took a moment to visually inspect itself. Its chestplate was battered almost out of proportion—there was even a gash near the collar where a piece of debris had raked through the anodized armor. Sparks glistened near its kneecap, indicating the source of the limp it was now facing. One part of its faceplate had been bashed inwards, which had most likely when it had suffered its cracked optic. Its onboard scanning software was giving the Haxan a very poor rating with regards to its mobility, which was exactly the consensus it had come to all by itself.

A soft moan filtered in through the Haxan's fiber optics. It turned in the direction of the noise. Heavily limping, it climbed out of the rubble pile that had buried it and came to where the sheared remains of a door had landed next to the dismembered pythonic leg of a drone walker. Another cry came from under the door—the Haxan waited for a moment before it ripped the debris away.

And it just stared.

Liara lay in a heap amidst the bone-dry dust and the splinters of metal shards, one arm turned at a funny angle. A crown of blood had painted half her face a deep maroon. Dark-tinged bubbles burst at her mouth, her eyes swollen shut. She was still alive.

Electrical embers spitting from cracks in its armor, the Haxan stood before the asari, contemplating its foe. Watching Liara cry out in her throes of unconsciousness. Perhaps she would bleed out in the next few moments. The Haxan could spot no grievous external wounds upon the woman's body. But maybe the fatal blow had already been cast. With luck, all it would have to do was wait. Let the asari expire in the pale savagery of its delirium. Wouldn't that be lovely?

But there was a distinct impatience that came about the Haxan like a furious wave. Some part of it was disgusted in the prospect of waiting for Liara's internal injuries to claim her. Not that it did not consider the arrangement to be sporting or any of the like, but for a foe of her caliber the Haxan believed that there needed to be more to this. Ignominy was not a fate destined for Liara, it decided. It would just have to help her on that next step of her journey.

With a sputtering crackle, the Haxan lifted its right arm, omni-blade ready to plunge into the crumpled asari's throat. It would pierce her heart and it would be done with this whole sorry affair, all in time to move onto the next one.

Yet, in spite of everything, the Haxan moved no further. It remained in its lunging position, its weapon remaining eternally overhead, catching the flat disk of the graying sun as it was repeatedly consumed by the clouds of smoke in the distance. The Haxan looked upon Liara with nothing less than the deepest visage of loathing and contempt. But it never struck. Never moved another inch.

Half a minute passed, with the faintly stirring Liara continuing to weakly cough and moan. The Haxan minutely turned its head away with a disgusted huff. It looked out into the distance, touching that far-away place within its mind where it knew existed a beginning to the end that had already been written. It found something senseless. Something terrifying. Something it knew could only be itself, for it had become the very shape that had been molded in preparation for its ascendancy.

It looked for an answer. It found one.

The Haxan deactivated its blade and slowly turned away from Liara, leaving her where she lay. A mistral kicked up around the cyborg's knees, battering at them with bits of shrapnel. With a withering noise that approximated a sigh, the Haxan limped away, towards the monstrous churning of the war field that splintered the sky before it. It left a tattered line of prints behind for the winds to slowly wash away with their cleansing breeze.

It never looked back.

Liara continued to breathe.

---

Main Front Battle Line

Red sparks spattered against Roahn's white visor, streaming around her in a wild rush as nearby explosions battered her body and jolted her organs. Her fingers had become numb to a cruel routine as she rapidly alternated between pumping the slide of her shotgun after every shot to having to kneel down to that she could rapidly slot more thermal clips into the feed. She had abandoned caution a long time ago and was now hurrying through the labyrinth of trenches. Her shotgun barked every time she chanced upon an enemy, turning what were once standing and armored foes into pieces of bloody meat after a temporary wave of heat blowback caused them to disappear underneath a bright flare.

Her head pulsated; she was a bit loopy after a few timed doses of medi-gel in close proximity to one another. At least she was not in any pain—her previous afflictions had all melted into the background as she had thrust herself back into the heart of the conflict, the simple goal of her own survival paramount compared to her other needs.

Roahn skidded around a corner and blasted a merc's legs off at the knee—she leapt up and burst a hole through another's chest with a carnage slug. She was running past both of them before their corpses had finished stirring. The ground underneath her started to vibrate again. She automatically reached for a grenade at her belt, and by the time she saw the treaded Radius tank begin to cross the trench in front of her, she threw the sticky device and quickly hit the denotate button as soon as she saw the projectile hit home. There was a furious thump and the ruined tread snaked off of the tank like a limp eel. The quarian slid into another crouch again and aimed her shotgun towards the top hatch of the machine—once it opened, she blew the pilot's head off with another slug as soon as she saw the man's armored head crest the top of the vehicle.

Her shotgun gave a dry click as the slide rattled open. Empty. There was another explosion close by and, by happenstance, a rocket launcher tipped into the trench just on the other side of where the now pilotless tank was resting. Roahn quickly scurried underneath the vehicle and swapped her shotgun for the launcher.

Just as she laid her hands upon the heavy weapon, the stuttering and awkward gait of a drone walker maneuvered around the artificial mountain of a crashed Radius shuttle. Its autocannons were tearing a Congregation defensive position to shreds. Even worse, it was in Roahn's way. Immediately, she flipped her newfound launcher up and toggled the auto-aim feature—three separate locks focused around the reverse-knee joints of the machine. She pulled the trigger three times and three thick hisses of propellant shook the weapon in her arms as three missiles spat on course towards the walker. The rockets blew the joints of the machine to smithereens and the crippled walker quickly collapsed into the thick mud, emitting a foul stench of melted armor and overstressed electronics.

Roahn had no time to congratulate her little victory. She hurtled over the tangled legs of the walker, the launcher abandoned in favor of a submachine gun in one hand and a machinepistol in the other. Leaping over a small oilfire, she surprised an enemy squad of Radius Gladiators. A sustained burst from the machinepistol took care of their shields. A follow-up volley with her submachine gun dropped them all in five seconds flat.

By this time, the remaining Congregation soldiers nearby had become wise to the fact that they were fighting alongside Commander Shepard herself. A chant of her name started to rise amongst the crowd, a rising note that emboldened the defenders. The ones who caught sight of the quarian in flight each felt surges of hope welling from whatever reserves they had stored within themselves and they redoubled their efforts, smashing themselves against the Radius battle columns, letting all hell break loose as they filled the air with flak, grenades, rockets, biotics, anything they could either grip with their hands or conjure from the distant planes of their minds. Roahn did not dwell too much upon the fanatical support her name was raising—she simply raised an ironclad fist and pumped her arm once in the direction of the enemy. That was enough to draw out a rallying cry, and soon a deluge of Congregation soldiers spilled from the trenches and infiltrated those that the Radius was populating. The sounds of dry gunfire rose.

After dropping two more armored denizens with her dual-wielded sidearms, Roahn paused for a moment to catch her breath. Something twinkling off in the distance caught her eye, right below where the curve of the mountains slowly dropped away to mark the edge of the valley. She zoomed in on the visual oddity with the scope of her rifle.

Roahn stopped breathing for only a moment. She lifted her head away from the scope only to return to it seconds later.

Upon a makeshift landing pad about five miles away, the all-too-familiar outline of a sleek starship lay parked under the glowing sun. The Normandy. Still shining with all of the brilliance of a newborn star.

That's got to be it, Roahn though. If Aleph is going to do anything else, the Normandy is where he'll be.

The only problem to that was that the Normandy was stationed so far away that it would take her hours just to get there on foot. Compounding the issue was that there was an entire legion of enemy forces between her and the ship.

Some of those forces, machine-gun-toting troops, had already spotted her, the barrels of their weapons spooling up as they made to engage the quarian. Scowling under her mask, Roahn inserted a fresh clip into her rifle. They wanted a fight? She would certainly provide.

Any further demonstration of her prowess would have to remain on hold for the time being, as without warning, a Mako blasted from a nearby screen of conflagrations and blinding smoke, speeding through the inferno without so much as touching the brakes. The machine gun troops all turned in unison to face the wildly onrushing tank, only to either be crushed under the wheels or thrown completely backward as thirty tons of driving force smashed into them, sending them flying through the air to be bashed into a paste against the ruined hulks of damaged and abandoned vehicles. Blood lay etched in the ground in the shape of tire tracks, the color of which quickly was exfoliated away as the Mako slowly turned in an arc towards Roahn.

The vehicle stopped right next to the quarian and the hatch was battered open from within. "Your five-star ride has arrived!" she heard Sam's voice shout from the cockpit.

If she didn't have her helmet on, she would have kissed the man. Eagerly, she practically dove headfirst into the tank. The hatch sealed automatically behind her.

"You don't know how glad I am to see you," Roahn gasped as she dusted herself off. "I was almost down to my last…"

She broke off as soon as she noticed Korridon in the copilot's seat, ashen-faced, half-turned around in her direction. Immediately, the two stood up and held each other in a tight embrace. It lasted for only seconds, but it held an hour's worth of emotion within it.

Her hands examined Korridon's face, lightly silhouetting his wounds. "You're all right, Korr. I knew I shouldn't have worried."

"Worry? You?" Korridon grinned as he gently took Roahn's wrists. "Last I checked, that was my responsibility."

"Have you heard from anyone else? James? Jack? I can't get them on comms."

"I couldn't get a hold of them, either. Kasumi and Cortez were okay, last I checked. But Kaidan…" Korridon's eyes vaguely glistened. "He's gone."

Roahn absorbed this news with a solemn pause. "I see," the words tumbled from her mouth. "Damn it." Though she had already numbed herself to the possibility of such news trickling in, it still hit her with the force of a lead hammer. The loss of a crewmember, even one of her father's old crew, felt like a part of her had withered away and had fallen off.

"Not to put a damper on this moment," Sam called out, jerking the quarian from her mental solitude, "but you two better strap in—we're sort of exposed out here."

The persona of the Commander invaded Roahn's eyes in a hardened gleam again. "Move aside," she tapped Sam's shoulder. "I'm driving."

Behind her, Korridon gave a scoff, as if he knew which answer awaited Roahn, but he made a gagging sound when Sam just acquiesced with a glib shrug.

"Couldn't do any worse than I could," the human simply said as he extricated himself from the seat.

Korridon's head swung back and forth between Sam and Roahn in disbelief. To the medic, he made a frantic gesticulation. "'From your cold, dead hands,' as you put it?" he snapped.

"Hey, she's the commander. And, last I checked, you don't outrank me. Guess you're just going to have to deal with it."

Roahn quickly strapped herself in and fiddled with the controls for a bit to get them into familiar settings. "I could use some help with the gun, Sam, if you're up for it."

"Can do, boss," Sam said amicably as he took his place at the gunner's seat. "Figures that I'd be here to see this fight finished. So, what's the plan?"

"The plan?" Roahn gently eased her foot down on the Mako's gas pedal and the tank slowly lurched its way through the shattered quagmire, maneuvering through where the whirlwind of battle had struck before it edged upon a path that led it on a straight-line course for the Normandy, still sitting placidly upon its scaffold-like perch, a jewel amidst the banked amber-clay of the desert that surrounded it. With an intense smirk, Roahn applied more pressure to the gas, sending the Mako surging towards the craft, sending up twin plumes of beige dust that coughed out beneath its wheels.

"Yeah, you know, the plan. It generally outlines how you're going to defeat the bad guy, save everyone, and get the girl—er, boy—in the end. You do have a plan, right?"

Roahn turned around, the light in her eyes clearly indicating that she was smiling. A performance meant to assure him.

"What do you think?" she asked. "It's your lucky day, Sam. Today, we're going to be pirates."

---

A/N: And here I was expecting this to be one of my shorter chapters. Talk about a miscalculation on my part. If my outline is anything to go by, the next chapter is going to be even more ridiculous in terms of length. Might split it up into smaller chapters, we'll see. Won't know until I actually start to write the damn thing.

Playlist:

Overlord Grunt
"Royce vs. Predator"
John Debney
Predators (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Rema Suite (Trench Warfare / Mako Ride / Haxan Theater / Dark Impulse)
"POSTERITY"
Ludwig Goransson
Tenet (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

An Asari Lives
"Half Remembered Dream"
Hans Zimmer
Inception (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

A Commander's Charge
"Car Trouble"
Hans Zimmer, Bryce Jacobs, Martin Tillman
Rush (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)