(SPOILERS - If you haven't played Mass Effect: Andromeda or Mass Effect: Original Trilogy, then you might want to skip this story till you do. I've put assumptions, ME:OT/ME:A canon/playthrough bits at the end of this chapter.)
* Landing Day + 2 months - AiSS Tempest *
"Chit for your thoughts." Cora whispered to Ryder as he laid in bed next to her. The Pathfinder, lost in his thoughts, was startled and turned his head to his left towards the voice.
'I will never get used to this.' he thought as he looked at the blonde woman lying next to him, propped up on her elbows. Her piercing eyes were warm, but intently locked on Scott. His eyes momentarily looked beyond her close cropped hair and took in the view of the stars of the Helius Cluster behind her.
"Hmmm?" he said in a nonchalant manner, half rolling over to look at her fully. "And do you even have a credit chit anymore? Did you bring one with you?"
She laughed and reached out, pushing him on his back.
"Don't think you're going to avoid my question, mister." she said in a half-gentle, half-serious way. "This is the sixth day in a row that you've been awake before me, and that never happens. I'm the early riser, remember?"
She sat up, the covers sliding off her. Scott was momentarily distracted and reached out in an inviting way.
"No, I don't think so!" Cora laughed and pushed his hand away. "What's going on? You look more tired these days, when we've had some peace, than you did when we were looking for Meridian!"
Scott sighed and rubbed a hand across his head. He realized that he hadn't slept well for awhile, but he hadn't realized how much it was affecting him physically.
'How can I?' he thought. 'We're all that may be left of the Milky Way!'
Cora waited as she watched various emotions cross her lover's face. She had known Scott Ryder for nearly three years (not counting an interruption of 634 years of stasis-sleep) and he'd never been able to hide his emotions very well. Despite lessons on 'poker faces' from his friend, engineer Gil Brodie, Scott could not easily mask what he felt.
'Good thing.' she thought. 'It's what makes him, him.'
Scott sighed and silently stood, reaching to pull on his clothes that had been hurriedly tossed to the side of the bed.
'It's time to share the burden...' he thought. 'If anyone is strong enough to hear this, it's Cora.'
"SAM," he said out loud to the AI that was always listening through the implants in Scott's body, as well as on the various communications panels in the ship they were on. "Please make sure nobody interrupts us. Let me know if anyone comes within hearing distance."
Scott went over to the small audio control panel next to the bed and made a selection. The sounds of synthesizers and a slow bass beat filled the cabin. Cora looked at Scott with puzzlement as he sat down next to her and took a deep breath.
"There's something I need to tell you and it's going to be hard to hear it. It's something I'm still wrestling with myself. It's... big."
Cora sat up and put a hand on Scott's leg.
"Whatever it is, I'm here and behind you all the way." she said firmly. Scott nodded and half-smiled.
"You know my father liked his secrets." Scott began and then he paused, collecting his thoughts. Cora nodded, remembering the circumstances of how she had gotten to know the original Pathfinder.
"Remember how I would stumble onto memories and data that Dad had hidden away?" Scott asked. "Those memories were usually of just personal things, memories of us, Mom, the Initiative. Things that he couldn't say in person. You know how he was."
Scott paused again and he looked at Cora, his inner conflict visible in his eyes and clenched jaw.
'What did you hide now, Alec?' she thought as she squeezed his leg, waiting for Scott to continue.
"When we were fighting the Archon, shortly before we went to Khi Tasira, SAM unlocked a final memory. It ... well, it was something pretty huge. And it's going to affect how we see what we're doing here."
Cora listened, quietly. Scott began pacing in front of her.
"There were hidden things going on with the Initiative when we left the Milky Way. Things that came with us to Andromeda. Things that I don't really understand or have figured out. Things like what you told me about how Dad built SAM, all of the secrets and behind-the-scenes things. Things that may have to do with how we got here, with Jien's death, with our purpose here."
Scott took a deep breath as Cora waited.
'Here we go...' he thought.
"At some point when things were really getting going with the Initiative, Jien was almost out of money. Then someone - a benefactor - stepped in. Made Jien the public face of the Initiative but became the money and real power in getting things done. This benefactor is who recruited Dad into the Initiative. The benefactor had already known about Mom and SAM, so they used that to get Dad to join. Well, later on, Dad found out that this benefactor had a hidden agenda. A huge one."
"Had you ever heard of the name Commander Shepard before we launched?" Scott asked. Cora thought for a moment and shrugged.
"That name sounds familiar, like I should know it." she said.
"He was an N7, like Dad, and part of the Alliance. He was the one who was part of the Battle of the Citadel, faced down Saren and the geth that attacked. During all that, he claimed to have discovered that there was a threat to the galaxy and all the civilizations there. Something that makes the Scourge and kett look small and simple to handle. Shepard had evidence, I guess, that convinced a lot of people, but didn't convince the Council enough to act on it. But it worried enough people to the point that they were calling it an extinction event and planning for it."
He paused, as Cora's eyes widened in shock. The normally calm and cool huntress was clearly thrown by what Scott had just said.
"This mysterious benefactor apparently believed it too, enough that they persuaded Dad and Jien to accelerate the launch and ... to plan on us being the survivors..." Scott faltered as the enormity of what he was saying hit Cora and her face whitened in shock. He reached out to her, covering her hand on his leg. Cora opened her mouth once or twice and then finally spoke.
"Scott... you mean, they thought... everyone? Who? What? What happened?"
"They called them Reapers." Scott answered. "I don't know much more, except they thought that this happened every fifty thousand years or so, that it had happened before and it was about to happen again. I guess this Shepard was going to do something, I'm not sure. So Dad and Jien and everyone went to sleep, and we left. Then, when Dad woke, he got some messages and they..."
Scott swallowed hard and looked up.
"SAM, open a private channel to me and Cora's Omni Tool. Then play all of the files tagged 'Milky Way Emergency'."
"Of course, Pathfinder." SAM answered. "Setting up a private shared channel. Cora, would you please enable your earbuds so that you may hear the audio?"
Cora reached over to the nightstand next to their bed and placed the small orange buds into her ears. She slid on the small wrist band that formed the physical portion of the smart-device that served as communicator, computer and even 3d printer. A holographic haptic interface appeared and Cora enabled the buds to be linked to the priority channel that was flashing on the tool's interface.
"Thank you, Cora." SAM said. "Playing first recording - Turian SOS - now."
Static filled Cora's ears.
" ...this is Palaven Command to all turian units within range! ...under catastrophic Reaper attack!"
The short message continued, broken up by interference, until it suddenly ended with a flat, mechanical ALIEN hooting sound that hammered into Cora's head. She gasped in shock and looked at Scott in disbelief. The look of distress on his face mirrored her own.
"What was that?" she asked in a whisper. Scott shook his head mutely in response.
"Playing second recording - Alliance SOS." SAM continued.
A short monotone sound filled Cora's ears - a sound that she had heard during her service with the Alliance when emergency alerts were being transmitted.
"Alliance personnel, please stand by for an emergency flash-traffic message." the message began. Then words that Cora never dreamed possible were playing in her ears.
"... Enemy presence confirmed in Sol system. Earth under Reaper attack. I say again, Reaper attack is underway." the message continued. Cora couldn't stop the shivers that ran up her back.
"... May God save us." Static filled her ears again as the message ended.
'One... two... three... focus on the now. Focus on the present. Focus on what you see, hear and feel around you.' Cora's asari huntress training came to her and she steadied her mind against the tumult of emotions that ran like waves across her. Earth attacked? Palavan attacked?
"Playing third record - from Doctor Liara T'Soni" SAM intoned.
"Hello, Alec. This is Liara T'Soni, and the year is 2186." an asari voice said and Cora listened. The voice speaking was full of sorrow and determination, Cora could hear the steel behind it. It was a brief message, but full of import.
"... You may be all that's left. Please, don't forget us. Keep us alive in your hearts, and tell your children of the wonders that once were. On behalf of the crew of the Normandy SR-2, this is Dr. Liara T'Soni signing off." the message ended.
"Those are all of the messages with that tag, Pathfinder." SAM spoke into the silence. Cora removed her ear buds. Scott sat down on the bed next to her and simply hugged her.
"That's all I know. That's all Dad left me." he said. Words seemed to fail him as he opened and closed his mouth several times. He finally released her from the hug, but kept a hand on her leg.
"It's unbelievable." Cora finally said. "And there's been no contact from our beacons on the quantum communicators either. Could that be why... could they all be... " and the gravity of her thoughts slammed into Cora. She clenched her jaw and squeezed her eyes shut. She refused to break down, not now.
"I don't know." Scott answered. "I don't know if Jien heard these messages too before she ... died." Cora was too overwhelmed by her thoughts to hear the hesitation in Scott's voice.
'Not yet. Not too much. Not now.' he thought. 'There'll be time later to talk about all these threads.'
"So that's what's been keeping you up at night?" Cora asked. Scott nodded.
"I can see why. That's... I don't know Scott, that's something beyond my paygrade. Beyond any of us."
"Now you know what else made me fight so hard against the kett." he said. "Why finding Meridian, defeating the Archon and solidifying the alliance with the angara was so important to me. If we're truly all that's left..."
He left the rest unsaid. Cora sat still for a few minutes, breathing slowly and processing.
"When are you going to tell the others?" she finally asked.
"I know I have to." Scott answered. "Sara knows, being linked to SAM and having access to Dad's files as well. We've talked about it. She's afraid of what it will do to us. We just survived a six hundred year journey, the loss of our planned colony worlds, the Scourge, the kett, the Uprising, the deaths... all of it. Now add on top of that the fact that we migth be only survivors of some horrible genocide done against everything we had left. What will that do to us?"
"I've always felt that the truth was far more important than anything else." Scott continued. "It's how I've dealt with all of what we faced. Being truthful with the angara, with everyone I meet, even with Sara, telling her about Dad and how fucked up everything was when she came out of her coma with the stasis pod accident. The truth will set us free and all that."
"But this... " and he waved his hands helplessly. "... this feels far bigger than I can wrap my head around."
"It's eating you up, though, Scott." Cora said gently. "You don't have to bear this alone. I'm here to help."
The young man stood and paced again in the middle of the spacious cabin. The forward/bow wall were all windows open to the vastness and beauty of the Heleus Cluster and its central figure, the black hole Ketos. The back/stern half was filled with monitors, desks, cabinets and the exit. In the middle of the cabin, Scott paced back and forth for a few minutes, thinking hard. Cora waited, considering her own thoughts.
"I just have to do it. I know this is going to raise a lot more questions, and even more scrutiny on Dad and Jien, but they have to know. And we have to consider what this all means." Scott finally declared. "We'll do it together, just like how we've been doing things so far."
He paused, thinking.
'The truth matters most. She's strong. I have to tell her.' With that, Scott made his decision. He would tell her the other ugly secret keeping him up at night.
"There's one other thing." his voice dropped down to a low tone. "Something else that came out of Dad's 'secrets' that's messing with my head. Not as bad as the Reapers, but it could be a worse poison."
Cora took a deep breath and waited.
"Jien didn't die from the Scourge. She was murdered, most likely by someone who was working for this benefactor."
Scott went on to explain how he'd found evidence both in Jien Garson's old quarters and in his Dad's recordings that pointed to a sinister conclusion - that the founder and face of the Andromeda Initiative had been killed by an associate of the mysterious Initiative benefactor! Cora shook her head mutely.
"... so now you know why I haven't said anything. There's just too little to go on and it sounds like a conspiracy theory." Scott explained. "Tann's already in a tizzy over the krogan, the outposts, Meridian and the Moshae being our ambassador. If I toss this at him, he's going to explode like a drive core unleashed. I just don't have enough, and I don't want to possibly let the benefactor's faction know that I know."
Cora nodded slowly.
"You have far too much on your shoulders." she said. "Alec would wrap himself up in all these mysteries and threads, but he loved it, he loved the intrigue. You, I don't think it's healthy for you. You're not your father, and you don't have to keep his secrets."
"I know, Cora, I know. I don't want to." Scott answered. "I just have to balance what we can handle and what we can actually do. What worries me is that once news of the Reapers and Milky Way gets out, what will this benefactor or his allies do? What's their agenda? Why kill Jien over this? Too many questions and not enough answers."
"And nothing to just shoot or throw biotics at, hmmm?" Cora said in a teasing voice. "You've followed your instincts the entire time we've been here, Scott. Trust them now. I'll back you one hundred percent."
Scott smiled gratefully at Cora and she could see the relief in his eyes, his body relaxing a bit as the stress of the burden of his knowledge was now shared with the woman he loved.
"SAM, can you take a look at the directors' calendars and set up a vidcon meeting? Invite the other Pathfinders." Scott called out.
"Yes, Pathfinder. What should I tell them the meeting is about?" the AI answered.
"Just tag it 'Milky Way news' and they'll pay attention." Scott answered.
"You just love making Tann's life a living hell, don't you?" Cora laughed. "A subject like that will drive him crazy."
Scott simply smiled in an innocent fashion in reply.
"I have a forty five minute block later this afternoon available." SAM announced. "Setting up the meeting now."
"No going back after this." Scott said in a rueful voice. "Guess our innocent peace after landing is about to get blown away."
"We'll do it together." Cora reassured him in her confident voice. "Just like we overcame all the obstacles so far, we'll get through this. And if we're all that's left..." and she paused, her voice cracking a bit.
"... if we're all that's left, then we'll become the best next civilization that we can, because we did it together, with you."
Scott replied by walking over to her and kissing her deeply. She relaxed into the kiss, then playfully pushed him back.
"Since you're up, we can go for an extra long workout in the cargo bay today. Work off some of that left-over stress!"
"You're such an overlord." Scott groaned in response but he went over to the closet to grab his workout clothes. He looked forward to being able to let go of this, even if just for a bit. He wasn't alone, and that knowledge filled him with warmth and comfort.
Thank you for reading!
It has been almost twenty years since I wrote fanfic, and I've never done it with a beloved universe like this. Please be kind, helpful and supportive in your reviews and replies. Writing is a muscle and I have a lot of muscle to work back into. Fortunately, I have a fascinating bit of story to help drive me!
Some things that have influenced my story - my headcanon and playthrough choices, I think it's called?
1. Mass Effect Original Trilogy - In my "I want this to be the profile I may take into the next ME" playthrough, Male Shepard chose the Destroy option and I had a high enough score that the damage is not too bad. (Yes, he lived and I'm a TaliShep… not that it matters, but hey…) My ME:OT playthrough may or may not affect this particular story, but at least you know where I might come from.
2. Mass Effect Andromeda - I played a custom face Scott Ryder as honest, up front, warm, impulsive and professional. Basically mostly a Paragon (to speak in MEOT terms) although he did let Reyes take out Sloane Kelly on Kadara - and don't think that I didn't play that scene through a few times to process how I felt!
My Scott also romanced Cora pretty hard from the beginning. In my headcanon, he'd always had a crush on her since he met her in the leadup to launch. I did the "garden kiss" interrupt - no regrets!
Which is funny because as a player, my very first "ZOMG" was over Suvi's voice! And yea, Scott had a one nighter with PeeBee, but they both agreed "no strings attached" and have moved on.
I loved Mass Effect Andromeda for both the way it presented a brand new story that acknowledged the original trilogy, but set its own path. Sooooo many threads left open! This is my headcanon on one of them… and I hope I do the universe justice with my interpretation of some of the mysteries that we were left with.
I've not read the ME:A prequel books yet, working on getting them - I am checking facts and other things against wikis and what I read is "canon" to the universe.
I don't know how often I'll update, life is pretty complicated, and this will end in a few chapters, so we'll see.
