…
"Would you qualify that as a launch problem or a design problem?"
(Chris Knight)
…
MFV Normandy, January 21st, 7:33 AM, 2185
…
Having been rejuvenated by Lydia's pep talk, I quickly apologized to Shepard and spent the rest of the evening helping repair parts of the ship. I was surprised at how good the work had been for clearing my head, and a few hours later I went to sleep with a clear conscience.
I now sat quietly in the science lab of the Normandy, listening to Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) by Looking Glass while carefully repairing the internal components of my old digital watch, a Casio G-Shock GW-M500BA. I was lucky, the EMP had only fried the transistors and battery, leaving the rest of the internal components undamaged. It was an easy fix, and could be done with any old tools and parts lying around, even with its age. I even took the opportunity to repair the cracked glass, leaving the watch as good as new.
It was by no means the best watch in the world, and considering how often I used it, some likely got the impression that I thought as much. Not including all the dings and scratches, it was actually quite unremarkable minus a few novel features like a stopwatch, timer, backlight, and programmable alarms, but there were two major things I liked about it. First, it was given to me by my father in high school, giving it great sentimental value in my eyes, and second, it was incredibly tough. The G-Shocks were known for their sturdiness when subjected to mechanical jolts and vibration.
After screwing in the last philips head and reattaching the resin bands, I slapped it on, making sure it went right back on my wrist where it was meant to be.
Looking it over one last time, I pushed on the resin bumper on the right side of the watch, popping out the concealed OSD stored inside. It was obviously a modification I had done with Dimitri at his suggestion long ago, but I just wanted to give the drive a once-over for any possible damage. Considering there was no power going through it at the time, I was relieved to find no visible damage to the drive at all. Satisfied, I popped it back inside with a small click.
Just as I finished putting the tools away, the door to the lab opened, revealing Miranda. She had switched out of her dirtied uniform from yesterday, instead wearing a simple pair of fatigues, and her hair was tied into a simple ponytail that hung off the back of her head.
"Hey there, Miri." I greeted, closing the cabinet and walking towards her. I couldn't help but feel a shift in the air as I did so, seeing her face hadn't changed at all since we met eyes. "What's wrong?"
"I think I've figured out what Cerberus came here looking for." She answered bluntly, causing me to stare at her wordlessly for a few seconds before fully processing what she had said.
"Oh? Well please, explain." I quickly invited with a friendly tone, leaning against one of the tables as she handed me a datapad.
On the datapad appeared to be a log of all the undocumented foot traffic found at the remains of the Collector ship. Luckily for us, whatever footgear Cerberus had been wearing was visually distinct from what Shepard and Hackett's teams wore, giving the team below an easy map of their movement.
There only appeared to be seperate tracks, but they all led in the same general direction, towards one of the larger cores that once resided near the center of the ship. It must have been hardened in some way, because unlike the rest of the ship, it was mostly intact.
"So, what exactly am I looking at here?" I questioned, unable to see the connection she had made.
"That's what I believe to be one of the ship's computer cores. Look at the side of it here." She pointed out, putting her finger on the image. "I think they may have come down here looking for a data core or IFF of some kind."
"A data core I might understand, but what lead you to an IFF?" I pushed, still not understanding her thought process.
"The Collectors live on the other side of the Omega 4 relay, and only they have ever been seen coming and going from there. Any ship that isn't of Collector origin hasn't returned." She quickly explained, starting to get my brain moving. "If Cerberus believes the Collectors are using Reaper technology, they might try to find a way through to reach their space."
"Hence, an IFF." I nodded, finally getting what she was saying. "Damn… that might explain why they put so many resources into misdirecting us. Still, I've never heard of a Mass Relay that allows jumps based off of an IFF."
"The Relays are of Reaper origin." She emphasised, reminding me of what Shepard had said a week ago. "It's perfectly plausible that they have a system in place that limits travel with certain relays."
I shook my head, feeling the puzzle pieces clicking together. It was a clear goal it seemed, and the implications worried me. If Cerberus did indeed now have an IFF that allowed them to clear the Omega 4 Relay and they obtained some kind of Reaper technology, it could spell major trouble for us in the future.
"So… what options do we have?" I questioned, handing the datapad back to her.
"I haven't gotten quite that far yet." She admitted, looking off to the side as if begrudgingly admitting defeat. "Ideally, we need to find out where their cell is operating from."
"Yeah, good luck with that." I downplayed, already knowing how difficult it would be to narrow down a location when they also had access to the Gravity Drive. "Where would we start from? If we had any leads, we'd already have the flotilla bearing down on them."
"I've got an idea that might lead us somewhere." She reassured, letting a small smile creep onto her face. "The facility that Jack was looking into might have something we could lead off on."
"I dunno, that sounds like a bit of a long shot." I doubted, crossing my arms. "We also have no way of gauging how Jack would react. What happens if we can't keep her in check?"
"You have any better ideas?" She scoffed with a sigh, putting one of hands on her hips.
It was obvious we were all still very tired.
"I suppose not." I begrudgingly agreed, accepting her logic. "Have you brought this up with Shepard yet?"
"No, I thought it would be better to wait until the situation here on Fehl Prime calmed down." She shook her head, collapsing the datapad and putting it back in her pocket. "Besides, we've given ourselves some breathing room already. We should use the time to recoup and repair."
I nodded, accepting her judgement as she walked back off, leaving me alone once again. I couldn't help but shake my head at the absolute mess we had gotten ourselves involved in. Either way, we still had a long ways to go before this whole ordeal was good and buried.
I fished around my pockets, trying to find something to occupy my mind with. I pulled out the blank OSD from the other day, staring at it for a few moments with a puzzled look on my face. I still had no idea where it had come from, but I figured it was probably just my nerves talking again.
Out of curiosity, I plugged it into my omni-tool again, trying to see if I had simply gotten a bad connection last time I viewed it. I figured there was no harm in it.
Opening the file explorer again, I noticed something had changed. There was now a single folder in the drive labeled "JANUS". I was struck by the name, feeling it was something I should have been familiar with already. Dan and I frequently referenced Greek and Roman mythology, so I was already aware of what it was referring to.
Opening the folder, I saw it was empty. Somehow this managed to confuse me even more than it had before, and I quickly removed and reinserted the drive to check that it wasn't another glitch. Unfortunately, the inside of the "JANUS" folder was still empty, leaving me scratching my head.
"Maybe it was damaged by static or something…" I dismissed, shrugging my shoulders and putting the drive back in my pocket. I'd have to ask Dan about it.
With nothing left to do, I left the lab, making sure the room was empty before shutting off the lights and shutting the door.
Something about that OSD felt… off.
…
Fehl Prime, January 21st, 9:46 AM, 2185
…
I walked calmly through one of the devastated neighborhoods in the colony, taking in the air that still reeked of dust and smoke. I wore my armor despite the heavy security, mildly paranoid that Cerberus may have slipped an agent or two into the population during their operation. I was done taking chances.
By this point, Coalition forces had taken command down here on the surface, and marines from the ships above were now down here providing relief. Families picked through the rubble of their homes, looking for anything they could recover as dark clouds in the distance rolled in our direction. I didn't like the atmosphere that was building around me.
It was interesting seeing some of the Migrant Fleet marines helping out the mostly human colonists. Some of the colonists looked mildly put off by their presence, but others looked like they couldn't be thankful enough. It was all about hearts and minds in the end, and seeing everyone getting along brought a smile into a rotten situation.
After ten minutes of walking, I finally came across the main surface encampment where all the temporary housing had been set up for those who lost their homes. In addition to those, there was also a small mobile command center being used to coordinate all the supplies and equipment being brought down. Next to it, a small barracks housed everyone left from our defense of the colony, excluding those with serious injuries.
I walked in, almost immediately running into Dimitri, still fully clad in his armor. Surprisingly, he still looked as energetic as he did the day before.
"Ah, my friend!" He quickly greeted upon making eye contact with me, pulling me in for one of his famous bear hugs. "It is good to see you!"
"G-good to see you too, Dimi." I said through strained lungs, patting him on the back as he finally let go of me.
Pausing and having a moment to look around the barracks, I spotted Jack, Garrus, Tali, Pistis, my crew from the Explorer, and a few of Toni's soldiers. Focusing on all of them, I was shocked to see how few of us there were still in good enough condition to move, let alone fight.
We had taken a true beating yesterday.
"I see the king of the eggheads finally came back." Jack greeted with her usual level of derision, crossing her arms over her scuffed leather jacket. "Having fun with all those serious, asshole types up above?"
"Hardly. It was a nightmare yesterday." I quickly replied, shaking my head. "Besides, I miss seeing everyone's excited, cheery faces. Couldn't be happier to have SPECTREs and Cerberus agents trample their way through a colony we barely just held."
"Heh, your sarcasm needs some work." Garrus chuckled, getting up and walking over to us. "Still, can't deny it got pretty dicey there for a while. If it weren't for that signal you broadcasted, they might have broken our lines completely."
"I can't take the credit, you have him to thank. He came up with the idea, after all." I said, pointing at Pistis who had been quietly listening to our conversation.
"We would not have made it to transmitter without assistance from Doctor-Michaels." He downplayed, getting me to crack a sudden smile.
"Yeah, about that…" Tali interjected, crossing her legs as she spoke. "Did anyone else see that flash of light that came from their ship before the explosion? That blue flash?"
"A blue flash?" I questioned in the light of this new query, suddenly curious. "No. Can you descibe it for me?"
"I saw it. Looked like some kind of solar flare." Garrus supported, looking back at her. "Saw what looked like an arc jump through the air before the explosion engulfed the ship and everything around it."
"An arc… maybe some kind of high-power electrical discharge?" I theorized, rubbing my chin. Not knowing anything about Collector technology, I had no idea what it could have been. "Perhaps their eezo core experienced some kind of accelerated decay before going critical?"
"T-That doesn't sound like something eezo could produce, no matter the size of the drive core." Biss chimed in, walking away from his cot with his hands held together. "At the most, there would be a flash, but no discharge powerful enough to look like a solar flare."
"Emissions detected before and after explosion suggested eezo drive core meltdown." Pistis added, looking between me and and Biss.
"Now that you mention it, don't your plasma cells explode like that, Sean?" Tali prodded, managing to catch me at a loss. "I remember what happened on Omega when you combined one with that grenade."
"Yeah, but we've never built bombs or anything of the sort using our plasma. Even then, there'd be residual, exhausted plasma leftover in the melted material after such an explosion." I replied, knowing that something here wasn't adding up.
"Could have been volatile material separate from drive core, or misfiring weapon system." Dimitri said, staring off away from the rest of us for a moment before looking directly at me. "At current point, it does not matter. Enemy ship was destroyed."
The tent fell silent for a few moments, leaving me alone with uncomfortable looks and thoughts before Lenlo stood up and walked over.
"Sir, um… can I talk to you privately?" He requested, looking almost as nervous as when I first met him back in Baltimore City.
"Sure." I immediately accepted, waving him towards the outside of the tent. Dimitri nodded, putting his hand on my shoulder for a second before letting go, leaving me with even more unanswered questions than before.
"Captain, I just wanted to tell you I take full responsibility for what happened to the Explorer." He said uncharacteristically fast, standing ramrod stiff. "If there is to be any blowback on my crewmates, you, or the rest of the team, I'll take the heat for you."
"Lenlo, I don't blame you or anyone else for what happened to the ship." I reasoned, tilting my head as I felt the full force of the emotions he was experiencing.
"But I was in charge. The blame has to fall on me." He shot down, incredibly disappointed in himself just from body language alone. I was pretty sure I hadn't seen anyone slump their shoulders quite as much as he was this very moment.
"Lenlo, you and the Normandy were both outgunned up there. No amount of finger-pointing is going to change that fact." I hammered into him, getting him to stand straight again.
He took a deep breath through is mask filters, looking at the ground for a few moments before looking directly into my eyes and nodding.
"Sir, what's going to happen with us?" He asked, rubbing his hands together, likely out of nerves. "We don't have a home, a ship anymore."
"Well, I'll see what I can do about temporarily transferring the three of you to the Normandy." I reassured, turning my body to the side slightly. "For now, stay put. I'm gonna go check on Dan down in the underground facility."
Leaving him and heading out by myself again, the questions from earlier flooded back into my mind.
This was getting to the point where I was feeling more pissed off than anything else. I hadn't gotten a single answer to any of my damn questions here, and they just kept piling up the more I spoke with everyone.
I walked through the busy concourse near the inclinator, making sure to check all my angles before walking on with several other people. I looked up as we started moving downwards, seeing the suspended tower above us being worked on by crews and engineering teams. It all looked so massive from here, even with the lack of perspective as we descended deeping into the hole. Once in the tunnel, we were bathed in the standard red lights that lined the walls, giving the entire platform and everyone on it an eerie red glow.
It managed to creep me out. It reminded me way too much of the scene from Dead Space: Downfall where Colin Barrow is trying to get to the USG Ishimura with the body of his wife, only to be attacked by her mid-flight after being turned into a Necromorph. The freeze-framed image of her mutated, half severed head, dead eyes and fangs, bathed in the shuttle's red interior lights still managed to give me the heebie jeebies to this day. It, and the videogame it was based off of, were certainly things I shouldn't have been viewing and playing as a middle schooler.
Remembering middle school was always painful. There were a few good memories from my time at Arbutus Middle School, sure, but it was a nightmare most of the time. Everyone always seemed so hostile there, and there were fights all the time, some even involving me.
It dawned on me that my earlier years of school and the media I consumed, among other things, could be partially responsible for the vivid nightmares I was having. I certainly wasn't doing my adult self any favors exposing myself to that kind of crap as a kid.
As we finally reached the bottom, the guards approached the gate on the side of the inclinator, inspecting everyone as they offered their identification. I knew it was going to be more difficult getting into the base with everything going on, but every extra layer of security popped another small vein in my head.
"Identification, sir?" One of the guards questioned as I reached the gate, facial features hidden behind a full combat helmet, as his partner, a quarian with a Gen III exo, walked over behind him.
"Here you go." I nodded, producing the ID from a pocket on my armor.
Both of them looked at it for a few moments, looking between my face and armor before handing it back to me.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, Captain. Just extra security measures." The marine apologized as the Migrant Fleet marine holstered his plasma rifle. "Please present your ID at the next checkpoint."
I nodded without a word, slipping the badge back into my pocket as I traveled further into the underground facility. Two checkpoints later, I finally reached the medical facility, appreciating the well-filtered air far more than I expected to.
It was still a complete mess down here from all the foot traffic it had seen. Open crates of emergency supplies, cots, and other miscellaneous items were still strewn all over the place, and now that all the civilians were back on the surface, it was eerily quiet and still with the exception of an occasional doctor or scientist.
I reached the recovery rooms where the lights were currently set to night mode. Through the window, I could see Dan sitting in his bed, no longer full of tubes but still receiving oxygen through a nasal cannula. He was fully awake, reading a datapad under a single light.
I smiled, happy to see him conscious as I walked over and went inside. He looked at me with a blank expression for a moment, putting down his datapad as I approached.
"It's good to see you awake, man." I greeted with a gentle hug, noticing his lack of a response quickly. "Um… h-how do you feel?"
He looked away from me, staring down at the flat part of the blanket next to his right leg.
"How do you think I feel?" He answered in a raspy voice, his airway obviously still damaged as he put his left hand where the lower half of his left leg used to be. His lower lip began trembling seconds later as tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. "I-I can't feel it… and never will again."
The EKG monitor spiked as his whole body began shaking, and the tears rolled down his face.
"It was my fault… running off without support and g-getting myself surrounded like that." He stammered, leaving me at a loss for words. There was nothing I could say. "Stupid! Stupid!"
"Dan!" I reached out, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Please, don't do that. You can't let yourself be consumed with self-pity. I went down that path before, and it doesn't help you or anyone else."
He stared at me for several seconds, breathing in sharply and rubbing the tears out of his eyes.
"R-Right. I'm sorry." He apologized, the levels on the monitor dropping as his breathing relaxed. "I h-heard what happened to the ship."
"Yeah." I nodded, taking a seat and shaking my head. "I can already hear it now, "Michaels, how could you get your ship destroyed like that!? You're an embarrassment to the Fleet!""
"Heh! Heh!" He chuckled through is damaged airway, forcing a smile onto his face. "Who cares what they t-think? They're the ones that refused to hear us ou...out before."
"Oh, but Dan, don't you realize that everything that ever goes wrong is our fault?" I dryly said in as sardonic of a tone as possible, getting a small grin out of him. "At least we have the excuse that we were attacked with weapons we'd never seen before."
"You know, your w-wife isn't going to be happy when she finds out what we went through here." Dan remarked, breathing deeply through the nasal cannula.
"Ugh… I know." I groaned, pressing my hands together and pushing my head into them. "Seems like we lost in more ways than one, huh?"
He nodded, looking back to his missing leg before closing his eyes.
"Maybe me and Richard can cook something up." He suggested, looking back to me as I put my hands down. "He does have that arm and eye, after all."
"True." I nodded, thinking back to seeing Richard without his shirt on. "Expect to eat and drink more if you do. That stuff runs off the electrolytes in his blood."
"Don't worry, I've n-never had trouble doing that, trust me." He reassured, getting even me to crack a small grin.
We both sat there in silence for a few moments, leaving the air dead silent before I picked my head up and looked back at Dan
"Honestly though, how do you feel?" I asked in a sympathetic tone, making him frown. "I want the truth."
"Well, my lungs are still bur...burning, and I'm covered in dozens of bruises, but the doctors say those should clear up in a few days." He explained, picking up a glass of water and taking a sip before going on. "As for the leg, they've got so many p-painkillers circulating through it that I can't feel a thing."
I nodded, looking back his blanketed stump as my mind began running off into the distance.
All things considered, Dan was lucky to have survived at all. Seventeen of the colonists had been killed, and many more were wounded. This included Captain Toni and two of our crew members, Malko'Qhea vas Narisou and Joshua Singleton, who had volunteered to help in the defense. Both died fighting the Collectors from inside a bank they had hastily taken shelter in. Up in space, Enmson Locklear, a member of our engineering staff was instantly killed when the Collector "beam" weapon tore through the lower deck.
Their deaths painted a stark image of the realities of large-scale warfare. Though I had read plenty of books about large-scale engagements, none of it could prepare you for being there, in the thick of the action. I could lead small teams without much trouble like we had back on that derelict Geth ship, but here… I think I was out of my league.
It was a good thing Shepard was the one in charge during that battle. He certainly had more experience than I did.
"Sean?" Dan called out, snapping me back to reality.
"Sorry, just thinking about the last forty-eight hours." I apologized, running my hand through my hair. "Just another thing to cross off the list of things we never thought we'd do, huh?"
With that, I stood back up, rolling my neck with three resounding pops.
"Anyway, I've got to get back to the surface, see if there's anything I can do to help." I finished, leaving Dan with a disappointed look on his face. "Call me if you wanna talk more. I'll be sure to keep in touch if you don't."
"Oh, don't think I forgot about those t-twenty text messages you sent me in a three hour period." He smirked as I did the same, giving him a quick fist bump. "See ya."
"See ya, Dan." I said with finality, turning and walking out of the room.
As I walked out of the room, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was forgetting something. Failing to remember anything important, I shook my head and kept walking through the dimly lit corridors.
I needed some coffee.
…
MFV Normandy, January 24th, 7:33 AM, 2185
…
Several days had passed since the attack on the colony, and things had finally become stable enough in the system that we were being sent back out by order of Admiral Hackett. Everyone had been called back to the ship, and in an odd twist, James and his teammates whad been transferred to the Normandy. Taking their place was a full company of Alliance marines, hopefully enough to keep the place safe if anything else attacked. In the meantime, the Coalition flotilla would stay in orbit to protect the colony until it was in good enough shape to defend itself again.
All of us, including James and his team, now sat in the briefing room around the long table that had started becoming a common sight for me. I sat at the head of the table, Carefully observing the faces of everyone in attendance while flipping the OSD from before between my fingers.
James, unlike the rest of his teammates, stood leaning against the wall, listening to them and occasionally chiming in with his own thoughts. The six of them were obviously still reeling from the death of Toni, but they were slowly getting better. Mason and Kamille sat close to one another listening, while Essex and Milque spoke loudly to one another. Nicky, the quiet bespeckled one, sat on the floor next to James, typing away at him omni-tool.
Essex seemed to enjoy poking fun at James. He had apparently come to be known as a bit of a Commander Shepard "admirer" during his time on the colony. Nicky was a bit of a stickler for proper rank adressment, which led to some confusion with him and I when I told him I was a Captain in the Migrant Fleet. Milque was bitingly cynical, coming off as a bit of a loner to me, but the rest of the squad seemed to like him, so maybe there was something I missed in my first conversation with him.
It would take some getting used to having all six of them aboard. I was barely used to James, Kamille and Mason, let alone three other people. Even their green BDUs with the patches made them stand out more than most.
In the back left corner, "Grunt" stood silently, watching everyone much like I was. It was usually hard to make out expressions on krogans. They alway had what looked like a perpetual scowl that made gauging their thoughts difficult. With Grunt, it was a little different. He hadn't fully developed the hardened facial features of an adult krogan, leaving him slightly easier to read. His face just spelled "bored" and "annoyed". Given what he was built to be, I kinda expected this.
Okeer and Mordin were busy talking about Grunt, much like I had originally predicted they would. Listening to the two of them talk between one another, you'd think they were buddies like Dan and I. It was odd, especially considering how Okeer likely felt about Mordin. It seemed normal for krogans to hate salarians, but here, they only seemed to care about science. I could respect that.
Tali and Garrus were also having a friendly chat with one another. They were the only ones here who had also been on the original SSV Normandy, leading me to believe they already had a well-established, healthy friendship. Garrus seemed to enjoy teasing her, much to her obvious annoyance.
Pistis was, as usual, standing ramrod stiff in the corner, barely noticeable with the exception of his big flashlight photoreceptor. I suspected he was busy conversing with the Geth, based on how slow his eye movement was. That, or he was talking to Lydia in the ship's computer. I had no way of telling without asking one of them.
Finally, there was Jack. While I considered her much less of an enigma after the incredible work she did helping us defend the colony, she was still quite unpredictable and antisocial. I couldn't blame her, especially if even half of what Miranda told me about her was true. She sat in one of the chairs with her legs up on the table, hands in her pockets and looking nearly as bored as Grunt. I convinced her to give the details of Pragia over to Miranda, though she wasn't happy about it.
"What's goin' through your head there, jefe?" James asked, snapping me out of my own thoughts. "You look like need a distraction."
"I'm plenty distracted, I'm just good at focusing on said distractions." I snarked, looking up at him as I sat back straight in my chair. "You keep calling me that. Jefe. What does it mean?"
"Well, after that demonstration you gave us your first day here, I figured I'd call you that." He explained, arms crossed over his barrel-sized pectoral muscles. "It means boss."
I looked back at the table for a second, tilting my head to the side and nodding at his designation as the door to the room opened, revealing Shepard and Miranda.
The meeting was ready to begin.
"It's good to see all of you." He greeted, walking to my end of the table with Miranda in tow. "Now that we're all here in one place, I'd like to tell you all in person how proud I am. You performed beyond all my expectations, and now we've shown that these bastards can be stopped."
He then pulled out a datapad, waving it towards the center of the table where its contents appeared on the holographic projector. It was a rough image of a Collector computer core, appearing to be mostly crystal-based with some strange, organic materials thrown into the mix.
"Unfortunately, now we've got other issues." He depressed, leaning forward and putting both hands on the table. "As some of you already know, Cerberus managed to slip in and out of the system with pieces of the Collector ship's computer core. We believe based on Ms. Lawson's intelligence report that Cerberus may be attempting to reconstruct a Collector IFF to enter the Omega 4 Relay."
"Omega 4 Relay leads to Collector space. Implications unpleasant." Mordin quipped, holding his hand up to his chin.
"And considering the Collectors utilize Reaper tech, we already know what that means." I added, looking at him then back to Shepard.
"Exactly. Our goal now coincides with our second biggest threat. We need to beat Cerberus to Collector space, and destroy whatever's on the other side." Shepard hammered in, looking back at Miranda.
"To put things bluntly, this isn't going to be easy." She began, changing the hologram to that of a star system. "Cerberus could have numerous bases hidden in the Terminus and Traverse. Our goal is to find one that can point us in the right direction of Eos Cell."
The hologram then honed in on one of the system's planets, a green planetoid with very small bodies of water dotting the surface.
"This planet, Pragia, was previously used by Cerberus to conduct biotic research. It's not much to go on, but if we can find any information it'll all be worth it." Miranda finished, looking back to Shepard.
"We'll arrive there in twelve-hundred. I want everyone ready in case things aren't as dead down there as we believe them to be." He dismissed, shutting off the holographic projector and placing the datapad back into his pocket.
We had another mission. With any luck, things would according to plan this time around.
…
A/N: Things have finally been wrapped up with Fehl Prime. What'll happen on Pragia when the Normandy arrives to investigate? How will Jack react to being back in the place where she grew up? Well, you'll just have to wait and find out!
Took a while to get this one properly organized and structured. I'm not sure how I feel about it still, but I think I did a fine enough job getting everything tied together. I've been trying to give everyone a fair amount of time in the spotlight, and the challenge of doing so has been interesting.
Also, this is a message to the anonymous reader who decided to leave a rude, nasty response to my story last chapter. Maybe you might have had a point about the description of my story being vague, but I'm not going to change it at all after how rude you were in the review. Please let this serve as an example to leave constructive criticism. If you can't be civil in your interactions, your critique is useless to me.
I'd love to read any reviews, and I'm always up for suggestions and constructive criticism! Stay tuned!