…

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."

(Carl Jung)

…

I wandered in the darkness for what felt like hours, unable to find any light no matter how hard I tried. Fumbling and falling, I eventually began feeling a pulse in my head, followed by a pounding sensation. It continued to increase in severity as I heard voices in the distance, barely audible. Starting as a faint whisper, I turned towards the source, seeing a light finally appear. I stood up and began running towards it as the voices grew louder and more distinct. It was as if someone was calling my name, telling me to wake up. I continued to run, fighting against the pain as I finally reached the light, becoming enveloped in it as I heard someone call out to me one final time.

"Wake up!"

…

I gasped for air as I shot awake, head pounding like a pair of bongos. I immediately discovered my left eye was swollen shut and blood could be felt trickling down my face, mixed with all the sweat. I used what little vision I had to look around, thankful that I was still in one piece after that impact. My chest was still tight and I likely had some kind of concussion, but I was indeed alive.

"...hello? Anyone read me?" I spoke into my comm, still getting no signal as an emergency alarm repeated itself. "OK...OK, I figured as much…"

I peered through the cracked canopy, seeing the battle was still raging outside. It looked like we had gained the upper hand as Balak's vessel had stopped firing and his escorts were dust. Still, it was hard to tell considering I was still drifting away from the battle. I was far enough away that they looked like two little model ships in the distance.

I knew that I needed to find a way to arrest my momentum, or failing that, get out of the mech while I was still in range of the ship. Like my left eye, the mech's left arm seemed to be out of the question, jammed at the elbow. There didn't seem to be any saving it, and without both arms and their guns there would be no way to save the mech itself. I was in a bad position.

"Shit…" I exclaimed, checking my EVA suit's pressure gauge to make sure it was still properly sealed. "Well at least that still works."

Decompressing the cockpit, I opened the top hatch, watching the spin put me in view of the Saint Luke for a good two seconds before I rotated out of view. I knew that if I didn't do this right, I would be a dead man. I leaned back in my seat, tightening my harness as much as I could as I primed the emergency ejection system.

"Come on, come on, come on…" I repeated to myself as I waited for a good opening, acutely aware of my diminished depth perception as light bounced around the cockpit interior.

Taking another deep breath, I pulled the handle and looked up as far as I could, firing out of the mech as I felt the full twelve g's of upwards force exerted on my body. I nearly blacked out for a moment before I spotted another glimmer from the ice ahead of me.

"Damn!" I exclaimed, grabbing hold of the joystick still attached to the seat and using my own oxygen supply as propellant. I barely dodged the chunk of ice, thankful that we never bothered to remove that feature from the seat.

Being mindful of my oxygen levels, I continued to fly towards the ships. The g-forces were taking their toll unfortunately as I began to feel myself slipping away again.

"-ue Fox! Blue Fox!" My comm suddenly buzzed, bringing me back once again as my omni-tool managed to connect to the previous channel in lieu of the Dragoon's communicator. "Are you out there, sir?!"

"Uh… yeah." I answered in a dull tone, my head feeling light and my vision blurry.

"Sir, your signal indicates you are on a direct impact course with the enemy ship. Are you able to correct your momentum?" Another voice piped up, though I was too out of it to figure out who either of them were.

"Ne...negative. Had to eject… oxygen supply only." I replied, looking down at my seat's gauge to see it was quite a bit lower than I previously thought. "I need help."

"Understood. Maintain your current trajectory and sit tight, sir. We'll figure something out." The first voice reassured, getting me to instinctually nod as I noticed I was indeed flying towards Balak's ship and not my own.

I was acutely aware that if I hit that ship at this velocity, I'd be dead instantly. I slowed my breathing as the seconds ticked by, slowly losing awareness of how bad this really was. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a greyish smudge moving towards me quickly. Through my muddled, blurred vision I finally realized it was another Dragoon quickly rocketing towards me. Knowing I had no oxygen left, I simply leaned back in my seat, ready to accept whatever was about to happen.

To my sudden surprise, the Dragoon reached out and snatched me in both hands, like a wide receiver playing football. The sudden loss of momentum made me feel sick to the stomach for a moment before the blood started flowing correctly through my body again.

"Wow…" I spoke, feeling my shortness of breath in full now that I wasn't under heavy g-forces. I was amazed at how quickly everything began to come back into focus.

"Sir, are you alright?" The comm rang out as the mech held me up to its opaque cockpit window.

"Oxygen...low…" I answered, now feeling incredibly tired as they raised me over their cockpit and opened the hatch, revealing one of the few Geth mech pilots.

"Please enter the cockpit, sir." He urged, waving me towards him as I slowly unhooked myself from the seat harness and pushed myself towards him. I drifted inside as he closed the hatch, restoring the atmosphere. I took off my helmet, gasping for air as I finally got a taste of fresh oxygen.

"I can't believe I'm alive." I thought out loud, feeling quite comfortable at the moment despite how cramped it was. "My God, I'm actually alive."

"Sir, you appear to be injured." The Geth assessed, the flaps on his head tilting up as he tried to get a good look at my face. Small droplets of my blood leaked from inside my open helmet and floated through the cockpit interior. "We should return you to the Saint Luke for medical attention."

"Not yet." I shook my head, sending more blood flying through zero-g as I slathered some medigel on my forehead. "Pilot, what's the current status of the enemy?"

"All escorts have either been knocked out or destroyed, and the lead ship has been disabled." He answered without hesitation as I began to feel the pain I was in as my adrenaline levels started going down. "The XO has ordered Marine teams to the Cobra gunships in preparation for boarding action."

"Can you put me through to him?" I asked as he nodded, flicking one of the switches above him. "Dixon, you read me?"

"Fuck me, Sean, you're one lucky son of a bitch." He exclaimed, getting me to smile. "How you managed to survive something like that is a mystery to me."

"Thanks. Not to sound rude, but we've still got an active situation to deal with." I refocused, doing my best to ignore the pain. "Have you sent out those Cobras yet?"

"Negative. I was waiting to see if there were any more attempts at resistance before sending those across the gap." He remarked as a burst of static could be heard as a broadband signal connection was made.

"Attention, this is Ka'hairal Balak to the United Confederation Admiral. We wish to extend to you our unconditional surrender effective immediately. No more of my people need to die this day." The message said, surprising me. "Please acknowledge this communique as quickly as possible, we want to limit possible Reaper detection."

Leaning back in the cramped cockpit, I ran my hand through my hair. I was honestly surprised at this turn of events, considering how proud Batarians tended to be about these kinds of things. Either they took more damage than we thought, or they had far more problems than we originally thought. There existed the chance that this could simply be an attempt at treachery, but considering the primary goals of this mission, I had to give it a chance.

"Ka'hairal Balak, this is Admiral Michaels. I accept your unconditional surrender." I spoke on the same channel, taking great care to keep my ragged throat in check. "Meet me in our starboard hangar bay in half an hour to discuss our situation going forward. You are allowed to bring a small security team with you, but any further actions against my crew will result in immediate retaliation."

"Very well. I will meet you at the specified time." He immediately replied, cutting the line just as quickly.

"Dixon, call off the boarding action." I ordered on the encrypted channel, feeling my breathing relax. "Double up security around the starboard hangar, and keep our guns trained on their ship until further notice."

"Yes'sir." He agreed, the line going dead as I turned back towards the pilot and smiled.

With any luck, we could still salvage this rotten situation we had found ourselves in.

...

UCV Saint Luke, October 13th, 3:06 PM, 2186

…

Making my way back to the starboard hangar, I held a bag of ice against the side of my face to keep the swelling down over my eye. Thankfully I had narrowly avoided any concussions or fractures to my skull, but I was quickly developing one hell of a headache and a huge bruise along the entire left side of my face. It pulsed in pain with each beat of my heart, leaving me quite pissed off.

I wanted nothing more than to take this Balak asshole and throw him out an airlock after what he's done to my ship and crew, but unfortunately we weren't in a position to make such flagrant decisions. While we succeeded in disabling Balak's ship and several of his escorts, we still had no propulsion other than our thrusters and the reactor was barely holding at 28% effective output. Until we fixed those key systems, we weren't going anywhere, and the Chief had no concrete ETA on when such repairs could be completed.

There existed the possibility that we might need Balak's help to recover from this. It was not a notion I was particularly thrilled with entertaining. I remember reading Shepard's after-action report regarding Terra Nova long ago, and being disgusted with Balak's tactics. He nearly triggered an extinction-level event on the planet with an asteroid, which could have potentially killed several million people. If that wasn't bad enough, he was responsible for leading dozens of other attacks in Alliance space, resulting in countless deaths.

I should have been slapping cuffs on this guy, not inviting him to my ship for negotiations.

"Sir, we've got a single inbound shuttlecraft." Dixon announced as we walked, annoying me just slightly. "It appears to be unarmed."

"I'm surprised they have anything that's unarmed." I muttered to myself, pulling the ice pack off my face and feeling the warm air against my cold skin. "I can't believe I agreed to do this. I must have gotten a high off that fresh air."

"Sir, we both know there's nothing we can do to change what has happened." He quickly replied, having picked up on my negative tone. "All we can do is move forward and try to salvage the situation."

"I know, it's just… I've never lost this many people before." I said, stopping in the hallway and turning to face him as I lowered my tone. "Nearly one-hundred and twenty of my crew are dead or missing, and nearly as many are badly injured or wounded. You'll have to forgive me if I'm not feeling all that chipper at the prospect of meeting the responsible party in person."

"At the risk of sounding insubordinate, Admiral, I think you've forgotten our whole reason for coming here." He went on, getting my eyes to widen. "Sure, the results aren't what we expected, but we all came here knowing that risk. We found the Batarians, and this Balak guy might be the only one who can tell us what the hell happened on Khar'shan."

"Or maybe he can shoot us in the back again, kill most of us and strand any survivors here, deep in Reaper territory." I shot back, feeling my suppressed anger seeping through. "You know as well as I do that this man isn't to be trusted. He's a terrorist and a murderer, and he'll be lucky not to get a bullet between those four eyes of theirs."

"I'm not suggesting you trust him sir, far from it. I'm suggesting that, at least for now, we help each other." He refocused, using a much slower, deliberate tone. "Whether it becomes a short or long-term cooperation is up for you two to decide. No matter what course of action you take, I will follow your orders to the letter."

"Heh… it's good to know I got an XO that I can trust." I smiled, finally realizing how much I needed to vent my anger.

Walking into the hangar as Balak's shuttle pulled in for a landing, Largos and the rest of my Marine team tensed up as hot air blew at us, the shuttle coming to a gentle landing in front of us. It had the same, "digitized" camouflage pattern as his ship, though obviously this didn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Without a hint of fanfare, the doors on the side of the shuttle opened, revealing Balak and a few of his men. Most were armed with older model Terminator rifles, though a few did have Executioner shotguns as well. Those could prove to be a problem if shots were exchanged, Executioner shotguns were well-known for how easily they blasted through kinetic barriers.

Balak walked out into the open, followed slowly by his security team who looked jumpy as hell as they looked around every corner. The man himself walked up, looking carefully at my men before focusing exclusively on me. He slowly tilted his head to the left, being careful not to take his eyes off of my own.

Even though I knew relatively little about Batarian culture, I was aware that they considered body language very important. Tilting his head up to the left was some sign of respect.

"Welcome aboard the Saint Luke, Ka'hairal Balak. I am Admiral Sean Michaels of the United Confederation Naval Fleet, commander of this vessel." I greeted, withholding my usual handshake for now. "It seems we've both found ourselves in quite the unique situation."

"So it would seem." He replied, sounding just as terse as I did as he focused on Largos for a moment. "I read a report before the invasion mentioning an avian species, but your ship is unlike any I have encountered before, and I have never heard of this "United Confederation" you speak of. Who exactly are you people?"

"I'll be happy to answer your questions, but first I have a few I'd like you to answer." I paused, holding up one of my hands. "We came out here on a simple mission, to find out what the hell happened to your people. Last we heard before the Reapers arrived, your leaders started nuking population centers on Khar'shan, then everything went dark. What happened?"

Balak sighed, dipping his head slightly and looking off to the side before refocusing all four eyes on me.

"We're not entirely sure what happened." He spoke slowly, pacing slightly as he recalled what he knew. "My men and I had been recalled to Khar'shan for an emergency meeting. It involved suspected rogue elements in the hegemony building power and occupying key military positions., It was the belief that a coup d'etat may have been in the works."

"Go on." I urged, wanting to get a full timeline of events.

"We arrived in secret before the meeting was scheduled to take place, but as we were preparing to leave orbit to land on the planet we received emergency alerts from all across the planet that a nuclear failsafe had been triggered and mass bombardment was underway." He continued, making eye contact with several of my men again as he walked. "There was nothing we could do. All my superiors had already gathered on the planet, so when all my calls went unanswered, I realized I was the highest-ranking soldier left in the Batarian Armed Forces. In the following days, I rallied whatever ships were left and took command of the Eye Of Harsa, using it as my flagship."

I couldn't help but glance at the hangar doors as he told us the name of his flagship, fully aware of how badly we had fucked it up. I wanted to rub his face in it, but I knew better than to do something stupid like that when dealing with an important situation like this.

"We gathered what survivors we could, but our limited resources greatly hampered our recovery efforts. Before the dust had even settled, large black ships began entering the system, tearing apart our automated defenses in their initial push. In our crippled state, we stood no chance." He went on, genuinely piquing my interest. "We fled to this system, but the "Reapers" had arrived before us. We were forced to hide in the ice to mask our signatures. We've survived off attacking lone ships coming and going from the system, stealing their supplies and using their own ships to repair our own. Those piloting the ships all appear to suffer from the same cognitive affliction, ranting about the invaders and attacking if cornered."

It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out they've been attacking ships crewed by indoctrinated individuals. The pieces then clicked together in my head.

"So you attacked us thinking we were one of those ships?" I questioned, anger creeping back into my voice. "Even after we contacted you and said we were friendly?"

"We have no way of telling you apart, and we don't have much choice when it comes to options out here." He argued, stepping in closer. "Besides… for what reason would you come in such a heavily-armed ship other than to attack us?"

"Oh, so now you're claiming we came here as part of some preemptive strike?" I yelled back, my anger having fully boiled over and my face pulsing rapidly.

"How else could you have arrived here? The mass relay is completely cut off and protected by Reaper forces." He shot back, triggering the deepest recesses of my anger.

"We don't use the Relays anymore. We use our own form of FTL known as the Gravity Drive." Dixon chimed in, obviously noticing my growing fury.

"I should have known coming to Batarian space on a goodwill mission would end up like this…" I muttered, feeling hot and angry.

I stopped for a moment, wiping the sweat from my forehead as I ran my hand through my hair. I knew this wasn't going to get us anywhere. I needed to take a different approach if this had any chance of going anywhere.

"...well, now we're both stuck here, our ships effectively crippled and our forces depleted." I remarked, crossing my arms as I stared deep into his eyes. "Our mission was to find whatever was left of the Batarians and invite them into a coalition of sorts, fight the Reapers on all fronts. We accomplished our first objective, but the second has gone up in smoke at this point. We need to figure out how we stand before the Reapers come investigating all those explosions."

He sighed deeply, looking off at my Cobras for a moment before turning back.

"Given our current predicament, I believe… cooperation between one another is the only way to progress." He muttered, obviously no more thrilled with working together than I was. "Normally, it takes a few days between harvesting cycles to investigate disturbances. If the routine holds, that gives us roughly seventy-two hours, give or take."

"That's not a lot of time, but at this point we'll have to take it." I nodded, rubbing the back of my head. "At this point, knowing what I know now, I'm willing to forgive you for all of this if you can help us get our reactor and Gravity Drive back online."

"You want us to help you escape after you've crippled my ship? Why should I help you if you're going to leave us here for the Reapers to find?" He immediately shot back, narrowing his eyes.

"You misunderstand. To put things simply, the Gravity Drive creates a "bubble" of isolated space around the vessels that use it. The larger the vessel, the larger the bubble. The isolated space inside the bubble can be used to surf alongside the ship." Dixon explained, getting a confused look from Balak.

"What he's saying is that if we can get our Gravity Drive working again, we can get your people out of this system. We can take you out of Reaper-controlled territory, give your people the help they need to start taking the fight to them." I reiterated, knowing we didn't have time to explain the science. "You have my word as an Admiral of the United Confederation Naval Fleet. Help us, and we'll help you."

Balak turned to the side, going deep into thought for the longest time. I couldn't blame him for being reluctant about this, and even I wasn't sure it would work. We had just spent the last two hours beating the shit out of each other, leaving both sides with many casualties. We had no reason to trust one another, and we both knew it.

"Fine… if you really can get us out of here, then you can have our support." He finally agreed, tilting his head again. "But I will warn you. If you try to leave us here, we will take you down with us. Mark my words."

"Very well… I guess this makes us allies." I nodded, holding out my hand. He stared at it with caution before finally accepting the gesture, shaking hands with me. "If the Reapers come knocking before we're ready to leave, then we'll have a few surprises waiting for them."

I smiled on the outside, but inside I felt nothing but distrust and contempt for this man. I hoped for all our sakes that he really was being reasonable, and not putting on a face to placate us. If they tried anything at all to hurt my crew more than they already have, I wouldn't hesitate to leave them behind.

…

UCV Saint Luke, October 14th, 8:28 AM, 2186

…

After several hours of nonstop work, things had progressed smoothly to my immense surprise. Our reactor was nearly back to a fully-functional state thanks to the supplies "loaned" to us by the Batarians, though propulsion was still a mixed bag. We could have it running in just a couple of hours, or in two to three days. Since we had no idea where exactly we had been hit down there, the Chief's men had to crawl through the propulsion access conduits and manually check each section for damage. We were going to get the FTL working again, that much we did know, but without proper engines getting home would take a very long time. The Reapers would have plenty of chances to find us in the meantime, and I wasn't going to let that happen.

For now, I was taking a long break from everything to spend a little time with Mara and Elle. I knew I was likely to fall asleep before doing much with either of them, but I had to at least try. They were the only thing I could think of that could take my mind off the Batarians roaming around my ship at the moment.

Walking into our quarters, I immediately spotted Mara putting Elle down in her cradle. Turning to face me, she shot me an annoyed look before her face shifted to worry instead.

"It's that bad, huh?" I muttered, putting my hand over the side of my face and feeling a warm pain.

"You seem determined to get yourself killed out there." She chastised as I walked over and sat down in a chair. "I saw you fly off into space on those monitors, thinking I had just lost my husband. Why? Why do you keep doing this?!"

"I'm sorry, it's…" I began to say as I got hung up on my own words."

"It's what? It's too much to ask you not to personally put your life on the line anytime something happens?" She immediately shot back as I buried my face in my hands. "You didn't need to go out there and you know it."

"I just want to do my equal part." I tried to reason, tenting my fingers as I leaned forward. "You know as well as I do that I can't stand sitting on the sidelines when I can be out there making a difference."

"You've used that excuse before, and I'm getting really tired of hearing it." She shot down, sitting across from me on the bed. "These people are well trained and well equipped. Just let them do their jobs."

I knew she was once again right, but the urge to go out there with my men was like an itch that needed to be scratched. I wanted to believe that being there for them in person meant there was a greater chance they'd all come home to their loved ones, but in the process of doing so I keep neglecting my own family. It was both a blessing and a curse, this urge to protect everything and everyone around me. I had to make a decision, because if I kept this up I'd end up ruining my relationship with Mara.

"Alright… I promise I will not go out there on the front lines anymore. You have my word." I said, straightening my back and focusing exclusively on her.

"You really promise?" She said with one cocked eyebrow, arms folded under her chest.

"I. Promise." I repeated, taking a deep breath. "I know how stupid I can be about simple things like this, and you deserve to see me at my best, not my worst."

"I've seen your worst before, so I'm always happy to see your best." She smiled, standing up and pouring a cup of coffee. "Just remember, you promised me."

"I won't, especially after that experience I just had." I nodded, leaning back in my chair and staring up at the ceiling. "You know, I passed out for a little while out there, and while I was out I could have sworn someone was calling out to me to wake up. It was an… odd experience."

"I've never been knocked out before, so I wouldn't know what to make of that." She shrugged, handing me the coffee as she sat down next to me. "I vaguely remember having an imaginary friend as a child, though. Not quite the same thing, but the closest I have."

"You sure you don't have a brother that you never saw again after infancy?" I joked, getting a chuckle out of her.

"No, and his name wasn't Rain Man either." She smiled, staring off into space as she squinted her eyes. "In fact, now that I think about it, I don't think he ever had a name. I stopped talking to him shortly before going to elementary school."

All I could do was shake my head and drink from my coffee mug, wondering just how deep our minds were capable of going. I had never touched a hallucinogenic substance my entire life, but I had to admit it was an interesting prospect, a mind like mine going places it had never gone before. The closest I had ever been to such a state was when I accidentally took too many benadryl pills one night in college when my allergies were really pissing me off, and that strange experience was one I had no desire to repeat. Not only did I believe I was going to die, but I struggled to keep my eyes open long enough to get back to my dorm.

As usual with situations like this, my mind inevitably drifted back to my upbringing as a Roman Catholic. I often wondered how such a seemingly outlandish concept such as religion could still be practiced in the modern world, but the fact was that it gives reason to that which is unreasonable. That was a bit of a slight in its own right, knowing how much our understanding of the world has changed since I ended up here, but even so I couldn't help but find a shared confort between it and my old memories. The memories of my mother and father would always be linked to Catholicism, making them inseparable in my mind, even in the face of clear distinctions.

Retiring said thoughts to the recesses of my brain, I put my free arm around Mara and enjoyed the moment of quiet we had here, fully aware that soon enough, we'd be back in the thick of it once more.

I hoped that if we survived this war, Mara and I could share moments like this every day for the rest of our lives.

…

A/N: Hey guys, sorry this one took so long to come out, especially given not a whole lot actually happens in this chapter. I've been bogged down with more than my fair share of IRL problems, and often they've left me in moods where I'd rather sleep or do something else instead. Either way, things are moving along here and I hope you like where it's going so far. I didn't want to leave you all on another cliffhanger this time, especially after all the downtime in between, so once again, please forgive me.