…
"Good, good. What is bravery, without a dash of recklessness!"
(Hawkeye Gough)
…
Unidentified Cerberus Facility, November 19th, 3:49 PM, 2186
…
Standing steady on the inclinator as we slowly descended underground, I felt it grow colder the deeper we went. Even with my armor on and sealed, it became more and more noticeable. Based on how long we had been moving, I estimated we were at least half a mile below the surface.
"Damn, it's chilly." Derek exclaimed, rubbing his hands together despite the sealed suits we were all wearing. "The sentry outside wasn't kidding about this "Freezer" thing."
"Raise your suit temps, I don't think it's getting any warmer from here on." Randall ordered, opening up his omni-tool to adjust his levels as the rest of us did the same.
The automated voice on the intercom announced we were about to reach our destination, getting us to immediately take cover behind the small stack of crates the inclinator was ferrying. However, as we neared the bottom, the rocky walls suddenly opened up to reveal a massive, ice-filled cavern. It was easily as big as an American football field, filled with interconnected compartments and lit with massive floodlights. Far in the back of the cavern, I managed to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large cooling system. Knowing how hard it was to keep a space like this cold, I assumed it was likely using hydrogen.
That fact could end up being useful, if correct.
"Interesting…" Inali remarked, whipping her head around towards the sides. "Randall, over there."
We all turned towards what she was pointing out, a small suspended maintenance walkway we were about to pass by.
"Move!" He quickly ordered as we all bolted towards the edge of the inclinator, jumping off one by one before we went down too far. Luckily for us, the railings were well-covered with sheet metal. None of the Cerberus goons below us neither saw or heard us, going about their business as usual.
"Good thing we jumped off, look down there." Derek pointed out, getting me to peer over the railing towards the series of automated turret guns waiting at the bottom of the inclinator. "Those things would have ripped us to shreds."
"We'll still have to get out that way, unless they've got an emergency exit to the surface hidden around here somewhere." I remarked, shrugging as I continued to visually scan our surroundings.
In addition to the large cooling system in the back, there were a few condenser towers providing the bulk of the cooling. They were covered in a surprisingly large amount of ice, considering how little water there was on this rock. That meant Cerberus had either brought their own supply with them, or they found some kind of underground aquifer and were using that. Either way, it suggested some serious resources had gone into this place, and was likely intended for long-term use.
"This place reminds me of those labs on Noveria. Maybe they're developing chemical or biological weapons here." Inali suggested, slowly shaking her head.
"This far underground? I doubt it. They wouldn't put this many resources into a single facility if they were simply playing with germs and mustard gas." I remarked, trying to catch sight of anything that could give us a clue.
"Keep moving, it won't be long till they find those bodies." Randall urged, getting us to move while still remaining in cover.
We reached the end of the old walkway, seeing a rickety set of stairs leading to the bottom of the cavern.
"Alright, we'll split into two teams and find the best spots to cause damage." Randall nodded, turning to face me. "Inali, you and the doctor can head towards that large machine in the back."
"Sure thing." She agreed as Derek pulled off one of his duffel bags and handed it to me.
"Careful with that. More than enough explosives there to turn you into a grease stain." He sarcastically warned as I narrowed my eyes, accepting the bag and slinging it over my shoulder. "You might need this too."
He handed me one of two detonators, which I quickly pocketed as I turned to Inali.
"Let's go." I said, moving down the old stairs as quietly as I could. Despite the weight of my exo, I made it down in one piece with my new companion following closely behind.
"What's your plan, doc?" She asked, gripping her odd heavy pistol tightly with both hands as I watched a two-man patrol walk by.
"Well, I figured we could cut through those structures on the edge of the cavern. It would be the fastest way to get over there." I reasoned, shrugging as I noticed the liquid pooled at the bottom of the cave. "I'd have to guess that all that stuff is some sort of cryogenic liquid."
"How can you tell it's cryogenic?" She questioned, getting me to smile behind my mask.
"Simple. It isn't frozen like everything else. If we fell into that, we'd die. No way our suits could handle that kind of cold." I answered, getting her to shake her head.
Just as I finished speaking, there was a deep rumble that could be felt throughout the entire cavern. It was strong enough to dislodge several large icicles from the ceiling, causing what I assumed would be a panic among the native population down here.
"Your friends must have found a way in." Inali joked as several alarms went on, sending the patrol from earlier running.
"This might work to our advantage. They still don't know we're here." I said, waving her towards me as we both ran across the open back into darkness. I peered over the crates, spotting what looked like a storage unit of some kind, though very bulky compared to the other units down here. We vaulted over the cover, making sure to go nowhere near the edges where the liquids were.
"I'll get the door open. Keep an eye out for sentries." Inali quickly said as I perched my rifle on the edge of the railing.
"How long?" I questioned, unable to shake the awful cold feeling that my suit was barely able to handle at this point.
"These encryptions are a joke… hold on… there we go." She announced, getting the door to open. A sharp hiss could be heard as warmer air on the other side was quickly vented into a colder atmosphere, revealing another airlock. We wasted no time walking in and sealing the door behind us, cycling the atmospheres.
The other side opened, revealing a large lab space filled with equipment needed for biological work. Nothing viral from the looks of it, but I didn't have much time to look before a voice called out to us.
"Ah good, you're back. Come over and help with these files when you're done with the samples, Ken." A man wearing a winter coat absently remarked, sounding more stressed than anything else as he kept himself focused on his console. "The Director wants us to close up shop and purge the Queen's containment unit once everything is secured."
Inali and I walked towards him without a word, making sure there was no one else in the lab before we confronted the man. Both of us had become quite angry at this point, as we both seemed to know who the Director was. If it was indeed the same man who was in charge of the Barn, then we had even more reason to destroy this place.
"Turn around. Slowly." I ordered in a grave tone, watching the man completely freeze up. "Touch any alarms, open your omni-tool, or do anything else stupid, and you won't live long enough to regret it."
"OK OK, I surrender!" He quickly gave up, holding both of his hands high in the air as I pulled the Kessler handgun off his hip. "Please, I don't want to die here."
"That's entirely up to you." Inali reiterated, keeping her pistol trained on the man's head. "What are you doing here, and where's the Director?"
"Uh, we were running experiments on the Queen, trying to find a way to control it or its offspring." He answered, managing to genuinely confuse me. "I don't agree with their methods, but-"
"Queen? What the hell are you talking about?" I cut off, searching my brain for any possible information as I walked around him.
"The Rachni Queen we captured. It's a younger, less evolved version of the Alpha Queen from Noveria, meant to help extend her reach into systems far from her own." He explained, genuinely managing to shock me. "That's why you're here, right? You're here for the Rachni?"
"We're the ones asking the questions here." Inali remarked, grabbing him by the shoulder and pushing him into the center of the room, away from the consoles.
"You're telling me this is all here for studying Rachni? The cold, the underground location?" I focused, trying to keep this interaction as short as possible.
"Uh, yeah. We keep this place cryogenically frozen so it or the other Rachni can't escape. They'll freeze before they can dig through the walls, and it's deep enough that they can't reach the surface without going through the shaft." He nodded, still holding his hands up. "Does this mean you're not here to kill it?"
"You don't want to? I thought your boss wanted it "purged"." I pointed out, getting him to look away with a conflicted look on his face.
"I think the Rachni are a fascinating species, and I hate the fact that we've harmed one of the Queens. But, if I disobey a direct command from the Director…" He explained, his face filling with pain. "...I'd rather die than experience what he's put the others through."
"Where is he?" Inali growled with her pistol raised, nearly furious.
"I don't know where the Director is, he doesn't come down here in person that often." He spoke truthfully. "If he's still here, he'd probably be in the Western sector. That's where the restricted areas are."
"Watch him, I need to relay this to Randall." Inali immediately replied, turning away as the scientist and I stared at each other for a moment.
"Where is this Queen, buddy?" I asked in a slightly sarcastic tone, cautiously lowering my Carnifex as I continued to maintain full eye contact with him.
"Aaron, my name is Aaron." He corrected, getting me to immediately raise my gun again as he shot his hands into the air. "This way, this way!"
I followed him to the back of the lab, noticing the large blast shield. It was clear there was likely something big on the other side.
"That button there opens the shield. The Queen is on the other side." He pointed out, still holding his free hand as straight as possible.
"Open it." I ordered, weary of any attempts he might make to sound an alarm.
He pressed the button without a moment's hesitation, causing the large shield to slowly open up. Sure enough, the Rachni "Beta" Queen was there on the other side. It was clear that she was looking at us, though it was clear even to me that there was something wrong with her. Several large hoses and wires were connected to her, and clear implant sites could be seen, forcibly cut into her chitin plates.
"My God…" I exclaimed, knowing immediately none of this was right.
"We have a suppression field in place around her cell, keeping it from communicating with its offspring or any other organics." Aaron explained, walking over to the railing that overlooked her containment unit. "It uses a form of telepathy. The Director was running experiments to try and replicate this ability, maybe use it to counteract the effects of Reaper indoctrination."
"You people are monsters." I remarked, feeling my anger build up once again as I shoved him against the wall. "Do you have any idea what you've done here?!"
"I did what was asked of me, nothing more!" He defended, still looking conflicted as I held my arm against his throat. "I didn't want to hurt it, but I'm not going... to become another Cerberus... statistic trying to protect... a giant bug!"
"She's a sentient creature, one that you've maimed and tortured! You had a choice, but you took the coward's path, protecting your own skin." I continued to rant, feeling the heat build up under my mask. "You're going to turn off that suppression field so I can talk to her. Now."
"But that'll connect her to the rest of the hive! She'll-" He began to explain as the airlock opened again, another scientist absently walking in as I turned to face him.
"Aaron, I've got the… oh shit." He exclaimed as Inali whipped around and shot him in the head without a second thought.
As soon as her suppressed gunshot rang out, Aaron quickly punched me in the face, briefly dazing me enough to release my grip on him. He attempted to run, but before he could reach any cover I quickly fired two quiet rounds into his back, knocking him straight to the floor. He crawled on the ground for a bit, leaning against the railing as blood poured out of him at an excessive rate.
"Wha...wha… oh… I'm… sor… ry…" He struggled to speak, one of my shots likely having pierced his lungs. Moments later, he went limp as he died from blood loss.
Shaking my head at his stupidity, I turned back to the Queen, meeting her "eyes" once again. I walked to the center console overlooking her cell, opening the interface with little difficulty.
"Randall and Derek are on their way to the Western sector. We should blow this lab and move before we get more visitors." Inali explained, walking up to me as I kept my eyes focused on the controls. "What are you doing?"
"I'm trying to reach out and touch somebody." I answered, shutting off the suppression field with an audible hum, turning on the unit's intercom. "Can you hear me in there? We're not Cerberus, I'm a friend of Commander Shepard. We're here to help you."
The Queen twitched her head, looking away slightly as briefly felt… something. It was as if someone had put their hands around my head for a moment, but quickly pulled them away. A look of discomfort crossed Inali's face before Aaron's body began to twitch, his eyes opening once more.
"Oh my God…" I exclaimed, standing completely still as he stood up once more, Inali raising her gun defensively.
"This one… serves as our voice." He spoke in a strange, stilted tone, eyes glued into open space. "Your music… strange. Like sour yellow note, but colorless. Concordance, even as songs of oily shadows sing."
"I don't understand… are you speaking through this man?" I asked, unable to fully grasp what I was witnessing.
"Yes. Even as you sing, you fail to color the air." It partially answered, sounding more cryptic than anything else. "Songs of oily shadows grow closer, unable to be silenced. It is… deafening. Scratching at the walls."
"Oily shadows… are you talking about the Reapers?" I asked, trying to make sense of what was being said. "The Reapers tried to control me, but they failed. We learned to fight their indoctrination."
"These songs… you do not hear them? See their color drown out all others?" She questioned, seemingly surprised as she flexed her mandibles behind the glass. "We hear all, even those who are flat. Your voice, untainted by the songs that seek to bring discord to our harmony."
"It's like a form of synesthesia, hearing colors and seeing songs." Inali picked up, sounding genuinely interested despite the tense atmosphere that hung over us. "She really must be related to the one Commander Shepard released on Noveria. If she is, then the Rachni might be friendly after all."
"Listen, we can talk about this later." I refocused, turning back to the Queen. "Right now, we need to get you out of here, back to your Alpha Queen. These… "oily shadows" seek to destroy all sentient life in the galaxy. We can help each other."
"We are no longer able to sing to our own, to speak the colors. Our offspring no longer hear our voice, fear has… discolored them." She seemingly denied, pulling back slightly in the cell. "We ask that you carry our last song for us, to sing it to our Queen. Your song, uncolored, but absent of the hushed sour yellow note. You will carry it, then commit us and our children here to silence."
"You want me to pass along a message to your Alpha Queen, then kill you and your children?" I questioned, not quite sure how to convey such a message. "Are you sure there is nothing we can do to help yo-"
Aaron's body collapsed as I felt the Queen's presence in my mind once again, though it was much stronger this time around. It wasn't… unpleasant, but the sensation was certainly strange. It was as if a beautiful crescendo was now playing in my mind, seen but not heard, like notes on an old manuscript. Even with my limited understanding of playing music, I could somehow understand and comprehend each note perfectly with zero difficulty, like I had been raised from birth to perform it.
I snapped back to reality, grasping the railing as images, sounds, and feelings poured into my mind. Everything Cerberus had done to her, her children. The pain, anguish, the… silence she had prepared herself for. It was terrifying, but there were also images of a world, hidden away, where the Alpha Queen and her offspring still sang freely away from the rest of the galaxy. It was the song she had fought so hard to keep hidden from her captors. Her gift to me.
I looked back up at her, silently meeting her gaze.
"I understand." I slowly nodded to the Queen, crouching down to Aaron's body and removing the safety key from his pocket. I inserted it into the console, seeing the containment purge light up on the screen.
"Thank you." The Queen spoke through Aaron one last time as I activated the purge, flooding the chamber with a highly lethal variant of VX nerve gas. The Queen laid down quietly, and seconds later she was dead.
Her sudden absence filled me with an incredible sense of sadness and regret, knowing what I had just done. I closed my eyes and dwelled on her song, knowing I had done the only thing possible to end her pain.
"Excuse me, but what just happened?" Inali asked, obviously not clued in to what I just experienced.
"She showed me the pain she had experienced… gave me a message to bring back to her Queen." I answered, staring into space as I processed all the sensations.
"I'm sorry, but we've really got to go." She urged as another rumble could be felt vibrating through the metal, heard shortly afterwards.
"Alright… let's make sure she gets the revenge she deserves." I agreed, feeling a renewed sense of purpose as I threw a few charges into the lab, switching over to my Pulse Rifle. Seconds later, we both ran out of the lab, two.
Back "outside" in the freezing cold, we almost immediately ran into two more Cerberus guards, who I immediately shot without remorse. Inali hadn't even raised her gun before both guards hit the ground, steam rising from the wounds in the cold air.
"Geez doc, good thing we're on the same side." She remarked as another rumble above us shook the cavern, knocking several of the icicles loose. They impacted hard on the structures around us, and another man in the distance could be heard screaming as one landed on him. "Well, that doesn't sound good."
"We've got bigger problems to deal with." I shook my head, running past the bodies towards a storage unit on the other end of the raised platform. "That cooling unit in the back is close. Let's move while they're still distracted."
"Right." She said as we stacked up on the door, opening it to find no one inside. We wasted no time moving on, the next door having a proper airlock on it. A quick cycle later, we entered what appeared to be a hydroponics unit, filled with UV lights and plenty of gardens.
Three more people were inside, and had noticed our entry. Two of them pulled handguns and fired at us, forcing us into cover as the third made a break for it through the other side of the unit.
"Alex, call for backup!" One of them shouted at the runner, the door sealing behind them as the two continued to fire.
"There goes the element of surprise." I remarked, bits of plant and dirt shooting up into the air. "Pretty trigger happy for a few botanists, huh?"
"They should have run while they had the chance." Inali sneered, popping out of cover and firing once at one of the men, immediately knocking out his barriers. I did the same with my Pulse Rifle, blowing a chunk of the second man's head clean off.
"Move!" I yelled, knowing the guards wouldn't be far behind.
We ran back outside the way the man had fled, seeing the cooling system in full stretched out in front of us. Unfortunately, there was also a small fireteam of Cerberus guards waiting on the other side, forcing us to stay in the airlock for cover.
"Damn!" I exclaimed, knowing there was nowhere to go outside of the airlock. It was all wide-open space with no cover out there. "Close the door, we'll flank them from another direction!"
"I can't, they've hit the emitters for the control panel!" She yelled back as a grenade bounced through the doorway, which I instinctively kicked back out into the open without a second thought. It blew up mid-air, shooting shrapnel everywhere as smoke blew in, obscuring our view.
Before either of us could do anything else, the sound of several jump jets could be heard, followed by heavy thumps against the platforms. Gunfire rang out as the panicked voices of the guards could be heard, then suddenly silence. Cautiously, we peered our heads out as the smoke cleared, revealing Reegar and his ORIONs had arrived.
"Looks like we got here just in time, sir." He joked, stepping over the broken body of a guard.
"You certainly picked one hell of a time to show off." I replied in a deadpan, still finding it hard to find any humor appealing after what I had already done. "Send two of you men to the western end of the cavern to support Randall and Derek. The rest of you, spread out and give us cover while we plant charges on the cooling device."
"Jina, Son, go!" He quickly relayed, getting the two to break into a run. "The rest of you, set up a defensive perimeter."
I wasted no time at all distributing half of my explosives to Inali, who ran up one of several staircases planting charges as she went. I focused on the condensers and hydrogen storage tanks, knowing this entire area would crumble like a cookie if they exploded with the expected amount of force. Even as I slapped the charges down, I could hear the gunfire close behind me as Reegar and his team covered our asses.
"Attention all personnel, this is the Director. I'm initiating Condition Orange, we are abandoning the facility." I heard his voice call out, the first time I had heard it in years. "Proceed immediately to your evacuation points."
I couldn't believe how just hearing his voice again after all these years drove me up the wall with near unbridled anger and fury. I was almost certain we had killed him when the Barn's reactor went critical, but the slimy bastard was still here to spread his evil to the rest of the world.
"Charges are set, let's get out of here!" Inali shouted, getting me to focus on placing the last few charges.
"We're good to go! Head towards the west!" I yelled as loudly as I could, rejoining Inali, Reegar, and his men as we pushed directly down the center of the cavern towards the west end.
We had reached the point where the Cerberus remnants were too busy trying to get out to even give us a legitimate fight. We carved through nearly two dozen soldiers before making it to the other side, keeping our guard up despite the threat seemingly being gone.
As we pushed into the devastated remains of what Randall and Derek had left behind, a deeper rumble could be felt shaking the ground beneath our feet, more constant and deep than the explosions Reegar and his men had set off on the surface.
"Those sound like engines." Gata pointed out, filling me with a familiar sense of apprehension. "They're leaving."
"With any luck, the Saint Luke might be able to track them, maybe even disable their engines." I suggested, knowing there was little we could do down here to relay information topside.
We burst into a smaller lab which had hastily been stripped of all materials. A large stand in the center of the room with wires hanging from the ceiling around it was the main feature, and I knew whatever they had ripped out of here must have been important. I picked up a loose piece of paper from the floor, seeing exactly what I had feared printed right on the front.
It was a piece of Reaper tech, heavily damaged but still active. The people who had been working on it clearly identified it as a Reaper computer core, specifically the one from Sovereign. Before I could even process my fury, I heard the familiar electric whine of a QEC starting up behind me. I turned to see the Director once again, arms crossed as he looked at me head-to-toe with those weird eyepieces of his.
"I must admit, I never expected to see you again, Michaels… especially not here." He spoke, sounding equal parts annoyed and impressed as he turned to Inali. "Ms. Renata, I see you've been keeping yourself busy as well."
"You bastard! As if you didn't already have enough to pay for, you've experimenting with Rachni and a Reaper computer core?!" I exclaimed, having exhausted any patience I had left long ago.
"Ah, noticed the Rachni, did you?" He remarked off-handedly, completely without remorse. "While its telepathic abilities were interesting, we were far more interested in its high resistance to indoctrination than any other biological feature. A shame we couldn't make better use of it."
I closed my eyes and clenched my fists for a moment, wanting nothing more than to kill him on the spot. I knew doing so would be a pointless exercise, though, so I didn't bother.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked in a lowered voice, keeping my rage bottled up for now.
"Why? My motivations have never been hidden, doctor. I do this for the same reason I did years ago on the Barn. For the good of humanity." He spoke truthfully, believing every ounce of his own bullshit as he paced slightly. "I must admit, I'm somewhat… thankful you killed The Illusive Man. While I am and still continue to be a devoted follower of Cerberus and its manifesto, it was clear to me The Illusive Man had been experiencing the first stages of indoctrination."
I genuinely thought about what he was saying, remembering some of the things we found clearing out Cronos Station.
"Though I didn't completely oppose his use of Alliance soldiers and colonists as shock troops, I didn't agree with their implantation of Reaper technology. The same could have been done cheaper and more effectively with the methods we used to bring Shepard back." He went on, getting my attention again.
"You were going to do the same to me, you son of a bitch!" Inali yelled at the top of her lungs, pointing her finger into his holographic face.
"And what a fine weapon you would have been." He shook his head, clearly disinterested in her as he turned back to me. "I assume you're searching for Sovereign's computer core, doctor? It's safely aboard my vessel, on its way to a new location. As much as I'd like to avoid using Reaper technology, I have my own plans for it. You don't factor into them."
Several loud thumps could be heard nearby, like giant footsteps. They were getting closer each time, almost shaking the floor beneath us.
"Goodbye, Dr. Michaels. Have fun with the present I left behind." He finished, his image blinking away as the thumps could finally be heard right outside of the lab.
A large mech of some kind smashed through the wall, immediately venting the warm air and creating a massive draft that launched several lighter items outside. The mech was massive, a bulky bipedal machine with big cannons for arms. Before I could even fully react, the large red "eye" embedded in its torso focused on me.
"Open fire!" I yelled, shooting at it with my Pulse Rifle with little effect as my squadmates did the same. It continued to focus on me, raising one of its cannons before Yaelo fired a massive round from her anti-material rifle into it, knocking it to the side slightly.
As I scrambled for cover, she fired another shot, gaining its full attention as it began walking towards her. It fired its heavy cannons, barely missing her as she rolled out of the way. Reegar and Gata threw two grenades at the machine as it continued firing, only managing to flare its shields for a moment. Inali sat behind cover, frantically doing something with her omni-tool as I fruitlessly fired more hot rounds into its barriers.
"This thing won't stop coming, sir!" Gata yelled over the gunfire as he and Reegar repositioned themselves near the back of the lab, Jora providing covering fire. Yaelo fired another shot at it with her rifle, managing to knock it back just slightly once again. It fired back at her with a small missile, ripping apart a large number of storage cabinets with a miniature disruptor blast.
Inali finally popped out of cover, running towards the mech with its back turned away from her. She jumped on it, zapping its reactor housing as it violently twisted and threw her off, knocking her across one of the lab tables.
"Ugh… it's barriers are down! Aim for the processor in its chest!" She yelled, obviously hurt as Yaelo did just that, blowing a chunk of its frontal armor off as we finally started having an effect on it. Randall and Derek finally arrived with Jina and Son in tow, pouring gunfire onto the thing's back without a single word said. Jora took a bad hit to her armor's chestplate in the final moment, knocking her to the ground as it started seizing up, the armored reactor on its back growing red, yellow, and white hot.
"Everyone take cover! It's overloading!" Randall yelled, scooping Inali off the floor as we quickly ducked behind cover.
The mech exploded with the force of a small bomb, causing the roof of the lab to blow open, showing the area with ice. I sat behind the lab table for a few moments, slightly dazed before shaking my head and standing back up. There was a small crater where the mech used to be, parts strewn across the area along with several fires.
"Is everyone OK? Where's Jora?" I asked, wincing in pain as I walked across the ruin of the lab.
"I'm alright… barely." She answered, grunting as she forced herself back up onto her feet. A large indent could be seen on her chestplate, missing a large amount of finish and leaving one hell of a scratch. "Remind me to thank Dr. Winters when we get back."
I turned back to see the rest of Reegar's team pulling themselves up, along with Randall, Inali, and Derek.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, limping towards them as pain could be felt in my left calf muscle.
"An OGRE mech, a nasty piece of equipment." Randall explained, shaking his head. "I thought we destroyed all of them, but it looks like he managed to get a few shipped out before we hit their production line."
I nodded, looking back at Inali who's faceplate was cracked in several places. Her left arm had gone limp, but otherwise she was in one piece.
"Thanks for your help back there. My guys might not have survived that without your help." I thanked, offering a handshake out of respect.
"No problem, doctor." She accepted, groaning slightly as she shook it. "I think I'm done fighting for today. Let's get out of here and blow this place to smithereens."
"Sounds good." Randall nodded, looking back to me as I did the same.
"ORIONs, we're leaving!" I yelled, eager to leave this place behind us as a smoking crater.
Next time, we'd get that son-of-a-bitch.
…
UCV Saint Luke, November 19th, 9:13 PM, 2186
…
Laying quietly in my quarters, I stared blankly at the ceiling. I was unable to sleep for some reason, and none of my usual methods for falling asleep seemed to be working.
I had returned to the Saint Luke on Challenger 3 with my ORIONs an hour after we had cleared the facility, and thanks to some negotiations with Randall, he had agreed to join us, with the Borealis now part of our flotilla. He was very clear that he'd only be with us until the Director was dead, at which point we'd go our separate ways. Dixon wasn't too thrilled about working with former Cerberus operatives, but I couldn't think of a reason to mistrust them after what we'd gone through together.
The Saint Luke briefly tracked the two Cerberus ships leaving the atmosphere before they engaged stealth countermeasures, immediately disappearing from all sensors, even the TLs. We were effectively at a dead end with Cerberus, leaving only the other matter… the "song" I held for the Rachni Queen. While I had been given a cursory examination by our medical staff, they found nothing wrong with me, leaving me relieved. I knew it was a vague long shot, but with no other course of action I ordered the flotilla to a small uncharted region of space between the Galactic Core and the Nemean Abyss. The captains questioned my decision, but in the end I held full command over our operations out here.
Sitting back up in my bed, I opened my omni-tool, deciding maybe some classical music would finally relax me enough to put me to sleep. I began playing Claude Debussy's Claire De Lune through the room speakers. Laying back down, I suddenly realized the piece now had a whole different tone to it, a new texture. It was… beautiful, like I was a deaf man suddenly hearing for the first time. My breathing quickened as it played on, tears building up in my eyes.
I realized that the Queen had given me a true gift, and as I wiped my eyes I fell into a peaceful sleep.
…
A/N: Hello again, friends. I hope you've all been enjoying the Legendary Edition so far, I have for the most part. Some things could have done with more improvements, and some changed too much, but for the most part it's a good collection that should serve as the golden standard for anyone getting into the Mass Effect Trilogy for the first time.
This was an interesting one to write, and it didn't really hook me until I was already halfway through writing it, hence the slightly longer word count this time around. Please, if you do decide to leave a review, do remember to leave an IN-DEPTH, DETAILED REVIEW that isn't just "nice". I hate to call you out, and you know who you are, but one word reviews really don't help me out at all. Thank you, and if you're American, Happy Memorial Day.