Chapter 18 – Season One Finale

January 24rd, 2211. 0756 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Prometheus Labs

15 hours and 19 minutes after Outbreak, 56 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108

We simultaneously began to sprint towards each other, blades extended. Only one of us would leave this ship alive and it wasn't going to be her.

The countdown on my omni-tool hit zero maybe four strides in, the eighth burn phase had began in earnest. I kept my eyes trained on Olivia as we were both flung to the deck by the sudden g-forces and struggled against the acceleration that threatened to floor the both of us.

After six seconds it passed once more. We both scrambled to our feet as fast as we could and resumed our run at each other.

On our first pass Olivia opted with a wide, sweeping horizontal swing of her sword. I anticipated the movement and slid into a slide moments before her blade could connect with my neck. I tried to slash at her ankles as I slid past her but she deftly sidestepped out of the way.

I scrambled once more to my feet just in time to meet her second charge. I parried the downward swing she'd thrown her monomolecular blade into with my own knives. Her foot lashed out, trying to catch me in the groin but I blocked it with my shin. Before I could counter-attack she pirouetted away and brought her blade up in a defensive stance and wearily began circling me.

From our past encounters she knew that I was faster, stronger, and more skilled than she was. Her only advantage now was the fact that I was drained from my encounter with the Chimera, and the fact that she had a longer striking range than I did thanks to her blade.

I was a bit slower than usual, and unfortunately not fast enough to slip past her guard and get into extreme close quarters. Once I was close, I could make short work of her with my knives, but she seemed to be treating me much more cautiously than she had in our previous fights. She was going to try and tire me out.

I ran at her again, unwilling to waste more time. I aimed a quick feint at her face and then a slice at her neck, trying to force her guard away from her legs. Her blade shot up to defend her upper torso and in that moment I tried to go low and cut at her legs. I had to reduce her speed or she'd wear me out. God I wished that I could stasis her right now but my amp was still fried.

She jumped away just in time and gave a little laugh. "That's dirty," she smirked.

"I aim to please," I growled. Fucking bitch and her clichés.

Olivia reformed her guard and smiled at me. "Unfortunately for you, I like dirty."

I ran at her again. This time I jumped and threw a kick at her face but she slipped underneath it. I immediately followed up with another pair of slashes and a stab, but she parried both and sidestepped the last. I panted laboriously and pressed my attack. She stayed on the defensive, keeping ever so slightly out of range. If I could wear her down faster than she could wear me down, then just maybe she'd slip up and I could end it.

Eventually I couldn't maintain my pace any longer, my movements were growing more and more sluggish and the pain from my final encounter with the Chimera was starting to finally catch up to me. Olivia landed a clean hit on my right forearm, right below my elbow where I had nothing but the undersuit to protect me. My blood rained down on the deck like crimson rain. I gasped in pain and triggered my Tactical Cloak.

I used the reprieve to catch my breath. The female saboteur had a flushed, ecstatic look on her face but otherwise seemed to be in good shape. I on the other hand was flagging, hard. The synthetic adrenaline wasn't going to be helping me for much longer.

"Sounds like you're having a rough time keeping it up, champ," she teased. "Need a breather?"

I didn't respond, instead opting to use the moment to catch my breath. I tried to move closer to her but the pervasive silence of the labs allowed her to pick up on the sound of my footsteps.

"That's cheating!" she said. With a hiss she activated her Tactical Cloak and disappeared as well.

I cursed and backed up. With a forlorn sigh I deactivated my cloak.

"Let's finish this, I've got a hot date," I complained.

Olivia gasped and reappeared two meters away. "How dare you!"

I whipped my pistol out and let off a flurry of shots. She rolled out of the way and caught the last two on her shields but the distraction had bought me the time necessary to close the distance between her and I.

I lashed out with my knife but she deflected it with her sword. My other hand brought my pistol low, allowing me to let loose a pair of shots that punched into her gut, chipping at her kinetic barriers. She kneed my pistol away before I could empty the clip and then rammed the hilt of her sword across my face, cutting my cheek open. I headbutted her in response, snapping her head back and causing her to grunt in pain. I grinned when I saw a river of blood run down her nose.

She stumbled away, her sword swinging wildly as she tried to keep me at bay. I ran at her again, my pistol raised. Two more shots slammed into her shields and they disappeared with a crackle. I slashed at her vulnerable face again but she slipped underneath and slammed her knee into my gut. The wind flew out of me and I doubled-over. She then sent a palm flying into my chin, snapping my head back and forcing me to stumble backwards.

She smiled and lifted her sword so the tip was once again hovering over my heart.

"You couldn't save Sarah, could you? I love how you chose the data over her, and then chose me over your friends. You are just full of bad decisions, aren't you? Did you even tell them you were going to go after me? Did you get a chance to say goodbye before you die?"

I swept the tip aside with my knife. "Fuck you!"

With the extra space she had gained between her and I, Olivia resumed her attack with her blade. I just barely dodged a quartet of slashes and parried her last stab. Blood rained freely onto the deck from her nose and from my cheek. I was starting to get light-headed and my limbs were beginning to become non-responsive. I tried to call upon my biotics but my amp only sputtered and hissed.

Suddenly the deck lurched and I was thrown all the way to the wall. Fuck! I had forgotten to reset the timer after the last burn phase.

Just as the burn phase ended I felt a hiss of air, then a sharp, terrible pain as her blade broke through my upper chest plate, punched into the upper meat of my left chest right above my heart and pinned me against the wall.

A fresh river of warm blood washed down my armor. I coughed and sputtered but somehow managed to draw a shaky breath. The blade had just missed the upper lobes of my lung.

I shut my eyes in pain. My pistol and my knife fell to the deck as I brought my hands up and shakily grasped the blade. I coughed up another wave of blood and tried my best to keep upright, to prevent myself from falling and the blade from tearing out of my clavicle.

Olivia leaned in and kissed me. I recoiled and spat blood in her face but she simply laughed. She drew her head back and smiled.

"You failed Sarah, because of you she died. You failed your friends, because of you they'll have to live their entire lives wondering where you went, haunted by the question of whether or not they could have saved you."

She dug her sword deeper into my chest into the wall behind me and moved a step closer. I cried out in pain and felt more blood well up. My fingers tried desperately to pull the blade out but it was too slick with my blood.

"I want to take everything you care for and leave it in ruins. I am so sick and tired of hearing about how perfect you are, what a good Spectre you are, what a good man you are," she spat.

I blinked in pain and confusion. "What are you talking about?" I hissed at her.

The saboteur brushed aside my question and instead bared her teeth in a savage, feral grin.

"It doesn't matter now, does it?" she whispered.

The blood loss was starting to affect my brain. I could feel myself begin to float away. I struggled to come up with a plan – anything, anything to get myself out of this situation —but it was so hard. I was so, so tired.

I tried. I really did, and maybe, just maybe what I'd done had been enough to help the galaxy prepare for these creatures. I wish I could have spoken to Cade and Percival one last time, to tell them to keep on fighting, to tell them that I was sorry, sorry for running away.

Don't stop looking for things in this galaxy to cherish just because you're afraid that someone somewhere is going to take it away from you, because eventually you're going to run out of things in this galaxy worth fighting for…

"You'll be dead soon," Olivia taunted. "You'll die with the knowledge that you failed your friends…"

You always think that there's no other way, that you need to do something either incredibly insane or incredibly harmful to yourself to win. Well I'm telling you, you're wrong…

"… You'll die with the knowledge that you failed this galaxy… with the knowledge that you cannot stop transcendence..." she continued, her voice filled with sadistic lust.

The saboteur looked me in the eye and smiled a sick, twisted smile.

"Before you die, tell me what you cherish most, give me the pleasure of taking it away," she whispered.

…Doctor Sarah Messner, Alliance R and D and one of the head scientists for Project Prometheus, but feel free to call me Sarah. Welcome aboard, Spectres…

The feeling began deep inside my chest, tiny at first, like a spark, but before I knew it my whole body was alight with it. It was like a forest-fire after a hot, dry summers day, all-consuming and intense and immediate and destructive. I gave a strangled yell of fury, of anger – of raw, unbridled rage.

To my surprise my hands began to swirl with blue fire. Olivia was caught off-guard by the sight of my biotic manifestation, something that she had thought impossible due to the destruction of my amp. She shrank away, momentarily distracted.

The flames grew around my left hand. I pulled it back and with every last ounce of will punched her straight in the chest. Biotic tendrils erupted around her. Her chestplate cracked in half and she was thrown backwards.

I yelled again and brought both of my hands up to the blade still embedded in my chest. I pulled and I pulled, crying loudly in pain as I did so, until I felt it begin to shift. With one last supreme effort, I tugged it out. It fell to the deck with a clatter and I dropped to my knees, freed.

I grabbed immediately grabbed the blade and sprinted at Olivia as she struggled to her feet. She brought her right arm up to defend herself but my first swing went through the crook of her elbow and cut her arm clean off, just as she had done to my friend. Before she could scream I'd already whirled around and brought the edge of her blade against the back of her thighs, sending her stumbling on one knee to the deck.

I followed up with a cut across her back as I spun back around to face her. Blood went flying onto the deck and she let out a pained cry.

I watched as she struggled to get back up on her feet, blood pumping from her wounds. She grasped her bloody stump and stared at it in shock. I grabbed her by the chin with my free hand and tilted her head up so that her eyes could meet mine. Blue met green, pain met madness.

"There's not a thing I don't cherish," I whispered to her.

Olivia laughed weakly. "I will haunt you for the rest of your days. Every time you close your eyes, I'll be there. Eventually I'll be all you think about. We'll finally be together… I'll belong to you, Cloud, to you and only you. It's what I've always wanted, to belong to you…."

My grip tightened around the handle of her sword. With a grunt I drove the long, pale blade deep into her chest, right up to the hilt where I'd shattered her armor. She slumped into my arms with a sigh, her head resting in the crook of my neck.

"You belong in my memories. Stay there," I hissed.

I pushed her away and she collapsed onto the deck. With what little strength she had left, Olivia looked into my eyes one last time and smiled. A chill swept over the hall as I became the last, living human being inside the labs. I shivered.

I stumbled past her, heading towards the entrance to the activation chamber. Droplets of blood ran down my wounds to spatter onto the deck, marking a red, gory trail behind me.

I paused on the threshold of the activation chamber, one hand against the edge of the door. I tried my best to draw in a few ragged breaths. Eventually the blood loss was too much to bear and I collapsed onto the deck.

I don't know how long I laid there. Not long, the next burn phase hadn't hit yet. Still, some part of me refused to let myself pass out. With a cry I pulled myself back to my feet, using the edge of the door as support.

With a grunt of pain I took my first, shaky step into the activation chamber. One step became two, two became a dozen, and eventually I found myself standing in front of the active Reaper Core. It hummed with power, the four mini-crucibles in each corner of the room still feeding it energy. The hairs on the back of my neck rose in response to the static and I could feel the skin on my face begin to tingle.

With a trembling hand I opened the panel that exposed the Reaper CPU. It sat innocently in its housing. Such a small thing it was, to cause so much trouble.

With shaking fingers I pulled it out. My breath hitched in my chest as I expected something terrible to suddenly occur. Maybe I'd get turned into a Changer, or a mass of Corpsers would suddenly rush at me, intent on defending the source of their creation.

But nothing happened. The Reaper Core continued the hum and sizzle. If I could I'd have taken it too, but it was too big for me to move on my own.

I slid the Reaper CPU into my back pouch and smiled.

With a massive groan the ship began to shake again as the tenth burn phase began. My limbs no longer had the strength to support myself, let alone struggle against the massive g-forces generated by the acceleration. This time I didn't fight it. The pull washed over me and I collapsed onto the deck. It felt nice and cold against the skin of my cheek. My eyelids felt heavy and every second I spent trying to stay awake became unbearable. With a sigh, I slipped blissfully into unconsciousness before the burn phase had even finished.

January 24rd, 2211. 0842 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Prometheus Labs – Activation Chamber

15 hours and 42 minutes after Outbreak, 33 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108

There was nothing but white light around me. The ache in my limbs had disappeared and it felt as if every cell in my body was no longer screaming for me to stop, for me to sit down and close my eyes. I felt as if I was floating on an aerosol of minute liquid droplets, high up in the atmosphere of a planetary body. What were those called again?

Cloud…

Yeah, that was it. Thanks brain.

Wake up…

I inwardly sighed and gently lifted an eyelid. Both eyelids felt heavy, as if I had just woken up from a deep, dreamless sleep. The sleep of the dead, they called it. Was I dead?

The disembodied voice spoke again, this time more insistently. Wake up!

"Just one more minute, mom," I mumbled. I finally opened my eyes and saw a ghostly, pale figure hovering above me. It was Sarah. Her labcoat seemed to reflect the bright, white light. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was smiling gently at me.

Do I really look old enough to be your mother? She teased.

I smiled and shook my head. "Sorry, thought you were someone else."

Ghost-Sarah laughed and shook her head. It's time to wake up, Cloud. Your friends, they need you.

I frowned and tried to close my eyes once more. "I know, I know… just one more minute."

I know you're tired Cloud, but it's time to wake up.

Wake up…

The light faded and suddenly it all went dark again. Gone was the floating, relaxed feeling that I had been enveloped in just moments before. One by one I could feel my senses turning on. First came the feel of my armor pressing into my flesh, then the smell of electricity in the air, the taste of blood in my mouth and the acrid odor of metal and element zero and sweat.

The ache in my limbs came back, then the tiredness. Finally I felt the cold against my skin, and then a sharp sting on my cheek as a talon smacked into it.

A flanged, familiar voice broke through the haze that lingered around my head. "Cloud? Cloud! Wake up!"

I felt a taloned hand slap my face again, hard. I mumbled and groaned.

Another voice this time, this one deeper and friendlier and also familiar. "He's coming to. I don't think you needed to slap him twice."

The taloned hand came back again like an unwanted friend. I groaned again and wrenched my eyelids open.

"He's awake!"

I groaned and looked down. Medi-gel had been hastily applied to my wounds and a synthstim was embedded in an emergency induction port somewhere on my armor. The pain in my limbs had started to recede. My head cleared somewhat and I shook it to clear the last vestiges of disorientation.

Cade kneeled beside me, one hand poised to slap me again while Percival stood above me, his rifle out, red tech armor activated and covering the entrance to the activation chamber. Both had relieved grins plastered on their faces. I had never been so happy to see anyone in my life.

I sat up and Cade helped me pull myself to my feet. He then pulled me in a deep hug which I returned.

He broke away after a few seconds and grinned at me. "Spirits you're a fucking idiot, thank god we're not stupid."

Percival turned around and pressed a beat-up old Predator pistol and a Talon combat knife into my chest. I grabbed them and examined them. They were mine, the ones I'd dropped during my fight with Olivia.

I sheathed the Talon combat knife back beside its twin and activated my Predator pistol. "Where'd you get the medi-gel and the synthstim from?"

"We found it on Olivia's body," Percival said admonishingly. "Maybe if you'd had the presence of mind to check her over, we wouldn't have found you bleeding half to death."

"Looks like she really did a number on you," Cade pointed at my wounds. "And yet you still give me shit about my flings trying to kill me."

I shook my head and grinned like a maniac at my friends. "First off, it's hard to think straight when some crazy bitch drains you of half your blood. Secondly, you remember that time on Illium? You had to get twenty-two stitches."

Percival brushed aside my half-hearted attempt at humor. "Did you get what you came for?"

I pulled the Reaper CPU chip out of my pouch and showed it to my friends. It was maybe the size of a playing card, and barely two centimeters thick. They both eyed it and nodded. I returned it back to my pouch and zipped it safely shut.

"Hope it was worth it, man. Can you walk?"

I nodded. "Can you keep up?" I shot back.

Percival scoffed and rolled his eyes in good humor. He knew that if I could snark at him then I could probably still outrun him. "Good, because we have about half an hour left before we're in too deep to leave. We need to haul ass to the hangar bay."

Cade unslung his Black Widow and activated it. Meera extended to her full length with a hiss. "We had to ensure that the hangar bay doors were ready to be opened and the corvette was fully operational before we could come and get you. Honestly, don't make me regret it. I was fully ready to leave your stupid ass."

Percival swapped out his current ammunition block in his M-7 Lancer and slid in a block of Inferno rounds. "We goddamn told you not to go after the CPU. I should have known something was up you gave up so easily after we told you 'no' the first time, and when you insisted we headed for hangar bay 1-D. Granted, you were right about the Tiger, but still. You are so goddamn stubborn sometimes."

I dumped the remaining ammunition block on my Predator and replaced it with Disruptor Ammunition. "You know you love me. Now are we going to just stand here or are we going to get off this fucking ship?"

Without another word the three of us filed out of the activation chamber. Not one of us spared Olivia's body a second glance.

"How long until the next burn phase?" I asked.

Percival glanced at his omni-tool. "Maybe four minutes?"

"Let's mosey, then."

"You did not just say that."

The first three Corpsers to appear from the side-halls were hit by an overload charge that caused them to seize up in place. A trio of headshots came next, each one blowing apart their snarling faces in a shower of sparks and gore.

"I'm out," Cade called out.

Percival let loose a trio of bursts with his M-7 Lancer at their fallen bodies, destroying the Crawlers with inferno rounds before they had a chance to get out.

I dashed towards another pair of Corpsers that appeared from another hallway. The first one gave a wide swing of its claws that I deftly slipped under. As I swiveled past it I placed my Predator against the side of its head and blew its brains out. The second one snarled and leapt at me. I rolled beneath it and shot it in the back of the head just as it landed.

More inferno rounds hammered into the Corpsers that I had just killed. I ignored them and focused my attention on another group of Corpsers that spawned a few meters away.

Cade came flashing out of the corner of my eye, his booster jets flaring. He crashed into the lead Corpser and jammed his knife beneath its chin and into its skull. Before his victim could release its Crawlers and the next Corpser in line could grab him, he triggered an Arc grenade that stunned the pack in place. Activating his booster jets once again, Cade quickly rolled out of the way.

A hail of red gunfire cut down the stunned pack. The smell of burning flesh and hot metal immediately assailed my nostrils. An inferno grenade destroyed their bodies and the Crawlers that attempted to escape from their dead hosts.

I smiled, it had been a long time since the three of us had fought together.

"Changer, up ahead!" Percival called out.

Ahead of us were the doors that led to Containment Airlock 1. A sinuous salarian Changer flanked by half a dozen smaller Corpsers blocked the way.

Two of them charged at me. I drew my knife and hamstrung the first one that tried to gut me as I slipped past it. The Corpser snarled and stumbled, making him easy pickings for a headshot from Cade.

The second one didn't even get a chance to howl at his friend's demise. Cade followed up with another headshot that tore apart its face, splattering my armor with blue fluid and gore.

"Can you please watch it?" I complained.

My friend flipped me the finger as his heatsink cooled down. "Can you stop bitching?"

I shot the next two in the head, Percival cleaning up the Crawlers in a mini-firestorm as they emerged. Cade fired the last round in his Black Widow's clip directly in the head of the fifth one and blew apart the last with a trio of shots from his Carnifex.

The Changer didn't flinch at the demise of its compatriots. Instead it began to shuffle towards us, the cables on its arm outstretched.

Cade and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pistols raised and ready to tear into it, but Percival elbowed past the both of us and took aim at the Changer with his M-23 Katana Shotgun.

He slowly began to walk towards it, his badass red tech armor making him look like some kind of medieval warrior. Every step he took he'd fire off another shot that would slam heavily into the Changer, blowing off bits of metal and flesh.

Cade and I were relegated to covering duty. A couple more Corpsers decided to make an appearance but we put them down with indiscriminate force. A couple of grenades here, an overload charge there, then topped off with some heavy caliber Carnifex rounds supplemented by my smaller, lighter Predator rounds. Soon we were surrounded by dead space-zombies.

Percival was about two meters away from the Changer when it finally buckled and collapsed. He slipped in a new heatsink and emptied half of it into the back of the Changers head.

His omni-tool then chimed an alert, and the eleventh burn phase began.

I was the first to pull myself back to my feet. "How much time left?" I asked.

Percival grabbed Cade and helped him up before glancing at his omni-tool. "Twenty-six minutes before we're completely and utterly fucked, and can you set your damn alarm?"

I grumbled and simply set a twenty-six minute countdown on my own omni-tool.

We sprinted out of the Prometheus Labs, through the Containment Airlock, and back into the bowels of the ship, racing for the hangar bay.

Time seemed to dilate as my body went into auto-pilot. I lost count of the number of steps we'd taken, the seconds that had passed, and the creatures that we had killed. Any Corpser that had the misfortune to cross our paths were taken down by one of us. We worked seamlessly together, Cade thinning out targets at range while I killed those closest to us. Percival would clean up the survivors and Crawlers with his Lancer and occasionally the stray Corpser.

Eventually no more Corpsers chose to challenge us and the entrance to the hangar bay loomed ahead. We must have killed several dozen Corpsers since we'd left the labs. Individually the three of us were lethal, deadly – living weapons worth dozens of soldiers each. Together, however? We were a force of nature. Unstoppable, devastating, each of us complimenting and covering one another's strengths and weaknesses and multiplying our individual effectiveness to become a force capable of overcoming any obstacle, any enemy.

We were the best.

January 24rd, 2211. 0859 hours – Aboard the SSV Hippocrates, Deck 1, Hangar bay 1-D

15 hours and 59 minutes after Outbreak, 16 minutes before contact with the gravity well of Theodore 108

We burst into the hangar bay as soon as the 12th burn phase ended. The hangar bay was largem at least as large as the one that I'd fought the remaining saboteurs in. However, this hangar bay differed from the last one in terms of content.

Dominating the room was the M-88 Tiger-class corvette. It was shaped like a broad, flat arrowhead, maybe twenty-five meters long and nearly ten meters tall from top-to-bottom. From wingtip to wingtip it maybe spanned thirty or so meters, nearly the entire width of the hangar bay. No GARDIAN lasers or any weaponry of any kind to speak of. It was essentially just a massive cargo bay bolted onto a miniature frigate.

Along the side of the room were several massive, fifteen-foot tall, single-occupant metal loaders. They were likely designed to offload cargo and mineral samples from the corvette itself. The arms of the oversized exoskeletons each ended in a pair of metal hands capable of lifting weights exceeding twenty tons.

The bodies of several Corpsers littered the hangar bay. I spotted Captain Murgen, his Jaegers, and the rest of the able-bodied security personnel patrolling the perimeter while Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus finished directing the rest of the survivors to board the cargo bay of the corvette.

As one the Jaegers and the surviving security personnel began to clap. Captain Murgen raised a friendly hand to acknowledge our safe return. "Good to see you, Spectre. Didn't think you were gonna make it!"

"You're one crazy son-of-a-bitch!" Teewin exclaimed.

Beside the big Jaeger, Accer grinned at me like a madman. "You're actually a fucking idiot!" he called out to me.

I smiled lightly as my friends all greeted my return with varying degrees of happiness. Beside me Cade rolled his eyes and Percival shook his head. If only the others had seen the state that my fellow Spectres had found me in.

"Just had to tie up a few loose ends, no biggie," I replied nonchalantly.

Galen and Mardinus both nodded solemnly at us but turian stoicism failed to completely mask their expressions of relief. Rake and Fly smiled and high-fived each other at the sight of us returning unharmed and Soph had the biggest smile on her face. Jay grabbed her in a bear hug and laughed. It was about time we got off this fucking ship.

Camilla sprinted out of the corvette and leapt onto Cade. We all watched as she gave him a deep, lingering kiss.

All the Jaegers hooted with laughter, a couple of the female ones letting out exaggerated, dreamy sighs. A couple of flashes went off as Percival took as many pictures with his omni-tool as he could, grinning as he did so. Even Sergeant Mardinus cracked a grin.

And in typical Cade fashion, he didn't give a shit that he had an audience. He grabbed her by the waist and returned the kiss.

Eventually the two disentangled themselves from one another. Cade sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck as Camilla smiled up at the turian Spectre.

"Can you guys maybe save it 'til were off this damn ship?" Percival joked.

Camilla blushed and nodded. With one last smile at Cade she began to turn back to the corvette.

"I'm going to go double-check the systems one more time, make sure nothing goes wrong," she said.

I nodded and looked at Percival. "Go with her, get the engines warmed up and ready to go."

Percival nodded, shooting a sly, taunting grin at Cade that my friend uncharacteristically ignored. The turians eyes were glued on the engineer as she pulled herself into the corvette, a small smile on his face.

"Spectres, the last of the survivors are loaded. I'm going to the control room to open the hangar bay doors, Captain Murgen should start loading up his men," Barthilus radioed us.

I pressed a finger to my comm. set and acknowledged the Lieutenant-Commander. "Roger that, LC. Boarding now."

I jerked my head at the Jaegers and then jerked my head towards the corvette. Murgen nodded and they began to load into the corvette's cargo bay.

Beside me Cade still seemed lost in a daydream, staring off to where Camilla had boarded the corvette. I grabbed my friend's shoulder and shook him gently to snap him out of his reverie.

"Cade? Hey, Cade!"

The turian shook himself and looked at me. "Hmm?"

"Last ones out, alright?"

He sighed and scratched at a bit of dark-blue face paint that had begun to flake off of his carapace. "Not surprised."

I shrugged apologetically but he dismissed it with a wave and grinned at me. We took up positions in the middle of the hangar bay as the last of the Jaegers followed by the surviving security personnel filed aboard, leaving only Cade, Sergeant Mardinus, Galen, Lieutenant-Commander Barthilus and I outside it.

"The doors are opening now," Barthilus reported in over the comms.

An alarm began to ring as the massive bay doors behind us slowly opened with a crawl. While they did the thrusters on the corvette flared briefly before beginning to power on.

"Engines are reading in the green, should be warmed up and ready to go any minute now," Percival radioed to us.

I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. We were finally going to get off this damn ship. "That's great man, just waiting on Barthilus."

"I'm on my way," the turian bridge officer replied.

I couldn't wait to take a shower, to finally get some hot food that wasn't a protein bar. These last sixteen hours had been nothing but pain, fighting, and fear, and I was eager to get away from it all. Salivating, even.

My alarm chimed again and the last burn phase began.

After it had passed, I pulled myself to my feet and opened up a channel to the Excalibur.

"SSV Excalibur, this is Spectre Cloud. Val, are you there?"

The Flight Lieutenant's response was near instantaneous. "Roger, was beginning to get a bit worried there."

The tips of my mouth curved ever so slightly upwards in the beginning of a smile. "You should know better than to doubt me. Is the Excalibur in position?" I asked.

"Been waiting here for the last hour. You're really close to the star's gravity well now. The navigational route you sent me is saying you should have just hit your last burn phase, right?"

"Yeah, we just did. Ninety percent of the survivors are already onboard, we've got about six minutes left until were trapped. Just waiting on Barthilus to get his ass here. We're leaving soon, I promise."

"Alright, I'll be waiting. Don't make a girl a promise if—"

The sound of crunching metal tore me out of my relaxed reverie and snapped me instantly into a state of alertness. Fear flooded my system and my heart began beating frantically as I tore my pistol out of my holster. The hangar bay was suddenly flooded with the sound of familiar chittering and I could hear sinister, dark voices begin to whisper in an unrecognizable language inside my head.

"Hey Val, I'm going to have to call you back, something came up."

"Cloud? What's going on? Are you al-"

I cut her off. "Wait for us, we'll be there! Cloud out!"

"Clou-"

Cade, Galen and Mardinus drew up beside me, weapons aimed at the entrance to the hangar bay. I opened up a group-wide channel and immediately barked orders before the situation could escalate.

"Percival! Murgen! Everyone stay aboard the ship, were not staying! Barthilus get your ass over here!" I yelled.

"Roger that! I'm on my way!" the turian officer replied urgently.

The sound of knocking drew my attention away from the entrance. I turned my head to see Percival tapping frantically on the viewport. "Are you sure you don't need back-up?"

I shook my head at my friend. "Everyone, stay on the fucking ship!" I screamed into my radio once more for good measure. I could hear Accer, Teewin, Rake and his team, and even Rentea and Jaelen asking if I required assistance over the comm. so I shut it off. My heart sank into my stomach as the chittering and the whispers intensified.

The doors ripped open and the Chimera pulled itself through. Its right forelimb was still destroyed from where I had hit it with the M-920 Cain, but otherwise the rest of it looked terrifyingly functional. It loped towards us with an awkward gait, its six eyes fixated on me. Its tail lashed back and forth, carving gouges in the deck as it rushed straight at us.

I opened fire, aiming at its eyes while Cade did the same. Galen and Mardinus both aimed at its left forelimb in an attempt to wound it and slow it down, but even if they succeeded it still had two more forelimbs that it could use to tear us to pieces.

Save us, Tel'elessar…

The pressure came back but this time I was unaffected. The whispers grew louder and louder but they failed to bring me to my knees or hurt me in the slightest.

I smiled and ran towards it. It swung its left arm at me and tried to grab me but I ducked under it. I emptied the rest of my pistol into its less armored underbelly. The Chimera chittered in pain and shirked away from me as my weapon overheated.

I immediately rolled to my feet and backpedaled, only just managing to dodge its tail as it shot towards me. I released the spent heatsink from my weapon and tried to slide a spare one in.

Three loud cracks split the hangar bay and suddenly three of the Chimera's eyes burst in a shower of sparks. The creature hissed and chittered in pain and its three remaining eyes swiveled onto Cade, whose Black Widow began hissing and venting heat.

My friend tried to backpedal as I had done, but tripped over one of the Corpsers that lay strewn around the bay. With a grunt he landed on his ass.

Before he could use his booster jets and propel himself out of the way, the Chimera was upon him. I looked on in horror as it picked my friend up with one of its forelimbs and brought him close to its face. The Chimera's three remaining eyes glared at him and its disturbingly human mouth bared its teeth in a snarl. My friend pounded on the rotted, half-metal limb to no avail.

Nearby, Mardinus' omni-blade erupted from his left arm. With a yell the turian sergeant leapt at the creature and brought his omni-blade down in a vicious arc, severing the creatures hand and releasing its hold on my friend.

I watched as the Chimera lashed out with its barbed tail, sending it slashing across the veteran sergeants back. Mardinus gave a strangled gasp of pain and a spray of blue blood splattered onto the deck.

The sergeant didn't falter. Instead he grabbed my friend by the collar of his armor and hurled him towards Galen nearly twenty feet away.

"Take him and get aboard the ship!" the sergeant cried.

Galen helped Cade to his feet and looked uncertainly towards his sergeant, his eyes filled with doubt and hesitation. Behind Mardinus the Chimera loomed angrily, silently, its remaining good eyes staring daggers at the turian in front of him, blue blood dripping from his barbed tail.

But Vidanor Mardinus didn't turn, didn't so much as look at the beast behind him. As the creature moved towards the turian sergeant, Mardinus instead looked directly at Cade. In his expression I could see a cascade of different emotions – regret, sorrow, contrition, remorse, and hope.

"Die for the cause," he said quietly.

The Chimera picked up the sergeant and flung him bodily away. I gave a furious shout and began firing at the creature as fast as the trigger mechanism would allow me to.

"Go!" I screamed at Galen, "Take Cade and get on board!"

That snapped the young marine out of it. He nodded and began to pull my friend toward the ship. Cade gave me one last desperate glance as he was pulled onboard, his blue eyes pleading furiously with me to come with him, to escape this hellhole, to run away so that I could live to get drunk and get into fights and go on more missions with my friends.

I grabbed the Reaper CPU from my back pouch and hurled it at him. My friend caught it deftly without looking, his eyes never leaving mine.

I gave him a small, sad smile and a brief wave, then I turned to face the Chimera alone.

You will die, Tel'elessar…

I looked it in the eye and prepared to die. I was ready, I'd been ready ever since I'd swore my vows in front of the Citadel Council and been accepted into the Spectres. I'd been ready ever since a brawny, former N7 Spectre and his lanky turian sidekick had crossed my paths all those years ago and offered me the chance to become something more. It was my time, and I was okay with that. My only regret was that I couldn't do more.

I raised my pistol and walked towards it. My friends now had my recordings and the CPU, I knew that they could handle whatever came next with the saboteurs. All that was left for me to do was to buy my friends the time they needed to escape, to fight. There was no need for any final words – one last defiant curse or a witty, memorable one-liner. No, I just needed to buy time so that they could escape, that was all I had to do.

The sudden appearance of a series of heavy, peculiar footsteps caught my attention, footsteps way too heavy and much too metallic-sounding to be made by anything organic. I cocked my head in confusion and halted in my tracks.

One of the massive exoskeleton loaders shot into my field of vision and slammed into the Chimera, knocking it violently to the ground. The fifteen-foot tall machine wrapped its arms around the Chimera's neck and began choking it.

The creature hissed and chittered and clawed at the massive machine. The loader dug its feet into the ground and strained to keep the beast in place.

"Spectre! It's time for you to go!" shouted a flanged voice on my radio.

I raised a shaky hand and pressed down on my transmit button. "Lieutenant-Commander?" I asked in disbelief.

The cockpit of the loader depolarized, revealing a turian in the garb of a Turian Hierarchy Naval officer manning the exoskeleton. I watched as he struggled at the controls, trying desperately to hold onto the writhing Chimera.

The turians face was a stoic mask of duty and determination. "I won't be able to hold it for long, get on the ship, Cloud. They're going to need you," Barthilus said firmly.

The Chimera railed against its captor. It began to attack the loader with her tail, the massive, barbed appendage cutting deep gouges in the machine's mechanical arms and the cockpit. I watched as tiny cracks began to spread on the dense, plastic surface.

Another series of heavy, metal footsteps erupted from the other side of the room. A second loader came out of nowhere and grabbed the Chimera's tail, pinning it to the ground.

"It's been an honor serving with you sir," said another flanged voice.

It was suddenly very hard to breath. My throat seized up, my legs felt like they were going to buckle at any moment and I could begin to feel a bit of moisture just underneath my eyelids. I blinked furiously to get rid of it and struggled to get my vocal cords to work.

"The honor has been all mine, Sergeant."

Barthilus' loader soon began to creak and groan. The Chimera's mechanical jailors wouldn't last forever. The creature had now begun wailing, its thrashings growing more and more desperate. Mardinus' cockpit depolarized as well, allowing me to see the turian sergeant in his final moments.

"Tell Cade I'm sorry. Tell him I'll be sure to tell my little girl all about him when I see her," Mardinus said. The turians voice was strong and steady, seemingly unafraid of death.

I swallowed and nodded. "Will do."

First Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus smiled at me. "Good, now get going Cloud. Like the good Lieutenant-Commander says, they're going to need you. Die for the cause."

"Die for the cause, Cloud," echoed Lieutenant-Commander Syriah Barthilus.

"Die for the cause," I whispered.

Without another look I pivoted on the balls of my feet and began to sprint towards the Corvette's entrance. The countdown on my omni-tool indicated that we had maybe 80 seconds left before the last burn phase.

I leapt up the stairs in two massive bounds and sprinted into the cockpit. Camilla was monitoring the engine readouts while Percival had the command seat. Cade had the co-pilot seat, leaving me the pilot's chair. All four of them were staring transfixed at the sacrifice of the two turians.

I slid into it and belted up. The engines were already hot and running, making it a simple matter of simply flying the corvette out of the hangar. I grabbed the controls and ever so gently lifted the Corvette a meter off the deck. I retracted the bridge and sealed the ship.

Past the viewport I could see the loaders still holding onto the Chimera. Sparks had begun to emit from both exoskeletons and Mardinus' loader's left leg was basically nothing but scrap, but still they held on. The Chimera continued to thrash and try and free itself before the Hippocrates' inevitable collision with Theodore 108.

I gently used the controls to turn the ship 180-degrees around so that the nose was facing the exit. M-88 Tiger-class Corvettes had extremely sensitive controls, much more similar to a fighter than a dreadnought, a cruiser, a carrier, or even heavy or light stealth frigates. Granted, Val managed to pilot the SSV Excalibur – which was a heavy frigate – like a fighter, but otherwise it was a feat that took either experience or raw talent.

I hit the thrusters and we shot out of the hangar bay. I was careful to keep the controls as steady as possible during the exit.

We shot out into the blackness of space like a burning star. To our left blazed Theodore 108. While only a red dwarf, the surface temperatures would be more than sufficient to eradicate and destroy every last living and non-living thing aboard the Hippocrates.

Percival keyed open the ships comms and began to hail the Excalibur. "Flight Lieutenant, we're clear and approaching the rendezvous point. Prep for triage and stand by to receive survivors."

"Roger that Spectre, I'll have a medical team standing by," replied Val. "Did … did everyone make it?"

Percival looked at me and smiled. He keyed open the comm. to give Val the good news. "Yeah, everyone."

We all smiled but none of us felt the need to respond. Now that we were finally off the ship, all the fatigue, the horror, the loss that we had experienced and that the adrenaline had kept at bay for the last sixteen hours seemed to hit us all at once. We flew on in silence.

Cade calmly monitored system traffic beside me, watching for relay activity, stray asteroids and solar flares. His mandibles were still and his blue eyes looked weary beyond his years. I could sense that he was struggling with finding the right words to say to me. In those last few moments, both of us had thought that I was truly going to die.

I coughed and broke first.

"Mardinus says he was sorry, says he'll be telling his little girl all about you when he finally sees her," I said quietly.

Cade looked up at me and I bit my lip as I steeled myself for the inevitable verbal beatdown I knew that he was surely going to apply. I knew how it'd go down. First he'd tell me that I could have stealthed and ran, then I'd tell him that nothing would then have stopped the Chimera from damaging the corvette. He'd follow up with the fact that Barthilus and Mardinus had already decided to give their lives and then I'd counter with the fact that at that moment I had not known about the sacrifice the two turians had decided to make.

I tensed up, ready to get into it, but recoiled slightly in surprise when all Cade did was fish the Reaper CPU out of his pocket and hold it out to me.

I slowly took it and placed it back in my pouch.

"He was a brave marine," Cade said. "I'm glad he'll finally get to see his family again."

I closed my eyes in relief at the fact that I wouldn't have to be drawn into an argument.

"Cloud?"

My eyes flashed open. Maybe I spoke too soon.

Cade look me in the eye. "We're Spectres," he acknowledged.

The way he said it told me all that I needed to know. As much as it hurt to think about, we were friends second and Spectres first. Our duty always had to be to the galaxy first and not to each other. When you had to decide between your brother or billions of faceless individuals, ninety-nine point nine percent would likely pick their brother. That point-one percent? We Spectres had to be a part of that. Had to be.

We were expected to give our lives to the greater good should the time and the need arise. Cade knew this, Percival knew this, and I knew this.

Back there, aboard that ship, inside that hangar bay, I had thought that it was my turn. The Council needed whatever data we had retrieved from aboard the ship and we were the only ones who knew about the hidden threat on a hundred planets. At least Cade and Percival had to make it. I was ready and willing to die to protect them and the knowledge they had, to ensure that it survived the ship, and Cade knew.

He would have done the same in my place. That's why he didn't try to stop me. It was our duty.

"We're Spectres," I agreed. Nothing more needed to be said on the matter.

"So what now?" Camilla asked. The young technician looked like hell warmed over but neither the bags beneath her bloodshot eyes nor the pale, clammy tinge to her normally brown skin would hide the fact that she was anything but beautiful. I smiled as I recalled Cade and I's first encounter with the feisty engineer. That plasma shotgun had nearly burnt my friend to a crisp.

"We're going to the Council. They need to know what happened aboard the Hippocrates and about the saboteurs," Percival replied. He had deliberately left out the part about the Reaper cores and the threat that they posed.

"We give them everything we've learned and they'll work with the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance to come up with a course of action. Chances are we'll be the ones sent to hunt them down," he continued.

Camilla looked at the big Spectre and smiled. "Got room for one more?" she asked cheekily.

Percival laughed and returned the gesture. "Perhaps, Spectres get a lot of leeway when it comes to coopting both military and civilian help."

Cade scratched the scalloped plates on the back of his neck and yawned. "You think they'll give us some downtime? After all we did just destroy a whole ship filled with genocidal, virulent space-zombies, stop a crazed faction of saboteurs from escaping with vital intel, and discover a secret plot to convert everyone in the galaxy into more space-zombies. I think we're finished."

Camilla's eyebrows shot up in alarm. "What? Convert who into what?"

I sighed and rubbed my aching jaw. Every muscle in my body screamed at me to close my eyes but I had to stay awake for just a little bit longer. I was so tired that my vision had started to blur and I could slowly feel myself phasing in and out of consciousness.

I unclipped my helmet from the back of my armor and gently placed it on the console in front of me. The saboteurs were still out there, the Reaper Cores and the DNA inside them were still dangerous, and the galaxy still wasn't safe. I could rest when I was dead.

"No," I said, "I think we're just getting started."