Chapter 47: Phantom Limb
March 30th, 2211, 0527 hours —Anhur, City of New Thebes
(Spectre Operative – 10082181-Elektra)
Downtown New Thebes
The first of the sun's rays were finally starting to creep over the horizon, though its warmth had yet to follow. The light was faint but it was there, valiantly trying to claw its way into the city. All it seemed to do however was accentuate the differences in lighting. The shadows cast by the large, towering buildings all around Elektra seemed all the darker in that weak, morning light.
Percival continued to lead their team towards the downed ship. He strode purposefully towards it, his hands wrapped tightly around his M-8 Avenger rifle. Revak was not to be outdone. The heavily-muscled batarian followed behind the Spectre with his chest out and his shoulders thrown back, as if he was daring the creatures to come attack him. The robotic dolly chirped happily behind the heels of the two titans, blissfully uncaring that it was carrying an incredibly-destructive device on its back and unafraid of the horrors that lay ahead. Elektra was itching to blast it to smithereens with her biotics.
Slightly ahead of her, Malan shortened his stride so that he ended up walking beside Elektra. "So, do you have any family? Siblings?" he asked her.
Elektra gave him a curious look, but ultimately she decided to humor him.
"No, no family or siblings," she replied airily. Her voice didn't waver as she casually exposed her old wounds. "Lost my family during the Reaper War. To be honest, I don't remember much about them. I think I must have been no more than four or five when I lost them."
She sighed as she spoke about memories that she hadn't had to think about in a long time. It wasn't that she didn't want to remember or that the memories were still painful—after all, it had almost been twenty-five years. No, she hadn't had to think about them because for her, they were relics of the past. Memories of her family had faded over time, blurring and thinning until Elektra could barely picture them in her mind anymore whenever she thought about them.
"We managed to catch a refugee transport once the invasion started," she continued. "We had barely made it into orbit when I remember these red, flashing sirens and those terrible horns. I remember my parents fighting to get me onto an escape shuttle. I remember watching a Reaper destroyer blow their transport apart."
And unlike Cloud, who could only guess as to whether his mother and father were still alive, she had her closure where her family was concerned. It had come in the form of a ruby-red beam of light that had bisected her parents' ship. She remembered peering out of a viewport on the shuttle, standing atop a seat with her small hands flat against its pane, watching that red flash erase the two people in her life who had mattered. The only two people in the universe who had known her name—known who she really was. After that, she was a ghost. Just like Cloud and the rest of the other orphans the Reapers had created.
Closure had come in the form of a brilliantly-blue detonation as the ship's element zero core collapsed in on itself and tore the space around it apart.
She shrugged her shoulders. "So no, no family, no siblings. Though I guess… I guess you could say Cloud is the closest thing I have to a sibling. We came into the same orphanage on the Citadel afterwards and we've been inseparable ever since."
Almost inseparable, she thought.
"Well, almost inseparable," she amended. "After Cloud and I were forced to join the Spectres we had a bit of a falling-out for a few years. We didn't really speak much to one another during that."
Malan raised all four of his eye-ridges. "Wait, forced? You two were forced to become Spectres? What exactly do you mean by that?"
Elektra pursed her lips. "Well, not forced. It's a long story, really. Basically we were offered a deal."
She quickly stooped, grabbed a rock off the ground and chucked it at Percival ahead of her. The rock bounced off his pauldron and caused him to turn his head back in her direction.
"Hey Percival. Tell me, what was I looking at if I didn't take the deal and sign the dotted line? A trial in front of a Systems Alliance tribunal and what—twenty-five years in an Alliance prison cell?"
"It would actually have been before a Citadel Superior Court of Justice, seeing as they have jurisdiction over criminal acts committed on the Citadel," Percival chuckled. "And you'd probably have been facing only maybe twenty in a maximum security penal colony. Not like you killed anyone."
She shrugged at Malan. "See? Forced."
Malan nodded sagely. "I had always wondered about you two," he said thoughtfully. "We had not heard of you prior to meeting you, and the Council typically does not induct individuals into the Spectres who aren't already of considerable reknown. Just look at your comrades, the turian and the Lieutenant Commander. Half the galaxy knew who they were before they had even become Spectres.
"So what happened?" Malan continued to ask. "How actually did you—"
"—Can you please stop talking!" Revak barked abruptly, interrupting his younger brother.
Revak's anger was a thing to be feared, if his actions in combat were any indication, but Malan was clearly unperturbed by his brother's ire. "Brother, don't be so closed off," he grinned. "Get to know your comrades a bit, and you'll fight better beside them. That's what our mardak used to tell us, remember?"
He turned to Elektra. "Revak's always been a disciplinarian. He's been a pain in the eyes like that ever since he first joined the batarian navy. After his first tour, he wouldn't stop ordering me around the house, making me put away my clothes and waking me up in the early hours of the morning to run drills with him."
"And you've been a pain in my eyes ever since you crawled out of our mardak forty-three years ago!" Revak spat through tightly-clenched teeth. "And that pain hasn't gotten any better even after this mudak blinded two of them!" he said, jerking his head viciously at Percival.
Percival glanced at the burn scars that covered the left side of Revak's face. His gaze then drifted to his two glassy cataracts.
The N7 pointed a finger at his own chestplate. "That was me?" he mouthed wordlessly, causing Elektra to grin.
Percival looked down at his utility belt where a number of his trademark inferno grenades hung. He looked back up at Revak and then placed his hand over his mouth in mock surprise. Elektra couldn't help herself at that, she let out a small laugh.
Revak didn't say anything. In fact, he looked about ready to kill the marine. Percival turned and gave Elektra a cheery wink.
In all honesty, Elektra still thought Revak got off rather easy in spite of what he did on Bahak and during the slave wars, if his half-blinding at the hands of Percival was all it was. Even if he had opposed the use of slaves at first, he had still gone along with it in the end. He'd participated in the abduction of all sorts of individuals from their families and had forced them to work in batarian labour camps, refineries and mines.
Christ, both Revak and Malan had, and Elektra couldn't forget that. She couldn't forget that even if they were both now trying to make up for what they'd done. She couldn't forget that even if she found herself liking the two batarians.
"In truth, we should not jest about what happened on Bahak," Malan said, almost as if he could read her mind. "What we did was unforgiveable, and as hard as we may try to right the scales, it will never undo what harm we did."
He trailed off after that and the whole group fell silent, except for the constant, low chirping coming from the robotic dolly. It followed obediently beside them, unwaveringly sure of its path and unafraid of its destructive charge. It continued to drive Elektra mad.
"Do you like being a Spectre?" Malan abruptly asked her.
The question caught her by surprise. "Why do you want to know?" she said.
"You told me you were forced to become a Spectre. Against your will. Do you like being a Spectre?"
Elektra's mouth gaped open and close. She didn't know how to reply. Did she like being a Spectre?
Did she like being forced to continuously put her life on the line every time someone on the Council told her to? People who, perhaps except for Victus, were probably nothing more than paid puppets for a bunch of rich bureaucrats who didn't give a rat's ass beyond keeping themselves and their other rich little friends in power?
As a nobody with no family, no friends, and no past military career or background, she'd been the perfect asset for undercover work. Elektra had been molded into one of the Council's top infiltration and undercover specialists. She'd been forced to develop the skills and mannerisms necessary to work her way into the inner circles of rich, corrupt men, plying them with her learned charms until it was time for her to strike.
Did she enjoy those long, lonely missions? Did she enjoy wearing all those masks? Being a Spectre had forced her to be someone she was not. It had forced her to do things that she had never wanted to do – things that had disgusted her.
"Do you want to keep being a Spectre?" Malan asked.
Elektra looked at him carefully. "What do you mean?"
The batarian mercenary rubbed his neck and swallowed, seemingly embarrassed. "After we complete our mission on Anhur, Revak and I would like to go back and rebuild the batarian homeworld. Not with slaves, but with what goodwill from the Council we may purchase here!" he clarified quickly.
He looked up into the sky – a sky that was rapidly becoming more and more blue as the sun continued to rise.
"I would like to go back and rebuild a world that the batarian people can be proud of," Malan said solemnly. "One not built on the backs of slaves. Once that is done and the batarian people are one again… we can… we can extend formal apologies and reparations to the families of those slaves we stole."
"We can even give them that trial they wanted all those years ago," Malan said wryly. "A shared cell with my brother for the rest of my days… that seems a fair price to pay for a shining, new Khar'shan and a fitting end for the two Butchers of Bahak."
"You're dreaming, brother, if you think I wouldn't rather take the death penalty," grumbled Revak.
Malan ignored his older brother. "Anyways, we could use someone like you, Elektra. You're intelligent, resourceful. If you ever wanted to do something else..."
"You want me to help two ex-slavers rebuild a shattered homeworld…" she reiterated slowly. "A homeworld whose people are now currently scattered far across the galaxy? You want me to help rebuild their homeworld, get them to come back, and submit to a fledgling central government ran by two apologetic war criminals?"
The batarian looked at her and after a while nodded sheepishly, finally aware of how impossible his dream sounded now that he was hearing it from someone else's mouth.
"Sure," she grinned. "It only took the quarians three hundred years. Once we've stopped these lunatic fanatics, I'd gladly help the two of you."
Malan gave her a brilliant smile that lit up all four of his eyes. "Thank you. Just you watch, together we can make things right. I know it."
Revak simply scoffed at his younger brother. The older batarian was clearly not holding anything back when it came to showing his feelings on his brother's idealism.
The group finally reached the trench left by the fallen batarian freighter, the TMV's Harsa's Embrace, as it had carved its way through the city after crashing. It had been the trojan horse that the saboteurs had used to introduce the Reaper Core to Anhur. Presumably, the saboteurs had boarded it, triggered the Core, and had then set the ship to crash into New Thebes, the capital city of the Anhur. From here, the infection had spread – a malignant disease that had claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. It was the objective, and an easy one at that. Enter it, neutralize the saboteurs guarding it, set a timer for the bomb on the robot dolly, and run. No Core left for the saboteurs to dick around with.
The trench was twenty meters deep and more than half again as wide. It ran like a great, big dirty scar for about two hundred meters down the middle of New Thebes, towards the sea. Exposed foundation, rebar, and broken pipes protruded everywhere. Pools of muddy water had formed along the base of the trench.
The scar ended where the wreck of the freighter began. It rose maybe forty feet above the top of the scar. The outside of the ship looked broken and dilapidated. One thruster was completely gone and the hull was weathered and pitted.
Beyond the ship lay the sea. The nose of the Embrace ended just outside a shipping port. It's proximity to the sea made the ship seem like the carcass of a giant whale.
The group moved behind cover. "Look," gestured Percival.
Elektra's gaze followed his finger. Squinting, she saw maybe a platoon of black-armored figures holding a roughly fortified position around the entrance to the cargo bay of the downed ship – the easiest and most obvious point of ingress. Elektra counted one mounted gun position, the rest were simply taking cover behind whatever crude debris they had fashioned into makeshift barricades.
"Could they be that careless?" Elektra breathed. "Why set up shop where everyone can see them? Setting up inside would have probably allowed them to hold off three times their number."
"Maybe it is a trap designed to lure an attacking force in. Maybe they do have more soldiers stationed inside the ship or in the nearby buildings, ready to counter-attack," Malan said in a low rumble.
Electra reluctantly conceded that point. It was possible that this show was just bait.
"What do you want to do, Percival? We could go around, find a different entrance," Elektra offered.
Percival shook his head. "No, no time. The Core is probably in the cargo bay, it's the only place big enough to hold it. We can't risk them doing whatever it is they plan to do with the Core."
The marine activated his tech armor, encasing himself in translucent red panes of light shaped like various pieces of armor.
"Revak, Malan and I will hit them head on. Elektra, use the trench to cover your approach and flank them," Percival ordered.
Before he could say another word, Revak had already gotten up and had started to make his way toward the saboteurs. Percival cursed and quickly moved to follow him, Malan close behind.
Elektra let out a sigh and triggered her tactical cloak. She made her way over to the trench and gingerly made her way down, stepping carefully only onto the sturdy parts of it like broken pieces of concrete or piping. She did not want her footprints to magically appear out of nowhere.
She was about to step onto a small rock when she suddenly stopped. After looking more closely at it, she realized that it was a skull – likely the skull of a human. Beside it lay a tattered vest surrounded by ivory-coloured fragments.
Elektra quickly looked around. Suddenly, she began to notice that scattered among the broken pipes, the concrete, and the water were bones – hundreds of them, dirty and weathered. They lay embedded in the mud like gruesome gemstones. They were probably the remains of the people who had died when the ship had fallen onto the city.
Elektra shuddered and did her best to shove that thought aside. Carefully, she picked her way down the trench.
A sudden volley of gunfire erupted ahead. The rest of her team had already engaged the saboteurs.
Elektra quickened her pace. When she finally reached the ship she carefully made her way back out of the trench.
She hid behind one of the massive thrusters and peeked her head around the corner. The saboteurs were trading fire with Percival and the two batarians from a series of crude fortifications stationed outside the entrance to the cargo bay, but they were set up moreso to protect against a frontal assault. All Elektra had to do was follow the ship and she could hit them perfectly in their flank.
Percival had taken cover behind a hover car, Malan beside him. The two were trading bullets with the saboteurs, though their fire appeared way more accurate. A pair of saboteurs slumped down over the barricades they were hiding behind while a third keeled backwards, falling onto his back.
A large figure dashed toward the saboteur line. It was Revak. He had a shotgun in one hand and what appeared to be the torn-off door of a hover car in the other. With a roar, he used it to absorb the incoming fire and shield his advance. The majority of the saboteurs frantically and suddenly turned their gunfire towards the batarian, allowing Percival and Malan to pick off a few more.
But the door was rapidly wilting beneath the withering hale of gunfire, and it wouldn't be long before Revak was torn to bits as well. Elektra dashed forward towards the saboteurs. She had to do something.
She approached two saboteurs whose attentions were currently trained on Revak. Elektra wrapped her entire body in biotic energy, taking her out of her cloak. She was going to opt for biotically-enhanced hand-to-hand combat. Elektra was particularly adept at channeling her biotics into her strikes – moreso than Cloud, who mostly focused on long-range and defensive biotics. It was a skill she had mastered long ago, to make up for the fact that she often found herself operating without any armor or weapons.
Doing so, Elektra could augment her attacks with her biotics, giving them power beyond what would be naturally obtainable otherwise. It made her incredibly powerful, but without the biotic reserves of an asari it wasn't something she could maintain for long.
She punched the first saboteur in the side of his helmet with a blue-wreathed fist. The wounds on her back flared in pain but Elektra gritted her teeth and ignored them. The man's head snapped sideways into an unnatural angle and he dropped to the ground wordlessly, like a puppet with its strings cut.
His partner glanced at her in shock. Elektra spun and sent her shin crashing into the saboteur's chest, sending her flying into hull of the ship. The saboteur hit it with a loud crunch and slid down the side of it, leaving a trail of red blood to lay unmoving on the broken concrete.
Elektra dashed forward. She grabbed the helmeted head of another saboteur and slammed it into the barricade in front of him. His friend turned to meet her, but before he could bring up his rifle Elektra had already sent four punches into his chestplate and a palm slamming upwards into the base of his helmet.
Taking a page out of Revak's book, she grabbed a chunk of concrete and hurled it at the helmet of another saboteur. The man's head caved in and blood started gushing out. Another one down.
But the blue energy around her was starting to dissipate. Elektra wasn't going to be able to maintain that state for much longer.
"Elektra! Deal with the gun!" Percival ordered over the radio.
Elektra gritted her teeth together and willed the biotic energy away, deciding to save what little biotic energy she still had. Several of the other saboteurs were starting to look her way – were starting to realize that their entire right flank had been decimated. Thankfully, the saboteur on the turret was still focused on Percival's team.
She re-activated her cloak just in time to evade a hail of gunfire. Keeping as low as she could, Elektra snaked her way around the barricades towards the foxhole with the mounted gun. Around her, the saboteurs were gesturing wildly at one another, trying to pinpoint her location.
Elektra grabbed a lift grenade from her belt and dropped it at the feet of the saboteur manning the turret. She rolled away just as it detonated in a brilliant, blue flash of biotic energy. The gunner and the two saboteurs beside him were thrown nearly twenty feet in the air. They landed with sickening cracks on the concrete and did not get back up. With their heavy gun gone, the rest of the saboteurs were easy meat to Percival and his team. In a few short moments, the last saboteur was dead and the trench was silent once more.
She deactivated her cloak and tried to wipe her bloody hands on her armored thighs, leaving red streaks, but there was a lot of blood – more blood than she could remove. Likely it had come from when she had ruined the saboteur's head.
"Here," a voice called out. Malan raised a canteen and tossed it to her. She plucked it out of the air.
"Thanks," Elektra replied. She undid the cap and used the water to wash her hands clean.
Revak walked slowly among the bodies, checking for survivors. The robotic dolly was hot on his heels, following obediently in his wake and unperturbed by the carnage around it. Revak turned his gaze away from the bodies and looked back towards the city, then towards the ship. His two good eyes flashed in sudden understanding. "There was no one else…" Revak said quietly to himself.
"Yeah, I guess this was all there was," Elektra agreed. Wait, that couldn't be all of them. "It doesn't make sense, we saw tons of dropships land? Where did the troops all—"
"We've been duped," Revak said flatly. He brushed past her and started heading towards the ship.
Elektra cursed. "Then—"
"The saboteurs got what they came here for, then set up a diversion so they could get away. Made us and the turians think that the Core was strategically significant," finished Percival.
She kicked at the body of a saboteur in frustration. "They're smarter than we bargained for. What do we do then?"
Percival looked up at the ruined, mangled carcass of the Harsa's Embrace.
"We do what we came here to do," he replied simply.
"We destroy the source of this infection and we save this planet," Malan said much more firmly. The batarian shouldered his flamethrower and made his way towards his brother.
An airlock where shuttles would usually seal onto fed into the cargo bay of the Harsa's Embrace, and that was where the team assembled. Percival turned on his omni-tool and wave it over an external panel to try to activate it, but it was dead.
Revak slid his fingers between the doors and began to pull. The veins in his neck bulged and strained and his armor trembled. Eventually, he managed to separate the doors by a few centimeters.
Malan was instantly at his brother's side. He dug his hands into the gap Revak had made and began to pull as well. Together, the two batarians managed to pull the doors apart.
The doors came apart with a great, big groan. The robotic dolly chirped happily.
The airlock opened up into a small, short corridor or vestibule of sorts. A few steps ahead, the cargo bay began.
The first thing Elektra noticed was the smell. She wrinkled her nose and fought hard not to gag. The air inside the ship reeked of stale rot and decay. Life support had probably been off since the ship had crashed just a little over three weeks ago. The other three took the smell in stride. Unperturbed, they walk through the vestibule and into the cargo bay, weapons raised.
Elektra followed in their wake, one hand pressed against her mouth and nose. It was cavernous and dark inside—very dark. Beyond the three men however, Elektra saw a faint, red light coming from somewhere deeper inside the cargo bay.
She heard Malan gasp, and Revak growl. That's when Elektra finally looked around. She pulled out her shotgun and flipped on the tactical lamp. Percival did the same. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and to the beams of light coming from their weapons, but when they finally did, Elektra saw what they had seen.
All around the cargo bay were scattered the desiccated remains of countless individuals. It must have been the bodies of the crew. Dozens of skulls – many of them with four, cavernous eye-sockets – stared up at the four of them. Dried flesh still clung to them. Cobwebs covered them, and some bore signs and marks of trauma that hinted at what had caused the demise of their owners. It was no cargo bay. It was a mausoleum.
Elektra couldn't hold it in any more. She dropped her hands to her knees and vomited all over the floor. The sound of her sick hitting the dusty polysteel was the only sound in the entire cargo bay, save for a low hum coming from further inside the cargo bay, where the red light was. Ahead of her, Malan made a religious sign in the air with his hands.
Percival stepped up to what appeared to be a large shipping container – one of many scattered around the bay— and surveyed it. With a gloved hand, he brushed away a fine layer of dust to reveal a smattering of bullet holes and dried blood.
"The saboteurs boarded the ship. There was a fight… one hell of a fight," Percival said softly.
Revak broke rank and waded into the maze of cargo containers, shoulders squared and anger glinting in his two good eyes. He stooped and grabbed something off the floor, lifting it gingerly away from his body. It was a mummified body clad in Systems Alliance armor, painted black and with the insignia shaved off.
Revak tossed the body aside in disgust, breathing hard. His brother was beside him in an instant, one hand on Revak's spiked pauldron. He didn't say a word.
Something had caught Malan's attention however. He tilted his head and made his way over to another container.
Malan brushed aside the dust on the container's door, revealing an angular silver symbol. Elektra recognized it as the logo for Ariake Technologies, one of the galaxy's leading and most notorious weapons manufacturers.
The batarian gave an interested grunt, drawing the attention of the rest of the team. Percival made his way over to the container and peered at the logo. He then booted up the code-breaking program on his omni-tool and applied it to the lock. After a few seconds it lit up green, prompting the Spectre to let out a light grin. Elektra smiled too. Looting was a time-honoured Spectre tradition and it would continue to be one so long as the Council continued to be stingy with its credits.
Malan pulled open the door, coughing as he inhaled some of the dust that had shaken loose. He disappeared into the darkness of the container. The robotic dolly chirped again.
When Malan re-emerged, he was holding something. It looked like a long, steel rod, perhaps as thick as Elektra's wrist and almost as long as she was tall. A rubber grip covered most of its length, and Elektra could see what looked like an activation switch. Two emitter-slots were poised on one end of the rod.
The batarian pressed the activation switch. Two wide, curved orange blades erupted out of the emitters, arcing along both sides of the rod and ending about a quarter of the way down the shaft.
"An Ariake Omni-axe," chuckled Malan. He twirled the weapon in his hands. It looked too big to use, even for a batarian as large as Malan. Judging by the way he could twirl it, it must have been finely balanced and not as heavy as it looked. "They marketed this for krogan use. Most krogans like to stick to their shotguns, but I've seen a few battlemasters wave these things around. Seen them take a varren's head clean off and even cut vorcha in two. Personally, I think they're a bit tacky."
Percival decided to give his two cents as well. "Not my style either. Sure, the blades won't disappear on you like a regular omni-blade, but no one in their right mind is going to take this into a firefight unless you've got the natural defense that a krogan has. Plus, the weight distribution is a bit off since the blades aren't actually there. Awkward to swing unless you've got a krogan's strength."
Malan tossed it to Revak. The mercenary plucked it out of the air. Now he was large enough to wield it with one hand.
The batarian gave a few experimental swings. Elektra could see the glow from the axe-blades reflected in Revak's cataracts. It made his eyes light up.
"It's… something…" rumbled Revak. He didn't say much, but he didn't need to. Elektra had learned to read between the lines and into what was unsaid when it came to the stoic batarian. He stared at the axe for a few more seconds before deactivating it and storing it on his back.
Malan gave his brother a grin as he brushed past him. "You know, I almost got you one for your last birthday. Instead, I got you a hunting knife.
Revak muttered something under his breath about his own brother not knowing him.
"Remember, brother? You named it after a batarian god, left it in the crest of some loud-mouthed Blood Pack runt who tried to cheat you at cards. I don't fault you for that, seeing as he tried to cheat you out of a lot more than the knife was worth. Tell me, what will you name this one?"
"Shir'kala," Revak breathed.
"shir…kala?" Elektra echoed.
"Screaming… yelling in blood?" Percival tried to translate.
"Close. Blood-singer, in the old tongue," Malan corrected.
Elektra rolled her eyes. Death-dealer… Blood-singer… it was like the batarian language had been crafted by a panel of twelve-year-old boys.
Malan suddenly let out a bark of laughter. "Devils wait, you're naming it after… after that weapon from that old batarian children's folktale?"
"Yes," Revak grunted, but even he couldn't hide his mirth. The batarian had a grin on his face – the first that Elektra had ever seen on the dour mercenary. Elektra didn't understand the significance of the name. Maybe it was an inside joke between the brothers?
Malan's laughter died down and he paused to wipe tears from two of his eyes. "You're too much, brother," Malan chuckled.
Their moment was interrupted by a light cough. Percival cleared his throat. "Gentlemen, I hate to break up this moment but the clock is ticking."
The smiles faded from the two batarians faces like. It slowly dawned on them once again that they were in a mass grave, surrounded by the remains of countless batarians, in a dead city.
The moment had passed, and soon the group resumed their march towards the malignant red light coming from the back of the cargo bay. Aside from their weapon-mounted flashlights, it was the only source of light in the entire cargo bay. It was an inadequate source of light, failing to cut through the oily darkness that hid the farthest reaches of the cargo bay. Elektra couldn't even see the ceiling above them.
Vorosh nakk khan, Vorosh nakk hok, Shir'kala… Shir'kala… Kadun vo dan, voluun mel'khanok, Shir'kala… Shir'kala…" Malan sang softly. "Beware the dark, beware the night… blood-singer, blood-singer. Do not whistle, stay in the light, blood-singer, blood-singer," he translated.
His words sent a chill creeping up Elektra's spine. Starting from the bottom, it slowly pulled itself up to the base of her neck where it then lay coiled. Waiting.
Her body convulsed and her stomach threatened to vacate itself yet again. "If you could stop saying such creepy shit, I'd really appreciate that Mal," she grumbled.
Malan smiled in the darkness. His four eyes gleamed as they drank in what little light there was around them. Thanks to their unique anatomy, batarians had much better night-vision than the other species – a fact that Elektra was envious of.
"It's an old batarian folktale – the tale of Kalian," he explained. "Kalian was a peerless warrior, reknowned across ancient Kar'shan for his prowess in battle and for his devotion to his village."
"One day, the feudal lord he served called him away for war. He did not wish to fight, but his honor and the oaths he swore to the lord demanded it. Ten years he was gone, fighting and winning wars for that lord. When he came back he found that his entire village had been destroyed by his enemies," Malan continued.
"He grew mad with grief. That grief made him susceptible to the whispers and promises of the predatory Old Gods, which the ancient batarians referred to as 'the Devils'. As the story goes, Kalian was enticed into a deal with the Devils. They would bring back his village if he could bring them the souls of a hundred children. They gave him an axe crafted in the astral plane upon which the Devils dwelled – Shir'Kala."
"But the axe was no ordinary axe, and when Kalian touched it they robbed him of the ability to see. And so Kalian would wander the lands, blind, always at night, using sound to seek out children who were out alone."
"It a story used to keep our children from misbehaving and from wandering late at night. Our father used to tell it to us. When we were younger, Revak and I would tell stories of Kalian and Shir'kala to our friends… and then at night, I would entice our friends into a nighttime adventure into the nearby woods, where Revak would be waiting with an axe he had carved himself."
Elektra looked at Percival, one eyebrow arched high as if to ask him if he could believe these two. Percival's only reply was to grin back and give a light shrug. She supposed that certain behaviours were universal amongst different species. Such as young children being little shits.
"Their fathers would have set their varren on us if it weren't for our family name. Even so, our father beat us the first time we did it," Revak chuckled.
Malan glanced at his brother with a whimsical expression on his face. "Those were the good old days, brother. Now look at us… father is dead, kar'shan destroyed, and the two of us are wanted war criminals."
There was a pause. "…Indeed," came that gruff, terse reply, but Elektra could hear a note of sadness hidden beneath. Even the hardest of bastards weren't fully immune to reminiscence and nostalgia, Elektra supposed.
"I just… wish there was a way to know that you were in the good old days before you actually left them," Malan sighed wistfully. "Who knows, maybe after this, you and I can bring them back."
The group was nearing the Core now. There it was, up ahead – made of black metal streaked with red, with thick cables that seemed to run from everywhere and yet inserting nowhere. It was large, easily as large as a bus if you were to stand it upright, but thicker around the base with the Core tapering off at the top. It had a glowing red center that pulsed gently – the source of the red light.
"Don't get too close," Percival warned.
It was in a rough enclave of sorts, surrounded by large shipping containers. Some were stacked two, three – even four containers tall, fastened together with thick straps. They were so tall that Elektra couldn't see the top of them, as the light of the Core was not strong enough to breach the darkness above. Mummified remains were scattered across the enclave.
Suddenly there was a noise. A soft chittering sound, followed by a quiet, drawn-out rasp, as if something was dragging itself across the metal floor. Percival immediately signalled for a halt. His gloves tightened around the handle of his M8-Avenger. He re-activated his tech armor. Pauldrons, vambraces, and a heavy cuirass made of red light immediately sprang up around his vital areas.
A being came shambling out of the darkness from in-between a pair of cargo containers. A large frame and four metal, glowing red eyes betrayed the original species that this Corpser had hailed from. It was clad in a tattered old jumpsuit, ripped in places where blue wiring and cabling erupted out of its rotting flesh to insert elsewhere. A pair of metal fins protruded from its shoulders, and it had large metal scythes coming from its left arm.
Beneath the red sockets gaped a mouth that looked too large. Soft blue light came from within. The light shifted as the Corpser looked at the group and its mouth twisted into what looked like a macabre grin. Behind the Corpser, but still hidden in the darkness, came more blue and red lights.
The chittering fell silent, to suddenly be replaced with a mass of rapid footsteps. The robotic dolly chirped again.
Elektra fought back her fear and immediately rushed forward. She went low and slammed a palm into the ground, causing a ripple of biotic energy to shoot outward and careen into the Corpsers ahead, throwing them aside like rag dolls.
But more Corpsers came sprinting out of the darkness from the group's three, six and twelve-o-clock, more than Elektra had the biotics for. She was still drained from fighting the saboteurs outside the ship.
The cargo bay suddenly erupted with light as a wall of flame appeared around the group. Malan roared something in Khar'shani and coated the front ranks of their attacker in oily fire from his M-451 Firestorm. His armor glowed in the fiery light, making the black batarian script tattooed onto it seem all the more blacker.
Revak's voice joined his brother's in a sweltering crescendo. The mercenary activated his newly-acquired omni-axe. He wielded it in a two-handed grip and sent its head arcing towards the enemy. Thanks to Revak's immense strength, Shir'kala hurtled through all that rotting flesh and metal as if it were nothing more than tissue paper. Shir'kala hummed as it flew through the air. Blue ichor from the Corpsers sprayed across the cargo bay staining the containers and the floor around them.
Revak cut Corpser after Corpser down. He brought the weapon down onto the head of a Corpser, cleaving it completely in half down the mid-line. Malan stayed close to his brother, using his fire to force the Corpsers to approach Revak from the front. Elektra marvelled at the coordination displayed by the two brothers. They fought as if they could read each other's minds, each brother covering for the other, setting the other up so that they could do the maximum amount of damage.
Percival and Elektra followed in the wake of the two batarians, guarding the dolly and using their weapons to clean up the Crawlers that the Corpsers left behind. Shir'kala sung as it cleaved through the creatures.
Finally, the last Corpser fell and the group was alone once more. The Reaper Core was just a short distance ahead.
Revak gave his brother a broad grin as he approached the Core. Dead Corpsers lay smouldering around them. Some of them were still on fire, and Elektra could see that Revak's face was glowing in the light emanating from these grisly bonfires. For the first time since Elektra had met him, the grizzled batarian mercenary looked almost happy.
"We've been living half-lives ever since that day on Bahak, brother. Ever since that day, ten years ago, we've been no more than ghosts—adrift in an endless sea, fighting meaningless battles in the name of unworthy, self-proclaimed saints… our only measure of meaning being the coin with which they paid us. With this act, we can finally begin to right the scales," Revak said.
He approached the Core with the robotic dolly and its destructive payload in tow. His two good eyes, now filled with determination, were fixed on its pulsating, red center. For once, his eyes saw the future that ahead of him. For the first time in his life, Revak didn't see the failures that haunted his every waking moment. He didn't see the faces of all the family members he'd left behind to die on Khar'shan when the Reapers arrived. He couldn't see the faces of all those slaves he'd harmed. He didn't look back on the past.
But if he had looked back, maybe he would have seen the long, serpentine tail that was snaking its way down from the darkness above. Elektra gasped and fumbled for her shotgun.
"Revak! Look out!" Percival shouted.
Revak had just began to turn when the cargo bay was suddenly filled with a soft, ominous chittering.
Elektra and Percival both raised their weapons, and as they did they heard a set of rapid footsteps. The tail with its wicked barb lashed out. The dolly chirped.
Revak's eyes grew round and his mouth hung open in shock as a spray of blood arced onto his chestplate. He locked eyes with his brother, who stood just a few short steps away staring back at him with wide eyes.
Malan's M-451 Firestorm fell to the ground beside him. His legs were braced against the floor. One hand was curled around the barb that was protruding from his chest. He grunted in pain and exertion as he fought to keep it still. His other hand joined it, using what strength he had left to prevent the barb from going any further.
Malan's feet left the ground as the tail rose, lifting him up into the air. His fingers fell away as he rose with it. A long, pale, serpentine body slowly crawled its way down from the top of the cargo containers where it had been hiding in the darkness. The lizard-like creature was massive, likely close to fifty feet from the tip of its head to the end of its long, sinuous tail. As wide as an elephant, it likely stood almost fifteen feet tall at the shoulder. It was huge – bigger than the one they had fought at the spaceport and bigger than the one that the boys had fought aboard the Hippocrates. Unlike the other two which were mostly gray, this one was white.
The Pale Chimera peered at the dying batarian with cold, intelligent eyes. The glowing red orbs were set below a large krogan headplate and above a disturbingly human mouth. Unlike the other two, this one did not have a pair of pincers flanking its mouth. Decaying lips curled back into a chittering sneer as the Chimera vocalized its frustration at having its hunt interrupted.
With a soft burst of chittering, it flung the batarian away. Another spray of blood dripped down onto Revak, and Malan went hurtling through the cargo bay to land against a container.
Revak let out a grief-stricken roar. It was long and loud, and it seemed to Elektra to be a culmination of all the pain Revak had ever felt– all of suffering and misery and sadness that the old batarian had accumulated throughout the entirety of his long, tragic life. With that roar, the Butcher of Bahak bared all of his pain at the dark.
He brought out Shir'kala and sent it screaming at the Chimera. The Chimera raised one of its grotesque, corpse-formed forearms. Revak was strong and the axe sharp, but the forearm – formed from the converted body of a turian – was thick and armored. The omni-axe bounced off of the limb. The Chimera let out another burst of chittering that sounded almost like mocking laughter.
The creature grabbed Revak by the collar of his armor and flung him aside. Revak disappeared into the dark.
Percival pointed at Malan. "Elektra!" the other Spectre ordered. Elektra nodded and sprinted towards the fallen batarian.
The N7 dashed towards the Pale Chimera, bravely facing it alone. He dropped his Avenger and dropped into a slide, dodging the creature's barbed tail which the creature had sent lashing out towards him in an attempt to impale him, just like it had Malan. His slide brought him to Malan's fallen Firestorm.
Percival grabbed it and then immediately pushed himself into a roll, narrowly missing the creature's slashing claws. He rose, brought the stock of the Firestorm up to his shoulder, and unleashed a torrent of flame at the creature.
The creature chittered in pain and agony as the fire engulfed it. It brought one arm in front of its head in an attempt to shield itself. The cargo bay grew hot as the flames heated up the creature's armored plates and the air grew heavy with the scent of burning flesh. Its plates began to glow bright red as Percival continued his onslaught. He mashed the trigger down, refusing to let up.
Meanwhile Elektra slid to a halt beside Malan. From the looks of it, the Chimera's barbed tail had punched straight through the back of his armor and out the other side, obliterating his sternum and likely nicking him in the lungs judging from Malan's laboured breathing. She cursed vehemently and immediately produced a medi-gel back. She was no medic. She wasn't Rentea or Fly. She knew some basic combat medicine and that was it. She wasn't in the business of fixing people up.
She was about to apply it Malan coughed and shook his head.
"I gotta apply this gel, Mal. Stay—" she began, but Malan shook his head again. With a trembling hand he grabbed her wrist. With his other took the medi-gel from her hand and then jerked his head in the direction of Percival.
"Fight…" he whispered haggardly to her. The word
Elektra nodded resolutely. She rose and turned to face the creature. It was still dueling Percival—a whirlwind of slashing claws and fury. The Pale Chimera was on fire now and its entire body was glowing red from the heat, but it was ignoring its wounds in an attempt to kill Percival. It swiped at it again and again with its tail and its claws, and each time Percival only just narrowly managed to dodge its onslaught.
Elektra took a deep breath, raised her shotgun and started to fire at its head, walking towards it as she did. The creature recoiled as the pellets slammed into its crest. It barred its burning lips at her and growled.
Elektra continued to fire at it just as she was trained to do, but when the creature started to chitter angrily and advance towards her, she found that she was unable to move, immobilized by fear. Percival shouted something intelligible at her, waved his hand at her, but she still couldn't move. Even when her heatsink overheated and she was forced to stop firing, she still found herself unable to move. The Chimera advanced towards the helpless Spectre. It was now just a few meters away.
A large shadow suddenly appeared on a stack of container to the right – a shadow born from the flames that littered the arena. The shadow was wearing heavy armor. It had a spiked pauldron on one shoulder and the silhouette of an axe in its hands.
Revak leapt off of the containers with a mighty roar, Shir'kala held over his head in a two-handed grip. He swung down with every ounce of his strength, Malan's name on his lips. The glowing orange blade bit deep into the Pale Chimera's neck, above the shoulder blades but below the joint where its head connected with its long neck, right into the sizzling, glowing red armor-plates that had been weakened by the fire from Malan's Firestorm.
Revak fell to the ground and took his axe with him, ripping it out of the creature's flesh. He had attempted to sever its head, but had missed by what looked like a few inches to Elektra. Still, the damage was immense. The Chimera spasmed and jerked. It reared upwards, its two forelimbs scrambling to reach the wound on its neck while its four hind-legs twitched as its nervous pathways suffered terrible damage. Its tail beat back and forth.
The batarian landed, his armor smoking from being in such close proximity. He readied the axe again and swung it horizontally across the belly of the creature. It bit through the fire-weakened plates like a hot knife through butter. Blue ichor spewed outwards, coating the batarian mercenary.
Percival appeared at the creature's side and unleashed another jet of flame, weakening the Chimera's armor even further. The creature's pained chittering grew even louder.
Elektra's shotgun had cooled down by then, and the female Spectre immediately began to shoot at the Chimera's neck. The Chimera howled and raised an arm in an attempt to protect its wounded area.
There was an orange flash and the arm suddenly dropped to ground, having been severed clean off by Revak with a vicious cross-swing. The Pale Chimera, beset on all sides and driven almost mad from the pain, dropped to the ground and started to writhe around in an attempt to put out the flames that still engulfed its body. It's remaining limbs lashed out in a desperate attempt to keep its attackers at bay, its long, serpentine tail lashed here and there as it tried to catch one of its attackers. Elektra just narrowly dodged its tail, while Percival was forced back by a set of flailing claws.
Revak didn't move. The scarred batarian mercenary brought Shir'kala up over his head. There it lay poised – only for a half-second, but to Elektra it felt like an eternity. Its glowing blades shimmered in the darkness and cast its glow down onto Revak, making him appear as if he was wreathed in light. The weapon seemed alive in the mercenary's hand—seemed eager to bite into Revak's foe.
The batarian brought Shir'kala down with one last roar, using every last ounce of strength the batarian possessed. Shir'kala came howling down in a savage arc.
Revak struck the Pale Chimera right in the center of its headplate. Shir'kala shattered it and travelled through the creature's head completely, to end half-buried in the deck below. Gore spilled onto the bay floor and splattered onto Revak's armor as the two halves of the Pale Chimera's head fell gruesomely to either side of the axe. The Pale Chimera grew still.
Revak's hands slid off the handle of Shir'kala and fell to his side. The batarian went silent, starring with glassy eyes at the broken body of his foe beneath him. Blood from the creature spilled its away across the bay floor. It coated Revak's boots.
A pained cough sounded behind Revak. A jolt went through the batarian and his eyes suddenly widened as the sound pulled him back to reality. Revak spun on his heels and dashed towards Malan. Elektra followed closely behind him.
Percival was already by the dying batarians side, one armored hand holding tightly onto the hand of his old enemy. Empty medi-gel packs lay scattered around the batarian and his wounds were covered in the stuff.
But the pool of blood beneath Malan had spread since the start of their fight. Malan wheezed and coughed up more blood. His skin was deathly pale. Elektra was no doctor, but even she knew that the batarian's time was fast approaching.
The batarian turned to Percival and gave him a nod. It was a respectful nod, one a warrior would give to one's equal.
"Percival…" Malan rumbled. Though his wounds were terrible and his breathing laboured, his voice was still strong. "You are a good man – as honourable as I have ever seen. Had I had your strength and your heart all those years ago perhaps I would not have fallen so low, and they may not have called me the Butcher of Bahak…"
Percival returned the nod. "What you did you did for your people. As black as your deeds were, there is still some honour in that. May you find peace in the afterlife, Malan."
"Thank you… Remember, the fate and safety of this galaxy is not incumbent on your shoulders alone."
Percival gave the dying batarian a small smile. "I'll try to remember that," he chuckled quietly.
The N7 let go of the batarian's hand and stepped a respectful distance away.
Elektra dropped to her knees beside the old batarian. She wouldn't cry – she wouldn't. She had only known him for what? A week?
Malan suddenly became harder to see as a wetness formed around her eyes. She could taste her tears at the back of her throat. Were they tears for Malan? Or were they tears for the life that he promised her after this stupid war – a life away from Council and from the Spectres and from people who viewed her as nothing more than a weapon? A tool?
She brushed her tears roughly away. "Save your strength, don't move any more than you have to. We can call for a medical transport. We can get one here in a few minutes and have you shuttled up to the Excalibur for surgery—"
"Elektra, stop—," Malan chuckled. He reached out and grabbed her hand. Elektra was surprised at what little strength his fingers had. He was big for a batarian, he should have been—.
"Elektra… I'm sorry. Sorry that I won't be able to fulfil my promise to you," he said ruefully. The sorrow in his voice was genuine. Even in death, even in his final moments all he had was sympathy for her.
Malan's voice was getting weaker now, and the pool of blood beneath him was growing wider and wider.
"But the truth is, you don't need me. You didn't have to say it… I see how hard your life has been. I see how lonely you must have felt, and the scars that must have left."
There was no stopping it. Tears began to roll down Electra's cheeks, and whether they were for the batarian she had only known briefly or the life she could have had, she didn't know. Maybe they were for an individual who had so badly wanted to turn their lives around and create a better tomorrow for themselves, and who now would never get that chance. Her arms trembled at her side as she listened to the batarian's final words to her.
"The truth is, you do not need me to lead the life you long for – the life you never had. You already have all the strength, talent, and skills you need to do the things you want to do…to be the person you want to be…"
Elektra tried to say something pithy, but her throat had seized up. Damn him, damn Malan. She had been fine back when he had just been another character in a story she hadn't wanted to be a part of. Back when he was just another nobody in a life that had been filled with so many nobodies. But, somehow he had changed her. She knew it. In the end, all she could manage was a weak, tearful nod.
"Go now…. Let me speak to my brother," Malan whispered kindly. Elektra nodded and rose, taking a few steps back to join Percival.
While Malan had spoken to the two of them, Revak had been standing silently some distance away. The entire time, Revak's arms had hung limply at his side and he had starred at his brother's body with a look of disbelief on his face.
Malan looked at his brother. He slowly raised a hand, gesturing for his brother to come to his side. The sight of Malan acknowledging him seemed to galvanize Revak. The older batarian strode shakily over to where his brother lay, dropping to his knees beside him and taking up his hand.
Tears instantly began to form beneath Malan's eyelids as he gazed up into his brother's face. "Brother, I'm sorry…" the wounded batarian tearfully began. "If it weren't for my weakness all those years ago, we would not have had to live the way we did. We would not have been so hated… our family name would not have been so dishonoured…"
Revak shook his head angrily. "Shut up! None of that is true!" he spat.
"It is! it is true, and I'm sorry!" Malan cried out. "I let them die! I see them every night – their faces… their eyes… beckoning me! It is my fault they died! It was all my fault!"
Revak pressed his brother's hand to his head and together they began to weep quietly at Malan's lament.
After a few moments Revak suddenly stiffened. "No. Shut up… shut up! I am getting you out of here brother," Revak said gruffly. He became seemingly filled with a newfound wave of determination. He was the Butcher of Bahak, and he wouldn't let death simply take his baby brother from him. Not like that, not without a fight.
Revak grabbed his brother's pauldron and was trying to work another hand beneath him when the dying batarian grabbed him by the shoulder.
"No… No…. Listen to me, brother. Listen, I do not have much time left!" Malan coughed. Every word sent more blood flying from his lips.
Revak stopped. The feel of his brother's hand on his shoulder pulled him back to reality and dispelled whatever fantasies he may have had about his brother's fate. The old warrior's shoulders slumped, and the tears resumed their journey down the batarian's face.
"I do not have much time left… so listen to me," Malan repeated. Revak set him gently back down.
Malan grabbed his brother's hand again. "I wanted… I wanted to rebuild Khar'shan, brother. I wanted to rebuild our home and create a new one for our people. I wanted to build them a brighter future, and leave behind a legacy that we could be proud of," Malan whispered quietly.
He squeezed his brother's hand with what strength he had left. "That was my dream, brother. Mine. And it shall die with me. I will not ask you to take up that mantle for me, brother... I will not ask you to shoulder that burden. I am at peace with leaving that dream unfulfilled."
Malan's lips trembled. "But what I cannot do is die knowing that you will continue to bear the pain that I know you carry within your heart. The pain of our past misdeeds…"
"Listen… listen to me now," Malan whispered. "I know you think that you can never change, brother. I know you think that you cannot overcome the darkness within you and you can never become more than the villain you think you are, but I am telling you, you can."
Revak let out a strangled, choked sound, as if he had wanted to say something only to find that he couldn't fingers tightened around his brother's hand.
"I know that you've done horrible, horrible things. I know that you think that all you can do is die trying to make things right, and I know you think that that is all that you deserve.. But that is not all you can do…"
Malan smiled weakly. "You can forgive yourself, Revak. I will not ask you to continue my dream. All I ask is that you find a way to forgive yourself. There is a life for you beyond all this pain, I know it. All I ask is that you find a way to be at peace."
Upon hearing his brother's final wishes for him, Revak's shoulders began to shake. Tears fell unchecked down his scarred face, to fall onto the cold metal floor. There they intermingled with his brother's blood. Revak's chest heaved as he tried his best to keep his sobs from escaping, but he couldn't hold back the dam any longer.
The dam broke inside of him. Revak cried loudly, and the pain in those sobs threatened to bring Elektra to tears once again. While he cried, his brother continued to hold his hand. Elektra and Percival could only stand there helplessly as the old batarian let all that pain and anguish and grief pour out of him. Elektra got the feeling that he wasn't only crying for his brother. He was crying for his family, his people, and for all the slaves that he had hurt. The Butcher of Bahak was dead.
Eventually, Revak stopped crying. "I will try, brother… I will do my best." Revak whispered.
"Good," Malan smiled.
Revak smiled back. "Thank you for walking alongside me all these years."
"You are my brother," Malan said simply. "Now go. Go and live, brother. Live for the both of us."
Three figures ran out of the wrecked freighter that had sat for so long on the coast of New Thebes. There it had sat like a malignant growth upon the city, a growth from which a cancer — a cancer deadlier and more dangerous than anyone could have imagined—had spread.
They ran, and ran and ran, until they were far away. The sun had risen now, and its rays were finally strong enough to dispel the shadows that had clung to the city all throughout the night.
But still, its rays could not penetrate the wrecked freighter. Inside the ship, the flames had finally died down, leaving the cargo bay enveloped in darkness once again. In that shadowy, cavernous bay, filled with the bones and souls of victims long dead, lay the Reaper Core. In that darkness, the Reaper Core continued to hum its malevolently melody and emit that strange, red light.
And in that darkness, a batarian took his last breath. His last thoughts were of his brother and of the life that he would go on to lead. In those last few seconds of his life, a whole lifetime of images played out before the batarian. He died with a smile on his face.
And he did not die alone. The robotic dolly beside him chirped. The strange device that it had borne dutifully on its back for so long suddenly began to beep rapidly.
And then the darkness inside the wrecked freighter was gone, to be replaced by light.