A/N: From both private messages and reviews, I've learned all of you are very interested in the wreck of the Savannah. I'm glad you are, I do have something planned for it down the road, and within the timeframe of Mass Effect 1, but alas, we'll be there and we'll be there.
Anyway, Covenant focused chapter today. Please enjoy.
Onto review responses:
contra140 says: Hell of a cliffhanger. God, I'm so eager for the next chapter, to finally see Mai and JD in action with Shepard. And I love that the same planet that marked the beginning of the UNSC's near annihilation is the one that will mark the beginning of the Reaper's harvest.
Admittedly it's really corny, but this is a precedent I'd like to set, that and narratively it's important to Mai and JD as characters. The war which they were supposed to fight has ended, and now they have to start another. What better way to do that then literally start it again, back at Harvest. You'll see more of this type of stuff in this chapter actually.
Dragon'z Wrath says: Fantastic as always. My only concern was the switching between oorah and hooah by the marines/Shepard. It's my understanding that oorah is specifically a marine thing, and army has hooah. But that's super picky from me. Lol keep up the great work.
You're completely right and I should've known better. Then again for the Alliance at this point their armed forces seems to have coagulated into some weird single branch in practice weirdness like the Navy and Marines. But yeah, nice catch, I'll do better.
Section 1-3
Closer to Paradise
Two weeks. That's all they had to reorganize and get a foothold on a planet that was not their own: Altis was by far a beautiful planet by human standards, and, realistically, privately, the Prophet of Destiny could see merit in its aesthetics. The lush, rolling waves were mostly calm bar the occasional storm, tropical weather being wet and comfortable for the Sangheili in particular. To fall complacent however was not in the minds of the millions of Covenant that had come.
There was enough food to eat, and enough places to get food from, that starvation hadn't been an issue. The Unggoy had their methane readily available given the Solace's surviving methane production facilities, and the Jackals had found themselves comfortable in combing the waves for debris from both the Solace and whatever else had been kicked up during the planet fall.
Occasionally they would butt heads with System Alliance Marines, but hostilities had been tense, if not peaceful given the nature of their stay there and the declaration of Destiny.
About a few days in the Solace had righted itself to a rather level sit in the waters of Altis, it having come down on shallows, the activity of the waves and the gradual pressure of those millions and millions of tons of steel eventually causing creases to form and a bowl to be formed for the Solace to sit in.
"Our Rangers have done well excavating and exploring the sunken sections of the Solace, Usze." The Prophet of Destiny drawled on in the makeshift control center deep within the Solace. It had been one of the inner hangers for the Wraiths, but for now, it stood as the beating heart of the Solace for chiefs and section leads to organize and continue the recovery efforts.
Usze nodded once in respect, arms behind his back. They all stood, almost in a circle, before Destiny. Karonee would've enjoyed at least a moment to settle her feet and sit on her knees, however she was given no luxury. She shot a look at Usze, something of an approving look coming from her eyes down to him. He had no reaction. He lived to serve.
"I took the liberty of reorganizing the Ranger lances into the Shadows, less than 23% of the Solace's special forces were on-board during the attack." Usze explained. "And seeing as our current orbital operations are… less than ideal, I felt like administering them to subnautical operations was pertinent." Usze typically talk with such formality, with such big words, but he was talking to one of the lesser Prophets. Or, more realistically, the Prophet. Truth, Regret, Mercy, the Hierarchs were lost to them, and so Destiny filled in their place.
Ironic, the young Elite thought, he wanted to avoid playing host to the Prophets, and here he had been as Karonee's newly appointed Executive Officer. Responsibility had a choking effect on him, the walls of that place feeling smaller and smaller as more and more people looked to him for guidance or orders.
He looked up at the ceiling, trying to guess where the Ardent Prayer was. The Corvette was holding station in atmosphere above the Solace, acting as guard and moving in line with the fleet movements above from the Council and Alliance ships. If they were to fire upon the Solace the Ardent Prayer would give the Solace time to respond, the Ardent Prayer acting as a shield. For the meantime a Brute had been called as its Shipmaster, something Usze (and most of the Elites for that matter) had disapproved of, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
Karonee approved however, and for that Usze would stay his tongue.
"Good." Destiny had held his own chin with his long fingers, worm like unto themselves. "Even though we have made arrangements for land here to be claimed as our own, the Solace will have to remain our main home here now for the time being."
Karonee tilted her head at the Prophet. "Given our… circumstances, I would caution salvaging from this ship for resources. The Solace needs to be preserved. For in the future we may see to it that she rise again."
Destiny had blew air through his nose. "A CSO-Class ship takes years to construct with Forgemasters and Assemblies, dear Shipmistress." Destiny had advised them all. "We posses no such things anymore."
"And I would also air caution toward inviting such help from this Council in any idea of repairing this ship." Usze crossed his arms. The table around agreed. It was too easy to imagine: Every action had its subversion. No doubt that Humanity or the Council would gleam secrets, no matter how trivial, if they had come aboard the Solace under any auspices.
"I see you still speak of espionage and war." Destiny pointed out.
Karonee had settled into her own gravity chair at that. She had one, as did Destiny, sitting across from each other at that table.
She remembered deftly of her family, the Karons, on Sangheilios. They were a proud family of leaders, leading troops into battle, not from behind bridge of ships or tables to delegate or decide action. She lived in the doing and, her recent excursion in the Scarabs to reclaim the captured crew was her first time on the ground in such fashion in years.
War was all she knew.
War was all anyone there knew.
The Chief Engineer of the Solace had looked up at his accompanying Engineer, floating inconspicuously over his shoulder. It chirped at him, and he nodded, moving his mandibles, considering his words before speaking. "Faster-Than-Air reports that the individual security measures and electronic protocols for the Council and the Humans are… basic at best. Rudimentary. Simple. Any intelligence effort on our end would be trivial."
Destiny had looked to the Engineer, Faster-Than-Air. "Do you gleam any more advantages in your study thus far?"
Its blue, tentacle like head with its black beady eyes considered, tilting before chirping to the Chief Engineer. "We are… momentarily, advantaged. As we always have been to our enemy, barring our position and available resources."
"Advantaged?" Karonee asked out of practical tactical want of knowledge. "Militarily? Their manner of technology?"
It was difficult to answer, but the answer was the same, across all parties: Covenant, Alliance, and Council. The Chief Engineer explained.
Cleft-Lip had held a Plasma Rifle in his hand, heavy, weighty, still active. The Elites observed used one hand to wave it around while he had to have two, and he was by no means a weak man. People in his terms of service tended not to be.
He fired it off once at a dummy wearing standard combat armor, the blue bolt striking and creating a hole easily.
Captain Shaw looked on with his Marine Officers. For his troubles he was assigned as flotilla commander of Alliance ships in orbit over Altis and thus in charge of cooperation with the Covenant and the Council in regards to the situation. It meant that he had a healthy fleet to contend, not with the Covenant, but the Council.
Galaxy politics never stopped even when visitors from another stopped by.
"You're telling me that these people progressed without Mass Effect technology?" Shaw held his hat in his hand as he touched a barbed weapon, purple crystals poking out of it. To be hit by one had been manageable, if not extremely painful given the ammunitions crystalizing and shattering effect in the wound: to be hit by several and have their resonance react to one another however was lethal. One Marine had experienced this and his body had become a talking point about the laws of war in the Council already.
Still, it seemed all dwarfed when that information was slowly being disseminated:
The Covenant came from a different reality.
It made sense, and yet it didn't at the same time. To the Covenant it was understandable why it had happened in a purely equation like way: the nature of Slipspace combined with its misuse in an as yet to be specified incident paved way for such dimensional incidences. Slipspace, while a natural concept to them, was still being explained to the inhabitants of that Galaxy, however when understood it too was liable to see clearly. Shaw understood it at least.
And the same was with Mass Effect technology on the Covenant's end, a new FTL method taken by them easily and understood. The concept of the Relays: of an ancient civilization leaving its mysteries and machines behind, was not unprecedented to them. If anything it was holy. Just not their specific kind of holy.
"Correct." Cleft-Lip answered, placing the weapon down on the firing bench. The Perugia's firing range had come to host almost every single observed weapon from, not only the Covenant, but from the other faction: the UNSC. "And because of that their grasp of conventional science is magnified compared to our own. They do not have the frame of reference."
Kenneth Donnelly was the Perugia's head of engineering as far as power was concerned, the Mass Effect Cores were his forte. To his side had been Gabriella Daniels, responsible for the engines. Connected at the hip, the red hair, square jawed man and the smaller, almost ruby headed woman had been on top of anything related to engineering. They worked together well, both by nature, nurture, and pure unwavering tension between them that ranged from theoretical, practical, and sexual. That tension was honed by both of them as they held two different kind of pistols in their hand.
One has an "M6D", chambered in a goodness to honest ammunition that hadn't been seen since the Archives were found. The other was simply labeled a "Plasma Pistol". On the hip of one of the Marines observing had been the M-3 Predator, a standard issue pistol for Alliance Marines.
The concept was the same: all of them pistols, sidearms, and generally, all did the same job. Just each had its own way of doing.
"I concede that the Covenant, on paper, is more advance than us." His voice was Scotch as he chimed in. "But both them and their humanity, they have a near four century lead on us, and were not given what we had."
Daniels aimed with the Plasma Pistol. It had no sights but she heard, faintly, the coil whine. The floor was to them: men and women looking at them for answers. For the Marines, it was if they could fight effectively against them without the technological difference being too high. For Shaw, it was if the Covenant would become delectable for their advanced knowledge, played for by all parties.
She offered this: "However I don't think, as it stands, we're necessarily dealing with a power that is four centuries ahead of us."
Shaw had been gathering his thoughts as she said, he needed clarification.
She gave it.
"We have our own inherent advantages, yes." The Chief Engineer of the Solace spoke to Destiny. "Our ability to crack their software, the sheer scale of our theoretical deployment capabilities, and our technologies we've developed in the absence of what they possess, most namely Slipspace and how we achieve spaceflight. We know these advantages, we used it against the humans for the duration of this entire Age."
"Then what you are saying then is…?" Usze worried.
"We have different solutions yes, but we each answer the same set of questions in the end, and what answers we do have are in light of our situation without their… Element Zero. Our advances over them are only because we exist as alternatives. On top of that we do not have the same capabilities to act on or use those solutions again."
"Think Solar versus Gas." Donnelly went on. "Both can achieve the same end, in providing power, and each has its advantages, and indeed to harness one might require more background development, but in the end it answers a need that exists to both of us: they can't disregard that."
Shades had been there with Cleft Lip. Sending a few rounds down range with the Covenant's Carbine, shooting green rods seemingly down range. "Recoil, ammo capacity, size and form… They still have to answer to these things." He dropped his shades down, revealing eyes that had been toyed with with hardware: bionic eyes that is. "The future, or at least, the logical step in development lies in what happens when we combine both technology."
"Then why was the UNSC losing?"
What had been a general secret among the Alliance present, those who needed to know, and even the Covenant, had been the UNSC. The Covenant made no mention to the Council about the UNSC, the War. They wouldn't have in their position: to let people know that they were in conflict with a humanity and, for a moment, transferred that hostility onto the Alliance.
The Alliance knew however. From the Spartan and the ODST.
"Because the Covenant was more advanced than them. Because the advantage they had was one they wielded in their galaxy and their galaxy alone."
The Covenant was an Empire, they had learned. One that only a horror story called a Spartan could fight.
Destiny sucked in his breath. The Covenant had always been the giants in the galaxy. Superiority built on holy crusade, manifest destiny, and just pure reclamation of the progenitors: the Forerunners. Here, that wasn't the case.
"We have no shipyards. No logistics. No worlds of our own. No fleets or armories or even the touch of our Gods here." Destiny understood his Chief Engineer.
They were the Covenant now. What was once hundred and hundreds of billions in population, spread out over thousands of worlds, all unified for one purpose, was now a meek several million: a Corvette and a broken down super carrier to their name.
They weren't an Empire now. They were refugees by force.
"That is why we cannot be at war." Destiny continued, saying it almost bitterly.
One of the Elite Heads, appointed to spiritual matters, had tipped his head up. "Are the humans we deal with now, false in their heresy, their blasphemy, toward the Great Journey? What is their nature Hierarch?"
That was the only reason why Humanity was an enemy at all: they were a stain to be purged, only death would do for them in light of the Great Journey. Though that was the humanity of their reality, their universe. Not here.
Destiny sucked in more breath. Indeed already they had entertained the humans more than the Covenant ever had. They spoke, they diplomatized, they were… civil. Returning from that declaration from intent two weeks ago and promised, by delegates from all species, that cooperation was the goal there, it was the exact opposite of what the Covenant had done for the last thirty years.
"It is a question of… faith. Our faith. Our gods." Destiny started, like a sermon. Everyone intently listened, section chief or not. They needed to know. "We understand that the Humans, those who make up this… Council, base their technology, their societies now, around technological objects from a civilization that they know as Prothean. We understand this. As the Forerunners are to us, the Protheans are to them. How they revere their progenitors is not unitary, as it is with the Holy Covenant. But we do not pledge to Protheans. Our Gods are not Prothean. We owe our Gods faith, even in domains not of our own. Whether the Protheans deserve the same holy reverence by the people of this reality is not for us to decide, and though it might do us well to respect these progenitors to a degree, the Mantle of Responsibility was not gifted by them. Our responsibility, our faith, is to Forerunner, not Prothean. We cannot disregard that."
"Then…" It dawned on Karonee, what Destiny was saying. "These humans have not transgressed on our Gods."
Destiny closed his eyes, nodding once. "These humans, even if they are in the same manner as our enemy, the same blood, the same mannerisms, the same appearance, are not guilty of sin. They are ignorant of our Gods, and could not know otherwise. Was the Covenant not only two species at one point? Ordaining divine wisdom across the stars?"
Usze felt a fire in his lungs. A feeling he had not felt before.
A feeling he had shared unknowingly, with two humans that they did know, that were heretics. Somewhere, there was a Demon and her Imp that they did have holy writ to kill. Though that was not being discussed now. "We have no qualms then that derive from holy scripture?" He asked.
"For reasons of faith, for us to be, as always, better than those without the knowledge of the Great Journey, in our wiseness, these humans do not deserve to be destroyed."
Peace. They were at peace with a humanity. The Brutes present had sniffled, fighting within themselves. The Grunts would take any order, war was scary anyway. Jackals couldn't care any less. Hunters, Engineers, they would be the same. The Elites however…
What did their honor demand they do? To leave a fight? Should they continue, even against a false enemy, dressed in the skin of their true one? The Covenant guided, but did not dominate primordial instincts: especially one of a warrior race.
Karonee stared down on Usze from her chair, and only after a minute he had noticed, looking up at her. She did not look away. They both had the same worries. If the Elites were not to fight, what were they to do?
"What is our way forward then, holy seer?" The Grunt Deacon in charge of Hydroponics said in a shrill tone.
"We ensure the Covenant survives today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. Our Great Journey still awaits us, either in death, or in consecration. If our way forward lies in returning home, to our reality, then we shall pursue those ends when we are able. Humanity is not our enemy. War is not in our favor. We will do anything to ensure our place in not only this universe, but our own, just as we always have. Is it affirmed?"
"Aye." The round table had started affirming, chief heads called for a vote.
"Aye." Said the one-armed Elite in head of medical.
"Aye." Said the Elite, in charge of ship security.
"Aye." Said the Chief Engineer Elite, working with the Huragok. "The Huragok affirm as well."
"Aye holy seer!" Said the Grunt, in charge of Hydroponics and food production.
"Aye." Said the Brute, reporting and representing the Decanus Mercaius. Reluctantly, but affirming.
The table went around, like a human clock, until it came to Usze, XO to Karonee, head of Special Operations. He waited a moment longer than most, arms crossed, considering peace. It was a scary prospect. The place of the Elites when left idle, even if still charged in the defense of the Prophets, was not the same without a cauldron of war to throw themselves into, to look into. Freedom was on the horizon, and it was freedom he did not want.
"Aye." He said.
Then came to Karonee. "Do we come to live in this galaxy, Hierarch?" She posed a question before voting. "Is it not the same, astrologically, as our own? Do we not reclaim our birthright as Sangheili? As Jiralhanae? As San'Shyuum and so on and so forth?"
"As always, my dear Shipmistress, we are the Covenant first." Destiny said, stern, bite behind it. "But if our history, our original domains and our claims to it shall assist to that end, then yes, we remember who we were."
Karonee narrowed her eyes for but a moment. She was rare. She did not like a Prophet. Between his passes at her, his ways of showing his place above her, from the way his fingers graced her body and the… manner of insinuated and implied wants and needs, she held something unique to her. She did not like him as an individual, and had her bias. Not because of unwavering faith to the Covenant, but because he had been who he was. She fought hard to make sure those seeds of discontent were not spread to areas that she was faithful to.
But now, to be reminded that she was Covenant first, she couldn't help but think that something was inherently wrong with that: to not be able to worry about her people.
The arm of her chair rang. It was the Solace's AI. "Shipmistress. Alert from Ardent Prayer."
"Go ahead, computer." The room chimed in.
"Three ships, unknown class and configuration have entered the system. Alliance ships moving to escort, Council ships moving into guard line."
"To me." The holographic display on her chair showed three ships: It was as if they were like a comet: its head a ring, trialed by three metallic tails. None of the Council or Alliance matched them. The mystery of who they were however was confronted with communications.
It was Captain Shaw. "Shipmistress Karonee." It was a vidcomm, beamed to her chair. She nodded as a greeting. "A matter of… galactic importance has arisen given information the Covenant has shared with us."
Indeed, even in its obviously cauterized and censored form, the data packets sent to the Council by the Covenant had been providing dividends of info. All this needed to be digested before the initial statement proclaiming their extra-dimensional status would be passed.
"Go on, Captain." Karonee urged him. Shaw seemed stressed, but then again that was the story of the last two weeks.
"A representative of another space faring race wishes council with a member race of the Covenant alone."
Destiny picked his head up, alert. The Covenant was whole. Not willing to be dealt with individually. To pay heed to such thing would go against their preservation.
"Captain Shaw, please pay heed to the Covenant's structure. Such envoy or councilship are the affairs of my race." Destiny had opened up his own comms, intruding on the channel.
Shaw nodded in return, but grimly. "We understand, Prophet of Destiny, and an envoy ship is being transported to you now for matters of the Covenant as a whole, however you must understand that in this case, the Sangheili specifically have been called to for council alone."
The Elites all perked up. They were being called on for a purpose. Though even then, they were denied. They had their leash and it was held.
"Then it shall not happen." Destiny said flatly. "We have no interests in talks in such context."
Shaw furrowed his brow. "There is a revelation of galactic implications that surrounds this, and we believe it is in the interests of the Covenant if they wish at all, any self-actualization."
"You would deny us otherwise?" Destiny bit.
"No." Shaw had seen the err of his words, rolling back. "But your position in our space can be… limiting. And what we believe is being offered to you is… great."
The three ships approached, the Council ships backing off, almost as if aiming their guns at them as the Alliance ships led them to over Altis.
"And what would that be?"
Shaw straightened his teeth, sucking in air. "I cannot say. However, we strongly advise continuing this dialog with the appellate."
Destiny wasn't pleased. He wasn't pleased in the sense molasses floods a town: a slow disaster that could be avoided, but damaging all the same to those in the way. He was being forced to weather it. "Who are they?"
Shaw didn't answer. Not as communications rung from another channel. Karonee transferred it to the conference table's own holo projector. To say no, to agree, to speak at all, they needed to answer. The phone was picked up.
The image reminded them all of the Elite Rangers and their dome like helmets: a pair of what was assumed to be glowing eyes behind the tinted visors. Orante hoods had covered said helmet, belts and leather adornments on what looked like a suit. The background was clearly the bridge of a ship, a crew at work, but the subject of that image was an individual. The Covenant looked for flesh, but found none.
The vibrations of a filtered voice came through. "My name is Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay. I represent the Migrant Fleet, and the Quarian people, as part of the Admiralty Board. Keelah se'lai."
Just as an information packet regarding the Covenant and its species was sent out, so too was one received by the Covenant detail the space faring races of the Council. They were as eminently engrossed in it, however they went to it when confronted with the Quarians.
Ke Nazhumee was suited up in full combat gear, his own EVA suit as a Ranger put on with his men. An entire squad. Upon learning why he had been suiting up, he had understood.
The Quarians needed it to survive.
Usze adjusted, triple checked, his suit's seals for him.
Destiny had reluctantly approved of this meeting. What was offered was indeed too great to pass up. What it was, he wouldn't say when having taken the call of Admiral Shala'Raan in private, but he had ushered a representative of the Sangheili to one ship as the rest of the Covenant dealt with another envoy ship. Two different subjects: One had ben introductions, formal dealings… the other was to be determined.
That was what Ke was tasked with finding out.
"They come in peace." Usze said to Ke. It was his attempt at reassuring the Ranger.
Ke had shriveled his nose behind his helmet, feeling for his sword on his belt. "Were it so easy."
An old Sangheili saying: skepticism a healthy thing to have.
"I will be listening through your recording devices. If there are hostilities you are to exfiltrate by any means necessary."
They were in atmosphere, so Ke and his accompanying Rangers had figured blowing a hole in the hull and climbing out had been possible. Their jet packs had been fit and primed: ready to go, a nice change of pace from diving into the Solace's submerged sections.
"I understand. But there are no Diplomats here?"
"We have none." Usze stated once, tightening one belt on Ke. They both paused, realizing the implication of it. "But we do not need one however. They just request the presence of us… of you."
Usze was not coming. He would be advising the visit. The Ardent Prayer had delivered them there, the two ships floating next to each other. For the purposes of this a boarding pod had been loaded: delivering the Elites to the ship, no bigger than the Ardent Prayer itself. It seemed worn… worn in the way only cosmic dust and winds could, blasted and smoothened by the stars themselves.
"What are we to expect then?"
"An explanation." Usze answered the older Elite. "But we do not truly know. Stay on your guard."
"What are my rules of combat?" Ke asked. He had fought for as long as his now commanding officer had been alive. These were important notices of info.
"Not the same." Usze breathed out tiredly. "The Council does not seem accommodating of these... Quarians."
Ke reached out, seizing Usze's shoulder. "Why me? Why did you select me?"
Usze had blankly looked over Ke's shoulder, then inwards into the boarding pod, seeing the shield wall used to insulate from atmosphere, but able to be passed through in order to board in traditional situations. "You would know what to do."
Ke tightened his mandibles. "Do not mistake my age for wisdom, child." It was the first time Usze had been referred to like that. Only his father had done so before to scold. Ke did the same. He was his father's age and these were extraordinary times. "To rely on me is to weaken yourself."
Usze's eyes widened, but he understood. "It is your orders to carry this mission out, Major." That was what Ke wanted to hear. The younger Spec Ops officer straightened his form, fist over his heart. A salute. Ke followed suit, as did his men.
"On the blood of our fathers."
"On the blood of our sons."
"Thou, in faith, will keep us safe."
"Whilst we find the path."
Spoken back and forth, commander to soldier. It was the Covenant Writ of Union.
Usze finished the salute, they all did, their mission made. They stepped into the boarding pod, each of them, a weapon on them, not their first time in such a thing. The only difference this time was that they were, probably, not going to come out, opening fire. That was what unnerved them. This was not their normal.
No seats. They would stand at their stations as the door leading into the boarding pod was closed and sealed. The Quarians had sent them aiming solutions for where the pod could be shot. No shuttle could be allowed. "Too much contamination" they said.
"Am I expected to speak to... them?" One of Ke's Rangers spoke to him. He shook his head.
"That is my prerogative, Minor. Yours is to keep us all safe."
And that was that as machines and the launching tubes closed around them. The lurch, the shot, punched the entire pod forward before they could contemplate it. The humans had a similar device for singular troopers, from shipboard to planetside. It was an... inspired idea. One almost as inspired as the shield window before them that they were expected to charge through, showing them exactly where they were going: right into the side of a ship.
Ke wouldn't admit this but he closed his eyes whenever this happened, only letting the world around him vibrate, shake, and crash.
In no time at all they heard the punch, the collision. Normally they would be roaring, ready to fight, to charge.
He opened his eyes and saw the empty space of a broken in corridor or bulkhead before him. It was almost too clean of an insertion, but this was planned and in atmosphere. Nothing disastrous happening. He was first in the line in that glorified shuttle transfer, punching through the shield wall with his gun up, scanning left and rights: doors. He hit the ground of that hallway, Carbine ready.
The third Elite had left the pod before those doors opened, two Elites each trained on them and whoever laid behind it.
They were greeted in kind. They knew what Quarians looked like. They saw the images. In-person however was different as what seemed like a crowd burst through those doors. Some had rifles, some not. It didn't matter, the Elites all stood their ground and they kept their distance. A welcoming party like nothing else.
Their white armor shone in the grey corridors, the only splash of color being the blue of their visors or the purples of their rifles. Everyone looked the same there, but still, there were defined figures: For the Elites, it was Ke, standing tall, in the center, looking both directions like the predators he used to hunt, alert and ready.
For the Quarians: The flash of brown fabric with circular, white designs. Smaller, but pushing through the crowds, even the soldiers they had.
The two of them decided then and there as she broke through into the divide that they were each other's communication.
Ke approached her halfway and they both took each other in, seconds, minutes, what felt like days at a time. Every detail memorized into their minds for either memory's sake or intelligence. Silence ruled, held breaths kept as the two very blatantly looked each other up and down until their gazes found each other. Even then it took moments more for Ke to speak finally.
"Ke Nazhumee. Major. I have been chosen to provide audience to you, representative of the Elites on this ship." The Elites towered over them, the largest Quarian only coming within a foot and a half of the smallest of the squad. They were thin, almost like sticks, comparable to humans and yet…
Their legs were bowed in a familiar angle, hands and fingers… similar. The Sangheili had opposing thumbs, four digits each hand, however the presentation and the way they articulated movement was similar. That had been immediately apparent to any and all present, looking each other, up and down.
"Shala'Raan vas Tonbay." She offered a hand, but decided against, pulling it back. "I am an Admiral, and Captain of this ship."
Ke had tilted his head at her slightly. "What is the name of this ship?"
"The Tonbay." She saw the question forming. "Quarians hold the name of their ships unto their own personal ones. They are important to us."
"I see." Ke said simply, silence taking them all. She was what he would call a Shipmistress, and she had ownership of her name entirely.
His Elites were tense. He was tense. They didn't know what to expect and only now did the Quarians realize that.
"Please." Shala'Raan said gently, offering an open palm, motioning down. "There is no need for weapons here." Her men had too realized this holstering or at least aiming down and away, non-threateningly. "That is the last thing we want. What we intend."
"Forgive me, Admiral," He personally held his Plasma Rifle tight. "But you must understand our caution."
"As you must have understood ours," she spoke back. "Your armor is necessary, we recognize this. It protects you, but it also protects us. We trust you to have followed through with our need for this, can you trust us?" The galaxy was watching them. It had been for the last two weeks. Now however, this Quarian, she pleaded to bring it back in. She made it personal. "We are not a warring people, but we know how to fight. However, to fight is a failure on our part, and we do not want to fail you. We have too much at stake to fight."
Ke stepped forward, his shadow cast on her. "Please, then, dispense with the pleasantries. What do you want of us? The Elites?"
"Please, will you follow me?" She asked. For a moment Ke considered no, but he had a mission and that had been to attend to her. He looked back at three men of his six. They understood the orders before he even gestured. They were to stay with the pod. With that settled he nodded at Shala'Raan, motioning her to lead the way, parting that ocean of other Quarians.
As opposed to the Council and the Alliance, this, among them, felt like First Contact. This felt like how it should've been. Not fire and fury and assumption.
They walked into corridors, and they were the spectacle. Ke and his two remaining men followed her, backed by other Quarians, as similarly clad individuals looked on. Their suits were worn by all, different in how they were painted, adorned, like clothing, but it was constant on all of them like skin. It was like seeing figurines, come to life, mass produced, put out. Individuals, all the same. The suit was their skin.
There were many of them, crowded, every inch of the corridors they went into used or occupied. Only the Grunts Ke knew were more compact in their space given to them on Covenant ships, and it was done out of inherent malice toward them.
Here, it seemed of necessity.
"Soldiers?" Ke asked aloud as he followed Shala'Raan.
She looked back, but not stopping. "No. Civilians. My people."
Children. One of Ke's men was distracted as they saw a child sized Quarian look on, a play thing in their hands, stuffed, soft. The child would not know what it felt like truly. Ke had ushered for him to move before he got too distracted, staying alert as they followed.
"Where are we going?" Ke asked again of Shala'Raan.
"This ship has a sterile environment, used for medical purposes. Our… inherent condition necessitates such a space in the case we needing to be removed from our suits." She answered, slowly, letting them understand the suits themselves. They did, compared to the Grunts own reliance on methane via their own equipment attached to every single one. This however was clearly more extreme.
Murmurs and whispers surrounded them, and the unease Ke felt was not of combat, but of the unknown. "Why would we be going there?"
"We need to test you."
Ke stopped in his tracks in the middle of a hallway. To his left had been a window, looking out to Altis. To the right: doors, all of them open, Quarians looking through to him. His men immediately took a knee covering their sector ahead or behind him. "Medically? Would you dare collect samples from us?"
His voice rose. Surprisingly, she rose back. "You are not test subjects. Do not feel victim here, but we cannot afford to slow this process. Not with the Council. Not with the Alliance. It is why we offer you what we do to get your attention."
"And what is that?" Ke leaned forward. "What gives you such an idea that I would allow you to test me, in any manner?"
She stepped forward as well. She was an Admiral for a reason. "We will give you the ability to travel. To find ships. To make your own way in this galaxy. We will free you, as you will free us." She said it with grit teeth. "You have to understand what you mean to us."
He widened his eyes. That was certainly a great deal. It only heightened his worry. "Then tell. Say so." Ke ground out.
"I have to show you. That is the only way you'll understand."
Usze had been listening, silently, still there. He trusted his men to do the right thing, and he saw no error in judgement yet. He whispered over comms into Ke's ear. "Move along, brother. Communications from the main envoy ship corroborate what she is saying."
He didn't though. Not without continuing to speak. "Why would you free us? You do not know us."
Her answer came fast. Came deep. It was a natural answer. "Because we know what it is like to yearn to be free. We know what it is to be trapped." She touched her chest saying that pressing down, her suit depressed until it touched her unseen body.
"You are not Council." Ke said aloud. He remembered. "They despise you."
Her bright eyes widened, nodding, but making no comment. The Quarians held blame for a great deal many things. Either directly, or by association. It was a pain put on them for their sins.
"We act on our interest, and it may not be what the Council, or even the Alliance, wants to hear." She pleaded almost. "Please, come with me. We have to be quick."
They did. Following her to deep into the ship, crowds and crowds looking to them, seeing what an alien looked like. Behind his visor Ke could observe back. It was one-way glass. Inside looking out, outside looking in, he couldn't tell what was what in that regard. All he knew however was that observation was the rule of that day.
They entered a medical lab, something that even Ke had recognized. Sangheili detestment of such places oddly created familiarity with the subject of it. It was the entrance to a medical lab at least, the main space of it taken up with large windows and spheres, equipment looking into. Some had unidentifiable machinery, tables meant for operation, seats and chairs and couches. Kids toys had inhabited some. None were occupied for the moment, but that was to change as he and his men were led to the largest one. It reminded him of meditation chambers on High Charity, white and sterile, smooth and, vaguely, calming. It was if the air itself was clean, and that meant something even on a filtered starship.
"Your men may remain on guard here." It was a clear window, and no guards had followed them in. The only people that were in that medical lab had been assumed medical technicians and doctors, all surrounding them, but keeping their distance. "But I need you, eventually, to come into there with me."
Ke tilted his head at Shala'Raan. "Now?"
"No. I am telling you so you can mentally prepare." Omni-tools were still new concepts to the Covenant, so they Elites were jumpy when she flared hers, summoning tablets from one of the desks surrounding the clean room. "Here. Observe this footage. Each of you has something different."
Each Elite was given a datapad, one hand held to it, the other with a weapon ready still. They were only now settling into ease as the quiet hum of the starship surrounded them, the occasional whirring of medical equipment droning. "What is this?" One of Ke's men inquired. Looking at it before realizing it was security footage of a ship, either that one, or a vessel much like that one.
It showed footage of what seemed like an engineer toying with pipes, only for that to stop the second one splintered, sending visible shrapnel through his suit and arm.
The other Elite was given footage of an extranet report. It was a hate crime on a space station known as the "Citadel". Delinquents had backed a Quarian into a corner of an alley, forcing him down, only to rip his visor off. His face was obscured, and the authorities had chased or apprehended the delinquents almost immediately after, but the deed was done, the Quarian clawing at his face, trying to desperately reattach his visor.
Usze was given this: A diagram, and then a video. It was almost voyeuristic, the nature of it, but it was footage taken discretely of what seemed like… a social affair. Humans had something similar, "bars" they called it, where they would go an ingest chemicals to haze themselves of senses. Ke had had many a firefight in such things, and, admittedly, the Elites were not without their own equivalent.
Still, there, in that footage, a Turian held a Quarian, female, the Qurian dimorphism human-like, by her hips. His hands roamed her form, desperately trying to dig deeper, to find more. The Quarian was into it on account of her own ingesting of normally off-limits alcohol that night, and so she had, surprisingly, and the bar had caught notice in a hushed silence, her take her visor off. Her face was not seen, but it was obvious what they were doing.
The Sangheili had no similar motion for this, but he had seen humans do this together in their last moments:
Their faces had touched together, mouth to mouth, lip to… face plate, for but a briefest moment before the Quarian put her mask back on, video ending, Turian very pleased with himself as far as Ke could tell.
Then an autotopsy report: She died. Days later. Rashes and growths near her lip that were viral in nature. He saw her lips, and lips only. They were very human-like. They were also very sickened, diseased, grey and bubbling.
Minutes dragged on, but eventually, the Elites took in that information. The intention was clear, but Shala'Raan made sure to say.
"We are not made to live as we are, without the suits. We would die, otherwise." She said solemnly. Ke looked at her, looked around, at all the Quarians, and saw their shoulders slump. Cursed. That was the word that came to his mind. He felt pity for them. He knew the protection of his armor, how it sealed him from danger, from space, from the world. He never knew it as a trap however. He didn't know it as the Quarians saw their own suits. "We showed you this so you understand what I am to do is not without understatement."
His two Elites looked to him. Nodding. They understood entirely what they saw: what happened when their suits get breached, each of them seeing the effects. Death at worst. Near death at best.. "Death by disease, by sickness…" One of his Elites spoke. He couldn't hold it in. "I do not wish that fate on any."
"Thank you." Shala'Raan spoke. There was an understanding there that bubbled and came alive, seeing that. "May you remove your armor, Major Nazhumee?"
He would kill her, and not by combat. She was asking for death it seemed if what she was to do.
"Why?" He finally lowered his gun from ready. He asked why. Not for the Elites, but for himself.
"I wish to see for myself if my people can survive you."
They asked for the Sangheili specifically. Why, and how, they came to this conclusion, it was a fact overlooked by almost every single person. Too busy looking into history, into religion, into biological details. None looked inward. None looked at a glance, simply. None saw coincidence and followed it.
"This is not the way-" Ke started, then remembered who she was. "You are an Admiral. You are valuable to your people, I would say. Why you?" He pointed to her, and then to the clean room. "You wish to breath my air, simply test your existence in my presence, as the Gods would have it?"
She nodded, she was on a mission for her people. "I wish to see you with my own, bare, eyes. We need to know who you are."
"You know what we look like beneath this." Ke thought that would've been enough. "We have given you information that we have killed over. Do you desire more than that?"
"I have been given a mission by my people to confirm this with the highest regard. They have bet me, and I have accepted this. That is what we confide in you" She tightened her fist. "Our people, we are not just strangers to one another. We are not acquaintances or just friends. All Quarians are owed to each other. We are all family. We are all that we have. I am willing to put myself in such danger so as to help our people understand what you are to us."
"Then who do you think we are?" Ke pressed, desperately. He hadn't remembered the last time he talked to someone like this. His vocabulary was that of honor, of military. Not of questions and existentialism.
Shala'Raan said nothing. She could not. Even if she did she wouldn't be able to. It was to admit an impossibility. A miracle. Ke knew he would get nothing as he turned around again, looking his shoulder, reading the body language of his guards. He trusted them.
With the breath he gave came relenting fervor. He knew what he had to do. Usze was watching and he had said nothing to the contrary. "How may I disrobe? In what manner?" Ke said gratingly, unsure.
There was a small nod of satisfaction behind Shala'Raan's visor.
"Your combat armor is not needed. The clothes beneath, how you would conduct yourself when not on your duty station, that is enough if skin is bare." His armor was worn at all time, either with the EVA components or without, but he knew what he could do. His undersuit of the Combat Harness which kept the hard alloys from rubbing his skin would be enough. It left much of him exposed, but it wouldn't be lewd. That was something he didn't want to report if it came down to it.
So he did, carefully. Helmet first. Around him he and his men heard the room seal further, the door locked distantly, vents sucking in air apparently. He was worried, but nothing could be done as they let the sound settle.
The air was unkind, almost biting at him. Too clean was a proposition he had not met until that day.
With his head exposed, mandibles free, eyes unbothered by filters of helmets and visor, all eyes were drawn to him, bare skin, combat armor slowly being settled on the desk besides him.
The last thing he needed to rid himself of was his weapon. His Plasma Rifle was first, but his sword. It was his father's, and his father's before him. As was the legacy of them. "You may carry this, with you. It is a weapon, yes?" Shala'Raan pointed to the hilt.
He nodded, looking to her, trying to peer through that cloud of a visor. "If I need to kill you, I do not need this."
Shala'Raan squared her feet. It was a threat, a promise, but knowing. Ke was a soldier first. That's what all the Elites were, according to the Covenant data packet.
"I hope you do not need to."
He flared his mandibles slowly, as Elites do when in thought, but his eyes softened, albeit one squinted skeptically. His sword was unhooked from his belt, placed next to his armor. "Where?"
"Through here." One of the Quarians around them noted.
It was like an airlock on a ship he stepped into. The process was the same as a laser wall phased through him followed by a misty spray, the spray evaporating and clearing as the door in front of him to that clean room was unlocked after decontamination.
His boots were left behind, his two-pronged feet, raptor like in form, claw like nails on his toes, touching upon the floor. It was room temperature, not unkind to him, surrounded by white. There was nothing in there but two chairs: facing each other. Surreal, oddly, but he dealt with it as he stepped into the room, looking at the glass viewing port, wide as a wall. He could see out, one of his men looking inward toward him, the other on guard.
In the end there was no need to worry as Shala'Raan took a breath, deep in her chest, and followed the decontamination process with Ke, half a minute later. He looked to the entry door, expecting. She didn't remove her suit like he did however. Not yet.
Their immune system was incompatible with the galaxy, their physiology compatible with one place, and one place only, and all that it brought. From what little he knew of the Quarians, told to him minutes before he was sent here and reaffirmed now, any contamination from them especially would've killed them. A simple bead of sweat. Mucus. Blood. Anything, if they were exposed to, their body would self-destruct. Their bodies were simply just not used to conditions that belied where they came from.
It was odd then, that this happened as Ke stood almost naked in that white, sterile, clinical room.
She entered, approaching him, and he stood still. She had to look up at him, but they were almost chest to chest. Her eyes held mysteries and hope in them. He realized now. Her eyes were old, her voice translated through their new software, weary. She was… excited? He could only guess.
"Why would you dare risk this." He said to her as she held her hands close to herself, going through a mental checklist. It had been a while since she had done this. To him, as a soldier, this was a foolish risk. A lesser Quarian should've been used. "Am I not a foreign entity to you outright? What gives you the confidence of-"
She looked at him, the weight of no shaking in her head motions, stopping his words. "I have nothing to worry about if what we have learned is true. I will survive."
"Why?" Ke stressed. Not for his sake, but for hers.
"You are a link to our homeworld." Shala'Raan's words spoke with a weight, with a sadness, that even the Elites had not heard from the wars they had fought in the name of the Covenant. Even in a Galactic Empire, the importance of the Homeworld was not lost to them. The Grunts had learned this lesson the hardest, when Balaho was given up for punishment of the Grunt Rebellion. Ever since that day the species of the Covenant, privately, all held onto their worlds a little tighter, appreciated it a little more.
The Elites were no different.
The sound of decompression. Three fingered hands coming to face masks, only to hold them, unlocked, let go, fallen to the white floor and revealing an image that not many in that galaxy would hold memory of. Just as some there would know that the Demons were, without mistake, humans, the Elites would know a secret that even the Galaxy had forgotten:
It clattered to the floor, leaving only Shala'Raan's hood, but soon enough that had fallen back to her shoulders.
Once, long ago, there had been primates on Sangheilios. Hunted down by the evolved Sangheili and their welp, evolution thousands and thousands of years ago had made them only be recorded in cave paintings and ancient tales. The only thing to truly survive of those details: ridges, designs almost, lined on their heads. Antiquated and depreciated parts of the body perhaps that spoke to feelers and sensory implements like antennae perhaps, ear canals at the side of her head, lacking the lobes of humans. Those old stories of extinct wildlife were known to Ke, only for his teachings of wildlife, grown as a hunter. To see it made life before him on the face of what looked very much like an older woman, a human, it cleared his nose, his breath, as if it was fire.
Home: The Quarians felt that as they saw these new, yet old, creatures, these new people, before them. A respite from their forever war. Visions of the dream, paradise, a future ensured, associated with the Sangheili.
"Touch me." Shala'Raan held out her hand, gingerly seizing Ke's hand. He offered no resistance as his hand was guided to her face. Her touch was unbelievably soft, as if her fingers had been hidden from a life lived.
He was scared for her as he did it. If he were to kill her, he'd do it quick, hands around her throat until her bones broke. Not like this. Not via sickness.
The questions the Quarians had for the Elites, wonderment and mystification as the truth was revealed: they were not from that reality. Yet, despite this, the Elites had known Rannoch… They knew what it was like to stand on it, to live on it, to know what it was like to have it as a home.
Fragile, that's what Ke felt as he touched her face, his large palm almost completely covering that side of her head. Wrinkled, yet smooth at the same time. Like that of a pup. The pads of his finger felt hair like silk and glass.
Warmth. Skin on skin. A feeling stolen from the Quarians, shared.
She breathed easy, breathed him in through the skin of his claw. There was nothing to fear.
The Elites and the Quarians shared many things now.
He levied his rifle against cover, peering through its optic, but he didn't see a machine through it. He aimed at something familiar. Too familiar, too personal to be an enemy. Nihlus has shifted out of cover slightly, rifle still up, just long enough so his eyes could verify what he was really seeing:
It was his mentor, one of his closest confidants. The soldier who taught him what it meant to serve to a power greater than himself.
Nihlus Kryik was once a reckless soldier. He knew right and wrong better than most, but right and wrong never played well with orders. To do what was right regardless of command it was a double-edged sword. One that vindicated him, and both made him a boon in his military service to command.
"You're too good for us." Said one commander, berating him before being reassigned.
He was good enough for who he had found on Eden Prime, near a loading dock as he moved through a battlefield, taking down an enemy not seen out of the Veil in centuries.
His back was turned to Nihlus. "Saren?" The Spectre said, surprised, lowering his rifle as the Turian in question turned. He didn't look… well. He stood strong, resolute, as always, but his body hadn't been the one given to him by birth. Battle, biotics, and bionics had changed him.
"Nihlus." Nihlus could barely hear it, but Saren recognized him. Of course, he did. He taught him how to be a Spectre. If Nihlus was one of the very best, then Saren was the very best.
The older Spectre had been momentarily distracted… he had sworn he had heard, something, by the crates, but it was no matter. He had come here to confront his old student. He knew he would be coming here. Nihlus wouldn't have known vice versa however.
Saren strode over, like a wisp, barely making a sound. Nihlus lowered his rifle still. "This isn't your mission Saren, and I thought you were over Altis representing the Spectres to the Covenant."
Saren looked up at that sky on fire, gunfire in the distance, taking it in, breathing it and gaining life. He loved battle. He did. He loved it as a scavenger loved fresh carcasses. "Do you remember Avitus?" Avitus Rix. Nihlus nodded. Another one of Saren's protégés. "He has that situation now. He needs the… peace and quiet."
Millions of unknowns was peace and quiet. Nihlus joked to himself internally. To a Spectre that might a well have been. The Covenant was dangerous, but complacent for now as far as he could tell.
"Why are you here, Saren?"
Saren again, looked to the sky, toward the human colony. "The Council saw it fit that something related to the Protheans might've needed… additional support. I'm sure you've seen the Alliance, those humans, saw it fit to do the same."
Saren spoke like a sophisticated being. Or, at least, as sophisticated as a soldier could be.
A woman and a man appeared in his mind. Armor he hadn't seen before. People he hadn't seen before.
Saren stepped toward Nihlus constantly, shoulder to shoulder, passing him.
Nihlus knew what Saren was speaking of. "There is… something interesting about Lieutenant Commander Shepard's ground team. There are secrets there that I was not advised by the Alliance about, embarking with them…Wait how do you know that?" Nihlus turned as Saren stepped behind him, looking his mentor in the eye. Saren paused, as if caught doing something. The class of air around him froze, wilting away.
Nihlus didn't know of those two with Shepard even when he was on the ship. How did-
Saren unhooked his pistol. Just by reaction alone Nihlus tensed on his rifle. Maybe his mentor saw some Geth where he hadn't.
A sound of fumbling to their right, they both looked toward the crates.
It was a human, middle age, shaken, beanie on his head, fear and death in his eyes as he fell, facing them on his side. Nihlus oriented himself toward him, immediately identifying him as not a threat. He thought Saren did the same however, but his pistol was up, out, pointed at a man who had tripped and fell, trying obviously to move away unseen. Nihlus thought it prudent to radio Shepard's team to alert them of civilians. He'd seen a few but they mostly stayed out of the way.
He held one hand to his radio's receiver. "Hitman 1-Actual, this is Nihlus, be advised civi-"
The man was seen, and for that, he was killed. Saren's pistol erupted with a gunshot, right into the man's neck, severing spine and skin from head. That was the power of a Carnifex handgun he used, tendons nearly tearing, nearly having decapitated. He was dead before he even knew what hit him, blood spilling out of him.
"Saren what the hell-?!" Nihlus twisted around to Saren.
A gun pointed at his head was nothing Nihlus hadn't dealt with before. He couldn't believe it however, not in the millisecond he was given as Saren shifted his aim from out, to in, toward him. It was a millisecond of grace however. Life flashing before his eyes, but the fight burning within him as fight or flight took over, and, no matter who held the gun, the indiscretion would not go unpaid.
At his hip he had, even aiming at the floor, at Saren's feet, he opened fire not to hit him but to at least do something that was to wave off the inevitable.
He knew what a gun pointed at his head meant: it meant he was to be killed.
It meant Saren wanted to kill him.
He threw his head down and to the left as fast as he could as Saren found his mark.
Try as he might, even when Nihlus got the first shot off, no matter how inaccurate or useless it was, Saren had the advantage.
The pistol went off and a superheated shred of metal cut through the top left of Nihlus's head, grazing through his skull, through his fringe, tearing flesh as he tried to dive into Saren's mid-section.
He had never felt pain there before. He had never known what it was like to have your skull exposed. It didn't help that his flesh around the wound tore and shifted exposing more as his head collided against the metal armor of Saren's stomach, Nihlus tackling his mentor.
That was all he could do as he felt the barrel of the pistol wrap around downward into his back, the flashing pain of more metal tearing like rods into his body around his spine making him scream as Saren dropped the pistol, the two colliding onto the floor.
The rifle was ripped away from Nihlus as Saren moved his hands to his shoulders, pushing the man off as blood painted them both.
Nihlus couldn't use his mouth to yell, to shout for help, to advise anything. Pain override everything as all he could was open his mouth and grunt and groan in malice, in anger, in confusion. That was before he felt the blood in his mouth on his back, pooling into his mouth before he rolled over, spit over a glob, and tried desperately to stand on his feet.
He didn't get far before he found his balance, Saren closing the distance, scooping up his pistol, his metallic knee coming into Nihlus's midsection causing another splurt of blood out from his insides through his mouth to erupt.
This wasn't clean. It wouldn't be quick. He tried to articulate words but he had to wonder if the bullet had grazed over his skull and brain hit something necessary for speech. He cursed the spirits for it, but couldn't curse at all as he felt talons around his neck and his feet lose feeling from the ground, rose up, throat being crushed by someone he had trusted with his life, his own arms hanging limply at his side.
Strangled, held up, Spectres were tough to kill.
That's why he wasn't done fighting. Saren had taught him that.
Not ever. Not when his mentor had something planned. All Spectres knew evil. Conflated with it. Fought it. He knew what evil he could do if tempted. He dreaded to think what Saren could do if rogue. His groans from his mouth stopped as he was being strangled, airborne. If it hadn't been from Saren's grip, it would've been in awe in something he saw distantly, in the sky, rise up like a black leviathan from horror stories. Surrounded by clouds, by lightning that was red like the suns, it rose as if coming from Hell itself. Saren paid no mind to it as it lifted off. He knew what it was.
It roared. It roared like the lowest note from the most misused instrument, uttered from the lowest depths. It resonated his bones. It was a sound too menacing to have been real, but it was as he was deafened by it, coming from that shape in the sky, that… ship.
Perhaps it was lucky that the Geth had remained hidden for all those hundreds of years. Now the monsters were out of the closet and haunting them all. Maybe it would be lucky if he was dead to not see what it could do, he thought as he felt the world recess around him, darkness taking him.
Humans impaled on poles, turned into corpses of grey flesh and cybertronics he had never seen until-
His vision returned from him, revelation saving him. Saren looked like them: those husks of men.
He was responsible for this. He, somehow- He needed to pay.
Nihlus ignited his omni-tool, an orange blade was whipped out, swung up with all his might.
Time passed by in skips, for he didn't remember when he could breath air again, albeit still being strangled by an arm and claw around his neck. He didn't remember collapsing to the ground as he heard the sweet sounds of someone else screaming in pain:
His free hand went to his neck, wet with his own dark blue blood, still feeling a claw around it.
It didn't matter though as he tore it off him, the claws cutting skin as he did.
Saren was down an arm: one that was thrown at him as again Nihlus charged at his mentor.
Saren could barely comprehend it. Not when he held the fresh stump that was gushing blood, his other claw trying to cap it even with pistol in hand. Against the railing he had been smashed against, Nihlus backing off as he readied to stab the Turian in the gut.
The old saying rung true however: never bring a knife to a gun fight. Even when they were chest to chest Saren found a way, finding might in his legs, burning determination through pain, and jumping as Nihlus thrusted. The blade went between his legs as Nihlus stood on the railing, pistol aimed down.
Again Nihlus found the barrel of a gun to look into.
This time Saren found his shot.
Not that Nihlus didn't try to do anything about it, throwing himself back, raising his omni blade up for one last play. The gun went off, the omni-blade touching the barrel.
Shreds of metal turned into a makeshift shotgun blast. Shreds of metal upon shreds of metal upon shreds of metal into the system of the pistol, exploding both ways before itself.
The gun went up, blown up, just as its round did, peppering the face, the eyes, the head of Nihlus as he was blown back and Saren off the railing, his hand shredded itself down to tendon and metal.
The largest chunk of the destroyed round: Right through his skull, center and high, but through his skull, through some grey matter.
Nihlus eyes went wide before they went wild, eyelids fluttering as his tongue slipped out blown back by the shot as several dozen holes in his exposed skull, in his neck and flesh, pooled his life onto the steel floor.
Hissing. That's what he heard, looking through the broken vision of his one eye that held any semblance of vision, pierced by metal shrapnel like a watery kaleidoscope. He could barely move the tips of his talons, barely commanding his lungs to fight through and try to bubble the blood in his mouth into air, the pain falling away. He knew his body was shutting down from that: too many holes, not enough backup organs to cover.
The hissing came from his mentor, limping, bloodied, injured grievously. He had won, somehow, that fight, pyrrhic as it was.
For a fight that last forty seconds damage was done.
This was it. "Spirits take me." Nihlus wanted to say.
Saren would've heard if he did, gritting through plates, frustrated, aggravated. He wanted to tear this welp, this student of his, this interloper, to a million shreds and cast those shreds into a furnace, ash into a backwater planet where none would go. How dare he fight. How dare he disturb his plan.
Lucky for Nihlus he was too far gone to feel Saren stomp his stomach, only for it to send pressure up through his lungs, another balloon like explosion of blood coming out like a geyser.
It gave him breath.
Evidence. Too much evidence. Not enough time.
Saren thought he said to himself. No. The only sounds he made were like that of a feral animal, his back hunched, bleeding from what little flesh that remained on him. He was more machine than man, both physically, mentally, and in his heart and soul. Quickly scooping up his arm, he had tucked it with him, looking frantically for something, something, to burn.
He broke open crates at that loading dock as Nihlus lay there dying. In Saren's painful, mental haze, he thought his student dead. It wasn't enough however. Not with all their blood, their bits and pieces, left to be found by that human, by Shepard and whoever she brought.
Medical supplies he found.
A very, very flammable solution among them.
Saren roared, not like a gentleman anymore, like a civilized individual. He roared like a monster as he found satisfaction in an answer. Gallons upon gallons of the solution were broken up, dumped around messily, fast, inundating the entire dock, bodies and blood mixing in.
Nihlus could do nothing but feel it surround him, drench his body through his shattered vision. He didn't know what Nihlus was doing. He couldn't have.
He didn't see him use the omni-tool on his chopped off arm to create a spark, throwing the arm into the crate of the gallons of solution and go up in flames. He didn't see the flames spread wherever that solution went.
Most mercifully of all however, Nihlus didn't feel the fires take him.
Eden Prime burned around him and all that it represented. In his lucid thoughts, the peace that his dying brain afforded him, he felt a little closer to paradise.
A/N 2: For those of you who need a little clarification on why Raan/ the Quarians are not at all at great threat due to being exposed to Ke, or Sangheili in general, it's because this: Sangheilios and Rannoch are the same planet in the story. The emergence of the ancient Sangheili vs. the ancient Quarians, for the purpose of this story, was a coin flip, and the difference between how Sangheilios developed and how Rannoch did is marginal I'll assume. Even if it's been depreciated the Quarian's biology are adjusted to Rannoch and its wildlife and fauna. That includes the Sangheili who developed from a different Rannoch. The Quarians are genetically predisposed to be compatible, co-existing wise, with the Sangheili.