Chapter 71. Alea iacta est
17. February 2415 AD, Euler System, AN-258X
"Hold. Hold. Hold," he whispered into his radio, despite his helmet muting his voice to the outside. The tension of the last few moments before an ambush tended to cause that.
As the batarian squad walked into the dark corridor and was about to enter their killzone, Haugen realized that it had really been a good idea to set up scanners beforehand. Like the ASOC officers and him had expected them to do in a boarding CQB scenario, they were wearing full-body heavy armor, including sealed helmets that made it hard to tell who was Balak and who wasn't. He looked at the tightly-packed oval-shaped formation, which stood out as a rather strange choice to him, registered the scanner results on his HUD and centered his scope on the batarian terrorist. He spent a split-second with looking at the four glowing eyes on his helmet, which the night-vision of his helmet painted in a bright green. Going from there, he aimed further down at the neck of the first soldier. The armor was softer there. Next he activated his targeting laser, painting his chosen target for the rest of Phantom to see. A few moments later, three other infrared lasers picked out other batarians, likewise aiming at their necks.
"Pitch black in here," he heard one of the batarians mutter.
"Must've caught them during their night-cycle," another offered his explanation.
"Quiet," a third commanded in a deep voice before pressing a button on the edge of his boxy Terminator assault rifle. A second later, a hologram appeared around the gun. Then the other terrorists mirrored the gesture and produced similar holograms around their weapons, giving the corridor a bright-green lighting on his HUD. Ammo mods.
They wouldn't help them much if they didn't know what they were shooting at.
His finger slipped against the trigger and pulled right until it hit the pressure point.
"Execute," he spoke.
Then he squeezed his trigger five times in synchronicity with the rest of his team. Just like they had trained a thousand times before. The first three bullets shattered against the barriers of the batarian. But before he could do as much as register the warnings that no doubt flooded through his HUD, a pair of armor-piercing, old-fashioned lead-rounds drilled their way through the softer, more flexible kinetic weave of his undersuit and annihilated the flesh and bone behind it. As the batarian fell backwards, instinctively clutching at the wound while one of his comrades caught him, Haugen moved his sights over to the next batarian, ready to dispatch him in the same coverless kill-zone his comrade was now bleeding out in, intend to ending this boarding party before it ever really set foot on the station.
But it didn't come to that.
Intentional or not, the fact that at least two of the batarians were still holding on to their wounded comrades had created a living, or rather dying, shield. While he had no problem with shooting at the batarians again, and was doing so in this moment, their armor and bodies stopped most of the rounds of the ASOC team just long enough for the troopers to employ a counter-measure the ASOC captain hadn't exactly accounted for.
"Shields up!" the batarian in charge shouted while Haugen nicked the helmet of another batarian and dropped him to the ground. He vanished behind the line of shields, making it impossible to tell if he was dead or if the armor had saved him.
In response to the order, the other External Forces troopers reacted in what looked like a well-trained response. While the ones standing in the front brought up their omni-tools and produced bright, flash-forged omni-shields, something Haugen had only ever seen C-SEC use, the ones in the back stepped behind them and pushed their guns through the shields. Then they began to rain fire down the corridor.
So that was the reason behind their weird formation.
While they were still off by a couple of meters, Phantom-Squad had known better than to position themselves in their direct line of fire and instead opted to hide behind low-laying murderholes that had been cut into the bend of the corridor, this kind of organized response complicated things. After he had watched half a magazine of SR-8 rounds hit the shields and produce little to no effect other than making their bearers flinch ever so slightly, he leaned away from the hole in the wall and reloaded.
"Search for the flashes!" another one of Balak men shouted over the barks of their Terminator rifles. Haugen quickly looked at the flash-suppressor on his gun in response. They'd have no luck with this strategy either. Making sure that their muzzle-flashes were hidden had been one of the pillars of ASOC stealth ever since the unit had been created from the comparatively disorganized ranks of the ground forces of the HSA's predecessor state, the UNJDI.
"There are none!" another declared before one of his team managed to score a headshot through the small gap between two of the shields, violently snapping the batarian's head back. While the explosives the batarians were about to walk on top of meant that there wasn't actually a necessity for this, he was still proud of this display of marksmanship. As his hand reached for the detonator, he counted the steps of the shield-carriers. Just two more and they'd be in the blast-zone.
"Then we're up against their camo-troops," the batarian in charge said just one step away from their shields passing the first mines. "Hold the advance, maintain suppressive fire and bring up the varren. They'll take care of them!"
As soon as he heard that order echo down the corridor, Haugen let go of the detonator, aimed for another gap in the shields and squeezed of a shot in protest. But to his luck, the batarian he was aiming at ducked just in time for the bullet to hit the wall behind him, prolonging his life for however long it took the ASOC team to come up with an alternative solution, which would preferably happen quickly. Varren were bad news. He had learned during the Blitz just how good they were at detecting camouflaged ASOC soldiers based solely on their scent. As soon as those beasts were unleashed, their hiding spots would be exposed.
"Phantom-Lead for Wraith-Lead," a voice spoke over Haugen's radio while the captain cursed the evidently sharp mind of their batarian opponent. Just from the results of one assault Balak had deduced that he was fighting ASOC troops and prepared to go up against them again.
"Reading you," he responded while waiting for another head to pop up, ignoring the mass-accelerator rounds punching through the metal walls above him. They still weren't on to the murderholes.
"Our batarians just held their advance."
"To bring up varren?"
"Probably."
"Specter-Lead," another lieutenant said. "Same thing's happening here too. We iced a bunch, now they're frozen in some kind of testudo-looking formation. How should we procede?" Maybe they'd have to pull back deeper into the station and turn this into a hunt instead of an ambush after all?
"Ghost-Lead?"
"Negative on the testudo here," the fourth squad-leader replied, much to Haugen's relief. "We minced our guys. Took those idiots a step too long to stop. How can we help?" instantly Haugen came up with a solution.
"Move in from behind," he ordered before hearing the howl of the first varren. Phantom would have to move. As soon as the batarian let their war beast loose, it'd make a beeline for his hiding spot and then they'd light it up. After throwing a final look at the scanner to confirm that Balak still wasn't among the batarians in front of him, Haugen got up, tapped the shoulder of Hofmann and moved away from the wall. Then he gestured towards Miller and Mav and instructed them to do the same. His intention was to draw the batarians deeper into the station, making it harder for them to quickly react to Ghost Squad's attack on their allies and, ideally, to draw them into the explosive traps and finish them off before the other ASOC teams had to engage them. After all, if Balak wasn't among them, there was no point in whittling down this squad one by one. Might as well wipe them out in one attack.
"Understood," the other ASOC officer replied. A second later, Haugen heard a varren run into the wall he had just hidden behind. But instead of it being riddled by mass accelerator rounds, he heard a muffled explosion right after he closed the room's airlock. He spent a moment trying to decide if Balak had really resorted to using his pet varren as suicide bombers and then remembered that the guy was planning to smash an asteroid into a planet to kill as many humans as possible. Hence he warned the other squads over the radio and then pulled back deeper into the mining base.
"Phantom-Lead, come in," a new voice called through the radio. Haugen recognized it immediately. It belonged to the soldier in charge of ensuring that the mining base's systems stayed under human control.
"Go," he confirmed.
"Be advised, I just got a hit on the motion sensors we planted at waste disposal."
"Status on the explosives?" he asked. They had planned on someone trying to get in that way. So if the batarians wanted to get in through the back, they'd be surprised to find just how many anti-personal mines one could cram into a garbage chute while still keeping them hidden.
"Unresponsive. I already tried."
"Cameras and scanners?"
"Only caught a flicker before they shut off."
Active camo. He smirked. Balak was trying to beat them at their own game but he'd have none of that.
"Understood. Diverting." They had also kind of planned on that. "Hofmann, Mav. Stay here, hold down the fort," he ordered. "Miller, you're with me."
"Yes, Sir," the soldiers replied. Then they split up. While Hofmann and Mav stayed behind to continue their delay of the batarians for as long as it'd take them to either walk into the traps or get flanked by the other ASOC units, Haugen and Miller jogged through the mining base. When they got within earshot of the waste disposal, they slowed down. He had memorized the layout of this room because it was the entrance he'd use if he was the one who was trying to take this station. It was a small, triangular room located in the lowest, darkest level of the mining base. It directly connected to the desolate surface of the asteroid and only really served to do one thing, compact trash and then jettison it into space through a narrow chute. As he spotted the circular door, he hugged the wall, raised his weapon and started to look around and listen. It didn't look like it had been breached yet but that didn't have to mean that nobody had gotten through yet. After all, the HSA hadn't patented infantry-camouflage, covert entries or stealth tactics. For nearly a minute he scanned his surroundings, looking for the tell-tale flicker that'd give away the intruders and listening for the faintest sound, certain that their counterparts were doing the same.
"Anything?" he muttered into his radio while slowly tracing the wall in front of him, focused entirely on the task.
"Nothing," Miller replied before drawing in a sudden breath. "Shit."
"What?" Haugen inquired before turning his head and looking at Miller, his invisible figure highlighted by his HUD.
"Behind me," the soldier muttered before the ASOC officer could ask why the soldier was lowering his weapon and was now turning to face him in a somewhat awkward stance.
"Decloak or he dies," a calm voice that sounded like it was being filtered through a helmet demanded. Instantly Haugen aimed his weapon in the general direction of the noise. "Try something, he dies too."
"Where is he?" he asked through his radio.
"Just feeling the muzzle in my neck, Sir," Miller replied while standing perfectly still. "Could be left, could be right, could be directly behind me. Sorry."
Damn it.
How the hell had they even gotten there? Had they made a dash right after triggering the sensors and planted an ambush of their own? How could he forget about something like that? He shook his head. It didn't matter right now. What counted was making sure Miller and him somehow came out on top.
"All squads, this is Phantom-Lead. We've got cloaked hostiles in the waste disposal system and they've got one of us as a hostage. I'll try to delay them, but I need reinforcements over here asap."
"Phantom-Lead, this is Wraith-lead. Ghost freed us up," Makarov said an instant later. "We're on our way. Hold tight."
"I said decloak," the invisible terrorist demanded again. While he wasn't sure yet, it sounded distinctively like he remembered Balak's voice.
"Don't do it, Boss. Just get out of here," Miller said with a somewhat shaky voice. He wasn't going to blame the man for being a bit more jittery than usual, he literally had a gun to his head.
"Can you drop down? Give me a clear shot?" he replied before seeing the faintest shimmer behind his soldier. That made one of them. Now where are the others? If there even were any other batarians that is.
Some of those varren would be really useful right about now.
"Since I'm going to assume that the two of you are talking to each other right now, I'll just start counting to five," the batarian said. "If I don't see you by then, I blow this one's head off."
"Don't do it, Boss."
Haugen clenched his jaw. This had gotten very complicated, very quickly.
"Five."
If he decloaked, they'd be at their mercy and given that these guys were terrorists, that mercy probably would last for as long as it took them to achieve their objective. There was no way of knowing if the other squads would be able to react in time.
"Four."
He could take a shot, sure, but if he tried something and was off even by a single centimeter, they were done for just the same.
"Three."
So the only question he had to ask himself right now was what kind of outcome he'd rather have. Did he want to take his chances and sneak out, which would certainly lead to Miller's death? Or was he ready to take the risk, stay, decloak and give both of them the chance to live long enough for the other ASOC operatives to pull the batarians' trick on them.
"Two."
It really wasn't that difficult of a choice. What the hell kind of officer would he be if he saved his own ass at the cost of his soldier's life?
"I'm serious. Just go. It's okay," Miller muttered.
"Shut up and trust me," Haugen replied before quickly unmuting his helmet. "Stop!" he shouted through the speakers before hitting the button to decloak. Slowly he materialized in the dark. "Don't hurt him."
"Wasn't so difficult now, was it?" the disembodied voice taunted before giving its first instruction. "Now drop the gun."
"Okay. Just keep it easy," he said before very slowly doing what the batarian told him, stalling as much as possible. "What do you want?" he asked before glancing at his HUD. A couple of dots were starting to convert on their location but since they couldn't exactly charge through the door and go in guns blazing, he still needed to buy some more time.
"You locked us out of the station's systems. I want you to undo that."
"I'm not exactly a technician," he replied before feeling a pistol being pressed against his neck too. Great. Now both of them were held at gunpoint.
"There are captain bars on your armor," the voice replied. "You're in charge of this op. Give the order. Now."
"You still kicking, Phantom-Lead?" Lieutenant Makarov asked. He silently acknowledged by flashing his status light green twice.
"Okay," Makarov said. "One Minute. Get ready to turn off your night-vision." He flashed his reply again.
"Okay. Fine. It's just going to take a second for me to do that. They'll have to restart the system to undo the redundancies we put in place to prevent any outside interference with the mainfr-"
"Stop babbling nonsense and give the order."
"Fine. You listening in over there?" he asked through his radio, intentionally turning it up to cover up any sound Makarov and his unit might create. "Reboot the system. Let the batarians in."
"Sir, are you sure that that's what you want to do? I mean our orders are clear," the soldier said slowly, playing along expertly. The ASOC operative knew just as much as Haugen that every second he'd waste would give Wraith a second longer to save Miller and him.. "The batarians are not to get into the system under any circumstances."
"I know but I gave you an order. Follow it," he said.
"Yes, Sir. I'll reboot the system as quickly as possible," when the reply came he quickly muted his radio to the outside again, not intending to give these terrorists any early warnings.
"Very good. Now start walking," the batarian instructed from right behind his ear while simultaneously pulling Haugen's sidearm out of its holster. "You'll be my shield. Just in case your men try something. Hands up."
There it was. That sadistic tone he never really had managed to forget.
Now he was nearly certain that the batarian behind him was Balak.
Fuck it. What could he lose from just outright asking?
"Why are you doing this Balak?" he said while Makarov told him that they were thirty seconds away. "Is it because we kicked your ass of Mindoir?"
"I don't need to explain myself to vermin like you," there it was. His confirmation. "Are we in the system yet?"
"Yes," a second voice replied. He tried to locate it but the accustics of the hallway made it hard.
"Happy now?"
"I will be when your world burns. Now keep your hands up," he added a moment later, stopping his attempt to reach for his radio again to broadcast the fact that Balak was with him to his comrades. Haugen complied and looked ahead. They were about to hit the stairs and from what his HUD told him Wraith was just up ahead. Here they had the high ground. It was the perfect place for an ambush. So he stalled his pace, slowing down ever so slightly.
Balak noticed.
"Move it," he said before shoving Haugen forward. Using the momentum of the push, the officer let himself fall flat to the ground. He was long past the point where he gave a shit whether or not the terrorist leader made it out alive. "Get up," Balak muttered while delivering a kick to his side.
Haugen ignored it.
"Execute," he whispered into his radio before turning of his night-vision and closing his eyes, waiting for the muffled bang.
He didn't see the flashbangs fly down the stairs but he heard them. As soon as they hit the ground, he rolled to the side and kicked Miller's legs away with as much force as he could muster, causing the soldier to fall with a grunt. Then the explosions went off and the world turned into bright for a second. Then the gunshots came. There were dozens but not even five seconds later, they had stopped again.
After realising that he was still alive, Haugen turned on his night vision and climbed to his feet, eying the body of the now visible batarian terrorists. While most of them looked pretty dead, the one behind him, still seemed to have some life in him. Evidently, Makarov's men really were as good as he had bragged. Content to use Balak's unexpected survival, the captain picked up the gun closest to him and leveled it at Balak.
"You okay, Miller?" he asked.
"My knee feels all fucked up. But you saved my ass. Thanks, Boss,"
"Don't mention it," he said before walking over to the body and checked for an explosive west. There was nothing he could make out right now. So he got closer and pulled off the batarian's helmet, revealing Balak's face. He had aged a bit and the blood loss wasn't doing him any favors but he still looked as rotten as Haugen remembered him from that day on Mindoir. Given his wounds, Haugen figured Balak would die eventually unless they treated him but it didn't look like his state was so critical that the ASOC officer couldn't give him a piece of his mind.
"Lights," he ordered over the radio. A second later the floor at the bottom of the stairway was illuminated, revealing the dark-red blood that was staining the rusty-brown metal plates.
Okay. Maybe the injuries were critical.
But he really didn't care about that right now.
"You know what I've been asking myself since I took this mission?" he asked, producing a syringe of medigel and holding it up for Balak to see. As the terrorist leader reached for it, Haugen pulled back and pressed the barrel of the batarian mass accelerator under Balak's chin.
"I don't waste my time on considering the actions of those beneath me, vermin," he replied spiteful.
"Fair enough," Haugen said before putting the syringe away and lowering the gun. Then he punched Balak in his face with the meanest hook he had thrown in a long time. "Ever since I knew I'd have another Balak in my sights," he muttered before throwing the next punch and sending some of the needle-like batarian teeth his first punch had looseend flying on the ground. "I've been wondering what kind of Balak you'd turn out to be."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Balak said before spitting out some blood and smirking through his broken mouth. "And I don't care either."
"Then allow me to explain," Haugen grunted before taking a knee on Balak and grabbing him by the collar of his heavy armor. "Before I shot your uncle, he actually had some fight in him," he saw Balak's eyes narrow. "But your brother? He was the opposite. He died like a little bitch, spending his last moments begging me to stop."
"You're the Demon of Torfan?" Balak realized.
"That's right," Haugen smirked behind his helmet, fueled by the faint hint of fear in the batarian's tone. While he obviously knew the best just how much that story had been blown out of proportion, he'd embrace the person it made him out to be for a few moments. "And now I'm going to show you what your brother saw before I beat him to death," then the ASOC operative continued to throw his punches. After about five of them, Makarov stepped in, trying to stop Haugen.
"Sir, I don't think-" he began through the squad-intercom.
"Back off, Lieutenant," the captain replied.
"If we kill him, the mission's fucked," the lieutenant said, continuing to raise his concerns.
"I won't," Haugen muttered in return. For some reason, that line seemed to convince Makarov and he did as he was told. Going from there, Haugen threw some more punches and then let go of Balak, intending to teach him a lesson. Given his state, the batarian slid down to the ground immediately. "Now. I'm sure you don't remember this," he went on before leveling the gun at Balak's head again. "But I'm going to tell you exactly what you told that girl back on Mindoir," he pressed the muzzle right between Balak's four eyes and felt how his blood started to boil at the memory. "Last chance," he spoke in a low tone. "Get up or I put you down for good," the words had been burnt into his mind for years. While he wasn't going to lose it the way he had on Torfan, it felt good to finally throw them back at Balak's face and see the terror it would cause.
However the moment of satisfaction didn't come.
Instead of fear, he only got a chuckle.
"It feels nice, doesn't it? To have the power of someone else's life," the batarian said in a low tone before coughing up some blood and smirking, devoid of the terror Haugen had been shooting for. "Whether it's the gun, the whip or the detonator of a cranial implant. It's the best high you're ever going to feel. To be able to just extinguish a life like that. Nothing beats it."
"You sick son of a bitch," Haugen replied in disgust.
"Nothing sick about it, human," Balak laughed weakly. "Those who hold power will always crush those who don't whenever they wish to do so. It's the natural order of things," he said. "Now get it over with. Kill me," as he realized Haugen's hesitation, Balak kept pushing. "Or accept the alternative. Leave here knowing that I'll be living a life in the relative comfort of your prisons and never get the death you think I deserve because of how your people deal out justice. You don't want that, do you?"
Haugen inhaled, telling himself not to give in to the anger and to not pull the trigger and end this monster right here. It was obvious that Balak wanted to die to avoid capture. Whether it was because Haugen shot him or because he let him bleed out, which would eventually happen if he kept this up. Either way, the batarian was looking for a way out and he'd be damned if he gave it to him.
"I mean just think about it. Prison or not, I'd still enjoy live. After all, I can recall a lifetime of using my power on your vermin brethren. It's all so vivid. I wouldn't even know where to start. My whip splitting open the backs of your men and my blade carving up their skin? Or my hands crushing the throats of your women?" he kept suppressing the anger. His mind was made up and he reached for the syringe. Balak saw and gave it one final try. "Or what about the girl back on Mindoir? Yes. I think that's where I'll start. I remember her so clearly, the terror on her face, her burning home, the way her auburn hair turned even redder when I pulled the tri-"
Haugen threw a final punch. Then he applied the medigel and returned to being a good soldier, once and for all done with this vendetta.
"Not gonna lie, Captain. I thought you were gonna kill him," Makarov said while joining him in rendering first aid to Balak.
"I got close," he replied honestly before looking at Balak.
"Why didn't you?"
"She was blonde," he muttered for all to hear.
The batarian remained silent after that.
As did Haugen.
Six Hours Later, 17. February 2415 AD HSASV Ain Jalut
"I think congratulations are overdue, Captain," Admiral Hackett said as he straightened over at his end of the hologram. "You stopped the attack and you captured Balak. Just the way Arcturus wanted you to."
"Yes, Sir," he replied.
"You don't sound too excited considering the fact you just saved everyone on Benning and gave HSAIS the biggest cache on Hegemony intel in years. What's the matter, Captain?"
He sighed.
"You saw the footage. I nearly lost my cool," he admitted.
"But you didn't. No one's going to raise any complaints," Hackett replied. "You're not going to lose any sleep over some batarians, are you, son?"
"No, Sir."
"Good," Hackett nodded. "You can consider this your debriefing then. I'll forward the reports and handle everything else with Arcturus. Bring your men home. God knows you earned it."
"Yes, Sir," he said before falling silent, trying to decide whether he should ask the question on his mind. "One more question, if I may, Sir," he quickly asked after figuring that 'no' was the worst answer he could get. It had been on his mind ever since Virmire and now that Balak was no longer an issue, the captain figured he could give in to his curiosity.
"Go ahead."
"Do you remember the thing we talked about after Virmire?" he asked, intentionally vague.
"Yes," the admiral nodded.
"Did you find an explanation for what happened?"
Hackett stayed silent for a moment. Then he nodded.
"I did," he stated. "But I'm afraid that I can't share it with you. Not yet at least."
So much for that.
"Understood, Sir."
"I'm sorry I can't give you a straight answer, even if you damn well earned one after today."
"Don't be," he shrugged. "It's like you said, Sir. That's the way the military works."
If he wasn't meant to know about it, he'd accept that.
Maybe it was for the better.
"Maybe I'll be able to tell you next time around."
"Next time?"
"When it comes to batarians, you proved yourself a cut above the rest twice now, Captain. First Torfan, now Balak. Don't think that went unnoticed with top-brass. If I were you, I'd get ready for more assignments like these. If you want them, that is."
"I'll do my duty," he replied.
"Glad to hear it. Dismissed, Captain," the man nodded and then closed with his usual 'Hackett out'.
Then the hologram disappeared and soon enough, Tore Haugen found himself starring at a screen, waiting for the connection to build up. He needed to ground himself and this was the only way he knew how to. When the Ain Jalut's communication systems finally reached all the way to Terra Nova's FTL beacon, a blonde woman appeared in the center of the terminal's screen.
"Tore?" she asked after rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Hey, Sam," he greeted his wife. "Sorry for waking you."
"Don't be," she muttered before raising an eyebrow. "Are you okay? It's not like you to call in the middle of the night."
"I," he began. "I'm all good. Don't worry," except him nearly dying as a hostage of a batarian terrorist and beating the shit out of a POW. But he'd leave those details out.
"Okay," she replied a moment later. "I mean even if you say that, I can tell that something's wrong. But you can't talk about it, right?" he nodded. "What about phrasing it so it doesn't break op-sec?" she suggested.
"Okay," he nodded before running a hand through his short-cropped blonde hair. "You know that part of you that you pretend doesn't exist?"
"Yes."
"I saw a bit of mine today. And it made me sick."
"But you didn't do anything bad, right?"
"No," he never really had considered putting down bad guys as something that didn't fit well onto his moral compass. "But it's not about someone else either. It's about me, about that part even existing in the first place.
"Everyone has that part."
"Maybe. But I'm not everyone. I need to be better than that."
"You're still human though, aren't you?"
"Yes but-"
"No but-s Tore. You're the best man I know. It's why I married you. Whatever you think that part of you looked like or whatever it wanted you to do, it's not who you are. The only thing that matters is what you did in the end. And like you said, it wasn't anything bad, right?"
"Right," he said. Again. Giving slavers a bit of their own medicine wasn't something bad in his book.
"Okay," she said, somewhat hesitant to finish her sentence. Nonetheless she took a breath and then did it anyways. "To be perfectly honest with you, it doesn't sound like the issue's out of the world."
"Not entirely, no," he paused for a moment. "But we can talk about it more when I come home," he savored the coming moment for a second. "Which, surprise, will be in five days."
While it didn't wash away the fact that something Balak had said to him had stuck around, the smile that lit up Sam's face at the news did make things more tolerable.
Just where would he be without this woman?
He really didn't want to know.
5. March 2415 AD, Omega, Afterlife
As he looked at the salarian and the asari with whom the green-skinned amphibian was currently 'engaging' with, Morneau wiggled the tube in his hand and spilled a little of it on the counter to keep up the illusion that he was drinking. It had been a long, messy way to get to here but as soon as the dancer lived up to the deal she had struck with the specialist and took her customer to her secluded apartment, Morneau would be able to get a hold of him. Then this mission would finally be over and he could get back to Cronos Station to talk to the director about putting him to use on stopping the real problem, the one that had basically frozen Council Space for the last month.
"Hey, you there," a baritone voice called behind him, prompting the specialist to turn his head away from the bar and putting up the classic 'drunken idiot' act once he saw the three thugs behind him. While the turians were nobodies, he recognized the guy in the center. A batarian going by the alias of 'Bray'. He was an External Forces deserter, who had recently started to work for Aria T'Loak, the asari that ran most of Omega as a personal kingdom of sorts. He had quickly risen through the ranks of her henchmen, mostly thanks to not just being yet another gangster, pirate or slaver. It was reasonable to assume that he was in charge.
"What's the matter?" Morneau slurred before stumbling to his feet, hoping that Bray's appearance wasn't related to the incident yesterday. In an attempt to get a hold of the salarian he had just observed, who incidentally happened to be one of the Shadow Broker's top agents who the HSAIS had learned had come to Omega to meet with some kind of new benefactor to prepare 'something big', he had blown up a Red Sand lab of the Talons. They were one of the few gangs who still rivaled Aria T'Loak's reign and as such kept under a close eye by her goons.
While he realized that the connection between those two events wasn't immediately evident, the havoc he had wrecked had served to get the operative to pass up on his side-job of being a drug runner with a habit of hiring gangs to cook up his supplies, and instead go and enjoy his other vices, which included asari strippers.
Although Morneau didn't think anyone could link the explosion to him, he had taken care to cover his tracks, T'Loak might've taken a closer look at the incident and noticed him, the out-of-place human, and picked up on the trail of bodies he had dropped since he had gotten here. Going from there, it wasn't that much of a stretch to think that someone who had managed to slave most Omega to her will far longer than any would-be dictator before her had the intelligence and the means to figure out that he, just like Bray, also wasn't just another gangster, pirate or slaver.
"Here to cut me off or some shit like that?" he added before intentionally dropping his drink. Then he stumbled forward and fell into Bray to figure out whether the loose dark-green coat of his was hiding something. Just before the batarian shoved Morneau back, he felt the layer of armor underneath.
"No. I'm here to offer you a job."
On the surface he still pretended to be a drunk belligerent but on the inside his mind started to race.
Bray worked for Aria and presumably did nothing without her permission. Otherwise he wouldn't have turned into her go-to guy this quickly. So the offer he'd extend was in actuality the offer of Omega's number one. Therefor his worry had been met. T'Loak wouldn't offer him a job unless she knew something about him that went beyond his cover story. After all, one couldn't throw a stone on Omega without hitting the kind of low-life street criminal he had pretended to be for the last month. He suppressed a frown and resisted the urge to check on his salarian target. This situation was getting increasingly complicated and he really, really needed to get out of it stat.
"Not interest," it was the first, easiest way he could think of to escape this unwanted offer. While getting close to Omega's number one had been one of HSAIS long-time goals on the station, it wasn't his assignment and it also would get in the way with his ongoing attempt of kidnapping the Broker's agent. When he had muttered his reply, Morneau made an attempt to walk away. But Bray grabbed his arm.
"Don't care," he said. His grip was surprisingly loose for a guy his size. "Aria wants to talk to you," he added. "So go up there and do it."
So much for that. The specialist thought about it for a second and came up with another solution. If those three idiots got fed up with him enough to kick him out and told Aria that he hadn't been interest, he'd be in the clear. He looked at the henchmen. Bray was probably too smart to do something like that but maybe he didn't have his thugs under control.
"Thanks, but I don't want no job from someone working with skullfaces. Omega's already ugly enough. Don't need any turians in my life," he replied with a smirk before getting the desired reaction and being shoved into the counter by one of Bray's companions. As he caught his fall, he took care to spill as many drinks as he could to piss of customers and bartenders alike. He needed to create a scene, force a situation where kicking him out was preferable. Gangsters or not, Aria and her people still ran a business here.
"Hey! Watch it, asshole!" one of the costumers said as Morneau pushed himself off the counter and sent his drink flying in the process.
"Tell that to him, not me," he snapped back. "Guess they didn't teach you manners in basic."
"You want me to break your face human? Is that it?" the grey-plated alien said before stepping past Bray, shoving him again and then grabbing a hold of Morneau's black jacket and raising his fist.
"I want you to try," he gloated.
Another tug at his collar was the only reaction he got. Not good enough. The turian was still looking to only intimidate him. As he looked the alien in the eye and noticed something about his plated features, Morneau saw his opening. People like him hated it when you called him that.
"Really? That all you got, fucking bareface?"
Just like planned, he got out the insult before feeling a knee connect with his stomach and then feeling a fist crack down on his back. He caught himself before falling face first in the ground and exhaled sharply. Alright. That one might've been too good of an opening.
"You done, human?" Bray asked.
"Done giving your bareface free shots," he provoked again. While it would suck to take this beating, turians basically came with biological brass knuckles, he needed there to be more of a fight. He wasn't even close to being thrown out.
"You bastard. I'm gonna-" as soon as the music in the entire club stopped, everyone froze in place and all eyes went to the balcony that overlooked the mainbar of Afterlife.
"If you want to keep your job, you'll put your dogs on a leash, Bray," a purple-skinned asari wearing what looked like a white jacket, his current position made it kind of difficult to tell, ordered before the music continued.
"Come on, Vermilion. Let it go," the batarian growled. A second later the turian dropped him like he was the potato in a hot potato game.
"Okay. Fine. Whatever," the turian muttered before withdrawing into the crowd with nothing but his wounded pride.
"You okay down there? He throws a mean punch," Bray muttered before doing something Morneau hadn't thought possible, offer him his hand. A batarian. Helping a human.
Who knew the day would come?
"Yeah. Your guy's a push-over," he lied before climbing to his feet with Bray's help and cracking his neck. Internally he sighed. So much for getting thrown out. Okay. Time to roll with the situation. There had to be a way he could get out of this, right? An instant later he remembered that he was supposed to be drunk and put up the act again. Since the batarian didn't say anything, Morneau assumed that he hadn't noticed this small slip-up. He glanced at the balcony. What if he told Aria to just fuck off? No. That'd probably only end with him having to fight his way out of the club and spooking the salarian when he inevitably caused some kind of explosion in that scenario. Knowing his luck, something like that was just bound to happen. Hence the idea immediately went into the trash bin.
"For both our sakes, just go and talk to Aria now, alright?" Bray muttered before rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and then waving for him to move with the other. He threw a final glance at the asari, who seemed to notice that he was leaving, and then obeyed the batarian's instructions.
After he climbed up the flight of stairs to the balcony, Morneau was greeted by a whole squad of thugs, who unlike Bray didn't bother to hide their guns or their armor, and one rather mean-looking asari. She sat on the large couch and looked at him with a stern face. Then she looked to her guards and one of them stepped forward with an omni-tool, which promptly produced a noisy beeping sound.
"He's packing," the thug muttered before pulling out a handgun and leveling it at him. A second later the other armed guards did the same thing with their assault rifles.
"Course I am. This is fucking Omega," he countered.
"Okay. Take his gun," one of the thugs said before T'Loak held up her hand.
"Leave it," she said quietly before tilting her head to the side. "He couldn't hurt me if he tried."
"You seem like a confident lady. I like that," he drunk-flirted before the asari shot him a stare that instantly told him that she wasn't buying his act.
"I think you know why you're here," she said quietly.
"Your guy said something about a joke," he said, still playing pretend. Maybe he could play this mind-game long enough for her to actually believe it?
"A job," she corrected.
"Isn't that what I said?"
"Stop fucking with me and drop the shitty acting. You're really not as good at is as you'd like to believe and it's only becoming more annoying by the minute" the asari before pinching her nose and muttering something under her breath that sounded distinctively like 'what an idiot'. Then she sighed and went on. "Did you seriously think you could pay off one of my dancers to help you kidnap someone in my club without me noticing any of it?"
He cursed under his breath. That was the risk with using outsiders as bait. One never knew if they'd spill their secrets. That was why he hated working alone. He couldn't use the bait he trusted the most, which was himself. Well, no use in crying about it now. Instead he adjusted his posture, folded his arms and looked the purple-skinned asari in the eyes. As with most asari, they were a piercing blue.
"So much for paying her extra to keep quiet," he shrugged. At least it hadn't been the Red Sand lab that had gotten her attention. He had seriously doubted himself for a moment there.
"Don't be stupid. You never paid her. You paid me. There isn't a single credit here that doesn't go through my hands. Didn't you hear? I control nearly every nook and cranny of this station. I am Omega," while T'Loak tried to quantify how powerful she was, Morneau tried to glance down the balcony to see if his mark was still there but it was no use. He couldn't see shit from up here. Maybe he'd make it back down just in time if he got this over with quickly?
"Either way," she said when her monologue was over. "I don't know what you were thinking, but I can make an assumption," T'Loak went on and he continued to listen. "You're trying to kidnap a salarian who's working for the Shadow Broker's. That means one of two things. You're either a very cocky kidnapper looking for a ransom he's too stupid to realise he'll never get or you're working for someone who doesn't give a shit if they piss of the Broker. Since you don't strike me as the cocky type," really? He had tried his best to. He had even flirted with her for crying out loud. "I think it's the latter." Morneau decided to stay quiet in response. T'Loak obviously liked the sound of her own voice so he'd wait and see how much she'd give up before demanding an answer form him. "Now, if you weren't a human, I could think of a dozen groups who operate on Omega and have a feud with the Shadow Broker but since you are human and people really hate your species' guts out here in the Terminus, there's only really two groups who'd hire you. So what's it going to be? Blue Suns or HSAIS? No wait. Don't say it. You don't strike me like the vigilante type. So I guess-"
"Can we get past the guessing game and just jump to the point where you offer me a job?" Morneau interrupted before feeling his watch vibrate. He glanced at it and saw that the faint blue light had turned red, prompting a worried reaction from the guards with the omni-tool. "Low battery," he lied quickly and expertly, knowing that the thug wasn't going to get any readings from the device. "So. About that job," he added instantly, eager to cut this meeting short. The red light meant that he had just gotten a priority message, something Section 13 only used in emergencies.
"In a rush all of the sudden?" T'Loak smirked before folding her hands in her lap and clearly looking at this watch. "To cut things short, there's no job. I just wanted to see if I was right about you already working for HSAIS. If you were just another thug, you would've jumped at the chance to work for me and if you were one of those Blue Suns idealists, you would've probably taken a shot at Bray the moment he talked to you. But you did neither. You're still trying to get out of it, even now, which tells me that you've already got an employer and it's the same one that kicked Eclipse and the Blood Pack off Omega," while Omega's queen talked, Morneau read the threatening tone in her voice and planned his escape.
"What do you want?" he replied while eyeing her guards. They had relaxed somewhat after the low battery lie but they were still jumpy. Nonetheless, if her next words were something dramatically villainous like 'for you to die', he would still get the jump on them and in turn only have to deal with T'Loak herself. Which could be problematic. But he'd cross that bridge when he got there.
"I want you to take that damn salarian and never come back," the asari said, interrupting him and his planning with the surprising statement.
"Come again?"
"I don't care what you do with him, but I do care about Omega. The last thing I need is for the HSA to come to my station and try to fix something that's not broken," she unfolded her hands and got up from her couch, looking down at the Afterlife's dancefloor. "You were useful when you got rid of Eclipse and the Blood Pack but after that humanity just became a pain in my ass. So take the salarian and go before I change my mind, spill your insides over the dance floor and prompt your boss to send in a retaliation force," he looked at her for a second. Morneau was used to empty threats and ever since had killed an asari matriarch, a foolish part of him had even reached the point at which he figured he could take on most asari in a biotic skirmish. But he wasn't going to push his luck. Not unless he needed to. She was ready to let him go, so he'd take it. "Did I make myself clear?"
"Yes," he replied in a one-word sentence that was sure to give a megalomaniac like T'Loak the feeling she wanted.
"Good," T'Loak said with a wave of her hand and a smile, "Now. Get out of my lounge," she reinforced with a tone as chilly as the worst any Terra Novan winter could offer.
Without another word, Morneau did just that. He listened to her warning, which he had no doubt HSAIS was going to ignore at the first possible chance, Queen of Omega or not, Aria T'Loak was still just another crime lord, jogged down the stairs and saw the salarian leave with the dancer halfway to the dancefloor. Next he glanced at his wrist-watch and the red-light still flashing on it.
Protocol was clear. Emergencies took priority over assignments.
He pressed a button on the side of the watch and read the small text that appeared in place of the current standard-time after the device realized that it was him who was accessing its encrypted communicator. Judging by the date, this message had originally been written yesterday ago.
So why was he only getting it now?
Only one way to find out.
After the decryption was over, he started to read the short message. The data-limit was one of the few disadvantages the QEC tech built into the devices had.
'HSA vessel destroyed by unknown hostile. High-ranking personal captured. Moved to Omega. Intercept. Liberate. Terminate hostiles. – 13-1'
Ignoring the fact that this sounded like a search and rescue operation, which already put him in a terrible mood since it reminded him of the way the last search and rescue op on Akuze had ended, Morneau instantly developed a bad feeling once he had read the message.
13-1.
That was the director's ID tag.
What the hell happened?
Two Days Earlier, 3. March 2415 AD, HSASV Normandy, Edge of the Perseus Veil
Sovereign had personally destroyed a third of the Fifth Fleet's reaction force, geth troops had slaughtered their way across the Citadel and the reanimated corpse of Saren Arterius, who before his death had been on the verge of opening a gateway for an entire fleet of ships like Sovereign, had killed a member of her team and the first human Spectre. Now the galaxy was stuck in a state in between fear, cover ups, denial and partial mobilization.
And here she was.
The second human Spectre.
On board of the ship that had dealt the killing blow against Sovereign.
Flying with the crew that had helped stop Saren and the Reaper invasion.
And what was it that they were doing?
Skimming along the edges of the Perseus Veil, keeping an eye out for a geth attack she just knew wouldn't come and scouting out remote planets to 'search for holdouts' she knew weren't there because all the geth that had followed Sovereign beyond the Veil seemed to have vanished just as quickly as they had appeared on Eden Prime.
She sighed.
What an utter waste of the Normandy's potential.
"Hello Shepard," Garrus greeted as he walked out of the elevator and into the armory to pick up his weapons. With Kaidan still in recovery, the last she had heard the surgery to fix the damage Arterius had done on Virmire had produced some 'complications', Liara on Ilos and Wrex on Tuchanka, his presence hear meant that her old team was now all accounted for.
She frowned at her choice of words.
Old team.
While it had only been the better part of a month that they had worked together, Emily couldn't deny that the time on the Normandy had been different from her other assignments. More personal. N7s worked in platoon strength and with her being a Commander, she had usually commanded several dozen operatives at each given time after she had graduated from Rio. It had been nice to be part of a smaller unit again for as long as it had lasted.
"Hey Garrus," she returned before looking at the turian. Judging by whatever it was that he was humming and clicking with his mandibles, to her it sounded almost like a song but her translator didn't quite manage to catch all of it, he seemed to be in a rather good mood. "Why so cheery?" she asked while he inspected his Mantis rifle.
"I'm trying this new thing where I'm pretending that maybe this desolate wasteland won't be as bleak and dead and boring as the last six. Figured it'd make this job more pleasant."
"Oh really? I think that's called optimism," she replied before picking up her helmet. "Did you brief the ground-team already?" she asked. Garrus nodded in return and went back to his unusual mood.
With Alenko and any other people she considered senior personal gone, the turian had spent this last month with slowly, and at first reluctantly, sliding into the role of her XO on the ground. As far as she was concerned, he was doing an exemplary job, which may be down to the fact that despite not being that much older than her, he had over a decade of military and C-SEC experience to fall back on. That was more than most HSA NCO's got before retiring and from what she had gathered in the increasing amounts of conversations she had had with the turian now that the rest of the team wasn't around anymore, that number would only increase as time went on. Unlike most turians, he didn't seem to plan on leaving active duty when his mandatory service ended in the coming winter, despite his own admission that he was bad at it and that he hated the red tape that came with C-SEC.
When she had asked him why he'd do something he disliked, the only reply she had gotten had been a shrug and the quick clarification that it still beat what would be waiting for him if he left, which was apparently nothing but an estranged family and a small Citadel apartment he couldn't afford without C-SEC covering half of the monthly rent.
If she was honest, the most likely reason why that conversation had stuck with her like that was probably because of how much it reminded her of her conversation with Alenko before everything had gone to hell on Virmire. While the lieutenant had given a noble reason for doing something he disliked, he had also made her think what would be waiting for her if she ever decided to get out. Much like the turian, her answer was also not a whole lot.
"You see, if you phrase it like that, it makes it sound less like a personal revelation and more like something I read on the extranet when looking up what to do during extremely monotone military assignments."
"Given how oddly specific that was, I'll assume that that's where you got it?"
"What can I say? I've been having a lot of downtime lately."
"Well. If you've got so much free time, I'm sure we could find some more duties you could fill in for. Maybe you could help Pressley with running the crew tighter."
"Trust me when I say that you don't want me to instill turian discipline on this ship."
"What about helping in the mess?"
"I'm literally the only person on this ship that can't eat your food. What makes you think I can cook it?"
"Fine. I think Adams said he could always use a helping hand down in engineering. Maybe you could check in with him later?"
"Please. I'd break something important in the first five minutes of being down there. Leave me alone in an hour and you can pop the emergency beacon."
"Well. If we don't find anything else, you could always type up my reports. With all the C-SEC red-tape, you're bound to be an expert when it comes to that, no?"
"Now that I think of it, I am rather busy at the moment."
"Sure you are-"
"Commander," Joker interrupted, his tone lacking its usual upbeat nature.
"What's the matter, Joker?" she said before the low whine of the Normandy's combat alert echoed through the armory and by extension the entire ship.
"An unknown contact just entered the system. It looks like they're on an intercept course."
"Aren't we cloaked?"
"Yes. But their trajectory leaves no room for a coincidence. They're heading straight for us. I think you better get up here."
"I'll be right there," she said before looking at Garrus and pulling on her onyx-black helmet. "Get as many people as you can into hardsuits and get the marines ready to repel a boarding. I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Alright. On it," the turian nodded before darting out of the room. Not a second later, Emily followed him and took a different turn, heading straight for the CIC. By the time she got to the entrance, the first shot impacted the Normandy's barriers and turned the lights dim-red, a sign of emergency generators turning on. That could only mean one thing. They were under attack. She pushed herself off the wall and entered the CIC.
A second later she was treated to the sight of Pressley being caught in an explosion. In one moment, he was standing in the middle of the room, directing the crew, in the next shards of glass and metal had cut up his face and torso and blood was flowing from a dozen deep cuts. But before she could get to him to help, another explosion sent her stumbling to the left. While she managed to catch herself on one of the consoles and reach for a fire extinguisher, by the time she had extinguished the fire separating her form her injured XO, the man had already bled out.
Damn it.
"All hands. Abandon ship. Abandon ship," Joker announced over the intercom a moment later.
For a second, the crew froze. She immediately understood what was going on. They had practiced this before but none of the, had ever actually expected to have to go through with it.
"Everyone. Out. Now!" she reinforced, snapping them out of it.
"What about Lieutenant Moreau?" one sailor inquired.
"I'll get him. You evacuate."
He nodded and followed her orders, darting off to the closest life pod. A few moments later, thuds started to echo through the Normandy, marking the launch of the first pods.
Then, just after the airlock closed behind the last crew member of the CIC, a third detonation sent Emily floating. In the process, her zero-g training kicked in and she realigned herself to be able to activate her magnetic boots. When she was in position, she pressed a button on her gauntlet and her boots glued themselves to the floor. Judging by the sudden lack of gravity, their attackers had just scored a clean hit on one of the smaller Eezo cores. The Normandy was sinking, but knowing Joker, he wasn't going to accept that.
As she crossed through what little remained of the CIC, Emily looked up. Like expected by the lack of atmosphere, the Normandy's 'ceiling' now had a gaping hole in it. Through it she could see the nearby planet, a canopy of stars and a distant, increasingly yellowish glow. Their attacker, most likely.
Not intending to stick around to find out what would happen when the beam reached its brightest point, she simply assumed the Normandy wouldn't survive another hit, Emily walked through the CIC and to the helm where she could see the golden flicker of an energy shield. It had encased the cockpit as soon as the Normandy had taken its first hit to protect the helmsman. Since she could still see Joker's hands dance across the orange holograms in front of him from where she was standing, she breathed a sigh of relief. Her helmsman was still alive. She took the final steps and passed the threshold of the shield. Suddenly the sound of several alarms flooded into her ears and her HUD informed her that she was once more within a breathable atmosphere.
In the same moment, a blue streak shot out from the belly of the Normandy and quickly disappeared into the void.
As she'd learn much, much later, that had been the launch of the torpedo which, through either sheer luck or a stroke of destiny depending on who you asked, would ensure that she'd 'return from the dead' two years down the road.
"Get up, Joker. You can't save her," she said while walking over to the pilot and lifting him from his seat with ease. Gravity was the one thing the shield couldn't contain.
"No I can still get us out of here," he protested before Emily shoved him into the escape pod meant for the pilot and the crew in his immediate surroundings. As he made an attempt to climb out, the N7 blocked his way.
"We're going," she insisted, intending to get in behind him. But before she ever set foot into the pod, something made her look to her left where she saw a yellow beam rapidly gain on them. At this rate, it'd be on them way before either of them could launch the pod from within. So, in a spur of the moment decision, Emily did two things. First she pushed Joker away from the door of the lifepod. Then, just the beam was about to reach the golden threshold and kill them, she smashed her fist against the external launch button, sending the device flying to the closest planet with a sole occupant and leaving her stranded on the Normandy.
But before she could ever register the implications of that decision, the yellow beam passed the shield and produced a fiery explosion next to her, sending her tumbling through space. While her zero-g training demanded that she vented a little bit of her suits oxygen to stop herself from drifting, her body demanded something else entirely.
Air to breath.
As she exhaled, she saw the inside of her visor and the red-flashing HUD that was informing her of the loss of integrity of her armor fog up. When she instinctively reached for the back of her neck where the tubes that supplied her oxygen ran, she found them dangling and although she tried to reconnect them right until she blacked out, fighting against her increasing panic, she had no success. As smaller explosions continued to flare up around her, Emily Shepard first became unconscious, and was then pulled up into the alien ship that had just destroyed the Normandy and put into a stasis that'd keep her on the brink of death for as long as necessary.
And thus, the dice had fallen.
Codex Entry: United Nations Joint Defense Initiative
Founded shortly after the discovery of alien ruins on Mars and the ensuing colonization of Terra Nova in 2105 AD, the United Nations Joint Defense Initiative, or JDI, was established as an answer to the problematic question of who would be responsible for the safety of the UN-funded, massive undertaking of moving and the governing tens of millions of people off an overpopulated Earth. While every major player of the late 21st and early 22nd century volunteered themselves as the warden of humanity's first colony prior to the Unification Day and the founding of the Human Systems Alliance, the fact that the colonists came from all over the world meant that no single nation could claim Terra Nova as its sovereign territory and sent their armed forces to maintain order on what would be an untamed, unknown world.
Hence, after much debate and political pressure from just about every member of the UN, the United Nations Security Council agreed to restructure the UN Peacekeeping Corps into the Joint Defense Initiative, which were meant to be the de-facto armed forces of all of mankind but soon turned into a mostly security council member dominated tool of political power. Consisting of a Planetary, an Expeditionary and a Naval Force, the UNJDI initially only saw recruits from Earth swarm into the ranks of its navy, which promised adventure into the now accessible expanse of space and relied on nations 'lending' them troops for mandates within the ground forces, which ironically defeated the purpose of establishing a supra-national military.
Although first seen as nothing but a glorified, extra-solar version of the Blue Helmets by the militaries on Earth, the JDI troops quickly gained the favor of and in return became sympathetic towards the human settlers on the three colonies founded prior to the establishment of the HSA, leading to soldiers and their families moving to the worlds and further expanding their already increasing population and throwing even more fuel into the fire of a unified human government that had been burning since the first settler had set foot on Terra Nova.
Thus in 2138 AD, little more than three decades, nearly sixty percent of all JDI Planetary and Expeditionary Force recruits didn't hail from Earth but its three fast-growing colonies. From there on out, the promises of higher pay, better postings and the knowledge to be fighting for the UN, which had pushed humanity beyond Earth's boundaries, the JDI was turned from a small mandate-sponsored coalition force into the largest, sole-spaceborn military by 2149.
Two years later, on 05.05.2151 AD, that strength would become one of the leading arguments in the decision to put all human planets under a single government, making the JDI one of the key-factors in the founding of the Human Systems Alliance.
A/N:
And thus, Mass Effect 2 / Season 4 begins.
Don't really have a lot to say for this chapter, other than I finally dared to give a bit of information on the backstory, which I really dragged out because I always find that one way or another, the explanation you come up with why everyone just agreed for a world-government is going to sound inconclusive.
So instead of saying "that's what happened" I just went with "this is part of what happened" and you can fill in some of the blanks for yourself.
Also, yes, the JDI is of course supposed to be Command and Conquers GDI but IN SPACE!
Moving on, I will say one more thing.
I decided to take a bit more time with each chapter now and instead make them a bit bigger (going from roughly 9k to 11k words). I just found that by limiting myself to a certain wordcount, I rushed things a bit in SV:Mass Effect 1, especially at the end.
I don't wanna do that.
Mass Effect 2 is by far my favorite game of the trilogy and I want to capture that feeling all of us had when we played it. Whether it's watching the Illusive Man sit and look at that star or seeing Garrus againf or the first time, I wanna bring back the way we felt during all of those moments and add to them the dare I say unique setting I created with Semper Vigilo and the perspectives of its characters.
So.
What I guess I'm saying is, is that I'll sacrifice quantity in chapters for quality in narrative and atmospehre.
Or rather that that's what I'm shooting for.
Yeah.
Anyways.
For the record we're at 607 reviews, 936 favorites and 1034 follows.
See you around next time.
