As the Tempest descended toward Khi Tasira, Ryder stood on the bridge clad in Initiative armour, helmet under her arm. The white and blue paintwork shone, stark under the artificial lights. The night before she had sat repeating Liam's earlier words to herself like a mantra – "we can do this, we can do this" - buffing each armour piece over and over in turn, helmet, chest piece, gloves, boots, helmet, chest piece, gloves, boots, until she had fallen asleep with them propped between her legs. SAM had to quicken her pulse to jolt her awake, before firmly ordering her to bed. A similar solemnity rested over other members of the crew, and as the hours had drawn closer, it felt as though even the ship itself felt it, the hum of the engines reducing to a whisper. Even Suvi and Kallo, who so regularly chatted (gossiped) throughout their shift, were only speaking when necessary to exchange information that was critical to the mission, although Ryder only caught brief snatches of what they were saying. Ryder's free hand rested on the rail to the viewing platform, above which the vast Galaxy map usually sprawled.
Her gloved fingers tightened more the lower the ship flew.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot impatiently before reaching a hand inside the neck of her chest armour and the thin suit she wore beneath. Her fingers probed over her skin until they hit metal and she pulled out a thin chain. As the remnant city came closer into view, the dark outline of its towers reminding her of gothic buildings she'd once seen in Barcelona, she twisted her fingers along the chain until they reached the ring linked around it. She rubbed its smooth surface, slightly warmed from contact with her skin, between the tips of her fingers. One finger slid under the rim, tracing the etches of the familiar inscription inside. She didn't need to read it to know what it said.
For my north star.
As a last stop before their search for Meridian, Ryder had directed the Tempest to the Nexus to visit her brother, only to uncover information that had left both twins stunned. They had learned that their mother was alive and could possibly be revived, that their family was not so shattered as they had thought. This revelation had ignited such a fire within her, renewed Ryder's focus so that she jumped the Tempest immediately to her current destination: Khi Tasira, where they had unearthed both the truth about the angaran's true origins, the existence of the Jaardan and that Meridian was, in fact, at a different location entirely. This had started a race from system to system in order to scan the scourge and map the route to the real Meridian following Suvi and SAM's recommendations. Now they had returned to Khi Tasira to follow the trail from its source. Before her walk to the bridge, Ryder had retrieved the chain with her mother's wedding ring on it from a small box enclosed in her desk. Since her death, Ryder had thought about wearing it several times but even the thought of retrieving it had been too raw, too painful. Now there was a chance they would see their mother again she felt ready. As she stared at Khi Tasira, as spellbound as she had been when she first beheld it, the reflection of the lights emitted by the strange craft glowed in her eyes like a thousand iridescent fireflies. She rubbed the ring with her thumb one more time before slipping it back underneath her armour and reminded herself that she was not the first Ryder that had dared to do the impossible.
A shiver, one of expectancy, of contained adrenaline, passed over her shoulders as she struggled to swallow past the lump in her throat. They were so close now, close to an eventual future for both the Milky Way refugees and the Angara, one that had even weeks ago seemed entirely impossible. And now here she was. Hurtling ever faster towards the end game even though she was stood still. But the weight of the expectation of millions was not weighing on her alone; astride her stood Liam and Peebee, comrades not only for the mission, but in her silence. The extent of their task appeared to have even ridden the loudmouthed asari of words to express. Instead, the three of them simply stared at the tremendous sight before them together, and when she took both of their hands for a couple of seconds, neither pulled away.
"Pathfinder, I have located a safe landing zone close to the tower where I believe we could find the controls that deployed Meridian. Are you ready?" SAM asked.
Ryder nodded, turning to her companions, "Let's go."
"Up for a drink, Reyes?" a warm voice with an Irish lilt asked.
Reyes glanced upwards with a grin, "Wouldn't have let you in if I wasn't, would I?"
"Very true," Kian Dagher nodded in response, sitting across from him on the corner seat in Reyes' hired room. He pulled the small table at the centre of the room towards the seat and set down two glasses, pouring a sizeable amount of whisky into both.
"Business is doing well, I take it?" Kian asked, conversationally.
"Well enough."
Although he had never explicitly stated it, and Kian had never asked, Reyes was quite sure that the bartender was intelligent enough to at least suspect that the man renting his room, that was part of numerous business deals and often turned up at the centre of situations that he really had no place being involved in, was actually the Charlatan. Luckily, the bartender seemed happy enough to maintain his ignorance, and Reyes felt secure enough to continue in this manner. Kian was one of the more interesting people he had met on Kadara. He was fantastically loyal and obliging when you helped him, and the last sort of person you would expect to be an exile he was so approachable. However, he was also not someone to be crossed. One of Reyes' own agents had been there to observe when, during the time when the Outlaws prevailed over Kadara Port, an unwitting band of exiles, unaffiliated with any particular group, had threatened to kill all the bar's patrons if Kian didn't transfer them a hefty sum of credits. After muttering that he needed a minute, Kian had burst through a side door, shotgun in hand, and fired upon the unsuspecting exiles. He gunned all three of them down himself, without calling for either of the two krogan he employed as security, before walking back into his enclosed, barred room as though nothing had happened. The Collective agent describing this to Reyes had a charming way with words and had likened their corpses to swiss cheese. After that, Reyes often wondered if Kian had been previously acquainted with being behind bars before he took over management of Tartarus. Whenever interacting with the bartender, Reyes kept such unpredictability in mind.
"You're not hurting for customers," Reyes countered.
"Yeah, we do alright. About what you'd expect from the last club before you hit the wasteland on a planet full of pirates," Kian nodded, knocking back his first shot before immediately refilling his drink, as he always did. "That is, we do before the Collective takes its cut."
Kian's hazel eyes glinted mischievously, crinkling in a way that suggested he wasn't altogether serious. Reyes was careful not to react in any way that would implicate himself as having anything to do with the organisation, merely shrugging disinterestedly in response. Like all business owners on Kadara, Kian was so deeply indebted to the Collective that even if he were to air any thoughts on the possible identity of the Charlatan, Reyes was in the position to make things very difficult for him. Moreover, Kian also owed Reyes a rather more personal debt which made it very unlikely he would ever try to use such knowledge to his advantage. Despite this, Reyes still kept the bartender close, invited him to his private room for drinks, swung by to visit Kian when he was serving from time to time. Well, that and he was one of the few people in the port that Reyes actually liked. Most other residents in the general populace either smelt like the drains back on Omega, were relentless pickpockets or set his teeth on edge for other nefarious reasons.
Reyes leant over the table and reached for his glass, draining it with the same speed Kian had his. Kian refilled both their glasses immediately.
"You're here late tonight, you waitin' up for somethin'?" Kian asked, thin lips curving into a crooked smile.
Reyes knew exactly what he was getting at, but he wasn't taking the bait. Not yet anyway.
"Nah, just can't be bothered to drag my carcass home," he responded, with a limp wave of his hand as though to express his tiredness.
Reyes didn't really have to exaggerate, he was tired, having dealt with some particularly unpleasant business that had taken up most of his day. But he couldn't sleep yet.
"Poker?"
"Why not? If the bar's doing that well you can stand to lose a few credits to a lowly smuggler such as myself," Reyes nodded.
Whilst Kian set out the cards Reyes rummaged through his pockets until his hand closed over a pack of cigarettes in one pocket, and a lighter in another. He flipped open the top of the lighter, the flame illuminating the gold casing before dying out again. He'd had the lighter a long time, and it was older than both he and his companion's ages combined.
Kian frowned and paused mid-shuffle, "Didn't think you smoked, Reyes. Too smart for that, aren't yeh?"
Reyes frowned as he took a drag, "I only do it occasionally."
Only when I'm stressed. Only when I need it, he thought but didn't add.
Panting after fighting through a sea of remnant, Ryder beheld the model of Meridian displayed on the interface before her. The three of them stood at the centre of a long dark corridor, filled with the familiar, angular structures that marked all remnant (or Jaardan?) architecture. They had just witnessed the impossible: the scourge had parted, they could see their path to Meridian right in front of them, and with it, they could activate the vault on every planet in the cluster, make Heleus liveable.
Ryder smiled broadly, scarcely able to believe their luck, "This is the day everyone in the Initative has hoped and worked for, ever since we left our own stars."
"Congratulations Pathfinder," a deep voice spoke as if from nowhere, it had a sinuous quality, like a worm sliding inside her ear, "a great day for us all."
She knew that voice. Although the last time she had heard it, it had not been reverberating inside her head. The last time, she had died. Frantically, Ryder glanced around for the source of the sound, any trace of the Archon, and saw her companions were doing the same. Liam's gun was held high, tucked tight to his chest, and Peebee was biting her bottom lip, hard. Both were immobilised by shock, trying to gulp down their terror.
"SAM? Tempest. What…what is going on?" Ryder gasped, as a tremendous pain seared through her, pulsing through her skull and forcing her onto her knees.
It felt as though the synapses in her brain were firing the wrong signals, causing an electrical storm inside her head. An image of the Archon flared in her eyes, obscuring her vision, projecting pride, victory, fulfilment that he had finally swatted a fly that had been buzzing, buzzing in his ear incessantly. Ryder clutched at her forehead, the ringing of her ears such a cacophony that she barely recognised the sounds of her own screeches of agony. A hand pulled her upwards and she could hear indistinct voices that were not her own. Through strained eyes, sight cleared again, Ryder could see the open doorway and attempted to navigate towards it, guided by the steady fingers that encircled her arm.
"I believed you a fitting rival, but you are a false thing. A lie," the Archon spoke again, and with his words came another surge of torment, hot agony trickling down from her head and onto her shoulders, coursing lower down her body via her bloodstream.
As she continued to stagger forward a body pressed against her other side as both Liam and Peebee were trying to guide her out of the room, though her shaking legs barely had the strength to hold her up.
"SAM, SAM…?" she called for the AI in desperation, but there was no response.
Deep down she had known there wouldn't be.
As she edged painfully towards the exit, the Archon continued to mock her in his dispassionate tone. Ryder tried to block out his words, but the plunging fear and hopelessness they ignited were almost overpowering. He understood how her connection with SAM worked. He had torn SAM from her. He was going to use SAM to control Meridian and exalt the entirety of the Helius cluster. As she reached the open doorway it slid closed and Ryder crumpled to the ground, the hands of her colleagues grasping to steady her, so close yet they felt an eternity away. When the Archon landed his final blows she was on her knees, holding her head together as though frightened her skull would burst apart and shatter.
He was going to use Scott to control SAM, and he was going to take the Hyperion to get to him.
"Fall to darkness, Pathfinder. You were almost worthy."
"That's it," Kian huffed and threw down his hand, the cards scattering over the table, "you're unnaturally quiet, Reyes. What's wrong with yeh?"
Reyes raised an eyebrow and peered at the other man over his own cards, a straight flush, and chuckled, "Is this a new tactic, Kian? Feigning concern for me won't make me go easy on you, it will only make flattening you more satisfying."
"You're smoking, you're barely drinking. It's weird," Kian frowned and rubbed the back of his neck, "you're making me uneasy."
"Not as uneasy as the Pathfinder makes you," Reyes snorted, remembering how the other man had stuttered in her presence.
"Yeah, well, powerful women do that to me. I don't know what to do with meself when Keema comes in here."
Reyes sniggered, "And here I thought I was in with a chance, always bringing me drinks, trying to get me inebriated..."
"That's a bit of an occupational trait?"
"… asking me about my feelings, trying to get me to talk to you about them…" Reyes continued over him, with a sly grin. His tactic, to distract Kian from pressing him further about why he appeared off, seemed to be working.
"Ha, you're not my type. Too slutty. Slept with half the port, you have," Kian laughed.
In a manner that was far less dignified than he would have liked, Reyes spluttered into the glass of whisky he had just raised to his lips.
"Oh, come on, far less than half," Reyes shook his head before muttering, "it has to about a thousandth, at best."
"Okay, I'm sorry mate, that was harsh. A quarter."
Reyes cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at the bartender.
"Nah, you're right. More like a third."
Reyes rolled his eyes even though the corners of his mouth still curved into a smile. He realised he was glad he had chosen to help Kian, grateful that he had someone to joke with, shit talk with. Even for someone as enterprising as himself, there was seldom little else to do in the port unless you wanted to get off your tits on Oblivion.
"You do seem sweet on the Pathfinder though. I've not seen you with anyone else since you met her, come to think of it," Kian grinned, clearly acknowledging the look in Reyes eyes that said, really, again?
Reyes sighed, "You're desperate to talk about this aren't you?"
"It's only what everyone is whisperin' about..."
"Well, they don't whisper very quietly," Reyes grumbled, though he didn't mind half as much as he pretended.
"Who would've thought? Reyes Vidal, getting all misty over a woman," Kian teased.
"Oh don't start, I've had all this already from Keema," Reyes groaned.
"Although if you were, I couldn't say I blame you. The Pathfinder is one hell of a woman."
Reyes grinned slyly back, "She is, but I'm afraid she is spoken for."
At one time the very idea would have been unthinkable. Reyes had been so embroiled in the politics of Kadara, so hellbent on carving out a name for himself, in carefully constructing the persona of the Charlatan, he'd had no time for any personal relationships. He hadn't wanted them either. Hadn't for a long time, even before Andromeda. Of course, that didn't mean he didn't enjoy the company of attractive women, and men, but it had never really been anything that had any depth, anything more than easy seduction. Not on his side at least. If anything, the sort of people he met were usually only attracted to the money he had, the things he could provide for them in his position as a smuggler. Certainly, the day he had met Ryder he'd had no expectations of her being anything more than a business associate.
It hadn't taken more than one meeting to shatter that illusion.
Upon entering Kralla's Song he'd identified the Pathfinder immediately. It wasn't difficult, he'd seen her in the vids pre-Andromeda, however, he could have guessed who she was simply by the fact she was about the only person in the bar, other than himself and Umi, that looked to have bathed in the last week. This previous familiarity hadn't prepared him for her actual presence. Although obviously Alliance trained and athletic, her body hadn't been yet been sculpted by heavy fighting, and her curves were still obvious even under the thick leather jacket she had thrown over her off-duty uniform. Her eyes were large conveying her obvious youth, mid-twenties at the oldest, yet she didn't look uneasy and was more comfortable in her surroundings than most other Initiative personnel, who usually struggled to acclimatise to the rough diamond that was the port
You look like you're waiting for someone.
He had expected her to recoil at the line, blanch even. Reyes had seen enough of Alec Ryder in Initiative propaganda to know he was uptight, virtuous, some might even have considered him sanctimonious. He quickly realised expecting this of his daughter too had been a grave miscalculation on his part. Despite all the semblance of a Pathfinder, the Initiative colours, the fancy AI, she was something different entirely. Instead of looking at him with scorn, her eyes glittered, eyes the exact blue of the South Pacific ocean in the midst of summer. When he offered her a drink she took it, allowing her fingers to briefly linger on his.
This woman, the Pathfinder, might be just as good at playing the game as he was.
I was expecting someone more… angaran. But don't worry, I'm not disappointed.
That's what he'd first thought. That it would just be a game, their back and forth flirtation, teasing, trying to see who would break first. He had never thought it would be him, that he'd ask her on a date, even if he'd had to tie it all up with business in order to justify it. But after many nights of lying awake, hard, remembering the way her armour perfectly formed to the shape of her breasts, her thighs, and thinking about the sultry way she'd flick her eyes over to him whenever she knew she wasn't supposed to be – like when he fought beside them against the Roekaar, or when she'd passed him in the port when already in deep conversation with Liam - he'd given in resisting. That it would turn into anything more than attraction had also completely blindsided him. But being blindsided by the Pathfinder was something he'd gotten used to. This Ryder was completely at odds with what he'd expected. Witty, beautiful, and with perhaps a little too much of a taste for danger. There was no surprise that he'd found it difficult to rid his mind of her ever since.
It was also no surprise that he was finding it difficult to distract his mind from the fact she was almost certainly in grave danger.
"Has something happened?" Kian asked curiously, perhaps catching the far-off look in Reyes' eyes.
"Not that it's any of your business," Reyes started off gruffly, but relaxed his tone when he realised that his nerves were affecting him, "but shit's really hitting the fucking fan."
"Oh, is that why your expression looks like sour milk that's been solidified and moulded into somethin' resemblin' a face?" Kian quipped.
Reyes threw a poker chip at him, but chuckled nevertheless, "Probably."
Dodging the chip, Kian grinned before beginning to gather up the cards on the table, "You want me to leave you alone now?"
Reyes nodded, but caught the bartender's arm before he left, "Thanks, Kian."
It felt as though she'd had a badly performed operation undertaken by an inept surgeon where an organ had been ripped from her, and her body ached, ached without it. Something was absent and it took a moment for her to realise what. SAM.
Ryder sat up abruptly, her breath coming out on a rush, nearly headbutting Liam in the process.
"Shit!" Peebee shouted from overhead.
"You were… gone," Liam said, quieter than she had ever heard him and as she looked up into his eyes they shifted away from hers.
Ryder dragged herself to her feet even though it felt as though her entire body had been scrubbed inside until it was raw.
"Ryder, hey, take it easy…" Peebee called out, moving towards her.
"We need to get back," Ryder answered resolutely, taking a few steps and practically falling onto the remnant terminal.
"Ryder, the door… it's rem-tech. We can't get through it," Peebee murmured, standing beside her.
"The Tempest… the Hyperion… Scott…" Ryder mumbled, words tumbling from her like she was drunk.
She held her hand out to the controls like she had done so many times before. It was insane to even attempt it, she knew that. There was no way it could possibly work, SAM was gone, as severed from her as if her head had been cut open and the chip in her brain had been forcibly extricated. But Ryder was powered by adrenaline, instinct, not logic or reason as she flexed her fingers and waited for the console to respond. For an aching moment, nothing happened. Then, beneath her fingers, the machine began to slide into action. Her heart fluttered with excitement, with wonder, before scorching pain wracked through her body and she collapsed against the console with a loud groan.
"Ryder, don't be so fucking stupid. You can't do this without SAM," Peebee cried.
Ryder pulled herself upward, holding out her trembling hand again. It was like powering the console was draining away all her energy, as though she had replaced the power source, the connections required to use it. The old machine stuttered into action again, the doors twitching open slightly, her body shuddering along with it.
"Sara, you're going to kill yourself," Liam grabbed her wrist, voice shaking.
"We… need… to get back."
Ryder ripped her hand away from his grasp with a snarl before trying again, eyes squeezed shut, her other hand balled against her chest as she felt her body weaken, feet slipping on the floor's smooth surface. But the door was moving, she could hear the old stone scraping apart, agonisingly slow. Then the sound stopped.
"The door… it's open," Peebee gasped.
She could taste blood at the back of her throat and the ringing, the high-pitched whine in her ears had returned, but it didn't matter. As she panted, buckled over, she could see that the door was open. Ryder let out a soft. sharp moan before taking a deep breath. She let herself feel all the aches of her body, taste the iron in her mouth, probe the empty, hollow void where it felt like SAM should be, contemplate the abject fear she felt that she had failed, that everything she loved would be ashes, hundreds of faces flashing past, all dead, all gone all- And then she breathed it out again. Then she was running, running through the open doors with her aghast crewmates trailing behind. Kallo's voice was streaming in her ear again and she was calling out commands barely knowing what she was saying.
She caught Liam's voice as she sprinted for the gravity well, "Let the doc know that Ryder is hurt and doing weird shit without Sam."
Ryder threw herself into the blue light of the well and had barely stepped spinning out of it and they were outside again, most of the crew waiting to meet them. They were stood in a semi-circle, faces a mixture of fear, despair, concern, and Ryder stood still for a second taking them in. Lexi with her ridiculously huge heart that she tried to hide beneath cold professionalism, Cora, desperate for a command even though she was an incredible tactician in her own right, Jaal, the only angaran that believed in her, in fact, the first person to always believe in her, Drack, a terrifying hulking grandfather who made the best stew she'd ever eaten, and Vetra, the most badass bitch she'd ever met who only cared about making sure her little sister was safe. All of them needed her to fix it, they needed her to tell them she could make it right. And all at once she knew what she needed to do, for them, for Liam and Peebee who'd tried so hard to protect her, for Suvi, Gil and Kallo waiting for her anxiously on the ship, for her brother out there somewhere caught up in this mess because of her. So Ryder stepped past them, it was easier to show them her plan than tell them, besides, she could barely string a cohesive sentence together. There was another terminal at the edge of the platform they were standing on and she marched straight towards it, deaf to the debates that raged around her, to the questions posed to her. As she held her hand above the terminal she bit down on her lip to stifle another moan as she accessed it. Whoever the Jaardan were, their structures, their technology was so far advanced passed their own that it made even the asari look like nothing more than children tinkering with toys. As such, she wasn't able to comprehend how it worked, merely that it reacted to the requirements of the user, as long as these were within the limitations of the interface's programming. Ryder knew what she wanted it to do, and within seconds could feel the connection being passed, felt the strain of it as thousands of remnant ships were activated and supplicated to her will. Khi Tasira shuddered beneath them as the ships rose into the sky, a long shadow passing over Tempest and its crew.
"Well, fuck a pjak," Drack roared.
Whilst the others stood, eyes fixed on the sky, mouths agape, Cora and Peebee moved towards her.
"Can you keep that up? Have them fight for us?" Cora asked.
Without hesitation, Ryder nodded. Blood spattered on the panel of the interface below her and she reached for her face instinctively. When she inhaled the taste of iron hit her tongue again and she wiped at her nose, dark red smearing thickly across the back of her hand, before sucking at the cut on her lip from where she had bitten down. Apprehension clouded Cora's features as she observed this, but she nodded back. As Ryder turned to face the others, she saw their faces lightening, smiles returning as a glimmer of hope was restored, and it was that that kept her on her feet, prevented her from curling into a ball and lying there until the pain of the last few hours subsided. As she moved back towards them to formulate a plan, she saw Liam's eyes linger over the crimson that streaked the remnant interface's console.