They hadn't made it more than ten steps out of the conn pod before being greeted by a round of cheers and hurrah's, still in the process of removing their helmets and catching a breath because it felt as if he'd run a marathon even though all he'd really done was control a ship with his mind in concert with Riley.
She was breathing hard, too, so he didn't feel too bad about it.
Though he supposed part of that was probably from the thrill of a successful debut for the Valkyrie class warships. The Crimson had performed better than anyone had thought possible, including previous Jaeger pilots who were used to doing the impossible and winning against terrible odds.
"You returned all my frigates, Majors," Admiral Hackett said by way of greeting. Anderson stood next to him, similarly proud expression plastered across his face.
"Some of them have scratches, sir," Kaidan answered.
He was surprised when Riley said, "I also wrecked some of the armor on my brand new ship."
Anderson sighed as he reached out to shake their hands, congratulating them. "Unfortunately we have bad news on our end. There was a secondary breach in the Omega Nebula. Another category five. Omega was destroyed."
The news hit his gut like ice water.
"Did anyone make it out?"
It shouldn't have warmed him that Riley's first concern wasn't for the vast amount of resources they'd just lost, effectively pushing the expiration date of the war up by a significant margin considering the dwindling resources not to mention dwindling population despite their best efforts, but it did. She hadn't let Akuze close her heart like so many others might have were they in her position. She certainly made a good pretense of being unaffected, but he knew better. Knew her better and right now, the idea of the millions of people living aboard the station having their lives snuffed out was killing her.
He didn't need to be connected to her in the Drift to know that, to feel the pain she felt.
Pain he also felt.
"Two ships made it through the relay before the station was destroyed. The terminus army is redirecting refugees to Council space now. Omega was their final foothold, outside of Ilium, but with Ilium's borders closed, there's nowhere else to go."
"Shit," he breathed.
The back of Riley's hand had managed to find the back of his, and he found comfort in the small application of seemingly innocent pressure.
Hackett shook his head. "I'm sure we'll get word of numbers soon enough."
"Why don't you two go grab some chow and get some rest," Anderson said. "As soon as your ship hit the system, EDI started uploading data and some of it's compelling. Operative Lawson's already got a team on analyzing it, but what we have just might turn the outcome of this war in our favor."
"Sir?" Riley asked. She took a half step closer to Anderson and he followed suit.
"We've never been able to ascertain where the Leviathans came from," Hackett explained. "But what we've deciphered so far from the data EDI obtained suggests a location. Hopefully we'll have answers soon."
The smoking gun. Years of research devoted to figuring out how and from where the Leviathans were breaching the network. Research that had exposed the alpha relay in the Bahak system for what it was, much to the batarians dismay. Wherever they were, they had a relay similarly designed but on a much larger scale.
He still remembered the reports from the first attack on the Citadel. How the relay had rotated, which wasn't abnormal as alignment between relays was achieved for mass transit. What was abnormal was that its degree of rotation hadn't matched any known relay. That was all the warning the Citadel defenses had received before the first Leviathan breached the network.
He'd been on Eden Prime with Riley at the time. According to timestamps in the logs, it lined up with the moment he held her in front of him shortly after she'd dropped out of the beacon's field.
Most of Zakera ward had suffered massive damage and the Citadel tower had been all but destroyed by the time Alliance ships arrived and turned the tide of the battle.
"More on this later once we have more concrete results," Anderson held up a hand, forestalling more questions from Riley. "Both of you have done good and should take what R&R you can before the next attack. We've already reset the clock and our prediction team believes the next attack could happen in less than a day."
Riley didn't look happy about it but she accepted it with a brisk nod.
"Conference in four hours, barring another breach."
"Aye, sir."
He followed Riley out of the hangar to the armory. The techs were already waiting for them, ready to help them strip out of their suits and, undoubtedly, run diagnostics on the armor. He almost wished he could stay for that, but now that he'd had a moment to relax he was hungry and was keenly aware that he was covered in sweat and in need of a shower.
"Meet you in the mess?" Riley asked once they were de-armored, hovering near the entrance to the armory while Kaidan pulled on his boots.
"Need a shower, too?"
"Hell yeah."
"Twenty minutes."
She nodded and left. He headed in the opposite direction towards his quarters.
The hot shower felt good as did the clean uniform and lingering beneath the hot water longer than necessary only made him five minutes late to the mess. Still earlier than Riley, who arrived a few minutes after him, apologetic smile on her face. The scar on the right side of her lips lending the smile a lopsidedness he found endearing.
"Alenko, Shepard, very nice!" Butler shouted across the room. She raised her fist in the air and the rest of the marines in the mess cheered with her.
The news of the overwhelming success of the Valkyrie was spreading fast and he wasn't so sure he liked this aspect of being a Valkyrie pilot now that he was confronted with it. He'd always been the quiet, unassuming marine in the background. Never in the spotlight despite the commendations peppering his record over the years. Despite becoming the second human Spectre. It was kind of his thing, the one constant that had marked his career since he'd enlisted; but that was the case no longer.
They opted to take their meal away from the hall on one of the pathways overlooking the hangar deck, watching the maintenance crews go about their work, some suiting up to repair exterior damage to the ships. The Crimson was just just visible through the barrier at the end of the deck where maintenance crews could slip out easily for repairs.
"She got her first scar," Riley said.
He looked at her. She pushed her food tray to the side and leaned against the rail, still staring out at the Crimson. He followed her gaze back to the ship and leaned against the rail next to her, feet dangling over the edge.
From this distance, the mark on her armor was visible only by the discoloration it left on the hull.
"Truly a warship, now."
"Got her first kills," Riley agreed.
It was her turn to look at him and he met her gaze earnestly. Amber eyes meeting dark eyes and finding common ground, saying things that neither needed to say because for once silence said more than what mere words could. He smiled at her, his fingers searching out hers and latching on as they returned to watching the maintenance crews repair the Crimson.
Watching ship repairs probably wasn't what Anderson had had in mind when he told them to take the chance to get some rest, expecting them to hit their bunks and get shut eye instead. But it was the only way he envisioned spending his rest period, in Riley's company. Nothing else came close.
Operative Lawson was in her element, that much was obvious to Riley as soon as she entered the lab where their conference was being held, deep in the R&D department. Kaidan was already there, too, which surprised her not at all. Though where he'd found the glasses was beyond her because she couldn't recall anything from his profile nor their shared memories in the Drift of him needing them in the first place.
What did surprise her was that EDI was also in the room, her blue orb hovering above a console in the center of the room.
"Major Shepard," the AI greeted her. Lawson flicked her gaze up before focusing back on her work.
"Alenko, you did some research on the Bahak relay before the batarians kicked out the Council sponsored research team, right?"
Kaidan turned towards Miranda, setting down a datapad, and said, "Yeah, some."
"What do you make of this?"
Kaidan squished in closer to Miranda and Riley couldn't help joining them because even though she couldn't program worth shit and probably wouldn't understand what was before her eyes, it was still interesting and if she could follow along, all the better. After all, programming was just another language, right?
One she'd never bothered to learn, but still.
"Oh," Kaidan said. Riley looked at him, then Miranda who was smiling.
Miranda leaned forward. "Right?"
"This activation protocol must be in every relay, though I've never seen anything like it before."
"This protocol is not logged in any relay transport log in Council space," EDI confirmed. "While scanning the broadcasts originating from Sagar during the battle, there was one nearly successful activation sequence before override the signal. The relay accepted these parameters and compiled data heretofore unseen."
"What is it?" Riley asked as Anderson entered the room, followed quickly by Admiral Hackett.
"It's an address!" the answer came from an engineer she didn't know from the other side of the room, hunched over a terminal. "Not just an address, of course, but an address in contained within the activation protocol. You're not going to believe where it goes."
Everyone in the room turned to stare at her and her eyes slowly rose above the edge of her terminal at the undivided attention she'd garnered.
"The galactic core. Wait!" she held out a hand once everyone began talking at once, though Riley remained silent, closing her eyes.
She tried to remember just how the Citadel relay had positioned itself during the first attack from the images she'd seen in the aftermath. Not in any direction that was typical, and a large number of relays connected to the Widow System.
She snapped her eyes open and activated her 'tool as the engineer continued. "It sounds impossible, I know. But it's the only logical location, assuming this address follows the same pathing algorithms that every other relay in the network does. There's no reason to assume that it wouldn't because without already knowing the protocol, there's no way to find the protocol. Of course, we haven't tested it on the nearest relay, but if I'm correct, this is a backdoor built into every relay and it's hidden very well."
Riley found the images she wanted and brought them up on the main screen in the room. "She's right."
"I'll be damned," Anderson muttered next to her.
The images corroborated the engineer's findings. The relay was pointed towards the center of the galaxy.
"I'm compiling a database of images taken of relays during Leviathan breaches. Compiled evidence so far suggests that Specialist Traynor is correct in her hypothesis."
"We need recon data," Hackett said. "Before we dive in."
"We might not have time," Traynor said. "We've been running calculations in R&D, predictive models, factoring in recent attacks. Thessia and Omega weren't the only systems assaulted today. Two more in the terminus systems saw Leviathan attacks, but they were repelled. Four colonies lost, Horizon amongst them. The rate and number of attacks has increased but that's not the only thing-"
"-We're being herded like cattle," Miranda interrupted. "All the planets that have been lost or evacuated, consolidating our numbers. Five colonies total, one in the attican traverse, the rest in the terminus systems, that were isolated due to attacks completely disappeared. No contact. Nothing left behind once we got reinforcements in. The Leviathans responsible were gone as well. Not destroyed or taken out, gone."
The silence in the room was deafening as everyone digested the information.
Shit, the information terrified her and she'd been fighting the damned things for well over two years.
"It's what happened to the Protheans," she murmured, half to herself, but Miranda agreed with her aloud.
"Yes, it it. Doctor T'Soni's been leading an expedition team around the galaxy, funded by the Council, and her findings have told us exactly this."
"Would have been useful information to know a few years ago when I was trying to get the Council to believe that."
Miranda shared a wry grin wit her. "Undoubtedly."
"So," Kaidan said, bringing the focus back to the meeting, "We attack them."
She looked at him and met his unwavering gaze. "Take the fight to them?"
"Why not? They won't see it coming."
"From what I've read of Doctor T'Soni's reports," Miranda interjected, "She suggests no species has made their way through to the Leviathan's lair."
"The element of surprise would be on our side."
Traynor raised her hand. "But only as long as it took to activate the relay. As soon as we use it, they'll know we're coming. Relay alignment. Same way we knew something was amiss during the first invasion."
Riley tapped her fingers against the table and leaned forward. "Unless we plan it precisely to coincide with a relay breach. Use the same relay as soon as the Leviathans are through."
That got Admiral Hackett's attention. "How do we do that? We're just managing to stave off breaches as they happen."
"Bait them," Anderson answered for her. She nodded.
"Precisely."
"Bahak system," Kaidan said. "They've attacked that system the most and the batarians have managed to maintain control, but it can't last forever and the Leviathans know that. They'll want Bahak. So if we make it look appetizing.."
"... they'll come," Riley finished for him. "Two points of control."
"I'll get a meeting with the Council, see if we can't get the batarians on board with this," Hackett said.
"I'll write up the report, sir," Kaidan tapped his chin thoughtfully. She could practically see the gears turning in his head as he worked through the details.
"We'll need more Valkyries if we want this to succeed."
"Ah," Anderson interjected, "On that front I have good news. The Nova Havoc has pilots: Major Butler and Lieutenant Vega. Testing more candidates tomorrow for Drift Compatibility for the rest of the Valkyrie fleet that's space worthy. If we can hold out a few more days, we should have seven more ships with pilots."
"Good," Hackett rubbed his chin, "It'll probably take the batarians a couple days to form an agreement, unless their situation is more desperate than they're letting on. Either way, they'll want concessions out of the Council and the Alliance."
"That'll make Udina happy," she muttered. Fortunately only Anderson heard.
"Until then," Hackett continued, unaware of her interruption, "Standard deployment and response. Dismissed."
She jogged to meet up with Kaidan at the door. "Walk with me."
He gave her a weird look but didn't ask any questions until they were halfway down the hall. "Alright Riley, what's on your mind?"
She tapped his pocket where she'd seen him stuff his glasses during the meeting and he retrieved them, holding them out for her to take.
"Engineer's glasses," he said as she held them up to the light, careful to not drop them. "No prescription, Alliance wouldn't allow that. I prefer them over a visor because they fit in my pocket."
She handed them back after peering through them and flushed as she said, "They're also really hot."