Not like this.

Lieutenant Cora Harper grimaced, averting her eyes – the corpse was still smoking a little. Someone produced a sheet, draping it gingerly over the deceased, though it did little to dampen the smell of charred flesh.

A new beginning. For all of us. For me. But not like this.

The person at her feet didn't even get to have that beginning.

She nodded at the curt report by a damage control officer – the team had successfully isolated the generator, limiting the fire, and were hosing down the sparking, smoking wreck with retardant foam, the baby-blue colour at odds with the current situation.

Cora wrinkled her nose at the acrid chemical smell, touching the comm holo on her wrist. 'Generator fire under control, Pathfinder. One KIA.'

The reply was scratchy, the voice of the human Pathfinder barely audible over the interference. Noted. Finish up and report to the bridge. Bring Scott with you.

'Affirmative. We'll be there in five,' she replied.

Cora stepped back to allow the orderlies to manage the corpse, scanning the area and reading the situation, as Ygara had taught her. Everywhere she looked, there were signs of disaster, of suffering: consoles sparked, their holos jittery, unusable; colonists were lying on their sides, holding onto injuries, being tended to by other colonists; amongst the unhurt were people who were looking about numbly, their gazes glassy –

A first-aid kit lying on its side on the floor caught Cora's eye, medigel canisters spilling out of it.

Ygara cursed, grabbing one of the canisters and applying a liberal quantity of medigel over Janae's wounds, the younger asari drawing a shaky, bubbling breath. Tethys, stoic as ever, towered above them, providing covering fire.

A demonic, blood-red hue tinged the sky –

Cora shook her head, the memory dissipating. She knelt and righted the first-aid kit, scooping up the loose canisters and depositing them back within.

It was a familiar sense of urgency that she was feeling, but the situation was so vastly different. People were injured, dying, but this was the Initiative, peacetime. Not conflict in the Verge, not warfare – which she was intimately familiar with, her skills honed on the battlefield. The urge to stop and help fluttered in her chest, a butterfly desperate to escape confinement –

Cora banished the thought before it could take hold, inhaling deeply and closing her eyes. She was the Pathfinder's second; she had a job to do, and she wouldn't be doing anyone any favours if she disobeyed orders, went off in her own direction. To keep her focus, she recalled one of her favourite verses from the prayer book she kept in her footlocker, her lips moving wordlessly as the words flowed gracefully, effortlessly, smooth and easy.

'Only I shall remain,' she finished the prayer out loud. 'And I shall serve.'

Cora exhaled, opening her eyes. And strode forward, her mind clear.

The door slid open at her approach; the cryo recovery bay was chaos. Techies were running all over the place, checking on cryo pods, while Dr. Carlyle was coordinating medical efforts, his team complemented by several uninjured Security personnel. Items were left strewn about haphazardly, a result of the grav reset Cora herself had performed not ten minutes ago; she sidestepped a whole batch of syringes that lay scattered on the deck, pointing out the danger to a medical assistant.

'Scott, you up?'

The Pathfinder's son panted, stepping away from the cryo pod he'd been helping to shift. 'Y-yeah. I'm up.'

'You broken?'

He shook his head. 'No, ma'am. What's going on?'

Cora hooked a thumb over her shoulder. 'Walk and talk. The Pathfinder wants us at the bridge.'