One day, the ground of this ash planet is to see florae and faunae return to cover its face of great scalds of Reaper death-rays, and buildings' rubble over its metropolises and greater swathes of countryside.
At a little known hill, until the moment five ships sink down and filter free of their crews and coffin-pods of plastic, a name comes to rest in spirit…There are few physical artifacts to bury and the move itself is purely a symbol of Goodbye.
Her speech is short, and that is well since there are twenty more to do that morning before all may move to their duties for the day…There is never enough time for a decent funeral…They do what they can to at least lay those dead to rest in some sense of the word.
Some of the coffin-pods cannot find themselves under complete cover of dirt…Stones add to the mounds, or debris—from nearby rubble of homes and buildings...They cannot disintegrate the coffin-pods…Not without much waste of energy resource…
Ash spreads from the disturbance of the ground, and rises to float over other families of graves nearby…
Galah Shepard counts the crew in her head, there at this morning's ceremonies, and accounts how many credits are due to these men and women—and that she must lie about their pay…Four years later, the monetary systems experience hiccups and delays throughout the galaxy's networks…Security is porous and there are predators…Hits to what bank systems remain…Financial companies that struggle to stay afloat, and to support each other…Markets ebb and surge sporadically…
The CSA's own banks run dry as a result of predators in the financial sector...Remedies are underway, but costly…They say they can find the credits—"It takes time, but it can be done…Buy us time," they say to Galah, "Buy us time…"
Another handful of ash falls onto the mound…They must accept credit loans from the Batarian Hegemony—What's left of it…She convulses internally.
The Asari are no better…Slavers, still manage to screw us into a profit for themselves, what with their long experience—an education—on how to exploit short-term species...Krogans…Nothing to give besides violence...We will all have to begin worshipping Prothean relics alongside the Hanar, what with their desire for converts to their ideologies…They reach now beyond their own Encompassing, and Drellkind—to the rest of the galaxy that will follow for their full coffers…And Rakhana—what of Rakhana?…Stingy Drells...
The Turians at least are more generous, with the Volus, the Elcors…The Salarians have been generous but they will turn the tap off when they see it is time to wring us for something they want to force, if we do not give willingly…
Galah experiences a bump on her arm, and her thoughts skip off their tracks…
She looks right and sees Kaidan Alenko, her subordinate officer, part of the Normandy SR-2 crew…His arm grazes hers as he raises his hand to thumb his eye corners…
No one else cries as Kaidan does…Shit, I really should be…But Galah has no tears.
She might have tears somewhere inside, behind the dam she builds after…Thane…After Anderson…Herenow, they bury a friend's sentimentals…She has no grief to show...We've buried so many of these coffin-pods…I feel a vague relief that we few are alive…I feel…despair that we're alive…I feel hatred…We defeated the Synthetics, we're unified, but what have I earned us, really?…The galaxy's broken, and we're trying to fix it, and the Reapers…Are they really gone forever?…
"You should say the words, Shepard," Kaidan nudges her, now that the coffin-pod hides under the ash, dirt, and debris pile. She continues to look at him with all her thoughts that flow through her mind and Kaidan wipes his eye corners again over his former mentor, their friend's memory. "Go on, Shep—Say something about Anderson so we can move on…" The man you shot, remember?…she reminds herself, …Maybe that is the reason I cannot cry now, at this particular funeral…Kaidan manages to blink, and clears his eyes of tears.
As if he sees something in her expression, he embraces Galah—with an arm and a fist around her shoulders.
Galah pats the back of his coat, "…You know," she says to comfort, "…I envy you—for being a hopeless romantic, a man who can stay in touch with his emotions and still feel masculine inside," she feels him huff—a dry little laughter.
Her eyes are dry as Kaidan pulls away and this time wipes his tears with a small grin on his face. Galah's hand slides off his coat as a gray rain begins to fall.
The sky can cry for her—if she cannot…
It takes a hard soul not to cry at mass burials, or maybe because after each one the soul hardens and the tears stop…
It takes hardness to bury the idea of a man you love as a father almost, have no control over his death, but that it is your desire not to give it…
Galah's gaze falls on two companions who stand nearby her, and Kaidan, across the mound…They raise their eyes to hers as she focuses on some place far in the distance…
They witness as much as she has of the war, and its toll on her…They go through it with her, remain true to her throughout the Hell of it all…
All of it, even hers…
They do not need to be there, but for her they are.
They see her eyes are dry, cold, bitter…They see the pinch in her face, the grimace, the stare, the hardness…
They do not give up until they find her under the remains of that station that rests between Heaven and Earth…Selfish…Selfish…Selfish friends…
It is what drives them to win the war, and to find her…again…She does not look at them, her mind on her task…
None touch her as she begins…She casts her words into the rain—to all who listen across the gray landscape, a former city at their feet, rubble by rays of destruction years ago this day. It is London, though London has fallen, and lays empty but for souls it gathers by its memory, and Galah buries, there, those whom they find something to part physically of—on this fourth-year anniversary…
Her fingers are cold, clammy in the formerly white gloves—now with stains from debris, ash, dirt, rocks they must move to cover the barrows with…
Galah tightens her body, and stands rigidly against the rain that starts to fall heavily, fills her mouth, sprays from her lips as she shouts the words over the drum of the downpour…Hollow words from a hero, a murderer of millions.
Alive, and not alive…From her glove, she releases one more handful of dirt and ash onto David Anderson's memory.