The way we got the hell out of the Collector base had been just shy of a clown car in a Circus. In the middle of the chaos, all I was worried about was the fact that I was carrying Pathize and she was not in a good way. Fortunately, I was surrounded by N7s. Everyone was secured in place in moments, and I even got some help securing Pathize properly without even having a chance to ask. Our ship rocked heavily when the Collector base blew up, but to my surprise, the rather rocky trip - even with the inertial dampeners - didn't abate one bit.

And it seemed to be taking a very long time, too. Or maybe it felt that way.

In the meantime, I had my hands full. Pathize's vitals were going the exact opposite way of where I wanted them to, and I really wasn't equipped to help her much. She was not unconscious, luckily, and I was doing my best to talk her ear out and keep her awake. But the combination of the stims and the cocktail I had given her when the praetorian nearly split her head in half was pretty strong. Her pulse was fast, and her blood pressure was fluctuating fast. Asari had a rhythm where their blood pressure went up and down at a slow, steady pace, and that also interacted with their somewhat unusual circulatory system - they had a more complex system of blood vessels, more numerous but smaller in size. It made circulatory issues specially tricky and dangerous on them. Not that a stroke or a clot are good on anyone, but proper diagnostic and treatment were particularly difficult to do accurately because of it.

"Morgan, status," Baker called. "How is she?"

"No great sir, the way she's going she might end up with a stroke."

"Give me options," he said.

"I can give her Pretozen and some blood thinners. It'll keep her stable for a bit but it'll get worse soon. I'd rather not do it unless we're in medbay or on our way to it. Aren't we headed to the Einstein?"

"It's currently engaged with the last Collector ship, and the rest of the noise. There's enough of those oculi out there we can't even show our faces."

Now that he mentioned it, there was a lot of chatter coming from the pilots. And they were sounding very stressed.

"I'm not really equipped to do much more, sir. Asari physiology is very complex when it comes to circulatory issues."

"Do what you can. If it comes down to it, we might be able to do a burn to one of the frigates," Baker replied. Or not, was the implied alternative. "How much time if you have to do it?"

"It could work fine, but if not, it could go as soon as two or three minutes."

"All right, keep me posted."

"Aye sir."

I looked at Pathize. It didn't look like she had registered any of that. Or any of anything, really. The chatter coming from the pilots continued, and now that I realized, I kept half an ear open to follow. By the sounds of it, there were a lot of oculi out there, and we had an escort taking care of them. Even so, now the bumps and shakes made more sense. I wasn't sure just how dangerous it was, but the gunships were tough as shit. A lot like the Mako, really. And looked about as unwieldy when moving too.

"Sh... ualah... eh..."

That was Thesserit, I thought, but not enough for the translators to pick up.

"Take it easy, we're on our way back," I said. I took her hand and put my other hand on her forehead. There was no sweat, of course, but she felt warm. I was about to raise my omni-tool to scan her for hot spots, when her eyes suddenly opened. Jet black. Her hand squeezed mine, and I just had a moment to realize what was coming before a rush of emotion flooded me and we melded.

It was hard to describe. It was a lot more raw that I was used to. Raw emotion. Anger. Fear. Resolve. All the things that a Justicar seemed to keep suppressed under the surface. The meld was deep, because my thought immediately got a response. It was about the only lucid thing I got. They weren't suppressed. They were tempered. There was a lot more behind that thought, but it was as jumbled as the rest. I tried to call her.

Justicar. Pathize. Nothing. Wait, didn't the Commander call her something else? Patty?

Patty. The thought brought a memory. It was her. Shaken to the core, I could feel it. On one knee, face down, and looking at someone's feet. Matriarch Aethyta's. The words coming out of her mouth were familiar to me.

"... are my choices. Your morals are my morals. Your wishes are my code."

The oath. She had just found out about the reapers. So many doubts. So much worry. She didn't show it. Fear was just her soul telling her a cause was worthy. The resolve that followed was unshakeable. That was the only rational thing I got, what followed was more of the same. Erratic. As if she wasn't all there. I Practically yelled mentally at her, trying to get her attention. and the yell became a real one when the meld broke mid-call.

"-ear me!" I yelled.

"What's going on?" Baker called.

The VI was going crazy with alerts, and I realized that the reason the meld had broken was because she was crashing. Shit.

"Sir, she's crashing!" I replied, my hands already digging in the medkit. "If we're going, we have to go now!"

I lost track of everything else. I gave her the Pretozen and the blood thinners, but it didn't have much of an effect. As soon as her biotics started flaring, I gave her a shot to suppress them. Without being conscious of it and without removing her amp, a Justicar could very well tear the friggin' ship in half. It just kept piling up. I intubated. I had to get an extra pair of hands for the bag-mask and keep her breathing, since I had literally paralyzed all her muscles and she was no longer able to breathe. Her blood pressure was all over the place. I was only vaguely aware of everything else happening around me. Whether we were heading for another ship or not. I had to keep her alive. My head was racing with everything I had learned so far. I wasn't up to E3 certification, and I hadn't done any of the field work for it, but right now I was the one with the best chance to keep her alive.

Yes, I had asked. Xenomedicine wasn't a common skill to be found in the ranks of the N7. Imagine that.

"Oh fuck," I muttered.

"What?" that was Three.

"We need to sterilize, get me the laparoscope. If I'm right this is bad."

In Asari, there's a cluster of nerves on the inside of the spine, between the second and third lumbar vertebrae. It's highly irrigated, and controls several of the autonomic nervous system functions that, in humans, would be controlled by the hypothalamus. Why it was set up like this, well, there were reasons that had to do with biotics, but I hadn't gone deep into the details. And right now, a lesson on comparative xenoevolution was the last thing in my mind.

The way her body was crashing, there was something there. And if I was right, that something was a clot. Normally one wouldn't need to immediately go in there and start doing surgery, but clearly her body had already been crashing while she pulled me into the meld, and a lot of time had been wasted that way. On top of that, the cocktail of drugs in her system now made the clotting issues ten times worse, even with the blood thinners. As I attached the sensors to her torso and fired up a scan, Three was already working on my orders, while Sokel kept ventilating her. He slathered her torso and my hands with antiseptic, and brought out the sterilized bag with the instruments.

"How is it looking?" Three said.

"Good news and bad news. I was right and it's a clot. Good news is that it's not too deep in. Bad news is that I have to get it out."

I looked around. Lots of faces looking at me. Everyone keeping their distance and letting me work, but also watching everything.

"I'm not trained for this," I muttered, already preparing the surgery tools. Shit, between that and the fact that the stims and the implants had me close to my limit, the last thing I needed was to have a crash myself.

"It's not about training," Sokel replied. I looked at him. "Right now, in this place, your hands are the best ones to achieve this."

"That's not a comforting thought," I said.

"It is not meant to be," Sokel said. "But it is the truth. Do not hesitate. Whether you can save her or not, it will happen only if you act."

Weird. I didn't quite get what he was talking about, or maybe I didn't want to think about it. I set up the VI to get the projection of the surgery area, and prepared to make the incision. With a deep breath, I made the small cut, set up the tube, and started getting all I needed inside. There really was no good way to get to that clot through the blood vessels, at least not in a hurry. I had to make an incision, pull it out without having it release fragments that could get into the smaller blood vessels, and not make the now swollen blood vessel just pop like a balloon and cause irreversible damage. I set up the drain, prepared a 1/4 inch patch, and taking a moment to breathe deeply and steady my hands, put my fingers through the eyes of the handle and started working.


I was still in the middle of closing up the damage when the gunship landed inside the Einstein. I had no idea how long it had taken. It had been a pretty eventful trip, but I was literally anchored to the floor of the shuttle so I wouldn't go flying during the trip, and so was Pathize. It led to a very awkward situation when the medical team rushed in, and had to stop and wait for me to finish what I was doing before moving her.

Someone was going to have to clean up that mess, but by the looks of it, I had succeeded. Vitals were still on the red line, but stabilized. Clot was out. And the vein was patched. I relayed all this information and everything else to the team as we ran off, and it was only when we were about to leave the hangar I realized I had just ran off without even asking for permission. I stopped, turned around, and as soon as I made eye contact with the Commander he must have guessed what was going through my mind, because he just waved me off to keep going.

"Where the hell are we going?" I said, seeing the team skipping the lift and going for one of the pressure doors.

"We've set up on the next hangar."

"What? Why?"

"There was damage to the medbay."

"What?!" I almost yelled. Shit! The medbay was very well guarded, and quite deep in the bowels of the ship. Of course, that's relative on a ship with as much empty space as a carrier.

"No casualties, but damaged a lot of systems!"

We kept running, yelling at people to get out of the way, and headed for the next hangar. They had set up one of our field hospital, tents and all, in the hangar itself. We had four of those at all times - at least in part, since some of the gear was just used in the medbay - but they were a bitch to set up fast. Couldn't have been easy to get this done in the middle of the mess we were in. Once we got to the tent, Pathize was quickly rushed to the mobile surgical unit.

Without me, obviously.

I stood there for... a bit; or a while. With the rush of everything I hadn't had a chance to even put a thought together, it was all just the next thing after the next thing. I got out of the way a couple of times before I kind of woke up. The place was busy, and they were constantly bringing more injured. Including a good number of asari. I raised my omni-tool, hesitated not sure who I should send my request to, and decided I'd just go straight to the Lt. I sent the request, and waited for her to get back to me.

"Jinx," Kim called through the comms after a few minutes. "Damn glad to hear you're back. What do you need?"

One would think this was still bootcamp and we were just buddies, the way she addressed me. She did speak fast, and sounded as tired as I was feeling. And relieved, too. She had taken off with Shepard and the marines ahead of me, and I had had to leave before I knew whether they'd make it back or not.

"Just landed with the N7 and brought some wounded. Looks like there's a lot of casualties," I said, looking around. "I was thinking of staying and giving a hand, unless I'm needed elsewhere."

"Yeah, we lost one of the Asari cruisers," Kim said. Shit those were supposed to be able to take on the Collector ships - at least tank the hits. "We're still cleaning up here but both enemy ships are destroyed so it's mostly small fry." She paused for a moment. "Go ahead, if you're needed elsewhere I'll let you know."

"Copy that," I replied.

I made a mental note to check upstairs at some point to see how things had gone, but right now I had way too many things in my head. I was tired, in a way only the post-stim down can make you tired, but right now focusing on something that garnered no distractions was what I needed. I took a detour to the lockers, got myself cleaned up, and stored my hardsuit and weapons in. They needed maintenance, but that could wait. With a clean uniform, a shield harness, and a side arm, I felt a lot lighter.

Despite the number of casualties we seemed to have accumulated, it appeared as if a majority of them weren't too serious. Losing a ship can mean a lot of personnel involved, but it looked as if most of the asari had made it to the pods. Some of those pods had been hit by the oculi, I learned, but hardsuits do keep you alive in space. As long as they're not damaged. Radiation exposure, burns, and lots of stitches. We were rationing medigel for now, which caught me a little by surprise. I knew it was procedure, of course, but it was rarely called for.

Or maybe the damage to the medbay had damaged some of our reserves. Medigel had living cells in it, after all, so it couldn't just be kept as a pile of goo in a crate somewhere. It had to be properly kept in cryogenic storage, and prepared precisely according to specs from there. Some of the asari were a little confused about it, as if it was the first time they had gotten suture for a wound.

By the Nth time I had gotten a weird look about it, I couldn't help myself.

"A little primitive, I know," I said. looking at the asari I was stitching as I spoke.

"No, I didn't mean..." she hesitated a little, probably unsure even though I was smiling. "It's just unusual."

"It's just the old standby," I said. "You don't want to run out of medi-gel in the middle of a combat situation like this."

"I understand that," she replied. "I am just surprised. Sewing a wound together, I knew it was done in-" she stopped talking.

"In?" I looked at her again. "Old times?"

"I... was going to say ancient times," she replied.

I just laughed and went back at it. She had a lot of cuts on her legs, which made me wonder if she had fallen on a pile of glass or something. Well, it had all been cleaned and bandaged, all it needed was someone to sit down and sew it all up.

"So what do you use when you don't have medi-gel?"

"Pressure and patches. Pectan glue. Biofoam if it's a large wound. I never thought of... this."

"It does have its advantages," I said, clipping the last one and moving on to the next cut. Drat, it needed cleaning again. "It takes very little room, you can store some of the threads without any particular care basically forever, and you don't really need a lot of it. And for more specialized means there's all kinds of materials, some of them even dissolve and get absorbed by the body, so you can use them for internal wounds and never worry about taking them out." She didn't answer at first, so I looked at her and she had this confused look on her face. "Why?" I offered, because she had that question written all over her face.

"Yes. I don't mean disrespect, I just..."

"We are aliens, you know," I said.

That, finally, made her laugh.

"So what type of... stitching am I getting?"

"Well, we technically call this suture when done on wounds, instead of, you know, clothes. And you're getting nylon," I said, showing her the pack of thread. "A true classic, has been used since before I was born."

She looked at me with confusion again, almost like she was saying of course, then I realized what I had said. Oh damn.

"And before my parents were born. Or my great grandparents. Actually, it's probably older than you."

A bit awkward, but it did the trick. I kept working, she kept asking questions, and soon she started to sound more relaxed. Which was what I was trying to do in the first place. Having to evacuate through a life pod, in the middle of the most uncertain space battle in history - so far -, and then getting the pod blown up and being suspended in a vacuum waiting for rescue can't be a pleasant experience for anyone. I was seeing a lot of shock on the faces of the asari I was helping.

I finished up and left for my next one, bringing up my omni-tool to look at what I had been assigned next. Automated queue system, gotta love it. To my surprise, the top of my list was a request from Mordin himself.


"Ah, Morgan, good," Mordin said as soon as I stepped through the privacy curtain. I barely had a chance to see him, or take stock, and of course didn't even get to ask what was going on. He'd explain it, and faster than I could ask. "Wanted opinion. Patient was under swarm effect, paralyzed for an hour. No residual effects detected, but might know more?"

"Err..." I looked at the patient, and to my surprise, it was Shiala. She was looking at me with a weirdly forced bland expression, if such a thing exists.

"Familiar with patient. Good. Will help. Any residual effects?" he asked again, not letting me grab onto the train leaving the station.

"No, not that I know of. I mean... I don't think so. No."

"Good! Patient recovering well, still recommend observation. Would like talk after this." He paused for a microsecond to look at me. "Hm, pale skin, redness around eyes, rapid blinking. Stim fatigue, yes? Recommend rest, food. Patients deserve alert doctor. Even had one hour rest myself."

"Yeah, it's definitely on the list, doc. Thanks."

Mordin left almost as fast as he talked, already speaking into the comms and taking notes on his omni-tool, and I was left there trying to catch up to everything that had just transpired. He wanted to talk later, there seemed to be no serious side effects to the bugs, Shiala had been hit by them, being familiar with her would... help? I looked at Shiala, who was still looking at me.

"You know, I've only talked with him twice, and each time I feel like I missed something no matter how hard I try," I said.

"One can get used to it," Shiala replied. "Eventually," she added after a pause.

I gestured at the stool next to her bed. "Mind if I sit?"

"Please," she replied, gesturing at it. It was slightly awkward, but I had spent the last... I didn't even know how many hours making small talk to break awkwardness so I just rolled with it.

"So what happened? Swarms got you?"

"Yes. Most of us," she said, and nodded when I gave her what I felt was likely a look of shock. Not really in the mood for coaching my expressions at the moment, too much effort. "We successfully landed on the outer hull, apparently unnoticed. I blew up an access hatch, and a whole swarm was jettisoned out. I didn't think much of it, until they spread out and flew straight towards us."

"They... what?!" I said. "In a vacuum?!"

"Indeed. It would not have been surprising otherwise."

That's when I realized the awkwardness wasn't so much an interpersonal issue as the fact that she had been through a whole ordeal and was trying to keep it together. I thought about it for a moment, then reached out and grabbed her hand. I felt her almost pull back for a moment, but instead she just squeezed it. Definitely tense.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Never thought they could fly in a freaking vacuum. I mean, how would they?"

"Doctor Solus probably has the answer to that by now," she replied. "You don't have to apologize, I saw as much as you did after all. I did not expect it either."

I nodded, thinking. They were the first ones out, getting the samples for Mordin to figure out the countermeasure. so the timing... Yes, it fit with the marines being sent out so early. And we never got reinforcements. Although we technically never asked for them, but the fact that we took off without them probably meant they weren't expected back anytime soon.

"What happened next?"

Shiala closed her eyes and took a deep breath. I felt my vision waver for a moment, but it immediately stopped, and she pulled her hand back. "No, sorry, I didn't... Sorry."

"You can share it if you want," I said. "Or, you know, you can try the human way and just talk about it."

She looked at me and smiled, but before she could say anything my omni-tool pinged. I rolled my eyes in annoyance, but Shiala just laughed. A somewhat nervous laugh, but I had to admit, the timing did suck. I opened the omni and hit the comms.

"Morgan here," I said.

"Chief," Kim replied. "Commander Baker wants you in the Captain's quarters. Are you done down there?"

"This is like cleaning my room, sir. It's never done." I said, and heard Shiala snigger.

"Bunk inspection will follow then," Kim said. "But for now get your ass up there."

"Aye sir, right away." I closed the comms and looked at Shiala. "Sorry. Duty calls."

"I understand," she said.

"But I'm glad you're okay," I added, and patted her arm. "Just take it easy, you can tell me all about it later."

I jumped off the stool and up to my feet, and for a moment the entire room started to spin, almost in slow motion. I grabbed the stool to keep to my feet, and after blinking a couple of times, the spinning went away. Damn, the implants. I really needed a break.

"Roy?" Shiala called.

"I'm all right," i said, shaking my head.

"Maybe Doctor Solus was right, you need some rest."

"Yeah no kidding," I replied. "But as I said, duty calls. I'll see you later."

"Roy," she said, stopping me as I was turning to leave. She hesitated for a moment, then continued. "I'm glad you made it back safe, too."

That's not what she was going to say.

I smiled and nodded. We could talk later. I mean, it had been a while, we probably should clear up the air at least. Weird how time can give you some perspective on things. Or maybe it had been Wahea. I wondered what she was up to.


I hadn't seen the inside of the Captain's quarters all that often, but it did look messier than I had seen it before. Goes to show how crazy things had been. Her usually tidy desk had several datapads, a couple of empty mugs, and even a few food wrappers.

Are those wrappers... emergency ration bars? Who the hell would eat those?

"At ease Chief, have a seat," Commander Baker said, gesturing at the chair on the opposite side of the desk.

"Aye sir," I replied, doing as ordered.

"I just wanted to go over the op with you. Tell me, how did you think you did?"

Huh.

"How did I do?" I said, and the Commander nodded. I had to take a minute to put something together in my addled mind. "Honestly, sir, not great. I was struggling and most of what I thought would be there was wrong. We didn't even find the crew of the Chadwik."

Baker didn't seem to change expression, he just nodded. "All right," he said. "Let's take it from the top."

And take it from the top we did. Really from the top. From the preparation before we even took off to the very end when I tried to save Pathize's life. He didn't miss a single thing, he seemed to remember every single detail. And he questioned pretty much every single step I took. Why I made each decision, what I was thinking each time we had an exchange, literally all. And some of them I hadn't even thought anything, I was just trying to get on with things and stay alive. By the end of it, I was pretty much questioning every single life decision I had ever made. The Commander just sat there for what seemed an eternity before giving me his thoughts.

"Overall, you got flustered whenever things didn't go exactly as you expected, even though your intel was better than you give it credit for," he said. "And when it did, you tended to act instead of communicating with us first. The praetorian is a perfect example of that," he added, and I nodded in agreement. We had gone over that in very fine detail. "And you doubt yourself too much, as if you don't have an accurate assessment of your own abilities. But overall, you performed above expectations."

...

"Wait, what?" I said out loud. For the first time, I heard Baker chuckle.

"I saw nothing that cannot be corrected with appropriate training," he said. "And I don't mean just now, I've been observing you since we started preparing for this op." He crossed his arms and leaned back on the chair, looking at me. "When I initially inquired whether you'd be available to join us or not, what I got from the higher ups was that I'd have to decide whether we were ready to protect a tourist or not. After the two months we spent in the training camp, I was sure you were no tourist. Which leads me to this."

He flicked the terminal on, and whirled the screen around. It was a copy of my military record, it seemed. I looked at it, looked at him, and didn't say anything but the huh on my face was probably eloquent enough. I could feel it forming.

"You went to the Vila. Made it to N1 quite early, and in my opinion, prematurely. Although I suspect there's reasons for it that aren't on your record." He waited, but I only shrugged. Wasn't really going to lie to him, but didn't want to say much. Benezia had pulled some strings for that one, as a way to test me as it were. Odd, but she seemed to have an odd way of doing things sometimes. "Then failed through N2. And after that, went on the E branch. Currently E2, training for E3, and branching into xenomedicine?" It wasn't a question, even if it was phrased as one. "You didn't even attempt to go through the N2 training a second time."

"Second time, sir? Is that a thing?"

"Twenty percent of N7s recycle at least once. You can submit a petition for reconsideration, seek a second recommendation from your superiors... But you didn't even try. I don't see anything particularly egregious on your N1 notes, so why?"

Was he serious? He seemed to be. I kinda made a shrug like isn't it obvious, but he wasn't having any of that judging by his lack of reaction. Which was a bit odd. How exactly should I explain it? I didn't know it was possible to recycle, but the truth is that I hadn't tried, just as he said. I didn't see a point to it.

"Sir, I'm... To be honest, it's odd to explain. You could say I'm tech impaired."

"What, you need to work on your tech skills? That's your excuse?"

"Not an excuse sir, it's not just that, it's..." I paused for a moment, hands held up as I organized my thoughts. "I grew up with basically no access to modern technology. I didn't even know what an omni-tool was, until I was given one after the batarian attack on Mindoir. It's not just not being good with tech, I don't even know what tech is supposed to be able to do in this day and age. Like before this, I only found out there were climate controls in my apartment in Arcturus because- because a friend used her omni-tool to modify them. I didn't even know what that thing on my wall was, never mind how to use it." I stopped talking and took a deep breath. "Truth is, sir, you give me a problem, and I'll put pieces of my ammo block through it until it stops being a problem. That's what I do."

"And xenomedicine is not a challenge?" Baker said.

"Well it is, but it's not like I'm so far behind in that respect. We didn't even know aliens existed until what, twenty odd years ago?" I replied, and shrugged. "I thought it could be handy."

Baker took a deep breath and leaned forward, with his forearms resting on the edge of the desk and his fingers interlocked. "Morgan, what is it you're trying to get out of your time in the Systems Alliance?"

"... sir?"

"A military career is something that demands commitment and dedication. It is not a bad career for the right person. But for what I can see," he said, and pointed at the holographic screen, "that doesn't look like it. Mind you, there's nothing wrong with it. The majority of recruits don't stay for longer than six years. The Systems Alliance offers good training for two reasons. One, to make good use of its people. And two, to help those who leave have a way to get back into civilian life. So when you say that medical E training is handy, I'm not entirely sure what it is you're thinking."

He paused, but I wasn't sure what he was aiming for, so I kept quiet.

"This... whole thing. I'm not stupid, I'm aware there's more going on than we've been told. And for whatever reason you're in the middle of it. But put that aside for a moment. What is it you're trying to do here, Chief?"

I looked at Baker, and had to think about that one. It... really had started the moment I arrived. Knowing what was going to happen. Finding Shepard? Yes, that, too. There was that clear thought, that I had to keep her away from all this, and the weird sensation of that one hole in my memory where a few things - just a few - had been lost. No, not lost. Just... kept. Maybe it had been a stupid idea after all. The Systems Alliance? Just because the information I had was seen from the point of view of this anonymous N7 I had ended up identifying as Shepard, made it so I chose to go into the Systems Alliance. And then... What exactly? follow in his footsteps? Would it really come down to one person with a small team being the key to mobilizing the entire galaxy?

Probably not. After all, the exact opposite of that was why I had gone to Benezia. Because it wasn't down to one person. Not even Benezia, she was supposed to mobilize a lot more than herself.

Maybe I should have a chat with her.

The Commander waited patiently for me to finish my mental wandering, so I gave him the most honest answer I could.

"Sir, I'm not sure. I know that this," I said, and vaguely gestured around us, "is not even half of it. There's probably going to be a lot more. So, you know, if I got myself in the middle of it, I better be ready."

"And you have to do this personally?" Baker said. "Don't get me wrong, you were helpful, but we could have done this without you, too."

Couldn't help it. It came to mind immediately, and I blamed the fact that Mordin was right there in the ship with us. "It's gotta be me, sir. Someone else might get it wrong."

Baker chuckled at that, at least. He shook his head and sat back. "Well, have a think about what we've talked about, Chief. I think you need some clarity. And your superior officers aren't there just to give you orders, you can come to them for advice, too."

"Aye, thank you sir."

I left the office feeling a bit confused. At the bottom of all that was some notion that the Commander had actually found my performance acceptable. And I had a lot going through my mind. He didn't really need to tell me to have a think about things, they were already buzzing in my head, but the way he had presented it, it had put in perspective that I needed, indeed, to get that clarity pronto. But most of all, I wanted some food, some shut-eye, and some freaking quiet. At that point, I was ready to just eat an emergency bar and call it a night.

That is, until my omni-tool pinged again. I took a deep breath and answered.

"Morgan," I said.

"Chief," a familiar voice answered. That was Lieutenant... was it Luca? "What's your status? Are you free?"

I knew it was just an idle question. We did run integrated schedules after all. "I am sir," I replied. "What can I do for you?"

"The SACE are conducting a survey of the remains," she said. "The Admiral wanted to know if you could join in and lend an extra pair of eyeballs."

SACE, that was the Systems Alliance Corps of Engineers. We really came equipped for anything and everything it seemed. An extra pair of eyeballs. Implied was the fact that I was the only one who had any familiarity with the Collector tech.

"Right away sir," I replied. Rest would have to wait. I made a meal out of some stims, and headed for the lift.


Author's Notes: Here it is, the assault on the base. The attack on the Collectors. The end of the last remnant of the Protheans. And with it, the change that ensures that the galaxy will never be the same. Because hiding from the reapers is easy, until you hit them where they can hear you. I thought about who'd make it out, and considered two things: One, Shepard makes it in-game with a much more heterogeneous and less cohesive group than a bunch of highly trained N7s; two, I decided that this outcome did play well with the reputation N7s seem to carry in-universe. So everyone makes it, though not in good shape, and Roy struggles a bit and scrapes by (more on that next time, don't you worry).

Also, now Nazara knows. Or rather, Nazara doesn't know - but wants to. And the reapers have done this thousands of times.

That was a big one. For a while I juggled with the idea of having the reaper show up as the Einstein dealt with the last of the collectors. The general plot, had it gone that way, would have been something like wiping the Collector base with the radiation pulse, and that being felt by the reaper. It'd show up while the Alliance is poking around. Then... well, that was the thing. It's not a fight the Einstein can win, so it was a matter of deciding how they either bluffed their way through it, or ran away and what they lost to accomplish it.

But, instead, I think this is more in the style of the reapers. No need to flex unless you have to. Observe, learn, and ride that (admittedly, quite deserved) sense of superiority to decide how to win.

Shit will happen to the galaxy.

But before that, we'll be dealing with the aftermath. Next time.

So! If you like what you see, you can always throw a bit of support (which is GREATLY appreciated) my way at:

tinyurl (period) com (slash) y2q9cop6

Thanks for all the reviews! Let's get this published so we can move on to the next step. But a couple of general things that have been brought up:

Several of you asked: The asari Shepard found will be revealed a bit later, they're not anything canonical (so OCs!)

Rabcor: Thanks for all the feedback. As for Saren, we don't have the exact date, but we know that Sovereign/Nazara was "found" in 2162 by a batarian group and that Saren got involved with them shortly afterwards, so yeah, Saren/Sovereign were a thing even before Roy made it to the galaxy :)

Next time, on Mass Effect: Divergence: Aftermath, and someone gets a scolding. until then, ta-ta!