Semper Vigilo

by CunkToad

Due to a drive core malfunction, a human vessel arrives just in time to save the Council Envoy from the yahg. What happens when humanity enters the galactic stage not as the race that got attacked by the turians for breaking a law they weren't aware of, but as the race that saved a turian platoon from certain death? M for wartime violence, pre ME1 - ME3, no OP humanity.

128. The Procession

Chapter 128. The Procession

---

20. May 2417 AD, Bahak System, Free Port Jhera

After their ship had carried Vega and the rest of Delta Team across the Hegemony's border, the newly minted team leader had received a message from Doctor Kenson. She'd arrived ahead of them, pretending to be just another smuggler looking for profit on Jhera. Her vice? Holographic interfaces.

As it turned out, to no one's surprise really, both the Hegemony's isolationist stance and the dent that the HSA had shot into their economy during the Blitz had done a number on the quality of life of its citizens.

Everyday goods that had been commonly available and been dependent on for centuries had become rare luxuries and no amount of government propaganda was going to stop the more well-off parts of batarian society from trying to maintain the standard of life that they'd grown accustomed to after over a millennium as a part of the galactic community.

Truth be told, times like these Vega was glad that human space was considered to be largely underdeveloped, poor backwaters. While toothbrushes that used mass effect fields to get that special brush in were nice to have, the distinctive lack of influence of Council tech on human life made things a lot easier. Even if shit went bad between the Council and Arcturus things would never be… well, as bad as this. Barring a few wealthy-off people in the core worlds, not a whole lot had changed for the average-joe like himself. And as far as he was concerned, that was a good thing, if only because it lowered the chance of something like Jhera existing in the first place.

The smuggler hub was essentially a small city of prefabs, built on top of and within an asteroid that the local colony viceroy of Aratoht had envisioned to become the corner stone of an artificial asteroid belt that his mining corporation could exploit to make the planet below a prosperous part of the batarian frontier.

To achieve that purpose, Jhera (or as the Navy called it, VN-12J) had been supposed to be equipped with a large network of maneuver thrusters that could be used to steer the asteroid within reach of the colony. Simultaneously, local engineers had started to build the necessary mining infrastructure to house the mining overseers and the slaves who would do the actual work.

Like a lot of the plans made by batarians, the work had never been finished.

While the big, directional ones had gotten set up, the shortage of engine parts that had occurred after the HSAN had utterly decimated the batarian navy during the Armstrong Campaign, the smaller maneuver thrusters had never been completed and the asteroid had never been moved to its intended position.

Instead of filling the viceroy's pockets, Jhera was now just awkwardly hanging halfway between Aratoht and the Alpha-Relay. And in place of batarian miners and other industrialists, a coalition of multi-species smugglers, pirates and rogue traders had taken up residence. Right underneath the nose and knowledge of the now separatist, military leadership of the planet, which he would assume had probably hanged the last viceroy anyway before assuming power.

To him that would seem in line with what a group of entrenched military caste families that had previously led the External Forces during the Skyllian Blitz would do to a member of the ruling caste these days.

Although he didn't know the full details, the simple gist of the conflict was this:

Following the harrowing defeat the batarians had experienced at the hands of the galactic community, a good chunk of the Hegemony's military had turned on Chairman Amon, the Internal Forces loyal to him and the rest of the Athok-Caste and began to fight against the new, cult-like religious movement that Amon and most of the rest of Khar'shan's leadership had started to follow shortly before the war.

After the External and Internal Forces had started to trade blows, the fragile order of Hegemony space had collapsed. From there on out the various viceroy's that governed the frontier in Amon's place had either grabbed power and carved themselves up their own little empires from a couple of colonies or lost control over their holdings to groups that varied between slavers, pirates and other rebels.

Ever since then, batarian space had been a free-for-all battleground.

Or at least that's what Kenson had been able to gather up to now by talking to the local traders.

While the IFS had known that things had gone to hell in the Hegemony after the war, no one had guessed that things were this bad. Given the state of their rival, Vega assumed that not even the HSA knew just how screwed up things had become. Otherwise they would've swooped in with a couple assault carriers and finished the job years ago.

Or maybe they did know and had just decided to sit back and enjoy the dying throws of their rival instead of throwing even more soldiers into the grinder.

Both possibilities were equally likely.

"You Delta-Squad's leader?" an older woman with short, blonde hair asked while sitting down next to him at the marketplace. He glanced at her ever so slight. That was Kenson alright.

"Yes."

"Where's the rest of your team?"

"Familiarizing themselves with our surroundings," he might not have been a spy or a spec-ops soldier but even Vega knew that you didn't lead your entire squad into a discreet meeting.

"Good call, this place is weird. Walk with me," Kenson stated before tugging at the sleeve of the heavy brown leather jacket Vega was wearing to conceal the suit of soft body armor he'd put on underneath. They left the marketplace and started to pass the various shopping booths and locals that had been built into the prefab factory hall they were in. "You notice anything strange around here, Sergeant?"

"Other than the fact that the four-eyes are shaking hands with all kinds of aliens, us included?" Vega retorted while watching a yellow-striped batarian haggle with a human merchant with green-dyed hair without either one trying to (obviously) kill the other.

"Yes, other than that," Kenson stated.

"No. Suppose I haven't been here long enough if you're asking like that."

"Probably not," she said before ducking into an alleyway made up by two misaligned smuggling shops. "Listen," she said sharply while staring through his eyes and into his soul.

Vega was now officially confused. And a bit scared too.

"… for what?" he asked, pushing down the intrusive thought telling him that he really needed to find a way to ditch asap. While he had been looking for a way out ever since June, deserting the IFS in the backyard of the Batarian Hegemony was nearly as dumb of an idea as joining them had been in the first place.

"The humming," Kenson said. "This asteroid has a rhythm to it. A pulse," she went on before bringing up her omni-tool. "I know what you're thinking. I thought it too when I got here. It's some kind of life-support system. Or maybe I'm just a bit paranoid because of all the batarians around me but…"

Vega looked at the hologram. It was a seismic reader of some kind and sure enough, there was a clearly recognizable, faster growing pattern of vibrations which was weird in so far that Jhera shouldn't be capable of having seismic activity at all. It was way too small for that.

"Well unless this place is bigger on the inside and is somehow hiding the core, it's gotta be the gravitational pull from the rest of the system, right?" he offered.

Kenson looked surprised for a second, probably because she didn't think a meathead like him would be able to know about that kind of stuff.

"Too rhythmic. And it wouldn't get faster either," Kenson replied. "I know you think this shouldn't matter. I came here to find out why batarian cyborg monsters attacked you on June and you're here to get me back out but…" she pinched her brow while Vega fought his flashbacks from Eden Prime. Then Kenson grabbed him by the arm again and led him further down the alleyway. "Okay, what I'm about to tell you is one of the best kept secrets of the war, so I'll need you to forget about it as soon as we're done here. Can you do that?"

"Probably not," he answered honestly.

"Splendid," the doctor sighed. "Okay, here's what you need to know. We ran into a type of artifact that caused this exact type of pattern twice already. Once on Shanxi during the war… and once on June. Both times things ended… badly."

Vega thought back to the morphed, cybernetic monsters and the subsequent NTX deployment. Pretty badly was one way to describe that particular mission. He'd never seen something like that before in his life, except on Eden Prime of course.

As the thought crossed his mind, a sudden link was forged.

If it was artifacts that was making these people go crazy, there had to have been one on Eden Prime too. Hell… given the scale and suddenness of it all maybe even several.

All of the sudden a lot of things made a lot of sense.

"Yeah, that's one way to put it," he murmured. "These artifacts are they…" he stopped himself because he had no idea where he was going with that. "These things made shit go down on June and on Eden Prime, right?" Kenson nodded. "Alright. Do we know who made them?"

"We have no idea," the doctor admitted. "But if there's one here on the asteroid, then we might just be able to make sense of that," the blonde scientist went on. "I already came up with a plan. It's stupid and dangerous … but it might be our only shot to understand who's doing this," the doctor breathed in. "If there's an artifact like that here on Jhera, it probably hasn't been active for long. Otherwise the whole place would already be overrun. That means that someone brought it here and activated it recently. We need to find that someone, question them about the artifact and then destroy the damned thing before we end up being a part of the third rendition of that horror show."

Vega looked at her with wide eyes and let slip a hint of his lack of attachment to the IFS.

"Screw finding out who brought it here and why. If we're about to enter a cybernetic zombie apocalypse, we need to get the hell outta here," he made a move to reach for his earpiece to tell his team about the mission but then, just as Kenson stopped his hand, realized that those idiots were all true believers.

"I've got very clear orders from Admiral Drescher, Sergeant. We can't ignore an artifact like that."

"And I've got clear orders from Petrovsky to make sure nothing happens to you," he said. "And guess what. That's not going to happen when we've got hordes of mech monsters bearing down on us," he poked the doctor in the chest.

"I fought these things twice. Once on Eden Prime and once on June and let me tell you something, once this ball starts rolling, nothing short of scorched earth is gonna stop it. You know what it took to stop this on June and that was a small, isolated case in one damn cave," he went on in an angry whisper, "but you weren't there for Eden Prime. The turians and us? We threw everything short of WMDs at those things. And I mean fucking everything. Infantry, tanks, paladins, gunships… shit we had CAS over our heads non-stop and heavy artillery shelling our positions danger close for two days straight and even that barely slowed these things down," he took a step back from the doctor.

"You weren't there for the nitty-gritty bits and you definitely didn't see the numbers after the fact because those got classified so hard they're probably hidden somewhere next to wherever the HSA hid their NTX-stash, so let me just drop a little truth bomb for you. When shit kicked off on Eden Prime, they sent two hundred of the meanest, baddest sons-of-bitches in the galaxy to check on the main landing site. Blackwatch, N7, Recon, ASOC… everything that had a spec-ops designation and could still walk after the Cooper-Wells blast rushed to that fucking space port to get eyes on whatever had just hit us and stop them from doing it again… and not a single one of them came back. Two-hundred battle-hardened SOF guys with decades of experience, preternatural determination and the best gear and training money can buy… and not one of them came back. Not a single. Fucking. One." Vega narrowed his eyes. "Jhera ain't Eden Prime, obviously. But me and Delta aren't Blackwatch either. So when this pops of, and if there is an artifact like that here it will pop off, you and me and everyone else on this rock will fucking die. There's no sugarcoating that," when he was finished, Vega ran his hands along his mohawk and cursed under his breath.

What the fuck had he gotten himself into?

He should've just stayed a merc or better yet, cashed in a psych discharge and spent the rest of his life surfing on the pacific coast…

Kenson visibly swallowed after his rant.

"I… understand," the doctor said calmly. Then she pointed behind them. "But I'm afraid we won't be able to leave until after the Procession." When Vega turned around, he saw a group of figures in dark purple hoods moving through the street. The first one was carrying a bent silver staff of some kind and walked with a limp, a movement pattern mirrored by the other individuals behind him.

"The what?"

Kenson pinched her nose. "It's some kind of local religious holiday. It's coming up in a couple of days and the port's being closed until after it's over. You were on the last flight in."

Vega felt a chill go down his spine.

"And you mention that now?"

"I only found out today, after you arrived."

This was fucked.

They were fucked.

'Alright. Think,' he told himself.

"We need a place to hunker down," Vega stated before cursing under his breath. Religious nutjobs were always bad news but did they really need to show up right as he was trying to get Kenson out of here? "You've got to have a safehouse, right?"

"I've got a place to stay. I wouldn't call it a safehouse, though. This isn't an HSAIS op, you know?"

"Yeah… I know. Still better than nothing though." he moved a hand to his omni and was about to open a channel to the rest of Delta before registering that one of the hooded figures had stopped in the streets and was staring straight at him … When he met their eyes, he swallowed.

The thing looked like the average male batarian… except for the fact that both of his right eyes were glowing with pale blue light and that half his face seemed to hang down like he'd had a stroke or something. And then there were the metal tubes coming out of his left nostrils..

As their eyes met, Vega blinked in shock.

As long as the eye contact lasted, he felt ice run through his veins. There were three routes he could've picked here. Fight, flight and freeze and his brain had chosen freeze. Only when the hooded batarian mercifully moved on did Vega regain his nerves.

It had already started.

"Your place. Now," he ordered. Then he spoke into his comm-piece "Delta, we've got an abort. I say again, we've got an abort. Get ready to get the hell outta here," after finishing his warning, he looked at Kenson. "This Procession thing… how many years has it been going on?"

"How the hell should I know, I just got here too…" Fair point. "That batarian… the artifact…"

"Yes," Vega nodded. "Move."

---

21. May 2417 AD, Viper Nebula, Blue Suns Stealth Frigate Urshanabi

As Zaeed stood at the helm of one of the stealth ships that was carrying them to the Bahak System, he couldn't help but smile and whistle.

Humans, turians, freed batarian slaves, crossing over into Hegemony space to go fuck shit up.

Karma was finally catching up to those four-eyed assholes.

When he'd started this, he'd never thought he'd see the day.

But here it was.

And the cherry on top of all of it was that he was the one leading the charge.

"Why are you … doing that with your mouth? It … stings in my ears," the krogan standing next to him in a set of predominantly white armor that had only recently received a couple of dark-blue Suns marking, asked.

"It's called whistling, Grunt," Zaeed stated with a grin. "And I'm doing it because this one's been a couple of decades in the making."

"The batarians we are going to fight… are they worthy enemies?"

"Intel says they're External Forces vets. About the only people in the Hegemony who know how to fight a proper war against something other than unruly slaves. So yes. They're tough, alright," Zaeed replied. While he hated their guts, he wasn't above admitting that the External Forces knew how to throw down. Sure, they'd still gotten their asses kicked by the army and the marines but then again… who wouldn't?

"If they're strong, we should attack them head on instead of going on these raids we've planned. Make the fight more interesting."

"And that's why you're not in charge of tactics," Kuril observed form behind before walking up to Zaeed. "All assault teams are reporting combat-readiness. I just got off the line with Holderman. Cerberus' team isn't a Cerberus team at all. It's an ASOC squad. Callsign Phantom. They're coming in with a salarian stealth cruiser. The Mirage of Halegeuse."

"ASOC you say?"

"Yes."

Zaeed let out a longer whistle at the mention of the HSA's premier spec-ops outfit. Last time he had worked with ASOC, they'd still been kicking down Iffy doors in the occupied Fringe.

"I don't understand. The humans are sending… a sock squadron…?" Grunt asked confused.

"No. ASOC," Zaeed repeated with a prominent pause between the A and the SOC. "It's a shortcut. Means Army Special Operations Command. Mean motherfuckers. You'd like 'em."

"They fight head-on then?"

"Hell no. They fight dirty. Turn your brain to pink mist and blow up half your base before you ever see 'em. Buncha ghosts that lot with all their camo-crap."

"Hm. Cowards then," the krogan observed.

"Don't let them here you say it. They might just pop your plates for it," Zaeed advised.

"Anyone who can't fight face to face is a weakling. I'd crush them like insects."

"I'm sure that's what all the Blood Pack fuckers thought too before their lights got flicked off, son," Zaeed retorted. "Word in the army was that they popped more krogan warlords during the merc war than most krogan alive these days have. But that's beside the point anyway. They're our allies, so you're not touching them. Am I making myself clear?" the older Blue Sun demanded.

Grunt grumbled but then looked at Zaeed.

"Yes… if they're krantt to you, they're krantt to me too," the krogan responded before the console in front of them started to beep.

"Looks like the salarian probes hit the system," Kuril observed. "Huh. That's odd."

"I don't like that look, Kuril," Zaeed observed.

"You shouldn't," the turian veteran responded. "Looks like there's something strange going on in the system."

"Could you be any less specific?"

"Comm traffic from Aratoht suggests that the batarians are expecting something. They're evacuating local populations to air raid shelters and mobilizing their garrisons throughout the system."

"So our cover's blown?"

"That's the thing… it's not us that they're worried about," Kuril stated before turning up the volume and allowing a clearly batarian voice to flood into the room.

"-First contact expected within the next seventy two hours. I say again. The Viseroy has declared an immediate lockdown. Short-range scanners have detected an extra-galactic swarm of objects approaching the exterior heliosphere of Bahak. All citizens are expected to secure themselves and servile populations within their designated shelters. Orders from military personal are to be followed unquestionably. Disobedience will be met with lethal force. The identity of the approaching contacts is unknown. First contact expected-"

Zaeed looked at Kuril. The turian's grey features were stoic, except for his stone-colored eyes. Those betrayed the nervousness within him.

"Huh. Looks like Cerberus wasn't fucking with us after all."

"Doesn't seem like it, no. Things just got a lot more complicated, didn't they?" the turian wondered.

"Mission stays the same," Zaeed stated before wiping his hand over the holographic screens and bringing up the designated landing sites and priority targets that the modified version of Blue Solstice had taken over from the original war plan. Power plants, space ports, communication centers, food distribution centers and water filtration plants, the planet's sole hydroelectric dam… the HSA had somehow managed to accurately map every single vulnerable spot of Aratoht's infrastructure and then subsequently put a bullseye on top of all of them.

Originally the plan had been to blitz the system, put a couple of Kinetic Bombardment Systems and drone cruisers in orbit around all of those targets and then drop a couple hundred tungsten rods and several thousand UAVs on their heads to keep them busy while the rest of the fleet moved on to Hegemony core space and wiped out every major military and government target they came across, probably with Clean Slates or NTX, collaterals be damned.

But Arcturus had clearly grown a consciousness over the years.

The sentiment during which the plan had been conceptualized, a time where millions of human citizens had been slaughtered and/or abducted in a genocidal campaign aimed at depopulating the Verge from humans and re-populating it with batarian colonists, was gone.

Arcturus' blood lust and its willingness to truly take the gloves off had receded.

In his mind, the batarians had gotten really lucky back then.

The desire to be accepted and aided by the Council had made Arcturus restrain the worst of the Alliance's war hawks. Thing would've been way different if that shit had happened fifteen years earlier. When the old breeds from the Fringe Wars had still been running the show, there wouldn't have been a batarian military asset left standing by the time they would've been done. Hell… people like Stelios and Vasquez probably would've insisted on being in the first wave down to Khar'shan just for old time's sake.

Just as he was about to ponder what things would've looked like if Noé and the rest of the greatest generation had still been in charge, the hourly blaring of holographic countdown clock Cerberus had given him tore Zaeed from his thoughts.

"Spirits, I hate that noise," Kuril murmured while just as 119:00 hours flicked to a 118:59 hours.

"Well if we do our job properly, we won't be hearing it much longer," Zaeed responded before waiting a moment to see if the final abort message popped up. When it didn't, he spent another second wondering what exactly it was that Cerberus planned to do to stop what was coming for them, determined that he was probably better of not asking too many questions and then opened a channel to the other ships of the infiltration fleet and cleared his throat. "Listen up, people. Seems like Cerberus didn't get cold feet after all. The mission's a go and you're green to approach your designated targets. Good luck, happy hunting … and remember to double-tap," he looked to Kuril and shared a nod. "No time for prisoners on this one."

---

Meanwhile, 21. May 2417 AD, Bahak System, Free Port Jhera

"You can't tell me this is normal. No way this shit happens every year. There wouldn't be anyone living here if it did," Mason observed while he and Vega were moving against the wave of people rushing through the supply depot. While the rest of the team had hunkered down in Kenson's apartment, Mason and he had gone out on a scouting and supply run, a decision they'd come to regret the moment they'd seen that nearly all of Jhera's supply centers had been taken over by armed, hooded figures clearly in line with these 'Procession' freaks.

"You can say that again," Vega replied before an asari bumped into him and lost the rucksack filled with food rations she'd been carrying. A panicked look crossed her face before she dropped to her knees and quickly began to pick up the rations. Vega, who could hardly bear the sight, decided to get down on one knee and help. "Here let me hel-" he began before the asari flared purple and stared at him with burning anger in her eyes.

"Touch one of those and you'll lose your head," she threatened, prompting Vega to raise his arms and back off.

"Alright," he said before getting back up and gesturing for Mason to follow him in taking a few steps away from the cornered animal he'd just unknowingly disturbed.

"So much for being a good Samaritan," Mason observed while Vega stuffed his hands into his leather jacket right as one of the limping priests walked out of an adjacent supply center, flanked by a large, hulking… thing. Vega couldn't tell what it was. It stood a head taller than the priest and was covered in a purple tarp that hid all its features. What it didn't hide however was the unconscious and beaten-looking batarian it was dragging behind it.

"Heed their warning!" the priest declared, his voice sounding like it was filtered through a radio. "Blasphemy will be punished! Heresy will be eradicated!" he declared before the hulking, tarp-covered thing raised the batarian into the air by his arm simultaneously to the priest performing the same gesture. "Believers must not fear! Ascension is nigh!" he went on before Mason nudged his head at Vega in a 'let's get out of here' fashion. The former marine obliged.

"I thought things were bad when Arcturus put the boot down after the war… but this is at least twenty times worse than the most fucked up Orwellian shit the HSA ever came up with. And that's saying a lot. We need to ditch. Quickly," the veteran IFS trooper went on while they put distance between themselves and the supply center.

"How? Docks are closed down, remember? Ther's no way we are getting to our ship," Vega replied.

"There's gotta be another way in and we need to find it. Otherwise we're fucked," Mason stated while looking after the hooded creatures. Then he handed Vega the backpack he'd been carrying. "If I'm not back by tonight…" he said, making a move to turn around. Vega grabbed him by the arm however.

"Don't be stupid man. That's a one-way trip and you know it."

Mason met his eye and then pulled his arm free.

"Maybe. But it's not like we got alternatives," he gestured back at the supply center. "Unless you plan on converting and cutting your eyes out, that's going to be us sooner than later and while I don't know about you… I'd rather be in the ground than be turned into … whatever those things are," he threw Vega a final look. "Good luck, man."

Then he was gone.

---

22. May 2417 AD, Viper Nebula, Blue Suns Stealth Frigate Urshanabi

"All ships reporting successful penetration of batarian defenses. First Squadron has engaged the He3-installations around Bastzuda and Second Squadron is reporting engagements around the military refueling stations at Urmola. Third Squadron is waiting for us to give the all clear to begin engaging surface targets on Aratoht," the Suns naval officer, a freed batarian, reported with a tablet in hand.

"Permission granted," Zaeed replied as he looked at the holo-map of the Bahak System currently being displayed in front of him. Most of the batarian ships appeared to have taken up position around the system's mass relay, leaving the spaceborne infrastructure of the gas giants and Aratoht itself surprisingly vulnerable. They were anticipating an attack, that much was clear. They just hadn't expected it to come in the form of stealth ships slowly leap-frogging into the system without the usage of the relays. "Tell them to begin hitting the first wave targets. We'll join them soon enough."

---

23. May 2417 AD, Bahak System, Free Port Jhera

"Fear not! Ascension is nigh!" a guttural voice called while Vega peaked out from behind the shutters of Kenson's apartment. It was one of the robed freaks, flanked by a malformed batarian that was dragging a salarian out of an opposing building by his broken leg. Since they'd ditched the tarps yesterday, he now knew what he'd seen at the supply center. Ugly fuckers, the lot of them.

"Repent! Repent for your heresy and embrace them! Their gift will set you free!" Vega already knew their destination. He'd watched this happen a couple times already. They were dragging the poor fucker to the marketplace's magtrain station. Once there, they'd… monster-fy him somewhere on the sublevels.

With him in the room were the Doctor, Essex, and Kamille. Nicky and Milque were next door standing guard at the flat's door. Mason meanwhile had never made it back from his volunteer scouting run to the spaceport, something Vega was going to blame on the cult that had taken over the station these last couple of days.

While it probably went without saying, this year's Procession had gone off rails. The asteroid was on lockdown, cybernetic horror shows were roaming the streets, most of the populace was either in hiding, imprisoned or dead … and asteroid-quakes were rocking Jhera every three hours.

"If they keep going at this pace, they'll start clearing this building today," Kamille observed while fiddling with her PDW. The submachinegun was the largest thing they'd brought on this op and given how big the malformed batarians that the cultist had whipped out were, Vega doubted they'd be able to drop one of them with an SMG. Sure, Essex was biotic… but his AMP was busted and the caloric deficit was getting to him more than the rest of them. "What's our move, Vega?"

Delta Squad's leader stepped away from the shutters and looked at the group.

His last idea had been to lay low and wait until Mason came back.

That had obviously worked like a charm.

"Way to put him on the spot, Kamille. Like he's got a fucking plan," the blonde biotic laying on the couch murmured before Vega could say something.

"At least he's still useful, Essex."

"Fuck you."

"You'd wish."

"Not in my current constitution, no."

"I say we go ahead with the doctor's reactor plan," Nicky murmured from next door.

"That's practically suicide," Vega injected.

"So is staying here," Kenson injected. "Unless you've got a miracle hiding somewhere in your jacket, we're just dragging out the inevitable right now."

"It's not going to work," Vega stated. He'd already shut down the idea of drowning the station in radiation when Kenson had first suggested it, primarily because he'd still held out hold for Mason to return but also partly because he didn't really believe that batarian-made fallout shelters were going to protect them from radioactive doom, let alone that they were actually going to reach the reactor. They'd have to go through the magtrain stations to get there. And that place was probably as close to a hive as these things had.

"Well neither is hiding," Milque offered from his position by the door of the small flat. "No disrespect, boss, but if I'm going out, it's with my boots on."

"Sounds like you're volunteering to go look for Mason," the biotic of his squad offered.

"Certainly beats staying here with you, Essex."

"Well, door's over there," the blonde man offered before pointing in the wrong direction. The delirium was really getting to him. What the hell had Petrosvky been thinking sending a biotic with a crashing AMP on an op like that?

Scratch that… what had he been thinking agreeing to this?

"I notice-" Milque began before the sound of a foghorn interrupted him, marking the end of another hour. Ever since the Procession had taken over Jhera, the sound went off like clockwork, played over the asteroid's intercom system. "Seventy-seven," he counted. "Can't believe we've been in here for three days straight," he added before a metallic banging noise echoed through the walls. Vega glanced through the shutters again and sure enough, someone was starting to ram in the door of their building.

With a sigh, he pulled the pistol from underneath his leather jacket and looked towards Milque.

"You won. We're leaving."

---

24. May 2417 AD, Bahak System, Aratoht

After taking a deep breath through his nose to really get the smell in, Zaeed smiled and slapped Grunt on the back. "Fucking spectacular," he complimented while the krogan lowered his flame thrower at the remnants of the batarian defenders of the hydroelectric dam's command center. "Just… fucking spectacular…"

"They're weak, so… flammable," the krogan observed while kicking the charred remains of the commander of this holdout. Over the last twenty-four hours, the Blue Suns had executed a series of synchronized raids throughout the system, dividing the batarian attention between various targets to disguise the HSA operation on Jhera. Judging by the heavy resistance they were facing, the plan as working.

"I hate to be the one to break it to you Grunt… but even you'll catch fire when someone douses you in napalm," Zaeed replied before gesturing for the engineers to move in. "Ready the charges and get set for evac. Five minutes form now!" he roared into his comms before taking a moment to look out of the reinforced window of the command module. Before him was a valley filled to the brim with industrial districts, all of which had been using the water and power of this very dam to fuel Aratoht's economy and thus played their own personal part in the cruelties the Hegemony had unleashed on the galaxy.

That'd end today.

While he would've preferred to unleash a flood on the valley and quite literally wash this stain off of the planet's surface, the Suns had a reputation to maintain. This was a batarian colony. Those plants weren't manned with volunteers. They were being maintained by slaves.

The Suns made it a matter of personal honor to never kill anyone in shackles unless they absolutely had to. So they'd just blow the power stations, lay some traps to prevent quick repairs… and then fuck off back to orbit to wait for Cerberus to either tell them to leave or go after the next target.

"Zaeed, this is Kuril," it came over his private radio.

"Reading you."

"Some EF ships just got past the blockade. They're headed for Jhera… and we believe they were carrying some noble blood."

"Why?"

"Because one of their corvettes just caught a disrupter torpedo meant for one of the transports. I don't recall batarians doing that… unless the yellow cloaks are involved."

"Hm…" Zaeed murmured while watching how a bunch of captured batarian guards were being led to the edge of the dam and then subsequently being thrown off by the Suns escorting them. As Zaeed watched them smack on the concrete-hard water, he smiled. Good fucking riddance. "Aren't these guys supposed to be separatists who told the ruling caste to fuck off?" he asked Kuril over comms.

"Yes. But they're also still batarians… I wouldn't be surprised if they picked some new figurehead already."

"Fair point," Zaeed stated before getting the sign from the sappers that the charges were planet. "Dam's about to get taken out. So what do you say we cut the chatter about batarians loving themselves their dictators and instead get ready for the assault on the military compound?"

"Sounds splendid," the turian replied dryly. "Six, by the way."

"Aren't you supposed to be leading form the rear?"

"I've got a sniper rifle, Zaeed. I can work from anywhere… what about you?"

The merc considered the mass of burning bodies in front of him.

"Do we count kills that happened on my instruction too?"

"We didn't last time I checked."

Zaeed sighed.

"Zero then."

"Huh. Slowing down, are you?"

"Chains of command, my friend," he replied while watching Grunt reluctantly marching towards the evac shuttles and their gunship escorts. "Besides. I had to break in the rookie. I'm sure I'll catch up at the base. Recce says they've got a lotta fresh faced recruits there. If that's true, it's gonna be like fish in a barrel over there."

"Understood. Be seeing you there, Massani."

---

Six Hours Later, 24. May 2417 AD, Mirage of Halegeuse

"If we really go through with this without a warning, that's gonna be a lot of dead folks," Hofmann commented from Haugen's right while looking at the images the salarian stealth probe had transmitted.

Phantom-Squad, Sergeant Undrak and him had just been called in by Lawson to review the intel and adjust the last-minute planning accordingly.

Apparently Aratoht wasn't just home to the remnant of Balak's separatist group. Since the last intel had dropped, the colony had become a sanctuary from anyone fleeing from the increasingly indoctrinated Hegemony. One million desperate batarians, cramped into a colony meant for two-hundred thousand… all about to be annihilated by the destruction of the relay.

"They're dead whether we warn them or not, Sergeant," Lawson replied. "The only question left is if they die instantly and unterrified because we succeed in destroying the relay… or if they are the first people to get slaughtered by the Reapers."

"I get that. But they deserve a chance to make a run anyway," the dark-haired Terra Novan stated firmly.

"And go where? The Verge?" Lawson retorted.

"Or the Terminus," Hofmann replied. "Batarians or not, we gotta give them a shot at running."

"We can't do that. We'll destroy our one chance at delaying the invasion if we do," the raven-haired Cerberus operative replied. "Besides, there's neither enough time nor enough transports in the system for a total evacuation of the system. Even if we were to start right now, we wouldn't save more than five percent and knowing the batarians, those five percent wouldn't be refugees. They'd be the people you've been fighting for the last twenty years."

"So better to just let all of them die together?" Undrak injected.

"The needs of the many-" Lawsons tarted

"- outweigh the needs of the view. I was raised turian, I understand utilitarian thinking. But even so I have to agree with Hofmann. Not even giving them a chance to run is messed up. Even by your standards."

"I don't fully disagree, but the decision's already been made in the highest echelon. The only thing left for us to do is to comply with our orders and buy the galaxy a little more time. We trade a million lives here to save trillions down the line," the Cerberus operative replied before looking at Haugen, clearly hoping that he'd somehow smooth out the rift that was appearing right now.

"You can't really be okay with this, Captain," Hofmann injected. Unlike Miller and Mav, who were expectingly silent at the prospect of sacrificing 'a few' batarians to save human lives, his second was clearly bothered by the same thing that had been keeping him awake at night: the prospect of single-handedly extinguishing an entire star system.

"I'm not," the blonde officer admitted. "It's wrong on every imaginable level," he went on before sighing and raising the one argument that he had been clinging on to ever since being told what Arcturus was expecting Phantom to do. "But this is bigger than any of our principles. Miss Lawson's right. If we warn the separatists, we'll destroy our one chance at mission success and give the Reapers a highway straight to the heart of the galaxy. We can't let that happen, no matter how many lives it takes. Failure here means that the world as we know it ends next week and that's something I'm not going to let happen, no matter the cost," as he finished his argument, Haugen closed his eyes.

"This is probably the worst thing we'll ever be asked to do. There's no sugarcoating that. But even so, it still needs doing," then he opened his eyes and looked at Undrak in particular. He already knew the answer to his upcoming proposal for the rest of Phantom. Even if Hofmann disagreed with him, he'd be right next to him until they either finished this or died trying. Same for Miller and Mav. So the batarian was the only one who he really needed to make the offer to. "Anyone who wants out can do so right now," after a moment of silence and a series of nods from the men in the room, Haugen looked at the salarians who'd be flying them in on the same dropship as the last times. "How soon can we insert?"

"As soon as you're finished, Captain," the reddish pilot of the STG vessel retorted.

Haugen nodded and looked at Lawson.

"Are we done here?"

"Yes."

"Good. Gear up and be at the hangar in one hour. I'll meet you there."

"Roger that," Hofmann replied in place off all of Phantom. When his squad and the salarians had left and it was just Lawson and him in the room, Haugen took a step towards the comm unit embedded in the desk.

"I'll brief the Admiral, you go talk to your Director. Rally point's the same for you," after nodding in silent acknowledgement, Lawson too left the room. Truth be told, Haugen was surprised that she was towing the line as well as she did. Sure, she had said she would… but a part of him was still expecting her to go dancing out of line, even after everything that had happened.

As he finished punching in the clearance codes, Hackett's holographic form appeared in front of the captain.

"Admiral Hackett, Sir," he greeted to which Hackett returned his salute.

"Captain Haugen," the old, scarred man said before folding his hands behind his back. "I just received word from Cerberus. All Suns forces are in play and engaging their targets. They've got the batarians in the clinch and they're not going to let go anytime soon. Are you ready to deal the killing blow?"

Haugen, despite his personal concerns regarding the fate of the batarians in the system, nodded.

"Yes, Sir. Ready and eager."

"Good," Hackett nodded. "Captain, I don't think it needs to be said … but this mission has to succeed. No matter the cost required. Batarian… or our side."

That was another thing Haugen had been pushing into the back of his mind.

This mission had a lot of 'Dear Miss Haugen, I regret to inform you that your husband, Captain Tore Haugen…'- potential. More so than usual.

It wasn't a suicide run per say, they had a clear plan of action, one that included their evacuation. But considering that they were about to enter a three-way conflict between the batarian separatists, the smugglers and whatever vanguard the Reapers may already have in the system, he could see this turning into Phantom's last rodeo pretty quickly. He wasn't blind to that fact.

Having said that… he sure as hell didn't plan on his team and him becoming the next posthumous Star of Valor recipients who's circumstances of death were listed as 'classified'.

He'd been dodging that medal for the last twenty years and saw no reason why anyone in Phantom should be receiving a full military honors funeral any time soon.

"I completely understand that, Sir," the blonde officer replied.

"Then you'll also understand why I'm going to use this opportunity to thank you and your men for what you're about to do," Hackett said to which Haugen raised his eyebrow ever so slightly. He figured it was barely noticeable… but clearly it was enough for Hackett to start explain. "I know you don't want to hear it. And I hope you know that saying it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. But even so… if this mission ends up being the end of the road for you, then I want you to know that I'll personally ensure that all your families are going to live to see the end of this war. Considering that you're about to lay it all on the line for the sake of the galaxy, that's the absolute least I can do."

Haugen nodded firmly, took note of the hardened expression of the man in front of him and then decided to end on a nostalgic, optimistic note.

"I appreciate that Sir, but this op's just gonna be another Tuesday for us. We'll win. We always do. And before you ask… yes, that is my honest assessment and not just some ASOC bravado," that had been what Hackett had asked him in regard to his offer to go ahead with the assault on the slaver base with just Phantom at his back. That had been a little over eight years ago, back when they'd first crossed paths on Torfan.

Much to his delight, Hackett seemed to remember the exchange as well. For a second, a rare, short smile crossed his scarred face before quickly disappearing in favor of a serious look and another salute.

"Happy hunting, Phantom-Lead. And to save HSAIS the nervous breakdown… try not to get another nickname this time around. You're already infamous enough with batarians as it is. No need to one-up yourself."

"Understood, Sir. They'll never know what hit 'em."

"I expect nothing less, son. Hackett out."

---

Two Hours Later, 24. May 2417 AD, Bahak System, Free Port Jhera, Sublevel 4

"Fucking shoot it already!" Vega groaned while desperately holding on to the back of the mutilated batarian that had just dropped in on them. They'd just been sneaking through the subterranean layers, well on their way to the reactor, when out of nowhere one of the cybernetic monstrosities had fallen out of the airduct.

"Hold still and I will!" Kamille replied before a lone gunshot rang through the tunnel. A spray of cybernetic fluid splashed against his face and the thing between Vega's arms went limp.

"God fucking dammit that was close," Essex commented before helping Vega roll the alien off of him. The exhausted biotic had gotten better ever since they'd found a bunch of batarian field rations. But since Nicky's leg had ended up on the bad end of a metal claw two levels above them and he could barely limp at this point, their effective fighting strength hadn't really changed all that much.

"They' definitely know we're here now," Milque offered while glancing behind them just as a howling noise echoed down the corridor. "Better double-time it."

"Not an option for him," Doctor Kenson observed while doing her best to assist their injured squadmate while Vega climbed to his feet and picked up his pistol.

"Then maybe it's time for him to take one for the team," Essex shrugged. But before Vega could tell him to go fuck himself and remind him that up until recently he'd been the one they'd been dragging around like deadweight, the wall to his left started to creak. At first Vega figured that this was just another asteroid-quake doing its job. But then a panel popped open. Behind it, the striped face of a yellow-black batarian looked back at him. On instinct, Vega leveled his pistol at the center of the alien's face.

In response to the openly hostile gesture, the batarian narrowed his four eyes and showed off his needle-teeth.

"If you want to live, I suggest you lower the gun and get in here," he growled.

Normally he would've been skeptical of any help offered by a batarian.

But if it was between stumbling into a trap and maybe getting killed or staying outside and definitely getting killed, he'd pick the maybe.

Vega lowered his weapon and jumped through the darkness behind the gap in the wall.

When he didn't immediately die, he turned around and waved for the squad to follow him.

"You heard him, get in here!" he ordered, to which the IFS militia complied.

Just in time too.

Right after Kenson had finished lifting Nicky through the hole and climbed in herself, the howling on the now hidden side of the corridor grew so loud that Vega just knew the monsters were right on top of where they'd just been.

He breathed a sigh of relief and turned around to orient himself in his new surroundings.

When he did so, he found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. The batarian who had just saved him was now leveling a weapon at his face. And he wasn't alone either. Behind him, a whole squad of batarians clad in External Forces armor had revealed themselves.

"Disarm and detain them. And watch out for the one with the yellow hair. He's got an amp scar," the striped alien stated while nudging his head to the right. "Start with this one. He's the leader," he added before one of the other batarians, this one was nearly pitchblack, snapped the pistol out of Vega's hand and then forcefully pushed him to his knees.

"Nice call, dickhead," he heard Essex grumble to his left.

"Don't fight them, comply," Vega offered in response while trying to assess his situation.

There were ten batarians in the room and they looked like they'd been through the ringer. A couple of them were injured, one had two of his eyes covered in bandages, another had his arm in an improvised sling… and their armor was covered in spots of blue liquid.

They'd been fighting these things too.

Probably not just once either.

"Yeah, not like you left us with much of a choice anyway," Milque replied while Vega felt his hands being cuffed behind his back. Judging by the invisible force pulling the cuffs together, those were probably temporary shackles of the magnetic kind. When they were done with the whole squad, the yellow-black striped batarian lowered his shotgun and took a knee in front of Vega.

"Alright human, I'll only ask this once…" he began before showing Vega his combat knife. "Who do you work for and what in the pillars' name did you unleash on this station?" when he was finished, he brushed the dull side of the knife along Vega's throat. "I've had quite the emotional day with half my platoon getting killed by these things during insertion… so I suggest you think before you answer untruthfully… Otherwise whatever comes out of your mouth will be the last lie you ever speak. I promise you that much."

As Vega looked the batarian in the eyes, he wondered why the hell he felt like he'd seen this guy before… his ugly face seemed so very familiar.

"We're human separatists!" Kenson suddenly blurted in before he could speak. "We came here to investigate … whatever it is that caused this incident!"

"Separatists you say?" the batarian stated before getting up, walking a few steps to the left to where the injured Nicky was being held up and quite suddenly kicking the already hurt trooper in the back with his armored boot. "I don't believe you!" he shouted before sitting down on the back of Nicky, lifting his head by his brown hair and this time holding the sharp side of his knife against his throat, applying just enough pressure to draw blood. "The whole systems under attack by the Blue Suns and you really expect me to believe that you're not part of their operation?! Give me one reason why I should believe you instead of just taking your heads right here!"

Vega locked eyes with Nicky, who'd frozen in fear, and then glanced at the batarian. In a moment of pure brilliance, one pretty convincing argument suddenly shot through his mind.

"If we were Suns… or if we had anything to do with what's happening on this station… would I really have jumped at your help instead of you know… just blowing your face off the second I saw it?"

The batarian narrowed his four eyes, tightened the grip around his knife for a second and then … removed it from Nicky's throat before somewhat forcefully smashing the trooper's face into the ground hard enough to knock him out.

"Four-eyed fuckers!" Milque called from Vega's right before receiving a rifle-stock to the head for his troubles. When the batarian who had hit him was satisfied with the result, he put his foot on Milque's neck and leveled the barrel of his blocky battle rifle at the sniper's head.

"If they don't have answers, there's no point in keeping them alive, Sir."

In response to the soldier's attack, the batarian sheathed his combat knife and folded his hands behind his back.

"Perhaps," the black-yellow batarian offered before walking up and down the line of Delta Squad and stopping in front of Kenson. "Or perhaps not," he took another knee and examined the IFS scientist for a moment. "You said you were sent to study this … incident you called it," he recalled before grabbing Kenson by the shoulders and lifting her to her feet. "While I'm not blessed with the wisdom of those born from knowledge … to me that sounds a lot like you know what's going on here… Your group… it already encountered something like this before. Otherwise you wouldn't have been sent here to begin with."

Kenson looked at the batarian and then nodded.

"What's your name, human?"

"Doctor Amanda Kenson."

"Be welcomed, Doctor Kenson," he stated before touching his chest. "My name is Commander Ga'Dhral Balak," Vega's eyes widened a little at the mention of that name. That's why he'd seemed so familiar. The resemblance to the original Balak, the one the HSA had been trying to kill ever since the end of the Blitz, was uncanny. He was probably a brother… or maybe even a son.

Kenson, somewhat uncertain of how to progress, threw a sideward glance at Vega, an action that prompted the Commander to grab her by the chin and snap her gaze back at her.

"He's not the one making your decisions anymore," Balak-Junior offered. "I own you now… and because of that, you will tell me everything you know about these abominations," he clarified before looking to where Milque was still being pressed to the floor. "Stop aiming at my property, Sergeant. We'll need strong serfs to rebuild the mines after we've defeated this incursion."

"Yes, Sir. Apologies, Sir," the batarian soldier offered before standing down… an action that was followed by laughter from Kamille.

What the hell…

"Are you seriously going to take us prisoner? Now of all times?" she asked in amused disbelief. "Have you looked outside lately? There's a fucking zombie apocalypse going down… and still all you can think about is slaving?"

While Vega and the rest of his squad turned their heads, mortified at what that might mean for all of them, Balak simply let go of Kenson's face, walked over to where Kamille was kneeling in front of another guard… and cracked his armored backhand across her face. To her credit, the former MP didn't let one slap knock her out or over. Despite the blood flowing from her now opened cheek, she glared at the batarian.

"That the best you can do? Hitting someone in handcuffs?" she provoked, giving Vega the impression that maybe she wanted Balak to kill all of them to spare them from whatever he had in store for them.

"Disobedient vermin," the batarian spat back with pure hatred before pulling his pistol from the holster on his chest and pressing his finger against the trigger just hard enough to not cause it to fire. "If I didn't have friends who will pay exquisitely to add you to their collection… I'd end you right here," then he let the trigger go and holstered the weapon again. "Put them with the others. If they get any ideas, shock them and kill the crippled one. No permanent damage to the rest."

Hold on… the others?

If what Balak-Junior was saying was true and the Suns really were attacking the system in addition to what was happening on Jhera… the batarians couldn't possibly be using this opportunity to pull of a slaver raid on the station… right?

… as he was being led out of the small room and into a dimly lit magtrain station where a cargo train that seemed to double as a slaver barge was currently waiting, Vega realized that that was in fact exactly what they were doing.

Fucking batarians.

They never changed, did they?

---

Two Hours Later, 24. May 2417 AD, Bahak System, Free Port Jhera

"Execute," Haugen whispered into the radio before pulling the trigger of his Valkyrie and watching as the heads of his own target and those of the three other cybernetically enhanced batarians guarding the entrance to the first of the mining thrusters exploded. "Targets down. Diamond formation and advance," he ordered before the four members of Phantom gathered around Lawson and Undrak, who were using both regular infiltration kits as well as chameleon blankets for this particular operation. While it wasn't an ideal solution, it allowed them to join Phantom on the ground.

They'd landed a little over thirty minutes ago and ever since then one thing had become abundantly clear: the Reaper vanguard had already overtaken the asteroid. Ever since touching down, they'd run into nothing but husks. The smugglers, slavers and pirates that they had been expecting were nowhere to be found and the closest they'd gotten to seeing batarian regulars was a flyby of a badly damaged Hegemony frigate fleeing from Blue Suns' gunships.

It was a little too good to be true.

Not that he was complaining, mind you.

Experience told him that that would change soon enough.

After Phantom had reached the door of the command module of the first set of thrusters, Haugen gave the order to force entry only for Mav to report that the door had already been opened forcefully.

"Secure it," he instructed and after half a minute of searching the module, they found it to be completely empty… barring for the obvious signs off a fight. Blood, bulletholes, blue cooling fluid spatter… the head of a batarian miner put on a literal spike embedded in the wall.

When the final all clear came from Hofmann, Haugen lowered his rifle ever so slightly. "Miller, post security, Mav, get on that console, Hofmann, tell the salarians to move in the overwatch and then start booby-trapping," to ensure that the thrusters stayed turned on, Phantom would rely on a two-layer security. They'd plant anti-personal explosives all around the command center and have salarian combat drones enter into overwatch patterns above it, thus preventing anyone from sabotaging their own sabotage.

"Christ on a cross…" Mav muttered while walking over to the command console and wiping the blood off of its analogue interface.

"Is it still operation?" the captain inquired while tracing the movements of the equally camouflaged Lawson through his HUD. Judging by the way she was lingering in front of the decapitated body that had been pinned to the wall by three large Kishock Harpoons seemed almost fascinated by the carnage…

"Afirm," Mav stated before punishing in the codes to activate the module. "But it doesn't seem like it's a centralized system. Or if it was, someone shut it down."

… that complicated things.

"Great. Then we'll have to activate each cluster of thrusters individually," Undrak concluded.

Haugen looked at the map of the other thrusters and then towards Lawson.

"How many to get this thing moving?" he asked.

"At least two more. Three if we want to make sure," the Cerberus operative stated before taking a step away from the batarian. "Does it seem strange to any of you that the husks would use a Kishock?"

Haugen only offered a shrug in return. It wasn't really something he'd considered up to now and given that this place would be atomized in a couple of hours, he couldn't really claim to care either. Judging by Phantom's silence, they were seeing things similarly.

"Nav point to the next thruster cluster's been added, Sir. Six hundred, north-northeast," Hofmann told him.

"Copy that. Lead us out, Miller," Haugen replied before once again setting out on the developed surface of the asteroid. While they hadn't finished the project in its entirety, the batarians had at least managed to turn on the gravity generators and put up some surface shielding, meaning they didn't have to worry about floating away for getting killed by the swarm of micro asteroids hitting said shields every couple of seconds, an event that resulted in colorful explosions dotting the sky above them.

As Phantom made its way over the brown surface of the asteroid, Haugen briefly wondered just how bad things were below the surface. If the husks were already patrolling the topside and killing the batarians there, there was a decent chance anything that had ever been alive on the asteroid was now a husk.

Yet another reason to avoid detection…

"Phantom-Lead, this is Mirage, come in," a salarian voice cracked through the radio.

"Reading you, Mirage."

"Be advised, while taking position above the first command module, surface surveillance detected a series of strange radar reflections near the central mineral processing hub. First analysis indicates their origin to be caused by true stealth craft. Possible surface reinforcement."

True stealth craft.

That meant the actually invisible kind.

He knew this lack of resistance wouldn't last.

"Understood, Mirage. Thanks for the heads up. We'll stay clear of the hub."

"Mirage over."

"Since when do the batarians have camo transports?" Hofmann wondered out loud. Cloaking was the one field the HSA had always held the advantage in…

"Beats me," Haugen replied before taking a knee some hundred meters away from the next thruster control. Just like before, the doors appeared to have been breached already. But this time around there were no husks to be seen. "Move in and secure," he ordered. And as the sweep confirmed, there also weren't any batarians around. Just an empty control room…

"Miller, security, Mav, console, Hofmann, countermeasures," he ordered quickly before noticing a turned-on PDA on the table. While site exploitation wasn't part of their objectives and he knew better than to touch anything that could possibly be rigged to blow, Haugen couldn't help but read what was on the display once his HUD had translated it for him.

'True believers, fear not, the Procession shall bring ascension,' it read.

"Seems like the same crazies that took over the other planets also made it here," Undrak observed from next to him. "If the whole system's already indoctrinated, that'd be a weight of our shoulders."

"Certainly," Haugen replied before looking to Mav, who was shooting him a thumbs-up gesture.

"Two down. Two to go," while three clusters was technically sufficient, he wasn't going to take risks. Especially not if resistance stayed as light as this. "Next one's 500 to the east. Lead us out, Miller."

---

Meanwhile, 24. May 2417 AD, Free Port Jhera, Sublevel 4

"And in you go," the batarian guard smirked before giving Vega a shove into the one, tiny electric cage they'd set up in the very back of the train. The rest of his squad had already been locked away in the larger ones up front. When the former HSA soldier hit the ground of the dark cage, the door was slammed shut and he was left in the dark, free to regret every call he'd ever made until the magnetic cuffs on his back opened themselves at the press of another out-of-sight button.

If anyone had asked him three days ago if things could possibly get worse than being trapped in a cybernetic zombie apocalypse, he would've said no. And if the same person had then told him that there was a chance to end up in a batarian slave pen, he would've laughed at them. After all, not even the batarians were going to be dumb enough to go for a slave raid during times such as these… right?

Wrong.

"Didn't think they'd pick up any more survivors… where the hell did they find you anyway?" a voice asked, letting Vega know that he was in fact not alone. There was one other captive in the dark pen, a human… who sounded oddly relaxed.

"The tunnels," Vega replied before the door to the last cart of the train slammed shut behind the guard.

He figured the reason for his isolation as that he'd been identified as the leader of their operation or something like that.

Or at least that's what they had taught him in SERE school.

"The fuck you doing out there?" the man asked while also getting to his feet. He was roughly Vega's size, albeit somewhat less noticeably muscular. His skin was dark, his hair was cut just short enough to make its curly nature noticeable and as he mustered Vega, Vega wondered what had earned this man the solitary confinement ticket prior to his arrival.

He didn't look like a Blue Sun, that much was for sure.

"Running from the Procession freaks. We got trapped, they offered us a way out… and we took it," Vega summarized before hanging his head in defeat. This was it, wasn't it? He was going to die on this rock because of all the misguided decisions he'd made since Eden Prime. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he'd drag another team down with him… "What about you?"

"Nothing quite that spectacular I'm afraid," the man responded without actually answering. "So you traded a quick death for four-eye captivity?" he asked while dusting off the old, grey fleece jacket he was wearing.

"Not my smartest call."

"Definitely not," the man said before stepping into the dim glow of the one dim headlight that the batarians had left them, revealing warm, brown eyes to Vega that quickly began to inspect the tattoos on the mohawked-man's neck. "You served," he concluded while scratching his scraggly beard.

"Yes," Vega replied before releasing that it may have just been an open question on the man's part instead of a conclusion. In the same moment, he realized that he maybe shouldn't be sharing information like that in a place like this, lest he end up varren chow.

"Good. We can use that," the man replied.

"For what? And who's we?"

"To make our grand escape… and the two of us and whoever else is fit enough to leg it to the spaceport after I hijack this train," the stranger explained before nudging his head towards the locked door and the guard posted behind it. "Between them going out to search for survivors and those things attacking the train ever so often, they got their hands full. Our window's coming up and with you here, I got all I need to start off."

Vega looked at the man and held up his wrists where the magnetic handcuffs, which doubled as electric collars, were still in place.

"Ignoring that I seriously doubt that you'll fight your way out of here like some one man army, aren't you forgetting something?" he wiggled his hands.

"Not at all, no," the man replied before holding up his own arms. He too was cuffed, albeit with what looked like a damaged set. "Help me get me out of this cage and I'll first get us out of these," the man stated before pointing to where Vega had been led here from. "And then out of there. This isn't my first rodeo in a slave cage. Trust me, I know what I'm doing," he added reassuringly and with a very misplaced, cocky smile.

"Trust you?" Vega inquired. "I barely fucking met you and you didn't even give me a name. Why the hell should I trust you?"

"You didn't introduce yourself either," the dark-skinned man shrugged. "But fair enough. Here's my sale's pitch. Right now I'm the only one offering you a solution that doesn't involve getting ripped to shreds or worked to death," he retorted before patting his chest with his left hand instead of offering a hand. When he did so, Vega thought he saw something glow underneath the wristband. But that might as well have just been his eyes playing tricks on him. He hadn't had a whole lot to eat lately. "The name's Jay," he stated while Vega noticed the burn marks on the man's neck peaking out underneath his jacket. Those were from a slave collar. The permanent kind you got from your owner. "I worked upstairs until shit hit the fan that is."

"So you were a smuggler?"

"I prefer independent merchant."

"People or goods?"

"It'd be one hell of a bitch slap from good old Miss Karma if it was people, wouldn't it?" Jay responded. "Goods, brother. I got standards," he said before muffled gunfire started to crack outside, closely followed by the barely audible howling of the monsters. "Here they go again, greedy bastards," the smuggler commented "That's them shooting the way free for their pals to step off. You can tell by the order of the sounds. If it's howls and gunfire, it's an attack, if it's gunfire and howls, it's the four-eyes going out," he explained. "You were the biggest group they brought in in days. If they're already stepping off again, I guess finding you got them drooling for more. They don't usually rush out like that."

"Could also be the fear of the Suns attacking the place that's driving them out," Vega stated off-mindedly, once again realizing a little too late that he may be sharing too much.

"The Suns are here?" Jay asked after what seemed like an almost deliberate pause. His voice sounded surprised… but he didn't actually seem like it. But maybe that was just the circumstances of everything.

"That's what the batarian commander said when he captured us," he explained without much thought.

Instantly, Jay's focus was entirely on him.

"Now why the fuck would he tell you that?"

"Uhm …because…" Vega started.

"You know something about what's going on here, don't you?"

"I don't."

"Yes you fucking do. You know something and you told it to the guy and that's why he decided to let slip that the Suns are attacking them," Jay concluded. "If he's throwing sensitive information out just like that, whatever you told him has got to be something good," shit this guy was sharp for a smuggler. "Listen man, I don't care about your secrets. Got plenty of those myself. But if you told that four-eye something that's gonna become relevant the moment I get us out of here, then now's the time to share."

Vega weighed his options for a moment.

"How do I know that I can trust you?"

"This again?"

"I met you like five minutes ago, man, what do you expect?"

Jay sighed.

"A little more common sense? Don't you wanna get out of there?"

"Obviously."

"Then why are you asking all of these questions?"

"Because some strange guy in a slave cage I just got thrown in is offering me all the solutions on a fucking silver platter. No way I get that lucky. Not after the shit I've just been through."

Jay blinked and then they stared at each other for a moment.

"So instead of taking this as your lucky break you just wanna sit here and sulk…?" the smuggler offered. "Not that it makes a difference to me. I'll be out of here in the next five anyway… I'm just asking because I wanna know if I can count on you to help fight or not."

Vega sighed in turn.

"What's your plan anyway?"

"Not so fast, pal. I asked first. Quid pro quo," he reasoned while extending both his hands towards Vega in a praying gesture. "Spill it. What did you tell the batarian?"

"That we know what caused this," Vega offered before noticing the small HSAMC insignia tattooed on the guy's right trigger finger.

That prompted a conclusion from Vega himself.

"You're a marine too," he determined right as the guy started to touch the bars surrounding them with the one cuff that wasn't yet broken. As expected, he received a shock and quickly wince away in pain.

"Too?" the smuggler repeated. "I take it that means you also sold your soul to the Corps?" he deduced correctly once more.

Either this guy was really good at picking up details or he was just very bad at not revealing too much by accident.

Probably a bit of both.

"212th, back in the day," Vega offered, suddenly finding himself in the very odd position of feeling comradeship to the very organization he'd deserted from years ago. "What about you? Where'd you serve?"

"All kinds of places," he said, once again avoiding the question while shaking his hand in pain. "Right now I sell Council hand-me-downs to batarian snobs for a living, though, so what's it matter?" he offered with a smile. "Now if you're done with the interrogation… why don't you tell me what you told that batarian and then we dip while they're busy fighting off the next wave?"

Vega sighed while the man received his next shock, right on the same spot as before.

What the hell was he doing?

"That we think we know what caused this."

Jay raised an eyebrow.

"That's… spicy."

"Yes."

"Do you know, though? Or was it just bullshit you made up so they didn't pop you?"

The former marine briefly weighed his loyalties to the IFS with his desire to survive and then concluded that Petrovsky and company could go fuck themselves.

"Some kind of artifact. We ran into it some time ago already and we think there's one here too. Probably somewhere on Sublevel 5."

"We being?"

"The IFS…" he answered somewhat hesitantly before

"You're an iffy?"

"Kind of."

"Kind of?"

"It's a long story," Vega offered. "I kinda stumbled into it, if I'm being honest. Do you really give a shit, though?"

"Not really. I mean I already figured as much."

"How so?"

Jay gestured at the jacket.

"You got that whole fuck-the-system-look going," he stated before flicking his working cuff against one of the bars making up the cage… and producing a burst of electric sparks that clearly broke something. "There it is," he commented, satisfied. Noting Vega's surprised look, he went on to explain. "Batarian engineering. You can always count on it to fail at the one thing it was designed to do," he smirked. Then he suddenly started banging wrists against the cage, an action that prompted the guard of the door to step into the cart again. When he did, the man started calling for him... in a rather odd, insulting fashion. "Hey, yo, you, my man with the noses! Yeah, you, you ugly four-eye! Get over here already!" he called while placing his hands on the bar and very obviously rattling on it in a manner that betrayed their lack of power.

"What the hell are you doing?" Vega wondered as the guard tore open the door and approached the cage at the very end of the train cart.

"Getting us the hell outta here. Get set, marine," he said with a wink before looking back at the guard that was now marching towards them with an angry look on his face and a stun button in hand. "There he is! Big man with the biggest stick 'round here!" he called. "I think I know something you're fixin' to know too, fella!" he went on to tease the batarian, slipping into a southern accent Vega recognized from his youth in the North American AZ.

See? He could make observations too.

"Quiet!" the batarian roared before bringing up his omni-tool to activate and magnetize the smuggler's shock collars.

Despite their damage, Jay dropped to the ground, slammed his hands together and started shaking, convincingly pretending that his restraints were still operational.

… very convincingly actually.

For a second, Vega was worried that the cuffs weren't broken at all.

"Ah fuck man!" Jay cursed after the batarian had let go of the button to electrocute him. "That shit hurt like a bitch! All I wanted to do was snitch on this here fella!" he said before looking at Vega and then kicking the bars of the cage. "You see he just broke your darn cage and thinks he just waltz outta here."

"What the-" Vega managed to get out before the batarian responded by turning towards him and activating his own cuffs.

They slammed shut in front of his body and a jolt went through his entire body. It was honestly the most pain he'd ever felt, paralyzing and all consuming.

"Is that so?" the batarian asked with a smirk. As the current flowed through Vega and he convulsed on the ground, the former marine could barely see the batarian approach in between the bursts of agonizing pain.

"Then he is sorely mistaking…" the alien said in a deep voice before stopping right in front of Jay and shining an orange light in his face.

"And as for you… insolent criminal vermin… you just got here too, so let me explain to you how this works… if you wish to speak to me… you may only address me as master and with averted eyes. I suggest that you remember that. And the pain you will receive when you break the rules too," just as his pain was starting to subside, Vega saw the batarian press the button again and just like last time, Jay dropped to the ground despite his broken shackles and started off his performance. "Now human… what did he say that you did to my cage?" the batarian wondered before Vega felt another current run through him, causing explosions of pain in his entire body.

With his nerves on fire, what happened next might as well have happened in flash.

While Vega was wringing in pain, the alien touched the bars with his baton, shifting his attention away from the two humans laying seemingly incapacitated on the ground.

When his baton didn't help him determine the cause of the problem, he brough up his omni-tool, took a knee and leaned forward. In the same moment, Vega, still incapacitated by the current, could see Jay slowly work something pearly-white out of his sleeve.

A ceramic dagger.

Before the batarian could go on with whatever he had been planning to do to the cage, Jay ceased his pretend-seizure and jumped to his feet. He grabbed the batarian by the side of his head so that his hand was covering the alien's fang-filled mouth and pulled his face against the bar hard enough for Vega to think he'd kill him just through the force of the pull alone.

As soon as he had established an acceptable level of control over the batarian's head, he repeatedly punched the small blade into the batarian's jugular and his eyes, spraying dark red blood all over himself in the process. Since the shock collar was still doing its work and the lighting was still shit, Vega could hardly count how many stabs there had been… but despite fading in and out of consciousness, he was pretty sure that anyone who observed the scene would've called it overkill.

Only when Jay was done, had pulled the batarian's omni off the corpse and had deactivated the shock cuffs did Vega regain his senses.

"Alright marine, I need you on your feet now," Jay ordered in a cold, emotionless tone all the while the doors of his pen was opened, leaving Vega to wonder just what he had been needing him for to begin with.

Probably just as a distraction.

While Vega obeyed the instruction and climbed to his feet, Jay took a moment to look at the batarian's corpse and then, much to Vega's surprise, quite literally spit on it. "No afterlife for you, you blind fuckface," the marine turned smuggler commented before picking up the guard's stun baton and testing it on the corpse.

The brief spark of bright light produced by the test allowed Vega to see that the batarian's face was completely destroyed. Eyes, throat, noses, even the mouth… it looked like he'd been mauled by a predator and considering what Vega had just seen, that description came pretty close to the truth.

"This guy was just some fucking grunt. No master-control on his omni," Jay stated. "We need an overseer kit to open the other cages," then he looked at Vega. "What's with that look?"

"Didn't think you'd look out for the other guys. Your plan sorta sounded like it was just about you getting out of here."

"Unless you got some rifles hidden up your ass or we let those freaks in, we'll need those folks to help us make it out of here. No way in hell are we fighting our way out of here with just a knife and a baton," he added before tossing Vega said baton. "Unless I clocked it wrong when they threw me in here, the only overseers are the commander you talked to and the conductor. She's an inbred looking greyish-brown fucker with a Kishock. Walks a bit odd. Like she's got a prosthetic. Probably kicked a mine or some shit back in the war."

"Inbred looking?" Vega asked.

"Think the average batarian. Just even uglier," Jay responded while wiping the blade of his knife on his jacket and grabbing an odd-looking flashlight off the batarian's corpse.

"That's possible?"

"Absolutely," Jay offered as he gestured for the door the batarian had come from. "His omni's got access to all the doors in the train's back, so we'll work our way forward from here one cart at a time. Get to the conductor, take control of the train, open the cages and then you drive right out of here."

"You? Don't you mean we?"

Jay looked at him while pulling forward the left sleeve of his old fleece jacket to reveal a bluish-glowing hologram on his wrist. He tapped it once, turning the light into a dim red. Then, with another flick of his wrist, the hologram disappeared.

"I still got business 'round here after we're done freeing these folks. So your ride's not gonna be my ride."

Vega looked at the man's wrist.

A subdermal implant that the batarians hadn't detected beforehand?

What kind of smuggler was this guy?

As Jay shifted the grip on his knife and began to move towards the exit of the cart, Vega put a hand on his shoulder and stared at him.

"Who are you? And what kind of tech is that?" he asked.

The man looked back at him and narrowed his dark-brown eyes, which to Vega's eyes now seemed to have the hint of a red tint to them. Almost like the kind you'd expect from HUD contact lenses.

"I'm your ticket out of here. That's all you need to know," he replied before looking up ahead again. "I get that you got questions man. I got a lot of them too… but do me a solid one. No more talking from here on out unless it's got to do with us killing all four-eyes on this fucking ride. Can you do that, marine?"

Vega pulled his hand back and nodded.

He'd left the Corps behind him after Eden Prime.

But right here, in his worst moment, the Corps didn't seem to be ready to leave him.

Ironic, wasn't it?

"Roger that."

"That's the spirit," Jay responded before giving him a slap against the shoulder. "On me."

Then he moved forward in a silent and fast stride that once again reminded Vega of a predator on the prowl.

He may just make it out of here after all.

---

Codex: Biography of Ezra Anaru (Part3, Anthropological University of T'Lav)

After his promotion in 2119 AD and due to his experiences in the Terra Novan savannahs, Anaru, now serving as a Major in the staff of the JDI's Special Reconnaissance Regiment, received orders to report to the UN's Third Expansion Fleet. Once there, he'd be selected to serve as part of the advanced exploration team deploying to Horizon, the latest colonialization candidate discovered by humanity. (Editorial Note: Horizon would later go on to become a major hub for the human separatist organization IFS during the human civil war known internally as 'Fringe Wars'. For more information, see Codex Entry Series 'The Fringe Wars'). Due to this role, Anaru, despite being a Major, was once again put in the role as a 'boot on the ground'.

After being briefed on Horizon's uncharacteristically dangerous animal kingdom and the continuously aggressive reaction towards human life reported by forward explorers, Anaru enforced a last-minute change of the colonialization strategy. His SRR unit would not only deploy among the first wave of colonists but as the first ship. (For more information on Horizon and its wildlife, see Codex Entry 'Flora and Fauna of Horizon').

In what would later be called a foreshadowing of Anaru's 'true loyalties' and 'the JDI-militarism inherent to his character', one of the first actions taken by the now 38-year old officer after defending the landing site against an unprovoked attack of the local wildlife was to plant a bloodied SRR banner firmly within the soil of the newly minted outpost that would later become Horizon's capital of Discovery.

Editorial Note 1: This regimental banner, referred to as 'Old Raggedy', would later on became the official insignia of Horizon's capital. It remains enshrined within the capitol building of Discovery to this day. Despite its deep ties to the culture of the HSA, it was not destroyed or otherwise removed during the Fringe Wars.

Editorial Note 2: Considering that then-Major Anaru received serious injuries during the wildlife attack on the initial landing, it remains debated to this day whether Anaru personally planted the flag or if another member of his SRR-unit was the one to plant the flag on his order. In official HSA documentation, Anaru is only named as 'responsible' for the action. In Horizon's founding mythos as well as the records of the disbanded SRR Anaru is however described as having planted the flag personally before collapsing and being hurried back to the infirmary. For the rest of his life, Anaru himself never commented on the truth, admitting publicly that he found it amusing to see what 'people came up with' and that the truth 'was not as spectacular as anyone made it out to be'.

Editorial Note 3: Six Members of the SRR advanced team were killed during the landing. Lance Corporal Matthew Higgs, Corporal Chris Nguyen, Sergeant Alana Whittmore, Staff Sergeant Gregory J. Grant, Master Sergeant Aslan Edugo and Second Lieutenant Adriana Terrazas. The six wings of Horizon's capitol were named in honor of those killed during the landing.

After recovering from the injuries received by one of the Orafas attacking the landing site, Major Anaru and the rest of his SRR spent the rest of the year 2119 AD and all of 2120 AD helping expand the settlement space on Horizon by overseeing and protecting the deployment of an ultrasound fence network meant to repel further wildlife attacks. After eighteen months planetside, Anaru's unit was relieved with nine soldiers killed.

Editorial Note 4: Of the three servicemen killed, two died when their aircraft was attacked by aerial predators while the final one was killed in a car accident.

'You know I always found it funny that out of all the things that could've killed me over the years, the thing that came closest to actually doing it was a four-meter tall, orangutan-looking, blue (expletive) acting on nothing but instinct. I still remember how it felt when the thing smacked Aslan and me sideways. Thought every bone in my body would snap. It did for Aslan (…) We lost some good people during the taming. Folks that really could've come a long way if it weren't for Horizon's nasty mother nature. (…) I hated every second I spent on that planet but I got through it because I knew that a whole lot of people were betting their lives on me doing my job properly. Even so… I was glad when it was over. (…) If I had to name one good thing that came out of all of it was that they handed me my colonel pins the moment I landed back on Earth. With all the cameras floating around and politicians lining up to shake my hand to congratulate me on a job well done, I knew that I was one step closer to where I needed to go to drag humanity out of the downward spiral it was on. But before I could get started on that, there was still one big leap I had to take. I've hated snow ever since.'

Following his recall to Earth, Anaru was immediately briefed on his next assignment. While the man who would become known as the officer who'd unite humanity had been setting up fences Horizon, tensions over resources located in Earth's Antarctic circle had reached a tipping point.

Agreements outlining the neutrality of the continent located on Earth's southern pole had been violated by several independent groups and armed conflict had broken out in the region. On the orders of the United Nations, and with the backing of the increasingly more influential Terra Novan colonial administration, the UN-JDI, despite the veto of several Security Council members, would be deployed to the region by March of 2121 AD.

Once again, the JDI's SRR, which was now under the full command of Colonel Ezra Anaru, would form the spearhead.

Unlike previous incursions however, the Antarctic Conflict would not be a relatively short, small-scale war.

Anaru and the SRR would deploy in March of 2121 AD and spent the next four years fighting a bloody conflict against the various governmental, corporate and other NGO elements opposing the increasing power of the UN.

Editorial Note 5: The term Antarctic Conflict was only coined after the HSA had assumed control over all human territories. Historical sources of the time describe the conflict either as the 'World War Four', 'Second Climate War' or simply as the 'Southern Hemisphere War (SH-War)'.

'The SH-war was quite possibly the worst time of my life. I'm not ashamed to admit that.'

---

A/N:

First off, I'm sorry.

Stuff happend, I was gone for a while.

I sincerely apologize to all those who thought I had died.

To make up for it, here you go. Part 1 of Arrival. The last piece of ME 2 content we'll deal with before hitting a quick interlude... after which ME3 kicks off.

I always knew I wanted to do something different from canon and given that halloween is right around the corner... i opted for a cult/horror setting.

So here you are.

I don't actually have a lot more to say, other than that I hope you enjoyed Semper Vigilo's return from its brief hiatus. I don't think its ever been FOUR months that I've left you hanging, honestly.

Review and let me know what you think.

For the record, we're at 972 reviews, 1601 favorites and 1667 follows.

Also, our 7 Year Anniversary is coming up.

My personal goal is to get Arrival finished by then.

Let's see if I make it.

See you around next time.

God that felt odd writing it after so long. But seriously.

See you around next time.