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.

127. Brothers in Arms

Chapter 127. Brothers in Arms

---

14. May 2417 AD, Omega, Afterlife

As the armed man in sand-colored, seemingly second-rate armor walked towards the pair of turian guards standing at the entrance of what had until recently been T'Loak's command hub on the station, the only thing that kept him from getting shot was the green tape wrapped around sleeves and thighs of his hardsuit. The little pieces of elastic cloth were the only thing resembling a uniform that the native forces he'd helped raise had managed to scrunch up for everyone.

Everything else, including their weapons, were mismatched hand-me-downs scraped together from the various street gangs and black markets that had dominated Omega just twenty hours ago or at the very least made to appear like they were.

"Halt! This area's restricted!" one of the Hastati shouted before raising her Phaeston ever so slightly. He wasn't being aimed at yet but one step more and he would.

The somewhat older man with the graying, combed back hair wouldn't blame the turian with the orange, Aephus facial markings.

If he was in her shoes, he'd be mistrusting too.

To ease her concerns, the man let go of his run-down looking Valkyrie, leaving it to dangle by his side by the cord attached to his armor. Next he slowly turned his left wrist and tapped the screen of the watch he was wearing there. A second later, his holographic HSAIS badge flashed into existence, identifying him as a part of the Section 6 detachment that had operated as Red Rings tip of the spear.

They'd been embedded on the station for the better part of a year, ever since things in the CIP had started to stabilize and it had become clear that the Arcturus was satisfied with the results it had gotten from its first experiment into protectorates.

"Friendly," he offered before letting a polite smile cross over his tanned face. While doing so, he glanced at a large tarp covering what he figured was probably a dead elcor… well that or the fattest salarian he'd ever seen. No one else had green blood. Either the poor alien had been caught in the crossfire of T'Loak's escape… or it had learned the hard way that Hastati only told you 'stop or I'll shoot' once before actually putting you down for good.

"Area's still restricted," the Hastati responded.

"Matchstick-Actual. I'm being expected. Check with your CO," he identified himself further to which the other Hastati put a hand on the Phaeston of his companion.

"Let him through. The major's been waiting for the instigators' commander," that's what the turians were calling them. Instigators. Go figure that most members of a species that placed loyalty and hierarchy above everything wasn't going to be very approving of people who's only job was destabilizing things.

"Much obliged," the S6 operative stated with a nod before walking through the door and finding more enemy corpses covering the way. They'd only taken Afterlife a couple of hours ago, therefor only their casualties and the enemy wounded had been removed by now. There'd be time to bury the dead later, once they'd fully secured their grip on the station. Right now they needed to keep the momentum going.

As the older operative passed the dead, he ran his gloved hand along the railing leading to the club's main entrance.

He'd been in here countless of times over the years, his plotting and scouting always ignored by the watchful eye of Omega's queen on the run thanks to some other distractions.

Some of those had been the HSA's doing, like for example the Blue Suns' crusade against the station, others, like the Gozu Plague, had been completely random mishaps but still very welcome.

Red Ring had been a long time in the making.

The plan had been drawn up all the way back during the Merc War when the HSA had feared that their retaliation was going to be met with even more retaliation that would eventually lead to an all-out war between humanity and the Terminus Systems. This fear had led to a containment plan against the Terminus being designed, the first part of which called for Omega to be conquered and occupied indefinitely.

Even back then when humanity hadn't had the hint of a clue as to how the galaxy worked, the best and brightest of the HSA had already been able to agree on the fact that stamping out Omega was the key to stopping Terminus-based attacks into HSA space.

Without Omega, there was no rally point just outside the border, no port to sell the plunder and the slaves … and no 'neutral' haven to hide when the eagle came looking for payback.

After becoming a member of the Citadel Council, Red Ring and the larger, frankly overambitious war plan against the Terminus that it was a part of, had been put on indefinite hold. Attacking the Terminus was a red line no Council member, not even the turians, were willing to cross and as such, Matchstick had spent the longest time thinking that he'd never be standing here.

But then Cyrene and the Collectors had happened and Arcturus had found its balls and its casus belli.

The Eezo was a nice boost too, of course, especially with the Reapers on the horizon.

After reaching the now devastated interior of Afterlife, the agent climbed the steps to where Aria had throned and found it turned into a makeshift ground CIC. While redecorating, the Hastati had tossed Aria's couch out of the window and set up one of their holo-tables in its place.

If the asari saw that, she'd lose it and start flaying people.

That couch was her most holy possession and sullying it like this was blasphemy.

He don't know which turian had done that, but he already loved them for it.

Standing in the spot where the sacrilege had taken place were a tall Hastati in dark-blue armor, a pair of human marine officers, one man in an onyx-black N7 suit of armor with a golden stripe running down his arm and golden commander bars on his collar, a salarian in teal armor and an asari clad in a highly-customized, dark-green set of commando uniform.

The latter two were the Council's personal observers and while they hadn't introduced themselves as such, it was fairly obvious to anyone with half a brain that they were Spectres.

Officially, they'd condone the actions taken here today and they sure as hell wouldn't commit troops to the invasion either. But half the Council didn't just go ahead with a military invasion of the main trade hub of the Terminus without the other half being aware of it, especially not if the reason for doing so was the preparation for an imminent invasion of an extra-galactic adversary.

"Gentlemen, ladies," Matchstick greeted before joining them at the table to which he received a series from nods from everyone but the Hastati major.

"Ah… the head-instigator," now that was one way he hadn't heard his rank being described yet. He'd add that to the list when he got back to Cronos Station and was once again thrust into a uniform with four golden stripes instead of the rags he was wearing right now. "Then we can finally begin."

Major Cato was large, even by turian standards. Although the dark-blue helmet of his power armor covered his face right now, the veteran Section 6 operative knew from his file that the turian had black plates and gree, taetrian facial markings that had been scared by an incendiary device over a decade ago. Cato was in his late fifties, a decorated hero of the last War on Taetrus, a true pillar of his community… and according to HSAIS maintained a questionable relation with police brutality. He'd never been convicted, though. How they knew that?

Matchstick honestly didn't care to find out. If he did, he'd only start wondering what HSAIS knew about himself. Years of rotating in and out of Omega didn't go by unnoticed. Gambling, drinking, you name it, he'd enjoyed it.

Cato wasn't here for his good looks or his reputation though.

He and his unit, the 363rd Hastati Detachment Cipritine (otherwise known as the Hostage Rescue Element) were here for T'Loak, Facinus and the Talons.

On the orders of the Primarch of Palaven, the elite Hastati were to not only bring T'Loak in for a whole book of criminal charges, something that'd give this operation a hint of legitimacy beyond 'we need your Eezo', but also had orders to detain as many Talon leaders as possible.

As far as the S6 agent knew, the native gang appeared to have a relation to the taetrian insurgents and because of some last-minute intel that Palaven had received, the Hierarchy was now seriously worried that Facinus was about to pop of another rebellion… this time with the backing of the Terminus.

To prevent that, the Primarch hoped that his elite MPs would capture the Talons' leadership, who'd then subsequently get handed off to the TNI detachment currently lingering at the back of the front, where they'd be convinced to volunteer whatever they knew about the plans of Facinus.

How far they went with that was up to them and none of his business.

HSAIS had offered a hand in interrogating by letting TNI in on its pharmacy of truth drugs. But Matchstick had a feeling that TNI would stick to their true and tested anti-insurgency interrogation methods. The turians just loved pointing at screens and telling people that they'd blow up relative 'x' or loved one 'y' if the interrogated party didn't start talking. When the other side didn't budge, they'd then first show them a deep-faked video clip of the supposed aftermath of the clip, let them dwell on that for a minute… and then reveal that next time they didn't talk, fiction would become reality.

It was surprisingly effective, especially because the turians being turian were rather credible whenever they said they'd follow through.

If that bit ever came out, any hint of legitimacy given by arresting T'Loak would go out of the window but in addition to having done similarly bad and even worse shit in the past, Matchstick couldn't blame the turians.

They were doing anything in their power to stop another war before the Reapers showed up. If that meant breaking a few plated heads, he was damn fine with that.

"I'll start off with the most important piece of intel. T'Loak's still missing. Despite us pushing into the refinery district after her, we've got no idea where she went and the window where I'm confident in saying that we can still arrest her is closing quickly. While we closed off all the obvious exits, I'm willing to bet that Omega's queen has got a way off this place that we don't know about." Cato began before tapping the hologram to show the refining district at the 'lower' end of Omega.

"With that out of the way, I'm pleased to report that our operation to capture Talon leaders has been more successful. Going of TNI's files and the data provided by our human allies, we've already killed or captured a majority of their leadership. And while there's still some disorganized resistance going on, the Talons and the other major gangs are this close to collapsing," he went on before slicing the hologram in half with his hand and showing a bisected version of the station.

Then he looked directly at Matchstick.

"The rest of the operation is going according to plan as well. Sword-Actual is reporting that Zara District has been fully secured by your marines and resistance in Gozu is breaking too now that Gold Squadron has cut the power on the gangs there. Light casualties all around," he continued. "There's been some fierce resistance in Kenzo, though, and the Talons are massing what little forces they have left in Doru. Everything's pointing to them getting ready for a final stand against the astati deployed there."

"Turian military tactics against turian military tactics. That'll be ugly," one of the marines observed.

"It's what we're trained for and why we're here," the Hastati stated. "I heard over the battlenet that the native forces you trained are making their pass at Carrd and Kima."

"They are," the older operative confirmed.

"Anything we should know?"

"Kima's going to be a nonissue. The Blue Suns already cleared that place of most gang activity months ago," Matchstick offered. "The elcor arms dealers in Carrd however are going to give us some real bad trouble."

"The elcor are giving you trouble?" the other marine asked, somewhat surprised to hear that out of all the populations local to Omega, the elcor would end up offering the fiercest resistance.

Classic rookie mistake.

"Fighting Elcor akin to fighting IFVs. Heavy firepower. Heavy armor. Crushing limbs. Large potential for violent resistance, especially in close quarters," the salarian Spectre reasoned before Matchstick could explain that going up against walking tanks with nothing but beat-down batarian assault rifles wasn't a walk in the park.

"What he said," Matchstick shrugged. "It's hella bloody up there and these aren't just any Elcor. They're the Dekuuna Six. Most notorious gunrunners on Omega. They dug in like ticks the second the fleet showed up at the relay and their stronghold's as bad as any slaver fort I've ever seen. If we can afford it, we should send reinforcements to Carrd as well, take the pressure off of our allies and put some guys with real training and real armor in the first row."

"As soon as Gozu's done, Gold could swing up there and help finish the job. We've got experience with slaver forts," he offered. "If you give us some time to map out the structure and provide a distraction for our approach, maybe we could slip in a couple of demo-squads and bring the whole thing down on these guys. That way only some of your pals in Carrd will punch their ticket today instead of all of them," the N7 offered.

"Apologies but I was under the impression that heavy losses among the local armed populace are considered acceptable if not encouraged. Irregulars are to be treated as expendable, even if they are fighting for us right now. Is that not what they said in the briefing?" the asari Spectre injected to which Matchstick winced ever so slightly.

She wasn't wrong.

Red Ring painted Omega's armed and violent population as a major insurgency risk and as such encouraged for as many of those armed and violent people to be taken out of commission during the initial fight as possible. Much to Matchstick's dismay, that technically including the Section 6 trained militias.

The idea was messed up, especially since he knew for a fact that while a lot of the guys they'd trained up were gang-assholes hoping for a power grab after the invasion, there were just as many decent people among them too, people who actually believed that they could make Omega a better place and were willing to toe the line with the HSA to do so.

But as messed up as it was, from a purely pragmatic, mathematical and political point of view, it made sense that Red Ring's planers would consider this a viable strategy.

The more possible insurrectionists were killed during the open-warfare segment of this operation (where there would be much less scrutiny and understanding for collateral damage than during the later occupation) the easier they'd have it later down the road.

Hence, if the problematic portions of Omega's people killed each other in the fighting, the station would be easier to manage when the battle was over. And even if he liked to claim the opposite, their allies definitely belonged to the kind of people that the HSA's occupation strategy would call.

They were trained and armed for irregular warfare and when the fighting was done, they'd be experienced in combat and familiar with the workings of the human military.

That made them… a problem.

As an old S6 saying went, the allies of today are the enemies of tomorrow.

Although they were fighting for them now, they might not feel like doing so tomorrow or by the time the joint turian-human military administration moved in to oversee mining operations.

So within the same, sick and twisted calculus, it also made sense to not give their allies a hand and instead just move in the clean up afterwards.

However…

"While it says that on paper, we gotta think long-term here. The guys picking up rifles for our cause are probably the guys we want to keep around. Pillars of the new system and what-not, you know?"

"Ah, the famous human nation-building," Cato stated, surprisingly mockingly. "Just like with the Confederation. Rebels turned allies."

"Exactly," Matchstick nodded, fully serious. Unbeknownst to Cato, the CIP had been Section 6's last big operation.

While the galaxy had stayed glued to their screens wondering where the sudden sense of a shared identity was coming from and the official narrative was that it was all down to clever and mutually beneficial negotiations of politics, Section 6 operatives had been up day and night stoking the fires while the diplomats had shook hands.

Before the CIP's ideology had been handcrafted on Cronos Station and the outlines for the Confederate Security Corps had been drawn up on Arcturus, Section 6 had alreadybeen in confederate space, laying the foundation and getting their hands dirty. Smuggling, recruiting, arming, training… deposing…

Some might view what they had done in the year leading up to the CIP's very own Unification Day as the HSA actively aiding armed revolutionaries by destabilizing a dozen quasi-government corporations.

Matchstick however had a bit of a different perspective on his actions back then. It mirrored his mindset on Red Ring.

They were giving people who were living in the worst fucking Orwellian hellholes one could dream up the knowledge and the tools necessary to topple their tyrants and to figure out on their own as to how they wanted to be ruled.

As far as he was concerned, a salarian living in some feudal caste system, a turian dutifully serving in a hierarchical military-state or an asari living it up in the utopian conditions of most republics didn't care much for concepts such as self-determination. They had grown so used to their respective status quo that the thought of changing anything about it never occurred to them. But the people living outside of these either rigidly structured or extraordinarily perfect conditions?

They had a vested interest in giving themselves a shot.

Why that was important to him?

Well.

Matchstick was part of an ever-smaller group of people within the military, the ones who'd already been in uniform before the Fringe Wars, who remembered what it was like when the HSA believed itself to be the exception, not the rule, the kind of soldiers who'd rather drop dead on the spot than to aid a plan as sociopathic as Red Ring's proposed solution for insurrection.

Because of that, he held a special kind of mindset, one that some might have called … human exceptionalism.

Considering the lethargic status quo that the HSA had found the larger galactic community in, Matchstick figured that the HSA had a responsibility to the less fortunate peoples of the galaxy. While everyone else was dead-set on watching and waiting to see how things turned out, the exact kind of mindset that had let to the most devastating conflict in human history, the HSA understood that they needed to step up not because they were being asked to step up but because it was the right thing to do.

Hence giving people like the ones living here on Omega wasn't just their moral responsibility, it was their solemn duty.

Diplomacy was nice.

Demonstrations and rallies too.

But you didn't beat corpo-enforces, mercs, pirates, slavers and gang leaders with a convincing argument, catchphrases and picketing signs.

You beat them by quite literally beating them to death and then mounting their heads on a fucking spike for everyone else who might've thought about putting a boot on your head to see.

Freedom was won through the barrel of a gun and evil triumphed only when the righteous failed to act.

Always had been, always would be.

Tyrants didn't abdicate out of volition and they sure as shit didn't grow a conscience overnight.

They abdicated because you pried their corpses off of their petty little thrones and tossed them on the same pile as those who'd aided them during their reign, just like the JDI and Anaru had done three centuries ago.

That was the only way anything ever changed.

Corporate tycoons, gang leaders, T'Loak… they were all the same brand of people and any Section 6 operative worth their salt made it their personal mission to help people get rid of them.

"You realise this place will be under full military administration, right? There's no intention for nation-building whatsoever. Omega won't become another CIP," Cato stated, tearing Matchstick from his thoughts.

"For now," Matchstick pointed out with a raised finger. Arcturus would come around and do the right thing. They always did eventually, although usually only after running out of all the wrong options first. With that said, he turned back to the asari who'd started this little discussion and made up his mind. "Look. I know the plan says that we don't really care about indigenous casualties but come on. That part of the plan is fucking stupid. I'm not going to send people to their deaths just because some sociopath in a suit thinks it'll read better in the news clippings," he said with a shrug. "These people are fighting for their shot at a new life. Don't you think we owe it to them to make sure that some of them are still alive to see it?" then he looked at the N7 who'd offered his help. The man nodded. As did the marines to either of his side, letting the older operative believe that maybe his mindset wasn't that much of a dying idea after all.

This little sign of approval was all he needed to hijack this tactical briefing.

"Call Admiral Debois. Tell him Matchstick-Actual is requesting Gold Squadron to re-deploy to Carrd to aid the indigenous forces in storming the D-Six compound. As far as the assault plan goes, I'll leave that up to you. You're the expert and I'll transfer field command to you as soon as you get up there," then he looked at the marines. "Either of you have any units to free up, they're welcome to help the Indigs wherever they can too."

The marines nodded and the N7 commander nodded and stepped away from the holo-table, prompting Matchstick to look at the Spectres and Cato again.

"If any of you want to join in, you're welcome to. We'll take all the help we can get."

The salarian placed his hand in front of his mouth.

"Appreciate the offer, but under orders to only observe and take custody of T'Loak."

The asari smiled a thin, sympathetic smile.

"As my colleague said, I'm afraid we've been instructed to not interfere."

"Don't Spectres make their own rules?" one of the marine officers, a captain, quipped in before probably remembering who he was talking to and muttering an apology.

"Not if the Council instructs us otherwise," the asari responded. "We all answer to someone, Captain, even Spectres," then she looked at Matchstick. "Apologies."

"Nah, don't worry about it. I get it. Chain of command and what not," he shrugged while thinking to himself that the two of them were just cowards looking to dodge. This was exactly why he bought into the whole idea of human exceptionalism, why he believed that what they were doing here was necessary.

These two were Spectres for crying out loud. If they didn't tell the Council that they'd taken part in combat, they'd never find out. So the only thing stopping them, at least in his mind, was their own damned lethargy.

"What about you, Major? Removing armed crazies from their homes is sort of what you do, isn't it?"

Cato spent a second looking at the two Spectres, probably wondering if he'd make up some bullshit excuse as well, and then turned his head again.

"You're right. Your plan is dumb," was the first thing the major stated. "I'll talk to tactical command, see if we've got some reserves among the regular Hastati detachments. If they deny me, I'll try and see if I can spare any of my officers. They won't be able to form a battleline, but they might just be able to help with the infiltration. Hostage rescue requires us to get in quiet too, you know."

"Much obliged."

Say what you will about the turians, they never disappointed when it came to jumping into the foxhole with you.

In retrospective it really made sense that they had jumped at humanity back then with such enthusiasm.

If Matchstick had gotten tired of the Council's bullshit after thirty years, he could only assume how the turians were feeling after over a fifteen hundred years of this observe but don't interfere crap.

---

15. May 2417 AD, HSAHSV Gilligan's Cape, Enroute to the Sol System

After Redford had told her to use their transit-time to read up on Emily Wong's exposition piece about Hahne-Kedar, which claimed that HK had taken geth destroyed during the Battle of Eden Prime, studied them in the Galilean labs and then produced the Sentinel drones based on those studies, Yo-yo had done just that.

Several times in order to get the facts straight.

While most of Wong's sources were anti-CIP and anti-HSA activists working and living in either the newly formed confederation or in exile on the Citadel, Yo-yo had to admit that a lot of what was written in her exposition piece made sense.

However she didn't see what was necessarily wrong with that.

Studying your enemy's technology and using it to develop your own was one of the oldest and most important pillars of warfare.

Truth be told, she'd be way more worried if humanity had just looked at all the geth tech left in the wake of Eden Prime for a second and then decided to throw it all away without trying to figure out how it worked.

Sure, Hahne-Kedar had technically broken a few laws if everything Wong had written was correct, but ultimately they'd still done the right thing by seizing the initiative.

Back then no one had known how long the fight with the geth was going to take. Eden Prime could've been a one-time affair or the start of an all-out war. So naturally humanity needed to get started on closing the knowledge gap.

If anything the people who'd decided to give the all-clear for this salvage op should be praised, not condemned.

Would it have been preferable if they'd done it hand and hand with the HSA considering that the HSA had an entire portion of Cronos Station that was dedicated to nothing but the study of unknown alien tech?

Certainly.

That way they wouldn't need to worry about indoctrinated people within HK now.

But should they have just sat by and done nothing?

Absolutely not.

Innovation and curiosity were the lifeblood of a nation. Once they lost that, it was pretty much over.

As she continued to look through the piece written by Wong, Yo-yo's omni-tool suddenly buzzed with a news alert. Before even opening it, she figured that it'd be yet another headline about how the HSA and the turians had started a military operation in the Sahrabarik system and how in response to those operations various Terminus-based groups had attempted (and failed) at launching counter invasions into Citadel Space only to get routed a couple hours into their crusades.

It was almost as if disorganized warbands were no match for the largest military powers of the galaxy.

As a glance to her omni-tool confirmed, that was exactly it.

'Turian forces reporting continued skirmishes in Outer Council Space,' the headline read alongside an image of a comically large pin jabbed into the galactic west, the region where the Terminus Systems bled into Council Space.

As she looked at the rest of the images attached to the headline that depicted a blown-up batarian blockade runner being towed by a pair of turian frigates, Yo-yo genuinely wondered what these people thought was going to happen.

If they took the gloves of, the turians alone could probably pacify the Terminus with a bit of concentrated effort, that is if the Council didn't keep them from doing so.

Meanwhile the HSA had already gone toe-to-toe with the most powerful merc groups of the region and dismantled both of them in a targeted retribution campaign, despite a massive technological disadvantage on the human side.

How could these pirates genuinely believe that they were going to achieve anything close to a victory, let alone take the pressure off of Omega? If they had any sense left, they'd just yield in face of superior odds and accept the new order. They'd certainly be better of if they did. One look at the Confederation should prove that.

In exchange for favorable relations to Arcturus, the CIP had gone from being a vulnerable, disorganized bunch of trade hubs to turning into a bastion of stability in an otherwise unstable region of space in the span of a few years.

Personally, she didn't see why Omega and other parts of the Terminus shouldn't do the same thing. The HSA's supervision was clearly helping the CIP and while Operation Sentinel was proving to be a strain on the human military, there was no reason why the lessons learned during it couldn't be applied to new client states in the Terminus.

They already had the Sentinels and occupation guidelines down to a letter now, so most of the work was already done, wasn't it?

After she shut off her omni again, Yo-yo noted that the line of thinking she'd just embarked on was exactly what a portion of the galactic populace was currently protesting against, particularly on the Citadel itself.

Despite the HSA and Hierarchy having equal parts in the operation, the entirety of the station had taken to besieging the humans, probably because they knew exactly that the Hastati guarding the portions of the station considered sovereign turian space and the predominantly turian C-SEC officers assigned to those parts weren't going to be as restrained as the human MPs and marines stationed at the embassy and docks.

Up to now her personal favorites had been 'HSA imperialism once again rears its ugly head' and 'human fascism on the rise, IFS separatists proven right again?'.

What did that writer mean with again anyway? As she clicked on the link, Yo-yo rolled her eyes. She was an asari for crying out loud. What the hell did she even know about the IFS? Half those guys believed asari were mind controling shapeshifters and the other half would probably gun them down a second after meeting them while screaming something about it being payback for the long-gone Eclipse merc network.

That writer was better of sticking to … whatever it was asari political specialists could be writing about that didn't concern fringe elements of human society.

"Attention all hands, attention all hands." the voice of the Giligan's Cape's captain announced. "We've now entered the Exodus Stream," there was a pregnant pause. "Welcome to the Core."

And just like that, half the trip was over.

The Exodus Stream led right to Terra Nova and past Arcadia.

Speaking of Arcadia.

"I see you've been doing your reading," Redford offered as he entered the room with a tablet in his hand.

"And you yours," she retorted.

"Spicy stuff," the specialist observed. "If HK really did pick up scraps from Eden Prime, this op could have some serious potential to go sideways," he said with a sigh before sitting down. "You just know they messed with some Reaper tech. Cerberus did a good job with containment but in between the ton of Dragon's Teeth and the thousands of husk corpses that got splattered all over Navi Bhopal, there's bound to have been one or two they couldn't get to before some HK acquisition types picked it up."

"Probably," Yo-yo nodded. "The Galilean Labs are pretty much top of the line, though, at least as far as containment goes, and Hahne-Kedar's no stranger to messing around with alien tech either," she went on. Ever since the subjects had become predominantly geth, a lot of the people working in Cronos Station's alien tech department were either hired from HK Robotics or would move on to work there after some time. "Here's to hoping they got lucky."

"Glad to see at least one of us is optimistic here."

"Yeah, now that you mention it, isn't that usually your department?" the brunette woman pondered. "What's got you so pessimistic?"

"I've been looking for indoctrinated insiders ever since the shitshow with the Makalu. Once you root through enough of this crap about people fucking around with Reaper tech," he slapped his tablet, "you're starting to understand that it's like a snowball going downhill. Once it starts rolling, it only gets worse. For all we know, half the reps in parliament are already having weird dreams because some indoctrinated HK guy snuck an Omicron clone onboard," Object Omicron had been the Reaper artifact that had started all of this. She knew that now, after getting access to the fully declassified HSAIS Reaper file.

… if she was being honest, she'd liked it more when she hadn't known that humanity's history with the Reaper went back as far as the Fringe Wars. Or at least that was as far as they could trace it for now.

"You ever wonder how's it going on that front for our Council pals?" she said, thinking out loud.

"Come again?"

"The turians. Asari. Salarians. You know. The rest of the Council. You ever wonder how they're doing on the whole indoctrination thing? Or how things are going to go for them when the Reapers show up for good?"

"Only all the time," Redford replied before running a hand through his sand-colored, slightly graying hair. "The turians are probably fine. From what our TNI liaisons say, they audit all their important people in regular intervals and while everyone thinks it's a drag to put themselves through it, they all get why it's important and take it very seriously." Redford let out a sigh. "Hell… they're probably doing better than us if I'm being honest. Or at least that's what I'm hoping for considering that there's no way we're going to win this thing without them. But the asari and the salarians…"

"Are screwed?" she concluded bluntly.

"A lot of the salarians are so stuck in their feudal ways that there's no way anyone that isn't STG is ever gonna actively question something a Dalatrass says. Add in the unrest that's been going on and distracting them from exterior threats and you start wondering if maybe they've already been subverted as bad as the batarians," Redford reasoned. "As for the asari… well. Don't let Tela hear me say it, but I think they'll fold like cardboard the second this pops off. Their society is so decentralized that there's no way they could figure out if anyone important's been indoctrinated and even if by some miracle they do, there's still the whole issue of their leadership being so divided. I got some hope for their navy but the big republics who could actually have an impact on the war by themselves? They'll probably be debating what to do right until the Reapers melt their faces off."

"Harsh."

"But true."

"What about us though?" Yo-yo wondered.

"You know the contingencies as good as I do. What do you think?" Redford countered.

"That we've got nothing shy of our biggest railguns that can even scratch the paint off of a Reaper and that they can just annihilate us from space once they blow the navy apart, no matter how ready we are to fight them tooth and nail for every centimeter of blood soaked soil? If you want my honest opinion, it'll take a miracle for us to win this, Redford, and even then there's not going to be a whole lot left when we're done."

"You really gonna count us out like that?"

"Oh no, I absolutely think that we'll pull it off. Miracles is what we do. I'm just being realistic about what it'll cost us," she shrugged. "What about you?"

"We beat the odds before. We'll find a way to do it again. It's what humans do," the older specialist said with a slight smile before putting down the tablet. "Right now all I'm hoping for is that whatever's happening in the Viper Nebula is going to end up buying us some more time. I'd hate to be stuck in an HK lab in the Sol System when the Reapers show up," ever since the turians had detected a formation of ships heading to the galaxy from dark space, there's been a silent panic going on in the highest echelons of galactic leadership, one that was only being kept in check by the knowledge that Task Force Aurora, the Council mission to study and stop the Reapers, was 'working on a solution'.

As for the details… they were scarce. The only thing Redford and Yo-yo knew for a fact was that those plans didn't seem to involve Section 13 in any way. Otherwise they'd probably have noticed something.

Personally, Yo-yo was betting on it being a Spectre operation. If there ever was a time for the Council's first and last line of defense to step up, it'd be now.

Besides, who else would they trust to delay the literal end of the galaxy?

---

16. May 2417 AD, Mirage of Halegeuse

"The loss of the base sounds regrettable. But if it stopped the Reaper, it was worth it," Miranda observed. While she'd already been informed about the success of Shepard's operation, Harper hadn't actually found the time for a personal debrief until now.

"Nothing we could've gained from the station would've outweighed the risk it posed to anyone staying on board for any prolonged amount of time," Harper commented before Miranda realized something.

"Which is why Shepard is going to Arcadia under the guise of a hearing," She had already wondered why a commando force as effective as the one the Commander had assembled wasn't immediately being re-routed to the Mirage to support Blue Solstice and instead being asked to appear in front of a tribunal despite just winning an astounding victory with only moderate casualties.

"The tribunal is real. But I won't go around and pretend that there aren't other concerns at play here too," the Cerberus director stated before pulling on his cigarette. "Shepard's been around a lot of Reaper tech. For us its been two years between Eden Prime and today, but from the perspective of her body and mind, it's been far less than that. Her exposure over the last months has been worryingly high. Add in the whole Thorian affair from two years ago and our still lacking understanding as to what the Beacon actually did to her brain to make her understand prothean and you've got a lot of people that want to make sure humanity's second Spectre isn't a ticking timebomb," he took another drag from his cigarette.

"Understandably," Miranda injected before Harper puffed out his smoke. If Miranda was being entirely honest, she hated it whenever the director spoke about Shepard. The commander was one of the few people whom she'd ever heard Harper have some sort of reverence for. Some of the others were Chancellor Noé, Desolas Arterius, the general's brother… and as of lately, Captain Haugen.

While jealousy wasn't something Miranda usually engaged in, she had to admit that it was at play here. But only in the tiniest amount of a fraction, of course.

"Don't misunderstand me, Miranda. I trust Shepard explicitly. She's been right every step of the way so far. But I'm in the minority with that opinion."

"Which is why I assume you haven't told her."

"As far she is concerned, this is only about the colonists lost in the explosion. That's more than enough for her to worry about anyway."

"There was nothing she could've done to change that. She must see that."

"Shepard's a unique person, Miranda. She's got an unhealthy sense of responsibility and she'll blame herself for a bad outcome, even if it would've taken something impossible to prevent it. In her mind, achieving the impossible would've been the goalpost. Everything short of that is a failure."

"Sounds like a hinderance to me."

"I never said it was good a good habit," the man wiped his brow and looked to the floor for a just a second.

"You're worried about the Commander yourself, aren't you?" Miranda guessed.

"She's been through a lot, Miranda."

"Evidently."

"Ever since Project Lazarus, she's been slow to get back to her former self. Things have gotten better as of lately and her success on the base is proof of the fact that her abilities haven't suffered… but even so, she's still far from the person I intended to bring back. It's my hope that some downtime on Arcadia can help fix that."

"And if it doesn't?" Miranda asked, partially hoping to hear 'then we'll use you, obviously'.

She didn't get that answer, though.

"It'll have to work. Shepard's more than a soldier-"

"She's a symbol."

They've had this conversation before, which was why Miranda probably shouldn't have been surprised that Shepard was going nowhere near the Bahak system.

While he'd never say it, the raven-haired operative knew that the man considered her and Haugen to be far more expendable than Shepard.

While one (or rather Miranda herself) could argue that Haugen and her were more skilled on an individual level, as evident by neither of them had died yet despite going up against similar opposition as Shepard, Miranda hate dto admit that for better or worse, the N7 was quickly becoming a symbol for the galaxy's success against the Reapers. As of today, she had played an active part in killing two of them. And that was worth more than a squad of ASOC commandos and one genetically perfect operative.

Circumstances and coincidences had made Shepard into something neither Haugen nor her would ever become and while Miranda could control a lot, she couldn't control coincidence.

"Speaking off the Bahak System," she could already guess the answer to her next question but she still needed to derail this conversation. If Harper kept gushing over Shepard, her mood would only keep souring. "Have you given any thought to the new intelligence that's been forwarded regarding the allegiance of the batarians occupying the system?"

"I have," Harper admitted. "The destruction of the relay is the only viable option and now that we know it most likely will not result in a war with the Hegemony because the separatists living there are as much of a thorn in their side as they are in ours, it's become even more viable," the director said coldly.

"What about Captain Haugen's proposal?"

"The evacuation of the system?"

"Yes."

"As I understood your report of that briefing, Captain Haugen mentioned in the same sentence that he doesn't think Balak's group would ever consider giving up Aratoht."

"He did," Miranda said. "But considering that this group might be the last non-indoctrianted batarian holdout, I think it's worth giving the idea of saving at least some of them a chance to be talked about. Ignoring the amount of intel on what happened in the Hegemony that we could gain from a high-ranking rogue officer… estimates put the population of the system at well over three-hundred thousand batarians. That's a lot of lives and if they get no warning prior to the relay being destroyed, they don't stand a chance," she offered, privately wondering if the HSA would drag them to Arcadia too upon mission success. If one looked beyond the fact that the people were batarians, their conundrum was exactly the same as the one Shepard had faced. Sacrifice thousands to save the galaxy…

Harper stayed silent for a moment and then lit up another cigarette.

"Since when has collateral damage bothered you, Miranda?" Much to her own surprise, she didn't have an answer for that. "I appreciate what you're trying to say, but we cannot afford compromising ourselves by reaching out to the batarians. The consequences of a mission failure are too high to allow for a couple hundred thousand lives to change our plans," he puffed out a cloud of smoke.

"If Shepard being called back to Arcadia has you worried, I can reassure you. The fallout of this operation is not something you have to worry about. The decision's already been made by people above both our heads, by the kind of people who decide whether or not there's even going to be a tribunal," he went on, presuming that he knew why the Cerberus operative was suddenly experiencing some doubt. He was partially right, of course, the prospect of her becoming the scapegoat for over a quarter million deaths did raise some concerns.

"This is the right decision Miranda. If you've got any doubts about that, I suggest you think about Oriana for a moment. Her safety's at stake here too. We sacrifice the Bahak System so that we can buy ourselves some more time to protect her and every other innocent soul like her," Harper suddenly injected. The mentioning of her sister always threw Miranda off and Harper knew it.

On a rational level she understood that what the man was doing was highly manipulative. He was leveraging the one emotional connection Miranda had still left. The obvious counter would've been that the three hundred thousand people living in the system were someone else's Oriana… but since Harper's tactic was working, Miranda didn't manage to formulate that thought.

Instead, she fell in line like a good soldier.

"No, no doubts. I just like looking at all the angles, you know that."

"I do. It's why I value you and why I put you into this task force in the first place," the man said before he picked up a glass from outside the projection range. This was another one of his moves. Pointing out the value people had to him. Miranda admired the man, more so than anyone else in her life, but right now her brain was working very hard to point out all of his obvious flaws. His excessive use of addictive substances for example… "As I understand you're about to cross into the Viper Nebula. Report back to me after you've rallied with the Blue Suns. Until then, consider yourself dismissed and return to her duties."

A million answers shot through her pre-natal-designed brain.

But only one found its way out.

"Understood."

After leaving the comms room, Miranda briefly looked into the empty corridor. She hadn't expected this conversation to end up the way it had ended up. Usually she didn't feel this… subservient when talking to Harper.

Yet here she was, having sat through listening to him gush about the N7 he'd brought back from death like she was the best asset to ever walk the universe before being emotionally manipulated into distancing herself from her proposal.

… Miranda didn't like that feeling one bit.

Hence she found herself disobeying Harper's orders and instead of returning to her duties began to wander around the Mirage until she appeared outside of the officer quarter Captain Haugen and the rest of Phantom had taken up residence in.

They'd changed locations while planning their covert insertion into the station. The barracks room they'd previously occupied, which was now nothing but a glorified storage room for all their gear, had apparently lacked then necessary digital infrastructure. Or maybe that was just what they'd told the salarian captain to move rooms.

Much like she'd hoped for, the door was cracked open just a little. While she considered that particular habit of the commando squad as poor op-sec on their part, she was glad for it because it allowed her to 'randomly' pass by and throw in a peak to see if there was someone in there to distract her without making it obvious that she'd gone here looking for company. Being needy didn't suit her, after all.

"The captain's not in there, if that's who you're looking for," a deep, batarian voice suddenly stated from behind her.

"Hello to you too, Sergeant Undrak," she greeted, doing her best to seem like she hadn't just been caught red-handed.

"That is who you were looking for, right?" the batarian pressed on before stuffing his hands into the pocket of his greenish uniform. The only reason the batarian was still onboard after the rest of the Recon detachment had been killed in action was because Haugen had specifically requested his presence. As such, he was now a member of Phantom Squad. At least on paper. He lacked the optical camouflage gear and the acceptance of at least one team member, who ironically happened to be the one Miranda felt like was closest to accepting her, but he was still closer to being viewed as a peer by the other humans than her.

Ironic, wasn't it?

"I was actually just going from A to B, really," she replied dishonestly.

"And your route just took you by Phantom's new quarters?"

"Yes. It's a free ship, isn't it?"

"Sure," Undrak murmured before tilting his head to the right. Had he been socialized in the Hegemony's caste system, Miranda would've automatically assumed that it meant that he considered himself superior to her. But given the fact that Undrak was a free batarian living in turian space by turian grace, she would give him the benefit of the doubt and not assume anything. "You know you don't need to make up excuses to talk to people, right?"

"Excuse me?"

"Your quarters are three levels up and unless you're suddenly best friends with the Mirage's CIC staff, you've got no business being on this layer unless of course you wanted to talk to someone human," then he raised his hands. "I mean no offense. Just making observations here," and how accurate they were.

'Glorified auxiliary trooper with nothing to his name other than the ability to shoot straight, was that not what you labeled him as when you first met him?' her subconsciousness told her. She had very clearly been very wrong.

After being confronted with the statement, Miranda first chose to mirror his right-sided head tilting to check her theory. If she was right and it didn't mean anything, Undrak wouldn't react to it. When she was proven right in so far that the four-eyed, eight-nostril-ed face remained neutral when she did tilt her head, she decided to continue on with her attempts at giving olive branches to the remaining members of the ground crew and the let out a sigh that sounded oh-so-tortured.

As expected, that was all a highly-social person as the batarian needed to get going.

"If its worth any consolation, ever since the rest of my unit didn't make it back, I understand what you feel like. The isolation. It gets to you, especially this close to an OP like the one we're about to head out on," he admitted. "Don't get me wrong, I appreciate what the captain is trying to do, taking time out of his day to make me feel like I fit in and what not, but I'm not an idiot. I'm not a part of their little group," he nodded at the door. "And neither are you."

"That's the way it usually goes with teams like Phantom," Miranda offered. "If you're not ASOC, you're on the outside."

"Especially when you're batarian."

"Or when you put a gun to their captain's head."

"Yes, but that one's got way more to do with your own choices than being batarian has got to do with mine. Apples and oranges, as you humans say?" the Recon sergeant replied before showing her a brief, needle-teeth smile. "Sorry. Couldn't help myself."

"You're not wrong. I'm responsible for how things ended up. You're not. And yes. That's what we say," the dark-haired Cerberus operative responded before resting a hand on her hip. "Apples and oranges. I guess Captain Haugen taught you that?"

"You humans love your idioms," he replied. "I'd love to share some of my own people… but I only really know turian ones and somehow I got the feeling that most of the batarian ones that exist aren't exactly… friendly."

Now it was Miranda's time to be observant. Undrak had caught her off-guard, now she'd catch him.

"Must've been tough growing up that far away from home."

The red-brown striped batarian squinted in response.

"You realise I was born in the Hierarchy, right? Same as my parents. And their parents. My family's lived on Palaven ever since coming to turian space. The Hierarchy's the only home I've ever had," he responded, prompting Miranda to remember the briefing that had occurred just after they'd learned the Reapers were coming. Now that Undrak mentioned it, she remembered hearing that before.

Damnit, what was the matter with her? She usually had a hand for this kind of thing.

"Yes. Right. I apologize." Miranda stated. "Wait. If you're a turian citizen, why are you even serving in the auxiliaries? Couldn't you just join the regular military?"

"… that's what I did?" Undrak replied somewhat confused, making Miranda realise she'd just gone two for two on being wrong. What the hell was the matter with her? "Ah. I see what this is. You figured since I'm a batarian, I got into Recon through the TAC, didn't you?"

"I guess I was under a misconception then."

"That's what usually happens. People see a batarian outside of the auxiliaries, they figure 'that one's probably been in the TAC for at least two decades'," the batarian responded. "You would've been right. About seventy years ago. Before my grandmother finished her term of service in the TAC and got us all turian citizenship," he went on before handing her a small chit that upon her touch revealed itself to be an electronic military ID, which sure enough stated plain and clearly that Eluthess Undrak had been born 24 years ago in Elapri, Palaven.

That explained the lack of facial markings.

"An elaprian-born batarian citizen of the Turian Hierarchy," she summarized. "I imagine you had an interesting childhood," she added. While probably not nearly as complicated as her upbringing, that was still a pretty volatile combination.

"Only thing that could've made things more interesting is if I was born biotic," Undrak replied with a shrug. "You seem off today and not in your usual manner," he suddenly commented. "Is this about the mission? something that I should be concerned about?"

"No, nothing like that."

"Good, I'd hate to hear the suicide ride just got even more difficult," the striped batarian stated. "The captain's in the CIC by the way," Undrak added. "Something about making sure that the salarians are ready for a lightning-fast extract."

"Right, thank you," that's why Undrak believed she'd come up her after all, to speak to the captain. "In that case, I'll swing by later and leave you to your duties."

"Or you could sit down over there and wait till he's back. It can't be that long," Undrak stated before gesturing for a room that both her translator contact lenses and knowledge of the salarian alphabet told her was the officers lounge. "That way you might be able to tell me what's going on, too."

Since the batarian was insistent, Miranda decided to be direct.

"Ignoring whether or not there even is something that is bothering me… why do you care? What reason could I possibly have given you to make you concerned whether or not I have something on my mind? As I understand, pretty much everyone dislikes me with a passion."

"You want a reason?"

"yes."

"I like living and I'm pretty sure so do Haugen and his men," Undrak responded flatly. "If you've got something to talk about that's keeping you distracted, you need to shake it. We'll cross into the nebula in a couple of hours and none of us can afford to bring anything with us that'll slow us down. There you go. There's your reason" the batarian explained. "So, are we doing this?"

Miranda briefly thought about the offer but then realized that showing Undrak even the hint of weakness would harm her even more. Half the reason she was feeling the way she was feeling right now was because she'd opened up to Haugen ever so slightly. That had already chipped away at her ego immensely and if she was already forgetting things she should've known, like Undrak being from Palaven because he'd said it while she'd been in the room, she could hardly afford to lose any more of it.

Her conversation with Haugen had been an interesting experience in self-reflection and her chat with Staff Sergeant Miller had been surprisingly entertaining… but it was time to get back in the armor. This mission called for old, cold, perfectionist Miranda. Not the new, open and ready to admit she isn't perfect Miranda.

"I appreciate the officer, Sergeant, but like I said. It's nothing you need to worry about. I'll swing by later."

"Don't do that," the batarian stated.

"Do what?" she inquired.

"Run away from the problem. It doesn't suit you," then he pushed open the door to the officer lounge. "I'm not saying you need to talk to me. I'm just saying you need to talk to someone," he added. "Haugen will be back in just five minutes. Leaving now only to come back later would be inefficient. You don't strike me as the type who likes inefficient processes. Is that enough of a justification for you to sit down and have a conversation?"

Miranda glanced into the luckily empty officer lounge, swallowed her pride and then let out another sigh in the realization that her retreat was failing.

"I suppose it is," figuring that she didn't even need to give him a real reason. After they sat down on the weird salarian chairs, Undrak leaned against the table and stared at her with his four eyes.

"So what's going on?"

In that moment, Miranda made a choice. Out of the vast array of ghosts, traumata and insecurities that she subconsciously knew were weighing her down, there was one that easy to talk about because of how much more favorably it painted her. If she was going to show some vulnerability, it was going to be in a way that didn't make her seem like a petty, jealous person.

"You wouldn't happen to have any siblings, would you?"

---

17. May 2417 AD, Terra Nova, Northern Equatorial Savanna

"And now back to the situation on the Citadel. Following the joint turian-human military operation on and around Omega, peace-protests in the Wards and here on the Presidium continue," the disembodied voice of an asari-sounding news anchor explained while Morneau swirled the flask of water in his hand.

Following the wake for the Hardline's KIAs, an event that had led to Stone not so subtly testing the specialist, the group he'd attached himself into had decided to not immediately return to the settlement of Maguires and instead opted to embark on a six-day long training trip in the adjacent savanna region. As such, the last week had consisted of nothing but shooting, rucking, maneuvering and asymmetrical warfare drills that the specialist was sure were straight out of ASOC's handbook before finally leading into a two day long 'final exercise' in the form of a two-men-team competition.

What were they training for?

Morneau didn't have the hint of a clue yet, but he was dead set on first finding out and then stopping it… even if it was admittedly somewhat fun.

Okay, who was he kidding.

It was a ton of fun and it brought him back to the simple days at Grissom Academy, minus the annoying red-tape of the school's curriculum.

If they weren't blood thirsty ultranationalists who's answer to any problem appeared to be 'let's kill it' and who also happened to have a connection to a group actively trying to interfere with HSA operations at the cusp of a Reaper invasion, he might've actually considered liking these guys.

But since they were…

Well.

No bueno, as they said around these parts.

After he took a sip from the flask and watched images of the protests on the Citadel flash across the screen, the specialist wiped the sweat off his brow and came to a realization. Or rather two.

First, years of living on Cronos had made him soft.

Second, he hadn't been 'home' in years.

Despite the fact that the only good parts of his upbringing had occurred on this here planet, he hadn't actually been on Terra Nova in a while, let alone stayed there for a prolonged time or ventured beyond the limits of HSA installations. As such his body had forgotten how hot this place could get.

A glance at the digital clock hanging on the wall of the Wildlife and Forestry Service shelter, which was really just a glorified prefab shed adjacent to the WFS range that they were using for their competition, quickly reminded him.

Thirty-five degrees Celsius, in the shade mind you.

This was a mild spring day as far as Terra Nova's climate was concerned.

Yet he was already melting away like ice cream.

After throwing a look at the clock and noting that the musical notes that had been painted on the wall underneath were the tune of the Ballad of Unity, the HSA's anthem, Morneau's mind briefly wanted to start humming the tune.

Then he remembered that this wasn't just a fun little free-time excursion he was on but rather an expedition into Hardline-Heartland and that there was no way in hell that with that kind of company he didn't have to start singing it once he started humming the melody.

... and since he was a terrible singer…

"I say let 'em have it," he heard Sixteen, Kyle Mitchell, mutter to his left. Much like himself, the former Final Wave mercenary was sitting on the floor of the range-shed and leaning against his assault pack for support. His eyes were set on the screen and his hands were occupied with the mouthpiece of the water bubble of his back from which he was greedily sipping some water. After tracing his line of vision, Morneau understood that he was talking about the broadcast.

The news station they were currently watching was covering the increasingly volatile protests on the Citadel that had kicked off after Arcturus had activated War Plan Red Ring, an operation name Morneau only happened to be aware of because HSAIS had seen it fit to give him access to the full Omega folder as a part of his assignment on Task Force Lightbringer, the hunt for the Shadow Broker.

There hadn't been any strategic details of course, but a rough outlining had existed and even back then he'd hoped that no one was ever actually going to be insane enough to try it, a view that had only gotten stronger after he'd visited the place himself.

You couldn't pacify Omega, mostly because most of Omega didn't want to be pacified.

They were doing their thing and as long as they didn't go back to actively interfering with the security of the HSA, they had every right to keep doing their thing.

Clearly a lot of people way above his paygrade had seen things a bit differently.

… he wondered what kind of weight the large Eezo reserves had played in that decision making process…

Anyway.

The screen was currently showing images of a row of Vanguard mechs standing in front of a testudo of hardsuit-clad MPs. Both the robots and the marines were caked in a mixture of colorful powders and paints, curtesy of the protestors.

The formation of human military personal was standing just one foot-width away from the holographic line that marked the beginning of the same HSA-dock that he'd fled into back when he was running from the Final Wave. Once you stepped over that line, you were in HSA space which could either be a very good or a very bad thing.

Whereas the marine-like robots were standing perfectly still in face of the rowdy crowd and simply shrugging off the things being thrown at them, the MPs that were standing behind them, under the cover of their riot shields, were growing anxious. The close-up shots of the news drones hovering in Citadel space were showing them as they fidgeted with their stun batons and the less-than-lethal projectile launchers, clearly waiting for the protestors to step over that magic little line that'd give them the chance at some payback.

Morneau got where they were coming from.

No one liked having to stand out in the open and just having shit thrown at them for the better part of four hours.

But as long as the thin bluish-white line of C-SEC riot police that separated the protestors and the marines was in place, he figured that the MPs were just going to have to take it.

That was their job, after all.

"Can't do that until they step over the line," Morneau observed. "Unless of course we want another major diplomatic incident."

"Whatever man… one's none anyway," the redhaired man to his left shrugged. "Besides, Omega had it coming for a long time. Rotten fucking place. You couldn't pay me to go back there."

Morneau turned his head ever so slightly.

"You've been?"

"Course I have. The Wave loves itself some Terminus contracts," Kyle stated. "You?"

Morneau shrugged. "Maybe," he said.

"So yes."

"Yeah."

"And?"

"Hmm?"

Sixteen nudged his head at the screen.

"Do you agree?"

"With what?" Morneau obviously knew what he was talking about but still decided to play dumb, if only to fuck with Sixteen some more.

"With the fact that the place had it coming. Christ, do I really have to pull everything out of your mouth?"

Morneau quickly thought back to his run-in with Aria and his little firefight with the Collectors that had captured Alec's daughter plus his subsequent skycar escape from the place.

Good times.

"It had its charm…" he said before slipping into his Hardline-persona and ignoring his previous train of thought as well as the fact that there was no way that the cost of life an invasion and occupation of Omega would produce could ever be worth it. "But yeah. As far as places that have it coming go, Omega's long overdue. It's basically Scumbag-Central, right after Khar'shan that is," the two places had one thing in common in his mind. They were both not worth even a single drop of the ocean of blood that'd be spilled over them.

A Hardliner wouldn't ever say that out loud though.

So neither would he.

"Word," Sixteen said before his watch emitted a shrill electric noise that overshadowed the sporadic gunshots from the near-by range. With the signal sent, the merc jumped up, quickly filled up his water pack and pulled on his hat again. "Alright. That's the break. Gotta hustle if we still wanna win this. The next range's still six kilometers out," he said before extending a hand to Morneau and helping the specialist to his feet. After dusting off the back of his pants, Morneau hugged his loaded rifle close to his chest and put on his own camouflaged hat.

"Still win this?" Morneau repeated. "Last I checked, we were two hours in front of all the other teams… because you know… we rucked all night without sleeping," the less competitive teams had gotten a couple of minutes of sleep at each station. They hadn't.

"Is that bitching that I'm hearing, spook?"

"Nope, it's just me pointing out the facts," Morneau said before adjusting his assault pack and following Sixteen through the door and into the blazing sunset. He had plenty of motivation to shine in this competition. Finishing sooner not only meant less time in the heat, it would also allow him to continue to make a good impression. If he stayed on this route, he'd continue to get closer to Stone and thus to his real target: PGI.

And there was of course also his natural competitiveness.

Back when he'd still been a Terra Novan cadet, he'd never qualified for the Best-Cadet-Competition. Since this whole thing was clearly modeled after that, this was his one shot at redemption. He'd be damned if he didn't seize it.

Hence the two odd partners started to ruck again.

The next half an hour passed mostly in silence as the two of them moved through the knuckle-high grass of the savanna, trying their best to stick to what little shadow there was without getting too close to the local fauna. While Terra Nova lacked the variety of aggressive predators that used to prowl Earth's savannas and the sonic emitters they were carrying should keep the few that did live here at bay, there were still some pretty large herbivores around these places that you didn't want to get accidentally stepped on or slapped around by.

That would hurt.

Badly.

A good example of that would be the brownish, giraffe-like Hexa-Antlerraffe currently idly eating away at the leaves of the shadows they were trying to stick to. As it spotted the two comparatively small humans walking by it, it emitted a goat-like noise from its beak and then continued to chew on the blue-colored leaves.

Much like a giraffe, the hexapodial herbivores had a long neck … yet very much unlike a giraffe, it was walking on six legs, had an antlered head and six eyes. Additionally, it didn't have spotted fur but was covered in sand-colored feathers, giving it all of the three of the most common features found with Terra Novan surface fauna: a beak, a hexapodial anatomy and feathers.

In the wake of the planet's last mass extinction event, which had transpired around the time Earth had entered its last ice age, hexapodial, flightless birds had become the dominant force of Terra Nova's animal kingdom.

While they were odd and at times terrifying to look at, the creatures almost unanimously appeared to lack an aggressive response to humans. According to his eight-grade biology instructor, the reason for this notable lack of aggression wasn't the sonic emitters human pioneers had set up, but rather the fact that the Terra Novan hexapods couldn't make sense of the bipedal humans or the quadrupedal animals imported from Earth.

So unlike say Horizon's predatory primate populations, which attacked pretty much everything on sight, the hexapods just ignored the settlers and most of the terrestrial animals they'd brough with them… barring the eagles, that is.

They didn't like the eagles and they'd made sure that any large-scale attempt at introducing them to the planet had failed, despite the Wildlife and Forestry Service's best efforts.

A lot of people took that awfully personal, but Morneau personally was just glad that the wildlife here wasn't giant bugs.

That'd make him seriously reconsider this whole hiking thing.

As he stepped over a root extending over the path in a very trip-over-worthy fashion and silently pointed at it so Sixteen didn't trip either, the mercenary suddenly broke their silent patrol.

"You ain't Terra Novan-born, are you?"

"Nope," Morneau responded quietly before pointing at the next root and trying to decide if Sixteen was just trying to make conversation or if he was prying for info for Stone. If it was the former, he'd politely divert. If it was the latter, he'd play ball.

"Arcadian then?" Sixteen went on.

"Bit short for an Arcadian, don't you think?" the specialist responded. Lower G-forces ensured that everyone from that place was uncannily tall.

His friend from the tech division, Robin, for example already stood half a head taller than him, despite her being a woman who biologically speaking should've been at least somewhat noticeably shorter than an average-sized guy like Morneau. And then there was Redford of course. The guy would've probably already been very tall anyway but the low-g had made him into a bit of a spindly giant. Quite turian-like, actually.

"Horizon?" he figured.

"You really think they'd pick someone born on a separatist planet for Thirteen?" he asked, omitting the fact that HSAIS had done just that several times over since. The Sections didn't care about where you were from, they only cared if you could do the job and stayed loyal throughout it. While his employer did a lot of dumb stuff at times, limiting its recruitment pool based on a place of birth was the kind of stupid HSAIS didn't indulge in and he was glad for it.

After all, 'orphan from a megacity with questionable stability and lower-than-average quality of life' wasn't exactly a good sales pitch either.

"So not the Fringe Worlds either," Sixteen concluded as they ducked underneath a canopy of low-hanging branches. "You're a bit old to be from the frontier… but you also don't have an accent, so it can't be Earth either. If it's not those places, it's gotta be another core world, right? Shit… is it Bekenstein? That'd explain how you did the thing with Hock's mansion back then. Homefield advantage…" the man went on. "So, is it a core world?" he finally aske,d to which Morneau decided to turn around and give him a little bit of help in his mother-tongue.

"Lá, mon cher ami, est la question," he offered with a smile.

"So Earth after all," Sixteen stated after his translator ear-piece did its job. "Where?"

"Algeria, North-African AZ," Morneau explained in the thickest French accent he could muster while the heat beat down on the two of them, "I grew up in the ARA-megacity region though. That's…"

"Probably somewhere in France, I'm guessing."

"Yeah. West of the Alps, if that means anything to you," the specialist said while cutting down on the accent before glancing forward and spotting the outline of their destination, a firing range.

"Only because they couldn't shut up about Hannibal back in my academy days," Sixteen responded. "Always take the route your enemy least expects you to," he quoted mockingly. "Pretentious history fucks. I never got why they've got such a hard-on for the shitty times before Unification or you know… fucking electricity."

"Thank you! Finally!" Morneau exclaimed with genuine joy. He'd never gotten the obsession either. Most of everything that had come prior to the HSA had been dark periods everyone should be glad to be over and done with.

While knowing history was important because of the whole doomed-to-repeat-it argument, the weird obsession and cult-of-personality like worship that Terra Novan military schools held for some of the darkest periods of human history were genuinely exhausting and only made up for by their even stronger admiration for the founding figures of the Alliance. Ezra Anaru, Tapu Pekama, Isabelle Zhang… those were names one could stand behind. Good people who'd done the right thing and jump-started humanity's golden age when put on the spot. "So…"Morneau went on as he realized that he was about to lose Sixteen's attention, "you really figured that HSAIS wouldn't train us to lose an accent?"

In response to his question, Sixteen only shrugged.

"How the hell should I know what you guys get up to on Cronos. For all I know you're all vat-grown science experiments. It'd certainly explain your lack of self-preservation and the biotics you got going for you, buddy."

"Nope, those are down to Grissom Academy and a mid-air-collision between a cargo-freighter and an Eezo-tanker," Morneau offered, figuring that the HSA being able to grow their own biotics would probably be an utter gamechanger and was probably on the to-do list of some RnD guy back on Cronos.

"A mid-air collision? How the fuck does that even happen these days? Guidance systems failure?"

"Nah. Some pilot prick wanted to commit suicide. Decided he'd ram the first best thing once he got into the air. And that just happened to be an Eezo tanker. Sixty-three dead including my dad. Pilot survived. Forgot to shut off the emergency ejection system," which was why he'd been around to explain that it had been an attempt at ending his own life. Morneau had watched the documentary on that event a lot when he'd been younger. Far more often than healthy, probably.

"What an asshole," Sixteen replied. "Should've just swallowed a bullet like a real man."

"Yeah, good luck getting a gun in most AZs," Morneau replied. While the HSA didn't explicitly prohibit its citizens from owning weapons, as exemplified by the fact that a whole bunch of Hardline civilians were currently rucking around HSA-owned land with assault rifles and DMRs, most places on Earth were almost entirely disarmed. Guns, poverty and overpopulated megacities just didn't mix.

Some AZs had exemption rules of course, but that was just something that came with the territory of the Administrative Zones. They'd gotten all kinds of exclusive rights and privileges back during the unification process in exchange for going along with the process. It was part of the reason why Morneau hated Earth, actually. It was the only place in the HSA that didn't play by the same rules as the colonies.

Despite being its largest member world, it was the furthest removed from the HSA's way of life.

But as long as Earth made up for a quarter of the human population and the AZs all had their own representatives to keep voting for their status to be maintained, he didn't see that changing any time soon.

"Since you're here, I take it your mom lived through that shitshow?"

"Not for long. Eezo poisoning got her after the birth," Morneau said. "If it had happened a couple months later, the tech from the exchange program with the turians probably could've saved her life. But well… since it didn't… it didn't."

"Shit man. I'm sorry to hear that. Kids should have their parents," the red-haired merc offered, strangely sincere.

"Don't be. It's been a lifetime since and I've never known it any other way either… so yeah. It's whatever," the specialist responded disarmingly.

"Alright man, if you say so."

He hated the topic, not because of any particular resentment about his fate but because of how people reacted to it whenever it came up. They always looked at him differently after the fact, like he was a victim of circumstance, some pity case that the universe had played a particularly bad joke on and thus needed to be handled with extreme caution, lest he break under the first wrong touch.

He didn't like that look, matter of fact he fucking hated it, which was why he was pleasantly surprised that Sixteen didn't give it to him.

"Come to think of it, how old are you anyway?"

"Thirty-one."

"So not that long after First Contact."

"About a year and a half."

"When?"

"July. Twentieth. 2385," Morneau murmured before stopping to look at the range and trying to judge whether or not there'd be fake-booby traps here either. They'd nearly lost some points at the last stop due to nearly stepping into 'land mines'.

"Then we're pretty much the same age, but I'm gonna figure you already knew that because you probably ran a background check after the whole Kosh incident."

"Damn right I did," the dark-haired specialist replied. Kyle Mitchell. Born on Terra Nova on Pioneer's Day, 18.10.2385. The only way the man could've been more destined to end up an ultranationalist is if he'd born on the Fifth of May. "Where's the sudden interest coming from, Kyle?" he added after remembering.

"We've been rucking through the savanna for four days straight and since its starting to look like you might actually be here to stay…." the former airborne figured. "… I might as well get to know you. Also I guess I finally got tired of the silence."

"Shame… I quite liked it."

"Which is why you were sharing willingly until just now?" the airborne pointed out.

"You seeing any obvious traps?" Morneau deflected. Why had he been sharing that much? He wasn't actually starting to like the guy, was he?

"Other than those fucking thornbushes that are probably crawling with Nino-wasps and Falcon-spiders?" Two of Terra Novas smallest, most painful creatures.

"Yeah."

"Nope. Guess the judges figured the way our ankles are gonna look after we go through here are going to be point-deduction enough."

Morneau looked at him with mild shock.

"You don't actually want to go through there, do you?" No wonder the guy had flunked Selection-Course 1. You never went through the thorn bushes. Even if it took you an hour longer to go around just twenty meters of this shit… you never went through the fucking thorns. That was one of the first things you learned when you started your Land-Nav courses at a Terra Novan academy.

Step around the fucking thorns.

"Spoken like a true non-Terra-Novan," Sixteen responded before pointing at some bent shrubbery at the edge of the thorn field. "Course I don't wanna go through that shit. But we don't have to take the long route around either, you see," Morneau followed his finger and noticed the disturbed plants. "The Antlerraffes walk through this shit all the time cuz they evolved to do it. Motherfuckers got thick skin. All the thorns just get stuck in their legs, plus they shoo away all the creepy crawlies by roughing up all the terrain. So if you just follow their steps, you're golden."

"Interesting theory," Morneau said. "I really like my ankles though."

In response, Sixteen sighed. "It's not a theory, alright? Just trust me on this one. I grew up in this damn savanna. This works. Been doing it since I learned how to walk."

Since Morneau wasn't one to pass up a chance to build rapport, he nodded.

"Alright then. Lead the way. Sergeant."

"So since we'll still be walking a minute there and we were just getting to know each other a bit… what do you do when you're not busy spooking around the place? Got any hobbies? Or you know, friends? A girl? Family?"

Morneau, who was busy matching Sixteen's exact steps, threw a glance at the slowly dimming sky.

"Do I strike you as a family man?"

"You strike me as a lab experiment."

"Question answered," he offered. "Jokes aside, yeah, I had some friends- Not sure how they feel about me now that I did pulled this whole rogue agent thing, though."

"Ah, yeah, right…" Sixteen murmured before drifting into silence. "What about you, Kyle? How's your personal life?" he suddenly added in a somewhat lower voice, probably trying to mock Morneau's own tone. "Glad that you asked, spook. No, I don't have friends or a girl or a family either. Dad bought it way back in the Merc War, mom's frigate got blown up," those parts had also been in the background check. "And since I'm a dysfunctional piece of shit who can't for the life of me form any meaningful connections with people off the battlefield, the Hardline's all I got now that I ditched the Wave."

As he adjusted the weight of his rifle and watched the tree line for animals (he'd never trust a sonic emitter) Morneau had to ignore the necklace dangling from his neck to convincingly lie and replied. "I guess we have that in common."

"Not having friends or girls or a family?" Sixteen guessed.

"Not having anything but the Hardline," Morneau responded.

"So what you're saying is you're also a dysfunctional Papa Oscar Sierra that's good for nothing but kicking dirt?"

"I prefer single-minded. It sounds less depressing."

"Ah yeah. Right. Non sibi, eh?" Sixteen chuckled as he scratched the left, shaved side of his head where the pattern of Zhang Academy was still clearly visible.

It was an old saying, one that could be found in every single academy on the planet in one version or another.

At Grissom, it was followed by sed allis, 'for others', but sometimes it was also cojoined by sed patriae, 'for country', or sed hominum, 'for mankind'.

Much to no one's surprise, it was also the title of several Hardline songs, a genre of music he was ashamed to admit was slowly growing to him, albeit probably out of some kind of Stockholm-Syndrome type of situation. If all you listened to all day were ultranationalist Terra Novan bands… you eventually grew to enjoy their tunes for your own sanity.

"I think some people just live to fight the good fight," he offered in return, quoting S13's head-instructor Mo, Callsign Scarecrow. "We do all of this, so that others don't have to endure worse shit. That's the job," he added reminiscent before throwing another look skyward and reminding himself that that was all this little hike was: the job. A means to an end.

"Amen. I'll drink to that once we get out of the fucking sun. I'm burning up here," Sixteen figured.

"Who's not a real Terra Novan now?" Morneau teased.

"Man, have you looked at me? I've got fucking red hair and freaking freckles. It's a miracle I'm not all sunburn already," Sixteen chuckled.

"Really? I don't think it's that bad," Morneau said before jokingly looking at the tanned, olive skin of his exposed forearms. "Quite pleasant actually." All this time in the real sun, away from the artificial lights of Cronos Station and the Citadel was allowing his natural complexion to break through. Between the two of them, Morneau was looking a lot more native Terra Novan than Sixteen.

"You guys tan, I burn and shed my skin. Story of every ginger ever," Sixteen shrugged to which Morneau couldn't help but laugh in a flare of nostalgia.

This was like a memory ripped straight from the good old days back when he and his equally BAR-unsuited pals had been training for the ASOC fast-track… before the fateful day in August 2403 that had sent his life on a completely different course than anticipated.

As he laughed, a part of him that had been suspiciously silent the last couple of days, namely Callsign Magic, suddenly switched itself back on and came charging to the forefront of his mind.

Even if the guys he was with seemed to share a lot of the values and experiences that made him who he was, even more so than a lot of the people who he worked with that despite their allegiances to HSAIS had at best questionable morality, Sixteen, Stone and all the other Hardliners were still ultimately (either willingly or unwillingly) working for the HSA's enemies.

That made them his enemies as well, even if it didn't feel like it just yet.

No degree of nostalgia and sense of belonging would ever change that.

He had a mission here.

That was the reason he was doing this, nothing else or in between.

He couldn't lose focus or let his judgement be clouded, otherwise that very mission would be endangered. And since the mission always came first, he needed to keep a lid on this whole 'growing to like it' business.

Play along, yes, but don't get involved.

Never get involved. That was the golden rule of his business.

As Sixteen and him cleared the harmless portion of the thornbushes and hiked the last bit to the shooting range, Morneau cursed the universe for embedding him with a group like the Hardline.

This whole undercover thing had been a lot easier when he'd hated every aspect of the lifestyle he'd been sent to infiltrate.

Couldn't Stone and his guys ditch the soldiering and patriotism and the rucking and shooting and camping in the scorching sun of the planet he'd spent the best time of his life on for some nice, cozy airconditioned apartments on the Citadel and morally reprehensible, selfish merc work?

That way he'd have an easier time quietly loathing this.

As he entered the shade of the range behind Sixteen with pain in his legs and a genuine smile on his face, Magic kept telling him to think about the stupid haircuts, the war crimes and the relation to PGI.

He needed to seem like he enjoyed this but he could never actually grow to like it.

Otherwise he was screwed beyond belief.

---

18. May 2417 AD, Omega, Carrd District

"Well, that's her gone in the wind," Matchstick observed while looking at the surveillance footage of T'Loak boarding a hidden stealth craft before probably using it to circumvent the naval blockade that the HSA had set up around the relay. "Guess you were right. She did have a way off after all," he added before glancing at Major Cato.

"I guess so," the elite MP stated before deactivating his omni-tool. The two then silently looked at the burning husks of the last of the 'Dekuuna Six'. Taking them down had been as bloody as anticipated and ultimately, Gold Squadron had to bring down their entire base of operations on top of them to drive them out. And even then it had taken several anti-tank rockets and more Indig casualties than he would've liked to do the trick. "With Carrd cleared, Omega's secured. Barring a few holdouts."

"Ignoring T'Loak… did you get what you were looking for?" the older operative wondered.

"Yes and the Talons we captured painted an ugly picture."

"I guess that means you won't be sticking around for the aftermath-" Matchstick figured.

"No. The 363 is being redeployed to Taetrus immediately. We've got a lot of work ahead of us," Cato responded. "What about you? It seems like their cause grew on you," Cato observed as a brigade of militias marked with green tape passed by their improvised command post. They looked as beaten down as expected… but they were still smiling because they knew they'd won today.

He shook his head in response. "Guys like me only do the tearing down part. We leave the building back up part to others," Matchstick offered before extending a hand to Cato. They'd been through a lot in the last couple of days and much like their respective people, they'd turned into fire-forged friends.

"In that case I'll recommend that they sent you to Taetrus immediately. Get in a head start before Facinus kicks things off," the officer said dryly before shaking his hand.

"Is what they're up to really that bad?"

"I'm afraid that the details are a matter of hierarchical security for now… but yes. It is that bad," Cato muttered. "There'll be another war soon."

Matchstick grimaced.

The turian was right in more ways than one.

Given his status as a commander of one of the Hierarchy's special mission units, he assumed that Cato knew just as much as him that the Reapers were headed for them but also respected the possibility that Matchstick might not be fully aware of this sensitive piece of information and as such couldn't outright say it. And since Matchstick's situation was similar, they both needed to speak in code.

"Where are they sending you?" Cato wondered out loud.

"Your guess is as good as mine," Matchstick lied. It wasn't.

His assignment for the Reaper invasion had been clear ever since the Battle of the Citadel.

If war came to human territories, Section 6 Operational Detachments would abandon most exterior operations and instead activate and support the partisan cells of the Stay-Behind-Initiative.

The SBI was a relic of the post-Fringe-Wars paranoia. A brainchild of Chancellor Francis Noé.

Much like the other relics of that time, for example the insane mothballing of any and all outdated military equipment in stockpiles all across human space, and other prepper-style politics spearheaded by Noé, they could consider themselves lucky that Arcturus had never bothered to stop these initiatives despite the lack of an obvious exterior threat until recently.

They'd desperately need them soon enough, the SBI even more so than others.

Once you got down to it, the idea behind it was very simple and pretty old. Just its HSA-wide scale was new, really.

After the formal retreat of the armed forces from a human territory, loosely linked cells of non-military operatives would be activated to build up partisan movements and wage a guerrilla war against whoever had forced the regular troops to pull out.

While these people weren't in any way employed by HSAIS or members of the armed forces (anymore), they were trained and supplied by the same obscure funding system that was providing money for organizations like Cerberus. The SBIs had been carefully cultivated in strategic places throughout human space for the last thirty years. Every major colony had a network of large cells and most of the smaller ones had at least a couple of Section 6 linked assets that'd become active the same way they'd done during the Skyllian Blitz. Reconnaissance, sabotage, training, distribution of weapons… they'd pull every dirty trick in the book to soften up the invaders for the counter-attack.

How well that'd work on the Reapers?

He was hoping to not find out quickly.

Either way.

When the call came, and he was under no impression that it wouldn't come, he'd been on a stealth frigate to Terra Nova within the hour. The Exodus Cluster was the assigned sector of his OD and as Deputy Director, it'd be his responsibility to command the vast network of resistance movements that'd plop up all over the place.

While the SBI local to Terra Nova had grown far beyond the control of HSAIS due to some very poor choices of the guys who'd originally laid the foundation for the Terra Novan branch, namely by choosing an ideology with way too much character and political potential as its baseline, the Hardline as they now called themselves, Matchstick firmly believed that they'd still jump at the call the second he'd come knocking, especially if it was him at the door.

A lot of his comrades from his Army days were now neck deep in the Hardline and due to their somewhat older age, they had all been there since the beginning of the movement and now formed its upper echelons.

As the thought of his past crossed his mind, he moved his watch to look at the tattoo on his left wrist.

It was one of his old unit insignias.

ASOC's Third Battalion's triangle and lighting bolt. Right underneath it, started a far too long list of names and dates. Each of those names represented a team member.

Most of them were dated during the closing years of the Fringe Wars, 2380, 2381... when he'd first gotten deployed to Horizon and the war had been in full swing. After Armistice Day, there'd been a break until '84 when Gerard had bought it during an anti-IFS raid on Elysium. Antimaterial rifle straight through he throat. He remembered it as clear as if it had been yesterday.

After Gerard, a couple of others had gotten added during the Mercenary Intervention of '88 and '89. The last one to make the list had been Haytham in '93. Dude had kicked a mine on an anti-slaver op during Matchstick's last rotation with Third.

Then there was a break, after he'd gotten out and joined HSAIS and stopped having ASOC brothers die all around him all the time... until the last two entries on 04.01.2415.

Etched in his skin just below the elbow were the names of the two brothers from Ghost Squad who unlike him had stayed in long enough to die on Eden Prime instead of opting for a different career path in the wake of the whole Kamarov fiasco or getting out altogether like Icer had after his twenty had been up.

Wei-Lee Zan and Arjun Sheshdari.

Predator and Basilisk.

They and a lot of other guys from Third' command staff had punched their ticket back then but since those two had been the only team members of his who'd died on that day, they'd been the last ones who'd made the list.

"Matchstick-Actual for Sword-Actual, come in," the voice of some disembodied, female ground control officer sitting back on the HSASV Anaru stated.

"Reading you, Sword-Actual," the older operative responded.

"The admiral wants to speak with you. A comm-link's being set up at the Carrd T-FOB," the temporary forward operations base, "a Kodiak should be headed your way right now," just as the woman finished, a green-coated shuttle came into sight. The fact that they were being this direct with their air transport was probably a good sign. It meant that they'd achieved complete aerial supremacy … which really shouldn't be that much of a surprise considering Omega's aerial combat force at its peak had probably consisted of some guys leaning out of skycars and a couple of batarian gunships.

As the Kodiak hovered down next to him and a marine in a dark hardsuite opened the door, rifle in hand, Matchstick flashed his ID batch at him.

"Deputy Director Antonio Caruso?"

"One and only," the former ASOC operative stated before climbing into the Kodiak and knocking the crew member on the shoulder. "Do me a solid one, though, brother. Call me Cosmo. Rolls off the tongue easier, you know?" he stated, smiling at the memory of Predator, Basilisk and Icer. Looking back those mandated cover names HSAIS had issued to ASOC operatives serving on anti-IFS duty in the Fringe had been a silly thing he was glad the command had grown past.

Sure, everyone had been worried about some Iffy showing up at your family's doorstep and putting three in your wife and kids and you… but if they could figure out your address, they could probably also figure out which clear name and rank was hidden behind which callsign.

Besides, the N7s hadn't done it and they'd done just fine. Or at least he'd never heard of anyone showing up at one of their homes and putting three into their wives...

Even so, the nickname Cosmo carried a lot of nostalgia. So why not ride on that wave for a little while now that he'd seen a plan years in the making finally come to fruition?

"Can do, Cosmo."

As the Kodiak started hovering up and the doors began to close, hiding Omega's skyline in the process,, the former fourth member of Elysium's Ghost Squad threw a final look at the permanent reminder on his wrist and decided that he was overdue a chat with his old pal Icer.

If the Terra Novan Stay-Behind group was going to get activated, it only made sense he'd reach out to one of the Hardline's actual leaders.

---

Codex: Biography of Ezra Anaru (Part 2, Anthropological University of T'Lav)

Following his experience in the series of Earth-based conflicts colloquially referred to as 'the Bush War', Captain Anaru and his SRR company would continue to serve at the behest of the SU-Initiative and be deployed to several terrestrial conflict zones until 2115 AD. Then, at the eve of 2116 AD, Ezra Anaru would make (family) history and become the first person in his family to leave humanity's home star system as part of an effort to fortify UN-holdings on what was back then humanity's only extra-solar colony: Terra Nova.

It would be during this two-year deployment that Anaru would first cross paths with Commander Isabelle Zhang (13.01.2080, Vancouver, Canada / Earth – 23.04.2194, Scott / Terra Nova)

Zhang, who still served with the UNJDI's Space Operations Command during their first meet, would later go on to serve aboard the UNSV Hastings, a vessel famous for its role in the JDI-led unification of the Earthern region known as the 'Korean Peninsula'. During the campaign, which lasted from 2139 to 2141, the Hastings would become the first vessel in human history to engage in orbital bombardment against a human world. Zhang herself would go on to serve as an admiral within the Human Systems Alliance Navy.

During his stay on Terra Nova, which Anaru himself described as 'uneventful' when compared to his previous deployment, the SSR unit he was attached to was predominantly deployed to patrol the savanna-like edge of the Northern Equatorial Desert and clamp down on a series of smuggling operations that had been set up within the massive subterranean layer of Terra Nova as well as the mapping of undocumented settlements that had been set up on the planet without the knowledge of the United Nations.

'You see, way back when I first got to Terra Nova, it was still a rule-less no-man's-land where everyone was just settling down wherever they coul. First you had all the refugees that the UN was ferrying over in between its actual colonialization effort around Scott. Then came the stowaways who got smuggled there on the supply transports and finally, you had some corporations and countries rushing to grab as much land as they could too. So despite Terra Nova being formally a UN-administrative territory, we had no idea how many people actually lived on the place, let alone where they were all staying. So that's what we ended up doing most of the time during those two years. We drove around savannahs, hiked through the woods and climb on mountains and just wrote down where everyone was setting up shop while making sure they didn't starve to death or something like that along the lines. Strangest deployment I ever had. Didn't fire a single shot. Just handed out supplies and told people to maybe go to one of the UN settlements instead of trying to rough it out on their own. Looking back on it, I think Terra Nova's when I realized that the JDI had the potential to be something special… so that's when I decided to start climbing the ranks as fast as I could. The sooner I made general, the sooner I could start looking for people who felt like me and who also understood that we needed a reset.'

Following his two-year deployment to Terra Nova, Anaru was promoted to Major in 2119 AD. As evident by later de-classified documents, it would be around this time that Anaru first began reaching out to fellow officers within the JDI as well as bureaucrats working in the various, extra-solar colonialization related departments of the UN. In his memoirs, Anaru writes that the formation of the network that would later turn into the Systems Alliance Foundation party began during his stay in the Rio de Janero's (Brazilian Administrative Zone / Earth) based military academy that would later become known as the home of the HSA's Naval Special Operations Command (N7), the ICA or, more colloquially known as, 'N-School'.

---

A/N:

And here we are, nearly two months later.

Sadly there's no change to the fact that my update schedule will stay slow.

With that out of the way, let me pick up on some of the critisim I've received (or rather the very helpful suggestiong to sometimes refresh people's memories because of how vast the story has become) So here are two reminders for later on:

1. Matchstick and Cato aren't new characters. They've both appeared before. Matchstick as Cosmo by name and Cato in the memories of Callius and Garrus whenever Taetrus came up.

I don't think a lot of you guys remember Cosmo. He only appeared as a side character OF a side character (Predator, the first ASOC POV-character we've got) waaaaaaaaaaaay back during the Kamarov Arc and I think he had a total of... four small apperances... which is why I won't blame anyone for not believing me what I am going to say now: he was always supposed to come back and as the ending suggests, his figure is going to tie into Morneau's plot in a not that small fashion.

Similarly, Cato (who to be fair was never mentioned by name) was the hastati who t Callius kept thinking about whenever the War on Taetrus came up, the guy who in chapter 94 was mentioned to have been ordered to clear his own hometown. His unit, the 363rd meanwhile was refered to in the codex entry of Chapter 101 and then briefly in 119 and 122 again. Kuril, Zaeed's turian pal (who is Warden Kuril in canon) also used to be part of this unit)

2. Elapri, the place Undrak was born in, is also where Saren and Desolas are from. It's why he lacks facial markings and why everyone assumed he wasn't a 'proper' turian. Undrak's a cultural bareface fromt he main rival state of Cipritine. If you want to refreshen your memory on that, Chapter 23's codex is all about Elapri and Cipritine's war and Chapter 106 is all about Elapri.

Okay, with that out of the way, I only want to give a brief preview on what's to come: starting with the next chapters, we are headed down the Arrival Road, a plotline that's also going to include Vega (who's last apperance was in chapter 122). Whereas this was a breather chapter... the next ones are going to go back to SV's roots of Reaper-related horror, something that's been missing for a long time.

Having said that:

I don't know when I'll get it out.
So for now just review and let me know what you thought about this one.

For the record we're at 949 reviews, 1568 favorites and 1641 follows.

See you around next time.