The End of Time: A Struggle with Annihilation and An Oral History of the Reaper War

Introduction

There were too many names for it when it happened, and far too many now it has passed. "The Crisis" and "The Disaster" were used at the time, though "The Reaper War" or "The Final War" seem to be popular now. I personally find "The Final War" to be a bit presumptuous, especially in the wake of the dozens of minor conflicts that have occured in the years since. For me, it will always be "The Invasion," against which people will struggle to argue with its definitiveness. The word "Invasion" is still visceral for those of my generation: who witnessed the great machines hovering over our homes and remember the shudder of the ground from when they made landfall. It is a devastating, ugly word, for a devastating, ugly conflict, and I hope to convey at least some of that within this book.

I would like to thank all of those who allowed an old reporter to interview them for this work. It is not a secret that much was lost in our war with the enemy, and there are some who feel that it is too fresh a loss for such a work to be published, even so many years later. The Asari publication companies especially seemed to hold issue with the timeline of release, their own academicians waiting to publish at the turn of the century. While I hold nothing but respect for the Republics and their writers, I feel that waiting is a double edged sword- encouraging healing yet also enabling the loss of memories when so much is already gone. While time will inevitably supply us with greater insight and maturity looking back, not all of us have the longevity of the Asari Republics and its people. At the time of writing, half of the survivors of Independence Station have succumbed to radiation poisoning, and all the heroes of the stand at Wolfson House are gone as of last week. It is because of this march of time that I find myself publishing this series of accounts almost prematurely, rushing from one planet to another attempting to record the memories of this war before they are lost forever.

I have attempted to reserve judgment and silence my own voice in the transcription of these events, though I realize this is not entirely possible. The interview questions included are only those I thought were strictly necessary or helpful to the reader. It is my hope that those interviewed be the only voices that appear in this work.

New Westfield, System's Alliance Colony at the Spinward edge of the Avon Fringe

[Pre-war, the colony of New Westfield was contained within three massive domes, set in a triangle around a central power plant. Now, with the population cut by over 90%, only one dome is inhabited, with those within dependent on weekly supply runs from Earth Central Command for food and oxygen. Jonathan Reddeker is responsible for delivering supplies from the nearest depot, using a shuttle that went out of style 3 decades ago. He doesn't mind, anything that gets him farther from the ground is good enough for him. Even now, in the air on the way to resupply, he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, occasionally glancing at the floor.]

Back when the crisis started, I was still with the 24th regiment. Local air guard, we mostly hopped from city to city doing supply runs and acting as a taxi for certain officers. Most exciting thing that happened was the occasional forest fire where the boys and I would launch to act as spotters for the firefighters.

[Reddeker grins and pats the console as we zip through the clouds. Behind us sits nearly half a ton of nonperishable food, set to be unloaded by hand once we reach the colony. He takes a sip of water before continuing. ]

Bored off our asses, that's what we were. 30 flyboys in the Civil Air Patrol driving glorified taxivans on the weekends. Had our asses hanging out there when they finally needed us.

[His smile fades.]

"This was before the enemy hit Earth, before anyone took 'The Reapers' seriously. I hear Admiral Hackett in Sector 004 had everyone on high alert, running drills and prep tests. Not us. Admiral Johnson believed fuck all about the Reapers, so we didn't know shit until they were right on top of us. All the collector nonsense was behind us, and being so close to the border of Alliance Space meant that there was nothing of value near our little colony. 'Safe as houses' is how our captain put it.

Only one that was worried was Corporal Lenard, twitchy little dude fresh from boot. Apparently he heard from a friend of a cousin of a friend or some shit that Commander Sheperd had found something real bad before she got herself arrested. But back then, Shepherd rumors were a dime a dozen. If you listened to all of them, you'd figure that she was a 6 meter tall orc with nukes for hands and voices in her head. We took him to the shrink and almost got him stuck with an anxiety diagnosis. Felt real bad once he was proved right about a week later.

I was running ambulance duty to the far south of the domes when the colony's satellites picked up an object making a beeline towards the planet. They thought it was a space rock or something, until it accelerated hard, chopping the time from detection to impact from 20 hours down to 1. They didn't have the time to activate the orbital anti-asteroid batteries, and they weren't designed to hit anything accelerating at that clip anyways. All the news we heard from colony command were confused garbles, until about 2 minutes before it entered the atmosphere, when dispatch sent out a coherent message.

"Prepare for casualties"

The object made impact on the northeast side of the colony, on top of a small mining community called 'Swingside.' Since I was in the air and already kitted for ambulance ops, I was first on the scene to look for survivors. Didn't really expect any, especially with the object coming in so fast, so imagine my surprise when it seemed to be perched quite delicately in the middle of the town square. Not nothing of course, it left its own little crater and everything around it was burning, but the town seemed mostly intact.

What did you think of it?

Shit, what was I supposed to think? It was big and ugly and it looked like a squid and it landed in the middle of a town. I thought it was a casualty causing event. I saw a house burning down and some people dragging their family members out, so we landed in the shadow of the object and started shuttling people out to the med center at Westfield Central. Went swimmingly for the first two runs, more shuttles and security had arrived. We had surrounded the object in a loose circle, and were gradually closing it in order to get the survivors closer to the object itself. Then we hit the mayor's house.

[Reddeker pauses for a moment, taking a deep breath and another sip of water. He seems paler now, though perhaps it's just a trick of the clouds passing by outside our window]

Mayor John Porteau, the bastard. He built this massive Victorian house where he kept his wife, 8 kids, and at least 20 cooks, cleaners, and other staff. Made it big back in the mining boom, you see. A leg of the object had come straight through the top of the house, and one of the cooks had run out from the house, nearly incoherent. The only thing she kept mentioning was "impaled." We figured someone had gotten crushed by the leg, or stabbed by a support beam. But when we entered the house, the old mayor, his wife, and all their kids were lined up in a row, carefully skewered on a row of metal spikes.

Dragon's teeth?

Yeah, though we didn't know anything about that back then. Nobody knew what the fuck was happening, but we figured them for dead until one of the kids, a girl maybe 15 years old, let out this horrible noise, and started grasping at the spike shoved through her chest. We rushed to stabilize her, since you're not supposed to remove an object you've been stabbed with. But as soon as we were within 10 meters, her eyes seemed to lock onto us. They were glowing blue. Once we were 5 meters away, the spike retracted with this screeching thunk, and the girl landed on the ground. A second later, she lunged at one of the firefighters, bounding on all fours like an animal. I think she took his throat out. None of us were armed, so we were trying to pull her off, when that horrible thunk noise started going off all around us.

The other dragon's teeth?

There must have been more than just the mayor's family. The household staff too, I think. All I know is that I started sprinting out of there followed by maybe 10 of those things. They were crawling out of the ground like zombies, looking back they must have infested the mining tunnels below.

[He stares intently at the metal deck beneath his feet]

I mostly remember the sounds, to be honest. The screaming as those creatures begin to dig out from the ground. The scraping of metal. Some idiot tried to punch one of them and broke his hand. I think they ate his face. I just started running and didn't stop until I realized I was back in my shuttle. There was a small family on board, taking shelter I think. I just remember lifting off as a couple of those things started scratching the bottom of my shuttle.

[He scratches his boot on the floor of the cockpit again. A metal screech erupts as his nailed boot rubs against the grate. He smiles faintly. ]

Just had to get higher.