The Adventures of the Lucen: The VykurCorp Conspiracy

by General Rage

Liara T'Soni continued her mission to protect the Galaxy while Commander Shepard is in another dimension. She must stop the Covenant and the allies they've gathered from wreaking havoc in a Galaxy without it's greatest hero. While she's had some success, there's a gathering storm on the horizon and one of her crew of misfits will be forced to confront her past before it clears.

10. Preservation

Chapter Ten: Preservation

Liara was working late, managing the various reports concerning the Forerunner sites her teams had located. Just because they were chasing down Orukuri's schemes with the Separatists didn't mean she could neglect the other problems they were facing. Balak's conspiracy was incredibly dense in terms of manpower, operations and overlapping agendas. They had made a dent in it, but if they wanted to keep them from advancing their plans, they had to keep tabs on every aspect of it.

As far as her people were concerned, he Forerunner sites were slowly becoming occupied, one after the other. The Covenant were moving quickly after Liara's latest actions against them. Which probably meant the next site they visited would be even more heavily defended and locked down by sangheili and whoever else was with them. If the hunt for these Forerunner weapons caches was picking up, then it was only a matter of time before the Covenant found one. They had to be faster, her agents had to start playing archaeologists themselves.

She was sending specific instructions to some of the teams to investigate the sites that had not yet been occupied. She also began sending funds out to hire mercenary groups and pirates to raid the Covenant sites that had been taken over. If nothing else it would disrupt their enemy's efforts, but with some luck maybe they could get away with some key information that could assist them. If Balak and Vorsa were willing to expend more resources on this plan, then so was she. It was the only way to keep up the pressure.

She would've kept working on the problem, had Glyph not interrupted with some news.

"Incoming message from Commander Shepard, Shadow Broker," he announced.

That was odd, they had only just had a recent update. Usually, Shepard took a bit more time to message her concerning developments over in the other dimension. Which, in her mind, could only mean something significant had happened. Something he urgently needed to share.

"Open the line," Liara requested, quickly turning away from her work.

She soon saw Shepard's image on the screen and he looked exhausted, ragged. Like he had been through a meat grinder. Nothing new for him, of course, but he seemed shaken by it. Not at all normal for him.

"Shepard, Goddess, what happened?" Liara asked, shocked at his appearance. "Were you attacked? Is everyone alright?"

"We're fine, well, it's hard to really explain," he assured her, not sounding entirely convinced. "You might be short on time here so... oh, that's a really terrible choice of phrasing right now."

Shepard seemed to mentally punch himself, as if he had made a terrible pun. Only, he hadn't made one, as far as Liara could tell. Now she was growing even more concerned, but thankfully Shepard kept on topic.

"Listen, do you remember Alec Ryder?" He asked.

Liara was surprised, she hadn't heard that name in a long time. Ryder was a famous human soldier and adventurer, one of the most decorated heroes of the Alliance. Years ago, he had contacted her about exploring, and possibly colonizing, new worlds beyond their Galaxy. He took specific interest in her work on ancient civilizations and how to best approach the study of lost cultures in order to apply it to living ones. Useful for trying to determine how other civilizations in distant galaxies could be different from us and how best to interact with them.

However, she hadn't heard from him in some time, a very long some time. He had been ostracized from public, blacklisted for his radical ideas concerning artificial intelligence. Something about it being far too similar to what led to the quarians losing their homeworld. At the time, Liara had been more concerned with her own studies on the Protheans and then the Reapers and Saren and everything else happened. So she hadn't bothered to get back in touch with him.

"I am aware of him, but what does-"

"He talked to you about colonization of other galaxies," Shepard suddenly stated. "About how to apply the study of lost civilizations to ones we hadn't discovered yet?"

That was way too accurate a description to be a random guess. Shepard knew about a private conversation between her and another academic years before she had even met him. It was inconceivable and only heightened her concern.

"How did you know about that?" She asked suspiciously.

"Because I spoke to him, Alec Ryder, directly, not too long ago I was fighting alongside him," Shepard explained. "It's... it's a crazy story. You best sit down for it."

Liara took his word for it and pulled up a chair. She was soon glad she did. Shepard shared a nightmare vision of the future, one that was so vividly real. About how the next year and a half could unfold should everything go wrong. Reapers decimating star systems, whole civilizations and races wiped out, effectively extinct and friends and colleagues being killed, maimed or turned into monsters. It was too horrible to think about, but Shepard had no choice because he had lived it.

Somehow, he had been transported into a dark world yet to come. How he and the Master Chief had fought beside a group of survivors just for the barest chance of fixing everything that had gone wrong. Survivors who sacrificed everything to get them both home, so the Commander and the Spartan could change the past and fix the future. Survivors that were led by her and Alec Ryder.

To say Liara wasn't overwhelmed by it all would be an understatement.

"This... this is insane," she said at last when it was laid out. "Very insane, even for us."

It wasn't that she didn't believe Shepard, the fact he knew about a private conversation from years ago she had never shared with anyone was proof enough in her eyes. This was real, this happened... or would happen. It was just, well, that was the very thing, Shepard was describing things from the future. The very notion was just numbed the senses to a degree.

"I suppose we best take this warning as a gift," Liara surmised. "Not many people get to know how the future will unfold."

"Unfortunately, one aspect of this future might be locked in place soon," Shepard warned. "Alec Ryder sent me back to ask you for help specifically. You're the only one that can pull it off right now."

Liara sat up once more at attention.

"What do you mean?" She asked. "How can I help prevent this?"

"That whole thing he went on about," Shepard began. "Colonizing other galaxies? Andromeda specifically? It wasn't theoretical, there's an Initiative back where you are that's trying to do just that."

Liara presumed as much, she had learned long ago that people like Alec Ryder didn't ask such huge questions for fun. There was always more to it. A purpose behind it all. A means to go through with such pursuits for real, to make speculation fact.

"They're about to launch soon and begin a six-hundred-year long trip across empty space to Andromeda," Shepard continued. "They don't realize they won't even get the chance. The Covenant are going to get wise to their plan, they're going to damage their arks, they won't fix them in time before the Reapers show up."

"And then they're trapped here, fighting this war, with all of us," Liara reasoned.

A prospect that Liara herself would wish on no one. She knew what was going to come. They all did really. It was going to be hell, living hell unleashed on every world and every species. Shepard's experience proved as much. The chance of anyone, asari especially in her mind, escaping that, having a chance to survive all of this? Well, she wouldn't blame them for leaving. They probably didn't even know what they were fleeing.

"You have to help them, Liara," Shepard insisted. "We have to give them a chance."

"Agreed, but how?" Liara asked. "I don't even know where they are, what to look for, how to stop this attack."

Shepard activated his omni-tool and began an information transfer.

"Alec did and he left me with the information you'll need to stop the attack," he explained. "If you can prevent the Covenant raid from doing significant damage, they'll be able to meet their launch window easily."

The upload took a while, crossing dimensional barriers was always tricky, but eventually Liara had everything. She looked it over quickly. The attack would occur at a huge station close to the Veil, where a number of massive ships called Arks were being constructed. The Covenant would send in a small strike team to attack all of them while they were still in dry dock. Key targets were the engines, cryo containment and mission critical supplies. If any one of those failed completely, going to another galaxy was a pipe dream and only that.

Liara wondered how the Covenant found out about this Initiative or why they cared enough to attack it. It wasn't like these people posed any threat. They were leaving. Perhaps that was the point. They didn't want anyone to leave, especially humans. They wanted them all dead, all purged. Needless to say, the hows and whys didn't matter so much as the when. According to the date and time of the attack, it was soon.

If Liara wanted to prevent this, she would need to put everything else on hold and take action. She owed it to Ryder, who had confided in her years ago, and apparently trusted her enough in the future to ask for her help now. Plus this hurt the Covenant's war efforts in a small way and she did need to keep the pressure up.

"Thank you, Shepard, this is everything I'll need," she assured him. "I'll gather my team, prepare a counter strategy and get to over there as fast as possible."

"I know you will," Shepard said confidently. He then started rubbing the back of his neck. "There's one other thing though we... need to talk about."

He seemed suddenly very uncomfortable, awkward even. It was rather unnerving all of a sudden. Liara eyed him with suspicion.

"What do we need to talk about?" She asked curiously.

"It's, um, about what you did in the future," he tried to explain. "Well, not you, a version of you from... it's complicated. We're probably going to have to have a long discussion later but, right now... well..."

Shepard danced around it for a few more seconds before Liara's glare forced it out of him. And suddenly, she kind of hated her future self for making things awkward.

Goddess, she thought, of all the stupid things, why did you do THAT, future me?

---

Liara hadn't stopped thinking about the last part of Shepard's conversation with her. Although she kept it bottled up in face of the more pressing matter. Not that she didn't understand it or judge anyone involved, but she did somewhat resent what a version of her had stuck her with. She had wanted to deal with this on her own time, in her own way, come to terms with what she felt and still felt. Apparently, future her felt the best time was now. Not hard to imagine given her perspective, but that still left Liara, present Liara, with the task of picking up all the pieces and doing the leg work.

She tried not to focus on... that though. Right now, there were lives that needed saving and she was the only one who could help. She postulated how to go about it. She imagined she could warn the Initiative about the attack, but they would probably not believe her if she explained how she learned about it. So things would have to be handled delicately. Thankfully, she was the Shadow Broker, she had options in that regard.

Needless to say, her team was more than a little apprehensive about the entire thing. Even knowing it was a mission straight from Commander Shepard, scepticism was more than a little expected. As they crowded the cockpit of the Lucen, en route to the coordinates, a myriad of questions, concerns and random theorizing abounded.

"So Shepard went to the future with his cyborg buddy and saw a world where everyone was more or less dead," Nel recounted once more. "I get that part, in so far as it sounds like something from one of my favorite vids. I even get the whole need to 'prevent the bad stuff from happening' objective. It's not that I'm doubting it's just I'm wondering how this whole thing is going to work. If we prevent the attack so it never happens, the only way we know it happens never happens so we never learn to prevent it from happening so it would still happen and- UGH! See? My brain is tying itself in knots already!"

"I'm an archaeologist not a quantum physicist," Liara informed her. "I don't know how this works and I couldn't begin to explain it. All I know is that I trust Shepard. And if he says a good man and his family are in danger, then I'm going to follow up on that lead."

"Alright, but if we end up killing the universe by creating another rip in the fabric of reality, don't blame me," Nel steadfastly declared. "You'd think having one of those already is enough of a problem. This whole thing might end up making two. Just saying."

"Maybe we should focus on more tangible matters rather than what might happen," Vik suggested. "Fewer headaches that way. Like how apparently there's an entire secret organization that's basically one giant survivalist cult intent on rocketing themselves out of the galaxy before the apocalypse can hit."

"If said apocalypse is coming is it still a cult?" Wrex asked. "Because cult implies scam or something more nefarious. This is actually legitimate danger they're escaping."

Liara wasn't about to get bogged down in schematics, she had to make this point resolutely clear to everyone now that Vik had brought it up. That being, the subject of the Reapers and why the Andromeda Initiative was actually leaving the galaxy.

"Only a few people on those Arks know anything about the Reapers," she cautioned them. "It's going to stay that way. If they knew the truth, who knows how they'd react. Some would probably abandon the project or try to get more people to join it, straining resources for others. So we can't let on to what we know."

"So we let them run and skip out on a fight?" Wrex chortled. "Not that I don't understand, but that kinda sits wrong with me."

"I'm sorry, Wrex, but that's my decision," Liara said flatly. "These people might be the one chance our galaxy has of surviving what's to come. They're pioneers, explorers, they deserve to believe that's their core mission, not... survivors and refugees."

Not to say she believed defeating the Reapers was hopeless. On the contrary, in her mind this gave her greater reason to hope. If these people got their Arks underway, they would act as ambassadors of an entire galaxy. To know, even when the Reapers come, they had failed in destroying them all, would be a comforting thought. At least someone would make it. That was why this was important to her. Beyond just Shepard asking her to do this.

Wrex seemed to reluctantly agree to the conditions, although Vik looked a bit less sympathetic.

"Forgive me if I sound callous, I just don't like the whole secretive organization deal," he explained. "Nothing this big and this massive can possibly be completely on the level. The level of secrecy, the hush credits, the various corporations that would need to be paid off, it's... disturbing. And what about the people? Who's getting picked for this? From the sound of it, it's one of those super rich type deals."

"From what I understand it has nothing to do with money but aptitude," Liara clarified for Vik. "People who think different, who don't feel they have a place here, who want something more or better. Credits aren't a main factor; the Initiative is looking for people of all walks of life. Mostly from, well, the cracks, where good people have fallen through."

Vik didn't argue the point, who only seemed a bit more thoughtful over the whole thing. As the perspective leaked and worked into his mind, Liara tried to elaborate.

"Take Alec Ryder for example, the person who gave Shepard this intel in the future," she insisted. "He was once a famed explorer, a hero of the Alliance, but years ago he ended up blacklisted for his, let's say, radical opinions."

"How radical?" Nel asked.

"AI Research mostly," Liara admitted, looking to Vik. "The point is he's not exactly an elite member of galactic society anymore."

Given Vik's people and his recent encounters with AI, you'd think he'd have been set off. But not so, he remained contemplative.

"It wasn't Geth related research, was it?" He asked.

"I don't believe so," Liara replied.

The quarian shrugged.

"Alright, I'll remain open minded," he relented. "Either way I suppose we can't just let the Covenant kill people for the hell of it, no matter what they're doing or who they are. So, how exactly are we going to stop them?"

"Yeah, those battle records on your omni-tool looked pretty damn air tight," Nel agreed. "Covies did their homework for this raid."

"Perhaps, but we have the benefit of the hindsight of Alec Ryder," Liara reminded them. "Not only do we know the plan of attack down to the letter, we also have his thoughts on how to thwart it."

"Which would be great if we had a lot of time but it sounds like we don't," Wrex warned.

Liara understood Wrex's concerns, but she had strategy on how to counter the Covenant's scheme. It relied on taking the operation apart piece by piece. The attack would open when two Covenant ships, small ones, frigates from what Ryder's notes suggested, would attack the outer defenses of the Initiative first. Bombarding the various construction and staging areas. It was a harassing attack though, a diversion of sorts, to take resources and time away from the real threat. Three Covenant strikes teams in cloaked Phantoms would use the bombardment as cover to get inside the perimeter proper. One would head to the drydock station where the five arks were undergoing the final stages of their construction. Their mission was a simple one, destroy the arks' cryo-containment facilities. Their method was hardly conventional for a Covenant strike team though.

"Tell me about the virus they're using again," Vik asked.

"It's some kind of mass systems disruption program," Liara explained. "Designed to infiltrate and eradicate various hardware functions from a specific target vector. It rips through the code, deletes it, makes things systems inoperable or faulty. In this case, cryostasis pods."

"A superworm essentially," Vik reasoned. "And once it's installed it will target every hard system it is programmed to target in quick succession of one another."

"Exactly right," Liara confirmed, "And because the arks are all in drydock, all their systems are currently synced together. Normally firewalls would protect them during the process, but this worm seems designed to eat through those precautions."

"So, like you said," Vik reiterated. "Coda, Kay and I need to kill the worm and its handlers before they complete the upload."

Coda was the only other computer technician on caliber with, if not better than, Vik. If this virus was Covenant in origin, he stood the best chance of destroying it before it got too far along in its mission. Vik would be familiar enough with the computing system they were dealing with to help though. Plus he could actually defend himself better than the Huragok could.

"Where are they uploading it exactly?" Vik asked. "You said one of the arks but..."

Liara sighed, she had hoped to hold off on this a bit longer, but she needed to tell him.

"It's an ark called the Keelah Si'yah," she confessed.

Vik's reaction was expected, first surprise and then a hint of anger.

"That... that's a quarian name," he sputtered. "Wha-what are quarians doing here? Why are they-?"

That's when something clicked.

"Keelah Si'yah, By the Homeworld I Hope to Find One Day," he said, trying to suppress a groan. "Seriously? Quarians who have given up on Rannoch are here?"

"Didn't you say before you didn't agree with taking back Rannoch," Nel reminded him.

"I said I want us to find another planet to settle, I didn't say I wanted our people to fracture in the process," Vik snarled back. "And it's not giving up on it, I just think we can wait it out until the synthetics decide to leave. They will eventually."

Vik was probably a bit more hopeful in that one aspect of quarian society, but he was clearly troubled by the idea of quarians abandoning the Flotilla. There was no mistaking that at least. Liara imagined she knew the reason why. He had left it too, but not willingly and he wanted to go back someday. So the idea of quarians deciding to abandon it forever, leave their family behind, clearly disturbed him.

"Look, it doesn't matter," he continued unabated. "This is... this is disgraceful! How can any quarian do this? Why would they do this? How could they be this... this..."

"Selfish?" Nel said, picking the word forVik. "Well, maybe not every quarian is as altruistic as you think, Bucket."

"Don't start with me," Vik snarled at the turian.

"I know this is upsetting for you, Vik, believe me," Liara said trying to calm him. "But try to see past their reasoning and remember they're still your people. And they might be the only hope any quarians have for the future."

"I left the Flotilla to protect it, I didn't leave it for something like this," Vik said, practically spitting in his helmet as he raged. "To be part of some Doomsday Conspiracy Cult!"

"So you're gonna let the virus fuck them over?" Nel asked.

"I-I didn't say that!" Vik replied in a defensively flustered. "I... I just don't... I don't get it."

"The quarians only make up a small majority of the ship," Liara tried to explain. "I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but that is how it works. The ship is a melting pot of other races. Elcor, hanar, drell, volus, even some batarians."

Vik just seemed to scowl under his visor, the information doing nothing to calm his ire. In fact, it only seemed to refine it.

"Oh I see," he said, sounding fairly acidic in his speech. "So even among a group purporting to be all inclusive and from all walks of life they've shoved all the less important non-council races onto one little ship. Keep all the rabble locked up and away from them. Typical. I'm liking this Initiative less and less."

"I agree it sounds rather unfair but that doesn't change what we need to do," Liara insisted. "They need our help, your help, Vik. They're still your people, outcasts who just want a better life. You might not agree with them or how the people running this project are conducting themselves, but all I ask is that you do what you know is right. Like you've always done."

Vik sighed, swallowing his anger for the moment.

"Alright, alright," he relented with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'll do everything I can. I won't let the Covenant rob these people of the choice, even if it is a mistake."

Liara just nodded in agreement, turning her attention to the other two strike teams.

"I know I can count on you, Vik. You'll get it done, I have no doubt in that," she assured the quarian. "Which means our part is all the more important. The squads going to the Nexus are critical."

The Nexus was to be the hub for the colonists heading to Andromeda. A new galactic center for them to build and live out of as they expanded across their new frontier. It was a massive colony ship, she imagined the notes from Future Ryder did not do it justice. It would hold a contingent of several of the races heading to Andromeda. Suspiciously, no quarians were counted among the roster of the species aboard the Nexus. In fact, weither were any of the other species that had taken up residence with said Quarians. It gave credence to Vik's argument, as if the other species were almost an afterthought.

That was irrelevant, however, in the face of the Covenant assault. Two strike teams would use the confusion of the bombardment to board the Nexu. They'd then go after their main targets. One group would make a move on the engines and sabotage them with armed explosives. A second group would head to the bridge where it would attempt to demolish the highly sensitive navigational equipment required to get the Nexus to Andromeda. They would also hack the communication arrays and tell the automated defenses to stand down. Allowing the Covenant frigates inside the perimeter to do more damage and extract the various teams.

The three-pronged attack would cripple the Andromeda Initiative's work. Without working cryopods, the colonists on the Ark would not be able to survive the six-hundred-year trip. If the Nexus could not find its way to Andromeda, either by loss of engines or navigation, there would be no sustainable hub to help establish a foothold there. If any single attack succeeded, it would set the launch back by months as extensive repairs and extra funding would be needed. They would miss their window to escape and be caught in the shadow of the Reapers. All three strikes had to fail and the enemy frigates destroyed or driven off before they could do sufficient damage.

Thankfully, they still had a bit more time to prevent that. Although not by much from the looks of things.

"It can't be that hard to stop the Covies from reaching their targets," Nel said optimistically. "I mean it's one ship, right? A finite area to defend. How big can it be?"

That was when the computer alerted them. They were headed out of hyperspace as they arrived in system proper. They were soon greeted by a massive structure as their ship poked its head out from behind the moon. It was a huge vessel, something akin to the Citadel in scope. It even dwarfed the drydock station where they could see the five arks still being worked on and the various other construction platforms floating in the ether. The massive vessel a circular section and two giant flaps stretching out from it.

"Okay, it's... gigantic," Nel confessed, getting over her sense of awe. "We can still make this work."

That was when the commlink came to life as a transmission beamed into the Lucen's bridge.

"Unidentified craft, you have entered restricted space," the voice warned. "Identify yourself or you will be disabled and boarded."

Liara remained calm as she answered back.

"My name is Liara T'Soni," she replied. "My ship, The Lucen, and her crew have come to assist you and your Initiative on behalf of the Shadow Broker."

"Shadow Broker?" The response on the other line came. "We have no business with criminals. Leave, now."

The forceful command was punctuated when Liara spotted two security shuttles headed their way. She needed to act fast, otherwise this rescue was over before it even started.

"I need to speak with Alec Ryder," she insisted. "It is a matter most urgent. The Andromeda Initiative is under threat and I have information regarding an incoming attack."

There was no response at first, but eventually.

"What attack? Is this some sort of shakedown because-"

"This is not a threat," Liara insisted. "I need to speak to Alec Ryder. In a few short hours, maybe less, you are going to be attacked by hostile craft. We can help you stop them, but you need to let me speak to Alec Ryder."

There was a pause as the security shuttles seemed to veer off from their vector. The patrolled around for a moment before eventually sliding in alongside them.

"We'll escort you to administration," the voice on the comm answered. "Alec Ryder is giving you clearance and will be there to meet you with his team. Try not to do anything funny. Welcome to the Andromeda Initiative."

"Thank you," Liara answered.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, that went easier than I thought," she said.

"Yeah, now we just have to convince this Ryder fella that his future self told Commander Shepard to stop an attack on this little secret project that hasn't happened yet," Nel stated. "Oh, and Commander Shepard told us all this while he's stuck in another dimension which the attacking aliens are from. So yeah, work is cut out for us there."

"Your optimistic attitude is very refreshing, Nel," Liara replied in a sardonic tone. Although, she had to admit, the turian did speak true.

This was going to take some doing.

---

The team took a shuttle to the administration station, escorted by the security ships. Liara instructed the Lucen to proceed to the intercept point as fast as possible. The Initiative's shuttles kept close to it as it made its way over there though. They were still wary of the frigate, that would change soon. For now, Liara just needed to talk to Ryder and convince him of their intentions. At the very least, they wouldn't be caught unawares.

Once they arrived at administration, Liara's team piled out. They were greeted at the dock by a human woman and a man. The latter of which Liara recognized instantly, it was Alec Ryder himself. The solid jaw and greying hair were clear enough indicators by themselves, the armor was what clinched it for her. At least they wouldn't have to badger a bunch of people just to see him now. With any luck they'd wrap this up quickly and be ready to counter the raid within the hour.

The human woman, her demure stature and short black hair, was quick to approach Liara hold out her hand. All the while she wore an exuberant, optimistic smile that seemed near uncharacteristic for a person her age. It was a warm, inviting look that Liara couldn't help but be pulled in a bit by.

"Liara T'Soni, how delightfully unexpected," the woman began. "I'm so pleased to meet you, even if it is under incredibly strange circumstances. I am Jien Garson, founder of Andromeda Initiative."

Liara had heard of Garson, an eccentric human billionaire of some renown. Now it made some sense how the Initiative had been able to put all of this together. She was one of the few people that possessed the requisite amount of resources needed to accomplish this major undertaking. Not just her own cash flow, but likely other members of the super-rich galactic elite. A fact that probably just cemented Vik's displeasure with this whole project now that Liara thought of it.

"A pleasure to meet you in kind, Ms. Garson, but I'm afraid we don't have time for formalities," she insisted even as she took the human's hand. "Your Initiative is under threat. I've already instructed a portion of your security to escort my ship to an intercept point, but we need to act fast."

For her part, Garson seemed to acknowledge the sincerity in Liara's words. However, she played it off to a degree.

"Yes, yes, I've been informed of your purpose here and have instructed security to remain on alert," she explained. "But we need more information in order to act properly."

Garson led them back down to Alec Ryder, still standing at attention nearby.

"As per your message, I did manage to rouse our human Pathfinder from his duties," Garson explained. "You are clearly already acquainted with Alec Ryder."

"T'Soni," Ryder said, nodding in acknowledgment. "Have to say, bit of a surprise to find you here. I didn't think you were aware we were even out here."

"That's a recent development as is the attack I came to warn you of," Liara explained. "My team is already standing by to act. We just need your permission."

"Let's discuss this as we walk," Garson requested. "As I said before, some details before actions would be nice."

Liara could agree to that at least. So she decided to share the details as they followed Alec and Jien into the station proper. She left out the part about how she had managed to acquire the information. She didn't know how to break it to Ryder that his future self had sent them here without sounding insane. In order to speed things along, she told them that the Shadow Broker had discovered the information during an investigation and one of their agents had downloaded the enemy plans in their entirety. As she showed them off to Ryder and Garson with her omni-tool, they slowly but surely became convinced of the threat. However, some skepticism remained.

"Why does this... Covenant want to stop us?" Garson asked. "We've done nothing to them."

"The Covenant have a vendetta against humanity," Liara informed her. "I think they see your Initiative as a form of escape from their righteous campaign of extermination. In the end, what does it matter? They are coming and they will destroy any hope of you making your launch window if they succeed."

"Agreed," Ryder concurred. "We should make preparations at once. Lockdown the colonists, deploy security forces to mission critical systems, spin up automated defenses, the works."

"We still need access to those mission critical areas outlined in the attack plans," Liara insisted to them both. "My team can help repel the raid. You just need to give us the means to do so."

Garson appeared a bit apprehensive, looking to Ryder.

"If T'Soni is in charge of them, I trust their judgment," he explained. "I think they can be a big help."

"Alright," Jien relented. "Forgive the apprehension, it's not that I'm suspicious of your intentions, it's just there is a lot of moving parts to this endeavor is all."

"I understand," Liara assured her. "We'll be sure to use caution so we don't cause the very damage we're here to prevent."

Jien agreed to that.

"Alright, I best get on the horn to security and have them begin defensive procedures," she said. "Ryder, you're in charge of ground defense, so to speak. Repel any borders."

"Will do, ma'am," Ryder confirmed.

Garson began to leave at that moment, before turning around.

"Of course, if this mission is successful, we'll happily extend an invitation to join us to your whole team," she suddenly offered. "I'm sure we can make some room for you all."

"That will not be necessary," Liara assured her. "But thank you."

"Hmm, well, think it over," Garson told her. "New frontier after all, exploration, better life, that sort of thing. Once in a lifetime opportunity you know."

She walked away after that, leaving Ryder with the asari doctor and her team.

"I have to say, this is not how I thought you'd find out about what I was doing," he explained. "Hell, I'm surprised you're actually working for the Shadow Broker."

"It's a long story, Alec," Liara informed him. "One we don't have time to get into. The bulk of my team is ready to defend the Nexus, but the arks and their Cryo Bays are also under threat. If you'd let them, they can travel to the drydock area and prevent that attack from happening."

It was only now, standing out among the main group, that Alec bothered to take stock of who was among Liara's ragtag crew. Of the three members of the squad Liara wanted to send over to said drydock station, only one was an alien species he recognized. Vik stood out alongside Coda, the floating purple gasbag, and Kayap, the strange looking hunched-over creature done up in a heavy breathing mask and the like.

"You draw some... odd people to you, T'Soni," Alec commented. "Not that the Initiative can say much different, but still."

"I won't argue that point, but they can help," Liara assured him. "In fact, they're probably the best suited to solving this particular problem."

"Well, I'm not really in a position to argue," Alec confessed. "I can have some security officers accompany them, but I can only spare so much if we're going to be able to hold the Nexus."

"And we will hold it," Liara promised. "I'm not going to let the Covenant ruin the chance at another life for all these people."

"Well then, I'm glad you ended up with this mission at least," Alec told her. "I still don't understand why the Shadow Broker would want to protect us though."

Because I am the Shadow Broker and because Commander Shepard asked me to help after your future self gave him these plans, that was the honest answer Liara would've liked to give. Instead she gave the next best thing, a half-truth.

"Let's just say the Shadow Broker doesn't want the Covenant to score a win of any kind," she explained. "If you're worried about whether they will come here asking for a seat on one of your Arks, that hasn't crossed their mind... or ours in fact."

"I'm not really worried about that," Alex assured her. "Fact is, it takes a certain kind of person to sign up for this sort of trip. A one-way ticket to another galaxy carries a lot of weight as a decision. I don't blame anyone for not exactly jumping at the chance. It... it did take a bit of convincing to get my family on board after all."

He looked over his shoulder at this moment.

"Speaking of, we should head down to a ready room we've sectioned off," he stated. "Some members of my Pathfinder Team should be there."

Once again, Ryder led them through the corridor. As they did, they could see the Nexus floating in the void outside through some windows, now feverish with additional security shuttles as work continued.

"What exactly is a Pathfinder anyway?" Nel asked as they followed Ryder.

"Special operatives for the Initiative," he replied diligently. "We're tasked with actually finding worlds to settle and resolving potential problems concerning colonization efforts along the way. All the Arks have one, five in total."

"Including the quarian one?" Vik asked, sounding still rather disgruntled over the whole thing.

"Yes, why wouldn't there be a quarian pathfinder?" Ryder responded jovially. "They helped find us the means to get us to Andromeda to begin with. They earned the right to one after all."

"And the right to abandon their family it seems while getting shunted off to a hodgepodge ship with the other undesirables," Vik muttered under his breath.

"Vik, please," Liara pleaded the moment she overheard him. "Be respectful."

"It's alright, T'Soni," Ryder assured her. "I don't begrudge his opinion. Honestly, I don't agree with every decision we've made concerning this project. And the quarian colonists, along with the other races aboard their ark, have made similar complaints. It does feel like we squeezed them in at the last minute to the casual observer, but they're no less important to the Initiative and our colonization efforts. I do feel it was a mistake personally not to put a few of them on the Nexus. It gives the wrong impression concerning prioritization."

"The Bucket just has some strong opinions about quarians abandoning the Migrant Fleet entirely," Nel explained. "He's didn't exactly... choose to leave himself."

Nel was quick to realize what that implied and instantly added an addendum.

"Oh, uh, he's not an exile," she quickly clarified. "Not a crook at all, bit of a kook, a disgruntled weirdo, but not a crook."

Vik sighed, but he did nod at Nel in appreciation. Ryder took over from there.

"I don't really expect to change anyone's minds about what we're doing here," he admitted. "That's more Garson's wheelhouse than mine. But, I'd encourage your friend to at least seek out some quarians coming with us, hear their perspective before he judges them further."

"I'm... nothing if not open-minded," he admitted. "I'll take it under advisement, but priority is the mission."

Alec agreed to that with a nod, Liara picking up the conversation from there.

"May I ask why you're here?" She questioned. "I know your research got you blacklisted, but... it can't have made life that hard."

"If it was just that, I'd have accepted my lot in life long ago," Ryder confessed. "But there's... more at stake here than a fresh start. This is a chance for something better, for... for everyone."

Liara sensed that it was now Alec's turn to be hiding something from her. However, despite being the Shadow Broker, she had no intention of prying him for further information. Especially when it seemed more personal than anything else.

At last they reached the ready room where Ryder opened the door to reveal three individuals. Three more humans, two women, one male. One of them was a rather stunning short-haired blonde woman, while the other female had slightly longer darker hair. The dirty blonde hair of the man was accented by a small scar across one of his eyes. He and the dark-haired woman had features similar enough to each other and Alec that Liara could only presume they were Ryder's children.

"Scott, Sarah, Cora," Alec greeted. "We ready to go?"

"As we'll ever be," Scott spoke up.

"Are we sure that this threat is legit, dad?" Sarah asked. "Who exactly would be after us?"

"It is legitimate," Liara warned. "And I can explain more along the way."

"Team, this is Liara T'Soni, she's an old acquaintance," Alec explained. "If she says we're in danger, I trust her."

"Good enough for me," Cora seemed to concur. "Where to then?"

"First, we need to send some of my team to the Ark Drydock Station," Liara explained. "And quickly, there's not a moment to lose."

---

It wasn't that Vik didn't appreciate the massive undertaking all around them. It wasn't even that he opposed the idea of exploration, so long as it wasn't exploitative of course. On the surface, what the Andromeda Initiative as doing wasn't terrible, he could appreciate the idea of wanting to start over. He just didn't like the secrecy, nor did he like the idea that any of his own kind would be involved in this. Exiles maybe, they wouldn't have much choice, but quarians who willingly abandoned the Fleet? Did they have any idea what they were throwing away? It just felt wrong, especially for him, the quarian who would give anything to believe he could go back. To know that he could return without putting his family in danger.

And what self-respecting quarian would accept this sort of treatment? To be shoved onto a spare Ark like an afterthought along with every other alien the other four Council races always seemed to deem as a nuisance? It smacked of racism, the purest and most disgusting kind. Why couldn't they be on this Nexus, which clearly had to be built to accommodate all species? He imagined the excuse was doing so was too costly, difficult and time consuming. So the consolation prize was the quarians and the other less than important races ended up stuffed into a ship of their own so no one had to deal with them. So the asari, turians and salarians could cross their fingers and hope they got lost along the way, or at least limit the numbers that came along. He supposed that was another justification, that so few quarians were coming, that they had to share their ark. To Vik though, that was just all the more reason to let them come aboard the Nexus or other arks.

He didn't lie to himself though, he knew his anger was born out of contradiction. On one hand, he was angry quarians were involved in this secret colonist conspiracy to begin with. On the other, he was angry they were still being treated like second-class citizens by the very conspiracy that claimed to be so diverse and open-minded. He couldn't be happy they were here and he was equally unhappy that they were still being marginalized. That made it really hard to voice his complaints in any rational sounding manner.

Looking out the window of the shuttle taking him, Coda and Kayap to the drydock station did nothing to help. He tried focusing on the true purpose they were here. Whatever he thought about the quarians that were here, their involvement in and treatment by the Initiative, it was still their choice to be here. He wasn't about to deprive his people of a choice, even if it was one he was opposed to.

Halfway to the station, Nel's voice chirped into his ear.

"Yo, Bucket, we're getting set up here on the Nexus. What's your ETA?"

"Almost there," he told the turian wistfully. "Still trying to figure out how I feel about all this."

"Hey, I get you, Vik, but you need to let it go," Nel informed him. "This isn't a situation you can control. These quarians don't want to be a part of the Flotilla, they want a homeworld of their own. Simple as that."

"It just feels like they're all running away from their problems," Vik insisted. "Scratch that, our problems. How is anything supposed to get better if we all just leave? Just because it's a new galaxy doesn't mean it's all going to be better. Some problems travel with you to a new place, and sometimes there are worse ones waiting for you. I should know. I've been living out of a damn slowly rusting Camper Shuttle for the past few years. There's a new thing I have to fix every other day."

"And starting up a new colony is probably a bit more problematic in comparison," Nel assumed.

"Yes, and not just from an engineering standpoint," Vik argued. "What makes them think they'll be any better off from a cultural standpoint? I mean, Keelah, they're being shunted off into the spare spaceship. What does that say about how the Council races see them?"

"Surprisingly, you won't get an argument from me for once," Nel informed him. "But the past few days have taught me something about the value of listening to people you're pissed off with."

Vik supposed she would know about that.

"I guess... I guess I can't be too angry at them wanting a new life," he confessed. "It's not like the Council is making things easy for my people concerning colony rights. It's just... leaving the Fleet, cutting ties, running away like this... it just feels wrong."

"More wrong than the Covenant killing their chance to get out of here before the Reapers apparently show up?" Nel asked him. "You heard what Shepard told the Doc, life ain't exactly going to be much better for the quarian people if we let this stand."

Another good reason he couldn't argue with. The Reapers were real enough, he had known that for sure since they first found Coda. The chance for his people to escape that coming storm, even in a small number, to allow their culture, their legacy to endure and spread out among the stars was a tantalizing prospect. It was probably the one thing he couldn't condemn these quarians over, despite his reservations concerning everything else.

"Yeah, yeah you're right. I'm going to stop this virus, Nel," Vik assured her. "There was never any doubt about that. I just... I don't understand. Ever since I left the Flotilla, I've just wanted to go home. I just... it's hard to think about quarians out there who decide to leave and never come back."

"It's not like that isn't an option for them though, right?" Nel asked. "Quarians have left the Flotilla before, not always by getting exiled either."

"True, I guess I just didn't think any would go to this extreme," Vik clarified simply before returning to a resolved position. "Well, I can't let that stop me. I already have an idea on how to prevent this cyber-attack. I've loaded up every anti-virus and security-based software application into my omni-tool. I'm going to have Coda run them through his own sensory nodes to increase their effectiveness while he works his own special computer magic. We just need to get to Cryo's main data hub."

"So you just kill this bug and we're good then, right?" Nel asked.

"I'd like to think it would be so easy, but this is a very sophisticated little computer bug," Vik informed her. "It being able to hop from Pod to Pod, from Ark to Ark suggests some expertly crafted bypass and masking subroutines. I've been going over the notes Future Ryder left for Shepard on it and... yeah, it's a pretty killer worm. Maybe a bit too killer."

"What are you thinking?" Nel asked, for once sounding genuinely curious.

"That a religious cult of inter-dimensional aliens with a sufficiently advanced fear of artificial intelligences, that surpasses even my own people, wouldn't typically make this sort of thing," the quarian informed her. "There's something... more to this attack, Nel. Call me out for being a Conspiracy Nut again if you want, but something doesn't add up and I need to get a look at this virus to figure it out for myself."

The turian for once seemed contemplative. She didn't cuss him out for being suspicious either. Her response was far less vindictive, and more supportive. At least for her.

"You do what you need to, Bucket," Nel encouraged him. "Just squash this bug when you get the chance, okay? If you can't pull it off even with Coda backing you up, you best turn in your hacker badge, all I'm saying."

Vik would've laughed at the bit of good-natured ribbing, had he not spotted something outside the window. The various security shuttles and automated defenses near the perimeter of the Initiative's outer sector seemed to be increasing.

"Nel, I'll have to call you back, something is up here," he warned.

Almost as if on cue, there was crackling screech over the PA of the security shuttle they were in.

"Red Alert, Red Alert! We've detected an unknown transponder wavelength in perimeter sector Alpha Domino!"

Several electro pulse bursts were fired out into the dark of space. They slammed into what appeared to be an invisible wall. One that soon revealed itself to be a ship. A very purple, very bulbous looking ship that could only be Covenant. Their surprise attack had been foiled, but they were no less dangerous. Their plasma-based weapons began firing within moments, trying to take out the outer defenses. The security forces quickly retaliated and bursts of fire exploded across the void.

As the two forces engaged each other, Vik walked past Coda and Kayap to bang on the cockpit doors.

"Get us to the airlock dock now!" He ordered. "On the double!"

---

Once the red alert sounded, any notion that Liara had been pulling their chain was quickly dashed. Ryder had instantly snapped into combat mode and the team double-timed it towards the Nexus' main hub. The Command Center was where all sensitive navigational equipment would be stored. Thankfully, the Nexus' tram system had just finished construction, so the team was well on their way to getting there.

"We should be there shortly," Ryder told everyone. "Garson already sent security to lock the place down, so it should be well-fortified."

"The Covenant aren't so easily deterred, Ryder," Liara warned. "You all best be prepared for a firefight."

"But we just spoiled their whole surprise attack," Cora observed. "It's still going to take them time to get their people into position, if at all."

"They won't quit so easily," Liara warned. "We should assume they have adjusted their plans already in case surprise was lost."

"Right, right," Cora quickly agreed. "That's what I'd do if a plan went south. They might send more squads or change their point of entry."

"So expect multiple waves?" Sarah asked.

"That's a Covenant specialty, believe me," Wrex assured her.

They finally got to the Central Hub of the Nexus. It would be where the beating heart of the entire Initiative would reside once they arrived in Andromeda. The administrative functions for the colonization efforts would all be operated from this room. For now though, it was the front line. Security officers were dotted around the room, keeping eyes on every entrance. There were even a few krogan among them from the looks of it.

"Heh, guess the quarians weren't the only ones to make a deal," Wrex observed.

"Please tell me you're not going to make this a point of contention," Liara asked pleadingly.

"Hmm, I don't tell other krogan where they can and can't go," Wrex claimed. "I just tell them not to get in my way for the most part."

At least Liara didn't have to worry about that much then. They approached the lead security officer, a turian from the looks of it.

"We got everyone locked down," he said. "No one is getting through."

"Yeah, that's never a good thing to say in these situations," Scott claimed.

"I was just about to say that," Nel added.

"Either way, I'm not taking chances," Alec declared. "We're going to set ourselves up on the overlook platform so we can monitor the entire lobby. The high ground will give us an advantage. If anything goes wrong, we pull back to the Command Center and protect the nav-computers. Without them, we are not going to get to Andromeda."

Liara deferred to Ryder's defense plan. It was technically his ship, for all intents and purposes. For now, they'd follow his lead. They headed up to the overlook platform, setting up lines of sight along the doors. Nothing happened for a while, everyone just sat in silence, waiting for the Covenant to make their move.

"So what do these guys look like anyway?" Scott asked aloud.

"Big, ugly," Nel listed off. "They got bug mouth mandibles, not at all like us turians. And there are a few little ones that look like that guy you saw with Vik."

"Wait, one of them is working for you?" Cora asked astonished.

"It's a long story we don't have time to relay," Liara explained.

That was when they heard something above them. It sounded like a thumping in the ceiling, alongside some footsteps.

"What is that?" Sarah asked. "No, wait, nevermind, I think we all know."

A vent above the room exploded open. From within, a trio sangheili dropped down, aided by a ton of unggoy. More vents soon followed as the shooting began and down came more squads. The exchange of fire between both sides quickly ignited as the Covenant rushed for cover or tried to overtake Initiative forces.

"Yep, on the money," Sarah confirmed for herself as she fired on the Covies

"Keep'em back!" Alec ordered. "Short controlled bursts, do not risk more damage to the Nexus than necessary!"

Nel let loose with her assault rifle, cutting down one of the unggoy as it tried to waddle over to cover. Liara used her biotics in kind to knock a sangheili over into a pillar. He got up and began firing back, only for Ryder to hit the alien with an overload blast before taking him out with a well-placed burst of shots.

"They have very strong shields, try focusing on attacks that can damage them," Liara cautioned. "And if you can, adjust your sabotage offensive app for their plasma battery power source."

"Good advice," Ryder acknowledged. "But don't think we're just idle explorers. Initiative has some tricks of our own up our sleeves too."

Ryder stuck out his omni-tool again and fired what appeared to be a swarming ball. It struck some of the sangheili and seem to weaken their shields. At the same time, a few of the security officers below unleashed some assault turrets that opened fire on the Covenant. This quickly took down their shields and allow Ryder to enact a second phase of attack. He raised his arm and fired a concentrated beam of white light. On closer inspection, it was revealed to in fact be a stream of particles. When they hit the unshielded sangheili, they froze almost instantly. Cora finished them off with concentrated fire that shattered the icy hostile aliens.

"We've had a bit more room to experiment with defensive and offensive tech," Alec told Liara.

"You might need to use every trick you can muster," Liara informed him as more plasma fire joined the battle. "The Covenant won't stop until this line is broken."

Wrex fired a carnage blast that blew apart a sangheili and a nearby unggoy. He then ducked back down, as Saya used his sniper rifle to take down a few sangheili as well. His expert precision managed to kill two at least. More soon popped down the chutes to replace them though. Nel tried to shoot a few as they fell, but only managed to get one. The other took what appeared to be a Biotic Lance right into his shoulder and was flung into a wall. That had been Scott's doing and he looked quite pleased with the result overall. Of course he had to duck back into cover when the Covenant opened up on the overlook once more.

At the same time, a group of unggoy and their sangheili leader had looped around through the pillars, making their way towards the stairs. As they climbed it though, they were stopped by Sarah who used a flamethrower embedded into her omni-tool to torch the aliens as they attempted to climb, Cora fired on them as they were ignited, taking down the sangheili with a clean headshot which caused his limp body to flop and roll back down the steps.

They were holding well-enough, but the Covenant were able to inflict casualties all the same. Before long, they controlled part of the lower lobby. It was then, that Cora noticed something. Some of the Covenant were slinking off to the trams.

"Sir," she informed Alec. "We got hostiles heading for the tramway."

"The engines," Liara stated as she overheard. "They must be heading towards the engines from here."

"We have security there, a lot of krogan mostly," Ryder reasoned. "But if they're using the ducts as well as the trams in this area they could be overrun easily. Plus there's a lot more to defend in that area than just one corner of the room."

"Then they'll need help," Wrex declared. "I'll go, take the bastards down a peg or two."

"Take Saya," Liara insisted. "It will be close quarters down in engineering, you'll need him."

Wrex nodded at that and turned to Saya who already seemed ready to go.

"Race ya to the tram, Salarian," Wrex laughed.

The krogan vaulted over the overlook and slammed onto the floor. He began charging the Covenant lines, blasting at them with his shotgun. At the same time, Saya jumped down, using Wrex's hump to leap frog over to one sangheili who he cut down with his sword.

"Show off!" Wrex shouted out to him.

They ran past the Covenant fire and towards the trams. The two got to the station quickly enough and exited Central. Soon the Covenant returned to firing on the Initiative Forces, intent on breaking through. And more and more Covenant showed up to reinforce them, kig-yar were soon involved and they were quick to use their shields to add defensive measures for the Covenant advance.

"Do not let them through," Ryder ordered once more. "We have to hold!"

It was all they could do for now. Until one of these attacks had failed in their objective, the other points of defense would just have to hold firm. Liara knew she could count on her team, she just hoped they were having an easier time of it than they were at the moment.

---

Vik, Kayap and Coda arrived on the drydock station, the security officers were already running off to check on the other arks and secure their airlocks. Vik knew where they needed to go though and he wasn't going to wait up on them. He stopped one officer as they moved.

"The quarian ark, where is it?" He asked.

"Um, that way," he pointed. "What's with the-"

"Don't bother asking, no time," Vik said.

He didn't want to go through the whole story over what Coda and Kayap were. All he cared about was getting to the Ark. He was almost there when he spotted something flying towards their window. Vik ducked under cover of an alcove as Coda activated extra shielding. Moments later, a boarding pod cut into the side of the station. A Phantom appeared also, dropping its cloak as it headed towards another airlock.

Swarming from out of the boarding pod came a whole squadron of kig-yar. They began firing on Vik's team, as plasma began to hit the bulkhead. Vik fired back in kind, his shots bouncing off their shields. Kayap used his plasma pistol to knock out the shields for a few so Vik could take them down. But they were very clearly pinned all the same. The kig-yar began to concentrate their fire, closing in on the trio.

That was when a shockwave rippled through their ranks, sending them flying, before a biotic lance of some sort ignited a few that were floating in the air. The kig-yar turned their center of fire towards the new attackers, finding themselves being pushed back. More biotics sent them flying and one was pulled off his feet.

Vik looked to see two asari, a gruffer one with white marking across her head and another wearing a purple coat with a streak of black covering her face. They had seemingly come out of nowhere to assist him, but they were clearly not security. The kig-yar, for their part, were not able to hold up a significant defense and quickly fell back. They retreated into the station, running like mad and screeching in anger. The gruffer asari, gritting her teeth, fired on them as they fled. The other, with the black mask on her eyes, threw another biotic attack that sent one kig-yar into a wall, throwing him against the bulkhead.

"Bye bye, birdies!" The black masked asari declared. "Find another coop to roost in!"

"There, we helped," the other Asari groaned. "Can we please get out of here?"

"Come on, we can at least make sure they're okay," the first Asari insisted.

Said asari hopped over to their alcove as Vik came out of hiding.

"Thanks," he greeted them. "That was a bit close. I'm not sure how long Coda's shielding would have held."

Coda floated out of cover, much to the surprise of both asari. Kayap was less of one, he didn't look nearly as odd as their gassy companion.

"Okay, I thought you were from the quarian ark, but... now I'm not so sure" the masked asari stated.

"I'm not from the ark," Vik assured her. "None of us are, but we are here to save it. My name is Vik'Sajee vas Truth."

"Peebee," the asari replied. "And she's Kalinda."

"Yes charmed, are you done talking to your new little friend, Pelessaria?" Kalinda asked, clearly annoyed. "Because I'm not staying out here to be killed by psycho birds with feather mohawks. That's not why I'm here."

Peebee looked at Kalinda annoyed.

"I keep telling you not to call me that," she demanded half-heartedly.

"And I keep telling you not to rush into every situation like an idiot, but you still do," Kalinda snarled back. "Now, we saved the quarian, can we get to a shelter like we're supposed to?"

"Just, wait a second, alright," Peebee pleaded. "Maybe he knows what's going on?"

"Oh please," Kalinda said rolling her eyes. "He's probably just some scavenger trying to jump ship with his... weird looking hanar and deformed volus friend."

Vik probably would've ushered them on their way, but Kalinda's insult had just perturbed him. Maybe it was all this other crap that he was forced to deal with right now. Maybe he just didn't like her tone. But, Keelah, he was not about to let the suggestion he was a know-nothing scavenger slide.

"These aliens are trying to prevent you from getting to Andromeda, I'm here to stop them," he informed them both. "If I don't get to the quarian ark's cryo-bay, they are going to upload a virus that is going to basically destroy all your cryopods."

That seemed to shut up Kalinda, her eyes going wide at the implications. Peebee was about the same, but she seemed more excited.

"Wow! Really? Oh man, I was starting to wonder if there was anything exciting left in this galaxy!" She said rather ecstatic. "So who are these guys anyway? Some kind of Raloi terrorist group?"

Vik had heard of the Raloi, a race of avian creatures who, not unlike himself, had fairly fragile immune systems and required suits to interact with galactic society. They had only appeared on the radar a few months back and were pretty new to everything. They mostly stayed on their home planet.

But these were not Raloi and he needed to set it straight.

"They're called kig-yar and they're not alone," he explained. "Listen, I need to go now. If I don't stop them, your chances of reaching Andromeda alive in this millennium goes down to nothing."

"We can help!" Peebee insisted happily.

"Are you serious?" Kalinda asked, clearly frustrated. "We are not soldiers, Pelessaria. We are not here to save anyone! Let the security forces handle it!"

"No," Peebee said, refusing to back down. "You heard him. If we don't stop this, there's no going to Andromeda for any of us! We can't just turn our backs on this!"

"Give me one good reason I should even care about the damn quarian ark to begin with?" Kalinda asked. "It's basically housing all the uncouth races because we need janitors and plumbers when we reach Andromeda. So a few of them can't get there because of faulty cryopods. The security measures aboard the Nexus should be able to prevent any lasting damage."

Peebee walked up to Kalinda, pleading with her eyes. Kalinda tried to look away.

"Ugh, not the face," she snarled.

"You can't resist the face," Peebee mockingly whimpered. "Pleeaaassssse, Kalinda, you'll totally be my hero and I'll tell everyone how you saved the quarians and how they all totally owe you now!"

Kalinda grimaced for a moment before finally sighing greatly.

"You are going to be impossible if I don't do this aren't you?" She asked.

Peebee nodded as she pouted more.

"Fine, I guess if it makes you happy," Kalinda relented with a sickening smile. "Besides, you'd probably run off without me regardless and then where would you be? Probably doomed, because you're helpless without me."

"Well you don't have to be mean about it," Peebee said, backing up slightly, looking rather hurt.

"Whatever," Kalinda groaned. "Let's save more stupid quarians then, because you HAVE to and because you'd screw it up somehow if I didn't help anyway."

Kalinda marched forward, pushing past Peebee. By this point, Vik had already decided he didn't like her at all. And not just because she had a low opinion of any race that was non-asari. Not to mention how she seemed to treat her own kind, which reminded Vik of some less than pleasant memories. Peebee, for whatever reason, seemed to jump to her defense unprompted.

"She's... just having a day," she tried to insist half-heartedly. "Honest, she's real nice otherwise."

"I'm guessing she's had a lot of these days," Vik stated.

Peebee had no real defense to that response. She instead opted to change the subject as fast possible and return to her previous personality.

"Best we get after her," she said. "Those Keg-Yags aren't gonna wait for us to enact their evil plans."

"Kig-yar, but you're right," Vik agreed. "Lead the way, I'm new after all."

Peebee did take point hurrying down the hall after Kalinda, as Vik, Coda and Kayap followed. They could hear firefights erupting throughout the station, but Vik's focus was on getting to the Ark. That was the real target, everything else was a diversion or feint. At least that's what future Ryder had determined apparently. It was part of the reason Vik didn't exactly think much of the Initiative despite only learning of the quarian ark not long ago. If the Covenant could correctly guess more people would rush to the aid of the Council Races and their arks, leaving the quarian one out to dry and thus give them an opening, what did that say about how the Initiative thought of their extra load of passengers? Probably not much.

At the very least, Peebee didn't seem to have a problem with quarians at all. Which somewhat softened his opinion on this whole project. Honestly, there surely were enough people who wanted the quarians to come along out of respect. Otherwise there would be no Ark at all and would that really be better in his eyes considering it was quarians who helped them find a means to travel to Andromeda? As Vik had already admitted to himself, his feelings on this whole thing were very contradictory and they were growing more so by the second.

"I'm guessing your friends here aren't actually a mutated volus and hanar," Peebee expressed.

"No, they're not," Vik confessed sheepishly. "It's... well it's complicated. Their names are Kayap and Coda respectively. Again, thank you for stepping in back there. You have some impressive biotics."

"They get me out of a few jams time to time," Peebee noted rather modestly. "So, how do you know about this plan your weird bird pals are trying?"

Vik supposed he might as well tell her a partial truth. It was Liara's cover story after all, he might as well uphold it.

"I work for the Shadow Broker," he stated simply. "They found out about these aliens and have been wrecking their plans for a while. This is just the latest one."

"Wow, that's pretty kickass," Peebee said excitedly. "Never figured the Shadow Broker for playing the rabble-rousing type of sticking it to bad guys. The stories I heard made him or her sound like a crime boss."

"Things change, if you can believe it," Vik told her.

"Hey, if I didn't, I wouldn't be here," Peebee laughed. "The whole sales pitch of a total change in scenery is the big reason I joined the Initiative to start with. I guess wanting a whole new galaxy to explore is a bit of an extreme way of taking that, but there it is."

"Not much left for you in the Milky Way, I take it?" Vik prodded inquisitively.

"I've been around long enough to get a bit over everyone and everything here," she explained wistfully. "I need something new, some action, a real adventure. Andromeda sounds exactly up my alley."

"Is that why you're jumping at the chance to help me?" Vik asked curiously. "You're looking for one last adventure in this galaxy before you leave it behind forever?"

Peebee just seemed to smirk at him in response.

"Hmm, little bit," she shrugged. "But I don't want to see anything bad happen to the Keelah Si'yah. I don't want to leave behind all my roots here, is what I'm saying."

Vik stopped in his tracks for a moment, thinking that comment over.

"Wait... are... are you an asari with a quarian father?" He asked somewhat bewildered.

He had heard of a few quarians who somehow managed that kind of feat. Asari never seemed to stray far from the typical choices of aliens to mate with. It wasn't that they never bonded with say a hanar or even a drell, but it was rare. And he had never met an asari born from a union with a quarian in his entire life. Peebee seemed to pick up on this, grinning wickedly at him before responding.

"Hmm, sorry," she finally said teasingly. "My mother mated exclusively with other asari."

"Oh," said Vik, now even more confused.

Peebee then quickly looked about before leaning close to him. As if she were a young child with a dirty secret she wanted to let a classmate in on. Everything about Peebee seemed to scream very child-like by this point, but at this moment it had reached its peak. Although that probably didn't say much, for all he knew, Peebee was probably still only a child by asari standards. What with the one-thousand some odd lifespan and all.

"My dad was elcor," she whispered. "And there are plenty of those on that ship that I don't want left behind."

Now that was a surprise, even more so than if she had been related to a quarian.

"That... that is a bit.. hard to process," he confessed.

"Burlesque Witticism: Is it because I don't walk on all fours?" She asked in a perfectly monotone pattern of speech that mimicked an Elcor's to a near T.

"It's just... you don't seem very..."

"Jovial Remark: Elcorish?" She asked in the same tone.

Vik was hardly one to judge the oddballs of the galaxy. In fact, he found it rather disarming for once to encounter an asari who didn't seem too concerned with how people thought of her. She was more open, less untouchable, certainly more extroverted than Liara.

"Just don't tell anyone, okay?" Peebee requested after a moment of silence. "I don't like to advertise too much about myself."

"Then why tell me at all?" Vik asked.

"Well, it's not gonna matter to you," she claimed. "I'm gonna be gone before this year is out. Might as well leave some kind of impression on someone in this galaxy."

That was when they heard a small explosion up ahead, breaking them out of their conversations.

"We need to save my people and your elcor's ship if we want that to hold water," he informed her. "Come on!"

Peebee nodded, rushing ahead.

"Boisterous Battlecry: Death to the Bird Brains!" She declared, still keeping up her monotone accent.

Vik followed at a rapid pace. This asari was very weird, but at least she was friendly and eager to help him. Some added biotic muscle was just the thing he, Kay and Coda needed to push the odds in their favor for this mission. So really, he had no cause to complain about some eccentricities, especially when he had far worse ones than Peebee's.

It didn't take them long to reach what appeared to be the airlock for the Keelah Si'yah. It was currently under siege by two squads of kig-yar soldiers, their plasma pistols and needle guns slinging death everywhere. Behind some barricades were a few Andromeda security guards, but none of them human. One was a drell, two were quarians. They seemed to be directed by a quarian officer, currently shouting orders along the line, desperate to hold off the advance.

Kalinda was off to the side in an alcove, positioned behind some kig-yar. To her credit, she had only not engaged yet from the looks of it because she was biding her time. As one of the Covies tried to rush forward from his formation, she used her biotic abilities to pull him off his feet towards her before sending the bird flying into another of his squad. This revealed her position of course, causing some of the kig-yar to turn on her. However, Kalinda merely looked over to Vik and Peebee, now nestled behind their own alcove with Kayap and Coda. She nudged her head at them angrily.

It was clear enough what she intended to say, she had exposed the flank of these kig-yar, they needed to exploit it. Coda had already activated the advanced shields for the others, giving them an extra layer of protection.

"Hey, that kinda tickles," Peebee giggled silently.

Vik didn't think about the extrasensory feeling and just opened fire. His shotgun tore open on kig-yar easily enough. Another turned his shield to block the next attack, only for Kayap's plasma pistol to overload his shield. The exposed Covie was now open to a biotic throw strike from Peebee that sent the hostile alien saboteur into the wall behind him.

"Move!" Vik called out.

They exited the alcove and charged the kig-yar lines proper. With the sizable chunk taken out of one squad's numbers, they were more than a match for the remainders. They fired back with their plasma weapons of course, but Coda's shielding held long enough for Vik to blast through one more while Peebee used pinpoint accuracy to shoot the plasma pistol out of another's hand. As his defenses dropped, she fired a second bullet into his head that took him out easily. Kalinda merely needed to throw herself into the thick of it and use a biotic Nova Burst to send the other kig-yar flying.

However, they had only really taken down one squad, the second was still holding their line on the other side of the corridor. At least now the Ark's defenders had more muscle on their side. So they pressed the advantage. The quarian officer waved his people forward, intent on pushing back the kig-yar still hammering them. The drell raked fires across their shields as one of the other quarians used overload on them. The defenses of the kig-yar dropped, allowing the drell to take him down. Vik joined in on the defense, using his drone to charge into the fray. Peebee backed the roving attack VI up with extra firepower as it scurried about, zapping the kig-yar.

It was Kayap who broke the assault's back, however. Taking the rocket launcher on his back and into his arms, he fired two explosive projectiles at the kig-yar lines. It killed three of the Covies outright and quickly sent the others scattering. The ark security officers moved up to continue shooting at the fleeing invaders, but it seemed as if the danger had been avoided for the moment.

Vik used that time to have his team regroup near the airlock, where the quarian commander stood firm.

"Well, this was unexpected," he said. "I was honestly starting to think we had been abandoned or something. Did command reroute you here?"

"I'm not with your Initiative, actually," Vik informed him. "But I am here to help all the same."

Which should speak volumes about how the people running this exodus see you as opposed to the real family that you've decided to abandon. That was what Vik would have said, but seeing the shaken appearance of his fellow quarian was more than enough to keep his foot firmly out of his mouth. That, and it had been so long since he had seen another quarian. At least one that had some kind of authority. Whatever else he was, this was still one of his people and he actually seemed to command respect among his peers. Voicing his skepticism about the quarian officer's career path, or the loyalty of his employers, was not something Vik was interested in doing at that moment.

Besides, it wasn't like he could really claim to be much better. Even if he had good reason to do so, he too had abandoned the fleet, his family. He did it to protect them, but he still left them. In all his anger and suspicion over this Initiative, he almost forgot that.

For his part, the quarian commander seemed to be unsurprised, as well as disappointed to hear the truth of things.

"Well, at least someone came," he relented. "I'm Commander Senna'Nir vas Keelah Si'yah, second-in-command of the Ark."

"Where's your captain?" Peebee asked.

"She's fine," Senna assured. "She's moving some of the colonists and other passengers to safety. I stayed behind with a security detail to keep the bosh'tets off the ship. For a moment, we thought we were done for."

"Vik'Sajee vas Truth," Vik introduced himself. "I'm here with a strike team trying to prevent these aliens from sabotaging your voyage to Andromeda. You have to let us aboard and get us to the cryo-chambers."

"Wait, what?" Senna asked confused. "What about the Cryo Bay? It's secure."

"According to him, it's not," Kalinda claimed. "Some kind of computer virus or whatever."

"It's going to kill the pods and make them unusable," Peebee added. "And then it will spread to our Arks! When it's done, you can forget the nice six-hundred-year nap!"

Senna looked at Vik suspiciously.

"How do you know any of this?" He asked.

"Because I work for the Shadow Broker and they found out their whole attack plan from a trusted operative," Vik informed him quickly. "Look, we don't have time for this. We can help, I can stop the virus before it does any damage."

Senna looked skeptical, but eventually he seemed to accept Vik's sincerity.

"Alright, I'll lead you to Cryo, but they didn't get through us here," he informed them. "I doubt they'll reach there at all so long as we hold here."

"Kig-yar are all cunning," Kayap warned. "They aren't like sangheili. If one door is locked, they'll just break a window."

"I'm... sorry, who... and what are you?" Senna asked, clearly confused. "And for that matter... what is wrong with that hanar? Is it sick?"

Coda cooed in what sounded like annoyance.

"They're friends, trust me on that at least," Vik assured him.

Senna just sighed.

"Okay, so a quarian Shadow Broker agent, two asari and a pair of weird aliens I can't classify," he listed off. "Keelah, this is going to be a crazy report to fill out. Here's hoping the Captain won't kill me over this as long as it works out. Follow me."

He ushered them through the airlock. Vik just hoped that whatever window Kayap believed the kig-yar would try to break open to get inside would hold out a little longer. At least until they got to Cryo and fixed this before it ever went wrong.

---

Chasing the sangheili through the Nexus' lower levels was a lot easier than Wrex had imagined. It wasn't that they were terrible at covering their tracks or keeping to the shadows. They just didn't care. They found security team casualties alongside workers everywhere they went. The Covies provided them a clear path to follow, shooting at anything that wasn't them. Chances were though they weren't the only ones inside though. With how the plan had changed in light of losing the element of surprise, the Covenant had shifted to a more overt, rapid attack plan, sending as many squads as they could and landing them on the Nexus' hull with whatever transport was available.

Wrex already suspected what their revised strategy was, given that knowledge. They were going to swarm the engineering deck from the outside. They'd find the closest airlock to the deck, force their way inside and then assault their objective proper. It was really their best option. They couldn't rely on the frigates to distract the security teams and they could no longer presume that their objectives would not be suspecting their arrival. There would be defenders, sufficient security measures, everyone here would on high alert. So the need for subtlety was long past. The only thing to fall back on was aggression and the Covenant had that in spades.

But a krogan, in Wrex's mind, had more aggression than even the most vengeful sangheili could ever hope to muster. And with a salarian STG agent by his side, one that even he admitted was fairly good at his job, he didn't doubt that they could take them all down, no matter how many there were. If they could just catch up to them, they could prove that. The Covenant were not cooperating in that respect though, in any capacity.

They kept hearing plasma fire up ahead, they just couldn't catch up to them in time. They were in a mad dash for engineering and they had quite a head start. They were getting close though, the firefights seemed closer every time. Before long, they had reached a corner and heard the sounds of fighting just beyond.

Saya was already rounding the corner, practically bouncing off the wall with foot extended out to jump off the opposite wall. He arrived in the corridor, sword out and slashed forward into the back of one sangheili. Wrex watched this as he followed, but his eyes traveled to the fight beyond Saya's initial strike, to what the Covie had been aiming at seconds before he had met the salarian's blade.

It was another krogan, currently taking apart the sangheili squad in a visceral fashion. He smashed one of them into the wall before using the body to beat down another before finally using his shotgun to blast away another. All the while, he kept getting hit by plasma shots, but his armor seemed capable enough to withstand the strikes alone.

Wrex rushed in to assist his fellow krogan all the same, bulldozing one sangheili down in a charge before headbutting another into a wall. The second one survived the hit and fired his plasma rifle at Wrex, striking him in the arm. He responded by slamming the butt of his claymore in the Covie's face and then firing it into the interdimensional alien's head.

That ended the fighting quickly, allowing the other krogan to finish off one last sangheili with a foot stomp and a satisfying squish. Wrex finally got a chance to look at him properly. He was a hulking, towering krogan to be sure, with a very large hump. That denoted age, probably older than most krogan even Wrex knew. When he got a better look at his face though, a tired, older, battle-hardened expression, Wrex suddenly recognized who this was.

"Drack? Nakmor Drack?" He asked.

The krogan recognized the name and soon recognized Wrex in kind.

"Urdnot Wrex," he said. "You're a long way from your throne."

"And you're a long way from your clan, you old fossil," Wrex informed him with a grin. "I didn't even think you were still alive."

"A fact that even surprises me," Drack confessed. "I'm guessing you're mixed up in whatever all this is somehow?"

"That is the gist of it," Wrex admitted. "It's, uh, a bit complicated."

"Urdnot is always complicated," Drack stated sardonically. "But, I'm not gonna complain about that now."

Nakmor Drack was a legend to many krogan. One of the oldest of their kind. Old enough to remember a time period before the Krogan Rebellions, as he was still young when they started. Not many krogan lived to be Drack's age anymore, that made him infamous among their people by default. He was living proof of the krogan spirit of survival. Although more than a little bit of that was supplemented with cybernetics and gene therapies, maybe a few organ donations. The fact he was still capable of fighting as if he were in his prime though was still impressive. Wrex had met him at least once or twice during his bounty hunter days. In that line of work, you crossed paths with fellow mercenaries eventually, especially if you had a long life.

That had been centuries ago at this point though. Now, for whatever reason, Drack was here preparing to go to the Andromeda galaxy. Granted, he had as good an excuse as any. When you lived long enough to see pretty much every corner of one galaxy, can you really blame a guy for wanting something new?

"These aliens, who are they?" Drack asked, correctly suspecting the depth of Wrex's knowledge.

"Sangheili, not from around here, but it's a whole other story we don't have time for," he explained quickly. "We're here to stop them from destroying the engines and stranding the Nexus here."

Drack looked behind Wrex to see Saya, still cleaning the blood from his sword.

"Running with salarians now, Wrex?" Drack asked suspiciously.

"Hardly, he's on loan," Wrex corrected him. "But he's good in a fight, that's what matters right now."

"Fair," Drack relented. "Alright, so they're after the engines. Fine, we'll put a stop to that. There's already a load of guards down there, plus a few krogan. They're holding down the fort. I was on my way to link up with them."

"Lead on then," Wrex urged. "We've wasted enough time talking as it is."

Drack agreed and led them the rest of the way towards the engine room. It wasn't much further and unfortunately it wasn't much better off. A machine gun post had been set-up at one of the entrances and its constant chattering more or less revealed what was happening. The Covenant were here and they were pressing hard on the location itself.

The massive Mass Effect drive towards the back of the room illuminated everything in a bright blue glow as guards moved about the various cooling and conduction towers dotting the floor. There were several entrances to the engine room, both on the ground floor and the level above. They all needed to be defended, presenting a difficult challenge for the security forces posted here. Wrex could already see the problem, someone was going to get through. When they did, they would need to stop them before they accomplished anything of value.

"Please tell me you know something about this giant hunk of metal," Wrex asked Drack. "What's the most systems critical part of the whole set up?"

"Besides the core itself?" Drack asked in kind. "Energy Flow Control, feeds the core the juice it needs in increments. That goes down, well, it won't take much to start a catastrophic overload."

"How catastrophic?" Wrex questioned further, knowing how many varied concepts that word entailed.

"The whole deck explodes essentially," Drack replied. "As in, the Nexus' ass is literally blown clean off."

That would do it in terms of ending any hope of getting to Andromeda. Given that the Covenant seemed to know how to get here in the first place, Wrex could only presume they already knew how to blow it up.

"If that's the case, we need to hold that control system," Wrex insisted.

"It's on the top level," Drack informed him. "Come on."

Wrex hurriedly rushed behind Drack, Saya taking up the rear as they did. The fighting continued at the entrances as other krogan moved in to assist the other security officers. From the look of things, they were also Nakmor.

"I had heard a good chunk of Nakmor had left Tuchanka, I didn't suspect they intended to leave the Galaxy altogether," Wrex noted as the rushed up the stairs.

It was probably not the best time to really engage in this discussion, but Wrex couldn't help but press for a few answers all the same.

"When your homeworld is an irradiated dust bowl, you can't exactly blame a few of us for wanting to try somewhere else," Drack informed him. "Andromeda has more planets in a few clusters of its outer arm than the Milky Way does in its entirety. Plenty of room for krogan to expand."

"Assuming the Genophage is gonna let you," Wrex added.

"Well, we're working on that," Drack claimed. "I got more than a few reasons to be here, Wrex. I'm not looking for your permission to leave by explaining all of them."

"You don't need it," Wrex assured him. "And I'm not denying it anyway. You wanna run off to a new galaxy, that's fine. I just hope you know what you're doing. It's not like you're in charge of this little project. How can you trust these people to hold up their end of whatever deal they offered? We've been lied to before."

"No argument there," Drack confessed. "I'm not much for optimism, I'm too old for it. We all have to believe in something though, and I believe enough in at least one person to have some faith. You can agree with that much, can't you Clan Leader?"

Drack had him there. What were his reforms to the krogan way of life but dreams based on a lot of faith? A belief the krogan could be strong again, respected again. And ultimately, he had no real argument against krogan leaving. His people were desperate enough to try anything at this point. This was certainly better than joining another mercenary or criminal group and making his life harder.

A small explosion along a wall ended the brief conversation entirely.

"We'll talk more later," Wrex assured him. "We need to kill some bad guys right now."

"That does sound like a lot more fun, heh," Drack concurred.

Drack quickly got up the rest of the steps with Wrex to find one of the entrances breached. One of the sangheili was stepping though the doorway, pinning down an injured officer with his foot and taking aim at his head. Drack quickly fired a blast from his shotgun that forced the sangheili off his victim before a second shot blew a hole through the hostile alien's chest.

Even as the downed officer scrambled to safety, more sangheili came through the door. Before they could open fire though, Saya had used Wrex as a stepping stone to launch himself over to the invaders. He was cloaked, so Wrex had only felt his foot squish down on his hump, but a mere second later the salarian dropped his invisibility and came down on one sangheili, slashing at his neck before cutting through the hand of his squadmate. The second sangheili simply pulled out his plasma pistol with his still attached hand, unphased it seemed by the loss of one limb. Wrex fired a concussive shot that forced the alien into a wall before he could fire though and Saya finished the down hostile off with a few quick pistol shots. The salarian retreated to cover as more Sangheili moved on the exposed entrance.

"Come on! We need to seal that breach!" Drack ordered.

Wrex hurried over with the old krogan to the door. Saya was already prying open seal for the secondary manual lockdown doors. However, more sangheili could be heard approaching their position. Wrex turned to the open hallway beyond and primed his shotgun.

"Help the frog with the door, Drack," he ordered. "I got this."

"Hmph, only because I know I've killed more of these bastards than you have," Drack claimed. "Might as well let you catch up a bit."

"Says you, old man, says you," Wrex replied with a laugh.

Drack grabbed the crank alongside Saya and the two began to force the bulkhead doors to close. As they slowly inched towards the lock, a furious charge of sangheili rushed at them. They were firing their plasma rifles like mad, screaming their bloody war cries as they encroached. Wrex ducked into cover for a moment to charge up a carnage shot and then jumped back out to let it fly. The explosive shotgun blast decimated the first sangheili it hit. The others kept coming though, quickly moving from cover to cover as they rushed up the hallway. Wrex fired on them as they approached, aiming for their legs mostly. If they couldn't run, they couldn't make the door.

It ultimately only slowed them down a little. The sangheili were soon within point blank range. Wrex was forced to kick one back and blast apart his flailing body. A second tried to stab him with a plasma sword, slashing part of the doorframe and barely missing Wrex. In the split second the blade was raised, the krogan shoved the claymore into the sangheili's torso and fired. The alien flew back with a burst of purplish blood, slamming against the bulkhead as a third sangheili charged like mad at Wrex. The krogan managed to get his arm to block the sangheili's wrist, preventing the alien's sword from coming down on him. Knowing the Covenant soldier's strength would soon break the lock though, Wrex shoved his free hand out, grabbed the alien's throat hard and pulled. There was a sickening gurgling sound a moment later as the sangheili fell.

That was the last of the Covenant that had gotten close enough to the door, moments later it was shut tight as the lock came down hard with a clang. The sangheili and their underlings were closed off, but only for now. This door was hardly the only way in and they'd find other ways around soon enough.

"That's some pretty tough boilerplate," Drack said. "They'll need to bring up some heavy charges to blow that open."

"They've probably already planned for that," Wrex informed him. "We've just slowed them down. The Energy Flow Console is a primary concern right now."

"Right," Drack agreed. "We best lock it down. Let's just hope you still have more fight in you."

"I have plenty," Wrex assured him with a grin. "If we should be worried about anyone losing their step, it's you. I'm still the younger one."

"Only by a few centuries, kid," Drack said jokingly. "And that just means I have more experience, not that I'm slower."

"It means you need a lot of metal crap to keep you working," Wrex reminded him.

"Nothing wrong with that," Drack chuckled warmly. "It just means I'm halfway to having my own vid made about me. Cyborg heroes are in right now."

To outsiders, this might have seemed like snide insults against one another. Wrex knew better, it was just how krogans worked. You could always trust a friend to make slights at you in the heat of combat, just to let off some steam and not let either side get too cocksure about things. It kept them focused on the task at hand and not personal glory.

However, when the jokes subsided and Drack began to lead them to the Energy Flow Console, the tone shifted. Wrex still couldn't shake the idea that Drack was here of all places and intending to leave the galaxy. It just felt so odd to him. If the old man knew what was coming, Wrex thought, would he stay? Would he return to Tuchanka out of fear of looking like a coward for running away? It was a question Wrex didn't want answered. If anyone could help keep krogan culture alive in a new galaxy it was Drack. He was the oldest of their kind, and thus he knew more of the mistakes their people had made than anyone could ever hope to learn on their own. Through him, the krogan could have a fresh start somewhere else. If they were allowed to of course.

But another question arose in Wrex's mind that he couldn't keep to himself.

"Drack," he asked, catching the old krogan's attention. "You going to tell me why you're really here?"

He didn't buy that Drack was that optimistic about the chances of settling a new galaxy. At the very least, he had to suspect there would be more challenges than anyone in the Initiative was anticipating. Not to say Drack was one for the easy route, but there was more to this. He had inferred as much after all.

Drack himself grew more serious and thoughtful.

"Hmm, I admit, this isn't really for me," he confessed, a mixture of melancholy and regret. "I wouldn't be here if... I didn't have someone traveling aboard this heap with me. Someone who relies on me, depends on me. Someone... someone I made a promise to. A promise to be better. I can't go back on that now."

Wrex wouldn't argue with that.

"Well, let's make sure you get to keep that promise," Wrex told him.

They headed off without another word, taking up defensive positions near the console. They prepared for the next attack. Determined to beat it back. It was what krogan were born to do after all. Face the impossible and win regardless. And given the sound of the fighting still raging around them, the odds looked pretty impossible indeed.

---

OOC: So here we are again with some more ME Andromeda stuff. This little arc is leading into the next phase of the story, but things got long and I had to chop the chapter up. Just as well, I needed a buffer of sorts to write the next few chapters for the main story. For now, enjoy this look at the Andromeda crew pre-cryo sleep and six hundred year road trip. So we get to see some of the characters before their development and some more of Alec's style of command. This pretty much will wrap up our time travel shenannigans so enjoy this small tie-in to the main story. And get ready for things to actually move towards a conclusion concerning the VykurCorp subplot.

By the way, I'm more than aware of some people's shipping impulses with these sorts of interactions. Do what you will, just don't go overboard, kay? Anyway, hope you enjoyed this. Now to get back to work on some more chapters. See you next time.