Chapter 19 – Intermission

18 Chapters and 150k words of a masseffect/deadspace/halo bastard lovechild, filled with badly-depicted tropes, unnecessary video game references, totally unoriginal main characters, cringy moments, some sphincter-tightening dialogue and stream of consciousness.

All of it serving as a long-winded set-up for some first-timer's head-scratching mass effect story. Honestly I can't wait to put my chars in actual places in the ME uni. 18 chapters was a bit too long to spend on one ship imo, idk how dead space did it so well.

For the few of you who somehow actually find that this story works for them, well I ain't judging. Ty for suffering in silence ur sacrifice is appreshiated.

Derek, this is your tape.

March 7th, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system — Aboard the TMV Harsa's Embrace

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(First Officer Borag Calolek)

The fifteenth peal of his pre-set alarm finally pulled the snoring batarian out of his comatose, alcohol-induced slumber. With a heavy groan, Borag Calolek found himself pulled back into the land of the living.

Borag slapped a heavy hand onto his omni-tool and quickly shut off the irritating alarm, grumbling as he did so. He scratched at the fine hairs that covered the reddish-brown skin on my face before stretching my arms out and indulging in a spine-popping yawn.

Oh god, he thought, what a night.

The devils take Gorek's sight. Whatever he'd managed to cook up in his homemade distillery had damn nearly killed him last night. It had hit him like a krogan berserker. Damn Gorek and damn this infernal alarm for waking him.

Borag blinked the last vestiges of sleep from his four eyes and wearily pulled himself out of his tiny cot and into his room's personal refresher. He groped blindly at the activation knob for a few moments before his thick fingers finally found them.

A steaming jet of hot water hit him hard in his four-eyed face and the batarian first officer sighed happily. Batarians had thick skin, and thus preferred refreshers with water jets that had a little more power behind him.

The first officer stood there for a full minute without moving so much as a single muscle, simply enjoying the luxurious feel of the shower jet. Once he'd indulged himself enough, he began lathering himself up with soap, washing away the last vestiges of vomit he'd accidentally gotten on himself from the night before.

When Borag finally stepped out of the shower, he was almost in a good mood. He'd definitely be in one once they'd landed on Anhur and could finally put an end to their three-month long delivery trip throughout Terminus space.

Only what, ten more hours in this tin can? Borag thought. Ten hours and then he'd finally have his feet back on real ground, seated at a reputable, licensed establishment that didn't serve toxic swill. Devils, maybe there would be batarian women, or even human women. Borag was nothing if not open-minded.

He pulled on his uniform, making sure that his first officer's bars were highly visible and polished to a gleaming sheen upon his chest. The TMV (Terminus Merchants Vessel) Harsa's Embrace might only have a crew of one hundred and seventy, but that meant that there were at least one hundred and sixty-eight crewmembers who he had seniority over—who he could bully, cajole, and otherwise push around by merit of his rank.

For fun of course, Borag wasn't a sadistic thug. He got along well with his fellow crew members and they'd all gotten used to Borag's mannerisms and unique brand of camaraderie.

The first officer stepped out of his room and made his way down the corridors of the Harsa's Embrace. Clocking in at nearly three hundred meters long, fifty meters tall, and nearly sixty meters wide, the Harsa's Embrace was a cargo vessel of roughly medium-sized tonnage, with more than half of the space ship being dedicated to its cargo hold.

The Embrace had just returned to Anhur from a trip that had taken them halfway across the Terminus Systems, including stops at Omega and Illium. The crew was a mixed bag – mostly batarians and humans, but also included salarians, turians, and even a few asari. They were all tired, hard workers and they were looking forward to finally getting some well-deserved shore leave.

Borag grinned and clapped a friendly hand on the shoulders of a few of the night-shift techs who were just now coming off duty. They smiled at him and lightly roasted him for his inability to hold Gorek's demon brew the night before.

The doors to the bridge slid open and the batarian First Officer stepped in. Captain Krato Vankaloh and Navigations Officer Gorek Dar'than were already seated at their respective posts. Flight Lieutenant Timothy Smith manned the helm, and from the way his bloodshot eyes struggled to stay open, the small human had been hit by Gorek's brew even harder than Borag had.

"How was your morning?" Gorek smiled devilishly. In his hands he held a cup of steaming coffee that he now offered to Borag as a peace token. His four eyes blinked mischievously and for a second Borag was hit with a wave of vertigo as he was hit by the memories of the night before.

Borag took the proferred cup and took a tentative sip. He sighed in relief at the hot liquid and barred his needle-like teeth in a friendly smile his fellow batarian.

"You'll need to try harder to make first officer," he grinned.

Gorek let out a loud bark of laughter, "That wasn't an assassination attempt! You just can't hold your damned alcohol, you four-eyed bastard."

Borag took another sip and then took his seat at the security cameras.

"Then explain to me why I almost died?"

"Can't, not without jeopardizing our friendship or your ego," Gorek chuckled.

Flight Lieutenant Timothy Smith rubbed his bleary eyes with a tiny hand and moaned. "Let's not forget the real victim here, boys."

Gorek and Borag both laughed and hooted at the human officer's misfortune. He was maybe a hundred pounds lighter than either of the hefty batarians and had drunk as much if not more than Borag himself. The three bridge officers poked and jabbed at each other, all in good fun, then proceeded to make plans for what they'd do once they finally landed on Anhur.

One individual did not join in on the festivities, however. Captain Vankaloh's four eyes scanned his console intently, trying to reconcile with the sense of unease growing in his chest.

Krato Vankaloh had spent the last twenty-five years piloting and later captaining cargo vessels. Unlike the hardline batarian slavers who'd been the main antagonists of the Slaver Fringe Wars, Krato had never stooped so low as to participate in the barbaric act of enslaving refugees. The Reaper War had changed him, had shown him that all beings were equal and that no one should live under the heel of another. There were other ways to restore the Batarian Empire and his people back to their former glory.

Delivering goods and tools from colony to colony in the Terminus Systems did not require robbing other species of their freedoms and had satisfied his desire to do good for the last twenty-five years. But one didn't rise to the rank of Captain without developing a sixth sense for danger – especially when you were in charge of a vessel with little-to-no defensive capabilities.

"Borag, have you heard from our escorts? They're almost twelve minutes late checking in," Captain Vankaloh inquired.

Borag quickly set his mug down and began to flip through the comm. channels and the ship's message-box. "Negative Captain, no messages. Maybe they aren't awake yet."

The sense of unease swelled to uncomfortable proportions within the batarian captain's chest. Their escort ships had checked in at the same time every morning for the last three months, doing so once every four hours. Something was wrong.

Captain Vankaloh immediately jumped into action. "Gorek, radio engineering and tell them to warm up the drive core. Helmsman, prepare for evasive maneu—"

A light shudder caused the Bridge of the Harsa's Embrace to shift ever so slightly. Before Krato Vankaloh was a cargo pilot, he'd served in the Batarian Navy. He knew the kind of shudder a ship would undergo after being hit by a mass accelerator slug. He also knew the kind of shudder a ship would undergo when an enemy ship crashed into its sides.

This was a different kind of shudder. This was the kind of shudder that seized a ship when they were being boarded. And aboard a cargo vessel such as the Harsa's Embrace, there was only one place on the ship where you could board in great enough numbers to seize a foothold.

"Borag! Grab a security team and get to the cargo hold now!" Krato yelled.

First Officer Borag Calolek scrambled to his feet and quickly hailed the Embrace's on-duty security team. An alarm began to sound throughout the ship, calling all of the crew to battle readiness. That being done, Borag immediately palmed the bridge doors open and dashed out.

And Captain Krato Vankaloh was right behind him, M-8 Avenger in hand. Flight Lieutenant Smith could get the Embrace to Anhur just find on his own and Gorek could be his co-pilot in the event of an emergency. Krato was a Captain, and a captain had to lead.

Although he'd served on a cargo vessel for the last twenty-five years, he'd never forget his time in the Batarian Navy. Deep in his heart he would always be a fighter. He remembered how loudly he had cheered when Captain Ka'hairal Balak had handed command of the remnants of the Batarian Navy to Commander Shepard instead of letting the decimated batarian fleets rot away in some far corner of the galaxy.

Above all, he wasn't a bad man. He wouldn't stand by as his crew put themselves in harm's way to defend his ship, safe and snug on the bridge. No, he'd be right there with them.

March 7th, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system — aboard Hammerhead Dropship B-22

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Field Commander Morder Zakiah – Project Transcendence)

Zakiah's scarred, grey hands tightened in pain on one of the handholds embedded within the wall of the Hammerhead dropship.

The salarian snarled and slapped his other hand on a trigger affixed to his armor. Immediately the pain began to recede as a flood of painkillers washed through his system. The scars stopped their burning and his head began to clear. The pain was a useful anchor and battle stimulant, but only in the heat of combat.

Outside of it, the pain was crippling. It burned and bubbled and kept him awake at night. For the millionth time, Zakiah cursed Locke and cursed the Spectre who'd inflicted such wounds.

Behind him sat a dozen, silent believers in sleek, matte-black armor, silenced M-7 Lancers across their laps, their faceplates tinted. The majority of them were human, but two of them were salarian and one of them was even an asari.

Zakiah knew that not all of them were true believers. Not all of them were fanatics. That would be pure delusion, an assumption that could lead to costly mistakes in battle.

No, few believed in the promise of eternal life. Most wanted to simply see their loved ones again – old lovers, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters – those that they were torn away from before their time. Some wanted money, some wanted wealth, some wanted simply to kill.

It did not matter, not as long as transcendence was achieved.

His dropship and two others were each currently attached to one of the three sides of the cargo bay of the vessel known as the Harsa's Embrace, small lasers beginning to cut a hole in the side of the bay large enough for the boarders to emerge through.

A fourth contained the precious gift and would remain on standby until they had secured the hold. Each was filled to the brim with soldiers of every species. All would fight, some would die, and Morder Zakiah would be one step closer to achieving everlasting life.

The lasers on all three dropships ceased their burning as each simultaneously finished cutting through to the cargo hold of the Harsa's Embrace. Zakiah could picture the defenders quivering in place, their palms sweaty, the air heady with the scent of their fear.

He began to salivate, his hands began to twitch incessantly. He activated his Scorpion pistol and thumbed the painkiller trigger on his armor again. Damn Locke and damn that quiet, angry Spectre for hurting him. He'd have his revenge one day, after he'd killed everyone aboard this ship of course.

A jet of air hurled the cut-out sides of the cargo bay onto the bay deck and immediately a hail of gunfire erupted from among the defenders.

The invaders weren't novices. Had the defenders been more well-trained then maybe they'd have waited until the invaders actually begun to exit their boarding craft before opening fire, and even then fire in waves so that all of their heatsinks didn't overheat at once.

But they weren't. They were mostly civilian crew members, and what security personnel there was aboard the ship weren't particularly experienced either. After about seven seconds, their weapons all overheated and not a single round even so much as scratched the shielding of any of the invaders.

Zakiah howled in laughter and immediately dove out of his dropship. His Scorpion pistol barked four times and a volley of miniature grenades slammed into the arms, legs, and torsos of the closest fireteam of security personnel.

They detonated at once, the low-grade kinetic shields on their armor doing little to stop the high-powered rounds. The fireteam was immediately blown to ribbons. Expressions of horror immediately clawed their way onto the faces of the remaining defenders and the stench of fear in the air was so heavy that Zakiah could have walked on it.

The salarian saboteur triggered his Tactical Cloak and faded away. His fellow boarders then exited from their respective crafts in force and half of them began to lay down suppressive fire while the other half moved into cover.

The defenders were unprepared for the precision and skill with which the boarders executed their maneuvers. The suppressive fire killed another dozen defenders that had been caught out of cover and wounded scores more. They had been expecting untrained, undisciplined pirates, not soldiers with obvious military training.

Zakiah weaved among the harried defenders, leaving behind a grenade here and there. Defenders began to scream and shout as their friends would disappear in gory messes not meters away from where they themselves would be crouched, their murderer nowhere to be seen. They had no training fighting against cloaked opponents and it showed.

The salarian spotted two batarians valiantly trying to direct and consolidate the remaining defenders. One of them had a Captain's bars affixed to his uniform, while the other had insignia that marked him as the First Officer. Both were surrounded by half a dozen of the most skilled security personnel, trying to rally their fellow defenders against the boarders.

A wave of pain hit Zakiah as his scars began to burn once more and he snarled, cursing Locke and cursing the Spectre once more. He unclipped a sticky grenade from his belt, primed it, and hurled it at the tight knot of brave defenders.

The small blue orb landed on the chest of the batarian wearing the uniform of the First Officer. With a grunt he shoved his captain out of the way and immediately sprinted towards the nearest boarder. The grenade went off, killing him and his target.

The Captain got up and looked at the remains of his friends with an expression of shock. With a guttural roar of fury he grabbed his weapon and charged at the encroaching boarders. He somehow managed to reach the first one and swing his Avenger assault rifle like a club at the distracted boarder's head. The black-clad soldier was a slim, human female and the heavy-set batarian had no trouble snapping her neck with the brutal hit.

The batarian captain didn't stop, instead he hurled a grenade he grabbed from the fallen boarder's belt at another cluster of her fellow boarders. It went off and drained their kinetic shields, allowing the captain to cut them down in a hail of gunfire.

The captain's valiant maneuver emboldened the remaining defenders. The return-fire from the ship's crew intensified and the boarder's suddenly found themselves forced behind cover. Angry shouts of defiance erupted from the voices of the remaining crew of the Harsa's Embrace. They would not go quietly. The names of several batarian and even human gods were loudly invoked as the crew raged against the boarders.

The captain's valiant maneuver was brave, but it also made him a target. Despite the best efforts of the crew and their captain, the boarders all possessed military training and state-of-the-art weaponry and armor. They concentrated their fire on the batarian captain and eventually he was brought down, red blood pouring out from over a dozen wounds.

Zakiah cackled at the sight of the dying batarian and hurled another pair of grenades at the ship's surviving security personnel as they stood stunned at seeing their captain being brought down. The grenades detonated with a violent burst of energy and left nothing more than charred carcasses and broken weapons.

The remaining defenders were merely technicians, engineers, and cargo hands. They began to panic and lose cohesion, making them easy prey for the trained boarders. One by one they fell, until eventually none were left.

The salarian calmly made his way over to the batarian captain. Zakiah was surprised to see that he was still alive despite his multitude of wounds. However, each breath was a struggle for the dying batarian, and the saboteur knew that he did not have long for this world.

Zakiah knelt down and pulled out a knife from behind his back. He began to flip it again and again in his hands as he grinned viciously at the fallen captain.

"You put up quite the fight! I commend you for that, batarian!" The salarian laughed.

The captain struggled to speak, but the blood that was currently filling his chest cavity presented a barrier that was inhibiting him from doing so, despite the best of his abilities.

Zakiah patted the captain gently on the shoulder. "Take heart, die with the knowledge that there was nothing you could have done to save your crew. Even if you'd surrendered, we would have still slaughtered you all," he told him.

"Nothing personal," the salarian assured him. "Just simply collateral damage in the pursuit of a glorious future!"

Captain Krato Vankaloh finally gathered the strength to speak. Blood bubbled from the corners of his mouths and all four of his eyes fixed upon the crazed salarian. His head tilted ever so subtly to the right— a subtle act of batarian defiance that would go unnoticed by the demented saboteur.

"You slaughtered… my crew… you butcher!" He coughed. "Devil's take… your… sight…"

Morder Zakiah grinned and leaned in close, bringing his scarred, wrinkled face within inches of the dying batarian's own. The salarian's cold, grey eyes starred into the captains, reveling in the rapidly-dimming light that he saw within them. For a minute his scars ceased to burn and he could only feel a sense of ecstasy as he watched the batarian begin to give up his ghost.

"Like I said, collateral damage."

Krato coughed once more. His bullet wounds had stopped hurting a while ago, leaving behind only numbness and a chill that seeped into the bone. He knew his crew would die, he only wished that he'd been stronger for them. He hoped that the gods would take mercy on their unfortunate souls and on the ones that the salarian would undoubtedly target next.

"I've lived… a long life… salarian… do you… know what is… the one thing I've learned…?" Krato wheezed.

Zakiah cocked his head and smiled brightly at the batarian. "No, do tell."

Krato could feel his eyelids becoming more and more heavy. He was tired, so, so tired. Every second he fought to stay awake felt like an eternity of struggle, but he couldn't die, not just yet. He'd join his crew – would join Borag and Gunthar and Alan very, very soon, but not just yet.

"Scum like… you… will always… be stopped."

With those words, Krato summoned the last of his strength and spat on the salarian's face, coating it in a spray of fine, red droplets that began to slide down his face.

Zakiah threw his head back once more and howled with laughter. He caught the knife he had been flipping around in his hand and drove it deep into the batarian captain's chest.

"Perhaps…," the salarian admitted. With another small shove he drove it all the way up to the hilt. Batarians were strong, hardy folk. They had been known to survive wounds that would kill most humans, asari, and salarians, and even turians.

Krato's eyes went wide, and he could not keep the darkness at bay any longer. With a sigh he succumbed to his wounds, breathed one final breath, and died.

"… but not today," Zakiah whispered.

The salarian saboteur stood up and wiped his knife on his chest. He then slid it back into its sheath and radioed the fourth and final dropship to attach itself to the cargo hold.

Black-armored saboteurs guarded the entryways as the dropship began to use its lasers to cut its way into the core. Soon the way was open, and another quartet of saboteurs poured onto the ship. They brought with them a series of portable mass effect generator tracts designed to move large objects. The newcomers quickly assembled them at the base of the entrance as the remaining saboteurs inside struggled to move a large, metal object out of the dropship and into the cargo bay.

Morder Zakiah smiled and slapped a scarred hand against the painkiller trigger affixed to his armor, gazing reverently at the Reaper Core that his fellow saboteurs procured from the dropship, the red light of the Core reflected in his black, murky eyes.

March 7th, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, Anhur – Planetary Defense Cannon Main Generator

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Operations Chief Simon Merryweather)

Every ragged breath threatened to tear Simon's lungs in two as he struggled to maintain his speed.

Sweat dripped from his pale forehead into his eyes, threatening to rob the Operations Chief of his sight and make his dead man's sprint ever the more difficult. Simon Merryweather was not a fit man. His job was to sit at a console for eight hours a day, monitoring the generator's energy outputs and their uplink to Anhur's network of planetary defense cannons.

It was what he'd done every day, seven days a week, for the last eight years. Every day he'd wake up in his room on-base and he'd eat, change, then report in for his eight-hour shift. He'd make smalltalk with his fellow techies as he monitored the uplink and the output, take an extra half-hour for lunch, then continue to monitor the uplink and the output until the next shift came in and tapped him out. Boring, repetitive, predictable.

But not today. Today the intruder alarms had begun to ring during the small hours of the night, when everyone was fighting off the lethargy that they'd accrued during the day and struggling to stay awake. The comm. channels began to light up with reports of murderous, shadowy figures killing everything and everyone, and Simon Merryweather didn't intend to end up on that list.

The operations room was both the most secure place in the facility and the only place where one could send out an SOS, meaning Simon could both do his duty and save his own skin without sacrificing one for the other. With that knowledge in mind, he had hastily slipped into his uniform and had begun a dead run towards the operations room.

As he ran down the hall he saw his fellow workers in branching corridors get gunned down by tall, menacing figures who cast sharp, jagged shadows in the dim gloom of the emergency lighting.

A few dozen meters behind him ran a cadre of his fellow shift workers. He watched as a security door slammed shut between him and his fellow survivors, their screams of terror echoing in the rapidly-empting corridors of the generator facility as they were set upon by demonic figures in black armor, spiked helmets and sharp talons. The smell of gunfire and blood and other bodily fluids began to invade the facility as swiftly and suddenly as the shadowy figures had.

Simon's lungs burned as he maintained his pace. Down another hall a pair of ghostly shapes emerged from out of nowhere. They were clad in matte-black armor designed distinctively for turians. Their helmets had a tapered, armored compartment at the back for where a turian's spiked fringe was supposed to go, giving each figure the look of a horned demon.

But Simon didn't spare the apparitions a second glance as he ran into the operations room, slapping the door button as he dashed through. The thick metal doors sealed shut with a hiss behind him and he ran for the comm. set. No one else had made their way into the operations room – he was the only one.

He could hear a slight hissing crackle behind him as the ghosts began to cut through the door. Trembling violently with fear, he grabbed the comm. set and struggled to input the correct frequencies. His fingers were simply shaking too much.

Eventually he connected. He breathed a ragged sigh of relief and immediately began to send out an SOS.

"This is Operations Chief Simon Merryweather, currently stationed at the Anhur Planetary Defense Cannon Generators! We're under attack by what appears to be a group of—"

A well-aimed pistol shot blew apart the comm. set in his hands, tearing it apart in a violent shower of sparks and metal fragments. Simon yelped at the sudden destruction of his only way of calling for help. He began to feel a wetness pool in the seat of his pants as his trembling intensified tenfold.

He turned to look at the tall, black-and-gold armored figure slowly walk towards him, a smoking M-11 Suppressor pistol in one taloned hand. Behind him were another dozen figures also clad in matte-black armor of similar shape and form. Now that they were mere meters away, Simon could tell that they were indeed all definitely turian.

Simon fell out of his chair and sank to his knees as the leader walked up to him. The tall turian pressed a trigger on his helmet. The entire helmet bloomed like a flower from back to front, allowing him to pull it off of his face and fringe and look the frightened Operations Chief eye-to-eye, rather than allowing the poor man to beg and plead at an imposing, impassive black visor.

He had pale, soft, white scales and plates and light blue clan markings that Simon could not identify. The Operations Chief gazed into the turian's blood-red eyes and immediately began to sob. He didn't see any anger, any hate – only an apologetic look of sorrow, one that Simon knew could only mean one thing.

"P-p-please… Don't kill me…" Simon begged.

One of the other turians tilted his head towards his leader. The red-eyed turian looked at him and cocked his head as if he was listening. Simon couldn't hear what the two were talking about – his eyes were glued on the turian's pistol – for the first turian still had his helmet on, and was likely conversing with his leader on their own private comm. channel.

The white-plated turian twitched his mandibles. He pressed the barrel of his M-11 Suppressor against Simon's forehead. Simon closed his eyes and began to pray.

"I'm sorry," the turian whispered. Simon then heard what sounded like a muted clap and then he couldn't hear anything at all.

March 7th, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, Anhur – New Thebes, city center.

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Constable Ja'laral Rakan)

"Jal, watch out!" screamed his partner.

Ja'laral, or his friends called him, Jal, dove out of the way of the creature's vicious looking claws and rolled behind the cover of a potted plant.

The creature – what had once been a human – snarled and opened its mouth to let loose a soul-chilling howl that joined the cacophony of howls that currently echoed throughout the city, courtesy of its brethren.

Jal shuddered as the flesh around its mouth ripped even further apart as the creature howled and began to ooze even more blood and blue fluid. He leveled his Predator Pistol, police standard-issue, and struggled to calm his beating heart long enough to draw a bead on the creature.

But he couldn't. His four eyes grew wide in fear as his first shot sizzled over the creature's shoulder and his second hit the creature in the arm, sending it stumbling back but doing no real damage. The creature snarled and snapped its jaws in fury and coiled to pounce at the terrified batarian officer.

Before it could leap, a barrage of shots slammed into the back of the creature's head, blowing it apart in a shower of grey matter and sparks. The creature dropped like a puppet cut from its strings and crumpled onto the ground.

He blinked in surprise and fell onto his ass. A tall, golden-haired woman also dressed in a constable's uniform held out a gloved hand towards him. "You okay, Jal?" asked Emily.

Jal grabbed his partner's proffered hand and pulled himself up. He dusted himself off and eyed the carcass of the creature with both disdain and fear.

"Thanks, that was close," he said breathily. The batarian placed both hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths to calm his nerves.

Emily turned around and cast another glance at the corpse of the creature. It began to twist and writhe as its stomach began to bulge unnaturally in certain places. She watched with horror as the rotted flesh ruptured and a pack of mechanical, spider-like creatures began to pull themselves out and scurry towards them.

"Shit! We've got to go!" she yelled. Emily immediately began to sprint away, towards their police cruiser, Jal close behind.

Constable Ja'laral Rakan didn't question his partner's orders. He didn't look back, didn't try to shoot the creatures – instead, he sprinted towards to cruiser, doing his best to ignore a fresh new wave of howling that erupted somewhere behind him.

The two constables of the New Thebes Police Force sprinted down a narrow street, hurdled a trash cans, and generally did their best to avoid losing their footing and falling prey to their monstrous pursuers.

Jal, being taller and stronger than his partner, reached the cruiser ahead of his partner by a matter of seconds. He pulled himself into the driver's seat and immediately turned on the ignition as Emily pulled herself in the passenger's seat with a gasp of relief.

The doors closed shut just as their pursuers reached the cruiser. Both officers shuddered as the monsters outside began to pound and scrape at the cruisers doors, snarling and hissing in fury and hunger. They didn't know how long the doors would hold, but Jal didn't intend to stay long enough to find out.

Jal stepped on the pedal and the cruiser's mass effect generator immediately began to hum and propel the cruiser forward and up into the air. The snarls and hisses of the creatures left outside began to fade as Jal forced the cruiser into the air and into the panicked mass of skycars that were currently flying haphazardly around the city, disobeying all traffic regulations and in more than one instance colliding with one another to create fiery explosions and more casualties.

But Jal wasn't about to stop and render aid, nor try and enforce any measure of order on the chaos caused by the appearance of these creatures. Instead he artfully weaved the cruiser in and around the dozens of skycars each headed in different directions in the airspace around him, his eyes darting between the radar and the viewport, trying his best to dodge drivers who were too scared and frightened to effectively watch where they were going.

Beside him his partner was currently flipping through various radio frequencies, trying to connect with anything and anyone who might be listening. The blonde woman had tied her hair up in a bun to prevent stray locks from falling into her eyes and was currently biting her lip in apprehension as each channel she cycled onto kept coming up dark.

"This is constable Emily Wright, of the New Thebes Police Force, 71st Precinct! Does anyone copy?" she broadcasted. "Captain Gregory? Are you there?"

Emily gave a cry in frustration and slammed the receiver onto the dashboard of the cruiser.

"No luck?" Jal asked.

The human female officer shook her head and pulled out her standard-issue Predator pistol to check the remaining ammunition block. "No, comms are completely down, they must have targeted our satellites."

"Shit," cursed the batarian officer. Without communications there was no way to coordinate an effective defense and containment against these creatures, let alone evacuation. Whatever these things were, they'd eventually find their way out of New Thebes and make their way to the rest of the cities.

Jal gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled grip. "What do we do, Ems?"

Emily pressed the heels of her palms to both eyes and sighed. She held them there for a few seconds to both calm herself and to banish away those few tears that threatened to break down her whittling barriers.

"We stick to the plan, we go pick up Margaret and the girls, we load up this cruiser with as much food as we can and then we hightail it as far away from this city as possible. This situation is FUBAR, comms are down and without them we can't get in touch with HQ, it's better to run and survive," Emily replied.

Her partner nodded weakly in relief. "Sounds like a plan, Ems."

Jal's four eyes blinked anxiously as he guided their cruiser out of the center of New Thebes. Now that they were out of the downtown core the density of skycars had dropped, allowing Ja'laral the freedom to relax a bit as he no longer needed to maintain a state of intense concentration to avoid a mid-air collision.

But that loosening of the reins only allowed his mind to wander towards more nerve-wracking concerns, such as the state of his family. Communications had gone down maybe half an hour before the outbreak had even started, and as such he had no idea whether or not Margaret and the girls were safe back at the apartment.

"You think Margaret will be okay?" Jal asked his partner nervously.

Emily looked at the batarian seated beside her. When Ja'laral Rakan had joined the force six years prior and had been assigned to her as partner, she'd originally thought him to be a slow-thinking, useless meatbag. Spineless even, Jal'aral wasn't particularly good at fighting or shooting or even apprehending a common criminal.

When he'd started showing interest in her friend Margaret, she'd almost shot him.

But over the years, she'd come to learn that Jal wasn't as slow-thinking as she'd thought. He liked to analyze all the facts, details, and possibilities before committing to a course of action, which unfortunately had given others the impression that he was a bit stupid.

And although he wasn't a fighter, he was astounding when it came to interacting with people. He knew instinctively how to tailor his mannerisms, body language, and voice pitch to calm and connect with individuals from all walks of life and every different species. He was detail-oriented in his reports, meticulous with his paperwork, and knew Anhur law like the back of his hand.

Above all, he was kind to Margaret. The two had started a relationship some time after he'd been made Emily's partner, and had been nothing but amazing to her ever since. The interspecies couple had adopted a human and a batarian girl and lived in a nice apartment complex right at the edge of New Thebes. Jal started out as a rookie, grew into being her partner, and became her friend.

"They'll be fine, Jal. We'll get Marge and the girls out," Emily promised.

Jal nodded and smiled. He looked out of the window at the streets below. They were flying maybe twenty meters from street-level, giving him a good view of the chaos below.

Even in the outskirts of the city he could see many of the creatures running amok below, pouncing on civilians and savaging them. Several of the larger ones moved ponderously down the street, absorbing bullets from a few determined cops and armed civilians.

New Thebes was the capital of Anhur, a colony world in the Amun System, within the Eagle Nebula. Anhur was one of the most well-established colony worlds out in the Terminus Systems – not as populated as Omega or Illium, but thriving with a total population of nearly five hundred and fifty million people as of 2211.

Boasting a population mainly comprised of batarians and humans, Anhur saw a rapid population bloom following the Reaper War. The Reapers had never invaded the smallish colony back during the war, and as a result Anhur saw a massive immigration of refugees escaping broken core worlds in the following decades. This influx of skilled, educated workers pulled the garden world out of the economic depression it underwent after the conclusion of the Anhur Rebellions between 2176 and 2178.

New Thebes was a city of tall skyscrapers and buildings – a little slice of Illium so to speak. Roughly twice the size of New York City, it nonetheless boasted a population nearly three times as much – roughly forty million people. Other cities were scattered across the main continent, but none were as beautiful, elegant, nor as densely populated.

It hurt Jal inside to see his beloved city like this. He could hear the screams even from within the safety of his cruiser, and could see numerous buildings on fire. He had served and defended it for the last six years and now it was all going to hell in a handbasket.

They were approaching the apartment where Jal's family lived. Jal dipped the cruiser even lower to lessen his chances of colliding with another skycar, taking it to maybe fifteen meters above ground-level.

A wave of static suddenly washed over the cruiser, causing the tiny hairs on his skin to stand straight up. Jal's four eyes blinked in confusion as the instrument panel suddenly went haywire and the controls became non-responsive.

"Shit, what the hell was that?" Emily asked.

Jal's eyes went wide. "EMP!" he cried. "Hold on to something!"

His partner immediately snapped her seatbelt in place and grabbed the handhold on the ceiling. They were about two-hundred meters away now. Thank the gods Jal had decided to fly low, maybe they'd survive this after all.

The batarian officer spotted the parking lot of a shopping complex appear ahead. The way the cruiser was headed, they were going to land right in the parking lot. Either they'd pancake onto the ground and die, or they'd enter at an angle flat enough to slide down the lot and disperse their kinetic energy.

Jal closed all four eyes and prayed to whatever gods might be listening that he'd get to see his family one last time.

March 7th, 2211. Eagle Nebula, Amun system, Planet Anhur – New Thebes, city outskirt.

Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…

(Constable Ja'laral Rakan)

"Jal… Jal! Ja'laral, wake the fuck up you hairy bastard!"

Jal groaned and brought a hand up to rub his eyes. He could feel heat against his skin, and a strip of pain across his chest where his seatbelt had likely dug into his flesh and left a line of ugly bruises, but everything else was blurry.

Slowly he blinked away the blurriness and things started coming into focus. He could see the cracked windshield of his cruiser, distorting the view outside, and a wreath of flames that had begun to well up around the car.

"Jal, the car's on fire, we've got to move!" hissed Emily. The batarian looked at his partner beside him. Emily had a gash down her forehead and a bruise on her cheek but otherwise looked to be in decent shape. Her Predator pistol was out and her seatbelt was already off.

Jal groaned and slowly flexed each limb, making sure that nothing was broken. Satisfied, he unclipped his seatbelt, muttering a quick prayer of thanks as it detached itself without issue. He'd seen enough movies to know that the hero's seatbelt always jammed after a car crash, especially in movies involving zombies.

He slapped at the emergency door controls with a hairy fist and with a bang the doors ejected. He stumbled out onto the pavement, careful to avoid the flames, and looked around while his partner did the same.

They were ten meters from the entrance to the mall. His apartment complex was literally on the other side.

A chorus of howls caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up and the batarian officer shivered.

"Jal, we're close. Let's cut through the mall and head straight for the apartment," Emily suggested quietly. She scanned the parking lot with her Predator pistol, wary for any of the creatures that could suddenly appear from behind a parked car.

"Aren't you afraid that there will be more of the things inside? And in a confined space?" Jal asked.

"Beats standing out here in the open where we can be spotted and flanked, besides, we're running short on time. EMP blast probably disabled every transport in the city. We need to find your family and get out fast."

Jal nodded. "Sounds good, I'll take point."

The batarian readied his pistol and made his way up the steps. Inside the mall chaos reigned as the creatures hunted the survivors in a deadly game of cat and mouse.

"Don't stop for anything or anyone!" Emily yelled. She brought her pistol up mid-stride and without stopping put three rounds into a Corpser that had taken an interest in the two officers, knocking it onto its ass. Without wasting the time required to confirm her kill, Emily shoved Jal in the back and the two officers kept going.

Jal cursed as he watched Corpsers jump from the upper tiers of the mall onto the backs of fleeing survivors. He shot one Corpser in the knee just as it was about to pounce on a batarian shopper and shot another one that was chasing a salarian and two humans down another path but otherwise didn't stop moving.

A few of the shoppers stopped to yell and beg for the officers to assist but both Emily and Jal ignored them. To stay and fight was to die, and neither one of them wanted that. Both were willing to ignore their desperate cries for help if it meant that Jal got to see his family one more time.

Emily vaulted over a fallen kiosk and shot a Corpser that was about to pounce on Jal. They were about halfway through the mall now. Jal was breathing hard, no longer possessing the energy required to point and shoot his weapon as he ran.

"Keep going! We're almost through!" Emily yelled.

Howls and snarls and desperate screams rang heavily in their ears as the two officers abandoned what little efforts they made to save the hapless civilians and instead focused their attention entirely on their own survival.

He watched as a Corpser tore into a human shopper not six feet away from him, watched as a pack of tiny, mechanical creatures crawled into the throat of a slain batarian and begin to convert him into another of the creatures. Although he didn't stop to check, behind him he could hear a mass of rapid footsteps and a cacophony of snarls.

Finally, the two officers crashed out of the doors and back into the street. Jal found his second wind and dashed up the steps towards the entrance of the apartment complex. He halted at the top when he noticed that his partner was no longer beside him.

"Ems? Emily?" Jal called out.

He turned around and saw his partner firing at a pack of the creatures that had followed them out of the mall.

"Jal, go! I'll hold them off!" Emily screamed. She fired at the nearest Corpser, a quartet of shots hammering into its open maw and shattering its metal teeth. The Corpser dropped to the ground, only for two more to replace it. She fired desperately at those too but they refused to fall. The one on the ground that she had just killed began to convulse as Crawlers tore out of it and more howls could be heard from within the mall.

"EMS!" Jal roared.

"GO!" Emily screamed back.

With one last look at his partner, Jal ran into the building, tears stinging his four eyes.

He couldn't stop to mourn Emily, not while his family was still in danger. He could hear more howls and moans from within the apartment complex and Jal knew that his family was running out of time.

He dashed for the stairwell, not bothering to try for the elevator. The EMP had likely knocked out nearly all of the electronics and nearly every single transport in the city. Jal didn't fancy wasting time waiting around for an elevator that might never come. Besides, he could swore that he heard growling and snarling from within the elevator box itself.

He began to dash up the stairs, breath heaving, sweat dripping into each of his four eyes. His uniform was dirty and in tatters from both the escape from the city and the cruiser crash. His legs were burning and screaming in protest but still Jal pressed on, fear for his family and adrenaline keeping him going.

Eventually he reached the twenty-ninth floor and shoulder-checked the stairwell door open. The heavy door slammed into a Corpser that just happened to be standing behind it, knocking it snarling back into a wall.

The batarian officer ran through and shot the creature twice in the head and a few times in the stomach for good measure. Satisfied, he turned and sprinted down the hall, his breath coming in ragged gasps for air after having just sprinted through a mall and up nearly twenty-nine damn flights of stairs. Jal swore that if he made it out of this he'd pay more attention to his fitness in the future.

Several of the creatures sounded like they'd already broken into a few of the apartments, this fact serving only to fan the spark of worry and anxiety in his chest into a raging inferno of fear and desperation.

His apartment door was up ahead. The door was splintered open. He could hear snarling inside.

Jal sobbed and ran into his apartment. He ran into the living room and came upon the sight of his family, cowering in one corner as a Corpser snarled and advanced menacingly towards them.

"Jal!" screamed his wife, Margaret.

"Daddy!" screamed his girls.

Jal raised his Predator and aimed it at the creature's head. Time seemed to slow down and his heart seemed to stop beating as his finger squeezed down on the trigger.

Nothing. His weapon was dry.

Jal cursed and tossed the weapon aside. The creature turned to face him and in that brief instant its warped and twisted visage curled into the slightest hint of a smile. A line of spittle ran down its torn jaws to pool on the floor and it turned back around and continued its advance towards his family.

The batarian officer took a deep breath. He looked at his girls Annabelle and Elsana, both just five years old and about to start pre-school. He looked at his wife Margaret. She was his rock, his heart, he'd known she'd become that ever since he'd first laid eyes on her all those years ago, back when his partner had introduced her as they were all going out for drinks.

Batarians and humans had never been the best of friends. The Skyllian Blitz, the Anhur Rebellions, even the Slaver Fringe Wars all seemed to point at the fact that batarians and humans were destined to forever be locked in a cycle of conflict. To this day, many batarians still committed what amounts to hate crimes to humans. Maybe not so much on Anhur, but definitely in more batarian-centric planets and worlds such as Omega.

But not Ja'laral Rakan. Like many of the newer generations of batarians, he believed in galactic cooperation and unity between the species. He was very ready to cast aside the old ways, ways that involved slavery, piracy, and other actions that almost every other species considered immoral.

That was his wife, his human wife. The one he'd raised two children with and the one that he loved with all his heart. The one standing there with her arms held protectively in front his two children, staring death in the form of a twisted, demonic creature defiantly in the face. He had to do something.

Many of Jal's friends liked to joke that he was slow, but Jal never let those jokes get to him, because he simply knew that it was not true. He liked to consider all possible angles of a situation before acting, and seeing as every potential action possessed a myriad of different consequences and factors affecting them, sometimes that took more time than he'd like to when it came to deciding what to do. But no matter what they said about Jal, Jal knew that he always settled on what many would consider the right decision, even in a set of convoluted, unfavorable circumstances.

And Jal knew what the right decision was in this very moment.

With a roar, Jal ran at the Corpser. The heavy batarian tackled the creature and carried the both of them straight towards the window pane that made up one side of the living room.

His arms may have been wrapped around the creature but his four eyes never left his family, not even as he felt the creatures talons dig hard into his back, drawing blood. His eyes stayed transfixed on their faces, drinking in every last detail, every ounce of love that they looked at him with. That was his wife, those were his girls. They'd survive.

The window pane shattered.