Chapter 28 – Pride and Prejudice
March 13th, 2211. Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Officer's Quarters – Room C
Data Corruption… Automatic Reconstruction Failed…Data Corruption….Profile Reconstruction Required…
(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)
The sun rose over a broken and scarred landscape. The towers had been cut down like wheat beneath the scythe or soldiers beneath the blade. Where they once stood tall and proud, now they lay broken and twisted. Now they were the fingers of a dying man, curling up towards the heavens in one final plea for mercy.
And in the sky there were shadows, shadows with many arms and angry red eyes. From the heavens they looked down at what they had done, doing so silently, ominously, displaying not a single drop of satisfaction, remorse, or guilt at their act of destruction or for the lives that they had taken. They simply watched and watched and watched.
The pain that should have been there, wasn't. I coughed and pushed myself up from the smoking ruins of the silver road on which I had fallen. Hot air radiated from the road, covering everything in a ghastly shimmer. Everywhere around me lay the bodies of the strange, beautiful people whose language I could not understand. Some lay curled around loved ones, while others had passed in poses of extreme agony. Even more were burnt beyond recognition, no longer beautiful, no longer laughing.
No one was spared. Not the men, not the women, and most certainly not the children. Tears slid down my cheeks but I brushed them away. I drove an angry fist into the ground and tried to yell but no sound came out. Suddenly a small pair of hands wrapped themselves around my face and tilted my head upwards. It was the young girl.
Her blue skin was ashen and her glowing, white eyes seemed a little bit duller, a little less bright, but otherwise she didn't seem to have any apparent wounds. She said something urgently to me in her musical language that I did not understand and tugged my face once more. I think she wanted me to stand up. I could. I could do that.
I staggered to my feet and looked around me, but by the looks of it no one else other than the two of us had survived. Off in the distance I could hear screams and shouts coming from deeper within the city. The shadows lingered overhead, watching and judging.
The girl tugged at my hand and babbled frantically in her language, pulling me towards the city. She kept repeating a single word.
I nodded to her and scooped her up. She squeaked in pain as I crushed her against my armored chest just little bit too hard. Wait… armor? Wear had that come from? Had I been wearing it before? I looked down and for the first time noticed that I was completely clad in my armor, how strange.
I ran down the silver road headed towards the screaming city. The girl kept talking as I ran, and I'd do my best to smile and nod but otherwise I didn't waste my breath.
When we finally reached the screaming city I paused, stunned by the chaos and the destruction currently unfolding before me.
Survivors screamed in pain, agony, and fear as they ran around looking for loved ones or for shelter. Around me I could hear the snarls and the chittering of their hunters – cruel, twisted creatures that killed and killed and killed. Those that they didn't kill were dragged away or rendered unconscious. They seemed to be collecting many of them.
Some of the hunters bore weapons and fired at the beautiful people while others merely used their claws. They came in several different shapes and sizes. Some had tails and some had too many arms while others had too many legs. Some had too many teeth and some had too many eyes while some didn't have enough of either or anything at all where there should have been such features. All of them were, however, were hunters, killers, and their prey was all around them.
I ducked into an alley, avoiding a large, four-armed synthetic monstrosity. I gently rubbed the back of the young girl to try to get her whimpers to subside while I did my best not to make a sound. Quietly, we slipped around through a series of small and thankfully empty streets and rejoined the main road somewhere further down, which the creatures had already moved away from.
She tugged at my face with one hand and pointed at a broken tower with another, jabbering frantically in her lyrical tongue.
I followed her finger and made my way across the road towards the building, careful to keep my eyes peeled for any of the creatures nearby. I didn't fancy fighting any of them, especially since I hadn't had a clue what they were capable of, or how hard they were to kill. I wish I had my pistol or my Snakebite on me. If one of those things showed up I'd have to put the little girl down in order to use my biotics.
As I got closer I could see that there were a number of bodies lying around the entrance. Some of them were torn apart while others looked like they'd simply fallen where they'd been standing when the invaders came, pools of bluish-grey blood blossoming beneath them. I felt a chill run down my spine as a thought suddenly occurred to me. It was like watching a movie. All the events you had witnessed had undoubtedly lead up to this one moment. You knew it was going to happen, even if you didn't want it to, and yet there was nothing you could do to stop it because the movie has already been shot, the ending pre-decided, and no amount of hoping or praying was going to change what you were going to see next.
The little girl began pointing at one of the facedown bodies on the ground and started shrieking. I tried to calm her down, my eyes tracking the streets for anything that might hear her, but she wouldn't have it. She beat on my chest and pointed at the ground, demanding to be let down, all the while talking rapidly in her alien tongue.
I gently set her down and watched as she ran to the body and flipped it over, revealing a blue-skinned female with a series of terrible rends across her neck and chest that oozed blue blood. My eyes flew wide at the sight of those familiar-looking wounds and for a moment I was frozen in place, unable to speak, unable to move.
The little girl knelt down and pressed her face into the bloody chest of the dead alien female, sobbing. Although I still couldn't understand a single word she said, crying was still something that was universally understood in nearly every single species. My muscles finally unfroze and I walked over to gently kneel beside her, placing one hand on her shoulder as she mourned the dead.
"You can save us," she suddenly whispered.
My eyes went wide and I stared at her in surprise. I could understand her. I could understand what she was saying.
The little girl removed her face from the dead woman's chest and turned to face me. Her youthful features were now hidden beneath a fine layer of blue-ish blood, given her already blue skin a splotchy, distorted appearance and causing a few of the tendrils on her chin to stick to her cheeks, giving the appearance of blue scars on her face.
"You can save us," she repeated, her glowing eyes beginning to glow a little bit brighter.
My mouth gaped open and for a moment I was rendered speechless. "How? How do I save you?" I stuttered.
A roar suddenly erupted behind us and I spun around, fists held out in front of me.
"Stay behind me!" I yelled.
The creature was a caricature of metal and flesh, like someone had cut off bits and pieces off its body here and there and replaced them with machine. It walked on two backwards-hinged legs and in one hand it had what appeared to be some sort of cannon crafted into its arm. It's other ended in a series of long, sharp talons that were currently coated in blue blood. Behind it I could see a tail that was nothing more than a jagged, metal stump maybe an arm's length long.
It peered at us curiously with bright, yellow eyes, judging, gauging. I could hear the young girl whimpering behind me.
It opened its mouth, revealing rows of sharp, metal teeth, and howled at us.
I raised one hand, making the physical mnemonic necessary to conjure a Singularity, but to my horror my armor and my arm was gone. In place of it was the arm of a young boy.
I raised my hands and peered at them. Gone were my muscles, the scars I'd accrued on them over the years, the burn where Cade had accidentally spilled soup on me a few months ago. In their place were the undeveloped arms of a boy, no older than a toddler.
The creature ran at me. I couldn't fight it, instead I twisted around and moved to grab the little girl. Our only chance lay in running.
But she was gone too. In her place knelt a little boy kneeling over the body of a woman with long, blonde hair.
He looked up at me and stared at me with icy blue eyes. "You can save us," he said.
And then the sky darkened and the shadows came back. I heard what sounded like a thunderclap, then felt a rush of heat behind me.
Then the horn.
March 13th, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Officer's Quarters – Room C
Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – En-route to Gelix
A hand grabbed my shoulder and shook me. Hard.
"Hey! Hey, wake up!" a voice hissed.
I coughed and gasped, struggling for breath and willing myself to wake up. A pair of soft hands slipped around my shoulders and pulled me up into a seated position. "You're okay... You're safe, you're on board the Excalibur," the same voice said.
I blinked blearily as I waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. "Oh god, Elektra?" I sputtered.
"Hey, yeah, it's me, it's just me," she said soothingly, stroking my upper back with one hand. "You're in your room on board the Excalibur. It's just us, nothing's here..."
I let out a sigh and looked around, my eyes having finally adjusted to the dark. I was in my room, one of the two-person officer rooms aboard the Excalibur. Elektra knelt beside me, clothed in a baggy old t-shirt and a pair of old running shorts. Her pistol lay on the ground beside her. She had probably been startled awake by my dreams.
My skin felt clammy with sweat and I pressed a hand to my forehead. "Jesus, what time is it," I asked.
"We're about a few hours out from Gellix," Elektra replied. "Thanks for ruining my beauty sleep by the way."
"I'm sorry, really," I apologized, sliding out of my bed and brushing past her, padding over to my small dresser where I'd chosen to store all my clothing. I grabbed a towel and began drying myself off. Even with my back turned I could feel her brown eyes drilling into the back of my head, probably staring piteously at me or some other sad shit.
"Things must have been pretty bad aboard the Hippocrates if they're giving you these kinds of nightmares," she said grimly. She rose up from where she'd been kneeling beside my bed and crossed her arms. "I don't think I've ever seen you shaken up like this before, and we've both seen each other go through some serious shit."
I tossed the towel into a basket and rubbed my face with my hands. "Yeah, but I'm getting pretty sick of it though. I'm not looking forward to meeting the Blue Suns all bleary-eyed and yawning my ass off," I grunted. I decided against changing into civilian clothes or fatigues and instead just pulled on my undersuit. I'd be spending a lot of time in it anyways over the next little while.
Elektra sighed and padded up to join me in front of her own dresser. She removed her T-shirt and shorts and also grabbed her undersuit as well, sliding one leg into it as I finished zipping up.
"Might as well get started then I guess," she huffed in annoyance. "Not like I'll be able to go back to sleep, and I'm betting you're going to want to call an early meeting anyways, am I right?"
I nodded. "Yeah, just us Spectres though. I'll take the Jaegers along when we cross-deck with the Blue Suns cruiser and I'll probably just send the rest of the crew a brief."
"Better bring along those floating specialists," she added. "You know, that young turian kid, the krogan, and the asari commando."
"Good idea," I agreed, "give everyone on the ground teams a chance to get to know each other."
She finished suiting up and grabbed her pistol. I grabbed mine as well and slotted it into a holster on my waist. Together we moved to the door. "Want to do any sparring before we wake up the guys? I could use the early morning exercise to wake up" she asked.
"Sure," I nodded. "Let's do it in full armor though, I want to get used to the weight."
"No duh," she scoffed.
March 13th, 2211 – Aboard the SSV Excalibur — Deck 2, Briefing Room
Minos Wasteland, Arrae System – En-route to Gelix
The sparring session had done wonders for my alertness, banishing away what was left of my fatigue and making me feel refreshed and focused. When I was fighting Elektra it felt like I was fighting the residual horrors that the nightmare had left in my mind. I felt strong and confident again instead of powerless and weak like I had been in my dream.
I studied the three biographies displayed in front of me on the holo-table. They were the commanders of the Blue Suns battalion that we'd be working with. When the Council had notified us last-minute of the back-up we'd been bringing, I wonder if they somehow perhaps did not know about the history Percival shared with two of these individuals. More likely they had known and simply did not care, instead choosing to trust Percival to keep things civil and professional. Personally, had I been the one making these logistical decisions, I'd have thought twice before adding them to our roster. Professionally, however, the Blue Suns were our best choice.
The doors to the briefing room slid open and in walked Percival, already wearing his N7 armor and looking completely alert. He walked over to take his place beside me and silently peered at the biographies, one in particular, with a slight frown on his face.
No point in skirting the issue. "Is this going to be a problem?" I asked.
Percival set his jaw in the slightest of grimaces and shook his head. "Not much we can do about it. We need the Blue Suns on this one."
I tilted my head from side-to-side as I ran through my plan in my mind and estimated at the number of personnel required to pull off the mission-critical objectives. "Technically we don't, not if we're simply hunting down the ideological crazies, but I seriously doubt that we're just going to sit there and let them turn an entire colony into those damned creatures."
My friend looked away, trying his best to hide the sadness in his eyes, and nodded in agreement. "Focus on the lives we can save, not the ones we couldn't."
Everyone at some point in their lives encounters their first defining moment. It's the first time you realize that no matter how much you know or how capable you are or how much you can do there will always be a time where all of it is not enough to see you through.
It's the moment where you first fail — truly, utterly fail despite all your best efforts, intentions, and hopes. It's the moment where you're forced to really grow up, when you realize that sometimes you just can't win, and the moment when you realize the truth in the old adage 'Failure is the greatest teacher'. For Percival it was the Battle of Bahak.
I could see Percival going away in his mind and it was my job as a friend to pull him back. I grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a rough shake. "Hey! You're not going to cap these guys until after we've rescued everyone and saved the day, right?" I joked.
That got a smile from him. "You doubt my professionalism? I am a Council Spectre you know."
His melancholy passed and we both merely stared at the two batarian faces prominently displayed on the holo-table. Captain Revak Ghar'aran and his younger brother Malan, the heads of the Blue Suns chapter in the Eagle Nebula. Unlike the Blue Suns of old, the present-day iteration of the Suns was run by a Board chaired by high-ranking Suns members rather than a single leader like the Blood Pack or the Eclipse were, and rumor had it that both brothers were currently holding seats.
The Butchers of Bahak.
The door to the briefing room opened up and in walked Cade, or stumbled I should say. Unlike Percival and I, the turian was clad only in his undersuit, absolutely bleary-eyed and looking as if he was fighting back a dozen yawns.
"Spirits, it's only six in the morning," he groaned. "Why would you do this to me?"
He ran the back of his hand across his eyes and blinked in confusion at the picture of the two batarians that we were looking at. "And why are you guys starting your morning by staring at a picture of two ugly-ass batarians instead of coffee?"
"They're the ones in charge of the Blue Suns battalion, and we're going to be meeting them in less than three hours," I told him.
"Three hours!" Cade exclaimed. He pressed his face into both his hands to stifle a long groan. "What about them would take three hours to explain? They're currently Blue Suns, they used to be part of the Hegemony's Special Interventions Unit, and they've got four damn eyes!"
"We're also going to be fine-tuning our plan of attack, our strategy and how to proceed with our overall mission objective of finding and stopping the sabbies," Percival pointed out.
The door opened again and in walked Elektra in full armor, carrying a tray with four steaming mugs in them. Her hair was still damp and she smelled like lavender soap, indicating that she had probably decided to take one last shower after our sparring session and before we hit Anhur. Probably a smart move, we had no idea what it'd be like down there. Both Percival and I nodded in greeting while Cade merely stared at the mugs and panted heavily.
She smiled wryly and handed a mug to the turian Spectre. "Here you go, Spectre Kitiarian, I'm pretty sure this is the dextro one."
Cade grunted a wordless thank-you, grabbed the proffered cup of coffee and took a huge gulp, his mandibles flapping in relief. Elektra handed the both Percival and I two of the remaining mugs and sipped tentatively at the hot liquid, staring quietly at the profile of the two batarians before us.
The combination of the exercise and now the coffee had me positively refreshed and feeling better than I had in weeks. I was itching to get back into it now, the last vestiges of my nightmare and its effects now banished. I looked forward to one last breakfest with real food before I had to meet up with the Suns.
"Those the CO's of the Suns battalion?" Elektra asked.
"Yeah," I nodded. I pulled up a third profile and slid it beside the other two. "There is one more of them, a turian lieutenant by the name of Bastion Navarrian. Former Hierarchy soldier, thirteen years experience."
"Never heard of him," Cade commented as he continued to sip on his coffee.
Elektra squinted at Navarrian's profile. "Wow, no record of criminal activity, during his time in the military or outside of it. Not even so much as a parking ticket," she pointed out. "Nothing but some decent recommendations from his time in the Hierarchy and a few honors awards from several charitable foundations that he regularly donates to. You sure this isn't fake?"
"Possible, but doubtful," I shrugged. "The Council had this vetted pretty thoroughly by our offices, Leliana herself put the dossiers together."
Elektra set down her mug and shook her head in disbelief. "What the hell is this guy doing in the Blue Suns?"
"You should take notes, Cade," Percival joked. "Maybe he'll give you some lessons on how to be a proper turian. Look, he's even been contributing to a foundation that studies turian terminal diseases such as Corpalis Syndrome for the last ten years. The only regular donation you make is a monthly subscription to Galaxy of Fantasy."
The turian Spectre scoffed and crossed his arms. "There's no way anyone is that clean. Navarrian's got skeletons in his closet, just you wait and see."
I waved away the three dossiers and pulled up a map of Osiris, the main continent of Anhur, in its place. Above it was the grid of planetary defense cannons as well as the last known positions of the rogue fleet. I highlighted two facilities – one closer to the northern tip of the continent and the other roughly in the middle.
"Dossiers aside, let's talk about what we're going to do when we hit Anhur," I began.
I tapped on the northern facility. "That's the planetary defense cannon main generator facility, or simply 'generator facility' because the name is fucking long. It's where the now-deceased STG team first picked up the distress call. Unless we take it, we're never going to be able to slip the entire Blue Suns battlegroup into Anhur's orbit and get their troops."
Percival studied the schematics and rubbed his chin. "Not a large facility, looks medium-sized, mostly passageways with a lot of intersections… If they split their forces in the halls they'd be way too open to a flanking maneuver, you only really need to hold the main generator room. They probably don't need a lot of men to defend it."
"And we don't need a lot of men to take it, either." Elektra pointed out. "A small team, half-a-dozen tops. I can't imagine there being more than forty, maybe fifty soldiers in there."
"Less," I asserted confidently. "The facility is also covered with anti-air guns, making travel by shuttle nearly impossible, they'd need about a platoon-sized force, tops. I'm thinking that Elektra and I will have to go in alone and secure the facility.
Cade's mandibles flew open and he gave me a look of supreme hurt. We always ran together.
"You're not taking me?" he asked incredulously. "The two of you against an entire platoon of soldiers? Maybe you've forgotten that we're not fighting mindless zombies anymore, Cloud. We're going to be fighting soldiers again – individuals capable of actual thought, tactics, strategies, ambushes. You can't possibly be thinking of going in just the two of you."
"Elektra and I can chain biotic detonations off of one another, and in those narrow corridors their numbers will count for nothing," I told him. Beside me Elektra stuck out her tongue at the irate turian, prompting him to flip her off. "I figured we'd split up two-by-two, with Elektra and I taking the generator while you and Percival take the satellite facility."
Cade crossed his arms and glared at the female Spectre. "You have no idea how many bad guys are hiding in there, there's no way I'm letting you just take her. I'm going with you whether you like it or not."
"As long as you don't mind being the third wheel, Kitiarian," Elektra grinned, prompting the turian to let out an angry snarl. She slipped her arm beneath mine but I shrugged it away.
Percival brushed Cade aside and tapped on the perimeter facility, highlighting the anti-air guns. "Just to be clear, with those guns in play you two are going to be looking at a superhero landing…"
Elektra and I shared a glance. "Yeah, unfortunately. That's why I didn't want to bring Cade, it'll be damn risky," I admitted.
Cade crossed his arms and gave me a firm look. "Too bad friend, you're stuck with me, superhero landing or not. There's no way I'm letting you take on a whole facility alone."
Percival glanced at Cade, then at me. "He's right, Cloud. Why don't you take Accer and his team as well? The grab pods are rated to handle the re-entry, and they've trained for it."
I shook my head vehemently. "Negative, the density of the AA guns is too high."
I pulled up a schematic of the satellite facility. Unlike the generator facility this one was much larger and much more exposed. It also lacked the power source necessary to run as many AA guns, making it more vulnerable to an aerial insertion, but it had larger corridors and more locations where an enemy force could dig in and fortify.
"The Jaegers will be accompanying you to the satellite facility, as well as the floaters. You'll go in after we've begun our assault, and with any luck they'll radio their buddies at the satellite facility to expect only a squad-sized force. You'll take one shuttle while Captain Murgen and his men go down in the grab pods. Look at the schematics, Perc, you'll definitely need the extra numbers more than I will."
Percival did as I asked, looking at it for a long minute before scratching his chin and grunting in assent. It was nearly five-times as large as the generator facility, and could ostensibly house up to a full company. "You're not wrong, but this sounds awfully like you trying to take on all the risk yourself."
"He won't be by himself, he's got me," Elektra pointed out.
"And me!" Cade interjected. "Some of us are actually good at watching his back, others are only good at stabbing it."
"Listen here you little—,"
"Enough!" I shouted. Cade and Elektra both immediately fell silent at my expletive. I very rarely raised my voice and it showed, both of them looking shocked and cowed at my loud reprimand.
I'd started to come down from the high I'd been feeling with the coffee and the training thanks to their constant bickering, snarking, and second-guessing. I'd been made agent-in-command, not them. I understood that they had problems with each other, but I'd hoped that the two of them would have had the common sense and the restraint to keep it shelved while we were busy discussing strategy.
Percival merely nodded and stayed silent. I appreciated his gesture, it'd be all too easy for him to step back into his accustomed role and shut the two of them down, but he was giving me the chance to get used to being in command and all the responsibilities that it entailed and I respected that.
"Cade, Elektra and I will orbitally-insert and take the generator facility on our own," I firmly stated. "Percival will take the Jaegers and the specialists to take the satellites back."
I pulled up a map of the Amun System, the position of the Ninth Fleet's ships, and an approach vector from the Mass Relay as one would expect.
"The Excalibur will exit the relay in stealth mode while the Suns hold position in the Crescent Nebula. Flight Lieutenant Fyordinarova will take us into orbit around Anhur where we'll drop in and accomplish our missions."
I brought up a schematic of the new XM-38 Scrambler Torpedoes that the Excalibur boasted. "The Excalibur will then fire her full complement of Scramblers to cover us, which should fill the radars of the Ninth Fleet with thousands of ghost signatures for at least a few hours, hopefully that will be more than enough time to secure both facilities."
Next I flipped back to the map of the continent of Osiris. South-east of the generator facility and almost straight east of the satellite facility was the city of Alexandria. Immediately beside it bordering its east side was the river of Anubis. Slightly further east was the city of New Thebes, the capital of Anhur.
"Once the generator facility is secured and the planetary cannons are ours, the Blue Suns can slip through the relay and make a dash for Anhur. They'll drop off their full complement of troops—minus a few that they'll send to keep both facilities secure—in a series of troop transports that will touch down here, in Alexandria, and secure this spaceport on the western edge of the city, then they'll stay in orbit over Osiris. Hopefully by then we'll have the cannons up and running and we can use them to hold back or even destroy the Ninth Fleet while we search for the saboteurs and prep to evacuate civilians."
"What's the significance of Alexandria?" Cade asked.
"It's the highest-populated city on Anhur, right above the capital, New Thebes, meaning we might find the most survivors there" I explained to him. "The spaceport is situated at the edge of the city, unlike the one in New Thebes that is basically dead-center, meaning it might be relatively free of hostiles, and its amenities, the surrounding terrain and building-cover make it more ideal for evacuations and as a forward operating base."
Percival scratched the back of his head and flipped back to the dossiers. "How many bodies do the Suns count with?"
"Three oversized companies, about three-hundred mercenaries each divided into ten thirty-man platoons," I told him.
Both Cade and Percival whistled. "Damn, they must have a hell of a command structure," Cade said with admiration.
"And that's not counting any local forces we might encounter in Alexandria," I added.
Elektra scrolled back to the map of Alexandria and studied it, making note of landmarks, points of interests, and the function of the buildings. "We have any idea where to even start looking for the saboteurs?"
I sighed and shook my head ruefully. That was the one thing I couldn't plan towards, not with our situation and the little intelligence we had. "No, I figure we could maybe nab a few inside the facilities and make one talk, or maybe one of the survivors might have seen something."
My friends all stood in silence for a moment and I waited patiently as they assimilated all that I'd told them. We'd take the facilities, we'd get the Suns onto the ground, and we'd conduct civilian recovery until we could pick up a lead. We couldn't rely on anyone else to hand us intel and we couldn't just sit and observe and simply wait for the saboteurs to make their next move. We'd have to go down there and get our hands dirty.
"There's a lot of things that can go wrong," Cade finally sighed, breaking the silence.
"I know, but we don't have the time nor the intel to plan and account for everything, not if we want to save as many people as we can. We're gonna have to wing it if shit hits the fan," I said.
"I think you've done a fine job," Percival said assuringly, "What we have now is solid, our plan allows for some contingency and flexibility, and like you said we don't have the time nor the intel to do anything more. This is the best we've got."
I nodded in thanks at my friends praise. Personally I still thought that there were still too many things that could go wrong and were currently unaccounted for, and as much as I would have liked to have had an STG team spend a week doing recon first before dropping in, I knew that the saboteurs wouldn't be waiting around doing nothing while we gathered intel. Not to mention the fact that the civilians couldn't afford to wait another week.
The DNA, the virus, the phenomenon—whatever you wanted to call it, had swept through the Hippocrates in a matter of hours, turning nearly everyone into those synthetic-organic killing machines. The saboteurs had already held the planet for nearly a week, we just couldn't afford to wait any longer, not if we wanted to save anyone.
"Alright then," Cade sighed happily. He clapped a taloned hand on both Percival's shoulder and mine, then pulled us close. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to kick some ass."
"And stop the saboteurs from carrying out galactic genocide, and stop this DNA from turning all of us into mindless metal zombies, right?" Percival asked him with a cocked eyebrow.
"That too," Cade nodded. "Can't forget the billions of lives at risk."
Elektra waved away the map and pulled up one last picture, that of the Chimera from back on the Hippocrates. For a moment we all stood and stared at it, taking in the sight of its serrated metal tail, its massive headplate, limbs and torso made from its victims, and its tiny, human-like mouth and hands. It had survived grenades, bullets, and even shots from a Cain, and we had only defeated it last time due to the sacrifice of two brave turians.
"These things…" Elektra shuddered. "Hearing you guys talk about them was one thing… But fighting them? I don't know if I'm ready."
"Only fully-grown Chimeras are indestructible, the smaller ones die like anything else," Percival replied.
"And you won't be fighting them alone," Cade told her in a rare moment of solidarity with the infuriating female Spectre.
Elektra nodded at the three of us with the briefest of genuine smiles, her true self slipping ever so slightly past her façade of confidence that she always liked to tout around. To see her scared nowadays was a rare occurrence – a privilege reserved for the rare few who she felt comfortable enough to let her guard down around. It stood in stark contrast to the days of our youth, when she'd jump at the slightest of noises at night.
I decided to close with a badass one-liner, just to really let it hit home that we were the good guys and that we were about to do something incredibly brave, heroic, and awesome, and also to give my friends some level of reassurance.
"All right, everyone. Let's mosey."
March 13th, 2211 – Aboard the BSV (Blue Suns Vessel) The Ghosts of Khar'shan — Hangar Bay
Minos Wasteland, Arrae System — In orbit around Gellix
I was first off the ramp of the Hammerhead dropship, clad in full armor and flanked on my left by Percival. Behind me trailed two teams of Jaegers under the command of Second Lieutenant Accerrimus Burton and Second Lieutenant Kelly Chang. Newly-promoted Lance Corporal Galen Verus, on loan from the Turian Hierarchy, stood to my right, the M-96 Mattock he'd found aboard the Hippocrates slung on the back of his smoky-grey armor.
Elektra and Cade exited the other shuttle, followed by Captain Murgen's team, a team under the command of First Lieutenant Holt, and the krogan Urdnot Garm and the asari commando Rayla T'lana. Percival had suggested that we force the two of them to share a shuttle on the way to the Blue Suns cruiser, the Ghosts of Khar'shan in an attempt to get them slowly re-acclimated to being in close proximity with each other. I'd thought it was futile, at least in my opinion.
I could hear my friend's gloves tightening and loosening again and again as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched his fists. When I turned ever so slightly to look at him out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that his stare was glassy and fixed.
"Hey, you okay man?" I asked him.
Percival shook his head and stopped clenching his fists. "Yeah, I'm good. Just old ghosts and what-not."
I nodded in understanding. "Just focus on the people of Anhur."
"Oh I know."
Up ahead in the middle of the hangar bay were all the platoon leaders of the Blue Suns battalion. Most of them were un-surprisingly turian, by virtue of the alien species' natural mastery of war, but there were about an equal number of batarian and human officers as well, and surprisingly an asari in the mix.
They were a raucous bunch. The officers of the suns lounged around casually on crates or chairs, trading jokes and poking fun at each other. I saw one of the batarians finish the punchline of a joke to a chorus of loud laughs from several human officers while two turians were eating MRE's from a bag while seated on the wing of one of their transports.
"Equal numbers," noted Galen quietly from beside me. I hadn't gotten a chance to catch up with him much yet, but I presumed that he was still prodigiously kicking ass and hero-worshipping Cade. He had noticed what I had noticed too however – both our groups had roughly around forty individuals in it. Not that I was expecting a fight between us or our new allies of course.
Three of the officers present were not laughing or enjoying themselves however. Two batarians and a turian stood at the forefront of the rowdy group, their arms crossed and their faces grim masks of stoicism. All eight of their eyes were trained on our approaching party, and I couldn't help but notice that their weapons were activated and powered-on on their backs.
The tallest one was a batarian with an uncommon gold skin-tone. He was of equal height with Percival and every bit as bulky in his modified Blue Suns armor. A line of jagged metal spikes had been embedded in his pauldrons, giving him the look of a Corpser, and a series of black batarian script had been tattooed into his chestplate. Most noticeable was the burn scar covering the left half of his face – he was blind in two eyes.
"That's him," growled Percival.
"I know," I told him.
Captain Revak Ghar'aran, one of the two Butchers of Balak. During the final battle of the Slaver Fringe Wars, Alliance forces had both taken the orbital satellites and swarmed the slave facilities on the ground. Forces under the command of then First Lieutenant Percival had found thousands of lobotomized slaves in one of the facilities, all of them listless and broken, little more than husks.
The emergency combat doctors that the company had brought with them unanimously determined that the slaves had zero chance of rehabilitation. Curing the physical damage that the slavers had done to their brains was outside the possibilities that the realm of modern medicine allowed. When presented with the opportunity and prospect of escape, the slaves had merely sat there in silence, staring at their would-be Alliance rescuers without a word.
Desperate and on the verge of utter defeat, a large portion of the slavers launched one final counter-attack. They regrouped en-masse under the command of one of the Ghar'aran brothers and surrounded an Alliance company which had been tasked with covering the slave facility that Percival had taken. Caught out in the field and ambushed from all directions, the slavers had inflicted heavy casualties and threatened them with annihilation.
Percivals' company had been the closest to the trapped company. All Alliance forces other than Percival's company were otherwise engaged in evacuating the slaves or occupied by the remaining slaver forces. Percival had been given a hard, hard choice — save the Alliance company, or evacuate the lobotomized slaves.
He'd picked the Alliance forces. Percival took his company back out into the field and broke the ambush on the trapped Alliance company, saving hundreds of lives. Although the Ghar'aran in charge escaped, the slavers were defeated and the Alliance soldiers were saved.
But that slavers weren't done. They had known that defeat was inevitable, that the Systems Alliance war machine could not be stopped and that their last stronghold would be destroyed. While Percival had taken his forces to rescue his fellow soldier, a force of slavers under the command of the second Ghar'aran brother doubled-back on the now undefended facility and killed every last one of the slaves inside. When Percival returned to the facility, it was filled with a different kind of silence.
Overall, the operation was nonetheless a success. The last slaver stronghold had fallen and their backs were broken. Despite the terrible loss of the slaves, Percival was found not guilty of any crimes nor misconduct. The captain in charge of the trapped company had given positive testimony on behalf of Percival's decision, backed by the testimonies of the emergency combat doctors, and everyone on the Security Defense Counsel committee agreed that Percival had made the right call. Percival was then bumped to Lieutenant-Commander and given the Star of Terra
No one ever knew which brother had been responsible for which facility. Although both of them were wanted all throughout Council space, out here in the Terminus Systems the warlords who called it home didn't give a krogan's two left nuts what the Council wanted. It had been the defining moment of Percival's career, both his greatest triumph and his greatest defeat.
I would argue that it had been that moment that had forged him into the Spectre that he'd be one day, not his N7 training nor the dozens of commendations he'd receive afterwards, for it was during the Battle of Bahak that Percival learned the most important lesson there was to being a Spectre.
You couldn't save everyone.
Percival and I pulled ahead of the rest of the Jaegers while Cade and Elektra did the same so that we were all walking together. Ahead of us the three commanders of the Blue Suns did likewise. Malan Ghar'aran was roughly the same height as me, although as robustly built as his older brother was. Like him he had a gold-yellow skintone, although unlike him he had all four eyes intact. His armor was decorated in similar black batarian script and instead of jagged, metal spikes he had one enlarged, mismatched left pauldron and slightly thicker vambraces.
Bastion Navarrian was an amber-eyed, gray-plated turian with the red clan markings of one of the city states on Invictus. He was tall—taller than both batarians— and lanky like many of his species tended to be. His armor was the standard Blue Suns suit and he had a Phaeston strapped to his back. Of the three he looked the least unfriendly, but with turians it was hard to tell, plus the two Ghar'aran brothers looked like they were willing to throw down right here and now.
Both groups stopped a few feet away from each other. The Blue Suns platoon leaders had stopped joking and chatting and instead moved up to form behind their company commanders. Behind me I could hear some of the Jaegers shifting uneasily around, especially the younger ones. Alliance Jaegers typically didn't mix well with mercenary forces, seeing as how they tended to be on opposite sides of the field more often or not.
Accer took a step forward from behind me. "I've got a bad feeling about this," he whispered. Rake and his team all nodded in agreement beside him, while Galen's mandibles had begun to splay ever so slightly. It was starting to look like I had made a gross miscalculation in deciding to bring all my star players to this meet-and-greet. It wasn't looking like we'd be doing any bonding any time soon.
Only Urdnot Garm and the commando seemed unaffected by all the tension currently in the air. In fact, both of them seemed almost bored. I guess when you've lived as long as they had, you stopped giving a shit if you were staring down a horde of angry mercenaries. Rayla had her arms crossed and was leaning back on one heel, looking unimpressed by what the Blue Suns had to offer. It was so very typical of an asari commando.
I decided to break ranks first. I took a step toward Revak and held out a gloved hand, careful to keep my eyes on his good ones and not his dead ones. "Spectre Operative Cloud," I said in a brief, clipped introduction.
Revak didn't take my hand, instead he crossed his massive arms together over his equally massive chest and stared down at me. Thankfully his head was perfectly straight, not tilted to the right, indicating that he did not yet hold me in contempt.
"We know who you are, Drak'Takai," he said in a deep, guttural voice.
I turned to Percival. "Drak'Takai?" I asked quietly.
"Death dealer," he whispered in reply. "The batarian word for one who is an accomplished killer. Take it, it's a compliment, and it bodes well."
"I don't see how being renowned for killing could ever be good news," I muttered.
I turned back to Revak and kept my head tilted ever so slightly to the left, even if his actions on Bahak had disgusted me. We had to keep them on good terms, the fate of the colony of Anhur depended on it.
"You've received our plans, then," I said, brushing past the useless introductions and moving straight into business. "What are your thoughts?"
Revak's voice was more krogan than batarian. "Your battle-plan is sound," he grunted. "Anhur is familiar to us, the Alexandria Spaceport is an ideal location for a center of operations."
"Good," I nodded. I had intended for this cross-decking to be an opportunity for our two groups to get to know each other a bit before fighting alongside one another, but judging by body-language of the commanders and the mercenaries behind them they weren't interested in any ice-breakers. "Then your fleet will hold position in the Crescent Nebula mass relay until we give you the all-clear."
Revak uncrossed his arms and tilted his head upwards. In batarian culture it meant that they were about to show defiance or to stand firmly on a matter. "One thing, Drak'Takai. Only two of my platoons will hold the satellite facility, and half a platoon at the generators. The rest I will take with me to Alexandria."
I narrowed my eyes. I had wanted at least a full platoon at the generators and four at the satellites, because once we'd taken control of them they would in turn be prime targets for the saboteurs to take back.
Percival had been silent the entire encounter, but at Revak's demand he couldn't hold back any longer. He took several steps towards the commander of the Blue Suns, his fists clenched.
"We need to keep both those facilities well-defended, if the saboteurs take either facility back, you could find your communications crippled at best – your fleet torn apart at worst," he told the massive batarian.
Revak finally acknowledged Percival for the first time since we'd boarded, almost as if he'd been waiting for Percival to make the first move. I knew that there was no way he didn't know who Percival was or looked like – every batarian who had been a slaver did, Percival's face and his receiving of the Star of Terra had been broadcast to damn near every corner of Council space.
The scarred batarian commander tilted his head to the right as he turned and starred at my friend with his two black, beady eyes. I swallowed and did my best not to call upon my biotics and blow his half-burnt face apart. Revak's younger brother Malan must have sensed my trepidation because he suddenly took a step forward, standing protectively beside his older brother with his arms held ready at his side.
Revak took a few steps towards my friend as well, until he was about a foot away from Percival. Both the batarian and the former N7 were of equal height and build, although the batarian's armor was much more crude and dangerous looking. To my friend's credit, Percival barely flinched, and like me he kept his eyes trained firmly on Revak's two good ones.
"The platoons will all be heavy weapon squads, they'll be more than sufficient to keep the facilities in our hands. Unless you don't trust my men…," he growled.
I don't, I thought.
I took a step forward to stand beside my friend. "A full platoon at the generators. If the saboteurs re-take the cannons and destroy your ships then you're stranded on this planet with those creatures," I said as my final offer.
Revak took a moment to consider my proposal. Everyone in the hangar waited with baited breath for his final decision. If he didn't like it he could possibly pull out of the alliance and leave us without support, or worse, pull out a weapon and threaten us, which would cause the Jaegers to pump him full of holes and his subordinates to retaliate, rendering the hangar a bloodbath.
After a few seconds, he looked to both his brother and Navarrian, both of whom nodded at him.
"Done," he barked.
I nodded, relieved. If we wanted to save any civilians we had to make sure his ships stayed intact, and that meant keeping the planetary defense cannons firmly under our control.
Instead of turning around and walking away, Revak instead took one final step towards Percival, bringing the two nose-to-nose. The batarian's black eyes bore into my friend's blue ones,
"You can't defend everything, Drak'Takai. You should know," he whispered so that only Percival and I could hear.
Percival clenched his jaw tight, the sheer amount of effort it took for him to stay silent was visible in the tightness of his masseter muscles and in his cheeks.
Revak finally let up and backed off of Percival. He turned around and moved towards his platoon leaders, grunting to them in a human-batarian mixed dialect that my e-translators were having trouble scrubbing. It was one of the many mercenary tongues commonly used by mercenaries and outlaws in the Terminus Systems, useful in that it wouldn't be readily translated by someone with a universal translator.
Malan gave his brother a concerned look and turned to follow him, giving us one last glare. Bastion actually took a moment to give Cade a turian salute, acknowledging his role in the Rebellions, before also turning around and following the two batarian brothers. I could also see that several of the Blue Suns platoon leaders pointing at Elektra, Rayla and a few of the female Jaegers and snickering or smiling suggestively. They were not exactly the allies I would have hoped for.
I internally sighed. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised at how the cross-decking went down, given the relationship Percival had with the two batarians and the nature of the relationship between Alliance special operations troops and what were essentially glorified pirates. I'd been hoping to start our little joint-venture off on better terms – maybe not with us holding hands and singing kumbaya or some shit, but at least with some measure of mutual respect – but it looks like our two groups weren't very interested in mingling t the moment.
"That went well," Cade said.
"Did you see the way that merc was looking at me? I swear I was going to shoot him in both eyes," Elektra quietly complained.
My friend cocked his head towards her, a small smile on his face "Well there's an easy fix. Ditch the eyeliner, the makeup, and stop walking around like you're an off-shift Afterlife dancer."
Elektra rounded on the turian, "Listen here you little—,"
I glared at both of them, then waved my finger in a tiny circle above my head and jerked my head back towards the shuttles. Accer and his team complied happily, as did most of the Jaegers, but I did note that Captain Murgen had a bit of a frown on his face. Like me he probably wasn't happy about the tension between our forces. It'd be something I'd need to talk to him about before we made landfall.
Percival and I fell towards the rear of the group, looking one last time over at the group of Blue Suns. They had returned to their raucous, loud selves, though I couldn't help but notice that the Ghar'aran brothers had both joined in on the jokes and the back-slapping.
My friend was unnaturally quiet and still as we walked back. See, that's how it usually was with bad memories. Sometimes you'd go for days, weeks, months, or even years without thinking about them, but when you did, they were all you thought about. All the feelings and emotions associated with those memories would come welling up in full force as if the moment had happened yesterday, and if you weren't ready for them they could be debilitating as fuck.
"What a bunch of characters," I sighed, looking away from the Suns. One of the platoon leaders just punched another one in the face, and instead of breaking up the fight a chorus of cheers had broken out among the rest.
"Human marines do much of the same things when they're bored," Percival pointed out.
"Yeah," I acknowledged, "But at least I can trust marines in a fight. We've fought against Blue Suns before on our missions. Sure, once you've paid them they say their loyalty is absolute, but you know as well as I do that once their employer's dead or you've killed enough of them they tend to turn tail and run."
"The same could be said of the soldiers of any race," my friend countered. "Fighting to the death ought to be an absolute last resort, sometimes retreating or surrendering is better if it means that you and your men will live to fight another day."
"I thought you'd hate the Suns, especially given their leaders," I said, perplexed. "It almost sounds like you admire them."
Percival stopped in his tracks and turned to look at me, prompting me to stop as well. He furrowed his brow, confused, and stared.
"You think I hate the Blue Suns? You think I hate the Ghar'aran brothers?" he asked.
I was confused also. "Well yeah, wouldn't you? After what they did on Balak? All those innocent people, all those Alliance soldiers? Isn't that why you're in the pits every time we bring them up?"
Percival looked down and shook his head. My friend sighed and rubbed his eyes with his hand.
"No, they're not the reason why I feel like this, and I don't hate them, as surprising as it might sound," he told me.
I crossed my arms over my chest, surprised of course. The brothers were wanted in Council Space for good reason, even before they'd committed those atrocities at Bahak. They had been part of a faction of hardcore slavers who'd been fixated on rebuilding the shattered Batarian Hegemony on the backs of Reaper War survivors and refugees, the faction that the Systems Alliance fought the Slaver Fringe Wars to stop. They had probably also committed numerous crimes in addition to slavery, you literally couldn't have asked for someone better to hate.
"Why?" I asked. The Jaegers had already boarded, and Cade's shuttle had already left, leaving just the two of us standing in this section of the hangar bay of the Ghosts of Kar'shan. I could see Flight Lieutenant Chan wave at me from behind the viewport of his shuttle. I waved back and held up two fingers, asking him to wait.
The former N7 chewed his lip as I waited patiently for him to formulate his words. I was genuinely curious about his reasons, because I knew that had I been in Percival's place, I would have hated the Ghar'arans with every last fiber of my being.
"Look Cloud, events, especially undesirable events, are at their core caused by two things – your actions, and the actions of others. Sure, if you wanted you could factor in circumstances, luck, and a thousand other variables, but the way I see it, in the end it still boils down to what you do and what others do," Percival began.
My friend let out a long, slow breath, the kind you let out before you try to talk someone into something completely farfetched and left-field. Secretly I welcomed any controversial discourse to be said, in my experience it would only give you a better appreciation and understanding of the complexities and intricacies that were a part of life.
"It's tempting to just label someone evil or good based on the actions that they do, but the truth is you can never tell what another person is thinking — what events, memories, and actions may have shaped their lives and how all those variables have affected their decision to do a certain thing.".
Percival looked back at the two Ghar'aran brothers still laughing and joking around with their men. Had I not known of the two's grisly deeds or had been greeted so icily by them just now, I perhaps would have simply judged them to be exceptionally raucous Blue Suns commanders. Your average batarian mercenary commanders with a penchant for dramatic additions to their armor and from the sounds of it a good sense of humor.
"And as such," he continued, "to hate someone merely for actions that we perceive to be bad or evil is, at least in my opinion, to hate something we don't understand, and I personally believe that we should never hate something just because we don't understand it.
Percival looked me in the eyes. Whereas mine were like glowing chips of ice his were like a summer's sky, but in them now I could also see pain, the kind of pain you get when you're lost in a bad memory.
"And that only leaves us with the other half of the equation. Our own actions. Those are always completely knowable to us. We alone know each and every single one of our memories, our thoughts, and our experiences, and we alone can understand the amalgamation of all those variables and how they might drive us to perform certain actions."
The Blue Suns had stopped laughing and joking around. They were now all arrayed in a circle around the three company commanders, likely engrossed in a discussion of strategy and tactics. They must not have been concerned that we'd overhear, because they made no effort to move out of the hangar. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the younger Ghar'aran brother glance our way a few times when he thought that we weren't looking.
"The climax of the Battle of Bahak, the loss of all those lives…," Percival continued, "that was an undesirable event, but to pin it all on the Ghar'aran brothers is not only unfair, but it diminishes the lessons that that such terrible events have the potential to teach us because it completely ignores half of the equation. Because someone else's actions brought about those events that day – mine."
I understood then what bothered Percival. Like he said, it was sometimes hard to know or understand what was going on in someone else's head, and as such it was all too easy for us to impose our own paradigm on another and use it to explain their actions or to fill in their blanks ourselves. I thought Percival felt so strongly about the Ghar'arans because I thought Percival hated them, and I thought Percival hated them because I would have hated them.
"I chose the Alliance marines over the slaves. You may think that I blame myself or something, but I don't. The doctors backed my decision and I knew that if I were to split my forces I wouldn't have had the men to both save the company and defend the slaves. In my heart I believe I made the right choice, but it doesn't change the fact that thousands lost their lives because of something I did, no matter my reasoning."
We decided to move a bit closer to the shuttle, to reassure the Flight Lieutenant and our friends that we did intend to return to the Excalibur, and that we most definitely didn't want to be left behind with such distinguished company.
"So no, I don't hate the Ghar'aran brothers for what happened on Balak that day. Nor do I think that I hate myself," Percival continued to explain. He sighed and ran a hand through his blond hair and stopped just beside the ramp. I stopped as well and waited for him to finish,
"I guess what I'm trying to say is that … What you think I'm feeling now, it's caused by sadness more than it is caused by hate, sadness that the price of the lesson I learned—the lesson that sometimes you can't save everyone—was paid for by those who we should have returned to their families and granted some semblance of peace. Call it sorrow, sorrow over the fact that I am reminded of a decision I made that cost the lives of people that I swore to bring home," my friend concluded.
Percival moved past me and stepped onto the shuttle. I stood by myself for a while, mulling over his words. At his core, Percival was a better man than I was, and a much better Spectre. I would have killed the Ghar'arans for what they had done, I most definitely wouldn't have looked past it and only fixated on what I had done.
There is always something more that you can learn from the people around you. Numerous little lessons that you can use to make yourself into someone better. I knew that this mission against the saboteurs would test the very limits of my morals, but like Percival I would try my best not to paint all of them with one, evil brush. I wouldn't do that, no, I would try to be better.
Optional Author's note.
When I first conceived of the idea for this story, I had a clear list of things that I wanted to do in it.
The first thing was that I wanted the whole first part to be long, drawn-out, and to take place on a single ship dead-space style and use it to heavily shape and introduce my long list of newbie, semi-ripped off characters. Honestly, I feel like the story could have or should have ended with the first season.
The second thing was that I wasn't going to center it on the existing characters in the Mass Effect Universe (sorry) nor frame it as a re-telling or an insert of my own character into the Reaper War or as a re-telling of the Reaper War from a point of view of an existing character (Not sorry). Shepard… Garrus… Tali… to me their story ended in Mass Effect 3, and I wasn't going to resurrect them and risk sullying them. Say what you want about the ending of Mass Effect 3, but I thought that the interpersonal relationships were perfect. I wanted Shepard's story to end where it did.
No, I wanted to create my own characters, even if they sucked ass and are in some (most) ways pale imitations of the original cast, and they wouldn't be inserts in the Reaper War, but characters in a universe shaped by it. Andromeda didn't really paint a good picture of life in the Milky Way after the Reaper War, so I decided to try my hand at it, for better or for worse.
So I conceived of a fresh crop of characters in the Milky Way set twenty-five years after the conclusion of the Reaper War, and in homage to the backstory that you get to select for Shepard, I gave all three of my main characters backstories as well, not only to help flesh them out but to help form the Post-Reaper universe that I envisioned.
One aspect of said universe was that things weren't all peachy after the war. Earth is currently inhospitable and still in ruins, infected by what the characters are discovering to be the same thing that turned the crew of the Hippocrates into what I consider to be metal-necromorphs. A secret faction of individuals discovered something made them decide to embark on a nefarious path towards galactic genocide masked as eternal salvation. And finally slavery ran rampant as a result of many species trying to desperately repair their broken homes.
The latter gave rise to events such as the formation of the Jaegers, the Palaven Rebellions that made Cade who he was, and the Battle of Bahak that made Percival who he was. I added both the Rebellions and the Battle as homage to how you could select the backstory of Shepard as either the Hero of Elysium or the Butcher of Torfan in the original games. It must have been infuriating at first for some readers, to have me reference such vague, unformed events in my earlier chapters to help build my characters up.
It might have seemed like an edge-lord, pointless move at the time, but I actually came up with the full stories for both the Rebellion and the Battle before I wrote this one. It was always my intention to eventually release the backstory of all three of my main characters in separate short stories alongside Transcendence.
To be honest, I think I enjoy universe-building more than I enjoy writing the main plot of this story. It's why I never ask for reviews or why I don't have a beta-reader, although if someone does leave a review or a private message I always try to message them back. Honestly, sometimes I think I'm writing this more for myself than I am for other people. I'm trying to work through the loss I felt when I heard they were shelving Andromeda and realized that I'd never actually get to witness a true galactic happily-ever-after. After I heard that little piece of news, I really really really really really wanted to write about the galaxy I envisioned after the Reaper War. Writing this for me is actually hella cathartic.
To those who actually enjoy the story, maybe you enjoy it for the same reasons that I keep writing it. You want to experience a world that takes place after the Reaper War. That or y'all are crazy. Either way, don't feel obligated to leave reviews or to favourite it, my ego is more than satisfied by other areas of my life. Making an account is a pain and I see the views and visitors this story gets anyways. Just enjoy the ride, friends.