Chapter 32 – Real Friends, Real Fights

March 14th, 2211, 0811 hours —Anhur, City of New Thebes— Special Facility LV-427

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

(Chief Science Officer Alice Anders. Codename: MORDRED – Project Transcendence)

"Miranda, this is huge. The DNA… it contains the key, I know it! With it, we can bring everyone back!"

"No."

"Miranda, pleas—,"

"No, we cannot risk it! Shepard's orders."

Alice stared pleadingly into her superior's unflinching, icy, blue gaze, letting every last shred of desperation she could muster shine through. The key was in the DNA, Alice was so sure of it! She just needed time and resources and potentially she could bring back everyone the Reapers had taken from them. She could bring her back her husband… her kids… and everyone else that they had lost. Why couldn't Miranda see that? Why couldn't Jane see that?

Alice couldn't give up that easily, not when they were on the precipice of the most monumental discovery in perhaps the history of the galaxy. Not when they had a way to bring everyone back. "Miranda, we've been given an opportunity – an opportunity to save everyone!" she pleaded desperately. "This lab is equipped with the most advanced security and containment systems in the galaxy! You wrote the safety protocols yourself! We can do this! We can bring them all back!"

"No, Alice. For the last time, we cannot risk it. Any attempt to stop its replication and destroy it has ended in failure, we can't even slow it down, and you want to accelerate its growth? We have no idea what this DNA is capable of doing and we have no way of stopping it if something goes wrong. It's simply too much of a risk, I'm sorry…."

Miranda's face softened as tears began to form in Alice's eyes. The infamous ice-queen was not immune to sympathy. Despite all of her genetic mods and training, she was still human at heart. Like nearly every other survivor of the Reaper War, Alice had lost someone. Miranda had been lucky, Orianna had survived the war and aside from her comrades aboard the SSV Normandy, Miranda had not been very close to anyone else. Miranda knew that Alice missed her family desperately and that if she were given even the slightest, most improbable chance that she could bring them back, Alice would grab on with both hands and give it everything she had. She was a lot like Shepard in that respect, but this was something not even Shepard was willing to consider.

Alice brushed her tears away. Though Miranda's face was etched with concern but Alice could see in her eyes that Miranda would not be swayed. The blue in them had hardened, iced-over with resolution and finality. Alice knew that there was nothing she could say that would change the mind of her superior, and so Alice turned around and began to leave.

Miranda sighed and uncrossed her arms, agonizing over the pain that she had clearly caused her friend. "Alice, I'm sorry," Miranda said, moving to catch up to the grieving scientist to try and comfort her.

Alice ignored her and continued walking. It couldn't end just like this, it couldn't. There had to be some way to bring them all back.

"Alice, wait!" Miranda called out. Alice could hear her footsteps as Miranda struggled to catch up to her.

A hand grabbed her shoulder and shook it, softly. Alice ignored it and continued walking. The key was in the DNA. If she could unlock its secrets, she could bring them all back.

"Alice…. Alice!"

The DNA… the Crucible… the technology Cerberus had developed… all the pieces were there, she knew it.

"Alice, wake up!"

"Alice!" repeated a soft, masculine voice from beside her.

Alice woke with a jolt, knocking over an empty coffee mug. She blinked a few times in confusion and then rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hand. A small pool of drool lay drying on the datapad which she had used as a make-shift pillow. Alice let loose an earth-shaking yawn and stretched her arms up above her head, her back screaming in protest. It had been yet another late night.

Lieutenant-Commander Thomas Locke stood beside her, already in full armor. His right arm had a red stripe flanked by two thinner white lines running down the center of it – the mark of an N7. In his right hand he held a steaming mug of coffee which he offered to Alice. She accepted it and took a small sip, sighing in relief at the caffeine. His other hand hovered just a few inches from her shoulder, it being what he had woken her up with.

Alice set the coffee mug down on her desk and sighed once more. It had been nothing but late nights ever since they had started live tests, and it had mostly been nothing but nightmares ever since the events of the Hippocrates. Alice couldn't go to sleep without imagining the faces of all those people she had condemned to death. They not only haunted her dreams, but most of her waking moments. It was, however, an effective method of motivation. Alice poured every ounce of her efforts into ensuring that their sacrifice would not be in vain. Alice also knew that given the chance, she'd make the same decision to sacrifice them again in a heartbeat. Anything to see her family again.

Alice yawned once more. "Tom, what time is it?"

Locke brushed past her question. His icy-blue eyes shone with excitement "Alice, it worked…"

The tiredness immediately evaporated. A tremor ran through her body. "What?" she asked incredulously.

Locke was hardly the most expressive individual. The former N7 was almost always stoic, calm and composed, but Alice saw that he was shaking with excitement as well. "It worked! The subject's vitals are stabilized, we brought one back!" he grinned.

Alice beamed. It was working! The Cerberus tech was working and all the lives that they had ended aboard the Hippocrates hadn't been for nothing!

"That's fantastic!" she laughed. "Keep me updated on his – or her – status and alert me as soon as they've regained consciousness!"

"I will, but how much longer do you think we will need? Those creatures are spreading rapidly. I can't guarantee the safety of this facility for much longer, and Marcus reports that a small Blue Suns fleet has managed to rush past his picket lines and land troops. They've managed to seize the planetary defense cannons as well. Marcus had to pull his ships out of range because of that. He can't fight their ships or send reinforcements."

Alice sighed and rubbed her eyes. "We need as long as you can give me. There is nothing we can do until the subject is conscious – if it regains consciousness. Without the Prometheus Data, we're essentially groping blindly along—praying that one of our experiments show some sort of breakthrough we can capitalize on."

"Well, we now have proof that your theory works. They can be brought back," mused Locke. "Maybe this is all we need. Maybe we can begin direct trials."

The Prometheus Data had contained decades of Systems Alliance research on the phenomenon on Earth. Alice was sure that the phenomenon on Thessia and Earth was connected or even created by the Originator DNA. It could have provided them with the next piece of the puzzle. It had contained vast amounts of research on how the Originator DNA adapted to—and transformed—different species, like the humans and the asari. That information had been vital to Project Transcendence, but it had been destroyed at the hands of Council Spectres – Spectre 04272182-Cloud, no less. Alice wasn't sure whether to laugh or to cry at that cruel twist of fate. The gods had a vicious sense of humor. If only the Spectre knew his stake in it all.

Alice looked up at Locke, and felt a pang of sadness when she saw that the glimmer of hope in the former N7's eyes was no longer there. Like her, Locke had lost someone he desperately wanted back. Alice had caught him secretly staring at the photo of his wife he kept in his chestplate many times. Everyone who had believed in what Alice was trying to do had lost someone they desperately wanted back. The Reaper War had touched them all.

"I'm sorry Tom, we can't…. Without knowing how the Originator DNA does what it does, we wouldn't be bringing anything back," she said sadly.

Over the last two decades, Alice had been secretly contacting and recruiting those who had lost friends and families during the Reaper War and offering them a way to bring them back. Locke had been one of the first she had contacted. He had worked closely with her, Shepard and Miranda to secure and study the Reaper Cores, and it had been no secret that he had lost his family in the Invasion of London during the Reaper War. His best friend and fellow Systems Alliance officer Marcus Octavian had soon followed, as well as a select number of trusted soldiers and people of influence within the Systems Alliance.

They soon expanded to include members of other species and younger members of the Systems Alliance who could be swayed, primarily within Marcus' fleet. Some of the younger recruits had lost parents or older siblings to the Reapers. Others, such as the late Doctor Olivia Flanagan, had done so for scientific curiosity. It had only been during the events of the Hippocrates that Alice had realized that the former doctor had been certifiably insane. If she had known earlier, she would have never recruited her.

And there were others – others such as Morder Zakiah, a terminally-ill salarian desperate to discover the secrets of prolonging his life beyond its natural limit, and other such as Severus Tyrannus, a turian prodigy who longed to dedicate his skills and talents for a cause truly worth fighting for. All of them were talented, and all of them had contributed in different ways to the realization of Alice's dream of bringing back the ones they had lost. Above all, all of them could keep a secret. It had been why they'd managed to stay hidden for so long.

"I know, Alice… I'm sorry, it's just that it finally feels like we've actually made some progress…," sighed Locke. The N7 rubbed his jaw – another little quirk of his that Alice had seen him do hundreds of time – and sighed again. "All those lives lost… and this is the first time I've felt like we've actually managed to accomplish something."

Alice stood up and placed her hand on his arm, right over that bright, red stripe. "I'm doing my best, Tom. You're doing your best, too. Remember that," Alice said gently.

Locke nodded morosely and looked away, his eyes sad and thoughtful. They had both cause a lot of pain in the universe, all for largely selfish reasons. No one except Alice Anders really cared if Alice Anders ever held her husband and her two children in her arms ever again. No one except Thomas Locke really cared if Thomas Locke could have just one more dance with his wife. Anyone from the outside looking-in would likely see their actions as heinous… horrific… on par with what the Reapers had done. It didn't matter why Alice or Thomas had done what they had done, all anyone would care about would be the people they hurt along the way.

After two decades of secret research, Alice had finally found a way to accelerate the growth of the Originator DNA using an artificially-modified gene. She had contacted Tom and the others, and together they had made plans to test the DNA.

The Hippocrates had been the perfect test site. It was isolated, several of Alice's top-ranking contacts served on the ship, and it was home to the Systems Alliance Research and Development Division, the branch responsible for studying the phenomenon and for creating the Prometheus Data. It would be the perfect place to observe the effects of the Originator DNA on live subjects. She created a Reaper CPU containing Originator DNA that had the Accelerator gene added to it. Olivia had inserted it into the Reaper Core that the Alliance had been trying to activate at the time in an attempt to further study the phenomenon, and when they finally turned it on, all hell broke loose.

Alice, Tom and the rest of the members of Project Transcendence had expected something to happen. They all knew that a biohazard situation was one of the possibilities. They had planned for months and months. Plans were made to disable the ship's engines so that it wouldn't be able to move, and to disable its communications so that the Hippocrates couldn't call for help and risk spreading whatever disease or virus or biohazard they had created by activating the Originator DNA using the Reaper Core. Their saboteurs were well-trained, special armor and weapons were hidden aboard the ship, and every possible contingency was planned for. They knew how the Reapers created their troops during the war. They had anticipated something like that.

But the brutality, terror, and violence of what actually happened was beyond anything that they could have prepared for. Alice had watched in sheer horror as the creatures created by the Originator DNA and the Core began tearing into the crew, spawning more of them that continued the cycle of death and rebirth. She had watched as the creatures would combine the bodies of several slain crewmembers to create even larger, more horrendous monstrosities. Several asari began to also exhibit strange, schizophrenic and psychotic behavior, speaking of hearing "whispers". It was like witnessing a horror holo-vid unfold before her very eyes.

Her saboteurs had panicked and upon seeing the terrifying results of what she had done Alice had been just about ready to end Project Transcendence right then and there. It was only through the quick and decisive actions of Tom, Severus, and Morder that they managed to keep the mission intact and convince Alice to proceed with the Project. The former N7 Systems Alliance Lieutenant-Commander had rallied the surviving saboteurs, retrieved the Prometheus Data, and then worked to evacuate as many of his surviving project members as he could in the face of such unexpected, terrifying events. Alice deeply admired the man and his ability to make the best of a terrible situation. She supposed it came with the territory of being an N7.

"I know you're doing your best, Alice, we both are," Locke said. "I just wish that we had more to show for all the blood we've spent. Millions more are going to die, Alice, and here we are gambling all those lives on the off-chance that we can somehow bring everyone back, not even a guarantee."

Alice placed her hands on Locke's chestplate, one hand over the spot where the N7 kept the picture of his wife. "It's more than a chance, Tom! The Cerberus tech works, and even if it doesn't work this time around, we can eventually find a way to make it work. It's still progress!" Alice urged. "And we are gambling millions of lives for billions, maybe even trillions! We wouldn't just be able to bring back everyone we lost, but everyone the Reapers had ever harvested! Every single last one of their victims, Tom! Surely that is worth all of this pain and suffering!"

Phase two had been even more horrific. It had involved the creation of another Reaper CPU containing Originator DNA and the Acceleration gene, except this time it would be placed into a Reaper Core which the Reapers had also made from the harvested Originator species and which contained Originator DNA. It would be activated, this time on a densely-populated planet. The Reaper Core back on the Hippocrates did not have the DNA. They absolutely needed to see its combined effects, and on a larger sample-size.

With a heavy heart, Marcus and Tom had chosen Anhur, knowing that in doing so they were condemning millions of people to death. Not only was it a densely-populated planet, it was deep in the Terminus Systems and had a full array of planetary defense cannons that they could hijack and use in case the Council decided to send a fleet. Marcus also made the call to officially abandon the Systems Alliance, taking those soldiers under his command loyal to him and to their cause, which was almost the entirety of the Ninth Fleet. Despite the efforts of the saboteurs, there had been survivors of the Hippocrates – the Spectres being chief among them— and both Marcus and Tom knew that it had been only a matter of time before the Council and the Systems Alliance discovered their plans and those involved.

With Council intervention imminent, they had decided not only that secrecy was no longer an option but that the project had to be accelerated as well. Alice had spent the last week testing their reverse-engineered Cerberus tech. After many sleepless nights, they had finally had a breakthrough with the latest subject. If it managed to regain consciousness, then it would be huge leap forward for the Project. It would make their dreams that much closer to becoming reality, and Alice could finally feel as if all the pain that they had caused might actually be worth it. It was a race against time now. They had to figure out a viable way to bring everyone back before the Council could stop them.

Locke was about to say something when an armored turian suddenly burst into the room. He had red eyes and light-blue markings over a pale, ghostly carapace. His name was Severus Tyrannus, and him and his turian commandos were perhaps the most elite fighting force the Project had.

"Locke, one of the subjects escaped last night," the turian reported.

Severus ripped a datapad from his belt and shoved it in Locke's face. Time-stamped in the late hours of last night, it was a clip from one of the holding cells. It showed one of the Project's guards – the lone security guard responsible for the unchanged subjects – coughing violently before exiting the room. Seconds later the subject had managed to bypass the locks on the cell and escape.

"Damn it!" Locke cursed. "What happened, Sev?"

"Bad luck," Severus replied. "The guard on duty had some sort of allergic reaction and went to medical. The subject must have also had some familiarity with the security systems."

Alice looked at both of her fellow project members in slight confusion. "Surely this isn't a big deal, Tom. Those creatures are everywhere out there, he can't have made it far."

Locke shook his head. "We can't take that chance, Alice. If he was resourceful enough to escape, he might be resourceful enough to make his way to those looking to stop us."

"Yes, we can't take that chance," Severus agreed. "I already sent my second-in-command with a team to hunt him down and bring him back – or failing that, silence him."

"Good," Locke nodded approvingly. "Darken is one of our best. If anyone can get it done it's him."

"He is perhaps the best commando we have, there is no one else I trust more," agreed Severus. Darken Krystos was more than the young turian prodigy's fellow commando and second-in-command. He had been both his mentor and his rock ever since he and the other commandos had followed the younger turian right out of the Hierarchy. When Severus' father – patriarch of one of Palaven's premier military dynasty – had disowned his youngest son for abandoning the Hierarchy, Darken had stepped in the fill the role of father as well as friend to the young prodigy.

The N7 quietly cursed. He moved away from his two friends and braced an arm up against the wall. His hand went up to gently rub the place on his armor where he kept the picture of his wife. Darken was formidable, maybe the best fighter they had aside from he and Severus. Locke had seen him in battle. The older turian was wily, ruthless and fought with a brutality you wouldn't have expected from the militaristic race.

Severus tilted his head in confusion at Locke's inaction. The entire time Severus had known him, the N7 had been nothing but a whirlwind of decisive action. Very few things had ever given him pause and Severus feared that perhaps Locke had reacted this way because Severus had not done enough. "Do you want me to send out a second team?" the turian asked.

Locke stood quietly for a few moments, starring glassy-eyed at the wall in front of him.

"No, we need your turians here," he finally grunted. "But have Darken contact me, I need to talk to him."

Severus nodded.

March 14th, 2211, 1244 hours —Hammerhead Shuttle B12—En-Route to the City of Alexandra

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

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

"School is going alright, but Ms. Mason won't let me play gravball anymore," John pouted.

I wrinkled my eyebrows in an exaggerated fashion and starred quizzically. "Why not?"

The little boy on my omni-tool sighed and looked away in embarrassment. "Riley was throwing it at the other kids heads even though Ms. Mason told us it was against the rules. I told him to stop, but he hit Ashley and Ashley started crying, so I threw it at his head and then he started crying."

I bit back a small smile and tried my best to look disproving. I didn't think I was very adept at it, but hopefully it would be enough to fool a six-year old child.

"So after Riley broke the rules, you broke the rules," I said. "That's two rule-breakers."

John looked confused for a moment, then began counting on his fingers. "Two? Yes, two!" he agreed.

I gave a mock-sigh and tried to look disappointed. "You didn't like it when Riley broke the rules, right? Those rules are supposed to keep everyone safe, and yet you broke the rules as well."

"—But he broke them first, and he wouldn't stop when I told him to stop," the young child replied, not understanding.

"It doesn't matter," I replied. "Two wrongs don't make a right, John. No one ever made the world a better place by stooping down to another person's level. I want you to try your best with that, okay? Next time, find another way – a better way."

The small, blond-haired child looked down despondently and for a second I was afraid that I had gone too far. I could feel my heart break slightly at the sight of his tiny eyebrows knitting together, and my heart had been through a lot. I had seen crazed, red-sanded Vorcha chew at the bones of several former owners of tiny eyebrows.

An armored elbow dug violently into my ribs and a pair of armored hands yanked my wrist and my omni-tool violently away from my body.

"Hello—Hi—Oh, you're actually adorable! Hello, my name is Elektra—don't call me Auntie—and I just wanted to say that what my friend said is a load of bull. You don't become like Riley, you're different from Riley, because you never would have thrown that gravball at your friend Ashley, right?" my fellow Spectre gushed.

"You're funny," giggled John. "Hello Elektra, nice to meet you. My name is John."

I made to pull my arm away but Elektra just stared at me violently and mouthed a few words that I couldn't make out. I merely sighed and resigned myself to the force of nature that was Elektra.

"Hello John, nice to meet you too. Now I don't know what my friend here told you, but you should know he's a stuffy old fart and a bit of a hypocrite. If he believed even an ounce of what he said he wouldn't be a Spectre," she whispered conspiratorially to him.

"Is it so wrong to aim to be something more?" I asked. She blew a raspberry at me and John laughed again.

"Are you a Spectre too, Elektra?"

Elektra beamed then adjusted my omni-tool so John could see the symbol emblazoned on the upper left of her chestplate. Right next to a few crudely-carved hearts was a small, silver oval with six metal arms in a crude wedge-formation pointed down towards its center, against the backdrop of a larger silver ring. I personally found it stupid to advertise something like that so blatantly, especially since our work was 90% espionage, but Elektra loved the attention.

The young boy's eyes grew wide with admiration. "Wow, that's so cool! I didn't even know there were any female human Spectres! Are you on a mission with Cloud?"

"Yes, yes I am! I'm here to keep him safe," she replied.

"Good! He promised me he'd take me to see the new Blasto film when he got back. Make sure he keeps his promise!" John urged.

"I most definitely will! Would you like for me to come as well?" Elektra asked.

"Yes! That would be awesome! I bet you can tell me so many stories – Cloud doesn't tell me any stories."

I glared furiously at her. My teammate stuck out her tongue at me, which prompted another barrage of laughter from John.

A wave caught my attention. I twisted my head and saw Rayla T'lana hold up five fingers. We would be touching down in Alexandra in five minutes.

Rayla was a veteran asari commando and one of the specialists we had brought aboard the Excalibur. She was the older sister of Rentea T'lana, one of the survivors from the Hippocrates Incident and the current chief medical officer aboard our ship. Rayla had joined us to keep a close eye on her younger sister. Personally, I welcomed the addition of another biotic, especially one that had almost a century of experience and was more proficient than both Elektra and I combined. The asari commando had an Avenger assault rifle and an M-92 Mantis clipped to her armor.

Elektra let go of my arm. I placed myself back in the omni-tool's video frame and smiled at the young child, quietly marveling at how much he looked like his late mother.

"Hey John, listen, I've got to go now, alright?"

"Okay," John nodded sadly. "Are you going to be fighting?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Sometimes that is what it takes. I wish it weren't the case but it is."

"Are you going to save everyone?"

I felt a slight pang in my heart. Would I?

"I'm going to do my best," I promised him. The incident on the Hippocrates had created orphans of too many kids, and Anhur promised to do the same except on a larger scale. I knew that my best would not be enough to save everyone, but maybe John wouldn't be old enough to know that.

Elektra pushed her head back into the frame, bumping into my chin and causing me to grunt in pain. "Don't worry, he's got me," she grinned. "There's nothing the two of us can't do together."

John smiled and nodded. "There is nothing you guys can't do," he echoed. "Nice to meet you, Elektra. Be safe, Cloud."

"Nice to meet you too, John, and please, call me Ellie."

"Be good, don't give your grandparents a hard time," I finished.

John nodded and I shut off the omni-tool. Elektra moved back into her own seat and jerked her head at my omni-tool. "Is that her kid?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's Sarah's son," I replied. Her name caught in my throat a bit. It had been a while since I had said it out loud.

Elektra balled her hand into a fist and slugged me on the shoulder. "It's not your fault she died."

"Usually I'm not one to agree with the harpy, but this time she's right," Cade said. The turian Spectre uncrossed his arms and propped his elbows on his knees. His beloved Black Widow stood stock-first between his legs, the barrel in the crook of his armored shoulder. "It's not your fault she died."

But it was. I thought. I didn't reply. I merely nodded and checked my Snakebite.

The shuttle shook as we hit a patch of turbulence. The large, armored Krogan sitting a few seats away from me grunted and used one massive hand to brace himself against the ceiling. Urdnot Garm was another of the specialists we had brought onboard. Like Rayla, he had signed on to protect someone he cared about – our chief engineer and yet another survivor of the Hippocrates Incident, Camilla, who turned out to be his adopted daughter. The grizzled-old krogan was wily, cunning, and strong as hell—a fact that I had learned the hard way when he had beaten my ass in a bar the first time I met him, having mistook me for Cade.

He wore the same trademark bulky red armor that all the older members of clan Urdnot nowadays, but its heavily-pitted and scarred surface betrayed his fighting experience. A veteran of the first Reaper War and nearly seven-hundred years old, Urdnot Garm was a living legend. His Geth Spitfire lay on the deck of the shuttle in front of his seat and he had one massive booted foot pinning it in place. I glanced over at him, and his one, good eye swiveled to meet my gaze while the other hung dead and white in its socket. The ancient Krogan nodded wordlessly. I think he had a soft spot for me.

Seated beside him and looking like an absolute child beside the massive Krogan was corporal Galen Verus. The young turian was barely eighteen when the Hippocrates Incident started. He had been a fresh recruit serving under the late Sergeant Vidanor Mardinus and had proved himself repeatedly during the horrific nightmare that happened on board that ill-fated ship. The scales on his dark-gray carapace were not yet those of a fully-developed turian but they looked larger and thicker than they had a few short weeks ago. His relatively-unscarred suit of smoky-gray armor was an indication that he had obviously seen much less fighting than the others aboard the shuttle, but both Cade and I had witnessed the young turian in action aboard the Hippocrates. He was quick and fast, good in a fight and had potential. Galen turned to Cade and starred at the older turian with worry in his light-green eyes. The young turian with the red clan markings was likely the most nervous of the bunch.

A screen built into the side of the shuttle suddenly lit up, displaying the angry, burned face of Captain Revak Ghar'aran, batarian leader of the Blue Suns battalion that the Council had hired to accompany us to Anhur. I could hear screaming, gunfire, and snarling behind him. They must already be engaged with the creatures.

We had all been uneasy with working with the former slaver and his younger brother, Malan – Percival especially. The two had participated in the Battle of Bahak during the final battle of the Slave Wars alongside Percival, and it was there that the Butchers of Bahak had earned their monikers. We were professionals though, and Percival, Cade and everyone else attached to the mission were willing to temporarily overlook the serpents we had taken into our beds in light of the greater galactic threat posed by Mordred, Locke and the rest of those trying to bring about transcendence, and for the greater good of our mission.

Besides, that was a score we could always settle later. Until then we needed the Ghar'aran brothers, their Blue Suns mercenaries, and their fleet. Anhur was a hub planet deep in the Terminus Systems, and we couldn't send a Council fleet without risking the wrath of more than a dozen Terminus warlords.

I stood up and made my way over to the display so that Ghar'aran could see me. "Captain, what can I do for you," I said cordially.

"Drak'Takai, Lieutenant Navarrian and one of my companies has landed on the western edge of the Spaceport, but the creatures have a strong presence there! They need assistance!" the batarian commander grunted.

I grunted back. Drak'Takai, or death dealer in the batarian tongue, was not the most flattering of nicknames.

I pulled up a schematic of the spaceport and the surrounding environment and highlighted two points nearby, making note of the location of the symbols that marked the position of Revak's Blue Suns. We needed the spaceport. It was the perfect location to house a center of operations and from which to begin civilian evacuations directly up into the Blue Sun's fleet.

"There," I said. "I'll post a few sharpshooters here and send some specialist support here to directly aid your lieutenant and his men. Hang tight."

Revak turned to look somewhere off-camera before pressing a massive, modded Revenant to his shoulder and firing a long burst. He turned back and nodded. "My men are pushing on the other two fronts and will be at the spaceport in half a unit, get my company there in one piece," the batarian growled.

I nodded back, then cut the link. "Chan!" I called out. I sent a copy of the plans to rest of the team, then to the Lieutenant flying the shuttle. "Drop us off there!"

"Roger that, Spectre!" the pilot replied.

I moved to the back of the shuttle towards the door and grabbed a handhold. Cade and Elektra both silently moved up beside me. I was going to intend for it to just be Cade and I, but it wouldn't hurt to have a spotter. Cade stood silently and impassively at the bulkhead, mentally preparing himself to fight those creatures once more. Elektra looked much more unnerved. It would be her first time fighting these things.

I looked behind me. Garm, Rayla and Galen all looked back and nodded. Chan would take them directly to Lieutenant Navarrian and the Blue Suns on the western front.

I slammed a palm onto the button controlling the doors to the shuttle and watched as they slid open to reveal a city under attack. Alexandra was a large city just a short distance from the capital of Anhur – New Thebes. It had the architecture typical for a highly-developed colony world out in the Terminus Systems – tall buildings with massive, free-hanging pathways between them and huge open balconies, similar to Ilium. I could see smoke rising from a hundred different locations and hear dozens of different voices screaming for help. Gunfire echoed across the city as the local police did their best to stem the growing tide of abominations that threatened to kill them all.

The spaceport in contrast to the rest of the city was ugly, triangle-sized, squat, but had tall, thick walls surrounding the perimeter used to separate the runways from the spaceport itself, thus making it highly-defendable. Lieutenant Chan brought the shuttle down to bear on-top of the roof of a medium-sized building on the west-side of the spacesport, where we could have a clear line-of-sight over the entire area. I could see small, advancing figures in blue armor on the north and south sides of the spaceport, interspersed with some black-armored figures. Those would be the other two companies and Murgen's Jaegers. They were too far away for me to make out which squad was where. I could also see several squads armored in light-green combat suits. They had to be part of Anhur's military.

On the western side were a large number of other blue-armored figures, but unlike their compatriots these were currently holding their position in a series of craters several hundred meters from the spaceport. Aside from the craters the land between them and the spaceport was littered with the burned and broken wrecks of dozens of spacecraft. Someone had likely done a massive strafing run before dropping off the Blue Suns.

Cade, Elektra and I jumped out of the shuttle and onto the roof. Our respective sniper rifles were already in our hands as we made a beeline for the edge of the building. Lieutenant Chan had already moved his shuttle towards the trapped mercenaries, to both drop off our specialists and to take on wounded.

I was the first one to the edge, sliding down onto my belly with my Snakebite up and ready. Cade hit the edge beside me not a split-second after, Meera poised to strike. Elektra had a pair of binoculars in her hands and was on my right, sighting down the field.

"Want to have a little kill-count contest?" Cade asked. The turian adjusted a few knobs and placed a few spare heatsinks down beside him.

I already had my eye pressed to my scope and was currently observing the situation. About 80% of the turian lieutenant's men were still alive. I couldn't help but notice that some of the creatures attacking them had Blue Suns armor on.

"Do you think this is some kind of game? No. Elektra and the Lieutenant will call out targets. Save your damn ammo," I grunted.

"That's no fun," my friend replied.

I ignored him and patched a line through to Lieutenant Navarrian. Despite it being their first time encountering the horrific creatures, they were acquitting themselves quite well.

"Lieutenant!" I called into my mic. "We're about six-hundred meters to your west, perched on-top of a building at coordinates zero-six-two-alpha, ready to provide long-range support."

"Spectre?" came the flanged reply. "Thank god! A few of the big ones came out of nowhere and changed one of my squads. We're having a hard time punching through!"

"Roger that," I replied. "Mark your targets and be prepared to push."

My female compatriot suddenly shifted beside me and a red arrow came up on my HUD.

"There, I think those are what's got the Lieutenant pinned down. Tagged them for you," Elektra reported.

Cade and I both shifted our scopes. We saw the familiar, hulking forms of three massive Changers. A fourth lay in pieces some distance back, a testament to the efforts of the Blue Suns. My heart tightened at seeing them once more.

Changers were massive, hulking, half-metal behemoths standing between eight to twelve feet tall depending on the species they were made from. Thick, armored plates of various shapes and sizes encased their bodies from head-to-toe, thickest on its torso and less-so around the creatures' head, though you could see in some of the gaps between the plates the sickly-colored flesh of who the original victim had been, embedded with tiny, thin cables that bled blue fluid. The thick plates made them almost impervious to small-arms fire in those areas.

One arm was more thickly-armored and larger than the other, and all along that arm from shoulder to hand writhed a mass of thick cables the size of a man's wrist. We had seen what would happen if those cables found their way onto a victim. The other arm was smaller but ended in massive, metal talons several feet long that either extended from their fingers or from their forearms – a characteristic shared by nearly every single one of these creatures. Once again my mind flew back to the Hippocrates. I remembered claws exactly like those scything towards a brave scientist with golden hair and tears in her eyes.

Their legs were as thick as tree trunks and razor-sharp metal spikes protruded haphazardly from their backs like spines. Like their smaller Corpser brethren they had metal sockets where their eyes used to be and which shone with an eerie, blue light. Unlike their smaller brethren, all of whom had a massive, elongated, gaping maw that emitted red light and was filled with razor-sharp metal teeth interspersed with the teeth of their original victims, Changers had a large, metal plate covering their mouths. Unlike Corpsers who snarled and screamed like something right out of your worst nightmares, Changers were deathly-quiet. The worst part was you could see identifiable features of who the original victims were – bits of their armor or clothing hung from their massive frames, and their faces retained much of their identifiable features. Changers were primarily made from humans and krogan.

"Oh my god… were those things once human?" Elektra shuddered. We watched as a bunch of Corpsers swarmed around the Changers like a pack of angry wasps. Corpsers lacked the size, the sheer number of armored plates, and the cables on their arms that Changers possessed, but they made up for it in speed, sheer numbers, and a terrifying, tooth-ridden maw. They also sometimes carried around packs of Crawlers in their bloated stomachs – small, mechanical spider-looking creatures that forced themselves into their victims and changed them to create more Corpsers.

I banished any thoughts of Sarah to the back of my mind and filled that void with cold fury instead. "Cade, focus fire from left-to-right!" I barked.

I brought my Snakebite to bear on the left-most Changer and fired my first shot on Anhur. The heavy-calibre bullet slammed into the neck of the Changer – a former human – right into a gap between armor plates.

Cade fired three times at the spot that I had hit. His Black Widow could fire three times before the heat-sink overheated. My Snakebite could only fire once, but had a much larger caliber.

I fired once more, and my round severed the head off the massive creature. It folded at the knees and came down with an earth-shaking crash.

The other Changers slowly turned around and stared in our direction. I watched, unnerved. We were more than half a kilometer away, had they somehow spotted us?

My questions were answered when the snaking cables on their arms suddenly all flew up and pointed in our direction. Several Corpsers that had been charging towards the surviving Blue Suns suddenly stopped and started sprinting in our direction.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I froze. The Changers were directing the Corpsers. They had never done that before.

"Since when did they learn to do that?" complained Cade. The turian looked up from the scope of his Black Widow and stared incredulously at the creatures, his mandibles slack with surprise.

"Can the big ones not control the small ones?" asked Elektra.

"No, not that I remember!" hissed Cade. He snapped off a shot that drilled through the heads of one of the charging Corpsers, killing it. A loud, krogan roar could be heard in the distance. I watched as a hail of plasma-fire rained down on the Corpsers. Their smoking corpses went down and rough, throaty laughter could be heard even from as far away as we were. A mantis round crashed into the head of another Changer, followed by a few rounds from an M-96 Mattock.

I ignored my friend and instead copied the footage I had just seen into a file on my omni-tool and sent it back to the Excalibur. I quickly opened up a link to the ships' science department.

"Jaelen!" I grunted into my comm. set. "Got something you might want to see!"

The salarian scientist responded almost immediately, his voice tinged with panic. "I'm watching it now. This is not good, Spectre!"

"What's it mean?" I asked. Jaelen Veers had been a salarian biology researcher aboard the Hippocrates. He had been instrumental in our discovery of the aggressor DNA found in the creatures and had hypothesized that it originated from the Reaper Cores and was responsible for the phenomenon on Earth and Thessia. He was currently our leading expert on the DNA, these creatures and the phenomenon.

"Back on the Hippocrates, when I examined the samples taken from the creatures we saw the inert Reaper DNA and the DNA of whatever species the Reapers had used to make their cores!" the salarian said with panic. "The DNA was replicating, active!"

"What does it mean, Jaelen!" I repeated. I suspect I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear it confirmed by someone light-years smarter than I was.

"The creatures, I think the DNA's growth has progressed significantly—grown stronger, more alive, so to speak. The creatures may be evolving," the scientist whispered.

Cade shuddered and missed his next shot. I sighed and screwed my eyes shut for second. If that were true, then our mission had a soft time-limit. If they became smarter, if they achieved sentience, then the galaxy was doomed.

"Roger that, I'll radio you when I have more information," I replied.

"Copy that. Good luck, Spectre."

I didn't reply and instead returned my attention to the battlefield. Together Cade and I brought down another Changer while Garm, Galen and Rayna had torn the last one apart with a combination of biotics, precise rifle-fire, and a hail of plasma from the Krogan's Geth Spitfire. That left the Blue Suns capable to advance towards the spaceport.

The Lieutenant and Elektra both kept calling out targets for Cade and I while the three specialists provided direct support to the Blue Suns. Galen was a blur of gray, weaving between Corpsers and leaving behind a trail of broken bodies. Rayla preferred to fight from range, bringing targets down with precise bursts from her Avenger or bursts of biotic power. I kicked myself for not having her with us, since she too had a sniper rifle, but the team choices had been a spur-of-the-moment decision and it looked like her biotics were really helping out the mercs. Garm merely directed his Spitfire towards any group of enemies that came into his field of vision and held the trigger down until they were nothing but steaming paste. We did our jobs well, taking the pressure off of the mercenaries and allowing them to advance. The Blue Suns were nearly at the spaceport and were starting to move out of range of our fire support.

"Thanks for the assist, Spectres, but you should get your asses over here before you're cut off!" the Lieutenant said.

I tore my eyes off from my scope and took in a wider view of the battlefield. Dozens of Corpsers and more than a few changers were headed towards Cade, Elektra and I. If we didn't move soon, we would indeed be cut-off.

"Should we radio for the shuttle?" Cade asked.

I looked around, searching for inspiration. By the time Chan could circle back, it might already be too late.

A slim hand grabbed my bicep and tugged. Elektra depolarized her faceplate and looked at me with a big grin. She moved her other arm over the edge of the building and pointed straight down.

My eyes followed her finger and widened when I caught a glimpse of what she had been pointing at. That was suicidal. It had been years since I'd been on one and their exposed nature offered zero protection against the scything claws of the creatures.

Cade looked at me quizzically, then clipped Meera onto his back and used both arms to pull the upper half of his body out over the edge to look down at what Elektra had pointed at. "You have got to be kidding me you harpy, this isn't a spirits-damned holo-film!" he snarled.

Elektra didn't reply. Instead she let go of my arm and rolled right off the edge of the building. I didn't miss a beat. I quickly clipped my Snakebite to my armor and grabbed Cade's collar armor.

"Wait! No, wait!" Cade pleaded.

I smiled beneath my visor and rolled off the building, my momentum dragging Cade along with me. Together we fell for about nine stories before I activated my biotics to slow my descent while Cade used his booster jets to do the same. We came crashing down in a plume of dust and rock. Immediately I heard snarling as several Corpsers in the vicinity took note of our sudden appearance.

A loud revving noise cut through the vicious snarling. Elektra was about twenty feet away astride a black Fenrir X52 sport motorcycle. A line of bikes lay parked ahead of her, most of them designed for turian and batarian use.

Her faceplate was depolarized and I could see a giant smirk beneath her visor. I couldn't help but grin as well. It had been a while since I had gotten a chance to ride a motorcycle.

"Ready to re-live the good old days?" she asked.

I didn't reply, but I did depolarize my faceplate so she could see my grin. I dashed over to the line of bikes and immediately hopped on to an over-sized black Fenrir X54 sport model which looked like it had been built for a batarian twice my size. I immediately hacked into it using my Spectre codes and revved it. It came to life with an intimidating roar.

Cade slid onto the first turian bike he saw, an older dark-blue Cipritine Ursus, modelled after the old Earth Daytona motorcycles. All three bikes had identical, unidentifiable logos engraved on the side. They were likely the coat-of-arms for some local biker gang that owned these bikes. Such gangs were the only ones who really rode motorcycles nowadays, and Elektra and I had stolen from bikes from them dozens of times when we were younger.

For a moment my mind flashed back to the Hippocrates, when the outbreak had first started. Sarah had asked me what I had been before I had become a Spectre. I, in my typical fashion, had given her a half-truth. She had thought I had been some Systems Alliance black-ops hotshot. I had told her I had been a simple delivery boy. I hadn't lied, but a part of me regretted that I never got the chance to tell her my whole story.

I immediately sped off, Elektra and Cade close behind me. Elektra was laughing over the comms while Cade remained uncharacteristically silent – likely using every last ounce of his concentration on not-crashing. Unlike us, he wasn't at home on a bike. We all received some training as Spectres, but given the lack of popularity of motorcycles in most core Council worlds, we rarely encountered them in our missions.

We weaved by any Corpsers we saw, ignoring them in favor of reaching the spaceport as quickly as possible. I couldn't help but notice that this city had not yet been completely overrun. Everywhere I looked, Alexandrian citizens and law enforcement worked in tandem to take down those monsters. Barricades were erected and buildings were fortified. I supposed that the creatures were more adept at killing and infecting in the close confinement of a spaceship.

My comm came to life and the voice of my friend came online. I was relieved to hear his voice, since I hadn't heard it ever since I'd jumped from the Excalibur.

"Cloud, where the hell are you guys? We've almost cleared the spaceport," Percival asked. I could hear the sound of gunfire and shouted orders in the background, and thankfully it outweighed the snarling that the creatures made.

"We're west and en-route to the Spaceport, maybe a couple minutes out!" I reported. I dodged another pair of Corpsers but a larger group had amassed further ahead, blocking our way. Elektra peppered them with a volley from her N7 Hurricane, but missed the majority of her shots. I grunted in annoyance and threw a singularity towards the group. It had been hard to do from astride a fast-moving bike but I had somehow managed to lob the swirling-blue mass directly in the center of the group.

The Corpsers were immediately lifted off their feet. A blue arc grenade came flying out of the corner of my eye and into my singularity. It detonated, reacting with the swirling biotic mass to create an explosion that destroyed the creatures.

We drove through the cloud of static, left-over biotics, metal plates and flesh. "Hurry! There's dozens of those things out there, and we're about to issue an order over the city-wide comms for all survivors to head to the spaceport! Once the exodus happens, those creatures are going to start heading our way!" Percival warned us.

I was itching to pull out my Predator and start firing at some Corpsers, but I knew that at best it would be a waste of ammo. "Duly noted, Perc. Keep the door open for us."

"Assuming I don't break my neck before I get there. I am not having fun," Cade complained. The turian Spectre had some really close calls while avoiding the creatures, not being nearly as adept as Elektra and I at swerving around him.

"He's doing fine," I assured Percival. Another half-truth.

We had left the city proper and were now in the open land between the city and the spaceport, rapidly approaching our de facto stronghold. Up ahead, we could see defenders on the upper levels of the spaceport shooting at Corpsers below, while a few sharpshooters were stationed higher up to pick at packs of Corpsers that roamed in the open in an attempt to clear the way for the soon-to-be-approaching exodus of citizens.

However, the western gates were closed. A large crowd of Corpsers were scratching and howling at the door, and I could see a pair of massive Changers leading them. The hulking behemoths pounded silently at the metal. A few Blue Suns and local Anhur defense personnel fired down on the crowd, but they weren't having much luck thinning them out.

"God… they're even more horrible up close… How are we going to get through them all?" Elektra asked.

"How about you biotic charge right on in there, let them know that it's an exclusive party," Cade hissed.

"How about I shoot out your tires and use you as a distraction?" the female Spectre angrily replied. Elektra hadn't blinked twice at fighting a platoon of former Systems Alliance marines, but these monsters had shaken her unlike anything I'd ever seen.

We were maybe two-hundred meters away now and closing fast. I wracked my brain for a plan. We would have to clear them all out before we could get in, or else risk letting them inside where we would have to fight them in a more close-quarters environment. Maybe I could use my biotics, but it would take several singularity and warp combos to clear them all, which I wasn't sure I could do without burning myself out.

"I guess it'll be Cade to the rescue," my friend sighed, almost like he could read my mind.

About fifty meters away from the group, several of the Corpsers had started to notice us and had turned around in anticipation of our arrival. One of the Changers turned as well. The metal tubes on his arm shot up and pointed at us. The rest of the Corpsers turned and worryingly began to form ranks rather than charge us en masse.

Whispers started up in my head, startling me and sending shivers down my spine. The last time I had heard them it had been on the Hippocrates, whenever I had been in close proximity to the Chimera. When it had gotten close, the whispers had been so bad that they had caused me actual, debilitating pain, leaving me unable to move.

The pain didn't happen. It hadn't happened ever since I had directly fought and spoke with the Chimera in the Prometheus labs back on the Hippocrates. I had heard its voice in my head, calling me tar eleven or tar ender or something like that. It had then conveyed a series of images into my head. Some of them had been my own memories, while others had been images I didn't recognize and hadn't fully been able to make up. I remembered images of broken cities, shadows in the sky, metal claws, red lights, a loud horn…. And a hunger. These creatures were hungry.

A flash of light from Cade's motorcycle pulled me back into the present. I watched as my friend triggered his booster jets, shooting himself out of his seat and into the air. His motorcycle sped on towards the crowd of Corpsers, three glowing blue orbs attached to the handle-bars.

The bike slammed into their front ranks, knocking down a trio of the snarling creatures before detonating in a brilliant flash of blue light that rooted more than a dozen of them in place, writhing from the electric shock.

Elektra and I simultaneously pulled our bikes over and got off. I immediately tossed two of my sticky grenades, aiming at one of the Changers. They slammed into its cable-arm and blew it off in a gory mess, killing a trio of Corpsers who had been standing too close. The Changer didn't say a thing, instead it shoved another Corpser out of the way and began moving towards us.

Its head flew off in a shower of blue fluid as Cade emptied his Black Widow right between its eyes. The creatures howled in fury and as one they all sprinted towards the turian Spectre.

I pulled out my pistol and fired a volley of shots at their legs in an attempt to slow them down, but only managing to knock a couple of them down. Cade jetted away but it would only buy him a few seconds at most.

Elektra suddenly appeared in front of Cade, hands blazing with blue biotic fire. With a yell she slammed them down on the ground in front of her, causing a series of rippling, purple waves to spew forth and slam into the oncoming horde. Most were knocked back, but some were thrown up in the air where they floated suspended and primed.

I immediately tossed a Warp into the primed, floating enemies, detonating them and tearing them to shreds. Cade took the opportunity to shoot three more Corpsers with his Black Widow to buy them a bit more breathing room.

More Corpsers and a wave of Crawlers that had pulled their way out of the creatures we destroyed and charged, this time right at Elektra. The female Spectre let them get close, then with a tremendous yell she slammed one fist down on the ground in front of her. Her shields faded with a snap and the air around her suddenly shimmered with biotic fire, expanding outwards and destroying the oncoming horde. I could see her shoulders rising and falling heavily as she panted hard from the exertion. The nova had drained her shields and left her vulnerable.

Cade jetted forwards, grabbed her with one hand and pulled her behind him. His other now held his Vindicator which he was letting out bursts from. I joined him and began firing shots from my Predator pistol. I swore that if I survived this I'd start bringing along a third weapon like Cade and Elektra did. Elektra came up on my left, shields having recharged, and began to fire into the creatures with her N7 Hurricane.

Suddenly the gates leading into the spaceport opened and several massive armored figures walked out, appearing behind the remaining creatures. One was clad in N7 armor while two of were batarians in thick, modified Blue Suns armor adorned with black script, shoulder guards with jutting, metal spikes, and full-faced helmets with gold batarian skulls painted on them. Behind them were numerous smaller figures in lesser-adorned Blue Suns armor and green combat suits, and even a trio of black-armored Jaegers.

Percival immediately threw a pair of inferno grenades into the back-ranks of the creatures, setting a dozen of them ablaze. The shorter batarian in the highly-decorated armored had an M-451 Firestorm pressed to his shoulder. He unleashed a torrent of flame that melted the creatures down to molten husks and which left the ground glassy and steaming.

The other Blue Suns hung back and fired into the monsters from a safe distance. I watched as a snarling salarian Corpser leaped over the flames directly towards the largest, armored batarian.

I watched in morbid admiration as the massive batarian grabbed it out of the air by the neck and held it out at arm's length, silencing its snarling. The creature began to claw viciously at the batarians arms, but the modified armor was just too thick for its claws to go through.

The batarian pulled back its other first. A series of dull spikes about two-inches thick suddenly emerged from the knuckles of its heavy gauntlet. Without a sound, the batarian began to drive his fist repeatedly into the creatures face.

The first hit went crashing into its elongated mouth, sending a cascade of broken salarian and metal teeth to the ground below. The second hit slammed into the creature's metal eyes, showering the batarian's chestplate, gloves, and his helmet and the golden skull painted on it in blue and green blood. On the third hit, the Corpser suddenly stopped struggling and went slack in the massive batarian's grasp. By the time he had finished his fourth hit, you could not tell what species that the Corpser had once been.

The three of us had stopped firing and merely watched as the batarian brutally reduced the Corpsers face to gory bits of flesh and metal. The batarian grunted something I couldn't understand in a mercenary dialect and dropped the deceased Corpser to the ground. He raised a heavily-armored boot and brought it crashing down onto the Corpser's bloated stomach, popping it and crushing the Crawlers residing within. The batarian grunted in disgust and started walking towards us.

"Spirits…" whispered Cade.

By then the rest of the creatures had been put down. Percival watched the two Butchers of Bahak stomp towards us with a wary look on his face. He had clearly not been impressed with the raw display of strength and brutality that the older Ghar'aran brother had exhibited.

The three Jaegers had removed their helmets, revealing the stunned faces of Teewin, Jay, and Soph. Teewin looked especially surprised. He was a big marine – maybe six-and-a-half feet tall and thus taller than either of the two batarians, but the sheer size of the Ghar'aran brothers made them look even larger.

Revak Gha'aran stepped over a pile of smoldering corpses, his younger brother close behind him. He pulled off his helmet to reveal his burned face with its two sightless eyes, looked around in disgust at the carnage surrounding him, and then at me. Malan did the same.

I removed my helmet and moved to meet him. To Cade and Elektra's credit, both of them were right behind me.

"These creatures… I have never seen anything like them," Revak Ghar'aran growled. His brother grunted in agreement and kicked at the dead Changer.

"They are unclean… monstrosities that deserve nothing but destruction," added Malan.

"Yes," I agreed. "You see what's at stake now? If we don't work together – if don't cooperate and stop butting heads, then this will happen on a hundred or a thousand different planets," I said, gesturing at the corpse-ridden plain and the dying city.

Revak nodded, then turned to his men. He slammed both palms into chestplate and roared. "Brothers! Taking Council credits warms my heart, but I will not stand idly by while the free citizens of the Terminus Systems are slaughtered by these unclean beings! This planet is now under the protection of the Blue Suns!"

His men roared and cheered with him. A few of them fired off rounds into the air. Satisfied, Revak turned back to me and nodded. "I now see that we truly have a common goal, Drak'Takai…. What would you have our men do?"

Inside I was slightly relieved at having the tension between our two factions assuaged so quickly. I had been afraid that our past histories would get in the way of us performing our mission effectively, but witnessing the horrors that these creatures wrought had brought us together and erased differences in a way that I had not anticipated. We had a common goal now— the preservation of the innocent. The Blue Suns despite their questionable history were still unwilling to see living beings slaughtered by mindless machines.

"Have your fleet send down the rest of your men, along with portable gun emplacements, armored fighting vehicles, and barricades. We need to set up defensive points along the wall from where we can provide covering fire for incoming refugees and at the same time keep the plains clear. Then we need to start sending out men to escort and bring back survivors to the spaceport and begin evacuating them up into your ships," I ordered.

Revak and Malan both nodded. "I will reach out to a few contacts of mine, see if we can't get more Blue Suns from the other chapters to join us," Revak grunted.

I quickly considered the options. On one hand, I did not want news of these creatures spreading, but on the other hand it wasn't likely that this could be kept a secret for much longer, especially now that we had gotten planet-wide communications back on line. We would also soon have to begin monitoring outgoing transmissions to ensure that panic wouldn't spread to neighboring systems.

"Do it," I finally said. "And make sure your men can keep a secret, we can't risk riots and panic spreading on other worlds."

"I will only reach out to those I trust," Revak agreed.

The large batarian held out a massive hand. I grabbed it without hesitating and squeezed it as hard as I could – something that the batarian reciprocated in kind.

I blinked back tears and waited for the batarian to pull back first. Eventually he did, and the two Blue Suns commanders began to walk back to the spaceport.

"You fight well, Drak'Takai," Malan added. "Thank you for saving our Lieutenant and his men."

I waved a hand dismissively. I glanced at Percival, who looked approvingly at me. He had more reason than anyone to hate these batarians, but even Percival knew that if we were to survive this and save the inhabitants of this planet, we would have to work together.

Cade brought a hand down onto my shoulder from beside me and grinned. "What was it you said back on the Hippocrates, about Jaelen and the video you hesitated in showing him? "Trust them until we can't, then shoot them?" Well, good luck with that if those two betray you, I'll be sure to tell them to have a closed-casket funeral."

"In all my years as a Spectre, I've never seen anyone do anything like that, and I've fought and killed more krogan and yahg than I can count. Today has truly been a day of firsts," Elektra added.

I rubbed my jaw with one hand and began to walk towards the spaceport. Today was a win, but we had a lot of work to do if we wanted to end this.

"Let's go guys, the day has just started," I said.