Chapter 66 – I Am Become Death

0646 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Black Dawn Headquarters – The Ring

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

(Jurdon Kota - Black Dawn)

Low moans and wracking coughs echoed through the ominous, black fog that lay like a blanket throughout the facility. Every sound and vibration served to drive another spike of pain into Kota's head. The krogan massaged the front of his headplate with one hand and kept a tight grip on his shotgun with the other. He tried to blink away the black spots that were creeping around the corners of his vision to no avail.

The black fog hung heavily in the air around them – the apparent source of all of their maladies according to their medical specialists. It had appeared almost half-an-hour ago, slithering through their ventilation systems like live shadows. There was no escaping it. Every breath that Kota drew was a breath of stale, stifling air and heady, black fog. It was thick almost to the point of opacity and it shrouded the large foyer he was guarding in part-shadow.

What in Vaul's name was it?

A human to Kota's left dropped down onto all fours and unleashed his dinner from the night before onto the steel floor below them. The smell of his sick nearly drove the krogan to vomit as well.

Helmet filters were ineffective. Special rebreathers worked but there weren't enough for everyone. Anyone who breathed the shadow-fog soon begun to experience a wide range of debilitating symptoms with the most common ones being nausea, muscle-cramping, and fever.

It seemed to affect some members of the Dawn more than others. The turians for example could hardly move. Kota had passed several of them laying folded against walls or rendered completely unable to even crawl out of their beds. Kota and the other krogan were among the fortunate ones, suffering only from some nausea and what felt like a terrible migraine.

No one had died yet, but whether the shadow-fog was non-lethal remained to be seen.

"Get up! Watch that door!" Sergeant Vornor snarled at the man who had puked. The batarian grabbed the Black Dawn guardsmen by the scruff of his neck, dragged him groaning to his feet and then shoved him back in formation with the other guards. The majority of them were wearing no armor whatsoever, but a few had managed to fight against the symptoms long enough to struggle into one or two pieces of gear. Only one or two of them had kinetic barriers. Weapons had been the priority.

The doorway that they were guarding led down into a section of the recycling facility that the Dawn had converted into the living quarters for their organization. Behind them at the other end of the foyer was a door that led higher – and deeper — into their base.

The attack had begun in the late hours of the night. The shadow-fog had stolen in, unseen and unheard. It was only discovered once the symptoms had started up in its initial victims. Then they had discovered that the lights had stopped working, which meant that something had happened to the generators.

Then the screaming had begun.

"Kota, are you alright?" A gruff voice asked him.

"I'll be fine. Just tired of waiting is all," Kota replied. His fellow clansman Jurdan Ruut was the only other krogan in the foyer guard. Like Kota he too looked as if he were on the verge of emptying his stomach. Still, the sight of him settled Kota. It was good to have another krogan here. Kota knew that of the Black Dawn in this room he could count on Ruut the most.

The guardsmen muttered amongst themselves. Some of them were whimpering and a few were even rambling nonsensically into the air, speaking of horrific beings and terrifying images invisible to Kota. Apparently the shadow-fog could cause hallucinations as well.

"First squad, are you still there? Torla? Second squad, report!" Sergeant Vornor barked. When the attack had started, scared and disoriented Black Dawn members had begun stumbling out of the living quarters and into the foyer seeking to flee the shadow-fog. Luckily for them Sergeant Vornor had been awake and had the presence of mind to start organizing the defence. First he had contacted medical who had advised him on the shadow-fog. Then had sent a few teams comprised of the healthier Black Dawn members back into the living quarters to both gather more survivors and assess the threat. He formed a guard group for the foyer and sent the rest on through to defend the other portions of their base.

The survivors had slowed to a trickle. No one else had made it in the last ten minutes. Kota had heard gunfire and some desperate men screaming about 'ghosts' or 'wraiths' over the communication channels, but those must have been hallucinations. Since then it had fallen eerily quiet since. The reports from the search teams had completely stopped.

It was then that Vornor had started rousing them, kicking and cajoling and bullying them until those that still could managed to point their weapons in the rough direction of the door amidst the throes of their sickness. The shadow-fog was so thick that he could hardly see the faces of the men around him. The absence of light made things all the worse. The stench of fear and sick and urine lay almost as heavy as the shadow-fog.

Another scream suddenly tore out from the living quarters. It froze the blood in Kota's veins and caused some of the Black Dawn in the foyer to shout as well. By Vaul, what in the Pantheon was going on? Was this part of a larger assault? The entirety of the Black Dawn were quartered here tonight except for those who had gone to the spaceport under Grimjaw to oversee the delivery of the latest batch of goods. That was almost two hundred able-bodied men. The only groups large enough to field an attack of this size against them were either Aria T'Loak or the big three, but the boss had assured them that their truce was still in effect.

"Ready yourselves boys!" Vornor roared between coughing fits. The grizzled batarian's hands were shaking, though whether that was from fear or the shadow-fog Kota did not know. "You shoot whatever comes through that door and you don't stop until its dead! You hear me!?"

"Fight well Kota! Honor to your ancestors!" Ruut bellowed.

"I'll see you in Kruban, cousin!" Kota replied bravely, and he thanked the Pantheon that he had been able to mask the current of fear running through his voice.

There was no telling what would come through that door. Kota thought that they should retreat, but Vornor was not having it. The krogan was not a coward, but neither he was suicidal. Of the twenty Black Dawn in the foyer maybe about half could reliably hold and point a gun straight. The rest were vomiting or hallucinating or shaking so bad that they had become near catatonic.

Thud.

The door rattled and the center buckled ever so slightly. Something was on the other side of it. Whatever it was it had landed a very heavy blow. Was it a krogan?

Thud. Another hit. The dent grew larger. Some of the men began to whimper.

Kota felt himself instinctively begin to take deeper and deeper breaths. The nausea began to recede and though the corners of his vison were still dark the parts he could still see came into clearer focus. The krogan bloodrage was pushing back against the shadow-fog.

With a final bang the door exploded in a wave of crumpled steel and blue light. A few of the men immediately opened fire through the doorway. The mass effect rounds flew straight into the shadow-fog and disappeared from view. Had they hit anything?

The men stopped shooting and the room fell silent once more. Nothing but whimpers and moans and the loud, rhythmic beating of Kota's two hearts.

Beyond the ruined door the shadow-fog swirled and coiled. It was so thick. Kota couldn't see through it.

Suddenly a roiling blue orb of biotic energy hurtled through the darkness of the doorway and up and towards the ceiling. It snagged more than half a dozen men and lifted them screaming off of their feet.

The blue orb floated higher and higher, made ten time brighter by the darkness. It stopped just short of the ceiling and started to move across the room, carrying its live, screaming cargo with it. All eyes were on the swirling, blue ball. The smell of ozone flooded Kota's nostrils.

A flurry of gunshots rang out, silencing the screams one by one. Wet, warm lifeblood began to rain down from the limp, tumbling forms of their comrades still caught in the ball's gravity well and coated the faces of the Black Dawn. What in the name of Vaul was waiting out there in the darkness?

The blue orb continued it's trajectory across the ceiling carrying its grisly cargo. Kota and the others couldn't tear their eyes away from it.

"Eyes back on the door!" Vornor screamed, but it was too late.

Another blue ball of energy emerged from the dark and slammed into the first one. It erupted violently. Kota and the rest were brought to their knees by the blast. The smell of ozone flooded the room.

Another man screamed. Kota turned to look back at the doorway leading into the living quarters. The krogan watched as the guardsmen closest – a crying, screaming human male – was enveloped in a blue energy field and lifted violently into the air.

The blue field contracted and his screams stopped too. The field evaporated and his broken torso tumbled to the ground. The same thing happened to another man, and then another. Men were being lifted up by biotic energies and then the energies would turn inwards, snapping bone and pulverizing flesh.

Vornor snarled and opened fire once more into the doorway with a few of the others following suit. Kota and Ruut both joined in, their Claymore shotguns barking loudly over the rest of the gunfire. He couldn't see through the shadow-fog that lay on the other side of the door. Kota could only hope that they were hitting whoever or whatever was waiting on the other side.

Then Black Dawn guardsmen began to fall one by one, crumpling like puppets with their strings cut and bleeding from numerous wounds that had seemingly appeared on them like magic. Whoever was on the other side clearly had no problems aiming through the shadow-fog, and without armor or kinetic shields they were completely defenseless to the incoming gunfire.

A shot hit Sergeant Vornor in the leg, causing the batarian to stumble with a grunt. Vornor started to curse in Khar'shani but he was cut short by another shot that seared through one of his eyes and covered the floor with his brains.

That left just Ruut and Kota.

The two of them looked at one another and nodded. They opened fire with their Claymores and kept firing.

Kota's ammunition block ran dry first. He roared and was preparing to charge when another blue bolt of light flew out of the darkness and hit him in the chest. The krogan was immediately enveloped in blue field just like the other human had been. The fear of the impending crush almost overwhelmed him.

But the field did not contract. Kota tried to move but found that he couldn't. He couldn't move a single muscle.

Ruut's block finally ran dry. His clansmen tossed his shotgun onto the ground and beat his hands against his chest. Kota could hear his breathing grow heavier and more ragged. Ruut was raging.

"Come and fight me, demon!" Ruut roared. "Show yourself you quad-less bastard! I'll rip your throat out!"

Kota watched as a figure slowly stepped through the shadow-fog. It was a male human, helmeted and wearing a battered suit of gray armor. His hands were free, but he had a pistol sheathed at his waist.

Ruut threw his head back and howled. Kota wanted to tell him to run, but he couldn't speak. With the field still active around him he could do nothing but watch.

Kota watched as the man brought his hands together and started to rapidly form a series of odd signs with his fingers that the krogan did not recognize. It was over in less than two seconds. When he was done his entire left arm had begun to blaze with white-blue energy so bright that it almost looked like lightning to the krogan, coalescing most brightly at the man's fingertips. A sound that sounded like the screeching of a thousand different birds echoed throughout the room.

Ruut charged, screaming in Tuchankan. The man disappeared in a blue flash.

Kota watched in horror as the man reappeared right in front of Ruut with what sounded like a thunderclap, halting the krogan's mindless charge and sending him reeling. The man then plunged his left arm right through Ruut's chest where both of his hearts lay. Kota could see the man's fingers come out of Ruut's back amidst a surge of blue lightning.

Ruut shuddered and fell backwards. The man's hand slid out accompanied by a wave of orange gore.

The man grabbed his left wrist and flexed the fingers on his left hand. His gauntlet was still ablaze with the strange, biotic energy.

The man then turned to look at Kota. Kota wanted to scream but the biotic field was preventing even that. He was completely frozen.

The man began to walk over and Kota began to pray to every deity he knew. His psyche was crumbling beneath the waves of fear and anguish and regret that was battering him from every side— every angle. Was this karma for what he had done to those asari down in the pens a few nights ago?

In that moment he wished he had never gotten involved with the Black Dawn. He wished that he had never come to Omega to join one of the gangs and that he had stayed on Tuchanka. He wished that all of this was just a nightmare that he would soon wake from. In his mind he called for his mother. He called for deliverance from the Pantheon and for forgiveness for all of his transgressions.

The man stopped right in front of him. Kota's hearts were beating so hard and fast that they were threatening to tear out of his chest. The man raised his left arm and pulled it back, poising the tips of his fingers right over Kota's chest. The crackling had grown so loud that Kota could no longer hear anything else.

Kota saw his face staring back at him in the reflective visor of the man's helmet. Please, he pleaded with his eyes. Please.

The blue field around him suddenly disappeared.

The man's hand flew towards his heart.

0702 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Black Dawn Headquarters – The Ring

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

(Charles Linde - Black Dawn)

It was all falling apart.

Charles bodily-thrust himself through the center of a mass of groaning men, shoving and pushing and pulling bodies away towards different makeshift barricades that had been erected around the large, ore-processing room where they would be making their final, defensive stand. Such was the room's purpose ever since the Black Dawn had grown into a force to be reckoned with.

Charles knew eventually that there might come a time when a larger, rival organization would come to try and exterminate them. In preparation his men had pre-emptively fortified this room in the refinery with barricades and a few heavy guns, and as with all such measures he had hoped that they would never have to use it.

"Move! Get your guns up and pointed at the doors!" Charles demanded, although things were looking more and more hopeless with each passing minute. Maybe about half of the seventy-odd survivors that had managed to gather here could still hold onto their weapons and fight in the face of the symptoms ravaging them.

"Come on! Get up!" he screamed at a man laying at his feet. Yellow vomit smeared the batarian's cheeks. He was shivering so hard that Charles thought he might have been having a seizure.

The black fog had snaked its way through the refinery like some biblical calamity straight from the old texts, causing terrible illnesses in those who had breathed it in and drowning the facility in darkness. In that darkness Charles' men shouted and begged and died—their anguished, echoing screams the final legacy that many would leave behind that night.

Charles gave an exasperated groan and kicked the whimpering batarian in the stomach before moving back deeper into the ore-processing room. It was one of the largest rooms in the refinery that they had claimed as their base. Numerous refining kilns the height and width of three men lined the walls and several more were cloistered together across the main floor, making for good cover.

The ones closest to the single entrance to the room had been removed, allowing for better sightlines from the back. Makeshift metal barricades and heavy guns were situated everywhere, aimed at the entrance. Those double-doors were designed to be the only way in.

It was a location for a defensive, fighting last stand but not a tomb. There was an exit that lay at the back, where the stairs there would take you down directly into the maintenance corridors that ran beneath the surface to where the Black Dawn had kept their cargo. Once there, one could eventually make their way to the garage to commandeer a vehicle to escape.

Five years. It had taken five years for Charles to rebuild the Black Dawn. It was not the Black Dawn of his father's day, but Charles had never wanted it to be. Unlike his father Charles was not possessed by the same grand designs nor dreams of a galaxy-spanning organization. That had been Valter's dream, and the grandeur of that ambition had been what had drawn the ire of the Council. Charles' dream was simpler – he'd get rich and live a comfortable life with decent trimmings. He had turned the Black Dawn into a mid-sized smuggling and trafficking organization. Their operations were morally bankrupt but their accounts were not. Enough credits had flowed in to keep his men happy and life had been good.

Who? Charles thought. Who would attack us like this? Charles had made good on his debtors and last he checked he was still in good standing with Aria and the big three. He would have heard if the Hierarchy or the Systems Alliance had shown up in Sahrabarik long before their ships could even land on Omega. Was it the Asari? Possibly – but an attack like this was something he would have expected from the Salarian STG, not from Asari Commandos.

Still, the men who had escaped from the living quarters below and who could shake off the effects of the fog long enough to flee had reported four-legged monsters moving too quick for the eye to see and shadows wielding strange, biotic abilities that they had never seen before. Did the attackers have varren? Were they asari justicars? Or maybe it all could be chalked up to the darkness and to the mind playing tricks or to the hallucinations cause by the fog that some men were reporting.

One thing was for sure. Whoever had attacked them had not come here to negotiate. They had come to wipe them out.

And they were succeeding.

Charles shook his head to clear it of such thoughts. No, there was still hope. He ran his thumb around the edge of his rebreather, ensuring that it was still sealed tightly around his face. It was the damned fog. Aside from coating the entire area in partial darkness, whatever it was it was causing his men to fall sick and even hallucinate. Only him and a few others had managed to get their hands on some of the special rebreathers that they kept for emergencies. If it weren't for the fog they could mount a real defence.

"Boss!" a voice called out. Charles turned and a man appeared from a behind a cloud of black fog.

"Grimjaw, is that you?"

Grimjaw was also wearing a rebreather mask, meaning he did not have his other one on – the white mask on which he had drawn a smiling face. As such, even though it was dark Charles could see beneath the transparent rebreather mask traces of the grisly wounds that covered the left side of Grimjaw's face. An old wound suffered during the twilight of his father's reign had caused him to lose almost all of the flesh from his cheek all the way down to the bottom of his jaw.

"Any word?

Grimjaw twitched. His watery eyes darted back and forth across the darkness. "The cargo is gone. Damn it, he found us after all... It's him, boss. I'm sure of it. Sure-of-it-sure-of-it-sure-of-it," he said rapidly. Charles had never seen Grimjaw so terrified and frantic. Was it the fog? Maybe his rebreather wasn't fixed properly. "It's him! Him-him-him-him-HIM!

Charles stifled a growl and grabbed Grimjaw by the shoulder. He had no time his right-hand man's usual, blithering drivel. Charles put up with it because of their history and because of Grimjaw's talents, but he'd be damned if it didn't make him want to drive a stake into his own forehead from time to time. "Who? Just say it! Who the hell is attacking us!?"

"He's back!"

"Who?!" Charles screamed. Frustration.

"We have to get the fuck out of here!"

An explosion suddenly echoed from the direction of the main entrance to the processing room. Charles and Grimjaw both turned just in time to see a humming disc of bright, blue light hurtle at high speed through the ruined doors, its illumination parting the dark fog. The disc was maybe the width of a man, had serrated edges, and it was spinning judging from the vortex of black fog swirling around it.

Charles watched in horror as it cut – no, sawed – through the mass of sick men still grouped up in the middle of the refining room. Limbs and heads went flying and some men were even bisected. It happened so quickly that the victims hadn't even had time to scream. Those who had been too sick to stand were the lucky ones.

The ground was instantly flooded with viscera and blood. The biotic disc slammed into the base of a large refining kiln where it disappeared in a flash of blue energy. What the hell was that power? Charles was somewhat well-versed in biotic capabilities. He knew biotics could use mass effect fields to move objects and even melt flesh or break down matter, but he had never seen anything like this. It was like a high-energy, condensed Warp field.

A shadowy, armored figure walked through the doors, illuminated by another humming, swirling disc of biotic energy hovering a few inches above his outstretched hand.

"It's Cloud," Grimjaw said, and Grimjaw's invocation of that one, ridiculous name instantly froze all of the blood running through Charles' veins. The figure was helmeted so Charles couldn't be certain. Was Grimjaw to be believed? No, it couldn't be, Charles thought. No. Not again.

The figure threw the biotic disc towards another group of men with the same, devastating effect – the spinning, swirling mass effect field sheared through the makeshift metal barricade they were grouped behind, leaving a mass of twitching bodies.

A few of his men began to fire wildly into the dark. Charles raised his rifle but the man had already disappeared. He scanned and scanned and those of his men who were still well enough to fight and think straight did the same, but he had vanished as if he were a ghost.

Screams suddenly erupted in another part of the refinery. Charles and Grimjaw both whirled in time to see one of their men with what appeared to be a man's arm in his chest. His protruding hand was ablaze with blue-white energy similar to what the disc had been made out of. Two other bodies lay on the ground. The air in the room began to reek of ozone and blood and sick.

The man pulled his arm out of the unfortunate Black Dawn guardsmen and then whipped his blazing hand at the head another man standing beside him. It carved through the man's lower faceplate as if it were some kind of bladed weapon and took out half of his jaw in a shower of bone and blood. The man hadn't even had time to scream. The man then executed the last two men in the group with his pistol. He then turned his helmeted head towards Charles and Grimjaw.

He took a step towards them. Charles wanted to do something – knew he should do something — but his muscles were refusing to obey him. This was it then.

Suddenly the man stumbled. He dropped to his knees and brought both hands up to his head as if he were in pain. Charles' chest flooded instantly with warm relief. There was an angel watching over him.

Charles and Grimjaw both raised their weapons at the man that Grimjaw had called Cloud. This was it. This was deliverance. The Black Dawn would survive, and Charles could continue living the good life and he could die nestled between a trio of asari dancers in one of Afterlife's backrooms like he'd intended, coated in liquor and red sand.

But when they went to pull the triggers on their guns, sparks and hot steam erupted from their barrels.

A new armored figure appeared from within the black fog. It was a quarian judging by the armor. An omni-tool unlike any that Charles had ever seen was ablaze on her wrist. She immediately ran towards the fallen man. The image of him and his preferred end was torn suddenly away, leaving a chill void that almost drove him to despair. The quarian grabbed the man beneath the arm and tried to pull him to his feet.

Grimjaw began to slowly back away, but Charles threw his rifle down and pulled out his pistol, determined to bring his dream back. He had only taken a few steps towards the pair when suddenly a third shape appeared out of the darkness, and upon seeing it Charles couldn't help but wonder if maybe the Black Fog had started to affect him as well, for he had to be hallucinating this next figure.

It was an armored mech shaped like a cat, broad-shouldered and going up to perhaps just over his waist in height. Two large fangs and a number of smaller teeth gleamed in the darkness. It also sported a pair of cannons over each shoulder that were independently pivoting and firing off shots into the darkness.

It appeared out of nowhere and hissed at him, and Charles immediately did the smartest thing he had done all night.

He threw down his pistol.

The mech jerked its feline head back ever so slightly as if it were hesitating. That split-second of near-organic reflex was what spared Charles' life, because it delayed it long enough for a barrage of gunfire – whether by accident or design — from some of the surviving Black Dawn to slam into its side.

All it did was piss it off. It hissed even louder and darted away in the direction of the gunfire. There was a cacophony of yowls punctuated by fearful screams, some more gunfire, and then silence in that area.

Charles' head was spinning from all of the chaos and from his close brush with death. His breaths were heavy. He was using more oxygen than he was taking in and his limbs felt as if they were made of lead.

There was a sound like a thunderclap and flash of blue light and suddenly the armored man had pinned Grimjaw to the ground, a pistol aimed at his temple.

That was it. The Black Dawn was finished.

Charles didn't stay to witness the fate of his oldest lieutenant. Instead he turned and began to run as hard as he could towards the stairs that lay at the back of the refinery. He wasn't going to die. Not here. Not now.

0706 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Black Dawn Headquarters – The Ring

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

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

"Cloud, what's wrong? Get up!" a distant voice called out.

Lightning bolts and starbursts scattered and danced across my blackened vision and underneath it all – pain. It felt like someone was taking a giant hammer to my head and striking me again and again and again.

I gritted my teeth and willed it all to pass. At the same time fear mounted in my chest as I continued to lay crouched onto my hands and knees – unable to move from the pain. I was helpless beneath its assault and easy meat for any Black Dawn who could manage to overcome their symptoms long enough to aim and squeeze the trigger.

"Are you okay? Kiki – I need you over here!"

You are strong now. You are stronger than you have ever been. The power you hold…you can bring them to heel. You can bring them all to their knees. Make them obey. You can bring them all back without having to shed another drop of innocent blood. No more innocent lives would have to be spent. You could save everyone. You can bring her back. You can bring her back. You can bring her back.

That wasn't me. That wasn't my voice in my head. It wasn't the star-child Tanara's either. What the hell was happening to me?

The pain suddenly abided. It abided as quickly as it had struck, evaporating like a snowflake caught under the rising sun. I gave a gasp of relief and tried my best to blink away the bolts and bursts. At the same time I felt a slim hand grab me beneath my armpit and begin to pull me up. Kel had somehow found me in the dark, and in the dark I managed to find her hand and give it a gentle squeeze.

The implant on the back of my neck was hot and the air around me reeked of ozone thanks to my new biotic powers. Shepard's implant was a marvel of biotic technology. Her home-brewed biotic techniques were brutal and most certainly illegal under intergalactic law, but I guess being the savior of the galaxy came with certain perks. Still, I could not fathom the kind of mind that could conceive of such devastating and gruesome means of destroying their enemies. Or the kind of mind that would use them.

Up ahead the man with the rebreather that had been standing beside Grin pulled out a pistol and began to advance towards us, but he stopped in his tracks when Kiki appeared out of nowhere and started to threaten him.

He dropped his pistol. Kiki looked as if she was about to tear out his throat when suddenly she was hit by gunfire coming from another part of the room. Luckily for him she decided that the others were a much higher priority and took off after them.

My attention however was on the man standing near him. Grin. Like the other man Grin was wearing a rebreather and thus he too was likely unaffected by Kel's bioweapon.

There was no time to dwell on where the pain had come from. No time to stop and think. My biotic implant was hot enough such that under normal circumstances I would have balked at using any more of my biotics but my work here was not done. The Black Dawn still existed.

I had something special planned for Grin.

I threw myself into a biotic charge directly at him, disappearing and then re-appearing in a flash of blue light. My charge knocked him to the floor and I straddled him with my pistol aimed at his head. The look of pure fear in his eyes sparked a satisfying surge of joy in my chest and I grinned back at him from beneath my helmet.

I then did a little sleight-of-hand with my other hand. Grin was shaking so bad that he hadn't even noticed. The other man with the rebreather who had dropped his weapon turned and ran, leaving Grin to my tender mercies.

My goal achieved, I began to rise. As I got up I ripped his rebreather mask off, exposing his ruined face to Kel's revenge. He immediately began to choke and cough as the black fog slithered into his mouth and crawled its way into his lungs.

I removed my helmet and gave him a tight-lipped smile. I then jerked my head over my shoulder.

He looked confused at first, but he seized on the apparent lifeline that I had presented him without further hesitation. Grin scrambled backwards away from me and then dashed away.

Kel looked at his fleeing form and then at me and then back at him again, and then the quarian raised her pistol and trained it on his back.

"Don't kill him," I said.

"What, why?"

"Trust me!" I called out behind me. I was already gone – dashing into the black fog after the Black Dawn member who had fled.

I ran harder than I had ever run. It felt like there was a force inside me compelling me towards him. Probably just my battle instincts. Like Grin, he too had been wearing a rebreather so he was probably someone important.

The man had disappeared down a door at the very back of the room that let into a long stairwell. I could hear him running down them below me.

I simply jumped down the first flight of stairs and used a bit of my biotics to soften my landing, and then I did the same thing again and again and again – traversing down the stairwell much faster than I would have if I'd taken the stairs normally. I was gaining ground fast. The fleeing man's footsteps were getting louder and louder, and I could start to hear his panicked breathing.

The stairwell fed into a small landing with a door. My prey reached it maybe two seconds before I did and dashed through the door. Beyond that door was a long, straight maintenance hallway similar to the ones we had journeyed through when we had come here seeking Narala's friend.

I passed through the door as well, and then I stopped running. I raised my pistol and took aim.

It took four shots to crack his kinetic barriers. My fifth shot sizzled into the base of his spine. He let out a cry of pain and fell like a puppet with his strings cut.

He started to crawl away from me. I kept my pistol out and decided that there was no need to rush things.

When I got close enough he flipped himself over and held up a hand to try and stop me, which allowed me to see his face through his rebreather.

The shock stopped me in my tracks. That face was one that I also hadn't seen in over five years. This one however didn't come with an empty grave in the depths of my mind but a reel of memories flashed all the same. I remembered the last time I had spoken to Charles. We had been friends then. I remembered the last words that another friend would ever say to me.

There was no mistaking it. It was him. "Charles?" I said in disbelief.

With one hand still out he dragged himself over to the wall and managed to pull himself up to a seated position. "Damn it, you got me good Cloud. Got me real good."

"Charles…" I repeated.

Charles gave a weak, apologetic grin. "I know I know. Can we just… talk for a moment, Cloud? Please?"

I gave him a cautious look. I turned my gaze upwards, to where Kel and Kiki were probably still fighting. They could handle things up there, right? The Dawn was effectively eliminated. They were broken as an organization. All that was left was to do was get rid of the few survivors that were still stubbornly clinging on to life.

I turned back to look at Charles. The tone in his voice was… he wasn't begging. He just sounded tired. Weary.

"As untrusting as ever," Charles chuckled. He grimaced in pain. "You know what kind of animal you always reminded me of Cloud? A cat. Not like a lion or a tiger or anything like that, but a regular cat. A goddamn plain-old housecat. A damn skittish one too."

A whirlwind of different emotions flitted through my chest I walked over to sit down opposite to him. I kept my pistol trained on him the whole time.

I ignored him. "The new Black Dawn… it was you then wasn't it? You revived them after I killed Valter?"

Charles let out a long-winded sigh. "Yeah… Yeah it was me."

I could not believe it. I could not. "I let you live Charles, I let you live and I told you why I did what I did and you agreed with me that it had to be done, and yet you still—"

A look of pain crossed his face. "I know… I know…"

"Why?"

Tears began to form at the corner of his eyes. "I… I don't know why," he shrugged. "Money I guess? I wanted money. I wanted a good life. I wanted—,"

"You could have had that. All of that. You could have done a thousand different things with your life. You didn't have to—,"

"I know!" Charles yelled. "I know! I'm sorry Cloud. I'm sorry!"

Genuine pain and regret filled his voice. I let out my own sigh as well and let the back of my head hit the wall behind me.

"You attacked settlements and colonies. You murdered and trafficked people."

"I did." He admitted it without an ounce of hesitation. "Cloud I… I don't have an excuse, okay? And I'm not going to offer one. I know I had a choice—I just… I don't know okay? Maybe I was just stupid. Maybe it was because it was all I'd known. Maybe I didn't think I could do anything else. I don't know okay? And besides – it doesn't matter anymore."

Charles shook his head and then turned his gaze upwards, his eyes searching somewhere above us. "That girl up there who was with you. She a quarian?"

"Yes."

"Kaziel? Linnul? Thannon?"

"Thannon."

Charles closed his eyes and let the back of his head the wall behind him as well. I couldn't help but notice the growing pool of blood beneath him.

"Not even going to try and justify it? Or deny it?"

"No," he laughed. His tears were flowing more and more freely now as his voice grew weaker and weaker. "No point. I did it. Or I ordered them to. Same thing. Their blood is on my hands as good as if I had been the one to pull the trigger. Whatever pain or loss that your friend is fighting over… I was the architect. The bodies lay at my feet."

I was about to open my mouth when he interrupted me with sharp, sudden fury. "And don't blame yourself either. What I did isn't on you – not one bit. It's on me. It's on me one hundred percent. You let me live, and that was a good deed. A kind deed. What came after… you couldn't have known. Hell, I barely knew. All that blood is on my hands, not on yours."

I nodded.

For a moment the two of us just sat there facing one another in a strangely-comfortable silence. It was almost as if the last five years hadn't happened at all. Just two friends reminiscing about the old days. I had no doubt that Charles was probably feeling the same thing.

"Cloud… I know how this ends between you and I. I'm not going to beg. Can you just… talk with me for a while? Please? As a last favor to me?"

"Depends on what you want to talk about."

Charles smiled gratefully and pulled himself up so he could sit a little bit more comfortably. "What have you been up to the last five years? What happened to you after you wiped out the Dawn and killed my father?"

I sighed again. I lowered my pistol. "I became a Spectre."

"No shit. Really? You got accepted into the Spectres?"

"Yep."

"How'd that happen?"

I looked down at the ground. "The two guys I wiped out the original Dawn with? Percival and Cade? Well it turns out they were Spectres. I was still a wanted criminal for the part we played, but they wanted to help me. They convinced the councilors to cut us a deal and grant me and Elektra Spectre status. Made it seem like we were working undercover the whole time."

"Damn," my old friend whistled. "So you've been a Spectre these last five years? You and Elektra?"

"Yes."

Charles gave a genuine laugh of happiness. "Wow. You I could kinda see it if I squint real damn hard – but Elektra? Hey Cloud, don't shoot me for this but I had the biggest crush on her back then. Always thought she was a gorgeous girl. She still alive?"

"Alive and well."

"She still gorgeous, Cloud?"

"Pretty as ever."

He cracked a shit-eating grin. "You ever tell her that?"

"No."

Charles laughed again. "Damn it, you're a real cold bastard you know? You never knew how to appreciate the things you had. You should tell her that. She wouldn't take it the wrong way, and I know she'd appreciate it."

Elektra had plenty of men — and probably a lot of women — chasing after her. She didn't need me to tell her she was pretty.

"You were always fixated on the past. On your own pain. You were always too busy indulging yourself."

I narrowed my eyes at him. Charles chuckled at my little display, as if to remind me to stop taking myself so seriously. "So, did you end up helping a lot of people as a Spectre? Were you like Shepard? Did you save a lot of people?"

Sarah… Astrid… the list went on and on and on and if I went back far enough I could arrive back at who it had all started with.

"Some."

"Good. That's good… it sounds like you've led a better life than I have. Lucky you. That's good. Hope you… do more… hope you save more… we… we had some good times, didn't we?"

"We did," I admitted. We had. Back in the day when we were both still young and we had never heard of the Black Dawn.

Charles looked as if he were almost at death's door. He had shut his eyes and had grown still, and the pool of blood beneath him had spread in size until it was almost touching my boots. He was as pale as a ghost. "Charles?" I called out.

He stirred at the sound of my voice. "I'm still here Cloud… I'm still here."

As soon as he finished answering he started to slump over again. "Hey Cloud… I was lying before. Can I actually ask you for one last favor?"

"Depends what it is."

He shivered. "I can feel it," he whispered to me, and I could hear the fear running like a current beneath his voice. "I can feel it coming for me. I don't want to go out like this. I don't want to sit here waiting for it to get me and start wondering if the end will come in the next minute or in the next one or in the next. I want to die by your hand for what I did. Can you… when you do it can you… I don't want to see it coming. I'm scared, Cloud. I'm too scared…"

I thought about it for a moment. "Sure Charles," I answered.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Thank—,"

I raised my pistol and emptied the entire heatsink into his chest. Charles grew silent and still for the final time.

I blinked away the moisture that had been forming at the corners of my own eyes and pulled myself to my feet. I cast one last look down at my old friend. A shaky breath escaped my lips.

As I turned to walk away a spike of pain jabbed its way right into my temples once more.

Dead. He's dead like all the others. He was wrong though you know. It was your fault. You could have stopped him all those years ago. You didn't do enough. You never do enough. Even though you're the only one who can. You're the only one who can bring them back. You can bring them back—all of them, every last one of them. You can bring her back.

What is going on with me? I wondered. Just like the last time, the pain disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

I shook my head to clear my mind of those rogue thoughts. "Goodnight, Charles."

0747 hours, April 10th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

The Ring

(Spectre Operative 04272182-Cloud)

If you fly down Omega's stem, at the very end of it you would find yourself in a massive, cylindrical chamber hundreds of meters long and wide. At the very end of the chamber was a platform in the shape of a ring. Old, abandoned buildings lay scattered across the ring. Many of them were large refineries such as the building that the Black Dawn had chosen as their headquarters, but there were also recycling facilities and what looked like housing units as well. Relics of a time when this area used to receive ships carrying ore and other raw materials that would be refined in those buildings.

A dead city lay at the bottom of Omega. A forgotten city.

Spanning the entirety of the inner part of the ring was a shimmering, blue mass effect field that was still functioning after all these years. It probably drew power from Omega's original, centralized power system. It was what allowed the chamber to remain pressurized and hold its own oxygen. In the old days, ships would pass into Omega through the ring and through the field to dock and deliver their goods.

The mass effect field bathed the entire city in soft, blue light. A small, slim form was standing on top of the field near its very center.

I stepped out onto the field, making my way slowly towards her. The field felt slightly porous beneath my boots, as if I were walking on top of a field of grass. Beneath and beyond the field was nothing but stars and black space. Starring down left me with a feeling of vertigo. It was like walking over a glass floor suspended over a bottomless chasm.

Her dark, purple hair tumbled in soft, wavy curls down to her shoulders. The field was bathing her in the same tender, blue lighting that permeated the ring. Kel'Raynea's helmet lay on the field beside her.

I reached out and grabbed her softly by the shoulder. She leaned into my touch.

"Kel…" I whispered.

She turned around and looked up at me. Her silver, luminescent eyes glimmered with tears.

"It's done…" she said. Her voice was thick and heavy with emotion. "The Black Dawn… they're really gone."

I nodded. Grin was still out there but he was as good as dead. Without Charles the Dawn was effectively finished.

"I thought… I thought I'd feel different," Kel admitted to me. "I thought I'd feel lighter… happier… like I'd get this feeling that I'd know for certain that my family was finally at rest."

"I told you. Killing them wouldn't make your pain go away."

"You did… so what do I do now?"

"I don't know," I admitted to her. Tears rolled silently down her cheeks, pooling right at the edge of jaw.

I brushed away one such tear with my thumb. She didn't stop me. I was surprised by how soft her skin was.

"You're farther along than I am. I never got to kill the Reapers that killed my mother. You live I suppose. You live and you try to get over it, or if you feel like you can't – if you feel like the only relief you'll get is the relief from… "

My words trailed off but Kel knew what I meant. "Well… try and make sure you're not hurting anyone who doesn't deserve to be hurt."

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and nodded. "Ancestors… when you say it like that… when you say it like that you make the both of us sound crazy," she said, half laughing and half crying.

"Because it is crazy. It's not healthy and it makes no sense, but it's real all the same. You know I'm right. You've felt what I've felt now. The pain is back but while you were fighting the Dawn you were free of it, weren't you?"

The quarian swallowed. She didn't disagree. She had learned firsthand that everything that I had told her had been true. Now she understood why I had fought so hard to steer Narala way from all of this.

"Will you… will you stay with me then, Cloud?" Kel asked. "To keep me from—"

I don't know why I said what I said next, but I did. And right before I said it I finally realized why I hadn't tried as hard to steer Kel away from walking down the same path that I did.

I had been walking on that path alone for far too long.

I gazed tenderly into her silver eyes, took both of Kel's hands in my own and I squeezed them tight.

"I promise," I said to her. "I promise you Kel'Raynea. I'll stay with you. I'll stay for as long as you want me to and for as long as you need me to. I'm here Kel, I'm here… You're not alone anymore."

Kel tore her hands away from mine. My breath hitched in my chest and my heart stopped beating all at once. She threw them around my neck and pulled me towards her.

Her lips were as soft as the skin on her cheek. Softer even.