Interlude 01: Hope
In the days and weeks before the arrival of the human ark Hyperion things looked desolate for the remaining population of the Nexus. With a good majority of the station's planned hydroponics destroyed and much of the station's reactors destroyed or disabled things were grim for those of the station's crew who remained awake. As for the remaining fourteen thousand souls in cryo-stasis, the needed power to keep the pods running was starting to become a concern, and with no power, those people would need to be awoken which make things any worse. Luckily though the Hyperion's arrival changed things for the better for the besieged station and its crew…
- Taken from E-Tome The Andromeda Initiative: A New Dawn by Catherynne Alexander (1)
Office of Security Director
Station Operations, Nexus
Garson (2), Zheng He System
November 7, 2819 CE
In his darkened office in the middle of the former Initiative Security Headquarters just outside of Nexus Operations the Director of the recently formed Initiative Militia Tiran Kandros was reading through various reports from both his men and other sections of the overall larger Initiative. Though with only around three thousand souls currently awake on the station, there weren't all that many reports to read. However if the station's remaining power supply finally kicked the bucket, then the remaining fourteen thousand people still in cryo-stasis would have to be awakened from their pods which would give Kandros and his men far more trouble than just simple reports. Mainly due to no power to allow those people to live comfortably on the station, no Outposts on viable planets to temporarily relocate those people, and with much of the station's hydroponics destroyed during the Uprising there was no food to feed those people. It was a mess all around for the remaining population of the station.
With a sigh, the turian signed one report from the station's engineering department about their projected time on repairs to the station's single remaining reactor before moving on to the next one which he started to read. Immediately he clutched his mandibles in some anger as the report mentioned another dozen or so people had all-out left the station taking another pair of shuttles out of their rapidly diminishing inventory of auxiliary craft. Luckily this bunch didn't take off with one of their remaining scout ships (3) like the last group had done. That said, he couldn't really fault those people for trying to live on this half-dead station was currently not all that much with little power remaining and all their food from prepackaged stored field rations which were rapidly being depleted. No, he was more angered at them taking another pair of shuttles which he could have used to evacuate the remaining population on station when the day where no power remained. With a shake of his head, the young turian Director looked over a nearby small holographic screen showing a count of the remaining, awake, population on the station, and with a short command, he took off fifteen from the count.
"Spirits," he mumbled with a flinch for the station's remaining population was now at three thousand seven souls. Once more he silently cursed the former Director of Initiative Security Sloane Kelly for her mutiny which got her, and three thousand five hundred people exiled off the station combined with several smaller groups who had either left the station like those fifteen from the report or for some reason had gotten themselves exiled had the vast majority of the Initiative's current awake population off the station. Though that didn't count the hundreds of people they had lost from hitting the Scourge when they first entered the Cluster, the few dozen people that had died during the Uprising, the couple hundred souls they had lost on Eos trying to build Outposts on that damned planet and around a few hundred other souls they had lost through various means since the Uprising all those months ago.
"We are so fucked," the Director whispered to himself with a short-depressed chuckle over his use of a term he had heard a human friend of his once said back in the Milky Way Galaxy. He suddenly was jolted from his inner thoughts and depression when a young female turian nearly ran into his office from the Militia's Central Command Room next door to his office.
"Boss! We got a problem!" the turian called out making Kandros groan at something else happening to make things even worse for them.
"What is it this time Lieutenant?" he replied to the younger turian in some frustration.
"One of the engineers with Sergeant Lannit's Patrol through the Atrium reported that he saw a shuttle landing at one of the Atrium's landing pads," Lieutenant Marina Salix reported making Kandros gape at her in some surprise before gritting his mandibles in some irritation.
"I guess one of the Outcast groups finally managed to get the nerve to hit the station for any needed supplies or parts," he growled out in some anger as he got up from his seat to move to his arms locker.
"The Outcasts? What about the Exiles? (4)" Lieutenant Salix asked in some confusion making the Director look up from browsing his arms locker.
"The Exiles would have brought more than one shuttle," he replied with a snort as he pulled his modified X5 Ghost Assault Rifle from the arms locker along with an M5 Heavy Pistol before collapsing them and putting them on his armor's storage locks. That done he started to move towards the door leading to the Control Room.
"True sir," the Lieutenant replied as she followed him out of his office.
"Corporal Nema!" he barked out entered the Control Room making the three technicians manning the room to almost jump in surprise.
"Yes sir," the salarian corporal replied back as Kandros looked up at the various holographic monitors showing different security feeds across the station. After a few moments of searching he found one feed showing six human-looking figures creeping through a darkened corridor.
"Pass on my orders to Sergeant Lannit that he is to take his squad to tail these people but he is not to do anything to them till I get there," he ordered the short Salarian technician making the man nod in response at the orders before leaning over the nearby communication console to pass those orders on to the distant patrol Sergeant.
"Sir. Shouldn't you have Lannit try to bring them in," Lieutenant Salix mentioned in a low tone next to him.
"I want to see if I can talk them down before any shots are fired," he replied in an equal voice as he eyed the holographic feed with a frown. He noticed something was different with the hard suits of the forward two humans and briefly wondered if he was seeing a different series of hard suits from that of the Explorer or Defender (5)Series Hardsuits used by most of the humans in the Initiative at large which many Outcast groups still used in some form. A moment later he shook his head for it perhaps was some sort of modification to the armor.
"Sir. Sergeant Lannit has acknowledged the orders and now moving to tail the unknowns," came the weedy voice of Corporal Nema breaking the Director from his inner thoughts.
"Understood," he replied back to the salarian before turning to his Lieutenant.
"Salix I want you to remain here and in command," he ordered the woman who looked a bit upset over his orders but only nodded in agreement. He then placed a hand on another of the militia sitting at one of the consoles.
"Aera you are with me," he ordered the young asari Maiden before starting to head out of the Control Room. The asari quickly followed behind him as Kandros left the headquarters building heading towards the nearest tram station. As he walked up to the station, he nodded to one of the militia guarding the station. This was mainly to prevent anyone from using the tram and using much-needed power to travel somewhere unknown in the mammoth-sized station where they could get lost or injured from many different still-under-construction areas of the station.
"Kosta (6) come with me," he ordered the man before entering an override command into the station's control station.
"Yes sir," the fully armored human militia member replied and quickly fell in behind Kandros as he entered the tramcar. Once inside in the car, he turned to look at his two followers.
"Okay. We have six humans that have arrived at the station via a shuttle who is now creeping along somewhere in the atrium," Kandros mentioned to the two of them as the tram car sped along towards the station's atrium. He knew he could have taken the very short hike via conventional means to the atrium instead of taking the tram but he wanted to get this done as quickly as possible.
"Currently Sergeant Lannit has his squad shadowing them and once we arrive we are going to confront them. That said, I don't want to engage them instead I want to see if I can talk them down before the bullets start flying," he continued on with his orders to the two militia members who looked at one another for a moment before turning their attention back to him.
"Understood sir," the human Liam Kosta replied with a nod of his head.
"Yes, Director," the asari Aera T'Lera replied in a quiet voice soon afterward.
Nodding Kandros turned away from the two to stare at the tram's control console and briefly wondered what was going to happen with this future confrontation. He really did not want to kill six more former members of the Initiative when there were still vastly more kett out there waiting to kill them all. However, to defend the station and the remaining civilians asleep in their stasis pods, he would do whatever it takes even if he hates himself for it. With a sigh, he sat back in his seat as the tram car continued on towards the atrium and to a meeting that unknown to the young Director was going to change everything.
Central Plaza
Atrium, Nexus
A few minutes later found Kandros and his two followers arrived at the station's atrium just in time to see the six unknowns exiting the atrium's lower levels and entering the Central Plaza of the atrium. Directing the others to duck into the nearby empty storefront the Director eyed the six unknowns as he hid in the shadows underneath the second floor's main terrace.
"Sergeant where you at?" he whispered into his radio as he watched the new arrivals approaching the holographic form of the VI Avina.
"Up on the second floor near the Gardens (7) sir," came the answer from the salarian sergeant that had Kandros looked up slightly, and after a few moments, he found the shadowed figures of the sergeant's team hiding along the stairwell leading to the Plaza's second floor.
"Understood. Stay put. I want to see what these unknowns are going to do," he ordered the man before turning his attention back to the unknown figures as they tried to ask Avina something making Kandros snort. Avina was one of the many systems of the station which had some issues therefore it wouldn't be all that useful.
"Sir. Something is up here. They kind of looked surprised to find Avina here and are now a bit aggravated with her answers," came the whispered comment from Kosta making Kandros nod in some agreement for it was starting to look like these people were not Outcasts he thought they were, and he briefly wished he knew they were talking about but like his team, they were talking through their helmet-mounted radios. Luckily, they were still talking via helmet speakers to Avina, and with a slight touch to his Omni-Tool, he upped the output on his helmet's microphone to pick up what the VI was saying.
"Woah. What did they just do to Avina!" came Kosta's almost shout over the radio making Kandros look at the holographic VI to see it straighten up in a stance of attention before turning to one of the figures in the team of unknowns.
"Pathfinder Codes accepted. How may I help you today, Pathfinder?" Avina said to that figure making Kandro's mandibles flare open in some shock while a gasp from Kosta over the radio gave the impression he was also managing to listen into the conversation.
"A pathfinder? I can't believe it! That figure isn't wearing Pathfinder armor, and it's too short to be Alec Ryder. Not to mention I don't see Ark Hyperion," Kosta babbled out after recovering from his surprise. Kandros however was eying the figure before silently waving both Kosta and Aera to follow him.
"True Kosta, but they have Pathfinder codes which are quite hard to duplicate, and I would guess something happened with the Hyperion on their arrival just like what happened to us," the Director mentioned before starting to walk towards the group as the short figure of the Pathfinder turned back to Avina.
"Very well Avina. Please access the data core and give me a rundown on what has happened with the Nexus since arrival in Andromeda?" a female voice from the figure of the new Pathfinder asked over her helmet speakers.
"Why don't you ask that of a real person over that of a Virtual Intelligence Pathfinder?" (8) Kandros found himself saying as he along with both of his followers came up behind the group. He almost snorted as the team whipped around in surprise at his voice but still, he was quite impressed at their reaction speed. It only took a couple of seconds for weapons to appear in their hands and point at him.
"Who are you?" came the same female voice from the center figure which he figured was the new human Pathfinder.
"I'm Tiran Kandros, I am the leader of the Militia on the Nexus and also the Director of Initiative Security," he replied to her with a short nod of his head making the guns drop slightly at his introduction.
"I thought Sloan Kelly was Director of Security," came another, more male voice, from a taller figure near the back of the group. Kandros looked over at him seeing the red cross on the shoulders of his armor making him a medic if he recalled correctly.
"She was but a lot has happened since our arrival fourteen months ago," he replied before turning his attention back to the smallish figure of the new Pathfinder.
"Now I see something has happened to you all as well for Alec Ryder was the human Pathfinder last time I checked," he mentioned and caught the barest flinch from the new Pathfinder.
"Yes. We ran into some trouble when we arrived and the role of Pathfinder passed onto me his daughter Sara Ryder," the figure replied making Kosta behind Kandros gasp in some surprise.
"You are one of the Guardians of Eden Prime! You were a member of Commander Shepard's team," (9) the man mentioned in an excited voice making Kandros almost groan at the man's comment and his overexcited nature showing itself.
"Oh, look ma'am. It's a fan," drawled a voice from the figure to the right of the Pathfinder making Kandros snort in some amusement.
"Shut it, Robert," the Pathfinder snapped out before turning to look at Kosta and Kandros.
"Yes, I am one of the Guardians of Eden Prime and I was on the Commander's ground team from Eden Prime up to the destruction of the Normandy. That said I am now the Pathfinder therefore I would like to know what in the world happened here?" she asked the two of them making Kandros almost take a step back in some surprise at her intensity. Kosta meanwhile gulped in some fear making Kandros hum in amusement.
"Sure Pathfinder, but before I answer that I need to ask where is the Hyperion right now since we saw you arriving in a shuttle?" he asked back and she chuckled lightly before holding a hand up to her helmet in the universal sign of privately talking to someone via internal communications. (10) This lasted a few minutes before lowering her hand and chuckling quietly before she looked up with a slight nod to the windows that made up the "ceiling" of the station's central ring. Normally they would sport a holographic screen over them showing a blue or night sky depending on the time of day inside the Nexus, but right now those screens were off due to the matter of no real way of powering them currently. Hence the windows gave an interesting view looking down at the bottom set of ward arms which had a slight blue tint from the gaseous atmosphere of the gas giant of Garson. Now though much to the shock of the Nexus residents something new was now able to be seen the "top" of the Ark Hyperion flying underneath the atrium and its central plaza. Several smaller lights could be seen buzzing around the larger ship which looked to be escorting fighters and shuttles. The ship continued to move through the center of the station through the central ring of the station and out of the other side of the station.
"That answers your question Director Kandros," the Pathfinder mentioned with a mirth-filled voice jolting the turian out of his shock and bringing his attention back down to look at the new Pathfinder.
"Oh, I think it does," Kandros replied to the smug-looking short human woman. "If you give me a few minutes I need to let a few people know that somehow a large dreadnaught-sized object managed to sneak up on us?"
"Oh. Go ahead Director but I still want those answers to my questions," the Pathfinder replied with a wave of her hand.
"You will get them I promise Pathfinder. Now if you excuse me," he said in return before holding his own hand to his helmet as he quickly accessed its internal radio with a few eyeblinks.
"Silax? This is Kandros are you reading me," he said over the radio to his second in command back in the Militia's Central Command Center.
"Yes, sir we are reading you just fine. I take it you managed to figure out who our guests happen to be," the other turian asked in return with a curious tone of voice making Kandros chuckle a bit in response. She and the others in the Control Center had to be bursting with questions of their own since most likely they had been following everything with the cameras. Sadly, for them, those cameras didn't have microphones built into them therefore did not hear what was being said just that for some reason had shocked him and the others.
"Oh yes, it is quite a wonderful surprise," he replied in an excited voice before just suddenly changing the frequency of his radio preventing the woman from replying at the moment.
"Haw this is Kandros you up yet?" he questioned the other person on this radio frequency. A short yawn answered him before a mumble followed it.
"You know me Kandros I am pretty much always up lately. I can't afford to be asleep currently as you know," Chief of Operations Miriallia Haw (11) answered with yet another yawn making Kandros shake his head slightly at this knowing that like pretty much everyone in the station's main operations room Chief Haw had been at their stations for pretty much eighteen to twenty hours in a row as they try to keep the station active for a little bit longer. The Chief though has been awake for the last forty hours due to a smattering of reports about a few power couplings blowing up across the station much to the confusion of the Op Room techs and Superintendent Kesh (12).
"Well my dear I have something you may enjoy and wake you up like nothing else," he shot back with a short chuckle.
"Oh. If it doesn't fix the issues with our power then I don't think it will Director," the young human woman mentioned in a sour tone.
"It will fix that and more Chief," he said to her stopping one of her exhausted yawns cold and Kandros could now imagine her leaning forward in her seat with narrowed eyes as she was wondering where he was going with this conversation.
"Okay, now you got my attention you crazy turian. What do you have under that fringe of yours?" she asked him with a hidden threat that he better not be playing around with her for she was quite chummy with Kesh after all.
"Nothing much but first I have to ask, have you checked the Upper Ward Cameras in the last few minutes? Since with the nearby patch of Scourge and all of this gas around us the sensors are pretty much blind currently," he questioned her with a hidden smile in his words.
"Ummm… No. There is nothing out there Kandros you know that," she said in reply but Kandros knew she was doing exactly what he told her to do and a moment later there was a loud crash followed by a litany of human curses. He guessed she had fallen out of her chair in shock at what she had seen on the cameras then a bang as she returned to her chair.
"THE HELL! Is that…" came the sputtering voice of Chief Haw a moment later. He then heard a loud beep and a few distant-sounding gasps of surprise along with a curse or two. Kandros almost laughed out loud for it sounded like she had sent the feed from the cameras up to the main screen of the operations room.
"Yup. Ark Hyperion has arrived. And you're welcome Miriallia," he returned with a short chuckle for it seemed like things were starting to look up for the Nexus and its battered crew.
"Chief I do believe that there are a few people on that ship who are quite worried that no one has answered their radio calls and I know you would like to hear some further good news. So get to work," he halfway ordered the young woman who quickly shook off her shock and started to bark out orders to her Ops Crew.
"Oh, and can you send someone to notify the Directors about this, please? I have a few more things I need to take care of on the Atrium before I head back to Operations," he mentioned a moment later.
"Of course, Kandros now I need as you put get to work so I shall be seeing you later," the woman replied before all-out cutting the channel making Kandros huff in some irritation.
"Thanks," he said to empty air before returning his attention to the Pathfinder and her party who had been pretty much silent so far since the start of his radio call though they all had doffed their helmets in the meantime while at his side he noticed Kosta had taken off his own helmet as he excitedly eyed the figure of Sara Ryder who was softly chatting with the man with the red cross on his armor. Still, he was sure there are going to be plenty of shocked surprises and then all-out excitement from the rest of the station's crew when this news started to spread. Hence he wasn't going to be upset over Kosta removing his helmet without his order to do so. At the corner of his eye, he noticed Aela still standing at full attention and he sighed knowing that the rest of her family was on the asari ark therefore she wouldn't be that excited about the appearance of the Hyperion and wishing it was the Leusinia instead.
"I do believe I am finished knocking some heads together for this screw-up," he said out loud with his helmet's loudspeaker a moment later.
"So shall we walk as we talk for I am sure when the rest of the Directors hear about your arrival they will want to talk to you as soon as possible," he continued on with a wave of his arm towards the entrance to the Tram Station behind him.
"That sounds quite wonderful Director thank you," the Pathfinder said with a beaming smile as she started to follow behind him with the rest of her team following behind her. Kandros could only sigh for a while the arrival of the Hyperion meant some issues could now be solved though that said not everything could be solved right now. However, for the Nexus and its people, it was a start. Most of all it provided them that ever-useful tool: hope. It gave them all the hope that things were now looking up for them and hope that the mission of the Initiative was not dead as some believed it to be since their arrival in the galaxy when things started to go wrong. For hope was a powerful motivator to many and one that could turn an all-out defeat into a victory.
-o-Chapter End-o-
Post Chapter Notes
Well here is the story's first Interlude chapter where we either explore the point of view of another character or explore another storyline further than what we see in the main storyline. For this Interlude we got to explore Director Tiran Kandros, Director of Initiative Security and overall commander of the newly formed Andromeda Initiative Militia a bit. We also briefly explored the grim outlook of the Nexus and its population before the arrival of the Hyperion and the Pathfinder Team. Also, this chapter serves as a branch in between Chapter Two and Chapter Three which we see the meeting between Kandros with the Pathfinder from the Point of View of Kandros himself instead of the Pathfinder. This is something we really did not see in the handful of Andromeda stories out there currently.
Anyhow, that said an interesting chapter which I kind of went a bit wild in the scheme of things which saw me rewriting a few parts several times. The opening of the chapter was originally far longer which further explained what had been happening with the Nexus and its population since their arrival in Andromeda. I then pretty much cut it down to what we have now. I still hope that it is not too long and infodumpy. I also kind of made up a few things with the backstory of the Nexus. By that, I mean that it is stated in this chapter that only just over three thousand souls are currently awake on the station while another four thousand or so are now pretty much exiled from the station. Around three thousand of those folks make up the main Exiled Faction having followed Sloane Kelly into exile with the rest being the so-called Outcasts. Speaking of the latter one thing mentioned in this chapter is that the Nexus population has slowly been losing people as they flee the dying station to see if they can survive out in the wilds sort of speak. Then finally it is mentioned there remains another fourteen thousand people still in stasis onboard the station and they fear what happens when they have no choice but to wake those people up.
With all that said I want to mention one thing about the ending scene. The bit where the Hyperion flies through the central area of the station is something that I have been imagining since the start of this story. Hence, I had to put it in this chapter with some suitable modifications with the windows allowing everyone nearby the windows to see the Ark as it flies by. Another reason I added it was due to the whole Destiny's Ascension fly-by in the first game was one of the best scenes in the first game in my humble opinion. I just had to have something similar in this story as a nod to it. I was going to have someone mention it was like seeing the Ascension fly by the Wards of the Citadel, maybe Sara or Kosta but I decided against it really for it really did not fit into the scene all that well.
Okay, that is enough out of me for now. I really did not want to write out such a lengthy post-chapter note, but it happened. That said, next chapter we shall be returning to the point of view of Sara Ryder and her team as they met up with the Initiative Directors. So I shall see you all then! Ciao!
Chapter Annotations
1. This name is actually putting the names of two writers for the Mass Effect Andromeda books together. I figured it was a nice touch and it will be something I may continue with other prefaces like that in the future.
2. Apparently, the Gas Giant that the Nexus is currently orbiting doesn't sport a name in either the game or the backstory as far as I know. I have heard it named something completely different reflecting the System name which is named after an ancient Chinese Maritime Explorer with a few other planets of the system named after a few of his officers. However, I have named it Garson currently after Jien Garson, but it may change in the future by being renamed Garson later on in the story.
3. Something that I wanted to expand on with this story is that the Andromeda Initiative had more ships in its inventory than just the basic Kodiak-based regular shuttle, and the large Transport Shuttle outside of the Tempest. Hence, the Initiative also sports several larger scout ships that work alongside the Tempest and her sisters in surveying the Heleaus Cluster. Yes. We will be seeing more ships of the class in this story. I also have a couple of CODEX entries written up that properly introduce both the Tempest Class and the scout ship design, but that won't be till we get properly introduced to them in a couple of chapters.
4. As I mentioned in the post-chapter note there exists the main exiled faction which followed Sloan in her exile. Then there are the Outcasts which are smaller groups of former Initiative personnel who either were later exiled from the station for some reason or left the station voluntarily. They are split into numerous different groups with numbers ranging from a dozen or so people up to around a hundred. Since I have plans for the Exiles the Outcasts will serve as the main secondary antagonist of the story alongside the Roekaar.
5. I have expanded the Initiative hardsuits from my earlier thoughts on them where there were three main sub-types for human and asari members of the Initiative. The basic Explorer, the armored Spearpoint, and the Pathfinder armor. I have since expanded that count from three to four sub-types with the Defender being inserted in between the Explorer and the Spearpoint which will be the hardsuits being used by Initiative Security which is later inherited by the Militia. The Spearpoint would then be operated solely by the Pathfinder Team and later APEX will start to use them as well later in the story.
6. Yes, we finally got Liam Kosta appearing in the story, but in this story, he remains a member of the new Initiative Militia and may later join an APEX Team. I still have him as the loveable goofball though as he is the one who points out the identity of Sara Ryder around the mid-point of the chapter.
7. The Gardens is an area I created that is the hydroponics area of the Common Area in the game but here it isn't for the station's real hydroponics area is somewhere else on the station. The Gardens though can act as emergency food production if needed but are mainly there to make the Atrium (Common Area) a bit more homely looking.
8. We shall get this a lot in the Interlude chapters seeing conversations from another's point of view which shall make things a bit interesting in the long run.
9. The Guardians of Eden Prime is a press-created nickname I created for Ashley Williams and Sara Ryder for an earlier version of my planned Mass Effect 1 story before I created this story. This is mostly due to them being the only two survivors of the Marine unit stationed on the colony and their efforts in defending the populace of the colony. Originally it was going to be a nickname for Sara Ryder due to her single handily defending one of the civilian shelters from the attacking Geth. However, for this story, I ended up using it for both Sara and Ashley.
10. This is something I have seen in some cutscenes of the original trilogy where Shepard is either talking to a distant squadmate or the Normandy. They place a hand on the side of their helmet as they are talking. Therefore, I have it as a universal sign used by many armored soldiers to signal that they are in communicating through helmet-mounted radio to a distant source.
11. Ah! My first of my transplanted characters from another fandom. Miriallia Haw from Mobile Suit Gundam SEED is turned into Chief of Nexus Operations Miriallia Haw in this story. She is the unnamed character we see in the Operations Area who was talking to the Hyperion as your character talking to Kesh. Also, I figured the Nexus needed a character who is pretty much in control of the Central Operations of the entire station hence I introduced her to the story. Though sadly we won't be seeing her all that much I am sad to say. That said though there are going to be other characters seen in the story which are also going to be transplanted from another fandom. One already kind of showed up in the last chapter but hasn't really had a chance to be properly introduced just yet. Though she is really a merging of a couple of characters one from Mass Effect and the other from another fandom.
12. Whistles Innocently. Those who have played the game know what is going on here, but I am not going to spoil it for those who haven't played the game or for some reason never managed to get that mission.
