Chapter 69: Other Side


Time Unknown, April 11th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

[Time and Date unknown], [Location Unknown]

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

[user unknown]

I was surrounded by endless trees. They were dead trees, stripped of all life and color. Soft whispers emanated from their gnarled bodies, pleading in a language that I could not understand. Their desiccated limbs reached towards the sky like outstretched fingers.

The air tasted stale and dead and each breath I took seemed to rob me of my strength rather than adding to it. A thick blanket of fog hung over the forest, swirling and shifting around me. I thought I could see silhouettes of people standing deeper within the forest, covered by the fog. As the fog moved it would sometimes break in places shrouding these silhouettes, but in those gaps all I would see were more, dead trees.

The sky above was as gray as the fog. Not a single ray of light came from above. There was no whistling of wind or the rustling of leaves or any other sounds that marked a living, healthy forest.

Just the whispers.

I stood there in a half-daze. Time passed, though I wasn't sure how much of it had. It felt like seconds, or maybe it was minutes. My sense of time seemed to change with every passing moment. At times it felt like hours.

Suddenly, I heard a branch being broken behind me. I turned.

Tanara appeared out of the fog, staring at me with her glowing, silver eyes. The sight of her ripped me out of my stupor. "Tanara, where are we?"

Unlike the last time that I had seen her Tanara was not smiling now. "Tanara?" I repeated. I walked up to her. The look on her face was unsettling. It chilled me to my core.

Then her cheeks began to quiver and her eyes started to glisten with tears. "I'm scared," she whispered.

Achimundé had said that she was the one whom the Index was trying to bring back to life using my body. Despite knowing all of that, a part of me couldn't help but feel protective of her. She was just a child.

I knelt down and pulled her into a gentle hug, resting a hand upon her head just between her two horns. "Hey, it's okay. I'm here with you now."

She wrapped her arms around me and buried her face in my chest. "I do not want to be here anymore," she pleaded.

As I stroked her head I took in my surroundings, trying to get a better sense of where we were. I realized that all of this looked familiar. It reminded me of the forest clearing that I had seen her last, near the road that had led to the city that she had lived in.

I looked around, trying to spot the road, but I couldn't see it. Maybe we were deeper in the forest than we were last time.

I let her go and stood up. "Here," I said, offering my hand. "Lets try and find a way out of here."

Tanara looked up at me with tears in her eyes, and then at my hand. She nodded and slipped her small hand into mine.

I looked around again, trying to figure out just exactly where I should go. It all looked the same. Nothing but dead trees and fog.

We were in my dreams again, but this time felt different. Everything felt more real. In fact, all of my dreams had felt like they were becoming more and more real over time. The first few dreams of mine had felt like true dreams, where I was simply a passive observer. An unbidden actor. With each successive dream, I was gaining more and more agency until I felt like I was almost completely myself in the last few.

I had always woken up before. Why hadn't I woken up yet?

The sky suddenly darkened and a massive, black shadow began to slither its way across the forest floor. Tanara turned her gaze upwards. Her hand started to squeeze mine in a death grip.

Then I heard the horn. Its singular note was ice-cold and echoed with the weight of eons. My eyes followed hers.

Above me was a massive, alien starship made of dark-purple plate. Six massive, segmented legs extended outwards in front of it, reminiscent of the legs of an insect. Its body swept backwards, curving towards the sky and ending in a tapered point like the body of one of Earth's squids. No organic species would have been capable of shaping metal like that on a scale that large.

I recognized it immediately. I'd seen ships like these before in videos and in holo-films. I'd seen them before when I was a small child.

A Reaper.

I placed myself in front of Tanara. This Reaper looked different. Unlike the ones I'd seen in old war footage, this one had no red lights emitting from its bow. Its plates were pitted and dull and covered in heavy carbon scoring. It looked like it was rotting.

The whispers grew louder and louder. Wake up, I told myself. You need to wake up.

A voice, deep and ominous, cut through the whispers. It spoke a single word.

In an instant, my senses where overwhelmed and I felt my soul being torn apart.

Obey.


0433, April 11th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

Amin District

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

(Spectre Operative Cade Kitiarian)

Cade pulled himself shakily to his feet. He ignored the blood seeping from the wound in his side and shoved away a hand that had wrapped itself around his pauldron, trying to pull him back down. Cade could hardly keep himself upright against the wind that battered the rooftops, but none of that mattered to him in the moment.

"Cloud!" Cade called out towards his friend. Cloud had dropped to his knees with his hands wrapped around his head. Cade couldn't see his friend's face. What was he doing?

"I took a sample from him and compared it to your DNA. Somehow its real. It's all true. He is all that's left of Martha," Shepard said to Locke. "Tom, if you keep going down this path you're not just going to doom billions of innocent people. You're going to lose the last bit of her that still survives. She wouldn't want that, Tom—I know she wouldn't. Stop this, I'm begging you!"

The Project commander ignored Shepard. He stood there wordlessly, his eyes flicking between the photo he clutched in one trembling hand and at the person who was apparently the son he had thought dead for the last twenty-five years. Cade himself couldn't believe it. Spirits, it wasn't possible. Was it?

"Tom!" Severus called out. The other Project commander appeared beside Locke and grabbed his arm.

"Snap out of it," Severus said. The white-scaled turian eyed the bodies of their soldiers scattered across the roof. "This fight's over, we need to go."

As if on cue, another squadron of gunships arrived. Cade hissed. In a few minutes the Project could have another several dozen troopers on the rooftop. Garrus and Miranda both began to engage the gunships as did the Kodiak they had arrived in. Beside him Cade heard Liara saying something to Kel'Raynea about getting somewhere safe.

Shepard however stood completely still, her attention completely focused on Locke.

Cloud suddenly stumbled to his feet, and Cade gasped. Beneath his friend's matted, black hair Cade had caught a glimpse of Cloud's eyes. His friend's eyes had always been an icy, lightning-blue, but now blue light was almost pouring out of them. His eyes looked inhuman.

His eyes looked just like a Corpser's eyes.

The skin around his eyes had turned black, as if burnt, and he looked even paler than before if that was at all possible, but otherwise his friend did not have any other Corpser traits. Cade shivered. Something wasn't right. Something felt very, very wrong. "Cloud, are you okay?" Cade called out again, but his friend still did not reply.

Cloud locked eyes with the Project commander and while Cade saw Locke's eyes widen at the sight of the sudden changes to his son's appearance, the former N7 was quick to recover. The two humans just stared wordlessly at one another. For a moment, Cade thought he could actually see the resemblance between the two. Both of them squared their shoulders the same way, both of them had the same melancholic, mopey aura, and both of them were capable of conjuring up the same, emotionless expression.

Cade coughed and the taste of copper filled his mouth. "Cloud! We've got to go!"

His friend still didn't acknowledge him. Instead, Cloud began to back up towards the edge of the building. When he reached the ledge, he took another step up onto it.

Cade's heart sank into his stomach. Spirits, not again.

His friend took a final step back. He didn't even spare Cade so much as a glance. In a flash he was gone.

A flash of anger surged through Cade. He'd done it again. That plate-less bastard had done it again.

"Tom! It's time to go!" Severus shouted. The sight of his son disappearing finally broke Locke free of his trance. He blinked and looked around before looking back at Shepard. A gunship landed behind the two and opened its doors.

"Let her go, Tom," Shepard pleaded one last time.

Locke looked like he was about to reply, but he stopped himself at the last minute. He leapt into the waiting gunship with Severus and that scale-rot of a salarian.

The gunship lifted off and retreated, followed by its brethren. As it did Cade saw Locke's gaze fixed on the spot where his son had disappeared.

Cade felt his strength suddenly deflate dangerously, to the point where he thought he'd keel over. Before he could fall however Garrus had wrapped an arm around Cade's shoulders.

"Hey, you're going to be alright kid. If you're not dead yet then its nothing we can't fix," Garrus promised, holding him up. Unlike Shepard, Garrus didn't have so much as a speck of human blood on him. His battered, old visor was still clinging stubbornly to his face.

The Kodiak landed as well. Kasumi pulled open the door and waved them over. Garrus began to help Cade hobble over while Liara did the same with Kel'Raynea. Behind them, Shepard and Miranda were engrossed in a quiet conversation that Cade couldn't overhear.

Cade coughed. "What happened, sir? I thought we weren't expecting them until the thirteenth?"

"We weren't expecting the Exeter to arrive until the thirteenth," Garrus corrected him. "We think the Project must have captured a civilian frigate and used it as a trojan horse for an advance team into Sahrabarik. A few hours ago a force of frigates from the 9th also slipped through. They began an invasion of Omega shortly after you left to go get Cloud. We've split what ships the Blue Suns and the Eclipse could ready on short notice into two battle groups – one to defend the Sahrabarik Relay and the other to blockade the Omega-4 relay."

Shepard and Miranda both made their way into the cockpit. Garrus helped Cade into one seat while Liara did the same with Kel'raynea across from them. Garrus then pulled a med kit out from one of the overhead bins.

Garrus shook his head as he started to apply medi-gel to Cade's wounds. "I should have expected something like this after Octavian outmaneuvered us at Anhur, but I've never been particularly good at space naval tactics. The attack on Omega is probably just a diversion. Any ship from the Ninth could be the one they're trying to get through the relay. The best we can do is try and stop any that look like they're going to make a break for it."

Cade grunted. He wasn't very good at naval strategy either. "We need to defend Omega as well. We can't let the Project start another outbreak here. It'll be a spirits-damned nightmare."

"We know," Garrus said. "We won't let that happen. I've already sent word to my fleet.

Once Garrus had finished applying the medi-gel, he fixed a mesh bandage over the wound. "Your friend Cloud was right. I don't care if the entire Terminus gets royally-pissed off at a turian war fleet shoingw up in their capital system. I'm not letting another outbreak happen."

Cade probed gently at this wounds, testing them. "I need to go find him, Garrus. He's not okay."

Something was wrong and it wasn't just the revelation that Cloud had just gone through. Cade could feel it under his scales. His friend had been acting strange for some time now—ever since the Hippocrates in fact, though it had gotten a lot worse ever since they had left Anhur. Cade had caught him staring off into the distance numerous times, as if he could see something that no one else could see. Sometimes Cade would even see him shaking his head and moving his lips as if he were having a conversation with someone. Physically he had looked fine, although the circles around his eyes had been getting darker and darker. Cade had thought that it had perhaps just been the mounting fatigue, but now he wasn't sure. Cloud had been saying some strange things as well.

This mission, this fighting, the Project… I want to find a way to end this without any more fighting. Without any more violence. I've changed, Cade. I've changed…

"Cloud will be fine, its yourself that you need to worry about. We need to get you and the quarian back to the Excalibur. You've lost a lot of blood and that medi-gel isn't going to hold you over forever."

Cade wasn't so sure. Garrus hadn't been there. He hadn't heard the discussion they'd been having just before the fight started. Cloud knew that Cade had been pissed at him for leaving him and Percival. There was no way his friend would have ran off again on his own right after they had just fought about it.

Still… Cade wondered if he'd be thinking rationally if he suddenly learned that his father was still alive. No — it wasn't the same. Cloud had never known his father. Cade had, and he'd even held his father as he died in his arms. Cloud had never expressed the slightest interest in learning who his father had been.

So what was he thinking?

"Garrus, he's not fine," Cade whispered. He couldn't withhold his groan as the turbulence of the shuttle jostled his wounds. "He's not fine. He's hiding something. Something heavy. Something he doesn't want to share with us. Whatever it is, he thinks he has to do it alone. He's always been like that."

Garrus placed a hand on Cade's shoulder. "If he doesn't want to share whatever's going on with you – if he doesn't want to involve you, then there is nothing you can do about it, Cade. It's not your problem or your fault if he ends up hurting himself."

Cade shook his head. "No… no. I don't believe that. I won't let him go at it alone. I won't let him end up like dad did. I won't."

The hand on Cade's shoulder trembled but Garrus remained silent. Eventually, Garrus let go and settled into the seat beside Cade.

Cade sighed and closed his eyes. He felt around his now-sealed wound, grimacing in pain. All of the shots had gone through him and nothing vital had been hit. Cade frowned. He knew he was lucky but he wasn't that lucky, and no real turian would miss kill-shots at the range that they had ambushed them at—let alone turian commandos. They hadn't been aiming to kill then.

The realization struck Cade like a lightning bolt and he thought back to the fight. Both Morder and Severus hadn't been trying to kill the two of them at all. They had threatened Cade's life to try and get Cloud to come back to them. They had wanted to re-capture Cloud.

Why? Why though?

Cade sighed again. There'd be time to think about it all later. Cade figured that he'd need at least three days to be in somewhat-decent condition, and maybe a week before he was in any semblance of a fighting shape.

The entire time that he'd been speaking to Garrus, Cade had been conscious of another set of eyes on him. Cade opened his eyes and looked across the shuttle.

Kel'raynea starred at Cade with eyes like molten silver, her face an impenetrable mask. The cheerful quarian waitress that Cade had met at Afterlife was completely gone. Cade had felt her appraising him silently ever since they'd gotten on the shuttle.

She looked like she wanted to say something, but Cade couldn't be bothered to break the silence between them. Instead he just stared back at her. Whatever Kel'raynea was thinking about right now, Cade wasn't interested in it at the moment.

Why did he leave again?


1520, April 11th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

SSV Excalibur, Medical Bay

(Spectre Operative Cade Kitiarian)

"Oh, that's good. That's real good…"

"You like that, hmm?

"Oh yeah."

"You're a naughty boy, you know that?"

All of a sudden the door to the room slid open and in walked Percival, followed by frowning Rentea and a smiling Jaelen.

Cade immediately shoved Camilla away. The engineer let out a little yelp and fought to keep the remaining apple pie balanced on the plate, her eyes now shooting daggers at him. Cade wiped his mandibles guiltily with one hand and waved at Percival sheepishly with his other.

"Hey Percival," Cade mumbled through a mouthful of pie.

Percival looked at Camilla and the plate of apple pie she was holding and then back to Cade, who was seated upright in a medical gurney with nothing but a blanket and some bandages between him and the world. The N7 pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Why are you eating the apple pie?" Percival asked.

Cade opened his mandibles to reply but soon found himself pounding on his own chest. He quickly pointed at the glass sitting on the ground beside Camilla. The technician handed him the glass of milk, wishing death upon Cade in her native tongue, though Cade knew she didn't really mean it. She loved him too much.

He took a large gulp and swallowed the rest of the pie he had remaining with a relieved sigh. "I was hungry," Cade said.

"I know that. My questions was why are you eating the apple pie specifically. It's not dextro. Neither is that milk. You don't get anything out of either except maybe a half-hour on the john later tonight."

Cade eyed Percival up and down. His head was covered in fresh bandages from his latest round of surgery but he was already wearing his full N7 armor. His eyes were also more sunken than usual, although not to the level that Cloud's had been. Cade knew from sharing a room with Percival that his friend had been having trouble sleeping ever since his injury.

Percival was worked up and Cade could probably guess why. He had learned early on that despite what Percival's appearance and demeanor might suggest the big man was remarkably laid-back for a soldier of his experience and qualifications. Still the N7 had, out of the three of them, always been the one to take their job the most seriously. That part of him was front and center right now.

"Is this about the briefing?" Cade asked. He knew Percival didn't need another joke.

His friend nodded appreciatively. "Yeah, I was hoping you and I could go over a few things before we meet up with Murgen and Shepard and the rest of them. But before that I wanted Rentea to clear you medically first."

Cade spread his arms at the Excalibur's chief medical officer. "Have at it, Rentea."

The asari moved past Percival and began to run a series of tests on Cade, speaking matter-of-factly to him about his condition. Every time Rentea acted in her medical capacity Cade couldn't help but feel surprised. She had the demeanor and bearing of a veteran soldier and would have fit right in with a lot of asari commandos that Cade knew. It surprised Cade that she didn't end up down the same road that her sister took.

"Three shots made it through your armor, all of them with exit wounds. Looks like no organs were hit. You're lucky turians have such small intestines. If you'd been a human or an asari you would be in a much worse position," Rentea said.

"How long before I can fight?" Cade asked. He couldn't help but throw the cliché' out there. Camilla and Percival must have both recognized the question for what it is because they both rolled their eyes.

"You can fight now if you wanted to," Rentea said with a shrug. She probably recognized it too, but unlike the other two she couldn't be bothered to react. "All I'll tell you is that you likely won't be in tip-top shape for at least another week or so, but you're not hurt enough for me to tell you that you shouldn't fight."

Cade poked at his wounds. "Sound's good, thanks Rentea. Jaelen, why are you here? Is it to admire my carapace?" He rapped his talons against it. "It's nice right? Thick and firm. I bet it's the nicest you've ever seen."

"You've got my number as always Cade, I've never seen a carapace as thick and as firm as yours. You are the pinnacle of biological and reproductive health for your species – a perfect specimen," Jaelen said with a grin. It quickly slipped however. "Actually. Wanted to ask you for something else. Your combat footage from your mission to rescue Cloud. Percival tells me that unless you – the Spectre operative in possession – provides me with the authorization to view it I need to go through the official channels and petition the Office of Special Tactics and Reconnaissance which I'm sure as you know—,"

Cade held up a hand. "Not a problem, Jaelen. Authorization granted, I'll send the footage to you." Cade was surprised that Percival would stonewall Jaelen like that but he decided that now was not the time to tackle that issue. "Can you tell me why?"

Jaelen blinked. "It's Cloud," he said. "He was seeing me for a… personal condition of his. You saw him most recently so I thought maybe I could view the footage and get a first-hand look at his physical condition. Do an informal sort of 'check-up' so to speak!"

Cade's browplates rose and his gaze flicked between the two specialists. "He was seeing you and not Rentea?" The asari simply shrugged again.

"Yes!" Jaelen nodded a bit too enthusiastically. "Not to worry! A small, genetic, temporary issue that just so happened to be in my realm of expertise. Ob-observable physically of course – some outward symptoms recognizable only to a trained expert such as myself. Nothing to worry about but I did want to check in on him as frequently as I could. Would tell you more but you know – patient-doctor confidentiality!"

Cade exchanged a look with Percival. His friend's expression was unusually neutral and guarded, which meant something was up. Even Rentea and Camilla were looking at Jaelen oddly.

"Sure," Cade flicked his mandibles jovially. Now was not the time probe. Cade suspected that given a long enough leash, Jaelen would lead him straight to the answers he was seeking. "Let's dispense with the formalities. Just go and pull it from my armor."

"Wonderful!" Jaelen exclaimed. "Thank you Cade!" The salarian scientist hurried out of the room in a manner that failed to be anything but conspicuous.

Percival cleared his throat. "Cam, have you—,"

"The drive core is running at ninety-nine-point-nine percent, Percival," Cam interrupted. "And I haven't let the engines out of my sight for more than ten minutes the past two weeks. You'll be able to fly a loop from Omega to Imorkan ten times over before you we come anywhere close to redlining."

"And the—,"

"Yes, yes," Camilla waved her hand. When his girlfriend was riled up her accent really started to bleed out. "I found the spares you want. Unless they almost entirely take out the entire drive core all at once, I can fix it."

"Great, thanks Camilla," Percival said sheepishly. My friend scratched the back of his head. "Well… Rentea, if you're done your check-up and Camilla you're done visiting Cade, do you both mind if…"

Rentea quickly gathered up her things and departed without another word. Camilla did the same after giving him a quick peck on the mandible and calling him an idiot.

Once the doors closed shut, Percival's shoulders slumped and he deflated almost instantly. Cade shifted over to one side of the gurney to let his friend take a seat at the edge of it.

"I saw your face when Jaelen asked for the combat footage. Have you seen watched it?"

"I did," Percival nodded. He wrung his hands together. "Its… I'm just so confused, man. Like what the hell is he thinking? He's run off on his own before and he's always been a bit wild but he's never left me guessing why the hell he's run off. Usually our boy is a pretty open book. Wears his emotions on his sleeve, despite what he thinks."

"He was saying some really weird stuff, Perc."

"Yeah, I know. Like how he wants to find a way of ending this without any more violence or fighting? And how he's 'changed'?" The N7 shook his head. "Cade, he almost sounds like—,"

"No," Cade said immediately. "No that's not why he left. You saw – he'd just found out that his dad was alive. He was in shock."

"You're right," Percival quickly agreed. "No, you're right. It'd be a lot for anyone to digest, but especially for someone like Cloud. He's never exactly been the most emotionally-stable of people."

Cade worked at a loose scale on his arm, trying his best to calm himself. "He's been acting weird though. I didn't really notice it until recently. He's been jumpier than usual. More on edge." Even talking about it was enough for Cade to feel a knot begin to form in the pit of his stomach. "I even got this sense that he was seeing things that I couldn't see. Spirits – after I rescued him I kept catching him staring over my shoulder, even while he was talking to me."

Percival rubbed his chin. "Do you think its PTSD?"

Cade wasn't sure. He thought it might have been back when they had first gotten off the Hippocrates. He would hear him having nightmares in his room at night, apologizing again and again for not saving someone. Cade had chalked it all up to Cloud's guilt over letting that scientist on the Hippocrates die.

But something else struck Cade – something that had hidden itself away in the back of his mind amidst the chaos of the last few weeks. "Percival, there's something else I need to tell you. Something I should have told you back when it first happened."

"What?"

"Remember when we went to rescue that guy trapped in that bank on Anhur? And we split up at the beginning?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I found Cloud lying on the floor. He'd just collapsed there. When he came to I asked him what happened… and," Cade paused. It sounded crazy, what he was about to say. "He told me that he'd been having these strange dreams about these aliens living in cities. Aliens that he's never seen before. Apparently in his dreams their cities were destroyed and the aliens were slaughtered by these other aliens and were being turned into more monsters or something."

One of the things Cade loved about Percival was that he was absolutely unflappable. Unlike Cloud who shoved everything to the side, simply didn't show anything, and then conflated that with having processed it, the N7 had the ability to take in and quickly and actually process bad news.

Still, Cade had a feeling that what he said was really pushing Percival's capacity for emotional regulation. The N7 simply stared at Cade for a good ten seconds. "I… is that even… can PTSD even make you see things like that?" his friend finally stammered.

Cade shrugged, but what he really wanted to do was throw up his hands. "Back when we were still on the Citadel I thought it was just PTSD like you did at first… but after what he told me, I don't know anymore. Spirits — I just don't know Perc."

His friend opened his mouth as if to say something, and then closed it, and then he did it a few more times. Cade would have laughed except he still had yet to tell Percival the worst of it.

"Did you see his eyes?"

"Yeah. I don't know what's going on there. One minute they looked normal and the next they looked…inhuman."

"I was thinking it might have just been a biotic thing. Biotic powers can flare up when the biotic's emotions are running high, and Shepard gave him a custom implant, right?"

"Yeah, might be," Cade agreed hesitatingly. " But that's not the craziest part, Perc."

"There's more?" His friend looked like his head was already about to explode. It looked like Percival's emotional regulators had just about had enough. Cade even thought he saw Percival's left eye twitch a few times.

Cade took a deep breath. His mandibles quivered as they awaited his next sentence. What he was about to say had him second-guessing his own sanity. "He also told me that he'd been seeing this alien girl, and that he'd tried to save her mother but failed. He also told me that he had been talking to her, and that she'd been asking him to save her people. Which I took it to mean the aliens."

This time Percival was silent for nearly a full two minutes, and Cade didn't even try to cut through the silence. He was too busy processing it himself. "What the hell?" was all Percival could manage.

"What do you mean seeing an alien girl?"

Cade slapped his forehead. "No, not like that. Like in his head. Like he was hallucinating this alien girl – one of the alien's he'd been seeing in his dreams. The ones with the destroyed cities and all."

"Cade! What the hell?" Percival repeated.

"Spirits you think I don't know how this all sounds? I do." Cade honestly felt a little frustrated at his friend. Why couldn't Cloud just be a normal Spectre with normal Spectre problems like fielding bribes or toeing the moral line? Why did he always have to have weird shit happen to him? "I told him at the time to go to Jaelen after. I was worried that it might have had something to do with what happened to him on the Hippocrates. We found him passed out beside the Reaper Core, remember?"

"Yeah I remember. But he was medically cleared afterwards. We all were," Percival said lamely.

His friend let out a sigh and buried his head in his hands. His armor had taken quite the beating since the Hippocrates. There was scoring on the chestplate and pauldrons from where he had taken the explosive blast meant for Cade and Cloud back on Omega and gouges from where he'd had some near-misses from Corpsers and Project soldiers. The red and white stripes on his right arm were faded and chipped. Cade's own suit of Ghost Infiltrator armor had been near-immaculate just a few short weeks ago, and now it also looked like it had been trampled on by a horde of krogan.

"Why did he goddamn run away?" Percival finally whispered, his shoulders slumped. The soldier suddenly looked and sounded a lot older than his thirty-three years.

"I'll find him, and this time I'll break his legs and drag him back if I have to," Cade said adamantly. It killed Cade to see Percival like this – or his other friends too. Jaelen and Val had both taken the news poorly as well. Frankly, he too was getting tired of Cloud's crap. Cade wanted to drag him back here so he could show the moody bastard exactly how much people cared about him, and what his immature antics were doing to them.

His fellow Spectre nodded and the two fell into a tense silence.

Percival suddenly let out a snicker. His armor began to shake as the laughter swelled, until Percival could hardly breathe. The sound of it swept away the heavy blanket of silence that had enveloped the two and caught Cade by surprise. "Spirits, what could you possibly be laughing at?"

His friend looked up at the ceiling. "You said he'd been seeing an alien girl in his head. Remember that time on Ilium?"

Cade snorted, and then he began to laugh too. "I almost completely forgot. Yeah! He was saying that he'd been seeing this asari girl that he'd met at a bar. First he'd see her in public places and he thought it was all just a coincidence, but then he thought he started seeing her faces in weird places, like peeking out from behind corners at the end of long hallways, or outside of windows he'd walk by."

"And then finally he tells us he comes out of the shower one night and she's just standing there in our bathroom staring at him—and honestly, I would have probably shit my pants – but Cloud, bless his cold, little heart, thinks he's just imagining her and he says to himself 'I'm going nuts'—"

"Yeah, and then the asari actually had to be the one to tell him that he wasn't nuts, and that she was just stalking him!"

"But she was actually freakin' insane!" Percival exclaimed. "She tailed him and broke into our safehouse!"

Cade nodded in agreement. "Spirits, if that had happened to me and I'd seen her staring at me from the end of a long, dark corridor I would have absolutely freaked out."

Percival buried his head in his hands again, although this time it was for very different reasons. "He is actually so, so dense. The weirdest shit happens to him and he just takes it all in a sort of weird stride and thinks its just his problem. He just let her go afterwards too and apologized for giving her the wrong impression at the bar."

"Cloud is dense about a lot of things, and in denial about even more," Cade agreed. "He is quite the character."

"Yeah," Percival wiped one final tear from his eyes. "Remind me why we're friends with him again?"

Cade leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. "Beats the hell out of me. Maybe we're just all a bunch of idiots."

Percival rubbed his chin in an exaggeratedly-dignified fashion. "Are we friends because we're idiots? Or are we idiots because we're friends?" the N7 said, adopting what he thought was a distinguished and philosophical tone.

The two of them both chuckled for a while, and then soon the room fell silent once more.

"Feeling better?" Cade finally asked.

"Yeah," his friend nodded. What Cade had done for Percival had not been lost on the big guy. "Thanks man. Ready to hit the meeting?"

Cade would always be there for his friends. He would never abandon them like his father had.

"Let's go then."


1530, April 11th, 2211 — Omega Nebula, Sahrabarik System, Omega

SSV Excalibur, Deck 2, Briefing Room

(Spectre Operative Cade Kitiarian)

Cade had never seen the briefing room so crowded, nor its occupants so damn glum. Percival, him and Elektra stood at one end of the holo-table that dominated the interior of the room. Behind them were Camilla, Garm, Galen, Jaelen and the two asari sisters, Rentea and Rayla. The holo-table was projecting a map of the Sahrabarik System. Little motes of red, blue, and green light representing different ships flitted through the system. Two large clusters of blue ships had arranged themselves around the Sahrabarik relay and the Omega-4 relay while several smaller clusters of red ships were spread throughout the system. Other panels situated around the briefing room contained readouts and charts tasked with dynamic data analysis.

All the eyes in the room however were fixed on the six figures standing on the opposite side of the holo-table. Standing at the head of the group was the the legendary commander Shepard in her battered set of N7 armor. Her palms were set out flat on the table and her emerald-green eyes were like chips of stone as they surveyed the holo-table's contents.

On her right was Garrus Vakarian, Cade's own patron. The Primarch of Palaven hovered over Shepard's shoulder like a protective shadow, wearing the same scarred and pitted set of blue and silver heavy armor that Cade had seen him wear his whole life.

On her left was Miranda Lawson. The steely-eyed human woman was apparently an ex-Cerberus operative who had worked with Shepard to stop a group known as the Collectors from abducting human colonists. The Collectors had been a sort of Reaper vanguard, and had been abducting colonists to create more Reapers. Oddly, there were no reports of Miranda Lawson's exploits during the actual Reaper war and no actual record anywhere that she had ever existed.

Standing behind them was Kasumi Goto, the master thief whom Cade had to admit was perhaps the greatest infiltration specialist he had ever met, and an asari whom Shepard had called Liara T'soni. Strangely, there was also very little information about either of the two of them circulating on the Extranet and even in the Spectre databases. It was well known that an asari had fought alongside Shepard during the Reaper war, but her name had never been noted down in any of the records that Cade had looked up. It was almost as if that information had been deleted. On Kasumi there was virtually nothing – same as Miranda.

The last individual standing with the Normandy crew was the strangest one. It was a synthetic android modelled after a human female, and unlike any synthetic android or geth that Cade had ever seen. She had come aboard with Liara T'soni and had immediately sequestered herself along with the asari in an office someone in the Excalibur's medical bay, on the third deck. That area had become the sort of de facto headquarters for whom the Excalibur crew had started referring to as the "Normandy Crew".

The twenty-two remaining Jaegers lined one side of the briefing room—a wall of black armor and stone faces. Captain Elias Murgen stood at their head, flanked on either side by his lieutenants. The gray-eyed human looked lost in thought. Lieutenant Burton – Accer – had a similar look on his face.

Gunnery Chief Teewin however flashed a grin at Cade, which he returned. Lately, every time Cade saw the Jaegers his thoughts would turn back to his old team. Too bad Garrus had not elected to bring any of his Blackwatch onto the Excalibur. A squad from Cade's old unit could really even the odds against Severus Tyrannus and his commandos.

Revak Ghararan and about twenty of his Blue Suns stood on the opposite side of the Jaegers. The mercenaries made for decent infantry and were probably on par with your average Systems Alliance marine in combat, minus perhaps the discipline. The scarred batarian had his arms crossed, and the hilt of a massive omni-axe jutted over his broad shoulders. Revak's demeanor had changed ever since his brother died on Anhur. Cade thought he approached situations much more thoughtfully and analytically, and the flavor of the confidence that the batarian exuded had changed.

"Another quartet of frigates from the Ninth Fleet has just passed through the Sahrabarik relay and broke off before we could take them out. They're probably hiding in the system somewhere. In another day we can probably expect their cruisers and in two days we can expect the rest of their fleet, including the dreadnoughts and the Exeter," Shepard said.

"And Primach Vakarian's fleet will get here in about six days, which means we may need hold out for four days against the whole of the Ninth," Percival agreed. The N7 tapped the icons for the Omega-4 relay and the Sahrabarik relay, expanding them and bringing up more-detailed positions of the ships stationed around the two points of interest. "Between the mercenary fleets we recruited we probably have the numbers to last four days even with the Ninth's Dreadnoughts in play. Once the turian fleet gets here they'll be caught between two fronts. Until then though we need to keep harassing the ships that come through and prevent them from establishing a foothold." Percival turned to the Blue Suns commander. "Revak, how long before all of the mercenary fleets are combat ready?"

"Two days," Revak growled. "We're in a similar situation. It will take time for all the ships they have in this system to be battle-ready. But I wouldn't overestimate their abilities. Their strength lies in their numbers. The Ninth fleet has more naval battle experience, better coordination, and better officers. In a full-on engagement the Ninth would likely triumph."

Percival let out a low sigh. "Fair."

"Revak's right, Operative Lancelot." Garrus zoomed in on the concentration of Ninth Fleet ships currently in Sahrabarik, studying them. "I've underestimated Octavian and his officers once already, back on Anhur. I don't know if the Systems Alliance has a better strategist than Admiral Octavian right now."

"They don't," Shepard interjected. "Admiral Octavian is probably the best strategist that the Systems Alliance has ever had. A prodigy even."

Cade grunted quietly beside his friend. The main problem the Excalibur crew was currently facing was that none of them had any real experience with space naval tactics, and now they were up against a veteran Systems Alliance war fleet. Cade wasn't even very good at directing small unit tactics.

Percival crossed his arms and frowned. "What do you propose then, Commander?"

All eyes were on Shepard, including her team. Cade wondered what it was like to always have everyone around you hanging on your every word, because that was what the legendary N7 seemed to go through every single moment of her life. The pressure would have driven Cade to tear his own plates off. There was a reason why he was never interested in command.

"They… know they don't need to beat our fleet to win," Shepard said slowly. "They don't need to conquer Sahrabarik system or even Omega. They're here to get through the Omega-4 relay, to get to Erebus."

"They have one Reaper IFF, which means only one ship can get through to Erebus. We also can't stay on the defence in the meantime. The battlegroup camping the Sahrabarik relay needs to continue to harass any Ninth fleet ships that come through. We already have a battlegroup group defending Omega in case the Ninth decides to attack it. The Excalibur stays with the battlegroup defending the Omega-4 relay until we get a positive ID on the Exeter and then it can go on the offensive. The main goal is to stop the Project from getting through to Erebus. We can't forget that."

Cade stifled a groan. Gunnery Chief Teewin also audibly-groaned, causing Accer to jab him viciously in his sides with an elbow. The Jaeger probably also hated being stuck on a ship in the middle of a space fight. Cade would rather be defending Omega.

"We wait, we watch, and then we strike," Shepard said. Everyone nodded in echoed agreement. "Is there anything else?"

To Cade's surprise, Elektra raised her hand. "Commander, who are the asari and the synthetic?"

Shepard looked at her friend. "Right, the asari is Liara T'soni. Some of you might have heard of her. I brought her on board as another intelligence specialist." Liara seemed to wither under all the gazes that were suddenly directed at her. "The synthetic is EDI. She's an artificial intelligence. It'll take more time than we have to go through what she's capable of, but for now just know that she has every single one of Octavian's maneuvers ever conducted in a training simulation or in a fight stored in her – hard-drive?"

"It is an aluminium-titanium storage device with a crystalline carbon matrix constructed with the latest of quarian quantum technologies. It is light-years more advanced than the manila envelope that you organics run around with, but sure Shepard. Call it a hard-drive if you want." the synthetic replied almost sardonically, prompting Shepard to make a face at her. "It is a pleasure to meet you all." Cade could not help but notice she had a very pleasant voice.

"And if the Excalibur had an AI core, EDI here could show you a few of the more interesting things that she is capable of," Garrus snickered.

"And if the Excalibur had a Mark-I Thanix cannon, none of you would ever see Garrus again and Shepard would be sleeping in a cold bunk."

The jibes flew over the heads of everyone else in the room except for the Normandy crew, who seemed to revel in it. Kasumi laughed and Miranda actually slapped her head into her palm. What an odd bunch. Also Cade did not need that mental image of his mentor and Primarch. He had heard the rumors but he never thought he'd have them confirmed this way. But it made Cade realize that he was more like Garrus than he thought, which made him smile.

"Alright, that's enough," Shepard ordered. "Anything else?"

"Yes," an unfamiliar voice spoke up. It was Kel'Raynea, the quarian that they had met on Omega. She slid out from where she'd been standing behind one of the Blue Suns, followed by a large, four-legged synthetic droid of sorts. "My name is Kel'Raynea vas Rannoch. I'd like permission to join your crew. Me and Kiki," she gestured at the synthetic behind her.

Liara immediately appeared beside Shepard and whispered something in her ear. "You're a Quarian Special Intelligence operative?"

"Yes," Kel'Raynea admitted. She seemed perturbed that her identity had been found out so early, and murmurs swept throughout the crew. "On Omega I worked with Spectre Operative 04— Cloud," she stuttered. "I know what your mission in the Sahrabarik system was. I want to help."

Cade rolled his eyes. Cade and Percival loved to give him crap about his romantic proclivities – which weren't even an issue now ever since he'd met Camilla – when it was really Cloud who was the one who was always getting walked on by any pretty female with a pulse. Sometimes even without one.

That probably wasn't a joke he would ever make to Cloud's face though. Friends don't joke about their friends' trauma and trauma patterns. At least Cade never breached operational security.

Liara whispered something again to Shepard. The commander narrowed her eyes at the quarian. Seconds passed and the room remained silent as they waited for the N7 to pass judgement.

"Meet me in the medical bay in an hour. Then we'll talk," Shepard finally said. Kel'Raynea nodded appreciatively.

Cade recoiled. What? That was it? Percival must have sensed his agitation because he lightly threw an arm in front of him.

"One last thing, Commander." This time Percival had a question. "It's about Cloud."

Right, the veruvanon on the table.

"What is it, Lieutenant Commander?"

"How certain are you that he's Thomas Locke's son?"

The murmurs swelled again. Cade drew his arms across his chest and let out a hiss. "Dead certain," Shepard replied. "I took a few hair samples from his room a few nights ago. Both Thomas Locke and his mother had served in the Systems Alliance, so we already had their DNA on file. There's no denying it. He's their son."

"The odds are astronomical but it's true, Percival," Captain Murgen replied. The jaeger took a step forward and placed his hands on the holo-table as well. "Both Shepard and I served with Martha and Tom. We were all friends. They separated shortly after your friend was born, maybe about a year before the War started. Martha and their son were living in London when the invasion happened. Both were presumed to have died there. Martha must have managed to get him out."

Percival swallowed. "So… Cloud has a father?"

"He does, Lieutenant Commander."

And now Cloud was gone. "Commander, permission for Operative Kitiarian and I to go look for him?" Kel'Raynea stood a little straighter at hearing Percival's request.

Shepard's brow furrowed. "Denied, operative Lancelot," Garrus answered on the N7's behalf. "I know its not what you and Cade want to hear, but it's the way it has to be. Focus on the mission. We need you both here preparing for the Ninth's arrival, not out there chasing a shadow." Damn Garrus, why did it never seem like his mentor could cut his friend some slack?

"Garrus is right," Shepard agreed. "From what Garrus tells me this is a bit of a habit of his. We can't always be indulging in it. You need to trust that he'll find his own way back to us."

Cade stifled a growl and even Elektra hissed under her breath beside him. It was Anhur all over again. Why was Percival even bothering to ask? Besides, they were Spectres. What were they going to do to – court martial them? Sometimes Percival was too by-the-book.

"Understood," Percival finally said.

"I know you care about your friend Percival. You too Cade," Murgen offered. The jaeger captain at least had the decency to look sympathetic. "Many of us here do as well. But we can't let our personal feelings get in the way of doing what needs to be done. The Project has to come first."

Shepard ran a hand through her bright-red hair. "If there is an opportunity to retrieve him we'll take it. Otherwise we need to be getting ready for the fight ahead. Everyone is dismissed."

Her tone was final, and Cade was starting to see glimpses of what exactly had pulled the entire galaxy together during the Reaper War. Everyone started to filter out until it was just Cade, Percival, Elektra, and surprisingly – Kel'Raynea.

Once the Normandy crew were out of earshot Kel'Raynea looked over conspiratorially at the three of them. "Ancestors… okay. What's the plan then? Are we going to go get him? There isn't an Omega security system I can't hack."

Percival stared at the quarian. "You heard the Commander, we need to get ready. The supplies we've been purchasing over the last few days needs to be stored, and we still need to finish drafting our reports of what happened on Anhur."

Kel'Raynea's jaw dropped. "What? So you're actually going to listen to her? You're just going to leave him?" Behind the quarian, her synthetic robot pet hissed.

"Yes, because that is how the chain of command works."

"But you're Spectres!"

"So is Shepard. And even within the Spectres we have unofficial chains of command as well."

"Besides," Elektra interjected, glaring at quarian. The female Spectre crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the holo-table. "Why do you care?"

Percival's eyes flicked towards his fellow Spectre, and then to Cade. Cade suspected that the same thought that was beginning to form in his head was also forming in Percival's. "Cloud's my friend," the quarian stuttered. She withered a bit beneath the gaze of her the female Spectre. Kel'Raynea was tall but Elektra was just a bit taller, and the human had years of practice intimidating people over the quarian.

"You only knew him for a couple of days," Elektra scoffed. Then, almost as if she had rehearsed it Elektra immediately looked down and began to examine her nails.

"A couple of days is enough to… get to know someone and to care about their well-being. Is that not something humans do?"

"Whatever." Elektra turned to Cade. "Kitiarian – you were awfully silent in there. I was half-expecting you to lose your head when Shepard shot down Percival's request to go find your boyfriend."

Instead of lashing out like he usually would, Cade merely sighed and rubbed his fringe. Elektra looked almost disturbed by his lack of response. "Shepard and Garrus are both right, we need to focus on stopping the Project. Besides, if I saw him right now I just might end up shooting him in the ass again. His disappearing act is getting old."

"Is that why he has that wound in the back of his upper right thigh? The one a few inches below his cheek?" Kel asked.

Cade immediately whirled towards her. He stared at her through narrowed eyes. "Yeah… he ran in front of my shot during one of our first missions together, on Virmire. We'd been arguing about something stupid the night before and he thought I'd done it deliberately, not that I tried very hard not to shoot him."

"I see. Well, I wondered where that had come from."

A bolt of understanding hit both Cade and Percival simultaneously and the two shared a surreptitious look with one another that was nothing more than a quick flick of the eyes. Although almost imperceptible, Kel'Raynea had spotted it. At least the quarian had the grace to turn slightly-pink afterwards.

"Wait," Elektra interrupted. She pushed herself off of the holo-table and planted herself in front of Kel'Raynea. "How do you know about that wound?"

Cade, Percival, Kel'Raynea and even the quarian's pet geth turned to stare incredulously at the female Spectre. Spirits, she had to be joking right? How dense could she be?

Percival was the first to react. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms. "Well, you see Elektra—,"

There was an opportunity here to pay Elektra back for her earlier remark and Cade was going to take it. "No no no, Percival. Allow me," Cade interjected, holding up a hand to stop his friend. "Elektra, you're not a bad-looking girl. Did you ever wonder why Cloud never… you know…"

"First of all – thank you, I'll be sure to avoid mentioning to Camilla that you think that about me," Elektra said haughtily. She flipped her hair back over her shoulder. "Secondly, its probably because he's like a brother to me. We've known each other for as long as we could both remember. We were shuttled around to the same orphanages and we've slept and ate and we've even taken baths together until we were basically adults."

That last little gem of information caused both Percival and Cade to do a bit of a double take and sent Kel'Raynea's eyebrows shooting up. It was more information that Cade would have wanted to know and it created a wave of imagery into his head that made him more than a little bit nauseous.

"Spirits—Okay, weird, but fine. This actually helps illustrate what I'm trying to get you to see," Cade waved his hands. "And so, in the entirety of that tragically-Dickensian history the two of you share, you never found it strange that Cloud never expressed any sexual or even romantic interest in you? Not even as a part of the…" What was the word here? "… 'curiosity' that usually accompanies normal, human hormonal development?"

Elektra scrunched up her face. "What? No! And I mean, I also didn't look the way back then that I do now."

"I'm surprised you know about the works of Charles Dickens," Percival whispered to Cade, his hand over his mouth.

"Thanks, Camilla made me read Oliver Twist. It was really good," Cade whispered back, before turning back to Elektra. "It wasn't strange to you at all? Not at all?

The look Elektra gave Cade was more potent than a Reaper's main battery. She looked like she wanted to eviscerate him. "No, because real life's not like one of your stupid porn holo-vids, Kitiarian."

Cade slammed his palm into his forehead. Percival took a step forward and held up both hand. "Elektra, I want you to really think about what you know about Cloud. Think about what happened to the most important human female figure in his life—,"

"No Percival, stop. Let me do this," Cade said. A perverse sense of satisfaction was starting to take hold. "Elektra, Cloud's really into… close encounters of the third kind."

Elektra thought about it silently while the three of them watched with baited breath. "I think that's a really old Earth movie, right?" She finally said. "I've never seen it. Has Cloud? Isn't it like two-hundred-and-fifty years old?"

Percival audibly groaned. "No, Elektra, I don't think you're listening to me. Cloud is very much into… intergalactic relations," Cade tried again.

Another blank look. "Well, yeah that's no surprise. Our orphanages were interspecies so we grew up and were friends with some. And who wouldn't be? They're so different from us."

Kel'Raynea's robot companion yowled mournfully.

"Not those kinds of relations, Elektra…" his friend whispered.

Cade was approaching a point where he wanted to rip his own mandibles off, but now it was time to sink his talons in.

"Elektra, Cloud likes aliens. The guy is a Spirits-damned interspecies Romeo. A starstruck lover. An extraterrestrial enthusiast."

Elektra suddenly froze, her eyebrows furrowing ever so slightly as the realization finally took hold. She looked at Cade, then at Percival, and then finally at Kel'Raynea who, to her credit, was standing unapologetically straight.

There it is.

"No…" Elektra whispered, her shoulders going slack. The female human's mouth dropped. "No…."

"Yes." Cade said. A warm ball of satisfaction had taken root within his chest and an ugly, perverse look appeared on his face. "Yes," he repeated.

"No!" Elektra said again. She took a step back. "Ew! Cade! He's like my brother! I don't want to picture him—,"

"What? You don't want to picture him having intimate relations? Because he has intimate relations, Elektra. He's not some human monk. He's a consenting adult and a good person with a lot to offer despite how messed up he is from his—,"

"Cade, can you be a little mindful of our present company as you destroy what's left of Elektra's innocence?" Percival jerked his head in an exaggerated fashion towards Kel'Raynea.

Cade turned to the quarian. "I'm sorry Kel'Raynea. This is tasteless of me and I want to quickly point out that I've never seen Cloud react to anyone the same way that he reacts to you. I think you are really special to him," he quickly apologized before rounding back on Elektra. The quarian said something about not being insecure that Cade didn't quite catch, lost as he was in his bloodlust. "Elektra, Cloud and Kel'Raynea—,"

She recoiled. "Ew! Ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ew-ew!"

Elektra ran out of the room. Percival had the same shit-eating grin on his face that Cade did.

"Should… I be worried about her?" Kel'Raynea asked awkwardly.

"No, Elektra's not a xenophobe," Cade shook his head. "Nor does she have anything against you specifically or quarians in general. She's just an idiot."

"I'm surprised to be honest." Percival scratched his head. "With the way she used to act, you'd think that she'd be pretty experienced with the birds and the bees – that's 'sex' for you alien folk."

"Me too. And thank you Percival. But the more I get to know her the more I realize that she's a bigger dork that Cloud is. That whole 'femme fatale' thing has always been just an act. Trauma has made the both of them adopt these weird, outward personas. Like children playing at being grown-ups."

"Very perceptive of you."

"Cloud is quite dorky," Kel'Raynea snickered.

A beefy arm wrapped itself around Cade's shoulder. "You know, from where I'm standing it almost looks like the two of you have become friends," Percival said slyly.

"Ah shut your scale-less hole, she's still a back-stabbing, traitorous harpy," Cade grumbled, shoving Percival away. "But maybe she isn't all that bad."

Yes. Elektra wasn't all that bad, and until Cloud returned Cade supposed that Elektra could keep his awkward biotic Spectre seat warm.

Where are you buddy?