26 - Intermission

"You do realize we could have been on Noveria by now, kicking ass and taking names, if it wasn't for this diversion to a planet at the end of nowhere." The helmsman adjusted the ship's vectors some more. A whitish rock was starting to come into view. "Another barren, featureless wasteland – real adventurous, Commander."

"I don't leave things half-done," was the Commander's reply. They were standing by at the helm, squinting at the incoming destination.

"That's why they pay you the big bucks," the pilot snidely saluted in his seat. "What'll it be this time? Medallions from the First League? Why not? Matriarch Dilinaga's writings? Yes, I'll take two! Nickel deposits? Oh, you shouldn't have!"

"You're forgetting the criminal base."

"Because it was so cool the last time…and the time before that. Seriously, since when did we become guns for hire? I would have got us all matching tattoos."

The white orb grew large enough to pick out its snowy crags and peaks.

"How's the weather looking?" the Commander asked. The helmsman tapped a new key on his holographic interface.

"Cold, Level 2 near the coordinates Blake gave us. Better break out your N7 branded mittens."

"Set us down, Joker. I'll get a team ready."

"Aye aye, Commander."

Some time later, an armored truck with a big gun on its top careened off a snowcapped hill, pounding into the frozen ground with a thud. Its engine roared back to life, rear thrusters kicking in, propelling it forward at great speed. Visibility was poor – sleet was crashing down all around, and the sky was bleak enough to necessitate the use of the truck's high-beam lights – but the vehicle plowed ahead. Its driver was making mental notes in between each brutal maneuver. In their short while on the planet, the team had already accomplished enough; metal deposits were charted and claimed, lost artefacts were recovered for analysis, and any points of interest from orbit were examined in closer detail than any survey team before. The last mission of the day was going to be the toughest. According to the intel, a criminal syndicate set up a base of operations on a nearby ridge.

The objective was straightforward. Take them down.

The Commander slammed on the brakes. The Mako's tires ground to a complete stop, kicking up heaps of ammonia snow. The gunner, in a raised position inside the truck, did well to keep their balance. The other passenger held firm, and clambered to the vehicle's front to join the driver and see what the cause was.

"Tracks," the Commander pointed at the screen in front of them, which had enough quality to act as a front viewport in conditions like these. Sure enough, just ahead of the truck's bow were shallow etches in the snow. Grooves could be seen in the troughs. They were narrower than those of the Mako.

"In weather like this? They've got to be recent," expanded Lieutenant Alenko. "A syndicate transport, maybe?"

"Not quite," the Commander guessed, noticing something important…and puzzling. "The tracks start here."

"Vakarian, any sign of the base?" the Lieutenant called up.

"Negative. Nothing on sensors yet," responded the gunner. "Could be a trap."

"You always say that, Garrus," the Commander smirked.

The Mako advanced with purpose, following the tracks. Whoever was responsible for them seemed to be fond of taking the scenic route – they bended and swerved at times for no certain reason. Sometimes they would disappear, and then reappear a good few meters away. The overall direction was more or less constant, however, and eventually it led the team to the crest of a ridge.

Along a white gulf were the last of the tracks, and on the other side was a structure perched atop a hill. Without hesitation the Commander drove towards it, activating the thrusters again for that extra bit of expediency.

Finally at the summit, what they saw surprised them.

"Shepard?" hollered down the gunner. "I think somebody beat us to it."

At the exact coordinates they were given stood a frigid base – a metal dome with harsh edges and bolted panels. Fallen icicles encircled it, as too did makeshift barricades. Littered all over were disjointed bits of scrap metal. Probable origins were found, the burnt-out remains of pillars once placed strategically around the centerpiece. Turrets, most likely, and all greatly destroyed by something rather powerful. In fact, some were more crater than turret at this point, filling up slowly with a dirty, sooty ammonia slush. From this angle, the base itself looked mostly intact. Some of the pipes connecting it to the ground were burst, and some were still blowing gas into the air. Its rooftop antenna was snapped like a twig, half on its side. There was no sign of anything capable of making the tracks that led Shepard and crew here, much less any garage for them to park the Mako. On the Commander's orders, the crew donned their protective gear and disembarked.

Shepard tested out the weight of their armor in the snow. It was a heavy Onyx model with a red stripe from shoulder to fingertip. "N7" was inscribed on the breastplate. Alenko was wearing something similar, minus the special ranking. Vakarian was clad in a gunmetal blue piece, V-shaped at the torso and comet-shaped for the head. If it once said "C-SEC" somewhere, it was well scraped away, intentionally or otherwise.

In weaponry terms they were armed to the teeth – and somewhat disappointed that their surroundings indicated how unnecessary it may have been. The Commander was hoping to try out a new Kovalyov rifle they made the requisition officer jump through several hoops to acquire. Alenko had his trusty Lancer model, begrudgingly modified on Shepard's orders to fire incendiary projectiles. Vakarian favored a long-range sniper…although the Mako's main armament ran a close second.

"Reading no life signs," the Lieutenant's omni-tool was out. He shifted his attention to the door. It looked bent and warped, as if something had been beating to get in. A quick scan affirmed what he was thinking. "Door's no good either."

Garrus was busy examining the turret wreckage. The impact site was too large. It couldn't possibility be the product of something like the Mako – even with his own imagined improvements – or something smaller like the tracks suggested. The way debris was strewn around the crater and not distributed in any main direction…the impact must have come from above. He was about to speak up and alert the Commander, but Shepard stumbled into their own discovery.

"Over here!" they shouted. The human and the turian quickly trudged towards their superior officer.

The other half of the building was completely obliterated. A house-sized hole was complimented by chunks of twisted metal. The base's heating system was reduced to mangled piping jutting out from the ground, futilely belching hot air skyward. The scene looked dismal enough…and that's when a body was spotted. A pair of armored legs were the only visible part, looking like hockey sticks planted in the snow. Shepard cautiously brushed aside a layer of sleet and shuddered. A deathly pale yet well preserved krogan corpse lay at the team's feet. There was one hell of a wound at its midsection.

They all knew that this was only the beginning, and slowly turned to face the base's exposed interior.

"Who did this?" Shepard rhetorically questioned.

Including the frozen body outside, the team counted ten victims. Batarians, some more intact than others, made up the majority. A handful of turians joined them – Garrus was wincing under his helmet – and another krogan was somehow embedded in a wall. There was so much freeze-dried, multicolored blood that the team had to be careful not to slip. The crumbling pillars holding up the ceiling were peppered with scorch marks.

Shepard didn't expect this routine takedown to evolve into crime scene investigation. It was time to put on the detective's cap.

As one of the unenviable soldiers who knew what a geth attack looked like, the Commander could quickly rule it out. No plasma burns, no 'dragon's teeth', no Armitures waiting for them. So who, or what else could it be?

"If I had to guess, Commander?" Alenko chimed in. "Another criminal syndicate. No honor among thieves, as the saying goes. Whatever dispute this was, it went bad – fast." He flipped over one batarian corpse with his boot. The fatal wound was a strike to the head…but something about the hole looked odd. Almost like there was an object entrenched in it.

"To use another human saying, I don't purchase it," retorted Garrus. He was pointing beyond an open doorway to the left. Through it were crates in their dozens. "What criminals enter another's hideout and kill everyone, just to leave the stock behind?"

Alenko shrugged. The Commander took the former cop at his word. Vakarian gestured to the great big hole they had entered through.

"Overwhelming force. Rule number one of the Hierarchy's armed forces. Hit your enemy with everything, leave nothing to chance. I bet we're walking in the aftermath of turian troops, or at least turian mercenaries."

It was a sound theory, but Shepard found it lacking in two areas. Firstly, despite the presence of turian bodies, and Blake having pissed off an impressive amount of criminal organizations, Mavigon was as far away from turian space as it gets. Secondly, there was a numerical disparity the Commander had noticed that didn't add up.

"How many turians make up a typical fireteam?" Shepard asked.

"Five or six. And it's never just 'one' fireteam."

"Look at that wall," Shepard directed their attention to the left side, which was smothered in gunfire burns. "And now that one." The right wall was much more unscathed, save for one high-velocity impact by a doorway. "Whoever came in here, they were seriously outnumbered. I'd say only two or three."

"That can't be right," gasped Alenko. The Lieutenant had moved onto a different cadaver closer to the left wall. Shepard raised an eyebrow – Kaidan never disagrees so brazenly, if ever. Usually there'd be a 'with all due respect' before such a remark. It then became clear that he hadn't said that as a rebuke. Something else had confused him. The Lieutenant's helmet swiveled back to where the Commander and Vakarian were standing. By Shepard's boot was what he was looking for. He pointed at it. "There! At your feet!"

The Commander knelt down, seeing a small shiny object and picking it up. It was a hollow brass cylinder less than a centimeter across and about two long. Shepard closed one eye and held it close to the other one. On its underside was a primer, and stamped on its rim were one number and two letters. 9MM.

"There's another," Garrus spotted a similar object on a different part of floor. Then another one. Now that they knew what to look for, several such objects were haphazardly dotted around the interior – and always on the lefthand side. The attackers' side of the battle, based on the team's deduction. "Are these…bullets?" the turian continued.

"Correct – nine millimeter casings," explained Alenko. "If you watch any old human action vids you'd recognize one immediately. They stopped making them years ago. Sure, a lot of them were made, but to find one out here? Strange, don't you think?"

The team fanned out some more. The Commander tried to find anything resembling a trail from all the casings. The whole situation was making less sense by the minute – but they'd seen enough to confirm that there was nobody left to fight here, so…mission accomplished. Two fingers rose and were pressed on the Onyx helmet, opening a line to Joker to call for evac.

Garrus was scoffing at the idea of human action vids. The turians were masters of the craft, filming epic-scale battles of the Unification War while humans were busy figuring out the aqueduct. Any human attempt therefore had millennia of content to compete with. Presently, however, the turian was busy examining one doorway at the far end. Its door had been blown apart by some manner of controlled explosion, albeit one smaller than some of the other scenes. Through the warped arch were a busted set of control panels, more bodies, and accompanying bloodstains on the walls. He counted two bodies, yet three colors of blood – blue, green and red. Turian, batarian…and human. One body looked like him, and the other had four eyeholes on its helmet.

He couldn't find the human anywhere…but out of the corner of his eye he found what must have been their weapon.

Lying just at the foot of the doorway was a peculiar looking device. It was compact, jet black, and presumably handheld. He picked it up for closer examination. There was a grooved grip, a trigger that was almost too small for Garrus' talons, and a sleek rectangular block that seemed stuck on. With a bit of a pull, he revealed a chamber within, containing some small cylindrical objects that bore a striking resemblance to the 'casings' littered on the floor. On its side were human letters – WALTHER.

"Hold it the other way, Garrus," Alenko was quick to notice the turian's fumbling with the weapon, and called out to the Spectre. "Commander! We've got a match."

Shepard got off the radio with the pilot and turned around to see the Lieutenant and Vakarian standing at the far end of the chamber, gesturing to a handgun Garrus was holding the wrong way.

Suddenly a shot rang out.

The Walther fired, sending a bullet ricocheting off the ground and into the ceiling. Everyone in the vicinity ducked on instinct, and the gun tumbled from Garrus' grasp after it ejected another spent shell.

Alenko bent down to pick it back up. Garrus sheepishly looked to the Commander, who was about to break the silence when their earpiece crackled back to life.

"Commander?" the pilot transmit.

"Just a misfire, Joker. You're almost here?"

"Misfire? Never mind that," Joker dismissed, "You know that base you're standing in?"

"…Yes?"

"Well, a few hills away from it, I spotted something. Someone, or something, was firing high-velocity rounds into the snow. Weirdly, there's nothing out there. No targets, no structures, nothing."

The Commander ambled back outside, trying to make out anything in the distance.

"It's just as confusing in here," Shepard sighed. "We're heading to the Mako for extraction now."

"Not just that, Commander," the pilot sounded baffled – and more amused than usual. "The impacts make a message when you look at it from above. You're not going to believe this…."

Finally, some answers, thought Shepard.

"What does it say?" they asked.

"…Vive la France."

Meanwhile, a different pilot of a different ship with a different crew was keeping one eye on the helm and another on the bridge.

To Pierre, the events of Polaris station must have been some sort of sick joke. His favorite vidcaster was just sitting there at some dingy diner; under any other circumstances, he'd drop everything just to get his digital autograph, so to have him on the ship was a dream come true. Then came the horrible, terrible, no-good realization that a turian of all things was not only joining alongside – but was a friend of Bodewell's. What happened to the DB he used to love, the DB unafraid to speak out against the aggressors of First Contact? The other bearded man now aboard the Shackleton, in Blanc's eyes, was a shadow of the man he used to watch religiously. The Commander would never understand such a feeling, and evidently was making a mistake by bringing the bodyguard along, but the Lieutenant had to let it slide. Gorman had achieved every single Alliance cadet's fantasy – convincing an asari to come on his ship – and therefore deserved the pilot's utmost respect.

T'Lore was down a level. She had immediately asked for a full inspection of the ship, its components and compartments, and Kalu was volunteered as the tour guide. In a true rarity, Kalu's first interaction with a new species was taking place after the Commander's. The asari was unlike his expectations. She seemed distant and dismissive of the mighty Shackleton – even with its recent upgrades – and she deflected any attempt he gave to make small talk or discuss her species.

Bodewell and his bodyguard were also busy getting acquainted with the ship, more specifically, its storage spaces. There needed to be a place for the turian's firepower. Don insisted that of equal priority was finding somewhere with 'top acoustics' for the episode he was planning.

This left the last three crewmates taking up the crew quarters. The quarian, unsurprisingly, was visor-deep in her omni-tool, frantically tapping away through its menus. The biotic had been quick to pack all the Polaris merchandise away, and was bored enough to sit down on Saal'Inor's bunk and try and see what she was up to. Unintelligible lettering scrolled in unnatural directions on the holographic screen, along with a virtual, Vitruvian display of the quarian's suit.

"What are those?" Zaz asked. She was pointing at thin cylinders shown to be inside the suit's framework, close to where the respiratory system would be on a human.

"Suit filters," Sally replied. "Keeps the germs out. I've had them set to human-only since I came aboard. Got to get the latest turian and asari filter patches downloaded."

That explained why she was clicking holographic buttons at breakneck speed, but Zaz wasn't satisfied.

"Really? Downloaded?" she questioned.

"Shouldn't take too long. The official releases given by our government are good, but every quarian knows that if you really want to be safe, download user-tuned ones from the extranet."

"Wouldn't it be easier to just physically remove them? Take off the suit, pop in a new filter, and you're done."

"Take off the suit?" Saal'Inor paused out of sheer disbelief, shooting Zaz a look. "Even Gorman knows why we don't do that, Zaz."

"Right, sorry," Zaz retreated.

Having the Commander out-knowledge her was damning, or maybe, just maybe…he was finally learning.

She glanced across the quarters.

There, sitting atop an empty bunk, was Gorman. His thousand credits were mostly used, his last-minute purchases at Polaris were delivered, the ship's course was set, its crew were in motion…so finally, he had an intermission moment. He was spending it like the quarian was, facing off against an aglow omni-tool. Unlike the quarian, you could see the focus in his eyes while navigating it. What could he be searching for, Zaz wondered. She'd grown up hearing that modern, twenty-second century life was complex and that the past, the 'good old days' were much more simple. To her, however, modern life was all she knew. If the Commander's origins were to be believed, all she knew was all new to him. With that considered, she wondered what he was thinking as he possibly started traversing the extranet. What insights would he have? What wisdom could he share?

'I have no idea what I'm doing' summed up Gorman's initial thoughts.

He'd quickly given up trying to work out the photo mode – as evidenced by the collection of accidental selfies two thousand strong now cluttering his tool's storage – and the music library lived up to its name in the sense that it was deathly quiet without any songs to choose from. At least he figured out the flashlight. His retinas were still recovering.

With a defeated sigh he tapped the button labelled 'extranet'. Taking up the floating monitor above his forearm was a deep blue hue. Questions laid out on the left, with sections for answers underneath, and a carbon copy of the man himself standing firm on the right. It was time at long last to fill out the Alliance questionnaire. He stretched out his fingers – and hoped that there would be no long answers necessary given he only had one free hand to work with.

"First Name:" read the first question. "Middle Name" read the second. Gorman got to work.

First Name: Kevin

Middle Name: William

Last Name: Gorman

Here we go, he thought, "Date of Birth" was next up. He entered in the correct date.

His fears were at once confirmed, "ERROR" was emblazoned across the screen. He braced for repercussions. "ERROR: '17' Not Valid Month" it expanded. Gorman's head recoiled slightly in mild shock. He should have guessed that the date format the vast majority of the world used would eventually take over in totality. He input the date again, year 1982 still included, month and day the other way round. No problems, no errors. He could proceed.

One prediction he could easily have made about the future was the domination of the metric system. Seeing the next few entries required, "Height" and "Weight", he prepared to do some mental math to drag his details away from Imperial. To his actual surprise, the fields filled themselves in automatically. The impromptu scan it did to create virtu-Gorman also got his height and weight perfectly right…except for one glaring fact. After a little look to make sure nobody was watching, Zaz and Saal'Inor having a nice chat a few bunks down, he added an extra centimeter onto his height. He wasn't being dishonest, really – it's just that he usually wears boots. 190 was accepted.

He was on a roll, and answers flowed with each passing question.

Blood Type: O Positive

Biotic: N/A

Planet of Birth: Earth

(Earth Only) Country of Birth: USA

ERROR: Invalid Country

"What?" Gorman gasped. He tried again to no avail, only provoking a drop-down list to appear. How could this be? Did the godless communists finally win? What happened to the good old US and A? Of all the outrageous events that had happened to him recently, being born in a country that no longer exists was one of the more unimaginable ones. With a heavy heart, he browsed the drop-down list, and his eyes widened at the roster on offer. Some recognizable names, some logical confederations, much fewer in total than he was expecting…and finally, the United North American States, complete with some ridiculous flag. He shook his head. It would have to do.

The sooner he could get the rest of this over with, the better. He quickly – and bitterly – filled out marital status, family status, and whatever 'vocational codes' were. When the Shackleton was unrecognized as his active ship of service, the Antwerp filled in the gap.

Just when it looked like he was due another round of digital interrogation, the deep blue faded into standard orange. The 'extranet' browser now gracing his screen was simple in design, and surprisingly familiar to him. A search bar, bookmarks, settings…but no advertisements in sight. Perhaps a benefit of his tool being military issue.

The glaring question was therefore what to look up. Something too specific might lead him down a rabbit-hole, so he entered the all-encompassing 'news' into the search bar and hit the holographic magnifying glass button with purpose. It took longer to load than he imagined for something this advanced, with some message onscreen about digging up files from a 'cache', but once it was ready, it bombarded him. Available at his fingertips were more news sources than he could fathom. Centerfold was the only one he previously knew of, Westerlund News.

He gave it a click, and started to read.

MCFINLEY FUEL FILES FOR BANKRUPTCY

ST. BRENDAN, BEKENSTEIN – The third largest Helium-3 producer in Alliance space, McFinley Fuel, has officially filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy following the discovery of a smuggling ring operating in various affiliated depots across the Attican Traverse.

The multibillion credit enterprise, which has been extracting crucial gases for spaceflight since the early 2160s, broke the news at 17:00 Earth Standard (around midday on Bekenstein) yesterday, with chief operations officer Hemming Kvist announcing that due to "extraordinary circumstances" McFinley Fuel could "no longer function in its current form". These circumstances are clear to investors, who have seen MFF stock prices tumble over the last week to historic lows, an emergency unsolvable even with the surge in demand after Eden Prime. Mr. Kvist, 49, standing outside the McFinley extrasolar headquarters in St. Brendan – a quaint city known for its large corporate presence and peculiar tax legislation – neglected to answer questions regarding the cause of the subsidiary's poor fortune.

The past few days have been damning, as the Alliance press corps and Westerlund understand. Following an "anonymous tipoff", what was a routine inspection of a Helium-3 extraction station in the Tara system (23 lightyears from Elysium) turned into a full criminal investigation involving colonial police and an Alliance cruiser from the Seventh Fleet. A smuggling ring, where critical fuel surpluses were sold off in exchange for credits, weapons and other illicit items, was uncovered and the alleged ringleaders brought into Alliance custody. Touching down at the Geneva spaceport soon afterward was one such mastermind; a human male, aged 40, bald and mustachioed, who remains unnamed at time of publication. This largely brought an end to fierce extranet gossip that the geth, batarians or turians (or some outlandish combination of the three) were behind the illegitimate business – although we at Westerlund encourage our readers to remain skeptical of any Alliance communiqué so soon after the geth blunder.

Investor confidence was rattled enough to send McFinley Fuel stocks plummeting, and now the extent of the damage is realized with an unprecedented bankruptcy. The parent company, GDMF, has placed its fuel division into a trust until a suitable buyer emerges. Corporate rivals Eldfell-Ashland and Tian Ranliao are presumably eager to sweep up the remains of what was their once-mighty competitor.

Elusive GDMF president Macaulay McFinley is reportedly "disappointed" by the situation, and has encouraged "caution" to ensure that the megacorporation's other ventures do not follow a similar fate.

Gorman wasn't sure what to feel. Satisfaction at seeing justice served? Skepticism at exactly how his exploits led to a full criminal investigation? Either way, he knew with certainty one thing: wherever Bekenstein is, it looks beautiful. Palm trees and clear skies. A true tax haven.

There was a related, very recent article that was practically begging to be read next. He clicked on it as soon as he saw the title.

PROFILE IN COURAGE: ANTONÍN NOVAK

POLARIS STATION, POLARIS – Unless you've been living off the grid in a prefab on some uncharted world, or you are one of our non-human readers, you'll know that Eden Prime was the most peaceful planet of any Alliance colony…until it suddenly wasn't. The destruction wrought by a shocking attack from the geth was beyond tragic. The Alliance, whose reputation depended on their response, found some light amidst the dark. Commander Shepard, for instance, was catapulted to become humanity's first Spectre (see our earlier Profile in Courage in issue 43 for more), a "milestone" according to Citadel Ambassador Donnel Udina. It also gave us another hero, a man of action who is just as quickly becoming a household name: Antonín Novak.

I had the pleasure of speaking to the newly minted Sgt. Novak, 22, while he was enjoying much-deserved shore leave on Polaris Station. A testament to his newfound popularity was the size of the crowd hoping to catch a glimpse, and your correspondent even encountered an impersonator on site who swiftly removed themselves from the scene. The real man was much more impressive. Dashingly handsome, dreamy brown eyes, chiseled jaw – the works.

Born to a European military family onboard the SSV Actium, young Novak spent his formative years travelling from ship to ship, station to station, enlisting as soon as he could. Following an insignificant disciplinary matter, he was transferred in 2180 to Eden Prime's 2nd Frontier Division, Unit 213, eventually earning the rank of Corporal. The garden world, Novak describes, was "life at a slower pace", which he claims led to his "brief, manageable drinking problem".

Everything changed when the geth attacked. While on a solo patrol of a storage site near the Spaceport (23 kilometers from Constant city center) Novak couldn't believe what he was seeing – and immediately armed himself with a missile launcher. Impressively, he shot a missile that downed an enemy craft without dialing in a firing solution, a craft that was later confirmed to have been batarian in origin. Fearless Novak claims that any batarian survivors, of which none were found, were "gone by my gun or a geth one, or both".

Little did Novak know that he would be one of the few survivors from the 213 on that fateful day. This, he describes, "changed my whole deal". Upon his urgent request, the Alliance greenlit a return to frontline service that saw him deployed to the desolate world of Xawin, and following that success, employed on a supply run to the far-flung human colony of Freedom's Progress.

Recognition for his efforts has come thick and fast, even garnering rumors of a Star of Terra for the now-Sergeant. Novak modestly deflected the praise like the exemplar he is becoming, stating for the record that "We may never live up to the great heroes the Council races have held for centuries. But we must try."

So that's why Novak was such a big deal. Gorman could rest easier knowing that his valor wasn't stolen after all…although he couldn't help but grumble at how his own description came into play.

He was about to launch into another related article when the rational part of his brain finally got through. The more things change, the more they stay the same, and five minutes on the extranet could easily have turned into five hours if he didn't have a goal in mind. He gave it more thought – what did he need to know?

The idea came quickly. There was one loose end he'd like to tie up. A news article from a different source, and from a few days ago, was spotted and opened.

MEMORIAL WEEK IN NEW DUBLIN ENDS

NEW DUBLIN, EUROPEAN UNION, EARTH – It's raining in New Dublin. The umbrellas of a million people, citizens and dignitaries alike, were aloft on the wide thoroughfares that cut in from the mainland and cross Lough Liffey. The weather did little to dampen the candles held by all, nor obstruct the view from Alliance headquarters to the Eternal Flame and adjacent Cenotaph in the island's center. Memorial Park was half lit up in European blue and yellow, and half in the old Irish colors of green, white and orange. Inscribed on the many imposing marble walls that make up the circular complex are the names of some five hundred thousand people. With such a vast number, it's no wonder that the display continues further underground. Luckily for all attendees on the surface, the officials kept their eulogies short. "The wounds are still healing," says Alliance Prime Minister Amul Shastri. "Ní dhéanfaimid dearmad orthu," (We will not forget them) solemnly states European President Tina Kellermann in the Irish language, a native tongue extinct since the early 2080s.

This week marked 170 years since the greatest manmade disaster in modern human history. On this Tuesday back in 2013, a nuclear weapon was inadvertently detonated in the middle of Old Dublin's city center. In an instant, just under five hundred thousand people were killed. The once-beautiful city, with its charming architecture and vibrant culture, was completely destroyed. Once the smoke cleared, all that remained of the Irish capital was a crater 20 kilometers wide – which would eventually become Lough Liffey.

The exact cause of the incident remains largely unknown. Ireland had no official nuclear weapons program at the time, and other nuclear powers of the era (most notably North Korea) denied any responsibility. In fact, a vast majority of the world's countries (including North Korea) banded together to provide aid for what became the biggest humanitarian crisis in decades. Eyewitness accounts range from the terrifying to the fantastical. Flashes of light bright enough to blind, a pillar of energy reaching the stratosphere, a noise unlike anything heard before or since. Naturally this led to decades of conspiracy theories, with those corroborating the event with an uptick in worldwide meteor showers and the fast-tracked decommission of the International Space Station the following month. "Dublin-Truthers" often point to the lack of radiation from the disaster as definitive proof of a cover-up, something even declassified files in years gone by neglect to mention, much less clear up.

The last 170 years have given Dublin time to recover. A grand, ludicrously expensive rebuilding project spearheaded by infamous EU President Les McCarthy saw New Dublin Island created in the middle of the crater lake, complete with high-rise infrastructure, the European headquarters for the nascent Alliance, and, of course, the vast Memorial grounds. A week – the week just passed – was officially dedicated to remembering the losses of that fateful day in 2013, remembering the city that once stood at that very spot, and celebrating the engineering triumph that brought it back from the ashes. Emblematic, PM Shastri remarked, of the human spirit.

It's raining in New Dublin…just as it always has, and just as it always will.

Five hundred thousand people. Gone, just like that. Gorman couldn't imagine it. Who could?

He took solace in knowing that he prevented it from happening again. The so-called Dublin Truthers were only half-right; a nuclear weapon was used…to blow up Jacob's spaceship. The massive vessel and its city-destroying laser were history, albeit very much off the record as he was finding out. Nobody knew the truth except himself, Kalu, Zaz, Blanc…and now the newcomers.

Alright, he relented, one more extranet search and then it's back to work.

"Commander. We must talk."

The voice startled him, breaking the omni-tools' engrossing hold. When the holographic display flickered off, in front of him was a blue woman holding an unbreakable stare. Behind her, Zaz and Saal'Inor had departed. They were alone again.

"I was just catching up on some news," Gorman explained, tapping on his forearm.

"Where is the use in that?" she snapped back. "There is not enough time to be looking at 'news', nor is there a point in learning about insignificant past events when the future is at stake."

Still all doom and gloom, evidently. Gorman gestured to the empty table and chairs in the middle of the quarters. They sat down opposite each other.

"You've learned much in a short while, but I can tell you more," she nodded her head, giving the Commander another glimpse of her flicked scalp. "The fundamentals of modern knowledge. It will help you."

"You…don't have to go into my mind again, do you?" Gorman was suddenly wary.

"No," she replied, sending relief across the table. "That…shouldn't be necessary." There was a tremble in her voice. Gorman knew he should redirect the topic.

"How can you do that, anyway? The mind connecting."

"Commander," she straightened her back, regaining composure, "It's hardly relevant anymore. Besides, it's not something I can teach you."

"I'm just curious. Can all asaris do that?"

"It's 'asari'. And yes, we can all merge minds with willing partners. But curiosity does not help you here. If we are to prevent the apocalypse, you shouldn't waste your time with -"

"Why wouldn't it help?" Gorman shrugged. "I like to know all my crew. That includes you. If you can merge minds, I'd love to know how."

"…You're not letting this go, are you?"

"Hey, you did it first."