CHAPTER 21

The Echo

"So… What the hell are you anyway? Some kind of salarian?"

Javik exhaled slowly through his nostrils. Opening his many yellow eyes, he scowled bitterly over at the two hapless krogan who were sitting across from him in the tomkah.

"Nah. Looks like a batarian to me," offered the other krogan. "He's got four eyes."

"Yeah, but I ain't ever seen a green batarian," said the first krogan, shaking his head. "Maybe he's part salarian and part batarian? Is that… possible?"

The two krogan stared at him curiously, wondering if the strange alien would finally open up and shed some light on his mysterious heritage, but all Javik would offer them for their curiosity was an icy stare. The first krogan grumbled angrily, his curious expression slowly turning to anger as he stared impatiently into Javik's yellow eyes.

"Hey!" barked the indignant krogan. "You deaf or something? I asked you a question!"

"Will you idiots shut up back there!"

The two krogan nearly jumped at Wrex's thunderous voice and looked sheepishly toward the front of the vehicle

The large crimson armored krogan sitting in the driver seat craned his large head just enough so he could get a look at them out of one of his eyes. Even using only one eye the venerable krogan managed to give off a menacing stare.

"Hey, Javik!" he shouted, loud enough so that all could hear him over the roar of the tomkah engine. "If those two pyjaks keep bothering you, feel free to knock 'em around a bit. Could use the entertainment!"

"Gladly…" he said coolly, giving the two krogan a hard, threatening look.

The two krogan returned Javik's scowl with a fearsome one of their own, but to their growing surprise, the prothean didn't flinch. Feeling a bit unnerved at the unexpected reaction, and not wanting to see if their chieftain's offer to the strange alien would prove to be genuine, the two krogan finally gave up and busied themselves with inspecting their weapons.

Wrex chuckled as he turned back to put his eyes on the road. "I like him," he laughed, reaching over and forcefully nudging Garrus, who was sitting quietly in the copilot seat beside him. The turian paid the krogan no mind. All of his focus was on studying various maps of London on his omni-tool.

"Primitives…" Javik scoffed silently, folding his arms before sinking deeper into his seat.

Watching the two bothersome krogan mindlessly fiddle with their crude excuses for weaponry, Javik began wondering why he had even bothered accepting the turian's invitation to this hunt.

For the last few days, the prothean had wanted nothing more than to get away from the Normandy and all the curious aliens that were intent on questioning him, or worse, trying to befriend him. So when Garrus approached him about coming along on a potentially dangerous mission on Earth, Javik took him up on his offer without question or even a second thought. A foolish idea he now realized, considering the company he was now forced to keep.

But in truth, it wasn't simply wanting to escape pointless questions from gawking primitives that drove him to come along. He had been finding it difficult to concentrate on certain things these last few days. Ever since the fall of the Reapers, Javik had dreamt about one thing and one thing only.

The planet in the Cronian Nebula.

It had a name back in his cycle. A name fitting of a world once considered to be a jewel in the prothean empire. But to him, that name felt hollow and meaningless. The planet was nothing more than a smoking ruin during his life, and in time there was only one way he chose to refer to it:

A graveyard.

In all the countless battles against the reapers in his cycle, none had given him more scars than the ones he fought on that planet. It was on that world that Javik was forced to confront the true horror of the reapers. It was there that he learned the true price of survival, and became the soldier he was to this day.

He thought it fitting. The planet of his rebirth would also be his end. The thought of dying in a manner of his own choosing and finally being reunited with all those he had lost those thousands of years ago, filled Javik's mind with a feeling of peace that he never imagined he could ever feel again.

He shut his eyes tightly, imagining himself finally setting foot on the planet he sought. The familiar smells and sounds of that husk of a world immediately came back to him. He remembered the acrid smell of smoke and ash wafting lazily through the air, carried by the chilling breeze of a lifeless world. He remembered the silhouettes of blasted city scapes dotting the horizon, poking into the sky like the bones of a once great creature laid low by battle.

He remembered the faces of those he hunted on that world...

Javik took a deep breath through his nostrils.

The faces of his soldiers, the most loyal crew he had ever had the honor of fighting with, and the few beings he ever considered to be his friends, haunted him. He vividly remembered the look on each of their faces as he was forced to confront them. The detached, almost hateful look in each of their eyes as they fought, followed by the horrified expression etched on their faces as he slit their throats one by one was forever burned into the back of his mind.

Javik imagined his blade in his hands. He stared almost longingly at its sharp edge, picturing himself kneeling down in the sand, taking hold of its ornate hilt and positioning it over his chest.

He aimed it between his ribs, giving its deadly point a straight path to his heart. A single thrust was all it would take. A single thrust… and the last voice of the protheans would finally be reunited with his lost kin.

You're not alone, Javik…

The unexpected sound of Liara's voice abruptly shook the prothean from his trance, causing the blade in his hands to abruptly vanish and sending his consciousness back to his seat in the rumbling tomkah.

Javik frowned bitterly as he opened his eyes, only to once again be greeted with a view of the two inept krogan sitting across from him.

"Meddlesome asari…" he muttered under his breath, angrily banishing Liara's unwanted words while shaking his head. Despite the considerable physical distance now between him and Liara, the asari's words still found a way to haunt the frustrated prothean, and for a few quiet minutes, he tried to understand why.

Javik looked down to his hands, frowning as one likely possibility crossed his mind.

Her mark on those tags must've been greater than I thought…

Javik shifted in his seat uncomfortably, silently wishing he had never bothered to read those accursed dog tags. It infuriated him, but it seemed that lately every time he tried to turn his thoughts towards the future he designed, the nosy asari would inevitably invade his thoughts and begin dancing through his subconscious.

He found himself missing his quarters on the Normandy, and the cleansing waters that he used to wash away the invasive imprints of the world around him. He wished he could go back there now, and scrub away the unwanted mark Liara had left on him.

Javik let out a tired sigh, begrudgingly coming to terms with the fact that it was unlikely to happen any time soon. He closed his many eyes once again and attempted to relax once more, silently hoping that perhaps being able to shoot at something might suffice in quieting her voice in his head.

After what seemed like an eternity of tight turns and loud rumbling over endless stretches of road and rubble, the tomkah finally shuddered to an abrupt halt.

"Alright, ladies. We're here," boomed Wrex, disengaging the noisy engine and standing up from his seat. "Grab your crap and get moving. We've got work to do."

Finally, thought Javik, wasting no time in undoing his harness and picking up his weapon.

The side hatch in the tomkah swung open with a metallic whine and a gust of cold, moist air immediately flooded the compartment. The two other krogan stood up to exit, but immediately stopped and waited for the prothean to exit first.

Javik wasn't sure if they did it as a form of respect, or if they were worried that the alien might lash out at them from behind their backs, but either way, he didn't care. In fact, both possibilities amused him, and his lips curled slightly into a mischievous smile.

Stowing his weapon in its holster on his back, Javik grabbed the handrail above the door and swung out of the tomkah, landing with a wet thud on the pavement. He looked down at the ground and was surprised to see the road all around him glistened with what looked like the remains of a light rain from only a few minutes ago.

Javik frowned, craning his head up and looking towards the stars. But he could see neither stars or the blackness of space. All he could see above him was a thick blanket of dark, gray clouds. The smell of lingering moisture permeated the air, and he knew that the rain could return at any moment.

This may prove… difficult, he mused to himself, knowing that the coming rain might wash away whatever trails or evidence there was left.

Save for the lights on the tomkah and a few scattered lanterns set up by the krogan, it was almost completely pitch black. If he didn't have four eyes, it would've been almost impossible to see the surrounding structures looming over them.

Garrus wasted no time getting to work. Carefully climbing out of the tomkah, Garrus took to carefully scanning the ruined street around them, his sharp eyes darting from spot to spot, and taking in every little detail he could find. Javik noticed that the turian's scarred mandibles would twitch anytime he spotted something interesting or out of place.

Wrex did practically the opposite. Without a care for safety or even bothering to check the immediate surroundings, the large krogan lumbered out of the cabin and landed with a heavy thud outside the vehicle. He loudly called out for the others to follow him as he made his way to the front of a ruined building where Javik could see the silhouettes of yet more krogan who were already here waiting for them.

Javik, Garrus and the others all turned to follow the lumbering Wrex over to what looked like a ruined office building of some sort, but something strange caught Javik's eyes as he approached. A black splotch on the pavement before the entryway to the building was starkly visible to him. Even in the dark, Javik was able to see that it looked to be a fresh blast mark staining the already ruined sidewalk.

His curiosity getting the better of him, Javik reached down and gently touched the ground just before he could pass it.

A myriad of different sensations and images flooded the protagonist's mind as he took in the information. He felt footsteps. Footsteps of all the different humans that had crossed this threshold in the years before. Their mark was faint. To faint to make an identity, but still it was there.

He felt shaking. The ground had recently shifted. Not by natural means, but by the force of unnaturally heavy footsteps.

Reaper capital ships he figured. Their steps were heavy enough to cause even the earth to shudder in their wake.

He felt fire. An intense heat recently scorched the site. Like several small explosives all igniting at once.

He felt something else. A trace of… krogan? He could feel it fully now. Krogan blood was mixed with the ash. He could sense a krogan warrior. A warrior with a propensity for explosives…

"Find anything useful?" asked Garrus, who was hovering expectantly over Javik as he rested his hand against the blast mark.

"A krogan died here," he said nonchalantly. "He loved explosives. It appears that love killed him."

Garrus stared in awe watching the prothean stand back up and casually step inside the ruined building. Even after knowing the prothean for as long as he did, he was still amazed that Javik could read all that from a smudge on the ground.

Javik stepped through a ruined entryway, following Wrex and the other krogan into what was once a well furnished foyer where two other krogan were waiting for them. Javik didn't recognize the first krogan but he instantly recognized the second. The young krogan, Urdnot Grunt, was resting comfortably with his back against a tall stone column. Beside him, Javik noticed an oversized hammer leaning against the column, its large flat face covered in what looked to be dried krogan blood.

Grunt tilted his head respectfully at Wrex as he stomped by, and offered the prothean a curt yet welcoming nod. Javik reciprocated the gesture, saying nothing as he continued to follow Wrex.

Upon seeing Garrus step into the space Grunt let out a single, throaty chuckle and said "Vakarian," in a flat voice.

"Grunt," responded Garrus, matching the krogan's tone.

Moving past Grunt and the other krogan, Wrex led the pair over to a large tarp that was stretched thin over three large masses. Javik didn't have to guess what was waiting for them underneath it. The smell told him everything he needed to know.

Wrex grabbed a corner of the tarp and forcefully pulled it away, revealing the three dead bodies of his men. Garrus' nose subtly wrinkled in mild disgust as the sickening smell of rotting flesh grew intensely stronger. The grizzly display had no effect on Javik. After all his years of fighting the reapers, he was immune to the stench of the dead.

"Alright, prothean. Let's see what you can do," Wrex said, turning to face Javik and looking at him expectantly. "Garrus told me about that thing you can do with your finger. So… go ahead give 'em a poke."

Javik scowled angrily as he heard the other krogan snicker behind him. "It is not a … thing I can do with my finger," he hissed indignantly. "It is a sensory mechanism common among my people. We can read and transfer complex ideas through touch and-"

"I don't give a damn about the details," Wrex grumbled, absently waving him off. "I just want to know what happened to my men. Can you tell me that?"

Javik flared his nostrils angrily before affirmatively nodding. "Yes."

Wrex stepped aside, allowing Javik to take a better look at the bodies. He had already read the krogan's report about everything they had found at the site, but seeing the damage to the bodies in person made it all the more intriguing. One krogan had a gaping whole in his neck, another had his head smashed in. Likely by the hammer, he figured. The third, which was the largest krogan out of the three, but bore the smallest wound of all. A single slit in the front and back of his chest.

Javik reached out and touched the first body.

The small one. Young. Inexperienced. Worked as a mechanic during his relatively short life. Lacked the confidence of a true soldier. His death was slow and painful. Never got a look at who shot him.

He read the large one next. A tall and formidable fighter. Had a temper common amongst other krogan. He felt confusion in him. Surprise. Several strange yet deadly combatants attacked him from multiple angles. He saw two human looking figures in his memory. Both wearing black armor. One wielding a strange weapon and the other with biotics. Javik sensed the wound. He was struck from the back, piercing both of his hearts with a single strike. Never saw the third attacker.

He read the final one… a young, brash warrior who's arrogance seemed to eclipse that of the other krogan in his squad. Javik sensed his wounds. Cuts in each of his arms and legs, crippling him utterly. He was immobile when it happened, when his attacker finally killed him with his own hammer.

He saw a human burned into the krogan's blurry memory. A human that the krogan felt absolute hatred and disgust for up until his death. A scarred human with silver hair.

"They were ambushed by four attackers… humans," he finally revealed, stepping away from the bodies.

"Only four attackers?" Garrus asked, sounding surprised and unconvinced. "Taking out four fully grown krogan? That seems hard to believe. Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes," Javik answered simply. "These humans are skilled. At least one is a biotic. They struck the krogan fast and hard. Your soldiers never stood a chance."

Wrex let out a low, angry growl and curled his hands into fists.

"Any idea who these bastards are? Are they scavengers? Cerberus?" growled Wrex.

Javik shrugged. "No scavenger could do this. Cerberus? Possibly… But I cannot be certain. I can only sense the marks they left on your soldiers."

"Anything else you could get from them?" asked Garrus.

"No."

The turian's mandibles twitched as he processed the information and tried to think of their next move. Wrex didn't hesitate. With a determined look settling on his scarred face, the venerable krogan stormed over to the column where Grunt had been standing and pushed past the burly soldier. Eagerly taking hold of the bloody hammer's hilt, Wrex lifted it up and stashed it in one of the holsters across his broad back. Once it was secure, he reached for his waste and drew his large green shotgun, unfolding it and cocking it with one hand.

"We've wasted enough time here," he snarled to the others. "Grunt! Show me where you found the trail."

Grunt smirked and let out one of his typical slow, childish laughs before happily leading them all out of the building and down the road toward a dark alley.

Stepping outside, Javik felt a small droplet of water land on his shoulder. Not long after he felt another land on his arm, followed by several more on the top of his head. Javik doubled his pace, eager to find this mysterious trail before the rain could erase it.

The young, tank bred krogan stopped just in front of the entry of an alley and pointed to a dark area on the ground with his shotgun. Javik tilted his head and furrowed his brow as he studied it. The mark hardly looked like anything resembling a footprint. It was just a dark brown spot, barely perceptible on the pavement.

"That's it?" asked Garrus, giving Grunt a sideways look out of the corner of his eye. "I thought your report said you found footprints?"

"I did!" Grunt spat. "It was bigger when I found them. Rain must've washed some of it away."

"Bah!" roared Wrex. "Doesn't matter. Hey, prothean! Read this thing and give me a direction!"

Javik shrugged. "I will try. But the rain will make it difficult."

Feeling more light drops of rain land on him, he quickly knelt down and read the spot.

The feeling was so immediate that it almost surprised the prothean.

Blood.

Grunt was right. It was the blood of the large krogan. The one who was stabbed in the back. But there was something else he could sense. It was faint. Almost too faint for him to accurately describe, but he could feel hurried footsteps in it.

He couldn't read who or what exactly had left the print, but it was a familiar sensation. The one who had killed the large krogan, perhaps. But moreover, whoever had trailed this blood here had left in a hurry.

And they went to the northeast…

Javik took his hand away from the pavement and stared further down the alley. In the darkness he could see nothing of note, but he knew there had to be more marks of his quarry up ahead.

His lips curled into a thin smile. A new feeling washed over him as he studied the darkness. One that he eagerly welcomed over the frustration he had been feeling over the last few days.

He felt excitement. The thrill of the hunt managed to shut out any doubts he had been harboring about coming along on this mission, and best of all, he no longer felt the dreaded presence of the meddling asari in his mind.

He reached up and pulled his rifle off his back. It felt good to hold it in his hands again. The sleek metal rifle of his heritage unfolded silently in his hands and he eagerly drank in the memories of using it to obliterate his enemies.

"They went northeast," he declared, standing straight and moving forward to take point. "We must hurry! The longer we take, the more marks we lose to the rain."

Garrus too unfolded his weapon from his back and took his place behind Javik, tapping his eyepiece and syncing it with the targeting systems in his rifle.

Grunt grinned eagerly and moved to join them, but Wrex held out a hand to stop him. "Not this time, whelp."

"What!?" Grunt barked at him, giving his chieftain an incredulous snarl.

"This is a scouting mission. Too many bodies draws attention. Stay back and guard the tomkah," ordered Wrex, giving the younger krogan a hard look. "Keep your radio on. When we find them, we'll contact you. Then… we'll give those pyjak humping bastards what they deserve!"

Grunt's snarl gradually faded, and he gave Wrex a reluctant nod. "Fine. Just try not to get killed out there, old man."

Wrex let out a throaty laugh as he turned to catch up with Javik and Garrus.

Javik paid no attention to his two companions. All his focus was directed at his surroundings, intently feeling for more traces of his target. He grinned wickedly as he felt another mark, confirming that he was on the right path and causing him to pick up his pace. A pleasant thought settled into his mind as went.

His people were hunters. No quarry could escape, or defeat his people in their prime. These mysterious killers would be no different. He would find the ones who slaughtered the krogan, and make them understand before they died that there was no escaping the protheans.