My alcohol tolerance was such that I could more accurately call it alcohol immunity. Yamak Rettle, on the other hand, did not possess any such boons.

Thus, in the middle of the night when Querax, Arianna, and Uthakka returned, they each took their time to process the scene of myself rested in a plush armchair nursing my fifteenth glass of alcohol, this one some kind of spiced rum, whilst another portion of the long curved couch bore a splayed out Yamak Rettle with a bottle lightly held. He was passed out, loudly snoring, and looked every part the party-goer that had had too many drinks.

The satisfied expression on his face didn’t do that impression any favors.

“Had yourselves a good time?” Arianna asked with an arched eyebrow, clearly amused at the situation.

I shrugged, “I did, actually.”

Without prompting, the three found themselves comfortable in other seats.

“I don’t know any of the names,” Uthakka frowned, “do you have any suggestions?”

“Hmm… Try this one,” I sent the order through, “how about you two?”

Querax shed his helmet, clicking thoughtfully before he nodded, “It has been a while since I’ve enjoyed a few drinks.”

Arianna smiled, “I’ll try something as well.”

Idly, I ordered a few of the lighter, flavorful drinks. The drink itself wouldn’t do anything to me, but it’d be good not to assume the same of others.

Yamak, after all, seemed to have a direct line from his mouth to his blood when it came to alcohol.

“I do like your city,” Arianna spoke up as we waited, “But, I do feel that it lacks a certain… something.”

Uthakka nodded, “It has no-” he waved his clawed hand he considered a moment “-heart, no shadow.”

I tilted my head at that, and he obliged, “in my homeworld, every city has an identity. A reason to be. For my hometown, we had the hanging gardens.”

“That sounds surprisingly romanticized,” Querax commented, “I’m told your race favors violence.”

“We can’t have both?” Uthakka grinned toothily, dagger-fangs protruding from his maw, “The gardens feed some of our livestock. Honey was our major export.”

I nodded at that, finding the image of a towering lizard cultivating plants and tending to bee-hives jarringly dissonant.

“But, the point was it gave our city a reason to be, something that permeated our lives. Here, I see no reason.” Uthakka nodded to himself sagely, “Though, I’ve seen plenty of towns like it.”

“It’s an excellent headquarters,” Querax nodded, even as the drinks were carefully pressed into their waiting hands from the mechanical arms of the room. A light grin tugged the corner of his mouth as he watched the arm ascend back into the ceiling, “your Legion will be excellently placed. The coast is nearby, you’re centralized between several cities of relative power and capacity. Most biotics in these areas have been controlled-” he then gestured to me emphatically “-and farms for said creatures developed. Not many species under incursion do so for fear of the risks.”

Arianna made a thoughtful hum as she sipped her drink, apparently finding it to her liking as she continued drinking. “Well, I do think that there’s definitely something missing. It’s not like you need to have a large civilian presence here - this is clearly a military inclined city - but something at least. Perhaps this is a matter for the more artistically inclined.”

We talked about some general things then, and I learned a bit more about their respective homeworlds. Querax was surprisingly open about talking, and took part in the conversation actively. From what Yamak had said, he was a very quiet sort, though in retrospect it could very well have been the man's personal dislike of the mercenary.

I decided not to broach the topic.

When I told them about my plan to get more of the fleet in orbit, I was met with mixed enthusiasm.

“It’ll be risky,” Querax nodded, “but quite worth the cost.”

Arianna’s eyes narrowed at the man, “I think you may be underestimating the human’s weapons.”

Uthakka, now with a much larger flagon of frothy beer, rumbled with a deep throated chuckle. “Considering you guys weren’t far from space-age stuff, your kinetic weapons have some kick!” I smiled and took some pride in what he said, at least before he opened his mouth again, “Your general stuff sucks. But your higher military grade weapons are good. The satellite stuff up there packs a wallop too.”

That dulled my pride a bit, but at the very least we weren’t a total write off. I supposed that when your standard hunting rifle would only kind of piss off a Saurian, you’d have to take a step back and admit the need for some heavier ordnance.

“I realize the weapons are there,” Querax leaned back, a glass full of ice, coke, and rum clinking lightly as he did so, “but the targeting system is atrocious on evading targets.”

“Then why did we get hit?” Arianna asked levelly, crossing her arms over her chest, still holding a drink in her clawed fingers.

Querax’s eyes flicked over to the unconscious form of Yamak, “Why indeed?”

I cleared my throat, “Redundancy.”

The Reaper looked at me in confusion, as did the others, before he gave a small nod, “Mmm, indeed, yes. That would be the best way to fix that problem.”

Arianna tilted her head, as Uthakka explained with another laugh, “If you’re shit at hitting a target, throw more projectiles at it. That’s how we do it back home.”

The woman rolled her eyes and shook her head, “Honestly, I don’t know how you Saurian’s made it.”

An air of silence permeated the room for a few seconds, expecting some kind of joking response. Instead, I found my eyes settled on the Saurian as he swirled the drink in his hands.

“I guess we got lucky,” he grinned, “we had enough bodies to throw at the problem.”

The Scynoi Princess grimaced, “I apologize, I know it wasn’t-”

“I know, I know-” Uthakka waved her off suddenly, “no harm done. We Saurians aren’t the sort to walk on egg-shells.”

I clicked my fingers against my cup in deep thought, staring into the amber colored liquid of my drink, swirling with another, denser liquid within. There was no shortage of sacrifices that the Earth had made already. In terms of the ecosystem alone, I doubted that much of the biosphere remained wholly intact. Even after we managed to control the biotic threat, I doubted we’d ever be fully rid of it. Many of the creatures, by matter of course, devoured anything they could catch. Bugs were among the few that might survive, but the wolves had hunted most terrestrial animals in the area. Some lived, much like the deer myself and Daniel had captured on the eve of the Obelisk’s landing, but they were scant few.

Who was to say that there were enough to repopulate?

And the lives we’d already paid to carve out even this amount of safety, how much had others paid for similar results?

“Tooth for your thoughts?” Uthakka looked at me, a smile reaching his eyes as his crocodilian face pointed to me.

The others, settled in as they were, focused on me.

“Just thinking about what we’ve paid to get this far.” I sighed, “Tell me, what are our chances?”

The others exchanged looks at that, “It’s a fairly complicated question that you ask,” she stated, even while looking uncertainly at her glass.

Querax remained studiously silent, but Uthakka couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the other two, “You’re in deep shit.”

The other two looked at him, Querax seemingly unsurprised while Arianna glaring at him with exasperation.

The Saurian shrugged, “He deserves to know. I’d sure as hell have liked to know what our odds were.”

He flicked his attention to the monitor, concentrating hard on his interface and allowing the hologram to bring up a picture of an alien world.

“This is an… admittedly rough image of my homeworld, Agorion,” he gestured to what appeared to be a verdant hothouse of vegetation. “There were two sentient species, the Saurian and the Lettal. We Saurian tended towards the more densely vegetated regions, hotter, wetter. The Lettal moved more towards the higher elevated, colder regions, though mostly concentrated here.” He gestured to a few primary areas, “There are several other pockets, but our species were fairly concentrated here. We had a lot of natural predators in our world, and we didn’t have much in the way of special weapons, like guns, before the Obelisks came.”

“Here, in the middle of Lettal territory, the biotic meteor impacted. A thousand kilometer area buried in fire and destruction-” he snapped his fingers, “-just like that. We took pity on the Lettal, not even knowing about biotics yet. Over the course of a few months, though, we met them. Now, we know the first forerunners as Gen 2. Our world lacked a defensive system, but our meteor was comparatively smaller than the one that hurtled towards your world. The Dark Years was what we called them, ash filled the sky, plants struggled, our peoples hungered. Biotics give no flesh to sustain us, and if it weren’t for our prolific and warlike ways, the Saurian would not have held. The Lettal worked at our backs, doing what they could - they were always better with technology than we were - and arming our people as we could. It was everything we could do to keep the threat contained. Then, the Obelisks came.”

“I am proud to say that we took the weapons given to us and rammed it down the biotics throats. But, it cost us,” he sighed, “your people are more complicated. You have hundreds, thousands of hives scattered across the world. We had one pocket of hives, many of them certainly, and only at Gen 2 and Gen 3. For you? With as many types as there are here?”

He left the implication unsaid, but he didn’t need to comment. There was no united front against the biotics. We fought in every direction, struggling to take back territory, hunting down every biotic core we could find. Even so, it would take time, hundreds of kilometers were clear around us, but what of others? What of other territories? If they failed, would mega hives greet us at every turn?

“You’re not alone, though,” Uthakka thrummed, “and you’ll come out of this stronger if you survive. I’ve a few of my warriors that I’d be happy to lend you, they’re bored up in the ships anyways.”

I smiled at that, “I’ll take you up on that, there’s plenty of biotics to go around.”

“The Reaper’s don’t like to butt in too much,” Querax stated, “this is your crucible. But I can safely say that the First Reaper would also consider this an exception.”

We looked to Arianna then, who smiled, beaming with her fangs, “We’ll keep the vultures away.”

I blinked at that in surprise, “I don’t understand.”

“Well, that guy-” she gestured flippantly to Yamak, “-will keep the pirates and mercs away, some smaller militaries if they try to elbow in. You’ve got Lazka Muran and his Titherin Mercantile Corporation and their rights to keep other conglomerates out. But the big governments would just ignore them if they really wanted you. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to help you out, but, I suppose for a small favor I could ask my aunt to make some subtle remarks about our intent around earth.”

“Wouldn’t the council be enough for that?” I tilted my head, prompting an almost imperceptible shake of the head from Querax.

“Wouldn’t they?” She smiled, “I suppose they could take care of you, they’re so good at managing everything.”

The sweet sarcasm aside, I sighed, “Well, a small favor would be fine. So long as it’s reasonable. What is it?”

She grinned, “I’ll come up with something later.”

Querax sat back, seemingly at ease with the arrangement, while Uthakka didn’t seem to mind either way. At that, we made a little bit more small talk, but eventually retired to our own rooms.

Yamak was still passed out on the couch.