For all the traits that define humanity, our hunger for knowledge is perhaps the most singularly compelling. From the moment we’re born until the time we pass beyond our lives, curiosity drives us to learn and experience the world around us, and even in death we continue exploring the unknown. Second only to our survival instinct, the motivation to grow and understand and chase the horizon is what pushes us to accomplish the incredible.

It makes sense then that when I set foot on Tuchanka—the first foreign planet to welcome my presence—I was speechless. The entire world was a veritable wasteland covered in endless desert, cities of rubble, and wreckage that only centuries of war could produce, but it was another step along the path of life’s exploration. There were ages of history there expanding far beyond the few thousand years of earth’s and humanity’s development. Countless stories to be told and mysteries to be uncovered that no one but the krogan could lay claim to. Visiting Sentinel and the Citadel had certainly been magnificent, but this was an entirely new level of wonder. It wasn’t hard to see why the krogan had fought so vigorously to survive rather than relocate. This was their home, and there was no other like it.

If all went well, we would make sure it stayed that way.

The shuttles from Evanescent dropped us off at the remains of an old city just beyond the perimeter of the Shroud facility and the arena built in Kalros’s honor, giving us a chance to see what we were up against with our own eyes as well as allowing Wrex to get his people ready. The turian and asari fleets had orders to wait until we engaged the Reapers on the ground before moving in, so for the time being we watched while nine destroyers lay waste to the entire area. It was a wonder the tower hadn’t been brought down yet, or that we weren’t incinerated beyond all hope of recovery by a wayward beam of red death.

It must be getting old by now, I know, but I still couldn’t believe that any of them might actually be on our side. Or at least, that our goals were temporarily aligned. Defending the Shroud could only mean one thing, despite Garrus’s caution in the briefing: some of them wanted us to accomplish our mission of saving the krogan. If in fact the Reapers guarding the Shroud were trying to keep us away from it, they would have blown it to pieces like they’d done with the Citadel. Ergo the defenders were holding out until we could get there while the attackers had to be the ones willing to stop us at all costs.

That fact in and of itself was mind-numbing given the implications. They had to know that we were forming an alliance, and that a large part of that alliance hinged on curing our diseased powerhouses. It was entirely possible that due to their incredible processing power the Reapers had realized we might try something like this and simply acted on a possibility, but there was more than a healthy bit of doubt in that scenario. An action like this—risking full-scale civil war with the rest of their kind—wasn’t something to be rushed into without a hundred and ten percent certainty as to our motivation. The Reapers had known we’d be coming to Tuchanka.

But there was no point in speculating as to how the leaves had known to change color before we’d even realized it was the beginning of Fall. We could only endure the season, plow what remained of our crops, and prepare the field for a harsh winter.

“Jesus,” Troy breathed, watching the scene play out alongside Claire, Adison and myself. “Look at that shit.”

It was truly breathtaking. I could hear the metallic wails of the destroyers even from our considerable distance, speaking a language of fury and anguish only they understood. The desert ground was often torn apart by a blast of energy and occasionally shaken so hard I had to brace myself just to keep from toppling over. Whatever they were fighting for—the destruction of the krogan or their salvation—they fought tooth and nail.

“Well, now I can say I’ve seen pretty much everything,” Claire commented.

She wasn’t even exaggerating. Three “good” Reapers stayed more or less immobile defending the tower, while one more strayed throughout the battlefield attempting to draw fire from the five “bad” ones. Simply categorizing these monsters using adjectives like good and bad felt paradoxical—in my mind, there should only have been bad. If you’d told me that I would one day be describing the Reapers as anything other than a negative force, I’d have thought you were an idiot.

Who’s the idiot now?

Footsteps. It had taken some time to adjust to the Seer mod and even though I no longer twitched at every new sense to greet my mind, I found myself acutely more aware of and reactive to my surroundings. Whereas before the enhancement I barely would’ve noticed the sound of rubble being crushed by armored boots, instinct drove me to assume hostility and act accordingly. It was a military mod, after all.

Thankfully out of all the people on the team, Gorun presented himself as the least threatening. I was sure even without knowing much about him that my assumption was entirely false, but compared to the brusque dispositions of Antarom, J’kal, and Koenig, Gorun was a welcome sight.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” he said with a forceful sigh. “I’d make an analogy to describe precisely how ridiculous the krogan’s actions are, but I don’t see how there’s any stronger imagery than seeing it in action.”

No arguing with that. Though I tried to block most of it out, I could hear Wrex arguing with his brother Wreav and a dozen others over the most trivial things. Well, trivial to us, at least. The krogan had a right to be wary of outsiders, and as much as we wanted to help, they weren’t the kind of people to trust an offer of assistance when it came attached to a very dangerous and familiar string.

“I don’t know what Wrex was expecting, coming back here with a Council escort,” Troy commented.

“He realized just like the rest of us that this is the only choice we have right now,” I said. I imagine there must have been such a tone of certainty in my voice, because Gorun couldn’t hide the curiosity in his eyes. It wasn’t easy reading alien expressions, but some things cross species barriers well enough.

“You overheard him?” Gorun asked. “They must be fifty meters away.”

“Genetic enhancement,” I explained. “My senses are all pushed beyond normal. For a human, anyway.”

He gave me a look, and that one I couldn’t quite figure out. “You’d make for a good infiltrator with an ability like that.”

Adison chuckled. “This is the guy that tripped and spilled beer on my carpet at least five times,” he said, punching me on the shoulder lightly. “Can’t even imagine what he’d do as an infiltrator.”

Troy and I laughed at that, remembering the good times we’d had when we would all get together at Adison’s for a weekend of alcohol and video games. And of course the times when we’d drank way, way more than we should have. Still, even those memories were nothing short of hilariously entertaining.

“Don’t worry bro,” I replied, “I got no plans of becoming an infiltrator. So there’s still plenty of opportunity for me to spill beer on your floor on the Evanescent, too.”

“Oh no, if there’s ever alcohol involved I’m not messing around. We can hang out in your cabin.”

Gorun didn’t seem quite sure how to react to our banter. I forget that what’s normal and entertaining for us is usually annoying or downright idiotic to just about everyone else, so it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise when the salarian settled for shaking his head in confusion. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand humans and your propensity for witless repartee.”

Couldn’t blame him for that one. While we certainly weren’t the worst humanity had to offer when it came to belligerence, we’d had our moments, so I could only imagine the displays Gorun had seen among the rest of our species.

“Are they almost ready back there?” Adison asked. Probably an attempt to move the conversation in a less awkward and more serious direction, more for Gorun’s sake than ours. We generally found awkwardness entertaining.

“Urdnot Wrex is attempting to convince his people that we intend to help them,” Gorun replied. “As you can imagine, they have a hard time believing that.”

Of course. As if it wasn’t enough that he’d brought a salarian to supposedly cure the genophage, Wrex had allied himself with every other Council race, promising to loan his people out as mercenaries if we could accomplish our mission. The other clans—particularly the ones that disagreed with Urdnot and their supporters—couldn’t be happy about that. Centuries of allowing rage and prejudice to fester in isolation have that effect. Shit, I could only claim about a decade of anger and it took its toll.

“Well, they better make up their minds pretty soon,” Claire said. “We don’t exactly have time on our side right now.”

“No one does,” Gorun replied in that very salarian way that instantly made his statement seem much more profound than it really was.

“Has Sur’Kesh been hit yet?” I asked. “I’ve been a bit out of the loop since the initial attack.”

If I had been able to discern anything more than the obvious traits of salarian body language I might have caught on to a sliver of surprise and maybe even suspicion, but all my training and years of people-watching failed me completely in this new life—or at least, regarding the unfamiliar lifeforms in this new life.

“How is it that information dealers are unaware of anything so easily accessible?”

Shit. Should’ve known better than to talk shop with a salarian.

“How do you know who we are?” Troy responded in question. Smart. Buy us a little time to think of an answer. I was getting pretty damn sick of trying to maintain this half-truth façade.

“There’s relatively little information the STG is not privy to in regard to galactic affairs,” Gorun explained. “When the Alliance and Doctor T’soni began making inquiries as to your identities and credibility, we took notice. And when you assisted Commander Shepard in evacuating the Council during the Citadel crisis, Councilor Valern had us dig deeper. You’ve covered your tracks remarkably well for such young humans, which raises more than a few questions. Even knowing your identity and having access to your biometric data has yielded no results. So it baffles me that you haven’t been paying attention to current events other than those occurring right in front of you. Not to mention the reasoning behind intelligence agents joining this war as soldiers.”

I’d actually been having trouble answering that last one myself, never mind the rest of what he’d just thrown at us. What had Hackett been thinking sending us off on field missions, even if we had miraculously managed to survive Vancouver, the Citadel and Israel? All of that could be attributed to adrenaline, luck, and a shit-ton of assistance from a handful of the best soldiers in the galaxy. Even if Troy could pop Reaper’s heads off like bubble wrap, we belonged in the women’s locker room more than on the battlefield.

Actually, we belong in 2016.

“A lot of our intel’s out of date,” Troy convincingly answered. “That or misleading. But we still know more than most, and we work good together in combat. Admiral Hackett thought it would be a smart play to send combat-ready intelligence assets into the field for reasons you saw during the briefing.”

I knew it wouldn’t be enough to satisfy Gorun, but it was much better than anything I could’ve thought up. Maybe I should have left all the talking to Troy right from the beginning. My deception skills are on par with the best of them when it comes to one-time lies, no matter how grandiose or insignificant, but attempting to maintain this fiction became increasingly more difficult each time I had to retell it.

“That addresses very few of my concerns,” Gorun responded, “and raises a number more regarding Admiral Hackett’s judgment.”

Thankfully we didn’t have to react to that one. Footsteps, too heavy to be human but just lighter than those of a krogan. Frankly I was a bit weirded out that my ears could make that distinction now.

I turned just in time to see Garrus approaching, cradling his sniper rifle in anticipation. Wrex still stood in the distance with the dozen-odd krogan he’d been meeting with, so either we were going to be playing the waiting game a bit longer or we were trudging on ahead without them. Hopefully the former—after my latest run-in with a Reaper destroyer, I was far from eager to rush into the next one.

“What’s the word?” Troy asked as our fearless leader joined the circle.

“We’re moving out soon,” Garrus replied. “Wrex’s brother and a few of his supporters aren’t too happy with the arrangement, but they’ll follow his lead.”

Apparently upon seeing him break away from the conference, the rest of the team thought it would be a good idea to see what Garrus had to say. Antarom and Koenig were the first to reach us, followed disdainfully by J’kal. If nothing else, it would certainly be interesting seeing this diverse group in combat together.

“Any changes to the plan?” Adison asked.

“Same as before. The asari fleet’s lending us a squad of fighters to help keep the destroyers distracted, and the krogan will be handling heavy ground vehicle support. Wrex, Mordin and Gorun will take a route through the Shrine’s interior to reach the Shroud while the rest of us fight through the exterior. We’re expecting heavy resistance and there isn’t much in the way of cover out there, so J’kal, I want you to stay back and bombard the field with ordnance. Troy and I will take sniper positions to provide constant suppressing fire. Daniels, I want you with Wrex’s team. If things go sideways I don’t want our only field medic to catch a bullet. It’ll be up to the rest of you to deal with the drones head-on. And not get blown up by the artillery J’kal will be tossing your way.”

Damn. Talk about a plan of attack. Up until that moment all my combat experience had been more along the lines of “just wing it and see what happens.” Now we were strategizing and coordinating not just with the team, but with the fleets in orbit and Wrex’s krogan.

That was the first time I truly felt like a soldier.

“And when we actually get to the tower?” Antarom asked. “What’s the escape plan?”

“We’ll hold out as long as Mordin and Gorun need to disperse the cure. When they do, we’ll regroup and meet up with the krogan to extract to a safe landing zone for Evanescent’s shuttles. Assuming the Reapers keep tearing each other apart, we just need to get out of the drones’ reach and we should have an easy go of it from there.”

J’kal scoffed, the first interaction I’d seen him display until he followed it up with a single sentence. “You didn’t see what they did to Khar’Shan.”

“No, I didn’t. But I’ve seen what they did to the Citadel, and what they’re doing to the rest of the galaxy. People are depending on us, and I’ll be damned if we let a few Reapers get in our way. So are we doing this or what?”

I think it was implied that we had all committed, but Garrus’s rhetorical question only served to reinforce that resolve. For better or worse, it was happening, and we would all be there backing his play.

Sensing no further dissent, Garrus turned and addressed Wrex from across the road. “Wrex! We’re moving out! Try to keep up!”

“Heavy fire, right side!” Adison yelled into the comm. I spun in that direction and opened fire with Invidium immediately, spraying Marauders with a flurry of shots that glanced off their shields before ducking to the left to find cover.

The battlefield was a mess. We’d encountered resistance as soon as we made it to the shrine to Kalros, and the response was overwhelming. Just as we’d planned, Troy and Garrus had taken up overwatch positions in towers at both sides of the battlefield, providing target locations and covering fire while the rest of us did what we did best. J’kal had stayed at range to deploy heavy ordnance, resulting in indiscriminate detonations that were just as likely to take us out as the drones we were fighting. Still, as long as I was attentive and a bit lucky, I could hear shells dropping and move out of the way before I got caught in the blast.

Antarom was a blur, racing through the field using biotics to tear the Reapers apart as well as keep herself out of the line of fire. When you’re raging from one spot to the next, no one can get a bead on you. Adison and Koenig had formed a good partnership, the former hitting the drones hard and fast while the latter cleaned up the mess left behind with a combination of technical savvy and light biotic manipulation. Adison set them up, Koenig knocked them down. I couldn’t recall ever seeing such an impressive display as when Koenig trapped four Marauders in a stasis field and hit them with an Overload program. And as if that hadn’t been enough, a mortar from J’kal ensured they exploded in a cloud of blue electricity.

And then there was me, the human target.

The goal was simple; we had to cross this space of no-man’s land only to reach a second stretch of similarly lethal terrain. While Mordin and Gorun—accompanied by Claire, Wrex and half a platoon of his merry band—took a second, more protective route to the Shroud, the rest of us took the hard road to distract the majority of the drones. After we crossed the two killzones, we’d regroup at the summoning center where the ancient krogan had (as its name implied) summoned Kalros to prove their worth in battle with the thing. We had no intention of doing that this time around, but the summoning devices were also located at the entrance of the Shroud, so once we were there it was simply a matter of making sure Mordin and Gorun got inside. And of course, the hope was that they could get the cure out before the tower turned into a pile of rubble and dust.

At the rate the destroyers were going at it, we needed to get our asses in gear.

Shields are up. Remember, seven seconds.

I mounted Invidium on my back and the weapon collapsed into itself, going into standby.

Pistol check. Twelve rounds before overheat, three to the head to breach Marauder shields and secure a kill. Half-second per shot. Don’t fire unless you can kill and get away before shields break.

Deep breath.

Heh. Marauder shields.

I stepped out of cover and launched myself into a sprint, heading toward the nearest group of enemies in my line of sight.

Thrusters at full capacity. Three ahead, two to the right, four to the left. God knows how many more you’re too busy to notice.

A blitz attack was my best option here. A good display to distract the drones, allowing the rest of the team a few seconds to get clear shots. With Troy covering my ass, I could more than likely blow through the drones ahead of me and proceed into the area behind them safely. As long as the rest of the team moved up fairly soon after me, I wouldn’t get caught in crossfire from both battlefields.

Don’t die.

The thruster activated and I jumped into the air a good thirty feet, soaring toward the three Marauders I’d carelessly hit with Invidium only moments ago. They hadn’t expected an aerial attack. Good.

My left omni-blade came to life a split second before I landed, and I used the force from my jump to hit the first Marauder so hard the ground shook a little when its body collided with the dirt. The fact that a searing hot blade damn near took its face off probably helped, too.

On your left.

I spun and slashed in the same motion, leaving a burning gash in the second Marauder before turning to greet the other. It was too far away to reach under normal circumstances, but technology is an incredible thing. The armor propelled me forward, and in a single bound I crossed a space of fifteen feet to deliver a fatal stab to the creature’s sternum followed by a single bloody shot to the head.

Nice, three seconds to spare. Get moving, the rest have noticed.

I darted to the left as the Marauder’s body hit the ground, barely evading shots fired from the drones I’d overlooked in my haste to progress toward the Shroud. Luckily between the first killzone and the second there was a trench of sorts with natural corridors on either side of the battlefield leading to the interior Mordin and Gorun were traversing. I had no intention of entering, but the corridors offered considerable protection from both killzones simultaneously while allowing for a good position to provide cover fire. Once the rest of the team made it to my position, we could focus on the next stretch of no-man’s land and inch a little closer to the Shroud.

The destroyers continued to go at it as hard as ever, and damn but it was distracting being aware of the overhead battle as well as the ground fight. The asari fleet had sent the majority of its fighters to our aid, constantly swooping in and out of sight to distract the enemy destroyers, but our allied super-intelligences were the only credible threat to their more evil counterparts and they knew it. While the battle down on the ground seemed like the most important thing in the world, they didn’t pay it any attention. No doubt once we got closer to the tower we’d have to worry about getting squashed by their enormous “feet” as well as the drones, but that was something to set aside until I had to deal with it.

“Providing cover fire,” I said as I grabbed Invidium, levelling the rifle at the first Marauder I saw. “Everyone get your asses over here!”

“You heard the man, move!” Garrus reaffirmed. “Troy, wait until the others have made it to the neutral zone. We’ll move up when the entire team can give us cover.”

“Gotcha,” Troy said, following his reply with a single shot that almost certainly resulted in a mass of violet blood splattering the sand a dozen feet away from me.

“Moving!” Grunt screamed, his guttural voice nearly deafening me. “Try to keep up!”

The perfect krogan stormed across the battlefield, repaying the damage he took from this gutsy maneuver tenfold. His shields cracked after only a few seconds, but the sparks emanating from his armor meant bullets were still ricocheting rather than doing serious damage. The drones didn’t quite know how to react to it, so while Adison and Koenig used the display to move up somewhat unhindered by enemy fire, I singled out the drones stupid enough to expose themselves and fired away. Bodies dropped every few seconds, a combination of sniper fire, blind shots from the three soldiers running toward me at full speed, and incredible displays of biotic power from Antarom.

Grunt reached me first, sliding into cover and laughing to himself as he popped the clip in his shotgun. “This is fun!”

God I love krogan.

“Take the second killzone!” I yelled, straining to be heard over the raging sounds of battle.

“My pleasure!” Grunt replied, moving into position to cover the next battlefield. Almost instantly the massive shotgun was raging again.

Adison entered my field of sight followed closely by Koenig, so I dropped my scope to let them enter the corridors and quickly went back to it, finding targets and popping off short bursts before retreating to the safety of my wall. Koenig joined Grunt in suppressing the second killzone while Adison took cover opposite me to lay down fire on the remaining drones in the first field.

Every inch of me wanted to rush back out there and go head-to-head with the Marauders. Whether it was the surprising satisfaction of taking down the monstrosities in close quarters or the simple fact that I wasn’t nearly as effective with firearms as anyone else in the team, I don’t know. Not that I really enjoyed the immense risk that fighting style entailed, it just felt like I was more useful in that role than with a gun in hand.

Antarom, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of the danger.

“Antarom, what the hell are you waiting for?” Garrus asked. “Regroup with the rest and provide cover!”

We didn’t get any answer. Instead she continued raging around the battlefield, sending drones flying through the air if not crushing them into pancakes outright. She followed up every charge attack with a spectacle of amplified melee combat and biotic power, occasionally permeated by a moment of taking cover and firing away with her modified shotgun. I’d always known asari were powerful biotics, but it had been my understanding that using those abilities was similar to running a marathon; you can only exert yourself so much before you crash. That definitely didn’t seem to be the case here.

“Antarom!” Garrus yelled. One of the only times I’d ever heard him legitimately sound like he might beat someone to death with their own skull. “Get your ass to cover or stay still long enough for me to get a good shot! If you’re not going to follow orders I might as well take care of this problem myself!”

I swear the entire team stopped what they were doing to make sure they’d heard him correctly. It worked, though. Antarom stopped for a second—she likely would’ve been shot if not for the fact that she had two marksmen and two riflemen covering her—and snarled.

“Womble, how strong are your shields?” she asked.

Oh God.

“Uh . . . strong enough I guess,” I replied. “Why?

“My barriers are almost done for, I’ll have to charge your position to make it.”

“Okay. What does that have to do with my shields?”

“I need something to stop me, and I’d rather not send you flying into the second killzone.”

Is she serious? Can’t be; who the hell would . . .

That’s why you never make assumptions about elite special operatives that you don’t know. If it had been Shepard, sure, I could’ve said with reasonable certainty that she would never have risked my safety like that.

But this was Antarom, and she was already amping up for a charge.

“You gotta be fucking kiddin—”

Before I could finish the sentence, Antarom hit me with full force. If I had really wanted to, I could have probably avoided the assault—or at least, the Seer could have. I suppose that speaks volumes to either my devotion to the mission and squad, or my incredible stupidity. For the sake of maintaining my pride, we’ll say it’s the former.

Either way, the charge knocked the breath right out of me and felt like it took half my vital organs with it. I’d seen Antarom charge drones plenty of times now, but I’d never been on the receiving end of one before. Hell, I hadn’t been hit with any biotic ability at all, so new sensations all across the board. Not only did it feel like someone had kicked a hole through my chest, but there was an odd prickly sensation that I’m sure would have been tremendously painful if she had meant it to be. Thankfully my pain was limited to physical, which in retrospect didn’t do me any favors when Antarom rolled both of us to the side, placing us in the cover of one of the natural corridors.

“Thanks for that,” she said, springing to her feet while I lay on my back trying to get my bearings. “Vakarian, I’m here. Your turn.”

Fucking shit. So that’s how it feels to be the poor bastard on the other side of a biotic charge. I suddenly feel really guilty for how I played Mass Effect all these years.

“You all right, Donz?” Adison asked, offering a hand to help me up.

“I’m good,” I replied. Damn, the world was spinning. Still, shields were mostly intact and my hardsuit’s internal bioscanners didn’t show any major physical trauma, so it wasn’t anything to worry about.

Adison nodded and returned to laying down fire across the battlefield, and after I snatched Invidium off the ground, I joined him. There weren’t many drones left in the first killzone. Garrus and Troy just had to make it across, and we could focus on step two. Unfortunately what sounded like a simple exercise was more complicated than one might assume. Exiting their sniper positions meant dropping down to the roof of the shrine’s interior which ran the length of the battlefield and converged at the corridors the rest of us used for cover. But rather than jumping down to our position, they had to continue on to another pair of towers overlooking the second killzone so as to offer decent sniper support.

The problem with this strategy was that until they made it to those towers, there was virtually no cover for them to seek if the drones got a line on them. And if the Marauders decided to make their way to the roof rather than fight a pointless battle on the ground—which they did about five seconds after I’d had that idea—it wouldn’t be pretty. We couldn’t provide suppressing fire on enemies who held the high ground.

“All right, we’re moving up,” Garrus said into the comm. “J’kal, when we’re in position, blanket the second battlefield with everything you’ve got and join up with the others. Antarom, you in good enough shape to make it up here?”

“On it,” she replied, leaving a trail of translucent blue light as she shot to the roof closest to Garrus’s tower. That poor Marauder. A moment later Troy leapt from his tower, using the propulsion system in his armor to safely land after a good thirty foot drop.

“Gonna need a hand on this side too,” he said. “Donz, Adison, one of you mind?”

The drones had more or less cleared entirely from the first killzone, choosing instead to focus on the three soldiers that had just put themselves in the most immediate danger. As much as I didn’t want to join them in that self-endangering endeavor, Adison was the better soldier whereas I was the better target. If the day’s events had proven anything, it was that I made the most of combining enhanced reflexes, situational awareness and mobility in a way that kept me mostly intact and allowed my allies the perfect distraction.

“I got this,” I told Adison as Invidium folded into its mount on my back.

“You sure?” he asked.

I smirked. “Yeah, it’ll be fun. After J’kal carpet bombs the damn place move to cover further in the battlefield. Hopefully it’ll buy us some time to find protection after we get Troy and Garrus to the towers. And don’t stop shooting.”

“Quit stalling and let’s get this over with!” Grunt yelled enthusiastically.

Right, Adison knew what to do. Good thing one of us did.

There wasn’t much time to waste, so I darted back into the empty battlefield and jumped, using the propulsion jets to spin me around and dash up to the roof of the east corridor. From there I could see the entire shrine stretched out before me, along with the army of drones below and the nine destroyers still violently engaged in combat.

Can’t think about that now, focus on the drones.

Antarom and Garrus had the west side under control, so I spun and headed east along the roof. Troy was at my right, hurrying north to catch up with me where the facility intersected with the corridor while at least a dozen Marauders and Cannibals stood between us. Odd, we hadn’t engaged Cannibals yet. They must have leaked out there from the second killzone.

Either way, they hadn’t noticed me yet, so I ran full-speed ahead and rounded the corner to reach the first drone. I was in the air before it heard me coming and came down with a left hook that would’ve snapped its neck if the blade hadn’t cut straight through it. God was I happy with the gene mods in that moment.

Unfortunately they hadn’t created one that protected against bullets, and taking down the first enemy alerted the rest of them to my presence. No cover, nothing to do but run and gun. I palmed my pistol.

Seven seconds. Half-second per shot. Three shots for Marauders, one for Cannibals if you’re lucky and precise. Assuming twelve hostiles, split evenly between the two of you, should be able to survive. Should.

I levelled my pistol and fired away, three trigger pulls, three impacts straight to the Marauder’s cranium. There wasn’t much sense in standing still, so I picked up my previous sprint speed and repeated the process, using my propulsion system to increase stability between steps. For every shot that hit my shields, a body dropped in response. Probably two—I was too focused on striving for perfection that I couldn’t put any effort into observing Troy’s progress, but I was sure he was downing drones even more rapidly than I could.

Click.

Shit! I’m dry!

I screwed up. There were more drones than I’d expected and I’d overestimated my ability to take out Cannibals with one shot.

Seven seconds were up. My shields broke.

The first impact wasn’t very jarring. I’d been shot no fewer than a dozen times back on earth and was getting more used to pain every day. The second one was what fucked me up. A single shot to my abdomen sucked the life right out of me, but instead of exhibiting shock or seeking refuge, adrenaline rose to the surface. Every time I’ve been injured, I don’t think rationally; as much as I like to believe I’m an intellectual philosopher, at my core I’m driven by instinct and emotion. The two most powerful motivators when seeking survival.

Besides, medi-gel was already treating the wound. Worst case scenario from a small arms wound, the ammo shaving wouldn’t dissolve properly, likely giving me a mild case of metal poisoning that the medical salve would hold at bay until Claire could take care of it. The point is, I wasn’t going to die from a single hole in my gut. All internal organs were still in check.

So I found the asshole that shot me and stabbed it in the face. Troy took care of the last one behind it with a single shot to the head.

“You all right bro?” he asked, running to greet me, rifle in hand.

“I’m good. Bastard managed to get a shot through my shields.”

“Only one? Shit, you’ve got what, at least twelve more to pass our record?”

I would’ve laughed at that if there wasn’t a searing pain in my gut. Damn, it felt like the bullet had hit the same place I’d torn open back in Vancouver when all this insanity began. My body had taken more physical punishment in under two weeks than it had in the previous twenty-one years.

Regardless, pain was something I could deal with as long as it didn’t physically interfere. And like the man had said, I’d dealt with a lot worse already.

“At least,” I replied. “Come on, we’ve gotta get you to your next position.”

Troy nodded and took off in that direction with me following close behind. “Path looks clear from here.”

It did indeed, but as we’d seen more than enough already, that was subject to change at a moment’s notice. “I’ll follow you the rest of the way and regroup with the others from there.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Fortunately for us, we made it to the second vantage point without much interference from the drones below. Adison, Koenig, Grunt and Antarom had moved in to the killzone after an inspiring spectacle from J’kal, the effects of which could be seen strewn throughout the field. Unlike a game, real life doesn’t clean bodies when you look away, no matter how much you may want them to. It was bad enough seeing the perversions of nature up close; somehow, witnessing them torn limb from limb in a haze of carnage was even more traumatizing.

I knew there wouldn’t be another chance to take stock of my surroundings, so while I had a few seconds of reprieve I ventured so far as to check on the war raging between the destroyers. We’d lost a few fighters since the last time I’d checked, but that was to be expected. A single shot from even a destroyer was enough to blow through anything short of a dreadnought. The pilots had known going in that there wasn’t a good chance of coming out unsinged, if at all.

What really caught my interest was the destroyers themselves. The three that had remained more or less immobile to protect the Shroud looked like they’d taken a serious beating, as did the one further out in the desert constantly harassing its foes. If they kept that strategy up, we wouldn’t have long before they started dropping. They were already outmatched, and with a plan that basically amounted to using their own bodies as shields to get us through the door, it wasn’t feasible that the friendly destroyers would survive this. And, being super-intelligent machines, they had to have known that beforehand. They were willing to sacrifice themselves to help us save the krogan.

Shit. Guess they’re not all soulless assholes, huh?

Under ideal circumstances I might have sat there for hours trying to determine whether the Reapers were a network of simple AI or something more evolved, but there’s rarely ever time for ideal circumstances. Instead we have to make the best of what we have, and if that’s nothing at all, find the time later. There would be plenty of opportunities for me to engage in conversations with the Evanescent’s crew about the philosophical black hole labelled Reapers.

For now, I had to get back to killing things.

The second battlefield was laid out similarly to the first; piles of rubble that had once been something magnificent now reduced to bullet sponges for those trying to avoid getting shot. Marauders, Cannibals and Husks swarmed the north end despite the artillery barrage that had cut down at least twenty of them while the team moved in from the south, tactically taking out their nearest threats. Troy and Garrus had already gone to work picking off the Marauders further back.

Same drill as the Citadel. You focus on the Husks, everyone else works on the guys trying to shoot you.

Except this time I wouldn’t be shooting from a secure location. Really, I wasn’t planning on shooting much at all.

I found my first target and jumped—I was seriously having way too much fun with the propulsion device despite the amount of danger it put me in. Four seconds in the air, forty or fifty foot drop at least. I’d like to say I know exactly how hard the first swing of my omni-blade hit, but in all honesty I forgot the formulae for velocity, inertia, gravity and force years ago. What I can say is that the rock beneath my feet cracked when the Husk hit it after my attack, so either the gene mods had turned me into a complete badass or the ground on Tuchanka was just very brittle. Actually, in retrospect neither one of those is a huge compliment.

There wasn’t much time for thought after that stunt. Now that I had entered the fray, my key to survival was instinctive movement. Quick, powerful strikes against enemies that went down after a single attack, much like an artificial version of Antarom’s fighting style. The propulsion device allowed me to cross large distances if necessary, the enhanced muscle structure pushed my attacks to become stronger and faster, and the reflex booster ensured that my body did everything physically possible to take out my attackers before they could get off a fatal blow.

That’s not to say I didn’t get shot, of course. I did. A lot. But with the seven-second rule I’d established, I usually managed to make it to cover before shields went critical. It didn’t hurt that there were seven other supremely gifted soldiers watching my back, causing equal parts devastation and confusion for our enemies. After a short while J’kal joined us in our engagement, displaying his keen aptitude with a mid-range rifle that could only have been a harpoon gun. Ineffective as that may sound for a chaotic firefight, he made elegant use of it, staggering enemies long enough to guarantee a kill by secondary means if the harpoon through their heads somehow wasn’t enough.

Once again, Adison and Koenig had found a perfect rhythm, one priming enemies for a punishing kill while the other delivered said gruesome ending. As expected, Grunt ran fearlessly throughout the field, absorbing more damage than anyone should possibly endure and enjoying every second of it. I think more Cannibals died hearing his laughter after he punched clean through their skulls as opposed to shooting them like any normal soldier would do.

Although, I really couldn’t blame him. Granted, I wasn’t using my bare hands and tremendous ability to withstand physical punishment—mostly because the latter didn’t exist—but there was something strangely satisfying about melee combat. I’d proven that I could handle a rifle if the situation demanded it, but this was the only role I felt genuinely good at. Probably because it takes time and training to effectively learn how to use a gun, whereas anyone with a Seer package and a decent muscle enhancer could swing a blade.

After a short time Antarom and I developed a sort of routine, getting more and more used to each other’s styles and learning how to compliment them. Any time she blew a crowd of enemies into the air nearby, I was there blade in hand to deliver the killing blow—or, in a few cases, a lethal curb stomp. And when I found myself surrounded by Husks and Cannibals to the point that not even the jump jets could save me, she swooped in and caused such a distraction that a near-death situation for me quickly turned to a certain-death situation for them.

I easily lost track of how many drones we killed after only a few moments. My focus was so devoted on the fight, and the team was downing Reapers with such speed and precision that keeping track of our kills became impossible. The only thing I had to go on was the battlefield riddled with dozens of corpses. The Reapers were throwing absolutely everything they had at us, and despite how limitless the waves seemed, it was more empowering than disheartening. Sure we were taking a beating (and more than a few bullets) but we gave ten times better than we got, and nothing they did even slowed us down.

Well. Sometimes I speak too soon.

“Heavy ground units moving onto the field,” Garrus announced through the comm. “They’re getting desperate.” Directly following his statemen,t a flash of blue-white light hit the corner of my eye, and after putting a slug in the nearest Husk’s chest I spun to find Antarom charging into the fray.

With Brutes. Three of them.

“Antarom, what the hell are you doing?” I yelled, immediately setting off in that direction. A Cannibal took a few shots at me and was rewarded for its achievement with a rifle slug to the skull that left a cloud of red carnage in its wake. Thank God for cover fire.

“What’s it look like I’m doing?” she replied through gritted teeth, still going at it with her biotics and the occasional shotgun blast. “Taking out the heavies before they cause a problem.”

I pushed myself further, encouraging my feet to move faster than they ever had. “You can’t fight those things close-quarters by yourself, especially not three.” I stabbed another Husk, watched as a high-velocity round exploded a nearby Marauder’s brain, and continued sprinting with the propulsion jets adding to my speed.

“I seem to be doing fine so far.”

“Right, because that’s a good reason to take unnecessarily insane risks.”

As if you haven’t been doing the same thing ever since you got here.

Couldn’t argue with that, especially coming from myself. What I could do was enter the mayhem in the hopes that Antarom wouldn’t get herself killed before realizing she’d put way too much on her plate. And if I didn’t die in the process, all the better.

With the path to the Brutes as clear as it was going to be, and the remaining drones bogged down by the rest of the team, I leapt onto the first abomination in range and shoved my blade through its spine. Had it been any normal organic being this would have spelled immediate death, but the Reapers had eliminated most weaknesses in their critical fighters. Not only did the Brutes possess a redundant nervous system and several backup organs from the krogan frame, but they boasted an armor almost impervious to common weapons fire. After three more stabs in the beast’s back I had accomplished relatively little, and was forced into the air when the claw of a second one took a swing at me. Really, the propulsion jets almost felt like cheating. When it’s real life though, you take every advantage you can get.

Antarom appeared from thin air beneath me with an equally surprising detonation of dark matter to get the Brute’s attention. With the extra few seconds to position myself, I deactivated the jet and came down once again to deliver another brutal impalement to its back. The blade pierced six inches of armor, and even at that I could tell I was barely leaving a scratch. If I could somehow blow the armor away it would at least give me a chance of taking out the secondary nervous system.

“We’re gonna have to wrap this up soon,” Garrus said. “I just got word from the fleets. Reaper capital ships in orbit have almost taken out their less genocidal friends. It won’t be long until extraction becomes impossible.”

“That’s gonna be a little difficult,” Antarom said as she unloaded two shotgun blasts into a Brute’s face. “These things just refuse to die!”

“Yeah, and we’ve got more on the way,” Grunt joined in. “Looks like Rachni. And this time they come with guns.”

“All right, Ashbrook, Koenig, finish up the infantry,” Garrus ordered. “J’kal, see what you and Grunt can do about the Rachni. Antarom, what do you need to finish up the heavies?”

“A big fucking mass accelerator.”

Nice.

“If we can get this plating off their backs I can take out their nervous systems,” I added, jumping to safety before another Brute could get a line on me. “Dunno if it’ll be enough to kill them, but it should immobilize them at the least.”

I swear I heard a dissatisfied grunt from J’kal, but couldn’t be sure between the constant gunshots, explosions, screams of rage, and indecipherable groans of the Reapers. “Leave the armor to me.”

Uh, okay.

Well, if he was going to take over for me, I might as well take over for him. Ravagers had entered the field from the west, and while Grunt was doing an admirable job of keeping their attention, it was only a matter of time before they made use of the cannons the Reapers had given them. Assuming the Brutes would leave me alone if I reciprocated, I could at least be helpful in some regard.

I leapt my way across the killzone (which would have been much less of a killzone if not for the Reaper heavy reinforcements) occasionally taking down a drone but leaving my incredible sniper support to clear the path for me to the best of their abilities. Thankfully those abilities were in top form, and it proved how well Troy and Garrus worked in unison when put in a position that really let them shine. Every few seconds a drone was shot down right in front of me, and in no time flat I’d joined Grunt in his frenzy to take out this new perversion of the krogan’s age-old nemesis.

The cannons really should have caused trouble, but the propulsion devices in my suit combined with the Seer implant’s instincts made them incredibly easy to evade. It didn’t help the Ravagers that they announced their attacks beforehand with laser guidance that, once an attack started, couldn’t alter its course. Had it been a standard firefight where their enemies were more focused on infantry, I’m sure they could have done a number on us, but we were pressed for time and re-writing the book on specialized combat with each of our diverse skillsets. The Reapers couldn’t account for such insanity.

So, that in mind, I made the most of it, managing to get close enough to slice a Ravager’s cannon barrel in two and quickly turn to compromise the second. What I didn’t realize, however, was that instead of rendering the weapons inert, I’d done something similar to clogging the barrel of a firearm. Only in this case, it was explosive ordnance rather than a small chunk of lead attempting to escape a confined space. With a little foresight I might have imagined such a possibility, but foresight is never as clear as hindsight. Funny how you only realize that after you’ve blown yourself up.

Shields dropped faster than the stock market in 1929. A moment later I was in the air, and this time not of my own accord. Within three seconds my endorphins couldn’t block out the pain even with gene mods, but that was nothing next to the knowledge that I was going to look like a grade-A moron for this one.

The rest, regardless of how cliché, was a blur. Even the Seer package couldn’t make sense of it. The next moment my brain was physically capable of comprehending was hitting the ground, hard. I was getting used to the feeling.

“Shit!” Troy yelled from some distant, echoing place. In reality I knew he was still likely in his tower picking off drones, but disorientation goes a long way in changing how your mind works. “Donz, you okay?”

I pushed myself to all fours and spat blood, my visor retracting into itself to release the crimson saliva. HUD read all internal organs intact; a few skeletal fractures, but most noticeably a suit puncture just above my right side. Not deep, but evidently something was fucked up enough to allow blood to stream through my throat. Several more minor lacerations spread across my body in locations where there was no unbreakable armor to prevent them. The armor itself, while charred and smeared with assorted blood and the odd bit of shrapnel, held up quite well. If only the same could be said for the ballistic weave that apparently was not shrapnel-resistant.

I searched for the only meaningful wound and sighed. Metal of some sort, likely something from the Ravager, had lodged itself in the undersuit. Could’ve been worse. It stuck out about five inches, which meant that if the blast had exhibited a bit more force, there wouldn’t have been much of me left to complain. I did good though—the Rachni’s suicide mission had not only failed to kill me, but seriously damaged its counterparts, and Grunt was quick to take advantage of the situation.

“Shit,” I breathed, pushing myself off the ground to rest on my knees. The shrapnel would have to come out before medi-gel applicators could begin fixing the problem. My body was going to look like a pin-cushion well before the end of this war.

At least the disorientation began fading. I’m not sure if that was the Seer or the excess of adrenaline keeping me sharp, but it was certainly a blessing. There’s nothing worse in combat than not being fully aware of your surroundings, especially when people are relying on you. That and getting injured by your own foolishness, thus forcing someone to come save your ass. Adison and Koenig to the rescue.

“You all right, Donz?” Adison asked, approaching me on the ground while Koenig kept the remaining drones busy. Grunt tore straight through the crippled Ravagers and the tag-team efforts of J’kal’s harpoon gun and Antarom’s biotics did wonders on the Brutes, so for the time being I felt comfortable taking a few seconds before yanking a rather large piece of metal out of my side. I’ve done it plenty of times before, just . . . nothing quite that big.

“I’m good,” I replied casually. Wouldn’t be enough to fool anyone, but I didn’t feel like being my usual sarcastic self. “Just give me a second. Fucked up those rachni pretty good, huh?”

Adison looked me over, lingering far too long on the hunk of shrapnel before deciding I didn’t have the capacity to think for myself. “Come on, we’ve gotta get to cover. Daniels, we need you out here—”

“We’re fine, Claire,” I interrupted. “No need to worry yet.”

“Yet?” I heard in my ear. Seemed like hours since I’d heard her voice, and it was strangely comforting.

“Donz,” Adison protested. “We—”

“I’m okay dude, trust me. I mean look at them,” I said, waving flippantly as our team handily took down the last of the heavies. “We’re almost done here. Just give me five seconds. I’ll get on my feet, we’ll deliver the cure, and get back to Evanescent where I can get patched up. Five seconds and I’ll be ready to keep going.”

Adison clenched his jaw and scanned the perimeter quickly before returning to me with a sigh. “Five seconds.”

I nodded. Breathed deep. Tried to focus on some abstract pleasant memory to make up for what I was about to put myself through. Didn’t work.

I yanked the shrapnel loose and stifled a scream, doubling over in pain. It’s not fun getting stabbed or shot; it’s even less fun when a deadly object is removed from your body. That’s where all the damage is really dealt. In my favor, however, medi-gel began sealing the wound within seconds, taking the edge off the pain. The shrapnel, while a few inches wide, didn’t boast a great deal of thickness, so with a little fortune it wouldn’t even leave a scar.

Who are you kidding? You enjoy getting new scars.

Maybe, but I certainly didn’t enjoy the process. I don’t suppose anyone does, but without our fair share of scars we couldn’t tell pleasure apart from pain or have constant reminders of what we get for making mistakes. It’s intriguing to say the least that life always finds a way to ensure that we remember our faults, yet lacks a system to help us hold on to the good moments. We have to fight for the ones worth remembering.

Speaking of which, we still had a mission to finish. Different kind of fight to be sure, but the idea still applied. And I wasn’t the only one licking my wounds. Having exploded my way through the Ravagers—and therefore making my greatest contribution to the battle—Grunt finished them up thoroughly and the dynamic duo of J’kal and Antarom had used my strategy to take down the Brutes. But none of it happened without cost. Being battle-hardened warriors they were much better at hiding it, but there was no denying we’d all taken a beating.

“Everyone sound off,” Garrus said, only then alerting me to the fact that he and Troy had made it down from their overwatch positions.

“No need,” Grunt said with a forceful sigh. “We’re all here.”

“Intact?” Garrus asked, coming to see how bad I was.

Might as well find out sooner rather than later.

I stood uneasily to my feet, knowing full well that just because I didn’t feel pain didn’t mean it wasn’t there. However I wasn’t too keen on making a particular spectacle of myself or distracting us from completing our mission, so I sucked it up like I expected the rest of them were doing and pretended to be a badass.

“Intact,” I replied. “Medi-gel’s holding. Ready to finish this.”

“Guys?” Troy said, calling for our attention. “We got a problem.”

I’m sure every one of us followed his extended arm pointing to the sandy expanse beyond the shrine, where everything really went to shit. We’d known it was only a matter of time; I guess most of us had just been wishing the clock wouldn’t have run out so fast.

A red beam pierced the sky, emanating from one of the enemy destroyers and making its mark on one of our protectors at the Shroud. This one was different though, like it hit a weak spot. The massive robotic insect groaned in pain, smoke and flames obscuring the hole left behind by laser fire.

Then it began to stumble.

“Oh shit,” someone breathed.

“Everyone move!” Garrus barked. “That thing’s coming down, get to the tower now!”

I needed no encouragement. Medi-gel blocked the pain and at that point the gene mods were really more in control than rational thought, so my feet found their speed and took off toward the tower with the rest of the team at my side. Only thing I could think was that the dying destroyer would topple backwards and take out the Shroud, or that without it in defensive position one of the enemies could easily get a shot off for the same result. And there we were running toward the damn thing. Of all the stupid things to do, running to a tower that was marked for destruction at any second certainly seemed like one of the least thought-out. And that’s saying a hell of a lot.

“Pick it up, people!” Garrus yelled, encouraging us to push ourselves painfully onward. The Shroud was only another hundred or so meters ahead. “Friendly capital ships are down, our window for evac just got a hell of a lot smaller—!”

“Wait, look!” Antarom shouted, forcing all of us to stop alongside her and marvel at her observation. “Did they do it?”

One glimpse of the sky and it was clear something was different. Usually Tuchanka’s sun interacts with the atmosphere and landscape to give the planet an orange-brown sheen, but there was . . . green. Life in the air. A breathing aura that could only come from a widespread, atmospheric dispersal of the genophage cure. Incredible doesn’t do it justice. Even the Reapers stopped fighting simply to take stock of the shift that had just occurred.

We cured the krogan.

“Ha-ha!” Wrex exclaimed over the comm. “Garrus, you pointy-headed bastard! We did it!”

If I’m not mistaken, Garrus smiled watching the cure spread throughout Tuchanka’s skies. “Yeah Wrex,” he replied, allowing a rare moment of sentimentality to overtake him. “We did it.”

Mordin, Gorun, Wrex, Claire and about half a dozen krogan troops emerged from the Shroud’s main entrance, each of them stopping to observe the sky as the rest of us had. Really I don’t think the adrenaline had completely worn off so I wasn’t as involved in the moment as I probably should have been, but there was no denying what we’d just accomplished. The krogan were free to build a future as equals with the rest of the galaxy, and this battle only cemented the fact that Wrex and his people were going to be both loyal and highly effective allies.

But, there’s a downside to everything. Maybe the reason I couldn’t engage as directly as everyone else is because part of me had a feeling about what was going to happen next. Hell, with the Seer, I may have known what was going to happen and simply wasn’t paying attention to my own signals.

While everyone else marveled at the beauty of their accomplishment, I turned around and scanned the southern horizon. Something felt off. Vibrations in the air, like Antarom sending a drone flying away from the battlefield but on a massively larger scale. I hit Troy on the shoulder and pointed him in that direction. If anyone could see what I was looking for, he could.

He squinted for a moment—just a moment—before making out a form that wasn’t even a dot on the horizon to my eyes.

“Shit”, he muttered. Then, retreating at an increasingly rapid rate while keeping his eyes on the sky: “Shit shit shit SHIT SHIT! Reaper incoming!”

Sure, why not?

My mind made itself up incredibly quickly in that moment. No seizing fear grabbing me by the throat, no despondence stemming from the realization that we were utterly and hopelessly screwed. I’ve experienced what you might call emotional death before, but this was something completely different. Acceptance, maybe? Impossible, I’d barely known what was coming, let alone had time to process it.

Maybe you did know, you just didn’t know you knew.

Well, that was a mindbender.

There wasn’t much use paying attention to anything else at that point. Now that the capital ship was closing in, it was evident we couldn’t get out of the way in time. The thing was massive and headed directly for us. Unless someone had the ability to teleport a few thousand meters at a time, fleeing simply wouldn’t work. That didn’t stop them from trying of course, with Wrex telling them to head for the vehicles his krogan had brought along. Once again, pointless. The Reaper would shoot them before they got to second gear.

I’m not particularly proud that I resigned myself to death so easily, especially considering how much shit I’d gone through to make it to that point.

There’s just no logical point in fighting or fleeing. They’ve got you beat this time. There’s some honor to be had in facing your death with courage.

Was it courage, though, or just apathy? Claire stood immobile as well, still just outside the Shroud, so at least I wasn’t the only one with that line of thought. And at least we’d finally managed to accomplish something. The cure hadn’t been in the air for long, but it would certainly be enough to ensure our alliance with the krogan. Even more so if the squad responsible went MIA to deliver on their promise. Hopefully whoever took over for Wrex would keep his promises after the war ended. If the war ended.

That was my last thought before the giant metallic hand swooped in from the sky with a ferocious roar, kicking over at least three of its smaller counterparts and fracturing the tower before causing an earthquake upon landing. The destroyers fell over each other, the tower cracked apart piece by piece, the sky turned dark under the shadow of the capital ship.

I looked back to Claire one more time. I couldn’t let her die like this. Or I couldn’t die without trying, however futile, to prevent this from happening to her. Wasn’t sure if it was chauvinism or affection driving my thoughts. Maybe I just wanted to be closer to her comforting presence.

I wanted to protect her, I really did. Couldn’t even protect myself.