[Book Four] Chapter 43: Routine Mission

Chapter 43: Routine Mission

Rick was officially sixty years old. He didn’t look older than forty one bit. He may have at one time but Arianna’s work on the nanobots had bore fruit. Eternal youth was not just a dream anymore. Something that Hannah and all the women in the family were very grateful for. Except Liara, she was an asari after all and a maiden at that, she had centuries before the first wrinkle could show up on her face.

All of his adult children were married or at least in a serious relationship. Arianna was still going strong with Sara and they were currently thinking about having a child. Adam showed he was really a mommy’s boy, doing everything his mother did. He was on his fourth child with Laura who was ready to pop them as long as her husband wanted more. Which was none and was very happy with four daughters. Ashley joked that only Rick could break the only girls born in the Williams family since her mother married into it. JJ was happily married to his husband, a cook a few years older than him that he met during a new year party on Ryder and they were not interested in children at all. TK and AJ had done the improbable and married fraternal twin sisters. It was a surprise to no one when both got pregnant at the same time and with twin girls. Matthew was dating on and off a girl he had met three years into his service in the Alliance. Jane just wanted to shoot the girl and Rick would have handed the gun and cleaned up the mess. She was obnoxious and a bit disrespectful. At this point Rick suspected that Matthew was keeping her around because she was either a good shag or easy. Normally he would have had some words with his son about that but he disliked the woman so much he let it slide.

Only Leeha was still single, still carrying a torch for her dad without having the courage to confess despite the many hints from her mother, aunts and Sandra who was single too to the public eye but was still in a relationship with Rick. At thirty one she was so busy with her responsibilities that she had absolutely no plans in the near future for a baby. Five years earlier, after discussing it with Miranda and Jennifer, Rick had made Sandra his assistant as the leader of Project Eden. She had worked painstakingly for three years to show what she was capable of to the department heads before taking her father’s place. It could have been seen as nepotism from Rick’s part but they all unanimously approved of her nomination as the new person in charge. Two years later and she was bringing better results than Rick ever did. That shut up any nay-sayer for good. Where Rick was taking all the right decisions but dealt with it with estimates and approximations ( that were all correct), Sandra was very detailed and never missed anything. The amount of money wasted was reduced to almost nothing and the profits increased. Many department heads joked that Rick should have retired sooner and let her take his job or that Sandra just kicked him out of his throne because she couldn't stand his chill attitude and the waste of resources anymore. 

The Mass Relay to the Milky way has been finished but it has been a challenge. Between the people dissatisfied with the wasted money and resources and the BLUEs not being sold out in council space anymore, some councilors were promptly replaced. That is everyone but Lindholm who had been very vocal and against some decisions that her colleagues had made. The biggest one has been to vote for a huge tax on BLUEs and technology. Specifically any product that Rick’s and Tali’s company sold that no one else did. Rick answered immediately by closing all his stores in council space, making the one on Omega and Rannoch the only sources of BLUEs or any tech, still at the same price (instead of increasing the price because of the now rarity and huge demand). That was a move that the councilors didn’t think he would make as that would have severely impacted the company’s revenues. Except the company was worth a few hundreds of Trillions credits now and could afford it. Never in their wildest dreams or nightmares did the council believe that the company had more money than the Elcor, Volus and Krogan combined and nearly equaled the Alliance (the whole alliance, not just the navy). People were depending on BLUEs for everything and being suddenly cut off was not a good thing. To make the spark that would ignite the powder keg, Rick made a statement to the press.

“I will not let myself be intimidated by three corrupt and powerless councilors. Their new tax law is illegal as it targets only technology that the only company in both galaxies providing them is mine. It’s clearly an attack against me, my company, my employees and my customers who depend on my products. This is not a surprise to me as one of the councilors has already tried in the past to undermine and endanger all the people listed above for the one and only reason that I killed their xenophobic and cowardly childhood friend when they ran away for their life when Saren Arterius attacked the Citadel in 2183. It’s a vengeance pure and simple by abusing their money and authority as a councilor that results in doing harm to innocent and good people all over the Galaxy. Until justice has been met and served, all products and all stores will close in council space. All the products from my company will be sold only in Omega and Rannoch from now on and until further notice. It’s time for those politicians to realize that people are the ones with the power and they are just representatives, not kings or rulers.”

One hour after the statement, the presidium was overrun by people demanding the arrest of the councilors. C-sec was clearly outnumbered which was a problem as many were down on the ground manifesting with the angry crowd. There was absolutely no conflict and Bailey, who had climbed the rank to reach the post of executor, arrested three out of the four councilors thanks to an anonymous file on each and every one of them, detailing all their illegal dealings, including for the turian councilor the hiring of mercs, pirates and slavers to raid Andromeda and take control of the Cassiopeia years earlier. Even the spectre didn’t intervene as they were dependent on BLUE too for their job.

The new council officially removed the tax law which wasn’t needed as it was illegal in the first place but it was some kind of symbol of the end of the corruption of the council or something. The big problem of this new council was the unfinished Mass Relay in Andromeda. It was three quarters done and they didn’t know quite what to do with it. Should they finish it? Dismantle it because the Cassiopeia was already being used as a relay? Back and forth they went and in the end with the help of wealthy donors it was completed. And problems started. With the entrance point of Andromeda not guarded anymore, Raiders could come and go unhindered. Where Rick used the Cassiopeia as a border checkpoint there was nothing of the like for the new Mass Relay. In the end the Council had to either put a fleet there, pay Rick to protect the Relay or again, dismantle it. They chose the former. 

Thanks to Alec Ryder’s work, exploration began in other clusters a couple of years back. He hadn’t found any golden world yet but some worlds were good enough for the Jardaan weather technology to be implemented. So far they had started colonizing some worlds in the Attican Traverse that were close to the border with council space and terraformed it properly. Some colonies were a joint operation when the terraformed planet was in a species’ space.

Free of any obligation towards Project Eden, Rick took a vacation to visit one of the colonies in the Alcaeus cluster. Or rather, because he was being restless. His lovers had asked Adam, who received a mission there, to take his father with him. It was a routine mission, to check on one of the Alliance colonies that hadn’t been in contact for the past month and the disappearance of ships in the sector. Thanks to his status of spectre that he had received in 2218 from the new council he could choose the crew of his ship at his own discretion. He never had a fixed one and instead asked Sandra for qualified people from Project Eden. This time since it was a simple routine mission, and for their father’s vacation, Rick, Arianna, Sara, Leeha and Matthew were part of the journey. One could have said that it was a family retreat but Sandra had simply given the best she had to her elder brother. Without Mass Effect technology on Adam’s EVA, the time of travel was of a month, the Alcaeus cluster being rather far away. 

The good time they shared during their trip was cut short when they arrived on planet Perimede where the colony was supposed to be. Except the colony was completely dark. A scan of the planet discovered debris of ships scattered near the colony. Since something was clearly wrong, Adam ordered to stealthily land a few km meters away from the settlement during the night. The crew made its way to the colony through the cover of a forest nearby and were welcome to a dreadful sight. The colonists were gone, all of them, there were none in the streets. Add to that, a new alien species had taken position and control of the settlement. Judging by the few destroyed buildings and battle marks on the ones still standing, they were hostile. There was no doubt about that.

“What do we do?” asked Leeha.
“...We infiltrate and try to investigate who they are, what they want and why they want it, where they come from and the fate of the settlers.” replied Adam.

Everyone nodded and picked their weapons. With the map of the small town and the help of the thermal vision on her helmet Sara had guided anyone deep into what now was enemy territory. They had to stop inside some apartment to hide from time to time and got the displeasure to know about the fate of their occupants. No one had been spared and not the adults and not the children. That discovery made the chances of finding survivors slim, especially since the colony has been dark for at least two months. Observing the movement of the aliens they concluded that the ones not patrolling were gathered in the town center, inside the town’s hall or at the edge of the settlement where the research labs were.
Adam opted to reach and search the labs first as they were more remote than the town’s hall. They nearly got caught twice doing so. Once they got to the labs they let Sara infiltrate the basement via a vent going down. She was the only one in the team being under 6 feet tall and small enough to get into it. Five minutes later, the heavy door leading underground was opened from the inside and the group quickly got in.

Rick quickly hacked the security system to get eyes via the cameras. Or tried as the system had been completely shut down. There were so many machines running with lots of energy that thermal vision was useless, the team found themselves blind and had to advance cautiously the old fashion way. They arrived into a room and were horrified by what they saw. Those aliens were doing experiments on the colonists. Some had been cut open while still alive, others dismembered… All were ditched into a big pile once they were not needed anymore.

“That’s sick.” commented Mathew with disgust.
“How could they do that to another sentient being?” inquired an horrified Leeha.
“I don’t like this.” Rick said as he looked around and walked towards a console of some sorts.
“Pretty sure nobody does, dad.” replied Adam.
“That’s not what I meant.” he replied, activating the console and letting his translation software do its job. “This… Things like this… It tells us a lot.”
“That they’re monsters?” sarcastically said Sara.
“Yes but that’s the obvious. What I’m talking about is… The last time I saw things like this? It was when I fled the Citadel as I killed the Reapers for good. Mountains and mountains of human bodies.”
“The Reapers? Dad, you and mom killed them decades ago. Unless some reached Andromeda… They were hibernating in Dark space after all.” Ariana commented.
“No, they’re gone for good. Their directive was to reap sentient and space faring species of the Milky Way. They had no directive to do anything else. What you’re looking at here… is the doing of a race that thinks itself superior, just like the Reapers did. And because they are superior they can do anything they want to the lesser species because they saw them as nothing more than primitive at best, beasts at worst. The fact they attacked the colony, made those disgusting experiments and killed the ones not chosen means they are not only hostile but openly active with their hostility. They are conquering. Those experiments? Probably a way to get information on the new species they intend to crush.”

The translators got the job done. It was not a complete translation as it needed more exposure for the language but Rick could understand enough of what was translated to look into some files. After watching some footage of specimens from different species being vivisected and tortured, he decided to download the totality of the data the console had in his omni-tool and send a copy to Adam as he was the leader of the team.

“War is coming.” he said as he turned around to look at his family. “I don’t know when but it’s coming. We need to be ready and to get information on them.”
“War, dad? Are you sure?”
“The attack on the colony alone was an act of war to begin with. Those guys… they won’t stop at just this colony, by now they’re probably already aware that the people were not from this cluster but from somewhere else. The odds are high that they already know about the Heleus cluster and maybe the Milky Way.”
“If they did, wouldn’t they have sent scouts already?” questioned Adam.
“Yes. Which tells us one of two things. Either they did send scouts…”
“Meaning their technology is so advanced that we never detected them.” explained Arianna.
“Or their space travel abilities between clusters are lacking.” her father ended.

“Did you find anything else on that data? Can you tell anything from it?”
“No, the translation is too… muddy. I can tell you one thing, we will have to exterminate them all.”
“They’re like a hundred of them and we’re only six, dad.”
“All of them, Matthew. Their whole species.”
“““...””””
“Dad, you’re kidding, right?” Leeha said but Rick shook his head.

“People like that… They never learn. Even if we defeat them and make a ceasefire or something… They will never stop plotting the end of everyone that’s not them. Their attack here shows that they are military confident and start with armed conflict but if their army is defeated they will switch to the cloak and dagger style of fighting. You don’t let an enemy like that live, Leeha. You kill them all.”
“They didn’t do that to the krogans.” she argued.
“The krogans never did things like this. They had a warrior mentality, those ones? They do not. Their pride will never allow them to live as equals with species they see as inferior and they will never stop seeing anyone else like that.”

That dropped Leeha’s morale even more than it already was. Putting a hand on her shoulder he tried to comfort her as best as he could before turning to his eldest son.

“... We need as much data as we can on them, let’s try to find out if there is any other console nearby and after that we’re bailing out. Let’s split up. Dad, you take Matthew and Leeha with you. Let’s meet back at our entrance in ten minutes. We’ll not stay any longer after that the risk becomes too big.”

Everyone nodded and Rick’s team exited the room and backtracked a bit, to take another path at a previous intersection. They find more torture rooms (as he refuse to call them labs) finding corpses or parts of some here and there. He copied everything he could on his omni-tool and forwarded the data to Adam, just in case. As the ten minutes were coming to a close, Rick opted to make their way back a bit early when the sound of gunshots rang in the floor and perhaps the building. Speeding through the corridors they heard an alarm blurr all around and the labs and if he had to guess probably outside too. Soon every alien would converge to their position and they would end up as test subjects, like the colonists were. More gunshots were echoes and so did yells and shouts from the alien as he didn’t recognize the language. Just as they reached the last intersection of their path, a small group of hostiles was passing by. One biotic charge, a use of his shotgun and a slash of his lightsaber and the five opponents were dead.

“Dad!”

Turning to his right, recognizing Adam’s voice, he saw the other team running their way. No one stopped to talk until they reached the basement.

“They’re all getting here if that’s not already the case.” said Arianna.
“We can’t go back to the EVA.” commented Matthew.
“I agree, it’s too far and we will never make it.”
“Either we play a game of hide and seek and employ some guerilla tactic to get them all or we can try the colony’s ships’ hangar.” Rick said, putting forward the two viable choices the crew had.
“It’s in the north of here right? What do you think is ETA? Three minutes? Five?” asked Adam to his father.
“More or less.” the man replied looking at his son who looked back, their helmet retracted.
“You want to take one of the ships and escape? What if …”
“Don’t worry about it, Leeha. Sara, take the lead, Matt you’re right behind her, then Ari and Leeha. We’ll close the march. Go!”

Each move in order as instructed leaving behind Adam and Rick still looking at each other in silence.

“Dad…”
“You know it’s the only way. No one will make it otherwise.”
“I should…”
“Of course not.”
“...”
“...”

Rick put a hand on his son's shoulder and smiled brightly at him.

“I’m proud of the man you became. I’m proud of each one of you and what you accomplished. Now go. Let me do my duty and enjoy my privilege as a father.”

Adam watched his father attentively, trying to burn his image in his memory. Then he quickly hugged him and followed the rest of the crew through the opening, running as fast as he could. His helmet closed back around his face, completely hiding him. When he emerged from the back of the building the crew was already moving, careful to not be seen. As he got to them a huge explosion was heard from behind and he pushed forward his sisters that had slowed down to look back. They had no time to waste and dilly dally.

“Move and don’t stop, no matter what!” he shouted at this team.

No one dared to protest or disobey, the situation was too dire for that. In no time they reached a huge hangar and it took less than a minute for Leeha to hack the service door’s control to open it, making sure it would automatically lock once closed again. Three ships were in there. Two PatLabor, which didn’t help them much and a ghost model. It was rather old but looked pristine. Quickly they boarded it and Leeha went to check the engine room to see if everything was in order while Adam went to the cockpit and sat himself in the pilot seat. To his relief the controls came to life when he used them. Quickly he opened a channel to his quarian sister and asked for a status report.

“The BLUE is half depleted, we won’t be able to go back home with just that much. The yellow is nearly full, it’s more than enough.”
“The PatLabors!”  Matt shouted as he ran towards the ramp to get outside.
“Sara, go with him to check if there aren't some BLUES around. If you find YELLOWs pick them too. It’s a ship hangar if we’re lucky the aliens didn’t take them all for study.”
“Adam, the pantry is half full, there is not enough for six people for a month of travel and certainly not for five biotics. We’ll have to ration it if we want to make it.” warned the voice of Arianna.

He grimaced at the news but beggar couldn’t be chooser. Preparing the ship for a quick take off and putting the coordinates of the Cassiopeia in the computer, he nervously waited for his brother and sister in law to get back on the ship with good news. God seemed to smile on them this one time as they came back with twelves BLUEs and six YELLOWs. Immediately, closing the ship he remotely opened the hangar’s ceiling and began to take off.

“What are you doing?!” Arianna yelled as she came to the cockpit.
“Leaving.”
“Dad is not here!”
“What?!” / “What?!” exclaimed both Matt and Leeha .
“I know!”
“We can’t leave without him!”
“We can and we will.”
“Land! Right now!”
“You’re leaving dad to die!”
“I KNOW!” he yelled in anger at his brother. “I KNOW! ALRIGHT! That’s his choice! He chose to stay behind to create a diversion so we can escape!”
“I don’t…”
“We’re leaving! PERIOD.”
“How can you…”
“Because I’m a father too! I would have done the same for my girls, for any of you. I will not let you waste his sacrifice because you can’t accept it!”

That cut the wind out of anyone wanting to protest. Just as the ship was high enough to see the whole colony, they saw explosions and burning buildings everywhere around the labs area. In this chaos of smoke and red a tiny blue dot was dancing around, going from one group of aliens to another but it was clear with the birdview that their father would be overwhelmed very soon. They were coming from all sides and sooner or later… As a rocket was fired their way Adam gave a burst of acceleration and dodged it. The ship climbed up as fast as it could and quickly got out of Atmo. Not wasting a single second, he activated the FTL drive and let the autopilot do the rest. Removing his helmet to breathe he put his head in hands and began to cry silently. Arianna and Matt just looked at him in silence crying too. Any feelings leaving them. A few seconds earlier they were ready to tore their brother a new one but it was clear that the decision he took has perhaps been the most difficult in his life. Matt simply let himself drop from the ground while Sara took Arianna in her arms trying to comfort her, despite her own tears. The cockpit would have been completely silent if not from the wailing of Leeha through the coms.