I sat in the infirmary, beds filled nearly to capacity with the recent damages we’d incurred. The hospital crew had been working tirelessly for hours, and I’d assisted with what little I could among the Legion. I wasn’t needed elsewhere for the time being.
My debriefing with Adira had been short and to the point. That we’d taken the time to be certain of the Angler’s demise and had removed the hive core threat was, on paper, a massive victory for the region. My Determinators had navigated through the massive cavern, and had discovered a handful of other hive rooms, though far less advanced in scale than the first. I suspected that they were being used to reproduce higher Gen cores, though I still wasn’t certain that the process we’d seen was necessarily common.
Nevertheless, the end result was that we now were in possession of a massive bulk of hive cores. There had been a hefty pushback from the biotics that remained in the area, but by the time they began to swarm in, the Brigade had been reinforced by another fleet, and a defensive net set up over the area. Biotics instinctively guarded their hive cores, and that much held true even with Leviathan.
Luckily, they were disorganized, severely so considering the bulks in which they attacked us previously. I had little doubt now that the Angler had been organizing the biotics in the area to some extent. Not exactly like the Unique that escaped in Argedwall had done, but close enough to pose a strategic level threat. Without that driving force, though, and with the assistance of a semi-permanent defensive network that was still being installed farther and farther out into the sea in the Red Zone, most biotics were dealt with methodically and safely.
That, ultimately, meant that the Legion and Brigade were both able to handle things without a dramatic need for personnel. For once, I’d had enough of hunting down biotics, and had decided to be present for my own wounded Legionnaires. Most of them were now coherent, only needing help in the event that they couldn’t move around very easily. Others, though thankfully few, were still suffering some effects of the Angler’s light. These people we ended up watching closely, more to ensure that they couldn’t hurt themselves rather than anyone else.
Amongst them, Alice had begun to finally stabilize, and Fran had become slightly less distant, whereas Daniel, Domino, Jessica, Rachel, and Emma had more or less recovered. They weren’t, however, without their grief. They’d taken up a corner of one of three rooms that had been dedicated to lighter medical injuries. Comfortable enough coaches and chairs with fake plants beside them sat at the far side of the room, occupied by the team.
We weren’t the only people here, there were other teams present throughout the room, each section having their own sparse amenities. Infirmary members moved between the groups, checking up on them and ensuring that they were alright. From time to time, I wandered the halls, making my presence known. The news had already raced across the newly expanded fleet that I’d killed The Devil’s Angler, and dismantled its lair. The Legion and Brigade reacted nearly about as I’d expected; my people were profoundly relieved and cheerful, while the Brigade was near to celebrating, if it weren’t for the bad news that came with that announcement anyway.
We were supposed to rendezvous with three fleets at this general location, however one of the fleets never made it. We’d found the missing fleet, but it had already been visited by the Angler and - unlike us- had had no method to combat it. Almost all hands had been lost, save for a few survivors that had managed to save themselves with what little sanity they still retained. They were currently being cared for by the second fleet that had managed to reach the rendezvous.
It was a devastating blow to Basilisk to lose an entire fleet. Two of which were still burning, marked off as a loss, while the other three had been reduced to slag at the bottom of the sea. I dreaded to think what would have happened if I hadn’t been present here at all. It wasn’t a stretch to say that perhaps all three fleets that had been sent to the Red Zone would have disappeared.
How many more of these powerful biotics existed on Earth? How many were allowed to live, worse thrive, because they were nestled into ‘No-Man's-Lands’?
“You look like you need a coffee.” A voice stirred me from my thoughts. I blinked up at the face, not recognizing the person in front of me. He was a burly man, tired but still attentive in spite of what had been hours of exhausting work with the patients around. I’d bumped into him more than a handful of times, sometimes to hold someone down while they were given a sedative, other times to hold a limb in place. He never complained about the work, and had taken to giving me some tips on how to wrap a wound, check a bandage, simple stuff.
I then realized he was holding a coffee in each hand, one extended slightly to me.
With a chuckle I accepted it, shifting over on the coach to give some room, “Thanks.”
The man nodded wordlessly, sitting down with a sigh and looking to those around. Daniel and Fran were very close together, both sitting splayed out across the coach, Fran sitting between his legs and resting the back of her head against his chest. They chatted quietly with Richard and Rachel, whereas Domino and Jessica rested their heads against one another.
Emma was talking to Terry, occasionally falling into companionable silence as they listened in on the group. She still carried a haunted look on her face; reasonable considering she’d tried to crush herself like a tin can with her magnetics. She had nearly succeeded as well. If she hadn’t damaged her mech’s power generation early on, there would have been plenty of power to crush the cockpit. She didn’t take well to that fact, and was desperately trying to distract herself as much as she could.
“It’s a lot rougher than I imagined,” the man beside me said distractedly.
“Always is,” I agreed, “But, somebody's gotta do the job.”
He snorted but said nothing, instead sipping his coffee slowly with a look on his face that bordered on perplexedness.
“Matthew Reaper, by the way,” I nodded to him.
Blinking blearily, the man turned to me before coming to his senses more and nodding back, “Jean Moore.”
“Been working the infirmary long?” I asked, surprised at myself for making small talk.
He chuckled, “Just signed on a few days ago. Have a friend who works it,” at that he shrugged, “helluva time to hop on.”
I smiled sadly at that, “Well, if you can hold up through this, you’ll go far.”
The man regarded me for a moment before speaking up, “You know, you’re not how I imagined you’d be.”
“How did you imagine me?” I asked, partly curious, but mostly just amused.
He paused hesitantly for a moment, seemingly genuinely nervous for an instant before regaining his composure.
‘That’s odd… right?’ I wondered to myself.
Wolvey nearly startled me when he answered with ‘We are quite spooky.’
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‘Where the hell have you been off to all this time?’ I griped, but didn’t have any heat in the question. It was getting harder to really get any sense for Wolvey when it wasn’t speaking, almost as if it were gradually going away. I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, but I also had no idea what I could do about it.
‘Sleeping. Resting in nothingness is… peaceful.’ It said, and I devoted a bit more mental energy to focusing on Wolvey, waiting for it to explain itself.
Which it didn’t.
‘Well, okay then.’ I mentally scoffed and shook my head, attention resting firmly back on the man beside me, mid sentence.
“-not like I expected you to eat babies or anything. But the way a person I sorta know described you didn’t exactly seem great?” he chuckled nervously, “I mean, you can hear all kinds of stuff, but first hand experiences and all that, right?”
I chuckled, though immediately wondered who might have given him such a negative impression of me. “Right. I don’t really mind what most people think anyways. If we always worry about what someone else thinks of us, we’re really never going to be able to move forward.”
“Mmm…” he hummed in agreement, building up to another question over a few seconds, “So, why are you guys here, anyways?”
I sat back comfortably, “Well, we’re here to kill biotics.”
He sat back as well, seemingly waiting for me to expand on the answer. I wasn’t necessarily sure what kind of answer he was looking for, though. In general that was the prime motivator for everything that I did. The Legion was primarily a tool for that purpose, too, though it of course meant much more to me than that.
“No, I mean, like here, here, y’know? Why bother coming all the way out here?” He quirked an eyebrow, “I mean, thanks for helping with this mess, but isn’t it still our mess here?”
I pondered that for a moment, before having my epiphany moment, “Ah, alright, I think I see what you’re asking. Well…” thinking, I drummed my fingers across my leg, “There’s two goals here, but if you asked me which is more important, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Firstly, the Legion will go where the biotics are, even if that means its someone elses territory. Thing is, Basilisk is doing a fine job with its people, and even the biotics are mostly in hand. For The Legion, we don’t need to step in on that, but we do want to make sure that the biotics are more than just handled. As you’ve seen, they get worse as time goes on, some faster than others, like this one here.” I gestured vaguely to the sea beyond the confines of the ship, to which he grimaced.
“We’ll go through as many as we can, but if there’s anything this has demonstrated to me, it’s that we need better options. Information is the most valuable thing to have against biotics, but the next best thing is overwhelming firepower.” I stated, glowering at the ceiling idly.
Jean paused, blinking uncertainly at my train of thought, “I don’t think I follow. Why does that mean it’s a good idea to be out here?”
“Hmm.” I hummed to myself, before shrugging, “I guess it doesn’t matter if you know. There’s a location out here that potentially has an uplink center to the satellite defense system. With access to that, we can drop a pinpoint attack on any biotic that presents itself to be an existential threat. I don’t know if Basilisk would spin this some other way, but to be frank, neither of our sides wants to have the New Government or the Coalition have the power to drop something on our heads at a moment's notice.”
He stared at me, openly gaping for several seconds. Technically speaking, I did just drop a high strategic secret in the open here. But, to be completely frank, I didn’t give a single fuck about that kind of thing. Nothing would stop us from getting to the uplink at this point, and as far as I was concerned these people had earned the right to know what we were here for.
But, the truth was, if it hadn’t been for the uplink, we wouldn’t be here.
“So, you guys are out here to get control of some… like orbital weapons or something?” The man asked dubiously, “How and the hell did you get Basilisk to agree to something like that?”
I snorted, “As a whole? I don’t even know if Basilisk knows what we’re really up too here aside from some higher ups. So, keep that to yourself.” With a stretch and chuckle, I continued, “Besides that, we’re both going to have a hand in how the system operates. That’s the big reason why we were allowed to come out here. Though, I’m going to push for a ‘biotics only’ policy for deploying weaponry.”
The man nodded slowly, absorbing the enormity of what the mission he’d shipped off on had set out to accomplish. For all intents and purposes, Basilisk had already massively profited off of the endeavor. The Red Zone was far more secure, save for what perhaps amounted to leftover biotics, depending on any other hives in the area, but I doubted many real threats existed out here besides the nightmare that had been the Angler.
Jean shook his head, and joked, “Alright, well, that’s way above my pay grade, so thanks? I’m not gonna, like, need to lock down my home to know that, right?”
Teasingly, I considered the question in mock-seriousness, just long enough for him to stir cautiously. I laughed at seeing him, and then waved it off, “I wouldn’t worry about it. There’s probably plenty of people who’ll know about it soon enough. It won’t be a problem if one more knows now.”
“Good. Great. Yeah, that’s…” he looked up, noticing someone enter the room and make eye contact with him in the way that people did when they were looking for you. “Ah, looks like that’s my break over.” He turned to me, giving my shoulder a firm pat, “Well, glad to meet you. Honestly, I do wish you the best of luck, all things considered.”
I nodded back to him, “You too, good luck out there.”
With that, he moved off from the room, leaving me with my thoughts and my team.
“Seems like a nice guy.” Richard commented from Alice’s bedside, “Very shady, though.”
I quirked an eyebrow at that, “Why shady?”
He shrugged, “Like knows like, I guess.”
“You can be very shady,” Fran joked weakley.
Richard grinned mildly before the look vanished as he turned his attention back to me, “Was that a good idea to tell him, though? That’s still fairly sensitive info at this point.”
I smiled faintly, “Probably not? But at this point, no one’s going to stop us. Plus, the way I figure it, we shouldn’t be keeping secrets like that from people anymore. I’d sure as hell want to know if someone had a strategic weapon hovering over my head.”
“Might be a little arrogant to think we can’t still fail at this point,” Domino commented idly, still emotionally drained, “But, I’d rather not have to worry about keeping everything a secret after all of this.”
A somber moment settled on us then, our losses more sorely felt. For one stark moment, I felt the heaviness of my command, to know that they died because of my mission here. Yet, instead of miring myself in it, I let it flow over me, ingrain itself in my memory and settle there. It was a tragedy, yes, but I would do it again, better next time. Always, we would be better the next time than before, again and again, until we shattered our opposition with an iron fist. Until the last biotic left on our world was allowed to exist by our will, instead of in spite of it.
The pain was there, but I would let it harden my resolve, not weaken it.
As I looked up at my team, though, I could see the cracks show through. I knew I wasn’t a normal, or completely sane person, knew that the pain I felt was a shadow of what I should have felt. I wasn’t as relieved to be alive, I wasn’t as stricken and hurt at our losses. My thoughts didn’t linger on my weaknesses, nor did I try to blame anyone else for the tragedy that had befallen us.
But when I looked at them all, I could see those thoughts and emotions warring in them. I could see the closeness between Daniel and Fran, the worries of Richard when he looked at Alice, the shared suffering between Jessica, Domino and Rachel, the silent camaraderie between Emma and Terry. But, not every mission would exact such heavy losses on the battlefield.
I would have to give them time. Only that would be enough to know if they could rationalize and resolve what they’d gone through. There was no doubt that they would have my full confidence, whatever their decision.
Even so, my thoughts wandered to the Determinators, and I decided that they had once more proven themselves more than capable. Perhaps it was time to push certain other projects forward…
After we were done here, there would be more work to be done, as there always was.