Nihlus gaped at the settlement,
unbelieving. Primitive boats lined the riverbank along the makeshift docks, and
wooden huts with straw roofing riddled the coast like warts. At least a couple
hundred people lived here, hiding from the tropical heat in the shades of the
giant ganut trees. Some trunks sported ladders leading up to abodes inside the
trees and on their lowest branches, thick enough for two grownups to walk
astride. Ignoring a couple of worn prefabs and a water dispenser that stood in
the center of a clearing like a phallic monument, the village could’ve been an elaborate stage for a pre-contact
movie.
From atop the little knoll on the west edge of the clearing, he could see far upstream the great river Ibiss. Her opaque, sluggish waters flowed toward him. The rippling reflections, dark blue from the evening skies in the east, and bright, fiery orange from the setting sun, caught between the solid margins of deep jungle green, made for a scene of peace and serenity that might have been beautiful if not for the wretched props and actors.
One day in the third quarter of 2172,
Captain Tirren of the STG reported an incident so incredible that he was
initially suspected to be making some kind of a joke.
Marked URGENT:GENOPHAGE, the report stated that only hours earlier, a top-secret military research facility located in the largely uninhibited Dio-Oroch nature reserve on Sur’Kesh had been assaulted by a small multi-species team led by a krogan identified as Warlord Okeer. The assailants had arrived in a standard shuttle after disabling the regional anti-aircraft defenses and cutting off all communications to and from the facility by means unknown. In the time it took the STG to notice the facility had gone silent, Okeer and his men had decimated its security forces and murdered all the research staff. Arriving at the scene a minute after the assailants had departed, the STG team that was sent to investigate discovered that Okeer had effectively stolen all the classified research data stored in the facility using a highly sophisticated VI to encrypt the data and all its backup copies with a biometric key.
I am endlessly thankful to Yawning Dragon, Gladius, Kadenex, Misfire Anon and ex-Clusum for reading the manuscript at various stages of completion and providing me with invaluable feedback and insights. Also to Heavenly Eros for taking my crude cover design and making it look gorgeous. To all the devotees of Mass Effect who keep the fandom alive with wonderful art and writing. And finally, to the authors of the series, for creating an amazing world and allowing us to extend it.
Stepping back into the shrunken Mass Effect fandom, in which the Saren/Nihlus ship has always been a niche that is now kept afloat by literally a handful of unrelenting enthusiasts, I did not expect to find a new friend and creative ally (Sixtus), let alone two!
HeavenlyEros descended among us just as I came back from the summer hiatus and stirred the sleepy turian community into a state of cheerful excitement by showering us with art of unearthly beauty.
Nihlus turns a full circle, staring, unseeing, at the objects surrounding
him, too familiar to spark interest or insight.
“You win,” he says, like it needs saying. “Where is it?”
Saren stands by the door, leaning on the wall with his arms crossed and one leg bent at the knee. An uncharacteristically causal posture. He’s playing with Nihlus. The smirk that doesn’t quite reach the eyes confirms it.
