Mass Effect: Initiation

by N. K. Jemisin

  Cora laughed weakly, though she supposed that by asari standards, Janae—another member of the Daughters, and her best friend among them—was as much of a baby as Cora was, at only a few centuries old. “Yeah, we ran that op in Nos Astra. But she was in charge. And nothing went wrong.”

  “Huh.” Ygara’s head tilted and she lifted an eyebrow. “You two made a good team. On-mission and off.”

  “Yeah, we—oh.” She blushed. Asari usually leapt to the wrong conclusions when maidens were involved. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Really? Shame. You were cute together. Little baby badasses.” She grinned. “Look, kid, stuff happens. Nobody’s dead, that’s the bottom line.”

  “We got lucky.” Cora said it low, not really wanting everyone to hear. Pointless to try and hide it, though. Everyone knew how lucky they’d been.

  “Yeah. Sometimes that happens, too. But when you’ve got people who know their stuff, good luck’s more likely than bad.” Ygara shook her a little, companionably, and moved past her to settle in.

  That actually did make Cora feel better—enough that she took a deep breath and reminded herself that the mission was done and successful. No injuries, no pursuit… no reason to still feel so twitchy, her nerves all a-jangle. She turned to face everyone, resting her hand against a bulkhead.

  “I’m requesting a bonus for all of you as soon as I get back to Theia Station. No promises, but you deserve it. Ygara’s got herself a great mercenary team, here.” There were pleased murmurs and grins in reply.

  * * *

  The rest of the flight was uneventful. The Audacity was parked along the Mars orbit, although Mars was currently far on the other side of the sun. For added security Ygara had ordered it to hold position well below the orbital plane; the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, out of the usual courier and cargo ship flight paths. As the ship’s gleaming silver hull grew more distinct on approach, Ygara stepped into the cockpit as well, peering through the viewport window over Cora’s shoulder.

  “Shuttle to Audacity. You weren’t lonely while we were gone, were you?”

  “Welcome back,” drawled Suran. “Somehow, we managed to contain our despair. Does everyone still have all their digits?”

  “Yeah, but I almost broke a nail.”

  Cora winced at this, feeling it as a criticism. Ygara noticed the look on her face and rolled her eyes. “Just make sure you give us good recommendations, kid. Starting up a new merc company is hard.”

  Cora smiled weakly, and Suran signaled that she would meet them in the cargo bay. Then they closed the comms.

  The cargo bay was an open-port model, basically just a cave built onto the side of the ship, with a mass effect field in place to hold in the pressurized air. As the ship cycled to land, Cora let out a long, heavy sigh and rubbed the back of her neck. The tension hadn’t gone away, and now she was working on a headache.

  “Lieutenant H-H-Harper.” The Initiative VI. She frowned a little, having forgotten that the VI was still present—but it was linked to her, not to a particular location like most VIs. She was really going to have to get used to that. “You seem unusually tense. How can I assist?”

  Even the VI had noticed. “I don’t know,” she subvocalized. Bad enough Ygara and the others thought she was some keyed-up kid; she didn’t need them thinking she was crazy, too, talking to a VI that none of them could hear. But the VI was right; she couldn’t bring herself to relax, and it was becoming a problem. “Can’t help it. I just feel like something’s wrong.”

  “Would you like me to notify the Initiative of our successful m-m-mission?”

  Anything might help at this point. “Yeah,” she said. “Please give our ETA. Oh, and Initiative VI—” Here she stumbled. “Damn, that’s a mouthful.”

  “I’m not actually a VI for the Initiative,” he said, in a tone that was almost self-deprecating. “I am the Simulated Adaptive Matrix, Experimental version, created by Alec Ryder for Pathfinder and prospective Pathfinder use. It’s better to think of me as a personal VI.”

  Experimental. That explained a lot. And… prospective Pathfinder? Ryder was going to have to do some explaining of his own when she got back. “SAM-E,” she said, sounding it out. “Sammy. Fine. Anyway—you can pick up signals from the system comm buoy, can’t you? Patch into the extranet to find out whether Home Away reported the infiltration and identified—”

  “Lieutenant.” SAM-E’s voice was abruptly sharper, making her tense further. “I thought you should know that I’ve just scanned comm buoy records, including those relayed between the Audacity and the team’s omni-tools during the mission.” The VI seemed to hesitate. VIs didn’t hesitate. Cora found herself frowning. “There’s something troubling that you should know about.”

  And when, Cora wondered, had Ryder programmed this thing to sound worried?

  “What?” So thrown by this that she’d forgotten to subvocalize this time, she touched her ear to let the others know she wasn’t just talking to herself. They glanced away, shrugging or losing interest.

  SAM-E’s voice grew tense. “Approximately three minutes before Ms. al-Jilani’s report ran on the Westerlund News site, a signal went from your onsite team to the Audacity. It was patterned noise, designed to sound like ordinary signal burp-back, which meant that the blackout field around the station let it through. Very nicely done if I might add—”

  Cora’s mouth went dry. There was no reason for Ygara to be opening a secret comm channel in the middle of an operation. No good reason. The team began to file off the shuttle, some members groaning or stretching. Ygara was talking to Kih, something about taking the ship to the relay as quickly as possible.

  Why did they need to go to the Sol relay when their destination, Theia Station, was in-system?

  “Get to the point, SAM-E,” Cora murmured, watching them. Her skin was all a-prickle with gooseflesh. Somehow, for some reason, she didn’t think she was going to like the point.

  “I believe Ms. al-Jilani’s story about you didn’t run at that specific time by chance. Someone ordered her to run it—and she did, on demand, at just the moment you’d successfully retrieved the data.” And lost her usefulness, Cora realized, her blood chilling. “Someone who was alerted to do so… by Ygara Menoris.”

  DECEMBER 29TH, 2184, 23:00 GMT

  Nightside News In a Minute

  …but rumors persist that a massive ship of unknown configuration was involved in the Fehl Prime colony disappearance. The Council’s Office of Press Relations urges galactic citizens to fact-check before disseminating conspiracy theories.

  In other news, HOME Group stocks fell today following word of a successful security breach by a rival corporation. HOME Group spokeswoman Irene Amadiume says the group has committed an additional million credits toward improving security, and assures shareholders that no residents on Home Away, the flagship satellite in the group’s planned fleet of same, were disturbed by or even aware of the infiltration.

  On Earth, in the city of Sydney, an old game is getting new life; say hello to cricket! Similar to biotiball, although designed to be played without biotics, this ancient human game is…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Just outside the shuttle, Cora stopped in her tracks. She was suddenly, painfully hyperaware that Ygara had stopped as well, just a few feet away, for no apparent reason. Then that Octavia Suran—who had trotted down into the hangar bay from one of the cargo catwalks—was casually loading her sidearm with disruptor ammo. Excellent for taking down biotic barriers, and fast.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “So what is this?” Cora watched Ygara, even though Suran had the only gun. Ygara was the one in charge, though. The one Cora had trusted. This was her knife to shove into Cora’s back.

  “It isn’t personal, kid,” Ygara said, with a heavy sigh. She turned then, beginning to glimmer with her own biotic field. “I’m a self-employed businesswoman now. Startup costs are a bitch. You understand.”

  The others were stopping t
oo, and turning back, and shifting into positions that effectively surrounded Cora. Kih sighed a little as he turned his back on her, heading for the elevator up to the flight deck and cockpit. None of the others, besides Ygara herself, even showed that much regret. Suran threw Ygara a mildly irritated Well, that took long enough glance, then drew her sidearm from its holster at last.

  Not much chance if they were all in on it, but Cora had no choice but to try. “You could’ve gotten us all killed,” she said, speaking to Ygara but glancing at the others. Willing them to hear what she wasn’t saying. Do you really want to follow a merc boss who’ll risk the team like this? One who’ll betray you as easily as she has me? “Something strange happened on that station. If they’d come at all of you the same way they did me—”

  “We would’ve been fine,” Ygara interrupted. Bannyn and Leri, the other two asari, had come into the docking bay as she spoke. With brisk, businesslike efficiency they were handing out weapons to the twins and Tella. “I kept the others close enough that we could help each other out. Only your ass was hanging in the wind, and that was on purpose. Figured they’d take care of the problem and I wouldn’t have to.” She looked away for a moment, then set her jaw. “Guess it was too much to expect a bunch of corporate-payroll little girls to do a woman’s job.”

  Cora swallowed. She was tired, hungry, still unarmed. In no shape to fight a team of ex-commandos and combat specialists. Think! There had to be a way out of this. But there was nowhere to go in the hangar, nowhere she could hide on a small destroyer, even if she could make it out of the hangar—not with eight mercs gunning for her. Ygara hadn’t killed her on the shuttle, and for obvious reasons: too confined a space, too great a risk that the fight would damage some critical system and leave them stranded or spaced.

  Here, Ygara could kill her in near-total safety.

  Which meant Cora had to talk fast. “Why not just shoot me on the station, or leave me behind? Why the charade?” Then something else occurred to her. “Why were you even on Tamayo Point? Last I heard you’d been planning to set out your shingle on the Kepler Verge. Council space was too tame, I remember you saying…” Damn it. She’d been so stupid. “Who planted you there to ‘bump into’ me, Ygara? Who’s after this tech? They must be paying you a lot, if you decided that your brand-new crew was expendable enough to risk.”

  At that, Suran twitched, frowning at Ygara. Tella’s eyes shifted away from Cora to Ygara, and back, just for an instant. Hanon’Milah glanced at his brother. Neither of their guns wavered, but Cora was getting to them.

  She needed to talk faster.

  Ygara looked annoyed, however. “That’s none of your business, kid. I didn’t kill you before we left the station because I was out of it; that drone blast nearly knocked me cold. You’d just saved my life. I’m not a complete asshole.” Her expression twisted. “But this is what I get for being soft—”

  She was already flinging the shockwave of force before she finished the sentence, just as Cora was already lunging to one side while manifesting her barrier. Almost at once she flinched as the barrier took a hit and ebbed a little; someone had nearly shot her in the gut. Just an energy weapon, though she could hear the ping off a bulkhead as Suran fired a projectile weapon and missed her.

  Shilu’Milah was between Cora and a stack of crates that might serve as something like cover, although it was perilously near the opening to the bay. Its mass effect field wouldn’t keep her in if she fell through, just any air or warmth surrounding her body. Yellow hazard lines striped the floor in that part of the bay for that very reason.

  No choice. Cora shouldered Shilu aside, adding a little extra biotic force to the blow just for good measure, as she ran in that direction. He cried out and dropped his pistol as he fell, but there was no time to grab it; another shot caught Cora in the back. Her barrier wouldn’t take another hit.

  She flung a wild singularity back at them, but it was unfocused and weak. She was weak, and they knew it. The move bought her enough time to duck behind the crates, but that just meant they would eventually rush her. She would die in cover instead of out in the open.

  Tella laid suppressing fire along the catwalk, preventing Cora from escaping that way. Over the din of her gun Suran was shouting, trying to get Hanon’Milah to stop checking on his downed brother and go around the shuttle to flank Cora. Ygara or one of the other asari tried to throw the crates aside, but Cora had had the sense to extend her barrier around them too, for whatever good that did and for however long she could hold it.

  Swallowing back fear, Cora looked around wildly in her crouch, trying to see if there was anything in this part of the cargo area that could save her—a weapon, a tool, anything! Three of the crates were open, but there was nothing useful in them that she could see at a glance. Dextro nutrient paste, sniper-rifle mods that would’ve been great if she had a sniper rifle, and human/asari spare armor components…

  Her belly clenched. Frantically she kicked at the crate until it thumped over, spilling its contents. Gauntlets, a chestplate, top-of-the-line Ariake Technologies thighpads. Just what she’d never wanted. And…

  Oh, dear God yes.

  A helmet.

  “Engaging FTL engines in two minutes, if you still want us to make this rendezvous on time, Ygara,” Kih said over the ship’s comm. “Lemme know if you wanna abort. Otherwise, if you’re gonna space the body, you’ve got that long to do it.”

  Tella’s pistol fire suddenly stopped. In the ringing silence, Ygara called, “Give it up, kid. There’s nowhere to go and you know it. Tell you what: Surrender, and I’ll just sell you to the batarians. Alive’s better than dead, right?”

  Cora grimaced and stretched out a leg to snag the helmet’s rim, dragging it closer. All helmets had a standard suit interface seal. It was blue, unlike the rest of her black armor. Mismatched gear was unprofessional, but dead women couldn’t be choosy.

  “I wouldn’t advise the course of action you’re considering, Lieutenant,” SAM-E said into her ear. “We’re currently far from shipping lanes or regular system traffic. Your suit’s distress transponder won’t transmit far.”

  Cora ignored this. She didn’t have much of a choice. To stall for time, she called, “Nisira’s going to kill you when she figures out what you did, Ygara. You know she’ll know. She’ll give you that ‘Mom’ stare you used to hate so much. And then she’ll shoot you.” As Cora spoke, she pulled the helmet on, praying it wasn’t broken or somehow deactivated. Luck: the heads-up display that flitted across her vision showed green lights. The helmet was good. Her armor was now sealed against vacuum.

  “They’re not going to let me go,” she murmured to SAM-E. “Ygara wouldn’t really risk giving me to slavers. Too great a chance I might convince them to ransom me to the Initiative for more money. She’s just saying that so I’ll come out, and then she can kill me more easily. If I stay on this ship, I’m dead.”

  “Thirty seconds,” Kih said over the ship comm.

  “Understood.” There was a brief pause. “The airlock door will open when you are ready,” SAM-E responded, then went silent. Cora frowned, feeling oddly bereft in that moment. But what had she been expecting, a last-minute save? That’s what she got for relying on a VI.

  “Eh,” Ygara said, with an air of finality, “I’ll just have to get better at lying before I see Nisira again.” She raised her hands, powering up to deliver a blast of pure force that would probably shatter Cora’s barrier and cover all at once.

  “Not if I see you first,” Cora promised, baring her teeth.

  Then she snapped the barrier back around only herself, mustered the last of her strength, and ran straight for the bay’s airlock. She heard only one almost tentative ping from a projectile weapon, as if her former comrades were so surprised that it hadn’t even occurred to them to shoot.

  The door slid open as she dove through. It whizzed shut again and the airlock depressurization began immediately. Within seconds she was not-so-gently ejected out the b
ack of the ship and sent hurtling away from the Audacity, even as she saw its engines flare brighter with an imminent FTL burn.

  A moment later the ship streaked away, leaving Cora adrift in space, the only living thing for a hundred million miles.

  Don’t panic, she told herself immediately. Sadly, not much of herself listened.

  She concentrated on her own breathing, harsh against the faceplate of her mismatched helmet. Star-flecked blackness spun around her. She tried to orient on the sun and couldn’t; her spin was slow, but uncontrolled. She could see a slightly larger sunward fleck that was probably Earth, if she hadn’t forgotten basic-training orbital mechanics—but it was infinitesimal, impossibly far, even if she did feel a sudden irrational urge to try flapping her arms and “flying” in that direction.

  It became suddenly very important to her that she hear another voice. “SAM-E, please tell me you’re still here.”

  “Of course I am, Lieutenant.” The VI’s voice was reassuringly soft and calm in her ear. “My connection with you is through the implant that Alec Ryder gave you. Unless you leave your head behind, I’m with you.”

  “Right.” Cora laughed shakily and swallowed hard as she struggled not to hyperventilate. “Okay. You’re still in communication with the Initiative control center, correct?”

  “Y-y-y—” Cora had never hated the VI’s stuttering glitch more. SAM-E seemed annoyed by it, too. “Yes… though I have received no response from the station in some time. However, as you requested, I notified the Initiative of the mission’s success and your ETA. That transmission included our coordinates at the time of your… launch.”

  Cora’s gasp sounded loud even to her own ears, within the helmet. “Can you resend a message and let them know that we’ve experienced some complications?”

  “Already sent. Though as stated, I have not received anything in return.” Cora’s hopes sank. “Updates from my system are checked regularly, but not monitored continuously. And with only six months remaining before the launch of ark Hyperion, most Initiative personnel are preoccupied.”