[Nimbus] Lost Carcosa (Open-ish?)

To most who study Carcosa, it starts a mere curiosity, and then grows swiftly horrifying as they ponder the implications. Unlike many of the galaxy's big mysteries, the advent of the Reapers did nothing to solve the great mystery of Carcosa. It is world that, somehow, sprang into myth and mythology on a planet thousands of lightyears from it, behind a locked relay, with an accurate description and the same name despite it being impossible for any human from the period to have even heard of Thessian, or Carcosa, or a mass relay.

Twice.

The fact that someone could do that without anyone noticing is a....sobering thought really.

But that little piece of horror is not what we are concerned with here. No, what we're concerned with here is Veranex Vadarat, the rude, young, turian fighter pilot currently reminiscing on the Throne of Carcosa.

It would be hilariously illegal if the Republic was actually strong enough in the region to enforce its claim. As it was, no-one could really stop him from sprawling across the throne like the king of some ruined empire.

"What've I gotten myself into this time," Veranex muttered, gazing out at the empty lake and ruined city, "Massive Pirate epidemic, ineffectual local government. This would've been gold in the old days. Now look at me! I'm responsible, I'm the good guy, I've got constraints.

He sits back, kicks his legs onto one massive, ancient stone arm and rests his head on the other. He shifts his gaze to the stars. "You'd have known how to do this. You could do damn-near anything. You'd grab one of those stupid books and you'd have some batshit thirteen point thing written up within a few hours. And then you'd look like an idiot trying to pose on this throne. I always just...flew. The politics stuff's all bullshit to me.

...I sound like a total douchebag. Listen to me! 'Ooooh, I'm only a badass fighter ace, CEO and philanthropist trying to save the Nimbus Cluster from its own idiocy. How will I ever measure up. I better angst on this ancient throne of a forgotten people!'

Is that what thrones do to people? Make you angsty about how good you have it? Fuck that, this shit is why everyone's a democracy now."

And so Veranex Vadarat got off the throne and resolved to be less of a sad shit about himself, and our narration started to focus on other people entirely.

Pirate epidemic. La-de-fucking-da. Here she was, come to swoop in and save the day, and all Celeste was doing was wasting her time at a bar, steadily growing sicker and sicker of the weak-as-piss drinks they were pushing. Civvies as usual, faux-leather jacket woven with bullet-resistant silk linings, black sweater over her ablative ceramic vest, a modified Suppressor in a custom holster jammed somewhere around her left armpit, and a duffel bag of military-grade toys, odds and ends at her feet against the bar stool.

"A double. And don't cut it this time, you cheap fuck," she growled. Fucking Tides, where was her informant? He was twenty minutes late, and she really didn't want to go looking for a body today. She just was not in the mood for all the extra bodies that would create.

Why was she there, in the Nimbus, an ex-C-Sec matriarch armed to the teeth and on a one-woman path of destruction? Much like Verenex Vadarat. when it came right down to it. Responsibility. Not a hot-shot fighter-pilot, not a bigshot CEO. Something more, though depending on who you asked, a fuck of a lot less. Just an asari all alone in a hostile cluster, out to change things one-

Guhhhhh. Celeste snatched up her next drink and knocked it back in one swig. Fuck her life sometimes.

The ship, properly speaking, had no name. Oh there was a title for all the licenses and forms and mountain of paperwork that tended to accumulate around the beasts of the void: The Dragon. But, well, that wasn't exactly a name name was it? More like a general concept, or an idea than anything else; picked out in kanji and latin standard and iconograph and sigil. A thought. A grand, sprawling mess of dreams and myths.

And really, that suited it's owner just fine. One could appreciate the flexibility it allowed, the opportunity to change and shift whenever the circumstances dictated such or the mood took him.

Here it would be the Ancalagon.

...What?

Oh don't be like that, what's the fun in owning your own vessel if you don't indulge your own flights of fancy now and again?

"They've cleared us Sir, we're ready for the jump."

Ahead the relay, the gateway into the Nimbus loomed, a device that could dwarf a city; visible with the naked eye even from here. The Bay of Bengal a titanic hulk of a superfreighter below; the flagship Sheshanaga above, it's vast metal wings spread out to shroud and shield the battlegroup that clustered around it. Cruisers. Frigates. Corvettes. A miniature armada, each bearing the stamp, the seal of their corporate master.

Titan had gotten a contract you see, although frankly it wasn't hard. The situation in the Cluster was, if not dire, gradually and implacably approaching the point of irrevocable degradation. A private security firm with ships and guns could flourish in a place like this. Plenty of work. Plenty of opportunities. They could afford to be ambitious here. They could afford to take risks. This was the kind of place where fortunes could be won, where titanic (hee) geopolitical shifts existed incept.

This actually went a long way to answering a few unasked questions really. Like the oh so carefully mislabeled crates of weaponry and tech; the gene-enginged beasts slumbering in their cells, the quietly clicking drone-hives. The surprisingly well furnished barracks secreted away like a mollusk encasked, concealed within the Bay of Bengal's mercantile guts. The suspiciously well armed men and women who did not appear on any officially declared registry.

And him of course. The why of him and the why of that gleaming grin; bone white, fanged in spirit if not in fact.

"On your mark then captain. Let's not keep our clients waiting for their saviors."