The New Migrant Fleet

Call it what you will: A war, or an apocalypse. All you need to know is that we're all that's left. There may be survivors elsewhere. Doomed souls hiding on far-flung worlds, maybe, but the Reapers will get them eventually. Our lot in life is simple: Constantly running, always being hunted. The Reapers are rampaging throughout the galaxy virtually unopposed, and we've had to leave our homes behind for the sake of stretching our lives out just a few more days, or hours, or minutes. They can't be stopped. The warning wasn't heeded. We had time to prepare, to fight back, and we squandered it.

All that's left for us is to run and hope that we die from time instead of the Reapers.

*BANG BANG BANG*

"This is marine police, open up!"

*BANG BANG BANG*

"No answer. Alright, guns ready, we're forcing the door open."

Juhani nodded and moved to the side, adjusting his M12 Locust to fire at small charge. The stabber they were after wasn't known to wear armor, so he only needed to penetrate flesh, not the walls and hit people behind them.

The turian tech specialist bruteforced the door locking mechanism open. Point man of the team, a human female whose face was half-scorched charged into the room, her Carnifex at the ready. Juhani, then the turian and lastly a salarian followed.

"Living room, clear!"

"Kitchen, clear!"

"Bathroom, clear!"

"Shrells, this is a real mansion!"

"Focus on the job Pona!"

The bedroom of this luxury cabin was still unexamined with its door closed, and noises suspiciously similar to ventilation grate being removed were coming from behind it.

"This is the police! Come out with your hands up now!" the turian yelled, but the noise kept on going.

"Okay, we're busting this thing wide open. Taxus?"

"Got it." the turian acknowledged and began to work on the door mechanism. "Alright, be ready, opening door in five, four, three, two, one-"

The door slid suddenly open and the woman on point got her face full of biotic warp. She fell back, screaming and missing her target wide, blasting holes into the ceiling. A blue-purple blur shot out of the room, yanking Taxus off his feet floating towards the kitchen. Juhani opened up on the aggressor, but the rounds just were absorbed by a biotic barrier.

"Biotic! Full charge, now!"

Pona had his taser already out and was looking for an opening to lunge with it at what had been revealed to be an asari. Pull field around Taxus had evaporated and he was getting back to his feet, but the point woman wasn't looking healthy, still on the floor.

"Three to one, lady. Better turn in while we're supposed to just detain you." he growled to her.

"Like hells you will!"

She was about to throw another pull but the turian's Shuriken threw off her focus, breaking the barrier. Pona leaped forward and hit her in the neck with the taser. The asari fell onto the floor, muscles spasming. Pona and Taxus began to cuff her while Juhani ran over to check their human woman's condition.

"Center, this is patrol 54 on Grace of Lusia. I need ship's medical team to deck 3, hallway 7, will wave them to right cabin. Officer Roarke is down, she took a warp to the face. Over."

"Acknowledged 54, what about the perpetrator? Over."

"Bagged and tagged. She turned out to be biotic. Advice, over."

"Take in- hold on...kill on sight? Are you absolutely sure about that? Matter of fleet safety? Ugh, fine...Patrol 54, new orders just came in. She's a serial killer, you're authorized to shoot her on the spot. No sloppy jobs, confirm kill. Over."

Juhani frowned. These kill orders were becoming frustratingly common these days. The fleet's security was at stage, and there were no resources to be spared for detaining repeat offenders like serial killers. He turned to Taxus who was holding the asari at gunpoint.

"Taxus!"

"Yeah?"

"New orders. You're up." he made a gun out of his hand and wiggled the thumb, like hammer falling on the spike on old-fashioned slug-thrower.

"Bullshit! Not this again!"

"Don't argue with me damn it, it's your turn now!"

"Fuck you Juhani!"

He wasn't doing his duty. What were these turians coming to now? Juhani pulled out his puukko (Finnish knife, probably only thing he had from Earth at this point) and marched over to the group.

"Traxus. Traxus! Look at me. Don't give me that shit, we're officers of the law, we're the only thing standing between chaos and the Reapers and the civilians of this fleet. Our job is paramount to keeping little shits like her-" he laid his hand onto the asari's shoulder so hard she yelped. Probably because Juhani was standing behind her. Or maybe it was being caught in middle of Exodus Fleet Marine Police argument. Everyone was on the trigger these days, it must have been why serial killers like her popped up now and then. "from slagging bystanders and important people, and most of all from wasting important food and water from mouths that deserve it!" his voice kept rising until he was practically yelling at the asari's ear.

"Goddess! No, don't do it, please, spare me!" She had caught onto the plot now. Ah well. Juhani slammed the blade into her neck, aiming for the spine. He didn't hit on the first or second time, but third's time's the charm. She slumped onto the floor crying, limb control totally gone by now. He wiped the purple blood away and double tapped the asari in the head with his Locust just to be sure.

All that seemed to have happened in an instant for the others. Taxus and Pona took a moment to digest what had just transpired.

"You're out of your mind!"

"Spirits! Fucking spirits and all above, I don't know who was worse here, she or you!" Pona and Taxus called out at him, but Juhani just pointed the knife at the turian.

"If you had just shot her like I told you to, this wouldn't have been necessary! You forced my hand Taxus, you forced it! If you can't handle the pressure, get the fuck out of the force! Hell, I'll kick you off to speed if you want me to! Now shut up or rip the badge off, soldier!"

The turian looked like he was almost going to take off his badge, but he just grumbled in the end and stormed out of the room. Pano had stood clear wisely and was administering medigel on Roarke. Juhani turned away from the asari's corpse, muttering Finnish curses under his breath before contacting the center again.

"Center, this is patrol 54. Perp's dead. Send a bodybag. Also, mark down junior officer Kalikus Taxus for insubordination. Over."

He hated this job. Everyone hated deep down themselves. Some people couldn't keep it hidden and got posted on shit shifts and died fighting the thugs and criminals. Some drowned their sorrows in the bottle off-duty. Some deluded themselves with false sense of duty and honor for the Exodus Fleet. Juhani did both. He drank. He told himself that all the shit he put up with was for the common good. So others wouldn't have to. Others like his adoptive daughter. Hells. He'd have killed himself if Aira wasn't here to stop him. She was the ball and chain keeping him out of the airlock, and for what? Another day, another week, another month on the run, eating non-descript protein gruel made from vegetables, having nightmares about the Reapers finding them, burning his mouth with raw alcohol diluted with water, watching as the little girl anguished in the oppressive atmosphere of PFS Hierarchy. They'd never find a world to settle. Someday these ships would break and the Reapers would finish what they started.

But it wasn't today. Shift was still far from over.

"Section 1 wide alert, code 133 on MSV Rickard in progress, at least three involved."

"Center, this is patrol 54, we'll go check it out. We're short one officer, backup might be needed, over."

"Acknowledged, 54. Patrol 10 will join you, commanding officer T'Nielus. Over."

Juhani tucked the gun and knife back to their places on his belt. "Taxus, Palo, time to pack up. Ship's medical team will handle Roarke and the asari. We got a 133 on MSV Rickard going on, at least three guys. Patrol 10 will come with us. Move out!"

"They eat too much food".

There. It had been said. The human threw back his head and looked down his nose at the uniformed asari, as though daring her to take him to task for it.

"Disdainfully aggressive: If the humans weren't producing so many young, they wouldn't have a problem. Perhaps a new genophage is in order".

"How dare you! Are you saying this is our fault?!"

"With blatantly threatening overtones: I'm saying you're doing as your kind always do, human: rush forward and claim a bigger share than you need without first looking where you step. You have stepped over a line it would have behooved you not to cross!"

"Enough!" The asari punctuated her comment with a flash of biotics, channelling her own frustration into the gesture. "I don't want to hear this. Mr. Ko, I'm aware of the shortages in the Bekenstein Remnant. The Council has approved what it can, but the elcor need those shipments!"

"Snidely: He will not hear reason, Ms. Lethes"

"And you! The elcor contingent is hardly in a position to claim the moral high ground! Your ships are under-armed, your technological contributions minimal. You are not self-sufficient any longer, Xuumo! Your damnable pride is exacerbating this crisis". She fairly thrust a finger at him, the frustration boiling over. "You are subject to Council orders and if we're going to be giving you this much food, you're going to need to start offering more in return! We cannot accept charity cases! I suggest you go back to your people and tell them to have a good think about how they're going to pull that weight we're keeping on your frames. And DO IT QUICKLY".

She stalked off, and Ko followed, after shooting Xummo a venomous look.

A flash of something very much like hatred shot through him then. This was the bipeds' world, even more than it had been back when there was a Citadel. And though it damned him to acknowledge it, their way might well be the only way.

Dejected and angry, he prepared to shuttle back to Precedent, the closest the elcor survivors had to a flagship.

At least the humans were producing young, for all that they struggled to feed them. Xuumo had overheard some solemn discussion among the doctors and Elders of the Court the previous week. It was feared that between the slow breeding rate and the pitiful number of survivors they'd assembled that the elcor species might be in for nothing but a gradual but inevitable fading from the universe. No wonder the fast-paced bipeds resented dragging them around and keeping them fed. How long before they were cast off altogether?

He hated it here, on the Fleet. There wasn't enough space. To think that he might never again walk under open sky, never again feel on his back the natural warmth of the sun... Even if, by some miracle, he did, it would not be his sun. It would not be his earth beneath his feet. The eternal bedrock of memory that whispered into every elcor, to which it had always been his fate to one day unload his burdens. What, then, was the point of going on? Nothing he did mattered; nothing any of them did mattered. The slow and steady march of the proud and noble race of elcor was finished. And by some cruel joke, he and those like him were to live on past the end, a people without a history to build on. The records (and the very earth itself) were gone.

Not for the first time, the thought settled over him. I should have died with Dekuuna.