© Bioware ~ Introduction

~ Stanza 1 · Fruit of the Victory ~

‘I can’t believe we just left her behind.’

The gentle light of the comm-room walls

On a weary and quiet circle falls.

Six here sit, with voices deadened,

Where ten hours since sat a circle of seven

Kaidan’s voice breaks the silence. And speaks out my mind.

I told her I would come for her.

Both I and Kaidan gave our words…

He held up his end – but the choice wasn’t his.

He didn’t get to make that call.

I did.

Now Ashley is dead. And Aegohr lost.

Lives this mission shouldn’t have cost.

We took out an army and levelled a base.

But Saren Arterius himself escaped.

And the Reaper, Sovereign, lives

Or exists at least, for I cannot give

A word such as life to the being that spoke

Out of the dark breathing frost to our hopes.

A little victory that but revealed

Who our true foe is. From its face it peeled

The mask of Saren’s hate and ambition

And laid open the pit of the Reaper’s vision.

I lift my head.

Kaidan’s looking to me

He’s worn and bent with grief and pain,

His square and normally ruddy face stained

With pallor from his wounded side.

The stricken depth of his eyes meet mine.

‘Commander, why? Why did you come to me?’

‘I had to make a call, Alenko;

And that was the judgement I made.

Between two perils I chose, and chose you.

That’s all that I’m going to say.’

But I cannot draw my eyes away.

This man was almost lost today,

This one, not some other man.

This one with those brown and able hands

This one whose thoughtful, patient brow

Is fair and noble, even now,

Though pale with lack of blood and breath

And heavy with his comrade’s death.

And if I turn away from the man that I saved

I’ll think of all those I did not.

What is there that I can say?

I abandoned a squad.

‘Shepard.’

I turn as Liara speaks.

‘Wasn’t there something you needed to show me?’

I rise. There is yet the second beacon,

The victory’s one trophy, the Prothean vision.

I bring it before the eye of my mind

As Liara’s mind draws close.

I feel a gasp. She breaks the bind.

‘Ilos! The Conduit’s on Ilos!’



~ Stanza 2 · The Lost Relay ~

Ilos lies beyond the Mu Relay

Where the Relay lies, there’s none can say.

They say it was used by the invading Rachni

But it’s centuries since that the last one died.

If we could be certain that the Reaper too

Doesn’t know, won’t know, and never knew

Then I’d set aside thoughts of the Conduit

Whatever it is. But they yet might find it.

We still do not know what this Conduit is

But we know that the Reapers need it.

And we know their last victims thought this important

And tried to tell us where to find it.

So inquiries can be made, and records unearthed

If all else fails, we can go out and search

The Chandrasekhar system where it’s said to be

But before I waste months, I’m searching for leads.

As soon as I can I’ll send out the word.

Liara’s re-combing for clues in the records.

The nav-team is looking for any near force

Which might move a Relay or alter its course.

We turn the Normandy’s prow towards home

Towards Earth, and the Council, the gulfs of the known.

Our guests have served a long costly tour,

They won our first victory of Sovereign’s new war,

They need conveyance back to Citadel Space.

And we too should make port in a civilized place.

We’ve not docked nor restocked for many long days.

Our ship’s been too long on the vast open rays.

But the Reapers are coming.

Saren is only their foremost pawn

The Reapers are coming.

Out of the past, out of deep space, beyond.



~ Stanza 3 · In the Hold ~

Down in the hold by the ship’s bay door,

On many and many a day before

In the drowsy light of the armoury

Where the working of tools clinked quietly

I used to find Ashley Williams,

Dark hair pulled back in a low, soft knob,

Blue sleeves rolled-up out of reach of her job,

Now there still lies the armoury

But alien voices ring sharply to me

Not that of Ashley Williams.

Commander Rentola now commands

The sadly diminished Salarian band.

Their makeshift barracks are as clean and tight

As though it were months since they came from the fight.

He’s putting a cheerful face on it

Calling their circumstance more than adequate

And though its his team that bore the real weight

He extends sympathies for Gunnery-Chief’s fate.



~ Stanza 4 · Wrex ~

I find Urdnot Wrex in a shadowed corner

Thinking to himself alone

Paws on his knees, his head bowed like a mourner

As if he was cut out of stone.

The Salarians bewail their noble captain

And more than a third of their men.

My strike team grieves the death of Ashley

And the whole crew mourns with them.

But of Urdnot Wrex’s woe

Nobody seems to care or know.

Nobody talks of the Krogan cost

Nobody speaks of the knowledge we lost.

I go to him to apologize

Thank him for his service and sympathize

But as I draw near, he stands up abruptly

And offers me the apology.

He got a bit hot down there. Got carried away.

Said things he shouldn’t have said.

‘But there is one thing, Shepard,’ – great nostrils splay –

‘When we find Saren, I want his head!’



~ Stanza 5 · The Scholar’s Dream ~

Never once do I hear Liara

Talk about how she was right.

Never once does she boast or mention

How she truly foretold Sovereign’s might.

Instead she’s just turned straight back to the work

Restudying passages where tips might lurk

And poring over all that she has on Ilos

Lest some hints to the Conduit go left unnoticed.

She thinks Ilos was the secret heart

Of knowledge in the Prothean empire

To see that sky, those pinnacles,

She has long desired.

But never has Asari Scholar ever seen that world.

‘May you be the first, Liara. Pray you win that race.’



~ Stanza 6 · Shadow out of the Past ~

For the Reapers are coming.

And they need that place.

Sovereign is hunting.

And this is a race.

What are the Reapers? Whence did they come?

Who set abeating their terrible drums?

Kaidan and I together muse

On the terrible theory our mission proved

The lost past and future bleak.

What was it we met, down there in the dark?

Still a cold shadow lies in my heart.

And I wonder to what did I speak.

‘The thing is…’ once Kaidan says

‘It isn’t just that they’re dangerous,

The most evil thing that I’ve heard or met.

I hate it, with all of my being … and yet-

Shouldn’t one feel a kind of awe?

Something so huge, and something so old,

Millions of years … with its own monstrous law,

Don’t you feel the weight of those ages of cold?’

I do. And it burdens and troubles my mind.

‘Alenko, be careful, such horror can blind.

It isn’t the first we’ve been told that we couldn’t.

If we believed it, its true that we wouldn’t.

In the Battle of Shanxi they said we couldn’t break through.

But we kicked out the Turians. We’ll get these guys too.’

He looks over at me. Almost, he smiles.

The closest I’ve seen for what seems a long while.

‘Well, Commander,’ his tone’s resolute,

‘We’re gonna need one really big boot.’

He was back to work sooner than I thought good

Doctor Chakwas insisted he should,

Light ship-board duty, nothing more,

Don’t make him lie there to think and deplore.

He says he’s alright, that he’s holding up fine.

And he hasn’t since questioned the call that was mine.

But I can only think of how

If Saren had not come,

I could have come, then come away

And brought both marines home.



~ Stanza 7 · Farewell, Williams ~

Blue and black Alliance regs

Folded flat and tight

In an almost empty locker

Kept neat and clean and bright.

A photograph of four tall girls

One in overalls, one in swirls

One standing trim in a freshly-pressed suit

The fourth in regs and military boots.

We never spoke of her sisters

Not Abby, nor Sarah, nor Lynn

I was scarcely aware they existed

And I won’t have that chance again.

Kaidan beside me seems to know

Which name is whose, and joys and woes

Of the bold and headstrong Williams tribe

Whose eldest, whose leader, almost mother, has died.

(And I wish I’d been there, when he heard.

I wish I’d been, and made a third.)

As we note the few items and pack them away

For shipment back home when we reach friendly space

I feel something hard beneath the clothes

And there underneath, in a tight-squeezed row

One line of upright volumes stands

Well-worn by the touch of hands.

Tennyson, Tolkien, Virgil and Gray

Shakespeare, and Heinlein, and Lillian Day

With well thumbed pages and bindings worn

Even in places a little torn.

There is no hurry, the long star-lit days

Roll quietly on as the ship shoots through space.

I pluck a book out of the shelf.

They’re marked inside, in sharp bold strokes

Underlining favourite quotes,

Quotes which I have loved myself

And verses which I’ve never heard,

Potent, strange, and stirring words.

As a young dreaming boy, Kaidan revelled in stories

Of men who set out on the deep starry sea

To explore the unknown, to defend their home-world,

Or make themselves worth a sweet lady adored.

While I in the rhythms of old once dwelled,

Under age old canopies with giants and elves.

For I grew up on that starry sea

Looking down to the worlds and the waters, while he

Son of a space marine, grew on the Earth

Looking up to the skies from his green place of birth.

But of recent years, both he and I

Have let all the poets slip us by.

Not Ashley.

Deep in the locker, there’s a second photograph

Kept out of the reach of a careless glance

I lift it out of the shadows.

A young man, with her nose is there.

A woman with her thick, dark hair

Beside them – I didn’t know.

But once has mankind surrendered a place

To the forces of an alien race.

That was at Shanxti, in the first contact war

By General Williams, who I’d not thought before

To connect with this woman so filled with bright fire

Yet the infamous general was Ashley’s grandsire.

Kaidan looks down at the yellowing leaf.

‘I guess her dad was ecstatic when she was made chief.

He never rose above able-spaceman.

Not after what his father had done.’

I turn the photograph o’er

On the yellowed back I read this behest:

‘A Williams must be BETTER than the best

If only to not fall short.’

‘Now must you give place ignominious Shanxti!

The name Williams shall hence be admired.

Now at its sound will men think of our victory

At the Reaper’s base upon Virmire.’

~ Stanza 8 · The Council Again ~

When we finally reach a comm buoy

I report to the Council, and they contact me

I take a deep breath at their very first words…

‘I thought you said you’d be discreet, Shepard!

You were supposed to go in and investigate.

Now we find that you’ve nuked the place!’

‘Okay, firstly, it wasn’t a nuke.

With a nuke we wouldn’t have lost any troops

For we wouldn’t have needed to plant it inside.

I wish we’d had one! Good soldiers died.

Second, I wasn’t in command of the mission.

It was conceived and led by the Salarians.

It wasn’t even my hand that set their drive core to blow.

That honour belongs to my lieutenant, Alenko.

And thirdly – Yes! We did blow the base!

Did you read the report I sent on that place?

You could thank me, or at least the Salarians,

That team bore one long, hard, and costly mission.

But, Councillors, the Reapers, I’ve found out much more-’

‘Shepard, enough! That string’s getting sore.’

~ Stanza 9 · The Living and the Lost ~

Many days from Hoc’s hard gaze

Many days from Virmire

We burst again on the purple rays

And the gleaming Citadel spires.

All is just as it was before.

No fright, or bustle, no signs of war.

As if the threat we’ve so plainly seen

On the night’s dark sea, was only a dream.

At the Presidium docks, a starship waits

With colours green, and open gates

For the Third STG Infiltration force

To take them the final, short, safe course

To verdant Sur’Kesh, their own home-world.

Their livid green banner hangs unfurled.

My crew comes out to see them off,

And many an Alliance cap is doffed

To the valiant, victorious, diminished band.

While in welcome their own crew stands.

But nobody else is there to cheer

No crowds were waiting upon the pier.

Just us few sailors. No one else knows.

None else here realize how great was their foe.

As I watch them march along

I hear again the piercing song

Of the soldier who sang out their captain’s death.

He too, I hear, fell soon to the Geth.

And where is the noble squad of Aegohr?

Where is that leaping band of war?

On alien shores their ashes lie

In a sea filled crater beneath the sky

Where never a voice is raised in song.

Where the wild sea cries out all day long

And the cold stars wheel o’er the slaughtered throng….

(Look on them Rosamund … you chose wrong.)

Aiiieh! I know. Don’t play that string

I cannot now do anything

To help those who I left behind.

I cannot make the time rewind

No matter how you twist that knife

I cannot bring the dead to life.

I can’t. And so then, let it be.

And though their deaths may fall on me

It was no crime, no false betrayal,

I chose as best as I was able,

I chose in hope that all might live.

To the greater need I tried to give

The little aid t’was mine to wield.

Too late was the likeness of need revealed.

And now there’s nothing I can do

However much my choice I rue.

The choice I rue? … Ah, there I lie!

How could I wish that man to die

Who stands so straightly by my side

How could I wish I’d made a choice

That would have stilled that rough, soft voice

That hand, that heart, had died.

Oh, twisted fate! The cruellest dart

Which gnaws and troubles at my heart,

Is that it were better that you had died,

And been in their stead left as ash on the tide.

If I stood again on that balcony

And saw there then what I now see

I would leave him behind, as he bade me do

And bring Aegohr safe to the rendezvous.

But I cannot. Oh, leave me in peace!

One true heart was saved from that fire at least.

And I cannot now do anything more

For those who were lost on Virmire’s shore.



~ Stanza 10 · The Council s Fatuity ~

I leave the restocking in Presley’s hands

I have business aboard, things to say if I can.

As I leave the dock, I hear close beside me

The lieutenant’s voice, and turning I see

Both he and Garrus, no longer in regs

But dressed in full armour, shined up and edged.

I nod and they join me, my left and my right

And come with me up to the Presidium’s height.

But when we reach the Council chambers

The Councillors will not be seen.

Though long we stand at the great white doors

And long we walk the broad courtyard floors

They will not admit my team.

This message they send, and this message alone

Delivered in writing – I near hear their groans.

‘We have no time to listen to legends.

We will not fuel your folly.

Forgets the myths and track down Saren!

The Reapers are fantasy.’

‘With what proof do you say that? With what but a wish?

You’re not refuting me. You but resist

The data I show you! Sneers change no facts!

We must look at what’s happened if we are to act.’

But they send no reply and we’re left standing by

Staring up at the changeless lavender sky.



~ Stanza 11 · An Hour on the Presidium ~

‘Shepard, Alenko – I’d heard you were here.’

‘Captain?’

Anderson’s standing near.

I’d though he was off in the vastness of space

Yet here he stands, still in the same place.

When we ask him why, he answers merely

They have him assigned at the Embassy,

And asks us to come and speak with him,

Tell him of the ship, of the battle, of Sovereign.

Here has the world gone on as before

With its trade and politics, petty wars.

A Batarian terrorist hijacked an astroid

We were redirecting that it might avoid

Terra Nova colony. He killed the team there

And tried to hurl it to the colony’s air.

A commando team stopped him and took it back.

But we didn’t catch the terrorist, Balak.

And another tale that troubles me

Far more than Balak’s violent deeds

Is that of an Admiral murdered by men

Kidnapped, experimented on ere his end.

He was investigating the missing soldiers

I found slaughtered on Edolus’ boulders.

The culprit’s an organisation

Which goes by the name Cerberus.

Though little is known of its deeds or intentions

Tales have sometimes come to us.

A human supremacist organisation

At the expense of our alien friends.

A group which speaks of man’s domination….

And yet slaughters men.

This all was but news of a passing week,

The Captain would rather listen than speak.

He saw our reports, heard about the Mu Relay

But he fancies there is still much to say.

So to Anderson we tell the tale and fears

That I had intended for the Council’s ears

Of Liara’s work, and the beacon’s vision,

Of the Geth’s idolatry, and the words of Sovereign.

Long we speak in the green dappled light,

Of this threat from the past, of this aeons long blight.

What war were they built for? By what ancient race?

What turned them to wanton destruction cross space?

Were they used by a madman? Programmed to wipe-out

The hands that had built them, their own maker’s flout?

Or did a great weapon, built for all-out war,

Perforce must keep doing what it was built for

Till it turned on the allies, and then back on home

Till a silent machine it was left all alone –

To seek out any folk who could yet pose a fight.

And wield once again their unmeasured might.

Anderson tells us he’ll do what he may.

He’ll plead the case loudly, and look for the relay.

And I shall set sail for Noveria’s port.

Saren’s business there’s unknown. I’ll get a report.

With our captain and friend we linger awhile

Where the clear fountains laugh and the white sun-stars smile.

But in too short a time he is called, and must go.

At the ambassador’s word he now goes to and fro.



~ Stanza 12 · The Ancient Station ~

We head back through the white and gleaming city

In the unending day.

In the sounds of water and flittering ditties

And quiet speech on the quays.

I check in with sources I asked of the relay

They yet have nothing of use to say.

We’re besieged by reporters and I gladly tell

Of Saren, of Sovereign, how the Reaper Base fell.

And a lone man calls to me for I look

Like my mother Hannah, and he almost mistook

(Even here folk suffer dearth

He can’t pay for a berth on a ship back to Earth

But must live on such odd-jobs as he can.

I wonder if mother really knows this man.)

Our path crosses that of a Salarian

Who I’ve met before, one Doctor Chorban

He’s avidly studying the busy keepers

Those silent, creeping, toneless creatures.

The Keepers were here when the Asari first came

Running the station. And it still is the same.

Though folk have long dwelled in this island in space

And we have rebuilt quite a lot of the place

Our understanding’s scarcely grown.

And whence came the Keepers, what these things are,

What brought them here, and from which distant star,

Was and still is unknown.

Deep in thought I tread the ways

Of this strange and unknown place.

Down to the dock where our sleek ship waits

Past shops and dwellings, through many gates

Where perky Salarians hawk their wares

And mixed crowds fill the gleaming squares

Where never a counter or window is bare

And Asari damsels have smiles to spare

Where lively music rings in the air

Where starlight shines and coloured bulbs glare

And the Keepers creep with their empty stare.



~ Stanza 13 · The Alliance Calls ~

We leave the docks as soon as may be

Gliding out o’er the Citadel towers

Away from the Council’s stubborn seat

And the halls, and the courts, and the bowers.

Our intent is for the far icy shore

Of distant Noveria, and yet before

We can sail to the relay, Alliance Command

Hails down our vessel, and conference demands.

Hackett, Admiral of the fleet

Has an order for me

And calls a diversion of my ship

He calls back the Normandy

Back to the Sol system, back to Earth

To its orbit, to our own moon

Where a training system needs shut down

He bids – he requests – I come soon.

The training VI on Luna Base

Where young marines train for battle in space

Has gone rogue, killed cadets, overridden control

And now as if mad, the whole training ground holds.

‘We need someone to shut it down.

I know that you’re a Spectre now.

But you’re still everything that you have been

You’re still a human, an Alliance marine.

We’re calling you in, Shepard. Come soon as you can.’

For a moment I stop.

But I understand.

‘But Rosamund, a training-ground?

That doesn’t really very much sound

Urgent enough to justify

Even the length of time to fly.

Noveria may have that which our knowledge lacks

We don’t know how long til the Reapers come back.’

Liara looks up with her great blue eyes.

‘Surely the base has marines close by?’

Kaidan nods.

‘Of course we do.

That can’t be the reason. Commander?’

‘True.

We have whole fleets which orbit round.

This isn’t about the training-ground.’

‘Then why …?’ asks Liara.

‘To set precedent.

Does a Spectre come when an Admiral’s sent?

He chose the time well. It’s mere hours to Sol.

What it takes from our journey’s a very slight toll.

We have another mindless machine

Out there killing men, a malfunction I deem.

The Reapers can wait a few hours more.

It’s the smallest blip in the course of this war.’

‘Then shall we get ready?’

I smile at her.

‘I’ll need you right here. You’re doing good work.

And not you, Lieutenant. Your wounds are scarce sealed.

There’ll be battle enough when you’re fully healed.

I’ll slip in with one squad. That’s best for this job.

They’re worried that Saren’s smearing the Turians?

This is visible. I’m taking Garrus.

And the technical skill of those Quarians!

Tali will also come with us.’



~ Stanza 14 · Luna Base ~

The sky is black; as black as ink.

And the ground is as bright as salt.

It stretches away; it swells and sinks

Splashed with shadows and faults.

A soundless, airless, brilliant waste

Open above to the cold of space

Where the dust rises up from the Mako’s treads

And drops straight down in its age old beds

Where never a wind blew drifting streams

And never a rain came to wash it clean.

The barren companion of the fertile Earth

Lies in its unchanging silence.

Cold Diane looks upon warm Maia’s mirth

With a placid, icy defiance.

While in brightness she silently lies

Our little truck creeps below her dark skies,

Through lowlands and valleys and under the lips

Of rises of stone, where dust falls and slips.

Past the scout towers and past the pitfalls

Out of the line where the spy-glasses fall

Up to the circle of turrets which rise

Above the hard ground where the rogue VI lies.

‘Take the wheel Garrus – avoid and evade.’

He takes her and spins! In and out of the cannonade

Til I have disabled with cannon the guns,

Laid open the bunker – our foe cannot run.

Down the stair to the bunker’s depths

Out of the light of the Earth

Down to the thing which knows no rest

And stares out on moon fields as a curse.



~ Stanza 15 · The Bunker ~

The underground tunnels are dim and cold

The lights are red and the smell is old.

A strange prickling grows at the back of my neck.

As of unseen eyes in the dark

Whyever so empty? Where are all its mechs?

We go deeper yet none do we mark.

Yet I know they are there

In the tunnels, stark and bare

Waiting out of sight and sound

Far beneath the lunar ground

Held back deeper, why so deep

Why so far it makes us creep

To find the battle we know must come.

In the whirring chill, my squad grows dumb

And stares big eyed in every nook

Looks twice at the ground for every foot.

While in silence we follow our charts

Deeper and deeper into the heart

Of the rogue computer’s many years home.

Shadowy dim is the redding gloam.

They attack altogether, all down in the core

A hundred mockery things of war

Fighting more fiercely than wasp or ant

With their mockery guns they fight but they can’t

O’er power shields or stand up to our fire

They fall, fall in droves, by the troop they expire.

But even after the last one falls

Those eyes seem to follow our backs

We turn and we turn and we scan through the walls

For those eyes which never attack.

Deeply buried’s the VI’s core

Walled in close by the dummies of war

And long we work in the low red murk

To uncover, to open a door.

And now and oft, Tali grabs at her gun

And turns upon … nothing. It’s bare.

And Garrus will hurl down the sheeting and run

Towards an enemy … who is not there.

We post Tali guard and go on as before,

Shavings of metal scatter the floor,

Power tools scream, and not sounds of war,

And yet none of us still can ignore,

The eyes we can’t see.

We uncover the core.



~ Stanza 16 · The VI’s Cry ~

There it lies. A box. No more large than a chest.

Small and unfeatured, seeming at rest.

A little thing, to have caused so much trouble,

A silent thing, in the midst of the rubble.

The centre of all the mindless rage

The rabid thing which stole the age

From men too young to die

The waiting thing which held the base

The watching thing that haunts this place

The silent, waiting spy.

The thing which sat for decades long

Playing and playing the martial song

That we taught it long years before

What made it break the rhythm, the beat

Break out of the song it was taught by the fleet

What made this machine go to war?

I reach for the power

A shriek fills the space

A shriek of the airways that run through this place

A shriek of the light-bulbs. A shriek of the lines

Which carry the power. Sparks flash and floors whine.

‘Shepard! I’ve got something!’

I hear Tali say.

‘Shut it down! Shut it down! It’s not going to obey!’

I yank out the cords and shut the thing down

Like a light going off the cacophonous sound

Falls dead on the air

The empty lights glare.

The box sits black on the ground

‘Tali, what have you?’

She tilts her masked head.

‘Nothing, Shepard, just – something it said.

It sent out a signal, as you came near.

If I didn’t know better … Well, come and look here.’

She holds out her omnitool. I see in the glow

The dashes and dots of the words of our foe.

It is in Morse, a code I know well.

It repeats o’er and o’er, just one word

‘Help’



~ Stanza 17 · The Mind of the Machine ~

We leave the VI shut down in the hold

And climb back up through the bunker so cold.

Who was it calling? Who taught it to cry?

Where did it learn to seek aid from the sky?

It was not built for that. It was built just to be

A training ground tool to engage young marines.

It was never programmed to fight to the death

Nor call for aid – never taught to fear death.

And yet … I walk in untrodden wastes

What I thought was firm ground drops away out of place.

If a training VI can learn how to fear,

What of the Reapers? They surely appear

As though they were egos, as black the void

Irrational, cruel, and completely devoid

Of ought but a hunger, to impose their own will

To control, to torment, to cow, and to kill.

And how if what it seems is in fact as it is?

How if the machines in some fiendish sense – live.

Whoever built them, for what ancient war

What if their resolve to subdue to them more

Was not automatic, but their ego’s desire

What if not mere numbers, but the hell of black fire

Burned at the heart of these monsters from space?

As fear cried out of the heart of this place.

The light of the Earth breaks out o’er the land

As we step out of the mound.

It softens and mutes the black of the shadows

The hard sun strikes on the ground.

I look up, to the world of living green

Up to the world of men

The arc of umber and ultramarine

So filled beyond my ken

With life that laughs in its leaping streams

And prowls beneath oaks in its narrow denes

And soars in the garlands of sea born steam,

There life – good and ill – uncountable teems

And children laugh and young lovers dream.

It seems so near I could reach out

And touch its cloak of mist

A leap would bring my hand into

The shallows the sunlight’s kissed

And it is as far as an image of glory

Seen by a child in a sky o’er the sea.

I could go up, and my crew with me

I could, but it must not be.

For this is that which is at stake

It’s this that is threatened by that thing that waits

Out in the deep and dark of space

Scheming and plotting to bring its own race

Here to this womb of life.

That thing I had called a mindless machine

That thing which, in theory, ought to have been.

I look up again to the light.

And then turn away. For we must be gone.

I don’t know what we fight, or where it went wrong.

But I know that they’re coming. That matters far more

That wonderments why. For we are at war.

‘Shepard to Normandy, pick us up. Let’s away.

The task here is done, and there’s no time to stay.’

Mass Effect Poetry by Charlotte Ann Kent