/ Author's Note /

If you're as much a fan of Mass Effect as I am, you know that part of the allure of that brand of interactive storytelling is the ability for you, as the consumer, to make decisions that shape the outcome of the story. I set out to capture that dynamic in the crafting of this story, by writing in several decision points where you get to choose the direction your protagonist takes, each with their own set of consequences as the narrative plays out. Unfortunately, FanFiction guidelines prohibit any kind of interactive storytelling, so I've come upon a compromise. The story that follows on this site is one possible path, and if you'd like, you can read it as a traditional story. If, however, you want to experience this story the way it was written, along with the ability to help shape the course of events, head over to my website, and stream or download the .pdf:

sites{d o t}google{d o t}com/view/apexextinction

Thanks for reading! If you've got a moment, leave a short review when you're done - I'd love to hear your thoughts.

-C. Ridley Benbrook

[Chapter 1. The Other Side]

They say that smell is the sensation that's tied the closest to your memory. I never learned the science behind it, but it seemed true for me. If I thought about it, I could still remember the smell of fresh-cut grass on my high school football field, or the musk of my grandad's cologne when he gave me one of those painful sandpaper-stubble kisses goodnight, or even the warm, rubbery smell of my combat helmet when it pressurized… but this was a new smell. It was cold and sterile, but not… bad. Just weird.

Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

I didn't know why, but all I seemed to be able to focus on was breathing. For some reason, it seemed harder - like I had to consciously remind myself to keep doing it. I drew another deep breath in through my nose and studied it: the air was dry and cool, with a combination of something metallic, some kind of citrus-y cleaner or disinfectant, and the unmistakable aroma of air-canister oxygen. After a while, it occurred to me that I hadn't taken another breath, even though I knew I should've. I puzzled over it for a moment more, before the world came storming back in a sudden, burning rush.

I gasped for air involuntarily as a flood of tingling energy surged from my head down to my extremities. It felt like an adrenaline injection from my combat suit - I could feel the jitters, feel my heart start to race in my chest. Sound came next, followed by touch - I could hear a cluttered swarm of sounds, growing clearer by the second, but I couldn't move myself off of the cold, hard… damp? surface.

"Pulse is climbing… one-fifty-two, fifty-three," one voice said, clinical and emotionless.

"EEG shows consciousness," a closer one added. Female. Her tone trailed off as if she were confused.

"O-two is good…" the first one replied. "Maybe give it a minute?"

"Hello?" The female voice said, louder. "Can you hear me, mister, um… Wade?"

Wade? That's me. That's…

I fought my eyelids and forced them open enough to allow a sliver of painfully bright white to flood my senses.

"There you are," the voice said with a relieved chuckle.

I blinked repeatedly, squinting to give my eyes a chance to adjust to the light. One blink seemed to finally clear the blurriness, and I saw a face hovering over me.

"Welcome back," the woman said, her face fading quickly from relieved to mildly concerned. "You gave us a bit of a scare there - had to give you a second injection." She glanced to the side intently for a moment. "Vitals are… strong, though. Looks like you're in good shape. You might feel a bit shaky for a while - you've got quite a bit of adrenaline going." She looked back at me. "Can you move your hands and feet for me?"

I tried to speak as I made a fist and wiggled my toes, but my throat was so dry, nothing came out but a raspy cough. I closed my mouth and tried to swallow, but there wasn't much there.

"Good," my attendant said, reaching down to grab my shoulder. "Let's sit you up."

I sat up, and immediately, everything made sense. Sleek, rounded stasis pods extended in countless rows in both directions, perfectly clean in the cool white light that filled the cryo room. I knew this room - it was the last thing I saw before I took the longest sleep of my life. After a few seconds of frenetically scanning the room, I fixated on a new face to my left - a young woman with dark brown hair who looked as disoriented as I felt.

Pretty, I mused to myself. She's very pretty…

"Mister Wade?" The nurse said, a little less cordially than before. I hadn't realized I was ignoring her. "Give me your attention for just a moment, alright?"

I nodded, as she returned to reading from the datapad in her hand. "Wade, Grissom G., Alliance Marines E-five - that's …sergeant, right?"

I tried to croak out a "yup," but my mouth was still too dry. She noticed, and handed me a water bottle. I sipped at first, then reflexively began chugging like there was no tomorrow. It was like pouring life down my throat.

She continued as I emptied the bottle. "Alright, Sergeant Wade, it says here we need to get you up and moving as soon as possible, but I don't want you on your feet until you've got some more fluids in you. I've got to check on our other sleepers, but I'll be back with more water, and then we'll see about getting you down to the habitation deck. Do you think you're alright sitting here for a few minutes?"

"My…" I coughed, finally able to get sound out. "Head. Kinda hurts…"

"A little nausea, headache and disorientation are to be expected," she replied robotically, as if she'd been saying this line frequently. "After all, you've been asleep for six hundred years. It should pass over the next hour or so. I'll be back in a few minutes." She paused for a moment, exhaling, then put on a forced, but pleasant smile. "Welcome to Andromeda."

Six hundred years, I marveled, as the nurse left me with my thoughts. I'm six hundred twenty-nine years old. I moved my ancient hands around - they seemed limber enough. No worse for the wear, I guess. The cryo pod glass was reflective enough to see my face in. No beard, not even stubble, my mental inventory continued, as I ran my fingers across the squarish chin I inherited from dad, and leaned down to check the hairline on the sandy-brown curls I got from mom. Whew! Still thick. I kept it short enough that I worried there would be no covering it if that line started to creep backward. Thankfully, that inevitability was still far in the future. Finally, I stared straight into the grey eyes that my brother and I shared. What would Jonathan think about all this, I wondered, melancholy for the slightest moment. What would he do? … well, he sure wouldn't keep gawking at himself in the mirror like a moron!

Since I wasn't supposed to move, I took the time to get a better sense of my surroundings. To my left, nurses - or whatever they wanted to be called - were dealing with at least a dozen pods like mine, tapping buttons and asking questions. A few empty pods to my right reassured me that things were going pretty well… but then I noticed that the pod directly beside me still had a body inside it - only, it was covered with a sheet.

Wabash, Robert, M. E-2, the digital nameplate still displayed. Wonder what happened?

Trying not to dwell on the fact that I could have been the guy with the sheet on his face, I turned my attention to my other neighbor, the brunette girl who was stroking her forehead as if hers was throbbing as incessantly as mine was.

"Headaches, right?" I said loudly, in hopes to get her attention. After a pause, she looked around, as if to see who I was talking to. I continued, a little more directly. "You feel it to? It kinda looked like you were doin' one of these…" I made a forehead stroking gesture like she had done. "I mean, I know it's probably dehydration or whatever, but dang… I feel like I got whacked with a hammer."

"…yeah, it's uh… it is pretty bad," she replied awkwardly with a sigh.

"Six hundred years in cryo, though… could be a lot worse," I said with a smirk. It quickly melted off my face when I remembered the guy on my other side.

Yeah, a lot worse.

I tried to discretely read the nameplate on her pod: Temperance Walsh. Temperance? What the hell kinda name is Temperance? Were her parents Amish?

My 'discrete' look must have been more obvious than I thought. "It's… Josie," she said, with a tone that added, 'okay fine, I guess I'll talk to you.' "Nobody actually calls me Temperance."

"Oh, well, I mean… not that there's anything wrong with 'Temperance," I responded, happy to have at least some semblance of a conversation going. "Kinda unique-"

"-Which is a nice way of saying 'weird,'" she interrupted. "It's okay, I'm used to it. Just stick with 'Josie.'"

"Grissom Wade," I said, leaning over to extend my hand. She seemed a little surprised, but accepted my handshake. "You Alliance? Marines? Navy?"

"Long story," she replied with a slight wince. "Once upon a time."

"I get it. Technically I'm a former Marine. 103rd."

"Technically we're all former… well, everything," she countered.

"Yeah, I guess you've gotta point there. Speaking of… doesn't it seem weird that we're awake, before all those guys?" I gestured toward the seemingly endless corridor of occupied stasis pods. I couldn't remember the exact number of frozen people on each of the Arks that made the journey, but it was in the tens of thousands.

"What do you mean?" She asked, concerned as her head tilted slightly.

"This is a military block. We're supposed to be late in the deployment - you know, after the geologists and farmers, and all those guys. Only way they they'd wake us up early is if we ran into hostiles…"

"Yeah," she replied, eyes scanning the rest of our frozen human counterparts. "Well… crap. That's not good."

"But then again, maybe they just want to be on the safe side. Who knows? I do know that if I don't get something to drink right now, I just might keel over dead."

"Holy crap, yes," she said, showing emotion for the first time. "I don't know if that nurse is ever gonna come back."

"Well, I'm not inclined to wait and see," I said, swinging my legs over the side of the oval pod and dangling them a foot and a half off the floor.

"What are you doing?" She asked, her tone somewhere between a question and a rebuke.

"Surviving," I said with a wink. With one smooth motion, I slid my feet to the ground, pivoting toward the open end of the corridor… and flopped to the floor like a rag doll.

"Hey! Are you okay?" She said, leaning up to look over the curved side of her pod.

"It's alright," I said, wincing as I pushed myself back up. "My head broke my fall, courtesy of the base of this stupid pod."

"Surviving, huh?"

"Yeah, my legs feel like jello," I said, pulling myself back to my feet as I grasped the side of the pod, "but they work. Just gotta, y'know… take it a little slower."

Stupid knee, I thought to myself as I gingerly moved from pod to pod. Even after six months of rehab, it had never been fully dependable. The electric pain knifing down my shin was miserable, but at least it distracted me from the still-throbbing headache. "New galaxy, same issues," I ruminated, picking up speed as I pushed past the pain and willed my feet to pick up the pace. "Rise above, Wade."

I finally reached the wide open examination chamber at the end of the cryo bay, and received a reprimand from one of the nurses - but I also received a water bottle. After downing it, I returned with two more in tow, trying to hide my limp, more for my sake than for the sleepers I passed who were in various states of their own rude awakenings.

I reached my pod again at last, placing one bottle inside and extending the other toward Josie.

"First round's on me," I said with a smile. She held up a half-empty bottle of her own, glancing to the side without turning to face me.

"I'm good, actually, but… thanks." Her brows pulled together, gazing blankly across the room.

Not what I expected… Maybe now's not a good time.

"You look like you could use a few minutes to-"

"What did I tell you about staying put!" The nurse interrupted, finally back from whatever it was she was working on. "Miss Walsh told me about your fall. How's your equilibrium?"

"Fine, fine," I said dismissively, forcing a smile. "Just a bump."

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but I could tell she was in a hurry, and not in the mood to continue scolding me. "Are you well enough to walk without injuring yourself any further?" She asked

"I'm golden," I lied. My knee still stung and throbbed angrily. Something about the freeze-thaw cycle had really caused it to flare up.

"Good. You've been directed to report to room one twenty-two for a briefing as soon as you're up and able. Do you know how to get there from here?"

"Down the hall, to the left?"

"Right," she replied. "Take the tram to the habitation deck. You should be able to follow the signs from there."

"Thanks, doc," I said, gathering my water bottle collection. "I'll head right over." I turned to Josie. She hadn't budged. "Y'coming?" I asked.

"I'll catch up soon," she responded. "Just need a minute."

"I'll save you a seat," I said as I turned to head back to the exam room. The headache and knee pain faded quickly into the background as a rush of excitement and anticipation swelled in my chest.

This is really it, man. You're here. Time for a new horizon. My imagination ran wild, as I envisioned hacking my way through dense forests, climbing snow-capped mountains, discovering untouched lakes and streams… if the worlds here looked half as good as the scans predicted, I was in for the thrill of a lifetime. I couldn't shake the feeling, all the way to the Habitation Deck. I was alive and breathing, and walking - in the Andromeda Galaxy.

—

The room was already crowded with anxious bodies when I arrived, all dressed in matching grey and off-white outfits that looked somewhere between naval uniforms and hospital scrubs. I quickly scanned the crowd for the one familiar face I could hope to see, but he found me first, with a slap on the shoulder.

"Grissom Wade," his voice boomed jubilantly. I spun around and we hugged - man style, of course. Even after 600 years apart from your best friend, protocol still dictates three back-pats and release. Grady had been my best friend since high school. We played football together, we practically lived at each-other's homes, we even dated the same girl once. Seeing him was a much needed island of 'normal' in an ocean of 'new.'

"Man, it's good to see you here," I said with relief. "I didn't know if you'd be in the same block as I was.

"You think I'd let you have all the fun without me?" He replied with a scowl, before flashing a toothy smile. He had always been popular with the ladies - wide shoulders, deep voice, striking green eyes that looked exotic on the backdrop of his medium-brown skin - but I swear he had the goofiest, oversized smile. It was like that little holdover of freshman year that he never grew out of.

"I'm not sure this is gonna be a fun meeting, though," I said with a sigh and a wince. "You know why they pulled a military block so early?"

"Got me, bro," he answered, eyebrows and shoulders shrugging. "But Commander Taylor'll sort it out."

"Taylor's in this block, too?" I asked, more than a little excited. Keelan Taylor was my commanding officer for 3 tours with the Alliance Marines. It was he and Grady who convinced me to join the Andromeda Initiative.

"Hell yeah," Grady answered with pride. "He's the one leading the meeting. Speaking of…" He peered over the crowd, using his 6'3" frame to his advantage. "I think we're about to get started."

I was scanning the crowd myself, looking to see if my new friend, Josie, had arrived yet, but before I could find her, the talk began.

"Ladies and gentlemen, can I have your attention?" Keelan's voice rang out through the room with a projecting, commanding tone. The crowd fell silent faster than you'd think was possible, as he stepped onto a chair to be more easily seen. "You are standing in this room because you're strong… because you're survivors, because you're the best of humanity… and because we need you."

Here we go, I thought, closing my eyes. What's the problem? He continued.

"I'm not gonna sugar-coat it. The Initiative got off to a rough start. Before we even arrived at our destination, the Hyperion { "Hyperion," - the human Ark, carrying 20,000 cryogenically frozen passengers. } hit some kind of energy cloud we don't understand. It damaged our guidance systems, and knocked some pods offline. Habitat Seven, which was supposed to be our "golden world," was a bust. Damn planet's so screwed up even plants can hardly survive there.

"While on that planet, our Pathfinder team encountered a sentient species we've labeled the "Kett." We tried to establish communication, and they responded by shooting us in the head. Despite these hostile forces, Pathfinder Ryder { Alec Ryder - the human "Pathfinder," tasked with leading the scout team to establish forward outposts and explore new planets. The most prominent human in the Initiative } was able to leverage some type of ancient technology on the planet to alter the atmosphere and make a shuttle evac possible. Unfortunately, there was a security protocol tied to this tech." He stopped to take a deep breath, while the rest of the room held theirs. "Our Pathfinder is dead."

All the excitement I experienced on the way over from the Cryo Bay flew away like a helium balloon, replaced by that sinking dread you feel when you're dreaming and you realize you're about to die.

"Scott Ryder has taken on the responsibilities of Pathfinder," Keelan continued,"and he needs our help. We have a second shot at a planet - 'Eos.' It's not perfect, but it's the best we've found. The Nexus { "Nexus" - the 2-mile long space station, with docking bays for the Arks, which serves as the headquarters for the Andromeda Initiative } leadership has tasked Pathfinder Ryder with making this planet viable enough for a permanent settlement, and we are gonna prepare the way for him and his team. Report to the Quartermaster in the shuttle bay for your equipment and group assignments. We leave in one hour. Time is of the essence - food and life support are in short supply on the Nexus. We must not fail. Dismissed!"

I exhaled slowly, as I raked my fingers through my hair. Grady was solemn and speechless.

"Well, I don't think that could have possibly been more discouraging," I said. His eyes darted back and forth, looking into nowhere, as if he was in deep thought. "But if anyone can get us through a bad start, it's Taylor." I looked around the room again, but still, no sign of Josie. Grady still looked like he was in shock. "Hey! Grady!"

He finally looked at me.

"We got this, man," I reassured him, with a pat on the shoulder. "We took the Geth, we took the Batarians… hell, we took on a damn Reaper. We got this."

I was lying - to him, and to myself. Truth is, I was terrified, and I had no idea what we were going to do. A sudden rush of homesickness like I'd never felt before sunk my spirits.

What were you thinking, Wade? You left home for this? Crap! Too late to turn back now, genius. It's fight or die… so let's fight.