Beware the Viridian Panther

Thirty Days of Writing 4/30: beginning, accusation, restless, SNOWFLAKE. haze. flame. formal. companion. move. silver. prepared. knowledge. denial. wind. order. thanks. look. summer. transformation. tremble. sunset. mad. thousand. outside. winter. diamond. letters. promise. simple. future.

Author’s note: I don’t think this one’s very good. Oh well. ‘Snowflake’ is a bit of an odd prompt anyway.

At least Alchera was quieter than Omega. No batarians to eye you with barely-veiled caution and disdain, no latent smell of alcohol, red sand and urine.

A flurry of snow blasted Kaidan’s visor, and the Monument momentarily vanished. Even inside his hardsuit, he was freezing.

It felt strange to be wandering around the wreckage of the Normandy. Like visiting a cemetery, albeit one where the dead’s corpses were abducted and resurrected afterwards. He thought for a moment about clambering into the Mako and seeing if it was still drivable.

His footlocker was still there, but it had been emptied. Shame. Kaidan had hoped that he’d somehow be able to rescue a netsuke his grandfather had given him as a birthday gift the year before he died. It was only a trinket, nothing of any cash value, but it had reminded him of Grandpa.

He gazed back at the Monument. Too gaudy for his liking: he would have preferred a plain obelisk. The engraving was odd, too: ‘THIS OBELISK WAS PLACED IN 2185 BY COMMANDER JOHN SHEPARD TO MARK THE WRECKAGE OF SSV NORMANDY, IN MEMORY OF THOSE VALIANT MEN AND WOMEN WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES AS SHE WAS SUNK BY AN UNKNOWN ENEMY IN 2183.’

Shepard never used his first name. Ever. The last person to call him John had, he’d said, been a tabloid reporter on the Citadel who got a punch in the balls.

Shepard. No matter how hard he tried, Kaidan couldn’t put Horizon out of his mind. Everything seemed to bubble to the front of his conscience: the hurt in Shepard’s eyes as he growled accusations of betrayal into his face; the pang of regret in his gut in the following weeks; the seventeen draft mails he’d never been able to finish, let alone pluck up the courage to send.

And, by now, it was too late. Alenko had been following the trail of Shepard’s new ship (named Normandy—what else?) for the past ten days, and it dried up at the Omega 4 relay.

Which meant he was probably dead. Again. No resurrection this time, unless Cerberus has found a way to de-spaghettify people who’ve landed in black holes.

Kaidan took another look at the Monument as another gust of snow pattered his visor with snowflakes. Gaudy, yes, and with an epitaph that Shepard probably hated, but at least it was something.

The alarm on the shuttle’s door blared, and there was a hiss as the air inside re-heated and re-pressurised to comfortable conditions. Kaidan was due to be back at Arcturus Station in twenty-four hours, but his gloved finger lingered for a moment over the “START” key on the pilot’s console.

Melted snowflakes trickled down his visor.