Drifting through the empty void of space was a Fallen Ketch, its engines sputtering like the breath of a man on Death's doorstep. Running along the Ketch's sides were deep grooves, the edges of each cut splintering outwards, as if sliced by a serrated edge. Flames danced along the breaches in the ship's hull, their sparks fed life by what little oxygen remained on the broken vessel. Even where the Ketch hadn't sustained such catastrophic damage, its plating was still battered and dented from decades of poor maintenance and a meager supply of the ether that the Fallen used as sustenance.

From a distance, engine dead and silent, a small, brown, one-man ship observed the wreckage currently orbiting Pluto's moon, Charon. On the starboard side of the ship, in scrolling, cursive font, were the words 'Quite Content Damsel'. Behind the cockpit, a lone Titan watched with mildly piqued curiosity. The paintjob on the Fallen Ketch marked it as belonging to the Fallen House of Exile, so it was no surprise to the Guardian that the craft was in shambles. No. What surprised the Guardian was the manner in which the Ketch had been destroyed: not by missiles or cannons, but by claws.

"Epsilon," the Titan rasped, his already low bass further deepened by his helmet's synthesizers. "Ever heard of anything like this before?" The flower shaped artificial intelligence hovered over to the cockpit, stopping next to the pilot's chair and gazing out at the titanic husk before them. As if attempting to raise an eyebrow, Epsilon raised his topmost "petal" as he appraised the scene.

"Well, Atlas, if we lived in a world of skyscraper sized monsters, I'd say that a someone hacked away at that Ketch with a sword. But, since we're not living in that kind of horribly grimdark setting, I can't even begin to guess at what took a swing at that ship." A moment of silence passed between the two occupants of the small ship as they pondered on the consequences of their discovery.

"I'm not picking up any comms chatter, but I am seeing significant residual energy trails leading away from the ship." Epsilon announced. "Whatever did this could still be around."

"We need to get back to the Tower," Atlas murmured, his eyes never leaving the Ketch. "We need to warn the Vanguard." But, even as he pegged the joystick to turn the Damsel around, away from the site of destruction orbiting Charon, the controls began to shake violently and klaxons blared in the cockpit. All over the instrument panel, red warning signals came to life, glaring menacingly at the pilot as he worked frantically to regain control of his ship.

"Energy spike! It's coming from the Ketch!" Epsilon shouted as he began flitting around the Damsel's engine room, attempting to transmat as much coolant as possible into the rapidly heating core.

Suddenly, in a flash of green and white, the Ketch imploded, the hull folding in on itself towards the center of the ship. Then, as the engines started to collapse, the fuel reserves went up in flames, resulting in an explosion that Atlas felt from a good ten thousand miles away. In response, several more warning signs popped up on the instrument panel bearing radiation symbols.

As the final strips of hull metal crumpled into the glowing, green ball where the Ketch had been only moments before, Atlas's eyes widened in surprise and recognition. It wasn't a glowing, green ball per se, but a sphere composed of pentagon shaped panels. It was a massive version of the Anomaly on the Moon.

"Epsilon," a sliver of trepidation was beginning to make its way into the Titan's normally stoic voice. "Are you seeing this?"

"Oh shit."

The panels of the Anomaly began to shudder, causing green waves of energy to cascade from its exterior towards the Damsel. Behind his sneering helmet, Atlas's grimaced and braced for impact, praying to the Traveler that he wouldn't be vaporized by the incoming surge of green energy. Like a tidal wave crashing against the shore, the energy surge sent the Damsel careening off to the side, flipping end over end as arcs of green lightning latched onto the ship.

Atlas's world was a miasma of blurry lights, hangover level noises, and vomit as he fought to regain control of his ship. Five spins and a good deal of shouting later, the arcs of energy attached to the ship began to swing the Damsel around back towards the Anomaly, throwing Atlas into the starboard side of the cockpit. The metal creaked dangerously, but held up against the weight of the fully armored Titan pressed against it.

Atlas hastily righted himself and fell into the pilot's chair, sighing in relief as the vomit inducing spinning came to a stop and the Damsel simply drifted along towards the Anomaly. When the body racking nausea had left his body, Atlas righted himself in his seat and released the seals on his helmet before removing it and placing it next to him.

"Good to see that you're feeling better, but we've got another problem." His Ghost reappeared next to his Guardian's head, only slightly shaken from the rollercoaster-esque motions that the Damsel had just been put through. The engine room was another story: a multitude of Ghost sized dents covered the walls of the room from top to bottom. "I'm reading a steady increase in energy levels from that thing. Oh, and our engines are dead. I can't restart them."

"Then it looks like we'll just have to wait and see what happens." Atlas stared out at the Anomaly, licking his lips nervously as they were dragged helplessly towards the source of their current predicament. The Anomaly sat innocently in front of the ice covered moon, as if it hadn't just imploded a Fallen Ketch and put the Damsel through a roller coaster simulation.

Without warning, the tendrils of lightning connecting the Damsel to the Anomaly flared brightly, momentarily blinding Atlas, whose helmet polarized almost instantly in response. Groaning in protest, the Damsel began to pick up speed as it neared the freak occurrence in front of them. The Guardian ship came in off to the Anomaly's side, accelerating at a rate that caused the Titan's teeth to rattle in his skull. Not wanting to accidentally bite off his tongue, Atlas closed his mouth shut and gripped the arms of the pilot's chair for dear life as the Damsel sped up.

"There's more energy building up in that thing than there is energy in the entire City." Epsilonwas fluttering around the cockpit in what could be described as nervous dashes from one end of the instrument panel to the other.

As the Damsel came up alongside the Anomaly, green light washed over the cockpit, blotting the stars out of the Guardian's sight. Atlas had faced down Atheon, Crota, Skolas, and the most powerful Guardians that the Crucible had to offer, both in the Iron Banner and the Trials of Osiris. But, never before had he felt such overwhelming dread. Cursed was he with the knowledge that there was nothing he could do. No enemy to fight, no obstacle to overcome. He was at the mercy of an unknown entity, drifting along in a ship with dead engines.

It wasn't a particularly glorious way to go out, considering his past achievements, but the Titan had little time to reflect on his more notable victories. Nausea was beginning to overtake him again, and the edges of his vision began to blur. As if coaxed shut by a silent lullaby, Atlas's eyes closed and he slumped over in his chair as unconsciousness took him.

"The Darkness is coming back. We will not survive it this time."

"I don't even have time to explain why I don't have time to explain."

"My service to the Queen is... complicated, Guardian."

"Evil so dark, it despises other evil."

"So... think you can kill a god?

"I've seen terrible things born out in the Darkness. Every moment brings them closer."

"We've woken the Hive!"

"YOU TOOK MY SON!"

"Be brave, Guardian."

"Eyes up, Guardian."

Slowly, consciousness returned to Atlas as Epsilon repeated the words that the Titan had first heard at the start of his second life. Blinking groggily, Atlas sat up straight in his chair and took in the unfamiliar view from the Damsel's cockpit. Instead of the sight of the Anomaly sitting in front of the icy moon, Charon, a sleek, gun lined frigate that dwarfed the Guardian ship stood in its place. But, even through the alien craft was many times larger than the Damsel, it was nowhere near as large as a Fallen Ketch, which Atlas took as a slightly reassuring sign.

"Epsilon," Atlas grunted. "Where are we?" Even with the frigate taking up most of his view, he could still make out the distinct spherical shape of a planet in the distance.

"Definitely not in the Sol system," the Ghost replied. "I think... that we might even be beyond the Darkness itself."

"Is that possible?"

"I'm not sure. But, there's a first for everything."

Atlas' mind churned with a multitude of clashing thoughts, each one more hopeful and dreadful than the last. A place with no Darkness meant a place of limitless possibilities: No dark gods of the Hive, no galaxy-spanning Cabal legions, no reviled Fallen houses, and no time meddling Vex. But, what was he without his adversaries. He was a Titan, a warrior reborn to fight Humanity's endless war against the minions of the Darkness. And now, absent of the presence of his fated enemies, his oaths, sworn before the Titan Lords and the Speaker himself, were effectively annulled.

A sharp chill began to slowly take hold his core as the enormity of the situation gradually sank in. The sheer emptiness of his newfound revelation wrapped itself around his neck like one of the rusted, dilapidated anchors hanging uselessly from the sides of the ancient warships beached on the Forgotten Shore.

Epsilon, who had been eying his Guardian with a distressed gaze, broke Atlas out of his thoughts with a synthetic cough before turning back to the control panel.

"That ship's guns have got a solid lock on us, and their weapons are powering up. I won't be able to get us out of here before we get spaced."

"Think you can take those guns offline?" Atlas grunted.

"Can a Warlock do Quantum Mechanics in her head?" The construct countered.

"Erm, no?" As far as the Titan knew, only a few of the older Warlocks like Ikora, Osiris, and Toland were obsessive enough to actually acquire a skill like that.

"Hey!"

"Just get hacking, Little Light." Ever since meeting the Exo Stranger in the ruins of the Ishtar Collective, Atlas had grown partial to the enigmatic Exo's nickname for his Ghost.

"..."

Epsilon pointedly ignored Atlas as he hopped into the frigate's comm traffic, piggybacking the frequency back into the ship's systems. After a moment of making strangled noises that sounded suspiciously like cackling, the floating AI turned back to its Guardian, shaking with the synthetic equivalent of laughter.

"Those firewalls went down faster than Rahool goes down on an engram." This outburst drew a brief chuckle from the Titan as his mind wandered back momentarily to the Awoken Cryptarch, a constant source of frustration for thousands of Guardians everywhere, Atlas included.

"Apparently," the Ghost continued. "these newcomers are called Batarians. I'm forwarding all of the immediately useful data on their species to your helmet now, but it might be worth reading through the rest of the 'Codex' that this information came from, later.."

"Right," Atlas grimaced at the prospect of reading up on xenos culture. "And what about the guns?"

"Oh, those went offline a few seconds ago, along with their comms and engines. From what I can gather, the ship's crew is on the verge of panicking."

"Good. Change of plans Epsilon. I'm going to board that ship and salvage what materials I can. Who knows if or when we'll find supplies anywhere else around here?" Said Atlas as he scrolled through the 'Codex' that his Ghost had forwarded to him, absorbing as much of the relevant tactical information on Batarians that he could. If the intel he was going on was correct, then this ship would have a sizable crew, and, considering the Batarians' militaristic tendencies, most of the crewmen would have had some combat experience.

"I could space the ship." Epsilon was looking at his Guardian with growing trepidation as Atlas drummed his fingers on his chair's armrest. Whenever the armor-clad Titan drummed his fingers, death and destruction were guaranteed to ensue.

"Not much of a challenge in that, is there?" Atlas snorted, anticipation gathering in his voice. "Where's the ship's CIC?"

"Towards the bow of the ship," the Ghost sighed, mentally picturing the next chapter in Atlas' book of unnecessarily perilous schemes. "There's an airlock not far from it."

Surging up from the pilot's chair, Atlas marched out of the cockpit and went to gather up his equipment from the mini vault near the airlock, on the left side of the ship. After punching in the four-digit passcode, the vault opened up to reveal a mismatched arsenal of weapons collected over the course of a century. The topmost rack of weapons was filled with primaries, from Commons to Exotics, hand cannons cannons to scout rifles. Below that, the special weapons, followed by the heavies at the very bottom.

From the scans that Epsilon had gotten on the frigate's infrastructure, it would be close quarters, with little room for maneuvering. Perfect. Atlas pulled the Invective from its place in the vault and glanced at the modifications that Banshee-44 had made for him just before the Titan had been sent out to investigate the Fallen Ketch orbiting Charon. A large, drum magazine was fastened to the underside of the weapon, and a massive, monomolecular bayonet was fixed to the gun just below the muzzle. These two mods had cost Atlas a good deal of Glimmer to get Banshee to attach. The Exo gunsmith had also extracted an oath from his customer to never let Ikora see her former weapon in its modified state.

After clamping the Invective to the mag lock on the back of his armor, Atlas grabbed the First Curse and fastened it to the side of his right thigh. Unlike Ikora Rey's signature weapon, there were few flashy upgrades or attachments on the high-caliber hand cannon. That had mostly been Banshee's prerogative, and Atlas hadn't been in the mood to try and convince the ancient gunsmith otherwise.

The golden armored Titan gazed hesitantly at the bottom rack of weapons, where the heavies sat. Obviously, a rocket launcher was out of the question, but that still left nearly a dozen machine guns under consideration. A surge of blue lightning from the corner of the rack caught his eye, and he reached down and removed the Thunderlord from its rest. The massive, Arc infused war machine was a familiar weight in Atlas' hands, and its elegant stock nestled snugly in the crook of his armpit.

Now, with his chosen armaments in hand, Atlas resealed the vault and stepped into the airlock, shutting the reinforced metal door behind him. As he waited for the room to depressurize, the Guardian brought up the Codex information on Batarian tactics and skimmed through the files. Standard fare pirates whose boarding tactics were analogous to Fallen raiding parties. He stopped on the information regarding their weapons, or more specifically, the technology behind their weapons.

Instead of firing a slug fed from an external magazine, the Batarians' weapons fired miniscule metal grains from an internal ammo block at supersonic speeds. The result was a weapon that, with sufficient heat dissipation, had a theoretically infinite supply of ammo. But, aside from that interesting tidbit, Atlas wasn't overly impressed with their potential for destruction. Their average, military grade weapons packed the same punch as the rifles issued by the Gunsmith to younger Guardians, and their more advanced armaments were about on par with Legendary weapons, but nothing even came close to Exotic tier.

Over the course of the hundred years that Atlas had lived through as a Guardian, he had fired almost every weapon known to humankind since the Collapse. He had fired rocket launchers with the yield to level a small town, and he had wielded sniper rifles with the stopping power to take the head clean off of a Cabal Valus. Very few weapons, be they exotic or otherwise, could impress the battle hardened Titan anymore.

"Depressurization complete." Epsilon's voice chimed in over their comms. Atlas observed the distance between his ship and the exposed airlock on the Batarians' before making a quick mental calculation. Pursing his lips, he lifted off into the emptiness between the two ships, maneuvering the cold vacuum of space with the use of the Light-infused thruster packs built into his armor.

As his body drifted towards the Batarian frigate, Atlas found himself marvelling at the feeling of weightlessness that had settled in his limbs. Even with his amount of experience, most, if not all of his battles had been fought on solid ground. The few times he had fought in zero-gee environments had been during the campaign to retake Mars, where he and his fireteam had boarded a crippled Sky Burners capital ship and assassinated the Valus onboard.

Atlas' reminiscing came to an abrupt stop as he landed with a solid thunk on the side of the frigate, his armor absorbing the impact. While with one hand the Titan gripped a small crevice near the airlock, his other hand busied itself by nurturing a spark of Solar Light to life. He now held in his hand the beginnings of a Fusion Grenade, albeit one formed by the Light of a Titan who had struck down two gods of the Hive pantheon. So, when he let loose the pent of ball of Solar Light, the results were devastating.

The airlock was engulfed in a wave of harsh, orange flames that ate away at the metal bulkhead, creating a jagged hole in the side of the frigate. As the entryway depressurized, Gouts of fire and recycled oxygen rushed outwards from the newly created entrance, pushing Atlas to the side as he clung to the ship for dear life. Gaining a firmer grip on his handhold, the Titan swung himself into the breach, drawing the First Curse as he did so. From what the 3-D holographic map at the left hand corner of his HUD read, he had landed in a hallway just outside of the CIC. A quick scan of his immediate surroundings detected no hostiles present, and he turned to the reinforced door that stood between him and the Batarians on the other side.

"Let me get this," Epsilon chirped as it materialized into existence next to Atlas's shoulder. "I can't let you have all of the fun." Within seconds the hack was complete, and the Ghost gave a wink to its Guardian before transmatting itself back to the Damsel. With a hiss, the door to the CIC slid open to reveal the bridge crew to the Titan.

They stood in a ring formation along the hologram dotted walls of the room. All of the four-eyed aliens carried either a pistol or an assault rifle, though the Captain, who was standing on a raised platform in the middle of the room, carried some kind of bulky shotgun. They were all lightly armored, Atlas noted, though he knew from his brief read-through of the Codex that each of them was most likely equipped with a kinetic barrier. Then again, a kinetic barrier was little use against a master crafted, high impact hand cannon.

The First Curse bucked in his hand as he fired at the nearest Batarian, who was standing right in front of the entrance. The Batarian, who seemed rather shocked at the Titan's sudden and unexpected entrance, scrambled to bring its weapon up from resting position. And, as the oversized bullet impacted the pirate's kinetic barrier, Atlas observed the brief widening of its four eyes as the xenos saw its protection shatter under the single shot. However, the bullet's momentum had not been hampered by the kinetic barrier, and it continued to travel through the unfortunate one's head in a shower of gore and grey matter.

Seeing the death of their fellow seemed to break the rest of the bridge crew out of their stupor, and Atlas found himself weathering a storm of gunfire. Despite the brutal effect that such a crossfire should have had on a single infantry target, the Light infused armor that adorned the Titan kept him safe from harm. He stood there for a moment, watching, but not worrying as his shields flickered under the barrage, the sheer strength of his Light absorbing the incoming damage. Even in the unlikely event that his shields were downed by projectiles that were absent of either Light or Darkness, Atlas trusted in his war gear, forged by the legendary smiths in service to the Iron Lords.

However, as dictated by the Titan Codex, exposing oneself to enemy fire when there are alternatives is foolish. And so, Atlas dashed forwards to the corpse of the dead Batarian in front of the door and, grasping it around the neck, lifted it in front of him as an impromptu shield. Atlas's newly found meat shield jerked violently as it accepted the bullets of its comrades with squishy thuds. Now, not having to worry about taking damage anymore, the Titan extinguished the lives of three more Batarians with three, fluid headshots.

Suddenly, Atlas's meat shield was blown apart as the discharge of a shotgun came from the center of the room where the ship's Captain still stood. Making a split second decision, Atlas flung the remainder of his fleshy cover at the Captain, who flinched in disgust as the body landed on top of him, its entrails fluttering wildly. Taking advantage of the brief reprieve that he had created, Atlas holstered his hand cannon and readied the Invective. With a brief glance around the room, he counted another five crew members remaining, the entangled Captain not included.

Hardly had a fraction of a second passed when Atlas finished formulating his next move. Tensing his legs, the Titan crossed the distance between himself and the shotgun wielding officer, who had only just managed to free himself from the corpse of his former subordinate. If the Captain had had any prior experience with charging Titans, he would have known in that instance that he was being presented with two options: move, or be moved. Unfortunately for the Batarian, he had no such knowledge.

The force of impact behind Atlas's charge was visceral, to say the least. All of the momentum generated by several hundred pounds of muscle and armor moving at a dead sprint was sufficient to shatter nearly every bone in the Batarian's body. But, the momentum transfer did not stop there. Like when water balloons burst upon a hard surface, so too did the Captain's internal organs, which were flattened against the other inner workings of its anatomy. And, as Atlas ground to a halt, his heels digging into the floor for leverage, the Captain's body was sent flying into one of the remaining pirates, who tumbled to the deck with a grunt.

Seeing what had happened to the others and not wishing the same fate to befall themselves, the five remaining Batarians, minus the one attempting to free himself from the dead weight of his Captain, dropped their weapons at their feet and fell to their knees with their hands in the air. And thus, Atlas was stumped.

Never before in all of his many years, in all of his many battles, had the Titan ever had dealt with a surrendering enemy. There was nothing on this matter in any of the multiple Codices that served as the tenants of the Titan orders. Such was the nature of their sworn enemies that surrender was an entirely foreign concept to most Guardians in general. Atlas himself had only the basic understanding of what would happen next. Of course, he knew to appropriate his enemies' weapons, but after that...

"Did they just surrender?" Epsilon wondered, eyeing the prostrate Batarians with a quizzical eye as it reappeared on Atlas's shoulder.

"It would appear so." Atlas's stance had relaxed from combat posture to guarded, but he kept his shotgun trained on the surrendered, watching vigilantly for any foolish actions that the aliens might decide to perpetrate as they muttered amongst one another.

"Epsilon," he began, gesturing with his gun. "It might be helpful if I knew what they were saying."

"Oh, sorry about that. Updating your helmet's translation software now." A moment later. "And, it's done."

Now that Atlas could understand what the Batarians were saying in their hushed tones, he allowed himself a chuckle.

"That thing crushed the Captain like he was an insect. And his weapon! It overpowered Drathe's shields like they weren't even there."

"Do you think it's some kind of mutant Krogan?"

"No way. Do you see a hump anywhere?"

They were in awe of him; morbid awe, of course. And he couldn't blame them. It was that same way for many of the City's denizens when they bore witness to a Guardians' prowess in battle.

"Get up and stand back to back against each other in front of the Captain's console." Atlas's voice came out with a synthetic twinge to it as his words were converted to Batarian by his helmet's newly updated translation software.

Jolting at the armored behemoth's command and fearing the prospect of drawing the Titan's wrath, the pirates stood and walked to the designated spot where they assumed the correct formation. Not one dared to disobey his words. Not one so much as spared a glance at the strange, talking construct that hovered beside him.

"Now what?" Atlas grumbled, his question heard only by Epsilon due to the Titan having momentarily disabled his helmet's voice projector.

"Now, I guess we find some kind of bindings to hold them."

"If you're looking at me, then we're out of luck."

"Maybe we could ask them? They are pirates after all. I'm sure that they must use something to keep slaves."

Sighing, Atlas turned to one of the Batarians, he could hardly distinguish them apart from each other, and asked nonchalantly, "Cuffs?"

The Ghost descended into an uncontrollable fit of laughter at its Guardian's mannerisms. The Batarians however, perplexed by the absurdity of the question, remained silent.

"I'll ask again," Atlas said, his formerly relaxed tone turning steely as he shoved the Invective's barrel against the face of the Batarian he had singled out. "Do you have some form of bindings that I can secure you lot with? It's either that or I kill all of you here and now." He added once he saw the hesitance on the pirate's face.

"Alright, alright," the Batarian urged placatingly. "There's a bag of slave collars by the console on the far wall." One of the speaker's mates glared at him accusingly, to which he responded with a shrug. After all, their choices were between being fitted with explosive collars and being point-blanked by a shotgun.

Atlas moved to the far wall and picked up the bag, holding it open to examine its contents before making to fasten a collar around each of the Batarians. Also in the bag he found what could only be the detonator for the collars, which he mag clamped to his side.

"Follow my instructions, do nothing foolish, and you won't die. Understood?" He asked his prisoners, all of them looking much more subdued than before.

"Epsilon, access their star charts and plot a course to the nearest inhabited planet. We need a place to make repairs to the Damsel."

"Right," he confirmed as it began scanning the various holographic control panels around the CIC. "I've got one."

Atlas frowned at the data that his Ghost had just sent him. What was presented before him was not a planet, but an asteroid. An asteroid inhabited by crime syndicates and interstellar mercenary companies. It would do, he supposed. He could safely release his prisoners there and discover whether or not the raw materials required to make the repairs to his ship actually existed in this new location. That tangent sparked his curiosity, prompting him to ask Epsilon what damage the Damsel had even sustained.

"Well," the AI in question started hesitantly. "From what I can gather, the Damsel's electronics are fried and will need some replacement wires and recalibrations. Considering that the locals seems to have a handle on space flight, we shouldn't have a problem finding spare parts."

"What about integration? The tech that they're using can't be compatible with ours."

"If it comes down to that then I can always just try to adapt their technology. We should use our own Glimmer supply as a last resort. Who knows when we'll have a chance to resupply?"

Atlas, sufficiently satisfied by his synthetic companion's answer, turned back to the Batarians and, reactivating his voice projector, informed them of his destination and that they would be released once they arrived.

"Atlas," Epsilon questioned. "Are you sure it's a good idea to let these guys go once we get to Omega? For all we know, they could come back to cause trouble for us."

"What would you have me do? Space them?" The Titan scoffed.

"We can't afford to take any unnecessary risks, especially in unknown territory."

"This isn't exactly unknown territory anymore, Epsilon. We have access to the ship's logs and this Codex of theirs."

"That's beside the point!" If Epsilon had been a human of flesh and sinew, Atlas would have seen the furrowing of his brow and the greying of his hair.

"Just think about it this way: Since there's no Darkness, there should be nothing stopping you from resurrecting me at will."

"How about we take to not put that theory to the test?"

"Fine," Atlas conceded. "Do you still need the prisoners for information?"

"See what you can get out of them about Omega's hierarchy. Somehow, I doubt that that kind of information will be floating around on the Extranet."

"The what?"

"I'll tell you later. Now, get going."

With a sigh, Atlas turned back to the prisoners, who had up until that point been watching the exchange between the giant and the floating ball with trepidation. One of them asked loudly what was going on, but received no response. The Titan looked at them for a while, his eyes hidden behind his helmet's sloped visor, tinted black by paint and wear. Standing there before them, they thought him more terrifying than any Krogan Warlord or Asari Commando. His left shoulder was adorned with nothing but a simple, albeit masterfully crafted, pauldron. On his right shoulder however, rested the skull of some great beast that sported four-eyes, which only compounded to their already fearful state. Unbeknownst to them, the Titan's trophy was the skull of the Winter Archon, Aksor, slain by Atlas in the heart of House Winter's lair. Even without that knowledge, his presence terrified them.

Though he stood taller than any of the Batarians, it was his bearing that truly marked him as their better: A warrior of such proficiency that he had made the brutal culling of four veteran pirates seem like an ordinary affair. And now, as he stood silent before them, the detonator to their collars clutched in his hand, they couldn't help but whimper.

"Please! We've already surrendered!" Their cries were of desperation and blinded by tears. Atlas had not known that aliens could shed tears.

"Your continued survival complicates my course of action. If I drop you off at Omega, what's to keep you from coming back to kill me?" Atlas's words were dead, as if he had detached himself from them even as they passed his lips.

"I swear on my life!" One begs.

"I already have your life." Atlas held up the detonator in his hand.

"There's a bounty on me worth ten thousand credits, alive." The one who had previously been bowled over by his captain's corpse spoke. "I'm sure that C-Sec would be happy to take the others off of your hands as well."

"C-Sec?" Atlas muttered in confusion, speaking quietly enough that the Batarians could not clearly understand his low tones.

"Citadel-Security, the primary security force of the Citadel, which itself is the primary political and economic center of the known galaxy." Epsilon replied, before adding, "Their bounties check out. Jareth Dol'khan, wanted alive, ten thousand credits. The others are worth a handful as well."

Atlas pulled up the Codex on his helmet's HUD, which Epsilon had updated to include the database in its entirety, and opened the file on the Citadel. After a brief look through, he decided that this new destination would be just as likely as Omega to have the materials he needed to make repairs to his ship. He had frowned briefly when he had seen how slowl the frigate's FTL drives were in comparison to Holiday's custom designs, but further reading through of the Codex revealed to him the wonders of Mass Relays. The ability to cross a galaxy in mere seconds... The possibilities were endless.

"Alright then," the Titan said as he clipped the detonator back to his belt. "Epsilon, get the Damsel docked to this ship and plot a course to the Citadel. Time to get ourselves acquainted with the locals."