Before Floyd Mason left the Borealis, Alyx gave him a thorough run-down of the procedures necessary to make a secure radio transmission back to the ship. Wonder of wonders, Floyd actually remembered it long enough to get the protocol set up at the local Resistance base. In the twenty-odd hours since then, communications have been short and sporadic ( Read more... )

( Write about someone else encountering you and your daemon for the first time. )

The last Combine survivors at the gene worm site have been picked off. The refugees have been sent away. The ship is as stocked and the crew as ready as they're liable to get. It's time to depart.

"Okay, I think I've found us a good destination site. Over water, close to the source of the distress call..."

It's not a white Christmas. Not in Druid Cave, anyway. Getting snow that far underground would be problematic.

"Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green"The decorations are meager, by pre-Combine standards. Sure, there's a big tree in the town square, and the public buildings are decked out in garlands and lights for the occasion, but ( Read more... )

She first noticed it in the morning, just before breakfast. Alyx was just sitting down to eat when she felt a faint stir of movement in her abdomen. She sat and waited, but it didn't happen again--not that she could tell, at least. Kate told her not to worry, that it was different from one woman to the next and one pregnancy to the next, and she'd ( Read more... )

Alyx is feeling a hell of a lot better than she did when they arrived yesterday, but she's still far from being completely at ease. Among other things, she's preoccupied with that sense of presence that flashed across her mind last night. It was Gordon, there's no doubt in her mind about that. But... but what? Is he alright? Where is he? Is ( Read more... )

[Millitimed to just after this]

Alyx remains frozen on the spot, lost on thought, for a long while after Kaidan excuses himself.

D0G gently prodding her shoulder finally rouses her from her trance. Mwoooo? he inquires, clearly very worried.

"I--I'm okay, D0G," she says, managing a weak smile.

Mwoooooooo? He sounds, if anything, even more ( Read more... )

The day dawns clear and unseasonably cold. Alyx has been up for a while--she tried to sleep, but couldn't quite manage it--so the maps are already set up in the north hangar when people start to pour in. The new arrivals from City 08 have nearly tripled the population of White Forest, so the room fills quickly, and there's considerably less ( Read more... )

λ
ELI MOSES VANCE
1968-2021

There should, thinks Alyx, be more than this. Her father was the reason the Resistance existed, the reason they were allied with the Vortigaunts--arguably, he was the reason the human race still exists as anything but mechanized slaves to the Combine. He deserves a better sendoff than this. Hell, he deserves a fucking ( Read more... )

There was no time to program in coordinates, no time to engage any kind of safety protocol. Once they got to the control room for the portal generator, all they had time to do was hit the big red button and pray ( Read more... )