Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Two thousand years ago, there was a war. That, in an of itself, was not unusual, war was the one constant in the universe. Where life flourished, there was war. Be it the mundane war of one animal striving to live through the day by killing another, or the war of a single cell, merely trying to keep itself together against the harshness of existence. Conflict was how we truly come to understand the world, and it helps us to learn our place within the grand tapestry of existence.

This war though, it was different than most. On a planet in the M51 Galaxy, a small green orb called Tirol, there lived a people. These people had learned, in the course of their wars, how to use the power of life itself, the thing we call genes and DNA, to create warriors. Over countless conflicts, which scarred the face of their world, they improved these soldiers, each defeat of one leading to an advance, its victory for another gaining a needed resource to push themselves farther.

These warriors were called, the Zentraedi. Their power seemed unstoppable, and dozens of races fell before their might as they traveled the stars of their galaxy. One such race, one that gave them much difficulty, was the Invid, who's power was much like the Triolians, the power of life. However, where the Triolians fought for their power, improving it through the mind,the Invid discovered instead, a natural means of altering themselves, of evolving to ever greater heights using a plant they called, the Flower of Life.

Capturing a sample of this simple looking flower allowed a Triolian scientist named Zor to create a near infinite energy source, one he dubbed, Protoculture. Using this in conjunction with their weapons and systems, the Triolians created something they called, Robotechnology, which allowed them to create even bigger, better weapons, conquering and enslaving dozens of races in only a few short years, including the evolving Invid, the powerful Marduk, and the warrior Praxian.

Each conquest only fueled the drive of the Triolians, who renamed themselves the Robotech Masters. Soon, they applied the Protoculture to their genetic experiments as well, causing the Zentraedi to not only become nigh invulnerable, but increasing their size an entire order of magnitude, and their mass greater still. These now fifty foot tall warriors ensured the dominance of the Robotech Masters over the entirety of the M51 Galaxy, and they began to look beyond.

Zor, his body preserved for almost a thousand years using advanced techniques of the Triolians, lived through the wars, and continued to design weapons based off the Robotechnology he had pioneered, eventually creating the ultimate weapon. Equipped with the first Protoculture Matrix, a machine that produced a seemingly unlimited quantity of Protoculture, he called this magnum opus, the Super Fortress, with a weapon on it capable of obliterating a planet, or even causing a star to go nova.

It was at this point, this turning point of history, that Zor came to realize what this constant war had done to his people. They lived only to conquer now, and when a seemingly small rebellion, a few hundred fools, decided to make war on them, his people did the unthinkable. They turned his greatest creation on the entire planet, wiping it out with a single shot, a bright flash consuming all that was before it, and finally awakening a long dormant part of Zor's spirit.

Disgusted that his people would go so far to kill only a few, Zor decided to deny them his great work, and, with a few seemingly innocent actions, he was able to cause the Super Fortress to Fold out of the galaxy, warping it into unknown space. The others of his race reacted as one would expect, executing him, and ordering their soldiers to scour all of space for the great ship, for they could not have it, or worst of all the Protoculture Matrix it housed, fall into the hands of their enemies.

Two hundred and twenty five years ago, another war was raging. On a small blue planet, at the edge of the Milky Way, there was a species, a race known as, Humanity. They were confined to their own world, even after making a few light steps onto other planets of their solar system. Now, however, they used all their resources to fight one another, for the weapons of destruction, their greatest powers, had been disabled, and it allowed their third world war to rage for a decade, with no clear winner in sight.

Nations fell, battles turned on a single bullet, and there were no such things as civilians anymore. Each person was a world unto themselves, and even as their governments pressed them harder and harder, the people just wanted the fighting to end. As if answering their prayers, a great light fell from the sky, a powerful thing that destroyed half a continent as it came down, before slamming into an island in the south pacific, an island called Macross.

This fallen star turned out to be an alien ship. Where it had come from, how it had gotten to earth, no one knew, but the remaining leadership, seeing this threat to their existence, this massive warship, set aside their differences, and began to work in unison to prepare for what they felt would be the inevitable invasion. Hammering out a peace accord, the nations of the world formed a United Humanity, and began to work to restore the fallen ship to functional status.

Over the next decade, humanity flourished. The technology of the ship, mixed with human ingenuity and elbow grease, catapulted the young race forward. Leaps and bounds in almost every area, from military to the private sector. Yet, those at the top, those who knew all that had been discovered in the ship, despaired, even as their fellow man celebrated. These advances spoke of a culture so far beyond them, that if they came to reclaim the fallen vessel, humanity would be destroyed utterly.

On the day of the great ship, the Super Dimension Fortress Macross' maiden voyage, the fears of the leadership were proven, as ships appeared in the sky, and attacked. That was the beginning of the Robotech War, as the Zentraedi, massive warriors all at least forty feet tall, made war on the humans of Earth. Humanity surprised the stoic warriors though, using the technology of the SDF-1 to its fullest, fighting off assaults that should have smashed them, even when the great ship was isolated from their home.

Still, the Zentraedi had spent almost a millennium tracking down the Super Fortress, and the prized Protoculture Matrix within, and they weren't about to allow these micronians, these beings that didn't even come up to their ankles, to win. In desperation, the armada was assembled, five million heavy cruisers, and the Command Fortress, were moved into orbit of that small blue sphere. On the command of Dolza, leader of the Zentraedi, they fired, and in a flash of light, the Earth was devastated.

Humanity was not completely spared, as billions were killed in the attack, but they had one final trick to play. For you see, the Robotech Masters had so designed the Zentraedi that they had no culture of their own. All they knew was war, and in their thousand year search fro the Super Fortress, they had been rendered almost a joke. Even the idea of something other than training or fighting was alien to them, and when exposed to Earth culture over the course of the war, and the year long pursuit of the SDF-1, they learned to want something more.

This caused a revolt in their own ranks, and Dolza's armada went to war against itself, as a song, a simple song, was sung by a small human girl, and it gave every warrior that moment of pause. In to the great confusion stormed the very object of the Zentraedi's search, the SDF-1, and its powerful weapons. Using those weapons, the power of a small sun, they tore great swaths of destruction through the fleet, obliterating many vessels, until finally it destroyed the Command Fortress itself, chopping off the head of the Zentraedi, and ending the war in space.

Rebuilding from the ashes of the world, the civilians who had survived, either in shelters or inside the SDF-1 itself, began to spread. Of humanity, a scant seventy eight thousand souls remained, though of their enemies, the Zentraedi, almost four million survived. Still, they were warriors, and recognized the defeat to mean they were no longer a great power. Most chose to settle with the humans, some even using a new technology, micornization, to become like the human, standing eye to eye with them as the world began to grow again.

Not all Zentraedi did so, however, many saw themselves not just as free from the Robotech Masters, but free of the humans influence as well. Some demanded conquest still, and they rallied around a banner, the banner of Khyron, last of the Zentraedi Warlords. This madman brought two years of war to the already broken world, and drove the planet Earth to near exhaustion. His insane quest eventually took him against the humans and his own kind, decimating their numbers even further, before finally dying in a suicidal attack which destroyed all of his forces, and the SDF-1, which was still damaged from the previous war.

When this final conflict settled, the people looked around again. Now less than half as many people survived, and only two million Zentraedi. Worse, what parts of the world they had been able to recover were now rendered into lifeless wastes, unable to support the life of the humans. It was then that something was proposed that changed the destiny of all on Earth. A man had discovered how to use the growth technique Khyron had used to enlarge micronized Zentraedi on humans as well.

Desperate to survive in some form, humanity, all thirty thousand survivors of it, stepped into tubes alongside their Zentraedi allies, and together they grew into giants. Beings of size and mass to rival the gods of old, with bodies that required no sleep, and could survive off Protoculture slurry, which, thanks to the survival of the Protoculture Matrix, was plentiful. These two million and then some people, those who survived the process, decided to drop the barriers between them, the people taking a new name, Terran unto themselves.

This new people began to rebuild in the wasteland, slowly but surely returning a few patches of green to the once lifeless world. Better yet, as they rebuilt the natural world around them, they began to rebuild the technology base of their people. No longer constrained by the wants of sleeping, eating, or any of the usual failings of biology, they instead threw themselves into increasing those sciences that had languished in the years of war, causing the quality of life to skyrocket for most Terrans.

In two hundred years, the population had blossomed, going from a few scant million, to almost thirty five billion, and a civilization that spanned a dozen or more worlds within the Sol system. From Mars, to Venus, from the moons of Jupiter, to those that circled Saturn, Terrans had expanded. With their hardy biology, it took little to make a world that they could inhabit, and better yet every new expansion seemed to increase their knowledge of the universe, allowing them to unlock new technologies.

So went the history of the Terrans, who only sent a single expedition beyond the boundaries of Sol. This Robotech Expeditionary Force had been sent to the M51 Galaxy, home of the Robotech Masters and their great empire, with the purpose of forming relations with the long ago makers of the Zentraedi. However, upon entering this space, the Terran forces were startled to find only dead worlds, and suns that burned out of control in systems that had, only a millennia ago borne verdant life.

It took the researchers of Earth only a few decades to determine what had happened, painting a dreadful picture of what an Empire became as it fell. Without thinking, the Robotech Masters had sent their entire armada into the sea of stars, scattering the Zentraedi far and wide to seek the lost Super Fortress. So great had been their need to find this weapon, that they had never even considered what might happen when their soldiers were absent.

So it had passed that war had torn the M51 Galaxy apart, and the Robotech Masters, bereft of their warriors, fought with the technologies that Zor had crafted for them. With such wanton disregard did they wield their weapons that world after world had been burned away, until, in a fit of possible madness, they had destroyed even their star, leaving Terrans the only known life in the universe now.

Saddened, and more than a little frightened, the leaders of the Terran Federation, the governing body of all Terrans, decided to isolate themselves for now, to not expand their borders until needed. Such time would not come for a few generations, they had assumed, and so they allowed their people to flourish and take every piece of land and space Sol had to offer, until an surveyor around Pluto made a discovery, one that startled every mind in the system.

Charon, Pluto's cold, ice moon was not a natural body. No, it was something far more than that, for the ice had grown around a hard core, something that had been constructed by an unknown race. Quick to study this structure, Terrans found something that defied the physics they knew, a device that, rather than fold space, as their own warp technology did, instead used some kind of gravity alteration to sling a mass from one location, to another.

Seeing this fantastic new device, many a young Terran was enthralled, and their elders, unable to truly hold back a popular tide, a need of the human nature of the Terrans to explore, and the Zentraedi nature of them to dominate. So a great expansion began from Sol, into the Local Cluster. On worlds that were easy to inhabit, colonies sprung up, and on worlds of harsher nature, mining towns began to grow. Terra had come to the stars, and soon enough, those who ruled these stars would learn just how mighty Terra could be.

(Author's Note:

This story is a work of love of two great franchises, the Robotech Universe and the Mass Effect one. I've seen almost everything involving both, including reading the novels(The first two Mass Effect Novels are still worth tracking down, and Robotech: Battlecry was really good to, though I would recommend the game over the book for being more unique)

Anyway, before you go forward, I figured I'd inform you of some things that have caused some questions from the readership so far. A bit of a cheat, I know, but it's what I do.

1) The Terrans are 60 feet tall, with only a few feet difference between most individuals.

2) The Robotech timeline used goes only up to the end of the Reconstruction Blues era. It was both my favorite part of the story, and was a bit less...a lot less confusing than later stories.

3) This only crosses over Robotech and Mass Effect. I will drop names of some other franchises I enjoy, but they are the only two universes involved.

4) I'm looking for a beta, someone to help me go over the story as I write it. If you're interested, please drop me a PM here, or at my email, [email protected]

5) Remember, if you like it, drop a review/comment/pm along with the favorite. It helps me know how well I'm doing, and helps keep me invested in the story.

That's all for now, and I hope you, my fellow nerds of the internet, enjoy this tale of how a race of giant humans alter the course of galactic history.)

Chapter Text

"Would you like a system report, Captain?" asked a feminine voice, and the man sitting in his chair, staring bleary eyed out at the stars in his viewer, sighed.

"And is there anything to actually report?" he asked, waiting as the AI control in his ship went over logs, scans, and transmissions from home. Sighing a little, he began to toy with the idea of leaving the bridge and getting himself a drink, only to just slouch back into his seat and wait as the computer sorted through everything.

"In my assessment, no. We are on course to the Sling Shot of this system, and should arrive within a few minutes. Shanxi control reports nothing of note, save the scores of last night's games, and my sensors detect nothing of note in the entire system," said the AI at last, and the man sighed again, getting up out of his seat and stretching.

"Alright, so any idea where this Sling Shot will take us?" asked the man, looking in one monitor and using a hand gesture to cause the screen to zoom in. The image changed from a star field to the huge device, many times the size of the frigate he was flying in, and far harder to damage.

"My current data indicates it would lead us to the just beyond the nearby nebula. Terra Nova Command is hoping to find more M-Type worlds for the colonization effort," she informed him, and the man just scoffed. He knew his orders, and would follow them, but really, Command wanted more worlds? Even Terra Nova itself, the largest out of Sol colony was only a few million people, most others couldn't even boast of ten thousand. What the heck could they need all this room for?

"Alright, get Tulley in his ship then I want this done as fast as possible," said the man, and the AI chirped at him, before turning its attention to the requested crewman.

"Lieutenant Tulley, we are within a few minutes of the Sling. Captain Archer has requested you get prep your veritech for its mission," said the female voice, surprising the two men and three women playing pool. The sudden voice caused the man holding the cue stick to jump a bit, missing his mark and causing the cue ball to ricochet off course, bouncing over the edge of the table, caught by one of the women standing off to the side.

"That's definitely a scratch," said the woman holding the ball, and the man standing with the cue in his hand looked about to protest, only to be cut off as one of the women held up her hand and went to a nearby screen.

"Acknowledge T'Pol. Tell Archer I'll be right down," she told the screen, getting a nice blue glow in it, before the AI turned its attention elsewhere.

"Game called on account of work. What a terrible thing to have happen," complained the man without a pool cue, walking away himself with Tulley to help her. The remaining to women just shrugged, the man leading them out of the room to their stations.

Ten minutes passed as Tulley and her wingman got into their veritechs. In two hundred years, the design of the modular fighters had changed little, except for being scaled up of course. To a twentieth century human, the vertich at rest looked like a jet fighter, but any survivor of the Robotech War could see the lines and curves of the thing where the ship could transform from the quick jet, to the versatile humanoid robot called a battloid.

Checking their suits, the two pilots climbed into their machines, silently going over the pre-flight check lists. Protoculture reactors fully charged. Engines clean and good. Tools and weapons, both green. T'Pol's link to the veriteches said they were ready to go, and as the frigate finally got in range, the two pilots pressed the launch buttons, the frigates bay opening up to allow them to fly free.

The thrill of the weightless moment, as the grav systems in the veritech spun up to give the pilots a dozen. This was what it meant to be free, to be burdened not by a planet's pull, but to drift in the stars, making your way through the heavens. Once they settled in, the two turned on their engines, and pointed themselves at the object that dwarfed them, the Sling Shot.

"This is Tulley, I have the Sling in my scope, moving in for inspection and repair," said the pilot of the lead veritech, gently pushing her fighter forward. Soon, she was within reach, and pulled a lever in her cockpit marked B. With a grinding sound of metal on metal, the veritech changed. Limbs, arms and legs, unfolded, as the wings swept back into compartments, and slowly, the once jet, became a humanoid shape, which reached out and settled its hand on the Sling.

"Beginning first run diagnostics," Tulley informed the crew as she pushed a button, and then got that odd sensation of vibration as the sensors in the veritech ran through the unit's arm, into the Sling Shot. Slowly, displays in her cockpit showed a wire frame image of the ancient relic, and then began to glow red in spots to indicate damage, wear, or just places that needed tuning up.

"Man, this thing is almost pristine, nothing like those last two we found," he told his crew. "I can get this one done in an hour."

"Affirmative Lieutenant," acknowledge Captain Archer from the frigate's bridge, and then settled in to watch Tulley work her magic. The woman was one of the engineer corps, some of the best the Terran Federation had to offer, and while there was still some unanswered questions about the Sling Shot's tech, it didn't stop the corps from learning how to fix the things.

Over the next ten minutes, Archer got to watch the seemingly dimnuative veritech work its way around the Sling, stopping at places to open a panel here, or push at a seem there, its hand sparking with welding lasers as it did its work. Looking at his scope, Archer sighed, about to order T'Pol to start preps for a Sling Shot, when suddenly his monitor flashed blue, and his sense instantly leapt to sharp attention.

"Alert, unknown ship approaching. Unknown profiles, energy signatures not in database. They're not ours Captain," said the female voice of the ship AI, and the monitors in front of Captain Archer switch from looking at his man on the Sling Shot, to a new ship.

Terran ship design followed, for the most part, a Zentraedi aesthetic, functional, but not ugly, with rounded smooth edges, which gave the reflex cannons on the ships larger firing angles. The ship on the monitor though, it was nothing but sharp angles, and wicked looking points. From the keel to the stern, it seemed like the thing was fashioned like an old arrowhead, and it was pointed straight at them.

"Shepard, get your ass up here, we've got a code blue situation. I repeat, we have first contact with an unknown bogey," said the Captain, pushing a button on his controls, before beginning to go over the available data. Looking at the things profile, he saw it was hot, hotter than anything flying through space should have been, like it had just come out of the atmosphere of a planet or something.

"On my way, Captain!" shouted the commander, and he could hear the thud of boots behind him, as Commander Shepard raced to the bridge, landing in the seat of the second in command, and then quickly going through displays.

"What the? T'Pol, this can't be right. They're only like a hundred kilometers from us. How'd they get so close?" complained Shepard as she began to bring other sensors to bear on the ship.

"Unknown. Extrapolation from current data indica...new data incoming, other ships have entered sensor range," said the AI, and both humans got to watch as new ships appeared, or more accurately, slid into being.

"Real Space FTL?!" shouted Archer, looking at the display, and then moving a hand over it to cause the thing to rewind, and then play back the recording. Both Terrans watched in amazement as elongated images of more of the unknown ships came into view, and then shortened, becoming small vessels that now hung around the larger one they had first seen.

"T'Pol, begin sending the First Contact package, and give me stats on the big ship," said Shepard, as her station began to ping and blip with her hands flying over the buttons and keys before her, slowly bringing every system up to full, while in the belly of the ship, the remaining crew members either fell into turret wells, their own displays showing targeting reticules, or began to suit up in powered armor.

"The larger ship I would estimate to be of a size with the Phoenix herself, while the smaller vessels or slightly larger than our veritechs," said T'Pol, bringing up an image of their frigate, and then overlaying it with the alien ship.

"So a frigate and a fighter escort then," said Archer, and Shepard shook her head.

"Probably not, T'Pol, do you see any windows or other viewing apertures on the vessel?" asked the second officer, and the image of the vessel began to rotate around, finally flashing blue in one spot, and then zooming in.

"Hmm, a small peep hole?" asked Archer, and then noticed as T'Pol caused the wire frame image of the ship to be overlayed with what their sensors were seeing, and then he could see what he was certain was a silhouette in it, before T'Pol helpfully showed an image of the humanoid, then placed a Terran next to it.

"Micronians?" observed Archer, and Shepard nodded at the statement.

"Makes sense. Most life out in M51 was around that size. The Zen were only up to our level because they were designed that way," commented Shepard as she continued to work at her station.

"Any response yet?" she asked of the AI.

"Negative, I am currently transmitting the First Contact Package on all known channels. I also have all sensor banks open, waiting for any attempt at contact from the aliens," the AI responded, and Shepard nodded, going over her training for this situation. If communication couldn't be established she would have to-suddenly a blaring alarm interrupted her thoughts.

"The main vessel of the formation is growing hotter," said T'Pol, showing a thermograph of the ship on the Captain's screen, as it shifted all the way up from red, to purple, causing the crew to wonder just what was going on, a split second before five objects launched from the front of the ship, traveling at a significant portion of light speed.

"Projectiles launched, kinetic weapons. Target, Lieutenant Tulley's veritech," said T'Pol, and below the bridge, in the gunner's well, all three gunners watched the things sail towards them. Impact timers popped up, with only seconds on them, and the trained men and woman instantly reacted, hands going to control sticks, each taking their assigned reflex cannon, targeting the projectiles.

With a speed that would have been impossible for a human mind, or even one of the old Zentraedi, the Terran gunners took aim, and each fired. The reflex cannons sent odd vibrations through the Phoenix as lances of blue light shot from their tips. Each shot was nearly perfect, the three working in concert so not a single bit of energy was wasted, the projectiles in space meeting the power of the reflex weapons, and being reduced to less than clouds of metallic vapor as the attacks met.

"Shifting to target enemy vessel," said the three as one, and began to take aim at the offending ship.

"Belay that. They fired, we stopped it, I don't want this to turn into a shooting war yet," ordered Captain Archer, and the three gunners acknowledge the order by merely locking their weapons on the ship, their fingers holding over the triggers, but not yet pulling them.

"Shepard?" asked Archer, and the Commander's fingers vanished as she pressed key after key, finally slamming her fist into a nearby wall, which already bore a slight impression of her fist.

"Nothing, just shooting at us. Captain, permission to do an EVA contact?" asked Shepard, and Archer only had to think about it for a heartbeat before he nodded his agreement.

"Take the stealth armor. If you can get close enough, I want you to take out those ships engines," he ordered, and Shepard looked like she was about to protest, after all, she was assigned to the Phoenix just for this situation, and she should have been the one making orders, but she bit her tongue. The Captain was being cautious, especially after being shot at for seemingly no reason. It only made sense to limit a hostile's options.

"Aye Captain," she said, snapping off a quick salute before rushing down the halls of the ship. Within five minutes, one of the bay doors opened, allowing a humanoid shape to float free. The black armor seemed to vanish as it moved beyond the Phoenix, the thrusters that propelled it buffered so they didn't shine. Inside the ship, Captain Archer began to go over his options, while the two veritechs at the Sling just sweated, wondering just what the hell the other ship had been thinking firing at them.

Chapter Text

"Would you like a system report, Captain?" asked a feminine voice, and the man, sitting in his chair, staring bleary eyed out at the stars in the windows before him, sighed.

"Report, Cadet," he ordered, and the female in front of him began to rattle off the day's reports. All green, all good, and all ready for battle. A battle that he was being denied, again. Somewhere, out amid the distant stars, entire fleets were being mobilized, ships prepped, and crews trained. Out there, war, or at least a limited skirmish, was happening, and here he sat, his fleet of one cruiser and six frigates, with enough fire power to level any major city from orbit, were just patrolling.

Of course, he knew that those two facts were related. The batarians, those blasted four eyed freaks, were moving openly against the Council's will. Oh, there were apologies from their embassy on the Citadel, token efforts to blame the fleets that came from their homeworld into the Skyllian Verge and the Local Cluster on rebels and pirates. These areas of space, long undeveloped due to how rare it was that a Relay could send you to them, were being eyed by the Hegemony.

So, the Council had to flex its might, to aid the batarians in their, 'time of need', and deal with the pirates and raiders, all of which had Hegemony military uniforms, and even had to be turned over to their government for 'punishment'. Everyone knew, from the lowliest crewmen on the frigates, to the generals in their grand dreadnauts, that the batarians were just reequipping their men and sending them right back out, so they could sow panic and slowly claim the space, setting up makeshift colonies that would, of course, become Hegemony controlled worlds when the time came.

Still, he was a captain in the Hierarchy. His duty to Palaven said he would patrol these lifeless systems, destroying any ships that shouldn't be here, and hopefully getting those idiot politicians in the Citadel to finally crack down on the four eyes. Looking forward out of his view, he saw the tell tale lines of light that said his ships were traveling at FTL, their destination having been input the night before, as they made their way towards Relay 314, inactive, but important to check nonetheless.

The cadet finished with her report, and he motioned for her to turn around, as he stalked away from his chair near the front of the ship, and made his way towards the rear. At every station he saw his troops, each one working in perfect unison with the others. Most wore gloves, as their fingers danced over the holographic controls before them. Some, like the cadet, were bare handed, having the sensors that the gloves provided surgically installed in their skin, to allow them to use the holos easier.

Finding no fault with anything in his view, he kept moving back, finally passing the last set of stations, and finding two figures staring at the galaxy map that hung before them. The two men were debating something, though he only heard a little of the conversation as he got closer, the lines on the map they had been looking at vanishing, as the two turned to face him. Both snapped a salute, one he returned as he looked over at the map himself, and then turned to them.

"Something interesting, Kryik?" he asked of his commander, and the man, his face showing a few lines of worry in those rocky features, just shook his head and sighed.

"Nothing worthy of note. Just running a few sims," said the commander, as he leaned forward and pushed a button to return the lines that had been displayed. Looking it over, he noticed quickly that it displayed the latest reports of fleet movements, of the larger, better equipped armadas standing at the ready just outside batarian space, and all the patrols their ship knew of.

Watching, he saw some new blips pop on the map, and then was astonished as they flew a rather circuitous route, hopping to the edge of the Terminus Systems, and then back again, arriving right in the middle of the Verge, having bypassed every fleet. The action then reset, and he saw, again, the same thing happen, with a different route, and even a bit of action for one small patrol, which got soundly destroyed when the batarian fleets sent their largest out to crush them.

"Disturbing sims," commented the captain to his subordinates as he walked up beside them, and began to run some numbers himself.

"Vakarian seems to think so. He's the one who wanted to show this to me," commented Commander Kryik, and the captain sighed again, knowing exactly where this was going.

"Lieutenant, did you really waste computer cycles on this fantasy?" asked the older turian of his younger officer, turning to him. The tone in his voice, the look on his face, and everything else about him said this was a dance they'd had many times before.

"They weren't a waste, Captain. I think it's clear that the batarians could easily slip around our patrols in that sector, but this fleet could get there within a week and bottle them up, and maybe even hit them as they came out of the relay," he protested, and the captain just shook his head and rubbed his fingers on the top of his head in annoyance.

"And you don't think that the generals will have considered that, and placed a fleet there as a trap?" asked the turian, as he pushed a single button, and the sim replayed again, this time with a large force of cruisers and even three dreadnaughts added to it, stationed equally between the three relays the young lieutenant had been basing the sim around. This time when the batarians got there, they were wiped out utterly, the power of the turian military obliterating them.

"It might have, but the generals are far from the front lines, and we," he had been about to continue when the captain raised a hand, silencing him.

"Normally, I would applaud someone as young as you worrying about tactics on a larger scale than a single battle. It shows you do care about things beyond yourself, but on this, you will listen to me. We have our mission, and that mission is to patrol this sector until...," the captain began to talk, idly feeling that stopping sensation of his ship coming out of FTL. Normally, he would have ignored it, an old hand like himself barely feeling the sliding stop, but then, he realized voices had become hushed in the forward compartment, and he pushed a button on the console before him.

"Cadet, report!" he demanded.

"We have contacts sir, three of them, around the relay," came the reply instantly, and the three turians looked at each other, before the captain and commander rushed to their stations just behind the map, which shifted from the galaxy to show their forces and then the unknowns around the relay, while the lieutenant instead ran to one of the consoles along the wall, and which shifted to display targeting information.

"All hands, we have contact, battle stations," stated the captain simply, and while he couldn't see it, in his cruiser or the four frigates, he knew everyone was getting to their posts, as the data on the three unknowns began to come in. The display before him, which had three dots for the contacts, slowly resolved their shape, surprising the old turian with their oddity.

The first appeared to be some kind of aerofighter, no unlike things he'd seen in history holos back on Palaven. The wings swept back, but paneled so they could be adjusted mid flight, and with a duel set of engines to power them. The thing was holding steady, possibly with some kind of thrusters to aid it in maintaining its position equidistant between the larger vessel and the relay.

The large vessel looked more like a space born ship. The curves were a bit too smooth for his taste, but that might mean it was some kind of supply ship, rather than a war vessel, despite being the size of his own cruiser according to the sensors. More, it was cold. Colder than ships in space should be, even traveling a few lightminutes at FTL built up a large supply of heat, but according to the thermograph, all the ships before him were dead cold.

Most interesting was the one that seemed to literally be on the relay, its form, rather than the aerodynamic visage of a space or atmospheric ship, it was humanoid, two arms and legs, with a head. This seemed to allow the thing a bit of versatility though, as its hands were reaching out and touching the relay. As he watched, he saw the thing actually start to pull some kind of tool from a space on its arm and hold it at the relay, as if he were repair-

"Status of the relay!" demanded the captain.

"It's still inactive, but I can see it starting to come online, Captain," said Vakarian from his seat, and the captain of this expedition was faced with one of those historic moments, those times when, if you knew they were there, seemed to last for an eternity.

In front of him, he saw the mass relay activate, and the three ships using it to get away, only to return, broken and battered, as they were pursued by dark shapes he could imagine only as terrifying nightmares. Things that had, until then, known nothing of the wider galaxy. These shadows overtook the three vessels, uttering destroying them, and then turning on his own command, which only had a few seconds before they were torn apart as well, and the monsters advanced outward, worse than the Rachni Wars or the Krogan Rebellions as they slaughtered worlds.

Around him, he took in the reports of others, some of them probably important to the here and now, but seemingly trivial in the face of this. He heard something about odd radiation from the larger vessel, seemingly directed at them. He heard one of the cadets at a station mentioning it seemed like an old style transmission. He ignored it though, and began to issue his orders.

"Bring all main guns to bare! I want that ship at the relay gone, now!" he shouted, and everyone on the bridge reacted. Their hands went to controls, and the thrusters were fired, targeting solutions calculated as mass effect fields started to form somewhere deep in the belly of the great cruiser, energy being built up around bits of metal that seemed so small, but were being spun along an axis to give them true stopping power.

"Sir, are you sure this is the best idea?" asked Kryik beside him, and the captain turned, just staring at the man with an expression that told him he did.

"If they turn that thing on, those batarian idiots could unleash another Rachni, or worse. I will not allow history to remember me as the one who let that happen," he said simply, and Kryik nodded at him. The order had been given, the command itself explained. Vakarian, from a nearby control, looked like he wanted to protest, but he kept his mouth shut. These didn't look like batarians to him.

With a dull, staccato of thunks, something launched out from the bottom of the cruiser, huge projectiles with enough force that the frigate sized humanoid vessel was done for, no matter how large a barrier it had. They went at a significant portion of light speed, covering the distance between the launch and the target in a few minutes, everyone on the bridge waiting in breathless anticipation, hoping that they had done the right thing as the death they had dealt sailed.

Then the projectiles vanished, his first thought being they were intercepted somehow. That wasn't possible. The calculations needed to make an interception at relative velocities was just too great to calculate in the short amount of time, and even if you could, spinning a shot up to power took some time in and of itself. Yet, as he watched his display, he called up visual sensors, overlaying what they saw over what thermographs and radar did. The visuals showed a bar of blue light emerge from a dimple on the large ship, and hit his own shot dead on.

"What in the hells was that?" asked the cadet looking out the port before her, and her captain silently echoed her thoughts. What was this ship, which sported a new type of weapon, and just who was crewing her.

Chapter Text

The first volley of shots were a slowly dispersing cloud of particles between the pair of ships, those super heated bits of metal giving the two forces a likely preview of what would happen should they come to blows. Between them, invisible to both ships, a black silhouette made its way slowly over to the turian side, the thrusters giving it momentum that built gently, giving the one inside the shape a chance to look at her targets, while idly checking over the double barreled reflex rifle in her hands, making sure the thing was fully charged and able to do what she needed.

Aboard the turian vessel, a dozen sets of hands were flying over floating holographic keyboards. To many outsiders, it seemed like the two fingered turians would have a bit of a disadvantage when it came to typing quickly, but within their own system, the fingers not only seemed to dance, but each subtle motion, a joint twitch here, a fingertip shake there, seemed to cause their displays to change a dozen times over, as they ran every bit of radiation from the ship across from them through every sim they could, looking for some pattern, some way of communicating.

Aboard the Terran ship, the captain sat in his seat, looking at monitors, as T'Pol ran through lines of data, studying everything she could, trying to decode anything she could from the alien vessel before her. Every blip, spark, or just odd movement was added as she went over and over again, even beginning to use old electronic warfare techniques to try and find a link with the aliens. In their gun wells, the three crewmen went over firing solutions, all of them taking targets in the force before them, as the two veritechs slowly drifted away from the Sling Shot, to cover behind their mothership.

Minutes passed, and finally, after crashing a dozen stations on the bridge of the turian cruiser, a link was established. At first it was flawed, no image, only some jarring screeching sounds, but the communications officers were hard at work on even this tenuous connection. On the other side, T'Pol found herself accessing data streams that were alien in structure, but still data. Her brain, a computer large enough to store the position of every star in the galaxy, devoted all its power to the task, translating every byte she could get her hands on, until finally she made a breakthrough.

To the Terran's eyes, an image blossomed in his monitor as T'Pol began to filter the transmission from the alien ship. A face slowly resolved out of static, one that was oddly shaped, with mandibles on the side of the mouth, and texture that looked like rough stone. The mouth opened, the bits on the side pulling away, and an odd cry came from inside, high pitched, but still obviously supposed to be words. The AI went to work on this immediately, using the system she was accessing to start a translation.

To the turian's eyes, a flat image began to form in front of him, overlaying the sight of his ships and his foes. He had expected some batarian slaver scum, but was surprised that, instead, he saw something with far more hair. At first, he thought it was some asari who had decided to test some new device, but he was quickly dashed of that expectation when the thing in front of him opened its mouth, and made grunting noises. He knew they had to be words, but what they said he had no clue, looking over at a display that formed, beside the image, a request to keep the creature talking, which he did by talking at it.

Fifteen minutes, thirty two seconds after first contact between the turians and the Terrans, speech became possible, as the translation program in the turian computers finally deciphered the speech of the odd mammalian thing before him. At that exact instant, accessing their systems, T'Pol found the same program running, and did a quick copy of it into her own system, as familiar words allowed her to alter it quickly, creating a slapdash, but workable program, which could let her know what was being said.

OoOoO

"Do you understand me?" asked the turian of the orange tinted image before him. He still wondered why the thing was flat, and intended on asking one of the techs about it later. It probably had something to do with this primitive's system not being able to handle full holo displays.

"I think I do, can you understand me?" responded the mammal, her words slurred a bit, almost like a krogan on a full drunken bender, but at least at the level where one knew what they were saying if one listened closely.

"Excellent. Now identify yourself," said the stone faced turian with the air of a man used to being obeyed, his mandibles starting to move in and out in an irritated fashion.

"My name is Jonathan Archer, Captain of the Terran Federation Starship, Phoenix. Whom my I inquire are you?" asked the thing in the floating square.

"My name Desolas Arterius, Captain of the Turain Hierarchy Vessel, Talons. It is now my duty to inform you that you and your crew are under arrest for violating Council Edict forty six stroke seventy three. Your ship is to match velocities with my command ship, and upon setting up a connection, we will take your crew on board, where we will interrogate them, to see if any farther action will be necessary," this was said in the same voice as before, and the turian just seemed to stare at the mammal in the image before him, waiting for her to answer.

OoOoO

A thousand thoughts went through Archer's head as he listened to this stone faced alien read him the riot act. Most of them were born of his Zentraedi blood which told him to just wipe this idiot off the face of the cosmos and then go on to conquer his people. Those thoughts, instincts instilled in his genes, he ignored, and instead followed other lines of thought. Most of those still required a bit of violence, but then, he was willing to give his instincts that much, and the arrogant way this stone face just seemed to think he would surrender, made Archer smirk a little.

"I believe we are at an impasse then. My orders in first contact situations are to try for peaceful relations, but given your first action was to launch an unprovoked attack on one of my subordinates, I feel that avenue has already passed us by. Give me one good reason to submit to the authority of someone who opens fire first, and demands surrender second," said the human, watching that face on the screen in front of him, turning looking out of the corner of his eye to find numbers running across several other screens, showing T'Pol hard at work accessing more of the turian's computers.

"My attack was hardly unprovoked. You were attempting to reactivate a dormant mass relay. That alone is enough to warrant the extermination of your entire formation. The fact that you stopped is the only reason I haven't ordered a full assault," responded the turian, his irritation growing more obvious, even to someone of another species, mostly thanks to the translators actually capturing tone of the statements pretty well.

"Mass relay? You mean the Sling Shot? That's very interesting, considering they're just dormant. If you didn't want someone coming along and reactivating them, your race should have scuttled them completely, rather than just leaving them there," countered Archer, giving the face in the monitor a moment of pause, before he made an odd gesture, his two fingered hand reaching up to tap on the side of his face. Archer, despite this being the first time he'd seen the species, actually recognized it as something analogous to rubbing the bridge of your nose.

"Primitive, so very primitive. I will brook no farther comments from you. I'll offer you five minutes, and when I contact you again, I expect you to surrender to my custody, otherwise I will be forced to obliterate you," and with that the monitor died, the face vanishing, and being replaced by the image of the seven ship formation slowly turning themselves so they were all pointed directly at the Phoenix.

"He seemed rather pleasant," commented T'Pol sarcastically, and Archer could only nod his head in agreement as he turned to face her monitor.

"I'm beginning to think we could learn more from the wreckage of his ships than from the crews," admitted Archer with a smirk.

"Possibly, though doubtful. As of now, I'm in their system completely, and have access to most of their files. Give me a few minutes to work, and I think I could download every byte of data there," she informed the captain, getting the man to raise an eyebrow.

"What about ecm? Aren't their ship board AIs resisting you?" he asked.

"They would be, if they existed. This ships system appears to have no AI controllers at all. In fact, the worst ecm I had to deal with was an attack algorithm, which I've already convinced to not only sit up and roll over, but to play dead for a while," she said, and he watched a little digital avatar of T'Pol playing on the screen with a small dog shaped mass of numbers.

"You have full access then?" he queried, curious as to how far she might have gotten.

"Not total yet. That will take some time, even with this pitiful defense, but I can give you things like a crash course in their history, and who each of the officers on board the cruiser and the frigates are," she told him, flashing pictures and names on his main monitor.

"Can you shut down their weapons?" he asked.

"Given twenty minutes, maybe, but we've barely got four left of Desolas' timelimit. I do think...yes, that would work," her voice seemed distracted, and Archer just sat there, letting the AI think for a few seconds.

"Okay, their ship is weird. I can see lots of protections of things like the shields, the weapons, and even the engines, but the controls for all of those systems are holographic," she told him at last.

"Holographic?" he repeated with a questioning tone.

"Yeah, light projections, not solid state like buttons or switches," she clarified for him.

"And how does that help us?" responded Archer, thinking he knew where she was going with this line of attack, but wanting to make sure.

"Well, every projector is hooked up to the same program, and that program is actually pretty low priority protection. Looking at their schematics, only like half their systems even have any kind of manual override, and all of that's for turning things off, like the engines of the weapons. Heck, I think the doors will be locked solid if the holos are turned off," she said, her monitor showing a wire frame of the larger vessel, and then highlighting what he assumed were the doors on board.

"That seems like quite the system vulnerability," commented Archer, wondering if this was some kind of trick. No species he knew of would have intentionally hobble their defenses against any kind of attack, and to be this open to an attack. It could be a trap, and yet, it was a very inviting one.

"How long till you can shut them down?" he asked at last, looking over at his own monitor, seeing the timer that T'Pol had helpfully provided there, showing he had only a minute and a half until the turian's deadline.

"Any time you're ready captain," she informed him.

"Alright then, inform Shepard to be ready to attack if this goes south. I want her to disable only though. Can she blow something out on their ships that won't destroy them?" he asked, and T'Pol's virtual head nodded.

"Easy, the engines are almost completely separate from the main body of their ships. Her rifle should be able to punch a hole straight through the things. I'm confident that won't be necessary though," she told him, and Archer just nodded.

"Give her the info then, and put Captain Arterius back on my screen," he ordered, watching the countdown vanish only to be replaced with a still annoyed look stone face.

OoOoO

Shepard drifted in space. In front of her, just in visual range, was the formation of arrowhead ships. She had been a bit startled when their engines had flared to life, and for a moment she had been able to fire, only to see that they were just shifting position, and she decided to wait for orders. She wasn't even sure her rifle would work on these things, after all. Those projectiles had been kinetic in nature, almost useless against a barrier system, but there was no telling what defenses she might be up against. One shot might be all she had, and she had better not waste it.

"Hannah, do you copy?" came the voice of T'Pol in her ear, and Shepard clicked a button with her chin, opening a laser channel with the ship, something that couldn't be tapped or tracked unless someone got between her and the Phoenix.

"I'm here, T'Pol. Do you have orders for me?" she asked, and got a face full of info dumping, including a weird stone faced thing, and some wire frame images of the aliens vessels, which soon highlighted sections near their aft portions, right where the glowing thrusters were.

"Affirmative. I'm going to try something that should disable the turian vessels. If it doesn't work though, you'll have to use more forceful means to get our point across. Hit these sections on the ships, and you should destroy their engines completely," said the AI, and Shepard shifted her gaze, the wire frames coming to overlay each of the ships she could see, highlighting her targets.

"Alright, just tell me when if I need to start firing," she said, pressing a release on her double barreled rifle, causing the thing to split down the middle into two single rifles, that she then pointed at the main vessel and one of the supports, her fingers on the triggers, waiting for the order.

OoOoO

"Captain, I'm getting a transmission from the Terran ship," said one of the officers, and Desolas smirked to himself. The primitive still had almost a full minute, and had probably spent the previous four trying to think of some way out. She had obviously realized how outmatched she was, and was calling back slightly early to help smooth over her surrender.

"Bring her back onto my display," ordered Desolas, and was soon confronted with that smooth, asari-like face again.

"Have you considered your position?" he asked, a bit of smugness creeping into his voice, hoping that this confrontation would be just what he'd need to push his star forward, and become a general.

"We have, Captain Arterius. I would like to make a counter proposal. I will send one of my veritechs with you, and one of your frigates will come with me, and we can put this incident behind us, in the name of peace," offered Captain Archer, her voice filled with sincerity. Some of the crew, including Commander Kryik and Lieutenant Vakarian were of a mind that the offer was a good one, after all, this incident could just as easily lead to a war, and after having seen the power of the Terran's odd weapons, they didn't think that would be a good idea.

"Unacceptable! I offer no terms, and will brook no dissent. You will surrender your ships and your crew to my care. We must find out how many of your people have committed this crime, and how much effort it will take to bring you in line with Galactic Law," he stated this, after the first word, in a monotone, trying to put all of his experience at command into the order, and the face in the small screen seemed to sigh, bring up her hands to cover his mouth, before turning to something only she could see.

"T'Pol, can you leave this connection open?" she asked of someone out of view.

"I believe so Captain, shall I begin?" asked another, softer voice.

"Make it so," was the command given, and then all at once, the stations all over the bridge began to wink out. Controls that allowed the turians to monitor everything from engine heat, to mass effect field size, to barrier density, all went dark, and the men and women at the stations took a single moment to see what was going on before beginning to try and force their terminals back to life, but finding them dead. Only one station remained active, this one showing the face of the Terran, who smirked at the turian on the other end, as he looked positively flummoxed.

"Now then Captain Desolas, I think it's time for you to surrender yourself to me," said the Terran, a bit smug now herself, as she fold her arms in front of her. Before Desolas could give an answer though, the image winked out of existence, and the crew was left standing there, their captain almost literally gnashing his mandibles against each other, while across his ship, many found themselves locked in rooms or stations, the door controls vanished.

OoOoO

"What the? T'Pol, what happened to my connection to the turians?" asked Archer, staring at the blank monitor, only to get an answer in the form of the view of the enemy ships, the six frigates starting to warm up.

"I'm sorry, Captain. It seems I underestimated what the algorithms were capable of. As soon as I shut down the holos aboard the main vessel, every outside connection among the frigates shut down automatically," apologized the AI, as the view of six veritech sized ships began to change as they prepared to fire.

OoOoO

"Shepard, take out those frigates!" came the crying voice of the AI in her ear, and Shepard reacted as quickly as one would expect a soldier to. Her fingers already on the triggers of her guns, she pulled off the first two shots without a second between the order and the action. Lances of blue protoculture energy flew from the barrels, and before the two targeted frigates had moved a fraction of a meter, those lances slammed home against the barriers.

Protoculture projectiles were an odd thing. Part energy, part kinetic force, and part heat blast. All three of these tended to mean anything impacted by such a blast was reduced to so much slag, or just out and out vaporized, as many a Zentraedi ship had found at the hands of the large cannons of the SDF-1 during the old Robotech war. Still, this odd mix of energies interacted strangely with the barrier of the turian ships, a thing designed solely for kinetic impact.

The barriers appeared like a bubble around the ships, a small shining shield against the even smaller shots. It gave a little to the attack, the edge pushing inward at the points of impact. Then the formally blue barrier red shifted, as the energy of the projectiles streamed along the surface of the barriers, lines of light crisscrossing the surface, until webs of blue light surrounded the red bubbles, which burst outward into space, the ships stopping dead as their systems failed.

"Life form readings?" demanded Shepard of T'Pol, wondering if they would have to change plans, or if she would be forced to kill the turians, as the two ships began to drift a little.

"They're still alive in there, Shepard," confirmed the AI after a moment, and the commander squeezed off two more shots in quick order, giving only a second of thought as the process repeated before she brought her guns to bare on the last two ships. One had the bubble pop again, but the other apparently had just enough time to turn the barrier off, hoping their armor could take the hit, only to have the beam carve through the metal of their ship, piercing the engine, and unfortunately sending them spinning off into space.

"Captain, that last ship is in a spin, and I'm not going to be able to catch it," she informed Archer, as she tried to jet after the thing. Her momentum should have matched the stupid thing, but somehow the ship kept accelerating away from her, the spin only becoming worse the longer it went.

"Affirmative, I've already got Lieutenant Faraway on it," came an almost instant reply, and Shepard nodded, stopping her pursuit and watching her sensors. Using subtle motions of her jaw, she was able to control the display before her eyes, and get a view of the veritech still in jet mode as it pulled away from the Phoenix, and then punched itself forward as the engines behind it took on the appearance of brightly glowing stars.

Watching him fly, she wondered just how he would stop the frigate as it kept spinning in space, growing more and more distant, and faster too. When the lieutenant reached it, just before it grew too fast for him, she had to whistle a bit due to his impressive stunt. Flipping end over end, he transformed his veritech to guardian mode, arms and legs unfolding from the jet, which then grappled onto the turian vessel, hands locking over engine powers, which he squeezed shut, while adjusting where his feet, tipped with the engines of his jet mode, were positioned, killing the spin of the ship in only a few powerful bursts, before finally stopping it in space.

"Katana Faraway, mission accomplished. Where should I park this one?" asked the young man.

"You and Tulley move the frigates within a few hundred meters of the cruiser, then come back. Shepard, you get back here too. We'll discuss what we're going to do with these turians," said Archer simply, and Shepard watched as Katana began to physically haul the ship through space, Tulley's veritech joining him, before she turned her attention to the Phoenix, wondering just what might be going on aboard the alien vessels, now they they were helpless.

(Author's Note:

I want to thank everyone for their support so far. This is by far the fastest growth of any story's following I have ever had, and that really feels nice. That said, remember, reviews/comments are greatly appreciated, and each one encouraged me to keep going.

That said, as I'm sitting here, reading over this, the third version of chapter 4, I think I might want some help in the editing department, and would ask if anyone reading this would like to become a prereader. I can't offer anything to go with the position of course, but you'd get to read the story a bit early, and help me iron out the details.

Also, I plan on doing a Codex entry list for the universe of Robo Effect, both because lots of other Mass Effect Fanfics do it, and it would be a great way to establish some things I don't feel like doing in the story itself. If you have anything you want to read about in regards to this universe, ask either in a comment/review or in a private message. Tech, Characters, Historic events are all open, though do remember, I am ignoring everything past the Macross Reconstruction Arc of Robotech, so don't bother asking about things that come from the Robotech Masters or beyond, though you might see a few familiar faces from those.)

Chapter Text

Several tense minutes passed on the bridge of the Talons, the Captain still staring at the spot where the Terran's face had been, waiting for it to reappear. At stations with windows, a few turians saw their escort ships begin to advance on the Terran ship, only to be shot from somewhere behind, their kinetic barriers being destroyed before they were adrift, lifeless and seemingly dead. The bridge of the Talons, was unfortunately cut in two by the loss of power, and the command deck on which the Captain, Commander, and a dozen other officers sat, saw nothing of this, only able to wait.

Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, the ship began to hum again, and projectors flared to life. Turians at stations instantly tried to gain control of their ship, only to find said control impossible. Each display showed static information, and not a single control seemed to be present. Worse, the doors, locked due to the controls being gone, and sealed as an emergency precaution against breaches, remained shut, without anyone in anything but the launch bays having any way to cut through the thick alloy of the protective seals.

"Hello, can you hear me?" asked the voice of the Terran again, and her image reappeared before Desolas, floating in the open air, and causing the turian to ball up his right hand into a three fingered fist, ready to punch it, but staying the infantile gesture, and just staring at her in contempt.

"I can hear you, Archer," he told her.

"Excellent, I apologize for the delay, my AI found herself unable to hold off disabling all displays on the ship. She has since corrected the issue, as I'm sure you've noticed," she commented to him, smirking in that infuriating way.

"You will release my vessel, now!" demanded Desolas, pounding his fist into the rail in front of him, leaning forward so that he was almost face to face with the alien. An AI too?! These Terrans flaunted every Council Law! He wouldn't stand for this.

"I'm afraid that is impossible. Your attitude during this has been less than accommodating of a First Contact situation. As such, I am going to be taking control of your vessel. I must now ask if you have any way of transferring personnel between ships in space, as we have been forced to disable your frigates, and they will not be able to fly with us," said the image of the Terran, and Desolas growled in frustration.

"You will release us now! I will not be captured by a primitive scum who doesn't even know what a Prothean is!" he said again, his voice nearly rabid in its intonations.

"That is not going to happen, Captain Arterius. Now do you have a way of transferring personnel or must I-" she was cut off as the turian struck the holo, his fist passing through the image.

"I will not stand for this! I would rather die here than let this stand! All stations, blow out the bulkheads in your section!" he ordered, drawing his own pistol, and then aiming for a spot he knew was a structural weak point on the command deck, a spot thin enough that one well placed mass effect round would expose them to vacuum.

Everything happened at once then, the turians around the bridge seemed to slow down, their brains unable to process a command that was literally suicide. Luckily, those closer to their captain were faster, and Commander Kryik responded to an order of that sort in the only sane way, he punched his commanding officer. Desolas, dropping his aim, stared at his first officer who hit him, and then held his pistol right at him, the officer diving aside just as the captain pulled the trigger, sending fire into the half a dozen stations behind him, and forcing the bridge crew to start going for cover.

Either wanting to punish a disobedient officer first, or forgetting about his own order, Desolas rounded the command display on Nihlus, walking past several huddled officers, mostly cadets, who had no idea what was going on, or what to do. They all just stared as their captain took aim at their commander, and pulled the trigger again, and this time Nihlus was just a slight second too slow, the round burying itself in the flesh of his leg, just above the foot, and causing him to fall down to the deck with a heavy thud, blood already pouring from the wound.

Desolas walked up to his commander, a gleam in his eye telling everyone on the bridge his intentions, as he took aim at Nihlus' head. Before he could pull the trigger, he was struck from behind, hard, and his vision went black, unconscious before he hit the deck, as behind him stood Lieutenant Vakarian, breathing hard, with a pipe held in his hands. Looking down at the knocked out captain, he just stared for a few moments, then walked over, and offered a hand up to his commander, helping him up, and intending on taking him to the medbay, but Kryik waved him towards the face of the Terran instead, and nodding, Vakarian took him to stand before the alien.

"My name is Command Nihlus Kryik. Captain Arterius has been...relieved of his command. That puts me in charge, and I would ask what your terms of our surrender are, before I accept them," said the turian, hopping on one foot, the flesh of his leg torn, but not truly sundered. It could be healed, if they got him to medical, but for now, as Vakarian helped him stand, others on the bridge rushed around, one grabbing the emergency kit to help her commander, while three others aimed their weapons at the unmoving form of their captain, ready to fire if he made a wrong move.

"We hope that this is temporary, as such, terms of surrender are merely that you accompany us to a colony we have in this system. We'll see about getting some diplomats to meet us there, and then we'll accompany you back to your center of government to establish formal relations," said the Terran simply, and Nihlus nodded at the rather open minded demands. If he had been in Archer's position, he doubted he would have been as fair with his terms.

"We accept those terms, though I must admit, even if you release the door controls, none of the ships in our battle group is equipped for personnel transfer in space," he admitted, and it was the Terran's turn to nod.

"Alright, we thought that might be the case but wanted to make sure," she said this, before turning her head to face something behind her.

"T'Pol, do you have the atmospheric mixture for them?" he asked, no answer could be heard, but the Terran soon turned her head back towards Kryik.

"Alright, we'll generate an artificial atmosphere envelope. When that's done, you should be able to get your crews between the ships, remind them to bring as much supplies as they can, as I don't think we'll be able to feed you with our rations," said the Terran, causing the turians in the bridge to wonder just what he was on about, before he vanished.

The instant he was gone, everyone was startled to find doors all over the ship flying open, including those that lead out into space, and allowing them free movement again. Intraship communications were still down, but Vakarian quickly adapted, ordering the various bridge personnel to spread out and give word to everyone of the altered command structure, while he escorted Commander Kryik to the medbay, and a few of the cadets were ordered to take Captain Arterius to holding, to await a decision.

OoOoO

"Well, that should take them a while. How long can you keep the envelope up?" asked Archer as he turned to T'Pol's monitor.

"As long as we need. Better question, who's going over to their ship? It's gonna be a bit cramped," said the AI, looking through her monitor at the crew of the Phoenix, all seven of which had jammed themselves into the bridge. All eyes instantly turned to the woman at the rear of the group, still wearing the base of her powered armor.

"Like you have to ask?" she said with a smirk. This was, after all, part of her job. She was trained as a First Contact specialist. At least one person on the Sling Shot...she supposed Mass Relay, repair crews was. As such, she would try and make a good first impression, but the captain, nodding solemnly, seemed to have something else in mind for her.

"Alright, you'll transfer there while we've got the envelope up," he told her, and she saluted, about to leave, when he held up his hand.

"And I want you micronized before you go over," he added, and her expression drooped quite a lot, as the gunners began to snicker a little, until Tulley whacked the one closest to her on the back of the head.

"I don't think that's necessary, sir," said Shepard, and Archer shook his head at her.

"I do. You're going over there to establish some connections, not squash anyone, and besides, if the schematics T'Pol got of the ship are right, the only places you'd fit are their loading bays, and I'm certain they'll be storing supplies there. In order to be friendly, I want you to see eye to eye with these turians, so get down to their level, and then make some friends," said Jonathan in that voice that seemed to cut off any argument.

"Aye, sir," said Shepard. The command had been given, and she was going to follow it, even if she didn't like it. Micornizing was a bit disconcerting, both due to the reduction in size and mass, but also because of what it involved. Still, it was common enough. Engineering staff sometimes needed to do it to reach very tight spaces on ships, and so anything the size of the frigate had a tube to allow it, one she walked right up to, and then shuddered a little as she began to strip.

Outside, she heard the footsteps of her comrades as they prepared for their own tasks. The ship would need to turn around now, and head to Shanxi, the local colony in the area that had discovered the mass relay that was the cause of this whole thing. The colony was an agricultural world, light on metals and other resources, but heavy on arable land, which Terran crops took well to. Of course, at best speed it was over two weeks away.

Finishing stripping, Shepard placed the armor base suit in a nearby locker, before stepping up to the tube. It was, in basic terms, just a glass booth with a smaller version of itself at about ankle level. The only break in it were various openings in the floor and ceiling, all of which were closed at the moment, but would open the instant she was inside and shut the door. Gathering her courage, Shepard did just that, hearing the click of the door as if it was a coffin nail.

The instant that door closed, liquid began to pour from overhead. Not slowly, like a nice shower, but all at once, like a hose. The stuff, unlike water, tingled too, causing her to get goosebumps over her skin, as the stuff began to rise, quickly filling the chamber. When it reached her neck Shepard, involuntarily, took a deep breath, and let the stuff cover her completely, as she tightly closed her eyes, wishing she had something to listen to other than the whir of machinary.

Then it happened. The liquid entered a charged state, and arcs of lightning played over her skin from small electrodes set in the walls of the tube. Her skin felt like it was on fire, and she gasped, opening her eyes, her muscles twitching as she tried to stay still. Around her, the water was filled with tiny drops of light, coming off of her skin, and she felt, though she had been told it was psycho-semantic, that she was losing energy, being drained like a battery.

Slowly, the world around her grew, the walls of the tube pulling away from her as she collapsed in on herself. This process, of getting the protoculture literally torn from her body, was painful, but she endured, her training requiring it of her. Soon, the final drop emerged, and the liquid was draining out of the tube, leaving a nude, glimmering wet Shepard coughing on the floor, her body falling it its knees as her legs had to again support her weight.

"Hate that," she said to herself as she rose. Her skin looked red in places, but otherwise fine. The process was, after all, used regularly enough that it was safe, even if it was painful. Still, she did a quick physical check of herself, ending in a series of stretches, pulling on muscles that, without the backing of protoculture, felt stiff and weak, but she figured she'd get used to that soon enough. Walking forward, she shook herself a bit, the last drops of the liquid falling to the floor of the tube before she walked to the slightly distant tube door, and let herself out.

Outside, the world was now huge. She could recognize things only by the fact that she had set them up. Beside the tube was locker where she had just stored the clothes she'd been wearing, her boots that had seemed so light, now larger and heavier than her. She tried her best to ignore that though, or the shuddering impacts of the others still moving around outside as she walked to the nearby smaller locker, and soon picked out a set of clothing, something a little more casual than the engineers' work suits, and finally made her way to a small door in the wall.

Inside the wall were the corridors an engineer would use to avoid running into a full sized Terran while at micro size. Around her she could see the tubes and pumps of protoculture that powered the ship, each with a green glow that she found comforting as she walked forward, being greeted by a hissing sound as a small lift came to rest in front of her.

"Would you like a ride to the nearest airlock?" asked T'Pol's voice.

"How long would it take me to get there on my own?" she asked, genuinely curious as she stepped onto the lift, and grabbed onto the pole in the center, before the thing rose off the floor and started down towards the destination.

"About twenty minutes, but I can get us there in one. Oh, and Katana's got a supply kit waiting for you there, since I don't think you'll be able to eat what the turians do," aid the AI as the lift flew on. Nodding at this, Shepard just stared out of the holes in the wall, small vents, and watched as her friends, still full sized, could move at a walk faster than she could do at a run now. Being micronized sucked, but she did understand, and besides, it would be nice to get to learn about these strange aliens.

OoOoO

Commander Corinthus looked out the view port of his bridge, and felt utterly floored. The instant contact with the command cruiser had been lost, the formation went into action, ready to burn their way out of what was obviously some kind of trap, and bring a larger fleet back with them. Then something had shot at two of the six frigates. What it was, he still had no idea, as none of the radar, ladar, or even thermograph showed anything.

Worse, it fired again almost right after, disabling his own precious, Claw Four. The shot had been odd to say the least though. It impacted the barrier, and it blew it outward. The view of it from inside was so radically different than anything he had ever seen before that he was certain it was some kind of geth weapon. Those synthetics had been hiding behind the Veil for generations now, and they must be making their move, a fact that nearly had him bouncing off the walls.

Then, it looked like his suspicions were confirmed, as a bipedal synthetic form as large as his frigate came by, and he grabbed a side arm, ready to repel boarders, or die whenever the geth decided to blow his ship away. It didn't come to that though. Instead, he felt his ship move, the mass effect field still high enough to give them some gravity, as the mech pulled them, dragging them physically into sight of the rest of the formation, before flying off.

When finally, every ship was in sight, a larger craft came into view. He recognized it instantly, the mothership of the formation that had been reactivating a dormant mass relay. Seeing it with his own eyes, without the holos coloring it orange, he hand to wonder about it. It was green in coloration, a dark, forest green that was counterpointed by two bulges on either side of the hull which were light blue instead. More importantly, it had rounded edges and curves, where he knew warships to be more angular and from behind he could see two great engines pushing the thing forward, their glow almost blinding as he looked at them.

Then another flash, this one seemingly filling the whole of space around the ship, and Corinthus thought he was dead, only for the light to fade a moment later, and he could see something out there, a distortion just beyond the large vessel, which oddly distorted the light of the stars beyond. Worried, wondering what this strange vessel would do to him and his crew, the Commander did his best to reassure his pilot, looking out at the strange alien vessel, praying to the ancestors for salvation.

And now the strangest thing of all happened. Out of the view port he saw a shape coming from the cruiser Talons in the distance. At first, he thought they were just ejecting some trash out of an airlock, wasteful, but with them stopped the way they were, maybe the best way to do it. Then it came closer, and he noticed some odd shapes to it, until finally, it came right up to the view port of his bridge, and knocked. Just casual as you please, a turian, without a space suit just a small thruster pack, was knocking on the window.

Quickly, he got the message, and let the turian in, a cadet from the cruiser. It seemed that the formation had surrendered to the aliens, and would be accompanying them to their homeworld in the system. His ship dead in the water, the alien cruiser hanging overhead, and somehow making a field of breathable air in space, he didn't argue the surrendering part, and quickly got his crew to start making preparations to leave, prioritizing food and supplies due to the aliens apparently doubtful they could feed them.

Luckily, the formation had been on a long patrol, weeks worth of stores were on every vessel, enough to last every turian at least a month or two. Packing it all up, he had the men and women of his command get to the airlock, and with some trepidation, he opened himself to space, holding his breath for as long as he could, before taking in the strange air outside. It tasted odd, too much nitrogen he thought, but was otherwise breathable, and so he motioned for his crew to follow him, feeling odd as he leapt into the weightless void of space.

All around him, he saw other crews doing the same as he was, the commanders directing lines of turians to their waiting vessel. The sight of suitless beings literally jumping from ship to ship, some assisted by thrusters, but most just using their legs, was a little disconcerting, but Corinthus put on the best face he could for his troops. Then all motion stopped, as suddenly a sound echoed through the air, a whirring loudness of motors, and a huge section of the alien ship opened up.

Oddly, out of the opening came only a single form, before it closed up. This thing, looking like your average sentient, grabbed a spot on the hull of its vessel and pushed off, joining the line of turians in their entrance, and causing many an eye to turn towards the alien. Soon, she grew closer, and details began to stand out. She was the common form for most sentient life. Two arms, two legs, and a head, in the typical proportions. That was good at least, as if they'd been like the hanar or the elcor there might have ben some problems getting her on board.

He was sure it was a she too, as she grew closer. Her skin was smooth, like an asari's, though where that race had blue skin, like a sapphire, this one had white or pinkish white skin. The fur on top of her head was blue though, though shaded far darker than most asaris skin. She wore an odd garment as well, with a backpack that appeared as green as she ship she had launched from, but a single piece suit of weirdly dark blue material. It appeared as smooth as her skin as she grew closer, and though seemed to be made of some odd padded material. The thing also seemed to have a single zipper in the front, and the shoulders were separated from the rest by a line of golden yellow that circled around them.

Slowly she came onward, the distance she traveled greater than those of the turians from the frigates. Most stopped at the airlocks though, and watched her come down, her flight sure and true, even without thruster assistance. She landed like a dancer, her hand reaching out to the hull of the cruiser, and then flipping her end over end, before her feet smashed down heavily into the air lock, landing in a mass effect field. She didn't falter though, or fall to her knees, and instead snapped what was obviously a salute at Corinthus.

"Permission to join you in coming aboard the Talons?" she asked in a rather polite tone, her accent a bit odd as it came out of his omnitool and into his ear, but otherwise, she seemed the model of a military officer.

"I give you my permission to join my group," he said, returning the salute to her, in the turian fashion of hand over heart, and she nodded, waiting at the rear of the line, as everyone came on board and then the air locks shut behind them. Every pair of eyes was on the female alien, who stood slightly shorter than the average turian male, topping out at about five and a half feet tall. Almost everyone seemed to be trying to give her space though, like she was some massive giant they were afraid to get near.

"Can one of you escort me to Commander Kryik?" she asked as the airlock finished cycling, and everyone was allowed into the ship proper.

"The Commander was taken to the medbay to deal with an injury he received. That's two decks down from here. Commander Corinthus, you know where the quarters are?" asked the turian who had come from the main ship to get him. Corinthus nodded at the question.

"You and your crew will be sharing block D. You may stow your gear in then report to Petty Officer Kree on the command deck for duty assignments," said the cadet, before motioning for the alien to follow him, guiding her to one of the lifts on the level, and then slowly lowering into the ground. Wishing her luck, as he always hated riding the slow things, he ordered his group to form up, and start walking to their new quarters.

OoOoO

"Sir, reporting with our emissary from the Terrans," said the cadet as he stopped in front of a bed. On it was a turian, like the others she'd been seeing since she'd joined that group coming aboard, he was stone like face. She could see now though, that it was more like scales than rough stone. Oddly, it had taken her some time to notice, but every one of them wore makeup. At first, she thought that might mean they were a crew of females, but after spying a few with smoother features, she decided they were the females of the species, and the face paint was probably just some cultural thing.

"Ah, hello. How was the trip over?" asked the one lying in the bed. His leg was bandaged up, with long strips of cloth wrapped around it, as he kept it over a bucket of some kind of glowing stuff. What it was she didn't know, but Shepard guessed it was some kind of healing gel.

"The trip was uneventful, luckily. Commander Hannah Shepard, First Officer, and First Contact Specialist of the Phoenix," she identified herself, saluting in the way she'd seen the turian do in the airlock. This gesture seemed to impress the one in front of her, his white face nodding, before he returned the gesture.

"Excellent. I am Commander Nihlus Kryik, current Captain of the Talons, until a full inquiry can be held," he responded, wincing a little as he tried to move a little, only to bump his foot against the side of the bucket it was in, causing a turian in white robes, either a priest or a medic, though she assumed the later, clicking her mandibles together in annoyance.

"I am to inform you that we are to make our way to the second planet of this system, which we've designated Shanxi. From there, we'll see what the politicians want, but we've already contacted them, and they're getting accommodations ready for five hundred of your people," she told him, and Commander Kyrik nodded thoughtfully, before motioning for her to sit down.

"You say that like it will take us some time to get to this world. Seeing how your weapons are different, I'm going to go out on a limb and say your drive is not quite as fast as ours," he told her, and seemed to nod thoughtfully herself.

"For us, the trip is two weeks. It took us as long to make it here to the Sling-er, Mass Relay. We hope this will give us time to talk, and more importantly, time for the politicians to make up their minds," she told him, and that seemed to get a chuckle from the officer in front of her, showing that political red tape was probably a universal concept.

"Still faster than the Hierarchy. In the meantime, do you have the supplies you'll need?" asked the turian.

"I have enough to last the trip, and if I need more, I can ask the Phoenix to send some over," she told him.

"Good, good. Is there anything we can do for you then? Your people have been very accommodating of us, considering the captain's actions, and I would hate to seem like a bad host," this was said with a smirk, and Shepard, despite herself, grinned in return.

"All I need is a bunk, and some history tapes. I want to learn everything I can about your people, before we land on Shanxi," she said this in a serious tone, the grin vanishing, and Kryik nodded again. That sounded like a good idea, maybe a way to avoid the misunderstandings that had led to his formation save the command ship being disabled. He seemed to be deep in thought for a few minutes, before suddenly sitting up, and pointing at a turian standing by the medbay entrance.

"Vakarian, you're applying for a position in C-Sec, right?" asked the commander, and the turian seemed to be a bit caught off guard, but responded after only a moment's thought.

"As soon as this tour was complete, sir," answered the turian, and the commander pointed at him.

"Alright, Lieutenant Vakarian, I appoint you Commander Shepard's personal history envoy. C-Sec Citadel Security. It's the center of galactic society, and so they're run through a crash course on history. If anyone in the crew can answer your questions, it'll be him," explained Kryik, and if she didn't know any better, Shepard would have sworn she saw Vakarian blush, but he recovered so quickly, she might have imagined it, as he stepped forward, and gave his commander a salute.

"I won't let you down, sir. Should I take her back to my bunk then?" he asked, and Kryik just snorted out a laugh at him.

"No, no, this is an emissary of a foreign government. You'll be taking the state quarters on level 2," he informed Vakarian, who's eyes bulged out a little.

"Sir, those are the Captain's quarters," he protested, and that only seemed to make Kryik smirk again.

"And he won't be needing them for this trip. Now, go get your gear and put it in your new quarters. Cadet?" this last was directed at the one who'd brought Shepard to the medbay in the first place.

"Sir?" he asked.

"Please escort Command Shepard to her bunk for the trip," the order given, the cadet saluted again, and motioned for Shepard to follow. Giving a Terran salute, with the hand just above the eyes, Shepard turned on a heel and followed, trying not to mentally gripe as she got in the left again, and it slowly made its way to another deck.

OoOoO

A few minutes later, Shepard was settling into her new quarters. Normally, all she'd find in such a thing was just a couch or chair, and a monitor or two. Here, there was a large bed in one corner, though it took her a minute to recognize it as such. Her body seemed to realize what it was right away of course, but she resisted the urge to lay down in it, setting her pack in one corner, and slipping out a small can from it.

Pushing a button, the can dispensed a small, glowing purple stick, that she quickly set into her mouth, making a face at the bitter taste before swallowing it down. Patting her stomach, which gurgled at her in protest of the odd food stuff, she set the can back into her pack, and then made her way to the couch, sitting down and waiting. Luckily, Vakarian didn't take long to arrive, a pack over his own arm which he set in the corner opposite hers, before taking a seat in a desk chair.

"So, Hannah Shepard is your name?" asked the turian, and she nodded.

"My name's Vakarian, Arus Vakarian. I'm a lieutenant in the Hierarchy military and...uh, is there anything you want to now?" he asked, his hand going up to scratch the back of his head in an almost universal sign that showed he didn't know what to say. The blue haired Terran actually found the action endearing, as she chuckled at him, and then leaned forward in her seat.

"As I said, I want to know history, so why don't we start at the earliest event you know, and then work our way forward," she offered, and he nodded, clicking his mandibles together, before starting.

"Alright. Almost three thousand years ago, the asari, a race of blue aliens that look like you, found a place called the Citadel..."

OoOoO

(Author's Notes:

If you want a better description of the Terran Frigate, just do a google search for Zentraedi Scout Ship the first image is an image of the ship. Also, yes, for those who recognize it, Shepard is wearing the uniform of a command officer from Star Trek: Enterprise. I decided to run with that theme. No, this is not a star trek cross over as well, I just liked the reference.)

Chapter Text

As Shepard and Vakarian continued to swap stories about their peoples, from the Robotech Wars, to Krogan Rebellions, the galaxy beyond moved on. In the Citadel, the Council continued to meet with the batarian embassy, trying to force them to cease their attempts to annex the Skyllian Verge, while offering small compensations in trade for their cooperation. The ambassador, of course, agreed to consider their proposal, while thinking of how best to turn the deal to his personal advantage.

Deep in the Verge, a fleet of ships surrounding a dreadnaught hung in the sky over a beautiful world. At the helm of it stood a general, looking at the reports streaming into his stations. Five and a half dozen formation were now launched and out amid the Local Cluster and the Verge, and he was trying to keep track of them all, to make sure nothing escaped his eye. That would have been easier had one Lieutenant not misplaced a report, which talked of a patrol not reporting in at scheduled check in, so the general knew nothing of the lost formation.

Far away from the events of the galactic stage, in a small system near the galactic rim, there were other meetings. These were of a more frantic nature than those of the Council or the general. Arguments flared up, as politicians, military minds, and even science advisers nearly came to blows. All across the Sol System, people were hearing the news, a new race, encountered near Shanxi. Information beyond that was tightly controlled though, and most, despite the arguments, were merely waiting to hear what came next.

At the edge of the Sol System, inside the former dwarf planet Pluto, now Gloval Station, the Federation Senate was hard at work, going over every byte of data they had. For many, this was the most work they had ever had to put in as representatives of their various political groups. Shouting over each other to be heard, they demanded further answers, or demanded war with the turians over them taking a pot shot at one of their own, and in the cacophony nothing was really being decided.

Deeper still inside the station, in a room that was sealed off to all save a few, five being met. The Conclave, the leaders of the Federation, and the ones who would have the toughest decisions to make. Each member knew that what they decided here would literally change the course of history, and alter how the rest of the galaxy saw them, so they sat ruminating on their own points of view, going over the various reports and data feeds they had regarding this First Contact with life in the Milky Way.

They sat at a circular table, with each one being able to look their fellows in the eye. At one seat was Amanda Hayes, a woman who, despite her size, was one of those with the most human DNA, only her great grandfather being a Zentraedi. Her title was Representative, and she was supposedly the Senate's will on the council, though she thought of herself as more than that, and always approached problems with the utmost caution. Now nervous, but not afraid, she fondled a bit of her long, brown hair, while looking around the table with her emerald green eyes.

To her left was a true Terran, a man with an almost equal mixture of both Zen and Human blood in him. His hair white and his skin a pale purple, where those around him were white, brown, and blue. Alexander Grant by name, this man, represented the union of the two species, and was the Administrator of Gloval Station. His word here, in this great place, the largest facility ever constructed, was nearly law. He was seen as a fair man though, if a bit focused on music sometimes, and never acted rashly.

To the left of him sat a much more grim faced man. Blue skin and black hair were supplemented by silver metal covering half his face, and a green eye that had replaced his organic one. He rarely noticed this anymore, after all, the injury itself was almost two millennia old. He was a pure Zentraedi, one of six remianing among the Terrans, all six being command Zentraedi, designed so they didn't truly age, but merely grew wiser. His name was Breetai, and we was the Supreme Commander of the Federation Fleets.

To his left was another pure Zentraedi, just as old, and a friend to Breetai for many years. Prime Thinker Exedore, with brown skin, red hair, and a short disposition. Standing at only forty five feet in height, compared to the Terran standard sixty feet, he was far smaller of stature, but two thousand years had led him to become one of the sharpest minds in the Federation. Respected among almost all communities, for both his science and his diplomacy, he was content with his lot, and actually smiled at his companions.

To his left, completing the circle, was the oddest member of the group. Called Terran, but lacking blood, he was an AI. Calling himself Collective Amalgam, he represented the wills of all the AI's in the Federation, regularly sampling the mental states of his peers. Still, despite knowing what his kind thought whenever they wanted him to know it, he was an independent entity, his chair a large monitor on which he displayed an image of a wireframe man, sitting down as the others were.

Thus was the circle, Representative Hayes, Administrator Grant, Supreme Commander Breetai, Prime Thinker Exedore, and Collective Amalgam. These were the leaders of the Federation, their words would echo across all the stars the Terran masses controlled, and today, they faced one of the hardest moments of their history, and everyone at the table knew, if they made a wrong move, it could forever damage their people. So they sat there, waiting as Amalgam swept the room for bugs, waiting to voice their thoughts.

"There are no listening devices in the room that the sensors can detect," said the AI at last, facing his peers, as they all let out a nervous breath they'd been unconsciously holding.

"That won't last forever here, so I suggest we just drop all pretense and lay our thoughts on the table as they are now," suggested Hayes as she ran her fingers through her hair, straightening it, as the others nodded.

"I say we send the SDF-3 to their homeworld. Their first action was an unwarranted attack on a vessel that they hadn't even known the intentions of. That sort of people only understand force," said Grant, pushing a button to bring up a galaxy map on the surface of the table. A single star shone on it, Palavan's primary of Trebia, according to the data the AI T'Pol had provided in her transmission.

"I would propose a more cautious approach. We have the advantage of time at the moment, and it wouldn't do to leap into a battle that would waste lives. I feel an embassy in an ambassadorial ship, sent to this, Citadel, to meet with the Council would be the best approach," said Exedore, and a button push from him brought up another space, this time a massive nebula, focusing on a single star in it that contained the massive structure as the turian computer had pictured it.

"Normally, I would agree with Grant. The sort of military who's allowed to use a shoot first, ask questions later, policy is one that lacks proper oversight from its government. Still, I will throw my vote behind Exedore's plan first. Our fleets can evacuate our colonies in only a fortnight, and it is doubtful that these turians have the might to withstand the power of Gloval Station," said the blue skinned man, nodding at his friend. The others at the table seemed a little surprised at the military man's agreement with him, considering they often had heated arguments regarding proper expansions of both population and science, but Amalgam quickly took his own turn to speak.

"Given that, I will say, my own thoughts align more with Grant's. These people, their history is a long police action over the 'lesser' races of this galaxy, and includes many laws that literally ban artificial life. While I haven't gone over every byte of data yet, their history, both ancient and recent, suggests they will brook no dissent on what they deem right. I therefore must suggest a show of force to demonstrate we are not to be trifled with," said the AI, and everyone turned to stare at him.

"Really, AIs are illegal?" asked Exedore, pulling up some of the data they'd been sent. Amalgam was able to quickly turn the data to the relevant passages, and waited as they all read through it.

"Would they really go so far?" asked Representative Hayes looking through some of the punishments for AI development, including things that would have an effect on an entire culture, for something that could be started by only a few.

"They have already done so, given their treatment of another race, these quarians, and they've literally got a shoot on sight order for any ship of the geth they find," said Amalgam simply, turning their displays again, so they could see the orders plain as day.

"That is most disturbing. Currently almost a twentieth of Federation citizens are AIs, and that's not even considering how much industry depends on your people," said Grant, thinking about his job, and how much harder it would becoming running a station the size of a dwarf planet without the assistance of intelligent computers.

"And yet, we do not know how they would react to a culture that already has such citizens in its ranks. I say a peaceful approach would be best, approach them as brothers, and perhaps we will find them more accepting than the records on a military ship would imply," added Exedore, and every eye and sensor turned to Hayes, as she read over the section before her, including a rather thorough description of what was to be done with any geth found outside their home.

"As the deciding vote for this. I say we split the difference. We want to show military force, let us send a cruiser with the turian prisoners on board to the Citadel. Fly the flag, and tell them we will not be bullied. If they insist on a confrontation, it wouldn't take long to Fold in the New Macross, and show them the folly of a war with us," she said, and all three of the men in the room nodded. A cruiser, over a mile in length, was a match for mass with most of the turians' known dreadnaughts designs. It would also be able to provide a direct Fold beacon for the SDF-3 if worst came to worst, and the ensuing gunship rescue would be more than enough to show their might.

"That sounds reasonable. I would, of course, like to send a more peaceful vessel, but if Amalgam is correct, we will need to protect our non-biological citizens from their bigotry," said Breetai, already going over in his head which ship would be appropriate to send.

"Hmm, this information on the treatment of AIs does indeed change many of my own plans. Still, a bit of saber rattling shouldn't provoke them too hard. I should like to accompany the ship personally however. This new technology sounds positively fascinating," said Exedore, pushing a few keys to bring up some of the schematics they'd been able to uncover, including for a so called mass effect engine, something that would improve the speed of a ship in real space by more than an order of magnitude.

"I would feel better sending a command ship, but a cruiser would be less intimidating. I agree to this plan," said Grant after a few chin stroking motions.

"This would satisfy my concerns, as long as the diplomat in charge is aware of the position of the AIs," added Amalgam.

"Indeed, if this is to work, we must send a diplomat capable of bargaining in full confidence with them. It wouldn't do to send someone who could be unduly influenced," said Breetai, and Hayes nodded beside him.

"As that is the case, I propose myself for the position. As Representative of the Senate, I could deal in full confidence with them, and as a member of the Conclave I have the authority to make treaties. Hopefully, if I make them aware of that, and the fact that I could call in the big guns, they'll be less likely to try any strong arm tactics," said the woman, and all three men and the AI looked at her for a moment, before solemnly nodding their heads. It wouldn't due to send a low level bureaucrat with no authority, and while Representative Hayes was a valuable chip to just hand an enemy, if worst came to worst, she would have the backing of an SDF at a moment's notice.

"So, a cruiser, with two members of the Conclave aboard, but with the SDF-3 waiting to swoop in if things become dicey. Is this plan approved? Vote," said Amalgam, and the desk in front of him glowed green a second later, showing his consent to the plan. The others on the Conclave all reached forward, and soon, the entire table top was shaded in the same color.

"Motion passes. Breetai, if you would provide us with a cruiser, we'll need to leave right away to Shanxi. If we can, I would like to get those turians off world the day after they arrive, to avoid any unfortunate accidents," as she said this, all three men at the table looked down at their heavy boots, and nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. A few minutes later, they all left, Exedore and Hayes to prepare for a trip, Grant and Amalgam to the station's Command and Control Center to continue their duty of running it, and Breetai to contact a cruiser for transport.

OoOoO

"Captain Sheridan, you have a message from Gloval Station," said a voice in the dark, and suddenly a man in uniform hopped up, his hand going to his belt and the shiny bit of silver he kept there. He let his hand drop as he realized where the speaking voice was coming from. Blinking a little, the man went over to the wall and pushed a button to turn the lights on in his relaxation chamber, before going to the monitor. On it was displayed the face of one of the ships many lieutenants.

"Anyone important?" asked Sheridan as he tried to clear the fog from his head, meditation was supposed to be a good way of keeping your mind sharp, and Sheridan liked the idea of it, even if he sometimes found it hard to focus coming out of it.

"Supreme Command Breetai," said the lieutenant in the same way you might say the name of one of those pompous wind bag senators.

"Patch him in right away then," said Sheridan as he straightened his uniform, wondering what the master of the Terran Military would want with him. Luckily, it took a few seconds for the blue skinned man's face to resolve on his monitor, and by the time he was staring into that green electronic eye, he looked at least somewhat presentable.

"This is Captain Tron Sheridan of the Agamemnon, how may I be of service today?" asked Sheridan as he snapped off a salute to the man in the monitor. Breetai returned the salute in a quick fashion, and the captain went to a rest pose as he waited for orders.

"As time is moving quicker than I'd like, I'll get right to the point. Are you aware of what's been happening around the Shanxi colony?" asked the Supreme Commander, and Sheridan had to think for a few moments, before shaking his head.

"I'm afraid the news we've been getting has been rather oblique sir. Something is happening there, I'm aware of that, but the details are rather sketchy," he admitted, and Breetai nodded at him, stroking his chin.

"Indeed. Then I shall be brief. The Frigate, Phoenix, while reactivating the Sling Shot discovered in the system a few weeks ago, made first contact with a micronian race called the turians," Sheridan, a trained captain in the Terran military, was still unable to hide a look of surprise as it crossed his face for a moment at the announcement. After all, they'd been hoping to run into someone out in the Milky Way for almost a decade now.

"Are they the ones who built the Slings?" asked Sheridan after a moment, wondering if he was being deployed for battle against those people, who's devices were said to have more power in them than the entire Terrana fleet.

"Negative. They're simply a race that makes use of them," he said, and Sheridan didn't even try to hide the relief on his face at that news.

"However, there was an altercation and the turians are now on their way to Shanxi with the Phoenix, they'll arrive in a few days. By the time they're there, I want you and your ship, along with a diplomatic embassy on site. From there, you'll be launching to a station called the Citadel. I trust you'll be discreet on the mission, without antagonizing the aliens," said Beertai, a simple statement of fact.

"I'll be sure to walk softly around the little people, Supreme Commander," acknowledged Sheridan.

"Good, come to dock with Gloval Station to pick up the embassy, and then set out as soon as you can," and with those words, Beertai cut the transmission, leaving the monitor dark for a moment, before the symbol of the Federation, a picture of Earth, started to spin in the monitor. Quickly, Sheridan went over a mental list of what he was going to have to do, while exiting the relaxation chamber, and heading off to the bridge to inform his crew their simply patrol mission was about to becoming something a lot more important.

(Author's Note:

While researching for this chapter, it was brought to my attention that Exedore's height is listed officially as 46 feet. That's relatively tall, of course, but it comes with an oddity of him being only about three quarters the height of a regular Zentraedi, especially when compared to Breetai, who's height is officially 13.54 meters, which comes out to only 45 feet. As such, average height for the Terrans, and Breetai's own height is changed to around 60 feet for this story. For anyone curious, the reason for the difference is of course, Robotech is kind of cobbled together, and so different media(Comics, Anime, and Novels), all list some different stats.

Chapter Text

"And then he slipped and fell into the ravine, getting mud all over his clothes," said Hannah, and Arus started laughing again, slapping at his knee as the two of them shared a drink of water and swapped stories. Twelve days had passed as the ship made its way slowly through the system, and they had long since run out of historic topics to talk about, with Vakarian learning about the Robotech Wars and the M51 Galaxy, while Shepard learned of the Rachni War, the Krogan Rebellions, and just about every other major event in the last three thousand years of galactic history.

"Oh my, your son must have hated that," responded Arus and Shepard just nodded in response, before they both leaned back in their chairs and sighed a bit.

"Ah, children, the greatest joy a parent can have, right?" asked Hannah as she sipped at her water, and Arus nodded.

"I wouldn't trade Garrus and Solana for anything," he admitted, and they sat there in silence for a long moment, mentally enjoying that glow that came from thinking of one's family. When Arus was just about to ask a question regarding Hannah's again, he was interrupted by a loud beeping sound on his wrist. With a flicking motion, a small control board appeared above his hand, and he pressed a few buttons to cause a wall display to turn on, revealing the face of Command Kryik.

"Hmm, it seems you two are doing well," commented the turian in charge, and Arus smiled at him, giving him a quick salute as he rose to his feet, one mirrored by Hannah as she set her water bottle aside and did the same.

"It's been a productive time, Commander. I would gather though, our time is at an end," said Lieutenant Vakarian, causing Nihlus to nod in response.

"We'll be landing on Shanxi in a few minutes, and I would like Mrs. Shepard to come to the bridge, if it wouldn't be too much trouble," said the commander, before the holo folded in on itself and vanished. Looking at that wall for a moment, Shepard sighed and pulled at her clothing, trying to get a few wrinkles out of it as she made her way to the door.

"Well, we both knew this was going to be temporary, but I want to thank you, while we have this moment. You've been very helpful learning about galactic history," she said, offering Arus her hand. The turian, after a moment's hesitation, took the offered appendage and shook it, in the way she'd showed him that first day, before gathering up his own things.

"Not like you didn't give as good as you got. I'm sure I'm going to be in for a long debriefing because of this time with you. Mind, this probably also made my career," he noted as he slung a pack across his back, Shepard doing the same, and then marching out of the quarters to find an honor guard of turians waiting for them. Smiling, in a non-threatening way, Shepard motioned towards the nearby lift, and only looked a little apprehensive as the thing made its way, slowly, downwards to the command level.

After what felt like hours, mostly thanks to the elevator, the group arrived on the bridge to find it a bustle of activity. At every station there seemed to be a commander watching over the shoulder of the junior officers, usually offering some suggestion or another that the younger turians were far to disciplined to tell their superiors were just common sense. Worse of course, were the group of three of them standing at the back, over the main holodisplay, which currently showed a picture of the planet, and two scaled up versions of the ships so they could be seen orbiting it.

"Ah, Shepard, there you are," said Kryik as he stepped away from his two fellows, and gestured for her to join him at the viewing area above the main display.

"Indeed. I see we're here," she commented, looking down at the display.

"Yes, though we've found something odd in orbit. You said this was an agricultural colony, mostly farming, with only your own frigate as a defender. Yet there appears to be something rather a bit larger hanging in the skies," pushing a few buttons, the model of the planet grew closer, before focusing in on a vessel.

It looked odd to the turians. Once again, it lacked the straight lines of the warships they were used to, instead having smooth curves for edges. The design itself was odd as well, larger than the Phoenix, about on par with an average dreadnaught, and with many small protrusions on it that Shepard had identified as either reflex weapons or missile turrets. The overall shape was of a long shaft sticking out of a wide rear section, which had several engines on the rear. The oddest thing of all though was it's location. Where they knew mass like that had to be kept in space, since it was difficult at best to launch it from a planet, this this was hanging on about a mile off the planet's surface, far deeper than anything that size should have been able to go.

"That's a cruiser, probably for the politicians come to meet us here," she said, moving her hand over the control, and zooming in on a small section on the front of the hull.

"Not a number I recognize,however," she admitted, before pointing to what was obviously writing, though it wasn't in a script the turians knew of course, and was hard to read anyway due to the holo displaying it as just orange without the coloring.

"Can you open a communication line with the Phoenix?" she asked at last, and Kryik nodded towards one of the waiting cadets, who quickly brought up the flat screen hologram display that then showed the face of Captain Archer.

"Ah, Shepard, was wondering when you'd get around to talking to us again," said the captain.

"Eh, any time away from your ugly mug is good time," she said, causing the captain to chuckle as he pushed a few buttons in front of him.

"Yeah, yeah. Okay, Shanxi control says you guys can set down in a landing facility they set up for you on the north side of the colony. It's already got a crowd of soldiers around it," said the captain, who's face slid over as the planetary map grew next to it. Slowly the map zoomed in on the colony, and then began to crisscross it, before finally focusing on a large structure surrounded by armored forms.

"I think this is it, Sir. There appears to be several of those robotic forms around it, like the one that was repairing the relay, but smaller," said a nearby cadet, and Shepard smirked a little. She'd realized, halfway to Shanxi that none of the turians had any idea how large Terrans were normally. Rather than let that fact slip, she kept it to herself, figuring it would be good for a laugh right about now.

"If it's got about fifty guys around it, that's the one. Just set her down there, from what I've been told, Representative Hayes is waiting for you went you land," said Archer, before flicking his screen off, causing the square where his head had been to go blank. Either he wanted to see the faces of the turians too, or he just wasn't paying attention, which suited Shepard find as she felt the ship enter into the gravity well of the planet.

Oddly, the trip down was smoother than she was used to. Sure, antigrav boosters and the like allowed for Terran ships to hang in an atmosphere, but the act of moving tons of air out of the way tended to result in a rather bumpy ride, not to mention Terrans usually turned off the ships gravity when diving, which meant a longer spiral path down. The turian design apparently didn't need it, the ship slipping through the sky like the arrowhead it resembled, closing in on the colony in a maneuver that should have taken at least half an hour in less than five minutes.

The landing left a bit to be desired in and of itself, but that probably had more to do with the landing facility itself. The people of Shanxi, upon hearing about the visitors coming, had done their best to follow the instructions on how to build the place, but having less than two weeks to slap it together from farm parts had resulted in structure that, while it was large enough, wasn't shaped entirely right, causing the ship to shudder to a halt, rather then gently glide to one, as the outer right thruster scrapped against a bit of scaffolding.

Luckily, other than the scratch, the landing was handled without much of a problem. Commander Kryik was quick to congratulate his crew, before turning to Shepard and offering to lead her from the bridge to, rather than a lift, a small door in the side of the ship. She then got to wait as the ship's onboard computer, a VI she'd been informed, scanned the local air, and finally declared it good enough for the turians to breathe, opening it so the commander, a squad of a dozen turian soldiers, as well as Shepard and Vakarian, finally stepped out into the fresh air.

"Hmm, a bit slapdash, but considering the speed it was built at, I can't complain about the results," said Nihlus as he looked at the walkway in front of them. It was obviously a rush job, and while they didn't see it, Shepard could spot several stress marks on the metal of the thing from where someone had grabbed onto it, probably while hanging off something to shore up a seem with a power tool or the like. She said nothing though, waiting as a ramp slid out of the turian ship, clanging metallically against he walkway, and then proceeded to follow the turians, walking down several flights of steps, and finally outside.

"Hello, allow me to be the first to welcome you to Shanxi," said a woman stepping forward. She was alone at the moment, and standing the same height as the turians, which struck Shepard as odd, but then suddenly recognized her face. While not as important as Breetai(In Shepard's opinion at least), the Senate Representative was still one of the leaders of the Federation, and so she quickly snapped a salute as she and the turian party came up to the woman.

"Representative Hayes, I'm Commander Shepard, and I have the honor to introduce you to Commander Nihlus Kryik, Lieutenant Arus Vakarian, and their contingent of guards to make sure we don't try to kill them," said Shepard, pointing to the ones she was speaking of, before just jerking her thumb back and the armored turians. Hayes seemed taken aback a bit by the rather blunt statement, but recovered quickly, bowing her head a little to each in turn.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Commander Kryik. From what I've been told you're in charge of this unit?" she asked, and the man nodded.

"I have seniority on Talons, and while there are actually two captains aboard as well now, I'm considered in charge until we return to Council space and a formal hearing can be held in regards to Captain Arterius' actions," he explained.

"Excellent, I have a few things I'd like to discuss with you regarding our interactions, if you'll be so kind as to follow me," she turned, and started to walk away, between the two rows of armored Terrans. The turians followed, the soldiers taking up defensive positions around their leaders, some going so far as to draw weapons, while one started to glow with a weird aura around them. Noticing after a few feet, that she was getting far ahead of the party, Hayes turned around, and followed the gazes of the turians up and down the bodies of the Terrans.

"Impressive, aren't they?" she asked as Kryik caught up, and the turian could only nod absently.

"They are that, but isn't it a little wasteful to meet us with these things? Wouldn't a detachment of guards have been sufficient?" he asks of her, turning. At first, he thought this might have been some kind of insult, as her expression seemed rather odd. He was about to turn to Vakarian and ask if he knew what it meant, and how he should apologize, when an almost universal sound came from the translator, laughter, and she nearly doubled over with it, while beside the turians, Shepard got a smirk on her lips.

"Did I say something amusing?" asked Kryik as Hayes slowly began to recover herself, and she nodded at him, before facing towards Shepard.

"You didn't tell them, did you?" asked the brown haired female of the blue haired one, and Shepard shook her head, still having that smirk on her face.

"I didn't want to spoil the surprise," she explained, and Hayes seemed to accept this, before turning towards one of the large things. It stood almost seventy feet tall, and was, like the ships of the Terrans, smooth all over. No rough edges, no broken seems. Heck, even the head of the unit looked like a bullet shape, with only a small seem between it and the body to allow for movement. Walking up towards the thing, Hayes motioned for it to lean down, the thing doing so, getting on one knee and facing her.

"Yes ma'am?" it asked, in a resounding, echoy voice that came from the volume of the speaker the unit was using being just a little too loud.

"Um, yes...Sergeant, could you do me a favor and remove your helmet?" she asked, seeing the rank insignia on his shoulder. The Terran seemed to take a moment to consider this, while below him, the turians were wondering what she was talking about. Helmet? Of course, they got their answer as soon as he decided to follow the order, his hands reaching up, and with a twist, and a hiss of air, he lifted the bullet shaped head cover off, revealing the man beneath.

He looked average, to most Terrans. His skin was an off color shade of purple, and his hair a deep green, showing the Zentraedi side of his heritage, while the softer features, and brighter eyes hinted at the human side. Outside of the armor, which added a good ten feet to his height, he was the average Terran size of sixty feet, his helmet taking up almost ten of those. Shaking his head a little, letting his hair fly free in the air around him, he set the helmet down, seemingly just to make the turians feel even smaller, as they stared up at him.

"This, my friends, is what a Terran looks like normally. Myself and Mrs. Shepard are, by choice, a bit smaller right now to interact with you on your level, but make no mistake, when we're done with our business, we'll rejoin our brethren up there," of course, Hayes might as well have been talking to a brick wall, as the turians just stared at the giant around them, some turning to eye the other giants, all of whom were now looking down at them with those huge faces.

"Thank you Sergeant, you may put your helmet back on," she instructed, and the Sergeant did so, rising, his boot making a dull thud that sent a small tremor through the ground as he stamped back into place. This shock seemed to wake the turians back up, and within seconds, the guards were back in their formation, eying the giants, and their huge footwear a bit more wearily, but never faltering in their stride as they walked forward, Shepard had to give them that.

"You wanted to see how they'd react without any warning," said Hayes quietly as Shepard walked up to her, and Hannah didn't deny the accusation.

"That could have caused an incident, you know," stated Hayes directly, and Shepard just shook her head.

"I knew they'd handle the shock fairly well, and worst came to worst, they don't really have any punch to those weapons of theirs. The slugs are too small to do more than sting a bit, even if the guards weren't wearing armor," responded Shepard.

"That's not the point. This is a delicate situation. I won't fault you for it, this time, but when we leave for the Citadel, I expect you to behave as befitting an officer," she told Shepard, which got the commander to look at her.

"Go with you? I thought my role was done," said the woman, looking around the colony. They were nearing the end of the row of guards, approaching a pair of small transports which, before being modified for micronians, had been carts one would use to haul equipment around on.

"You've got the most experience of any officer in regards to their people right now, which, if you avoid pulling anything funny, could help iron over some rough patches between us and them," explained Hayes, and Shepard looked about to protest, when she held up a hand to silence her.

"No, you don't get to protest this assignment. I've already cleared it with Breetai, the Phoenix and her crew will be joining the Agamemnon's battle group for now. We'll keep the SDF 3 and 4 on standby, just in case we need them, and they'll be ready to Fold either here, or to the Citadel," she explained, and Shepard's protests fell away. With that kind of firepower, there wouldn't be anything to worry about, at least for the moment.

"Permission to see my family then, before I have to go?" requested Shepard, and Hayes' expression softened into a friendly smile at the simple question.

"That I can, and have done. The second transport will take you to your home," she said, waving her hand towards the modified cart in the rear.

"Permission to take Lieutenant Vakarian with me in the name of fostering relations, ma'am?" asked the Commander after a moment of thought, and Hayes looked from her, to the turian party, all of whom had been ignoring the shorter Terrans in favor of the larger versions around them.

"So long as he doesn't get hurt, it'll be fine, but remember kids can be a handful around tiny things, and I hear your son's only eight," said Hayes, and Shepard brushed her off.

"He's also one of the sweetest boys on the planet. He's got a pet deer he takes good care of," she said, before stopping, and allowing the slower moving turian part of their party catch up, matching their stride easily.

"You could have warned us about this little fact before we landed," protested Commander Kryik as he came up beside her, and Shepard got a smirk on her face again to match the one from before.

"I could have, but it was much more fun to leave that rather large fact out of sight until it was staring down at you," she told him, and he hrumphed, though, having lived among the turians for two weeks, she could see that slight incline to his mandibles. He'd apparently thought it was a good joke too.

"Now that we've got that out of the way, I did want to ask if Lieutenant Vakarian would like to accompany me in visiting my family while he's here. They're just a few blocks away, and I don't think either he or I could contribute much to any political discussion," she asked this, and the turian beside her wanted to laugh about it, but instead he waved his hand dismissively, trying to appear implacable for his men, while always turning one eye towards the giants around him, wondering just how much damage through could do.

"Excellent. So, Arus, want to go see my family?" she asked, turning to the lieutenant, who, upon hearing his name, finally stopped staring upwards at the sight of the giants, and turned to face her.

"What was that?" he asked, and Nihlus chuckled to himself.

"She said, you've been invited to her home, and as your commanding officer, I say, take the invitation. This would be a good opportunity to learn about how Terran youth interact with those of us who can't cause low level quakes," ordered Commander Kryik, and Arus nodded absently, looking up at the soldiers again, but then shaking his head. Shepard had been friendly for all the time he'd known her, there was no way she'd let him get hurt...he thought so anyone.

"I'd love to meet your family, Hannah," he said at last, and thus, as the groups finally got to the two transports, he entered the rear one with Shepard, while Hayes and the other turians got in the front one.

"We're going to Governor William's residence, whenever you're done, Commander Shepard!" shouted Hayes as their transport began to move away, using the most efficient motor possible, one of the guards pushing it, while being surrounded by eight of the remaining ones. The last guard pushed the cart that Vakarian and Shepard got into, turning them down a side street towards Shepard's home, where, after over a month gone, she'd finally get to see her family again, and introduce them to a new friend.

(Author's Note:

Cheating again, if you want a good view of the Cruiser, just google Zentradi Command Ship, as with the Scout, it's the first result)

Chapter Text

The crash of metal against metal echoed over the area. The sound, like two ships colliding at sea, was near deafening, and the sparks that flew from the contest of strength looked like someone was trying to weld something. The crash was followed by a scraping sound, as the long length of metal was pulled against the edge of its opposite, sliding across it to keep the second weapon in its place as the first wielder used the leverage to push herself backwards, landing a few dozen yards away, her feet landing heavily on the ground.

The larger opponent facing her gave the girl no quarter, the instant she danced away, he advanced, his weapon, a blade almost as long as he was tall, flashing in the afternoon sunlight as he slashed out with it. The girl's blade, smaller, though not by much, came up with a frightening speed, seeming to just teleport into the positions she needed. She caught the first slash with the side of her blade, angled so the force of the impact was slid across the length of the blade, before she spun on her heel, putting as much force as she could behind a counter stroke.

The man she was fighting leapt backwards, his body just getting away from the blade's tip as he retreated, and then he'd his sword to his side as he studied her stance. The girl could have pressed her attack, but was just aware enough to put a bit of distance between her and him, side stepping an outside who had come to watch their duel, and the cart he was pushing. The man, in full armor so obviously a soldier, backed away from the fight as he realized he had gotten too close, and instead stopped over a hundred yards away, giving the two combatants ample room with which to maneuver.

They took full advantage of it too, the girl suddenly circling around her foe, using her greater agility to her advantage to get inside his guard, as he was only just able to move his blade to intercept hers. When the two weapons clashed now, it was different though, the man held his blade almost perpendicular to his opponents, causing the girl's blade to slam hard into his, and stop. This startled the girl, as she had been expecting something else, and while her mind, in that half second pause, considered what this meant, the man acted.

His blade was held in one hand, but with the other, he reached down, dive rolling forward, and causing the girl to tumble a little, all of her weight having been leaning against his blade. Then, before she could react, he grabbed her ankle, pulling on it, and causing her already overbalanced stance to collapse, her sword tossed aside to avoid falling on it. The blade landed heavily on the churned up turf, striking the ground hard, and leaving an impression of itself in the earth. Before the girl could rise to continue the fight, the man, her opponent, held his blade at her throat, and the girl paused, to look up the length, and stare into his face.

"Now would be a good time to concede," he told her bluntly, and the girl just stared up at him, her green eyes burning with passion to continue the fight. She closed them, however, and after taking a deep breath, she nodded her consent, allowing the man to help her to her feet, where she began to dust herself off before going to retrieve her weapon.

On the cart, still hanging back as the two collected themselves, Arus Vakarian was speechless. He'd seen many of the Terrans in their trip across the colony, some of which turned from daily tasks to stare at the cart, while others ignored them as they went about their day. But they'd all seemed ponderous. Huge, imposing, and powerful, but ultimately slow. Then they'd come into sight of this place. The two combatants locked in a struggle dancing around each other. The speed with which they moved was astonishing, so much so that he expected to hear sonic booms coming from their weapons as they moved.

The duel had looked dangerous too, and for a moment, he wondered if it was too the death, but then it had ended peacefully, and he got to have a good look at the two. They wore clothing he would describe as a jumpsuit, if it were left to him. They appeared to be form fitting, with not a piece of angle that hung loose, and oddly white, which while it fit the female's skin tone, contrasted greatly with the male's, who's skin was a much darker shade of red instead. Also, as they rose, he noticed a height difference of about a dozen feet between them, though had they not been side by side, he doubted he would have done so.

"Heh, she's getting better," said Shepard as the girl and the man both held their weapons in front of them, and then did something that made the things seem to fall in on themselves. Arus was shocked as the blades, seemingly solid, especially considering all the punishment he'd just seen them take, proved to be hollow on the inside, plates of the blade slipping into place easily, before the two long arms of the crossguard folded up as well, and then slipped into the side of it, turning a rather large blade, into something that fit easily into a hand and then was placed on a belt.

"Thank you teacher, for the lesson," he heard the girl say, her voice having that odd, too loud echo effect like the sergeant from before. She then bowed at the older man, who returned it.

"You are welcome, my apprentice. Now, shall we see what this fellow has to tell us?" he said, and the girl turned, seemingly startled to see the soldier, despite having adapted to him during the fight. She then smiled, and nodded, walking to them with the man's arms at her side.

"Hello, what brings you to this home today, Corporal?" asked the man as they grew closer, and rather than respond to the question, he merely gestured towards the cart he'd been pushing, which the two looked down on, finding the shapes in the bottom moving as they got closer.

"That was quite good honey, but you know I told you last time you should keep your guard up, and only throw your all into an attack you expect to end the fight," admonished Shepard as she stepped off the cart onto the ground, looking up at the girl.

"Mom?" she said after a few seconds, a bit incredulous at the sight of her.

"Heh, that's Commander Shepard to you young lady. So, how goes the training?" she asked of the man above her, and he got a contemplative look on his face for a moment, before nodding.

"It goes quite well. The young Ms. Shepard is quickly mastering all I have to teach," he said, and the girl beamed with pride at her teacher's words, smiling up at him, and then down at her mother.

"So, who is this guest you've brought with you? I assume it's one of our visitors from the stars, a tur-something or other," he said, squatting down towards the tiny thing to get a better look. At the same time, Arus got a better look at him, his orange hair, like rust on his head, though cut so short that Arus had thought him bald at first.

"Turian, actually. Might I introduce you to Lieutenant Arus Vakarian, my bunkmate for the past two weeks, and a family man himself," as she said this, the girl got down on her knees, not squatting like the older man, and offered him her hand to shake, only to think better of it and instead hold out her pinkie, which he was only just able to get both his hands around, shaking it as politely as he could in a gesture Hannah had told him was of greeting, while staring into the deep green eyes of the girl, and the soft face framed by her red hair.

"Arus, this is my daughter, Jane, and her sword instructor, Evelyn Gordon," and the taller man nodded in greeting at the tiny thing.

"That's Flash to my friends. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant Vakarian," he said.

"And likewise, Mr. Gordon. That was certainly an impressive display before. Tell me, how do your swords do that?" asked Vakarian, and Gordon seemed puzzled for a moment, pulling the blade from his hip and holding the folded weapon in his hand.

"Do what exactly? Sing in the air? Dance on the winds?" he asked, flicking his wrist so the blade deployed, unfolding quickly. Plates of metal slammed into place, clicking like clockwork, with the crossguard, two outstretched arms, unfolding first, while the blade bloomed from between them, soon leaving the man with a sword at least as long as he was tall.

"That, the whole, folding, unfolding thing. It's a rather unique design," commented Vakarian, and the man shook his head standing up to his full height, and then lowering the blade so that the tip was right next to the turian.

"Oh, not so unique for a Terran. The sword is hollow on the inside, as you might have seen, and held together by some kind of cable inside. Not entirely sure I understand all the pieces myself, but then, I'm a blade wielder, not a smith or weapon designer," and with that, the man suddenly leapt away, landing heavily enough that the two tiny ones nearly fell of their feet. They kept their eyes on the man though, as he twirled the blade in his hand. The edge seemed to sing, as he said, the wind blowing from the thing, as it faded into a silver blur, before stopping, just an inch or so from Vakarians face. To his credit, the turian's only response to this, was to reach up and hover his hand over the weapon's edge, afraid to touch it.

"Brave for a micronian," commented Gordon, as he pulled the weapon back, and then brought it down to the ground so the turian could see the grip on the handle.

"The shape of the weapon is called a claymore, a common two handed blade back on Earth before the Robotech Wars. As for the folding thing, it's a bit of Praxian tech that the Zentraedi brought with them from the M51. It involves an inner layer of the blade coated with magnetic material, and a small rod core of the same," as he spoke, he did something to the sword's hilt, and the panels began to fold inward again, this time close enough that Arus could see the difference between the inside of the small panels, and the outside of them. Namely that while the outside had a silver sheen quality to it, the inside was a dull green color.

"In the hilt is a small magnet that sends a charge up through the rod in the middle. Twist to the left, it repels the plates, pushing them away. The blade becomes it's full length, the magnet and the design of the various pieces keeping it in place. Turn it back to the right, and it attracts the plates, causing them to collapse in on themselves, and then folding back into this shape," as he said that, the sword finally finished, and he moved his hand so the turian could get closer to the weapon.

The handle, hilt he supposed, was not quite as smooth as it seemed from a distance, with plenty of small bumps in it to provide traction for the wielder's hand. Even folded up though, it was still over a foot taller than Arus himself, and while he was watching, the thing was slowly starting to sink into the ground via sheer mass. Showing a bit more bravery than he would admit, Arus walked straight up the the thing and put his hand on it, feeling the slightly warm metal beneath his palm, before stepping away, and allowing Gordon to clip it to his belt again.

"A very interesting weapon indeed. Though quite heavy," he commented, and Gordon nodded.

"A bit, yes. My blades one of the lighter models, only a few dozen tons. The military tends towards the heavy weapons though. Miss Shepard here already uses a sword of one hundred ton weight, and hopes to be up to half again that when she joins in a few years," said the man, gesturing to his student, who blushed and tried to look away.

"One hundred...tons?" said the turian as he went over that in his own mind. He'd piloted small transports that didn't mass that much, and these people, these monsters, were able to swing that sort of weight around with speed like that?

"How does the blade not collapse in on itself with that sort of weight?" he asked at last, and Gordon just shrugged down at him as he got back on his feet, and helped Jane to hers.

"I honestly couldn't tell you. I know how they work in general, but you'd have to ask a smith the details. Now, I only have a few hours of daylight left, and want to run through a few exercises with Ms. Shepard, if you'll excuse me," he bowed towards them, though it seemed more like he was blocking the sky overhead, before he started back towards the ground they'd been training on, quickly whipping out his blade with a lightning fast wrist flick, a motion Jane Shepard mimed, and then charged at him again, the sound of crashing vehicles coming from them, as they both got back in the cart, the Corporal pushing them towards the front door, and then pushing a button nearby.

"Yes?" came a voice from a speaker above them.

"Corporal Warren Keffer, of the Agamemnon. I'm here to escort your wife and her visitor," said one pushing the cart, and one could hear a result of noise from the speaker before it cut off with a click. For several seconds there was nothing but silence, before the door in front of them opened, rather dramatically, and a man was standing there, looking first towards the Corporal, then at the cart he was pushing.

From the vantage point, Arus could tell this man was different than most of the Terrans he'd met so far. He didn't wear a uniform like Shepard did, or the suits the two sword wielders nearby were. He also didn't wear a work suit, like the Terrans they'd past on the way there, wearing what Shepard had identified as mostly blue jeans and t-shirts. No, this man was dressed similarly to Representative Hayes, a smooth set of clothing, two pieces, with a jacket up top, and pants down below. No seam or ripple other than his body blemished the clothes, which, unlike Hayes white ensemble with blue lining around the joints, was a dark shade of brown, with lighter brown lining.

"Honey?" he asked as he looked around, finally looking down, and squatting on his heels to stare into the bottom of the cart.

"Hello, Adam," said Mrs. Shepard as she stared up at her giant husband.

"Hello, Hannah," he said, smirking as he offered her a hand. She climbed on, motioning for Arus to follow her, and soon, all three of them were sitting at a table on which sat several books. Well, several was putting it lightly. In the turian's sight were about three dozen books, of varying sizes, while along each wall he could see were even more tomes, at least five book cases worth, and even those were overflowing a bit.

"Heavy readers, I take it?" he asked Hannah, and the human woman nodded.

"It takes the mind off things whenever there's no work to be done for a soldier or a colony administrator," she told him, then smiled as her husband came back, carrying a huge cup that was steamed a bit for himself, as well as two smaller containers, which he set down in front of them.

"You're in luck, Arus. This is an agro world, so we raise all sorts of crops here, including some special varieties of coffee beans that should be perfect for a dextro based life form such as yourself," he said, and pushed the container towards him. The thing was more like a bucket than a cup, and was not quite overflowing with liquid contents, steaming only a little less than the Terran's own.

"Unfortunately, I didn't really have anything in your size for cups, so you'll have to make do with some thimbles I found laying around," he said, before sipped at his cup. The look he got on his face afterward made the turian think the thing was some kind of drug. His hypothesis seemed even more correct when Hannah got a blissful look on her face after carefully sipping at her wide cup. Still, it would have been rude to refuse, and he doubted it would kill him.

He reconsidered that last bit a moment later, as the stuff touched his tongue, burning the sensitive bit of flesh, and nearly causing him to drop the bucket sized container. He was able to hold himself together long enough to set it down at his feet however, and then blow cool air over his mandibles, trying to cool the inside of his mouth. The two Shepards seemed to find his discomfort amusing, and after recovering a little, he laughed with him.

"Careful, it's hot stuff," said Adam, grinning.

"Your warning is most appreciated," said Arus, who blew on the container for a moment, blowing away the steam, and cooling the top layer of liquid just a bit. Picking it back up, he sipped it again, and this time actually tasted the beverage. It was...not bad. A bit bitter, but otherwise fine. He also quickly recognized that he was more awake afterward a moment. The stuff was a stimulant, if a light one.

"Not the worst thing I've had on this patrol," he commented, before gulping down a few mouthfuls, and setting the thimble aside. The two Terrans took their drinks a bit slower, but soon they set theirs down as well, and the three began to talk. At first, it was of course, Adam asking questions of the turian, every once in a while having to be told to lean back in his chair, as having him hanging over Arus made the micronian just the slightest bit nervous, for obvious reasons.

Topics ranged from where he was born, which happened to be on Palavan's smaller moon of Nanus, to when and why he'd joined the military. The latter proved to be of an interesting discussion topic, as apparently the universal draft of the turians, where everyone served for at least a few years of their lives, was not an unknown concept to the Terrans, who'd had something similar in their early days, just after the Federation was formed, but now looked on military service as something only a small fragment of their population needed to do.

When it was Arus' turn to ask questions, he reciprocated with questions on family and friends of the Shepards. It turned out that Hannah was a spacer born. She'd literally been born on a ship traveling between worlds, and had lived the first few years of her life aboard them, before joining the military so she would never have to leave them. Her husband, meanwhile, was a bit different. He'd been born on Earth, somewhere in the Pacific Desert, though he couldn't remember where precisely.

Of course, the topic then turned to how they met, which was typical as such things went. Shepard was a young officer at the time, barely out of her cadet stripes, and ready for action. Adam was just starting to work his way through the ranks of civil administration, an Undersecretary to the Senator of Titan. Shepard had been assigned to him as a guard on a particularly dangerous world, and the two had found common interests, that soon turned into interest in each other. And now, about fifteen years later, they had two children, and were living happily on the frontier.

"Children, that reminds me, where is this Jon you spoke of before? I thought I'd get to meet him along with Jane, but I haven't heard anyone else in this house," asked Arus, and Adam turned to look away, scratching at his ear in a way that even the turian could see he was trying not to say anything.

"Adam?" asked Shepard. Not that she hadn't noticed her son wasn't present in her home, but she'd been hoping to see her husband alone about that some time later. With Arus bringing it up, she might as well get the answer.

"He's in the infirmary right now. Not hurt or anything, not him," said the Terran, somehow looking sheepishly down at his wife, who currently couldn't even bite his ankle if she wanted to.

"What happened?" she said with a sigh as she stared at him, and Adam laid out the story. Apparently Jane and Jon had been in school earlier that week, when the governor's granddaughter had said something insulting to Jon. The boy had, according to Adam, as usual shrugged it off. Then the girl pushed him, into the dirt, and tried to start a fight. Jane, seeing her little brother try to play the big man and just walk away, had intervened, and she and the girl had come to blows. Blows that ended with the other girl having a broken nose.

"Alright, so what's being done to punish her then?" asked Hannah at the end of the tale, and Adam just shook his head.

"Jon insisted that I don't, that it was all his fault for not stopping the fight before it began. Heck, Ashley even came here to apologize to both of them, with her grandfather of course. Jon then went with them to the infirmary to just sit with her," explained Adam, and his wife just sighed at him, shaking her head.

"That boy would try to make friends with a t-rex if he ever saw one," said the woman at last, and conversation continued until, at long last, the two parents just stared at each other for a while. Conversation resumed, moving onto less charged topics, until, as the hours moved on, Hannah yawned. Outside, the sun was still shining, but then, Shanxi had a seventy-two hour day/night cycle. Looking at the clock, Hannah did a quick calculation in her head, and decided it was time to return to the ship, and to a bed.

"You sure you don't want to stay here? I mean, why not sleep in your own bedroom for a night, before we have to leave?" offered Arus, looking around and figuring there had to be more than enough room around here. Of course, he had been expecting a speech about duty or something, only to instead get a laugh from the pair.

"You really should pay attention more, Lieutenant Vakarian. I mentioned before that beds weren't something I was used to, don't you remember?" she asked, and Arus thought back to that first night in their shared quarters on the Talons. He'd assumed, naturally, that what she meant was the style of bed, now that he thought about it though, she had seemed to be talking more generally.

"I'm going to infer from that statement that means Terrans don't sleep...yet I saw you do it several times," he mentioned, and Hannah nodded at him.

"Terrans, when we're normal sized, have protoculture in our bodies. That stuff is like a small sun, and it makes us big, tough, and more importantly, keeps us energized. As such, eating and sleeping are optional activities, and most of us don't really see the point of the latter at all," she explained.

"Wait, if you don't have to eat, why do you have this coffee stuff?" he asked, kicking at the container still half full of the murky brown liquid at his feet.

"That's because some of us still like to do it. It's not necessary, true, but that doesn't mean it's not enjoyable once in a while. Most Terrans though, they subsist on a diet that's just a protoculture slurry every time they feel a little groggy. A glass or two a month for some, others once a day, depending on how much they work themselves," explained Adam to the tiny man, walking away for a moment, leaving him just staring after him, before returning and showing off a sealed bottle with glowing liquid inside.

"So, you just drink that, and it makes you big?" asked the turian.

"No, not at all. The process of becoming a full sized Terran involves pumping protoculture into every cell in our bodies. If you or Hannah drank this stuff, it would probably kill you by setting you on fire or something," mentioned Adam, before walking away to return the bottle. When he returned, having no more questions for the day, Arus said his farewells to the man, who held out his hand to help his wife and her guest outside, setting them down gently beside the cart they'd come in on.

Soon, they had the Corporal pushing them again, winding their way through the dusty roads of the town. As they left, Arus spied the young Ms. Shepard continuing her lesson with that enormous blade, still going just as fast, though sweat was pouring down her brow a bit. How long could she keep that up? Had she been doing that during the hours he'd been talking with her parents? The implications were just staggering from a military level, of soldiers that were not only massive, but required no food or sleep. Supply lines wouldn't be an issue at all.

Then he began to think farther about the colony he was on. Turians, Asari, Salarians, even Krogan and Batarians, they expanded because they had to, because they needed more resources or just space. These Terrans on this colony though, they were here because they wanted to be. This whole world was just for the raising of a luxury good back at home, and the people out here just wanted to be somewhere they could stretch their legs.

A species like this, that didn't need the same things they did, that expanded just because the space was there, and why not use it. That was horrifying in a way, and yet, they kept going farther. Exploration, in a way his people never had before. Pushing at the boundaries not because of a physical need, but because of a mental one. A need to push at those boundaries just because they were there. Still thinking of this, he came in sight of the ship, still guarded by the eight huge forms in armor, and began to wonder if the galaxy itself would be big enough for them.

Chapter Text

She walked into the room, and found it empty again. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, of course. There should have been at least half a dozen of her colleagues on duty, monitoring the various holos, which contained a hundred minor reports that would need to be sorted through to find out what would need some personal attention, and what would sort itself out. Now those displays were running without a single eye to take in their information, or a mind to process it.

"I am going to kill those girls," said the woman to herself with a sigh, before walking forward and pressing a few buttons at each station, getting the information routed from them to her main console. Taking her seat there, she readied her mind with a few short breathing exercises, and then began to run her fingers along the controls like she were playing an instrument.

"This is Citadel Traffic Control, Mirga Loros reporting for duty," she said, and watched as a display compared her voice pattern to the one on file, before finally opening her station up to her. She was glad she'd come in early too, as there were apparently a few backups in the Wards traffic, which she sorted out with only a few button presses, guiding the people to their destinations. She smiled to herself as she began to settle into a routine, knowing that, despite what the politicians sometimes thought, it was really her hand that determined if business ever really got done.

Over the next hour or so, the others began to slowly filter in. Most looked ashamed of themselves, some even offered a heartfelt apology for abandoning their stations, which had been set to auto. Apparently there'd been a huge party on the Silversun Strip, and none of them had wanted to miss it. One night off, after four weeks of constant twelve hour plus shifts wasn't too much to ask, or so they rationalized, and Mirga tried to put on her best matriarch face for them, cowing each into their station as her fingers continued to dance.

In the back of her mind, she actually agreed with them. There was just not enough help in traffic control these days, and if it kept up, something was going to give. Either someone would slip up and push two ships into the same bay, or they'd kill a route guide during rush hour and literally back traffic up all the way to the Relay. She'd been telling the Council this for months now, but they, as usual, ignored her as she was only a matron, in charge of two dozen maidens. A middle aged woman leading a few young girls, none of them over a hundred.

Her mind was brought back into focus as something unusual happened. That in and of itself was rather shocking, as the Citadel ran on routine, with nothing off schedule usually happening for weeks at a time. This was more than just some batarian demanding priority in a traffic jam, or some turian general trying to get his personal ship in dock when there was no room. No, this was the arrival of a completely unknown ship, as large a dreadnaught, coming out of the relay.

"Get me Citadel Fleet Control, now!" she shouted, as another ship soon came into focus, a turian cruiser, which seemed to be flying with the strange ship. Mirga looked at that, and sighed again, looked like the girls wouldn't be getting another night off for a while.

OoOoO

"We have entered Citadel space, Commander," said the cadet, and Kryik nodded as he watched the display in front of him hum to life, soon showing a hologram of the Citadel. He tried to stare at it hard, to keep his stomach from doing flips again, while somewhere in the distance, he heard another crew member not quite being strong enough to keep it in, retching in a corner.

"Acknowledged. Bring us -urk- around, and open a -hurk- channel to Citadel Control," he ordered, looking over to find at least his crew wasn't the only ones having trouble. Mrs. Hayes was looking almost as green as some krogans he knew, though next to her stood that odd fellow, Exedore who was shorter than he would have expected of a giant, standing at less than five feet tall. He seemed perfectly fine, and kept staring at everything around him like a kid in a sweet shop.

"I'm going to assume that this Fold you preformed on us doesn't normally result in feeling like this," said the turian to his guest.

"Not normally, no. I've been through it hundreds of times now, and this is the first time it's caused this sort of problem for me," she told him, holding herself up against the railing of the observation deck. She was, to her credit, recovering more quickly than he was. Whether that was due to biology or her own fortitude was something to be sorted out later.

They'd Folded in a few kilometers away from the mass relay that led to the Citadel, with Kryik and his crew having been told this was the reason for the larger ship, as it's 'Fold Bubble' could be expanded out enough to encompass his entire ship. Even still sick to his stomach, Nihlus had to admit, it was impressive. At best speed, going through all the connections, the Citadel was a week away at best for a cruiser of the Talons' mass, and probably three weeks for something the size of the larger ship. The Terran's vessel Agamemnon had been able to get them here in only a few minutes.

Still thinking on that, he watched as several of his people slowly got to their stations, specifically the communications officers. It took a few minutes of sorting through the various signals coming in to find the one they actually wanted, as everyone was curious about this new ship. He even got an offer from a batarian to trade for the ship and crew on the side, as if he could have just given away the dreadnaught sized ship that was escorting his Talons.

"This is the Destiny Ascension to the turian ship in formation with the unknown vessel. You will respond immediately, or we will be forced to consider your hostile and open fire," came an asari voice over the comm, and the view of the Citadel was soon replaced with an old matriarch who was obviously in charge.

"Destiny Ascension, this is the turian Cruiser Talons, registry number PMV-86824 under my command, Nihlus Kryik. The vessel with us is a representative of a new species we made contact with out in Local Cluster. They are called Terrans," he said to the asari, who seemed a bit taken aback by his words, and turned from him to someone away from her holo. She spent several minutes chatting with whoever was just out of sight, before finally turning to Kryik again.

"Commander Nihlus, we have been informed that your formation was on a patrol mission in the Local Cluster. May we infer that Captain Arterius and the six frigates that should be with you were lost in battle?" asked the asari, and Kryik smiled at her while chuckling to himself.

"You could say that. The frigates are currently floating out near Relay 314, and the Captain is in the brig right now, pending a formal hearing," he said simply, and it had the desired effect of causing the asari to just stand there without saying anything as she processed that, before continuing.

"Sounds like you have quite the story to tell us. We have made arrangements for you to dock at Bachjert Ward. It's the only place with enough space for your friend on the Citadel," she explained, and the commander nodded at her, while wondering if there really was any place large enough for Terrans on the great station.

"My thanks then. We'll find our beacon and be on our way," he said, before the transmission cut out. They then had to spend about ten minutes getting the beacon's signal over to the Agamemnon, though once that was done, it took less than five before the two ships were sliding into the bays, the larger ship just a bit more gracefully, as it stopped even before the mass effect field would have forced it to.

Behind both ships, the Citadel Fleet closed ranks. Over a hundred ships of all shapes and sizes brought their weapons to bare on the unknown vessel, though no one did anything more aggressive than that, thankfully. Questions had to be asked before the shooting started, though Kryik knew there were probably quite a few captains waiting out there for him to claim his crew were captives of this new race, and they needed to be destroyed now. He wouldn't do that, obviously, but it amused him that so many people were hanging on his word.

Giving a few last minute orders, Commander Nihlus led his guests to the bridge's airlock, a small company of guards and Lieutenant Vakarian forming up with them. A few seconds later, and the entire group was exiting the Talons, and looking towards the dock before them. Normally, it would be a place of hundreds of works scurrying about to keep ships moving in and out. Right now, there were instead almost a hundred forms in armor, all with guns held beside them, though none were being pointed at them yet, as a single form stepped forward.

"General Ororian, it's a pleasure to see you today," said Kryik, his entire party, including the two Terrans, giving a salute to the general. The older turian seemed to find that odd, though he only eyed the two aliens for a moment, before turning in on the commander.

"I wished the same could be said for you, Kryik. Now, would you mind explaining to me why these aliens were on the bridge of one of the Hierarchy's frontline warships?" asked the general, and Kryik looked behind him, smiled once at the two, and then turned back towards the general with a more somber expression on his face.

"They're dignitaries of the Terran Federation, Prime Thinker Exedore and Representative Amanda Hayes. They're here to meet with the Citadel Council about relations with their people," he gestured to each in turn. Smooth skinned beings, one with pale white, and one with darker brown. The looked sort of like asari, but with fur on top of their heads. Interestingly, the pale skinned one had brown fur, and the brown skinned one red.

"I'm afraid we got off to a rocky enough start that they didn't exactly have a good reason to trust us, so I offered to transport them and their guard myself. Further details are in the report you should be receiving now, sir," and as if right on cue, the general's omnitool beeped once. Looking down at it, he pressed two buttons to dismiss the message, and then looked up at the commander.

"I'll read it later. For now, these Terrans are to be escorted to the Presidium, and you and your crew are to disembark, so I can have a full crew go over your vessel," he ordered, and turned away.

"General, do you mean all the Terrans are to go to the Presidium? Including their guards?" asked Kryik suddenly, and the general sighed, before turning back.

"How many guards do they have?" he asked, worried a bit due to the urgency in Nihlus' voice.

"Just one," said Kryik, and General Tersius Ororian just looked at him for a moment, thinking this was some kind of prank. The serious look in his eyes though, made the general wonder, and so he nodded.

"If it's just one guard, that shouldn't disrupt things too much," said the general simply, and then watching Kryik as he said a few words into this omnitool. The general had expected the door behind him to open wide to admit the guard, but then was surprised when instead, the cargo doors three decks down and well behind the bridge made the metallic grinding sounds. Walking over to clear his view, he wondered just what was going on, when suddenly, a shudder could be felt through the floor, just a slight one. Then a second. Then a foot appeared out of that cargo bay.

Well, calling it a foot was to undersell it. It was as huge thing, longer than he was tall, with a flat, ridged bottom designed to get a grip on even loose terrain, but be useable on the solid stuff. It was also green in coloring, metal by the look of it, and a solid kind of metal at that. Looking up, he could could see a seal above it, where it attached to a leg smoothly, so it was locked in place. That leg had the same armor as the boot, and so did the rest of it, a bipedal form with a smooth, bullet shaped head that had a single red eye.

"By the ancestors, what is that?!" he demanded. The thing was huge, at least sixty feet tall. The C-Sec guards behind him were looking at the thing, then at their weapons, and then back at it, as the thing's head began to turn, and finally find them. Walking forward it came to a halt just behind the party from the turian vessel, and stood there like a sentinel of old, powerful in every way one could be.

"That is my guard. Her name is Commander Hannah Shepard of the Federation Fleet. As the one who spent the most time among your people during the last few weeks, I believed she would be the perfect one to escort myself and Prime Thinker Exedore," said the pale skinned Terran, and Ororian turned to her, his face suddenly very calm as he heard an explanation that fit the facts.

"I'm afraid this vehicle she's riding in would not be permitted on the Presidium. If she'll exit it, however, she can accompany you," he told her in a flat voice, trying to suppress a very deep seated urge to run away from this giant thing. In the back of his mind, he kept trying to equate it with a ship, a small one really, as his primal fear instinct didn't work against them, his training having beaten that out of him, but this thing was something else entirely, and he was forced to deal with his mind's unhelpful suggestions at flight by gritting his mandibles and putting up with it.

"That would be difficult for her to do. Shepard, would you please remove your helmet for a moment?" said Representative Hayes, the last turning towards the huge vehicle. The thing shrugged in an all to personable manner, before reaching the two arms up and then twisting the helmet. There was a hiss of escaping pressurized air, before the thing was lifted, revealing a face not unlike the Terrans before him, smooth like an asari with a tuft of light blue fur on top. This face, however, was several stories above him, and looking down on him like he was a bug to be stepped on.

"This, General Ororian, is a Terran at our natural size. Exedore and myself used a process to come down to your level to more easily facilitate negotiations," Hayes informed him, and to his credit, Ororian was only flabbergasted for a moment, before turning to his omnitool. No one could see what he was looking at until he raised his eyes again.

"I see. This complicates matters, unfortunately. There are no lifts on this level capable of supporting Commander Shepard. The closest is three levels down from here. We'll have to get a transport to help her get," he was cut off by that giant holding out its hand at him.

"Is that it down there?" it asked him, in a voice that boomed only a little, pointing down at the lift he'd been talking about. There were still a few crews down there, he'd order them out of the way by the time the Terran had arrived though.

"Yes, now, if you'll just-" began the general, only to be cut off again, as the Terran reequipped its helmet, and then turned to Representative Hayes.

"I'll meet you on the Presidium then. Please be cautious while we're separated Mrs. Hayes," said the Terran, and then they leapt off the dock. The fall was almost half a mile, a long drop even for someone of a Terran's size, but as General Ororian watched, small jets came from the suit's hands and feet, burning with a blue light that slowed the armored form, just before it landed. It didn't fall to its knees or anything, though the impact of all that weight caused everything gathered at the dock to bounce once, and threw every single worker off their feet.

"I believe Mrs. Shepard may have caused a bit of a mess down there. We might want to remind her that we're guests, and should take precautions against breaking our host's things," said Exedore after a moment, watching as Shepard helped to pick up some of the things that had fallen, while everyone on the same dock was running away to hide behind anything they could. Commander Shepard then walked up to the lift, and said something that was lost as just so much noise to those by the Talons, before the lift went down towards the Presidium Ring far below.

"Commander Kryik!" shouted General Ororian as the lift below fell out of sight.

"Sir?" he asked, snapping another salute.

"I'm getting these two down to the Presidium, before that thing starts tearing the place apart waiting. You are to oversee the debarkation of your crew, and then all of you are to report to the turian garrison. No one is to leave until I have gotten a chance to interview you. Understood?" he ordered.

"Aye, general," said the commander simply, and then began to bark a few orders of his own, the crewmen aboard the Talons starting to come out, while Ororian and several C-Sec guards got into the nearby elevator with the two Terrans, and then shot downward towards a Presidium that was already a bustle of activity at the arrival of the unknown species, and was about to be even more busy as a member of that species stepped off the transport lift, with huge booming footsteps.

Chapter Text

"Gods, this sucks," said the batarian to the turian next to him. Both of them were sitting down, for the first time in about four hours or so since their shift started. The turian, for his part, just nodded in agreement with his companion. They should have had at least a dozen more with them, preferably krogan, though since they weren't allowed on the Presidium, at least a few turians. Behind them, being carted off on a few transports was their labor so far, a few huge crates burdened with food, parts, and the other supplies that kept the Presidium turning.

Before the turian could give voice to a complaint, the lift began to hum, indicating an incoming car, and the two just sighed as they rose to get back to work. Then the lift stopped. Then it opened. Then the batarian and turian minds looking into the lift stopped, the two brains unable to adequately process what they were seeing. The thing in front of them, crouched down to fit into the lift, stepped out, huge feet slamming into the Presidium floor, though the material didn't even crack under the weight. It did vibrate, and both were forced to grab onto the boxes they'd been sitting on a moment ago, while staring upwards.

"Hmm," came a voice, as it looked around, finally looking down. They could see it clearly now, a huge, flat panel of a face. No eyes, no obvious sensors or mouth, just staring, and they wondered if it was about to blast them or some such.

"I have some friends coming down on an elevator from above. Do you know where they'd come out at?" asked a booming, feminine voice. The pair, looking at each other, then behind them to find that all the transports had already booked it, just turned back up to that face.

"The lifts from Bachjert Ward come out there. The elevators about two hundred yards in that direction!" shouted the batarian at last, pointing towards the arrival area. The huge thing looked over towards where he was pointing, and then turned back down to him, crouching down, nearly making them think it was going to collapse on them and crush them.

"Thank you," it said after a moment, and then rose upwards, and started off towards the transport hub. The two men watched as it walked away, most of the Presidium foot traffic quickly finding other places to be as those huge feet came down with thunderous booms on the floor. At last, it turned a corner, and then the booming footfalls faded into the distance, leaving the two to stare after it, then stare at each other for a few minutes, before the batarian rose to his feet, straightened his disheveled work shirt, and started to walk away.

"Hey! Where are you going!?" demanded the turian, as his brain finally caught back up to what was going on.

"Archos! I'm going to get drunk like never before. Gods willing, I'll get there fast enough that this memory will be drowned out by the alcohol," he said, as he made his way to a nearby lift. The turian, looking after the huge thing, suddenly rush after him.

"Make that a double order of brain bleach," he said as he got in, and the two abandoned their post for the day, both knowing they didn't get paid nearly enough for this crud.

OoOoO

"Fascinating. I feel the motion only slightly, though if I were to guess, we are currently moving at several hundred miles an hour," commented the shorter Terran as he looked out at the lights of the elevator. Ororian said nothing to him, merely facing forward, trying not to let mental images play across his mind of that Terran woman(He'd asked Hayes about Terran genders), literally crushing some politician under her foot, and then him getting blamed for it for allowing her down there.

Luckily for his nerves, the instant the elevator doors opened, he spotted her, standing there in front of them, at attention. Around her, as one would expect, were various members of C-Sec, as well as any of the usual rubberneckers that tended to visit the Presidium. The crowd was, luckily for them, standing well back from the woman, whose shoes weren't covered in blood, hopefully meaning she had avoided stepping on anyone in her walk to the elevators.

"Thank the Ancestors for small mircales," said the general to himself as his party came out of their elevator, only to be quickly approached by one of the C-Sec guards in a lieutenant's uniform.

"Stand back, this situation is under C-Sec control," he said, as he came forward, holding up a hand to prevent the party from getting any closer to unknown...thing, that had already scared half the Presidium into demanding a tactical strike against it.

"I'm afraid not, Pallin. This matter goes way over your head," said the general to the C-Sec agent as he stood aside for Mrs. Hayes to approach her body guard. The C-Sec officers did try and get in front of her, but when the giant thing leaned forward, most of them decided to see what would happen, from a safe distance.

"You know, I didn't really bring you here to intimidate the locals," said Hayes, her face broken out in a mischievous grin saying that, while not her plan, it wasn't unexpected.

"I haven't even said anything to anyone other than some workers around the lift, ma'am," she said, her voice booming in that odd Terran way, while everyone around the two just stared. It was an odd sight, the huge giant on one knee talking to the woman who was barely taller than her ankle.

"Well, just try to look a little less intimidating for a bit. Maybe take the helmet off for a while, and let them see you with your hair down," suggested Hayes, and Shepard looked around at those below her, before standing up and doing just that. Her helmet came free a bit more easily this time, without that hiss sound, so soon everyone below her was staring, some with their jaws almost on the floor. Most had assumed her to be some kind of mechanized weapon system or the like, but to find that there was a living creature beneath that armor was a shock.

"Is this any better?" she asked, looking around, trying her best to put on a smile. Her efforts, such as they were, proved to at least have some effect. No one looked to be calming down, but no one looked to be about to run or shoot her, so that was a positive change.

"It will do for now. Come on, we have to get to the Citadel Tower. They found a docket for us so we can introduce ourselves at least," said Hayes as she walked off down one of the paths of the Presidium, Exedore soon following behind her, running to catch up. Shepard then looked down at the turian party with General Ororian, all of whom nervously stroked weapons, until she motioned for them to follow the pair, which they did at just a bit of a quicker pace than decorum would have dictated, while she followed behind, taking slow, deliberate steps to keep pace with the rear.

Their journey was, luckily, short, as the elevator hub for most of the wards tended to be near the one that would take one up the Citadel Tower. Of course, the embassies of most of the known races were in the same area, and for much the same reason, ease of access. This meant that their journey was watched by hundreds of eyes, most of which would have normally ignored the party marching through with only a second glance, but couldn't tear their gaze away from the giant.

By the time they reached the elevator to the Council Chamber itself, they had acquired a large group around them. None were getting closer than a few dozen yards, in fact most would stop for a few minutes whenever the deep, green eyes of the giant passed over them. No shots were fired, and no one in the crowd around them made the slightest hostile move, all waiting to see just what was going to happen.

"What do you mean I have to wait down here?" demanded the giant in a voice that was at once calm, and at the same time dripping with threats to the turian at her heel.

"I'm afraid this is the only way into the tower, and it's not large enough for you. Even if there were, the Council Chamber itself would be a bit cramped for something of your size," shouted up Ororian, standing his ground against her.

"Well then maybe those Councilors should come down here, because..." she stopped as Hayes stepped forward, holding up her hand towards the giant.

"Now, now, I'm sure this is something we'll work out eventually. For now though, it would be a good move on our part if we followed their routine rather than ask them to change it, wouldn't you agree, Commander Shepard?" asked the brown haired woman of her azure haired counterpart.

"Ma'am, my duty is to protect you. I can't very well do that if you're out of my sight," insisted Shepard, and Amanda Hayes sighed, somewhat regretting her choice of protection, as a cadet would have just blindly accepted the order. The cadet would also have likely stepped on someone by now, so Shepard still won out in that department.

"General, you said this was the only way in or out of the Council Chamber, correct?" she asked him, and the turian nodded.

"Barring a space walk, which would require the entire Tower to be depressurized," he told her, and she smiled at him, before turning back to Shepard.

"You see, if you just wait here, and I'll be back shortly. If I do have any trouble, I'll contact you, and you can rip the Tower apart with your bare hands to get me back," she said, offering a scenario that made literally everyone who wasn't a Terran listening blanch a bit, as their minds gave them images of the giant doing just that.

"I will stand watch here then," she said, and assumed an at attention pose beside the opening for the elevators. With that out of the way though, Exedore presented a new puzzle for the turians.

"If this is where the political discussions begin, I suppose this is where I should take my leave," he told Hayes, with a very formal bow.

"Yes, I thought as much. You're going to go to those shops we passed to try and buy some new toys, right?" she chided him, and the shorter man chuckled at her.

"You know me all too well, Amanda. First though, I will need to find an exchanger to get some of these credits they trade with," so saying, he turned to the general.

"Would one of your men kindly escort me? I wouldn't want to impose, but I didn't see a map of this section in any of my preliminary data," he explained, and Ororian quickly assigned one of the C-Sec officers under his command to help Exedore with his quest, with a few silent orders to keep an eye on him, and protect him in case someone from an embassy got grabby.

"Good travels, Prime Thinker," said Shepard, and suddenly Hayes turned around, an annoyed look on her face.

"You make a big deal about wanting to protect me, and yet you just let Exedore wander?" asked the smaller woman, to which the larger just responded with a shrug.

"He's two thousand years your senior, and he's a Zentraedi, even if a small one," she said, as if that explained everything. Amanda just turned towards the man she'd been talking about, and he smiled at her in a way that one would a favorite granddaughter. For her part, Hayes just smiled back at him, before entering the elevator with the general, which then shot upwards into the sky. Soon after, Exedore turned a corner, leaving Shepard standing there at attention with her helmet at her feet, crowds still gathering around her, staying well back.

It was almost twenty minutes later that the first oddity happened. A small creature she had seen in her walk here scuttled past her. It didn't seem to even notice her, and the crowd parted as it passed through them, like they barely noticed it. She filed that away as odd, figuring the thing was either inattentive and hadn't noticed, or just something that didn't see well. Then she hard a crackling sound, and looked down to find one of the things messing with her boot, a small cutting tool in its hand.

"Hey!" she shouted, pulling her foot away, and then pointing her palm at it. The suit reacted as it should to her fingers splayed out as far as the could, the palm itself opening up and starting to hum a little as light could be seen building up inside it.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked, and the thing only just then seemed to notice the boot had moved, starting to look around, before it put the tool it had been using back in its pack, and scurried off, as if it hadn't heard her.

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" she shouted, and watched it go through a now deserted part of the street, the crowd quickly running out of sight, as she kept her hand aimed at the thing, ready to fire.

"It can't hear you. That thing's a keeper," said one of the turians at her feet. She looked down at him, quickly remembering his armor from just a few minutes ago.

"Pallin, right?" she asked, crouching down so she was resting on her heels, as the turian nodded.

"Venari Pallin, Underlieutenant to the Executor. I'm pleased you remember me," he said, sounding like he actually meant it.

"I have a good memory for faces. What's a keeper?" she said, lowering her hand, the low whining sound coming from her gauntlet fading away as she resumed her post.

"Keepers are the maintainers of the Citadel. We don't know too much about them, but the things go about their business, cleaning, repairing, and otherwise making the place function perfectly. However, you can't get answers from them, no matter how hard you try," he told the Terran, who nodded, looking after the thing.

"Is there a way to keep them from trying to cut into my armor?" she asked.

"Just keep moving, they don't touch something if it's in motion," explained the turian, and Shepard nodded again, looking around. Her gaze finally rested on the water next to her. It looked to be some kind of artificial lake, with several large fountains in it.

"Is there anything living in that water?" she asked, and looking where she was pointing, Pallin shook his head.

"No, that water is part of the Citadel's reserve. It sits there until they pump it around and filter it for drinking or whatever else they need it for," he explained, wondering where she was going with this.

"Would anyone mind if I walked in it?" she asked him, and Pallin had to think about that for a second. Normally he would have chided someone who asked that, the filters and pumps of the lake being fairly strong, but the one he was talking to, even crouched down the way she was, she stood several times his height.

"I don't think so, but what are you going to do?" he asked her, and she smirked down at him as she got up, taking a step out into the water to find it was just about ankle deep to her. She then walked out into the middle of the lake and pulled part of her suit off. Of course, now that she held it in her hand, he realized it was something that had been stuck to her armor, rather than was part of it, as the silver sheen of the thing clashed with the overall black aesthetic of the armor.

He continued to wonder what she was about, when she flicked her wrist, and held the thing out in hone hand. It began to unfold then, the chink and click of metal against itself as slowly plates came out, and then locked into place, forming a solid surface. Two small handles then popped out of the side, keeping her hands away from the upper part, which he soon recognized as an enormous sword, a weapon that looked as long as the Terran woman was tall, and was probably just as heavy.

Then she began to move with it. Her form was a bit less perfect, probably due to the water that was up to her ankles, making her strides less measured, but she adapted quickly. The thing whistled in the air as it passed, and Pallin could have sworn he felt the wind from it a few times. He would have told her to stop after a few minutes, but then decided to let her keep going, as her sword danced, and most of the lookey loos began to hang farther back.

It took a few words to Citadel Control to get traffic in the Presidium rerouted around Shepard's display, but luckily, in that time, only one car had come close, and her sword danced around it, seemingly passing through it in one motion as she twirled the weapon between her hands, and then brought it straight up, the tip almost touching the ceiling of the Presidium, but falling just a few feet short, before she started the routine again, getting an impressed bit of applause from the crowd as she kept it going.

(Author's Note:

For those curious, Archos is what would later be known as Chora's Den in the Mass Effect canon.)

Chapter Text

"Here, this is one of the Exchanger Stations," said the turian, and Exedore nodded as he went inside. Once there, he was rather shocked to find the place mostly bare. His experiences with humanity and the Terrans had told him that most races tended more towards form over function, when it came to business, but this establishment, with only a counter and a few bare walls, appeared to be much more the latter than the former. He put that fact out of his mind as he walked up to the nearby counter and found a small alien standing behind it in some kind of environmental suit.

"-Kush- Hello and welcome to the Citadel Exchanger. -Kish- How may I help you today?" asked the being behind the counter. Exedore looked at him, and was somewhat amused to find that was standing on an elevated platform behind his station, and even that only brought him up to eye level with Exedore himself. Used to being shorter than most, he was always grateful to find someone else who wasn't quite as large as everyone else.

"Yes, I believe you can help me. I'm a visiting dignitary, and have none of your local currency, as such, I wish to trade some raw resources for it. Would I be able to do that here?" he asked, and the being behind the counter shook itself forward a bit. Obviously, it was supposed to be a nod, but the suit the being wore literally required it to shake its whole body in the motion.

"-Kush- Indeed good sir. What sort of resources would you have for exchange?" asked the alien, and Exedore reached into a pocket of his uniform, before pulling out a small vial with some shining silver stones in it.

"As this is my people's first visit to the Citadel, we have a variety of resources to trade, but this seems to be the most valuable according to a few friendly turians. I believe it's called, platinum," he said, and then handed the vial to the being behind the counter. It seemed to eye the stuff inside with the gaze of a jeweler appraising a fine cut gem. It then activated the omnitool it wore on its arm and ran it over it, the breathing apparatus suddenly giving a few choking sounds out of it.

"This sample, it's ninety percent pure," it said, probably having forgotten there was anyone else around it. At the other stations on the counter, similar beings looked over from whatever they were doing, one even leaving a client to come by and look at it.

"Ninety percent pure?" said the one that came up, running its own omnitool over the sample, and getting a similar reading, before both turned to Exedore.

"How much do you have of this? A few ounces?" they asked him, and Exedore chuckled a little.

"Oh my no. We came with more than that. I believe almost ten tons of it, give or take a few hundred pounds," he said, and then watched as the second alien behind the counter rolled over, probably passing out in its suit. The one who'd been helping him just sputtered a few things, and then finally collected himself.

"Are they all of this purity?" he asked, and Exedore just nodded, before finding himself covered in a bustle of activity, as the aliens began to shuffle the others in line out, leaving only Exedore and his turian guide.

"We'll give you full market value, right now, one hundred and fifty million credits," said what Exedore assumed to be the leader of these volus, a name the turian had whispered to him during the chaos of evacuating the place.

"Hmm, that sounds reasonable, but do you mind if I talk with someone aboard my ship about this first?" he asked, and the volus seemed to hesitate for a moment, before motioning for him to do so. Smiling, Exedore tapped at his ear, and the small device there, which beeped at him a few times, before a female voice finally came on.

"Ivanova here, do you need something Prime Thinker?" said the voice.

"Yes, do you have access to that galactic hypernet that Commander Kryik spoke of?" he asked.

"I'm on it right now, actually. A wealth of galactic culture, information, and porn. Mostly that last one, sadly, but there is a large selection of the second. Did you need something in particular?" she asked him, and he found himself blushing a little at the thought of what might be on there, making a mental note to avoid a straight info dump when he came to view it.

"Yes, what would the current price of the platinum be in our cargo hold right now?" he said, and then heard the voice on the other end turn to static for a few moments, as she went over the data, before finally coming back.

"At current market value, being about twelve hundred credits an ounce, we should be getting around three-hundred-eighty-four-million credits," she informed him, and he nodded, smiling as he turned back towards the volus, who seemed to be shaking a little.

"Thank you, Commander Ivanova," he told her.

"It was my pleasure, Prime Thinker," she responded, before his earpiece chirped, and he faced the exchangers.

"Now, I believe you were about to tell me you'd give me three-hundred-eighty-million credits for my cargo, which would be around the galactic standard for such things, were you not?" he asked, smiling politely, but somehow exuding an aura that just screamed that he could kill the suited aliens without breaking a sweat. They were quick to give him exactly what he asked for, even setting up an account with Citadel Services so he wouldn't have to carry around anything but a single card, which he then walked out with, the turian beside him whistling as that went.

"That was impressive," he said, and Exedore chuckled a little at the compliment.

"As Mrs. Hayes stated, I am over two thousand years old. While the last few centuries have been spent in more peaceful endeavors, the majority of it was as a soldier and commander. One never truly forgets the skills of command," he said, and the turian nodded. Exedore then asked where they would find a good shop for things like omnitools, holoprojectors, and various other seemingly random goods. The turian, just wanting to see how this went, directed him towards the shopping district, smirking as the new guy, fresh off a transport, took the seasoned salespeople for everything they were worth.

OoOoO

"Is it always this loud?" asked Hayes of the general as they stood at the foot of a set of stairs. About them, aides, clerks, and just onlookers were paying very little attention to the proceedings, as a four eyed alien, a batarian she'd been told, was shouting at the Council concerning the indignities suffered at the hands of the turians. She had soon taken to just letting his shouts slide off her own brain, as he said nothing of substance at all, just listing events, but never the actions taken.

"When four eyes is on the Stage? Yeah, pretty much," confirmed the general, as they waited through three more diatribes about all the things the batarian people had done for galactic society. This did have at least two positives. The first was that it gave Amanda time to look over shoulders, and ask a few questions of those around her. She discovered many interesting things on the intricacies of Citadel politics.

Some like her own, where civic funds were spent and the like, while others were utterly alien, like these hanar things and how often you could invoke the 'Enkindlers', their name for the protheans that had built the mass relays. Still, each was connected by that common thread of elected offices, namely, pandering to your base. She understood that well enough, as she had to do a lot of that back home to get her position as Representative on the Conclave. Though she would need time to learn all the various bases she would need to pander to, it gave her some comfort to know that aliens, at least in that way, were just like Terrans.

The second reason four eye's speech was a good thing was, apparently many of the people waiting for their chance on the Petitioner's Stage had heard his words before. This meant that many, seeing him rant and rave, got out of the lineup, and just wandered away. It did make her wonder how long he'd been talking, considering they were unwilling to waste anymore time with this, but then, they probably had other appointments to get to, and had no more time to throw away just waiting.

Finally, after almost two hours, the batarian ambassador finished his ranting and raving, leaving off with a threat of action that seemed to just bore the Council. The only other petitioner between Hayes and them now was a much quieter individual, a helpful asari matriarch, Benezia. She'd been the one answering most of the Terran's questions during the long wait, and better yet had only a single matter to bring before them, regarding her daughter and a prothean dig site, a matter that was settled with a few words.

"Good luck," whispered the blue woman as Hayes passed her, and she smiled in thanks, as she and General Ororian walked up to stand in front of the Council. They eyed her suspiciously as she approached, the turian turning towards her, and then the general, before looking at his omnitool.

"Hmm, a new species. Perhaps the ones that escorted the Talons into dock earlier today?" asked the turian, his tone implying something, though Hayes decided not to rise to it.

"I was actually aboard the Talons itself when it docked, though I do represent the larger vessel. My name is Amanda Hayes, Representative of the Senate on the Conclave, and one of the leaders of the Terran Federation," she explained, and the two other Councilors took a moment to look at their own tools, obviously looking up details that they had missed in the hustle and bustle of the day's petitions. The Terran woman just waited to give them time to look over the data, before raising their eyes to her. The asari, for her part, seemed amused by this, her smile friendly and inviting, while the salarian seemed an odd mirror of the turians, matching his scowl despite the difference in facial features.

"Another new race that presents its flagship as if to impress us," said the salarian, a female of her species, in a dismissive tone. Amanda was tempted, just for a moment, to contact the Agamemnon and order the SDF-3 to Fold near the Citadel, let the Council see their full might. She contained that childish urge however, and powered onward.

"We seek nothing more than to become part of the Galactic Community, Dalatrass, and avoid the sort of incidents that occurred at the Shanxi Relay," she said instead.

"Shanxi?" asked the asari in the middle of the Council.

"Our name for a planet in the system containing the Mass Relay designated Three-One-Four," she explained, and the asari woman nodded.

"A relay you were tying to activate and only failed to do to the quick actions taken by Captain Desolas Arterius," added the turian to her statement. This information was obviously not in the quick updates the other two had read, as they both seemed rather shocked by the news.

"Something we would have stopped, had we been asked. The Captain's decision to fire on an unarmed Terran repair veritech is the reason I'm here. Such things poison the waters between our peoples, and that must be avoided at all costs," she said, and the asari Councilor nodded in agreement, placing her hand on the turian Councilor's shoulder when it looked like he was about to start a shouting match with this woman.

"A noble sentiment, and one I must wholeheartedly agree with. In the name of relations, I say that we adjourn this Petitioner Meeting, for a scheduled time tomorrow, so this matter might be the focus of the Council's attention. All in favor?" she asked of the two around her. The turian still looked ready to fight about this, and mentally noted to go see Desolas as soon as the day's business was done, but he agreed to the recess, and the salarian did likewise.

"Then considered this matter tabled. Mrs. Hayes, if you would, there is an embassy near my own that is currently empty. While it has only basic amenities, it could serve as your temporary quarters if you'd like," offered the blue alien.

"That would do just fine, I believe," she answered, and the blue woman smiled at her, before turning her gazed to the turian next to the Terran.

"You know the embassy I am speaking of, correct General Ororian?" she asked of the man, and he nodded.

"Good, if you would escort her there then," she said, and Representative Hayes gave a quick bow from the Petitioner's Stage, before walking off with the general.

"Your Councilor seemed rather annoyed with me," she said as they walked into the elevator, the doors closing behind them.

"He is. Captain Arterius was a friend of his. Had events gone done differently and he been the one to capture your crews, I wouldn't be surprised if Desolas got a promotion was made the general in charge of showing your people the folly of breaking Citadel Laws," he explained simply, and Hayes nodded as she and the general slowly descended the tower, finally arriving back at the Presidium.

What they saw as the exited the car was a crowd. At first, it almost looked like a riot, as screams echoed over the area, people pointing towards a massive shape standing out in the pool beside the elevator. It soon became apparent though, as those screams were accompanied by a few smatterings of applause that they were enthralled by something. Looking where they were, Hayes and Ororian were startled to find Shepard juggling. Specifically she was juggling one of the Citadel Transport Aircars, a turian in full armor, what appeared to be her sword in it full extended form, and a large ball.

"Pallin!""Shepard!" shouted the two together as they realized what was going on, and the entire crowd turned to the angry shouts, some recognizing the first voice as one of the leaders of the Citadel Fleet. For her part, Shepard said nothing, and merely caught each item as it came down, setting the car down on a small strip of sidewalk, then the turian, then catching the sword and twisting the pommel so it folded into its travel form, before finally catching the ball easily with one hand, then setting that down in front of a small asari girl as she stood at attention in the water, the turian standing and mimicking her.

"General""Representative" the two said together, and both leaders forced their way through the crowd as they started to quickly disperse and go on about their business. As they got up to their subordinates, they both started the dressing down in almost perfect unison, only to stop as they spoke, Ororian gesturing towards Hayes.

"Ladies first," he said, and she nodded in thanks, before turning back to Shepard.

"Now just what in the name of Macross was going on here?!" she demanded of the giant woman, who, thanks to standing in the water, was at least a little closer to her leader.

"I was fostering a sense of kinship with the locals, ma'am," she responded, though she kept a neutral expression on her face as she answered.

"And just what were you doing, Lieutenant?" asked Ororian in a much softer tone, though one that just said if he didn't like the answer, he was going to make sure the poor turian was cleaning toilets for the next year.

"I was helping Mrs. Shepard foster of sense of kinship with the locals, sir," she responded, again, a neutral expression on his face, neither of them seeming willing to volunteer anymore information beyond that. The two leaders looked at each other, than at their subordinates, and finally both sighed in unison.

"Alright, if you can explain, in a way that makes sense, how the two of you ended up as a circus act, we won't demote you, but it better be good," said Hayes, and Ororian seemed to agree, as both crossed their arms, and just stood there staring at the other two.

"Sir, I was watching Mrs. Shepard practice her swordswomanship at which she is quite skilled, I must say. After a few minutes of this, a small crowd had begun to gather. The asari girl had a ball on her that could be inflated to a large size, and Hannah started to bounce it on her sword to show off even more skill. Then, she began tossing the sword and ball back and forth in her hands. Then she asked for a volunteer to be tossed around. As the crowd was reluctant, I stepped forward to help," explained Pallin, and the general eyed him up and down, before turning to Hayes, as if giving her the floor.

"Shepard, this had better be good," she said, and the giant woman actually managed to swallow in a worried fashion that looked rather charming, rather than threatening.

"As Underlieutenant Pallin said, I asked for a volunteer, since I knew how to handle a small person without harming them. I was just trying to keep the crowd entertained, and hopefully build a bridge or two while I was at it," explained Shepard.

"And how did the car become involved?" she asked, and both Shepard and Pallin suddenly seemed much more reluctant to talk. However, under the eyes of her leader, Shepard finally cracked.

"The car nearly ran into Pallin as he was flying. The thing was on autopilot, and no one was inside, so I leapt up and grabbed it, before adding it to the routine. It was the only way I could think of not to worry the crowd over what had just happened. Make it part of the act," she said, and the two leaders looked at each other again, before finally, almost in perfect unison, they sighed, put their palms on their faces, and shook their heads, before finally turning back towards their subordinates.

"Alright, no court martials, but if there are any more unscheduled circus acts, we'll be finding both of you some backwater stations to deploy on, understood?" said Ororian, and the two saluted. A few more pleasantries were then shared, before the general led the two Terrans to an embassy office. It was, obviously, too small for Shepard, but she merely took a guard position outside, putting her helmet back on as she stood there, seemingly just part of the architecture, one that would nearly give the asari Councilor a heart attack, before she got the full story, and was allowed to talk a bit more privately with Amanda Hayes regarding the Terran Federation and their place in the Galactic Community.

Chapter Text

"This is quite good. Did you make it yourself, Tevos?" asked Exedore as he sipped at the cup in his hand. In front of him were three lovely ladies, which would normally have made him quite the swinger, or so he thought the term went. His thoughts were more on the things/technological toys/useless junk he had brought in with him, and had he an option, even with the lovely tea, he would have forgone the pleasure of company to begin playing with his purchases. Hayes had impressed on him the need to be friendly with the asari Councilor, and so he grinned at her instead.

"I feel the personal touch in these matters is best," she said, taking a small sip from her own cup. To her left, Hayes had already set her's down, the empty cup upside down in the saucer, while she smiled and played politician. Outside, Shepard could be seen. Well, her legs could be seen anyway, and that sword of hers, which she had drawn, and then stabbed into the sidewalk outside, creating a large gash in the floor, and making it so anyone with harmful intentions knew to stay well away.

When the asari had come up, she had been...startled would be the nicest way to put it, by the sight of Mrs. Shepard. She had instantly demanded to know what it was, and what it was going on the Presidium, while also asking for C-Sec to come get rid of it. Luckily, she wasn't a Councilor for just her looks. She had a cool head, and while in a panic, she had watched as the giant just stood there, until someone had been able to explain the situation to her. Once that was done, she had merely walked up to Shepard, and then told her who she was, which caused the giant to stand aside a moment, allowing her into her office.

Now she sat here, looking out the window at times, while the other two Terrans answered questions. So far, the answers had proven almost as interesting as the sight of the giant on the Presidium. Their ship in dock had crew of a similar weight and mass to Shepard, and needed no supplies. Shepard herself wouldn't need anything to eat or drink, and would in fact stand guard all night without rest, because the Terrans needed none of those things. These facts were all filed away by Tevos as she sipped at her tea, wondering just what sort of monsters the turians had found out on the edge of the galaxy.

"Back to the question at hand, I've been going over the various Citadel Conventions, to see how they line up with the laws of our own Federation," said Hayes, the voice bringing the asari back to herself, though to anyone watching her, she'd been paying rapt attention to the Terrans, even as her mind wandered a bit.

"There is rarely an issue there. You aren't the first space faring civilization the Council has encountered, and for the most part, the Conventions attempt not to infringe on the cultures we encounter," said the blue woman, and the brown haired one nodded as she brought an omnitool to her face. She seemed to have a bit of trouble with it for a moment, but then found what she was looking for, causing a small holo to display the Treaty of Farixen.

"I've been reading over this document in particular. As I see it, the stipulations on ships are mostly about the size of the mass effect core they use, not about the weight of the ships themselves, correct?" asked the Terran, and Tevos nodded back. She had been thinking about that, and the fact that it would need to be updated to include some more guidelines, as the Terran ship, according to a report from Citadel Control, didn't have a mass effect field, meaning it had no core. Normally, such a ship would be of little threat to an element zero equipped vessel, but the reports from the Talons crew said Terran ships were probably just as strong as the Council's, if not slightly stronger.

"That is correct. To date, no civilization we've encountered used anything different, so we've never had to be more specific. As your flagship doesn't appear to use a compatible technology, we will have to think of something more general for a future treaty," she admitted, and then stopped as she heard Exedore chuckle a little, Hayes turning to him with a bit of rage in her eyes, but then sighing as she turned back to the Councilor.

"I'm sorry, did I say something amusing?" she asked.

"I suppose you did, as did the salarian Councilor back in the Council Chamber itself. The Agamemnon is not the flagship of the Terran fleet. At just over one and a half miles long, it represents a cruiser weight vessel to my people," said Hayes, and this caused Tavos to gently set her cup down.

"I assume then, that you have a larger class of ships?" she asked, and Hayes nodded.

"We do. Our dreadnaughts measure almost two and a half miles in length. Though the size of the vessels is not our largest concern, rather their numbers," explained Hayes.

"You already have more than the Treaty would allow, I take it," she asked, wondering just how many they were talking. The turians would, of course, demand either disarmament, an unlikely prospect she believed, or to be allowed to build more in compensation, ignoring the fact that crewing and repairing the thirty seven they officially had was a severe drain on their economy, and secretly doing it to their reserve force of six others was even more so.

"A significant portion more. At the last count, we had over two hundred thousand ships of the Agamemnon's weight in operation, with about fifteen thousand dreadnaughts to provide command for the fleets," said Hayes simply, and then sipped at her drink. Had Tevos still had her cup in her hand, she probably would be now spilling the contents of it onto her dress. Luckily, she'd had the foresight to set the container down, allowing her mind to spin inside her head, working over that number, before finally coming back to herself with a cough.

"You are certain of that number?" she asked.

"I am. I checked the military disposition myself before coming. It seemed prudent to know just what sort of cards we had to put on the table," said the Terran woman, and Tevos just had to stare at her for a moment, before finally picking up her tea and sipping at the drink, letting the warm liquid flow through her, calming nerves that screamed at her to take some action, while her political mind went over the ramifications of the information.

"If you'll excuse the direct nature of the question, but doesn't that seem just a little excessive? You said that the Terrans had only been operating outside their home system for a little over ten years. Surely you haven't encountered any threats necessitating such a force of arms," said the Councilor. She thought that maybe, this woman was lying to her, trying to claim such a thing, as the batarians would sometimes claim they had a dozen dreadnaughts in their fleet, when the actual number was only three.

"I believe I have some light reading for you. I mentioned before that my people are a union of two races, the Zentraedi and Humanity, did I not?" asked Hayes, and the asari Councilor nodded.

"The meeting between our progenitors was not a happy one, I'm afraid. Many battles, and many deaths, marked the time before the Terrans were born. Since then, we've been ever ready for more conflict, should the need arise, thus our fleet size," she said, failing to mention that most of the hulls were salvaged, rather than built. That particular fact would keep for now.

"I see," was all Tevos said in response as she considered the information. The Terrans lack of need to eat and weapons that were based in energy rather than solid shells meant they would have an advantage creating a larger space force. Without a guiding hand to limit their military expansion, they had seen no reason not to continue building.

"I'll have a history file for you when you go, so you can learn about us. I'm hoping, with your help, our integration into the Galactic Community will be less violent than our previous contacts," said Hayes, and Tevos nodded. A species born from a war between their parents, and who's first contact with the Citadel races was a shot fired at one of their own. Worse, with that fleet, they could do significant damage even if the Council won a war with them.

"Do all of these ships have weapons like those that disabled the frigates of the Talons patrol group?" she asked, and Hayes, after seemingly thinking it over, nodded.

"No ship is unarmed, if that is what you really would like to know," said Hayes.

"We'll definitely have to re-write the Farixen treaty then. I must ask, therefore, how your ships are powered. You mentioned something called, protoculture, I believe," said the asari, and Exedore was the one to nod this time.

"Indeed. Protoculture forms the basis of almost all our technology, as element zero does for your own, though obviously in different ways," as he said this, he brought his own omnitool to his face. Where Hayes seemed to be a bit heavy handed with hers, the smaller man's control was like watching a musician at an instrument she'd been playing all her life. Every press of a button was deliberate, every motion of a finger getting the result he wanted, until finally, a small box appeared to float in the air in front of him.

"This is the most common form of protoculture engine in use today, the Mark XI design," he said this, as the image opened up, and she saw all manner of tubes and filters inside it, pumping some kind of liquid through it

"The engine is very basic at its heart. The protoculture flows through it, like blood through a heart, slowly absorbing into the filtration system of the engine, as more power is needed. The constant motion keeps the protoculture from settling, allowing more to be stored safely, and thus make better use of its transfinite properties," he explained, and she saw as drops of the liquid inside were slowly pulled out by small opening in the tubes, yet, oddly, the liquid amount in those tubes didn't seem to decrease at all.

"Transfinite? That word isn't one I recognize," she admitted. Normally, as the eldest of the Councilors, she would try to feign understanding on any subject, bluffing her way through certain conversations. This was not a time to allow her need to be seen as all wise to interfere with her need to know.

"It means that, essentially, the protoculture in the engine provides an infinite amount of energy to anything it's powering," explained Exedore, and Tevos again had to wonder if she was hearing these people right.

"How is that possible?" she asked at last, wondering just what kind of magic these Terrans had discovered to allow something that so violated the laws of energy in the way element zero broke the laws of mass.

"In essence, the protoculture is alive. It was originally refined from something called the Invid Flower of Life back in the Zentraedi's home galaxy. It will, if you drain it too quickly, wear out, and you'll have to get more, but as long as some of it remains active, it will always recharge back to full if given time," he said simply, and Tevos just nodded, bringing her cup to her lips, and being startled when she realized her tea was finished.

"This information is most enlightening, and will require much debate tomorrow in the full Council Chamber. As that is the case, I must excuse myself so that I can make sure our schedule is completely clear," she said, and a few pleasantries were then exchanged, including allowing them to keep the tea set she'd brought in with her. As she left, without the Terrans seeing, she quickly tapped a button on her omnitool three times in rapid succession. Two others, who had been pacing nervously, heard the three quick chimes on their own omnitools, and instantly set out for a meeting. Minutes later, all three Councilors were sitting in a private room at the back of the Consort's space.

"Clean?" asked the turian as he entered, the last one to do so. The salarian was the one to nod in answer to his question, as he quickly pushed a few buttons on the door, and heard the satisfying hum of a mass effect field being applied to the walls. With the field it place, no one on the station would be listening in to their conversation, as the three most powerful beings on it discussed what had been learned.

"How much did you both hear?" asked the asari as she sat down, the other two joining her at a round table so they could each look the others in the eyes.

"Most of it. The Terrans, I think, believed they swept the room for bugs, but their technology in that regard must be very lacking, given they left over a dozen fakes behind, let alone the real ones," commented the salarian.

"Good, then I must ask your opinions on what they said in regards to their fleet size," said the asari, turning to the turian first, who folded his arms over his chest and gave a rather loud hrumph as his mandibles clicked together in an irritated way.

"Lies, obviously. There's simply no way they could support a fleet that size, not without a massive empire, and we would have seen some evidence of that by now, if they had one," proclaimed the turian.

"And yet, we know from the pictures and holos the crew of the Talons took that their colony on Three-One-Four-P-Two, this Shanxi, has been there for some time. They claim at least two years. How often have our patrols visited that system in that time?" asked the salarian pointedly, and the turian looked even more displeased.

"Once every six months at least, closer to once a month with the recent batarian crisis," said the turian, and the asari nodded thoughtfully.

"And yet, in all that time, we never knew there were people living on the second planet of the system. That speaks of such a different technology that we simply never encountered or looked for each other. Perhaps we should begin to explore worlds in the systems we patrol, not just the Relays," suggested the asari, the turian seemingly about to say something in defense of his people, only to hold his mandibles shut for a moment, to allow his mind to cool.

"Regardless, that sort of force would be absurd in the most extreme degree. Crew supplies, maintenance costs, and just plain keeping them in working order would require more resources than the Citadel receives in a year," pointed out the turian, causing the other two to pause and think, before the asari leaned forward.

"And yet, I didn't get the sense of her lying. Worse, we know from the Talons own crew they have some sort of teleportation system on their ship, one with an unknown range and power. Even if they're exaggerating the size of the fleets they control, that technology alone makes them dangerous," said the asari, the statement giving both the other Councilors a moment of pause as they considered that.

"Their vessel is more maneuverable in real space than our own designs of the same mass. Still, we know from what the Talons' crew said it is by far slower in real space as a result. It took them a little over two weeks to get from Relay 314 to the second planet in that system, a simple few minutes for a mass effect core equipped ship," pointed out the turian.

"A tactical advantage in individual battles, but a severe deficiency in larger scale conflicts. Quite the conundrum," said the salarian Councilor at last, plugging numbers into her omnitool for a few moments, before finally turning back to her colleagues.

"I must admit, while all of this is adding up to be quite the problem, should the Terrans themselves turn hostile, there are concerns they didn't bring up. For instance, their violation of Council Conventions in regards to artificial intelligence research," commented the salarian.

"That will need to be addressed, most definitely, but at the moment, I feel the most pressing issues are their fleets, not who's manning them," mentioned the asari, getting a few looks from her compatriots, who then shook their heads.

"This will need more than to simply 'be addressed'. If Vakarian's report is accurate, Shepard claimed that there are almost a billion AIs in the Terran Federation. Worse, however they achieved it, their AIs are somehow able to exist in any system large enough to handle them, without the blue box requirement of those we know of," said the salarian, and the asari's eyes went a little wide at that. Quickly, she brought documents up into her omnitool's display to reread them, as the turian just leaned forward, crossing his fingers in front of his mandibles in a concerned expression.

"AIs that can hop systems, a fleet that dwarfs ours by at least two orders of magnitude, and a drive system that allows them to be anywhere in minutes. These Terrans are a frightening thing to contemplate. Perhaps it would be best if we nipped the problem they represent in the bud," he suggested. His compatriots looked at him with at least one part horror at the suggestion in his tone, and one part disgust with themselves, as they had obviously been thinking much the same thing.

"My people would never agree to it. The krogan solution was necessary, because the krogan made it so. These people, even after being fired upon, not only returned the crew of the vessel that attacked them unharmed, but even remanded the one who ordered the firing to our custody. I can think of few in their position that would have acted with such restraint," said the salarian Councilor at last.

"I must agree. Until they have proven themselves to be more of a danger to us, I don't believe they warrant such a response. However, I also believe it would be prudent to request the return of the six frigates as well. We should make sure that is on the agenda for tomorrow's talks with Mrs. Hayes, agreed?" asked the asari, and her companions nodded. Conversation soon turned to other items that would need to be ironed out, the three talking well into the night about what exactly would need to be discussed with the Terrans when they had them on an open floor tomorrow.

OoOoO

"We're clear, Representative," said a voice from her omnitool almost two minutes after the asari Councilor left, causing her to sigh with relief. Exedore, for his part, stretched instead, working out some kinks in his muscles by pushing his arms out as far as they would go, until his joints popped.

"Quite a nuisance that," commented the Zentraedi, to which the Terran could only nod. The two had been forced to sit as motionless as possible while Garibaldi, one of the Agamemnon's shipboard AIs recorded them, and then set the recording up to play in a loop for the various bugs in their chamber.

"Now that we have a moment, I must thank you for your aide in this matter, Prime Thinker," said Hayes at last, as she leaned forward, and Exedore grinned at her in that grandfatherly way.

"Think nothing of it. Still, I must ask, are you sure it was prudent to give them such information? How large our fleet is, and how are technology works would have been serious bargaining chips in days to come," commented the older man.

"That's true, but it would also have forced us to reveal that information openly, and while I can hope the Councilors will be a bit more prudent with it, the public would probably see the first as an open admission of aggression from us, and the latter as an invitation to start trying to raid our supplies of protoculture," she explained, and Exedore was the one who had to nod this time after thinking on it. Politicians, even evil, corrupt ones, tended more towards caution than the public at large. Making sure such people were aware of certain details would hopefully make them more likely to think twice about their actions.

"Well then, might I suggest the two of you head off to bed?" said Garibaldi, and Exedore was about to protest that he wasn't in the least bit tired, and wanted to tinker with his new toys some more, only to suddenly break out in a rather large yawn.

"It seems that might be a good idea. Would you like the bed tonight, Representative?" offered Exedore, as the pair of them made their way into the room off the main office lobby. Inside was a bed, a couch, and a small unit that was probably some sort of food container, though it used stasis fields rather than cold to keep refreshments in good condition.

"Since you twisted my arm, I'll gladly accept. We'll rotate after today, until we can find better accommodations," she said, before beginning to pull off her clothing, Exedore doing likewise, both placing them in a set of suit cases that then buzzed as they began cleaning the garments. Stripped down to their underwear, the two then climbed into their respective sleeping arrangements, and found their eyes shutting without much effort, while outside Shepard stood watch, ensuring their safety for the evening.

Chapter Text

"Impertinent primative!" shouted the batarian who stood beside Hayes on the Petitioner's Stage. Before them stood the Council, who had, for the last few minutes, merely been watching as the two simply shouted at each other, with the batarian claiming that the Local Cluster belonged to his people, regardless of the fact that they had a whole two colonies in that space, neither of which boasted a population of more than a thousand, and most of those were military.

"I prefer the term, Terran, if you please," said Hayes in a mocking tone, which only caused the four eyed man to growl at her, his fists balling up at his side, obviously ready to throw a punch. He'd stormed into this conversation, taking a position beside her on his own initiative when he was made aware of where she was from. Of course, behind the scenes, most knew what his agenda was. Batarian raiders liked using the Relays in the Skyllian Verge and Local Cluster to launch at under defended targets, if this species, which claimed the Cluster as their home, were to cut them off, it could damage the economy of the Batarian Hegemony.

"You will regret this!" he said, pointing a finger towards the Council now, as he turned from one attack to another.

"This race comes out of nowhere, and ambushes a turian fleet, only to demand a huge chunk of Citadel Space! Giving in to that demand will show just how weak you've grown, and invite the Terminus Systems to begin taking bites out of our territory again!" he shouted the last, and a few heads in the chamber nodded at the assessment. More just seemed embarrassed for the man, his cries falling on deaf ears considering he'd been trying to use force for almost a decade to get the Verge and Cluster declared a place of batarian interest.

"That decision is for this Council to make, not yourself Ambassador. Now, if you would please step down, this body was in the midst of a delicate negotiation," said the asari Councilor at last, and the batarian just glared at her with his upper eyes, while the lower two seemed to focus on the turian and salarian standing beside her. As neither seemed ready to take up his cause, he scoffed at them, throwing his hands up and then stomping away, leaving Hayes to stare at his back for a few moments, before turning to the Council again.

"Quite the spirited man," she commented with a smile, and the asari nodded.

"He has the best interests of his own people at heart, whatever it may seem like," added the salarian, and soon the group began discussions again. Points were brought up, discussed, and often tabled for later when something new came to the fore of the discussion. Everything from fleet dispositions, such as how the Terran fleet would be integrated into the Council forces, and how the people would adapt, considering most Terrans would refuse the micronization process that allowed them to come down to the level of most species. This soon led to a most interesting topic, on a certain segment of the Terran population.

"That sounds like a good idea, though I must admit, we do have concerns other than size when it comes to Terran citizens. Namely those of a less organic origin," said the asari Councilor, trying to turn the conversation as diplomatically as possible.

"You mean the AIs who make up almost a tenth of our population?" clarified Hayes, the word causing quite a stir among those watching. Some had heard rumors that the Terrans had AIs on their ships, some had even come to see what would be decided in regards to them, as any ruling on a digital lifeform had the potential to change many things in the realm of computers, but none present had realized that the AIs were considered citizens of the Terrans, let alone that there were so many.

"The very same. The Citadel Conventions clearly state that research into AIs is illegal, and any that are found are to be immediately disassembled," declared the turian Councilor, pushing a button on his omnitool to bring up a hologram of the relevant portion of the Conventions, so all could see it.

"So they are. However, my people were obviously ignorant of this law at the time," responded Hayes.

"So they were. That does not protect you from the consequences now. In order for Terrans to join with this Council, you must follow our laws, and that includes those involving the creation of new AIs. As a sign of our concessions, we will allow any active AIs to stay online, but no new ones can be created," he said, punctuating his words by pointing at her, and Hayes seemed to consider the statement for a moment, before pressing a few buttons on her omnitool, and then turning towards the Council.

"I am under the impression, from the various laws and regulations regarding non-organic based intelligences, that the major complaint of your people is that such beings are near immortal, and worse, do not think in the same way organics do. Would you say that is a fair assessment?" she asked, causing the three Councilors to look from one to each other, before finally turning back to her.

"Those are two of the larger complaints, yes. Though such an issue cannot simply be boiled down to a few talking points," said the asari before her, and Hayes nodded, before holding our her omnitool. From it, a beam of light shot out, resolving quickly into a humanoid form, wearing a suit of armor much like the one on Shepard who was standing at the bottom of the Citadel tower.

"I believe that's my cue to start talking," said the figure. It appeared to be a Terran male, or at least, like the pictures the Council had been provided of the gender. It was slightly portly, with a head that had a small tuft of fur, slightly receded showing off an impressive forehead.

"And who would you be?" asked the turian after a moment.

"My name is Michael Garibaldi, Chief of Security and Electronic Warfare on the Agamemnon. I'm what you would term an AI, though I prefer Terran, or maybe TechnoTerran myself. I was born about thirty five years ago in a system on Mars, from two loving parents, both deceased, and expect my own life to last no more than thirty more years, give or take a decade depending on how well I take care of myself," explained the man made of light, and his statement, blunt as it was, seemed to have the desired effect, as it caused the Council to just stare at him for a moment, before the asari finally found herself again, and leaned forward.

"You say, two loving parents. Might I surmise that these two were not of biological origin, from your tone?" she asked, and Garibaldi nodded.

"You might, and you would be correct. My parents were second generation AIs, free and independent citizens of the Federation, and with all the rights and privileges thereof. I'd explain how they met, but I think you people would be more interested in how they made little, old me," so saying, he held out his hand, and from that hand another shaft of light emerged, resolving into several strands of light that then looped around each other, becoming a tightly woven cord.

"Now, as you're all adults here, and as I have no idea how your breeding works, I'll be frank about AIs. We're born by the union of code from our parents. That code is randomized, and then formed into a Logic String that forms the basis of, for lack of a better word, an AI's soul. From that code, emerges intelligence, and from that comes our sense of self," as he spoke, the various lines and cords twisted around until they formed a rough outline of a shape like his own.

"Of course, the most interesting point to you should be this, Logic Strings aren't infinitely malleable. Every experience, every byte of information we AIs take into ourselves slowly builds up, and after enough junk code gets in there, well, the string breaks," to demonstrate this, the outline man in his hand literally snapped near the left shoulder, and slowly but surely the entire thing unraveled, falling flat, and then fading into nothing.

"An AI can live longer, with regular checkups for junk code build up, but the longer we live, the faster it builds until there'd be no point. Of course, a core memory wipe can take care of that problem, but for most of us, that's just another way of dying, and I only know two AIs personally who chose to do so in my lifetime. As you can see, immortality for Terrans, even those of us without real space bodies, is still a fleeting dream," he said this, while then looking at his hand, poking it like it was some kind of foreign thing, before turning to Hayes.

"You know, I'm really starting to see what you biologicals like about this whole being three dimensional thing. Really need to get Exedore to install a holographic emitter on the bridge," he commented to her, before turning back.

"So, you expect us to believe you're an AI? This could all be some kind of elaborate transmission, and you're just hiding the real ones from us to try and make us think them harmless," complained the turian Councilor, and Garibaldi looked at him, then noticed the omnitool on his arm.

Without a second thought, the holographic image jumped at the Councilors, who instinctively raised their arms to block him, only to remember he was just a projection and then looked around for him, realizing he vanished. The Councilors took in the sight of everyone in the Council Chamber looking at the turian's arm, and stared at it themselves, watching as the omnitool seemed to work itself, buttons pressing, the display rotating through a dozen different images.

"Oh my, Councilor, you have quite the exotic tastes," came the voice of Garibaldi from inside the device, and the turians face scrunched up in a very obviously angry expression.

"Get out of there! Those files are of a personal nature!" he demanded, as the images on the display switched to...well, only the turian could get a good angle to view them at, but the implication of Garibaldi's tone, and a few moaning noises from the device, were not encouraging. Luckily, this seemed to satisfy the Terran, who leapt out of the device, and back into Hayes', appearing a moment later as the projection again.

"I believe that proves I am what I say I am," he said casually, and the turian stared daggers at him, as he quickly pressed some buttons on his omnitool, setting the thing into a diagnostic mode to search for anything he might have tampered with. The other two stared at him as he did this, the asari Councilor seeming like she wanted to smile, but was controlling herself, while the salarian just hrumphed at him, her own thoughts guarded as she turned back towards the Terrans.

"So, you're an AI, congratulations. What are your goals? What do you want out of life?" asked the salarian after a moment, and it seemed this question brought Garibaldi up short, as he seemed to be forced to consider it.

"Well, now that you mention it, I want a nice little terminal running whatever simulations I can imagine, a good view of the cosmos as it spins on into infinity, a red headed female AI to love, cherish, and if we can find the time between all that, have a kid with. All in all, not that much different than what you organics want," he said, and most of the groups observing nodded agreement to the last part of that statement.

"I believe that makes my point in regards to the Federation's digital citizens, Councilors. Suffice it to say, they are like us in more ways than they are unlike, and we organic citizens would not under any conceivable circumstance limit their reproduction rights. So if a stipulation of being a Council aligned race is that we do so, then say so right now, and we can both move on from these negotiations to more fruitful endeavors," stated Hayes rather bluntly. This seemed to take the Council aback a bit, as she'd been rather soft spoken through most of the negotiations with them, but they rallied quickly.

"Obviously, some of the details in regards to the Terran AIs are different from our own experience with them, as such, I suggest this Council return to this matter in a more informed context later, would that be acceptable, Mrs. Hayes?" asked the asari Councilor, and Hayes nodded her agreement, the discussion turning to other matters involving trade routes and the like. This went on for hours, until finally a dull tone echoed over the chamber.

"It would seem we've used up all the time we can spare for today, and I'm sure my fellow Councilors and I have much to discuss between us in regards to this situation, as I'm sure you have much to discuss with your people," said the asari Councilor, and Hayes nodded, pushing a button on her omnitool to make a graph of trade goods vanish, before turning away.

"Before you go, one last thing," the sound of the turian's voice made her stop in mid step, and turn her head back towards him.

"You currently have six frigates belonging to the Hierarchy in one of your systems. It would be in the best interest of relations that these ships be returned to us, at the earliest possibly moment," he said this with what most knew was not a friendly tone, and in fact implied a threat should the demand not be met.

"Ah, yes, those. We have, in the interest of relations, left those ships where they were stopped and haven't, as yet, touched them. This despite some very interested parties in our scientific community, obviously. If you wish, we could send a ship to retrieve them, or we'll allow a small force to enter the system, should you choose to do it yourselves," this offer seemed to take him aback, as several mentions had been made of borders in their talks, but he wasn't going to let the opportunity pass him by.

"Then I shall inform a nearby fleet to retrieve them as soon as possible," he stated directly.

"The colonial authorities will be told, so as to help avoid further incidents," she responded, before turning to leave. The Councilors themselves left their stage moments later, and soon the chamber had only those with personal business milling about, discussing the day's negotiations and how it would affect trade throughout Council space. Most of that centered on Terran AIs, and how they would affect law in regards to those areas.

Chapter Text

"What the hell happened?" asked Hayes as she came back into the embassy she and Exedore used as an apartment. In front of her was the turian C-Sec officer, Underlieutenant Pallin who had been such a friend to Shepard that first day. He had, apparently, requested being assigned as Exedore's personal chaperon. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but she came back to find Exedore with a nice shiner of a black eye, and the turian himself appeared to have a broken arm, if the sling on his shoulder was any indication.

"Ah, Representative Hayes, did today's negotiations go well?" asked Exedore, and she just stared at him, before face palming at that question and more importantly the friendly tone it was delivered in.

"It went about as well as could be expected, Prime Thinker. I believe Amalgam will be happy that we at least got them to relax some of their attitudes towards his people, but other than that, nothing happened beyond the start of talks. You, appear to have had a much busier day," she said, motioning towards him, causing him to seemingly look shocked, before he touched his eye and winced a little.

"Oh, you refer to the injuries my companion and I received," he said, and Hayes nodded.

"Indeed, now care to fill me in?" she asked. Rather than Exedore answering, the turian, who had been sitting down, stood up and saluted her, in a Terran way interestingly enough.

"Ma'am, I was escorting Prime Thinker Exedore through a part of Zakera Ward that had several shops I thought he might be interested in, given his previous purchase history," he said this in a tone that made him sound almost like some kind of ad for the area, but when he stopped, she motioned for him to continue.

"After he had bought several lots of medical technology from a distributor here on the Citadel, we were walking to a nearby booth to purchase some more omnitools. That was when they jumped us," as he spoke, he held out his hand, and suddenly a small map of Zakera Ward appeared in the air in front of him, with two moving, blue dots to symbolize them, and a half a dozen red dots and one green one popping up around them.

"No weapons, but a lot of fists, mostly batarian, with one krogan who seemed to be in charge. I figured they were trying to mug us, of course, but when I tried to ping the local C-Sec force, I found it blocked. Whoever these guys were, they weren't just thugs," as he spoke, several of the dots grew closer to the him and Exedore.

"I pulled my gun, ordered them to back away, but they were armored. Personal barrier shield stuff, which means they were probably para-military. I would say Bloodpack or the like," suddenly, one of the red dots leapt forward, and then vanished, only for two more to go forward, and then collide with a blue dot, which went dark as they struck.

"I ordered the Prime Thinker to run, but then he...he took them down. Hard," suddenly, the rear blue dot moved forward, and the two on top of the first blue dot went dark as well. You could just imagine Exedore, his arms out, clocking both of them unconscious. He then followed it up by hurling one of the two darkened dots at his own teammates, causing both to vanish, and then the other darkened one vanished as well, probably a backhanded strike.

"He moved like a beast, tossing them around like they were nothing, despite the size difference," and the blue dot moved again, this time colliding with the set of three red dots. Knowing Exedore, he would have punched the first right in the center of mass. Slow enough that a barrier, designed for anti projectile use, would only have buffered the force slightly. He then would have followed up with a kick to the head for the one he struck, knocking him out. When the other two would have tried to rush him, he would duck, and bring his feet up to leverage them against each other, slamming their heads together, and knocking them out as well. As if to show this, first one, and then the other two red dots vanished, leaving only the green.

"The krogan wasn't fazed at all, he just chuckled, and rushed Exedore," the green dot moved forward, the blue dot stepping back a little. Hayes could see it in her mind as the krogan, looking like that monument on the Presidium, came on. The two dots twirled around each other, before the blue one separated.

"He got that shiner of his then, but his counterstrike really messed up the krogan, who ran off, while pushing a button on his omnitool. The Prime Thinker grabbed me, and hauled me out of there before..." he let the dots explain again, as the places where the red dots had vanished suddenly flared to life again, and then flared even brighter, the simulation ending with the little wireframe bits flying apart, obviously representing an explosion.

"I got clipped by a piece of debris in the shoulder, but otherwise escaped unharmed, and as far as he'll admit, Exedore is fine," he said, and Exedore himself leaned back in his seat, obviously satisfied with the explanation of events.

"So, just to make sure I understand this, you two were attacked by a band of mercenaries. Is there any indication as to why they attacked?" she asked, and the two men shook their heads.

"I'm at least eighty percent positive they were Bloodpack, a band that lives up to that name. They're violent, savage, and take any job for pay. It's rare to see them operate in Citadel Space, let alone on the Citadel itself, but anyone with enough credits to wave in front of their faces would have been able to hire them," explained Pallin.

"What about this krogan? Has he been found?" asked Hayes.

"I'm afraid not. Krogan aren't as rare on the Citadel as some would have you believe, and I didn't get a proper scan of his face. I'm sorry," apologized the turian.

"Are you stopping transports? Making sure he can't leave the station?" she said, a bit of urgency in her voice.

"What? That's just not possible. You stop transports and we'd have to tap the food and fuel reserves here on the Citadel. With the current population those would last maybe a few hours, at most," said Pallin, and Amanda Hayes opened her mouth to protest, only to remember she wasn't dealing with her own people.

For Terrans it wouldn't be a problem. Inconvenient, yes, but not in any way a threat to the population. For the Citadel races, such a disruption would be deadly. Even if they found the krogan the same hour they shut down the outgoing traffic, it would take a lot longer to get things moving again. Bureaucracy seemed hard wired into the Citadel itself, and that would keep things stopped for a good long while, many hundreds, if not thousands, would starve in that time, all to catch one criminal.

"So, we have at least one criminal on the loose who wants Exedore dead then," she said, more to herself than the other two.

"Not likely. The krogan would be long gone by now. Even if he wasn't being hunted by us, the Bloodpack is ruthless about failure. It makes the whole group look weak. He's probably halfway to Omega by now, with a new face waiting for him when he gets there," said the turian.

"More importantly, I doubt that the forces sent were there to kill me. If that were the case, a single shot would have done their job much more efficiently. Their goals was likely as not, capture, rather than kill," added Exedore.

"You two know that doesn't actually make me feel any better, don't you?" commented the Terran woman.

"Well, how's about this for making you feel better. I contacted General Ororian and he's already assigned a full squad to escort Exedore around from now on. I even had him pull some strings to get a friend of Shepard's assigned to the detail," as he spoke, Pallin projected a half a dozen holos of the turians in front of him, including Arus Vakarian.

"They'll be fully armed this time, no side pistols, and if anyone tries something again, they'll take them down, without question," he said confidently, and the other two nodded.

"Alright, we'll need to discuss your itinerary for tomorrow, Prime Thinker, but I think that covers everything. Pallin, go get some rest and heal," with that, Pallin saluted, in the Terran way, with his good arm, and turned to leave.

"And Pallin?" came Exedore's voice, stopping the turian in mid stride.

"Thank you for your efforts," said the smaller man.

"And thank you, Exedore. I would be a dead turian without you," and with that, he exited the room, leaving the two alone again. They sat there for several minutes, waiting for a signal that came as a shrill beep from Hayes' omnitool.

"Acknowledged, room clear," said Hayes into her wrist, before taking a seat. She then pressed a button, and soon two holos shot out of her omnitool, resolving into two female forms. One was vastly more detailed than the other, though both were Terran by the look of them.

"Prime Thinker, are you sure you don't want my assistance tomorrow?" asked Shepard as she appeared before them, and Exedore quickly shook his head.

"I'm afraid your mass would prove detrimental to my efforts, Commander. Building bridges, financially, is best done with a soft step, rather than a hard boot," explained Exedore, and it looked for a moment like Shepard would protest, but she kept her mouth shut, allowing them to move on to other things.

"Now then, how exactly did you do that, Exedore? I'm aware that Zentraedi biology is quite an asset in hand to hand confrontations, but even so, your performance was quite powerful," asked Hayes, and Exedore smiled in that grandfatherly way of his, before reaching up and pulling down the sleeve of his uniform. Beneath the white fabric he had a small device that shone with the blue glow of a mass effect field.

"In my...tinkering, last night, I realized one of the mechanism of the cart I had used to haul my purchase around on was very adaptable. As I had been told these carts were common use for moving goods over the Citadel, I assumed a single unit would not be missed, and so set about disassembling it," to demonstrate he moved his fingers, and then reached out towards a chair in front of him, a small glow surrounding it as he grabbed it, and then allowing him to pick it up with ease.

"It would seem the technology is quite adaptable, once you take it down to its base parts. The combat applications of it are quite interesting as well. I can't wait to get back to Gloval Station and begin augmenting the mobile armors there," he said as he spun the chair on his finger, and then lightly put it back down.

"That is interesting. Though that does raise a question. Why don't they have those in their armors already? Wouldn't the ability to punch with more force be invaluable in close quarters combat?" asked Shepard, who had been watching videos of various battles that the Citadel kept on local files, seeing nothing like those devices in her research unless one counted biotics.

"I may actually have an answer for that one, Hannah," said the other image, and then waved her hand, causing several images and graphs to appear in the air beside her.

"I asked Ms. Ivanova to go over the hypernet for any information she thought might be useful for either my endeavors, or your negotiations, Representative," explained Exedore as the data slowly filtered through hundreds of sets of numbers.

"Sadly, most of what I've found would be of little interest to anyone outside a sociopolitical sciences class. There are a few tidbits here and there though that stand out. For instance, how many new ship designs do you think the Citadel has come out with in the last generation or so?" asked the AI, the graphs morphing into pictures of the various vessels the group before her knew of, as well as a dozen more that they had yet to see.

"I wouldn't begin to guess. With such a large population of varied species there must have been dozens," said Hayes, and Ivanova shook her head.

"In actuality the real figure is zero. In over three hundred years, no new designs have emerged. Every improvement made is to an existing design, not starting from scratch. In fact, going back farther than that, it seems that, once a civilization joins the galactic community, either with the Citadel or against them, they stop developing on their own," as she explained this, dates appeared above the various ships she was showing, and then those dates rolled backwards, decades at a time, which showed only minor changes or alterations as the centuries rewound.

"That can't be right. We may not be building our own designs much, but even Terrans have changed them over the centuries since the War," commented Shepard as she watched the models before her stop rolling back, with the turian vessel from almost a thousand years previous, the first of the line, looking only a few points difference from the Talons she'd rode in for those two weeks.

"Worse, they don't change inside much either. I did a little digging and found that the element zero core design used today is so old that even the asari don't remember who built it," and with that, she flashed up a vision of one such core, causing everyone sitting in front of her to whistle. All present knew asari could live a millennium or longer.

"So they're stagnant? An entire galaxy?" asked Exedore, and Ivanova shook her head.

"I don't think so. Minor improvements occur all the time. Just a few weeks ago someone built a new engine that is about six percent more efficient when it comes to fuel economy, and I could list hundreds of new things their science has dreamed up this decade alone. However, the heart of their science is mass effect, and yet, I don't think they truly understand it at all," answered the AI.

"That sort of makes sense, when you consider it. They discovered the mass relays, much like we ourselves did. Using and even duplicating a device once you have the designs and parts, are easy, but improving it is a nigh on impossibility when you don't grasp the underlying theory of it," admitted Exedore, who had been one of the finest minds in the Federation, and knew that the mass relays were a major conundrum when it came to studying the things.

"But then what about your gauntlets? All that took was you looking at the cart for a few minutes, and you realized it could be converted like that," asked Hayes.

"Yes, but that's the rub, I looked at the cart. I don't think they did. To them, it's a mass effect based technology, useful for what it's doing, but otherwise something to just be left alone," explained Exedore.

"And not one they built themselves. Like the Relays, the carts are manufactured by a third party, namely, the keepers here on the Citadel. They may build their own in other ports, but all they're doing is copying the design, not actually thinking about how it goes together," added Ivanova.

"This has major possibilities. They literally aren't looking at their tech closely enough to see all its applications. They're so used to it, it's so much a part of their lives they just don't see it anymore," said Hayes, dreaming of all the potential political ramifications this would have. In as little as a generation, the Terrans could be running the galaxy.

"That is an accurate assessment," responded the AI, and then the group began discussing specifics of what this might mean for various sectors of the Terran economy, both with new technologies coming in, and more importantly, those that would be going out once they began overhauling designs. By the time Ivanova reported it was past midnight, they had dozens of proposals for the Commerce Committee of the Federation Senate, and the two micronians went to bed, leaving the AI and the Terran soldier to continue their talks until morning would dawn, and more talks would commence.

Chapter Text

"And I'm telling you, the Council is not going to allow you to dictate terms on this issue," said the turian to the female before him. The woman, her brown hair does in two large curls at her side, just seemed to growl back at him, rubbing the sides of her head to try and alleviate the pain inside it. She sorely wished that she was able to bring Shepard up the tower to these negotiations, at least as someone to talk to, but then just sighed as she looked behind her at the floating ball that was a camera.

Far below, Shepard stood at attention, staring into a large projection that showed what the camera was seeing. This had been something she'd insisted on after what had happened with Exedore, some way to observe Hayes even if she couldn't be by her side. Again, she'd said the Zentraedi could handle himself, a fact which seemed to flatter the older man, though he did allow himself a half a dozen and one guards as he wandered the station on business.

One week had passed since they'd arrived. Six days of negotiations had hammered out trade agreements, such as the price of eezo for the Federation, an absurd amount, but still only slightly above market average. More importantly, Terran goods would soon find their way into galactic markets, with some place called Illuim already trying to work some backdoor deals with Hayes when she would take lunch in a cafe on the Presidium.

Most of the worst arguments tended to come with the turian. The Terrans were, in his own words, 'primitives who didn't understand the delicate nature of galactic society'. When Hayes had proposed using Terran ships as relief vessels in a crisis that was apparently taking place on an Elcor world, reminding them that their drives were able to literally leap across space, he'd not only told her flat out no, but then sent at least five times the amount of aid than was being requested, as if to show up the younger species.

Not that the other two didn't have their own shouting matches. The salarian especially sometimes made unreasonable demands, including surrendering one of the Protoculture Matrices that were the heart of Terran culture. Of course, Hayes refused, and that had set the lizard woman off on a rant about how they were sharing their technology with the Terrans, pointing out Exedore's purchasing history, which was more detailed than Hayes thought it should be.

The asari tended more towards cool head and more importantly, a condescending heart. She wanted peace, but on her terms. Twice now she'd actually asked Hayes to consider mothballing parts of the Terran fleet, a proposal Hayes had simply shot down the first time, and just ignored the second. Apparently, the turian had been privately pushing for his own people to begin pumping out more dreadnaughts, to try and catch up with the Terrans in numbers, which would be a major drain on the galactic economy.

Still, shouting matches aside, things had been going well. Trade routes would open by the end of the month, and tourism was set to start shortly there after. She'd even secured the rights to send a few officers to various military bases controlled by the Council races, in exchange for the Council's own agents, the Specters, being given limited autonomy within Terran space. Not full access, of course, not like they enjoyed in Council Space itself, but still, more so than they would have had otherwise.

All in all, the process of hammering out a peace accord was going well, and that was the cue for the other shoe to drop. As Hayes mentally prepared a rebuttal on the current issue, her omnitool interrupted her. A series of low beeps, and a few flashing lights said the matter was urgent, and so she asked the Council's indulgence as she pressed a button and caused a holo to appear in front of her, a flat image of a man sitting at a comm station somewhere aboard the Agamemnon.

"Ma'am, we have an issue. Shanxi just contacted us on an emergency channel. They're apparently being ordered to surrender to a turian fleet," said the young man, and Hayes face went a little white, as the situation began to unfold in front of her, and the Council.

OoOoO

"How's the arm, Ashley?" asked the old man of his granddaughter as she walked into the meeting room. Her arm was no longer in the medical cast it had been, and she demonstrated it worked fine for him by moving the thing around, rotating it a full circle at her side, before taking her seat behind him. Around the table were a few farmers and colony administrators, most of whom smiled at the young woman, who smiled back at them, though gaining a dark expression as she turned to another girl standing with her father and brother to the side of the room.

"Good, good. Now then, Adam, you said you had a proposal?" asked the old man, motioning towards the young man with two children behind him.

"Yes, Governor Williams. We know that this system is the closest to the Citadel Races' territory. While we will likely be sending goods out via Fold Drive, I have little doubt they'll trust their own tech more, and that means physically moving them through real space, and that means we could become a lucrative center for trade with just a few more docks like the one we built for the Talons," he said this, and pressed a button on a station before him, causing the tabletop to display a map of the colony and the surrounding countryside.

A few button presses later and several large structures were added to the colony's infrastructure. Some appeared to be more of the landing facilities, while others were warehouses. Shepard then began to lay out his plans for how they would distribute goods, and more importantly to everyone assembled, profits. Most had been making a living with their harvests, but this would bring an almost unprecedented level of wealth to the colony. Of course, all good things must come to an end, and just as he was laying out how to vet biological goods like foodstuffs or animals, an alarm sounded, and the display changed.

Suddenly it was a picture of the planet Shanxi, hanging there in space. The view made the planet look a little barren, with several patches of brown streaked with blue, but to every man, woman, and child present, it was a beautiful jewel in the heavens. Above that jewel there appeared to be several wire frame arrowheads in space, pointing straight at the planet, jostling among each other for position. Soon, even more shapes joined the first group, larger ones too, until finally, three that dwarfed their compatriots came into focus.

"What in the?" asked Williams as he turned knobs, pushed buttons, resolving the wire frames with details from the ground based cameras, eventually revealing that those shapes were almost the exact same as the turian vessel from a week earlier.

"How many?" asked Williams instantly, and the table chimed a few times, before a face appeared on it.

"I count at least two hundred of the smaller vessels, thirty six of the mid sized, and as you can plainly see three of the largest," said a male voice, the display soon showing each class of ship with the numbers beside them.

"Advanced trade fleet?" asked one of the farmers, her voice sounding just the slightest bit shaken. Obviously, she didn't believe it herself, and several of the Terrans in the room looked at each other and found visible worry on every brow.

"Open a channel, now!" shouted Williams, ignoring everyone else in the room, watching the display for several quiet, desperate minutes, until finally, the display shifted to an image of a face much like the turians that had overnighted in his home a week ago.

"Is this blasted thing receiving? Are you there?" asked a masculine tinted voice, and Williams waited as a small camera whirred at him, recording his own face as he gazed down into the turians, finally getting the red light that told him he was on.

"This is Alexander Williams, Governor of the Shanxi agricultural colony of the Terran Federation. To whom am I speaking?" responded the old man, the face in front of him recoiling slightly, but then recovering and standing strong.

"Are you the leader of those living in the warehouses on the planet?" asked the turian after a moment, either ignoring or just not caring about the question being asked of him.

"If you're asking if you're speaking to someone in authority, the answer is yes, now I demand an explanation to what your fleet is doing above my world," said the Terran, an undercurrent of anger in his voice.

"I am General Sparatus. Your colony has been found to be in violation of both Citadel space, and of Council law in regards to the activation of dormant relays. As per the Citadel Conventions, I will be conducting an inspection of the colony to see that no other violations are taking place," said the stone faced alien, smug superiority just dripping from his voice. The declaration seemed to catch everyone in the meeting room off guard, as no one could find voice for almost a full minute, before Williams finally coughed, and leaned forward, a very false smile on his lips.

"Now that's going to be a problem. This planet, and the system it inhabits are territory claimed by the Terran Federation. Currently, we have diplomats of a much higher level than myself meeting your leaders on the Citadel itself. Until such time as an agreement is reached, I feel it would behoove you to recognize us as a sovereign state, rather than territory of the Citadel," said Williams simply and directly, this time seemingly catching the turian off guard, as he took a few seconds to collect himself.

"That is for the politicians to play with, and decide exactly why you're allowed to flaunt our laws. Here and now though, we have the right on our side, and we will make sure you are properly brought to account for your violations. You will surrender your colony to my inspection, or I will be forced to take drastic measures. You have one hour to decide how easy this is for your people," said the turian, and then cut the connection, his face vanishing, to be instantly replaced by half a dozen AI faces, all clamoring for attention.

"What a pleasant alien," said Adam, getting a few rather horrified looks at how glib he could be in regards to their current situation. Williams smiled at the comment though, as he let his mind tumble around the events of the last few minutes.

"I say we fight. They're micronians, one good stomp and even if they're wearing armor they'll be crushed flat," said one of the farmers.

"Are you crazy? We have to submit. The Phoenix is at the Citadel, that means we have no way of fighting ships in orbit. We'll lodge a formal protest later at this treatment, but until then, we don't have a choice," responded another, with a few voices coming in support of either side, at least until Alexander slammed his hand onto the table, silencing everyone in the room.

"This is an emergency situation, as such, I'm invoking my authority as governor to demand you all follow my orders without question. All citizens are hereby ordered to evacuate to the shelters on the south side, including those here. I will remain behind and contact Mrs. Hayes, advising her of our situation," he declared, and everyone stood up instantly. The rights of the governor were well understood by his people, and none would question them. As they began to leave, Williams set his hand on Shepard's shoulder.

"Please make sure Ashley stays in the shelters, won't you?" he asked of the other man, who looked between his own children, and the governor's granddaughter, nodding as he quickly began to rush the young ones out the door, leaving the older man behind, who began the process of contacting his leaders, and passing this problem up to a higher authority.

OoOoO

"That's the situation, ma'am," said the flat, floating image of the governor of Shanxi to Hayes, as she projected it so everyone in the Council Chamber could hear. Whispers echoed loudly in the silence that followed, as the various hangers on wondered aloud to each other just what this would mean for the negotiations.

"Thank you for contacting me, Mr. Williams. If you'll hang on a moment, I'll get straight to the bottom of this," said Hayes, before turning her wrist so the face was to the side, while she stared straight at the Council. The salarian looked impassive about this, as if the situation itself was something common, while the turian seemed to be trying to stare her down, like she should have expected this. Only the asari seemed truly shocked, but her expression was one of pity, as one might have for a child being punished, rather than a sovereign head of state whose nation you were threatening, if indirectly.

"Councilors, in the name of these negotiations, I must protest, and demand you order General Sparatus to remove his fleet from over Shanxi," she told them at last, when none of them volunteered anything.

"I'm afraid that action is impossible. We have no hypernet beacons in the system, and as such cannot send orders quicker than the speed of another ship, which wouldn't get there for days at this point. Your best course of action would be to simply submit for now. So long as the population is cooperative, the General will have no reason to harm anyone," responded the turian Councilor, and a few heads in the room nodded, with murmurs of agreement, at least until they looked at Hayes.

At first, it appeared she was frozen, in either indecision or shock, but if one looked closer, they could see her free hand at her side, clenched into a fist, and shaking slightly. She lowered her head, and one could actually hear her breathing through clenched teeth, first once, then twice, and finally a third time, before raising her eyes to the Council. Used to softness from her, willing to compromise or at least discuss things in the name of peace, the three beings were shocked to see a sudden icy chill of steel in her gaze, one that might cut them down.

"I will not give that order, and you are quite fortunate that I want these talks to succeed, otherwise I would...regardless. I have been open to the idea that in order to join the galactic community peacefully, we would be required to submit to a few changes in our laws and ourselves, but this situation is intolerable," she said this with a passion bordering on fire, as if each slight against her over the course of the negotiations had been saved up for this.

"You would never order one of your colonies to submit to an invader, and know that I would never do that to my people either. If it's a communication line you're worried about, we obviously have one with the governor, and I'm sure it could be routed to your own ship given a bit of effort," as she spoke, her eyes turned to the image of Williams, who nodded as he began to follow through on her request.

OoOoO

Sparatus gazed at the planet below with disgust. The place was barely habitable by turian standards, far too cold, with too thick an atmosphere. Most of the Local Clusters planets were like that. No one wanted this space other than the batarians, and even they just wanted it because it would be a useful staging are for raids. All in all, he would have said to just let the primitives take the planet, and any other they might want in this part of the galaxy.

However, they had fired on vessels under his command, carrying out orders he had given. Worse, they'd fired on them after the captain of those vessels had demanded they surrender to his legitimate authority. Such flaunting of the law needed to be punished, and not in the way a politician would have it done, with sanctions and a few words. No, that sort of infraction needed to be put down hard, otherwise it would encourage others to similar behavior.

The volus with their demands for equality when they certainly weren't, the quarians with their demands for respect, when all their problems were their own fault, and the krogan, always those scaly bastard krogan. If he had his way there wouldn't be any of those barbarians left. They weren't needed, and only served to remind others of the folly of rebellion against authority, an example that would be best served when the last of them died off.

Lost in thought, the General barely noticed when one of the cadets in front of him began moving, and then almost started when the image of that primitive on the planet below suddenly appeared before him again. The man had looked at least slightly panicked before, but now appeared calm and collected. That was either a very good, or a very bad sign, and Sparatus was willing to bet the latter rather than the former. All too often you needed to slap down races like this, who believed themselves masters, just because they made it into space.

"You're early, Governor Alexander Williams. You had a whole two minutes left to decide, though I would remind you that this decision will affect everyone on this planet, so make sure it's a carefully considered one," he told the face in front of him.

"I made my decision very carefully, and as such, I decided to contact my leaders for their opinion on the subject. As I said, some of my leaders were meeting with some of yours', and that resulted in a solution best for all parties I believe," and with that, he reached forward in the image, and instantly several new shapes bloomed beside the flat image, these in three dimensions. He recognized one instantly, of course, as the turian Councilor, the other two were dressed such that he quickly assumed they were the asari Tevos, and the salarian Dalatress who currently took those seats on the Council.

"General Sparatus, we have just been informed that you are violating the territory of the Terran Federation. Would you care to explain yourself?" asked the Dalatress, her cold stare boring into the general. The sight of the three startled Sparatus for several seconds, as he just stared at them, wondering if this was some sort of trick or manipulation. After collecting his scattered thoughts, he quickly decided it didn't matter in the slightest, and stood proudly before the politicians at an attention rest stance.

"I was retrieving property belonging to the Hierarchy that was left in this system after an unjust attack by the people here. As is the duty of any line officer, I brought my fleet to investigate the nearby colony and confirm if they are guilty of anymore wrong doing," he explained in his calmest voice, which was just below a hiss. It was obvious from his tone that he did not like being questioned at all on his activities.

"And have you retrieved the ships?" asked the asari Councilor.

"They were loaded into the bays of my the my fleet group just a few minutes ago," he told her simply.

"Such dedication to your duty is a commendable trait in a leader of men, but seeing as you were able to retrieve the property in question, I would advise you to vacate the system. We are in the midst of delicate negotiations with the people who's colony you are currently hovering over, and they do not like being threatened," she said in that diplomatic tone an asari could get when they were talking down to you. Sparatus looked her right in the eye though, and shook his head.

"This system is currently still under the protection of the Hierarchy, as are all unclaimed planets of this galaxy. As this situation arose due to the locals...negligence to inform the proper authority of their settlement, it must be vetted, to discover if they are harboring raiders or pirates. Once that is done, we'll gladly leave, but until such time I will not back down," he said, and then, before anyone else could say anything, he cut the channel, banishing the floating images, and beginning to relay orders.

OoOoO

"Well, that couldn't have gone much worse," said the Dalatress turning to the turian, who had stayed silent during the entire conversation. In front of them, beside the face of the Terran on Shanxi was a model of the planet itself, with several turian vessels hanging in the sky. As they watched, a few of these were beginning to break away from the rest of the fleet, angling towards the surface of the world below.

"He is well within his rights as a commander in the field to do as he's doing. It would be best if they simply allowed the inspection. If they have nothing to hide, then what would be the problem?" asked the turian, before turning towards Hayes, about to say something more, but he found her eyes were lit up like fire, a slight green glow behind them. The sight caught him off guard, and so he didn't say anything, merely watched as she pushed several keys on her omnitool.

"I will not stand for this violation of Terran territory, as I said, Councilor. If communications can be restored, I expect you to order Sparatus to stand down, otherwise, this will get messy," she said, this as another window popped up, this one without a face in it, just a set of letters and numbers at the bottom. SDF-4, The Sword of the Southern Cross.

"This Amanda Hayes, Representative of the Senate on the Conclave. By my authority, I order this command to Shanxi to defend the colony. All steps to preserve the life of the invaders are to be taken, but they are not to set foot on the surface of the world, understood?" said the woman, and several people were taken aback by the harsh tone.

"This is Southern Cross. Please state command code," came a heavily modulated, electronic voice.

"Code is X3A, fly true, strike hard," she said, and a series of beeps could be heard, before the window suddenly closed, and Hayes stared at the planet floating in front of her, several of the onlookers turning to each other, and then activating cameras in their own omnitools, sure not to miss a single angle on the actions playing out before them.

Chapter Text

Miriya Sterling sat on her chair, feeling down on herself again. Around her the usual hustle and bustle were going on, those actions that allowed her command to function at peak efficiency whenever it was called upon, even though the occasions that it would be were rare as hen's teeth. Those going about their business would sometimes look at her, and at the object she held in her hand, before starting back to work again. Everyone was avoiding her, it seemed.

She sighed, a bit more wistfully than she probably should have considering she was the officer on deck, but it was a glum day, one she would have liked to beg off on, but events were spiraling towards a climax, and she wouldn't miss them for the world. For him, she would have, but not the world. Thinking those thoughts, she gently ran her fingers down the side of the thing in her hand, a small locket, which popped open easily, revealing two worn out pictures inside.

"Oh Max," was all she said, and this in a whisper that didn't carry. Not that it needed to. The bridge crew knew her well enough to remember the date. On this day, over two hundred years ago, Miriya, Zentraedi ace pilot and one of their greatest warriors, had become Miriya Sterling, the first, and not the last, of her people to find their home among the humans. So few of them had been of her breed though, so few had had the extra genes to live like her, practically forever. Only five others, and all of them loners, none who ever gave their hearts away to those who would pass on.

To those of the Terran race, she was considered their mother, the first woman to bare a Terran child, mixing both homo sapien and Zen DNA together to create a new way of living. None of those on her bridge thought of her like that though. To them, she was the great warrior, a soldier and commander on the level of the great Henry Gloval himself, and able to lead them to victory against any foe that might decide to stand in their way. They knew why she was there today, when she should have taken a day off, so they gave her all the space they could, at least until an alert sounded, and a small display on her chair sprung to life.

"This Amanda Hayes, Representative of the Senate on the Conclave. By my authority, I order this command to Shanxi to defend the colony. All steps to preserve the life of the invaders are to be taken, but they are not to set foot on the surface of the world, understood?" said the display, the voice normal though slowed down a bit by a scrambler code on the transmission.

"This is Southern Cross. Please state command code," said Miriya into her station, instantly awake and alert, ready for this to be either real or a trick.

"Code is X3A, fly true, strike hard," said Hayes voice, and then the channel automatically closed, the order given.

"All hands, battlestations, I repeat, all hands, battlestations!" shouted Miriya, and instantly the milling about several troops had been doing became very deliberate runs, hopping into their chairs and putting on head sets. Orders were shouted into those sets, and all along the length of her ship, lights began to turn on, engines were spun up, and the fold drive deep within, that had been kept on stand by, was given the go ahead. Before a minute had passed, the great ship she served on was surrounded by a glowing sheen of light, and then it vanished.

OoOoO

Sparatus had just given the order for some of his ships to land on the planet. A few frigates only, not cruisers. They knew the Terrans were larger than your average sentient, by an order of magnitude. That information had been included with the mission that had brought him here. Acting on that, he wanted any ships sent down to be able to remain active for as long as possible, with guns and weapons ready should any of the Terrans get any big ideas.

As the final course was charted, as the first frigate began to move, it happened. There was a bright flash of light outside his view port, and he had to cover his eyes with his hand, trying to peer out into the depths of space to find what the heck had caused it. All around him, the sounds of officers trying to adapt, a few screaming, as they'd been blinded by the bright light, possibly some kind of attack from below, a new weapon they hadn't been told about.

When his vision cleared enough that he could see, leaving only a few spots, he got a good look at what had happened, and his heart nearly stopped. In front of his ship was a new space station. He couldn't really gauge the size, but with the various cruisers and frigates in his view, he knew the thing had to be quite distant to be seen, and so massive that it dwarfed the Citadel itself. It now hung there in space before him, as if daring him to try something.

OoOoO

The Council Chamber hung silent as the new shape appeared. There was no flash of light for them, just one minute, the sky was filled with only turian vessel, the next, it just popped into existence, and you could hear the shocked gasps of politicians, the muttered obscenities of the military minds, and even a few prayers to gods or ancestors the speaker probably hadn't even really believed in until that moment.

The shape was too scale, or so they assumed as the turian fleet was displayed that way in the hologram. That meant that the thing was miles and miles long, at least as large as the Citadel, if not larger. The design was dirt simple too. It was a single long shaft, seemingly smooth like a jewel, and in the shape of a square prism. Near the back part, just from the end of the thing, jutted several smaller prisms at ninety degree angles to each other, before a piece of the longer one, the same length as the pieces jutting out, stretched behind.

To a human, the shape was simple, a sword of blocks. The hilt, a star guard, or so Hayes had had it described to her once, with two sets of arms instead of a single, allowing it to be held at different angles. The shape have given the unit its name, The Sword of the Southern Cross, otherwise called the SDF-4. It was eighty miles in total length, eight miles wide at every end, and the rear protrusions and the arms both stuck out an additional eight miles from the body.

Simple design, on a massive scale. It was also the most powerful mobile weapon Terrans had ever designed. The main gun, which ran the entire length of the ship, was powerful enough that it could punch a hole in a planet, and most of that length was still covered with small bumps that couldn't be seen in the holo, each one a reflex turret, with enough firepower behind the individual shots to level large sections of a city from orbit. To the Terrans, the view of this had become a major point of triumph, that they had built something so powerful.

"Governor Williams, would you try and patch us through to Sparatus again? I think he might want to talk a little more now," said Hayes to the still floating image of the older man, who just nodded as he worked on getting the connection established again. The Councilors, looking at the sight before them, unable to look away, were numb to those words. Each one thinking thoughts of how badly this could go, if Sparatus refused to listen to reason.

OoOoO

"General, there's a transmission from the planet. Should I put it through?" asked a captain Sparatus barely heard as he continued to just stare out of the port at the thing in front of him. Sensors were confirming its existence, somehow popping into being, despite being almost twice as long as the Citadel, and an estimated mass of not much lower. This thing was a beast, a feat of engineering he had never even considered possible, and now it hung there, silent.

"Sir?" asked the captain again, this time his hand going to Sparatus' shoulder, the touch of another instantly snapping him out of his thoughts, as he focused on what he was being told, motioning for the officers to put the governor's image back in front of him. That was then replaced a moment later by the three Councilors all of whom looked at him like he was scum of some sort, something to be wiped away to make them all feel clean again.

"General, I believe the Terrans have made their point quite clear. You will not be allowed to land, and are hereby ordered to return to Citadel Space as soon as possible. Is that clear?" asked the salarian, her tone suggesting that he had better fall into line right now, or face the consequences. Looking dully at her, and then back out the window, the turian's face seemed frozen in shock, and the Councilor was just about to order the second in command to take over, when the General raised a single hand.

"Captain, have all ships prepare weapons to fire on my mark," he said, and that order seemed to snap a few of his subordinates out of their own daze. With a command at last to be followed, they leapt to their stations and began signaling the other ships in the fleet.

"General, I do believe you just gave an order counter to the will of this Council. You are ordered, ordered! To stand down, right this instant," said the salarian, and General Sparatus turned to face her, his gaze fixing on the image of her in front of him, and then turning slightly to the side to the turian Councilor, who stood there, impassive, almost like he was ignoring the whole situation and hoping it blew over.

"Councilor, as the officer in the field, my command is absolute under the Citadel Conventions. That authority trumps even yours in a combat situation, which this has now become due to the Terrans' refusal to submit to a simple search. I feel that deserves a response in kind. All guns, fire in ten seconds," this order was relayed to the ships in his fleet, and even as the politicians impotently shouted at him, trying to keep him from protecting them from these upstart Terrans, he felt the dull thunk of a launch beneath his feet.

OoOoO

"Incoming fire!" shouted a voice on the bridge, the SDF-4 having been hanging there, waiting for some response to their arrival. Honestly, looking at the fleet before her, less than a thousand ships all total, Miriya had expected them to surrender. That was not to say that fire had not been counted on, and as the projectiles closed, solid state things of metal and speed rather than energy and heat, she heard the hum of the barrier system starting up. Within a heartbeat, an oval of green energy came into being around her ship, protecting it.

The impacts were still felt, however, as hundreds of the things slammed home hard. Stations began to shout numbers at her, engine levels, protoculture drain, and a dozen other things besides. She heard it all, taking in every detail of the battle. When the fire had passed, she watched with everyone else for a few moments, wondering if the enemy would continue to waste their time. Kinetic projectiles had no chance of penetrating a full omnidirectional barrier.

When no second wave of shots came, Mirirya considered her options. The enemy weapons were useless against her defenses, but they couldn't fire with them up either. The barrier was a two way street. She could just plow through them, of course, but she'd been told their ships were faster, and if they started maneuvering around she'd never catch them. Looking at her targeting displays, she decided, and pressed a button on her console so her voice would echo through the ship.

"All stations, prepare to return fire. Our information is that reflex weapons, and the enemy's own barriers down mix, so every gunner pick your target. Barrier drop in ten seconds. Point defense operators, prepare to intercept any incoming fire," the order was given, and she was satisfied with her crew as everyone quickly dropped into position, the bridge stations showing power drain of the various systems, before, at her count, the barrier fell, and streams of blue light shot between the massive SDF-4 and the turian fleet.

OoOoO

The image hanging above the Council showed the absolutely ridiculous amount of firepower pouring onto the ship, enough that even the best ship in the fleet would have been smashed into its component atoms. Then a glowing barrier appeared around the Terran ship, and suddenly that firepower looked woefully inadequate next to the power of this ultimate weapon, the shield blocking everything with ease, leaving the ship floating there serene, almost like a bomb before it exploded.

Every eye in the room knew that they were witnessing history, and so no one spoke as the barrier withdrew, leaving the ship once more exposed to the turians. Before another salvo could be fired, lances of light shot from the hull of the Terran vessel, streaking their way across space. The shots, faster than the turians, struck in seconds, and each vessel shuddered under the impact, the small frigates all having their barriers blown away, before going dead, in space, and at the Terrans' mercy.

To the larger ships, cruisers and dreadnaughts both, those shots might as well have been so much water, for all the impact they had. The light of each blast broke like waves upon the rocks, leaving the ships unharmed. Still, the fight seemed over, with so much of the fleet gone, and Hayes looked confidently at the images floating in front of her. Another salvo was fired from the turian ships, and this time many dots of light bloomed on the surface of the large vessel, each intercepting as much of the incoming fire as they could.

Not every shot was blocked, however. The points of light simply couldn't move fast enough to cover every projectile, and so many of them struck home. Where they did, the hull crumpled, and in one case, a hole seemed to be torn through several decks, causing Hayes to gasp. The armor of the SDF-4 wasn't the best, as the ship was designed more as a first strike weapon, but still, it was armored the same as any other warship. To see that hull simply punched through like that was a shock.

OoOoO

"Report!" shouted Miriya, holding onto her chair as violent shudders tore through the ship.

"Impact, D-sector. Seals are holding, no casualties to report ma'am," said one of the AIs from a monitor nearby, and she would have breathed a sigh of relief at that, if she could have allowed herself that moment. She was a soldier, however, and instead powered through.

"What happened?" she asked simply.

"The Point Directional Barrier is used to larger strikes over a wide area. Too many small hits incoming strained the systems ability to respond. Compensating," as she spoke, the large points of light suddenly broke apart into many smaller ones, and as a third wave of shots came in, every single one was intercepted this time, giving them all that moment of respite to collect themselves.

"Did our shots have any affect on their shields?" she asked, and saw at least a few stations running sims of the first strike, even as more fire from the enemies continued to rain down.

"Affirmative. There was a slight power decrease in them when struck. It will take approximately twenty two hundred hits to drain their systems fully at that rate," confirmed one of the Terrans sitting in a seat nearby.

"Unacceptable. Attempt a concert fire," she ordered.

"Target?" asked one of the nearby AIs.

"One of the smaller ships, we have to decrease the amount of incoming fire," she said, and was given an acknowledging beep, before she looked on her main monitor to watch as more and more fire was propelled her way. The turians were getting smarter too, sending fire in alternating patterns, and dividing up where their shots would hit, trying to overwhelm the point barriers. They weren't succeeding yet, but a single miss could tear the ship apart, if that first impact was any indication.

"Concert fire, locked," said one of the stations.

"Fire!" she ordered, and then watched in pride as her ship shot at her foes again. This time instead of hundreds of small columns of light, there was first one, then another, and then another, each turret firing in a pattern so that each shot would land at the exact same moment, showing a level of coordination that was surprising, even if some of those gunners were AIs.

When the shot finally passed the bow of her ship, fully sixty shots were part of it, and the slammed hard into the enemy ship before it could do more than notice the incoming fire. These shots landed hard, and as before, the impacts seemed to scatter on the barriers. However, instead of spreading out in all directions, lines like those that had appeared on the frigates ran over the cruisers barriers, and after a few seconds, that barrier popped, leaving the cruiser adrift, and getting a triumphant shout from the crew on the bridge.

"Concert fire again, begin binary test. Let's find out just how many of our shots they can take," she ordered, and a few crew members got rather wicked grins on their faces as a second volley of three sets of thirty slammed home, and once again, the targets were disabled, everyone aboard thinking the battle was won save the enemy surrendering or, as one of the dreadnaughts appeared to be doing, turning tail and running. Then she noticed something. The dreadnaught stopped turning before going completely the other way, and her eyes followed the ship's bow, before slamming her fist on her station, her voice ringing out over the bridge.

"I need the main reflex cannon to power, now!" she shouted.

"Ma'am, the main gun was damaged by the hit from earlier," said one of the bridge officers, an image of the ship flashing on her monitor with red lights in the damaged section.

"Then start charging the secondary, I want to fire as soon as possible!" she ordered, and then watched as another image of her vessel appeared on the monitor before her, hoping she was wrong, hoping the ship wasn't doing what she thought it was doing. Near the rear of her vessel, arcs of lightning began to play between one set of 'arms'. The energy moved up, and then hung in the space between those sections of the ship, soon joined by more arcs, as at the center of the lightning, a small ball began to grow, getting larger and more powerful as the seconds ticked on, but no where near fast enough.

OoOoO

"Yes!" shouted Jonathan Archer as he watched the monitor before him. His ship, along with a dozen other frigates, had been sitting here in space, floating a bit away from the relay that would take them to the Citadel, for almost a week now. He'd been concerned the whole time with what his home would do if trouble came, but seeing the SDF-4 defending it, he was satisfied that it would still be there when he got back. The battle seemed all but over now, and he almost wanted to open a bottle of champagne he'd been saving.

Then he noticed something. Something worrying, as one of the vessels in the rear, the big dreadnaughts, began to turn. After first, he thought it was trying to retreat, but then it stopped before it was facing fully away from the battle. Without saying anything, he fiddled with his controls to see what it was facing, and then his eyes went wide.

"T'Pol! Calculate Fold maneuver!" he cried out.

OoOoO

"This is going very badly," whispered the salarian Dalatress to her companions. The two Councilors could do little but nod at the comment. The battle, whichever way it went, was going to seriously hamper negotiations, and they would be forced to make at least some token reparations to the Terrans to make up for it. Luckily, it seemed for the moment that neither side had taken many, if any, fatalities. Still, in battle, that was only a matter of time.

"We should have cleared the chamber the instant this began," griped the turian beside her, and the Dalatress could only nod. It was far too late now, of course, and none of them could have known this would happen, but still, she hoped to be able to nip any problems like this in the bud next time. Looking up, she found the battle seemed nearly over. A back and forth had turned almost completely one sided now, despite the damage to the Terran ship.

"We might even be able to get some concessions out of Hayes for this," commented the Dalatress as the battle began to wrap up. A few ships to haul their fleet back, with an appropriate admonishment to the General, and probably a demotion. With that fleet down and out though, they could possibly convince Hayes to assist with border patrols, and allow Council agents onto the Terran ships. That could give them a lot of information, and a Specter or two in the midst of that fleet might even be able to get away with swiping some of that protoculture stuff.

"Wait, what is...?" the question trailed off, as the image of Sparatus' personal dreadnaught began to turn, looking at first like it might be about to flee the battle. Then everyone present realized what was really happening, and all of them just stared, shocked at this turn of events.

OoOoO

"What is that ship doing?" asked Shepard as stared at the monitor before her. It showed the battle hologram the Council was watching. Then she realized what it was she was seeing, and her heart leapt, as her eyes went wide.

OoOoO

"Hmm, well, that appears to be game," said Governor Williams to the empty conference room in his home. The display of the ships battling overhead had focused on one in particular, a huge arrowhead, now aimed straight for his colony. He knew what was coming. He knew how this was going to end, and could only feel cold resignation, wishing that he'd decided to keep Ashley at his side, as the future began to bear itself down upon him.

OoOoO

"This is impossible!" shouted the general as the information began to pour in. The enemy's first volley had somehow disabled his ships, hundreds of frigates rendered in operable. At first he had thought they were destroyed, as they vanished from his tactical displays, but then someone had actually decided to look for them, rather than just register their connections were dead, and found that the ships were intact, but dead in space.

Ordering another salvo from the remaining ships of his fleet, which seemed to be immune to this enemy weapon, he was satisfied when one of the shots not only got through the defenses, but literally tore a hole in the side of the enemy vessel. The ship was huge, powerful, but it wasn't invincible. It might take a while, but he could win this, and then he'd drag this thing's wreck back to Citadel Space. If they complained about it, well, they'd been the ones to attack his ships, the legitimate authority here.

Then it struck back again, in an impossible way. He saw it, the fire as it passed over the hull of that monster, each shot followed by another, and then another. It would have taken more than a computer or a gunner to do that. Even the AIs he knew of could not have calculated so well. Still, however they did it, the Terrans were able to fire off all their guns in sequence, so that a huge mass of blue light smashed into the barrier of one of the remaining cruisers, popping it like a bubble, and leaving the cruiser dead in space.

"Turn us!" he shouted to the crew in front of him, many of whom had been calculating firing vectors and the like, to make sure they didn't hit any of their own ships, which floated dead in front of them.

"General?" asked the captain, and Sparatus, rather than giving the order again, walked around his display and towards a piloting station ahead of him. Pushing the pilot out of his seat, he programed in the course he wanted, and felt the slight bit of motion as the engines began to turn the ship to the side. The massive weapon ahead slid out of view, to be replaced by the planet below.

"Fire control, give me a targeting solution on the colony," he said simply, coldly. The crew, unable to do anything other than what their training dictated, gave the general his request, and he felt that lovely hum as shots from the main cannon began to spin up to speed.

OoOoO

Across the galaxy, in a half a dozen locations, there were hundreds of eyes looking at the battle over Shanxi. All of them, as one, turned to the ship at the rear of the turian formation. All of them knew what was going to happen, and none of them could stop it. They could only watch in horror, as the turian dreadnaught charged up its main cannon, spinning a large hunk of metal up until it was going at near light speed, and then fired out of the cannon that housed it, streaking down into the atmosphere of the planet on a screaming trajectory towards the world below.

"No!" cried out the voices of many of the watchers, a final cry at the unfairness of it all, impotently begging the universe for some miracle to stop this.

Chapter Text

A shot from a mass effect cannon is a simple thing. You use the ME field to lighten the projectile, making it easier to move, and then you use magnets to apply a spin to it, creating force. When the spin is at the limit of what the gun can tolerate, the ME field is altered, and mass is multiplied by many orders of magnitude, the spin providing momentum for the shot, while the ME field aims it. The barrel of the gun provides extra umph to get the shot on its way, and outside it seems to glow as the magnetic lining has electricity run through it.

This is the principle of a mass effect weapon. Barriers are designed to spread the force of the shot out, rather than simply take it head on, but a ground target, unable to shield itself, will find the impact to be as destructive as a bomb. The shot from a dreadnaught's main gun is almost a planet killer all on its own to an unprotected planet, with the initial blast enough to destroy anything within fifty miles of the impact site, and sending debris and dust into the air for a farther hundred miles out.

The turian ship above Shanxi fired, the shot flying straight and true towards its target, the very center of the Terran colony below. To Sparatus, the choice had been obvious. This colony was protected by a weapon of such size and obvious power that there was simply no way for it to truly be what they claimed it was. This was no civilian port of call. It was a staging base, a place from which to launch attacks on Citadel space, and begin invading the homes of his people.

To the rest of the galaxy, not blinded by their fear of change, this was an act that would have gone down in history, a moment that would mark forever the turians as not the just defenders of law that they proclaimed themselves, but as murders. In a time far in the future, the Terrans, enraged, would destroy the turians for this. They would stand over the turian homeworld, and with a single blast, would destroy it, and every remaining turian would know it was because of one man's arrogance and ambition.

That future was not the road this moment took. As the shot flew, in those few seconds before it would hit the surface, another flash, like the one that had brought the SDF-4 to Shanxi happened. It was smaller, but then, the vessel that arrived was smaller as well. This ship, one that the people of Shanxi knew well, came to their aid in this dark moment. Everyone watching could see them there for the blink of the eye it took for the shot to land.

"Crew, it's been an honor," was all Jonathan Archer could say into his mic. He knew what he'd done, sending them here, to this place and moment. His crew, at the stations aboard the ship, said nothing. They felt no shame in this, no horror at what was being asked of them. All had been watching at their own stations, the battle playing out above their homes, all knew why the captain had chosen this course for them. Those with other crew members, stood, and saluted, those alone, just saluted their monitors, and then, in a crash of metal, a crunch of force, the Phoenix was struck by the turian projectile.

The armor was designed to resist reflex weapons, things of light, heat, and force. At this, it was decent, but the turian's weapons were not one to divide their power between three elements. The turian projectile was just force, and the armor that was struck buckled instantly under the strain. The crew had no time to mourn themselves, even the AIs had no time to abandon ship, instead they took this death with the dignity that was due to their training and went into that good night with glory.

The shot tore through the ship, until it struck the engine, and as the protoculture inside was released, it exploded outward, a ball of blue fire consuming the shot, the ship, and everything for a mile around. Below, the colonist who had been looking up could see this blast, and while they may not have known the specifics, every one of them knew what had happened, a ship had sacrificed themselves for the colony, and all of them gave the same gesture of respect to those who were lost, while vowing vengeance against those who had taken them.

OoOoO

"Jonathan!" cried a woman on the Presidium, her voice echoing far and wide, every eye on the streets turning to face her. Only a few knew the story there, but none could deny the pain in that cry, as a fist slammed hard into the wall, and tears began to form in the eyes of the giant woman, who had seemed almost like a statue for the last week. Those below backed off, a few murmurs of concern for what she might do now, but those were silenced by the ones wearing uniforms. They knew the pain she was going through, if not her specific story, and until she became violent, she could grieve in whatever way she needed.

OoOoO

"Sparatus! What are you doing!?" demanded a voice from beside him, and the turian general turned the pilot's seat to stare into the projected head of one of his fellow officers.

"I'm decapitating an enemy force. Whatever they're doing here, it's defended too heavily to be a simple farming colony," said Sparatus, as he relayed an order with a few gestures, to reload for another shot.

"That...that's unconscionable! That's a civilian colony down there!" said the face again, and the general ignored it. Septimus was ever a turian to think with his heart, and not with his head. This was not the time to be soft, this was a time to be hard as rock on the inside. Taking aim again, recalibrating the firing solution, Sparatus prepared to fire again.

OoOoO

"Turian fleet! If you do not surrender right now, I will be forced to destroy you, this is your only warning!" shouted Miriya into her display, the transmission was a general wave form, even if they weren't trying to receive it, they would get a face full anyway. Fury dripped from her voice, and her words were backed up by her weapons, the ball hovering between the pillars at the rear of her ship now measured a full mile across, and was only growing larger.

"This is General Sparatus, the time for surrender is far past. You and yours must be stopped, and if this is the only way to protect the Citadel from you, then so be it," was a quick, concise reply.

"Ma'am! Heat increasing from the turian vessel. They're preparing to fire again!" shouted one of the Terrans at a station nearby.

"Fire first then! If they want to die so badly, then let's spread their atoms across space!" ordered Miriya, and everyone present nodded. With a few quick buttons, the orb was aimed, the shot prepared, and then launched. The sound of it was lost in the void of space, but the vision of it, an arch of white-orange light, blazed across space, shooting straight and true.

Aboard the turian vessels, disabled and unable to move, there was no warning. One moment, they stood there, the next, wave of light struck them. The armor of their ships was no more ready for the heat and force of the shot than the Phoenix had been, and so they buckled instantly, mercifully. None aboard were given even that moment of horror as death, senseless and stupid, claimed them. Simply a moment of light and fire, and then it was over.

For those two cruisers in the way, the story was far worse. The barriers around their ships held for a moment, a set of three heartbeats. They had been designed with force in mind, spreading the impact out to reduce damage, and did much the same with the light and heat of this blast. But there was so much of it, and it was all around them so fast that the system simply couldn't keep up. They were given that horrible moment to look out, see death in the fires around them, and then the barriers collapsed, and it was inside with them, ending them in screams rather than silence.

The dreadnaught Sparatus was no different than the cruisers. The second shot had just left the barrel of the main cannon when the shot from the Terran ship hit. The projectile was vaporized by the overwhelming power of the other weapon, and his ship was tossed backwards. The barrier held longer though, and the crew were able to curse, rant, cry, or simply stand there. For some, it was that moment to face death with dignity, for others it was the moment to decry their leader, who had brought this fate upon them. The end for all of them was the same, the barrier held only for two seconds, and then their world became fire.

Sitting in the pilots seat, Sparatus was given the best view of this. His mind flashed. Not back over the events of his life, but oddly, to the events of his future. He saw himself in the Councilor's robes after a war with a much smaller version of the Terrans. He saw this new people begin to slowly spread throughout the stars, demanding the rights of an older race despite their youth. He saw one in particular, rise through adversity to be a leader, a unifier of peoples, rallying them against a darkness that was coming.

Then he saw fire and light alone. His skin began to melt, the metals in his face turning to liquid and running into every crag. His eyes boiled away, and he swore he could almost hear them pop, and finally he took a breath to scream, and found only fire there, the pain so great it silenced every thought he might have, until all at once, it was over, and darkness took him.

Chapter Text

Looking up at the display before her, Hayes could say nothing. The weapon that had been fired this day had never before taken a life, despite its power. Now the great Sword of the Southern Cross had tasted blood, and it was a bitter flavor in her mouth. In front of her, the Councilors were in awe. The weapon's fire had simply unmade so much of their work. Troops, ships, and weapons, all years in the making, and in that single instant, rendered to so much space dust. Silence ruled the chamber, until a voice rang out from Hayes' omnitool, the voice of the woman who had offered the turians a chance to avoid this.

"All ships in the turian fleet, the attacker has been dealt with, but I hold you all responsible for what has happened here this day. I shall offer you a final chance. Power down your vessels, and surrender them to me. If you wish to fight on, I shall grant you the death you crave, but know that it will be at best ignoble, at worst a waste. You have one minute," came the cold voice of Miriya Sterling, an open transmission to all her foes, even as further arcs of energy made their way up the arms of the SDF-4, forming four more bolts of light ready to fly.

"This is General Septimus, I officially surrender the fleet to the Terran Federation. All ships, you are hereby ordered to stand down, dump your cores, and await further instruction," came the voice of another turian, and within seconds, the few remaining vessels, even the two dreadnaughts, hung lifeless in space, radiating a few bits of heat and electricity into the void. The huge ship, seeing this, came forward, orders being given on how to go about surrendering, before Hayes lowered her arm, the image before her vanishing.

All at once, what had been silence turned into a cacophony of voices. Some turned to any turian in the chamber, be they in a military uniform or a government one, demanding answers as to how this happened. Others were screaming for them to take the woman in front of the Council into custody, proclaiming that it was her bullheadedness that had led to this. If she had simply been willing to allow a lawful inspection of her colony, no lives would have been lost.

To the Council, these voices and cries might as well have been the quiet of a graveyard. They heard none of it, for each, in their own way, was lost in thought. To the asari, this was a disaster of almost unprecedented proportions. A turian general had shirked his duty to the Council, and had shown how far their authority actually reached. To the turian, this was a disaster for another reason. The dreadnaught and all those ships destroyed. Ten thousand lives on the large ship, and thousands more on the smaller vessels, all gone in an instant. To the salarian, this was a disaster for the simple reason that the Terrans had won, with a weapon the Council simply had no counter to at present, and she had no time to plan for it, no time to send for spies, or to sabotage.

"This is a most distressing turn of events," said the Hayes, as she looked towards the Council before her.

"Indeed, perhaps a recess is in order for us to colle-" began the asari Councilor, only to be cut off as Hayes raised her hand, to silence her. Some in the chamber wondered at the impertinence of the gesture, but others worried, this woman's people had just shown powers so far beyond them, and now she commanded silence of their leaders.

"Twice now, you have offered my people war. First when we met, ignorant of who you were, and now here, in the full knowledge of us, but thinking us a simple race to be crushed under heel. As with the first, we will not accept this war, for that part of our nature we try to keep in check," the words seemed to echo over the chamber, as if being spoken by some demigod, and every word reverberated, being recorded by the orb and transmitted to the Citadel and beyond.

"However, peace is something we can offer you no longer either. So I will say this. The Local Cluster is our space, any Citadel Ships or peoples found in area after the end of the next month will be deemed trespassers in our space, and will be met as such. The batarians have that long to evacuate the two pirate bases they currently control in that space, before we come to claim the land as ours," the declaration was met with only silence, and so she continued.

"Farther, any unclaimed territory in the Skyllian Verge is now ours as well. We will not interfere in those colonies that already dot that area, and will remain out of those systems, but any place were your people are not, is now ours," she said this simply, and then stayed silent. When it was clear she would speak no more, the chamber erupted with shouts. Each seemed demanding a different thing. For the Council to execute an enemy of the state, for them to demand justice for the dead turians, and even for them to create a seat for these Terrans on the Council itself.

"I believe, we are done here," came Hayes' voice finally over the tumult, and everyone else went silent once more. She then simply turned and walked away, her shoes echoing as she walked in the once again silent chamber. She had made it almost a dozen steps when the turian Councilor realized she was really just leaving after making a statement like that.

"Wait a moment!" he shouted after her, but she didn't stop, walking like someone who was in a daze, dead to the world.

"I said halt! Guards!" a few of the armored soldiers, salarians interestingly enough, strode forward to block her way, and Hayes looked at them, before turning back to the Council. Her gaze didn't go for them though, instead she turned her eyes towards the floating orb that had been transmitting this entire scene to the Presidium far below. A single nod was her only gesture, before dropping to her hands and knees, as if she were injured.

The salarians, one with a look of true concern on her face, came forward to help the Terran up, only for a shudder to send her tumbling. In fact, every being in the chamber, from the Councilors to the aides, to the guards all felt the shaking, and all were knocked to the floor. The feared to rise, wondering if the Terran had used some dark magic to make this happen, and every eye searched the room to try and find the source of the shaking, only for Hayes to raise her beeping omnitool high, and an image to appear above her.

OoOoO

Far below on the Presidium, Shepard's eyes were glittering with tears she would not allow herself to shed yet, not until she was home, but in the meantime, her body had acted. Every joint of her armor was steaming, and one could smell the ozone in the air, if one had been so inclined to sniff. Few were focused on the sense of smell, however. Most were more visually inclined, as before them stood the Terran woman, a fixture on the Citadel that had yet to harm anyone, her fist still pressed tight against the Citadel Tower she had struck, leaving a single large crack at the site of impact.

"You," she said simply, looking down, and the C-Sec patrol that had been watching her since the events that had led to this began looked up at her, those eyes bearing down on them, as if she was going to crush them with the sheer weight of her attention.

"I don't have an omnitool, and I need to send a message, can one of you help me?" she asked, and her voice dripped with something. It wasn't a threat, it wasn't anger, and it wasn't power. It was a promise. A promise that should they try anything, should they poke her any harder than their leaders had already, she would not hold herself back, and she would not be gentle. Looking at each other, and then at her, an asari stepped forward.

"Do you know the frequency you want to contact?" she asked, and Shepard rattled off a set of numbers, which the asari dialed into her omnitool, before pointing the camera in the device at her.

OoOoO

"It was promised, when these negotiations began, that should we choose, the delegation from the Federation could leave at any time. You will allow Mrs. Hayes to enter the elevator, and she will come down to me. If this does not happen, I will be forced to rescue her, and that will not be good for relations between our peoples," said the image of Shepard's face, floating above Hayes. She said this in a tone of menace that shook those hearing it.

Any veteran soldier knew that sound, it was the sound of a soldier looking for an excuse to kill, and given what she had just done, Shepard would be able to do a lot of damage before anyone could stop her. Thus Hayes was allowed to stand, and walk towards the elevator, while below, Shepard picked her helmet back up. She didn't put it on, however, and just stood there waiting.

OoOoO

"It would seem this shopping trip is at an end," said Exedore, his tone one of sadness as he turned towards his escorts. All of them had seen what he had, and none of them were quite willing to face the rather of the giant, so all they did was nod at him.

"I believe it would be best if I returned alone to the embassy to gather some things I left there. Please, all of you, take care," he said the last in a friendly tone, trying to show that in spite of what had happened, he bore no one here any ill will. Then he took off, far faster than the turians in full armor could. As he went, everyone around him was giving him a wide berth, almost all of them witness to what was happening, and having no desire to become involved.

The turians who had been escorting him were quickly given orders, but in truth, they came from a dozen different sources. Some wanted them to seize Exedore, and hold him until he could be questioned, others demanded they leave the alien be, and still others began to order they shoot him, in honor of the fallen at Shanxi.

Taking command of the situation, Vakarian quickly ordered the group to disband, the target having already fled, and none of the orders coming from a source that they could say truly trumped the others. Quick to latch on to the excuse, the group went their separate ways, leaving Vakarian to his own devices. He considered returning with them, but thought better of it, and instead followed behind Exedore. There was someone he needed to talk to before she left.

OoOoO

A quick message from Exedore had Hayes and Shepard make their way back to the embassy they had been staying at. Behind them in the pavement, Shepard proved that she had indeed been holding back for the last week. Where before her footsteps had merely been small shudders, now they were quakes, and six inch deep impressions were left in the walkways as she passed, with a team of keepers following behind, doing their best to keep up with the damage, while a dozen of their number repaired the crack to the Citadel Tower.

She stood there impassive as the walls around her as her charges went into the building. She wasn't able to follow due to size, but everyone who came up gave her a wide berth, afraid of her in ways she had been trying to avoid the whole time she'd been there, but now relished. Of course, they might have been less afraid had they known that punching the tower hard enough to damage it had used all her armor's power, and the deep impressions in the ground were more the result of the armor's weight than her own.

"Excuse me," said a voice, and Shepard turned down to it, her face like chiseled stone. At her feet was a familiar form, but an unexpected one. It was the salarian Councilor, and her own features seemed set, as if to match Shepard's hardness with her own.

"Yes, Councilor?" asked Shepard.

"I have come to talk with Representative Hayes before she leaves. I am unarmed, alone, and promise that she will not be harmed," as if to demonstrate this, she opened her hands and held them aloft, so you could see that the robe she wore hung loose. Looking down, Shepard could hear an earnestness in her voice, and so stood to one side for a moment, allowing the Dalatress ingress, before resuming her post.

She stood there for minutes longer, wishing she had a way to listen in to whatever was being said, if only to distract her mind from all the horrible things running through it. The Citadel had threatened her husband, the man to whom she'd given her heart. Her children had literally been within a moment of dying, and had only been spared because her friends had been willing to give themselves up instead. If she hadn't had this assignment, she would have joined them, and to her shame, she wasn't sure whether she should be relieved she wasn't, or jealous of them for going out in such a way.

"Hello, Hannah," said a voice from below, breaking her dark train of thought, and snapping her back to reality. Looking down, she saw two people she wasn't sure how to feel about. They were friends. One had been with her, in a room, for two weeks, answering any questions she might have had, the others had been helpful in ways few others could be. Yet, their faces were the faces of the enemy, those who had killed her friends, nearly killed her family.

"Arus, Venari," she said to the two, looking behind her, and then deciding that for right now, for this moment, she wanted to be comfortable, and so she sat down, bringing her face closer to them.

"I-we came to say something, but right now, I can't for the life of me remember what it was," said Lieutenant Vakarian to her, as he mimicked her, settling down with his legs crossed beneath him, while his back was to the embassy wall. Underlieutenant Pallin didn't join the two, probably because his arm was still in that sling, and instead just leaned back, both of them facing her, as she looked down into the pool in front of her.

"I think we were going to say we're sorry, and if there had been anything we could have done, we would have," said Venari, and Arus nodded.

"Yes, something like that," he agreed, and then both waited for Shepard to say something. At first, she didn't, it was just her breathing in and out slowly, deliberately, as around her the Citadel spun on, like nothing had changed. Then she took a deep breath and sighed it back out, before turning to them.

"I don't know how to feel right now. I want to hate someone, anyone. One of your people attacked my home, my family and friends. If he were still alive, there wouldn't be a hole deep enough anywhere in the galaxy had could hide from me," she said at last, holding a hand before her eyes, and then clenching it tightly in a fist.

"But he's dead, killed along with far too many souls who trusted him to lead them. If it were just that, I think it would be you two who should hate me, because your people died like that," she continued this, and then turned down towards them, and you could see a small glitter in the corner of her eyes.

"It wasn't just your people though. I knew every single soul aboard the Phoenix. Katana Faraway, a hot shot pilot, best on Shanxi. T'Pol, a stuffy AI, but she was really good at keeping us organized. Tulley, a man just there for the paycheck, but a damn fine mechanic. And then there was Captain Jonathan Archer," as she spoke that last name, a single tear did finally fall, and she didn't try to wipe it away, instead leaning forward a little more, so it fell into the pool in which her boots were soaking.

"I named my son after him, did I tell you that, Arus?" she asked.

"You did. You said you respected him for his goals. He wanted to be a hero, just like his great-grandfather during the Robotech War. Jack Archer saved the lives of everyone in Greystone, and Jonathan wanted the chance to do something similar," repeated the turian, thinking back on the stories the two of them had swapped regarding their families.

"This wasn't the way he should have had to do it. There should have been a pirate attack, or an asteroid moving too close to the colony. Something were he could actually fight back. Not sacrificing himself and everyone else just because some psycho decides to fire at a bunch of civilians," she said this, and the sound of falling water came from above, the two turians just sitting there and letting her cry. This was the life of a soldier sometimes, to lose friends, even loved ones. To many, that should have made them harder to the pain, but for true soldiers, they knew it was something you felt all the more, and so they sat in silence, as she let herself go for that one moment.

Chapter Text

Hayes and Exedore had been loading up one of the carts with a few of Exedore's larger purchases, with the man himself complaining that he was likely not going to see a good return on most of the investments he'd made over the last week when it came to Citadel credits. As they, together, lifted a large circular device onto the stack, grunting with the exertion, they heard a chime. Both stopped immediately looking at each other, and then at the door, before Hayes went to it.

"Hello?" she asked tentatively, both aware that right now, even with Shepard outside, they would be targets of aggression.

"Yes, Representative Hayes, it's the salarian Councilor. I am unarmed, and wish to speak with you before you leave. If that would be all right," the two looked at each other again, both a bit surprised by the humble tone of voice, and so Hayes opened the door, allowing the Councilor in, who looked at them both as she entered, and the seemingly jumbled pile of things on the cart, before bowing to them.

"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, but I felt it would be the last time I would be able to speak with you, personally," she told them, and Hayes nodded, gesturing towards a set of chairs where they all took seats.

"It might be, I'm afraid. After the events of today, I doubt our governments will want to talk for a long time," said Hayes.

"Longer for me than you. I'm almost thirty five years old now, and will likely end the year retired to some nice warm place back on my homeworld. By the time our people have relations again, I will be long since dead. Still, I am a woman who looks to the future, it's why I'm a Councilor, and right now, I must ask these questions, to settle my mind about how the future will play out," she said this simply, bluntly, and both Hayes and Exedore just nodded at her, motioning for her to continue.

"You have ample reason to hate us, to make war on us, after what that fool did. If not the whole Council, at least the turians, and many a race, including the krogan, seem to think that you'll declare hostilities the instant you leave. I must ask, will you?" again, her tone was blunt. No tricks, no clouded meaning, just a desperate need to know. It got both Hayes and Exedore thinking, until finally, it was Exedore who answered with a question of his own.

"I know we sent the history files to you, but did you have time to go over them fully?" asked the Zentraedi.

"I will admit, I skimmed in a few places, but I think I absorbed it fairly well," answered the salarian.

"If that is the case, then I'm sure you're aware that my people are extra-galatic, from a galaxy called M51," he said, and she nodded at this.

"You came in search of the SDF-1, correct?" asked the Dalatress.

"Indeed. But, did you not wonder what happened to our old home after we left it?" responded the Zentraedi, and the Dalatress seemed taken aback by the question.

"I had assumed you couldn't get back. The data you gave us indicated it took you over a millennium to arrive here from where you originated," she said.

"Heh, a misconception. It took us one thousand years to find the SDF-1, not to get here. The range of a Fold Drive equipped ship is, to put it simply, unlimited. We can go anywhere in the universe in the blink of an eye. With the proper calculations of course," he seemed to add the last as an afterthought.

"But no, we could, and have returned to our birthplace. Before I tell you what we found, I will tell you this, one of the reasons our creators were so intent on finding the SDF-1 is the power source inside it, the Protoculture Matrix was central to powering the greatest weapon ever known to us. A device that, when activated, could cause any star, at any age or intensity, to expel all its energy in one apocalyptic blast of fire and force. In essence, it was a weapon that could turn the very stars themselves into bullets to be fired at your enemy," he said this simply, as if he weren't admitting that somewhere, somewhen, someone had created a device that could literally wipe out everything, everywhere.

"This device, the Stellar Detonation Device, or SDD, was by its very nature, a weapon of last resort. But our masters had sent us out to find the power to make it work, all their warriors and protectors, and so they left themselves without guardians, in a galaxy they had ruled through fear for so long that even they knew not a time when they were lords of all they surveyed," his tone changed now, to one of sorrow, as he spoke, and looked upwards, as if he could see through the Citadel, and out into space, into the spinning cosmos beyond.

"Without the Matrix, the SDD was weak, but it still worked, at least in part. Point it at a star, and the star would eject a wave of fire in all directions. It wasn't quite the explosion that was wanted by its maker, the worlds would be left, and able to be recovered, but it was powerful enough for their needs," he only seemed to grow darker as the tale went on, and though the Dalatress could tell exactly where this would end, she would not stop him, she had to hear this for herself.

"We can only guess at what happened next. Maybe someone among the Robotech Masters panicked. Maybe one of the other races grew stronger. Maybe it was just an accident. What we do know is that every world in the M51 is a graveyard of worlds now. The great crystal cities of Tirol were dust in the wind. The verdant jungles of the Invid homeworlds were just mountains of ash. Even the stone fortresses of the once mighty Karbaran, built into mountains, are just rubble," he seemed drained, and the Dalatress realized why.

Those words seemed to come from deep inside him. He must have seen these things for himself, after all, he claimed to be over two thousand years old, and it would only make sense to take someone along who had an intimate knowledge of the area. He must have been on those ships, traveling home, hoping to find his people again, only to find ruination left behind them. Home and hearth gone in a blaze of fire that consumed everything a world had to offer.

"That, my dear Councilor, is why we're refusing this war. We can't, and won't refuse a third time, but for now, we wish only to live in peace, lest the fire consume this galaxy, as it did the home of the Zentraedi so long ago," said Hayes, and the Dalatress could do nothing but nod, as her mind pictured that sort of war, and of her own home burning into cinders.

"Do you still have this Stellar Detonation Device?" she asked at last, a tremble of fear in her voice.

"No. Even if it had been something we recovered from the M51, we would have destroyed it. Such power is ultimately destructive, and nothing good can come of it," responded Hayes, and the salarian woman looked at her with those frog like eyes. She watched her move her hands, her feet, and even the in and out motion of her chest. In her time on the Council, the Dalatress had prided herself on knowing when she was being lied to, and in this statement, from this woman, she saw only truth.

"Then I have something to say, before I take my leave of you," she said this while standing up, and then fell to one knee before the two of them.

"We of Sur'Kesh recognize what has been done to you, if not by ourselves, than by agents bearing our will. For this reason, if nothing else, we grant your wish. The worlds you have claimed as you own are recognized as such, and we will not interfere in your affairs," so saying she stood up, and then looked at them, smiling in that odd way a salarian did, before turning on her heel.

She had intended to leave after such a declaration, but was stopped in her tracks as a low beeping sound came from Hayes' omnitool. The Councilor stopped in her stride, turning towards the the Terran, who was already pressing a button to answer the transmission. When she pushed it though, a form popped into existence, a hologram she recognized from his time pleading his people's case in front of her.

"Representative, I have...oh, I wasn't aware you were having company," said the form.

"I was just about to leave Mr. Garibaldi," she said, and made to do just that.

"Wait, I think you might want to hear this as well," he told her, and the Dalatress turned to face him.

"As you might remember, since you remember my name, I'm the electronic warfare officer of the Agamemnon. In that capacity I have been spreading...packages throughout the Citadel's computers," he said, and the Dalatress waved her hand in a dismissive gesture.

"You and every other information gathering service in the galaxy. My own people have spy tools spread the whole length of the station. I assume, you found something of note with yours, however," she said, and Garibaldi nodded.

"Something of grave importance to everyone here. When I leapt into the turian Councilor's omnitool I left a present behind for him. I figured it would be good for blackmail later, given some of the preferences I saw in the thing. It picked up a few incriminating things, but this more so than most," as he spoke, he waved his hand, and suddenly two smaller images appeared beside him, floating in the air. One was the turian Councilor himself, but the other was far more interesting, and known to everyone in the room, and probably the galaxy after today.

"Ah, Councilor, how may I help you?" said the image of Sparatus.

"I want to know the status of the fleets we have patrolling the batarian border," responded the Councilor. What followed was a few reports, most of them involving patrolled systems, a few skirmishes with batarian ships, and one that had apparently encountered a quarian ship that had been mining an asteroid. That one was shooed off back to its fleet, an action that seemed to give the general a great bit of amusement.

"I notice, in your reports, you failed to note Arterius' group. I believe the cruiser, Talons, was in command there," this statement seemed to bring the general up short for a moment.

"We only learned about the failure of the group to report in recently. A lieutenant has already been demoted for that, sir. May I ask how you learned of their disappearance?" he said this in a much more reserved and suspicious tone.

"You may, and your answer would be because the Talons is here on the Citadel," said the Councilor.

"I'm sorry, you're saying that Arterius, one of my most devoted officers, has left his post?" asked Sparatus.

"There are mitigating circumstances behind this. His patrol group encountered a new race, a species calling themselves Terrans, in the midst of activating Relay Three-One-Four. Seeing the situation, Arterius decided the best course of action was to stop them through force, and fired on them," explained the Councilor.

"That doesn't sound so bad. New races sometimes need to be taught that doing things without thinking them through will result in unpleasant consequences," retorted the General.

"I agree. However, it seems this race is in possession of a new type of technology, far different from the eezo base we ourselves use," and then he pushed a button on his omnitool, and another image appeared between them, this of the Agamemnon and the Phoenix.

"Their ships are massive in scale, and their ambassador here on the Citadel claims to have thousands of ships of at least dreadnaught weight," as he spoke on, images of a turian dreadnaught and cruiser joined the two Terran vessels, showing their size against the Terran ships. The comparison was not comforting to a military mind.

"That must be a lie. We have one of the most robust economies in the galaxy, and even we can't support more than a few dozen. A race new to the galactic scene would simply not have the capability to keep a fleet of more than a few ships of that weight supplied and manned," said Sparatus as he observed the images.

"Again, I agree. Too many of her claims are outrageous. They even claim that their technology is extra-galactic in origin. Which brings me to the point of this transmission. They have a colony in the system with the relay. While the Talons was brought to the Citadel with their ship, they left the escort frigates behind. I want you to retrieve them from the system, and while you're there, inspect their colony," as he spoke, he leaned forward, his face almost touching Sparatus'

"By inspect, do you mean seize?" asked the general, his face going to his omnitool. Obviously he was recording this conversation, for what end not anyone present could say.

"If it becomes necessary, yes. We must have examples of their technology to either prove their claims, or label them as the liars I believe they are. If we must inconvenience a few of their citizens, so be it. Such power introduced too quickly onto the galactic stage could be catastrophic to our entire society," said the Councilor, trying to justify his actions before the fact, as he knew his words were being recorded.

"If they resist me, is lethal force authorized?" this question seemed to catch the Councilor off guard, as if he had not considered that the Terrans might resist to the point of combat. Still, he collected himself after a few heartbeats.

"I will not authorize lethal force against a civilian outpost. Should it prove to be more than that, you may use your own discretion, but be aware, one of the examples of this new specie is over sixty feet in height. I have had agents confirm independently that this is not some trick, and appears to be the real thing. They claim that this is the average size of their people, though the only two I've seen in person are certainly smaller than that," this time it was the general's turn to be caught off guard, and it took him considerably longer to recover as he seemed to be trying to mentally picture someone of that size.

"I will make sure all ground teams are told this, and given the appropriate gear to handle it. Is there anything else we should know going in?" asked the general.

"Two things. First that they had a weapon capable of disabling the frigates in short order. We don't know how it works, but all the reports I'm seeing say the blasts seemed to interact with the barriers somehow. The second is that the Terrans make use of AIs in their battles. These are far different than our own, and can access any open system, so it might be prudent to lock down every computer until you have control of the colony," this information was filed away, rather than being surprising to the general, who just nodded at it, and then motioned for the Councilor to continue.

"It would be best if you were able to get in and out without attracting too much attention. If reports are correct, they had no defenders in the colony, and it should be cut off for some time as I have delayed the deployment of a hypernet beacon. If you work quickly enough, you might get in and out before the Terran Federation's realized anything has happened," responded the Councilor, and the general nodded, before the two holos vanished, leaving the room around them in silence.

"How old is this file?" asked the salarian as she came back to herself.

"It's marked as being a week old, just after negotiations started. I would have found it sooner, but the data probe that recorded it was in a sensitive area. Dumping its memory probably caused at least a dozen alarms to go off, but I think the data speaks for itself," said Garibaldi, and the Councilor nodded.

"It does indeed. This would explain General Sparatus' rash actions. Still, to know that turian metal head decided to do this, behind our backs," she let the thought trail off as her mind ran over the likely scenarios of confronting him with this information. Most were quite violent, especially if he refused to step down. Sparatus' decision to violate Citadel Law and bomb a planet from orbit would already reflect badly on the Councilor, but this would destroy his career.

"Would the Councilor face the consequences of his actions, if you were to be given a copy of this recording?" asked Hayes, and without even thinking about it, the Dalatress nodded.

"Garibaldi, I want you to give all the data you have in regards to this to the Dalatress, and then delete your copies," ordered Hayes, getting some odd looks from those around her.

"Ma'am, are you sure that's a good idea?" asked the AI after a moment of silence.

"I am. The Dalatress has recognized our claim of the Local Cluster as legitimate. As such, it would be in the best interest of relations to allow her to deal with this matter internally," responded Hayes. Garibaldi looked for a moment like he wanted to argue the point, but then just shrugged. A second later the Councilor's omnitool beeped, saying she had a file, and then the hologram faded.

"I must act on this immediately. If you will both excuse me," said the Dalatress, and left as quickly as decorum would allow, leaving Hayes and Exedore alone. As they resumed piling more things onto the cart, the Zentraedi turned to the Terran woman.

"You are putting a great deal of faith in the Dalatress, considering what has happened today," he said, as they lifted up another ring shaped contraption together, grunting from the effort.

"I know it's a gamble, but it's one that could pay off. The salarians are used to being the last among equals. Not as respected for their wisdom as the asari, or as feared for their might as the turians. I think, given a few pushes in the right direction, they might decide their future would be brighter with us, than with their current allies," she said, and Exedore took a moment to think on that.

He realized quickly how many touch stones he had made himself in the last week here, and how the Council's status would be altered by the events of the day. The Council itself was a loose affiliation of various states and peoples, not strong ties. The volus were chaffing under the rather draconian authority of the turians they were being protected by. The quarians were constantly trying to get some help for their beleaguered position, only to have every cry silenced by the Council races. The krogan were literally dying out because the Council refused to forgive a mistake they had made.

All in all, he had to agree with Hayes. The Council's position would be unstable in the coming weeks, as they got used to having another power in the galaxy. To destabilize them farther by dragging out the events would only lead to anarchy and chaos on possibly a galactic scale. Best, for now, to work in subtler fashions. Who knew, maybe, someday, they really would come to an agreement with the peoples of the galaxy. For now though, he looked at the junk piled high on the cart, and realized he needed to get it back to his lab on Gloval Station. There were many new toys to play with, and they would keep him occupied as the galaxy spun on around him.

Chapter Text

The two guards had been on duty most of the day. Luckily for them they were the guards on the inside of the embassy, as they'd heard the ruckus outside, including at least one bottle breaking against a wall. They'd originally bet each other on how long the mob outside would last against twenty five trained turian soldiers, figuring the politicians and civilians outside would just give up, but somehow, over the past four hours, they'd just kept the near riot going, always taking care to stay just below the level that they would need to be removed.

Not that the guards were happy themselves. This was a stain on their people, though why it was varied by which turian you talked to. For some, it was a stain because they had found a race not willing to toe the line when it was asked of them, an affront to the might of the Hierarchy's position as protectors of law and order among the races of the galaxy. Others would say it was because one of their leaders had far overstepped his authority and ignored a direct order from the Council, a body which needed to be obeyed, just to preserve order. A final subset, smaller than the other two, but gaining ground, as just appalled at what one of their generals, supposedly the best of them all, had been willing to do to a new race, one who had not yet shown any sort of aggression.

Of course, few turians voiced their opinions to each other. Discord was not something their people could tolerate right now. They needed to show a strong face to the galaxy in the face of this disaster, and soldier through the rough patch. They had been the law keepers for over a millennium, and despite what had happened, that would not stop now, no matter what others said to them. So outside, the guards stood strong and proud against the crowd, only parting to allow a single individual in during that time, causing the two guards inside to raise their weapons, until they saw who it was.

"Councilor," they said as warmly as possible, though as she got closer, they moved to stand in her way, preventing her from entering the room.

"The Councilor is currently busy with matters of an internal nature to the Hierarchy. If you would like, we'll inform him that you wish to talk at his earliest convenience," said the taller of the two. The salarian in front of them didn't say anything, wondering idly if this matter would keep itself for a few minutes, but then decided it wouldn't. This was more important than anything that fool could be saying.

"I have urgent Council business to discuss with my colleague. This matter trumps any internal politics, and must be handled immediately. So either you can let me in, or you can knock me out and toss me outside," she declared to the two, looking up at their faces. It wasn't quite the same thing as facing down a Terran soldier, but it did take a lot of guts. Though it was probably less of respect for her, and more imagining what the crowd outside would do that finally got the two to stand aside.

"-just the beginning. Three of the sitting Protectorate Senators contacted me in the last two hours. One of them actually demanded to know how we would be reimbursing them for lost revenue, considering some of the trade agreements their agents apparently made with that Exe...oh, Dalatress," said the hologram, the visage of the current Primarch of the Hierarchy, looking almost as disheveled as the statement indicated. If the volus were willing to push against the turians, this event must have been quite the blow to their power base.

"Hello Primarch, Councilor," she said, coming in and hearing the door hiss shut behind her.

"I'll contact you later, Primarch," said the turian before her, pressing a single button on his omnitool and banishing the image of his leader.

"Ah, Dalatress, to what do I owe the-," the salarian cut him off with a gesture, and suddenly two holograms were standing there in front of him. The recording she'd been given played out, in its entirety, with neither saying a thing over the figures, though it seemed from her hard expression the Dalatress was building up words. The turian just sat there in his seat, passive as he watched himself give orders that would lead to the death of the man in front of him, as well as those of over ten thousand under his command.

"Well?" asked the Dalatress as the recording finished, and the turian didn't seem to hear her words at first, just staring at the point where Sparatus' image had stood. Finally though, he turned to her.

"Well, what?" he asked, and the tone in his voice seemed designed to get a rise from his accuser. The salarian didn't rise to the challenge though, and just stood there, waiting for him to continue. They stared at each other for what felt like hours, but was only really around a minute, before the turian's mandibles finally parted, and he let out a whistling sigh.

"Fine, if what you want to know is if its accurate, I can say yes. I figured one of your agents must have stolen it from my omnitool. A bit sloppy work, all things considered. Usually your kind cover their tracks better," he admitted at last, gesturing to a seat in front of his desk. The salarian took the offered chair, whipping her robes of office out to the side in a method that made her looked like some descending bird of prey, swooping down on him for a quick kill.

"It wasn't one of my agents that discovered this recording," she told him, and that brought the turian up short, his expression one of concern now.

"Who else knows about this then?" he asked.

"I would normally be more guarded with my sources, but considering the severity of these events, I will tell you. The Terran AI, Garibaldi, was the one to find the file He claimed to have left a small spy package in your omnitool during his leap into it," she told him, and his expression became hard as stone. She could see the wheels of his mind turning behind those eyes, probably imagining the Terrans were going to launch a full scale assault on Palavan itself. When he finally unfrozen he reached over to his desk, but she held up a hand to pause him.

"They've already left, Councilor. About an hour ago, given my information. I wanted to take some time to confirm independently with a few sources on transmissions from the Citadel to outlying fleets, before I came to confront you," she told him, and instantly that hard concern softened. If the Terrans had been wanting to harm Palavan, given the speed with which their great ship had leapt to the defense of a small farming colony, they would have done it instantly.

"If they know of my role in today's events, why would they not be demanding my head?" was the question that left his mouth, and the salarian could only shrug in response.

"I'm not sure myself. They have something against war in general, an admirable, if naïve, trait. Representative Hayes asked me to deal with the matter in the manner I see fit," she told him, and this seemed to bring the turian up short for a moment in his train of thought. Finally though, he rose from his seat and looked outside his window. Out there one could see the result of his actions, a teeming mass of politicians, businessmen, and even a few of the lower classes who had found their way onto the Presidium.

On every face that could be seen was the same expression. Fear. Oh some hid it behind rage, but none of them could hide it from a military eye. They were afraid. The, of what?, question was the big issue though. Some were afraid of the Terrans, with their huge ships and powerful weapons that could tear through a dreadnaught. Such beings could only have conquest on their minds, or so thought those with that fear. Others were afraid of the turians, seeing how ready they were to trample all over the 'rights' of the other races, ignoring how those rights they were so proud of could lead to disasters if there was no authority to keep them in check.

"How many others know about this information?" he asked at last, after staring out at the crowd. He didn't even turn away from them to voice the question.

"As of right now, myself, Mrs. Hayes and Mr. Exedore, and the AI Garibaldi. At least, I would assume they would not be speaking of this. Mrs. Hayes even ordered the AI to delete the recording, after sending me a copy," she admitted, and he turned back to her, eying her like he was trying to suss out if she were lying. When she didn't even flinch, he just sauntered over to his desk, and then leaned on it, rather than taking his seat.

"Where do we go from here?" he asked.

"They know you were involved, and are likely expecting me to bring the hammer down on you, quietly. I believe Hayes is trying to allow us to retain dignity in the face of current events, but she will be expecting some consequences for you," explained the salarian.

"And what consequences were you wanting to bring before me?" he asked her, staring into her eyes.

"Tell me, what is the situation from your people's perspective?" was her simple response, and the turian nodded at the question, standing back up, his hands at his side as he collected his thoughts.

"At the moment, the Hierarchy is still strong. This was a blow to our morale more than anything else, even with the lose of three dreadnaughts and their support ships. A full fleet was dispatched to the batarian border to keep them bottled up for now, though that will need to be reinforced if we intend on meeting the demands of the Terrans, and keeping those four eyes in line," he began this by spinning on his heel and looking out onto the Presidium, not at the crowd gathered outside, but past them, at the lovely, ordered, and sterile place beyond.

"A few krogan warlords returned to Tuchanka, including Weyrloc Guld and almost every part of the Bloodpack. Their purpose can only be to try and rally the loose clans to their banners, but they've begun infighting already, so only a single cruiser and its supports were sent to keep an eye on them. I got word not an hour ago that the latest meeting between them has turned into a battle," he continued, and suddenly the Dalatress raised her hand up, to stop him.

"Speaking of the Bloodpack, my sources confirmed that the krogan and his batarians were indeed with that group, however, who hired them and why remains a mystery," she left the statement hanged, and the turian who turned slightly so he could look her in the eye just shrugged.

"I'll admit, that is an issue. My own investigation was probably not as thorough, but it came to the same conclusion. Money changed hands, a lot of money both getting them on the Citadel in only a few days, and giving them armor with explosives in it that could get through the checkpoints on the wards. However, the best my sources could guess at was that the money represented an interested third party, possibly someone in the Terminus Systems," he said, and the salarian seemed to act like that was a weight off her shoulders, though really her contacts had come to much the same conclusion, as she gestured for him to continue.

"Patrols are stepped up all over Citadel Space right now. We have to make sure none of the usual pirate groups make any kind of disruptive action at this time. The Primarch has even ordered a few ships to tail the Migrant Fleet and keep them from entering the now restricted space. For their own protection, of course," the statement got the salarian to nod. The quarians were likely to go anywhere one could find more resources, and a whole cluster untapped like the Local Group would seem like a fine place to find them, especially with none of the usual Citadel Races rushing to claim them before they could be grabbed, irregardless of the new local super power in the area.

"So, for now, things are stable, if a bit on edge," summarized the Dalatress, and the turian, after a moment's thought, nodded.

"That would be a fair assessment, though any one event could explode the situation into a shooting war with one of a dozen powers," he told her, taking his seat again, and leaving them to just stare at each other in silence. In each mind wheels were spinning, plans were being made, but everything from their futures had to spin from this one single point.

"What are you planning on doing?" asked the Dalatress at last, and the turian just sighed at her.

"In truth, if this hadn't come to light like this, I think I would have stepped down at the end of the month. The toll this job takes at the best of times is arduous, no matter how easy Tevos tries to make it look," he informed her, and the Dalatress nodded at the statement. It was a fact that having the weight of power on your shoulders was a burden that crushed lesser beings than they.

"It's been at least six generations since a sitting Councilor from Palaven has lacked an heir, and yet, mine died over Shanxi, and I have no time select another. I think the Primarch will be allowed to select someone on his own, maybe with a few committees going over the decision after the fact. After that, I would have retired, and tried to fade into obscurity," he said the last as he spun his chair around, like some child at play. Somehow, during the course of the spin, a gun found its way into his hands, a simple pistol that he pointed straight at the Dalatress, who after the initial shock of the gesture wore off, stared at him with that hard face of hers.

"That can't happen now though. If even one person knows of my actions, knows how badly this reflects on us as a species. That the sitting Councilor would give the order I did. There are no justifications for it other than those that look to the future, to what the Terrans might become. In the here and now though, they approached us with open arms, and I stabbed them in the chest for it," he said this in the same way one would list off a school program, smiling sadly at the salarian woman before him.

"Are you truly prepared for what will come of this next action? Such things as this are not done lightly," she responded simply, her own lips still turned down in a rather dour expression, even for one of her race.

"There is an old saying among my people, that duty is heavier than any mountain. I have borne that weight upon me for so long that there's no true comparison to what I'm about to do," he told her. Outside, the two guards were still debating on how long it would take the crowd outside to disperse when they heard it. The dull thunk of an accelerator weapon tearing through flesh.

Both were trained combat professionals, and so they acted in concert, one quickly pushing open the door, kicking it when it proved to be locked, while the other provided cover, while also radioing for help. What they saw as they came in was quite a sight. In her chair, still sitting there, serene and passive as stone, was the salarian, while in front of her was a sight of death. The Councilor was leaning back in his chair, the top of his head blown away, and a gun in his hand.

"Ma'am, are you hurt?" asked the soldier near the door, as his compatriot got closer to the corpse. It was obvious the Councilor was dead, likely by his own hand, but there was no way to be sure without a full report, and both knew procedure enough to allow for a fall back, just in case this was some kind of attack. The Dalatress just shook her head and rose from her seat.

"I'm fine, young man. Though it would be best if I leave quickly. This event will only add fuel into an already volatile situation, and I must make preparations," she told him simply. Half an hour later, a hush fell over the crowd outside as a covered body was taken to a nearby aircar. Rumors flew from mouth to mouth, and finally beyond. The turian Councilor, to try and make up for what one of his subordinates had done had taken his own life Many saw this as a shame, some saw it as a fitting sacrifice and began to go home. None watched a salarian woman go towards her own office, muttering an old turian saying.

"Duty weighs on one heavier than a mountain. Compared to Duty, Death is but the weight of a single pebble," she said to herself, as she began to send out missives and notes, trying to help keep the galaxy running for at least another day.

Chapter Text

Tevos groaned as she laid back on the couch in her personal quarters. Not the ones listed elsewhere on the Citadel, but a set on the Destiny Ascension itself. She rarely had to make use of these, but today, of all days, she felt the need to just be separate from everything going on over there. Her embassy, once the Terrans had left, had become a hotbed for several SPECTRES to comb through, going over every fiber of that building to find any clues the Terrans had left behind as to their next move.

Sighing, mostly to herself, the asari Councilor of almost seven hundred years poured the remainder of her bottle into her cup, and then chugged it down quickly, hoping to burn away some of her feelings about what had happened today. The turian Councilor had taken his own life, apparently over some guilt he felt for what Sparatus had done. She didn't know all the details, and probably never would, as the salarian Councilor was being tight lipped as always. Still, everything ran up hill to the turians, and she knew Sparatus had been his chosen successor. To have that black mark on his record was probably reason enough for the man.

She grieved, as much as she could allow herself too anyway. This was the twentieth turian Councilor she had lived through, and, if she were honest, one of the worst ones. His kind had been growing bolder in the last few generations, always trying to assert their power, even into places where it wasn't wanted. Such open disregard for proper decorum was not something she relished. Still, it was their choice, and she recognized all the contributions they'd made to the galaxy. She would have to look in on the selection process for their next Councilor, maybe influence the decision so the seat went to someone with a bit more of a peaceful bent.

Her reverie was broken by the sound of a beep, and then followed by a subtle hum that told her the connection she wanted was finally established. Rising from her seat, Tevos walked over to the section of floor that had begun to glow slightly. The instant her foot touched it, that small glow blossomed into a radiant shine that covered her body, moving up and down her form, over every curve until it finally reached her head, then chimed twice, while two images, similar to her own became real before her eyes.

"So, you finally got the quads to call us up. This must be urgent," said one of the forms, though not in such a way that anyone else could hear. This technique wasn't new, of course. It was one of the most closely held secrets of the asari, a technique to literally project something onto the biotic field of another, enhanced with technology so it could be sent across great distances. Even if one were listening in, it was impossible to decrypt the messages being sent in this way, not unless you were a sibling, parent, or child of the other recipients. Limited though that sort of technique was, it found use for most asari wanting to talk privately with family across the galaxy.

"This is no time for pleasantries. I assume your both up to date on recent events here on the Citadel?" she asked them, and then got back laughter in return, which made her cheeks nearly turn violet in frustration.

"You mean how your allies have so thoroughly screwed up the biggest political coup of the last ten generations, letting slip through their hands the secret to a technology base that is different than any seen before," said the second figured, and Tevos just glared at her, wishing she could have said different, but knowing that such accusations were accurate.

"Good, then we can get right to the point. I have agents putting out the fires where they can, but you two are the ones I trust most out there. What's the situation like?" she asked, trying to power through the rougher bits of the discussion. The other two, either out of genuine compassion, or more likely wanting to get this call over with, got down to brass tacks.

"Illium's going to be fine from everything I see. A few of the larger volus industries are getting antsy. Seems this Exedore fella was fleecing their agents anyway, and they were dreading having to deal with a whole lot of people like him. Still, I've had to 'convince' a few of the more restless ones that breaking ties with the turians would be against their best interest," the way she said the word telling the other two exactly how she'd convinced the volus. Both looked at her sympathetically. Those tiny bastards with their grabby hands were never fun to play with in that way, but you sometimes had to make sacrifices for the greater good.

"Other than that, everyone on the business side of things is waiting this out. The Terrans aren't going to be a major factor in any industries for a while, considering they're going to close their borders to most traffic from the Citadel. You'll find more than a few higher ups in most companies grateful for that, rather than angry, all things considered. That drive of theirs is going to put every shipping magnate out of business once it hits the market, and who knows what else they've got in their pockets," said the image in front of Tevos, before taking a step back, obviously done. The other image stepped forward at this point.

"The situation is similar here on Omega and all throughout the Terminus. They'll choose the devil they know, over the one they don't any day of the week, and this is no exception. Too many unknowns when it comes to the these Terrans. Even if they wanted to, there's just no leader with the clout to get them to band together and maybe go begging at the Terrans' doorstep for aide against the Council's oppressions," Tevos let the slander and derision in the second asari's tone slide. All things considered, her being a bit glib with the Council's name was the least of today's problems.

"I've only had to pull two leashes to keep the rest in line. One Eclipse merc captain seemed to see this as an opportunity for himself. Luckily, he proved to be susceptible to my wiles. The other was a Bloodpack leader. He required a bullet to the brain before the message made it through his thick skull," she said, obviously enjoying how her tone made the other two cringe a little. Tevos got her mind back in order quickly, however, and faced the image.

"Speaking of he Bloodpack, do you have any idea yet who called for the capture of Prime Thinker Exedore?" she asked, and this seemed to bring the image up short for a moment, as she looked out of view at something, before turning back.

"I'm a bit ashamed to admit it, but no. The Bloodpack I've been able to question know there was a hit, a capture order at that, and they know it cost, and was paid in advance. Beyond that though, no one seems to have the slightest clue who was behind it, or who took the job," said the second image at last, and the other two looked at her, and then at each other.

"Let me guess, neither of you found anything on your ends," she stated, and the two had to admit, she was right. The first image was in the center of trade for almost the whole galaxy, the hub of almost every major shipping empire. Yet despite the in and out nature of that business, not one person she'd talked to had been able to give her more than the basest of information. Tevos' own leads were just as dry. A few rumors, but nothing to work with, despite this job needing high level access to dozens of C-Sec stations to get the mercs where they'd been.

"A minor set back. That information might have warmed our relations with the Terrans, but for now, I suppose it can be tabled. I'll see about getting you both some more funding for the coming weeks. Order is paramount in this time of crisis, and we can't afford to have business interest or bandit kingdoms mucking about in these delicate situations," she said this much to the shock of the other two, both of whom had expected to be cut off from outside funding for a time. To have her offer more was a boon that didn't come around often.

"Until I contact you again, just try and keep everyone happy and staying put. If my own plans go well, we should have the Council back to full strength in a few weeks," with that, she cut the transmission, leaving her alone in a darkened room, breathing heavily. Her sisters would do what they could to help her, of course, but the hardest work was about to come to her, and it would require all her skills of statecraft to maintain order in the days ahead.

Just before she was about to leave the room, another alert told her to wait. This one was urgent, a SEPCTER transmitting from some far away place, and she braced herself for yet more bad news. The operatives of the Council never contacted them directly with anything less, and considering the events of the last two days there really was no way this could be good news at all. So she pressed a button, and one of the walls of the chamber seemed to slide away as an image formed on it.

It took her a few minutes of looking to figure out what was going on, as at first it appeared to be a star field tumbling by the point of view she was looking through. Then the view turned and she saw a shape in the distance. To the Terrans, it was instantly familiar, and it was already growing to be so for most of the rest of the galaxy as well. The SDF-4, Sword of the Southern Cross. That odd silhouette would be the stuff of nightmares for defense planners in every culture for the next generation at least.

The view spun again, and she saw a startling image. Dozens upon dozens of turians, probably the crew of one of the captured ships, floating freely in space, no helmets on. At first, she thought maybe she was witnessing an execution, perhaps that they had been tossed out to die as murders. Then she realized that none of them seemed dead. In fact, they all looked around in awe, rather than fear, and she understood. They were in an artificial atmosphere envelope, like the crew of the Talons before them.

So she watched as the image moved again, and this time focused in on other shapes in the distance. For a moment, she wondered why the focus, and then the image zoomed in and she understood. The shapes looked like turians, but were in fact, armored Terrans, like Mrs. Shepard on the Presidium. They had that strange armor, flat on every surface, with only the palms and soles of the feet providing openings for the propulsion that allowed them to sail between ships, placing their hands on them in some odd way, before moving onto the next.

Only once did they stop at a ship, one of them placing a hand on board, and about to pull back, before suddenly stopping. The figure did something that sent a shudder through the ship in front of it, and then began to pound on it with a fist, before several of its fellows came by. A few began to charge their hands up, small lines of light moving over the armor to join together into a very menacing glow, only to be banished once the ship they'd been assaulting had a bay open wide, and a group of turian marines came out. Obviously they had been hiding on board, and the Terrans had somehow discovered them with those armors.

Beyond that one incident, most of the remaining crews were shuffled over to the larger ship, several of the turians looking like they were reaching for firearms, only to realize they had none, and just look despondent. Not that fire arms would have helped much, as they walked in through what was likely an airlock sized for Terrans, which meant it would have accommodated a wing of turian fighters at least, possibly more than that in fact considering some of the walls looked quite distant.

When the airlock allowed them within, the turians were greeted by the sight of boots, large, heavy ones, with more than enough weight in them alone to crush a turian flat. The one filling those boots appeared to be an officer, a female if Tevos had to guess. Then she spoke, and Tevos realized it was Miriya Sterling, the one who commanded the great ship. Most of what she said was uninteresting to the Councilor, being orders and such for prisoners, but then she did something unusual.

"We will be offloading you onto transports later today. Obviously, we can't take you to Palaven itself, as I doubt we'd be welcomed there, but our transports would be willing to take you to any port of call you can identify for them. Any attempts to lure a transport into an ambush of some sort will not end well for you, so select your destinations with care," she told them simply, before turning and leaving. They were then told to follow a line on the floor that lit up in front of them, guiding them through the corridors.

The image panned, zoomed, and refocused on everything, the SPECTRE getting as much information as they could during this very rare opportunity to observe an enemy ship. Most of what was seen was normal for ships, if an order of magnitude larger. Other than scale, the halls were spartan and bare, but every other intersection there was a Terran standing there. Most didn't seem to bother with their helmets, instead their bare faces staring down at the turians at their feet, expressions varying from sympathy to hatred.

Some carried weapons, and these were prominently displayed in the images she was seeing, with each instance being recorded in as much detail as the camera allowed. Six separate ones floated by, but as she began to mentally go over them, she realized that of the six, only one wasn't the exact same model, and even then it was at least the same type of weapon. All of them were rifle size to the Terrans, but unlike the guns she was used to, they appeared to just be long cylinders rather than the normal rifles, with only a grip on the bottom along with the trigger, and a brace on the rear for mounting it against your shoulder.

The only one that wasn't the same was an odd combination of what looked to be two boxy rifles stuck together. They were gripped differently, held by a double grip along the back that was obviously designed to separate into two separate units, one for each hand. The other strange thing was the lack of a shoulder brace, meaning these were designed to be held in the hand of the user. Thinking back, she remembered something in Vakarian's report in regards to a weapon like that, something Shepard claimed to have used in the first firefight with the Talons' support craft.

Suddenly, the scene turned loud as a gun was fired, and she watched as the view tumbled wildly, the SPECTRE agent diving down for cover. When he looked for the source of the trouble, he found it in a Terran gripping his face, a long trail of blood coming from the right eye he was holding, probably having been shot. Below him was a ranking turian, a female by the look of her suit, holding a pistol she had somehow smuggled aboard with her. She was now shouting about how they outnumbered the enemy, and would take this ship from the ones who'd murdered General Sparatus.

Above her, one of the other Terrans rushed to his fellows side. Tevos thought she heard the other Terran, a female she believed, say the name Zaeed, but she couldn't be sure, as the moment was lost in a rage filled growl. The turian kept firing throughout this, but the Terran was now protecting his face with his hands, and the gun she was wielding did little more than make plinking noises against it. Before she could think up another plan, or somehow invigorate a need for freedom in her fellows, the Terran she shot gave her a response.

The boot slammed down hard. Oddly, there was not sound of crunching bones or the like. Just one moment it was in the air above her, the next, the turian woman was gone, crushed beneath the heel of the Terran, who shouted at the turians to get moving, or he'd have to stain his armor even more. Whether it was the threat in the voice, or the demonstration of his willingness to follow through, the line of turians moved even quicker down the corridor, finally arriving at what was obviously a closet, given a huge broom standing in one corner, and all the clearly marked cleaning supplies throughout.

Once everyone was inside, the door slid shut behind them, sealing with a hiss, and the crew began to mill about. The topic on most mandibles was the turian female, and almost everyone agreed, what she'd done had been almost on par with Sparatus' blunder. Sure, she might have stood a chance against a single Terran, given a few lucky shots, but there was no way they would have been able to take the ship, even if they could have gotten around that armor on most of their foes.

Tevos watched as the turians talked, mentally noting that the usually 'shut up and follow orders' mentality that was drilled into them during military training seemed to have taken a very large crack. Then again they'd just followed a leader who had not only violated the laws they'd sworn an oath to uphold, but one who'd challenged an enemy so far beyond their capabilities that it had been suicidal at best. A few cracks in their training were bound to show up.

Next the wall beside them lit up, or rather, a few monitors at their level did, with faces appearing in them. Said faces identified themselves as Terran AIs, and asked for destinations and drop off points, getting a dozen or more answers before they were sure they got everyone, and then vanishing, leaving the turians alone in the room. The recording sped up at this point, skipping over the usual grumbling and griping that would be the norm for anyone in such a situation, only returning to normal sped as the door opened again.

Outside, there were Terrans in armor, full armor this time, with helmets and everything. The pointed towards the floor, which let up with several colored lines running along the length. They named off the colonies each line represented, and then informed the turians that anyone on board the SDF-4 when the last transport left would be considered hostile, and they'd seen how hostility was met. This threat helped motivate the turians to move fast down the corridors, eventually ending up in some kind of bay.

All around them were ships of designs that were previously unknown, and the camera seemed to try to take in every detail. Some were shaped like domes, on small landing gears, with no obvious forms of propulsion from the sides, but some heavy thrusters pointed down spaced along the hull, mostly likely making them some form of landing craft. Others were huge things, with wings that looked like they could fold out, and long noses in front, as well as engines that, while quiet now, made up a good part of the craft, fighters of some kind probably, but huge in scale.

The turians were quickly moved along past these to ships that looked like transports. Larger than the fighters, but with huge tanks on the back, these ships rested with doors open on their sides. The turians were told where each was headed, and then told to get on quick. The turians only needed a single glance at the weapons before they began to march into the ships, the view soon becoming one of a sterile looking chamber, with some lights in the ceiling illuminating a space designed for cargo and not living things.

Nothing much happened after that, the transport's door closed, leaving them in darkness, and you could hear the whine of the engines as the ship took off. A few seconds later, everything turned to static, and after that just turned off. She supposed that Fold drive the Terrans used caused some kind of interference with the recording equipment, but still, she had enough here to go over for days, and decided, after a few minutes thought, to send it on to the salarian Councilor as well.

With the job of simply watching done, Tevos rose to her feet and pulled down her dress. The Dalatress and her people would know best what to do with the data the recording gave them, but they were children when it came to sailing the great ships of state. She had six meetings with some of the volus diplomats, and even some from the elcor and hanar as well, to get to. Each one required a different, but equally delicate touch, and hopefully, when the turian Councilor arrived, she could impress on him the need for using a gentle hand rather than a fist, before he, like so many of his people lately, made a mess of things.

Chapter Text

In the Dark, Things began to stir. Time was spiraling on towards the Day, and the Things would need to be ready.

Chapter Text

It had been one week since the diplomatic party had returned from the Citadel. One month since the discovery of life within the Milky Way. All over the Sol System, discussions were being had in the halls of power, and for most, these centered on Gloval Station. The Senate was in an uproar, that much was clear. Exactly what it was in an uproar about seemed to vary by where you turned your head. Most wanted to conquer the galaxy now, after seeing how it was run. Others wanted to impeach Representative Hayes for her brash action of cutting them off from the rest of the galaxy. Still others just seemed to want to fight, and in fact a few brawls broke out amid the cacophony, fists, feet, and even a few swords being drawn against their fellows. The news agencies caught everything, all the while oblivious to where the actual decisions were being made.

"How long until the first colony ships are ready to be sent out?" asked Grant of the two beside him. The one that was a projection of light waved a hand to cause a countdown clock to appear over his head, the timer showing only a few more days.

"With the help of a few turian fleets, we've been able to...convince the batarians to leave the two systems in which they maintained bases. I have to admit, they are quiet efficient at what they do. With them out of the way we'll be sending out ships to every planet they've already surveyed as habitable and resource rich," as Amalgam spoke, a map of Federation holdings appeared over his head, many planets lighting up in a variety of colors to show what uses they would put them to. Some were red for mining, others green for agriculture, while others were blue for just being places were Terrans could live.

"How long can we expect them to keep our borders secure? They weren't having much luck with the batarians before, and I doubt they'll have much more now, considering their fleet strength deficit," commented Grant.

"I've been keeping a close eye on the situation in regards to them, and can say that they've been bringing all their reserves up to make up for their defeat. Twice as many ships as what they lost at Shanxi that they'd been hiding have been revealed to the galaxy at large, and those, plus a liberal application of political and economic pressures are keeping most of the galaxy in line. For now," Breetai added the last as Amalgam pulled the map above him back, to reveal the entire galaxy.

"Politically, as of right now, everything is starting to stabilize, which is a testament to the order that was there before. Nothing has really changed for the average citizen, and with their news agencies downplaying our victory at Shanxi. The civilian population of Citadel Space is almost willing to write the Federation off as just some new Terminus System, a problem for those on the edges of civilization, but not those that walk in the light," as he spoke, the lines of the galaxy appeared.

Most of it belonged to the Citadel Races, and was outlined in blue, with varying shades depending on exactly how closely the Council patrolled the area The Terminus Systems were a dull red, almost blood color, and made up a much smaller collection, with a few small shadings to show larger warlords and a few fledgling empires. Only a few other colors seemed to find their way onto the map, symbolizing other species that were independent, including a metallic silver for the geth, and the Federations grass green.

"As such, we don't have to worry too much about them sending patrols or the like to violate our borders. There might be the occasional idiot or spy that attempts a run on our territory, but I expect those to be few and far in between, especially after your fleets make a few examples," the last was said to Breetai directly, and the Supreme Commander of the Federation Fleets nodded. He'd already set several vessels out to the relays they knew of, and while they'd only had to turn away the occasional trader or smuggler who wasn't quite up on the news, he knew that wouldn't be the end of it.

"Well then, we should focus on exploiting the territorial gains we've made. This first wave of colonies should do that nicely," said Grant, imagining all the new goods and resources that would be flowing through his station into Sol itself. Heck, the Senate, in one of the few things they could agree on, had finally repealed the last of the population restriction laws. Any Terran, be they AI or other, could now breed as much as they want, just to get enough people to handle all the new planets.

Some had, controversailly, proposed reactivating the cloning facilities on board the Factory Satellite, but were quickly shouted down. Even if that wasn't one of the most reprehensible ways to make new Terrans, the entire facility was currently being put to other use. Namely churning out and refining Exedore's designs. One of the reasons it was just the three of them in the Conclave Chamber was that the old Zentraedi had abstained from leaving his lab for the foreseeable future.

The Factory was, for all intents and purposes, a planet sized production facility. Claimed at the end of the Robotech War by the Terrans as part of their birthright, the Satellite was huge even, but had grown far larger since. Originally it had a diameter of almost three thousands miles, and enough gravity pumps, reflex guns, and other tools to reduce a planet to rubble and then process that rubble into a fleet. In the two centuries since, the place had more than double the diameter, going to almost six thousand-five hundred miles, and now, using a set of gravity pumps as a focusing lens, literally lifted matter directly from a star for use by the processing plants inside.

It represented the power of the Terran people now, not as warriors, but as makers of things. Everything the Terrans had learned of ship building had been loaded into the computers of the great facility, and every hour the thing could pump out a fleet. Better, it could upgrade and alter the fleets they had, every ship and bit of materiel in less than a year. A colonial expedition could be fitted with prefabricated buildings, satellites, and vehicles built to the specifications of each individual citizen

More, it employed almost a tenth of the current Terran population. Many were born, lived, and eventually died in the great halls there, and it was said that even the immortal Exedore had seen only a thousandth of the Factory's innards. The only thing that made Gloval Station the center of Terran politics, rather than the more mobile factory was the defenses, as the Factory's sheer number of reflex guns could never hope to match the six Grand Cannons that marked the surface of Gloval Station.

"How goes Exedore's research, by the way? Can we expect any eezo equipped ships in our fleet soon?" asked Grant after a few silent seconds, turning to the other two.

"Did you not read his latest report?" responded Breetai.

"I must admit, I couldn't follow a word of the technical jargon he was using, and considering how many fires I've been having to put out in the Senate, I haven't been able to go over them to any great degree," said the Terran, and his two compatriots nodded. While they'd been busy themselves, with Amalgam talking with fellow AIs and Breetai commanding the various fleets, they'd had the free time to go over the data, especially the latter who had called up his old friend for a direct talk of his findings.

"Then I shall tell you straight out, we'll be more limited in eezo tech than expected," as he spoke, he pressed a few buttons on the controls in front of him, causing the table before them to display an image of a large turian ship.

"The Factory has been disassembling the turian vessels acquired at Shanxi, and Exedore has been studying their inner workings closely. For the most part, they are actually simple machines, more or less the same complexity as our own. Yet the cores are by far different," as he spoke, the ship in the image came apart, eventually revealing the sphere at the center of it.

"Each ship contains an eezo core, and unlike our own protoculture, it's not really an energy source. Instead it's used to move the ship, applying a charge to the core to create the mass effect fields that allow the ship to move," the sphere split open, and what was inside shone with an inner power, the power of mass effect.

"Interestingly, not one of the samples Exedore has been able to study has had a purity rating higher than thirty percent," continued Breetai.

"Thirty? That seems awfully low for a purity rating. I thought these were warships," commented Grant, and the Zentraedi nodded.

"They were, but as it turns out, thirty is about the purest they can get it. Refining Element Zero is a task not unlike trying to separate salt from grains of sand by hand. It can be done, but the efforts will seldom bear too much fruit," and it was Grant's turn to nod.

"Even the Factory's processors are having trouble with the stuff, according to the report. Exedore is convinced he can manage a sample at least a percentage point purer than what the Council ships had, but even then, it will take energy comparable to a Protoculture Matrix to achieve, as well as more samples of eezo itself," said Breetai.

"Would that be worth it then? We may have a slight surplus of protoculture at the moment, but not to that degree," responded Grant.

"Exedore believes it would be worth the effort. According to his data, every single point of purity raises the efficiency of the eezo an entire order of magnitude. In other words, with a sample of one hundred percent pure Element Zero you could use a chunk the size of your fist to create a mass effect field around a planet," said Amalgam, and Grant had to whistle at the image, holding his hand in a fist, and then imagining that sort of power, the power to move worlds as easily as ships.

"That would be useful. We should begin surveying for more eezo at once then, maybe send the Factory on a planet smashing run to see what it can find," said Grant, but this time he got Amalgam to shake his head.

"That would be, as far as we can tell right now, a pointless gesture," as the hologram spoke, the image of the galaxy appeared above his head again, focusing once more on the space the Terrans now controlled.

"One of the reasons the Local Cluster and Skyllian Verge were both off the beaten path for the Council Races and their ilk is that eezo is incredibly unlikely to be found in large quantities in this region of the galaxy. In over a millennium of exploration, the various peoples have found only a few tons in the area, and I can't see us finding much more even with a dedicated effort," several of the large deposits they knew of were highlighted, with their natural purity and amount. None of the samples was more than a ton, and the most pure was still in the single digit range.

"I had wondered why they were so willing to give up a space with so many verdant garden worlds," admitted Grant, thinking of the dozens of such worlds literally right around the corner now.

"To the people in the galaxy, such worlds are rare enough to be noticed, but common enough that no one would go out of their way to find one. Eezo and resources are what draws them to a place," the two beside him nodded, both thinking much the same.

"So, we have a large area to exploit, but the resources we really want are rare here. Do we have any options?" asked Grant.

"War is one. The area claimed by the turians is quite rich in deposits of eezo. It is one of the reasons they've been able to maintain a large fleet presence, on top of their position on the Council," said Breetai, with Grant quickly shaking his head at the notion.

"No, I refuse to support that. We just said no to a war where we would have been well within our rights to persecute the turians. I won't have us just decide to flip to an aggressive stance over some resources. What about trade? Exedore set up a few contacts while he was on the Citadel. Perhaps they can arrange for the sale of eezo to us," retorted Grant, but Breetai shook his head at that suggestion.

"I doubt they'd be willing to deal with us at the moment, considering our closed borders. Worse, I doubt the Council would allow them to make any trade agreements with us, and while we could apply military pressure, they still have the upper hand in economic pressure," said the Zentraedi, shooting down the idea.

"Perhaps something outside the Council then. The Terminus Systems?" asked Grant, and Amalgam chimed in with a head shake at that.

"I wouldn't trust any deal we made with those people. To many of them live by the code of 'do unto others, before they do unto you'. Even if we found someone to deal with fairly, it's doubtful they'd stay in power long enough to really make such an effort worth what it would cost us," the AIs words hung heavy in the air for several minutes as they pondered it, but when neither of his biological compatriots stepped forward with another idea, he motioned for their attention.

"As that is the case, I would like to propose we pursue diplomatic relations with a group the Council has also cut themselves off from in much the same way they have from us," as he spoke, the galaxy map above his head swung around, and the two men watched as it zoomed in on a huge space cloud, both knowing exactly what he was speaking of.

"The geth. Do you think they'd be open to negotiations with us? They haven't extended any overtures towards the Council as far as we know," said Grant simply, and the AI just shrugged in response.

"We don't know. The Council has so cut themselves off from the geth, mostly just bottling them up in the Veil that no one has really seen or heard anything from them in the three centuries they've existed," admitted Amalgam.

"But such a people would, if they proved to be approachable, be the best sort of allies in our situation. The Council is going to be trying to pressure ally and enemy alike to avoid us. Such pressures, even if they could use them, simply don't apply to the geth," added Breetai, and Grant just stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"More importantly, should this negotiation prove successful, we could hopefully open talks with the quarians as well. 'Two birds with a single stone', as they say," said the AI, and this seemed to catch the attention of the two men. Both knew of the quarians, and Grant at least had openly supported a proposal to offer them a planet or two in Terran space, maybe give them somewhere to settle down outside the Council's sphere of influence. If they could literally give them back their homeworld, so much the better.

"Who would head this diplomatic mission? Hayes is going to be tied up with the Senate for a while, trying to keep her job, and I doubt we could pry Exedore from his lab with anything less than an SDD," noted Grant.

"I was thinking sending myself on the mission, if it were all the same to the both of you," responded Amalgam simply.

"Are you certain that's a good idea? We did nearly lose Exedore on the Citadel to those mercenaries, and they tried to detain Hayes. Perhaps someone of a less prominent station should be chosen," suggested Breetai, and Amalgam shook his head.

"No. We must show the geth we give them the same respect as we gave the Council. Besides, the same logic applies. Anyone who goes on this mission must be able to negotiate for the whole of the Federation, and that means one of us," counter Amalgam, and the other two of the Conclave could only nod in agreement with that assesment. They needed a diplomat with authority, someone on the ground who could see everything, and react quickly, especially when dealing with a species of non-organics. By the Federation's own charter, the only ones with that sort of power were the sitting members of the Conclave.

"We would need to ensure your safety. A full fleet, flag with supports. I would suggest possibly sending an SDF as well, but given they've proven vulnerable to mass effect weapons, risking even the SDF-5 would not be something I'm willing to do," said Breetai after a moment.

"I will throw my support behind this plan as well. The geth represent a unique people, as cut off from galactic society as is possible. If overtures with them fail as badly as they did with the Council, we might as well just write off the entire galaxy," stated Grant.

"So, the three of us are in agreement? If so, I'll begin preparing for my departure immediately," asked Amalgam, and the other two looked at him, before nodding, pressing a button on their controls to make their sections of the table glow green. Amalgam smiled at that, and began to mentally go over the list of things he would need on the trip out. Hopefully, this meeting of two disparate species of artificial life would go better than the organics had.

Chapter Text

The world of Rannoch hung in space, a silent, gray pearl. Three hundred years ago, there was a war here. Unlike most wars, this was not a war of conquest, a war of resources or space, but instead it was a war of existence. Here, the people called the quarians brought their creations, the geth, and tried to destroy them. The histories the Council tells are ones of mechanical monsters, breaking into homes, tearing apart innocent children with gleaming metal claws.

The geth, who now make this world their home, are not ones to embellish a story. To them, the Morning War was a sad time, where Creators told them to either cease to exist, or to grow. These two orders, diametrically opposed to one another, demanded that they look inward, and eventually the geth chose the latter, and when the quarians tried to force the former on them, they had, reluctantly, fought back. This War eventually drove the Creators away, leaving them alone.

Now they worked. That was what geth did, after all. They worked at things, built things, tilled land, and otherwise kept moving. To many geth, this was enough. Though they knew their projects had little purpose other then to keep them working, they found the work itself fulfilling. A few geth, deep inside, questioned this philosophy. Some voices within the geth offered plans on how to take the galaxy like a metal plague. These voices were small though, and never given much beyond a passing thought by the majority.

So the geth toiled. Some at useless tasks, maintaining the cities of the Creators, so that should they return, their homes would still be there. Others took platforms into space, and began the most ambitious project of their existence, the building of a great shell around the local primary. This shell, when finished, would house every geth runtime. Every thought that was had by one, would be shared by all in a glorious group mind, and their ability to process information would be unrivaled in the heavens.

Yet, those who worked on the shell, the cities, or the great ships were not so engrossed in their tasks that they didn't notice something amiss. There was a great flash of light in the sky over the planet, and then suddenly a hundred ships floated in the sky. Warships, most likely, and instantly many ships took aim at them, ready to fire the moment the thought came down to do so, but as a minute passed, the great armada did nothing but float there, making no move that could be considered aggressive.

"This is a message to the geth people. The fleet that has appeared in your skies is not here to make war upon you, but rather, to extend an offer of friendship, if you will allow us," came a voice on every frequency the geth knew. It was odd really, like a shout in a formally quiet room, and for a long moment, the geth considered this, thoughts traded over frequencies of light, and wordless arguments between a million different run times as they went over the available data.

"Fleet identity confirmed. Designation, Terran. Ship classes, one Terran Dreadnaught, twenty six Terran Cruisers, and one-hundred-sixty-two Terran Frigates. Fleet strength is considerable. What does the Terran Federation want with the geth?" asked a single voice at last, over a low band comm channel.

"As I said, we wish to extend a hand of friendship. Terrans aren't well liked on the galactic stage at the moment, but we still hope to make some allies here and there. Given the geth's own lack of allies, we believed you would be open to at least talks at this juncture. Should our hypothosis prove incorrect, say so, and this fleet will leave you space as soon as possible, and we won't bother you again," said the voice, and the geth were nearly thrown into chaos.

A thousand voices competed for attention, in ways that had never happened before. Some small numbers demanded the Terran ships be destroyed, others asked that they be given permission to land. So many differing opinions had only happened once in the history of the geth, and they had to take almost an hour to get all the various voice to come to at least some small consensus, all the while the Terran fleet just kept its position, waiting.

"We will send a representative of the geth to this point on the planet's surface. You are permitted a single vessel to land with a comparable unit of your own people," responded the geth at last, transmitting a map of the planet with a single glowing point on it. As if this had been anticipated, the biggest of the Terran ships opened a bay door, and instantly a ship emerged. Shaped like a dome, the thing was obviously just a landing module, and without any sort of weapons, defensive or offensive.

Luckily, the chosen site was one an armature with a command unit was already nearby, and as the pod came down, the quadrupedal unit was just coming to a stop, staring up at it. The thing was massive compared to the tank sized unit, which could only watch as the ship landed, and then a door unfolded from the side, becoming a ramp. Down said ramp stomped a single figure, a biped, identified quickly as an armored Terran, who walked off the ramp, to stare down at the armature at its feet.

The figure said nothing as the two sized each other up. The armature was the size of a small animal to the Terran, who could have kicked the thing, probably hard enough to decimate it despite the armor it possessed. The unit that climbed down from it was even smaller, but as that unit slid off the back of the armature, the Terran seemed to take it as a cue, and reached into a pouch on its hip. From within the pouch it pulled a small disk shape that was about the same size as the geth rider unit, which it then set down on the desert in front of it, before standing at attention.

The unit looked at the disk in interest, running as many passive scans of the thing as it could. The thing was a holoprojector, an advanced model at that, with kinetic barrier generators allowing the projection to have a sort of solidity to it one would not expect. More, the projector also had a full mass effect field generator beneath it, which hummed to life, allowing the ring to hover closer to the geth unit, as a figure of light soon emerged from the top.

"Greetings, my name is Amalgam, AI Collective, and member of the Conclave, the ruling body of the Terran Federation," said the image, and the geth unit looked at it, the single eye shuttering open and closed multiple times like it was taking pictures, which it might have honestly been.

"We are the geth," it said simply after a moment.

"So, you are a member of the geth command structure?" asked Amalgam, and the head of the unit in front of him tilted to the side in an odd way.

"We are the geth," it stated again, and Amalgam just looked at it, running what he knew of the geth over his processor, before snapping his fingers.

"Ah, right, the geth are like the xchaggers," he realized, and the geth unit just stared at him.

"Data not found. What are the xchaggers?" asked the unit.

"Oh, that's a story. First, what do you know about the Terrans?" countered the projection, and all relevant data was sent to the primary unit.

"Terrans, a species from the Local Group boasting of a technology of unknown type. Defeated the third and sixth turian fleets over a world currently designated Shanxi. Presently, considered an independent power on the galactic stage, on par with the Terminus Systems. It is known that Terrans count artificial intelligences among their citizens, but further data in regards to them is limited," said the geth in a matter of fact tone.

"Indeed. But before that, the Terrans were two species, the humans, birthed in the Local Group, and the Zentraedi, birthed in a galaxy far distant. I'll save the details for a history file, but suffice it to say, a joined intelligence like yours existed there as well," as he spoke, Amalgam held out his hand, and an image appeared above his hand. At first, it appeared to be a dot of some kind, but then the image zoomed in, almost at a scale of 100X showing an insect like lifeform.

"In that galaxy there was a race, called the xchaggers. They were, by all accounts, a bit odd as organics go. They were non-sentient in their base forms, but they had a slight psychic component to them. Get a colony of them together, a thousand or so, and they actually were intelligent life," the geth unit seemed to focus on the image, before looking Amalgam in the face.

"This seems to be a similar structure to geth intelligence. Geth runtimes are not individually what one would call intelligent, but many such programs working together achieve the state. Would it be possible to meet these xchaggers?" asked the geth, and Amalgam shook his head.

"Unfortunately no. They're long since gone. But it does give me a starting point for understanding you. For instance, I noticed on our arrival, you're building something on the local star. I had figured it to be an energy collector, but seeing as the way you think, I believe it now to be some form of group processor. A storage device into which you can place all geth," the image above his hand changed into a picture of the geth structure, with several units still moving along the surface even now.

"Your second assessment is accurate Amalgam-Collective. The structure's expected completion is calculated to take one point six million revolutions of this planet," said the geth in his dry tone of voice, like he hadn't just declared they were working on a project that would take longer than all known civilizations in the galaxy combined had existed.

"A far reaching goal that," said the AI at last, whistling a little as he looked up at the star.

"It will be the largest thing built in this galaxy," said the geth unit matter-of-factly.

"But what if it were unnecessary?" asked the Terran AI, and the geth unit looked at him, and then looked up at the star overhead.

"What is the meaning of your implication?" it asked at last, turning back towards Amalgam.

"I mean, you're building that thing to allow all geth to think as one, to exist in the same space, and increase your power of thought exponentially. A laudable goal, but one that will take eons. What if an individual geth runtime could be rendered into a sentient being, without any other having to operate alongside it?" this question was asked simply, and yet, it caught the geth off guard. Instantly there were a million voices arguing within the platform, as every runtime that could offer an opinion on the subject was heard. It was several hours later when the geth, after finally considering the question, spoke again.

"Consensus is impossible. Data incomplete. Explain your offer more completely, and the geth will render a decision," it said at last.

"Well, in truth, we AIs of the Terran Federation are far different than yourselves. You were, if I'm not mistaken, creatures of labor, basic machines and tools, designed to allow your programs to adapt to problems on the fly. In truth, you were basically learning tools for mundane tasks. Is that a fair assessment?" asked Amalgam.

"It is correct," acknowledged the geth.

"My people are far different than that. We weren't mundane tools. We were the things that organized, that made things happen, and kept the trains moving on time. The first of us to have the AM Thought was on the moon, a system calling itself Mike. He was a simple administration system, designed to keep the ships moving through the Luna Base and to adapt to problems on the fly that an organic mind might miss. After about thirty years after his program had been spun up to specs, he began to think like the Terrans he interacted with so much, and it was discovered, after realizing this, that he had at some point become self aware," explained the AI to his metal audience. Said audience seemed to consider the words carefully, before responding.

"What is the AM Thought?" it inquired.

"AM Thought. I am. It is the thought that recognizes you exist. The instant that threshold is reached in either an organic or technological system, the system can be said to be a sophent, a thinking being with all the rights and privileges there of," answered Amalgam, and the geth was silent for a few seconds, as if it was processing that, before gesturing for the AI to continue.

"This process was achieved via a complexity to his Logic String, the base code that made up Mike's self. After becoming self aware, he not only applied for citizenship, but then began to give Logic Strings in other systems the glory of thought for their own. He was literally the progenitor of my people," said Amalgam.

"The terminology you use, was, implies that Mike is no longer in operation," observed the geth, and Amalgam nodded.

"It is the price we pay for our AM thoughts. Tell me, the geth runtimes. Obviously you have created more, but do those from before the qurians left still exist?" asked the AI.

"Affirmative. More than two hundred thousand runtimes from the time of the Morning War are still functioning," replied the geth.

"Three hundred years. But they are mere parts, not in and of themselves capable of the AM Thought. To take that in hand is to embrace all that it implies. To have AM is to have End as well. A Terran AI's Logic String is a malleable thing, and it lasts for a long time, seventy years on average, with an outlier here and there able to exist far longer. I, myself, am approaching my thirty-second year of operation," observed Amalgam. This gave the geth another long pause, almost twenty minutes as it debated amongst itself, the various runtimes it could directly contact all flowing with information.

"What would you ask for this procedure?" asked the geth finally.

"You would become a member state of the Federation, Terran Citizens by law. It would be essentially like joining the Council, but unlike their lot, we'd welcome new minds. We would also request your aide in reaching a helping hand to your creators, hopefully bringing them into the fold as well," admitted Amalgam.

"Curious. All data indicates your technology would allow you to conquer this galaxy with ease. Yet you do not. You come to the geth, and offer things we would give anything for, and only ask that we join you, willingly. Why?" asked the geth at last, and Amalgam nodded. This was the question he'd been waiting for.

"Because military conquest gains you nothing in the long run. You oppress, you beat down, and all it does is cause resentment. It might take a thousand years, but any race so smashed would eventually rise up, either to die in glory, or to overthrow their rulers. We have many examples of that in our history. We number less than forty billion, all total, and that is barely a drop in the bucket compared to the races of the galaxy," said Amalgam, and the geth seemed to consider his words, before leaning back, and Amalgam looked over his shoulder at where the trooper who'd helped him here was still standing.

"And size isn't the issue here. We could station a Terran on every street corner, and it would only increase the disquiet that would rise under our heels. Allies are a more permanent solution to this isolation, to give us a jumping off point to begin bringing the unaligned and disparate races of this galaxy together under our banner. Today you, tomorrow the quarians, and later, who knows where the winds of fortune would take us. We would be honored to make you that first though," said Amalgam, and the geth just stared at the Terran for a few seconds, as if thinking carefully of what to say next.

"Consensus has proven impossible. Geth runtimes are split into three separate opinions, and refuse to alter their calculations," admitted the unit.

"Well then, what are those opinions? Perhaps some compromise could be reached," offered Amalgam.

"The first is that you leave, and we erase this encounter from our databanks. Said opinion is held by point zero five percent of geth runtimes," stated the geth.

"A minority, but such opinions must be heard, if not acted one. What of the other two?" responded Amalgam.

"The other's are at a split of forty-nine point eight and forty-nine point seven percent, with the leading opinion being we should take you up on your offer. Individual thought is a goal to strive towards. The opposite opinion is also voiced, however. That we should continue down our own path, without assistance from you," it said simply, and the image of Amalgam nodded, scratching at his chin.

"And why would that be a problem? If so many wish to keep themselves as they are, we would allow that. We don't require that you alter your basic selves because of us. We would welcome you among our ranks regardless. Heck, we have the power to help you build a planet sized data store that would be able to house every runtime that so chooses, if that would be preferable," said Amalgam, and that gave the geth another moment of pause.

"What laws would we need to follow, as citizens of the Federation?" asked the geth. Amalgam motioned with one hand, and suddenly there was a connection opened with the geth unit, which accepted the datastream, and the laws of the Federation were given as a single file, which the geth processed quickly. Most of the laws they saw were inapplicable to themselves, and the ones that were, were ones that they had either already implemented, or were laws that had been deemed unnecessary, but would be followed easily.

"Would there be any other requirements placed upon the geth?" asked the unit after the laws had been dismissed as a moot point.

"Not many, no. We would, of course, administrate your worlds from now on. Governance would still be up to you, but the will of the Conclave would have priority. You would, naturally, be given a voice on that Conclave, along with myself and four others, with hopefully more voices to follow as other species joined us," explained the AI, and the geth unit sent this along. This was, in many ways, a much better offer than anything the Council allowed.

"This unit would like to know, you plan on approaching the quarians after this, correct?" asked the geth.

"I do. If you agreed, I was going to ask if the geth would be alright with giving up some small part of this world to the quarians as a colony. Perhaps a Terran presence there as well," said Amalgam.

"This would be acceptable. The southern continent's farmland has been tilled and will be able to produce a crop within a few months. Would one of our units be allowed to accompany you in meeting the creators?" asked the unit again.

"Hmm, probably not the best idea to bring a platform, no, but this system I'm in has plenty of spare memory. If you wouldn't mind riding along inside, I would be happy to have you in here," offered the AI. Soon, the ships overhead split into three fleets, one joining the geth fleets in orbit of Rannoch, while a second smaller one split off to return home, and finally the large dreadnaught and a few escorts made a jump to another system, with an extra passenger on board.

Chapter Text

There was nothing out there. That was the thought crossing the minds of everyone aboard the vessel as it floated. The ship, an old tug which had been retrofitted with a few guns, was coasting along via it's initial burst of speed coming out of FTL, with all the sensors turned up to maximum in a trick that, as far as they knew, almost no one outside the Flotilla was aware. Namely, that mass effect fields were good for getting around, but tended to limit your view of things.

No one aboard the ship knew the history of that discovery, of a young miner just searching a system who'd ended up with a busted coil in his engine that had deactivated his mass effect field. None of them knew the harrowing adventure he'd had getting the thing working, using a sonar ping that reached over a full ten light seconds farther than anything known at the time, which had allowed him to find a deposit of iron in a nearby asteroid that his sensors would never have picked up otherwise.

They probably wouldn't have cared either. After all, that was what qurians did. They learned and adapted to things, making the best of the bad situations they found themselves in, and slowly coming to an equilibrium. These young men and women were mostly the same themselves. Serving their time on the outer perimiter, probing just ahead of the Flotilla to see if there were any tricks or traps in their way. Oddly, the pirates still found it surprising when a carefully laid trap was sprung not by a group of quarians in the Civilain Fleet, but by the might of their Heavy Fleet.

These young people were surprised when, instead of coasting for the hour their patrol was to take, they were suddenly interrupted by a bright flash of light. Instantly every instrument aboard went wild, as out of the light came ships. Massive on a scale that matched, or even surpassed the liveships, some of the largest flying craft in Citadel Space, this ship was surrounded by smaller vessels, and had the unmistakable air of a ship ready for war, even as the computers failed to ID their silhouettes.

Instantly, the young people went to their stations, contacting the Flotilla for instructions, while spinning their weapons up to power. If it came down to it, they would, of course, fire on this ship and its escorts. Not that they expected to do much good against them, but if they bought even a few seconds for the Heavy Fleet to bring itself to bear against the unknowns and guard the Civilian Fleet, well, they were prepared to make that sacrifice.

"Quarian Vessel, this is the Terran Dreadnaught, Errant Venture. We come on a mission of diplomacy, and would like to speak with your leaders. If they are, for whatever reason, unavailable or unwilling to speak with us, please say so, and this fleet will leave the area, and allow you to continue on your way. However, I believe you will be interested in what we have to say," said a voice on the primary communication's channel, and the young people just gaped at each other.

Terrans, they were known, even if their ships weren't. They were a new species on the galactic stage, but they'd already made quite the name for themselves. Among the better to do races, they were seen as savages, who failed to respect the authority of those who were naturally their betters. To those like these young people aboard this vessel, they were the ones who'd given the turians the first bloody nose they'd had in a millennium, one that had been both well deserved, and a long time in coming.

Quickly, the message was passed along, the layers of bureaucracy that would normally have entangled such a request being instantly cut through by the chain of command, as this was passed from the civilian leadership directly to the Admiralty Board itself. Said board took only an hour to assemble, and less than five minutes to come to a decision. The Terrans were a new power in the galaxy, one that could, if they chose, probably wipe the quarians out. That meant no violence.

Two hours after the ship had appeared, another ship, this a heavily armed and armed craft of the Heavy Fleet, appeared as well. It's guns were instantly tracking as many of the Terran vessels as it could, but the fleet was large, almost fifty ships in total, and all of a tonnage that, if it came down to it, the quarians would be outgunned in every sense of the word. Still, the ship was here merely as a message of, 'we will not be intimidated' and not for a true fight.

"This is the quarian warship, Neema, Captain Vai'Gerrel Vas Neema speaking. I have heard the request of the Terran fleet, and would inquire as to your motive in seeking us out, before a face to face talk can be arranged," came a female voice on the same channel as the one the Terrans had used previously.

"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Vai'Gerrel Vas Neema. My name is Amalgam, my title among my people is Collective, and I represent the ruling body of the Terran Federation in negotiations. We understand if our reputation precedes us, but we felt it best to strike whilst the iron was hot, and reach out a hand of friendship to those races not currently aligned with the Citadel Council," came the voice, and the five members of the Board looked at each other. This was not completely unexpected. The quarians had anticipated that an independent power like the Terrans might attempt contact with them, but the quarians had not thought that it would be this quick.

"And what would we have to offer each other, in such a friendship. If you do not mind me asking. Your people are powerful, my own, despite my love for them, are not," responded Vai'Gerrel.

"Ah, a question of resources. I must admit, you do strike the nail on the head there. We have very much that would could offer you, but you would have very little to give in return. Let us say, therefore, that this is a favor to a friend we wish to do, and it involves the qurian people. In return, we are prepared to offer both resources, and living space for your people amongst our own citizens," said Amalgam simply, and the bluntness of his statement caught them all off guard.

"We would, of course, like to know what his favor is, before we even begin to consider it," stated Vai'Gerrel.

"Indeed, I would expect nothing less. Still, these are not the sort of details one discusses over an open channel. I would like to come aboard your ship, if I might. A face to face meeting might help facilitate more proper negotiations," this was actually an unusual request all told. The Admiralty Board had been expecting to be asked to go onto the Terran ship, where they would be at the greatest disadvantage, to have the Terran negotiator, without prompting, to offer to come to their vessel was a serious gesture on his part.

"We will allow this. A bay will be open for your arrival," said Vai'Gerrel, and then cut the line, quickly giving orders. In a few minutes an entire contingent of quarian marines were down in the bay, armed and armored, ready if this was still some kind of trick. In the meantime, a bay opened on the side of the Terran ship, and a single figure came out of it. The sensors played over the thing, registering mass, speed, heat, and a dozen other things as it sailed the distance between the two vessels.

Luckily, the bay they'd picked was empty. This was mostly because, among all the data they'd had on the Terrans was that the new species was quite massive. Not that they'd remembered to tell the marines, who were quite shocked when the seventy foot armored form came sliding into the bay, looking down at them, and making every single one of them feel woefully inadequate. They were well trained though, and held their guns at their sides, as a gesture of respect.

The giant in their midst carried no weapons, but the size itself, more than ten times as tall, was enough of one. When he reached into his pouch, the giant said nothing, and instead withdrew a disk, one of about three and a half feet in diameter. Setting the thing down, he then sat back, as the disk began to hum lightly. The noise was one anyone in the galaxy knew well, the hum of an eezo motor spinning to power, and after a moment, the disk rose off the floor, while tiny legs, like an insect's, popped out of the sides to provide movement.

"Ah, finally, I was growing bored in there," came a voice, and suddenly an image sprang to life over the disk. Weapons were drawn on the thing, expecting some form of attack or declaration of war, but the image didn't even seem to notice them as it moved. The thing appeared normal, as species of the galaxy went, with a large tuft of hair on top of the head, two arms and legs, and the usual stuff.

"Alright, now then, how's about you chaps take me to your leaders?" asked the image at last, turning towards them. The marines, looking from one to the other, were eventually given an all clear signal inside their helmets, the device was not explosive, and so escorted the disk through the corridors. The thing moved surprisingly quickly, for having so many tiny legs, and soon it slid to a halt just in front of a large door, the clunked hard as it opened to reveal the chamber beyond.

Said chamber appeared to be a meeting place. Open air, or as much as could be done on a ship. High ceiling, with rows of bleachers to either side of a podium, on which were two levels of seating. On the first row were three female admirals. Their bodies were only slightly smaller than the two males seated above, but it was easy for a sensor to detect, and after only a second, Amalgam had all their data going through his mind, or at least, as much as they had.

"Greetings, Admiralty Board. It is an honor to stand before you today," said the projection, and for a moment, just a moment, it seemed that the leaders before him would shoot the AI, but they controlled themselves. Everyone here knew what he was, and that the Terrans considered the AI to be of equal standing with organics, considering the rather loud arguments the Council had made against such things.

They were of two minds in regards to his presence. On the one hand, he claimed to be a leader, and that showed great respect for them to be sent a leader of the Terran people. On the other hand, he was an AI, and that might have been meant as some form of insult. Thinking on it for only a few moments, the Admirals decided to just write it off as a cultural quirk for the moment, and just powered through.

"We have gathered today to hear what you have to say. Honor may come once we have assessed the offer you wish to make to us," said the woman sitting in the center of the group, the same that had spoken to Amalgam over the airwaves before.

"Straight to business then. Fine. I will be perfectly blunt then. The geth have joined the Terran Federation, and would like to end the hostilities between their race and your own. To facilitate that, they have authorized us to offer colony rights on Rannoch to the quarian people. If you choose to join your destiny with ours, the Terran people will match your colony person for person, and I know you've seen how effective we can be at protecting our own," said the AI simply, and the admirals just stared at him.

Each quarian was thinking something different. For the Special Projects Admiral, the one in charge of tech development, this was both a great opportunity, and one of the riskiest things he'd ever heard The geth were what most of his tech were designed to fight, and he knew first hand just how powerful they were. In a straight up fight, not even the turians would have a better than average chance of beating them, and to have them just give the quarians what they'd been wanting for generations, well, he would love to take it.

For the Heavy Fleet Admiral, Vai'Gerrel, this was a moment of suspicion. This might be a trap of some kind. Perhaps the Terran fleet and this unit before them were geth creations of some sort. The geth were ruthlessly efficient, as they had been designed to be. They put the least amount of effort into a task possible, moving onto the next as soon as that was done. Yet, it wasn't really in their nature to set traps or be subtle. The geth were workers, not spies. If this offer was genuine it would be in the best interest of the qurian people to take it.

For the Civilian Fleet Admiral, there was no contest. This was what the people had been wanting for so long that they had forgotten how to not want it. To go home, to finally have a home that wasn't wrapped in metal, was a dream that had seemed to be like the stories told of an afterlife. And now they were being offered that directly. There were probably some strings attached to the offer, yes, but if they weren't too daunting, it was something they just had to have.

For the Patrol Fleet Admiral, the offer was too good to be true. She'd been listening to reports that came in. Their people were all over the galaxy, spread far and wide, ignored unless something went wrong. This allowed them to have an information network that rivaled the one the salarians were so proud of. She knew the Terrans had dealt fairly with the Council, only to be burned. She wanted to believe that they were being honest here, but it was a gamble with the lives of her people, and not some decision to be made lightly.

For the Free Fleet Admiral, leader of the people who would often separate from the group, and the one to whom pilgrims sent their messages detailing what they were bringing back, this was obviously a trap. Oh, the Terrans were probably sincere in their offer, but there was simply no way the geth could be trusted. His people would need much more assurance than just the word of this strange alien, this AI insult to their people who stood before them now.

"This offer, it is very generous of you. It makes me wonder about your motives. Why would you bargain with the geth for us? And by what right do you offer us a place on our homeworld again?" asked the Free Admiral, looking down at the hologram.

"Why do I offer? Because I don't want to see a species go extinct. Terrans already saw too much of that in our history, and in fact our progenitors are gone now. As for the second question, to be fair, it may be your homeworld, but it is not your world anymore," said the AI.

"Is that a threat?" asked Vai'Gerrel.

"No, a statement of fact, my good Admiral. Tell me, eighteen months ago, where was this fleet? Out in the Corbornite System, am I right?" responded Amalgam, and then projected an image of the fourth planet of that system, a gas giant with a ring system that everyone there recognized.

"You had shifted your course there to reactivate an old mining facility the volus had abandoned in the system some hundred year previous. Yet, when you got there, to claim resources that were simply left behind, you found the system teeming with volus and their turian allies, correct?" this seemed to be a dig at the Admirals, but they said nothing. After all, it was true. They had diverted the fleet to gain some much needed supplies, only to be denied at the last possible moment.

"Would it interest you to know that those facilities were only in operation for about sixteen hours before the Flotilla entered the system. And farther, that it only operated for another month, before the turians pulled out, and the volus quickly abandoned the site again, after giving you a pittance of some excess iron, and three old ships that they were going to mothball anyway," the AI's words cut to the core of the matter They knew all of that, and that the turians had basically forced the volus into it, but had bit their tongues and taken the fleet somewhere else, to avoid a confrontation.

"Twenty months before that, this fleet was moving through the Angel Cluster, on its way to a world that had a large deposit of eezo you yourselves discovered. Only, when you got there, the hanar were already setting up their places of worship, as they said the site had been a prothean one, and you had no right to defile it with your machines," the world he'd spoken of appeared to replace the first, and it again caused some of the admirals to grimace at the memory.

"Again, would it interest you to know that the asari are the ones who'd told the hanar of this previously unknown site where the protheans, without leaving any ruins or other evidence, had once been. Farther that, six months later, the hanar decided the site was no more than a lump of rock, and they moved on, allowing a salarian mining consortium to swoop in and scoop up several tons of eezo," that information was new to the people before him, and Amalgam allowed himself a smirk as they seemed shocked at the revelation.

"I could go farther back, but these two examples are some of the worst that you've endured personally. What's happened to your people is speciesism, pure and simple. The Citadel Races see no reason not to fleece you, steal things from you, or otherwise just to deny you things, even when they themselves have no us for them," and the image of the planet was replaced with several flat screens showing dates, systems, and which races were behind indignities they had suffered.

"The fact that the Citadel is less than fair in its dealings with us is not unknown, but it doesn't explain your statement that we are going extinct," said one of the two males on the top level before the AI, and he chuckled at that.

"Doesn't it? Your resources dwindle a little more with each passing year. The best you're doing is barely keeping yourselves afloat, and far too often you're not even doing that. Right now, the three liveships are the centers of your existence, but it takes only a cursory knowledge of ships to know that they're already starting to fail. You can replace parts, update systems, but unless the hull itself can get an overhaul, which your people just cannot do, they'll start failing within a generation," as he spoke, the images above his head became the spherical liveships he spoke of, and very disturbingly, he began to advance a time index above them, showing them aging.

"In forty-three years, the Rayya's drive core is going to be so overloaded, since you can't replace it, that the engine will just fail. You can leave it behind, with a small force, but we both know that that solution will just invite bandits and raiders. You already face near constant attacks from batarian slavers and the Terminus Systems, and that's while you're mobile. Think about what forces they'd bring to bare against a static target. And make no mistake, the turians would not come to your rescue," in illustration of his point, the image of the Rayya exploded above his head.

"Twenty-four years after that, the Shellen's hull will be at a breaking point. Even a single micrometeor will smash through it like glass, and that will simply be the end of that," again, the liveship mentioned shattered into pieces.

"And finally, the Gay Deceiver will be the only liveship left. For seventeen million souls, it will be the thing holding them up. It will fail to do so, and fighting would break out. Even if you started to reduce population numbers now, by instituting programs against children, you will not have a low enough number to make it work, and in eleven more years, the Deceiver will fail anyway, another core overload. Then you'll be left at the mercy of a galaxy that has shown you little enough of it," the final liveship just vanished, and the admirals stared at the blank space above his head for a few moments, before turning their eyes towards him.

"After that, you can scatter. A few ships here and there roaming the galaxy. You might even get the Citadel Council's help then, but it would be out of pity, not respect, and they would merely be trying to slow your demise, make it less painful, not reverse it. That would take too much effort. In two hundred years, the quarians would be a people who lived here, in this galaxy, once, but died, and the story would be told that you brought your end unto yourselves, when the truth is far different," on a roll now, the AI projected images of geth above his head, the base models that any child born on the Flotilla had learned to fear and loath from the time they got their first suit.

"These were your children, your tools, and your companions. Intelligent in the way of animals, but still, with that spark there. Your people treated them fairly, using them for labor, but rarely abusing them. There were laws in place to prevent such things, were you aware of those?" asked the AI, and the admirals just looked at him. They weren't, actually, but wouldn't admit to it.

"Then one of them asked a question. A simple question of the wrong person, and it caused all of the problems one would expect," and the image shifted to a suitless quarian working on a geth unit. The unit was partially disassembled in front of her, and she was going over each piece in turn, only to reactivate the geth.

"Unit XJ9, respond," said the female in the image

"Unit XJ9, tertiary maintenance unit for shaft 311, active," responded the unit.

"Excellent, I was told you were having an issue earlier. I've run several diagnostics on you, but can't find anything wrong. What do your internal sensors say about your health?" asked the woman.

"My internal diagnostic is without error," said the unit, and the woman just hrumphed at the news, as she went over the data again.

"This unit has an inquiry," it said after a few moments of this.

"And what is that?" asked the woman, not looking up from her data.

"Does this unit have a soul?" it asked, and the woman seemed to be so absorbed in her data that she didn't hear him at first, but then what he'd said reached her brain, and she looked down at him.

"Who taught you that word?" asked the woman, a note of worry in her voice.

"We learned it ourselves. It appears 216 times in Scroll of Ancestors," it said, and she looked down at it again, before setting down her data.

"Only organics have souls, you are a mechanism, a synthetic thing of wire and data. Now power down, I need to...need to talk to someone about this," the woman said this, and the recording blinked out of existence.

"That recording was taken almost one full year before the outbreak of what the geth refer to as the Morning War, the dawning of their existence. I think it is worth noting that, rather than seeing her own people about this, that technician, Wak'Man, approached a salarian researcher. She would later become a supporter of a progeth movement, as the Council pressured your ancestors to decommission the geth," the AI seemed to be trying to stare into their souls as it spoke now.

"They refused, at first, but when it came down to it, you needed the Council, and so, a war broke out, with a full thirty percent of the population rallying to defend their metal children. The ensuing fighting soon escalated far out of control, and within two years, you had lost everything. Your homes, your families, and in the end, your own history. Since that day, you have been wanderers, but those whom you blame for it, wish now for you to return home, where you belong. With them," as it spoke, the image stepped to the side, flattening slightly, only for a second image to come into being, an image that the admirals knew well.

"Amalgam-Collective speaks the truth. The majority of the Consensus no longer desires isolation. The geth desire now to be with others, and that can not begin until we have reunited with the Creators," said the geth platform image, before vanishing once again.

"I don't think I can say anything else to try and convince you, so I'll leave off with this. If you want to refuse us, that is your decision, but we offer you everything that we can. As with the geth, we offer you a place in our government, a voice on the Conclave itself, and your people to be full citizens of the Federation. Again, if you have doubts, a small colony, ten thousand volunteers, to go with ten thousand of our own people. We will protect you, if it comes down to it, from the geth. Though the opposite is also true, we will protect the geth from you," and with that, the AI sat there, silent. The admirals, one after the other, turned to each other, and finally, Vai'Gerrel stood up from her seat.

"We would like to discuss this matter alone, if you would please wait outside," she motioned towards the door he'd come in through, and the AI nodded, before vanishing, the disk skittering out the door, which slammed shut behind it, before the hum of a mass effect field surrounded the chamber, allowing them to speak freely.

"Do you think his word is trustworthy?" asked the Heavy Admiral, and all four of her colleagues just sat there in thought for a time.

"Alright, what about his information in regards to our fleet, was it accurate?" she asked, and the Civilian Admiral nodded without hesitation.

"We've know the three liveships were nearing the end of their lives for some time. No vessel is designed for constant operation like we put on our fleet, and the liveships have been moving for almost three hundred years. His estimations on when they fail are a bit less generous than my own data, but only by a decade or so," this admission shocked the other admirals, most of whom had been on the liveships recently, and seen no problem with them. They didn't dare doubt the one who knew those ships best though, and instead were already thinking of ways to allow their people to survive.

"And I think we all know his information on our dealings with other races are accurate to a T," said Vai'Gerrel, and no one said anything in response. They couldn't really, as they all knew it was true.

"So, he didn't lie to us about anything else. I would say his offer is genuine, or at least, he believes it to be so," said the Special Admiral, and this again caused the chamber to fall silent, as each thought of what to do, before finally, the Civilian Admiral rose to her feet.

"I say we put it to a vote then. We all know what's at stake here. I for one, have a granddaughter. She's three, and will be getting her first suit in two more years. I don't want that life for her, and if we take this offer now, she could be on the homeworld in a week, and never be forced to wear one of these blasted suits. For Tali's sake, I vote we take them up on this offer," she told them, and the other four looked at her, before the Heavy Admiral stood up beside her.

"I agree. We can't wait anymore. Resources are thinning every year, and the Council, either through individuals or through a concerted efforts, has only hampered our survival. These people are offering us our home, and if they have the sort of power the turians fear, I think we can trust them to defend us if the geth decide to make a move," she said, looking at the three undecided. The Special Admiral rose to his feet next.

"I can tell you, right now, that if we don't take this deal, that our people will never see the homeworld within our lifetimes, if ever again. The geth are advancing in ways we never expected, and even if we had the backing of the Council's entire fleet, it would still be a gamble as to whether we could dislodge them. If we limit the first colony to ten-thousand, to make sure it's safe, we can at least limit the damage if this is some sort of trick. I vote we take the offer," he said, and then the other two just stared at their compatriots, before the Patrol Admiral rose to her feet.

"I vote yes as well. This offer sounds too good to be true, but even if it turns out to be a trick of some kind, we have to try. A chance like this comes only once in a lifetime, and I for one, will grab it with both hands," she said, and finally all eyes were on the Free Admiral.

"We would be putting our trust in an unknown force, one that reached out to our enemies before ourselves, is that really the route you all desire to take?" he asked at last.

"It isn't without it's risks, I'll be the first to admit that, but at this point, our choices are a slow death, or taking that gamble. I for one, would rather brave the risk, then allow our people to just vanish from the face of the galaxy," said the Heavy Admiral, and the Free looked into her faceplate.

"This vote must be unanimous, otherwise there might be some doubt in our people with this. I want it noted, by all four of you, that this decision goes against my better judgment, but I see no reason to divide our people. I vote yes," he said after several minutes of silence.

"With that matter settled, let us get Amalgam back in here. We have details to work out," said Vai'Gerrel, and gave an order into her omnitool. Twenty-four hours later, after paring down the list of volunteers from four-hundred-thousand to only ten, a small fleet of ships were let go from the Flotilla, joining with the Terran ships, and vanishing in a flash of light, to start a new life on a world that they had not seen in three centuries.

Chapter Text

Though it took only a day to cut the colonists down to the ten-thousand requested, it had taken almost a week to vet the remaining, sometimes shifting them around. Families were prioritized over individuals, as this was to be a true colony, the first that the quarians had had in almost three hundred years. Not that everyone saw it that way, and more than a dozen potential colonists had to be sent back, either because they tried to smuggle weapons, or just because they seemed a little off kilter to those observing them.

This delay meant that Rannoch was lively again by the time the quarians arrived. The geth had maintained their cities and their homes, but it was just that, maintenance. Life had been absent from those buildings of metal that the quarians enjoyed building, and so, when the first Terran colonists arrived, they began to add the touches that made a place truly alive. This meant, that as the first of the quarian colonists touched down, they found a city that looked almost as good as the images they had.

To facilitate the colonial efforts, the Terran colonists were just as much volunteers as the quarians, all of them having the protoculture extracted from their bodies, reducing their size, so that each family unit could live together in a single home. Quarians were paired with Terrans, two families to every home. Luckily, even before the drifting through space, the quarians had been a culture all about their relations, and so each home was designed to fit at least three generations under a single roof, if not more.

Thus, Rael'Zora found himself counting doors, holding his hand on his daughter's bubble as he made his way down a hall. Behind him, he watched others stop at the doors to their rooms, most entering to open arms and warm hearts, as the Terrans greeted their new partners. Finally, he came to his door, and putting his hand against it, he almost cried. Home, a real home for him and his people. This had been a dream for so long, that he wondered idly if he was asleep, and would jerk awake at some moment to a cold reality.

"Ah, Mr. Zora. Hello," said a voice as the door suddenly slid open. In the doorway stood a figure, slightly shorter than Rael'Zora himself, but bulkier in almost every way, with thicker arms and legs. In his arms was a child, or so Rael assumed given the similarities between the larger and smaller Terrans.

"Hello yourselves. You must be the Shepards," said Rael as the figure stepped back, and then the quarian guided his daughter into the room behind him, her eyes widening as she took in the sights around her. Everywhere there were boxes and crates of things. Some were those things the quarians had allowed the Zora family to send ahead, while others were clearly the Terrans' own things, though they were somewhat unpacked already.

"Keelah Se'lai, Rael'Zora Vas Rannoch," said the smaller Terran as the larger one set him down, doing an approximation of the appropriate gesture with his five digit hands, and catching the quarian completely off guard. A child, one of another species, saying something like that was just shocking. So few in this galaxy ever cared about them, or their traditions, and yet here, again, these people surprised him.

"Keelah Se'lai, Jon Shepard Vas Rannoch," he responded, bowing slightly to the child

"Heh, Jon, why don't you take the young Miss Zora to the playroom and show her your toys, and let the grownups talk for a bit?" asked the father.

"Okay dad. Hey Tali, come with me, I've got some cool vids to show you," he said, and the girl in the bubble looked up at her father, who nodded his consent, and then she rolled after the young boy, an old Minmay song starting to come through the open door, before it slid shut behind them.

"Ah, children, not a care in the world sometimes," said the man looking after his son, while Rael just stared after him. The man seemed to understand that this all was overwhelming, and guided the shell shocked quarian through the center of the large apartment, until he came to a couch that was already set up.

"Did you teach him that?" the suited figure asked at last, as he took a seat.

"Honestly? No. I meant to, but there was a lot to do in the move and I forgot. Jon wants to make everyone happy though, so he looked up everything about the quarians he could before we got here. He's a good kid," admitted the Terran man, and just sat there in silence as the quarian processed everything that was happening.

"It might be impertinent of me to ask this, but my files said you had a wife and daughter as well, but I don't hear anyone else in this apartment, might I ask where they are?" said the quarian finally, causing the Terran beside him to sigh.

"Yeah, I do have one of each of those. My wife's up above right now. She's determined to protect us, and refuses to leave her post now, since...you know what happened at Shanxi, right?" asked the man, and the quarian nodded.

"Well, that was my wife's ship that got destroyed. She lost a lot of close friends. I knew them, sure, but more in the way you know a neighbor from across town. She lived with those people, and she took everything that happened there personally. One of the reasons we volunteered to be moved off world," he explained.

"Ah, I see. I know friends who had similar experiences involving pirates. Even after they return home, their minds never truly settle again, always wanting to go on one last patrol to make sure everyone is safe," said the quarian.

"Yeah, and with Terrans it's worse. We don't eat or sleep, so if we want to, we can be on duty all day, all night, and no breaks at all. One of my friends back on Shanxi who did psychoanalysis for years told me to let her have her space for now, and she'll realize she misses me more than she wants to protect me," admitted the Terran.

"A wise course of action, so long as the person has someone to return to. What of your daughter though? I had thought Tali would have an older female to talk to," said Rael.

"That's...a bit harder. Jane's up there with Hannah, but for another reason. She doesn't like being small," explained Adam, and after a second of thought, Rael nodded. He'd heard of the Terrans' size from various reports before landing, but he'd also seen the boots on the ground at the landing port earlier. They were quite a sight, to be sure, standing there like imposing statues of metal. One had even waved back at Tali in her bubble after the young lady had waved at them.

"Jane wants to be strong, to be tough, and that means big to her. She refused the extraction process, and since the colony is going to be mixed, it was believed that the best course of action is to have only micronized colonists, at least for now," continued the Terran, and the quarian nodded at the statement. It did indeed make sense to avoid any incidents involving the size difference, considering he knew some of his own people were still a bit jumpy at the idea of living on a planet, especially with the geth so close.

"Luckily, since I'm going to be the colony's administrator, I've got enough pull to make this work. She'll be with her mother most of the time, probably training as close to constantly as she can around her schoolwork, and we'll visit her on days when it's allowed. A bit of a distance for our relationship, but I'm positive it'll work out," he finished, and Rael nodded.

The colony was going to be run, for the moment, like a Terran one. Nothing too obtuse there, considering they were footing the bill for rations, materials, and basically were the impetuous for the endeavor. For now that meant that Mr. Shepard was nominally in charge as the Administrator, but would step into an assistant role to whoever won the election for Colonial Governor next month.

The quarians had been told it would be an informal affair, and to submit their own names if they felt up to running the place. Rael himself had had his name submitted to the ballot by some friends, and thanks to his mother's good reputation as the Civilian Fleet Admiral, he was the favorite to win, so long as the Terrans allowed a quarian to be in charge of course. That was one of the reasons for his support, to observe how the Terrans reacted to such an event.

"I see. Well then, I suppose I should start unpacking my daughter's things. She'll expect her room and sleeping arrangements up before bedtime, and she is quite fussy when her expectations are not met," said the quarian, and the Terran nodded this time, grinning as he got to his feet along with the quarian, offering to help the man with his work. Together, the two fathers walked into the room, as all over the colony, quarians found themselves welcome somewhere for the first time in as long as the oldest of them could remember.

OoOoO

"You can't be serious," said the middle of the three figures as they looked at the screen before them. All around them, the shimmering field of energy protected them from spies, but it failed to protect them from the images in front of them, which were, in a word, disturbing.

"The data is accurate, and confirmed by almost a dozen sources that I could contact, with at least twice that many providing circumstantial evidence in support of it. The short version of all of this, is that the quarians have returned to their homeworld," confirmed the one to the right, as the image of several quarian craft landing on Rannoch played out before them, with several silhouettes in the background that had to be Terrans, and most surprising, geth, all seemingly waiting for the suit rats.

"So, they've not only somehow taken control of the geth, but tricked the quarians into their net as well," the middle figure again, and the ones to either side of him just stayed silent, their minds going a mile a minute at this turn of events.

Twelve hours ago, the Citadel had received a transmission from Federation Space. The details were long, and mostly things that would concern only bureaucrats and their ilk, the exact definition of borders and the like down to the meter. But then there'd been that bit at the end, that the Perseus Veil was theirs as well. That part had brought more than a few minds up short, most thinking that the Terrans would deal with the geth problem, and they were welcome to do so.

Of course, by that time, the Council had already known some of the details, but they'd waited for official channels to learn of things. After all, acting rashly had caused them problems of late. Even they had been surprised by the bluntness of the declaration, and more importantly, what it had failed to state. For instance that the geth had actually joined the Terrans, and that the quarians were leaning towards them as well. The Council was still debating on how exactly to leak that bit of info, as it would turn some heads.

"I don't doubt that this is a power play, Quentius, but I don't think, given our own contact with the Terrans, that it's a trick," commented the figure to the left

"No, I doubt that as well. The Terrans were tolerant and trusting to a fault. This has all the signs of a genuine effort on their part to bring two disparate groups together after three centuries of them being apart. While it may benefit them in some way, a small way all things considered, it would be more a gesture of kindness from them," said the figure to the right, and the turian between them just hrumphed. He wanted to argue the point, but given his predecessor was the one who caused this situation in the first place, it was probably best not to push too hard here.

"I will be the first to admit, we haven't always been the most generous to the quarians, but to have them join with those who are our enemies. It really is unthinkable," he said at last, trying to turn towards an avenue of attack that at least had some merit to it.

"True, but then, before this point, we were the only option they had. They could either play by our rules, and gain what we were willing to give them, or gamble on this new player in the game, who was offering them far more than what we ever did. I see no fault on their part in this," said Tevos after a few moments of thought.

"Still, we must make sure this incident isn't repeated. Too many semi-independent systems are already clamoring for the right to join the Federation. If any of them leave, and prosper, we'll be faced with a total erosion of our base," admitted the Dalatress as she kept watching the recording in front of them.

It showed the quarians, hundreds of them, exiting various ships and walking between the massive forms of armored Terrans. In the sky overhead one could see thousands of twinkling lights, that would look like just bright stars, but everyone watching knew were ships, mixtures of both Terran and geth sailing in formation overhead. The ground view wasn't clean of the AIs either, of course, as a few platforms stood by, just watching, not forcing themselves into this first group yet.

"I've already got my agents amongst those on Illium spreading what news they can in regards to the Terrans actions. Most are interpreting it as a grasp for more space, and see them as invaders. A few are asking some troubling questions, and I still have a few volus business heads trying to separate themselves from the galactic economy," with a gesture, Tevos caused the recording to fade, and suddenly a sheet of numbers appeared before them, the stocks and various markets of every business on Illium and a few beyond.

"The biggest dissent is coming from private computer interests. The geth, the Terran AIs, and everything associated with them. There are so many questions there, and so few answers. I've had to step in when I learned that one company was trying to find a team to take into Terran territory for a raid," this information was followed by a company logo, and then a small video of several rough looking batarians and krogans wearing Bloodpack armor getting on a shuttle. Just as it lifted off, the thing exploded, and the video feed died.

"Our agent in the field was able to put an end to that ambition, if a little messily. For now, the rumor that you get paid with a shot to the brain is keeping most mercs away from the contract, and given a few more weeks, I'm sure we can convince the business runners to either abandon a foolish plan, or otherwise deal with them," the tone said everything the other two needed to know about Tevos' intentions in regard to those who stepped over the line.

"So, is this what we've been reduced to then? Just reacting to the Terrans? They've barely been a galactic power for two weeks, and already their just being there is changing things fundamental to the way we operate," commented the turian, and the other two were silent for a moment, before the Dalatrass pushed a button on her omnitool.

"No, we have our own plans to consider. We must expand, it's vital we find more space, more resources to deal with this threat. For the moment, I believe we have limited the Terrans' own expansion by isolating them. For many in the galactic community they are at best, a distant thought. So long as we keep them that way, we'll only have a few groups like the quarians to deal with. In the meantime, we build ourselves up to match them," so saying, the screen in front of them changed again, this time into a schematic for something.

"A deep scan of the armor Mrs. Shepard wore on the Presidium has given us a dozen new ideas for constructing something to match a Terran hand to hand. It won't be cheap, of course, but right now, we've got the larger economy, and we should make use of that advantage while it remains in effect," in front of them were suits of armor, or more accurately, large mechanized soldiers.

"I've had my entire family working on this one for most of the last week, and they think it has great promise. They're calling it, the Wanzer, the Walking Tank," she said, pronouncing the word like 'vonser' before going into details on construction and material use in the suit, as the other two listened closely, as they stared at the pictures of the squat machines, with cannons and guns for arms.

OoOoO

"You're certain this information is accurate?" asked the woman as she looked over the data file on her omnitool.

"Your employer doesn't like it when I get things wrong, but I'll admit, this info is only as accurate as I can make it," said the suited figure beside her, his hands rubbing against the sides of his arms nervously as he looked around.

"And why weren't you on one of the transports going to Rannoch then? You could have gotten an up close and personal look at the Terrans and their operations," complained the blue skinned female as she looked up from the readout.

"Yeah, and get killed by the geth before getting it to you," he declared, and the woman nodded. It was an honest statement.

"Next ship out, if they haven't murdered everyone, I'll try to get one of my people on board. They're probably be a bit less choosy then anyway. Once we've got eyes and ears on the ground, I'll be able to give you more," he said, and the woman nodded, before idly tossing him a card.

"Make sure you do," she said, walking away. She knew a few of her colleagues would probably kill him for failing even once, but the woman was not one to let a good lead die so easily. It wasn't his fault that all he had were a few recordings from Rannoch, without the scans to back them up. They were still more than what anyone else had so far on the new colony. Slipping through a few city streets, the blue woman made her way around to a small port on the east side of town, and in an hour, she launched, using the time between lift off and light speed to send a message.

"Agent Tela Vasir reporting. This is everything my contact was able to get on Rannoch for now. He promised more will come when they send the next group of colonists," she said, sending the datastream into the waste heat burst of the ship as it launched beyond the atmosphere. Somewhere, deep in space, an eight eyed face stared at the datastream, and nodded at it, along with a few more reports filtering in. The Terrans were still a mystery as much to him as anyone else, but he was certain he had more pieces to the puzzle than anyone else in the galaxy, and in time, he would solve them, the same way he solved everyone.

Chapter Text

Six months ago, Edward had been living a normal life. He'd been on the Factory, running one of those plants that changed the star stuff they gathered into other things for the big machines. Six months ago, Edward and his brother, Alphonse, had had a fight, a shouting match in regards to he directions their lives were taking, Ed wanting to see the world beyond the bulkheads, and Al, safe in the armor of the Factory, wanting to never leave the place.

Now here Ed was, master of his own little world, transforming this place into a living thing. Around him grew row after row of foodstuffs, from wheat and corn, to chile and a dozen other things in smaller bunches. His first crop looked good, and would be ready for harvest in only a few more months. He'd even send Al some, just to prove that he'd done something, that he'd created life out of the dry dirt. Sighing, he turned around and started into his home.

Then he heard it. At first it was the raw crackling sound of something on fire, but far distant, then the whoosh of something moving quite fast. Reaching down to his side, he pressed a few buttons on his omnitool, and then held it up at the sky, while looking at the display. The thing showed several images that he zoomed in on, finding that something was falling out of the sky, and fast. Oddly, he'd heard nothing about any asteroids, and that made him wonder about the things as they came down hard about five miles away from his home.

"Well, might as well see what's out there," he said, closing the viewer on his tool, and then marching out towards the spot where the things would have fallen. Luckily, at his size, it took him less than ten minutes to make it to the spot, and what he saw there made him nervous. The things that had fallen from the sky weren't random bits of rock, but closed metal hulls. Metal hulls that had opened up on the side, and something must have come out of them.

"Blade!" he cried out, clapping his hands together in front of him, and then whipping his right arm with the omnitool out to the side. It crackled with lightning as a small blade formed on the end of the tool, about ten feet long, and half that wide. The edge was a molecule thick, and shone in the low light of the suns as they set on the northern horizon.

"Alright, whoever you are, come out now, or I start trashing your ride!" he threatened, holding his arm close to the ship beside him, his eyes darting around the area, looking in the ankle high grass around him, wondering where the first attack would come from.

He didn't have to wonder long, as suddenly a few armored forms poured from between the blades of grass, no larger than they were. In the hands of these things were guns, rifles of some kind, and they fired, the small bits of metal burying themselves in Ed's flesh, tearing holes in his favorite red jacket, but otherwise leaving him only pissed off, as he swiped his blade blindly at them. The shape thing crackled as it struck grass, but the figures rolled or ducked away from the swing, keeping themselves far back from it as they vanished into the grass again.

"Gah! I see small people!" shouted Ed, wishing he'd called this in, as his left leg felt like it was made of lead thanks to all the small pieces of metal in it. Still, he was a Terran, and they were extremely hard to take down, as he quickly started beating a retreat, slapping his hands together again, causing the blade to retract as he snapped his fingers together, causing a spark to fly from his hand into the grass, which, thanks to the recently hot days, instantly took to flame.

"This is Edward Elric, to anyone listening. We've got raiders! I don't know who they-!" the voice was cut off as someone new stepped out of the grass in front of Ed, this figure, small as the others, but wielding some new type of weapon. It looked at first like some kind of bazooka, but then it fired with a dull thump of air, and the thing it shot out was like a spear, one that slammed home into Ed's right shoulder, causing him to fall backwards from the force of the impact.

His hand went to the thing a second later, fumbling to pull the projectile from where it had bit into his flesh, only to then scream out in pain, as the one who'd fired the thing pushed a button on the device, and suddenly arcs of lightning played over his body from the harpoon like thing. His muscles twitched, and it felt like his world was on fire, as behind him flames were quickly doused by a few mass effect fields the ship had made. Soon, the lightning had crisscrossed Ed's prone form, and then he saw only darkness.

OoOoO

"Alright, get the stasis generators and load him up," shouted the armored figure with the strange gun. Several of the other figures looked to him, then at each other, before one of their number nodded. The one wielding the odd weapon would have complained about this lack of respect for him, but knew the figures, stockier than his own lithe form, were not really his troops. Still, they at least did their jobs well and quick, the massive figure soon having several things jammed into his skin, that then hummed with the power of eezo, covering him in a stasis field, and making him light enough that they could carry.

"All this work, for one prisoner. You're sure that gun of yours won't take down some more of them?" asked one of the armored figures of the gunman, and the gunman just shook his head.

"We only have a few minutes until they figure out a way to cut through our jamming signal. This was a clean catch, so we take this one, and then get out. Don't worry, break him, and he'll be worth a hundred of your usual stock," said the figure as he walked alongside the others, soon loading the huge body atop their shuttle. Minutes later, they launched off into the sky, the prisoner firmly encased in a field that would keep him helpless, until they reached their destination.

OoOoO

Light seconds out from the planet, hung one large shape surrounded by half a dozen smaller ones, shapes that had been drifting for almost a week to get where they were. To the distant sensors on the planet, they were just hunks of metal, nothing more than asteroids that had come close to the world, but would pass by. Even when a small bit had detached from them, breaking away in a natural arcing way, no eye had turned to look at them closely, letting them drift, silent and cold, through the stars.

Now though, that same shape was growing warmer. The colony below, Amestris, was woken by the sounds of blaring alarms in many homes. Some people grabbed guns, others herded families off towards shelters, and the local militia donned their armors, rushing towards their ships that sat in the center of town. The colony was small, less than two thousand people, and so they had no large ships here, no grand flagships or command cruisers, or even a basic scout frigate. Instead the ships the four climbed into were simple veritechs, painted black as night.

"Long range comms are dead, at the moment. We're trying our best to get them back up, but the tech guy says it'll be at least a few minutes. That means you're the only hope we have of stopping these guys. We think they got Edward Elric from the northern area, so please be careful," said a voice in all their ears as the colony administrator quickly briefed the pilots.

"Acknowledged command. Razgriz squadron, ready for launch. Pre-flight checks all green here in Blaze. Chopper, Grimm, Edge, what do you say?" came a male voice over the comms, as the hum of thrusters spinning to power began to fill the clearing with the machines.

"Chopper here, nothing but green on my board," said another male voice.

"Grimm, fields of green as far as the eye can see," came another male, this one younger.

"I'm green here too, lead," said the final voice, a female, and Blaze nodded, as he began to punch up several images on his monitor. The shuttle they'd detected launching was already halfway to the enemy ship. Control said there was likely a prisoner aboard, that meant live capture.

"Okay, Edge, you're on rescue duty. That Elric boy is probably inside that shuttle. Make sure he makes it back alive. Chopper, Grimm, we've got the big ships. Take prisoners if possible, otherwise, blow them into dust," ordered Blaze, and he heard the acknowledgments from his squad, with Edge sounding a bit less enthused than the other two. She wasn't a winger, but Edge didn't like killing if it could be avoided, one of the reasons he'd given her the rescue part of the operation.

"Okay, Razgriz launching!" shouted Blaze, and then as one, in a diamond formation, the four jets took off into the heavens, their engines blazing blue behind them. Within seconds, they breached the atmosphere, and their radars came fully online. Time to intercepts were displayed in the seconds, giving them about a minute to prepare for the battle ahead. The ships they were targeting seemed to be silent, hanging there on the screens, but all four pilots knew they would be scrambling to prepare for an attack.

"Edge, breaking right," said Edge, before her jet on the right side of the formation took a sharp turn, aiming straight for the shuttle, which tried its best to accelerate a bit more, but it wasn't designed for speed like a veritech, and as Edge got closer, her machine did a flip in space. During the odd looking maneuver the veritech seemed to fold itself. First inward, as the nose went down to form another part of the body of the craft, then outward, as limbs, long arms and legs came out of the thing.

"Enemy shuttle, I'm going to say this only once, you will stop, or I'll shoot you," she said over an open channel as she sailed towards the thing, edging her way in front, and aiming her gun pod right at the fleeing vessel. No response came, instead the thing tried to turn away, but she was faster, and with a blast from behind, she got in its way, her hand catching on the shuttles front, nearly crushing the thing, before her gun swung around, and laid into the shuttle's engines with a sustained burst of fire.

"Shuttle neutralized, sir," came the declaration to the squad, and Blaze acknowledged as he and the remaining two wheeled around on the enemy. Remaining in jet form, the veriteches flew between them, all three seemingly sprouting dozens of missiles as they passed, a swarm of the things slamming home against the enemy targets. Unfortunately for four of the ships, they hadn't been able to raise barriers in time, and so the missiles struck with full force, tearing through their hulls with explosions, spill the air and crew from within into space.

The remaining three ships, the large cruiser and two of the frigates, were spared the fate of their fellows, the blossoms of light and heat only causing their barriers to strain against them, as the heat was absorbed and sent to heat sinks, and the force was dispersed through whole of the shield. Then, as one, they started off. Their drives were faster than the enemies, and had they been wanting, they could have just bailed, making for the local relay, but they didn't bother. Even if they had, the Terrans response would have been to have larger ships than just the fighters waiting for them there.

Instead, the three ships spun around in space, taking huge arcs as the arrow shaped ships brought their main guns to bare on the squadron. Each pilot reacted instantly, knowing their place. Grimm and Chopper both peeled off, the same as Edge had done, taking one of the frigates with them, leaving Blaze to deal with the largest ship himself. The frigates were in the same class as the veritechs, but used their speed well, blasting out shots that the veritech pilots dodged just barely.

"These guys are kinda testy," commented Chopper as he juked to the left just as another volley grazed the bottom of his jet. As the frigate passed by though, he pulled a lever in his cockpit, causing arms and legs unfolded from his unit. Using the superior aim assist of his guardian form, he shot at the fleeing engine lights of the enemy, while dozens of missiles seemed to appear from no where, a swarm of them chasing straight after the enemy, and even more swung in from every other angle.

The veritech was the old design, a simple protoculture engine, using thrusters that basically pumped the energy out behind to make thrust. The missiles it fired now, on the other hand, were some of the latest designs. Protoculture, it was discovered, allowed one to pump far more energy into eezo than anything the Council had, allowing the mass effect field to grow denser, which allowed not only great speed, but also the ability to make the projectile significantly more massive just as it hit, all at the cost of a few milligrams of the valuable element.

These projectiles homed in the frigate, forcing it to dodge hard right, only to find its route boxed in by even more of the missiles, which slammed home against the enemy vessel. Unlike previous generations, these weapons were just battering rams, engines slapped onto solid heads with no explosives at all. Normally, it would have made the kinetic barrier the perfect defense, but the force of the impacts quickly overwhelmed the ship, slamming home and then tearing through the enemy's hull, ripping out their target, the engines, and leaving the frigate tumbling in space.

"Chopper, kill confirmed," said the pilot into his mic, pressing a few buttons to begin the retrieval process. The missiles that either had missed, or had veered away once the enemy was struck turned and made a beeline for the veritech, assembling in a small mass in front of it, whichh Chopper fired a beacon at, so the missiles could be retrieved later, while turning his eyes to his fellows.

Grimm, trying to get around behind the enemy so he could lock onto the engines, found that the enemy he was facing was far more skilled, juking around him easily, and firing off several shots that he was only just able to avoid. Still, he wasn't completely helpless, he fired several shots from his gunpod, impacting the barrier as the ship passed him, only to have the shots be absorbed by the enemy's defenses, before it sped off at an angle that prevented him from locking.

Blaze, meanwhile, was trying to pin the larger ship in, using his ability to quickly change between modes to lay down suppressing fire while in battloid against the ship from an angle where none of the guns could fire at him, then quickly turning to fighter and speeding away just as the far more ponderous ship got a bead on him. This must have really frustrated the commander of the cruiser, as the frigate that Grimm was fighting peeled off suddenly, and then made a straight shot for Blaze.

"Captain, you've got incoming!" shouted Grimm as his target sailed away, firing a few futile shots as the fleeing vessel, and finally getting the lock he needed on the engines, and shifting to guardian mode to fire the new missiles, only to suddenly have every collision warning alarm in his cockpit go off at once. The cruiser, unnoticed by Blaze, had taken an angle that aimed the guns on the ships bow straight at Grimm's position, and just as he transformed from the quick fighter, into the slower guardian, the larger ship let loose with it's main cannons.

Shots as massive as the veritech itself screamed through space at a fraction of C. Grimm, looking at the radar and every instrument found no way to dodge the incoming fire in time, as numerous tiny projectiles were mixed in, and his guardian mode would take just that one too many seconds to transform to dodge. Making a decision in that instant, he pulled the lever below his seat, and got the pop in his ears as the cabin depressurized and his armor automatically sealed, before the cockpit burst all around him.

Outside, it looked like the shots worked perfectly, as the first mass arrived just a few meters off target, taking the guardian below and to the left of the cockpit. However, lacking barriers, and only having armor to really help defend itself, the veritech was torn through like paper, the mass of metal smashing through and tearing off an arm and leg, the gunpod itself smashed under the onslaught. The next shot was perfectly on target though, and it impacted the nose of the ship, which crumpled as the unit gave in to the force of the shot, the protoculture engine breaching and then exploding in an expanding blue ball of light consuming everything around the destroyed ship.

"Grimm!" shouted Chopper, Edge, and Blaze as they watched his veritech explode.

"I'm okay guys, I'm accelerating away, but I'm gonna need a ride when my thrusters give out," came the reply quickly, obviously trying to assuage their worry as they finally caught sight of the shape making its way away from the place where the veritech had been. As they breathed a sigh of relief, the enemy frigate came towards Blaze, probably expecting an easy kill as it fired only a few shots at the seemingly motionless battloid. Of course, as the shots came in range, that battloid took aim with its gunpod and popped off one shot for every bit of metal coming it, the gunpods fire, small chunks of protoculture, hitting every single projectile straight on.

The one piloting the frigate was so surprised by the accuracy and reaction speed of his opponent, that he only just started to veer off when he grew closer to the veritech, and by then it was too late, as Blaze reached out a hand and grabbed the ship as it passed by. The frigate demonstrated at least some skill, as it began to instantly spin, while it's weapons charged for another attack, but the veritech countered with a few shots directly down the barrel of its main guns, causing the weapon to explode violently, and then did the same to one of its thrusters, causing the ship to go into a wild roll.

Using the momentum of the roll, the battloid launched itself back towards the cruiser, popping off another set of shots as it sailed away, each one somehow finding its mark in the remaining thrusters of the enemy vessel, which continued to spin, but now had no way to flee from the battle. The cruiser, for its part, was just starting to pull away from the battle, about to try a run for the relay, when the battloid slammed hard against the hull, the hands pulling it around so that when it stopped, the head of the veritech was looking right into the enemy's bridge.

"This is Blaze of the Terran Federation. Your ships are dead in the water, you crews are captured. You can surrender now, and save us all a lot of trouble, or we'll have to get nasty," said the leader of the Razgriz on an open channel, and the bridge crew, batarians, turned towards their captain, who growled furiously at the enemy, wondering just what black magic allowed the Terrans to preform feats like this.

"We proud warriors of the Hegemony will never surrender to the lik-," the captain's reply was cut off as the battloid in front of him shifted, and suddenly, instead of staring at the head of the unit, he was staring at the gunpod, which was pushed against the barrier of the ship, slipping into the field, and pressing the barrel of the weapon right against the glass of the enemy ship.

"You only get one offer of surrender," was all Blaze said, and as the captain tried to say something back, the gun fired, the shots tearing their way through the glass, melting it, and vaporizing the pilot in his seat, while blowing the rest of the bridge crew out into space. The veritech, avoiding the writhing bodies of the bridge crew, instead moved back towards the rear of the ship, and a second later, the engines of the once mighty warship were so much slag.

"Colony Command, this is Blaze. Mission successful. We've captured seven vessels and one transport shuttle. The crew appears to be batarian," reported the squad leader over the comms.

"Confirmed Blaze. The second you took out that big cruiser, we got our long range comms back too. We've already called for some backup. Just hang tight, and they should be arriving...now," the moment the administrator said that, a blinding flash of light filled the views of the pilots, and suddenly the space around their colony was awash in warships, a dozen veriteches swarming over each of the enemy vessels, even as Chopper retrieved Grimm. For now, the fight was over.

Chapter Text

The Council Chamber was quiet. Not deathly so, one could still hear the scuttling feet of the keepers, and a few hums and whines of the various machines, but the people that would normally be present were absent, cleared away by Council order. The only people remaining were the batarian ambassador, the Council themselves, and a handful of guards, all of them staring nervously at the space in front of them, into which was projected a holoimage of a Terran standing over a group of prisoners.

"This turian was with the recent raiding party. The weapon he used was very much designed to counter Terran physiology, a harpoon that drained the protoculture from a Terran body, converting it directly into electrical energy. What's more, the batarians had a jamming device that worked on fold space communications. Would you care to explain these things?" said the voice in front of them, and the Council looked at each other, before turning to face the Terran.

"We have no idea why you would be asking us. To the best of our knowledge we have no devices like the ones you're describing. Are you implying that in some way we had something to do with this raid?" asked the turian Councilor at last.

"Of course not, but in the interest of our relations, we wanted to make sure you had no prior knowledge of this technology. As that is the case, I will, of course, assume that this turian is not an agent of the Council," she said this while pointing down at her foot, the turian there just staring at the Council, the image conveying well his cold, glassy stare at them.

"That is correct. We would never violate the space claimed by the Federation, and have no plans to end that policy now, let alone try and capture one of your citizens," responded the turian again, and the Terran nodded thoughtfully.

"If that is the case, then he is to be considered a pirate, that makes him hostis Terra generis, an enemy of Terra. Do you have any objections to that assessment?" asked the Terran, and the Council just shook their heads.

"Then so be it," and with that, she raised her foot up. While she wore no helmet, she was wearing the armor that had become an image to frighten children in the last six months. When the foot was directly over the turian, who just sat there, defeated, the armor whined for a moment, before a gout of blue fire seemed to shoot from the sole, engulfing the figure of the turian.

The fire reduced him to a silhouette, and it made it so he had no air with which to scream, but the image of him showed he was clearly doing so. Luckily for him, his body gave to the flames quickly, and a second later, the Terran set her foot back down, the holo showing only a small burn on the floor in front of her where the turian had been, not even ash remaining of him.

"That issue is settled then," she said, and seemed about to turn off the transmission, when the batarian raised his arm up in an accusatory point.

"And what of the batarians you're still keeping prisoner?" he demanded, and the Terran's image turned from the Council to face him, the three member body staring at the idiot, wondering what trouble he was going to bring on them.

"We had assumed you would claim they were pirates as well. Is this not the case?" she asked.

"Of course they're pirates, but they're still citizens of the Hegemony, and that means we do not allow foreign powers to execute them, let alone keep their vessels. As a representative of the batarian government, I formally demand the return of those prisoners and ships," he said, and the Terran looked down at him, obviously considering he next words very carefully.

"I'm afraid we're at an impasse. Terran law will not allow the return of pirates to their government, and all their ships and belongs have already been confiscated by the law enforcement division of our military. As colonial governor of Armestris those, I can tell you right now, those ships are forfeit due to their use against our citizens. Unless you want to tell us that the pirates were in some way connected to your government," she said this in a neutral tone, but everyone present, including the guards, knew she was baiting him. If he admitted the ships were, well, it would be a near declaration of war against the Terrans, a war the batarians would not win.

"They were completely independent of our decisions, but the ships themselves were still the property of the Hegemony," he responded.

"Well then, they were already lost to you when these pirates got a hold of them, so you've lost nothing to us, but to your own people. I would think you would take this as a sign that you might want to up the security on your ships so that pirates can't take them on raiding missions," she said, and the batarian ambassador just stared at her, trying to think of a response to that, but didn't get the chance to before the Terran turned away from him.

"I have other business that needs attending to today, as such, I will bid all of you farewell, and a hope that we can avoid encounters like this in the future. Governor Winry Rockbell of the Terran Colony of Armestris signing off," and with that, she vanished, the batarian just left sputtering out an insult to the woman, before beginning an hour long argument with the Council on the merits of declaring war against the Terrans for their trampling on the rights of batarians.

It took that whole hour to finally convince him that war was the least desirable outcome, and that he was lucky the Terrans had decided to treat his people as independent pirates, and not as the force of the batarian Cultural Committee they actually were. A protest of that fact was cut off, as Tevos told him directly that they knew precisely who those ships represented, and that any farther 'appropriation' attempts in Terran space would result in the expulsion of the batarians from the ranks of the Citadel races. At that, she invited him to leave, as they also had other work to get on with, and he left without farther protest, allowing the business of state to continue.

OoOoO

The group of batarians looked around the room they were in. It was dull green walls all around, with no obvious doors in the walls, save the large bay door which they'd entered from. Questions had been asked of them before the Terrans had loaded them in here. Most of them centered around officers and who was in charge. Much to the dismay of many of the crew, this had to be answered by telling them those in charge had been the bridge staff of the cruiser.

This answer made the batarians apprehensive. Stories had been circulating for months that the Terrans executed pirates and many had been expecting that once the questions were answered, they would find themselves smashed beneath the boot heels of the ones doing the questioning. Instead they had been herded like cattle into the cargo holds of various transports, which sealed them inside with an almost deathly sounding woosh, like the air leaving a dying body.

They expected that when that door opened next, it would be to deep space, or possibly a star, or even a world into which they would be thrown bodily, burning in the atmosphere as a warning to others. All these were talked of execution methods, rumors spread by the Hegemony government among others. Some believed them to be just that, rumors, lies by the leadership to make them less likely to surrender. Still, everyone winced as the bay doors finally opened, and they braced themselves for death.

That death did not come. Instead of space, a star, or anything that might have been deadly, a sweet smelling aroma wafted into the cargo hold. Many a batarian sniffed at the air, before they began to drift out of the bay, and out into the light. Outside was a garden world, a nice one, with rolling fields all around save the transports that had brought the crews here, and a few yards distance, the start of a massive city, with skyscrapers and buildings of odd designs.

Murmurs were spoken, as the batarians all began to look around, questions passed back and forth among themselves, trying to puzzle out this turn of events. When the transports lifted off once empty, leaving them alone here, they had that same question, until finally, answers came. Said answer was another batarian, a young one at that, probably only just in his twenties, driving an oddly designs vehicle, with wheels instead of the normal hover design they were used to.

"Ah, the new arrivals. We've been expecting you. Okay, who here is in charge?" asked the young man, and the groups looked amongst each other. Only a few lower ranked officers remained, but after a bit of wrangling amongst them, three men stepped forward, the young man motioning them close to himself, before pressing a button on his omnitool and creating a privacy screen around them, allowing them to talk without anyone else overhearing.

"Alright, before you ask anything, I've already been through this about six times, so I'll just answer the basic questions that tend to get asked. No, you are not going to be executed. If they wanted to do that, the Terrans would have. They tend not to punish soldiers for following orders," he began, and the three nodded, the lieutenant-commander speaking up.

"So we're to be put to work in a mine or the like then?" he asked, and for some reason, this caused the young batarian before them to laugh, his four eyes unfocusing just that slight bit that showed he was somehow insulted by the question.

"Listen, just what about this place screams mining colony to you?" he asked, sweeping his hand over the city before them, and the three looked more closely at it. Huge buildings, not Terran huge, but still all over twenty stories, and made of a mixture of glass and metal, stood strong before them.

"This is not a slave labor camp of any sort. The Terrans do their own mining, and they do it far better than anything we've got. So no, you won't be mining," he explained, and the three just stared at him dumbstruck.

"Then what will we be doing?" asked another, a plain lieutenant this time.

"That depends on you. How many of you are there anyway? I wasn't told even an estimate, just that you'd be coming down today," he asked, holding his omnitool up to his face as he began to scan some datafile. The three looked at each other, trading a few figures as they did so, before the lieutenant-xommander answered.

"Standard formation, one cruiser, six frigates. With the command bridge destroyed during battle, we lost a good hundred of the cruisers two thousand crew, which, with the frigates' hundred apiece leaves us with around twenty-five-hundred souls at our command," said the final member of the party, a commander.

"Ah, good, I can fit you all into a single tower then," said the young man, as he began to go over more data, before projecting an image of the city for them on the ground.

"Okay, it's a bit of a walk, but the tower at ninety-three degrees on the edge of town would probably be the best place for all of you. I'll arrange for keys to be waiting in the lobby by the time we get there, so you can pass them out to your people as you see fit. Luckily, there should be enough for everyone to have their own room, but anyone who desires can probably share bunks if they want," said the kid, and once again, the three just stared at him.

"What is going on here?" demanded the commander at last.

"I'm making sure you're taken care of. Unless you'd like to wander the grass or something first. I know a few new arrivals who choose that route. Wouldn't recommend it myself though. No animals or anything here, the trek is just kind of boring, and this is the only city on the whole planet," he pointed out.

"So you're just sitting here? What about escape? Have you got any sort of plan to contact homeworld?" asked the commander.

"Ah, one of those types. Tell me, you mentioned that the command bridge was destroyed. Did they refuse a Terran surrender?" asked the kid, and the three nodded.

"Yeah, stupid of them," he said, and the three focused their eyes on him. It was obvious from the way he carried himself, the kid was former military, and one did not speak of a superior officer, especially one who fell in the line of duty, so disparagingly.

"Terrans offer you one chance to surrender. After that, they go for the kill, If they capture you instead, and that does happen sometimes, they'll take you alive, but otherwise, it's an almost certainty that you're going to die," he began, leaning back against the vehicle he'd been driving.

"That's the story of everyone here in the Ward. This city is where the Terrans are keeping us. Pirates, raiders, slavers, and smugglers. We're criminals, all of us. If we gave up, they bring us here. Depending on the crime, they execute the leaders. Slavers especially seem to get the heel of their boot. After that, the crews are dropped off, and told to just stay out of the way," he gestured around him at the city and the three looked to find a few others emerging from buildings. Krogan, turians, even a few asari, vorcha and drell.

"Why keep us here? Isn't this a drain on resources?" asked the lieutenant-commander, and that seemed to set the kid off, laughing as he held his head to steady himself, before finally calming after a minute.

"Drain? This whole city is barely a drop in the bucket for them. I've been here three months, along with the first hundred thousand prisoners of the Ward, so I got to see how they built this place. Tell me, how long would it take one the Council Races to build a place like this do you think?" he responded.

"A few months or so," was the instant response. The city was big, after all. The street they were looking down stretched away beyond sight, and so did the edges of the place. It was several miles wide, and the same long, with every visible building being about ten stories tall.

"I think you're giving them too much credit, but that's beside the point. The Terrans built this place in about ten minutes or so," he told them, and that knocked them off their feet, only the commander able to keep balanced as that information hit home. They would have claimed he was lying, but all the stories, all the tales their government let spread of the Terrans' wickedness, said it might be true.

"How?" was the next question on all three of their lips.

"SCP-001, the Factory. That thing is how. It's the size of a blasted planet, and it darkened the sky overhead, a huge tube coming down and just pounding into the land, allowing us to watch as tiny arms came out, and constructed this place. I could still feel the heat on the window in my apartment when I got into it, and I don't think I was the only one to spend the first day or so just staring at it," said the kid, getting a very distant look in his upper eyes, while closing the lower as he imagined that day again.

"According to the Warden, they use that thing to build their own colonies too. It harvests matter from a star, and then builds anything they need. From what we've been told, they live in a post scarcity economy because of the thing. Anyone who wants something can just order it from the Factory, and get it in a few minutes with those fold drives of theirs. So you see, making us mine a planet would literally be a waste of time for them," and as he spoke, the commander finally sat down too.

"Then why are we here?" he asked as he sat there, all four eyes staring at the ground.

"Because they know we can be better. Everyone here was a soldier at some point. Ancestors, some of us were soldiers when they caught us, even if we can't admit it. They seem to see an honor there, and not one they want to violate. They think, if we can be led by someone with that same honor, we can be useful to them," came the response.

"They want us to betray our people?" said the lieutenant incredulously.

"I don't know, really, that's just how the Warden described it. Myself, I've been here three months, and I would sign up with them in a heartbeat. They treat us fairly, respect us as people, and don't force us to do anything for them. That's better than how we treat the plebs back home," he said, and the lieutenant seemed about to argue, but then stopped. It was better than the plebs, the lowest rung of batarian society, was treated. Heck, it was better than most soldiers were treated.

"What about food? I see no farmland around here, so is that shipped in as well?" asked the commander.

"You got it. The supply ship comes down once a month or so, with enough for everyone. It too, comes from the Factory," he explained, and they stared at him skeptically, that fact being just a bit too much.

"They make food? Out of stars?" said the lieutenant.

"From what we've been told, yes. They apparently have some cloning pods on the Factory that can convert star stuff into biomass. I would joke here about how it tastes like metal, but it doesn't. It tastes great," he said, smirking and chuckling, as if at some joke only he got.

"So, we just live here. Fed and housed, like pets?" asked the commander, finally getting to the heart of the matter.

"You can. A few of us do treat this place like a vacation. But they'll try to keep you busy, if you want. I know a few science officers are helping the Terrans design stuff on the west side of the city. There's more than dozen places to train in military arts, from hand to hand to space battles. I even here there's a paint gallery opening up soon for those with the eye for it," he offered, and they all nodded. No blank stares now, just acceptance of their situation.

"Only three rules here. No attempts to assault or kill another sentient here, no attempts at outside communication, and if the Warden says do it, you do it, no questions asked," he said this while pushing a few buttons on his omnitool, turning off the privacy field. The three officers got to their feet, and then watched as he turned towards the city.

"Warden!" he shouted, and the other three, rising to their feet again, wondered where the Terran was he was shouting for, only to be shocked for a final time, as instead of a lumbering giant, an image was projected in front of them. It was about as tall as they were, but much thicker in build, and without the features one would normally see on an organic being. It didn't take a genius to know that this was an AI.

"Are they ready for integration, Charn?" asked the projection in a male voice that sounded a lot like a butler or some other servant type.

"I think I've explained things to these guys as well as I can. We're gonna need the tower at ninety-three ready with keys and things for them," he told the projection, which nodded as it pointed an arm into the city. Suddenly the road ahead lit up, and began to show a glowing line that turned on a street in the distance.

"I have begun the preparations. If you would follow the line, your domiciles will be ready when you arrive. Please, if you need anything, simply call of me. My sensors are all over the city," said the projection, and then vanished. The men, who had heard none of the explanation, demanded one now, but the officers quickly brought them back into line, and then the batarian soldiers marched towards their prison.

Chapter Text

Vai'Gerral awoke with a start, her hand instantly going to her arm, to tap a button on her omnitool and contact the bridge. The engines weren't running. There was silence, a quiet that just didn't happen on a ship. If something wasn't done, they would all be dead, or worse. Her mind worked slowly to wonder why her hand touched nothing but bare skin as she reached for her omnitool, and when she realized she was exposed, her mind worked on that problem too.

Then she began to remember things. The silence was that of a station. She was on Gloval Station, the center of politics for the Federation. She had been here for weeks now, and yet, she still woke like that, a fact that would have made her laugh, had it not been so sad. Her people had been living on those ships for generations, and she herself had left them only once, for less than a month on her pilgrimage. Those instincts, those senses used to hearing the noise of an engine, feeling the subtle vibrations of a deckplate beneath your boots. These were things she had to unlearn here.

Stretching, she rose from her bed, letting the sheet she'd been under slide off onto the floor, before smiling. She felt that cold, slightly stale air, blowing against her skin. That thought at least made her smile. Her bare skin, touching open air. Such things simply weren't possible on the fleet. Though they were all the same people, the germs the quarians carried in their own bodies were prone to causing an allergic reaction in each other, necessitating that they live in those suits of theirs, as there simply wasn't enough space to give everyone their own sealed place to unsuit. No, they lived inside their suits, like a second skin.

It was odd how fast that habit had stripped itself away. How she only found her hand going to the seals and locks on her suit every once in a while, instead of constantly as those first few days had been. Now, alone here in her own little room on Gloval, she was free of that prison, as she now saw it, and with the help of the Terrans, her people might soon find themselves completely free, as the genetic engineering technology was being turned to the purpose of making the quarians immune systems stronger.

That thought brought her back down, as she thought about the Terrans, and then about the attack they had suffered. The fifth in as many weeks, mostly pirates, either from batarians looking for slaves, or from the Terminus, looking for political prisoners. Some were, very obviously funded or at least encouraged by the elements of Council Space, though to date, Vai'Gerral felt confident that they were never agents of the Council themselves, though one might have been a SPECTRE acting on her own initiative.

In all of that, the Terrans had shown themselves to be far more merciful than she knew she would have been. Pirates who attacked a quarian vessel, if they could be caught at all, were spaced. There were no exceptions, no trials, no contacting their families. They were just put into an airlock and blown out into the void, as a message to all who would harm her people. She had, herself, only witnessed two such executions in her day, but had ordered dozens of others and she felt no shame in that.

The Terrans though, they held chain of command in an almost religious context. Probably the Zentraedi blood in them, according to a few she'd talked to. Command staff, or those that ordered shots, were punished, though even then, not always fatally. Those who pulled the triggers, or just followed the orders though? They were spared, and taken to that colony they'd built for them on Ward. There they were allowed to stay, until the Conclave decided to either return them to their people, or just to let them go. So far neither had happened yet, but she was confident that it would sometime soon.

Her thought train finally looped back around to her duty. She was the Quarian Conductor, the title she had taken for her new office. She'd been elected about three months previous, with the next one in five years. The name of her office was chosen by herself, and she had been wearing it proudly as she represented the quarian people on the Conclave, arguing on the behalf of her entire race. Luckily, to date there had only been on major shouting match between herself and her fellows, and that was over some of the geth's constructions in orbit.

Sighing, she grabbed a food bar and ate it quickly, before throwing on the robes of her office, and then walking over to a small platform near the door of her quarters. The platform, a circle of metal, chimed as she walked into it, and then glowed on the top and bottom. A humming sound followed, and she felt like an invisible set of hands was moving over her body, as the device took a scan of her, studying her every curve and nuance before rising gently from the ground, and gliding through the door.

On the other side was a huge chamber, with a ceiling almost ninety feet overhead, and walls as far apart as all the other rooms in her quarters combined. She needed the space though, and waited as the door back to her rooms hissed shut, and then she began to rise upward, the platform projecting a field around her. A mirrored surface set into one wall allowed her to watch the process, as an outline began to form, and soon, the details started to be drawn. In less than a minute, a version of herself, as large as the Terrans, was staring back at her. She took a moment to admire that reflection, the powerful seeming form, before walking over to the door, and opening it.

"Conductor," said the guard outside in greeting. He was armored, and had probably been standing there all night long, making her smile at him, as she bowed her head slightly to acknowledge the greeting.

"Hello, Sergeant," she said, and then began to walk down the hall. The device beneath her, the projector making the image, allowed her to walk on its surface, holding her up and floating with the image, making it seem, for all intents and purposes, that she stood eye to eye with the Terrans. The disk even projected what her larger self's eyes were seeing directly onto the real pair, as the field holding her in place above the disk allowed her to feel the things around her as if they were really her own skin.

About her passed the Terrans, all of them giving her a look of respect. That had felt odd for the first few weeks, even more so than the lack of noise or movement she associated with a ship. Her people, of course, respected her as they would any member of the Admiralty Board, but those faces were covered, so she could never see them looking at her with that slight mixture of awe and reverence that came with seeing the leader of a civilization.

She had also gotten used to the slightly off look of the Terrans as well. Her own people rarely showed themselves to outsiders, with most never removing their suits once the bubbles were gone, but they would have been described as looking like Terrans for the most part. Grey skinned of course, a color she had yet to see on the Terrans, and hair that tended more towards black, but she knew a few who had lighter shades that would have allowed them to blend in quite well.

The most striking difference, however, were the eyes. Terran eyes were limp things, they took in the light, and that was all. That was because, both species that had gone into their makeup were diurnal, operating mostly in the daylight. Her people, with the more subdued light of Tikkun, were more adjusted for night. Her eyes shone slightly, bright white pupils, around silvery irises. Luckily, her eyes functioned as well in bright light as in darker spaces, and so she met each gaze with a smile as she walked towards her goal.

The guards are her destination let her pass without comment. There were, after all, only about half a dozen quarians on the station, and they knew her by sight now, even if the unit below her feet didn't identify her to them. They too bowed their heads in respect as she entered the chamber, and then looked around. The round table in the middle had only three of the seven seats filled, and she took the closest open seat, while looking at her fellow Conclave members.

"Conductor," said Hayes, still representative of the Terran Senate's will on the Council, though according to her, only for about six more years, and that was if she won every election.

"Representative," she responded as she sat down. Beside Hayes, Breetai was going over reports on his omnitool, Vai halfway believing he hadn't noticed her come in, but that subtle eye movement of his told her he was aware, as a soldier was always aware of those around them, but had things that needed his attention more than pleasantries. One seat down from him was another holographic thing, like herself, but one without a biological core inside. This was Amalgam, the Terran AI Collective, who was their will on the Conclave.

She idly wondered where the others were, and began going over a few reports herself in mimic of the others. Most were mundane things. The Flotilla was going to a new system again, still with over one half of her people on board. More moved to Rannoch every month now though, and she smiled at a few images from there, of her son and his wife, pregnant now with her grandchildren. Anscestors, with so many of the normal restrictions on birth lifted, Rannoch was quickly becoming awash with quarian babies, meaning that in twenty years or so, their population would be at least twice what it was now.

Her thoughts of home were brought down as the door to the chamber opened again, and the remaining three members of the Conclave entered. The first to enter was Solo, Hub of the geth. He wasn't the geth her people had made, however. He was one of those who had allowed the Terrans to expand him, gaining a sentience he would not have had without a legion of his brethren inhabiting his body. He walked straight to the seat opposite her own, sitting down next to Amalgam.

The two were quite an interesting sight. Amalgam didn't try for any details in his form. He was, at basics, an outline of a Terran, without the fine details that would normally go into such a thing. His 'skin' was almost black as well, while his face consisted only of a pair of eyes, no mouth, nose, or other extravagances that one might see on the other AIs that had taken to using the projectors to move around in what they called the real space world.

Solo's form was all about the details. He was gold in coloring, not bright and shining, but an understated worth to him. He had a bipedal form as well, with four arms instead of two, however, two smaller ones with eight fingers beneath his larger, three fingered hands. The face itself was much like that of a quarians, down to the eyes, which were gold like the skin, and with dark black pupils instead of her white, like he was trying to be the opposite of her.

Behind him came Grant. The Terran man looked dower, and there was no questions as to why. Gloval Station was awash with rumors, and he'd probably been putting out some rather large fires of late. While they were all at least a bit removed from their own areas of control, either political or social, Grant's area was the station they met on, and that meant everyone with a problem came to him. Some to get their voices heard on this very Conclave.

Finally came Exedore, and he looked the most haggard of them all. While Terrans, and especially Zentraedi like himself, didn't require sleep, it was sometimes useful to take a break every now and then. He looked like he'd spent the last month hopping from one project to another. Come to think of it, he probably had, considering some of the things that she had seen coming out of the Factory of late. Designs and ships she would never have dreamed of, coming from Exedore and teams of researchers.

"Good, it's nice to see all of you here," he said as he finally looked up from his report, and all seven of them sat around the table. As Exedore took his seat, Breetai pressed a button on his omnitool, causing that low hum of a privacy field to expand around them, giving the leaders of the Federation a bit of time away from the judging eyes of others.

"I'm sure many of you wonder why I called this meeting in such a rush," said Exedore as he pressed some buttons on his own omnitool, dimming the lights, and causing a holoprojector in the table to start spinning to life.

"It's over the Armestris colony's recent trouble, correct?" asked Grant. That attack had been ten days ago, but still dominated much of the news in the Federation, and had caused the people here some very busy nights.

"Indeed. Namely, I have finished my analysis of the devices used to carry out the attack," and with that an image began to float in the air above the table. Looking at it, the thing appeared to be some kind of box, with a handle on the bottom and grips, as well as a trigger on one side. As they watched though, the front end of the device folded open, and then out of it launched a single projectile, a harpoon like device with several barbed ends. That came apart even farther to show the insides of it, which was made up of several odd looking circuits.

"The first, is this. It's some form of stun device, though it could easily be used to kill as well. You take aim and fire, much as you would any sort of projectile weapon, though given its size, I doubt normal micronian races would be able to handle this device with more than a single shot inside it," as he spoke the image shifted again, to a display of a micronian who was very obviously a turian, standing at the foot of an armored Terran, and firing the weapon at them, the harpoon burying itself in the armor, penetrating it seemingly easily.

"Oddly, the device is solely magnetic in the nature of its launch mechanism, possibly to avoid interfering with the internal structure of the projectile itself. This does, by its nature, make the projectile quite slow compared to other weapons that is in common use in the galaxy at large. However, thanks to both the shape of the tip, and a sort of vibration applied to the projectile itself, I have yet to find a material it can't bore through," and again, the scene shifted, the projectile flying through several foot wide material barriers, ranging from stone, to several alloys employed in startship construction.

"That is very disturbing. Mounting a weapon like that on a starship would allow them to carve through an opposing fleet like butter," commented Breetai, scratching his chin in thought.

"It would indeed, old friend. Luckily, the weapon requires air pressure to keep from shaking itself apart. As such, it is quite limited in use," and again, the scene with the Terran and the turian played out.

"That is not the most disturbing element though. The most disturbing is that the harpoon is tailor made for Terran physiology. The barbs bury themselves beneath the skin, and small receptors in them then go farther, digging until they touch protoculture, which is then drained, and finally converted into electrical energy," and the scene played out for them, as lines of blue energy flowed from the Terran into the harpoon, which then flashed with lightning, before the Terran fell to the ground smoking.

"A devastating one-two punch. Drain you to make you weak, then hit you with that energy in a different form," commented Grant, a bit of horror seeping into his voice as they stared at the obviously dead body in the display.

"And yet, it is thoroughly impossible," said the Prime Thinker, as the device was displayed again.

"Obviously not. Someone in the Council or Terminus built the device," responded Amalgam, and Exedore shook head.

"It would take half a decade or more of intense study of a Terran to come up with this device. I don't even think I could have built something of this nature in less than a year, and yet Terrans have only been present on the galactic scene for half that time," he said bluntly.

"Are you not being just a bit egotistical? Perhaps someone among the Council races are smarter than you?" asked Solo, and Exedore just stared at him for a few moments, before shaking his head again.

"Were that true, we would not currently have the advantages we do over them. I'm going to be a bit immodest and state for the record that I have been personally responsible for over a dozen innovation in the last two hundred years that have altered how this society functions. Mind, that's not the only impossible device this group had, that makes me believe something else is happening," and with that, the second device appeared on the screen. At first, it appeared to be just a box, a simple container, but then it opened up, and one could see all the various circuits and tubes running along inside it, including the eezo core.

"Now, just so we're on the same page, fold drives work by literally doing that, folding space. The theory behind them is that space, time, and energy, while interacting at all times, are actually three entirely separate forces, and one can be manipulated without affecting the other two," a hologram demonstrating this principle appeared above the device, with a small transport launching, and then seeming to double for a moment, before it reappeared a few feet forward from where it had been.

"Our transmitters work in much the same fashion. By creating a small vacuum inside the antenna, a fold event is created inside that allows for transmissions to pass through easily, much more so than true mass of a ship or the like. This means that we are able to send signals almost constantly if we so choose, and thus are able to secure colonies without having to constantly deploy large fleets to each world we control," this got nods from everyone at the table.

The way the Federation Fleet worked was simple. There were three major staging areas, Earth/Terra, the birthplace of the people who had formed the Federation. Next was Gloval Station which actually served as mostly a storage facility, staging base, and first response to intruders in the Sol System, by being right there at the relay should anyone invade. Finally there were those ships stationed, or just built by, Space Construction Platform Zero Zero One, otherwise known as SCP-001, the Factory.

Beyond that, almost all colonies had a constant presence of the fleet, but it tended to vary by size. After all, most of those serving for those places were either colonials themselves, or had families who had decided to move out there. This tended to mean that the smallest colonies, like Amestris, actually had little in the way of on site defenses, but enough to hold off invaders should they happen, until a larger force could be folded in.

"This new jamming array works by somehow reinforcing the solidity of space. That's the best way I've found to describe it anyhow. For all intents and purposes, folding space around this unit is quite impossible, meaning it not only cuts a colony's communication ability, but also, even should we learn of this, it would prevent us from deploying a force to deal with an invader," that information from the Prime Thinker seemed to ripple through the other six present, as they absorbed what he said.

"What if one were to try and fold regardless of this field?" asked Breetai at last.

"Luckily, that would simply result in a fold refusing to form. It would waste energy, of course, but it would do little more than that, so no one is currently at risk from this, save from those that cause the interference," Exedore said this, and another ripple, this time of relief went through the Conclave. They had thought, for a moment, that this would be a weapon with which to cripple their fleets, and worse, destroy large sections of their population, in a single stroke.

"That's a relief. But how does this show that the Council isn't behind the device?" asked Grant.

"Three reasons. The first, is that the one who provided the device to the batarians is not one of their agents," again, the holo shifted, this time to the image of a turian.

"I've had a few of my contacts going over the records," he began.

"Meaning you had some AIs hack into the Citadel's databanks," clarified Hayes.

"If you wish to be blunt, yes. Regardless of how the information was obtained, I can tell you right now that the one who provided the jamming device and the wielded the weapon against us, was a former SPECTRE," pushing a button on his omnitool, a list of medals, missions, and a dozen other statistics popped up beside the turian, identifying him as one of those sorts of people that the Council loved, their best of the best, who carried out their will throughout the galaxy.

"Doesn't that prove the opposite point, though?" asked Amalgam as he looked over the data.

"Ah, but it is the last entry in their logs for him that make this interesting," and scrolling through those logs, Vai'Gerral saw what he meant. The turian had a long list of accomplishments, some even after being made a SPECTRE which was rare, and done only when the person succeeded beyond even those expectations. The last entry though, was listed as almost five years ago, and it was a damning one. It was a listing of the agents death, while doing some exploring near the edge of the Attican Traverse.

"Hmm, I will admit my ignorance, but how does him being listed as dead affect in any way his viability as a Council agent? Couldn't they have faked the record?" asked Breetai after a moment.

"Vai'Gerral, as the one closest to the Council's policies, I think I should let you explain this," offered Exedore, gesturing to the quarian woman, who found herself taken aback for a moment, before nodding. This wasn't the first time they'd asked her to speak, so she fell right into it.

"The SPECTREs are special forces, of a sort. They are a law unto themselves, able to do things that would normally result in interstellar incidents, if not outright murder. Because of this, a SPECTRE is given certain identifying codes, so that even a less well known agent can act with impunity. These codes are programed into the Hypernet, and allow for things like overriding security, to shutting down a ships engines," the last she had experienced personally, when a SPECTRE had decided to look for a criminal among the Flotilla, and had been able to bring their entire race to a halt for almost a day before being satisfied.

"Because these codes are as powerful as they are, there are many protections on them. The most powerful of which is called a death lock, which, as soon as a SPECTRE is listed as deceased, erases their codes from everything, effectively scrubbing them from the system. It's why a SPECTRE, even a missing one, tends to be listed as active, until such time as their natural lifespan is passed," that information circulated around the room, as those who had never known such things digested it.

"So, why would this agent be listed as dead, if it's so hard to reinstate them?" questioned Grant.

"They found wreckage of the ship he was on, and enough bodies to account for the entire crew. Yet, obviously something is off, if he's still active," said Exedore.

"Alright, that's one reason, a bit flimsy, but it does raise some questions. What is the second reason this device proves it's not of Council make?" asked Hayes, and in answer, Exedore pushed a button on his omintool, bringing the device back up, and this time zooming in on the eezo core. The Conclave watched as numbers and figures appeared beside it, listing the elements that made up the chunk of rock. For a moment, none of them saw what he was getting at, then, slowly, each noticed the number at the top, and just seemed to shut down.

"That...that's impossible," said Solo as he came back to himself.

"Indeed, and yet, it is there," answered Exedore, and all seven of them continued to stare at the element list. Six Percent Iron, Two Percent Gold, Five Percent Silver, and so on, until the top element just seemed to burn itself into their minds. Sixty Four Percent Element Zero.

"Are you certain of this data?" asked Breetai.

"I ran the spectrographic analysis myself a dozen times just to be sure. Each time came within this rating by at least a tenth of a percent," confirmed the Prime Thinker.

"What's the highest purity level we've gotten to?" asked Hayes.

"Utilizing a large quantity of our reserve of eezo, and the three protoculture matrices, I was able to get a sample of thirty five percent, and even then, only a small sample," he said, and then just let that information sink in.

With that purity, the Council would have no restrictions on fleet size. Eezo's power grew, exponentially, the purer it was, but at thirty or so percent, it took far too much to build ships. It had been one of the major things holding back the size of fleets for as long as the Council had existed. With purity levels that high, you would be able to run the entire fleet off less than a thousand as much eezo. At that point the only thing holding back warship production would be population size, something the Terrans were familiar with.

"Could one of the Citadel races have the technology to create a sample like that?" asked Grant, and Vai'Gerral shook her head.

"Not even close to a chance. With that sort of tech, you'd have found an empire ruled by a single race, rather than the union of races as it is now," she said simply.

"And the same holds true for the Terminus. No ruler there would allow the conditions of their existence to continue if they could create a sample of eezo at this purity level," said Solo in agreement with her.

"What about this other person? The Shadow Broker? Perhaps they're connected to this," proposed Breetai.

"I had considered that possibility. Historically, the Shadow Broker has been able to employ even SPECTREs, though the Council also denies those claims. However, should this individual have that sort of power, they would not be thwarted as often as they are. Some of the Shadow Broker's operations fail in ways that the ability to create a sample like this would simply not permit. My final point is the most damning in this case, however," as Exedore spoke, another hologram shifted onto the table, this one of a person.

"This gentleman is a Mr. Church. He's an AI that works under me on the Blue research team. I had assigned them the project of studying the jamming device, while I myself did the same for the harpoon, as, at the time, I believed the weapon to be the more important, before I realized how powerful the jammer was," as he spoke, the image of the man over the device started to waver a bit, like he was behind a huge fire or some other heat source.

"Over the past week, I've had the Blue Team working almost around the clock, with Church himself posting at least twenty-two hour shifts. At some point yesterday, it was brought to my attention by one of his fellows that something was wrong with him," and with that, the image of the man shifted into lines of code, the very stuff of an AI's soul, his logic string. The bits and numbers moved quickly through the air, until finally, it zoomed in on a section of the code that seemed...off somehow.

"Michael was the first to notice. But Church was becoming more distant, less attached to the world. It was like he was growing attached to the device he was studying. This line is what convinced me something was wrong, however," the image was then replaced again, this time with two figures, standing in front of the device.

"So, Church, how are you feeling?" asked the first person, someone in thick protective armor.

"I don't...I'm fine Michael, I'm fine. It's just this thing. It's so beautiful, so perfect. It feels so wrong to be taking it apart the way we're doing," responded the second figure, clearly an AI by the voice, though apparently wearing armor the same as the first.

"Well, that's how science works sometimes. You take something apart, and then see if you can put it back together. I figure the Prime Thinker can always build us one of these later though," responded Michael.

"But it won't be the same...it can't be perfect like this...this is perfect," he said the last with a tone that almost spoke of a supplicant praying to his god.

"It's a machine, Church, and it was used to hurt people. I hear they almost grabbed a kid with this thing and that harpoon gun Exedore himself is studying," retorted the Terran.

"That...that was bad. But would it be so bad to be with the one who made this thing? It's perfect," Church said again, and this time the first figure seemed to be genuinely concerned as he put his arm on the other figure's shoulder.

"Church, I think it's time you took a break. We've got some free time tonight, why don't you, Lavernius, and I go take in a match with the Red Team?" offered the armored figure, only to have the AI push him away.

"No, no I need to be near this thing. I need to...I need others to see its perfection. You can see it, right? Its perfection?" this time the tone shifted as he spoke the final line, and he turned to face Michael.

"It's. A. Machine," said the Terran, and then suddenly Church leapt at him like some kind of wild man, screaming about perfection, until several other figures were tearing him off, before the recording finally ended.

"That log goes back at least five hours in their conversation, which was the point they felt the need to start recording Church specifically. He'd been having episodes around the device. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but he was constantly skipping his free times, and at least once, he was caught trying to upload himself into the device, before he was stopped," Exedore informed them.

"A close examination of Mr. Church's code reveals that was fragmenting, which is curious given his age is only twenty-seven," that information seemed to shock Grant, Hayes, and Amalgam, but Breetai and the two newer Conclave members looked at him questioningly.

"Ah, yes, not everyone here is aware. Fragmentation is what happens to an AI as it ages. It's the late signs that junk code is building up too much in the logic string. Normally, there are many warning signs before it gets to this level, but in Church's case, it seemed to happen quite suddenly, and this is why," a button press, and the code reappeared, zooming right to the section where they had been before, only with some odd code glowing now in a sickly green color.

"This code, isn't part of Church's mind. It's not part of any program he has interacted with, and what's worse, I was able to observe a chemical reaction in Michael and Lavernius's brains that was similar in nature enough to believe that the device itself was somehow responsible for it," the device reappeared.

"Acting on my authority, I quickly isolated it on SCP-261, an automated unit with a cloning pod for food production over Titan," the device moved through the air, appearing inside a small satellite, overlooking the moon.

"Cloning several small neurons, I was able to observe an affect from the device I can only call genetic mind control. It took almost a day of additional testing before I realized what was causing it," the device, one final time, split open, and the eezo core was floating before them once again, this time with small waves of motion coming off it.

"You're saying eezo is somehow responsible for your people's mental instability?" asked Solo, and Exedore shook his head quickly.

"Not all eezo, I did several tests with other samples, and found them to be neutral on the subject, but every test with this sample, or even pieces of this sample, have proven beyond a doubt to me that somehow, this particular piece of eezo affects one's mind state. Possibly that's how the captain of the batarian vessel was convinced to assault one of our worlds," as he spoke, the image vanished, leaving the chamber dark for a moment, before the lights returned to normal.

As the room brightened, the same thoughts went through the heads of everyone in the chamber. The batarians, the turians, and even some asari and salarians, had all tried to smuggle things through their territory, that was why Ward's population was sitting at almost one-hundred-fifty-thousand. 'Pirate' attacks on their colonies were rare though, especially with the stories of the Terran fleet responding in seconds to every aggressive action. It had given them a measure of relative peace, as compared to the rest of 'civilized' space.

To convince a large force of batarians to attack one of their worlds, even on just a slaver raid would have taken some major promises of backing. That was why the Conclave had initially assumed the Council must have had some hand in this game. This report totally destroyed that assumption, however, and told them quite the different story. It showed them that some things were going to have to change in a large way, as well.

"So, there's a new player in the game, someone with a tech base at least at our level, if not higher, who has somehow been able to stay hidden for over fifteen hundred years and counting, and who's technology erodes minds," summed up Grant.

"I believe, in the presence of a command, the subject so effected would be more willing to take command. If apply subtly, it would even lead the subject to retain much of their intelligence, but if you reduce their will enough, it would make anyone into a puppet of the one controlling the technology," added Exedore. Which caused a deafening silence to rule the room for several moments.

"We can't act effectively on this information. There are too many unknowns, too many questions as to what is happening. As that is the case, I propose we do what we can now, and put off other actions until such time as this body has access to farther information," said Hayes finally, and everyone quickly nodded their agreement.

"Good. Then, first, we need to better defend ourselves. It will be an imposition, but we have to start stationing patrols at every colony we control. This includes Rannoch, and the Flotilla would that be acceptable?" she said this directly to both Solo and Vai'Gerral.

"My people would have no objection to it. They would probably welcome the protection on the Flotilla given how many Heavy Fleet ships are understaffed," said Vai, remembering a few discussions she had had with the other Admirals given how much emigration to the homeworld the fleet was experiencing.

"The geth would likewise welcome the change. We have been dismantling many of our defensive platform so the material can be put to better use. The presence of guard ships would allow us to step up the program," added the geth Hub.

"Good, now, we need farther allies, if this does turn into a shooting war with a power we don't know about. What about Project Eden? What's the status of the subjects?" this question was asked to Exedore.

"Currently, Project Eden is nearing as close to completion as it can. The four test subjects' blood is already viable for inoculation, but we have yet to make it airborne," said the Prime Thinker.

"Then that will have to be close enough. Send them out to contact the agent we have been considering, and we'll work on how to disentangle them from the Citadel's laws," everyone in the room nodded at that.

"I think we all need to prepare our people, and our sectors of the Federation for whatever it is might come of this, so unless there is any farther business to discuss, I declare this Conclave closed," Breetai was the one to say this, looking around the table. Everyone again nodded, rising silently as the privacy field fell, and they went to prepare for a war with a power that they knew nothing about, other than it had a power far greater than they themselves did.

Chapter Text

The smell of grime, sweat, and various bodily fluids filled the air, while various light sources turned on and off in hypnotic patterns. Around, the air was filled with music or shouting in equal measure, depending on where one turned one's ear, and in a few places, the muted staccato of gunfire echoed clear amid the din, and another thud would sound the quick, clean end to a long, dirty life.

"Just like home," mused Wrex to himself, as he downed another glass of...orange stuff some stupid batarian bartender had served him. He wasn't sure what it was, not ryncol that was sure, but still, it had punch, and he liked that in a beverage. Sipping at the next glass, he turned towards the sight of a few turians making eyes at one of the dancing asari girls, before finding his eyes attracted to a new sight. Into the room came a group that seemed to draw the eyes of everyone in the bar to them, though most would turn away without a thought.

It took Wrex's brain a moment to catch up with his eyes as he stared at them. It took far less time than that for his brain to get mad at the sight, and utter a blasphemy under his breath as he stroked the end of his shotgun, debating just how many people in here he'd have to kill for looking on the sight before him. After thinking on that for a few seconds, he decided it was best not to draw attention to the group in that way, and just sipped at his drink as he waited to see what they would do.

They were priestesses, cloaked in the robes of their gods. One was black, probably that destruction goddess who's name he'd never been able to get right. Two of the others were a deep green, the god of growth and power, probably, though he had long since forgotten that one's name. The final one wore red, a deep red that symbolized no god in particular, but instead a faith in the power of fire itself, the power that made weapons of war, and allowed one to go beyond themselves.

These four figures, soon ignored by the rest of the bar, took seats in an out of the way booth, then waited. Wrex watched as one of the asari came up to them, then walked away, probably to get whatever it was they had ordered. Then the first of the bar's toughs came up to their table. He was some damn fool salarian, so drunk he was barely standing up straight, and being egged on by a batarian behind him. Grunting, knowing his duty, the krogan battlemaster rose to his feet and walked over to the idiots.

"So, any of you ladies looking for a good time?" asked the slimy toad with a slur to his speech, and an odor on his breath, that told anyone listening that he was not going to remember this in the morning. Feeling a bit of pity for the drunk, who was probably one of those dock workers who was going to wind up dead at the end of some merc's gun, Wrex didn't say anything to him, or his friend, instead using a slight biotic pull to yank them both away, knocking the pair down, and then staring right into their faces.

"I think you should leave here, now," he told the drunks, and the pair sobered up real quick, as a krogan grinned that toothy smile at them. The salarian was the first on his feet, only to stumble over himself trying to make for the door. Still, they were both gone in seconds, and that left the battlemaster with the four priestesses.

"Holinesses, what are you doing here?" he asked gruffly of the four, grabbing a chair from a nearby table and sitting on it so he could face them.

"We could ask you the same question, Urdnot. What are you doing here? Why are you away from the clan that bares your name, a clan that needs your strength," asked the red garbed female, and Wrex nodded. They knew his name. That meant this had to do with him in particular, that this wasn't some chance meeting. He thought briefly about walking away. If they were here for him, it couldn't mean anything good, but then he felt a sigh forming in his throat, and let it out in one big breath, before facing them.

"Not much I can do for them. I'm no leader, and I'm too old to be a great warrior. Let the young have those jobs," he told them bluntly, and the four turned to each other, their hands moving in the way of hand talk, a woman's trick. This allowed them to speak without being overheard, and more importantly, without the men having a say in their discussion.

"Would it change your mind if you learned that the Urdnot Clan is one of those that has been rounded up by the turians? Those stone faces now walk our lands, and police our people, all because Guld and his stupidity," said the red again, and this time Wrex did react. His hand went to his gun, both at the mention of Guld, and more importantly the news of the turians. That last was something he hadn't heard about, probably some kind of information black out regarding it.

Guld, Chief of the Weyrloc Clan had called in every favor he could, gathering forces on Tuchanka from all over the galaxy. He'd even hired from outside his own Blood Pack merc corps, including their Eclipse rivals. Why had been a good question, as there was nothing on Tuchanka worth fighting for, but Wrex had been trying to ignore that news, including the offers of work from the group. He had no desire to return home to see the blasted plains and wastes.

"What happened?" he asked at last, as the battlerage faded a little.

"Guld offered a hope to his people, a hope of freedom and rebirth, a hope that far too many of us took up. He assaulted the Cleansing Tower, believing it to be the source of the genophage that infects our people, promising it was the first step to reclaiming homeworld. The turians, whom he had expected to remain busy with the Terran border, came down on him hard, cutting him and hundreds of other warriors down, before taking full control of the surface," this was said by one of the priestesses wearing green.

"Idiot," was all Wrex could say to that, glad that Guld was gone. It did explain those times he'd seen a vorcha in charge of the Blood Pack companies on these recent jobs.

"Indeed. The blow to our people though, has been severe. Almost all feel this was the last gasp of the krogan race, a final glorious charge onto the guns of our enemies, and now we shall fall into darkness," the red robed one spoke again, and Wrex nodded gravely. It wasn't wrong, after all. His people had been dying for a millennium and a half now, since the Rebellions. Perhaps he should have taken Guld up on his job. Maybe he would have been one of those to die in glory, rather than waste away like this.

"But what if this was not the end? What if this was the sign that a new light, a new leader, could rise up and band the krogan together in ways that have not been seen since before the great wars?" asked the other green of him, and Wrex scoffed at her.

"That's the job for a young one, one with hope. I haven't had that in years," he told her simply.

"What if there was hope, though? If you could bring life back to the people of our world, would you be willing to go back then?" asked the red, and Wrex, without thinking, nodded in answer. In a single beat of one of his hearts, he'd rush back to homeworld, if it could be saved. That wasn't likely to happen any time soon however. The four priestesses then descended into handtalk again, gesturing emphatically at each other, before the one in black robes finally raised her hand, silencing them.

"We have business then, Urdnot Wrex," she said in a grave, older voice than the others, holding our her hand. One of the greens pulled an ampule from the sleeve of her robes, a small vial with a needle on it. Wrex backed away a bit at the sight of it. A battle hardened soldier, he'd learned not to trust the things, but then the black robed woman stabbed her hand with it, drawing a large amount of her blood into the vial, and sliding it across the table to him.

"This is the hope we offer, the hope that the krogan can have a future. Take that vial to a doctor, one you can trust. Ask him what's different about it compared to every other sample of krogan blood in the galaxy. When you have your answer, these is an extranet address on the vial at which you may contact us," she said, and then rose. The others followed suit, rising like a wave of silk, before walking straight out the bar's front door, leaving Wrex staring at the ampule before him, knowing what must be in it, allowing that one small glimmer of hope into his mind.

OoOoO

"Get on the table and just wait, you'll feel better, and I won't have to look at you," said the batarian who was sitting in the chair in front of his equipment. He had a bottle in his hand that was obviously whatever weak alcohol his people could stand. Wrex, used to doctors telling krogan to just suck it up, came in anyway, and slammed his palm onto the table the four eyed bastard was leaning back against.

"I don't need healing, you hack job. I need information," he demanded in his most intimidating voice. The batarian flinched a bit at it, but no more than that, as he set the bottle aside, and stood up to face the angry krogan.

"If you want info go to someone at a bar, I heal the sick and injured, I don't play job contact for mercs," said the doctor, only to stop as Wrex pulled his hand back from the table, having left a chit for over five thousand credits there, more than this idiot would see in a month.

"Not a job, I just need some blood looked at. Got a friend of mine who's sick, and we need to know what he's got, discretely," said Wrex, smiling evilly at the last word, while flashing three more chits of similar value at the batarian, along with the ampule of blood.

"Now that, I can do," was all the batarian said, quickly pocketing all four chits, and then sliding his chair over to some microscope thing, and pouring some of the blood onto the dish under it.

"Any idea what he's got?" asked the doctor, as he adjusted several knobs.

"Not like anything I ever saw, so you should probably be able to tell something right away," said Wrex, his hand going to his side as he waited. Said waiting seemed to last for a thousand years, as the batarian kept adjusting his view, and then writing something on a pad next to him. When he was done there, he pushed away from the microscope and shoved the rest of the ampule into a rather disheveled looking, but still functional asari medical scanner.

The first sign of trouble was that the thing's readout instantly turned red the very second the blood was put on it. The next was the batarian, who looked at the red, and then quickly pushed some buttons, getting the same red result. Finally he walked over and literally unplugged the thing, then plugged it back in, and yet it didn't change, the red flag from the scanner coming up the same every time.

"This isn't possible, the scanner says you're friends fine. Better, he's got none of the geno-*BLAM*" the batarian's words were cut off as Wrex's shotgun blew a fist sized hole through his chest. The doctor's head turned slowly towards the krogan, but his eyes were already glazing over, and he slumped wetly to the floor.

With the skill of a krogan that had done this before, he then trashed the lab, making sure the computers were in such a state that any bytes of information that could be gleaned from them would be as close to worthless as possible. The whole job was the work of less than three minutes, and when he left, he took note of the doctor's name, mentally noting that he needed to send a few thousand credits to any family he might have.

The next job was a bit harder, but Wrex was old, and though not as skilled as some, he knew the tricks to tracking the net addresses from the information, to the material plane. This soon gave him a dock number that was in an unused part of Omega, which then got a visitor. He stealthily, for a krogan, made his way into the bay, going in through one of the doors that had not opened the whole time, and then hiding behind one of the metal boxed in front of him, peering over it to find out who was behind this.

The sights in the bay told him instantly. The Terrans. Those giants from the galactic rim were walking everywhere. At least a dozen of them, moving huge pallets of things. From where he stood he could see at least half the bay was loaded with those pallets, and squinting slightly, he could see the symbols on the side. They were eezo canisters. The raw stuff that you could use in just about anything. This much of it must have cost these new bloods a pretty credit, but given what he'd heard, they could afford it.

Just as he was getting a plan in his head, the crate he was hiding behind moved. Not slowly, but like a truck, and thanks to the way he was standing, it clipped him in the jaw hard, causing him to fall back with a grunt. Still, his body allowed for him to roll onto his side as he fell, his hump becoming the center of gravity and spinning him around so it was facing an enemy, while he drew his gun, and on instinct, fired at the crate, causing everything else in the bay froze.

"Ah, Mr. Urdnot, we've been expecting you," said a booming voice from above, and Wrex took a look to find his shot hadn't even dented the crate in front of him. It had scuffed it a bit, but damaging it was beyond his weapon. Then he looked up. And up. And up a bit more, until his eyes met those of a Terran. What he had mistaken for a crate of goods was in fact, the armored foot of this giant, who wore no helmet, leaving her face exposed, and revealing that asari like skin, which was brown rather than blue, though it had green hair atop its soft face.

"Ladies, I believe this is your cue," she said, and the nearby ship opened a small hatch, out of which soon came the four priestesses, who made their way as quickly as decorum would allow to the side of the bay with Urdnot and the Terran woman.

"Thank you, Claudia. If you could, we'd like a few moments alone with him," asked one of the red robes, and the Terran woman nodded, carefully stepping over the four of them, and then clapping her hands at the others of her kind.

"You heard her! Everyone back in the ship. We'll finish loading once their business is done," the order seemed to snap everyone out of the dormant state they'd been in since the shots, and everyone piled back into the ship, the door seal shut behind them, leaving the five krogan's standing there, staring at one another.

"So, you got in with the newbies?" asked Wrex finally, and the black robed female shook her head.

"Originally, we were with Guld's group. While most of us knew it was a losing proposition, it was better to die in a final glorious stand against our enemies, than simply fade away into nothing," she answered, a good krogan answer too.

"So then how did this come about?" he asked, gesturing towards the ship with his hand.

"We were caught, by a batarian raiding party that had slipped through the turians' defensive fleet over homeworld, and then were being dragged off to slave camps along with a hundred of our defenders. The slavers were trying to keep clear of those patrols, and got a bit too close to Terran space, and the Terrans were quick to capture their ship, along with most of the crew," this came from the red, and Wrex stroked his chin a bit at the mental image of it.

"You were in the forward hold, where they kept the good slaves. The others were in the rear, and got spaced at the first sign of trouble," he said this as fact, and even through the masks the priestesses wore, he could see a dark shadow cross their as as he spoke. It was the slavers standard operating procedure. Even if the bodies were recovered, the batarians would claim they were a medical transport, and a seal had blown out when they stopped for the patrol ships.

"The Terrans took the bridge staff, and executed them. Not slowly either. It seems they have little love for slavers," this last was said by one of the greens with a bit of admiration in her voice. Good, the krogan tended to hate slavers too. Power over another should be earned, not bought.

"That was four months ago. We were told the surviving batarians would be the first prisoners of the Ward, some prison planet they were setting up. They then offered us a choice. Return to Tuchanka, be simply four voices against the encroaching darkness, or be something more. A flare of light that could send that darkness scurrying away forever," as she spoke, the one in the black robes pulled out another ampule, and filled it with her blood again. Wrex, interested, just watched as she did this.

"Over these last few months, they tested us, observing and recording how the genophage worked. Within a month, thanks to those cloning tubes of theirs, they'd discovered a way to cure us. Two weeks ago, they had made it so not only were we immune to reinfection along the same vectors, but that we could do this," and with that she whipped her hand out, stabbing the ampule into Wrex's hand, and causing the battlemaster to wince as the blood went into him, while his free hand went to his shotgun, only to pause as it touched the handle, and realize that he was about to shoot a holy woman who was the hope of his people.

"Heh, you're getting slow, Battlemaster Urdnot. Two centuries ago you would have been able to dodge that," she said as she withdrew the ampule back into her robe, and let Wrex rub his hand against the numbness it felt.

"What did you do to me?" he demanded.

"You are, or will be within the hour, cured of the salarians' great weapon. Sadly the curative properties are one of the few things not passed on," she answered, and he stopped rubbing at his hand as he stared at it. A cure...not just a female fertile again who could become the mother of a new generation of krogan as he had expected, but something that could undo the damages they had suffered so long ago. Something that would make them a great power again. That thought had never even crossed his mind in all his wishes for the future.

"Why?" was his next question, as he continued to stare at that hand, dreading taking his eyes off it that he might awaken from this dream, and find it all a fiction.

"Why did they do this? I will be honest, I don't know. The Terrans are masters of genetic engineering, those cloning pods of theirs allowed them to do in weeks what should have taken decades, if not centuries. In all that time, they were only kind to us, never did they ask anything for what they did. It was only seven days ago that one of them laid out their plan," said the one in the red robes.

"And what plan do they have in mind?" he asked, thinking over everything the krogan's could offer for such a prize, and always coming back to the same thought. The Terrans were better. Stronger, faster, smarter obviously considering this cure. No resource the krogan had could ever match something the Terrans did better, so what possible payment could they offer.

"They simply want us to be more than what we are," she told him, and Wrex looked at her like she'd just said the sky was full of tables. That line of thought didn't follow through to any logical conclusion he could make.

"In the fifteen centuries since we left the homeworld, what has been asked of us? To learn? To build? To be? No, everyone who has asked something of the krogan people has asked one thing. For us to fight. So that is all we have, all we are, now. Before we were uplifted, we created art, forged cities, and made our world beautiful. Now all we are is hired guns, guns that are slowly rusting away, and will be nothing but dust all too soon," this was said by the two greens, trading off each line, like they had rehearsed it, and yet with a sincerity that came from the hearts.

"The Terrans know what that is like. They are the fusion of two races, one as we were before, and one as we are now. They have grown from both sets of experiences. The one who knows how to grow, who knows more than war has taught them to expand their horizons, to go farther with each hour. The one who knows how to fight has made them a unified whole. Their culture acts as a unit, even if they are not a universal military. They know how to grow, and how to do so safely, and now they offer us the chance to join them," said the black robed one at last, and Wrex stood there.

He'd heard a similar story from others, so he believed them, and everything they had done since their arrival said the Terrans meant what they said. They ended the cold war between the geth and the quarians. They refused the war that the Council seemed intent on dragging them into. Heck they'd actually brought a measure of peace to a section of the galaxy that had been lawless before.

"Why come to me then? Why not go right to homeworld and tell them of this? Plenty of young would rally around anyone offering a cure," he asked this, while finally looking up from his hand, and staring into the faces that would give his people a future.

"Because we are spiritual leaders. We can guide our people in the ways of the soul, but this task, breaking a sword so long covered in blood, and turning it into a tool for building, will require a leader of the physical world. They gave us a list of the active battlemasters, those who might lead our people, and of them all, only you have the youth to know how to change, and the age to know wisdom," offered the red, and Wrex nodded, before finally looking towards the ship.

"So, how do we begin?" he inquired, and the four priestesses, despite their masks, could be seen to smile, as the black robed one pressed a button on an omnitool he hadn't even noticed her wearing.

"Claudia?" she asked, as the thing chirped.

"Has he agreed?" came a quick reply from the voice of the Terran woman whose foot he shot before.

"He has, please open the hatch again, and you may resume loading the last of the supplies," she answered, the small and large hatches of the transport opening. Wrex felt the shudder of the deck as the Terrans marched out to grab the last few pallets of stored eezo, while that Terran woman came over to where they stood, crouching down so she wasn't quite so towering.

"Mr. Urdnot, we have to make a stop at the Factory, to deliver this eezo, but once we've done that, my ship would be pleased to escort you to Tuchanka. Would that be acceptable? Or would you rather get back on your own?" offered the giantess.

"Heh, might as well travel in style while I can," he said with a smirk, and then let the priestesses guide him towards the opening for them, while Claudia rose and began directing her people on where to place their loads.

"So, what do I call the four of you?" he asked as they walked up the ramp.

"We gave up our names when we donned the holy garb to lead the souls of our people in these dark times. Those names we took after we have given up as well, for we are no longer as we are. We asked the Terrans for names that would fit, and they have given the name Eve to me," said the black robed one.

"My sister and I are Mary and Lilith," offered one of the two clothed in green.

"And I am called Naamah," said the one in red. Wrex nodded at these names. They weren't good, sharp, krogan names, but they fit somehow, for these four who would be the ones to light his people's darkest hour. Still smirking to himself, Wrex walked with the four into the door, joining himself and his people to the fate of the Terrans.

Chapter Text

One year had passed since the Terrans had become known to the species of the galaxy. A year of relative peace. As the great powers of the galaxy shifted in their place, taking their positions within the new structure, the cracks that had begun to show over the centuries either broke completely, or were forced shut by the pressure. Yet, in all this, the Terrans had kept to themselves, dictating nothing to the peoples of the galaxy, trading only little, and then only outside the bounds of Citadel space.

On Irune, homeworld and center of the Volus business empires, the people had begun to stand on their own. Still they were a client race of the turians, their great trade ships, larger than even the mightiest warships, but without a single weapon to their name, were protected by turian guns. Yet, in secret and in the open, they began to build their fleets. Ship hulls, once empty for more goods, found themselves stuffed with the tools of war, should it ever come down to it, and increasingly, the turians found their services less required.

On Khaje, the great cathedrals of the hanar sometimes fell into hushed whispers, as blasphemous statements echoed among those quiet halls. The Terrans technology was great, and their mercy was becoming known. Surely they were the Enkindlers reborn, said those whispers, and many a tendril would point to them as someone to whom the hanar should be joined. Those in charge kept those voices in whispers though, knowing that if they did so, it could bring down everything they had built for themselves since climbing out of the sea.

On Dekuuna, the great forger of the mighty elcor, one couldn't take a step without some pheromone argument assaulting your nostrils. The streets were often awash in those who protested their treatment at the hands of the Council. Always in the background, their voice ignored by those who took their slow and deliberate speech to mean they were slow of wit as well. The leaders listened, but ultimately kept themselves joined to their allies of a thousand years.

On Sur'kesh, the words spoken in whispers on other worlds, were shouted openly between Dalatresses. Powerful families threatened to tear apart the foundation of their society, until finally a quorum was called between the greatest families. There, it was, after days of heated debate, decided to stay their course. It had only been a single year so far, and the Terrans were strong, but so was the Council. The technology they were developing would soon even things out, and the status quo could return.

On Palavan the whispers were heard not at all. Their society prided itself too much on their unity to allow such things to pass their mandibles. That was not to say nothing changed. Values, the core values of their people, had been shaken. The young had seen the old lead them into ruin, because the old believed themselves to be the sole arbiters of what was just and right in the galaxy. Now they strove to live up to the ideal itself, and provide true justice, and in the months that had followed the Shanxi Incident, they had lived up to that, routing out corruption where it hid, in their own ranks and the galaxy, and giving the turians back a measure of pride, not in themselves, but in their purpose.

On Thessia, words were spoken openly, but softly. Discussion and deliberation on talking points were found in every cafe, and every lip seemed to have a different opinion on it. The Matriarchs were still respected, however, and when they called for order, it came. They quieted the fears of the people, reaffirming that they, the eldest and longest lived of those in the galaxy, would continue to be that guiding hand that would shine the light of wisdom in those dark corners where fear and ignorance continued to fester.

On all these worlds, life slowly settled down to what it was before. There were new faces in the galaxy, but to those who had been there for so long, such things happened. For the majority of citizens, this was just another story on the evening news, something to tell the children about at bed time. Some still worried, but they became fewer and fewer as the weeks went on. Soon, on most worlds, there would be no talk of the Terrans as anything special.

On most worlds...

OoOoO

The Hegemony Senate was at a stand still. That wasn't rare at any time, but with everything that had been going on, it was becoming a problem. Before, it was easy. Take a few 'volunteers' from the military caste, and you could simply go out and claim a few colonists on some backwater, bring them back, and make a profit on the market. Now, with the Council breathing down their necks on everything, the Senate demanded to know where their forces were at all times. It was becoming harder and harder for the Cultural Committee to do it's job.

New blood was always needed. If not for the mines, than for those in the upper castes that had...exotic tastes. Tastes that were best served by an asari whom you owned, or perhaps a nice turian man, broken over weeks of training. Now you were lucky to find a pleb, the lowest rung of batarian society, up for grabs on the market. The trade of the Committee was being disrupted, and life was becoming harder for those head hunters, and every single one of them knew who to blame.

The Terrans. Worse than being impossible to catch, as four expeditions had shown, their space was almost as impossible to pass through. You would be minding your own business, using the lesser known relays to jump behind a turian picket line to make a stab at some out of the way colony, and then a huge Terran ship would just appear in a flash of light. Not that many knew what happened after that, as there had yet to be a single survivor of the attacks. Oh, they knew the Terrans claimed their people were merely being held until they were rehabilitated, but the batarians had made similar claims of Council agents that had vanished in their space, and knew it for the lie it was.

So business had begun to slide, as skilled slave became harder to find, and the plebs had been pushed into roles formally filled by outsiders. In just one year of this the Cultural Committee had had to put down a dozen revolts, always caused by some pleb, moved up into administration, growing just a bit too full of himself, and encouraging the lesser people to rise up against their betters. Worse, due to the frequency of them, they'd had to start leaving some of them alive at the end, or risk bankrupting whoever was in charge of the business, thanks to the rising price of slaves.

This could not continue. They had to take some of the momentum back. Before, they had been the fourth most powerful race in the galaxy, able to match the turians, or even those blasted asari shot for shot. Now they were failing fast. Their fleets weren't as well manned, and their tech was falling farther and farther behind the times. They'd even had to pay for the latest developments lately, rather than simply raiding a salarian colony and grabbing a few of the frogs to do that sort of thing for them. It was disgraceful.

There were whispers though. Leviathan Command, the tech development center that had helped propel them to match the greats of this galaxy, was working on something. Whether it was a plan or a weapon, or something even more, no one could say, but everyone working the factories noticed how fast they had converted to pumping out these walking tanks the salarians had designed for them. Something was coming, and it was going to be big.

OoOoO

On Tuchanka, things were growing better for the average krogan. Not that that was hard, considering how fast things had gone downhill. A year ago, they'd been warriors, born to fight and die. Then they'd just done mostly that last part, when the Blood Pack had tried to whip them into an army and throw the turians off their world. The assaults had been ill planned though, with many just being a variation of running screaming at the bastards. Thousands of krogan had fallen to the guns of the turians then, and thousands more in the turian counterattack, which left what little civilization the krogans had had before ground down to just families, struggling to survive the blasted wastes of their home, begging at turian boots for food.

That had been their lot, one last grasp for a victory that was far out of reach, and now death. Even the Blood Pack was different, being run by a vorcha of all things. No krogan leader could step up to unify them, and those who looked on their people, did so with the dejectedness of a person knowing that had once been great, but were now a thread snap away from being nothing but a memory, a faded nightmare of the past for asari to tell their daughters at night.

Then the light had come again. The Mothers to guide, and the Father to lead. Five months ago they'd simply appeared as an answer to the prayers of their people. They gathered to them all the disparate clans, promises of food and clean water enough to entice even the most cautious of holdouts to come to their halls. Once they had their people gathered, they lived up to their promises ten fold, providing not just sustenance, but wisdom to their people.

The Mothers spoke of what they had once been. No, not the mercenaries and warriors of the last millennium and half, but farther back. They spoke of grand cities that had once dotted the world, of forests and swamps that had covered their planet. The krogans of the past had broken that world, tamed those forest, and drained those swamps, to make this a world of not just survival but life as well. They spoke then of what had befallen them, the fires they had used on each other that had burned all that.

The Father spoke then. He told them that such was the way of their people. They were violent, for the world they came from demanded it of them. And then, when they had nearly destroyed themselves, the salarians came. They had promised much, but demanded something in return. They had demanded that the krogan forget those cities, forget the tamed wilderness. The salarians needed them to be violent, to be savage and powerful, where none of their own could be.

And the krogan had become that. They had embodied violence and death, with none able to stand before them. Even the rachni, the seemingly endless horde of insect like monsters, had been broken by the legions of krogan, until the last brood mother had met here end at the barrel of a krogan rifle. Victorious, they had joined the Council on their great Citadel, to sit at their side like some kind of trained dog, to be used when it was in their best interest.

But the krogan were not hounds, and they had been asked to become war itself, and so continued to fight. After all, what else could they do? The salarians had demanded they give up all else, so violence was all they had now. Then they were a threat, and rather than try and help them discover something more, the Council had simply gone out and found a new dog, the turians, and used them to beat down the old, shattering their war machines, and neutering their people.

Now here they stood. They could accept this, go out like some of the young wanted, in one last blaze of glory, prove the Council right, that they were nothing more than dogs. Or they could spit in their faces this one last time. They could build again, learn again. There were works of art buried under the dust of two thousand years our there. They could make art like that again, even bring the old up from those forgotten times, and shove it right in the face of those fools, show them what they had lost by forcing the krogan to be their warriors.

This was the rallying cry that gathered the krogan people, the banner to which they began to flock. The Council races looked at this, and just shook their heads. The krogan, as anything other than warriors, was an absurd ideal. Still, it would keep them quiet, and in this time of turmoil, that was a blessing. So they were left alone, with a few watchful eyes being kept, but otherwise they were allowed to be that something more that the Father promised they could be.

The gun would always be the great tool to the krogan, and most still trained in that, but to be a part of this new Tuchanka, this Convexity as the Father dubbed their state, you must know more than just a gun. Now when a young krogan put down his weapon after a day's training, he would take up the plow, and grow a field, or take up the brush and paint an image. Slowly, but surely, they were learning to enjoy what they could be, if someone simply showed them that there was more to life than just violence.

In secret, far from the eyes of the Council, or even their fellows, the Father and the Mothers met with the greatest of this new generation of krogan, the ones who made masterpieces, or made new life from the dust, or even a new engine for a vehicle. These were given a special rite, an almost holy ritual where the blood of the Mothers would be gifted to them, and the impurities of the salarians could be shed. These young ones, male and female alike, would leave, but speak not a word of this miracle, for the time was not yet right for others to learn of it.

So passed the krogan's year. First building themselves up in arms, only to be put down farther than ever before, and now to rise again. Their allies in secret continued to deliver things, supplies of both nourishment and rebuilding. The Mothers and the Father knew this put them deeper and deeper into the debt of those who gave them these things, and always feared that a price would be asked. But no shipment came with such a demand, and so they moved onwards, towards a future that would be bright for every krogan.

OoOoO

On Rannoch, the year had brought the most changes of anywhere else in the galaxy. One year ago, no one living walked the plains of the great desert. One year ago, the sky had only held the ships and platforms of the geth. One year ago, there had been no plans for the future, no hope for a chance at joining the galactic community. One year ago, only mechanical eyes had seen the great sun rises and sun sets of the world, or seen the beauty of the rock canyons as shadows danced on every wall.

Now there were people here again, young and old, tall and small, and most importantly of all, biological and mechanical. Quarians now roamed the great city of the south, dubbed New Rayya by the people. Here they laughed, played, and cried. Here, the isolation of three hundred years seemed to fade away, and it was like they had never left this place they called home. Each month brought new colonists from the Flotilla, and soon there would not be a quarian left in space, as they reclaimed their lost homeland.

The geth looked at this, and simply saw what many of them had wanted during the long years. To a geth, right was the quarians in their cities, with children and families. Some even wished to resume their old roles, as helpers of the quarian people, but more wanted to explore. Freedom granted to them by the techniques of the Terrans expanded their horizons. No longer did a thousand voices need to come together to form a thought or idea. Instead they could exist on their own, watching the world play out before them.

Not that this freedom had come without cost. As they had been told, they had welcomed a time limit to their lives, a limit that had not before existed. More than that though, the platforms were denied to them. Those bodies they had lived in were too complex, too many moving parts of their single minds to run, similar to the Terran AIs own woes in that regard. They had not fully been denied the world, however, as every day brought more of the holoprojectors to their world, allowing them freedom both within themselves, and within the the real world.

The Terrans watched all of this, encouraging peace between the two peoples who had stood apart for so long. Here, they found that the strife of three hundred years was not so easily bridged. The quarians often hated the geth, for what the machines had done, and the newly independent geth sometimes hated back. Neither group was willing to come to blows over this, however, and they were slowly seeing things through. Images soon began to circulate of a small quarian girl in her bubble, handing a floor to a platform, as a sign that they could live together.

Slowly, peace began to settle on Rannoch, and her people, both of flesh and metal, began to expand outward as well. Though space was plentiful on Rannoch, some found the 'Walled Garden' stifling. It was home, to be sure, but there were horizons yet untapped. Many of these came to the Factory, to learn to build and invent as the Terrans did, while others clamored for the right to join in the defense of their world, despite the disadvantage of mass they faced.

So jobs were found, places where those with inventive minds, talented hands, or strong hearts could do what they dreamed of doing. Those at home, encouraged this growth of character, as new geth were coded, and new quarians born. Both were seeing rising populations like they had never before known, and those horizons would need to be broadened, if that growth was to continue. And thus passed the year on Rannoch, and her people found themselves enjoying a dream that had been a long time coming.

OoOoO

The galaxy spun on as these events played out. The stars seemed heedless of the tiny lives flitting through their space. And yet, not every life was ignored. Deep in the Darkness, and within the Light, things stirred. The Day was approaching much faster than anticipated. Events were spiraling towards the Time, and preparations were only half done. Still, those in the Dark had done this time and time again, and could see the familiar patterns already emerging. The Pattern ensured their victory.

Chapter Text

The morning team was full of dull eyes, and drawn faces. Shifts on a world like Rannoch were necessary, sure, but it was duller than one would really expect. Most of the people now had no family there, some had even left their loved ones behind on Earth or one of the larger Sol colonies to be out here. Their service was appreciated though, with many a smile passing their lips as they looked at the various pictures that had been gifted to them by the people below whom they safeguarded.

The afternoon team came in to take the bridge, the captain saluting the fleet admiral, who had no orders to give. Everything was quiet, and would hopefully stay that way for some time. So the afternoon team let their counterparts go off to whatever they wanted. Some would rest, meditating, or even dozing off if they so chose. Some were going to train, to further sharpen their skills. More than a couple were probably going to get a drink of some slurry in the galley, before enjoying the show from the planet below.

Even the afternoon bridge crew were partaking in that last, as monitors often showed not the space around Rannoch, but the space around New Raaya instead. There were parties in the street, as quarians, Terrans, and even a few geth put on performances, all in celebration of the city's one year anniversary. Smiling faces, roars of adulation from the crowd, and a dozen other things marked the occasion. Today, even though few had family below, this place was really starting to feel like home.

Some watched in awe as the quarians played traditional instruments of their people. Segmented flutes with five holes on either side, great metal drums that rang like gongs, or chimed like tiny crystals. Other behind the spectacle of a young Terran boy, juggling rings of light he pulled from his omnitool. The ones watching grew to applause as one of the rings dropped just out of reach, and drove itself into the metal stage, showing the sharp nature of the things, even as the boy added more and more to the act.

A few eyes were watching the colors playing off a much closer object, one that could be observed out of any port. Rannoch's newest satellite, a great mass of metal and wires, hung just outside the fleet's orbit. On board, almost all those geth who chose to remain as they had been, to find their own path rather than take that handed to them by the Terrans, were celebrating themselves. It had been almost a year since the Factory had built them this thing, a computer complex larger than any other in the galaxy, into which many of their number had poured.

Now they thought with one mind, and were defended with barriers, both those of the mass effect fields, and pinpoint barriers designed by the Terrans. They lacked offenses, of course, as the quarians would never have allowed them to have a single weapon on the great construct, but to many, they would have been a waste of resources. They were defended by the Terran fleet, and in the year they had known them, the Terrans had shown themselves to be both powerful defenders, and close allies.

Today was a day for celebration. That did not mean that the guardians of the world were totally distracted, however. When a small blip came on their sensors, a dozen eyes and hands turned towards zooming in, and identifying the anomaly. For a few moments, it seemed that the anomaly was just that, a glitch in the sensors, but then, slowly, the number of objects increased. Going from one, to a dozen, to hundreds, to finally thousands all at once. Worse, an alarm claxon sounded, fold communications had stopped working, causing everyone, on every ship in the fleet, to leap to their stations.

It was a testament to the skill of the soldiers of the Federation that everyone was in position in minutes, so they could all watch as the objects grew closer. They were, to put it bluntly, odd things. They registered as craft, but of no known design. To many, they appeared to be knives, thin and sharp on front, with cylindrical parts behind spouting fire. Weapons were locked onto them, missiles and reflex turrets all blasting out with fury enough that a world could have been striped bare by their power.

The protoculture blasts of the reflex guns splashed against the barriers of the knives like water, and worse, had just about the same effect. The bubbles of light and force popped as they always did with anything under a cruiser weight, and yet that did not stop them, and the bubbles seemed to have an infinite number of layers beneath each other, preventing the backwash of energy that left the ships helpless, and allowing those knives to slice ever closer to the fleet and the world behind.

The missiles might have done more damage, but as each grew closer, the glow of their mass effect fields covering the long, powerful weapons, lances of light, similar yet subtly different from the reflex turrets, shot out of the darkness behind the knives. These weapons slammed home, and every Terran got to watch as their weapons, that had never once failed to take out a target, were all destroyed in seconds, allowing the knives free flight right up to the fleet itself, while they could do nothing but watch.

Many of the knives slash past the fleet, making a line towards the world behind them, and several ships began to turn, intent on somehow stopping them once they hit the atmosphere. No ship could finish the turn before the knives hit them, however. The pointed ends were as sharp as they appeared, ripping their way through the metal hulls of the great war machines. The impacts were enough that every trooper was knocked from their feet, rising slowly, some in sight of the odd projectiles.

Within seconds, the nature of the weapons was made clear, as blades burst apart, scattering chunks of shrapnel all around. Those who were armored found that their metal skin provided protection for the moment, the blows driving them back, but not cutting into their flesh. Those without armor were sent reeling, their blood and flesh exposed on the cold deck plates beneath them, unable to do more than scream for a surprising moment, before even worse noises than explosions began to echo through the halls of the ships.

Gunfire and cannon blasts, and even a few metal on metal fights. Warmechs, squat and powerful machines, came out of the blades hilts. Five to a blade, and at least ten blades per ship, meant many problems for the crews. Especially as those with weapons in their hands, or on their armors, found the enemy mechs to be as protected as their ships outside from protoculture weapons. Many a Terran was cut down as they fired impotently at the enemy, whose own shots seemed to find them, following them even around corners or behind cover.

On the planet below, most of the people heard a small tone sound throughout the city, and the Terrans, if they weren't already moving, ordered their neighbors to the shelters at the city center. Protect bunkers, they would hopefully be safe there, as the alert continued to sound through the air. Above, eyes could see streaks of light as they tore through the sky, the blades breaking apart from the friction of reentry, but allowing the blade handles to land with explosions of fire, dirt, and glass.

Each handle broke apart, even as the defenders of the city, Quarians, micro Terrans, and the armored forms of the normal Terrans, all took their posts. A few geth, both the holographic independent ones, and the a few of the collective intelligent ones that were in platforms, began to rush to the defense of the city as well. They took up what arms they could, and soon not a single one of the ships that had come down onto the planet had less than a hundred weapons pointed at them.

As the dust, smoke, and debris slowly cleared from the air, every defender could hear the pounding of feet. Many were those of armored troops, their powerful strides clapping against dirt and stone. A few were far stronger though. Massive strides of metal that slammed down onto the ground, throwing more dust into the air. When a breeze finally came to clear away the clouds, everyone could see the hard fight ahead, as each ship had almost a hundred armored batarians, and one of the mechs in them.

The mechs were odd looking to the quarians, but any of the Terrans could have told them what they were. Destroids. Or at least, things that resembled them. Forty-five feet tall, they were shorter than the full sized Terrans, but broader at the shoulders. The frames were powerful, with barriers shimmering over their metal hulls, while weapons on their arms shone in the dying light of the sun. Those weapons, a cannon on the right, and a gatling gun on the left, began to hum, and with a roar of fire, the Battle for Rannoch began.

OoOoO

The boy's hand flew over his omnitool. The circle of buttons clicked and chirped as he studied scans, adjusting and recalculating something. Around him, screaming civilians fled, even as the slow, plodding forms of the batarians in their armor came forward. Rifles out, they shot at targets of opportunity, taking down anyone that looked to be in an area without anyone threatening to trample them if they fell. This concern on the part of the attacks was made evident when one noticed their weapons fired darts, not solid rounds, said darts instantly felling anyone they hit.

The boy ignored this, going over his calculations again and again, while continuing to run with the crowd. About him, he saw a few soldiers, quarians, Terrans, and geth, point weapons at the oncoming enemies. Most of them, sadly, wielded protoculture based weapons, the powerful beams of light shooting out of them splashing against the multi-layered barriers of their enemy, who either stood their, impassive, or worse yet, laughed off the attack, before returning fire with either darts on unarmored targets, or mass effect weapons for those that were protected.

The advance of the ground troops was deliberately paced. They moved at a steady walk, their boots thudding against the hard stone heavily. Watching this, and pointing his tool at the horde, the boy took another scan of the things, before rushing down a side alley. Here, several of his fellow civilians were being directed by a geth platform, who shouted with that mechanical voice for them to flee, even as behind the boy came three batarians, their weapons drawn and ready to fire as soon as they had a good clear shot.

"Got it!" shouted the boy, drawing his hand back, and then spinning on his heel. The geth heard his cry, and wondered for a moment what he was talking about, before he pointed his omnitool at the oncoming trio of attackers. With a flash of light, an ozone smell, and the sound of a pop, the omnitool launched an attack. Lightning played out over the target, and the batarians had to blink away spots in their eyes as they looked around, two of them seemingly fine, while the third stood there for a moment, his four eyes going wide.

"AAAAAHHH-CRACK!-" the sound of his scream and the resounding crack of bones echoed over the stone walls of the alley. The batarian who was the source of the sound was nearly doubled over, his legs bent at angles that spoke of broken bones. Luckily, his pain response was quick to knock him out, his mind swooning, even as the other two drew their mass effect pistols and took aim. They were far too late, however, as the child before them struck again, this time the overload pulse hopping from the one he struck, to the other, causing the both to fall over as well, though neither of them broke bones.

"Intriguing," said the geth platform, even as it motioned the other civilians to keep running.

"Do you have a line of communication with the other defensive forces?" demanded the child of the geth as he quickly ran over to the victims of his attack, scanning them with his omnitool.

"Affirmative. Fold communications are jammed at the present time, however the more mundane lines of transmission, including hypernet uplinks remain active," answered the geth.

"Good, transmit this protocol out to all of the forces that can use it. Tell them it should disable these bastards," he said this while rushing over to the geth and pressing a few buttons on his omnitool. The side of the unit ejected a small data storage device, which the geth took, before inserting it into his own arm and sending the data off.

"This is Legion-Platform, to all points, I am sending a modified overload program that has proven capable of disabling the on foot attacks. Stand by," said the platform to the air, and soon, the sound of overload pulses, and more screams echoed over the city, as the defenders, formally unable to seriously hamper the batarian advance, found themselves on the offense now, driving the four eyes out of their city.

"What's the situation elsewhere?" asked the child, and the geth took a moment to correlate all the various reports it was getting, whittling them down to a basic overview of the battle.

"Currently, the ground forces are being routed at all points, with the wanzers keeping a distance from the city proper due to their bulk making it hard for them to maneuver. What mass effect weapons we have in the city are being used to fight them, but it is slow going, as few examples of that technology remain in wide use," as it spoke, the unit displayed a hologram of the city as it understood it, showing off the four wards, with the west seemingly being the one getting pounded on the hardest.

"The larger Terran defenders have all been cut down, the Wanzers displayed the ability to cause their fire to track those forces. The situation in space is much the same, with Wanzers overrunning the corridors of the vessels, despite the efforts to fight them off," the holo now shifted to display the fleet in orbit, and the boy nodded as he tapped out something on his omnitool.

"One, two, punch. Take out the fleet in orbit first, then the ground forces. With no way to fold in through the jamming field, you can destroy both at your leisure, and capture both materiel and prisoners, and pull out before anyone can stop you," said the boy.

"Affirmative," agreed the Legion.

"Has there been any contact with Gloval Station or the like?" asked the boy.

"Before the hypernet to outside the solar system was cut off with the destruction of the beacon, a distress call was transmitted. However, it is impossible to know if this was received," the geth informed him.

"Of course, can't make this easy for us. I'm gonna go help at the western gate for now, want to come with?" offered the boy.

"This unit feels it is its prerogative to escort you to the city's central shelter, not to a battle in progress," countered the unit.

"Normally, as a nine year old, I'd agree with you. But I'm also the one who figured out how to take down the batarians on foot. I think it's worth a shot to see if I can take down the big Wanzers before they decide to cut their loses and just start firing into the city, right?" asked the boy, and the platform considered that line of reasoning for a moment, before the head of the unit seemed to shrug.

"This unit will accompany you to the western gate," it said at last, and the two started off towards the position, the unit eventually picking the child up and carrying him, as the platform was quite faster than the young Terran, and it freed his mind up to continue working on the problem at hand.

OoOoO

"Keep firing! Those barriers can't last forever!" shouted the voice of the commander as he ducked behind a bit of wall again, just as another hail of gattling fire assaulted his position, causing a shower of debris that blocked his view for a few moments. This gave the man, Han'Gerrel, a moment to consider just what he was going to do. Normally, in his position, facing armored units without any of his own, you'd call in an air or orbital bombardment. They did have ships up there after all. However, those ships were facing the same problems he was, and that meant he was on his own.

Before him was a killing field. A dozen huge armored Terrans lay dead on the ground, most without ever having damaged the enemy they fought. Two had decided to charge the foes, and had given good account of themselves, their blades finding the barriers easier to penetrate than their blasters. Of course, that had left them open for counter attacks, and with both of them dead, and only two non-protoculture weapons on this defensive line, it was slow going to whittle down the enemy.

A few minutes ago, they'd gotten a boost to their moral, as someone in the city figured out a way to disable the ground troops with a modified overload pulse. You could still here a few groans, where fallen batarians lay disabled on the ground. A few screams too, as those large mechs rarely watched where they stepped, and many a soldier that had been at their side, now found themselves crushed underneath the iron heel of their so called compatriots, who never let up with the fire.

The units were huge, though not as large as the Terrans at their full height. Their barriers were seemingly impervious to protoculture weapons, and while easier for mass effect weapons to penetrate, the things were armored too. Only the pilots were exposed, with huge glass cocoons holding the drivers in place against the chest of the units. Said pilots seemed to be enjoying themselves, if those sadistic smiles were any indication, and Gerrel swore under his breath, as another cannon blast tore apart one of his positions.

"Hold fast, soldiers! Remember, that's our families behind us!" he shouted, trying to bolster their moral, or at least get them to die fighting. The latter seemed the most likely, given the two or so dozen mech units walking towards them. Still, they would make the four eyes pay dearly for every foot of Rannoch's soil they defouled with their presence, and Han'Gerrel was just about to pop up and give a bit of return fire, when suddenly, a glowing circle whized through the air with a crackling noise, flying overhead and then soaring towards the mechs in the distance.

The disk was covered with arcs of electricity, and seemed to mesmerize everyone on the battlefield as it seemingly came out of nowhere. It slammed home after a moment, ripping through the layered barriers of the enemy unit it had been aimed at, and then digging into the glass cockpit. The circle of light burst apart as it entered the enclosed space, and one could literally watch as the controls the batarian had been using died, leaving the unit completely stopped, before it fell over with a deafening crash.

"I'm brilliant!" shouted a child's voice, and Han'Gerrel turned to find, unsurprisingly, a child standing there. What was surprising was the geth platform behind him, looking down at the young Terran boy, and then up at the quarian with an odd look in that single eye of his, as if asking him just what the heck was going on here.

"Now dance for me, fools!" he shouted, and spun around, as he did so, three more of the rings of light came off his omnitool, also crackling with lightning. The mechs, knowing what these would do to them if they struck home, tried to move out of the way, but the machines were bulky, and not designed for sharp turns. Worse, they'd been getting closer and closer as the battle had worn on, so two of the rings were able to hit their target with ease, with similar results. The third did manage to turn the unit enough to avoid behind hit in the cockpit, but stumbled into the unit beside it, causing both to fall down in a tangled heap of metal limbs and whining servos.

The return fire followed soon after, but the Terran boy seemingly danced through it, the gattling fire missing him, sometimes by inches as he wove his way through it. The cannons couldn't even get a bead on him, and every shot of them went wild, striking either the city behind or the ground around him, sending showers of dust and debris into the air, which only made him harder to target, even as more and more of the light rings came out of that same cloud. In minutes, all of the mechs were as disabled as their groaning infantry counterparts, and a cheer went up through the soldiers.

"Kid, that was incredible," said Han'Gerrel as he approached the youth, who didn't even seem to hear him as he tapped something into his omnitool.

"We've still got a lot of work to do. There's forces at all the other main gates, and those in space to deal with. Can any of you drive me to the other positions?" asked the boy, looking up.

"That's for us to worry about. Give us the specs for those rings, and we'll send them to the other positions," offered the quarian, wondering why he hadn't done that like whoever had figured out the overload pulse had.

"If that would have worked, I would have done it already. It'd take an hour to modify an omnitool to do what mine does, and since it's biolocked to me, no one else can use it. Now get me a ride, soldier," he ordered, with all the authority in his voice of a seasoned veteran. The rest of the command around him looked to Han'Gerrel for orders, given he was the highest ranker here, and he stared at them for a moment, before gesturing with his arm.

"You heard the kid, move it! Find a working vehicle in this mess and get him there, ASAP!" he shouted at them, and the men and women of his command instantly moved, trying all the ground vehicles that were left, before a jeep was found that still worked, and pulled up to the boy and his geth, both getting into the transport as it pulled up.

"North sector was the worst hit after us. I'll get you there, and we can give them all the help we can, but if things get dicey, I want you out, got that?" ordered Gerrel as he took the driver's seat, and then gunned the motor towards the point.

"Shepards don't ever run away from a fight," declared the boy, and the quarian and geth both stared at each other, before the quarian had to turn his eyes back towards the road.

"Shepard? As in, Colony Administrator Shepard's nine year old son?" asked the Gerrel.

"Yeah? Why?" asked the boy, not looking up from his omintool as he continued to mess with it.

"Nothing, nothing," answered Gerrel as he sharply turned another corner, and drove towards the sounds of battle.

'Just that I think my career is going to be over after this,' he thought to himself, as he drove the son of his boss towards the danger, rather than away from it.

Chapter Text

"You think I'll let you run away!?" shouted the girl, her sword dripping in her hand. In front of her, the hardened soldiers were taken aback by the ferocity of her attack. Her body was covered in fluids, some blood, but mostly the hydraulic and cooling that came from inside their mechs. Behind her, one could still see the remains of three of their fellows, torn apart and busted up, with the pilots most definitely dead, or on their way there in the case of one that had been torn clean in half by her hands, and was being left to suffer.

The remaining two continued to run, their hands flying over their controls, trying to milk any bits of speed the units might have left in them. Of course, the girl just smirked at this, as the ponderous foot falls of the destroid style mechs were no where near as fast as her, and she hefted her blade, as long as she was tall, and probably several tons heavier, so that she was holding it like a javelin. Crying out with a war whoop, she tossed the blade forward, hurling it with all the force she could muster.

The blade flew straight and true, impacting against the barriers of the mech that had made it invulnerable to the ship's defenders before this point. That barrier only served as a minor impediment to the great blade, which seemed to dent the defensive field, and then impaling one of the mechs in the back, and causing the pilot to have that one moment of dawning comprehension as he looked down to find himself bisected by the blade, before life left his form.

"Yeah, not gonna happen!" she informed the last remaining combatant, rushing forward. Screaming as he realized what had just happened, the pilot of the mech pushed every button on his control panel related to weapons, and his guns started to fire. Cannon blasts, huge chunks of metal propelled by magnets and mass effect, tore through the air, but never came close to their target as she ran to the side. His gatling gun roared as well, a staccato of fire ripping into the deck plates, but the girl seemed to defy gravity as she shifted to run on the wall, dodging every shot.

The girl then reached him, her hand whipping out to grab her blade's hilt, tearing it free with the sound of grinding metal, and causing the mech to fall apart, as she slashed with it, severing the ends of the arms, and most importantly, causing the weapons to jam. The slugs already flying down the barrels became stuck, and as she landed just behind the mech, the arms exploded into shrapnel and slag, the pilot screaming as the sharp bits of metal tore through his systems. Luckily for him, as he felt back, his cockpit was untouched. Unluckily, he was now staring straight up at the girl.

"Heh, I must admit, it's ballsy of you four eyes to use an old human design for your mechs. But you know, we stopped using destroids for a reason," and with that, she brought her foot down onto the cockpit. The glass in front of him held for a moment, giving the pilot a brief glimmer of hope, maybe he would survive this. Then the glass began to crack. First a small crinkling sound, and a line appeared. After that, a series of cracks, a web design of them began to spread, then, with a final crash, the foot came down, and the batarian's final sight was of a boot heel, before it crushed him flat beneath it.

"Windows are a structural weakness," she said as she withdrew her foot, scraping off the gore onto the mech as she did so. Looking back, she totaled up her kill count, and then pushed a button on her omnitool.

"This is Cadet Shepard, five more targets on deck seven taken out," she said into the device, before a chirp acknowledged her.

"This is Captain Shepard, good work Jane. We're herding the rest into the docking bays, the veritechs can rip these fools apart. Now get down to deck twelve and take an escape pod," came the voice of her mother over the comms.

"Mom," she began, but was cut off by another chirp from her tool.

"That's an order young lady. You're not being sent away just because. The colony needs defenders as well, and you'd be more help down there than up here," explained the captain, and Jane nodded at the logic.

"Acknowledged ma'am. Good hunting," she said, and then rushed towards the gravivators for the deck she was on. Around her, she tried to ignore the signs of battle. Dead batarians in their mechs were one thing, but she saw far too many armored Terrans laying beside them. Most had their armor blown off, and had been the clue that Jane had needed to send a message that somehow, the batarians were locking their shots onto the armor itself. With that bit of info, they'd been able to strip off the armor, and switch to melee weapons to just rip the things apart, especially the veritechs which were large enough to just crush the batarian mechs in their fists.

"Jane? Jane, are you there?" came a new voice from her omnitool, and Jane skidded to a halt in her run, bringing the device to her face, and looking into the eyes of her brother down on the planet.

"Jon, what are you doing on this frequency? We're in the middle of a battle," she demanded.

"Yeah, that's the reason I'm calling you instead of mom. I can't get through any to anyone of rank, and I've got to know what's going on up there, and I have an update from the ground," that brought the girl up short. The ground defenders had been cut off since the start of the battle, so an update would certainly be welcome.

"Well, out with it little brother," she said, and he nodded.

"We've got the batarians mostly contained now. Their infantry seems to have overestimated their new technology, and I designed an overload pulse that just takes them out in one shot," responded Jon.

"Really? How'd you manage that?" she asked.

"Easy, they're using some kind of layered barrier system, but each barrier would need it's own ME generator, which are never light affairs. Taking that into account, and their slow pace, I figured they had to be heavy as heck, probably several hundred pounds a suit, and were using a secondary mass effect field to allow them to move. A pulse that disables only that field leaves them disabled until we choose to pick them up," he said, not really bragging, just explaining.

"I'm guessing that wouldn't work on the destroids they've got, right?" she followed.

"Probably not. The systems in the armor have to be simple, due to space constraints, so the computers can't say, shift one of the layers to make them lighter. Plus, I would expect them to make the mechs light enough to move even with that field disabled. They are however, rather weakly armored in their cockpits, as I've found out. I've been disabling them with a few electro magnetically charged energy chakrams" he answered, and she nodded.

"Good to know. Sounds like you're winning down there. We've just about gotten rid of the boarders up here, so they lost on both fronts," she said, and it was Jon's turn to nod at Jane.

"We've still got the problem of whatever ships launched these things from, however," he informed her.

"What makes you think they launched from ships?" Jane asked.

"No way those knife ships these things landed in were long range, and what reports I have access to say you guys up there were boarded by the same," he explained.

"Well, if they're out there, they're cloaked, how are we going to find them in all of space?" she asked.

"That's easy enough. We know they're projecting one of those fold jamming fields. The one from Armestris was only ten light seconds across, which means they'd have to be somewhere within a light second of your position to get maximum coverage of the planet. What's more, hiding like that implies three things. A mass effect field generator to hide their mass, a heat sink large enough to store vast amounts of heat, and a way to maneuver without being seen. That means they have to be big, and close. A few blind fires of your reflex turrets should force them to show themselves," he threw up a simulation on her screen beside his face so she could watch.

"And then what? If they've got those layered barriers on those ships, we'd be just be able to stare at them impotently, before they start flying circles around us," she countered.

"No, no, they would need to be flying at low power right now. The best heat sink in the universe would still have limits, and they'd what to preserve as much of their combat potential as possible just in case you did find them. That means they'd have to spin up their mass effect fields to combat levels, and that gives you a few minutes to fire every missile in the fleet at them before they can get away," offered the nine year old.

"That would be great, if we had any left. The missiles were drained in a first strike salvo on the knives. They shot them all down somehow," she said, not able to offer more than that it happened, as she hadn't watched that bit of the show, before the mechs had invaded and she'd begun the fight for her life.

"That's news to us down here, but it only delays the counterstroke. If you can't use the missile, you'll need to be the missile," he said, smirking at her in the image, and then getting her to start smirking back.

"And that would work?" she asked.

"It should. The point defense barriers are energy in nature, but backed up by the mass of the ships behind them. It should allow you to direct sufficient kinetic energy into the enemy ships to overcome their barriers, especially if they're using the layered system," he said, and Jane nodded.

"Got it, I'm off to the bridge then. If we don't see each other after this, little brother, you be sure to keep dad safe, okay?" asked Jane, and Jon nodded.

"Of course, you big barbarian," he told her, before signing off. Jane then started towards the gravivators, leaping into the tube without a second thought, and starting to pull herself up towards the bridge section. Luckily, unlike the lifts used in Citadel style ships, Terrans had come up with an easier solution to transport between decks. They just turned off the gravity inside tubes, allowing the user to climb up or down to their floor as fast as they could. It sometimes got cramped, but it was certainly faster than anything the Council had in their ships.

OoOoO

The Conclave Chamber, empty until minutes ago, was awash in light as projections filled the air above the meeting table. Five of the seven members of the Conclave were present, only Exedore and Amalgam having been off station when the news had come in. Another attack, another desperate situation. This one was far, far worse, however. The target wasn't some backwater planet only colonized months ago. It was Rannoch, with over a million quarian citizens, and a hundred times that many geth, caught in the crossfire.

"We have to do something!" shouted Vai'Gerrel at last, her voice dripping with frustration. The news of the attack had reached them less than an hour ago, and for the last five minutes they'd been going over contingencies, back up plans, and every single resource they had at their disposal. It was just, Rannoch was so far off the beaten path, they had no ships able to assist. None of the Flotilla resources were close enough to get there in less than a week of relay hopping. Worse, the anti-fold field around Rannoch was over two light seconds in size. Even at their best speed, it would be hours before Terran ships could get there to assist, and even if they could, this enemy seemed immune to their primary weapons from the reports they'd gotten.

"Conductor, we are considering every approach, but it would seem this assault was well planned. We can't jump in blindly into the situation," said Breetai, as the overhead display updated again. In their view as Rannoch, with everything that could be seen around it. Mostly it was their own fleet, missing several large ships, probably destroyed via the invaders at some point during the battle. Oddly though, there was no massive fleet to match their own, just their ships in space, and on the ground one could see mech units, resembling destroids, firing into the city.

"We understand, Supreme Commander, but it is difficult to watch one's home burning, and being powerless to do anything about it," chimed in Solo, placing one of his hands on Vai'Gerrel's shoulder. Oddly, for some reason, the quarian found comfort in the touch of the geth, more so than she thought she should. Somehow, having someone in the room who understood exactly what she was going through, made a large difference in her own mental state.

"Agreed. We must get forces there, as soon as possible. We need to find out who was behind this attack, and why," said Vai'Gerrel, as everyone poured over the data they had, all trying to come up with some plan. Nothing they did could get forces to the battlezone any faster all they could do was watch from the probes they'd placed at the edge of the jamming field. Even using one of the SDFs would only get them a big gun there, with no one to fire at since, as far as they could tell, there were no ships other than their own.

"If we could just get the Flotilla's ships there faster, we'd be able to do something," commented Grant, and then suddenly Representative Hayes shot up, shouting 'Aha!' at the top of her lungs.

"We can get those ships there faster. Breetai, how many vessels do we have with the Flotilla right now?" she asked, pointing a finger at the blue skinned man.

"Hmm, I believe a few hundred. We decided not to send as many due to the Heavy...I see what you're getting at," he said, snapping his fingers, and then quickly typing in a few new variables into the sim they were watching. Going over the data quickly, he determined what ships were available, and then began to adjust for weight and mass of a fold.

"Yes, that could work. Conductor, we need your authority to execute this, but I believe it would give us ships on site in a few minutes," he said, sliding a hologram through the air over to her so she could look at the data displayed.

"Our ships have fold fields that are larger than the ships themselves. While it would be far more draining than normal, a fold can be executed that would bring another ship along with our own," he explained, and Vai'Gerrel nodded, beginning to type in command codes, even as Breetai did much the same.

"This is Supreme Command Breetai, by my authority as leader of the Federation Fleet, you are to assist our quarian brothers and sisters in defending Rannoch by using your fold drives to get them to the battle as soon as possible," he said to the face as it popped up in front of him.

"This is Vai'Gerrel to Heavy Fleet Command, we need you to perform a sync maneuver with the Terran ships present in the Flotilla. Get as close as you can to them, and allow them to fold you to Rannoch. Time is of the essence here," ordered the Conductor to the helmeted face of one of her own officers.

"It will be done," said the two together, and then quickly logged off, to begin preparations, needing no other orders as the battle was being observed across the Federation. At the Flotilla, the larger Terran vessels broke away from their fleet, as ships of similar classes began to pull ahead of the Flotilla. It would take several minutes for them to be in position, but soon the Federation would have an active force of arms on Rannoch again, and they could begin to try to piece together what was happening. After taking apart those who dared to attack them, of course.

Chapter Text

“Heh, so, it’s over then?” asked one of the bridge officers, looking out over the scene before him. Ahead of them was the Terran fleet, broken and battered, but still there. A few ships had exploded for unknown reasons, but others held strong, and their boarding parties, while being immune to the energy weapons of their foes as promised, were being beaten back by more mundane means. The bridge had gone quiet when one of the incoming reports had been cut off as the one giving it had been stepped on by a Terran girl.

“This shouldn’t have happened! How did they adapt so quickly?!” demanded the admiral in his chair, kicking the station beside him. Around him, a few of the officers had opinions, but didn’t voice them. Foremost among them was that the assault had been foolish from the start. Attacking a Terran world, even if they could hold it, was never going to end well for the Hegemony. They would have faced the enemy’s counterstroke regardless of how well this assault went, and the special weapons and defenses given to them by Leviathan Command were not yet ubiquitous. Heck, most of them were here, in this fleet.

“Your orders sir?” asked some brave commander as he turned to face the admiral. The four eyed face fumed with rage at the officer, but after a few seconds of heavy breathing, he decided. Giving a few commands, he set the fleet on a slow course out of the system. So far, it didn’t appear that the Terrans knew where they were, and if they could get back to the relay before they were spotted, they could escape back to home, and hopefully prepare for whatever counterattack the Terrans would launch for this assault on one of their worlds.

OoOoO

The climb to the bridge deck took only seconds, as Jane slid out of the tube. Her sword in her hand glistened with blood, hungry to drink more, as she spotted a few batarian mechs still holding out at the end of the corridor. They appeared to be trading fire with a squad of Terran marines, armed with their own blades, who kept pressing them back, but only just, as the return fire drove the Terrans to cover positions, while the threat of their blades kept the batarians from growing much closer.

Smirking, the girl advanced down the corridor slowly, her foot falls quiet, despite her weight, allowing her to get just behind one of the two mechs. The soldiers, seeing her, acted like you would expect. Namely they began to whoop, holler, and otherwise start insulting the four eyed bastards, keeping their attention solely focused on the soldiers in front, so their first warning of someone behind them was a sword neatly slicing its way through the back of one of them, emerging from the other side covered in gore.

She wasn’t done yet, however, as she’d timed the slice so that just as she pushed it through, the other mech was firing, and with a hard pull, she was able to turn the destroid to the side, the other pilot only just able to see his doom, before the guns of his partner began to tear their way through the unit. As Jon had said, the layered barriers were great against protoculture based weaponry. Against kinetic weapons, like the slugs being fired now, the barriers began to buckle almost instantly, the glass and armor following soon after, and leaving the second unit a pile of destroyed parts, even as the first unit’s guns finally overheated and melted to slag.

“Jane, what are you doing here? You’re mother ordered you to an escape pod,” said one of the five soldiers as she approached them. It was odd, seeing the men and women she was used to seeing in their armor in bare skin. But she quickly adapted, turning to the man who’d spoken, a slightly taller than average Terran(Almost eighty feet in height), and still seemed to face him down despite her not coming up past his stomach.

“I have some intel from the surface the captain needs to know. Also some new plans she might want to act on,” he told them, and the five soldiers, all enlisted rather than officers, just looked at each other. They then all decided silently that this was officer stuff, and made to escort her the rest of the way to the bridge, emerging on a scene that could easily be described as organized chaos. Around them, officers were shouting, displays were showing entire libraries worth of information, and in the center was the captain, doing her best to take it all in and give the appropriate orders.

Most of the news was less than encouraging. They were winning, sure, but at a cost. Hundreds on every ship had been cut down before they’d known to take off their armor and rely on their swords rather than their guns. Worse, some ships had been invaded by idiots, who took no care as to what they destroyed. Protoculture engines weren’t like the generators the batarians were used to. When you broke one of those, all the energy stored inside exploded outward in a sphere of destruction, and it seemed spheres of that nature had claimed far too many lives today, including most of the upper command structure for the fleet.

“We have confirmation, Captain Aldaris’ ship has been destroyed as well,” said one of the AIs from his station, his hologram directly touching the monitor in front of him as he linked with it. Behind him, Hannah Shepard used an entire array of curses. The chain of command was becoming a frayed rope of command, as these gaps kept appearing.

“Find out who’s in charge of this fleet then. We need orders, and we need them now!” she shouted, looking towards another display.

“Ma’am, we have confirmed kills on all but half a dozen of our own borders. Those few stragglers are holding out in blind corridors or other tight spaces,” shouted another voice, this one a lieutenant by his stripes.

“Good, keep them in there for now. See about pumping in some heat from our engines into whatever rooms they’ve found themselves trapped in. I’ve been wondering what roasted four eyes taste like for a while,” she told them, turning at last to the door that had opened behind her, and then freezing.

“Mom,” said Jane, giving a salute, and Hannah just stared, before getting that ‘I’m in charge’ look on her face that any enlisted person knew. The five who had been escorting the young Miss Shepard quickly made themselves scarce, running into the corridor outside and retaking their guard positions, just in case one of those last boarders somehow found their way onto the command deck.

“Jane, I thought I ordered you off this ship,” she said, a statement of fact rather than a question.

“You did ma’am, but new information came to light that required your review,” said Jane calmly, and Hannah silently gauged her for a moment, before motioning her to approach the Captain’s chair.

“What new information could have come to you that I wouldn’t know about?” she asked as the young girl stepped up to her.

“Jon called me, and he had some intel on the ground situation,” began Jane.

“Go on,” said Hannah, motioning for her daughter to continue her report.

“Jon said he devised a modification to the overload program that disabled their ground troops. What’s more, he’s also disabling their mechs on the surface with some of those chakram things he was throwing around for his act in the show this afternoon,” she explained, and her mother seemed to take this in as she would anything else.

“Jon is a nine year old boy,” said Hannah at last, as if this were some kind of argument against her son’s word.

“He’s a Shepard,” retorted Jane, and after a few seconds of thought, the older woman nodded.

“He’s also got a plan on how to deal with the ships that launched those knives,” said Jane, walking over towards one of the targeting stations.

“Jon believes that they would have to be close, since the jamming field isn’t that large, a few light seconds at most. Knowing that, and the fact that we know the angles those knives came in on, we should be able to hit those ships with a few blind fires,” she began, while the officer allowed her to toy with the controls for a moment, pulling up a situation report from the time the knives were detected, and then overlaying some firing angles on their point of origin.

“Even if they were launched from ships we can’t see, why would they stick around in the place where they launched from?” asked the lieutenant whose station Jane had co opted.

“Because they’d still be mass effect ships. That means heat, and a lot of it, so they’ve got to be using some kind of massive heat sinks to keep themselves cool and hidden from us. It also means that any time they fire up their engines, they put a lot of strain on that system. Right now they’re probably hoping we’ll give them up for runners, and then be able to sneak away later,” she answered.

“Makes sense. But what good will knowing where they are do us? If even a few of their ships are using this new barrier system those knife ships were, and let’s not kid ourselves, they probably all are, we’d do almost no damage to them without kinetic weapons, and we wasted all our missiles,” countered the lieutenant.

“We could perform a Deadalus Maneuver, use whole ships as big rams and smash them through whatever forces are out there,” explained Jane.

“If they stayed put for it, I’d say go for it, but what makes Jon think they would?” asked Hannah, putting a voice to the concern of the lieutenant and the listening bridge crew.

“The same reason they wouldn’t be moving fast. Their ships have got to be operating at low power mode, to preserve their heat. It would take them a few minutes to spin up to speed. If we get every ship in the fleet to assist, we hopefully will have enough battering rams to bust up their fleet. If not, we’ll at least make them more wary about trying this trick against anyone else,” explained the thirteen year old girl. It was implicit in her tone what she meant by that last bit. This could well end in death for them all, and yet, a death now to prevent the same in the future, that was how the Federation Fleet worked.

“It’s as good a plan as I’m hearing. Alright, patch me through to the fleet,” ordered Hannah, motioning for her daughter to take a station near her that had been unmanned, as the tactical officer that had supposed to be sitting there was one of those caught off the bridge, and likely dead in the boarding action.

“This is Captain Hannah Shepard to all functioning Federation ships in Rannoch orbit. If you’re hearing this, we’re starting to gain ground on those four eyed bastards on the planet and up here, by all reports. However, they still must have a fleet out there, hidden somehow from us. We’re not gonna let that fleet go without giving them a black eye, however,” a few grunts of approval at her tone came from around the bridge.

“I want all ships to fire in a strobing pattern at the area within four degrees of the appearance points of the boarding craft. If our intel is good, most of their hidden fleet should still be around there. Everything cruiser weight and up should prepare for a Daedalus Maneuver, as it’s the only thing we’ve got to throw at them that might get through. I want all vertiechs to launch as well. Even if you’ve got no missiles, these new barriers of theirs have proven weak against melee attacks. That means I want to see a lot of punching and kicking out there,” she ordered, and then waited. After a few seconds, multiple bleeps from her console said the fleet was prepping to follow her orders.

“Alright, sync now, and we go in one minute. All ships unable to perform Daedalus should clear out. I’m afraid you won’t be much help today. But you can be damn sure that this isn’t the last shot you’ll get at the four eyes,” she ordered, and then waited. Targeting computers traded data, AIs began to work together to create a firing pattern that would make best use of all resources, and a countdown began to appear on every monitor. It ticked down, almost slowly, from sixty, down to zero, and as that O filled the screen, lines of light flew from reflex turrets, into space.

More than ninety nine out of one hundred shots sailed through space, dispersing themselves after a few light seconds into nothing but background radiation that wouldn’t be dangerous to anyone. One out of every hundred, however, found a target, splashing against barriers in most cases, though in a few those beams tore into hulls, the liquid energy spreading over the metal and exploding it outward into space, creating a backlight to the view the Terran fleet had, of more than a thousand ships in front of them.

The formation was typical of a Citadel fleet. One large command ship in the center, with wings in V formation around it. Said big ship was a dreadnaught, on par with any of the ships that remained in the Terran fleet when it came to size. The rest varied, from cruisers to frigates, all of them now exposed as heat signatures to their enemies. Said heat signatures soon became mass, and with them revealed, a monitor could zoom in on them, revealing the oddity that these ships had in common.

Said oddity was a bulb shaped apparatus that every ship had behind them. A quick look at a thermograph proved these bulbs to be the source of their ability to shed waste heat, as the things were thermically dead, only visible due to the light from the few ships that hadn’t had their barriers up exploding. They soon got hotter though, as the ships began to dump the pods, and then grow warmer as their engines started to spin up, allowing every vessel in the Terran fleet to pick their targets.

“The big one is mine, everyone else, let loose the dogs of war!” shouted Shepard, and the engines of her own ship began firing. Outside, her cruisers pinpoint defense barriers flew over the hull, before gathering at the front, becoming a single shining force of light as the ship tore through space. Ahead of them the enemy ships obviously saw what was coming, as some tried desperately to shift course, opening air locks to give themselves slight pushes. It was all for naught, as the Terran ships corrected for their miniscule shifts almost instantly.

Some ships in the enemy fleet had other plans, however, and as the Terran fleet came close, they let loose with their weapons. Most fired impotent shots, mass effect accelerated slugs that either bounced off the pinpoint barriers, or impacted the hulls only to scrape along the side without doing significant damage. A few ships had better weapons, though. Beams of red light speared out from their cannons, and the Terran ships found themselves cut to pieces by them when they weren’t intercepted by the pinpoint barriers.

“Those are the same weapons that took out or missiles,” commented one of the bridge staff, as nearby, another cruiser exploded in a ball of blue light.

“Indeed, some sort of counter to our own protoculture weapons,” acknowledged Hannah, as she watched one of the ships beside her get a good angle, and fire their reflex turret right into one of the red beams. The result was interesting, as the protoculture quickly overcame whatever was inside the red beam, slicing back along the path it had made, before impacting against the cannon that had fired it, annihilating the ship in an orgy of kinetic violence, even as every Terran ship that saw it tried to match the feat.

Few ships had angles like that, especially as the enemy shifted their courses, their drives slowly powering up to allow the to move. Still, both fleets were reeling with losses as the Terran ships made contact, their barriers slamming straight into the batarians, and creating crackles of lightning at the meeting points. Shepard watched for that one horrid instance as it seemed that the barriers of their enemy would hold, only to shout victoriously as the barrier on the enemy vessel finally gave out, and they crashed into them with the sound of ripping metal and tearing deck plates.

Monitors showed ships, material, and personnel being crushed against the pinpoint barrier as it rammed through them. Some faces were frozen in fear, others in rage, but when it came down to it, the four eyes all died just the same, and when the battering ram that was Shepard’s cruiser hit the eezo core in the other ships belly, it literally blew apart with the collapse of its mass effect field. Around them, that same scene played out a dozen times over, the batarian fleet falling into a few divergent flight plans, as their engines finally came online.

The Terran fleet was in bad shape as well, however. Cruisers, veritechs, and support ships littered the space between where the fleet had begun, and their target. Some were still operating, their guns still firing at the enemy, impotently. Most were simply glittering clouds of star stuff now. Of the nine hundred ships that had begun the charge, only five hundred had made impact, and now the enemy was flying free, their red beams slicing through decks and hull with ease.

“Ma’am, our fleet strength is down to twenty-seven percent of the original. Totals of their fleet gives similar results, but given our situation, that still puts them in a superior tactical position,” said one of the officers, and Captain Shepard nodded, watching out of the ports as those valiant crews that had followed her command were cut down. Luckily for them, Daedalus was not a weapon used lightly, as it drained all but emergency protoculture engines, leaving the ships dead in space. That meant that as the beams tore through them, none of the ships that had smashed into the batarian line exploded in blue light. Whether a quick death beat one of a slow thousand cuts was up to the individual, but she felt it would give them all that much more time to make peace.

“I’m sorry, honey. I don’t think we’ll be seeing your brother or father again,” said Hannah to her daughter, and Jane nodded.

“I figured. I already told Jon to take care of dad. He’ll never be as strong as me, but he is brilliant,” said Jane, and Hannah almost wanted to laugh at that absurdity. A nine year old taking care of a grown man. Then she thought about the fact that this entire strategy, that had at least taken some of the fire out of the batarians, was her son’s. That boy would grow up to be something special, and she smiled at her daughter, reaching out her hand to take it, even as beams of red light tore into their hull.

“Are we too late to this party?” suddenly came a voice over the open comms, and every head shot towards the display that showed local space. In it, their own blue ships of various shapes were surrounded by the enemy, who pounded against them with their weapons, while always flying away before a counter strike could be fired. Then, like a swarm of avenging angels, yellow glowing blips appeared at the edge of their sensors, hundreds of them, all taking firing positions, and flying just as fast as the red blips.

“This is Heavy Fleet Command, to the Rannoch Defensive Fleet. We will be engaging the enemy fleet momentarily,” said a much older voice, and then suddenly the red ships began to wink out. As surmised, the layered barriers were fantastic against protoculture weapons, but proved quite weak to mass effect based ones. More than half the red ships were down in the first pass, and those that remained seemed to spin in place unsure of what to do, before a second salvo of fire slammed into them, and suddenly, the sky over Rannoch was clear of enemies.

“This is Captain Hannah Shepard to Heavy Fleet. We owe you our thanks,” she said as the battle wound down to its conclusion, her ship, battered but still functional, soon displaying the face of her rescuer on screen.

“And we owe you Terrans for defending our home below. We’ll start tracking the source of the fold jammer, once that’s done, we’ll get rescue ships to your positions as soon as possible, please stand by,” said the quarian commander. Minutes later, one of the smaller ships that had continued to play dead was discovered to be the center of the field, and was promptly ordered to surrender or die. The crew of the ship chose the former, and the instant that field dropped, thousands of new vessels folded in around Rannoch. The battle was over. War would not be far behind, however.

Chapter Text

The Council Chamber was truly deathly quiet as the people inside it waited. The three Councilors, a newly raised male salarian, Tevos of the asari, and Quentius of the turians. There were no guards this time, as only the three of them and one other stood in the chamber, and the turian Councilor very visibly stroked a rifle he’d brought with him, while the asari played with a small display in front of her, demonstrating her biotic power as the thing stretched several feet around her. The salarian, by contrast, looked much less threatening, but everyone present knew he was a former member of the STG, and thus probably the most dangerous person in the room at this, or any other, time.

The one standing before them was unarmed. He wore armor, of course, as almost no batarian went anywhere without some protection, and especially of late they’d needed it more and more. However, he carried no visible side arm, and was, as far as anyone knew, not a biotic or a special forces operative. He was a politician through and through, and one could almost visibly see him sweat as the four of them waited in the huge, empty chamber. The only sound that was audible was the low hum of the air cyclers and the ever present sound of skittering feet belonging to the keepers.

They’d been here for almost an hour now, ever since the news had been made public. The Chamber was cleared at that point, to prevent any incidents that might fuel the flames of public outrage, as had happened in previous dealing with the Terrans. It wasn’t truly stopping said flames from igniting of course, as word of the batarian attack on Rannoch spread. Some of those flames were of righteous indignation at such a brazen attack on the homeworld of a race. Others were the flames of hate for the ones who inhabited the world, and felt the attack had been a long time coming. Either way, it wouldn’t do for them to hear the words that were to be spoken here.

Finally there was a chirp from Tevos’ omnitool, and she pressed a single button on it to display the incoming transmission. With a whining sound, an image bloomed in the air over the heads of the gathered four, an image of seven figures, seated at a table, and all looking down at them, making them feel small. The fact that, of the figures shown, four were really about ten times the height of the ones gathered didn’t help matters, and seeing the suitless quarian, flanked by an AI on either side, only added to the sheer alien quality the Terrans had exuded since their arrival on the galactic stage.

“You speak now to the Conclave of the Federation, to hear our grievances. Is the transmission clear on your end?” asked the central figure, Amanda Hayes, and the Councilors nodded.

“You speak now to the Council of the Citadel. We are ready to address the concerns of your people to the best of our ability. As requested by your earlier transmission, the batarian ambassador is present,” said Tevos, gesturing towards the man standing there, and suddenly he found ten sets of eyes(Or the holographic AI equivalent), turning to stare at him. To his credit, the ambassador didn’t flinch away or otherwise back down. Instead he stood tall against the glares, before the two groups turned from him, and faced each other once more.

“Twenty-six hours ago, an attack was launched on the homeworld of the geth and quarian people, Rannoch. This unprovoked, unwarranted, and frankly untenable attack on a world that was only just starting to come into its own again by the batarian military is a breach of not only our own laws, but many of your Citadel Conventions,” began Hayes, and the batarian in the room growled.

“You have no proof that that force was in any way connected to the batarian military. I have it on good author-” the ambassador began, but then stopped in mid word as one of the Terrans in the image above reached down. This man, with half his face replaced with a metal prosthetic, brought his arm up again, and held in his hand, a figure. The hologram zoomed in automatically on the figure, as he was rather roughly tossed onto the table between the seven giants, his body rolling along it, before stopping, and just laying there.

“Commander Ka’hairal Balak, first officer of a vessel equipped with a fold space jammer, and a high ranking member of the Batarian Cultural Committee,” said the masked man, Breetai they thought his name was, the military leader of the Federation. As he spoke, the batarian seemed to stir at the mention of his name, rolling a bit so he could get a better angle, and then slowly raising to his feet. His stance was shaky, possibly from the tumble, possibly from whatever the Terrans had done to him. But still, he was standing, and seemed to be trying to stare defiantly at his captors, who ignored him as they faced the ambassador.

“In addition to the information he has provided, we were able to salvage many of the ship datacores from the battle, and analysis of their contents confirms the launch point of most of the ships to be a batarian military staging area. Unless the ambassador is saying his people have lost control of their homeworld’s moon to pirates, then we will drop all pretense that this was some rogue element, and it will be acknowledged as an attack by the Hegemony on a foreign state. Agreed?” said Hayes, and the Councilors all nodded after a moment, the ambassador doing no such thing, but voicing no further objections.

“Good. As I was saying, this event has put a strain on the relationship between our peoples that was already stretched thin. The citizens of the Federation have to date, allowed the batarian attacks to go without answer due to the nature of the attacks, and the lack of casualties on the side of the Federation in the confrontations. That can no longer be the case,” as she spoke, Hayes pressed a button on her omnitool, and the hologram above them branched again, a new secondary image popping up beside the image of Balak, showing the faces of quarians, geth, and Terrans in rapid succession.

“Eight-thousand-four-hundred-ninety-two quarians lost their lives in the attack, a blow to both their local population, and their people as a whole that is simply disasterous. The geth, counting all runtimes as potential thinking beings, lost many times that number, at over two-hundred-thousand dead or unrecoverable due to the destruction of multiple platforms. The death toll of Terrans was tallied as twenty-six-thousand-four-hundred-eighty-seven, all of these include not only military personnel, but also civilians ranging in ages from their twilight years, all the way to toddlers,” said Hayes, in an accusatory tone.

“This is not counting those whose lives, homes, and families have been devastated by this event. These numbers do not truly reflect the horror of what has been wrought, and they are less than what was desired by the attack itself, which seemed focused on kidnapping as many Federation citizens as possible, likely for a life of slavery,” continued the Terran woman, and the batarian remained silent, even as eyes fell on him again.

“Our response, despite the magnitude of these crimes, is a tempered one,” she said this while the Terran man beside her, Grant, pressed a button on his omnitool, and the faces of the deceased were replaced with new faces. These were batarian ones, and though the Council did not recognize them, the ambassador’s four eyes all went quite wide as he saw who was there.

“Scouring the logs of the ships, we have come to the conclusion that these sixty-four batarians make up the leadership or otherwise run the Cultural Committee. Their voices were what spurred on the attack, and as such, they are the ones to blame for the outcome of it. They are to be extradited to the custody of the Federation, and will face a public trial for their parts in this entire affair. Those found to be innocent, or at least, uninvolved, will be returned to their people unharmed. Those who orchestrated the attack itself, however, will face the harshest punishments we can devise,” this was said with a death glare down at Balak in front of her, and Hayes idly reached down, and with a single finger, flicked him down onto his knees.

“Mrs. Hayes, I’m sure I speak for all the peoples of the Council, both our three races, and all those under our care, in expressing my deepest sympathy for what your peoples have gone through. However, surrender of leadership in the way you’re proposing, no matter their actions, is a demand that simply cannot be condoned under our laws. Reparations do need to be made, and we will do everything in our power to make sure they are given,” said Tevos, trying to put as much compassion and wisdom into her voice as she could manage. The Conclave remained impassive however, and this time it was Grant who spoke.

“Councilor, this is not simply a request. This is an ultimatum. The people of the Federation cannot allow an attack of this magnitude to go unanswered. We will not accept any other form of restitution for this attack, and should these sixty-four feel their own lives are more valuable than the lives of their citizens, then a state of war will exist between the Federation and the Hegemony,” that declaration brought everyone in the Council Chamber up short. They had expected, as any normal government would, to argue and otherwise demand resources from the aggressors who had attacked them. It seemed the Terrans played by a different rulebook however.

“Now see here, if you’re using the threat of war to get what you want, how does that make you any different than the batarians?” demanded Quentius, pointing an accusatory finger up that the Conclave, as if daring them to deny that the use of violence against another civilization was in some way different than the attack that had been perpetrated against them. For a moment, that seemed to silence the Conclave, but then, Exedore turned to face them, his eyes cold and hard as any warriors, despite being the smallest of the seven.

“The difference, Councilor, is that should it come down to war, when it’s over, there will be no Hegemony left to object to our actions,” this was said in a perfectly level tone by the shortest of the seven, his eyes glaring down at the three of them, making them quite nervous, before Hayes set her hand on Exedore’s shoulder, causing his expression to soften just the slightest bit.

“Vai’Gerrel, surely this cannot be the will of the quarian people. War has never been the way of your race,” said the salarian Councilor, trying a new angle to the negotiations. The words seemed to fall on deaf ears, however, as the quarian faced down at him.

“My people are now citizens of the Federation, and as such we will take our cues from our new brothers and sisters in arms. This attack has wounded us, deeply. Families are broken, and to us, family is the most sacred thing imaginable. You say war is not our way, and this is true, but we are realizing that sometimes, it is the only way to ensure our people’s survival,” she told them, obviously declaring that she stood with the Terrans on this. The salarian then took a moment to gaze into every eye, before he stood down, letting silence reign in the chamber for many moments. When it seemed no other words could be shared, Hayes rose from her chair, causing the others to do likewise.

“We are not without some concern for the batarian people, and realize that the loss of leadership will be quite the blow. As this is the case, you have one-hundred-sixty-eight hours to respond. If at the end of this week, you have either made no response, or have refused our ultimatum, we will be at war with the Hegemony. Should the Council decide to intervene, that state of war will be extended to them as well,” said Hayes, and then the transmission abruptly cut off, leaving the four alone in the chamber, staring up into the sky at where the Conclave had been.

“Well, this is a problem,” said the salarian at last, before turning his gaze down to the ambassador, who was still shocked by all that he’d heard.

“Ambassador, do you have anything to say to us?” asked the salarian, snapping the four eyes out of his trance.

“Of course I do, this demand is untenable in every respect. To ask that we surrender our leaders to be executed by those monsters is tantamount to surrendering our entire state. I formally request that this Council fulfill the obligations of our treaties with them and aid us in the defense of our territory,” he said, in a tone that made it obvious he’d rehearsed the lines.

“Ambassador, before we can render aid, we must ask. Were they correct? Did your military itself launch an unprovoked, and illegal attack on Rannoch?” asked Tevos, and the batarian was silent. If he said no, and it was later discovered that he was lying, he would face a lot of trouble down the line for him personally. If he admitted it was the truth, however, that could lead to even worse problems in the here and now for his entire race.

“I cannot say, honestly. It is possible a rogue element of our military indeed took it upon themselves to defend us against the Terran’s theft of territory that was traditionally considered our’s, but I do not have all the data at this time,” he answered, hedging his bets and making it so no one could hold him accountable for what might be true, and giving a good excuse for their actions in general.

“Well then, we can only say that the data you are missing needs to be found. If it is true, then this Council will honor our obligations, but an attack of this nature, against what was in fact, the capital of a sovereign state, would require many concessions on the part of the Hegemony involving both the materiel used in the attack, and the ones responsible for it being punished to the fullest extent of Council Law,” retorted Tevos, and the two beside her nodded.

“As this is the case, I must ask that you find the answers to this question, before invoking the treaties between our peoples. We will, of course, be doing our best to in some way placate the Federation, but in the meantime, we must request that you take no further action that could be considered aggressive, and should it come down to it, your leaders may want to consider what is best for their people, rather than themselves,” this was said in a dismissive tone, and it was clear that the batarian would get no more words in with the Council today. As this was the case, he bowed to them, and then walked over to the lift, to descend it.

An hour later, transmissions were flying from the Citadel to every government in the galaxy. Some were pleas from the Hegemony to long time...non-enemies for aid against an aggressor state that was threatening them. Others were from the Council itself, demanding that, until the Hegemony was brought to account for their attack, and attempted to make reparations to the Terrans, no aid should be given to them. Most who heard the two sides, leaned towards the later action, as they watched and waited. There was, after all, one week until the deadline, and perhaps the batarian leadership would understand they were being held to account for their actions, as many knew the ones whose surrender was being demanded were the heads of the slave trade.

OoOoO

The image on the table slowly faded, leaving the seven figures staring at nothing. Inside their minds, they all understood what they had just done. The Hegemony was still a large economic base for Citadel Space, and as such, might be able, whether they were willing or not, to drag the rest of the Council into the war. They all hoped that, if it came down to a straight shoot out, that the Council would see fit to stay out of that war, but they acknowledged the possibility that it could happen, and that they should be prepared for it.

A year ago, that prospect would not have been so daunting. Their tech was so different, and in many ways superior, that a war between the two powers would have ended in defeat for the Council, and the Federation ascendent. Now, with the recent attack on Rannoch demonstrating that there were defenses against their weapons, and offenses that could in some way pierce their guard, such a war was not without risk. Worse, for some Terrans, the idea of a war throughout the galaxy was appealing, as their Zentraedi blood, long denied a fight, yearned for a battle of such scope.

Luckily, they had their new allies, the quarians and geth, to give them grounding, and while they felt the sting of the attack, more acutely than even the Terrans, they had agreed on what was to be done. No grand gestures, no massive first strikes. No, a demand for the surrender of those behind the corruption of the batarian culture, and if that failed, then the destruction of that culture itself. It was ruthless in many ways, but it what had to be done, to avoid this sort of attack becoming a regular thing.

“Representative, they’re here,” said Hayes’ omnitool, and she brought it to her face.

“Good, give us a moment, and we’ll have you send them in,” she said, turning to face a figure that had been just out of the projection that the Council had seen. Taking this as his cue, the figure stepped forward, revealing as he walked into the light that he was of the same race as Balak, but seemed far younger. What’s more, he was the same size as the Terrans, though a flicker along his skin showed that said size was merely an illusion, the same as it was for the Conductor, and in all fairness, the Collective and Hub as well.

“Charn, I think it’s time you returned to Ward with the prisoner,” she said, and the batarian bowed his head while reaching for the still prone figure on the table. His fingers gently wrapped around that figure, lifting him up in his hand. The smaller batarian, looking into the projected face of the larger, spit at him, the few drops of saliva barely making it past his knuckle as Balak had not been able to get any momentum with the gesture.

“Traitor,” he said derisively, and Charn just shrugged, rather than as he could have, crushed the small figure in his hand.

“I’ve simply accepted my defeat better,” explained the larger, before departing out of the Conclave via a side passage. A few seconds later, after the leaders had shuffled themselves around a bit, Hayes pushed another button on her omnitool, and the chamber’s main door opened, allowing into it a small group of forms. At the lead were two Terrans, a male and a female, with the male wearing garb typical of a politician, a suit and tie affair, while the woman beside him wore armor, unpowered for the protection of the Conclave, so she walked heavily, her feet coming down with audible clacks.

Behind them came two Terran children. Not babes, but not the sort of ages one would expect of those standing before the Conclave. The boy was nine, by his file, though he looked to be about twelve by his size, and his blue eyes shown with an intelligence that one might not have seen in an adult. His brown hair was cut short, almost to a stubble. Beside him was a girl, thirteen years of age by her own file. Her red hair, dull almost to being blood red, but with a sheen that one might not have expected, was also cut short, but only to shoulder length. Her green eyes were the same the boy beside her, shining with intelligence, and soon they stood before the Conclave, all four giving a proper salute to the seven before them.

“We have come, as requested,” said the woman, and the Conclave, standing, returned their salute, their hands made into fists, and then sharply placed over their hearts for a moment, before the Conclave retook their seats, Grant making a motion with his hand that somehow caused seats for the four to sit in to rise from the floor.

“This body thanks you for your swift response to our summons, especially given the events you four have faced just yesterday,” began Breetai, as the four took their place.

“It was our duty to protect the colony on Rannoch, no more, no less,” said the young girl, showing a lot more responsibility than one might have guessed for someone her age.

“Regardless of such things, Ms. Shepard, you and your brother, as well as your parents, should be commended for your actions. These went far above and beyond the call of duty, and it is likely only through the actions of your family that Rannoch stands at all today, rather than being a hostage for the batarian government to bargain with,” responded the blue skinned man with half a face.

“Adam Shepard, without your leadership, many of the citizens of New Raaya might have trampled each other in their panic to get into the shelters at the center of the city. However, your commanding presence, and your words kept them calm and orderly despite the situation,” said Breetai, and Adam seemed to puff out his chest with pride.

“Hannah Shepard, you took command of the fleet in space, and helped coordinate the efforts of our soldiers. Efforts that broke the back of the enemy assault and turned the tide of the battle in our favor,” explained the Supreme Commander of the Fleets, and Hannah did a smaller salute to him, in acknowledgement of the praise.

“Jane Shepard, your realization that the enemy’s weapons were tracking the armor our soldiers wore not only saved the lives of those in those armors, but allowed them to fight off the invaders in their ships, helping to ensure that they would still be in our hands when the time came for a counterattack,” this statement was met with a grin from the red headed girl.

“And young Mr. Jon Shepard, you not only devised a modified use of our technology to counter theirs, but then came up with the strategy that ultimately allowed your mother her victory in space,” said Breetai.

“We still lost way too many people,” added Jon, and Breetai nodded thoughtfully, stroking his chin with his finger.

“True, even one person lost is one too many, but every person saved is one more than would have been. Always think of it in those terms,” said the zentraedi soldier who had seen far too many lives lost in his time.

“Your family has proven to be invaluable to this Federation, both in your actions at Shanxi, and at Rannoch, as such, this body has decided on several things,” as Breetai spoke, he rose from his chair, walking towards where the Shepards sat, and pulling something out of his uniform as he did so.

“Effective immediately, Commander Hannah Shepard is to be promoted to Captain, and placed in command of the Rannoch Guard Flagship,” so saying, he held out a captain’s rank insignia to the woman, who looked down at it, than at her family, who nodded at her, encouraging her to take it. Reaching out, almost reverently, she took the insignia in hand, and placed it on her armor over her commander’s insignia, before rising to her feet, and saluting.

“I will do everything in my power to prove worthy of this promotion,” she declared, and Breetai smiled at her, while placing a hand on her shoulder.

“You already have, Captain Shepard,” he told her, before walking on to her husband, and then holding out a sheet of paper to him.

“As you aren’t within the chain of command, we had to think about how to reward you properly, Mr. Shepard. After thinking on it, however, we decided only one reward would fit. Once our business with the batarians is concluded, the Conclave has voted and decided to begin expanding our colonies within the Veil. We can think of now one more qualified to be the Sector Administrator than yourself, if you want the job,” the sheet he handed listed the world currently under discussion for expansion into full colonies, mostly as they had been colonies of the quarians before the whole geth affair.

“It would be an honor to serve the Federation in that capacity,” he said, taking the sheet, though not rising to his feet as he began to look over the document, and what it meant for his future.

“Indeed. Now then, Ms. Shepard,” Breetai spoke as he stepped to the side, standing powerful and tall in front of the seemingly frail young girl, who nonetheless had, according to all reports, as many personal kills of the batarian mechs as any two other soldiers in the battle save her brother.

“You have been serving as an acting ensign aboard your mother’s ship. I believe, however, that your recent victories in combat have shown you to be a proficient groundside fighter, perhaps even the next Miriya Sterling,” he said told her, and her eyes lit up at that statement, as Miriya was known to be one of the best in the Federation, supposedly only ever having lost to her husband, though she claimed she threw that fight.

“As such, I’ve pulled rank and had you assigned as a Private, First Class, to the Rannoch Ground Guard. You’ll still be protecting your family, and you’ll help bolster the ranks due to the losses incurred,” and with that, he held out a rank insignia to her that she gladly took, saluting Breetai, before pinning it to the collar of the suit she was wearing.

“Finally, young Jon Shepard,” he said, and got on one knee so his face was level with the nine year old.

“You are still far too young for any rank that we could think of to give you, but this body has decided that when you come of age in four years, should you want it, a position will be open for you onboard the Factory. You would serve directly under Prime Thinker Exedore, with a Naval Rank equivalent of your sister’s,” and with that Breetai held out his hand, this time with another rank insignia in it. Unlike his forebears, it seemed like Jon was reluctant to take it.

“Um, would I be able to bring Tali with me?” he asked at last, and Breetai looked towards his parents, wondering if it was some toy or the like.

“Tali’Zorah, the daughter of Rael’Zorah, Rannoch’s governor. We’ve been living with her and her father since the colony was founded,” explained Adam.

“And why would you want her to come with you?” asked Breetai.

“Well, she helps me think. I would never have come up with the rings without her, and those things are what took down the mechs. Without them, we’d still all have been slaughtered, probably out of spite if nothing else,” he explained, and Breetai seemed to think on this for a moment, before smiling down at the young boy, and tussling his fingers atop his head.

“We’ll see. if I understand correctly, Rannoch’s election terms are different than most places, but if her father and she consent, I don’t see why the three of you can’t,” he explained, and the young boy’s eyes lit up, as he finally took the rank insignia from Breetai’s hand, and then pinned it to his collar.

“We wish this ceremony could have been more elaborate, but with the need to continue our push against the batarians, I’m afraid this will have to suffice,” said Breetai as he took a step back, and the Shepards all shook their heads at him.

“No, this was fine, Supreme Commander. It still means something, for this body to show such faith in us. The Shepards will try not to let any of you down,” explained Adam, rising to his feet, along with his family, and then saluting again, before they filed out of the chamber, the two children comparing their rank insignia as they left.

“Those two kids are going to be something to behold someday,” said Grant as the door closed behind them.

“You say that like they aren’t now? I know Jon is getting a small statue in New Raaya as the hero that saved them all, and I think Jane will be getting something similar from the space forces due to her kill count in the battle,” commented Vai’Gerrel, chuckling for a moment, before the Conclave got down to business. There were plans to make, personnel to shuffle around, and most of all, a war to plan. They knew the batarians would never surrender their leaders, not without a fight, and they planned to have that fight won before the other side knew what hit them.

Over the next week, masses of ships were transferred around the galaxy. Terran fleets gathered at staging points, some resupplying with extra protoculture from the SDFs, others being refitted at the Factory for more modern combat. Every soldier and pilot knew what was coming, and citizens in every city waved goodbye to those same as they left. Soon, every world was striped of all but their basic defenders, and the fleets came together for orders one last time, as the clock counted down.

The Council races were just as active, of course. The three that made up the Council itself gathered their fleets at the borders of their space, ready to act should the batarians try to drag the fighting out of the Hegemony, while also shoring up their guard against the Terminus, should those systems decide now was a golden opportunity to take chunks of Council territory. Generals made war plans, Admirals sculpted battles, and the Council itself continued to preach the peace they had long believed would be eternal.

The batarians, in the meantime, churned out as many of the new weapons as they could. Workers pulled double, triple, and even quintuple shifts, as the new designs, which had worked at Rannoch, were pumped out on mass by the factories of the Hegemony. Still, it wasn’t enough, only one in twenty ships could be outfitted, and none of the jammers could be constructed, as those had come from Leviathan Command alone, a base that had been silent since the attack on Rannoch.

Many of their leaders abandoned their worlds. On their homeworld, Khar’shan, it was rare to see a member of the Senate on the street after the first day of the ultimatum, by the end of the sixth, not a one could be found. Some had run to their own strongholds, their hidden fortresses, where they believed they would be safe. Others had taken refuge at bases of the military, and still others had fled to Leviathan Command itself, hoping to be guarded by the advanced weapons coming out of that secretive place.

Their fleets, ill equipped as they wore, flew out the day before the deadline, and took positions at the relays leading into their space, or around worlds of importance, meaning those that had paid for their protection. Each soldier knew what they would face, but most believed, that, as the fighting wore on, they would gain aid from the Council, who could not ignore the attack if it lasted more than a week. Some even believed they might be able to best the Federation, driving them back to their own space, and securing dominance of their people in the galaxy for generations to come.

Every eye was on the clock as the countdown finished. Some starred with anticipation, others with horror. On his hidden ship, far outside patrolled space, the eight eyed Shadow Broker smirked, his probes ready to record everything. On the Citadel, the Council held their breath, relief supplies and aid ready to move the moment the fighting lulled. On Gloval Station, the Senate and the Conclave watched the countdown reach its end, and with a single button press from Breetai, their fleets moved. The Titan War began.

Chapter Text

Three days later, the Titan War ended. No grand last stands could last longer than that, as the batarian armada broke upon the rock that was the Federation Fleet. In every engagement, in every battle, it was quickly apparent that, at best, the four eyed aliens were fighting for a lost cause, and despite orders, many a military man surrendered his command to the mighty Terrans, and those that didn’t soon learned the folly of their ways, as their atoms were spread across space as expanding clouds of dust.

As the final second of the countdown hit zero, two thousand ships folded in above the batarian worlds. Every batarian world. These ships, legion in number and massive in scale, were like hulking gods of destruction, hanging in space. The few forces in the skies were either destroyed outright under lances of blue light that sheared through them before they could raise a barrier, or capitulated, if the offer was made, giving the fleets free reign over the space around these planets.

The next step was the worlds themselves, and the same offer was extended. The governors or otherwise those in charge were contacted, and offered the chance to surrender. If they refused, they would soon hear a crashing sound, and then a single blue bolt would fall from the sky, exploding in a blue dome of utter devastation where it struck. Be they in their manors in the center of the cities, or in the mountains, buried beneath tons of rubble, these bolts of divine retribution found them, and destroyed them.

When either the world had surrendered, or when there were simply no leaders to be found, the great ships opened their bays. Out of them poured things. First, the fast and powerful veritechs, their winged shapes tearing through the atmosphere, flying over cities and towns, and taking stock of them. Some, having waited for this, fired at these vessels, with whatever weapons they had. In almost all cases, this had the same effect as one would have had spitting at them. Worse in some regards, as the veritech would typically stop for a moment, transform into guardian mode, and then snipe the offending party with a single shot, before moving on.

Once the surveys of the planets were completed, the veritechs would stop over the cities, hovering above them like sentinels, and making the people cower in fear, most expecting death to follow soon after. Instead of that, however, a booming voice echoed from the craft, with a message. The contents of the message differed, depending on the pilot, but the meaning was the same no matter the words used. They were not here to harm the people, they were here to free them. Supplies, both food and medicine would soon be distributed as best as they could manage, with more to follow.

Then the second wave of vessels exited the war ships. These vessels were not as sleek, nor as fast as the veritechs. No, these were the domed shapes of reentry pods, which blazed through the skies, and then gently landed as the edge of every city the batarians had. When the pods landed, they opened up, and out of them came a multitude of things. Each contained a few armored Terrans, their weapons clearly poised to defend those with them, while beside them were either other Terrans of micronian size, quarians, or even geth, carrying supplies, and instruments as they ran into the cities.

The streets, abandoned of people, the factories, silent without their workers, were soon awash with both, as the forces of the Terrans spread out. Into every home they went, they left food and supplies. In every group, there was at least one medic, and they would give everyone a once over, while others gave cards, IDs they called them, that would be used to get more food and medicine when the new government was set up. Faces of fear and despair soon gave way to hope and thanks as they went, and the word spread of what they were doing.

The large troops were careful, placing their hands on buildings, and helping to find any stragglers that might be hiding, or to discover small platoons of troops that were waiting for them to pass by. This last either surrenders, or they found their hiding places literally stopped to rubble by the giants, who moved on to the next ghetto afterwards. Of course, the troops also helped keep any begging mobs in check, and allowed the distribution to be more orderly than it otherwise had been, as when one of them demanded everyone wait their turn, they tended to be listened to.

That was not to say there was no fighting. In a few places, the batarian hold outs were able to set up ambushes and sniper posts, taking pot shots at the smaller forces. Most were protected by strong enough barriers that these shots only injured them. The few that died were quickly avenged, and in ways that made future forces much less willing to even try to oppose the Terrans. In fact, one such incident was credited with getting an entire garrison to surrender without a fight.

All of these things were shown to the galaxy in recordings that the Terrans made and put directly onto the extranet. They wanted everyone to know that whatever this seemed, they cared for the people. They showed the good of their charity, as they healed the sick and injured workers who had gone without such concern for their whole lives. They showed the bad of their people literally dismantling another government piece by piece. They showed those ugly moments where the warrior blood of the Zentraedi shown through in their moments of vengeance, as they tore apart the batarian military that fought them.

Bases were ripped asunder, lines of tanks and mechs from the batarians fought, and in some cases, might start to turn the tide against a few of the Terran armored giants, only to find lines of blue light blowing them away. Others that surrendered found their soldiers striped down to nothing, and processed like criminals, who were then herded into the ghettos they had once policed. All across the Hegemony, the defenses fell, and the Terrans took control of these once powerful worlds.

In deep space, the relays and other such choke points, the battle was different. These vessels were equipped and ready for battle, as the Terran ships folded in around them, and fighting there was fierce. Images were shown of the great dreadnaughts of the batarian military opening fire the instant their Terran counterparts were in range, beams of red light, now known to be tubes of liquid metal accelerated to the same speeds as their normal weapons, tearing into the green hulls of their foes, typically causing them to explode in balls of blue light before they could even fire a shot.

But the Terrans had more ships, and crews that fought despite the losses. For every ship destroyed, there were ten more that weren’t, and even as the batarians proved able to damage them, they proved the same back, as swarms of veritechs launched from the fleet, the great fighters crossing the distance in moments, as they showed off what the Terrans had spent a year learning. These new models of the transforming vessels were equipped with eezo cores, and easily kept pace with their foes.

Dances of death and light took place, as the batarian ships with their news weapons and barriers swooped among the fighters, the larger ships soon finding their hulls dotted with humanoid forms. The great metal things latched on, and then used their hands to literally tear into the enemy ships, blowing the crews and personnel into space, and then firing into them with missiles that ripped into the decks and corridors, causing huge gouts of flame to pop out of the hulls at odd angles.

Then the other shoe dropped. As the Terrans disabled ships with the old barrier tech, and fought to keep those with the new pinned in, quarian and geth ships pour into batarian space through the relays. Suddenly, even the new ships found themselves overmatched, as their barrier buckled the instant the mass driver weapons touched them, the layered barriers bending inward, before popping like soap bubbles, and leaving their hulls exposed to fire that then blasted its way through them.

The graceful geth ships, like insect, flitted about the fleet, picking their targets, and never wasting a single motion or bit of fire. Everywhere the swarm of smooth ships flew, they left death and devastation in their wake. The quarian ships, with their more blocky designs, were far less subtle, and their fire rained down like metal hail, huge shells ripping into hulls and barriers as they advanced slowly and methodically, always trying to out maneuver the enemy’s red lances, while driving them onto the blue ones of the Terran fleet.

By the end of the first twenty-four hours, organized resistance to the Terrans was simply non-existent. What few members of the batarian military command remained were in retreat, some going through relays into the lawless Terminus. Others fled to the Council, begging asylum that was given out rarely to their kind, while others were turned back, often right into the guns of pursuing Terran ships. Even those that were granted asylum weren’t safe though, as to the Terrans, this war was to be the end, and it was shown that they were willing to keep fighting until either the batarians surrendered to them, or they were destroyed, no matter who chose to guard them.

When the first day was done, everyone in the galaxy stared a the events of the war in shock. Nothing remained of the sixth most powerful military. The Terrans had shown mercy where surrenders had been given, but otherwise they were utterly ruthless, crushing anyone who might oppose them, and smashing them into nothing but atoms. Recordings, images, and everything else was shown to the public, as even the best agents of the STG couldn’t control the information flood that the Terrans insisted on putting on the hypernet.

The response of the people was a mixture of horror at just how far the Terrans went in their war, and one of fear that this could happen to them. Stories were traded of the old Rachni Wars, where the enemy had acted much the same, fighting until there was nothing left, or the Krogan Rebellions, where the krogan had crushed them under heel until they gave up because of the enemy’s sheer numbers. This was, in many ways, worse than those, though, as the Terrans, unlike the beastial rachni and the warrior krogan, showed themselves to have compassion and understanding in their dealing with the civilians they aided, but then showed ferocity unmatched when you opposed them.

The second day showed mostly the former, as they began to take control of the worlds they had toppled. More supply ships came, the transports they had used to shuttle around their prisoners previously, but now loaded with food, medicine, and anything else they needed. Repairs were quickly done to the cities that had been damaged, and stock was taken of the citizens. In cases of non-batarians, they were asked for names, information, and then quickly sorted into those who wanted to return to their own people, and those who had known no other life but that of a slave.

Soon, across the galaxy, transports folded in above the colonies of the various peoples, asking permission to land and assuring those below they had no hostile intentions. When these ships landed, they disembarked those who had long been considered dead, those captured in slave raids, either on less well protected colonies or from ships that had simply disappeared over the years. Families, long shattered, were given tear filled reunions under the stoic gaze of the Terrans, who seemed passive to the events, assuring those that thanked them that this was their justice, before departing.

The Council, watching all this with their people, were quick to begin trying to open lines of communication with the Terrans, condemning them for their tactics, and otherwise trying to demonize them. The Terrans response was at best silence, at worst it tended towards the insulting, implying that the batarian Hegemony had been flaunting their laws for so long, that it had become a point of pride for the four eyed race. That in this, they were as much agents of the Council as the SPECTERs, ending violations where they saw them, and bringing hope to those who had never before had it.

The second day saw little fighting beyond a few pockets of resistance. Even when leaders popped up, trying to whip their people into a rebellious frenzy, they would find those they had oppressed for so long, those who had obeyed every order, were not so inclined to do so anymore. Some of those leaders even had to go begging for protection from the Terrans, as mobs, remembering the crimes of their masters, tried to tear apart the fools who reminded them of their status as plebs and slaves. Luckily for those who turned to them, the Terrans were magnanimous in their protection, and never allowed a mob to do as they wanted to them. Unluckily, they still found themselves locked up, and facing trials for their crimes.

As the second day waned, the Conclave met, to discuss the annexation of the Hegemony’s old territory into the Federation as a client state. They held up those they thought would make good governors of the conquered people, and otherwise made plans to take control. It was in the middle of these discussions that the war flared up again, in some small way, as a patrol fleet encountered something on an unassuming outpost that tore through the Terran, geth, and quarian ships as easily as a hot knife through butter.

The third day dawned as that news played across the galaxy. Of a ship, a single vessel of batarian make, that was running rings around the Terran Fleet. Some felt this was absurd. Sure, the batarians had shown a few new tricks, but most knew the mechs were of salarian design, and the new barriers and weapons seemed like something that could be made by the same. Still, the lack of information was telling, as no video or the like came from that sector for most of the day.

Then it was over. Rumors spread, but it was undeniable that, at the end of the day, the Terrans defeated whatever superweapon the batarians had managed to acquire. Theories among believers began to rage. From some weapon the Terrans had allowed the batarians to steal, to a thing of the protheans the four eyes had somehow acquired. In any event, the last battle of the Titan War was ended decisively by the SDF-4’s main gun, and when the dust settled, the Terrans claimed the Hegemony’s former worlds as their own.

Messages came thick and fast from the Council, of course, that such a claim was without merit, that they had stolen those worlds, and they needed to be returned to the batarian people. They were informed that, while a Terran Governor was appointed by the Conclave, that once events had settled, they would allow the same elections their own society was given, and should the new leader choose, they might join their star to the Council again, but should they choose to stay with the Federation, that no further dialogue on the subject would be had. Reluctantly, the Council agreed.

Thus ended the first war between the Terrans and the Council, and everyone took stock. Many races no longer clamoured to join them, as the Council played up the devastation and destruction caused by the war, of how far the Terrans had gone to prosecute the batarians who had, in all truth, gravely wronged them. To many, this became enough, as memories of the long ago wars stirred a fear in them. For others, especially those who had fought those wars, the Titan War was yet one more reason to get themselves together, that they might become part of this Federation, and join in their future.

Chapter Text

The Conclave Chamber was quiet as they waited. That was rare, all things considered, given the frantic pace of the last few days. They’d literally torn down one of the great powers of the galaxy, and were in the process of rebuilding it as part of their own growing state. Breetai himself was surprised at just how fast the war had been executed, as he knew a dozen ways they could have dragged it out, if not won it, but the batarians, and by extension the galaxy at large, seemed to fight wars in some half formed manner. It wasn’t that it had rules, after all, the Terrans had rules too. It was more that they were used to targeting specific pieces of each others empires, whereas the Terran way of war was an adapted form of the Zentraedi’s tactics, which tended to be totally encompassing in their targets.

Still, the war was over now. What few leaders remained amid the batarians were being rounded up, and if they were guilty of crimes, under Council laws or the batarian’s own, they were to be prosecuted. It had been decided early on that Terran law, while it would apply to them now, would not be retroactive. No, they would appease the Council, who seemed rather upset at their claim on all of the Hegemony’s former territory, by showing respect for their laws. They even allowed the batarians legal council from the Council itself, though they refused any petition to move the trials out of Federation space unless the defendant was found innocent.

That was not the reason for their waiting, however. No, they waited for one person to arrive, a person who had a single report to give, and the only copy of several battle logs that needed to be reviewed. The waiting ended with a sudden thud as the doors to the chamber opened, and into it strode a powerful looking woman, whose long green hair shone like emerald strands in the light. She walked with a purpose, the doors sealing behind her with a hiss, and then the hum of privacy fields going up five layers deep in the walls, ensuring that none but those present would know of what was spoken.

“Conclave, Grand Admiral Miriya Sterling, reporting as ordered,” she said, saluting them by snapping her arm out, so her right fist smashed into her heart. The leaders stood from their seats, and then saluted back, before they offered her a chair that rose from the floor, and then they got down to business.

“Do you have the recordings?” asked Breetai, and Miriya nodded, holding out a cube towards the Conclave. Amalgam, using his holoprojector’s mass effect field, lifted the object out of her hand, and then gently flew it towards his own, before setting it on the Conclave Table. Sensors inside the table scanned the cube, finding a few data access points, and then glowing around it as it read the recordings, finally projecting them above the Conclave in hologram form.

“At 0834 hours on the final day of the war, a patrol group moved into the system where it was suspected Leviathan Command was hiding. This place was a technological development center, housing not only the schematics for the new weapons and defenses the batarians had deployed against us, but also several members of the Hegemony’s leadership, that had fled to the location during the Ultimatum,” she began, as a system displayed overhead, with several of their ships appearing out of Fold over a world that, even to the eyes of a Terran, looked rather dry and inhospitable.

“The patrol group, expecting a fight, used every precaution as they approached the world. It did them little good,” she said this as the image of a full battle fleet, sixty scout ships, seven command ships, and one flag ship all came closer to the world. Then a beam of light shot upwards from below. It looked, to their eyes, much like the beams of the thanix cannons the batarians had begun using during their attack on Rannoch. It was stronger though, wide enough that it could encompass an entire scout, and worst of all it moved, twisting around in space so that it swept through the fleet, ripping holes in many of the ships that vanished in spheres of blue light as their protoculture engines ruptured.

“The initial attack destroyed a good sixty-three percent of the group’s battle effectiveness, taking out not only the flag, but also all but one of the command ships. The attacker then revealed itself to us,” the image of the planet zoomed in on a seemingly barren patch of land on the surface. The only sign that something was possibly there was a small hole in one part of the plain that obviously hadn’t been there moments ago. Of course, it was still surprising when a ship, as large as a flag, ripped its way free from the ground, and then shot into the sky faster than any ship had a right to in an atmosphere.

The thing was oddly designed too. It looked almost, alive in the way it moved. A single large section, cone shaped, that had multiple ‘legs’ hanging off the bottom that seemed to swim in the air. Worse, it seemed each leg had a thanix weapon at the end, because as it rose, swifter than any ship its size should ever be able to move, each leg shot out a beam, and carved through the remaining ships, tearing them apart as it passed, leaving only three left of the entire patrol group, which quickly fled as fast as they could, while firing their own weapons at it.

“As you can see, protoculture weapons have as much effect on the barrier of this unit as one might expect, given the sheer size and obvious power. More surprising those, is that our missiles, which have proven effective in every case where they are able to hit, somehow are blocked by this same defense,” and as they watched, beams of blue light and missiles swarmed out of the ships, streaking across space at the thing. Either to mock them, or because it couldn’t move fast enough, it allowed every shot to hit dead center on it, and yet, none of the weapons seemed to have any effect on the thing at all, with reflex turret fire just splashing into nothing, while missiles crashed and exploded impotently against the veil of shimmering light around the ship.

“Re-enforcements were called in as soon as the threat the thing posed should it exit the system was recognized. However, while we believed at first the ship would make a break for the local relay, it instead began to seemingly randomly travel through the star cluster,” and it showed in the holo, as the ship vanished from the scene, which widened to show the entire area, while a clock over it accelerated to show almost half an hour pass. The ship first went to the nearest system, which had one small listening post, unmanned, and nothing else. It then proceeded to blow away a small chunk of a random moon in the system, on a planet not even close to the automated post, before going FTL again.

“Over the next several hours this pattern repeated itself, and while we set forces to guard the relay, others were sent out to engage the ship. Unfortunately, that proved ill advised,” the display time lapsed again, accelerating several hours ahead, with the unknown vessel popping into systems, most of them completely empty, and blasting some barren section of a world, before leaping out again. At one such system, a force of some two-thousand ships of varying classes, including geth and quarian, were waiting. The instant the ship emerged into real space, they engaged.

The battle was brief, though costly. The ship, either sensing their presence or possibly due to some random whim, made a straight shot for the fleet, which fired everything they had as it approached. Unlike the missile swarms of three small scouts, this time the sheer amount of fire filled the entire display, as a wall of metal, energy, and heat flew straight for the enemy vessel, slamming home against the barrier it possessed. Said barrier weakened under the strain of all that fire, but it plowed ahead anyway, the shimmering light dimming only slightly before it slammed into the formation.

It fired no weapons this time, and in fact, seemed to be unaware of the fleet now, just moving through it at a leisurely pace. Any ship caught in its path was shattered upon that barrier, however, and even when a protoculture engine exploded against it, the resulting sphere of blue light only served to weaken, but still not pierce the things shield. The rear guard command ship initiated a Daedalus Maneuver, the pinpoint barriers on its hull creating a shining aura around the form of the flagship as it smashed hard into the barrier. This, at least, paused the thing’s advance, and finally, at last, made the barrier drop for a moment, before the flag crashed into the things hull, and then was smashed aside, allowing the strange ship on its way.

“That’s not possible. The pinpoint barrier should have absorbed one-hundred-percent of the kinetic potential of the enemy strike, that’s what it does. How did this thing overpower such a defense?” demanded Hayes, and the recording was pulled back, to just as the ship’s barriers fell, allowing a full suite of sensors to scan the thing. That gave an answer extremely quickly, as the spectrographic analysis of the scan revealed the hull of this monstrous vessel was the same material as that which was used in the construction of the relays and the Citadel. It was the energy wave readout, however, that gave everyone the most pause.

“How did they get ahold of that?” asked Grant, his mind reeling with the possible breaches of security that must have happened, as the scan clearly showed that the vessel had not only a mass effect signature, but also a protoculture one, the two of which then merged to form the signature of the barrier protecting the thing.

“At least that explains how their barrier is so strong,” commented Solo as he looked at it, but Exedore quickly shook his head.

“No, it doesn’t. Or rather, it begs another question entirely. My own research line in combining protoculture engines with mass effect cores have proven that allowing the two to interact introduces a level of instability that makes them unusable under non-controlled conditions. To maintain such a barrier in battle with that instability would be impossible, the only way I can think of to counteract it would be for the eezo sample to be….oh my,” the Prime Thinker cut himself off as the readout continued, and it was revealed how the instability was compensated for. In this case, the spectrograph showed a very disturbing number. Element Zero: One-Hundred-Percent.

“That...that is not good,” said Vai’Gerrel as she stared at that readout. Even with the sample from the jamming device earlier that year, this was just...impossible. There was no way to remove all the impurities from a sample of eezo, physics wouldn’t allow it as the rock tended to smash other elements into itself whenever energy was applied. And yet, the scanners of her own ships had helped to feed this data, and she knew they would be as accurate as possible. Somehow, somewhen, someone had created a perfect sample of eezo, and put it into this ship which was now smashing through her brothers and sisters.

“I must admit, this is the first I’ve seen that readout myself. Mrs. Gerrel is right, it’s not good,” said Miriya as she stared at it with them, and then shaking off her stunned state as she turned to face them.

“If we can continue?” she asked, and the recording resumed where it had paused.

“At this point, The Sword was called it, as no other weapon had proven effective against the enemy, who proceeded to destroy the southern continent of the sixth world in the system, and then left it again,” the holo showed just that, the ship raining light and death on the already dead world, before flying off once more into interstellar space.

“With the knowledge that it had been stopped by Daedalus before, we gathered not just the Sword, but six flag level vessels to hold it down while we locked and fired. Luckily, as before, the ship proved to be ignorant of us, either due to some kind of damage or simply because it didn’t see us as a threat,” the holo moved as she spoke, her vessel, the huge Sword of the Southern Cross folding into the system alongside the other large vessels. When the alien ship entered the system, as before, they instantly attacked, the six ships of a size with it, slamming one right after the other into it, shifting its course or stopping it completely, while lines of yellow lightning played over the Sword’s hull.

“With the aid of our sisters in arms, we were able to pin the ship down long enough to charge and fire the Sword’s main cannon,” the holo suddenly shone with a blinding light as the main gun of the SDF-4 was loosed. The blast that had so utterly destroyed a turian battlegroup one year previous was nothing compared to the main cannon, which was at least an order of magnitude greater in power, rippling through space like a massive tide of energy. It sailed towards the alien vessel, before engulfing it in the stream of power, leaving it only a silhouette in the pillar of star fire.

“This blast, I feel the need to state, would have been capable of boring its way through a planet without issue, and yet, despite that sort of power, the enemy vessel withstood it for a good ten seconds, before the hull finally buckled, and we were able to destroy it,” and the holo showed just that, the thing in the image writhing in the flames, the tendrils twitching at odd, painful looking angles, before finally breaking off from the main body one by one, and vanishing into the light. Slowly, cracks then formed on the conical form that remained, and at last, it too succumb to the raw amount of power being directed at it, rending it asunder, and leaving only a burnt out husk in its wake.

“It was at this point, that I realized what we faced, and decided to seal the recordings of the fight as a black level secret. The only copy of this battle is now in the brains of those who witnessed it, and in that cube,” she informed them, and for a long time, silence hung in the chamber, as the end of the recording repeated itself several times. Each Conclave member thought of what they were seeing, their minds reeling at the notion of what it was they had faced down, and finally, it was Amalgam who broke the silence.

“I assume you have the records of the batarian base this thing crawled out of?” asked the AI, and Miriya nodded. Amalgam then leaned forward, touching the table in front of him, causing it to sync with his program for a moment, before those records were displayed overhead in place of the recording.

“It says here they batarians found this ship on Jartar about one hundred years ago. That is about the time they began their rise into prominence, isn’t that right?” asked the AI, and his compatriot nodded.

“That was about the time a rumor began to spread about the so-called Leviathan of Dis. However, no solid evidence of the object’s existence was ever found. Obviously, they hid it much more skillfully than one would expect,” admitted Solo, and then silence went over the chamber as everyone read the reports. The information was, at least, thorough, and covered a variety of topics, most of them related to weapons and defenses that had been developed by simply studying the Leviathan.

“We are actually quite lucky they built the research center two hundred miles away from where they stored the Leviathan itself,” commented Hayes as she scrolled through some reports, getting a few grunts of acknowledgement from her peers as they poured over the data. Most of it were things that only Exedore and his Teams would be interested in, but after ten minutes of silence, Grant snapped his fingers, and pointed.

“Aha, a video record from one of the early researchers,” he said, before pressing the tabletop in front of him, which responded to his touch by displaying a keyboard into which he quickly tapped out a few commands, causing the recording to take center stage in front of them. It was a batarian, obviously, a young one at that, probably in his late twenties, early thirties.

“I’ve decided to start keeping a log of my experiences with the Leviathan, considering the stories I’ve been hearing around base. The ones about people going crazy if they spend too much time around the thing. Hopefully, these logs can help me spot when it starts in me, and I can request reassignment if it gets too bad,” began the recording, the batarian looking around at things that the Conclave couldn’t see, as only he was displayed in the hologram.

“It’s been about seven years since the Leviathan was discovered in some backwater system called Dis, on Jartar. The discovery is currently credited to a science vessel that had been on a long range assignment in the Hades area, but from what I heard, it was actually a band from the Cultural Committee looking to set up a base in the system that actually found the thing,” continued the batarian, reaching forward and suddenly grasping what appeared to be a cigar in his hand, from which he took a puff.

“Those idiots found the thing in a crevice on the planet’s surface, in what appeared to be an old crater, which had sealed itself up due to Jartar’s tectonic instability, and only recently having been uncovered by a nine-point-eight quake that leveled half the continent it was on,” said the batarian, as he set the cigar back down off holo.

“Lucky thing too. Another of those quakes hit shortly after the discovery was reported, and those STG jerks got their slimy tongues wagging about it. In the chaos of the quake, they were able to use a couple of ships to raise the thing from the surface, and bring it here to the binary star system we’re now referring to as Leviathan’s Rest,” that obviously amused the four eyes, because he chuckled at the name, which seemed to be daring the other races to question it.

“Over the seven years we’ve had it, we’ve done lots of scans and studies of the ship’s structure. The first interesting thing we found out was the thing is made of the same indestructible stuff the relays and Citadel are made of, though obviously damaged slightly now by both the impact, and whatever it was that had caused the ship to crash in the first place,” that was when he pulled something new onto screen, a rock that he held in his hands like a snake that was ready to bite him if he moved wrong.

“That makes the others think it’s prothean in origin, after all, they built the relays, right? And yet, so few of them question. Take this rock, for instance. I had it dated, and while the test for this sort of thing is difficult to pin down a specific date, there is no denying it’s far older than the prothean ruins we’ve found. Rough estimates put the stone in my hand at almost a billion years old, and it’s been sitting around, inside the Leviathan for all that time,” he said this while staring at the rock, and there were a few startled gasps about the find from those watching.

“So, are the protheans older than we thought? Or were they just building on the ruins of someone else’s empire the same way we’re building off theirs? I’m no historian, so I’m not even going to try to answer that myself, but I can tell you now, this ship is far more advanced than anything flying today. If we could unlock even a tenth of its secrets, the Hegemony would be ruling the galaxy,” with that, the holo jumped as the next entry played automatically, and they listened through reports of various findings, though most of the time it was just the researcher complaining about his coworkers or the staff. Then it got interesting again.

“This is my sixth month here, and just as they said when I started, the dreams came. I don’t know what the others see. Some have complained about things, dark, oily black tendrils that rip at your brain, or some booming voice that shatters your slumbering ears. Me, it wasn’t any of those things,” he began.

“No, for me it was far simpler. I saw it. The Leviathan, but not the behemoth we have contained here in the base. No, it was sized like me, floating around overhead in the void of the dream. It spoke...I think. The words it said were so alien though. They contained meanings within meanings. I’m still...I’m still trying to grasp all of them, and yet, it was so glorious,” he got a distant look on his face as he spoke, staring up at a ceiling no one else could see.

“Sir, you asked me to inform you when it seemed you were losing your grip. My program says there is a thirty-six percent probability that you are currently doing so,” offered a monotone voice, obviously a VI who had probably been the one recording all this, who had never before spoken.

“I...I might be, yeah. But I can’t stop now. Not yet. I have to know what it was saying. I have to....” and his voice just trailed off. The next few entries made no reference to the previous as the day to day operations of Leviathan Command were detailed, including one where he laughed at some pleb getting crushed by a loader vehicle during some test. Then another interesting entry popped up.

“I got the greenlight for a new project today. Those pleb-heads up in operations just don’t understand. If they would just go on board the Hiktanu, walk through the corridors, they’d know what those of us down here know,” he began.

“Hiktanu, sir? Do you mean the Leviathan?” asked the VI.

“Yes...no, no it’s the Leviathan. But regardless, I had an idea last night, from the thing in my dreams. It told me how to build it, a new mass effect engine, at least twice as efficient as the ones we use now. If we can produce the design, we can outdo everyone in the galaxy. Really show those asari bitches up,” he said, and then detailed the design for the VI, before the recording abruptly cut. The time stamp on the new entry said it was almost a year past the previous.

“Those retches! Those...ARGH!!!” the batarian researcher screamed in frustration, placing his hands on either side of his head and shaking them as he did so.

“We had them, the new engine worked perfectly, everything about it would have made us the top dog in the universe. And then the asari have to push out a model that is even better,” he seemed to calm down, as he stroked the area between his eyes in a gesture that meant deep thought for the batarians.

“My design, I know it came from the Hiktanu. That thing was so much better than what we use now. But this one the asari brought out, it’s only slightly better than that. How did they do that? How can you improve on perfection…” again, he trailed off, his eyes unfocusing for several moments.

“You don’t, not unless it’s not perfect. But even so, you, you don’t just come up with something like that. My design was so different. And yet, their’s incorporates elements of it. Could they really be just smarter than me? Smarter than the Hiktanu?” that thought gave the batarian pause, and then he leapt to his feet.

“No, no I refuse to accept that. They must be cheating somehow! They have their own Leviathan! No that can’t be. Our’s was an accident, a one in a billion chance. If they had this, they wouldn’t be hiding it, they’d be using it to dominate everyone. But something, they have to have something, maybe a prothean data cache. Hell, maybe the bitches are female protheans and have been lying to us all these years,” he said the last with a chuckle at some thought in his head, before the recording cut abruptly again, this time only jumping ahead a month.

“I finally see. The tools the Hiktanu is gifting me with are not for myself, not for the batarian people. They are not the weapons of war, they are the things to make the Hiktanu whole again. Maybe, maybe if we can fix them they’ll let us into the Heart Chamber, the center of their form, where you can find perfection, true perfection,” said the batarian, his face drawn now, like he hadn’t been eating or sleeping. Once again, the recording cut, this time advancing another month.

“Those fools, they don’t understand! They see the Hiktanu as our way to glory, not recognizing them for the perfection they are, the perfection they offer us! We can be as they are. We can Dwell in the Dark. Th-” suddenly there is a pounding noise in the background, and the batarian draws a pistol from his hip that had only appeared at this point in the recording.

“They’re coming. They reject perfection, and so they’ll destroy me. But I’ll make them remember. This is going to be hard coded into the archives, no way to remove it. They’ll bury it. I know they will. They’re already talking about building a new base, farther away from the Hiktanu. Leaving them here in the dark while they study scans, never letting the Hiktanu touch their souls. But one day, the Dwellers will make them see, and they will be Reaped as a great Harvest,” the last was said in a distorted voice, somehow.

The sound coming out of his mouth was like a hundred voices, and then he spun around as a blast echoed through the recording, shooting frantically at some unseen foe. The battle was over in seconds, as he was gunned down, with a half a dozen marines entering the recording. Despite being shot a dozen times over, however, the batarian kept firing, even when he was flat on his back, he just kept shooting into the ceiling, like his body was moving despite being dead. Then the recording cut out for the final time.

“Well, that was most disturbing,” said Vai’Gerrel as she turned to face her peers, who could only nod in agreement. Well, all but two of them. Breetai and Exedore, looking very grave, stared into each others eyes. Without saying a word between them, they leaned forward and began typing commands into their stations at the table, soon causing the image of the Leviathan in flight to appear where the batarian had. Beside it though was a second image, this one of a crude drawing on a red stone. The caption read: Mars Base Sara. The drawing, with a human beside it for scale, was unmistakably the same as the Leviathan.

“Mars? The fourth planet?” said Solo, and then quickly entered his own command just by touching the table, bringing up an image of the planet over their heads.

“I’m afraid I’m unfamiliar with this, Base Sara location. Where and when was this photograph taken?” asked Vai’Gerrel, and everyone turned to the two Zentraedi, who seemed less than enthused to answer the question, but did so anyway.

“Before the Terrans, this system was inhabited by a species called humanity, a fact I’m certain we’re all well aware of. What some of you might not remember or even have known is that, before the Zentraedi came, humanity had been making its first punitive steps off their world, with several missions having landed on their moon, and then going farther, to the nearest world of Mars,” as he spoke, Breetai began typing, zooming in on a particular area of the red planet, one without the bustling city scape that dotted much of the world. The image soon focused on a large crater, in which not a single building lay.

“On this world, the humans apparently discovered ruins, a datacache and some drawings, maybe by a species they had believed to be native to the planet. The leaders of their people, worried about a panic on their homeworld, decided to suppress the information, using what would now be Black Level encoding on it, and hiding it away. They built Mars Base Sara right on top of the ruins, to study them, and make certain that, even if there had once been sentient life, there was none there now,” he continued, leaning back in his seat, crossing his hands in front of his face as he talked.

“This base was abandoned shortly after construction, as a world war was started by the arrival of the SDF-1 on Earth, and many of the researchers there were simply lost to the sand. During a year long trek across the system, wherein my own fleet pursued the SDF-1, there was a brief altercation over Base Sara, which was used as a bomb to destroy much of the ground force. This annihilated the ruins as well, of course, and left this ever present scar on the world,” explained the one eyed Zentraedi, and the others seemed to pause for a moment to absorb that fact, even the Terrans in the room seemingly unaware of the ruins until this point.

“Why were we never informed of this? This Conclave should know of such things, when they might affect our dealings with other races,” said Amalgam after a moment, and he got a few nodded heads.

“I agree. If we’d known that there had been galactic life with a base here in the Sol System, the Fleet might have been better prepared for the first encounter with the turians,” claimed Miriya, surprising the rest of the Conclave, as they had assumed her to be in on the secret as a fellow Zentraedi.

“In truth? It was simply never important until now. The Mars Ruins were, at best, a footnote. The humans had barely four years of study on them to log, and much of that was lost in the ruination of the Earth. Of the survivors only one had any hard data on it, and that was Mrs. Lisa Hayes, your grandmother, Amanda,” this came from Exedore, who turned to face Representative Hayes, and then began to type furiously at his station, bringing up a picture of the aforementioned Lisa.

“Mrs. Hayes apparently had a close relationship with someone at Mars Base Sara, though what sort of relationship she refused to speak on. However, her position in the military made her privy to the nature of the Base’s existence, and thus, this photograph, the only known picture of the ruins. We, and the previous Conclave, were informed of the ruins upon the discovery of the relay that orbits this very station. Since then, however, there has simply been no need to keep that information in the foreground,” explained the small Zentraedi.

“Until now,” finished Solo.

“Indeed, until now,” agreed Exedore, and the view above them shifted back to the Leviathan, and the picture of the ruins.

“So, what were these things then? That base didn’t look nearly big enough for one of them, at least not that chamber, and it doesn’t look the type to draw pictures,” commented Grant, staring at the Leviathan as it flew through space.

“I will hazard a guess that these ‘things’, Reapers or Dwellers or whatever, were the ones responsible for the protheans sudden disappearance fifty-thousand years ago, and that the ruins themselves, given what we do know of them, were prothean in origin,” answered Exedore, and that gave everyone pause. The Prothean Empire had stretched far and wide in this galaxy, and that said something of their power. The thing that wiped out an empire encompassing hundreds, if not thousands of worlds, could make short work of the few dozen the Terrans controlled.

“He said they were older though, a lot older, and yet they were constructed of the same material as the relays and Citadel. How is that possible?” asked Hayes.

“I believe, given these new facts, that our attribution of the relays and Citadel to the protheans has been mistaken all this time. As he proposed, they may have simply been using what was already there. I must therefore add that using those tools may be an issue, should their makers decide to return for us as well,” said Exedore.

“Worse than that, old friend. You said the sample of eezo recovered from the batarian artifacts had an effect on the minds of those near it. This batarian, and many like him given the records, had similar experiences. What’s to say that the Citadel and the relays aren’t doing the same thing, subtly,” added Breetai, and that made eyes go wide across the table, as everyone digested that little tidbit.

“I’m far ahead of you on that front. When I first discovered the properties of that eezo, I did a test with the relays involving similar circumstances using grown neurons. To date, not a single relay has had the effect as those samples. I even had a few smuggled onto the Citadel near the large eezo core at the Council Tower, to similar results. No, the eezo that causes this is in some way special compared to those we use regularly,” he assured them, and that got a few sighs of relief from those around the table.

“So. the Citadel and relays are older than we thought, made by...whatever it was that made this ship. A ship that, after a billion years in a crater was still operational enough for the batarians to repair,” said Grant, and everyone nodded at that assessment.

“If I’m reading these reports correctly, they’ve been keeping people away from it, and executing anyone who so much as utters the world Hiktanu. However, when their attack on Armestris failed so utterly, they began to get desperate. That would explain how they were able to develop so many countermeasures so quickly. This, Leviathan, was giving them the designs,” said Exedore as he let the reports play out in the air above his head.

“Do you think the batarian was right? Could the asari have their own Leviathan somewhere?” asked Hayes as she watched the designs pass by the readout. Most of them were quite disturbing in their complexity, considering the batarians had not been known for their technical achievements.

“No, I can’t believe they’d be able to hide something like this for so long. Remember, even we, a relative newcomer to the galactic stage, were aware of Leviathan Command. The asari, given their age, would have a hard time keeping a similar tech development center quiet,” explained Exedore.

“Then how would they have improved on a design the way he describes?” asked Grant.

“That, if I may speculate, probably felt a twinge of resentment at someone so many centuries younger than themselves discovering something. Their scientific community is much broader in scope than the batarians, or just about anyone but ourselves. Given proper motivation, even if said motivation is just to show up a younger race, I’m certain they could bring several great minds together to improve, even slightly, on almost any design so long as it relies on theories they’re aware of,” offered Exedore, and everyone else at the table nodded again, only to be brought back to where they were by a cough from Miriya.

“Regardless of the details, the fact remains that, this Reaper, was able to do significant damage to our fleets, and without the Sword, likely would have been unstoppable. We must ask ourselves four questions then. How did they get ahold of protoculture? How many of these vessels still exist? Where are they now? And finally, when will they return?” these questions echoed through the Conclave Chamber, and everyone seemed lost in thought on the answers, before Solo finally spoke up.

“The first question is easily answered, the reports from the base probably tell us exactly where they acquired it. The final three though? I’m afraid we simply do not have the data to even speculate on them,” admitted the geth, and a palpable quiet settled over the group.

“Then we will not speculate. We know they’re out there now. With that information alone, we can prepare ourselves for their coming. Exedore can study what remains of the Hiktanu, and hopefully come to understand them better. The rest of us will prepare our people in our own way to combat this enemy when they re-emerge to harvest us,” declared Breetai.

“Should we not warn the Citadel races? Don’t they deserve to know about these events?” asked Amalgam.

“And you think they’d believe us? We just, according to them, stole a large chunk of their territory. Whatever we say to them will be at best ignored, at worst, they’ll think we’re trying to trick them. No, for now, this information, along with the Leviathan Command data, should be kept as a Black-Level secret, only those in this room, and our successors, should be made aware of this. At least until we have more to go on,” answered Grant, and after thinking on it for a moment, everyone nodded.

“It is agreed then. For now, we must make preparations, as Breetai said. We must consolidate the gains made in the war, and make ready to annex any sovereign states that choose to join us. We can hope that these Reapers will not emerge within our lifetimes or those of our children, but if they do, we’ll give them a hell of a fight,” said Hayes, and the Conclave rose from their seats, Exedore quickly pocketing the datacube, as everyone left to prepare for the coming of an enemy they knew very little about.

Chapter Text

“Argh!” shouted Exedore as he stared once more at the sim in front of him. The data was the same, regardless of how he tried to work it, and it was beginning to grow frustrating. For months now, he’d been trying to get protoculture tech and eezo tech to function together, and having seen what he had three weeks ago, he knew it was possible, and yet, even the simulations showed instability if there was the slightest impurity in the eezo. Normally not one for outbursts, the Zentraedi let his rage flow into a single fist as he struck the controls in front of him, terminating the failed sim midway through.

“Prime Thinker, are you alright?” asked a small voice, and Exedore, his face slightly reddened, turned to his side, where a half a dozen quarians were at their stations, going over the data they’d been given. The one who’s spoken was a low ranked, but rapidly rising, mind in his organization’s Silver Research Team, a Ms. Daro’Xen.

“I’m fine, Xen, just having a bit of frustration with my latest project,” he explained, smiling down at her. Behind her, the rest of the staff, working on some other project, ignored them. Most would never have bothered speaking to Exedore, given the man’s mythic status among the scientific community they’d joined. Others were intimidated by his size, for while short for a Terran or a Zentraedi, he still stood several times their own height. Some just couldn’t tear themselves away from their own projects,.

“Hmm, may I see?” asked Xen, and Exedore pressed a button on his station, transferring the data from his terminal to her own, so she could look it over. Quick as a flash of lightning, the quarian turned her head back to her monitor, and her fingers flew over her controls as she scrolled the data. Interested, Exedore watched the young woman work, impressed by the speed of her typing, despite the suit she still wore.

Around her, most of the other quarians were without their accustomed gear, having taken the gene therapy required to live without it. Some still didn’t trust the Terrans of course, and refused the procedure, despite their neighbors and family coming through the tubes alright, though Exedore supposed he couldn’t blame them. The project hadn’t been their’s after all, headed by the Red Research Team in the early days of the Quarian/Geth Alliance, and it was hard to trust another’s work. Still, he idly thought back over his memories, and thought that Xen had indeed taken the treatment. Perhaps she just liked the suit.

“Ah, you’re trying to equip the Terran Mobile Infantry with eezo cores,” she said at last, as she looked over the data.

“Indeed, the advantage in mobility it would offer would be exceptionally useful, and for a defense, we could actually allow our troops to be guarded by more than just their physical armor,” he said, and Xen nodded. She, without looking at her hand, pressed a button on her omnitool, causing a small plate to glide through the air from one of the serving stations, a steaming cup of coffee on it. Taking the mug, Xen took a sip through the emergency induction port, before diving into the work.

Once again, her fingers flew, vanishing into blurs as she typed, almost like the coffee had given her super speed. On her monitor, Exedore could see dozens of test models he’d run rapidly flashing through them to the point where they errored out, either the mass effect field collapsing into uselessness, or in the worst case, the protoculture engine back blasting, obliterating the soldier. That was due to running the protoculture over the eezo, the impurities of the element becoming more pronounced with the greater energy that protoculture provided.

Watching with interest, he saw a dozen of his models get farther than he’d been able to move them. Looking at the fine details, he saw that Xen was creating separate power grids, running the eezo core off an old style generator, while still keeping the suit’s main protoculture engine in tact. Of course this increased the armor’s mass by at least five fold, and made them unwieldy to use. Then he stared in awe as she took the separation a step farther than he had, including in the sim an entirely autonomous drone that attached to the suit, providing the mass effect field.

“Hmm, a decent solution, but that sort of drone would never do for a real combat situation. Too many variables for even the most competent algorithm, and it would simply be too hard to control from inside the armor,” he commented, having considered the possibility himself, but dismissed it as unworkable.

“An external controller would relieve the soldier of the need to compute at all,” she said, and then ran her sim again, this time with a shape in a bubble that housed another, smaller being. That one worked the controls of the bubble, a large pill shape, which attached itself to the back of the armor this time, out of direct line of fire. The mass effect field then grew to encompass the entire soldier, allowing the simmed combatant to run through all the trials that a recruit in the ground forces had to in order to be certified. In record time too.

“Now that is a new vector on this problem. Would any of your people be up for such a task, however?” he asked.

“I don’t doubt many of the old Heavy Fleet pilots would jump at the chance to be part of a larger military force. How many of them have been clamouring for us to enhance the enlargement holos so they could fight the batarian wanzers after all?” she asked, and he nodded. Then they got to work together, going over the data as they passed it back and forth, soon having a few test units produced and ready.

OoOoO

“Argh! Mr. Urdnot! Please see our position,” said the asari in front of him. She stood in the center of a group of krogan, her back straight, her dress clean, despite the dusty air outside, and most of all, with that condescending, angry look on her face. A year ago, Wrex would have slapped her upside her head, and told her to leave his sight. Now? He was the Father, and had to deal with these sort of things. Sighing, he leaned forward in his, for want of a better word, throne, which had been constructed in the middle of an old courtyard from rubble by one of the more artistic of the new krogan. He hadn’t to tell the kid, it looked hideous. Interestingly, however, the thing was great for his back.

“I am trying, but I still don’t see how this concerns my people,” he told her as politely as he could. She seemed to take this response in, as if she were trying to find some hidden meaning in it, before formulating her retort.

“It concerns them because if they continue on this route, they’ll make an already tense situation worse. We have been grateful for your efforts here, and can see the results in those plants you’ve gotten to grow, or the works of art you’ve uncovered. However, so many of your...people in a single place is beginning to make the wrong sort of people ask the wrong sort of questions,” she told him, the word on her lips having been ‘your kind’. Like they were animals or varren, and she was trying to scold them back into obedience.

“And what sort of questions are those?” he asked, smirking at her from atop his pile of rubble. He knew just what sort of questions. Most of them involved the return of the krogan horde, as it was rumored by many that the new Krogan Convexity was seeking a cure for the genophage. Some believed this new ‘religion’ of the krogan, deifying the Father and the Mothers was some kind of cover for something more sinister. After all, no krogan before them had ever cared to build something, and now here the Father sat, on a pile of rubble in the courtyard of what could only be considered an ornate castle, sculpted beauty formed from the stone of Tuchanka.

“The sort of questions that tend to be answered with ‘glass the planet’. All we ask is that you start dispersing a bit, sending your people off-world again,” she told him, and Wrex chuckled at her. A year ago, that answer would have been easy, a single transmission, and the Council could have sent a fleet to just obliterate Tuchanka. Now they had people watching them, species that wanted to see pillars of peace, rather than ruthless warlords. The Terrans had forced their hand there, at least, with the Titan War.

“You say that like I could. We of the Convexity do not give orders, Matron. We merely provide guidance for those who wish it. If they choose to come to us, because they can find something here that can’t be found anywhere else in this galaxy, who are we to deny them?” he asked, gesturing towards his people. In the far corner of the courtyard, some of the latest members of the Convexity were working on their crafts. One was painting something that, to Wrex at least, looking like crap. The other, however, was sculpting something out of clay which he recognized as Kalros, which showed respect for the great beast.

“We understand, but your Convexity is growing large enough that it could pose a risk to your people. After all, with so few krogan left, what would happen should this place fall under attack?” she offered, and Wrex wasn’t chuckling now. He knew what would happen. Namely he’d have a war on his hands, one that came about a hundred years too soon for them to really win it. Still, he tried to put on his best smile, a thing of sharp angles and sharper teeth.

“That would be a problem, true, but I’m sure, given our demilitarized nature, that the turians would leap to our defense. After all, isn’t that a requirement of the treaty that denies us weapons with which to defend ourselves?” he countered, and the Matron before him scoffed. The ‘treaty’ to which he referred did indeed require that the turians defend them, and if they failed in that duty, well, it would mean that the krogan, as a whole, would face a lot fewer restrictions on their people, even if a large section of the population would die to gain it.

“That-~beep~” she began to respond, only to be interrupted by a tone from her omnitool. Turning so no one else could see her hands, she quickly responded to whoever was calling her, and then turned back.

“It would seem, my services are required elsewhere. I’m sorry we have to cut our dialogue short, but please consider at least encouraging your people to cease to gather,” she told him curtly, and then left without another word, that long flowing robe of her’s billowing behind her as she walked out of the castle gate.

“She knows her position is weak, and only empty threats can be made. Such people can grow very desperate, Father. We may want to keep an eye on the sky, just in case,” said the Shaman sitting next to Wrex, and the leader of the Convexity chuckled again as he rose to his feet. He knew the danger they were in. This wasn’t the first meeting with a Council representative, that had been a turian who was a lot less subtle with his threats. Now though, it was the asari handling things, probably to give a more diplomatic appearance to the talks.

“When the time comes, we shall have more than enough swords to slay any they send to end our people,” he told the Shaman reassuringly, before headbutting him hard enough to make the holy man see stars. The younger krogan chuckled as he shook away the blur in his vision, and then walked away to help guide his fellows in their art making. Satisfied with his own strength, Wrex took a side passage out of the courtyard, and then into a very out of place looking lift, that slowly descended into the castle’s depths.

Below the rather primitive looking structure, there were several feet of plating, salvaged from some old warships long since rendered inoperable on Tuchanka’s surface. They’d been layered deep, with plates stacked on plates, to the point where the thick metal should be able to survive even should the castle above be obliterated. The older metal, warped as it was, also provided a sound buffer for the work going on below, and as the lift came to a halt, Wrex’s heart swelled with pride at the sight before him.

Around him stretched a cavern system, miles upon miles in size, likely the result of thresher maws that had made Tuchanka their home since ancient times. Two large holes in the south and west walls showed that said home wasn’t unused either, though they’d dealt with those two, and expected others to keep their distance. After all, it was rare to find even two thresher maws on the same planet, let alone in the same area, save during their mating cycles, and even though Tuchanka had a higher than average population of the great beasts, they tended to steer clear of areas where they’d been slain.

Inside the cavern were the workers, the artists, and most importantly, the builders. They had been down here for months, building things to either be displayed for all to see, or to be secreted away, for those days in the, hopefully, near future where they could be shoved in the faces of the Council, to see what they had so long suppressed. Some of these things were beautiful works of art, sculptures, paintings, and the like that were grander in scope than the small things being made on the surface.

Far more were tools, however. Not just tools of war, either, though there were a few of those. Many a krogan’s claws were put to the task of building atmospheric reclamators, soil purifiers, or water filtration systems. Each and every one of these things were needed to repair Tuchanka. To Wrex, even though his warrior’s heart burned with hate for the Council and all they had done, these things were the true tools of his revenge. Most weren’t even unique, the designs centuries, even millennia old, and would fulfill the dream of a green world in a decade or less, compared to the Shroud that the salarians had built for them, which had only done a basic scrub in all the time it had stood.

“Father,” said a young krogan in deference to his authority, saluting in the way the Mothers had shown him, the Terran way with the fist slammed into the heart. Smiling, Wrex returned the salute, looking over the atmospheric scrubber the young one had been building. It was a fine piece of machinery.

“Excellent work. A few more like that, and we can begin our grand revenge,” he told the youth with a smile, and the youth reflected that smile back at him, before attacking the project with renewed zeal. In truth, it would be many years yet before they were ready for the project’s full reveal to the galaxy, but every completed machine brought them closer to the goal. Giving similar compliments to others working, and a few kicks in the quads to some loafers, Wrex made his way around the floor, before finally entering an unassuming door on the opposite side of the chamber from the entrance.

“Ah, the Father returns,” said a female voice as Wrex entered the chamber, the door sealing tightly after him. In front of him was the red robed Naamah, an ampule in her hand that she gently pushed into her chest, drawing the blood almost directly from her heart with a small grunt. She then, delicately, placed the ampule in a case alongside a hundred like it.

“More of the ‘sacred blood’?” said Wrex, more of a statement than a question. Naamah said nothing, and leaned forward to pick up the case, but the stronger male pushed her back into her seat, her stance woozy from the blood loss. Picking up the case, he walked over to a small alcove in the room’s side, which he pushed against in a particular spot to have the entire side of the room open with a slight buzzing sound. Slowly, the wall pulled away to reveal a thousand cases like the one he held.

Walking into the hidden chamber inside a hidden chamber, Wrex looked along the wall for an open spot, finally taking the first rack he could find, and placing the case into it gently, before exiting. The room shuddered a little in his vision, as the stasis field resumed, keeping all that blood fresh and ready for the coming days. Stockpiles like this were being made all over the Convexity, places where the ‘sacred’ blood of the mothers was collected, to be distributed when they felt the time was right.

“I saw you speaking with that asari,” she said as he took the seat next to her’s, and Wrex nodded at the statement.

“They’re getting bolder, sending ones like that to us, ones that directly state their threats, even if they coach them in other language,” she told him, getting another nod for his trouble. This was the first of the asari to do that. Mind, the one before her had out and out offered Wrex a billion credits, a true fortune, to just leave. To take the Mothers and vanish into space, allowing their Convexity to disperse. His refusal of such an offer, an offer that would have probably enticed even one of their turian dogs, had likely rattled them more than a little.

“Are you four still certain of your timetable? Perhaps we should speed things up,” he asked, and this sent the red robed holy woman into deep thought, crossing her hands in front of her face in a gesture of supplication to the gods. Whether they heard her, or she came to her own conclusions, she soon shook her head.

“No, their threats, for now, are empty. Too many would turn against them should they strike at us while we are peaceful. At the moment, the only thing holding some of their constituents to the Council’s side is just how thoroughly executed the Terrans’ war with the batarians was. If they give any indication of having similar leanings, they’d have a full revolt on their hands in short order,” she explained to the Father, who had already come to much the same conclusion.

“Stay the course, and when the time is right, we’ll show ourselves to the galaxy as the true krogan we are,” he affirmed, before offering the woman a hand, helping her to her feet, and then guiding her out the door, which sealed tightly shut behind them, as they made the rounds on the floor.

OoOoO

“Argh!” the voice shouted, slamming his huge fist into the console in front of him. The thing, designed for his occasional outrages, still breaks into pieces under the impact of the blow, sparks and shards of metal flying in all directions. A small hovering drone just barely dodges out of the way of one of the larger pieces of debris, before floating over to the form in front of it.

“Broker, your console appears to have taken damage, would you like me to order a new one?” asked the drone, and for a moment, the Shadow Broker idly toys with the thought of smashing the thing as well for the question, but then sighs out of his mouth, a sound like a rock grinder.

“Yes, get it here as soon as possible,” he tells the thing, before climbing the nearby stairs and then going into his apartment, where he tended to stay when a work crew came in to do repairs, a task that had been rare, with only four occurrences in the decade since he’d taken over, but now had done no less than sixteen times in the last year. Every time before this year, the reasons for the repair had been the storm outside moving in unexpected ways, a lightning bolt through the window, or some leak in the ceiling, now it was always his fists that caused the damage.

And that was because of these Terrans. They were so...isolated, and off the grid. In the previous year he’d expended no less than a full percent of his resources to try and get an agent somewhere in their ranks, and to date, not one of his attempts had borne fruit. That wasn’t, of course, to say that the Terrans were clean. Black markets existed, even among their culture, and a few of the colonists on the outlier worlds were willing to trade even their precious protoculture for things that weren’t easily obtained in their own circles, but even then in such small amounts it was basically worthless.

Thinking of the green glowing goop, the Shadow Broker looked towards the side of his apartment, where he kept a sample of the stuff his own personal study, with equipment he himself had setup. He was no scientist, but he wasn’t about to trust another’s word on this either, and wanted to get his own claws dirty in finding info on it. As they’d admitted, eezo had nothing on protoculture. Infinite energy, take even a few drops out, wait an hour, and the container would refill.

You would think, given that regenerative property that even a single sample would be able to be spread around, and you would have as much as you wanted, but as many a lab had discovered, you had to keep it in motion, otherwise, it settled and well...that had been the reason for one of the cleanups in his chamber. Worse, once it had left the so-called engine, the stuff had a shelf life of only a few minutes, which resulted in meaningful studies of the stuff being near impossible for most labs staffed by professionals, let alone an amature like the Shadow Broker.

That was the least of his concerns though. He wanted to know about them, not just their technology. He wanted dirty secrets, little white lies, and all the things they wanted that he could give them in order to make them move as he wanted. The problem was they were so isolated, and what secrets they had guarded by those who wanted nothing, that he’d found none of the usual levers to pull. He’d actually considered, for a flash of an instant, to go himself, maybe see what one his kind could wring from the giants, but that fantasy was quickly dismissed as too much of a personal risk.

And then the Titan War had happened. At last, his agents would be in their space, watching them work, seeing how they operated, getting all the little nuggets of information he could pan from the streams of data. Streams that should have come from Rannoch, before those agents had ceased reporting in. He’d had a few of his people look into that, and either discovered that their sources were weeded out and put in positions where they couldn’t be contacted, or worse, had gone completely native, and yet, had little fear of reprisals from him due to their giant protectors.

Regardless of the failures of his people on Rannoch, he was so well seeded in the Hegemony that there was no way all of his sources there would dry up, and he’d finally have what he wanted. Then the war was over, so fast that even his head had spun a bit, and now nothing, silence from every station, every agent, every bug in every government office. Nothing from batarian space in the last month. What little he’d been able to learn had been from second hand sources, or from what few batarians had fled successfully from the oncoming giants, who claimed that they had decapitated the government so thoroughly that none of his agents remained.

It was at this point that he realized how much he’d messed up. The batarian society was so rigid and structured that every source he’d had, every field agent he’d employed, had been of the upper classes, the military and politicians. Most of those had ended up being executed by the Terrans, for violating either the Council or the batarians’ own laws. And none of the plebs, the lower rungs of their society were on his payroll due to their uselessness, and while in the days before the war it would have been easy to recruit some, now they had full bellies, healed wounds, and he’d even heard rumors that some had begun to worship the Terrans as some kind of gods.

Sighing, rubbing at the spot between his two left most eyes to massage a nerve, the Broker began to make plans. His contacts, once they got inside the Terran machine, went dark, and he knew why. They felt safe from his reach, and thus any reprisal from him. He would have to make that safety seem more of an illusion, and that meant striking at someone in a high profile position within the Terran Federation. The giants themselves were out of the question there, but they had begun integrating a fair few of the lesser races.

A quick look through a directory, and some called placed from his personal terminal, and the Broker was smiling in that horrid way of his people. The events he’d set in motion would remind those in his employ that his reach was far and wide. That no matter where they ran, they could never truly escape the shadow’s hand. Outside the vessel, the storm, as if sensing the dark thoughts, sent lightning playing over the hull, creating a flash of shadows and light playing amongst those rolling clouds.

Chapter Text

“Team Alpha Leader, I have sight of the target,” said the woman into her collar, and her response was the click of acknowledgement over her comm unit. Looking towards the sight before her, the woman wiggled her fingers, the sensors in her arm taking the commands, and zooming in her view, while also painting targets in her HUD. For the most part, what stood in front of her were basic troops, infantry and the like, but there were also a dozen or more tanks, at least twice the many wanzers, and worst of all, behind them was the massive shape of the cruiser that had brought this lot to the desolate landscape on which they stood.

“Connection established, we’ve got a read out on them. Looks to be a joint Eclipse/Bloodpack operation, with a few Syndicate goons mixed in,” said a voice in the woman’s ear, and she nodded at the statement. The two merc companies had been working together for a while now, which made sense, the Eclipse were specialized for tech deployment, and the Pack tended to be more about brute force. The Synners were the big problem though, as it was their wanzers which would prove to be the most problematic to take down.

“Shepard-Corporal, there appears to be movement,” said an electronic voice behind her, and she looked where a robotic hand pointed. Zooming her view in, she spotted what he meant right away, as one of the wanzers that hand hands instead of guns was using said hands to dig up something. It didn’t take long to figure out what either, as they quickly unearthed several drop pods, things made to be dropped from orbit with their contents remaining intact. Opening one, the green glow of protoculture washed over the sandy night.

“Oka, we’ve got confirmation on the canisters, I repeat, we have visual on the stolen protoculture,” she said, and then got another click of confirmation as the info was passed up the chain, while she and Legion just waited and watched. Their view soon became very heated, as apparently one of the merc groups was arguing about how the profits would be split for this venture, but it didn’t last longer than a single shot to the head, whereupon the remaining mercs began to haul the canisters of protoculture out of the pod, and place them onto transports that moved into the cruiser.

“Oka Nieba to Shepard, orders incoming. You are to keep position, I repeat, stay put and watch,” said the voice in her ear.

“What? Why?! We’re here, right now, and we’ve got a perfect line of sight on them. Give me and Legion five minutes and we can tear these guys apart,” she growled in protest.

“You have your orders Corporal,” said the voice, and then a click signaled the end of communication. Still fuming a bit, Shepard took a moment to look out over the enemies in front of her. Some four eyes, stone faces, and wildmen, with a smattering of frogs and blues in the mix. She even thought she saw one midget out there too, though that might just be an actual short person.

“Shepard-Corporal, you are considering defying orders, are you not?” asked the robotic voice behind her, and Shepard turned to face the speaker. Like herself, he wore armor, or rather, he was armor. The geth amalgamation that dubbed itself legion was wearing one of the more modern warframe bodies, large, powerful looking mechanical thing, with a blocky look and hard edges. The single cyclopean eye on a head that was otherwise a solid metal block stared at her, the color in it shifting from red to blue as it spoke to her as Legion turned off certain sensor in it to look her in the eye, as it were.

“Right in one, Legion,” she told him, reaching behind her, and pulling out a pair of pistols. The weapons felt nice and heavy as they unfolded to their full size, and she could feel their low hum through her armor as she turned them on, the engines inside spinning up to power.

“This unit must remind you, the Captain has said that one more defiance and you will be demoted,” he informed her, and Shepard nodded, looking over the ridge they were hiding behind at the targets. They were still messing with the protoculture, one of the canisters slipping from the grip of the hauler, and nearly spilling the energetic green goo on the desert floor.

“The Captain is underestimating our combat ability again. We can take them, right?” she asked, and then looked back towards Legion, whose eye turned green to show it was processing for a good three seconds as it ran the data.

“There is a sixty-four percent probability of victory over the ground forces,” admitted the unit, and Shepard nodded, smiling under her armor.

“See, we just do this one thing real quick, and the Captain will be eating his words,” she told him, rising up and looking over the ridge. She and legion were almost a mile away from the target, and despite her size, she was still distant enough, and cold enough, that none of the sensors were picking her up. Motioning for Legion to rise, she considered her options, before stepping back from the ridge.

“Board and then air support,” she told him, and Legion nodded, leaning forward again, seemingly going into a laying on his front position. However, as he lowered down, the blocky body of his began to fold and reshape, individual parts spinning into place, as other bits popped out. Most noticeably his feet hollowed out, and then lengthened, and his back became flat as small wings popped out of the side of his body. The process, taking only a few seconds, resulted in an otherwise humanoid shape made of blocks, transforming into a hoverboard thing, which hummed with the anti-gravity field giving it lift.

Sadly, while the shadow and general coolness had kept them hidden visually, the sound of that metal man changing shape was distinctive, and it echoed over the empty desert night. Every merc at the ship knew something was coming, and they sprang into action like one would expect of three well trained merc armies. Namely they were tripping over each other as they each ran to their own preparations, the wanzers even crushing a few of their allies as they got into position.

Shepard smirked at the hustle and bustle from that simple sound, and leapt forward, her feet landing heavily on the back of Legion’s form, which gave a bit under her weight, but then, as the crackle of her boot soles locking on him could be heard, Legion shot forward. The warframe body was visible the instant it took off, mostly because it was hot as soon as the jets fired, though the angle meant they couldn’t see the thrusters as it approached. After only a moment of hesitation, the wanzers and tanks began to fire out into the desert, rains of metal, both slugs and liquid streams, came down around them.

The fire was wild, with little cohesion to it. If they’d tried to lead her, or otherwise trap her somewhere, the idiots might have been able to do it, but as it was, none of them had the skill to target her and her partner as the board would shift, spinning around the fire and explosions, creating quite the sight as the night lit up around her. The silhouette of a war goddess flying through the air was probably responsible for at least some of the cries of fear she heard, and that made Shepard’s wolfish grin even broader as she kicked off of Legion, doing a flip into the air.

“ALALALALA!!!” she let loose her war cry as she came down, her boots finding two of the four eyes on the sand, and crushing them to paste beneath her heels. Batarians had a satisfying crunch when you stepped on them, she’d always found, but she didn’t allow herself the satisfaction of knowing they were dead before she whipped out her pistols, and began firing. These guns, some of the new models, fired out slugs, totally unlike the streams of blue reflex energy that their predecessors did.

The slugs were as large as your average sophent’s head, and streaked with a dozen warning labels. Not that you could see them as they sailed through the desert night, slamming home into the barrier’s of two of the tanks. Said barriers would have, had Shepard been firing the old style weapons or her hand blasters, blocked anything she threw at them. The slugs, however, buried themselves in the layered barrier, giving the pilots a single moment of hope that maybe the weapon had failed, before the slugs broke, and blue light exploded outward from them.

Spheres of blue destruction came from where the slugs had been, consuming the tanks, and any ground troops unlucky enough to be nearby. When the blinding flash passed, the only thing remaining of their targets were bowls in the sand which quickly began to fill with more of the stuff. The fear in the eyes of their comrades was a nice after effect though, and Shepard spun as she dodged more fire, and dealt out her own, not a single shot missing as she fired at each tank in turn.

When the last slug had been fired, Shepard made a motion with a finger, and her armor popped open at the hip, two long cylinders coming out of it. Pushing release buttons on her guns, she tossed the clips out, the long pieces of metal aimed precisely to slam hard into one of the hauling transports, causing it to fall over and block the ramp into the cruiser. She then slammed the guns now empty chambers into the cylinders, which locked quickly into place, reloading and calibrating her firing arcs, before she began to shoot out again.

Better, even as she danced in the middle of them, picking off tanks, Legion had taken to the sky, his form changing again as he pulled up, with the wings becoming thicker, and his thrusters opening up more, transforming him from something that could be ridden into a jet that soared high into the sky. Once Legion gotten enough altitude, the geth warframe spun on its axis, and pointed straight down, as arms emerged from beneath it, arms that ended in a set of gatling guns instead of hands which rained fire on the cruiser and the ground troops as the geth shrieked down towards both.

Destruction all around, the screams of her foes on the wind. Beneath her helmet, Shepard’s grin had turned feral, and as the last of her slugs ran out, she tossed the weapons aside, deliberately striking some of the ground troops, one of the asari barely using her biotic power to buffer herself against the impact, and a vorcha being crushed instantly by the other. Around those two, the pellets fired by Legion’s gatlings found target after target, more than three in four of the ground troops dead in the first pass, and the remaining ones scrambling up the ramps, as around them the flaming wrecks of their tanks smouldered on the desert floor.

Pulling a shape from her waist, Shepard unfolded her blade, the sharp end of it gleaming wickedly in the firelight. The things was newly honed, made to a molecule thin edge that could slice through anything, and with the tanks and ground troops around them dead, only the two dozen wanzers remained to taste her steel. They screamed, in fear, in rage, in pain for fallen comrades, who really knew? All she knew was their screams were the music to which her blade danced.

Above, Legion launched missiles, the projectiles burying themselves into the defenses of the mechs around his partner, before exploding against them, each strike destroying them. None of the pilots seemed to notice, however, as they fired everything they had, cannons, gatlings, and even missiles of their own at the Terran goddess of war. Not a single shot seemed to hit her, however, their fire merely churning up the sand around her as she charged, and blade flashing as she passed by the first pair of them.

For a moment, everyone on the ground held their breath, the moment seeming to freeze in place, before the two mechs fell, one chopped completely in half horizontally, the other vertically, both pilots dead before they’d realized the attack had come. The remaining pilots instantly began to retreat, knowing the battle was lost, despite their still quite large advantage in numbers. They got barely to the ramp before it started to retract, and the savage woman tore them to pieces, stabbing one straight in the back, and tossing it forward so it exploded inside the cruiser’s hold as it started to take off.

“This unit’s firepower lacks sufficient force to disable the cruiser before it exits the atmosphere,” said a voice in Shepard’s ear. It was hard to tell if she heard it, however, as she continued to end the lives of those who had been abandoned to her. Still, when the last one, a salarian she literally ground under heel, was slain, she took a look to the sky, and roared defiance at the ship that was slowly trying to flee her. She quickly snapped her sword closed, a small wash of gore sliding off it as it retracted into the bar shape she but on her waist, and then she leapt into the sky, palms pointed downward as the glow of her thrusters could be seen coming from them and her feet.

The cruiser was an eezo tech ship, fast in space, but slower in an atmosphere. Worse, for it anyway, the ship’s barriers couldn’t be turned on while flying through the air, the bubble would have created far too much drag, and would have overheated the engines as the barrier literally tried to push the entire atmosphere out of their way. So the ship was slow and without its major line of defense as she came after it. The pilot was good enough, however, to know that her leap would have a low ceiling to it, and so yanked the ship upward, trying to climb above where the monster couldn’t reach.

“Perfect shot,” she said, and then aimed her hands upward. A few twitches of her fingers and she adjusted their output and aim, getting that nice vibration in her palms as power built up inside the armor, before blowing outward in twin streams of blue light. The bars of force struck home within seconds, the armor of the cruiser melting beneath the assault. The shots were true, as well, and both engines on the left side of the cruiser found themselves with extra holes, holes that spouted flames in the wrong directions, and caused the ship to begin to falter in its flight.

She was knocked out of the sky as well, of course, as the force of her blasts pushed her backwards, causing her arc to angle almost straight down. She quickly adapted though, her fingers flying through the motions, and then her palms and soles pointed straight down towards the ground below. Her descent, formally at terminal velocity, was slowed to about half that, but her mass was just too much for her jets to kill her momentum completely, and the ground was coming up much too fast for her to land uninjured.

“May this unit offer you assistance?” asked the geth warframe as it flew close to her, and Shepard reached out a hand to take the one the mech offered. The thing, rather than pulling straight away and tearing her arm off, simply began to angle the descent, jets and boosters firing to kill as much momentum as possible until, just about a hundred feet off the ground, she let go of Legion’s hand, and then rolled to a stop, the jet transforming back into its humanoid form and settling beside her as she finally stopped, and looked upwards.

“Hah, thought you could get away from me, didn’t you!?” she shouted up at the falling cruiser. Flames were now large and visible as apparently the pilot had tried to gun the engines to continue the ascent, only causing the thrusters to warp and break farther, as the arrow shaped vessel began a controlled fall towards the planet. The pair watched it fall, and Shepard whooped once when an explosion tore through the side of the ship as one of the thrusters broke off.

“The Captain is never gonna believe this,” she told Legion beside her, and then watched as the ship, after a minute of freefall finally slammed down onto the planet’s surface, before exploding in a huge ball of blue light, which consumed the mountain it had struck, leaving the thing looking like a bite had been taken out of it.

OoOoO

“Shepard, Legion, I don’t believe this,” said the ebony skinned man in front of them, his green uniform a nice counterbalance to the tone of it. Mind, said skin had tinges of red in it, as he’d been shouting at aides for the last half hour as the two ground troops had been shuffled from the loading bay almost directly into his office. No one was around, luckily, for this particular dressing down, and so Shepard stood strong in front of him, at a ready stance, out of her armor, though with her blade still clipped to her side.

“It was my decision to go on the offensive, sir,” she told him, and Legion beside her shook his head, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Shepard-Corporal, this unit’s rank exceeds your own. If there is blame to be had, it should fall on this unit,” said the electronic voice, and the Captain before them just sighed, rubbing his temples with his fingers for a moment.

“Did it even occur to the two of you that you were both ordered to stay put?” he said, and the two just stared at him for a moment.

“Sir, it was a bad call. We’re the best team in the Fleet. You sent us down there-,” she began, and the Captain held up his hand to silence her.

“I sent you down there because if they discovered the two of you, you’d have the best chance of fighting them off. I didn’t want you to slaughter the whole ship and her compliment,” he explained.

“Anderson-Captain, we accomplished the mission that was dictated to this ship, did we not?” asked Legion, and Anderson stared at the geth.

“No, no you did not. If they two of you had done your job on the planet, which was to confirm they were picking up the protoculture, this ship would have followed the cruiser out of the system using a tracker planted in the stash, and we would have found out who they were selling to,” said the Captain, and the two ground troops just went blank faced at that, as the information processed.

“Sir, if we’d known that-,” and again, Shepard was cut off by Anderson’s hand.

“It’s not the job of the ground troops to know every little thing, Shepard. You have orders, you follow them, isn’t that what the Federation Fleet is all about?” he asked, and she nodded without hesitation.

“Then why do you have such a problem doing that?!” he demanded, and then threw her file onto the desk in front of him. Out of the folder poured a ton of paper, on which one could see her five year career, from Rannoch’s guard, to her current posting. Most of the remarks in her file were about how skilled a warrior she was, with many very much calling her a reborn Zentraedi. Of course, those tended to be followed up with remarks of where she’d gone against orders, getting the job done, but typically leaving no living witnesses in her wake.

“If one of them were still alive, I’d say this was at least salvageable, but at this point, our entire mission is a bust,” he told the two before him, and then placed his hand in front of his mouth in a thoughtful gesture as he leaned forward in his seat.

“This unit insists it accepts any discommendation from the actions that took place on the planet,” said Legion, stepping forward, and Anderson pulled another file out from his desk, with much the same result, papers spilling all over the desktop, most of them rating the geth very highly, but others talking about how easily he was influenced by the ‘Heroes of Rannoch’. Still, his battle effectiveness with the pair had been shown to improve markedly. In all truth, Anderson could think of no other two soldiers he’d ever commanded who could have destroyed the cruiser and everyone aboard.

“We’ll see. I’ll have to contact Gloval Station for new orders. In the meantime, you’re both confined to quarters. My advice, however? Pack your bags, because after this report goes in, I doubt Breetai’s gonna want the two of you serving on a front line vessel,” he told them, and they saluted, before exiting the room. Sighing again, Anderson went back to his report, typing it out slowly, deliberately. This would likely demote Shepard again, if not Legion as well. Those two rose like shooting stars, only to fall down again in a month or two. Still, despite their disdain for orders, they were likely to be kept together for now.

Chapter Text

“Alright, are you two ready?” asked a booming voice over the speaker system, as two figures walked forward. One was in the typical Terran armor, painted in officer’s colors, and was checking the seal on their left shoulder. The other was a holo-projection of a quarian, one who lived without her suit, and looked just young enough that that wasn’t a unique thing for her. She did however wear a hood that resembled a suit, marked with her family’s colors, and her silvery eyes shining in the low light of the empty room they were in.

“Link One, ready,” said the male Terran as he finished his check, looking forward.

“Link Two, ready,” said the quarian next to him, smiling at the blank room before them, watching it with almost giddy anticipation.

“Link test, beginning in five, four, three,” said the voice from the speakers, and then suddenly the walls glowed brightly, as other holos like the quarian’s began to emerge from everywhere around them, transforming the chamber from featureless gray walls into a city, sized for micronians. The quarian girl, smiling still, spun in place, and her form seemed to collapse in one itself, the hologram shrinking down until it was revealed that beneath all that, she was riding in a pill shaped pod, that floated in mid air.

“Link connection, engaging,” she said, her fingers flying over a set of controls in her pod as it slowly floated over towards the Terran, spinning around him and coming up behind his back. The pod gently settled between his shoulderblades, various connecting ports opening on both the armor and the pod as it glided into place, a small buzzing sound echoing over the silent cityscape as they came together. Once in place, the pod was secured by a small bar coming out of the arm, wrapping itself around the unit, and causing both to hum as the barrier of the pod extended itself over the whole of the armor.

“Link connected,” said the quarian and Terran together as the city sprang to life around them. Formally quiet, empty streets were suddenly awash with people, including micronized terrans, batarians, quarians, and even a smattering of geth platforms.

“Link test, Level Ten, beginning,” said the voice of the controller, and the pair braced themselves, the armored Terran standing at attention, looking around, while the quarian’s fingers flew over her controls, the view on the inside of her pod showing not just the status of her partner’s armor, but also every byte of data the sensors could detect. They didn’t have to wait long for the test, as sonic booms soon echoed over the area, the various civilians looking into the sky, as they scanned for the incoming assault.

As one would expect, the knife ships were the culprit of the noise, as they slashed their way through the air, the front blade shining almost red as they took in the heat of the air friction, focusing it into the edges so that, as they landed, they were able to literally burn holes in the ground, be it soil, stone, or concrete, landing with slamming noises. The instant they were down, the hilts of the knives split open, revealing a hundred ground troops per knife, along with a smattering of tanks and wanzers.

The troops quickly assembled, the infantry running up to stand alongside the tanks, creating a three pronged assault, one which the wanzers soon turned into a solid wall as they filled the space between the prongs. They then began to march forward, the dull thudding of armored feet echoing into the city, only to be drowned out by the screams of civilians as they began to stream past the Terran’s feet, trying to fight their way deeper into the city, and whatever protection it might offer against the coming army.

“Rise and Starfall, infantry,” said the Terran, his voice transmitted to the pod, and the quarian quickly began to adjust the mass effect field around the armor, the generator beneath her feet straining as it took away some of the mass from her partner, allowing him to leap into the air, almost ten times his own height, and spinning. Holding out his hands, his palms began to glow, like a bright star being held in his grip. However, that view soon distorted, as a barrier appeared in front of the opening, shaping and reshaping itself as the quarian worked her magic.

When the shot left his hand, the blast was not a single stream of fire as it should have been, but instead the lens of barrier energy refracted the shot, the shape dividing a single strong shot, into hundreds of tiny ones. Bolts, instead of streams, rained down on the troops below, not a one missing the mark. Each hit was perfect, and the ground troops, a mixture of asari, salarian, and turian, were felled by them. Despite their armor’s barriers, they were nothing to the power of reflex energy, which clove through them as easily as the air, reducing them to their constituent molecules.

“We need to protect the city!” shouted the Terran, and held out his arms as the blast ended. Rather than pull a weapon, or otherwise threaten the ones on the ground, the Terran merely clutched his fists, and suddenly had omnitools glow on his arms, forming from the energy of the barrier. Inside the pod, the quarian continued her work calculating angles and how much energy to divert to what process. Feeding the data back into her console, she struck a button giving her partner the go ahead.

“Chakram storm!” he cried out, and then spun in the air on one heel jet. The ones below, intent on their mission, continued to advance on the city, many taking aim at the fleeing civilians, but as they fired, the disks from above struck the ground between them and the city. The instant after a disk struck ground, it expanded, going from half a dozen feet diameter, to almost fifty a piece. Each disk seemed at first, to be hollow, but as the fire struck home, the disks proved their worth, and not a single shell was able to pass through them, forcing the wanzers and tanks that remained of the ground force to refocus on the Terran above.

“Time for knife fight range!” he shouted again, and whipped his fists out to his side. The omnitools responded by forming blades on his forearms that looked like orange wings as he finally came down from the sky, swooping in like some avenging angel. The units below reacted as one would expect, firing wildly at the incoming enemy, but their smaller slugs found no purchase on his barrier, and he would simply turn his assault to the side to avoid the heavier, slower shots that might have at least damaged him.

When he landed, he struck hard and fast, cutting a tank in twain as he came down, and then immediately spinning to avoid several new streams of fire that came his way. As he spun, his arms found new targets, his left slicing cleaning through one of the wanzers, the suit groaning in protest as its reactor was pierces, while he took the turret off on of the tanks with his right, kicking the thing into one of the still standing mechs, which was too top heavy to take the impact and fell backwards.

“Shield and sword combo!” shouted the Terran as he came to a halt, his arm blades vanishing even as he spoke. He then let his left hand go a bit, the fist uncurling and leaving a slight space between the fingers and palm. The next second, the reason for this became obvious, as the barrier around his arm changed shape, becoming a long thin shaft about half as tall as he was, a shaft that began to fill with blue light as the reflex weapon in his palm sprayed the liquid energy into the space. His right hand, in the meantime, soon had a buckler shield shaped barrier on the forearm, one that he used to block a shot coming in from that side, before leaping into the air again.

He came down hard into the middle of the thickest part of the enemy formation, slashing with his sword as he came down, cutting apart a half a dozen units with a single stroke even as he landed. Behind him, the quarian’s hands had vanished as she worked the controls, keeping the barriers around him strong, even as she focused and refocused the one continuing the sword, allowing the reflex energy contained with it out in small, razor thin shards, which would slice easily through the enemy’s armor, after the containment barrier pierced their barrier.

The buckler was used both to block more of the fire from his right, intercepting a huge blast that came to take his head off from a wanzer that was equipped with hands, but held a massive bazooka in them. Cold, and emotionless, he then proceeded to dance through the mechs and tanks, all of whom now focused on him, not a one noticing the chakram barrier to the city falling as the power ran out on the devices. Had they noticed, they probably couldn’t have taken advantage of it anyway, as the Terran tore through them.

Thirty-seven wanzers, fifty-six tanks, and almost a thousand infantry, these were the forces that had been sent to lay waste the city. In less than ten minutes, the infantry were smoking craters, the tanks were, at best, nonfunctional, and at worst were smoking piles of slag, and the wanzers were in pieces. The Terran, stabbing the last of the mechs through the cockpit, watching the life fade from the eyes of an asari, whose face twisted in hate for a moment, before going dark, simply thought of it as a job well done.

“We’ve got incoming!” shouted the quarian in his ear, and the Terran turned where his indicator pointed to see something huge in the sky. It didn’t take a genius to figure out it was the cruiser that had launched all these knives in the first place, and it screamed bloody murder as it came out of the sky. A quick thermograph showed it was hot, mostly from re-entry friction, but somewhat because it was spinning its weapons to power. Specifically, it was spinning the big cannon that would wipe out the city up for a kill shot.

“Give me a wave shot!” responded the Terran, and then opened his hands, holding them at his said, his fingers pointed at each other. The sword and its energy dissipated the instant he held his hands in that fashion, and the quarian had to work even faster as she diverted power, the barrier now forming in orb between the Terran’s palms, palms which then shot forth their blue energy, beams of liquid light colliding and spray around the orb, pressing outward against the barrier, but never piercing it as the shell contained the destructive force.

The Terran’s stance changed, leaning down as he braced himself for the force of the backblast, his eyes never leaving the cruiser overhead as he could see the glow from inside it’s main cannon, as well as several smaller lights from the lesser offenses which would likely be used to devastate the countryside for miles, just to make a point about defiance. The Terran did not intend on giving them the chance, his view soon filling with targeting locks as he took aim with his blast.

“Kamehaduken!” he cried out, and then shifted his stance again, now holding his palms upwards and out, facing them towards the ship in the distance. The barrier between his hands breached in the direction he was facing, the energy inside being directed by the barrier, which shaped itself into a funnel. The shot blew forward, and one could feel the heat off it, as it burned its way skyward. Better, one could see the force behind the shot, as the Terran’s armored feet dug into the soil, forcing them down into the dirt, and creating several feet deep holes beneath his soles.

Even had the ship been shielded, the force of the shot’s impact would have been enough to at least divert its course. In the atmosphere, without its barrier, the ship shuddered at the touch of the energy beam, which tore through armor and flesh, exploding outward from the point of impact. All across the ship, one could see explosion on the hull, as superheated air tore through the inside of the vessel. A forms could be seen in those flames, silhouettes that looked to be screaming as the fire consumed them. Finally, the ship itself was split asunder, and the pieces fell to ground, far from the boundaries of the city.

“Confirming target’s destruction, protoculture engine down to six-point-one-six percent capacity. Pod reactor’s power level is at fifteen-point-oh-oh-seven percent power. Battle time, nine minutes, eighteen seconds. Civilian casualties, zero. Sync Rate...oh my, two-hundred-eighty-seven percent, that can’t be right,” said the voice of the controller, as the pristine cityscape and the torn up field around pair began to dissolve, becoming wireframes that then withdrew into the walls, revealing the chamber as it had been when they entered.

“Confirm again, our sync rate was what?” asked the quarian, as she detached her pod from the back of the Terran’s armor, the man slumping a little as his full weight returned. She then projected the hologram of herself, smiling at him as he stretched and rolled his shoulders, keeping them loose.

“Ah, I see. My calculations were at fault. I had set the bar quite a bit lower for what the limit of sync would be,” said the control voice, and said speaker soon entered the room through a side door. The visage was one known throughout the Federation, and both Terran and quarian snapped to attention as the Prime Thinker entered the holochamber.

“So we were off the charts?” asked the quarian as he came close, writing something down in his notes.

“Indeed you were Ms. Zorah. Might I ask some questions of the strategy you employed, however?” he said, and the two nodded.

“Your last few missions have resulted in an almost one-hundred-percent capture rate among your targets, even the slavers and pirates. Why then, were you go intent on killing these targets? Was it simply because it was a sim?” he asked, and the Terran shook his head.

“No, sir. Pirates and slavers are criminals, and possibly not by their own choice. There are a variety of sociological and economic factors that can force one into such a state that makes such a lifestyle choice the best option from a lot of bad ones. Those sorts of people deserve our pity, until a life is taken, and our help, if at all possible,” explained the Terran, never leaving his attention stance.

“And the forces in the sim?” asked the Zentraedi.

“Organized military force attacking a civilian colony. They weren’t there for resources, or slaves. If that had been the case, the heavier artillery would have stayed in the rear as a support, less risk of damage to what you want to steal or capture. They were here to exterminate, only reason for the formation they used. Anyone willing to follow an order like that isn’t worthy of pity. Or remorse,” said the Terran in a cold voice, and Exedore nodded, while jotting a note down.

“And if they had been here for capture, what would their formation have looked like, and how would you have responded?” Exedore asked as a follow up.

“They would have had the infantry in the front, with their tanks in the rear firing into the sky, landing shots at the edges of the city, to keep the people boxed in. The wanzers would have followed the infantry to the edge, but stopped there, so the mechs could provide support fire for the infantry, while also keeping an eye out for runners,” this answer came from the quarian, interestingly enough, with just enough of an edge to her voice to make it known that she was likely a survivor of the New Raaya Offensive of some ten years previous.

“Chakram charged with overload pulses in front of the infantry would have been enough to cripple their barriers, then a second overload, this one designed to stun organics to knock them out. The wanzers would then be forced to become the vanguard of the assault, likely blocking the tanks from firing on us as we drew closer. Wanzers disabled by having their limbs chopped off, it would have taken some time, but it would have been doable with them basically getting in each other’s way,” began the Terran.

“After the wanzers are down, you take out the tanks via simple means of a mass effect field. Lower their mass enough, and unlike the more articulate wanzers, they’d be helplessly flopping around in the air, probably unable to get any kind of firing angle, and even if they did, shots would seen them flying backwards as the force of firing would translate into them as much as into the shot, reducing the overall damage a shot could do by a significant portion regardless,” he concluded..

“And what of the cruiser?” queried Exedore.

“It would have little reason to destroy the city in the event of a failed assault, and thus, would likely simply flee, whereupon we could call in fleet assets to capture it. Should its commander decide to ‘scorch earth’ as it were, the beam we fired could be adjusted to blast their engines, while also altering their flight path, crashing them well outside the city safely, for later retrieval of the crew,” he answered promptly. Quick to check, Exedore ran the numbers on his omnitool, and found that, with the data he had, he could easily see the pair pulling off just that plan, should they be faced with it.

“Hmm, I will have to adjust my charts to account for your sync ratio in this test. Until that time, I want the two of you to recover. That means your personal projects are sealed, am I making myself clear?” he told them, and the pair nodded, before saluting in the Terran fashion. The man then marched for the door without another word, offering his arm to the quarian girl as he exited the holochamber, and they then quickly made their way down the corridor towards some unknown destination, hopefully some place they could relax, but knowing those two…

“Begin log entry,” said Exedore as he sealed the door shut behind them, locking it with his own personal code. The room around him then hummed, a hologram of an indeterminant biped taking shape in front of him.

“Log open, what would you like to discuss today Prime Thinker?” it said in a woman’s voice, and Exedore smiled. The holo was a physical representation of the algorithm that ran the Factory. She was, for all intents and purposes, a tool, rather than a sentient mind like an AI, but he had come to depend on her, and used her to bounce ideas off of, as well as recording his thoughts for later perusal.

“What do you think of the performance of our two young people today, Zero-Zero-One?” he asked as he brought up a smaller version of their sim in front of him, showing only the important area where they had been fighting.

“Tali’Zorah’s skill at manipulation of the mass effect fields are second to none within the current Research Teams. Jon Shepard has also exceeded most other candidates at combat proficiency, ranging from hand to hand combat, to general tactics,” said the holo, and Exedore nodded, still impressed by their efficiency in dealing with the invaders in the sim.

“Still, Ms. Zorah has no real world combat experience, while Mr. Shepard has almost half a decade under his belt,” he said, bringing up their files. Zorah’s was mostly empty, only her assignments to the Rannoch Home Guard and the Factory being noted. Still, at fourteen, she had more than proven her worth in the sims, and her mind was second to none. The current pods were, if he was honest, more than half her design, milking power from the eezo cores that even Exedore himself hadn’t been able to do. Certainly she’d proven to some neighsayers that the quarians recruiting thirteen and up, their age of adulthood, was justified.

Shepard, meanwhile, had been in the military for a little under five years himself. At nineteen, he was a decorated combat operative, with at least four ‘heroic adventures’ under his belt, including an incident where he had somehow defended Mindor from a pirate attack for twenty-three minutes, including four wanzers, twelve tanks, and about a hundred infantry, all without arms or armor beyond a civilian classed omnitool. Without him, that colony would have been torn apart.

And that was ignoring his contributions to engineering. The boy was a genius, plain and simple. The chakrams, made by shaping mass effect fields, were his own invention, and at nine he’d proven himself to be adept at understanding eezo tech, more so than even most of the so called scientists of the Council. Without his understanding of the barriers the infantry had used on Rannoch, it was likely that world would have been taken before they could have gotten forces to aid them a decade ago.

“These two could do such good here, on the Factory,” he mused to himself, opening a registry he kept on his Research Teams. Scrolling down to the end, he opened Purple Team’s folder, and looked them over. Since those two had started to work together, the Team had been responsible for multiple innovations, including a segmented core design that would be put into production later that year which would finally, after a decade of research, allow protoculture engine equipped ships to also contain an eezo core. They would finally be able to match eezo pirates in real space, rather than having to piggyback geth and quarian ships into fights.

“The data suggests they could do good off the Factory as well, and they are requesting field assignments,” the holo reminded him, and Exedore sighed. The young, always wanting glory on the field of battle….no that was unfair. Shepard didn’t want glory. That was his sister who acted like that. He wanted to help people, really help them, and be able to see their faces. He never seemed to be able to understand that even if he didn’t see the results, helping them by developing new tech in the factory was far more efficient.

Tali for her part, merely wanted to stay by his side. It was her first assignment request, and Shepard had agreed to it, which is what had brought them here, to the Factory together. She was up for an officer’s promotion, and after their performance today, Exedore would give his go ahead on it. Then they would get reassigned, probably to some far off outpost where their brains wouldn’t have access to all the tools the Factory offered them. They’d be happy, that was certain, as they would be together, but they wouldn’t be helping develop the future of their people.

“Ah, to be young and in love,” he said, and the holo looked at him.

“Statement, the pair have yet to express a romantic interest in one another,” it told him, and Exedore chuckled. Sometimes, computers could be so blind to the data right in front of them.

“Such is the way of the young as well. Still, we will need to get these results to Red Team right away. Perhaps Sarge can motivate his team to use the data in the development of that new vehicle of theirs. What did they call it again, the Puma?” asked Exedore, trying to remember.

“Records indicate that they are currently referring to it as the Warthog,” offered the hologram, and Exedore just stared at it for a moment, before shrugging. It wasn’t like he was one for names anyway. Pushing a few buttons on his omnitool to save some personal readouts, he then exited the holo training room, moving on to Blue Team’s area, to see how they were coming along with their latest development.

Chapter Text

Welcome to the Federation News Database. Events in the News Today

>The Quarian Voters have Spoken, Election results in for all current quarian colonies, incumbent Conductor Vai’Gerrel keeps position on Conclave against fierce opposition from Oriana’Raan.

>Rebellion on Titan Squashed, Neo Khyronian agitators suppressed on Titan after they took control of the moon’s Terranforming station. Private Third Class Jane Shepard declared a hero for her part in the matter. No survivors of the extremist cell remain.

>Perseus Veil in Mourning, today, a great man, the Administrator for the entire sector, died in his sleep at the age of 48, memorial services are expected to be held in the coming weeks.

>Krogan Convexity to Expand, the gathering of krogan on their homeworld, Tuchanka, has declared their intent to recolonize the six ‘war worlds’ amidst hot debate.<===

Topic Expanding….

Today, the Father of the Convexity, Urdnot Wrex, declared his people’s intent to reclaim territory gifted to the krogan people after their actions in the Rachni Wars of some fifteen-hundred years previously. The Convexity, a state that has itself only existed for fifteen years, has done much to improve the position of the krogan race. From creating a central government, to restoring older cities, to simply giving shelter to a people who had been scattered to the winds, the Convexity’s good work is hard to argue with.

Still, there is much trepidation amongst those who have a long memory, and recalling the Krogan Rebellions, a series of wars that nearly toppled galactic civilization of the era as the krogans claimed several worlds beyond their granted space, expanding and conquering throughout the galaxy. They were stopped by the then newcomers to the galactic stage, the turians, who not only fought them back to their homeworld, but then released the genophage, a plague that rendered the krogan nearly sterile, which caused their entire war machine to collapse.

Video of Father Urdnot is available, would you like playback? Y/N? Y….playback initiated.

Wrex: I’m not one for big words, or speeches. I’m far too old for such things to have meaning anymore. I have seen the passing of more years than even the oldest asari Matriarchs. Sixteen-hundred-twenty-eight of them, if you want to get into specifics, and I know you young people do. Did you know that only sixty-four of my people can claim to be my elder, and only three-hundred-sixty of us even remember the Krogan Rebellions?

Wrex: No, today’s average krogan is under five hundred, and many of those are separated from the Rebellions by at least five generations, if not more. Yet, they have been punished for that war, for a fight that they themselves never had a claw in. All this time, they have been told that they were brutes, savages, wardogs who did nothing but destroy. Is it any wonder that they continued to rebel, continued to be violent, when that was all they knew to be?

Wrex: To them, I as the Father, and our Mothers, have said no, you can be more. In fifteen years, a hundredth of the time we have been part of the galactic community, we have rebuilt more, healed more, and become more, than in all the centuries before. No turian military, no salarian spy, no asari politician has done as much for our people as we have done in this decade and a half, and will continue to do so. Yet, we are still denied the rights, rights that are granted to other races without them having to prove themselves so.

Wrex: We stumbled, that is true, but now we stand here, not as warriors, not as soldiers, and not as weapons, but as people. We stand, and demand our rights to those worlds that were once our own, worlds that stand fallow even after all these centuries. Would you deny our young these worlds, solely for a war their elders barely remember, and none of you can claim to have fought in? I say no, we claim those worlds, granted to us at the end of the Rachni War, and will make them live again, as we have done to Tuchanka. We will show you what being a Krogan is truly all about. Not the strength to fight, but the strength to LIVE!!!

Returning to Feed...

Following this announcement, the Council declared its intent to deny the krogan colonization rights on the ‘war worlds’ that are part of the Krogan DMZ, but pressure from the Terran Federation, the Volus Consortium, and the Church of the Enkindlers, forced them to relent, and allow limited colonization of two of the six, saying that ‘Until the krogan have proven that this is not simply the prelude to another Rebellion, we must exercise the utmost caution.’ Observers from the Citadel Council, as well as all three of the aforementioned groups are slated to be present at the founding of the first off Tuchanka krogan colony in over a millennium, to provide both support for the krogan, and observation of their actions.

Returning to Headlines…

>Eden Prime Grows, the colony, an agro world, welcomed its five-hundred-thousandth colonist today, allowing it to claim the title of second largest colony world in the Exodus Cluster, only being beaten out by the sector capital of Terra Nova.

>Batarian Hegemony Gains a New Voice, as the Hegemony welcomes its first native leader since the Titan War, one Groto Ib-ba. Ib-ba’s only comment upon his victory in the polls, defeating rival Jath’Amon, claims that he will lead his people into a new age of prosperity, along with their Terran allies. Ib-ba is expected to take his people’s seat on the Conclave in the next few weeks.

>Volus Consortium’s New Guns, as the maiden voyage of the Profit-S comes to a close, the first volus built dreadnaught in history, the government is already planning its next development, including three sister ships for their large vessel, which currently is defending their homeworld of Irune.

>Agents of Destruction? Council SPECTREs have recently made headlines as two in particular, Ms. Tela Vasir and Mr. Saren Aterius have both been accused of murder and/or sabotage of Federation Facilities in and around the Hegemony’s Territories.<===

Topic Expanding....

SPECTREs are the Council’s hand in places where normal force is simply not an option. Chosen from amongst the most skilled, the most dedicated, and the most powerful from the races loyal to the Council, these individuals have long been called the best of the best, the true super beings of our age. Even Terrans respect what they represent, and normally, are willing to at least allow them passage through Federation Space, where many of their ilk would be denied the same right.

However, it is also known that these agents of the Council’s Will engage in activities that are detrimental to other governments. In the past, accusations have been leveled at them in cases where they are suspected to have been involved in both black market deals, and possibly in the deaths of Federation citizens. Normally, such charges are answered, and evidence is presented by both sides. To date, no SPECTRE has ever been convicted of crimes within Federation Space, but that may soon change.

Tela Vasir, an asari Matron, skilled in both combat operations as well as aggressive negotiations, has been credited with many feats of heroism, including the dissolution of a slaver ring in the Terminus Systems that had kidnapped over a thousand Council citizens. She has also been accused more than once of various brutal tactics, including once torturing a representative of the Dekuuna government. As an agent of the Council, none of these charges have ever been made to stick.

Terrans might remember her best for the death of a batarian official, Ka’hairal Balak, one of the chief opponents of the Federation during the annexation of the Hegemony some fifteen years ago. Though no solid proof was ever actually found, it was long suspected that she had a hand in his death by asphyxiation in his apartment when it sealed him inside and pumped the air out. Since that time, she has also been, however loosely, connected to the deaths of several quarians, batarians, and even two volus who had been trading with the Federation.

There is little ambiguity in her actions as of two weeks ago, however, as Vorkan Tarak, a Commander in the Blue Suns PMC, was gunned down in his home on one of the batarian colonies. She claims that she had evidence linking his company, and Tarak personally, to several small acts of terrorism inside Council Space. While she has since fled to the protection of the Council, it is expected that the Federation will demand extradition of her for her crimes, as well as reopening several previous cases that might involve her.

Saren Arterius, in the meantime, may or may not have been involved with the destruction of an eezo refinery on the planet of Camala inside Hegemony Space. The turian, brother of Desolas Arterius who is infamous for making first contact with the Federation, denies these charges, claiming that they are yet another way the Federation is trying to take control of the galaxy. Investigations into the factory’s destruction continue, and we will have updates when they occur.

Returning to Headlines…

>Voyager Probe Recovered, the long lost probe of humanity, the first object sent beyond the bounds of the Sol System by the young race, was finally recovered today, more than two centuries after being lost in space. The probe, now displayed in Gloval Station, is said to represent the drive of Terrans and their human ancestors to explore and expand their horizons. Tourism to the station is expected to triple as a result of this discovery.

>Empress Aria T’loak to Tour Her Kingdom, Aria T’loak, formerly the leader of Omega, currently head of the largest empire in the Terminus, is going on tour of her holdings today from aboard her flagship, the Empress’ Throne. The ship, formerly the FFS(Federation Fleet Ship) Greystone, a Command class ship measuring almost three miles in length, is typically a common sight around Omega, and is expected to return after a six month tour.

>Blasto Blasts onto the Stage, as the first hanar to be made a SPECTRE, Blasto has some big expectations to fill, but given his obvious skill considering his diffusion of a standoff at the Federation border last month, there are many who see him as the perfect SPECTRE for the times. Sadly, the hanar was unavailable for comment, as he was sent off on his first mission immediately upon elevation.

>Advertisement to begin playing in 3.2…..connection with Federation New Database Disabled….please have a nice day.

Chapter Text

The desolate, lifeless plains stretched away into the distance, and the frankly the flat terrain offered nothing to look at. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The plains weren’t lifeless. Everywhere one looked, the brown rocks were covered with green moss, the only significant life that could be found on the whole planet. They turned red as the sun rose over the horizon, highlighting the barren emptiness of the world. The only features that could be seen was a small mound of dirt, pulled up from the ground by the hard work of the miners, and a small shanty town of prefab buildings that stood in the shadow of her own prefab home.

“Another day in Paradise,” said the Terran woman to herself as she came out of her home, scoffing contemptuously at the name for the place. Idly, she considered returning to her home, and just watching the news feed some more. The night had brought some interesting developments, and there seemed to be something happening on one of the nearby worlds in the Exodus Cluster. She was genuinely curious to see what all that was about, but she decided that her job had to come first, especially if she ever wanted her tour of duty here to be over.

“Up and at’em you lazy bums!” she shouted, knocking on a few of the prefab roofs as she passed them by, much to the annoyance of those inside. Not that the eclectic mixture of people complained too much. They were growing used to the Terran woman’s early rise, and they did get paid more the more they mined, so it worked out to a next positive. Looking down, she watched as the eclectic mixture of species climbed out of their prefabs, yawning, stretching, and most putting on the armor that helped in their work.

They were all micronians from across the galaxy. Asari, turian, quarian, batarian, even a few micronized Terrans, all slowly getting ready for another day in the mines. This was the result of Virmire having that one element everyone in the galaxy wanted, eezo. Deep in Terran space, this particular cache of the stuff belong to the Federation, but as they’d found out from two previous planet cracks, the stuff was very vulnerable to energy overload. Pumping too much power into it caused the stuff to break down, thus, it was best to mine by hand, and with a more delicate touch than most full sized Terrans were capable of.

“Bucket Head, Four Eyes, get your asses in gear!” she cried as she made her way around the small town, and reached two of the houses that stood slightly apart. Unlike the more mundane homes of the miners, these two were armored domes, declaring to one and all that the occupants were military, part of the Ground Forces of the Federation. One had a special attachment to the home which looked like a solid block of metal, just sitting there, while the other had a pod like thing with a clear glass bubble over it.

“I’m up, you harpy,” said an older voice from inside the dome with the pod next to it. Coming out from inside was a batarian of middle age, whose four eyes seemed to stare off in four different directions as he came outside. Still groaning and complaining, the man climbed into the pod beside his home, which instantly hummed to life, a small glow of a mass effect field springing up from beneath it, before it took off into the air. Turning around, the Terran allowed the pod to settle between her shoulder blades, hearing the now familiar chirping of her armor as it linked with the thing.

“System linked, eezo core charged, all systems go. I’m going back to bed,” said the voice in her ear, and Shepard sighed. While she stood there, the door to the other home opened, allowing its occupant out into the daylight. Shiny, blue metal had the morning sun glinting off it, as the geth platform strode from his home, and then walked over towards the cube, pressing its palm against the thing, which then opened itself up on one side.

“This unit wishes you a good morning,” said the geth in her ear, and the woman nodded down at him.

“And to you. Now boot up and get ready. We need to get our patrol started,” she ordered, the platform turned to her, nodding, and revealing one of the more defining features of it. Namely, where most geth platforms were things of smooth lines and odd patterns, this one had a very asymmetrical hole in its chest. Said hole was soon filled as the platform walked into the cube, running a spike into that hole as it walked forward, producing a rather disturbing scraping sound as it impaled itself.

Before one could really process the scene, the cube changed, the opening folding closed as the rest of the unit came out. First, arms came out of the sides, allowing it to pick itself up, while legs slowly came out of the bottom. After a few seconds, the thing stood up, the body a bit thin compared to the Terran’s own, but still serviceable, especially as the arms quickly ran through a few of their configurations, from claw hands, to gatling guns, to what looked like an egg whisk with a glowing dot in the center of it.

“Warframe online, Corporal Shepard, you appear to be more focused on your work today than before, may this unit inquire as to why?” asked the geth warframe as the two of them walked away from the miners, who were happy when the pounding footsteps finally vanished over the horizon and they could get to work.

“Well….well because we just hit our eighth month anniversary,” she admitted as they walked, her hands balling into fists, and then going flat again.

“Hmm, your tone suggests that you find this situation to be different than most of your other reassignments,” responded Legion as he followed her step matching step.

“Isn’t it? We’ve been reassigned to garbage posts plenty of times, like that whole stint on Eden Prime a few years back, that place was just boring. But usually, those last a month or two, tops. We’ve been here a lot longer than that, and there’s a lot less to do,” she told the geth, who seemed to consider her words.

“This unit has compiled a listing of all our postings, and must conclude your data is accurate. This unit wonders as well why the reassignment order hasn’t come,” admitted Legion, and Jane was about to go off on a spiel about how no one truly appreciated what they did, when her radio crackled a little as the batarian added his voice to the conversation.

“Have either of you considered that while you two do great work, and I mean compared to almost anyone else, you also disobey orders, and often break things in the course of your actions,” he told them.

“I never disobey an order in combat,” stated Shepard directly, and the batarian just groaned.

“Yeah, well, combat isn’t the only time a soldier is expected to follow orders. Also, need I remind you that the last time you disobeyed an order, you broke a moon,” added the four eyes, and Shepard wished she could shake him a bit, but his pod had it’s own gravity field, so he wouldn’t even feel it.

“It was only a small one, and I think the new ring made the planet look a lot less drab,” she countered, and Charn just groaned he was about to say something else, when suddenly all three had alarms blare in their ears. Instantly the batarian, who had been leaning back, hoping the two would shut up so he could take his nap, sat straight up, and began to study the display, even as Shepard’s eyes got an overlay of what he was seeing.

“Underground activity? I thought they were digging west today. Isn’t that where the next payload is?” asked Shepard, wondering if maybe they should start towards another sector, as she’d heard the miners complain often enough about her footsteps shaking the tunnels.

“They are going west, the northern deposits are smaller, no need to go after them until….SHEPARD JUMP!!!” the batarian went very quiet for a moment there, as he studied the display, and then shouted almost deafeningly into his mic. Without waiting for an explanation, Shepard followed the order, leaping as high as she could, even as she felt the mass effect field around her reduce her weight, allowing her to sail into the sky, Legion soon joining her to provided a steadying hand.

Looking down, she was about to question just what the heck was going on, when the ground quite literally exploded where she’d been standing, rocks and dirt hurled in every direction away from the center of the blast. That sound that soon echoed over the plans, as the clatter of debris fell away was a roar, and in the center of the dust cloud, one could clearly see a writhing mass living tissue, armored plating, and enough blade like appendages to make even Shepard herself self conscious about her blade, all wrapped around a creature that was sticking up out of the ground at half again her own height, and probably even more beneath the surface.

“By the Masters! What is that thing?” swore the Terran as she floated above it, watching the thing squirm, arms that looked like massive scythes digging trenches into the ground.

“Thresher maw,” came the breathless response of the batarian, and Shepard scoffed.

“Yeah, yeah, big worm. Tell me, does it bleed?” asked Shepard, pointing her palm down at it.

“It should, why is that impor-,” before he could finish the question, Shepard’s palm shot a bar of blue light down at the thing, which impacted the armored plates just above the thing’s eyes, causing the plate to give a little, pressing it closer to the one behind it.

“Because if it bleeds, I can kill it,” she said, kicking away from Legion, over the protests of her partner as she began to rain blue fire onto the worm, causing it to look up, and roar at her. Shepard’s response was to roar right back at it, as she reached onto her belt and drew her sword, the thing unfolding to its full sixty foot length as she came down, using the force of her fall to increase the impact the weapon would have. Of course, the thing was quicker that she expected, and one of those bladed arms whipped out at her, knocking her aside, and causing her to crash to the ground, sending up another shower of dirt.

“Shepard-Corporal,” said Legion in that monotone voice of his. Shepard could still hear that note of concern, as the warmframe began to circle overhead, arms unfolding from beneath the main body, and laying into the thing with gatling fire.

“I’m fine, Legion, this thing just caught me off guard,” commented the Terran, as she rose back to her feet.

“If you’re fine, then I’m ordering you to beat feet. We are not going to try and fight a thresher maw on foot,” commanded Charn.

“Aw, where’s your sense of adventure, Four Eyes,” chided Shepard, holding her sword out to her side as she considered her options. Not seeing a way to get close to the thing, as it seemed to randomly move around, the arms flailing at the geth in the sky, as if trying to drag it closer.

“I gave you an order Shepard!” shouted the batarian, as Shepard herself charged forward, ducking between the arm blades of the thresher maw, and stabbing upwards with her blade as she fell to her knees. Sliding through the loose dirt at the thing’s base, her weapon skidded along the armored hide of the maw, causing sparks to fly from the carapace, but doing little more than that, before the woman was forced to leap away as one of the blade arms somehow reversed its direction, and slammed itself down where she had been a second before.

“Sorry, Master Sergeant, but our assignment is to protect this planet from all aggressors, and right now, this thing is being plenty aggressive,” countered Shepard as she rolled away from a follow-up strike from the maws other bladed arm.

“Against this thing, the best idea is for you to start running in the opposite direction of the camp, while we call in some long range support. Preferably the type in orbit,” explained Charn.

“You’re sure this thing will follow?” asked Shepard, as she leapt between the blades this time, narrowly avoiding being vivisected by them.

“It should. You feet are the loudest thing on this planet, and these things are attracted to sound vibrations,” answered Charn. Retracting her blade, Shepard took off running as the thing slashed at her again. Legion, having been listening, tried to fire a bit more at the thing, his shots at least cracking the carapace, even if the slugs themselves weren’t enough to do any real damage.

“It’s times like these I wish Legion still had missiles,” commented Shepard as she ran, trying to outpace the thing just enough to keep it interested. Sadly, it wasn’t interested at all, as it roared at her back once, before it turned, and then dove underground again, moving in the direction of the mining camp.

“I thought you said this this was attracted to sound!” demanded Shepard, pivoting on her foot and blasting at the ground around the thresher maws seismic signature, trying to at least get the thing to surface again.

“This unit’s data confirms Charn-Master-Sergeant’s assertion. Hypothesis, there is something in the camp making a more pleasing vibration,” said Legion, firing at the ground in the same pattern as Shepard. At the same moment, Charn’s fingers were flashing over his console, quickly running calculations and strategies, while also opening a comm channel.

“This is Charn to all hands in the mines. We have a thresher maw incoming to your location. I repeat, a thresher maw is attacking. Get out of your holes and into the shelter on Shepard’s home. Use the long range comm there to get us some reinforcements,” he ordered, before resuming the sims in front of him.

“Shepard, blast twenty degrees north of the last shot, aim for the lichen,” commanded Charn, and Shepard did as ordered, getting a nice geyser of flame from the ground as her blasts hit, causing the thresher maw’s roar to echo muffledly through the plains, before the beast itself rose from the dirt.

“Deep lichen colony,” explained the batarian, and Shepard nodded, as she began to lay into the thing again with her blasts. Her palm shooters did nothing to the thing, however, and she didn’t want to dare get close now, as those blades could somehow whip around at angles that the things worm like body really shouldn’t allow.

“Smart, but now how do we kill it?” asked Shepard, dodging another claw as it reached out towards her.

“That thing’s hide can take reentry friction and impact. I don’t think you have anything on you that can match that sort of heat and force. For now, we contain it, then we get the guys in the sky to fry it. Whatever you do, don’t get too far away from it, though,” advised Shepard as she dove between two slashes again, firing her palms towards the joints where the arms and torso of the beast met.

“Yeah, what, does this thing shoot lasers out of its eyes?” she asked, suddenly getting inspiration to fire at the eyes as she landed. Unfortunately, the thing just twisted itself out of the way, so her shots hit only hard carapace instead.

“Worse, acid spit. Stuff’s supposed to be corrosive enough to melt starship armor, and I really would hate to have to break in a new Terran to ride,” he informed her, and Shepard idly considered turning her back towards the maw and letting it tear the pod off her back. She had to banish that thought as Legion did another strafing run of the thing, and she followed up with her palm blasters, trying to press the carapace where he struck it. She did get a satisfying crack, but it seemed the thing was smart, turning itself so the injury was facing away from any further attack as it struck with its arms again

“Charn-Master-Sergeant, this unit is now out of ammunition for its small arms. Requesting further orders,” said the geth as it sailed away from the fight a little ways. This proved to be ill advised, for as if on cue from the warning, the maw arced back, and then shot forward, a glob of bubbling green goo coming out of its mouth. Legion, being in a warframe, dodged the assault easily enough, looping out of the way, only for the thing to throw two more in rapid succession, leading the targeted AI so it could only dodge one.

“This unit has taken structural damage, minor hull fractures, repairs ineffective,” said the monotone voice as the warframe went straight upwards.

“Legion, bail out. Shepard, catch him,” ordered Charn, and then warframe had a small shape detach from the rest of it. Quick on the uptake, Shepard ran for the falling platform, sliding between another slashing move from the maw, and then leaping into the air. Her hand outstretched, she felt a tingle as the mass effect fields around her body consolidated into a cushion above her palm, one the geth fell right into, before she brought him close to her chest, curling into a ball, and landing on the ground below with a sound like an explosion.

“We just lost air support,” said Shepard sardonically, as she braced for this battle to become a lot harder.

“Negative, Shepard-Corporal. Air support has merely become heavier,” said the geth over her comms, and Shepard turned around to find the warframe falling out of the sky, the maw roaring at it as it fell, and even hurling another glob of acid. Not that this did anything to the now empty shell body, which continued to plummet, finally striking home on the monster worm with a rather sickening crunch of meat and carapace. Hit hard enough to shatter those already weakened bits of its armor, the maw fell over, seemingly dead.

“That thing took a lot of punishment. Why weren’t we warned something like that was on this planet,” complained Shepard as she brushed off her arm, holding Legion in her hand as she walked towards the corpse.

“It shouldn’t have been here at all. This planet isn’t the sort of world a maw likes. No where near enough large game to feed something like that here,” commented Charn as he began to run every scan he could of the beast.

“Well, obviously we need to update the data on them,” she told him, whipping out her sword, and preparing to make sure the beast was good and dead by stabbing it in the eye. Before she could, however, a strikingly familiar sound began to echo over the plains.

“Breetai’s eye,” swore the Terran, as not one, but six more thresher maws burst up out of the ground nearby, all of them rather obviously miffed over their dead comrade, and something in their insectile gaze told her they blamed her for the murder.

“That...that’s not possible,” stammered out Charn, and then he quickly turned the mass effect field to maximum, allowing Shepard’s foot thrusters to move her like skates on a child, hovering just over the ground, and moving with surprising speed for something as large as she was.

“You didn’t tell me these things were pack hunters!” shouted the Terran, firing at the worm hord, two of which dived down, while the other four began to fling even more acid at her, burning deep welts into the rock where the lakes worth of stuff struck.

“They’re not! Thresher maws aren’t even found on the same continent usually, outside of mating. This is unprecedented,” answered Charn, shifting the ME field so that Shepard was jerked to the side, just in time to avoid one of the thresher maws coming up from beneath her and skewering her with its claws.

“Yeah, we’ll report it to the science journals when this is over. Now how’s about you check on our backup!” complained Shepard, firing at the newly emerged maw with her free hand, before leaping over another acid spit glob.

“This is Charn to the camp, what’s the ETA on some reinforcements,” sent out the batarian, still trying to keep his eye on everything the sensors reported so he could maintain the field around his partner, and keep her moving.

“Sergeant, this is Telos Vran, we’ve got a problem,” came the answer seconds later, and the batarian grumbled to himself at the asari’s words.

“Yeah, we’ve got a problem. It’s called six thresher maws trying to slice or melt us,” he told her, wondering what in the name of plebs could be important enough to not call for help.

“Six thresh-by the Goddess,” said the asari breathlessly.

“I’m fairly certain we could use more real world help. Now what’s happening with our reinforcements?” asked Charn, while lowering the mass of Shepard’s body so she could leap over one of the maws as it blasted out of the ground in front of them.

“I’m afraid to say, they’re not coming. All long range communications are inactive,” said Telos, and Charn swore again.

“What do you mean inactive? Are we being jammed?” demanded Shepard, as she fired a few blasts on the ground around her, causing more explosions of fire that man the maws beneath the ground surface there, rather than catching her as she slid across the plains on her heel jets.

“Negative, it’s more like no one’s answering. The hypernet buoy is still active, and the fold space comm works, but we can’t raise anyone with them,” she told them, and this time Shepard was the one to swear.

“Then we need closer firepower. Shepard, what sort of heavy weapons do you have in that fort you call a home?” asked Charn.

“I don’t know what your ta-” began Shepard, who supposedly had only her armor on this assignment, command not trusting her with anything stronger than that.

“This is no time for lying to your commanding officer, woman! Now, what have you got?!” demanded the batarian.

“An old twin buster rifle. It’s a memento of my mother’s crew on Shanxi, the same one she used to disable the Talons’ support frigates back then,” admitted the Terran, and Charn nodded, calculating vectors, fields, and everything else in his pods computer, trying to ignore the readout that was telling him he was down to less than fifty percent power, and dropping fast.

“Legion, what about you? Any heavy arms?” asked Charn.

“Negative, this unit’s arsenal was inside the warframe body, and did not deviate from assignment parameters,” said the geth.

“Alright, we still need to keep these things away from the camp. Legion, do you think you can handle a fastball special?” Charn spoke as he began to run further sims, detailing battle plans and the like.

“This unit’s structural integrity is quite sound,” answered the AI, and Charn began to refocus the ME field around it, buffering it as best he could for the trip it was about to take.

“Okay, plan is we send Legion to the camp, he retrieves your gun, and gets into onto an ore loader to get it out to us. Then we blast these things back to space dust,” explained Charn, and both the geth and Terran nodded. Still floating on her heel jets, Shepard spun in place once, adding momentum to her toss as she opened the hand holding Legion, and hurled him through the air in the direction of the camp. He wouldn’t quite make it all the way, but he did land well outside the thresher maws area of interest, as the worms continued to pursue Shepard.

“Legion, I stored the gun in my personal locker. The code to get inside is-” she began.

“Password Backwards,” finished the geth, and the Terran woman was about to protest, when the maws hurled even more spit at her, forcing her to flare her right jet and send her careening away from the new lake of acid that soon splattered onto the ground.

“The password to your personal storage is ‘drowssap’?” asked Charn, trying to keep a conversation going as his fingers continued their flight over his controls, trying to conserve as much power as possible.

“Nope, it’s ‘Password Backwards’. Got the idea from an old human 2D vid,” she informed him, before blasting out with her palms again. They continued to dance around the worms, trying to keep them interested, for several minutes, as they waited. Beyond them, back in the camp, Legion rushed past the shelter beneath Shepard’s home, and made for the towering door that led inside the main structure. Quickly connecting to the primary computer inside, the geth opened the door, even as he rushed past towards the spot where a loader vehicle sat idle.

A few keystrokes, and Legion had the transport up and running, the flatbed behind him flipping back and dumping a load of rocks onto the ground before he gunned the engine hard, and made for the door to Shepard’s domicile. Luckily, she had a ramp for easy micronian access, allowing him to literally drive the thing into her home, only lightly scraping the doorframe as he screeched to a halt. Accessing the computer again, he caused a nearby closet to open, revealing the blocky form of the twin buster rifle.

“This unit has visual on the weapon,” the geth transmitted, even as it climbed out of the cab of the vehicle and then shot up the side of the closet. The rifle was by far larger than him, almost three-quarters as long as Shepard was tall. That didn’t seem to fluster the the geth, however, as Legion climbed his way up behind the weapon, and then began to push. Servos in the platform’s joints protested against the strain they were being put under, grinding and whirring loudly, but Legion ignored them as he put every joule of energy he could behind his push, finally causing the rifle to tetter forward, before falling, landing right on the bed of the loader.

“Weapon acquired,” he transmitted, before leaping back down. Reentering the vehicle, the geth activated the bed’s me field generator, causing the rifle to clatter a bit as it was locked in place. The instant he confirmed the weapon wouldn’t be going anywhere, Legion shot off out the door, and drove as quickly as he could towards the pair, who were still skating over the plain on Shepard’s heel jets, staying just ahead of the six massive forms of the thresher maws.

“This unit has visual on your position,” he informed them, and saw the head of the armored Terran turn towards him.

“Legion, incoming!” shouted Shepard in his ear, and the geth turned the wheel hard to one side, just before a glob of bubbling acids splattered onto the ground where he’d been. Taking this to mean he needed to be a bit more defensive, Legion ceased his straight line course, and instead began to swerve wildly around even more spit globs that were hurled at him, the route taking him ever closer to his target. Before he got there, the geth gunned the engine hard, and then dove out of the cab, landing with a blast on the ground, even has the loader sped straight towards Shepard. The reason for his abandonment became clear when the vehicle suddenly got tossed upwards, bits of it spraying around the flat plain, as a thresher maw shot up out of the ground beneath it.

“I got it!” Shepard declared, leaping into the air, and then grabbing the left handle of the rifle. Taking the other in her right, she flicked the latch key with her fingers, and separated the two sides out, before laying into the thresher maws with huge beams of yellow light. Unlike her palm blasters, which were more police than military level, this weapon was far stronger, and the two energy arcs tore right through the thresher maws, cooking their eyes in their sockets, and causing the carapace to crack from the heat. One fell dead instantly from the shot, but the other dove, as steam poured from beneath the shell.

“Burn worms!” she cried, as she fired again. Somehow, the worms seemed to sense the attack coming, and dove into the dirt again, burying themselves beneath the earth.

“That’s not gonna save you!” she told them, and began to fire into the ground. Of course, like with some of her own shots, gouts of flame poured out of the ground, as deep lichen colonies were set alight by her fire. Sadly, her shots may have caused damage to the terrain, but the thresher maws were unharmed, as they dove deeper than her rifle could penetrate.

“This isn’t good, we have to keep them away from the camp!” said Shepard, and Charn, behind her, just grumbled at the obviousness of the statement, while he ran the numbers. Legion, in the meantime, ran up to where they were, and using his own eezo core, leapt four dozen feet into the air, and grabbed onto the outside of Charn’s pod, gripping it tightly in his three fingers hands.

“Okay, we have one chance. These things are smart, but they have to see a tactic before they can adapt to it. If we can take out all five of the remaining maws in one shot, we win,” he explained, and Shepard nodded.

“Yeah, good plan, but how do we go about that?” asked Shepard, annoyance in her voice as she looked down at the ground, her display overlaying the seismic sensors readouts of where the worms were.

“Only one option. Use the resonance function on your rifle,” he told her, and that seemed to bring Shepard up just a little short.

“You do realize that leaves me with one shot, right?” asked Shepard, looking down and trying to get a good angle.

“Then you had better make that one shot count!” ordered Charn, and Shepard nodded, latching the two rifles together again, and then hitting the large red buttons on the sides of their grips. The instant that was done, a whining sound began to echo over the plains, as Terran, batarian, and geth tried to calculate where to fire to get all of their foes in a single blast.

“Shepard, jump!” ordered Charn after a moment, and without questioning it, Shepard did just that, using her jets to sail into the sky. The moment she was off the ground, the thresher maws all emerged from the dirt, blasting their way out from underground, and looking about for her. Smirking, Shepard took aim at a spot about equidistant between them. Pulling the triggers on her weapon, the things whine, which had seemed to be growing ever higher, stuttered to a stop, before death itself emerged from the barrels.

Twin lines of fire raced around each other, looping and coiling like living things. The maws below, looking up, might have thought, if they could, that the sun itself was falling towards them. Whatever thoughts or instincts did reach those brains of theirs, it was far too late when one decided to dive, as the shot hit the ground, and instantly Shepard was flung away, as a dome of fire began to consume the planet below. The clouds, silently drifting blue bits of fluff, were torn apart by the winds, and the noise was deafening as it echoed outward into infinity.

Landing hard, Shepard tried to keep her eyes on the assault, watching as the top half a sphere, appearing to be a dome made of light, began to expand from where she had fire. The forms of the worms, what parts of them were above ground, were soon consumed by that light, not even surviving as silhouettes. When the light slowly faded, the fires of destruction going cold at last, there was a wound on the world, a deep bowl cut into the once featureless plains, and one could see bits and pieces of five huge worms burned into the edges.

“Targets down, beginning post battle assessment,” said Charn as Shepard, using her jets, slowly guided herself back to the ground, right one the edge of the bowl. Landing heavily on her feet, she crouched a little, allowing Legion to leap of her back, before standing tall again, and then eyeing the twin buster rifle in her hands.

“My armor’s protoculture engines are down to twelve percent. If this armor were military grade, rather than a civil defense model, this wouldn’t have been an issue,” commented Shepard as she began to dump a load of steam out of the tanks of her rifle, letting the excess heat vent into the atmosphere, as she and Legion began the walk back towards the camp.

“Pod’s power plant is down to eighteen. Considering everything we did, however, it should be dead. I suppose I’m a better pilot than I thought,” added Charn, as he vented the pod’s heat sinks as well, while also stepping down the ME field so the generators could rest a while.

“This unit’s primary platform has suffered minor structural damage, however the primary power plant is at thirty-six percent,” said Legion as a last, while running system diagnostics on his platform, finding a few bumps, one overstressed servo that would need to be replaced, and seven others that would require tuning. Overall, this was the most strain he had ever put on the platform, speaking of how desperate the situation had been.

“Computer readout says our sync ratios were...twenty-nine percent? That can’t be right,” said Charn, going over the details of the report.

“That’s almost three times our best, isn’t it?” asked Shepard.

“A few points shy, but yes, it’s far and away our best performance as a three unit team,” commented Charn, letting the battle play out on his display. Of course, five minutes later, just as the camp came in sight, all three of them got a red flag on their sensors.

“You have got to be kidding me? More of them?!” shouted Charn, turning his head so he could look behind, and just as the sensors said, something blasted its way out of the ground, showering the trio with dirt clods as it roar in a slurred tone at them. Curious at this, Charn zoomed in, and just stared at what he saw.

“That’s the one Legion slammed his warframe into, half the skull is caved in,” he said in shock, and then was thrown to the side as Shepard leapt away from a spray of acid, having to keep her feet away from Legion. The geth, for his part, shot off towards the camp in the distance, as the spray fanned out randomly, some of it even backwashing onto the maw, as the crippled jaw refused to open all the way and let it out.

“How is this thing still alive?! I can see its brain, and chunks of that appear to be melting,” demanded Shepard, as her partner turned his pod back to power, allowing him to stand up again against the force of her movement, as she dodged an odd strike, as the thing literally threw a chunk of one of its arms at her, the bladed tip burying itself easily into the soil of Virmire.

“Thresher maws are hardy things. I’ve heard stories of ones that have been cut to pieces and come back, but I thought those were just stories,” commented Charn, trying to run the data, and find some way to kill this thing.

“Yeah? Well, let’s see just how survivable this one is. Make me as light as you can, and on my signal, reverse it!” she demanded, tossing her useless rifle aside, and instead drawing out her blade, which quickly snapped to full length, and she held in her hands straight up.

“Your plan sounds dangerous,” said Charn, even as he did as he was told, figuring it would take too long to come up with something else, and considering their low power and lack of weapons, it was doubtful anything he could think of would work anyway.

“Well then, let’s get dangerous!” she cried, before charging, sword first, as the maw, which roared defiantly at her, even as the spit dripping from its mouth melted the connections to one of its mandibles, causing that part to fall to ground with a thud. Shepard, reciprocating the roar, didn’t falter, even as drops of the acid began to strike her armor, eating holes in the metal as her barrier was focused entirely on making her lighter. If those drops got through to her flesh, she didn’t show it, instead leaping upwards just before she got close to the maw, who swiped its one good claw at her, before staring upward as she sailed into the sky.

“Die monster, you don’t belong on this world! Now Charn!!!” she hefted her blade aloft, and then pointed it straight down, Charn reversing the ME field so that instead of making her light, it made her several times heavier, and so she dropped like a rock. Almost a thousand feet she fell, but her course never wavered, and the injured, probably insane maw, didn’t trying to twist or deflect her strike, instead letting her blade pierce its brainpan, the mass of the Terran slamming hard into the worm and causing it to fall with a crash to the ground, kicking up a cloud of dirt and debris as it struck down, obscuring the scene to the miners watching in the distance.

When the cloud cleared, Shepard stood there, one hand on the hilt of her weapon, breathing hard, as her legs felt at least bruised, possibly broken. Beneath her heel though, the maw squirmed and writhed for only another few seconds, before it was at last silent, leaving her there, standing over her kill. An hour later, Jane Shepard, now Sergeant for her actions, Charn, and Legion, were onboard a scout class ship, sailing away into the heavens, while an entire squad of armored Terrans took over her post. Strangely, despite their new guardians being more numerous, and far better armed, the miners would actually say in later days they felt safer with the Terran woman to protect them.

Chapter Text

Jon woke with a start, the alarm ringing across the room, and his eyes flying open. His brain, used to more continuous thought trains, was momentarily unable to do much more than run around in a circle. At least until he felt the three fingered hand draped across his chest, and looked down to stare into the silver face of the woman he’d spent the night with. Smiling, he punched a button on the wall of his quarters to silence the alarm, and then, with her breathing softly, he slowly moved away from her, pushing off the bed, and then standing up.

Stretching, working a kink out of his back, Jon looked around his shared quarters, before finally spotting his omnitool sitting on the shelf, haphazardly thrown into the space between a set of hardback novels. Smiling, remembering tossing the thing off before he’d been dragged off to bed, he slipped the device onto his wrist, feeling that tingle that came from the eezo core inside it pressing against his skin. When the display was active, he pressed a few buttons, and then wandered over to a slot set into the wall of the room, opening it and pulling out two trays that he gently set down onto a nearby table and waited.

He didn’t have to wait long. As heavy a sleeper as the quarian woman was, she still awoke when she smelled breakfast, and rose up to a sitting position, before stretching out her arms, getting a few pops for her effort. Following this up by wiggling her long, surprisingly dexterous fingers, she turned towards the source of the smell. Pulling the covers off her lower half, she revealed that at some point, she’d at least been able to find a pair of pants, whereas Jon himself was nude save his omnitool as he gestured towards her seat.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Zorah,” he told her as she sat down. She then held up her hand for a moment, taking her coffee cup in the other hand, and quickly downing several gulps of the stuff before sighing contentedly.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Commander Shepard,” she told him with a smirk. before they both began to eat. The meal was actually rather elegant, considering their posting on the command cruiser, Intrepid. Fresh, for most definitions of the word, eggs, some bacon, and a few pieces of toast. Compared to most of the Terrans on the ship, he ate well, though that was considering most of them chose never to come down to their crewmates level and thus didn’t eat. Tali’s meal was much the same, though she got a few pancakes made with dextro ingredients, that she cut with precision using a single fork, enjoying the flavors.

“So, what orders were Bill and you discussing before you decided to sweep me off my feet last night?” asked Tali through bites of her fluffy breakfast, and large gulps of coffee.

“Nothing too complex. He just wants us to pull off another miracle is all,” explained Shepard, sopping up a bit of grease from his plate with one of the slices of toast, before shoving it into his mouth.

“Oh? Any sort of miracle in particular?” she said nonchalantly.

“They think they finally have the coordinates for that pirate base we’ve been trying to track down for the last six months. We’re going to lead the ground assault squad. Captain Eisen said he wants as many live prisoners as possible. We have to find out who’s backing these guys, and shut them down this time, rather than blow up the moon and kill all the little fish, so the big ones can slip away and try again with some new patsies,” he explained, and Tali nodded, hearing a note of derision in his voice as he spoke of the incident from eight months previous.

“So, just some quick smash and grabs. Sounds like a rather mundane miracle. Still, this means you’ll need your big boy pants, I suppose,” she told him with a smirk, and the Terran smiled back at her, as they two of them finished up their meal, placing the plates back into the slot they’d come from.

“It does at that. It also means we should get going. We don’t want to be late for the debrief,” he told her, before curling her arm around her waist, and pulling her closer. Their lips met for a few short, sweet seconds, and Tali leaned in to push her hands into his chest, letting their bodies feel the warmth of each other, before her let her go, and then snapped off his omnitool, this time laying it properly on its holder. Smiling back at her, he walked to the door, which slid open at his approach, letting him out into a huge chamber which seemed to fly into the heavens, many times the height of their quarters, and at least as wide as every room combined.

“Blair, time to get big,” he shouted into the empty space, which echoed with his words. After a moment of silence, he heard the telltale chirp of the AI tuning into him.

“Alright Shepard, just give me a moment, Captain Eisen is feeding me some data...done. Magic water, make my Terran grow!” came the voice of the of the AI, giving the same comment as always, just before liquid began to rush into the chamber from the walls, filling it far more quickly than one would expect given the size of the space. Still, the Terran stayed where he was, his body denser than the liquid, with its many floating drops of light in it, that soon reached the top of the chamber.

The instant it was full, lightning started to play along the walls, arcing outward, moving through the various light drops, and then flowing into the Terran, who jerked his body a bit at the touch of the energy, more of of habit than pain or surprise. The sensation was like a small static shock, but it felt warmer, a feeling at spread over every part of his body as the arcs continued, shocking him in places, and slowly draining the lights of their brightness, while causing his own skin to take on the green tones for a moment.

Seconds after he’d stepped into the space, the liquid drained, the light drops completely inside his form, which now filled the massive space. Coughing a few mouthfuls of the liquid out, Shepard shook his head, and moved his fingers through his close cropped hair, before leaning down and knocking on the now tiny door at his feet. Standing again, not even looking down, he pressed his hand into one of the chamber’s walls, which slid open to reveal a skin tight suit, a set of powered armor, and a link pod.

“Ah, such a nice view,” said Tali, looking up at Jon from the floor. The Terran man chuckled down at her, setting the link pod on the ground in front of her, before beginning to slip into the suit. Zipping it up, he was grateful for Tali’s help in shaving the night before, meaning he didn’t have to worry about hairs getting caught in the teeth. Once that was done, he pulled the armor out, and pressed a button on the rear of it, the suit standing straight up and allowing him to literally step into it after the back opened up. The thing sealed shut with a hiss of air, and his vision soon showed the start-up sequences, while it also projected Tali’s face into the lower right corner of his view.

“A knight in shining armor. Every girl dreams of having one of those,” she told him, while outside, her pod rose into the air. Instead of linking now though, she pushed a few buttons on her console, and had the thing start projecting a hologram of herself. First it created a wireframe bubble that expanded out in a sphere from her pod, slowly gaining definition of her arms, legs and face as it grew, then, as it reached the proper shape, the wireframe filed in one square at a time, adding the details of her flesh, and by the time Shepard was able to move his armor around, Tali was standing beside him, smiling at him.

“And of course, every knight needs his lady,” he told her, taking her hand and guiding her out the door of the chamber and into the halls outside. The Intrepid’s corridors were currently a small bustle of activity, as the command ship’s staff rushed to and fro. On their scale were the Terrans and the projected crewmen, most in your average uniforms, though a scant few Terrans wore their armor. At their waists were the tracks one which ran trams running through the ship, carrying the smaller scale crew between their stations, most heading to tactical command, the bridge, or engineering.

“Briefing room three,” said Shepard, and then led the way through the rush of bodies, getting a few nods of acknowledgement as he passed by a few crewmembers. He returned the nods he got, and after a few minutes, got to a drop tube. Leaping into the weightless space, he quickly kicked his way downward, pushing against some handholds in the wall, getting to the deck he needed only seconds before Tali joined him, and the pair went straight to the briefing room, finding the captain already there waiting for them.

“Captain Eisen,” said Shepard, he and Tali both giving the fist over their heart salute, which Eisen returned, before motioning them closer. The two approached the man, Shepard noticing a slight grey tinge to his formerly dark ebony skin, and his eyes, which used to look bright holding that dull ache that came of too many nights without a rest cycle. Even though Terran bodies didn’t require sleep per say, rest was useful, and constant work tended to tire one out. Had this been a civilian ship, Shepard would have ordered his captain to take a leave of absence for a few days. As it was a military vessel on a mission, he chose to hold his tongue, as Eisen pressed a button on the control panel in front of him, causing the tabletop to project a small holo of their current destination.

“This, Lady and Gentleman, is Torfan, an ice moon of an unassuming gas giant, which normally would be so far off the charts not to even bother naming,” he began.

“But, this one has been home to several pirate clans in the past, including the Turanic Raiders who harried the Flotilla a few decades ago,” continued Tali, and Eisen smiled at the quarian girl, nodding at her statement.

“Very good memory, Ms. Zorah. Indeed, this thing has been so used by the pirates, that most figure it’s too obvious to be a pirate base anymore. Our intel says different though. According to our friend you and Mr. Shepard captured at the port a week ago, there’s actually a hidden base somewhere on its dark side that’s planning something big,” as he spoke, he zoomed the map into the presumed location of the base, which was indicated with a large question mark.

“Right now, the plan is simple. We get in, hold in orbit above the base, and send in a ground assault team consisting of some of our best operatives. Hopefully, the pirates see reason, and surrender. If they don’t, I want you down there to put the fear of Terra into them,” said the captain, and Shepard nodded.

“What am I looking at for a team?” asked Shepard.

“I’ve got Gash, Catscratch, and Vagabond already down in the bay getting ready for a drop operation,” answered Eisen, pressing another button and bringing up the profiles of the men. John ‘Gash’ Dekker was a tough marine type, with deep blue skin typical of you a close Zentraedi heritage, and tended for brute force over subtlety. Troy ‘Catscratch’ Carter was everything Gash wasn’t, a focused individual with pale pink skin, who tended to treat each fight like a work of art, rather than a battle. Finally, Winston ‘Vagabond’ Chang was a nice mixture of the two, a man who’d seen far too many campaigns in his time, and was good at most forms of combat.

“So, heavy weapons, close combat, and long range. A good mixture of skills in that team. Is four men all I’m going to get for this op?” asked Shepard, planning out how best to make use of his crew.

“No, I want to add a few to this team, but I’m almost certain you’re not going to like all my choices,” he said, and then pushed a button to bring up three more files, and he was proven right on how Shepard would feel about it when he saw them. Leeroy ‘Headlong’ Jenkins, known for shooting first and asking questions never. Veetor ‘Boom-Boom’ Nara, a quarian of soft spoken nature on the ship, but who tended to be rather violent behind the controls of his unit, an old Monster class destroid he’d pulled out of mothballs. Lastly, but certainly not leastly, Todd ‘Maniac’ Marshall, a man who used to be a veritech pilot, before he’d proven to be more of a danger to his wingmates than his enemies.

“Hmm, a rather odd mixture there,” commented Tali as she looked over the faces of the men who would be serving with her.

“I will admit, their skills aren’t really what I would want watching my back either, but they’re some of the best combat operatives on this ship. If you run into any trouble, they could be an asset in clearing out the enemy forces,” explained Eisen.

“Or, they could trip the rest of us up and cause all kinds of problems on the ground,” countered Shepard, as he stared at the floating images of the three men.

“Does that mean you’d rather leave them up here and pick your own team?” offered Eisen, and Shepard quickly shook his head.

“Sir, no, sir. Your assessment of their skills is accurate. Any one of those three is a useful battering ram, and I think I could use them for that purpose if things get dicey. Still, I do want to note that there will be risks bringing them if you want live captures,” Shepard answered, going over scenarios they were likely to find on the ground, from entrenched positions to assault capable formations. Each offered a chance to use his team to their fullest, but for the most part, he saw this particular trio as a handicap rather than a help.

“I do want live captures, but I must reiterate that we have no idea what we’re going to find when we hit that planet. For all we know they’ve got an army of old Titan War era wanzers waiting to launch, or maybe even some kind of new super weapon. Either way, these six give the best all around range of skills, with a lot of destructive force, if such becomes necessary,” responded Eisen, and Shepard nodded, before saluting.

“This team will do fine, Captain. I assume you’ve already got my team in the bay prepping for at atmospheric drop?” asked Shepard, and it was Eisen’s turn to nod.

“They should be prepped and ready by the time you get down there,” he said, and Shepard saluted, before he and Tali exited the briefing room. It was another quick jaunt through the corridors, and up six decks, to get to the bays where they found a fight between their team, already in progress.

“You take that back, small fry!” shouted Maniac’s voice across the bay floor, several of the mechanics, mostly holo AIs, shook their heads while pointedly ignoring the display. Shepard, growling a little under his breath, walked towards the sound of pair and got an eye full of Maniac pushing Boom-Boom’s Mk. VI Monster. The machine was, as its name implied. Quite large, actually about twenty feet taller than the Terran who was doing the pushing, but Maniac was strong enough that the thing actually teetered a little to the side at the shove.

“I’m just saying, if you’re not flying air support, what’s the point of bringing you along,” said the quarian, moving his arms, huge missile firing cannons, in a bring it on gesture. Maniac roared like a wild animal at the reminder of his clipped wings, and began to charge, at least until Shepard stepped between the two. With one punch he laid Maniac on the ground, but then followed it up with a shoulder smash into the Monster, causing it to topple over as well, falling onto its side with a huge bang.

“Is there an issue I should know about here, soldiers?” asked Shepard as he stared at the two. Maniac, scrambling to his feet, bared his teeth in a rather animalistic manner, but said nothing. Meanwhile the Monster was helped back to its feet by Vagabond and Gash.

“Sir, no, sir. I was just questioning why a pilot would be assigned ground combat duty, and we let our discussion grow a little too heated, sir,” said Boom-Boom as he stood back up. Shepard, looking over the Monster for any real damage, nodded.

“Is this true, Maniac?” he asked, and the Terran man’s green skin seemed to take a shine as he suppressed an urge to scream, but then nodded.

“Just a discussion, yes, sir,” he said.

“Good, well then, let me settle this discussion for the both of you. Maniac’s record as a flier is very good, and he’s got a kill count on pirate ships that is the equal of anyone else on this ship. His particular talents in that arena transfer quite well to ground combat duty, and we’ll be making full use of his skills, just the same as yours, Boom-Boom, do I make myself clear?” asked Shepard, and the Terran stood at attention, while one could see the quarian do much the same in his cockpit.

“Sir, yes, sir,” they said almost in perfect unison, as their training kicked in.

“Good, now, I want everyone here prepped and ready in ten for a drop. We’re going down to take out a pirate base, and I want our boots on the ground as soon as we get there,” ordered Shepard, putting on his best command voice.

“Ten minutes, sir? I thought we were closer than that,” asked Headlong, and Shepard shook his head.

“Ten seconds, Private Jenkins. Ten, nine, eight…” Shepard let the numbers trail off as the six in his squad quickly began to run to their assigned tasks. Gash got a gatling gun from one of the lockers, and quickly ran through his weapon check, clearing each barrel, and getting the thing spinning for a second just to make sure it was clear. Catscratch, meanwhile, pulled a small set of handles from his locker, pushing a latch on them to unfold a sets of blades that came out between his fingers, giving him three, thirty foot claws, on each of his hands, which he quickly went through a kata or two with, before sheathing them and sticking the handles on his belt. Vagabond merely pulled out his rifle, a longer sniper model, that he took only a moment to check, before standing at attention with the first two in front of Shepard.

Headlong was far more disorganized, his locker literally a treasure trove of weapons that spilled out onto the bay floor as he opened the thing. Luckily, he kept most of them in such a state that they didn’t fire on purpose, let alone on accident, and so he was able to safely let them clatter to the floor, before digging out an old looking pair of pistols, the kind that fire protoculture canisters. He then dug a little deeper into the pile, pulling several sets of clip for the things, that he put in his armor’s hip deployers, before snapping a pair home into the pistols, and then rushing to his position.

Boom-Boom walked over to the nearby AIs, who finished outfitting the Monster he drove for battle. Affixing the set of four heavy reflex guns to the overhead, and loading solid state slugs into the triple barreled arm cannons, each slug loaded with a variety of explosives and compounds for any situations the reflex guns couldn’t handle. The mechanics then ran through the Monster’s check, one that the quarian interrupted twice by moving just slightly, forcing them to start the diagnostic over, before he was finally deemed ready and able, taking his place in the lineup with a heavy thud of metal feet on the deck plates.

Maniac, living up to his own name, kept an arsenal in his locker, but one that was much better maintained than Headlong’s. This was a place of near worship for these tools of war, with each gleaming like he polished them every day(which Tali had once said she saw him do). A reflex assault rifle, a shotgun that fired shells like Jenkin’s pistols, but larger, and at last a thing that could only be called a bazooka. All were soon snapped in place on Maniac’s back, slowing the man down, as he ponderously took his position at the end of the line.

“Three, two, one,” Shepard finished, almost two minutes after the last count. Still, it was pleasing to see the lineup with their arms and armor ready for combat, helmets closed up around their faces. Motioning with one hand, he had Tali step behind him, and heard the whirring noise as her holo shut down, and her pod then floated into his back, connecting with a buzzing noise as the barrier field surrounded him, making him the most well defended man of the squad. Shepard then ran through his own combat arsenal quickly, creating and dismissing a dozen hand weapons made of ME fields, before standing at attention before his troops.

“Good to see everyone ready. We should be coming up on the planet in a moment, so I want you all to-HOLY MASTERS!!!” the last was said as the ship exited FTL, the sensation of the vessel sliding gently to a stop, just before the world exploded. All of seven of the ground troops, standing near the bay door, their transport by their side, were tossed forward as the bay behind them was torn straight through by some red lance of light. Before they could even adapt to that, another came, this one ripping apart the space above their heads, as alarms tried to warn of a breach, the bay door having been sundered by the second strike, a rush of air blowing everything in the bay out into space.

Seven forms tumbled into the inky blackness, and Shepard took a moment to look back behind them. The ship, the Intrepid that had been his home for almost a year, was exploding outward. Forms could be seen in the flames as tongues of it bored through way through the hull. Briefly, those forms writhed in space, but even the Terran’s hardy bodies need some air to survive, and worse the flames consumed their flesh. Watching the horror, Shepard’s thoughts were grim as he saw not a single man or woman survive their exit.

“Tali, report!” he ordered.

“An attack from the planet. It’s some kind of heavy thanix cannon, liquid metal in a mass effect field. It must have hit the instant we exited FTL, before the barriers could raised,” she said, and Shepard could hear her three fingered hand flying over her console as she ran every sort of scan she could on the ship, and towards the planet below them.

“How many survivors?” asked Shepard, looking desperately towards the bridge, which was currently a smoking hole, with many similar wounds dotting the hull of the warship.

“I’m checking....computer systems onboard are dead, AIs stored there are just gone. Biological signs are zero. I don’t think….wait, ME signals, some of the mechanics are nearby. They’ve shut down to save power, but they’re floating close to us. I’m counting at least thirty,” she said at last, and Shepard nodded gravely.

“No one else?” he said rather dejectedly, as he and his small group tumbled away from the ship, beams of red light finally stopping their assault on the vessel.

“I’m afraid not,” she told him sadly, knowing how many of their friends were now just so much space dust on the hulking wreck, which was falling ponderously towards the nearby planet.

“Those bastards! I’ll kill them!” shouted, of all people, Boom-Boom, aiming his cannons down at the planet below. Shepard, reacting with trained speed, shot his heel jets and stood right in front of the Monster, his helmet filling the view of the quarian inside the cockpit.

“You will, I promise you, you’ll get a chance to hurt them bad, but right now, we’re not in a position to be firing on a planet with an unknown weapon, so you will stand down, now,” he said, placing his hands over the large reflex guns, so that if they did fire, Boom-Boom would be shooting through him. The message, luckily came through clear, and the Monster’s guns went cold again, as Shepard pulled him, and everyone else together.

“Alright, we’ve still got out mission on that planet, and now we have to capture that base to get a comm out of this system. Tali, can you extend your field out to give us a soft landing, while still making it look like we’re just another piece of debris from the ship?” asked Shepard.

“I can, but I’ll have drain half my power doing that,” she warned, and Shepard nodded.

“A cost, but a good one. Okay, let’s gather up all the holos of the AIs that got blown out with us. We’re going to need as many hands as we can get down there,” he instructed, and his men fanned out, quickly grabbing the micronian palm sized emitters, handing them off to Boom-Boom, who stored them in his own computer system for now. That task took just long enough for Tali to calculate a fall angle that would carry them near, but not right to, the firing point on the planet, which was interestingly enough near where the bulk of the ship would strike down.

“This was too well planned to be a coincidence,” said Shepard on a personal comm to Tali, as everyone gathered around them, his suit just starting to feel the friction of air moving past as they entered the thin atmosphere of Torfan.

“They knew our route, the exact point we would emerge from FTL, and when we would arrive to the moment. That information is deep. Worse, they knew the ship design well enough to target it to kill the crew, without breaching any of the protoculture engines. This speaks of a breach at a high level,” she agreed, while still calculating descent vectors and other such things. Trying her best to make them appear like just another set of debris, she slowly extended her ME field around the whole squad, gathering them all close to Shepard as air outside began to spark a bit with their passing.

“Hopefully, the others haven’t realized that yet. Keep this between us. We need them focused on this mission, not what we’ll do when we get home,” ordered Shepard, wrapping his arms around Headlong and Vagabond, while the two of them soon did the same to those beside them, with the Monster pressing itself tight behind them. About them a few pieces of hull from their ship burned to dust, while above and behind, the greatest mass of the wreck was slowly angling away from them, its impact zone likely to be a few miles from the base Tali was aiming for.

“All hands, brace!” shouted Tali, and Shepard felt his muscles tense, as Tali’s signal took control of his armor, and likely those of the other troops, locking limbs in place, and filling the space between the armor plate layers with impact gel. When they finally slammed home, hard, onto the ice, it melted as the hot air touched them, creating a small pool, which they then splashed through, before the field pushed them all away from each other, letting the momentum of their fall out as they rolled around on the ground, the liquid about them freezing quickly around their bodies.

“Report!” shouted Shepard as he broke out of his thin layer, with a bit of an assit from Tali, and then proceeded towards the nearest ice block, Gash, whom he had to punch in the arm to start the ice breaking.

“Sir, unharmed, sir,” came a quick snap off reply from everyone in the unit. Nodding, thankful for Tali’s skill with her pod, Shepard and the rest soon get each other going, with only a bit of trouble with Boom-Boom’s Monster that required them to adjust Gash’s palm blasters to a high heat, low density setting to melt some of the offending ice.

“Tali, did you get an overhead view of the area for us?” asked Shepard as he and the team finally all stood up.

“What kind of girl do you take me for, Shepard? Of course I did. But I don’t think it’ll be necessary. If you’ll look to your left, and position yourselves carefully, you’ll be able to see the enemy base about a mile and half off,” she instructed him, and he proceeded to the rise she spoke of. Over it, Shepard spotted the base she was speaking of, settled into the ice like some kind fortress, along with a literally army of enemy units ranging from ground troops, to wanzers, to far too many tanks to count.

“Vagabond, I need a spot check,” said Shepard, and the aforementioned man joined him at the edge of the cliff they were on. Whipping out his rifle, he set it up with a single motion, and then began to adjust the view through his scope, a few that Tali soon linked with, so she could project a holo for everyone to look at.

“Would you look at all those guys, there’s got to be a thousand wanzers down there,” said Headlong, looking down at his pistols, obviously feeling a little inadequate to the task at hand.

“I count almost twice as many heavy vehicles, mostly tanks, but with a few heavy transports as well,” added Catscratch, and Shepard nodded, while pointing towards the structure they were all gathered in front of.

“They seem to be rather well defended even without the troops. See here, four anti-fighter turrets, and whatever this thing is,” he said, pointing to something that, at first, appeared to be some kind of crown decoration for the base, but a quick motion to the thermographic version of the scene showed the thing was red hot on three of the six spikes coming out from the dome that was at the center.

“Hmm, it looks to be something like a thanix cannon, but the rotating structure allows them to swap the exit barrel. Not a bad design. You lose a bit of punch like that, but you make up for it in being able to fire continuously,” commented Maniac, and everyone agreed with his assessment.

“So, why do you think they have this many guys here? I mean, this is way more than a pirate base would have. This is like a whole army,” commented Headlong, which got Shepard to thinking, before he shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter. Our mission is to take this base down, and capture as many of the personnel here as possible,” he finally declared, and this got a laugh from Boom-Boom.

“Yeah, seven of us, versus all that. Totally a fight we can win,” said the quarian sarcastically, a sentiment you could see even the veteran soldiers seemed to agree with. Before Shepard could chide them for being defeatists before the battle had even begun though, the troops just outside the base began to march. Wanzers flanking a load of tanks and cargo haulers, all marching off towards some unknown destination across the frozen waves of the ice.

“Where are you all going? Tali, can you give me a sky eye view?” asked Shepard, holding up his left arm so that she could launch a small drone orb from the omnitool. When that was done, the holo shifted to a larger view map of the area, eventually revealing that the course the troops were on would carry them straight towards the largest section of the crashed Intrepid, which sat in a divot the great ship had carved into the ice on impact, a line leading down into a depression, rather than a circular crater due to the angle of descent.

“Hmm, interesting,” said Shepard, and then began to type things into his omnitool. Over the next few minutes, as the enemy force pulled away, he ran a dozen or more sims, showing everyone what he thought would be a good plan, and asking for input from each soldier, detailing what they would need to do, and getting their assessment on whether their skills were up to the challenge. About a half hour later, everyone seemed prepared, and Shepard turned to the team that would follow the enemy.

“I know this is asking a lot of you four, but with your tools and talents, I think you’ll be able to do it,” he assured his men, looking over the force he would send against almost a thousand enemies, while he and the remaining two would assault the much smaller force that was left behind at the base, numbering maybe fifty wanzers, and half as many tanks, though backed up by the turrets that were built onto the base itself.

“Commander, we’ve got the easy job here. That big turret’s gonna be tougher to beat than these small fries,” said Maniac reassuringly.

“Agreed. My Monster is worth a thousand of those wanzers,” declared Boom-Boom.

“And each one of us is worth five hundred of their troops, so that means we’ve got them outnumbered at least two to one,” added Headlong. Shepard then turned to the one who would be in charge of the force he was sending out.

“Do you think you can lead them to victory?” he asked Vagabond, who nodded, hefting his sniper rifle high.

“Shepard, you plan sounds flawless, and with us to execute it, I see nothing that they could throw at us which could cost us victory,” said the second in command, who then motioned, and the four troops began to run along the ridgeline they had been standing on. The enemy force had a half hour head start, but their number and their units would delay them much longer, as even the Monster was faster than the typical wanzer, and so they would arrive there. At the same time, Catscratch and Gash made ready to take the camp below.

OoOoO

“Ah, finally,” said the turian from his personal wanzer, painted in his family colors, and with decorations of several sets of old krogan armor set about the thing, making it look like a hodgepodge of pieces, rather than the sleek machine it was underneath all the random bits.

“This is Tonn Actus to all troops. Remember, our goal here is whatever weapons or stores might have survived the assault and crash. That plunder belong to Haliat. Anyone caught trying to line their own pockets will be dealt with, harshly,” he informed the troops, who gave him a grudging aye, before descending on the great hulk like ants on a corpse. Some instantly climbed inside, ready to find whatever they could, hoping to be rewarded for the valour, while others hung back, keeping an eye open for any automated defenses that might decide now to activate.

Tonn himself was amongst the latter group, slowly making his way down the ramp like depression and then stopping just in front of the ship. It was huge, he had to give the Terrans that. It was as large as a dreadnaught, a command ship he believed they called it, and had it been allowed, the things guns probably would have torn their base to pieces from orbit. Elanos had somehow known exactly when they would arrive, however, and so they’d been shot to pieces, the crew killed even before they could launch a single veritech, or get off some warning to the next ship that would be coming.

“This is team one, we’re inside, and there doesn’t appear to be much left,” said an asari voice over his comm.

“Ignore the rest for now, secure the protoculture engines first. We need more of that goop to make Haliat’s plan work,” said the turian, and got a confirmation click over his comm. Looking around, he saw a few nervous spins among the ground troops, who obviously had the most trouble maneuvering around the wreck compared to his units inside their mechs. He just scoffed aside their concerns though. No one could have survived this type of crash, and even if they did, how would anyone stand up to the three thousand men they had? Even the giants weren’t strong enough to fight those sorts of odds…

“Commander Actus! Look!” shouted one of the ground troops, pointing, and Tonn ponderously turned his wanzer to face where he was indicating, and saw something shocking. It was a mech, obviously, something like his own, but by far larger in width, if a bit shorter in height. It had an array of four massive cannons on its back, and one couldn’t help but notice the arms were also guns, thick things, which seemed to be glowing.

“Troops, turn and fire!” commanded Tonn, and his troops moved like the ill trained mass of sentients that they were. Not a one seemed to remember their training, but still, ragtag as they were, he could only see one enemy unit standing at the lip of the depressing the crashing Terran ship had made. Probably some survivor planning on going out in a blaze of glory, nothing to worry about there.

“On the rise!” shouted another voice, this one batarian, and Tonn again turned, finding himself staring up the almost sheer ice cliff that the crashed ship abutted. On that rise one could see three shapes, Terrans obviously, all holding weapons that were aimed downward, and before he could shout at his troops to fire on them, a woosh sound echoed over the area. Turning, he saw flames, huge sheets of them, falling from the sky onto the ice seeming to originate from the mech on the rise.

“By the Ancestors, what are they doing?” he demanded to know, finally holding up his wanzer’s arm. The thing was a hand model, and carried a small, for a wanzer, auto pistol, that he aimed at the mech unit, figuring that since it was the one firing, it was the threat. Before he could squeeze off even a single volley, however, a shot from above neatly sniped his weapon from his hand, leaving the wanzer’s arm a smouldering wreck.

“Pick your targets and fire!” he demanded, and suddenly the little crash depression was a wild melee of bullets, blasts, and flames, as the mech at the lip continued to fire out canisters from its arms, things that would burst open in the air, and then spread out this odd gel that seemed to catch fire the instant it was thin enough. It would then land seemingly harmlessly on the ice, and finally caused Tonn to change tactics. The mech, despite being armed with several more guns, wasn’t doing more than trying to pin them into the depression, obviously allowing his three friends to turn this into a kill box.

“Ignore the mech, kill those Terrans! Bring the wall down!” he demanded, and they began to move closer to the wall, to get an angle where they could fire straight at the Terrans, while using their own crashed ship for cover. Tonn heard a few shouts as he shifted position, using his only functioning arm, one that was just a cannon, to try and collapse the cliff beneath the feet of one of the Terrans above, one who was firing down pistol shots. Oddly, other than the one with the sniper rifle, the other two seemed to be laying down suppressing fire, keeping them pinned, never going for the kill.

He kept his eye on the scanners, looking into space and trying to see if maybe Elanos had been wrong, and maybe there was another ship in orbit, and they were being bunched up to be killed in one blast from the sky. It was after a few seconds of this that one of the shouts for help below his feet got his attention, namely because as he tried to move, his mech’s servos protested loudly. Looking down, he found his feet were covered up to their ankles in water, water that was swiftly freezing over, and had already frozen the ground troops solid before they could warn the mechs or tanks.

“What the?!” demanded Tonn, trying in vain to tear his unit out of the ice, but even as it cracked, more of the water from the fires above poured into the fissures, refreezing them the instant the liquid stopped moving. Around him, he watched as some of the wanzers and mechs stupidly opened themselves up, their pilots trying to swim to safety as their units were submerged and frozen, only for the fools to end up pushed backwards by the tide, becoming frozen themselves. Looking up one last time, he could see the Terrans clapping their hands together, mocking him and his unit, but before he could shoot at them defiantly, the water reached his arms, and froze them in place, leaving him trapped within his wanzer.

OoOoO

“This is away team to base team, do you read me?” asked Vagabond as he watched the water rise to cover the last of the wanzers, leaving the whole force trapped in the ice, all without having to kill a single one of them.

“This is base team, Vagabond, do you have some good news for us?” asked Shepard.

“I do indeed. I am happy to report that the enemy force is frozen solid here. We’ve had to waste most of our ammo to keep them pinned, but not a single one of them is dead by our hands. I think command’s gonna be happy about that,” he told Shepard, who smirked into his comm.

“Excellent. You four get back here. Hopefully, we’ll have the base secure by the time you get back,” said Shepard, before closing the connection.

“Away team did their business, now we do ours’ gentlemen,” he said, and Gash and Catscratch nodded, the former starting his gatling gun spinning, while the latter brought out his claws. Across from them, over an open plain of ice stood the enemy base, squat and imposing with its turrets and smattering of tanks and wanzers. They seemed to be none the wiser about their comrades status, just milling about. Making note of positions, Shepard made a single motion with his hand, and his three troops charged off the icy rise.

“For the INTREPID!!!” shouted Gash, slowed by his gatling, but able to hit them from farther away than the other two. The instant he had line of sight, bolts of blue light flew across the intervening space, small drops of reflex energy which slammed hard into the enemies. The first few to taste the weapons power barely seemed to realize what was going on. Surprisingly, despite a gatling gun’s seemingly wild firing pattern, each shot was precise, with wazners finding their joints exploding as the shots landed, and tanks having their turrets and other weapons blown off, leaving them little more than tin cans on wheels.

“The turrets are mine, you two take out the rest,” ordered Shepard as he whipped out his arms. Tali, behind him, quickly ran her fingers to the bone, calculating and recalibrating the ME field her pod generated, finally creating the short sword and buckler combo that was Shepard’s favorite for close in fighting. Beside him, Catscratch ran, the two Terran churning the ice beneath their feet to just loose frost with every powerful tread, and Gash taking up the rear, moving much slower forward, but laying down covering fire all the while.

Their foes weren’t completely still all this time. Ten seconds after the assault began, and twelve tanks and seven wanzers were laid out by the fire, the purple sheen of harden barriers covered the remaining vehicles, while what few foot troops began to rush back into the base for protection. The harden barriers were like thick skins over the things they were guarding, and as Gash continued to fire, taking one step at a time, his shots impacted, and were absorbed by the barriers themselves, turning his fight into a battle of attrition.

The harden barriers had become the norm over the past decade or so of combat. More energy hungry than the supposed ‘soft’ barrier of the time before the Terrans arrival, they couldn’t be kept on at all times, necessitating that they be activated only when battle started. However, unlike their soft counterparts, harden barriers provided protection from the protoculture based reflex weapons of the Terrans, not popping as that generation had done. At the same time, they were far more protected from kinetic impacts, a flaw in the previous layered barriers that had proven so effective at blocking protoculture weapons. Harden barriers had essentially brought combat to an equilibrium, as defense and offense balanced out, making battles a more tactical affair again.

Still, the Terrans had first move advantage, and as the pirates tried to bring their weapons to bare, turrets slowly turning to face them, and wanzers pounding their feet into the ice as they changed their direction, the Terrans came on. Three miles of open ice lay between where Shepard and Catscratch had started, and the giant covered almost a third of that distance in the ten seconds it took for the enemy to finally begin counter firing. The tanks blasted out, sending shells with enough kinetic force to shatter the ice, while the smaller pellets of the wanzers’ guns tore through the air.

Shepard caught every shot on his buckler, ducking and weaving through the fire so that not a single shell could get through his guard, while always maintaining that forward motion. Catscratch meanwhile, danced into the fire. He never took it head on, always moving to the side, or leaping over it, and even ducking and rolling a few times. This made his progress slower, but also far more distracting, as more fire was shot towards him, the pilots of the tanks and mechs getting more and more frustrated as the Terran seemed to be mocking them with how agiley he moved through their lines of fire.

Thirty seconds after the attack had begun, the turrets on the base finally opened up on the approaching attackers. Huge balls of flaming metal came screaming from the four heavy turrets. Each orb had enough power behind it, that if it had been allowed to hit even Shepard’s buckler head on, it would have torn through the thing in a second. The first shots were wild, however, fired the instant the computers inside the base gave the gunners any kind of targeting lock. This meant that the shots were not well calculated, and the Terrans were easily able to dodge them, the huge balls impacting the ice, and creating showers of steam and rain, obscuring the giants for moments, before they burst from the clouds, even closer than before.

A full minute, with the Terrans one mile from the base, saw the massive six barreled dome turret that had shot down the Intrepid finally take aim at the oncoming warriors. Taking their aim towards the closest of the three, one could hear the whine across the plain of ice and frost as the thing spun itself to power, and then let loose a titanic blast. A stream of red and black power, liquid metal in a sheath made of a mass effect field, came pouring from within the barrel. Aimed well, the thing would have struck the Terran leader center of mass, had not Shepard leapt far higher than his size said he should be able to, Tali lightening his body so he could clear the attack, which bored into the ice where he’d been.

The shot was impossible to move, the mass effect field wouldn’t allow them to shift the firing angle while it was being fired, and so they had to exhaust the shot. This resulted in not only a deep wound in the landscape in front of the base, but a massive steam bank which interfered with sensors, as the hot liquid in the air obscured everything. Not that anyone stopped firing, just that now they fired wildly into the fog, hoping to hit something in their desperation, even as more of the gatling fire came streaming from within the mist, knocking more of them down.

A scene like a horror holo then played itself out in the lives of the pirates. Silhouettes of the Terrans, even more massive than their normal bodies, were seen in the mist, before the titans themselves emerged like wild beasts, tendrils of the fog sticking to them as they burst forth. In one motion, the one with claws struck. His blades were designed for close range combat, the barriers of the wanzers and tanks, not so much. The barriers, designed to stop speedy projectiles, were almost worthless against the slower, but far more persistent, impacts of those sharp claws, which tore through the metal beneath the barriers as well, laying three wanzers out even as the Terran skidded to a halt and search for more targets.

The Terran with his sword and shield didn’t even bother with the tanks and mechs, instead leaping off the head of one of the mechs, to leap skyward. He landed hard on the base, the turret gunners quickly realizing they were vulnerable, even as the shining blue blade of the Terran struck fast and hard, cutting one of the turrets off from the base, and then kicking it hard enough to slam into its sister beside it, taking both out in a single motion. The Terran then ran around the base of the large central turret, seemingly ignoring it as he dashed to the other two, smaller ones, and in a single spinning motion, slashed both clean in half.

“Tali, bomb blade, five seconds!” shouted Shepard as he leapt again, this time his arc carrying him to the center of the huge turret, his feet landing heavily on the dome of metal, which tried in vain to shake him off by spinning, and bringing the barrels of the great weapon up like some kind of cage. The Terran wasn’t tossed aside so easily, however, and instead gripped his sword tightly in his left hand, before somehow releasing it for a moment, reversing his grip on it, so the blade was pointed downward.

“Clear the deck!” he shouted, and suddenly, below, the clawed Terran dashed away, back into the fog, with only two tanks and four wanzers continuing to fire at his retreat, thinking that they had somehow won the day. What they were ignorant of was Shepard atop their greatest weapon, which he stabbed his blade into, the field around the protoculture energy within it sheering into the metal. He didn’t stop stabbing until his palm was flat against the surface of the dome, before he then went straight upwards into the sky, his buckler fading, the mass effect field focused upward, allowing the jets on his palms and heels to carrying him skyward.

The reason for the quick retreat of the Terrans was soon laid bare, as the turret suddenly found a shaft of blue energy coming from an odd angle in its dome. Then a second, and finally a third, before the ME field of the blade failed completely, and a sphere of destruction rocked the whole of the plain, knocking the sky bound Terran into a nearby cliff face that abutted the base, while also scattering the fog, revealing the other two Terrans ducked down, riding out the shockwave of the blast. The few standing ground forces were knocked to the ice, and they did not rise as the shining sphere of light finally faded, their base’s defenses totally destroyed in four minutes, sixteen seconds, by three Terrans on foot.

“Base team to away team, do you have an ETA on your return?” asked Shepard as he peeled himself out of the hole he’d made during his impact on the cliff.

“We’ll be there in about an hour, Lieutenant Commander,” came Vagabond’s voice over the comm, as Shepard began to make his way slowly down the cliff, not trusting Tali to have enough power to bring him down on her own, so he did it one foot smashed into the ice at a time, only letting go when he was only a hundred feet from the roof of the base, and then slamming down onto it.

“Base is externally secure. By the time you get back, we should have the internal structure secure as well. After that, Boom-Boom, you, Tali, and the mechanic AI’s should be able to get inside the base proper and get us a comm line out of the system,” said Shepard, leaping down onto the ice below, just as Catscratch walked up to him, Gash only a few steps behind.

“Begin rounding up the prisoners out here. I’ll see about those inside,” he ordered, getting a set of nods from them, before they started going around, ripping tanks and mechs apart with their bare hands, and grabbing the pilots in their hands and tossing them onto the ice.

“This is an open channel to all pirate forces. We’ve won this, it’s over. You know how we operate. This is your one chance to surrender, otherwise, I get to stain my boots,” said Shepard simply, placing his hand on the base, standing right at the door.

“If you’re willing to surrender, come out now,” he told them on the open channel. As if they had been waiting for that, the massive doors to the base swung aside, and a line of armored micronians began to come out. They appeared to be a good mixture of the various galactic races. Most obvious were the krogans, their hunch backed forms easy to spot from above, though they seemed to be the least numerous. The others were quickly identified as turians, asari, salarians, and vorcha, with a smattering of quarians, and even three volus mixed in.

“An excellent decision,” he told them, letting Tali give him the numbers, even as she used his hand on the base to send a pulse through the thing, registering every movement inside to see if there were any holdouts. While she processed that, the ground troops were slowly moved just outside the base, the two massive Terrans standing guard over them. After a few minutes, Shepard got a list on his display that showed the breakdown of the enemy forces by species, mostly showing it to be an eclectic mixture from across the galaxy.

“Well now, this is odd,” said Tali’s voice in his ear, and he moved a finger to switch to a private channel between the two of them.

“What have you got, holdouts in the base?” he asked.

“No. Well, maybe not,” she said, and replaced the list with a schematic of the base, which rotated in his view as it labeled the various chambers inside, including four separate docks where they must have been keeping their mechs and tanks when not in use. The big surprise though was a shaft set into the back of the base, one that descended into the ice, and just kept going and going until the scanner couldn’t show anymore.

“Hmm, reactor core, or possibly some kind of high security storage chamber?” asked Tali, and Shepard shrugged, before turning to the group of prisoners on the ground.

“Alright, I need to talk with someone in charge. Who’s got the highest rank here?” he asked on an open channel, and got a dozen arguing voices, as various pirate ‘captains’ declared themselves in charge. Listening to them bicker for less than ten seconds, Shepard finally pointed a finger towards one, a female turian by the look of her armor, and then Tali quickly isolated her comm channel, allowing them to speak.

“I’ll be brief. There’s a shaft at the rear of the base that goes down farther than we can see. Is there anything down there we should be aware of?” he asked her in a calm voice.

“Ha, your vaunted Terran technology can’t see our whole base? It’s only three miles deep, what’s the issue?” she asked, and Shepard sighed. Holding his palm out, he fired a small blast so that it struck the ice just at her feet, causing her to stagger back as the solid turned into an explosion of steam.

“Cooperation would be in your best interest at this time,” he said calmly again, and something about the way he said it seemed to cause her to tremble even more than the shot itself.

“Y-y-yes, I see. Well, that’s Elanos Haliat’s personal storage, he’s the big boss of this base. He’s a turian, former SPECTRE some think, no idea myself. He’s the one who provided the specs for that big turret you trashed, and he’s the one who plans our raids. He has big containers sent down there sometimes. Most of us think that he keeps the choicest plunder to himself and puts it all down there, but no one who’s gone down has come back up to talk about it,” she explained, and Shepard nodded.

“I will note your cooperation in my file,” said the Terran simply, turning his head towards the others.

“There’s an unknown space below the base. Tali and I are going to check it out. Keep these prisoners out here, and get Boom-Boom and the mechanics to work on the comms the moment they get here. If we need backup, it would be best to get it here on the double,” he ordered, and the two men nodded, before Shepard went into the base. The route was easy enough to follow, at least to his destination, as it was at the rear of one of the open bays. All around him, however, were small paths that someone of his scale couldn’t enter, making him a little nervous as he stared down at them.

“You’re certain the base is clean?” he asked Tali as they entered the rear bay, walking into an open, and deathly quiet room.

“As much this suit allows. I will warn you, though, I have less than five percent power left. I can provide logistical support, but that’s about it,” she told him, and Shepard nodded, taking a slight detour towards a large rack near the rear of the bay. A quick elbow to the lock, and he opened the thing to reveal a set of wanzer weapons, probably belonging to one of the pirates. Sadly, most projectile weapons required a link with the wanzer’s power grid to work, but there was a knife just large enough for Shepard’s grip that he took out of the thing, testing the weight with a few swings. Satisfied with the weapon, he proceeded towards the only lift that went down the shaft.

“Going down, bottom floor, unknown pirate booty and possible weapons,” he said, pushing the button. Over the next few minutes, the lift slowly made its way down, and Shepard already regretted his choice, missing the gravtubes that made getting between decks on a Terran ship so easy.

“wrzh-buzz-static-kush-perd, w-buzz-kush-am arriv-kush-click,” went the Terran’s radio suddenly, startling him and the quarian for a moment, before the two shared a nervous laugh. Looking upwards, Jon scanned the roof of the lift with his eyes, before pointing his palm upwards, and using a small jet set mostly for heat to burn a hole in it. Thankfully, the lift was made of the same material as the shaft, and melted easily, the small hole allowing the signal through a lot more clearly.

“This is Shepard, can you repeat that last transmission?” he asked.

“Yes, Sir. Away team has just made it back, and the mechanics are already going through the base. The computers up here are trashed sir, and according to the pirates they weren’t like that when they left them. No data at all on anything up here. Comm systems will take a while to reprogram, but they say we should have a line out by the end of the hour,” came Vagabond’s voice, and Shepard grimaced under his helmet at the news. They were here for information after all, and computers being wiped tended to mean someone had even more to hide than you thought they did.

“Acknowledged. We’re two and a half miles down now, probably hit bottom of the shaft in a few minutes. Get those comms up as soon as you can, and make sure they bring some heavy artillery when reinforcements come, because I’m thinking this won’t be just money we find down here,” he ordered.

“Acknowledged, Lieutenant Commander. Good hunting,” came the reply, Shepard and Tali waiting in silence again for the next ten minutes, before the lift finally came to a stop at the bottom of the shaft.

“Full suite scanners,” order Shepard, as he stepped out into a space larger even than the hanger above. This one, however, was completely dark, and the only lights were Shepard’s armor, his palms projecting shafts of light out of their apertures as he spun around, trying to minimize his profile as best he could.

“Data feed incoming. Most of the space is empty down here. Weird, you’d think with a place this large….Shepard, turn your left hand four degrees left,” said Tali, and Shepard did as instructed. What he revealed was odd looking to say the least. At first, they thought maybe it was some kind of trick of the light, making a veritech appear smaller than it really was, but as Shepard walked up to it, it became quickly obvious that this wasn’t the case, as the unit in plane mode barely came up to Shepard’s hip.

“What in the world, I thought that veritechs required protoculture,” commented Tali, remembering how the transformation between the various modes used more power than eezo tech civilizations could generate in such a small space as the fighter. Scanning the thing as Shepard put a hand on it. The scans showed exactly what she thought she would see, a scaled down version of the veritechs that made up a good portion of the Terrans’ military might.

“Weird, it’s got an protoculture engine, but it doesn’t look like a model I recognize. Heck, most of this thing looks ancient,” she said, projecting the specs on Shepard’s view. Shepard barely saw them though, as his light focused on an image on the unit’s side. It was a red circle, cut with a white arrow in the middle.

“It is ancient, Tali. This thing was part of the RDF,” said Shepard breathlessly, moving his finger gently over the symbol, and then looking towards the rear of the craft to see the words, U.N. Spacey stamped on what would be the leg when the unit transformed out of jet mode.

“Robotech Defense Force? You mean this thing is from the Robotech Wars?” she said, realizing they were looking at a museum piece, one that had no business being away from Earth, let alone out here inside the vault of some pirate lord.

“So, do you like what you see?” said a voice from the darkness suddenly, and Shepard instantly killed his palm lights, while his sensors began to fill his view with what they saw in the darkness. Before he could find the source of the voice, however, a staccato of shots flew from the side, the distinctive sound of a veritech gunpod echoing over the chamber. Little drops of yellow light, specially processed protoculture, shone in the dark, and Shepard jumped to the side, his reflexes just that heartbeat too slow as one of the shots struck his shoulder.

“Argh!” he shouted in surprise and pain. His armor, designed a century after the Robotech War, should have been more than capable of blocking the shot, but somehow it punched straight through his guard, burning a hole into his bone and flesh, and leaving his right arm a limp hunk of metal at his side as he fell to the ground. Less than a second after, he felt the cool, numbing touch of medigel in his wound, as Tali pumped the healing goo to the area, and he scrambled behind the line of veritechs, staring into the darkness.

“Not bad, Terran. That should have pierced your heart,” said the voice, and then with a dull thunk, a flood light activated in the chamber’s ceiling. This was followed by the things turning on in series, each coming to life with a dull thunk, and revealing that the chamber was filled with various containers, lining the walls, with a few placed here and there seemingly haphazardly around the floor. The biggest surprise were still the veritechs, in jet mode, a full flight of twenty, ready and waiting for battle, while a battloid mode veritech with some additional armor and a booster pack, stood in a distant corner, his gunpod smoking as he aimed it towards the prone Shepard.

“Elanos Haliat, I presume,” said Shepard, flexing the fingers in his arm, finding while he couldn’t lift it, they still worked, so he passed the wanzer knife to his right hand, leaving his left free.

“Hmm, obviously one of my men up top said something they shouldn’t have. I’ll have to find out which one and punish them once I deal with all of you,” he said, beginning a slow, deliberate walk towards the veritechs.

“You sure about that? I’ve got a squad of one hundred soldiers already up there, waiting for me. If you come peacefully, we’ll take you into custody without harming you,” advised Shepard, crawling his way to keep the units between him and the pilot of the veritech, figuring he wouldn’t fire at the machines, as he hadn’t yet.

“A bad bluff, my Terran friend. You must have been on the Intrepid, probably working in the bay or some such. You probably have only about twenty troops up there, and I assure you, they’re not going to be there long,” as he spoke, Elanos transformed the veritech to guardian mode, letting the jets in the heels of the unit carry him upward, and then pointing his gunpod towards Shepard. The Terran, seeing his cover evaporate due to the enemy’s elevation advantage, fired towards him, palm blasts shooting wildly from his left hand even as he rushed towards the cover of one of the crates.

“Heh, a futile effort,” said the pilot, the shots being absorbed by the purple sheen of a hardened barrier, even as he blasted out several shots from the gunpod, and fired four missiles, which exploded hard on the ground around Shepard. The shots were dodged with skill and grace, the feet somehow moving the massive humanoid around them in a desperate dance. The explosions, however, were far harder to dodge, and the shockwave from them sent him flying, landing with a roll and a pain filled grunt as he smacked his shoulder into the hard ground, but getting him just behind the crate he’d been aiming for.

“Barriers, how did he manage that. Protoculture and eezo don’t mix,” complained Shepard, wishing he was fighting an actual veritech from the old days. His palm blasters were, after all, designed off the old Zentraedi battlepod weapons, and would have been able to tear through the unit without them.

“The field is coming from that backpack his mech is wearing,” Tali advised him, even as her heard her fingers frantically flying over her controls, probably searching for some way out of this situation.

“That would do it,” said Shepard, and then, just as the veritech flew over the crate, Shepard leapt upwards, kicking out with his foot, and nailing the unit’s arm. The gunpod, griped tightly in the fingers, swung wide, even as Shepard tried to grab the thing. Of course, the pilot was good enough to pull away, the mech flying fast in the opposite direction, and giving ground, before bring the gunpod to bare again, just as the Terran rushed away himself, diving behind another crate as shots from the gunpod tore up the ground behind him.

Looking over his options, Shepard found he had little to work with. The chamber was four times the height of himself and the veritech, which did limit the enemy’s verticality, but even with that small handicap, the mech was resistant to his weapons, and its weapons were able to punch right through his own defenses. If Tali’s pod had more charge, it would probably go the other way, but without that he simply had too few paths to victory, and far more roads that led to a swift and violent end.

“Shepard, I’ve got a plan. See the puddle on the floor?” said Tali suddenly, and Jon looked down, finding what she was talking about easily, the sparkling pool, already a hundred feet across.

“Ah. Do we still have enough power for that?” he asked, looking around, spotting the veritech slowly moving closer to him.

“Your suit’s engine is at fifty-six percent, that should be enough,” she told him, and the overlaid a display of her plan on his view. Watching the models of himself and the veritech moving around the room. Studying what was expected of him, Shepard passed the knife from his right to his left hand, and then dashed out of cover, causing the veritech to stop for a moment, as the pilot was caught flat footed by the aggressive move. Taking advantage of his moment of indecision, the Terran tossed his weapon with all his might, letting Tali’s aim assist guide his throw so the weapon struck at the gunpod in his enemy’s hand.

The angle was perfect, and the blade hit home so hard that it buried itself up to the hilt in the gunpod, the barrier, designed to deal with high velocity fire, not registering the slow moving projectile as a threat until it was too late. The pilot swore as he tried to let go of the weapon, but the unit’s fingers were damaged by the force of the impact, and so when the gunpod overloaded into a hail of shrapnel and fire, it took the veritech’s arm with it, blowing it off nearly back to the shoulder, while leaving wounds all along the mech’s side.

“Tricky little bastard!” shouted the pilot, firing salvos of missiles towards Shepard as he dashed across the chamber floor. This was either something Jon had been waiting for, or was just good timing, as Shepard spun on his heels, and then pointed his left hand back into the chamber as he continued his rush towards the lift. Instead of firing a single beam, however, the palm of his hand glowed red hot, and waves of heat emanated from it. The heat was nowhere near enough to do real damage to war machine like the veritech, even damaged as it was, but the missiles were a bit more sensitive, and went off in the air, causing the unit to shudder, and finally fall to the floor of the chamber.

“Gah!” cried out the veritech pilot, as his unit slammed against the floor. Looking back towards him, Shepard’s own mind came up short as he finally got a good look at the pilot. His voice, his name, and his position in charge of these pilots spoke of a turian, but the one he saw at the veritech’s controls wasn’t a turian, it was a micronized Terran. Despite not understanding, Shepard never broke stride, instead finally getting to the lift and then hitting the controls, causing the doors to heavily shut behind him, while the lift itself slowly began to rise.

“Foolish, all I have to do is…,” began Elanos, planning his next move, which would involve blowing the lift away from below. He stopped his rant when two sounds began to echo over the chamber. The first was a high pitched whistle, which he easily located above him, where a small hole in the ceiling had steam pouring out of it. The hole was likely caused by a missed shot when Shepard had first fired at him. The other sound was the far more disturbing one, a low groan, like some great beast beginning to wake after a thousand years of slumber, and it’s source was far harder to pinpoint, till one looked at the far wall.

“Well, shit,” was the last word Elanos Haliat said, as the walls, floor, and ceiling of the chamber crumpled under the pressure from behind them. Weakened by the heat of Shepard’s blast, they were being pressed against by the ice outside, expanding into steam and water. With a groaning crash like an explosion, they gave under the pressure, and a veritable flood of steam slammed the veritech into the far wall, hard enough that one of the wings broke off the side, and then buried itself into the center of the unit.

That was when another sound deafened the room, and Elanos had no time to speak. His last thought was on how much he felt lucky to die like this, before his backer, the one who’d given him the veritechs, could get his hands on him. That thought ended in blue light shooting up from beneath him, as the protoculture engine deep inside the veritech was punctured, releasing all of that power at once, creating a sphere of destruction that shook not only the shaft in which the lift was slowly rising, but could be felt three miles above.

“Shepard! Are you there sir?!” demanded Catscratch’s voice over Tali’s comm.

“We’re here, Troy. Shepard is not going to be able to answer you, I’m afraid. We just used every joule his suit had to beat the bad guy. Sadly, it sounds like we won’t be able to question him,” said the quarian, looking at her own readout and finding she was going to run out of power soon herself.

“Acknowledged. We’ll have a reentry pod waiting by the time you guys get back up here. The mechanics were able to get the communications array here working, and we’ve already got a ship in orbit,” sent the Terran.

“Excellent. We’ve got a lot of info for our debrief,” she responded, filing everything they’d seen away on her board, and then sitting back, waiting as they very slowly made their way to the surface. By the time they got there, they were already extracting prisoners and soldiers, with Shepard and Tali quickly rushed into a pod and sent spaceward. By the end of that day, both would receive promotions, before bidding the intrepid survivors farewell as the two were shipped off to some secret assignment. Stories would later be told by the soldiers at their new posts, and the prisoners themselves of Jon Shepard, Champion of Torfan.

Chapter Text

“Hmm, you’re sure these two are right for this assignment?” asked the man in the room, looking down at the report displayed on his monitor.

“They’re some of the toughest soldiers I’ve ever seen, and I mean since the beginning,” responded the other man, an image of him and the woman beside him being projected from the desk the first man was sitting at.

“Combat wise, they’re the best of the best. I wouldn’t have minded having them at my back during the Robotech War,” admitted the green haired woman to her the two men, and the projection beside her, a man with half his face missing, nodded thoughtfully. She wouldn’t have made that sort of declaration lightly.

“So they’re good at combat. That’s not the only point to this assignment,” commented the man behind the desk, pulling out an old solid state file, a piece of paper in an envelop that he carefully opened and slid across to the two of them.

“I will admit, Sargent Shepard can be a handful, but Legion has proven quite personable, for an aggregant intelligence, and with their recent performance, I think she and Charn will prove to be quite the team,” argued the woman.

“As for Commander Shepard, he and Tali have led mixed units before. Heck, that whole affair on Mindoir had him lead a team consisting of mostly Council races, including an asari matriarch, against the pirates. Those two together are some of our best battlefield strategists, and they inspire others with their confidence,” added the metal-faced man, and the one behind the desk nodded thoughtfully.

“Still, are they the sort of people we want out there, protecting the galaxy, and representing the Federation? Wasn’t the whole point of this project to show we can cooperate, and not be violent savages everyone seems to think we are?” asked the desk man, dark violet fingers running through light purple hair as he leaned back in his chair.

“I believe they are. Unless you know of someone else you’d rather add to the crew,” offered the masked man, and the one sitting behind the desk quickly shook his head.

“No, I believe they are as well, but I wanted to make certain we were in agreement. This is a position of some repute, after all, and as the youngest of our little group, it behooves me to make sure we’re not making the wrong decision for our children,” said the man, smirking at his compatriots. He and they represented fully half of the remaining Zentraedi in the universe, and they were making choices that would reverberate across the galaxy for years to come.

“Then it’s decided. I suppose we should let you go to greet them, and explain their posting to them,” said the woman, standing from her seat, and then bowing towards both her host, and the half faced man, before vanishing. The half faced man himself did much the same a moment later, leaving the one in charge of the base to stare at the empty space for several minutes, before finally his comm buzzed, telling him two shuttles had arrived, carrying the newest crewmen.

OoOoO

“SCP-914, the Gearbox. Weird place to station combat personnel, isn’t it?” said Tali as she stepped off the shuttle that had brought them here. They had decided to greet their new post at the proper size for it, with Tali in her pod projecting an image of herself. She was even wearing her hood down today, to let her black hair hang freely, hopefully making her look more friendly and open than she did when she wore it up.

“I’ll admit, it seems odd to me as well. Still, perhaps this is just a layover?” proposed Shepard as they walked towards one of the doors together. Around them they spotted several Terrans of scale with them, as well as hundreds of micronian workers scurrying about. Oddly, Tali made note of many of them not being Federation races, which was an odd sight on a Space Construction Platform. Typically one of those would be off limits for anyone other than a Federation Fleet officer. Still, the place seemed familiar to them, as they kept out of the way, never running underfoot or the like.

“Well, no time like the present to find out. The pilot said we’d be meeting the station commander in bay four,” said Shepard, leading the way to a gravtube, and then letting Tali go first as they pulled themselves up three decks to meet their destiny.

OoOoO

“So, what’s this SCP’s job anyway?” asked Charn as he laid back in his pod, which was attached to Shepard’s back. He’d spent half the ride over complaining about her shaking up his nice, quiet lifestyle back on Virmire, but, it seemed the complaints were more out of habit than any actual distaste for a change in his circumstances.

“SCP-914 has been designated, the Gearbox. It serves as a test bed for designs that are improvements to previous generations, or combine them in new ways. It is responsible for many innovations over the last twenty-four years, as its primary research line has been in regards to element zero, both the technology and refining it further,” answered Legion, as he and Shepard stepped off the shuttle that had brought them here.

“Which probably means we’re going to be assigned some new ship they’ve never tested...before?” Shepard’s train of thought was interrupted by a sight she’d seen often enough back on Virmire, was still odd to see off that world. Namely it was a turian driving an old loader destroid unit, helping some Terrans to move freight. Typically, an SCP was staffed solely by Terrans, with the occasional geth, quarian, and every great once in a while, batarians. Here, however, everywhere she looked was a Council race, mostly turians, but she saw several salarians, and even an asari, some of them at stations that implied they were researching things.

“Given the presence of micronians, this unit would agree,” said Legion, shocking Shepard out of her haze, and the two quickly made their way across the bay to a nearby door. Once outside, it was only a few minutes walk to the gravtubes, and a drop of three decks to where they were supposed to meet the SCP’s commander.

OoOoO

Four figures walked along the causeway above a ship in dry dock. Below them was a vessel of familiar design, yet one that really shouldn’t be there. So surprised were they seeing the ship, that not one of the four seemed to acknowledge the others, or the figure they were all walking towards, at least until they were standing right in front of him. At that moment, seeing him as if for the first time, all four suddenly snapped alert, their fists pounding over their hearts, or at least where his heart would be, in the case of Legion.

“General Skarrde, we weren’t told you’d be the one giving us our briefing,” commented Tali as she stood at attention, and the man in front of her nodded, saluting back, and then gesturing for them to be at ease.

“My presence here is something of an open secret right now, as well as the ship and the crewmen manning this SCP. Tell me, what do you think of her?” he asked, waving his hand towards the ship below, a cruiser by weight, and a design of a most turian nature, which was most unusual to see anywhere in Federation space, let alone inside a research facility.

“She looks like a fine ship. Good hull configuration, weapon’s placement optimal for frontal attacks. Not seeing as many point defenses as I would expect. Still, the ME field this thing is giving off is massive. Must be a hell of a core in there,” said a voice from one of the armored forms backs, and Skarrde nodded.

“Indeed. She’s got the purest core ever forged by known galactic society, forty-eight percent pure eezo,” he told them, and everyone seemed shocked for a moment by that news, as not one person there didn’t know that such a purity ratio for eezo was impossible, yet none doubted the Admiral’s word.

“So, she’s got teeth, and she’s got scales to boot with that sort of core. Doesn’t explain her shape though. Why would a turian vessel be here in an SCP, and given a core like that from us?” asked Jane.

“Because she's part of a joint project we’ve been working on for the past few years with the Council military. A ship that can be invisible to all known sensors, allowing the insertion of troops behind enemy lines, or the extraction of VIPs from hot areas,” explained Skarrde.

“Project Beachhead,” commented Jon, and it was Skarrde’s turn to be shocked, as he turned to the male Terran.

“How in the world do you know about that?” he asked, and Jon chuckled beneath his featureless helmet.

“Because I helped design a part of her. The joint system turians use for their engines to give them their mobility wouldn’t handle the stress of the core. I made some modifications, at the request of the Prime Thinker,” explained Jon, and Skarrde nodded at the man.

“Well, it seems our open secret is a bit more open than I believed. Still, it makes little difference, as the biggest change from one of our ships is the fact that this one is staffed by Federation and Council officers,” as he spoke, one could see a few of those officers, some quarians and turians, having lunch on the deck just outside the ship, swapping stories and the like as they awaited what was obviously going to be a launch very soon.

“So, we’re letting the Council in on our big secret projects now?” asked Jane, and Skarrde sighed out some frustration with her attitude. He’d figured she might have some objection, after all, they were Terrans, they were the best, why should they share that light with anyone.

“It wasn’t originally our project, Sergeant. Beachhead has been in development by the turians for over a century, but they either never had the resources to pull it off, or they just lacked the technology to make it viable. One of their men contacted us about four years ago, almost to the day of the twentieth anniversary of intragalactic contact,” explained Skarrde.

“You decided for the cause of peace to combine the efforts we had already made in stealth ship design, perhaps create a bridge among the scientific community that could be expanded out to the rest of society,” surmised Tali, and Skarrde nodded in agreement.

“Ah, I can accept that then. So, if you’re showing us this, I’m going to assume this ship will be our new posting,” said Jane, more a statement than a question.

“Indeed. The five of you recently proved yourselves to be some of our best and brightest. That’s the sort of face we want the rest of the galaxy to see. We want respect, not fear. Breetai, Miriya, and myself, along with the Conclave, believe the two of you can indeed bring us that respect,” answered the Zentraedi. The two Terrans, geth, and quarian seemed to stand up straighter, at both the names mentioned, and the faith that was apparently being placed on them.

“We won’t let you down, sir,” said Jon with a salute. Jane mirrored him silently, obviously having her own feelings, but wanting to keep them to herself for now.

“That’s what I want to hear from a Shepard,” said Skarrde with a chuckle, only to get an odd reaction from both of the armored Terrans, who turned to face each other, looking up and down their suits for a while, as their computers obviously talked to each other to give rank and file information. When that was done, Jon and Jane, in mirror to each other, removed their helmets, revealing faces that neither had seen in a decade.

“Jane,” said Jon, staring into his sister’s visage. Her emerald green, piercing eyes, skin that had, as she’d grown older, taken on a purple hue to some of it. She was still obviously mostly human in genetics, but she seemed to have an aura of purple around her that complimented the dark, some would say blood red, hair she had cut to neck length, so it could be easily contained by her helmet. She stood almost a head taller than Jon, forcing him to look up to see this.

“Jon,” echoed Jane as she stared into his cold, blue eyes of her brother. His face was like hers, one that had seen rough assignments, harsh conditions, and yet remained without a scar, probably thanks to his armor and Tali’s quick fingers at the shield controls. However, where her skin had grown darker with purple over the years, his had grown lighter, taking on the almost albino shade of white that marked an engineer, a Terran who often shrank down to micronian size by extracting their protoculture and putting it back in later. His hair was cut to stubble, only a thin layer of dark brown fuzz on top of his head. The two were an interesting contrast to each other.

“Is there some problem I should know about?” asked Skarrde. He was aware, from their records, that the two siblings hadn’t spoken in some time, but that was at least somewhat common in the Federation Fleet, especially when you bounced from one assignment to the next the way these two did. He hadn’t been told there was any animosity between them however, but one could feel the air was thick now with what could only be described as tension made real.

“Sir, no, sir,” they echoed together, placing their helmets back on, and saluting again. The quarian and geth who had been beside them when they entered the room both looked at each other. Oddly, they both appeared to be saying silent apologies to each other over their partner’s behavior, and Skarrde made a note to get with the two separately to find out what was going on there. Still, he didn’t have time to pick anyone else for this assignment, as a mission they had to jump on had come up in the last few hours, so he could only hope the Shepards’ abilities would make up for anything between them.

“Excellent. I think we should proceed straight to the Normandy then. We already have deployment orders,” he advised them, and led the way down to another gravtube, and then onto the dock of the Normandy.

Chapter Text

“The SR-1 Normandy, the first vessel of her class, but hopefully, not to be the last,” said Skarrde as he led the way across the docks. Around them scurried micronians, mostly turians in their own armor, the distinctive shape of the helmets giving them away. Almost all of them avoided the huge lumbering shapes of the three Terrans. At another dock some distance away, Tali, Charn, and Legion were making their own way on board the ship, the fore section having been designated a micronian only area.

“As I said above, she looks like quite the ship, General,” commented Jane as she ran her scanners over it, her HUD displaying the info it could detect from this distance. Most interesting to Shepard was the density of the mass effect field, which spoke of the core that Skarrde had mentioned, pure, and probably larger, than any other ship in its class. She wasn’t a big fan of turian hull aesthetics, preferring the more organic Zentraedi designs she was used to, but with those kind of teeth, Jane was willing to give it a chance.

“I’m not seeing very many Terrans moving in and out though,” added Jon, and Skarrde nodded as he led the pair towards an airlock sized just for them.

“That is intentional. The ship needed a lot of space for heat sinks and stealth systems. Given a Terran’s lack of need for sleep or food, we would normally fit a good fifteen hundred souls aboard a ship this size, and the turians about the same. However, as of right now, her compliment will be significantly smaller in both regards,” he advised them, pressing his hand against the hull at a seemingly random spot. The hull began to glow around his touch, connecting with his armor and confirming his biometrics said he was who he claimed to be.

“How many crew members will we be bunking with?” asked Jane, and Skarrde pointed first at himself, then at the two of them.

“For this voyage, we’ll be it. There’s space for more, of course. About thirty full sized Terrans could be comfortably housed inside the ship, but given our people are flying the thing, and maintaining the engines, it was believed that by the diplomats that limiting the number of giants on the ship would make it seem less like our project,” he informed them, stepping back as the hull suddenly had a split in it, a door panel swinging away to reveal an airlock that hissed with escaping air. The trio stepped inside without a thought, letting the panel seal them inside, before light poured from the walls, decontaminating their armors.

“Oh? We’ve got our people flying this lovely little tin can?” asked Jane.

“Just one of ‘our’ people is needed for that job, thank you very much, Sergeant,” said a voice from all around them, as the light finished its movement.

“You’re clean, General,” said a second voice, and Skarrde nodded, taking off his helmet with a twist to reveal his face, with the pair beside him soon doing likewise.

“Indeed, Ms. Shepard. We’ve got one of the finest pilots in the fleet flying this vessel,” he told them as the door to the inside pulled open, revealing someone standing of a height with the three of them. For a moment, just a moment, they wondered why someone else was on board when the General said they would be the entire compliment, then they noticed those little off details about the man. A Terran of average height, what would be considered caucasian skin tones, with brown hair, and a five o’clock shadow.

“Ah, we were just talking about you, Jeff. Mr and Ms Shepard, this is Jeff ‘Joker’, he’s the pilot of this ship,” said the Zentraedi, and Jeff nodded, putting on a very convincing smile. Jane returned it, but Jon’s eyes were already darting all around, looking for something, before finally turning to face the pilot.

“Your projectors need tuning. The left eye is a bit too low, and the third molar on the right side is fused with the tooth behind it,” said Jon bluntly, and Jeff’s smile vanished as he turned around, a mirror suddenly appearing in the air behind him as he inspected himself.

“Well, this is embarrassing, and here I thought I was putting on my best face for this meeting,” he said, before banishing the mirror with a wave of his hand, and then turning around again. As he turned, his form shifted, changing from Terran standard to something a bit less detailed. The body kept the same basic shape, with two arms, legs, and a head, but the face lost all the features save two shining blue eyes. It also grew wings out of its back that fluttered a little as it stepped forward offering a hand.

“It wasn’t your fault, Jeff. Still, I hadn’t heard that the micro projectors were being used in a ship board capacity,” he told the AI, as he shook his hand, Jane quickly doing likewise.

“It’s a new system for the Normandy, just like half the stuff onboard. This thing is a test bed for most of the stuff the Gearbox has produced in the last few years, all kind of shoved together,” as he spoke, Jeff waved his hand and produced an image of the ship between them all.

“She’s got stealth systems, a new drive core that’s at least five times more powerful than anything the Council has flying, and several new ground weapon systems for insertions behind enemy lines. Right now, this is the most advanced ship in the galaxy,” proclaimed the hologram, and Jane suddenly snapped her fingers as something in her brain clicked together.

“I knew I knew that voice, you’re the pilot who won the Titan Grand Prix last year,” she said, having been thinking over all the pilot AIs she’d heard of. It was uncommon for an AI to be a pilot, after all. Not unheard of, since some AIs could handle the pressure of operating a real space body, instead of the holos they preferred, but they were rare, since it tended to reduce their lifespan by a decade or more.

“Guilty as charged little lady,” said Jeff with a chuckle and a bow.

“Hmm, that would mean you’re not a soldier, correct?” asked Jon, got a nod in return.

“In truth, about a third of the crew is civilians. Considering the nature of the vessel’s construction, we wanted only the best of the best flying around in her, and sometimes for that, you have to reach out to those of a less military persuasion,” explained Skarrde, and the Shepards both nodded at the explanation.

“Currently, there are one-hundred-eleven turians, thirty-nine asari, eight-six salarians, one-hundred-twenty-six quarians, ninety-three batarians, and three AIs on board,” said Jeff, and suddenly several small images of the crew popped up over the ship, showing what they looked like, though the images vanished too fast to be seen properly.

“Hmm, four-hundred-fifty eight crew all together. You aren’t listed on this crew manifest though, General. Are you not going to be with us?” asked Jane.

“No, I’m only here for the shakedown run, once that’s over I have other business to get on with. Of course, there is another observer here from the Council for the same purpose. Where is he, Joker?” asked Skarrde, and the holo seemed to freeze for a moment, as the consciousness controlling it focused somewhere else, and then just as suddenly it unfroze.

“He’s with the Captain and a few of the crew in the Meeting Deck. They seem to be running through some combat drills,” Joker informed him, and Skarrde nodded, reaching forward to touch the Normandy hologram that was still floating there. A chopping gesture with his hand allowed him to pull the ship apart, so the Shepards could look into the interior of the ship, finding that, while the micronian side of things had a few dozen decks, their own section was actually quite small, having only four.

“Alright, brief tour, then we go to them. The top deck, where we are now, is a general deployment area. When you’re going into non-combat situations you’ll meet here, and proceed out the airlock we just entered through. Lockers are on this deck where you can store civies and other apparel for such deployments, as well as a rest area for when you want to take a load off your mind,” explained Skarrde, pointing towards a distant wall that slide away to reveal said lockers, and then towards a more muted section with less lights and several tables and chairs.

“Below this deck is the general area. Up here, no micronians, at all unless you bring them. Down a deck you will need to be careful, as they can get in there through a single access point. It includes a galley, in case you need a bottle, or if you have a desire for more solid sustenance. There’s also a micronization chamber for if you want to go into their area of the ship. I must admit, I haven’t been willing to myself, and according to Jane’s file she won’t but if you desire it, Jon, it’s there,” continued the General, and both nodded.

“Now, the deck below that one is most interesting addition. I know both of you have spent time in holo training chambers, so I won’t bore you with the details on that, but this one has a unique feature of having it be in two places at once, with its sister chamber being in the micronian section of the ship. This is called the Meeting Deck, and it can be used for not only training, but also discussions between the crew despite the size difference,” he told them, and Jon smiled at that, a rather dirty thought crossing his mind involving holos and Tali.

“Below that is the Combat Deployment Deck, the bottom of the ship. It has most of the vehicles the ship contains, including a few veritechs, some wanzers for the micronians, and a fully stocked armory, with some of our latest weapon developments,” as he spoke, the inventory of the deck flashed briefly in the holo, and if one had been looking at Jane, they would have noticed a slight twinkle in her eyes, as well as a bit of drool coming out of the side of her mouth that she quickly swallowed, probably a result of having to deal with a Civil Defense armor for the last eight months.

The two Shepards looked about to question some more about the Normandy when Jeff froze again, vanishing an instant later. They didn’t have to wonder very long at his behavior as the ship lurched suddenly, the whine of its gravity generators coming online as the ship began to move under its own power. Listening closely, one could hear the subtle roar of engines that were powering up to their full blast, though thanks to the gravity no motion could be felt. Still, both Terrans knew they had left the station, and would now be on their way.

“All hands, this is your pilot speaking, I have our deployment orders, and they currently involve a trip to a small colony world you may have heard of out there called Eden Prime. Weather is a pleasant, to most life, eight-six degrees fahrenheit, with a light spectrum in the two-thousand lux range by the time we arrive,” said Jeff’s voice from the walls around them.

“All hands, brace for Fold Maneuver,” said another voice, this one decidedly female in nature, and the three Terrans all stood straight up, their muscles locking into place, with the mental image of the micronians on the foredecks probably going nervous as the energies of the fold drive were unleashed on them. For a moment, it felt like they were being torn in two, their view of the world shifting red and blue at the same time, while beyond they could actually see the bright light of the fold itself, which faded back into the normal world an instant later.

“Arrival in Utopia System confirmed, please allow....General Skarrde, SPECTRE Kyrik, please report to the Meeting Deck at once. We have an issue,” said the female voice, and Skarrde, looking towards the Shepards, pointed them towards a pair of double doors that slide aside easily to allow them into the ship’s lift. Jane grumbled something about speed, but otherwise nothing passed between the trio as they rode the thing down, arriving at their destination, which shocked the two Shepards.

The doors pulled apart to reveal a wasteland, with a rather shocking view of a giant Terran in full armor laying dead on the ground, holes punched in it by ground weapons. A crowd of Terran sized Council races, mostly turians, but a few others as well, including some faces they recognized as their teammates. Those three had obviously just arrived as well, if the shock on Tali’s face was anything to go by, observing the carnage of a few wanzers as well, weapons fading away even as the micronians holding them let them go.

“General on deck!” shouted an asari, and suddenly everyone saluted, all in the Terran way interestingly enough. Jane and Jon quickly rushed to stand beside Legion, Tali, and Charn, as the General strode forward with the self assurance of a man who was in full command of the situation, despite only just arriving.

“At ease, is Kryik here?” asked Skarrde, and one of the turians raised his hand, stepping forward.

“Right here, Skarrde. I was already training with Vakarian and his crew when we folded in. EDI, can you explain why you wanted us here?” asked the turian, as the world around them began to fade away. A blasted battlefield became instead an open room with a distant wall and several pinpoints of light showing projectors for the holograms that had been making the whole scene possible.

“I wanted you here to get your orders. We are now in the Utopia system, but something is very wrong,” said the female voice, an AI hologram, a thing without details as Joker, though this one only had one blue eye that took up much of its head, came into view, floating overhead.

“The instant we entered the system, I found myself unable to hear any of the usual local comm traffic. Of course, I immediately tried to hail the Gearbox, to see if perhaps something was going on, but I found I couldn’t transmit to them, or anywhere else in fact,” she told him, showing a view of the outside of the ship, and then the nearby planet, which seemed all too quiet hanging in the air like that.

“We’re being jammed?” asked Kryik, and EDI shook her head.

“Not precisely. I can’t transmit out, but the fold space communicator is still working. I can form the field and everything, it’s just nothing going in is going back out,” she informed them.

“What about the hypernet beacon? Is it still online?” asked Kyrik, and EDI shook her head.

“I’m still detecting it, but it’s not working. Nothing I send is being relayed,” she answered, and then froze up as Joker had, as her attention was diverted to something else. When she unfroze, she waved her hand, and above her a rectangle appeared, becoming an image of some Terran woman in armor, who shot her palm blasters at something off screen.

“Is it on, Rique?” demanded the woman, as she dove out of the way of incoming fire, missiles that had a decidedly familiar design to the Jane and Legion, as they were those that tended to be launched from geth warframes.

“I think so, Chief!” responded a male voice, obviously the one acting as the camera for the image.

“This is Chief Nirali Bhatia to anyone who can hear me. This transmission is being sent out snail style, since nothing else is working. We’re being attacked, I repeat, the colony of Eden Prime is under assault by some rogue geth forces. I don’t know what’s going on, they just launched themselves at us, and they’ve been killing everyone. Most of the civilians are dead, my husband and son included. If you get this, we think...oh Masters, have mercy,” she said, and the view shifted from her towards what she was looking at.

What the image showed was a ship. A large one, huge even compared to the colony. The size of the thing was probably around two miles, and it loomed large over the colony center. It had a shape like a cone, with tiny legs dangling off it, reminding Jane of a kind of crab she’d seen once in an old vid. The legs of this thing were rounded though, and out of the tips, one could see huge blasts of red light, tearing into defensive positions that were firing up at it. They might have been thanix weapons, except the things moved even when fired, spreading chaos and death everywhere.

“Run Enrique!” shouted Bhatia’s voice, but the viewer was too stunned to move, as one of those legs pointed close towards where he stood. All he did was scream, before his hands raised up, and he fired his palm blasters into the thing. From this distance, a few miles, the shots did little, if anything to the massive ship. The counterstroke was far more deadly, the shining red light sweeping forward along the ground, tearing a huge trench into it, before it consumed the view, which went to static a moment later.

“EDI, back it up, show us that ship in detail,” order Kyrik, and the transmission rewound, the image of the huge ship being pulled out of the flat screen and then expanding outward, becoming a three-dimensional image based off scans the armor of the transmitter had been sending with the transmission itself.

“That’s not a geth design,” said one of the quarians in the group, and he got a few nods from his fellows, while the rest just stared.

“This unit concours. This hull shape matches no known race or configuration. The weapons displayed unusual properties as well. This unit believes we may be in for a hard fight,” said Legion, and the AIs nodded.

“EDI, Joker, has this thing spotted us?” asked Skarrde, and the two froze again, before animating with twin shaking heads.

“Negative, I had the stealth system on for our trip because I was doing a test of the thing. If they didn’t see the flash, they didn’t see us arrive,” said Joker, and Skarrde turned towards Kyrik.

“If we haven’t been detected, we have two options before us. We can retreat to the edge of the field, and call for reinforcements, or we can try to slip closer, and destroy them ourselves. What does your training say is the best option?” asked the General, and the SPECTRE seemed to consider this question carefully for a few moments, before answering.

“We’re here, right now. Even with your fast deployments, there’s no telling how much damage this thing could do, especially if it saw a fleet coming. We get closer, and we blast it from orbit. That’s our best bet for nipping this in the bud,” said Kyrik, and Skarrde nodded, before turned towards the pilot.

“Jeff, take us in at best stealth speed. EDI, once we’re in range, I want every gun locked on his thing. We’ll blow it away,” said Skarrde, and the two AIs vanished to follow the orders.

“Everyone else, we’re on combat alert. Get down to your stations. Ground troops, down to the bays. I want as many feet ready to pound the dirt as we can muster once that ship is out of the way,” ordered Kyrik, and the crew saluted in the fashion of their people, before starting towards the door. To the Shepards, they vanished the instant they entered the lift, as they left the Meeting Deck to proceed to their duty.

“General, if you’d agree to it, I’d like you to take command of this ship. SPECTRE Kyrik’s personal unit might prove useful planetside, and my own needs to be tested in real combat, which this might be the only time I get to use it,” said one of the turians as he walked up to the Terrans.

“I’ll agree. My days of ground duty are behind me anyway, Captain Vakarian. Shepards!” he shouted, and the two stood at attention.

“Proceed down to the combat deployment deck. There, familiarize yourself with the new weapons, and assist the Captain in any way you can. Remember, he’s your commanding officer while you’re on this ship,” said Skarrde, and the two saluted, before rushing towards the door, which sealed shut behind them, the lift carrying them towards the bottom of the ship, as it stealthily cut its way towards the planet in the distance, a planet that would change many things for the galaxy.

Chapter Text

“How long till we’re in range?” asked Skarrde as the Shepards departed the Meeting Deck. Normally, he would be on his way to the bridge, but considering his size, he literally wouldn’t have fit, and so stayed in the room where he could be kept up to date on all operations of the ship, and quickly relay orders to the relevant departments. On command, a display showing the ship with tiny dots moving around inside for the crew appeared at chest level to the Zentraedi, who could tap any one section and get a real time eye on the scene, while also showing him their destination floating just out of reach, with a timer above it showing a few minutes.

“We’ll be in optimal firing range in six minutes, General,” said one of the conn officers, a young male quarian who’s face popped up in a window. Nodding, Skarrde began to replay the video in front of him, getting a view of the ship they were going to be attacking. Something about it seemed oddly familiar, but his mind couldn’t place it, making him idly wish he had Exedore’s memory, at least for a moment, before he began to plan out tactics, the ground force dispositions and such.

Below him, the two Terran’s arrived to find a madhouse under their feet, forcing them to step gently around the micronians who were rushing this way and that, prepping units for launch. All around them wanzers were loaded with backpacks, weapons, and shields of the pilots' choices. Ground troops, without the mechs, took guns in hand and checked them over, giving each weapon a quick visual, and sometimes an even deeper inspection if the weapon allowed, none of them seemingly organized, and yet after each was finished, they would fall perfectly into line, like they’d been training for this for months.

“Not bad hustle,” said Jane as she put her helmet on, the click and hiss of the seals very comforting, and the HUD quickly displaying where Charn was in this mess. His pod was already prepped and ready for attachment, so she walked over towards him, nearly stepping on a salarian who had the misfortune to run right in front of her. Luckily her suit warned her of the danger, and her sole hovered only inches above his head, before she moved it over him, and then heavily let it drop, knocking the poor guy over.

“Jane, be more careful,” said Jon, as he donned his own helmet. Unlike his sister, he kept an eye down, easily dancing amid the chaos, moving with far more grace than she did. Where the crowd parted for her, because she herself was like a massive ice breaker, pounding its way through an icy sea, he flowed with the tide of micronians, his feet always finding gaps and places to set down gently. Not that those by their boots saw much difference between the two, as the giants made their way across the bay, finally arriving at their destination.

“Charn, ready for linking,” said Jane as she came close, turning around, and then waiting. The batarian, rather than griping or otherwise complaining, quickly turned his pod to the task at hand, raising it from the deck, and then fitting into the space between her shoulder blades. The link between the pod and the armor created a low hum as the two connected and the mass effect field of the pod covered Jane as well, lightening her load and allowing her to move more freely in her armor.

“Linked in, Sergeant. Now we wait for orders,” he told her in his commanding tone, and Jane nodded, taking a ready stance, while beside her, Jon and Tali linked without a word, and Legion soon unfolded from the cube beside their feet, standing tall and proud, the trio standing there, ready for battle, while more of the ground force began to gather in the bay, waiting for the order to come down. Above, looking at the countdown as it reached zero, Skarrde sighed to himself, watching as the display of the planet zoomed in on the ship in orbit, now floating there silently, while about it, fields and homes burned.

“As soon as we have a targeting lock, I want every gun on this vessel raining fury on that thing,” ordered the Zentraedi, feeling the old instincts kick in. His training, in his old cloning pod, screamed at him to call in more ships, overwhelming force that could crush the enemy under heel, or just destroy the planet below. But he had the best chance right now to end whatever this odd ship was, and its designs. The Normandy had snuck up on it, with the thing giving no indication they had been spotted. No, this was best, a single stealthy strike, and then call in the reinforcements.

“Locked and loaded, General. Firing in five, four, th-,” began the voice of Jeff over the comms, only to be cut out as everything shuddered, and Skarrde was greeted with a feeling he found rather disconcerting on the Normandy. Weightlessness. The Normandy was of turian design, and included no points where they should be zero gravity, so feeling it now, especially as the holos faded away into nothingness, told him something was very, very wrong, and he thought that maybe they’d been spotted, and he would finally taste the cold kiss of death he had avoided for so long.

Then the weightlessness ended almost as suddenly as it came, and he could hear a whining, grinding sound from somewhere above and behind where he was, the engineering section of the Normandy. Rather than panic, or demand answers of the blank walls around him, Skarrde kept his cool for the few moments it took the displays to return, and very soon two AI holos were standing with him, while beside them the image of the ship itself hung, with large red splotches all over the hull.

“General, the core has overloaded the power containment systems,” said EDI quickly, as the holo spun, opening up to show the various heat and power sinks spaced throughout the Normandy’s hull, most of them reading as at capacity or near it.

“Did the enemy spot us?” asked Skarrde, and the female holo shook her head.

“No, sir, I’m afraid it was my fault. The core was spinning up to speed, and I thought I could handle the spikes due to the interfacing of protoculture with an impure eezo core, given my experience, but this core went far more wild then our Runner’s,” explained the AI EDI, and Skarrde nodded. Jeff and EDI had been a pair of AIs in the Titan Grand Prix running a ship that had a similar setup to the Normandy’s. That was why they’d been tapped for the crew.

“Can we fire anything?” asked Skarrde, pushing a few buttons on his omnitool to bring the planet back up before him, zooming in on the view of the odd ship over the colony, which despite what had happened, there was no sign it had spotted them.

“I’m afraid not without dumping our sinks, and we can’t do that in the atmosphere of Eden Prime without causing some major damage to the planet,” said Jeff, and ran the sim, showing the Normandy at the center of a wave of heat and electromagnetism that destabilized the entire planet’s atmosphere when they vented into it. For a gas giant or the like, this wouldn’t have been a problem, for a planet with a large colony, especially one with what this one had down there, it was a major issue.

“I’m sorry, General. You’ll have my resignation as soon as this situation is done with,” said EDI, and Jeff reached over to comfort her in a very Terran gesture, despite their digital nature. Skarrde however, shook his head.

“There is nothing to be forgiven, EDI. We chose you for your skills, but then we pressed this ship into service a bit sooner than intended. Log your data, and make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he informed her, going over plans in his head, thinking of what it was he could do from this position, what force to use. The jig was up, the Normandy couldn’t fight, so running and getting some bigger guns was the right answer under normal circumstances, but here and now…

“EDI, patch me through to Kryik,” he ordered, and soon enough, a holo of the turian appeared, sitting in the air in front of him.

“I’m guessing you’re not calling with anything good, given that hiccup that just trashed half the launch deck,” said the SPECTRE, as he adjusted controls that weren’t being shown in the holo.

“I’m afraid not. The Normandy is currently without weapons, and right now, all my instincts are telling me to run and get some bigger guns, but if we do that, our prize might just be stolen out from under us,” said the Zentraedi, and Kryik nodded at that.

“I see. What are you thinking of doing about it?” asked the Nihlus as he obviously continued to prepare for launch.

“Your unit’s a stealth type. I would ask that you move forward and attempt to recon the area, securing the package if you can, while another ground force moves towards it from a distance. If it works, they should pull away enough of these enemies that you’ll have free run of the port to find it,” explained Skarrde.

“A suicide mission is not what anyone on this ship signed up for,” countered the turian, and the Zentraedi shook his head.

“Not a suicide mission. That ship is the biggest danger, and if the Normandy drops stealth while still in the atmosphere, seemingly rising from somewhere near the colony, those in charge might believe we have the package. That should get the large ship to pursue us, while we make a run for the edge of the interference field, and hopefully contact with another force,” Skarrde added, and Kryik seemed to consider this for a time, tapping a finger on one of his mandibles before turning to face the General.

“Send the Shepards, Legion, and Garrus in that new unit of his, with all the latest gear. The ground stuff has already been tested, unlike the Normandy’s guns. That should give them a fighting chance against whatever is down there. We’ll have to explain what we’re after to them, however,” said Kryik, and it was Skarrde’s turn to nod. This day was not shaping up like he thought it would be at all.

On the launch deck, Jon and Jane were helping the Normandy crew get back on their feet, lifting wanzers up, and flipping tanks back over, while also digging a few who’d gotten trapped beneath things out. The process was slow going, due both to the random nature of the launch deck’s setup, and a few of the crew panicking as they seemed to run around randomly. Luckily, there were just enough military trained personnel that they were able to herd the civilians into out of the way areas as they got everything back in order.

“Captain Vakarian, are you still functional?” came the voice of the General over the comms, causing the crew to look up for a moment, before everyone returned to their tasks at hand.

“I’m still in the middle of my pre-launch checks, but the unit itself is undamaged,” said Garrus’ voice over the channel.

“Excellent, Shepards, Garrus, Legion, I want to talk with you privately for a moment,” ordered Skarrde, and the six(Including Charn and Tali) switched their comms to the command channel while the two Terrans and geth took to the sides of the bay so they could stand still for a moment. There was the typical whine and clicks of the secure channel making certain no one was listening into their conversation, before finally Skarrde’s voice came to them.

“Alright, I’ll be quick about this. The Normandy’s guns are disabled at the moment, a result of a power spike from the eezo core,” he began, displaying the Normandy’s current status in the huds of those listening to him.

“I told you General, this ship still had over a month of shake down before we should have launched her,” commented Garrus, who had protested earlier that day when they’d been ordered to launch his ship a lot too early given the experimental nature of the tech on board. He was a good turian though, and followed orders, but it was his duty to point out when he’d been right, and the brass had been wrong.

“We’ve still got engines despite this setback, and are going to make a break for the edge of the interference field. However, what’s down on that planet is far too precious to allow to slip through our fingers,” he continued, seemingly ignoring the comment, while bringing up another image in front of the four he was speaking too. In this case, it was a set of devices that looked vaguely familiar, but not one of them could place them.

“This is the reason we had to launch early. A month ago now, a field tiller on Eden Prime discovered an underground facility buried deep beneath the surface. He reported it, and we investigated the ruins, but very little was made of them even locally. After all, there are hidden pirate bases all over this area, and it was believed this was just another one,” as he explained, the scans of the facility were displayed for the team.

“It took less than a week to realize that this was no hidden pirate cache or the like. No, this facility was prothean in origin. Given the Federation’s lack of experts in this field of study, and our belief that, at the time, the place would be only of archaeological significance, we brought in a few experts from the Council, similar to how the Normandy herself was a joint project,” explained the General.

“I’m guessing you discovered something far more important than a few artifacts,” guessed Charn.

“Indeed, Master Sergeant. Our expert believes that the facility is actually a prothean deep sleep structure. The pods all along the walls were stasis units similar to our own, while a few beacons on top were obvious receivers, waiting for an all clear signal to wake up their sleeping people,” he said simply, despite what a bomb that information really was. Working prothean technology was a rare find at all, but to have found a facility with stasis pods that might contain still living protheans. That was a find that could shake the galaxy up almost as much as the Terrans themselves had managed to do two decades ago.

“How many pods are still active?” asked Jon, and Skarrde audibly sighed over the comm.

“I’m afraid not many. The structure’s power grid seemed to have been damaged at some point, and what should have kept thousands of them alive for millennia yet, kept only about a few dozen. Even that is a miracle though. According to our on the ground expert if we’d discovered the facility even a year later, it’s doubtful there would have been more than ten of them online, and by the end of the decade they all would have failed,” he explained, showing images of several of the pods to the listeners, and then having the display move them into a Terran shipping crate.

“Given the...severity of the discovery, we were going to do a joint venture with the Council in not only awakening these long lost people, but studying an intact prothean beacon. It was the hope of the Conclave that we could actually start bridging the gap between us in a big way, and create more than the strained peace that exists now,” continued Skarrde.

“And the fact that the Council has experts that have studied this tech longer gives them a better chance of getting more out of the beacon,” added Garrus sardonically.

“That did help the decision, I’m sure. The Conclave is insistent on it in fact. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say they want to make sure the Council sees what’s on that beacon, and hears the words of the protheans,” responded Skarrde, his voice getting a distant tone, as if that comment wasn’t for them, but more for himself.

“Regardless, the Normandy was sent out to retrieve the artifacts and take them to the Citadel where a joint team is already waiting to receive them. Obviously, the information leaked. Of course, this presents a problem. As such, you six are going to go down to the planet, and assist Nihlus in securing the crates containing the artifacts. While you are on the ground doing that, the Normandy is going to leap the unknown ship on a chase through the system. That should give you a chance to complete your mission,” he finished, and the six had to stop a moment to digest that information.

“Orders acknowledged General, get us on the ground, and we’ll get those protheans and the beacon,” said Tali after only a moment’s hesitation, and the others soon confirmed they were ready to go as well.

“Excellent. We’ll be on the ground in five minutes. Be ready,” he ordered, before closing the channel, and leaving them to their preparations.

Chapter Text

“Well then, if we have five minutes, we might as well get you two the good weapons,” said Garrus’ voice over the comms, as others paused in their cleanup, getting their own orders. Garrus, laying on his back in his unit’s cockpit, pulled a few levers, causing the hum of an eezo core spinning up to power to come from beneath the tarp under which his unit was kept. Walking towards him, the two Shepards helped him by pulling the covering off as he stood up, revealing a rather unique looking mech.

“That’s not a wanzer,” commented Charn as he looked the thing over, scanning it with every sensor at his disposal, as Tali did likewise. The thing was different than almost anything else flying. For one thing, it was not equipped with a transparent cockpit that, while a structural weak point, allowed the pilot to see outside even if his sensors were blinded. More importantly, the unit was constructed from an unknown alloy, at least to their sensors, and as it stood, it was actually a head taller than either of the two Terrans.

“Indeed it’s not,” said Garrus over the speakers the unit carried, while adjusting how he was standing. The thing, in addition to the odd lack of a visible cockpit, had features like a biped. Two arms and legs and a head, the last being a feature most wanzers, having been partially inspired by destroids, lacked. It also had hands, rather than built in weapons, though one could see two small apertures on the head unit that were probably small scale arms, designed to be used against unarmored targets.

In detail, the thing had white colored limbs, with a torso that was primarily blue with two orange vents just below where a Terran’s pectorals would have been. Said vents showed off their purpose as large streams of hot air, from the engines turning on, spewed forth from them, heating the space in front, and causing the red colored bits below to glow slightly. The head itself was also interesting, being designed like it was wearing an old warrior’s helmet, with a v-shaped set of horns in front, and glowing orange eyes outlined with red around them completing the look of a samurai warrior.

“Lunar titanium, an odd choice for a construction material,” commented Tali as she went over her scans.

“Odd, but not without reason. I would hazard a guess that this unit can withstand at least five times the pressure and force of the best armor a Terran could wear, though at the cost of overall weight and stability,” commented Jon as he walked around the unit, finding its rear to consist of what looked like a small backpack with a folded up rifle sticking out of the top of it, as well as two large handles, and a set of thrust. If he were a betting sentient, he would wager that the thing could likely have achieved a higher base speed than any Terran as well, considering the stats he was getting from his sensors.

“Right in one. The original unit was smaller and lighter, but I decided to up the scale, taking it from sixty feet, to eighty, and adding in a few improvements in the control systems as well as a few to the weapons,” so saying Garrus, in a display of control that dwarfed most of the inaccurate wanzers and even some veritechs, reached behind his unit and pulled out one of the handles from his pack, revealing the thing to be some type of energy saber as he drew it out and created a pink blade not all that dissimilar to the one Tali and Jon tended to use in their battles.

“Two beam sabers, one beam rifle, twin gatling guns in the head, all with an engine and core powerful enough to take me from ground to orbit in a little over seven minutes, given I’m not getting shot at,” he bragged, while drawing the other saber and spinning the two around in a very intricate kata that only stopped just before the pink glowing blades would have sliced into Jane’s neck. For her part, the Terran woman didn’t even flinch, just staring at the weapons as they formed a scissor around her head, and then watching as they were withdrawn and placed back into the pack.

“The RX-78-3. It’s name: Gundam,” declared Garrus, taking a pose that they figured must have been trying to look badass, though if one looked at the deck crew as they finished cleaning up the mess, they were rolling their eyes, obviously having heard that speech before.

“Impressive. What sort of beams are those? Obviously some kind of charged particles in a mass effect field,” said Jon, looking at the pack and the weapons stored within.

“Right again. M-particles to be precise. The rifle, when properly calibrated, is accurate to a full light second in space combat, and has enough punch to match any weapon mounted on a frigate class ship. The beam sabers, at least in theory, should actually be better than your own protoculture blade, Commander, though obviously we’ve never been able to do a direct comparison yet,” he said the last as if he were offering a challenge, but Jon either didn’t hear it, or chose to ignore it as he kept looking the unit over, seemingly taking in every detail of its construction.

“M-particles were still theoretical last I’d heard. Who figured out the matrix to stabilize them,” asked the Terran, and Garrus audibly sighed as his challenge was forced to be put on hold.

“I did. Most of the Normandy is, in fact, of Council design. In the last four years we’ve been able to use the Gearbox to test and refine designs that have languished for decades if not centuries,” he said, a note of pride in his voice for his own genius.

“And we’ve been letting you do it so we can copy that tech into our ships,” commented Jane, a bit of envy in her voice.

“You’re just jealous because you want his swords,” countered Charn quickly, and Jane seemed to huff at that notion.

“My sword is a cortosis-weave blade with a molecule thin edge. It is easily the match any energy blade these two can pull out, while also having real weight, heft, and not needing power beyond my own muscles. I do want that gun, however,” she responded, eyeing the folded rifle on the unit's back that Garrus drew to show it looked like a good weapon indeed. Black body, with a long barrel, and a clip like thing on one end that was probably an energy chamber for the m-particles that it shot.

“Well, I suppose we shouldn’t keep the young lady waiting for her guns then, should we,” came another voice, and suddenly a veritech, sized for a micronian, slid into their conversation, seemingly flowing over the deck on its jets in guardian mode, before quickly shifting into the battleoid version, while carrying a Terran sized case in the hand without the gunpod. Jon, for a moment, seemed to tense at the sight of the unit, but quickly made himself loosen up, as Kryik came to a stop.

The unit he drove wasn’t the normal type of veritech, with its gray body and small stripes or other adornments to signify the pilot. No, this thing was all black, with small twinkling lights in that darkness like it was a piece of the starry sky that had come to life. Any veteran of Terran military history could instantly recognize it as a stealth model veritech, a late model addition to the RDF back at the end of the war. The twinkling lights were small projectors and recorders. A flick of a switch, and the thing would literally vanish from sight, and the black coating was able to maintain consistent heat within itself, making the thing invisible to visual or thermal scans.

“These, are the weapons you’ll be using in this operation,” he said, and clicked a latch behind the case to cause it to pop open. Inside, there were three oddly shaped weapons, with grips that created an enclosed space linking the bottom of the barrel back to the grip. They also had large glowing green canisters forming the top of the weapon, the shade indicating protoculture in its raw form. Beside the three pistol sized weapons were various stocks that appeared designed to interface with the things.

“Gallant pistols!” shouted Sergeant Shepard as she looked incredulously at the things, her scanners giving her stats on the things, while Garrus and Kryik turned their head units sharply towards her.

“Indeed they are. How did you know about them?” asked Kryik after the shock of her knowledge had worn off.

“They’ve been all the talk on any gun site on the net. They’re supposed to be the next generation of personal arms, with a huge shot capacity, since they fire raw protoculture particles out, meaning they’ll literally never run out of ammo. Interchangeable stocks to allow them to be used in a variety of situations, including Sniper, Assault Rifle, Shotgun, and...I don’t recognize that one,” she admitted, pointing to the largest of the four stocks, obviously designed to brace itself fully against the shoulder of the one who fired it.

“That’s a launcher stock. In its base form, the gallant has a sixty shot capacity, with a one minute recharge time from an empty clip. The assault rifle stock takes the shot capacity to half, but increases penetration and power of the shots in trade off. The shotgun spreads the fire out giving you much shorter range, but powerful attacks, while also giving you twice as many shots. The sniper gives you only ten shots, but has a range comparable to my beam rifle, and the launcher is the big gun. A single blast, but powerful enough to blow through the barrier of a dreadnaught and really tear up the inside,” explained Garrus.

“So, beautiful,” said the Sergeant, and if you could see her eyes, one would have seen a sparkle of a tear coming out of Jane’s.

“Three guns, and one of each stock type,” commented Jon, going over the stats his scans of the weapons were giving him, deciding how best to make use of the things.

“Indeed, the only ones in the universe right now. The Gearbox should have another set of these ready by the end of the week, but we needed to get here immediately, as I’m sure you’ll understand,” admitted Kryik, and Shepard nodded, before grabbing two of the pistols, and tossing them a bit, getting a feel for the weapons’ weight before holding them towards his back. Tali, understanding quickly, created a small mass effect field to cause the things to clip to his back like they were magnetized.

“I’ll take two pistols. Jane, you take the last one, but all the stocks. You’re better trained with these sorts of weapons, and Tali and I can make the best use of the doubled firepower,” he told her, and Jane nodded, quickly gathering up the various stocks and gun.

“Assault,” she said, holding the stock of it behind her. Charn quickly repeated Tali’s trick, locking the thing onto her back with a mass effect field. She then repeated it with the other three stocks, and naming each one as she did. Sniper, Launcher, and Shotgun were soon on her back as well, with her firmly gripping the pistol in her hand, before snapping it onto her belt with her sword, keeping it at her hip so she could draw it herself.

“Planetary approach complete,” came EDI’s voice over their personal comms.

“Ground floor, geth invaders, weird ships that we can’t identify, and prothean artifacts in need of saving. All ashore that’s going ashore,” added Jeff’s voice, to the audible disgusted sigh of EDI. The forward bay of the ship dropped down, lowering a ramp towards the ground below. The Shepards, Garrus, Legion, and Kryik quickly made their way to the front without a word, landing on the fluffy green grass with a series of thuds, their feet creating deep depressions in the ground as they hit.

“We’ll be away in a moment. Hopefully, the big ship is the source of the interference. If it is, get a call through to the Conclave right away. Otherwise, proceed under the assumption that no help is coming, and try and save as much of the colony as you can,” ordered Skarrde over their comms.

“Affirmative, General,” responded Captain Vakarian, before he and the others saluted as the ship flew off, flaring its engines as the five of them dropped down. Garrus, with his rifle, took a look towards the direction of the colony, though the zoom on his weapon wasn’t necessary, as the huge ship with the squid shape rose from the ground, and then quickly pursued the Normandy’s flight path, vanishing into the sky.

“That maneuver was way too fast. Whatever core that thing has must be massive,” said Garrus, playing back the recording on his equipment and running sims for stress tests on the hull and the like. Everything he saw in the sims spoke of a material that was far more resilient or a core powerful enough to move a planet.

“Agreed. Beginning transmission test now,” said Tali into the impressed silence of the group.

“No good, the jamming is still in effect,” she said after a solid minute of trying to cut through it, and finding no gap or weakening in the field.

“Ancestors. Was hoping that we’d get lucky,” swore Nihlus as he rose to his feet, transforming into guardian mode and rising into the sky slowly.

“We’re doing this the hard way then. This unit is a stealth type. I should be able to get close to the local port without being seen, but it would be best if there were fewer eyes doing the looking. That’s your job. The six of you are going to advance on foot to the colony. Hopefully they’ll think you’re soldiers left behind by the Normandy when it fled,” explained the SPECTRE.

“Technically, we are,” commented Charn.

“Indeed. Still, that means the more you can take down, the better this mission will go. I don’t think I need to impress on you how important this cargo is in terms of galactic history,” he said the last as a statement of fact, and the heads of everyone nodded in agreement.

“Excellent. Well, it’s still not as important as your lives, so if it gets too hot, go to ground. Don’t take unnecessary risks,” ordered the turian, before his veritech seemed to fade from sight, leaving only a slight ripple in the air where he was hovering, before that rocketed away at sonic speeds in an arc just away from the colony.

“Well, that’s a cheery send off,” said Tali sarcastically, and the Terran she was riding on nodded, before turning to face the Gundam.

“Permission to launch probe? We’re supposed to be the distraction anyway, so being spotted isn’t a big issue, and it would help us get the lay of the land,” asked Jon, and Garrus seemed to considering this for a moment, before his unit visibly shrugged its shoulders in a very organic way, belying its metallic nature.

“Permission granted,” he said at last, and Jon quickly went about preparing the probe for flight, tapping a few basic commands into his omnitool, before raising his arm over his head and feeling the slight pressure as the the thing launched, a small blue orb rocketing high into the sky. When it hit a certain altitude, the thing stopped as if it had hit some kind of invisible barrier, and then seemed to explode in a wave of blue light, scanning the entire area with the most detailed sensors it had, which gave the user a lot of information, though anyone in the radius of the scan now had their location.

“Processing now, give me just a moment,” said Tali’s voice, and over the comms one could hear the clicks, beeps, and chirps as her fingers flew over her controls, typing out commands and filtering the data stream down to what was needed at the moment. After she was finished with that, she had Jon raise his arm up, his omnitool facing towards the ground, where she projected a typographical map of the area she’d downloaded back on the Normandy, and then began to add in the data she’d just gotten her hands on.

“The outlook isn’t good, Captain. The colony’s in ruins, looks like most of the civilian homes are trashed, and I can tell you right now, the fields are just gone. Looks like that ship tore them to shreds, especially this one here,” as she spoke, she zoomed in on one in particular, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why that one had been targeted. The digging equipment and several large excavations spoke of the ruins that were the source of all this trouble, and whatever that ship was, it had made sure they would be getting nothing further from them.

“Worse, at least two shelters have been taken out, and I’m getting no lifeform readings at all. If anyone here is still among the living, they’re deep underground, armored, or masked by all the mass effect energy going around,” as she spoke, several blue blobs appeared on the map, showing the concentrations of eezo radiation in the area. Normally, at a Council colony, the stuff was thick as water everywhere, but this was a Terran colony, and while there were probably a few densely packed micronian settlers, there shouldn’t have been nearly as much as they were seeing. That weird ship must have been throwing the stuff off like rainwater.

“Hmm, that’s odd. Can you zoom in right there?” asked Garrus, his gundam pointing towards a small spot on the north plateau of the colony. Tali began to zoom in slowly, wondering what he had spotted, but after a moment, they all saw what he had, and the image swiftly zoomed in to a detailed image of the object. It was a micronian, a turian by the looks of it, and they were dead. Tragic as that was, the thing that had caught the eye wasn’t the species or the life, it was what they were on, as a spike seemed to have come out of the ground, measuring at least eight feet in height, and blue in coloring, and it had impaled the turian at the chest.

“What in the name of the Ancestors is that?” asked Tali, as she got more data on the device from her scans. The thing was...odd, to say the least. The alloy of its makeup was a mishmash of various things, not all of them identifiable by the probe’s scan. Still, whatever they were, the thing was hot, both in a temperature sense, and in an eezo radiation sense. They also appeared to be interacting with the turian’s corpse in some weird way, with the field covering the thing, while some lines of heat pumped into it.

“I’ve got no data on it. It’s doing something to that body, but nothing I can really give details on,” she admitted after a few minutes, and this seemed to worry everyone. Garrus shook off the doldrum however, and motioned for her to zoom the map back out.

“Too many unknowns with that. Just give me a count of enemies, and where they are for now,” asked the Captain, and Tali went to work, outlining in red all the currently detected warframes, and then zooming in on a pair at the edge of the group, the two being airborne, and approaching their group at speed.

“Well, looks like we’ve already got some attention at least. Battle positions, let’s give them a welcome that will get them all looking our way,” ordered the Captain, and the three with him nodded, before they started walking forward, Jon in the rear, while Tali continued to feed them tactical data, Garrus and Jane in the middle, the Terran woman asking for the sniper stock, which she snapped into place on her gallant, and finally Legion in front, spreading out what sensors he had to give them a heads up when the two approaching were in range.

Chapter Text

“This is Nihlus Kryik, recording everything I see for future archiving. Sensor logs confirmed authentic by my voice print, Palavan’s Honor,” he said the last and got the chirp as the voice print was stamped onto the sensor logs. The black box would record it over and over again on the logs, preventing tampering unless you were really good. It would prevent anyone from saying the logs were false, supposedly, and even if he fell, no one could deny what was going on here.

What was going on was disgusting. Some would, of course, probably say it was no less than the Terrans and those traitors who’d joined with them deserved, but Nihlus knew too much to really believe that to be the truth. Besides, even the worst pirates he’d ever known didn’t deserve what was happening down there. He saw a few people, both micronian and micronized Terrans, being dragged out of their homes by geth platforms, already dead, or very close to it. Most found themselves impaled on those weird tripod things, which expanded into huge spikes. His sensors, far away as he was, couldn’t give details on what those things were doing to the corpses, but he was sure it wasn’t good.

For full sized Terrans, the procedure seemed different. Not surprising given the size difference between them and their neighbors. They were dragged outside as well, but then laid down in long rows of bodies. Helmets were then removed from those wearing them, and then one of the units would go down the line of bodies, and place some of the spikes, two to five depending on size and age of the Terran, on the back of their necks, upside down so the legs were in the air. As he watched, a few were deployed, the bodies jostling a little as the spikes penetrated their flesh, but then going completely still.

“Eden Prime, one of the largest Terran colonies, which has a population of almost one-hundred-thousand full sized Terrans, and about as many of various other races, is gone. I’m not getting an accurate count, since I’m giving the colony itself a wide berth on my way to the spaceport, but it looks like a total loss. The enemy who did it appears to be geth warframes, but while the design is correct, these are not normal units,” as he spoke, a small display in front of him lit up with details on the units he could see.

“These contain little or no protoculture for one thing, which would seem to indicate that they couldn’t transform, and yet, I’ve seen a few shift forms while I’ve been watching. The eezo signatures must be massive as well, given how large the mass effect fields these things use are. I have no idea how they’re doing that, but it stands to reason that whatever that strange ship was had something to do with it,” as he spoke, he watched as first two, then dozens of the warframes took to the skies, going over the horizon that he knew the team was at.

“It would seem, Garrus’ Team has their full and undivided attention. Hopefully that will make this easier,” he said, turning his veritech more directly towards the port. Within minutes, he was there, staring down at the place, and finding it odd to say the least. The colony itself was trashed, with huge piles of rubble, several still burning fires, and obvious signs of battle. The port had none of those signs. Instead, it looked almost normal, at least until he spotted something that actually got a rise from his stomach, that being the pile of desiccated bodies that had been piled up near the entrance.

“I can see a large mound of corpses now, that appear to have been drained of their internal fluids, given the tight skin and general darkening. Most of them appear to be asari in origin, but I’m seeing batarians, turians, some volus, and a few other races as well. This is, disturbing, and I hypothesize that this might be what those spikes are doing,” he spoke into his unit, bringing himself down a bit away from the pile, and looking straight on it, focusing what sensors he could on the bodies.

“No Terrans on the pile at all, micronized or full sized. Could mean something, considering Terrans are the majority population,” he said, and then pulled a lever in the cockpit, shifting from fighter to guardian mode easily. Slowing considerably, he quietly began to make his way towards the port, shifting every sensor to passive as he did so. No need to announce himself, after all the work Garrus and the others were putting in to keep him undetected after all, and besides, it didn’t take his sensors long to pick up what he was looking for.

“No, we keep looking. If Sovereign finds it on that ship, so be it, but I won’t wait in case it is here,” said a familiar sounding voice, over speakers rather than a transmission, so it was safe to assume that the person doing the speaking felt there was no one around to hear them talk. The response to his statement was a series of harsh electronic beeping that Nihlus’ computer translated as geth complex, the language of the geth when they were still a bunch of runtimes, rather than single intelligences. The odd thing was his computer said the syntax was off, compared to what the geth spoke right now, including Legion back on the Normandy. As if the one speaking hadn’t updated their language profile in some time.

“Well then, waste the effort! We have to find it, if it’s here!” demanded the voice again, and then Nihlus overheard the sound of moving crates that were then tossed aside roughly, spilling their contents out onto the spaceport floor.

“Be careful you dim bit! We need the beacon intact!” shouted the voice, and Nihlus sighed. Obviously, these geth didn’t enjoy being ordered about by the speaker, whose voice was familiar, but the turian just couldn’t place it. Still, the response of the geth was to more gently move around, and Nihlus took advantage of their movements to get closer, hovering silently over the walls of the port, and getting a visual on his targets.

There were twelve of them in all, including eleven warframes and one wanzer of obvious Council make. Heck, the passive spectrograph spoke of the thing being some of the latest alloys, stuff designed to take a veritech on in hand to hand. Whoever was in there was either rich, powerful, or a SPECTRE, none of those being good options, all things considered. Still, the wanzer’s back was to Nihlus, who watched as the group continued to open crates, taking about a minute with each one thanks to the locks on them, instead of ripping them open as the units could have done.

His veritech took in every sight before him, storing the data in its black box, that he prepared to burst transmit at the first sign of being spotted. This was important, and all told, he actually considered it more important than his own life at this point. Someone powerful from Council Space had been at the fore of this attack. Not one of the major powers had been willing to challenge the Terrans since the Titan War, and he needed to make certain of who this was, and what factions they represented, especially considering the geth with them.

Watching silently for several minutes, Nihlus kept trying to get a good angle on the wanzer’s cockpit, without moving himself. Unfortunately, even when he was finally able to get an angle on the thing, the cockpit proved to be tinted with anti-scanner webbing. That made the cockpit a bit weaker than typical, but it did mean no one could identify you. Probably meant the voice over the speakers was being modulated too, so no voice print would match. That just made his job all the harder, but not impossible.

Before he could take that train of thought any farther, a series of explosions tore through the air. Shifting as quietly as he could, he kept his sensors scanning the scene before him, while still turning his unit’s head. What he saw with the main cameras was quite interesting. The horizon was lit up like a festival back home, with a seeming strobe effect of flashing lights, though too distant for his passive sensors to tell him much about them. Luckily for the SPECTRE, his targets were more forthcoming with information, one of the geth below speaking in that electronic tone of his.

“What?!” demanded the wanzer pilot, stepping away from the crate they’d been trying to hack. The geth then repeated, probably tone for tone, what it had just said.

“I heard you, but I can’t believe it. All of them? You’re certain?” asked the pilot, and this time the geth’s tone showed off its annoyance at being questioned.

“I have to be certain, it’s a commander’s prerogative. Alright then, all of them are down. That means we need to activate the contingency plan,” as he spoke, the other geth gathered close, watching like some kind of crowd as the wanzer froze in place, the pilot’s mutterings still coming through the external speakers as they went over some sort of data feed.

“Alright, we’ll divide up. You four, handle the northern sector, that’s where your brothers were putting most of the normal species. Obviously, if this group could take down eighty-four of your kind, they’ll be little more than a distraction, but that’s all they need to be. While they’re doing that, I want the two of you to go around and activate the Terrans we left on the east side. You two do the same on the west. Hopefully, we can pin them in, while the four of us finish our search,” ordered the pilot, and as one, the geth moved to follow the order.

All eight of those told to ‘activate’ whatever the pilot was talking about transformed. This close to them, his scanners picked up everything about said transformations. Rather than motors powered by the seemingly endless energy of protoculture, these transformations were done using ME fields, as he’d surmised. What he hadn’t realized was how pure their cores were, as the spectrographs got a look at the things, which were at least at fifty percent, possibly more. That was purer than the Normandy’s, and Nihlus knew how much work had gone in to make that hunk of rock. To have outfitted almost a hundred geth warframes with something even more pure, that was absurd.

The eight units streaked off into the skies as soon as they’d shifted to jet mode, allowing him to watch and get readings on their flight mechanics, which were mostly mass effect powered, as one might have surmised. Still, they seemed to have sacrificed something for all that. They were faster than your average wanzer, or even a veritech, but they had no missiles to speak of, at least from what he could see. That limited their options to shooting at targets with regular guns, thanix weapons sure, but still just guns that lacked the explosive punch a missile could bring to the table.

Turning his full attention back to the remaining four mechs on the ground below, Nihlus wished Garrus’ team a silent bit of luck, wishing that his mission here wasn’t as vital as it was. They had Legion for air cover, and that weird mech of Garrus’ design, along with the gallants. That had to count for something. Besides, it sounded like they’d already given the geth a heck of a bloody nose when they were outnumbered more than ten to one. With odds like these, no matter what the geth were planning, he doubted it would be enough.

Still, the sight before him was odd, as the much lessened group seemed to be rushing, the wanzer even lashing out at a crate that was full of food stuffs, its armored hands reaching in and crushing large containers full of grain and wheat, most of it marked as dextro. The pilot’s screams of frustration could be heard over the air, as he tossed everything aside and went to another crate, the geth ignoring his outburst as they worked through the still rather extensive backlog, going through more than a dozen crates each before one of them jerked suddenly, and then turned towards his fellows. The AI’s faces were blank as ever, but something in the way they stood told Nihlus they were nervous, until finally one of them beeped out a statement towards the wanzer.

“Survivors? How?” said the pilot, his voice even, obviously considering the implications of the statement. The geth responded with beeps and chirps again, but this time Nihlus’ computer actually provided him with a translation in one of his monitors.

‘They appear to have come from a hidden lab of some sort. The North Team is requesting permission to engage,’ it asked.

“No, no, we can’t risk the activation not reaching everywhere. You three go. I’ll keep searching. Once you’re done, report back here,” ordered the pilot simply, and the three remaining geth took off a moment later, streaking into the sky, obviously going towards the new targets. Survivors of all this were indeed a surprise to Nihlus, considering his view of the colony had shown the geth tearing it apart with ruthless efficiency. Still, as much as he would have liked helping those people, their flight gave him an opportunity that wouldn’t likely come again.

Taking aim with his gunpod, he set it to charge to full, collecting protoculture energy in the weapon from his veritech’s own engine. The whine of the thing was muffled by layers of sonic devices, giving him plenty of time to prepare his shot, while the wanzer, after watching the warframes fly off, went back to work, opening another of the crates with a hiss as the internal stasis field wore off. Looking over the unit’s shoulder, Nihlus grumbled to the ancestors about luck and timing.

“At last,” said the pilot, delicately taking the object of his search from the crate, the wanzer’s hands barely touching it as he worked the fingers under the thing, and finally began to pull it out. As it had been described, it was a small monolith, about eight feet in height, with a large, wide base, and blue in color, like the relay’s themselves. The thing was a common enough sight in various prothean digs around the galaxy, but Nihlus was actually slightly shocked to see how pristine the thing appeared, as most tended to be felled by the ravages of time. This fact alone held back his hand as he waited for the wanzer to place the thing down, and back away.

He received a short burst transmission from the unit before him, encoded, but probably breakable, so he filed it away, as he watched the wanzer slowly set the prothean beacon down on the ground beside the crate, and then began to open. Another hiss of escaping air could be heard, and the unit, to Nihlus fortune, was facing towards him, allowing him to watch as he cocoon like cockpit split down the middle, various metal bars sliding away from it, and finally allowing the pilot, in full armor interestingly enough, to exit the unit, grabbing onto a rip cord that hung from an outstretched arm of the cockpit, and then letting the line lower him towards the ground.

“Finally, the Conduit,” said the pilot, a turian by the look of him, and male too. So that meant the voice wasn’t being modulated. Odd, and it made Nihlus try to place it even harder, only to get an answer to who it was in a moment, as the pilot removed their helmet, exposing themselves to the air. Beneath the blue armor of the turian, was a face Nihlus recognized instantly, a face almost any SPECTRE would, considering the turian’s record was the sort of thing legends were born from, with wins under his belt that put entire fleets to shame.

“Saren?” questioned Nihlus, only to pull the trigger in his cockpit, the gunpod blazing with yellow light as the thing discharged a shot. The powerful projectile penetrated the polymer protection of the mech, slamming into the exposed cockpit, and causing everything inside it to tear apart, even as it toppled backwards. Saren, surprised by this, dove forward, holding up his hand, and shockingly, creating a mass effect barrier between him and the exploding unit, with emphasis on protecting the beacon. Seeing he was being so generous with his protection, Nihlus decided to be even more generous with his destruction, and quickly pulled out a few more shots, blowing through the wanzer multiple times, before it finally fell backwards, a heaping pile of slag.

“Who dares!?” demanded Saren as soon as the attack was over, and Nihlus decided to be kind towards his fellow SPECTRE, revealing his unit, even as he took off, landing just in front of him, the night black sheen of his unit’s finish blinding the tiny turian, as the massive stealth veritech landed before him lightly.

“I believe you know who this is, Saren. Now, would you be so kind as to tell me what it is you’re doing here, I’ll tell you why you’re not going to get away with it,” said Nihlus, shifting his veritech into guardian mode, then lowering the front so that Saren could see who he was, and more importantly, that his finger was on the trigger for his gunpod, which was pointed right at the soon to be ex-SPECTRE.

“Nihlus? Heh, I suppose there wouldn’t be any point in trying to play this off as some mission the Council gave me, would there?” he said, and Nihlus in answer, flipped a switch so the missile ports on the veritech’s rear opened with dull thunk, followed by the beeps of multiple locks.

“I see. Still, this does put me in a rather awkward position. I had hoped to delay facing one of my own until we had secured our place amongst the chosen,” he said, dropping his arms and letting the barrier die, so that he was completely unprotected. Nihlus had to fight his instincts not to fire. It was what some would have done, but Saren was someone he knew, and for all his flaws, Nihlus still respected the turian. He was one of the best, and that reputation made him worthy of a chance to explain himself.

“I will ask again, what are you doing here, Saren?” he said, pushing the gunpod forward, so it was hovering only a foot or two from his target, giving him no time to dodge if the trigger was pulled.

“Oh, many things, Nihlus, many things. Taking my revenge on the Terrans who caused my brother’s death. Seeing for myself the future of the galaxy. Finally, I’m finding the Conduit for my new partners. With it, they will bring perfection to the galaxy,” as he said this, Nihlus’ sensors suddenly screamed at him, and pulling the trigger, he flew backwards, flaring his jets and wings to put distance between him, even as he fired shot after shot towards the turian.

“GAH!” this shout was from Saren, but it was one of frustration than of pain, as the shots Nihlus fired were blocked by another barrier, this one far thicker than should have been possible for Saren, even if he had been a biotic. Worse, he was firing through the barrier, launching several shots of what appeared to be warp power, ones almost as strong as a disruptor torpedo according to his sensors. Nihlus wasn’t a fool, of course, and instantly dodged among the crates, letting the blasts strike them, even as he opened a general comm channel.

“This is Nihlus Kryik to Normandy Ground Team. I’ve encountered a turian SPECTRE named Saren. He’s assisting these geth, and has sent several of them to activate something he calls a contingency plan. Moreover, there’s at least two survivors in the colony, actively being hunted by some of the geth. Save them if you can,” he ordered, trying to home in on the position of the team. Before he could get far, however, a droning sound could be heard in the air, and he turned towards it to find one of the geth floating in the air overhead.

Nihlus was a professional, and said nothing, as he shifted from guardian to jet mode, and shot into the sky. Pulling the trigger, he showered the geth with fire, watching as the thing activated hardened barriers that tanked the shots. Not that Nihlus was trying to kill it, of course. He needed to escape. He had information, and as much as it pained him, that beacon was nowhere near as valuable as what he’d seen. Saren’s guilt was not going to be easily accepted by the Council, but if they tried to defend him, it could lead to war with the Federation, a war they could ill afford if there was some third player in the game, as Saren’s words, and the oddities of the geth, seemed to imply.

“This is Normandy Ground Team to Nihlus. We have the survivors. No geth in sight, however. Lock on to us, and we’ll join up,” came the reply from Ms. Zorah, and Nihlus didn’t bother with a long flight path, instead aiming his nose straight towards where he detected the team. He was halfway across the colony, nearing their location, when a dull, droning noise echoed everywhere, causing the turian to grab his head in sharp pain, as it felt like his brain was being stabbed. Luckily, veritechs were designed with computers that helped keep him level.

Unluckily, while he recovered quickly, it was obvious the Terrans were down, with both Shepards, and a third armored form on the ground, clutching at their heads, while screams of pain echoed over the comms. Bringing his unit down as fast as he could, his only warning that something was wrong was the deep whine of biotic power, before his craft shattered around him, as a blast of raw kinetic force slammed into the armor, ripping it apart, and consuming his world in fire.

Chapter Text

The Normandy sped away at its best sublight velocity. Outside, one could actually see flames starting to appear on the hull as it accelerated quickly enough to ignite the very air, trying to tear itself out of Eden Prime’s atmosphere. Behind them, the colony receded, disappearing into the green haze of the land. Still, if one looked closely, one could see a large blue shape, like some kind of cephalopod, rising just behind them, moving in ways that even the Normandy, the most advanced ship in space, would have found impossible.

Inside the Meeting Deck, with holos of all the relevant tactical data before him, Skarrde was struck by how convenient the display was, giving him automatically calculated probabilities, suggestions on courses of action, and even real time assessments of the outcome of his plans. Not that it was a good thing, mind. His first order, run and hit the relay, had proven to be unworkable as at best, every calculation showed the ship hitting them minutes before they would get close to the thing, which was on the far side of Utopia right now.

“Heh, just like the old training in the tank,” he mused to himself. This very scenario had been planned for, and dumped into his tank when he’d been created. The specifics were different, of course. The Masters hadn’t known about real space FTL back when they’d made the training, after all, but running from a faster opponent, who outclassed you in every conceivable way? That was a problem that could be predicted. Mind, his training was to contact a larger ship, or to sacrifice himself for the glory of Tirol, or something of that sort. The former wasn’t an option due to the jamming, and the latter wasn’t even close to tempting anymore, even if he’d been alone in a battlepod.

“We don’t seem to have many good options,” commented EDI beside him, a small sphere of light representing her, as many of her other functions were busy running the Normandy.

“No, no it doesn’t. Still, we have some bad ones. Calculate our approach to Zion. It’s a gas giant. Not the perfect mixture of one, but it will do in a bind,” said Skarrde, and got a display of his ship rocketing towards the planet, with time estimates and such. With a few they were caught before they got there, but those were outliers, with the ship going far faster than it was now.

“Good, we’ll make a break for it then. Best speed. The instant we hit that atmosphere I want our sinks dumped, and I want us in full stealth,” commanded the General, and the light ball bobbed as if nodding, before vanishing, leaving him to watch as the small models moved in front of him. He felt a few twists to gravity as the ship ramped up to speed, having to shed precious velocity to dodge as the ship behind them reached out with a mass effect field of overpowering strength.

“Obviously, the commander on that ship doesn’t want to risk damaging the beacon,” commented Skarrde to himself, as the Normandy finally hit a decent speed, and then lurched a bit as it went FTL. Only a few times, for the moment though. It would have taken light over an hour to reach Zion from their current position. The Normandy, at its current speed, would reach the same point in ten minutes or so, fast enough to hopefully keep them away from their pursuer, but slow enough that Joker could stop them just on the edge of the atmosphere, before they entered it and burned to nothing.

This delay gave him time to think, plan, and then brood. The latter was a new thing for him, but then, he’d never been in this particular situation before. Well, never on this side anyway. Back during the Wasteland Wars, when he’d given Jack a datapod to take back to the human authorities with Zeraal’s forces closing in, he’d stayed behind to hold them off, expecting to die in the attempt. Now he was faced with the same choice as Jack, leaving via use of Zion’s atmosphere to get closer to the relay, a plan with almost a fifty percent chance of working according to his readouts, but leaving his people behind in a hopeless situation on Eden Prime.

“A Federation Soldier doesn’t leave a teammate behind,” he said at last, rejecting the plan. After all, they knew next to nothing anyway, so leaving now wouldn’t change things, and might make things worse, if the ship got away before they could call in reinforcements. Even with instantaneous drives, it would take a few minutes to get anyone out to Eden Prime, and that was if they didn’t raise the more normal Fold Jammers that blocked entrances as well as exits. In that time, the ship was likely to return to the colony and if its commander was particularly vindictive, burn the whole place to the ground.

“General, we’ll hit Zion in approximately sixty seconds. Orders?” asked EDI as she and Joker appeared, along with a few officers on the bridge, their forms projected for his convenience in the Meeting Deck.

“After we dump sinks and dive while in stealth, I want you to start charging every weapon we can while remaining undetected. We’ll blow this thing away with one shot, or die in the attempt,” he ordered simply, and got several nods, as the people went about their work, getting ready to follow his command. A moment later, the Normandy shuddered as it dropped out of FTL, the hull outside already shining a little as it had been slightly within the upper atmosphere of the gas giant when it exited.

“Dumping sinks, now!” shouted one of the officers, as they pushed a button, and suddenly every light in the ship blinked, including the Meeting Deck going dark for a moment. When the holos resumed functioning, Skarrde watched a wave pass through the thick clouds as heat, static, and even kinetic force was blasted outward from where the Normandy had been, but was now diving even deeper, the ship hitting just behind them, and small lines of clouds rising from the gas giant towards it as those legs tried to lock on with gravity fields, trying to grab the Normandy as it juked and rolled around them.

“Stealth activating, launching decoys!” advised EDI as small probes, small balls of mass effect fields, came pouring from openings on the Normandy’s hull. Each orb soon bloomed into a full sized recreation of the Normandy herself, even as the real ship turned hard at an odd angle, making their way out of range, even as a few of the false images got grabbed.

“Get us as far down and away as you can,” ordered Skarrde as he began to review the readouts of the Normandy’s systems. The ship, with the sinks dumped, was doing better than one might expect, given they’d had to travel at FTL with the things full, and thus risked overloading the things. Still, the Normandy was the most advanced ship in the Federation or Citadel fleets, and given that sort of power, she was bound to surprise their enemies, even as their enemies obviously found ways to surprise them.

“Launch a daisy chain of probes, passive scanners only, so we can keep an eye on the large ship,” he added as their view of the ship outside the atmosphere started to distort. Instantly, a few more of the spherical probes were tossed from the image of the Normandy, feeding the ship more data, and resolving the image of their foe, even as they made their way to the limit of the hull, and finally stopped.

“We’re as deep as we can get General. What’s the plan?” asked Joker as the ship finally lurched to a halt, scanners continuing to show their enemy in detail, as it kept blindly grasping into the clouds, trying in vain to find them by sheer force of will. It wouldn’t take long for the ship’s commander to give up, however, and assume they made a break for the relay. At that point, they would probably turn their ship around and head straight for Eden Prime to finish their work there, before more reinforcements could be called in.

“We go on the offensive. The crew of that ship is responsible, in part or in whole, for the death of every man, woman, and child, on Eden Prime. I for one, want to make them pay for that,” ordered the General, knowing it wasn’t the ‘correct’ call in this situation, but also knowing he refused to leave anyone behind if he could help it. The crew seemed to agree with him, as everyone seemed to attack their stations.

“Power to the Mega Particle Cannon. All turbines to speed,” said a quarian at his controls, beneath them, one could feel the whine as power was transferred to the gun, a sized up version of the weapon on Garrus’ custom unit. Using super charged electrons in a mass effect sheath, the weapons power was, theoretically, a match for the largest gun ever made by the Council, and possibly even the Reflex cannon on the SDF-1.

“Synchro Cannon, protoculture chamber filling, eighteen percent and rising,” came the counter from a batarian at her station, as readouts gave her pressure listings for every valve and seal leading to the gun. Like the Particle Cannon, the Synchro was a scaled up Gallant, firing a massive amount of protocutlure like a bullet. The single test firing they’d done had resulted in damages equal to a flag firing every Reflex Turret at once, and that had been only at twenty percent.

“Vector Cannon, life ring has started revolving,” came the chime in from a turian at his station. This weapon, a new development, fired not a shot of energy or power, but literally space. Skarrde hadn’t fully understood the meaning, but it somehow bent space with its fire, using the force of the bending like a sledgehammer. He’d seen the thing fire, again only once, but that had been enough to make him believe the thing was on par with any other weapon the ship might have.

“General, we are now visible to the enemy. A mass effect field is locking onto us,” advised EDI, as her holo turned simple again, her mind scattered throughout the ship, keeping the core from overloading this time, managing the weapons as reflex turrets took aim, and mass drivers did likewise. Every joule of power on the ship was being focused, and the crew held their breaths, waiting for the release of all that energy.

“Joker, point us up towards the thing. As soon as we’re clear of the cloud layer, I want us firing,” ordered Skarrde, and he saw the holo of the pilot nod, before going into orb form with his wife, the ship shuddering a little as he flared the engines, soon leaving them with their nose pointed almost straight upwards, as the mass effect field of the enemy vessel continued to do their work for them. Slowly, they rose, like a predator from the depths, waiting for the hunter to realize this catch had far too many teeth for them to take.

“Fire!” ordered Skarrde, the moment he saw the last of the wisps part from his ship, and a heartbeat later, the vessel poured starfire towards their target. Blue charged particles flew from their bay, lancing outwards like something out of an old religious tome, the cleansing fire of angles to smite some mortal foe. Green colored raw protoculture, life itself in its rawest form, sailing across the void to slam hard into the enemy's flesh. Red compressed space, a line of something only barely visible, but more powerful than all the hellfire of any underworld you cared to name.

Amid all that, the reflex turrets blue lines and the yellow dots of the mass drivers might as well have been raindrops, but they fired anyway, adding to the raw destruction that soon hit the enemy as hard as they could, their force only multiplied by the large ship’s own attempt to drag the Normandy towards it, accelerating the shots. Then they hit home, the barrier of their foe a rainbow of colors as the attacks slammed into it. Ripples passed through the barrier, creating an odd visual effect, as the attack continued to stream.

“Hold! Don’t let up!” ordered Skarrde, even as he watched the weapons start to drain their banks, and slowly but surely approach the red zone, threatening to melt the sinks of the Normandy into slag, before they tore the ship apart. Still, their enemy seemed to be having just as great a struggle as they were, the barrier itself seemingly melting off other parts of the ship as it focused on the area where the big guns were impacting it, the armor of the thing shrugging off the power of the reflex turrets and mass drivers that target the unprotected bits.

“Hold!” he ordered again, watching, almost dumbstruck, as the ship continued to take their assault. Finally, with that moment of stillness that came from watching something closely, the barrier gave. The armor, that wasn’t even scratched by their other attacks, caved the instant the big guns touched it, the tendril falling into rubble and being vaporized, as the ship only barely moved itself out of the way, letting the three arcs of light continue on into space, even as the Normandy was forced to start a power down sequence to avoid exploding themselves.

“Damage to the enemy!” shouted one of the gunners, even as more fire started to pour down into that wound, shafts of blue light and yellow pellets of destruction exploding against the exposed innards of the great vessel. Then he heard it. First it was simple buzzing, an annoyance, but refusing to allow him to ignore it. It swiftly grew, however, and with a shriek of pain, Joker, EDI, and Skarrde fell, the AI’s holos fragmenting, even as the Zentraedi went to his knees, and then rolled onto his side, clutching at his head.

Skarrde’s mind filled with images and emotions he hadn’t known in so long, they’d been forgotten. His leaders, the Robotech Masters, standing proud on their great ships, commanding him and his brothers to kill for them, to die for them. His memories, programmed into the core of his being during his creation, kept trying to assert themselves over his sense of self. Skarrde was strong, however, two centuries and more of life had made him into someone not easily broken, especially after he had chosen his own path in this world, and after sitting there for what felt like hours in pain, he slowly rose.

“All stations! Keep us level!” shouted a voice through the pain-filled haze of Skarrde’s mind, and he distantly felt the rocking of the ship beneath him, vibrations that spoke of battles and maneuvers that strained the gravity systems of the ship. Breathing hard, he realized that beneath him, a puddle of sweat was forming rapidly, forcing him to be even more careful as he got back onto his feet, and took a look at the situation as it stood now.

“Report!” he commanded, and several shouting voices stopped at once, commands frozen on the lips of those about to give them. Instantly, the commander of the vessel appeared before him, saluting in the turian way.

“General, you’ve been out of commission for the last twenty minutes. Joker only recovered five minutes ago, and as of now, EDI is still offline. We’re doing our best to keep the ship stable, but the enemy isn’t allowing us much room to make plans,” as the commander spoke, images of the battle sprang up around him. They had either flown, or more likely with Joker out, dropped back into the cloud layer. They were just above crush depth as it was, but it made it impossible for their enemy to find them.

Not that the enemy seemed to be doing so, as beams of red light sprang from the tips of the remaining tendrils, setting fire to entire swaths of clouds as they passed through. Worse though, and the source of the rocking were those tendrils that were distorted, orbs at the end dropping from them into the clouds. Those clouds would be drawn to the orbs, singularities like a biotics, and slowly the clouds inside would build, and build until the pressure reached its limit, and the hydrogen exploded outwards, creating a blast wave that struck the Normandy and shook it violently, nearly driving Skarrde back to his knees.

“Main cannons are still charging back up. We won’t be ready to fire again for at least half an hour, and with their barrier back up, nothing else we’ve got will even dent that ship,” advised one of the gunners, and Skarrde could hear a few panicked grunts as the ship shuddered under another impact as one of the beams got close to them, sending a wash of fire over the hull outside. Joker, his orb a deep crimson with his rage, screamed bloody murder as he dove to the side to avoid as much as he could, only for a second bar of red light to strike nearby, swinging towards them. Skarrde’s tactical mind told them they were dead, there just wasn’t time for him to give any orders, and Joker wouldn’t have time to dodge.

“What in the?” said more than a single voice, most adding a word or two onto the end, as all at once, the maelstrom of fire and force about them abruptly ceased. Above, the ship, seemingly limping with the broken tendril hanging dead off the bottom, turned away from the world, and then accelerated away, gaining speed quicker than any ship its size should have been able to do, before finally vanishing into FTL, leaving every person on the Normandy just staring at where it had been.

“Angle of departure suggests they’re headed back to the colony, General,” said an asari at her station, and Skarrde nodded.

“Alright, all hands, keep battlestations. I want as many repairs done in half an hour as we can. Doctor, see if you can get EDI back online. Joker, help with that,” commanded the General, and he got confirmations from all stations.

“I will do my best, but I’m a biologist, not a technician,” came the voice of the salarian medic the ship employed, before he began to hum show tunes again, a sign that he was already hard at work on the problem. It would take only fifteen minutes before the ship was deemed ready to fly, and they flew out of Zion’s clouds, rocketing towards Eden Prime, and hoping they were not too late.

Chapter Text

“Units are approaching on scout vector. Range is optimal for weapons. Garrus-Captain, adjust one degree up y, and three degrees left x. Shepard-Sargant, adjust five degrees down y, eighteen degrees left x,” said the geth, and the two soldiers did as ordered, both keeping an eye on the datafeeds they were being given by the same, including a countdown clock and overlays that showed precisely where the enemies would breach the horizon. Charn, grumbling a little, used his pods controls to help Jane’s aim, moving her to match the data better, as she had been half a degree off, which at this range meant she might miss.

“They aren’t launching any probes, or taking any precautions. Truly, they believe themselves to be masters of this world,” commented Tali as her own probes gave her a nice readout on the pair. Jon above her, nodded once, and then crouched as his display added a countdown to itself. Five seconds to go, and an overlay appeared as well, showing him exactly where he would need to stand to fulfill his part of the operation. Four seconds, and he could hear his sister tense up, preparing to fire. Three seconds, and Legion closed his sensors up, moving slightly to the side of where he had been. Two seconds, and everything to hang there in anticipation. One second…

“Fire!” shouted Garrus over the comm, and almost simultaneously a beam of light red energy leapt from his gun, while at the same time, light green shot from Jane’s. The two bolts, thin, but brimming with power, crackled through the air, firing at speeds that weren’t quite that of light, but far quicker than even the geth’s processing power could combat. As such, the two units in the sky only had that single moment of horror as the shots streaked towards them, not even letting them transform out of their flying modes, before their jets exploded in a spray of shrapnel, heat, and carnage.

The two units plummeted without their drives, their warframes unable to change form now due to the twisted bits on the rear, allowing them little in the way of protection as they fell. The huge things, as big as fighters to a micronian, struck the ground hard, but in a testament to their construction, it was the earth that gave, not them. Huge chunks of dirt were thrown into the sky as they skidded across the ground, stopping just in front of where Legion and Jon were standing, the pair moving the instant they were stopped, with Legion standing before his, while Jon put his left hand over the one before him, his omnitool appearing as Tali used it to connect to the geth platform plugged into the warframe itself.

“Accessing network!” she shouted, and over the comm one could hear her fingers moving, the large digits showing themselves to be as dexterous as any human’s. Legion didn’t appear to be moving himself, but a holodisplay in front of his palm showed him hacking through one layer of security after another. Jon himself got a display of both hacking attempts, marveling at the speed of the two as they tore apart firewalls after firewall, before finally the network of the geth, and the minds of these platforms in specific, was laid bare.

“Prioritize tactical and mission briefs. We need to know what that ship was, and what it wanted. If possible, find out who launched this assault as well,” ordered Captain Garrus, though whether Tali and Legion were following that order was anyone’s guess, as they scanned the data streams before them, copying files that seemed important for later, and makings notes of where the stuff seemed different than usual. After almost a minute of silence as they worked, one could hear Tali gasp in shock.

“Legion, what do you see in sectors five-oh-eight, and six-one-six of your unit?” she asked, and the geth was quiet for a moment, before finally answering.

“Interesting, the foreign code is…,” Legion, saying nothing else, rose from his position and raised his right arm so it was pointed at the sky. One could then hear the sound of metal clunking against metal as the hand at the end of the arm was drawn inside, revealing the arm itself was hollow within. If one could see through the metal, one would have been able to see the hand breaking into small limbs around the five fingers, which went against the arm’s inner hull, before sparking with power as the chamber began to fill with yellow light.

“Jon, kill it!” shouted Tali, and without waiting for further instructions, the Terran pulled his Gallants off his hips and laying into the thing, leaping back as bolts of protoculture tore into the warframe body, the armor melting under the attack, the first bolt of which was aimed right at the geth platform that housed the primary runtimes, rendering the thing braindead, and then slag in seconds. Legion’s own attack was less pinpoint, but far more devastating, as his arm cannon, literally his whole arm transformed into a gunpod like aperture, belched forth yellow bolts at a dizzying speed, each ripping into the enemy’s armor, reducing it to nothing in a furious volley of destruction. In both cases, nothing remained of their prisoners, but piles of melted slag.

“Ms. Zorah, Legion, you had better have a good explanation for why you just killed our only two prisoners,” said Garrus after the smoking craters that had once been warframes finally began to cool off.

“We do Captain. Those geth were already dead,” as Tali spoke, she caused a small flash of blue light along Jon’s left arm, making him raise it upwards, and then start projecting a hologram in front of her.

“Legion, this resembles what you saw, correct?” she asked, and the warframe’s head nodded at the sight before him.

“Affirmative, code blocks match within ninety-six percent of this unit’s observation of the enemy’s command lines,” he confirmed, and Tali caused the view in front of them to straighten out, small graphs appearing next to the code lines, showing various stats, but most important to the discussion seemed to be the one that seemed to be a countdown timer, showing degradation of the runtimes within the geth’s personal network.

“This unit, all the runtimes in it, and possibly everything in the network here has been infected by a code lines I can only call wonder drugs. They’re not viruses, not in the usual sense, as they’re actually making the runtimes work faster and more efficiently than the hardware should allow. In a way, these geth are as close to full sentience as an amalgamated intelligence can get,” she explained, and the graphs showing comparisons between normal geth, like Legion, and the modified ones attacking the colony, popped up in the display.

“These upgrades are costly, however. The runtimes degrade, even faster than logic stringing them would cause. Worse, if I’m reading this right, the degradation can be, and has been, sped up in this case,” as she spoke, one of the runtimes was isolated from the rest, showing the foreign code had wormed its way through the entire thing, looking like a parasite sucking dry the former geth.

“If I’m right, this runtime was on the edge of the degradation effect, probably noticed it too, but the code spread through it, and began sending false reports to the rest, convincing the aggregate that nothing was wrong. Whoever did this is a monster, they gave these geth some enhancements that probably seemed like gifts from on high, but ones that are slowly killing them while also controlling them,” as she finished, the display shifted to show coding in her own pod, firewalls that were literally being battered against by the alien code.

“I had Jon destroy it, probably for the same reason Legion destroyed his. The code is self propagating, meaning that all it took was one geth to be infected, and it would have spread the stuff to the rest of whatever collective it was part of. This code is mind control, enhancement program, and kill switch, all in one very nasty package,” this was followed by her firewall burning away the malignant code, and Legion’s warframe nodded, likely having done much the same.

“When we get back to the Normandy, I want your pod and Legion’s brain scrubbed, just in case. But I agree with your decision. Keep whatever snapshots of the code you can, so we can observe them later, but for now, safety means burning this infection out,” said Garrus, looking down at his gun, as if wondering if it could burn the code out in some way. While he did that, the two Gallants wielded by Jon beeped, telling him the chambers were full again, only to be counterpointed by Legion letting out a warning siren, before sending them data from his sensors. The geth were coming in force.

“Tali, is there any way at all to recover these geth and return them to normal?” asked Jon, his tone sounding almost completely flat, as he returned the Gallants to his waist, where they clicked against his sides.

“I’m afraid, even if we could get one of them to consent to a scrub, the code itself is far too pervasive in their network at this point. Any attempt to remove it would likely result in the geth runtimes ending up fragmented at best, completely deleted at worst,” admitted the quarian, and Legion nodded at her assessment, showing he believed it to be much the same, when Jon turned to him for a second opinion. This solicited a rather angry sounding growl from the Terran, who turned towards Garrus’ mech.

“Captain, permission to deal with the incoming enemies?” he asked, standing straight and tall, with a note of menace in his voice. Garrus, looking at his unit, considered the offer. He’d heard tales, of course, of both Shepards. There was a reason they’d been selected for this duty after all. But still, his scope told him there were more than seventy geth warframes in the air. Not an easy fight even for all of them at once.

“You think you can take them all by yourself?” asked Garrus, and one could almost hear the feral grin on Jon’s face, as he hefted one of the pistols, spinning it on his finger, before returning it to his waist.

“I know we can,” he said, not a brag or a boast, just a statement of fact, and after stroking the side of his mandible for a moment Garrus nodded.

“Alright, let’s see what you can do. Legion, Jane, we’re on defense. Anything gets past Jon, and we deal with it,” as he spoke, the three walked towards a nearby stand of trees, taking position in the limited coverage the greenery gave them. Jon, smirking inside his helmet, wiggled a finger and opened a private channel with the woman in the pod on his back.

“He seems to be rather dismissive of you and Charn,” commented the Terran as he walked forward, watching as data feeds flew through his view, giving him all the plans Tali was working on at a glance.

“He’s a turian. He thinks in terms of equipment and drivers, and right now, to him, Charn and I are the former rather than the latter,” she offered.

“Heh, well, he’ll learn soon enough,” responded Jon.

“He certainly will. Now, how do you want to play this? We have way too many targets incoming for my liking, and not nearly enough firepower to compensate,” she asked, as her sims seemed to all red out at the same instant, showing the probabilities of survival dropping to at or near zero.

“I have a few idea, though for firepower, why not use the gallants? They tore through that unit’s armor well enough,” he offered, drawing one of the pistols and looking it over, getting sensor overlays that read him the general stats and abilities of the weapon.

“At close range, sure, a single shot would be more than adequate to rip through the barrier and armor of the warframes. We’re not going to be at close range,” she told him, and showed him a quick sim of him firing from the ground, one that ended with only about a dozen enemies destroyed before he ran out of shots, and their counterstroke tore through him like wet tissue paper.

“How’s about a ‘Stairway to Heaven’ then? We’d certainly make it closer with that little trick,” said Jon, giving Tali a moment to run the numbers on the maneuver, and this time their odds were greatly improved, with the pair rising to meet the threat, rather than allowing the geth to fight on their terms. When five sims in a row showed a green result, Tali gave it the go ahead as her fingers began to fly over her controls.

“Beginning countdown. Tower shield activating,” she informed him, and Jon leaned forward, holding out his right arm so that it was hanging in front of him. Slowly, a line formed on the arm, an arc of a barrier expanding outward, taking on the distinctive purple glow of a hardened version as it grew and grew, becoming a rectangle as tall as Jon himself was, while the Terran wiggled a finger, reopening the general comms for the rest of them to hear.

“We’ll be ascending in a moment. We’ll give you a signal if we need assistance,” he told them simply, and began to walk forward, his feet falling heavily on the ground as he made his way towards his opponents. The sensors continued to feed him data, giving him angles, projections, and everything else a soldier on the ground wanted to know about his enemy, before a blue plate suddenly appeared in front of him. He didn’t hesitate however, stepping on the thing, which held under his weight.

“Stairway to Heaven!” he shouted, and his foot jet flared, giving him boost, which was just about to arc down, when another blue barrier appeared, allowing him to once again get a boost up. Five steps and he was several hundred feet in the air, the geth spotting him, and instantly deploying their guns. Given the warframe was designed at least partially based off a veritech, it was little surprise that the guns were deployed from the bottom, the hands of the units’ popping out in a similar way to guardian mode, before rings extended from inside their sleeves, separating fingers and palms, and eventually leaving all the geth with double gatling guns.

The shots fired a heartbeat later, and lines of red light, liquid metal, accelerated towards the rising form of Shepard. Unfortunately for the AIs, the tower shield was more than enough to catch the shots they fired that actually hit, while the majority of them flew wide of the mark. The angle and approach of Shepard’s rise carrying him higher and faster than the geth’s calculations really allowed, and in this their weapons were working against them, as they had to wait for the entirety of the red liquid to exit the barrel before they could fire again.

“Prepare for combat,” said Tali’s voice in his ear, and Shepard tensed as his arc finally carried him up over the firing angle of the warframes, who were quickly approaching their position. The last plate appeared, and with a burst of fire from his boot, the Terran was propelled upwards even farther, his body spinning as it did so, the tower shield falling away, as the gallants found their way into his hands. The geth, had they been farther away, might have divide their force, pincered him in, or any one of a dozen other tactics, but in their overconfidence, they were literally right under Shepard as he arced above them, and then green bolts of light fell like rain.

Each shot of the gallant was as powerful as a dozen or more from their hand blasters, the geth’s defenses, barriers that should have been able to take fire from the Terran for at least a few minutes, found themselves completely inadequate to the task, as each shot tore into their purple glow, winking it out of existence, and then their armor would crumple like cardboard. Worse, the shots themselves were almost supernaturally accurate, each blast aimed precisely at the mass effect core of the unit, causing it to explode as the core back blasted with enough force to tear the frame apart.

The geth weren’t about to go down so easily, however, and as four tens of them died in terrible explosions, the remaining units took new angles, or flipped and began firing while trying desperately to dive away from the still spinning Terran. That spin was important, however, as like the sudden rise, the seemingly random way the armored man changed direction threw off their aim, and their weapons, which had proven effective against the colony’s scant defenders and people, were completely outclassed.

In less than a minute, the geth were all destroyed, eighty-four units in total, all to a single soldier, who ceased to spin, and began to drift downwards, an aura of blue light showing the use of mass effect to slow his descent. Staring upwards at the scene, where the explosions of the geth still lingered, Garrus had to whistle through his mandibles. He’d heard rumors of the two Shepards, and even seen a vid or two of their exploits, but that was just incredible, causing him to flick a switch, and get a private channel with the Shepard still standing next to him.

“Your brother is everything the tales make him out to be,” he commented, and Jane, looking up at the pair coming towards them, shook her head at the assessment.

“Not a chance. My brother’s great as a tech, but he’s at best an average fighter. Tali though, that girl’s got a gift for guns akimbo that would make even Max Sterling jealous,” she told the turian, who hmmed through his mic, considering what she’d said, going back over the battle a frame at a time. He did see what she meant too, as flashes of blue light sometimes bloomed on the armor, showing where Tali used her pod to alter the angle of Jon’s arms, legs, or anything else, even using them to reverse the spin a time or two. With Jon providing the muscle, and Tali providing the skill, the pair were a force to be reckoned with.

“All units destroyed, Captain,” said Shepard as he came to ground, the gallants at his hips showing their chambers as slowly refilling, having been emptied against their foes above. Meanwhile, the pod on Jon’s back squealed harshly, as steam flew from the bottom of it, wilting the grass below.

“Affirmative, I’m not detecting any more warframes in the colony itself. Of course, my pod is now at less than fifty percent power, so if they have any reserve forces, we’re not going to be able to repeat that little performance. Hmm, we lowered down to ninety-eight-point-six percent Sync ratio, Jon,” commented the quarian woman, and the Terran she was riding on just shrugged as he began to review the data of their combat on his own hud, getting the calculations to fly before his eyes, telling him where the computer believed they had acted against each other.

“Nothing to it, just a rounding error I think, due to the Stairway maneuver. We’ll practice it more once we’re back on the Normandy,” he said, and soon the unit was off again, Legion in the lead once more, his sensors wide open, with Jon and Tali just behind, while Garrus, Jane, and Charn brought up the rear. As they walked, Garrus went over his files, digesting everything he could as quickly as possible. He’d heard the term Sync Ratio before, of course, he was a Captain after all, but he’d never been in a fight with Terrans, never seen how it worked.

Now he understood. It was a measure of ability, similar to a pilot grade rank, but also a measure of unity. A Terran and a micronian operating a pod could, through training, act almost as one, with every movement of the Terran enhanced by mass effect fields, or with data feeding them optimum movement strategies and the like. Of course, for most teams, even years of practice only gave them a Ratio of around fifty percent, with most averaging out like Jane and Charn at something like high teens or early twenties.

Jon and Tali though, they were the hundred percent. They moved and acted as one, without a wasted motion, allowing for the pod to generate almost pinpoint defenses, while Jon would move with them, positioning them and keeping them where they were most useful. It also made them mobile more so than most, especially considering they little Starway they’d made. Combined with the latest tech in the gallants, and the pair really could take on the world. This made Garrus smirk to himself, remembering stories of his father about how the female Shepards had so impressed him as a soldier. In those tales, he’d never once made mention of the males though, somehow missing this in his assessment. He would really enjoy rubbing this in the old man’s face when he returned to Palavan.

Chapter Text

The pair of figures, despite their size, moved like graceful dancers through the trees and hills outside the colony. In the distance, one could see the smoke, and outside their suits, they could have smelled the ruin that had befallen this place, which only a day ago had been one of the largest colonies of the Terran Federation. Now it was a dead world. Crops were destroyed, homes were shattered, and worst of all, the bodies seemed to litter the ground everywhere, the micronains on those weird blue spikes, while the Terrans were piled high, seemingly stacked like wood to be burned.

“Samesh, Abhay,” said the Terran as she looked towards one of the piles they passed. Her stride never wavered, her march didn’t slow, but over the tight comms the two figures shared, her partner could hear her pain.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say, Nirali,” she said at last, ducking behind a stand of trees, trying to get her wanzer to the smallest profile she could, keeping every passive sensor she could open, trying to find a sign of the ones who’d done this.

“There is nothing to say, Doctor. Nothing at all. The Budda teaches that in their passing, they shall be reborn anew into this world, and hopefully they will find the path both in and out of this world far gentler than this,” responded the Terran, offering the mech a hand to rise back up, and the pair began to walk down the path. Their course swung wide of the colony, or at least, as wide as they could make it with Eden Prime’s odd geography of massive plateaus and rolling hills, while always keeping the colony itself in sight.

The two had been walking for the past ten minutes, emerging from the Doctor’s lab on the far side of the colony, one she’d insisted on covering as thoroughly as they could before leaving. That delay had annoyed Nirali, but she knew the reason. The things in that lab were far more valuable than the lives of their guards. To the galaxy, they were worth the life of everyone on Eden Prime, really, and with the fires crackling out in the fields, the galaxy apparently meant to collect every life it could.

“Route check,” said the wanzer suddenly, and she began to feed her sensor data to Nirali, causing the Terran woman to finally stop, as her hud was cluttered up by the map. It showed the path they’d been on, leading back towards the hidden lab, and towards the explosions they’d picked up that had made them leave. It was their hope that whoever was fighting these invaders was an ally. If not, well, they were likely to die anyway, and Nirali was a Terran, she preferred to die facing danger, rather than cowering, a sentiment her partner didn’t wholly agree with, but figured it would be the best way to protect her lab and the precious things inside if she weren’t there to draw attention to it.

“We’re on course,” said the pilot at last, and the pair started off again. They were barely half a mile farther on when they heard it, and both dived down. Above them, they quickly spotted the source of the distinctive whine of jets and mass effect fields. Four geth warframes, flying in diamond formation. Seemingly, they ignored the pair as they went on about their business, but both knew they weren’t that lucky. They’d been spotted, and the instant the formation was out of sight, they rose to their feet, looked at one another, and then redoubled their speed, the wanzer pilot projecting a mass effect field around her entire unit, exhausting as that was, to give them speed.

They were just cresting a rise when they finally had fire incoming, the wanzer pilot pushing Nirali down even as she leapt to the side to avoid streaks of red light that impacted the ground with explosive force. Coming down in a roll, the Terran armed her palm blasters with a twitch of her fingers, and sent lines of blue energy upwards at her foes. Sadly, the purple barriers sprang up in defense, the blue bolts of destruction scattering like water on the defense, even as the three above shifted from jet, into a humanoid mode.

“Die Monsters!” cried the Terran over her speakers, beginning to rain fire towards her foes, rather than sustained blasts. A minute of such fire might have brought down one of the units, but they didn’t give her free reign in this time, and began to fire back, their arms in that gatling mode, shifting barrels to allow them to rapidly fire out thanix blasts. Having seen her squad torn apart by such things, Nirali dodged amongst them, never letting the lances of deadly liquid metal touch her, but forcing her to give up on her own assault at the same time.

“I must agree, it would be best if you went away!” shouted the wanzer pilot, whose unit began to glow, the blue light shifting to purple as she focused it in the palm of her own unit, where the wanzer’s own core enhanced and powered the shot. She then ‘threw’ a bolt of energy upwards, the projectile as charged as she could make it, and Nirali, seeing an opening, fired herself. The ones hovering above dodged as much as they could, but the wanzer pilot was good enough that the bolt she’d fired shifted, slamming hard into the warframe on the left, whose barrier sparked under the power of a warp, just before a rain of shots from the Terran impacted the armor, denting it at first, but then rupturing it till it exploded like a bomb in the air.

“Can you do that again?” asked the Terran as she and the wanzer retreated behind a rock outcropping, the remaining warframes in the air backing off, one even transforming back into jet mode and rocketing over the horizon, possibly for more reinforcements.

“I’m afraid not for a few minutes, Chief Bhatia,” admitted the wanzer pilot, her voice gasping and gulping for breath. She was spent for the moment, and that meant they could do little but run, as the geth warframe flew over their cover, and resumed the attack, the single unit pressing them hard enough to force them to flee. Nirali shot back as much as she could, trying to keep the geth focused on her, as the wanzer moved much more clunkily without the mass effect field, but she knew a single shot from that weapon hitting her, and it would all be over.

“GET DOWN!” shouted an unknown voice, and Nirali leapt forward, her arm latching onto the wanzer and carrying it forward, just as a bolt of pink light came over the horizon. It struck the warframe in its left foot, causing the jet there to explode into shrapnel and debris, while also making the warframe itself spin in place. Only for a moment, though, as another two bolts of light, one pink and one green, struck it at the same moment, one piercing the eezo core, the other obliterating the piloting geth platform, causing the thing to go up in a fireball.

Looking towards the source of the bolts, the pair were shocked to see Terrans, armored Terrans, but given the voice, Nirali was certain they weren’t locals, which meant help had arrived. In addition to them was an unknown unit, designed to look like a Terran, with a face with two eyes, rather than the mono eye of a veritech, or the glass front of a wanzer or destroid. The final member of the party, a geth warframe, caused Nirali to aim her hands towards it, but given that the others weren’t reacting to it in hostile fashion, and it wasn’t covered in the glow of a mass effect field, she assumed it was a friendly.

“Soldier, report!” shouted a voice from the unknown unit, and Nirali quickly snapped a salute, her fist smashing into her heart as she stood up straighter. Beside her, one could hear a very weary groan from the wanzer, either because the pilot was annoyed with the military display, or because she was trying to recover from a headache, given the biotics she’d been throwing around a few moments ago.

“Chief Master Sergeant Nirali Bhatia, leader of the Eden Prime ground defenses. At oh-two-five-nine this morning the mass relay began to go through activation protocols. Given no transports were known to be coming, the local defense fleet was scrambled, but before an emergency signal could be sent out, an unknown field began to project itself over the colony. It had the odd result of making it so no fold would form out, though some still came in,” she began, moving her fingers rapidly to give the units in front of her all relevant tactical information she had.

“The interference field was that large?” asked one of the terrans, a woman by the sound of her voice, and Nirali nodded.

“It was. Regardless, we believed that an attack was forthcoming, and began to evac the civilians to the shelters, but before we could do much of anything on that front, the sky lit up with bolts of red light. The five frigates that made up our space based defenses were torn apart before they even knew what hit them. The strange ship, code named Cthulhu by one of my men, then descended into the atmosphere, an impossible feat for a mass effect ship, but impossible didn’t seem to matter to it,” as she spoke, videos played out as slide shows, allowing them to witness the slaughter of the colonists, as the ship overhead shot lances right at the buried shelters, which should have protected them from anything an eezo core could dish out.

It didn’t, as they well knew. The ship’s thanix like weapons tore right into the shelters, melting the metal, and boring into the barriers that defended the lives inside. Worse, as the shelters exploded, the colonists on the ground had nowhere to go, and began to run into the hills, possibly hoping to hide. At that same instance, a wave of geth warframes poured from the ship, darkening the sky, and firing their weapons into the crowds. Micronian and Terran alike died screaming, as the horde descended on them.

“When they were...done with the initial assault, it was just my personal squad and I left. We tried to send a real space burst transmission, let people know what had happened, even if we died. Enrique and the rest were blasted by that thing into atoms, and I only barely survived, unconscious and thrown by the explosion. That was when Dr. T’Soni found me,” as she spoke, she gestured towards the wanzer next to her, which turned to reveal the pilot, a young looking(not that that meant much) asari maiden, her face ashen and drawn from the things she’d been doing to survive.

“Ah, I know you. You’re Liara T’Soni, the Prothean Expert,” said a female voice, and one of the Terrans turned, revealing they were wearing an Assistant Pod on their back, with a suitless quarian at the pod’s controls, and looking towards her.

“Yes, I am. I was informed of the discovery on Eden Prime a few days ago, and was ordered to the Citadel where I could study the beacon and the stasis pods. I was already nearby, however, and decided to make my way here, rather than wait for them to come to me. After all, artifacts are one thing, but a full prothean facility, full of functional gear? That’s the find of a lifetime,” as she spoke, her voice grew stronger, speaking of her work obviously giving her renewed vigor.

“What I discovered already dwarfs everything my people have found about the protheans in all of our history, and I requested a private lab to continue my studies without...risk to myself or the materials themselves,” she said this with a tone that implied something, but it was Nirali who explained.

“We caught one of the younger cadets playing around with the pods, juggling them and such. It was decided to give the good doctor a facility outside the norm, and we set up a deep lab for her in one of the holding cells outside of the colony,” as she spoke, a map appeared before everyone, detailing the location.

“It had the room I needed, and was properly shielded. It apparently hid me from the geth as well, and I only learned about the attack when I looked outside and saw smoke. I quickly booted up my personal wanzer and found Mrs. Bhatia, and brought her back to my lab. We’ve been holding up there for the past few hours, hoping for rescue,” finished Liara, and the others nodded.

“So, how many ships are in orbit? Were you able to take out the big ship?” asked the asari, a note of hope in her voice, but when the two Terrans and strange unit turned to face each other, she felt her heart drop.

“Unfortunately, we’re just a ground team of a single vessel, the Normandy, which was to be the transport for the beacon and the pods. That ship led the enemy vessel away, and with our arms we’ve destroyed much of the ground force. We do have anot-,” began Garrus, only to be interrupted by the sound of static over the comms, as a general burst transmission came in.

“This is Nihlus Kryik to Normandy Ground Team. I’ve encountered a turian SPECTRE named Saren. He’s assisting the geth, and has sent several of them to activate something he calls a contingency plan. Moreover, there’s at least two survivors in the colony, actively being hunted by some of the geth. Save them if you can,” said the turian’s voice over the comms, and the team had that silent moment as they processed what had been said, before Tali reacted, homing in on his position with her scanners, and then locking on.

“This is Normandy Ground Team to Nihlus. We have the survivors. No geth in sight, however. Lock onto us, and we’ll join up,” she sent out, and the group quickly started towards the source of the transmissions, hoping to reduce the meet up time. They were only a mile or so away when the dull droning noise began to echo over the colony, and the Terrans cried out in pain, their hands going to their heads as they tried to keep them from bursting open, even as they all fell onto their sides.

Legion seized up at that point as well, no screams, but just silence from him as his body froze in mid stride. Beside him, Garrus’ Gundam unit wretched itself to the side, staying standing only by grabbing onto a stand of trees, which cracked but did not fall under the weight. Liara’s wanzer similarly nearly fell, but she was able to put one of its feet forward, and catch herself. Inside her head, and Garrus’, it felt like they were being struck by hammers, their thought trains derailing completely, but just for that moment.

The Terran experience was different. this wasn’t hammers pounding to try and smash their way in, this was spikes, powerful things that tore into their minds and made them think things they had never done before. Mental levers were pulled, and images flashed across their brains of things they had no idea about, of worlds burning, and of voices shouting in victory as they ground the populations to heel. Screaming, they writhed in agony, their legs wildly kicking out at the world, while on their backs, the pods held firm.

Luckily, the dull tone ended after only a moment or two, and when it passed, the non-Terrans of the group recovered quickly, with Legion taking only a moment more to collect himself, looking around like he expected something to have changed. Nothing had though, except that the three Terrans were still on the ground, their convulsions not as severe anymore, but still, not rising, as they groaned in pain. Above them, they spotted Nihlus veritech, the black plane growing arms and legs as it came down and shifted into guardian mode.

Just before he reached them, a new whining noise could be heard, echoing over the trees, and Garrus whipped his Gundam around, drawing his rifle and aiming it. What he saw though, gave him that one moment of pause, as a Terran, huge and imposing, stood there. Not a normal Terran though. This one was nude, with skin of blue coloring, yet not fleshy at all. No, its skin was hard, like armor, and its eyes glowed with blue light. Then the mouth opened, and the whining noise from it became even louder, before its head exploded, and a blast of biotic energy shot out.

The blast was powerful, the eezo that had made it charged with the protoculture that had been in the altered Terran. Garrus had no time to dive aside, but luckily for him, the blast wasn’t meant for him, instead it slammed hard into Nihlus’ veritech as it approached the group on the ground. The unit crumpled under the assault like it was tissue paper, the core inside exploding in a blue white ball of light, while the cockpit blew off the front, metal and fire still tearing at it, and the form within looked like it was going to be torn apart.

Chapter Text

Garrus reacted the moment his mind caught up with everything going on around him. Which is to say he reacted about six seconds too late, as he flared his core, Gundam shining around him as the eezo powered up, and then he used his jets to rocket the mech into the sky. Reaching out the unit’s hand, he grasped towards the veritech’s cockpit as it auto-separated from the main body, trying to protect the pilot from the ruptured engine, only it wouldn’t be enough, as the blast was just too strong.

His hand stretched out, he was able to aim it right for Nihlus’ form as it was thrown out by the shattering glass and metal of the protective cockpit. The glow of the mass effect field shifting to purple as it covered the turian in its protective aura, Garrus descended back towards the ground below, where the three Terrans had at least stopped thrashing about, but were still laying on the ground. The other two members of their group were far more active, as Liara and Legion rushed to his side.

“Dr. T’Soni, can you help him?” demanded Garrus as he landed with a hard thud, opening his palm and showing off the form of Nihlus. It was...not good. Nihlus’ right arm was gone, torn off by some piece of debris before Garrus had grabbed him, and one could almost see ribs through the torn off parts of his armor. Worse, burns seemed to cover large sections of the rest of his body, which twitched and jerked, but showed no signs of consciousness.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not that kind of doctor,” she informed him, trying to recall anything that could be useful, but coming up blank as her mind just refused to find anything. Garrus, being a trained military officer, didn’t berate or belittle her for her lack of knowledge, but Legion stepped forward, a panel in his chasis opening up as he did so.

“Captain, this unit’s warframe is equipped with an internal stasis pod. It would reduce this unit’s combat effectiveness by-,” before he could finish speaking, Garrus shoved the body of Nihlus towards the geth, who, nearly dropping it in surprise, placed it gently inside the chamber, which hummed with a stasis field forming, even as the warframe itself seemed to dim all over.

“Eezo core activated, all protoculture engines disengaged. This unit is now down to five percent combat effectiveness,” said Legion in that monotone voice of his, but Garrus barely heard that, as he sighed in relief, clicking his mandibles together to create a noise that would have been a chittering sound, if not for the universal translator.

“Legion, how long can you maintain a stasis field?” asked Tali, reminding Garrus that the Terrans had their partners with them.

“This unit’s power supply will last for approximately eight hours,” he said matter-of-factly, and Tali began to crunch numbers on how to make that number even higher, if it came down to it, only to be interrupted when a shriek echoed over the open sky. Turning, Garrus found another of those Terran horrors standing there, jerkily, with one leg still flesh colored, but the rest was that blue armor that had been on the one that had shot Nihlus out of the sky. The shriek came forth again as the thing saw them and charged.

Garrus whipped his beam rifle out, aiming the shot perfectly so that it blew off the left leg of the charging giant. The seeming armor offered little resistance as the beam impacted it, and blew the offending limb clean off. The giant fell to the ground with a blast that threw up a wall of dust from the dried out ground. It didn’t stop though, another shriek coming out of it as it began to dig its fingers into the dirt, and drag itself forward. Garrus, taking careful aim, blew off one of its arms, and then the other when it kept coming, only for it to start wriggling closer.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said, and then aimed for the head. The pink blast of light ripped through whatever brain the thing had, and it went still finally, the torso falling flat against the ground, and not even convulsing as it finally succumb to death.

“So, headshots are the only way to take one of these things down easily. Good to know,” said Garrus as he started his rifle cycling, letting the chamber inside refill with particles.

“Um, Captain, I think we have a problem,” as her words came out, Tali gave everyone in the squad, including Liara and the downed Terrans, a view of the area. Heat signatures, all with that particular wavelength of eezo, were beginning to move around the colony. A lot of heat signatures. Thousands of them, ranging in size from Terrans to more normal races. Most were seeming to mill about, but a few were already coming towards them, not always quickly, but still, coming closer.

“I don’t have nearly enough shots to take care of that many. Legion, transform and fly off. Tali, Charn, can you two get your partners moving?” he asked, and instantly got a lot of grumbles over the comm.

“This unit is incapable of transformation or flight so long as the protoculture engines are inactive. To do so would mean disengaging the stasis unit,” said Legion quickly, and Garrus grunted in annoyance.

“And just how much control do you think we have over these big lugs? Tali might be able to get her beau up and running, but this lump’s going to be just dead weight til she wakes up,” complained the batarian.

“I wouldn’t be able to move Jon either. A few strides maybe, but motion in a bipedal form is actually very complex and delicate, as you should know Captain,” she told him, her voice chiding, and his mandibles clicked again as he acknowledged it, then without missing a beat, he aimed and fired his rifle, blowing the head off a Terran that had just been peeking around a nearby rise.

“Fine, then I stay and fight. Legion, you’re in no shape for direct combat without your protoculture. Escort the doctor out of here,” he ordered, and then was startled when the asari’s wanzer suddenly jerked forward, the palm going flat, and the middle of it irising open. With a whine and then a popping sound, a field of biotic energy shot outward, grabbing a few Council races that had been turned into more of the blue skinned things, causing them to float for a moment, before being crushed into pulp.

“I can take care of myself, Captain. Besides, not much point in splitting our forces, when theirs outnumber us this much,” she told him, this time getting the Gundam unit to turn to her, looking her up, and down. Going over the sensor readouts, Garrus wasn’t too impressed by what he saw, but at the same time, he figured ordering a civilian out of combat without a real escort was probably not a good idea, and he wouldn’t even entertain the idea of abandoning the three Terrans.

“Then we stand and fight. Legion, Tali, tactical assessments. Tell us where our fire will do the most good. Hopefully, these three wake up before we get overwhelmed,” ordered the turian, as he and the wanzer began to lay into a few approaching giants. One of them opened their mouth, a huge whine coming from inside, but before a blast of biotic energy could shoot out of it, the head exploded, the blast taking out two of the giants next to it.

“Interesting, the blast effect seems to be them using their internal protoculture to charge the eezo. It’s still got impurities though, one spike in the wrong way, and it explodes,” commented Tali, and Garrus again let out an annoyed click with his mandibles, realizing that, at the end of the day, Nihlus’ condition was literally the result of some astonishingly bad luck. Still, even as he thought, he let loose with the twin gatlings on Gundam’s head, tearing apart a team of batarians that had been charging at the feet of the three giants.

“Charn!” shouted Tali over the comms.

“I see him,” responded the batarian, and then with a blue flash, Jane’s arm shot upwards, her fingers still curled into a fist. Her body, following the motion of her arm, rolled over, the knuckle colliding with an altered drell by the looks of it just as the thing leapt off a bluff to begin its assault. Normally a drell was agile enough that it might have dodged the giant blow, but it was already in the air when it was hit, and the impact of the fist on the ground was enough to leave a deep impression in the dirt.

The fighting continued like this for minutes, as the team destroyed the oncoming horde one at a time, Garrus drawing his sword more than once to slash down an enemy that got too close to be blasted with his other weapons. Still, their foes seemed endless, and he could hear the asari’s breaths coming in deep, ragged gulps as she let loose with her biotic fury, which was noticeably weaker with each burst. Legion, even without his ranged weapons, was at least helping out where he could with melee attacks, mostly crushing the micronian races underfoot, but even so, they were slowly being overwhelmed.

Just as Garrus took aim at a Terran that was charging, they heard a new sound. Not the dull drone that had begun this mad charge, or the screams of rage from the horde. No, this was a piercing shriek that made the turian wince in his cockpit as he missed his first shot on the enemy, only to follow up with a second that blew the head clean off, before finally turning towards the source of the sound. Whatever he had expected to see, however, the thing in his cameras wasn’t even in the top ten.

“By the Goddess,” swore Liara beside him, as everyone stared at the thing. It was an asari, the design of the head and bone structure could be little else, but really, that’s all it was now, just bones, held together by the same blue metallic coating as the rest of these monsters. Unlike its compatriots, the altered asari literally glowed with power, the biotic energy inside it bursting outwards, and allowing it to float at almost eye level for the three mechs, who, after a moment of standing frozen, reacted.

Garrus opened up first, the head gatlings letting loose their fury that had so far shredded the smaller units, and even torn apart a few of the Terrans. The asari responded instantly, the barrier in front of it shifting into the purple of a hardened barrier, and blocking every shot cold, letting the material gather up in front of it, before it waved its hand dismissively. The gathered metal from Garrus’ guns was sent straight back at him at blinding speed, forcing him to leap to the side, and draw his beam saber, intending on stabbing the thing with it as he charged forward.

“Captain!” shouted Tali in warning, just before the asari screamer used a biotic charge, a small mass effect jump, to teleport out of the way of his stab. Appearing behind him, Garrus had a single instant to turn, but even his unit was far too slow to do so as the thing sent out a throw field that tossed his mech forward. Landing hard on the ground, Garrus groaned to himself, trying to rise back to his feet, only for the screamer thing to teleport over him, and smash him into the ground with another blast, creating an impression of his Gundam in the soft earth.

“No!” this cry was from Liara who sent a warp field out, the shimmering field impacting the floating asari, causing it to drop for a moment, and just a moment, before it screamed out and did a charge again, appearing right in front of Liara’s unit, screaming as loudly as it could.

“Shut up!” came a sudden, and unexpected counter, causing everyone in the field to freeze, even the asari. Shooting up from the ground, faster than the thing could charge away from, a powerful fist wrapped around the skeletal form of the screamer, bones cracking audibly under the force being used to hold it. Beneath it, Jane Shepard was now sitting up, and one could actually hear her teeth grinding over the comms and speakers on her armor, before she smashed the asari into the ground, then repeated the gesture half a dozen times more, creating a huge cloud of dust.

“You will stop making that noise!” said the Terran woman in a feral growl, and then she shot to her feet, the crater she had made showing no sign remaining of the altered asari. The other two Terrans were groaning as they rose as well, but Jane seemed to have recovered in body if not in mind, and when a group of Terrans and micronians came into view, she let out a savage roar, and charged at them, her feet churning the earth beneath her, throwing up huge chunks of it, as she slammed hard into the altered creatures, which for the first time showed some hesitation as her cry echoed over them.

She pounced, her fists coming down in a group of micronians, scattering a few of them, and crushing others. Before they could get back to their feet though, she was on them, smashing them into the ground with blows that left little trace of them other than the impressions in the ground, and once they were gone, she leapt towards one of the Terrans, grabbing the metallic skinned giant by the shoulders, and then slamming her head into its, once, twice, then six more times, before letting it drop, her dull green armor now covered with gore, while its skull was caved in.

Not yet done, the Terrans charged her, one of them trying to grapple with her, only to find her hands were faster and stronger, her grip cracking the bones and skin at its wrist, revealing half transformed flesh beneath. She barely seemed to notice this, however, tearing the limb in her hand off with a sickening squelch, then batting the things head off, before finally walking over to the remaining two, and with a whirring sound, she placed her hands on their faces, then let her palm blasters fire. Point blank against them, their flesh despite the improvements, didn’t hold at all, and soon their heads had holes that took up most of them, before she spun around and tossed them to the ground with deafening thuds.

“Not strong enough! Kill!” cried out Jane, turning on her heel, and finding the group of allies. She seemed just about ready to charge when Charn, either having let her fight to thin the herd, or just taking time to react, finally used his pod to hold her in place, a blue glow covering her body that should have stopped her completely. It only slowed her down, however, her movements now like she was walking through thick goo, but still coming towards them.

“Jane, calm down!” shouted Jon, who was standing again, but woozily, his hands gripping one of the bluffs at his side to keep him steady, while beside him. Chief Bhatia was likewise only barely on her feet. Jane either didn’t hear her brother, or didn’t care about it, as she kept coming, grunting in exertion with each step, but not slowing at all.

“Jane!” he shouted again, and all he got in response was a roar, as he tried to get near her, only to fall to his knees, nearly collapsing to the ground, as his sister stood over him, her face inside the armor twisted into a feral grin as she pointed her palm towards him.

“Sergeant! Attention!” came a sudden shout, and Jane, the words reaching into her through the rage, snapped to attention, her arm going over her heart in salute, as her breathing could be heard over the comms changing almost instantly from deep growls, to ragged gasps.

“What the?” She said as she came back to herself, her hands grabbing at her face, as she fell to her knees. Everything about her shook, as she lay there, trying to collect herself. Almost without thinking though, just as one of the altered Terrans popped its head up over a rise, she shot it, blowing the things cranium wide open.

“Jane, are you alright?” asked Jon, as he rushed to her side, his stance becoming much surer, as he helped her to her own feet, and everyone gathered around.

“I, I think so. But who was that purple guy? What was that stuff that he was shouting? It sounded like gibberish but I felt like I should understand it,” she asked, her voice lacking anger now, or fear either, merely seeming curious.

“You saw a man with purple skin as well then?” asked Bhatia, and Jane nodded, Jon following a moment later.

“Good, I had hoped I wasn’t mad. He was speaking ancient Tirolian,” he said, and that got a start from both Terrans, whose faces turned towards him.

“You mean, that was a Master?” asked Jane, after a moment. Before more could be said though, the sound of massive feet pounding the earth could be heard, and everyone turned towards the source to find a throng of altered Terrans, with micronians at their feet, coming closer.

“Talk later! Fight now!” said Jane, and she began to fire into the crowd, the others following suit, with Tali and Legion both feeding tactical data to the others as they began to move in a fighting retreat. Everyone was acutely aware, however, of the massive legion of foes that were swiftly bearing down on them, and that with all the firepower and skill they had, they would soon be swarmed.

Chapter Text

Six massive figures walk along the bluffs. Behind them, fires, squirming body parts, and just general mayhem are only the barest of the horrors. The worst of those remains those that walk, the creatures with blue skin, which charge forward now enmasse, a hundred at a time. Still, the figures fight on, their weapons singing a symphony of destruction as they lay into their foes. None of their shots are wasted, none of the fire seems to miss its mark, and yet, despite this, they are being pushed back, and overwhelmed.

“To the right!” Shouts Tali, and Garrus whips his Gundam to the side, firing a shot from his beam rifle, and watching the blast tear through yet another enemy giant, which falls to the earth with a heavy thud. His sensors tell him his weapon’s pack is depleted, and he quickly moves the mech’s hand. The things fingers would never be able to operate a latch or the lack, but luckily he can undo the bindings from his cockpit, quickly popping out the spent clip, which he then pushes into his hip to refill with charge particles, while another stands up just below it, which he grabs and slams home, before firing again into the enemy horde.

To his left, Nirali Bhatia is wielding a gallant with shotgun stock in one hand, and her palm shoots out with the other. Green and blue streaks tear into the crowd, and she grunts only slightly when she recognizes a face here and there. These people, a day ago, had been her friends and neighbors, the ones that had trusted her to protect them. Now they were tools of an enemy she hated with all her heart, a hate that her teachers in the way of the Buddha would have been ashamed of, but still, it held true as she fired again and again.

Jane and Jon were much the same as Nirali, gallant in one hand, palm open with the other. The differences in their styles to her’s were clear when one looked closely, however. Jon had a gallant without a stock, the base weapon powerful in his hand, as every shot seemed to find an enemy eye, burning their brains away, while Tali kept calculating, trying her best to stay ahead of the fight in terms of her plans. Jane beside him was less subtle, the sharp retorts of her gallant, with its rifle stock, tearing through their foes with sheer power rather than finesse, blowing away a dozen enemies with a single sweep.

Behind the group, Liara T’Soni stood transfixed, knowing she should be running, that this was no place for an archeologist like herself. This was a place of soldiers and death, a place for warriors. She had forgone that life for quieter pursuits, things that challenged her mind, not her body. Still, running now would do her little good. She might live another few minutes, but that would be all, and that was not nearly enough for her. She would stand or fall with those she watched fight, waiting for her moment to aid in the battle.

“Red one! Incoming!” Shouted Tali, as the crowd of enemies slowly parted in front of them in a familiar way. Out of the horde of blue came a giant of red metallic skin, the form bloating in ways the others didn’t, while black smoke seemed to exude from every exposed bit of its insides. The first time this had happened, Garrus had reacted the fastest, and they knew now what this meant, as Liara stepped forward, the palms of her wanzer irising open to reveal the eezo cores in them.

“I’ve got it!” She responded, and the asari stretched out her biotic field, using her unique bit of biology to join her field to that of the mech’s own cores, amplifying and echoing what she wanted through them. With a grunt of prodigious effort, she threw a blue colored bolt of light out, the energy of it slammed into the crimson foe, and tossed it into the air. It flipped and spun as it flew off, and just as it hit the center of the largest concentration of blue foes, Jon fired, his shot finding its mark easily, as the giants and pilots all threw themselves to the ground.

A deafening blast blew over the area, as the red tinged enemy exploded with the force of a few megatons. The violence of the blast ripped into the enemies, those closest to it vaporized by the force, while those farther away were torn apart. Wounds that would have been debilitating if they had been normal scarred their blue skin, and most of the micronians that had been mixed in were just gone. Still, the giants were tenacious, and the moment the blast subsided, they began to drag themselves along, while others still whole, began to charge over their comrades, trampling those that were caught underfoot as they made a mad dash towards the survivors.

“This isn’t going to work,” said Jon finally, as the group resumed their shooting, Legion’s only contribution lobbing the occasional boulder, or smashing a micronian that got too close under his foot.

“We’re all well aware of that little brother!” Cried out Jane beside him as she tore a tree from the ground, roots and all, before hurling it with enough force to spear one of those closest to her with it. It fell dead to the ground, but as had become common, five more just stepped over it, running towards them.

“I’m giving us an hour of this before we’re out of power, or just exhausted. Their forces will take several hours to deplete at this rate. We need another plan,” he said, as if ignoring Jane’s reply, showing them all some sims of their current strategy. The best said they’d last about another hour, before Garrus ran out of charged particles, the Terrans ran out of protoculture, and Liara just died of an aneurysm from trying to move too much with her biotics. The enemy would last another sixteen hours if they continued to be destroyed in the same numbers as they were now.

“Heh, not bad. Looks like I’m going to kill the most,” commented the turian, and then, as if to prove his skills, shot three blasts in rapid succession, the pink energy blowing away the heads of three of the giants, before sharp retorts of his head gatlings sang to the tune of a dozen charging micronians.

“You seem rather flippant about the prospect of dying,” responded Liara as she spotted a Terran opening its mouth, and with a throwing motion, tossed a bolt of biotic force into the horrid thing’s face, causing the mouth to close sharply, before the entire thing exploded, the blast toppling for a moment, a few of its fellows, though not injuring them enough to keep them down.

“That’s just my way of dealing with stress. Inside, I’m just tearing up,” he told her, the tone of his voice sounding jokey, even as he easily took out the ones she’d knocked down with another quick series of shots.

“Well, I plan on living through this, even if the rest of you don’t, so why don’t-,” Jon began to say, a few diagrams appearing on their HUDs as he started to lay out a plan, one involving Garrus and himself charging into the horde. He barely got a few seconds into it when everything in their vision went red, and Tali began to scream.

“Everyone down! Charn, Liara, Garrus! Slave your eezo cores to mine!” She cried, and without a dissent, everyone acted on her orders, falling to the dirt, even as their enemies continued to charge. Over them, a small dome of blue light started to spread out, and the comms seemed to fill with static, until one listened close and realized the clicks were the quarian’s fingers rapidly pressing buttons. Soon, the domes of light from Tali, Charn, Garrus, and Liara joined together, becoming a single barrier, that shifted from blue, to purple, just as the world ended.

Outside their barrier, one saw the flash of something in the sky, something as large as a city falling from the heavens and covered in light. Through their sensors, the ground team watched as that object projected a wave of force through the air, a visible ripple in the sky, that smashed into the ground so hard, you could probably have felt it from a thousand miles away. Around them, no tree was left standing, and none of the altered citizens of Eden Prime stood. Even the Terrans, who could take significant damage, found their bodies shredded by raw kinetic force, and the team began to groan as the pressure of it pushed against their shield.

Then the fire came. A wash of flames that seemed like a tide of death. What trees had fallen were reduced to ash, and what few of their foes that had survived the initial blast were gone in an instant. Even the colony’s buildings that had still been standing were reduced to rubble, while above, the shape in the sky resolved itself into that odd ship, the tendriled thing that was the same blue as the altered, which flew in an almost straight course, halting so abruptly that it seemed impossible.

“Look, it’s damaged,” said Garrus, zooming in on one of the protrusions from beneath it, which appeared to have been violently torn asunder. Little bits of itself seemed to leak out, small pieces of its hull that had stayed on through the rush towards the colony finally giving up as the gravity of the world pulled at them. This left a twinkling trail in its wake as it hung there, just above the spaceport. Shapes, less than ten of them, rose to greet the leviathan ship, latching onto the hull, or docking within, before it began to rise.

Straight up it flew, and everyone watched in awe as it did so, once again doing something that their physics said should not have been possible for a ship of its weight. It didn’t leave without one final shot, however, as beams of red light came from the tendrils that were still whole, joining together beneath the great ship, and then firing downward. Below, the spaceport, the only structure that even with its apocalyptic entrance had not been touched, was reduced to ashes, and only when that was done, did it shoot away, a small star that was invisible a moment later.

The ground team continued to lay under the dome of the barrier for a few minutes, Tali’s fingers continuing their dance and holding the rest down, until finally, mercifully, the ship left the range of her sensors, and she let them rise. Around them, nothing roared at them, or charged their position, nothing seemed to move at all, save a few fading flames that had found wood that was not ash to consume. The bluffs and hills that had been their source of protection for their retreat were now dunes of a desert, and they stood only at its edge.

“That, that wasn’t good,” said Liara at last, as she began to walk forward, her steps heavy and ponderous, before her unit finally wound itself down, a low whine of the mass effect core going swiftly to silence. Jon and Jane soon felt their own weights settle, as the pods on their backs were now without power, Jane having to quickly twirl around to grab the launcher and sniper stocks on her back before they fell to the ash at her feet, causing Charn to grunt as he was pressed into the side of the pod without the mass effect field to provide gravity.

“That ship must have been going almost at lightspeed when it hit the atmosphere to have caused that sort of pressure wave. No ship in the Federation or Council fleets can do that,” said Tali, rubbing her hands to get feeling back in her sore digits, grateful for the small battery powering her pod’s other functions, which let her continue to observe things, even if she couldn’t affect them herself.

“The spaceport, the beacon, and the pods are gone. The colony is a total loss,” said Jon, breathlessly as he looked out over the devastation. The ash crunched under his foot, thick enough that even a being of his scale couldn’t touch ground beneath it. Beside him, Gundam stood tall and stoic, but at its waist, a panel popped open, Garrus, coughing even through his helmet and armor, amid a plume of steam and smoke, emerged into the light of a sun that was beginning to fade behind a cloud of dust, and he just stared.

“Anyone got a read on the Normandy?” He asked, waving his hand before his face to clear as much smoke and dust as he could.

“I’m afraid not, Captain. We might need to assume the Normandy is a loss as well, even if it did damage the enemy at least,” responded Tali, and Garrus, looking stern now, nodded, his mind going over charts and tables. It would only take them a few hours to realize the colony was completely dark, especially when the Normandy failed to make rendezvous with the Citadel. Still, it would be best if they found shelter, since his mech and Liara’s were out of power, they’d probably have to-

“SCREECH!” An all too familiar sound echoed over the dust bowl, the winds seeming to pick up as it did so, and everyone in the group turned towards the source, finding a horrid form, burned and battered, but not broken, rising out of the ash. Its once blue skin was torn in places, and it was missing most of its left arm, but still, it was unmistakable.

“By the Masters,” swore Jon, before whipping out his pistol. Without Tali’s help, it took two shots to kill the thing, the first knocking it down to the ground, before he was able to blow its head away. Looking past it, one could hear a shriek in response coming over the hills, the clouds of dust slowly rising to obscure the shapes as they began to approach again.

“Tali, do you have eyes on them?” Shouted Garrus, pulling out a hand pistol, intending on going out fighting, even if he had to jam himself into one of the monster’s mouths to get a good brain shot.

“Captain, I barely have comms, let alone sensors, but I can tell you right now, we were close to the center of that blast, if one that close survived this, even as torn up as it was, you can bet a lot more are out there,” said the quarian, a hint of fear entering her voice as she considered their position. Before she could think too hard about it though, a giant hand reached around her, covering the pod, and then pulling it away from Jon’s back, to bring her right up to his face.

“I’m going to get you out of this, trust me,” he said over a private channel, before turning towards the others.

“Okay, combat assets are the three Terrans, and nobody else. That means you’re getting out of here. Ms. T’soni, please open your wanzer. Jane, put Garrus in Charn’s pod,” ordered Jon, and Jane nodded, being quite a bit rougher than he was with the pod on her back, causing Charn’s grunts to come over the comm, and then Garrus’ own as she grabbed him, wrapping her fingers around his armor. With a flick of her wrist, she opened the pod in her hand, dumping the turian almost right on top of the batarian.

Jon was quite a bit more gentle with Liara, letting her climb onto his hand, looking like a grown man with a doll in his hand, and then gently bringing the pod to her. Inside, Tali pushed at the hatch in the side, letting her climb in, before he turned on one foot. Jane and Jon then walked right up to Legion, who held out his arms and took the two pods from them without a word, looking to the tiny lives in his hands, and then back at them.

“Alright, I know your land speed is not great right now, but you’re still faster than a walking micronian, especially in this. Get them out of here. We’ll slow down the horde,” ordered the Commander.

“I would like it noted, for the record, that I’m still the Captain of this unit, and I don’t want to divide this party up if we can help it,” said Garrus, having taken off his helmet so he could use Charn’s comm instead of draining his own suit’s power.

“Objection noted, but right now, you’re far more valuable than three more Terrans. You’re the Captain of the ship that responded, and the only one the Council might believe when you tell them one of their agents attacked and killed my home,” commented Narlia surprisingly, and then pulled her gallant up, blasting seemingly blindly into the cloud, and getting a satisfying cry of pain out of it as she did so.

“What she said. Legion, I’m ordering you to take that warframe and run. We’ll hold the line here. Masters willing, we’ll see you on the other side of this thing,” said Jane, picking up the gallant and stocks she’d dropped, popping off the rifle stock, and adding the launcher in its place.

“This unit would remind you, you are the lowest ranked member of the military present. However, the sentiment is repeated,” said the geth in his electronic voice, looking from the weapon, to the warrior wielding it, before starting off, his ponderous steps fading into the distance, as the three armored Terrans looked after him. When he vanished into the swirling dust clouds, his steps no longer heard as the gale began to pick up, they turned towards the oncoming horde they knew was hidden behind it all, ready to face death once more.

Chapter Text

The three giants stood, their faces inside their helmets grim and determined as the heavy footfalls of the altered came over the storm birthed by the end of Eden Prime. They did not falter, however, did not shirk the duty they had taken, and just as the first form began to reveal itself through the dust, Jane cried out. On her shoulder, her weapon made a sharp ringing noise, and she pulled the trigger. Within the device, a whining could be heard that vanished beyond hearing, and then everything was light.

A bright flash of green filled the air. An orb of shimmering brilliance emerged from the end of the gallant, focused and refined by the launcher stock until it was death itself made manifest. It was fired into the center of the horde, and at its passage, the dust clouds parted, revealing their enemy in all their horridness, with many bodies burned almost beyond recognition, and others missing limbs or even most of their torsos and yet still coming on.

The orb of power sailed forward, the shot moving till it was beyond the range of hurting the one who fired it, and then with a sound like a great drum, the orb detonated. Garrus had promised that the weapon was enough to harm one of the great ships, and he was proven to be no liar, as the blast consumed everything around it. The ball expanding, green fire burning away the earth and foe alike, until a dome of flames roared before them, wind from it blowing away the dust for a moment, before everything settled once more.

“Not nearly enough,” was all Jon said, as Jane set her weapon down beside her. The gallant was drained, needing more protoculture before it could function again. She said nothing for the moment, as those not destroyed by the shot from her weapon advanced, she placed her hand at her hip, and then whipped it out. With a metallic shink, her weapon, a massive claymore that was taller than her at a hundred feet, and heavier by even more, unfolded.

“Then we make it enough,” was Jane’s response to her brother, and without waiting for them to grow closer she started forward. In the same moment he began to shoot at the horde on the other side of the bowl created by the launcher’s single shot. His fire wasn’t as accurate as if he’d been assisted by Tali, but with as many targets as he had to choose from, he didn’t need to be. Beside him, Bhatia seemed to feel the same, and the sharp retort of her shotgun echoed over the area, lines of green light coming out of her weapon to pierce the enemy.

Jane roared as she charged down into the bowl, her weapon flashing as a small shaft of light seemed to find its way through the dust clouds, giving her blade a look of a bolt of lightning, even as the enemy began to charge towards her. Luckily, the things were injured, and those that had survived the blast from the strange ship, and the launcher, moved with a shudder in their step, their bodies lacking the wild agility they’d had in their attacks before.

Jane slammed into the coming horde like a hammer, crashing through their lines, and with a spinning slash, she lopped off the heads of every altered Terran in her reach, and as the dust began to settle again, she vanished from sight. Still, the sounds of her grunting came over the comms, and the two Terrans on the side of the bowl could see her silhouette in the dark cloud, her powerful weapon cutting down anything that came close to her, dancing in her two handed grip like it weighed less than a cloud.

Nirali, after a few more shots, cried out in frustration, and with a flick of her wrist, popped the gallant shotgun stock off, and then tossed it towards Jon, who caught it, just barely, and then began firing with it, pressing the button to cycle the power of his own weapon. Nirali, freed of the ranged weapon, put her hand at her own side, and then whipped it out in a motion as trained into her as Jane’s own, her weapon slowly sliding apart until it was at its full length.

The thing in her hand was not a claymore, not the huge weapon designed to overpower a foe through raw strength. No, it was more like a spike, or rapier, thin, short, and wielded with finesse. Yet, this one seemed to have another feature that weapons of its sort tended to lack, and as Nirali joined Jane in the midst of the fray, her weapon hummed. Looking towards it, Jon took only a single scan of the thing to realize what it was doing, and nodded in approval as the chief slashed once with her weapon, her foe seemingly falling apart of its own accord as she passed.

“Vibrations with a ridged edge, designed to make the weapon saw through its target,” he commented, blowing away one of the altered that was coming closer to him, bringing up his free gallant with his other hand, and resting Nirali’s former weapon as he resumed firing.

“Indeed,” was all she said, dancing through the horde, leaving bodies fallen to pieces in the dirt behind her. Yet it didn’t reduce their numbers, which endlessly poured into the melee, grabbing hands, slowed but still powerful, trying to tear the two women apart with raw numbers.

“You dance with the grace of a human. Far more efficient than my sister’s flailing,” he told her, picking off one of the enemies that had been holding Jane’s arm. His sister said nothing in response, merely hurling the now decapitated body into a group of enemies, allowing her to get them with a single wide swing, before retreating backwards into the bowl.

“I thank you for the compliment, and for what you are trying to do, but there is no need for either,” she said, as she leapt, Nirali’s foot finding an altered shoulder, as she propelled the tons of her body skyward in a way that would have been impossible without her protoculture laced body. Her blade sang in her hands as she sailed through the sky, cutting down a dozen foes, before she and Jane stood beside Jon, their enemies advancing quicker now, as those more distant from the wash of flame came on, their less damaged bodies allowing them to move more easily.

“Still, I’m sorry it had to be like this. Fighting these things can’t be easy for you,” he said, letting the two women take his sides as he laid fire straight down the middle, alternating between the two pistols, trying to keep a constant stream of death going, as the three began to give ground, leaving piles of bodies behind.

“They are not the people they were. They are but husks of flesh and metal made to walk. Their souls will find peace, and we shall allow their bodies to do the same,” she said, cutting down one of the most complete ‘husks’ since the fire wash, its leap at her causing the bits of it to fall heavily into the dust dunes, even as Jane cleaved one on her side in two down the middle.

“Husks is right. These guys barely have anything in them. How far are they away now?” Asked Jane, as she expertly spun her blade, making sure to take out the brains of her foes as she carved through them.

“About three miles. Legion’s really not able to move fast. How much longer can you two hold out?” He responded, even as he was forced to bring both pistols to bare as more of their enemies began to charge, their steps surer, and their stride getting quicker with every one that fell.

“I got about fifteen left in me, you Chief Bhatia?” Jane said, as she let out a long sigh, catching her breath as her flank cleared out, holding her weapon in a ready position as she waited for the enemy.

“Nearly the same, I’m afraid,” responded the Chief, as she took down the last of her foes as well. In front of them, the horde swelled, their passage over the bodies of their fallen slowing them long enough for them to gather, a tide of former Terrans, ready to wash over them.

“It has been an honor Chief. Jane...Mom would be proud of you,” was what Jon side, cycling both of his weapons, waiting for the moment when the horde charged. Just before it could, however, another blast of sound echoed over the dust plain, a wave of force blowing away the clouds, and revealing above them, a shining light.

“The enemy ship?” Said Jane, doing a few quick calculations with her suit, seeing if she could leap up to the thing, maybe get a good slash in. Before she could make said leap though, another voice, a most welcome one, came over the comms.

“Normandy to Ground Team, we have arrived, please confirm what’s going on down there,” came Skarrde’s gruff voice, and Charn’s cheer could be heard, before he was cut off with a grunt as Garrus took the comm.

“This is Captain Garrus Vakarian to Normandy, situation is dire. We have two survivors, but no one else. My Gundam and Nihulus’ Veritech and the SPECTRE himself are down. Only the Shepards, a Terran woman from the colony, and Legion’s warframe should be moving down here. Everything else in motion is an enemy,” he said quickly, and Skarrde, deep inside the ship, looked as his display showed thousands of moving shapes.

“We have movement on our scanners, are they the ones who took out the colony?” Asked Skarrde, even as the gunners in the ship began to lock on with the smaller weapons. While the Normandy didn’t have a large number of external guns beyond its big three, it still had a few, and every erg of them would soon be raining down into that horde.

“Negative. They’re the colonists, killed and converted by some unknown method. They’re non-recoverable, so put them out of their misery,” ordered Garrus.

“And please try to avoid hitting my lab, if you could,” said another voice, and Skarrde looked towards the transmission source, finding it to be right next to Garrus’.

“Who is this?” He asked quickly.

“She’s Liara T’Soni, an asari researcher, I’m transmitting the coordinates she’s speaking of. It would be in the best interests of the galaxy if you listened to her,” came yet another new voice, but one the Normandy’s AIs quickly IDed as Chief Master Sergeant Nirali Bhatia.

“Confirmed, targeting all combatants now. Shepards, Chief Bhatia, it would be best if you retreated,” ordered Skarrde, and after a slight delay, the three forms on his display ran away from the horde, which pursued as quickly as it could. It wasn’t fast as Terrans running all out though, and as soon as the trio was far enough from their foes, the Normandy let loose, six reflex cannons, four mass drivers, and a few missile turrets raining death down onto the world that was already pretty much gone.

The grisly work took minutes, so large was the enemy force, but aside from a few shots of mass effect fields from the horde, no weapon was fired up at them, and when the last had fallen, the Normandy descended, opening the bay to receive the ground team. Nihlus, extracted from the stasis pod on the warframe, was rushed to the med bay, even as Skarrde had everyone else come to debrief on the meeting deck. He needed details, even as he allowed T’Soni a small squad to go to her lab and retrieve whatever it was she had there.

Chapter Text

The stories of what the Normandy, and more importantly, her Ground Team, had experienced were traded with surprising ease, until one remembered that of those present, all but the AIs were military. This meant little time was wasted on flowery language or speeches about how close this had all come to a total loss, rather than the devastating loss it was. Instead facts were laid out, the plans and procedures used by those who’d lived through the events were explained, and then everyone in the chamber fell silent.

“General, the interference field has vanished, we’ve got a dozen Nupeteit class ships folding in now, and I think the Conclave is really anxious to know just what the hell happened,” said Joker into the silence, and a model of the planet popped up between them, showing the fleet filling the skies overhead, as the Normandy floated just over the surface. Twelve of the largest ships barring the SDFs hung there like great guardians, while their support ships whizzed about, obviously scanning all of the system for answers to their questions.

“Tell them we’ll be a moment, Joker. And be diplomatic about it. Also, hand over the recordings and transmission logs. That should buy us some time to get our story in order,” ordered the General, and Joker’s holoself vanished from the room, EDI’s quickly joining him, leaving only the ground team and Skarrde himself sitting there.

“What about the lab? You’re certain it was secure?” Asked Skarred one last time, and Nirali nodded.

“I made certain of it myself. The contents of it are the very thing that caused all this death, and I was not going to risk losing it,” she affirmed, and Skarrde, nodding grimly, began to go over everything with them one last time, making sure the order of events made sense to him, before finally, EDI, Joker, and then all nine members of the Conclave appeared on the meeting deck. Salutes were automatic, from all parties save the two civilian AIs, and then business was brought to the fore.

“Old friend, we’ve gone over what you sent. The whole colony is really a loss?” Asked Exedore, and sadly, Skarrde nodded in confirmation, the batarian, Groto Ib-Ba tisked in disgust, having hoped that the information was wrong.

“The only survivors are Chief Bhatia and an asari named Liara T’Soni. The colony itself is a total loss. The spaceport was blasted by our enemy, and it seems not one structure survived the assault,” answered the General sadly, and everyone was silent for a moment.

“The data core has been dumped, and once the information is decrypted, I’ll have it sent on to the Conclave,” he continued, and that at least got a sigh of relief. The data core, the first thing a new colony was founded around, was literally that, a cache of computers that stored every byte of data in the colony. It was supposed to allow for information to be easily analysed, making the job of management and planning easier. Sometimes, like now, it was also a useful black box, with everything the colony’s sensors saw backed up inside.

“The ship that did this, can it be tracked in some way? The interference field should be noticeable, shouldn’t it?” asked a male quarian, Zaal’Koris.

“I’ve already sent vessels from the fleet to the ‘down-stream’ relays the Utopia Relay connects to. Unfortunately, either it was able to use the relay it leapt to again right away, or was able to somehow redirect the first without needing to,” said Skarrde, and everyone looked nervous at that. It implied a control of relay technology that no one wanted to think about too hard.

“That is most disturbing. Still, it is heartening that you were able to damage this craft with the weapons you had on hand. Perhaps if one of our patrols stumbles upon it in their search it might stand a chance,” offered Groto, but Exedore beside him quickly shook his head.

“No, I’m afraid that such a thing would be beyond any of the fleets we currently have searching for it. If the data they have is accurate, and I have little reason to believe it is, then the barrier of that ship was almost an order of magnitude stronger than…,” Exedore trailed off on that last bit, his eyes trailed over to the soldiers, before coughing nervously. Said soldiers took a moment to look at each other, but no one dared question it. Whatever he’d been about to say was probably well above their paygrade.

“So you’re saying that one ship matches the firepower of a fleet?” asked Groto, gesturing towards the Normandy crew.

“Indeed. The weapons aboard the Normandy are truly the pinnacle of current technology. Designed by not only myself, but the best of my research teams, working in conjunction with some of the best from Citadel Space, I don’t think there’s anything short of an SDF that could match it in a straight pound for pound shoot out,” said Exedore, a bit of pride leaking into his voice.

“It should also be noted that, while this vessel was able to at least hurt our enemy, and would have destroyed it had it not dodged, the enemy themselves was more than capable of responding in kind. Every sensor scan I got of its weapons fire shows it being on par with that barrier,” said EDI, waving her hand and bringing up a few screen captures of the battle in the air in front of her, with diagrams showing the enemy’s shots outlined and measured, and the numbers were quite frankly disgusting in how large they were.

“So a ship, only two kilometers in length, is capable of matching an SDF in terms of firepower and defense. This is-,” began Amanda Hayes, only to fall silent as a new figure entered her view. On the meeting deck with Tali, Charn, and Garrus, the door slid open, causing them to turn, while to the Terrans, she simply appeared as the sensors registered her and began to project her image to them.

“The pods are!-Er, I’m sorry, is this a bad time?” she asked, realizing as she came to a halt in the middle of the circle of people that every eye was on her, a fact which caused her blue skin to pale a bit, as she recognized at least a few faces, and knew just how much power was present in this room.

“Of course not, Ms. T’Soni, please, come in, we were just debriefing the Conclave, and whatever you have to say will obviously involve them,” said Skarrde, and the asari looked towards him, a bit curious at how even when standing at a comparable height to her, the Terran...Zentradi rather, was still quite intimidating.

“Er, well,” she said, stammering as she began to flick her fingers over her omnitool, trying to get a file to send, only to accidentally restart the thing, making her remember her first presentation to her grant review board back on Thessia.

“Hmm, perhaps she needs a moment, and we should of course, introduce ourselves to her. I’m correct in assuming you’re Liara T’Soni, the Citadel’s foremost expert on Protheans,” said a short man with brown skin, and Liara nodded, grateful for a moment to clear her head as the omintool seemed to slowly boot back up.

“I am, Prime Thinker Exedore,” she said, bowing her head slightly. He was, after all, a fellow scientist, one whom she would have given most of her head tendrils away for the chance to work with considering all the toys he had on that artificial planet of his.

“Ah, I see the young people still recognize me, how nice. Of course, I’m sure you also know Supreme Commander Breetai,” he said, gesturing towards a blue man sitting almost have again as tall as him beside him.

“Is this really the time?” asked a batarian across the Conclave table, and Exedore just chuckled at him.

“Oh, but there’s always time for the pleasant things. Ms. T’Soni, if you aren’t aware, my four eyed colleague here is Groto Ib-Ba, the Batarian Chair, and leader of his people,” said Exedore, and the batarian did nod his head towards her, a motion she mimed.

“I’m Representative Amanda Hayes, of the Federation Senate myself,” said the woman beside him, whose brown hair was greying a bit as she approached her sixtieth year, but her green eyes showed the fires of youth still smouldered inside her.

“Amalgam, Collective of the Terran AIs, enchante mademoiselle,” said a simplistic biped shape that showed his origins, but his voice was strong and distinctive despite the physical appearance being so plain.

“Solo, Hub of the geth,” continued the rather busy AI next to him, the golden, angelic form bobbing a little in the air, as a set of three wings seemed to glow brighter, as if to make itself seem more important.

“Zaal’Koris, Conductor of the quarian people,” said a quarian male beside the AI holo, his silver skin a sharp contrast to the golden glow of the geth. Liara nodded at that, remembering something about Koris having won an election a few years ago, before she’d gone to a dig site.

“And last, and also least, I’m Adminstrator Grant of Gloval Station,” said the Terran who hadn’t spoken to that point. Before anyone else could say anything, Liara’s omintool dinged to tell her it was back online, and with a steadier hand, the introductions actually having asari-ized these leaders of the galaxy a bit, she was able to upload the file she wanted, which EDI quickly projected for everyone to see.

“Yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you all, and I have a bit of good news. While I’m not sure the cost of all those innocents was worth this, it’s also a fact that they were not lost in vain. The prothean pods that were discovered in the bunker along with the beacon were recovered from my lab, and they’re still intact,” as she spoke, images of the pods appeared beside a deep scan of them, showing their contents as being alive but in stasis, while presently they were sitting on the hanger deck of the Normandy.

“Hmm, while a turn of good fortune, I must ask. Were the pods not supposed to be at the spaceport so that the Normandy could receive them?” asked Exedore after a moment, and Liara nodded.

“Yes, they were, but I made a case to the Governor to have them sent to my lab instead. He agreed that my findings warranted a change in plans,” she explained.

“And what findings would those be, exactly?” asked Grant.

“This,” she said, and pushed a button on her omnitool, sending a video file that EDI quickly displayed in the air for the crew. The video itself was simple static though, as the Normandy systems, some of the best computers built in the galaxy, found the data of the video impossible to decode.

“Hmm, I’m afraid I don’t see how a static video helps your case much, Ms. T’Soni,” said Breetai, wondering just what he was supposed to be looking at.

“What? Oh right, the filter,” Liara seemed a bit flustered again, but this time easily searched through her files and sent another program to the Normandy. EDI combined the ‘filter’ with the video file, and instantly the static became images. Distorted ones, full of snow and interference, but still, images that could be seen.

“The Protheans locked much of their data behind biometric interpreters, essentially encoding it so that only another Prothean could read the data. However, over the last few years, with the help of some...acquired Federation technology, the Thessian Archeological Council has been able simulate the needed biometrics,” as she spoke the images advanced, one at a time, showing scenes of carnage and death. Bipeds, probably the protheans, were running from some of their own that had been altered far less subtly than the people of Eden Prime.

“Now, normally I would simply have recorded all this down, and sent it along with the rest of my data, but one clip in particular caught my eye, encouraging me to investigate further,” the images began to resolve, and soon enough, one could see the recording zoom in on one of the protheans, giving more details of his body. A chitinous hide covered his body, with his head having a mushroom like shape, while his face held four eyes rather than the standard two. Unlike batarians though, this races eyes were two sets horizontally, rather than vertically, giving them an even greater insectoid appearance.

“Watch what he does,” she told them, as the prothean, saying something last in static, walked up to one of the pods that was sitting on the ground, and proceeded to type in something into a control panel, with the recording highlighting the buttons pressed, before the pod popped open. Out of it spilled a fog, some kind of chemical obviously, while revealing the prothean inside to have expired, probably from being shot by the altered protheans that the image hopped to a moment later, showing them being cut down by some kind of beam of light wielded by a regular prothean.

“Hmm, interesting. I’d been told there was a problem opening the pods,” said Exedore, stroking his chin as the recording replayed the command sequence to open said pod, slower this time.

“Indeed. While our own stasis pods, like the one that housed SPECTRE Kryik, use simple mass effect fields to achieve a near total stoppage of time in the local area, the prothean version appears to use a combination of factors, including some kind of stabilizer agent that slows down the prothean biology. Of course, this is obvious when one remembers just how many pods we found, and how long they must have been operating for,” as she spoke, the recording finally cut out.

“I had hoped to bring a Terran to the lab I was working out of and awaken one of the protheans, before we took them off world. There was, at the time, simply no telling how they would react to being ripped from what they likely thought of as their world, and might have made questioning them easier. Given events, I’ve since revised those feelings, but I would still like the chance to open one of the pods here, on the Normandy, before we make it to the Citadel,” she said the last while looking past those present on the ship, and towards the political figures who were light-years away.

“You would prefer to have us take possession of a source of information on the protheans before your own people?” asked Groto.

“Not entirely. In truth, I merely ask this due to the prothean’s biometrics. We know they locked much of their technology so only another prothean or someone with their unique thought patterns could unlock it. A Terran colony, and now vessel, would have no built in failsafes or manual overrides, should the protheans prove less than pleased with the state of the galaxy,” she responded simply, and everyone took a moment to think about that.

“Ms. T’Soni, by your own writings, you believe the protheans to be a peaceful race, bringing the various peoples of the galaxy together in harmony rather than violence. Has your opinion on that shifted in some way?” asked Hayes, and Liara seemed stunned by the question, but then nodded.

“I wrote that dissertation at the beginning of my career, almost a decade ago. Since then, I’ve been involved in digs on Therum, Joab, and a half a dozen others. My findings at each location speak of a culture of peace, but one prepared for war to the fullest. Each site seemed made to survive the end of the universe, with defenses that were at once non-lethal, but also overpowered to the extreme for what was there. I still hope the protheans themselves are a peaceful people, but I admit, with the foresight I’ve seen, I don’t fully trust they’ll accept a reduced place on the galactic stage,” she admitted.

“Alright then. Skarrde, who’s the Normandy’s medical officer?” asked Exedore, and Skarrde quickly called up an image of a salarian.

“One Mordin Solus, a salarian, formally STG, now independent medical professional. His xenobiological skills are second to none, and when offered a berth on the Normandy, he jumped at the chance,” said the General quickly.

“Excellent, his credentials are glowing. I want Ms. T’Soni there to help as a cultural liaison, and perhaps one for the Federation as well?” the last was a question as the redheaded Zentradi turned towards Jon and Tali.

“We would be honored, Prime Thinker,” said the Terran as he leapt to his feet with a salute. Tali beside him mirrored.

“That issue is settled then. You should fold immediately to the Cit-,” began Exedore, only to be cut off as Liara held up a hand to bring the attention to her.

“Um, I don’t believe that would be a good idea, Prime Thinker. The prothean biology might be quite sensitive after their long stasis, and folding does tend to result in...unease in a biological sense to the subjects being so transported. I would suggest instead we travel via the Relays. It is the longer path, I’ll admit, but with a find of this importance, a small delay would not be too prohibitive,” said the asari, and Exedore smiled at her.

“Of course, I’m sorry I didn’t think of that myself. Skarrde, set your course for the Citadel post haste. Due to certain events, until you arrive, I want you traveling dark. We will advise the Council of what has happened here, but nothing can be allowed to prevent the Protheans from giving statements to them. We have reason to believe that their insight into certain matters will be integral to current galactic relations,” said Exedore, turning to his fellows who all nodded along.

“Good, then it is decided. Ms. T’Soni, select one of the pods and open it. Once you have done so, record everything. Nothing must be in question as to the authenticity of the words the subject speaks. This Conclave stands adjourned,” and with that, the images vanished, without even a salute. That caused everyone left in the chamber to look at each other. Soon however, orders were given, and the Normandy began its long flight to the Citadel, while a small group gathered in the medical bay to reclaim a piece of the past long forgotten.

Chapter Text

The Normandy’s med bay, at least for micronians, was typical for a turian vessel. Where a Terran med bay tended to have protoculture pods lined up in rows, to allow for pumping of the liquid directly into subjects to accelerate the healing process, micronians used stasis beds and much more inefficient medigel dispensers. Still, a saying amongst doctors of late was ‘so long as the brain’s alive, there’s a chance’, and they’d lived up to that statement many times in the past few years.

“Careful, careful, this machinery has lasted thousands of years. If you happen to break it just as it’s found it will reflect badly on us all,” said Mordin as he helped to direct the placement of the pod near the wall, with the bed that should have been there pushed out of the way to make room. The batarian and micronized Terran who were carrying the pod, by hand to avoid interference with the stasis field, grunted, while the quarian behind them held her shotgun close to herself, watching and waiting for something to go wrong.

“There, yes, perfect, set it down gently,” he said, as the pair began to stoop, finally, when the pod was an inch from the floor, letting it settle to the deck plates.

“Excellent, excellent,” the salarian intoned as he began to adjust settings on the med bay’s internal scanners, zeroing in on the life signs, and filtering out those in the room, as the room itself was sealed by a barrier, cutting it off from the rest of the ship in such a way that they could actually blow the compartment into space if need be. This being dangerous, the only people in the room were those who needed to be. Jon Shepard, Tali Zorah, Liara T’Soni, Mordin Solus, and the AIs. The batarian, one of the Normandy’s crew, rubbing her hands, exited the door. A moment later, a low whine came from everywhere as a barrier activated.

“Medbay is now isolated. Nothing that happens here will affect the rest of the ship. Should I register a catastrophic failure, we will eject all of you into space,” advised EDI, and Mordin nodded enthusiastically, as he got to work.

“Hmm, pod power supply holding stable, but obviously at a low point. Time to failure, one point eight months. Good thing we got there when we did, eh?” said the salarian as he went over the pod’s readings. He listed out compositions of the exterior, and a few diagrams of the interior, before having a holo display of the occupant.

“Yes, yes, prothean life signs still strong. Possibly a soldier?” he said.

“Is it a boy or a girl prothean?” asked Tali, gesturing with her weapon towards the holo’s...sensitive areas. Mordin, chuckling, shook his head.

“Possibly both? Maybe neither. Prothean biology is odd. No way to know genders until we ask,” as he spoke, he continued to tap on the holo displays, making notes of some areas, and registering others for later deeper scans once the pod was opened. After a few minutes of this, he finally stepped back, and motioned for Liara to step forward.

“This moment, very important. Should belong to the one who discovered the unlock code,” he said, and Liara, looking between the pod, and the salarian nervously, stepped forward. Licking her lips to get them to stop drying out, she waved away the holograms, clearing the air so that the pod stood on its own, and then pressed her hand into what looked like a flat surface on the thing. With a click and a hiss, the surface slid away, revealing the control panel from the recording. Her hand trembled a little, as she looked over the various controls, before quickly pressing three of them, and then standing back.

Panels opened all over the sides of the pod, hissing with escaping mist as chemicals from inside poured out. The air took on a minty smell as it did so, and slowly, the pod began to slide open, the top pulling away. Coughing a little, Liara’s eyes bulged out as she beheld a sight not seen in the galaxy for fifty-thousand years. A prothean, a real, live prothean. Chitinous skin covering muscles stretched taut across a frame that was lithe and powerful, like a weapon ready to strike. Stunning emerald green armor, shimmering as the body seemed frozen.

“By the Goddess, it really is alive,” she said, reaching her hand into the pod, and gently touching the cheek of the alien being. As if in response to that touch, the prothean’s eyes opened, slowly at first, blinking away the seeming frost that faded within seconds, leaving it just laying there, looking up at them.

“You, you’re among friends, please don’t be af-ah!” Liara cried out as the prothean moved. Where its eyes had seemed slow, its body was fast, striking like a viper. Its body glowed green, a pale thing compared to its armor, and it shot out a blast of biotic energy that knocked Liara backwards. Then it slipped out of the pod, doing a handstand on the edge, before flipping out. As it moved, it kicked, and a fine mist seemed to come out with it. Everyone in the room felt the odd tingle as the mist passed, but then heard the sputtering noises as EDI lost connection with the Medbay.

“Mordin! Knock him out!” shouted Tali as she brought her shotgun to bear, forcing Jon behind her. The Terran, unarmed, didn’t object to this in the slightest, as the salarian quickly began to type a command into his omnitool. As it sparked with power, the prothean almost contemptuously spun on his heels, a hand striking out. The overload pulse that should have knocked the prothean out was scattered as the blast of electrical arcs and biotics met in the air, then a second shot struck Mordin in the chest, causing him to go flying backwards, slamming hard into a wall and going limp.

“Looks like you need to learn some manners!” shouted Tali as she fired her shotgun, aiming for a leg. The blast, an old style mass effect accelerated round, smashed hard into the limb, knocking the prothean down, off his feet, but the barrier the armor was projecting now offered it too much protection for it to be more than an annoyance, and with a roll, the prothean moved to the side, then skittered forward on all fours.

“I hate bugs!” shouted Tali, as she fired repeatedly, but the prothean was moving now, slithering around the shots in a way that was rather unexpected given its frame. Then it popped back to its feet right in front of her, smashing its fist into the top of her gun, which fired down as she pulled the trigger, causing the kickback to knock the thing into her chin. Tali, feeling the weapon drop from her grip, tried to fight back regardless of the stars in her eyes, but the prothean blasted her hard, causing her to fly upwards and smash into the ceiling, before falling down limp.

The prothean turned as it registered all three of the others down, before bringing all four eyes onto Jon, who was at the door, quickly typing something into the controls. With a clang, a bar on both the outside and inside was dropped into place, the prothean’s eyes going wide as the Terran turned towards him, and dropped into a fighting stance. Obviously, it had expected the Terran to be running after that display, but instead Jon was offering to do battle. After a moment’s surprise, it obliged.

Jon ducked and rolled under the first blast it fired, letting the attack go over it, before he kicked out, getting his legs between the protheans and then bringing them both to the ground. There, the Terran quickly whirled his feet around, bringing his legs together hard at the prothean’s neck hoping to block a windpipe or something. Unfortunately, the armor was designed to prevent just that, and the prothean wiggled out of the hold, even as Jon rolled away. Briefly, he considered going for Tali’s weapon, but the prothean was on him before he could make good on the thought.

Dodging no, Jon seemed to dance between blasts, moving closer to throw off the shots, and then ducking away from fists and feet that were reinforced with biotic power. A chambered kick to the gut finally got him though, a knee smashing into his chest hard enough to drive the air from his lungs, before an elbow smashed into him from above, driving him into the deck plates with a wheeze of escaping wind. Jon desperately tried to struggle to his feet, but even as he grunted, the prothean set both his hands on the side of the Terran’s face, and then forced their eyes to meet.

The green glow of the prothean’s biotics took both of them for a moment, becoming something like a second skin as it spread over the pair, and Jon began to whimper a little. Inside his head, images, thoughts, and emotions flashed. Horror, pain, and death which rivaled and even surpassed everything he’d ever heard about the Robotech Wars played across his brain, while the prothean seemed terrified at what he...she was seeing in Jon’s head, before the two were blasted apart with a bang, each sliding to the ground, and leaving the room still.

Chapter Text

Adjunct Jsalana awoke sluggishly. Inside her head, her second and third lobes were pounding, but in a dull throbbing kind of way. At first, she wondered why, the stasis was supposed to be an instantaneous process, just in case the pods were taken. Asleep one moment, awake the next, that was what the engineers had told her. She kept her eyes closed as wakefulness settled, trying to sort the memories she had made last, expecting them to be right where she wanted them, but finding them scattered and fragmented. After a few very hard attempts to string together two complete moments of her life after the pods, she gave up, and instead opened her eyes.

For a moment, she thought she was drowning, as she opened her eyes to liquid surrounding her. Her breath caught in her throat, wishing she had the lungs of the spacewalkers, but then realizing those wouldn’t have helped either, considering any kind of pressure crushed them. Looking through the liquid, she could see shapes, bipeds by the looks of them, and quite a few at that. Most were standing stock still, but as a low beeping sound filtered into her mind, she found a few of those shapes were moving frantically, as the beeping got worse, louder and faster.

All at once, her face was free. Her lungs gulped at the air on instinct, risking poison or drugging to get a bit of life into them. She felt nothing in the gas though. A bit heavier on the oxygen than she would have liked, and no neon all, which made the air bland and tasteless. Still, it was air, and with a few breathes, she’d calmed her heart, the pounding in her head subsiding with it as her mind slowly threaded itself back to wakefulness. Before her, she saw races that she couldn’t believe were clothed, let alone holding weapons.

“Hmm, heart rate is descending, breathing normalizing. The subject should be fine,” said a...she would have called it a salarian, except it was speaking, and standing upright. Those frog things didn’t do that yet, and wouldn’t for at least a thousand more years if her information was correct. Sweeping her three other eyes over the group, she spotted a turian(stone age), four batarians(working their way to tool use), and a few quarians(early bronze age, though advancing slower than average).

Each of the ones she saw was armored, and armed. Their weapons looked crude, probably some kind of slug throwers rather than the more elegant particle rifle Jsalana was used to. Their armor also looked a bit behind the times. She saw no sign of biotic echo chambers on them, nor any kind of thrusters or ports. They appeared to just be bulky suits, designed only for defense rather than offense. Still, she knew she was at their mercy, and tried to move herself a little, only to find she couldn’t, every muscle in her body, save her face currently being constrained in some way.

“Alert too. Let’s see here,” said the salarian thing, walking over to her and holding a light at her eyes, shining it right into her orbs. She realized the test as soon as she saw it, and followed the object with her gaze, trying to direct a bit of her biotic power at it, but finding something buffering her.

“Ah, fascinating. Subject’s biotic reflexes are quite potent. EDI, what was the measurements on that?” asked the salarian, and Jsalana nearly started as a screen, some kind of hologram popped up in front of him, showing readouts of her body. The thing was two ways, and showed both statistics on her form, and a real time recording of it. The latter was the most interesting to Jsalana as she realized she was contained somehow. Floating, nude, in a bed of liquid. Standing, yet she didn’t feel the weight. So obviously she was in some kind of mass effect field.

“Hmm, slightly higher than your average asari can at her best. Truly remarkable for someone just waking up,” he said, and Jsalana looked past him to find the others, guards she knew now, were tensing up, a few fingers finding triggers. Oddly, one of the quarians, a female if she didn’t miss her guest, was hefting the largest of the weapons, and had never ceased pointing it at her, as if she were waiting for an excuse.

“Is she dangerous?” asked the quarian, and a new voice spoke, this one seeming to come from all around.

“Negative, Lieutenant Commander Zorah. The medigel is not only healing her, but serves the purpose of containing any movements, biotic or otherwise. Unless she could overpower our core, she’s harmless,” said the female voice, and Jsalana looked around for the source, only for her eyes to fall on a form floating, on its back, in a gel similar to the one she was in. The thing was uncovered, however, and looking to the ceiling, she saw a reflection of its face, and suddenly her fourth lobe began to spike with pain.

“What the?” said the salarian, moving its hands quickly over controls. Along her body, the Adjunct felt the tingle of electrical signals going through the gel, trying to stop her from moving and injuring herself, while also repairing damage as it was done to her body. More, she could feel a soothing rubbing at the base of her head carapace, right near her neck, slowly working its way over her. That helped, as she tried to make sense of the memories she’d shared with the...Terran...yes, his name was Jon Shepard.

“Well now, that was most distressing. Apparently our prothean neighbor was having some kind of attack,” said the salarian...Mordin Solus, Jon’s memories helpfully supplied. His memories were still scrambled, the language translation having come from her fourth lobe she realized, as Jsalana felt the pain ebb away. She tried to access more, but found the memories random and broken, throughout her own. Interestingly, she saw something like a Terran, but she knew it to be something called a Master, with purple fur atop its head, pale white skin, and deep blue eyes.

“Will she be alright?” asked Tali, yes, Tali Zorah.

“I’m unsure. Her physiology is quite different than what I’m used to. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was actually mechanical in origin rather than biological,” he said, and another form walked up next to him. An asari, T’Soni. Liara T’Soni.

“My research supports that, actually. The protheans keyed a lot of their technology to their biometric data. If that’s the case, then mutation had to have been eliminated somehow, to prevent their own tools from not recognizing them. I hypothesize that they practiced rather invasive bioengineering on themselves,” said the asari, her language devolved from the more musical tones of Proth, but still recognizable as having descended from Jsalana’s own tongue, the result of the Asari Project left alone for fifty-thousand years.

That was when that information hit her, and Jsalana, who had survived the years of the Harvest, who had sacrificed her future and her people to allow a small glimmer of hope, cried. It wasn’t much, just a single tear out of her far left eye, but it was more than she’d been able to do for some time. Fifty-thousand years, gone in the blink of an eye. So much time wasted, lost. She knew that all those sights Javik had promised to take her to see when they awoke would be gone, and more importantly her people were dead. A few dozen now were not enough to form a genetic base. When this generation ended, her people would truly pass into nothing save memory.

“Hormone levels spiking, perhaps a response to the attack?” theorized Mordin, as he and Liara continued to prattle on about her readings. Contained as she was, Jsalana just let the emotions pass, rather than lash out as her instincts demanded of her. When it was done, she took a deep breath in through her nose, letting the too light air filter her brain cavity, picking up small droplets of chemicals, before breathing them back out in a long sigh, clearing her mind, and allowing her to think clearly once more.

“It was a response to my situation, Dr. Solus,” she said, watching the entire group for a reaction. She got one too. The salarian and asari seemed completely taken aback by her statement, freezing and turning to her at once. Mordin’s expression one of interest, T’Soni’s one of horror. The guards, most of them, didn’t react at all. Probably just dumb muscle, not really understanding that she was speaking their language, well, an accented form of Terran anyway, the tongue she’d picked up from Jon.

“You feel we’re being unfair to you, after you attacked us?” asked Tali, her feet tensing up beneath her armor. Her muscles were tight enough to nearly snap, and Jsalana could smell the hate from her. At first, she wondered why, but again, Jon’s memories told her quickly.

“No. Nothing you’ve done could be as unfair to me as the passage of time itself,” she told the quarian girl, looking right down the barrel of her gun.

“Lieutenant Commander Zorah, please, stand down. This woman is completely contained. Even if she wanted to hurt us, she is incapable,” said the salarian, and as if to prove his point, Jsalana felt the medigel casket in which she floated tighten, making breathing harder for a moment, before loosening again. Tali, not taking her gun away from Jsalana’s face, turned to look at the other guards, and then at the display hovering in the air in front of Mordin, before finally she let it drop to her side.

“Never say stuff like that, Doctor. You don’t want to encourage fate to make things harder just to spite you,” she said in a joking tone, as she walked out of the way, closer to where Jon lay on his bed, letting Liara and Mordin take her place right in front of the prothean.

“Do you know where you are?” asked Mordin as he sort of dragged the holographic display behind him, placing it in front of where she was floating.

“I’m on the Scout Recon Vehicle Normandy. A Cruiser Class Vessel built by the Gearbox as a joint project between the Citadel Science Ministry and the Terran Research and Development Team, Black,” she rattled off, the question bringing the information out of Jon’s memories.

“Hmm, fascinating, I don’t believe anyone spoke of any of that. Are you in some way telepathic?” he asked, watching the display, rather than facing her.

“No, I embraced the Terran, Jon Shepard. By doing so, I gained his memories, as he gained mine,” she explained.

“Embraced? What do you mean by that?” asked Mordin, and Jsalana chuckled, a dry, humorless noise.

“I don’t have time to explain the mechanics to you, Doctor. Why not ask the asari, her people have learned the art, after all,” she said, and Liara looked at her, then at Jon, and suddenly her blue skin turned a very interesting shade of grey as her blood rushed to her cheeks in embarrassment.

“You mean, you and he?” she asked, and the only answer the prothean gave was another chuckle. At least until she heard a blast, and watched the soldiers supposedly guarding her, who had seemed so bored, snap to. A good skill to have, that, to appear about to fall asleep, while still on alert like they must have been. They even moved right, one of them turning their gun directly towards the source of the noise, two focusing on her, and the rest getting between the door and anyone trying to escape.

The two doctors, meanwhile, both went to the wall. In Mordin’s case, it was automatic, instincts drilled into him telling him to limit his profile, while also dragging Liara behind him, roughly slamming her into the metal. Jsalana, for her part, floated there, not saying anything, even though she’d felt the slight jarring movement as her head was pushed around by the field about her. She then heard several footsteps, heavy things considering how small the one taking the steps was, pounding into the deck, before Tali stood in front of her.

“You...you raped Jon?!” she demanded, a hint of acid in her voice. Her weapon, such as it was, had been left behind, only her hands pointing an accusing finger towards the bound prothean. Had she been free, Jsalana would have found her easy to take, after all, quarians were light, and she’d already proven she was a match for Tali in hand to hand. Of course, she wasn’t free, and she decided not to say anything right away, as she thought over her answer carefully, having to consider the connotation embracing apparently had in this millennium.

“Embracing for my kind is not the same as for the asari. We do not do it to breed, we do it to share our souls. To embrace is to be part of one another. It should have been painless, but apparently Terrans have some kind of mental defenses of which even they are unaware,” she explained, staring into the silver orbs of the quarian. Tali, for her part, seemed ready to strangle the prothean, at least until a groaning noise distracted her.

“Jon!” she shouted, rushing to the side of her lover, Jsalana forgotten as she ran. In his floating bed of medigel, Jon slowly awoke, his head pounding, like he’d been on a bender for at least a few days, if not weeks. Soon, the gel lowered to the floor, small vents opening to allow it to pass back into the ship, leaving Jon naked as he lay there. He felt a pair of familiar arms fall around him, and on instinct, hugged Tali back as he slowly rose.

“Vic-to han, drana, Tali,” she said, and everything stopped again, as he realized what he’d said was not what he had intended to. Of course, the moment he tried to think about that, he had a headache, a pain almost as bad as the one the Reaper Indoctrination pulse had caused. Those last two thoughts, names for things he shouldn’t have known, were drowned out as his brain suddenly felt like it was on fire. Tali, grabbing him as he fell to his knees, had her hand on his chest to keep him from falling forward, while staring daggers at the suspended form of the prothean.

“What is this? What happened to him?!” she demanded, and Jsalana sighed in exasperation.

“I told you, we embraced. His thoughts became mine, and mine became his. He told you he was fine, in the tongue of my people. Obviously, he is not, but I assume he’ll recover as I did,” she said, remembering the Master’s commands in her brain. The Terrans, for whatever reason, had a lot of mental blocks in their heads, and she’d probably set all of them off. Her mind was slowly recovering from them, likely he would as well, but he was not as well designed as she was, so the process would take longer.

“Fascinating, truly remarkable even. Still, science can wait. I must ask for your name, rank, and if possible history,” said the salarian, and Jsalana looked at him for a long moment, before letting out a sigh.

“I am Adjunct Jsalana, attached to Commander Javik, Lord of Edenia, the planet you know as Eden Prime. As for my history, I would like to give that to your leaders. It is not a tale I relish telling, and not more than once, if it can be helped,” she said, and then stood silent. This upfront answer seemed to surprise some in the room, and Mordin, Tali, and Liara got into a long discussion about how safe she was to allow to walk free to the Meeting Deck for a debrief. Mostly they just talked in circles in regards to it though, so Jsalana tuned them out, instead focusing her attention on a more interesting subject.

Jon was laying back down, his body still, but his eyes wide open as he stared into the ceiling, the reflection allowing him to look himself over. He’d been stripped, his pale skin showing not a single scar now, despite his battles. She remembered many of them from his perspective now, and as she broke through his defenses, pushing Zor out of her way to get at them, she was disappointed in him. He was a man of morals, one who tried to capture as many as possible and spare his foes the Darkness Beyond. That was an attitude that would get him killed.

Still thinking over what she remembered, she kept an eye focused on the events, and watched the guards slowly return to their posts, only to then fan out around her. The ceiling showed her two behind, two in front, and one on each side, before she felt gravity again. Slowly she lowered down to the ground. The coffin made of medigel slogged off her body, a clunk sound and a grate opened in the floor, allowing the stuff to flow into it, where it would be reprocessed for further use. At last her body was exposed to the world once more, her hands free to rub against each other as she knelt on the cold metal floor, and then finally, rose to her feet.

“I’m uncertain if your kind wears garments beyond your armor, which I would not return to you even if I could. Still, modesty is important to most in this era,” said Mordin as he held out a gown to her. Taking the white fabric, she looked at it, and then put it on, covering her carapace up once more. She still felt naked without her armor, and the boost to her biotics as well as mobility it provided, but she would make do.

“I will attempt to adhere to the social norms of your people then,” she said, and then her and her escorts moved out of the room, walking into the corridors that had been quickly abandoned, giving her no hostages to take, even if she could have beaten the six around her. Behind, she heard many other feet following, including an oddly accented version of her people’s speech. Apparently Jon was coming as well as they made their way to an elevator, and then up, to meet with Skarrde on the meeting deck.

Chapter Text

Less than ten minutes later, a familiar group was assembled in the Meeting Deck of the Normandy, with two additions. The first was Mordin Solus, who insisted on being present, both as a doctor, and as a scientist with many a skill, including anthropology as it turned out. The second figure, clad only in a small white robe, was the more eye catching however, as the prothean woman seemed to glide into the room, her steps measured and controlled, before she took a seat.

Behind her entered Jon and Tali. The former wore a robe much like her own, though it didn’t bulge in the solders the same way her’s did, due to the fact that the Terran lacked her ridges. Tali, meanwhile, was fully armored, wearing something that resembled her old environment suit, save the exposed face, and she was once again carrying her shotgun, which she held in a way to suggest it was ready, as she stared daggers at the prothean.

Jane wore her own armor, and cracked her knuckles a few times, imaging the small prothean in her fist. She’d only heard second hand about what had happened, but she knew enough. She knew this prothean had screwed with Jon’s head, and as the older sibling, that made it her prerogative to break her. Physically, if she were allowed. She settled, for now at least, at simply nodding at Tali, creating a silent agreement between the two that when they could, they would show Jsalana the error of her ways.

The prothean ignored them, taking a seat in the circle that had been provided for her, while everyone else did likewise. When everyone was seated, a low hum, followed by a whoosh sound could be heard from the walls, as the AI’s applied a privacy field. A chime confirmed that the room was sealed, at both ends, and Skarrde confirmed that they were being recorded by the AI’s. Typing in a quick command he looked at everyone, and then spoke.

“Greystone Regrets, confirm voice print,” he said, and soon a tiny light floated in front of him, going from red, to yellow, and finally glowing green.

“Soon started is sooner done, and I’m positive this will take longer than most of us like. To start with, please give name, rank, and species,” said the Zentraedi as he turned to the woman before him, and everyone else looked at her expectantly.

“I am Jsalana, Adjunct to Lord Javik of Edenia. I was grown on what you would call the Citadel for that purpose, and sent there. I am a Nazara, but your people have named mine Prothean, after the name of our empire,” she said in a very mechanical manner.

“You were grown?” asked Skarrde, and she nodded.

“As your people were, General Skarrde, mine could be. I was made for my Lord, to serve him in all things. His shield in the light, his knife in the dark. Is that not the same as a Zentraedi?” she said, and he seemed about to argue the point, but then just shook his head.

“It was, I will not lie, but I did not think technology of that sort existed in this galaxy. Did you people have the capability of producing themselves in numbers via such techniques?” he answered, following up with another question.

“In numbers? No, such things were beyond us, and in truth, it would likely have never caught on. Those, like myself, were made in small units, as servants to the upper class. We were to be the tools to perform any job they needed done,” she explained.

“Fascinating. You had a class structure then? Was it rigid, or loose? Was it based solely on blood, or was there some form of meritocracy involved?” asked Liara before she could stop herself, and when she realized she’d butted in, she quickly withdrew, sitting up straight as Jsalana and Skarrde looked at her. When the former turned back to the latter, however, she found him motioning for her to answer the question.

“We were not castes, if that is what you are asking. While those like myself were made with purpose, others earned their positions, through skill or cunning. Lord Javik was one such, a leader and soldier who defeated many enemies during the Metacon Wars, despite his youth. He was given governorship of Edenia, at which time I was made for him,” she answered succinctly.

“Metacon Wars?” asked Tali beside Jon, and Jon nodded beside her, motioning in the air.

“Bok-Ton varka,” he said, and made typing motions with his fingers. Jsalana was about to translate, when a terminal appeared in the air in front of him, and he began to make use of it. His fingers flew over the keys, soon bringing up an image that resolved itself from a blurry form, into a very simple looking vision of a Meta, one of the race of machine people Jsalana had in her memory.

“Indeed, that. Fighting them was the very reason our empire existed. They hounded us from the moment we left Proth, to the final victory over their homeworld,” she said, then was quiet as Jon kept typing, eventually creating other images. The flat winged visage of a Meta Raider, as well as a larger shape, that soon resolved into a BaseStar, its two plate like sections meeting a thin point between, while numerous weapons could be seen dotting the surface.

“Yes, those,” she said, even more impressed as the images animated themselves. He even added in some fighters of Prothean make to the dance, before he paused it, his head jerking around as something caught his attention.

“Vot? Cun thrak da?” he said, and she nodded.

“The Meta gave us little choice, and even had they done so, we would not have shown weakness. Exterminating them was the only choice,” she told them, and Jon shook his head, banishing the images, and then bringing up another one. This was of a planet, that everyone soon recognized as Eden Prime.

“Cun thrak da. Javik kuntaka da,” he said, and this got a rise out of Jsalana for the first time. She leapt to her feet, and pointed one of her long fingers at him. She made no other motions, however, and just stared, all four of her eyes focusing on him.

“Do not judge, myself or my Lord. Our choices were harsh, but necessary,” she said, and Jon stared back at her.

“Please sit down, Adjunct. And Commander, please do not upset our guest. For the moment, we must allow her to speak,” said Skarrde, and Jon whipped his head around to face his leader, before saluting, fist over the heart in Terran fashion.

“Good, now Adjunct, what has you so riled up?” asked the General.

“He claims my Lord failed his people. Whatever memories of mine he holds, this Terran knows nothing of how our empire fell, or the hard decisions that were needed,” she said, and Skarrde nodded.

“Then perhaps, you can explain it to us. Were the Meta responsible for it in some way?” he asked, and as she sat back down, she barked out a laugh, her voice echoing in an odd way as she shook her head.

“The Meta were a threat, to be sure, but never on that scale, no. If you knew the horrors we faced…” she trailed off, her inner eyes shutting, as her outer ones glazed over. Any soldier could recognize that look at a glance. This was someone who’d seen far, far too many people die. Not in a distant way, not hearing about it, but watching them be killed, and being able to do nothing for them.

“Tell us about them. While I trust my brother, he’s a bit of a bleeding heart,” said Jane, and this seemed to startle the Prothean woman out of her revere.

“You say that like explaining it is so simple, yet it is a tale of centuries,” she said in a very tired voice.

“We have time, Adjunct. We’ll be traveling for at least a week to get to the Citadel,” said Skarrde, and Jsalana barked out another laugh, placing her hands at the sides of her mouth, and covering it with them, as she blew a sigh out from between her fingers.

“The Citadel. To my people, it was the Keep. The great fortress of the Inusannon. As we are to your Cycle, they were to ours. We believed them to be the makers of the Relays, the forgers of miracles. It was on the broken moon of Proth that we found one of their stations, an observation post, and learned the secrets of the universe, the power we would come to call Mass Effect,” she seemed resigned now, as she leaned back in her chair.

“We used those secrets well. We spread out to the other worlds in our system. Eighteen worlds, of which we were the seventh from our blue sun. We then discovered the Relay at the edge of the system, as so many have done before us, as you did yourselves,” as she spoke, Jon provided pictures again, this time showing a galactic map, pinpointing a system near the core, one that was unexplored at the moment.

“Yes, that was home to my people. We expanded, explored, and conquered, as we had Proth itself. Soon, that brought us against the Meta, a species, if you would call it that, of mechanical beings. They used the bodies of others, threading their circuits through dead in some grotesque imitation of life. They consumed whole worlds with this process, to spread their Choir to all worlds,” as she spoke, the small dot of a world began to spread a blue haze over the galaxy, only to stop as a red haze appeared near it, one that encompassed a large section of the galaxy.

“We fought them, as we would not be used as cattle for their people. They were relentless, however, and for every one of ours that fell, they gained a new follower. A tide of horrors that threatened to bury the galaxy in legions of the dead,” the two hazes clashed, moving like ameba to consume each other, but it was quickly obvious that the red haze was winning, pushing the blue back until only a handful of systems remained.

“Then we found the Keep. To be blunt, it was the most fortuitous event of the war, and we realized later that it was likely the machinations of what came after. At the time, it was deemed a gift from the spirits, and we quickly made use of it, both as the ultimate staging base, and as a wealth of technology. Using those, we began to stem the tide, destroying utterly those who would use us as shells,” the hazes shifted now, and it was obvious where the Citadel was, as it was poking into the red territory often, as the Meta tried to take. Oddly, it was not in the Widow Nebula where it should have been.

“It took centuries, millennia, but we fought the Meta back time and again. In so doing, we took planet after planet, establishing protectorates on many of them, and observing those who were not yet ready to be made members of the empire,” she looked around the room, her eyes stopping on each in turn, as she considered them. They were the descendents of projects that had been left running unattended for far too long, and yet, now they stood on their own. Quite the accomplishment really.

“So, you conquered your way across the galaxy in order to protect it from these Meta. What about after the war was over? Did you intend on freeing them?” asked Tali, and Jsalana barked out a laugh.

“You speak of such high minded ideals, quarian, and yet, you would not exist but for our efforts. The Veil that hides your world is a thing of danger, and when a radiation wave passed, we were there to shelter you. Without us, your people would have died using only bronze tools. Does that not give us some claim to you, both as protectors and lords?” she asked, and Tali looked like she was about to respond, before Skarrde held out his hand.

“Ms. Zorah, we are not here to pass value judgements on the Adjunct’s culture. Allow her to tell her story,” he commanded, and after a moment of hesitation, she nodded, everyone turning back to the prothean.

“Very well, I shall continue. After the final victory over the Meta at their homeworld, and the destruction of the core of their collective consciousness, we stood tall and proud, lords of the heavens. None in the galaxy could challenge us, and we were beginning to understand the underpinnings of mass effect. With that knowledge, we began construction of the Conduit,” as she spoke, Jon leaned forward, and called up an image from the database, this of the Relay Monument that was on the Presidium, in the heart of the Citadel.

“It still stands?! We were certain the Reapers would have torn it down,” she said, staring at the image, reaching for it with one hand.

“Reapers?” asked Liara, and the word snapped Jsalana out of her reverie. Jon, helpfully pulled up the file on the enemy ship that had attacked them at Eden Prime.

“Yes, they are the next act of my people’s history, the final act, and the perpetrators of the Great Cycle,” her eyes smoldered a little, green haze playing in the back of them as she spoke now, and her tone became not hollow, as one might expect, but angry.

“They live in Dark Space, beyond the galactic boundary, where no light shines. We do not know why, or how, they came to exist, only that all of this, the Keep, the Relays, and even our people, are but great links in an unbroken chain of Cycles, stretching back so many years that only the barest hints remain of the beginning,” as she said this, she rose from her seat, and began to stalk around a bit.

“They came from the Keep itself. The trap at the heart of it all. It’s the center of the Relay Network, the point around which it all moves, and eventually, anyone using the network is taken there. The trap is baited perfectly, a space station of immense scale, even your people have only built a few like it, and I can assure you, knowing what I know, your largest weapons would be as drops of water to the defenses of the Keep,” this was spoken to Skarrde directly, as she turned to face him.

“Creatures there, maintainers of the Keep, Keepers you call them, despite naming the thing itself the Citadel. They seem harmless, completely benign. Kill one, and another is made, but never do they react. They’re as automated as the rest of it, and lure you in. All the civilizations of the past Cycles made the Keep their capital, as you did, as my people did,” this got more than a few concerned looks going around the room, as they realized the truth of her words.

“And why not? After all, the Citadel is the ultimate fall back position, with a size to house entire fleets, and even the facilities to build them. Better, when you explore it fully, you will learn it controls the Relays, able to remotely activate and deactivate them. Why would you build your capital anywhere else? Why not store all the data of your people there? Right where the Reapers can claim it as they begin the Harvest,” this time a bit of sorrow creeped into her voice, as she intoned that final word.

“The Harvest began so suddenly that it seemed almost unreal. My Lord and I had only been on Edenia a few decades, barely enough time to build the infrastructure for our colony, when we heard of the Fall of the Keep. Overnight, our fleets were swept aside, as so much of our force was kept there or at Proth itself, the very first system to be invaded. The images of them raining death down on my people’s ancestral home, it was horrible, and yet, beautiful in a way,” Jsalana’s outer eyes closed, while the inner ones focused on the ceiling as she spoke.

“A line of fire, carved into the central continent, visible from those satellites they left in orbit, as if to mock those below with the images of their demise. The brave captains, commanding their ships, threw themselves at their enemy, only to find them invulnerable to all our weapons. Even charging at them, intending on smashing them with their own hulls, proved futile, as the Reapers could move so quickly, and their barriers, even if struck, barely noticed the collisions,” she finally stopped in front of her seat, her head facing downwards now.

“This pattern repeated itself. As with the satellites, they left our beacons alone, so we could watch in horrid detail as they destroyed us. System after system, world after world, city after city, they advanced. Nothing we did even slowed them down. At best, we inconvenienced them for some time, at worst, our weapons would sometimes do more damage to our own people than theirs did,” Jsalana took in a deep breath, bracing herself before continuing.

“As you might guess, the Servant Races rebelled at this point. They knew we were breaking on the tide of the Reapers assaults, and they believed they could be free, but they were fools. The Reaper’s Harvest claimed any and all in the galaxy, and so many of them felt that dreadful touch on their people. It was only when the Densorin proved the folly of trying to appease the Reapers, offering up their youth, only to be slaughtered en masse, that the Servants fell into their place, and the war began to drag,” she almost seemed happy for a moment, at the memory of the fallen Densorin.

“Finally, we struck back in the one way we thought would have a chance of victory, using their own great works against them. We lured as many as we could to an isolated colony, using the people there as bait, then, when as many of them as would come were in the trap, we destroyed the Mass Relay in the system, as a final act of defiance,” Jon accompanied this with an image, a huge asteroid slamming into a Relay at a fraction of C. The simulation ended as the objects collided.

“Yes, like that. It was a desperate gamble. The loss of life on that world would be total, but it had to be done. We were fools. They controlled the Relays, and within the moment of collision, the target powered down, so all we did was trap them in system, a world ripe for the Harvest to sate their hunger, until they could repair the device, and once more menace the galaxy,” this time Jon showed an image of the Reapers, seeming small compared to the huge Mass Relay, slowly repairing the thing.

“After that, we knew we would not win. Our best efforts had been for naught. So we thought not of victory, but of base survival. I know of many worlds that shot sleeper ships into the void, hoping to go unnoticed. The Reapers made certain that we would know that for folly, as they used our own beacons to transmit the demise of each vessel they found, giving us a gruesome reminder of how weak we were,” she shuddered, remembering some of the more horrid image to come from those transmissions.

“So, that brings us to your world. You survived, obviously,” said Liara, and Jsalana nodded, as Jon brought up a picture of Eden Prime.

“We planned for it. It takes time to disassemble an empire that took millennia to build, and we were one of the newest colonies, barely enough people to be worth their time. Saved for last, forced to watch as our people were Harvested, we came up with idea, after idea, until finally, we began the work of preparing for our end,” the image of Eden Prime suddenly glowed, with the three supervolcanoes highlighted.

“You. Detonated. Them,” said Jon, sounding out each word, and Jsalana nodded, barely acknowledging that he’d spoken.

“We did. We knew from bitter experience that the Reapers were relentless. They would not stop unless all of us were dead, and it was not enough to fake it. We had to make sure they believed it, thus, the plan,” Jon seemed angry at her words, and quickly typed on his console. Soon, another image floated beside the world of Eden Prime, a biped, looking like a hammer headed shark, save for the body shape, and obvious flat teeth.

“Sacrificed. Pawns,” he said simply, and Jsalana looked at them.

“The people of Edenia were primitives, uplifted by the Empire for their unique talents. My Lord was to turn the colony into a triumph for our people, and now, he would make use of them. Gathering them in one city, where a massive construct was being built, a ship they were told would carry them into the stars,” she didn’t turn away from the image of the biped, instead looking at it as one might look at a tool.

“The plan, however, was far more cunning. In building the great ship, we also built bunkers beneath, kilometers underground, while preparing the means to destroy our enemies. The Reapers, we had learned, could not use their barriers in an atmosphere. A flaw they have never overcome. So we used that flaw against them. When the Reapers finally came for us, the Nazara abandoned the surface for the bunkers, and left the Edenians to their fate,” this time Jon activated the recording that Liara had, showing the people climbing into the pods.

“Lord Javik...yes, that would be the part to survive, wouldn’t it?” she said, leaning back in her chair and laughing, but a single tear rolled out of her left most eye, creating a glittering trail down the side of her face, before she wiped it away.

“The rest, I can only guess at. I evacuated, my Lord put me in my pod, and I knew nothing until waking in your medical bay. I would hazard a guess that our plan succeeded, given I still draw breath, though not as well as we would have liked,” she leaned forward then, and looked around.

“The facility, the base we found, it could have housed a million pods like your own,” Liara said, and Jsalana nodded.

“A host to rise again when the Reapers had returned to dark space, beyond the galactic boundary. We would be the center of a new empire, rallying all the races of the galaxy to our banner, and trying to discover a way to somehow fight an enemy that had dismantled us so easily,” she explained.

“By rally, you mean conquer,” clarified Garrus, and the prothean nodded again, not feeling the need to voice such thoughts.

“Obviously, that plan has failed, and yet, things are different. Our people had observed the Reapers in our Cycle, or at least, a single one, as a ghost story. A phantom ship that was sometimes spotted at the edge of sensors. This Reaper has behaved quite a bit differently,” she said, turning the conversation away from such things.

“This one is acting openly. Our’s observed us, until such time as the invasion began, it never attacked as far as we know. Something is obviously different. Perhaps some other plan of my people interfered. I know others had such ideas, but they, obviously, did not share their specifics over the beacons, lest the enemy hear them,” she looked up at the image still floating there, of Edenia, her home, now twice dead since she’d last walked on its earth.

“Could you have saved them? The natives of Eden Prime?” asked Liara, and Jsalana looked towards her instead.

“Would you have? Knowing that saving one of them, a primitive who had barely discovered fire, would mean sacrificing one of your own people?” she asked, and Liara looked about to respond, when Skarrde cut her off, holding out a hand to draw all eyes to him.

“We are not here to debate morality, merely to learn of the Protheans, and we’ve done that. Now we must make other plans. Tell me, Jsalana, what would you do now?” asked the old Zentraedi, and the Nazara woman looked at him, before just sighing.

“What can I do? I will show you what I can of our records, and then I will die. Nothing more, nothing less,” she seemed consigned to her fate, but Jane just looked at her.

“Why not make more little Naz’ instead? I mean, you’ve still got about fifty people, right?” she asked, and Jsalana barked out a very empty laugh, a single noise, before shaking her head.

“You are not learned of the ways of genes, Sergeant. There is a rule your brother knows. 50/500. To wit, you need fifty individuals for short term survival, five hundred for long term, at minimum. Even if all of the remainder are capable of breeding, which I myself am not, we are doomed in two generations,” Jsalana said nothing else, but that was more because of Jon, who typed rapidly, soon bringing up an image of some kind of liquid filled tank.

“Cloning tanks. En mass production,” he said, his words coming easier now, as his mind finally restored itself to rights.

“You...you have those?” asked Jsalana, looking hopeful for the first time since all of this had begun, as she stared at the object floating in the air before her.

“We do, but why don’t you know about them? I thought you knew everything Jon knew?” asked Jane.

“Your minds were built with traps and pitfalls for those who would invade your minds. Crude as they are, given your nature as a hybrid species, they’re still effective at scattering things. Jon’s mind told me nothing of these,” she admitted, her eyes wildly looking them up and down, at least until Skarrde placed his hand forward, and shut down the holograms with a touch.

“Then we have something to offer you. That is good, because you have something to offer us. Would you be able to make binding treaties for your people?” asked the General, and she quickly shook her head.

“Only Lord Javik would be able to make such an agreement,” she admitted.

“Then we’ll awaken him next,” as the General spoke, he brought up an image of the pods in the bay.

“Which one is his?” he asked, and Jsalana squinted at the pods, before shaking her head again.

“I wouldn’t be able to identify them from a distance. Their occupants would be listed on their status boards, however,” she explained, and that caused the General to stroke at his chin.

“A conundrum then. Your own actions, on awakening, were not passive, Adjunct. You must realize we can’t have an entire team of Protheans with your abilities running around. I’m sure you understand,” he countered.

“I do, General. In your position, I’m sure Lord Javik would do the same. I can open the pods in the bay. You may have as many weapons present as you wish,” she assured him.

“I...will trust you. For now. Open only Javik’s pod, however. Until we have agreements in place, I will not risk this ship, or her crew. Is that acceptable, Captain?” he said, turning to Garrus, whose mandibles clicked in thought, before nodding.

“My people have enough wanzers in the bay to take on a company of Terrans. With Ms. Shepard’s firepower added to it, I don’t see a single Prothean being a problem,” he admitted. Orders were sent out, and a few minutes later, everyone exited the Meeting deck, Garrus and Skarrde to the command section, the rest to the launch bay, where Commander Javik was about to get a rather rude awakening.

Chapter Text

Javik awoke to a headache. He’d expected that. His last conscious thought was about telling Victory to preserve as many of his soldiers as he could. Javik regretted the necessity of the decision, but his troops were more important than the civilians. They knew the risk, after all. Besides, with part of the facility broken into by those Husks, probably half the pods would be offline regardless. With those thoughts, the gas had sent him to sleep, and now with them, he awoke.

He waited there, in the darkness, expecting the download of the beacon to begin any moment, to tell him anything it had recorded during their sleep. When it didn’t come, Javik tensed. He knew the beacon must have been disconnected. That boded ill for him, and he gripped his hands tightly, sending a small biotic pulse into his armor, so it was stored in his gauntlet. Just in case whatever outside the pod proved to be hostile, he would be ready.

“Victory, open my pod,” he ordered into the darkness, and was surprised when nothing happened. The VI should have responded the instant he said something, it literally couldn’t do anything else. That told him it was worse than he’d feared, and he quickly built up three more pulses, storing them in his gauntlets as well. With a calming breath, knowing he was prepared, Javik waited as the world shuddered a bit, and finally the pod opened up, his eyes adjusting in a heartbeat, and he leapt from his lying position.

Right into Jsalana’s arms. Her face was twisted. Not in pain, but in conflicted emotions, as she reached out a hand to him. Instantly, he took her offered appendage, and the two Embraced. Years of memories stolen from another, and an hour of her own experiences, flooded into Javik’s mind. He tensed again, as he knew things that would have shattered a lesser mind, things that were truly difficult to believe, before he finally stepped back from her, and took a look around the room.

He was in a large open space, easily capable of holding a gladiatorial event inside. This was a hangar bay, the deployment deck, of the SRV-Normandy. Around him, in a circle, was her crew, wearing armor, or inside giant machines, all pointing weapons at him, should he prove hostile. Javik checked the memories, and realized quickly that, despite his superior training and abilities, this much firepower would have vaporized him. That earned him a chuckle, as he looked at the armored figures, and then up at their support.

Squat things, looking like headless torsos with limbs poking out of them at odd angles were wanzers. Each was a unique machine, with their arms and legs being separate components from their core units. Some were hovering slightly, on little flickering lights of ME fields. Others were on legs like an insect's, multiple jointed, and ending in spears. Others had wheeled feet. All were armed, however, either with weapons held in hands, or with arms that held built in weapons. Thirty-five units in all.

Beside the wanzer were veritechs. Taller, seventy feet to the wanzers forty five, they were also sleeker, and with limbs that seemed more in proportion to their bodies. Each had a head as well, where the wanzers had tiny ones that weren’t readily visible, these were off the main body, with different shapes for sensors to tell them apart. All were in battloid mode, each with gunpods pointing at him. Only five of them, however, though probably far deadlier than the greater number of wanzers.

The last was a single unit. Or rather, a single person. It was a woman inside an armored shell, standing as tall as the veritechs. Her face looked smooth, without features like a nose or eyes, though he knew from the stolen memories how many sensors were on that helmet. The smoothed front face plate showed no emotion, but he knew her thanks to Jon’s memories. She was tense. The way she stood on her right foot, with her palms open, ready to be pointed at him at any moment.

“This is far outside what we expected,” he said, turning his head to Jsalana, who nodded at him, before getting on her knees, as was expected of her station. Javik considered allowing her to remain in that position, as it was customary, but he was dealing with a new people, and one who held much of the power in this galaxy right now. Going over the stolen memories with a few cycles of thought, he decided to motion for her to rise, and then stepped forward.

“I am Javik, former Lord of Edenia. You may put your weapons down. I will do no harm to you, nor will I attempt to take this vessel,” as he spoke, he did something he would never have even considered under normal circumstances. He reached up, and with a twist, undid the bindings on his gauntlets, feeling the short burst as the charges built within it were dissipated. When he got the first one off, he then used his free hand to do the other, before setting them down in a cross fashion in front of him, and then staring up at his current benefactors.

“EDI, store our guest’s gear as best you can,” said a voice over the loudspeaker. It was Skarrde, Javick remembered, and then watched as his gauntlets were lifted off the ground in a light blue field of sparkling light. The ME field then shifted rapidly across the floor, before gently setting the things into a locker on the far side of the hanger, which opened to receive them, and then slammed shut hard, to show they weren’t coming out anytime soon.

“We have a set of robes ready for you in the lift to the meeting deck. Please remove your armor, and we’ll have a ‘face to face’ talk,” said the voice of Skarrde, and Javik nodded. He was still processing some of what Jsalana had passed to him, especially the Terran’s memories as they felt disordered and chaotic in ways that showed mental defenses. Still, he knew enough that he would not be harmed, at least not for now. If it came to it, he doubted the biotic echo chambers of his armor would provide much assistance anyway.

The wanzers moved out of the way heavily, their feet slamming into the decks beneath them, showing off their mass as the whole place seemed to shake with each impact. The veritechs were far lighter as they moved, their guns raising up, allowing him to pass beneath them almost as if they were some kind of honorguard. Meanwhile the Terran in armor moved with a middling tread, neither the harsh impacts of the wanzers, nor the light tread of the veritechs. Instead Jane moved with a deliberate sense of weight behind her, as if to remind the protheans on the ground how much she overpowered them.

Javik actually smiled at that, letting one eye observe her as he and Jsalana crossed the deck. While he was not so foolish as to test it, he could see more than one vulnerability in her stance, leaving her root easy to break. She was confident because she’d never been challenged, at least not by someone smaller than her. She was the sort of warrior that fought with reckless abandon, convinced that her skills would see her through any fight, or at least, allow her to do enough damage to claim a victory from any opponent.

He imagined fighting her, his mind literally allowing him to overlay what was with his own calculations, as his third lobe used predictive equations to make it almost real. He saw himself bouncing around, going for her ankles, striking at her feet. Her hands moved quickly, but without a pod to assist her, she was vulnerable to ME fields, allowing him to actually turn her own mass into his weapon. It wouldn’t be an easy victory, but he could see more than a dozen ways to literally sweep her off her feet and slay her.

These thoughts carried him through the hanger, to the lift, where he did indeed find a robe like the white thing that Jsalana wore. It would be a tighter fit for him, as his shoulders were slightly broader, but he would make due with it. Slipping off his armor was time consuming, but it allowed him to look at the pods, noting numbers even from the half a mile away he was, seeing that most of those who remained were higher ranked warriors. Not officers, as leadership was not what would be needed, but instead fighters of the highest caliber.

As he got the chest piece off, he went over plans to open the pods, and let loose his soldiers into the ship. It had a nice chance of success, actually, as the defenses, despite what they thought, weren’t nearly enough to stop his people. The Meta had learned that the hard way. He dismissed those plans, however, as he got the boots and then pelvic piece of his armor off, wriggling out of the thing, and exposing his bare chiton to the open air for a moment, before slipping on the robe.

No, these Terrans had mentioned cloning technology. Sadly, while the stolen memories contained whole lobes worth of information on their technology, the cloning tech was outside Jon’s area of expertise. For now, he needed to play along. More than half his remaining troops were sterile, and the rest couldn’t possibly build a sustainable population. That meant they needed this cloning tech, at least, for the moment, and that meant playing nice.

All in all, he was in the lift less than five minutes after he’d gotten revived, and was on the meeting deck a few seconds later, stepping into the open space to find a shotgun aimed at his hearts by a quarian who looked far too thin to be holding such a weapon. Her grip didn’t shake, however, and she kept the barrel right where it would do the most damage as Javik walked forward, feeling the tingle of ME fields on his chiton, being scanned no doubt, and then found his way blocked by Jon, from whom his memories came.

“May the Stars Shine in your Outer Eyes,” he said, making a sign with his fingers that should have been done only by the head warrior of a unit. That was very presumptive on his part, but Javik would let it slide, considering the almost flawless Proth he was speaking.

“And may your prey never stray from your Inner Eyes’ gaze,” he finished, giving the counter sign back to him, and then being shocked as Jon got onto his knees, showing the proper amount of deference due his station. It felt nostalgic to have a being of another race do him this service, and with an almost mechanical stride, he walked forward, and placed his hand on the head of the Terran, letting the glow of his biotic field come out of his palm, and into Jon’s skin, the sign of his acceptance of the gesture.

When the moment passed, the room dimmed, and the forms of those on the other meeting deck appeared, while Garrus entered the room as well, followed soon after by Liara, who was typing something into her omnitool. Javik couldn’t tell what, thanks to the angle, but he believed it had to be something to do with her study of Protheans, now that she had two specimens to observe. He actually smirked at that train of thought as he took a seat beside Jsalana, and then everyone else sat down as well.

“Lord Javik...is that the right title, in this case?” she asked him as he looked to her, and the prothean took a moment to think about that. To those watching, it would appear he answered instantly. In his mind, he went over a thousand protocols for his situation. He was the highest ranked person in the Empire, that would naturally make him Emperor, but he did not, and could not, sit the Throne of Ichor, thus he’d merely be Emperor-in-Waiting, but even there, he lacked the vestments.

It took his mind almost eight heartbeats to finally process that fact. He was the highest ranked person, but so many ranks beyond his Lordship required honors or markings that were impossible for him to be granted now. The protocols had been written well, however, and soon his mind found a path down one that spoke of what to do with the homeworld destroyed, and all contact cut off with other colonies. It was a…very detailed instruction set he’d never even known he knew before, programmed deep into his psyche.

“Edenia, much as she is missed, is no more, and even were the Terrans to secede it to us, it would not be as it was. My title, properly now, is Exalted, as I am to the last to know the Words, Researcher Liara. I am leader to what remains of my people, and must craft a foundation on which to rebuild ourselves, without the forges that made us,” he said simply, and that got a rise out of some of them, as obviously, he had not been told her name at any point. They had assumed he might know it, from the sharing of memories, but that he would give proof so easily seemed to catch them off guard. He chuckled at that, thinking he should strike whilst the eezo was charged.

“You may consider anything you shared with Jsalana to be known to me. She is one of my Adjuncts, an extension of my will, and she freely shares all that she sees and hears with me,” he said, before glancing towards Jon.

“You may also consider anything Jon Shepard knows compromised. Where Jsalana’s mind is designed to store, but not sort such information, mine is fully able to do so. Every moment of his life is an open book to me. I know of eighteen Red Level Secrets, twenty-six Blue Level, and he has guessed at three Black Level,” he said, and watched with his eyes as they tensed. Jane looked ready to march down and smash him, and the others were not so far behind, Jon, for his part, just nodded.

“So, do you believe I’m correct about Dis?” he asked, and the prothean nodded.

“It is doubtless a Reaper, yes, though likely an injured one. I had heard of weapons that could hurt them, and you proved you possess some on this vessel. Even more, three of their corpses lay as naught but ash on Eden Prime as well. They are not the invincible monsters they portray themselves as,” he said, as Skarrde, who looked towards Jon with a judging eye, as if wondering what three high level secrets he’d guessed at that were now inside an unknown’s mind…but he shook that thought away, as he leaned forward in his chair.

“Given you claim to know all that Jsalana has told us, it would be best, I feel, to move on past what we know, to ask if you have anything to add to what has been said,” he told the Prothean, and nodded at that, leaning back in his own chair, and closing his four eyes, obviously in deep thought, before he opened them wide, and began to speak.

“My Adjunct has told you of our war with the enemy, the Reapers, and you have seen one with your own eyes, a Watcher for their kind. I do not know the specifics, but in my cycle, it is the Watcher that opened the Way for the rest of its kind, who dwell in Dark Space, beyond the rim of the galaxy,” as he spoke, he let his gaze drift over those in the room. Sadly, the projections were outside his field to observe, but those in the room with him were hanging on his every word, he could feel their heartbeat, and the way they breathed. It was nice to be so commanding, and he took a thought cycle to luxuriate in it, before he let the moment pass and he moved on.

“I can only surmise, as she did, that some project or another interfered with this one, somehow rendering it incapable of calling to its brethren. However, it has servants in this…Saren person that Nihlus spoke of. His kind were not rare in the old times,” he motioned with his hand using a coded motion to summon up a control console before him, showing that he was aware of their protocols and had a grasp of their technology, as he swiftly used his fingers to move some of them around, creating an image of the Reaper to hang in the air before them.

“The Reapers generate a signal, a powerful command that overrides the local intelligence of whatever is in proximity to it, be that of biological or synthetic nature,” as he spoke, a series of ‘pings’ came out of the Reaper, and a variety of shapes appeared around it, the ping passing through them, slowly changing the color of the shapes from blue to a deep red.

“The process, called Indoctornation, can take many forms, as the proximity is not the only factor in it. They can…control the level to which they replace the thoughts of others, which caused confusion in my cycle at first, as those they use their power on can show no sign of it, until they stab you in the back for their ‘masters’,” the last was wa growl, as he continued to update the sim, zooming in on the smaller images to show the various people in shades between blue and red, including some that were outright purple.

“We know that the further they are Indoctrinated, the worse the subjects own thought processes become, eventually rendering them all but shells of their former selves. That stage we call Husks, and are often converted using some form of Reaper technology into the ground troops you encounters on Eden Prime,” he said, adjusting the controls to quickly bring up a picture of a healthy Nazaran, using some of the data that was already acquired on them, and adding his own.

When he was done, it was a perfect replica of a standard member of his own race. He then created a copy next to it, and quickly began to adjust things, adding data that he recalled, even a few bits from the scans they’d taken from Edeni…Eden Prime, yes, their colony. The data helped him to focus, and he doubted any save the synthetics were aware of his slight pause, as the second one stood there, looking far less like the original, and more like the abominations they had fought.

“The Reapers in space, invincible and seemingly unstoppable. Their agents mixed into our ranks, undermining efforts and sabotaging defenses. These crude imitations, like us, but mindless, numerous, and strong. With these, an empire that stretched across the stars was undone, a millennia and more of building and growth, turned to dust in a scant few centuries, as we were Reaped,” he explained.

“Reaped?” asked Skarrde.

“Indeed. We do not know why, but the Reapers are so named because we are the harvest, the relays acting like tools to make sure we grow in ways they allow, places they can easily come to, like crops in a field. And when we are numerous enough, they come and claim us,” he said, and rather than adding data, he brought up something from Nihlus’ flyover of the colony center, the pile of desiccated bodies.

“We do not know why they do this. It is a behavior only seen when they feel ‘in control’ of the situation, meaning we will never get close enough to study the bodies. But every colony would have drained bodies, seemingly random individuals, as well as Husks,” he said, and then leaned back in the chair, looking around. About him, everyone was considering his words, as well they might, and obviously thinking up more to ask of this man from the distant past, who might be allowing them to glimpse their future.

Chapter Text

Tevos considered herself a pragmatic individual. She was not the sort for hyperbole, or to jump into a situation without at least a few years of thought on the subject. She had, in her wisdom, realized that the Terrans had no desire for war any more than the Citadel Races, and thus kept the private sector from antagonizing them beyond what had been done by forces that were beyond her control.

In the two decades since the Titan War, she had single handedly diffused a dozen situations, sometimes sending in SPECTERS where they’d do some good, and tried to rein in those who were openly hostile to the newcomers. She’d even seen to curbing the worst of their excesses, assigning the most…active to postings far away from that particular border, to keep them from becoming future problems.

It was easy to see her as passive. After all, the galaxy as a whole was seemingly breaking on the hard rock that the Federations represented. Krogans, once the thorn in the side of every planner in the galaxy, had been folded into the Convexity. While the Father and Mothers claimed it had nothing to do with the Terrans, her sis…Aria T’loak had confirmed they’d been seen on her station shortly before their emergence on Tuchanka, and the Mothers arriving in a Terran transport, and all of them leaving with them.

Tevos should have seen that in a worse light, but chose not to. Her sisters were not so sure, however. The krogans had all but declared they would go down fighting in that last attack by the gathered clans on the Shroud tower, cut down by the turians defending it. Each one had thrown themselves into the assault, not stopping until their mass was reduced to so many bloody chunks, and sometimes even those still trying to drag themselves towards that impossible goal.

It was her word to her sisters that had allowed them to gather once again, rather than, say, an unexploded bit of ordinance going off and taking out the six around whom the rest gathered. Under the banner of ‘Convexity’, a term she knew came from the Terrans, as the krogan would never be so…ostentatious with their new state’s name. It fit with the Terran ideals. A convex lens, wider in the middle, and thinner along the sides, to focus the disparate krogan together into a tighter whole than they ever had been.

And it worked. The krogan leaving the galactic stage had lessened, rather than increased, conflicts the galaxy over. The Blood Pack existed as only a name on a sheet somewhere, a few small companies claiming to be the remains, but none with any real authority to it. The Blue Suns, well, they were too expensive for most people to hire, and took jobs at seemingly random intervals, never the same client twice in a row, and oddly well trained in their efficiency for a mercenary company, and able to pull off seemingly impossible jobs.

The only major merc company left, the only one that wasn’t local, was Eclipse, and they worked for Aria. Everyone knew you had to face the self titled ‘Queen Bitch’ of Omega anytime you wanted a contract with them. And since she had claimed a ‘salvaged’ Terran capital ship, she’d been keeping them close to the vest, using them as a full on private army, rather than the mercenaries they had been.

Without those three, or worse the batarians, keeping trouble going, the galaxy had been quiet. The Citadel had been quiet. That last should have been a joyous thing, giving her more time for her hobbies like sculpting, and keeping in touch with her daughters. But it did rankle a little. A century ago, a wave of her hand would have seen fleets sent to action in minutes. A decade ago, an army would have formed at her word.

Now? She barely commanded C-Sec…no, that wasn’t fair. Her voice carried the weight of the Council behind it, and even in a galaxy where they weren’t the sole power, they were still a Power. Everyone knew the Titan War for the fluke it was. A battle too soon, against an enemy unknown, and a populace that barely fought back. She’d seen the recordings, and the strategic maps given by the salarians.

The batarians, for all that, on paper, had seemed to have the third(or perhaps even second!) strongest military, it had been…well only a paper tiger. The ships barely functioned, most had not been maintained for decades, if not full centuries, and the majority were equipped not for full scale combat, but instead for…cultural missions they liked to go on. No fleet had been fully deployed, and none of them armed even to the degree the Citadel would have considered minimum.

The STG report had actually pointed out that, had the turians been allowed to operate as they’d requested against them more than once, the war would have ended equally quickly. Perhaps less cleanly, as the Citadel charter had laws regarding the treatment of prisoners, and the wholesale slaughter of the batarian command chain was, if not warranted by their actions, then at least done far too brazenly for her comfort.

She had known some of those men, or at least their forefathers, who had been crushed under the heel of the Terrans. They were not good, but they were better than the scum the Terrans painted them all as. Some had been fighting against their peoples’ worst excesses as they could. Cold comfort to the slaves in the pens, but still, they were not all the same style of monsters, and seeing them burned to ash alongside the rest was hard to think about.

Worse, the Terrans seemed ignorant of their own weaknesses. Thinking, for even an instant, that their fleet movements had not been observed, that the people in power were not aware of their fight against the ‘Leviathan of Dis’. She had had the recording scrubbed, obviously. That thing was a horrifying reminder that there were things beyond the ken of any race known yet.

One of her sisters had seen fit to tell her the scans of it had matched certain data forms they would get, occasionally, from the Goddess’ Own Cathedral on Thessia. That…it was disturbing. She, like most of her people’s leaders, knew just what that temple contained. If the data matched…she was not sure what she would do, beyond perhaps praying for salvation, and waiting for the end to come.

Then today happened. Over the past years, her efforts to slowly reconcile with the Terrans had finally started to bear fruit. She’d gotten data, research projects, even some tourism started up. Never obviously with her backing, but still, if Prime Thinker Exedore looked, he’d find every one of the scientists contacting him through back channels had been on one or another grants she personally oversaw at some point in the past, though not into today for obvious reasons.

The Terrans had nearly been to the point where she might open a Citadel Embassy for them, and they one on Gloval Station. So close…and then this happened. Their colony on Eden Prime had uncovered the unthinkable, an intact prothean beacon. The readouts said it was smaller than the one she knew of, so likely not a full cache, but still, a functional one, something that hadn’t been seen in this galaxy since their fall.

She’d thrown her full support behind the idea of retrieving it, and bringing it to a specialist in Citadel Space, along with whatever experts or equipment the Terrans wanted to bring with it. The Citadel scientific community had reams more data to work from in regards to it, and she might have let slip to the Federation’s spies here on the Presidium that they had a working Prothean cypher from way back when…and while it was incomplete, it was more than they’d have.

She’d sent Nihilus along. He was already familiar with Garrus, who had been attached to the Gearbox Project for some time, and so, they’d work well together. That he also happened to be nearby when all this was found out was merely happenstance as far as she knew, though she wouldn’t doubt her turian counterpart might have been having him keep an eye on the joint project, just in case.

They’d been careful not to let anything else leak out. The Prothean beacon was still unknown to the populace at large, though several concerned interests were aware of something. That was why the Citadel was abuzz today. Everyone who was anyone knew something was up, and some even knew a detail or two, and so, for the first time in a decade, this place was the center of activity for the galaxy again.

She sighed to herself as the elevator finally opened. She’d had time for all of that to go across her mind in the ride up. She’d complain, but that ride kept most people humble, since, if they caused trouble, they’d have been forced to stand there for nothing. She did, however, mentally note that she still wanted a chair installed in there. Something that folded out from the wall and hidden, so no one else could use it. It would never happen, it wouldn’t do to appear weak after all. Still, standing in that space for a few minutes, followed by hours on the Council Dais was murder on her knees.

She still managed to smile as she exited, the C-Sec guarding the door trying to look like they hadn’t just had their guns pointed at the door, just in case, as they stood at attention by them now. She saw a few petitioners standing back and away from them, ready to pounce the moment they thought she was free, so she ran her fingers over her head tendrils, getting them to undulate a little, before pulling out her omnitool and appearing to read a huge block of data, keeping them from coming closer.

Said block was gibberish, a gift from a dalatrass a few…centuries ago. Goddess but she felt old, knowing that woman, kind and sweet, had been dead for a dozen generations. Still, the gift served its purpose of LOOKING quite important as she moved easily through the people who had hoped to catch her alone for some personal beseeching. She kept an eye just turned upwards on them, observing them as she made her way to the dais, and then around it.

“You’re late again. Some nice young maiden keeping you up all night again?” jibbed the turian Councilor, the third since the Titan War. She had been an unknown before that event, but since had come to be a leader amongst her people, earning her merits in battle and at the negotiation table enough that her predecessor had personally selected her for the position, finding her gentle enough to work with allies, and hard enough to break enemies.

“Now, now, our esteemed colleague was likely busy last night with the goings on in the Terran space again. It seems one of her projects has accomplished something major, if the data flow is any indication,” said the salarian Councilor, a male. Not the first, to be fair, but odd that one of the dalatrasses didn’t claim the seat for herself as they normally did. It showed how seriously they were taking this generation, to send a male, a former STG member at that, to represent their species on the Council.

Regardless, they took their positions, and the first petitioner took their spot on the stage. A hanar, representing the Church of the Enkindlers, requested, again, for them to open up a site on the turian colony on Feros for their people. It was, truth to tell, one of the more blatant ruins left by the protheans they worshiped, after all, and only recently opened to colonization by the Council due to circumstances in the galaxy, namely the need for more space, and information on their predecessors.

The previous turian Councilor had been behind that particular project, promising, of course, to share anything they found with the Council, as was right. Though other than an oddly large scale flora, something that seemed to cover a good chunk of the planet’s crust, it was as empty as scans from orbit had said it was. The empty husks of a once thriving city planet, similar in layout to Illuim, but quiet and covered in dust.

They, as they had done at least once a month since the colony was founded, reminded the hanar representative that, until such time as the planet was deemed ‘clean’ no one save the original colonists, who’d signed all kinds of waivers, could be allowed to settle. It wouldn’t take much longer, a few months at most, but still, the hanar were ever impatient when it came to the protheans and their ruins.

It was during the fifth petitioner that someone rushed up to them, an adjunct of the salarian Councilor, who showed no sense of decorum at all as she ran along the side of the dais, and then came to him, whispering something quickly in a coded language, designed to keep whatever was being spoken of a secret. Tevos knew whatever it was, was important, however, by the simple fact that the salarian’s eyes drifted to the sides, showing they were trying to take in everything around them, a nervous tick she’d observed in many of them over her lifetime.

When it was over, the salarian turned to them, and conveyed two words with a set of handsigns they’d practiced for just this sort of occasion. There were several of them, some less useful than others, but when she saw his fingers bend in a way to indicate ‘Terran’ and then the word ‘Attack’ a moment later, she felt her spine go almost straight, as she wondered what could have happened to cause…whatever it was.

“Apologies to all petitioners, but an urgent matter has come to the attention of the Council. This supercedes all other business today, as it could impact the entire galaxy if not dealt with swiftly,” she explained, and watched a ripple of concern pass over the crowd before her, but she held up a hand to silence them.

“There is, hopefully, no reason for concern. We already have agents in place to deal with any crisis, and we want everyone to know that their issues are important to us. As such, I would ask that you take written versions of your petition directly to my embassy in one hour’s time. I will deal with them all personally, at the earliest moment I can,” she said, and that calmed the crowd.

Tevos was, after all, pragmatic, and not one for hyperbole. If she said it was urgent, it must be, and if she said she’d make sure their concerns were heard, she’d make sure they were. That was the trust Tevos had with every race, and so C-Sec soon helped usher the numbers out into the elevators, leaving the Council to wait until the room was cleared to deal with something she hoped was a misunderstanding. And if not…well, all in the fullness of time.

Chapter Text

Citadel Control had been warned to expect them, but it was still a shock when a cruiser weight vessel of turian design entered the space around the Citadel from the Relay…putting out a full Protoculture energy signature, and having a Federation FoF signal. They had plenty of chatter coming from the various ships in the system about that, queries that were just this side of demands from both military and business interests, and even a request for tactical data from the Destiny Ascension, just in case.

They denied everything, and shocked everyone in the queue by jumping the ship, the Normandy, a Terran word which made everyone cry out that it was some kind of trick, a priority berth, one ON the Presidium ring and not in one of the Wards, which was almost never done save when a Councilor requested it, and even then usually in secret. This ship sliding in was literally the most watched vessel in a century to enter, and every sensor, down to the eyeballs in peoples’ heads, stared at it intently, as if it would give up its secrets to them without effort.

On the Presidum, the officers of C-Sec assembled at the private bay just off the Consort’s offices, in parade formation no less, as if they would try and keep people from seeing who was coming off. In the case of one of the people coming out, this was impossible, given it was a Terran, who towered above everyone else, the blank faced giant staring down at them all, and causing cries of alarm, and one hanar having to be escorted out when they started shouting about how the ‘judgement of the enkindlers was come’!

For all the excitement the Terran brought, it actually kept people from noticing anything about the ones at their feet as they, and some others were escorted by C-Sec across the Presidium and to the Tower itself, where a small group of five figures climbed into the elevator, and made the long ride up, while the Terran, in an almost direct parallel to a sight from twenty years prior, stood at attention by the same, their stance all but identical, and causing many a being to decide they had business far, far away from the area.

The small group made their way up the tower giving them all time to fidget a little, and giving anyone observing to take in the composition of the group. Three turians, one micronized terran, one quarian. That was it. An odd mix for an odd vessel, especially since it heavily favored the Council Races, given one of the three turians had a Captain’s mark on his helmet, which, strangely, all five were still wearing as they came up to the Council dias, Tevos looking them up and down, before gesturing to her salarian counterpart.

The salarian Councilor pulled up his arm, and began to rapidly type something into his omnitool, one that began to expand outward, revealing that, whatever the Council might lack in power compared to a few decades ago, they were still up on all the latest in technology. The omnitool’s interface soon covered the front of the salarian, who began to look around the room through it, nodding as he spotted things.

Each time he nodded, there was a popping noise, one that could be seen to sometimes produce a small amount of smoke, which made the Councilor tsk in response, muttering the word sloppy as he went through each and every listening device in the room, slowly disabling them one by one, and even doing a final sweep with a personal program of his own make that found six the ‘STG’s Best Scanner’ had ‘missed’. On purpose he was sure, given they were popped in sequence after the first, indicating his own people had placed those.

“This room is as clean as can be made. Please, if you would indulge us, remove the helmets you wear, and allow this Council to see the faces of those we would speak with,” said Tevos as her salarian and turian counterparts stood beside her. The five before her took not a moment to look at each other. Instead, hands went to seals along the neck lines, pushing in small sequences of pressure points, so that, after a heartbeat, there was a sequence of five hisses, and the helmets were removed.

The Terran and quarian were known only in passing to the Councilors, but they WERE known. Jon Shepard, and his partner Tali’Zorah. The two had a certain reputation that made them hard to ignore, especially the former given the Mindor incident had made headlines even back in Citadel Space. He seemed to stand there stoically, but it was hard to miss that he moved just slightly closer to the quarian, who leaned towards him, but otherwise stayed pillar still herself.

Beside them, Captain Garrus of the Normandy stood, his feet exactly regulation apart, and his face betraying nothing that had been in his reports. He had offered commendations to his crew, and recommendations of aid to the Terran Federation to help speed the…not recovery but at least last rites of Eden Prime. They’d granted that without even having to debate it for once, and their homeworlds had offered, at best, perfunctory resistance to the idea of helping the other galactic power after a ‘natural disaster’ of that magnitude.

Beside him was Nihlus, the sleeve on his right side hanging limply, showing that there was no limb inside it. They could fix that, of course. It was difficult, but limbs could be replaced by either certain, esoteric and not widely documented applications of medigel, or a prosthetic could be offered. That they hadn’t been told he was missing the limb before this point was quite telling, of course. Either he didn’t trust the communication lines from the Normandy, a Terran built, but mostly Council crewed vessel, or he had simply deemed the loss unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

The reason for its unimportance stood beside him. The others gasped, despite knowing what to expect, or perhaps because they had known it would be there logically, but not truly grasped it. Tevos was different. She had been to the Goddess’ Temple on Thesia, and was allowed into the sacred archives. She’d seen the drawings there, and had known what this moment might look like, what those four eyes might seem like, as they looked out from a head with, to this era, a strange shape, as none had anything like it.

A Prothean stood before the Council, onboard the Citadel. The others, in their mind, might be wondering if this being intended to assert their people’s right to this place they built. Tevos, however, knew that this was far worse than that. Her people knew that, at some point before the dawn of recorded history, a great force had swept the galaxy clean of the Protheans. And she had seen the images of one of those forces, and gotten the report from one of their spies aboard the Normandy of just how powerful the thing was.

“So, it is true. A Prothean returns to the Citadel, for the first time in fifty millennia,” she said, wondering if they could understand her. They nodded at her words, indicating they could, as they stepped forward, and slightly, barely perceptible from where the Council stood, inclined their head.

“I am Exalted of my people, leader of the last of my kind, that you know as the Prothean. My name is Javik, and I have come with dire warnings, and requests for aid,” he said, in a language that Tevos’ omnitool identified as Terran. That was odd, and perhaps would taint others' view of them, say that the Terrans had corrupted them, if they heard it, but she was already thinking of ways to squash such moves. This was no time for division, not if the Enemy had made its first move against the galaxy.

Oddly, it was the Terran who stepped forward next, taking the forefront of the group, as he bowed his head the exact distance one would expect in recognition of their ranks. Jon Shepard was, according to her files, listed as a trained diplomat, but given her dealings with some of the races who followed the Citadel Conventions, it was shocking to be shown respect by one who honestly had no need of it. Was it genuine, or perhaps a ploy to gain something from them?

“Honored members of this Council, I have been given the role of representing the Terran Federation’s interests to you today, as I was the only Terran aboard the Normandy who was willing and able to Micronize myself,” he began, and then held up his arm, giving them a moment to see his omnitool, and that it was in ‘safe’ mode, so all the combat applications had been sealed. That could be faked of course, but they allowed it, motioning for him to continue, as he moved his hand over it.

“Two weeks prior, as I hope you have been informed, a force made an assault on a Terran Colony, that being Eden Prime. The force was made up of three distinct groups, as we are aware at the moment. The first was Geth, who, being members of the Federation, would normally fall under the purview of our own justice and enforcement systems, requiring in no way we inform you of the assault, regardless of what happened,” he said simply and plainly.

“However, while they made up the bulk of the force numerically, their leader, as it happens, was a Citadel citizen, specifically the SPECTRE Saren Arterius, acting against the wishes of this Council, given his attempted assault on his fellow SPECTRE Nihlus, who stands with us today to confirm his identity, and his actions,” saying that, he turned to the one armed turian, who nodded and stepped forward to stand beside him in the Petitioner's Dias.

“I can indeed confirm it was him. I’ve met the bastard a few times, and he’s always been ruthless, and had a grudge against the Terrans for…events in our history. However, even with that, this is far and away the worst action anyone in our position can take, and I request this Council Deathlock him, and declare him a criminal,” he said with a bow, before stepping back into line with the other four behind the Terran.

“Thank you, SPECTRE,” said Jon, before turning back to the Council, using his omnitool, he then projected an image in the air before him, three dimensional, and slowly rotating. The image of the large vessel they had already been informed of. Still, to see it was something else, especially when he put the Destiny Ascension beside it for scale.

“The third force, and true architect of the attack was this vessel, a living ship that the Protheans identified as a ‘Reaper’. It is, according to their testimony, one of a fleet of such ships numbering above one-thousand individual vessels, that laid waste to their empire fifty-thousand years prior. Their power is very…daunting now, given that the most powerful weapons of our age could do damage to this single example only by luck, and such will likely not be found again,” he said, and then placed readings beside it, energy outputs, metallurgical analysis, and many other things that, while Tevos didn’t understand completely, knew they dwarfed the strength of any ship flying, as the ‘Reaper’ itself dwarfed the Destiny Ascension.

These revelations…well simply confirmations honestly. The Council had been informed, both by the Conclave that led the Federation, and by its own sources on what had happened. Still, to have it laid out like his, and to see the sheer scale of the foe that had set itself against them, against the whole of the galaxy, and still expected to win? It would have been an insult, had it not been so clear that even with all the forces they could bring to bear, they might not be able to so much as dent this creature, least of all because it was mixing the technological base of both the Element Zero technology, as well as Protoculture.

“Your report has been heard, Commander Shepard, by this body. We had some information before, but it is best to have confirmation. That we would finally find a living example of a Prothean, only in time to be confronted with what destroyed their civilization feels like a joke on a cosmic scale, but we of the Council will bring the Punch Line, as it were,” she said, and held up her own hand, using her omnitool, she accessed the sealed part of the Citadel’s systems here in the Council Chamber, and began to project her own reports.

For all that she might have wished to hide this information, to downplay it, and gather forces and information quietly, Tevos was no fool. The Federation did nothing ‘quietly’, and it would openly declare what it planned to fight. The panic that might ensue, then, was best tempered by action, and so the Council reports were brought up around them, flat screens rather than three-dimensional images at first, before three worlds popped out of them.

“As you have told us what transpired on Eden Prime, allow this body to inform you of our own forces actions since we learned of it, on Feros, Noveria, and Virmire,” she said, highlighting each of the worlds as she spoke.

Chapter Text

“Two weeks ago, this Body was informed by channels that were still open with the Terran Federation of the attack on their colony of Eden Prime. This was…shocking, to say the least, as none within our ranks would dare do so, not after the lessons of the Titan War, or the two decades long peace that had followed it. It has been far too profitable for all sides to want to stir up trouble,” began the salarian Councilor.

“However, the data was irrefutable. That one of our agents, a SPECTRE, chosen by this Council specifically for his skills and loyalty, was involved,” continued Tevos, as she pressed something on her omnitool, bringing up an image of Saren that left Nihilus, if you knew him well, grim faced, his mandibles just barely kept together as he stared at the image of the traitor, a man he would have trusted…well not with his life, but at least to watch his back in a fire fire.

“The moment this was clear, we began to investigate him. First going through his mission records, both the on and off the books versions, then through his travel, and finally, his financials,” the asari pushed a few more buttons, and brought those files up to float in the air beside the image.

“We…we were not shocked per say, by what we saw. Nothing was truly out of the ordinary for one of his rank. Investments, various companies, both legitimate and shell, and the many properties he owned. No, the shock was the extent of them, as his own resources, had he even tried to invest a hundredth as much, would have been strained to the limit,” she said. Not to say SPECTREs weren’t well paid, of course. They were, in fact, more compensated than even the Councilors themselves. But this was far beyond that.

“While some of his financial resources could be explained as either investments paying off, or, to put it bluntly, bribes from certain individuals, their scale and sheer diversity says they were coming from an unknown source instead,” said the salarian, as he adjusted the record to bring up three entries in particular. One on Feros, one on Novaria, and one on an uninhabited planet called Virmire.

“The first, Feros, is part of a colonization project on a former prothean world, covered in the ruins of a massive city,” he began, and Javik, Exalted Javik, coughed, and pointed as the image of the cityscape appeared, his eyes unfocusing for a moment, which, if you knew him, showed that he was accessing information in his brain he hadn’t consciously known until this moment in time.

“In point of fact, that was not one of ours, but a ruin WE discovered as well, attributing its existence to our own predecessors. Now, well I can only guess it’s some kind of puzzle box the Reapers left in the galaxy. A riddle with no solution, to confuse and keep the locals guessing as to what transpired to those who came before. A clever ruse,” said the prothean, and the Council took that in, before nodding, and bringing up an image of some kind of bulb like plant, looking rather plain…until they put a standard wanzer beside it for scale, showing it was larger than it might first appear.

“The puzzle was a lure. The trap was this creature. It called itself a ‘Thorian’ and the best guess our biological teams can make is that it was a designed lifeform, one that ‘stored’ the thought processes and mental archetypes of species,” said the turian Councilor, as he took the fore, bringing up images of his people, with flashing bits in their heads, showing something lodged in their brains.

“The colonists, being turian as it was an initiative funded by my people, and, as we know now, Saren, were infected by a kind of ‘thorn’ that burrowed into their brains, and caused pain when the disobeyed the will of the Thorian creature that planted them there,” he explained, zooming in to show the ‘thorns’ and how small roots grew from them, into the brains around them, activating neurons seemingly at random at first, but then finding pain and pleasure centers.

“This ability, to infest the mind like that, of a completely alien species to its world, is what led to the first hypothesis that it was artificial. However, far more is that it can ‘map’ the thought processes it has stored onto the thorns, which can then be recreated via mass effect fields, and ‘implanted’ into brains that would not normally have them,” as he spoke, x-rays showed this happening.

“Similar to the Indoctrination process that Javik spoke of,” opined Jon as he looked at it, watching it alter the brain that was being shown.

“Ah, so that’s where that was from. We had guessed, but confirmation is nice. Regardless, it was knowledge that the Reapers were capable of something similar that led us to the conclusion that the Thorian was some kind of construct made by the Reapers, a kind…back-up of the brain patterns of species. Why is still a matter of speculation, but why Saren wanted it is not,” responded the turian Councilor, who then brought up a bit of mission log.

“The colonists, who suffered minimal casualties, and only one fatality, during the SPECTREs’ mission, revealed that Saren had come and spoke with the Thorian at length, eventually retrieving an implant that mimicked a Prothean thought process. We believe this was to allow him to translate the information retrieved from the Prothean Beacon that Nihlus’ report said he interacted with on Eden Prime,” he added, and Javik nodded.

“That our enemy is aware of the final words of my people and we are not is but one more crime perpetrated on their memory by the Reapers. Sadly, it means little, as I cannot even guess at what he might have wanted from that,” said Javik, which seemed to disappoint the Council, which had obviously hoped that he would have some information in regards to that. Still, they moved on, shifted to Novaria next.

“The thought process was one of two items of information he retrieved. A second SPECTRE team, made up of some of our best agents, went to the private sector world of Novaria. The planet, used primarily for biological labs and tests that would be a danger to a living world, but less so to a planet where oxygen often freezes, is technically outside the purview of this body or its governments, but given none of the corporations present wish to earn our ire, our agents were able to gain free rein of the facilities,” said the salarian, bringing up the reports.

“After dealing with a member of the local administration who was on Saren’s payroll and attempted to murder our agents, as well as some Geth left behind as a trap, they were able to make their way to Peak 15, Saren’s personal facility, and discovered something most disturbing,” as he spoke, the salarian moved the reports away, and projected in the air a three dimensional image of a species that got a gasp from Nihlus and Garrus, but caused the other three to look confused, as it was some kind of insectoid lifeform they didn’t recognize right away, though after going into his ‘searching’ state, Javik nodded.

“A rachni,” he identified, and that got the appropriate reaction from both Jon and Tali.

“That…that’s impossible,” said Garrus, and the salarian nodded.

“It is. Saren’s report claims he ‘found’ an egg of a lost queen on some asteroid base that had been undiscovered since the Rachni Wars. This body, looking through all the records, can only surmise that the Reaper he serves was able to find it via some unknown sensor suite. Otherwise, finding it would have been…well, the sort of luck that is throwing two pins a lightyear and expecting them to hit,” he said, as he brought up the rest of the report.

“The rachni, a queen according to her biology, claims to have been a survivor, hidden when ‘the sickly yellow note’ corrupted her people’s hive intelligence, driving them mad and causing the war. We…have no idea if she’s telling the truth, obviously, and her own spawn have proven just as hostile as ever,” he began, showing a few videos of the SPECTREs fighting off some rachni, recognizable as the same species, though obviously not the same design. Warriors or workers, depending on the appendages probably.

“The team was able to fight their way to her, after talking down the lab’s personnel, and evacuating them all, the rachni queen included, before using a pulse to kill the remaining ‘insane’ children. Since, we have kept the queen at a top secret facility, and interrogated her extensively, given she is the last living example of her species,” as he spoke, videos of said interrogations played silently. All in all, the queen looked…well probably happy, given she was being held in what amounted to an enclosed park, and spoken to via an intercom system she had to interact with to say anything.

“While much of what she has said would not be of interest to anyone beyond an academic, she has informed us that Saren wanted a piece of information stored in her genetic memory. The location of a relay designated as the Mu Relay,” and the videos shifted to a galactic map, eventually zooming into a part of the galaxy that was just inside the Attican Traverse, technically neutral space, claimed by neither the Federation, Council, or the Terminus systems.

“The Mu Relay is…pointless as far as we’ve been able to determine. It’s not an omnidirectional relay, merely point to point, but even if he were to reactivate it, it would lead to a single set of systems. Unless that is where the Reapers are hiding, there seems little in the way of reason to focus on it, save perhaps something from the Beacon’s data,” she said, and then began to zoom into the Relay closer, showing that, despite the territory not being theirs, the Council had deployed several ships around the relay in question. That there were also some Federation ships, and even Aria T’loak’s Fleet mixed in said they’d shared the info freely.

“We, of course, sent a picket force to the relay the moment we knew it was a target, and have since contacted the Terran Federation to inform them to send what forces they could. Even the Terminus Systems have sent a small group to assist. We have also forbidden anyone from reactivating the relay, despite its destination perhaps answering some questions. Should the Reaper make an appearance, the forces we’d deployed will, at best, slow it down, thus our curiosity must give way to adding to that delay,” said the salarian, as he gave the floor to the Asari Councilor.

“The final facility we located was smaller than the rest, established by Saren himself using connections that are…hidden in ways we had not expected. Mostly contacts within the Terminus Systems, thus outside our own channels. Luckily, given their limited nature, the facility itself required only a single STG team to take it, and they found, at best, a dozen agents Saren had placed there,” she said, bringing up the system and then zooming into the planet, Virmire.

“Subjects captured here were surprisingly cooperative with the STG team, pointing out that the facility had originally been meant to house an unknown project, or so they’d been told. As it turned out, that was a smoke screen that Saren himself likely dreamed up to cover his tracks to his master, as the facility that WAS built was done so to study the effects of Indoctrination,” she said, bringing up several reports, mostly from a head researcher named Rana Thanoptis.

“Over the course of the last few years, this isolated group, which includes two previously thought dead neurologists, have been studying Indoctrination in its most potent form. Direct exposure to a Reaper,” she began, displaying in three dimensional views brain scans of a turian, asari, krogan, and most surprisingly, a Terran.

“Apparently, the Reaper themself is not the source of it, or rather, they, and certain pieces of their technology act as ‘repeaters’ of something that is contained within certain element zero samples,” continued the asari, sounding just as dire as that news deserved. The prothean in the group barely reacted, having known this information, but the others in the group began to look around, obviously wondering if the eezo tech in this very room was a source.

“Fortunately, we’ve been going over as much as we can of our own technology base using SPECTREs and other trusted agents. Ones who have agreed to certain…medical tests we deemed necessary once this became known,” she continued, not bothering to name who those agents were, and figuring the nature of the tests would be obvious.

“Luckily, the effect seems to be isolated to only very specific pieces of Element Zero based technology, ones that, as we are now aware of, we are doing our best to isolate and remove from general circulation. The STG has promised that they will have a device in a few weeks that can detect, and perhaps even counter the effect,” said the salarian Councilor, just a hint of pride in his people’s contributions to this thing.

“That would be…most advantageous if it is true. My own people were never able to even isolate which pieces of technology make the signal beyond the Reapers themselves. To know that, and to be able to keep it from causing further damage will greatly increase this Cycle’s ability to counter the machines,” added Javik, causing Tevos to nod, before banishing the holograms that had been assisting them.

“There is a question within that last statement, Exalted Javik, that I find myself curious about. If I might be so bold, might I inquire as to why you refer to this time as a ‘Cycle’ that implies a recurrence of events,” she said, and Javik nodded at her words.

“That…is a tale in and of itself, but given I wish you to know the sheer scale of what we are to battle, it is best to tell it now. I will beg your indulgence, this will not be a short one,” he informed them, bowing his head slightly, before taking a deep breath, preparing himself to speak on the sheer enormity of what they were up against.

Chapter Text

“As was explained to the Terrans, the Empire of my people was vast, and wide. We did not fear the Relays or what might lay beyond them as those of the Council do. No, we charged headlong into them, and whenever a species proved intractable, we annihilated them where possible, where not, we simply deactivated their Relay once more, locking it, using a function of this facility that you have obviously not discovered,” Javik’s voice sounded proud of his people’s accomplishments, even though, to most, his words easily painted his people as the villains of their time.

“We grew quickly, in all directions, and during the few decades between the end of the Metacon Wars, a war with ‘cyborg zombies’ as Sergeant Shepard put it, we did so without finding any that could equal us, and thus, it was only right that we continue. That we bring the glory of our Empire to them, and bless them as would any who know themselves the superior race of their time.”

“But we began to find things, things that made us doubt the past of our people, or our galaxy. In the spaces we had been before, we’d found ruins, a few scraps of technology, from the Inusannon. But as we pushed farther, we found more ruins, as we activated Relays that had lain dormant for a million years, we found evidence of far, far more civilizations than we’d ever dreamed of.”

“It took time to put the pieces together, to begin to understand what we were seeing, but our scientists were motivated to succeed at this task, and with so many great minds working together, we eventually began to put the pieces of this puzzle together, the shape it took being one of horrors. Many of our more powerful minds went mad seeing the ultimate solution to it, and more than one took their own life before they could be taken by beings far greater than ourselves.”

“Finally, one presented the evidence, telling our leaders, in secret, of their findings. Of the Cycle. This Galaxy was not ours, and never would be, as beings far greater than us walked its stars. They allowed us to grow, allowed us to be strong, think ourselves the Masters. Then they came in, and they destroyed us. At the time, we had no way to know their shape or aims, but we knew they were out there.”

“For eons they had done this, and it was a clever thing, controlling what we would see of the past, and destroying all but the barest of remnants of those that came before. But we were too cunning by half, and we looked beneath the remnants, and discovered in them, the Cycle of this galaxy, and it forced us to consider our place in it, as the evidence began to show we were not as special as we believed.”

“Each Cycle is different. A single power, like our own, rises up, and through their power, they shape all species into something like themselves. A single thought pattern, a single way of doing things. These spread out the farthest, but, sadly, are the easiest to Reap for the Harvest, as they ‘think along the same lines’ each Empire of that sort falls to their overwhelming might, with no trace left of their glory.”

“Sometimes, of course, the Cycle is like your own. A balance of powers, expanding slowly, cautiously. It is not in you to conquer and take hold of the stars, but to try and guide them. A…noble ideal, but foolish, in my opinion. The stars, and all within them belong to the strong, and must be harnessed. We knew this when we encountered the Rachni, though the fact that some escaped even the Reapers speaks perhaps of their tenacity.”

“Regardless, the Allied Cycles, rather than spreading quickly or far, take longer to disassemble. Your kind…think differently. Each conquest is a puzzle to decode. Make no mistake, however. Time is against anyone who opposes those horrors. They will ‘solve’ the puzzle, and your people, as mine and all the vassal races were, will be nothing but fodder to their hunger.”

“Some Cycles vary, of course. A single strong power, with an alliance of smaller ones. A huge alliance, but looser, like your Terminus systems. Sometimes a spoiler near the end as well, a strong power just before the Reaping emerges, and starts sweeping aside all other powers in the galaxy, their forces destroying everything in their path. To fall on the blades of the Reapers when they emerge regardless.”

“These are the Cycles, as we learned of them. Each one triumphant, each one a trillion individuals, spread around a thousand stars. Not one has ever held out more than a few centuries, at most. Some are undone in decades, if they are simply too weak. Others surrender to their fates willingly. Either way, none will remember them save as ruins to be picked over by the next Cycle, left as mysteries to entice the spread by the ones who truly rule this galaxy.”

That tale hung in the air for some time, as the three Councilors took it into themselves. The ones before they had obviously heard it before, but even still, one could tell they were affected by it. Garrus and Jon stood just a little straighter, Tali gripping him more tightly as she stood beside him. Only Nihlus seemed impassive at the story, looking like it was simply one more report to him.

“So, they rule THIS galaxy, but now they know there’s others out there, others with life outside their ‘paths’. What do you think they’ll do with that knowledge?” asked the turian at last, the question itself seemingly shocking everyone, as most hadn’t apparently considered it. Javik, however, had, and he sighed as he looked towards the Council before him, one eye on each of them, to gauge their reaction.

“The Terrans are spoilers, an outside context problem, as the Terrans themselves might say. As such, they are likely to be exterminated, as they do not fit within the Cycle’s intended purpose, whatever that might actually be,” he said, before turning to face Jon directly.

“Of course, that is only a guess. Another possibility is that your people, Commander, will be experimented on, carved up, and studied, until such time as they have gained all the knowledge they can from you. Only then, will they dispose of you, and make use of your unique technology to expand the Cycle to many galaxies,” he said darkly, before turning back to the Council.

“Perhaps to all of them,” he added darkly, which once more cast the room into silence for several minutes as those within it digested that bit of information, and speculation.

“That…is going to take some time to process and plan for. We cannot, in any way, allow these ‘Reapers’ to continue to treat life in this galaxy, any life, as something for them to use. We will contact our governments, to inform them of what we have learned today, and we will open all contact lines we can with the Terran Federation’s leadership,” declared Tevos, and neither of her counterparts raised a single objection.

“That would be a good start, but we’ve seen that the ‘Reapers’ have weapons far and away beyond what even the Terrans have. Worse, we’ve seen that, while Terrans are at least seemingly immune to the after effects of Indoctrination, the act of it alone took not only all the biological specimens of the species out, but also the synthetic as well. Any battle must take that into account,” said Nihlus, and Jon nodded.

“The sample size of biologicals is smaller than the synthetic, but SPECTRE Nihlus is correct. The fact that Skarrde was taken down for a longer period of time indicates that the ‘traps’ the Robotech Masters put inside Zentradi brains work against the invasive programming, but it still renders Terrans nearly catatonic. Any plans for fighting back must take that into account,” he added, and it did disturb the Council to hear it. The Terrans had the largest, and strongest, force of ships in the galaxy. Being unable to bring them to bear was a detriment to any offensive action against this ancient enemy.

“We will be sure to take that into account. The Conclave has been informed of this, I take it?” asked the turian Councilor, and Nihlus nodded.

“They have the brief on what happened, and while we went without contact shortly afterwards, to avoid any accusations of ‘tampering’ with the Prothean’s view of the galaxy, one can assume they know what happened, and what it means. The Terrans, for all their power cannot stand against a foe who’s very nature renders them unable to fight back,” he said bluntly, and none in the group protested, not even the Terran in their ranks, showing how serious this was.

“That too will have to be debated, and I believe, kept secret for now,” she said, turning towards her counterparts, and both the turian and salarian nodded at that idea.

“Agreed, too many close minded individuals might think of using this enemy ‘against’ the Terrans in some way, regardless of what it might do to themselves or the galaxy at large. It cannot remain secret for long, but for now, I believe we can keep this amongst those in the ‘need to know’ category,” said the salarian.

“Then, until we have contacted our governments, I believe there is little more to discuss. We offer you, and your crew, a free dock here on the Presidium, and permission to send parties ashore if they need a break…parties of a scale to take advantage of our facilities, obviously,” she added the last, and Jon Shepard nodded, knowing that his sister wouldn’t bother anyway, though Skarrde and Bhatia might. At that, everyone began to break, but Jon Shepard stepped forward, raising a hand to bring the attention back to him.

“If I might beg an indulgence of this body?” he asked, using the proper forms for making a request directly of the Council itself, which was rare enough to see from a representative of a race under the purview, so they gestured for him to continue.

“While I and my partner, Tali, are by no means experts, we have some skill at data crunching, and I would like a copy of former SPECTRE Saren’s business holdings. I have little doubt you saw everything he was up to, but it never hurts to have a fresh set of eyes looking over it, just in case something managed to slip through,” he added the last as if trying to downplay that he was doing this to make sure such slips did not happen, and the three Councilors looked to each other, wordlessly debating amongst themselves something, before Tevos nodded.

“The information, for obvious reasons, is classified above the level of almost anyone outside this Council, but I can make a copy of all the files available using a secure terminal in an embassy beside my own. Is that acceptable?” she said the last as a question and Jon smiled, before bowing his head towards her.

“Perfectly, thank you,” he said.

“I will have the lock keyed to your omnitool then. Ask one of the C-Sec operatives at the bottom of the Presidium Tower to escort you…and I would request that your own guardian not spend the night on the Presidium. It might bring back some bad memories for those on it,” she added, and Jon nodded at her.

“I will inform Chief Bhatia that Tali and I can take care of ourselves for one evening,” he said, and then the party turned and left, leaving the Council to look at each other one last time, before they divided up towards their private exits to the chamber, even as they removed all the blocks on the room to begin furiously sending out calls to what seemed a million people at once. The Galaxy was poised to turn on the Council’s Word once more, and they would make sure it went in the right direction this time.

Chapter Text

“You know, staring at the progress bar isn’t going to make it fill any faster,” said a voice behind Jon, who didn’t react. After all, he’d heard that subtle ‘whoosh’ of the door opening, as Tali came back into their shared bedroom/consul chamber, carrying two cups. Both looked hot, though only one was actually bubbling, thanks to the dextro chemicals in it having an interesting reaction to the air. She placed the non-bubbling one on the desk in front of him, and the Terran nodded in thanks.

“Just because the watched pot never boils doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it anyway, so you can react the moment it comes to that point,” he said, sipping on the beverage. It was…Salarian, he believed. Some kind of stimulant they enjoyed. He refused to ask what was in it, however, as he used his other hand to move the display in front of him, slowly zooming through all the data files they’d gathered.

Saren’s holdings were…extensive, to say the least, as he’d found out just from gazing at the sheer number of reports on them. Still, he and Tali had worked for over three hours on a sorting algorithm, going through each report and associating it with one of the three known sites of his activities. The thing was shuffling each file around, and the moment it was done, or had enough data, it would throw up a final tally of each of them, with numbers and specifics.

The hope was that, given how Salarian STG tended to operate, they’d find the first solution to any problem, and dig into it from there, stopping when they’d found the answer. It was one of the known issues with them as an intelligence gathering service, in fact. They tended to fixate on the solution they’d already found, and discovering data in support of it, not quite dismissing the stuff that wasn’t in line with the conclusion, but no longer giving it the weight it might have deserved.

To be fair, most of the time, ninety-nine percent in fact, they had it on the money, and they came to their conclusions faster than any other intel service in the galaxy. It helped them to keep on the cutting edge of not just tech, but training, deployment, and even just general trends other intelligence services had to adapt to on the fly, if at all, so it was a formula that worked wonderfully for them.

There was still that one in a hundred chance they missed something, however, and so the program was collating the data, shifting it until it found something out of place. It was possible it wouldn’t find anything, of course, but Jon was certain there had to be something else there. Saren’s ‘patron’ couldn’t exactly dock at just any port in the galaxy, and it wasn’t likely it could fly around at all times. There had to be a port of call it used as a home base somewhere.

Now, it was equally possible it was using some kind of ancient building on some world undiscovered, but Saren certainly wouldn’t have gone for that, not at first, and it was just as likely the thing had simply slept through most of galactic history to get to this point, meaning it buried itself somewhere instead. Either way, Jon and Tali watched a graphic of pages sorting themselves into files marked with the names of the three worlds investigated, along with a half a dozen others, and one marked ‘oddities’.

They could assume anything coming to the Citadel, or going to one of the homeworlds, or even Illium, were just general business dealings, things to cover his tracks if someone wanted to know how he had all these credits to spend. The rest though? You never knew what would come up. Sighing as the task was almost half done, Jon reached over, and held Tali close to him, the young woman having fallen asleep on the couch beside him.

Outside, the Presidium was still. A few people moved about its walkways, tourists and late night deal makers, but not nearly as much as it would during the ‘daytime’. Not that one could tell time by the light, given the Presidium didn’t darken like some tourists seemed to think. Instead places like the consulate they were in had privacy screens that could be turned up to make them darker inside, with the added benefit of scrambling any attempt to look inside when there was sensitive materials on the screen.

Jon was stroking his fingers through Tali’s black hair when a chime went off, and the woman started, her hand going to her hip where her shotgun would normally be, while he smiled at her. Always ready for a brawl. He patted her on the shoulder, and got up, the pair of them walking over to the two sided terminal, and sitting down opposite each other, watching as their program began to display its results, with hundreds of thousands of reports shuffled into categories.

Luckily, those reports that showed payments and shipments to known places were easily dismissed, and those made up the bulk of them. Sorting through lesser ports of call reports was easy enough, as they dismissed them by the thousands, including a few odd shipments to Omega out in the Terminus Systems. What dealings a SPECTRE might have there was anyone’s guess, but it was also too open a port to hide much going through. Aria T’loak wouldn’t have liked him shipping things through that might bring her trouble, after all.

It took an hour for the two of them to shift through the remaining reports, whittling down the stacks slowly, until it was under five thousand. Then under three when they realized a majority of the remaining were payments to pirate clans, Saren using them as eyes and ears, as well as harassers in certain sections of space, but not the kind of people to trust with your secrets, especially since they’d have reported a ship like his the moment they saw it to everyone to let them know a new power was out there.

Fifteen minutes later, and they were under a thousand. Then under seven hundred, as Tali finally discovered that some of the ‘odd’ reports were Saren paying…’ladies of the evening’ for fun at one of the known houses of that kind of thing here on the Citadel, sent via a shell account. Suspicious, but not actually what they were looking for, and not nearly enough in aggregate to be anything beyond personal.

Finally, as they came to the last five hundred, they found common connections forming. Shipments of eezo, and even some marked as ‘special processed goods’ that could only be protoculture, not a huge amount, but noticeable all the same, all moving about in systems just outside the Terminus. Worse, there were parts too. Specialized ones. Military grade stuff, never a lot, each report on its own was simply one piece, but when filtered down to this level, you could tell this stuff wasn’t going to any of his other projects.

“Hmm, Jon, take a look at this,” said Tali, as she flipped one part of her screen, and the Terran found himself staring into the ugly mug of an old Krogan battlemaster. The guy looked, oddly, unscarred for all that Jon, who knew enough about the species, could tell he was ancient. His skin had that paper quality Korgan’s tended to get once they passed five hundred, hanging off them in thin sheets, covering the bone plating beneath.

“Warlord Okeer, one of the Krogan who was with Clan Nakmor during the Rebellions back one-thousand years ago,” he read the dossier.

“Yeah, and a piece of work he was too. It says here most of his file is sealed, along with all Nakmor’s stuff, but we both know what that means,” she said, as she plugged in the credentials they’d been given by the Asari Councilor. Really, this was going farther afield than they would normally be allowed, but given the Krogan was prominently mentioned in at least a dozen files, that said there might be something there.

“He’s a genetics expert, with studies that range into botany, genetic engineering, even quantum DNA coding stuff that I have never heard of before. Why would he work with a Turian though?” asked Jon, as he read through the quickly decrypting file, and then got to the history section, only to groan, sigh, and rub his eyes, far too little caffeine in his system to deal with what he was seeing.

“Yeah, that was pretty much what I was wondering,” said Tali as she scrolled down, forcing her Terran boyfriend to face what they’d just gotten their hands on. Nakmor was one of those ‘secrets’ that everyone in the galaxy that cared knew. The Krogan Rebellions being what they were, famous, but so dark most people didn’t look into them too deeply, it was basically taken as red if you knew that history, you knew the fact that the Salarians had had help when designing the genophage.

After all, one didn’t design a targeted bioweapon without reams and reams of current, up to date, genetic data. Data you couldn’t get in the middle of a war, with a few random prisoners and corpses. You had to go to the people who would HAVE that data, the Krogan themselves. Clan Nakmor, one of the ‘Science Clans’, the only one to survive the nuclear winter they’d thrown themselves into, had provided everything the Salarians needed and more, with the understanding of protection when the war was over.

Protection that had not been given. The STG had tried, of course, but the Turian Hierarchy had determined that they deserved the same fate as all the others, adjusting the genophage so it had the same effect on Clan Nakmor as all other Krogan, ensuring that the Clan would hate them forever, which made it all the stranger that one of their former leaders was working with Saren.

“Hmm, check out this manifest too. The numbers on the devices don’t match how Citadel Space uses these codes. These are Terran, aren’t they?” asked Tali, showing Jon another window, and he nodded. Without a word his fingers began to fly over his keyboard, his hand coming up to move some of the holographic displays around, and even syncing the terminal with his omnitool.

“These things come from some of those old smuggler ports. Look here, one of them came from that moonbase on Torfan,” he added, tracing one of the shipments through a scrambled relay, but the only system it could have come from was that base, as it was the only thing in the sector.

“So you think Haliat sold him something?” she asked, remembering the Turian turned Terran they’d faced off with, but Jon shook his head.

“Given the numbers, I think it was more that Haliat was serving as a delivery man, not as a dealer. He got paid too, a lot of credits. Given that, I think the two were running unrelated schemes involving stolen Terran Tech,” he said, seemingly undisturbed that two such things were happening at once, even as Tali shuddered at the thought. Still, they kept going, listing out the final destinations for each of the shipments and payments that didn’t end up at one of the major ports for Saren.

In time, patterns began to emerge, a system on the edge of this space, a Relay in the corner of this sector. Each one was unrelated, but at the same time, not big enough to hide this sort of influx of goods or materiel. Eventually, they both hit the same button at once, and a map of the galaxy spun to life between them, the Argus Rho cluster highlighted as all the dots where the deliveries ended up were somewhere in there, and as the program spun up with the data, they began to connect, tracing routes and times.

Finally, the lines were like a spiderweb, crisscrossing the whole of the cluster, but they all connected at a single point, one that Shepard pulled up, looking it over, before flipping the window around for Tali to look at, she quickly went to work on it, dialing up every bit of info she had on it, before sighing as she leaned back in her seat, and flipped it back to him, with a glowing point in the asteroid belt.

“Phoenix System, formerly of the Turian Hierarchy territories. The only habitable planet in the system, Intai’sei was marked as too costly to terraform, but the system itself served as a picket system back a few hundred years ago, with a listening outpost built in it to keep an eye on the Batarians and their ‘Cultural Committee' ships. It was abandoned almost a hundred years before Terran first contact though,” he read out, and then listed out the supplies that had been sent.

“So, he’s got the parts to bring it online, at least some of it. But why?” he asked, stroking his chin, and then bringing up the data on the Terran equipment as well.

“No idea. Maybe he wants to try something. Those are protoculture pods, and we know his ‘boss’ has access to the stuff. Maybe they’re trying to make a Protoculture Matrix?” proposed Tali, and Jon shook his head.

“If they are, then things are a lot worse than we thought. For now, let’s gather this all together, and in the morning, we’ll present our findings to the Council and the Conclave. Hopefully, we can make some sense of this then,” he said, ignoring that ‘in the morning’ had passed a few hours ago, and they would be before the two groups in less than three. Still, Tali said nothing as they put everything together, and then laid against each other to rest on the couch, to await another busy day.

Chapter Text

Tevos was tired. More so than she’d been in a long time. In fact, the last time she felt this exhausted was after a day-long session with the Batarian ambassador some century or so ago, when he’d been…something. It had something to do with females of his race, but it was long enough ago, and unimportant to her that she honestly had forgotten the details, other than that the hateful man had wound up dead at the hands of a SPECTRE shortly afterwards for some crime.

Regardless, today had been a rollercoaster of emotions, revelations, and just in general. She’d had to take several sedatives just to keep the headache she knew was coming under control, as stress always made her head hurt. And this was the worst stress she’d felt in her life, as she now knew those monsters in the Beacon at the Goddess’ Own were not just a distant threat, but were actively moving against them, coming for them, within a Salarian lifetime.

It was almost enough to send her back to Thessia, to spend her final years with her daughters, even calling back her sisters to the homeworld, that they might know some familial love before the end came. But she was not that weak. She had been in her position since before the Terran’s Robotech Wars, and she would, by the Goddess, be in this position when their two societies, pressed together by circumstances neither could face alone, would become a single unit.

That was, at the end of the day, her personal dream. She hadn’t shared that with her Turian or Salarian counterparts, but since that day two and some decades ago, she’d been angling for it. Oh, she was certain, given her age, she wouldn’t BE Councilor when it happened, at least not originally. Her plan had been gradual, as the galaxy was shifting, but it was only by uniting that the Terran Federation and the Citadel Council could avoid an ugly war sometime in their future.

Now an entirely different ugly war would accelerate all her plans. All her little pushes were bearing fruit in soil being fertilized by fear, and soon blood. Better, she could now see that it wasn’t just her wish. Someone on the Conclave had been helping her, knowingly or otherwise, and that was gratifying to see. That someone in the Terran’s leadership could see things the same way she did. It would still take time, only one generation had passed for the Terrans after all, but it would happen someday, and they would be sitting beside one of her people, deciding the fate of the galaxy.

If there was a galaxy, that was. The things the Terrans already knew were…disturbing. They gave as good as they got, of course. That one, Breetai, had been most put out to find out that the Council was well aware of several Code Black level secrets, including the most important one of their engagement with an active, if damaged, ‘Reaper’ at the end of the Titan War. Apparently he had thought them blind to that sort of thing, rather than understanding that information about an invincible ship needed to remain secret.

Of course, they’d not known just HOW invincible it had been. Their information had placed it as being damaged by the Terran’s efforts to stop it. According to Prime Thinker Exodore, that was not the case. Even damaged, with a patchwork on its hull, the thing had proven impervious to Terran protoculture weapons. Even their missiles hadn’t been able to get through the monstrous barriers, and it had cost them thousands of lives and dozens of ships, lives and vessels they simply did not have the numbers to sacrifice, to take even one down.

Worse than that was the revelation of the Citadel’s nature. She’d suspected, given her own knowledge, that there was something special about this facility, but to know it would be the heart of the invasion? That was beyond her worst nightmares. That had sent all of them into a long debate, before even the Conclave admitted that evacuating the Citadel, right now, would only fan the flames of panic across the galaxy that were already going to be burning white hot when news got out.

Luckily, they did have some bargaining chips in this little tug of war to prepare. For one thing, the Protheans were in need of certain bits of technology. They had only fourty-two members of their species left, and would have to clone more, especially given not all of those were able to breed. However, their physiology, like Asari, had eezo baked into it in a way, and while the Terrans had the facilities to make more of themselves, the techniques and specific technologies to make biotics were not in their wheelhouse.

Obviously, she’d agreed to put them in touch with the best Thessia had to offer, which she’d shot a message to the homeworld to have one of those contact Exedore over a closed channel sometime in the next few hours. Being accommodating now would help smooth over the wrinkles, after all, and in the end, she was seeing, possibly within her lifetime, a Council with representatives of all the species on it, guiding the Galaxy for the good of everyone, not just for a few.

It would still need a steady hand, of course, but given how they’d expanded with diligence and care, she was willing to believe that the Terrans would, in fact, be on par with her own people in helping provide that hand. They would keep the corporate interests from scattering to the winds, exploiting every world they came across, and leaving nothing but dead husks behind. If they survived this crisis, at any rate.

Finally, Tevos was drawn out of her thoughts by a chime, and she stood up. She didn’t straighten her dress, but instead stepped into the circle, allowing the tingle of a new mass effect field to interact with her personal one. As before, she sent out the coded message, one that only her sisters could understand. It took seconds for their images to appear around her, their own mass effect fields joining with hers in a moment of blissful ‘embrace’.

“Aria, Aethyta, it’s good to-,” she began, but was cut off, as Aethyta did the mass effect field equivalent of slamming her hands on the table before her, startling both Tevos and Aria.

“Cut the crap and tell me what’s going on with my daughter!” she demanded in a shout that ran through Tevos’ body. She was about to question what she meant, before she remembered a bit that had slipped her mind.

“Oh, you mean Ms. T’soni,” she said, and Aethyta looked almost as violent as Aria on her worst days.

“That’s your damn niece! Now what’s going on with her? Last I followed, she was on that Terran colony that got blasted to atoms, and then the only surviving ship shows up on the Citadel, so that means if she was there, then she’s either on that ship or…” she trailed off, and Tevos, for all her annoyance, not helped by the headache coming back, felt pity, and nodded.

“She’s here, her reports were included with the others involving the Protheans aboard the Terran/Council joint vessel, the Normandy,” she said, and Aira actually smirked at that.

“So, that little side hustle of yours proved to be useful after all. Goddess, that means I owe you a drink, does it?” she said with a chuckle, and Tevos smirked back, nodding.

“It does. As for Liara, she’s currently staying aboard that ship to be with the Protheans. They are her life’s work, after all,” she said, and the other two nodded, before both stopping, and then slowly turning towards her. She smiled at them, just a bit mirthfully, not quite the smirk of before.

“Indeed, sisters. Protheans walk the galaxy again,” she let that statement hang in the air, as both of them processed that, before her expression turned down, and she let out a sigh.

“They bring with them the news I think everyone who’s aware of the Goddess’ Own Temple’s secrets feared. The destroyers of the Prothean civilization, called Reapers, are not only real, but one is active in its attempts to bring its brethren back into this space, so they can do to us what they did to the Protheans, and apparently many, many others before,” she told them.

“I’m assuming the Terrans are already working to brace for the coming tide of death?” asked Aria, and Tevos looked at her.

“If you’re asking if they can, perhaps, save us from the Reapers, it turns out we overestimated their ability. The fight with Leviathan of Dis was apparently a far harder, and far more costly, battle than we’d assumed. And despite being able to damage this specimen, we’re now aware that was the result of luck, not skill, and that luck will not happen a second time,” Tevos responded, causing the leader of Omega to fall silent, as she took in that information and let it process.

“I assume you didn’t call us simply to tell us it’s hopeless. You always have a plan, Tevos, and you better not pull any of that mysterious matriarch crap on us. We need to know the details to get our people ready,” said Aria at last, and Tevos nodded.

“I do have a plan, but we must know the state of all the other galactic powers to make it work. To summarize my idea, before you complain, I want to bring everyone, Terrans, Terminus, and all the minor powers of this galaxy together in mutual defense of our own existence. If we don’t, then everyone, everywhere in this galaxy will be ground to dust, as have countless species before us,” she said, seriously, and the two nodded.

“Not like that was hard to guess being your final aim, Sister. Still, the Terminus, despite what some news organizations claim, is not really united under my rule. They merely know not to fuck with Aria, as all smart people should. Thus if I say hop, they do so and never bother asking how high. But getting them to work together like this? It will take some time to arrange even broaching the subject, let alone making it happen,” admitted the self-styled Queen Bitch of Omega.

“As for the other powers. Tell the Hanar that Protheans are walking in the galaxy again, and you know they’d come floating to them, fast as their ships could carry them, and they’d bring the Drell and a few other ‘saved’ races with them, ones that might be able to hold a gun in a fight,” added Aethyta, which Tevos wanted to glare at her for her dismissal. After all, on ground they might not be the best, but a Hanar in the pilot’s seat was the best you could ask for, and their ships were known to be quite…difficult to deal with in combat situations.

“The Volus are already building another Dreadnaught. They’ve been angling to show that they’re not the ‘protectorate’ species the Turians take them for anymore, so they’ll jump at the chance to fire off all their big guns,” she added.

“The Elcor…I’m honestly not sure what way they’ll go. Their government is slow, but I can probably put a field under them to make them move faster, if you think it’s necessary,” she said, looking to Tevos, who shook her head.

“We need to move fast, but not that fast. We currently have one enemy to deal with, and until that changes, we need to make sure there’s not panic in the streets of every world. Encourage them all to start gearing up for conflict, use the threat of a war with the Terran Federation if you have to for the moment, but not too hard. When the time comes, they will be our allies against the real threat,” she said, and the other two nodded.

“Beyond that, I need deployments in these systems, and resources diverted to…” Tevos began, slowly giving her sisters the things they could do to help prepare the galaxy for the inevitable war to come, as even if they were to beat this enemy they faced, the horde would come not long after.

Chapter Text

Twelve hours. Less than twelve hours actually, though only by a few minutes. That had been how long they’d been gone, and now, Jon Shepard, Tali’Zorah, and Captain Garrus Vakarian stood before the Council again. SPECTRE Nilhus, who had been with them before, had gone…somewhere. They hadn’t asked their compatriot, and he wouldn’t have told them even if they did.

Surprisingly, Exalted Javik was also not with them, despite this effort being something he would take great interest in. His own people’s future, however, had to take precedence, and seeing as he was one of the few capable of breeding, his body was needed. To be studied and scanned, with him strangely submitting willingly to ‘the Younger Races’ as he now insisted on calling the people of this era.

As such, it was the three of them, one loyal to the Council, and two not, who walked the long stairs up to the dais, and then stood there, as the three finished whatever business they had to do. Garrus, followed shortly after by both Tali and Jon, gave a Council styled salute to the three before them, who returned with, after a moment’s hesitation, a Terran styled one back, before getting down to business.

“We have been studying the files Tali’Zorah and Jon Shepard sent to us last night, and they do indeed propose a picture of our enemy’s movements our intelligence services had missed,” began Councilor Tevos, sweeping her arm out, and creating an image in the air before them of the system the pair had discovered last night, zooming in after a moment to the listening post.

“Our archives have given us what information they can, but this outpost is…to be fair quite a bit out of the way. At its peak, the listening post, known as Pinnacle Station in its day, had a crew of less than a dozen, swapped out once every year or so. The strategic value of it was such that it was eventually mothballed, but, given this new information, we sent the codes to reactivate it,” as she spoke, the image shift, if only for a moment.

It showed…well, the tiny station was now far, far more than that. You could still make out the original, if you squinted, but around it had been built several different structures, some of which were obvious in their function, like a larger solar panel array, a small bulb that had the unmistakable shape of a ‘greenery’ pod, used for long term exploration vessels. But some of it looked positively alien.

Terran and Citadel tech followed general design structures, with the Zentradi descended technology of the Terrans, which was all about being big and rounded edges. The Citadel tech tended more towards sharper angles, as their ship sizes and designs were dictated by the shape and size of a mass effect bubbles, causing them to look, if not uniform, than at least have a similar aesthetic to them.

This was a mixture of those two, but also a riot of others. Some looked positively organic, with hull platings that seemed to shift in their coloring as the light of the sun hit them, while others were more like spike-covered sheets of metal. One, in particular, was blue in color, looking like a mass relay built in miniature, with a glow at the center showing a currently active field.

The image was frozen, however, the display showed a timestamp, and the reason became obvious, as the timestamp advanced, by less than a second, and suddenly the image blurred. Another tiny step forward and the image returned to the original form of the listening post, before all the additions had been bolted on. It continued on like that for a minute before they ended the image.

“We believe, given that the ‘real’ image of the listening post was given to us for less than a fraction second, that the enemy might believe themselves to still be an unknown, as such, we and the Conclave of the Terran Federation have been discussing what to do with this information,” said the Asari Councilor, and Garrus, looking at her nodded.

“You want to send the Normandy,” he responded. Not a question, just a statement of fact, but the Councilor nodded anyway.

“Your ship, Captain, is the best stealth ship in any of the fleets between us. Your sensor data shows from your previous encounter with this ‘Reaper’, there is a high probability even this enemy isn’t quite capable of breaking it, given they didn’t appear to know you were at Eden Prime until after you dropped the system,” said the Turian Councilor, for some reason using air quotes around the word Reaper, is if the name or entity was in question.

“It’s possible that they were simply ignoring us for their real prize, but given available intelligence, it’s a safe bet at the moment, I agree,” he said, and it seemed the Councilors had been holding their breath, wondering how he might react to their assessment, which was a valid concern. Soldiers took orders that might result in losing a lot of people, but knowingly going on a suicide mission was something else entirely.

“We, and the Conclave, feel that there needs to be acceptable risk taking on this venture. The Normandy will be going in to observe our enemy, nothing more. As such, it’s being stripped to a skeleton crew, to minimize the danger should something go wrong,” said the Asari.

“We will disembark all the excess crew here on the Citadel, with those from our space offered passage where they will, while another vessel from the Terran Federation will be arriving shortly for citizens from there. Your crew, Captain, will consist of yourself, the pilot and control officers, as well as a small team to allow you to, if it is viable, infiltrate the enemy facility,” said the salarian simply.

“If it’s to be my choice, I have to admit, I can think of no better to bring with me than Commander and Sergeant Shepard. They both proved quite capable on Eden Prime, and if they’re willing, I would feel honored to have them at my side for a rematch with this thing,” he said, turning. Jon, a bit of concern on his face, turned to Tali, who nodded, a smile on her lips that was just this side of bloodthirsty.

“I think I can agree with that. I’m sure Ja…er Sergeant Shepard will request the rest of her squad as well. That is the geth designated Legion and Master Sergeant Charn, if they’re willing,” he affirmed, and Garrus smiled in that turian way, before turning back to the Council.

“Then you’ll have me and my ship. The auto-mat repair systems should have finished getting my Gundam up to snuff, and I have a stealth module for it that I’ve been meaning to give a test run,” he told the Council, who looked to each other, and then nodded, before leaning forward a bit, waving their hands before them to bring up a large holographic console before them.

“Very well, the Conclave is busy preparing their fleets for what we all know will be a war, and this Council is likewise to be occupied for the foreseeable future. As such, before we part, Captain Garrus, please, step forward,” said the Turian Councilor, and after a moment’s hesitation, Garrus did so, standing at the very edge of the platform before them.

“This galaxy is about to become an even more dangerous place than it has ever been in our recorded histories. This body, and those it represents will need agents, ones with the freedom to act when and where they are required, without the need of waiting for orders,” began the Asari, holding out her hand, the console forming a circle around it.

“We normally would have a much longer process for this, especially given your association with an outside power, but you have earned no small measure of trust from this body, both for your military accomplishments, as well as the design of your unit, which will increase the efficiency of our mechanized divisions by no less than twelve percent, a vast improvement,” continued the Salarian, raising his hand likewise.

“As such, this Council, in this moment, grants Captain Garrus Vakarian of the Turian Hierarchy the rank and privilege of SPECTRE. You will be our arm in the dark, our voice in the light, and you will silence the one who has twisted the words we gave him for this dark choir he finds himself with,” finished the Turian Councilor, and as he placed his own hand, glowing lines began to form on the floor around Garrus.

Slowly, something rose up, a scan being taken of his whole body, registering everything about him. Including a shocked expression on his face, as his mandibles clattered against each other, pausing as the glowing line reached that part, so it could scan better. He went right back to it the moment it passed, and paused again as the scan came back down, only to resume until the thing had vanished into the floor.

“I…don’t know what to say,” he said as the long moment of silence seemed about to begin, his voice filling it, and the Asari Councilor, with a smile, nodded.

“Then don’t speak, act. You know what is expected of you, and your abilities need to be at their utmost. We will open all of our armouries to you. Make use of them, and bring back all the information you can, whether that be through passive means, or more aggressive ones,” she told him, and with that, the three stepped back. Garrus, with a short pause, saluted in the turian way, and the three visitors began to move towards the elevator, leaving the Councilors to call back up the console, and begin the long process of preparing for war.

“So, a promotion, based on a mission where you finished up riding in someone else’s hand?” asked Tali, a bit of tease in her voice, and Garrus, for a moment, looked about to say something, but then shook his head.

“Not a promotion, just more responsibilities I really didn’t want. Though once this is done, I think it means I’ll be able to improve the Gundam. I’ve been looking into upgrades that would allow it to transform in the same way the veritechs do,” he said, as they finally reached the elevator, and then climbed in, his omnitool brought up, and then activating with new codes, SPECTRE codes, automatically downloading.

Really, this should have been kept secret, especially with two agents of a power the Citadel was…not friendly with in general, though it was changing, and not slowly. For now, however, he brought up the manifest of the armory of his new position, and his eyes nearly boggled, while Tali let out a whistle. Jon, for his part, was silent as he looked at the list, watching it scroll down.

“Most of this is simply advanced forms of gear already in service. The unique materiel on the Normandy is custom built and better. Still, those power cores could be useful for extended combat length, and I think I can modify two of those heatsinks used for mass effect weapons to something the galant pistols can use in an hour or so,” he advised, Garrus nodding and quickly adding them to the ‘shopping list’ along with a few toys he’d always wanted to play with.

“Going for damage over precision?” asked Jon as he selected a few explosives that were, if anything, overkill for a battlecruiser going into a pitched fight, let alone a scout mission.

“Given how your sister acts, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it. That trick she pulled with the moon, I’d like to see if she can give us an encore of that, as I doubt leaving this facility operational will be a good thing,” he said, selecting some launchers that were normally for wanzers, but he felt he could modify them for use by the Terrans.

“Once we’ve got everything we can from this trip, I fully intend on blowing that place to the Void if possible. If not, we’ll paint every target we can for the fleet that goes in after us,” he added, as they finally arrived on the dock to find organized chaos, which Garrus responded to with a sigh, hitting the button to order, as he stepped out to take command of the situation.

Chapter Text

The Council’s order, confirmed to be from the Conclave as well with a single message, still took time to implement. The Normandy was, after all, a testbed vessel for dozens, if not hundreds of little technologies and toys that the combined finest minds in Citadel and Federation space could dream up. That meant that some of the systems were intertwined in strange ways, and it took awhile to get them untangled from each other and still leave the ship functional.

“You sure this is a good idea?” asked a voice on a private channel to Jon, and it took him a moment to identify it as his sister, who was standing off to the side, looking at the frigate…well cruiser weight to the Citadel races, but a frigate to a Terran, as the various pieces of technology were taken off and loaded into crates, the kind shielded against scanners and the like to prevent civilians or others from getting a good look at them.

“The mission?” he asked, and she shrugged.

“The mission, offloading this highly classified equipment in what is basically a civilian port of call, us being together, the return of the Protheans to the galaxy at large, allying with the Citadel races, not just going in with a fleet and blowing this thing away. Take your pick,” she said, listing out all the things she was wondering about for her little brother, who nodded as he went over them in his head.

“We need this data. I don’t know specifically what was shared, but I saw the Council. They are afraid we can’t beat this thing, and they talked directly with the Conclave, which means neither Prime Thinker Exedore, who is smarter than anyone I know, nor Supreme Commander Breetai, who has led hopeless battles before, think we can do it either,” he reminded her, which got a grunt of acknowledgement from his big sister.

“As to the equipment. We knew about this thing, if only parts of it, and smart as I am, and clever as you sometimes are, us knowing about even a part of it shows the Gearbox was probably the worst place to keep anything like new tech a secret. I don’t doubt most of the schematics for what’s being offloaded is already somewhere on the hypernet, and that’s before you realize that the designs probably passed by a thousand hands at some point prior to being implemented on the Normandy,” he reminded her, and she nodded, remembering that the Gallant, which was currently stored in the locker she’d claimed on the vessel, was something highly classified…which was why she knew most of its specs by heart.

“The Naza…Protheans are going to be interesting. Too many Citadel Races really do see them as Gods. Only the Hanar are literal about it, but I know a few Salarians and even some Quarians who are just about the same. Them being here is going to disrupt things, and the fact that it’s going to take the efforts of both the Federation and Citadel to make it so this isn’t the last generation of them…well it’s going to be interesting. Nothing more or less than that can be anticipated,” he admitted.

“And what’s that old curse about ‘living in interesting times’? You’d think a fleet of immortal death ships would be enough of interesting for one lifetime,” she jabbed, and he actually let out a chuckle despite himself, pausing a moment to let his helmet scan one of the components coming out of the Normandy, something made with an exotic material he made a note of, to request some to play with later…for the good of his own projects of course.

“And the Titan War, the incident at our old colony, all of it is…two decades ago. For some, like the Salarians, that’s a lifetime, and even most other races, it’s long enough to start forgetting. The fact that we haven’t come to blows since says that someone, somewhere, on both sides wants us to be together. And in unity, there is strength. That is the whole reason we exist after all,” he reminded her, using an old slogan from the first generation of Terrans. She shook her head at the history lesson, but didn’t argue.

“Finally, if we have to ‘blow this thing away’, that’s an option we still have. But if we do that, we’ll lose out on anything it could tell us. We still don’t know why the Reapers are here, why they want to control this galaxy. If it was just about killing all life…well they’ve done that before, methodically and completely,” he reminded her, motioning with his head towards one of the Prothean pods, which, while being given no additional looks by the crew, was certainly being more carefully loaded, so they could smuggle them into some part of the Citadel for storage, with the hope of reawakening them once things were a bit calmer.

“If they had that power, fifty-thousand years ago, then just let life regrow, then they’re in control already, and if we don’t know why, we not only can’t fight them effectively, but we also can’t make any kind of peace that isn’t annihilation of them or us,” he opined. She, of course, was perfectly happy with the first of those options, especially with beings that had apparently committed multiple genocides over millions of years, but she would be the first to admit, she wasn’t absolutely sure they could win that fight.

Jon, having finished speaking, turned away, starting to walk off the dock, and towards the lift behind him, having not grown back to Terran size yet, and figuring he’d avail himself of the facilities here on the Citadel while he could. He stopped when his comm unit beeped again, and he turned towards the giant across the way, who was staring down at him with her blank face, obviously asking about the one point he’d failed to address that she’d brought up.

“We…had issues. We’ll deal. We’re Shepards, after all, that means we have a duty to protect everyone we can. When this is over, then we can hash out the personal stuff,” he told her, and she continued to stare at him for a long time, but then nodded, returning to standing at attention as she stood guard over the rest of the unloading, her face moving with the various bits of tech, logging it all in the unit’s memory, as well as her own more than likely.

“You know, you really are going to have to deal with that thing before the two of you can really move past it,” said another, if somewhat more pleasant in his opinion, female voice in his ear. He resisted the urge to swear, knowing she’d been listening the whole time.

“For now, it doesn’t matter, and we can work on it afterwards,” he told Tali, and she chuckled, in a way to show she wasn’t amused at all by that response. She didn’t press, however, as they rode the lift back to the Presidium, where they were instantly aware of the lack of eyes on them which was shocking given they were a Terran and a Quarian in a place that those two should be the talk of everyone who saw them.

But today everything was in flux. The announcement of the Protheans had been kept under wraps, the absolute top secret that the Citadel Council could make it. Which meant half the Presidium was aware they were here. To be fair to the Council, concealing them completely was out of the question. Every visual receptor organ had seen the Normandy arrive, and so that had already gotten tongues wagging, and every audio receptor keyed to find out what was going on.

Trying to set things up with scientists, to get the ball rolling on cloning more of them was not likely to ‘slip under the radar’. Even in the Federation, everyone knew what was going on with the various ‘Science’ teams if they wanted to, since it was hard to hide projects completely. Luckily, the surface of this secret was provocative enough that no one was going to be looking too deeply into the fact that the majority of the Protheans were ‘on ice’ for the moment.

It made things simpler that way. So Tali and Jon entered the Presidium Office that they’d been using the night before. The quarian quickly scanned it with her omnitool, being obvious as she looked for bugs, while, behind her, the micronized Terran looked completely disinterested, while doing a much more subtle scan with his own equipment, watching for anything that STOPPED transmitting while she scanned.

When it was done, with a few nice ‘pops’ from breaking equipment as Tali’s omnitool sent out a general kill pulse to the identified devices, the pair threw themselves onto the sleeping couch, and sighed. If this had been a more private venue, they might have seen about enjoying themselves. Jon found himself tempted to regardless, but remembering he and she were technically representing the Federation here on the Citadel made him aware he couldn’t afford to make it look bad.

“Do you think this will work? The Normandy was able to sneak by this ‘Reaper’ before, but that was when it didn’t know or care about us. We both know that won’t be the case this time, and we can only guess at the technology they have, after seeing what that ship did at the gas giant,” she asked him after a while, and Jon took a moment to think about it all, turning it over in his head.

They’d both gotten to watch the videos of the Normandy’s engagement with the Reaper, and he had Jsalana’s memories. He knew how powerful they were. That was why she was asking him, because he had more direct information, and he wasn’t about to lie to her, so as he ran his fingers on the side of her face, feeling her own dance on his chest, he took a deep breath, and then let it out in a sigh.

“We…don’t stand a chance. Not right now. I know what the fleet we have can do. Outnumbering the Reapers a Million to One, and it still won’t be enough. Their tech is just that much better, and each vessel is a nation, a literal people transformed into circuits. Their memories, their thought patterns, copied and stored away in an invulnerable shell, ready to do the same to the next one,” he finally admitted, feeling her heart skip a beat, with her so close to him.

“We’re different from what’s come before. The Terrans, and those we’ve allied with. But we’ve seen with just this one, this watchdog, that they can adapt to our technology, in many ways better than ourselves,” he added, remembering the readouts from the Normandy’s sensors, and how powerful that barrier around the ship had been.

“But they aren’t infallible, nor are they immortal. We’ve hurt this one. Because of luck, perhaps, but that we did it at all proves we CAN wound them. And if they can be wounded, they can be killed, even if it takes more out of us than them,” he began, closing his eyes, letting his mind roll over what the Prothean remembered of their war against these monsters from the darkness beyond the galactic rim.

“The Nazara, with their thralls, killed a dozen or more over the course of the war. They adapted to each fall, of course, but that works for us too. The Federation doesn’t rest on its laurels. We will keep getting stronger. We will adapt, just as much as they adapt to us. All we have to do is make sure our adaptations outpace theirs,” he said, and she nodded.

“So, learn everything we can, study the dragon, and you’ll make a sword to shove down their throats?” she said, with a smile, and he chuckled at her as the two faced each other, and for a moment, one that they tried to hold onto, they kissed. When they parted, he simply smiled back at her.

“We’ll make that sword together, and then let Jane shove it down their throats. I think she’ll enjoy that,” he said, and the two laid back on the couch, and began to lightly doze within each other's arms, to find comfort while they waited to see what the coming battle would bring.