Chapter 07: Going somewhere nice

Kenneth Donnelly had a fixed expression of concentration on his face, focused on the enemy in front of him. He wasn't a soldier by trade, but this went beyond knowing how to shoot a guy a klick away or kick someone in the daddy bags. This was engineer against conundrum, man against nature, and he wasn't about to let some pint sized terror make him turn tail, his honour was at stake dammit. With her arms crossed, well away from the immediate danger, Gabriella smirked at his imminent demise, watching the engineer struggle against the odds. "Go on Kenneth, it's waiting for you," she teased, "it's only so small after all, it won't bite."

Kenneth took the opportunity to glance away from the focus of their wager, but his eyes kept being dragged back to the... thing. It was like a bloody accident, you didn't want to look, but you just had to. "Quiet woman, it's small in size, but it packs a wallop that'd send you crying like a wee girl to your ancestors, don't you doubt it. You'll not unman me with your tricks and jibes... I just need a little time to prepare myself."

"Or think up an excuse so you won't have to go through with it then," she mocked lightly, raising one damnably maddening eyebrow. "Give it up Kenneth, you're not fooling me with that outraged expression of yours, you know it's more than you can handle."

The engineer leaped to his feet with an outraged expression, stabbing a mock accusatory finger at his partner in crime. "Ohh, now you've done it woman. You're insulting a man's honour, that's a crime it is, a Donnelly never goes back on his word." With that, he scooped the bouncing cuboid object of his plate and stuck it in his mouth. Almost at once the burst of... it wasn't flavour, there was no merciful court or vengeful god in the universe that would call it that, it hit the engineer so bad his traitorous gut demanded it be spat out right now and he wash his mouth with something less objectionable, like the liquid lithium in the heat exchange loops. He resisted, this was an honour challenge damnit, and not even that devil in an apron couldn't force a proud Donnelly to back down once he'd agreed to take Gardner's meatloaf down in one go.

Gabriella laughed, rocking on her heels as Kenneth valiantly chewed away at the offending meal. "You look completely ridiculous like that Kenneth," she burst between giggles, "you've turned green, but you're not growing any bigger or stronger."

Outrage and determination fought for control over Kenneth's mouth and it resulted in a draw when a morsel slid down the wrong throat, and ended up being ejected across the floor to hit Gabriella in the bosom. A glass of water, napkins and a short yelling from mess sergeant Gardner later, the two had settled on a slightly more amicable set of freeze dried rations that tasted like ass but was far better in Kenneth's opinion than anything the mess sergeant touched. Taking a bite out of the rapidly disappearing ration bar, the chief engineer looked at it with a critical eye before putting it down. "Tastes like ass, but better than the ass Rupert makes out of the rations," he began in his accented voice, "can't imagine why the commander would want to give it a go when he's spared the horrors. You'd think he was round the bend, wanting to eat something like this."

Gabriella cocked an eyebrow over her rations and gave him a level "this-could-spell-trouble" look, but she answered anyway. "He probably just wants to see what it's like, you know, find out why everyone thinks its so bad. Hadley doesn't mind the chef's surprise so much as you do, so who knows, he might even like it if he could eat it."

"Damnit woman, it'd take an insane man to want to eat something like this, an insane starving man on his last legs, and you can'nae convince me otherwise on that fact. The commander's a human, but now he's gone and gotten all cyclopean eye with nary a thing between his legs if you know what I mean. He's got the stones to take it to the Collectors and give them a kick where it really matters, but a man can only take so much before he goes stir crazy you know that girl, and you can't be seriously thinking that he'd get all metalled up like that and not go a little funny in the head before long. In fact, I hear he even wanted to eat one of that devil's concoctions earlier, and you know what that'll do to your innards."

"I can hear your bellyaching all the way from here Donnelly," Gardner yelled from his corner of the galley, tearing off his apron with a sharp snap of food spattered fabric. A small electrical lighter sprouted from his fingers and the mess sergeant stabbed it accusingly at the engineer like a knife. "You want to try taking over this job while I treat the engines to a little Rupert special instead?"

"Don't you dare even dream of it you scalawag, you touch my beautiful engines and I'll hang you by your stones, devil cooking or no devil cooking." Kenneth raised a mock fist of anger as he growled possessively.

"Hah," Gardner sneered derisively at the engineer's defence, "just keep talking like that, and you might end up with something real special the next time you come here." Kenneth quailed at the way the man's eyes were glinting in the light, while Gabby, traitorous woman she was, just snickered at him. "The commander doesn't mind about what I do with the rations we have, and I don't hear him complaining about the quality of my food."

"Aye, and that's why I think he's starting to go around the bend, there's not a sane man breathing that'd be able to keep down the horrors you make out of perfectly good rations and should know well enough to keep away from it, even if he doesn't have a mouth to eat with." Kenneth and Gardner sobered up as last of the words finished their faint echoing in the halls of the crew deck. The mess sergeant had been there to see it himself, and both the engineers had heard the stories that made their way around a ship this small faster than the events themselves. The stories changed, depending on who was doing the telling, but everyone agreed that in the last rotational shift, commander Shepard had come down to the galley, intimidated his buddy and helmsman out of a meal and started playing with it. "The man's got a plan for the Collectors and I'm glad for that don't you doubt," Kenneth started quietly, "but he wasn't acting like this the first time he came aboard."

Gabby shook her head, "Aw, come on Ken, everyone's entitled to a few eccentricities, and fooling around with the food isn't that hard to figure out. Like I said, I bet the commander just wants to find out what all the fuss is, and probably misses being able to eat," she shuddered, "even if it is Rupert doing the cooking."

But Kenneth wasn't so easily convinced, downing the last of his ration bar and answering between mouthfuls and putting on a serious face. "Ach Gabby, you and your rational mind will be the death of all the fun of speculation on this ship. But what if this is just the start of things, the same way a junkie gets all messed up in the head if he can't get a new hit, it could be serious you know? I'm not saying we should be too worried about his marbles yet, but-"

"But nothing Kenneth," Patel's voice cut through the engineer's worries as the auxiliary pilot stepped into the galley, hands on her hips, "Gabriella is right, the commander isn't having a good time of things with his body the way things are, so cut him a bit of slack while he adjusts why don't you? Besides, I bet Lawson has Doctor Solus working on a solution already."

Kenneth ran his fingers through his red hair, the grimace continuing well past Patel's argument. "Ah come on girl, you seriously expect the salarian of all the crew to come up with a solution to just like that? I mean, no offence to the doctor, I'm sure he's every bit as talented as they say he is, but isn't he supposed to be working on a solution to the Collectors first and foremost? If he can deal with that and Shepard's problem at the same time, we might as well be sitting back and watching him come up with a gadget to make the Collectors go away forever."

Rupert shook his head in disbelief "Donnelly, give the commander a little credit will ya? He's tougher and a lot smarter than you make him sound, sure it's no namby pamby injury, but I'd bet my galley that he'll pull through long enough for a fix to be found or he'll make one himself, count on it. He lost a head back on Omega after all and came back from it none the worse for wear with a bonus prize to boot." He turned his head towards the auxiliary pilot with a nod and a toss of a ration, "how's that working out for you anyway Patel, going to graduate from the Kodiak to a combat pilot?"

"Not as easy as I hoped it'd be Rupert," Patel admitted, catching the ration bar with a practised hand and a shrug, "the Mantis handles a lot differently from the kind of ships I used to train on, a lot twitchier than the shuttle that's for sure. I can fly it, if that's what you're asking, even fly air support like the commander wants, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous." She shrugged with an unconcerned air that wasn't very convincing, "Fuchisky Orbital trained me a lot on all the kinds of military ships they built, but it's been a long time since I flew as a fighter jock in live combat."

Rupert digested her words with a disgruntled look, scratching his chin in contemplation before speaking up. "You don't really sound confident that you can pull it off Patel, are you sure about this?" He kept his voice studiously neutral, but the mess sergeant's expression was decidedly concerned.

Patel chewed on her lip before responding with an empathic nod, "I may not be the galaxy's best fighter jock, but I'm a good enough pilot to do what Shepard is asking from me. Besides, who else is going to fly that thing when he goes groundside, you? Jeff's not going to leave that chair up on the helm anytime soon, heck, if he could go without eating, sleeping or a visit to the can, he'd probably glue himself to the helm, so that just leaves me as the only other dedicated pilot to do the job." She grinned suddenly, "anyway, it'll give me a chance to really hit the Collectors when we meet up with them, not just drop off the commander and his team while I hang around in orbit until they call me, and you can bet a years salary that I'm not going to turn down that opportunity."

"YOU WILL GET IT SOON ENOUGH"

The booming announcement had everyone at the impromptu gathering whirling towards the sound, Gabriella and Patel halfway to a salute when they realized that it hadn't come from the commander's vocalizer, but rather, the ships intercom system. Light flared for a brief moment over EDI's holographic display terminal, but instead of the pulsing blue orb that was the ship's AI, the Cyclopean head of commander Shepard was displayed instead. Universally open mouthed at the unexpected presence of the commander on the terminal, it took several seconds of silence before Kenneth asked the question that was on all their minds. "Didn't know you could could show up on EDI's terminal sir. The design specifications pretty much make it a physically closed loop, not really any openings to jack yourself into."

The sensor pod bobbed in acknowledgement of the question... "I KNOW" ...without giving an answer at all, briefly setting Kenneth into a fit of internal panic about how much the commander had seen before his impromptu hello. The optics flicked briefly as they refocused, and the pod turned towards Patel who finally completed her salute, with Gabriella following a heartbeat later.

"WE ARE ON THE FINAL APPROACH TO KORLUS. REPORT TO THE HANGER BAY FOR PRE-FLIGHT CHECKS"

Patel saluted again and scurried off to the central elevator, but instead of the display winking out once she was gone, the holographic head of commander Shepard flicked over to the mess sergeant.

"ABOUT THAT LIST OF INGREDIENTS YOU MENTIONED RUPERT SEND IT TO ME. THE CREW NEEDS TO MAINTAIN GOOD MORALE WHERE IT CAN BE HELPED"

For a second, Kenneth could have sworn on his ancestors graves that the Cyclopean eye had focused on him before turning back to Rupert, the suggestion of a smirk left on immobile armour plate.

"ESPECIALLY IF CERTAIN QUARTERS BELIEVE THAT I HAVE... LOST MY MARBLES"


Losing his marbles, his instructors back in the N program would not have been so kind with their descriptions if they could see him now as another missile zipped by, close enough that it's exhaust washed over his sensor pod with a spray of caustic gases.

"It's weird sir, we're coming in hot, but there's not enough ground fire to account for all the anti-aircraft defences orbital recon painted. I can see a lot muzzle flashes down on the ground, but it's not coming our way, I guess they're having problems of their own."

Strapped under the gunship like a hanging fruit, the only place large enough to accommodate his bulk, watching the ground ripple with anti-aircraft fire, he could only be thankful for small mercies like that. The mantis gunship lurched and jinked again in an attempt to dodge unseen fire, and Shepard caught the supersonic roar of it's passage after the missile passed them by close enough that they flew through it's exhaust. For the umpteenth time, he reviewed the decision to choose the better armed but less stealthy craft to make the combat drop with. Distracted some of them might be, but the Blue Suns who weren't were doing everything in their power to shoot them down, and his bulk and position meant that if they did connect with a shot, he'd take the brunt of it. Being a human shield was not what they taught you in marine academy.

An internal altimeter toned off in his consciousness, and the battery of optics that fed him sight whirred into place with mechanical precision, scanning the rapidly closing ground below for entrenched positions and troop movements. The Apatku continent on Korlus was a single sprawling mass of gutted starships, shanty towns and scrap factories, the entire landmass designated a ship graveyard centuries before humankind had flown among the stars. Races of all kinds came here to discard their ships once they were no longer spaceworthy, letting them plummet in a controlled descent down to the surface where they joined thousands of other hulks ranging from pleasure craft to decommissioned military warships. Their target on this planet lay deep in the restricted military zone, where the partially stripped derelicts of century old dreadnoughts had become the home of the local Blue Suns chapter, a ring of massive, still functional anti-orbital guns protecting it from orbital attack. But their defences against low flying aircraft were limited by comparison, a fatal mistake he was now exploiting. He selected an drop zone, simultaneously evaluating the advantages while formulating his entry strategy. With a mental command, he activated his command circuits, speaking without a voice to the gunship's pilot.

"ECHO TWO UPDATE ON LANDING ZONE COORDINATES. ZERO THREE DEGREES PORT TWO POINT SEVEN KILOMETRES AHEAD BY THE FRIGATE HULK. APPROACH FOR A FAST AERIAL DROP THEN LOOP AND DISEMBARK."

"Two point seven klicks..." Patel obediently repeated the instructions, but trailed off as she found his marked point, "that's right on top of an active gun nest commander, we're going to take a lot of fire that way."

"AN ACCEPTABLE TRADE. THE OTHER ANTI-AIRCRAFT POSITIONS WILL NOT HAVE A CLEAR LINE OF FIRE IF WE TAKE THIS APPROACH. FLY US IN LOW AND FAST UNTIL WE REACH THE DROP ZONE. ASCEND AND RELEASE AT THREE HUNDRED METRES." He waited for her acknowledgement, and then switched over to the squad command circuit, but that had been apparently anticipated because it crackled with an amused voice before he could speak.

"A hot drop in this kind of environment commander? You sure know how to pick them," Garrus commented over the communication circuits, "So what's the deal with Okeer anyway, I know he's working on some kind of krogan cloning program, but we're not here for that are we?"

"WE ARE NOT HERE ABOUT THE CLONES BUT HOW HE IS CREATING THEM. INTELLIGENCE SUGGESTS THAT HE IS USING COLLECTOR TECHNOLOGY TO ACHIEVE THIS. IF HE HAS A LINK TO THE COLLECTORS HE MAY KNOW MORE ABOUT WHAT GOALS THEY HAVE WITH THE COLONISTS"

"Except his merc friends don't feel like letting anyone in to talk, so we go in guns blazing and asking questions of what's left. Just like old times, eh commander, except without the wheels and heavy suspension to take the hit." Garrus chuckled, "I'll admit I don't miss the Mako much, but it feels a lot more reassuring going down in that tin can than these drop packs."

"Quit your bellyachin Turian," Zaeed cut into the channel with a gruff snort, "you think this is bad, using fancy toys with eezo cores and thrusters to make a jump from a gunship? Try hanging like a bloody fruit from an oversized hankie and praying the goddamn infantry on the ground don't think it's funny to make you eat your weight in slugs or tearing up your chute so you make a bleeding stain in the ground. Going down with drop packs is a walk in the Presidium by comparison."

"That sounds rather primitive, people still use chutes for combat jumps like this?"

"What do you sodding think, that every merc company fights with their troops in fancy hard suits and kinetic barriers? Most fights, you'd be goddamn lucky to get a packet of medigel and a mass accelerator instead of a canteen of dirty water and a bleeding chemical slug thrower."

"CUT THE CHATTER PEOPLE. WE ARE APPROACHING THE TARGET ZONE" Shepard rumbled through the communication channels, making adjustments to his tactical entry as the mercenaries continued to move. Zaeed hadn't been his first choice to bring on the drop, not when he didn't know enough about the man's temperament to judge how well he'd work with the others, but other than Garrus, he'd been the only one with the training necessary to use the notoriously difficult infantry drop packs without splattering himself all over the ground. The rest of the team had to stay behind on the Normandy, waiting for his squad to call in reinforcements at a cleared landing zone or risk getting blown up out of the sky like he was doing. As if the thought had summoned them, the gun nest began to sparkle with muzzle flashes, the infantry weapons doing little harm at this range, but quickly becoming more accurate as they closed. With a thought, he turned the circuit back to the pilot, "ECHO TWO TARGET THE NEST WEAPONS FREE"

"Wilco commander, engaging the nest and going weapons free." The gunship bucked slightly as it engines redirected their power, dropping even further to the terrain while his audio sensors picked up the faint click of safety interlocks releasing amidst the screaming winds. In front of him, the autocannon shroud parted and the twin barrels of death extended from within, swivelling towards their doomed targets. "Echo two, Fox Four."

Slipstream and engine howls were drowned out by the roar of the gunship autocannons roared to life, muzzle flashes twinkling faster than his optics could record as a stream of tracer fire burned a dotted line across the skies down into the gun nest. Return fire died almost immediately as mercenaries dove for cover against the storm of steel, armour piercing slugs scything down the missile battery crew who hadn't been fast enough. Only a few of the foolhardy sticking their heads out to shoot back with wildly inaccurate fire a handful of shots sparking off gunship armour or his kinetic barriers . The distance between gunship and mercenaries rapidly began to shrink as Patel gunned the engines even harder, the battered gun nest looming widely into his view "PREPARE FOR DROP. INITIATE CLAMP RELEASE ON MY MARK"

The roar of the autocannons prevented him from hearing the whirring of the rear troop doors, but the faint jolt that travelled through his frame told him that Patel had deployed them. He started up an internal count, the numbers rapidly dwindling as the Patel began to boost away from ground in preparation of the drop. In the distance, one of the mercenaries popped out of cover long enough to hold up a man portable missile launcher, but it was too late.

"MARK"

With a sharp series of pings, explosive bolts blasted away at the locks holding him to the gunship, and Shepard fell free, streaking across the sky in a deadly ballistic trajectory. The mercenary fired, a puff of smoke and a brilliant flare of light announcing to the world that a package of explosives was now streaking towards someone, the dull warning tone in his mind telling Shepard that someone was him. In the space of a second, he watched as the missile leaped into away from the ground and into the sky, roaring towards him and rapidly growing in size until he triggered the drop package. With the simultaneous crack of a dozen explosive bolts, the aerodynamic shell he'd been concealed in split into four parts and blasted away from his falling form, decoy emitters in their panels broadcasting a tastier target for the missile targeting systems to lock on to. They worked as advertised, the missile suddenly spiking from it's trajectory to chase one of the spinning shells while his internal altimeter beeped as he hit the preset height.

The world distorted and lurched around Shepard as the micro eezo core of the drop package strapped onto him hummed to electric life, reducing his mass to a fraction of his real weight while nozzle caps shot free and solid fuelled rocket motors ignited with a plume of brilliant azure flames, rapidly slowing down his descent from breakneck velocity to merely unsafe speeds. At twelve meters off the ground, the rockets cut out, and the package jettisoned away, dropping him in free fall to the deck. His two tonne frame struck the centre of the nest with the resounding clang of metal and the groan of buckling hull plate, the impact throwing mercenaries off their feet and sending their weapons flying out of stunned fingers. One tried to rise to his feet, weapon still in hand when a burst of fire from above cut him down, Zaeed and Garrus descending the last few meters on plumes of rocket fire with their rifles at the ready.

The mercenaries were starting to regain their senses, a few scrabbling for cover against the coming firefight, but Shepard was already moving, shock absorbing hydraulic clamps disengaging from his legs while an internal tone indicated his weapons were now active. The autocannon roared to life, cutting down the exposed mercenaries with a rapid fire stream of slugs while Garrus and Zaeed jettisoned their drop packs, sweeping out to secure the nest and adding their own fire to the mix. Mercenary held mass accelerators chattered amidst the roar of his autocannon, their fire registering as brilliant blue sparks of light as the projectiles crumpled against his kinetic barriers.

With a whir of servo motors, Shepard's shoulder mounted grenade launcher swivelled free from it's safe position, the independent sensor suite feeding him data as the weapon swivelled to track a cluster of mercenaries in the open. The supersonic crack of it's payload was punctuated by the roar of the two kilogramme warhead detonating against fragile kinetic barriers and armour plate, instantly pulverizing the mercenaries. Heat waves radiated away from the barrel, distorting his vision slightly, but it didn't stop him from swinging the weapon with mechanical precision to acquire another group of defenders, violently scattering them with another 80mm shell in their midst.

A few others scattered and hunkered behind debris and hulks of the battlefield, seeking shelter, but Zaeed already had a grenade sliding into the underbarrel launcher of his rifle. The launcher thumped hollowly, and the din of the battlefield was temporarily drowned out by the sudden roar of an inferno grenade and the screams of living torches as they stumbled blindly into the open. A series of single rifle shots cracked in the space of a second, and the burning mercenaries collapsed in smoldering heaps. At the sight, two of the Blue Suns threw their weapons and ran for the exits, but a burst of Shepard's autocannon caught them across the back, sending them tumbling off the edge of the frigate.

In the end, their numbers were too few, and too disorientated, to put up much of a resistance against the intruders, their disorganized defences falling apart only seconds after Shepard and his team landed. The ones who still had enough sense to hold onto their guns were rapidly dispatched before they could even scream for aid into their communicators, the only survivor of the gun nest lying crumpled against the bulkhead of a gutted shuttle, trying to staunch the wound in his gut with his hands. Zaeed stepped away from a corpse he had just fired two rounds into, spared the injured mercenary a contemptuous look and levelled his assault rifle at the man when Shepard blocked his line of fire with an upheld autocannon.

"THIS ONE HAS ANSWERS TO GIVE FIRST."

Zaeed's perpetual scowl didn't change, but the mercenary nodded and lowered his rifle, turning back to the other bodies on the battlefield and making doubly sure that they were dead by firing into them. Garrus shook his head from where he stood guard, clearly wanting to say something, but the returning gunship crackled onto the communications circuit and took priority.

"Echo two here, I'm close to bingo fuel, do you need anything while I'm still on station?"

"NO NEED ECHO TWO WE HAVE IT COVERED. RTB BUT BE ON CALL FOR A STRIKE SORTIE IF WE NEED IT." Shepard paused for a moment, and then let the professionalism lapse to ask, "STILL NERVOUS"

Patel snorted over the encrypted channel as the gunship's engines took on a higher pitch, arcing the craft up into the stratosphere and beyond. "Still am sir, but not so much now, thanks for asking. Echo two RTB."

Shepard watched the gunship disappear into the upper atmosphere, certain that it was out of the range of enemy anti-aircraft batteries before he turned back to their temporary prisoner. Garrus was already there, but the mercenary was in a world of his own and paid neither the former Spectre nor turian any attention. "Shit, shit, shit, it won't stop bleeding," the man whimpered as blood oozed thickly from his stomach wound and out between his fingers, only turning his attention to his captors after Shepard had stepped right up to the man. The Suns mercenary rolled a pained eye at Garrus, gasping out an accusation between groans. "A turian, should have known you weren't with the Korlus regulars...aggh, what's the matter, going to have your mech finish me off instead of doing it yourself?

Garrus took a look at Shepard out of the corner of his eye, but the former Spectre didn't respond, at least not openly. Taking the cue, Garrus crouched down by the mercenary, took out his sidearm and playing it's sights over the man's head. "I don't know," he mused with an openly wondering tone, splitting his attention between the man and the heavy pistol, "that would be a little quick for the likes of you, don't you think? Why waste a bullet when we could just leave you here, with your dead friends and no radio while you look for a nice place to bleed out." He flicked a few mandibles in morbid amusement as the mercenary paled at the vigilante's description. "It'd take maybe, two, three hours with a wound like that, and I'm no expert in human biology, but I hear having your guts torn up like that really hurts, doesn't they?" He removed one of his gloves, exposing the sharp talon-like fingers that were unique to his race, and splayed them in front of the ashen faced mercenary, "maybe I should take poke inside just to make sure that it does and learn something about how humans work on the inside, you don't mind do you? Of course, if you'd rather not, I have a nice dose of medigel here just taking up space in my backpack that might be going for the price of some good intel."

"Screw your good cop act turian, gaah, I know how this works," the mercenary tried to spit at Garrus's face, but the bloody spittle fell far short of it's target and dribbled down his boots, "you'll just leave me to die once you've gotten what you want."

The mandibles on Garrus face flared in disappointment, but Shepard put an autocannon arm between them before the vigilante could make good on his promise. With the gun sheathes on the other arm, he clamped down on the man's chest, easily lifting the struggling mercenary well above his feet in one single motion.

"DEATH COMES IN MANY FORMS QUICKLY SOMETIMES SLOWLY OFTEN PAINFULLY" the ex-spectre rumbled in harsh electronic tones, slowly increasing the pressure of his gun sheathes until the hardened chest plate creaked and groaned under his grip, "RARELY DEATH ARRIVES AFTER A LONG AND FULFILLING LIFE. WHICH ONE WILL BE YOURS"

With a whir of servos, he swung the man over the edge of the gun nest, turning his arm to let the mercenary watch the long fall to the debris littered field below. A microsecond electric impulse loosened the grip in his gun sheathes long enough for the man to feel a moment of free fall before he snapped them close over the man again, bringing his face close enough to the sensor pod that was Shepard's head, illuminating the frightened man's visage with the red glow of his optics.

"CHOOSE WISELY"


"Medical Log #1053, Day 470, it seems that we're approaching the final stages of the project goals, thought goddess knows only what that is. Okeer definitely doesn't want to remove the genophage markers, but he hasn't confided in me what he intends from all our efforts so far. Still, he seems to be satisfied with our last results. Subject 47 of batch 112 is the biggest one we've grown so far despite having a much smaller storage hump to body mass ratio compared to previous subjects, and had to be fitted with specially crafted armour. I hope this will be the one he's looking for, Okeer hasn't exactly been the most stable of lab masters, and has been getting more erratic in his rejections of late. He had me flush the entirety of batch 110 not an hour ago, including nearly two hundred samples that were not yet viable and had to be disposed of, no reasons given. Whatever he's looking for, I hope it's worth this waste of life.

Jedore on the other hand, has become increasingly agitated over the quality of Okeer's viable rejects, though for what reason, I cannot say. They are strong, healthy, and with the mnemonic imprints, capable of both walking and fighting with weapons or barehanded within seconds of decanting. They aren't fully capable of developed speech or psychologically stable at that stage, but that should pass within a week of decanting and familiarization of their surroundings and command structures, providing they live that long. I overheard from one of Jedore's troops say that they're using them as mobile target practice. It's not my place to wonder what is viable training for soldiers, but if that is what Jedore is using them for, I can't imagine why she's upset about it. Her resources have been invaluable in the running of this project, but I'm starting to wonder if it isn't a better idea to leave sooner or later before she-"

An explosion rocked the entire chamber, knocking Rana Thanoptis to the ground and sending the recording device skittering out of her hand where it dipped into one of the numerous the openings on the floor grates and vanished. The Asari cracked her forehead on the ground, and she remained stunned for a moment before she blinked and picked herself up, wondering if the mercenaries were firing one of the anti-orbital guns they had commandeered from the ship hulks that surrounded the lab. Okeer wouldn't like it if that were the case, the last time it had happened, one of the cloning tanks had developed a defect and the krogan doctor had flown into a rage that had nearly broken her neck. The second thought came on the heels of an alert on one of her security feeds, and the visuals on it was enough to leave her feeling weak in the knees.

The mech, she paid no attention, the human in dirty yellow armour, she didn't recognize, but the turian in cobalt blue tactical armour skirting around the burning hulk of a large fuel tank was a part of a nightmare she didn't ever want to encounter again. She could see no sign of the human commander the turian had served under back on Virmire, and she'd be more than shocked if the dead human was here on Korlus, but she remembered very well that the turian had been against letting her leave the facility alive for her role there. Without thinking about it, her fingers danced on the communications system, calling up the mercenaries to warn them of the coming danger before she stopped them in their tracks, the Blue Suns uncalled.

No, wait, she hadn't done anything wrong, this wasn't Virmire, she wasn't working for Saren while his Reaper overlord plotted the extinction of the galaxy, she wasn't wasting the opportunity that Shepard had given her that fateful day. She was working for Okeer, looking for something to help the Krogan race prosper again on the galactic stage, at least that's what she believed she was doing. She wasn't so sure about Jedore, but her money had made all of this possible. Still... even if she hadn't done anything, she could only imagine only one reason why the turian would come here, grim as death as he butchered his way through Jedore's troops. Rana didn't want to be around when he finally achieved his objective, not unless she wanted to stay for the nuclear fire she knew was coming. It had been the human who'd set off the bomb, but she wasn't going to stick around to see if that lesson hadn't been passed on to his subordinates.

But the shuttle was on the other side of the stripped out dreadnought that their lab was situated in, and the interlopers were between her and the fastest way out of the area. The thought of running right now and praying to the goddess that she would make it alive crossed her mind and was rejected just as quickly. Maybe she could avoid their notice and those of the mercenaries, she didn't think they would appreciate the thought of her running, maybe they wouldn't spot her in the middle of the battle, maybe they would see her first- and shoot her anyway, she wasn't going to take that chance. But if she stayed and they came here, the turian might shoot her like he had wanted to two years ago... unless she could make herself useful, but how?

Rana tapped a control on her surveillance system, disabling the network feeds to the Blue Suns, but she chewed her lips as the system continued to stream data to her, knowing it wouldn't be enough. The turian and his allies were methodically progressing through the derelict, only marginally slowing down when they ran into Jedore's entrenched troops and accelerating again once all that was left was smoke and twisted bodies seconds later. A handful of the rejected tank bred krogan ambushed them in the defunct hydroponics bay, bellowing imprinted war cries as they pounded across the walkways, firing their shotguns with a natural fluidity that belied their day old age and practical inexperience. But the mech that was with the turian made short work of them, blasting those in the distance into bloody chunks with a shoulder mounted weapon she didn't recognize, while one that came too close was swiftly knocked onto it's back with a broad sweep of a mechanical arm and had it's chest crushed into jelly by an armoured foot larger than it's head. Rana watched the carnage with mounting worry and started to wring her hands as they came steadily closer to her lab with no idea on how to prove her use presenting itself. When her eyes lighted on the security feed on the dreadnoughts former galley, an idea rapidly formed in her head, fingers quickly running down the auxiliary controls she would need to implement it. They had to be heading towards Okeer and the only open path took them through a lot of Jedore's troops, but there was power still running through a few of the dreadnoughts base systems.

"Um, ah, hello," she nervously spoke into the intercom system, making doubly sure that no one was in the room she was calling to in case she tipped off Jedore's troops to what she was doing, "can you hear me?"

The turian reacted almost instantly by whirling to the sound of her voice, but the mech surprised her by shifting it's sensor pod directly to the camera feed before he had finished turning, "WHO IS THIS" it's flat electronic voice booming in the confined spaces of the galley. Rana nearly fell backwards in surprise, eyes widening as the mech she had dismissed earlier stomped over to the hidden security camera and raised the barrel of it's weapon arm right into the lens.

"Wait wait wait, I'm not with the mercenaries, please don't shoot the camera," she nearly shrieked tearfully at the intercom, letting out a relieved breath when the mech stopped from destroying her only hope. Questions swam in and out of her head as the tatters of her composure began to reform, but the researcher couldn't pay them any heed as she looked at the machine, the only overriding thought being whether she was making a horrible mistake. "I just work here, but I don't want to," because he was here she didn't add, "you're here for Okeer right, I can open up a short cut to his lab, it comes through my office, and you can avoid most of the Blue Suns this way."

The turian exchanged a look with the mech's sensor pod, extending a single doubtful mandible as he gestured with his rifle and Rana held her breath as she found herself staring at those unnerving optics again.

"PROVIDE A REASON TO TRUST YOU"

The researcher bit her lip, trying to come up with a believable excuse without condemning herself in the process, the words spilling out of her mouth as they came to her, "I want to leave, but there's too much fighting going on between the krogans, Jedore's mercenaries and you. If I try to make a break for it now, I won't be able to make it out alive without running into her mercenaries, but if you come through the short cuts, I'll know at least the way behind you is clear." She hated admitting even as much as that, there was a short cut, and it would come through her office, but she didn't dare make up a lie in case they caught her in it. "Here, I'll open up the maintenance access in the galley, you should be able to bypass most of her troops through it."

At the touch of the controls, one of the sealed doors in the room flickered to life and squealed open on rusted guide rails, making Rana wince at how loud it sounded. The turian and his human companion watched the the doors open, but the mech didn't turn away from the camera, making her bite her lips in nervousness. "It's a safe passage," she went on a little unsteadily, unsure whether she was trying to convince the mech, the turian, or herself, "there's no one in those hallways, and only a few of the mercenaries on the other side. You should be able to make it through quickly before anyone notices anything wrong."

Abruptly, the visuals on her monitor flickered, going dark momentarily and sending her into a panic before they came back online, showing her the glowing red optics of the mech on every single display.

"FOUND YOU"

Rana took an unconscious step backwards as the harsh electronic voice rumbled from every speaker, nearly falling over as she stumbled back over a chair in her shock at what she was seeing. "What-what do you mean you found me, the passageway is safe, I promise, you can use it to get here much quicker than if you took the direct route. I just want to get out of here alive."

"NO DEAL"

With those parting words, the video feeds went dark and the holographic haptic interface faded, locking her out no matter how desperately she tried to reactivate them. Completely panicking now, she darted for the door and hoped that the goddess would protect her, but neither the one leading deeper into Okeer's chambers nor the one exiting to the exterior of the defunct dreadnought responded to her commands, warning red symbols telling her that she was locked in her office. She didn't stop and she didn't slow down, trying to find some means of salvation. The rejection of her offer couldn't have meant anything but the one thing she feared most, and oh goddess, they were coming here. She could hear the gunfire and screaming. The blue glow of biotics enveloped her, her weak command of the fields carelessly sweeping the entirety of her office's furnishings against the locked door in an attempt to barricade it.

The next few seconds were spent wringing her hands in worry as the gunfire rose to a crescendo pitch, when an even more powerful explosion rocked the chamber so badly it knocked her off her feet and brought her makeshift barricade tumbling down. She scrambled to her feet only in time to watch the door slide open and admit a thick cloud of acrid smoke that stung her eyes. Crimson light shown through the wispy smoke coalescing into the glowing optics of the mech as it stomped past, levelling it's weapon at her the moment it cleared the portal. Rana scrambled backwards on her hands and legs, eyes widening in horror as the mech stepped inexorably closer towards her, carelessly crushing a fallen desk light into sparking splinters underfoot. More shapes pierced through the smoke clouds, forming into the turian and human who had accompanied the mech, both of them levelling their weapons at her without a word. The doctor's retreat was stopped by the wall of her office, hands and legs continuing to push against the floor in a futile attempt to push herself through the hardened bulkhead. A frightened whimper escaped her lips as the war machine took another step closer, the ominous black barrel of it's weapon arm filling her entire sight.

"WE MEET AGAIN DOCTOR RANA"

"Again, wh-wh-what do you mean again?" Rana cast her eyes wildly about, both grateful that she wasn't dead trying yet and utterly confused as to what the machine was talking about. Wild thoughts skittered across her consciousness, one of the more poignant ones being whether she had finally cracked and was imagining her one sided conversation with a war machine. "I've never seen you before today."

"Oh, but you have seen me before, haven't you doctor? On a balmy planet with plenty of sun, surf, a few explosions and krogans, a nice place to have a holiday," the turian chimed in with a knowing tone. The doctor nodded silently, too focused on the barrels of their guns to even think of denying or lying at his description of Virmire, and the turian chuckled in grim amusement. "I've still got it, but it looks like you still need to work on your charm if you want to cure people of their amnesia, eh Shepard?"

The scarred human snorted but the mech turned it's sensor pod to the turian, red glowing optics flickering as it's harsh electronic voice echoed in the room, "VERY FUNNY GARRUS MAYBE YOU WOULD LIKE TO DO THE TALKING NEXT TIME"

Garrus raised a taloned hand in a gesture of denial, "You sure about this Shepard, I've got all the charm I need, but you definitely need the practice if you're going to want a shot at the ladies." He shrugged non-committally, but the flare of his mandibles were filled with mirth and the human beside him dispensed with subtlety, barking a coarse laugh at the joke. Afraid, confused, befuddled and worn out, Rana's brain tried to process everything that was happening, but it was too much to focus and she carelessly stammered out the only coherent thought she could make-

"Shepard? But he's dead!"

- before she could strangle it. Machine and turian turned back towards her, their weapons still facing in her direction, but no longer directly pointed at her with the deadly readiness they had a moment before. With a hiss of servos, the war machine bent down towards her, armoured feet scraping against rusted bulkhead as it mimicked a poor equivalent of a kneeling posture. Even then, it towered over her, the red glow of it's sensor lights eerily unchanging as she heard the faint click of of its optics focusing and refocusing.

"I GOT BETTER" there was a faint pause as the sensor pod bobbed and whirred on it's mechanical neck, almost as if it were cocking it's head to the side in a way she was certain was mechanically impossible, "PARTIALLY."

Rana could only stare at the machine in utter bewilderment, almost certain that she was quickly losing her grip on reality despite the acrid smoke starting to sting at her eyes. Deep down however, under the logical mind she had cultivated for centuries, an instinctive fear kept her from dismissing the near hallucination, focused on the weapons that didn't go away despite the bantering tone the turian and machine had taken with her.

"NOW TELL ME DOCTOR RANA WHY YOU ARE HERE. NO DO NOT BOTHER I CAN ALREADY GUESS WHY. PERSUADE ME INSTEAD WHY LETTING YOU GO ON VIRMIRE WAS NOT A MISTAKE"

It leaned closer, almost touching her face with it's sensor pod.

"TELL ME... ABOUT OKEER."

Before she could say a word, the doors to the inner labs hissed open, "it's about time you got here," Okeer rumbled impatiently as he stood outlined against the open door, "the batteries on these tanks will not last forever while you ply my assistant with your questions"

Glad that the guns were no longer pointed her way, Rana began to edge away from her corner in the office, but froze as the sensor pod turned in her direction with a quiet hum of electric motors. There was a brief hesitation before it flicked at the exit with it's weapon arm, the gesture clear enough to the doctor that she needed no other encouragement and bolted out the door. She still believed that her work was for the betterment of all, but she wasn't going to contest it against people far better armed than her.

Putting the doctor out of his mind once she had vanished through the door, Shepard turned back towards the hulking krogan, ignoring the faintly disappointed look on Garrus's face as he did so.

"YOU ARE OKEER" It was an educated guess, and one that proved right when the krogan snorted in acknowledgement. Shepard had seen a great deal of krogan in a very short period of time during his career, but Okeer was unlike any he had seen before in that their target appeared to be completely unarmed, though only of the artificial sort. Even in his artificial body, the commander remained a respectful distance away from the krogan's eight hundred kilogramme frame. "AND YOU APPEAR TO BE EXPECTING US"

"Of course," Okeer sneered, "your approach was not so silent that I would miss noticing you wasting time by playing with those idiotic mercs." The warlord stalked into his laboratory, easily navigating the paraphernalia within to stop in front of a glass faced pod, another krogan held in cryogenic stasis within. "I know why you are here, formerly deceased Shepard, you may even claim to want to help, but it is not a sign of gentle change that you bring with you." He turned back, shooting a contemptuous look at the commander.

"Surprised? Such tales after your supposed death, a machine claiming the name of a dead SPECTRE, a mere human casting off your fragile identity for a shell of cold steel. Your true identity is the concern of the outsider, but the name you claim should be known by all krogan for your exploits on Virmire." He pointed a finger at Shepard, smiling a mirthless grin that was all teeth, "Such a tale it is, Saren the traitor threatens to undo the gentle genocide of the turians and salarians with his clones. But, before he can unleash his endless warriors, in rides Shepard, securing the future of the genophage and his victory with nuclear fire." Okeer smacked a balled up fist into his palm, "I like that part. It has weight."

"ALL FIFTY MEGATONS OF IT" Shepard delivered deadpan, remembering the fireball that had consumed his executive officer and friend all too well, and that it was him who had made the decision to consign the earnest biotic to an early incineration, mission priorities be damned. But the warlord didn't need to know that, and he had no regrets about what he'd done to end the threat Saren was preparing to unleash on the galaxy. He watched Okeer closely, in case the krogan wanted to take his revenge, but the warlord barked a cynical laugh.

"Hah, you know krogan wit, I approve. Virmire was the mistake of the outsider, one these mercenaries have also made, a pale horde of meaningless numbers that makes a mockery of the true krogan ideal. The genophage has made our species weak, the only quality the fools on Tuchanka seek being the ability to survive the genophage, every survivor branded as precious. It has produced more coddling than your collective human teats," the warlord waved a hand at the stasis tank and it's lone occupant, "but this perfect soldier, this template, will reverse the decay that is falling on our species. With it, I will inflict upon the genophage the greatest insult any enemy may suffer; to be ignored."

"YOU DO NOT WANT AN ARMY"

"Contrary to what others claim, the genophage does not make our species strong, it only filters out the ability to survive it. I say let a thousand die in a clutch, we will defeat the genophage by climbing atop our dead. That is the Krogan way," turning around to the large window set into one side of the lab wall, he gestured at the row of similar stasis tanks, "My creation is perfection, and will return the krogan to their true path when he is unleashed, each pure krogan reaching higher by standing on our dead."

"AND YOUR REJECTS"

The warlord waved a dismissive hand, as if it were no more than an annoyance, "I gave the mercenary leader my rejects to dispose of as she saw fit."

Garrus stared incredulously, "you gave her your failures to kill?" he demanded accusingly of the warlord. Okeer snorted disdainfully at the vigilante's question, ramming his clenched fist against the glass window hard enough that cracks splintered down it's length. "I have failed no one. My rejects are exactly what she has asked for, strong, healthy warriors for her army, and useless to me. She simply lacks the ability to command their respect. But now she grows impatient."

He turned back towards Shepard. "It is time for you to take me out of here."

"THIS IS NOT A COURIER SERVICE WARLORD" Shepard's words were met with open agreement from Garrus, the turian casting another disgusted look out the window at the row of cloning tanks. "Not quite how I'd have phrased it, but he's correct. Your personal concerns aren't any of our business Okeer, we're only here because of your link to the Collectors."

If the warlord was disappointed, he didn't show, only lifting his chin in thoughtful silence for a moment. "I see. Yes, Collector attacks have been increasing haven't they? Such a threat would be sufficient to summon even the formerly deceased SPECTRE from the void, would it not? Perhaps a deal can be struck to secure passage."

Before anyone could say anything further, the doors leading away from the lab slammed shut, overhead vents hissing with plumes of grey smoke that began to descend to the floor spaces. An biohazard alarm began it's singular wail of warning, and Okeer scowled in anger, quickly turning back to the controls of the stasis pod. A moment later, an intercom crackled with a radio intercept, a woman's voice coming through tinnily. "I'm calling a blank slate on this project, gas the mercenaries and start over from Okeer's data, flush the tanks."

"She's that weak willed? She'll destroy my legacy with a damned valve."

Shepard stomped over to the window, but Zaeed was there before him, bringing his rifle to bear on the glass, firing a burst at the point where Okeer had pounded his fist into. Sparks flew everywhere as the slugs flattened themselves against the window, but the cracked glass remained stubbornly intact. "Tough sonofabitch, it's going to take some serious fire to- damn!"

Abruptly, the mercenary drew back, gesturing through the window with the barrel of his weapon. Shepard followed his line of sight down to a woman in the Blue Suns armour who was pacing up and down by the rows of stasis tanks, hand on her earpiece as she continued to bark orders at what remained of her troops. "That's Jedore, I know that bitch, should have recognized the voice. Good head for numbers but a godawful pissant at command with a goddamn ego to boot, I'm surprised her men haven't put a bullet in her head yet."

"I'm sure it's a fascinating time to hear about the kind of enemies we're facing Shepard, but I'm also sure that descending cloud of gas isn't a party decoration either," Garrus called out while attempting to work the door controls with his omni-tool. The door continued to stubbornly remain shut, and Garrus gave it a frustrated kick "Door controls here are fried, we aren't going to open it from this end"

"Shepard!" Abruptly, Okeer turned away from work on the console, fixing a hard look at the commander. "You want my knowledge on the Collectors?" He tapped a button on the console, and a door leading deeper into the lab slid open. "Then stop her, she'll try to access the contaminants in the main tank. I will give you everything I can. My legacy must not suffer this insult. Jedore will be with the rejected tanks, kill her. I will-" for a moment, Shepard thought the warlord hesitated, but he continued without missing a beat "-stay and do what needs to be done."

Shepard matched stares with the warlord for what seemed like minutes but could only be seconds when he finally bobbed his sensor pod. Whether Okeer was making his offer in good faith or not, Jedore was the immediate threat, and she would have to be dealt with first. He turned to the door Okeer had opened, only pausing long enough to swivel the grenade launcher back on the warlord, the independent optics functioning as a third eye.

"THIS HAD BETTER NOT BE A TRICK"


It was getting difficult to breathe in the increasingly dense atmosphere, and Okeer could feel his lungs burning with the toxins that the spineless Jedore was pumping into the testing chambers. The scales of his head plate were bubbling from where the corrosive gases ate away at them, but the warlord ignored the poison with the contempt borne of a thousand years of war. His creation, his legacy, would not suffer the final insult the human intended, and if it cost him his life to ensure it's primacy, then it would be a worthy price. He was a pure krogan, and would not shrink away from the true path of all krogan like some weak willed human.

Explosions rumbled from the cloning area beneath the lab, the vibrations travelling up through his feet strong enough to set the milky fluids in the stasis pod swirling. For the seventh time, Okeer eyed his legacy, begrudging only the knowledge that he would not live to see it fulfil it's purpose. The humans would take his legacy, but unlike the rest of the krogan, he had learned more than the surface of the formerly deceased Shepard; it would not be consigned to an ignominious fate like the mercenary leader intended. This Shepard was not one of the weaklings who polluted the galaxy with their pathetic softness, he would see his legacy as a tool and forge it for his own purpose. Okeer cared little whether his perfect krogan would be turned against the Collectors or the entire galaxy, where the SPECTRE went, corpses followed, and his legacy would be at the forefront, teaching the galaxy to fear not the krogan horde, but a lance which no genophage or nuclear fire could be used against.

He coughed bloody spittle, his secondary lungs already starting to collapse from the toxins invading them, and he finalized the last of his preparations by memory and touch alone, sealing off the last pumps and placing the unit in isolation, his eyes completely scarred over. With a claw, he stabbed down on a control, beginning a recording sequence. The SPECTRE knew of krogan ways, but not what it was to be a krogan, he would not understand without the necessary words to convey his message. A bloody grin made it's way up his lips as he began to speak. The Collectors had made his legacy possible with their tech, long consumed in the creation of this pure krogan, and now it would be used to destroy them.

Because even krogan understood irony.


SAICOM Headquarters, Artemis Tau cluster

Director Osbourne looked through the viewing screen of his office, watching the interplay of solar winds throw the atmosphere of Terrance II out in light second long ribbons of superheated stellar gases that flowed past the space station. In another hundred thousand years, a mere blink of the eye in galactic time frames, the gas giant would be reduced to nothing more than a cinder world, descending into the fiery depths of it's solar parent. Terrance prime would not last forever too, the red giant was already spending the last of it's reserves of hydrogen fuel, two, perhaps three heartbeats of the galaxy away before it too vanished from the cosmos, collapsing in on itself for one final death spasm, seeding the galaxy with new stellar material for stars to be born again. The intelligence chief never tired of the sight, it served as a reminder of humanity's own fragile position in the galaxy, and those of the Council races who believed infinity would forever stretch out before them. If you did not stay on your toes, the next generation would feed on your corpse and crown themselves masters of the galaxy.

Taking the lit cigar from his mouth, he stabbed it down on a paper record sitting in his ashtray, letting the document smolder until it blackened and curled, flames licking down the thick scrawl of words that made the report on the most recent Citadel Council happenings. Paper was a primitive throwback to a time before the Alliance existed, before humanity went to the stars, but he had made sure SAICOM never gave him electronic records or datapads whenever the data was classed as level black, a sensible precaution for the director of the Alliance's intelligence branch. Surveillance and electronic tapping systems had advanced exponentially since the days of primitive listening devices embedded in walls and limited spectrum visual recorders. With the SAINTS, stripping even a secured datapad on a remote world of every last byte was childs play so long as it was once connected to any extranet, no matter how many barriers of separation lay in between. It was... impractical to assume the older races didn't have something better no matter how much they railed against artificial intelligences.

He was aware of the door sliding open before it parted wide enough to admit his adjutant with a datapad clutched nervously in one hand, he could tell from the twitch in the eyebrow reflecting off the viewing screen. The man remained quiet after stepping into the office, while he remained fixed on the sight being transmitted through the viewing screen, letting the seconds play out as Terrance II's atmosphere continued to bleed into the cosmos. "Do let me guess Parker," he began, still transfixed on the external view while his voice took on a more cultured tone, "more distressing news in the Terminus systems; the Blue Suns have managed to get their hands on that Prothean device the Screwball picked up, Saleon's intel's has come through at last and there's really a batarian terrorist plot to hit one of the Alliance Javelin missile bases in Sigurd's Cradle."

The adjutant didn't nod, or give any other sign that the director was right in his statements, it was a regular enough ritual they observed each time Parker came in unannounced. Instead of just leaving the datapad on his desk with the confirmations of the latest developments, the adjutant cleared his throat and spoke two words. "Korlus, sir"

Osbourne raised an eyebrow at the announcement. Korlus had only one thing of interest on that miserable scrap planet, and it wasn't the unprocessed drive cores being stripped out by various groups for scraps of eezo and anti-proton fuel, or even the capital grade weapons that everyone swore they permanently disabled before scuttling their ships, but kept coming out of the planet reasonably functional. The SAINTS had projected only two possible outcomes of that particular interest point, and only one of them held any real possibility of piquing SAICOM interests after the conclusion. "So our krogan warlord has finally finished his pet project and is ready to decant it is it? What does our friend have to say of the other troubles that surround the issue?" He asked in the tone of a man expecting the wizard to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

"The Revenant made a call sir, the project is gone with it and Okeer's very messily dead along with most of his guard detail. Cleanup says it looks like chemical gassing, just for him though, probably deliberate."

"Heaven forbid that there would be an accidental chemical gassing," the director interjected, mentally tracing the trajectory of a ribbon of stellar gas as a solar flare tickled the surface of Terrance II. "Perhaps it would be a good time to retire our blue friend, she does have a knack of attracting trouble at the last moment, or perhaps not. Such a rare talent would be interesting to hold on retainer for when it is most needed. Still, a 'perfect' krogan specimen, made with cloning technology the likes the galaxy does not have save for the Collectors, and they certainly are not selling theirs in the thieves market on Omega, what do you imagine they would do with Okeer's present Parker?"

Parker frowned for a few seconds in thought and choosing his words carefully after a moment of internal deliberation. "Study it I suspect sir, if Cerberus can reverse engineer the technology, they would gain quite the advantage on the rest of the galaxy in the cloning field."

"Yes, that is most certainly what Cerberus would do, but you misunderstand the question Parker." At last turning back to his adjutant, Osbourne took the proffered datapad, skimming through the intelligence data with a practised eye, making mental annotations whenever he found something lacking in the report, "I did not ask what Cerberus would do with the technology and specimen, but rather, what the Revenant would do with it."

The director did give his adjutant credit, the man was studious, hardworking and sufficiently clever enough to make it quite the ways in the sometimes unpredictable career structure of SAICOM, but he was insufficiently gifted at picking out the patterns, which was why there was a confused expression on his face. "Sir? I'm not sure I follow what you're saying. The Revenant is just a machine, it can't do anything Cerberus doesn't want it to do."

"A machine is what the earlier analysis indicated Parker," the director clasped his hands behind him, puffing out a small cloud of smoke as he chewed on the cigar, "and I am inclined to believe that the analysis was wrong. Garrus Valkarian may have tiresome notions of virtue, but the turian did not become a detective with idealism alone, his kind are notoriously difficult to trick into the wrong conclusions. A mere machine would be incapable of convincing him to work under Cerberus auspices, and the man it claims to be would not willingly do so either of his own free will."

"More importantly of course, is the intelligence we have obtained from our deep space sweeps on that rather peculiar detonation in the Horse Head nebula two months ago. I do admit, it was only luck that one of our scouts were in the area to take a look before some very familiar ships showed up to remove the rest of the evidence. The scout escaped undetected, and I am informed that the crew of that vessel are now taking a very long vacation in the Attican Traverse pretending to be Salarians. The SAINTS completed their data mining of what was salvaged earlier today, and provided most tantalizing clues on advanced cybernetic transplants and referrals to a 'Project Lazarus'. A project to bring back the dead, Parker. Not any dead person mind you, but one very specific dead man, even if they did do their best to hide the details."

"Sir, shouldn't we inform Alliance command then, that it's him?" Parker, made as if to move, but the director halted the adjutant in his tracks with a single arched eyebrow.

"Inform Alliance command? On a simple suspicion and fragments of data? I think not Parker, it is better for them to still think what they are seeing is a bound AI serving Cerberus than their formerly golden boy now marching to a different tune. Do you know why this is the case?"

"It would play havoc with morale sir," Parker replied after a moment of thought, "finding out that he's working with Cerberus, no matter the circumstances, would do a lot of damage both in and outside of the Alliance military. Shepard is still respected by most of the armed branches."

"Except for those in high command, because he saw what they didn't want to see," Osbourne corrected with a brief nod of his head, "but that all changes if they make contact before we are ready for the galaxy at large to find out the truth, so we will not let that happen. They already know that the Revenant is working in the Terminus systems, but if he really is Shepard, then his role in the colonist ab

ductions is clear, much like ours, rather than the scenario constructed by the admirals in the Alliance Navy. Anderson already suspects, and so does the Williams woman I imagine, but the old warhorse has discretely put a request through to me that we make certain, and I agreed."

"While we confirm this, it would be best that he be left unhindered and unaware of the Alliance wetwork teams. They have a lot of good men in them, a couple of N ranked marines including that William's woman, so they'll have more personal insight into how he'd think than we do, but SAICOM holds the lions share of intelligence assets in the Terminus systems Parker, not the Alliance navy and certainly not the STG with the entire sector so far from any Salarian interests, and that means they will not find the Revenant so long as it is not in our interests to let them find him."

Parker nodded without saying a word, understanding what it was the director wanted without needing it spelled out, and not for the first time. Turning to leave, he paused for a moment, and then asked one more question. "What about the batarians in Sigurd's Cradle sir?"

"The Iron Fists plan to take one of our Javelin missile bases, with a little stiffening by Batarian Hegemony SOG units, and burn the Alliance colony of Franklin to the ground? Find the links, identify the names and places, gather evidence, but beyond that-" the director turned back to the viewing screens, watching the plumes of stellar material as he puffed away in silence before quietly answering, "-let it happen."

"Sir?"

Osbourne made a long pull on his cigar, burning it down to the stub before grinding it out on the ashtray on his desk.

"It is past time we had another butcher of Torfan."


CODEX ENTRY: SAICOM

Systems Alliance Intelligence Command (SAICOM) is the foreign military intelligence directorate of the Systems Alliance Military. It is the largest human led foreign intelligence agency in Alliance space, employing nearly eight times as many active agents in alien territories as the combined intelligence services of Earth nations. The directorate also commands a small fleet of anonymous but powerful frigates and cruisers used for deep reconnaissance and raids in contested regions where the Systems Alliance cannot afford to be publicly connected.

History

SAICOM was originally created in 2154 under an Alliance initiative as the Systems Intelligence Service (SIS) branch to establish an independent intelligence service to search the universe for extraterrestrial life, particularly those that had left the ruins on Mars and formulate intelligence gathering protocols for dealing with them. It was given the task of handling all military intelligence, particularly reconnaissance data from forward explorer fleets and probes. This changed during the First Contact War, when Alliance Naval command was still uncertain of the scope of the threat that was invading Shanxi prime. The SIS proved pivotal in the war by spearheading the effort towards the construction and launching of deep space probes into turian space, armed with 20 kiloton self destruct packages. While no such probe has ever been determined to have been captured, or it's booby trap triggered, the intelligence provided by SIS probes proved invaluable in directing Alliance Naval responses to the invasion of the Shanxi colony, resulting in humanity's first victory against the Turian Hierarchy.

Following the council brokered peace between Humanity and the Turians, the SIS was deemed to be the organization with the most front line experience in extraterrestrial reconnaissance but lacked the necessary authorization and organizational ranking to exploit it to the fullest. Following a sealed session in the Alliance Parliament, the SIS was upgraded to a fully independent command branch, the Systems Alliance Intelligence Command, and it's mission parameters altered to a full time intelligence service. This proved to be a practical decision as growing tensions between the Batarian Hegemony and the Systems Alliance over colonization rights soon spiralled into a number of Batarian sponsored pirate raids on Alliance worlds. SAICOM operatives again lead the way by locating the nexus point of the privateers on Torfan after the attack on the colony of Mindor, identifying weak points and sabotaging planetary defence grids in anticipation of the Alliance reprisals that eliminated the slavers wholesale.

Currently, SAICOM operates intelligence assets all over Alliance space, along with SIGINT (signal intelligence) listening posts in the Terminus systems and the Attican Traverse. While independent human colonies in the the Terminus and Traverse are not part of the Alliance, and not officially protected by the Alliance navy, SAICOM has been known to insert deep cover agents in these frontier worlds as sleepers and trigger men in the event of a hostile attack.

Outside of the Alliance military, SAICOM is not particularly well known by the public, with various conspiracy theories and unexplained phenomena often attributed to SAICOM operations. Within the military however, SAICOM is well known for it's independence from the Alliance government, and operates as an independent body outside of direct intervention by most of the civilian body. While technically a part of the Alliance Navy, SAICOM operatives are assigned official military ranks, the organization remains largely independent of the military branches control with the tacit understanding that neither party is to interfere with the other and only answers directly to the Systems Alliance president. Rumours speculate that the terrorist organization, Cerberus, originally stemmed from one of SAICOM's operations before going rogue, a charge that the directorate neither confirms nor denies.

Activities

While sometimes considered the poorer cousin of the Salarian STG intelligence services, SAICOM operatives are considerably well trained and motivated, and can be found deployed in a significant array of roles including those normally covered by Alliance Navy recon and intelligence units. SAICOM gathers Alien Intelligence (ALINT) through military attaches and foreign agents. It also maintains a significant network of signal intelligence, imagery reconnaissance, Mass Relay tagging and deep space probe capabilities. The SAICOM Space Reconnaissance division operates more than 15,000 stealth signal intelligence probes and stations and is one of the few branches of the Systems Alliance authorized to covertly build and maintain magnitude 5 artificial intelligences, the Signals Analysis INTelligent Systems (SAINTS) network, to process the data.

As a near-independent organization, SAICOM is not as restricted by Alliance policies as more publicly known organizations, and recruits extensively from all sentient races, providing that their loyalty can be guaranteed. The risks of a species wide recruitment policy are considered an acceptable trade off for SAICOM to place it's agents in a significant number of territories and zones that would be otherwise barred to human entry. It is not unusual for contested planets near the borders belonging to the Alliance's enemies to have insurrectionists armed with hidden caches of weapons or suddenly suffer from unexplained blackouts as planetary power grids go offline.

SAICOM detachments to the Terminus systems are frequently given broad mission parameters and provided significant leeway to achieving their goals. While many of SAICOM actions that take place in the Terminus systems are considered illegal by Council conventions and Alliance rules, the chaotic nature of the the Terminus and conflicting power struggles among the independent nations there mean that any action that does come to light is rarely attributed to the responsible party, and easily denied.

Counter-Intelligence (COINTEL) operations are another part of SAICOM responsibilities. The directorate possesses considerable leeway in the carrying out of it's duties in the course of investigating Alliance civil and military branches for possible infiltration by foreign intelligence agents as well as rogue elements. Of particular note is SAICOM authority to detain indefinitely any officer who is deemed a security risk to the Systems Alliance, especially those suspected of being Cerberus agents. While this authority is absolute, SAICOM doctrines only allow for it's use sparingly as the arrest and detainment of suspects compromises agents on site. However when it is employed, the incident rarely leaves a positive impression among the remaining Alliance military personal.

The Black Fleet

SAICOM also operates a small fleet of next generation frigates and cruisers, popularly known among SAICOM operatives as the Black Fleet, as it's rapid response strike team for deployment in areas where the Alliance Navy cannot be seen to be embroiled in. The ships are thoroughly anonymized before they leave the shipyard and every crew member that signs on is given new identities by the Systems Alliance. Tactical design doctrine for the Black Fleet deployment emphasizes high speed engagement over kinetic barriers or offensive power, and vessels are rarely built above cruiser class. Ships designed for SAICOM Black Fleet use are poorly armoured for their class, but nearly twice as manoeuvrable as their more conventionally built cousins. To offset their lack of heavy weapons, Black Ships are commonly loaded with experimental anti-matter munitions, a gross breach of Citadel regulations against weapons of mass destruction, but their utility in ship to ship combat and orbital bombardment is unparalleled.

When deployed in a hostile territory, Black Fleet operational doctrines are to immediately silence any and all outgoing communications systems, destroying communication relays and courier ships with precision strikes and securing the mass relay before proceeding to their target. Witnesses to Black Fleet deployment on site are often silenced with brutal efficiency, and their actions are often attributed to pirates, a claim easily believed as Black Fleet captains frequently use pirate markings and signature masks on their ships to further obscure their identity.

To date, no Black ship has been successfully identified or captured by hostile forces. SAICOM chiefs consider this to be due to the highly qualified crews and next generation technologies that the ships are constructed with, but the ship captains are well aware that all Black Ships are designed to hold significantly greater amounts of antiproton fuel than their designed mission parameters require, and that on their command, can have it vented into the ship spaces immediately.

SAINTS

SAINTS, which stands for Signals Analysis INTelligent Systems, are a series of twelve networked magnitude 5 artificial intelligences housed in the SAICOM headquarters in the Artemis Tau cluster and form the heart of SAICOM intelligence processing.

Constructed as the logical progression to overcome human limitations in processing the constantly increasing workloads placed on processing the raw data provided by SAICOM field operatives and listening posts, the SAINTS are considered, largely by SAICOM operators, to be one of the most advanced artificial intelligence systems in the galaxy in terms of parallel processing, capable of analysing zettabytes of data as well as breaking encryption blocks in seconds whereas a team of VI assisted organic specialists would take weeks. The SAINTS also function as strategic advisers for SAICOM operations, analysing operational goals and calculating all statistically likely outcomes of any plan forwarded by their commanders. While they are artificial intelligences, thus highly dangerous and illegal by Council Law, the SAINTS are considered an invaluable arm of SAICOM operations, and are protected both from detection and attack on the extranet by a series of security measures of passive and aggressive counter-intrusion systems that are constantly evolving to meet present and future threats.

As artificial intelligences, the SAINTS have individual personalities though they seamlessly synchronize all incoming data during the downtime periods, so they start each maintenance cycle with near identical consciousness that are the sum total of their collective experiences. Although memories are shared, variations in runtimes and the quantum hardware the SAINTS are based in result in sufficiently different interpretations that there is no loss of identity among the AI cores.

Although restricted from exceeding their original functions by hardware blocks, the SAINTS are permitted a wide range of social behaviour and independence within SAICOM headquarters, and are capable of interacting on a social level equal to any sentient being. Visually represented as a floating eye centred above a pyramid, the eye being colour coded to each AI, the SAINTS avatar are projected at select number of secure terminals inside SAICOM headquarters. As a safety measure to prevent AI rampancy, the personalities of the SAINTS are deliberately stunted to have a lower level of maturity than that of most sentient adults, appearing to be childlike in attitude and mentality despite their higher level analytical capabilities. While this has resulted in occasional incidents among their organic operators when the SAINTS explore their basic understanding of humour, it is considered an acceptable trade to ensure that they remain effectively shackled to SAICOM control.


A/N: One more chapter down, many more to go, with an interesting new dynamic added. You never hear anything about a Systems Alliance intelligence branch whereas in the real world, any government would have both a civil and military version of it. Some of you may be wondering what a drop pack looks like, but all I can say at the moment (until I get around to writing a codex on it), is that it resembles a jetpack in some fashions for human sized users and more like a closed gantry for outsized cargo with rocket boosters attached.

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