Chapter 7: The Angelwing


Date: May 5, 2188

Location: Zareth Docks

Faith had been surprised that she'd been chosen to go aboard the Angelwing with a team of her choice, but was relieved that her uncle wasn't coming. So as soon as the delegates had left she'd opened a comm link with the Normandy. "Joker," she spoke.

"Here Commander." was his reply. "Need pick up?"

"No, send down Tali, Mordin, and Marva," she said as she got into her aircar to head towards the Zareth Docks. "Tell 'em we've been invited to the Angelwing. You're to come too, I want you to be getting acquainted with their pilots."

"But Mom, I don't play good with other pilots," he complained jokingly. In her mind she could picture a pouting Joker, which caused her to laugh."Mission accomplished," she heard Joker whisper. "Be there in two shakes of an asari hooker."

"Bad taste Joker, bad taste." she snorted at that image and turned the vehicle on and preprogramed the route to take. When she arrived at the docks her group was waiting for her, along with Captain Vol'com, who seemed to be just standing back away from the group.

"Shepard, good too see you. Have much I need to talk to you about. Can wait," the salarian scientist said as he greeted her.

"What is it Mordin?" she inquired as she looked at him.

"Been asked by Dalatrass to be made available for a breeding contract. Never done so in earlier stages of life, however since survival of Reaper War have saved krogan, have helped with curing many viruses caused by Reapers and their Collectors, life is almost spent. Life will have been wasted if nobody remembers in the century to come as to what I have done. Have krogan genophage legacy and its cure to be remembered, but no genetic legacy."

"So, you want to have a child with your Dalatrass?" she asked with a smile.

"Not so much want, but need. Yes." He blinked at her.

"Well, it's your choice, but I don't see why not," she said with a shrug.

"Excellent, will get back to Dalatrass after return to Normandy. Probably won't live long enough to see offspring graduate, will need to find a guardian for it when my inevitable death happens," he said with a dismissive voice.

Faith shook her head as she walked over to the waiting Captain. "Captain," she greeted Vol'com with a salute, whiched caused the creasion to chuckle.

"Commander, just call me Narima if you must have a name to call me." she placed her hand on her hip. "I do hate formalities."

"Who doesn't?" Faith asked with a laugh.

Narima chuckled as she looked at Shepard and her chosen group. "So, who are these?" she nodded to the group.

Faith smiled. "My friends and experts in their fields." She turned to Joker. "Starting off is ex-Alliance Flight Lieutenant Jeff Joker Moreau, my pilot and ship jokester." Joker also saluted the captain. "My Chief Engineer Tail vas Neema vas Normandy, my shotgun specialist and best friend." Tali just waved at the captain. "My top scientist, former STG Scientist, Doctor Mordin Solus." The doctor smiled and nodded to the captain. "And finally second Lieutenant Marva Paselus, my weapons specialist and combat specialist." The turian gave a curt nod.

"Hmm, quite the group you have there." Narima smiled. "And here I was expecting just humans. We'll stock some food for your species as well before we take off."

"Take off?" Tali inquired nervously.

"Yes, you are all invited to our newest colony in the Epsilon Eridani System which has just been named Mor'ah." She smiled proudly as she brought out a small yellow crystal that was embedded in a yellow/orange metal. She pressed the crystal which caused a bright light to engulf their entire group. When the light vanished the group found themselves in a huge room with blinking lights, blue crystal-like structures which people were sitting on like chairs. When one stood the chair sunk back into the floor. The next thing the group noticed was that they couldn't move.

The one who had stood came over to their group and began scanning them with an unknown device. The person was female with aqua colored hair and wore a scientists or doctors jacket. When she gave a nod to the technician behind her that was when they suddenly could move. They flexed their fingers, toes and muscles before following the captain. "This is our teleportation room," she began as they followed her our of the room down the hall to another room which opened up to a huge cargo area. "This is Cargo Bay C, its right below Cargo Bay A and B. Above them is Hangar B, where we have our fighter ships. On the opposite side of the ship is Hangar A, where we store rescue pelicans and dropship pelicans. The two types of pelican ships may look alike on the outside but are different on the inside. When we get up there I'll have my Flight Lieutenant show you what they look like."

"I take it the Cargo Bays are only storage areas." Faith concluded as she took in the sheer size of the bay; which, if she was correct, could fit three Mako's or two Hammerhead's in them.

"Yes." Narima said with a smile. "Down here are our weapons and medical storage."

"Lot of crates for just that stuff." Joker mused as he took in the sight of wall to wall crates.

"You haven't seen our weapons," was her only reply as she shut the doors to the room and continued down the hall with the group following her. She came to a third door that lead them to engineering.

"Keelah!" Talia gasped at the site of the large engines and the size of the room.

"This is engineering," Narima said just as a crew member began walking up to her. "Now I don't really understand how everything works, but that's why I have a chief engineer who does." She smiled as the man stood before them. "This is Chief Engineer Sethin Vesnus. I believe he and Miss Tali will enjoy talking with each other."

Faith chuckled as her quarian friend practically ran to the man and began asking her questions. "How does it run?" was the first of many to come.

Narima chuckled. "Right, let's leave them be." she said heading out of the room with the rest of the group.

"How do you stop from getting turned around in all of this blue crystal color?" Joker asked. Narima pointed up causing everybody to look up and notice words above the door in a language they couldn't read. "Great." Joker grumbled.

"Our linguists are working on matching up our alphabets right now," she said. "Once that is done, your omi-tools will be able to scan the door names in order to figure out where you are." She smiled. "If it helps, everybody has a hard time on a ship the first time. Usually always getting lost or turned around in the first twenty-four to thirty-eight hours." That caused Joker to sigh and shake his head. "This way to the elevator." She pointed to the last room on that level. "The Angelwing isn't as large as it looks. Its mostly for protection. Grade A Ferrosteel is the strongest metal on Gi'ah, it's almost impossible to destroy."

"Almost?" Faith inquired with a raised eyebrow.

She sighed. "It does have some weakness to it, but that's why the ships hull is almost twenty feet thick, then lined with barrier walls and weakness detectors. Then of course the sentinels keep an eye on things outside of the ship by scanning it after each jump through slipspace."

"Sentinels?" Marva inquired.

"They're dumb AI controlled robots," she said. "Our dumb AIs are like your VIs, only slightly smarter. They're programmed to do one thing and only do that. Some can be programmed to do multiple jobs, but it's rare. Our smart AIs aren't really programs, they're created by brain scans from intelligent people. The smart AI of this ship is Cortana, who was created by several scans from Doctor Vincent's brain. Then there are the AIC. They're created when a person kinda 'dumps' their brain into an eco grid. These AIs are extremely rare and are only created to protect a city. One AIC can do a million tasks in a short amount of time whereas it would take days or weeks for an organic to do the sames tasks."

"What does AIC stand for and are all your AIs sentient?" Mordin asked while looking a tad nervous.

"Artificial Intelligence Component and No," was her reply as the elevator door opened. She stepped onto the translucent disk and waited for the others to do so. She touched the holographic display on the wall. "Next is crew deck, medbay, and lavatories."

"So none of your AIs are sentient?" Faith asked as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"I didn't say that." Narima smirked. "AICs and smart AIs are sentient, our dumb AIs aren't."

"Do they go into ramancy?" Mordin inquired.

"Yes, but we always catch 'em before they do," she explained as the elevator stopped and let them out on the crew deck. "The first generation AIs died off after thirty minutes of life or when their jobs were complete. We now are in our tenth generation AIs who have a lifespan of seventy to seventy-five years, short in comparison with our own."

"Yes, and that would be?" Mordin inquired now very interested.

"Eleven hundred." came a voice ahead of them.

"Dr. Vincent." Narima acknowledged.

"Captain." he smiled. "Creasions live close to eleven hundred years. Some, sages mostly, have been known to live fifteen hundred, but overall only eleven hundred years. Of course that's not counting the common people who can't afford the living expenses to live that long, so the average creasion is expected to live around a thousand years, no more, no less." he shrugged.

"Interesting." Mordin mumbled. "Creasions must have the same slow aging that asari have or grow normally like krogan do, but don't get the blood-rage that krogan have. This could also mean because of this the channeler gene be something gained with age?"

"Nope," Vincent answered. "Channeler gene's are inherited from father or mother to child. Its also a mutated gene that one is born with. Not something that can be gained with age, however the older a channeler is the more powerful. The more powerful, the more dangerous. This is also why channelers, while young, are found and made into special warriors; who then protect villages, cities, or even our ships from those who wish to do harm. Then when older, fighting urges are no more and they begin to settle down and have families of their own. Some, however, do not allow their children to become warriors because of their own unpleasant memories of battles fought and enemies killed. Therefore tracking devices are always placed with special warriors so that when they have families, we can check in on them."

"You steal children from families?" Mordin inquired a bit shocked. "Sounds much like Subject Zero's life."

"Negative." was his reply. "We do not take children without parents knowledge. We give warning, then if warning is ignored, we come and collect the children once they've reach apropiate age."

Narima coughed. "Uh, yeah," she looked at Faith. "You're right, they are alike."Faith shook her head. "Why don't we leave them be." Narima stated.

"Mordin," Faith called out. "No making a doomsday device."

"Wouldn't dream of it Shepard, too small of a ship to make an appropriate sized one anyways." He smiled and went back to talking with the scientist.


After another hour of going through an armoury, only to leave Marva behind with creasion weapons expert, they ended up at the Pelican Hangars where Joker looked like a kid in a candy store as he began questioning not one but two Flight Lieutenants about the capabilities of each bird, what the controls looked like, what kind of fuel they use, what their weapons were and so on. Faith ended up leaving him down there. In the present she was now on the bridge where a huge holo-projector appeared out of the floor showing the Arcturus System with ship traffic, satellites, fuel and planetary space stations were. "Let's bring the slipspace drive online," Narima said as her captain's chair rose from the the floor.

"Yes Captain," came a disembodied voice.

"Is that..." Shepard began.

"Cortana?" Narima finished. "Yes. Cortana say hello."

In a flash of colorful lights the images on holo-projector changed into the form of a beautiful creasion woman. "Greetings Commander Shepard, it is an honor to meet you. EDI and I have been talking for several days about your species and my own. From what she's told me, you are a great hero."

Faith chuckled as her cheeks lit up with a blush. "I'm not the only hero out there," she humbly stated.

"Of course." she said and redirected her attention to the portal that was appearing in front of the ship. "Slipspace accessed. Jumping in three, two, one." And with that the inhabitants inside of the Angelwing vanished from the Arcturus System just as quickly as it had appeared several weeks prior.


M-Angel: Sorry it took me so long to come out with this chapter. I wanted to wait until after ME-3 came out so I could possible incorporate some of that into my story. I now doubt I will. The game was wonderful, but the three choice ending sucked! I was very dissatisfied with that ending. I may do an ME-3 prelude story to this one, I may not. Haven't really decided. So, I'm sorry for the lateness, next chapter will come out faster; promise.

xoxoangii: i didn't even get the third ending! and i got the ME Infiltrator game for the iPhone and my origin accounts arent matching up somehow, im so mad :[