This is a short one, but important stuff happens to make up for that. Anyway I've been poking and prodding this chapter for a while, and I eventually got fed up with it and decided that this version is the one to go out, (sorry if its not up to my crappy standard).
HaywireEagle: Cheers for that info, should be corrected soon!
Flameraven, you give me a good idea in one of your reviews a while back, hope you like how I've implemented it.
Previously on TUKM:
Picard learns of the death of numerous crew members, it is found Shepard was partially indoctrinated, but Crusher managed to free him before he lost himself to the Reapers, Shepard is also told of the Prothean Beacon on Thessia which has now been invaded by Reaper forces, but before he could depart on a mission to retrieve the information stored inside the beacon a small hostile fleet arrived at the citadel
Citadel space
"Order a full retreat."
The second in command of the Destiny Ascension turned around to the Matriarch in charge, a brow raised. "Its just 3 vessels, we should destroy them now."
The Matriarch glanced to the view screen, she agreed with her second in command but she had orders. "We have been given orders for a full retreat by Higher Command, and so we shall retreat."
"What of the Geth, Turians and Humans?"
The other ships had yet to retreat. "They should be receiving their orders now."
"Why run now with our tail between our legs? Two odd looking reapers and that cube shouldn't be a problem for the entire fleet."
The Matriarch sighed as she pondered how much she could reveal about the vessels that Higher Command seem so scared of. "Because we have orders, and those vessels are not what you think they are. Helmsman Geiger, take us 1.5 parsecs, direction 224,000,000, we will observe from there." When the ship arrived at the desired location a few minutes later the bridge of the Ascension simply stared at the view screen, curious as to what the vessels were doing. "So, any guesses as to what they are doing?"
There was a good few shrugs, the odd ships would approach a destroyed or critically damaged vessel that was still to be removed after the Battle for the Citadel, spend a few seconds in its proximity and then move onto another damaged ship, Reaper or allies alike. "Searching for something but what?" Answered one of the science officers on the bridge.
Another officer replied quietly to the science officer. "Technology, precious metals or the data banks of the vessels are my guess."
/.../
Crucible - unknown location
Picard rubbed a hand over his jaw, Hackett had forwarded him a video feed of the Borg from one of the damaged but still fully afloat ships in the Citadel region of space. "What are the Borg up to now?" He spoke more to himself than anyone else.
"We were hoping you could tell us."
The captain sighed as he slumped some more down his chair. "They are scanning each vessel and removing anything of value, why they would risk going to such a high risk area to do so however is beyond me, you have little technology I believe they would want."
Hackett sighed before giving a quick nod. "Hold on." The man left the screen while he give an order, suddenly the abandoned alliance ships, of which all of them were far beyond repair, started to self detonate, with only the damaged ship currently forwarding the video feed spared from destruction. "The less we give them the better."
"Agreed." After speaking Hackett looked off screen again before sighing, soon the video feed changed to look towards the Relay where a damaged Volus Bomber had just emerged, one of the Assimilated Reaper's near by approached, scanned the vessel, and then fired something at it, the damaged vessel was obliterated with a single shot, the assimilated Reapers had appeared to have received a hell of an upgrade in the weapons department. After destroying the ship the Reaper spent a considerable amount of time among its remains. "Can you zoom in to the debris field?" When the field was zoomed in it became evident as to why the Reapers destroyed the ship over assimilating it, they were transporting Eezo and other hard to mine materials onto their own vessel, this worried Picard, the materials were being taken to obviously build something, or upgrade something, both of which were not good. "We need to destroy them soon or I fear we will be too late."
Hackett nodded. "I have over 120 ships in the vicinity, can have another 60 or so assigned from this space station to the task, the Asari have a good 60 in a near by orbit and the Turians have something north of 100."
Picard give a nod, with enough ants even an elephant could fall. "We can be in the area in 30 minutes at maximum warp, I would advise waiting till we arrive if you wish to do anything." Hackett give a deep sigh, why did the Borg have to be here now, why not after the war, or years before it so they had the time to replenish their forces? "I would need to encourage my Asari and Turian counterparts to act, but I fear by the time I do that the Borg will be gone."
/.../
Citadel
At first EDI thought she had miss heard, but there it was again, it was an incredibly weak electromagnetic signal using old Geth encryption protocols, something she managed to crack with little to no ease with thanks to her extensive knowladge of the old protocols gifted to her by Cerberus during the collector days. Adjusting her still damaged antenna's she tried to listen in. "...mutilated...equation...destruction...transmitter...relm..." The message repeated, this time she got a little more. "My platform has been mutilated... out side of the equation... plan destruction... constructing a transmitter capable... relm, must resolve... at all costs..."
This puzzled EDI, after asking a Geth unit working on the Normandy she confirmed that it was not a Geth unit sending out the signal, so who, or what was? Then it dawned on her, was this a Reaper? Could it be possible that one of the assimilated Reapers was still mentally alive but its body was being forced to act as the Borg wanted? Was this a Reaper trying to warn them of the Borg? After all it not only threatened those they harvest, but themselves too.
After hearing the message three more times she managed to fill in the blanks.
"My platform has been mutilated and forced to work for an entity known as Borg, they are outside of the equation, they plan chaos and destruction outside of acceptable parameters. Presently they are constructing a transmitter capable of reaching their own realm, must resolve Borg infestation prior to transmitter completion at all costs."
EDI wanted to contact Shepard and inform him of the message, yet her QEC was still proving to be problematic, so she just had to trust that the Geth would pass a message on, thankfully they did.
It did not take long for her to get a response, and it was not what she expected, she was to try and make contact. Increasing the power to the antenna she replied using the same protocols the original message had. "The Borg are a known entity, identify yourself." No response. She increased the power to the antenna as much as she dared and repeated the message, again she got no response, could the message have been a recording? She hoped not.
It was after her fifth repeat that she got a weak response, once more it took numerous repeats till she received the entire message. "I am Peace Keeper 0073, you are the Enhanced Defence Intelligence of the SR2 Normandy."
Peace keeper 0073? EDI had thought that with Soverign and Harbinger having names, that each individual reaper would also have a unique name meaning something about themselves, turns out this is not the case, however she still had to be sure what she was talking too. "Are you a Reaper?"
Once more it took numerous attempts to get the Reapers response. "Reaper, a label created by the Protheans to give voice to their destruction, in the end what you chose to call us is irrelevant, we simply are. My time in this space is short, the Borg Entity require purging, I have been forced to use light based communication technology, its reach is limited. My brethren require notification of the severity of the Borg Entity, you must relay my message." After the message EDI just got a few gigabytes of data labelled 'For Harbinger', she could not decipher it, at least not without 52 years and 4 months to work on it.
As soon as she signalled she had the message by broadcasting a quick 'recieved' notification she started to receive the old encrypted signal again. "The Borg are leaving... imperative...plans..." That is all she got before the Borg vessels left the system, Peace Keeper 0073 could only hope she received the last transmitted message and forward the information packet to Harbinger, it did not know if it would get another chance to interact with anything else, the Borg were almost about to work out how to completely remove it from the last few systems it still had access to.
/.../
Crucible - unknown location, 3 hours later.
The Councillors, top generals of the respective species navies, Commander Shepard, a Geth platform and Captain Picard was all sat around a large wooden table, and they had an incredibly important decision to make. "It could contain Borg Technology, and we all know what would happen if they got their hands on it."
The Salarian councillor blinked and scratched a horn. "Quite a possibility, would make bad situation terrible."
There was a moment of silence as the rooms occupants looked at one another, puzzled over what to do. Eventually Shepard give a heavy sigh and broke his silence. "Dam right there, but what if the data tells them where to find the Borg? and their weaknesses? They could effectively destroy the Borg without us loosing a single human, Turian, Asari life."
"And if it doesn't?" Queried the Asari councillor.
"Then we build the catalyst faster then the Reapers can upgrade themselves."
"And if the catalyst is as large as the crucible? Could we sustain the war against even deadlier Reapers for another year?"
"Do you seriously still think we will still be in the game in another years time?" Shepards response silenced everyone in attendance, after another period of silence the man continued. "Then this is my suggestion, I go get the catalyst, we find out how long it takes to build, and then we consider the Reaper message."
The people with prior military experience in the room nodded. "Sounds like a plan to me Commander. When do you leave?"
The spectre turned to Hackett. "As soon as I leave this room."
"Understood, then this meeting is over for you, the rest of us have to ponder this Borg Transmitter your AI has warned us of."
Shepard stood and turned for his Geth Dreadnought.
/.../
/.../
So, what's the data? Upgrades or genuine data regarding the Borg? Who knows? Anyway Cheers for reading!
Also note: A concern was raised over how the Geth are helping to fix Data, this will be explained soon!
