A/N: Sorry for the sixteen-day delay in the planned update schedule. My procrastination regarding my bachelor's thesis kicked my butt hard. I've gotten maybe fourteen hours of sleep the past week. This may reflect in the quality of the chapter, but you'll have to read it first :D
The Ancients from Alchera
Incoming signal detected. Analysing frequencies, please standby.
Frequencies match records for Shepard, Prime. Patching through to Synchronization Station.
Signal rerouting successful. Connection to Synchronization Station established.
Fetching Memory Bank: Shepard, Beta. Latest timestamp: 215242888531749
Initiating synchronization.
– – – –
It was small, barely reaching a four kilometre radius and housing exactly twenty-five hundred.
It was weak. This village had less than than a tenth of the population of its neighbours, though the proportion of warriors they had was much higher than their neighbours, the overall population differences ensured that her fighting force was slightly more than a quarter when compared to the aforementioned neighbours. It was a wonder it hadn't gotten invaded and annexed and/or exterminated before she came here.
It was undeveloped, especially by her standards. While they did use eezo for their weapons – the planet was particularly rich in the stuff, so much so that she'd seen an eezo node at the surface, a feat not even Thessia could claim –, they were comparable to a tribal version of early twenty-first century Earth in all other aspects.
But, for all its faults, it was hers. In spite of its flawed nature, the village of Ma'kzre had vast amounts of untapped potential, and it was hers to develop as she saw fit. She would lead the members of her village to greatness, come hell or high water.
She'd made a good start, organizing the various armed forces under her command to a structure that made sense and funnelling as much funding as she could to basic necessities the Yahg simply didn't consider or weren't aware of.
Unfortunately, the village wasn't that rich that 'as much funding as she could' meant more than a pittance in the local currency. She'd put the weaker Yahg, as well as the children, on agriculture and farming in general, but that project wouldn't bear fruit for quite a while even with the distasteful need for child labour.
Which meant that she had precious few options open to her that went beyond stealing cash from nearby villages.
A steady thump behind her indicated that her advisor had returned from the task she'd sent him on. She didn't turn around to acknowledge him, partly because doing so indicated a good amount of trust that he wouldn't stab her in the back, partly because doing so let him know just how little of a threat she considered him, and it was always good to keep advisers on their toes.
Despite only reigning as chieftain for a few days, this one wasn't her first chief advisor.
"Chieftain, the hunters are ready. All of them packed enough food for two trips to the nearest village, and little else except for light weaponry."
She nodded once and crossed her fingers in a well-practised modified Ox handseal.
"Good. Kage Bunshin."
A replica of herself appeared next to her, shocking her new advisor. "This one will keep a close eye on things here while I'm out. Don't think that, just because this isn't me that I won't know what went on here."
"Certainly, Chieftain," the advisor said, his eyes showing that he'd been thinking just that.
Shepard nodded and walked past her advisor to the door. "Dismissed."
– – – –
"Alright," Shepard said five minutes later to the trio before her. They weren't the village's strongest, but they were the fastest by far. "Our mission is simple, we get in, steal what we need, and get out. If all goes well, we should not see any combat."
One of them shuffled and huffed a little.
"Yes, I know avoiding combat is traditionally seen as the coward's path," Shepard admitted. "But in this case it is the smart thing to do, as we simply do not have the number of warriors to take on even the weakest of the neighbouring villages. If we had technology supremacy, it would be somewhat more even, but we don't. This will help us develop said superior technology. Understood?"
"Yes Chieftain," the Yahg grumbled unhappily. "I do not like it, but I understand."
Shepard smiled, careful not to show teeth. "Good. Any other objections or questions?"
There were none.
"Then we go," Shepard said. "Kr'Jagl, you're on point as you know the way the best. Kyrz'grz, you're the strongest, so you get to watch our backs. Kafh, you're third in line."
The quartet fell easily into place, Shepard not needing to say that she went second. She'd made a good, if short, argument for not taking the lead spot, but Yahg led from the front so anything other than second would have lost her a lot of the respect she'd managed to attain so far.
They leapt off to start the three-day trek to the nearest –
ERROR
ERROR
ERROR
Stored slave memory terminated. Synchronization aborted. Biometrics of Shepard, Prime no longer within safe zone.
Synchronizaion of slave to master aborted, bypassing master memory upload.
Rerouting connection of Shepard, Prime to Inbound/Outbound.
Rerout complete. Breaking connection with Shepard, Prime.
Connection broken. Returning the consciousness of Shepard, Prime to real time.
Return complete. Standing by.
– – – –
Shepard awoke suddenly, startling both doctors working on her recovery. She groaned and clutched her head, barely registering some sort of amphibian presence to her left – Doctor Mordin Solus, her brain supplied sluggishly – while a tailed humanoid on her right hovered a pair of hands – glowing green – over her chest before her eyes closed from the bright glare of the light assaulting her senses.
"I just had the trippiest dream ever," Shepard said slowly into the silence, her head on the verge of killing her. It felt like that one time she'd tried to combine weed with mead – they sounded similar, so it was a good idea to mix them, right? Right? – when she was sixteen.
"Do tell," Kokuo-sensei said pleasantly, with more than a hint of curiosity in them. Shepard groaned at her voice, the sound seeming to resonate inside her head and magnifying it to migraine-inducing levels.
"Not so loud, please," she pleaded in a low, hoarse voice. She hadn't had a hangover this bad since the aforementioned incident when she was sixteen. "It wasn't just viewing my clone's life on Parnack in third person, as I'd expected, but it actually was as if I was back on Parnack, leading that village of Yahg. But..." she trailed off, not entirely certain how to proceed.
"Things didn't work out the way they should?"
Shepard shook her head in an effort to wave the pain away. "Up until the errors started popping up, it worked as it should. I just don't think it was supposed to give me this bad a hangover or terminate early."
Kokuo pursed her lips. "No, it should not," she agreed, cutting off the stream of healing chakra from her hands. "It should not be giving you any noticeable feedback at all. I will alert Naruto, he will have a better idea of what has transpired."
With that, she left.
"Greetings, Shepard," Doctor Solus greeted her, having considerately lowered the volume at which he spoke to levels she could tolerate at the moment. "Pleased to meet."
"Likewise, Doc," she said. "I think we'd better stave off official introductions until after I get this hangover cleared, if you don't mind?"
"Not at all," the Doctor said. "Will give more opportunity to record chakra. Fascinating readings. EM fields similar to biotics, but definitely not."
"The Bijū don't mind you taking scans of chakra?" Shepard asked, more than a little surprised.
"Were hesitant at first," Doctor Solus admitted as he readied a syringe with something, his omni-tool happily scanning away. "Then you incinerated gunship. Reticence vanished."
Shepard grinned sheepishly before flinching at the sudden flare of pain in her head that accompanied the action. "Kokuo tells me you sped up my recovery to mere days instead of months. Thank you for that." She tilted her head. "What's in the syringe?"
"Was no problem," Doctor Solus said. "Still Human-normal enough for Human drugs to work, and none of who you call Bijū are up to date on modern medicine. Such as painkillers. Relax."
Shepard relaxed as best she could, the efforts not being helped by the Salarian's standard reedy voice. He might have added the vocal inflections to make his tone soothing, but her ears weren't capable of picking it up, if it was there.
She'd never been all that fond of syringes, especially ones that were to be inserted into her. Doctor Solus looked at her with... sympathy? empathy? it was hard to tell... in his eyes. "General painkiller. Relax."
The syringe entered her body, prickling a little. Had she been a decade or two younger, she would have flinched as the sharp tip of the needle penetrated her skin and opened a very tiny hole in her body, but she had since been tempered by a decade and a half of military service.
Suppressing a flinch was nothing, and the cool rush of the painkiller entering her bloodstream, slowly deadening the pain as her body's cells reacted with the chemicals of the painkiller, was a godsend. The pounding headache, like someone was working the inside of her head over with a sledgehammer, was reduced to a dull thrub that she could deal with. She'd ignored worse than this.
Shepard breathed a sigh of relief that she was, as the Doctor had said, Human enough for current painkillers to affect her.
"So much better," Shepard sighed a minute later, when the painkiller had fully kicked in. "What painkiller did you use?"
"Parasinid, triple standard Human dose," the Doctor said. "Granted, extreme. Calculations showed safe, however."
"Triple the standard dosis of Parasinid, the drug that spits in pain's face and kicks it to the curb with nuclear-powered boots?" she half-yelled, her eyes narrowed.
"Metaphor over-the-top, but otherwise accurate," Doctor Solus replied calmly.
"Let's hope Naruto-sensei can fix this, then," Shepard said, her head falling back on her pillow. "Parasinid is expensive. He said something to the effect of this synchronization happening every time I fall asleep, and I don't exactly relish buying Parasinid in bulk. Even if that gives us a volume discount, it's still likely to cost a leg and a half."
"Agreed," the Doctor said.
The door slid open, accompanied by the soft hiss of hydraulics. "What's this I hear about unexpected side-effects?" Naruto-sensei asked while he strode over to her bedside.
"I woke up from the synchronization with my Parnack clone, which was a really trippy experience by the way, with a pounding headache and the worst hangover ever since sixteen-year-old me decided it'd be a good idea to mix weed and mead."
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "If you say so. I'm much more interested in the fact that there was negative feedback in the array in the first place. Yugito and myself went over it three times, and neither of us spotted a mistake."
"Can you fix it?" Shepard asked. "While I still live, that is."
In response, Naruto tapped her stomach once. In the wake of his retreating finger, a projection of the array appeared in the air above her stomach. "Probably," Naruto said. "Unfortunately, Yugi-koi and myself are much faster at writing seals than we are analysing them."
Shepard frowned. "Can you give me a timeframe?" she asked, somewhat petulantly. "I can't afford to lose sleep nor suffer daily hangovers, partially because Parasinid is not cheap and addiction concerns, and partially because... well... daily hangovers."
"A month?" Naruto hedged. "Two? It depends on what the exact error is. There's obviously some feedback that causes a chemical imbalance, maybe a mental artefact as well." He leaned forward. "Minds are tricky. Even to us."
Shepard nodded. She wasn't happy, but she was realistic enough that this was all she could expect. "Just... please, go as fast as you can without making another mistake."
"We can do that," Naruto said with a nod of his own. "Unfortunately, we can't just deactivate the seal for the same reason we can't readily diagnose the problem. How much uninterrupted tinkering time do we have before we leave?"
"I need to speak with Aria about Tali," Shepard said immediately. "Even if I am a Spectre, Tali is under Aria's employment, and technically was only given leave to check out the Freedom's Progress situation. Also, this is Aria."
Naruto snickered. "A woman after my own heart," Naruto said. "If I wasn't monogamous and already married, I would tap that so hard."
"I'm sure," Shepard said. "Do you know if Taigun has identified targets for Kasumi?"
"He has a list as long as my entire body," Naruto said with a snort. "Ranked them by order of potential importance, too. He's just waiting on your call to send data to Goto Kasumi."
"Good. How are our supplies? Food, water, clothing, thermal clips, spare parts, mods, the works."
"We're good on that front for at least two weeks of intensive use," Naruto said after a consultation of his omni-tool. "Unless Doctor Solus has anything he'd like to requisition?"
"Could do with more Parasinid, in case problem is not solved expediently," Doctor Solus said immediately. "More expensive to synthesize on-ship than buy,, even for Geth. However, Parasinid from Omega is... questionable. Recommend trip to the Citadel soon. No further requisitions for now."
Shepard and Naruto nodded. "Excellent," Shepard said. "Am I cleared to leave so I can settle things with Aria, Doctor Solus?"
"Call me Mordin. Easier. Yes. Still, recommend caution."
Shepard snorted as she gingerly sat up. "It's Aria," she said dryly. "'Cautious' should be your default state."
"True enough. Good luck."
"Thank you," Shepard said as she stood up and walked with Naruto to the door of the medbay after shooting a glance at the still-comatose Garrus in the bed opposite her. She stopped, a measure of guilt that she hadn't inquired to the status of her brother in all but blood yet shooting through her.
"Officer Vakarian will be fine," Mordin said suddenly, correctly interpreting her look. "Was touch-and-go, as humans say, but major injuries have been healed. Kept in induced sleep to ensure proper healing of the rest. Will be up in two days."
Shepard breathed another sigh of relief, her eyes silently conveying her gratitude to the Salarian. She turned around and left the medbay properly, donning her game face as she disembarked the Zero-One – as Tali had called it, Model 0000001 was such a handful to say every time – for Omega and Afterlife. She had an Asari to convince.
After she'd changed into more suitable clothing, of course.
– – – –
Shepard walked through the doors to Afterlife after a necessary detour through the abandoned mining complex where she'd fought the mercs. She hadn't seen the remnants of her armour, but if it was fused to her skin, then the OSD would not have survived.
Thankfully, the original datapad did.
The crowd of Afterlife parted before her like the Red Sea had before Moses, allowing her to reach the Batarian the staircase to Aria's 'office' in record time.
"What do you want?" Aria's Batarian stair-guard said gruffly.
"I need to talk to Aria," Shepard replied, waving the datapad in his face. "I've got news that she'll want to hear."
The guard grumbled and spoke into his comms. "Boss, Shepard's here. Says she has information. Yes, she'd got a datapad. Alright."
He turned back to her and nodded, stepping aside to grant her entry. "You can go up."
"Thanks," she said, and walked up the stairs.
"Ah, Shepard," Aria said amicably the moment she appeared in sight. "You wanted to speak to me."
"Yeah," Shepard confirmed. "Two things. First, are you willing to release Tali from your employment so she can join me while I sort this mess with the Collectors out?"
"She can," Aria agreed readily. "Though with one stipulation."
Shepard narrowed her eyes. "That is?" she said, a threatening undercurrent in her voice.
"Relax, Shepard," Aria said with a raised hand. "It's nothing too serious, I assure you. There may or may not be certain tasks uniquely suited to a Quarian skillset. I am simply saying that if you want Miss Zorah to join you, I will want you to give Miss Zorah freedom for one open-ended task from me."
"I'll talk to Tali, then."
"No need," Aria said, and tapped a few buttons on her omni-tool, projecting an image of Aria and Tali sitting in this very office, insofar as it could be called an office. "That is my price for your 'retirement', miss Zorah. One open-ended favour in return for letting you gallivant around with Shepard."
Tali sighed, her head coming to rest in one hand as she thought it over. "Fine. One open-ended favour in return for my being allowed to join Shepard's crew. Normal Flotilla restrictions to mercenary work apply."
Aria nodded and stuck out her hand. "One open-ended favour in compliance with Flotilla regulations. We have an accord."
Tali shook it. "An accord we have."
The hologram disappeared. "And there you have it," Aria said with finality.
Shepard mulled the footage over. There was the possibility it was doctored, of course, but if it was doctored then Aria had spent a fortune getting the footage done in three days and believable enough that she, who had spent more than a year with the Quarian in question, wouldn't pick up on errors in body language.
It was either genuine, or Aria had spent a fortune to make it appear so.
"You don't mind if I ask to confirm?" Shepard asked. "Not that I don't trust you and all, especially after fifteen years ago, but you're still the Dark Queen of Omega and all-around master manipulator."
Aria flashed a grin. "Not at all."
Shepard tapped a few buttons on her omni-tool.
"What is it, my Kaihar?" Tali asked, earning a raised eyebrow from Aria at the address. "Aria giving you trouble?"
"Not per se," Shepard said. "Just wanted to ask if you'd agreed to a favour for Aria."
"Open-ended, as long as it's in compliance with Flotilla law, yes."
Shepard nodded. "Thanks, that's all I want to know. See you on board."
"No problem, Kaihar. See ya."
Shepard cut the connection and returned her attention to Aria. "'S all on the up-and-up. One favour in return for Tali."
Aria nodded, a neutral smile gracing her face for the briefest of moments. "Now that we've got that cleared up, Anto mentioned a datapad."
Shepard snapped her fingers and produced the datapad in question. "This was number two. I ran across it before the raid on Archangel's compound, and copied it to an OSD. The OSD, unfortunately, did not survive in the confines of my armour."
"Shepard," Aria deadpanned. "We felt the heat wave of your massive fireball here. A full floor up from where it happened. Granted, that was because the ventilation system is connected, but still. It is, quite frankly, a miracle you and your companions are still alive."
"I have a good doctor," Shepard replied smoothly. "Anyway, while the OSD didn't survive, the datapad somehow did. Here."
Aria caught the datapad and raised a delicately painted-on eyebrow at its content. She snapped a few taps at her omni-tool, agitation evident. "Garka. Get your ass over here."
The Batarian sprinted into the office three minutes later, chest heaving from the effort of sprinting in full armour, and Aria threw the datapad at his head. Garka, to his credit, didn't flinch or dodge, and simply bent down to retrieve the datapad from the floor. "How the fuck did this slip through the net?"
Garka read the 'pad and paled, the one universal bit of body language that informed everyone around of your fear. "I'll look into it," Garka replied nervously.
"See that you do," Aria said, her voice hard enough to bend steel. "Shepard, as thanks for the heads up that my organization requires a little spring cleaning, here."
"What's this?" Shepard asked as she received a set of coordinates on her omni-tool.
"A token of my gratitude," Aria said simply. "It's an Eclipse base I took out approximately half a century ago because they were getting annoying. I've since been using it to store various odds and ends."
"Not to sound ungrateful," Shepard said, her one guarded. "But what kind of odds and ends are we talking about, here?"
"A little of column A, a little of column B..." Aria replied evasively. "Information, weapons, and, since recent events, a whole lot about the known and wonderfully unknown properties of Terran cuttlefish. I've got it all backed up, so I'd appreciate it if you were to clean the place when you're there."
Shepard tilted her head. Cuttlefish? Large torso with six arms... A full-frontal image of Sovereign flashed through her mind, and clarity was attained. Reapers. "We'll check it out, thanks."
"Don't mention it, Shepard," Aria said. "It's the least I can do for you, as thanks for alerting me to moles I wasn't yet aware of."
"No problem," Shepard said, having no doubt that it was, in fact, the least she could do and not seem ungrateful. "I'll see myself out."
"Do that," Aria said as Shepard turned around. "Call up Grizz when you pass him, will you?"
"Grizz?" Shepard asked, turning back half-way. "Who's that?"
"Left-side stair guard," she replied. "Anto's Turian counterpart."
"Sure thing," Shepard said with a nod as she turned back and walked to the Zero-One, as Tali had been calling the vessel, since saying 'Model 0000001' every time was a handful.
– – – –
"Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said the moment she boarded the Zero-One. "Your input is requested."
"Naruto-sensei told me," Shepard said. "He said you made a list?"
"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun replied. "We have catalogued thirty-eight research and development projects that fit the desired parameters for reappropriation."
Shepard whistled. "Nice, that'll give Kasumi a lot to do. Give me the top five for now, I'll read the full list later."
"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said, bobbing the oft-called flashlight-head up and down in an imitation of a nod. "Warning: due to the significant measures that have been taken to safeguard the facilities in which they take place, all coordinates have a significant margin of error."
"It'll be fine, Taigun," Shepard assured him. "Just give me the approximate location."
"Acknowledged. The primary target is Planet Namakli, Zaherin System, Pylos Nebula. Rosenkov Materials is in possession of a Research and Development facility beneath the planetary surface. This facility has a sixty-seven percent chance of being utilized to research novel shielding technology."
"How novel are we talking about? Eezo-based but software upgrade, or completely Eezo-free?"
"Interdepartmental communications indicate upgraded hardware and software," Taigun replied. "Employee H.J.G.A. Michaels claims in four separate emails that the new software improves personnel-scale kinetic shielding by 230% without significantly altering cost of material. Ship-scale shielding can be improved by up to 150% with minimal hardware replacements."
Shepard whistled. "Damn. That's one hell of an upgrade. Most manufacturers these days are happy to get three, maybe four percent extra shielding. I take it that Rosenkov hesitates to go public because they make most of their money from armour sales?"
"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said.
"Sounds promising, what are the other four?"
"The secondary target is Aite," Taigun delivered in his usual dry monotone. "Typhon-4 in the Phoenix Massing. The point of interest is a Cerberus facility experimenting in human-machine interfacing."
"Which would propel aviations to the next level, I assume?" Shepard asked absently, the word of the organization in combination with the word 'experiment' sparking memories she wished were gone inside her.
Lifeless eyes, separated from the heads that contained them. Limbs torn from bodies. The floor invisible beneath the sheer number of escaped Rachni, who were feasting on the scientist's corpses.
"Help... me," the last living scientist, close to death, stammered out before a thin, sharp spike lanced through him from behind, the Rachni it belonged to singing a song of wrath. Her veins ablaze from the slaughter of innocent – or at least those unable to defend themselves – Shepard switched out her rifle for her shotgun and roared.
flash
Painterrorhorroragony raced through her as they discovered what had happened to a recently discovered Cerberus base. Her mind turned to autopilot as she ordered her squad to open fire on the Thorian thralls, to deliver upon these poor souls the freedom of the grave, and the cold, sweet embrace of the Grim Reaper.
flash
Shepard shook her head to stop more memories coming before her mind's eye.
"We apologize if our words caused you psychological stress," Taigun replied, his voice slightly higher yet as monotone as ever. The words themselves didn't help much, but the simple knowledge that an AI was trying to emulate empathy was enough to fully snap her out of her memories.
"Just some unpleasant memories surfacing, Taigun," Shepard said. "Don't worry about it. You were saying something about Cerberus?"
"Affirmative," Taigun said. "If the claims of Dr. G. Archer prove accurate, they have developed a prototype for human-machine neural interfacing, allowing thought-based communication between synthetic and organic."
Shepard's eyes widened. "Bloody hell," Shepard said as she shuddered. What she knew of Cerberus was that it wanted control, with humanity – or themselves – the controller. The chances of them doing this for altruistic reasons like improving aviations, her first thought, were exceedingly remote.
Right before her eyes was a humanoid platform inhabited by hundreds of programs, each separately not much smarter than a teenager bordering on pre-teen, but together they were highly intelligent.
It also had enough firepower to do serious damage before it could finally be taken out of commission permanently... and this was just a Trooper-based platform. What would happen with, say, a Prime? Or a Juggernaut?
She shuddered again.
"Scratch Aite from the list, Taigun," Shepard said. "We're going in there ourselves, and we're going right now."
"We lodge a query regarding your motivations, Shepard-Spectre."
"Fact: a human-machine neural interface has been developed by Cerberus," Shepard said.
"Affirmative."
"Fact: Cerberus is a Human supremacist group. Humanity first!'" she said emphatically, slamming the side of her fist against the open palm of her other hand.
"We concur."
"Fact: The best way to be number one is to control or kill all others, if inherent superiority is not an option."
"Asari historical records disagree. Creator, Turian, Krogan, Human, Batarian, Volus, and Drell records agree."
"So that's pretty much a universal fact," Shepard said. "Fact: Cerberus doesn't really seem to care which of the two it is."
"We concur."
"Fact: Two years ago, a fully-technological fighting force overwhelmed the Citadel defenses, even if it had assistance from Sovereign."
"We concur. You propose that the neural interface will be used against Heretic Geth."
"Not just the Heretics, Taigun," Shepard said. "All Geth. Cerberus is, like everyone in the entire galaxy not named Aria T'Loak or affiliated with me since Parnack, unaware that a schism in the Geth has taken place prior to the invasion of Eden Prime."
Taigun gave his weird mimic of a nod. "We understand, Shepard-Spectre. We will alert the Collective to reinforce all firewalls and back-up server nodes."
Shepard nodded in satisfaction. Despite herself, she'd grown fond of the Geth over the past two years. She didn't really trust him until Tali came back from the audit of its source code, but she'd grown rather fond of him regardless. Besides, he had no less than twenty-eight opportunities to kill her in the past two years, the most recent one not even a week ago. If nothing else, he proved to be another Hernandez. She'd trusted him as far as she could throw Terra, but when it was mission time he put aside all his personal griefs and grudges for the mission. If she cocked up, she'd hear it afterwards, not during.
"Good. Pass the message to the Collective, and send Kasumi the data on the Rosenkov project. Emphasize that we aren't fully sure that this particular plant is producing this tech, but that it appears likely. Append any alternative plants where this tech may be produced, in order of descending percent chance."
"Messages sent," Taigun said less than a second later.
"Is there a briefing room present?"
"Negative."
"Are there any rooms that we use as a briefing room?"
"Three. The medical facility, the engine room, and the sleeping quarters. An annotation for inclusion of briefing facilities has been made on the schematics of Bijū-Creator-Geth Hybrid Model 00000002."
"Okay. Tell Tali and Kokuo to meet me in the sleeping quarters ASAP, and plot a course for Aite. We need to be there yesterday."
"Affirmative," Taigun replied. "Euphemism for maximum velocity recognized. Plotting flight vector. Estimated time of arrival: twenty-eight standard hours, fifteen minutes, ten seconds. Tali-Creator and Kokuo-Gobi alerted."
"Excellent," Shepard said. "I want you, Bee-sensei, and Naruto-sensei on standby while we're on Aite. I don't want to risk the neural interface working against you and having to fight you off."
"You would destroy this platform with no significant expenditure of effort," Taigun said. "But we will abide."
"Perhaps," Shepard said, conceding that this scenario was rather likely. "But I will need the Geth to fight off the Reapers. I can't afford to risk you in this, not now."
"We understand," Taigun said, and promptly walked off.
Shepard raised an eyebrow at the slightly stiff way in which he walked, then turned around to the sleeping quarters that the Geth had installed. Tali and Kokuo beat her to it.
"What's this about, Kaihar?" Tali asked curiously.
"Aite," she said simply. "Has a Cerberus facility where they're developing a device for human-machine neural interfacing, to use Taigun's words. We're going to destroy it, and I want you two with me. Kokuo, you're our première hardware specialist, even before taking into account that neither Garrus, Mordin, or Taigun will be joining us. Tali, you'll be joining me in the software department."
"Sure thing, Kaihar," Tali answered. "What kind of opposition can we expect? The usual Cerberus fare?"
"Probably," Shepard said with a shrug. "I'll ask Taigun, but prepare for YMIR, LOKI, and FENRIS mechs, a lot of automated point-defenses, and gas-based traps."
"Will do, Kaihar," Tali said brightly. "Those Cerberus bastards won't know what hit them."
"Human-machine neural interfacing?" Kokuo asked suddenly. "What, exactly, do you mean with that?"
"Taigun wasn't forthcoming on the details, if he knows any," Shepard said with a shrug. "But given that this is Cerberus, I assume its to take control of the Geth in some way, shape or form. After their experiments with controlling Rachni, and the Thorian experiments to control organics, the next logical step is to try and control synthetics."
"Hmm..." Kokuo said. "I concur, that does seem the most likely scenario."
"You've got twenty six hours to prepare, assuming nothing happens on the way over. We'll meet again at that point, and go over any details Taigun has shared with me since. Dismissed."