A/N: Hey, kiddos! Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel has landed. But because I kind of started writing this before any of it existed, even though it does fit "between" the Borderlands games I'm not going to incorporate its plot. Characters, maybe (as I play through, if they make sense to the story). Stay tuned...
Chapter 35 – Under Construction
It would likely take longer to design an extension for Normandy SR-2 than actually do the work given the speed of digistruction even at this larger scale. The whole thing would look like a chop job despite the precision of Pandoran additions—the ship already rated as rather big for a frigate, and now efforts were being made that would turn her into a pocket cruiser, at least in terms of mass. Seeing blueprints iterate through on the projection area in front of the galaxy map, Garrus lamented the "hump back" that would take shape on the ship to accommodate the newly-lengthened vessel's second operations center. Having the only battle coordination area at the very back of a rather long ship seemed impractical to the Trans-Galactic Republic when the vessel remained eminently walkable (compared to, say a Star Dreadnaught with its operations very definitely centered at the back).
"So inelegant" he complained. "This design looked almost turian—not as angular, but certainly much sleeker than it will be when we're done."
Of course, that turians had originally helped to design Normandy SR-1 might have had something to do with this resemblance. Still, such mimicry would be lost upon the installation of new living spaces. To top it off, all this extra mass had to be pushed by something. Though the integrated Trans-Galactic Republic reactor which replaced the Tantalus system could generate more than enough energy to handle quadrupling the ship's mass, the existing engine array lacked the capability to channel it into thrust without melting from the sheet surge of power. Distributing motive force over more engines solved the problem. By removing the two smaller outside drive units and adding three more the size of the larger inside engine for a total of eight, Normandy added significantly to her acceleration and top speed.
"Good thing we have this cloaking device" commented the younger Maya. "This ship looks like it'll handle like a dead rakk hive."
"Well, you extend a ship sixty meters—what do you think would happen?" asked Tali plainly. "Maneuvering thrusters will help, but they can only do so much."
"Geez" harped Joker. "Making my baby all fat, what the hell, Commander?"
"Hey now" replied Sam in an amused tone, "you're not the one having to deal with the circus that's always going on almost a hundred meters behind where you sit all day."
"Well, if this upgrade goes as planned, I'll have even more buffer space between the peanut gallery and my pilot station!"
"Watch it, smart mouth" admonished Shepard. "I might just decide to move the whole bridge up to right behind where you sit."
"Yeah, the CIC was kind of far—and now it's even further back. Guess the turian design and Trans-Galactic Republic upgrade don't get along very well."
"Keeps me from getting fat when I have to run to the cockpit to yell at you!" laughed the Commander.
Despite saying that playing musical chairs added to tension, Shepard found herself overseeing everyone unloading from the Normandy so the SETTLE techs could do their work. Still, Storage Deck Units and digistruction again made life simpler—digitize, place SDU on belt, walk off ship. Instead of round up strongest crew members, fight with couch, crush finger, drop couch, go to med bay, rinse, repeat. And clean blood from places of finger-crushing. At least the bacta fixed it in an hour.
"Well, get used to floating palace deluxe!" announced Sam when her crew finally finished debarking. "It looks like the extension we're going to get is also going to totally overdo what we need space-wise. I pointed this out to the construction crews—they just said not to complain. Normandy is being refit to handle much longer missions, carry far more supplies, offer greater scientific flexibility…"
Athena slipped away.
"Uhh, has everyone forgotten there's a war going on? Like, galactic-level extinction?" Ashley couldn't hide her peevishness. Sometimes, even her Commander, who she respected greatly, acted more like a civilian on a pleasure cruise than a military officer.
"We know" replied Shepard in mock annoyance.
"Speaking of ignoring the end times, why are the construction bays empty?" wondered Tali. "This station was meant to build three Maxthon cruisers at a time—it's currently building zero!"
"Seeing their new toy blown up that fast might've discouraged them from building more" suggested James. "I mean, we gave them hell, but you can only do so much against endless waves of enemies!"
"Back when I did integration for the Aspirations Toward Infinity ships, we had a heck of a time getting enough Element Zero" offered Miranda. "The quad-core hyper-zero reactors needed several orders of magnitude more than even the Normandy SR-2, which was twice as much as Normandy SR-1, itself a huge eezo sink from the Tantalus drive. I haven't been able to get a firm fix, but I think these Maxthons are at least as demanding as a single Infinity core module—so with current economic havoc there's no way to get enough for additional vessels."
"It's so strange" commented Kaidan. "We're so used to eezo being an everyday thing. Not having it is like waking up to find out that the sun is missing."
"It is difficult to mine" replied Tali, "but there's never been a shortage like this before."
"There also haven't been ships that use it by the ton" added Ashley. "Even the largest ships in the Systems Alliance only use half a ton at most—and now we have big cruisers using more than ten dreadnaughts!"
"The more of it there is, the more the system has to be calibrated." Garrus elicited some eyerolls with this comment, but his reputation as calibrator extraordinaire kept everyone else quiet. "Have you see what can go wrong on a Curator if the zero part of the hyper-zero core comes out of alignment?"
"Makes it hard to fly, that's for sure!" Joker's love of starships meant that even though he preferred Normandy, he still kept up-to-date on other designs, especially the massive Trans-Galactic Republic heavy cruisers. He'd even gotten to pilot one once!
"Yeah" sassed Ashley. "If by fly, you mean riding the shockwave as the whole damn ship explodes!"
"Exactly" flanged Garrus. "You do not want to mess with hyper-zero cores!"
"As long as I have a place to put my rifle and armor, we'll be fine" growled Zaeed. "Don't care how big the ship is, what kind of fancy tech keeps it flying, whatever. Just gimme a place to get some shut-eye between missions!"
The group had unloaded into the engineering deck aboard the SETTLE station. A slowly-revolving hologram of the to-be-built Normandy SR-2.5 revolved over a projector. The long, thin body stretched an extra sixty meters with a bump halfway along this extension. Thicker, larger wings supported a quartet of engines per side. The wings themselves joined into the body at a shallower angle than the original design. The joints between these new wings and the fuselage were heavily reinforced, and rumor had it that additional weapons would be incorporated into the blocky structures.
The extension's bottom-side contained a more substantial hanger area extending forward from the original—conservative estimates had a quadrupling of usable docking space. Instead of one Fireant, Normandy would carry six. She'd thus be able to drop a small support fleet to offset her clumsier, more capital-ship like handling. This hanger would no longer double as sleeping quarters, storage, or an improvised cloaking device bay. It was purely for embarked craft.
Some of the ship's extra bulk came from defenses inspired by Cortana's knowledge of the Infection, or Flood as she called it. After seeing her reports of what it had done in her universe, the "Flood" moniker seemed oddly appropriate—and thus reinforced the notion that a ship built to fight it would have to be different than a run-of-the-mill warship. Where possible, the ship's interior became subdivided by meter-thick bulkheads running the entire width and height of deck areas that could be sealed in the event of an Infection or exposure to vacuum. Specialized combination mass effect and shield generators reinforced the walls between compartments against conventional munitions (Javelin torpedoes, shaped charges, blasters, etc.) while also lending them additional strength against the claws and teeth of the Infection. Such bulkheads occurred roughly once every twenty meters or so. In order to fight the Infection, more had to be known about it (Aria's opinion be damned). All research areas were mag-locked into place but could be released and pushed outside the hull in five seconds by thrusters. The use of explosive decouplers was considered, but given the tendency of even appropriately-placed explosives to be misused or sabotaged, engineering teams decided to leave such elements out. This rapid-release also applied to six of eight cargo bays.
On the personnel side, extra provisions were on hand giving Normandy the ability to operate for three years without resupply, even assuming some amount of combat (and thus expenditures of limited munitions). Though mocked as being overly-accommodating or even "civilian soft," expanded living spaces enabled most crew to have their own (shared) sleeping quarters rather than hot-bunking. The Trans-Galactic Republic's willingness to tolerate larger ships with more "wasted" space reflected its more advanced technology—neither power generation nor heat emissions were problems as they were for the Citadel's militaries. That said, no longer were any of Shepard's squad required to share space either. Each chose space indicated on the floating design to suite their own wants.
Moxxi asked for and got her own bar area complete with sleeping quarters. Mordin's lab-space was set to double and each weapon enthusiast requested and received his or her own armory (fear of the Infection drove a one-armory-per-major-deck policy, excluding hangers and command decks).
Lab space for Dr. Kevin Filner and Jackie Jakobs would occupy a good portion of the extension on Deck Three—almost half of it. Their goal: determine how to break into this "slipspace" shown on both black hole threshers and in Cortana's memories. Such research space remained re-configurable, though, so if something else needed be worked on it was trivial to stop in at a drydock and load new lab equipment. Much to Gaige's delight, her favorite engineering puzzle would find a new home at the back of Deck Four instead of the hanger bay. She didn't understand how stygium cloaking worked, but she definitely wanted to and planned to spend more time poking and prodding at the mysterious device.
The reclusive Master Chief and slightly anti-social Jack found homes in two of the eight cargo bays to be installed on Deck Four. Though this was not necessary due to expanded quarters, they elected to stay in areas that felt like home. Grunt preferred a larger space in which to pace, charge, and exercise so he received the bay across from the Master Chief. Brick's heavy weapons were stored in the bay aft of the Master Chief, and as one of three armory officers aboard he felt it his duty to remain as close to his charges as possible. He thus sought to shack up near his "babies."
Miranda and Athena tended to get along well, but said fond goodbyes to their shared arrangement as each would have her own private office and quarters (whatever Athena had been doing had ended with her return). Since their duties sometimes overlapped, they would be across from each other on Deck Two, down the hall from the Mayas squared and Ashley's armory. Shepard wouldn't admit it, but she put Kasumi Goto close to Athena and Miranda, who she thought would have the least tolerance for any shenanigans.
A very long corridor ran through Normandy's neck to the pilot station. Along the way, escape pod hatches adorned the walls. Enough pods existed for 200% of rated crew to facilitate non-crew passenger evacuation capacity if necessary. The pod-launchers were modular, so in cases where fewer lifeboats were required, they could be removed and replaced with anything from a sensor suite to missile launchers or power generators.
Below this walkway, Garrus Vakarian's duty station (but not sleeping quarters) could be found: the bay housing soon-to-be-installed twin novalasers mounted on a turret to facilitate easier targeting rather than the fixed forward-facing turbolasers Normandy carried previously. These weapons packed ten times the punch of a standard light turbolaser at the price of significantly higher power draw. To compensate and avoid uneven energy distribution during battle, each barrel was equipped with its own generator. The guns could fire on their own power for significantly reduced damage, or combine their built-in capacity with a main reactor for full output.
While construction work continued, the crew basically got shore leave—which aboard a Trans-Galactic Republic installation meant leisures not generally available aboard Citadel military space stations such as full-sized swimming pools, fine dining, and cinema. Most quarters had more in common with high-end hotels mentioned in travel guides rather than the Spartan appointments the crew of the Normandy had been used to prior to the arrival of the apparently-lavish-spending outsiders.
[…]
"InterSpec Internal Auditor Athena reporting in."
Athena's departure from the group during the heyday over Normandy SR-2.5's upgrades went unnoticed.
"Athena, you are aware of the Infection's effect on the krogan race" replied a voice-disguised, physically-anonymized male-sounding person.
"Yes, sir."
She was only now realizing that being a supposed paperwork-pusher would not shield you from conflicts of interest between those she served next to and those she reported to. Especially since InterSpec apparently became more and more part of the Republic Intelligence Service. In theory, it was a joint venture, but nothing with RISE ever happened on equal footing. She'd heard what happened to Aria T'Loak's ill-fated attempt to hijack a ship undercover with RISE—it hadn't been pleasant and thoroughly demonstrated how much RISE infiltrated virtually everything.
"You are also aware that Normandy is now and will be in the future equipped with a high-bitrate S-thread communicator capable of receiving HoloNet commands even across the distances between galaxies."
"What of it?"
"Athena, you will transmit the packet we have sent you if given instructions to do so. You will not permit anyone to know this packet is in your possession, nor will you permit anyone to stop you from sending it if you are ordered to do so."
She wasn't aware of the attempt by the Republic Intelligence Service to add itself to the list of people who could destroy Tuchanka, nor was she aware the venture failed. In conclusion, she had no reason to suspect she'd been handed a non-working bomb trigger. She was aware, though, that whatever she'd been told sounded highly suspicious. When your superiors wouldn't tell you exactly what you'd been tasked, it tended to be that the assignment carried questionable ethical implications.
"Yes, sir."
She signed off, closed the specialized program on her ECHONet device, and returned to the gathering.
Other than this, her interactions with the Republic Intelligence Service had been cordial, if a bit distant. Their primary concern was ensuring that the cloaking device loaned to Samantha Shepard remained under allied control at all times. They also had a minor interest in Shepard's activities. Though she technically fell under RISE's jurisdiction as part of the Intergalactic Special Forces, her handlers knew not to break something that was working. After she was read in, she'd not heard directly from the Republic Intelligence Service again minus the cloaking device now installed in Normandy SR-2.5.
Cortana moved from the Normandy to a computer core on the SETTLE station, just like the rest of the crew. Due to the nature of her design, RISE didn't recognize her as an artificial intelligence, a threat, or indeed anything worth watching, and wouldn't unless she did something. Even then, Cortana represented an order of magnitude in generational advancement in AI technology, so RISE would have a difficult time containing her (see: hijacked Hammer cruiser blamed entirely on its own personnel).
With the forced downtime resulting from Normandy's upgrades, Cortana made it a point to get to know the crew better. She also held a series of talks alongside the Master Chief on combatting the Infection/Flood. Cortana started by describing how incredibly dangerous the Flood was before delving into the mysteriousness of its origins.
"The Flood originated outside even our own galaxy" she said, spreading her arms wide. For an artificial intelligence, her mannerisms were remarkably human. It may have had something to do with being derived from a copy of her creator's brain. At any rate, she seemed more like an incredibly intelligent organic than an AI to those who met her after being used to constructs such as EDI.
She'd sufficiently grossed out the group with graphic details of the many Flood the Chief had killed over the years, so much that she figured it would be a good idea to get a move on the story. Especially since Gaige and Zaeed seemed entirely too interested in the battle parts…
"At the time we discovered the first Halo installation, we were actually in a war with the Covenant, a multi-species group of aliens organized under a religious banner who believed humanity must be destroyed. Our concern was dealing with them, until they accidentally released the Flood held in storage on the Halo for study."
"Question" interjected Ashley, always one for practicality. "You started telling us how dangerous this Flood was. So why would anyone want to keep it around?"
"Don't ask me to divine the intentions of the Forerunners, or as you call them, the Eridians. If there's anything we've learned over the past year, it's that as advanced as these Forerunners were, they were just as prone to make mistakes as the species we know today."
"Only human" laughed Ashley in response.
"We suspect these decisions were driven by beliefs unique to organics" added Legion. "Based on available data, the Consensus would have elected overwhelmingly to destroy all remaining stockpiles of this Infection if the decision were placed before us presently."
"You're also immune" shot back Jack. "So why the hell would you care about the Infection, or anyone else?"
"We… We lack sufficient data to formulate a precise rationale for this action."
"Anyway" said Cortana, making a noise suspiciously like a throat-clearing, "we were losing the fight against the Covenant. We'd win battles, but not the war. Then the Flood got involved."
"A strategic split in the opposing force?" questioned Thane.
"Exactly. Some within the Covenant had openly been questioning why humanity, with its incredible reliance and refusal to surrender, had not been invited to join the Covenant. The emergence of the Flood caused this group to ally itself with humanity, an act declared heresy by the Prophets."
"Let me guess, heresy was followed by a religious revival" remarked Ashley.
"Of sorts" replied Cortana. "But it didn't bring back nearly as many to the fold as the Prophets hoped. A good number of the Sangheili joined the alliance." She changed herself into the namesake alien for effect, causing more than a few gasps, before continuing. "The Prophets then turned to the Jiralhanae instead to maintain their grip on the Covenant. It didn't work—the Sangheili were intelligent and knew better than to simply rule by fear over those the Prophets charged them with leading. The Jiralhanae knew nothing but and their hatred of the Sangheili urged the schism along." Cortana's Sangheili form shifted to a Jiralhanae. "As the Flood spread, more Covenant species fired their weapons alongside humanity instead of at us and fought for the freedom of what was left of our galaxy, but it wasn't enough."
"If you were all going out in a blaze of glory, why are you here?" demanded Zaeed in his usual gravely, rough voice.
"We did." The Master Chief took the unusual step of joining this gathering, and spoke up for the first time.
"What he means is, we did go out in a 'blaze of glory,' or so we thought. The Chief detonated Infinity's drive when it became apparent the ship was lost—and we ended up tumbling through a portal to this universe." Her form reverted to its usual human self.
Cortana showed as much confusion as an AI could.
"Patricia Tannis mentioned something about parallels" piped up Jackie. "Different permutations of universes in which one or more key events turned out differently, but overall follow similar rules of physics. So the universe you came from—either Element Zero doesn't exist, you never found it, or you never came into contact with anyone who used it. In our universe, there wasn't any Infection or Flood until the phenomenon that brought you here also brought them."
"Don't forget the alternate universe I visited" added the aged Maya quietly. "Jackie Jakobs there mentioned sending the Harvesters into…"
The realization hit Shepard at the same time.
"FUCK."
The Commander, armor and all, started pacing back and forth.
"They sent the Reapers into slipspace! Which means…"
"Wow, this really sucks" observed Ashley, once again on the nose with a succinct observation.
"Before you all panic, remember slipspace can be pretty random" replied Cortana, rather calm considering the implications of Infected Reapers. "Also, these Harvesters, or Reapers, they're machines, right? They can't be taken!"
Seeing Shepard's disbelieving stare, she said "Right?"
"Uhh, yeah. Hate to be the bearer of terrible news, but there is now a fourth possible way for our galaxy to be completely destroyed." Shepard's smirk seemed inappropriate. "Infected Reapers! That's really gonna be a problem…"
Tali slowly raised her omnitool, and "Reaper Problem" began playing.
[…]
Deep within the Perseus Veil, a massive Dyson Sphere took shape under the watchful eye of thousands of geth ships filled with tens of millions of mobile platforms. Geth, being what they were, did not strictly require bodies, and as more of the sphere finished, programs moved in as capacity permitted. Empty platforms were placed in storage.
Samantha Shepard and her crew had not seen the Sphere of Consensus. They'd parked outside the nebula, which shielded the construction (as large as it was) from their view. Only Cortana experienced it. As a similar form of created life, only she could even enter the Sphere and gain any meaning from it. To organics, it would just look like a vast array of computer hardware contained within a colossal structure.
The geth had been working on the sphere for 264 years when Sam first encountered the non-heretic geth later dubbed Legion. Six years later, the Sphere of Consensus was still not complete, but had reached 87% functionality at the time Cortana dropped in seeking assistance with, as the geth kept putting it, her "inevitable future decline." At present, all non-heretic geth received a recall message from the Consensus save those aboard specialized mobile platforms. Known as "Legion-class" to CRITICAL and "Specialized Organic Interaction Units" to the geth, these highly-sophisticated, independent constructs continued to gather intelligence regarding the activity of other races beyond the Perseus Veil. What was returned concerned the Consensus—a rampant organic race appeared from nowhere and had caused significant turmoil in a large section of the Terminus Systems. For the geth, it wasn't an immediate concern since the Perseus Veil, being toward the galactic edge, had significant distance between itself and the invaders.
Growing concentrations of geth runtimes within the Sphere increased overall intelligence exponentially. As Legion pointed out to a curious Shepard, while the geth's overall goal at the moment was to contain all runtimes within a single network, what to do after that remained an open question. The Consensus still could not reach agreement on whether to end the isolation of the geth or to continue operating in secret. There existed no debate on the need to defend the Sphere and the Consensus against the new biological threat manifesting itself across the Terminus, though.
Unbound by the Treaty of Farixen, geth construction of dreadnaught-class vessels culminated in over thirty vessels of this type alone. Thousands of other combat-capable starships of varying sizes also existed, though no organic survived long enough to get an accurate count as all incursions into geth space occurred prior to the uneasy peace created by Shepard and Legion's détente. Construction of geth naval units had only limits of raw inputs—geth needed no paychecks, rest, vacation, or healing. Damaged platforms were simply swapped out for equivalents with runtimes moving as necessary to continue their work. The massive resource consumption required by the Sphere of Consensus acted as the only competing material draw.
Though the geth no longer saw organic life as a threat, the Consensus decision remained that the geth would not intervene to protect organic life, only to defend itself should the so-called Infection cross its borders. A minority of geth including the original Legion-class unit thought otherwise, but being unable to articulate logical reasons for risking geth platforms for the sake of organics, were unable to muster any forces for this purpose.
Having observed the best methods to deal with the Infection, all new geth ships carried more heat-based weapons than anything else. All kinetic rounds installed on recently-constructed vessels were either modified to carry incendiary properties, loaded with incendiary ammunition, or replaced with something capable of causing massive temperature increases upon impact. The few combined geth-quarian vessels built during the Reaper War were repossessed by the geth (after an oddly-polite dropping of quarian crew members on Rannoch) or remained in Gamma-Three, too far away to be of any help. Unlike Cerberus/Sapiens' Shield, the geth had an easier time adapting Trans-Galactic Republic turbolaser technology to their vessels, though this may have had as much to do with geth vessels not needing things like life support and more advanced reactors as geth understanding of turbolasers remained limited.
With only one inbound relay, the geth already did more than the Consensus thought necessary in protecting non-synthetic life, as Rannoch (with its many new quarian inhabitants) remained under geth protection. The Consensus did not see this as a contradiction, rather saw shielding Rannoch as part of its duty as servants of the Creators. Thus far, no geth weapons were fired in this effort, but geth dreadnaughts guarded the relay with unceasing vigilance, threatening to fire on any that did not immediately broadcast an acceptable IFF. Limited numbers of quarians were brought in as an experiment aboard a few geth vessels as the Consensus did remember the value of cooperation forged during the Reaper War (or as the Consensus knew it, the Old Machine Conflict). However, the maintenance of organic life aboard geth ships on a permanent basis would have degraded their efficiency, so quarian crew were brought on for shifts, then shuttled back to Rannoch.
Unlike the geth, CRITICAL had a significant resource bottleneck rather than having a debate over where to use their acquired mineral wealth. Another gross galactic product contraction due to prematurely-aging produce, disappearing shipments, and even missing/misplaced personnel caused a five percent drop in output on top of the economic damage already accounted for. Tax revenue decreased, spending decreased, and bankers actually worried about deflation.
People began to horde credits in search of ever-lower prices. Such activity received some measure of counter-balance from spending boosted by the notion of "the end times are here, stockpile," but lack of spending outpaced spending for the third quarter straight. Economic turmoil and uncertainty clouded virtually everything. The largest volus banks reported that loan applications all but dried up—even with nearly-zero interest rates. CRITICAL engaged in some hefty borrowing to fund a fleet of twelve Maxthons, but given that no known Element Zero concentrations could meet the needs of these ships, the loans sat without being disbursed as no one was willing to start constructing a ship without assurances its primary power source could be fueled.
SETTLE began working on uprating Maxthon hyperdrives as hyper-zero left the ships reliant on a weaker hyperdrive which combined with eezo ended up more than the sum of its parts. This re-engineering would take time and still leave the ships far slower than they'd been in their original iteration. The functioning mass relay within the Trans-Galactic Republic's Home Galaxy meant inbound supplies were easy to obtain, but that rested on the assumption the Trans-Galactic Republic would in fact continue sending more materiel. Even if it did, distributing the bounty still remained problematic due to anti-Infection inspections adding travel time and the destruction of mass relays in several clusters.
[…]
Urdnot Wrex suppressed laughter upon viewing yet more downcast news from the galactic community. "We rebuild just in time for everything else to fall apart." He'd taken a longer-than-usual journey back to Tuchanka after speaking his mind to the Council regarding Trans-Galactic Republic maleficence on his world.
There was nothing the krogan could really do to boost galactic consumption—most current ventures involved reconstruction on Tuchanka using natively-available resources which would not stimulate demand in other locales. Existing equipment stockpiles combined with the natural strength of the krogan permitted Korbal to continue to rise from the Kelphic Valley. Thax's business graduates were unable to apply their knowledge in a dysfunctional galactic economy—it didn't matter if you were almost giving away bacta (krogan could not use it). No one was buying in near the quantities that existed prior to disruption-via-rift. As a result, Wrex's fear of over-enthusiastic krogan businessmen began to play out in the last place he wanted it to—Tuchanka. Unrestrained capitalism caused all manner of underhanded tactics to bloom, from simple spying to industrial-scale sabotage. The latter resulted in the destruction of many tomkahs meant to haul stone for the project, slowing it down. Knowing that unchecked price growth via higher taxes intended to offset falling revenue for the project would ultimately doom Korbal, Wrex headbutted, shouted, and cajoled krogan into working longer hours for lower wages. As tax receipts dried up (even krogan were no strangers to sitting on credits), Wrex had less and less to pay his laborers. Any time extra money showed up in the coffers of what now passed for a semi-central government, he doled it out as bonuses.
The problem was that the decaying situation in the galaxy at large re-triggered a sense of krogan despair toward the inevitable destruction of their species. Tourism had brought in a steady income stream, but when Tuchanka became a week-long journey fewer opted to make the trip. It had also served to re-introduce everyone else to krogan not after their blood, and in turn the krogan met people who had other reasons for arriving besides kicking a species while it was down. Now, only small numbers visited, and most of those that did were collecting on debts from krogan whose business ventures went bad. After several debt collector corpses were put on prominent display in areas around the Korbal's base, Wrex laid down the law, or tried to.
"This is exactly the attitude that turned the galaxy against us in the first place!" he roared.
Unfortunately for him, he ran into the same problem virtually any other political leader did—in good times, citizens of highly-traditional societies begrudgingly followed along with unconventional leadership if it seemed to be making life better, but as soon as things turned sour they'd revert back to the old ways.
"Cast us out, then! We'd rather die fighting your blasphemies and disrespect to the elders than live in this putrid varren-nest!"
"So be it" he huffed, stomping off back to the fortress. Wrex hated spilling the blood of a species which had been running low on viable individuals anyway, but he much preferred survival to death at the hands of those who'd take the krogan back to the dark ages. Turbolaser towers thundered, mowing down row after row of attacking dissidents. The sad part was, for all the alleged anger against him, he had a suspicion that some of them simply wanted an easy exit rather than facing the mess the galaxy had become. Generally, most attackers would employ armored and armed tomkahs, heavy battle rifles, explosives… Some of the "squads" thrown against the walls of the Kelphic Valley stronghold didn't even have armor! He knew armor had been sold to them (having blessed the gray market in supplies personally), so it wasn't as though they lacked equipment. They seemed to lack spirit, though.
[…]
"Learn to love it" taunted Jack as Sam was yet again subjected to the remix of her statements to the Citadel Council during the Reaper War.
This time, the Commander attempted to dance along with predictably hilarious results.
"You can do a lot of things, Shepard" observed Garrus. "But dancing isn't one of them!"
She good-naturedly gave him a single-digit salute. Not knowing what it meant, he had to have Athena explain. His response remained a rather blank stare, however, despite this new knowledge.
In the drydock, it could be seen that the digistruction systems had actually sliced Normandy across the beam, allowing the bow and stern portions to come apart. As the ship remained completely powered down, no fluids leaked, no electricity discharged, and nothing exploded. Sophisticated scanners took note of every open end between the outer armor and inner pressure hull so that they could be continued straight or rerouted, ultimately reconnecting with the other end of the ship after passing through the sixty-meter extension.
"That's not something you see every day" remarked Miranda. "Even when I did technical integration, we never just sliced ships in half!"
"Digistruction is so cooool!" yelped Gaige. Despite having entered her early twenties, she still had a bit of a childlike demeanor.
"I just hope it does the job correctly" said Tali nervously. "I've seen this tech build whole ships from scratch, but working on an existing ship is not anything that I'm aware they tested."
"I'm guessing this doesn't come with a warranty" replied Kaidan to the general conversation. "Or insurance."
"Dude, if there was any kind of insurance policy on this ship, the cost would probably go up by a factor of ten just because Shepard's here." This earned James a glare.
"Vega…"
"Yes?"
"I'm really considering putting you on cleaning duty for that…"
"Given that Shepard-Commander orders us to statistically probably death an average of 2.73 instances per day, rounding down, it is logical that any policy which would result in a payout as a consequence of Shepard-Commander's death would carry significant cost due to the extreme risk and likelihood of being required to disperse credits."
"Ah, I can't ever catch a break with you people!"
"Addendum: Since the termination of the Old Machine Conflict, this moving average has decreased."
"Oh, that makes me feel so much better."
Many crew members wandered over to the wall of vending machines set up on the edge of the engineering workspace. It was a well-known fact that engineers worked best when subjected to long hours, infrequent breaks, and were solely sustained by junk food. Consequently, from Tupari to turian chocolate and dextro cheese, one could buy just about anything so long as balanced nutrition wasn't the most important consideration.
"Commander Shepard drinks Tupari!" blared the namesake machine. Apparently, that endorsement deal was still running. She hadn't actually bought a Tupari in years. Pulling a credit out of her SDU, she found the machine had already dispensed a product, and continued to do so every time she put her credit near the slot.
"Thanks for your endorsement!" it said. Repeatedly.
"Well then. At least I get free soda?"
Athena grabbed one without asking. "Sometimes I can't get over food that actually has flavor" she said excitedly. "On Pandora, it was always either boiled skag, roast skag, bladeflower salad, or some other repetitive tasteless glop scooped out of a ration can."
"Hey! Anyone else want one?" shouted Sam. "Apparently, I can have as much as I want!"
Athena tugged the Commander away from the increasingly-social gathering and rapidly-disappearing pile of Tupari.
"What can you tell me about Garrus?"
Shepard suddenly had flashbacks of school days—back when boys were actually a concern of hers. She and her friends would sometimes have conversations solely relating to who was crushing on who. It seemed a lifetime and a half away. Given that she'd died once and almost died twice, it actually was, in a way.
She laughed before answering.
"He's…a turian. He's really good at calibrating things. Tactical genius, knows pretty much any weapon you hand him within ten minutes. A bit less by-the-book than most of his species."
Athena leaned in conspiratorially. "How thick are you? I mean if I wanted to, say, see if he was open to dating!" A most un-Athena-like giggle escaped her.
Sam chortled again.
"All these people around, and you're asking me about dating? You know, if there was an option on the extranet to list yourself as 'in a relationship with your job' I'd take it in a heartbeat."
She spun the auditor around, making sure she stopped with her eyes on Brick and Jack. The two of them seemed to be having some kind of eating contest, which judging by the emptiness of nearby vending machines, was well underway.
"You see them? I don't know much about Brick other than that he piledrove me once. I think I deserved it, but that's beside the point. Jack, on the other hand—I'm surprised she even made it as a teacher let alone found someone to go steady with."
"You sound like you're about sixty years old!" shot back Athena. "Who uses that phrase 'Go steady?' Sounds like something describing the Normandy's engine output."
"I may sound old, but I definitely know I'm right about this. They were totally just banging originally—I think they fell in love with each other's tendency toward violence. Except they also got to show a different side with all the kids around the KOMBT School. And the whole friendly competition thing definitely didn't hurt."
"You mean the students?"
"Yeah. The Iron Ab Slabs and the Psychotic Biotics."
"Well, both of them rubbed off on their trainees big time. Remember the banquet?" Sam's eyes misted over at the thought of all the hilarity which had occurred. Thanks to some artful string-pulling, no one got in any trouble despite the whole rulebook essentially being thrown out the window and set on fire that night. Being Samantha Shepard helped too.
"Yeah, about that…" Athena's eyes fell.
Shit.
Sam realized why.
"I don't even know, okay?" replied Shepard. "I don't want to just say I was drunk…but right now, I feel like I shouldn't be focusing on me—the whole galaxy is at stake!"
She knew that wasn't going to go over well. But what could she actually say at this point? One, she hadn't been in any kind of serious relationship in over a decade, two, she didn't know if she wanted to explore being in a relationship with a woman, three, time for relationships of any sort was kind of thin, and four, there were rules about subordinates or other officers for a reason.
"Okay." Athena seemed artificially cheery. She decided to redouble her efforts regarding Garrus.
"Also, this is kinda awkward" continued Shepard. "But if you want to, ahem, date outside your species, you should seek qualified medical advice on various differences you'll be encountering. Don't just use the extranet!"
"Should I talk to Dr. Chakwas?"
Sam's lips twisted into a sly grin. "I'd speak with Mordin. You'll learn more than what you wanted or ever needed to know, but you won't be surprised by anything after he's through."
"You know something!" She resisted the urge to slap Sam on the ass.
What the hell, Athena? Where did that come from? She just shot you down!
"I know Mordin knows his…oh for the love of…"
THWACK.
A bag of chips went flying past Sam's head. Jack wielded some kind of taped-together contraption and was hitting floating food packages supplied by Maya the Younger.
"Weak!" bellowed James. "Watch this!"
Jack wound him up a box of crackers, which he slugged with another taped-together device.
"Did they just…"
"Yes" finished Athena. "They seem to have connected empty Tupari and Paragade cans, and are using them to hit things that come out of the vending machines."
"Can I take you guys anywhere without making a mess?" bellowed the Commander.
"Technically, they're just doing what you told them" said Miranda Lawson. "You forbade everyone from talking about anything mission-related during the refit then commanded everyone to have fun. You even finished with 'That's an order.'"
"Where'd Kasumi go?"
James walked over, dragging his tower of Tupari cans. "Lots of 'em went to the swimming pool. Maybe we could get one in the cargo hold!"
"They snuck three decks up without me knowing?" Sam stood aghast at her lack of situational awareness.
Cortana appeared from a nearby engineering station. "I can show you."
That's not creepy at all.
Samara hovered, meditating over what looked like the deep end of the pool given the presence of diving boards by the end. Why she'd chosen this spot Shepard had no clue, as other crewmembers kept diving past her. More than once, the asari had to reposition to avoid an incoming cannonball. Behind this scene, Zaeed lounged in a chair with a drink in hand. Kasumi apparently wore her hair up in a bun of some kind—it just occurred to Sam that she'd never seen the master thief with her hood down before. Or, indeed in any form of dress that didn't involve her usual thief outfit. She watched Thane lead Joker through calisthenics. Apparently the use of his legs (well, entire body, really) was something the pilot wanted to experience fully for the first time. Pre-bacta, a drell wouldn't go anywhere near such a humid area, but now Keprel's Syndrome meant almost nothing.
It was strange to see Moxxi at a bar instead of behind one, but there she was on the other side of the room drinking with Tali of all people. Assorted crew hung around the bar.
"You gonna keep creeping, or are you going to join us?" Ashley had already changed into swimwear. "Everyone's going upstairs!"
Giving one last look out the panoramic window, Sam saw an engine materializing on Normandy's new wing. Slowly but precisely the new propulsion system would be added.
"Oh all right…"
The fun proved to be short-lived, or, rather, shorter than "Ms. Always Save the Galaxy" (as Jackie had taken to calling her) would have liked. Only five days in drydock and Normandy SR-2.5 was ready for action again. In those five days, the crew swam, ate like royalty, played Tactical Command in the station's "hyper-realistic war simulator room" (it involved laser-based "weapons" and those who were "tagged" got counted as temporarily dead), exercised, socialized, and in general lived the non-military lives denied to them since, in some cases, signing on to the Normandy SR-1.
Shepard tried to talk Joker and Grunt into going to the Trans-Galactic Republic's shooting range. "Cool guns!" she'd said.
"Now Commander, you ordered us to do things that are not mission related. Shooting seems to violate that rule…"
Even Grunt didn't want to do it. "Too many types of good food here. Besides, the Battlemaster called off the war temporarily!"
Forced to eat her own words, she stopped to see Jackie. Technically, Jackie shared quarters with the older Maya, but the aged Siren tended to spend her only time in the quarters sleeping so Jackie had the room to herself most of the time.
"What did I tell you?" demanded Shepard upon recognizing slipspace equations. "Put that away!" She slapped the tablet out of Jackie's hands.
"Sometimes I get bored out there" replied Jackie quietly. "I never really realized how much I enjoy just being alone sometimes until after I went through my, um, treatment."
"Introverted, huh? That my invitation to leave?"
"No, no!" protested the Jakobs heir. "I just… Sometimes I don't even know what to talk about with people! And then anyone who knows me wants to hear about my past again. They say it's interesting."
"Technically, they're right. Your life's been rather unique."
"Well I hate it now" hissed Jackie. "I'm done with it."
Alarms went off in the pool area overlooked by the many quarters (including Jackie's) arranged several floors up.
"Oh, not again!" complained a maintenance worker running past the open door. "Damned rifts took half the water out of the pool! Second time this week!"
"I can't even go on vacation without being reminded of my work" grinned the Spectre.
Jackie retrieved her tablet with a defiant look on her face. "Which means the sooner someone figures this out, the better! I've been trying to figure out why there aren't as many rifts near biotics, but the math doesn't make any sense! Also, Jack's down there! There shouldn't be any rifts at all!"
"There are a lot of things going on that make no sense. I've just learned to accept them" replied Sam.
"We can't just accept the end of the galaxy" retorted Jackie. "People are starving because of these rifts. The Infection likely came through one!"
"Which is why the Normandy's being refit. We're going on an expedition to the Nemean Abyss to see if we can find the source of the problem! For now, relax. That's an order!"
Shepard left Jackie to her thoughts and headed back downstairs.
[…]
"The Infection seems to be concerned about acquiring technology" opened Grayson at the latest Council meeting to discuss the problem. "The data given to us by Cortana suggests we worry about it acquiring biomass lest it assemble into a more evolved form, but so far its targets have all been relatively low-population areas like the latest, the Pylos Nebula. Not much there."
"The asari tried to colonize Namakli with socialized vorcha, but the venture collapsed" replied Tevos. "The vorcha reproduced faster than they could be educated, and spiraled out of control."
"This move into the Pylos Nebula is most concerning" interjected Councilor Clethon. "It shows that the Terminus Systems are not, in fact, taking inspections seriously! Pylos is only one jump away from Omega, and represents the first intrusion of the Infection into the Attican Traverse."
"Then we send Shepard in to have a chat with Aria T'Loak, and see what's going on in the Pylos Nebula" replied Victus. "Shepard is the only one Aria will even listen to."
"We should initiate the Infection Action Plan" insisted Victus. "While we still can and have a reasonable chance of it working!"
"Are you really calling for a vote on that now, Councilor?" questioned Grayson. "As written, that requires a unanimous vote of this body, as we would be declaring only Inner Council Space worth defending."
"We have containment issues on both sides of the Traverse now" shot back Victus. "The Crescent Nebula sits on the border, and the Pylos Nebula is definitely not part of the Terminus Systems. Part of the decision to write that policy stemmed from the Crescent Infection!"
"Or do we?" challenged the human Councilor. "The Nubian Expanse met a fiery end and its relay was destroyed! Sarah, of course. If this pattern holds, she's creating a firebreak between the Terminus and Council space, whether she means to or not."
"Surely, you remember that Caleston and Hawking Eta connect to the Shadow Sea!" chastised Clethon. "This destructive Siren has not quite sealed off that side of the galaxy."
"Yes" said Grayson, "but the destruction of relays means fewer doors on which eyes must be kept. Though it pains me to say this, she has at least avoided destroying heavily-populated systems of late. I will speak with Admiral Nimitz about redirecting some of our existing warships from inspections on the larger half of the Attican Traverse since there will be fewer checks to run."
"What about your reinforcements?" queried Tevos.
"Another two months at least" said Grayson in a resigned tone. "Nimitz told them to step on it, but there's really nothing we can do to get them here faster."
He didn't mention that the heavy space tugs brought originally to remove Revenant had been secretly tested on mass relays a few weeks back. In proof-of-concept, these tugs were capable of moving the behemoth constructs, but without the ability to reprogram them it wouldn't be useful to relocate one. He hoped perhaps the AI Cortana would be able to assist here. For once, the subterfuge wasn't the Republic Intelligence Service—Nimitz ordered the experiments on her own. It would give the Republic Great Opportunities Fleet a fast exit should they need one.
"I still move for a vote on establishing the quarantine" intoned Victus solemnly, "especially if our allies won't send more forces. We can't even drum up the ships we need because we can't build them!"
"Nay" replied Grayson. "All is not lost yet!"
With the unanimous requirement, his choice killed the proposal. Clethon indicated his support anyway—strike first, he said, and finish the fight before it starts. Tevos agreed with Grasyon, though. "Give our existing strategies more time. I am not willing to write off billions of lives at this point."
Seeing this proposal falter, Clethon made another controversial suggestion. "Given the technology possessed by the Trans-Galactic Republic, in addition to its complete control of the Shroud structure on Tuchanka, would it not be possible to remove adaptive breeding restrictions imposed on the krogan? They produce offspring at a rate comparable to the Infection."
At this, it was Victus who objected to the idea.
"Remember what happens when a krogan becomes Infected" he said gravely. "And if the krogan return to their fast breeding, both the Infection and destabilizing elements on Tuchanka would become issues. The Trans-Galactic Republic indicated that Tuchanka's Renaissance is already wavering due to economic flat-lining in the galaxy at large."
"The Salarian Union has taken the unusual step of authorizing a release of information regarding Special Task Group activities, noting that keeping secrets and refusal to share valuable intelligence did the galaxy no favors when the Reapers arrived."
Grayson ignored the veiled jab. He'd long since accepted everyone would complain about others keeping secrets, but insist on keeping their own.
"To what activity are you referring?" Tevos hoped it would be something helpful.
"The Special Tasks Group has managed to make some headway against the Infection in ways the artificial intelligence known as Cortana insisted were not possible" replied Clethon. "The following information is designated COSMIC TOP SECRET and compartmented. We are all cleared, but dissemination requires sealing the room."
After each Councilor confirmed a closed, off-the-record session, the recording began to play.
[…]
A salarian scientist appeared on the projector.
"This briefing is intended only for the Citadel Council. Dissemination of information classified COSMIC TOP SECRET, XRAY is strictly prohibited and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of applicable law. Due to a declared state of emergency, the death penalty is in effect for such offenses."
"Harsh" commented Grayson, before being shushed by Tevos.
"Our scientists, drawing on the work of Dr. Mordin Solis, have created a short-term defense against the Infection. It causes Infected life-forms to ignore those wielding the defense, though it has the unpleasant side effect of an extremely foul odor. That being said, it is preferable to Infection."
"So the STG created Infection repellent" breathed Victus. "Leave it to them to synthesize something like that!"
"The key remains that this only works over a period of minutes to hours" continued the unnamed scientist. "Furthermore, every subsequent test showed the Infection more and more responsive to animals coated with the substance, culminating with the Infection of these animals on the fifth trial."
"Enough to run, but not enough to fight." Grayson's dour evaluation surprised everyone, especially since he'd been so upbeat about the galaxy's chances by refusing to condemn the Terminus and Atticus.
"At present, we are unable to craft further advancements. The Infection is virulent and adaptive. Originally, we set out to cure it, or at least halt it. Such efforts proved fruitless, as the Highly Active Infection Agent cells seem to block every attack within a few generations."
The image shifted to show some dead cells, which were later reanimated by live cells.
"Even killing it doesn't stop it" continued the salarian. "If a single live sample comes in contact with dead biomass, it either resuscitates the deceased Infection Agents or uses their corpses to fuel its own growth."
The video clip ended. The STG was willing to comment semi-publically on some of its work, but it was not willing to discuss more controversial aspects of its latest Infection studies, including the deliberate Infection of sapient samples (mostly malcontents shipped from Omega). This had been authorized-but-not-officially by the Union upon seeing the Infection's blistering advance across the Terminus Systems.
It amused Padok Wiks to no end that slave brokers on Omega, whose ruler absolutely insisted that no experimentation with the Infection occur, regularly sent test subjects to front corporations allowing continued testing of more advanced anti-Infection technologies. He conducted regular anti-mole sweeps, and at any rate he figured even if Aria T'Loak became aware of goings-on, she wouldn't be able to do much about it since there were no more conveniently-poorly-defended Trans-Galactic Republic portable superlasers laying around. The Special Tasks Group also installed redundant shielding acquired from inbound Trans-Galactic Republic convoys under the guise of "homeworld defense." Technically, stopping the Infection did constitute defense of one's homeworld, so if one tortured logic enough it wasn't a lie to say the shield units were "for the protection of Sur'Kesh."
"The Republic Intelligence Service may think us primitives, but two can play that game" vowed the base commander. Not everything was won with hitherto-unbreachable (to the STG) computers or superior gunnery.
As the lights came back on in the Council Chamber, each Councilor had his or her own thoughts on the matter. Victus wanted action now. Tevos and Grayson seemed to be content to wait for the wolves to actually arrive at the gate before shutting it as the wolves might not even get to the gate (they hoped), and Clethon fell somewhere in the middle.
Council deadlock thought Grayson. Just great.
[…]
Admiral Allison Nimitz stood on the bridge of Ultimatum. The ship's belly had been flayed open like a fish to facilitate replacement of her burned-out Class 2.0 hyperdrive. It would have been nice to include a hybrid hyper-zero unit, but most calculations suggested there might not be enough eezo in the entire galaxy to build a hyper-zero drive for a Star Dreadnaught. As it was, getting a part from the Home Galaxy that was larger than some cruisers represented an accomplishment in itself. The Admiral wasn't even told where the hyperdrive came from—with three publically-acknowledged Star Dreadnaughts functioning (Revenant having been written off as a loss) it had to have been either pulled out of an existing ship (unlikely) or commandeered from another still-building Star Dreadnaught to get the part in this quickly.
With the increasing involvement of the Republic Intelligence Service in many Gamma-Six activities, she wouldn't have been surprised if a "black budget" had procured more funds for the behemoth vessels, but where would such money have come from when each vessel cost twenty billion credits each? Appropriations that size, even in a hush-hush section of the budget, would not escape the notice of Home Galaxy Senators—already under pressure for permitting the construction of four in a line of monster ships with no apparent galactic threats on the horizon in the first place.
That wasn't her concern, however—Nimitz wasn't a politician. She just needed to get her lightspeed capability back to fight the Infection and Sarah. Or, worst case, get the hell out of Gamma-Six.
Rumor had it the new drive consumed less energy on the order of a 10% reduction. Again, this suggested continuing developments on Star Dreadnaught-scale technologies despite the run supposedly being "four and only four" (sworn up and down by Senators advocating for the Omnibus Defense and Economic Security Act). It did lead to economic security…for those building the ships at any rate. Them, and their sub-contractors. And sub-sub-contractors. And sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractors. The Trans-Galactic Republic hadn't had any large-scale conflicts in centuries, a record. There even existed an only-half-facetious HoloNet site called "Days Since Last War."
Again finding herself ruminating on political items, Nimitz wondered if RISE knew something everyone else didn't. Perhaps they were in contact with these Eridians, or some other crazy thing like seeing the future through their strange powers. Regardless, they seemed remarkably well-prepared for the eventuality of the Infection…