Chapter 54 – Now You're Thinking

"I don't think getting Sarah back in fighting shape will be as simple as restarting a computer" cautioned Garrus.

"Besides, what about the Reformers and Sally McKnight?" asked Admiral Nimitz. "Shouldn't we do something about that?"

The transfer of memories to the Selfless Servant of the Mantle has in fact triggered Reformer notice.

"So does that mean they're going to attack us?" The turian commander instinctively readied his weapon.

Brave, but foolish. Your small device would be but a grain of sand to them.

Based on available information, Nimitz strongly preferred the "Pure" Eridian faction, but this member (or possibly members) had the obnoxious habit of not answering direct questions unless prodded.

"So do I need to break out last rites or not?" she asked peevishly.

The execution of your fellow warrior has been delayed while another debate is had. We are attempting to take advantage of the situation.

"What if we disrupted the debate?" suggested Garrus.

Meaning no offense, but what could you possibly…

"Open the slipcelerators" asserted Jackie. "Open the portals to another dimension my family's company was pursuing before mysteriously filing away a promising technology that would have allowed instantaneous travel, except Bill Arkansas Jakobs suddenly declared no further development would be funded."

"Suddenly decided because I discouraged him."

In the meantime, Sarah returned to consciousness.

"This is precisely the outcome I was supposed to help prevent" she continued. "A full-scale bridge between variable-space and our universe."

Indeed this was our fear as well, though we of the Pure Mantle would not have addressed it in this way using such a blunt instrument.

"Look, I get it. I killed a bunch of people and you think I'm terrible for it. I know 'just following orders' doesn't fly with you but when your whole consciousness can't even register right from wrong because you were forcibly altered, it's kind of…hard to resist."

"How convenient" huffed Garrus. "Mind control absolves you of your crimes against civilization."

Though you may not like it, [Sarah] is technically correct. The entire reason for the conflict she had with the Reformers arose due to [Sarah] originally believing they violated the Mantle leading to her attacking her creators, after which she was disabled and re-oriented to better suit Reformer goals.

The turian had the maturity to refrain from further argument, even though the situation made him burn with the fire of a thousand suns. He agreed—the Siren everyone loved to hate wasn't mentally culpable based on evidence presented. Unfortunately, that gave little comfort to the many who died under her forced personality, and thus far her return to "normal" hadn't offered anything beyond what they'd already secured in her not attacking anyone else.

"So what would it take to get everyone in this…Eridian universe to get off their asses and help us?" Jackie's tone showed a hint of the irreverence her old persona had been known for.

We will not aid in any action that would lead to unnecessary killing. Justification for ending life under the Pure interpretation of the mantle must be extreme indeed.

"Does the end of the universe count?" Jackie stood tall and square, like she remembered seeing Samantha when the latter had verbally skewered her for (intentional) theatrical antics to prevent the Jakobs family from noticing changes in Jackie's personality.

"Three guesses as to why it doesn't" replied Nimitz unenthusiastically.

Your flag officer is correct, but not for the reason she thinks. This is precisely the type of task the Reformers look down upon and refuse to perform, wishing to delegate the defense of innocents to other empowered agents such as [Sarah] or the [Sirens].

"Obviously, that didn't work" shot back Sarah. "Whoever built me didn't make me powerful enough for this…"

And what would you do with such power, [Sarah]?

"Save the galaxy, I assume" chipped in Garrus, as if this were the most obvious fact ever spoken.

There are several problems. The first is that the Selfless Servant, in her desire to see no more like her created, destroyed all backup data available in the lab where she was born. If the Reformers have further copies of this information, they will not share it. Second, even if we have the data, we lack the equipment to make use of it.

"Because the Reformers are hogging it?" guessed Nimitz.

"Correct."

"Also, I have to bring this up again" added Garrus hesitantly. "We only have your word that you won't go nuts and kill everyone again. I don't trust you—you've done precious little to earn it."

Sarah rounded on the turian, furious that he doubt her now. "I've done absolutely nothing for months. I've sat on my ass while your forces licked their wounds."

The seething Siren turned to Allison Nimitz. "Your precious intelligence service tried to kill me. They made me stronger than ever, and yet I did nothing even though by rights I should have electrocuted, choked, and eliminated every last operative aboard your little ship."

Nimitz flinched, partially at having her ship called "little" but mostly due to the Siren's attitude.

"I don't think they've still fully gotten over what I used to be, so you'll have to excuse my support for their skepticism. And a sex-crazed hedonistic sadistic brat is pretty small potatoes by comparison."

Jackie placed herself between the two and Sarah, as if to ward her off.

"The die is cast" spat Sarah. "You can either trust me, and we can work together, or you can keep on judging me by what I was. We'll still have the same goals, but it's hard to cooperate when everyone's questioning your every move!"

Kevin Filner, quiet until now, added what he hoped was a voice of reason to the debate.

"Let's look at this scientifically."

Glares all around, but no one moved to silence him.

"Sarah, you and your creators have exponentially longer lifespans than any of us, even Admiral Nimitz (with respect, ma'am) could ever hope to achieve."

He let this hang, expecting the obvious question but not hearing it.

"And yeah, you'd think people with longer lifespans would take correspondingly longer to trust people. Consider this, though—when you live forever, fussing over whether you can trust someone because you fear for your limited lifespan? That doesn't enter into the picture. But us? We're not as tough, fast, or technologically advanced. We can't thumb our noses at the passage of time or having our innards become outards, so we have to make the most of what we have. That means we want to make sure the people we consort with are trustworthy, especially if they've done things that mark them as anything but."

"In my travels, I have often found it necessary to place myself in situations that defy logic, in the hopes of reaping a large reward. Though I despise social interaction as a waste of my intellect, I became a part of a Dahl team shipped to Pandora in the interest of acquiring more knowledge about the Eridians. Even as the rest of my colleagues lost their lives, situations which were no doubt often of their own faults, I remained set in my tasks."

Were any of the Vault Hunters present, they would have vehemently disagreed considering Patricia Tannis sent them to round up seemingly-pointless ECHO Recorder journals, many of which depicted a woman concerned with things other than Eridian artifacts, and seemingly on the verge of a mental breakdown.

"I risked daily attacks by the incessant wildlife, sexual violation by inane bandits whose last pleasures were often found by their own greasy hands, and the possibility that a Vault Hunter might gun me down and take my work for him or herself. After the raid against New Haven, Roland convinced me to relocate to Sanctuary—a place that for me was anything but. My first day consisted of an explosive nosebleed, my second of dry heaving into a bucket for hours. The alternative was to remain by myself among artifacts of immense value, yet I chose the less-pleasant solution."

The Tannis may not be the most concise, but these words are correct. You may not be enamored with your choices, however consider those which are least harmful to the overall cause you champion.

"If I must swallow canned skag meat day after day—among other things, standing offer!—it may be necessary to forgo moral superiority in the interest of retaking what is ours."

"We could debate this for hours" sighed Garrus. "I remember when Sam used to deal with moral quandaries in less than a minute and still got things done. My way? Let's lay it all on the table—everything we find ourselves forced to do that seems...inappropriate."

We would never force you to violate your own codes of conduct, your own Mantles. Should your faith or other compunctions dictate that you cannot work with the Selfless Servant of the Mantle, we will attempt to find another way. However, the very reason the adherents of the Pure Mantle risked crossing dimensions and universe was because we believed you had a right granted to you through apparent demonstration of understanding by the Tannis. A right to self-determine, a right to self-defense. We believe our society owes you at least that much.

"So you're saying you owe us a chance to splatter ourselves against this monstrosity on our own terms?" Nimitz refused to mince words. "You send us into the ring against a prizefighter with no training, no gloves, and no hope. I'm sorry if I'm not leaping for joy."

Is it not better to fight and die for your freedom than silently become slaves without an ounce of protest?

"I fought to become a better person because deep down, other people believed in me" said Jackie. "My therapist, even Moxxi, for all the harsh words she'd had with me—they thought I could change into something better than I was. Here, I see a mission, but no objective. I see a map, with no destination. I see a tunnel that stretches endlessly into the darkness."

We offer you a chance to stand. Whether you take it is something neither the Pure nor Reform groups can say.

Jackie gritted her teeth, barely able to form words.

"Then send us home."

Flash.

Lifelong Lockup floated next to Elizabeth Booker, tens of thousands of kilometers away from Pandora. The planet's partially-gutted status remained unchanged. Observers had to admit there was a kind of morbid beauty to it.

"Eridians" said Dr. Filner when asked by Garrus how this violation of known physics was possible.

Using Booker's drive, the pair returned to Ultimatum's fleet group as quickly as possible. During the journey, a furious but very much alive Sally McKnight related her experience with the Eridians, describing the "Reform" faction in colorful terms likely not suitable for newsprint.

"Those pretentious, self-satisfying, stuck-up assholes!" she raged. "Moralizing, closed-minded, high-horsing bastards!"

"I… I'm sorry about your crew" offered Garrus. He wasn't really sure what to say in a situation like this. Booker's men and women didn't even earn the distinction of dying in defense of their cause or homeland—they just disappeared in the flash of an Eridian weapon for crimes in no way connected to them.

She lowered her voice in an impression of the Eridian who so confidently insisted justice had been served before backpedaling.

"Stop shooting at us. The punishment is death. Oh wait, if I'd used my really advanced alien brain I would have realized there's no fucking way your ship could carry missiles that big. My bad. Sorry, your crew died as punishment."

Garrus saw tears forming at the corner of McKnight's eyes. Something he'd never seen from Shepard, no matter the hells she walked through.

"At least let them die on their feet" she grated, barely containing another outburst. "Don't slaughter them like unwanted animals at the pound."

"That's exactly what the so-called 'Pure' faction offered us" added Jackie. "The chance to fight, even though we probably have no chance whatsoever."

"Which is why several of them likely died to teleport me here instead of the death-chamber I was to be sent to originally."

"The Reform faction would rather I just kill everything" continued Sarah, unhelpfully nonchalant, before realizing what kind of conversation was going on and quieting herself. She still didn't have the whole notion of social cues or emotions down yet—it hadn't been part of her initial neural load or the subsequent overwrite. Filner theorized, though only unscientifically as neurology was not his field, that her deep readings of Revenant's computer core may have begun a "deprogramming" process completed by unseen technology activated by the "Pure" Eridian(s) they'd interacted with. In addition, knowledge gained from the "core dump" exposed her to other types of thoughts and beliefs, leading to questioning of everything. This seemed to be the lynchpin for the beginning of her turnabout.

Sally wasn't sure whether to punch the Siren or scream at her. Maybe both. The two-meter Amazon represented more Eridian egotism. More know-it-all from aliens so different and powerful they might well have been gods. And what was a mere mortal to do in that case? Rage at the heavens? Destroy the altars? Slit the throats of the priests?

"…get those conceited otherworldly snotheads to actually do something" finished Jackie excitedly. McKnight hadn't been paying attention, but seeing nods of approval from all, even the woman whose existence stirred up feelings of resentment, she wondered what had just been decided.

"So you want me to teleport you directly onto the surface of a planet covered in Flood so we can storm vaults whose existence we cannot verify on the word of a woman who by your own admission you don't fully trust. Just making sure you know what you are asking me for" said Sarah.

"That is exactly what we want" said Garrus in his best "commander" voice. "And yes, I know exactly what I am getting into."

Aboard Ultimatum (one really long tram ride later—Booker was docked at the front of the ship for some reason) Garrus gathered Normandy's combat squad in a briefing room just beyond the Star Dreadnaught's topside central hanger. He'd asked Jackie Jakobs to pull up as much information as possible regarding the alleged "Fort Jakobs Vaults" on Plutus. Unfortunately for this plan, remote access to this information was not permitted, so he had to do without visual aids.

"You all know what this means" he began, addressing the assembled crowd of eighteen combatants and specialists, plus one projected artificial intelligence. "They took our home. Slaughtered our people, then turned them into monsters. You all picked up arms to say 'Not one more.' Not one more planet, not one more system, not one more soul consumed. You all know what you have volunteered for, you all know the stakes."

Garrus realized he paced back and forth in front of his assembled crew.

Just like Shepard.

"The next few hours will define our combined civilizations for eons to come. Not just turians, salarians, humans, or quarians. Everyone. Everyone is counting on us, looking to us to make the sacrifice play if necessary. There will be no third options, no easy ways out. If you cannot look death square in the eye, daring it to come take you, then you've already failed."

Crew checked their weapons, ensuring thermal clips would eject, verifying the operation of automatic cooldown mechanisms, and loading necessary armaments into armor-mounted SDUs.

"It doesn't matter who designed it or where it came from. You've been given the best equipment we have because you are the strongest, fastest, and most lethal soldiers the galaxies have ever seen. We are not going to hold the line—no, we are going to advance the line. We are going to push forward. For every step we take, the enemy will take three steps back. No matter how many of us fall, we will keep coming. We will be ruthless. We will be heartless. We will be relentless. We will not stop until they are dead, or we are."

"Will you stop to wait up for one more?"

Cortana switched to a private channel only Garrus could hear. "I piped your speech into her quarters. You weren't halfway through the first part before she started gathering her things. Took her less than two minutes to change from pajamas to armor. Then she took the fastest tram on the ship—the 'greased chute' down the battleship's center."

Sam looked at Garrus. Garrus looked back. No words were exchanged as she stepped into line with the rest.

"You're not taking command?" whispered Ashley.

"I'm sick of it. Let someone else do it for a change—I'm just here to blow shit up. Long story."

"Well, we wouldn't want to run out of ammunition—more guns are always welcome!" Garrus couldn't believe it. Not only had Shepard returned, apparently, he'd been the inspiration for her doing so. Or at least the catalyst to the end of a long and painful process.

Without missing a beat, Garrus called attention back to the mission. "Now, I know we seem to have been joined by a special guest, but save the congratulations and accolades for after the Flood has been burned to ash. You know what to do, you know how to do it. If we're weak, if we're slow, we're dead."

About to head off to file his report in person with Admiral Nimitz, he said one thing more.

"If someone is taken, there is only one way to help them."

Jack and Brick glared at the turian's retreating back, while at the same time acknowledging had Brick been completely turned, likely there would have been no way to save him.

As Ultimatum dropped out of hyperspace at Plutus, Garrus and Miranda prepped their associated squads. Like the Omega raid, each commander took a subset of all personnel aboard. Unlike the Omega raid, Garrus intended this to be more successful due to greater knowledge of the enemy they faced. Absolutely nothing got held back in terms of weapons or equipment. Cortana fabricated a set of faux-SPARTAN armor for every combatant being deployed, even the non-humanoids after studying existing battle gear. "Faux," as in not an exact copy, but in no way lacking in lethality, protection, or specialized abilities.

Not knowing Athena no longer moved about of her own free will, nobody checked-in on her, presuming she continued to conduct her undercover operation on Vela and not wanting to risk tipping off those she sought to deceive. The clone commando's experience with design flaws in Cortana's armor did not reach the original architect either, leaving everyone with the same vulnerabilities on full display when Athena tried to tango with several fightercraft. This hardly made the MJOLNIR-derived systems inadequate, though.

Brick's, of course, bore little resemblance to everyone else's. His artificial left arm could heft weapons normally mounted on combat vehicles, so Cortana took the risk of including small-scale digistruction technology that permitted him to deploy into a stationary artillery mode, braced by his own immense strength combined with advanced recoil-absorbing hardware to rain death onto opponents over a kilometer away. The krogans mounted jump-jets only (no powered flight as she preferred increased protection over mobility for fighters whose style involved more absorbing damage than dodging), and newer biotic versions incorporated amp-systems to improve the user's native lethality. Over protests of several individuals (Jack, Samara, Gaige) the suits were entirely enclosed to mitigate the risk of inhaling Flood spores.

"Now you know what it's like to be a quarian!" laughed Tali. Ironic, since she needed her suit less and less. She could even change into the "battle version" in a room only 80% sterilized with no risk of infection.

"Keelah, the Trans-Galactic Republic and geth programming really did great things for us quarians! Too bad the rest of my people aren't here to see it…"

Samara questioned the need for "excessively large, uncivilized energy blasters" on the wrists of her new suit when "my biotics will serve perfectly well for defeating this threat."

"Trust me" replied the Master Chief. "You want every weapon you can get."

The Chief himself received an impressive upgrade—no longer did his mighty weapon, now dubbed "Hailstorm," require any external heat absorbers. Instead, radiators along the weapon's body used the same technology the Trans-Galactic Republic did for managing heat from their turbolasers. ("Don't ask how it works" Cortana insisted. "Just accept that you can blow things more easily away now.") His rotary death-spitter would now fire until its block-shaver ran dry, which would take so long as to not matter in an individual battle, or so it was hoped.

Recalling teleportation grids utilized on Halo installations, Cortana tried to build a short-range version that would alleviate the need to pull ammunition or thermal clips out of SDUs in the middle of a battle. Unfortunately, the whole process generated too much heat—not a problem when she teleported the Master Chief (especially in armor) but it would defeat the point of thermal clips and potentially cause cook-offs or misalignments in other munitions.

Gaige and Tali pored over the project as well, but couldn't figure out a way to handle the waste energy generated when (de)materializing whatever you were moving. Sure, you could vent it…if it didn't always radiate from whatever you were trying to teleport. Initial efforts to teleport the clip/mag straight into the weapon were also discarded due to precision problems—a mis-teleported item would either damage the weapon, jam the weapon, explode, or some combination. At a suggestion from Tali, attempts were made to put the item into the person's hand, but that still didn't negate the heat.

"Cooling palms!" Gaige shouted. "Put thermal absorbers in…"

A glare from both Cortana and Tali (from behind a helmet, no less) silenced her. She'd grown and matured, but still tended to squeal when presented with something "cool," no matter how impractical or undeveloped the idea might be.

"Well, people are going to have to load their guns manually. Like we've done for the past million years intelligent life has had a need to kill each other. Bit of a showstopper, I'm sure." Cortana then directed her intellect into other pursuits, such as determining a codename for this new armor design. Calling it "MJOLNIR- derived" seemed silly to her. All in all, she remained proud of her creations.

"Not bad for an infiltration AI working from memory assisted by two engineers that never saw the tech before" she'd said.

"Stand by for teleport" intoned Sarah as Normandy zipped in low, cloaked, over Plutusian desert. She'd been given an up-scaled version of the armor, now dubbed "MISTILTEINN." With her own Current/apparently biotic abilities, shielding, protective plate, and flight seemed redundant. However, she gladly took every available weapon, upgrade, and advantage she could get. Due to her size, her suit held a twin-core hypermatter reactor and wider distribution channels that would avoid the (unseen) overload experienced by Athena while under heavy fire.

WHOOSH.

Nineteen personnel and one artificial intelligence appeared in a vast atrium following a massive flash of pink-purple.

"Well, at least there's no Flood here" commented Miranda.

Jackie spoke into the squad-wide comm channel. "I've only heard of this place! It makes the last set of vaults I visited look tame by comparison…" She then recalled the only people who'd visited the other, smaller vaults were the un-aged Maya and Moxxi—neither of whom were present.

"You're on point" said Garrus. "It's your family's secret base, tell us where to go and what to do. Or not do, because I assume there are defenses in here."

"We should be dead" Jackie hypothesized pensively. "Or at least stunned. The low-security vaults I visited previously had a few energy cannons in their entryways—I'd think the Fort Jakobs Vaults should possess much more…"

"That's comforting. Now, where do we go?" asked Garrus.

Recalling her experience with Maya and Moxxi, in which the former tried repeatedly to rush ahead despite dangerous traps, Jackie gave precise, specific instructions to the rest of the squad. By staying in front, she ensured nobody got snared by errant protective measures. Overall, the "registration" process (just like the previous vault adventure) took far longer due to having so many people. The system even demanded an explanation for "excessive visitor counts," which Jackie filed under "Other" before typing "HOW DARE YOU QUESTION ME YOU STUPID MACHINE I AM JACKIE DAMNIT" in the "Explanation" box.

She grinned as she did this.

Overall, protections here seemed oddly light. It was as if someone shut most of them down, but why? Generally, this happened if a Vault needed to be filled or emptied as handling myriad devices like gravtrap floors and explosive mazes tended to be difficult when hauling the couch up the stairs, so to speak.

Arriving at one of the primary storage silos, closed, armored, and apparently already in use by someone ("Who the hell would be in here?") the party found out exactly what had been going on. Huge cranes moved Eridian relics about, assembling them into arch-like structures. Bringing in this amount of hardware with security enabled would have been flat-out impossible.

"Operative-394 to squad, engage hostiles!"

The others hesitated upon seeing a Jakobs IFF, though courtesy of MISTILTEINN armor one would be hard-pressed to tell which person it actually belonged to. "Are we to attack a member of the family we are supposed to serve?" asked one.

"Our orders are that once Jackie Jakobs enters this chamber, her life is forfeit" replied Kat.

Ordinary soldiers might have asked questions or had qualms. Not the clones.

"Yes ma'am. She will be terminated."

Departing from the last effort, each Ultra-Lethal clone had her own squad, since the stakes here were correspondingly higher. Hundreds had already been grown since the capture of Athena, with many more on the way. Eridian "Arches" (so the artifacts were called) stood thirty or more meters high—interchangeable pieces suggested one could essentially build an arch as large as the remaining pieces permitted and still have it function. For these purposes, giant versions weren't necessary.

Taking advantage of distorted time, CUBE after CUBE passed through a slipcelerator arch, coming out minutes later with a fully-grown clone. Using the original neural map, it became possible to grow entire legions in ridiculously short periods of time—exactly what Jakobs needed to crew a fleet of Atlas warships, including the dreadnaught Farsight with its massive personnel requirements (somewhere in the order of three million for optimal running with no automation). For the moment, Jakobs leveraged Hyperion's experience from connecting a human Siren to a planetwide network to enable smaller-scale control of multiple systems by one operator. Still, to even turn Farsight on required a crew of 10,000.

The clones descended upon their targets, who were not unaware they'd been ambushed.

"Spirits!" cursed Garrus. "Tali, Jackie, Gaige—find the biggest one of those arch-things you can and do what you have to! We'll hold them off!"

He and Miranda split, flanking their specialists to keep them from being focused on. In nanoseconds, Cortana noticed Jackie in particular had been targeted by several clones. The Master Chief reacted without orders from either squad commander. The Hailstorm didn't have that name for no reason—in spite of the many flips and aerobatic moves performed by the Jakobs-aligned combat clones, several of them were reduced to pulverized goo by the impact of many rounds meant to punch through tanks. Sure, three-quarters of his shots missed, but the remainder that connected were more than enough to satisfy the Master Chief's mission thus far.

The trio reached an arch 45m in height.

"Jackie, you know the most about this technology…right?"

"Uhh…"

She wasn't sure what to say to the quarian. Yes, she'd been in possession of many Eridian artifacts, but she'd not bothered to actually try to understand them, only use threats of their destruction as a bargaining chip with the Trans-Galactic Republic. A provocation that ultimately may have been unnecessary given the reception she'd gotten as an Index Patient.

Cortana barged into all three combat visors, extending herself from her primary storage inside the Master Chief's armor.

"Let me have a look at that! Garrus linked me into that crazy scientist's database before we left and gave me some time to study what she'd figured out."

"Looks like you're going to need to be very precise…"

"Or else what?" demanded Tali. "Does the universe end?"

"You don't want to know" replied Cortana curtly. "Just do as I say."

"Hold them back!" yelled Garrus. On his right, Grunt tried to beat a clone into submission. Her artful dodging made it difficult, but eventually the bladed front of his Graal connected, resulting in a disgusting "crunch" as something that wasn't the front of his weapon gave way. In a study of contrasts, Legion took shot after shot at more distant targets, scoring an 87.3% hit rate despite mostly aiming for crippling headshots.

"Take down the robot!"

Three clones vaulted onto the geth, prompting cries of "I require assistance!"

James Vega barreled into one of the clones, tackling her off of Legion and letting loose with a disruptor pistol at point-blank range. A small pile of ash was all that remained of Operative-19254, so inexperienced and "young" that she didn't yet have a name. He stood back-to-back with Thane after seeing the drell come up as "nearby" on his Combat Management System. A skilled assassin, he alternated between engaging in physical combat and firing off bursts from a disruptor-sniper. His marks also vaporized when the drell wasn't disabling clones with his expertise in martial arts.

However, all was not a walk in the park. The clones' sheer numbers were beginning to wear down both squads. Further, not every clone rushed into a headlong engagement. "Ultra-Lethal" clones "Sif" and "Nova" sat back taking pot-shots with powerful limited-run electric-element sniper rifles. By forcing shield-cycles, they temporarily removed several of the Normandy crew from the battle lest their suits take excessive direct damage. Despite improvements, most defense still came from energy shields, and Cortana warned them not to test the armor itself too heavily in combat.

Miranda's group found themselves not pressed as hard for the moment. Miranda herself employed biotics to incapacitate clones before they could enter melee range with their plasma swords. Lifts, Slams, Overloads, Warps… Anything to take down a sea of opponents who seemed intent on attacking the hunched group trying to work one of the huge portals.

"Well, at least we managed to avoid the sections that Flood were coming out of…"

A massive thrum and following bluish-white glow told everyone the science team succeeded in its task. Once open, the portal itself wasn't much to look at, being solid black.

"Set it to cycle through, and halt on my command!" instructed Cortana. "Be careful, or…"

Too late.

Several massive Flood forms toppled out of the portal. At first, they stumbled around as though confused before gaining their bearings and turning on anything within reach. What they had once been was anyone's guess, however none looked familiar. Some waved around many tentacles, others possessed only three or four limbs. One had an "arm" resembling a giant comb—huge, long, bony scythes sticking out. Observers guessed, however, that this wasn't about taming oversized, unruly hair. Another left a slime trail, in which many pods could be seen that burst, revealing smaller Flood forms.

"I warned you" lectured Cortana. "One wrong setting, and you're going to be spilling them into this universe instead of the target location!"

"Well sorry" snapped Tali. "Setting me to operate something I've never seen before and expecting everything to go exactly as planned is a bit much!"

The four monstrosities pushed everyone back, forcing Tali to abandon her control panel lest she be stepped on or hit with the giant "comb." Slowly but steadily, more horrors disgorged from the Eridian arch.

"You know, I teleported us in here because it was the one place there weren't hordes of these things" complained Sarah.

"Most of the other Vaults have been broken open from the inside" added Jackie, unsettlingly calm. "They are producing a few of the Harvester ships—Flood-ified of course, every hour or so but nothing serious. At least not when we got here."

Indeed, the few Flood-Reapers present that hadn't left the system after coming through were flattened by the arrival of Ultimatum. Biotic charge or not, surprised ships hit by Star Dreadnaught size weapons weren't going to last long.

As the number of Flood lifeforms increased, Cortana detected a change in the easily-cracked (for her anyway) Jakobs comm channels.

"Survival is preferable to infestation—forgo initial targets until the Flood is destroyed!"

Something wasn't right about that statement. The use of the term "Flood" had been mostly localized to those who'd been exposed to Cortana's terminology through other agents (e.g. Shepard, the Trans-Galactic Republic operating here).

The Master Chief turned his head so Cortana could see who'd spoken.

White armor with brown stripes—a direct inversion of the rest. A Maliwan Volcano that clearly had some work done to its frame and barrel, as though they'd been sliced apart, strapped to her back, unusual for someone from a society that was used to packing immense weight into small, portable digistructor packs.

"Is that…"

Cortana's voice trailed, heard by the Chief alone. His visor zoomed in on the pistol attached to the woman's hip. The purple, ten-pointed star of the Trans-Galactic Republic showed quite clearly on what he knew to be a disruptor weapon.

Standing amidst the melee—Athena. Or, Athena's body, anyway. Given that she clearly expected "her" clones to cut down her former allies once the Flood had been pacified, it was obvious something happened between her participation in the last mission and now.

"Where's her armor? That was my best prototype!"

"Priorities" reminded the bass voice of the Master Chief.

"Right" replied his AI. "So what do we do?"

Without speaking, groups of Jakobs clones worked with Garrus and Miranda's teams to bring down rampaging beasts from who-knew-where. Garrus' double FireHose light machine guns spat death, eating into the armor of one towering specimen. Disruptor fire caused it to flinch, but not fall (yet). Of course, since the thing contained so much mass, disruptors tuned to vaporize a person (even in armor) didn't carry enough energy per blast to completely atomize the creature. Ashley's Javelin pierced what appeared to be its head to little effect, other than making it lash out more viciously anyway.

James Vega ducked. A final shot from one of the sniper-clones prior to an anti-Flood focus shift shorted his shields, causing him to shy away from combat until they recharged. Combat, however, found him. Something—no one knew if it was a tentacle, arm, leg, or something else from one of the building-sized Flood hit him without the benefit of protective energy fields. Since the middle of his torso had been forcibly rearranged such that many parts intended to remain inside were now exposed, he couldn't really say anything. Or breathe, for that matter.

Garrus' eyepiece HUD lit up blood-red.

WARNING: Squad member [Vega] lifesigns critical. The alert also included an audio prompt using an approximation of Cortana's voice (though the AI was not actually involved).

Vakarian activated the "find" function only to be told to spin about, revealing James in his last moments.

"Medic!" bellowed Garrus, not caring that from what he knew, nothing could save his squadmate. Cursing his luck, he wished Mordin were here—the salarian had his head buried in research aboard Normandy.

James' wounds already showed signs of fast-moving Flood infestation, turning putrid-brown-yellow where scabs and/or stitches would normally go.

"Noted" said Cortana to no one in particular, observing through Garrus' HUD. "It seems mere contact with Flood organisms is deadly now."

Garrus squeezed the trigger of his holdout disruptor, issued from Ultimatum's broken-open weapons stores for just such occasions. Like the weapons carried by combat medics, the sidearm didn't really have a military use per-se. Too few shots per magazine, not powerful enough to defeat high-end shields. Perfect, however, to end someone's suffering instantaneously. James, his armor, and the budding Flood disappeared in a violent white flash. Nothing remained—everything had been atomized.

Garrus wasn't sure anyone else had awareness of what just happened—not with the now ten things stomping around, desperate cries from both his crew and the Jakobs clones… Everyone kept fighting. Jack let loose shockwave after shockwave, trying to trip up one of the towering beasts. Brick's digistructed supports held him steady as a gargantuan rectangular siege cannon unleashed superheated tungsten shot along with an explosive payload, finally stumbling one of the neigh-unkillable Flood. Zaeed took advantage of several advances in weapon tech granted to him by the merger of galactic forces, blasting away at Flood large and small with an automatic grenade launcher enhanced by incendiary rounds.

"Burn, filth!" Pulling an explosive pistol from his SDU, the mercenary fired both weapons at the same time, sometimes at the same target, but other times at separate enemies.

Kasumi Goto depleted her military-grade disruptor pistols and her stored gas/energy charges, switching to a pair of Hurricane submachine guns. Dual wielding had become incredibly popular (and easy to manage) thanks to MISTILTEINN strength enhancements and stability assists. The bouncy, hard-to-control weapons spit fire into a circle only 33% of the size that would normally be expected due to extremely steady aim by its user. She took advantage of her flight ability, landing atop a towering Flood lifeform and firing down, before it swatted her off with a tentacle. Kaidan Alenko stood side-by-side with Samantha Shepard, his customized Striker Assault Rifle lashing targets with incendiary fire while Shepard's modded Black Widow poured more shots than should have been possible into targets with extreme precision at great range.

Brick's pounding at long last actually brought down a hideous mountain, after which pretty much every weapon poured fire into it until there was nothing left but a few blood splatters. Without the clones or a steady stream of Flood in the way, Tali and Jackie managed to reach another arch. This time, the quarian was able to do exactly as Cortana instructed, which connected an ample source of Flood to the Eridian universe.

"Now, if only we could get some of those things to stumble through…" she'd said afterward.

Garrus couldn't believe how long it took all involved to realize focusing fire might mean they'd stand a chance. Still, this wasn't a vacuum—smaller Flood composed both of mutated local fauna and apparently-original creations kept pecking away, causing weapons to turn in other directions. Also, the Jakobs clones were in no mood to actually communicate with their erstwhile adversaries either, even as Flood fell.

Brick turned his vehicle-sized cannon on the arch responsible for producing the horrors he'd been fighting. A few well-placed shots knocked out its center "key" piece, causing the whole thing to collapse. Thankfully, nothing exploded afterward, though many of the otherwise-standardized sections took damage and could not be re-used. He cackled as one such section came down on the head of one of the remaining giant Flood, stunning it. Several heavy rounds from his shoulder-cannon crashed into it, splitting the creature open and killing it.

The Master Chief aimed for the legs of various Flood—his Hailstorm ate through armor, bone, and flesh equally well. Now able to fire uninterrupted, he took down the "spawner," which collapsed under its own weight as it hit the ground. Realizing it might be dead but also figuring its unbirthed offspring could yet attack, he poured fire into its carcass. Like the last downed organism, it drew the fire of everyone present, including both crews and a dwindling number of Jakobs clones. Turned out quickly, yes. Imprinted quickly, not yet. Each clone received her armor and weapons, and was basically let loose on the Flood. Such rookie agents more often than not ended up as mere cannon fodder compared to their more experienced counterparts, who constituted the majority of remaining Jakobs fighters.

Sam squeezed her eyes shut several times, trying to block out the sheer number of dead clones. There had to be over a hundred of them in here, armor compromised and some partially Flood-ified. A few were successfully turned, but their blank-slate status prevented them from being much use before they were cut down. Either genetic memory was not actually a fact (which begged the question of Athena's creation) or someone flubbed the science, as many of these Athena-copies seemed massively underperforming given the original. In her daze, she nearly tripped on a badly-wounded Jakobs operative.

"Medic! I need a medic!"

Sam received no briefing on the apparent detente with Sarah. Nor did she ask for one—no longer in command, she trusted Garrus to handle whatever apparently changed. Still, her dislike of the Siren's blasé attitude toward life drove her next action.

"The hell am I going to watch someone die in front of me" she vowed. Pulling a canister of bacta off one of her suit's magnetic attachment points (the complex, organic liquid remained ill-suited for digital storage) she began administering the treatment in accordance with standard Trans-Galactic Republic protocols.

"What are you doing?" asked a shocked Ashley. "There are still Flood stamping around, and in case you forgot, those clones were shooting at us a half-hour ago!"

"Clones are people too" replied Sam quietly. "Showing them compassion may help make this truce-born-of-fire permanent, or at least give them pause should they be ordered to attack us again."

Ashley never shied away from sassing her Commander (who usually took it in stride). Even with that relationship changed, she still felt what she wanted to say next was crossing an invisible line, but spit it out anyway.

"Did you even read your own files after they were made available?" she demanded. "Cerberus wanted to put a control chip in your head, but never did. What's to say these clones don't have control chips in their heads?"

Sam had no ready answer to that.

"You can't beat a program by showing it a sunrise" she concluded. "If these clones are remote-control agents who are told to kill us, they will even if you bought them all flowers or read them Elizabeth Booker's poetry or something. You're letting your heart get in front of your head."

"Do you see any Flood here?" asked Shepard. "If this clone were hit by the Flood, I would have vaporized her since it's the only humane thing to do. She was hit by our gunfire."

Before the debate could continue, Athena dropped down over the fallen clone.

"Leave that to us" she ordered.

Several other Jakobs operatives stood still, watching the exchange despite the two Flood skyscrapers still tramping about (while others, including most of Miranda and Garrus' squads, fired upon them). Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw one of them shudder, before falling over. She raced to the fallen clone and tore away the faceplate, only to discover the woman's eyes bloodshot and face completely flaccid. No pulse, either.

Debate over precognition mostly ended with a verdict in the negative; even the most advanced asari biotics couldn't demonstrate it in multiple double-blind, controlled trials. Sarah, on the other hand, fell far outside any Citadel space science—and she zipped to Athena's side faster than a biotic's charge. Her hand immobilized the commando's head, before the other hand plunged into the back of Athena's neck, or at least the armored portion, anyway. Sparks, wires, and even bits of flesh flew as the Siren yanked something off. Holding a small box-shaped item in her large palm, Sarah shoved it under Samantha's nose as the latter tried to continue treating her "patient."

"This would've killed Athena" she said matter-of-factly.

"Killed for what?" Sam couldn't be anything but confused by this event.

"My guess is their soldiers aren't allowed to do anything except their jobs, and it's enforced with a hardware chip" crowed Ashley. "That's why this one" (she pointed) "dropped dead!"

Sarah quickly knelt by the dead clone. The Current could do things deemed medically impossible, including bringing someone back from the dead (at great risk to the resurrected's sanity). However, that was not her intent—she merely wished to experience the fallen woman's last moments. Reliving the past thirty seconds, Sarah felt something. It was only a small feeling, one that most might not even realize they'd had. It was, however, enough to trigger the override device built into the back of each clone's helmet—a device that could do anything from subtle suggestion to an all-out neural assault. The latter being the case for this clone, she dropped dead in a blink.

"Jakobs" lectured Sarah, with all the air of being in a classroom rather than the middle of a battlefield, "probably doesn't like its soldiers thinking too independently—the last time I did that I got put on ice! I'd ask Athena about the situation, but she's unconscious."

A leg thicker than some trees crashed down nearby, forcing everyone to abort their conversation in favor of taking down the last Flood form. With everybody firing on it, death came swiftly. Its lifeless body toppled onto the remnants of a bloody battlefield, littered with clones and Flood. To those observing, it struck them how useless traditional defense were against massed Flood attacks. Shields flickered and went out after only a few strikes. Armor might well have been paper against the claws and piercing projectiles hurled by various combat-forms. Weapons only irritated larger subspecies, only taking them out via "death of a thousand cuts." Noticing several apparently-dead operatives covered in Flood growth stirring, Shepard put several rounds into each to make sure they stayed down.

By consequence of this limited protection, Garrus had to give another member of his squad an unceremonious sendoff. Thane Krios took a Flood-spike through the head, but unlike James Vega his lifesigns hadn't gone nuts right away, leading to his suffering going unnoticed until now. The Flood hadn't taken too many drell before—their lungs required a huge amount of effort to repair and maintain for very little in the way of benefits. That Thane's were fully functional did not lend the Flood any further insights into drell physiology, leading to an incredibly slow infection process compared to the usual explosive result, but one that nevertheless left the assassin incapable of being saved due to neural and organ damage.

FSSSST.

Another person turned to atoms.

Garrus kept going. He knew that some would find the inability to address the deaths of friends now emotionally troubling. He didn't blame them, and understood why that might happen. At the same time, turian training dictated the mission always came first. It was a value instilled in every citizen—with an anthem named "Die for the Cause," anything less would make no sense. The first time he'd lost his squad (to betrayal, no less) it hadn't been handled well—he'd gone on a one-man rampage killing mercenaries until Samantha Shepard showed up. Only under her guidance did Garrus back down off the notion that Lantar Sidonis needed to die for that breach of trust.

Finish the mission now, grieve later. Failing would insult the memory of those who made the supreme sacrifice.

Tali, Gaige, and Jackie finally managed to assemble the largest portal possible given existing lifting equipment (several of the bigger cranes Jakobs brought in got destroyed during combat)—it wouldn't be enough to send former Reaper capital ships through but it could fit terrors that would make those whose corpses filled the vault now look like toys.

"Well, I guess we found out why all the security systems were turned off!" said Jackie, a little too cheerily.

"All this to make the rounds coming out of a gun hit harder." Garrus wondered who the heck came up with the idea of hurling bullets into another dimension where normal physics did not apply. It hadn't been a bad concept on its face, but unforeseen consequences hit back hard.

"Instantaneous transportation would be nice" remarked Tali. "I mean, think of the possibilities!"

Gaige frantically waved anyone whose attention she could get over to the portal the trio worked on. "I still don't know what half of this stuff does. But it's showing all the other portals in range aligning to this one!"

"You mean, they're all going to pour Reapers infested with Flood in here? 'Cause I wouldn't be surprised if that happened."

Sam smirked. She'd once made a similar comment to the one Garrus just let loose ("Be ready. I bet this button summons a Reaper") under comparable, though smaller-scale, circumstances.

"Even better!" chirped Cortana on a squad-wide channel, having observed the situation through Gaige's CMS. "All those other portals are now targeting Eridian space, not ours. They're going to have their…appendages…full."

"Wait, so even Tannis doesn't have any idea what they look like?"

The woman's attitude of utter intellectual superiority might come crashing down at this—Sam made a point to bring up the appearance of their potential saviors next time she saw Tannis, assuming everyone survived the current situation.

"Nobody knows. I can infer the appearances of supposed 'Local Cluster Council' and 'Federated Cluster Union' authorities were altered at best, more likely utter fabrications. Similar to how we were shown Sarah's life in ways that made the most sense to each of us—remember Garrus' 'turian' scientists versus your 'human' version?"

"Maybe we could have this discussion when we're not in the middle of a damn battlefield?" piped up Ashley.

"Normandy to shore party, we're ready to get you."

Many sighs of relief were had at hearing Joker's voice over the comm. In another flash of purple, everyone returned to the frigate's hanger. Garrus looked around, unsure of why the entire length seemed to be covered in a white plastic sheeting of some kind. A system of pipes hung above everyone's heads, as if they were plants to water. Spray nozzles on the pipes, and some pipes running along the floor too, accentuated the effect.

"Attention: Potential Flood contaminants have been brought aboard" announced Cortana. "All anti-Flood bulkheads are now sealed."

Separately, she spoke to the incoming squad.

"Stand by, shore party. Initiating decontamination stage one."

Liquid sprayed out from the tube system. Brown in color, it contained a potent amount of iodine to neutralize any Flood cells present on armor exteriors. Such chemicals might have been useful as a Flood cure, excepting that necessary dosages were far too high to be injected into a living body. After a good thirty seconds of spray, water washed everything clear, resulting in a slurry draining out of the hanger into tanks whose contents would be dumped into the fire of a hypermatter reactor, just to be sure.

"Initiating decontamination, stage two."

Even Cortana sounded bored.

This time, a blast of ultraviolet light swept repeatedly over the exhausted fighters, taking another two minutes of time.

"How much disinfection could we need?" complained Jack. "Brick and I have…business…"

As if chastising Jack for her question, Cortana spoke more loudly for the last segment, like she had to talk over someone. "And finally, at long last, stage three!"

Were armor not worn, everyone in the hanger/cargo bay would have frozen solid in an instant. As it was, thermal insulation protected its wearers from the -200 degrees Celsius introduced into the chamber courtesy liquid nitrogen. The Flood's biomass could not survive lower than -75 Celsius, so this hefty dip left no doubt of its elimination. Five minutes later, the hanger's temperature returned to normal.

"Maintenance to the shuttle bay" ordered Cortana. "Disassemble and destroy temporary decontamination system."

In reality, that meant a couple crew remotely operating Trans-Galactic Republic labor droids (again, to avoid the risk of contact with any Flood lifeform) rather than anyone actually entering the hanger. MISTILTEINN armor was discarded (into yet more cleaning apparatuses) as fast as was physically possible, as Garrus ordered, in the most literal sense ("No, you're not allowed to go get another look at those equations, Tali") that everyone take a breather.

Normandy zipped back to Ultimatum, where the packed remnants of a jury-rigged sterilization system were disposed of in the Star Dreadnaught's fiery heart. Once this process completed, Cortana then and only then permitted the meter-thick anti-Flood bulkheads installed aboard Normandy to be opened. A small stampede ensued to get off the ship and avail of Ultimatum's civilian-grade comforts.

"Looks like this ship being so big I couldn't walk through it in a lifetime has benefits." Miranda sat with Ashley at a sushi restaurant in one of the battleship's many food courts.

"Well, that, and you forget you're on a ship, much less a military ship" replied Ashley, still somewhat awed. "In the Systems Alliance, you'd be court-martialed for suggesting opulence like this."

"It's amazing what a little technological development can do."

Miranda stopped before letting her next thought become spoken words.

"Just between us: Is Garrus reminding you of Shepard?"

"The thing about Shepard is I'm honestly never sure what to think." Ashley shook her head. She'd had some rather testy words with her former commanding officer at the Horizon colony, words she felt needed to be said even if she'd later wished she'd said them differently. And after that, once the Reapers showed up?

"Then she goes and clarifies it neatly for you. With the whole turning into a monster and all."

Miranda didn't want to revisit Oriana's fate, but here it was. One of the several items that from all appearances sent the galaxy's greatest hero over the edge.

"I don't know that we will ever be able to understand everything Samantha has faced" insisted Miranda. "I think anyone who has been in command experiences loss at some point, but how many have been told the entire galaxy is relying on them, more than once, with the expectation they can pull off miracles?"

Ashley conceded the point. "That does go far above and beyond combat stress. In a way, if it wasn't Shepard who burned those seven worlds, I'm guessing a court-martial and execution would have been in order."

"No kidding. When I first heard about Xytler's orders, I wondered who would possibly be heartless enough to follow through on them. Then I found out, and I wished I hadn't asked."

"It almost makes Cerberus look…less bad."

"Don't get me started on them" laughed Miranda. Ashley didn't quite get the other woman's reaction until she explained.

"Cerberus was originally supposed to be about promoting humanity, not pushing everyone else down so humanity looked better as a result. I never liked that Cerberus attracted xenophobes, but I always hoped our better instincts would win out."

"And then Pragia happened."

"Well, yes. I wasn't part of Cerberus at the time the project started, and I didn't want to believe anyone would go that far once I heard about it, but Sam dragged me down there and forced me to see it."

Two officers, once fanatically loyal to their causes before finding out there were dirty sides hidden by self-imposed blinders, bonding over spicy fish.

"The Alliance assumed the worst about Shepard when she came back. I'm not proud to say I swallowed it hook, line, and sinker." Ashley looked down at this.

"It's not as if Cerberus had a sterling reputation by that point" countered Miranda.

"But at the same time…" Ashley paused to collect her thoughts before continuing. She really hoped no one was recording this—if someone got it the next statement would just be piled on to "every reason why the Williams family is a disgrace."

"…I wonder, I mean, I really honestly think some Systems Alliance politicians were sore that Cerberus looked good. The Systems Alliance tried working through, well, the system—the Citadel Council, to get something done about Collector attacks. Just like the Reapers, the Council…placed its head in the sand."

Miranda laughed again. "You don't have to sugarcoat it: everyone knows the Citadel Council had its head in its ass."

Ashley smiled. "Yes. That. And by trying to use it instead of working outside the rules, the Systems Alliance seemed incompetent while Cerberus cruisers were protecting outlying worlds. Then Shepard came back and started storming around the galaxy, obstinately on behalf of Cerberus, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. That was ten times what most civilians thought the Alliance was doing."

"But that's just it!" Miranda stood as if her point needed to be made speech-style. "We romanticize our favorite causes, think their good must outweigh their bad. I don't want to think I'm working for a horrible organization that sets thresher maws on people or condones political assassination!"

The Marine had to defend the Alliance a bit at this. "Well, I think the Systems Alliance is less 'good-and-bad' and more 'good-intentions-ineffective-results.'"

Miranda rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "You're forgetting where Cerberus came from."

The other woman didn't respond right away, before slowly admitting "Yeah, you're right. That they could create something that went so horribly off the rails… It just doesn't make any sense!"

"Well, at least we're not the only ones" added Miranda brightly. "The Trans-Galactic Republic and their Republic Intelligence Service seem to be making both the Systems Alliance and Cerberus look like the abused-varren shelter."

"Until Cerberus teamed up with extra-galactic humans and tried to attack the Council."

Both had been called-out, and both faced unpleasant facts, but the pair were oddly grateful to have this exchange.

"I'm surprised you don't know exactly what they did" said the former Cerberus officer, somewhat shocked. "Unless Garrus didn't tell you?"

"He tried, but I was still so mad at James that I didn't listen…"

"He did what he thought was right. And so did you."

"But I didn't." Ashley's voice broke a bit. "If it had been Samantha Shepard making the call I wouldn't have said a damn thing, despite my doubts and distrust of her. And I hate myself for that."

"Well, I'll give you the short version. The weapon the Illusive Man tried to build malfunctioned and killed him."

The other woman grinned maniacally, something Miranda didn't entirely disagree with. She'd given the Illusive Man the middle finger, in the middle of a mission no less, for asking her to override Shepard's orders.

"I noticed. Consider this my resignation."

She remembered the words like they'd been spoken minutes ago instead of years in the past.

"Technically, it wasn't even the Council. He was trying to pick a fight with the Trans-Galactic Republic. You know, the people who build ships longer than mass relays…"

"What an idiot" sighed Ashley.

"Somewhere, he went off the right path of protecting humanity into thinking everything had to be a 'we-win-they-lose' scenario. Even the United Defense Command proved that didn't have to be true—at least not on a species-versus-species scale…"

"Yeah" deadpanned the Marine. "Just 'military wins, everyone else loses.'"

"And the victory was quite hollow. The Reapers were gone, or so we thought, but we flayed our souls like fish to get there."

"I guess getting it all back together is tougher than you think."

Ashley put her chin in her hands, trying (and failing) to imagine what it would be like to live the life of Samantha Elizabeth Shepard. The unimaginable pressure. The expectation of perfect results, not just once, but every time. The notion that even a single toe out of line would result in massive reputational damage. A belief by everyone else that you could not be killed, could not fail juxtaposed over the grim reality that both were very possible.

"We should probably go get our armor from the decontaminator's" suggested Miranda, leading the pair to not be allowed (again) to pay their bill before departing.

[…]

Cortana received a distress call. Thinking it automated, she almost declined to run interrogation protocols until the transmitting ship demanded a live exchange, and she noticed the protocols were Trans-Galactic Republic.

"This is Kael'Shiro vas Honorata, temporarily of borrowed assault frigate Midsummer's Day. We have information about survivors at the Citadel Rout. They are running low on supplies and need help soon."

Cortana realized even she had not thought of what would happen to everyone not able to hyperspace/hyper-zero/slipspace out.

"I am transmitting approximate coordinates now. Keep in mind that they are mostly headed toward you, so it's possible these fleets will be further along on these estimated trajectories than what I am sending."

"I hate to say this" replied the AI, "but we have our own problems. The Flood here is intensifying."

"Flood?" queried the quarian. "To what do you refer?"

Cortana let off an annoyed sound. "The 'Infection' is probably the term you know" she said peevishly, deliberately emphasizing the word she disliked.

"You're still alive, at least."

Kael outlined the status of every major grouping stuck crossing intergalactic space.

"The humans don't have many problems—the Systems Alliance was able to grab quite a bit of supplies, including a good amount from the Trans-Galactic Republic's convoys. The turians are short on food and fuel with many damaged ships from the battle at the Citadel. The asari, or what's left of them, are mostly mixed in with the humans. The salarian navy is running escort since most of the human ships are packed to the brim with refugees. The quarian Flotilla made use of the Trans-Galactic Republic vessels we were given to help evacuate outlying colonies and that portion is pulling ahead due to superior faster-than-light."

"There are more species than that."

Kael didn't want to be the one who had to state the obvious, but the purple woman was asking, very directly.

"No evidence exists that a significant number of drell, hanar, krogan, vorcha, batarians, elcor, or volus escaped on the fleet."

"Okay then."

Kael stepped back as if slapped. She appeared to not care. As he wondered how someone could have no reaction to the majority of intelligent life from his galaxy becoming endangered or extinct, his bridge shook as the vessel he rode in violently reverted to realspace. Cortana could hear over audio: "Stand down and prepare to be boarded. You have committed piracy against the Trans-Galactic Republic. Resistance will be met with force!"

Knowing a misunderstanding could brew quickly, she transferred as much information as she could from the distress call, including coordinates, directly to the office of Admiral Nimitz lest subordinates lose or ignore it.

[…]

After Normandy retrieved her crew from Plutus, Jakobs cleaned up what remained of the mess. According to several scientists deployed with a survey team, the slipcelerator portals (which would have made Jakobs a shipping magnate) were pumping Infection/Flood into another dimension rather than the one said portals resided in. Consequently, there existed no need to alter them unless for some reason Jakobs wished to be charitable to whoever ended up on the receiving end.

For once, a shareholder/family meeting moved quickly and professionally, without drama or pointless bickering. Uniting almost all in a common purpose, a resolution that would have Jakobs declare war against the other "big six" in an attempt to win permanent market-share concessions stirred up hot-burning fervor among attendees.

"Jakobs! Jakobs! Jakobs!" they chanted, until Bill Arkansas calmed them down.

In the past, the interests of one faction within the family had always been a source of internal conflict. For instance, the decision to utilize slipcelerator technology (made centuries ago) despite scientific warnings about possible dangers split traditionalists against a group led by Montgomery Jakobs himself who declared "No advantage should be left untaken." Back then, opposing the company's founder didn't trigger accusation of heresy, nor was Montgomery idolized.

"I welcome the debate" he'd said. "Prove to me that the risks of this technology outweigh its benefits."

Jakobs possessed a loyal cadre of buyers who shunned higher-tech weapons, especially since rumor had it that users of Atlas guns went mad after a few years.

"Mad with power!" remained Atlas' official response to any complaints about neural degeneration correlated with its incendiary and shock lines of products.

An upstart called "Hyperion" claimed to offer "elemental" weapons without any toxic side-effects using a little-known element from a backwater planet named Promethea. Unsurprisingly, the element gained the name of the planet from which it was harvested. Extraction led to breathing problems among workers, but Hyperion's sky-high pay attracted more feet than there were boots to fill.

The first product from this venture, dubbed "Dissolver" represented a sea change in shotgun technology. Only capable of firing one round before reloading, it made up for the disadvantage by offering a unique property—dissolving enemies on contact with any unprotected surface. Alan Blake, chief gunsmith and offworld exploitation manager, personally attested to the veracity of this weapon.

"I've fired it at the range a thousand times. The docs say I'm fit as can be."

Jakobs couldn't compete. With less than half the damage in laboratory tests of an average Atlas or Dahl firearm, slipcelerators offered an opportunity to expand beyond those who placed a priority on aesthetics. Through cajoling, bullying, and sheer force of personality Montgomery convinced enough shareholders to embrace slipcelerators to get them incorporated into a new sniper rifle, the Masher. Within weeks of its introduction, buyers clamored for so many that prices doubled to keep up with demand. Within months, Jakobs found itself flush with cash, now part of the Atlas "Catalogue" of investments along with attracting some new money—Tediore Capital Investments. Both recognized potential and ran with it, extolling the stopping power and simplicity of Jakobs designs despite using a premium material (wood).

"A luxury weapon worth the name" gushed Atlas. Despite being a competitor on paper, not selling in the same market segments meant that as a shareholder, Atlas made profits off another company's sales that in no way threatened its own.

Accusing Montgomery of selling out twice (once to the notion of unproven technology, then to allowing competing companies to have nonvoting stakes in the business) a big chunk of the family split off vowing to "return to the days when focus reigned supreme rather than chasing any illusion that might come our way." These offshoots abandoned everything Jakobs, including their surnames. Montgomery tamped down urges to "teach them a lesson"—if they weren't a threat, why bother wasting resources making ideological points? Only a few years later, a new shield manufacturer named "Pangolin" appeared, selling high-capacity protective bubbles "for the frontiersman in you."

"Today, we stand on the precipice of another turning point in Jakobs history!" bellowed the Chairman. "Montgomery revolutionized our weapons, we will revolutionize the galaxy!"

"One down, five left! One down, five left!"

Exuberance left no room for logic—taking over five distant galaxies would require more resources than Tediore Capital Investments combined with its largest competitors. It didn't matter. The Jakobs family was on the rise again.

Bill left actual planning to military strategists, who suggested using a false-flag opening gambit to throw everyone else off balance. The two captured Maliwan dreadnaughts would "attack" in some foolish attempt to…something. They didn't need motivation or reasons, just to fire their weapons at an innocent party that Jakobs could then save. Or destroy after "realizing" that "innocent" party was actually in league with Maliwan.

"Get our best scientists on those cloning cylinders, now!"

Deception in forms both large and small would be Jakobs' new specialty. Not unlike the now-vanished Jackie, caress with one hand while holding a knife in the other. Shareholders by this point no longer cared where the brat disappeared to—sales were still strong (up 5.7% year-over-year) without her assets on display. Plus, her involvement with Handsome Jack, while ultimately beneficial to Jakobs, still induced many cringes.