Intermission Part 1: Unknown Power

Author's Note: As previously mentioned, we're jumping ahead about a century. This means we're getting quite a bit of info-dump, most in dialogue (hopefully not too clunkily) and some in Codex entries. As always, the Codex entries are entirely optional. It should be entirely possible to read and (hopefully) enjoy, without reading any of the Codex entries.

Reviews: Thank you to everyone who commented on the last chapter.

There was one review which asked for a bit of reaction to the victory, unfortunately, I didn't see a good way to fit that in. I may add a bit onto the end of the last chapter later, but it's already very long. This is mostly a note for when I go back through after finishing the story to see if that's still warranted.

The same review also asked about how closely we're hewing to canon in the ME verse. The answer is…up to a point. Everything which happened in ME up until the Ethereal War still happened. However the Reapers have a very different motivation here. Their actions are the same, but the explanation is more X-Comy.

Finally, there was a question about mech troopers. That will mostly be answered in the next chapter.

This chapter's fairly short, but the next two are longer and all of them are a bit slower and calmer than the story so far. As always, reviews and comments are welcome.

Rael'Zorah, senior, examined the options. There were a great many options and this was a critical decision. His dear wife had made her position extremely clear, as had their cousins and sibs. However, in the end, it wasn't their decision.

In the end, it wasn't even his decision.

"KITTY!" his son demanded, pointing at the set of kittens playing in the store window, and completely ignoring the Natak, nicely native to Rannoch and able to survive on the Rannoformed Europa with no difficulty.

Codex: Rannoforming, Unlocked.

Rael couldn't really blame his son. The Natak lacked the plush fur of either cats, or dogs. Its sleek scaled skin wasn't unattractive, but it definitely wasn't cuddly. Still, he'd sort of hoped…a cat was going to be a pain in the ass to care for on Europa. Still, he'd promised. And it would teach the lad to take care of others.

"KITTY!" his son repeated, pulling him inside.

Probably.

XXXXX

Observer Alex Nar Europa woke up as the alarms blared through his ear implant. That was why they paid him the medium sized bucks and would pay him a large bonus if he finished up his tour without going nuts (though the contract referred to that as 'completing the deployment successfully'). Information coming from the passive sensor drones they'd deployed before going quiet themselves, streamed across the screens in front of his eyes as the Observer took station in the Gollop Chamber and began to transmit everything he saw back to Command.

Codex: Observer Corps, Unlocked.

XXXXX

"By the Goddess, I swear that when we get back to Lusia, I'm going to find the bitches who sold our route and flay them alive!" Commodore Chaix Skani swore, biotics flaring around her clenched fists as she studied the system map.

Codex: Asari Republic of Lusia, Unlocked.

"You don't think the same person sold us to the pirates and the Hegemony?" her sister and lieutenant Salia asked blandly, waving at the battle that was being waged around their convoy.

It galled Chaix to no end to have her flotilla of frigates hiding behind the bulk transports, but either of two other groups that had appeared in this uninhabited, pointless system outnumbered her forces three to one. Only fear of damaging their prizes kept them from firing on her. And what a set of prizes it was, a half dozen bulk transports, carrying almost a hundred thousand Asari colonists to their new home, outside Citadel space, where no one would give them any shit about being a bunch of creepy cultists who thought being purebloods was a good thing.

Despite their beliefs, Chaix had sworn to see them safe to their chosen destination, as a favor to Matriarch V'dova whose daughter had joined up with the cultists. She would honor that oath, as the Skani family always had. Though, a basic honesty forced her to admit, plenty of Skani had died failing to fulfill their oaths, but none had broken them (at least as far as she knew).

Codex: Skani & V'dova Familes, Unlocked.

"Who cares if it was the same bitch? Can you get any more speed out of those fucking transports?" Chaix asked, glaring at the massive ships. They'd pushed the transports to the very edge of their range, in order to prevent anyone from predicting their route. They had to discharge their drive cores into a planet, or they'd fry every colonist onboard when they made the jump back to FTL and her own frigates weren't in much better shape. The pirates had jumped them at exactly the right time.

"No chance at all," her sister said cheerily.

Chaix glared at the display, trying to come up with some brilliant tactic to get them out of this situation. They'd fought well, leaving the debris of a quartet of pirate vessels behind for only some minor damage to two of her vessels, but those had been the foolish eager outliers of the pirate fleet, trying to loot and run before the main body had arrived. When that seething mass of ships had arrived, two of her ten ships had been destroyed outright and the remainder forced to shelter behind the transports. Only the arrival of the Hegemony patrol had prevented the defeat and capture of her flotilla. So far.

With her ships trapped in system for hours as they crawled towards the nearest planet at sublight speeds, the pirates had chosen to reform and face down the Batarians in a battle over the prize that could not escape. The Batarians were heavily outnumbered, but the dozen frigates they possessed were reinforced by a quartet of cruisers, giving them firepower that far exceeded any of the individual pirate ships.

Both sets of ships were designed around the same principle, crippling the enemy vessel, then boarding. GARDIAN systems were their main weapons, though the Batarians also had enough cannon to maintain the fiction that they were a navy, not a larger than usual pirate gang. The pirates suffered heavy casualties closing to point blank range, but once there, they swarmed the Batarian ships.

If the ships had been crewed by Asari, or Turians, the battle might have gone differently, but the Batarians lacked the discipline of trained soldiers, and their ships fragmented along family lines as captains moved to support their political allies, rather than the nearest ships and the draftee low-caste crew was busy looking for weapons to defend themselves, or to board an enemy ship (as that was one of the few opportunities for advancement and profit they had), rather than doing their actual jobs.

Still, the ramshackle nature of the pirate fleet and the Batarians heavier ships meant the battle hung in the balance, until a pack of pirate vessels managed to board one of the cruisers and turn its weapons on its fellows. The Batarian cruisers responded by abandoning attempts at boarding.

Hope rose in Chaix's heart. Maybe they'd wipe each other out, or at least reduce their strength sufficiently to let her handle them. Unfortunately, at that moment, as the Batarians withdrew, using their FTL drives to jump ahead, gaining the space they needed to bring their cannon to bear, Chaix saw more signals appear in the outer system, more pirates, who vanished back into FTL, then appeared in amongst the Batarians, continuing the assault (in fact, they'd appeared several minutes ago as it took time for the light of their arrival to reach the combatants, and had been intending to move into position to try to seize the prize while the other combatants were still fighting).

The Batarians had been trying to turn, leaving their main cannon out of alignment with any of the pirates. Their GARDIAN lasers instantly began to fire, but the prolonged engagement was damaging the weapons. Fortunately for the Batarians, the two fleets' momentum had them moving in different directions, so the window of engagement was brief before they raced away. That moment left nine pirate ships and three of the Batarian frigates destroyed and one of the cruisers a floating hulk.

"Matriarch Janula is on the comm for you," Salia said.

Codex: Janula Family, Unlocked.

"Put her through," Chaix ordered, without looking over at the console.

"Commodore, your ships should withdraw. There is no longer any real chance of naval victory."

"I'm not abandoning you to the mercy of pirates," Chaix snapped, ignoring the truth of the matriarch's statement.

"We are not helpless. Your support is appreciated but not necessary." Chaix turned her head to glare at the ungrateful matriarch.

Janula had a large group of commandos under her command and though her ships were unarmed, the commandos weren't. The pirates would undoubtedly gas the ships, but the commandos' armor should protect them from that. Janula was probably planning to ambush the pirates when they tried to board. That depended on the pirates being very stupid, but that wasn't necessarily a bad bet. To prevent their plan from being revealed, the matriarch wasn't going to explain it over a comm channel, even one that was secured, as secured was always a relative term.

"I understand that, but I have my orders matriarch," Chaix said, voice bleak.

"I'm ordering you to leave. Your services are no longer required."

"I don't work for you, ma'am."

"Word needs to get back to Lusia, so they know they've got a traitor."

"If necessary, one of my ships will escape, but we are sworn to defend you and we will do so."

"I release you from your oaths," the Matriarch snapped.

"You don't hold my oath, pureblood," Chaix snapped.

Before Janula could muster indignation, or Chaix could muster enough courtesy to apologize, Salia interrupted, "New contacts."

Chaix looked back to the scanner display and saw new contacts appearing as a secondary relay flung them into the system. The ships were dropping in one-at-a-time, every six seconds, as they'd entered the relay singly to minimize relay drift. They came out impressively close together and spun to reform around the largest vessel, a kilometer long dreadnought. They didn't have quite the speed, or skill of a veteran Turian battlegroup, or one of the Elder Fleets, but it was better than most Salarian battle groups could have managed.

Codex: Relay Drift, Unlocked.

Codex: Elder Fleet, Unlocked.

Chaix brought up closer scans of the incoming ships, though her system was already telling her that it didn't recognize their profile, or power emissions. A flick of a button switched her view over to the optical scanners and examined the ships. They lacked the inward turned curves of an Asari vessel, the shallow angles of a Turian warship, or the multi-lobed structure of Salarian ships. The newly arrived ships were almost boxlike, long rectangular ships dotted with laser turrets. The dreadnought possessed a quartet of spinal mounted mass effect cannons, as well as dozens of broadside mounted cannon. The ship was as heavily armed as any dreadnought in Citadel space. This appeared to be a new species, not getting the best introduction to civilization.

Of more immediate interest was the placement of the ships. It was possible dropping in between the pursuing pirates and the Asari ships was pure luck, but that was…unlikely. More likely was that a ship had carried word of the encounter back to this fleet, but they hadn't detected any such ship. It was rumored that the STG had paid the price to get working stealth technology on some of their ships, but these really weren't Salarian ships.

"Incoming signal," Salia said, as Chaix was boggling over how much worse her situation had gotten.

A symbol of five intricate gold chains coming together into a single golden star, all over a blue background filled the screen. "This is Flotilla Seven of Patrol Group Nine of the Combine Fleet. We have detected combat within the zone we are responsible for patrolling. Please explain." Unlike most communication, they did not choose to transmit their features, only the symbol of this Combine was visible and the voice provided no clues as to the speaker. It lacked the flanging of a Turian, or the depth of a Batarian, but it might well have been electronically modified to conceal the speaker's identity.

Chaix didn't say anything, while about half a dozen other folks talked over one another, responding to the message. The Matriarch Janula amongst them, as was the Batarian commander and several of the pirates. Chaix was considering the fact that this unknown flotilla, claiming to be part of some unknown polity, possibly even made up of members of an unknown species, were broadcasting on Citadel standard channels, in standard Asari.

"Members of the Polita Fleet, you claim your actions are justified as collection of tolls for passage through your space. However, you provided no services and this system has no improvements which they could have used. Your claim is invalid. Matriarch Janula, which world are you intending to colonize?"

After a moment, the matriarch provided the information.

"That system is at Stage Four of the Combine Colonization Process."

Chaix could hear the disappointment in Janula's voice as she agreed not to colonize the world, but when faced with a patrol fleet lead by a dreadnought, she didn't make an issue out of it.

"That is not required. Stage Four means that initial surveys have been done, but no improvements have been made. The Combine has no final claim on the world. If you wish to undertake the task of colonization, we will not interfere. Do you require an escort the rest of the way to your destination?"

"That would be appreciated," Janula said, less out of confidence in the Combine, whatever that was, then out of confidence in her own helplessness should they prove hostile. Instantly, most of the ships began to move into flanking position. Only the dreadnought remained, floating in space alone, between the fleets. The ship's firepower was immense, but that was…a surprising choice, given the prize a dreadnought represented to pirates.

"Hegemony flotilla, your demands for information regarding the Combine are denied. I have no authority to negotiate or provide information regarding my government or people."

Chaix finally spoke up, "Would it be possible to meet with persons who do have that authority?"

"Our new colony could provide neutral ground, if that would be useful," Janula put in, eager to increase its protection as she'd been forced to reveal its location (though since everyone had known where to intercept them, that might not have mattered much).

"Hold please," the faceless Combine spokesperson said. Thirty seconds passed. "That is acceptable. Are you qualified to speak on behalf of your government?"

"No, but we can have representatives to the colony in…" Chaix did the travel math in her head, added in dithering time for the Council, then doubled it, "twenty five days?"

"Acceptable. Representatives of the Combine will meet your representatives in twenty five Citadel standard days on Purasi." Matriarch Janula was good at many things. Naming things was not one of them.

Thus began another Race, even though the battle was not yet over.

Codex: Race, Unlocked.

The battle did not resume as the pirates decided not to take the bait and attack a dreadnought, instead retreating as the Batarians scattered to spread word of 'their' new discovery, while Chaix sent all of her own frigates (except her own, as she would complete the task she'd sworn herself to) ahead to discharge their drive cores rather sooner than the fleet as a whole could and to scatter towards worlds with comms links to the Republics. It mattered less who in the Republics got the word than that someone besides the Hegemony knew about the agreement before the Batarians could do something stupid, violent, or both.

XXXXX

Codex: Rannoforming:

Rannoforming is something of a misnomer. Though many of the plants and animals used to transform worlds such as Europa into worlds where dextro-sapients like the Quarians could live easily were, indeed, from Rannoch (or the other Quarian worlds), the large majority were from Turian worlds, which had not suffered the devastation of the war with the Geth (though many had suffered other blights, not the least being colonization by the Turians, who were not the most environmentally friendly species in Citadel Space).

Meld is used to create rannoforming or terraforming bacteria tailored to the planet being transformed. This does not resolve gravitational issues, requiring the host world to either have sufficient mass to hold onto an atmosphere, or the deployment of massive element zero generators, powered by equally massive elerium power plants to make the planet mass enough to hold onto its atmosphere. The latter approach has only ever been used on Europa. Even there it was only possible immediately after the war, with the decommissioning of much of the Migrant Fleet, the resources of the entire system pulling together, the discovery of the Prothean artifacts on Mars and extreme concern about expansion outside the Solar System. Europa was the showpiece of the newly established Combine, with most other Quarian expansion within the Solar System consisting of more traditional domes and space stations amongst the asteroid belt and the moons of the gas giants, keeping them in touch with their starfaring roots.

With the subsequent expansion of the Combine, many garden worlds have come under their control, however the Combine's need for heavy duty defenses in any inhabited system have inhibited expansion, often making it more feasible to change a planet's atmosphere and ecosystem than to convince the bureaucracy and the military to expand defenses to a new system and so rannoforming and terraforming remain major industries.

Codex: Observer Corps:

The Observer Corps is made up of those psionics who volunteered for military service, but whose psych-profiles indicated a desire for (or ability to withstand) long periods of time separated from any other organic life. This is a relatively common profile, especially amongst those with the power to read minds, but without the self-control to keep from reading the minds of everyone around them.

The Observer Corps soldiers are assigned to a specific system and deposited there in a specially designed stealth craft. The craft won't be able to maintain stealth if it has to travel, but otherwise it'll look like just another mineral rich asteroid. The array of stealth drones provides system-wide coverage with directional laser communications which are impossible to intercept unless they intercepting craft is physically between the drones and the stealth ship.

The Observer then uses a special Gollop Chamber to report back to Fleet Command in real time. This is the same technique used by the Fleet Psionics to coordinate Fleet maneuvers across multiple systems. In this manner, the Observer Corps is able to monitor large areas of space at a relatively minimal cost.

Codex: Asari Republic of Lusia:

Lusia was one of the early colonies of the Asari, shortly after they encountered the Salarians, Batarians, Volus, Elcor and Hanar. Asari culture, always wildly xenophilic rapidly developed to focus its sexual interest on aliens, both for cultural reasons and to avoid creating Ardat-Yakshi. The species-wide terror of the Asari regarding Ardat-Yakshi had survived into the modern age, despite the fact that modern technology would make it far more difficult for the Ardat-Yakshi to rule as they once did. Despite all that, the Ardat-Yakshi are the boogeymen of the Asari.

Most Asari were either in agreement with this shift in focus, or acquiesced to it. Those who did not were put under increasing pressure to conform and not 'endanger the Asari people and our place in the galaxy.' Some did, but many retreated to a new colony world, populated solely by Asari. For a time, this internal segregation worked well enough, but over the centuries, both due to immigration and the fact that most Asari were xenophiles and the ongoing pressure to conform, the purebloods became a minority on Lusia. A relatively powerful and wealthy one as their families had been there since the founding of the colony, but nevertheless, a minority. This shift has created a certain degree of societal unrest, prompting a movement for further withdrawal from Asari society.

Codex: Skani & V'dova Families:

The Skani family are warriors and have been since before the Asari took to space. They've been tied to the V'dova family for most of that time. The V'dova took to trade as early as the Skani took to fighting. They formed an almost symbiotic partnership, with the V'dova providing the ships the Skani wanted and the cargo to take them to foreign places, while the Skani protected that cargo from those who would steal it.

This partnership has continued to the present day, though the historic practice of sealing the alliance with a one-a-century wedding between the two families slowly drifted out of fashion as purebloods came to be looked down upon, the earlier millennia of intermarriage have rendered them in many minds a single tribal entity. To the Skani and V'dova themselves, there are two clear branches, which, though symbiotically linked, have their own internal rivalries and external loyalties.

As private navies are generally frowned upon within the Asari Republics, many of the Skani have taken up service to their Republic's military. Fortunately, the Republics are far more open to multiple loyalties than most militaries and the integration of the navy into the rest of society is such that V'dova ships are still escorted by Skani warships much of the time, simply because the Skani and V'dova request it.

Both families are powerful and well respected in their fields, with ties to the other major familial groups working the interstellar transport and combat fields. But for an outsider it's important to remember that these are families which are millennia old. You'd be better off thinking tribes, or minority ethnic/religious group than family to get a true scale of their numbers and influence.

Codex: Janula Family:

The Janula family is the core of the purebloods on Lusia. Originally priestesses of Athame, they took the view that just as the Goddess had Asari consorts, in the personages of her guides, so should modern Asari. The family maintains its attachment to the church and several Matriarchs Janula are currently high amongst the church hierarchy.

The family originally controlled several tracts of land on Thessia with significant Element Zero deposits. When they left, they used their connections to the Church to ensure that they got a fair deal on the sale (unlike many of their compatriots who were under such pressure to leave that they sold at far below market price). They re-invested that money in low risk industries, mostly resource extraction.

They have minority stakes in a large number of mining groups and ownership of an interstellar shipping company which moves those resources. It specializes in bulk transport within Citadel space, a very safe industry, though not one with high profit margins.

Codex: Relay Drift:

When traveling by mass effect relay, a ship will arrive in the right general area, but specificity at a range beyond thirty-thousand kilometers is impossible for any ship large enough to travel through a relay. That 'relay drift' increases as the mass of the traveler does. However, when ships pass through as a group, they maintain their relative position. This means that ships can come in where they intended to arrive, or come in in formation, but not both.

When position matters more than protection, fleets transition singly, but in tight sequence, then reform their formation. The speed with which this is done is one measure of the skill of a naval unit.

Codex: Elder Fleet:

The Asari military is generally a collection of quasi-tribal warriors. This works relatively well for ground forces, mostly due to their individual power and the fact that the Asari have the largest population of any known sapient species. However, it doesn't work for naval power at all, as no small group could fund the construction of even a frigate, let alone the larger ships needed. To solve this problem, the Asari Republics created the Elder Fleets. The ships were built by the Republics as a whole and crewed by specific families and clans. Though this practice has fallen out of favor, replaced with a more standard volunteer military, with ship construction funded by taxation, the surviving fleets are still active and have not been broken up.

They answer to the Republics as a whole, as the Republics own the ships (and, according to rumor have certain technological, or explosive safeguards in place). However, though they answer to the Republics and go to war only at the command of the Republics, they choose their own tactics and run themselves. The crews are all Asari and unlike most groups of Asari, only Matrons leave the fleets, to find partners and then they return when the children are born. This has produced some…arguments with other species over rights to the children in question, so they generally only search out mates in Asari space, where the law agrees with them, or Terminus space, where the Citadel doesn't care about local law.

Though their equipment tends to be old and rarely replaced, it is extremely well maintained and all their officers have centuries of experience. They've practiced and worked together for so long that their rapport is unmatched. During the Krogan rebellions most of the Elder Fleets were decimated, but they destroyed more than four times their number of Krogan ships. The few remaining Elder Fleets haven't been seen outside Asari space in the last five hundred years, prompting conspiracy theories and STG attention, neither of which have led anywhere.

Codex: The Race:

The Race has occurred several times through Citadel history. It occurs when a mixed group discovers a new species. After all, the glory doesn't go to the person who makes the discovery, but the first person to report it back and even more crucially, the first to get their own representatives back out. Most recently and famously, representatives of the Asari Republics and the Batarian Hegemony both encountered the Combine.

Both forces instantly scattered, heading for systems on the communications network, for densely populated core worlds of their respective governments, and the Citadel itself, all seeking to spread the message that it was they who made peaceful first contact with this new, unknown power.

As always, the Race prompted economic, social and political upheaval as everyone positioned themselves to take advantage of the new discovery. Massive military buildups began at relays leading to all points near the two identified locations of Combine interest, the system of the intended colony and the system where the battle took place.

Commentators flooded the airwaves with competing analyses about what their sigil, ship design and few communications revealed about the nature of the Combine. The fact that, as always, these all proved to be laughably incorrect did not prevent them from being the most viewed reports during the weeks between news of the new first contact breaking and actual information about the Combine being released.

Author's Note: After last chapter, I thought a little kitty was needed. Originally this and portions of the next two parts were a single chapter, but after some reviews commented on how much they wanted to see reactions and realizing that the chapter was 12000 words, I broke it into 3 parts and expanded it significantly. As always, reviews and comments are welcome.