A/N: Welcome back! Today we'll be delving right back in we left off, no skipping ahead an hour or something. Let's see how the Coracia Kandros handles the situation.


September 16th 2092 – 5:57 pm – The Verrikan, Near the Charon Relay

The banging noises coming from the conference room caused Coracia to flinch. She hoped nobody noticed, the crew needed to be behind her decision to take command. The General had been compromised, she had no choice.

"Damn it Kandros, open this door!" Desolas shouted, muffled behind it.

The guards stationed near the door hesitated, mentally deliberating if they should obey him, or if they should follow his XO's orders instead. Ultimately, they remained still. Desolas stopped his pounding and shouting, but to Coracia it seemed too soon for him to give up.

"Do we have eyes in the room?" she asked one of the guards.

"Yes, but General Arterius disabled them."

"That isn't good," she thought out loud, "we need to check his condition."

"What about the salarian?" replied another guard.

She thought about it for a moment, before answering, "Yes, that might work, but we'll need to be careful. Whatever is affecting the General may be contagious."

Both guards nodded their heads. No one wanted to feel that they were betraying their beloved General, so blaming his behavior on some sort of human contagion was easier. It felt more like quarantine than mutiny.

"I'll go grab Doctor Solus. You three," she pointed at the guards, "make sure the General stays in this room. Do not let him out." The guards gave her a standard solute as she made her way to the research lab.

Just as before, it didn't take very long to reach Mordin. Coracia found him sitting in a corner tweaking his omnitool. Before she could speak a word, Mordin turned and looked her directly in the eyes.

"Did the General change his mind? See reason?" he asked.

"No, his condition has deteriorated. He went to visit the human again—and we've locked him in."

"Locked in with human? Very bad idea, could cause more harm." Mordin didn't look happy. He took a deep breath and continued, "Still possible to remedy situation. Came to ask for my help?"

"Doctor, if there is anything you can do to help the General, please do it."

"Will need to see human." he replied.

"Follow me," she said, sighing, "we'll get you in there, but you need to be prepared." They began walking towards the conference room door.

"Yes, yes, dealt with similar situation before." In truth, he'd dealt with similar situations multiple times in his life. His skills as a geneticist made him invaluable to this type of situation.

"We don't have any equipment to shield you from contagions, but I think it's safe to assume it isn't airborne. The only person to touch the human was the General, so if you don't touch either of them we'll let you out again." she informed him, "As soon as you are able, find a way to turn the cameras on; he disabled them earlier."

"Understood, and ready." Mordin waited for the door to open before quickly slipping inside.

Scanning the room, he noticed Desolas sitting next to the human, conversing silently. This was a great contrast to his earlier behavior, and Mordin took note of the change. The human noticed him first, surprisingly collected given the situation. As the turian turned to look at him, Mordin made his way towards the room's terminal.

"Doctor Solus, don't activate the cameras." Desolas's voice was slow, almost dazed. Mordin decided to listen before continuing.

"Cameras important for safety, General."

"No, the others wouldn't understand, let us talk first. This human has some sort of ability to control emotions."

Intriguing. The potential applications of such an ability could change galactic politics forever—but Desolas had no proof, he could simply be losing his grip on reality.

"Human, is this true?" he asked Anderson.

"I have no idea; this has never happened to another human." she responded.

"She has some sort of calming energy, and after we touched hands again the visions stopped! I was finally able to make sense of them." spoke Desolas.

"Visions stopped? Made understandable? Interesting, explain what you saw."

"I saw a black void, and from this void approached giant machines, designed to cleanse the galaxy. The vision was a warning, sent from the protheans." He stood up, "I know this sounds crazy, but I've had these visions on and off for years since the prothean beacons. Only now, with this human's help, could I understand them."

Hmmm—the human might not have a contagion after all. Instead, it was maybe a similar ability to the Asari with their mind melds, but less advanced. A simple touch with Desolas, who already had a troubled mind, shook lose his inner demons.

"This requires more data. Will return." Mordin made his way back to the terminal. "Activating cameras."

After they were enabled, he made his way to the door. It opened, and he was allowed out.

"Doctor, how is he?" asked Coracia, eagerly.

"General appears to have calmed down. Still need more data, must return to Human home world."

"And you think we'll find something useful there?"

"Potentially. New hypothesis: Not a contagion, but ability. Similar to asari." he strode back towards the research lab, mumbling quietly to himself.

Coracia went back to the CIC, hopeful Mordin knew what he was doing. She wouldn't move the ship an inch until the salarian had a solid plan.


September 16th 2092 – 7:10 pm – Prothean Research Base, Antarctica

Loyal researchers and special agents were busy at work in the forbidden wing of the massive prothean facility. Without Mother watching, they were free to converse on any topic without fear of prosecution. In fact, they could collect much more knowledge about the protheans than Mother ever could, in large part to the anti-AI systems built into the base.

Near the entrance to the wing, on the other side a door, the Director was waiting while being scanned by the security system, "No indoctrination detected. No AI detected." stated Patience, a prothean VI.

"Yes, yes, I'm clean, let me in." replied Harper, "There are a lot of variables at play and very little time."

"Opening door." The entrance opened to reveal the busy commotion within. His most loyal agent and advisor, Miranda Lawson, was waiting for him on the other side. Both began the walk towards his office, the old control room.

"Director, the alien craft is still stationary relative to the relay." she reported.

"Good, that gives us more time to study it." he replied, "Speaking of, where are we on deploying the cloaked drones?"

"Earlier today we had a breakthrough in undetectable element zero based technology. We were able to launch seven of them without Mother noticing."

"That should do well for now. We don't want to get greedy. The last thing we need is Mother discovering everything we're doing here."

"Related to that, Senator Goyle sent an encrypted message earlier today. It appears Udina reported your conversation to Mother." Miranda spat out Udina's name. Udina never trusted Harper, and had attempted to send official watchers to Antarctica that would report directly to Parliament. Thankfully, it was easy to crush the bill with support from Goyle.

"Mother won't suspect me; she'd blame everyone else before admitting I'd done something wrong." he replied, "Her illogical trust in me is worrying, but we should be grateful for this safety net."

"Certainly, without this blind spot we would never have gotten this far." agreed Miranda. Her attention switched to her watch as it pinged. "Project Phoenix is well under way; I should be supervising."

With a nod from Harper, Miranda strode down an incline towards the bio-lab. The VI, Patience, scanned him again as the door to his office opened. Stepping in, he made way to his favorite chair. Making himself comfortable, he activated the holographic display to begin sorting through research reports.

A previously corrupt file regarding an ancient enemy of the protheans, Reapers, was finally repaired. Patience had expressed great interest in this file, it was important to the last years of their conflict. Nobody had yet opened it; he was to be the first to view it.

Selecting the file, Harper sent it to the prothean VI to translate it to English. A short moment elapsed before he received a response. Reading over the translation, Harper was intrigued—these Reapers weren't just an ancient race that fought with the protheans—they were an ancient race of machines.

Before now, Patience had only mentioned the Reapers sparingly, citing corrupt data when queried on that topic. They had known they were the reason the protheans abandoned Earth, but not many other details survived the 50,000 years of neglect underground.

This file was specifically about some sort of mind control method the Reapers used to subjugate the protheans. Indoctrination. It contained a warning to the prothean researchers that many in their government had fallen under Reaper control.

Mind control could be useful against alien threats, but in the wrong hands it could be their doom. Either way, Harper needed to have a greater understanding of the process. He marked the file as important and assigned the study of Indoctrination as a priority project. Hoping to gather more direct information, he summoned the prothean VI.

"Patience, this Indoctrination that you keep mentioning, how does it work?"


September 17th 2092 – 3:22 am – The Verrikan, Near the Charon Relay

The ship was moving back towards Earth. In the conference room, both Anderson and Desolas were too focused to sleep. Instead of sitting silently, they were having a conversation on galactic politics.

"So, the Council is the ultimate authority in Citadel space?" she asked.

"On paper, yes. In practice, the Hierarchy dictates most policy. The Salarian Union and Asari Republics were equally matched until the Rachi War, where the salarians uplifted the krogan to fight against the rachni. Following the war, the salarians attempted to manipulate the krogan into supporting the salarians in a bid to dominate the council, by offering a Council seat."

"Weren't these krogan aggressive and expansionist?"

"Yes, which was why the asari continually blocked the action. Eventually, the krogan grew impatient and began assaulting asari colonies. The salarians were forced to drop support for the krogan, which only made things worse."

"It sounds like the asari were right to not give them more say in galactic politics."

"The asari always take the long view, they were wise enough to see the danger. The asari councilor pushed for an official condemnation. This enraged the krogan and lead to the Krogan Rebellion."

"And this is where your race made first contact?"

"Yes, and shortly afterward the Council solicited our help in the war. With the asari weakened and the salarians desperate, the Hierarchy negotiated two Council seats in return for our aid."

"But the asari and salarians only have one councilor each, how is that fair?"

"It isn't, but they had no choice. The entire mess was their fault anyways; if they had treated the krogan with more respect, and not as political tools or savages, the entire conflict could have been avoided." Desolas avoided mentioning the Genophage, it wasn't something he was proud of.

Anderson was grateful to Desolas for sharing this information. Knowing more about the galaxy's situation would be vital intel for Mother, and for planning their approach when dealing with the Council.

"Tell me about the quarians." she said, eagerly.

"The quarians are an intelligent race of refugees, forced off their world by AI they accidentally created, called geth." he answered, noticing Anderson's slight twitch at the mention of AI.

"Rogue AI? How did the galaxy respond?" she sounded concerned.

"The Council was split evenly on giving aid to the quarians, so the Hierarchy took this as a mandate to act alone. The quarians were great trading partners with us turians so the decision was easy. Unfortunately, the geth were more cunning than anticipated—the turian-led coalition was forced out of the former quarrian systems, where we maintain an unofficial ceasefire to this day." he sounded very serious, more than before.

"Where are the quarians now?"

"Most of them relocated to turian colony worlds, where they remain as refugees. They are dextro-amino based like us turians, so we can share our food supply. However, because of their weakened immune systems, they are forced to wear enviro-suits their whole lives. They maintain a fleet that aids in guarding the borders of geth space, which acts as their de facto government."

"Their situation keeps sounding worse and worse." Anderson began to absorb the information, but decided to press for more information on the geth, "How does the galaxy view AI, after the geth?"

"AI research had been restricted by Council law long before the geth were created. Being an accident, the quarians never technically broke the law, they never intended to create AI. Since the war with the geth, stricter and more preventative laws against the creation of AI have been enacted." Desolas began to suspect why Anderson was so interested in the geth, "Have humans ever experimented with AI?"

Trying not to freeze or act suspicious, Anderson decided to tell a half-truth, "Around thirty of our Earth years ago, we were near a breakthrough with AI creation. Development was halted when a massive pandemic took the lives of all researchers involved." Her words caused sympathy from Desolas.

"That's horrible, how many survived?" he said, genuinely concerned.

"Around one million survived, out of over 12 billion." she answered, without thinking.

The General didn't know how to respond to such a massive loss of life. It would clearly explain their small presence in space. The quarians had over 17 million still alive, which was already less than the krogan. Humanity would be the least numerous intelligent race discovered so far. It would be easy to take advantage of this weakness to demand anything from their race.

"Make no mistake, General, our small population does not make us weaker," continued Anderson, "we have technologies that easily make up it."

Intrigued, he decided to try at the AI question again, "Is your race currently experimenting with AI?"

The Fleet Admiral hesitated, before discreetly eyeing the cameras placed throughout the room. Desolas noticed, and took the hint that this was a topic she'd like to avoid.

"I'm sorry General, I've already said too much. Our first contact policy is to give the minimal amount of information until authorized by my government to say more." she replied.

"I understand." He raised his voice for his next comment, looking directly at one of the cameras, "Hopefully we can sort this mess out and resume our talks back on Earth."

"Yes, that's my hope as well." she agreed, keeping her tone normal.

The ship was still moving towards Earth, but they hadn't heard from anyone in several hours. Without any clue of what XO Coracia was planning, all they could do was wait silently.


September 17th 2092 – 5:25 pm – Space Fleet Control, London, Earth

"Admiral, the alien craft appears to be moving again!" someone shouted.

"What is their target?" asked Hackett.

"They appear to be returning to Earth."

Hackett took a deep breath. This could be either a good thing, a bad thing, or some combination of both. The craft returning could mean Anderson had negotiated something, or that they learned something they didn't like and intend to harm humanity.

"Prepare for all contingencies, good or bad; we don't know their intentions. Also, get Harper on the line. We'll need his expertise very soon." He stopped to think for a second, before continuing, "Mother, have you finished debriefing the first contact team? What do you have for us?"

"Yes, I have forwarded a report, I can summarize now." Her hologram was already in the room, "The aliens were able to create a crude translation program from the English-Prothean language matrix we gave them. They call themselves turian, and the sole Grey-like alien was called salarian."

"So they are confirmed to not be protheans. Have you discovered what went wrong?"

Mother walked over to a closed door, obviously waiting for someone to enter.

"From the team's point of view, physical contact with the turian leader caused some sort of panic attack. The turian mentioned protheans, some sort of visions of machines, trillions dying, and an accusation that Danielle was somehow involved in these visions."

Hackett raised an eyebrow, "So our satellite footage of the apparent meltdown was the turian saying all those things?"

"It appears so." Mother was still waiting patiently by the door, "The frightening thing, as far as I'm concerned, is how the turian mentioned heartless machines. There is virtually no chance they have discovered me, so they must be referencing something else."

The room fell silent; Mother had rarely expressed being frightened before. Worry and anxiousness, yes, but never something resembling fear. She was treating what the crazed turian had said seriously, and so would Space Fleet.

"Make this a priority, find out whatever we can about the protheans and these machines." he told the room, "Has Harper responded yet?"

"Yes Admiral, he wants to talk with you privately."

Scowling, Hackett stood up and made his way towards his office hallway, the same door Mother was waiting by.

"Mother, who are you waiting for?" he asked.

She looked at him with a blank expression, "Jane Shepard."

She gave no explanation, something he was not used to in Space Fleet. Mother had been open with him for as long as he could remember, but now she was keeping something from him. Cadet Shepard was only 10 years old, 11 in a few months, but Mother had taken a keen interest in her.

What did she have planned for Shepard? Why was this youngster allowed to roam free in Space Fleet, especially during a sensitive event like first contact? This didn't make sense, Mother had to know something he didn't. Very few in Space Fleet had taken in an apprentice, yet Anderson, the leader of the organization, had taken in Shepard.

He decided his conversation with Harper would be more important, Hackett made his way towards his office. Waiting next to his door was Kahlee Sanders, one of Harper's researchers. She had a message for him.

"Doctor Sanders, how can I help you?"

"Director Harper would like to talk to you—from Anderson's office." she said, quietly.

"Of course he would. Will you be joining me?" he responded at her same volume.

"No sir, I'll be returning to my work." she was very polite.

Hackett was used to Harper playing mind games with him, usually trying to disorient him to agree to things he wouldn't otherwise. Watching Sanders return to the situation room, he made his way to Anderson's office.

The door opened without him needing to present any sort of identification, which was odd. Feeling low on time, he entered anyways, ready to get this meeting over with. As the door closed behind him, a small buzzing noise filled the room, and a hologram appeared behind Anderson's desk.

"Hello, Admiral, I'm sorry for all the cloak and dagger, but I have some information that Mother wouldn't want me to share."

"If she wouldn't want you to share it, you should keep it to yourself." Hackett posited.

"This is vital intel! It could mean the difference between a favorable outcome, or war with the visitors." Harper raised his voice, but still managed to keep himself completely composed.

"Alright, I'll humor you, but don't expect me to hide anything from Mother."

"After you know what I know, I have no doubt you will see things my way." Harper's image sat down in a chair, Hackett stood defiantly.

"We'll see—go ahead."

"My team and I have uncovered preliminary intel on an ancient enemy of the protheans, an army of sentient machines that cleansed the galaxy of their empire."

"Sentient machines? You mean AI?"

"Yes. It isn't currently possible to tell what happened them after the protheans disappeared, but they obviously aren't here." Harper took out a cigarette, "If Mother were to be aware of these machines, I don't know what she'd do. I know you trust her, but she is still an AI. Who would she side with if these machines returned?"

As Harper let out a puff of smoke, Hackett decided to sit down. This was yet another layer of uncertainty he had to deal with.

"Just a few minutes ago Mother told us of what the visitor said when he abducted Anderson." he told Harper.

"Oh? I was just forwarded the same report, give me a moment." The hologram tapped his watch, took a few seconds, and then lowered his arm to bring his cigarette to his mouth, "Ah, she might be putting the situation together, even without our data."

"We can't keep this a secret from her forever, either you should tell her, or I will." Hackett was incredibly loyal to Mother, he wouldn't keep things from her unless it was absolutely necessary.

"Admiral, I haven't shared all of my information with you yet. You see, this race of killer machines, they have a certain—ability."


September 17th 2092 – 5:37 pm – Space Fleet Control, London, Earth

Still waiting, Mother's primary platform stood near the door. No one knew that Mother still kept most of her programming in one platform. It was highly illogical, she was 'putting all of her eggs in one basket', but this had always been her body—the one Jackson created.

Nobody but her seemed to notice as the door opened to reveal the young Jane Shepard entering the room. Jane looked up to see Mother, and smiled. This was good, the plans for Jane required her to be more emotionally invested in Mother than all others. It was absolutely vital for Jane to be ready for when the aliens realized humanity had an AI running the show.

"Jane, thank you for coming, there is a lot I want to show you today."

"Sounds good, what's first?" responded Jane.

"Well, everyone here is hard at work on recovering Danielle from the visitors."

"Is Aunt Danielle going to be okay? When is she getting back? When can I see her again?" Jane's barrage of questions left Mother unfazed.

"Danielle has the entirety of Space Fleet looking out for her, and I'm doing my best as well." Mother's words seemed to placate the child for the moment, "I do have a very special mission for you, if you are up for it."

Jane looked up at Mother, excitement in her eyes, "Yes, I'm ready! What is it?"

Very typical of this child to agree to a mission before knowing what it was, her trust in Mother was incredibly high, probably more than any adult on the planet. What she was about to ask the child to do depended on this trust. Mother began to lead the child towards a different room.

"I'm going to need you to keep a secret for me."

"What kind of secret?"

"One that nobody else can know, just between you and me." This obviously was making Jane very curious.

"I'll keep the secret, I promise!" Jane was eager to know it.

"Follow me, I'll tell you in here."

It was the medical wing of the building; Mother had emptied a room for her purposes. Closing the door behind them, she told Jane to jump up on the exam table.

"Why are we in the doctor's office? Is there some sort of sickness going around?"

"No dear, but it does have to do with the secret." Mother put as much sincerity in her speech as she could, "Part of the secret is a special request that only you can do. It is a lot to ask of you, and I wanted to wait until you were older, but we don't have much time."

"I'll do whatever you want me to, if it helps you out. I'm a Cadet in Space Fleet!" She sounded proud.

"This is something I'm asking of you personally, not as a Cadet. Whatever you decide, you need to tell no one we talked about this. Do you promise to keep this a secret?"

"I promise."

"Good," If Mother could take a deep breath, she would have, "Would you like to become my carrier?"

"What's that? Carry what?" Jane was confused.

"If something goes wrong and I need to hide, I need to be with someone I trust. I can trust you." she paused, "I'd like to give my primary node, the main part of what I am, to you."

Jane was awestruck, the greatest honor she could think of was being bestowed on her. Mother was trusting her with this? This was the best offer she'd been given. Ever.

"How would I carry you?" she asked, wanting to make sure she was even able to do the job.

"An implant, hidden under your skull, near your brain. It's small enough that it won't harm you, but large enough that I could survive. Eventually, you'd be able to speak with me just by thinking!" Mother offered, with no hesitation.

This sounded scary, but being trusted this much by Mother, the savior of humanity, prevented her from feeling any real fear.

"If this is what you need me to do, I'll do it." she said, determined.

"Then I'll start the procedure in 10 minutes, get yourself ready."

Mother began to pivot away, before hearing Jane's worried voice.

"Mother," the reality of what she agreed to was starting to seep in, "will it hurt?"

"A little, but you will heal very quickly. It'll be over in no time at all."

This seemed to placate Jane as Mother's platform left the room, readying herself to be transferred to the implant. Everything was going according to plan. After gene-mods, as well as 10 years of mental conditioning, she'd be able to live inside of this child's skull for her full lifetime: Around 900 years.

But Mother wasn't the only one with an interest in this child. Back down in Antarctica, Harper knew Mother had taken a large interest in Jane, and was formulating a scheme of his own.


September 17th 2092 – 9:00 pm – The Verrikan, In Earth Orbit

"Kandros! Open the damn door!"

Desolas was still waiting for any sort of contact since Mordin left the room the day before. Anderson had fallen asleep at some point, but Desolas was determined to take back command of his ship.

"I'll be alerting the Hierarchy of your insubordination when we return to the Citadel!" he continued to shout.

The Verrikan had made it back to Earth orbit less than an hour ago, and it was obvious Kandros was planning on interacting with the humans again. His main worry was that Kandros might be putting too much trust in the salarian doctor. She wasn't familiar with how salarians acted, but Desolas was privy to the detail that Mordin was associated with STG somehow.

Mordin could be planning on using this situation to give an advantage to the salarians, maybe to get back their influence in galactic politics. Desolas was thinking clearly again and he wouldn't allow this situation to get any worse.

He would have to utilize the human to gain control of his crew again.


September 17th 2092 – 9:00 pm – Senator Anita Goyle's Office, Brussels, Earth

Mother was offline.

She was offline.

This was incredibly rare, and usually only lasted for a few minutes when she was doing upgrades, but it had been 3 hours and nobody knew what was going on. Mother had alerted Parliament that she was undergoing upgrades, but since then nobody had been in contact.

Goyle was getting calls from her constituents and reporters asking where Mother had gone, and there were reports of people taking to the streets outside of Parliament's building. Without Mother's military drones, there was nobody to stop them from doing anything violent.

"I assure you that we'll alert everyone as soon as we know more about the situation. Mother is undergoing an advanced upgrade that has taken longer than anticipated. There is no need to worry, and I'll get back to you when I'm able. Thank you for your call." She tapped her watch to end it.

This situation, while dire, gave her an important opportunity to contact Harper. As far as she knew, he may very well be involved in this. She programmed her watch to open a channel with Harper.

Her request was denied, and instead she was sent a message:

"I'm dealing with Mother's outage at the moment, unless you have any information on this subject your call will have to wait."

It was understandable, but she still felt slighted by his message. Goyle sat for a while in silence, feeling helpless. With no idea of how long Mother would be down, she decided now was potentially the only time she'd ever have to visit Harper in person.

She had no idea if what Harper had told her in their last call was even true, and she needed to see things for herself. Mother might be offline for days, or even weeks for all she knew, this was the perfect time. She stood up, made way to her emergency closet (you never know when you'll need a change of clothes in this city) to begin packing for the trip.

There were very few airplanes that weren't controlled by Mother herself, but she happened to have a friend who flew a space-plane. Taking advantage of her friend's hobby, she could find a way south. Goyle didn't have any especially warm clothing, so she'd have to stop at a shop on the way to his home.

Sending a quick message to her friend's watch, she grabbed her bags and locked her office door on the way out. The office was below Parliament, so she had to make her way around the angry crowd. Once she was in her car, she took a long, deep breath, ready to begin her secret mission to learn the truth.


A/N: Galactic politics sure are different than before, Shepard has been given a huge responsibility at her young age, and the turians are back in orbit over Earth! This is going to be fun.

I combined the prologue into one chapter, so the chapter count went down from 5 to 3, now 4 with this released. I hope this doesn't confuse too many people, but I felt the shortness of the first chapter didn't represent the rest of this story very well.

I'm glad that people are enjoying my fic! I haven't done anything really creative in several months and it feels good to write something down.

As always, feedback is welcome!