Author's Note: Okay so going on a impromptu Christmas vacation soon. I know it's strange to start in November but I have vacation days saved up. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 17: Ferros Part 1
The L-Project was starting to see fruit, they had several prototypes already and now it was time to present the results to their clients in the Union and Citadel. The Serrice Council was a Asari based company, brought in on the project for their unrivalled knowledge in the production of quality Biotic amps and implants. Implants are typically implanted into the base of a person's skull once they've hit puberty with a length of wire trailing down the body and connecting to any additional nodes of Eezo that might be found throughout the body and connecting to the plug that leads into the omni-tool, this acts as a port into which a Biotic amp can 'plug and play.' The second is a Biotic amp, a device designed to enable the synchronisation of Biotic nodes for the purpose of achieving specific results. A civilian amp may be designed specifically to make things lighter, so that it can be moved easier, however military grade modules are spec'd for three, specific categories: duration, how long a biotic effect lasts for, power strength of the effect, and cool down how often these abilities can be used.
"Firstly for implants." The Asari representative was a scholarly sort by the name of Nasarra had been given the task of outlining the technology and improvements made for them by the Union. "The slugs have been busy. Fibre Crystal cable, insulated in a reflective coating, achieves speeds of roughly 95% the speed of light, which by the way is 5% more than our own 90% the speed of light. Along side a much more substantial increase of 30% power."
"That can make a big difference." Sparatus stated in no uncertain terms while indicating for Nasarra to continue.
"Yes. Well the cost of this increase is performance is a sharp and noticeable increase in the subject's overall discomfort. The implant overwhelm's the subject's nervous system resulting in severe and crippling pain. And for the record: we've been testing this on Vorcha, from Omega." Not a lot known for their low pain tolerance, the council had to admit to that. While they might find a Turian niche given their hardline stance to service above all the rest of them wanted something that wouldn't drive their people insane with pain. If one of these implants were put into a Krogan... "This is the L-1, a basic Implant, the Tebrid's methodically took apart every individual component of the Implant and replaced them with either suitable Union components or materials where improvements are possible. Then taking into account feedback from the test subjects they developed the L-2 and the L-3." A Holographic schematic of the L-2 appeared, which then zoomed in a tiny area near the brain stem, and a similar zoom in on the L-1 to highlight the difference, a single chip separating them from excruciating agony and relief.
"This dampener lowers the performance of the device until it doesn't cause severe crippling pain, severely reducing the power output of the implant by 20%." Sparatus seemed unimpressed by the concept and waved his hand for her to continue. "The L-3, more specifically the L-3-A on the other other hand is able to maintain the same performance as the L-1 but uses a VI program to regulate the Biotic nodes reducing the strain on the subject." A VI program was a small price to pay, if someone wants to sacrifice performance for some nonsensical paranoia about artificial intelligence that's on them, but the Geth have proven where synth Paranoia will lead already and he had no interest in it. "Aside from the L-3-A there's also the L-3-B and the L-3-C. Biotics typically fall into one of three categories, Adepts, Sentinels or Vanguards." Or you could be a Asari with the centuries to spare on the pursuit of technological, physical and biotic mastery.
"Adepts fall into the general purpose category, Sentinels and their technological manipulation tends to require a lot more fine tuned technology, while the Vanguard's require more power to use their abilities. The respective implants have been adjusted as necessary to maximise performance in each of these categories where possible." That was the Implanted technology. Now for the interchangeable Amps. "As much as it... pains me to admit this... the slugs have taken our Savant Amp and upgraded it. Dramatically." A schematic was raised. Quantum Nano-circuitry made using rare crystal created a sophisticated lattice both producing and absorbing energy, Eezo was gathered in precise amounts and synchronised perfectly, and a potent energy core was identified as being a 'Quantum Field Capacitor' which had a unreasonable amount of energy stored inside of it. What was even worse though? "Effects Lasts twice as long as normal. Power on average three times as potent. Can be used again in a quarter of the time and we have no idea how half of this works." The three Councilors let out a sigh.
"Put the L-3's and the Savant X on the market." Sparatus stated as he let out a sigh. "Place a order, we'll need over three thousand implants by the end of the year and ten times that in Amps." Sparatus stated letting out a sigh. They were really trying to bleed them dry in Credits. Weren't they?
"How much of this can we manufacture by ourselves?" Valern asked as he let out a sigh.
"The Quantum circuitry if we have a few months and access to a steady supply of rare crystal, the Eezo easily enough but the Quantum capacitor..." Well that's most of the important stuff anyway, now to find something they can actually bargain with to trade for.
"You can go now." Tevos stated and Nevarra ducked her head and left, that left Din to handle the rest.
"Most of the technology in the Thanix has had to be replaced over the years. Almost all of it was in the fabricators and what wasn't we found substitutes though. But..." Din looked like he was having a hard time finding the words for the explanation he had to give. "The main gun on most ships is limited by the distance it takes to build up momentum for the shot to fire, for this reason what kinds of space weapons a council ship can man is limited by how big it is." The Council understood these facts and nodded their heads in understanding. "The gun the Batarian's used on Khar'Shan is built differently. Even with the Batarian's shoddy engineering the capacitors are arranged in a clear and organised manner. The two key points are a larger than normal Element Zero Core and the ball of super heated liquid uranium, tungsten and Iron. The Thanix appears to 'scoop' a portion of this super heated ball up and fire it at an enemy ship after being compressed into an ultra dense mass. For these reasons the key factor in the Thanix's power is not the size of the ship it's attached to but rather the source of energy that's powering it."
"And this source of energy?" Tevos asked looking at the Volus questioningly.
"We don't know." Din reluctantly admitted. "The Batarian's were using the geo-thermal energy from their own planet, but the energy core must have been left on the reaper ship, or was destroyed Millennia ago." The same ship that the damned corpses set on fire and threw into the sun.
"Thanix technology has more value to them than it does to us." Sparatus stated as he organised the paper work. "Get in contact with the Union and start negotiating."
Liara was sitting across from Skeletor, allegedly taking a break after going through Shepard's mind earlier.
"So you've read about what the Prothean's were like and so you've come to question your career choice?" The Lich was drinking... something through a straw using a hole in his visor.
"They conquered the galaxy, enslaved dozens of civilisations, made them compete and modify themselves for the right to call themselves 'Prothean.' How can I not have to justify... everything I ever knew in the face of that?" Liara looked very much like a kicked puppy right now.
"Then I will speak of history, though this body is mere decades old my soul was cast into the shroud when your people still had males." Liara scrunched her face in confusion in the face of this statement. "The Protheans were much like you, they were among the first of our cycle to attain space flight in part thanks to the ruins of their predecessors the Inusannon, and when they did so they encountered a enemy, the so called Cybrex, a hostile machine intelligence and it threatened multiple worlds that had yet to achieve space flight. The Protheans made a decision, stand united or they would fall, and so they seized control over the civilisations that had been threatened by the Cybrex, and did their best to shield the ones that hadn't. Yours included." So the anti-synth paranoia wasn't just these Reapers everyone keeps going on about then? "Oh make no mistake, the Protheans conquered every civilisation they encountered, mine included, and once you reached the stars yours would similarly be brought to heel and into the fold before the Cybrex could get to you."
"For which of course I should praise our beloved overlords and Saviours." Liara spat bitterly with sarcasm.
"The way that they chose to run their civilisation might've needed improvement, but in comparison to us? I admire the way that they chose to end their civilisation." Admire. Envy. The Zroni's legacy would be a bunch of broken insane corpses howling at the void until it obeyed their whims. But the Protheans? "In the last few years of their lives the Protheans remade your people, your extended life spans, Biotic proficiency, even your unique method of reproduction, and had they more time even your psionics. We chose to destroy the galaxy and they chose to rebuild it instead. The Zroni's legacy are a collection of howling corpses screaming at the universe in the throws of their madness. The Prothean's legacy are peace makers, warriors and leaders."
"Nice speech." Liara brought up her omni-tool and showed him what she showed Garrus and Tali earlier. "What do you make of this?"
"Oh my." Skeletor's earlier wisdom and philosophy was blown away as he started to laugh at the insect like form of the creatures who killed Liara's coworkers. "Well that is something. I mean no disrespect but it just that it turns out the Protheans have more in common with us than I thought." The Lich promptly took the files off of Liara's Omni-tool as he went to a nearby console.
"What are the creatures I saw kill my colleagues?" Liara simultaneously felt like she was being ignored and made fun of. "They looked like the Protheans I saw in the cells but..."
"The collective term is a husk, a Corpse that has been infused with and remade using cybernetics and nano-technology into a slave for the reapers. I do not know what specific kind of designation this one will receive, my Tebrid assistants are fond of giving such things designations like they're part of one of their games." Skeletor explained while he sent the details of the matter to command.
"They're called Collectors." Liara looked behind her to see Saren walk in. "There were pictures of them in the Batarian's computers, they had a nasty habit of trading for slaves from the Batarian's in exchange for advance technology." Saren stated letting out a sigh. "Well it's not too much of a surprise to see that they're lending my stupid brother a hand anyway."
"This'll simply be added to the rest of the files." The Lich stated as he worked on the computer. "For now you need to get ready for the mission." A loud groan accompanied the Lich's patient waking up. "Because your ground team leader is awake now."
"Ugh. What did I drink last night? Did Wrex spike me with Ryncol again?" Saren smacked himself in the face.
This time Liara joined the ground team on Feros, alongside Kaiden and Saren. That said Saren quickly ended up splitting off from the group as he went to the nearby exo-geni building, with a plasma shotgun. He'd let Shepard and company know what he found. Naturally the two Dragoon's and archaeologist went to the nearby colony to figure out what was going on, surprisingly they found a colony, Salarian's to be precise.
"What're armed thugs doing here?" The colonist that had approached the group didn't seem to be very phased by the presence of said thugs.
"Looking for more armed thugs. A spectre called earlier, we assumed that would be enough to get management's attention." Shepard stated lowering her weapon.
"There's three right there." The Salarian indicated Shepard's group before he went back to the pipeline he had been working on.
"I'm not a common thug!" Liara stamped her foot indignantly. Shepard looked around at the make shift camp, Feros had yet to take off as a colony it would seem, they hadn't cleared enough of this jungle yet to start setting up proper buildings, instead sticking to the tents strewn about the place. There were mostly Salarians, a Volus, some lizardly dog-like creatures known as Varren, and a body underneath a sheet. Walking over to the sheet Shepard bent down and looked inside of it. A Turian, or someone who looked like a Turian, once, their face and throat had undergone severe swelling as if he had suffered a violent allergic reaction.
"What happened to him?" Shepard asked looking down at the corpse.
"Violent allergic reaction." The Salarian that was getting ready to package the body to be delivered off world explained while shrugging his shoulders. "Common enough for Turians." Right. The whole DAA vs DNA shtick that's common with Turians and Quarians.
"Which is why I would presume he'd be careful about not eating any local flora." Shepard replied outright stating that the answer didn't answer her question.
"He didn't eat anything, he breathed in spores from a local fungus. Harmless to us, but lethal to him." Shepard would have to warn Saren to stay away from any weird looking shrooms.
"Saren this is Shepard." The other end of the comms had the sound of energy weapons going on.
"Little busy right now Shepard." When Saren entered the Exo-Geni HQ he was greeted by the presence of Geth, hostile Geth that opened fire on him first, he had been ambushed but luckily he had his biotics, plasma rifle and the Beam sabre that was built into his arm. "Now what are you talking about?"
"Made contact with the colonists." Shepard's voice echoed simply. "Some kind of weird ass fungus killed one of their Turian Guards."
Saren pressed a button on his suit and his helmet wrapped around his head, built in filter and rebreather going to work to protect him from any nasty DNA contaminants.
"Anything else?" Saren asked while he worked to access the console.
"That building you're in?" Shepard paused as one of the Colonists redirected her attention elsewhere. "It's old Prothean ruins, and there's a big ass Geth Tick attached to the side of it. How the hell did we not see that coming down?"
"Reaper tech maybe?" Saren looked down at one of the Geth he blew open, spotting a patch of black mesh with blue circuits. "The Geth over here has something funky planted in them. Your anti-indoctrination thing went off a little while ago."
ExoGeni was a mining and real estate company. They made their business buying colonisation rights to a world, extracting resources from it as necessary and then making prefab buildings on top of the cleared land, finding Prothean ruins should've been the cherry on top. But right now there was a hush order in place over the entire colony, not even getting attacked and raided was enough to warrant asking for help and now Saren wanted to know why that is. Well he wasn't going to get anything from the company.
"Hey Shepard, is there a special protocol for handling stuff that's been affected by Reaper tech?"
"Destroy on site." Shepard blandly responded. "Even if it contains intelligence capsules on whatever the heck is wrong with this colony?" Saren asked leaning over the Geth in question.
"Do I need to lecture you about what happened to the last ship that had Reaper tech brought aboard it?" Shepard asked sounding annoyed. "Destroy. On. Site!"
"Alright already." Saying that Saren threw out a singularity, gathered all the Geth bodies together, and followed up with a shot of plasma to burn all of them up into a ball of molten metal. "I'll keep exploring the ruins, see if I can't wring some pencil neck's neck to wring to get some answers."
Back in the camp Shepard nodded her head as she looked around the camp, something feeling...
"Hey Kaiden you feel that?" Shepard asked via a telepathic message. "The Turian Bastard isn't here but his synth's are. We need to find what they're looking for." While at the same time verbally speaking so that everyone could hear her.
"Not sure, maybe we should ask the doctor." Kaiden telepathically messaged while indicating the Geth ship. "The Shinies wrecked a Prothean ruin on Therum. If they didn't get what they're looking for the first time they could be making another go of it now." Kaiden replied as the same time as he replied to Shepard's mental message. At once the two dragoon's turned to face Liara.
"Feel anything funky?" Shepard's voice appeared inside of Liara's head. "What do you make of this?" And at the same time asked her a question. "Are...?" Liara was about to ask a question but go a narrowed glare from the two. "Are you two speaking telepathically and talking at the same time?" Liara asked notably not taking part in the latter part of the conversation.
"Is there a problem Doctor?" Shepard asked brow cocked. Liara just sighed in response.
"My expertise is with Prothean Ruins, the Geth are in the Prothean ruins, Obviously we should go to the ruins!" Liara abruptly harrumphed and turned around before walking away. "I don't like this camp." Liara's thoughts and feelings echoed in her head. "It feels like something is brushing against my mind. But I've felt like that ever since I stepped onto the ship. So much has been happening lately that it constantly feels like I'm going to puke." Shepard and Kaiden looked at each other and nodded their heads before following Liara.
"What you're feeling is a telepathic presence. 3rd and 4th tier Empath's like you have the easiest time picking up on it, since unlike us you don't have your own weirdness getting in your way. But even we can tell that this place ain't right, like there's another telepath watching us." Shepard checked her weapon as they were getting closer to the ruins. "Saren, it's Shepard and Kaiden."
"I haven't found any Exo-geni employee's yet." A sound of a burst of gunfire came out of the communicator. "Just a Krogan."
"We're sending Liara into the ruins, something not right is going on with this planet, and we need to know why." Shepard listened as Saren released another biotic ability at the Krogan he was fighting and capped it off with another explosion.
"Agreed. Exogeni would've called for help at the first sign of-" Saren was cut off by the roar of a Krogan, who was then cut off by a roar of gun fire and a swish of his beam sabre. "At the first sign of trouble. There's something here they don't want anyone to know about, and now my idiot brother and the ancient horror from outside the galaxy that has roped him into its genocidal scheme are after it." Shepard nodded her head.
"Well then, I guess the only thing left to decide on now is up or down?" Shepard stated bluntly.
"I'm already up. You two go down." Saren replied and then got back to the task of looking for the people in charge in this place.
Finding the people who were supposed to be in charge here didn't have a lot of luck but it did have possibilities. The Geth attached their ship to the top of the building, which means they had come down from above, they wouldn't go in that direction. Below on the other hand? Saren was clearing the tower floor by floor and the big thing that he determined was that whatever these people are here for it's not in the tower itself.
"What is Exogeni looking for on Ferros?" Saren asked looking directly at the orange holographic Salarian that was acting as the role of guest greeter.
"Exogeni is a Mining, Colonisation and Real estate company, having recently secured rights to Ferros they believe that..." Saren droned out the contents of the speech.
Some days he wished that the Citadel had wised up like the Union and didn't ban AI, that way he could flash his Spectre credentials and intimidate the hologram like a normal person.
"Show me the heavy equipment warehouse on Ferros." Saren ordered as he glared at the VI.
"Ferros does not have this building." On the other hand, VI are terrible liars. "So Exogeni are setting up a colony here but they have no saws to cut down the trees, no equipment to excavate the ruins, and no vehicles with which to put up the buildings." Saren started to pace as he continued the interrogation of the ignorant computer. "Is that correct?"
"This unit is unable to answer this question." Which was oddly one of the most informative things that the computer said during the entire meeting.
"Are there any Exo-Geni employees that are still alive?" Saren switched tracks to finding a better intelligence capsule, and reinforced the command with sending the annoying hologram his Spectre credentials. "All living Exogeni employees are gathered together on the fifth floor research laboratory located on the south wing of the ruins. If you are done Spectre Arterius there is another individual waiting in line." Saren spun around in the middle of the Hologram's request and trained a weapon on the individual in question.
"DON'T SHOOT! DON'T SHOOT!" Liara had her hands up in the air and waved them around defensively.
"Yes. Shepard mentioned that you were coming." Saren holstered his weapon as he started to walk away.
"If we have the slightest intention of figuring out what is going on here we need to get to the fifth floor." Saren stated as he began making tracks.
"Meaning that we have to fight our way through four flights worth of Geth. Lovely." Liara was not having a good day. First she learns that the people who rescued her are basically walking psychic tentacles, now she has to go get shot at by Geth.
"I'm not fighting my way up four flights of stairs." Saren stated as he used an omni-blade to pry open an elevator door.
"As opposed to taking the elevator that doesn't have any power in it?" Liara asked seriously. Saren took out a Grenade he had on his person and threw it into the emergency hatch that was on top of the ceiling of the elevator before stepping back out. A dull boom echoed out followed up by the elevator crashing down to the basement below. "And what was-HEY!" Saren ignored Liara's protests as he grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder like a potato sack and stepped into the elevator shaft.
"Alright, time to see if the Savant X is really all that it's cracked up to be." Saren shot through the shaft like a rocket with a Lift, over shot the Fifth floor, and then lowered himself down and used his Omni-blade to force open the doors again, and immediately let them close to block the Geth Weapons fire. "Doctor I'm a little busy do you think you can use a Singularity right now?"
"Sure, but do something for me first." Liara stated in a weak voice. "Remind me how to breathe." After Liara caught her breath Saren opened the elevator a crack, Liara let off a singularity, and Saren followed up with a shot from the plasma shot gun. The resulting boom managed to shake the entire floor, opening the doors Saren was greeted by the sight of several melted Geth and a set of sliding laboratory doors that had been torn off their entry way.
"Don't Shoot!"
"Been hearing that a lot lately." Saren stated as he started to walk over, however a Salarian wearing what suspiciously looked like a hazard suit poked his head out and scrambled over to Saren. "There are dangerous biological samples in there!"
"The Fungus from the camp." Saren stated indicating his helmet which had a built in filter precisely for the purpose of removing dangerous air born hazards. "Funny, I recall that it was only supposed to be harmful to Dextro based life." Saren aimed a gun at the Salarian's head. "Walk."
The Salarian raised his hands in the air and turned around, leading the pair back into the laboratory where he came from. Three Salarian's in suits, and by the looks of things a janitor. Together with the scientist there were five Salarians in total.
"Exogeni has had this planet for what like a month?"
"Three weeks." An executive snapped angrily. "And I don't recall company policy ceding command to a common thug!"
"One I am a Spectre, last I checked that means that my authority supersedes any company that operates under the jurisdiction of the Council or the Citadel. Two." A gun shot echoed and the mouthy executive cried in pain as he bowled over gripping his arm where Saren shot him. "When someone pulls a gun on you and asks you a question, even if they are a 'common thug' you answer their questions, without lip! Now you have been on this planet for three weeks. In that time other than defacing a Prothean Ruin to set up your office you have shown no interest in the logging, construction, or mining interests that you have secured. You have however mysteriously enough felt a bizarre compulsion to employ scientists, and not only that but scientists in hazardous waste suits. You are going to tell me what it is that you've been working on and you're telling me right now!"
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: Garrus, Legion has literal machine like precision and snipes both professionally and for recreational purposes and duing a conversation with Garrus the Turian demonstrated better aim calibration then the Geth.
Guest: Cool.
Khoashex: Things might be a little different this time around.
Gianfranco Cembran: More accurately she's depressed from a combination of the death's of the people under her watch, the invalidation of her work as a archaeologist and that of all other Archaeologists in Citadel space on top of the revelation of what the Protheans were like.