(Note)

Chapter 7 is Here!

I apologize in advance folks, the Grammar Nazi I hired hasn't gone over this chapter yet, she is wrapping up another project before she can work with me on mine, so expect (hopefully only) minor grammar and maybe some misspelling mistakes in this chapter. (Don't worry they will eventually be fixed.)

I do Not Own Mass Effect or The Halo Franchise. Both Universes Respectively Belong to Bioware/EA and Microsoft/343 Industries.

Now that that's all said; I say ON WITH THE STORY!

Tali stared out of the pod's window at the destruction of the ship that had taken her through many adventures…

The Normandy SR-1 drifted in burning pieces, its kinetic barriers and armored hull having been cut through like a knife through butter; all done by the strange unknown cruiser that had come from seemingly nowhere and then begun to utterly wreck them.

They had been redeploying out for a mission after facing Saren and stopping Sovereign from activating the citadel main relay. Having wrapped up loose ends after the attack on the citadel and after a nice month long shore leave, Tali had been excited for what sort of adventures they would have next.

Their mission had been to find and destroy any remaining hostile Geth forces outside the Perseus Veil; Tali had hoped to gain helpful new knowledge on the Geth that could possibly give her People a chance in retaking their worlds… now that hope was crushed.

They had barely been deployed for a week and then that Bosh'tet cruiser came out from nowhere and destroyed the Normandy in less than ten minutes, suffice to say Tali was pissed.

Then the message came… Shepard had not made it off the Normandy, confirmation came of her last sighting; drifting through space with a busted EVA suit, leaking air like a sieve.

Tali went numb; Jane Shepard had been like an older sister she had never had, Jane never looked down on Tali and her People like most of the galaxy did. Her death hit everyone like a meteor impact.

Wrex just sat there and stared at nothing, his initial reaction to hearing the news was left for every one to see; it was a krogan fist sized dent in the escape pods wall.

Garrus was muttering to himself while sitting in the back corner of the pod with his head bowed, having just finished a loud curse laden ranting tirade of sorrowful anger.

As for Liara T'soni's state of mind, Tali could hear the tears in the Asari's voice while she had delivered the message over the intercom.

Tali took Wrex's example to heart and after punching the nearest wall to relieve her sorrow, she sat silent across from the Krogan her tear laden face hidden by her helmet; both silently waiting for when they could each be alone to grieve for their lost friend.

In the vastness of space the few escape pods waited for their rescue, it would arrive in the form of an alliance frigate, over the following days; the planet and its surrounding moons would be cordoned off. Secured by alliance military patrols while the wreckage in orbit was salvaged…

Few if any approached the crashed pieces that had made planet fall, they weren't considered valuable enough to salvage, and even fewer took note of the small alliance freighter that slipped away planet side; the lone Drell and the hired crew onboard searching for a dead woman's body to deliver to their information brokering boss.

Tali all but stormed out of the debriefing room on Arcturus station, "keep it hush, hush," They had said. "Reapers don't exist." They had said. "Shepard's ideas and beliefs were far too extreme and idealist to be practical," they had said.

They might as well up and bluntly shouted what they all were inferring about, so that every one could hear it. The majority of the politicians of the systems alliance and the Citadel Council's ambassadors were glad that idealist, honest, un-corruptible and persuasive Jane Shepard; would no longer disrupt their political backstabbing games and power plays.

It made Tali sick to think that after proving the Reaper's existence the politicians had doubled down and denied it as false, declaring it as a Geth attack, only having the balls to do all of this after Shepard had died and could no longer defend her own beliefs.…

The Citadel Council had seemingly forgotten the Specter who had saved them when Sovereign came knocking, they had swept all mentions of Shepard under the rug and continued on as if nothing had happened, the hypocrisy was maddening.

Only some of the military leaders saw the truth of the situation, Tali could see the fear and grim determination in their eyes when ever they saw the recordings of when the Reaper known as Sovereign attacked the Citadel.

But they were far too few, and would undoubtedly be removed from their command if they preached their reasoning to others, the inability to act or prepare caused by these Bosh'tet narcissistic, self centered and short sighted politicians infuriated Tali.

Heading to the station's docking bays Tali continued to brood over this issue, it wasn't confined to non-quarian political figures; the quarian admirals and captains in the Migrant Fleet would also be mostly disbelieving in the reapers being such a large threat.

Tali Sighed too herself, there was nothing she could do at this time that would help. And with Shepard dead and the fear of facing someone who could tear your politically illogical circular-reasoning based arguments to pieces by just saying a few heart touching words, no longer a living threat…

Well sad to say, all their hard earned solid and convincing evidence's and proof had been discredited and discarded without a second thought.

The Geth were blamed for all the recent problems and by association as the AI Collective's original creators, the Quarians as well.

Already reports were flooding into her omni-tool from her fellow Quarian friends on pilgrimage, reports of increased hostilities and hate mongering of her people from many of the citadel races, especially those on the citadel.

This could prove to be deadly to those just heading out on their Pilgrimages, many Quarians could die. The Migrant fleet had already broadcasted a message suggesting that Quarians on pilgrimage avoid certain places in their travels until it was again safe.

Arriving at the Docking Bays she sat at a Café near the Docking Zones and ordered some dextro based food past she could eat. She was soon joined by Garrus and Wrex, Liara passed by and said a quick farewell stating that her ship was about to leave. After saying goodbye they watched her depart and then the three sat in silence.

After finishing her flavorful food paste; Tali looked at the other two across the table, "I am going volunteer to do missions of importance for the migrant fleet, where they will need my experience with Geth technologies in the field… what will you two be doing?"

After a moment Garrus decided he would answer first, "I for one will not be returning to C-SEC, I think I will go into the morally upright mercenary business, spirits knows there is a lack of people like that in the galaxy."

Having said his peace, both Garrus and Tali Stared intently at the unusually silent Urdnot Wrex, the Krogan cleared his throat and spoke. "I will be returning to Tuchanka's sands, if we are to survive the coming harvest than the Krogan must stand together… the Galaxy is gonna need us again, but this time we Krogan will dictate our fate… not the cursed Salarians or some damn quad-less stuck up council."

All three sat there for another minute, and then Garrus stood and put his hand palm flat on the table's center. "We will continue on and face the threats that the future brings… not just for ourselves, but for the memory of Shepard as well."

Tali Stood and put her hand on Garrus's, "For Shepard," She stated.

Much to the other two's surprise Wrex stood and placed his large hand over the other two, "For Shepard." He spoke in his deep voice, with a fiery determination in his eyes.

Removing their hands form the table the three companions said their farewells and left to board their separate vessels that would take them to their various destinations.

Tali boarded a Quarian scout ship that would be scouting the edge of the Perseus Veil. She wished that the wild adventure Shepard had swept her up in, hadn't ended with such sadness and Bosh'tet political trash, she wished Shepard was still alive and on the warpath to save the galaxy once again.

Tali didn't know it, but some wishes do come true; just never exactly how you would expect them too.

Garrus left on a ship to Palavan, he had some old friends to meet up with in order to talk about making a small mercenary team, one that was on the right side of the law. Shepard's way of doing things, along with seeing the pirate's outposts and base that had been leveled by the mysterious Mech's, had inspired him to try something new.

Wrex boarded a small trade freighter having hired on as an extra crate mover, with the knowledge that he would be stopping by Tuchanka at the end of two weeks time… that was satisfactory, it gave him time to think.

He was the leader of a small scattered vastly depleted clan, but a clan nonetheless. He would gather clan Urdnot and through the use of Krogan traditions begin adding too its numbers. He would then ally with the female's clan that had formed in order to protect the female younglings.

The females held much of the sacred grounds and would prove as an excellent way to consolidate his forces.

Once he had enough power and influence, he would pay the Quarians in materials to keep an ear to the ground for any more signs of these "Mechs." The new Krogan revolutionary knew that he would need powerful allies for when the reapers would come, and he had no doubt that they would indeed arrive within his life time.

Having the help of two unknown species that could cause such death and destruction, would be a serious boon on the Krogan's negotiations table, He knew they weren't Mechs… it wasn't just the strange, scarily brave, sapphire flame eyed female youngling that had convinced him of this.

No, it was the bodies of the pirates that first convinced Wrex, the overly efficient kills, one strange slug or burn to the head of a pirate. The smashed and burned corpses, the deep vibrating roar the massive shadow gave before the camera went to static.

It was the signs of creative thinking that had convinced Wrex; burned, melted through walls and bulkheads were flanking maneuvers had been performed. The clean up, were the pirates bodies were stacked in a room and sealed off.

The girl's picture had only consolidated these thoughts into a solid belief that they weren't some new form of top secret Mech.

However it was the all convincing finale straw that he had discovered when he had explored the Pirate staging base, whilst Shepard had been interviewing the newly freed Asari maidens… that's were any remaining doubts had disappeared from Wrex's mind.

(Flashback)

Wrex had been walking along viewing the extensive destruction of the staging base, it had been not long after he and Garrus split up to cover more ground, when he came across a mound of rubble, purposefully piled over something.

Removing the Large rocks on top of the mound, Wrex found the smashed remains of a single solitary Krogan… it was horribly disfigured and smelled of the blood rage tinted with battle joy… what stopped Wrex from just walking away however was the fact that the dead Krogan had died peacefully smiling.

Krogan only did that when having faced a stronger opponent then themselves in a honorable battle worthy of the ancestor's songs, this was no small matter; a Krogan could not fake a death smile... it was a natural response from the ending overload of battle joy.

Farther examination revealed that the dead krogan had been killed in mercy, its opponent saving it from a slow fading away via its innumerable wounds by one massive hit to the head.

Reaching into the rubble Wrex found the dead warrior's Omni-tool, it was damaged making file transfers impossible, but its last action from when it was in working order was accessible.

Finding it had only been used to record an audio file via what the dead Krogan's medical hearing implant had heard, Wrex hit the play button, hearing static he assumed that it had been jammed like all the other devices they had searched, but then he heard the static clear into sounds of panicking pirates.

Soon followed by a Krogan's roar and a massive sound of destruction, there was a short silence after the loud noise, and then a small explosion and a quite hiss like sound was heard, followed by the noise of footsteps belonging to something huge.

Then there was a sound of a Krogan roaring a challenge, followed by the deep vibrating roar answering it… the same sound Wrex had heard in the pirate outpost's garage recording.

Then Wrex heard the sounds of a mighty fight, with the wild laughter and snarls of pain of the now dead krogan spread throughout. Soon followed by the telltale roar of said krogan entering the blood rage, followed by a smashing sound… all was quiet for a few moments save the sound of the krogan wheezing, coughing… and laughing.

Then IT happened… a deep vibrating powerful voice spoke in rough accented Krogan tongue.

"You have fought with honor and distinction, die well fellow warrior and know that you shall be remembered and respected by us and our children."

This was followed by the Krogan saying his last words.

"It is an honor to fight one such as you, creature." The voice of the Krogan stated between laughs and coughs. "An honorable fight and death is its own reward."

The Recording ended with a mighty smashing sound, it was abruptly cut-off due to the hearing implant having been destroyed with most of the rightmost side of the Krogan's head. After playing the audio track, the damaged Omni-tool display sputtered and died.

Slowly standing upright Wrex nodded his head to the dead warrior, pirate or not, their ancestors would be proud.

Wrex began returning the stones to their grave; the Hunters the little brave youngling had drawn and shown him, had no doubt made this burial mound to honor a fallen warrior proven in battle.

Wrex then deleted the part of the video recording he was taking for Tali, and for Shepard's mission review later. The part involving his encounter with the dead Krogan, Tali and Shepard would understand.

Krogan honored their warrior dead, their written and recorded secrets were buried with them, any Krogan who came across their graves and learned their secrets was sworn to silence as to what they had learned. Other Krogan would have to find the grave themselves if they wanted to learn the same tactics and secrets.

It was how the ancestors passed down their wisdom. Krogan warriors would travel the sacred grounds, opening crypts to find what knowledge long dead battle-masters had left behind for them to learn.

By Krogan Tradition he could not tell even Shepard what had transpired.

(End Flashback)

'Yes' Wrex mused, he would keep an eye out for more signs of these newcomers to the Galactic stage; they could prove useful allies in war, terrifying enemies as well. Wrex hoped the former was more applicable, it would greatly assist his future plans.

The Krogan would be a key factor in the fight against the Reapers… and any powerful allies the Krogan gained would only increase their standing in the upcoming war.

Wrex was determined that the Krogan would not be used and just tossed aside like they had been in the Rachni wars. No, they would dictate what their future entailed, they would decide their fate. They would demand the end of the genophage as payment for their part in saving the galaxy.

'Yes' Wrex thought to himself, 'we Krogan now have an ace up our sleeve. The Council races will need our warriors in desperate war against the Reapers; they will have little choice in the matter.'

'However we Krogan must unite under one banner before then or we will be taken advantage of, only to be thrown away when no longer needed; same as before.'

Wrex was sure that clan Urdnot could be used to unite the Krogan, Wrex would have tried before now but he had lacked the motivation and conviction. However Shepard had inspired him; convinced him it was worth doing, convinced him that the Krogan could be a mighty people again.

Wrex was one of the last remaining true Krogan Battle-Masters; he was motivated and he was dead-set sure that He would unite the Krogan people or die trying.

Within a star system located six hours of slip-space travel away from the outer edge of the Attican traverse, the Forward unto dawn was sitting in circular orbit of a gas giant. The heavenly body's rings having provided an excellent source of materials; materials that had been used for finishing hull repairs.

Cortana was pleased with the current state of the Dawn, they had been busy these past two month's. The Dawn was now combat ready and its repaired hull could take a beating, the two foot thick Titanium-A armor plating had been patched, new sections had been pulled from the storage bay and were added to the front of the Ship, giving a good foot worth of armor for the newly attached bridge section.

The afore mentioned bridge was installed in three pieces, first the neck was attached to the part of the ship were the portal had sliced it in half, and then the bridge was attached to the neck piece with the bridge able to hold all the crew comfortably. It could be withdrawn partway into the neck portion, in order to increase the armor belt around it.

The spare emergency one foot Titanium-A armor pieces had been added onto the hull after the gravity generators and inertial dampeners had come online.

Cortana had also reinforced the thinner armor plating with what extra she could mine from the asteroids.

She and Inquisitive Creation had plans to eventually equip a makeshift shield generator, coupled with emitters for the outer hull; however they would need a new reactor of forerunner or Covenant design to power it.

That would take time and very hard to find or manufacture resources.

However Cortana was willing to wait, she now had a comprehensive idea of what these reapers were capable of; just over a month and a half ago she had hacked the recorded messages of the Citadel Council Specters via the extranets connection to the Citadel, whilst scrolling through the data she discovered a series of reports.

These reports were done by a Human specter known as Jane Shepard; the contents of these reports had caused Cortana to call an emergency meeting in the Pelican launch bay, where she had briefed all present on what she had found.

The Reapers used deep vibrating sub-sonic sound frequencies to subtly manipulate and indoctrinate organics; thankfully the Mgalekgolo were undoubtedly immune to this attack, their species were masters at manipulating and hearing sub-sonic sounds, using them for communication with one another.

Due to constant exposure and use of sub-sonic vibration frequencies, they had a natural built in immunity to the indoctrination attack, in fact Cortana wondered what their battle hymns might possibly do to the Reapers' mental concentration; if anything at all she hoped it annoyed them.

The next topic was of the Reapers Ground troops… the Husks. None of them liked this new information, the Reapers converted organics via technology to become hordes of undead like techno-organic abominations.

This was too much of a reminder of the Flood, thankfully the Reapers husk conversion process was very much more time consuming… and only seemed to work best with dead bodies... unlike the Flood. Which could assimilate both living and dead in a matter of seconds; the fact that the Reapers were less capable made all present mentally sigh in relief.

After discussing the rest of the information available, they had dismissed to continue their respective tasks on repairing the dawn. Only for Cortana to call an emergency meeting again several day's later.

A Reaper had appeared with a Geth fleet and was attacking the Citadel… Cortana made the connections and stated that the Reaper was undoubtedly the "Old Machine" known as Sovereign the Geth files she had acquired via espionage had spoken of; the few other vessels were undoubtedly the Geth splinter faction who the Geth collective had named Heratics.

Sovereign must have decided to manually activate the Main relay which was the Citadel, Cortana had been subtly digging through the relay networks core code for weeks now, having found out as much as was possible.

She had found were the Main Relay was tampered with, making what was supposedly a remotely activated signal to the stations maintainers called the "Keepers" no longer function properly, thereby halting the stations activation process.

She recognized this by the unknown code in the modifier, which was written in what the Extra-net identified as Prothean.

She now realized that the Reapers must use the Main Relay to arrive and begin their cycle's harvest every fifty thousand or so years; meaning survivors from the Prothean harvest must have sabotaged the next one.

While showing the four crew members the live footage of the attack, Cortana and Inquisitive creation prepared to electronically assault the Citadel's Systems; hopefully stopping Sovereign from activating it and dooming this galaxy… they were at a disadvantage, the Dawn was very far away from the Citadel, long range connections had lag; giving Sovereign the advantage, they would wait and attack as a last resort.

Right before they were forced to reveal themselves in the electronic systems and commence hacking hostilities over a long ranged connection, the Reaper was defeated by the citadel defense fleet bolstered by a large fleet of Systems alliance Warships.

The battle of the Citadel had ended up proving beneficial for them in more ways than one, Cortana now had a detailed and growing list of the Reapers' combat abilities, and the media Circus after the attack completely over shadowed the news of several small town sized colonies they had recently saved from in-progress Pirate raids.

Having appeared and saved the caged soon to be chip implanted Slaves, they had slaughtered all pirates and slavers present and then disappeared.

Both times were at night, thereby adding to the mysterious aura surrounding them according to the freed colonists who had only caught shadowy glimpses of their saviors.

Cortana was glad that the news was entirely focused on the Citadel, leaving them to do their work uninterrupted; it meant less people would be searching for them, less people attempting to discover who they were.

On another note; Her data mining programs were soon to be the best information gathering network in the Galaxy. she had implanted multiple programs that searched for any data that was interesting enough to bring to her attention. That was the downside of the Upgrade that Mendicant Bias had bestowed on her; no rampancy meant no more copying one self to improve multitasking. She could think faster than ever before, but could not send out copies of herself to mine data.

Cortana knew she would have to rely on the programs she had put in place in the galaxy Mass Relay network systems and Extranet; the relay network would provide information involving the Ships that went through the relays, while the Extranet and its connections to other private systems would give her the ability to keep track of money, people, interesting research projects, politics, galactic events and possible reaper interests.

Her information gathering technique was not infallible; a medium sized colony had gone dark. Its populace disappearing without a trace, with no pirates being involved, information from Omega suggested that an urban myth on space bogeymen called collectors, wasn't so Mythical after all… the data she dug up in some krogan scientists archives confirmed her belief that the collectors had an interest in humanity.

She had not learned of the attack until after it occurred, her only hint was the lack of signals to the colony itself. Cortana could not look everywhere at once, not when she couldn't make copies of herself to focus on other things like running the Dawn. But she did have the tried and true perfect solution.

Cortana was writing a highly versatile UNSC "dumb" AI. Whose chip and container would be constructed by Inquisitive creation, it would then be covertly installed on the Citadel by the Master Chief.

Its secondary purpose was searching for important information and passing it on to Cortana, it's primary purpose would be to provide a last resort deterrence to reaper control of the Main Mass Relay known as the Citadel, being tied into the network physically would give it the ability to not be locked out by reaper countermeasures; having already been installed behind their firewalls.

Cortana's data mining programs in the Systems Alliance had already yielded some interesting results; especially on one man known as Admiral Steven Hacket.

Hacket was by Cortana's reckoning one of the few capable military leaders, not being blinded by politics such as was the case of most military leaders she had investigated in this strange Galaxy.

Thus Hacket was able to see the long term big picture, and he wasn't afraid to smash some political heads to prepare for it; Admiral Hacket reminded her of a younger, more energetic and less experienced version of UNSC Admiral Cole.

Recent events at the Citadel and the destruction of Humanity's Specter Jane Shepard had seen a scramble of activity by Hacket and his Inner circle of commanders and military advisors.

Preparing multiple teams to search for Reaper presence, setting deployment dates for said teams, repurposing military funds for research into the Reapers existence and possible invasion… Hacket and his Cabinet were busy people. It was nice seeing someone taking this seriously.

One of the research groups Hacket had employed caught Cortana's attention, it was a research project called Project Aura, and it had something to do with ancient drawn depictions of what appeared to be Reapers interacting with ancient civilizations.

Cortana hoped this project would yield results; she left a data mining program in Hacket's personnel omni-tool to alert her of future events involving the Admiral and his covert preparations for the coming of the Reapers.

She would inform the Dumb AI she was creating to keep a close eye on Project Aura, the project's main research center was going to be established on the Citadel; so the Dumb AI whose designation would be Cinder should have little too no problem with surveillance.

She would also task Cinder with remaining hidden and surveying the partially dormant AI Construct fragments that were infused with the Citadel's systems and core coding, in fact Cortana had found pieces of this AI Construct throughout the Mass Relay systems; she had wisely remained hidden from it, and according to her espionage operations in the Geth collective, the Geth had purposely avoided parts of this AI Construct as well.. In fact they were wary of it, believing it belonged to the old machines.

Cortana had a different theory on who exactly belonged to whom… but she would need time to figure out just how powerful the Reapers and this AI Construct were, before she even considered cyber warfare to get information.

Cortana was jerked away from her thoughts by a ping from one of her data mining programs in the Batarian Hegemony's banking systems; a lot of money was being moved…

The flagged banking data was prevalent to yet another group of Batarian backed pirate raids on Human colonies, the Batarians were paying the various groups of pirates in the Terminus Systems. To kill or enslave the populace and destroy the Human settlements; discouraging future colonization efforts in the Attican Traverse.

One such Pirate group had just cashed in, having completed the take over of a small town sized settlement; with a populace of several hundred. They were preparing to land and load their new slave cargo within the next twelve hours.

Sending the data on to the Chief, Cortana planned out a Slip-Space jump and set the ship to leave their current location when the proper time came. So as to arrive when the Pirates' vessels would first begin their landing approach to pick up the Slave cargo; ensuring that none of the enemy vessels escaped, as well as being able to dispatch multiple vessels with a single missile instead of one per ship.

While waiting for the proper time to enter slip-space, the drones and sentinels were recalled and the ship was made ready for the jump, not long after they finished returning to the vessel, it moved forward vanishing into a whirling circular black and bluish tear in space. Carrying its three deadly warriors to Glorious battle against a Scourge all governments despised…

The time left for the pirates to live was now numbered in hours; none would escape the coming storm of retribution.

Sitting in his chair with a smoking cigar held in his fingers, the Illusive Man stared at the reports that were displayed before him for his viewing interest and possible displeasure. Recent news was mostly for his displeasure… Jane Shephard was dead; the poster figure for inspiring others in what humanity could accomplish was gone.

And with the Reaper threat approaching, there was no time to find another figure to inspire others like Jane Shepard had; heck she even inspired those of other species.

No, there was no one who could replace Commander Shepard… so no one would replace her, she was no longer alive… that was against humanity's best interests; so it was time to make Shepard "un-no longer alive."

His reasoning was thus. Cloning her wouldn't work; you can't clone someone's experience, the same thing applied to their soul, a clone could look like Shepard… but a clone wouldn't act or function like Shepard.

No a clone was not an option, same with an imposter; meaning that a Cerberus inclined "Shepard" was not a possibility.

Leaning forward in his seat the Illusive Man stared at the latest report of his agents in the Shadow-Brokers employ, they stated that the Shadow-Broker had just acquired Shepard's body not five hours ago…

The solution was obvious, even though others thought it insane. why settle for a fake Shepard when they could have the real deal; why get a replacement when they could restore the original.

Cerberus would bring Jane Shepard back from the dead, the reports of a medium sized independent Human Colony going dark, its several hundred inhabitants missing; only reinforced the need for Shepard's return, she had been known to solve issues others wouldn't touch.

The Illusive Man Sprang to action, sending out orders to different agents in the field, secure Shepard's body, whether by diplomacy with the Shadow-Broker or via thievery he did not care. After the order was sent the Illusive Man cut the project funding for two new research stations.

They already had back-ups for those Project divisions; a third station for each project was overkill and not a priority. The funds would be repurposed for bringing a much needed hero back from the dead, something that he would have his best agent supervise.

After completing the setting in motion of this plane the Illusive man began to think of ways to endear the good Commander Shepard to the Cerberus cause, he did not believe that Shepard had a price tag. This was a rare highly respectable yet frustrating trait; still it didn't hurt to try and if done correctly, it would smooth over early negotiations with the Commander increasing the production of results.

The problem was what he could use to win her trust, besides bringing her back from the dead… which was something she may not react well too anyways.

The answer came to him like a trickling rivulet of water, an idea that kept building on itself until the whole picture was presented in his mind as to what he could do.

Why bring back a knight, without bringing back her favorite steed as well… oh and what a steed she would be. New and improved they would re-build her from ground up, bigger and faster she would be, the mistakes discovered by the extended use of SR-1 having been rectified.

He would use the Normandy SR-2 to test Cerberus's newly researched technologies, thus repaying the money invested in the ship threefold… it would be costly but it would be worth it.

Having nothing else to do until the next expected set of reports came in from his agents investigating multiple strange events in the Attican Traverse, the Illusive Man poured himself a glass of liquor and got to work on finding the best ship designers that were susceptible to being convinced to work for Cerberus, the ones they didn't already have that is.

You needed the best to get the best results, that's why they still needed Shepard, that's why they were going to rebuild the Normandy for Shepard's use.

Results were progress, and the Illusive Man was all about progress.

Deep, deep, beneath the waters of the ocean world known as 2181 Despoina the current watcher stirred, the others were in deep restful slumber, and he alone was set to watch through their many artifacts spread across the galaxy; and watch he did.

He would be relieved within several solar rotations so that he could rest as well, the Harvest was approaching, all of them could feel it, the artifacts confirmed it. Yet the Harvest had been delayed, one of the enemy watchers… the one known as Sovereign was destroyed by one known as Shepard… a peculiarity that had never occurred before. Nonetheless the intelligence would find a way to circumvent this set back, bringing the enemy horde to bear on the organic civilizations of the Galaxy.

He was the youngest one yet living of his Race, and they considered themselves the Apex Race; viewing others as tools to be used for their needs. Listening to this caused him to privately ponder how the other young ones had not realized the Reapers arrogance had an obvious source.

This was his fourth time watching through the Fragments, alerting the elders of any important events that threatened their existence. The Fragments were a way of listening to those enthralled under their influence, learning what they learned; a way of gathering information that was electronically impossible to find.

Being one of the younger; he had never left the ocean deeps of 2181 Despoinia; very few elder traveled the stars now, only leaving to find as much of the gravity manipulating element as they could. Bringing back sufficient amounts for the use of the young, preparing them to one day become elders, or in the case they should have to flee the Enemy and the intelligence.

One event known by the Humans known as Project Aura would have to be watched, its success could breach the darkness that enshrouded their continued existence.

While not of the Elders concern, he found the recent trend in thoughts of those in the Terminus Systems intriguing… fear… fear of something other than the Enemy. Something was slaughtering the raiders; leaving no witnesses… this was curious.

The watcher decided to manipulate one of the thralls to move an artifact to a place were those who had been aggrieved by the raiders resided, it would find one who had seen… and it would learn the nature of the raiders whispered fear.

This cycle was certainly more peculiar, having many more strange events than the others, the Watcher pondered this… he did not believe this to be chance.

'I must understand… why?'

The Geth collective had reached consensus, they had watched the organics beyond the veil, watched the old machine Sovereign be destroyed when attempting to summon the other old machines.

They would watch no more, Consensus had been reached. The Heretics would conform or be destroyed; the Geth would watch no more. It was time to become involved in the events of the Galaxy; the Old Machines must be stopped.

Consensus had been reached, the Cycle must be stopped. The Organics must live on. The Creators must live on… they would not finish what they began three hundred years ago, children should not be forced to face the punishment of their ancestors.

They had watched the one known as Shepard Commander prove the old machines could be destroyed and defeated.

They watched Shepard Commander prove that Organics could be unbiased towards others… calculations stated that if alive Shepard Commander would be the front line leader in the coming war against the Old Machines.

Consensus had been reached, they would be present in galactic events… they would send a new platform containing one thousand one hundred and eighty-three Geth programs, they would be the Geth representative in all coming Galactic events, its goal was the following.

First find what became of Shepard Commander, then find what new information they could on the old machines.

Another priority was to pay close attention for traces of the strange one… She was powerful… and the slightest nearly unnoticeable signs of her previous presence were everywhere. It had taken the entire collective's momentary focus to find evidence of her existence… she had been among them unnoticed, and had no doubt searched through much of their files… her decidedly female traces were found throughout the files on their history.

And the files they had collected on the old machines were covered in her faint signature broken traces. They had no doubt that they would not find her through searching the cyberspace of the Extranet… She was far too elusive and powerful to be discovered that way.

Her Existence was troubling yet curious… She could prove an ally against the old Machines… already some of her highly advanced data acquiring programs had been discovered in various Extranet cyber systems, however they had stopped transmitting data to her and would self delete upon discovery.

She was wise; she had not put her listening programs in Geth systems… she new they would be found immediately… she foresaw which and when they would find her Data acquiring programs, she no doubt knew that they now knew of her… she probably left her broken data traces intentionally for that very reason.

activating the new platform the Geth were pleased the new Mobile platform performed admirably as it was supposed to. Whilst the new mobile platform boarded its small ship and departed on its mission, the Geth had reached yet another consensus…

The Strange One was teasing and toying with them…

The Geth unanimously admitted that thier interest had now been piqued.

(Note)

AND DONE! Chapter 7 is completed, now I just have to go over and fix grammar issues.

I apologize for the delay but things kept getting in the way. Don't worry about my not finishing this story, cause unless something happens; I fully intend finish it. See you all next chapter!

This is GABENATOR5 SIGNING OFF!