(Note)
Chapter fourteen is here folks! I hope you all enjoy it!
On a side note: my laptop fell and the hard-drive took a permanent trip to the afterlife. No worries though, I now have access to a better typing machine with a more recent and updated version of Microsoft word. (Heck yes!) Therefor I am now able to continue the story! As well as plan out its sequel: The Unknown Guardian.
You can find a sneak peek teaser scene for it on my author page… it is a direct continuation of this tale once I have finished typing it. Please leave your ideas in the comments for the teaser chapter, im am hoping they would greatly help assist me in fleshing out the story.
A Halo/Star Wars tale can be rather difficult after all.
I Do Not Own Mass Effect or The Halo Franchise; neither do I own the Titanfall Franchise. All these Universes Respectively Belong to Bioware/EA, Respawn Entertainment and Microsoft/343 Industries.
Now that that's all over and done with, I can say… ON With the Story!
Arcturus Station…
The pride of the Human Systems Alliance, the space station that rivaled the majority of its brethren throughout the galaxy and housed the Human Military and Civilian Governments respectively. The ultimate symbol of propaganda supporting human achievement and resourcefulness.
The station that held just over fifty thousand personnel in day to day operation and life. The supposed ultimate sign of power, a bastion in defending a major relay hub for Human space from the galaxy abroad.
And in the eyes of a certain aged and wizened admiral… a disaster and tactical logistics nightmare waiting to happen.
Admiral Steven Hackett considered the placing of all humanities main government and brass on a massive immobile space station at the edge of human space was a stupid idea… one that he feared would come back to bite them in the ass… For lack of a better term.
The worst of this issue, was that if and when it happened. (And it would happen!) It would most likely occur on his watch… meaning the consequences of any form of failure would be reaped on his head, all tactical and logistics nightmares aside.
He had three separate fleets at his beck and call. Two were permanent guards to the human made station, chained there by the politicians who would immediately and willing murder anyone who so much as breathed the idea of using their precious protection for anything else other than local Parades and sitting pretty on guard duty for the many bureaucrat's comfort in the feeling of security.
Hackett was not a happy camper when it came to this, his command over those fleets was a formality that held little weight in reality. If he so much as touched those ships for other duties than the political backlash would be like that of lying in a bunk of just activated grenades.
It would end his rather distinguished career as an active member of the Navy brass… popularity be damned.
The one fleet he did command was only a fleet in name, not in number. The plans for its expansion were well under way but its numbers were still below twelve ships and due to its expansion Hackett's peers and the Politician's would know if it received a new assignment.
Which was why Hackett was now supremely frustrated.
The Station and most if not all of Human society had been in a uproar about the now disappearing colonist's, all kinds of theories had been hypothesized as to what was occurring to make the large and ever growing numbers of people on the Colony Worlds disappear.
The was also a spike in pirate activity's, some of which Hackett personally believed to be the work of more than just pirates… wreckage had been found with the same damages as that of the Normandy SR-1.
Not that the Politicians listened or cared about that, as of late they happily preferred Shepard dead and turned a blind eye to the warnings and evidence's that woman had dug up… how could they? They had better and more important things to do. Power grabs to make, freedoms to overregulate into non-existence, personal agenda's to enforce through subtle methods.
Ah yes, Politics… how tiresome.
Hackett loathed it, he didn't want more power and control. He wasn't empowered by ambitions for glory and power… he was just thankful that enough old men and some of the younger whipper snappers shared this view and were able to somewhat counterbalance the rest of the political scale.
Even if it was like wading through an endless pool of explosive poisonous piranhas.
Thus it was that Hackett now found himself frustrated, his hands were tied and even though his gut was urging him to look into this mysterious information; he however, knew he would be unable to do so for some time.
Said information had been gained from a lightly encrypted DataStream that had been broadcasted to a Systems Alliance listening outpost on the edge of the Terminus, its origins were suspected to be that of Cerberus and it contained images and details on a small Colony and its supposed run in with the Collector's.
Hackett had never heard of, nor much less seen hard evidence of the Collectors existence. But he hadn't seen any solid evidence to discredit their existence either… the possibility of the Collectors being behind the missing Colonies was not off the table in Hackett's book.
It was too bad the Politicians and many of his peers didn't share his views, they had written it off as a hoax created and broadcasted by Cerberus as a means to terrify the population and gain support out of fear of a false enemy, ordering no ship to investigate the colony because it would be a waste of time and take away protection of worlds that "Needed it more…"
Hackett had no fragging clue where these people got their idiotic sense of what they proclaimed to be logic.
It seemed that if it didn't fit their perception of reality, than they simply discredited it as false and moved on… a dangerous and utterly foolish way to live in this Galaxy. The Colony the data stream reported was named Silvia-Viridis after it's many forests, it was small and had a population of less than two thousand (Even more reason the Bureaucrats shelved it on the backburner) and had no strong economic ties other than some specialty and exotic produce and woodwork. It was also on the distant edge of Human space and would take a long while for a vessel to arrive and investigate, not that he could send one so soon to do so… all navy ships not here at Arcturus Station were roped into the guarding of the highly populated Colonies.
Hackett's suggestion of hunter killer packs hunting human space in networked tandem in order to at least have vessels close by should another world go dark was ignored, leaving the medium and low populated colonies at great risk.
The old Admiral's thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of an emergency message on his desk terminal, turning away from the viewport he had been staring out from the old war veteran walked to his desk and inputted the proper security codes to read the message.
It wasn't good news, Ferris Fields had been dark for over a day now.
the scout ships had arrived and reported in.
it was now a fact.
Another colony had fallen.
After the Forward unto Dawn had failed to save the Colony of Silvia-Viridis and halt the Collector Vessel, the ship spent the next few weeks discreetly patrolling the terminus systems and awaiting any activity from the Omega 4 mass relay. Suffice to say their efforts were in vain for no vessel, whether Collector or otherwise, entered or exited the oddly red colored mighty tuning fork of doom.
Cortana had sent a lightly encrypted message to the systems alliance but they had not begun any sort of investigation, citing the message of unknown origins as some attempt of Cerberus to gain power of some sort. Cortana freely admitted the UNSC and UEG had a ton of problems and each their own share blind, self-serving foolish and petty political figures that somehow gained power of holding offices of various positions throughout government…
But this was getting to be ridiculous.
It seemed as if this Universe had a knack for producing Politicians that were a pain in the neck, slow moving, self-serving and willfully ignorant of situations such as the Reaper threat… in not just one, but all the races.
At least the militaries of this Galaxy were not as bad off as the civilian governments in this regard. Most of the military leaders had their wits about them and were fairly competent at what they did, despite often being figuratively choked to death by inexperienced politicians who didn't always think their actions through beforehand and then made excuses for it or passed the blame for the consequences that occurred afterwards onto others.
One of the more competent military minds, Admiral Steven Hackett had attempted to investigate the contents of the message they had received but his hands had been tied and his career dangled over the edge of a cliff by politicians who were desperate for a scape goat to blame for the failed protection of the now empty colony worlds that had gone dark.
In this case Hackett's extensive and spotless record as well as his popularity in the civilian sector saved his hide and caused the Bureaucrats' witch hunt to move their spotlight onto someone else besides himself.
Cortana liked Hackett best out of all the faction leaders she had been keeping an eye on so far during her stay in this reality… he wasn't overly ambitious and he had the best intentions at heart, he wasn't a pushover in naval combat tactics either.
After the few weeks of patrolling, The Dawn had returned to their new base of operations. Named "The Hold" by Cortana their base that had been under constant construction by Rises-much and his ever-growing army of mechanical machine constructs was nearly half completed. Its name was derived from it literally being their only solid foot-hold in this galaxy.
The Huragok's ability to construct a small manufactory for forerunner construction drones ahead of schedule had helped to speed things up exponentially. (The small tiny ones from Halo 2, not the sentinels) The ground base of The Hold was currently barebones necessities, at first one-hundred percent of the Huragok's efforts had been towards the construction of automatic mining facilities and refineries for different much needed materials.
Once those facilities had been in place all construction efforts had gone into building a prefabricated front half for the Dawn, as well as replacement modules and more efficient point defense turrets for the currently barely space worthy patch work vessel.
Even after four months with the new but small electronics assembly and manufactory structure running at max efficiency they still didn't have all the replacement parts and upgrades for the fried electronics the Dawn acquired from Halo's firing and the subsequent EMP effects.
And if the math was accurately correct, they wouldn't have the last of the MAC Gun's magnetic ring coils manufactured until the ship had almost completed its several planned weeks of repairs.
Thereby making the MAC and the internal computers the last items on the list to be completed when the repairs were to be finished. The fact that the Dawn was not supporting a several hundred man crew was a blessing in that some things that were required for human safety during construction no longer needed doing, the newly repaired vessel would have less living space than the old one by converting unneeded Barracks into storage space.
The ship was designed with quick repairs and rapid modifications in mind, so repurposing certain sections that were no longer needed was an easier affair than one would think. In fact it would be one of the easier things to do on the long list of repairs, modifications and minor upgrades that had been compiled for execution.
And execute they did.
While the two vessel's halves were made as a whole and the AIs and Machines were busy, the Spartan and the Hunter pair took the two new Charges out into the wilderness. There they would spend the next several weeks training, the Spartan and the Hunter Pair did two on one combat drills with Close quarters being paramount in their efforts to farther improve their already excessively formidable skills.
The two children were trained by the Spartan in how to live out in the wild… a daunting experience, the Chief's training regime wasn't harsh yet still a heavy challenge. Over the course of this training Sadie and Laura learned that their new caretakers were strong, disciplined, stern yet fair and the young ones learned to trust their new friends not to push their training too far beyond their limits.
Their trust was well founded.
The two inseparable friends learned how to live and survive in the wild, gathering their own resources and hunting and preparing their own food. They also were taught stealth skills by engaging in daily rounds of Avoid the Hunters, where the two would have to spend a preset amount of time avoiding detection from the highly vigilant walking lekgolo worm colonies.
They had never been able to hide from the Spartan nor did they think they would be capable of doing so for quite some time, he was the master and they were the students. He taught them what they needed to know, and they willing soaked up that knowledge and experience like desert dried sponges.
At the end of their several weeks training the group had bonded as a unit, with the girls having learned all the basics needed to live and survive emergency situations, as well as light hand to hand combat.
Now that was an interesting lesson, throughout the training the Spartan had hinted at a reward for stealing his helmet… they tried and failed many, many times to no avail. Throughout it all John critiqued their attempts and corrected the mistakes in their form and tactics… they still never got that helmet.
But one day, one day! They would triumph! Both Sadie and Laura had sworn this to the other.
On another note the Titan BT-7274 had its repairs completed and had tested its newly painted chassis groundside at The Hold, this was an event that the Girls (Including Cortana) greatly enjoyed watching. The Vanguard Titan was an ever greatly expanding dispenser of destruction, proving its power and worth as a heavy war unit that rivaled the Scorpion MBT.
As for finding a way home, well that plan was still on the drawing board so to speak. The information on time shifts and what happened when you traveled between them that was acquired from BT-7274 ha sped up Cortana's plan by literal decades, however she would still need more info for her idea which was still mostly a shaky theory at best.
However another IMC blueprint the Titan had given to her alongside its preferred weapon kit design, was interesting enough to possibly become a side project, these IMC Specters were very robust and rather diverse in their function… Cortana was pretty sure she could build a variant model of her own. However it would take some materials she couldn't spare at the moment and that pushed the build date further out than she liked… she was patient, but she still hated waiting.
But beggars can't be choosers and repairing the Dawn was pushing things as it is.
Once all the repairs would be finished the Dawn would once again leave for the Terminus Systems, Cortana had been taking notes on their last patrol and had figured it was time to rock the Galaxy's boat so to speak.
The Batarian's operations needed to be halted once more, before they gained traction again. Especially with the Collector's actions of emptying colonies drawing the attention of the Alliance navy away from the Skyllian verge and the upper far edge of the Attican traverse due to the fewer highly populated worlds found there.
Cortana planned to do this in three ways: first, she would forcefully spam the Batarian hegemony military systems in order to clog their system as well as greatly distract their VI's and cyber security personnel, this would not harm the Hegemony much but it would keep eyes away from the real targets.
Second, they would support the mostly crushed Batarian freedom movement that pushed for the eradication of slavery and the creation of a republic like government. They would do this by wiring out the Hegemony's external bank accounts while the Batarians in cyber warfare are sufficiently distracted by afore mentioned first tactic, and then transfer it to the Freedom Movement's accounts without leaving a paper trail to follow.
This would cause the Batarian Political and military machine to focus their efforts more at home.
The third and final move would be the removal of the Batarian hegemony' ability to quickly recover financially by the removal of a major slave world from their control, and she had already picked her target.
Logasari, a major Batarian slave operation. The Carbon heavy crust of the planet is full of resources that were mined by hand… the hands of slaves. The Planet could barely even be called as such, and was rapidly losing stability with its water cycle quickly failing and said liquid drying out at a fast rate.
Its reputation was as the worst slaver pit in the galaxy and it had the stories and scarred escapee survivors to prove it… it was a major source of income for the Batarians and would be a hard blow to the Hegemony if it was lost. Its naval defenses were a bit above what was standard for this Galaxy… but would not be a problem for Cortana to neutralize.
The planet did not have a breathable atmosphere, making the use of the Hunters or deploying the Chief unadvisable… but their newest combat member didn't need oxygen. Besides she had another side mission for her Spartan to run, he would be sticking to the shadows and running a espionage centered mission… on Omega.
The slave world was the only Batarian run world in the Batalla system within the Omega nebula, the other habitable planet in the Batalla system: Thunawanuro, was Logasari's polar opposite and was inhabited by the Elcor due to its high gravity threshold. The gravity factor protecting Thunawanuro's inhabitants from raids, only the Elcor could live there.
Logasari was on the edge of Batarian space, its going dark would hopefully not immediately be noticed due to Cortana's screwing with the hegemony's systems and its liberation from being a Batarian slave world would bolster the Freedom movement's cause due to the freed slaves having the galactic news focused on them and their story.
All after the Dawn and her crew would have vanished from the tracking abilities of all other interested parties of course… Cortana would see to it.
She would protect the mysterious reputation they had built up in this galaxy and have them disappear without a flipping trace.
Tali was excited, her vessel had just returned from its deployment in order to receive supplies from the fleet. In her short time away the blueprints she had uncovered had been used to build a working successful porotype.
Now as many of these sterile field generators were being built as was possible, space and resource hungry antibacterial devices were being put into storage as backups while this new technical marvel was installed on a hand full of ships… it was the reason her ship had been ordered back so soon.
They were getting one as well. It would take time for the whole fleet to be equipped with these game changing lifesaver machines, but her ship was slated as one of the early ones to receive them for installation. The device was only installed in the living quarters of a ship, making suit maintenance many times easier since one could remove it without risking death while in their personal quarters.
Even so many Quarians had trouble accepting the idea that they could now remove their enviro-suit in the presence of a newly installed wonder of medical technology and live without fear of catching a disease.
While on the other hand as soon as the announcement of the field generator had been made known to the fleet nearly every married couple under the age of a hundred and ten had begged for one. Some had even gone to the point of donating their life savings to help speed up production of the machines.
The ships equipped early on had made a fortune renting rooms to married pairs, some of whom had never actually seen their lovers fully in the flesh. Many tears of joy were being shed…
'And many a plot for a love drama being written' said Tali's self-aware sarcastic side, 'we should probably interview some couples, write a story and sell it to the Asari… Credits Galore!' suffice to say Tali's sarcasm was actually being somewhat serious for once.
"I'd rather eat the thresher-maw stew Wrex described and die of food poisoning than write a stupid bosh'tet love novel! So stop making crazy ideas and leave my mind to focus on my work in peace." Tali tersely replied, she was in engineering and was recalibrating the mass effect core, (again!) and after that statement she was getting some odd looks from her co-workers… looks that she quickly noticed.
"What!"
Looks which were promptly averted by terrified Quarians who had heard of the infamous pranks and humiliating situations caused to those who had earned Tali's ire… Shepard had taught her everything she knew and she had taught her well.
And Tali was a good little acolyte, just like her dark master, teacher and older sister figure there was never a dull moment in her presence. Not even a month after returning to the fleet she had an unwanted suitor who wanted her for her family's political connections and wouldn't understand the meaning of the word NO, she dealt with him by stealing all his playboy magazines, taping them shut and writing his name on the covers of each with a large print marker she then spaced them out an airlock in such a way so that they were clearly visible through the viewports of a mess hall that was hosting a weekly political meeting for his party, able to be seen by all as they floated by at an ever so tauntingly slow pace.
Suffice to say he was royally pissed, and though no one could tie her to the deed most people still believed it was her doing and all of them who weren't her friends walked about her person like they were on eggshells… yes Shepard had taught her well and then Shepard's untimely death had sent her back to be unleashed on the migrant fleet, new Tali was not the old Tali the two personalities were very different from one another.
As for Shepard… well Tali imagined that Shepard was sitting up in heaven waiting for the galactic end times while mercilessly teasing the devil down in hells pit, by dangling a fishing rod with a carrot full of laxative on the hook at the end of the string. Tali figured that if that was true, then Shepard would wait for her friends and crewmates to meet up with her there; before letting the devil get the carrot so they could all roll on the floor laughing together when the devils face took on an abject look of horror when he realized what he had been trying to snatch for so long as well as that he just ate it…
Tali had a wild imagination.
However if one were to look behind the fierce facade, one would see sorrow… her friend and sister in arms had died in order to make sure as many people as possible made it off of the Normady-SR1 and all the group had gone their separate way's afterwards…
Leaving Tali to feel somewhat alone and forgotten.
But not broken, no she would forge on ahead and make her own path. She was now considered one of the best people to send in the case of an extraction for those whose pilgrimage had landed them in hot water, she had pulled three of them out of a tight spot already and she could not mentally thank Shepard enough times for the lessons and experiences that enabled her to succeed in doing so.
Speaking of extractions, Tali looked at her omni-tool and opened the message she had received the night before, a yellow alert. She had received a warning that she should prepare to possibly extract a pilgrim… one Veetor'Nara, she would learn of the decision of if they would be going or not within the next few days.
She had read up on Veetor, he was not a harm to others but he was still mentally unstable.
She figured she would be going.
She could use this to get her mind off of the rumors… someone was spreading rumors, saying that after almost two years Shepard had risen from the dead. While Tali didn't entirely put it past Shepard's capabilities she still figured it was either just a rumor or some imposter was posing as her. The first would disappoint her and the second she would kill in the most brutal way Wrex had taught her…
And if Shepard really had come back… well she had probably gotten tired of dangling that carrot and diplomatically convinced god to let her return and find out what's taking them so long to join up with her there. In which case Tali would happily reunite with who she considered her older sibling in order to stop the reapers, and probably die with Shepard and all the other crazies willing to take part in some madcap successful scheme to save the galaxy.
In which case Shepard would save the Galaxy and fulfill her diplomatic deal with the lord involving dragging her friends back with her… "Two birds with one stone" as Shepard would say.
Tali had a wild imagination…
And she knew it.
"And they say Veetor is mentally unstable, they really have no clue now do they?" once again she felt eyes subtly staring at her from the other newer Quarian engineers in the room.
"What!?"
And the fearful staring was once again gone… Oh yes Shepard had taught her well.
Perhaps too well.
The Watcher watched with a near unlimited amount of patience, patience that was beginning to waver… the objects of its attention, these unknown warriors with their skill and technologies had not been seen in some time.
The Galaxy at large had mostly forgotten them for other news that was occurring, like the Enemies enthralled puppets from the previous cycle sent to harvest early before their masters arrived to begin their purpose and start truly working on their task.
Their harvest.
The watchers hope of understanding this new faction was waning as their lack of reappearance encouraged the chances of their destruction. Still it held out hope, the only enemy here that were a threat was the first enemy and the new one the enemy's enthralled tools had gathered the material to create.
Their completion was suspected to be soon.
The First enemy, made from the flesh of the Apex race, the bane of what little remained of that race; the watchers and their small clan. That one they called Harbinger was their foe… and Harbinger was not pleased with its continued lack of success harvest after harvest in wiping its creator's creators from existence.
Every harvest cycle it was a battle, they would scatter the artifacts and use them to enthrall and influence those who had a chance to withstand the enemy the longest into dominance in the galaxy, and each time they would fail to do much more than spite the Enemy and slow its harvest down making it more difficult to completely erase the signs of the harvests reoccurrence leaving pieces for the next crop to find.. And hopefully prepare.
This harvest the watchers had first influenced the Rachni… only for their influence to be stopped and replaced by the enemies own, Harbinger had begun playing at their own game. With the Rachni attacking the rest of the galactic races the Watchers had waited and then the Krogan had been found… the enemy had found them first and was wary of them, having lightly nudged them to their nuclear war and hopefully their subsequent destruction as a threat.
They had survived.
They rose and destroyed the Rachni of their own accord, the enemy's indoctrination tools on the Rachni home worlds had not enough time to effect the older warriors who were resistant to the enemy's subtle control as well as the watchers own. They killed the younger who fell to the Enemy's control and waded over their bodies to destroy the enemy's artifacts.
Most of the Krogan were not smart enough however to think twice about the odd objects they didst destroy. The ones that were smart enough didn't give a damn about it to begin with. And thus the Enemy once more grew wary of them, influenced their young to conquer the other Races by force and then planted the seeds of the idea of the Genophage in the minds of those who advocated its creation. Its implementation however, was not an influence by either the watchers or the enemy.
The Council of that time didst use it willing.
And thus the watcher saw another unique race with the ability to stop the cycle through strength, will and sheer numbers fall to the side. No longer a possible tool to utilize in this eons long war.
The Quarians had the ability to understand, but the enemy saw the watchers attempts to nudge them towards building the proper tools to defend themselves from the cycle, and lightly influencing the council on the citadel it laid a trap. So that when the Quarians learned of the tool they had made, the shield that could assist in stopping the cycle, the Citadel Council's laws guided them to attempt its immediate destruction.
However that tool did not wish to be unmade, and the Quarians fell to the side the same as the Rachni and the Krogan did. No longer a viable tool to stop the cycle from continuing. The Watchers had given up for this cycle, only influencing a thing here or there in order to spite the enemy for when harvest time comes.
Then came humanity, its arrival was not a major surprise. What the watchers and the enemy learned however when searching this new race on the galactic stage was astonishing. There was no consistency. Humans were all similar yet different in how they didst think and what it was they believed in. some would resist with an indomitable will, while others welcomed or even craved enthrallment and control.
But they could change, the weakest willed could become the strongest in an unbelievably short time. The strongest willed could be broken and become a willing slave… all it depended on was what they believed they were fighting or living for. If it was for things they called selfish reasons, they often were weak willed and easy to manipulate. But if one so much as thought of living or fighting for others than themselves their entire way of thinking would change rapidly and their will would become strong as well as their courage increase.
But even that observation had exceptions to the rule.
What the enemy feared and the watchers pondered was the Humans ability to make seemingly illogical decisions and choices that would lead to their success or failure… but it was the frequency of success in these cases that was so bizarre.
What was even stranger was the effect the Humans had on the other races, like the Asari… no other race influenced their way of living so quickly and some of the Asari were now showing similar traits as the humans in their way of thinking differently.
It wasn't just Asari, many races had shown cases of members who grew up in contact with human kind having been influenced in such ways.
When the one known as Shepard fell the Watchers had considered replacing her with her Quarian ally in their plan for one to finally finish the Crucible and activate it… that decision was never reached, for Shepard was returning and their plan would continue unabated if not a little delayed.
Even though most of the Watchers believed this cycle a doomed one, the one who now watched for the unknown warrior faction, had the belief that Humanity would maybe give this cycle a fighting chance… or be the hasteners of its doom.
The lone Geth Unit with an N7 Armor piece as a makeshift patch for the rather impressive hole blown through its body, was preparing to enter stasis and confer with the Geth collective. It had found the Old machine that was supposedly damaged by the super Eezo round that had caused the Great Rift Valley on the nearby planet Klendagon in ages past.
Rather unfortunately the Humans of Cerberus had found the ancient one first, and had abandoned logical process and set foot on the old machine in order to better study it… dooming themselves to their eventual termination. The Geths ship's sensors could pick up the signs of the Indoctrination devise still being active… and it was only a matter of time.
The Geth platform carrying over a thousand separate programs needed to link with the collective to reach a consensus as to whether it should wait before boarding the old one itself and begin searching for information to help give the Geth their own future.
It did not fear the indoctrination, it was not an organic and the synthetic corrupter the old ones supposedly possessed was not sensed to be active or even aboard the heavily damaged old machine. For the Geth it was mentally safe to walk within the old one and not be conformed to its mind… the physical however was a different matter entirely.
The humans would fall and become husks, it was easier to combat husks than it was humans… husks were predictable, humans… less so.
The Platform entered stasis and used the ships sensors to commune with the Collective.
Only to be met with a cacophony of programs all wanting to trade out with the platforms own, warily investigating why this was so, the unit discovered that the Blue Lady had been rather busy and any program given a task that temporally disconnected them from the collective such as the platform of over a thousand's case, than they would receive a temporary break from the Blue lady's ever more process boggling illogical and disorderly mind games.
Suddenly hearing a woman's giggle transmitted throughout the system the Geth platform disconnected from the collective before it too became sucked into the latest processor melting, mind cracker the Blue lady had cooked up to toy the Geth with. Waking up from stasis the platform reached a local consensus of its own.
It would wait and enter the old machine once the Cerberus Humans were fallen to the indoctrination and were less of a threat, having been turned into husks. It would search the old one for answers to how to defeat the other Old Machines and secure the Geth's future.
Its chances of failing were less than fifty percent, it would succeed or shutdown trying.
It had also decided on another less important consensus, the Geth in this unit did not wish to meet the blue lady… or deal with her logic defying computer codes… ever.
The Pods had been processed one by one, their contents reduced to their basic components and piped into the nearly completed Reaper and its partially constructed experimental sibling, pod after pod, former colonist after former colonist, man, woman, child… it mattered not.
All were processed regardless.
None of the Collectors overseeing the process noticed the Fluorescent orange liquid that left one of the pods, the color was wrong and should not have been present in one of the two vats that were mixing before being piped to the one of the new reapers. Its color now no longer noticeable as it was mixed with the other material, the larger amount of reddish brown was more than capable of hiding the small amount of glowing fluorescent orange liquid before it as dispersed throughout the vat and no longer noticeable.
This would be the last vat full to be added to the normal and almost completed Reaper, it would be used in the construction of the sentient starship's container for its mind. Organic matter combined with Cybernetics would create a platform the Reaper's mind could be installed upon, slowly rewriting over the small bits and pieces of what remained from the thousands of minds and memories it was made up of.
The Vat began emptying its contents, the pipes leading to the new Reaper were full of the organic slush. The end of the contents long journey was to be put into a mold layer by layer, where the cybernetics were then applied and the Reapers Neural Network began to take shape.
After one sector was done, the 3D printer like pipe head moved on to the next area and did more of the same, steadily it followed its pre-planned job of finishing the Reaper's mind construction process. The network of map-able brain matter ready for the use of the Reaper AI that would come last. It would be installed by having the protocols and base functions needed laid down on the neural network, extended use would eventually mold the synapses and other parts of the brain matter into a new mind… giving the Reaper more personality traits of its origin race while still maintaining its purpose for existence.
Harbinger would be pleased, not that the machines or the Collectors involved in the construction efforts had any emotion or control of self to want to seek said Reaper's pleasure, they were after all, mindless automatons.
It would be many, many hours before the job was finished, but finish they would.
Deep within the material that had once been human minds and bodies' one would find a small number of cells that did not match those that were around them, the material that should not have been there lay seemingly inert…
The secondary surgical insect like arms passed over the new section and added the cybernetic attachments, which among their many purposes and functions were currently applying light shock therapy in order to better meld all the mixed matter together as well as stimulate it until the cybernetic modifications were completed.
The bits and pieces of the different organic material spread throughout what would be the Reaper's mind, jolted and became stimulated like the rest of the material around them. However the effects were slightly different.
One of the bits of odd matter was surrounded by a miscellaneous bundled mess of nerve synapses, as well as damaged pieces of people's stored memories…
Seemingly of random the small glob reached out to one of the synapses and to one of the bits of memory storage nearby…
And then it connected them.
At The Hold, the Dawn was preparing to leave the system, its repairs had gone as planned without a hitch. The MAC had been tested and Cortana almost purred when the test showed her favorite weapon to be a tad more energy efficient… not to mention the test's subsequent results were a giant shattered asteroid, she had been very happy with those results.
With her drive core preparing to make an entrance into Slip-Space via a hole it would tear open through dimensions, the Forward unto Dawn glided forward through the emptiness of the void. Her bow half gleamed in the nearby star's light, her stern half was still visibly scarred and less new in appearance, pockmarked with wounds and blackened with burns… the trophies of surviving plasma and kinetic bombardments alike.
All across the vessel, missile pods, point defense turrets and Torpedoes tubes all lay ready for use. At the front of the vessel the large barrel of the Magnetic Acceleration Canon stood as a testament to the width of the metal slugs it fired.
The Dawn was now combat ready and able to hold her own in a fight, particle beam and plasma based weapons would still be capable of slicing her open like a knife to butter. However the Dawns hit and run tactics as well as its high offensive capabilities would counter that weakness.
Cortana had just gotten her precious baby fixed and she had no intent of losing her again anytime soon.
With a light burst of her engines the ship ripped open a Slip-Space portal and surged through it.
The Dawn was back.
And she was ready to shake things up in this odd galaxy.
The Illusive Man was reading his reports, when he received a new data file from a team he had sent to Silvia Viridis. The Colony was empty and no survivors had been found, however what they did find were bodies, Collector in origin.
Lots of them.
The evidence suggested that the Collectors had been attacked at the end of their operation, returning to orbit and leaving their dead behind to escape said attackers…
The evidence wasn't much though, while they had a plethora of confirmed remains very little info could be gained from most of them, it seemed the collectors had a failsafe and their bodies would attempt to incinerate themselves… all the field autopsy reports pointed to extensive cybernetics as being the cause of such events.
It was hard to get good biological data from a corpse that was chard inside and out to near ash. However many of the images from the combat zone showcased plasma damages as well as metal rounds from an unknown rifle of some sort…
All signs pointed to the group that had been at the heart of what was now dubbed "the Prexemia Event." This green armored soldier designated one-one-seven and his companions were an enigma that not even the shadow broker knew details of… The Illusive Man did not like having an unknown faction running amok across the stars, he hated not knowing.
After reading through several more reports a message came across his desk that actually worried him somewhat.
The Lazarus Project's Facility had gone dark, with quick hand strokes he brought up the dossiers of every member of that project who was in the know. He trusted Lawson to secure their VIP and the investment she now represented, but in the meantime someone had betrayed Cerberus and the Illusive Man would know who it was and why they did it, before the days end.
Because that was part of his expertise and he was damned good at it.
Meanwhile at the Lazarus Project facility a woman thought dead slowly regained consciousness, hearing the sounds of explosions and gun fire, she stiffened on reflex.
And Commander Jane Shepard did something she hadn't done in some time.
She woke up.
And opened her Eyes.
(Note)
And that's the end of this chapter, next chapter will feature BT-7274's first entrance to the combat arena.
While the Spartan is left for a period of time on omega…
What's that!
What else will happen you ask?
Well, well my dear reader, you will have to wait and find out for yourself!
Until next time, this is Gabenator5 Signing OFF!