…
"Some trees flourish, others die. Some cattle grow strong, others are taken by wolves. Some men are born rich enough and dumb enough to enjoy their lives. Ain't nothing fair. You know that."
(John Marston)
…
MFV Explorer, September 12th, 7:07 AM, 2183
…
I looked around the mess, scanning for anyone who had just woken up. I then leaned back in my chair, drinking some of the coffee we had just gotten in yesterday. It tasted much better than that other crap we had received last month, but hey… this was how it was. Here, in an isolated system like this, you take what you are given. I should consider myself lucky to have this coffee at all. The powdered eggs weren't bad either, but you got really tired of them after a while.
I looked back to my datapad, looking over the latest report on my little pet project. The primary support sections were mostly finished, but they still needed some more time to iron out all the little problems. The octagon-shaped ring section that lined the bottom half of the station was where all the control and support systems would be located. It was divided into eight individual sections to lessen the effect a possible hull breach could have on the station as a whole.
The northern portion of the station is where the command center is located. From here, all station functions could be controlled and monitored. It could also be used as a giant safe room in "worst-case scenarios", such as overwhelming attacks from boarders. I wouldn't let what happened on Aldrin Station happen ever again to anyone under my watch. It helped that the doors would magnetically seal.
The southern portion was where most of the primary recoil system for the gun was located. It was pretty cool, really. It utilizes the massive blast back of the gun itself to keep the station in geosynchronous orbit by redirecting the pressure wave towards the bottom of the gun. Basically, no matter how hard you fire the gun, you will always have an equal force fighting against it.
The western and eastern portions of the station are where the docking clamps for frigates and cruisers were located. Due to the massive amount of variation in most of the docking mechanisms, we opted to instead adapt to a universal, pressure-based "cradle" system that uses extending "arms" to dock with incoming ships. It worked surprisingly well. They had been used on Aldrin to great effect, I remember.
The northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast portions of this octagon consisted of the smaller transport bays on the outside edge, and the habitats on the inside. These provided storage, barracks, and other utilities. Unlike I had originally planned, these sections would not feature large windows in the ceilings. Each of these four sections would eventually be armed with three 250mm point defense guns and a single GUADIAN grid.
The gun itself would make up the entire 1,500 meters of the station. It'll have its own auto-loader system and a dedicated security detachment and maintenance crew. The projectiles the gun will be firing will consist of an outer steel layer with a tungsten core. The steel will "squash" on impact with a ship, while the tungsten core travels inside the target.
There was no need to add an explosive filler because the kinetic force of the round itself would be enough to cripple a ship in its entirety. That, and there would be the risk of one detonating inside the barrel while being fired. The electricity that'll be going through those coils would be capable of prematurely detonating anything we could fit on the rounds.
All in all, I think it was a sound design. The biggest problems we had to deal with at the moment involved the gun itself. The gun would make up the main length of the station, exactly 1,500 meters above and below the ring section, but the loading mechanism would have to traverse approximately two thirds of that length. It had to accomplish this, ideally, in six seconds, while also charging the magnetic coils inside the barrel.
I admit, it was overly engineered. Just thinking about it made me feel like those poor bastards that designed the Tiger tank during World War Two.
I had to figure out how to make this magic, Reaper-killing machine work before actual construction began on the barrel next month. If I didn't have it solved, then I was in deep shit.
What I wouldn't give to work with those crazy bastards that designed the Heckler & Koch G11. Piece of kraut space magic, that gun was.
My thoughts were scrambled the moment I heard the elevator door open. I saw Lenlo walk into the mess shortly afterwards, making a beeline to the food station.
"Hey, next time you see Kirva, can you tell her to please stop moving the toolbox I have on the bridge?" I asked casually, as he walked over with his standard nutrient tube.
"She moved it again?" He questioned with slight disbelief in his tired voice. "Ugh… yeah, I'll talk to her later."
"Thanks, I appreciate it." I acknowledged, looking back to my plate of eggs.
We sat in silence, eating out breakfast quietly for a few minutes before Lenlo asked a question.
"Hey Captain, what do you think about all of this "Reaper" talk that's been going around the Fleet?" He asked, plucking the nutrient tube out from under his helmet.
His question caught me off guard. I looked down at the table for a few seconds thinking about what to say before I looked back to him.
"You want my honest opinion?" I inquired, scooting a little closer to the table. "I think they are one-hundred and fifty percent real. No question about it."
"Really? No one else seems as convinced as you." Lenlo observed, leaning on the table and looking directly into my eyes. "Why are you so sure?"
"Well, there's been a significant amount of information surfacing to support it." I defended, scooping some more egg into my mouth, chewing it, and swallowing before I continued. "That ship that attacked the Citadel was unique. Nothing in the known galaxy should have been able to shrug off shots from the Destiny Ascension. Nothing."
"What about the Collectors?" He asked further, cocking his head.
His question caught me off guard. I had to think about it for a few seconds.
"See, I thought about that too." I remarked, pointing my fork at him before putting it back down. "While I'm sure the Collectors have some… unusual technology at their disposal, I don't think they have any motivation to attack the Citadel."
"No one knows motivations of Collectors." Dimitri quipped as he walked over from the barracks, going straight for the pot of coffee I had made. "Every time they appear, they disappear as soon as they get what they want."
"Good morning to you too, Dimi." I said, crossing my arms.
He simply raised his coffee cup in quiet confirmation, before lowering it to his mouth and sipping loudly.
"I still think it's a possibility." Lenlo continued, looking back to me. "I think the whole "ancient machine" thing seems a bit… extreme."
"You believe whatever you want to believe, Lenlo." I finished off, standing up with my plate. "That's my opinion on the matter."
"Fair enough." He agreed, standing up as well with nutrient paste in hand. "I'll talk to Kirva later about the tools, Captain."
"Thank you, Lenlo." I nodded, placing my plate and utensils in the sink so I could begin cleaning them.
Once Lenlo was out of earshot, Dimitri came up behind me.
"What do you really think of Collectors?" He asked in a slightly hushed tone, looking over my shoulders as I washed.
"I think they're a threat." I answered in a deadpan, looking at him with a much more serious face. "Just from the rumors alone, they are into some twisted shit. Buying people off of slavers and crime lords… it sickens me. Who knows what happens to those poor people that are taken."
"Remember that old story that was going around Fleet shortly after we arrived?" He asked, taking a plate out of the cabinet.
"No, what story?" I inquired, leaning on the countertop as I looked harder at him.
"Apparently, a quarian named Golo tried to sell his own crewmembers to Collectors a decade ago in exchange for tech." Dimitri explained, as I listened intently. "Luckily, the Admirals at the time discovered his treachery and had him banished."
"Serves him right." I remarked, walking back to the coffee maker and pouring another cup. "If it were up to me, I would have had that asshole blown out into space."
Dimitri nodded in agreement as we silently ended the conversation.
I walked to the elevator, selecting the CIC and waiting a minute for the slow, slow elevator to ascend. Once there, I quickly walked over to the bridge. My quiet little happy place on this ship. I began playing Jón Hallur's "Below the Asteroids" from the EVE Online soundtrack, immediately setting the mood.
Outside, there was a flurry of activity. Our ship was docked to the western side of the ODP, and provided a great view of the current progress. The entire main ring of the station was mostly finished by this point, though it had yet to be pressurized or stocked with utilities. In the center of the station, the engineers who had volunteered were working away at the base of the gun, putting together the gigantic recoil mechanism.
I was up here with Dimitri, Dan, Powell, and the rest of our quarian crew today specifically to meet Rael's daughter, Tali'Zorah vas Neema. She had apparently gotten back from her Pilgrimage last week, and was looking to have some kind of encrypted Geth data files looked at. I hadn't heard much, but supposedly she had been on the SSV Normandy, Commander Shepard's ship. This was big, I remember. She was actually mentioned in one of those Alliance News Network reports a few months ago.
While I expected everything to go fine, I was still worried down deep inside that I might screw something up. This was the Admiral's daughter, after all.
Luckily, that wouldn't be for a few more hours. That gave me more time to prepare, and more time to inspect the inside of the station.
After finishing my second cup of coffee and looking over the latest reports, I donned my EVA suit and walked through the airlock after letting it cycle. All background noise disappeared as soon as the oxygen had been vented.
The artificial gravity had been turned on, much to my delight. Just thinking about the sensation of plopping around in mag boots brought back memories of darkness and broken toes. I opted for a full walkthrough of the station in its current state just for the hell of it. Besides, no better way to clear my thoughts than to wander around in silence.
Once at the end of the cradle, I made my way down the hallway, passing several other closed airlocks. The quarians were truly masters at shipbuilding. Even with a set amount of resources, they've managed to make everything look seamless. Not a single panel looked out of place, despite what impressions one could get from looking at their older ships. It was gorgeous.
Due to the lack of windows, we set up a little map system to help guide people around. It looked a lot like one you'd see in a mall, to be honest. Each of the eight sections, not including the gun itself, were color-coded and labeled very specifically. Currently, I was between sections Gamma and Delta. Delta led towards the Command Center, while Gamma led to the Recoil System. I chose the Command Center, where I could possibly check out the security systems.
These habitats were going to be two floored to accommodate surplus crew. It was very barren at the moment, due to the lack of oxygen. Once the station was pressurized, a few of the rarely seen quarian botanists would arrive and plant some dextro-amino plants here to not only provide surplus food, but to make it feel more friendly and cut down on noise pollution.
The shuttle bay, like all the others, was filled to the brim with supplies all for construction. Even this early in the morning, volunteers were still here using civilian-grade exos to move crates to the tram line that ran the entire length of the station. It was cluttered, but it felt like progress. I even got a few waves from them, of which I returned.
Next stop was the Command Center, which already had guard postings. My hope is that this place will be like Fort Knox by the time it's fully finished. Each side of this section has walls that are four feet thick with hardened titanium plates. In order to get inside, you needed both guard's unique access code which would change every day once the actual gun was functional.
Once inside, you are greeted with tons of holographic displays all giving highly specific information on what it's assigned to do. I designed it so no single person would ever be able to operate the MAC gun by themselves. Even if that did somehow happen, I secretly installed a V.I. that's sole purpose is to prevent the gun from being aimed at Reach. It was too dangerous to risk just one failsafe.
About an hour later, I made it back to the Explorer, finally able to take in a fresh breath of recycled air. Yay.
I began going over the itinerary with Powell, who was very interested himself to see what these Geth data files could reveal. He obviously had to leave his body behind for this occasion, but we had already informed Rael beforehand that he would be helping decrypt these files.
"So, I'm supposed to act like a V.I. when she's around, right?" He asked, looking at me with crossed arms from the hologram projector.
"Yeah, according to what I've heard, she's been involved with fighting a lot of Geth over the last few months." I confirmed, nodding as I checked our schedule. "The last thing we need is some sort of panic around here."
"Agreed." He said, nodding back to me.
Before I could say anything else, the elevator door popped open, revealing Kirva, who had two collapsed rifles tucked underneath her arm.
"Oh, hey Captain." She greeted before quickly walking back towards the armory.
"Uh… what are you doing with those?" I asked, getting up and following her.
"I've been running routine check-ups on every rifle in the ship's inventory." She explained as we walked into the armor where she had set up.
In here, the bare walls were adorned with handwoven fabrics that Kirva had set up. In the left corner near the back of the room, there was a simple hammock set up between the walls that she slept in, despite all the space.
The walls that weren't covered in fabric were instead loaded to the brim with various firearms. Most of them were already here in the first place, though she had added a few others herself since becoming a member of my crew. The wall included Alliance mainstays such as the M-8 Avenger and the M-3 Predator, mercenary favorites like the M-15 Vindicator and the M-6 Carnifex, and the strange one she had brought back from her Pilgrimage, a krogan weapon known as a Graal Spike Thrower.
It was apparently designed for hunting Thresher Maws, and fired large flechettes meant to rip into targets and cause blood loss. It was a mean looking weapon, and I certainly hoped I'd never have to see Kirva use it.
"I found these two Mattocks below deck in storage, so I decided to add them to my to-do list." She finished, plopping them down on the table. "And… sorry about using your tools. I misplaced my socket wrench, so I borrowed yours."
"That fine, but… I think those belong to Dimitri." I pointed out, looking at the Mattocks as she pulled her tool chest out from under her hammock.
"They are?" She questioned, stopping in her tracks.
"Yeah, he's the only one who uses them." I remarked with wider eyes, picking one up and extending it. "If you want to clean and calibrate them, I'd recommend talking to him first."
"Alright, thanks." She acknowledged quickly, running back out the door to find him.
I just shook my head with a small smile, setting the rifle back down and walking away.
…
MFV Explorer, September 12th, 1:20 PM, 2183
…
Dimitri and Dan flanked behind my left and right respectively as I waited for the airlock to finish cycling. On the other side of that door was the Admiral's daughter. I was determined that nothing would go wrong during all of this.
"Ease up, Sean." Dimitri said, giving me a small poke in the back. "She's not royalty, she's just like everyone else around here."
"Yeah, I know." I replied, letting a bit of an exhale out as I allowed myself to relax slightly.
The airlock finally finished cycling, revealing Tali'Zorah. She wore a multi-toned purple envirosuit covered in swirls. It looked almost brand new compared to most envirosuits I've seen. She even had a knife strapped to her left boot, which I found odd.
"Greetings, Tali'Zorah vas Neema." I greeted with a firm handshake and a head nod. "Welcome to my ship, the Explorer."
"Thank you, Captain Michaels." She accepted, looking up and down the neck of the CIC. "I've heard a lot about your team over the last two days."
"From your father, I presume?" I asked, causing her to cock her head slightly to the left.
"No, from Aun- Admiral Shala'Raan." She corrected with a bit of a stutter. "Why do you ask?"
"I just thought he might have mentioned us, considering how much he talks about you." I answered with a bit of a smile. "You know, the whole "home on the homeworld" thing?"
"That sounds like him, all right." She agreed, nodding slightly as she took a chip-sized device out of her pocket. "So, you three think you can break the encryption on this data I found?"
"Well, we can certainly try our best, Miss Zorah." Dimitri assured, bowing slightly.
"Alright, let's get to it." I finished, as we walked through the CIC into the old communications suite.
This place had been gutted and repurposed as a science lab after the retrofitting we had done on our ship. No one really used it much now that we had our own facility again, but occasionally Biss would come in here to use the mass spectrometer for his Eezo tests.
"Alright Dan, see what you can do." I encouraged as we all gathered around the console. Tali placed the drive in the scanning zone as Powell secretly waited for us to make the connection.
"Here g-goes nothing." He remarked, beginning the scan. Several minutes passed before we got a proper connection, which seemed unusual. We haven't had to spend this much time accessing Geth systems before.
"The encryption on this data drive is incredibly strong." Powell commented in my earpiece as I looked up at the single camera in the corner of the room. "This might take a while."
I gave a silent nod of confirmation before looking back to the console.
The data scrolling down the screen in front of Dan was very dense. He was trying his best to break into the drive's contents, but even with Powell's help it was difficult. Twenty minutes later, Dan looked bewildered.
"You weren't k-kidding, this thing is sealed tig…tight." Dan remarked to Tali, as he turned around to face the rest of us.
"Why don't you get them out of there for a while?" Powell suggested in my ear as I looked back to the camera. "I can work on it for a whi… wait a minute…"
I looked to the screen as he corrected himself, seeing actual files beginning to form.
"We broke it!" Tali remarked with happiness clear in her voice.
"Alright, let's see what we have here…" Dan said out loud with newfound energy, as he began to sort through the information. Luckily, Powell had already converted everything to formats that we could understand.
There was a lot of stuff here, some of which I couldn't really understand. Even after its conversion, some of it was still in binary, thus unreadable to a sane person.
"What the hell is this?" I asked, pointing to a design schematic of some kind.
Dimitri, Tali, and Dan all leaned forward to look harder at it, before Tali pulled back to look at me.
"It looks like some kind of… walker?" Tali hypothesized, looking hard at me. "But this isn't a Geth design. It looks nothing like an Armature or Colossus."
"Look at this." Dan said, pointing to an insignia at the bottom. "This is a Turian Hierarchy e-emblem."
"Why would Geth have Turian designs?" Dimitri asked out loud, rubbing his beard.
"These are the same Geth that allied themselves with a Turian SPECTRE." I remarked, looking at all three of them. "That slime ball must have used his contacts to steal it."
I then looked farther down the list, seeing something that actually made me slightly sick to my stomach.
"What the fuck is that?!" I exclaimed, almost yelling as the picture was maximized.
It looked like some sort of zombie. It was a dilapidated human being filled to the brim with disgusting cybernetics that covered their entire bodies. Its face was twisted in pain, permanently fixed. I had never seen something so disturbing outside of movies or video games.
"That's a husk." Tali answered in a calm manner, leaning back up and crossing her arms.
We all turned around to face her immediately.
"I fought them while traveling with Shepard." She explained, taking a seat on one of the chairs behind us. "Saren was using these large spikes to impale people, steal nutrients from their bodies, and fill them with these disgusting cybernetics. They were then used as shock troops that charge your position in battle."
"That's h-horrifying." Dan remarked, looking disturbed. "And the Geth made these?"
"No, they didn't look like something the Geth would create. Besides, they have no need for the resources found inside bodies, they're machines." She worked out, looking harder at Dan.
"So the Reapers then?" Dimitri questioned, causing her to flip her head around to face her.
"You know about them?" She replied, causing Dan and Dimitri to silently nod their heads.
"We've had our suspicions over the last few months, but they came to fruition after the Battle of the Citadel." I began, taking a seat across from her. "You know what we're building back there?"
"It's a space station, right?" Tali replied with a small amount of confusion in her voice.
"Mostly. We're building the largest mass accelerator cannon in history back there, and when it's finished, it'll be capable of destroying any ship in the galaxy." I went over, letting a small smile cross my face before going on. "Officially, it's being built to protect Reach in case the Geth ever try to attack, but… we're hoping that the sheer power behind it will be enough to kill Reapers."
She simply looked dumbfounded by my explanation for the longest time.
"I don't know how you convinced the Admirals and my father to let you build this, but I am impressed." She admitted, standing up and shaking my hand.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." I nodded back, looking to the computer once more. "Do you mind if we make a copy of this data before we give the original back?"
"No at all. Go ahead." She agreed, waving her hand casually.
I nodded to the camera as soon as she turned her head. Powell immediately started downloading the petabytes worth of information, making copies of it to our secure server.
"So, I have a different kind of question." I began, looking back to her as we walked back into the CIC. "Is the Alliance using our reactor and jump drive configuration?"
"They are, but it's not quite the same." She answered, walking over to the center where the holographic projection of the Explorer was. "They've found a way to minimize the system down, but at the loss of the actual Gravity drive. The one the Alliance is currently introducing doesn't have the accuracy or running time of yours."
"Sounds like those m-morons neglected to use a proper magnetic f-field generator." Dan remarked with a small smile. "I remember Jack t-telling me about the low-power te…tests they ran on Jump Zero. Apparently, they ended up a-atomizing two ships before they could even g-get on that put the ship 1,000 miles near its tar…target destination."
"It doesn't matter, that just means we're doing everything right so far." I replied, looking back to him before returning to Tali. "Also, has there been any chatter at all about us, anything with the quarians? Anything at all that could be considered suspicious?"
"There have been a few "rumors" going around about a noticeable decrease in the size of the Flotilla, but that's about it as far as I could see." She reported, looking between the three of us before pausing for a few moments. "Actually, I think you were mentioned in a conversation between Shepard and Admiral Hackett."
"Hackett, really?" Dimitri inquired further, leaning against a console.
"Yes, he mentioned a "science team that went missing two years ago" when talking to Shepard about a Cerberus facility we raided in an attempt to find Rear Admiral Kahoku." Tali recalled, getting very quiet before looking back to us. "Cerberus had murdered his men, and when he went to investigate, we found his body among some creatures they were experimenting with."
"Cerberus killed him?" Dimitri questioned, looking distraught.
"We believe so." Tali nodded back to him, as he turned around and walked into the elevator without a word.
"Is he OK?" She quickly asked once the door was shut, sounding worried.
"He served alongside Kahoku during the Skyllian Blitz." I replied in a quieted tone, crossing my arms as I stared at the door he went through. "Even if some of the higher-ups in the Alliance are dirt, Kahoku was a good man."
She simply nodded in silence, as we all stood there for a few seconds without a word.
"Alright, well… I hope this data will help the Admirals." I finished, nodding to her. "Have a good day, Tali'Zorah."
"Thank you, Captain. I wish you the same. Keelah se'lai." She finished, walking back through the airlock to parts unknown.
I remained silent for a few more moments before looking back to Dan.
"You should probably go check on Dimitri, that news seemed to hit him hard." I encouraged, nodding my head towards the elevator.
"Sure thing." Dan agreed, running off and leaving me alone.
I plucked my earpiece out, walking back into the bridge once more. I quietly sat down, staring back into the deep dark, thinking about those files I had seen.
If there was any doubt about the Reapers before, there was none now.
…
A/N: Progress has slowed down a bit, seeing as how my summer break has long ended. But, I'm back in gear and rejuvenated. This chapter was a little slower than usual, but hey, we got to meet Tali, so that's a plus! There was no harm in including her at some point, and it made sense for Powell to be the one decrypting the Geth files, seeing as how he knows how they operate.
Things might end up getting slightly slower from this point on, not in the actual writing department, but in the story one. Now I have the two year gap in between ME1 and ME2 to contend with, but I'll find a way to make it interesting. If I get bogged down, I may end up doing a few little time jumps, but I'm going to endeavor to keep those to a minimum.
I'd love to read any reviews, I'm always up for suggestions or constructive criticism! Stay tuned!