"I fail to see why this is our concern," Ankah said.
It had been more than two hours since the Aswa had made contact with Legion. Now, the Idenna, the Athena, and the Troy had joined them in the Tikkun system. To facilitate matters, they had agreed to meet aboard Sam's vessel, the Athena, to discuss things face to face as it were. Tali had been understandably reluctant to host a geth platform on the Idenna, and the Aswa lacked the room to host such a gathering. The Athena was a frigate, nearly twice the size of the Aswa, so room was not a problem. As well, being a Spectre vessel, she had ample security to keep the single geth platform in check. Tali deemed it sufficient 'neutral territory' to hold the discussions.
Liara had brought Ankah with her over to the Athena…and only Ankah. Red had disinclined any interest to join the discussion, and while Del had shown an interest, there was no real reason she needed to be there. Practicality aside, Liara felt better with Del still on the Aswa, her ship the fastest of the group and most capable of getting the doctor to safety should something happen.
Ashley and a couple of her crew had arrived, and so had Tali. She brought no one, leaving the Idenna lingering near the relay so that they could be back through it at the first sign of any kind of trouble. Deefa had stayed with the other ships of the Fleet, insuring that should the worst happen, the quarians wouldn't lose all their leadership in one blow.
Sam wasn't there yet; the geth was just connecting to board, and she wanted to be there with him (along with some security) every instant he was on the ship.
While they were waiting, the group had been talking; greeting friends that had not been seen in some time, and discussing the situation at hand.
"What do you mean?" Liara asked her security chief.
"These are machines, no blood in their veins. There is no one else in this system. There are no existing treaties or relations with their kind. Why is this our concern? Whether we help them or leave them alone does not affect our people or our worlds, detrak. As well, they have proven hostile to an ally's people."
"Three hundred years ago," Liara told her. "In an instance that could be argued as self-defense. They have made no hostile moves toward anyone since then, and now are asking for our help."
"As much as I hate to agree, Liara is right," Tali said. She had been lingering near the viewport, eyes fixed on the quiet blue-green ball of Rannoch. She did not look away even now, to speak to Ankah. "It does not make me proud to admit, but it was the quarians who first attacked the geth, when they showed signs of sentience. Gellian Osco, a human, did far more to harm the quarians than the geth have."
She finally tore her eyes from her home world and looked squarely at Liara. "That said, I do not trust them. If this is any sort of ruse, some sort of ploy to attack the rest of my people-"
"I know, Tali. We won't let that happen. However, I do not believe it is a ruse. Nor do you, or you would not have come."
"I might have." She smirked a little, gestured over her shoulder at the view. "Just to see Rannoch with my own eyes for the first time."
Liara smiled gently back at her, then looked to Ankah again. "Regardless of the makeup of their biology, or in this case, their technology, the geth are sentient creatures who are being attacked and asking for help. We are beholden to at least hear them out. As well, whatever threatens them may not threaten our territories and peoples now, but that may not remain true. We cannot risk letting an opportunity to eliminate a hostile force while it is still somewhat contained pass us by. It may be far more difficult to address it later if we simply write this off as 'not our problem.'"
Ankah nodded slightly with a grunt. "I see. Well, I have not met a non-organic lifeform before. It will be interesting seeing and smelling one up close, I suppose."
"It will probably feel much the same about you," Liara said, then turned as the door to the room opened. Sam entered, two of her security flanking her and the geth platform at her side.
"Legion, this is Captain Liara T'soni, Vorlekk Mehdivahl Ankah, and Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Idenna," Sam said, as the doors slipped closed behind them.
"Creator Zorah, we are honored to meet you," Legion said, and Tali folded her arms.
"It remains to be seen if the feeling is mutual."
"Understood. We mean you and your people no harm. We have received word of what occurred to the Creators."
"How did you receive word, Legion?" Liara asked.
"We monitor extranet signals quite closely. We are aware of the biological attack on various targets in the rest of the galaxy, and its affects on the Creators. We are…gladdened, that so many are no longer reliant on their suits, but saddened at the devastation to their numbers."
Ankah, scenting the air with her four nostrils, looked skeptical. "You are a machine. I smell no feeling upon you."
"You are a rakir," he said evenly. "You have a highly developed olfactory sense, however our emotions are not chemical in nature, but finely tuned algorithmic states. You would not be able to 'smell our feelings'."
Ankah only grunted, then glanced at Liara.
"You said that your people were being 'murdered', Legion," the asari said. "Please explain the situation, and why you think the quarians can help."
"Several days ago, we noticed the solar output in this system was dropping, with no corresponding drop in the mass-energy conversion of the star itself. We are unfamiliar with any natural phenomenon that could account for such an effect, and formed a consensus to investigate. Concurrent with the onset of that investigation, we began to lose contact with many of our ships and orbiting stations. All vessels that approached the star at a sufficient range to gather sufficient data went dark in moments. Then the effect spread to the surface, with many of our collective server hubs falling out of function. We have lost all geth contained within these ships, stations, and hubs."
"How many?" Tali asked, and Legion looked at her again.
"Three hundred and seventy-nine billion, rounded. The attack appeared to be viral in nature, highly sophisticated malware tuned specifically to the geth that had been introduced into our systems. We have had to isolate individual ships, platforms, and remaining hubs in an attempt to prevent this malware from transmitting across our tight-beam communications into unaffected platforms. This has only been…partially successful."
The quarian straightened, a frown creasing her face. "This is why you sent the distress call to the quarians? You thought we were the ones who created and infected your systems with this malware?"
Legion looked remarkably shame-faced for a being with no actual face. "It was a logical conclusion. Evidence suggested it may have been a preliminary attack on our software directly, in preparation for the quarians to return to the home world. With your reduced numbers, this kind of cyberwarfare would logically be the only path open to you to do so. We sent the signal initially in order to offer our surrender, to preserve the rest of our people."
Tali looked like she was going to spit fire, so Liara spoke before she could.
"You said 'initially'. And that the evidence suggested that was the case. Does it no longer?"
"No. We have since determined that the software attacking our systems is not of the Creators. We managed to isolate a small group of the programs as they attempted to invade a dummy server hub set up to appear as one of our communication satellites. It is clear they are not of Creator design or implementation. They appear to be sentient software, much as we are, but at an advanced state of development. We were able to glean only a little before the malware were able to escape our custody. We retain only one…for ease of description I shall use the word 'prisoner'…from those we captured."
"Other sentient software? So these are creatures like the geth, but apart from you?" Liara was beginning to feel cold.
"Yes. When we captured the malware, our suspicions were removed from the Creators, onto the advanced technological life forms encountered by the greater galactic community five years ago. We were not able to access classified records, but found enough information to properly conclude their identity. This has since been confirmed by our final prisoner. They call themselves-"
"Pio," Liara whispered, and when Legion responded in the affirmative, the room became a bustle as Sam, Tali, and Liara each opened communications to their various ships and began giving orders.
"Shrive, I need you and Red to begin an immediate reconnaissance sweep of the system; we have signs of a possible impending exo-alien attack on Rannoch and the geth. I know that our sensor sweeps detected no sign of exo-alien technology, but it looks like Pio are invading the geth hubs and wiping them out."
{The drop in solar output would also suggest such an attack,} Red replied. {They have to be drawing energy for an anchor, or maybe to charge up the Rannoch component of that galaxy busting super-weapon Osco was trying to activate?}
"Whichever it is we need to find it, and find it now. Legion, you need to evacuate what's left of your ships and your people out of the Tikkun system immediately."
"I have sent the evacuation request to the Consensus. Liara-Captain, if they are attempting to access the super-weapon monolith located beneath Rannoch's crust, they will be unable to do so. We received the Council's alerts five years ago in regards to the device, and we are certain we have successfully implemented measures to deactivate it. It will not be functional."
"Could be that's why they're sending the Pio in to take out the geth," Tali said. "So they can repair it and then activate it."
"While I do not doubt, given sufficient time, they would be able to repair the device, they will achieve those repairs no sooner than thirty thousand galactic standard years from now," Legion said. "We were quite thorough."
"If that was their goal, they'd have figured that out pretty quickly upon arriving in this system. So they either don't care about the thirty thousand year timeframe of repair, or they have other aims in mind," Tali said.
"Or both. They could-"
Reports suddenly started flooding in over the communications systems, hands flying to earbuds or omni-tools. Even Legion cocked its head a bit, as if listening to incoming data from the other geth.
Liara could not hear anyone other than Shrive but she didn't have to; she had no doubt they were getting the same news.
{Captain, I think we're too late. We have a massive fold that just opened two degrees past Rannoch's moon. It's big enough to let a whole goddamn fleet in, but the anchor is not giving off the same exo-alien signature as we're familiar with. It's not even close. We never would have found it if the Fold hadn't opened, unless one of us crashed into it. There's a ship coming through, dreadnaught at least in size but it doesn't match the exo-alien signatures either. There's a weird harmonic frequency adjustment to the entire vessel. Its construction is advanced, but certainly not more than a decade ahead of where we are.}
"Acknowledged. Clear the Aswa back to the relay. The geth have started evacuations, I want you to cover them until all other ships are clear. We'll transfer back aboard on the other side. Tali-?"
"I've got the Idenna retreating through now, they'll watch the other side," the quarian said as she dropped her hand from her own ear. "Deefa will send alerts to the Council that we have an incoming exo-alien invasion."
{Captain, I'm moving the Troy back to help the Aswa cover the Geth evacuation,} Ashley piped up in her ear. {Is the Athena falling back?}
"Acknowledged. Stand by. Sam?"
Liara knew the woman well enough to know what she'd say, and she already knew she agreed with it, but as the Athena was Sam's ship, it had to be by her order.
"Negative. Dustan, move us in closer, between the retreating ships and the anchor. Prepare weapons. If hostile, we need to keep them occupied until we can finish the evacuation. Tali, Ankah, Liara, and Legion; I'm afraid you're our guests until this mess is done with. Join me in the CIC, we'll see if we can't get our new friends to talk to us."
The CIC was controlled bustle as they arrived, Feris stepping up to the galaxy map and immediately isolating the anchor, drawing up a visual for them. Liara frowned a little as she scrutinized the ship inching into Tikkun from seeming nowhere.
"It is not like any exo-alien ship design we have seen," she said. The living ships they had encountered before; the one floating in the galactic core, the fighters that an assassin had used on them on Purdue, the massive monster that Osco had pulled out of the crust underneath Tuchanka- they had appeared to be made of obsidian. Smooth, gloss, with no distinguishing features other than shape, and almost impossible to see against the black of space. These ships had been lifeforms in their own right, merging with sentient 'pilots' to form the thinking brain of the ship's biological body. Damage to the vessels was felt by the pilot as pain, and they bled from wounds and healed as flesh did.
This ship was of a very sophisticated design, but nowhere near what they'd come to expect from exo-alien tech. Its exterior plates were gray and silver but clearly constructed, not grown. Its shape was quite odd. Liara had a niggling in the back of her neck that told her she had seen such a design before, but she could not pick from where. Long and rounded, the front of the ship seemed to be formed in five sections that narrowed toward the front, forming a small flowerlike shape. It was impossible to tell if that shape was the output of a weapon, or simply a nose cone.
Despite the unusual design it was clear that ship was built for battle. She had only ever seen two ships larger in her life; the asari's Destiny Ascension, and that final vessel of Osco's that wiped out a colony just launching itself.
"If exo-aliens did build this, they've gone backward in technology, not forward," Tali said. "Could this be someone else?"
"Someone else with Pio?" Liara said, then shook her head as she answered her own question. "We do not know what the state of affairs is outside the Milky Way. It could be that they are here to address the threat of the Pio, or whoever sent them."
Sam opened a communication's frequency as the last of the dreadnaught began to clear the anchor. Her first attempt went unanswered. The ship continued forward some distance from the anchor, still moving toward them.
"I've got no sign they're powering weapons just yet, Captain," Sam's security chief told her.
"Unknown vessel, this is the SSV Athena. You are trespassing in an occupied system. Come to a full halt and identify yourself or we shall have to open fire. Please respond."
No answer.
"The ship is slowing down," Ankah said, having joined the security chief on his monitor. "Looks like they're stopping."
"Please identify yourself and your purpose here," Sam said again.
A woman's voice suddenly filled the room, cool and no nonsense, speaking clear and unaccented Galactic. No visual accompanied the transmission.
{This is the ESRV Juggernaut. Are you human?}
The group exchanged looks.
"What is your purpose in this system, Juggernaut?"
{I believe I asked a question, CO. If this is the CO?}
"I am Captain Sam Feris, Special Tactics and Recon, CO of the Athena. I am human. Please identify yourself and your purpose here."
{You will surrender yourself and your vessel immediately, Captain Feris. Any failure to do so will be considered an act of war, and you will be destroyed. You have five minutes to comply.}
Feris stiffened, scowling, as the others exchanged looks.
"We are here on a mission of aid to the peoples of this system, people that have been under attack from an unknown source for several days now. You have entered our space without invitation or announcement. If I am even to entertain a request of surrender, I would need to confirm I am speaking with someone in authority on your vessel. Are you the Juggernaut Actual?"
{We have scanned your ship. It would be a shame to lose such a vessel, however we have confirmed you are no match for the Juggernaut. You sound like a sensible woman, Captain. Make a sensible decision. For your crew's sake, if not for your own.}
"I cannot and will not surrender to someone whose authority is in question. Are you the Juggernaut Actual? If you are not, then I respectfully ask to speak to the CO."
"Captain, the first of the geth ships are arriving at the relay," Legion said to Liara. She nodded, her eyes never leaving Sam's. It would take several minutes, nearly half an hour, for all the geth evacuation ships to depart the system. If they needed, they could risk opening their tight-beam communication again and usher all the geth from the final ships onto ones nearer to the relay, but they would risk being invaded by Pio. They would also lose all the ships and stations they departed.
They had to buy more time.
{You have four minutes to comply, Captain.}
"I will not surrender this ship to someone whose authority is in question!" Sam said, voice hard. "Are you or are you not the Actual? I will give my surrender to the one in authority, no one else!"
There was a long, pregnant pause. Then the security chief looked up. "We're getting a visual feed."
Sam immediately pulled it up, banishing the galaxy map behind it.
A blond woman with a severe expression, wearing an odd black and red uniform, stepped out of the way of another woman, who filled up the screen. Liara felt her blood run cold, recognition seeming to still her heart. A hush fell over the CIC as everyone stared.
Del Shepard looked down on them from the transmission. Her hair was cut military short, her uniform like none Liara had ever seen. One of her eyes was the familiar deep brown, so dark it was almost black. The other had been replaced by a silver cybernetic implant. Three tiny red irises flanked a larger central pupil in the implant that glowed faintly with crimson light. Strange scars, themselves slightly luminescent, scarlet like the eye, cragged her cheeks and mapped her forehead.
"I am Del Shepard - Juggernaut Actual, and Supreme Commander of the Resurgence. You will get no higher authority than I, Captain. Do I have your surrender?"