* * * Ontario: Debrief * * *
"I really need to thank you for your little lecture about biotics," Ash said to Liara, "It was just what I needed. And daaaaaamn, girl, can you throw a Singularity. Really showed them how it's done."
Liara looked down at the deck for only a second before looking up at the Gunnery Chief. "Thank you. I'm glad I was able to help…though the mission did not seem nearly as dangerous as I had feared. Did I misunderstand what was to happen?"
Shepard answered, "No, it just didn't turn into a hairball like we thought it could." He shrugged. "It probably felt to you like we were overprepared, but 'No battle plan has ever survived contact with the enemy.'"
"Yes; I didn't actually get to do anything. I cannot…ahm…I did not feel I had helped enough to warrant all the protection you had provided."
Kaidan looked at Ash, "So have you ever seen a Singularity in person?"
Ash answered with a don't be ridiculous smirk. "Only ever heard about them on a show or something. Thought it was a lot of the usual asari space magic nonsense. But even that human's Singularity actually worked; shit, if I hadn't been able to grab a wall, I'd have been blowing around like a leaf in a breeze. Oh, I get it now: Biotics are as real as lunch, and as serious as a heart attack."
Liara turned to the krogan, "And I have never seen anyone reach into an active Singularity and remove people caught in it."
Wrex blew an amused snort. "Couldn't just leave them there."
"But how did you do it?" Kaidan nearly pounced on the krogan with interest. "Mass? Backspun biotics? Armour mod?"
"All three, plus a secret sauce of my own," Wrex pounded his chest with a fist. "There aren't very many of us that can do it, either."
Shepard was still smiling roundly at the team, pleased that all the objectives had been obtained, no one was hurt, and especially that the civilian had come back safe. He stood. "Yes, it was a little chaotic, but I think that worked to our favour. Props to Flight, too; Joker's dock-on-the-wrong-side stunt probably helped us a lot." He nodded toward the man, "Good work, Joker."
The pilot, who was slouching in his chair with his arms folded and his legs straight out in front of him and crossed, touched the brim of his cap in an almost-salute. "Thanks, skipper."
Shepard continued, "I'm sure you all saw that shiny new Kodiak shuttle arrive and then depart almost immediately, taking Burns and most of the biotics away; Comms has been in contact with the nearby Science Station at Nepneu, and arranged for a police SAR unit to assume command of Ontario, and return ship and crew to that world. They arrived with fuel for the Kowloon, and the officers will pilot it back with the while the Mayor/Director pilots the police SAR unit back…because they're that short-staffed." He shook his head. "But they handled it, and they're handling the rest of this as a civil incident within their system's jurisdiction.
"Still, this was probably just a dress rehearsal for the other half of the assignment: A sort of biotic commune on Presrop, which is little more than a relay hop away. We'll probably make the jump within the hour, and then hit orbit an hour or two after that. If we have any useful intel before we drop, I'll give it to you right before launch.
He turned to Jenkins. "It'll give them plenty of notice that we're coming down, too, with us just sitting in orbit. I want the Mako prepped for drop at 1300."
"1300; will do, sir." The young soldier looked up and away in thought. "But if you don't expect to ride around a whole lot, the caps are over 80 percent, and the stocks are still provisioned from the last operation. Planning to seat six on this drop, sir?"
"Seven this time. Since this world isn't settled enough to have even an orbital comnet, I'll be running Controller ops from the Mako Nav board." He shrugged, "Don't want to land the whole ship, or lose contact." He turned to Liara. "If you're amenable, ma'am, I'd like you on this mission as well, and for exactly the same reasons."
The asari fidgeted. "Of course, Commander; it would be my great honour to assist you if I can, but…ah…I have the impression I did not help very much today."
"What you did, no one else could have done," Kaidan seemed slightly upset. "Don't underestimate your value."
He'll make a good CO someday, Shepard nodded and smiled without showing teeth. "Well said, Lieutenant; thank you. And that's exactly right. Different AO, different biotics, same threat types. You'll be invaluable, if you're willing to join us again."
As Tali had been sitting there, her VI 'harem' continued to analyse the locations of the bullet holes she had just finished repairing; her cameras were the only ones that had seen the relative locations, and her extrapolative analysis hadn't completed until the team was sitting in the CommCon. She leaned to her right, tried to whisper to Ash, "Um, Chief Williams? It looks like the bullet trajectories were showing an increasing curve over distance. I only have the length of the freighter to work with, but you might have that looked at."
"Thanks, I clean them after every sortie," Ash said confidently. Especially this time, she thought. It'll be penance for firing when I shouldn't have. She leaned back in her chair, confident that was the last of it.
Tali decided not to press the point, and let the issue fall.
"It would be my honour, Commander," Liara said.
"Thank you; it will be our privilege to have you with us. Lastly, Ontario had a few deaths before we got there," Shepard waved a thumb over his shoulder at the holo behind him; images of the three Alliance personnel. "Apparently we have the same situation on Presrop. The Alliance had responded earlier to Major Kyle's…announcements by sending officials to the compound where we'll be going. They haven't answered for a couple of days now, and they may be dead, too. Admiral Hackett is sending another team of JAG/MP to meet us there, but they're going to assume orbit and wait for us to call for extraction before they land."
Ash brushed idly at a piece of fuzz on her pant leg and then looked up at Shepard. "So we're the muscle again?"
"That we are, and it reminds me…I should have covered this when we first went in, expecting to use biotics. Fortunately, it wasn't an issue, but Ash's experience reminds me that we need to have a talk about team safety.
"Team IFF keeps friendly fire to a minimum – most of the time – but biotics do not have this safety feature. As I understand it, Kaidan takes a training once every few months, so I know he knows about this potential hazard, but Liara, you are new here. I'd consider it a personal favour if you'd take the PVR training; it's two or three hours of lecture plus an hour of drills. If you can squeeze it in before tomorrow's drop, that'd be great. At the very least, consider yourselves officially requested; get it in at your earliest convenience.
"Wrex, you're a professional with more combat experience than the rest of us combined, so although I don't want to waste your time, you becoming familiar with Alliance combat protocols is just due diligence. Please make that happen if you haven't already."
Kaidan touched his omnitool, tapped out a message to Wrex: If you let me know when you have 30 minutes or so, I can brief you on Alliance biotic SOPs. We can even drill together.
Shepard continued, "Ash, Tali, Garrus; There's also a training for non-biotics about best practices; what to watch out for, how to make the most of a biotic effect in play, nomenclature for calling in biotic operations, stuff like that. I encourage the three of you to take it if you haven't done so already.
"I also want you to make sure your shields generators are maxed out. Chief Williams has an unusual shield mod that you should all have a look at and equip if you can. The MFO tells me no one has requested any of the other generators that he's cooked up, so I'm telling you this so you can get them installed; he can show you how to install and configure them if you don't know.
"I'm telling you about the shield upgrade because I want you to all be as well-defended as possible; the objective is to get the leader, a guy named Lawrence Kyle out of the compound and disperse the group. These are going to be civilians again, most of them hoping for a better life, for protection, probably for a sense of family with other biotics. If at all possible, I don't want any of them hurt, so I want you to be able to take the hits without having to return fire.
"In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that Kyle was once my CO, and we have some history. This may be why Admiral Hackett wanted me involved with this operation. If I can, I'll talk him out of whatever he thinks he's doing there.
"Still, while the intent is not to start a fight, we'll be happy to finish them."
Wrex guffawed. "You humans are so weird."
Shepard continued, "The Team MDP is on the NfoX. If you need any weapons service, talk to Williams, if you need tech, talk to Alenko, if you need armour or consumables, talk to Gomez, anything else, talk to me. Be on the Ready Line by 1230 hours tomorrow, ready for the drop."
He gestured forward, to the power door, "Thanks, everyone; you're dismissed. You should have the rest of the day at will. Dr. T'Soni, would you stay for a moment? I'd like to discuss your armament and weapons."
Liara, who had not yet risen from her seat, looked surprised. "Of course."
Shepard took the seat adjacent to hers as the room cleared; he didn't wait for it to be empty before he started, "I just wanted to make sure you're as well supported and defended as we can make you. Earth has always had an all-volunteer military, and even though we have a few combat-capable contractors, you were not supposed to have been one. Besides encouraging you to get the shield mod, I wanted to make sure you're comfortable in that Phoenix armour. Ash – uh, Gunnery Chief Williams – has a set of heavier armour that isn't as easy to use, but it'll make you almost bulletproof."
Liara's eye movements indicated she was reading from her ARA quickly before answering. "Actually, I have used heavy armour, and you are correct, it is much too cumbersome for me, though I appreciate your offer."
"Good. When you can, go to the MFO and ask him for Ash's shield mod, it's very capable and will offer you as much protection as I think we can reasonably add for now." He balked, "You remember where the Master Fabrication Officer is? Down in the Hangar, starboard aft?"
Liara smiled. "Yes, I like Doyle; he was very helpful and friendly. I did not know to ask for the shield mod."
Shepard smiled and nodded. "You should have plenty of time."
"However, I have not used the Stiletto yet, so I do not know if it agrees with me, as I think you would say. I asked Kaidan about warp ammo, and he helped me install the mod, and explained how best to use it. However, I noticed that the Stiletto seems to have large vents on the sides. I have never seen this before; do I need to take special care not to block them?"
"Only when it's in use, and the weapon is smart enough to detect if they're blocked or having problems. Mass effect weapons all have intake ports of one form or another; they allow air into the rear of the LINAC, reduce the kick. Remember, those accelerators throw slugs at fractional c. It creates quite a vacuum, even when your ammo only has a three-millimetre cross-section."
"This is how it manages to fire more rounds before overwhelming the heat sink?"
"Partly. If you don't have vents, there are lots of other engineering solutions: A matched front intake, directed front intakes, even pressurised consumables like the Katana uses, but it makes the thing massive, and though they did it at first to reduce kick, what it does in practice is make it hit harder. The Katana-IV and up have multiple barrels in the print kit, and you can even configure it for longer range. Unfortunately, it's almost as heavy as a sniper rifle."
He chuckled, shook his head at himself. "Sorry; not as if you need to know any of that. Anyway, when you check with Doyle for the shield mod, ask him if he can put you through a VRS of the shooting range. It's not full-immersion PVR, but it'll let you meaningfully compare weapons you know with weapons you don't."
"Thank you, Commander." She stood, "Is there anything else?"
"I would like to be extra sure you take that biotic operations training so we have a common language in the context of combat. And I want to thank you again for your help aboard Ontario."
"I would still cleanse the way between us," Liara smiled. "And…you are entirely welcome," she read from her ARA.
# # #
Shiala was not a biologist by training, so she had requested an enit'hra on botany, unfolded it merely to discover that practically the only thing that "Species 37" had in common with plants was its stationary nature, cellulose endoskeleton, water requirement, and partial use of photosynthesis.
The superorganism – some earlier species had called it "Thorian" for reasons lost to deep history – was ancient, almost half as old as the planet itself. It had persisted through multiple millions of years because its multi-continent size and varying morphology allowed it to withstand flood, fire, lightning, and even the occasional "nuclear winter" following a major asteroid impact.
Its parasitic spores had granted it increasing control over the complex neurologies of the fully motile animals with which it shared the planet, but it had not understood them as a finite resource and extinguished them over time. When aliens landed to colonise, the spores proved effective at steering their behaviour as well.
As the spores became more effective at subtle control, eventually it lost the ability to produce seed spores. However, by the time this became a factor against propagation, the Thorian had spread its growths to almost every environ of its world, with different subtypes of morphology adapted to each.
Over time, it learned that the occasional aliens had complex interactions among themselves that made them more capable at seeing to its needs by also seeing to some of their own.
One of the aliens – it must have been hundreds of millions of years ago – had tried to merge with the Thorian in an attempt to communicate with or control it. Though the individual had perished in the attempt (which had taken months,) it had provided the Thorian with the ability to produce grotesque bipedal clones of the alien crossed with the Thorian itself.
It took several 50,000 year cycles for the Thorian to learn enough about which needs to prioritise; sometimes the result was tragicomical extinction. One species, which had survived the reapers' cyclical purge, was allowed to invest time and resources to create shoes that collected and stored energy from walking, but not directed to practice good hygiene; they were ultimately wiped out by an analogue to dysentery.
The Thorian retained the ability to grow primitive clones of the alien from so long ago; though they lacked much of the fine control, they were sufficiently capable until more aliens arrived. Many of its other requirements were mostly supplied by the creeping motile clones that it could both produce on demand, and control using the neuro-spores they carried.
The Thorian shared more attributes with Earth's mushrooms than any other biology in Council space; asari scholars and scientists had learned much about the humans and their home planet, but they had only had a little over 25 years of contact with them, and there was much that remained unknown, including mycology.
Even so, after over a billion years' development, the Thorian had acquired several extraordinary attributes; it could no longer reproduce itself, but had grown so vast and varied so much over its own range that the globe-spanning organism was essentially the planetary consciousness, and unkillable without destroying the entire planet.
As such, its knowledge was ancient, but narrow. Though it had the ability to control the creepers, it did not impart its knowledge to them; they were little more than drones with a limited range of independent behaviours.
It also learned from the thousands of alien species that had made their homes on Feros over the course of its existence. When it occasionally managed to entrap an individual alive, it could gather their knowledge directly, but often failed to understand or make use of that information for many centuries. Though the knowledge itself persisted, it also distorted over time, and became useless or even erroneous. Its knowledge grew, but it remained arcane, even to the Thorian itself. (Example: Though it understood the esoteric biology of inusannon ventral plinth folding, it was unable to grasp or make use of their studies in high-energy physics.)
But when asari arrived on Feros, they brought "something new to the game." Though it was unnoticed by the Thorian, its ancient stores of knowledge were largely understandable to the expedition's matriarchs. They departed before they could be enspored to serve the Thorian, but one of them – when it returned – was already enthralled to another, more powerful form of neurological control. Instead, this new alien grasped knowledge of the Thorian itself.
The Thorian did not often experience surprise, but this was one of those times. An even greater surprise was when another of these "asari" presented itself to the cloning cocoon, and enclosed itself. As the Thorian integrated with its neurology, it discovered this newest alien had been endowed with the Thorian's own knowledge, giving it the ability to read more deeply from its neural interaction. It had leveraged the Thorian's knowledge to further plumb the depths of the Thorian's knowledge!
Curiously, it had acquired the ability to actually communicate with the Thorian. Not the commands of mere service or direction, but higher, more abstract thought than the Thorian had ever experienced. And then it had even negotiated to provide the Thorian with its latest service species, "humans."
Though these "humans" had been offered in exchange for the Thorian's deep knowledge of the galactic cycles, the Thorian had only barely understood the idea of "transaction;" its way had always been that of any other plant: To take what was needed and relinquish what was taken.
Shiala, firmly ensconced in the cloning pod, had noticed this instruction, noticed her role in it. She had taught a creature – orders of magnitude older than her entire civilisation – about exchange, even about equivalence in dissimilar things, and of barter. The Thorian's reaction was part apathy, part annoyance, but Shiala could feel the change in its development. Things would be better now that it had this new knowledge. [It would later become confused and angry when the geth killed the humans rather than let them continue in their role as high-functioning drones.]
As a daughter of Matron Jadis, Shiala was heir to a wealth of asari archaeo-cultural knowledge; Benezia and Jadis had been friends and collaborators for over a century. Shiala had even taken classes from Benezia's daughter, Liara, and thought only the highest of the mother-daughter dyad. Jadis had recommended Shiala follow Benezia on her Way; Benezia was honoured, and welcomed her friend's daughter.
As a follower of Benezia, Shiala had accompanied the Matriarch to Feros in 2181, and been assigned to tend to the Thorian as soon as Benezia had learned of the superorganism. Thus Shiala had been isolated from Sovereign's indoctrination (she had not yet met Saren, or been exposed to Sovereign,) but subject to the Thorian's control spores; they even circulated directly through her bloodstream once she entered the cloning cocoon. But Shiala's innate power – and her mother's centuries of work – gave her mental inertia, and an ability to resist the Thorian spores in ways the Thorian had not previously encountered.
But it had no reason to care; the outcome was the same: high-functioning clones to communicate, or even to dig or decompose.
Benezia messaged Shiala in the cocoon: We must know everything about the Protheans that the Thorian has learned and retained. You must extract this knowledge so that it may be imparted to another.
Shiala messaged back, To you, Mistress?
No; another. A turian. You must be able to impart it as you would a conventional guidance, but with much greater fidelity.
The Thorian was vaguely aware that Shiala was communicating, and attempted to disrupt her message. Shiala squirmed in the cocoon, which demanded more focus from the local control nodes. This trick would only work a few times before the Thorian invested resources in increasing the local density to give it more cognitive control over the cloning cocoon's occupant.
Shiala messaged, Mistress, because of the Thorian's low density neurology, this task will require time and focus. Its awareness will increase over time, and make it difficult to get out unless I encipher it; you will need to extract me at that time.
Yes, Benezia replied, I shall do it. For now, be still. You yet have weeks in which to accomplish this.
# # #
Karin Chakwas twirled a selector on her omnitool. "Commander, may I disturb you for just a moment?"
The flextronic sleeve emitted a digital pop, and then a chirp to indicate the message had been delivered.
"You may," came the reply. "Do you need to see me personally?"
"No; just a point of information. As long as you're not going on this next sortie, and you're nearly done healing from the Luna mission, I'd like to replenish your respirocytes. Even though they're as oxygen-filled as they can be when installed, they'll take a bit more than a day to equalise; they'll put an extra load on you until they finish. You'll be rather low-energy until then, so this seemed a good opportunity."
Shepard paused in thought. "Actually, while I plan to stay in the Mako, it may be important for me to confront Kyle in person. I'm planning to arm and equip, but not actually see any direct combat. Can I get this when I get back?"
"Of course, but let's not delay any longer than necessary."
"How about I stop by as soon as we get back?"
"That should be fine. Thank you, Commander."
# # #
Normandy's heat sinks were almost at capacity when Joker gestured at the interface, knowing there was no hiding until they managed to dump the waste heat somehow; Pressly was useless at anticipating stuff like that.
Four single-seat attack craft within 50 kliks rotated in motion, bringing LINAC weapons to bear as they did; Joker flicked fingers at thrust controls, manipulated pitch and roll as he did. The ship leapt as if something had exploded behind her.
Incoming LINAC fire missed cleanly, but not by much.
Sensors showed the three freighters – a sort of mini-convoy – were constantly changing positions with each other, trying to present as confusing a LIDAR signature as possible. Of course, they were holding off not just for self-protection, but lack of delta-vee. Sensordrones deployed when Normandy had first engaged provided extremely high resolution data about where they were and how they were moving; the Combat Intelligence board was telling him that the four fighters were paralleling his course, exchanging positional data, triangulating a thousand times a second.
Though Normandy's Engagement Strategist VI was providing its anticipation data about hostiles in the AO, Joker still checked for unknowns visually. He did so without taking his head off by compressing the 360-degree-by-360-degree visual and sensor hybrid inputs into a 200-degree-by-200-degree hemisphere inside his SVS view. It was something he had done even before enlisting, but it meant that – although it had become easier with repetition – switching between the SVS view and the "real world" was slightly disorienting.
He would never admit it also made him grumpy.
But it gave him a grasp of the battlespace that he was sure was superior to that of pilots who relied entirely on their instruments. With time and practice, he even seemed to be getting better at it.
The fighters were firing again; Joker only had time to see the indicator, and dodged upward.
"Weaps, ready to fire on Tango Five and Six, coordinate!"
"Weapons ready," came the reply.
Joker used the ship's internal gyro to yaw to starboard, then used the Combat ACT [Attitude Control Thrusters] to spin quickly around in a circle that intersected the flight paths of two of the fighters. The directable underwing cannons lacked the precision and hitting power to take them down ("And as a 'truck driver,' I'll never get to paint a little brag flag under the canopy like a fighter pilot who just splashed the same bad guy," Joker had complained,) so he had to bring the main gun to bear by reorienting the entire ship, exactly as did a fighter. The irony of this was not lost on anyone who was part of the process.
With both Normandy and the fighters moving at combat speeds, Normandy's main gun traded high cyclic for coverage, drawing a line across the fighter's flight path, like a bomber attacking a rail line. As there was no atmosphere, the cone-shaped slugs were blackbodies moving at a third of the speed of light.
One of the fighters exploded as the point of intersection was the craft's tiny reactor. The other was reduced to fast-moving debris as the pilot took a 3-cm cone through the right lung (as well as most of the fighter behind the pilot's seat.)
But while doing so, Normandy was essentially drifting along her last vector, and the cloaked frigate shadowing the mini-convoy had been waiting for exactly that opportunity. Without decloaking, she fired ahead of Normandy along that path.
This was one of those times that Joker's compressed view didn't save him, but automation did: though the slugs were moving at 0.3c, the sensor data came three times faster. Too fast for Joker to react, but at least he saw where the incoming fire had originated as Normandy's armor took the hit.
"New hostile: Tango Eight, one-one-nine by zero-three-nine, range seven-eight-thousand!" Tanaka sounded scared.
Condition Zebra had been set when they had entered combat; the bridge was sealed off from Ops Alley and the CIC. Though the Flight Officer wasn't supposed to be aware of damage to other parts of the ship, Joker knew viscerally where the hits had been. Tanaka might be staring at a corpse, he realised.
All he could do was hope no one had been in the way. But if he didn't hear from Engineering, Normandy was still entirely in the fight. His awareness of the situation helped him because he was able to point toward where the fire had come from more quickly than without the compressed view.
"Weaps, ready four, fire as soon as you have a solution!"
"Flight, weapons. Four ready, put us on target."
By the time Normandy had come about, Sensors had painted the enemy ship with LIDAR, providing heading, speed, and orientation.
But the enemy frigate had anticipated Normandy would come to bear, and had fired a second salvo. Though the curve of Normandy's main hull allowed most of the line of fire's incoming cones to deflect away cleanly, two of them hit the jagged edges of the earlier damage, imparting a positive pitch vector on the ship. Main Engine 3 took a direct hit; the rear section of the nacelle exploded.
Joker felt that all the way to his soul. "Weapons!"
"Firing four!"
The main guns fired; the whole chassis thumped with each discharge. As soon as the fourth was away, Joker tilted the still-functioning engine nacelles, reorienting the ship and arcing away under maximum available thrust.
"Weapons, get solutions on the three haulers."
"Flight, Weapons; solutions ready, but those pilots are actively evading."
"Yeah, yeah." Joker's view of the AO had given him the idea to fire at the freighters while opposite the new target; it would make Normandy harder to hit, and might hit the hostile frigate. He had also designed their course to take them very close to the freighters; the closest would pass within 1500 meters. Joker had been watching the freighters' evasion for several seconds, mindful of where they would be as he crossed under and ahead of them, and making minute adjustments as they approached, hoping there would not be enough time for the freighter pilots to react.
As Normandy's path took her behind the freighters and opposite the frigate, Joker spun the ship to keep the main gun aimed through the former at the latter, "Fire fire fire!"
The FCO knew that "fire when ready" included meeting the condition of proper aiming. The activating signal was sent from the FCO's board when the holographic key's field was broken by a fingertip (and reported to the operator with a digital chirp from the console,) but was only one condition that had to be met for the signal to be passed on to the weapon itself.
As Normandy's prow swept to port and down, the automation that computed optimal firing solution compared the latest vector and position data with range and projectile path, centering the time at intersection across the 912 milliseconds of discharge and adjusting the actual firing to coincide.
Three 64-gram "ammo trains" of cones erupted from her main gun, lanced through two of the three targets, crippling one and destroying the other. The remaining shot was a clean miss.
Joker gave the landing thrusters a one-second burn, pushing Normandy straight upfrom her course, and avoiding a hit from the attacker.
Working controls with his feet and toes, Joker adjusted the main MEFG down, temporarily reducing Normandy's mass, but requiring more power to do it. A glance at the indicator showed the heat sinks were edging closer to thermax. "Weaps, you still got locks on those fighters? Throw some chaff to keep them busy!"
The FCO knew better than to chide the Flight Officer for thinking the ship had stopped tracking the two smaller hostiles, "Out of view, Flight. Autotasking the Underwings."
Meanwhile, the enemy frigate had evaded the last shot as soon as Normandy had moved behind the freighters by doing a 14-gee burn even though she was pointed almost directly at them. The normal response from the ship in Normandy's position was to turn in place again to bring her main gun to bear as the other ship raced past. Doing so would mean she couldn't evade while rotating without throwing the weapon solutions off, while the attacker would be changing relative position too fast to be easily hit, and have twice as much time to bring her weapon to bear.
Joker knew this tactic, had used it many times; he gave a tiny smile as he saw Normandy's rectified mass had settled on its new value. He punched the main drives for a three-second burn, knowingly jostling the steering controls as he did. The values of his "randomisation" were presented as modifiers to the Fire Control systems, which adjusted the pending firing solutions. He set the Priority Target Designator on the frigate, and barked, "Solve and fire on Three!"
Normandy didn't have to turn as far, so her weapon came to bear much sooner than the enemy had expected; the new rectified mass reduced the turn time even further. Fortunately, the cannon always loaded another cylinder after every firing, just to have "one in the chamber" in case of need.
The FCO tapped the key, the key sent its signal to the Combat Intelligence System; CIS adjusted for the time the signal would take to get to the massive LINAC. Joker felt the thoomp of the firing, and then a hesitation before another.
"Hit!" The sensor operator yelped. "Four and Seven on intercept at…six thousand…wait, one pilot punched out! Collision Alert! Collision Alert!"
The notification had already appeared on Joker's display.
It wasn't completely unknown for a pilot to convert a fighter into a missile by ejecting and waiting for pickup – these were supposed to be crazies after all – but Joker's knee-jerk response was to punch the landing thrusters, driving the ship straight "up."
Unfortunately, the one remaining freighter had attempted to evade by closing the distance with Normandy; the port "wing" crashed through the freighter's engineering section, nacelle 1 shearing away from the wing in a way that caused it to detonate, and the resulting explosion rupturing the freighter's reactor, which exploded in a gigaton's fury of light and debris.
Joker's own voice sounded in his earpiece, "Well, at least you got them all."
The Flight Officer poked an index finger at the bridge of his nose, shutting off the SRS PVR system.
He glanced over his shoulders in turn to be sure he was still alone on the bridge, pounded his fist on the padded armrest of his seat. "Dammit, I hate it when I patronise me." He tapped a key on his console, "Vee-Eye, take my voice back off the simulation manager."
# # #
"Hey, Chief, you got a minute?" Kaidan was approaching the weapons bench from the lift.
Ash, with tools in both hands, looked up from the pistol being serviced on her bench. "Can I keep working while you talk?"
"Sure." The human biotic came to a stop next to the weapons bench. "I don't know if you've serviced Liara's pistol yet, but I wanted to tell you it has the warp ammo modification. I helped her install it."
Ash sighed loudly, "Your timing is great." She set both tools aside, pointed into the workings of the weapon, "I was just about to pull the modder. She got the CO's old Stiletto – I figured that much out – but I didn't understand why he would have been using warp ammo, and I didn't think the Little Blue Pill would have modded a weapon she just got."
"Little Blue Pill?" Kaidan laughed, "That's as funny as it is twisted."
"Seems like every time I'm on Deck Two, the CO's either coming out of the medbay or going into it. What's up with that?"
"Well, he may still be dealing with that Prothean beacon explosion. Both of us have known Doctor C for years. I think she's still monitoring him closely."
"Hm. Don't think it's about going blue, huh?"
"I know so." He leaned closer, spoke quietly, "Just between you and me, I think he's still recovering from the loss of his wife, and I don't think he's interested in her like that. But he is probably trying to be a first-rate Spectre by understanding all the different species."
"Especially a species that can make you jizz at range," Ash sounded disturbed and leery.
Kaidan shook his head. "That's…not how it works. I mean, yeah, they can do it without actual contact, but the range is very limited compared with other biotics."
Ash looked up briefly, then back at the weapon. "So…how do you know, LT? Have you done it with an asari?"
"Naah. I was only there for a few months, the Alliance was paying for it, and I didn't want to get sent back early for breaking any rules.
"And just because they can doesn't mean Liara does. She's way too bookish for that. Just like there are human nerds, Liara is just an asari nerd." He paused to reflect. "Unless there's something happening in the CCR that we don't know about. But even if there is, it's nothing to do with us. I've spent more time with her than he has."
"Hm." Ash snapped open the clamps and lifted the pistol out. "All right, then. This one's done." She moved to the lockers, keyed Liara's open, and placed the weapon into its mount.
* * * Glossary * * *
ARA: Augmenter Reality Appliance
AO: Area of Operations
caps: shortened form of "supercapacitors," the power storage system used in the M-35 Mako.
CIC: Combat Information Centre
CIS: Combat Intelligence System
CO: Commanding Officer
enit'hra: An asari technology that allows something like neurolearning, effectively compressing months of education into just a couple of weeks of sleeplearning (some users sleep with them, others enter a theta state to use them;) they are usually constructed with or at the direction of a respected authority on the respective subject, and almost always include some conscious learning and exercises to ensure they are going to "take" in the user; they are not nearly as effective on humans as asari
FCO: Fire Control Officer
IFF: Identification Friend or Foe
JAG: Judge Advocate General, military law
LINAC: Linear Accelerator
LT: Lieutenant
MDP: Mission Data Packet
MEFG: Mass Effect Field Generator(s)
MFO: Master Fabrication Officer
MP: Military Police
NfoX: Information Exchange; a technology/protocol used by research organizations and universities for scientific research data collection and dissemination. Pioneered on Thessia, popularized in the Alliance by Husseinomica (part of the Venus Project 2.0) after the Prothean discovery on Mars, acquired by Google in 2173
PVR: Polyphase Virtual Reality; a total-immersion VR technology with between two and five channels of data that stimulates multiple regions of the brain, allowing for a nearly complete reproduction of environments or experiences. Because it is a demanding, high-bandwidth technology, it became a measure of network capability, particularly among users who depend upon it. PVR games can be very addictive, particularly to the young
Respirocyte: artificial red blood cell; azonano dot ?ArticleID=3034
SAR: Search and Rescue
VI: Virtual Intelligence
VRS: Virtual Reality Simulation
A/N: This hasn't been well-polished but I'm out of time, and I'm leaving tomorrow at 5A and will be off the grid for two weeks, but wanted to get this released before I go. Sorry in advance for any errors or omissions. Between June and November, I will be home for about three weeks, all told, often a day or two at a time (just enough to do wash and swap suitcases.) There just hasn't been time to write, and when there was, I couldn't focus on the Ontario mission.
For the purposes of the throwaway line that refers to them, the inusannon – the species wiped out in the cycle before the Protheans – are squid-like organisms with a flexible cartilage-like structure on their "front" (ventral) and "back" (dorsal) surfaces, the ventral of which that can be "folded" to form a sort of "stand" (plinth) that allows them to use all ten extremities at once, an ability they put to use in melee combat, or to control multiple devices at once in a console ring.
And if you're wondering, I capitalise group names (e.g., Collectors, Alliance, Protheans, Cerberus, Republicans) but not species (e.g., salarian, human, batarian, asari, whale.) As the Protheans were explained to be either making "Protheans" out of other species, or of wiping them out (not unlike the Soviets, or the early Muslims,) this hopefully explains why that word gets capitalised, but "krogan" does not.
Interesting that we see this behaviour again in the kett, except they utilise afcRNA to actually transform other species into more of themselves ("exaltation,") in addition to brainwashing and conditioning them.
