Chapter 44. The Bigger Picture
2155 CE, Citadel
"This is a bad idea," Anderson said as he sidestepped a keeper, the mysterious insectoid race that acted as the caretakers of the Citadel.
Even though the scientific community of the galaxy had tried to make sense of them for over two thousand years now, there was surprisingly little that they actually knew about the creatures. While they could be safely ignored, the small, green creatures had a tendency to dissolve themselves in a self-produced acid at the first sign of foreign interference which made it all but impossible to study them in detail. Furthermore, as if spontaneous suicides alone weren't bad enough, there was also the fact that the exact source of the keepers remained undiscovered. The best guess scientists could make was that some sort of facility deep within the otherwise inaccessible core of the Citadel somehow monitored their numbers and produced replacements when necessary, perhaps using the foreign technology all keepers seemed to carry in the process.
"So you've been saying ever since we got here," the turian replied.
"Because it is. We still don't know if we're walking into an ambush and you want to bring a civilian with you? What if it really is a trap? What if something happens to her? This is reckless, Saren. "
"So was bringing Sanders to Camala," he countered, remembering the first official mission he and Anderson had completed. "But you still agreed to do it and it all worked out in the end."
"That was different. Sanders wasn't a civilian," Anderson insisted. "She could've handled herself if things had gone sideways."
"We sent her to stare down a krogan battlemaster, Anderson," he recalled as the human's face grimaced ever so slightly at the memory, "Civilian or not, it wouldn't have made a difference to Skarr," he reasoned. "Besides, the doctor is a biotic. If we really are walking into a trap, she'll be fine as long as she keeps her head down and lets us handle things."
"Alright," the human sighed. "I'll be sure to come back to that statement when this inevitably blows up in our faces."
"I expect nothing less."
"So who's this doctor anyway?" the human asked while the wandered through the Presidium of the Citadel.
"The daughter of Councilor Benezia," the turian replied before his fellow Spectre broke into a chuckle.
"Yeah right, good one," Saren turned to look at Anderson, tilting his head ever so slightly to indicate that he didn't get just what was so funny about this. "Wait, you're serious, aren't you?" Anderson finally realised.
"Yes."
"Jesus," his friend seemed to use this phrase rather often in recent times.
"What is it?" he asked.
"I really like this job, Saren."
"And?"
"And I wasn't planning on retiring early."
"What do you mean?"
"If this goes south, which given our track record it probably will," Anderson said with a frown," the last person we want to put in the line of fire is the daughter of the asari councilor. That's a one way ticket straight into forced retirement."
"Just one more reason to make sure that it doesn't go wrong then," the turian merely replied.
He saw where his friend was coming from but besides the obvious reason of Liara T'Soni already being somewhat used to working with him, there was also the fact that she was one of the few scientists who had proven useful in all of this and, more importantly, one of the few scientist he trusted to not be overwhelmed by whatever they'd find at the Shadow Broker's coordinates, be it Nazara or an ambush. While she sometimes got far too excited for her own good, Saren knew that she, more than most people, had a firm grasp on the actual stakes of the matter. After all, she had dedicated her life to finding the truth behind the protheans' disappearance, witnessing first hand what the extinction of an entire race at the hands of the Harbinger looked like. If someone truly understood what they were in for should they fail to find a way to stop their foe, it was Doctor T'Soni.
"Very reassuring," the human spoke dryly. "Is that her?" he added, causing Saren to look the way Anderson himself was facing. Briefly scanning the crowd for the familiar face of the asari, he didn't have to look all that long until finding the archeologists, the luggage she was carrying with her, most of which he simply assumed to be of scientific origin, making it all the more easy to spot her.
"Yes."
"Slightly less reassuring," Anderson corrected himself.
"It'll be fine," Saren insisted.
Under different circumstances he would've agreed that this was a bad idea but the fact remained that Doctor T'Soni was an asari and as the evolution of her species would have it, every last asari was biotic and almost all of them inherently had better control over their abilities than even the most experienced biotics of other species could even dream of ever achieving through years of training. Saren might've been an exceptionally powerful biotic by turian standards but compared to asari who had invested even as little as a few years into improving their natural abilities, he was almost painfully average, which was of course to be expected considering that unlike everyone else, asari were meant to be biotics. It was the path that their evolution had chosen and while they couldn't run as fast as turians, go on for as long as humans or come even close to the average reaction time of salarians, their biotic abilities were simply unmatched.
"Did I mention the possibility of us walking into an ambush or was that just in my head?" He understood Anderson's skepticism. On the grand scale of things his people were still complete strangers to most things Saren and every other turian had grown up accepting as mere facts of everyday life. To the N7 biotics were still a completely new discovery, something he had never thought possible until it had suddenly been thrown in his face. It only made sense that he wouldn't put as much faith in them as Saren, who had the added benefit of being a biotic himself.
"Trust me," he replied just as the archeologist spotted them. "She'll be fine."
"You're right, what's the worst that could happen?" the human Spectre said in a comical tone as if he was tempting the universe itself. "Except of course all of us getting captured by the Shadow Broker."
"To be fair, we've been through worse than that," he offered as the asari began to approach them. "Remember Alkath?" he added with a chuckle.
"I'd rather not."
"We got out just fine back then, even though you-"
"I said I'd rather not," the human interrupted him. "Heads up. Here she comes."
"Agent Arterius," the asari greeted in an upbeat tone before turning to Anderson. "You didn't mention we'd have company. "
"Given the situation, I found it appropriate to bring backup," the turian nodded. "This is David Anderson," he said as the asari and human shook hands.
"A pleasure to meet you, Doctor T'Soni," the human replied politely and unenthusiastic at the same time.
"The pleasure is all mine, Agent Anderson," a brief pause. "I haven't met many humans. I look forward to learning more about your people."
"Don't get your hopes up. We're not all that special," the other Spectre shrugged after letting go of her hand.
"I see my delivery reached you in time," Saren injected upon spotting the one piece of T'Soni's luggage that appeared familiar to him, glad to have found something to interrupt the uncomfortable silence that was slowly manifesting itself within the group of three. He might've put a lot of trust into biotics, especially those of asari, but that didn't mean that he was foolish enough to rely solely on them. He knew from personal experience that phasic rounds made short work of both kinetic and biotic barriers. For that reason alone, nothing could replace a good set of armor.
"Yes it did," the asari replied. "Although I have to admit that I am far from familiar with it. I never really had a need for armor before today," Anderson shot him a brief look that almost screamed 'I told you so'.
"You'll have enough time to become familiar with it while we travel to our destination," Saren offered in return. "Besides, it looks far more complicated that it actually is," the turian offered in addition in hopes of further reassuring the doctor. "I'm sure you've dealt with more complicated matters before." If the short smile she gave was an indication, his reassurance had worked. "Pleasantries aside, we should get going. Our shuttle is already waiting," he finally added.
"Of course, I'll just grab my belongings and then we," the asari began as she made a move for one of her bags only to be beaten to the punch by Anderson.
"Please, let me," the human said before walking into the direction of the docking bay, carrying two of the heavier looking bags towards the shuttle which was waiting to take them to the cruiser that would serve as their method of transportation for the next week. It might've seemed more complicated than just letting the cruiser dock on the Citadel but given its allegiance to a group that technically didn't exist, splitting their journey into two pieces was actually easier, mostly because it raised less questions.
"I don't think he likes me," the asari next to Saren commented while picking up the case in which her armor was currently stored in.
"It's not you, it's the situation," the turian replied. "He doesn't like the thought of bringing you along for what could be an ambush," while he had told Doctor T'Soni about the dangers of their mission, he got the feeling that his reminder hit her much harder than she left on, the brief change of her facial expression giving him the impression that a part kept forgetting that there was a very real chance of this being a trap. "I know this sounds unlikely but he'll come around eventually. He always does," Saren added in another attempt to reassure the scientist.
"Does he-"
"Know that there's a good chance we'll be facing a galactic apocalypse any time now?" a nod was the only reply he got as they kept following the human who still choose to seclude himself from them."Yes. I told him some time ago. The stakes are probably the only reason he's going along with this idea in the first place."
"Can I ask you a question?" Doctor T'Soni spoke in return, deciding not to reply to what he had said about Anderson.
"Of course," the turian replied almost immediately. If he was asking her to put her life on the line, the least he could do was answer her questions.
"What happens if we find what we're looking for? What do we do when we know what Nazara actually is?" the asari asked, letting loose a question he himself hadn't thought about up to now.
"Find out how it's connected to the Harbinger," he said, voicing the first thought that crossed his mind.
"And then?"
"Find out how we can use it to stop his plan and ultimately how we can use it to kill him," he replied in an icy tone, which judging by Liara T'Soni's expression, was far from pleasant to hear for someone who had lived the rather sheltered life up to now. The archeologists might've been far older than Saren himself but there was no doubt in his mind that just about all of those years had been spent far away from the things that people like him and Anderson, who'd be lucky to ever reach her age in the first place, saw on a regular basis. "I know that this is far from what you signed up for when my brother contacted you but it's what has to be done," he added.
"I understand," the asari reassured him after a brief moment of hesitation, now appearing distinctively less enthusiastic. He felt sorry for crushing that spark of scientific curiosity that always seemed to accompany Doctor T'Soni but right now, his only priority was finding a way to win against an increasingly superior foe.
Needlessly to say, the rest of their walk was spent in silence.
Eight Days Later, Afelaph System, SHL-401, HSASV Budapest
"Anything ?" Saren asked as he once more stood on the bridge, inspecting the brownish-red orb currently occupying the majority of viewing screens around him.
"No, we're still not picking up any signals from either the planet or its moons," the human naval officer replied. "As far as we can tell, there's nothing down there." While that sounded suspiciously similar to the report of the human mission on Akuze, the event that had sent him on this journey, it also decreased the odds of this being an ambush substantially. If they really were alone out here, which seemed likely given that they had been scanning for some sort of life signs for the last two hours and hadn't been fired at once, it meant that the Broker had been sincere in his 'favour' and that he really wanted Saren to succeed. The turian wasn't sure how to feel about that just yet.
"Understood," the Spectre nodded. "What about the recon pass over the coordinates?"
"Inconclusive."
"Inconclusive?"
"We found," the man paused for a moment while looking at the planet, "something down there," he said before pressing a series of buttons that caused one of the bigger screens to zoom in on the exact coordinates the Shadow Broker had sent Saren,"but we've got no idea what it is," the man explained while Saren himself looked at the vague lines visible through the thick dust clouds between the reconnaissance probe and whatever it had discovered. "If we hadn't known where to look, we never would've found it. It appears to be some kind of structure but since it's reflecting all of our scans like a mirror, we can't be sure of its exact nature."
"Is the landing party ready?" he asked, well aware of the increasing similarities to Akuze. Just like back then, they were looking at an unknown structure capable of somehow deflecting all of their scans and just like back then, the planet seemed to be completely lifeless. His instincts were telling him that this was a bad idea but there was no going back now, they had to do this.
"Yes, we're just waiting for you to give the word," the human naval officer replied while folding his hands behind his back, either unconcerned or unaware of the similarities to the last time a scan had produced this very result. Either way, the Spectre appreciated that Harper's people weren't telling him to call it off. The last thing he needed right now was a captain unwilling to go along with his plan.
"Tell them to spin up the engines, I'll be in the hangar momentarily," he nodded before bringing up his omni-tool and informing both Doctor T'Soni, who by now was mostly familiar with the set of armor he had procured for her, and Anderson, who was still somewhat distant in regards to the asari, about their immediate departure. Then, after giving the captain a final nod of understanding, he started to make his way to the hangar, the thought of what they might run into preoccupying his mind the entire time.
Besides the possibility of stumbling into another artifact similar to the one Cerberus had uncovered on Akuze, Object Theta, and facing another horde of 'husks', the cybernetically enhanced creatures that seemed to accompany every artifact they found, an ambush of the Shadow Broker, as unlikely as it seemed, was still one of the most dangerous situation they could face. While he and Anderson were very good at what they did, they were just two operatives. If the Broker really put his mind to it, he could definitely muster a task force big enough to take them on or place a trap elaborate enough for them to spring. In addition to finding an artifact or springing the Broker's trap, Saren had also considered that the reason they were here to begin with was an intercepted geth transmission and that the coordinates he had received were dangerously close to the Perseus Veil, or as most people called it, geth space. Even if their scans didn't suggest their presence on the planet, the possibility of stumbling into a geth base existed. Given their isolation, there was no real way of knowing just how advanced the geth and more importantly their jamming and stealth technology, which had originally been based on highly sophisticated quarian designs, had gotten ever since the end of the Geth War. Surprise was the back bone of geth tactics and for all they knew, they could be greeted by an entire army of geth the moment their shuttle doors opened.
Saren let out a sigh as the elevator doors opened to reveal the hangar of the human ship, figures in flightsuits and white combat armor going about their business, some inspecting their weapons and others running final checks on the squadron of shuttles and the flight of fightercraft that were stored in this part of the ship.
"Agent Arterius," one of the soldiers, who he recognized as Lieutenant Slattery, the leader of the platoon that would act as their quick reaction force in case they actually walked into a traditional ambush, greeted him. "Your shuttle is right over there, they're just waiting for you," he added while pointing towards one of the human Kodiaks next to which both the doctor and Anderson were already waiting, the latter looking distinctively calmer than the former, who by now had donned the white and blue set of armor he had procured for her, and was visibly affected by the unfamiliar commotion that tended to precede any orbital insertion. He hadn't expected anything less really, if one wasn't used to being surrounded by dozens of heavily armed soldiers, a degree of anxiousness was to be expected. Saren still remembered how he had felt during his first orbital drop and given that he had already been a trained soldier back then, he figured that Doctor T'Soni was even more anxious than him, especially because his first orbital insertion had been during an exercise, not an actual mission. It wasn't as much the act of flying itself that got to people, it was the thought of sitting in a flying target and being at the mercy of the skills of their pilot and the accuracy of the enemy anti-air gunners. It only took a single well-placed shot to turn a shuttle filled with soldiers into a mixture of debris and corpses burning up in the atmosphere.
He knew from personal experience what that fact could do to people.
"All set?" he asked Anderson as he approached the shuttle, receiving a nod from the former N7. "What about you, Doctor T'Soni?" he added.
"I'm ready," the asari said, the slight crack that appeared in her voice alongside her reply audible even through her helmet. While he assumed that Anderson felt like his point had already been proven, Saren himself was calm. Unless his impression of the doctor was entirely wrong, the nervousness she was showing right now would go away once they were on the ground and he got her to focus on the task at hand.
"Well then. What is it your people say?" the turian asked as he turned to Anderson, a smirk appearing on his face for as long as it took him to put on the last piece of his armor. "Let's get this theatre started?"
"Show," the human corrected with a chuckle. "We say 'let's get this show started'."
"Mine was close enough," Saren shrugged in return as his HUD assembled itself in front of his eyes while the two Spectres climbed into the crew compartment of the shuttle, the asari scientist following closely behind them. When she had taken a seat and strapped into one of the harnesses, the turian Spectre closed the shuttle's door and took a seat himself.
"All set," Anderson, who was closest to the pilot's cabin, called before also putting on his helmet. Not a moment later the human Kodiak took off, leaving behind the hangar bay of the Cerberus cruiser. "You have done this before, right, Doctor?" the N7 said a few moments later, causing Saren to turn his head to the left, seeing the asari hold onto her harness as if her life depended on it.
"Yes," she replied briefly before it struck Saren.
Compared to an asari craft, which the archeologists was likely used to flying given that her expeditions were sponsored by one of Thessia's most distinguished and wealthiest universities, the ride in the human shuttle most likely seemed more than just bumpy. In fact it probably seemed like the Kodiak would fall apart any minute now. Their navy might've been nearly as big as the salarian one but the fact remained that the HSA, and by extension humanity, had only been using Element Zero-based technology for some three hundred years, which was a farcry of the two and a half millennia in which the asari had perfected the art of manipulating the mass effect in their favour. Most powerful Citadel associate since the Quarian Conclave or not, the gap which existed between Anderson's people and the rest of the galaxy was in spades both large and noticeable. Whether it was the state of their cities and planets, their still existent but slowly disappearing reliance on powder-based weaponry or something as specific as the state of the inertial dampeners installed in their shuttles, humanity still had a lot of catching up to.
"Don't worry, it's supposed to feel like it's breaking apart," Saren joked as he saw the first flames appear through the viewing screens installed in the walls of the crew compartment. "Humans like to feel dangerous."
"What can I say? It gets our blood pumping," Anderson replied with an amused laugh. "Just clench your teeth and enjoy the ride. It's gonna be fine," he offered as the shaking got more violent and Saren himself considered taking his friend's advice. He had always hated orbital insertions, especially the ones he had been a part of during his time as a cabal. While the Hierarchy's shuttles were more advanced than their human equivalent and as such should in theory be more comfortable to ride, turian doctrine demanded that the Cabal Corps always had the honor of being the first soldiers on the ground, which meant that the pilots carrying them into battle tended to do so at breakneck speed, the lack of friendly territory below them causing them to practically dive towards the surface as fast as possible in an attempt to avoid hostile anti-air positions.
"Goddess," the asari muttered as the flames and the shaking grew more intense and her fingers, shielded by armored gloves, practically dug themselves into the harness she was still holding onto.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're not enjoying yourselves," Anderson chuckled as the vibrations that had rattled Saren's spine for the last minute started to grow less severe.
"In case you haven't notice it by now," Saren spoke with an amused tone as he turned his head to the asari all the while gesturing towards Anderson himself. "The people who say that all humans are born crazy, aren't exactly lying."
"Thirty seconds, holding steady," the pilot called as they broke through the cloud layer, the rather unusual coloration of the sky around them and the complete lack of vegetation below betraying that the planet they were about to set foot on wasn't exactly habitable.
"I'm getting that impression as well," she replied before something near their landing zone demanded her attention. "Goddess," she repeated, sounding more excited and far less terrified than before. "Is that?"
"What the scanners weren't able to make sense of?" Saren asked as he too caught sight of what appeared to be a flat, single-story construct built at the foot of the small hill dominating this portion of the planet. Much to his dismay, it seemed to be made of the same grey, stone-like material that had also allowed the ruin on Akuze to survive for an untold number of years. "Probably," he figured before a ceiling lamp flooded the crew compartment in red light.
"It doesn't look remotely prothean," the asari observed as her eyes widened beneath her visor ever so slightly, casually confirming what he, Desolas and their allies had already suspected in regards to the other ruin that had shared this design. "If it's possible, I'd like to take a closer look."
"Well, it's your lucky day then," Anderson injected before Saren could open his mouth, "because I'm pretty sure those are our coordinates." A brief look at the orange map in the corner of his vision confirmed that.
"Fascinating."
"When we leave the shuttle, head straight for the structure. Don't wait for us, don't stop and don't look around until you've reached it, understood?" the turian instructed, receiving a nod from T'Soni. "Good."
"Ten seconds," the pilot spoke as Saren heard the faint sound of the door locks opening themselves, giving both him and Anderson the cue to undo their harnesses, an action the asari scientist next to him mirrored with some delay.
"Any bets on what we're gonna find?" Anderson asked as he walked over to the door of the shuttle and grabbed a hold of one of the slings hanging from the ceiling of the crew compartment, bracing himself for a swift exit.
"No," Saren shrugged while making sure that Doctor T'Soni was ready to exit the shuttle. "But knowing our luck, it'll try to kill us."
"Always the optimist," the human chuckled.
"As if you're one to talk," Saren replied just before the cabin was engulfed in a green light, the accompanying shout of the pilot and the opening of the doors causing the two Spectres and Doctor T'Soni to jump out of the shuttle and move towards their intended goal in a brisk jog.
As he looked around the reddish landscape in an attempt to figure out if there scanners had missed something, Saren noticed that besides the hill they were headed for, there weren't any other noticeable landmarks to be seen. The entire area seemed almost impossibly flat as if someone at some point, possibly the same people who had built the structure ahead of them, had gone out of their way to even out the terrain around it. As the Spectre came to a stop next to the exterior of the grey building, which now that he had gotten closer reminded him of a bunker, he couldn't help but shake the thought that they were being watched. While his instincts told him that a sniper already would've taken his shot and his mind knew that his paranoia was most certainly a product of both his training and their surroundings, it still bothered him more than it usually did. Something about this place felt wrong and the fact that he couldn't pinpoint what it was made it all the worse.
"Can you bypass the door? Get us inside?" he asked the asari all the while Anderson, who seemed to feel rather similar to Saren himself, scanned their surroundings through the scope of his modified turian rifle.
"That," Liara T'Soni paused as her eyes remained glued to her omni-tool all the while she walked towards the heavy-looking gate, "won't be necessary," she muttered before quite literally pushing apart the door with her bare hands. "It was unlocked," she explained as Saren and Anderson stared at her in disbelief. Either these were very trusting precursors or someone else had beaten them to the punch. "But that's not the most interesting part," Liara went on, still focused on her omni-tool. "Do you remember how we established that my theory on the protheans being the victim of a genocide was true?" she asked, receiving a nod from Saren. Of course he remembered. Who could forget something like that? "This structure," she said while a set of orange beams originating from her omni-tool gently danced across the metal door she had just pushed open, "is covered in the same weapon's residue we found on Tunae Prime and on every major prothean site in the Attican Traverse."
"So it is prothean then?" Anderson injected as he crept closer to the opened door. It was a reasonable assumption to make.
"I am fairly certain that it isn't," the asari dismissed him almost immediately before stepping past him and walking into the ruin, showing no signs of her previous nervousness aboard the shuttle and confirming Saren's impression of her. "Neither the materials used in its construction nor the architecture of the facility itself resemble that of other ruins I've visited."
"It's a bunker, of course it's going to look different from places like Feros," the human retorted.
"I've visited well over two hundred prothean ruins, Agent Anderson, and none of them looked like this, not even remote outposts on planets far more hostile than this one."
"Speaking of hostile," Saren spoke up himself as he too stepped into the bunker and noticed the lack of something that seemed incredibly crucial to him. "Shouldn't this place have an airlock?" he asked before his night vision gear kicked in and enabled him to see the thin bridge connecting their entrance to what appeared to be nothing more than an empty, circular well surrounded by the remains of a long dead garden.
"Maybe the place used to be nicer when they built it," Anderson offered. "Come on, let's keep going. This is just an empty entrance, the interesting stuff is up ahead."
"Agreed," the turian replied before Anderson took point across the narrow bridge.
"Doctor T'Soni?" Saren asked and when he got no reply from behind, he turned around only to realise that the asari had already found the next thing she could focus on. Instead of following them across the bridge, she had turned her attention on the fine lines running across the surface of the stone-like walls, tracing them with her hand as if she could learn something from them.
"This is fascinating. This could be their language or some other method of communication," she began to theorize only for Saren to interrupt her.
"Or it could be their version of interior decoration," the Spectre offered. "Perhaps we should focus on the bigger things fir-"
"Hey, remember how you said the doors had already been opened?" Anderson's voice came through the radio, causing Saren to look across the bridge and finding his fellow Spectre standing next to the well he had previously seen why. "I think I found out who opened them. You should come and take a look at this, Doctor T'Soni. You too, Saren."
"Care to be more specific?" the turian asked as he and the asari made their way across the bridge.
"I don't think I can," his friend muttered as nodded down the well, which upon closer inspection appeared to be anything but a well, the cracked, mirrored panels installed in its floor more closely resembling an upscaled version of the lenses used in holographic technology.
"Is that what I think it is?" Saren asked as he turned towards Doctor T'Soni, who was probably as much of an expert as he was on this particular subject.
"I think it is," the asari swallowed.
There, lying broken between the mirrored panels, was a silvery-white box from which a set of cables had been inserted into the cracks of the panels. While it made sense that Anderson didn't recognize what exactly he was looking at, the design of the device was immediately recognizable to both himself and Doctor T'Soni.
"What were the geth doing here?" he asked as he considered picking up the box, unsure of what would happen if he did. "How did they even find this place?" the captain had be rather specific about the fact that it had only been their access to the coordinates and the visual identification of a recon flight aimed at said coordinates that had allowed them to find this place.
"The geth?" Anderson repeated.
"We are close to the Perseus Veil, perhaps they just happened to stumble upon this bunker on their own?" Liara replied. "Or perhaps they came here for the same reason we did. It was after all their transmission that caused you to look for 'Nazara'. Mabye this is it?" she suggested.
"Did you just say geth?"
"This can't be it," Saren muttered as he looked at the small box. There had to be more to this. The geth had gone out of their way to defy their core programming to be able to create the repetitive message. It simply wasn't possible that this was all that there was to Nazara. "There is no way this thing is Nazara."
"Are you even listening to m-"
"Agent Aterius, this is Lieutenant Slattery," a voice suddenly came through their radios. Saren recognized it from earlier, it was the leader of their quick reaction force, which he most certainly hadn't called to action. "Prepare for evacuation. Over."
"Lieutenant, I didn't request eva-"
"An armada of geth and the biggest god damn ship I've ever seen just appeared from beyond the one of the moons and the Budapest is picking up even more contacts from somewhere behind them. We have to get you out of there right now. Over."
"Grab the box," he called towards Anderson, who without a moment of thinking pulled the device from the well-like object it was attached to.
"If it's anything like other pieces of geth technology, it will wipe its memory and give us nothing," the asari spoke up as they began to move.
"It's the only thing in here that we can carry," Saren countered as his HUD told him that the shuttles were almost right on top of them. "We have to go right now," he added well on his way across the bridge.
"All ground forces, this is the Budapest. Be advised, you've got gunships incoming from the north. I say again, hostile forces approaching your position from the north. Over," he heard over what sounded like emergency sirens going off in the background. This was bad. If the Budapest got destroyed, they'd be stranded and if they got stranded, they'd last exactly as long as it'd take for the geth to find them down here. Breaking into a full-blown sprint, the Spectre practically shot out of the alien bunker and searched the sky for the silhouettes of the human shuttles, his sharp eyes allowing him to spot them rather quickly.
"Twenty seconds, screens are moving in to cover our approach," he heard through his radio as he turned his head to the north just as his two companions caught up to him. While it took him a few seconds longer, he could now make out several strangely shaped ships heading directly for their position, flying dangerously close to the surface and paying no mind to the squadron of human fightercraft opening fire on them.
"Ten seconds."
"The moment you get into the shuttle, you strap into a harness. This will be a rough take-off," he called through the short-range radio while pulling the asari archeologist closer to him, intending to throw her into the shuttle on the off-chance that she froze up just before they reached the 'safety' of the shuttle.
"There they are," Anderson called just before one of the white shuttles executed a high-velocity stop, only coming to a halt mere moments before it would've smashed straight into the ground.
"Come on," one of the Cerberus operatives called as the doors shot open to reveal a mostly empty crew compartment into which the group of three practically jumped.
"What happened?" Saren called to the operative as he felt himself getting pressed into his seat before he had even finished strapping in, a quick look to his side confirming that they were climbing exactly as fast as it felt they were and a quick look to the asari scientist confirming that she was exactly as anxious as he had expected her to be, the positioning of Anderson leading him to belief that the human had been the one to put the finishing touches on her harness.
"It's the bloody geth, man," man pilot confirmed what he already knew. "They came out of nowhere and clipped the Budapest immediately. The captain ordered an emergency FTL jump the moment we took the first hit but still, she's damaged, badly."
"How badly are we talking?" Anderson, who seemed less bothered by the increasing force being excerpted on his body, asked the question Saren himself was about to ask.
"If she takes another one, we're done for," the Cerberus operative replied before their shuttle hit the pinnacle of acceleration and broke through the atmosphere of the planet.
While the procedure itself didn't take all that long, true to its name their rapid extraction had been just that, rapid, the few minutes it took for them and their escort to return to the cruiser felt like a small eternity, mostly because Saren was halfway expecting the ship to explode in front of his eyes mere moments before they'd enter its hangar. It certainly would fit into the kind of day he had the pleasure of having up to now. When their shuttle touched down in the hangar, the reality of the situation hit Saren. Once again, they had found nothing and once again, he had returned from a mission empty-handed. For a very specific set of reasons, that reality made him both desperate and angry, not at his companions but at himself. He was supposed to find a way to defeat the Harbinger but the only thing he seemed to be capable of doing was putting others in harm's way. As he undid his harness and removed his helmet, he lingered upon seeing his own reflection in the dark visor, a set of cold blue eyes staring right back at him, asking him a series of uncomfortable questions all the while the Budapest finalized its approach on the mass relay, strangely enough without geth pursuing it.
Had all of this been a mistake on his part?
Should he have done something differently?
Should he tell Desolas what was going on?
What was he even hoping to achieve like this?
Whatever the answers to these questions were, Saren knew one thing for certain. He had to change something because what he was currently trying clearly wasn't going to work. Every time he found a clue, it ended up being useless and every time he thought he had made a step forward, he actually took one back. Letting out a sigh to clear his mind, these thoughts wouldn't get him anywhere right now, Saren decided that the best thing he could do right now was to work with what he had and not dismiss it immediately in a fit of frustration. Everything else was a problem he'd deal with once he got back to the Citadel.
"Anderson, give me the box," he muttered and a few moments later the small silver and white object was resting in his hand. "Doctor T'Soni?" he asked while turning on his heel to face the asari scientist who was somewhat struggling to stay on her feet, the effects of their speedy extraction being far worse on her than on anyone else. "How confident are you in your ability to recover data from the geth device?"
"It's hardly my expertise, I'm an archeologist," she replied before she decided that the time to be on her feet hadn't arrived just yet and dropped back into her seat. "Surely you have more qualified experts onboard?" she added before pulling of her helmet.
"We're on a warship, not a research vessel," he countered. "I don't think any of these sailors are nearly as qualified to work with unfamiliar alien technology as an archeologist like yourself is." If the change in her expression and the fact that she rose to her feet almost instantly was anything to go by, his words hit the right kind of tone. "What do you need?" he asked.
"Space and my equipment."
"Can I leave her with you, Anderson?" the turian asked.
"Sure," the human nodded. "What are you going to do?"
"Talk to the captain."
Ten Minutes Later
"What am I looking at?" Saren asked as he looked at the somewhat blurry image of the enormous vessel that had likely been what Lieutenant Slattery had meant when he had told them about the 'biggest god damn ship' he had ever seen. While it was hard to make sense of the craft, only a couple of cameras had caught a glance of it shortly before the emergency FTL jump that had allowed the Budapest to escape the geth armada, it had an almost animalistic look to it and dwarfed even the biggest of the geth vessels that had emerged alongside it.
"I know exactly as much as you do," the captain, who's arm was now covered in bandages instead of the white sleeve of his uniform, replied. "This is the only image we have of the thing and the best guess I can make is that it's their flagship."
"Their flagship?" the Spectre muttered. Sure, its coloration and shape looked vaguely geth-like but with the geth vaguely wasn't good enough. All their ships were nearly identical, only their scale and small details related to their roles making it possible to differentiate between anything ranging from fighters to dreadnoughts. Just like everything about them, it was a product of their synthetic nature. Ships designed by people looked different because the engineers who had drawn their plans had been different people, that wasn't the case for the geth, they thought as one and as such didn't diverge from a core concept as long as it remained efficient. Since esthetics could hardly become inefficient, the chance of this being a geth vessel was slim to non existant. "Very unlikely."
"What else could it be?" That was also a question he couldn't answer. The geth weren't exactly known for befriending other species and unless they had suffered a change of heart, set out to find a species not in contact with the Citadel Council and allied themselves with them, there simply wasn't a reason for a non-geth vessel to fly alongside a geth armada, let alone lead it. Saren leaned closer towards the screen and rested his hands against its edge, trying to make sense of what he was looking at. Even if it was a geth design, which again was almost certainly not the case, there was still something else that bothered him about it.
The size of the ship.
Faster-than-light travel as the galaxy knew it was based around Element Zero and the size of every ship was limited by the power of its drive core or rather the drive core's ability to lower the mass of the ship it was attached to. Therefore size, the factor that decided how big of a maingun dreadnoughs could have or how many soldiers and equipment troop transports could carry, was one of the most important things to consider when constructing a ship. The Destiny Ascension, the biggest ship in the galaxy, was already pushing the physical limit of what a state-of-the-art Eezo drive core could achieve and only the asari's unrivaled mastery of the mass effect, the one branch of science in which no one, not even the geth, could even hope to compare to them, had made its construction possible.
Yet here it was, a ship far bigger than the 'Pride of the Republics', heading a geth armada in spite of clearly not being a geth ship.
How was this possible?
What was he missing?
To say the realisation struck him like an ambush struck an unprepared foe would've been an understatement. For the first time in forever, he felt like he saw the right pieces of the picture he and Desolas had been trying to piece together all these years and he acted on it immediately.
"Captain, can your VIs turn this image into a hologram?" he muttered as he brought up his omni-tool and began to search for an old file.
"Of course. Do you want me to prepare the briefing room for you?"
"Yes," the Spectre replied, already well on his way towards the exit of the bridge,
Could it be?
Unless his memory was failing him, he had to be right.
Saren stepped into the darkened room and already found it to be engulfed in blue light, a holographic version of the blurry ship floating just above the projector in front of him. The Spectre, already feeling confirmed in his suspicion upon getting a closer look at the craft, quickly connected his omni-tool to the device and uploaded the file he had been looking for, waiting for the next hologram to assemble itself next to the first and far blurrier one. When the process was done, Saren began to rotate, scale and move the file he had uploaded, determined to find where his own piece fit into the larger puzzle he had just been given. Then, after nearly fifteen minutes, it was done and if it wouldn't have been for the inferior quality of the original puzzle, his piece, a hologram of the Leviathan of Dis created by STG, would've been more than just a perfect match to the right mid-section of the unknown vessel that had led the geth fleet.
This vessel wasn't a geth ship and it wasn't part of an unknown species armada that had allied themselves with the geth.
No, it was something far worse than that.
This vessel was what the wreckage they had found on Jartar had originally looked like and this vessel was also a ship of the Harbinger's fleet.
Saren knew that he should've felt good about his success, he had after all just solved one of the bigger questions they had stumbled onto in the time ever since the had begun their investigation but instead of allowing himself to feel victorious for a moment, he let out a sigh. The same pattern that had manifested itself throughout their entire investigation had appeared once more, this time directly in front of his eyes. Harper really had been accurate in that regard. Every time they answered one question, two new ones appeared in its place. Leaning against the table, the turian Spectre stared at the first image of his enemy that wasn't based around the horribly twisted image of a sentient species.
So this was what their enemy was capable of, building ships of impossible size and striking impossible alliances.
How could Desolas hope to fight this?
Another sigh.
He knew the answer to that question and unless he found a way to give his brother a fighting chance, it would be the last answer they'd ever get.
Three Days Later, HSASV Budapest, Enroute to the Citadel
It wasn't his inner biological clock that woke him, neither was it the sound of alarms or the shouting of officers. No, it was the continuous sound of somebody politely knocking on the door of his cabin that interrupted his night and claimed what little sleep Saren got these days. If he had been a deep sleeper, something no Blackwatch operative could claim to be, he wouldn't even have heard it to begin with but since he wasn't one, it was more than sufficient in waking him up. Groaning ever so slightly as he pushed himself from his bed, the Spectre walked over to the door, already suspecting who'd bother him at this time of the night with a knock as polite as this one. Since it certainly wouldn't be Anderson, the human Spectre was far louder than this if he wanted something from Saren, there was only really one option left.
"Doctor T'Soni," he greeted after the doors opened and his eyes quickly adapted to the bright lights now flooding into his darkened quarters. "How can I help you?"
"I'm done," the asari stated.
"You're done?" he repeated while suppressing a yawn. What was she talking about?
"I've finished the analysis of the geth device," the asari clarified what he really should've been able to guess.
"Right, of course," he said, suddenly far more awake.
"May I come in?"
"Yes, please," he replied while turning on the lights of the room, their glow once more stinging in his eyes for the couple of seconds it took them to adapt to the increased brightness. "What did you find?" he asked as he placed the pistol, which he always seemed to subconsciously grab when answering a door no matter where he was sleeping, back on the small desk beside his bunk.
"When I first tried to access the storage device, I assumed that I'd find nothing, either because I wouldn't understand what I was looking at or because the device followed the same purge protocols that geth platforms seem to engage upon being disabled," the asari began. He remembered hearing something like that before. It was one of the reasons why so little was known about the geth, they rarely if ever left things behind. "But this device seems to be different from other geth hardware."
"How so?"
"From what I was able to gather through my research on the subject, geth usually wipe their entire memory storage within the span of a couple of minutes before transferring themselves to the nearest Prime unit," the archeologist said as she gestured with her hands in ways that made Saren wonder if she needed the movements to formulate her own thoughts. "This wasn't the case here. Even though nearly an hour had passed between our disconnection of the device, I was able to terminate the geth programs within the device and stop them from wiping its entire memory."
"So these geth were slow then," he stated, halfway asking a question and halfway suggesting a theory.
"So it seems."
"Do you know why?" Not that he didn't appreciate it.
"The quarians you talked to mentioned that the geth operating beyond the Veil seem to be both smarter as individuals but less capable as a collective, correct?" He gave her a nod. "Then the best assumption I can make is that they only left behind a skeleton crew so to speak," the asari went on as she sat down in the chair next to him, folding her hands in her lap. "Perhaps they needed the bulk of their programs elsewhere or considered the site a low priority," she muttered as Saren looked at her, unsure of how a low priority sight would warrant the kind of naval attention it had gotten. "Anyways," she suddenly clapped her hands, returning to her point. "After I managed to stop the programs, I began trying to piece together the data fragments I was able to salvage from the device," it seemed like he wasn't the only one who had solved a puzzle then.
"Did you find anything?" the turian asked.
"While most of the data was corrupted beyond saving or simply missing too many fragments for me to make sense of," the asari replied, "I was able to figure out what they were hoping to find in the bunker or rather in it's network," she explained as her omni-tool appeared from her wrist, a set of what he simply assumed to be quarian numerals appearing between them. "They were looking for a map, a star chart to be precise, and something they called," T'Soni went on as the numbers on her omni-tool began to translate themselves into something he could actually read, presumably through the use of a translation software.
"A conduit?" he asked after reading the short request for a 'Location-Conduit' he was currently looking at. "And? Did they find it?"
"The map?" she asked. "Yes. But the conduit? I don't know for sure," Liara admitted. "That part of the data was already heavily corrupted by the time I managed to stop the purging protocols," the asari explained as she shook her head. "But I don't think they did. One fragment of the data suggests that the bunker's network simply kept showing them its circuit system in response to the question. It treated the request like a maintenance routine."
"It didn't know what they were talking about, did it?" Saren figured.
"That was my theory as well."
"So they got a fragment of their map but came up empty on the location of their conduit."
"Yes."
"Do we know where their map fragment leads?"
"I'm afraid not. If my reconstruction of their set of priorities is accurate, the details of the map were amongst the first files the geth programs within the device deleted," the asari sighed. "But there is something else you should know, something I'm not quite sure what to make of."
"What is it?" this was going to be good, wasn't it?
"Between their requests for the map and a conduit, the geth programs in the device communicated back and forth with what I assume to be some kind of forward observer or another geth unit that they kept up to date in regards to what they found," since that wasn't exactly unusual, Saren braced himself to hear whatever it had been that had managed to confuse the doctor. "And after they found the map, the observer thanked the programs for their service to the old machines."
"The old machines?" Saren didn't really know what to make of that either.
"Since it is likely lost in translation, let me explain," the scientist offered with a smile. Even though it should be obvious, at times it was easy to forget that the species of the galaxy spoke in vastly different languages and only translation implants allowed them to communicate this easily. "The way the geth talked about these old machines is the same way the quarians talk about their ancestors. The words they use carry a spiritual undertone."
"Are you saying the geth developed a religion?" the turian Spectre asked as he recalled the cult-like behaviour people who had been exposed to the artifacts they had found across the years had displayed. This memory, combined with his earlier findings in regards to the Leviathan of Dis and its similarity to the unknown ship that had headed geth armada, made the turian worried.
Very worried.
"I am saying that they might have adapted the believes of their creators to form their own culture ever since their isolation from the rest of the galaxy," the asari corrected. "The words and phrases they consciously chose to refer to these 'old machines' mirrors the quarian rhetoric of ancestor worship down to the 're AIs," Liara went on, "and while they might not be organic, they are sentient nonetheless. Nothing is keeping them from experiencing the same kind of social development our own cultures once went through. If they face situations similar to those that our people faced before outlining their believes, the idea of them forming a culture and developing their own version of a religion is not only likely, it's to be expected. Just like any organic civilization, the geth are influenced by the world around them."
"Philosophical questions aside," the turian sighed, "what about Nazara, did they ever mention that term in their transmissions?"
"No but it is possible that the word was used in one of the dialogues I wasn't able to salvage. Many of the transmissions between the device and the other geth were lost before I could stop the programs," the archeologist shook her head before her tone grew somewhat darker. "I am sorry that you didn't find what you were looking for, Agent Arterius."
"Don't apologize, you've been nothing but helpful," he retorted almost immediately. They might not have gotten Nazara and they might not even be any closer to finding what Saren was looking for, a way to win his brother's war, but they still had managed to gather a lot of useful intel, a lot of which had come form the hard drive the doctor had been able to salvage through a mixture of skill and luck.
"Still I-" whatever the asari was about to say was cut short when both their omni-tools began buzzing at the same time, his own being hailed through a frequency only a few people had access to.
"You should take this," he suggested as he saw just who was calling the doctor. "And so should I," he added as his eyes narrowed on the small text identifying the person that was trying to contact him.
"Councilor," he spoke just as Doctor T'Soni greeted her own caller with 'mother'.
"Agents Arterius and Anderson," it echoed through both omni-tools and presumably also through the one of his human colleague sleeping in the room next to him. "Report to me the moment you dock on the Citadel," a short pause. "And bring my daughter with you. We have to talk."
Codex: Translator Matrix
Due to the vast difficulties language barriers created in the early days of galactic history, one of the first joint research ventures the Asari Republics and the Salarian Union spearheaded was a means to enable easy communication without the need of learning a vastly different language, a task that could consume a significant portion of the much shorter lived salarians' through decades of research and improved ever since, the product of this research project was a highly advanced VI interface capable of translating both speech and, as long as an optical input is present, writing without noticeable delay through accessing a continuously updated dictionary.
Although faced with initial starting difficulties, mostly due to both the vast number of asari and salarian languages in use during the time of their contact, the technology' only improved every time a new species came into contact with the rest of the galaxy, the fact that every government benefited from adding its own knowledge to the technology, encouraging both cooperation and swift development of the technology. Sometimes called the biggest example of what the denizens of the galaxy can actually achieve by working hand in hand with each other, the translator matrix takes many forms, be they implants, VIs or in the past, AIs and, if presented with the right circumstances, for example contact with another sufficiently advanced virtual intelligence, can create basic translation programs within minutes.
A/N: ... so... I'm late.. only by like a couple of days this time actually(ignoring that I originally wanted this and the chapter after it out before last year...)
Speaking off.. Happy New Year mates!
Alright, let's talk chapter 44.
I know that I originally said that 44 would mark the end of Saren's arc in Season Two and the Season Two Finale as a whole (yes, I know it's weird that I structured Semper Vigilo in stories but that might be routed in my subconscious desire to one day get this shit filmed.. I know it won't happen but let me dream, I already know who'd play Redford!)
Since this didn't happen and since this is hardly worthy of being called a season finale, not compared to the last one which was Kamarov trying to blow up Akuze (yes, the IFS still exists and is doing its thing, I just didn't want to break Saren's flow to mention them these last couple of chapters) the next chapter, 45, is probably going to be Season 2's finale .. which as you might recall is going to put every major character where they need to be once ME 1 begins, which will either be 46 or, if I do another 'interlude' chapter like I did last time, chapter 47.
And while we're at it... I want to go out of my way to say something about next chapter right now. Chapter 45, or rather the finale of Season 2, is something I have both been looking forward to and dreaded ever since I finished the overall plot Semper Vigilo would have until the story of Mass Effect begins.
This mixture of emotions is mostly caused because I suspect that a lot of you are going to like what happens and a lot of you... really, really won't.
Season 2's finale is going to pay off all of the foreshadowing I did in regards to a couple of things up to now and yeah.
No I already said enough, lets just ... I know that if I did a good job, most of you are going to either like it or at least lets say accept it and because I really want to do that good job, it might take me... some time to get there. Not foerever but possibly mroe than the one and a half/two weeks it usually takes me.
I plan on making it longer, it's a finale after all and depending on how I feel, it will likely be the ONLY chapter that won't have a codex entry and possibly (although unlikely because I'll have a lot to say) no A/N.
Alright, enough talking about 45 (hell I even said lets talk 44)
So this chapter is basically a lot of set up, a lot of Liara, a lot of Saren, a bit of andersond and at the end a bit (a lot) of exposition dump... but I think I did a good job at hiding it.
I also decided to play a bit with the translator weirdness that seems to be going on in ME, namely by making "Old machines" have some kind of religious undertone in the geth's/quarian's language, an idea I based around my general protrayal of the reapers and the fact that we see geth heretics praying around reaper artifacts in ME 1.
Speaking of geth, if anyone thinks they behaved stupidly in this, just remember who headed their fleet. Sure, they played a bit of the idiotball over there but... you know what they say, fool-
NO!
I already said too much again!
NO MORE OF THIS.
Review and let me know what you think!
(who caught that I used a line in this codex entry to excuse a lot of SV originally rather blunt dialogue? lel)
For the record we're at 363 reviews, 591 favorites and 696 follows. ... (couldn't have made it 595 favorites for the esthetics, could you now?
See you around next time.
