Chapter 73. What Else Is New?


15. March 2417 AD, Cronos Station, Lazarus Department

"So I died," the N7 summarized while looking at the people standing the white room. Besides the half dozen doctors, there was Liara, a tall dark-haired woman in a lab-coat that she didn't recognize and Director Harper, Cerberus' leader who she had first talked to after the Eden Prime mission. She still couldn't quite wrap her head around the fact that that had been over two years ago and not two months. Or that she had died and been brought back afterwards. Or that that last part wasn't technically true because she hadn't been quite dead this entire time. It was all still so hazy. The attack on the Normandy, her saving Joker, the way she had slowly suffocated in space after her ship had exploded. She knew that it had happened because she remembered it but at the same time, it also felt like a bad nightmare she had just woken up from.

"Yes and no," the Cerberus director stated before looking at the tall women and Liara, who had been strangely silent the entire time it had taken Harper to recap what had happened. "I think Doctor T'Soni and Operative Lawson are better suited to explain what happened to you than I am. Miranda, please."

"Of course," this 'Miranda' said before looking at her. "To put it simple, you didn't die, Commander. While your brain got close to suffering a lethal level of oxygen deprivation, you were put into a stasis device shortly you crossed the point of no return. The damage was already done but it was put on hold right before it could kill you."

"By the collectors," she repeated. That part made just as little sense to her as the rest of what she had been told in the last half-hour. Why would they blow up her ship and risk her death if they had just been out to capture her? Why not launch a boarding assault?

"Yes," the other woman nodded. "Who then put you into a stasis device."

"Which is where Liara came in," Shepard remembered before looking at the asari who met Emily's eyes.

"Yes," she nodded. "Using the knowledge we gained on Therum and Ilos I stabilized the field you were stuck in and made sure it'd last for as long as it would take Cerberus to find a way to treat you." Hold up.

Ilos?

Had they set up shop on Ilos while she had been dead or dying or whatever they were calling it? If so, had they managed to fix up Vigil so that it could help them prepare for the Reapers? As soon as the question popped into her head, her face fell flat and her mind started to race. The Reapers. How the hell could she forget about the Reapers? As if the floodgates had been opened, it all came crushing down. The attack on Eden Prime. Therum. Feros. Noveria. Virmire. Ilos. The attack on the Citadel. Sovereign's destruction. The deaths of Williams and Anderson.

"-going from there, it was surprisingly easy to circumvent the orb's main directive and free yo-"

"Are they here yet?" she suddenly snapped, interrupting whatever Liara had just been talking about. Everyone in the room looked at her as if they had no idea what she was talking about. Hence she clarified. "The reapers. Are they here yet?"

"Hold that thought, Shepard," Harper replied not a moment later. "Is she stable, Doctor?"

"Yes," one replied.

"Good. In that case, you and your team are dismissed for now. Thank you for your time. We'll call you if we need you." With no word and only a single nod, the head of the medical team and his fellow doctors complied. When they left and the door closed behind them, Harper looked at her. "Not yet," he said. "And as far as the galaxy is concerned, they won't be coming any time soon either."

"What?"

"After you destroyed Sovereign, the Council went into a panic and did everything right. They mobilized reserves, fortified key systems, put in place redundancies to ensure that we couldn't be decapitated the way the protheans had when the attack came."

"But?" she sensed a but in there and in response her jaw clenched. The danger was so clear. What the hell had happened?

"But when nothing happened for over a year, they started to crack under the pressure and pulled the stops on the mobilizations."

"What pressure?"

"Mainly financial and political one. Fighting a war is expensive and exhausting. As is preparing for one," Harper said before sitting down in the one chair next to her bed and folding his hands in his lap. "People can take that toll when they know that it's necessary, but without any sign of the Reapers showing up, people started to lose faith. Even when we kept telling them that the threat is real," he waved his hand disapprovingly. "You know how things go with politicians. If public approval of their actions drops, they change their course to get reelected," then he held his hand out to Miranda, who handed him a tablet. "Now, Commander, I'm sure that you have a lot of questions and I understand that you probably want to get in touch with your relatives, but before we do any of that, I'm afraid that there is another pressing matter I need you to be aware of. One that's more acute than the Council's ignorance of the reaper threat"

"What could possibly be worse than the reapers?" she countered.

"I didn't say that it was worse. It's not. They're still the biggest threat humanity has ever known," Harper said before handing her the tablet. "But this issue is more acute. They're called Collectors and in addition to being the reason you missed out on the last two years, they've also been fighting a shadow war against humanity ever since your death."

After rubbing her eyes at the brightness of the tablet, Emily read over its contents, which consisted of nothing but dates, locations and numbers. The last one was dated four days ago, on a colony named Cyrene. Behind that information there was a number, 12392.

"What this about?"

"It's how many people the Collectors abducted. As you can see, they started with spaceships and space stations and now they've moved on to colonies. In total, over a hundred thousand are missing and if this trend continues, we'll hit half a million by the end of the year."

"And you're saying that the one doing this is the same group that destroyed the Normandy?"

"They're not a group. They're a species," Lawson injected before handing her another tablet. She reached for it with her other hand and glanced at the image. To her it looked like someone had taken a bug, taught it how to walk on two legs, scaled it up to human size and then given it an ugly-looking gun. "That's the only image we have of them. It was taken during the OP that recovered you."

"Okay. I'll take a guess and say that you don't know why they're doing this," Emily frowned before putting down the tablet.

A hundred thousand people already missing?

The prognosis that it'd be five times as many by the year's end?

This was very bad.

Not reaper-bad but still very bad.

"And you'd be correct," Harper nodded. "To make things worse, we don't even know how they're doing it or what makes them choose their targets. The only warnings we ever get that something is about to happen is a full communication black-out, which tends to occur a few hours before they attack."

"Which makes it impossible for us to launch any sort of defensive response. By the time someone notices what's happening, it's too late to do something about it," Miranda added before looking at her. "They're picking us off one at a time and we can't do anything about it and after Cyrene, Arcturus finally recognized just how big of a threat they could become. So that's where you come in, Commander. Since we don't stand a chance at catching them on one of their attacks, Arcturus wants you to stop these abductions by taking the fight to the Collectors. They want you to teach them that they don't want to be on the HSA's bad side. To do that, they've agreed to give you a new ship, a new crew and a carte blanche. Whatever you need to stop these attacks, say the word and you'll get it."

When the woman was done talking Emily had to admit that she was somewhat humbled. Not only because they were willing to put that much faith into her but also because this sounded a lot more like a mission you'd give to a marine expeditionary force than to a lone N7 who had spent the last two years being frozen two seconds away from death. Although times might've changed, Emily hadn't. So, true to herself, she voiced that concern.

"Why me?" she asked. "Don't get me wrong, I agree that this has to be stopped. They can't just take our people. But why send me and not an expeditionary force?" she asked Miranda. The reply came from someone else.

"Because we can't send in an expeditionary force without knowing where it has to go first," Harper explained. "What Operative Lawson told you was a hundred percent correct. Arcturus wants you to take the fight to the Collectors and they'll stop at nothing to help you achieve that purpose. However what she failed to mention," while she had just kind of returned from the dead, Emily was still sharp enough to notice the single second of loss of composure that the other woman suffered as soon as the sentence left Harper's mouth, "was that we don't know from where they're launching these operations."

"How so?"

Instead of replying Harper waved his hand at the Cerberus operative who had already overcome her second-long slip-up.

"We don't know where the Collectors are coming from but we do know that they're using the Omega-4 Relay, which as you might know is famous for having been transited by a thousand explorers since its discovery but not having returned a single one of them as of now," as Emily frowned, Miranda correctly read her worries. "Don't worry. We don't expect you to take your new ship and crew and try to prove that the thousand and first time will be. Your mission will be possible."

While she was still feeling a bit hazy, Emily took another guess.

"You want me to figure out how the Collectors manage to break the pattern of the relay and get it back to Cerberus, right?" Lawson exchanged a look with Harper, who appeared to have the slightest hint of a smirk on his face.

"I told you that she isn't just another soldier," he shrugged. "Yes. That's exactly what you need to do."

"And I take it the 'how' is open to interpretation?"

"For now. But the 'how' we get there isn't your concern. Cerberus will handle that. Right now we're working multiple angles but as soon as we find a promising solution, we'll let you know. Until then, it'll be your job to get ready for when we do find it."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that we want you to use this time to build a team capable of facing the Collectors. While the ship you'll receive is staffed with the best we could find, including some familiar faces," she peaked up at that. Who was he talking about? "We recognize that you did your best work when you worked with a team of your own choosing. Hence you'll be given the opportunity to take your pick." Instantly her eyes darted to Liara but before she could say something, Harper recognized her intention. "Excluding Doctor T'Soni. For now."

As if to continue the trend, Liara spoke up before Emily could ask 'why'.

"I'm sorry, Shepard, but there is another matter I have to attend to right now. One of equal importance to the collector attacks."

She raised her eyebrow, remembered Ilos and the Reapers and then spoke up.

"Is it Vigil?" she guessed. It made sense. The AI had only shut off back when they had discovered it because of a critical power failure. As the leading expert on protheans, Liara was probably the best person to revive their best and presumably only accessible source of intel on the last cycle. Before she said something, Liara looked at Harper as if to ask for permission. He nodded.

"Vigil is certainly one of our main focuses. But something more important than studying him and finding a way to help him has come up in the last month."

"And what might that be?" she asked again. Now she really was clueless.

"While I believe that you have every right to know, I don't know if I can tell," Liara said in response before Harper took over.

"As of last month, Doctor T'Soni was placed in a secret Council task force. They're investigating some worrying reports. As multiple sources have confirmed, something's shaping up at the galactic edge of Hegemony space."

Again she jumped to a conclusion.

"The Reapers."

"We don't know. Not yet. It'll be the task force to find out and until they do, I'm afraid Doctor T'Soni is the one person that I can't allow to join your team," Harper said before reaching for another tablet, which he too handed to her, leaving Shepard with three of the small computers. Why she couldn't just have gotten all of this on one device? She had to assume that the reason was HSAIS's favorite word, 'classified'.

"However the recruitment of the rest of your old team has of course already been green-lit by Arcturus. Tracking them down has been difficult and there are still some that we have yet to locate," he said while Shepard wiped through the faces and stopped on a familiar turian one. Garrus. Her eyes darted down to the small text. What the hell was he doing on Omega? And why was there a Blue Suns sigil stamped on the corner of his picture? "But rest assured that we'll find them," he nodded. "Do you have any questions?"

Yes. There was one. She might've nearly died but she sure as hell didn't feel like it. On the contrary. She was eager for some payback.

"When do we get started?" she said, strangely enough prompting Harper to wipe through the air and produce a blue holographic overlay.

"You can come in now, Petty Officer Leng."

Hold up.

Leng?

The door hissed open and an asian man stepped in. While he looked older, two years to be exact, Emily recognized him instantly.

Kai.

"As soon as I get you caught up on the last two years, Em," he said with a smile. Then his face got more serious and he greeted the other people in the room. "Director Harper, Operative Lawson," they shared a look and then Harper got up.

"We'll leave you too it," he said and threw a final look at her. "Take as much time as you need, Shepard. Talk to the Petty Officer, call your family, figure out what else is new," he said while pointing at the tablet. "While I did say that this was an acute matter, one day won't make a difference. Especially not if it gets you in the right state-of-mind."

"Understood," she nodded. Then Harper and Lawson left, leaving her alone with her N7 comrade.

"So. The last two years," he said before pulling up a chair and sitting down "Where the hell do I even start?"


Three Hours Later 2158 CE, Menae, Installation 237

"Hah. Chairman Amon," the batarian clad in an orange convict suit laughed before planting his head in his hand-cuffed hands and opening them just far enough for his upper pair of eyes to look at the female human interrogating him. Whether this was just part of his insanity, Nihlus had watched a lot of these interrogations and could tell that the slaver's sanity was slipping, or just the effects of the increased dosage of the truth drugs that humans were so found of, one thing was for sure. If the gesture was meant to intimidate the intelligence officer interrogating him, it failed from what he could see. She didn't even flinch "That weakling hasn't ruled the Hegemony for the last thirty years."

"What do you mean by that?" the interrogator calmly asked.

"Exactly what I said. He hasn't ruled the Hegemony for the last thirty years," the infamous Ka'hairal Balak, repeated, his voice muffled by his hands.

"Okay. But what makes you say that?"

"Reality does. Even before I got my first command in the External Forces, it was obvious that there was something wrong with Amon. He was making decisions, yes, but they weren't his own. He just served as a mouthpiece."

"For whom?"

"An outsider."

"What makes you say that?"

"No other batarian would ever dare to command an Amon. Their name alone holds far too much power for anyone to even think about manipulating the lesser of their family."

"Did you ever learn the identity of this outsider?"

"No. I never found out. I just knew that it was happening. Like I said, it was all so obvious to see for anyone with two decent pairs of eyes."

"How?"

"Their taint was written on every action Amon took and their voice echoed in every word the Chairman said. Sure, the propaganda said otherwise, but all the members of the Athok knew what was happening." Athok? After a second Nihlus remembered what he had learned in school. They were the batarian ruling caste.

"What was happening?"

"Amon was destroying our empire and wasting its riches. He spent irreplaceable resources and time on endless searches for the artifacts that he claimed would show him the truth," considering the topic Nihlus and SLD had been tasked with, that choice of phrasing was all too familiar to the turian general. It basically screamed 'Reaper indoctrination'. "He had our best and brightest dig through rubble instead of having them develop weapons we could use to squash your disgusting kind. And he wasted tens of billions of credits and hundreds of thousands of able-bodied slaves on building those damn spires he was so fond of."

"Spires?"

"He called them beacons but when you actually stop to look at them, they're just large spires he had constructed all over Hegemony space. There are hundreds of them. He claimed that they'd lead us into a new age of prosperity and dominance, but I didn't believe it. I never learned what their real purpose was, but I do know that every slave who worked to them wasn't any good after they were finished. Whatever materials or chemicals Amon made them use turned slaves into mindless beasts. With time their madness got so bad that even whips or explosive collars couldn't reign them back in when they lost it. So the Internal Forces just started shooting them down at the first sign of trouble. Believe it or not, when he gave the order to shoot to kill, I finally decided to speak up."

"Why?"

"Because it was going to hurt us in the long run. After we lost the Verge War and your kind started to lord over the independent colonies in a vain attempt to build itself a colonial empire, slaves were hard to come by. Like everything else, they're a finite resource and if he kept killing them with his projects, eventually our economy would've suffered the consequences."

"What happened when you spoke up?"

"You know exactly what happened!" Balak snapped for a second. It still didn't produce a reaction from the interrogator. "He branded me and my family traitors to the batarian people, stripped us of all titles and threw our entire species into a damn civil war just because of this cursed truth of his," Balak said with a sigh. While it could just be the quality of the recording, he almost sounded sleepy from where Nihlus was sitting right now.

"What did you do after that happened?"

"What any patriot would do," Balak replied. "I took the External Forces to Khar'shar and tried to usurp him to free my people. But too many had already fallen in line behind Amon and the outsider he's serving. For everyone of us, there were ten of them," he again planted his face in his hands. "Pillars. None of this would've happened if we never found that ship." Unlike everything before, that last part did trigger a reaction in the female human.

"What ship?" she asked as she leaned forward. "I thought you said you didn't know who was guiding him?"

"I did," he mumbled before his head fell on the desk. "I did. I did."

"Shit. I told you the dosage was too high!" a second human voice suddenly declared before a male human stormed into the room and rushed over to the batarian.

"And I told you that a high dosage was the only way to get over his tolerance and get him to actually talk to us again. Looks like we were both right," the woman countered to which the man only shook his head. Then took another look at their prisoner and stared down the interrogator. "He's going into shock. We've got to get him to the medics right now."

"Agreed. Get them in here," the brown-haired woman declared before moving over and holding up Balak's head. There was foam dripping from his mouth. "Alright you batarian bastard. I need you to focus one last time. Can you do that?" Balak only gave a mumbled reply that Nihlus couldn't make out through the recording. "You said that you didn't know who was guiding Amon. Then you started talking about a ship. Why? Where's the connection?"

"That's when, that's when, that's when" he seemed to be stuck at first but the prisoner got out his words, "-that's when it all started. He was chained from the first moment he ever laid eyes on the wreckage."

"Right in here!" the male voice declared off screen before the woman let go of Balak and looked at the camera. "End of interrogation, 15:21," she stated. Then she looked at the man and added something too quiet for the medics to hear but still within earshot of the recording device she was wearing. "I think he was talking about the Leviathan of Dis."

"Shit. So does this mean that Amon is-"

"Not in here," she cut him off. With that the recording cut out and Nihlus leaned forward to look at the holographic human at the other end of his office.

"I take it those beacons are what you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes. That and the worrying indications Balak made about Chairman Amon's state of mind. I don't think I have to tell you what I think."

"He's indoctrinated and the idea for those beacons of his came from the Reapers."

"Exactly," the Cerberus director nodded. "If I were to guess, they likely worked together with the device Arterius built on Virmire."

"I thought you never figured out what that did before STG blew it up."

"We didn't. But we had some theories based on what was observed during the battle."

"I know. I read about them," Nihlus said before tapping on the surface of one of the countless tablets that filled his office. "Which one's the winner?"

"Since Balak straight up called them beacons, I'm afraid that our leading guess was right all along. The devices are signal flares meant to guide the reapers to our galaxy now that their traditional way through the Citadel got blocked off. And given what Balak said about the people who built them, I think it's safe to assume that they're also meant to soften up their approach vector and give them an army for the war by indoctrinating anyone who gets close to them."

"That's a nasty back-up plan," Nihlus figured. "How do we stop it?" He had an idea of his own of course, but he'd hear the human out first. He had already heard that Director Harper had a 'talent' to solve this kind of situation without indiscriminate orbital bombardment.

"Destroying them is obviously our end goal. The least it'll do is delay the arrival of the Reaper fleets and cut down the number of troops they'll have for the initial invasion," the director began. "But before we can do so, we need to locate their actual destinations," Harper added. "To do that, we start by gather intelligence from the Terminus. The batarians might've locked out the Council, but they still welcome anyone who hates us just as much as they do. Once we know what we're looking for, we'll use our stealth frigates and the long way around the Traverse to smuggle strike teams across the batarian border. Once they're there, they'll launch synchronized raids against the beacons and shut them off all at once. From there on out, the reapers should be flying blind and, if we're really lucky, be forced to figure out another way to get to us."

"Assuming that we're right and they really are as far out in dark space as we think they are," Nihlus said before his mandibles clicked. The idea that the reapers were nowhere near their galaxy yet was based on turian reconnaissance, yes. But said reconnaissance only consisted of three sources, thousands of recon probes, long-range telescopes that had been surveying dark space for the last two years and the outposts the Hierarchy had built at their portion of the galactic edge. While that was the same general direction as the Batarian Hegemony, the galactic south east, they still couldn't be sure that they were looking at the right part of space. There was just too much space for that to ever be a certainty.

"Yes. Assuming that," Harper confirmed. "I already contacted some acquaintances of mine. STG and TNI will help us and the HSA is also putting together its part of the effort as we're speaking."

"Which only leaves the question as to where you want my SLD in this. I know that you didn't just call in to let me know what you're doing. I talked to General Arterius and he said that Cerberus never makes curtesy calls."

"TNI hasn't gotten in touch with you yet?" Harper asked in return.

"No. It would seem that you somehow managed to outrun the famously fast turian bureaucracy," he shrugged in return.

"Very well then. Allow me to explain," Harper nodded. "I need your people to provide a base of operations and render assistance to the Council task force that'll help locate these beacons. You not only have the staff and the resources needed to do so, you also have the most secure base of operations in the entire galaxy."

"You're expecting interference?" Nihlus asked in return. If there was the chance of a hostile incursion, he'd have to make some calls. While he did have autonomy, there were limits to what he could sign off on. Installation 237 was located in the literal heart of the Turian Hierarchy, the turian home system Trebia. While there were a hundred groups who'd love nothing more than to test if it really was as unconquerable as the Hierarchy claimed it to be, Nihlus couldn't just paint another target on it without Palaven clearing him to do so.

"Given how crucial the success of this operation is to our survival and how many uniquely talented people will be working on it, security is a major concern. I couldn't think of a place to house them that's safer than Menae."

"I see," Nihlus nodded. The director's reasoning made sense and while the question 'what about the Citadel' was lingering on his tongue, he knew exactly that Sovereign's attack had proven just how false the sense of security the inhabitants of the station and the galaxy had was. "If TNI hasn't done so, I'll take this up the chain of command and get back to you with an answer as soon as I can."

"Given how pressing this matter is, I don't think I have to tell you that I would appreciate a timely response."

"No. You don't, Director. I'll get to it right away and flag it as very urgent," the turian promised.

"Thank you, General," the human said in return. Then his hologram vanished, leaving Nihlus alone with his pile of tablets. After looking at them for a second, he freed up his terminal and typed a message to Palaven Command. Then he sighed.

He might've been a soldier with little to no understanding of what they'd do to locate these beacons but if he was to host the task force, he needed to learn what they'd do. So instead of clocking out for the day and going to sleep like he had intended to before Harper's call, Nihlus went back to reading reports and theories and to watching a crazed batarian slaver high on truth serum ramble about the 'outsiders' that had whispered to the leader of his people and were solely responsible for the poor state the Hegemony was in right now. If not for the seriousness of it all and the implication that a lot of batarian higher-ups and an untold number of their population had already been indoctrinated, these clips might've even been a somewhat entertaining form of political satire. But as things were, they just painted a horrible picture of what would happen upon the Reapers' arrival.


Meanwhile, 2158 CE, 'Cyrene', Main Settlement Krugerton

Cyrene was, or rather had been, a newly founded agri-cultural colony. As such its main settlement was situated right next to a great river delta in the most fertile portion of the planet's second largest continent. In accordance to its purpose of producing food, acres and fields extended into every direction from the town of Krugerton. While most of the red, white and grey prefab houses had served as homes for the now disappeared settlers, there were several large steel domes that stood out in comparison to the modest prefab houses. These domes housed the swarm of agri-drones that did most of the actual manual labor on Cyrene. To maximize their efficiency, these drones came in different designs, ranging from small flying ones that had until recently hovered over the crops to spray pesticides and control growth to large harvesters that had plowed over the wide fields to collect the produce. While the smaller ones were hard to make out from the distance and height of the tower that controlled them, they were only small green spots that dotted the yellow crop fields, the magnification of the binoculars allowed Desolas to make out even the tiniest details on the sole 'witnesses' of the most recent and, as of now, single largest Collector raid. On any other given day, these machines were completely unremarkable. Mass produced, 'dumb' tools commanded from a distance by operators sitting in the needle-shaped signal and controlling tower he too was occupying right now. But today they might just provide some answers based on one curious design choice. Individual cameras and memory cards for every model of every size.

The Collectors might've been thorough in the past but somehow Desolas doubted that they had gone through the trouble of wiping every last one of those cards or destroying ever last one of the drones that carried them. There simply hadn't been enough time for them to do that and still vanish before the turian patrol flotilla had arrived. After he finished inspecting the last drone, a large tank-sized harvester that had been flipped on its side by the arrival of the same ship that had turned most of the field to its left into a ash-black scorch mark, Desolas lowered the binoculars.

"One hundred sixty-two in sector five," he said. Then he handed the binoculars to Lieutenant Callius, who silently continued with the task of counting just how many drones they'd have to collect the memory cards of. Sure, standing in the tower was incredibly monotonous, but it certainly beat the job of Veltax, Galviat and the other turian soldiers were completing right now. Since no one had been around to give the drones the command to return to their charging stations and recharge the batteries after their human operators had been kidnapped, the soldiers had to march through the fields to get to them and individually remove every card, which depending on the model of the drone could be a rather tedious, time consuming task. While them being turians meant that they did so without the hint of a complaint, Desolas was sure that at least some of his men were hating him right now, if only because he was doing all of this on the faint hopes that just one drone had caught something useful on its cameras.

"Veltax. Status report," Desolas spoke into his radio.

"Still only finding fried cards, Sir. My guess is the chip triggered some kind of EMP when it entered the atmosphere."

"Understood. Keep looking, maybe we'll get lucky."

"Yes, Sir."

"Galviat, Status report," he said next.

"Same thing on my end, Sir. No luck yet," he responded after an unusual delay that prompted Desolas to glance at the map on his HUD.

"You didn't fall asleep down there, did you, Sergeant?" he asked after realizing that the soldier had stopped moving.

"No, Sir," the member of his honor guard responded. "Forget my last transmission. I've got something you might want to see for yourself. Interface with my helmet cam."

"Copy that," Desolas said. He pressed the necessary buttons on his gauntlet and a few seconds later, the image of what Galviat was looking at popped up in front of his eyes. At first it looked just like another one of the sprayer drones, the small quadro-copters that made up the majority of the drone fleet. But as he followed to where Galviat's probing rod was pointing, Desolas narrowed his eyes. There, lying next to the blood-stained blades of the quadro-copter was what looked like a large, green-brown insect with four legs, no eyes and a large incision in its torso that had to be caused by a collision with the drone.

"I'm not sure, Sir, but that thing doesn't look like its native to Cyrene," the sergeant observed before poking the rod at the flyer to make sure that it was dead. When it produced no reaction, he did so again and again until Desolas intervened.

"Cut that out and stay where you are, Sergeant," he was right. It most definitely wasn't native to Cyrene. The briefing had been clear on one thing, there was no airborne fauna on Cyrene. Evolution on this planet had never discovered flight. It was why the agricultural drones could move through the sky without supervision. "I'll get a containment team over there to secure it." If it wasn't human and wasn't native to Cyrene, that only left one feasible explanation.

The Collectors had brought it with them.

"Copy that, Sir," Galviat responded before taking a few steps back and waving for the soldiers around him to do the same.

It wasn't a memory card with a detailed recording of what had happened. But it certainly was more than they or their human allies had found before.


16. March 2417 AD, Cronos Station

After being brought up to speed, Emily had contacted her family. And while she would've loved to pack her things and head home to see her mom for the first time in two years and make up for the missed time, what the director had told her about the Collectors had made it quite clear that wasting time on her personal life wasn't an option. Entire colonies were going missing and no one knew how to stop it. So, after catching a night of sleep and getting the all-clear from the medical staff, she had left the Lazarus Project wing and the scientists there behind her, collected the gear Cerberus had set aside for her and informed Harper that she was ready to see her new ship and get started with her new mission. After telling that he had already expected her to be eager to start, he had given his permission and just like that, they had ended up here.

She waved her hand over the locking pad of the large, circular door and after a second of beeping, it flashed green and hissed, slowly coming apart to reveal a massive hangar bay that was occupied by a lone frigate. While its color had been changed, the predominantly green paintjob had been replaced by a blend of grey, black and yellow, there was no doubt about what vessel this frigate had been designed after and even if there were, the nametag removed it.

'Normandy SR-2'.

"She's a beauty, isn't she?" a voice to her left commented. Although one usually tended to forget how people sounded after years of not seeing them, it hadn't been years for Emily since she had last heard this one. It had just been little more than a day.

"Joker," she said after turning her head and seeing the old helmsman. "It's good to see you again," she added with a smile that was prompted by nothing other than her being happy to have yet another familiar face around.

For a second the pilot cracked a smile of his own but then his face, which now sported a beard that definitely clashed with naval regulations, lost all of its joy and turned into a frown that made it look like he had aged ten years instead of two. "I'm so sorry, Commander," he muttered before leaning against the railing. For a second she looked at Kai, who could only shrug. So he didn't know what was going on either.

"For what?" she asked, somewhat unsure what the pilot was talking about.

"For getting you killed," he explained.

"Joker, you didn't get me killed."

"You remember what happened, don't you?"

"Yes." It wasn't exactly picture-clear yet but after sleeping on it the memories of what had happened prior to the explosion had come back.

"Then you know that all of this happened because I got cocky and ignored your evacuation order," Joker sighed before pulling of his hat and looking at the new Normandy and the personal that was currently boarding it. "I just couldn't accept losing my ship and that cost you two years of your life."

"No, Joker," Emily retorted before putting a hand on the pilot's shoulder. "The Collectors cost me two years of my life. And you don't have to be sorry for it because it looks like you'll help me get back at them," she paused for a second and watched the pilot to tell if what she had said had any effect. It was surprisingly hard to do so. "Or am I wrong?" she added a few moments later, unsure if she had misinterpreted his presence here. Maybe he had just been a design advisor?

"Hell no," Joker said while shaking his head. "If you're going on an impossible suicide mission, the least I can do is make sure you get there in one piece. Besides, if I fly us through the Omega-4 Relay and actually make it back, I really am the best helmsman in history."

"They did tell you that we're not actually going through the relay, right?" the red-haired N7 repeated with a smile when Joker's old, cocky attitude showed a life sign. "We're just supposed to figure out how the Collectors do it."

"Just like we were just supposed to pick up that beacon on Eden Prime?" the helmsman countered with a smile. "Face it, Commander. We both know missions tend to go from hard to suicidal as soon as you enter the picture."

"That's not true-"

"Come on, Em," Kai, who had silently observed up to now, injected. "No point in denying reality. You're a magnet for things turning fubar."

"I'm not."

"You definitely are. Just remember how things turned out on Baloris IV and Camelot. Or how operations New Moon and Gladius ended," the asian N7 listed. "Don't you think it's weird that all of my toughest ops happened when you were there?"

"Well. Maybe. But it's been years since then."

"If they're too far in the past for you, you could just look at any mission we ran on the Normandy back in the day," Joker added before turning to Kai. "They all sounded easy. Go there and pick up x, fly to here and meet with y. Little to no resistance expected," Joker mumbled "That's the descriptions I got. But as soon as Shepard stepped off the ramp, a rogue Spectre entered the picture, geth started to chase us and we pissed off a genocidal squid-bot. Sound familiar?"

"Well. Our enemies weren't robots but other than that, yeah. That's pretty much what happened to me too," Kai said with a shrug. Then they turned to look at her.

"Fine. Point taken," she admitted when she realized that the two had now allied themselves against her. "Maybe I do cause things to get a bit more complicated by just being there."

"Good. Now that that's settled," Joker began before pulling on his hat and straightening it. Then he looked at the Normandy's airlock and began to walk towards it surprisingly fast. If she had to guess, he was eager to fly. As was she. So Shepard and Leng followed her. "I think it's about time we go on and start this damn suicide mission. I'm tired of sitting around and letting the Collectors run amok. Let's go kick their ass."

She whole heartily agreed.


Meanwhile, 16. March 2417 AD, Terminus Systems, Independent Colony Talarila

The door to the tavern pulled opened and just as it did, a gust of wind hit the entrance, carrying sand and dust inside. As the other guests complained, a man stepped inside, tucked at the scarf that covered his face and nodded to his contact, a quarrian woman. While more and more humans had started to settle down on this planet in the last few years, fleeing from the HSA much like he had, the alien recognized him instantly, likely because of the bag he was carrying and because of the services he had offered to her in the past two months.

"Another one?" she remarked while he took another step forward and allowed the door to close behind him.

"Another one," the drifter responded before dropping the bag on the table and pulling out the flashlight head of his most recent kill. Unlike other geth, which usually came in shades of white, grey and purple, this one was jet black and looked more 'expressive' than the regular combat platform he had seen in the past. Unlike the others, it didn't have rigid armor installed around its head but had more moveable pieces, like a mockery of mimic features.

"That's how many this month?"

"Seven," the human responded from memory.

"Shit. Seven," the quarian paused before leaning backwards and looking at her companion, another member of her species. Unlike her normal environmental suit, he wore a heavier set of red combat armor. "You think they're looking for the Fleet?" she whispered.

"Can't think of another reason why they'd be on Talarila," the companion replied before getting up and sitting down next to the quarrian. "Everyone knows that our traders come here regularly. What's to keep the geth from trying to exploit that?"

"Right," she muttered with the same funny accent all quarians had before turning to look at him through the light-purple faceplate of her environmental suit. "These drones you've destroyed, they were all traveling alone, right?"

"Mhm," he nodded.

"And they were all just wandering through the desert?"

He nodded again.

"To do what?"

"How the hell should I know?" he shrugged before his omni-tool vibrated. He pulled away the part of the cloak that was covering his worn HSAMC gauntlet, made a gesture with his hand and produced the holographic display. As expected, it was the payment the quarians gave him for every geth he delivered. Good. Another month secured.

"You tracked that thing for days. You must've seen something that could tell us what they're doing," the armored quarrian responded.

"You're paying me to destroy 'em, not to make sense of 'em. If you want me to play detective, I suggest you pay extra," he countered before deciding that he'd keep the fact that these drones had actually tried and talk to him before he shot them to himself. "Or just go out there and track the bastards yourself," he added with a smirk, knowing full and well that the quarians weren't going to risk that.

"Pay extra?" the quarrian said while getting up and pointing his finger at the drifter. His only response to the gesture was to fold his arms. "We're already paying you a small fortune as it is. The least we can expect you to do is cooperate." He couldn't help but smirk. There it was, the greed of the desperate people that had been strangely absent for the entirety of their business relationship.

"Stand down, Lieutenant Reegar," the female quarrian said before looking at him. "How much would it cost for you to gather data on the next geth you find?"

"Double," he responded almost immediately. If he was supposed to gather data, he'd have to take a higher risk. While he had no problem with that, he wasn't going to do it unless it paid right.

While he could see how the red-armored quarrian tensed up, the female one simply nodded.

"If you manage to collect data that tells us what these drones have been sent to do, you have my word that the Fleet will pay you double."

"I don't need your word. I want half of the fee right now."

Before the quarrian female could say something, the armored one leaned in and whispered something. This time he didn't understand. "You'll get a third of your pay right now. The rest will be wired to your account when you've delivered the information," she said a moment later.

The drifter briefly considered the offer. He never got advanced payments, he was far too low on the food chain of bounty hunters for that to happen, and a third of the double of his fee was a lot of credits.

"Deal," he said quickly before looking at the bar. He'd at least get a refreshment before setting out on tracking his next kill. As the quarians got up, he jokingly called after the pair, if only because he found it so entertaining how easy one of them was. "Yo, hermano. Care to add a beer to my advanced payment?"

While it didn't get a response from the female quarrian, the red-armored one turned around. "Buy your own fucking drinks, Vega."

Fair enough.

Since the quarrian wasn't going to help him quench his thirst, James got up and did it himself. As soon as he had the cold drink in his hands, he took a sip. After spending two days in a desert, the cold liquid might as well have been heaven-sent. After he had taken three more and gotten rid of his dry mouth, he noticed that another human had joined him at the bar. He was an older man with greying hair. Just like Vega, he was wearing a cloak a to shield his armor from getting sandblasted by Talarila's semi-regular sandstorms, but it didn't look nearly as worn. From that James concluded that he was a new arrival.

"Are you working for the quarians because you like them or because they're paying your bills?" he asked as he tapped on the bar to get a drink of his own.

"They're good money," Vega shrugged.

"They're also aliens," the other countered before glancing at him. "Listen. I couldn't help but notice your armor. Your former military, aren't you?"

"Mhm."

"When did you get out?"

"About a year ago."

"And what did you do before that?"

"Marines. 212th Infantry Battalion," he said.

"Eden Prime?" the man asked. He didn't have to say anything else.

"Yeah," Vega confirmed.

"Shit. That was a tough one," the new arrival sighed.

"Yeah," the former marine confirmed. "What about you?"

"Naval aviation. I flew a Trident during the Blitz" the man muttered.

"You get some batarians?" he had never liked those guys and they, alongside his uncle, had been the very reason he had signed up as a marine.

"A couple," the man said before taking a sip from his own beer. "So," he went on, somewhat drawing out the word. "Are you a dishonorable discharge or a deserter?" As he caught Vega's surprised look he chuckled. "Come on, no one lives this deep in the Terminus unless they really fucked up back in the HSA."

"I just had enough of their shit, alright?" Vega responded before taking another sip to distract from the fact that his left hand was slowly traveling to his back-up pistol. He had heard of hitmen who hunted down anyone who dared to speak up against the system the way he had done on the extranet. While 'naval aviation' didn't exactly scream contract killer, the man's comment had made him suspicious.

"I get that," the new arrival replied before glancing at his hand. He knew but somehow he didn't change his behavior in response. Maybe not a hitman after all? "No place to see the HSA's real face quite like the military."

"Damn right," Vega nodded cautiously. "I told you my story. You gonna leave me alone now?"

"Yep," the man responded. Then he reached for something with his right hand. In an instant Vega drew his gun and leveled it at his head. He wasn't going to take any chances. "Relax," the new arrival said before producing a credit chit and a set of electronic dog tags with a white heptagon stamped on their metallic frame. An Iffy? Shit just got interesting. "If you're done wasting your time playing fetch for the quarians and wanna go back to fighting what you signed up for before the HSA fucked you over, be at the dock I wrote on the credit shit by 0900 tomorrow. That's when we take off."

"We?"

"You and some likeminded individuals I found on Talarila."

"To do what? Liberate the Fringe Worlds?" Vega spat before taking the credit chit but leaving the dog tags on the table. Funnily enough, the man didn't seem to care about that. "Get the fuck out of here. I'm not joining your terror cell."

The man laughed at that. "If you really think that that's what we are, you didn't have enough of the HSA's shit after all," then he tapped the counter again and pointed at the chit in Vega's hands. "If you still think humanity's future is worth fighting for, you'll be there at 0900 tomorrow. If not, stay on this dump and keep kissing quarian boots for a bit of their spare change. Your call, marine."

"Yeah. Whatever," he said before shaking his head and emptying his beer. Then he ordered. And then another. After the fifth one, he started to ponder on what he used to believe and what had made him leave. The battle, the enormous geth dreadnought, the utter disregard the HSA had shown for the bodies of fallen comrades and the countless civilians that had died under their watch. The experiments he had seen done on the bodies by those weird black-ops fuckers that had appeared out of nowhere before the dust had even settled. Those thoughts pushed him to move on to harder drinks and discard the cheap alien beer.

Then, one hangover and fifteen hours later, he found himself boarding a human corvette alongside a dozen or so former HSA soldiers.


17. March 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy SR-2

After leaving Cronos Station, the Normandy had embarked on a journey to leave HSA space and hit the latest site of their war with the Collectors, there just wasn't another way to describe this conflict other than 'war' and meet with their turian allies, who as she had been informed were being lead by someone she was somewhat familiar with, General Desolas Arterius. Although she had at first wondered just what it would feel like to stare in the face of the brother of the Spectre she had killed, Emily had quickly found a distraction. Meeting the crew, which she was happy to find out also included Doctor Chakwas, and reading the dossiers of the people Harper had picked out for this mission and catching up on what her team members had been up to according to Cerberus.

Liara, just like she had been told, was working for a Council task force, dealing with a 'classified' situation. Even after basically dying, the N7 still hated that word.

Garrus, contrary to what he had told her two years, had left the turian military and his posting at C-SEC after his mandatory service had ended and headed for the Terminus in the wake of her 'death'. From what HSAIS had been able to pierce together, he was now a member of the Blue Suns, for whom he ran an op on Omega, going by the alias of 'Archangel' and had somehow managed to piss of every gang member, merc and street criminal Omega had to offer.

Unlike the turian detective, Wrex had stuck to what he had told her. The krogan bounty hunter had returned to Tuchanka and by the looks of it, taken control of Clan Urdnot and started something akin to a unification movement on the world. It hadn't gone unnoticed by the Council. Given his apparent success at bringing together the rivaling factions of the krogan home world and forming a loose coalition between them, STG had flagged him as 'troublesome' but chosen to only observe for the time being.

Then there was Kaidan. Or rather there wasn't. Since the last memory of him that she had was that of him nearly dying on Virmire, she had opened his dossier first only to find that all Cerberus had put into it was that 'Captain' Alenko was 'on assignment' and that his review was pending. While it didn't satisfy her, it at least meant that he was alive and evidently been promoted.

After she had finished with the members of her team, Emily had looked at some of the 'new' recruits Harper had picked out. Some of them had stood out.

First there was Jennifer Nader, or 'Jack' as she usually went by. She was a biotic Grissom Academy graduate who had first seen action on Eden Prime as an ensign in an all-biotic unit. Ever since then, she had apparently been put on the fast-track, making it to First Lieutenant in less than half of the time that was usually required to do so, despite there being some notes about 'past disciplinary problems'. While that made Emily somewhat skeptical on whether she wanted someone like Nader on her team, the fact that her Grissom file described her as 'the most powerful human biotic currently known to the HSA', weighed in too. Stopping the Collectors was the kind of job where you wanted someone like the 'most powerful human biotic currently known to the HSA' on your side.

Then there was Doctor Mordin Solus, an omni-disciplinary scientist who was also a former STG operative. While he wasn't listed as 'combat staff', he was the only person that had a 'crucial' tag next to his name. From what the dossier had told Emily, Harper believed that Doctor Solus' unique background made him vital to finding a way to stop the collectors and given what little she had seen of STG back on Virmire, she could see just what Harper meant with 'unique' background. The guy was smart as hell and probably more dangerous than just about anyone she had ever met and as if that wasn't enough, he also appeared to be on Omega right now, which made it all the more tempting to start with him. That way she could pick up Garrus and him at the same time.

Besides the lieutenant and the doctor, there was also the drell assassin that Cerberus had suggested. His file, much like Kaidan's, was empty besides a few details. They knew that he existed, they knew that he was operating on Illium, they knew that there were few people who could match his skill level and they knew that his last name was 'Krios'. That was it. There wasn't even a picture.

Finally, there was another scientist, a krogan named 'Okeer'. His dossier only contained a location, the planet Korlus, and a note that Okeer, in addition to being able to render aid to their effort to stop the Collectors, also happened to be a wanted war criminal in Council Space and that she was advised to take him into custody after their mission as finished so that he could stand trial. In addition to violating the Council's WMD treaty, the dossier told Shepard that the warlord had tinkered in biological warfare, regularly used nerve gas on his turian foes and on at least one occasion been observed while experimenting on salarian prisoners in an attempt to produce a genophage-like weapon, which had promptly earned him a 'kill-on-sight' notice from STG. To summarize it, he was an all-around monster and whoever had written these dossiers really hadn't done a good job on selling her on wanting the guy's help instead of just doing the galaxy a favour and putting a bullet in him before he could continue with his twisted version of science.

After she had finished with Okeer, there had been a bad taste in her mouth. So the N7 had put down the dossiers for now. She wasn't eager to see who else might be hiding on that lists. Instead she had gone on to check on the project the two navy R&D technicians had come aboard to install, which was also the reason why she was now standing in a small room behind the medical bay.

"Alright. That should do it. Power her up," the man said in a thick Scottish accent. She hadn't caught his name.

"Powering up," the blonde woman confirmed. A second later the large computer started to glow blue. "Good morning, EDI," she said.

"Hello Ms. Wigmore," a synthetic voice replied. Then Emily felt a faint blue glow brush over her. "Hello Commander Shepard," the voice spoke. "I am EDI, the enhanced virtual intelligence of the Normandy. I will serve you on this mission in an advisory capacity."

She spent a second to think about it.

Enhanced virtual intelligence?

She looked at the woman. Then it slipped of your tongue.

"Is that an AI?"


Codex: The Blue Suns

The 'Blue Suns' is the name of an organization that could be described as all of the following: a mercenary outfit with a morale code that filled the power vacuum of Eclipse, a paramilitary vigilante organization that rose in response to the increased activity of Slaver Bands between 2388 AD and 2410 AD, a band of disillusioned former military and law enforcement personal and, since 2415 AD, a militarized political movement shaping up to be the most militarized Terminus proto-state since the beginning of the Krogan Rebellions.

While predominantly made up of humans and turians members, the ranks of the Blue Suns have since swollen to include hundreds, if not thousands, of batarian, salarian and asari members in recent years. In addition to fielding a well-trained and well-equipped ground force, the Blue Suns also maintain a navy that has since eclipsed the numbers and strength of the mercenary outfit that they replaced as the sovereign of military force within the Terminus Systems, Eclipse. Here it should be noted that reports of several agencies confirm that the Blue Suns are the only NGO that maintains a dreadnought-sized vessel, the repurposed. How they managed to procure and subsequently repair and refit the wreckage of the destroyed HSASV Broad Peak remains a mystery.

While originally founded as a paramilitary organization, the 'liberation' of several planets, including Zorya, in 2415 AD have put the Blue Suns into a position where they had to establish a governmental structure. Although the inner workings are unknown, while not hostile the Blue Suns have been reluctant to open up to the Council, outside observation of the provisional governments of Zorya and the other planets suggest that their form of government mirrors that of a military junta, with the high-ranking members of their centralized command also having been granted the power of governance. According to a statement filed by their public works division, this is only a 'temporary' solution to 'transition' Zorya and the other 'liberated' planets into a civilian government under the protection of the Blue Suns.

It should be noted that ever since their attacks in 2415 AD and the subsequent control over a number of planets, no progress has been regarding this transition.

While their history is well known, their supporters aren't. As confirmed by a single glance at their equipment, the Blue Suns rely almost exclusively on surplus HSA and Hierarchy equipment. However no independent or Council investigation has even been able (or willing according to some) to prove that the paramilitary organization received governmental backing to allow them to fight their proxy-war against the Hegemony-sponsored Slaver Bands. Instead their discoveries hinted at the independent actions of several high-ranking Hahne-Kedar officials, who have since stepped down and retired from their positions.


A/N:

So yeah. I did it again. I dicked around way too long and took six weeks to update.

Go me.

But as you can see, I eventually overcame the dicking around part and finished this chapter...

...after taking a long as time to decide how ME2 will actually play out.

And this is the result! Another set-up chapter, as usual. I won't say much, it's run of the mill stuff and we had it several times by now. Characters talk, future plot threads are set into motion and the Codex feeds you with information on stuff that'll be in the narrative focus (as i said, the Blue Suns are going to play a major role in this season).

So, to summarize what did we do this chapter?

Shepard woke up, got her collector assignment, caught up on the last two years and on her team members (who can guess what's up with Kaidan?) got a glimps at some of the new squad mates (yes. I made Jack the absolute opposite of what she was in canon and I'm not taking it back. I never got why you'd want a convicted murderer on your team, I sure as hell wouldn't trust her to watch my back) and a glimps at the kind of people she might have to recruit along the way (Okeer's a real asshole and basically krogan Mengele, you got that right?)

Nihlus and SLD got their role in the Arrival plotline (which will obviously mean that Liara is going to be in the same narrative portion as him, saving me from having to jump between two plot threads)

Desolas is set up to join Shepard once more (as it was last season, meaning that the two of them will share the same narrative again and also meaning that they too won't have to jump between two plot threads)

The IFS plot for this season kicked of (with a cameo of a certain quarian and the apperance of SV's James Vega and yes, as you might be able to guess from this trend, the IFS and Tali/the Migrant Fleet (which are also outcasts...hmmm) are also going to somewhat share a plot thread to save me from jumping around regarding)

And then we end on a very soft cliffhanger (I mean she's obviously not going to lose her shit over EDI.)

Yup.

That's about it.

So. Who's left before things really pick off?

We'll see that next time when the Collector War narrative starts its first real segment!

Until then, you'll be left to guess. (Although I think ones fairly obvious. I mean we've got three human protagonists for a reason.)

For the record we're at 618 reviews, 971 favorites and 1,071 follows.

Also, since its been nearly three years since the first chapter of SV, I'd just again like to express my gratitude to all of you who've joined me as I write this journey across my take on Mass Effect's lore. It's been an amazing ride and I wouldn't have had any reason to continue the story for this long if it weren't for the fact that it got so incredibly popular. Here's to another three.
See you around next time.