Chapter 86. Messages


Fifteen Minutes Later, 2158 CE, New Canton, Collector Ship

With a grunt, Desolas pulled himself through the hatch he'd just forced open and looked down at the ceiling of the ship. He wasn't exactly sure what room he standing in right now but as a glance upward to the floor of the room confirmed, it looked like they'd reached something important. Right above his head was an uneven spiral made of brownish-green metal that weaved around a yellow glowing crystal, which seemed to make the air around it hum. It pulsed in a weak rhythm that made some of the other uneven structures that surrounded it respond with humming of their own and while it was a strange comparison to draw given the fact that everything around him had been meticulously crafted to look organic while definitely not being organic, he couldn't shake the thought.

The rhythm of the crystal reminded Desolas of a heartbeat.

Due to the dust that lay in air, the immediate surroundings of the crystal also glinted with small yellow dots and while Desolas couldn't explain it, he felt drawn to the object. It was magnetic, as if something about it was pulling on him and begging for him to come closer.

And that made him weary.

While it wasn't like other Reaper artifacts they'd found before, which had always led to a profound uneasiness and an icy shiver through his spine, the electric tingling he felt as he looked at the crystal still caused him to tread even more carefully from here on out. Something about this was off. It felt as wrong as walking into what you knew to be an ambush. Still, he couldn't just turn back, no matter how uneasy he felt. They needed to find out what made this ship so special and only a few things would cause him to abandon that task.

Uneasiness wasn't among them.

He looked at the crystal and noticed the dozens of small cracks in its surface. That in turn led him to realise that what glinted in the air wasn't dust from the ship, but tiny pieces of the crystal still floating around it, held in the air by the same pull he was feeling. For all intents and purposes, it looked like the crystal was bleeding. While that wasn't exactly reassuring, it certainly helped to know that there was an actual physical explanation for the draw he felt. That meant that it wasn't in his head.

He heard another grunt behind him and saw Veltax climb through the hatch. He dusted off his hands, reached down and pulled up Galviat, who'd been right behind him. Then the turians turned towards what Desolas was looking at. "Is this their bridge?" Veltax wondered.

"I have no idea," Desolas responded in turn before looking around and picking up on the lack of molten Collectors. "Notice anything strange?"

"There's no goo," the hastatim figured immediately before drawing a conclusion. "Does that mean that there was no crew in here?" They'd found remnants of dead Collectors in the other rooms along the way. This was the first part of the ship that looked untouched.

"Maybe they flew into the light," Galviat stated before Desolas turned to face him just in time to see Alenko and Bau climb up behind them. "What?" the sniper asked in between a rather loud hum that further worsened the bad feeling Desolas was having.

Something in here wasn't right.

"The hatch was sealed when we got here. I don't think anyone left," Desolas pointed out before looking at the other devices in the room and noticing that a pattern of bumps in the floor above them all ran towards the central crystal. He squinted. Was it just the crystal fragments in the air or were they also starting to have the hint of a yellow glow to them?

No. As the light shone brighter, he became certain that it wasn't the fragments. Something was flowing through the ship and it bore a resemblance to the liquid he'd seen underneath the skin of the human colonist.

"Maybe they just sealed the bridge behind themselves?" the sniper figured with a shrug. "I mean it'd make sense, right? Deny us entrance and all."

"What's the point of sealing the bridge if they're going to kill themselves?" Veltax retorted as Bau and Alenko climbed up through the hatch.

"Maybe to buy the self-destruct more time?" Galviat shrugged.

"What self-destruct?"

"The one we're not hearing tick down right now because this entire place is a trap?" he said before looking at the crystal. "Tell me that doesn't look worrying to you."

"It does, but I don't think that's whats happening," Desolas said before suddenly noticing that Alenko, who had just walked over to them, had grown stiff. "Captain? Are you alright?" he asked before a noticeable pulse in the form of a wave of yellow light surged through the room and engulfed the human Spectre.

In one moment, he was standing on his feet and looked paralyzed.

In the next, Bau had to catch him to keep him from falling down the ceiling hatch he'd just climbed in through.

"What just happened?" Veltax was the first to ask, his eyes already searching for the human's medkit.

"Unknown," the salarian Spectre retorted before removing Alenko's helmet. "Appears unconscious though."

"I can see that much," Veltax retorted before running his omni-tool over Alenko. Meanwhile Desolas was still watching the crystal above them. It seemed as if the glowing was dying down.

"You wouldn't happen to have been running an environmental scanner, would you, Spectre Bau?" the general asked while the hastatim ran his own omni-tool over Alenko's body, thin orange threads dancing over his face and torso.

"STG armor always runs environmental scanner," that was the answer he'd been hoping for.

"And?"

"One moment," Bau said before pressing a button on his wrist and producing his omni-tool. "Brief spike of radioactive energy signature detected right as wave hit us. Noticeable. But not close to lethal. Doesn't explain what occurred to-"

Suddenly Alenko's eyes shot wide open, he set up and pulled in a breath of air.

Luckily they weren't glowing.

Desolas would really hate to go through that twice in one hour.

Alenko looked around himself in a moment of disorientation but then seemed to be struck by a realization. He took a calming breath and then looked at the humming crystal and the twisted metal that surrounded its shattered exterior. Then he muttered a single sentence that, if true, had enough explosive force to destroy three millennia's worth of accepted galactic history.

"I think that's a beacon."

Bau was the first to speak up, albeit with just one word.

"What?"

Alenko jumped to his feet and pointed at the crystal, which Desolas noticed was starting to crumble and crack.

That wasn't a good sign, was it?

"That thing's a damn prothean beacon!" he declared. "It's just like on Eden Prime."

"What are you talking about? The thing looks nothing like the one on Eden Prime," Galviat injected.

"But it feels like it," Alenko countered. "Before Shepard got hit, the beacon zeroed in on me. What just happened felt exactly like what the beacon did back then."

"How certain?" the salarian questioned before taking a cautious step away from the crystal. "Could just as well be source of sonic attack from earlier."

"A hundred percent," he said instantly. "You don't exactly forget the feeling of something trying to imprint its memories into your own head."

"Let's say it is a beacon. What would it be doing here of all places?" Veltax wondered just before the first audible snap caused Desolas and everyone else to flinch. It clearly came from the crystal, but there was nothing they could do about it right now. If it was a self-destruct like Galviat had suggested, they were dead already, even if they started running right now.

"Beats me," Alenko stated before rubbing the side of his head. "Damn that hurt," he went on before another snap cracked through the room. This one was much more high-pitched than the other one before it and stung similarly to the sonic attack from earlier. Desolas ignored the shiver in his spine and the thought of Galviat being right.

"Did it show you something?" he wondered while trying his radio in an attempt to have someone listen to their conversation. If they'd blow up in the next few seconds, people needed to hear what was going on. But unfortunately for that effort, he wasn't getting through. They really could've used the signal booster right now.

"I think so," the biotic said after a few seconds of silently looking at the cracking crystal. "It's-" he began, only to be interrupted by a loud splitting noise. It sounded like the entire room was breaking apart and then the crystal above them shattered into a million tiny pieces in one final, blinding wave of yellow light. For a second, he thought that Galviat was right and that this really was a self-destruct. He bit down his teeth at the though of dying in such an undignified way but then realized that he was very much alive, even after the blinding wave passed. Dust rained down on them and before anyone could even address that the 'beacon' had just exploded or what message it had imprinted on Alenko, there was a new issue.

"Bleeding," Bau said just after the explosion, causing everyone to look at him.

"You're bleeding?" Galviat repeated, assuming that the salarian had been injured.

He hadn't.

"No. Him." Bau corrected before pointing at Alenko.

From there on out, it happened pretty quickly.

Desolas was about to say that the human looked fine to him but then he spotted the steady stream of blood flowing down from Alenko's nose. The human felt the warmth on his skin, brought his hand up to his nose and wiped the red blood away with his hand. He looked at his stained gauntlets while the flow continued and then towards Bau. There was a hint of confusion on his face. Next he fell backwards again and appeared to have a very strong seizure.

"Crap. Hold him down," Veltax instructed and so, despite outranking the hastatim, Desolas complied with the order. As did Galviat and Bau.

He didn't need to have combat medic training to make the next call, but it certainly helped to have it. It allowed him to recognize just what kind of injury the biotic might have sustained. And if he was right, then they had little time left. A damaged biotic amp could kill someone very quickly, after all.

He sprang into action to confirm his suspicion.

"Check his amp," he suggested.

In one swoop, the hastatim turned Alenko and looked at where his biotic implant should be. The skin looked fine, no signs of a bleeding. A scan confirmed what he'd observed. The implant seemed to be fine. The soldier looked at him.

"Not the problem," he concluded before his scanner moved on to the top of Alenko's head. "But this is. We need to get him out of here right now. If he doesn't get into a field hospital, we'll lose him."

"What's wrong?" Desolas asked.

"You read the report on what happened to Shepard after Eden Prime, right SIr?"

"I did," Desolas nodded before helping Veltax unfold the stretcher he carried.

"Then picture that," he responded before he, Bau and Galviat helped the hastatim lift the human on the stretcher. "Only this time it's ten times worse and caused internal bleeding."

He threw a glance at where the crystal had been while Veltax fastened the straps of the stretchers o they could transport Alenko.

As far as evidence went, that detail made a solid case for the crystal really having been a beacon, albeit a heavily warped one.

Maybe the Reapers didn't just twist people but also technology?

If so, that could only mean one thing for this ship and the Collectors on it.

"The Parnack's medbay is filled with the best medical tech in the Hierarchy. It's his best chance," Veltax pointed out while Desolas went further along his current train of thought.

"Understood, I'll try and reach them as we go," Galviat nodded. Before the stretcher waslifted up.

While Desolas' eyes narrowed at the conclusion he'd just drawn, Bau said his thoughts out loud.

"Prothean beacon on Collector ship," he began before walking to the hatch they'd come from. Luckily the stretchers Blackwatch carried were also modified for mountain warfare so the climb wouldn't be an issue. With a couple of cables, they could quickly lower Alenko alongside themselves and be outside in less than five minutes. That was the nice part about climbing ropes. The way down was always way quicker than the way up. "Worrying implications," the salarian concluded.

He nodded and felt his mandibles tighten against the side of his face while preparing the necessary cable constructions.

"It'd explain why we never found any prothean remains outside of Ilos. There were none left. After the last cycle, the Reapers picked up the pieces of the war and stuffed them full of implants," he said before placing a spike against the ground, which drilled itself deep into the metal with a hydraulic hiss. Then he pulled one of the reinforced cables through its opening and handed it to Veltax.

"Turning Protheans into Collectors," the salarian stated while watching Desolas' team go through a mountain casualty recovery that they'd only ever trained before. Still, it worked perfectly.

"Right," Desolas nodded while placing another spike and another cable. "We'll have to take samples of the molten bodies and compare them with the ones from Ilos to confirm it. But if that thing really was a beacon, I think it's safe to say that this ship and most of the Collectors on it used to be protheans. I just don't see another explanation."

"Don't seem very concerned," Bau observed. "Might have just found answer to what will occur in case of defeat. Expected you to be more worried about this. Horrified even."

Desolas looked at him.

"Why would I be horrified? This is a fantastic discovery," he said.

"Interesting interpretation of fantastic," Bau observed in a rare occasion of salarian irony. "Just discovered what Reapers might do to us. At least figured you would be surprised."

"I've known what'd they'll do to us for nearly thirty years," Desolas stated before preparing himself to rope down. "This isn't a surprise, not for me at least," after a final check of the security straps, he helped lower Alenko through the hatch. "The people in power have been asking me for the real stakes of this war for decades. Now I've finally got an answer other than 'we'll die'. Therefore," he began before following Veltax and joining him at the other side of the stretcher. Then he looked up at Bau and finished his sentence, "I consider this fantastic news," he narrowed his eyes behind his visor. "Despite everything we know, the galaxy's been trying to pretend that we won this war two years ago when we stopped Sovereign. That the Reapers were defeated. And whenever I tried to proof the opposite, people waved it off as paranoia or grief caused by losing my brother," Desolas explained while realizing that the salarian was right. The prospect of sharing the prothean's fate should've horrified him. But it did not. And there was a good reason for it, one that didn't suggest that he should go through an unscheduled psychological examination. "Today we proved them wrong. The Reapers are coming, and they'll give us the fight of our lifetime."

"Sound excited now," the salarian stated as he hooked in his own climbing cable and followed them down the hatch.

"Because I am," Desolas retorted. "Knowing that your enemy is coming for you is the first step of defeating them."

"Still believe you can defeat them conventionally?"

"They're powerful. More powerful than anyone we ever fought," the general said with a shrug while helping lower the stretcher. "The way they talk about themselves makes them seem invincible. Like they don't adhere to the same rules as us. Like they can't be killed, no matter what we do."

"Yet you still show confidence. Why?"

"Because I have yet to find an enemy who didn't pretend being invincible. The strongest armies, the most gifted generals, the mightiest empires. They all think they'll be eternally undefeated," Desolas replied. "But history proved them all wrong eventually. No one goes undefeated forever. It's just a matter of time before you meet your match and find yourself on the wrong end of the spear. Sovereign already found that out and the Harbinger will be no different. One day, he'll be on his knees and staring down his killing blow," he steadily kept lowering Alenko's stretcher. "I look forward to being the one who delivers it."

"Realise that same logic applies to you, correct?" the Spectre retorted from above him.

"Of course," Desolas nodded. "But there's a fine difference between me and the Harbinger. He thinks he'll live through this fight. I've accepted that most of us, including me, won't. Unlike the Harbinger, I'm not living under the illusion that it'll take anything less than all our lives to win this war. And unlike the Harbinger, I'm ready to make that sacrifice for the sake of victory."

"Is it still victory if no one survives?"

An involuntary smirk flashed across Desolas face.

Only a non-turian would ask a turian that kind of question.

"Even if this war ends with just one soldier holding on to their legion's flag and breathing their dying breath before falling on the ruins of Palaven itself, it'll still be a victory as long as the Reapers are dead as well. Considering what they intend to do, it doesn't matter if we survive. It only matters that they don't."

"What if they do?"

He looked up at Bau just as his feet touched the ground and the preparations for the next descend began.

"I'll make sure they won't."


Seven Hours Later, 2. April 2417 AD, HSASV Normandy, CO Quarters

Shepard looked up at the pair of trees and recognized them as the ones who'd grown in the garden of her family home.

What the hell were they doing on the Normandy-

She caught herself.

She'd gone to sleep.

Therefore, this was a dream.

For a second that served as a logical explanation.

Then it dawned on her.

If this was a dream, why was she aware of it being one? She wasn't a lucid dreamer, never had been. Come to think of it, she didn't even remember having dreamt anything ever since waking up on Cronos Station's Lazarus section.

So what was going on?

She looked around herself and noticed that her environment seemed blurry and out of focus. Like she couldn't quite remember her own garden. Furthermore she got the impression that something about the place was off, like it was someone's attempt at recreating one of her memories and not actually one of her memories. The birds were chirping but their pitch was off and the rushing of the wind was there, but it was far too strong for a place like Benning.

This was a poor imitation.

An illusion.

She tried to wake herself up from whatever this was but stopped when she picked up on a whisper behind her. On instinct, she spun around. She'd expected to find a lot of things. None of them had been pink, talking mist.

"The insidious tone approaches," the shapeless mist whispered with a voice that was in equal parts familiar and stranger. In one moment, it had a ring of Alenko's voice to it, but also Williams'. Then it flanged turian or shifted to a krogan growl. Finally it seemed to settle on a blend of Liara's and her own voices. "From our new home, we can hear the songs of their choir," what the- was this who she though it was? "It leaks with their sour note and forebodes their oily shadows-"

She reached out with her hand.

"You're the rachni queen, aren't you?" she interrupted the mist before touching it. Suddenly she found herself feeling the spikey carapace of the insect, who looked back at her with eight, eerily glowing blue eyes. The spikes drew blood and she retracted her hand, but there was no pain.

This was one hell of a strange dream, she'd give her brain that much.

"Why not show up like this?" she asked after the creature materialized.

"We did not wish to alarm you. Our shape and our songs are too alien to most. More so when we do not sing through one of your fallen," she spoke in a pitch that reminded Shepard of Williams.

"Talking mist isn't a whole lot better than speaking corpses," Shepard retorted. "Either way. How are you even talking to me right now? Didn't I send you to the end of the galaxy?"

"With great strain and great pain our song can reach all those who have heard it before, even without a messenger. Every time we sing this loud, a piece of us dies, so reserve this instrument for only the bleakest of times," the rachni queen said in a sad tune reminiscent of Alenko before hanging her head. It hadn't stood out to her on Noveria, but even in her insect form the creature seemed to have strangely humanoid mannerisms. "After you set us free, we left the low spaces and journeyed far away from the cold ones. We hatched our brood and sang our tune into the void, hoping to find others of our kin. But we failed. We realise now that there were none left. The loud and large who sing in crimson silenced them all in their slaughter," the large insect took a few steps away from Shepard and only then did the N7 notice that its feet had a sickly yellow texture to them. She looked at the palm of her hand and the bloody impression of the spikes. Suddenly the injury did hurt, which made her doubt that this was a dream.

Things didn't hurt in dreams.

"But others heard our song. Vile and colorless beings with no song of their own, shackled to the will of the silent one. We fought them. We silenced them. But more are coming and there will be no escape for us," the queen went on as her voice shifted into that of Garrus. "Our tune has reached its end. But yours may yet be saved. Heed our warning. We have sensed the oily shapes that shadow over the vile ones. We have sensed the insidious tune that betrays the will of the silent one. The time of his coming is nigh, and his choir follows his every tune. Those shackled to his power will bring our silence."

"Not if you tell me where you are," Shepard interrupted. She hadn't saved the rachni only to have them die all over again. "We can help you. I helped you once, I can do it again."

"You mustn't!" the queen suddenly roared, sounding strangely like Wrex in the process. "If you seek us out, you will lose yourself to their sour note. You will be lost to their symphony," she went on quietly, now turning her voice into Liara's. "Heed our warning song. Listen to our notes. In the time before we found our rhythm, those who sang to us through touch fought the blackness and nearly bested the silent one and his choir. With the knowledge of those who only echoed in our time, they began to craft an instrument of immense power, one that could overshadow their sour note and end the sickly rhythm they force upon this world. But their instrument lacked its core and they were silenced before they could play it," the body of the rachni queen started to fade until only its eyes remained. Then, in Shepard's own voice, she gave her passing words. "Find the instrument which those who only echoed in our time and those who sang to us through touch sought to construct and play it. Overshadow their sour tune. Stop the silent one. Stop their rhythm."

Since the wording was the same as it had been on Noveria, there was no doubt in her mind that the queen was talking about the Reapers.

"How do I find it? And who are these echoes?" She knew who the touch singers were, or rather she assumed that it was the protheans. But the other ones? She didn't have a clue.

"You must find the harmony. It holds the answers you seek."

Suddenly and before she could remember who or what the harmony was, a loud, fog-horn like noise she immediately associated with Sovereign threw Shepard out of her sleep. She was back in the real world of her dimmed quarters now and as quickly as the dream had appeared, its details seemed to fade. She knew that it was something important, but the only thing that stayed with her was the sweat running down her face and her ragged breathing. It was exactly like the bad dreams she'd had after Elysium, the ones filled with dying comrades and burning batarian soldiers, only this time around, she wasn't so sure that it had just been a nightmare or something far worse.

She looked at her hand.

Nothing.

No blood and no pain.

Wait.

Why would there be blood and pain?

She shook her head.

Come to think of it, what had she just dreamed of?

She remembered that it was weird and obviously uncomfortable, but the only thing that seemed to have stuck around was the need to look at her hand.

She wiped the sweat of her brow, laid back down and stared at the ceiling.

There was an immediate explanation in her head for what had just occurred.

Project Lazarus.

Cerberus had made no secret of the kind of damage her body had suffered and what they'd done to fix it. This wouldn't be the first effects of the procedure that she'd felt, just the first ones that weren't muscle ache or unusually fast exhaustion during things she'd breezed through before nearly dying. She'd talk to Chakwas in the morning and see if this was related to the fact that she was kind of a dead woman walking and got ready to go back to sleep.

But then the alarm clock she'd set to remind her of the imminent Tuchanka briefing went off.

So much for that.

With a groan she rolled off the bed and went to get a shower. She couldn't show up to the briefing covered in sweat, after all.

About halfway to the bathroom, Emily heard the echo of her own footsteps and froze mid-step, remembering something else all of the sudden. It rang through her head like the chorus of a song being played next-door. Quiet, but present.

'Find the harmony.'

She wasn't sure why she was thinking of something the rachni queen had said to her over two years ago, maybe it was because they were on their way to Tuchanka, the planet home to the species that had killed the rachni. But once the thought was stuck in her head, she remembered the situation from back then. And despite her best efforts to not think about it and get on with showering, she lingered on the thought even when the cold water started to pour over her body.

It had been cryptic and the way the rachni spoke had made it hard to follow but from what she remembered, it had two meanings. One that she'd presumably misinterpreted, or at least hoped to have misinterpreted because she'd be damned if anyone ever described her as being 'in harmony' with someone like that particular guy, and the other, which had been a clear warning against the way the Reapers seemed to pick their targets.

Emily cupped some water in her hands and splashed it into her freckled face. While that was rather unnecessary given that she was standing under a shower, it was a habit she'd had for years.

Meanings set aside. Why the hell was she thinking about this again? Was she worried about the choice she'd made back then and being confronted with them? It had been two years and no one but her knew that the rachni were still around. For all intents and purposes, she'd made it look like she'd set off the neutron purge with the queen still inside and she hadn't heard anything about them since then either. So realistically speaking, there was no need to think about this scenario.

So why couldn't she shake the idea? Why were the rachni on her mind again all of the sudden?

The only reasonable explanation she could come up with was stress and frustration. With the news of another human colony being attacked and the order to stay away from the fight, all Emily had done since then was wait for updates from Harper or from General Arterius and neither had given one before she'd dropped into her bed.

It made sense for all of that energy to unload into a bad dream and an episode of self-doubt, right?

She slicked her wet red hair back and turned off both the shower and alongside it, shut down the troublesome line of thoughts flowing into her brain.

There was more important things to worry about right now than the meaning of the words of someone who spoke in musical terms.

In about a day, she'd meet Wrex again.

She had to get ready for that.


Two Hours Later, 2. April 2417 AD, Cronos Station

One week.

That's how Yo-yo been stuck looking over the pair of engineers who'd been tasked with working on the geth that had been found on Freedom's Progress, one of the recently attacked human colonies.

The reason she was here was as simple as it had turned out to be pointless; security concerns. She was supposed to make sure that the two didn't do anything to the geth that could endanger them or Cronos Station and, in the event that they did, make sure that nothing happened to them or to Cronos Station. By day two of this little operation, the specialist had realized that she lacked at least three of the necessary doctorates to even begin to understand what the two were doing, let alone be capable of judging if it posed a risk to them or to Cronos Station. Therefore, after determining that they were probably smart enough to stay safe, Yo-yo had spent her working hours leaned back in a chair and being amused by their at times odd behavior or more recently, reading over their notes on the project. Even if she only understood about a fifth of what they'd documented up to now, which ranged from the basic make-up of these geth drones all the way to their unique communication gear, she had to admit one thing.

It was actually way less boring than she'd expected it to be when she'd started out.

As Yo-yo went over the latest talking point of the two engineers, namely the fact that these particular geth drones seemed to have 'expressive' and moveable facial plates designed to mimic quarian expressions as best as they could, she only paid half a mind to what the two of them were doing inside the highly secured HSAIS lab they'd moved in. Like she'd said, they seemed responsible enough to be left to their own devices. Despite their antics, the reason the HSA had handpicked them was always shining through.

They were smart as hell.

"Okay. I think it's time we plug one of them in," she heard Robin Wigmore mutter, prompting the brunette specialist to lower the tablet and look at where the engineer and her companion Aiden Ardrey were standing. Since she was leaned back so far that her boots and the camo of her uniform pants were still in her line of sight, the specialist did something she hadn't seen herself do during this assignment. She actually got up from the chair before the work for the day was done. The two engineers were standing next to one of the few geth still stored inside the circular security container and not lying disassembled on one of the many tables inside the large security lab. As HSAIS had demanded, that geth pod was standing the 'expendable' section of the lab, the part of the room that could, with the press of a set of buttons, be shot into space.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Robin?" the partner of the blond scientist replied, somewhat reserved.

"We've learned all we can learn from an offline geth. It's time we move on to a live subject. Give me one of those power cores," Robin got up from her chair and walked over quickly all the while the blonde urged her fellow engineer to hurry up on the procurement of one of the cores. "Come on now, Aiden. No need to be scared," she reached out for the blue tube, but Yo-yo intercepted it with her own hands and took a few steps away from the two eager geniuses. Then she hid the core behind her back.

"Okay, before we do that, maybe let me repeat Aiden's question again," she said while looking at the blonde. "Are you sure plugging in one of them is a good idea?"

"Yep," Robin nodded briefly.

"What if it gets out?" the specialist inquired.

"It's a secured container. It won't get out," she said with a shrug. "And even if it does, isn't there a whole squad of kitted-out Direct-Action badasses waiting around the corner just for that case?"

"I was thinking less about the container and more about the network. If that thing accesses Cronos Station's network, it could do all kinds of damage. I mean, it's a geth."

"Oh. I see. Yes. That concern makes a bit more sense," Robin replied before padding her tablet. "But fear not. We thought of that as well. This entire lab has been isolated from the rest of the station and the terminal I want to plug our tin-friend into runs on a secured and cut-off network. So even if I'm completely wrong and every safety measure I put in place fails, the worst it could do is ruin a computer."

"A very expensive and painstakingly crafted computer that I personally put together you mean," Ardrey injected with a clearly visible frown.

"Your pet-project will be fine, Aiden. Just trust me, alright?"

The man with the short, curly hair paused for a moment and then threw his hands into the air.

"Okay. Alright. Fine. Let's just do it."

Well.

As far as reassuring reactions go, that one ranked poorly.

Still, Robin extended her hands towards Yo-yo in expectation.

"Now. Can I please have the power core?"

Her assessment stood. The two of them knew what they were doing. So she'd trust them.

"You promise you won't break Cronos Station?" Yo-yo asked for a final time.

"I promise I won't break Cronos Station. Or get all of us spaced. Or usher in an AI overlord," the other woman said in return.

"I didn't say anything about getting spaced or any AI overlords," the brunette pointed out before slowly dropping the blue tube into the blonde's waiting hands.

"But you were thinking it," she countered while pointing the power unit at the specialist. Then she flipped the tube into the air once as if it didn't contain some kind of energy source and walked to the black cylindrical security container. Once there, she asked Ardrey to open it. With a hiss of air, the hatch of the pod slid open and revealed the geth. Its arms and legs had been bolted down with large metal rods and its torso had been cut open so that the power core the engineer was holding could be retracted. In addition, someone had gone through the trouble of placing a bed of small plastic explosives behind the geth, just in case it decided to wake up after all.

If she was honest with herself, the sight was kind of disturbing and not unlike something out of the worst rumors of what batarian slavers did to people they captured. Even if the thing inside the container was just a machine, its vaguely quarian body shape made it easy to picture something sentient be in its position instead. And if that were the case, the container in front of her could best be described as a torture device dreamt up by the devil himself.

But luckily for Yo-yo's conscience, and the integrity of the human engineers who had specifically modified these pods to transport the geth, it was a robotic killing machine without a sense of pain or individuality, not an actual person.

So the HSA's moral supremacy over their batarian foes remained intact.

With a forceful push, the blonde engineer shoved the power core inside the geth's chest slot and took a step back. The device began to glow more intense and she walked over to the prepared terminal just as the headlight of the geth started to glint.

She had said that she trusted them and she'd obviously meant it. But by instinct alone, her hand traveled to the grip of the mass accelerator pistol she carried with her.

"How's it looking Aiden?" Robin asked. While she had manned the terminal, her lab partner was keeping tabs on the geth platform and monitoring it.

"The drone's powering up its systems. It's pretty slow though. Like not everything's getting through from the core. I think whoever cracked this one open might've damaged something," the Scottish man mumbled.

"Maybe they clipped a power cord or something?"

"You'd have to clip pretty hard to do something like that to a geth. Resilient bastards that they are."

"To be fair, it doesn't look like the transport department was very cautious with these guys," Robin retorted before the terminal suddenly beeped. "Hold up. No. It's working!" she declared with excitement. "Forget I said anything."

"Wait. It is?" Ardrey said with confusion before looking at the terminal. "How? The platform's losing power-" then he smacked his hand against his face. "Damn it. Guess I can kiss my rig good-bye."

"Care to enlighten the non-genius in the room?" Yo-yo asked.

"The programs switched platforms," the engineer frowned before typing on his tablet. "They detected the same power leakage I found and determined that their current host is inferior to the one its connected to. So they jumped ship and went straight to the terminal," then he looked at Robin. "Which is what you wanted all along, isn't it?" the woman didn't reply, she was already indulged in her work. "Oh bloody hell. Why didn't you just say so, Robin?"

"Because you wouldn't have said yes if I told you that it'd cost your pet project," she replied before looking up and smiling an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that. We'll fix it later, promise."

He put down the tablet and folded his arms behind his head.

"You'll be the death of me one day," he muttered while walking over to the terminal. "Please tell me that it's at least doing what you wanted it to do."

"It is. It's working," the woman replied while her eyes darted from left to right rapidly. Yo-yo could tell that she was reading something. "It's working really good," she repeated. The specialist threw one final look at the bolted-down geth and determined that it wasn't going to go anywhere. Then she looked at the odd pair of engineers.

"What do you got over there?"

"Geth chatting with each other," Ardrey said quickly before leaning forward and getting closer to the terminal. "Can you run that through a translator?"

"Sure," Robin shrugged. "Khelish?"

"Yes. Numbers to words, please."

"Obviously."

The woman made a few gestured with her hands and then typed on the terminal again. After a few more seconds, both engineers went wide-eyed.

"What's going on?" the specialist asked quickly. "Something wrong?"

"No, no, quite the contrary," Robin replied. "That was just surprisingly easy."

"What was surprisingly easy?"

"Translating what the geth are talking about. It wasn't even encrypted or gibberish. Like they want us to be able to read along," the blonde engineer said.

"Read along what?"

"Have a look for yourself," Ardrey invited. Yo-yo joined them and read over the text.

"Nazara are within," she said out loud. Then she noticed that it was just the beginning of a chain of repeating messages. "The servants of Nazara are within," she looked at them. "Nazara is what Sovereign called itself," she could say that because the two of them had received full security clearance for the Reapers. After all, it was hard to separate them and the geth from each other ever since Eden Prime.

"But what's the rest supposed to mean?" Ardrey asked. "And why are they just repeating that line to themselves over and over again? I though geth only ever needed one go to process and remember something forever."

"Maybe they're broken?" Robin figured. "I mean how long was this platform standing around on Freedom's Progress? A couple of months without power, freezing temperatures and platform damage are more than enough time for geth programs to go a bit haywire. They were designed to work on Rannoch with regular maintenance, not decay on an ice-cube."

"I thought geth were self-maintaining," Yo-yo said out loud.

"Only on a day-by-day basis," Ardrey explained. "They're still machines and like all machines, they need a proper fixing now and again," he looked at the screen again. "The servants of Nazara are within," he read. "Can you write that out in English and run it through a proper Kehlish translator?"

"Yeah. Sure," the blonde scientist nodded. A few seconds later, the wavy flow of quarian writing appeared on the screen.

"May I?," the man asked. He looked at the terminal.

"You built it. Knock yourself out."

He pressed a few keys and then brought up a writing that looked nearly identical to the one their translator had, then he smiled.

"That's what I thought. The pronunciation of our translator is different from the one the geth are using, so the meaning is altered. If we put their message through our translators, there's no subtone to it. It's just a statement. If we look at the original geth one, there is a subtone," he pointed at a little difference in the wavy writing, a small curve that extended from an elongated line with a few bumps in it. "Here it's a threat. The servants of Nazara are within."

"Uhm. Okay," Robin replied. "Can you explain that for those of us who don't speak quarian?"

Yo-yo looked at Ardrey.

"Hold up. You speak quarian?" she asked. That seemed like an odd language to learn. She got that exchange officers learned palavani or that some diplomats dabbled with the mainstream asari and volus languages.

But quarian?

Why would anyone learn quarian?

"It's Khelish. And yes. I speak it a little. I'm better at reading though," he said before rubbing his neck.

"How'd you end up learning a language like that?"

"I picked it up back on Arcadia. Since the quarians pretty much wrote the book on advanced synthetic life, it made sense to learn their language. You'll hardly find any translations of their works these days. The Council destroyed a lot of it to keep people from building new geth, so the only sources you can get it from are the quarians themselves. And since they don't need any translations, it was either adapt and learn or bomb on my second doctoral due to a lack of sources," Ardrey explained. "So I adapted."

"And casually learned Khelish within a year where others take ten," Robin added before nudging him with her elbow. "You really should mention that part more often. It's the most impressive bit of the whole story."

"More like the weirdest one. I'd rather not give people another reason to think I'm a weirdo, thank you very much," the engineer muttered while his shoulders slumped forward ever so slightly. She could tell that there was a story there, one that likely involved the stereotypical and ageless torments of being a kid genius. But she wasn't looking to push for it. That was hardly her place after knowing the guy for seven days.

So instead she opted for some much needed positivity.

"Nothing weird about being smart as hell. Robin's right. That is freaking impressive, Aiden," Yo-yo commented with a smile. For a second it seemed like Ardrey was surprised to hear this from anyone other than Robin, which was strange given that the specialist assumed that the people he usually worked with would be more appreciative of someone smart. But then again, she could hardly speak for the inner social workings of the navy's research department or the other people who'd been around the engineer. As the case of Doctor Archer confirmed, even the science department had jerks among their ranks. "So what about the rest? Are there any other errors?"

He smiled back for a second and then looked at the screen again. "If we put that little pronunciation error aside, the translator got the meaning right. It really does just say that the servants of Nazara are within over and over again. There's no mistake there."

"So now all we have to do is figure out what that means," Robin figured before she glanced at the other pods in the lab section. "I think we need to take a look at all of them," then she glanced at Yo-yo, "without breaking Cronos Station, obviously."

"Obviously."


Meanwhile, 2. April 2417 AD, Bekenstein, Outside of Private Property 'Island Fortuna'

After their flight had landed on Bekenstein, Morneau had picked up his gear at the dead drop site and then made his way to the part of the planet that housed rich guys like Donovan Hock. There he'd met up with his unwanted companion again. The brief split-up had occurred for the obvious reason that Okuda couldn't just walk around Bekenstein as freely as Morneau. Although the HSA considered him dead, there was a decent chance that some of the public surveillance on Bekenstein hadn't been updated to the latest databases yet and would mark him as a positive upon recognition, which would lead to someone actually taking a look at the hit and determine that Keiji Okuda was very much alive and walking around in bright daylight. After the two had met up again, the undercover specialist and the AWOL agent had begun with the stakeout of their shared objective, Hock's private island. That had made one thing abundantly clear in Morneau's mind: anyone who had ever said that crime didn't pay obviously hadn't been to this place.

In addition to being situated in one of Bekenstein's tropical archipelagos and thus always having fantastic weather, Hock's home shared a number of things with the stereotypical 'filthy rich house' normal people would describe. It was a colorful five-story tall, abstractly designed mansion with a private beach large enough to land an Everest-Class dreadnought on and an enormous garden that contained three playing fields, four swimming pools and what looked like a private runway for a sport plane.

Why someone who lived at the beach needed a pool? Or rather four pools?

He didn't have the hint of a clue and he likely never would unless he also became a gunrunner.

Despite its impressive size, Hock's residence still had several weaknesses though.

Up to now they had come up with three possible ways of infiltrating the mansion. One relied on a design flaw that was directly related to Hock's need to also have a private cove harbor in addition to his private beach and private runway. From what they'd be able to gather, all they'd have to do was wait for someone to take a speedboat out for a joyride, go for a little dive and then they'd be inside.

The second method they, or in this case Okuda, had come up with, was a lot less situational and if Morneau was honest with himself, something he probably wouldn't be able to do for the simple reason that he was build a more firmly and a lot less freakishly flexible than the former Section 4 operative seemed to be. Okuda had pointed out a series of vents that were connected to the roof of the mansion. They were narrow, but the thief was confident that he could squeeze in, sneak his way through the mansion and then open the doors for him. Since that plan obviously relied on Morneau trusting Okuda to not sell him out on the first chance he'd get, the specialist had vetoed it pretty much instantly.

It had also helped that those vents had turned out to be smoke chutes filled with toxic gases from Hock's very own powerplant, obviously, but as far as Morneau was concerned, his strong 'no' had been the deciding factor in the debate.

With those methods out of the way, they had eventually settled for their third option, which ironically brought them back to something out of the dossier Morneau had drawn together, which Okuda had previously dismissed and nearly thrown overboard due to sounding 'painfully by-the-book' and having a 'very bland and pretty boring narrative structure' with grammar and spelling mistakes not unlike something 'a twelve year old idiot would've written to get out of detention'.

While he hadn't let it show, he had taken offense at that last part.

But precisely because of Okuda's unkind words, Morneau would lie if he'd say that it hadn't been satisfying to watch Okuda double back on those remarks when their other plans had fluked and then actually study the dossier to understand what the specialist was planning, even if it was a rather simple concept.

Morneau had found out during his research that Hock held semi-regular parties for his business partners. These consisted mostly of the heads of private security companies, big shots of the arms industry and 'independent' businessmen and other guests of honor, who totally weren't Terminus gunrunners or warlords. All in all, they were a diverse crowd and Hock didn't even know a quarter of them by name, let alone face. He also didn't seem to keep a tight book over who he invited. As long as they earned their living through selling weapons, being involved in illegal activities or partaking in merc warfare, they were welcome. Luckily for them, such a party was coming up in two days. While security would be tight, he assumed that it was nothing two two highly trained and specialized HSAIS operatives couldn't sneak into with the right preparations.

And since Bekenstein was HSA space and therefore home turf for a Section 13 specialist, there was practically no end to the preparations he could make while being here. The best example for that was the luxurious speedboat he'd requisitioned, which they were now using as their stake-out point.

When they had begun their stakeout two hours ago at the break of dusk, Morneau had been fully set on completing it without exchanging more than the bare necessities of words.

Sadly, Okuda wasn't sharing that sentiment.

Instead he was sharing his life story.

"But then Illium ended up being a bust too, so we left again and went to work for a guy on Taetrus. I'm sure you heard of the place. Lots of swamps, a couple of trees and a whole lot of angry separatists with a thing for monarchies. Not all that different from Ulysses actually, except for the whole monarchy thing, obviously. The Iffies don't dabble with shit like kings, or at least not that I remember. Come to think of it, they'd probably get into a firing squad mood if anyone suggested an imperial system of governance," the thief said before lowering the binocular from his eyes and spitting yet another chewing gum into the ocean. That had been the tenth of the hour. He really wasn't chewing very economically. Okuda waited for Monreau's reply and when it didn't come, he went on. "Either way. We didn't stay long there either though. My love said she hated the idea of me helping some nutjob topple the Hierarchy and you know how it goes in healthy relationships. If the woman says something, you just do it. Makes your life way easier and keeps things going in the bedroom," he paused for a second and the return of the annoying loud chewing noises told Morneau that it had been to retrieve yet another gum.

Definitely not economically.

"After Taetrus we wanted to go to Kosh but then the whole Operation Sentinel thing and that CIP-gig started. I'm sure I don't have to explain to you why we had to cancel that plan spontaneously. The one place worse for someone like me to stay in other than the HSA is obviously a police state sponsored and maintained by the HSA. Nice going there, by the way. Nothing like helping build a good, old-fashioned surveillance state to proof the separatist movement wrong, am I right?" he kind of was, but Morneau obviously wouldn't say that. "So with Kosh ruined, we went to the Terminus. When we got there, we kind of just swung from one job to the other. It was a good time, until the whole mercs shooting at me with rocket launchers incident I told you about during the flight happened. And yeah. That's pretty much all there is to say. Thanks for asking, friend."

Morneau lowered his own binoculars and looked at the older man. Much like him, he was wearing dark clothes and lying prone on the front of the equally dark speedboat. However despite the nearly tropical climate, he wasn't wearing a short-sleeve marine combat shirt, some uniform trousers and combat boots like Morneau. He was wearing a turtleneck, black pants, and polished shoes.

What he'd done to deserve getting stuck on an op with a guy like this?

He didn't have the hint of a clue.

"I didn't ask. You just started talking," the specialist replied dryly after mustering his strange companion. Then he marked down yet another guard exchange he had just observed. That made four in the last two hours. One every thirty minutes. Different guys too. Hock obviously liked keeping his guys fresh and sharp.

"Because you wouldn't," Okuda retorted. "This is by far the most boring stakeout I have ever been on. And considering that I looked at the front of the Arcadian National Treasure for four days straight before breaking in, that's saying a lot. That thing is just a grey block and even it managed to be more entertaining than you."

"Mhm."

"Christ. Are you always this talkative or is it just with me?"

"It's called focusing on the job. Maybe you should try it."

"I've been breaking and entering since before you were born. I think I know a thing or two about focusing on the job."

"You were barely sixteen when I was born. I doubt you were doing anything like this back then," he pointed out from memory.

"And you would doubt wrong," Okuda retorted. "Like all pros, I started early. Had my first successful gig with eight, if you can believe it."

"And like all pros, you went to jail just shy of your eighteenth birthday, right? Remind me, how'd they catch you? Fingerprints, wasn't it?" he said while watching the guard walk across Hock's private beach and eye the cove suspiciously. "Doesn't sound like something that would happen to a pro."

Okuda let out a low chuckle. "Fair enough," he said. "I still consider it a win though. Instead of four years of juvie, getting caught got me the best job I ever had. HSAIS was on me not an hour after I got my sentence. The pardon was already signed before I ever said yes. That's how badly they wanted me for Section 4."

"If it's the best job you ever had, why'd you leave it? And don't give me that 'I knew something bad was coming for Council space' crap you pulled a few years ago. You wouldn't be here, if you were actually that scared of it," Morneau asked and as soon as he did, he wondered why. He'd ignored Okuda for the better part of three hours. Why start conversation now? Maybe the boredom was finally getting to him?

"But I'm afraid I'll have to. I really did leave out of self-preservation, "Okuda said with another shrug.

"Then why come back now?"

"I saw what happened on the Citadel two years ago on live television back on Illium. Running from Council Space won't do it. Not by a longshot. When those things come back, they'll cleave through the galaxy like a knife through butter," he explained. "So I figured my next best shot my love and I have is building ourselves the deepest, most secured, most faraway and most luxurious bunker in the history of bunkers and wait things out there," then he lowered his binoculars. "So that's what we'll do. After I sort this out."

"I get why you'd need the Broker of your back for that plan, but what's the deal with the private thing you need from Hock's vault?" Morneau wondered. "Seems like an unnecessary risk to take if you just want to hide."

"I told you that it has personal meaning, no?"

"You did," Morneau nodded. "But that doesn't explain why someone who's so set on surviving as you would risk his life for sentimental value alone."

Again Okuda chuckled.

"Two things, Specialist who's name I don't know," he held up his hand and showed him two fingers. "One. I'm not risking my life here. Hock's security is at best made up of amateurs and Terminus cutthroats. No class or skill whatsoever. Even you could sneak in there without anyone being any wiser," Okuda lowered one of the fingers and Morneau noticed an audible shift in his voice. He chose to ignore both it and the dig at his sneaking abilities for now though. "Two. It's not just about sentimental value. It's about an act of love. Hock stole something from my beloved, something she held very dear and close to her heart. Before we hide away and wait out your little end-war, I'm going to get it back to her. I promised that and she is the only one I refuse to disappoint. So, until I fulfill that promise, I'm afraid I can't hide away."

"Alright," he replied before deciding to use this as an opportunity to do some recon in his own interest. "Speaking of your beloved. Will she be joining us anytime soon? She was with you on the Citadel, wasn't she?" he asked, both to know if they'd have back up and to figure out if he might have to deal with two people trying to turn on him.

"You really are the least subtle spy I have ever met, you know that, right?" Okuda retorted with a smirk. "She's always with me, that's all I'll say to that. Include that in your little contingency plan however you like," then he lowered his binoculars again and got up to stretch. "So. What about you?"

"What about me?" Morneau replied, still frozen in his position.

"I told you my life's story. What about yours?" Okuda offered before dropping into one of the speedboat seats. "If we go with your plan, we'll be stuck here at least another day, so you might as well start sharing to pass the time," he yawned. "Besides, since you are taking the first shift, I need a good bedtime story. I figure your resume is boring enough to do the trick. Looking at you, you probably grew up somewhere in the core, did some time in the military and then got approached by Section 13 due to 'fitting the pattern'," Okuda reasoned, coming somewhat close to the truth.

"Who said I was taking first shift?" Morneau asked without letting it show that the thief had been kind of right with the broad assessment of his life. "And come to think of it, who said our stakeout was done?"

"I did just now. Seen all I need to see," Okuda replied before kicking back in the seat. "If the party were to start now, I could get in and out in five minutes," he added with a cocky grin.

"I doubt that."

"And again you would be wrong. Like I said, I've been doing this since before you were born," the thief mumbled. "Now go on. Tell me your story, Specialist."

"Nope."

"Come on, it's only fair. Afterall, I shared mine."

"Without me ever asking you to."

"Maybe. Doesn't change the fact that it's your turn now. Don't worry, I won't laugh, no matter how embarrassing it gets."

He remained silent.

"Don't know where to start, do you? Well. I wouldn't either if I hadn't done this before," Okuda laughed a few second later. "Don't worry. I'll help you get going. Since you obviously won't tell me your name, why don't we start with where you're from?"

"No."

"Oh! That place? I heard it's really beautiful this time of the year," Okuda replied sarcastically. "Fine. What about family? Since by your own admission you're not getting all cozy with that partner of yours, I'll assume its because you already have someone. A wife?" he paused for a second. "Or perhaps a husband? Maybe both if that's what you're into? You can tell me if I'm right, I don't judge."

"Okuda," Morneau replied while glancing at the faint blue glow of his watch. It was the only real source of light on the otherwise dark ocean.

"Don't worry about the whole deal with your fake journalist girlfriend. I won't tell anyone about her, if you don't," he ignored that Okuda seemed to know about Wong because he'd already figured that he'd know about her. If his partner had really broken into his apartment, then it made sense she'd seen Wong come and go in the preparation phase.

"I'll wake you up at zero three hundred. That's in exactly three hours on my watch," he let out a sigh. "I suggest you use that time to shut up and sleep instead of unsuccessfully trying to squeeze out my life story."

"You see, that military way of describing times really gives me some Terra Novan vibes," he muttered before audibly shifting in the seat behind him. "So does the little diving eagle on your shirt sleeve, by the way," there was another yawn. "I know this isn't an undercover op right now, but if you don't want people to know things about you, maybe next time pick some gear that doesn't scream where you grew up," the former Section 4 veteran muttered. "Oh and while we are on the subject of Terra Nova, the amp scar on your neck's kind of telling too. Don't know a human biotic in the world who hasn't been to Grissom Academy. If you don't want people seeing that, maybe adopt a tactical turtleneck into your wardrobe as well," he added casually, as if it was very noticeable and not just a faint scar. "G'night, eagle-boy. I'll see you in zero three," then the thief dozed of and left Morneau alone with the silence of the night. When he was sure that Okuda was asleep, he cursed under his breath in response to the surprising demonstration of observation abilities.

He'd repeated the Sixteen fiasco all over again. He'd underestimated Okuda and had been proven wrong in an embarrassing fashion.

The guy was a sleezy thief, yes.

But he was also a Section 4 operative who shared a lot of the training a Section 13 agent went through, minus the extensive combat drills towards the end where the training courses split apart.

Yet he'd underestimated Okuda just like he'd underestimated Sixteen just because Okuda had told him his silly life story, which had probably been riddled with lies anyways.

So much for being back at a hundred and ten percent.

It was about time that he kicked the Shadow Broker into his whatever-looking face and ended this entire undercover crap for good.

Not being himself most of the time was making him lose his edge.


Codex: Krogan Invasion of Oma Ker (708 CE – 708 CE)

Following their asteroid attack on Oma Ker, the krogan began their invasion of what they believed to be the turian home world and although the initial shock of a city being wiped out by what the turian administration believed to be a natural catastrophe allowed the invasion force to establish beachheads over the entire planet, the krogan learned that this would be a different kind of war as soon as they attacked the first major settlement on Oma Ker.

This set off the Battle of Khask Tari, the first and shortest major battle between turian and krogan forces for the rest of the Rebellions.

Although the fierce salarian resistance had prepared the krogan troops for brutal urban warfare, nothing could have prepared them for the reality of fighting within a turian settlement against a turian opponent, particularly one as fierce as the Oma Ker. After centuries of preparing themselves for a hostile incursion similar to this one, the active turian military wasn't what broke the initial krogan attack.

It was the turian settlers, who, like all able-bodied turians of their age, were hardened veterans with fifteen years of military experience.

In what can only be described as the most surprising and embarrassing defeat of a krogan military force in krogan military history, the first wave of soldiers broke against the outskirts of Khask Tari like a small tide broke against an immovable mountain.

LIke most turian cities established after the Unification Wars, Khask Tari had been constructed with the thought of urban warfare in mind. Buildings served as bunkers and the streets were lined with murder holes, hidden gun emplacements and raiseable barriers, which could all be deployed within the hour of an invasion being noticed. While the streets were locked down, highways turned into gunship runways and stadiums into artillery bases. The populace dug in for what they believed to be the last fight of their life to buy time, meanwhile the conventional legions stationed on Oma Ker rallied to throw themselves at the bridgeheads to buy more time for reinforcements to show up.

As reports would later show, during the hours leading up to the attack, the Oma Ker Command estimated a casualty rate of as high as eighty percent and considered it a highly desperate, but necessary measure. This believe was rooted in the Oma Ker applying turian invasion tactics to a krogan invasion force. Until the first field reports reached them, the turian military leaders worked under the assumption that what had landed on Oma Ker was simply the vanguard of a much larger force, believed to be capable of annihilating at least the entirety of the Colonial Cluster's defense forces. This was what turian doctrine demanded to be the case before any planetary invasion could commence and as such, it was what the believed to be up against.

As history would show, this was more than simply a misguided believe.

The krogan that had invaded Oma Ker were all that would ever set foot into turian space. Their warlord hadn't requested reinforcements, and by the time he recognized that he should have done so, the battle was already decided.

This simple mistake in the turian's expectation for the krogan invasion led to the estimations of the Oma Ker Command not simply being subverted, but in retrospective seeming ridiculous and giving birth to the mythos of the invincibility of the turian military and the unbreaking resolve of the turian people.

The unprepared first wave of krogan was slaughtered before ever penetrating beyond the first layer of Khask Tari defenses and the heavily mechanized conventional military, which had been instructed to work under the idea that they were going up against a technologically superior foe and as such had shelled the beachheads with unusually large amounts of artillery guns and close air support in preparation for the attack, overran bridgehead after bridgehead.

Eyewitness reports would later describe the scene as the purest and most exaggerated demonstration of lighting warfare in the history of the galaxy. At times, Oma Ker forces reportedly advanced faster than their own command could keep up with, leading to entire mechanized divisions 'vanishing' off the map or being mistaken for casualties of a failed beachhead attack, when in reality they had already left to attack the next one.

This initial chaos would later trigger the development of the turian Battlenet command system as it exists today.

While the krogan ground forces were decimated, the krogan invasion fleet, still in the believe that Oma Ker was the sole turian planet, was taken by surprise when another turian fleet from a nearby naval rally point arrived in the system to reinforce Oma Ker's token defense fleet.

All in all, the battle of Khask Tari, and by large the battle for Oma Ker lasted an entirety of three days before the turian commanders reported the battle won and the krogan invasion force routed.

While many military historians look back on this event as a sign of krogan incompetence, it should be mentioned that the deciding factor in the krogan defeat was not their tactics or strategy or the lack thereof, but simply the lack of the knowledge that ninety-nine out of a hundred adult turian civilians on Oma-Ker were professional soldiers with military grade gear stored in their bedrooms.

Therefore the failed invasion of Oma Ker is more a statement to the potential might of the turian military, should it ever be forced to mobilize its entire populace and engage in a largescale ground war on their own territory, than it is a sign of krogan inaptitude.

Following the violent introduction of the Turian Hierarchy into the conflict, which the rest of the galaxy was made aware of after previously unknown vessels of alien design were spotted establishing outposts and logistics line towards the core of krogan space, Council diplomats were quick to jump at the chance of unifying their own war effort against the krogan with that of the turians. Although the Primarchs were initially weary of seemingly being dragged into a galactic war of attrition and paused their preparations for a counterattack, it was impossible to stop the call for vengeance that went through turian society. By the middle of 708 CE, the first turian military formations would join their new allies and begin the end of the Krogan Rebellions.


A/N:

That's a long codex entry.

What can I say, I kind of lost myself in the flow.

Setting that aside, this chapter obviously doesn't have the kick that the last one did, since it's once more an interloper leading us to the next couple of scenes. We'll get Tuchanka, we'll get Hock's residence and we'll get Haugen's first mission with Liara, which didn't make it into the chapter but we'll also get!

As for what the beacon passed on to Kaidan.

We'll get there too.

Same goes for the message the rachni queen left for Shepard.

I will fully admit that I got the idea of the rachni queen being able to 'tap' into shepard's dreams from 'Avatar of Victory' , a sadly abandoned Avatar TLA - Mass Effect crossover, which up to this day remains the best crossover universe I've ever had the pleasure of discovering.

But I didn't get the idea for the rachni giving Shepard a hint to how the protheans wanted to defeat the reapers ( I think we all know what she was talkinga bout) from that story.

That's something I included because it's what I would've WISHED that the crucible had BEEN. Something mentioned BEFORE ME3 and not a random asspull that's being handed to you in the second mission.

As soon as our characters learn of it, which will happen soonenough, the SV 'crucible' will basically be 'the end goal' of the story. It won't just show up, it's not something that's jsut there. It's what all of our guys will make the run for as soon as they understand what it does.

... I'm pretty sure I just gave away a part of what Alenko might know and what the rachni queen might've talked about.

Other than that, I feel like saying that there's one line in this chapter which kind of gives away a decent and somewhat big twist on one of the story lines, but I also don't feel like telling you which one it is because frankly... where's the fun in that.

Anyone who can guess which line it is and what it implies, you get an internet cookie.

I'd give you a hint. But then it'd be too easy ;)

Other than that and that, I only feel like saying that I had a blast writing Okuda.

He's a fun change from all the serious characters but he's also not an idiot. Kind of a bunny ears lawyer if you will.

For the record we're at 694 reviews, 1,076 favorites and 1,177 follows.

I think that's the smallest growth we've had in a while, but I'm surprised we're still even growing to begin with, so I won't complain. Still, if you feel like you know someone who'd like SV, I now encourage you to recommend it to them. I still kind of want to at least break the frontpage on all time favs and follows before we end, if only so I can say "we got there together".

See you around next time