Alarms sounded and fire raged across the ship. Tali and several Quarrian marines fell back with her into the next area of the ship. They slowly moved back with their weapons roaring into the corridor in front of them. As they moved passed the doorway a door locked and they backed up as marines began to put stuff in the way blocking the way.
"Keep your weapons aimed at that door." Tali said before turning around and walked into the main area.
As she did one of the captains came up to her. "Tali, the Admirals want to talk to you." he said before leading her into another room where four holograms and three higher ranking ship Captains standing in front of them.
"What's she doing here?" one of them asked in a venomous tone.
"Now, now..." one of the Admirals said. "Let's keep this civil."
"CIVIL? AFTER WHAT HER FATHER'S DONE?" yelled the Capitan.
"What? What has may father done?" Tali asked.
Shala sighed as she looked up. "Tali, it's not easy for me to say this. But it seems that your father activated the Geth on the research ship."
"What?! No, he knows the danger that would pose for the fleet." Tali defended.
"I agree." Hal said in an understanding tone. "He activated the Geth with a new program that would put them under our control, however it seems that the program was incomplete or become corrupted. But the evidence is there, he activated them with the best of intentions..."
"But it has lead to our downfall." Zaal said. "The fleet has ordered a mandatory evacuation to a nearby habitual planet. The fleet will be destroyed and take the Reapers and Geth along with it. However the question is, who will take the blame for this?" he asked with his eyes directly looking at Tali.
The memory came flooding back to her as she looked at the computer in front of her. Tali rubbed her the side of her head as she found a chair and sat down.
"Kilah why now?" she asked herself.
She was so lost in thought that she didn't notice of of the troops walk up to her and tap her on the sholder.
"Ahh." she jumped and pointed her pistol at the soldier.
They stood there for a good moment before she lowered her gun. "Sorry, what is it?"
"It's the commander, he wants to talk with you." the soldier said.
OOOOO
John, Wrex, Ashley and Lira sat around the war room table with Miranda, Garrus and Tali appearing as holograms along the table as well.
"Well the plan itself is sound however we need to consider alternate plans in case something fails." Garrus said.
"Agreed." Ash said looking at a hologram of the plan in front of her. "How about we have several ships waiting near the relay in case we need reinforcements."
"Yes, that will allow us to reinforce our numbers if we need them." Garrus said.
"Indeed." Wrex said. "However we need to think about communication. We maybe set up area effect jamming, but we still need to find a way to communicate with each other without the alliance knowing what we are up to."
That sent the group into silence before John spoke up. "We use code talkers."
All eyes turned to him. "What are code talkers?" Liara asked.
"Code talkers where native American soldier's during World war 2, but unlike normal soldiers they used a number of native American languages like Navajo. But instead of talking normally because they feared that the Germans would figure out what they'd say it in a code. So when I'd say squad B take that command post, the code talker would say something along the lines of, Ruby is taking John to the dance."
"That sound like an interesting strategy. But it wouldn't necessarily work due to the translators we have." Garrus pointed out.
"Point but what about the North Koreans?" Ashley asked making eyes turn to her. "Korean maybe it's own language but it's been like what 100 years since they where cut off. Some words would be different from what normal Korean is, people even those from Korea would be confused about the structure of the language."
"Yeah that can work. Are the North Korean's cooperating." Miranda asked.
"From the reports I got, yes. Some of them are still paranoid about their leader still being around and wondering if this is a test for their loyalty. But the majority are cooperating, I'm sure we can get a few of them on board."
"Ok so for all the aliens in the room..." Garrus said. "Please explain on what is so interesting about North Korea."
"Oh right, Miranda care to explain." Ashley said.
"Ok, North Korea is a nation on earth that well was isolated for many years. Even after the formation of the Alliance they remained isolated from the rest of the planet. Korea was once a whole nation before the Japanese took over before World war 2. after the war there was a split between the Soviet union and allies which broke out in war causing a North-South split. The north closed off it's borders to others and became communist and the south joined the west. And it just remained like that, closed off to the rest of the world. Given that, it's more then likely that some parts of their variation of Korean are different that will allow us to speak in code."
"Ah." Tali said. "It's a good idea, but we need to come up with a code system and quickly."
"I'll issue the orders after we're finished." John said before sighing. "Wonder how the Andromeda Initiative is doing.."
Eyes then turned to him then minds remembered the Arks that they sent out. They left of their own free will, safe from the Reapers and Warlords.
"Yeah, from the way we are. They seem be the lucky ones here." Tali said.
"600 years from here to Andromeda, they're still on their way. Hope they make it." Liara said.
"Back to the matter at hand." Ash said. "While Andromeda is interesting we need to focus here. Omega is heavily defended by guards and turrets. I think that we need to divert our efforts to the generators, life support and gravity sections. That way we'll be able to make sure that Omega's efforts are focusing away from John and Aria."
"That's a good idea." Wrex said. "However there will likely still have high soldier presence."
"That should be easy to deal with." Miranda said. "I mean all of us here where selected for our skills. We are essentially the elite of the Empire we can take them on with just three of them."
"True enough." John muttered. "But how are we going to subdue Aria?"
"That's something I've been working on for a while." Miranda said as an image of a collar then showed on the holotable. "This is a basic biotic repression collar. I made a few modifications which will allow for electric shocks to be delivered to her. To keep her in line."
Ash looked at the collar with an odd look. "Looks a little, bland." she said.
"Really? I thought it looks ok."
"Yeah, but looks pretty basic. Why not make turn it into a golden v with a ring at the front." Ash said before typing a few things in and the image changed into a curved choker with a ring at the front.
"Hmmm that… yeah that's better. I can get that ready within a few hours."
"Good, I'll pick it up on the way to the Normandy." Tali then said. "We found a few things that will be useful, but I want them to be a surprise."
"Ok then, the attack will begin in 7 days. That should be enough time. Is everyone in agreement?" John asked with everyone nodding. "Right, everyone dismissed."
OOOOO
The music in afterlife pounded though the speakers as people went about their business. But Aria on the other hand was given a report about Korgan movements. As she looked at it something didn't add up. They where expanding fast but now that just slowed down for some reason.
"The fuck is this all about?" she asked no one in particular.
Her captains stood before her trying not to look at each other.
"This makes no sense, Wrex tried to expand and claim what's rightfully mine then he just slows down? What's going in that dumb beast's mind?"
"My queen." said one of her captains. "We have an idea on why he's doing this. It's possible that he's gearing up for an attack."
Aria looked at him before smiling and then laughing outright. "Oh, you must be joking. Wrex doesn't have the manpower or resources to launch an attack. The Korgan were dying form the genophage before the war. Now, well they are extremely close to being extinct, Wrex wouldn't risk his race becoming extinct. No, it's likely he's running out of fuel, the ships he's using maybe fast but they eat up Eezo fast, weak and old. They need to be repaired more often."
She then stood and turned to face the main lounge. "Send out more ships to claim planets for us."
Her captains saluted before walking off.
"No one would dare oppose me." she said.
OOOOO 3 days later
John looked at the suit in front of him. It was was angular in places and smooth in other places with vents on some points on the armour.
"Ok, cool what is it?" he asked.
"It was called project boost. It's an armour outfitted with mico jets to propels the user when needed. Harder then any known heavy armour and lighter then any known light armour. However it cannot be duplicated, the tech and materials required… we just don't have access too." Tali said. "But as our leader, this is yours. You need it more then any of us."
"Thanks Tali. What about the collar?" he asked.
Tali Handed John a golden metal collar. He looked at it carefully examining it inch by inch.
"Question how does Miranda now how to create these?"
"Oh, she's a closet masochist."
John just looked at her as if she had grown two heads. "Your kidding right?" Tali just smiled and shook her head. "Wow, I thought she was a little off. But a masochist? That explains a lot."
"Damn right it does, so we ready for the attack?" Tali asked
"Yep, 250 ships ready. We just need to wait for the right time." John said as he looked outside at the fleet of ships ready to fight.
OOOOO Former Cerberus base Horizon.
Oriana Lawson looked over the files she found. It had been a long few years since the war now and she had to make money from scrapping whatever she could find. During the war she was taken from her family by someone claiming to be her real father. But the facility he was running fell to reaper infestation and she escaped. But the facility itself as so secure that it was not on any maps, which meant that someone was either looking over her or she was just lucky. She didn't know but now, well she had to make a living on this world as best she could. Selling tech at the local markets was the best way to bring in credits.
She didn't like it but, money was money who cared where it came from. Looking at a partially salvaged terminal with a torch in her mouth she worked in removing whatever she could. A clatter made her turn to see what was around, but she saw nothing. Shrugging she turned back to her work, but a noise made her turn to look around again. Once was normal but twice… not so much. Her free hand rested on her pistol. She moved a few feet forward looking around carefully in the dark building.
This was getting weird but before she could get back to work something pinned her to a wall with it's arm resting on her neck. Her light fell to the floor and shined up at her attacker. It was a human male dressed in an old Cerberus uniform with a gun pressed to her gut.
"I've seen you walk in and out of here many times." he said. "You have two choices, you can die here now. Or you can help me."
"Help you with what?" Oriana asked.
"Build an army."