4 months ago

Kasumi lay on the bed as Shoko finished her examinations. The thief had been experiencing bad headaches for the past few months but they only recently got worse. Now she had no choice but to go the doctor. Something in her head just didn't feel right, and she decided to get it checked out before it got worse. Kasumi watched the doctor out of habit and saw her face darken. Something wasn't just wrong; it was bad if not dangerous.

The doctor turned to her. "Do you want me to sugar coat it?"

"No, just tell me what it is," Kasumi said firmly.

Shoko nodded. "You have cancer, specifically a growing malignant brain tumour. You told me that used a grey box, right?" Kasumi nodded. "Ok, they are illegal for more than one reason. One of the less known reasons is due to the em field it uses. While it does allow you to view a person's memories, the technology involved is imperfect. For lack of a better term, it doesn't account for a number of things, including stress and the effect it has on the human brain. One of these is a form of malignant cancer, that grows rapidly,"

"Can it be removed?"

"No, this type of cancer cannot be removed without a major risk of killing you or casing major brain damage,"

"How high?"

"80 to 90% risk," the doctor answered with a sigh. "Thar kind of risk is one I dare not even think of attempting. Even then there's no grantee that it will stay gone,"

Kasumi nodded. "How long?"

"Hard to say, but I'd say a year," Shoko said "The tumour grows fast, so you will experience headaches. So, these will help, dull the pain," she then handed the thief a small tub of pills. "They won't dull the pain completely, but it will help,"

"Thank you, Shoko,"

OOOOO present

Kolyat made his report to Shepard and the others. Ashley was upset with the death of Kasumi, but with the Ghost facility destroyed it would make invading the New Alliance easier. For now, she was visiting Owari-mei to convene with Oda and the rest of his Imperial council. The NA was planning an attack according on the territory, so Ashley volunteered for the job. Mostly because she could speak the language and manage the culture with ease. Growing up on a Japanese majority planet helped with that regard.

She also took a force of her own to help support the planet. A force of around 60,000 troops and an additional 10,000 combat drones and armoured and aerial support. A combined force of Oda's forces and Solar forces could stand up to the NA with ease. At least for a while. The NA had numbers on their side, but no so much in terms of technology. That was were Oda's and Ashley's factions had the advantage.

Oda focused on personal equipment such as body armour and weapons. This made his forces something akin to elite shock troopers making them hard to take down. They also had a focus on small unit guerrilla hit and run tactics. Hitting the enemy where it hurts and make sure that when they attack again, they stay down. But the tactics tended to change with Oda's generals.

The Solar empire however wasn't the biggest in terms of populations. As such they couldn't field large armies so instead, they focused on stealth and speed. Focusing on cloaking tech and combat drones, this makes them fast and undetectable until they are on top of the enemy. Their fleet was already being equipped with cloaking tech, making it hard to find them. This tactic has already been proven to be effective against multiple attacks.

Stealth had it uses, and the Solar Empire made extensive use of it. But it was never guaranteed that it could be used all the time. So, they would adapt and make sure that they could fall back on their stealth when needed. Training was something that all soldiers had to do, but when a warlord fell there was one of two ways a solider could go. Join the conquers army or go rouge.

If they join the conquers army, then they would have to go though training again to make sure that they are up to the army's standard. Most minor Warlords would just add them as a new division as training cost money and resources that they didn't have. But master Warlords would take the time to train the new recruits so that they would fit with their primary combat doctrine.

If they had a group who didn't conform to that doctrine then that group would likely get in the way or fall behind or worse. This leads to minors being at a tactical disadvantage, if they cannot manage the different forces in their army. Oda had a similar problem but found away round it and developed a clan like system for it. Each clan had a speciality that they focused on and were deployed either together or alone depending on the enemy forces. It made things easy for them when combating other forces.

Ashley walked down the streets looking around. Despite the gas attack, people still moved around like nothing happened. While some areas were still under quarantine, most of the city was still intact and liveable. But she just ignored it, the years of fighting the husks and other warlords made her hardened to the look of devastation. It didn't mean that she didn't feel anything, but it was more like she could look at it without being sick. Or feeling sick, dead civilians used to bother her now they no longer do. She became desensitised to it all, and that bothered her.

"Someday," she muttered hoping that at some point this conflict between the Warlords would cease.

She had her fill of fighting, she just wanted to take care of her kids now. But until the wars ended, she had little choice but to fight. The death of Kasumi had it her hard, the two got along very well during the Reaper war. Now she had lost a friend and it hit her. It made her think about her own morality as well as Johns. It weighed heavily on her, but she needed to focus on the war now. Shaking her head, she continued to head towards Imperial command.

OOOOO

Tali sat back in her chair looking at her most recent plans. The NA was using a combination of both Xia and Eezo tech but it was highly unstable. While she didn't have a problem, according to the reports she could see why. They didn't have a good enough balance between the two and no coolant to prevent them from mixing. This would create an instability between the two competing power sources. While coolant was normal for power generation, placing it between the sources wasn't a normal thing that people would automatically think about.

Looking at her blueprints, she tapped her chin. Working on a new mech design wasn't easy, especially when you need to integrate it with Xia tech. There were a number of factors involved in this, one of them was compatibility. While the Xia were on a similar level to the milky way, the technology methodology was completely different. The tech they used worked in a different way. This created problems for combining both Xia and Eezo technologies.

While she knew a lot about Xia tech it wasn't enough to fully integrate it with Eezo without compatibility problems and more. She sighed and wished Mordin was with her to help her out. But he was currently bed ridden and wasn't going to last long. Salarians rarely lived passed 40. She then thought of Miranda, but she was in field with her mechanised forces. Currently there was no one to help her with these projects of hers.

She just smiled. "Well time for something to eat," she muttered getting up and walking out of her workshop and into the main lab where other engineers created their own projects.

Being the head of the Solar Empire's engineering lab had its perks. For one, she chose the prodigies of the Empire and brought them to her lab. They all made machines for the empire, sometimes civilian, but mostly for the military. It wasn't just because of her that the empire was strong, but these engineers who had few limits to produce what they would like. At the end of the month they would present what they have made or working on.

If they worked then it would be tested before being approached for use. If not, back to the drawing board. As she walked one of the Turian engineers walked up next to her.

"Commander going for lunch?" he asked.

"Ye…" she tired to say but something exploded and she didn't get to finish the sentence.

OOOOO

Council command was set up like the inside of an old Japanese castle. Tatami mats, on the floor and cushions around an elongated table. Drinks and food had been provided to each of the seats. Ashley was the first to arrive and sat at the seat with the Solar empire emblem on it. She waited for the others to arrive. Soon the room was filled with the commanders of the Imperial clans. Oda sat at the top followed by, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, Takeda Shingen, Date Masumune, Uesugi Kenshin and Sanada Yukimura. Each one looked intimidating, especially Masumune with his one eye and lax attitude.

But Ashley eyed Kenshin for a moment. While he did ware a head scarf there was something about him that put her a little off. His skin, was a little too smooth and he felt too refined for being the 'god of war'. There was a rumour that he was in fact a she, or something in between. It was very hard to tell but she kept silent as Oda began to talk.

"With Shepard and the Solar Empire focusing on the New Alliance in his territory, we are faced with attacks into our territory," he said calmly. "The New Alliance is positioned to take the galaxy with their overwhelming force. The other Warlords are holding their own, but until a plan can be made to behead the leadership of the NA, we have to deal with the incursion to our territories with some," he gave a nod towards Ashley. "This is 2nd Grand Commander Ashely Shepard who volunteered to assist us with this fight,"

Ashely bowed in response. "It's a pleasure," she said politely. "I bring 60,000 troopers and 10,000 combat drones with additional equipment and vehicles,"

The others bowed in response, but she did get an eyeing up from Takada. She shot him down with a glare that made him shrink. Uesugi smiled at the way his friend shrank.

Oda suppressed a smile as he continued and a holo map emerged from the table. "The NA is moving from the galactic north giving them an advantage due to the gravity wells in that area. The intel we have received from the intelligence corps says that they are using Xia tech to bypass the sensor and weapon problems that come from being around gravity wells,"

There was a slight mummer with the group before Date spoke up. "Can't we just take them out with our cannon ships?" he asked with a cocky attitude.

"Doubtful," Sanada said. "We have few of those ships as it is, and they likely that they upgraded their ships to withstand our blast cannons,"

"He makes a good point Date," Uesugi added.

"We have also learned that the NA has used Xia tech to advance their goals," Ashley said. "The Ghosts where proof of that," the clan leaders just nodded darkly. "A friend of mine died after finding out they were using a combination of Xix and mass effect tech,"

"I heard about that," the war god muttered with an apologetic tone.

Takeda looked at the holo image. "If I deploy my fast attack ships here," he indicated to a point near the gravity wells. "We can ambush the NA forces with ease. Maybe not take them all out, but think out their numbers,"

"I agree," Ashley said as she looked at Takeda's plan and pointed. "If my ships….," just then two shots rang out.

"ASHLEY!" Oda yelled.