After Article 1 was announced, it took some Warlords time to recover to the EMP attack the Solar Empire had delivered. In all, the Article meeting was able to happen but a week after it was declared. The maximum time allowed for the other Warlords to get ready. This meant that some weren't there physically, but instead had a hologram in place instead. This was better then nothing, especially given the situation. If the Reapers were coming back, everyone needed to be there regardless of what happened.
Some of the Warlords gave Ashley a nasty look as she was the one responsible for knocking them out of the fight. But for now, they had to put that hate aside while this whole meeting went on. That wouldn't stop them from shooting the odd look at her. That was fine, she had faced worse and more lustful looks from others. Once the lead Salarian arrived the meeting began.
He didn't waste any time calling the meeting to order. "So, it appears that the Reapers may not be as dead as we have believed," he said making everyone's face turn dark and concerned.
"What?" one of them said. "I thought that they were destroyed,"
"You thought wrong," Javik said as he walked in and all eyes turned to look at him in even more shock and confusion. "Yes, before you ask, I am a Prothean," he said shutting down the question before people could ask it.
"So, you're the one who says that the Reapers are coming back?" Balak asked with little interest.
"Indeed," Javik replied as he brought up his omni-tool. "Back during our war with the Reapers, I was part of a team who conducted special operations against them. One such mission, was accessing a Reaper computer," as he said this his omni-tool opened up lines of code that meant nothing to anyone but the code itself was clearly Reaper. "It turned out it was a tactical computer with their plans and tactics. One plan was what would happen if the Crucible was activated,"
That last part caught the Warlords attention. "Wait, didn't your species create the Crucible?" Nobutada asked.
"No, we found the plans from a previous race. Our scientists believed that each race before us made some form the Crucible. The information we found proved that fact as the Reapers feared it's activation," he continued on. "They made plans for if it was activated, they could still return," the image then changed to a planet with no clear geography. "This is what we called a 'hollow world'," the image then cut the planet in half to show the hollow inside.
"A dyson sphere," one of the humans muttered.
Javik said nothing but continued on. "We discovered that this world was disguised to be…" he passed as he tried to the right words. "…hard to find. The outside of it make it look like any other world, but on the inside, there is a Reaper factory," that caused people to take a sharp intake of breath as they knew what the Reapers did.
"I assume that the planet also has enough bio-mass to create more Reapers?" a Turian asked as she looked at the hologram.
"Indeed, it does as they have a lot of wildlife, but one world is not enough to create an entire Reaper fleet," the hologram then moved outwards to show the galaxy and several dots appears around the edge of the galaxy. "The information I have said that there are at least 70 hollow words out there,"
"70?" an asari asked shocked. "But with our numbers we won't be able to stop them all," a series of nods followed with Ashley doing the same.
Javik nodded again. "My people came to the same conclusion as you did, and our empire still had billions. Which brings us to the next problem, each hollow world is independent of each other. Taking one down will not mean that the rest will fall, but my people came up with a plan for this as well," his omni-tool then brough up an image of a sun. "If we use weapons filled with element zero and dark energy, we will be able to fire them into the suns. This will create a supernova destroying the hollow worlds. But there is a problem to this plan," the hologram then changed to that of a humanoid figure. "Harbinger, without him the Reapers will cease to exist,"
"But we don't know where he is?" Ashley said knowing what Javik was going to say to which he just nodded.
"So, we have a problem but have no idea how to fix it," Grunt then added.
Javik nodded in response. "My people do know he resides on a hollow world, but which world remains unknown,"
"Then how do we know which world?" an asari asked.
Javik just fell silent as even he didn't know the answer. The rest of the Warlords also fell silent as even they didn't have a good answer for this problem. Yes, they could try and take out the hollow worlds, but that didn't mean much if they couldn't take out Harbinger as well. It was well established that the Reapers had a sort of hive mind mentality between them. While they could operate on their own, they had an overall purpose to their movements that were controlled by this hive mind.
Harbinger was that hive mind. It was obvious even during the Reaper war that someone was behind them. But even then, they didn't know where he was so just relied on the Crucible. As it turns out, that didn't do too much good. Ashley sighed in annoyance looking at each of the Warlords. She didn't know what to expect, but given the looks she was getting it seemed like people expected her for an answer. Too bad for them she didn't as she rested her head in her hands.
As she began to think the door opened and Jane walked in.
"Do you mind, this is a private meeting," the lead Salarian said.
"This is important and will take a moment," she said walking up to Ashley and whispered something in her ear.
As her sister-in-law spoke, her eyes shot open and focused on Balak. "You go left," she muttered and Jane nodded.
Ashley then moved fast as she got up onto the table and pounced at Balak before he or anyone else could react. She landed on the table in front of him and kicked him to the floor before landing on top of him with her heel pressing on his neck, but not too tight though.
"What's going on?" one of the asari yelled.
"Before the attack on the on the New Alliance homeworld, me and Liara did some digging for a spy," Jane said as she walked up to Balak ignoring the other Warlords. "Turns out he had some interesting tech in is brain that allowed people to use him as a doll. Once we got it out, it turns out he was a slave from Balak's empire and was very forthcoming. Especially with the little fact that our fellow Warlord is a spy for Cerberus, a known ally of the Reapers,"
The fear didn't escape Balak's eyes as Ashley pulled him up by the neck with her robotic arm and looked in his eyes with what seemed to be the fires of hell. All of a sudden, a human idiom came to mind.
'Hell, hath no fury like a woman scorned,'
OOOOO
At the article station canteen, Ashley sat alone drinking something strong. She needed it after all the drama that happened after Balak was outed as a spy. Granted she could have done things differently, but her emotions went out of control as soon as she heard. All she could think about was revenge, for John and her kids. She smiled slighting thinking how much her own mother would beat her over the head for going after someone like that. She sighed and took another swing of her drink as Tussa, one of the Asari Warlords walked up.
"Is this seat taken?" she asked only with Ash to shake her head. "Thanks," she said as she sat down. "How are you holding up?"
"Good, but I really need to kill something soon before I go crazy," Ash admitted.
"I know the feeling," Tussa nodded. "And I can understand what you did, even if the others don't agree,"
Ash nodded again before looking up. "I assume your not here for a social call,"
Tussa smiled. "Me and a few other Warlords are thinking about restabilising a council. Not the citadel council, but a new one. One where each of the Warlords attend to discuss matters of state war and so on. The current sate of affairs shows how much this Warlord thing won't last. We need a galactic government to settle matters without using soldiers and guns,"
Ashley nodded. "I agree, it would be good to develop and not worry about constant warfare. I assume that we will make a vote on it sometime in the future?"
"After this war," Tussa nodded. "Right now, it's not viable but and we still need to sort out the details but by the time that's done, the war should be over,"
"I'll see if I can get Tevos to talk to you about it, if she and Jane stop sleeping every time, they see each other," that just made Tussa laugh while Ash just smiled.
OOOOO 4 days later.
The Warlords at the table talking amongst themselves disgusting tactics and future plans. As soon as the lead Salarian walked in they stopped talking as he took a seat.
"The interrogation was very, illuminating," he said as his expression became dark. "It seems that we have more to deal with than the Reapers. The Thorian cult is planning uprisings on each of our major words and the slaves that Balak has are going to be turned into husks. The production is going to start soon so we came at a good time to stop them in their tracks. He also produced something interesting," he then tapped a few things on his computer and an image of a space station appeared. "Cerberus' prime station. According to our friend, they get regular communications from Harbinger here," he looked around at everyone monitoring their look. "Before we continue, we need to all be on the same level here.
This will be the primary target for everyone. Not matter what, we have to find Harbinger's location. We find him we cut the head of the enemy," a series of nods echoed across the room. "But before we begin, I must ask are in agreement that this matter needs to be dealt with now? We all know what this means, that all of us will be in a state of war and we will not be able to make gains from this endeavour,"
None said anything for a good few moments before Ashley spoke. "All those in favour of war against the Reapers, raise your hand,"
Almost at once, everyone raised their hands. The Salarian smiled as their hands lowered.
"Then let's get to work," he said.
OOOOO
With the meeting over Ashley walked into the war room of the Normandy. "Everyone," she said to the commanders gathered. "All Warlords have agreed, we are at war, and we have our targets," walking up to the control panel she inserted a chip and played a holo vid. "First, we need to develop these dark ezzo warheads, Tali I want you to get to work on that. Second, we need to find Cerberus' main headquarters, Miranda, Liara, I want you two to get on that. The rest of us will draw up military plans and work with the other Warlords for military operations. Are we clear on what we are meant to do?" nods echoed all round.
"Good, then let's get moving," she ordered and the Solar Empire prepared for the last war of the Warlord Era.