Liara ran into EDI's main core as soon as she had heard what happened. EDI had already disconnected from the rest of the ship, but Liara needed to do it physically as well before whatever broke through the firewalls. She made it into the core and help Shoko disconnect the rest of the cabling cutting EDI from the rest of the ship. It was a rush, but they managed to fully disconnect her from the ship.
The AI continued to sputter and spout, whatever happened to her it was bad. The two doctors looked to each other before EDI fully shut down.
"Liara, we lost EDI," Joker said in an annoyed tone.
"Has she reuploaded?" Liara asked.
"Yes, Imperial Intel has her," he confirmed. "Currently she's frozen while they deal with her code. They found something, but they aren't sure what,"
"Tell them to keep us apprised on her condition,"
"Already told them," he replied. "They'll get back to us,"
"Good, let's just hope she got what we needed,"
OOOOO
TIM's holo dissipated and the station started to shake.
"EDI what's happening?" Ashley asked.
"EDI's down," Joker said. "Intel is trying to get her back up,"
"Then what's happening?"
"Detecting multiple explosions, the station is self-destructing," he explained. "I'm pulling the Normandy out and coming to you,"
"No pull back," Miranda yelled. "I know a way out, Maya, Jacob with me," she said and turned to the terminal.
The three moved as well realising what was happening and began to type, fast. As they did the station still shook with the sounds of explosions following.
"Gravity!" Miranda yelled a moment before the gravity shut off.
Everyone activated the mag locks on their boots keeping them in place. "BRACE!"
The ground shook before force caused the m to squat down. "Miranda…"
"I've just ejected the mainframe," she said. "If the self-destruct was properly maintained then the entire station would go up. Thanks for us, it wasn't,"
"Joker," Ashley spoke. "We need a pick up. We got one hell of a prize,"
OOOOO
Ash and Miranda walked into EDI's backup room at Imperial Intel. According to them, she was perfectly fine now but was just rebooting her systems while a new body was being made. As the two walked in EDI's holographic form appeared before them.
"EDI, what the hell happened?" Ashley asked.
"There was an anti-AI virus within the mainframe," EDI explained. "It was targeting my core systems in order to shut me down,"
"Cerberus?" Miranda asked with a nod as her answer from the ai.
"Yes, I suspect that they knew we were going to be there and placed a trap for us," EDI said her voice growing a little concerned about what happened. "But I did find what we were looking and more, it seems that TIM was hiding out because he knew more about the Reapers than anyone,"
"That's not much of a surprise," Miranda muttered.
"I think you misunderstand me, he may have known more about the Reapers, but there's a reason for that. He knew before Saren did, he was working for them to bring the Reapers back," that shocked the two.
"Then why did he try to keep Shepard alive?" Ash asked. "He must have known that John would have done everything in his power to destroy the Reapers,"
"That's what TIM was counting on, he hoped that the focus on John allowed him to corrupt the leadership from the inside," EDI explained. "But he was expecting the Reapers to attack two years after when they did,"
"Ok, but did you get what we were looking for?" Ash asked.
"Yes, but I did the calculations," EDI shook her head. "They aren't good,"
OOOOO
Ashley practically ran into the main QEC, bumping into Javik along the way. "Sorry, but you need to follow me," she said.
"Why?" he asked as he followed her.
"You were lied to," she answered.
It didn't take long to reach the QEC and Ash quickly typing in the code to contact all the Warlords. Their holograms soon appeared, but before anyone them could respond Ashley began to explain what she found.
"We have a major problem," she said and typed in a few keys.
A hologram of a large ring like structure appeared before them. "This is the main Reaper factory, and where Harbinger is. The problem…" she typed in a few more keys and showed where the factory was. "…it's outside our galaxy, not inside. It appears that the information that Javik got was fabricated,"
"Well that's not much of a problem," an asari Warlord said.
"I would agree with you, but the factory is so big it could fit the citadel in the middle. Not to mention, the treaty we made for no use of the Xia hyperdrive. My AI and chief engineer did the numbers, we cannot make enough or upgrade enough ships to launch an assault," Ash opened up her omni-tool and sent the other Warlords.
Their faces turned to ones of concern as they read the calculations. "This is…" one muttered.
"The manpower required is more then we can get with the number of battles we are fighting," another said.
Ash just nodded. "There are only two groups that has the manpower to do this. The Qurrians and Geth," the eyes of the other Warlords turned to her. "I have a backdoor ear to the geth, but because of my chief engineer, Tali, being considered a traitor… the Quarrians will not talk to me,"
"Why is she considered to be a traitor?" Nobutada asked.
"Because of what her father did, he tried to get in the geth network and make them loyal to the Qurrians. But it backfired and the fleet was almost destroyed, she was the only one to answer for it," Ash answered making eyes look to one another. "Yeah it's a problem,"
"So, what do we do?" a turian asked.
The QEC fell into silence as the warlords thought. There wasn't much time left, so they didn't disconnect the QEC. This was one of those times where they needed to be in the same room as each other. It was a while before any of them spoke.
"We need to go to the Quarrians and force them to the table," one of the Salarians said. "I don't like it, but I don't see another solution here. With our assets tied up with the Reapers, the Quarrians and geth are the only ones who can help,"
"I agree," one of the asari said. "We need them both,"
"We can use a small portion of our personal fleets," Nobutada said. "While Shepard is getting her geth contact we'll force the Qurrians to the table. If they refuse… well we are in control of most of the galaxy. We'll be able to control where they go,"
"A discrimination campaign if they refuse," one of the humans said with a distasteful tone.
"I'm afraid so, I don't see another way outside of legal and force," the young Oda said.
The expressions of the other warlords turned to one of concern. Many Qurrians were in high ranking places in their empires, if they start a discrimination campaign against the Quarrian fleet, it may complicate matters. But the more they discussed it, the little choices they had without outright genocide. In the end they decided to force them to the table, it may leave a bitter taste in their mouth but it was better then genocide.
OOOOO
The Qurrian admiralty sat in the main briefing room. Ever since the geth too over their world, they needed to meet regularly to discuss the situation across their respective fleets. Ever since the Crucible was fired, they'd been having problems supplying the fleet. While there was plenty of targets for what they need, food, water supplies, and more it was slim pickings due to the Scavengers and Warlords.
Those two groups alone caused them more shortages then the geth ever did. But this was a win loss thing. Many Quarrians were no longer interested in remaining and going to work for the Warlord. This meant less mouths to feed, but it also meant less Qurrians around to help repopulating Rannoch when they removed the geth. Tali's father, Rael'Zorah, may have caused one of the worst disasters in the fleet's history, but what he found meant that they could take on the geth. The problem was the amount of people and ships they had to try and pull something like that off.
Currently the room was silent as Shala'Raan was finish off the fleet manifest.
She placed her tablet onto the table. "In short, we maybe able to hold out for another year," she said in a sober tone. "We need to find a world that we can live on or try to retake the homeworld. But if we go for the latter, we cannot count on help from the Warlords,"
"Given the situation with the Reapers," Daro'Xen added. "We cannot count on them for anything,"
"Well, this fine mess," Zaal'Koris sighed. "Damned if we do, damned if we don't. As the humans would say,"
"Indeed," Raan said. "But we need to make a choice here. Either we attack, or settle somewhere else,"
The room fell silent as the Admirals looked to one another. Even Han'Gerrel, the Admiral of the military Heavy Fleet, stayed silent. Numbers rarely lied, and even he could see that of they launched an invasion on the world they would be hard pressed to take the world. But colonising another world would be just as hard. They sat for what felt like hours before someone ran in.
"Admiral's," he saluted. "Sorry about this, but we have a fleet coming in. It's a joint Warlord fleet,"
"What do they want?" Han asked as he stood.
"They want to meet now," the Quarrian said. "Now,"
After a good hour of talking, the Admirals once again sat waiting for the Warlords to attend. Only three exited the door, followed by something that made the Admiralty stand. With the Warlords stood a black armoured geth the same hight as the human leading the group. But this geth wore an orange cloak over its shoulder with the triangular shape of the geth. The Admirals went for their weapons, but so did the Warlords.
"Stand down now," the lead Warlord said her body language making it clear she was ready for a fight. "This geth, Legion, is here by my request,"
"But it can lead the others here!" Han said the weapon twitching in hand.
"I have no brought any geth here, creator Gerrel," the geth said. "I am here to talk about your future at the request of Shepard-Empress,"
It eased them, but not by much. The admirals placed their weapons on the table making the threat known. But the three Warlords and the geth sat down. Ashley was joined by Tussa and Kaebius, this made the Admirals nervous. In front of them sat the three most powerful Warlords in the galaxy, combined they could take on any threat short of the Reapers.
"So, to what do we owe the honour of this visit?" Koris asked.
"We have a very beneficial proposal for you," Tussa said as she slid a tablet across the table.
Raan picked it up and looked at it, for a moment she thought she was seeing things but re-read the tablet.
"Is this for real?" she asked. "You can improve our immune systems and get us back onto the home world?" the other Admirals looked to her then the Warlords.
"Is this true?" Han asked.
"Yes," Ashley said flatly. "But there are a few conditions,"
"One, all Quarrian engineers who are experienced or at least knowledgeable in Xia tech and FTL drives need to be brought over to us to upgrade a number of our ships,"
"This is way Empress-Shepard contacted us, they need geth to help upgrade their ships," Legion said. "We owe her for giving us intelligence,"
"Then why did you come?" Xen asked.
"To show you that we mean you no harm, the geth are tired of this war. We invite you to come back home,"
"The hell we will," Gerrel yelled.
"Admiral, the only way you are going to the homeworld back is if you agree to all conditions," Tussa said. "Making peace with the geth, and temporarily supplying your engineers and revoking the traitor status on Tali'Zorah,"
"And if we refuse?" Koris asked.
"Then sanctions would be placed on the fleet," Kaebius said leaning in. "Your fleet will not be allowed to enter any system under Warlord control, Quarrians will be asked to declare their alliance to the Warlords. Your fleet will not be allowed to trade without our say so, your fleet will not be allowed to leave without our say so, your ships will be stripped of their guns, you will have nothing but condemned to die a slow death,"
Kaebius was one of the clams but brutal Warlords. He had two faces, the one he showed to people and the other he showed when he was serious. It was what made him very powerful, he didn't yell, get angry, he just calmly spoke and let the weight of his words speak for themselves.
The Admirals fell silent looking at him.
"These are the terms," Ashley said. "There will be no negotiation, agree to all the terms and we'll be on our way to Rannoch. Refuse even one of the conditions and the offer is off the table," she stood. "You have one hour, this offer will not be presented again,"
The others also stood leaving the Admirals alone.
"Well we have an offer," Xen said. "Peace, but not the one we want or extinction,"
"We can't accept," Han said. "If we do…"
"We die," Raan said. "This is not a choice we can refuse. They have made their demands clear,"
"But they need us," Krois said. "They cannot replace those drives without us,"
"Yes, they can," Xen said. "That's why the brought the geth, they are telling us that they can make the upgrades with or without us. I assume they want it to be fast, but they will be ok with half the time,"
"So, they don't need us," Raan said shrinking into her chair looking at the tablet. "This is a choice between life and a slow death. We have to take it,"
"No," Han said standing. "If we do, we lose everything we fought for,"
"And if we don't our species dies," Rann countered. "Something that none of the Captains will agree with,"
The other two nodded. "There is no choice," Xan said. "We take the deal,"
"I second that motion," Koris added.
"I don't," Han said.
"Do I have to remove you from the Admiralty?" Raan asked her hand resting on her gun. "Because I will not allow you to destroy us,"
Han looked around but found no support. Reluctantly he nodded. "I agree,"
By the end of the day, the fleet made their way to Rannoch and one step closer to destroying the Reapers.