"This city is headed for a disaster of Biblical proportions." Doctor Peter Venkman.
Binary Helix Pharmaceutical Corporation Headquarters, Peak Fifteen, Noveria, Pax System, Horse Head Nebula, August 1, 2183
Captain Jane Catherine Shepard (SAN, N7, OST) sat and watched as electronic magic happened, so to speak.
Being stuck in a General Dynamics' M577 GRZLY Armored Personnel Carrier in a parking structure of a corporate headquarters buried in a mountain was, admittedly, not the strangest place she had ever found herself waiting to give the go-ahead for an ad hoc mission involving infiltration, exploitation, and usually bullets and explosives. She had never really worked against a Corporation, per se, though she had dealt with elements that had gotten into some nasty shit in the name of profits (such as ExoGeni and Alliance Insurance Group). But this was literally the galactic headquarters of a megacorporation; all the big wigs were here. Sitting in a location outside of both Alliance and Council Space (well, an island of exclusion that sat in the middle of both, actually) where the facility more-or-less had a singular physical access point and zero means for outside electronic excursions into their datafeeds and research? Yes, she got it that corporate competition and espionage were rife and a business had to protect its assets, everything from employee records to intellectual property. And she got it that R+D had its risks, her Aunt Ellen having contracted ANED from limited but multiple Eezo exposures working on the burgeoning field of Biotic technology. Animal testing had been done for centuries and there were clear rules on what one could use, as well as Human clinical trials.
This… wasn't that. It was clear enough that this was about as real as a black site as any pirate base or slave port save with a lot more Credits behind it.
Agent Zevin Raeka and Ensign/Sha'me Tali'Zorah nar Reyya were both working their coding voodoo to get as much information as possible for the proposed strike that her team would be doing for Lady Matriarch Benezia Samira Salrissa of House T'soni, possible confederate to Rogue Council Agent Saren Arterius. Having her location and time meant that a snatch-and-grab was a real possibility, and likely the effort that Jannie would order. While the N7 wanted to go through Binary Helix's data and Board of Directors like an elephant through a candy cane patch, they weren't the objective. What she needed was Benezia in her tender clutches, talking her crest off on all that she knew about Saren, his plans, his locations, his forces, and his motivations. That a Human corporation was up to some shady shit (and it was becoming more apparent with every minute that the Salarian not-Dalatrass and Quarian Pilgrim flitting through the datashares of Binary Helix that they in fact were up to some shady shit) was the secondary concern… like it had been with ExoGeni. Jannie frowned at the thought, knowing that while she was a Human SPECTRE… she was essentially the only one unlike the Asari, the Salarians, and the Turians. Each of those species had dozens if not hundreds of Council Agents to safeguard their species (or inversely watchdog their species for any Treaty violators), yet Humanity had exactly one Level Three Public Agent; herself. Shepard thought about that.
How the fuck did Sam do this for years?
The Captain found herself looking over to her somewhat predecessor/mentor, Federal Marshal Samantha Lynn Collins, a Level Two Clandestine Agent that was more famously known as the Butcher of Torfan. Sam had been Humanity's shield, even if no one knew about it. She had done strikes and assaults under the guise of a hardass Marshal in which had criminals in Alliance Space quivering in fear whenever the Butcher was in sector. Yes, Nihlus Kryik was probably half of that effort as well being a Public Agent himself, but Collins had been made a SPECTRE not only because of her unique gift of interpreting Relay data and hunting down ships via jumps and translations, but also having a Human perspective for their species as oppose to a Turian or an Asari who may or may not get it. Sam… Sam had been the very thing that the Alliance had wanted for years, but hadn't even been made aware of; a Human SPECTRE. The Marshal had shoulder that burden for years.
"Marse?" Jannie saw the short-haired brunette woman look over to her as everyone else prepped and waiting for the go-order, knowing that a strike would happen when the opportunity presented itself. Most of TEAM LION was outside of the GRZLY in the parking structure that was thankfully unoccupied and unmonitored while Raeka and Tali did their thing inside the Armored Personnel Carrier, Jannie sitting on one of the bench seats for situational awareness and command. The Tridend Colony-marked woman moved over towards Jannie, obviously sensing that Shepard wanted to talk to her. "Marse, this is the second incident that we've had in a few weeks time of a Human Corporation going well above and beyond the realm of legality, stepping into the bounds of the Council's 'turn into paste' policy." The Federal Marshal grunted as she stood by where Shepard sat, her arms folded across her chest. "The only reason why I haven't set the ExoGeni Board of Directors on fire personally is because of Saren, lending the mission over to Marshal Teresa Aquila because I know after what happened to her and her men, Tequila isn't about to be pushed around by some suits." Sam nodded at that, obviously seeing the reasoning. "How… did you do this, Sam? When it was just you and your team?"
"Really not much different than what you're doing, honestly." Sam answered, her voice soft. "I was made a Level One Council Agent during the Blitz, and I used my ship-hunting skills to help out in the war. Military targets and intelligence I sent to the Office of Naval Intelligence so that the Alliance military would handle the bigger targets my team couldn't do while showing Humanity's resolve. For things that were outside Alliance jurisdiction or if the politics made a hash of things, those were the ones that Nihlus, myself, and my team went for… like Torfan." The moon of Aratoth was in Batarian Space, and despite the Blitz going hot, the Alliance had never 'set foot' into Batarian Space since the Hegemony claimed that the Batarian forces used weren't Hegemony force (despite no one actually believing that). Still, it kept the official Hegemony fleets in Batarian Space as, because of the pronouncement of the acts of 'ultrazealot forces and misguided patriots', the Glorious One couldn't call for war; Hegemony Space wasn't being invaded, and the Batarians being killed during the Blitz technically not under His command. To save face, the Hegemony had to abandon its own external forces that were fighting the Alliance, unable to send its military might as reinforcements or to augment a force. Anything that was sent… was denied being a part of the Hegemony and thus on their own. That had helped the Alliance just as much as vessels and forces had, honestly. "There was at least two incidences I found of war-profiteering amongst Human-held companies; one was most certainly funding and making purchases from a slave block, and another was selling weapons and armor to the Separatists. Because I was only a Level One SPECTRE at the time, I turned those strikes over to a couple of friends that I made in the Office of Special Tactics. Needless to say, those companies and those who profited from such things are no longer amongst the living."
"It's just… I know something is rotten with Binary Helix, but with Saren and all this going on…" Jannie's voice trailed off, feeling forlorn at the thought that something very ugly was likely happening in the facility, but she was too damn busy trying to stop the Geth.
"Jane, as a SPECTRE, you're allowed to call up virtually anybody in the name of the Council of Law." Collins replied, looking at her with clear blue eyes. "A team of N's? A Blackwatch Platoon? A merc company in good standing with the Citadel? There are people who would vie for the chance to be recognized for their values and jump at the chance to do work like this for the recognition and the reputation. It's… one way SPECTREs get selected, being sent work that can be done by a SPECTRE but said SPECTRE perhaps being too busy or chasing down something else to do something about it."
"So calling someone up and giving them a mission is not only authorized, but the others do it, too?" The N7 asked, a little surprised. Jannie was never really one to hand off a mission to someone else unless they were clearly better for the task than she was.
"Admittedly, the Asari and the Turians have a couple hundred Council Agents between them, but they also have support teams as well." The Marshal swept a hand over TEAM LION. "Yours is by far more eclectic and larger than anything I've seen, but an Asari SPECTRE generally has a couple of Sister Commandos with her, and a Turian Agent will generally have a small squad of veteran Hasti or some Havoc Troopers with them. The whole 'one problem, one SPECTRE' thing is a little exaggerated. Yes, one SPECTRE will be sent, but they generally have a crew, a ground team, and some specialists to back them up and flesh out their abilities. Only the stupid think they can go into some problem alone and come out on top. But if you wanted to call the Marshal Services and sent a strike force of Federal law dogs to put the pins to Binary Helix and sign off on the mission with your authorization, it would mostly likely get done because the SAMS would see themselves as following the ultimate cop; yourself. I know with the Geth War it's a little strained with things, but there would be groups and individuals out there that wouldn't mind putting foot-to-ass like we are to free you up and get these capos the justice they truly need, knowing that they are serving Humanity just like you are. Tequila's a good choice to be sure, but there are others out there in Earth Alliance Space that are practically begging for a SPECTRE's eye to land on them and give them mission perimeters and the go-ahead. In days like these, that's when you find the little diamonds in the rough."
"I'll talk to Poppa Bear on that, having him cast some nets and see what we can grab." Jannie nodded, mulling it over. Her biggest issue was that she was the only SPECTRE; Sam wasn't publicly known as a SPECTRE, and Sara didn't have the Council's authorization to do such a thing, though her name amongst Humanity might pull a few favors her way considering she was the Pathfinders' Daughter and certainly a hero in her own right. "Might be a good idea to have a couple of back-up teams and a Quick Reaction Force that we can call up if we find ourselves having to be in multiple places at once. Having an N Team with my good graces attached to them would certainly be nice, but perhaps a team of cops and investigators would be a better call." Sam was looking at her. "I know I'm setting precedences with every step I take for the future of the Human SPECTRE Office, and just throwing more military at it might be a little… too forceful. Perhaps a couple of law dogs who will slap some SnapCuffs on any man no matter who they work for or their position without worrying about potential reprisals or political backlash? Me and Poppa Bear have been trading mail about that, what we want the STARS Office to be. For a pair of Special Forces Operatives such as we are, we're actually a little leery of just shoving N's in there. I guess… I guess I want Human SPECTREs that can be seen as defenders and guardians, not just a group of dedicated killers that solve every issue with bullets."
"I actually have a recommendation for that." Collins shifted her stand into something a little more relaxing as she looked deep in thought. "When I became a Level One Agent, I did in fact pull in a bunch of cops as my team, something that would be just what you described. But only a portion of my team were Human Beings; I also had a Salarian Inspector, an Asari Customs Agent, a Drell flatfoot, and a Turian pariah who never wore a badge a day in her life thanks to the Hierarchy. You… you would have liked Nessie." The Marshal was lost in her memories. "Nysiana Velyanis was the granddaughter of a Hasti Commander who lost to Separatists and surrendered to spare his men; a very serious taboo amongst the Turians. She had the mark of shame on her face when I first met her, a Hierarchy Sailor who worked in the Orlop Deck of a Turian Dreadnought as a Bosun's Mate scraping the s'kak from the bilge pumps and rust from the reclamation systems. Nessie wanted to be a cop, but it would never happen because of that mark of shame. She came to my office hoping to be a Human cop when Turian cop would never happen. Despite that she was underqualified as hell… I gave her the opportunity." There was a smile on the Marshal's face, Jannie saw. "Best damn decision I've ever made, giving someone a chance at their dream. She was a hell of a cop, stood tall and proud, acted with honor and professionalism. She… use to joke that she had that rotten luck of being born to the wrong damn species." It was easy to hear the sorrow in Sam's voice.
"Torfan?" Shepard asked, knowing that every member of Sam's team of cops were now dead, most all of them on Aratoth's moon.
"She died freeing slaves and stopping slavers, taking on overseers and guards while breaking chains and collars." The brunette woman replied. "She was the only Turian Deputy in all of the Systems Alliance Marshal Services, went to the Marshal's Academy and earned her graduation. You… you should have seen how happy she was, the first of her kind walking a path all of her own, proving herself to members not of her species that she was worth giving a chance. I… I helped make that happen, and Nessie never ever let me down or made me regret giving a rookie cop a chance to be something better, a pathfinder in her own right."
"Sounds like a good woman who met another good woman that recognized that fact." Jannie told the Marshal, seeing Sam slowly nod. "Don't think for a second that that fact doesn't matter anymore because she's gone, Marse. Sometimes we make small impacts in the lives around us, and sometimes we make big impacts. Did you know I had a bit of the opposite happen to me? I was the one that was inspired by another. I only had my shit somewhat together by the time I entered into Systems Alliance Military Academy, though thankfully hitting the books and playing with tech were certainly in my repertoire. But that's not what made me an N, what made me who I am today. My whole life had been pretty good until that day, but I was like everyone else, one day to the next with only minor things set in front of me save for Annapolis to become an Officer in the Systems Alliance Navy. Even then? I was still kinda just chugging along like everyone else.
"And then one day I met her." Jannie said with a smile, looking to her sister SPECTRE as Sam listened, obviously a little riveted by the words. The redhead turned her head slightly towards a particular direction and inclined her head slightly enough to indicate that she was pointing someone out, to tell Collins who that person was. The Marshal looked over, saw the person in question, looking a little taken aback as her flickering blue eyes went back on Jannie.
"Sara?" Samantha asked, her tone a little unsure.
"That fucking movie actually did try to do what Sara did in Illyeria General about as accurate as it could be in a five-minute span of reeltime." Jane told the Federal Marshal shaking her head. "I was unconscious for it, I literally had no idea what was going on. I know I was told that after I drove off the assailants attacking Illyeria High, that a few of the staff members found us in that hallway, everyone dead but me but with three rounds in my guts and one close to my heart." Jannie wasn't even aware that she touched the location, her armored hand lightly pressing where she had been shot in the chest, her hand meeting the armored breastplate of her HMWA MasterGear SPECTRE Mk. IV Armor without even aware of it. "I think one of the teachers drove me to Illyeria General, with so many wounded during the attack, Skybulances and EMT's in short supply. I had just defended a school with three thousand students during a slave run, and thankfully someone had the balls to check up on me and drive me to the hospital in the middle of a warzone. Damn movie made it look like a western shootout, like I somehow retardedly stood up and took out the last five guys in a Bangkok Rules shootout to explain how I got shot in the gut and chest. I was behind cover the whole time, but our improvised defenses had been shattered and destroyed by all the gunfire. Seven teachers died that day defending their students while fighting back slavers and scum, shot through cover but not a single one of them giving up or giving in. "
The redhead closed her eyes, remembering that hallway, funneling slavers and their hired goons into a killzone like she had been taught in Annapolis. The deafening sounds of gunfire in an enclosed hall as eight people desperately fought back against an unknown amount, their numbers falling one at a time from a fuselage of rounds. Jannie remembered when Derrick Brown had been the first to fall, his cover of desks and lockers shot through and the man falling to the ground with a half-a-dozen round in him, bleeding out as they fought on, remembered when she had gotten shot, the punching sensation in her belly and the burning in her guts. Despite that, she had kept fighting.
"I woke up like five or six hours later, having no idea where I was or what was going on." Shepard reminisced as she sat in the GRZLY, Sam listening without interrupting. "My first real thought besides where am I? was that I had been captured by slavers." Jannie saw that Tali was looking at her as well, her silvery eyes behind her indigo visor wide at the story. "The patient next to me, some gentleman, told me that I was in a hospital and that an angel in the guise of some kid had saved my life. I was… pretty flabbergasted at the news, thinking that some kid had pulled the rounds from my stomach, had stitched me together and patched me up, gave me fluids… saved my life. It was… profound. I don't think I had ever been quite as touched by such a revelation to think that some colonial kid had gone into a wing meant for those who were expected to die because there were too many wounded and not enough health care providers that a child had volunteered and saved my life. They told me she had done so with dozens of people, working on each and every person, putting them back together as best she could, making a promise to me that I would be proud of her. And right then, at that very moment, I knew before I was told who that person was." Jannie had to look away, the burn of tears coming to her eyes as she thought of that moment. Time had dulled that memory sadly, but it had never dulled that emotion, the fear and revelation that her dear Sara had jumped the Citadel to come to Elysium for her. Jannie had always been Sara's hero when she was a kid, the redhead knew. But on that day, their roles had been reversed.
"I remember her… coming to me when someone t old her that I was awake." Shepard recalled, blinking away the tears that still threatened to come. "Cit robe was a mess, sleeves pinned back to her elbows, looking as if she had ran a marathon while trying to juggle at the same time. But the moment Sara saw me awake? The exhaustion and everything had been swept away in one precious moment, seeing her eyes going wide at the sight of me. I remember how hard she had cried, burying her face into me as I held her no matter how much pain I was in, knowing how much danger she was in when she went looking for me. This precious little girl that I saw grow up, who I held in my hands in her first hour of life… had risked hers and saved mine." The N7 looked over to Sam, seeing that both Tali and Raeka were both looking at her. Those two might not know the story and likely hadn't seen the movie The Fires Of Heaven, which was just a badly-veiled version of the events known as the Assault of Elysium. "I wanted to yell at her and scream at her for doing something so… so… dangerous, so threatening, endangering her life for me. But how could I?" The tears that threatened her eyes were finally spilling over, running down her cheeks. "Not only had she saved my life, but dozens of others written off as dead. Not a day of training or practice, not a clue as to what to do, and she performed eighty-four separate miracles in one of the worst days we've ever known just because she wanted me to be proud of her. Proud! Like I wasn't already!" She closed her green eyes, not to stymie the tears, but to remember better. "Proud didn't begin to cover what I felt for her. Awe? Inspired? I was holding this barely-teenaged girl who had done something that Doctors would have been proud to have claimed, who had ditched everything in our worst moments in an act of love that I have a hard time believing much less comparing to. Proud… proud didn't cover it. I was inspired."
Sam Collins looked at her speechlessly, her face one of wonder.
"The movie claims that the Lion was born that day," that had been one of the last lines of the movie, a voice over done by April Flannigan, the actress who had played Ensign Jane Shepard in The Fires Of Heaven, "and while that's somewhat true, it didn't happen in a school, but a hospital. It was Sara that made me want to excel; not the attack, not the thought of slavers coming to our colonies, not the dead. Yes, those were all things that I used, but on that hospital bed, in those first few moments that I woke up and knew nothing of those things yet, all I had known was that this little girl that I held in my arms, who I've held so often in her life? Her first real act as a Human Being was to help others at the potential cost of herself. She didn't do it for money, or fame, or glory, or publicity. She had committed an act of love in the name of another and didn't stop no matter how difficult, how trying, how untrained or unprepared she was. Eighty-four people, eighty-four families owed so much to a Cit-born kid who had never stepped foot on a Human-held territory until the attack, and had saved Human lives not because of her species, but because she wanted the woman whom she looked up to her whole life to be proud of her. And… words will never convey how I felt about her, no word exists that can truly describe what I felt in that moment, holding her in my arms, near-death but alive because of her. I told myself that I would do better than I had ever before, to mold myself into something that… that could match that feat. I studied, I trained, I got accepted into N School, I changed my whole life because of Sara. I didn't do it for money, or fame, or glory, or publicity. I did it out of love, so that there wouldn't need to be kids braving such terrible dangers looking for family members and loved ones in hospitals. Just the thought of Sara doing what she did paralyzed me, and I didn't want it to happen ever again."
A throat cleared, and Jannie looked to the back ramp of the M577 to see Sara Ryder standing there in her ultrablack-and-blood red SPECTRE armor with a knowing smile on her lips as she moved forward to give Jannie a hug, her arms wrapping around her Auntie. The redhead smiled as she returned the hug, holding the young woman who had been a part of her life for so long that Jannie honestly wouldn't know what to do without her.
"Love you, Auntie. But next time you get into story time," Sara whispered into her ear as they held one another, "try to remember to turn off your SquadComm."
Fuck.
"Captain? I think I have an idea what's going on, now."
Sha'me/Ensign Tali'Zorah nar Reyya's eyes went from the Augmented Reality Display that was projected on the inner-curve of her helmets' visor to Captain Jane'Shepard nar Ticonderoga vas Normandy, having spent several hours going through several gigabytes of data in the Binary Helix sharedrives. Getting access hadn't been that difficult, and once getting in, she had made sure to masquerade herself as a high-level employee by creating a root-system inclusion and a false employee profile with strict confidentiality-level access. As long as she stayed smart and used her brains, she was able to figure out gaps and pieces to fill in the holes of missing data or that which was unobtainable due to the Corporations' multi-tiered separation drives and redundant access systems to prevent someone such as herself from gaining full access. Tali stayed where it was 'safe' for a dataware engineer such as herself to gain as much information as possible without raising any alarms by viewing more common schedules, programs, memos, financial ventures, reports, findings, and project updates without getting into 'red zones'; highly-protected and encrypted data that, while she could crack it, someone sooner or later would notice her electronic snooping. The Quarian figured that a location such as Binary Helix, sitting outside of Council jurisdiction, would likely have a shackled Artificial Intelligence or at least a highly-adaptive anti-intrusion software to protect itself from such things as 'hackers' (ugh, she hated that term!). Keeping it simple and light and letting her intelligence figure it out without being discovered was generally about half the effort that someone such as herself did when sniffing through electronic data. Queep, the Special Tasks Group unit not known as the Intel/Action Group were famed for doing just that (neither confirmed nor denied, of course, paranoid horn heads that they were!).
"Talk to me, Tali." The Captain said, her non-photosensitive green eyes looking at Tali as the rest of TEAM LION save Agent Zevin Raeka awaited word of when and where the strike would happen.
"This… investor meeting," Sara had to explain to her the intricacies of a Stockholder's Meeting to her, having own enough stocks to get some sort of investor newsletter from a few medical-oriented companies that she own parts of, evidently, "we originally thought that something went right and something went wrong. I'm thinking that isn't actually the case."
"Okay, explain." The red 'haired' woman replied, Tali having her full and undivided attention.
"Sara's onto something, it does look like that Binary Helix found something big several years prior, and according to documentation that I found, it wasn't cloning that they were trying to achieve, but a revival process." The Quarian replied, most of those said documents saved in her personal on-board microserver. "It looks as if something was found in deep space, something that might have been cryogenically frozen, and Binary Helix had been tasked with bringing this… subject back to life." She had read the memos herself, and couldn't believe her eyes. "They weren't stupid, Captain; they took every precaution in the revival process and even had test experiments on other lifeforms frozen in Noveria's exterior environment to see if it could be done." Cryogenics was cutting-edge technology, and as far as Tali was aware, flash-freezing a sapient was highly dangerous, and reviving them had been so far unsuccessful. Something to do with halted cellular degeneration during the freezing process that shouldn't happen but did. "Binary Helix made some progress; they were able to achieve Cryo-resurrection."
"Holy shit." The Human woman replied, her mouth dangling open. "Did the subject actually survive?"
"The first successful test subject died days later, but they did revive something from deep space freezing, even if for fifty hours." Shepard was right to be amazed. Many who died in space died flash-frozen, usually before brain-death occurred. But all-inclusive cellular degeneration happened whenever someone was thawed out, even if a person who died in space wasn't exposed to stellar radiation or dark energy echoes. No one had figured out why. "They were able to achieve a lifespan of three weeks combating wide-spread cellular necrosis in a Vorcha, a hardy species known for its high metabolism and regenerative abilities. But even then, the subjects still died of biological cellular rejection, a horrid way to go."
"Thus the catastrophe?" Captain Jane'Shepard asked.
"No, actually." Tali swiped at the page that had been holographically hovering over the right side of her viewer, going to another page. "Experts were brought in, Captain. Alumni experts." The Human woman pursed her lips at that, and even Tali knew what that meant. The very best minds in the galaxy had been brought in. "Binary Helix never got further than a few weeks… and all testing and experimentation ceased. They weren't trying to revive the original permanently."
"Cellular extraction? The DNA would have the same issues as the cells, necrotic decay." The N7 mused. "And cloning a subject isn't really going to give memories as far as I'm aware. Harte had downloaded his memories to his clones via subliminal transmissions as well as leaving his work behind for his progeny to catch up. Cloning a body does only that; give you a body."
"That's what they were trying to achieve, Captain, something not to far from what Tuvoc Harte was doing." The Pilgrim had to admit that at least Binary Helix had be, if unethical, then at least on the reasonable side of unethical. "They weren't cloning the subject; they were trying to make it viable."
"That sounds an awful lot like they were trying to knock it up so it could have cute children." Jane'Shepard quipped with a smile on her face.
"That's exactly what they did."
The Level Three Council Agent boggled at Tali for a moment. What Binary Helix had done was utterly extraordinary. Beyond very nearly anything ever accomplished.
They had brought back an entirely extinct species.
"According to reports and results," Tali began to explain, "The test subject was revived and in vitro fertilization occurred within minutes of the process, using the subjects' DNA to create two gametes; one transmitter, one receptor." That was a nice way of saying a female's egg and a male's egg. "The egg was properly fertilized and grew naturally with in the subjects' womb, and it was the female of the species. It looks like they were able to keep the subject alive for approximately a month before cellular degeneration degraded it to a point of no return, where there was zero chance of any kind of medical intervention possible." The Quarian woman gulped at that, trying to think of a mother who wouldn't sacrifice herself for the sake of her child. Then again, that same mother would probably wish to also see their child too and not be entombed in a rotting carcass of a body. "The Corporation created an artificial womb based off the subjects' physiology, using synthesized blood and fluids to recreate the same environment as best they could to the mothers' before removing the embryo and surgically implanting it into a test tube.
"Captain… they were successful. Two years ago, Binary Helix was able to successfully revitalized an extinct species with exactly one living member."
"My God…" The Human woman looked starstruck. Tali didn't blame her at all. "Here I was thinking they were going to be into some primo sick shit. I mean, they probably crossed some lines, yeah, but to bring back the dead? That's… divine intervention shit. Imagine what we could bring back if we had that process. Extinct species of plants and animals that could be beneficial, perhaps even bringing back the Protheans." Shepard's green eyes zeroed in on Tali's. "Was it a Prothean? You said they brought in a Protheantologist."
"It isn't a Prothean." Tali'Zorah replied. "The Protheantologist was there because the species existed during the Prothean Era, and also to catalog any kind of information they could glean. I'm assuming Asari, considering that they have the best Protheantologists in the galaxy. It seems that Irissa T'vara was approached but turned down the opportunity a couple of years back due to the fact that she was finishing up a dig on Aenur and wasn't about to abandon her students and workers for something flashy." Actually, Tali rather liked the Dean of Prothean Research of the University of Serrice. While they didn't get too many chances to talk, Irissa had no issues telling Tali stories of Rannoch, where the Professor had been born. "Subject Beta was born both healthy and viable, which was what Binary Helix had been hired to do. Guess who funded the project?"
"Benezia?"
"Saren Arterius." Tali had scoured for more information at that discovery, but couldn't find anything else. "Saren owns a healthy percentage in this Human company," Jane got the point Tali was making, "as does Lady T'soni. Arterius might have been stripped of his SPECTRE status and be persona-non-gratis in Council Space… but Noveria isn't Council Space."
"You're telling me… it's a very good likelihood that Saren fucking Arterius might actually be here?" The Captain was immediately eager.
"Not might, Captain. IS HERE." Tali'Zorah emphasized as she pulled up a still from one of the camera feeds for Peak Fifteen, showing a gray-plated Turian male with a prosthesis for a left arm with a time/date stamp of a few hours prior, late night for Noveria. She heard Jane'Shepard suck in a breath at the sight of the image, the first one of Saren Arterius in nearly two standard months. Tali knew that without being told that anything else mission-related just got bumped down on the s'kak-list with the confirmation of the former SPECTREs' presence.
But there was one slight suit-breech to that plan.
"Captain… there's a reason for this investor meeting, a reason that Lady Benezia and Saren are here. It's… bad, like worse than anything we've encountered bad." The only fight that Tali had missed since joining the SSV Normandy was the one involving the Thoi'han, Species 37 according to ExoGeni. She had been pierced by shrapnel, her suit breeched, and the environment of Feros had not been a pleasant one. Injury, allergic reaction, blood loss, and rapid site infection had brought her close to death, Seaman Monica'Negulesco nar Elysium vas Normandy staving the inevitable end until Tali was properly MEDEVAC'ed to the Normandy, where Commander/Doctor Karen Carolyn Chakwas nar Earth vas Normandy provided a clean coffin, surgical intervention, and enough anti-histamine and anti-bacterial drugs to revert an ecosystem back to the single-cell stage. Well, she hadn't faced the flood of Husks on the ACV Horizon either, but she had fought and destroyed the Geth programs on that ship, which were nearly as bad. She was now an expert on the truly weird and frightening, and what she had discovered?
It made her blood turn to Absolute Zero.
"What is it, Tali?" The Captain asked, her green eyes still on the image of Saren Arterius.
"It's what they brought back, Captain." Tali couldn't help it; her voice shriveled at the thought. "It's worse than Saren. Queep, it's worse than the Geth!" She queued up another image, showing a creature that was insect-like in nature, all hard angles with chitinous skin and sharp claws. Though the name had never been mentioned, and rightfully so, Ancestors must have been looking out for her when she found a file that somehow got sent to an unprotected area of the sharedrive that shouldn't have been there; like forgotten or misplaced evidence that police officers like Detective Vakarian loved to get to send a criminal to an IsoCube. But this evidence was horrifying. Tali suddenly remembered a bit of Human poetry that Ash had once said; that which is not dead can eternal lie, in stranger aeons death may die. Human poetry was so weird, but in this case it fit perfectly. Tali showed the image to the Captain, who merely looked at the species in question with an unknowing look. Agent Zevin'Raeka nar Mannovai vas Normandy, on the other hand, did in fact recognized the species as she saw the image that the Quarian was showing, the not-Dalatrass gasping at the sight.
"Oh no." Raeka said softly, her dark eyes on the image and only on the image. "No, no, no…"
"What is it?" Captain Shepard asked, looking to the Academy Alumni. "Another Alumni horror?"
"It's the ancient enemy." The Salarian female replied in a whisper, gulping. "Void take me.
"It's the Rachni."
Petty Officer (Second Class) Sara Elaine Ryder (SAN, HM8404, OST) stood speechless as the news was delivered of Benezia's presence, Saren's inclusion, and then finally of what had been brought back from the dead. The lonely section of the parking structure at the bottom recess of Peak Fifteen that Sergeant Kaira Sterling had brought them to was silent as everyone looked at each other in horrifying awe at the mere mention of the name that had been taught to the galaxy for over twenty-five hundred years as a monster to the stars. What had been a species that had threatened the entire galaxy and was responsible for tens of billions of deaths to sapients for almost two-hundred years had been recreated in a lab for reasons that absolutely boggled the mind.
"Are they bloody daft?" Sergeant First Class Ashley Williams spoke first after the news was delivered by her Auntie, the notes and dealings discovered by Tali'Zorah. "I mean, biological warfare is highly frowned upon even in the mildest of cases. But bringing back an extinct species to create slave soldiers? What the bloody fuck were they thinking? To sell them to… whomever? Controlled lab creatures for slaughter? Since when has that shit ever worked?"
"Ash, I don't think it's for us." Sara took a figurative step back as she thought about some of the things they had discovered since she had joined the Normandy. "We know that Saren has some sort of alliance with the Geth. We've never really come up with a good conclusion as to why he would do that, why the Geth would want to do so, or even how long it has been since he did that save that it had to be a good deal prior to Eden Prime just due to the logistics of getting a Geth Battle Fleet from the Perseus Veil ready and sending them to retrieve the Prothean Beacon. But now we know that he's possibly had something in the works for five years, and already had the money to provide to a genetics and pharmaceutical corporation to try out this endeavor and pay for it without a return in expenses for five years. This couldn't have come cheap, and Saren had to have convinced others to invest in such a project with some sort of bullshit lie to make them agree to it. Something that would void the repercussions of… God, resurrecting the Rachni." Ryder easily remembered the classes in the Presidium Academy of Education about the ancient horrors; while the other races were taught and examined, the species from Suen had been practically beaten in their heads in case someone anything survived. That an Academy Alumni like Saren Arterius had not only found some sort of survivor but also didn't immediately exterminate it was mind-boggling. Really, Sara could think of one real conclusion.
"They're troops for Saren and his plans."
"Wai… really?" Seaman Monica Negulesco asked, a little pale. "He already has the Geth. And you mention facing some Krogan mercs before. Why would he need the Rachni as well?"
"It's a bait-and-switch." Marshal Samantha Collins piped up, thumbing her Tridend Colony-marked chin, looking thoughtful. "The Geth come out to play, and I bet Saren thought the Council would either sit on their hands, or perhaps action on it. But if you bring up an enemy everyone knows of and scares the piss out of people…"
"They would mobilize against it, giving him the time and space he would need to enact his plans." Detective Garrus Vakarian finished, nodding his fringed head. "Everyone would be involved, and whatever sector of the galaxy they were in would be actioned on with extreme prejudice. Every other problem would be pushed to the side. Including a mastermind with a want for ProTech and the Geth at his disposal."
"Well, according to what Tali found in the databanks," Auntie continued with the revelation, "this stockholder's meeting is not only going to include a board meeting, but also a tour of the facility that's known as Peak Thirteen. This… is a good thing." Shepard was smiling, and Sara knew that smile; it was an N's smile. "Peak Fifteen has all the security of a private corporation's headquarters, but a lot of people who are probably in the dark to what is going on. Peak Thirteen, on the other hand, is the project in which they brought back the Rachni and where they are storing them. Everyone there is complicit to a Level Five Treaty Infraction, meaning we're not going to meet researchers and geneticists who had no idea what they were working on." Ryder felt a little leery on this turn of events. "Physical security might be greater, perhaps even electronic security, but it will be further from reinforcements or anyone who might get in the way. Benezia is there, Saren is there, and we know of it. What they don't know is that we are here, and they're stuck in a mountain with killer bugs. We wait for the tour to enter the Peak, and we seal the door of the only access point, trapping them inside. The labs and facilities have quarantine procedures and even a failsafe to level the whole place in case of containment breach or discovery.
"Option A: we can level the mountain and kill them all in on fell swoop."
Sara felt her soul shudder at the thought.
"Auntie… that's mass murder." Sara said slowly, blinking her blue eyes at the revulsion of the thought. "We didn't blast or sink to crush depth the ACV Horizon when we knew the Geth were inside and the possibility of finding any survivors were grim. You could have started launching kinetic strikes against the Thoi'han without ever entering that biome. I…" She had to slam her eyes shut as her voice choked off, the memories surfacing of what had happened to her, of what she did in Hadley's Hope.
"I don't want to be responsible for the complete destruction of a colony again, Auntie." Sara said as she opened her eyes, her voice wavering, the horror and revulsion that had happened washing over her. Yes, it wasn't her, and yes, she hadn't been in control. But those memories hadn't fled with the Thoi'han's control, hadn't stopped plaguing her dreams. "I know we got every rule and policy on our side. I know the Council of Three would probably kiss each of your cheeks before they started kissing your ass. I know that the mass majority of the galactic citizenry would praise and approve your action of exterminating the Rachni or the possibility of the Rachni returning once and for all, but… don't let that be on your conscious, too." She looked to Auntie, trying to convey what she felt through her eyes so the redhead could see. I didn't have a choice in the matter, she wanted to say out loud, the grief clogging her throat.
But you do.
Green eyes looked at her with love, with kindness, with affection, with sympathy, and the slightest of nods came, and the flood of relief that awashed Sara made her weak at the knees.
"Okay, Option B." The Captain stated. "This is, quite literally, one of the main reasons that the Council of Law and the Office of Special Tactics exists; to maintain galactic stability and safety. There's a Level Five Infraction happening in this Peak Thirteen. One word to the Council… and I can probably have the Krogan re-instituted as the Saviors of the Galaxy with a boots-on-ground purge of the Rachni and all those involved." While not actually better, there was a reason such things happened instead of just orbital bombardment. "Problem is that we are literally locked in a mountain with no exterior communications with anyone; not the Normandy, not the Alliance, not the Hierarchy, and not the Council. To do that means that we would likely have to leave Peak Fifteen and go to Port Hanshan, risk discovery and get a message out to the Council to bring back just about every piece of hardware, gun, armor, and knuckle-dragger they can scrounge up for the ultimate hunt. That will take time, and whatever scenario we are at now will have that time to escalate, deteriorate, and a fair chance of having Saren and/or Benezia leaving or sequestering themselves to where we can't find them. If I were Saren, I would unleash the Rachni if I thought I was being observed to make a clean getaway, having whatever forces tied down dealing with the more apparent threat. That might be his backup plan." Sara saw her Auntie look around, her eyes sweeping everyone including Sergeant Kaira Sterling. It was obvious the N7 wanted everyone to know what the choices were and what might happen.
"Option C? We action in and waste the fucker in a complex attack involving lures, traps, ambushes, and overwhelming firepower from the get go and turn his plated ass into a bloody smear and deal with whatever mop-up and repercussions afterwards."
"I'll be honest, option A has too many flaws." Marshal Collins spoke up first. "An orbital strike, while effective, isn't total; hell, I survived one on Shanxi at the age of two. There's no guarantee that this mountain will or won't take it, there's no confirmation that Binary Helix doesn't have some other place we aren't looking at, and we can't say Saren is dead unless we see the corpse which will be impossible if we bury this place in rubble. I bet there's going to be a treasure trove of intel and confidential information in there that is less guarded due to the site's electronic protection, and we can have a clearer view of what's going on and if it's happening anywhere else. Just dropping kinetic strikes is a solution, but not the solution. We need to know for sure."
"Realistically, we have little idea what's going on inside of this Peak Thirteen." Detective Garrus Vakarian spoke up. "Yes, I would love to wipe out the Rachni with orbital bombardment… if this were known to be the only location they were at. We need to know if any experiments and results were sold off-site, and that intel is inside Peak Thirteen." That had many nod in understanding, the Turian Special Crimes Detective making a very valid point. "Waiting for reinforcements gains them the chance of knowing that we are coming and buys them a chance of escaping or making the situation worse in ways we don't know of and might not be prepared for. We need to control the situation as much as possible, and leaving gives them that advantage. Leaving a team to hold the area will be discovered, and likely overwhelmed, likely with Rachni. Escape, no matter how unlikely, isn't an option."
"Honestly, we're fresh, fully-loading, and ready to go right now." Sara added, her Auntie looking at her. "This might be our only chance at getting Benezia and Saren, true, but this is also a meeting where both of them might be expected to sit in a boardroom with other sapients. Saren might not even be armed or armored, and he will be as least guarded and least ready as he'll ever be in any other location. Next time we see him, it's going to be at one of his facilities or at a place he's attacking, fit and ready to go. This is the best opportunity, and likely the most vulnerable he'll ever be. The Bloody Talon is a master of creating situations where an enemy walks into one of his traps where Saren executes a series of prox mines, det drones, ambushes with turrets, swarms them with drones, stasises them with Biotics, and then splatters them with guns. He won't have that advantage here, not with so many people not of his plan, too many people moving around and possibly disrupting his plans, preparations, or just tripping into a killbox. We're never going to get another chance to face him at his weakest, not a two-decade SPECTRE veteran like Saren."
Sara knew all the tales about the Bloody Talon thanks to the pilot from Skybulance-37 Flight Officer Kaius Contenus and Emergency Rescue Technician Javis Latarus, Saren Arterius being the youngest-inducted Turian SPECTRE and a war hero for his kind. For all the vaulted 'non-disclosure' that the Council prattled about the secrecy of SPECTREs and their missions, there was always unofficial reports and anonymous tidbits being released to social media reporters and watchers about 'unofficial' actions and reports about Council Agents. Auntie was no different, rumors and speculations about her actions on Eden Prime, Therum, the ACV Horizon, the Battle of LaGrange Point Two, and Feros. Some jackass in the Systems Alliance had posted pictures of the corridors in the Horizon where TEAM LION had massacred almost four thousand husks, the pics and still widely and wildly distributed in a show of force that had people absolutely stunned. There were also pictures of what happened on Therum where Sara and her team had destroyed over seven hundred Geth during the period of a day being circulated as well.
Of course people who had never held or shot a gun in their life, much less been shot at, would find such things exhilarating.
"Anyone have any real issues with option C?" The Captain of the SSV Normandy, asked, actually putting it up for a vote. "This will put us in the line of fire, likely right in the middle of danger. We're talking an Asari Matriarch who is Biokenetically more powerful than all of our Biotics put together, a Special Forces veteran and twenty-year SPECTRE veteran, God only knows whatever they dragged along with them but I don't doubt they have some entourage, and the motherfucking Rachni in the middle of a one-way trip mountain with explosives planted to level it in case of quarantine or escape. Oh, and an asshole Corporation that will no doubt frown on us for violating their asshole policy of thumbing their noses at us because they're rich."
"Merde, bring 'em all on, la Capitan." Corporal Jeanette Vasquez said while patting her Devlon Industries' M56 Marshal Medium Machine Gun with its carrying harness attached to her armor. "Putas play stupid games, putas win stupid prizes."
"Amen." Ash coined, putting up a bro-fist towards the Marine Corporal, who took the opportunity to rap knuckles with the Army Sergeant First Class.
Author's Notes: A part of this chapter goes a bit into the ARC that I've named The SPECTREs Of Humanity, a little bit of an account of each of their past. Sam bringing a Turian Deputy into the Marshal Services was started in A Fox Amongst The Wolves until I lost well over 50,000 words when my computer crashed a few years ago, but Nysiana 'Nessie' Velyanis was to be Sam's sidekick, more or less. I also do a bit of a viewpoint of the Assault on Elysium in which how Jannie got wounded and her waking up in Illyeria General, something I haven't highlighted until now. I mentioned before back in The Center Of The Known Universe, IV that Jannie had been a wallflower back in the Military Academy, not some Sailor looking to be an N. Elysium had changed her, but here I highlight that it wasn't the attack itself, but Sara that turned Jannie from a wallflower into a Lion.
I bring up the real-life issues of Cryogenic revitalization process; cellular degeneration. Something about snap-freezing a subject and thawing them out in a microwave induces complete cellular decay in tissues throughout a body (pretty words meaning your rotting inside-out and outside-in at the same time due to the liquids in your body).
"That which can Eternal lie…" The full quote is "That is not dead which can eternal lie; yet with stranger aeons, even Death may die" - Howard Philips "H.P." Lovecraft, "The Nameless City" (in reference to Cthulhu, the Great Old One of R'lyeh, a dragon-like, octopoidal entity said to enormous and the very sight of it will render a man mad).
"Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." This I stole from SomethingProfound11's "Encroachment" when dealing with Cerberus. It was too fitting not to use.