So, LonesomeTiger wrote about the High Admiral thing, saying that Grand Admiral was best and that it was a real thing. I searched about it, and actually is. And it does sound better, so I edited the previous chapter, also making corrections on punctuation. So, this is chapter 5, enjoy!
Heleus Cluster, 3° planet away from Voeld, Carrier ARS Indomitable
Captain Cutter watched as the last of the Kett ships was destroyed by a Heavy Cruiser. The Carrier Indomitable was part of a small flotilla that had accompanied Admiral Shepard to the system, they stayed behind, making sure that the people on the ground were not caught by surprise.
The small flotilla consisted of his ship, being escorted by four Heavy Cruisers and the Normandy, that flew to the ice planet.
The battle was quick, there was only three Kett Cruisers, but his experience told him that this only happened because the Kett didn't know they were here. His enemies were smart, and their ships were advanced, being able to turn off part of the front armor of a Trafalgar-Class Heavy Cruiser. The enemies were outnumbered, he cannot help but imagine how a full battle would look like, they possess 1498 combat ships now, how much does the Kett have? Would it be enough? In his mind, shipyards were a must.
The comms relayed to him the Admiral's orders, he then ordered the flotilla to make the jump to the orbit of Voeld. It took only moments to reach the coordinates, from there, the three bombers left the hangar bay.
In the cockpit of the first B-224 was Captain Eliza Maguee. The B-224 was a Heavy bomber of Human design, based on the old B-1 Lancer, with fixed wings. The wings are smaller in length, but larger in width to support the four big engines. Cpt. Maguee squadron was tasked with the bombing of the Kett facility.
Maguee ordered the descent from orbit. The Indomitable AI, Roland, will take care of the base's shield.
The three aircraft entered the atmosphere with streaks of orange light. They entered formation after stabilizing, traveling at Mach 3.2 to the target area. As they reached the dropping zone. The facility's shield dropped. Magee spoke on radio.
"This is Vulture-1 to squad, target on sight. Bombs away."
"Vulture-2. Bombs away."
"Vulture-3. Bombs away."
The combined payload of the three bombers was more than enough to destroy the facility. When the main tower fell, they knew their mission was finished.
"This is Vulture-1 to Overlord. Mission accomplished. Vulture squad are RTB."
The three aircraft accelerated to the max, climbing at a 90° angle, back to their carrier.
Normandy
Shepard was walking to the airlock with Scott and Cora when the message came with a video file. The Enemy facility was no more. He addressed the other two.
"Well, the bombers did their job, the temple was destroyed."
"Good, that place had to go." Cora confirmed.
"That place gave me the creeps. Using the people to fight their own is just sick." Scott said.
"Oh, my friend, you don't have a clue." Shepard said
They entered the cockpit, the airlock to their left. Julio noticed the three of then behind him, he left the controls, turning his chair to them.
"Well hello, good to see you in one piece." He said. Cora and Scott almost tensed, but if everything happening, a metal man was not that weird.
"This is Julio, our pilot. He is a good pilot, but likes to crack bad jokes from time to time."
"Hey!" Julio called, offended.
"So." Scott began. "Are you an AI?"
"Yes. Oh, right! Our Highness didn't brief you yet. Let's just say that time changes things."
The airlock began to cycle, opening moments later. Out of it came Suvi, Kallo, Lexi, Gil, Liam and Peebee. They were confused at best, but anxious to understand were that ship came from.
"Julio, attach the Tempest, we may have to use our engine to go to the Nexus."
"Roger that. Hey, Jonathan, could you record their faces and send to me, I don't want to lose their reaction."
Jonathan only rolled his eyes. He mentioned for the Tempest crew to follow him to the war room.
The war room was bigger than the other Normandy's, a table on the center, with seats and a holoprojector in the middle. Already sited on the table was Rayla with the hood covering the top of her head, with Prophet on her left side, her Right side was empty, with Raven sited on the chair next to it. On the opposite side of the table, the Moshae and Jaal where sited with the rest of the Tempest ground team. They all took seats, Shepard siting on Rayla's left.
Shepard turned his attention to the Moshae. Ryder had explained that she is some sort of cultural/technological icon. So, he decided to properly address her.
"Your Grace, is good to see that your health has improved."
"Your Doctors are incredibly talented, yes. But please, just calm Moshae, there is no need for such formalities." Moshae Sjefa replied, Jonathan just nodded.
"Well, to begin, we should introduce ourselves: I'm Grand Admiral of The Andromeda Relief Fleet, Jonathan Shepard." He used his hand to mention Rayla. "This is Rayla'Zorah, my second in command." She nodded to them. He then mentioned Raven. "This Raven, our Heavy weapons and recon specialist." Raven waved at then. He finished pointing to Prophet. "And that is Prophet, our gunnery chief." Prophet nodded.
"This is nice and all." Drack began, impatiently. "What I want to understand what the Hell a Quarian is doing working with a Geth, don't you remember what they did to your people? I do, I was there."
"All Geth known that you were there." Prophet began. "You ripping through Geth platforms is still in our archives, you where one of the essential people that made sure of our creator's survival during the Morning War. And we all deeply thank you for it."
"What?"
"I believe we should give them the run down first." Rayla interrupted the conversation, bumping into Prophet with her elbow. The Geth raised his hands in surrender.
"If you excuse me." Jaal began. "It would be better if we take the Moshae back to Aya at once."
"I agree with him." Scott said.
"Okay. Eva, plot a course to 'Aya'. Pathfinder, if SAM could set the coordinates, please."
Ryder nodded. They felt the ship jolt slightly.
"As things go, you should know what we are…" Shepard stopped. "Well, from when we are would be more precise."
"What do you mean?" Cora asked.
"Your Arks, together with the Nexus, departed the Milky Way December 2185." Rayla began, preparing for their reaction. "The Andromeda Relief Fleet departed September 2818."
The outrage and the shock of the people in font of them was indescribable. They all began speaking at the same time, some believing it was a bad joke, other saying that it was impossible. Everybody quieted when Raven punched the table.
"Could we be more civilized, please?" He spoke in a calm voice. That appear to make effect.
"I'm sorry sir, but you have to understand, we took more than 600 year to reach this place. You are saying that you arrived in what, one year?" Scott began.
"Three months." Prophet corrected.
"Whatever." Scott turned back to Shepard. "How?"
Shepard didn't immediately answer, reaching for an holo-keyboard in front of him. The image of a Relay was shown. The Relay was different from the ones the team was used to. I was bigger, the "smoothness" of its surface gone, with other type of tech welded to it.
"What is this?"
"I don't know if you noticed." Shepard began. "But our technology changed a lot in the last six centuries. Our FTL for example, only uses the Mass Relays to preserve fuel, we don't need them anymore, as the HyperSpace engines are faster. But since the Relay where there, they tried to meld the two technologies to make a faster travel. The Alpha Relay worked, but every time it was used, the Relay was destroyed. After several tests, the project was scraped."
"In March 2818, a SOS was detected by our deep space defense satellites. The eggheads discovered that the message was coming from this Galaxy. The Council was informed, and they decided that sending help was imperative. I was chosen to take command of the Relief force. And here we are." Shepard finished.
"That is a lot to take in." Scott thought. He could see in the faces of his team, they were thinking the same.
"This is incredible." Sjefa said neutrally. "But, now that you are here, what will you do?"
"We saw what the Kett did to your people. I will properly brief all of you later with the nexus leadership, but believe me when I say, the people of the Milky Way know what you are felling right now, better than anyone." That sent a chill to the Pathfinders team, they didn't like the implications of that. "But as you know, there were other teams, my teams, in the facility, and what they discovered was unnerving."
He preset more buttons on the keyboard, two pictures appeared. One of a Human and one of a Krogan, both Kettified.
"By the goddess!" Lexi gasped.
"They are trying to Exalt us too. As for your question, Moshae, we are going to war."
The severity of the words spoken was palpable, that man was serious and ready to enter a Warpath against the Kett.
"How do you plan to do this. With what army you will wage war against them?" Moshae asked.
"With mine. We came to this Galaxy 1500 ships strong, 1498 of those are warships. There are more than 650 000 grounds troops there. Military vehicles, ranging from troop transport to armored tanks. Aircraft from various forms. All of it, will now be used to fight the Kett."
That... scared the Moshae. But she was not a coward, she voiced her concerns.
"I'm sorry if I sound wrong, but that amount of soldiers will scare our people, we were already invaded once, how can you guarantee me that this is not an invasion force."
"Before we came, we predicted that the Initiative had made first contact, and we came ready to provide whatever that species needed. That said, we want to join your resistance."
"How so?"
"The pathfinder spoke to me about an Efvra de Tershaav and he sounded like a levelheaded, respectable military leader. We are willing to give him assets in this fight, ranging from ships, armor and personal."
"That…" The Moshae was speechless. "I don't know how to respond to this."
"If you allow me, I am a resistance fighter, I would like to fill a report to sent to Efvra when we arrive in Aya." Jaal spoke, after taking in all the information given.
"Of course, his opinion will be of most importance."
"If you excuse me, I think I need to rest more." Sjefa said. She and Jaal left the room.
"Danm." It was all that Scott was able to say.
"We did come prepared." Raven said.
"Where is this fleet?" Cora asked.
"At this moment, sitting in one of the eastern systems, don't know its name. Small flotillas are searching for the other Arks." Raven answered.
"You said that you have 1500 ships, but 1498 warships, what about the other two?" Ryder questioned.
"They are liveships." Rayla answered. "5 kilometers ships made to transport civilians, namely families and whatnot, and serve as a mobile plantation, whole sections of the ships are made to grow crops."
"Five kilometers?"
"Since we don't use eezo, there is no more size limit."
"I believe that further details must be discussed with the Nexus leadership. Since we are travelling now go take a rest, eat something on the mess hall." Shepard suggested.
"I don't know about you, but I really want to take a look into the core of this bad girl here." Gil said enthusiastically.
"Sure, the idea is to outfit your ships with these engines anyway." Shepard said.
After that they got out of the war room, Gil took off immediately to the engineering bay, followed by Kallo. Cora, Liam, Vetra and Drack headed to the armory, followed by Raven, Rayla and Prophet. Jonathan called Scott to his cabin, so they could speak more. The rest of the Pathfinder team scatter trough the mess hall.
Shepard and Ryder took the elevator to the captain's cabin. Entering it, Scott thought that he was entering a hotel room. The place was spacious, with a king sized bed in the corner, a L shaped sofa next to a glass window. A small office in the right, behind the glass window. Noticing Scott staring, Shepard took two beers of the fridge, then spoke.
"Rayla almost convinced me to put a fish tank in that wall over there." Ryder snorted. "Want a beer?" Scott accepted, they both sit in the sofa, one in each side.
"So, what did you wanted to talk to me?" Ryder took a sip.
"I will be honest. I'm just telling the fleet what to do in a more general sense, I leave the rest with the Admirals. I'm a soldier, I go in the field and complete missions. What I want is to continue doing it. This is what I propose: the Normandy and the Tempest to operate together. On the ground, we work as two teams: you command yours and tell me where you need me, and I command my own team. All while the Normandy can work as escort for the Tempest, since she doesn't have any weapons." Shepard finished. "So, Pathfinder, what do you say?"
Scott weighted his options, the plan was sound.
"Grand Admiral Shepard, you got yourself a deal."
They kept discussing about tactics and what about Ryder learned about the Remnant. They also spoke a little about their respective teams, since they will work together. Shepard didn't spoke anything about the Wilk Way, sometimes actively avoiding it, Scott noticed, but didn't say anything. After what looked a couple of minutes, the ship made another jolt, signaling that they just exited HyperSpace.
I will be honest: Writing a story with a meaningful plot, interesting characters and good reasoning is way harder than I though. Hum…