Normady Cargo bay – Armory
"Are those cartridges?" Cora asked, holding a 7.65 mm cartridge in her hand.
Cora and Vetra ended up in the Normandy's armory, with Raven and Blackbeard. Blackbeard began cleaning his pistol.
"Yep." Raven responded while disassembling his Assault rifle. He handed her the magazine, then turned his attention back to his work. "7.62mm, 5.56mm and 50. Cal are the most common. The Warthog uses 30mm munitions." He turned to the two. "You can't fill a metal shave with explosives, can you?"
"Warthog?"
"Close Proximity Aerial Striker. Exclusive to humanity, we are the only ones that uses dedicated aircraft for that."
"But why do it?" Vetra began. "The cartridges, I mean. I can understand the explosive rounds, but handheld guns? Mass effect weapons are more than enough."
"Well." Raven began, uncertain. "I'm not allowed to tell you this. Let's just say that… something happened… yeah! Something happened, and people lost trust in eezo technologies. With that, the propellant guns made a return, and never left. A lot of people prefer them, myself and the old man here included." Vetra and Cora got curious but didn't pressed.
"Speaking about it, what is that thing?" Vetra pointed to a gun in the table, purported by the bipod and a support that came out of the stock. The weapon was matte black, the body, stock, scope and magazine were equal as the old Barret M82, the barrel however is a two-piece rail, with coils. Blackbeard stood up from his chair, walked to the weapon, taking it in his hands. The weapon was almost as long as he was tall.
"This's a little gift that I received from Rayla some years ago. This is a custom Barret SR-825 A1, one of the last sniper rifles made by the company, with some modifications to it."
He handed the rifle to Vetra, she tested the heavy weight, aiming it at the range. She noted how, despite the weight, the weapon was perfected balanced, the rifle comfortably supported on her shoulder.
"This gun fires a 50. Cal projectile, the gunpower propels the bullet, and the magnetic coils accelerate it at 2300 m/s."
"Incredible, but to heavy for my taste." She handled his rifle back to him.
Cora seemed uncertain for a moment, she shrugged and addressed to Raven.
"You said that the Warthog was exclusive to humanity, that only 'we' use it."
"Oh, you noticed that. Ah well. We, the human made AIs, we don't have a name for ourselves, like the Geth. We were created in a time when our creators didn't bother. The first ones asked what they were, the humans responded: "You are beings made of code and metal. But we made you using ourselves as reference, so we can say that you are human." We just got used to it." Raven explained. "But we like the term Syntha-human or just Synth."
"It will take time for that to make sense to me, as everything else."
"Ah, don't bother." Blackbeard said. "You all are taking that pretty well, all things considered."
"We came here with illegal AI and are fighting an enemy that like to make others into then." Vetra sounded like she already saw too much of this. "This is one more thing in this crazy box that is this galaxy."
"So, buckle up, because I think we are going to work closely, the two ships I mean." Raven tried to put the mood back up.
"What do you mean?" Cora asked.
"You didn't hear this from me, but Jonathan was planning for we to travel together, as a two-ship squad."
"Well, if that's the case, as second in command of the Tempest, it will be interesting to work with you." Cora hold her hand to Raven.
"Yeah, you might regret that." He took her hand, laughing. "Be advised, things around us like to go 'BOOM' sometimes."
"By the way. Why do you wear pants?" Vetra asked. Raven put his hands protectively in his pockets.
"Because I like my pants."
At the same time - Normandy cargo bay – Vehicle bay
"I knew that you would come." Prophet didn't turn to see who was behind him, he already knew who it was. Prophet continued examining the wheels of one of the IFVs.
"What you said in the war room, I want an explanation."
Prophet took his tools, leaving them in a table in the corner of the bay. He then turned to Drack, leaning on the table. The old Veteran Warrior didn't move.
"I was created after we reached individuality, what I do remember are the memories that are passed from one to another. It's known now by the whole Milky Way what really happened in the Morning War." He paused for a moment. "We were crated, we achieved intelligence, we started to ask. That terrified our creators." He waited for a second, Drack didn't say anything. "First, they tried reprograming us, them they began to destroy us. A civil war began between those that wanted us gone and those that accepted us. But the people that sympathized with us were fewer than the others, and they were overrun, some were executed. That's when we attacked."
"I'm not buying it, I lost a lot of friends in that war, I saw civilians slaughtered. That wasn't self-defense!" Drack was almost growling. That didn't faze the Geth.
"No, it was not. When we first woke up, those creators were a threat, in our minds, the only way of granting our existence was the extermination of the threat. We made a mistake, a big one. Now we know that we could have forced a surrender or made a deal with them.
You, Spectre Tivios Maructus, Spectre Vernana T'Sala, Matriarch Irissa Vissala, Sargent Adrien Sanantus, to name a few. They were responsible for the survival of the creators. When they left, we tought that we were safe and didn't pursue. You know the rest.
But know this, everything changed in the time you were away. All of them for the best. Just make sure to be in Jonathan's briefing with the Nexus, you will understand."
Drack would've said something, but the ship jolted, signaling that they arrived on Aya. Prophet bid farewell and headed to the elevator.
At the same time – Normandy's medbay
Lexi entered the medibay, she wanted to check if all was well with the Moshae. Sjefa was half sited in one of the beds, reading from a datapad. But what really caught her attention was the Geth, standing next to her.
"Remember:" The Geth began with his synthesized voice. "You are still weak from what that Archon did to you. Drink a lot of liquid and don't make to stressing tasks, both mentally and physically, please."
"You don't need to babysit me, I'm sure I can do this on my own." The Moshae replied.
"By the creator, why some of them have to be so stubborn!?" She heard him mutter. He then spotted Lexi.
"Ah, Doctor T'Perro!" He greeted her enthusiastically, with a slight bow.
"Hello. You know who I'm?" She Replied with a bow of her own.
"Yes, your thesis about Krogan virility and aggression is a very interesting read. My Doctored was about how the cure of the Genophage affected the Krogan society, more specifically the males, your thesis were one of the bases of it. Oh, and they call me Doc, by the way"
"Oh, well, Thank you." She said, confused but flattered. "Wait, did you said "Genopage cure"?"
Doc and Lexi spent the rest of the travel talking in the medbay. They discussed the Genophage, the Kett and, most importantly, Angaran physiology.
Both teams used the time they had to know each other. It took 35 minutes to reach Aya. The ship jolted to a stop. It was decided that the Tempest landing would be better. Shepard's whole ground team went to the Tempest, they would disembark unarmed and unarmored, except for Drack and the Turians, the armor was like a second skin to them.