Chapter 67: The Satellite

Jack felt more nervous than he thought was physically possible now that they were finally here. In a few seconds, they would be exiting the Relay into the center of the galaxy and whatever the Collectors had waiting for them. He was glad that the Normandy was currently inside the Turian dreadnought in case they were jumping into a debris field but, he hoped Victus would let them out of the cargo hold after they were clear. If he had any chance of getting freedom after this was over, he needed to make sure he had some space from the Turians. His best chance was to slip away in the aftermath of whatever they were about to do but, he was getting ahead of himself. They needed to live through this first.

Most of the crew were at their stations preparing to launch but, Kal, Miranda, and Leng were in the cockpit with him wanting to see what they were going to find. Leng was annoyingly as calm as ever, what had happened to the madman he faced on Luna and Kal faced on Purgatory? The Illusive Man really did have control over him if he could contain his anger this well. Personally, Jack was starting to wonder if there was some sort of control chip implanted in him with the optical sensor. Even though they had done it to Saren, he assumed one of Cerberus' actual agents was against The Illusive Man's employee philosophy since he hired so many traitors. His guess was Leng had taken Kal's lesson about anger to heart and was acting calmer then he really felt.

He could hear Saren walking towards them from the airlock, his voice was concerned, "Does that mean we're turning around?!"

Jack's heart skipped a beat to see Saren walking with Adrien Victus, shouldn't he be on his own ship right now instead of the Normandy? "What's going on?"

Adrien quickly answered Saren first, "We already made the jump so we're committed to this. I don't know what happens when we're done." His mandibles started bouncing rapidly when he glanced at him, "I'm afraid I've lost my ship Commander. My son took command away from me so I thought I'd come with you."

Of all the times Turian politics had to be a problem, they just had to pick right now. He may have been more sympathetic to the old Turian's loss if they weren't dealing with the Collectors. Tarquin had wanted him to take the Normandy crew back to Earth as soon as possible so it definitely wasn't a good sign he had taken over the ship. If they weren't already in the middle of the FTL jump he had no doubt Tarquin would've turned them around. However, he had a strong feeling he wasn't going to get much help from the actual Turian army. It wasn't the end of the world, they had prepared for this from the beginning but, the loss of extra bodies certainly didn't help their chances.

Jack chuckled lightly turning back to the viewport, "I'm sorry you lost your ship because of your son. I don't know if I would have picked this ship as the safest place to be right now though."

Adrien gave him a Turian's best interpretation of a smirk, "He's stubborn and sometimes a little brash. But, he gets the job done when no one else will even try." He looked down at Jack's hand, "Ah, a Turian wedding band, where did you get it?"

Kal stepped forward showing off his own on a chain around his neck, "When Jack was presumed dead I received his belongings. These were his Mother's so I used them to purpose."

Adrien's mandibles twitched again, "Well, congratulations are in order then. I'm glad someone got good use out of them."

A Turian's voice came through the radio on Adrien's armor, "Approaching Omega-4 Relay's exit. Everyone stand by. Reaper IFF activated. Signal acknowledged."

Another Turian replied, "Captain Victus? The drive core just lit up it's energy signature like a Fallalha tree!"

EDI must've been connected to their bridge because he could hear her voice through the radio, "I am detecting your drive core's electrical charge is nearing critical levels. You should drop a non critical system to conserve power."

Adrien was about to give an order through the radio when Tarquin belowed, "Lower the shield, they won't be expecting us coming anyway."

Victus gritted his teeth clearly wanting to scream it was a bad idea to lower the shields but, he had no power over decision making anymore. Jack could relate to that feeling having been under Cerberus' thumb and now the Turians. He also had to agree that disabling the defensive shields now was literally the worst system to turn off. What if the Collector dreadnought was sitting at the exit point to the Relay just waiting to fire at them? From his experience, shields wouldn't protect the ship for long against Collector weaponry but it was better than nothing. Unfortunately, Tarquin wouldn't listen to him because he thought he was a terrorist, nor his father for helping him. He just had to hope they all didn't die the moment they exited FTL.

The first Turian answered with, "Rerouting now! Brace for deceleration."

Even though they were on the Normandy with it's own gravitational mass thanks to their own drive core, they still felt the jolt as the Turian ship exited FTL. Jack hoped for the best given the circumstances but, heard a sickening smash all around them. His eyes widened seeing the cargo hold's flooring start to rip apart. The shields would've protected them from whatever pieces of metal were flying at the ship, saying I told you so seemed extremely petty in the moment though. His thoughts quickly turned back to the immediate situation as the floor kept getting torn to shreds closer and closer to the Normandy. He was about to say something to show his concern when the Normandy started falling out of the Turian ship.

Joker snapped into action grabbing the controls as quickly as he could, "Oh, shit! Tali, turn on the drive core. Now!"

Tali answered him sounding confused, "My sensors are reading we're still on the Turian ship. If I-"

Jack interrupted her seeing they were going to crash into debris, "Just do it Tali!"

He couldn't believe after all his hard work with Cerberus that they were going to die from crashing into a chunk of space metal. Jack tensed grabbing the back of Joker's chair as if that would somehow help them survive the crash. At the last possible moment, the power to the Normandy's engines were activated and he was able to pitch the ship away from slamming into debris. Truth be told, survival wasn't a huge accomplishment right now but Jack let out a breath he had been holding. The ship made a one hundred and eighty degree turn to regroup with the Turian ship. They were surrounded by similar pieces of debris. Some of the ships seemed to be powered by solar panels along the wings with a single central pod while others were large triangular shaped dreadnoughts. How many ships had attempted to make this jump through the generations without the Reaper IFF? Seeing all of the carnage put The Illusive Man's goodbye into a better perspective.

Adrien and Tarquin said the same thing at once, "Give me a status report!"

A Turian replied on the radio seemingly not bothered by the two Victus' giving them a command, "We lost the cargo hold but, since we were at our battlestations no lives were lost. I wouldn't count on engineering being able to restore shields to the rest of the ship with that large of a hull breach. Orders sirs?"

To his surprise, Tarquin said, "This is your show Shepard. Where do you want us?"

Jack raised an eyebrow at Adrien who muted his radio, "The ninth platoon honors it's commitments. Don't expect him to buy you anything as congratulations when we make it through this but, I promise he'll see it to the end."

Leng tilted his head to the side as if to mock him, "When it's convenient to honor them anyways."

He sighed but gave the go ahead for Adrien to open the channel back up, "We keep going as planned. EDI, scan around our location and find out where the Collectors are."

EDI's voice came from the Normandy's intercom system as well as echoed in Adrien's radio, "Acknowledged Shepard, it could take a few minutes."

Joker gave them all a wide smile, "Are we going to point out I saved us from being flattened like a pancake? Seriously, that was too close."

Kal gently clapped him on the shoulder, "You did good. Make sure we don't crash into anything else though."

Miranda's gaze was bouncing around all of the debris in the hopes of finding the Collector base by herself, "These must be all the ships that tried to make it through the Omega-4 Relay. Some look... ancient."

Leng stroked his chin lost in thought, "Explains why all of our probes never responded after going through. I wonder how many cycles have tried to come here before us.."

Adrien raised an browplate out of curiosity, "Cycles...?"

Jack became more dismissive then he meant to be, "Something to do with the Reapers and how they operate. Talk to a Prothean archaeologist when we get back, hopefully they've learned more by now."

Thankfully, EDI came through to cut the conversation short, "I have detected an energy signature almost identical to the one Sovereign's shell used near the edge of the accretion disk past the debris field."

Jack took a deep breath readying himself, "Has to be the Collector base. Take us in for a closer look Joker. Nice and easy. Tarquin, you might want to keep the dreadnought back until we know what we're dealing with."

Tarquin of course ignored him, "I won't be caught off guard again, launch all fighters."

Joker didn't say a word as they made their way through the twisted hunks of metal and other ship parts. He was fascinated by all the different cultures that must've existed for millions of years to make this kind of protective barrier of junk. They passed many different large ships with the Normandy just barely able to fit through the cracks. It was hard not to miss a piece of junk with a red bird like creature with three presumedly letters underneath it. Something just seemed so Human about the design. Kal's pacing distracted him from his thoughts. The fact that the ship was forced to travel so slowly had to be weighing on Kal who had to know time wasn't on their side. At any moment the Collectors could kill Zero and for Kal at least, would make this mission meaningless. Come to think of it, where were the Collectors? Had they really left their base unguarded? That just begged the question, how important to them was it really?

EDI surprised them all and unintentionally answered his own silent questions, "Careful Jeff, we have company. I count six small craft coming straight for us."

Joker gave them all a worried expression, "Taking evasive maneuvers. You all might want to sit down, it's gonna be a bumpy ride."

Before he could even begin to take his advice, Jack saw smaller versions of the Collector dreadnought's weapon flying past the cockpits viewport. He trusted Joker's flying capability any day of the week but, it had to be a challenge even for him to avoid the ship's shooting at them as well as dodging pieces of space junk. Without having any piloting ability at all Jack could still tell they were making risky maneuvers. One second they were spinning through an old vessel's truly massive engine port and the next, they were playing chicken with several of the small, orb like, rocky Collector ships. As always, Garrus was a fantastic shot killing multiple ships with the Normandy's guns but, he missed one on the last pass.

Joker had a frustrated tone, "Now they're just pissing me off! Come on Garrus, your going to have to do better than that."

Garrus was just as angry, "If you'd give me a halfway decent shot I'd have them all by now."

A narrow, long, single pilot, Turian fighter squad flew by them taking out the remaining ships, "No need to panic Normandy, the ninth platoon has you covered."

Tarquin cut in on the comm, "Our ship has used a kinetic round to get past the debris field. No way we're losing you."

He wanted to say something sarcastic but Miranda spoke before he had the chance, "There it is, the Collector base... Not exactly what I expected to be honest."

Jack followed her gaze towards the heart of the safe zone and frowned, he had to agree with her. From what Sovereign had told them on Horizon about a forge, he had been expecting a kind of shipyard like the one that used to be on Luna. Instead, he was looking at a singular cylindrical tower the size of Arcturus Station, certainly not something intimidating to fit the Reaper name. Getting a closer look at it, Jack could've sworn he saw what had to be a satellite at the top of the tower. What the hell was this place? Because after one brief look around Jack was positive this wasn't a forge to produce more Reapers. What if anything did a VI have to gain by lying to them? Was there a forge somewhere else out in the galaxy? Or had the Reapers creators lied about such a device so their VI's wouldn't be afraid of death?

Saren marched forward to stand beside him, "Something's wrong here Shepard, this isn't what Sovereign claimed would be here."

Leng folded his arms over his chest, "You believed anything that thing told you? Maybe some of the Shepard's traditional stupidity is rubbing off on you Saren."

Kal ignored him sounding annoyed, "It doesn't matter what tech it actually is, we know it's part of the Collectors plan and our crew is inside. We have to hit them now."

He still couldn't shake off the feeling Saren was right and EDI wasn't helping, "Shepard, I originally believed the forge was at the center of the Omega-4 Relay based on Sovereign's past comments, however, this structure appears to be codenamed 'The Satellite' in Collector files."

Adrien asked the next obvious question for everyone, "Do we know if it's sending or receiving information? And from what location?"

EDI's orb appeared in the center of the cockpit, "Since the satellite has no power coming to it, I can only speculate it's purpose. If the Collectors are kidnapping colonists to power it though, that would suggest they want to send or receive a signal from an extremely distant location. For example, another galaxy."

Tarquin came over the radio, "I could aim our ships central canon at the thing and we can all go home."

That was what woke Jack up from a war in his mind, "No! We still have crew members aboard that could still be alive. Joker, see if you can find a place to land without drawing too much more attention."

Miranda bit her lower lip nervously, "Too late for that. Looks like they're sending out an old friend to greet us."

He followed her gaze again only to realize she was right. The Collector dreadnought was here and coming right at them. He hoped the Turian forces were going to make up the difference for not having Zero with them this time. Only one side was going to come out alive since all of them had nowhere to run.