Disclaimer: I own nothing. This is purely for recreational purposes.

XXX

Sixty years. That is how long I've been here so far, and I've seen quite a bit so far and I have no doubt that I will see much more to come. Still, twenty years just having children, another twenty raising them before another ten looking for the world now called New Thessia while a final ten was spent building the foundations of what will be an entirely new race coming into existence within this universe. It was as incredible as it was annoying, especially since the work was a pain to deal with, not that I was complaining since I knew it needed to be done.

Within six months of setting down, we had built a fully functioning Omni-foundry that was pumping out Multi-purpose LOKI mechs that were being used as a mass work force, each driven by an individual VI that was then directed by an overseeing group of VIs that were each appointed to a different task. Some were tasked with laying the foundations of the initial colony, others were working to mine resources from the land, specifically the mountains, while others still were being used to farm from the beginnings of Hydroponic and Aeroponic gardens and farms that were constructed within the first three weeks. Following that, other things started coming together as I watched several Particle Accelerators coming online within the second year, six in total and all of them hidden in underground vaults, each one was stacked on top of the other and could produce roughly three metric tons ever week of Eezo. Keep in mind, that was for the standard, generalized purity that was considered the 'catch-all' standard for most things, lower purity stuff would allow for a significant increase in the amount produced within the same time while the reverse was also true, higher purity meant less produced in the same time.

After the Eezo production started, things started taking off as more Omni-foundries were created along with larger and larger numbers of mechs including modified versions of JOTUN mechs that were equipped with heavy construction tools, among other things. Within three years of landing on the planet, the first tower was halfway finished, the unfinished top of which was able to reach nearly three kilometres straight up, supported by Mass Lightening fields, Kinetic barriers and numerous layers of armor plating. The sides of said tower were also lined with over half a metre of Silaris armor, backstopped with a dozen redundant Omni-gel and Nanonic self-repair systems that would ensure the dark blue, silver and purple surface was always in good condition. Added to this were the dozens of GUARDIAN turret arrays that dotted the sides of the tower along with even more GTS turrets, each one fitted with sixteen double tubes of Matter/Anti-Matter missiles, giving each turret over 24 missiles to play with. Even on the uncompleted tower, that was easily hundreds of thousands of missiles that could be launched, not counting the ATG missile as well. The ground floor of the tower itself was even more heavily fortified, giving the entire thing a base diametre of over three quarters of a kilometre, reinforced with over two metres of Silaris in some places, and having a literal army of RAMPART, MJOLNIR and even a few automated heavy Mass Accelerator turrets with a bore measured at ten millimetres across, a dozen of these were littered, on quad-mount turrets, around the base of the tower.

Honestly, I thought it was overkill at the time, but my Daughters were the ones that designed and had the Mechs building it, I just went with it. They even named the tower, calling it The Tower of Athame, with a total number of floors that was simply insane, most of which were, according to them, dedicated for me. The entire top of the tower was meant to be my future home, and when I say that, I meant the top third, a good two kilometres belonging to me alone. Still, even ten years later, it wasn't finished, but it was getting closer as more Mechs and materials were pumped into its construction.

Aside from building that tower, the girls had also been busy establishing the foundations of their own Houses, making housing around the lower levels of the Tower while also ensuring the other defences were also in place over the few years up until this point. Massive Kinetic barrier arrays, Mag-Shields and even dozens of redesigned Deflector and Particle Shield designs that Larahin and Malany had managed to steal from the Holonet and reverse engineer, with the help of a few others. Still, as production of Eezo and Mechs continued to ramp up, the speed of construction only increased, both being supplied by the Omni-foundries and particle accelerators that had been moved under the Tower.

In fact, Jan'sha and a few others had already gotten together and decided that the next major construction project should be a massive series of Orbital elevators. Plural. Three were planned to go around the equator of New Thessia before combining into a ring in orbit of the planet. Said ring was planned to act as both an orbital shipyard, a docking port and a weapons platform with projectors for a planetary shielding system installed within it. Even with only the base of one tower complete, my children were not lacking in ambition.

Though, with all the knowledge currently swimming around in my head, it was nearly impossible for me to miss it. While my girls were more than willing to play together, the subtle power plays were already starting to show. They were nothing major, certainly nothing to worry about, especially since it mostly seemed to be along the vein of who could gain the most favor from me by doing one thing or another. Which, also explained a few things about how intricate the detail was when I had seen even the most basic of the rooms for my section of the tower. Some of them could have made the most expensive hotels and mansions look like barely maintained shitholes given the sheer amount of stuff that was around. Even with just the lower levels available to me, I couldn't help but feel that they had outdone themselves.

When I said as much, they simply beamed at me and told that the upper floors were going to be even better?! And that was without mentioning the various weapons, defences and miniature army that was planned to be stationed there at all times.

Goddess help me deal with my overachieving daughters.

XXX

"Just under a century. I must admit, I never expected for us to make so much progress in such a small amount of time." Spoke Queen Matriarch Nyiss Arteis as she stood by a window, her form covered by a body hugging dress of light cyans, dark purples and lines of silver with pockets of Eezo laced within the fabric, meant to enhance her Biotics if they were ever needed.

"Thank you, my Queen." Came the voice of Jan'sha as she kneeled before her mother, who had her back turned and was looking out of the top of the Tower of Athame. The massive observation room was largely empty with a series of long, comfortable and exquisitely well made sofas laying around, low backs with long sections to allow a person to lie down on them. Around the room, mechs with a female body style waited attentively, serving as maids and the like as one walked up to the table between two such sofas and laid a few drinks on it. Their chrome forms reflecting in the light bouncing in from the windows as it's featureless face never moved its gaze from its task of preparing the drinks.

"I am merely speaking the truth, Jan'sha." Nyiss spoke, her lips twitching slightly as she gestured for her daughter to rise before turning around and walking over. "It's been a century since you and your sisters have been born, fifty years since we've arrived on New Thessia, and one can't help but marvel at the progress you and your sisters have made in that time. Already, one of the orbital elevators nears completion while construction starts on the second. Teluc is already working on various forms of Bionetic and Nanonic augments for your own children, Sarum has seen to the creation of a dozen workshops to produce weapons and armor while Larahin and Malany are already working on background to allow them to infiltrate and over take the cultures of other races."

"... We simply take after our role model." Jan'sha offered with a half smile as she sat down on a sofa that was offered to her as her mother took the one opposite. Getting a snort of amusement from the older Asari in turn.

"Jan'sha, I've been the only role model you and the others have had, not to mention the fact that I taught you everything you know, and everything that you will probably pass on to your own children. The designs that Sarum is using are all recreations of weapons and armor used by the Asari before the Cataclysm, as are the ships and tactics that you hope to recreate for the military. So trust me when I say that a while it will work well in the beginning, we must strive to improve beyond that. One of the original faults in the Asari society was that they were too happy to simply accept the status quo of a given situation and try their best to maintain it, causing technological stagnation as a result." Nyiss explained as her daughter nodded, sipping from the Eezo-laced brandy that she was drinking while thinking about how to prevent that from happening.

"Glailne has already been considering this, she wants to try creating networks of hard-locked VIs that will be programmed to constantly run system scans of technological designs to see how they can be improved. As new technologies are created and discovered, we feed them back into the system and use that to upgrade our technology step by step. She told me that she would have a design for the first iteration of the system within two weeks." Jan'sha stated, getting a nod from her mother at the thought of her Sister, Mother's fifth child, Glailne Aveto. Glailne had chosen to take her house and focus it into a kind of general R&D that would not specialize in anything so much as looked into everything with varying degrees of interest. Already, she was working quickly to create technologies and ideas that were working well to improve the efficiency of both construction projects as well as the collection of resources. Most of these systems were only prototypes, but they showed great promise. Nyiss hummed in thought.

"Have her continue with her idea, but ensure that the VIs are incapable of doing anything but coordinating with one another to more thoroughly identify flaws and ways of improvement. I do not want them suddenly developing into an unshackled AI." Nyiss stated firmly, getting a nod from her daughter before she took a sip of her own drink in turn as they lapsed into silence once more.

"... How long until the shipyards are finished, exactly? I'll admit that I probably know it, but can you refresh my memory?" Nyiss suddenly asked for a second, causing Jan'sha to snap to.

"The first orbital elevator should be finished with the next year, from there, it will take another year before the first four shipyard is available for use, but that should give us another four with each year that passes as the ring is completed." Jan'sha stated simply before Nyiss nodded in turn as they drifted back into silence. Jan'sha fidgeted slightly before she reached behind her, grabbing a data pad from her back before placing it on the table. Her mother glanced down at the pad before looking at her daughter questioningly.

"Well, you said that we had to constantly be improving, so I came up with these. It's a few ideas for some Special forces units beyond just what the normal forces of the Asari would do. I've got three ideas for groups in mind, but I wanted your final go-ahead before I started planning any further." Jan'sha stated, getting a nod from her mother.

"Leave the pad with me. I'll read it later. you can have a few more drinks before you leave, though." Her mother stated, getting a nod from her as she knew that staying any longer would be unneeded, she had come to report to the Queen Matriarch as to the progress of the colony, and she had. Jan'sha would finish her cup, then she would call it at that before leaving.

Still, she made sure to savor the taste, especially as to being able to share some company with her Mother. Something that all the sisters agreed was... Nice.

XXX

Watching as Jan'sha left the room, I let a smile tug at my lips as I could easily feel the waves of relief rolling off of her as she left, I could definitely feel her having lost some stress from a day's work.

I smiled at that, sometimes, the best way to relax was just to sit down and talk with a familiar face that held a willing ear. Then again, the talent I had discovered recently seemed to also play a part in that. It was something I had found out nearly twenty years ago, faint at first, but growing more pronounced as time went on, a kind of sixth sense that linked me to my daughters. It was, at first, like a vague impression of how each of them was doing, but that image soon resolved to the point where I could picture a web-like image in my mind, linking me to my daughters, it was fascinating. An advantage of this was that I always knew how my daughters were feeling and, if they were upset, what the cause was to help them recover. It was rather useful in that aspect as it also told me where they were relative to myself, I even suspected that, as they matured, they would be able to access the Link, as I had taken to calling it. The tactical and strategic advantages alone would have made it well worth it.

I frowned slightly at that thought, true, it would be a boon to any wartime effort, but the problem lay in the fact that I had no idea what the cause of this was. The knowledge in my head held nothing that related to this, the closest being what Ardat-Yakshi to people after a partial linking, turning them into little more than brain-dead thralls while retaining so form of link to them, but that was not the case here. It was something to investigate in the future, I noted, as I took a sip from my Brandy. For now, I decided to focus on other things.

"Let's see what you've got planned, Jan'sha..." I muttered to myself as I looked at the pad before skimming over the details, looking for key points to summaries the material as quickly and as efficiently as possible. I felt my mouth twitch into a smile as I kept reading, noting little details and points of interest as it continued, but I didn't lose sight of the overview of it, nor did I lose sight of what it was describing.

Basically, Jan'sha proposed the beginnings of three new special forces groups, one of which was meant to be a combination of what I remembered of the Discerning and the Nightwind, another was meant to act as a Black Ops, and heavy assault, version of normal Asari Commandos, while the last one was supposed to act as my personal guard unit, something I found rather amusing, if nothing else.

The first of these groups was to be called the Crushing Abyss. A combination of the Nightwind and Discerning, replacing both, that's primary goal was to ensure the dominance of the Asari Sovereignty. The basic idea was that they were to take Asari Commandos and have them cross trained with Larahin's house, specifically in seduction, psychology and anatomy to ensure that they knew what to do, not counting the other things that she would already know. From there, the Commando would be modified with a number of augments, the key ones being a specially designed Chameleon Skin Bionetic augment that would allow them to change the texture, colour and pattern of their skin to allow them to, effectively, carry out a skin-deep shape shifting trick. Along with this, pheromone-release systems would be added to allow the agents to release the appropriate chemicals to get a target into any state of mind that she wished, usually putting them in a suggestive state of mind would be the key.

Using these augments, Crushing Abyss agents would infiltrate the Galaxy and start moving around, slipping around and... Convincing certain individuals to meet them somewhere private to... Relax, where they would then Meld with the target. Once done, they would start planting compulsions or seeds of ideas into said person's head. Getting them to think a certain way, one that would favor Asari interests. There was also other things, additional notes about giving some high-level agents Blackware Nanonics and using them to create spies, usually through a combination of a Ghost-hack rig, Grey Boxes and Meld-based compulsions. Said spies would be normal people that wouldn't even know they were spying for the Asari, and probably never would. Still, the effects of these spies would be an accumulative thing, with each spy passing on certain points of view to the next generation of people, often points of view that would be deemed acceptable by the Asari for when they show themselves. Luckily, a generation between most races and the Asari was a rather different thing. The average length of a generation, for Humans, was about thirty years, while for Asari, it was two hundred years, in the same amount of time, a single generation of Asari could see to the manipulation of six generations of Humans, almost seven even. By that point, it would only be a matter of ensuring that the... Corrections to their world views were reinforced and remained as strongly as possible in a Pro-Asari outlook. Rather clever, honestly, especially since no one would even realize what was happening because there wouldn't be any real links to follow.

Moving on, the next group was called Unspoken. A Blackops group composed of heavily modified and cross-trained Commandos that would then be sent out into the Galaxy to eliminate anything that threatened Asari interests. They would be using Asari tech primarily, but for most things, they would be using upgraded Blasters to take down targets and make it look like a local assassin rather than bringing it back to the Asari, getting up close to a target was not something that would be done as their SOP. From the notes Jan'sha left, they would either be utterly silent until the first, and last, shot was fired from an ultra long range sniper rifle, or they would act like a Crushing Abyss agent and infiltrate before eliminating the target. Any time they needed to resort to heavy assault tactics, that would be when things got interesting.

Among their modifications was a number that would increase their physical strength, speed, reaction times, hand-eye coordination and durability, all of which would be Bionetic in origin to prevent the possibility of rejection of cyberware. Nanothreading would also be present in a number of them as to make them as close to unstoppable forces of nature as possible while their armor would be primarily composed of Heavy Power armor, Battle-suits and large-scale piloted mechs. Weapons would be up to individual choice, but the guidelines I was reading said that most of them would be Plasma or Particle-based to prevent easy tracing, Sunfire pistols, Disciple Shotguns and Spear of Athame Assault Rifles. Warp Swords would also be present, along with a few Biotics Hammers, but those would be used only if needed to close distance to take out a target... Like if said target could use the Force. Aside from that, they were basically the same as normal Commandos, but with their entire membership being composed of Battle Matriarchs and War Priestesses.

Needless to say, it was planned that they would be supremely powerful Biotics.

The last group, however, almost made me want to both laugh my ass off and throttle my daughter, simply because, at first, it made me think that she was implying that I couldn't defend myself. The last group, called the Blackhand, was planned to be my personal guard, a kind of military unit that worked directly for me with no middle-men, or women, to filter commands through. The proposal was rather vague on details, mostly because Jan'sha still seemed to thinking the idea over, but what I saw was rather interesting. Jan'sha had apparently been speaking with a few of her sisters and had been looking into some experimental technologies, mostly as force multipliers for specific units of forces. The Blackhand, according to the notes, were planned to be equipped with Bionetic armor as standard, nanothreading, and Blackware to ensure they were always armed, those were planned to be the minimum amount of augments allowed. As for weapons, it seemed that Jan'sha had decided that Overkill would be the best way and was planning to have them all equipped with Particle Beam Rifles along with Sunfire pistols and a fair number of other tricks as standard. Furthermore, they would also be heavily cross-trained with both the Unspoken and the Crushing Abyss, allowing them to act as my personal version of both.

The Crushing Abyss were meant as the eyes and ears of the Asari Sovereignty, the Unspoken were the hidden dagger to go with those eyes and ears. The Blackhand were not meant to serve the Sovereignty, rather, they were to serve me and my interests, meaning that if I told them to slaughter the entire population of a planet, they would do it in a heartbeat.

Skimming through the rest of the information, I noted that Jan'sha had included times when she believed that these units could be created. The Crushing Abyss could have been deployed right now, as an extension of Larahin's House and with her being the first member, it's leader. The augments were fairly standard stuff and could be given to her once we had the right technologies available to us, Jan'sha said that a century and a half, minimum, before she was willing to do such, both for the sake of gaining more numbers, to ensure proper training, and to make sure that the tech worked as advertised. The Unspoken were basically the same, though, the timescale was more in line with three to four centuries to allow members of the military to acquire enough training, skill and power to be capable of fighting at the right level. Augments and equipment would have been ready after two centuries, giving them plenty of time to test, change and upgrade as needed.

The Blackhand, however...

The technologies to create the Blackhand were going to take six centuries, minimum, to design, test and approve to be ready for active use, not to mention the fact that Jan'sha apparently noted that she wanted to split off part of her House to work entirely as the Blackhand, basically separating them from her House and training them from birth to be the strongest warriors of the Sovereignty. It kind of reminded me of what the Mandalorians did, but would also include a vast number of other things such as Bionetic augments, Biotic training and cross-training in a dozen fields like hacking, first aid, seduction and more.

Still, I gave the concept my hesitant approval to carry on, sending a message to Jan'sha through my Omni-tool a moment later as I felt her joy through the Link at getting her pet projects approved. I smiled at that, at the end of the day, they were still my children, and I was happy enough knowing that they were happy.

XXX

"How many ships have you managed to build since the first shipyards came online?" I asked as I stood in the observation room of the first, completed, orbital elevator. The massive thing was made using a complex mix of high quality materials, Eezo lightening and a good grasp of material science, all covered with the standard curves of Asari design. Next to me, Sarum was holding a pad between her fingers, information flowing through her Omni-tool and into the machine as I looked at the skeletal forms of several ships in shipyards, swarms of Mechs and Drones all moving around them to ensure they were finished as quickly as possible. It wasn't really a big deal, as far as I could see, especially since each ship was going to be able to punch way above its weight class.

"Ever since the first shipyards came online eight years ago, we've been producing Frigates and a mix of some Light and Heavy Cruisers offer them support, but aside from that, very little else has been made. In terms of numbers, we have over two hundred Frigates, twenty Light Cruisers and ten Heavy Cruisers" Sarum explained simply as I nodded, turning to her slightly.

"What can you tell me about the specifications? I'll admit that I'm familiar with the designs used before the Cataclysm, but I can see that you've made a few changes." I noted, especially since it was true. Normal Asari ships were composed of a ring section in the centre that held the Cascade Mass Effect Core with three, or so, wings coming out of the ship to create a Y-like shape. Most ships were taller and wider than they were long, but these ships being built by my daughters seemed to shift away slightly, but only just. An instant later, and Sarum was projecting an image of one of the Frigates. It was composed a central ring section that made up the majority of its length, being about fifty metres long and another forty metres in diametre, out of this ring came four wings, each one smooth as they extended in a cross formation from the ring. Each wing was swept back slightly, increasing the width of the ship to exactly one hundred metres and the total height to about sixty metres. The armor and hull of the ship was smooth and covered virtually everything, making the ship potent and difficult to disable with few exposed weak points. The armor and hull materials were primarily Silaris armor, with the outer armor being over half a metre thick while the inner hull was another thirty centimetres of the stuff.

On the hologram, I could also see eight Heavy Mass Accelerators with two per wing, one at the tip while the other was at the wing root, along with two rings of twenty GUARDIAN Laser turrets at the front and back of the ship, a few metres away from the hole that allowed for the Core to function. Lastly, I saw two torpedo tubes located on the underside of the ship, probably equipped with a smart auto-loader to ensure efficient use of munitions.

"As you can see, we've changed the Frigates rather heavily." Sarum began. "We've doubled the total number of Heavy Mass Accelerators, each with a bore of around sixteen millimetres, the wingtip turrets are capable of firing at anything within a nearly 360 degree arc of fire while the wing root turrets can only shot forwards within an 110 degree cone of fire. We've added multiple GUARDIAN turrets, forty in total, each of which are linked to a series of coordinating VIs that determine what has the best line of fire before checking with a series of predictive movement VIs to ensure that they are as accurate as possible. Along with this, we've also added a twin-layer Kinetic barrier with a Mag-shield system and a Hyperdrive, the former two because they have shown themselves to be better protection than the local equivalent while the latter is faster on a strategic level than our own FTL system, which is faster on a tactical level." I nodded so far, sounded rather standard as things were but with a bigger weapons loadout.

"What about the Accelerators? Are they throwing hunks of metal or have you changed that?" I asked, curious, as I saw Sarum grin slightly at that.

"No. We've looked at the tech you downloaded and taught us about, and we decided to go with Accelerated Particle Packages. We've tested them against Deflector and Particle Shields with varying results, the former offers below average protection when compared to a similarly powered Turbolaser while the latter only decreases the power per shot, not enough to make a significant difference, but a few of us think that a sufficiently powerful Particle Shield could do the trick. The GUARDIAN Lasers also work in the X-ray section of the EM Spectrum while the two torpedo launchers you noted earlier are equipped to fire either M/AM Torpedoes or Neutron Torpedoes holding a few grams of Neutron matter that is held under a Mass Effect field to keep it contained. Once the field fails, the neutron matter explosively uncompresses and detonates in an explosion of hard radiations, X-rays, Gamma rays and large amounts of EM fields to mess with sensors." I nodded at that, rather impressed since I hadn't known they were making such things.

"When did you start making Neutron Torpedoes? And, for that matter, how? I know that it was possible to build them, but that required harvesting the stuff from a Neutron star, a costly endeavor that usually needed large amounts of funding and time before it started paying itself back.

"Oh, well, we read about it and figured out that using a sufficiently strong Mass Effect field would crush the matter tightly enough for it to work. It took a lot of effort, but we managed a few prototypes before we were happy with the final result. Testing showed that one of them was fully capable of destroying an Asteroid a few kilometres long, usually by snapping it in half. We finished testing the mass production version some four years ago and made them a standard munitions." I felt an eyebrow rise at that, those would be able to do a lot of damage in the years to come, I fully expected one hit to either destroy, cripple or utterly disable a Star Destroyer with little difficulty, especially if the Torpedo hit something vital.

"What other systems do you have installed?" I asked, curious as to what other tricks that were installed.

"In space combat, the things that seemed to define most of the Pre-Cataclysm ship designs I've seen were their Heat Endurance, Targeting and Firing ranges, and their Damage Control abilities. To handle the first of these problems, we've equipped out ships with Neutrino Radiators with a backup Heatsink system that can be vented through the use of Omni-gel coolant, this also has the side effect of allow us to discharge static buildup in deep space, removing a limitation for FTL travel, and leaving us only needed to truly worry about the consumption of fuel throughout extended trips. Targeting and Firing ranges are handled by extensive, linked series of sensors as well as Drones that can be released from the hull to act as long range spotters, scouts and anti-fighter units if needed." Sarum smirked a bit at that. "I've heard that Malany put forwards the idea of just releasing a dozen Drones to act as suicide weapons and turn the space around our ships into literal minefields. She already came up with several designs for such a thing, two of which incorporate Neutron matter warheads."

I snorted at that, Malany was not really all that subtle when it came to matters war, usually seeing the best option as simply throwing the biggest explosion she could make at an enemy and calling it a job well done. I'd admit, that worked rather well for a fair number of enemy forces, but it wouldn't work for every situation.

"What about damage control?" I asked, getting another nod.

"Damage control is handled by VI controlled mechs and a grid of Omni-gel filled ceramic tubes. If the tubes are burst by an impact, then the Omni-gel rapidly expands and hardens on contact with the vacuum until the seal is fixed. Outer sections of the ship are also decompressed to below a level where fires can start, preventing another issue in things to worry about. Ion-based weapons are already countered by the simple fact that we use Optronic computers and wiring, while power cables have Optronic switchboards to ensure that overloads are cut off before they can become a problem." I nodded again, it was a wise move, after all.

"And these features are standard across all ships?" Sarum nodded this time.

"These are the bare minimum features that all ships share in terms of those three aspects, usually with larger classes of ships having more features to ensure that they are even less of a problem, especially in combat."

"Fair enough, now, what about the Light and Heavy Cruisers?" The hologram of the Frigate was replaced by two more images, these being significantly bigger as I looked them over. The first one was the standard Y-shape I was familiar with, a ring-oval section that was roughly seventy metres tall, ninety metres across and about 65 metres long, from either side, two wings extended to increase the width of the ship by another ninety metres to either side of the ship. A single tower extended straight down the bottom of the vessel, finishing with a slopped cap at around 95 metres at the very tip, adding to the height of the massive ship just a tad and increasing the cross section of it as a result. On the surface, I could pick out a few weapons hidden in recessed mountings, series of rings made up from GUARDIAN turrets on the front and back of the ring sections as well as at the end of each wing-tower. Along with that, I saw what looked like Heavy mass accelerator cannons tucked away into the roots of the side wing-towers, each one with a larger bore and seeming to be a dual mount. Along the bottom tower, I saw six Torpedo tubes with three on either side, moving down the wing-tower while at the end of each wing-tower I saw another set of turrets, these ones being dual mounted as well, but the barrels were oddly shaped with four sections that extended out, each one seeming to be hinged to one degree or another. Particle weapons, perhaps?

"This is a Light Cruiser, a redesign of the old ones you gave us, these things are going to be difficult to take down. Each one is plated with an outer armor layer made from over a metre of Silaris armor plating with another half metre making up the inner hull. They have twice the redundancy for damage control as a Frigate while also including multiple Kinetic barrier systems to allow for KB bulkheads to be generated along with Omni-plating in some cases, energy draining, but very good for if you want to block off a corridor as quickly as possible, especially during a boarding action. Along with that, internal gun turrets mounting five millimetre Mass Accelerators pepper the corridors while the DC mechs are also armed to help repel boarders. For weapons, the ship is armed with three, dual-mounted turrets that each hold two 25 millimetre APP Heavy Mass Accelerator cannons. GUARDIAN turrets were placed around the Ring section in two rings of forty turrets with another three rings of twenty placed around the ends of all three wings. Along with that, the bottom wing has six Torpedo Launchers capable of firing any standard type of Torpedo we have while each wing ends with a dual-mounted Particle Lance turret. Each of these turrets were armed with two up-scaled Lance cannons, they are short ranged in terms of ship-board weapons, but anything they hit is bound to be deader than dead, especially since they release a large amount of hard radiation focused into the target once they impact." Sarum explained swiftly as she tilted this hologram. I smiled at how thoroughly armed it was for a Light Cruiser.

"What about defences beyond the armor?" I asked, curious.

"Three layers of KB Shields with another two layers of Mag-shields, not to mention a built in Omni-foundry with enough Omni-gel to produce a literal minefield of Drones, just as Malany wanted. The total stock on just one Light Cruiser is usually enough to produce, in testing, about five hundred Drones, each of which is about the size of an Aircar and quite a bit faster." Sarum remarked as she brought up another hologram, this time for a heavier variant.

Looking over it, it looked to have roughly the same dimensions, but I noted that it seemed... Chunkier, for lack of a better term. The ring section was thicker with extra plating while the individual wings were thicker as well, and five metres longer by the look of it. The weapons had changed as well, with twelve Torpedo tubes instead of six on the lower section, the rings of GUARDIAN turrets around the ship are each increased in size to include another ten turrets, bringing the two rings around the body up to a total of fifty each while each wing-tower ring now is composed of thirty turrets. The Particle Lances were replaced with a tri-mount of thirty millimetre Heavy Mass Accelerators linked to a smart auto-loader system that can feed any number of alternative ammos into it. So far, it can use the Standard slugs, solid hunks of metal that transfer kinetic into the target on impact, Flack shells, that detonate to cover a wide area in shrapnel and to take out lighter enemy vessels, and Hammer Slugs, which contain large amounts of high-explosive or Anti-matter charges. Lastly, in terms of weapons, the 25 millimetre APP Heavy Mass Accelerators were up-gunned with forty millimetre equivalents in the same arrangement, giving the ship just a massive increase in firepower." Sarum explained as the hologram saw multiple sections highlighted in various colours to demonstrate these things. It was interesting, though I knew better than to get sidetracked by these things.

"What about defences and Damage control?"

"The outer armor and inner hull have both been padded with extra Silaris armor, the outer layer having well over 2.5 metres while the inner layer now has 1.5 metres of the stuff. Four kinetic barriers instead of two, with three Mag-shield systems and a single layer of Cyclonic energy shields to deflect opening volleys of munitions, though, that can also be used to blast any ships that come too close away, usually by snapping them in half. As for Damage control? Well, each Heavy Cruiser is equipped with nearly double the number of Omni-gel Grids as a Light Cruiser, not to mention having all external areas de-pressurized during combat and having enough Mechs onboard to be called a small army." I smiled at that, nodded once more as I glanced back at the void out the window, the massive shipyards still working away in the silence of space.

"Good." I commented. "It sounds like you've put together a rather impressive foundation for a Navy. Though, I must question what you are doing with those warships, especially since, as far as I know, they are still being crewed by Mechs." Sarum gave a half-shrug.

"Right now? We're using them to petrol the system to prevent anyone from attacking us. Sure, they can't match up to the same performance as a ship of the same class that has a full Asari crew, especially since trained engineers are needed to make the Cascade Core work to its utmost potential, but their guns work fine, along with the normal engines." I smirked at that, it was a good start for something bigger.

And, judging by the expression on Sarum's face, she knew it as well. I could already feel the gears in her mind twisting and turning as plans were spinning through her mind. I had no doubt that whatever plans she and her sisters came up with would be... Interesting.

I made a mental note to have popcorn, or an equivalent, on hand for when those plans finally came to fruition.

XXX

"How is it coming?" Larahin asked as she walked into the lab of her sister, Esaley simply rolled her eyes as she continued to type away at the terminal she was working on, humming an old tune that she learned from their mother.

"Slow." She remarked simply. "The augments that you want for yourself, and those that your daughters that you want to be inducted into this group, are going to take time to perfect, and even then, there is no guarantee that they will work as expected."

"Understandable." Larahin remarked back with a half shrug. "I never expected you to be able to make something that would work perfectly first time, but I do want to know how things are coming along. So...? What can you tell me?" Larahin asked, smiling as she got a sigh in response, Esaley muttering under her breath at how she believed that Malany was supposed to be the annoying one of her sisters, but didn't go any further as she pressed a button on her terminal before a series of holographic representations of Asari bodies started appearing, each of them little more than a wire-mesh. Slowly, details started coming in as areas were zoomed in on as information started coming through.

"The three standard augments that the Queen Matriarch and Jan'sha agreed on were, probably, the easiest to get working and are already completed, you can undergo the process to use them tomorrow if you really wanted to. However, some of the others are going to take time." Esaley explained as she waved a hand. One of the many holograms moving before them as an image zoomed in on a section of the skin of the being, the hands, to reveal smooth skin. A moment later, a dozen barbs extended from the skin, too small for anyone to see, but they were still there.

"The first augment, the Barb Injection system, was probably the easiest. It was based on information the Queen Matriarch gave us on a species of creations commonly called 'Jellyfish' allowing for rapid injection of any kind of payload that was in those barbs. The delivery system was simply, however, your request for what you wanted the Venom-glands of this implant to be capable... Those are going to take time. Not to mention test subjects, especially if you want me to be able to ensure that you can inject any kind of chemical that could send any number of races into any number of states from suggestive to being in a practical coma."

"Fair enough, though, like I said, I knew there was only so far you could go without test subjects. I'll be heading back into the Galaxy, once I get Mother's blessing to do so, with all the augments that you deem ready. I'll be visiting Slave markets and picking up a few dozen of every race they have available, should give you plenty of test subjects." Larahin replied with a smirk, getting a nod in turn from her younger sister.

"And what about for the races that aren't available in those markets?"

"Every race has those that no one will miss if they were to... Disappear, it is only a matter of finding them." Esaley nodded at that.

"True." A swipe of the hand caused the previous hologram to disappear before being replaced by another. "Again, with the Pheromone Control System, the problem is the same. I can easily make the delivery system, but I have yet to test the effectiveness of the Bionetic implant in any way. The air-based dispersal system works perfectly, as does the contact-based version, so you don't need to worry too much about the delivery systems, just the effectiveness of the chemicals."

"And what about the last one?"

"That one, is being difficult." Esaley stated as she swiped her hand again. This time, causing a web of glowing purple to appear within the body of the wireframe mesh, a glowing copy of the Eezo spread through an Asari's body. "Yeah, I can do it, hell, any of us could do it by bathing in Eezo-tainted waters, but the odds are good that we would end up getting incurable cancer growths within a few weeks of trying to do that over an extended period of time. I could probably fix that with time and test subjects, but I'd rather leave that kind of experimentation until there are more of us, so as to ensure that we aren't all wiped out simply because one of us wanted to move faster than we should have." Larahin nodded at that, her face serious at that point.

"Agreed. Put that one on the back-burner and focus on the other two. I'll go see Mother about leaving for those Slave markets to get your test subjects. You mind getting ready to give me the other mods I wanted?" Larahin asked as she turned to leave the room, glancing over her shoulder as the door slide open.

"No problem. Should be ready by midday, just come down when you're ready any time after that."

The door slide shut a second after that was said, leaving Esaley to continue her work while Larahin walked away with a smirk on her face. To her, things were progressing well. In her mind, this was only a sign that, when the time came, the Asari would be the ones standing on top of this Galaxy.

She was sure of it.

XXX