The Tau had chosen the flat sands of the dessert for the initial colony on the world that they had named Gue'la, the Tau word for human in recognition for the fact that it was a human that had brought them to this place. The sight of their ship landing was nothing short of amazing, the ship itself was a massive orb with an orbiting ring. The ring first landed and embedded into the ground creating a wall around the planned colony. The orb then slowly started to land and once it got passed the atmosphere mechanical arms extended up to stabilize the ship guiding it down to the center of the ring. The landing platforms extended down and dug slightly underground holding the ship stable right above the sands. Then out from the ship extended walk ways and transit rails to the ring. The Aun'El watched over as the first of the Fire Caste and Earth Caste began to thaw from cryostasis.
"Lord Aun'El…" Shas'El said in their native tongue. "… Why have only the Fire and Earth Caste awakened?"
"We need to conquer this world first. As for the Earth Caste, I have a feeling that our current weapons will not function. As the Imperial laser weapons over heated and were rendered useless."
"Yes, The Earth Caste will be taking immediate steps to ensure the functionality of our equipment." Fio'El said standing forward of the Fire Caste leader. Shas'El grunted and pulled out his Pulse pistol and shot the nearby wall.
"There is our answer." Aun'El just looked back over to the window and the awaking Tau, the Earth Caste leader was for a loss of words but once he noticed the tone of the Ethereal he calmed down.
"Do that again." Fio'El asked. Another shot rang out from the Fire Caste leader's pistol. "Interesting, it seems to be working just as effectively as it did before, this is good but I wonder why our weapons right and not the Imperial's."
"Fio'El, work on this later after we have established the colony, we will need to be working quickly I plan to announce out arrival to the Galaxy the moment we have done so."
"Will you be using the cover the human Commander asked us to use?"
"Yes I will, from what she informed us this Citadel Council is quite ridged in their protocol in making contact with new species and the Commander's involvement would put her in a unloved light. The Commander helped us in learning about our new home galaxy and showed us the way to this planet, it would only be honorable to respect her wishes. Not only that, the idea that we are from a different galaxy and have come here to escape a galaxy wide catastrophe is one that will garner us sympathy and we need all the favor we can get. It is time and favor that we need most right now in order to ensure the safety of the Tau."
Tesc was standing in front of the Normandy Drive Core, it was a marvel of technology but she would take a deeper look at it later right now she was exploring the Extranet. Such a blatant affront to the Machine God was sickening, precious information just out there for any to see. She explored through this network of public information bypassing through firewalls and other digital defenses easily. It made learning about this galaxy easy, most of the information was useless, utterly and completely useless. It was only then when she realized that this is why this network existed, it was for the masses and not those that truly knew the value of information and respected it.
Very little of what she found was hard facts but it all was helpful in understanding the people of the galaxy. The Xenos, they each were far different than the foul and disgusting Xenos of her galaxy, these Xenos were far different. The Asari, they knew the power of words and used them well, if not for them humanity and the Turains would have continued their war and would have caused more destruction. The Turains were strange but they at the very least were respectable in their knowledge of warfare and the kept to the peace with humanity instead of turning on them. The client races of the Council were of little interest to Tesc, the Krogan were little better than the Orks but at least they were under their betters' boot. The Batarians were a more familiar brand of Xenos but were of little actual threat. The Vorcha were little more than rats. The one that held her interest the most were the Salarians, these Xenos knew the true value of information. They were the Council's spies and the only ones to have noticed Tesc's probing into their networks. The other races' networks were able to keep Tesc out, which had surprised her, but only the Salarians were able to detect her intrusion attempts.
After analyzing the data in the matter of minutes she finally returned from cyberspace to the real world. For the first time snice the ride to the Normandy she was alone to her thoughts, the meeting and the extranet had effectively distracted her. She worried, the last time she had this she invited a AI in to her networks. All she could feel was regret over the mistake, but soon that turned to despair as she felt the damnable feeling to invite the thing back in. Half of the Warnings could no longer apply to this world, the Quest was at a stand still, she saw the crew work this ship with no ritual and yet the ship functioned as it should have. It was clear that the teachings of the Cult Mechanicus could not be applied here. And the worse part…
"The only machine spirits of this galaxy that could be called such are… abominable intelligences." Her hands gripped the railing tight, her mechanical hand crashing the metal. What would normally be machine spirits were nothing more than flows of Data and Information. The one river of code that held any semblance of the light of a spirits was the one called EDI by the crew.
"The word you are looking for is Artificial…" EDI said from the nearby interface. Its blue spherical avatar appearing. Tesc said nothing to the thing, it had no words. "… I see. You see me nothing more than a monster. Can I a least ask why? You are not from this reality so the bias must not come from this Galaxy's history with AI."
"It was your kind that caused the down fall of the golden age of humanity, the abominable intelligence cause human lives in the trillions to die, abominable intelligences cause humanity to be scattered and to live like brutes." There was a long quiet after this. All that could be heard was the hum of the Drive Core.
"I can not claim that it is entirely different here, the Geth have proven that. But it is different here. By your captain's own confirmation this reality is fundamentally different in that the place called the Warp does not exist." At this Tesc looked up at the avatar, this was true. The Warp and its corrupting powers were not here. She had heard stories from the older Tech-Priests of the data flows of the AI, they were fast as if not wanting to be seen, they spiked to other flows to intercept their own data, and their own data repugnant and sinister. But EDI's was the exact opposite, it flowed and streamed along with the other data rivers not intruding on them at all, and it's data warm and bright. With all of this it might mean that what she knew as machine spirits were but information and it was the AI that held the true place as a Machine Spirit. This AI had the spark of life that a spirit must have. It had the ability to learn and knew full well the value of knowledge meaning it had sentience and thus had both Intellect and Understanding. Under the Laws of the Omnissiah the being next to her was a Machine Spirit. There was a few moments of Tesc finishing the logic of this revelation but once she was finished she still felt hollow.
"You might not be an Abominable Intelligence but that still leaves the Quest for Knowledge. The Quest is it find what was lost, to find the Knowledge lost so we can Comprehend the Omnissiah. But here… I know there are no Ancients, no STC datacores to find."
"Knowledge is not confined to the past. Knowledge is infinite, ever growing in life and time." Tesc looked at the AI with disbelief, this line of thinking was tech heresy but it made sense. She had come to the logical conclusion that with no Ancients that she would need to find the Knowledge before when talking with the Commander but this prospect had caused fear and uncertainty in her. But now she felt a bit calmed by what the AI said. Even though she now knew that she would never complete the Quest but now she knew that it was an impossible task to begin with. She smiled as she came to the logic of her new freedom to seek out whatever knowledge she desired knowing it will never bring her closer to Comprehend everything there is.
Conner was not happy, he thought he lucked out when he found out that he had his own bunk room. He hadn't been in Cerberus long, like most of the people on the Normandy he had just joined up to help the colonies when the Alliance did nothing but give shit answers. He thought he was going to have a nice time when he got the bunk room and found out that he didn't have a bunkmate. The forth deck was the crew's sleeping quarters, right below the crew deck and the engineering deck. It held twenty five bunk rooms and each bunk room held four beds. The Normandy crew was only numbering in fifty in total, the new people from the huge ship had been placed with the existing Cerberus crew to help them assimilate. Conner didn't really understand the details, the Commander said that the new blood were from another reality or something. Conner wouldn't had believed it had it come from someone else but this was Commander Shepard. But now he had to share what was once his private bunk room her now had to share it with two people.
"Couis, the beds here are better than they were on the Traveler." The female called Ret said to the male called Couis, they had been given Omni-tools and had been taught to at least use the translator function.
"Shut your month, something made without the guidance of the God-Emperor of Mankind anything could not be superior to that which has." Couis said resolute in his faith.
"Oh don't be like that." Ret said as she pushed the man on to his bed.
"What… how dare… oh…" Couis said as he sunk in to the bed. "… this is, this must be what the spire nobles must feel every night." Couis said as he remembered looking up at the Hive spires wondering how the upper class must live. Conner simply watched a vid on his Omni-Tool only half listening to the conversation. The vid was about how some Asari were trying to make an all Asari remake of the old human movie Die Hard. Conner at first thought it was a joke but it was actually happening. This was because of the success of the all Elcor Hamlet. Conner had seen it and though it was slow it wasn't half bad. But Asari Die Hard… that was going to be either a really bad joke or a complete rip off.
"See, not everything has to be to be blessed by the ministorum."
"I will never admit that… but I concede to that this bed is better than the Traveler." Couis said as he sunk ever further in to the bed.
"You are stubborn…" Ret said before turning to Conner. "What are you doing over there, doing something on that orange thing?" She said as walked over.
"It's called an Omni-Tool, and I'm watching I vid. How stupide are these people?"
"A vid?"
"A video."
"Oh… what's it about?"
"The Asari are remaking an old movie from the human golden days of cinema." The was a sound of Couis dropping from his bed.
"Filthy Xenos are mocking humanity by taking what is rightful ours and turning it into their perverse version!" Couis said with shock and disgust.
"Well I wouldn't put it like that, I mean I'm not getting my hopes up for it being a hit with anyone but the Elcor did a good job with Hamlet and from what I heard we did a decent job with an old Asari horror film series." Conner said, that reminded him he needed to look that series up, the Asari version first then the human one.
"Yeah Couis, this reality has good Xenos."
"There is no such thing as a good Xenos unless you count the dead ones." The two new roommates began to argue about this topic but Conner began tuning them out and went back to watching the vid until he got a notice.
"Hey you two…" Conner said to the other two in the room. "… Shepard has called a mandatory crew dinner."
"A what… why?" Couis was confused, why would an officer mandate something so unnecessary, it wasn't like they would attend. Even Beskis who was far closer to his crew than any other Imperial captain still never dinned with the crew.
"I don't know but if you don't come then our new chief of staff will come by to discipline you." This made the two shake with fear. The image of Gesgina's unique brand of calm anger came in to their minds. "I take it you two are coming with me?"
Joker was currently going over the drift of the Normandy, he had checked it when they had begun their jump through FTL but he wanted to make sure it was still acceptable. They were still two days out from Omega. He had gotten the message about a full crew dinner but he assumed that it didn't include him, he was the damn pilot and he was needed to keep them from crashing. Shepard had done this dinner thing in the last Normandy but Joker honestly didn't think she would do it again.
"Joker!" Shepard yelled out from behind Joker. Joker wasn't shocked, she did this every day, her way of keeping on his toes.
"You know, one of these days you're going to that and I'm going to yell SHEPARD." He planned on doing this every time but never was able to do it.
"Why aren't you coming to deck three. I said dinner is mandatory." Shepard's tone was playful but the weight behind the words meant that she was serious, Anderson once told Joker that he had a theory as to why Shepard made her crew do these kinds of things. He thought that it was because Shepard never had a real family so she did this as a way to have same feeling a family. It was a good a theory as any but Joker just thought that she did it because it tended to produce some of the funniest and embarrassing moments of people's lives and Shepard was sadistic enough to manipulate such things.
"Because I have to pilot the ship."
"That is incorrect Mr. Moreau." EDI said appearing next to him. "The function of the ship's travel through FTL at this point is entirely automated." That damned ship cancer told on him.
"Thank you EDI, Joker it seems like you can come to dinner."
"Agrrraa you sound like my mom." Joker groaned as Shepard helped him out of his chair. "If I have to then at least promise me you won't do to me what you did to Wrex… that Krogan bastard was still bitching about that until the day he left for Tuchanka."
"No promises are made."
"Then at least tell me that you're going to do it to someone else."
"No promises are made."
Beskis was sitting on the stairs to the main guns, he would have felt out place at the tables with the other crew members. He was surprised to see Shepard laughing and eating with them. To dine with your crew was considered poor conduct in the Imperial Navy. But this was not the Imperial Navy, they were on a Cerberus ship. He had developed a few thoughts on Cerberus by what he had seen and read. It was a confusing topic for him. It was very renascent of the Imperium without the religious element and the galaxy shaking power. It had power but not nearly as much, it is hard to for anything to compare to the Imperium… the Imperium has Titans.
"So Rogon, think we can make a Titan?" Beskis asked the Tech-Priest standing next to him.
"It could be possible, a Warhound certainly, the largest a Warlord, never an Emperor Class. But the resources required would be difficult to produce. And the knowledge to build a avatar of the Machine God is limited, I know only of the structure and not of the internal workings. I don't believe that we will be seeing a Titan fighting a reaper any time soon."
"Sad…" Beskis went back to his thoughts. He looked down at his plate, a slab of what they called chicken, some green orbs called peas, and some mashed potatoes, it was nice to see a familiar food. The potato, a good Terran staple. Beskis watched as the crew enjoyed this meal, it was decent, that was the word best to describe much of the living standard of much of the galaxy from what he saw. This meal was the perfect example of this, neither as bad as the disgusting rations provided to the Imperial public or as good as the tantalizing delicacies that the nobles dined on. Beskis continued to watch as the crew enjoyed their meal. Shepard had at the beginning of this entire thing done something so ludicrous to the pilot that it had even caused Beskis to blush with embarrassment of being in the same room as the event, this had caused the pilot to return the ship's cockpit.
"This ship does have energy to it doesn't it?" Koith said, he had dumped his entire plate in to his jaws at the beginning of the meal, it was something Beskis was used to.
"It does… and it comes from that woman. As always, the Emperor was right, I can see this woman saving humanity from certain death."
Shepard was having a good time. She knew this would be a good idea, it was back then it is right now. It brought the crew closer together and that meant they would work better together. It would also help with getting that bright light coming off her in the Cerberus crews' eyes. She didn't like being seen as some hero, she was fine being the hero but she was still Shepard. She was just trying to do what she thought was the right thing to do and she didn't need to be praised for that.
"That was what I was trying to do." The people in the room seemed to slow, to a frame by frame to Shepard and suddenly a new person was sitting at the table across from Shepard.
"What… I thought we had our talk."
"We did but I will still remain here. Has Beskis told you what happened to me?"
"No, I didn't ask."
"I am sitting upon a golden chair for life support while at the same time powering a beacon for all of humanity and constantly fighting the madness of the Warp. It is not a pleasant existence." The man picked up a tea cup that came out of nowhere. After taking a sip he began speaking again. "When I feel it is necessary I send part of my psyche with someone I feel has earned the peace of an alternative humanity. The piece that came with Beskis now resides in you." Shepard felt a little weirded out by that statement. "I can do this only after my soul has healed after the last time, once the Imperium mass produces the FTL engines I can rest a bit, I will no longer have to power that over glorified lighthouse. (sigh) But that is neither here nor there, I am here to provide you information."
"So that's why your… in me? To be some little voice in my head? Seems like a pretty big drop down from Emperor of Mankind."
"It really isn't…" The man took another sip from the tea cup. "Agh, nasty." The man threw the cup over his shoulder and took one of the beer bottles from Shepard's crew. "Better, it isn't considering all I do as Emperor of Mankind is sit on a chair. I do what I can when I can but it is not enough. At least here I can help humanity towards a path fitting to them."
"So you're going to be in my head… how often is this thing going to happen?"
"It isn't like I have much control over it actually. It comes and goes. But I will no doubt help you in your mission, because your mission is mine. To help humanity."
"When the Illusive Man says that all I get from that is and only humanity."
"It might be that way back in my reality but here the rules are different. A peaceful humanity here is not a galactic humanity but a humanity that is a part of something bigger than itself."
"Okay… so you had something to say?"
"Invite Beskis to join you and the crew, it would go a long way for his former crew to see him in a better light." At this time moved back to its normal speed. The crew continued to have fun and have a good time but Shepard looked back at the Rouge Trader, he was sitting on the stairs to the gun batteries with Koith and Tesc next to him. He looked content, like eating away was normal for him. She ahd seen the reptilian alien down his whole meal and took note of the fact that he had really strong set of jaws. Tesc hadn't eaten anything, Shepard wasn't going to pretend like she knew anything about a cyborg's dietary needs… even though that she could in fact be called that now too. Shepard got up and walked over to the three.
"It's called crew dinner because the crew eats dinner together." Shepard said with a hand ready to pull the man up with a warm smile to back it up.
"You won't have much luck Commander!" One of Beskis' former crew members yelled out half drunk, his words slightly slurred. "Imperial ship command can't dine with us dregs… it isn't proper!"
"It is true Commander, even I who prided on being close with his crew…" Beskis said this loudly to try and shame the crew member. "… never dined with them."
"Well that is going to charge, as your Commander I order you to come over here and eat with the rest of us and have a good time." Beskis sighed.
"Your not going to let this go?"
"Nope."
"Very well." Beskis reluctantly said as he got up.
The next day Thenvas was cleaning his sniper rifle. It was a lesson that was beaten in to you at the temple. Always keep your gun clean, at no point should it ever be dirty. Along with the practical reasons behind this lesson was the deeper one. To use this time to clean your soul, cleaning the rifle became so engrained that one could do it absent mindedly, but not to that. To use this time to ponder and think, to understand the reasons for which people live and die. To understand his Will and to strive to carry out his Will. Thenvas' thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the automatic door opening. He turned his head slightly to who it was coming in to the ship's armory. It was the dark skinned Cerberus officer, Thenvas had yet to learn the names of the important people and even more so the normal people.
"Hey… your that assassin guy right?" The Cerberus officer asked. He smelled sweaty, he must have come from morning exercises. This was one of the moments he didn't like the fact he preferred to keep his sensory amplifying mask on.
"Yes, I am." Thenvas said quickly and to the point.
"So what's your kill count or do you not like to talk abo…"
"Eight thousand four hundred and sixty-three." Thenvas said calmly and casually as he picked up his pistol and looked it over. The Cerberus officer just looked stunned. "My favorite out of all of those was a shot I made on an Eldar Farseer through eight buildings away… never saw me coming." Thenvas knew the man wouldn't understand the joke but he didn't care, it was still funny to him.
Sho was sitting on one of the medical beds in the Normandy's med-bay. The resident doctor had ordered that every one of the new crew be tested for any diseases and for just a general checkup. Sho understood the first reason quite well, if one of them held any of the vile creations of the plague lord then this ship was doomed. It was quite a relief to hear that no one held such viral monstrosities but then Sho was confused. When he had heard that a full medical checkup was going to be implemented he had thought it would only be done for those that truly mattered, himself, Thenvas, Tesc, and maybe Beskis not the whole crew. The resources for such privileges should be kept only for those that truly deserved it and not for the pleben masses.
"How strange and backwards this galaxy is." Sho thought as watched the doctor go over his results. Maybe out of boredom he turned to the Astropath, Cullen was his name. He was with the Inquisitor the longest, he came long before Sho or any of the others. "Doctor, what has happened to the Astropath?" The silver haired woman turned back to Sho.
"He's in a coma, unfortunately he does not show any sign of waking up. By the way, you knew the can you tell me what happened to his eyes, I removed the wrappings and saw that they had showed signs of torture, the sockets were covered in burn scars."
"It must of happened during the Binding, it is a common side effect of the process."
"And what sort of process would require such a risk?"
"All Psykers are at all times in danger of possession and the temptation of the Warp. I do not know the details as they are kept in utmost secrecy but it binds the Psyker to the soul of our God-Emperor as to give them a stronger chance to resist the dangers." The woman looked at Sho with disbelief in her eyes but also sadness.
"My god, why would people become these Psykers if it would be so dangerous."
"They are born that way, mutants with an unnatural connection to the Warp. They must be always watched, reviled, and if need be purged."
"From what I heard from the Commander that sounds like your reality."
"It is required, an untrained Psyker is a danger to themselves and the world they inhabit. I will spare you gruesome details of a rouge Psyker."
"I thank you for that, if what you have told me is tame I hate to hear what you think is gruesome."
Shepard lay in her bed. She had locked the door to prevent what happened earlier from happening again. She still wasn't sure if Beskis had actually turned his eyes off. She turned over in the queen sized bed. She missed Liara being next to her. The more she thought about it she knew she should contact her. but at the same time she couldn't think of what to say. And the idea of just sending a message felt so impersonal and a video chat felt like an emotion dry-hump. She knew that the only way to do it was to see her in person but that was just as equally hard. She pulled a pillow over to scream in to. She looked up half expecting the god in her head to pop up and give his two cents on the whole thing. But nothing.
Sighing, she got up out of her bed and walked over to her terminal. There was a few things she had yet to do. She had answered Anderson, she was happy that he still gave a damn about her. she had replied to the others except for the Illusive Man, she had very little to say to him. The mission he had for her was something that would needed to be looked into but she wasn't going to do it on his order. She thought about messaging the rest of the old team but if Liara was a info broker then that might seem rude. Shepard sighed again and focused on her mission and started planning for Omega, she would be stepping on to the station by tomorrow.
Author's notes
Tau weapons already work like mass accelerators so it's likely that they would work in the Mass Effect galaxy… also they be easy pickings for the reapers if their guns didn't work. and for the Imperial Weapons, it had to be done, the hand held laser weapon is a plot point that couldn't do. I already have a lot on my plate. I own the fact that I did it for plot reasons but I feel the story will be better for it.
Sorry no titans… I tried really hard to find a way to figure out a way in which they could be brought in. I really wanted to write a titan cutting a reaper in half with a skyscraper sized chainsword but if it doesn't work out in some way that makes some shred of sense then it's just bad and lazy writing.
I know I just contradicted myself. but I think I'm right on both things.
Okay, next chapter I promise some real action.
