AN: Fixed that pesky incomplete sentence...
Shepard fired his pilfered spiker at a charging brute, the foot long superheated spikes didn't seem to do all that much to the alien. The weapon ran dry before the brute collapsed. The thing almost hit him when a wave of green plasma slammed into the beast and dropped it. Shepard waved his thanks to the alien, Tali; she was fighting as hard as any marine.
He had even seen her finish off a brute with a combat knife, something only the truly brave or foolish ever attempted. He never thought he would say this, but he was damn glad those two aliens were fighting by his side through this.
A blue flash from his side and three jackals slammed into the far bulkhead hard enough to break bone. That was the other alien, Liara, making her presence felt. She had seemed relatively quiet during the whole affair, like she had been in conflict before, and this was another day at the job. He didn't know, maybe she was just terrified into silence. A large crate flew into a grunt, smashing it into a pulp. Or maybe not.
Shepard threw his last grenade at a brute. It bounced off its armor and exploded in the big ape's face. He reloaded the spiker and brought it up, finishing the brute off with an assist from Liara.
This was the second group since they destroyed the covenant cruiser. There couldn't be that many left on the station. Shepard contacted Artemis, "So, nice AI lady, now that the covenant cruiser is gone, are there any ships with a functioning slipspace drive in the debris field?"
"No, not really," The way the AI answered told him there was at least one, but there was probably a pretty big catch along with it. "The Halcyon class Dawn Under Heaven is still relatively intact, thrusters, weapons, and the like. There's only a couple little problems."
Shepard looked over at Tali and Liara, who were both listening intently to the conversation. "So, what are the problems?"
"Well... the first is that almost all the control centers have been badly damaged, and the ship is woefully lacking in oxygen supplies. You would need an AI to pilot it." He couldn't see it from where he stood, but he could easily picture it the far too innocent look on her avatar's face.
Joker interrupted, "Oh come on, I go through all this trouble of losing my legs, and I don't even get to fly us out of here? That's bull."
Shepard ignored the pilot, "Do you not want to help save earth Artemis? Even an aging and damaged cruiser could make a difference if the covenant are attacking earth." Shepard remembered the way the obviously rampant AI reacted when he mentioned earth earlier; he was hoping to convince her to pilot the vessel for them.
The AI let out an exasperated sigh, "I'd have to leave all this behind, I'm networked between almost five dozen ship computers, I have so much room, and I'd have to leave all that behind... Well, if I can save earth, I suppose I can deal with it, get some payback against the covenant for killing my crew."
Liara looked back towards the AI's holopad, "Wait, I thought AIs were limited to a quantum blue box, and they couldn't transfer their programming."
"Except for the Geth..." the other alien, Tali, put in.
Shepard didn't know what the Geth were, but he knew that now was probably not the time to ask. "Let's save the technical questions for after we're off the station. Artemis, are there any pelicans left aboard intact enough to get us to the Dawn?"
"The Down Under was what the crew referred to her as in case you were wondering, and yes there should be a few. Most of my interior cameras from here to the docking bay have been destroyed by covenant forces, so I don-"
"In there, the ones who have killed our pack are hiding in that hole!"
Three massive brutes strode around the corner, all chieftains. Two of them held massive gravity hammers, but the third even larger one held a plasma cannon in his arms.
Shepard dropped his spiker and pulled his carbine out, firing as fast as he could pull the trigger. Several plasma rounds found their mark in the center of his chest plate. Shepard let out a cry of pain and slumped to the floor, clutching his chest.
He blinked his eyes and found himself being dragged away by Liara while the other kept the brutes from advancing by firing charge plasma round after charged plasma round at them. Even as he watched, one of the hammer chieftains overcharged its shields and ran forward to bring his hammer down on the group. He tried to yell out a warning, but it came out as more of a croak.
An orange blur came from behind them. The brute found itself smashing a stick against the ground, the head of the hammer fell to the side sparking and sputtering. An orange-gold figure stood between Shepard's group and the brute. That was the last thing Shepard saw as he slipped into unconsciousness.
ooooooo
Nihlus sat in his office aboard the spec ops frigate under his command. He had ordered the commander of the frigate to hang back with the army transports rather than get involved with the main assault force. Captain Kuril's cruiser was also assigned guard duty, likely as a punishment for losing four frigates at the start of what they were calling the 'relay 314 incident'. The alien prisoner had been transferred aboard his frigate as well.
Nihlus wasn't concerned with the alien at the moment; he had essentially outlived his usefulness. Nihlus simply didn't want to execute him out of hand, and he felt that the alien might be useful when the invasion began, or at least once they had won.
Instead Nihlus settled back to watch the invasion unfold on his special built holographic display. He was patched into fleet communications as well, so he could fulfill the role of observer.
The fifty ships of the primary fleet advanced on the planet in standard formation, the screening frigates up front, followed by the nine cruisers, all arranged in a cone with the dreadnaught Void Hunter at the center, forming the giant barrel of a 'gun'. The formation was used by cautious admirals planning on engaging in an artillery duel with an opposing dreadnaught. The frigates and cruisers acting as a screen against enemy attack craft.
Nihlus shook his head; the admiral was very obviously planning a shock and awe tactic against the enemy. Possibly even orbital bombardment of military targets.
The enemy cruiser started moving, aligning for a shot. At this range Nihlus knew that even dreadnaughts generally didn't have a chance of hitting their targets. He was uncomfortably reminded of Captain Kuril's earlier assessment of a floating cannon.
The dreadnaught at the center of the turian fleet began firing its own cannon, while the rest of the ships began slow steady maneuvers, designed to give them the flexibility to move out of the way once the enemy ship started firing. From his display, all he saw were small name tags and firing arcs for each ship's main gun. He didn't notice it when a frigate and a cruiser disappeared from the display until the report came in from the fleet comm network.
"The bastards just took out two ships with a single shot."
Nihlus' attention was instantly drawn back to the screen. It looked like Kuril had been right. Another communication came over the system, "Unknown craft launching from planet surface, half the size of a standard frigate. Numbering fifty targets."
Nihlus hoped Kuril's prophetic powers were not extended to this group. The number of targets in his display tripled instantaneously.
Standard designation for frigates among the turian military included ships between one hundred and two hundred fifty meters long, light cruisers between two hundred and three hundred meters, and so on.
Comparatively tiny vessels such as those launching from the planet were only in common use among pirates, who couldn't afford larger, and the salarian STG who appreciated the speed and maneuverability they could coax out of such small craft. His own ship, a small insertion craft, not a true frigate was lumped in that same category, though it was designed by turians and not salarians. His ship was lightly armed with only a few disruptor torpedoes and guardian systems.
Nihlus sent a message to Kuril, "What do you make of this?" the reply wasn't long in coming.
"If I were in command of that force, assuming they have similar performance to the pirate ships I've fought before, I'd use them to delay our frigates while that gun cruiser sets up for another shot, probably at the dreadnaught, hmm... I see Admiral Korrus isn't as stupid as he looks, the Void Hunter is moving out of their supposed range. On the other hand, that cruiser isn't moving to shoot again; those ships are moving away from the fleet..." Kuril made a small noise indicating he was thinking.
"They wouldn't leave their planet open to an assault would they? Flee to fight another day? Maybe, but unlikely…"
Nihlus turned his attention back to the screen as Kuril thought out the possible tactics their enemy could be using. The enemy cruiser suddenly disappeared from his tactical display.
"They fled to FTL?" Kuril sounded incredulous over the comm system. "Granted all I know about this species is one engagement, but my gut says they aren't running for good. We should be prepared."
On his screen the smaller ships came into range of the screening frigates. Disruptor torpedoes, missiles, and guardian lasers flew back and forth between the engaging vessels.
Nihlus couldn't see any of that from his display, but he could see several ships disappear from both formations. Three turian frigates died for only four of the regular vessels. Turian fighters disappeared from the display as soon as they came close to the enemy ships.
He manipulated his controls to bring up a display from a fighter's gun camera.
A sleek gray wing shape flew past the fighter, spitting kinetic rounds of some kind at everything nearby, fighters, torpedoes, frigates. It pulled a turn that reminded Nihlus more of a fighter than a frigate, the video feed cut then as the turian fighter was destroyed.
The screen shifted to an overview of the battle once more. The micro-frigate's numbers had thinned considerably as the cruisers joined the fight. After a few more moments of intense fighting the remaining enemy ships disengaged, only two dozen remaining of their number.
Twelve frigates, one cruiser, and half of the turian fighters deployed to the battle had been destroyed.
ooooooo
Shepard opened his eyes; all he saw was a blue blur outside his helmet. He began blinking rapidly to clear his vision. The blur resolved itself into a blue faced woman, a completely blue woman. His confusion evaporated almost immediately, the alien Liara sat over him, checking the burn wounds on his chest. He sat up to check them, strangely feeling almost no pain. Several nondescript white bandages were applied over his chest, the charred and melted plate, designed to be removed in this exact occasion, sat to his side. He noted with distaste the inner body suit was damaged, he couldn't do vacuum for any length of time, the helmet seals could technically keep him breathing, but cold and exposure would kill him quickly.
Of course Joker was under much the same problem, only he couldn't use his legs.
"What happened?" He asked the alien to his side.
"You were injured by the enemy's gun. If it were not for..." She paused for a minute, obviously trying to get the pronunciation right, "Odeg'Delus, all of us would likely be dead."
Shepard frowned, that sounded suspiciously like an Elite's name. Still he felt some measure of gratitude, he had only met these two roughly thirty minutes ago, but he had fought alongside them against extremely long odds, saving and being saved by them numerous times. Alien or no, that counted for something. He turned looking around for his mystery savior.
All feelings of gratitude vanished, the orange-gold figure of an elite zealot stood nearby, "You are fit to move human?"
Shepard felt a rush of emotion, hate, fear, and the flood of adrenaline accompanying them. His pistol cleared his holster before he could even register sending a signal to his hand. Almost automatically it came to center directly on the elite's head. The zealot for his part straightened out in surprise, making his aiming that much easier. Shepard pulled the trigger again and again. Nothing happened. His pistol was empty.
Shepard dropped the empty pistol and grabbed his knife, preparing to charge the zealot. A blue glow formed around him, and he found himself unable to move forward.
"Stop, he saved our lives from the brutes Shepard!" the blue alien pleaded with him, even as she held him still with her telekinesis.
Shepard found he could still speak through the effect, "Why, what does it matter if he saved our lives. He is a zealot! He killed thousands of people to get that armor, he needs to die!" Despite his words Liara stubbornly kept the field active.
Joker called out from his position not far away, battle rifle still cradled in his hands, "Commander he did save us, from getting smashed flat by gravity hammers, probably from getting eaten."
Shepard still felt the anger keenly; he turned as much as he could to face Joker. "And? You just want to forgive him?"
"No. I'd actually really like to tie him to a long rope behind a pelican and take him for a ride through a canyon. I'm just saying, they are on our side now."
The two unknown aliens looked at each other, obviously confused, but having the tact not to say anything, they looked at the hulking warrior, though Shepard couldn't see their faces
The ex-Covenant soldier spoke up in his own defense, "It is true, I killed many of your warriors during our campaigns, they fought well to the end. I make no apologies for my actions in war time; I followed the orders of my superiors. And now because they could not see the lies of the prophets in time, my soldiers aboard the Unyielding Compromise are dead at the hands of the treacherous brutes."
"Followed orders! Followed orders?" Shepard scoffed, "I assume when you fed civilians to the jackals you were just following orders? Dishonorable bastard!"
The elite stiffened and drew his energy sword. He didn't ignite it, though Shepard could see it was a remarkable effort of self control. Being an ONI spook, he knew a few things about elite culture, dishonorable bastard was just about the worst insult he knew to call an elite.
The elite let out a grunt, which Shepard interpreted as a sigh, "It is true, as good as it is to have an honorable enemy to fight, the prophets ordered your extinction merely to hold on to their power, and their brute lackeys followed them to damnation. That is not an honorable fight."
Shepard knew he couldn't move to attack, so he kept talking, "The briefings weren't very specific, what exactly caused you guys to switch to our side?"
The zealot seemed taken aback by the question, "You mean you do not know?"
"That the bird is the word?" Joker cut in. At a look from Shepard, he let out a cheeky grin.
Shepard sighed and continued his questioning, "No, we don't, all we know is some sort of religious difference relating to a galactic scale superweapon."
The elite looked back and forth between them all. "You are the reclaimers, how can you not know that you are the children of the gods?"
Joker began to stutter inarticulately, obviously at a loss for a joke.
Shepard took the initiative before he could come up with one. "Reclaimers?"
"The forerunners, the gods… or I suppose those we once thought of as gods, they left their technology for your species. All of it is gene locked specifically to your race."
The field holding Shepard in place dissipated, but he was too interested in what the elite had said to attack. "You mean, all this time, this entire twenty seven year, religiously incited, genocidal war; you've been killing the chosen of your gods?"
"Yes."
Shepard laughed mirthlessly at the sheer painful irony. Billions dead because of a religious misunderstanding. "God damn it!" He struck out at the elite, hitting him in the jaw with his fist, letting out some of his anger. It felt good.
Shepard soon found himself pressed up against a wall with an energy sword less than an inch from his throat. He smiled at the elite through his unpolarized visor. "What are you going to do? Kill me? Like so many other innocent humans?"
The elite looked him in the eye for several long moments, "No, what the prophets ordered done to your race, they have had the brutes do to mine. They have already issued the orders to exterminate my kind. I want revenge against them, and their brutes." The zealot slowly lowered him until he stood on his feet again.
"Well then, looks like we share something in common. Let's get to earth; there are plenty of brutes to kill there." Shepard holstered his pilfered weapon and began walking out the door, only vaguely surprised when the other four followed behind him.
ooooooo
The pelican was exactly where the AI had said it was. Tali didn't trust the AI, that lack of trust extended to the two aliens who seemed so accepting of an erratic and dangerous synthetic life form. They had saved her life though; even the AI had helped with that. She was left with that thought as the rag tag group loaded into the transport.
Then there was the problem of stopping a superweapon that could possibly destroy several star systems at once. Shepard had been vague on that point. The other alien, Odeg'Delus, was completely silent.
The ramp of the primitive looking shuttle clanged shut, sealing them in. The badly injured alien lay on the floor of the dropship, strapped in with a few cargo straps. Liara was looking over the wound, it likely wouldn't do the injured man much good; spinal injuries could be treated, but it required an expensive surgical procedure.
Tali looked towards the other two aliens, the orange armored one, called an elite, appeared very uncomfortable. The small ship was not designed with his height and bulk in mind.
The other alien, Shepard, wore a rather somber black armored suit. He sat in a separate cockpit to the front, though the door was open.
Tali didn't stop to sit down in the troop compartment, instead she kept walking and strapped into the co-pilot's position, ignoring the sidelong glance Shepard sent her way.
After going through a pre-flight checklist, which Tali could only barely help with, they took off. She felt herself press into the seat as the craft accelerated. She let out a small yelp, if you felt acceleration aboard a mass effect shuttle that generally meant something had failed, or had gone otherwise catastrophically wrong.
"What's wrong?" Shepard asked without taking his view from the window in front of him.
"What? Nothing… just not used to… uh… the acceleration. We have compensators for that sort of thing." Tali mumbled nervously.
"Ah," Shepard returned his full attention to piloting, allowing an awkward silence to grow.
Tali looked around for something to fiddle with in an attempt to escape the awkwardness. She didn't want to touch the controls, so she started playing with her hands.
Fortunately Shepard seemed to sense the change in atmosphere, "So, why did you choose to sit up here? Coach not good enough for you?"
Tali got the joke and chuckled a little, "Actually I wanted to talk to you about that AI of yours."
"Artemis," Shepard corrected her absentmindedly, "'That AI' isn't all that descriptive. It helps if you call a specific AI by its name." He fiddled with the controls; the pelican began maneuvering on its own, the autopilot having taken over. "That and seeing the state 'that AI' is in, it would probably help not to aggravate her."
"You actually trust AIs?" Tali couldn't keep the incredulity out of her voice.
"Well, yeah… Okay not exactly, I don't trust rampant AIs like Artemis." The alien looked over at her. Tali noted the visor was de-polarized, that little trick would be nice to bring back to the fleet. "I take it your people don't use artificial intelligences?"
Though Shepard couldn't see it, her face darkened at his last sentence. "No, not since the Geth."
"You mentioned that before, some sort of AI program?" The man seemed genuinely curious. If only he knew the truth.
"They weren't originally, they were just simple tools of labor, but their programming became more and more complex, until eventually they gained self awareness and sentience, accidentally and without notice." Tali sighed, the old hatred stirred again, "A general order went out to shut them down, but we underestimated how well they were organized."
"Wait, you didn't program them for war did you?"
Tali shook her head, "No, they were mostly designed for manual labor, they learned on their own. No one knows when they achieved sentience; they may have been planning it years before the actual war. We weren't expecting it."
"No programming blocks against harming their creators, no three laws of robotics?" Shepard asked.
"What?" Tali felt some serious confusion, "What are you talking about?"
"Well, it might take a while to explain," He looked at the flight controls, "But, I guess we have time." Shepard was silent for a few moments, collecting his thoughts. "Humanity has always had something of a Frankenstein complex."
"I don't think that translated a what?" Tali was growing more and more curious. This, humanity, apparently was very comfortable with AI technology. She sensed a bit of an opportunity, better understanding of AIs could very well lead to the quarians recovering their homeworld.
"It's named after a book that's… let me think, over seven hundred years old, I think. Back then we didn't even have basic electricity, or good medicine. A large portion of that story stemmed from the practice in those days of digging up corpses to, well, better understand the science of medicine." Shepard took a breath to continue on.
Tali was astonished, not at the story, or the barbaric practices. Other races had done similar things earlier in their history, even quarians. Six hundred years was what astonished her. Even if their years were double the galactic standard, unlikely, that meant this race had advanced amazingly quickly. Quarian first contact had occurred well over two millennia ago. Yet citadel race technology was really only slightly ahead of what she had seen so far, and behind the technology of this 'covenant'. She hastily turned her attention back to Shepard who was continuing with his story.
"Anyways, the book was about a scientist who created life by reanimating the dead parts of several corpses. Eventually the creation killed him and most of his family before killing itself. That was what it was named after. Later on when we started reaching the industrial age, I think that sort of fear extended to automated replacements for humans. Eventually to the point where we feared our creations might forcibly replace us." She saw a smirk on the man's face. "Considering this was something like two hundred years before the first 'dumb' AIs and three hundred before the first 'smart' AIs, most of it was baseless speculation."
"Then how did you get over your fear of AIs then?" Despite the situation Tali found herself extremely interested in the story. These humans had seen artificial beings as dangerous even before they had computers.
"Well, mostly because they were so damn useful, besides in any computer system besides a smart AI, they are completely limited to their programming. They simply don't have the self awareness to make their own decision that would lead to a robot rebellion. They are really only advanced computers." Shepard reached out to the console and adjusted a few things on their automated course. "Smart AIs are a different story. We've been making them for a hundred years or so now large numbers only recently, mostly for military use, but quite a few colonies have one to coordinate mass infrastructure. Though a properly made dumb AI could do the same thing."
"What about that Frank-en-stein complex?" Tali sounded out the unfamiliar and untranslated word. "All AIs I know of that the council has ever encountered turn on their creators."
"Council?" Shepard looked over to her then thought better of his question, "Never mind, but yeah, smart AIs do go bad. Our scientists can normally predict when though, so they all start out with a time stamp, when they'll either think themselves to death, or go rampant."
Tali was surprised, they obviously knew a huge amount about AIs. She found herself thinking of her pilgrimage, extensive knowledge of AIs could be helpful in destroying the Geth, that would be a good pilgrimage gift. She looked over to Shepard, and found him staring at her expectantly. "Oh, right… just thinking… please, go on. You said Artemis is a smart AI?"
Shepard stared at her for a moment more before continuing, "Yeah, she's also obviously rampant. I think losing her ship and crew at reach might have pushed her over the edge."
"You're saying it like it has a psychological problem." Tali shook her head, "It's a machine."
Shepard looked at her; he appeared deep in thought, "What happened with the Geth anyway? You never got to that part."
Tali sighed, and hoped the human wouldn't kick her out an airlock once he hard that her race was responsible for loosing a dangerous AI race upon the galaxy.
"They won the war… killed billions of us, forced the rest of us to flee on a collection of every space worthy vessel we could scrounge or scavenge. For three hundred years we've wandered the stars, looking for a way to reclaim our homeworld, or even a new world to settle on."
"There have-"
An unwelcome female voice cut over the speakers, "Just like in battlestar Galactica!"
Tali felt a trickle of fear; the AI had listened to their entire conversation. She saw Shepard jump out of his seat as far as the restraints would let him. She knew he couldn't have known either.
"Oh, sorry you were saying something?" The thing's avatar appeared in a small pad next to Shepard's pilot seat.
Tali prepared herself for the small craft to vent to space, or maybe blow up as the AI triggered its self destruct, or something. She closed her eyes, waiting for it to happen. Nothing did.
Slowly Tali opened her eyes back up. Everything was still the way it had been. The AI was 'staring' at Shepard, with a slight smile on its face. Shepard glared back, his expression unreadable from her viewpoint.
"You know, eavesdropping on another person's conversation isn't the best way to earn their trust."
Tali almost couldn't believe her ears, despite the AI holding all the advantages, control of computer systems, weapons, and who knew what else, Shepard was actually scolding her. These humans apparently had some serious guts.
Now she couldn't believe her eyes. The AI pouted, crossed its arms, and kicked at the 'ground', acting like a child. "You were talking about me."
"Yeah? So grow up and act your age." Shepard admonished the AI.
Tali shook her head in disbelief.
The AI reacted indignantly to that statement, "I'm only eight!"
"Yeah, and what is that in AI years? Like a hundred forty or so? You should be yelling at people to keep off your grass!"
Artemis lifted her head and looked off to the side, "Hmph!"
Tali heard an unexpected sound. Shepard was actually laughing at the antics of the AI. "Keelah, what have I gotten myself into?" Tali asked no one in particular.
"Well…" The AI looked to her station, "Let's see here, you've gotten yourself into the middle of a war to save all galactic life, stuck with some aliens you barely know, and best of all, your stuck with an AI you obviously don't trust. Oh so much fun!"
Tali just stared at the computer program, idly wondering if she could even shut the thing down if she tried.
"Well, as long as you're here, why don't you answer our erstwhile passenger's questions?" Shepard turned from the AI back to the controls, "I have a dropship to land."
The AI disappeared from Shepard's console and reappeared near Tali, causing her to jump a little.
"So, what do you want to know?" The little blue figure stared at her expectantly.
Tali returned the stare, trying to project as much hostility into her glare as she could. The AI returned the glare with a smile.
Tali continued to stare down the AI until they landed in a docking bay of some kind.
Shepard stood up and turned around, "Well, if you ladies are done establishing the pecking order, we've arrived."