Chapter 2: The Rendezvous
In the red giant star system of Arcturus, lie several gas giant planets and an asteroid belt orbited around the star that to this current day, was the third brightest star in the night sky of Earth, the homeworld of humanity. Among all the natural heavenly bodies that orbited around Arcturus, the red giant in turn had several mass relays in close proximity, which enabled mankind's rapid expansion into the stars of the Milky Way galaxy.
Suddenly, an object comes out from one of these relays. The object, was a starship. That starship, was the Normandy SR-2. The stealth frigate that was once belonged to Cerberus, now belonged to Commander John Shepard after he had severed the relationships with them.
"We have jumped out from the Arcturus 5 Relay, Commander. We'll be arriving at Arcturus Station only a few minutes away," Joker informed Shepard who was at the CIC, stand in front of the galaxy map, through the intercom.
"Roger that, Joker," Shepard replied in acknowledgement.
[A/N: Since Mass Effect and Bioware didn't stated the full detail about Arcturus System and its planets, I decided to make it my own in this story. Please, don't flame me about it.]
The Normandy SR-2 accelerated from the mass relay and in a short time, it passed through the four gas giants of Leto, Doris, Galatea and Tethys along the asteroid belts that revolved around the star. After it had passed through those celestial bodies, for the first time in a year after it was built by Cerberus, the Normandy SR-2 had arrived at Arcturus Station; the capital of the Systems Alliance and the headquarters of the Alliance Navy.
Arcturus Station, a five kilometer diameter Stanford Torus-type space station that was trailed at the Lagrange point (L5) at the gas giant Themis, the first planet that was circled around the Goldilocks Zone (the habitable zone) of the red giant star Arcturus. The station also housed the Alliance's Fifth Fleet which was too known as the Arcturus Fleet and commanded by Admiral Steven Hackett, one of the few people that Shepard had faith in other than Councilor David Anderson and his teammates along the crew of Normandy SR-2.
Commander Shepard with his N7 armor along with Miranda Lawson who wore her usual tight, white and black colored Cerberus outfit, walked towards the cockpit area and stood behind the pilot's seat, to watch the space station in close view. What they saw from the cockpit, there are many ships, possibly civilian passenger cruisers and merchant ships, came in and out from the space station. When the three of them looked at the station and the surroundings in silence, Joker was the first person who broke that silence.
"*Sigh*, home sweet home," he said while smirking. Commander Shepard won't deny that as Joker was indeed spent his early life on Arcturus Station because of his mother's job there as a civilian contractor. As the Normandy started to approached towards the station and fly through hundreds of Alliance warships that were protecting it, something from those group of warships had caught the attention of the Normandy's pilot.
"What the hell are those?" Joker exclaimed in surprise while pointed at something in front of him. Shepard and Miranda looked in front of the view screen where Joker had pointed at and what they saw also surprised them both as well.
What they saw in front of them are five huge, flat-shaped and long warships that are not any kind of ships that any of them inside the cockpit were familiar with. More than that, they're looked just like a sword. But the most interesting was the names that were stamped on the hull of those each five warships. Those names are Sun Tzu, Hannibal Barca, Julius Caesar, Ieyasu Tokugawa and Khalid ibn al-Walid. Which indicate these ships were named for historical military commanders and generals in Earth's history. Miranda was the first one to speak.
[A/N: These vessels are actually based on the Hiigaran Battlecruiser from the game Homeworld 2, by Relic Entertainment. But there are differences between these vessels and the ones in this story such as the vessels in this story don't have the Heavy Ion Cannon turrets as they were replaced by a fully armored bridge on the top section of the vessel where the Heavy Ion Cannon turrets was once placed. Moreover, this vessel also don't have the 'extra part' from the right section (from the front view point) of the vessel.]
"EDI, what are those ships am I looking at?"
EDI took five seconds to reply Miranda's question, longer than the usual, "Those warships inside the Fifth Fleet are actually the newly-built Alliance battlecruisers, built and developed in secrecy by the Systems Alliance. This information was once classified as top secret Level 4 before the human race gain a seat in the Council and quite surprisingly, they were given to me willingly by the battlecruisers' highly advanced VIs."
Shepard was a little bit surprised to hear that from the AI. No wonder from all of his entire life, he had never seen these ships at all as EDI had explained it earlier, they were built in secrecy and was once classified as top secret by the Alliance. From the look of these battlecruisers, each of them seems had more than enough firepower than the Destiny Ascension.
"What is the size of these battlecruisers, EDI?" Shepard asked.
"From what I can gather from the information, it is of an Alliance dreadnought-class length. I estimated at least 1250 meters. Almost equal to the Destiny Ascension or the Collector Cruiser," EDI told.
"What about the battlecruisers' armament? Does that also included in the top secret information?" Miranda asked EDI while putting emphasis on the three last words from her sentence.
"Primary armaments of the Alliance battlecruisers were the two main Mass Accelerator Cannons, located at the vessels' two prongs. However, these mass accelerators are actually very powerful than the Destiny Ascension or any other dreadnoughts in the galaxy as they are capable of accelerating one fifteen-ton tungsten ferric or titanium slugs to a velocity of 5000 km/s every five seconds. Each slug has the kinetic energy of about 100 petajoules or 23.9 megatons of TNT," EDI informed her. And that piece of information gave by the AI has made three people in the cockpit area to gasp a bit.
[A/N: If you guys wants to know how heavy a single fifteen-ton slug is, then check this picture; http:/img1. topfreebiz. com/o2010-8/15-Ton-Crawler-Excavator-2455734903. Jpg]
"ARE YOU SERIOUS, EDI!" Joker exclaimed in pure shock after heard it from the AI. "If you're start to shitting me about this, then you're starting to speak like HAL now!"
"No, Jeff. I am not shitting you," EDI replied to him in a monotone voice and to everyone's surprise, this was the first time that they've heard EDI potty-mouthed back at Joker. And that had caused him to silence immediately. EDI added another piece of information about the battlecruisers' armaments.
"The Alliance battlecruisers' secondary armaments are the 4x2 HELL Cannon turrets, each two of them located transversely at both topside and underside forward section of the hull. 'HELL' is an acronym of High Energy Linear Laser. They are actually the heavy offensive weapons version of the GARDIAN Laser systems and have a maximum firing range from 10 to 15 kilometers.
Other additional armaments included fifty lateral Mass Accelerator Cannons; twenty five for starboard section and another twenty five for port section of the hull, each are capable of firing a one and a half-ton slug to a velocity of 4700 km/s every three seconds along with 330 Rama Anti-Ship Hypersonic Missiles, each is the size of Earth's 21st-century UGM-133 Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile and it also carried greater payload capacity of random and unstable mass effect field core. In which they're similar in comparison to standard disruptor torpedoes only much faster, larger and heavily armored with layers of carbon nano-tubes. For the defensive purposes, these battlecruisers' have 40x2 Exemplar CIWS Mass Accelerator Rotary Cannons. Each of these CIWS also has one GARDIAN Laser turrets as well."
Shepard and the others shook their heads in disbelief after hearing tons of information about the battlecruisers' weaponries from EDI. "Huh, talk about overkill. If the Council had heard about this (or they're already have and except for Anderson), total frantic of fear from those three might happen, the media will go frenzy about it and the Alliance might get severe consequences," Shepard thought.
But there were questions left unanswered: Who is the person gave the idea to build battlecruisers in secrecy, despite the risks and implications from the Council? Where is the main construction site of these vessels? How many battlecruisers that are still out there? And how did they managed to developed a mass accelerator that can fire a fifteen-ton slug?
But Shepard mentally shrugged off those questions. These are Alliance matters that involved several people in high-ranking positions in the government and the military. He knew that he couldn't voice out that particular matter to those type of people. They had built weapons and other stuffs in secrecy with one purpose in their mind: to protect the Alliance and its citizens. Well at least they weren't built those stuffs in accordance with Cerberus' standards.
After the Normandy had passed through those warships, Joker then started to communicate with the Arcturus control for docking request. As soon as they got the clearance from the station, the Normandy docked at one the station's docking bay. Commander Shepard then announced the whole crew of the ship through the intercom. They were informed that the crew were given the permission to have shore leave to visit the station but were to report back to the ship once they've got the message. Shepard also had informed to all his team members to follow him into the station for the briefing of the mission that will be given by an Alliance officer and they'll send some people from the Alliance military to the Normandy for this mission.
Right after his announcement, Shepard turned his attention towards the Normandy's pilot, who had spent his early life on the station.
"You don't want to go out there, Joker?" Shepard asked while pointed his thumb to the airlock. "It's your home, remember?"
Joker's seat started to rotate towards behind and stopped in front of Shepard face to face. Joker then spoke, "Nah, don't worry about it, Commander. Besides, if you, me and everybody in this ship that have legs left this ship, who's gonna watch over EDI?"
"Don't worry about me, Jeff. I myself can monitor and take good care of the Normandy while you're left," EDI replied.
"Oh yeah? How 'bout when you have once told me that I'm 'directly responsible for your well-being' stuff? And besides, there is nothing more relaxing and tranquil than the Normandy's low humming sound. Also, I'm kinda more comfortable with seating on this leather seat than walking," Joker responded while rubbed his body and shoulders against the seat, showed signs of being pleasant.
"Alright, fine. But I hope EDI will be okay with you while you were watching porn vids and starts to satisfy yourself in front of her," Shepard grinned.
"HEYYY! I did not AND never satisfy myself in front EDI," Joker tried to counter Shepard's dirty jokes.
"Yes you did, Jeff. You have done that once in the men's restroom. There is a tiny camera inside which allowed me to monitor every crewmate that have went inside the restroom. And I still have the video file about Joker's in my archive," EDI explained in her usual monotone voice.
Joker's eyes went wide open in shock after EDI had claimed that she had the video of him doing that act in the men's restroom. Shepard however, only raised his left eyebrow in curiosity.
"WHAAT!" Joker exclaimed in horror.
"That is a joke."
After his (humorous) dialogue with Joker and EDI (which Joker had himself got owned by her), Shepard and Miranda were the first to exit out from the Normandy. What Shepard didn't expect after he got out was that the docking area looks kind of crowded with workers in jumpsuits and some soldiers with some kind a new type of body armor that they've worn. Everybody in the docking area looked very busy doing their own works. "I have visited Arcturus Station before and it never got this crowded." Shepard thought.
[A/N: Those soldiers that Shepard had saw before, are not actually 'soldiers'. He and some of the team members will be very surprise once they've found out (that includes y'all out there).]
After Shepard and Miranda walked out from the airlock, all Shepard's other team members went out from the Normandy as well. Some of the people in Shepard's group which are Tali, Garrus and Jacob; each have a surprised looks on their face after they've saw the condition at the docking area. The three of them expressed their opinions about the state of the place that they are stand on.
"It looked so crowded. Which reminds of me of my people that had lived inside our ships with limited and cramped space in the Fleet," Tali remarked.
"It kinda reminds me of Omega," Garrus stated.
"Wow. I've never seen so many people in a docking area," Jacob thought loudly.
Miranda began walked towards Shepard from behind. "So, Shepard. We're here. What are we going to do now?" Miranda asked.
"We'll wait here at the docks. Someone will come here and lead us to a certain Alliance officer. My guess is that he or she is a high-ranking one, a captain or an admiral," Shepard replied.
"Who? Admiral Hackett?" Jacob quickly asked.
Shepard shook his head in disagreement. He knew that Admiral Hackett was actually on Earth as he tried to delay his trial regarded the previous incident in the Bahak System. Which means; somebody from the higher-ranking position in the Alliance military will give the briefing of the mission to him and his team instead of Admiral Hackett.
"I don't know, Jacob. I don't think it's him. But I hoped it's not Rear Admiral Mikhailovich. That's for sure," Shepard remembered the first time he met the rear admiral when he performed a surprise inspection of the previous Normandy. The Rear Admiral at that time reminded Shepard of the pro-human Ambassador Udina; shrewd and pragmatic politician but awful, hypocrite, selfish and idiot person. But just like Anderson had said before, he got his uses in politics.
Suddenly, one of those soldiers at the far side of the dock turned his head around and spotted Shepard and his team. The soldier then started walked towards them. As Shepard and his team waited someone to pick them up, Grunt started to spoke.
"Battlemaster, this waiting makes me hungry. Can't we go somewhere else on this place I can eat?" the krogan asked.
"Bloody hell, Grunt!" Zaeed said while annoyed by Grunt's statement. "We've just waited around and stand here for five minutes! You're already ate at the ship's mess-hall before we're arrived here. You and your T-Rex-like belly, Grunt."
Grunt seems irritated by the old merc's comments about him. "Why won't you just shut up and mind your own business before I'll crush all your bones with my own bare hands," Grunt growled while threatened Zaeed by showed his right hand and clenched his fingers into a fist.
Zaeed Massani, the galaxy's most notorious and feared bounty hunter and mercenary soldier, didn't seem felt threatened an inch by Grunt's menacing words. "OR, why don't you just shut up before I'll cut off your throat with my own serrated knife that I got right here," Zaeed replied while patted his left thigh that had a knife strapped to his thigh plate. "It is specially made for killing krogans like you."
Shepard turned his head backward, towards both of the bickering persons. He had resolved conflicts and arguments like this before. Just like where both Miranda and Jack had a fight in the Normandy's Executive Officer's Office along with the conflict between Tali and Legion in the AI Core. He still remembered Joker's last words after he had informed him about the fight between the (was once) agent for Cerberus and the convict who had a tormented past history with them. "Take pictures", Joker said at that time.
"That's enough, both of you!" the commander said in a raised and commanding tone.
"HE STARTED IT!" both the merc and the krogan exclaimed simultaneously while point a finger towards each other.
"Commander John Shepard?" a male voice came from behind him but strangely, in an electronic tone.
He turned around and saw a fully armed soldier wore an unfamiliar but looked newly-designed body armor in white and black color with a tightly sealed helmet that has four small, round-shaped eyepieces in bright white color. The soldier's helmet and the eyepieces almost reminded of the commander the type of the helmets that was used by some humans, batarians and asari mercenaries in the Blue Suns and the Eclipse.
[That soldier's armor and helmet are kinda like this one; only in white and black color, just like the LOKI mech: http:/madeinjapan1988. deviantart. com/gallery/#/d3fwzv4 (the soldier's armor is actually based on the one with the orange color)]
"Are you the escort for us?" Shepard asked.
"Absolutely," the soldier replied. "Please follow me to the briefing room. It is not far from here," the soldier said with another electronic tone as he took the lead while Shepard and his whole team followed suit to the room. Shepard was kind of confused whether the soldier in front of him was a human or a mech after the soldier spoke to him as if in a computerized voice.
As they have walked through some huge corridors and hallways; larger than the one at Zakera Wards on the Citadel, many people included the civilians and the military personnel have stopped their works and activities as they watched at Shepard's multi-species group. Some of the people there are quite surprise as they have saw a krogan and a geth have walked past in front of them in Arcturus Station. But the one that got most of the attention was Commander Shepard himself. They watched in awe and excitement, some of them had shed in tears of joy as the most well known human in the galaxy; the Defender of Elysium; the Liberator of Eden Prime; the first human Spectre and the Hero of the Citadel has back from the dead and that person had walked past in front of their eyes.
It's been a while after they have walked for some time and Shepard had his mind focused on the soldier in front of him. He still wondering whether the guy was human or a mech. But that would soon change as Shepard began to ask the soldier. "Excuse me. Do you mind if I ask you a…personal question?"
The soldier's head turned around a bit and faced the commander while walked on the corridor. "Of course. What is it do you want to ask?" the soldier asked Shepard's question.
"Are you a human or a mech?" Shepard bluntly asked.
"I am not a human nor an organic. I am an Alliance-built Special Model 800-Series THOR Multi-Purpose Mechanical and Synthetic Unit. Or in a short version, the SM-800 THOR mech," the mech answered Shepard's question. "But you can call me Mac."
Shepard and several people in the group were surprised and had their eyes wide open a bit after discovered the soldier in front of them was actually a mech. Most importantly, that mech had just called itself (or himself) 'Mac' in front of everybody in the group. Garrus was the first one to spoke.
"Wait, Mac? Did you made yourself your own name?" he asked.
"No. It is my creators; the scientists and the engineers in Arcturus Station that had named me 'Mac'," the mech answered.
"Are you a VI or an AI?" Tali nervously asked. She had a good reason to ask that kind of question, considering the consequences that the Alliance will have if they have AIs in this station and the quarians' past history with the geth. Except EDI and Legion where she's now felt comfortable a bit with them after the suicide mission.
"I am a VI. Me and other THOR mechs are made out of multiple highly sophisticated program and software that are putted into a single miniaturized semi-quantum supercomputer that were specially made for virtual intelligences like us, which is known as a 'red box'. Our programming has a 'bit' of independence, more than any normal VI. Standard VIs are typically work only within the confines of their programming such as they were used for tour guides, manage sophisticated lab and database work or to process status reports in the military.
But since the THOR mech's virtual intelligence programming are far sophisticated than our normal counterparts, we are able to formulate and process complex data and information at a higher level and speed than normal VI. To avoid hacking our programs to be overridden and turned upon our creators from outside sources, we have been installed multiple and self-adaptive semi-quantum firewalls to avoid that possibility. You can say that we; the THOR mechs, are advanced virtual intelligences but for all the functions and capabilities that we can make, a THOR VI is much closer to an AI," Mac explained.
Tali and some of the team gasped a bit after listened to Mac's explanation about their advanced VI had more freedom and capabilities than normal VIs. So technically, they're almost the same as an AI. Legion flicked its plates into an inquisitive expression and asked, "But the THORs are still considered to be VIs, are we correct?"
"Yes it is. That is because we have the limited yet advanced capabilities. Although limited, THOR VIs are capable to do various related tasks such as in engineering, electronics, construction, sociology and psychology, medical and surgery, complex military tactics, battlefield intelligence, computer hacking and such that are only restricted in our mentioned programming. That is why THORs are still considered as VI. Nevertheless, we're also had the ability to process and formulate our own ideas and opinions that are related to the present conditions, make inquiries and questioning our creators' works or motives without sacrificing the moral values and ethics that were included in our programming," Mac informed.
All of the tech-savvy members in Shepard's group (except Legion and Miranda) gave a respective "Whoa" after they have listened about the THORs advanced VI capabilities that are far exceeded than the normal and standard ones from the THOR mech.
After a long explanation from their escort-who-was-a-soldier-turned-out-to-be-a-mech named Mac, they've turned around a corner and arrived what had looked like to be a high security complex as Shepard and his team noticed that there were a lot of heavily armed security guards and Alliance officers walked around complex. After Mac had got the clearance to proceed within the complex through passive communication channel to the Arcturus's security control center, the group started walk towards a door guarded by three people; two Alliance security personnel, each stand beside the door and a THOR mech which was similar to the escort, stood at the center.
The group then stopped in front of the door.
"Please proceed inside the briefing room, a top Alliance officer is waiting for all of you," said the THOR mech who guarded the door.
The room that they have entered was apparently three times the size of the Normandy SR-2's Communications Room and it had a single large, rectangular window located at the end of the room. The whole room was dominated by large rectangular conference table which quite surprisingly, looked like a traditional transitional paneled table made out of tough and high quality hardwood. "Someone here likes old school stuff," Miranda commented. The conference room also had bright white lighting that illuminates around it with several chairs around the table. One of them seems quite big and strong enough to fit and withstand Grunt's size along with his sheer weight.
[The wooden conference table is similar to this one: http:/www. ambiencedore. com/images/Conference08ADD/transitional_paneled_wood. jpg]
At the end of the room by the window, there was a man in a blue Alliance uniform stood facing the window which they had assumed was a high-ranking officer. They can't see face of the officer, only his backs. Commander Shepard then walked around the left side room and approached the officer.
Before Shepard had approached him, the Alliance officer turned his head towards Shepard and showed an old, wrinkled face, probably in the late-50s with a bald head and with a pair of blue eyes. He stood rigid as a highly-disciplined military officer.
"Oh, hello son. It's really good to see you again," the officer said with a calm voice and he looked delighted when he saw the commander's face.
Commander Shepard's eyebrows along his eyes were respectively raised and slightly wide open in surprise after he saw the old man's face.
"Dad?"
Author's Note:
Yaayyy! Commander Shepard met his dad! By the way, I imagined the looks of Shepard's father as Ed Harris in this story. Also, there are some changes in some of the team members' appearance namely Jack, Tali and Thane. The three of them wore outfits from the Mass Effect 2 Alternate Appearance Pack DLC but also with some changes as well.
Jack wore the new bikers outfit from the DLC but without those ugly and ridiculous glasses. She also wore the same long fingerless lace gloves on her left arm just like the one on her right arm. Tali wore the same new outfit from the DLC only except the color of the visor which I changed them to the default one because her visor from the DLC only makes it harder to see her glowing eyes. Thane also wore the new outfit from the DLC only without those shades as well. For God sakes, those glasses makes me so irritating!
Also, the part where Commander Shepard and the Normandy suddenly got themselves in Vandread universe is actually three chapters away. It was supposed to be two chapters but I had no choice because right now, the school holiday in my country is almost over and I had to reduce the time to finish this chapter. Sorry guys (bow). Moreover, it is because of my parents who accused me of playing computer games while actually I was busying myself to write this story. If I was playing, the speaker would give off loud sound effects like "BOOOM!", "BRRRRR!" and "BANG! BANG! BANG!" and stuffs. But NOOOOOOO. They're still accused me!
After the school holiday, the rest of the update for this story will become much slower than before. Please, be patient alright guys? :)