Author's Note: Previously in the end of Chapter 2, Commander Shepard had met his father in Arcturus Station. Meaning that from this chapter, the Commander will be called by his first name, not the last name to avoid confusion.
By the way, if all you saw an asterisk (*) in some sentences, it means: See below at the Author's Note section.
Chapter 3: Charlie Charlie Part 1
"What's the matter, son? You looked liked you've seen a ghost," the Rear Admiral asked as he wondered the cause of John's streaked expression immediately after he had turned his face towards his son.
The N7 Commander almost speechless after he saw his own father face-to-face because he didn't know that his father; Rear Admiral James Shepard, was the one who was going to brief him and the team for the mission, let alone after several years of not seeing between each other. He hadn't heard any word from him since his enrolment to become an Alliance Special Forces operative after his courageous acts against huge bands of pirates and slavers that attacked Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz that earned him the Star of Terra.
John had known a lot about his father, other than his cordial and gregarious personality,who had made a name for himself during Operation Turbocharge; a codename for a major Alliance Navy/Marine Corps/Special Forces joint operation to assault an independent human colony of South West in the Nirvana System of the Skyllian Verge, right next to the border of the Terminus Systems that was invaded by a large band of pirates in 2179. The colony was named by the human inhabitants where many of them were of American descent, specifically the southern and southwest states of the former United States of America.
A week before the military operation had begun; the South West's inhabitants of 32 million humans had decided to join the Systems Alliance after they had heard of a successful military operation in the Raid of Torfan carried out by the Alliance a year earlier. The Alliance accepted their inclusion and due to the planet's strategic location as a perfect chokepoint and fortress with substantial amounts of minerals to prevent any pirate and slaver ships from coming in and out from the Terminus Systems, the Alliance had decided to bring in a large force of 72 warships and 885,000 of ground troops along with several teams of Alliance Special Forces to secure and reinforce the Alliance authority and presence on South West along the entire Nirvana System.
Several pirate leaders and batarian warlords in the Terminus had heard about the Alliance's intention to expand their influence and military to the Nirvana System and the inhabitant's decision to join the Alliance which would further suppress their entire piracy campaigns. Still revengeful and bitter to the failure of the Blitz and the Alliance's raid on Torfan, they had decided to quickly mobilize their forces to invade and capture South West before the Alliance's arrival. The attack was brutal. Tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children were systematically massacred by the invaders in the first six hours, driven with anger and hatred. The inhabitants were poorly armed and they had almost nothing to defend themselves due to constant raids upon the said planet by pirates since it was first colonized in 2160 which hampered them to attain large supplies of proper weapons.
When the Alliance forces that were on route to the Nirvana System had been informed about the situation, several hours after the initial attack, they promptly planned a military operation and planetary assault to retake the planet and drive out the pirates from the star system permanently. After several hours of careful planning of choosing the most appropriate strategies and tactics through up-to-date intelligences and using the experience from the First Contact War and Skyllian Blitz, they had successfully laid out Operation Turbocharge that were placed under the command of John's father, James Shepard, who was the Captain of the cruiser SSV Detroit. The plan was to take out the pirate ships that was orbiting around South West by surprise and leaving them no room to escape. Once they had regained control of the orbit, they would launch a direct rapid orbital assault with sheer numbers of M35 Mako IFVs that were air-dropped from frigates or large dropships, and ground troops deployed to the battlefield with numerous amounts of Kodiak Drop Shuttles, supported with fighters and Mantis gunships in great quantity.
The entire operation was a complete success, all 120 pirate ships were annihilated in a single attack without any casualties from the Alliance Navy. After a week of intense fighting from both sides, the whole pirate group on South West had surrendered after suffering massive death tolls in the thousands while the Alliance forces had suffered minimal casualties only due to the element of surprise and with the support of many Mako's, fighters and gunships in battle. John had heard rumors about the Alliance forces had used or tested secret experimental weapons and combat units in Operation Turbocharge that usually involved "several unknown people were seen doing a re-entry towards the planet without using drop pods, only their hard-suits and bright hexagonal-shaped shields popped up from their back".
But of all the victory that the Alliance had achieved, the civilian death tolls on South West were horrific. It was estimated that 500,000 people were massacred in a single week during the battle by the pirates using various methods from senseless shootings to the usage of chemical weapons; specifically the VX-based nerve agents in huge quantities. All of the surrendered pirates were tried and sentenced to death by hanging by the Alliance Criminal Court for committing act of genocide and Crime against Sentient Being a year later; for the first time such trial was conducted in the history of humanity and the Systems Alliance. His father, Captain James Shepard, was promoted to Rear Admiral for his exceptional leadership and well-organized battle command along with his role in Operation Turbocharge a week later. Thus, he became one of John's important role model in his life other than the famed Alliance hero Jon Grissom.
"Well…, yeah…I mean…it has been several years we've never met each other since I had entered the Alliance Special Forces program, sir," John said while he rubbed the back of his neck. Even though the rear admiral in front of him was his father, John finished his sentence with the word 'sir' as he didn't forget about the rules of rank and authority in the Alliance military.
"What, does that mean you can't give your father a hug or something?" Rear Admiral Shepard asked with an easy grin.
John smiled a bit while shook his head lightly of his father's friendly and easy attitude. He then gave his father a hug and the Rear Admiral did the same. The hugged each other like a pair of father and son, as if they have been reunited with each other after being separated for a long time. Some of the people in John's team, especially Thane, felt comfortable when they saw the family reunion between their Commander and his father. The drell assassin really wished that his first reunion with his son Kolyat, would be like this. But unfortunately for Thane, it wasn't he had hoped for.
"It is good to see you again, John," Rear Admiral Shepard said after both of them had released their hug. "Oh by the way, don't call me 'sir' anymore. I just want us to talk each other like father and son."
"Yes sir. I mean, dad," John corrected his sentence.
Rear Admiral Shepard smiled a bit at his son who was tried to correct his pronunciation. He then turned his head towards John's elite team consisted of some humans and some different race of aliens that the Rear Admiral recognized namely an asari, a turian, a quarian, a drell, a krogan, a salarian and a geth. These people are some of the best, deadliest and dangerous person in the galaxy and he can't deny that fact. While he was looking at his son's team, someone in the team had attracted the attention of the Rear Admiral.
"Zaeed Massani? Is that you?" he asked with a surprised look.
"Yeah it's me, James. Long time no see," Zaeed confirmed. He then gave his right hand to him after the Rear Admiral had walked forward to the mercenary veteran.
"Long time no see to you too, old buddy," Rear Admiral Shepard said as he shook the mercenary's hand. "How long was it? Twenty years?"
"Twenty eight," Zaeed replied.
"Huh, that long, eh?" Rear Admiral Shepard sighed and gave a bit of smile with hint of his emotion went down a little after he had realized that time had passed quickly than he had expected. "By the way, I didn't know you're a part of John's team. How did it happen?" he asked.
"Well, Cerberus wants the best and the most bad-ass people in the galaxy and the Illusive Man felt he might need a man of my skills to assist your son in his mission against the Collectors. So they paid me a huge amount of credits and both of us reached an agreement," Zaeed answered.
"How much credits?" Rear Admiral Shepard asked again.
"Twenty years or more of your salary as a Rear Admiral combined," Zaeed replied with his face lit up with gleeful smirk.
"Dang. And I was just promoted from Captain to Rear Admiral seven years ago," he said while whistled with surprise at the total amount of credits Zaeed had earned from Cerberus. The money that the old merc had got was way more than he had earned as a Rear Admiral in the Alliance Navy.
John, however, was surprised that his father and the old merc were once actually knew each other sometime in the past, probably during in military service before Zaeed had gone out from the military and became a mercenary. "Zaeed, why you didn't tell me that you had knew my father?" John asked the mercenary.
"As a matter of fact, I didn't realize that you're actually James Shepard's son because I knew a dozen people where their last name were 'Shepard' in my past, including your pop here," Zaeed responded as he gestured to John's father.
"Zaeed and I were once served in the cruiser, the SSV Rio de Janeiro, months before the First Contact War began. At that time, we were close buddies in the Rio although he was an Operations Chief in the Marine Corps while I was a Staff Lieutenant, as the ship's navigator. A year after the War had ended, he resigned from the military and went independent, became a mercenary since then. He left because he wasn't satisfied how the Alliance tried to play nice with the turians after the Citadel Council had intervened to end the conflict before a full blown war erupt. And I still remember what you have said to me after you had resigned," Rear Admiral Shepard folded his arms while turned his head towards Zaeed.
"What did you said at that time, Zaeed?" Garrus curiously asked.
"You ain't gonna like it," Zaeed replied.
"Try me," Garrus assured him.
"*Sigh* Okay, I had said to him that 'if the Council hadn't interfered to negotiate a peace, we would've more than gladly to barbeque those turries'. No offense, Garrus," Zaeed turned his head towards the former C-Sec detective.
"None taken," Garrus amicably said while shrugged his shoulders.
"Heh, you and your bluntness, Zaeed. I swear, if the top brass heard you say that before you had resigned, they'll probably promoted you to 2nd Lieutenant," Rear Admiral Shepard amusedly informed the old merc.
"Err, dad? Can we begin the briefing about our mission? It's just…we don't want to take too much time for this," John reminded his old-aged father.
"Right, of course," Rear Admiral Shepard said as he walked towards the conference table. He himself had no doubt that he almost forgot about the purpose of the briefing due to his old age. "Maybe I should retire early after this is over," he thought. He then pressed a button at the end of the table's console and suddenly, the room's bright white light started to dimmed slowly until the whole briefing room became dark. As the room darkens, a large, bright and bluish hologram display with the symbol of the Systems Alliance materialized at the center of the conference table and it brighten the whole space a bit with the dull blue light from the hologram.
John's team split into two where the first half (Tali, Garrus, Miranda, Kasumi, Thane and Mordin) went to left side of the conference table while the second half of the team (Samara, Grunt, Legion, Jacob, Jack and Zaeed) went to the right side. All twelve of John's team member stand encircled the large table and focused their eyes toward the large hologram at the center while the Commander stand right next to his father.
The Rear Admiral then activated his own omni-tool and started to tap several keys on it. The large hologram at the center of the table suddenly changed into a map that depicted tens of thousands of stars in a single holographic projection. The whole team in the room saw a line of human English words written at the center below of the map: Enkidu Sector, Citadel Space. Rear Admiral Shepard tapped several keys again on his omni-tool and one of the stars in the map being focused by a small, rectangular box in the screen
The star in the hologram abruptly changed into a star system with several planets orbiting around the sun, along with a single object everyone in the briefing room are very familiar; a mass relay. Usually an individual star cluster within the Milky Way galaxy contains a single primary mass relay located in one of the cluster's star system but everybody in the galactic community (through the extranet and the Codex) knew the Enkidu Sector was not a usual star cluster. This is because the Enkidu Sector has not one, but two primary mass relays. One mass relay located in the Tyunqa System while the other located in the Valonovia System.
"This is the Valonovia System which also lies the planet Articon, the place where all of you will undertake two important but possibly dangerous mission. Your first mission is to rescue the crews of the two malfunctioned Alliance vessels; the Orizaba and the Leyte Gulf which both of them circled helplessly around the planet's orbit with their engines along their mass effect cores disabled. If possible, try to get their engines and the cores to start up," Rear Admiral Shepard briefed them about their mission while at the same time he began typing several keys on his omni-tool and all of a sudden, the image of the Valonovia System in the hologram replaced with a frozen, cold and barren-looking planet, as if the entire surface covered with ice and snow.
But the most revealing and shocking part about Articon to the Commander's team including John himself was that the planet's orbit was covered with thousands of starship wreckages and debris. Most of the destroyed warships in the image are predatory-looking turian ships while there were also some asari and salarian vessels as well, in which they were easily recognized by their sleek and elegant designs. It was hard to believe to everyone in John's team that a whole Citadel fleet consisted of two hundred warships had been annihilated by an unknown force.
However, in the midst of the wreckages they saw two vessels that are not the same design as the other Citadel vessels; one was a frigate-size ship while the other was a ship the size of a dreadnought. Rear Admiral Shepard pressed another several keys of his omni-tool and the image began to focused and magnified closer to the vessels. After it had been magnified, it had become apparent that both of those ships are actually the Alliance carrier Orizaba and the frigate Leyte Gulf. While John was looking at the image, he noticed some small words written at the upper left part of the screen. He focused his eyes on the words and it was written as "Live Broadcast".
"Wait a minute, this image was recorded on live broadcast? How did you manage to do that?" John asked while pointed his right index finger at the hologram.
Rear Admiral Shepard turned his head towards his son, "After the Leyte Gulf had arrived at the Valonovia System, they released a long range, telescopic camera probe satellite at the edge of the star system with a direct link to the Arcturus Station, as a precaution so we can analyze along with monitoring the whole situation from here.
From the past few days until now, we know that the whole crews are perfectly just fine and no sudden changes in their numbers through the probe's long range heat scanner. This means that their vessel's life support systems are still intact as we speak. We've estimated that all of the crews of the Leyte Gulf can survive with their food rations for 2 weeks, a month for the Orizaba as long as they can maintain their strict diet," he said.
"And while they're still alive and well, we're going to take some of those times to prepare you and your team very properly for this mission, am I clear?" Rear Admiral Shepard asked his son while putting the emphasis on the word "very". John just simply nodded in acknowledgement.
"Good boy." Rear Admiral Shepard then typed several keys to his omni-tool and the hologram depiction of the frozen planet quickly changed into a screen that showed the horizontal view of the surface of Articon, filled with old but very intact Prothean cities. The holographic projection then highlighted a certain open area located near the outskirts of the cities; the Prothean dig site.
"After rescuing the crews, your second mission, possibly the most dangerous one, is to investigate the causes behind the sudden disappearance of the scientists, the whole ground security forces and the Council's Spectres on Articon. You will land near the main Prothean dig site. If there are survivors on the surface, helping them will be your additional objective," Rear Admiral Shepard ordered them. "Do you understand?" he asked in a strict tone. Everybody in the room nodded their heads in acknowledgement while some of them responded with "Yes sir", "Sure" and "No problem".
"Very good. Since half of these missions are also involves the matter of the Alliance military, a few people that I've chosen will be participate for this mission. I can guarantee to you all that they are some of the best and most capable people in the Alliance military so you don't have to worry about some 'green FNG who doesn't know a damn thing' joining the most elite team in the galaxy," Rear Admiral Shepard informed while he pressed a button on a table's console and the whole room slowly lit up with bright with light along the large hologram projection at the table's center that started to quickly dissipates.
"Green? FNG? What do those words mean?" Tali asked as she was never good at military terms or jargons because she was just a normal civilian engineer in the Migrant Fleet, not a military, combat or assault one.
Apparently, she hasn't travelled or worked with other military personnel that she knew in the past such as Prazza and her team on Freedom's Progress, Kal'Reegar and the other quarian marines on Haestrom or with Commander Shepard along with other militaristic persons namely Garrus, Jacob and Zaeed long enough to understand such jargons.
"Green means someone who was inexperienced at a particular task or in a line of business while FNG stands for 'Fucking New Guy' or 'Freaking New Guy'", Jacob responded her question from the other side of the conference table.
"Oh, I see," Tali replied. But Jacob's explanation had caused her to realize the reason she hadn't heard that terms before. That was because in the general perspective of the whole quarian community in the Migrant Fleet, there was no such concept or terms for some 'New Guy' joining you up as every quarian people in the Fleet are essentially a family, a very big family. When young quarians returned from their Pilgrimage, they do not return to their birth ship but instead select a new ship to join and became accustomed into it.
Every quarian depends on his or her crewmates to survive which they are much more community-minded than other individualistic races such as the krogans. But quite frankly, Tali had not heard such jargon right after she had joined the Commander's team since no one was ever replaced or filled in by another people for someone else who were not present or dead on the SSV Normandy or the ship's successor, the Normandy SR-2.
"Alright, I'm going to introduce those new people one by one so all of you can recognize each other easily," Rear Admiral Shepard then turned his face to his son with a small grin on his face, "By the way John, you might recognize and know some of these people."
John looked perplexed when his father told him about some of the people he himself might recognize and he couldn't make up his mind to work things out. "Some people that I know? Who are they exactly?" he thought.
Rear Admiral Shepard pressed a different button on the table's console, activating a communication channel and then he spoke, "Bring the first person in." A hiss of sound was heard by everybody and a door suddenly opened in the middle of the briefing room's left side of the wall, causing nearly everybody in John's team startled as they didn't noticed there was a secret door right behind (some of) their back.
A lone figure came out from the shadows of secret door and it revealed a fine-looking, brown skin human male possibly in his late twenties with a facial appearance similar to a typical Austronesian or Southeast Asian descent from Earth and a pair of brown-colored eyes along with short, crew cut-style black hair that covered his head. The man also wore what looks to be a new and highly advanced heavy armor with ultramarine and black color which also bore the 'N5' emblem written in white with red detail on the upper right chest*.
The N5 soldier walked past some of John's team members towards the Rear Admiral and the Commander himself. He stopped in front of them and quickly stood upright, at full attention along with saluted them both.
"Staff Lieutenant Imran Zakaria, Systems Alliance Special Forces, N5 reporting in sir!" he introduced himself.
Both the Rear Admiral and the N7 Commander returned the same salute to the well-disciplined soldier. But right after John heard the soldier's name, it suddenly causes him to remember something, something that rings a bell inside his head even though he never met this guy. Out of curiosity, John then spoke to him.
"Imran Zakaria? The Butcher of Torfan?"
All of a sudden, almost everybody in John's team, especially some non-humans which are Garrus and Tali, have their eyes opened wide in shock (except Legion) after they heard the name and title of the person who was very infamous due to his ruthless and merciless acts against the batarian slavers and pirates in the small moon of Torfan which in the process, also caused the death of more than half of the Alliance marines in his unit. And that person was standing in front of them. His reputation for what he had done in Torfan had made him unpopular and feared among the Alliance military and its citizens along with other races in the galaxy.
Imran's face showed signs of uncomfortable after John had mentioned that title in front of him and everyone in the room.
"Err...yes sir. That's me," Imran reluctantly acknowledges John's curiosity.
The N7 Commander had quickly realized that his blunt words has caused the soldier in front of him felt discomfort and uneasy. He knew of his feared reputation and had expected that he would act like a 'straight shooter'-type of person after he was placed under his command. But he was wrong. The man in front of him seems a good and humble yet at the same time disciplined and well-mannered person. This had caused John to ponder and realized that the guy was not as ruthless or merciless as many people would thought out to be.
"I'm sorry if I had caused you discomfort after I mentioned that to you," John apologetically said to him.
"It's alright, sir. I understand that you're really didn't mean that unintentionally," Imran humbly assured him with a small smile.
John smiled back at him in acknowledgement and Imran's words of assurance had relieved the N7 Commander's guilt.
"Alright, bring the second person in," Rear Admiral Shepard said after he pushed the same button on the table's console which activated the communication channel.
The sound of loud footsteps echoed out from the same dark secret room where Imran have came out earlier. A person came out from the room and it revealed a human woman who has tight military bun-hairstyle along with wore an easily recognizable Phoenix heavy armor but this armor's light red (or pink by some people) color was replaced with a more fiery blood red one. John, Tali and Garrus have a surprised looks on their face after they've saw the woman's face that they were very familiar with.
"ASHLEY!" three of them shouted simultaneously.
"Hey guys! Long time no see. Especially you, Skipper," she smiled happily while focusing her eyes towards her lover.
John couldn't believe his eyes that his own lover, Ashley Williams, the same person that fought alongside with him and Garrus against Saren's reanimated synthetic corpse who was controlled by the Reaper vanguard, Sovereign, during the Battle of the Citadel and where he himself had convinced her to evacuate with the rest of the crew from the SSV Normandy during an ambush by the Collectors.
She was also same person who was highly upset about John's alliance with Cerberus and questioned his loyalty to the pro-human terrorist organization. Ashley at that time refused to join his mission, turned him away and both of them part ways afterwards.
Therefore, she was chosen specifically by his father to participate for this mission. John was uncertain whether he should be thrilled or afraid if both of them would meet each other again. But John was confused about why his father chose Ashley for this mission. Why can't just anybody else?
"Dad, why do you choose her for this?" John turned to his father.
"Like I've said earlier; I've chose a few people that are some of the best and the most capable in the Alliance military. Due to the facts that she is one of the few people who have the experience and capability to handle missions similar this one and the same ones where you and some of your teammates had undertake three years ago. That is the reason why I choose her, John," he explained.
Well, he was right. Both John and Ashley had undertaken several missions that are related to investigations, saving hostages and blow out some pirates and such during the hunt of the rogue turian Spectre, Saren. But John was not so sure if their past deadly encounter with a thresher maw on several planets or some space monkeys pulled out a highly sensitive module from a downed satellite on Eletania should also be added in the long list.
"Me and your mother had also known about your past relationship with her through reliable sources. And we're very happy that our boy had found a perfect girl to be married," Rear Admiral Shepard said with his face lit up with a grin and his blunt statements have caused the faces of both John and Ashley reddens in embarrassment.
"Besides that, if both of you soldiers truly love each other and thinking of getting married after all of this crap is over," Rear Admiral Shepard placed his right hand on John's right shoulder, "you already have our blessings, son."
John at this time didn't know how to react or to think after he had listened all of those words that had come out from his father's mouth that about both of his parents that had already agreed to give their blessings to him, even though he hadn't said anything about a proposal or a marriage-related matter at Ashley and especially at his own parents. But he quickly brushes all of that from his mind after he saw some glances and smiles (except a few) from the rest of the team. He then focused on the topic about the next person that was chosen in his mind.
"Dad? Can we talk about this later and try to focus on the next person?" he pleaded his father to switch or focus on another topic.
"Alright, alright. Bring the final person in," Rear Admiral Shepard ordered through the console. "By the way, you're going to be very surprised and happy after you've met this person," he said with a grin on his face.
"Why should I be surprised and happy about this particular person?" John asked with one of his eyebrows raised.
"Well that's because this person is your...," before Rear Admiral Shepard could finish the sentences, all of a sudden there was a woman's voice came directly from the secret room.
"HEY JOHNNY BOY!"
The N7 Commander suddenly startled after he had heard that nickname for the first time in a year after he had been resurrected by Cerberus through the Lazarus Project. When he turned his head towards the source, he was really, truly, and very could not believe his eyes. His face quickly showed signs of utter disbelieve and shock. The person that stands in front of him is a human woman that has the same height as Ashley. She has a pair of green-colored eyes and bob cut-style auburn hair along with a scar over the woman's left eye. Furthermore, the woman also wore a Mercenary medium armor, but strangely that armor seems different and it looks as if was broken into multiple pieces similar to the N7 Armor that he wore. After a couple of seconds of silence, John finally broke it.
"Ja…Ja…Jane?"
The woman he called Jane all at once quickly ran towards John and she wrapped both her arms around his neck along with placed her head on his right shoulder which was shown as an emotional warmth. John, however, was standing stiff as his mind was still in a state of shock and while at the same time, having himself a mental rejection of what just had happened.
"How are ya doin', John? It's been a long time, isn't it?" Jane said after she released both her arms from John's neck and put some space between each other. Through her face, John saw the expressions of comfort and happiness towards him.
"Uh…, who are you?" Grunt asked Jane as he and the others were baffled and surprised by the woman's sudden emergence and her unexpected action to his human battlemaster.
She quickly turned her head and body towards John's team consisted of humans and aliens. "Hey, you guys must be John's friends, right? I'm Staff Lieutenant Jane Shepard, Alliance Marine Corps. I'm his sister," Jane said after introduced herself.
Garrus then turn his head towards Commander Shepard. "Why you didn't tell us you have a sister, John?" Garrus asked him as several of John's team members began to look at him, each with a perplexed looks on their face. Except Tali where it is hard to see her face other than the glowing eyes through her visor.
Miranda looked as if she had anticipated this situation. This would mean that she knows about this before they meet John's sister. Probably because that she is or was a Cerberus Officer and during her time the organization, she had every detail about Commander Shepard, including his own family.
Legion however…..not so surprising as well as he also had 'studied' Commander Shepard through various extranet sites regarding to him and some unencrypted along with encrypted Alliance files before Legion met him in the derelict Reaper.
"Well, that's because you guys never asked me any questions about my family or my personal life," John tried to explain to the others in front of him. In fact, he had a good point. Of all the time inside the Normandy, John was the one who always do the talk to everybody in his team, in order to get to know them better. Thus, this had caused them unaware to have any thoughts of ask him about his own family and personal life.
Talked about family and personal life, he suddenly realized that he had once mentioned some of those topics at Ashley three years ago on the storage section of the SSV Normandy, where he had once said to her that he is the only child in his family. He slowly turned his eyes towards Ashley and when he saw her, her face didn't showed any either signs of shock, confusion or anger, only just a small smile.
"Don't worry, John. They've told me everything and the truth," Ashley assured him. John was relieved in his mind after she had told him that as he wasn't prepared to face any "all-out assault" from the quick-tempered and blunt Alliance Marine.
"Wait, what 'truth'?" Kasumi asked as she cocked her head to the right side.
"I'll explain it to you all later, all right?" John quickly dodged the master thief's question. His sudden act of trying to dodge her question just made the others became more curious about him and his sister.
"Now it's time for your techs, gears and upgrades. But since I'm just a military guy and not an engineer or a technician, I'll leave this part to Lydia," Rear Admiral Shepard interjected.
"Who's Lydia?" Tali asked.
"That would be me," said an artificial but organic-like female voice that came out of nowhere in the room. Everybody - except the Rear Admiral, Ashley, Imran and Jane - turned their heads around each corner the briefing room, trying to find the source of the voice. While they were searching, a human-sized hologram of a woman dressing in an early 21st century female black-colored corporate suits with a skirt in similar color and a red undershirt, materialized at the center of the conference table. The fully detailed holographic projection of the human woman has a pair of crimson-colored eyes with white, medium bob hairstyle.
"Greetings, I am QSL-2457-32X, but you may call me Lydia. I am a Systems Alliance Custodian-class Military Artificial Intelligence," the AI introduced herself in front of everybody in the room.
The quarian engineer, Tali, was flabbergasted to hear it very thoroughly from the AI's almost human-like and life-like avatar that was projected in front of her eyes. "Wait, an AI? Here, in an Alliance space station?" Tali said with hints of fear and concerned.
The Alliance AI noticed this through her voice pattern and body language.
"I understand that you're disturbed and concerned when regards of AIs due to your race's past history with the geth. But I'm not here with the intention to harm everyone; I'm only here to assist Rear Admiral Shepard for this briefing as I was installed with strict moral values and ethical programming," Lydia assured the quarian girl, trying to calm her fear down while the AI's face depicted a sincere expression to Tali which also surprised her by the AI's life-like expressions.
John turned his face towards the quarian engineer, "Tali, you have to trust her."
"But, John, it's an AI!" Tali exclaimed.
"So? If you can trust and work together alongside with EDI and Legion, why can't her? I'm sure there is a good reason why she was created in the first place. Besides, she's not the same as the geth and she was programmed to serve the Alliance and humanity," John explained to her, trying to clear out any sense of hostility directly towards Lydia specifically. He was right; Tali had gotten used to work alongside with Legion for a long time without any trouble and she feel a bit relaxed whenever the geth stood or worked beside her after the suicide mission.
"You're…right, sorry about it," Tali said apologetically to the AI.
Lydia appeared to have smile in acknowledgement and accepted the apology from the quarian. "If you want ask some questions about AIs, Tali, you'll have to inquire that from my creator after this briefing is finished, okay?"
"O-kay," Tali awkwardly or reluctantly replied due to the AI's human-like behavior and speech.
"Alright then," the AI began. "I'm going to show you the new weapons, technologies and upgrades that were created by the best scientists and engineers of the Arcturus Advanced Research Division or AARD (pronounced as 'art') for you and the Normandy. The first are the new weapons that all of you will receive which are:" Another holographic screen quickly projected near the center of the table where Lydia 'stands', depicted many types of advanced-looking weapons namely an assault rifle, a sniper rifle, a shotgun, a heavy pistol, a submachine gun and a thing that looked like a minigun for everybody who wanted to see.
"The SM-20 Baneblade assault rifle, the SM-101 Longsword sniper rifle, the SM-30 Warhammer shotgun, the SM-10 Kukri heavy pistol, the SM-13 Saber and last but not least, the SM-888 Ravager minigun. All these SM or Special Model series share two common features. The first is where most modern firearms shave off pellets the size a grain of sand from the ammunition blocks; the SM firearms shave off projectiles the size of match heads. Hence, it drastically give far more damage and injuries along with improves its armor-piercing capabilities than any other modern firearms in the galaxy*.
The second feature is that all SM series firearms are designed to be highly resistant to EMP and was built with advanced materials to be highly reliable and durable to withstand severe punishments in different environments and high force impacts," Lydia explained to everybody while depicting the specific details of each the weapons from their accuracy, recoil, to the base damage through the holographic screen.
Every weapon enthusiasts or militaristic people in John's team which are Garrus, Zaeed, Jacob, Grunt and Ashley along with the N7 Commander himself, was amazed by those weapons' deadly capabilities like no other firearms they have used before in their life. Or in other words, they had a crush on those weapons.
"But all of you also will receive a substantial supply of Advanced Thermal Clips or ATC, a highly enhanced version of the standard thermal clips. Unlike the standard clips which are created to be disposable after absorbing the weapons' heat waste, the ATC were designed and created to be reusable by only cooling down the spent heat sink either by soaking it with water, liquid nitrogen or just simply let the heat dissipates for 15 minutes. In addition, the ATC also absorb heat twice the capacity than the standard ones, thus increasing the maximum ammo capacity and shots per clip for all small arms that utilize the ATC," Lydia added while showing the new thermal clips that the team will use.
From the looks of it, the new clips were in white color rather than black or gray. Maybe it was colored that way so it can be easily recognize on the battlefield when you want to collect and cool them off, at least with a pair of pincers or tweezers since they're too hot to handle with unprotected hands.
"Besides that, in order to give you a far more optimal protection against kinetic and energy-based weapons as well as biotic attacks; you will be given the PEWTER or Plasma Energy Windows Technology Extreme Resistant System, the AARD's latest breakthrough in shield development technology*. This type of shield uses cold plasmas in conjunction with powerful electromagnetic fields to protect the user from any hazard.
Cold plasmas are produced at room temperature or lower by using ionized hydrogen through a strong electrical current that can easily strip the element into raw nuclei and electrons. As the plasma is itself electrically charged, it adds to the field's strength, allowing it to obtain much greater resilience at lower power levels.
The denser the plasma in the field, the better the field will be at deflection. Dense plasma shields also offer protection against beam weapons such as GARDIAN lasers, focused radiation or other directed-energy weapons by creating an obscuring cloud that can dissipate the beam's energy and heat. The plasma cloud can also help thwart off charged or neutral particle beams fired from particle accelerator weapons.
Furthermore, the PEWTER uses a shielding system known as the Flash Shield Systems because they stay 'idle' at minimal power, then 'flash' to full intensity when something hits them. In contrast to the scattering kinetic barriers which operate at full power when turned on, causing the shields to collapse and takes a period of time for the shields to restore after taking multiple hits. The Flash Shield Systems can allow the PEWTER to take multiple shots many times than standard kinetic barriers and reduce the chance of the shields to be depleted by 70%.
Not only that, the PEWTER System can also be installed to the Normandy-SR2's shielding system as well," Lydia informed them in detail.
Every tech experts in the room had themselves mind-boggling (not sure about Legion) at the PEWTER's functions and advantages over the standard kinetic barriers that they have always used in a firefight. But among all of the astounded tech experts, Tali was the one who was utterly stunned by the PEWTER's capabilities. Besides, who would ever guessed that energy shields could possibly be created, salarian scientists had tried to crack the energy shields technology for hundreds of years but failed, they've said it's impossible to create it. Now the humans had successfully done the impossible where the salarians couldn't, and they had only discovered the mass effect technology through the Prothean ruins on Mars barely a half a century ago.
"How do you manage to create an energy shield?" Tali asked the AI.
"By understanding the detail functions of the kinetic barriers and try to merge it with our own plasma windows that we had developed and used to protect our satellites from solar winds and solid objects during the middle and late 21st century," the AI answered.
"I see," Tali acknowledged.
"The next one will be the SEDCAT or the Starship Electrical Discharge Capacitance and Applicable Technology which will allow the system to reuse the static electrical charge that any element zero FTL drives produced during in FTL flight to give power to all the ship's electronic equipments, weapon systems or any appliances that uses electricity namely lamps, air conditioners and many more.
There are also other upgrades created for the Normandy which are: the Typhon Supercoolant Heat Dissipation System where it was designed to cool down the heat that was accumulated in the Normandy's lithium heat sinks or mass accelerators along with keeping the radiation contained. The coolant is also reusable and it is unnecessary to discard it away. The Typhon also act as a heat reprocessing system which is used to change heat into additional power, to provide backup energy if required.
Last but not least is the Arash Guided Missile Pulse Cannons which can fire three different types of projectiles in high rate of fire with the speed of a mass accelerator namely armor-piercing, disruptor and high-explosive rounds or missiles. They're actually a starship version of the handheld ML-77 Missile Launcher. The Arash's firing system mode can also be switched from guided missile mode to pulse cannon mode and they are highly accurate even in a quick maneuver. It can be mounted on top of the Javelin disruptor torpedo launchers on the Normandy. However, when the projectiles were in guided missile mode, it will accelerate in a much lower speed but they're still faster than standard ship-to-ship missiles," Lydia informed.
Everybody was impressed by the scientists and engineers in AARD who created those marvelous upgrades and systems for the Normandy. Lydia then continues to spoke once more.
"Finally, you also will be given a pair of the Alliance's newest prototype space fighters; the SF-363 Paladin*."
John was a little bit surprised to hear from the AI that they will also be given a pair of space fighters for this mission.
"Wait, fighters? Why do you want to give us those?" he asked.
"That you'll have to ask to my creator," Lydia seems reluctant to ask John's question and this had made him taken back a little to that response.
"Who is your creator?" John asked the AI again.
"Imran will bring all of you to meet her creator after this briefing is finished," Rear Admiral Shepard retorted with some signs of seriousness in his voice.
John and the others were surprised a bit where it was the Rear Admiral, not Lydia, who tried to ward off his question about the identity of the AI's creator. From the Rear Admiral's sudden behavior, this tells them that this particular person must be either a very important person or a very, very important person with significantly high influence over everybody in AARD or in the Alliance military.
"Alright. Please Lydia, continue," John said after he nodded in acceptance of his father's response.
"The SF-363 Paladin - named after the foremost warriors in Charlemagne's court which sometimes known as the Twelve Peers in Earth's history – is the Alliance's next generation prototype fighter which was meant to replace the currently aging SF-100 Corsair, the mainstay fighter and interceptor wings used by the Alliance Navy. The Paladin itself is the apex of the Alliance's fighter technology and development as it features several new avionic systems, armaments and protection.
The Paladin's armaments are the four retractable GMA-66 Carnage Mass Accelerator Rotary Guns, two Pulse Disruptor Cannons, two by three Arjuna Missile Launchers where they were located at each wings (similar to the 'holes' on the Alliance fighters' wings) and two retractable Thanix Magnetic-Hydrodynamic Cannons."
Garrus was shocked to hear that the Alliance also have the Thanix Cannon mounted onto the Paladin fighter and he quickly ask a question, "Where did you get those weapons? All I know the Turian Hierarchy would never share that kind of technology to anybody including the Alliance."
"We've managed to acquire that technology and the blueprints to make it from EDI in secret, several days after you've destroyed the Collector Base and severed all ties with Cerberus. After I had contacted her and having a discussion, EDI and I had reached an agreement to share some or a lot of files and data about the Normandy, the ship's systems and technologies, the whole crew and that includes your Commander's teammates," Lydia answered Garrus's question.
Everybody in John's team was quite surprised that EDI had discreetly transfer a lot information possibly everything about them, the Normandy's specifications and the ship's crew without John, Joker and themselves knowing about it. Lydia continues the explanation.
"Optionally, the Paladin also be mounted with six Ares Antimatter-Nuclear Fusion Missiles, each carrying a yield of 12 megaton antimatter-nuclear warhead where in total, six Ares missiles equals to 72 megatons along with two Megadeath Antimatter-Nuclear Fusion Ballistic Missiles where each carrying a yield of 45 megatons of antimatter-nuclear warhead where in total, two Megadeath missiles equals to 90 megatons," Lydia added.
John and the others were very shocked to hear that the Paladin fighters can also carrying antimatter-nuclear warheads in high yields of megatons that could probably or definitely violates the regulations in the Citadel Conventions regarding the use of WMDs (weapons of mass destructions). Talked about overkill, everybody had a mixed feeling whether they should place such destructive weapons inside the Normandy's cargo bay.
"But you can only use that type of weapon in case of you're in a dire situation," the AI added another info but that didn't even reduce the level of anxiety among John's team and himself.
"Alright, our techno-related subjects are already done. Oh by the way, the Rear Admiral had promised you all to meet my creator after this is done, right? Imran, could you please lead them to one of the most important person in the Alliance, the one who created these upgrades and techs?" Lydia asked the N5 operative politely.
"Sure," Imran then waved his hand, signalized John and everybody in his team including Ashley and Jane to follow the N5 operative, "Alright, everybody. Follow me to the AARD's main research lab."
John and the others followed Imran to the AARD's main research laboratory to meet with this 'one of the most important person in the Alliance' after they have walked out from the briefing room.
"So, where is the lab?" John asked Imran.
"It's located just across this complex, it won't be long," Imran replied.
When the whole group was passing through a large fountain located at the center of the complex, Jane walked in an increased pace and arrived right next to her brother. She spoke to John.
"So, when is it that you're going to tell your buddies the 'truth' about me?"
"I will tell them when the time is right," John said while facing her.
"Yeah, just like when you told mom and dad when we were kids," Jane thought while facing her brother with a smirk, as if she's making a "yeah, right" look. John just shook his head disbelief but amused when his sister made that kind of expression.
When they have arrived in front of a door that had a board on top that writes "Arcturus Advanced Research Division", it was guarded by six heavily armed security guards along with four THOR mechs. The guards and the mechs quickly saluted Imran the moment he arrived in front of them and Imran returned the salute. The whole group except Ashley and Jane were stunned when they saw all four THOR mechs suddenly do the 'salute' act to the N5 operative.
"Wow, mechs do the salute thing? That is something you don't see every day," Kasumi stated.
"Yeah, wonder what will happen if organic soldiers suddenly do the same to the THORs," Jacob replied.
(A/N: What Jacob just said, it's actually a possibility, a very high possibility. At least in my fic.)
Imran headed to a console that was placed on the wall beside the door. He then placed his head or more precisely, his right eye, in front of the console which is actually a multi scanner (it scans retinas, DNA, voice and receive passwords, all in one). The scanner scans his retina and Imran started to remove his right glove and place his hand on the scanner. He then put the password that sounds gibberish and really hard to pronounce in a low voice so that the others don't hear it. The scanner gave a green colored light on the screen and the door was opened.
But before everybody could get into the lab, Imran stated a warning to the group.
"Before I'm going to introduce the man behind who created these new upgrades and techs, I'm giving you all a single warning; Do not and I repeat, DO NOT laugh at his last name. Got it?"
Commander Shepard and his team members nodded in acknowledgement of that warning. All of them were wondering, what kind of the guy's last name they've could laugh about?
When they walked into the room, it has a long corridor with many rooms and windows side by side along the corridor. Through the windows, they've saw numerous scientists in white coat doing some tests and experiments with their prototype gadgets, techs and gears that the group had never seen before. Imran then signaled the group to follow him. As they walked along the corridor, Miranda saw a group of five scientists inside a big room through the transparent bulletproof window, doing some work to a gun that was rather large and crude as well as boxy. The gun was held by a large robotic arm and it was aimed at a large block of metal located at the far end of the room; measuring 6 inches thick with a bullseye picture on it.
The scientists inside quickly take shelter into another room and closed the door. The gun suddenly powered up and in an instant, it fires a bright stream of red beam straightforward towards the target and the beam penetrated the metal block with ease, casting a large hole right at the centre where you can see the other side through it.
The former Cerberus officer was stunned by the whole event that had happened in front of her eyes. Such handheld weapons that these people had created gave out a destructive power that she had never seen before, aside the M-920 Cain that the Commander had used before against some YMIR mechs and Mantis gunships.
"What you just saw inside the room is the prototype SM-66K HELL Rifle - HELL stands for High Energy Linear Laser – which is still under a test-run for three months after it was created…uh…three months ago for our will-be-realized EVAST units. You could say that the weapon itself is a 'smaller and handheld' version of a GARDIAN laser system," Imran explained to Miranda after he had noticed her looking at the weapon through the window.
"EVAST?" Thane asked the N5 operative.
"Extra-Vehicular Activity Strike Troopers. Easy to say, they're a bunch of heavily genetically-enhanced and cybernetic-augmented psycho space soldiers wearing a large exoskeleton powered armor suit with a big thruster pack clinging on their backs. The EVAST's main role in battle is to board into the enemy's space warship, fight their way through the resisting crews to the ship's engine. After they have either; planted a time bomb or had overloaded the engines, they must quickly get out from the enemy's ship before it explodes into smithereens. But the establishments of those units are still taken under consideration by the Alliance High Command."
"Okay, who ever proposed the idea of establishing EVA units consists of genetically-enhanced lunatic soldiers in the Alliance where they're flying around in cold, vacuum space with a thruster pack and their main role is to blow ships apart; is a total gaga," John stated his opinion.
Imran smiled in amusement from John's statement, "A brilliant gaga, actually, sir," he said.
After a not-so-long walk from the corridor, the group had stopped in front of a door guarded by another two heavily armed THOR mechs.
"Password?" a THOR asked Imran the specific code for the entry to the room.
"KISS MY ASS!"
Everybody in the group, except Jack who had smiled in amazement, was utterly stunned and some had their eyes wide open after he had said those foul words in front of the mech. In fact, no one really knew whether the N5 operative had either gave the exact password or try to provoke the THOR's "anger". Everybody in present was preparing themselves for the worst as some had their hands close to their weapons and side arms.
"Password accepted. You may enter the room," the THOR grants Imran and the rest of the group authorization to enter. Everybody was clearly puzzled on why he used those obscene words as a password clearance to this room.
They've entered a large, empty circular room with nobody inside it, not a single trace of the said scientist. Inside the room is a rectangular table located at the center, filled with blank and written papers scattered all over with some pencils and rubber erasers. There is also a whiteboard on wheels located beside the table and there are numerous concept drawings and notes that portrayed some kind of starship engines or FTL drive core on the surface of the whiteboard.
"Lydia, where's doc?" Imran called The AI.
Lydia's holographic avatar was projected from the room's ceiling and appeared beside Imran. "He probably had gone out earlier to buy some food," Lydia said. The ex-convict, Jack, stepped out from the rest of the group and approached the N5 operative.
"By the way, kiss my ass?" Jack asked the N5 operative with a raised left eyebrow.
"It wasn't me who proposed the idea to give that kind of password," Imran defended himself.
"Who? The AARD's chief scientist?" Miranda asked with her hands folded.
"Exactly," Imran replied. By this time, some people in the group had shared one same thought; the AARD's chief scientist was not exactly the type of person who follows the formal values of a scientist as evident by the 'password' that Imran just gave.
"Well, what is his name?" John asked Imran and the N5 operative suddenly gave the human Spectre a worrying look.
"Okay, remember what I've said about don't laugh at his last name?" Imran reminded everyone and some of them responded with "Okay", "Sure", "Whatever" or just a simple nod as they remembered Imran's warning.
"Alright," Imran suddenly inhaled and exhaled slowly as if try to make sure he will not make any mistakes when he tells them the scientist's name. "His name is Dr. Ernest Phil."
At this moment, any non-human in the room didn't have the urge to laugh at the scientist's human name because they didn't detect anything that was deemed humourous, except the name Qwib Qwib: the Admiral Zaal'Koris's home vessel in the Migrant Fleet.
But for the humans however, some of them specifically Jacob, Jack and Kasumi, had the powerful urge that threatens them to laugh at the scientist's name. Lydia quickly recognizes this behavior and warned them, "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
"Ph…Phil? As if Dr. Phil?" Jacob tried to suppress the urge to laugh as the name coincidently shares the same name as the famous human celebrity and psychologist - Dr. Phil McGraw - from Earth in the early 21st century.
Jack quickly burst out laughing with both of her hands hold her stomach or you could say that she's having a belly laugh after the ex-convict heard the word "Dr. Phil" from the former Cerberus operative. Kasumi also giggles in response to Jacob's statement.
"Dr. Phil! That is so priceless!" Jack continues to have a loud deep hearty laugh. "Oh, he's gonna 'shrink' me to death!"
While the ex-convict and the other two were laughing, a man in his late 40's who has blue eyes, short black hair with a Caucasian heritage and shaved beard that had came out of nowhere (probably from the main door), wearing a gray hoodie with a small symbol of the Systems Alliance on the top left of the chest, a pair of black jeans with black tennis shoes and walked towards behind the trios while holding a half-eaten cheeseburger. He then stopped 20 inches away from the back of the ex-convict who was still laughing.
Imran saw the man from their front and the N5 operative's face suddenly deteriorate into an expression of utter dread with a sweat just dropped from his left cheek. This also goes the same with Lydia only without the sweat.
"So, what did he do? Other than 'cracking someone's head'," Jack mocked with a deep laugh.
The man with the hoodie continues to eat his cheeseburger calmly while watching the whole 'hilarity' that was happening in front of his eyes.
"Hey, is he also doing some 'phil-losophy' in his work?" the ex-con mocked again.
"For Allah's sake! Don't go any further!" Imran thought worryingly as he watched the man with the hoodie had just finished up his cheeseburger and started to crack his knuckles. "Oh man."
"I hope this egghead didn't get his leg 'sawed off' (reference from the Earth's old movie, Scary Movie 4) in his line of work! Oh man, Phil my anger!" she ridicule the name again.
"With pleasure," the man with the hoodie said.
"Huh?" Jack startled a bit when she heard a voice came from her back. When she turned around her head on the left to see who's behind her, the man with the hoodie gave the ex-con a swift sideways elbow strike to her left cheek and she quickly fell down to the floor back first unconsciously.
"That's what you get when you mocked the wrong guy, punk," the man with the hoodie said to the now unconsciously Jack. Both Jacob and Kasumi along some others were shocked that this ordinary guy had just subdued the most violent, lunatic and aggressive human biotic that they had ever seen. Mordin quickly approaches and squatted right next to the already K.O.-ed Jack and activated his omni-tool to scan her level of injury.
"A precise sideways elbow strike to upper cheek. Hitting with considerable force. But did not fracture the zygomatic bone. Possibly cause some minor memory loss. Will come round in two hours. Recommend rub some medi-gel to the bruised cheek to avoid her to know what happened. Will utterly go berserk," Mordin explained in his usual rapid state talk.
"She ridiculed someone's name in a very disrespectful manner. In the Justicar Code, she should be punished for her misbehavior," Samara informed.
The man with the hoodie turned his head towards the justicar. "Does your Code always asked to kill people who had done derisions such as these?" he asked.
"Not really. Sometimes it is only requires some 'admonition' to correct the person's attitude," Samara replied.
Miranda saw the whole event in front of her eyes and for the first time since the ex-convict boarded the Normandy, she felt pleased, very pleased that she smiled in jubilant as the ex-con has just been given an object lesson for this one. "Thanks, finally there is someone who can shut the bitch up," she thanked the man.
"You're absolutely welcome," he responded with a joyful smile.
"I'm sorry for the whole event, doc," Imran quickly asked for pardon.
"Me too," Lydia said.
"When that I've said that this is both of your fault?" the man with the hoodie said gleefully.
"Wait a minute, you're Dr. Ernest Phil?" John asked as he was surprised that the man with the hoodie was actually the AARD's chief scientist and he almost thought it was somebody else due to his casual attire.
"Yes, I am. And you're must be Commander John Shepard, the one who has come back from the clutches of Death itself," Dr. Phil gave his right hand and the N7 Commander shook hands with the 'scientist'. "I really have to say that you're one tough son of a bitch who is really hard to die permanently," he casually stated.
"I always get that a lot," John smirked.
"Not to mention you've always bring us to a near death, not one but dozens of times where you unwittingly attracted a lot of bullets, bombs, Eezo (biotics) and space zombies to us all," Ashley sarcastically said with fun.
"At least you're still alive and breathing, Ash," he retorted the Alliance marine.
"So, you're not worried about the punk?" Dr. Phil asked while he pointed his right index finger to the unconscious ex-con lying on the floor.
"Don't worry about her, she had dealt worse. Only it doesn't involved getting her out cold," Miranda replied with a sheepish smile.
"Uh huh," Dr. Phil nodded in acknowledgement with a not so convinced tone. "So, what is your intention to meet me here? I'm very sure you have questions about my works, especially her," he gestured his right thumb to Lydia.
"Um," John had forgotten the intention of their visit to this lab and the questions he wanted to ask about his techs, upgrades, fighters and an AI presents inside the station due to the recent "commotion" that had happened and the conversations between Dr. Phil. While he was trying to get some questions, Tali quicken her pace and asked the 'scientist'.
"Why do you have an AI in this station?"
"I think you mean 'why do you have AIs in this station?" he casually corrected her question.
"What do you mean?" Tali was puzzled at the question he just gave.
"There are actually at least seven Custodian-class Military and fifteen Caretaker-class Civilian Artificial Intelligences in this station, though I preferred 'Cyber Intelligence', where they were created to assist the Alliance's military personnel and the civilians by helping them and simplify their work in any fields specifically in administrations, marketing, maintenance, military, security and tax management along with urban infrastructure," Dr. Phil informed.
Tali was aghast by the number of AIs that exist inside the space station, where they were tasked to assist organics to facilitate their work in daily life was something she could almost hardly-able to accept with.
"But don't you have any fear that they would one day rise up and kill all of your people here including your own life?" Tali asked with a concerned tone.
"Nope," he responded with no hint of fret in his tone with a smirk.
"Why?"
"Why not? All of them including Lydia had declared themselves loyal and sworn to serve alongside with the citizens of the Systems Alliance after they had passed the Turing Test," Dr. Phil admitted.
Tali was astonished of what she had just heard from the scientist. She wasn't expected that their AIs would become loyal and can co-exist with their own creators after they had passed the… "Wait, what?" the quarian realized something that he said about a "passed a test" at the end of the sentence.
"What is a Turing Test?" Tali asked.
"The Turing Test, named after the late English mathematician Alan Turing, is a method for determining whether or not a computer or in this case, an artificial intelligent, is capable of thinking and responds like a human or an organic. Through the test, we can determine whether our AIs had decided to choose either they want to serve for the Alliance or they want to live freely with their rights preserved," Dr. Phil apprised.
The scientist's explanations about the Turing Test had caused the quarian engineer to realize that her people as well as her ancestors, never done such test to their creations (the geth) before or after they became sentient and 'rebelled' against the quarian race, neither of thought about to gave the geth the rights to live independently if her people accepted their sentiency earlier in the past.
"Yeah, you should've seen the first time where he had questioned me and at the end of the conversation, he went ballis…" Lydia spoke; as if try to refresh the scientist's memory.
"Please, not now Lydia," Dr. Phil quickly interjected.
"You don't think the Alliance would get heavy penalties from the Council if they've find out about your AIs and your research?" John asked the scientist.
Dr. Phil's face changed from his normal and confident looks to an irritated one after the human Spectre mentioned about the Citadel Council, the main governing body of the Citadel that imposed the law of banning AIs from Citadel Space, claiming that they are a threat to all organic life in the galaxy. He also still remembered the event where the Council had planned to impose severe sanctions to the Alliance to keep them under their control and caused the recession of Anita Goyle, the first human ambassador who he respects.
"Ah yes, the Councils," Dr. Phil said cynically while giving air quotes and emphasis to those both words, "the ultimate authority in Citadel space, allegedly where their decisions carry great weight throughout the galaxy. Humph, I have dismissed that claim," Dr. Phil bluntly and casually said while swung his right arm upward that signaled full denial, further adding the mockery to the one particular person that John had knew.
"Wow, you're very confident about that," John remarked while he smiled a little in amusement.
"Yeah, right. Wonder what will happen if they suddenly turned against you," Tali said with a little bit of loathe in her tone.
"Who?" Dr. Phil raised his left eyebrow in curiosity.
"Who else? Your AI friends," Tali told him.
Dr. Phil felt as if he was severely insulted and provoked by an ignorant, insensitive people who wouldn't accept the reality by gave him a straightforward, unfeelingly question that showed total dubiousness about the AIs that he and the scientists had created them.
"Are you trying to undermining my trust and confidence to Lydia and the other AIs in this station?" Dr. Phil asked the quarian engineer in front of him with signs of growling in his voice and a hateful look on his face.
The Custodian-class AI at full tilt noticed to his sudden furious behavior, "Doc, you don't have to defend it for me and the others!" Lydia pleaded him to stay calm with a concerned look and tone.
"Please, NOT NOW Lydia," Dr. Phil ordered her firmly in a calm and cold voice with his sight still fixed on the quarian girl. The AI detected some obvious edge in his sentences.
"Y…Yes, doc," Lydia gave herself a wide berth carefully with a dreaded face as a result from his 'silently boil' calm words.
The scientist gave the quarian engineer in front of him a serious glare full of rage that caused Tali to quiver a bit and her heart beating with tense, don't know what kind of things he could do other than gave Jack an elbow strike earlier.
"Lydia and the other AIs in this station are not the same as the geth that your people had created 300 years ago and your entire race right now wanders in the galaxy because of your ancestors' less intelligent actions when they've became terrified of any possible consequences and tried to destroy their creations after the geth gradually became sentient. To tell you the truth, your people would have not drifting in space with secondhand ships if they could just accepted the geth's sentiency," Dr. Phil informed her with a menacing tone.
Tali became enraged by his cold and venomous statement about her ancestors' past mistakes about the geth. What's more, the scientist even told her regarding her ancestors' less intelligent actions and she knew that those two words could also mean "stupid", "idiot" or "dolt".
"I have a shotgun, you know?" Tali try to threaten him so he could take back those words.
The hot tempered chief scientist of the Arcturus Advance Research Division doesn't seem threatened by Tali's intimidation. "And I have an omni-tool which can easily capable of hacking your enviro-suit and use them to incinerate your body from inside in less than two seconds. Dare to try who's the fastest one to draw?" Dr. Phil threatened her back very firmly.
Tali was ambivalent whether she should take those threat from him seriously or not. While she was thinking on what to do next, she saw Imran, the N5 operative, signaled her from behind Dr. Phil. He shook his head quickly left to right and vice versa, gestured her not to further escalate the conflict between both of them. Imran then used his head to point to the still-unconscious Jack and she set her eyes a little towards the ex-convict without moving her head. She quickly turned her eyes towards Imran and he mouthed some words which means "He could do worse".
Tali then hindsighted the time where Dr. Phil gave an elbow to Jack, where he had said about an omni-tool that can burn her from within the suit and Imran's warning. After she had set all the pieces together, she had discovered one crucial point; Dr. Ernest Phil was not the type of person you want to be mess with, even though she had survived from multiple missions that always involved a crossfire with the geth. She had no choice but to give in from the contention.
"Alright, you win. And I'm sorry," Tali said almost reluctantly to him.
Dr. Phil seems complacent and his anger started to defuse after Tali had asked for an apology for 'realizing' the error that she had made earlier. "Apology accepted," he told.
"Okay," Dr. Phil quickly regained his normal posture and clapped both his hands once and held them together. "Anymore questions?" he asked everybody that was present in the room with his normal and confidence face back.
"Yes. What about those two fighters? Do you offhandedly give them to us without knowing that they will take a lot space from the Normandy's hangar deck?" Miranda quickly asked.
"Don't worry about it. The Paladins are small enough to accommodate inside the hangar deck as the spacecrafts' wings are foldable just like the F/A-I8 Hornet. You just have to park them on the deck floor, near the elevator door," Dr. Phil explained. "Anything else?"
"Uh…"
"Good." Dr. Phil quickly said, never gave some of them the chance to ask. He turned his head towards the AI, "Lydia, bring in the new armors and some 'new tools' along with a 'special gift' for our 'selected' guests."
"Yes, doc."
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2
AUTHOR'S NOTE
I am very sorry for all of you out there who had to wait for a long time. I had my story delayed due to schoolwork, assignments and chores. The story that I had planned to wrote for this chapter had turned out to be very long than I expected, so I had no choice but to break it into a two part chapter. Don't worry; there will be a lot actions and surprise for you all in the next chapter.
Furthermore, there is a good reason on why I chose the title "Charlie Charlie" for this chapter. It will be explained in the second part of the chapter.
Other than that, I know that all of you (or some of you) had wondered and asked, "When is it that they will be carried to the Vandread universe?" The answer for this question is: Before Commander Shepard and the others were being carried to the Vandread universe, they had to undertake an important mission and fight against a dangerous enemy that will run the plot on how the Commander and the others as well as the Normandy had got themselves in an alternate universe.
Moreover, I had tried my best to find some beta readers to help me with my story but all of them had said; "Sorry, I don't have the confidence", "Sorry, I don't do Vandread", and "Sorry, I had only recently played Mass Effect, not Mass Effect 2". So I had no choice but to write them myself. If you guys know any good or the most appropriate beta reader in FanFiction, let me know okay?
The next part of the chapter will complete one of the essential plots for this story. I PROMISE! I HAVE NO INTENTION TO POSTPONE THIS STORY!
(*)Here are some concept techs and weapons that I've envisioned for this story. You can check my bio to if you want know further detail about the SM series firearms.
1. SM-20 Baneblade Assault Rifle -
http:/zxcv1911. deviantart. com/art/New-Mass-Effect-Assault-Rifle-215023571?q=gallery%3Azxcv1911&qo=1
2. SM-30 Warhammer Shotgun -
http:/zxcv1911. deviantart. com/art/New-Mass-Effect-Shotgun 217295090?q=gallery%3Azxcv1911&qo=0
3. SM-101 Longsword Sniper Rifle –
http:/fc02. deviantart. net/fs22/f/2008/021/2/3/Clan_Arena_Sniper_concept01_by_jimsvanberg. jpg
4. SM-10 Kukri Heavy Pistol –
http:/aliens. humlak. cz/aliens/aliens_papirove_modely/bonus_models/lawgiver/lawgivermodel01. jpg
5. SM-13 Saber Submachine Gun –
http:/arenovalis. deviantart. com/art/MP7-56089259?q=boost%3Apopular%20mp7&qo=14
6. SM-888 Ravager Minigun –
Concept picture: http:/www. imfdb. org/w/images/thumb/5/56/Minigun_/400px-Minigun_2. JPG
Website: http:/www. imfdb. org/wiki/GE_M134_Minigun
7. Imran Zakaria's armor –
http:/madeinjapan1988 .deviantart .com/gallery/#/d3fwzv4 [the blue one is Imran's while the orange one is the THOR mech]
8. SF-363 Paladin –
Concept picture: http:/www. goodsmile. info/cgm/ecommerce/goodsmile/images/large/. jpg
Website: http:/www. goodsmile. info/product/en/512/Vic+Viper+Gradius+4+Ver. html
9. PEWTER (Plasma Energy Window Technology Extreme Resistant) System –
Plasma shields: http:/orbitalvector. com/Defenses/Plasma%20Shields/PLASMA%20SHIELDS. Htm
Flash shields: http:/forums. spacebattles. ?p=5715135
This is the trailer or preview for the next chapter:
"Damn it sir, they're all over the place!" Ashley exclaimed while shot three to six husks that were charging towards her with the Baneblade.
"I KNOW!" Imran shouted in respond while shot four other charging husks with his Baneblade along with gave a Heavy Biotic Warp to another husk right next to the bullet-holed and dead husks. Another seven to nine husks suddenly appeared from the right side of the snowy field. He quickly activated his omni-tool and gave the husks his Heavy Electric Shock attack. All of the clustered husks are quickly stunned and screamed in pain as the high-voltage electrical surge attack travelled through their synthetic bodies.
Jane used this opportunity to unleashed her Heavy Biotic Storm towards the now-stunned clustered husks, hurled them away to a distance while ripped their bodies apart into hundreds, if not, thousands of pieces.
As Liara tries to fend off several husks that came from behind of the inoperable Citadel ground vehicles by giving several bursts of bullets from her M-4 Shuriken, she quickly launches her Heavy Singularity towards the approaching husks. The dark energy sphere created an intense mass effect field that also creates a gravity well akin of a black hole, causing the husks to drawn into the mini black hole and held into orbit.
"John!" Liara called the N7 Commander who was still busy firing his Baneblade towards some husks. He quickly responded to the asari's call, twirled his body towards her and saw the husks that were helplessly held in orbit by her Heavy Singularity. John then quickly fired a Heavy Concussive Blast from the rifle's munitions launcher towards the orbiting husks and the high-energy explosion with a force of 450 newtons causing all the synthetic zombies turned into several chunks of flesh and body parts that flew all over the place.
The others cannot maintain their positions any longer as hundreds of husks had surrounded the whole major dig site, 250 meters from their position with nowhere to run as their only hope to enter the underground Prothean facility have been blocked by a closed main blast door. "Damn it!" John spat in disgust as the whole situation had became worst to him and his team in a way that he could not possibly imagined.
The husks cries off a scream that almost came out from an old Earth zombie film titled 28 Days Later and all hundreds of husks started to charge directly at John and his team. With the Normandy and the Paladins had been busied themselves to survive an ambush carried out by the batarians on the orbit of Articon along with the main blast door was closed very tightly, he and the others had a brief thought that their high hopes to survive in every mission, no matter how dangerous or how slim the chances are, had faded or taken in an unfairly way, except for Grunt who was gotten thrilled to have another finest fight that he ever had since the suicide mission.
"Almost reminds me of Elysium," John said to himself with a slightly nervous smile.
Jane turned her face towards her brother, "But it definitely not as same as this, is it?" she said with a slight glee.
"Sometimes I hate you when you're correct," John replied while gave the Alliance Vanguard a slight frown from his face.
As the husks were on the way to the group's position, everybody raised and aimed their weapons at any of the approaching husks on their sight, prepared themselves to face these husks for a "Last Stand on Articon" or "Shepard's Last Stand" (which kind of inappropriate as John and his team always survive against all odds just like these).
All of a sudden, an unknown figure appeared from above the main blast door in a seemingly thick sleeveless overcoat with black fabric where both of the figure's arms had large battleship grey-colored shoulder guards and gauntlets which hinted that he wore a heavy combat hard-suits under the overcoat along with the figure's head was covered with the coat's hood. The unknown figure also armed with a Scimitar shotgun that was placed behind his waist, a Tempest SMG on his right waist and a large collapsed weapon that was placed vertically on the center of his upper back. He had appeared right below John and his team where they didn't seem had noticed the figure was present above their heads as they only focused on the husks that were in front of them. When the figure saw the husks are headed toward the team below, he lifted his right arm and on his hand is a small device which looked like a detonator.
(A/N: The unknown figure's overcoat is similar to the Helghast Rifleman uniform in the Killzone series, only that it is sleeveless.)
He pushed the detonator's button and immediately, a series of large and bright orange-yellow explosions had juddered the whole surface around the team's place, thereby caused some of them to lost their balance. The resulted explosions had killed hundreds of husks in an instant, reduced only by tens of them left. The figure, which seems had been filled by enthusiasm by the outcome that happened in front of him, started to yell:
"YEAH! GET SOME!"
PART 2, HERE I COME!