Evolution: A Mass Effect/Section:8 Crossover
Chapter 7
A/N: Hey everyone. Apologies for the huge delay. I finished up my final semester for my associates degree, quit my first part time job (been there for 7.5 years), got a new one, and started a proper full time job all in the past three or four months. Throw in computer problems, upgrades, work schedules (~60 hours a week now), and real life and I just haven't been able to devote as much time as I normally do to these side projects of mine.
That said, here's an update relating to this fic. If you haven't, go download an awesome program called Space Engine. Using that look for system HIP 72841. It is approximately a thousand lightyears from Sol, and is what I'm using to represent the Shanxi system, with the fifth planet being Shanxi.
Finally, those of you who've read my first fic The Unsung Hero may recall a certain set of asari commandos that made an appearance in the biggest chapter I had ever written. Those commandos again make an appearance in my fic. The 517th asari Commando's are OC's belonging to Freeride600 and you should definitely go check his stuff out. His work is amongst what I consider the best out there.
Enough delays, enjoy the chapter!
/Earth Date/ -01.10.2538-
/Planet/ Shanxi
/Ship/ USIF Texas, VIP room
"Well… That went surprisingly well." Hall turned around to face his generals. "Think your men and women will be able to handle the busy work General Stone?"
Stone just nodded, "Of course sir. 8th Armored will see that these Turians are kicked off this planet, cordially or otherwise."
Clapping his hands together, Hall looked towards his Chief of Staff. "Trezbitowski. Feel like playing emissary with me and some blue alien women?"
The large dark man nodded slightly, "Wherever you go, I go sir."
As Hall walked out of the conference room, he clasped Trezbitowski's shoulder. "Wouldn't have it any other way friend. Let's go meet these blue skinned beauties in person."
A short while later, and the President's personal corvette jetted out from the monstrous hangar bay of the Texas towards the planet below. Shortly after it launched, another craft smaller in size left from the Devout Grace and followed the larger one down. Once both those ships had reached Shanxi's atmosphere, dozens of shuttle sized craft left the Texas and it's escorting ships. Having MOTHER hack into the Asari ship's wireless networks proved fruitful as it allowed the USIF drop-ships to pinpoint any access hatch they could on the alien ships to dock with. Once the tension eased over how quickly and effectively the human drop ship pilots were when dealing with alien designed ships, the Asari crew members began the selection process to determine who would be going when for their rotational shore leave.
One such groups of Asari were of the Grace's personal compliment of Commando's. Specifically the 517th. Commanded by Commander Kaira T'Suni, Spectre, the 517th in recent months had made a big impact in pirate and slaver activities. With weapons specialist, and noted criminal, Delina T'Kasan and tech specialist Rana T'Lan beside T'Suni, the trio of commandos managed to put down one of the larger slaver rings that routinely runs the Council-Terminus system's border.
However a month earlier the 517th's small corvette had been critically damaged in a raid on a slaver ship, which in actuality turned out to be a trap set for the squad. The commandos and their ship's handful of crew survived, but the ship was beyond repair. In recognition of her squad's performance , her time as a Spectre, and the lives they rescued from the slavers that battle Commander Kaira T'Suni was granted a recently decommissioned turian frigate the Akina. While it was undergoing refits at one of the Hierarchies dry docks, getting it back up to specifications for a Spectre's use, asari High Command and the Council decided to give the 517th an easy assignment. Serve as one of the main commando squads for the Devout Grace.
The squad had only been on the dreadnought for a little over a week before they received word from the Council that the Grace would be going on a peace keeping mission, with the 517th acting as the asari Councilor's personal guard. Though with their orientation with the Councilor at the start of the mission, the 517th learned that the Councilor would rather have Kaira act as she saw fit, observing and reporting.
To that end, when contact was made with the human fleet a few days ago, Kaira was granted top level access to the human data burst as well as all the information gathered by the turians. While the data was laden with information, very little of it was practical data that Kaira could use to create a threat assessment.
Which made Kaira that much more nervous when the Councilor asked the 517th to head planet side on one of the human transport ships that were to dock with the Grace soon. As her team prepped, getting the signature commando leathers on, Kaira went over the Councilor's orders.
"The Councilor has asked us to go down to the planet on a human transport that will be docking shortly. She requested that we only bring side arms as we don't want to provoke a harsh response."
Delina snorted, "Pfft. They're gonna be real worried about our weapons. Do you not remember the field reports from the turians? One human was able to soak up an entire platoons worth of firepower before going down."
"You admit our weapons would be useless, yet you insist on bringing a full load out." Rana wondered aloud as she scanned her pistol with her omnitool, ensuring the customized weapon was fully functional.
Delina cocked the action back on her sniper rifle, "The way I see it, these humans respect firepower. From the size of their ships to the size of their small arms... So I bring my full load out and show that I don't care their gear is bigger. I'm willing to stand my ground."
"Just don't complain after a few hours of lugging your weapons around Delina." Kaira warned. "Now let's get to the air lock and meet our first human."
Navigating the maze that makes up the Grace's decks to the nearest airlock took ten minutes as the trio of commandos had to push and shove their way through the rest of the scrambling crew. Those who were selected to go planet side first were rushing to make themselves look presentable to the new species, many wanting to provide as good an impression of their people as possible. With the crew only having limited access to the human's first contact data burst, all they knew about humans were that they were a dual gendered, bipedal species similar in appearance to the physical build of asari and drell. Only the Councilor, the Grace's captain, and the 517th knew how closely the human's resembled the asari. Seeing and hearing the maidens and some matrons chatter about what the humans' looked like as she walked by caused Kaira to smile, remembering her first encounter with a new alien species.
Once the 517th reached their assigned airlock, Kaira could see the shuttle was already docked and their human escort was waiting in walkway between the two ships as the airlocks sensors showed. Without turning around, Kaira quickly and quietly spoke to her teammates, "Remember, treat this as a diplomatic mission. We are to simply observe the humans. I'll handle the majority of the questions, Rana be careful with how much you reveal about our own tech systems, and Delina… Try not to 'borrow' one of their guns or otherwise give them reason to shoot us."
"Understood Commander." Rana replied dutifully, whereas Delina just groaned.
Stepping up to the holographic interface for the airlock, Delina cycled it, the VI equalizing the pressure between the airlock chamber and the corridor of the Grace. With the pressurization process complete, the airlock slide open. Kaira knew from the data burst that humans were tall compared to average asari, but she did not expect to have to tilt her head back to look into the faceplate of the human's impressive helmet.
"Hello. I am Captain Steven Hackett of the United States Imperial Forces 8th Armored Infantry Division, 1st Recon, Second Fireteam. I will be your escort for your time on Shanxi." The human spoke with a synthesized voice in clear High Thessian. Having received a short update from the Councilor before she made for the planet surface herself, Kaira and Rana knew that humans had already managed to create a nearly seamless translation matrix. What was more impressive was the fact that the translation matrix had already been spread to individual soldiers.
"Commander," Rana whispered, "It is unprecedented for an entire translation matrix to be disseminated amongst a large group in that time span. Their networking capabilities must be magnitudes above ours."
Nodding slightly, Kaira stepped forward and bowed slightly. "I am Commander Kaira T'Suni of the 517th Asari Commandos. With me are my team, tech specialist Rana T'Lan," Rana bowed slightly as well at her name, "and weapon specialist Delina T'Kasan." Rather than bow, Delina simply nodded at the human and eyed up the rather large rifle that was situated on the back of the armor.
"If you will follow me into the dropship, we will get your shore leave started." As the human turned to lead the way, the 517th got a good look at the armor, with what appeared to be heavy armor plating covering vital areas, thick bundles of synthetic muscle, glowing emitters, warning labels of some sort, and of course a rifle that was nearly as long as they were tall.
/Earth Date/ -01.10.2538-
/Planet/ Shanxi
/Location / Shanxi Administrative Building
The total travel time for the President's personal corvette, modeled after the infamous SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance craft of the late 20th century, was extremely short and lived up to the legacy of its ancestor. Within ten minutes of leaving the Texas, President Hall was setting foot for the first time in many years on an extra-solar planet. After he saluted the protection detail waiting for him at the bottom of the corvette's belly ramp, Hall took the chance to take a deep breath. Relishing the scent of an alien atmosphere that only months ago was unable able to support life.
Before the terra-forming process by Task Force 19 had begun, Shanxi was a rocky world with an atmosphere primarily composed of nitrogen and argon, but had a strong enough magnetic field and gravitational pull to support TF 19's atmospheric replacement procedures. This mostly consisted of an orbital bombardment of missiles specially designed to release water in its various forms at critical locations across the planet to produce the necessary oxygen concentration. Once oxygen levels had increased far enough and water had begun global circulation, TF19 released on-site genetically engineered bacterium and algae to consume the excess argon in the atmosphere and water tables. This in turn allowed TF19 to harvest the clouds of bacterium and algae for the argon gas, which is always in high demand for its use in tritium welding and forging as an atmospheric replacement.
With the atmosphere breathable, proper work could begin to determine exactly what kind of colony Shanxi would become. Every kind of test, scan, and coring was done to determine where mining crews would be most effective or where farming would take precedence. Soil samples taken near the modest seas and ocean's that were created during terra forming revealed that the soil was also rich in nitrogen and other nutrients and minerals for crop growing. Until long term effects could be studied on crop growth as well as potential crop destroying microbes or animals, Shanxi had plentiful titanium and platinum deposits near its surface for a sizeable mining force to be emigrated to begin work.
That mining work force would primarily be brought in from the asian districts from Earth and other colonies which were experiencing higher than acceptable unemployment rates. Some political and lobbyist groups denounced the action of the Empire taking primarily a single region's or colony's worth of people for a new colony, but they were mostly silenced when presented with the New Constitution's Articles of Culture. The Articles of Culture thus far has allowed a vast majority of Earth's religions, cultures, and even lifestyles to live together peacefully while maintaining the very cultural mainstay's that were typically associated with a region. All religious and social groups have cultural rights that none can infringe upon, and thanks to superior technology, law enforcement, and forensic science, any who would disturb that peace would be apprehended, prosecuted, and punished before a week had passed.
Of course, keeping all culture separate but equal is only part of the solution provided by the Articles. Every Empire district is required to maintain a multicultural hub city in which the vast majority of business and trade could take place. For all the Empire's might in military matters, economy's and business dealings are typically left in the hands of the individual districts and their appointed governing bodies.
All of that was literally a thousand light years away for President of the United States Empire Alexander Hall. He walked off the landing platform his corvette had landed on, and strode over to the pad adjacent to his. Behind and to his left, General Chief of Staff William Trezbiatowski stood, his imposing frame almost matching the Secret Service agents who flanked Hall and Trezbiatowski. The agents, wearing the CIA's own customized version of the Patton-class Powered Assault Armor, would almost pass for being members of 1st Recon, save that every detail of their armor was black, and rather than store a large caliber weapon on the armor, Secret Service agents had their choice of smaller caliber weapons fused to their forearms in similar fashion to the chain guns on the MA3 Kodiak heavy mech. Not even their shield emitters glowed like the typical Patton armor did. Standing still as they were, they almost passed for statues.
After a few minutes of waiting, Hall was able to spot a glint in the clouds above, which was soon joined by two black dots. Smiling internally to himself, he watched intently as the USIF fighters guided the asari shuttle craft to the landing pad. As the three craft came in closer, Hall could see that the elegant sweeping style of the asari capital ships also applied to their shuttle's. Once the asari Councilor's shuttle reached the pad and began to hover, the fighters peeled off with their escort duties finished.
The Councilor's shuttle hovered for a moment, before slowly lowering itself to the landing pad. A trooper in standard USIF armor quickly dashed out, and performed air traffic control duties as best as he was able, using hand and arm gestures to signify that the shuttle's pilot was landing in the correct manner. A moment later and the shuttle set down on its belly gently and its engines began to power down. Before they had fully powered down, an entourage of Secret Service agents quickly rolled out some red carpet towards the back of the craft, where the exit hatch was, from the President's position, having gotten detailed scans of the craft from the fighter pilots while they had escorted the shuttle down. Those scan's also told the agents that the shuttle was just that, a shuttle. No offensive armaments that they had to worry about beyond using the craft's drive core in a suicide maneuver.
With the red carpet treatment almost set, President hall walked towards the back end of the craft and waited at the end of the red carpet while two completely different armored Secret Service agents came up and stood on either said of the crafts exit gantry, waiting for it to be lowered.
With a sudden hiss, the exit gantry lowered. As it did, everyone present was able to watch as the asari Councilor and her own escort were revealed from the head down. Hall smiled wide, appreciating the raw beauty that the Councilor radiated. Once the ramp had fully lowered, the agents on either side of it snapped to attention, faced each other, and saluted in respect to the foreign dignitary.
As the Councilor walked down the ramp, Hall took a step or two forward as well. When the two met at the bottom of the ramp, both standing on the red carpet, Hall bowed his head first in respect then spoke in English.
"Welcome to Shanxi Madame Councilor. I am President of the United States Empire Alexander Hall."
After making sure he was heard, he made a small gesture with his hand's and activated his neural implant to access the asari language matrix that had been downloaded to his Cranial-Implanted Computer Assistance Device. The CICAD, a device only used for high level members of the United States Empire, allows for direct manipulation of the user's neural processes, while also allowing for near perfect memory storage of raw data and information. Rather than rely on constant briefings of the state of affairs for the Empire, the President has the ability to plug into the Empires highest security data stream and simply request the information he or she needs.
In this case, President Hall chose to use it to aid negotiations and downloaded the asari language matrix that was found in the codex data servers on the captured turian ships. Thus, giving him yet another edge over his alien counterpart.
Hall repeated his greeting, this time in High Thessian earning a grateful smile in the process from the Councilor.
/Earth Date/ -01.10.2538-
/Planet/ Shanxi
/Location / USIF Dropship en-route to Shanxi surface
The human drop ship was very utilitarian, having only two rows of seats on either side, with the walkway leading to the rear hatch and to the cockpit. The seats were clearly designed to house human soldiers in their armor, as the restraints would not function properly until their escort, Captain Hackett if Kaira remembered correctly, manually set them. Each seat also had a number of other mechanical devices attached to it, but Rana was unable to determine their function. Once Hackett had situated himself into his own seat across from them, the dropship had detached from the Grace and made for the planet.
Kaira's observations were stopped when Delina could stay quiet no longer, "So, are you a male or female under there?"
"Delina!"
"What?" She asked innocently, "It's a fair question, it's hard to tell with that kind of armor. It hides all the normal gender signs."
A faint chuckle could be heard coming from Hackett, "It's alright. I am a human male." With that he reached up towards his helmet, and with a hiss it came off, revealing the rugged but pale face beneath. "I imagine it's quite a shock to see an alien species so visually similar to your own."
"But how-" Rana began before she was cut off.
"- Am I still speaking your language? My armor's computer isn't housed entirely in the helmet. The external audio you're hearing is coming from speakers situated near my neck so it seems like I'm still speaking in your language. If you look close enough you'll see the movement of my lips don't match up with the words you're hearing."
"Remarkable…" Rana's mind spun at the possibilities such a minute technology could bring.
"To answer your question," Kaira continued, "it is a bit disconcerting at first. I'm sure there are going to be conspiracies abound about how it occurred."
Hackett smiled, "I'm sure there will be. For now…" As he trailed off, the dropship shuddered and an announcement came over the dropship's speakers which none of the asari understood. "We've just entered Shanxi's upper atmosphere." With that Hackett put his helmet back on, and passed a tablet to each of them. It showed them three camera views, one being an external view of the ships side, another showing the planet directly below, and the third coming from Hackett's own suit as they could see themselves from his point of view.
"Now the purpose behind the Empire offering to bring you planet side is twofold. The primary being to allow you time to see what humanity can do in just terraforming and colony construction while giving you time to stretch your legs."
"And the other reason?" Delina asked cautiously.
"To show you why any thoughts of future conflict with the Empire will end badly for you or any other party."
With that, the seat Hackett was in suddenly dropped another harness down onto his shoulders, and tilted him backwards. With him gone from view, all three asari looked to their data pads. They could see from his point of view that he was in some kind of tube. The external cam showed some panels on the side of the ship opening, and Hackett's helmet cam showed them the view of the planet below.
The ship shuddered again, and Hackett was launched out of the ship fast enough to leave a tail behind him. The helmet camera footage showing some kind of shield holding back the superheated air from the armor as he dropped through the atmosphere. All three asari watched, enraptured by what these human's had accomplished. Thirty seconds of flight later and Hackett was nearing the ground, and showed no signs of slowing down.
At the last possible second, he righted himself from his headfirst position, and landed creating a large crater in the dirt. Standing up, he looked up wards towards the drop ship, and with the external camera zooming it, he waved.
"Goddess." Rana breathed out, trying to figure out how it was physically possible to survive a terminal velocity impact without an element zero core.
Delina however was a bit more enthusiastic, "So Commander, when can I try that?"
After their brief introduction on the landing pad, President Hall and Councilor Besea followed a TF19 trooper to the Administrative building's primary conference room. Set next to the public relations room, the conference room would eventually become where Shanxi's own temporary council would meet until it's population and infrastructure matured to the point where the USIF would no longer be required for direct governance. At which point the Administrative building would become the Shanxi Senate building and a Governor's Residence would be constructed.
That is if Shanxi would have become a normal colony, for as Hall and Besea entered the conference room without their escorts to begin negotiations, General Stone and Colonel Williams were planning Shanxi's new future deep in the Texas.
Looming over the ship's central holo-projector was a detailed map of the entire Shanxi system. While TF19 had spent the last five years terraforming Shanxi to be able to sustain human life, intense scanning of the system and logging of recurring astronomical events also took place. With such a treasure trove of information at their disposal, the two officers began their own preparations for the future.
"Alright Colonel Williams, what is TF19's assessment of this system?" Stone asked, looking over the projected simulation of the system.
Colonel Williams took a deep breath, then stepped out onto the holo-projector's floor. "This system would normally be a prime candidate for a massive rush of colonization for mining. The sheer number of moons around the primary worlds would offset the cost for crack-mining." Williams' then swiped his hand over the projection, causing it to change dramatically. Nearly fifty planets and moons were being displayed, to suddenly change to just the primary eight planets.
"That many of the moons are suitable for cracking Colonel?" Stone asked, wary of the results. While not unheard of, the Empire very rarely had found entire systems able to be mined until there was nothing left. The first and greatest example had been the Galia system, in which the element galvenium had been found for the first time on Boreas. The Galia system now is merely a huge asteroid field orbiting a dying star, and is used by the USIF for pilot training.
"Yes General, and that's not counting the hundred plus comets that orbit this star. However…" Williams again waved his hand over the projection, this time one of the larger asteroids on the outskirts of the system turned into the unmistakable form of a mass relay. "The relay complicates things."
"Agreed. My current recommendation to the President will be that this system become the test bed for the Sanctuary prototype."
Colonel Williams, going slack jawed for a moment, recovered quickly. "I thought we were years away from any practical applications for that kind of development."
"Don't worry too much Colonel," Stone assured Williams. "Just point out to me the planets and moons that your surveys found would support full operational independence."
"I apologize for the bare furnishings Madame Councilor, but with this colony yet to receive its inhabitants there hasn't been time to decorate." President Hall spoke as he guided Councilor Besea into the conference room. Pulling out the end chair of the side of the long table for her, Besea sat down gracefully and waited for Hall to take his seat at the head of the table next to her.
"It's quite alright President Hall. I can understand what it's like for a colony trying to get underway."
"I imagine though that wherever you gained that experience from never had to deal with being the focus of galactic politics." Hall quipped as he sat down as well.
Besea smiled, "You would be correct in that matter. The colony I spent much of my childhood on was safely inside of Council space, away from any serious danger."
"So you can comprehend why my military advisor felt having us repair and return the Hierarchy ship's is foolhardy." Hall leaned forward, clasping his hands together and resting them on the table. "Especially given our own loss of lives and materials."
Councilor Besea didn't so much as flinch, "Yes of course. I however view such compassion on your part as a big step towards peace between your people and those the Council represents."
Hall shook his head, "You don't quite understand Councilor. While you may view the loss of three ships in your heavy cruiser category to be acceptable, the means by which our ships are made makes our three cruisers more equivalent to the loss of four of your dreadnoughts."
For the first time ever in a negotiation, Besea's outer politician shell cracked. Eyes widening, she uttered, "How…?"
Leaning back into his chair, Hall explained. "The materials used as well as how dense our ships are. From what I've gathered, Citadel ships are made to be as light as possible to reduce the mass the mass effect core has to displace. Our ships rely on massive anti-matter power plants to power their weapons and engines, resulting in the need for heavy armor. If one of your ships were to attempt to ram one of ours, chances are your ship would be the one destroyed."
"Then there is the matter of the loss of life inflicted by both sides. We have a detailed account of the number of lives lost on our side, and we estimate that between space and groundside battle, there was actually a greater loss of turian life than human. That is the primary reasoning I had behind having the turian ships repaired."
Besea nodded slowly in understanding, "You value the loss of life more than the loss of materials."
"Precisely. Ships can be repaired and replaced. Lives cannot be. Each life extinguished over what has amounted to be a simple misunderstanding of an overzealous patrol captain has made the galaxy a dimmer place." Hall confirmed solemnly. "Please be aware though that not every human values life the way I do."
"Yes, thank you President Hall." Besea took a deep breath to try and reset her politician persona. "If you don't mind, may we continue discussing the current situation? I would like to ensure that everything is in order."
"Of course." Hall produced a small tablet from within his suit, set it upon the table, tapped it a few times, and a hologram of a human female in surgery garb appeared. "Doctor Romanov, how fare your patients?"
"Mr. President sir," The doctor saluted, "The medical personnel amongst them have been a huge help once we got past the language barrier. We have set up blood transfusions where necessary, but for the most part it has been a matter of prepping for limb replacement. What they call body armor is functionally nonexistent to our weapons. As such, any wounds to limbs have had to have been amputated while torso wounds have already died from ballistic trauma."
"I see." Hall, spoke somberly. "How long until they are stabilized enough for transport to the Asari fleet?"
"Within an hour sir. We can start loading the lightly wounded right now."
"See to it doctor. You may use my authorization to get whatever you need."
"Thank you sir. Romanov out."
As the hologram faded, Besea opened her mouth to ask a question but was cut off by Hall. "Real time translation matrix installed into this communication tablet allowed her to hear me as if I was speaking normally and for you to hear her as if she spoke your language."
Besea externally smiled, and internally she struggled to grasp just how advanced these humans were. She wondered how the STG would fair against such a technologically different counterpart. "We have similar programs as well, but they are usually reserved for diplomatic functions as even the language between two members of the same species can be different enough that the virtual intelligence can't properly decipher between the two."
Hall raised an eyebrow at that statement. "What do you mean by virtual intelligence?"
"I could not explain the technical details, but virtual intelligence or VI is an all encompassing term that usually denotes computer systems that are able to aid a person in an assigned task. For example, we have VI's in our ships to aid in course plotting and calculation."
"Ah, I see. So your VI's are purpose built for specific tasks and run off their own hardware. Has anyone ever considered linking them together to increase their processing power?" As soon as Hall asked the question, he could see the fear in Besea's eyes. "I take it that's been tried and failed then?"
"Yes." Besea answered as she adjusted herself in the suddenly uncomfortable chair. "One race tried to do such a thing with their own mechanical servants, allowing the software programs within each platform to share processing loads. The mechanical servants eventually reached sentience, and war occurred. The race in question, the quarians, are now exiles from their home system and colonies having lost to their creations, the geth. The surviving quarians now travel the galaxy in a large flotilla of ships."
Hall deliberated the information for a moment, "How much understanding do you have about the geth's software architecture?"
"Minimal at most I'm afraid, anything beyond what I just told you would be better explained by an expert."
"I see." Hall made a motion with his hand, deactivating the CICAD implant, and spoke outloud. While Besea couldn't understand what he had called for, it was evident a moment later when a trooper had entered the room carrying a case of sorts. Taking the case and setting it down on the table between them, Hall dismissed the trooper with a salute. Making the same gesture to reactivate the CICAD implant, Hall began to explain.
"This case is what is known as our nuclear football. This case connects me to every Task Force commander in the galaxy as well as every single unit that has a weapon of mass destruction. Our entire Empire is connected by a highly sophisticated computer network. You would call it a virtual intelligence, we call it a non-sapient artificial intelligence. MOTHER, please introduce yourself."
/Earth Date/ -01.10.2538-
/Planet/ Shanxi
/Location / Emergency Landing Area - Pad 14
After the sudden departure/launch of Captain Hackett from their ship, the 517th had to wait a few minutes for their ship to land. Once it did, the pilot came out and undid their restraints before going back to the controls. As the trio stepped off and away from the ship, it immediately took off again, no doubt to continue ferrying asari down to the planet.
From the raised platform, the trio could see the Turians that were left stranded on the ground when their orbital fleet retreated. Many appeared to be in good shape, but those that were wounded were missing limbs.
"Strange… Hardly any minor wounds." Rana also noted.
"Makes sense, with their armor, the human's weapons must be incredibly powerful as well. Anything they hit will either kill or maim, no such thing as a minor gunshot wound with that kind of firepower." Delina explained.
A moment of surveying the landing area, and a human walked up and guided them to the outer edge of the landing pad to make way for a much larger dropship. As it landed, several dozen turians were brought up to the landing pad. As they filed into the ship, Kaira was able to hear some of their chatter.
"Thank the Spirits that these new aliens aren't war mongers like the Krogan."
"No doubt. Did you see what their sniper rifles are capable of? Octarius had his leg blown off by just a glancing blow."
"What we need to do is get the entire fleet together and bomb their homeworld until it resembles Tuchanka!" A more spirited turian spoke up.
"That's insane! Didn't you hear? What we were fighting were their colony engineers! Civilians with combat training! Just imagine what their front line troops are capable of!"
"All the more reason to make them submit and turn over their technology to those who can use it properly!"
Kaira stopped listening at that point. Turians were overall known for their military discipline, but there were always those hardliners who thought that the Hierarchy should have complete military dominance. Maybe now that they aren't the only alpha varren they'll come to their senses.
"So what are we supposed to do while we wait for our escort to haul his ass here?" Delina wondered out loud as she leaned against a guard rail, looking over the temporary camp the turians were being housed in.
"I suppose we could ask someone to show us around." Rana offered.
"No." Kaira decided, turning around to face the general direction where Hackett had landed. "We'll wait here for him."
"Yes Command- Huh." Rana's eyes narrowed as she looked in the same general direction as Kaira.
"What is it Rana?" Kaira asked the engineer, who rarely became speechless.
"One moment commander." Fiddling with her omnitool, Rana pulled up a number of screens and scanned the horizon a few times. "Something is approaching the landing pad at roughly 110 kilometers an hour coming from the same direction the captain had landed."
"How can you tell that?" Delina asked, "I can't see varren shit out there."
"A new motion detection algorithm I've been working on." Rana answered quickly.
"I think that it might need some work." Delina then proceeded to pull out her sniper rifle, unfolded it, and brought the scope up to her eye.
"Delina! Put your weapon down!" Kaira ordered, "We don't want to cause an incident!"
"Relax Commander," Kaira then triggered something from her rifle, causing a block of metal to be ejected from it, as well as other components to move outward. "It's in cleaning mode. I'm just trying to get eyes on… Well I'll be damned if there is a Goddess."
"What is it Delina?"
"Give it a moment Commander and you'll see for yourself." Delina brought her rifle down, and put it back in working order.
Squinting against the bright horizon line, Kaira was able to spot something moving at extreme speed towards them. As it drew closer with every second, she could make out the distinct form of the human's powered armor. After a moment, Kaira realized that he would need help getting up to them as the landing pad was a solid seven meters from the ground, and looked for a ladder. Seeing none she prepped her biotics to help, just as her biotic aura manifested, she saw the soldier jump upwards at least a meter before a loud roaring flame erupted from his back and lower legs, propelling him upwards and forwards towards them. The jetpacks capacity was impressive as it allowed the soldier to clear the landing pad with several meters to go.
When the soldier landed, a compartment opened on the armors back, ejecting something. The soldier grabbed for it as it turned around to face the asari commandos, it's helmet faceplate splitting open to reveal Hackett's face. The object from Hackett's back armor compartment unfolded itself into the large sniper rifle they had seen before, and Hackett carried it in a relaxed position.
"Anything in particular you commandos would like to see?" Hackett asked simply with a smile forming.
"What kind of power source do you use?"
"What sort of accelerators do your weapons use?"
"How do you maintain shields as well as power the synthetic muscle?"
"What do I have to do to get my hands on that sniper rifle of yours?"
Delina's and Rana's questions came rapid fire, with Hackett barely able to keep up. Until Kaira restored order.
"Commandos!" The sharpness of her tone brought the younger asari into line, earning a quiet apology from Rana.
After an hour's worth of work, Colonel Williams and General Stone finally looked at the holographic representation of the Shanxi system with appreciation. Nearly every planet and moon within the system had multiple indicators sort next to it, denoting it's future.
"I never thought I'd see the day when we'd have a system nearly as fortified as Sol sir." Williams remarked.
Stone made some final adjustments, causing Shanxi's own indicator to change form and color."It's not there yet, but give it time, and this system will become one of the most important in the galaxy."
"Ground side dry docks with direct access to sky cranes, which are connected to orbital dry docks. Long and short term warehouse storage. Refineries with their own sky cranes for transportation. Completely furnished worker's housing in a bio-dome. That's just one planet sir!"
Stone smiled at Williams, "Precisely. The Empire will have such a large military and commercial presence here that it would be suicide in every sense of the term to attempt to assault it."
"Walk softly and carry a big stick sir?" Williams asked, a smile forming on his lips.
"The biggest stick possible colonel."
A/N: Helluva way to go about negotiating on Hall's part right? Please let me know what you guys think his character/personality/mannerisms are like, he's going to be one of the most complicated characters I've written thus far and I want to be sure you are all getting the same idea of his persona.
If you need another crossover fic to keep you tied up until the next chapter of Evolution, which will follow an update for my fic The Unsung Hero: Redux, go checkout LEGION001's fic Nano Effect: The Geth Crysis. I have been his beta for the past year or two and if you enjoy my work you'll enjoy his.
Stay awesome everyone!