A/N: In response to a guest review:
Although in the regular Army or Marine recruits would be trained by a drill sergeant the Sigma ranking system is different from the regular forces to reflect their status. The lowest rank of Sigma, simply called 'Sigma' is equivalent to a sergeant in the regular army, with the ranks then being, in ascending order, Lieutenant, Commander, Major and Colonel. The reason for these high ranks is because Sigmas have unparalleled tactical acumen and leadership skills so if the need arises even the lowest ranked Sigma can take command of a detachment of regular infantry. The reason Sigma recruits are trained by Lieutenants is because the Lieutenants are the lowest rank that is still superior to the recruits.
SAREN ARTERIUS, PAULLUS NODE EARTH-117, JANUARY 20 2188
Saren was a Spectre. He was trained as both warrior and detective, able to collect evidence and follow it to the source, all the while fending off attacks from mercs, slavers or Reapers. All of which made his team the ideal group to investigate the area denial bomb attack on Seoul.
At present he was aboard the Paullus node that had done the deed, drifting in zero gravity as he looked around at the computer banks and control panels. The Paullus node satellites really were quite ingenious. Designed to house four crew in zero gravity housing, each Node was built around a very long, very powerful railgun that could fire a variety of shells at the surface. The Paullus nodes were linked directly into the planetary tac-grid which could in turn be used by local law enforcement, enabling the police to call in precision orbital strike packages on criminals. The Nodes themselves were very long and thin, the centrepiece of the four hundred metre railgun encircled about three quarters of the way up by the crew section, resembling a tube wrapped into a circle around the railgun barrel. From this crew section radiated eight thin solar panels and the crew section was anchored by a dense web of high tension titanium weave cables, making the whole thing resemble two cones base to base, one much longer than the other with solar panels sticking out at the join. To Saren, the idea of having large numbers of orbital bombardment satellites over your own homeworld seemed a bit sinister but these TEC types somehow thought having railguns pointed at their cities made them safer. Go figure. That is, until somebody hijacked a Paullus node and dropped a very nasty present on a large number of unsuspecting citizens. An unpleasant business indeed.
The thing Saren didn't understand as he drifted round the toroidal crew compartment, was exactly how the hell did these terrorists hijack a Paullus node? He had read the security specs and he thought it would be easier to kill every single civilian casualty of the attack with his bare hands than hijack a Node. The whole thing smacked of something bigger than a couple of religious terrorists. The video they had sent of a masked man ranting about Jesus or something was quite frankly absurd, making Saren's mandibles twitch just thinking about it.
Jondam drifted round the corner, randomly tapping at the computer consoles as he passed them.
"Makes no sense. Makes no sense. Commands entered from main console, node executed fire support mission. Mission successful. Node sensors functioning correctly, weapon monitors all correct, no interception of commands. Doesn't make sense."
While Saren had been assigned to catch whoever executed the attack, Jondam's job was to find out exactly how the terrorists had compromised an orbital weapon system that made the Destiny Ascension look like a chemical rocket.
"What have you got, Jondam?"
"Very confusing. Sensor input functional, weapons console identified ADW in chamber, yet network logs successful fire support mission for Seoul police. Very confusing indeed. Node servers appear to be caught in logic loop yet satellite functioning normally. Makes no sense. Need more time, also EVA to study Node exterior. Recommend disconnecting satellite from tactical grid for time being. Coverage area mostly depopulated, E-116 and E-121 can cover remainder. Will need Paullus node engineers to help conduct sweep. Excuse me Saren, need to make some calls."
Sighing, Saren fitted the helmet to his armour, the green light telling him it was vacuum sealed as he stepped into the airlock, attaching his tether to the cable before letting the airlock cycle. For the purposes of the investigation Node E-117 had been moved alongside Seoul space elevator, connected by a contraption officially called a Rapid Personnel Transfer Tether, but known to all apart from a few very pedantic bureaucrats as a Zipwire In Space, or ZIS. Saren pushed off from the Node, launching himself along the 'Going' side of the twin cable and propelling himself along the kilometre of wire to the space elevator. There was something strangely peaceful about soaring thirty five thousand kilometres above the surface of the planet. If he rolled to point his back towards the planet he could very faintly see just two hundred kilometres away the Varro Nodes, those ten million football-sized satellites spinning round the planet that handled all data and information flow across the local orbital environment as well as the surface, then the space elevators extending up to their orbital termini, each terminus in itself a small city, the Seoul one impossibly close, the Beijing one just peeking out above the curvature of the Earth. Then beyond the termini he could watch shuttles winging their way to their destinations, be they military or commercial zero-G laboratories, enormous shipyard complexes, commercial trade ports, interplanetary broadcasting hubs, fighter hangars, anti-ship heavy railgun turrets or inhibitor nodes for the system's stasis net. Not even Palaven had this much orbital activity and yet somehow it worked, VI or Geth pilots and controllers ensuring nothing collided in their wild ballet around the planet. And out at the edge of the orbit in the Lagrange point between Earth and Luna, their moon, sat Earth Starbase, the enormous orbital fortress that at its widest point was sixty kilometres across. Perhaps on his next date with Tela they should rent out a glass-topped shuttle and watch the activity of the orbit pass them by.
He was distracted from his musings by a beeping in his helmet and he turned back to the rapidly approaching space elevator cable, bending his knees to arrest his momentum as he came into contact with the inner airlock door, the outer one sealing behind him as gravity and air returned. For the purposes of the investigation Saren and his Spectre compatriots had commandeered one of the smaller space elevator platforms on a secondary trunk cable to serve as their base of operations while they tried to figure out the guilty Node. He was greeted at the door by Tela, who gave him a quick peck on the mandible before helping him shed the outer layer of his hardsuit. Since it was only the six of them up there they didn't feel the need to look presentable, instead just spending the entire time in their skintight hardsuit base layers, something their Human teammates referred to as FBCs with the annoying Human trait to come up with an acronym for everything. Eventually Desolas had managed to find out on the Internet that FBC stood for Full Body Condom.
The space elevator platform was shaped similarly to the Paullus Node crew compartment but there the similarity ended. The toroidal compartment was furnished like an art-deco hotel lobby suddenly propelled into space, floor-to-ceiling hyperdiamond windows around the whole thing apart from the support struts. Despite being one of the smaller platforms this one had two levels, an upper level filled with comfortable multi-species seating, then two shallow ramps down to the lower level which seemed to be a system of duty-frees and a fancy restaurant. For the purposes of the investigation the Spectres and their N7 colleagues had contained themselves to the bottom level, leaving the upper level for sleeping on the very large, very soft sofas.
"What's Jondam up to?"
Saren scratched absent-mindedly at the biotic implant in the back of his neck as he and Tela walked round the curve of the platform.
"Still salivating over the Node's computer systems. Poor guy seems a bit confused."
They reached their work area and sat down, Saren tearing into a dextro steak as their Human colleagues turned to them.
"Something about this whole shebang doesn't add up."
Applying his painstakingly assembled mental toolkit for dealing with the more whimsical elements of Human speech, Saren inferred that Jack meant to say 'Something about this attack doesn't make sense'.
On the opposite side of the holographic representation of E-117, Desolas grunted his assent.
"I agree. Even the fact that they used the Node is strange."
The second Human assigned to the investigative team spoke up.
"Makes sense to me. There's two hundred fourteen Nodes pointed at the planet right now. People are getting antsy down there. They're thinking if one Node can be hijacked, they can all be hijacked. It's a psychological thing, turning part of our own defence system against us."
Saren agreed with the other Human, Major Eva Coré, TEC Marines, N7 corps, as she had introduced herself. He found her much more personable than Colonel Harper. Despite the fact that he really was quite a nice guy, those bionic eyes freaked him out. Tela was the next to speak up.
"I think the key isn't the Node, it's the munition. The Node has enough firepower to trash an entire city from orbit, yet these terrorists only fired one shot, and that shot was an area denial weapon. If their aim was to make a statement they could have done it far more effectively without bothering to lug an ADW all the way up to the Node."
Jack blinked at her, then dismissed the holo of the Node, instead bringing up a map of Seoul with the affected area delineated by a sickly green colour.
"Maybe the terrorism was a smokescreen to disguise their true intention. Or their true target."
The five of them gathered around the map and Saren felt something familiar stirring in his gut. The thrill of the hunt.
MIRALA, SEOUL, JANUARY 20 2188
Looking after someone was new to Mirala. When she and Nef had left the hospital after identifying her dead mother she had been silent the whole ride home, then she couldn't move when it was time to get out of the car. Mirala had ended up carrying her through into the apartment, stripping her unresisting body and dressing her in flannel pyjamas before tucking her into bed. Once she was asleep Mirala had got herself a special permit to rent out a breather mask and head into the blast zone under armed guard to recover Nef's belongings from her house. She hardly had anything to her name, Mirala appreciating for the first time exactly how poor her family had been, hovering just above the poverty line. Most of the belongings she had trucked out of there had been Nef's sculptures as well as her limited wardrobe, a handmade quilt off her bed, a couple of stuffed animals, a fistful of sculpting tools and a few paper photographs. Once she had recovered her partner's belongings both Mirala and the belongings were subjected to a very long, very humiliating decontamination procedure before she was allowed to pile up the things in the back seat of her skycar and head back home. She had gotten back at 2 in the morning and unpacked Nef's belongings before crawling into bed without even taking her boots off. She had woken up in the morning to find Nef on the balcony, hugging her knees as she leaned against the glass balustrade. They had eaten breakfast out on the balcony, Nef only eating mechanically when Mirala held up a morsel to her lips. The following days had been no better, Nef still in the grip of her strange catatonia for the whole of the eighteenth, Mirala feeding her, bathing her and putting her to bed. The nineteenth brought floods of tears and extreme clinginess to either her or the stuffed animals Mirala had rescued from the hot zone. Having never been in this situation before, Mirala wasn't sure whether it was an improvement or not.
On the twentieth Mirala finally decided to take desperate measures. Leaving Nef curled up in the sheets, arms wrapped around a sky blue rabbit, she punched up her comm console, hand hovering over the dial button before she silently admonished herself and hit it. The Asari face on the other end looked nothing short of stupefied.
"Rila, I need your help."
URDNOT WREX, MERCURY SHIPYARD, JANUARY 22 2188
"Hardly feels right."
Beside him, Captain Zorah nodded his assent as the two of them watched the Karamazov being stripped down, lasers shearing through armour plate as Rachni workers swarmed over her, using acid to loosen the hull and make it easier for the mass effect cranes to pick his ship apart. On his other side Sings-to-Metal-Wings was visibly flinching every time another section of hull plating was sheared off, pain-songs of dark red flashing out as he shifted from foot to foot, chittering nervously. Despite Bakara's promise that the crew would be kept intact several of his friends were being transferred to other ships. Ronald Taylor was set to become first officer on the TON Columbo, a new construction Sova-class carrier, Henry Lawson was being transferred to Benning starbase to focus on his work with the Sigma programme, the Krioses were headed for a posting to replace some of the crew of the TON Lazarus. But his core group of most trusted friends - himself, Legion, Zorah, Wings, Vakarian and Massani - they were all transferring to the new Karamazov with him. Despite being 10% larger and far more complex than the Akkan-class, the Kol IIIs only operated with a crew compliment of 2000 hands, making Wrex suspect the computer systems on board would be very complex. Interesting.
Legion, Cadmus and Zaeed joined them, mumbled greetings as the six of them stood there, watching their home get flayed alive.
THANE KRIOS, N7 TRAINING FACILITY, JANUARY 22 2188
Thane's fingers tightened on the trigger of his Long Fang sniper rifle, the heavy caliber round ready to punch through the skull of his target as he looked down the scope. He was hanging cloaked and upside down from the ceiling, gecko boots keeping him braced as he watched his target passing below, crosshairs focused on the Salarian's head.
"Target sighted."
The voice was little more than a murmur in his ear.
"Check. Ready in two, one, mark."
There was a faint puff as his rifle expelled the round, splattering red paint across the head of the Salarian as he obligingly fell to the ground, playing dead. Moments later he heard the voice in his earpiece.
"Target down."
"Same here."
He tapped his ear.
"I as well. Let us leave."
He dropped to the floor without a sound, tapping the dead Salarian on the head as he ran and receiving an obscene gesture for his troubles, making the rendezvous with his unit ahead of schedule. He found a spot of high ground overlooking the rendezvous point and swept over it with a trained eye, making sure he was thoroughly cloaked before engaging his thermal vision.
"Hold up. I've got four thermal anomalies overlooking the rendezvous point. Probably snipers."
Thermal maskers, such as those genetically integrated into an N7 operative's skin, were in theory impenetrable, but Thane had a talent for picking out the slight distortion in a thermal scan that indicated where a thermally masked enemy was hiding. Nobody could quite explain how he did it.
"Kasumi, head up to vantage point seven. Keiji, vantage point three. When I give the word, head up and take out your targets in melee."
He received two affirmatives and then shifted himself silently through the building until he reached vantage point one, spotting the sniper's position easily enough. Once he received word his two teammates were in position he struck out with his training knife, the holographic blade passing through the back of the man's neck and ending his life. Thane shoved him out of the way with a muttered apology and a quiet reminder that he was, in fact, dead, then took up position by his rifle.
The feeling of a heavy impact against his hood took him by surprise, before he obligingly went limp, feeling paint trickling down his light armour. Moments later he heard a surprised yelp over his comm, then the quiet voice of the instructor informing him the exercise was over. Cursing vehemently, Thane picked himself up and trudged out to the shuttle.
RILA, SEOUL, JANUARY 23 2188
Rila's hands wrapped around her mug of coffee as she and Falere sat at their sister's table, listening to her hesitantly explain what had happened to Nef. The pleading in her eyes was evident, as was the ... Affection? Of all the things Rila associated her sister with, affection was not one of them.
"Please, is there anything ... Nef, she's the only thing keeping me from, well ..."
Rila knew exactly what she meant.
"I can't say I have any more experience with this than you, but ... She's going to be okay. She can only get better now, but she needs someone to take care of her while she heals. I guess that's you."
Mirala looked down for a moment before looking back up.
"Do you have any news of Mother?"
Falere and Rila both looked down and away.
"Rila? Falere?"
"Um ... We're not sure, but ..."
"Falere."
"We think she's coming to Earth."
TALI'ZORAH NAR RAYYA, SIGMA TRAINING FACILITY, JANUARY 24 2188
Tali's eyes slowly opened, blinking in the harsh light. The first thing she registered was the pain, sharp and pulsing in her shoulder. The flickering heat of fires burning close by played across her skin as she gingerly probed her shoulder. Felt something sticking out. Panic gripped her, constricting her lungs before she forced herself to calm, to analyse the situation. Turning her head sent fresh waves of pain shooting through her body but she clamped down on them and turned anyway, focusing on the metal rod impaled through her left shoulder. Her left hand was crushed beneath a chunk of what looked like hull plating. She slid her good elbow underneath her, slowly lifted herself up, clenching her jaw to stifle a scream of pain as the rough rod slid through her shoulder.
She collapsed back down after getting completely off the rod, shuffling backwards so that the metal slick with violet blood was poking out from under her armpit. Lying still, she gave her shoulder time to start regenerating as she looked around her. Oh, she was in deep shit.
She was lying in the middle of a blast-scarred plain, fires scattered around and the wreckage of ships, both TEC and Reaper, littering the ground. Above her she could see points of light moving around in the sky and the echoing sounds of Thanix blasts and plasma fire as the space battle overhead occasionally dipped into the atmosphere. First things first - body check. Ignoring her screaming muscles, she pulled her left hand out from under the rubble, whimpering in dismay as her mangled fingers sent waves of agony shooting through her system every time she touched them against something. Using her good hand, she patted down her body, checking for any other wounds. Asides from a panoply of cuts, bruises and burns she seemed to be okay. Well, mostly okay. Now what the hell was going on?
Her question was answered by a low moaning sound. Husks. That just wasn't fair. She dropped to a crouch, left hand uselessly clutching the collar of her ripped and scorched jumpsuit as she dropped into the best approximation of a combat stance she could manage.
The grey skin and blue cybernetics of husked Asari loomed over her, a wave of groaning, shambolic zombies starting to stagger toward her as she looked over them, silver eyes filling with fear. Then the strangest thing happened.
They stopped.
Tali heard a chittering sound as something she had never seen before crested the wrecked Garda-class frigate she was in the shadow of. The creature fixed her with four malevolent eyes and made an insectoid clicking, aiming an organic-looking weapon at her. She threw herself to the right, dodging the dirty yellow beam that stabbed out, then flipped over it as the creature atop the wreck swept it at her knees. The beam shut off and the creature slung the weapon on its back before leaping into the air. Tali's eyes tracked it as it slammed into the ground ten metres from her, seemingly oblivious of the backdrop of hundreds of glowing Husk eyes.
Up close it was even scarier. It topped out at around nine feet in height, towering over Tali, dark red flesh covered in dirty brown chitinous plating, four yellow eyes shining with malevolence as it baby-stepped around her, circling her. It spread its arms, clicks melding together into a sort of tearing shriek as it screamed a challenge at her. Its forearms rippled briefly and then two long, curved blades appeared in its hand, dripping a clear, vile-smelling liquid. She had never been more scared in her life. She had thought the mindless Reaper creatures were scary - after seeing the apparition infused with sadistic malevolence in front of her she'd take the Reaper's automatons any day.
She didn't even consciously register the first attack, reflexes propelling her out of the way of the first blade but right into the path of the second one, scoring a thin cut across her abdomen. She hissed as the flesh around the wound suddenly went icy cold, then terrifyingly numb. Definitely poisoned. The second strike pierced her still-healing shoulder, the creature moving at lightening speed as it slashed at her head, blade whistling through empty air as she ducked it, lashing out a foot to try and connect with the monster's knee. The target leg lifted up, stomping down on her own knee, breaking it with a sickening crunch during her moment of overextension and drawing a scream from Tali as it pulled briefly away before spinning lazily on the ball of one foot and plunging both blades through her gut.
One of the monster's oversized hands wrapped around the hilt of both blades as the other gripped her by the throat, hauling her off the ground. She tried to lash out with her good arm but the strike simply bounced off its slightly springy plating as it examined her curiously. The hand around her neck shifted to her chin and she felt her head be tilted to look into the monster's eyes as it very gently lowered her to the ground, blades still buried in her abdomen as she felt her hands get pinned above her head. One of the blades left her body, only to stab down moments later, impaling both her palms and drawing another shriek from her. She felt rough hands on her jumpsuit, tearing it to shreds, then the cold kiss of the disgusting organic blade, the second one pulled out of the hole in her gut and now pressed against her stomach, slightly higher than the wound.
The creature, kneeling on her knees to pin her legs still, slowly drew its blade across her, stripping a flap of skin off her body, brandishing the grey rag soaked in violet before her eyes and then dropping it into the sharp-toothed mouth Tali had only just noticed.
She started screaming and didn't stop until the monster had started on her lungs seventeen minutes later. She died six minutes after that.
KAZIMIR SHEPARD, SIGMA TRAINING FACILITY, JANUARY 24 2188
Kaz pummelled on the cover of the virtual reality pod as it swung open, dropping to his knees as he slid out of it. The pod next to him opened as well, Tali falling out, crying out as she checked her stomach, her arms, her legs, then crawled over to the bucket and vented the contents of her stomach. All around him recruits were doing the same, crying out, praying, puking or huddling catatonic. He found a spot between two pods and curled up there, willing his breathing and heart rate back under control as Tali shuffled over to him. Then they latched onto one another and cried, tears soaking into jumpsuits as Kaz tried to block out the image of the monster hovering above him, flaying him, eating him alive.
JAMES VEGA-MASSANI, SIGMA TRAINING FACILITY, JANUARY 24 2188
"What. The. FUCK!"
James slammed one meaty fist into a tree, then screamed in rage. The six of them had retreated to their clearing the first chance they got, wanting nothing more than to get away from everything and everyone. Tali, Kaz, Kari and Garrus were all huddled together on the glowing grass, each person showing the trauma in different ways. Ash was perched on a boulder, eyes sightlessly staring at the same line of Tennyson for the past twenty minutes. And James? James was pissed.
"What the fuck was that shit? Some sort of freaky fetish the Lieutenant's got?"
He screamed incoherently and started pummelling the tree again, dislodging several butterfly lizards that chirped their displeasure at him before flitting off to find other perches. Abruptly Tali stood, shedding her jumpsuit, and ran to the river, plunging into the water and sending schools of bioluminescent fish scattering away as she curled up on the opposite bank, rocking back and forth in the chest-deep water. Garrus and Kari were holding hands so tightly that if they wanted to they could crush steel and Kaz was hyperventilating rapidly, fingers closed into shaky fists.
Eventually James stopped pummelling the tree and got up, forcing the visions of four eyed demons from his mind as he gently took the poetry book from Ash's unresisting fingers and led her over to the others, making her lie down. Then he waded across the shallow part of the river to Tali, picking her up and carrying her across, curling her wet, slippery body into Kaz, then rolling the five of his friends until they were huddled together on the grass.
"I'll take first watch. Go to sleep."
TALI'ZORAH NAR RAYYA, SIGMA TRAINING FACILITY, JANUARY 25 2188
Tali sat up abruptly, heart pounding, mouth open in a silent scream. On the rock nearby, James shifted round to look at her with concern.
"Just a dream, Tali. You okay?"
She snagged her jumpsuit and struggled into it before replying.
"No. No I'm not. I ..."
James walked over to her and enveloped her in his arms as she started trembling.
"Ssh, ssh. Just a dream, Tali. Breathe. Breathe."
He held her at arms length, looking at her with no small measure of concern as she gulped down oxygen.
"Better?"
She nodded, looking at him with wide silver eyes. As she lay back down he stroked her hair back and planted a kiss on her forehead.
"Go back to sleep."
She made a quiet noise, already snuggling into Kaz as she drifted off again, just before sleep claimed her registering Garrus sit bolt upright, pawing at his shoulders and stomach before slumping, breathing heavily.
KARINA SHEPARD, SIGMA TRAINING FACILITY, JANUARY 25 2188
The recruits were silent as they filed into the briefing hall, the Lieutenant standing at the front. As they sat down he pressed a button and Kari, along with the rest of the Sigma recruits, recoiled, reaching for their rifles before relaxing as they realised it was just a hologram. Nevertheless, the depiction of the nine foot tall creature was enough to make the vast majority of recruits very, very jumpy.
"This is what you encountered in the VR sim yesterday."
For once the Lieutenant wasn't raising his voice, using the deathly silence of the room to his advantage as he spoke with an unusually subdued tone.
"We call them Vasari, or Collectors. They are the Reaper equivalent of Sigma operatives, and they are nasty buggers. Since the Reaper war started sixty three Sigmas have been KIA. Forty seven of those were killed by one of these bastards."
He paused for a moment before continuing.
"They're bigger than us. Stronger and faster too, but they don't regen and they tire quicker. They're usually armed with a portable particle beam projector as well as two organic blades coated with a toxin that blocks our regeneration. Also, they have limited biotic abilities, mostly defensive in nature."
The hologram shifted to show the creature - Vasari - with fiery cracks along its carapace and eyes glowing like four miniature suns.
"If you see a Vasari looking like this, disengage immediately. These are what we call Harbingers. Vasari that are under the direct control of a Reaper. In this state they are impervious to anything smaller bore than the main gun of an Enlil medium tank, plus they gain several very nasty biotic abilities. However if the Harbinger is sustained for more than forty seconds, tops, the Vasari will literally melt under the strain. It's an insane combat buff but a Vasari will be at its weakest for about twenty seconds after the Reaper has released control."
He shifted the hologram back to the regular Vasari, no less terrifying than the possessed one.
"I'm forwarding everything we have on the Vasari to your datapads, then calling a week of liberty. We've booked you all up in a hotel in Joughin. Collect a credit chit and a uniform, assemble at the shuttle deck in thirty. Remember Rule Three. Dismissed."
ADRIAN VICTUS, SEOUL SPACE ELEVATOR, JANUARY 25 2188
The six investigators in the platform all saluted, the former Spectres slightly more sloppily than the militarily precise N7s.
"Admiral Victus."
Saren turned around and raised his mandibles slightly at the speaker, a Human female, before turning back to him.
"Victus, you old son of a villi, you made Admiral?"
The two Turians clashed their forearms together before pulling each other into a bear hug.
"Good to see you, Saren. Thought you were gone for sure."
"Nah, just on an extended leave of absence. This is Tela, Jondam, Jack and Eva. I don't think I need to introduce my kid brother. Everyone, this is my old friend Adrian. We went through basic together."
"This isn't a social visit, sorry to say. How's the investigation coming?"
Saren led his friend over to the holographic projection of the affected area of Seoul.
"We've been working off the assumption that the terrorist threat was a smokescreen to mask the true intentions of the attack. We've been trying to use what data we have available to establish a list of suspects, based on possible targets and motive."
"How many do you have?"
The investigators looked between each other nervously.
"Three hundred and seventy six."
"Oh, is that all?"
"Once we figure out how they hijacked the Node we'll be able to narrow it down considerably."
Victus sat down heavily and sighed.
"It's never easy, is it?"
HADRASSA VALERN, MOSCOW, JANUARY 26 2188
Valern had never wanted to be on the Citadel Council. He had been perfectly happy with his work in STG as an operations chief. But when the Dalatrasses pointed at somebody and said 'Tag! You're Councillor!' generally accepted wisdom held that you didn't argue. And now here he was, stuck on the home planet of a species unknown and he was bored as hell.
As bored as he was, at least he had the pleasure of familiarising himself with the technology of this 'TEC' and Sparatus, who fancied himself as a tactician, was poring over historical documents of ancient battles from ancient wars, his current interest being a period of civil war known as the 'Advent Wars' by their not-so-humble hosts. Tevos, with no real abilities beside politics and statesmanship, arguably had it the worst out of all of them since the Quarian Koris had so flippantly dismissed her raison d'être, but she was dipping into her prodigious reservoir of Asari patience to grin and bear it.
Probably the most fun Valern had experienced in years was trying to familiarise himself with this new species, the Humans, in particular their highly unconventional speech patterns. He found their style of communication almost poetic, yet simultaneously confusing and occasionally crass, with their seemingly inexhaustible supply of metaphorical phrases they enjoyed bamboozling aliens with. And that was before he had been introduced to Reddit. The 'Three Reapers invade a bar' thread was his personal favourite.
Spending time in the TEC had definitely got all three Councillors questioning long-held beliefs. Just last week Valern had observed three Humans, two Quarians, two Krogan, three Rachni males with their entourages of workers, two Turians and a Salarian attending a Drell's bachelor party. The Krogan were cured of the Genophage yet weren't trying to kill everyone. The Geth had achieved full sentience yet weren't trying to kill everyone. The Rachni were back in force yet weren't trying to kill everyone. Most unexpected.
Although it was quite amusing learning all he could about humans and the TEC - he could even tentatively claim to understand memes - Valern was starting to get a little stir crazy. Another one of those fascinating Human expressions. He felt like he should be somehow helping with the war effort. Perhaps he would look for a position as an intel analyst. Or something.
CODEX- PAULLUS NODES
Brainchild of Mexican General Elena Paullus, the Paullus Nodes were first implemented during the Second Korean War as a sophisticated fire support system for South Korean forces. In their first iteration the Paullus nodes were essentially communication satellites redesigned to carry missile banks and placed in geosynchronous orbit, with each one passing over the South Korean battlezone at a different point in the 24 hour day, providing unbroken orbital coverage of South Korea from the central control station in Moscow. Once the war was over the Trade Order quietly swooped in and seized control of the Paullus nodes, repurposing them for general security and defence purposes. The Nodes remained operational up to the start of the Advent Wars, where the surprise commando attacks on TEC HQ were foiled by well placed bombardments from the hundred year old satellites. Following the securing of the Sol system the Paullus nodes were hastily updated and modernised with antimatter railgun weapons, each new iteration increasing in complexity until the modern Paullus node satellite was born at the close of the Advent Wars. The Nodes became standard around any TEC colony, used by anyone with access to the tac grid - TEC military, local militia and police rapid response teams. With munitions ranging from solid osmium penetrators to 150 megaton antimatter warheads, the Paullus Nodes can perform tasks from disabling a single vehicle to annihilating a small country, one of the more sinister tools with which the TEC 'keeps the peace'.
CODEX- VARRO NODES
Named after their designer, Italian computer mogul Enrique Varro, the Varro Nodes are a system of ten million satellites, each one about the size of a basketball, that englobe each world in the TEC in a web of instantaneous information. Each Varro Node is linked to thirty six other randomly selected nodes by quantum entanglement communicators and is also linked to information hubs on the orbital termini of space elevators. Any request for information on the ground is sent up from the local server to the nearest Varro Node, which in turn directs the request to all hubs. The information from the hubs is then bounced back through the network to the originating Varro Node, which then collates the information before transmitting it back to the origin of the request in a highly compressed form. The Varro Node system, as well as being untappable thanks to the use of QECs, is incredibly efficient, the only noticeable time delay coming from how quickly the local server can decompress the received data packet. With Varro Nodes, a high end computing system can download an ultra-high-definition movie in 3 microseconds and local command and control centres can stream real time tactical data from anywhere on the planet or its local space. The theoretical maximum amount of data the network can handle has never been calculated or tested, but is estimated to be several hundred yottabytes (10^24 bytes) at least.
CODEX- STARBASES
The Argonev-class Orbital Fortified Fleet Depot (referred to by almost everybody as the Argonev Starbase or just Starbase) was first introduced in 2136 as part of the "Defender" project, to create an enormous cluster of fortified systems within which the TEC could rebuild and rearm before reclaiming their lost territory from the Advent. The enormous modular bases were protected by the strongest armour, deflectors and energy barriers available to the TEC and armed with hundreds of laser, beam and missile batteries. The Argonevs can also hangar up to fourteen squadrons of fighters and bombers, dock warships for repair and resupply, contain secondary control systems for planetary defences in case the planetary command is compromised and as a last resort can overload their antimatter power core to create a devastating explosion capable of wiping out an entire attacking fleet. The line of defences, based around Argonev class starbases, were all but unassailable, allowing the TEC to build up their enormous fleet that crushed the Advent worlds. By the time the Reaper wars came around there was a starbase built around every world in the TEC, refitted with Thanix cannon and Geth plasma to replace their antiquated laser weaponry. Simulations show that if the Reapers ever penetrated TEC territory it would take ten Reaper capital ships to eliminate each Starbase.