A/N: For Rannoch, Wrex and curb stomping Batarians. Raargh!
###
Rannoch. Home of the Ancestors. Rael felt a sense of awe as he looked on the dusty beige continents and cloud-sheathed oceans of the Homeworld. The eleven Quarians and one Human on the crew all pressed their faces to the observation window, overawed at the sight.
The eight Privateer ships were dwarfed by the massive bulk of a Geth Dreadnought that was guiding them down to a specially cleared landing field overlooking the ancient capital of Rannoch, the Walled City.
Rael, Kleeah, Tali and Jack were the first out. The family of four stared with wide eyed wonder at the Homeworld. Rael closed his eyes, feeling the loose earth shifting beneath his booted feet, then followed Kleeah and the girls to the edge of the cliff.
"Oh Keelah ..."
The Geth had been busy. Very busy. The Walled City was now a Quarian metropolis, elegant towers curved into gravity defying shapes, shining silver metals and sandy coloured rock blending together, occasionally shot through with the deep maroons and mauves of jovona blossom trees in full bloom. Juggernaut stepped up behind them and spoke in a muted voice.
"We are glad the Creators have returned home."
Rael turned to Juggernaut in disbelief.
"You made all this just for us?"
"For all Creators and Geth to live in peace. This city alone has a maximum population limit of forty million. Three secondary cities can each support another fifteen million. Total Creator population could increase by a factor of five before additional construction is required."
Rael didn't know what to think.
###
Wrex roared with laughter as Pasana shuddered and whimpered, mimicking the only Batarian she had ever met foolish enough to try and take her on.
"So then he suddenly flares up blue, going 'I will destroy you!' And I said 'Bite me, Elloruru. You couldn't destroy a pregnant Volus.' He sent a Throw at me which did absolutely nothing and then, and then ..."
She dissolved into helpless giggles again as Wrex downed the last of his Ryncol and slammed the mug down on the table.
"So what happened next?"
"I put my pincers around his neck, grabbed his manhood and asked which one he wanted me to squeeze!"
Wrex's laughs redoubled as the bartender hurried over with a refill of Ryncol.
"Look who decided to show up."
Wrex turned to face the newcomer, a scarred Human wearing blue and white armour. Pasana gave a shout of recognition.
"Zaeed!"
The Human sat down beside Pasana.
"So who's your friend?"
"Oh yeah. Zaeed, this is Wrex. I met him in the Pit, he kicked my ass. Wrex, this is Zaeed, an old buddy of mine with a job offer."
"Right you are. Here's what I got for you."
He pulled out a printed paper picture of an Asari with vivid green eyes and markings on her face.
"This is your target. We know two things about her. This picture, and that she is somewhere on this station. We have reason to believe she has some nasty, exotic biotic abilities, so assume dangerous. I want her alive and mostly intact. Keep it quiet, if the Blood Pack know we're after her they'll come after her too, just because they can. Pay is ten thousand platina each, one in advance, nine when the job's done."
"That's good money. We'll take it."
Wrex nodded his assent, then held up his hand.
"One more thing. Silver armour, blue eyes, half formed crest, big-ass hammer and almost the size of Pasana here. You know him?"
Zaeed frowned, his cybernetic eye clicking and whirring in his head.
"Standing at the entrance to the club?"
"That's right."
"He's one of Okeer's tin soldiers. They're tank bred somewhere in the Terminus, then sold to Garm's Blood Pack for dirt. They regenerate almost twice as quick as a normal Krogan and could probably bench press a Broadsword mech but they're brain dead. If the guy outside the club didn't have a Batarian chip in his head telling him what to do he'd just stand there until he starved to death."
"Yeesh. Sounds like a bad way to be."
"Tell me about it. Way I see it, every one of those we blow up is a kindness."
###
Wintergreen was a small, out of the way USA colony. Operative word being was. Now it was a sixty square mile crime scene.
"Tell me, what are we looking at?"
"Slaver attack. Batarian Hegemony and most of the Terminus Systems have slavery of some form. They often hit lightly defended colonies like this one, grab some aliens for a bit of variety in their slave markets."
"They just crossed the line."
###
The USA had requested a full Council meeting, including the representatives from all associate races as well. Tevos was there, as was Luceius with his arm in a sling, and Murtok, Drassa's replacement. Representatives from all the Earth bloc's seven powers were present as well.
Anita Goyle, the US ambassador, walked to the podium at the head of the meeting room.
"Councillors, ambassadors. I thank you all for your attendance at our conference. We have called this meeting to address a troubling issue that has recently arisen. One of our colonies, Wintergreen, was recently raided by slavers. Slavers who, thanks to the CIA, we discovered have sold on their merchandise to the Hegemony's slave markets. As of this minute there are US citizens being held by a foreign power. This is an act of war."
Silence in the Council chambers. Eventually Jath'Amon, the Batarian ambassador, raised his fist.
"I protest! You have no right to threaten the Hegemo ..."
"I'm not finished, warul. I present the following ultimatum to the Batarian Hegemony. You will return every unlawfully imprisoned US citizen in the Hegemony to their respective governments. Every slaver who has ever participated in an attack against the USA be handed over to said power for appropriate punishment. Until our demands are met we will raze your planets, one city at a time. We will come for you. We will not stop. Our fleets will darken your skies and we will watch you burn until every four eyed slaving sharachi in the galaxy is nothing more than an unpleasant smell. Our first target will be the city of Hatre on Camala. All slaves returned or in seven Terran days returning our people will seem like a small price to pay."
The Earth races used the period of shocked silence to continue ramping up the pressure.
"The Raachok Union supports your ultimatum."
"The USSR supports your ultimatum."
"Emaris supports your ultimatum."
"Haeli supports your ultimatum."
"Maraliu supports your ultimatum."
"Kesla supports your ultimatum."
Jath'Amon stood once more, truly livid.
"You cannot let them do this! Councillors, I demand you subdue these rogue states!"
Anita Goyle gave a mirthless chuckle at that.
"The Council was unwilling to go to war with a minor power for abducting our citizens for slave labour. I doubt they'll go to war with a major power for getting our people back."
"The Turian Hierarchy supports your ultimatum."
Suddenly every eye in the room was fixed on Luceius.
"Slavery is illegal under Citadel law. I feel shamed the Hierarchy waited this long before taking action. No more appeasement."
The Batarian ambassador roared in fury and gestured to the Asari councillor.
"Do something!"
Tevos just looked at him blankly. That was when he knew the Batarians no longer had a place for them on the Citadel.
###
"Ladies and gentlemen! A toast!"
The assembled Suns cheered raucously as Zaeed scrambled up onto the stage, the Asari, Human and Atavira strippers all fawning over him. SubHammer was one of Omega's many nightclubs, by far the largest apart from Afterlife and controlled by the Suns.
"To Anita Goyle. Fuck the four-eyes!"
The entire club raised their drinks and echoed his sentiments.
"Fuck the four-eyes!"
The club turned back to one another and started talking again, Zaeed giving one of the Atavira girls a kiss on the cheek before escaping the stage and watching the girls go back to their poles.
A Salarian merc walked up to him.
"General Massani? The Zorya base construction team have a report for you."
He took the proffered datapad and nodded in satisfaction. Construction of the Blue Suns HQ was coming along very nicely. It would start by dominating Omega. Then the Suns would spread and expand, absorbing some gangs and destroying others, until they were the sovereign government of the Terminus Systems. And when the hammer fell and the Suns lent their guns to the races of Earth, the Terminus would be theirs.
###
Liara ran. Arms pumping, legs flailing, every breath loud in her ears, swerving around some objects and careening into others as her damnable Prothean eyes failed her, trying to ignore the surge of borrowed emotion every time her toe touched the floor through the hole in her boot. She ran and the thing ran after her, eerily silent apart from the panting of its breath. She had left the cackling Krogan and hissing Vorcha behind but the thing kept coming after her, eating up the distance with long, loping strides, gaining ground every time her vision betrayed her and she bounced off a wall.
Finally she fell. Tripped over something, she couldn't see what. The thing grabbed her, flipping her over and pinning her down, holding her looking up at the silver blur as her Prothean enhanced hearing heard the ponderous approach of the Krogan that had sent whatever it was after her. She struggled, trying to worm free, and the silver thing shifted to better pin her down. A bare elbow touched one of the rips in her shirt, skin brushing against skin. She braced herself for the flow of emotion.
Nothing. Nothing save a spark of cold commanding. The silver blur was empty. A mech? No, she couldn't get feelings from inanimate objects. She was feeling a living thing's DNA, but empty. So she reversed the flow.
Emotions and thoughts poured into the empty creature, filling the dark spaces of the brain with warm light and banishing the emptiness, flowing back into her and around again in a positive feedback loop that overwhelmed the cold commands coming from the base of the skull, making them sputter and die. And in the flow an identity formed.
Weyrloc Kresh growled as the display on his Omnitool fritzed and the supersoldier froze in place before slowly turning his head to stare at Kresh.
"117, restrain the Asari."
117 didn't respond to the verbal command. Something was very, very wrong.
"117, shut down."
The override command to make the supersoldier fall asleep also failed to work.
"117, shut down!"
That time the supersoldier reacted. But not in the way Kresh intended. It stood up, towering a good four feet above Kresh.
"I."
He blinked in shock as the word left the supersoldier's mouth.
"Am."
The Vorcha with him panicked, dropping their weapons and fleeing as the supersoldier took a single step forwards.
"KROGAN!"
With a bellow of rage 117 charged, unslinging his hammer and surrounding it in a biotic field as his feet hammered against the ground. In three strides the hammer was swinging at Kresh's head.
Liara shrieked as the Krogan's head was obliterated, the mangled body spurting geysers of orange gore through the stress fractures in the armour as the now blood-spattered silver blur turned to her.
"You."
She squeaked in alarm and crawled crabwise backwards until she bumped into the wall. Suddenly a hand was round her neck, lifting her up, electric blue eyes examining her.
"Asari. Different. Alien eyes. I need a name."
"Li ... Liara."
He frowned at her, tilting her head to examine the green coloration at the tips of her crests.
"Not you. Me. I have a number. 117. It's not a name. What am I? Krogan, Supersoldier, Grunt ... Grunt was what Kresh called me. It has no meaning. It'll do. I am Grunt."
Liara's Prothean vision finally brought him into focus.
"What are you going to do to me?"
"Who are you, weakling?"
Liara felt a surge of courage. If she was going to die, she would die fighting.
"Who I am isn't important. I've got half of Omega after me for some reason and I'm going to even the odds. You're with me or you're another number on the body count."
Almost as soon as the words left her mouth Liara fought back a squeak. Where had that come from?
To her surprise, the Krogan laughed.
"Ha! I like you, Liara. I'll fight for you."
"Come again?"
###
XO Han'Gerrel vas Neema scrambled into the room as alarms blared throughout the ship. The Neema and the Penthanar were the prides of the Migrant Fleet, two defunct Turian dreadnoughts salvaged by the Quarians and repaired until they were fully functional again. Their main guns had safeguarded the Migrant Fleet and led the Heavy Fleet for almost seventy years now, and they were filling that role now.
"What's going on, Captain?"
"One unidentified contact, closing fast. Looks like it out masses us by a considerable margin."
He voiced what every watch stander on the bridge was fearing.
"Geth?"
"Unlikely. Look at the design."
He examined the image on the sensors. The design was unmistakeable. The ring shape with the long body behind it, a Quarian vessel. But the ship appeared sleek and smooth, a masterpiece of engineering when compared to the ancient, scrappy vessels of the Migrant Fleet.
"Sir, we're being hailed!"
"Put it up."
An image popped up on the screen of the unmasked back of a Quarian head, black braided hair falling down to the shoulders of the unknown Quarian as a gentle male voice spoke slowly, as if to a child.
"No Tali, Daddy's busy right now. I'm sure Mamma wants to play Privateers and Batarians with you though."
The man turned around and smiled laconically at the screen. Han, never having seen an unmasked Quarian face for more than five minutes at a time, had no idea what the expression meant.
"This is pilgrim Rael'Zorah nar Penthanar returning to the Migrant Fleet, wishing to present my Pilgrimage gift to the Admiralty Board."
There was silence on the bridge.
"Did you say Admiralty Board?"
Rael chuckled drily.
"Believe me, they're going to want to see this."
###
BREAKING NEWS: ULTIMATUM TO HEGEMONY 'RETURN OUR CITIZENS'
BATARIAN AMBASSADOR LEAVES CITADEL IN PROTEST
CAMALA NAMED AS FIRST TARGET
TURIAN COUNCILLOR: 'NO MORE APPEASEMENT'
REPORTS OF MASS CIVIL UNREST ON KHAR'SHAN, LOREK, ARATOHT AND CAMALA UNCONFIRMED
BATARIAN AMBASSADOR: 'HEGEMONY HAS BEEN ABANDONED TO IMPERIALIST USA'
ASARI REPUBLICS CONDEMN MAGNITUDE OF RESPONSE
Admiral Steven Hackett shut off the newsfeed and frowned. He had heard all about Ambassador Goyle's little stunt and had started gearing up the US Fifth Fleet for offensive operations against the Hegemony. For all their braggadocio the Batarians were a paper tiger, using noisy ambassadors and excessive aggression to conceal the fact that they only had the strength to fight wars through deniable terrorist actions, the vast majority of their military being employed to keep their own population in line.
"Hackett to Yorktown. Recall crew from liberty and prepare the fleet for combat operations."