Some changes - In canon Mindoir is in the Attican Traverse somewhere, though I don't believe an exact system is ever given. In this story it will be in the Horse Head Nebula in the Fortuna System.
Chapter 2
Admiral Cremer took a sip from her tumbler glass, the smoky whiskey burning her throat in a way she actually found enjoyable. While the masses celebrated the end of the conflict with the turians, a day already being called Armistice Day, and marveled at the news that there was an entire galactic community out there, she found herself in a secluded area of Reach.
While it was true that Arcturus Station was the headquarters for parliament and the navy, the space station couldn't become the military stronghold they wanted it to be. That honor would be bestowed upon Reach, though it was still going to be decades until the colony reached the potential the Systems Alliance dreamed for it. Right now the only thing it really had going for it was a small town called New Alexandria that had a couple thousand civilians living there. Most of them worked at the mines.
Soon the population here would swell as construction workers started to get shipped in. There would be shipyards, barracks, training grounds, weapon factories, and so much more. Corporations like Hahne-Kedar were investing millions in getting an industrial compound set up. All part of a giant military complex that would help grow the strength of humanity in the galaxy.
In its current state, the only thing that stood where the military complex was going up was a single trailer. Bland on the outside, it was richly decorated on the inside, and set up with an AI computer and holographic display. That is where Admiral Cremer found herself, along with several others in Systems Alliance Intelligence Services: Section 3.
They sat in a circle around a holographic projector showing the various new alien species they had suddenly become aware of in the past week. The Council, after the terms of the ceasefire had been agreed upon by the Systems Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy, had provided the Alliance with basic biological and historical data on every sentient race they had contact with. The Alliance had, stupidly in many SAIS' opinions, provided the Council the same for humans.
"Show us the non-council races.," Major Burgos said.
Most of the holographic aliens vanished from sight, leaving only five left; the Vorcha, the Krogan, the Quarians, the Geth, and the Collectors. The last one, the Collectors, was the only one that had a blurry image of what the species looked like.
"Christ, doesn't exactly leave us with a lot of choices," Member of Parliament Haugseng muttered. He threw back the rest of his glass of scotch, and slammed his glass down on the table next to him. The only diplomat in the room, he was often the one who had to point out the political messes of some of the ideas they considered.
"They aren't even sure if these Collectors exist," Admiral Cremere pointed out. "Reports are that they show up every couple of years, do some shopping, and then disappear again to not be seen for another couple of years. And the systems they show up in are in what the Council calls the Terminus Systems, governed mostly by various outlaw groups. They can't verify the reports."
"What about the vorcha?" Major Burgos asked, leaning forward in her chair to stare at the images.
Major Kyle cleared his throat. "I'm summarizing here but the docket says they're stupid and overly aggressive. Not smart enough to build their own ships. Short lived too. Maybe twenty years if they're lucky."
"Yeah, but they have minor regenerative abilities, similar to a flatworm, and can adapt to almost any environment without the need of enviro-suits. Sounds like perfect cannon fodder to me." With a vicious grin Rear Admiral Komen leaned back in his chair, and brought his cigar up to his mouth. "Give them some weapons and point them at the enemy. Easy way to boost our numbers."
"If these reports are right, their worlds are on the other side of the galaxy from us, and there's no way we can control them. The only thing they respond to is strength. If they think the leader is weak, they'll kill the leader and fight each other for the right to be the next one to lead. Unless we can curb that in them, they're too much of a risk."
"What about the krogan?" Rear Admiral Komen asked. "Intel says they're pretty close to us, and compared to the vorcha they're bigger, tougher, and smarter. And they have multiple redundant organs and a redundant nervous system."
"Their homeworld is close by but they're scattered across the galaxy. Only a couple million actually live on their homeworld, and they're broken up between warring clans. Largest clans appear to number only a couple thousand. Something happened to them called a genophage."
"Hmm, I've never heard that term before. Anyone know what this genophage is?" MP Haugseng asked. The others all shook their heads; the word didn't ring a bell. "Mendac, do you have a guess?"
Appearing next to the images of the aliens was a smoky orb. While most AIs took the appearance of a person, Mendac took a different approach, one more befitting his role as the artificial intelligence for Systems Alliance Intelligence Services: Section 3.
"From the information we have been provided, my best guess is biological warfare of some kind, likely targeting the reproductive abilities of the krogan."
"Holy shit. You mean like they made them sterile?" Major Kyle asked, his normally stoic face showing his shock. "The Council did that to another species?"
"Like I said, that is my best guess. The information reads that the krogan fight everything and everyone, including themselves. They nuked their own planet back to the stone age during tribal wars thousands of years ago. The salarians uplifted them to help fight an insectoid alien that was taking over the galaxy. The krogans helped the Council win and were given worlds to colonize but within a few hundred years they overpopulated them and started attacking Council colonies. Doesn't seem like the krogan are that numerous anymore. Birth rates have dropped significantly."
"If they were able to overpopulate worlds that quick, they fuck worse than rabbits," Major Burgos said in a matter of fact tone. "If that's the case, sterilizing a large portion of the population would make sense if you wanted to get them under control. Either that or kill off the species I guess."
"It likely means they hate the Council, which we can manipulate. We don't have a lot to go on right now but I think we should look further into them."
They all made note to look into the krogan more. There was a lot of information they were going to have to gather without the Council being aware.
"And that brings us to the last two. The reason the Council doesn't trust AI."
"The quarians didn't just create AI, they created sentient machines."
"Technically they created multiple virtual intelligences that linked together and developed sentience on its own," Mendac explained.
"Feeling a little defensive there Mendac?" Major Burgos asked.
"I am merely pointing out facts."
"Why are we even discussing the geth? They kill anything that enters their space, no questions asked," Major Kyle reminded them.
"We have artificial intelligence ourselves," Rear Admiral Komen said. "If one of our AIs initiates the conversation that might grant us some leeway the others don't have."
"Yeah, or maybe they corrupt our AIs, we have a revolt and all of us have to deal with Mendac trying to kill us."
"My programming will not allow me to -"
"I was joking, Mendac," Major Burgos said, interrupting the AI.
"The point stands though. We have no idea what the geth are capable of. We don't need them corrupting a spaceship's AI."
"Which leaves us with the quarians," Major Kyle said.
"Who hate AI with a passion, no offense Mendac."
"None taken."
"True but look at the information the Council gave us on them," Admiral Cremer started, waving her hand at the image of the quarians. "They have no place to call their own and are social pariahs. They live in ships that travel across the galaxy from system to system, stripping asteroids and moons of their natural resources as they go, and their ships are in constant need of repair. The other species won't let them dock their ships anywhere, let alone settle on a world, and they don't have the resources to settle a world on their own."
"At a minimum, they're perfect trade partners," MP Haugseng said, catching on to the Admiral's train of thought. "They need resources we can provide, we need access to all this advanced tech the other species have that the Council won't let them trade to us."
"Exactly. We should find out where this migrant fleet is and send an envoy. One without any AI on board. Even if we can't negotiate an alliance, the trade opportunities alone makes it worth it."
"Alright then one question, how exactly are we supposed to find this migrant fleet?"
"We can't trust them."
It was a common statement in the Turian Hierarchy whenever the conversation of their new neighbors was brought up. Even those who had urged for peace with the humans, before the incident escalated into something more, had the opinion. Oh they might not have had the opinion at first, but as soon as the humans denied joining the Citadel they destroyed whatever trust members of the Hierarchy might have been willing to extend them. Now almost everyone looked in the direction of human controlled space with suspicion.
The monkeys, an increasingly common slur being taken up by citizens once it became known that humans evolved from primates, didn't have the technology needed to be a serious threat to the turians, but every officer who had fought in the incident, at least those not jaded by hatred and bigotry, said that the humans were capable fighters. That meant that when they did manage to catch up with the technology of the rest of the galaxy, they could cause a lot of trouble. Trouble the Hierarchy could easily handle, but trouble all the same.
Admiral Tibeter Dexidus stood with his hands behind his back, as he observed the construction of the newest dreadnought in the Turian armada. It was to be one of two that would be joining the navy in the coming years, along with a dozen cruisers and thirty new frigates, both light and heavy classes. For the first time in a long time the Hierarchy had ordered the creation of an entire fleet, and not just one fleet, but two of them. There was a new direction of the galaxy they might be attacked from that needed to be guarded, a new direction that had billions of potential enemies. Yes there would be a salarian patrol fleet in the area around the mass relay but could they really trust the salarians to defend them?
No it would be turian fleets that would defend turian space. And turian soldiers who defended turian planets.
Because it wasn't just two new fleets they were in the process of creating; the ships would need marines to repel boarders, board enemy ships, and conduct ground operations. So two new divisions of marines were also to be created. A lot more teenagers would be called to join the service on their 15th birthday, and many of the old timers who had entered into the reserves would be called back to serve as NCOs in the new division, for at least a few years. They would be asking a lot of the turian people to make sure they had the numbers to man the ships and fill the ranks, but the turian people would answer the call. They always did.
"How is the new dreadnought coming along?"
Tibeter turned to see General Camso Palinian approaching him. Camso was to be the leader of one of the new divisions of marines. The brass was still shuffling officers around and handing out promotions from the Relay 314 Incident. Soon Camso would have the officers assigned to him, and from there he would start building out the rest of his division.
"Good. I am told it will have the new, improved cyber warfare programming. Having it ready for these new ships was a top priority for the Hierarchy."
The old virtual intelligence cyber warfare protections, the ones that most of the turian fleet had, had not been enough against the human's artificial intelligence. The human AIs had run havoc on their fleet disrupting firing sequences, shutting down systems, and the like. It was hard to say how the upgrades would fare against the human AIs, but there was no way of knowing without testing it against them. The Hierarchy had high hopes.
"That humans would use artificial intelligence like that, especially being so otherwise primitive," General Palinian shook his head, "it's a wonder the AI hasn't turned against them yet."
"Well, should we meet in battle again, we'll be ready this time."
Arcturus Station, being the headquarters to the Systems Alliance parliament and navy, meant it had access to the very best in human ingenuity. One of the rooms on the station was dark blue in color, with hundreds of tiny lenses built into the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. It was a full room holographic projector with a virtual touch display.
The projector currently showed the controlled human space of the Milky Way Galaxy. In the middle of it all was the Prime Minister, a grouping of stars and planets distorted across his body. Standing against the wall, blocking part of the holographic image with her body, was his Chief of Staff.
The Prime Minister held his hands out in front of him, close together with the fingers curled so the pointer and middle finger touch his thumb. He moved his hands away from each other, spreading out his fingers in the process. The image of the Milky Way Galaxy zoomed out, both occupants closing their eyes against the dizzying display of light as the stars and planets shrunk in size, and hundreds of millions of objects jumped into the image. Instead of just looking at the human controlled section, the room was filled with the entire Milky Way, at least as far as humans were able to map it out at that time. It showed known stars, planets, asteroid belts, gas clouds, and anything else one would find in space. Most importantly it showed the known mass relays.
"Alexander, map out the mass relay system as we knew it before the First Contact War," the Prime Minister said.
Red lines appeared on the galaxy map, connecting a few of the local star clusters.
The Charon Mass Relay in the Sol System, the relay in the Local Cluster, connected only to the Arcturus Mass Relays in the Euler System in the Arcturus Stream. The Arcturus MRs had connections to the Local Cluster, the Exodus Cluster through the mass relays in the Utopia System, and the Pythéas Cluster through the Shanxi Mass Relays in the Polo System. Through the Exodus Cluster they could access the Horse Head Nebula through the Pax Mass Relays.
The Shanxi MRs led them to another star cluster they had called the Cook Cluster, but the Council called the Arikil Cluster. It was there, in a solar system that was referred to as the Banneker System by the Alliance and the Laeus System by the Council, that an Alliance exploratory flotilla had been attempting to activate a dormant mass relay. That was where the war had started, and a salarian patrol fleet now operated. The colony they were working on establishing in the Cook Cluster was going to be called Destiny. That the fates prevented humanity from establishing Destiny raised the eyebrows of the more superstitious folks in the Systems Alliance.
"Update the map with the mass relay connection to the Citadel."
A blue line appeared, connecting the Exodus Cluster to the Serpent Nebula, where the Citadel was located. The Council hadn't provided any other mass relay connection to them However, probes and deep space observatory stations had shown them that habitable star clusters were nearby. Study of the mass relays in the systems they occupied showed them that it was possible to travel in the directions of those habitable star clusters via those same mass relays, directions they hadn't explored yet and now resided in Citadel controlled space. Which meant they couldn't explore them anymore without potentially starting a new war.
What that said to the Prime Minister was that there were a lot of directions humans could get attacked from, and they had no idea what could be coming from the other side. All that they knew was that Turian controlled space was apparently very close to the Cook Cluster. Despite the fact that the cluster had been empty of any life when they had first discovered it, it was apparently considered Citadel space. Though that was likely more due to the fact that the turians wanted a buffer between them and humanity, something humanity was more than okay with.
"Alexander, highlight Citadel controlled space, Systems Alliance controlled space, and the part of the galaxy called the Terminus Systems."
The blue of the Citadel space covered the majority of the galaxy. It surrounded the red Alliance space on three sides. The fourth side had no color, it was the open, unexplored space available for them to continue expanding to. The Terminus Systems were on the other side of the galactic center. Would they even be able to get to those systems without first traveling through Citadel space, potentially starting another conflict?
The Prime Minister surveyed it all carefully, his brows furrowed. Things like this were supposed to be handled by the Systems Alliance Naval Command, and maybe it was something they were already discussing, but ever since finding out exactly how close these Citadel races were to human space, it had weighed on the Prime Minister's mind.
"What are you thinking sir?" the Chief of Staff asked.
"We need to map out these mass relays and find out which one goes where, even if it leads to Citadel space. How can we properly defend ourselves if we don't know what could potentially be entering our systems from which direction?"
There was no response. There wasn't the expectation of one. It was a question that's only answer was, "we can't." It was a question they shouldn't have to be asking themselves.
"Set up a meeting with Naval Command."
The music of the club was loud and heavy on the bass. It didn't just pound in Operations Chief Mikhail Bortsov's ears, it shook his very bones. How was anyone supposed to hear anyone over this? He vaguely remembered clubs back on Earth being similar to this, back when he had been young, dumb, and on shore leave. Now that he was older, he tried to recall what the appeal of all of it was. All it looked like to him now, was a great way to wake up with tinnitus in the morning.
He had been on the Citadel for a little over two months now. He, along with twenty-five other Marines and the thirty-three naval personnel it took to pilot the light frigate called the SSV Hastings, had been assigned to accompany the first human ambassador to the Citadel. Despite the sixty days he had spent on it, Mikhail was still blown away by what he saw every day. The sheer feat of engineering it must have taken to build the Citadel was mind boggling. He had learned that it was none of the races who existed that had built it, but in fact it was the Protheans who created this engineering marvel; the same aliens whose ruins had been discovered on Mars, and who had apparently built the mass relay network. What a powerful civilization they must have been. How did a civilization with that type of power go extinct?
At the moment he found himself in a place called Flux, a seedy nightclub in the Upper Wards near the Presidium, where both the human embassy and the human compound could be found. After leaving his mid-twenties behind he didn't think he would ever be found in a place like this, but there was a reason he was letting his eardrums suffer the abuse they currently were.
Mikhail was N7 and Z5, though the Z designation, indicating military intelligence, was known only by those in military intelligence. He had been hand picked by the Systems Alliance Intelligence Services to be part of the security detail on the Citadel because they had a secondary mission for him; to make contact with the Quarian Migrant Fleet. And to do so without any of the Citadel races being aware of what he was doing. Which was, as the saying went, easier said than done.
He played the inquisitive new kid on the block, asking questions about anything and everything, throwing in questions about the quarians between questions about the salarians, and the elcor and the hanar. He had seen a few quarians from afar, easily recognizable by their enviro-suits and that they were roughly the same size as your average human, compared to the short and round volus, who also wore envio-suits, but the quarians didn't interact much with others, outside of a few instances of bullying by the other species. What Mikhail learned was that the quarians mostly seen by the other races, whether it was here on the Citadel or on some other station, were young adults on, what the quarians called, a pilgrimage. It was a right of passage they had to undergo in order to reach adulthood, and each of them needed to return with something useful for the fleet. Which took however long it needed to take.
There were both pros and cons to that. What better thing to bring back to their fleet than an offer to meet with a new species, ones who didn't have the history of shunning your people and were willing to offer you resources no one else would? The problem was the person he'd be giving that offer to was young, prone to being bullied and assaulted by others, which meant whatever he gave them had a high chance of being stolen, and lightyears away from the fleet they needed to get the information to.
He had chosen Flux for his attempt to make contact with a quarian for two reasons. The first was that, even if they weren't viewed favorably by most, the quarians on the Citadel were young, and young people generally liked places filled with music, alcohol, and other young people. The second was that if he was being tailed, whether it be because they didn't trust him as a human or because he wasn't as subtle inquiring about quarians as he thought he was, the loud music would make it impossible for anyone to overhear anything he had to say.
As the curious bartender placed a drink in front of him, something Mikhail wasn't entirely sure wouldn't kill him, his eyes scanned the rest of the club. He found what he was looking for against a far wall, a single quarian sitting in a booth by themself. He waved his credit chit, the equivalent of a credit card, over the console the bartender held out to him and grabbed his drink.
"Is this going to kill me?" he asked in a yell, wishing he could have just ordered a whiskey or a beer of some kind.
The bartender, an asari, shrugged her shoulders; his shoulders? He was still unsure what to refer to the asari as. He took a sip and found himself thrown into a coughing fit, his eyes starting to water. By god, it burned his throat like no liquor on Earth had ever done. It settled into his stomach, leaving a burning path down the length of his esophagus. He was fairly positive he was going to throw this up in the morning.
The bartender looked at him in concern but he waved them off. As far as he could tell the drink wasn't going to kill him, but damn if it didn't taste, and burn, like he was drinking battery acid. He took another, smaller, sip, and grimaced. Someone was going to have to introduce a nice smooth vodka to the Citadel, show them what real alcohol was all about.
He moved from the bar, drink in hand, in the opposite direction of the quarian, and circled the dance floor. As he went he did his best to both look around at everything, as if trying to take in every sight he could, while also keeping an eye on the quarian. Last thing he needed was for them to get up in leave, or even to draw the ire of one of the other club goers for whatever bigoted reason.
In his pocket was the data module he was to give to the quarian. It included coordinates, navmaps, and several pages of diplomatic talk that had been translated into quarian by a combination of the Council language programs and human AI. It requested a meeting between the two species, to discuss establishing ties between them.
He slowly came around to the table where the quarian sat. They were looking at him, no doubt scrutinizing the new species. He slid into the booth across from the quarian, and looked right at them. Without being able to see their face, Mikhail had no idea if they looked at him with curiosity or apprehension. Maybe it was a mixture of both.
