Author's Note: Okay so decided to save the Reaper Codex entry for next week. For Now, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 25: Citadel Part 2
Retaking the Citadel had been a brutal and unpleasant affair, even though it was only the one block that had been compromised it was still swarming with Sovereign's abominations. Saren alongside Garrus and Tali were in for a brutal fight with Desolas's synthorganic corpse, seemingly able to leap the entire plaza in a single bound, the Plethora of Geth implants having made him into a terrifyingly effective combatant, let there be no doubt about that. Adding to the danger was the plethora of husks that seemed to flood every inch of the occupied zone, converted from unlucky Citadel citizens who had been caught up the wake of Sovereign's attack on the citadel with the swarm of insects. Saren Led Tali and Garrus to one of his personalised bunkers he kept hidden around the Citadel for not precisely this emergency but for ones that were so similar the difference was effectively negligible, and had Tali hack into the Citadel, or at least the parts of the Citadel the Council Set up.
His objective? He wanted Tali to manipulate several sub stations to cause a series of explosions across the ward resulting in several breaches into the vacuum of space that subsequently removed the hoard of synthorganic monsters from the citadel proper. After that had been a series of patch jobs to repair the damaged megastructure and restore the atmosphere, finally for the first time in weeks Saren had the time and the luxury of mourning his brother's death. All the while the evacuated people on the Citadel got to watch the god of Draconian people that had played such an instrumental role in tearing Sovereign limb from synthorganic limb. Needless to say there were a few converts to the faith from the citadel. But that was that. Right now the Councilor's, the ones that were left, were currently discussing matters with the members of the Union.
"I find it strange that you still have this reluctance to share technology with us." Tevos stated as she paced around the meeting room aboard the Destiny Ascendant. "It has been made abundantly, laughably clear that your Reapers are both a very real and present threat and are very capable of destroying all of us."
"As you've also made it very clear that if you wanted to you could conquer the entirety of our space." Sparatus followed up as he made his opinion known from the point of view of a military dictatorship.
"The Union isn't a bunch of warlords." Admiral Amanda Shepard stated making her opinion quite clear. "We don't go around beating other governments into submission."
"No, you just thoroughly terrorise them until their willing to hand over their government's leaders into your custody." Din Von was looking at the financial reports for dealing with the aftermath of Sovereign's attack on the Citadel. "How has Dalatress Linron been doing in your custody by the way?"
Amanda glared at the little man. "We arrested a war criminal who participated in a crime against sapient life." The Admiral snapped glaring down at the Volus in question.
"Is that what you did with the Batarian's as well?" Din Von asked looking up at the Admiral, it was hard to tell what kind of expressions he was making through the suit, but he gave the impression of looking rather smug at the moment.
"Are you defending the Batarian's now?" Admiral Shepard asked looking down at the Volus.
"No, but it doesn't help anyone to pretend to be what we are not. The Stellar Union has the largest and strongest fleet of any other race in the Galaxy and is more than willing to use it to beat or terrorise their enemies into submission with it, meanwhile the Citadel council is a government whose history is pot-marked by a long series of consecutive failures leading into one another and will continue to lead into one another." And now having gotten that out of the way. "I would like to propose the formal dissolution of the Citadel Council and officially joining the Stellar Union." That surprised the other two present Councilor's, however Din Von sent them some files. The Contents were less than stellar, or to put it another way extremely pro stellar. "The Reaper's locked us out of the relay's, right now we're trying to retake control over them but the odds are looking... low. On top of that we have thousands of pieces of footage show casing the Union literally taking Sovereign apart bit by bit. Now combine this with the ease by which the Union has resolved issues that have been plaguing the council. Issues that self proclaimed experts claim that the council made for themselves." Tevos and Sparatus both let out a sigh at that. "We have to look at what we have to work with, look at what problems we are facing, and think about what ways that we have to deal with the situation at hand. Right now we know that the Reapers mean to come." The Volus brought up another file, everything that the council currently knew about Sovereign, which mostly consisted of Batarian religious texts. "We know for instance that Sovereign was posted as some kind of vanguard for the rest of the genocidal warships correct?" The other Councillors and the admiral nodded their heads in agreement. "We can presume that he's already sent out the signal to begin waking the rest of the monsters up and that they're on their way right now."
"Haa. Alright how far away are they?" Sparatus asked looking at the admiral while sighing.
"We've been able to obtain... an intelligence capsule for lack of better terms. To be more accurate we've been able to come into contact with the most recent refugees of the Reapers." Amanda brought up a holographic image. "Depending on how chatty the Krogan have been on your extranet you should know them as the Prethoryn. Biological, space dwelling organisms that... visit habitable worlds in order to consume vast quantities of organic matter and reproduce."
"With the Reaper's indoctrination these creatures could be part of their advance forces." Sparatus stated looking at the image of a giant one eyed organism suspiciously.
"A thought that had occurred yes. But we don't think so, for starters it's part of a hive mind, which as we've seen with the Rachni and Thorian seem to be oddly indoctrination resistant, we aren't sure why. And it's reaction after seeing pictures of Sovereign was fear, not reverence." Admiral Shepard stated as she let out a sigh. "That said, they are hostile, so as much as you may think it contradicts our earlier claims concerning how we conduct our business they either must be brought to heel or killed, purely in self defence of course."
"Speaking of completely justified genocide in the name of self defence, the Rachni?" Since it was the council side that were responsible for raising the Noveria Rachni, Tevos won't say something as hypocritical and provoking as suggesting that they be wiped out, she will however demand to know how the creatures that nearly destroyed the council are doing.
"Sticking to their home world for now, rebuilding their shipyards mostly." However the Admiral turned serious as she steered the topic back to the earlier topic. "You may not be so eager to join the Union if the destruction of the citadel and all Mass Relays were listed as part of the prerequisites." The others gulped properly at that. The last time that happened... "Good. Now that you understand the pro's and con's properly you can debate them and get all the trouble out of the way properly."
"Even if we could dismantle the relay's without destroying this part of the Galaxy they're the only way to facilitate long distance travel!" Sparatus snapped by way of reply.
"In this part of the Galaxy yes. Most Union ships have built in systems to facilitate long distance travel but are expensive to use and time consuming to build, we mostly rely on a network like yours so we understand your reluctance to separate from the relays." The Unspoken but was loud enough to be deafening elephant picked that moment to trumpet its trunk. "The moment Sovereign arrived at the citadel the entire network was placed under his control, continuing to rely on a enemy battlement for survival is suicide." The Admiral let out a shrug, her willingness to compromise. "Explain to me a reason why the Citadel shouldn't just be blown to smithereens right now while it is still evacuated. How do you intend to keep it from falling into the Reaper's control again?"
Definitely a conundrum, however Din Von took a few moments to make a few taps on his data pad and brought up a potential solution to their problems, one found by the Union itself, in council space no less.
Thus an experiment was now being conducted, is it possible to bring the Keepers, the insect-like creatures responsible for the Citadel's maintenance, under control. The Keepers were an odd bunch, silent, rarely seen, prone to spontaneously rearranging the offices of unwary Councilors. The creatures were pivotal to the Reaper's plans for the Galaxy, a race dedicated solely to the maintenance of the Citadel in the centuries long gap between cycles of harvest that the Reapers perpetuated. Now a expeditionary force had been launched to plumb the depths of the citadel in search of where they called home, millions of tiny ball like custodian drones with small spindly spider feet were deployed in mass to comb every nook and cranny of the citadel. Then they found it, a spawning pit, a massive machine that fed raw organic material into dozens of pods that exist for no other purpose than mass producing Keeper Drones, itself likely fed by the sheer mass of flushing toilets that spread throughout the citadel. Shepard was sitting above the pit, contemplating her next course of action with a bored expression.
"For the record, I think this is a bad idea." Shepard explained as she held up a jar full of a familiar fungus.
"Orders are orders!" The Thorian sent Shepard telepathic mocking, aware of what she was here to do.
"No your Ego's big enough already." Shepard stated as she non the less opened up the jar. "We don't need to put any more people's lives into your hands."
Saying that Shepard tipped the jar open and dumped its contents into the vat of bubbling goo, watching it dissolve away before she left elsewhere. Things proceeded as normal for the next few days, aside from C-Sec making an effort to harass every Keeper that they found. One of the more odd facts about the Keepers, if anyone interferes with what ever duties they've assigned themselves then they immediately seem to fall apart on a cellular level, as if they would rather be destroyed than interfered with. This never seemed to stop the inexhaustible supply of Keepers, the only logical explanation was that they made new ones to replace them, which is what was hoping to be accomplished here. Then after a few days a new reaction was had, the Keeper wrestled its arm free of a C-Sec guard who had been rough with it. The Thorian had successfully transplanted itself into the Keeper's network of control.
Inside of the council's office the newest of the Councilor's, Esheel a Salarian Dalatress, was getting an injection.
"So this will make me immune to the mind control technology of the Reapers?" Esheel asked as she pulled her sleeve back down while surrounded by the rest of the Councilors.
"With the added benefit of a free telepathic up-link direct to our new friend." Sparatus stated as he reviewed the reports that they had been getting, the new device that resembled a small speaker pinned to his suit that had become standard issue across the military. All of the Militaries. "Someone ask the Thorian how the progress is coming on finding out how to control the Mass Relays."
"The what?" Esheel asked looking confused.
"My Keepers knowledge is not instinctual, the Citadel communicates what it needs to them and they see to it that it's done." Huh. His Keepers were they?
"Let us know when you find it." General Sparatus stated bluntly. "I'm not particularly interested in seeing the Mass Relay network taken control of again are you?"
"By someone other than us?" Tevos asked bluntly.
That was the idea, yes.
The Citadel wasn't the only place that saw the Thorian shoved into for the purpose of growing a huge chunk of the mass. Experiments conducted with the Thorian confirmed it's ability to grow plants with the same ease as it did people. That got ideas working. It was standard issue for the Citadel Agriculture settlements to have sewage processing facilities, giant masses of raw organic materials waiting to be turned into fertiliser. Inject enough Thorian spores into said giant mass of raw organic matter and watch it transform over the course of the next few weeks, slice off sections of said organic matter dry it, powderise it, and spread it over a field, let it sink in for a few days and then lay down the seed for your crops. It's not too different from what the Stellar union does, the only difference being that they seed their agri-world's atmosphere with fertiliser, or in this case Thorian spores, and let it rain down on the planet's countless farms naturally. The existence of the Thorian was kept top secret, limited only to the highest echelons of the two governments, but luckily they didn't even have to lie to the people involved, merely inform them that the Thorian was a additive to accelerate crop growth and did it ever.
Growth that would normally take months occurred in a matter of days, with the exception of the Turians and Quarians various races were gobbling down food that had been laced with Thorian Spores. The Thorian wasn't allowed to talk to or manipulate people, but he didn't have to either. All of the organic waste matter was going to the Thorian clusters that one by one were spreading from world to world, and so was plenty of water as well, the God of fungus was thriving and he wasn't slowing down any. And he wasn't the only one either.
You'd be hard pressed to recognise Tuchanka from the days of old, the Irradiated wasteland was being swallowed up by lush fields of green crops and pastures of large plus sized creatures the union used for food. Shepard and Smok were sitting on top of one of the apartment complexes that had been built for the Krogan, drinking the local swill.
"Ugh. Who in their right mind drinks this stuff?" Smok asked looking down at the beverage cylinder.
"Just wait until the Thorian is done recoiling, that's when the real buzz hits." Shepard stated laughing at her adoptive sibling's misfortune.
"I, cannot believe, that my continued existence, is in the hands of you self destructive creatures!" The Thorian had plenty of time to familiarise itself with the thoughts and habits of the Galaxy.
"So are you gonna make me ask?" Shepard questioned looking directly at Smok brows raised.
"About?"
"Thuban! Since when does she leave the Draconian home system!" Shepard asked glaring at the Draconian Dragoon.
"Oh you haven't heard yet have you?" Smok asked and Shepard's brow twitched in annoyance at this blatant teasing. "Thuban laid eggs a little while ago, so she isn't as concerned with staying off the front lines as she used to be."
Shepard blinked stupidly at the news.
"How did that happen?" Shepard asked looking concerned.
"Thuban you see needs a nest before she can lay eggs, but she wasn't able to build one herself, she needed the rest of us to build it for her. So she took the first inhabited planet she could find and decided to sink her all into protecting and raising it so that it could do for her what she couldn't do for herself. Course she arrived in the aftermath of the Reaper Zroni war so she didn't have a lot to work with." An entire civilisation was built up for the singular purpose of building a nest. This was so ridiculous it was sad.
"And she's just telling you this now?" Shepard asked looking at Smok with blatant suspicion.
"We couldn't understand her before, our universal translation software hadn't developed enough at the time, it was only after we added the languages of the Citadel that the software advanced enough that we could create actual two way communication." Well that would explain it. "Course Thuban's kids have already been inoculated against indoctrination." Becauses that literally all they need, actual gods under the Reaper's control, course now they just have to worry about this symbiotic brain fungus with a god complex controlling them instead. They'll probably be okay.
"Is there a hard limit on the number of the big scary space dragons that she can produce?" Shepard asked this multicar pile up a situation increasingly spinning out of control.
Smok shrugged in response to the question. Even if there was a biological limit to Thuban's reproductive capabilities, technology came in to succeed where she might fail, The Dragon's Nest detailed a incubator space habitat that would facilitate the birth of one of her eggs. The Draconian's have been studying Thuban's biology for years, her scales was the basis of the neigh indestructible Dragon scale armour, and having successfully synthesized her and her off spring's DNA, they could make more of them. And they would need them, for even if each of the Dragon Chicks was only a fraction of the strength of their mother she had still throttled a Reaper utterly, and they were going to need more of them. Lots and Lots more of them.
Only Virmire was spared among the planets that Desolas had taken an interest in. However with the other three planets the Union already had everything they needed to know to track down Desolas's final destination and objective, The Council was sent a polite message by the Union to clean up at least part of their own mess. So a team of Council agents had been sent, alongside a spectre one Jondam Bau. Virmire was a garden world, largely untouched by colonisation situated in the neutral zone between council and Terminus space. Because of this, Virmire was subject to raids near constantly by a endless stream of warlords, pirates, slavers and the like. Horrible choice for a colony, excellent choice for a black site research facility.
"Desolas's remaining forces have been neutralised. Footage will be deployed shortly depicting the slaughtered enemy forces." Jondam explained into his coms, he was in the midst of using his omni-tool to take footage of several piles of dead mercenaries and Collectors alongside that of his team. The footage having been taken Jondam stiffly turned around and walked past dozens of Collectors who were conducting genetic tests with the various species that they had taken specimens of, and were busy loading up the cloning and conversion technology onto their ships, and even had enough energy charged up for their own worm hole drive to take them back to their base of operations with their bountiful harvest of future husks, in the meantime their own spies walked back onto their ship and head back to their home sectors to begin feeding information back to them on everything that the Council and Union were planning on doing to stop or delay the Reaper's arrival.
With the conquering of Batarian space a massive amount of free real-estate had opened up, mind you they opened up to a series of worlds that can only be considered barely habitable, the Batarian's liked their worlds hot it seems. Still an effort was being made, a shockingly effective effort at that, as terraforming ships were deployed around this region of space to improve the environment where possible. In particular was a research station located in the Bahak system. Council Archaeology determined that Bahak was home to the oldest known Mass Relay in the galaxy, hence dubbed the Alpha Relay, surely such information was invaluable to the ongoing Mass Relay decommissioning project? Indeed, this was the explanation given to the public after a research station had been set up on the second world from Bahak's unreasonable sun Aratoht, and indeed that is what they were doing at the planet. But it wasn't all that they were doing.
A Tebrid technician was playing on several consoles when he heard a beep. Pausing his game, the Tebrid noticed that a timer that had been set for a month had begun to go off. Letting out a sigh, the little starfish quickly, flawlessly entered the 246 long digit code and the console let out a beep as the timer reset and paused. 24 Hours later he would enter that same code again, and again, and again. That was his one job. Life is easy for high priority dead man switches like him, all he had to do was game and punch in a simple code like this.
There is no such thing as 'small' Prethoryn, even the smallest possible units are at least as big as a Krogan, when you discount the need for them to stretch their bodies out to fly. It had a certain way of bringing out the inferiority complex in them. Krogan are use to being the biggest baddest things around, and indeed the fact that it took the death's of over a hundred Prethoryn before even one was brought down was testament to this fact as well, of course this also largely had to do with the engineering and materials sunk into the Krogan's Union issued arms and armour, but that's not something the survivors would boast about in front of the females. Not that this one would do much boasting any time soon. No his mind was being plumbed by vicious and calculating alien intelligence, after being wrung through the ringer like this he would be 'rewarded' for his efforts to hold onto his consciousness and resist telepathic probing with a nice hot acid bath. But for now information needed to be plumbed.
Citadel Council? Laughably weaker than the Union that they have had to deal with up until now? Through Eden System? The Prethoryn needed a lot of supplies if they were to escape this galaxy after all, unfortunately they were losing more then they were gaining fighting against the Union. There were limits to what they could advance themselves by eating Union ships after all, among them was the hyper drive that enabled travel through the Hyper lanes, because of their own Hyper Organ they could enable the same thing. Time to see if the Citadel races really were as weak as the Krogan thought that they were, the survival of their species may depend on it.
All across the Galaxy every faction was moving, every void filling, every eventually being planned for and countered, all moving for their own interests, profit, survival, destruction, preservation. The War in Heaven hadn't come yet, but it was getting close, closer, and closer still. On a station overlooking a star, a single viewing window had been opened, the familiar form of Skeletor walked over to a chair surrounded by Consoles and sat down. After a pause the Lich did what no Lich should ever do, and removed his helmet, sitting it down on a table next to him the holographic image of a red eyed fanged skull visible inside of it disappeared.
"Long day?" A Black haired shapely woman held out a box of cigars to the person who just removed his helmet. Said man raised a single finger expressing his opinion of his head researcher's little joke before he snatched one of the cigars.
"If I was in that suit a day longer then I swear I would've turned into a Lich for real." The woman held her finger to end of the cigar and let her Pyrokinesis work lighting the cigar on fire.
"You were the one who wanted to be an Illusive Man Jack." The thought to be a Lich held the cigar between two fleshy human lips and breathed deeply before exhaling. "Still, one can argue that the Dragoon project was a success." Miranda pulled up a data slate and reviewed the profile pictures of the six individuals inside. "Miranda, we had almost two hundred candidates and now we only have six." Jack snapped synthetic eyes glaring.
"It's one of the biggest wastes of money that Cerberus has ever been allotted and it wasn't even enough to chase off one Reaper. We need to work a lot harder if we want to kill the rest of them." No rest of the would be saviour's of the galaxy after all.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Not too many new species if that's what you're wondering.
Clown2107: To me, personally, the final battle against Saren and Sovereign was always underwhelming and kinda stupid. Sovereign created a giant glaring weak point for itself for no other reason than trying to kill Shepard before the rest of the Reapers could get there, and if it wasn't for the fact that this version of Shepard has actual weaponry that could theoretically hurt it it wouldn't have tried it here either. As for Desolas he died the moment he turned into a husk, as for the fate of the husk Saren personally saw to it's destruction, and then he followed that up by venting the atmosphere inside of the ward to get rid of the rest of them.
Pokemonever1994: You're underestimating how much value this incident has for Sovereign now that he's gotten the chance to pick an admiral's brain. Both sides have gotten valuable intelligence on the other.
