Author's Note: Okay so little later in the day then I was hoping for, got delayed with something else, Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 26: Citadel Part 3
A solemn mood had taken hold over the Citadel, the Conduit had been removed, alongside a decent sized chunk of the ward, in it's place a giant slab of metal in which names had been engraved. Everyone who had been killed during Sovereign's attack on the Citadel. There was some controversy to include Desolas's name as well, but that was part of the point wasn't it? Reapers have no accomplices, they have people they break down until they're willing to work with them. A familiar collection of individuals were on board the station on this day. High Lord Xidre, Cherrel Kahn, the Lithoid Trio and more, the entire Stellar Union's leadership was present, placing bouquets of exotic flowers, statuettes of crystal, the Tebrid offered a single data pad. Each of them had come to offer their own sympathies and tokens of appreciation unique to their own cultures. Then a speech, High Lord Xidre took to the stand, not because the Lich's hold an imaginary position of superiority but because his people fought the Reapers before and even if only as a shell of themselves remained they had survived.
"Myself and my esteemed colleagues have come here to offer not apologies but our sympathies." The Glowing eyes of the High lord glared out of his completely visible skull as he scanned the crowd. "We don't have anything to apologise for, The Council doesn't have anything to apologise for, not even the Desolas Arterius has anything to apologise for despite your misgivings." The crowd nearly ran riot at that. "Do I need to walk Arterius's corpse onto this stage to show you all that he was not under his own power!?" Xidre's voice boomed, not in their ears but in their heads. "The Reapers are coming, the monster that is responsible for this is one of countless legion. If not the conduit they would have forced their way through, if Sovereign reguardless of whether Sovereign was destroyed then his brethren would have come here in legions, and they are coming, make no mistake about that. We offer sympathy, not apologies nor protection, but alliance!" The Lich clenched his fist as a certain energy flowed into the crowd, a small patriotic fever. "We offer the chance to fight alongside one another, and us, to protect your families and ours from the threats that loom over the horizon."
Not even subtle psionic manipulation could fix the feelings of fear in the crowd, but there are other forms of blatant manipulation on the table as well.
"Sounds great to me!" One Turian in the crowd stood to his feet, his face covered in colonial tattoos. "I don't know about you guys, but I don't know too many Turian's that have been quick to back down from a fight! Do you!?" More Turian's stood up, even a few Volus, the Shield and Sword of the Council does not hide easily.
"How can you want to fight!" A Asari woman stood up to challenge the outspoken Turian, her daughter hiding behind her dress peaking out at the Turian in question. "Look around you!" The Scars on the citadel were quite fresh. "Have you seen what they've done!?"
"Have you!?" The Turian snapped back by way of reply. "Do you want this to happen in your homes next, do you want your daughter to end up as one of those Banshee's that nearly tore this station apart!? Do you want to become the spear that impales her!?" The Crowd was getting restless.
"I can help too!" A Salarian this time stood up. "My company makes VI programs for managing Bank accounts, can easily be reprogrammed to manage the myriad of systems aboard star ships!" That set the crowd off, there was more than one way to contribute to a war after all.
"The Volus Engineering corps stand ready!" A Volus shouted. "'He who Desires but acts not breeds pestilence!'" The little man in a maintenance worker's uniform sounded like he was quoting religious scripture. The crowd was whipped into a frenzy after that. It was a long while before everything had settled down enough that everyone could get to their respective battle stations, whether that was behind a gun or in front of a conveyor belt or in front of a console.
After a few hours The Highlord arrived at the guest apartment that had been prepared for him, the entire block had been rented out, recent events have left certain absences in the Citadel's population. For now he turned his attention to a Volus who was changing out of the maintenance worker's uniform and a Turian that was cleaning the Henna makeup off of his face.
"How long does this skin stain last for?" Saren asked looking at himself in a mirror.
"In humans? About a week." The High lord explained while some more individuals were covertly entering the apartment, a Asari, another Turian and a Salarian.
Saren was more immediately concerned about how his face was turning red.
"I think I might be allergic to this stuff."
"Have some skin cream." Sparatus stated putting a Turian branded cream on a table for Saren. "What's the next step in our plan?"
"For propaganda? We plan on taking miss Sha'ira to Thessia, we're hoping the presence of the Prothean cipher in her mind might awaken a sleeping giant inside of the temple of Athame." The Lich explained placing his cane next to the kitchen counter.
"You want to do what inside of the Prothean Temple?" Tevos asked sounding very upset.
"Prothean technology was designed to react to their unique biology, a lot of which is up here?" The Lich tapped his head. "They possessed the unique ability to absorb information from, and in some cases put it into, objects."
"Like the beacon found on Therum?" Sparatus asked cocking a suspicious brow and the Lich nodded in the affirmative.
"You think there's another stash of Prothean technology hidden on Thessia?" Esheel looked hungry.
"The Asari are the Prothean's final legacy. They were far, far below stacking the deck in their favour and that was before they were pushed so far as to try and re-making a species to fight against the Reapers." The High lord explained bluntly.
"Should we attempt to bring her and the Dragoon to other Prothean ruins as well?" The Din Von asked finishing with the maintenance worker's uniform.
"Perhaps." The High Lord admitted. "But I believe that Thessia is where the juciest fruit should be located." The High lord didn't have a lot of confidence in Prothean technology, but they made the conduit, not only did they manage to build a back door into the citadel, but said door represented a massive innovation in technology. "Aside from Ilos that is but..." But now thanks to Sovereign there's a giant hole where the Prothean capital used to be.
"We're off topic. You armed the Krogan with arms and armour to fight for you, is the rest of us off the table?" Sparatus asked looking at the High lord suspiciously.
"That answer is complicated." The High Lord stated bluntly. "I have no doubt that if we labelled a piece of technology 'warning highly unstable do not tamper' that reasonable people such as Turian's, or Asari, or Volus such as yourselves would leave it alone and use it as intended. The Krogan mostly have the same reputation, with the exception of a few gun enthusiasts that we had to explain if the Zero Point Modules were tampered with in any way the ensuing explosion would wipe out a solar system." The High lord turned to Esheel, blatantly ignoring the looks on the other Councilors faces that were along the lines of 'why would you even give them something like that!?' "But the Salarians have a reputation."
Esheel couldn't even argue that, so instead she would lean into it.
"And the Quarian's don't? Their ships are practically made out of glue and jury-rigged technology!" Esheel snapped feeling like she had a way in.
"The Quarian's sent every one of age to take the pilgrimage and below to attend Stellar Union sponsored schools in engineering, physics and science and various other related topics so that they understand the dangers behind the technology that they're working with. You on the other hand I bet don't even know what a Zero Point Module is do you?" The Highlord's tone of voice was one you'd use to address a child but Esheel was too busy on her omni-tool blatantly exploiting the loopholes that she was just given. "I'm going to regret talking now aren't I?"
"I know I will." Sparatus could feel the headache coming on. "Let's hold some proper discussions, what are you willing to give us to kill the reapers, what you aren't, and what we're going to have to pay for?"
"Any force willing to fight against the Reapers, criminals included, will be given standard issue armour fitted to their species." The High lord stated as he let out a sigh. "Budgetary restraints and possible technical difficulties each race might experience may mean that we'll have to adjust the load out as needed. We should start with the Asari, they have the same body shape as human's so the number of adjustments to make should be minimal. Tevos I'm sure you don't mind if we use you as a reference point for the rest of the Asari?" The High lord brought out a tablet to call some people over with a scanner. "I'm of a little below average build, some adjustments may have to be made." Tevos stated bluntly. "What do you mean model?"
"Oh, Armour manufacturing usually requires that we know what kind of body types the person in question has." Tevos processed the implications behind the words.
"You mean for me to strip and have pictures taken?" Tevos asked looking at the high lord seriously.
"I mean for you to remove clothing that hides what shape your arms, legs and torso is and step into a scanner. Would you like to do so in private?"
The Normandy was currently parked on Tuchanka, its crew waiting for dispatch orders for its next job. Shepard had taken to the down time with enthusiasm, currently dressed in her leotard, her equivalent of underclothes, as she was poring a glass of water, in the mean time a Krogan doctor walked behind her, muttering all the way along.
"Sorry for the inconvenience doc!" Shepard wired a few extra solar credits to the doctor by way of apology. In the mean time Shepard carried the trey with a glass of water and dissolving pain pills over to Liara who was on the bed, naked, with a splint over her thigh. "Well we know not to try that again."
"I suspect that between the super strength and weighing a few hundred pounds means that there's a lot of positions that are off the table when it comes to you." Liara stated taking and drinking from the glass. Shepard fell backwards into the bed, which then bounced Liara into the air from the force.
"Well... I can try being on bottom next time." Shepard tried to cheer Liara up and Liara let out a sigh.
"I think I need to tie you down first next time so the jolt of pleasure going through your brain doesn't lead you to knee me again." Liara explained as she quickly proceeded to down the entire glass of water in one shot.
"Bondage? Sure sounds like a good idea to me." Shepard stated as she shrugged her shoulders.
"Bondage?" Liara asked looking at Shepard suspiciously.
"We need to sit down some time and watch porn." Shepard stated letting out a sigh.
"Sounds romantic." The Pain killer was pretty weak and would wear off in a few hours, the splint would keep her femur in one piece while the Medigel and Thorian spores heal it.
Which means that in a few short hours Liara would be able to go out and do the main reason she was here, a archaeological dig site on Tuchanka, not for Prothean Ruins as is usually the case, but Krogan. Protheans get the majority of the top billing because the discovery of a new dig site means a slim chance of getting new technology to work with, but there are plenty of cultures out there that are worth examining in detail. The main issue here was that by the time most civilisations reached the stars all their ruins were either long since examined in depth or already long since destroyed, the Krogan ruins represents the exception to this rule, in part because they were dragged out of a post industrial stone age by the time they brought to the stars. Then Shepard heard a loud ringing like a bell.
"EDI? Didn't I tell you to block low priority calls?" Shepard asked sounding incredibly annoyed.
"It's from your mother, and she's using the business line." The sultry Monotone of EDI replied ruthlessly prompting Shepard to frown. "Huu. Audio only." A beep sound echoed.
"Jane? What are you doing?"
"I just got out of the Shower Mom." Shepard was lying of course, but it was better then discussing her sex life with her mother. "What is it? What's the emergency?"
"Prethoryn. They're heading for the Eden System." At once Jane threw both legs up into the air and brought them down again to stand up.
"EDI I assume we're already in the air?" Shepard asked already opening the shute that would lead to her freshly cleaned and tuned armour. "Yes, and we'll be on our way as soon as we drop the doctor off at the Krogan settlement." That's red flag number one. "If you require assistance getting back into your clothes doctor T'Soni I can prepare a mechanical assist to-"
"End Call." Shepard's mother ended the call at once, having no desire to have mention of her daughter's sex life filed in a official report that she would have to read later.
Shepard on the other hand just covered her face and muttered 'Worst, wing woman, ever!'
Down below in engineering Garrus noticed that the ship had suddenly sprung to life and so followed up with a natural question.
"EDI, is the ship moving?"
"Yes Lieutenant Garrus. Dragoon Shepard has just been called in to assist in fending off a Prethoryn Hive Fleet approaching the Eden System."
A pasty white three fingered arm attached to an equally pasty alien with bright red eyes and short unkempt hair pulled herself up.
"Eden System!? That's where the Colony is!" Tali exclaimed looking incredibly concerned, and also nauseous. "Ough." Have some sex he said, it'll help boost your immune system he said. Never trust a Salarian.
"Probably don't have time to change back into civvies anyway." Garrus lamented letting out a sigh. "If you intend to assist in fighting the Prethoryn then Union issued armour can be prepared for your use Lieutenant Vakarian."
"That comes in Turian sizes now?" Garrus asked questioningly.
"The Tebrids were commissioned several hours ago, thousands of blueprints have been prepared already. Would you like to sort through them for your own preference?"
Garrus was about to dig in with enthusiasm, rubbing his hands together in anticipation when.
"Oough."
"Give me a minute, I need to help Tali get dressed and down to sick bay." Garrus stated as he went looking around for where Tali left the other half of her suit.
"Blegh!"
"Also, can you send someone or something to clean up her vomit?"
The Normandy left Tuchanka's atmosphere shortly after Liara herself left the ship. She had earned a degree of respect from the Krogan people already, fighting against Desolas's madness and alongside the Dragoon's have that effect on them. Of course the other half of that effect came from the Union Issued body armour, it wasn't hard, Asari have a one to one body type with human females, most human females, Liara wouldn't fit into Shepard's Dragoon armour any time soon. Liara's however was customised with additional features, whereas most armours feature heavy plating and electrokinetic muscle's her's instead featured thinner sheets of lighter material which made room for extra energy cells and a secondary Biotic implant node that linked to her old implant network and drove up performance by several notches, without having to down a litre of protein shakes in the process. She had the entire thing painted a nice white and had several strips of orange reflective tape attached to it. Liara can clean the armour off by using a vibrating Mass Effect field, she could make it as nice looking as possible, and if they get attacked by Tuchanka's wild life she wants the Krogan to know where she is and not shoot her.
To Liara's surprise she soon met an individual that she's only heard about up until now, the one horned Salarian, While the single horn would be enough to recognise him by itself the obvious cybernetic eyes and large spinal implant also served as obvious clues to his identity. Mordin Solus, the man who would destroy the Krogan, and the man who is now working to save them, while his continued existence and cybernetic prisoner implants were unsettling enough individually, they weren't nearly as disconcerting as the fact that he was throwing his bag onto her Tomkah.
"Dr. Solus, I didn't expect you to have an interest in Archaeology." Liara's sentence was punctuated by several gun clicks.
"Good afternoon Doctor T'Soni." Mordin didn't look perturbed by the Krogan aggression, it wasn't that the Krogan weren't allowed to kill him, they were and in fact several have tried already, rather Mordin simply doesn't fear death, if he did he probably wouldn't agree to either the explosive vest he was wearing or the spine severing implant that was attached to the back of his neck. "Krogan Ruins sacred, Krogan don't go there, ideal location for STG base camp, need to go root out potential STG operatives."
"Those ruins are sacred for a reason lizard!" A shaman was joining the group on the expedition, an expert to help make sense of the ruins that they would soon be arriving at.
"Not to me." Mordin replied bluntly. "And not to them either."
"He's being watched." Liara pointed out. "Better than being watched, the guy monitoring him sees everything that he sees. Leo picked through his mind. He's not an enemy."
Liara's glared made the various Krogan back away, not from intimidation but by being right. Liara climbed into the Tomkah, sandwiched between Krogan on all sides as she rode the Tomkah out to the ruins in question. Aside from the Union armour, the Krogan were carrying weapons of Krogan engineering, as horrifying as that concept may be. The Great Graal thrower had a built in fabricator that produced several Hollow spikes similar to the Kishock Harpoon rifle the various spikes imbed deep into a target on multiple points causing them to bleed out in at least five different places. The shot gun saw additional modifications, the Tebrid's were asked to find a way to make the rifle fire more shots faster and the solution they came up with involves a built in ammo drum, not carrying slugs, but rather carrying additional heat sinks. When a Council gun fires the various processes to manufacture and shoot the ammunition produces heat, which is then pooled into a heat sink, shots have to be carefully regulated to prevent over heating, when it does the weapon has to be vented to prevent a critical break down which takes a few seconds. In lieu of this, the new weapons had a built in ammo drum with extra heat sinks, as soon as one over heats the sink can be popped out and replaced by another, with no break in firing. It was a weapon designed to kill one enemy and one enemy exactly and they were expecting to see plenty of them where they were going.
"It'll never catch on." One Krogan stated with a grumble.
"There's like a hundred heat sinks in this thing!" Another fired back.
"Well yeah, cause we're Krogan. What about everyone else though? Can they afford to lug around ammo drums like these?" The first Krogan stated indicating the round six inch thick disk attached to the underside of the weapon.
Between the krogan and the Tebrid engineered hard suits the strength and durability of the Krogan was impossibly high, and since the Tebrids were building to the the standards set therein they could afford the high capacity ammo drums, each sink can be fired about four or five times before the next one has to be popped in. Which was good, because here they would need every shot that they could get. The Temple was built into a massive ravine, walls on either side were covered in buildings that led into a underground network of stone and steel, not unlike a bunker, which is probably why it survived the centuries long nuclear winter, but it looked like any number of temples with big statues of Krogan. What Liara didn't expect to see though was the massive draw bridges that spanned either side of the temple.
"What are the draw bridges for?" Liara asked legitimate curiosity and a sense of wonder on her features. "Was this the sight of a great battle?"
"Tuchanka was the sight of many near constant battles all over the world all happening simultaneously and has been ever since we figured out guns." The Shaman replied bluntly as if Liara asked a stupid question. "It's for her." The Shaman indicated mural on the far side of the temple canyon.
Liara applied a simple biotic field to her face that drew in more light from farther allowing her to see at greater distances. A long serpentine body with Turian like mandibles on either side of its head.
"A Thresher Maw?" Liara asked looking concerned. "Your people worshipped a Thresher Maw?"
"We worship the Thresher Maw." The shaman corrected as if the one depicted here was a step above every other Thresher Maw in existence. "Kalros the mother of all Thresher Maws." Suddenly the ground started to rumble, and shake. Liara didn't remember this area being near a fault line, she even got EDI to scan for one before she went to bed with Shepard but she didn't find one. And yet, opposite of her expectations instead of ceasing the rumbles were only increasing in intensity. Suddenly a massive beast filled the canyon, it's sheer girth blotting out the architecture that Liara was admiring moments before, if not for the fact that the bridges had been raised then they would've been utterly obliterated. "And really it's not so much worshipping as it is asking her really nicely to stay far away from us."
Given that Krogan never ask anyone nicely for anything that indicates just the level of awe that Kalros inspires in them.
"I kind of expected you guys to try and shoot at her with your guns." Liara whole heartedly admitted while scratching her cheek.
"Oh, we would if it was one of the smaller Thresher Maws." The Shaman explained while she and the rest of the Krogan were rubbing their bellies. "Thresher Steaks are a delicacy around here after all." This situation makes less and less sense the longer it stretches on.
"I thought you just said you worship Kalros why are you eating her children?" Liara asked trying to hold onto her common sense.
"She does too." The Shaman shrugged her shoulders. "Ever since the Union guys showed up the Maws have been going crazy, they must be attracted by all the construction work going on. So we turned on all the old Maw Hammers, drawing them into one place and letting them tear each other apart, just like their mother Thresher Maws are a bunch of ornery territorial bitches."
Liara let out a sigh in defeat.
"If this is what your gods are like I'm beginning to understand how you guys turned out the way you did." Clearly Liara was destined to forever pick through the homes of war lords and tyrants for the rest of her considerable life span.
Author's Note:
Saif Omar: Sure lets go with that.
RonaldM40196867: I thought so. I have a few ideas, most of them are going to involve trying to reverse engineer Reaper Tech.
Guest: Cool
Gianfranco Cembran: I tried my best.
God of Crossovers: They're a actual species, as much of one they can be anyway, it's just that they also made for a convenient disguise for the black ops scientist trying to stay under the radar.
Clown2107: Unless of course I'm planning on having this backfire hugely down the line. But look at it this way, they know the Thorian's weaknesses, they have the facilities to mass produce counter measures and deploy them in hours. So why not give the Thorian rope to hang itself. Unless of course you're suggesting that the Union lobotomises and enslaves a sapient creature? "The Thorian would do the same to them, so it's okay." Does that mean that the Union should lower themselves to the Thorian's level?
