Author's Note: Covid has infiltrated my home again. So as I said yesterday, Read, Review, Favourite, Enjoy, STAY BLOODY SAFE!
Chapter 31: Prethoryn Part 4
The Justicar's temple ship acted as headquarters for their operations, and symbolised their bringing to bare ninety percent of their forces, the remaining ten percent would be dedicated to protecting the Ardat Yakshi monastery. Overkill for bringing in three pacified Ardat Yakshi who may have to be killed? Absolutely. But smoke-screen it might be the Justicar code was treated with full seriousness by the Justicar's themselves more than any other. After their business was done on Tuchanka they would pop over to the nearest Prethoryn spawning ground and rip the monsters that had ruined the planet out of the ground and toss them into the sun. The Justicar council arrived at the bunker hospital, gave the local forces their greetings and moved onto the rooms where the three individual Ardat Yakshi were being kept. Two of the sealed doors were opened to reveal Asari in the Seiza position in the default state of their programming. One did not.
"Admiral! Would you like to explain this!?" Amanda looked inside the chamber the Justicar Matriarch had pointed to, fully expecting to see a young blue skinned woman inside only to instead see that it was empty.
"Mot!"
Three figures sat inside of the chamber reserved for the diplomatic party to communicate with the Prethoryn. First and most noticeable was also the largest, the Rachni Queen, tapping a single leg against the floor of the chamber. Time away from the hive would be good, give a chance to spawn additional queens while she's away. The second was much smaller, sitting one a chair made out of compressed dirt as he allowed roots from his arms and back to wiggle around and provide them with precious nutrients, the Baol, here to see if it can convince a fellow survivor of the Reaper's to end this madness while they still can. The third was quietly sitting off to the side in the seiza position, an asari woman with orange cybernetic pupils and various odd piercings lining the gaps of her crest.
"Ten Minutes until we're in range of the Prethoryn senators. You might wanna brace yourselves this could get a little rough." The Asari woman stood up in one smooth motion and walked over to the console the voice had come out of and held down a button to respond. "Thank you, we'll be ready for when we get there."
"I don't remember any Asari being assigned to the diplomatic chambers." The pilot responded suspiciously.
"I am a last minute addition." The Asari replied in a warm and friendly voice. "Call me Takira."
And then the entire ship shook, the Prethoryn had already begun their attack. What Jeff Moreau lacked in physical ability he made up for in piloting skill, he has repeatedly claimed that he can dance around the screaming monsters and he was delivering. Still something was weird, as opposed to blanketing the space around the planet with acid, psionic and biotic attacks the Prethoryn had deployed swarms of shrieking bats to swarm the ship. Last time they did that was because a Krogan team caught another Queen and they were trying to get it back. Then they got caught up in a singularity the size of a large asteroid and this was followed by a Stasis field, even more mysteriously the swarm didn't simply eat the ship whole but instead burned a hole through the airlocks and escape pod bays in order to board the ship.
The Fastest ship at Tuchanka was deployed, one equipped with a wormhole drive, alongside the full weight of an entire Justicar regiment, was deployed to reach the ship with the diplomatic party on board, which they discovered had been largely stripped off with acid.
"Normandy to Bucephalus! There is an unexpected situation that has broken out, we think a hitch hiker sneaked aboard the Bucephalus!" Shepard looked to the Justicar Council as if looking for instructions who in turn remained silent. "Any weird shit going on over there?"
"Too many to count. You may want to bring your guns." Jeff replied bluntly.
Shepard wasted no time grabbing weapons as she got ready to board the ship.
"EDI what's the Ardat Yakshi doing right now?" Shepard asked as she prepared her plasma shot gun.
"She's inside of the vehicle bay petting the Prethoryn shriekers." Shepard paused as if trying to comprehend the sanity of what she just heard. "That was my reaction too."
It took several minutes before the group were able to step foot onto the Bucephalus, which was followed by a period of awkward staring as the group watched as two of the Prethoryn lean into Takira's hands like they were a bunch of over grown house cats.
"The hell am I watching? Did my Grenade leak exotic gas or something?" Shepard asked as she picked up one of the canisters off of her belt.
One of the Justicar's stared slack jawed as she prepared to open fire on the proud owner of a bunch of pet Prethoryn only to be interrupted as the Highlord walked into the line of fire and over to Takira.
"Greetings Miss. You are Takira correct?" The Highlord took a knee as he pressed his cane to the ground.
"Good afternoon highlord. Is there anything I can do to help you?" Takira asked as her hands continued to leak turquoise light into the Prethoryn she was scratching.
"I was actually hoping I could help you. I need to perform an examination on your body. Nothing invasive I assure you." Xidre explained as he put two fingers on Takira's womb and let them glow with green light. "The two Ardat Yakshi back on Tuchanka are to be remanded into the Justicar's custody as agreed previously."
"And the third?" Shepard asked looking at Xidre with confusion.
"There is no third, because this is not a Ardat Yakshi." Xidre snapped his fingers indicating for Shepard to come over and help the old man to his feet.
"And how do you know that?" The leader of the Justicar's asked glaring at the Lich who seemed so certain of his assessment.
"Because my dear she is pregnant." Xidre was able to sense the entire state of Takira's body all at once down to a cellular level, and through that he found a newly formed embryo not even an hour old. "And one of them is the father." The Highlord used his cane to indicate the two Prethoryn that Takira was treating like obedient pets.
"Well." Shepard replied looking wide eyed with surprise. "Mot."
"That's impossible..." Samara stated as she nearly stumbled forward. "I saw this girl suck the life out of one of the Prethoryn's abominations myself!"
"Yes. You did." Xidre stated agreeing with Samara's assessment. "And I suspect I know the culprit. Thorian!" An old man's voice boomed in their skulls.
"What do you want now? I'm busy?"
Charming as usual.
"We assigned you the task of correcting the Neurological defect that results in the Ardat Yakshi's psi-draining abilities correct?" Xidre asked looking at an invisible figure with both of his hands on his cane.
"That is the task you assigned me, yes. Luckily after draining a Prethoryn fetus one of them suffered such a severe neurological shock that her brain became puddy in my hands."
Far from being displeased, Xidre gave the Thorian a warm glow of approval.
"See to it that you can do it again, I'll prepare an appropriate reward once I'm finished with this lot." Xidre left the Thorian feeling confused at his generous praise as he turned to focus on the Justicar's, and the news for a possible treatment to cure the Ardat Yakshi condition.
"I'm confused." Shepard stated using a finger to rub the side of her helmet. "How did she manage to get those things to listen when we've been trying and failing all this time?"
"If I were to guess?" Xidre stated holding the chin of his mask while looking at this surreal sight of owner and pet. "The Prethoryn probably think that she is a Hive Queen." Takira was after all the one to fry that one Prethoryn's brain, so it only made sense that she picked something up in the process.
Needless to say, the Valkyrie project saw plenty of new attention after that, mostly in the form of fat checks, raw materials and volunteers both among Union Asari Refugee's and Council Asari commando's. The complex, high maintenance and controversial Compliance Needle technology was swapped out in favour of telepathic training. Cooperation with the Thorian was touch and go, rewiring a person's brain for enhanced psionics can have consequences beyond just affecting a person's health so for now the future Valkyries were having their psionic abilities slowly increased while their minds were being closely monitored. In exchange the crude biotic techniques of the Union trained biotics were being phased out in favour of seasoned Adepts, Vanguards and Sentinels among the Asari with additional feedback given in reference to the designs of the Fenrir Tactical Gear as well as the Hugin and Kraken models of tactical gear units.
'Didn't the Union have laws about giving their technology to other governments?'
Valhalla was a legally grey Cabal, the majority of those 'volunteers' came from the same place that the rest of its personnel came from, the prisons, more specifically the ones that were rounded up from Omega.
"Alright then Miss, all you need to do is step into the-" A blue fist punched Doctor-Doctor away while the Asari it belonged to stepped into the chamber, nothing but her crude unmentionables to protect her privacy and masculine tattoo's in a crude approximation of a beard on her face.
Aria T'Loak was the first name on the list for the Valkyrie program, she was lower but as they say, accidents happen. Aria was offered to be rendered unconscious via psionics first for the surgeries progressed but she attempted to bite the guard who made the offer, so instead she got every inch of her body restrained.
"So that's how you ladies wanna do this?" Doctor-Doctor inconveniently forgot to administer the Anaesthetic before the procedure started, he also hit record the moment that the first part of Aria's surgery had begun thus getting to hear Aria's screams of pain.
Aria's eyes were the first to go through the ringer, her pupils were surgically cut out and replaced by glowing disks of cybernetics so as to ensure the prisoner never did anything without her handler knowing, After that a Spine severing implant was installed in her neck to finish her off in the event she became uncontrollable, then the real augments were allowed to progress. Wires of Memory Metal were threaded through Aria's bones, muscles and skin offering a massive increase to her durability and a minor one to her strength, the real benefit was the fact that the wires were entirely hollow and plugged into an advance medical AI and internal Asari formulated Medi-gel plant to augment Aria's healing ability. In addition to that several semi-mechanical screws were drilled into Aria's deep tissues and connected to her nervous system with a final one going into her brain stem, and that was when Aria lost consciousness. As Aria's total number of implants exceeded the 'safe limit' she was also given a set of artificial redundant kidney's to filter out the heavy metals in her body. Unconscious and sprayed with her own blood Aria was released from her surgical cage and dropped to the floor, two custodian's picked her up by her limbs to drag her off to become the Eezo core of a Fenrir.
"NEXT!" Doctor Doctor's synthesised voice shouted indicating for the next prisoner to step forward, one who notably didn't hit him.
The Thorian soon received its reward, and its new collar along with it. Given what the process entails few can imagine willingly being absorbed by the Thorian, and yet not only can they imagine it, but they were even getting volunteers.
"You three are sure about this right?" Shepard looked to three separate and wholly unique Psionics as they stood before the fungal mass that had grown on Tuchanka, each of them equally as powerful as the Thorian was. To Shepard's left was The Rachni Queen, the one who had intended to participate in the peace talks with the Prethoryn, Hive Mind to Hive Mind, and her interpreter the Hanar Opold.
"'I am certain. Our people cannot stand alone. This represents a new age of growth for my people.'"
Sitting in the middle of the trio was the Baol.
"My people are dead. I will lay down some new roots for the next generation."
And finally the Prethoryn Queen that Shepard and Wrex captured, newly tamed by Takira.
"I am tired. Return me to my people already."
Thus the three Psionic organisms allowed themselves to be pulled into the Thorian, so that its ambition might be tempered by the Rachni's compassion, the Baol's Wisdom, and the Prethoryn's fear. The compilation of four psionic organisms were then brought to the nearest Prethoryn spawning ground where Takira had killed a Prethoryn in it's womb and allowed the Thorian to begin consuming the mass of Raw organic material and Eezo the planet had become. Suddenly Earth Quakes had broken out across the planet, aside from the three psionics and Eezo two more materials had been consumed by the Thorian, the spores of the Thresher Maws, and the Scales of the Dragon. The ground rumbled as multiple massive pillars of wood was pulled out of the ground and stood up on the planet stretching into the sky, leaves and flowers blossomed all over them as the tip tops of the trees stretched past the atmosphere.
Later on samples would be taken of the 'tree' and it would be discovered that it's structure was actually closer to bamboo than wood, meaning low weight from minimal material but high rate of growth and excellent structural support, further boosted by the presence of Eezo and psionics to further help to lighten it, but it's probably uncessary. In the roots below Thresher Maws rumbled, tilling soil and spreading spores as they carved away at underground channels, Rachni made their home in the underground tunnels, growing prosperous under the song of four races. Finally the first of the newly born Hive Fleet Chimera was born, coated in a layer of gleaming dragon scales. From Chimera the seed of the four races, the Chimera Gestalt, was spread to Hydra and from there the first Hive Fleet to be born in Citadel Territory.
In recognition of outstanding service and personal loss in the line of duty General Victus was award with the Heart of Steel, the highest award in recognition of service to the Turian Hierarchy and the Citadel Council and given stewardship of the newly born Hive Fleet Tyran, itself named in recognition of the ancient Turian God of War. The Turian kept the Doomsday key, even though it was disabled, a sobering reminder of a threat made, even in frustration. Tyran was subsequently led away to a Turian owned world known as Gellix, formerly a DNA based garden world given to the Krogan post-Rachni war and then conquered by the Turian's during the rebellion who, unwilling to give the world back, have been sitting around scratching their heads on what to do with the place ever since. Finally it seems like they had found their answer.
While Tyran was dragged to Gellix Hydra and Chimera were sent deeper into Union territory, to the rest of the Prethoryn, either the rest of the Hive Fleets would be brought to heel or their corpses would be dragged to the four Slag worlds and act as seeds of new Hive Fleets. The flow of Eezo from the Lithoid's Matter Decompressors resumed to Slag III, the planet in question quickly having vast chunks of Eezo scooped out and replaced by smaller amounts of organic material left over from when the Prethoryn are born on the planet, Not just from Hydra, but the nearest Hive Fleet of Gorgon was also being dragged off to the world that would become both grave and womb while Chimera was busy establishing the Thorian and the tree of life on the planet. Eventually the planet would reach a degree of habitability that the Lithoids would stop offsetting its mass by throwing chunks of Eezo at it, but until that time the flow of material would resume, get consumed by the Hive Fleets rinse and repeat as much as possible.
In the mean time the Laws Esheel proposed to get a leg up on the Union bore fruit, an immediate lift to the restriction on Salarian reproduction laws, with the express intention of sending the newborn's, once they reach an appropriate age, off to Union schools for their education. She even came up with a good excuse too, thanks to the efforts of the Union there they now have Thorian clusters on every world with even a hint of agriculture on it, between the Thorian's spores and it's own innate telepathic influence the Salarian's eggs were being bathed in psionic influences so of course they would be born psionic themselves. It's only natural to send them to the existing school that specialises in such things correct? Of course some efforts were being taken by the clans to limit the flow of the next generation.
Eezo was being directly injected into the eggs. Unlike most species whose biology work off o reproductive system Salarian's had the Z H process. What this means in layman's terms is that Salarian eggs don't have to be fertilised in order to hatch, but unfertilised eggs will always be born male while fertilised eggs will be born female. Right now all the eggs that were being exposed to the Thorian had been infused with spores, not only that but through a process of hormal and genetic manipulation the harvested spores from the Thorian were being directly converted into sperm to fertilise the eggs. Will these extra steps help to improve the psionic potential of the new born Salarian's? Unknown, but the Salarian's are not known for being restrained in their acts of mad science. Either way they would see results soon, whether they be positive or negative.
Last but not least of the matters with the Council, was the treatment program that had been put in place for the Ardat Yakshi. But that was a story best told all at once.
Instead our gaze turns deeper into Citadel space. The life of a travelling archaeologist did not leave open a lot of room to do what you call 'settle down,' it was mostly tents pitched in whatever environment you found ruins in that week, if you're lucky you'll find yourself on a recently established colony with some prefab houses put up around the dig site. Liara, as someone who was technically between careers at the moment, was lucky for multiple reasons for meeting Shepard, as for the other reasons...
"Gah!" That's better left to the imagination. Liara fell over breathing heavily on the bed she was sharing, landing on one of the outstretched arms of Shepard that had been omni-cuffed to the bed they were sharing.
"Well... that worked better than last time." Liara didn't quite catch what Shepard said, her body was still lightly glowing from the feed back loop of her's and Shepard's abilities. "Any plans after...?"
"I... I intend to go meet with my father... maybe look for a new job." Liara explained as she stretched herself out and climbed out of bed, letting the nearby holographic wall project an image of Illium's skyline in a approximation of a balcony.
"You said your doctorate is in xeno-archaeology. Anything else?" Liara waved her hand over the bed as the binds holding Shepard's limbs came undone.
"When last I walked on Illium I was a little girl, I would like to do so again."
"I got EDI to buy some clothes in your size." Shepard stated as she pulled over the same black jumpsuit she was wearing before they started and gave them a sniff. "You want in the shower first or me?"
A short period of time later the two lovely ladies were dressed. Shepard was sitting on her bed checking to make sure that no one tried to call her again when she was sleeping around, that's usually when the apocalypse happens lately. Wrex had left a message for her wishing to consult with her, by video if necessary.
"Its good for you that the Prethoryn are behaving themselves. Not so much for us." Wrex stated making his opinion known. "The Krogan are running low on things to fight. Could mean that some adventurous fools could go around picking fights again."
"A Krogan wading through the blood and guts of their enemies is a happy Krogan." Shepard summed up the situation quite nicely.
"You know us so well. It's not a problem now, since we still have so many sick and injured from the fighting with the Prethoryn, and it probably won't be a problem in the near future, as there's a plethora of Krogan about to be born in the facility you guys set up that're gonna need their parents. Hell the Reaper's could be on us any day now. In the short term we aren't running out of things to pick fights with..." In the short term.
"But Krogan have to think in the long term." Shepard followed up without missing a beat. "The Quadruple digit life span will do that to yah."
'Until such a time that the universe does come to an end we will carry on as if it intends to keep spinning' A staple of Union Policy.
"So we need to focus on other ideas for the long term instead." Shepard looked up to the ceiling tapping her fingers in thought for a while before an idea hit her. "Perhaps we should just use the Tebrid method instead?"
"Tebrids?" Wrex liked absolutely nothing about where this was going.
For now they need to work out the technology, they should see what the Tebrid's can slap together for now. In the mean time Shepard wanted to pick up some references to work with so she finished giving EDI orders while Liara finished getting dressed.
"Per your request Shepard, I've looked through the arrest records from Omega and picked out convicted criminals among the Turian's and Salarian's." Several profiles of Turian's and Salarian's fluttered by Shepard's field of view as she looked over the results of EDI's search.
"Good, these guys look like they'll mug me for a cheap beer if they thought they caught me off guard." Shepard replied happily while slapping the tablet on her hand.
"Whose the brave fool who is willing to try and knife you?" Liara walked up in a silver and red dress before hugging the seated Shepard to herself.
"These punks." Shepard stated handing Liara the tablet that was full of criminal records.
"...are you trying to put together another group of disposable thugs again?" Liara asked looking at the tablet Shepard was handing her.
"Oh no. I was planning a gift for Wrex." Shepard stated and took the data-slab back.
"Shepard, considering recent events it might be wise to add Rachni and Prethoryn to the mixture as well." EDI stated which only caused Shepard to shrug her shoulders.
"Yah know what? Just give a survey to the Krogan: 'Who do you wanna fight most in the entire galaxy!'" Shepard instructed holding out her hands like she was planning out a picture frame to hang in her room. "Roger that. I will commission a company to come up with the first of the prototypes within the hour. You on the other hand should finish your date with the doctor before you hatch anymore mad schemes."
Author's Note:
RonaldM40196867: Sorry bringing up the trauma. If we're referring to ME exclusive aliens, and speaking purely in book smarts, that would be Salarians, in terms of problem solving 'this sounds cool but might be a really bad idea' Turians. I heard one's in the works so yes?
Clown2107: Just because you don't like the race personally doesn't mean that they're moustache twirling super villains intent on world domination, they don't even have moustache's for one thing. The vaccine you're thinking of does exist, it's just that it's given to mothers who have been exposed to Eezo while pregnant so that their kids don't get cancer.
Guest: Thank you for saying so.
Malkeus: Never in a advertisement, only when they're making fun of the softies.
Touhoupedia: Glad for the boost of confidence.
