Author's Note: So Family's gonna be back from Vacation tomorrow. I on the other hand have writing I need to do. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 38: Collectors Part 1
"So this Shadow Broker Mot Head was working for the Collectors, feeding intel to them about which ships on the front line with the Prethoryn to pick off to feed em bodies and in exchange the buggers are going to ignore his own home world till the next cycle?" Zaeed asked looking at Liara incredulously.
"That's what EDI says yeah." Liara replied while she shrugged her shoulders.
"I also specified that it falls in line with Reaper MO so it's likely something they would do anyway, unless the Yahg suddenly becomes FTL capable. Which seems unlikely considering that Samusakar has been sent to 'convince' them to stay on their home world for the time being." EDI explained with a chime in. "I should also point out that the Shadow Broker has prepared an artificial intelligence to uplift the Yahg once it determines that there are no more reapers left in the galaxy."
Which falls in line with their own plans anyway so they took the Shadow Broker's meddling like the time saver it was.
"Is that Sam's full name?" Liara shook her head as they got off topic.
A war ship had been prepared, the very same kind that the Collectors should be targeting. Zaeed's Blue Sun's mercenaries were already on board, many of them Batarians. Large swath's of the Batarian populace had been arrested in relation to slavery crimes, they had been pushed through the scrutiny of a legion of telepath's and degree of guilt had been assessed depending on which the Batarians were either declared innocent or guilty. Of course there wasn't enough prisons for all of them, and that's when you included dedicated prison worlds, so the majority of them that fit with appropriate levels of guilt were offered the opportunity to work off their crimes via 'community service' on the front-lines, the majority of them soldier caste though also large swath's of labour and some governers as well, in the army corps, with mercenary commanders like Zaeed being given the task of putting them to work, also once their time was up they could also apply for additional tours of duty to get citizen ship in Union space fast tracked. The Slave cast was already enjoying the benefits of Refugee status and thus could apply for citizenship. The 'Merchant' and Priest castes on the other hand would be remaining on the Batarian's home-world turned prison planet Khar'shan for the foreseeable future.
Aside from the Blue Suns the other biggest mercenary corp on board the ship or lending their services was the Void Devils. The Void Devils were raised from Omega's stock of Vorcha, thus far the limit of their enhancements was using cybernetics to augment physical strength, supplement their existing healing factors and manage their innate biotic talents and budding psionic abilities courtesy of the Thorian, now they would be battle tested.
Of course it wasn't like the ship itself was empty to begin with. Garrus tapped the glass on something that was the subject of nightmares for him. A Krogan cloning factory, built into a massive warship. First, a full sized Krogan heart is assembled through the use of bio-printing, a small amount of Krogan stem cells mixed with specialised Krogan formulated medi-gel through a 3D printer. The heart then has a pace maker attached to it and is submerged in a tube full of medi-gel while a type of artificial blood is continuously cycled through the heart, in the mean time the full suite of cybernetics is wired through the tube in the shape of a Krogan's body outlining bone, muscle and skin while also connecting to armour nodes, a grey box and where necessary the latest in biotic implants and amplifiers.
Psionics wasn't quite on the menu yet, unlike the Salarian's Okeer wasn't willing to sacrifice the genetic integrity of his species by fertilising embryo's with the Thorian, yet. The Medi-gel acts as an embryonic fluid substitute which triggers the heart to begin growing a full sized Krogan to go along with the full sized heart, the cybernetics begin shaping the subject's body into an ideal shape and muscle memory. In the meantime an extensive life is prepared using an array of donor memories from various Krogan psionically extracted by Tuchanka's Thorian cluster and uploaded into several Gray Boxes which are then run through a world building AI in order to create a simulated environment for memories to develop naturally. From here Okeer began shaping the life of his 'pure Krogan' uncontaminated by the influence of the Council.
"That's some pretty outstanding story you're writing there Okeer." Shepard commented putting her hand on the larger Krogan's shoulder.
"I hope it's enough to keep all of them from becoming idiots when they grow up." Okeer stated as he let out a sigh, turning to face the tank next to his console, the only one he was keeping in his laboratory.
"Why are you keeping this one separated from the rest?" Garrus asked as he looked at the Krogan in question that by the looks of things was almost fully formed.
"My Magnum Opus to borrow the human phrase." Okeer stated as he opened the file on the specimen in question. "The pinnacle of all of my work. That's how you use that term right?"
"Roughly." Shepard stated shrugging her shoulders. "So this is the Krogan all Krogan wanna be?" Shepard asked looking at the tube with suspicion.
"Not yet." Okeer stated simply. "Your Tebrid's helped me run a pattern recognition program on the Decoded Krogan Genome, figured out the pinnacle of Krogan genetics from there, the others have been double filtered through a randomiser program and another pattern recognition program to create genetic diversity and weed out defects. As for personalities I tried to diversify them as best as I could, scientists, doctors, tech experts, shamans though given the nature of this craft, they all got a little soldier in them. I used Union special forces as a reference point, scaled up to Krogan standards to push them to the mental limit. As for the history of our people." Okeer let out a tired sigh. "The truth, good, bad and covered in layers and layers of nuclear ash."
"So does that mean he knows what my people did to yours?" Garrus asked a single knuckle rapping against the tube containing Okeer's monster, and said crime against nature woke up.
The ship was what was classified as a Graveyard class ship, a creation of the Lich's to facilitate war in their most ideal form: a massive factory filled with rows after rows of cloning equipment and surgical suites, soldiers are mass cloned, filled with cybernetics, stuffed into armour and strapped with a variety of different weapons and then deployed to the battlefield where they are most likely going to be killed. The Grey boxes are promptly salvaged and either reinstalled or downloaded into a new body to be thrown into the grinder again while the corpses are retrieved and turned into Lich's, or permanently bound into one of their countless machines of war.
Samara was disgusted, this ship was an embodiment of every antithesis to the ideas she holds. Luckily she was only hitching a ride, Morinth was the oldest of Samara's three daughters, and the first to realise her 'gifts.' If she hadn't been alone with her lover at the time... No. Samara had let go of could've been should've been a long time ago, even if Morinth could be caught and treated now it wouldn't bring peace to her victims, nor would it change the fact that she was a power hungry monster. Shadow Broker intel had confirmed that Morinth had been on her way to Khar'shan, Samara was planning on being there when she got off the ship, or failing that using the telepathic probing device on the Normandy to track her down.
Rila and Falere on the other hand would be going with the corpses, the mad scientists and the soldiers, they spent their maidenhood on Lessus after all it only makes sense that the two of them would look for adventure, another thing they have in common with their mother. Samara wouldn't stop them, she's already taken too much of their lives from them, she only hoped that Morinth would come quietly and she could go with them. The three of them looked over the factory ship, just as dreary as Samara had feared, the entire ship featured gothic architecture with holographic gargoyles a various different points acting as the ship's interfaces, multiple open ended walkways lined rows and rows of bright red cloning tubes which in turn lined the walls of the ship, nothing to stop people from falling over the edge in the dark but safety railings, the entire thing was dreary, dark and barely lit. Do the corpses burn up in bright light? Are the three of them going to have to wear night vision goggles for the entire trip over? And why do they hear the sound of screaming? Are the lich's torturing people on board this ship? Even more concerning, why was it getting louder?
""-aaaaaaahhhHHHH!"" A loud thunk echoed out as a huge mass slammed down on top of one of the catwalks before bouncing off and being plunged below into the factory depths.
"What in the worlds!?" The two figures separated themselves violently, the woman in the black jump suit jammed two fingers into the eyes of the naked Krogan that had landed on top of her forcing him off.
"Alright yah Grunt! You got two options, either you can sit down, or I'm gonna sit you down!" Shepard wasn't wearing her armour, she shouldn't have had to, but the tank bred wasn't wearing armour either having literally just been born.
"RRRAAAWWWRRR!" Instead he just had his blood rage and the familiar glow of biotics to work with.
"Oh for Dragon's sake!" The Grunt came after Shepard fists swinging, the last time Shepard sparred a Krogan she was reading his mind to figure out what he was going to do before he did it, right now when she tried with this guy all she got was a white hot spike of Fight! Rage! Kill! Clearly she had to do it the hard way. The Grunt flung himself forward with a biotic charge as Shepard jumped onto a conveyor belt. "Fire up the Production line!" Shepard shouted as a nearby holographic interface flared to life.
"Mam, there is a living being obstructing the production line, namely yourself." The raging Krogan threw himself into the air and slammed down on the belt. "And him."
"Did I bloody well stutter? Dragoon Override N7!" Several digital clicks echoed out from the machine.
"Acknowledged." Shepard received her opponent's football tackle just in time for the machines around them to blare to life, mechanical arms looking at the two wrestling aliens questioningly.
Human Identified, trace amounts of: Golema, Prethoryn, Nylarc, mutated neural glands, extensive cybernetic augmentations.
Species Unknown, unidentified, warning unsafe levels of Element Zero, extensive cybernetic augmentations, body is performing at unsafe levels, extreme hostility has been identified, extreme measures have been authorised.
Those two lines of text flew by as various mechanical arms flew to life, surgical vibro cutters, plasma welding torches, graspers, bolters and the like all began targeting the Grunt. The Krogan augmented his arms with biotics as he forcibly threw off the arms that had collectively decided to use him as a pin cushion. And Shepard had the misfortune of trying to keep him there. The next few minutes was a parade of broken limbs and sparking equipment as the Krogan worked to fend off the attacks while Shepard continuously attacked his mind. Then the conveyor belt took them to exactly where Shepard was waiting for it to take them, and the blood raging biotic was suspended into the air via the same kind of ship lift that had kept Liara a prisoner for three days. And now that she didn't have to worry about her head getting torn off Shepard could shove some sobering 'cease and bloody desist' orders into the Grunt's skull.
"Lemme lay down the facts of life for you." Shepard stated while she did some stretches. "Fact one, you are on my ship which means that you either follow the rules or you get tossed into the airlock, if you continue to misbehave after that we open the airlock and you go outside. Fact two, rule one is you either stand on your feet by the grace I let you or when you're being held in the air like now." Shepard finished as she climbed up to face the vicious overgrown baby eye to eye. "Do you understand the facts as they have been read to you, you grotesque overgrown brat?"
The Krogan made several snapping sounds as if working a kink out of his neck.
"Human, augmented, Dragoon, Okeer's programming spoke of you. He thinks of you as a warrior, I see a pale imitation of Krogan." The bratty Krogan grumbled, adjusting his jaw as the under developed pieces of his crest furrowed in a pale imitation of a brow. "Before I kill you I need a name."
"The Tank didn't give you one?" Shepard asked looking at the Krogan suspiciously.
"Okeer's imprints failed, if he succeeded he created someone stronger than him and if he failed then he's a failure, his words have no meaning." Which was odd, because when Shepard was wrung through the same thing it left a lasting impression on her. "Okeer, Warlord, Grunt... yes I am Grunt. Now we will resume battle, and you will attempt to kill me."
"You don't seem to realise how this works yet have you?" Shepard asked while she looked at dirt beneath her finger nails.
"'How this works' is that I ally myself with the strong, against the stronger, you rely on a machine to fight for you, you are weak."
"So Okeer didn't cover fire arms training did he?" Shepard asked finding the argument about using machines as a sign of weakness from the race that loves guns more than anything else in the universe oddly surreal. Shepard was also starting to understand why Okeer's conditioning failed.
"Krogan fight with weapons, you fight with factory equipment." At that the sound of straining metal echoed from above, Shepard looked up to see a biotic field having attached itself to one of the Mass Effect generators above them.
"Huu... I hate baby sitting."
Tali was going to attempt to give sex another try, this time she made sure her immune system was in top condition, she had prepared condoms that although she couldn't get pregnant from a Turian should also help prevent another allergic reaction the only thing she had to do now was find a better place to do it than the engineering bay. The doors of Tali's work place were torn off as a Krogan slammed his way through, using Shepard as a shield ram. Shepard officially had enough of this punk. Shepard jammed her thumb into Grunt's eye socket causing blood and clear fluid to squirt out. Shepard grabbed the door with telekinesis, vibrated it into a super heated blade, and with one swing chopped off both of Grunt's legs at the knees, with two more his arms came flying off of the shoulders. Between the red hot blade and Grunt's own built in medical implants the wounds were quickly sealed and scabbed over as Shepard held the blade of molten metal to Grunt's neck.
"Fact number three, you attempted to kill me twice and failed while I was trying to catch you and succeeded twice." Or to put it in simpler terms. "I'm strong, you're weak! Understood?" Shepard raised the blade until it was burning Grunt's chin, his teeth clenched as he was forced to face the 'facts of life.'
"Yes I understand." If he didn't his head would come flying off next, he would be cloned, and his 'younger brother' would be shown his decapitated limbless corpse and be given the option of cooperation or death, Grunt likes this human.
"Now if Okeer has been telling you the things that he should be telling you then you should be aware of the Collectors and Prethoryn, are you?" Shepard asked as she threw the piece of melted slag into a vat full of molten metals.
"I've been filled in with data of all the creatures of the Galaxy, who are and aren't a worthy opponent."
"Not the same information I received I bet. For one thing Okeer was probably trying to avoid exactly what happened. His magnum opus flying off into a blood rage and smashing all his equipment." On that note a security synth came in and Shepard took the Biotic Boot it had on its person and slapped it to Grunt's face disabling his biotics in the process. "Training that I'm going to give you now." Shepard could already sense the Thorian spores inside of the little punk's head so at the very least he wouldn't die from this. "Now I have a question for you. Metal, or leather?"
"Excuse me?" Grunt asked looking up at Shepard.
"I'm asking you, what would you like me to shove inside of your mouth so that you don't bite your tongue off: Metal or leather?" Shepard asked again and Grunt stared up at her in confusion. "You're getting Metal." Rolling her eyes Shepard just telekinetically grabbed a bar of metal from the production line and shoved it into Grunt's mouth. Then came the 'fun part.' Grabbing Grunt by both sides of his head Shepard proceeded to shove memories into his mind.
Prethoryn. Shrieker. Space born fighter sized alien member of the Prethoryn race, extremely hostile attacks in swarms. The planet's defenders were shooting their weapons at the creatures blanketing the sky. Flerkin, Draconian, Chozo, Human. Then the Shriekers parted as a much larger mass started to enter the atmosphere, a monster the size of a mountain, a birthing lifeform the planetary AA Guns rounds bouncing pointlessly off of it's hide. Then the Mountain crashed down and the world was consumed with dust.
Shriekers again, ground level this time, ripping their way out of the earth below and being met by machine gun fire. Hundreds died, thousands were expended in ammunition, we were grabbed by the creatures and thrown into great lakes of acid, our bodies broke down, but our minds survived. It looks like my grey box was able to survive the acid dip intact, and made it into the neural tissue of the Prethoryn. Only ever a fragment of the Prethoryn's thoughts, feelings and consciousness. I was a grain of sand on the bottom of the ocean with new stimuli coming in from all directions. Then we entered battle, the Prethoryn was lost, my greybox was retrieved, and my memories were downloaded so that my experiences could help others.
Grunt's mouth was permanently locked open in a scream that had since gone silent, the metal bar that had taken a mould of his teeth fell out of his mouth while tears of blood and other fluids dripped out of his tear ducts. Samara came down along with her daughters to investigate what happened, Okeer came along a moment later an injured Garrus slung over his shoulder.
"What happened here?" Samara asked looking at the severed limbs and fainted Krogan.
"Discipline." Shepard stated as she used some wet towelettes to wipe the Krogan off of her hands.
"Remind me not to let you baby sit for me." Garrus stated still nursing the broken ribs from where Grunt back handed him.
Grunt began groaning in pain, blinking the odd fluids away from his eyes while the Thorian repaired the damaged parts of his brain.
"Now are you going to play ball, or do I have to show you what the Collectors are going to do with you if they get their hands on you?" Shepard asked and the still mentally exhausted Grunt shook his head in the negative. "Good. Now you are going to apologise to the nice AI whose machines you broke, and then they're going to work on reattaching your arms and legs, and afterwards we're going to start working on waking up your brother's and sisters and you can help us prevent anymore repeat incidents going forward. Samara, think you can help us?" Samara let out a sigh, with a gesture the limbless Krogan was lifted into the air and floated back into the factory room, Shepard picked up the four limbs she had cut off and slung them under her arms as she followed them.
Once Grunt's matter was sorted a meeting was called to discuss the group's various plans going forward.
"So the Krogan legion plan is on hold for now until we can resolve the rage issue." Shepard stated as if the conclusion had been obvious, which it was, as they couldn't keep putting the ship back together every time they woke one of the Krogan up. "Currently the plan is that if we do have to wake one of them up, they'll be restrained before doing so and outfitted with any other restraints that we need to keep them from going on a rampage." Which was a fair point given what happened with Grunt. "We're hoping that throwing them at some Prethoryn or Collectors can fix the problem a bit. Okeer. I suspect I know what the problem is but would you like to explain please?"
"It looks like the compatibility of this technology and my species isn't very good." Okeer admitted reluctantly. "I tried to avoid making the stimulation from the mental engrams too strong to avoid triggering the blood rage." Okeer indicated the walkway that Shepard and Grunt landed on when the Krogan football Tackled her out of the lab, which was already being cut away and replaced by a group of custodian drones. "The engrams aren't strong enough as a result. I'll have to fine tune the process." Which means waking up more Krogan. "The best way to calm them down though is the rite of passage." A suspicious look was shot to the Krogan scientist. "I'll explain later."
"Ask EDI for permission first." Shepard stated before moving on with the conversation. "We're making a brief pit stop in Batarian space before we leave, Samara wants some help to find her eldest before we leave for Union space."
"Morinth is a Ardat Yakshi, as Rila and Falere were, but unlike them we weren't able to get to her in time." Samara let out a sigh at this. "She had already become addicted to the melding process and fled the first chance she got."
"Is there any chance that she can be brought in alive?" Garrus asked looking at Samara with suspicion. "I mean her condition is treatable now right?"
"Morinth's mortal illness is treatable yes, but that doesn't change what she's already done with it." Samara stated as she let out a sigh. "There was... a village of Asari Morinth hid inside of while I was chasing her, she had used her power to set up a cult there where the locals regularly sacrificed their daughters to her. When I found her she had the villagers throw themselves onto me and my team to slow us down, in the end only myself and the youngest of Morinth's would-be sacrifices were the only ones left alive."
"Morinth is a monster, directly responsible for numerous crimes against sentient life, I am using my authority to directly request a kill warrant be placed on her head." Shepard loudly called out and the holoscreens flared to life.
"Acknowledged."
The Justicar database was accessed where Morinth's classified criminal record was being kept. 4597 confirmed deaths through the use of the Ardat Yakshi condition, an additional 1329 deaths suspected through the melding process. 926 deaths by proxy through psionic manipulation, an additional 235 deaths suspected. 148 confirmed murders via gunfire, Biotics and knife force trauma, an additional 28 death's suspected. Fugitive Morinth is a unrepentant mass murderer responsible for crimes against sapient life, sentence is death. Fugitive Morinth has consistently demonstrated excessive use of violence whenever confronted by Council authorities both directly through the use of biotics and through psionic manipulation of others, a kill warrant has been authorised.
All of this information flew by in less than a second.
"Kill Warrant has been authorised. Liara T'Soni, please report to POL-E to begin psionic tracking procedure immediately." Liara let out a sigh before leaving to attend to her 'Shadow Broker' responsibilities. It was either her, a Dragoon or one of the Lich's onboard the ship and both of those other things have got better things to be doing right now.
"I really hope the Union sends someone who can replace me soon." Liara let out a sigh.
43 Minutes later Liara arrived in the spy room of the Normandy and soon together with POL-E went to work. No psionic engram of 'Morinth' exists. Technological infrastructure of Khar'shan has been reduced to pre-industrial levels, digital surveillance non-existent. Conclusion, though the results are less accurate than digitial processing a psionic sweep is necessary. Initiating psionic sweep of Khar'shan... 52 Asari identified on world, comparing facial recognition... 13 possible candidates remaining, initiating voice recognition software... 5 possible candidates remaining. Examining rumours and heresay of the Local populace... one possible Candidate remaining.
The 'Cult of Retribution' was coming along nicely. All Morinth had to do was convince the fools that she would return them to glory or whatever and lead them back to the stars and she had the four eyed bastards eating out the palm of her hand, and also eating her out in general. It helped a lot that she was specifically asking for Union people to serve as her sacrifices, the guards were few and far between but with each of them caused her powers to grow at a rate they never have before, and occasionally the Batarians found one that had the knowledge she needed to leverage her growing psionic power.
Morinth was actually surprised to learn how enlightened the Union was, the fact that civilisation had advanced to the point where they could reach the stars didn't mean that gods didn't walk among the people. Morinth's people murdered their gods, and whenever a new one appears they lock them in a gilded cage, no matter, the Union would soon have a goddess to go with their dragon and their corpses. But in the mean time Morinth smelled the roses. Here she was as nature intended, laid out before her followers as they worshipped her form, her tattoos and her piercings on display, because after all her body was a work of art, so why wouldn't she decorate it so? While the half naked Batarian women to either side of her fanned her. All was right in-the sound of shattering concrete accompanied a hole being punched through the roof of Morinth's monastery, she barely had enough time to erect a biotic barrier to protect herself before a second shot nearly went into her head.
"Mistress you need to-" A canister was thrown into the monastery and soon released a gas into the room that Morinth then pinned down with her biotics before any of her followers could breathe it in. With fire power like that gun they could easily bring the entire building down if they wanted to, it wasn't safe here she needed to leave.
"Get the car ready!" Morinth needed to leave here, now!
They didn't have citadel standard cars, no too much of a chance that the Batarians could rebel against their occupiers with that level of technology, instead they had a carriage being pulled by a six armed beast of burden. Morinth threw on a jacket as she ran out of the Monastery, where the carriage lacked in technology it made up for it with bullet resistant glass and her biotics to shield it, which was hopefully enough of a combination to stop anymore sniper attacks. For extra insurance they would be going through a path in the woods where the treeline would obscure anymore long distance attacks.
The carriage was thrown into the air by an explosion, before tumbling down a hill through the woods. Morinth sent out a psionic pulse, nothing more intelligent than the local wild life, but those animals were seeing something else, silvery hanar like figures that were moving through the tree tops, accompanied by drones.
"Damn it!" Morinth prepared to blanket the area with biotics and psionics to finish the bastard drones off all in one go, she would not die here, not to the likes of bloody synths! And then one of the Drones slammed into Morinth's barrier, and from there turned into a minature green sun as the gas it had been filled to the brim with ignited and clashed with the barrier. The explosion sent Morinth flying her body cartwheeling as she felt every bone in her break if not fracture before slamming into a tree and landing on the ground. Miraculously she survived the explosion, and hence got to see one of the custodian drones wrap it's tentacle around her face before lashing with another tipped with a vibrating blade.
Morinth's broken headless body fell to the ground, before being grabbed by her foot and dragged off to pick up.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: Money talks. A few.
