The glamour of being in a super-secret mission she wasn't allowed to discuss even with Roy had lost its charm by the third leg of the trip. Shiala had left her to go on ahead while she finished her last two days of leave - so as to not make Roy suspicious with a sudden departure - and promised she'd be at her destination when she arrived.
Twenty-seven hours later.
Shepard recognized the place. The same small hidden base where Roy had been when the queen wiped most of his memories. It wasn't something that filled her with confidence, although the queen had been nothing if not gentle with her. As she understood it, the only reason she had made such a number on Roy's head was because of instinct. Queens bond with the hive when they're born, they carry the memories imprinted by their mothers when the egg is laid but need to integrate with the hive to truly learn who they are themselves.
It had all sounded very different when the queen had explained, though. All about finding her melody, learning the colour of the hive, yadda yadda. Very weird.
The ship dropped her in the shuttle bay, at the top level of the facility. It looked almost the same, except for the massive round hole at the back of the bay. It looked like a cave, going deep inside the mountain the base was nestled against. She grabbed her luggage - not forgetting her armor and weapons case - and after thanking the pilot, she stepped out to find Shiala was already waiting for her.
"Shepard," Shiala greeted her.
"Shiala! What on Earth happened?" Shepard said, pulling her bags along and gesturing at the hole with her chin.
"Our guests prefer to make their own accommodations," Shiala said. "How was your trip?"
"Horribly slow, why did I have to take so many different shuttles?" Shepard said. "It didn't take that long last time."
"We have heightened security. Let me show you to your room, the queen would like to meet you at your earliest convenience."
"Well what are we waiting for?" Shepard replied.
She had spent enough hours idle that she was itching for anything to do other than sitting inside a freaking shuttle, but she was sidetracked when Shiala suggested a shower and a change of clothes. She was quite coy about it, talking about how rachni were sensitive to smells and pheromones, but she had to admit, she felt absolutely awesome after it. The weirdest thing was the soap she had been provided, really strong, but with no scent to speak of. Maybe Shiala was right, after all, and wasn't simply pulling her leg.
Nonetheless, she didn't have to wait long. After the short reprieve, she was led towards the rachni hive, Shiala at the front and an asari she had never met before next to her. She introduced herself as Lilan, the envoy to queen Singer-of-Dawn. She looked young, light purple skin with dark, almost black facial markings in a very simple pattern over her eyebrows and the back of her fringe. Her job was to act as a translator, to facilitate communication between the rachni and her guests. She seemed rather chuffed about it, going on and on about how lucky she was, and how much she had learned from the queen. The most important thing was, according to her, understanding how the rachni thought. They didn't see the world in the same way humans, asari, or the other races did. The way they perceived sound and colour had a lot to do with how their minds processed information. The queen connected to hundreds, thousands of worker drones and warriors, the way they talked about music and colours is a way to process all the information they had to go through. It would be impossible for a linear mind to wade through that deluge of sensory information in one go.
The hive had been dug on the side of the mountain, and given the way it appeared from the outside as a sort of random hole, Shepard had expected a nasty muddy tunnel like an animal burrow. It was nothing of the sort. While the walls weren't exactly symmetric, they were smooth and well polished. Bioluminescent rachni dotted the ceiling every few steps, their light low in intensity and a pale green in colour. It was enough to see around. They passed several narrower structures, defensive choke points, Shepard guessed. Their path wasn't straight, they took no less than five turns through narrower secondary corridors. It was probably not surprising that the queen was not simply at the end of the biggest main corridor going down the hive.
When they finally arrived, Shepard had to struggle not to stare. The queen's chamber was huge, easily twenty metres across, and the queen herself was resting in an elevated platform, inside a nest. The whole place was dotted with workers, coming and going carrying dirt and polishing the walls. Lilan walked up to the pedestal, while Shiala and Shepard stopped a few steps away. The queen had definitely grown, she towered way above Lilan, and she wasn't even standing at full height.
"We greet you, Warrior-Princess," Lilan said, her voice echoing strangely with the queen's possession.
"Singer-of-Dawn," Shepard replied, a little confused as to who to look at. "You look well. You've been busy, haven't you?" she added, with a good humoured chuckle.
"Our hive thrives, we sing our thanks," Lilan said. The queen's song rang in their head, a warm blue behind a few flashes of images, showing Shepard the extent of the hive.
"Wow," Shepard muttered. "That's amazing."
The colours disappeared, and she was able to focus on Lilan again. "How does your brood-warrior fare?" she said.
"He's better," Shepard replied. She tapped the side of her head. "Still working on it, but we're getting there."
"We are pleased," Lilan said.
She looked at Shiala, and the sound of a chime rang as they exchanged a thought. Well, down to business at last, Shepard thought.
"So, what did you want to discuss?" Shepard said. "Some super-secret mission?"
"Yes. Our hive is growing, our song will soon reach harmony. It will be time for new colours to paint melodies in their own hives."
"Um..."
"What the queen means," Shiala interrupted, the smile on her face showing she had been expecting that, "is that the hive is getting a bit too big for only one queen."
"Oh, I see," Shepard said. After a moment to think about it, she realized she actually didn't. So they needed more queens, but what was she supposed to do about it? Assuming she got that right of course. "Okay, I don't see. One queen?"
"Yes," Shiala said.
"We will soon sing the life-song for a new queen," Lilan said, her singsong voice rising in enthusiasm.
The song of the queen herself echoed in their heads. Life-song, the notes of the melody were crisp and fast, a dizzying crescendo of incredible beauty. Shepard could have sit there listening to it all day. It went on for a minute or two, until the queen finally let go.
"Wow," Shepard said. "Wait, did I say that already?"
"Yes," Shiala said, her voice amused. "But it is quite a song. The problem is, it takes months for a new queen to be hatched, and even more for her to take control of a hive."
"Yeah, how long has it been?" Shepard said. "Four months?"
"Almost five," Shiala said. "Since the day the queen was hatched. It will be a few more before she is ready to hatch a new queen, however."
Shepard looked around, at the busy hive buzzing with activity all over. If she had got all that done in just five months, including breeding and hatching a veritable army of rachni, she couldn't imagine adding another queen to the collection would be hard. As far as she understood it, rachni didn't really require mating, although there were advantages to it.
"What takes so long?" Shepard said.
"We must paint the melodies of the hive, the colour of our song. The notes for the future queen's memories," Lilan said.
"Right..." Shepard muttered, trying to figure out what she meant. "So, like a meld?"
"Something similar, I believe," Shiala said. "Rachni queens carry the genetic memory of their ancestors, so they have to be given to her."
"The new queen carries the memories of the favoured brood-warrior, one who sings a worthy song for the hive," Lilan said.
A thought struck Shepard. "... Does that mean Roy's going to be the dad?"
The question was so unexpected that she saw the link between Lilan and the queen break, and all three of them - two asari, one rachni - exchanging confused looks. When nobody answered, Shepard started laughing.
"That is perfect!" she said, giggling stupidly. Her mirth was so contagious that the others joined her, Lilan's laughter soon echoing with the queen's link. "I want to be the one to tell him!"
"I don't think that's right, Shepard," Shiala said, her smile just as mischievous as Shepard's.
"Tut, tut, don't ruin it for me," Shepard said. "It's funnier this way."
"I have to agree," Shiala said.
"Anyway," Shepard said, taking a deep, sobering breath. "What's all this to do with me?"
"Warrior-Princess," Lilan said, getting Shepard's attention. "In the dawn of our song, during the great clash, the seeds of the future spread through the galaxy. The singers of death found them, found them all, but for those behind the dark gate. The gate to the last refuge of the far singers."
"..."
"She means other ships carrying queen eggs," Shiala said.
"Oh. I could have figured it out."
"Of course," Shiala said.
"Some of the seeds may still have a voice. Follow the colour of their melodies, find their voices. They need the voice of a queen."
"A queen. So, why me?"
To Shepard's surprise, both Lilan and the queen bowed. "We entrust our song to you."
"Me?" Shepard repeated. "And Roy's out because... He's not a queen, but rather a brood-warrior?"
"Yes," Shiala said. "As I told you before, this requires a queen. And it is too risky to send the only surviving rachni queen out for this."
"Oh?" Shepard replied. The tone of her voice sounded like she was curious about that, which Shiala caught immediately. Putting her in danger was apparently not a problem.
"I mean more than physical danger," Shiala said. "We would prefer to preserve our secrecy for as long as we can. And she is the only queen," she added, giving Shepard a smirk.
"Okay... That aside, how are we going to avoid a repeat of Roy's brain scramble?" Shepard said. "I'd rather not have to go through that. Mostly because he'd kill us both when he found out."
Shiala laughed openly, nodding in agreement. "Yes, I can imagine."
"We will teach you our song," Lilan said. "When I woke, I was in darkness. I searched for the colours of my hive. I took the song of your brood-warrior. When my melody focused inwards, I found the song of my ancestors, and with them the colours of my melody. I will teach you a song, a song that will teach the waking queens to look inwards for their melody."
Shepard sighed, mostly because she was pretty sure she was going to have to go over all that several times in order to make heads or tails out of the whole ordeal. Shiala and Lilan seemed quite happy with the conversation, but she was missing half of that. Probably more. Quite a bit of that had to be context, she still wasn't sure about the whole "rachni aren't evil" thing. The explanation that the war had started because some rachni had been forced to attack was a bit strange, but it was ancient history, so who knew. Roy seemed happy with the bugs, even with everything the queen had put him through, and that was what really sold it for her.
"Do you have any other questions?" Shiala said.
"Yeah, well, kinda. Why the hurry? And where am I going to be looking?"
"Have you heard of the Mu relay?" Shiala said.
"Um... Wasn't that all over the news? Something about a prothean world or other."
"Yes. The Mu relay was thrown out of orbit when the star it orbited went supernova. The rachni were the only ones who knew of its location, until the queen was kind enough to share with us."
Shiala gave the queen a nod, and Lilan returned it.
"So we're searching the Mu relay," Shepard said.
"Several rachni ships made it past the relay at the end of the war. Or so the queen believes."
"I see." Shepard said. "And you still haven't answered what the hurry is. I mean, it's been a couple thousand years, surely you can wait a few more for several queens to be ready?"
"That..." Shiala and the queen exchanged a look, and the jingle of the queen's song rang in the background as they did. "I cannot really discuss it."
Shepard looked straight into Shiala's eyes, and the asari met her gaze with an apologetic shrug. She looked embarrassed, something she had rarely seen on her before. Only when discussing Roy. Which probably meant that was it.
"It's because of whatever Roy's keeping a secret, isn't it?" Shepard said.
"I... yes," Shiala said. "I think he should not be keeping secrets from you, but I have to honor the promise I made."
"And I'm guessing you know too," Shepard said, looking at the rachni queen. The apologetic violet song from the queen was eloquent enough. "So let me get this straight. I know he's doing stuff behind my back, you two know it too, neither of us thinks it's a good idea, and we're still going to keep it this way because Roy asked us to."
"Yes?" Shiala said.
Shepard glanced around, looking at the other three. "What the hell's wrong with us, girls?"
Even the queen couldn't hide her tittering amusement at Shepard's declaration.
I shouldn't have been surprised that I was kept out of the negotiations with the quarians. I was just one of the many people who were part of the taskforce Admiral Drescher had put together, and I was there as an advisor, nothing else. The talks between the quarians and the human admiral were being broadcast in real time to the cruiser, but there were thirty people in there, and I was being sidelined during the discussions.
The only one who took me seriously was Marie, and she was taken seriously by everyone else, including the admiral, so there was that. Still, it felt really annoying to only be able to help "by proxy", so to speak, and moreover, it wasn't like I was going to treat her like my personal messaging VI.
Their meeting was taking place right in the middle of the migrant fleet. The Alliance had only a cruiser there, with all of us piled inside the comms room while the meetings happened. Drescher had only taken Captain Rogers and Rear Admiral Stepanic with her, which sent quite a message to the rest of the command. Of all the higher-ups I had had to talk to over the last few weeks, those two were the ones who seemed to be more on board with the admiral's plan.
Major Stevens and Major Martin were sitting in there with us, and none too happy. Well, most people were none too happy, being cooped up inside the cruiser with a massive fleet in front of us. The rest of the second fleet was waiting a single relay jump away, all of it. I thought that would be a great way to ruin the talks, but Drescher had played it like a champ. If there was one thing the quarians understood was having the whole fleet protecting each other. So, she managed to play to the audience by having the entire second fleet there, but only the second fleet. Dreadnought and all.
That said, the quarians weren't about to just let another massive fleet move on them. So, there we were, one cruiser.
"Roy? What do you think?" Marie whispered.
"What do I think?" I replied absently, getting back to the task at hand. "It's a bunch of bollocks."
The entire room went silent, all eyes searching and finding me behind my console. I looked at Marie, and she gave me this look. A mix between an apology, a cringe, and a what the hell you're speaking without thinking. I didn't even need to look at my console to know what was happening. Admiral Drescher's voice didn't surprise me either.
"Don't hold back, chief," she said, her voice airy and amused. "Tell us how you really feel."
"Erm, sir, I didn't mean..."
"I don't pay my marines to say things they don't mean," she said, her voice sharper now. "Spill it."
"Sir, are we really going to go back to the geth and go 'hey, look, remember those quarians that created you and tried to kill you? Well, they want you out of Rannoch and we agree with them, so pack up.'? I don't really think that's fair."
"So what would you tell the quarians?" Drescher said. "It's the one thing they will not negotiate about."
"Tell them that beggars can't be choosers," I muttered, but snapped my mouth shut when I realized what had just come out of that. "Not the best thing to tell a quarian, though."
The admiral did chuckle at that, although most people took the chance to score points by looking all outraged at my insensitivity.
"On the other hand, it could be a good start," Marie said. She almost ignored my "et tu, brutus" look, but gave me a tight grin. "Once the quarians settle down, there would be less pressure on the less radical quarians to go along with the rest."
"Assuming you can find any of them willing to give the geth a chance," I said.
"The quarians are not homogeneous as they would like us to believe," someone said on the other side of the room. "Looking at the last exchange..."
I ignored them as they continued the discussion about an earlier exchange between the members of the quarian admiralty. I looked at Marie, but she just shrugged at me. With a flick of her wrist she muted her feed, and then reached out to mute mine.
"Don't give me that look," she said. "It can work."
"You know what I think," I replied.
"Yeah. When did you become such a pessimist?"
"Probably some deep seated issues," I said, making Marie chuckle. "I'm sure you have some theory or other."
"Sure. I recommend blueberry muffins and a hot chocolate, then call me in the morning."
"If that's followed by a chic flick of some sort, I'm out," I said.
Our conversation thankfully didn't go any longer, because my terminal pinged loudly at me. I turned to see everyone was already getting ready for the next meeting with the quarians, and my line was being requested by the admiral herself.
"Sir," I said, unmuting it.
She didn't seem annoyed at my distraction. The look she was giving me, however, was very intense.
"Chief," she said, "I know you don't agree, but this is my decision, and I need you behind it."
"Of course, sir," I replied. "You tell them we're jumping, I jump as high as I can."
"Good. If we get the quarians their planet back, I can ask just about anything I want from them. I'm going to need you to work with it for the geth."
"With... the geth, sir?"
"Yes. It's going to be you and me, marine. You're the only one giving me any help there. So pay attention here and watch my back."
"O-Of course, sir."
Damn!
The admiral closed her personal link and my console went back to the general broadcast. I looked at Marie, and she just started laughing.
"Oh Roy. Such a waste..." she said, her voice annoyingly sultry.
"Har har," I replied, putting all the sarcasm I could muster in my voice.
"You know what they say. You haven't lived until you've gotten in on with a woman who you have to salute in the morning," Marie said.
That got more than a few laughs from the people around us, and more annoyed looks from the people who didn't hear it, just heard the laughter. A barked order from one of the more irritable officers, and silence reigned through the comms room.
For all of thirty seconds.
"I used to be a Lieutenant, you know," she whispered.
"Marie!" I hissed.
She put her hand to her chest, soundlessly mouthing "oh, you wound me so", but thankfully let it go. Really not the best time for that.
After getting what was possibly the worst gene mod package available in the market, in terms of uncomfortable side effects, Shepard thought she'd never have to go through anything worse than that.
Such thoughts were lost after getting a pair of implants on the back of her hands, of rachni origin. As far as she understood it, they were not exactly rachni, just a couple of glands that would produce and secrete pheromone analogues to rachni ones. She didn't get it all, something about the voice of her melody being a colour that her hive could understand.
It would be nice if I could understand it though.
But they came with extra implants, and with neuronal connections - and lots of them. It was supposed to secrete a different cocktail of pheromones depending on her thoughts. Her orders to the hive. It was the way which she was supposed to keep any newly hatching queen in check. It also allowed her to give orders to lower level rachni. Workers and warriors. Brood warriors were smart enough to have their own thoughts, and not be ordered around by the queen in such a way.
Bottom line was - they itched. A lot. And for three days she had gone around with her hands encased in an oversized set of bandages like a pair of boxing gloves, with her hands burning with such an intense itch she wanted to tear the damn things with her teeth. It had been absolute hell.
But a few more days and it had finally gone away. Which meant it was time to test them.
"Are you sure this is going to work?" she said.
"No," Lilan said, her voice calm and even. "However, even if the queen will keep her song away from us, there are two brood warriors here. They can handle a small hatching like this."
They had moved to a small hatching room, deep in the nest and far away from the queen. There were thirty eggs in front of her, two dozen smaller ones, workers, and six larger ones, warriors. No brood warriors in that lot. The plan? To have them imprint on her as they hatches, so that she would become their queen.
She wondered why the hands. But the more she thought about it, the more sense it made. Humans used their hands to explore the world, not just their eyes. Touch is important, and hands are the main gateway for that. And communication, verbal and nonverbal, hands are as much part of it as faces and words. She looked at her hands, palms and back. The skin on the back was still pink and sensitive, and the implants were barely visible. A large but shallow bulge just under an extra thin layer of skin. It was going to scar.
And so, they kept waiting.
"How did you end up with this job anyway?" Shepard said.
"An interview at the matriarch's state," Lilan replied simply.
Her nonchalance made Shepard snigger in amusement. "Must have been a hell of an interview."
"I was ideally suited, due to my... preference for all alien races."
"You were hired because you got around?"
"That... is as good a description as any other," Lilan said, her cheeky smile widening. "Meeting the queen, however, has been like nothing I have ever experienced. There are millennia of memories behind her music, and- Wait, it is starting."
Shepard was about to ask how she knew, but then she caught it. The whisper of music. Simple notes, repeating timidly. The eggs started to move, all of them starting to tremble at the same time. Soon she could actually hear the skittering of tiny legs as they broke the shells. Despite herself, she felt a shiver running up her spine. She was about to go face to face with thirty bugs. No, not bugs. Rachni. They were intelligent creatures, even the smaller, less developed ones. They had a song, they could even sing some words.
"Go ahead, they need to imprint," Lilan said. "The brood warriors will be right behind you."
With a nod, Shepard stepped forward, and raised her hands. As soon as she did, thirty rachni broke free of their shells, dozens of legs pawing helplessly at the air in a show equal parts adorable and comical. One by one they righted themselves, a multitude of eyes turning to look at her. She placed her hands forward, palms wide open, and tried to think of nothing but the small song the queen had taught her. The rachni song of life. A way to welcome the newborns to the world.
It took maybe a minute, but it worked. The newborn rachni became calm, and kept their eyes fixed on her. When she had the attention of all of them, she started to raise her hands slowly over her head. The rachni followed her movements with her eyes as she did. She pointed at the ceiling with her right index finger, and all the rachni looked up in the direction she was pointing. She slowly rotated her arm towards the right, like a clock, the rachni following the movement.
"Aaaand..." she said, and made a sudden move to point with her right arm all the way to the left. "Left!"
As one, all the newborn rachni rushed to that side of the room, and turned expectantly to look at her again. She looked at them, turned to look at Lilan, and made the shrillest, girliest squeal she had ever made.
"This. Is. Awesome!" she said.
Lilan smiled in response. "You should get acquainted with your hive, Warrior-Princess," she said.
"Oh, right!" Shepard said. She turned to the rachni, and lowered her hands. No more orders for now. Instead, she put them over her knees, as she bent down to get closer. The rachni did the same, timidly coming up to her. "Hi guys! I'm really glad to meet you all!"
Like it was a sign, all the bugs rushed at her, a few workers even climbing all over her, while the warriors just tried to feel her with their tendrils. The fact that she knew it was coming didn't make it any less weird. It wasn't so much feeling her as catching her scent, or learning her colours.
"Not the hair, not the hair!" She pulled one of the workers out of her head, until he let go of all the hair strands. She pointed an accusatory finger at him. "I mean it, not the hair," she said, wiggling the finger. A wash of dark blue colour came from the worker, so she tried to smile to take the sting out of it. "It's fine, you were curious. Just be careful with the hair, okay?"
The blue of the worker's little song became lighter. Good. She was getting the hang of it.
Well, we'll have time once we take off. Damn, this is so damn weird, can't wait to see Roy's face once he hears about this.
To the Geth consensus,
We are the Systems Alliance. We represent humanity. We wish to mediate peace between the geth collective and the quarian creators, after the events of the Morning War. To achieve consensus, we declare our agreement that geth should be free to choose their own destiny, and we consider geth as equals to other sentient organic species.
To facilitate communication, we request geth construct a platform capable of housing 1,183 geth runtimes, and to engage with organics and away from the consensus for prolonged periods of time. We believe this will be a good first step to achieving consensus between humanity and the geth collective.
We hope our offer will be deemed acceptable, and look forward to initiate communications. This frequency will remain open for as long as the geth collective requires to achieve consensus.
I flicked the message to Admiral Drescher, and she didn't need long to read it. Yeah, pretty short, and not particularly smooth, but it had all I wanted it to have. The Morning War, recognizing the collective,and hopefully getting Legion built. The latter was really what I was banking on. Once Legion came along, if he started working away from the collective, he'd be bound to diverge from the consensus and develop more "organic-like" quirks.
To be honest, I never agreed with the idea that the geth needed to stop being a consensus to become truly alive. But understanding the "quirkiness" of organics was likely going to help.
"You're laying it pretty thick, aren't you?" Drescher said, looking up from her terminal. Her office was relatively big, specially with only the two of us in there. I was still surprised she was going through with the idea of just being the two of us there.
"It's just a draft," I replied.
"You are also committing the Systems Alliance to see the geth as an independent power. It will not help with the quarians."
"With all due respect, sir, I think the quarians need to put a sock in it. We're going to try to get them Rannoch back, if that's not enough they can-"
"Yeah, I get it," Drescher said, interrupting me. "But it is what it is."
"Yes, sir."
"And I have to ask, 1,183 programs? That's awfully specific."
"It is, sir," I said. "With any luck, it should intrigue the geth. If they considered that same number for an independent platform."
"Hmm," she hummed, lowering her head to give me a look. "Fine, I won't ask any more questions. But it's your ass that's hanging out there."
"It always is, sir."
It always is.
On to draft two. We spent hours with the damn thing, but I have to admit, it was ridiculously satisfying to send. Specially as the admiral sent it without putting it through the intelligence division. No risk, no guts, no glory.I was the only one willing to put my neck out there with the geth, so there we were. Of course, it was mostly because I was cheating.
And it felt good, too.
Author's Notes: All right, so not a lot happening in this chapter, although... Well, a lot could be happening in the future if this all works out. With Shepard, I'm really going off the reservation here. If you can, picture the scene in Jurassic World where Chris Pratt is trying to tame the raptors, and you'll get where I'm drawing my inspiration from, heh. It's a little "out there", but hey, rachni are cool.
One thing that I never understood was the rachni and the Mu relay. According to the Mass Effect 1 story, the rachni queen was the one who gave Benezia (and, by proxy, Shepard) the location of the Mu relay, because it was part of the rachni territory, and nobody else knew where it was. Fine. So, if the rachni had a super-secret relay that no other race knew of, and it was part of their territory, why wasn't the other side of the Mu relay full of rachni? I mean, they were the only ones who knew where it was (and apparently the Mu relay can connect to hundreds of systems, according to Liara).
So yeah, doesn't make much sense. So I'm going to go with it being used as an escape chute by the rachni at the end of the war. Of course, no guarantee there's anything on the other side.
Anyway, I cut this in half because next chapter I need to spend some time with the geth, since that part might be... weird. I'm still not sure if the idea I have in my head will work, I'll see when I try to write it down. If it doesn't make much sense, I'm sure the characters will let me know, heh.
Lots of reviews last chapter! Seriously, almost 30 of them. You boys and girls are amazing, thanks!
5 Coloured Walker: Hah! Am I going to have to give Shepard a Chakram? Also, I'll have to investigate the arm issue, thanks!
Zeru'Xil, Selias: According to lore, Eva Core was the name of an associate of Jack Harper during the time of the first contact war, and she died during the events that led to Timmy's contact with reaper tech. So the Eva Core of ME3 was really an alias, and I decided to use the same for the agent that went to the archives. Seemed fitting, but yeah, she can't be the android from ME3, since that one was a backup for EDI, and she's not even been thought of.
RadioPoisoning: Yeah, I went with Project Overlord being mostly conceptual, not really in execution.
eurodox59: Going by the codex, that's how some of the torpedos work in ship-to-ship combat. They increase their mass to the point where no kinetic barrier can stop them, and the impact even at low speeds becomes devastating. Expensive, though, as they need to carry a decent load of eezo for them to work :)
Mizuki00: Sorry! You know I like making things horrible a little too much. Nothing ever goes according to plan!
BJ Hanssen: Just imagine their surprise when the time comes. And Roy's reaction when he finds out. Heh, hehehe.
spiral83: Thanks a lot! N-School may not work for Roy but... We'll see. Things planned and all that :D
TheGrayKing27: Haha, don't hold back mate, tell me how you feel! Seriously, that's really what I was after when I wrote Cerberus in :)
Toothless is best: Man, you know me too well, hehe.
In caverns dark: Joker: "Hey Liara. What do you think'd happen if Cerberus made a taco cart?" Liara: "The taco cart would kill all the scientists involved and take over the base... What's a taco cart?" - Glorious Shotgun Princess. :D And thanks for the thumbs up!
Uemei: Yup, context is important, specially when it comes to multiple choices and options! And your whistling isn't fooling me! :D
GryffenofSannGal: Yeah, that scene with Liara and Benezia is definitely coming. I have figured out the context, too (which I had foreshadowed earlier, and I just realized it makes complete sense!)
Sci-Fifan95: Thanks for taking the time! Actually, if you have any ideas for fun queen names I'm completely open to them :)
FluxBlade: Yeah, if Roy remembered everything, he might be more positive about possible outcomes of the encounter. After all, having geth and quarians living in harmony is possible, although not easy. And yeah, poor Roy :D
BrotherCaptainSheperd, general-joseph-dickson, MoonBurner, DarkChampion, bdrivermp, AlsoKnownAsMatt, Serenarey Chiba, WindBear47, ThemyThink, priceless22, Hefster, Guest, TMDFiction, thanks so much for the reviews and support! I really appreciate it.
Next chapter, a few more scenes before Roy ships out to the 9th fleet. And not just filler, let me tell you! Until then, thanks so much everyone! Ta-ta!