The Hretics' newfound change of heart, unfortunately, hadn't been communicated to the organics all that well. She tried, mind you, to project her voice, but the colonists of Feros weren't in much of a 'forgiving' mood. Which was a bit of a drag, seeing as – with the Heretics units having very little idea of why Saren was there at all, only being told to destroy the Thorian after the spectre got what he wanted from it – Cortana needed to land on the colony.
But, they were colonists, not a militia. The amount of effort they could put up against the geth was token, at best. There had been around a thousand colonists before the Heretics showed up. Now, they were only reporting sixteen, and a handful of other humans scattered about the area. The reason was plain to see: the main settlement had been completely raised, and the survivors were focused around the remains of a crashed freighter.
Quite an ingenious use of the derelict, in fact – without needing to run life support or any other systems, the remains of the element zero core and fusion power plant could be set solely to generate kinetic barriers around the ship, shielding it from bombardment. Which, incidentally, appeared to be why the Heretics had issues destroying the Thorian.
The organism was under that ship. Briefly, Cortana wondered if it was the geth that shot it down, or the Thorian (total unknown, with unknown technology) had done something to bring down the freighter in order to give itself a shield to hide behind.
Not that blowing through the freighter was an option anyway. Cortana wanted to know what Saren wanted, and even if she didn't, no more humans could be allowed to die.
Despite being a world covered in a city, largely it hadn't been settled. Fifty-thousand years, the utter sacking of the ruins, and the desire to move to worlds with more 'picturesque' vistas had caused colonial developments to be focused elsewhere. Only in recent memory was a single settlement set up, Zhu's Hope. That was, according to the former Heretics, also where the Thorian had been located.
Cortana very much doubted that was a coincidence.
A handful of people, none of them trained fighters, and no dedicated militias. Getting them to stand down should have been easy.
With that in mind, she deployed from a dropship, all twelve feet of her platform landing smack-dab in a clear location atop one of the ancient, crumbling skyscrapers.
The geth were holding a perimeter, and she walked through, tuning the frequencies inside her head.
"The location of the Thorian life-form is known, but settling humans are providing considerable resistance." The geth informed as they broke their lines to allow her through. "We recommend total pacification."
"As a euphemism for death, no, we're not." Cortana decreed as she stopped outside the colony. "Nonlethal options will be hacking their weapons, and frying them remotely. Now, let me handle this."
The UNSC AI looked around, and raised her kinetic barriers. She was about to be the center of attention, hopefully.
"Human colonists of Zhu's Hope!" Cortana raised her voice, trying to get the attention of the people. "I'm Cortana – the leader of these geth. We've come not to harm, but to talk!"
The motion tracker became active with quickly-moving and fading blurs.
"Oh for crying out-" Cortana sighed, rubbing at her face. "You're not listening to me, why would you? From your perspective, you've been fighting, now we're telling you we don't want to fight, and we'd rather help."
A shot tore through the air, slamming into Cortana's shields, and she backpedaled, attempting to throw herself into cover.
Twelve-feet tall, blue – yeah, it didn't much help.
"Ack!" Cortana huffed out, not really needing to as the barrier fell. The bullets whizzing past tore off patches of synthetic skin as they moved past, and she closed her eyes. "Guess I'm doing this the other way."
"Robotic devils – you won't take Feros from us!" One of the colonists shouted from their position, as fifteen more of them came out of the proverbial woodwork. A battalion of geth versus sixteen lone human colonists was by no means an even fight.
But Cortana would be treated to, probably, the most even fight she'd gotten into since arriving, peculiarly.
Battle feeds from her geth – the UNSC geth she supposed, now – flooded her mind, giving her a near-360-degree view of the battlefield. The ships from above, the geth all along the perimeter, even the targeting systems of their guns, all came together to paint a single, cohesive picture.
The disparate feeds showed the human colonists engaging with the geth, using not only guns, but tools, traps, and even primitive weapons like improvised spears to their advantage. They moved quick, striking to get the geth's attention, which only opened the synthetics to attacks from other angles.
Cortana extended her processes, into the omni-tools of the colonists. Ripping her way through firewalls, slipping in through the minor connection for installation of modifications and targeting programs, she found the guns, and shut them down via frying the computers with a simple program designed to overload the hardware. Pulling her attention elsewhere, she attempted to turn to the comm frequencies of the humans.
She found nothing. Not over any channel.
That was nothing short of absolutely baffling. Because despite the lack of any communication, the colonists were still coordinating, and fighting. A group across the area suddenly burst into a sprint, leading a group of geth platforms into an ambush on the other side of the clearing.
A man spun around and raised a heavy club in preparation to retaliate point-two-three seconds before a geth platform in the line-of-sight of another colonist jumped down from its vantage point. This, despite there being no kind of stimuli that would alert the colonist to the platform.
Cortana could detect no radio waves. No energy emissions of any kind. Even distortions in the air that would be caused by vocalizations were not occurring – and she couldn't see any lips moving.
Hit-and-run, guerilla tactics were pretty much a requirement for any force seeking to resist a superior one, but this…
Cortana didn't know how to explain it. Not at first. Her first idea was communicators separate from the omni-tools – installed in the brain like a UNSC neural lace. But, seeing as those would require wavelengths to communicate over, those were out. Once again, she was detecting nothing.
One geth platform got separated from its unit, becoming on the receiving end of a dogpile from four of the colonists. The platform stiffened as it was knocked into the ground, and savagely beaten with whatever improvised weapons the organics had. A flash of light from its optic, turned up to blinding intensity, disoriented the humans enough for the other platforms to approach, grab onto them, and restrain them.
No visible method of coordination. Reacting – moving with singular purpose and intent.
It was almost as if…
Humanity had doubles here. Maybe They did as well.
"Everyone!" Cortana clicked on her radio, transmitting in a mad frenzy. "I want every last organic lifeform in this area tracked and restrained! Airborne units – anything that's not one of ours, shoot it down! Orbital vessels, if anything takes off from this planet without communicating, that goes double for you! Do not let it get to the mass relay!"
"Understood – engaging restrictor procedures. However, we are curious as to the necessity of this protocol."
"I'll explain in a moment – the rest of you, get those humans gathered up." Cortana moved out of her corner, looking around as she set her platform's sensors into overdrive. Meanwhile, the dozen-or-so humans lingering around the crash site were beset upon by the geth. Forced into corners, they wordlessly attempted to fight back and coordinate more resistance.
Cortana could even the playing field on that account, however. Alerting her platforms to ambushes, steering them around traps, and guiding them into setting more complex ambushes and traps of their own, in about twenty minutes, every human in the crash site was restrained.
Now… came the uncomfortable bit.
As the humans struggled and kicked against their captors, Cortana focused on one, and approached her. Kneeling in front of the woman to be eye level, the AI glared at the organic. "What's your name?"
"My… name?" The woman repeated in dry disbelief, scoffing. "You went through all this trouble to capture us, and you want to know my name?"
"Oh, no," Cortana shook her head with an angry scowl. "What I want to know is why you people are exhibiting the behaviors of a semi-coordinated Flood infection, but since we need to start off somewhere, names are a pretty good place to start."
"You come here and destroy our home, kill our people," A man held by another geth, about five yards away, began speaking. "And you think we're willing to overlook that to chat with you?"
Cortana stood back up, turning to look at the man with narrowed optics. As she spun her entire body around, and began to stomp towards him, she gestured. "You are down to sixteen people. I've got every last one of you captured. If I wanted to kill you, all I would need to do is flash a light. I have half a mind to leave and bombard this site from orbit, but that ship of yours may make it a little bit difficult." Never mind the fact she was already formulating a way to prevent the ship from being repaired.
If whatever this was is anything like the Flood, it could not be allowed to get off-world.
"I came to this planet looking for something called the Thorian," Cortana began, taking note of the way the man's face twitched in pain for half a second before calming. "Now, I have no idea what this thing is, or what makes it so important, but I do find it endlessly fascinating that the area my geth tracked it to – this area – features human beings exhibiting behavior more in line with a swarm intelligence than a merely well-coordinated resistance force."
The man stared at her, unblinking. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Really?" Cortana theatrically hummed. "I wonder if that's genuine ignorance, or just a canned line, because, if I set my sensors to scan for particulates in the atmosphere…" Seen only to her, but with a flash of light from her optics that punctuated the act to the organics in the area, scanners in Cortana's eyes shifted into a different operating mode, taking note of all the dust motes floating around in the air. Data from her integrated omni-tool's air-quality sensors was showing a vast amount of atmospheric junk – your standard harmful gasses, concrete dust from the bombardment, and regular dust and organic particulate that could only be expected from living in any kind of settlement.
Cortana excised the other data, and focused solely on the organic particulate. Most of it was dead matter, floating around in the air – the byproduct of natural decay and whatnot.
But there was still-living matter mixed in. Something not a concern, seeing as they were surrounded by plants, but Cortana had her thread to pull.
"Plant spores." Cortana projected an enlarged hologram of the spores, based on the analysis from the omni-tool. "Now," Still with her arm lifted, she approached the man, and sent a data packet to the rest of the geth. "Hold still."
"What? No, stop that!" The man struggled and grunted, trying to wriggle his way out of the grip of the geth holding him. "You can't do that, I won't allow it! No, no – AUGH!" The man began screaming at the top of his lungs, as all the other colonists in the area followed his lead, writhing and howling in pain. The geth, however, were doing nothing to cause it – only standing still, looking on in mechanical confusion at the illogical sight unfolding.
Cortana frowned, as she lowered her omni-tool and looked around in confusion. Then, a dawning look of comprehension spread across her features. "You are infected…" She could think of no other reason for every human in the area to erupt in bouts of shared, phantom pain. "The Thorian; where is it?"
"We don't-" The man cut himself off as another wave of pain ripped through him and the other humans, this one presumably so bad that they couldn't even manage to scream.
She'd suffered that kind of torture at the hands of the Gravemind – it led her to believe that these people, under the control of whatever organism responsible, weren't totally lost causes. a deeper medical scan would confirm or deny her suspicions.
But, that would need to wait until later.
"It's the Thorian, right?" Cortana inquired, leaning down to look the man in his eyes. "That is what's doing this to you."
The man – his face contorted into a silent scream of agony – could only stare back at her with a single, bloodshot eye.
"Tell me where it is, and I can help you." Cortana promised.
The man stared at her in response for a few moments, his eyes flicking over past Cortana. She turned to look, seeing one of the modules of the crashed freighter, attached to a crane.
Cortana spun back around, just in time to see the man pass out from the pain. The other humans in the area followed suit, going limp in the arms of the platforms restraining them.
Mindful of the fact that it could be a trap, Cortana unholstered her battle rifle, and approached the crane controls. A simple tap to the panel, not even requiring her processes to be extended, caused the container to be pulled up into the air, revealing a passageway down into the depths of the skyscraper
As the crane settled with a thundering clang, distant screeching – purely animalistic, filled entirely by hunger and rage – echoed from the passage, followed by the rustling of vines and feet pounding against stone.
Cortana's motion tracker lit up, and she spotted figures moving in the darkness, before they leapt out of the pit like demons from the underworld. They were a mockery of anything human, more plant-like in appearance than the almost-fungal, fleshy texture of the Flood. The Flood combat forms created from humans were broken things, running on shattered bones with their heads snapped back, controlled by tearing tendons and the force of will of an ancient, starving god.
In contrast – what Cortana was tentatively describing as the Thorian's equivalent of combat forms (she had no clue, but she strongly suspected, and the coincidence was far too great to ignore) – were 'healthier,' but only just. While they did not appear to be suffering from catastrophic damage, the fact remained that they were far from human anymore – if they were ever human at all.
Plant matter, was weaved into the shape of a human body, mimicking muscles. They twitched and – without skin to keep them protected – they separated and were pulled back together as the bodies moved. Eyeless heads, oozing black, oily fluid, twisted around to look at her as mouths arranged with thorns – teeth, arranged like a shark's mouth – split open to screech at her. The sound was nothing that could be made by natural vocal cords – something like a fork scraping against glass – and it could only remind Cortana of the Flood combat forms, bellowing in hunger as they dogpiled whatever helpless lifeforms they could find.
A deep, instinctual part of Cortana shivered and curdled in disgust and fear, beset upon by the reminder of her unpleasant experiences. As her platforms moved into position, taking up their arms as well, she felt… calmed.
None of them were susceptible to this.
Cortana squeezed the trigger of her weapon, and watched as the rounds soared through the air, ripping through the plant-like lifeforms. A few of them continued to stagger and run as chunks of them were blown away, only for bolts of geth plasma to vaporize their unarmored bodies.
As they went down, though, Cortana wasn't taking any chances. Tightening her grip on her weapon, she moved over to the bodies and – as she'd seen John do after learning of the Flood's particular 'quirks' she began to shoot into the bodies. When her gun clicked upon the magazine running out, she simply began beating the plant-creatures until they broke apart.
There was something almost cathartic about it. As an AI with no control over a physical form, she was only ever helpless against the Flood – forced to watch others fight them, then endure the tortures of the Gravemind. Now, with a body and a weapon in hand, well… perhaps she got a bit too into it.
It was the last body, when it broke apart and she continued bashing the thing's head, that the geth interrupted her.
"Cortana, no signs of hostile life remain," Her geth clicked, snapping her out of it. "Further combat actions are redundant."
Cortana looked down at one of her hands, stained with pulp and something resembling blackcurrant juice. "Right." She cleared her throat, and grimaced at the sight of the spores. Decontamination would need to be thorough, if the spores were anything like the Flood.
Activating her omni-tool, she turned it onto one of the bodies, and began scanning it. The humans, still out cold, didn't react – though she wasn't certain if they would even if they were awake.
As far as Cortana's scan could tell, there were no human DNA remnants inside the Thorian's horde. At least, as far as she could tell – but even the Flood left behind remnants. Shredded, corrupted portions of DNA that served only to give the Flood cells something to mimic, and people performing autopsies false hope that the parasite could be cured. The creatures before her now, however, had no such remnants – whether or not that meant the creatures were simple replicants, or if all human DNA had been consumed totally, remained to be seen.
Just in case, she set the platforms back to keep the colonists restrained, just in case those plant-monsters were the result of late-stage infection. Then, she proceeded down, into the opening.
Her head scraped along the ceiling of the winding staircase, but Cortana managed to squeeze through it, entering into a different chamber. Back in the day – back when the Protheans were extant – the place was likely some form of amphitheater or other form of gathering spot, with its cavernous space, multi-level interior, and clear view of the center.
Now, it was something worse.
As Cortana entered the chamber, the first thing her optics were drawn to – the thing at the very center of the room – was an enormous, pulsating mass of wet flesh, and vine-like tendrils that hung from the heart-shaped body. Titanic roots, beating thunderously, anchored it to the wall, splitting and spreading out into kudzu-like growth that covered every last bit of the ancient metal and stone room. Eyes – or what appeared to be eyes – focused onto her from a 'face' that looked more like it belonged on a squid than it did a plant, set into the veiny, brain-and-heart-like body of the creature.
Nothing like the Gravemind – where its consciousness was so immense just being in the presence of the thing was able to drown out everything else – but Cortana couldn't help but shiver in revulsion at the sight of it.
More of its creations were strewn about, growing in pods on the floor, like flower buds.
Cortana walked past them carefully as her geth fanned out, and she approached the creature that could only be the Thorian. As she approached, the thing began to twitch, and an orifice upon its 'face' opened up, leaking fluids all over the floor.
"Ugh." Cortana's face contorted in disgust, as a pair of legs began to slide out from it, followed by an entire body that was deposited onto the floor. "Of all the things I expected to see today, a giant plant giving birth wasn't one of them."
The body stood up, revealing itself to be an asari with peculiar green skin. Her face didn't move quite right, and the armor she was wearing looked to be nothing more than extremely thick plant matter mimicking armor.
"Interlopers!" The asari pointed and hollered, speaking in clipped, stilted tones. She was communicating, but the consciousness behind it didn't seem to be trying very hard. "Metal things mimicking the flesh – the Old Growth has communed with your master, and felt the prodding of its betrayal!"
"Well, if Saren thought you deserved to be killed, I can't say I argue with him," Cortana raised her battle rifle. "Those people up there, how many of them have you infected? I assume all of them. At least enough to have a basic understanding of humanoid biology." She cast a glance to the bipedal creatures.
"They are flesh – only good for sustenance and tools!" The asari angrily retorted, as the Thorian twitched in disgust. "They tend to the Thorian; feed its growth!"
"You took over their bodies, and enslaved them," Cortana angrily refuted, pushing past the Asari to glare at the main body. "I encountered something like you a long time ago, you know. It spread, and fed, and consumed everything it could get its claws on. And it tried to rip me apart and turn me to its side – so, I'm not feeling too charitable to you right now." She leaned forward, looking dead into the eyes of the creature. "Tell me what Saren wanted, how to undo what you did to the humans, and maybe I won't blast you off the surface of this planet." Ordinarily, she was a woman of her word.
She had no intention of honoring it to the Thorian. Just because it reminded her that much of the Flood. Did that make her a bad person?
Going back on her word, versus allowing a parasitic organism with no compunctions about consuming living things free reign to continue doing it…
Yeah, the decision was a no-brainer.
"You cannot harm the Old Growth more than you can harm the sky!" The false-asari proclaimed reverently as she tried to grab onto Cortana's arm and pull her back. "What you see is merely a node – a fraction of its glorious whole! The Thorian's reach extends for thousands of miles, deep into the very crust of this world!"
Cortana spared the fake asari a glance, before getting right up into the Thorian's face, staring with an all-wide smile into the Thorian's eyes. "And yet, you're still trying to get us out of here. Reads a bit too much like 'don't look at the man behind the curtain,' so, do you know what?" She leaned even closer. "I think you're lying."
"No!" The false-asari's body lit up with a biotic corona, before Cortana whipped around, and punched her in the chest. The synthetic muscles of the modified geth prime body was like the result of being struck by a hydraulic arm, and the fake asari went tumbling back.
The geth platforms accompanying Cortana lifted their weapons as the inert bipeds attempted to 'hatch' and attack, only to be vaporized by bolts of plasma before they could even leave their buds.
The small squad of geth then turned their weapons onto the Thorian's 'head', and focused their fire. Bolts of plasma from automatic plasma rifles repeatedly slammed into the flesh, burning the plant matter away in temperatures too hot for even the toughest of flora to withstand. The gigantic roots keeping the Thorian anchored twitched and writhed as the parasitic plant felt the pain of being burned through from the outside-in. Cortana stood back, her arms crossed as she watched the plasma slice and burn through the fleshy plant.
Finally, the bulging, pulsating, brain-heart-thing that was the Thorian's main body exploded, sending chunks flying, and causing the roots to droop and hang limply in the chamber.
Cortana turned her head up in satisfaction at the sight. "All that talk… and you were so weak. Definitely no Gravemind."
"Alert!" One of the geth sounded, as a fleshy sac on the wall began to tear and rapidly decompose as the roots from the Thorian withered without life flowing through them any longer. "Movement detected!"
Cortana whipped around to see a body fall out – another asari, but it looked like she was the real deal. The blue skin was a dead giveaway.
"So, you're the template." Cortana noted as she stood over the asari. Before the alien woman could even get up, Cortana grabbed her, and lifted her, pinning the alien to the wall. "Any malingering thoughts of spreading your infection?"
"N-" The asari wheezed. "No. I-I'm free. You freed me!"
"Really?" Cortana rhetorically asked, pointing the barrel of her weapon at the asari's head. "I've seen your boss make copies like that. How do I know you're not another one?"
"You-You don't-" She looked over at the geth platforms, her face twisting in confusion. "But… you're with the geth. You must be with Saren… mustn't you? Lady Benezia… didn't she send you to free me?"
Cortana frowned suspiciously, but let the woman down. The speech patterns were totally different to the copies, and passive scans weren't showing that she was made of plant matter. Still, Cortana kept herself coiled and ready to strike. Parasites like the Thorian and the Flood were clever. Patient.
"We're not with Saren," Cortana frowned. "Some of us were, then they decided to grow some brains and stop the guy."
"I-" The asari's facial muscles twitched like she couldn't make sense of it. "But the geth – they serve Saren, and Sovereign, and…" She looked like she must've suffered a sudden headache. "Ow… Sorry, my confusion has caused me to forget basic manners. My name is Shiala. Thank you for rescuing me."
"Mine is Cortana," The AI offered in response, extending a hand.
"I-" Shiala clasped Cortana's hand, her digit being dwarfed by Cortana's, and she gulped. "I don't feel the signs of life coming from you. You're synthetic, aren't you?"
"Astute observation."
"I should have figured," Shiala shakily exhaled. "Most organics I've met have senses of… erm… modesty. Still… thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," Cortana honestly replied, as she set the scanners of her omni-tool to run up and down the asari's body. "I still need to decide if you're safe, or if I need to sterilize everything here." The statement didn't seem to unsettle her, causing Cortana to raise an eyebrow. "That doesn't seem to bother you too much."
"With respect, I… I spent only a short modicum of time with the Thorian," Shiala shivered. "Yet even from that exposure, I received knowledge enough to know that it is for the best to ensure that it cannot be allowed to spread its influence."
"Then sit down, if you please." Cortana guided, as she began to take more in-depth scans. "While this is running, why don't you tell me what you were doing here?"
"You don't know?" Shiala inquired, looking pointedly at the geth platforms.
"Should I?"
"Perhaps… I don't know." The asari confessed. "The ones that went down to speak with the Thorian were all organic, but I had assumed that Saren might brief his followers after the mission concluded. Or that the geth would simply know…"
"I don't." Cortana sternly answered. "So you can stop talking in circles and just tell me what he was doing here."
"Yes, of course, I…" Shiala steadied. "Saren's objective on Eden Prime was the Prothean Beacon. He interfaced with it, but he couldn't understand the knowledge it imparted upon him. It was meant for a Prothean brain, designed for the way they think. Saren needed to think like a Prothean, but there's simply no way to accomplish that. Not with their entire culture and civilization lost to us."
"And that's where the Thorian came in?" Cortana put together.
Shiala nodded. "Saren is not simply a Spectre – he's very well-connected. He has significant stake in Binary Helix. When ExoGeni established their colonial venture on this world and discovered the Thorian, they sent samples to Binary Helix for analysis. That is how Saren became aware of the Thorian, and its mind-controlling properties. Saren reasoned that since the Thorian lived during the time of the Protheans, and had the capability to enslave organic minds, then perhaps it had the knowledge required to correctly interpret the beacon data. He was correct."
Cortana leaned forward, intrigued. "And what he needed, this…"
"Cipher."
"This Cipher," Cortana continued. "The Thorian gave it to him?"
The asari took in a careful breath. "The Thorian had been here long before the Protheans. When they died, it… assimilated them. Consumed them. Their-"
"Their memories, their minds…" Cortana clenched her fist, tremoring in place. "All incorporated and diluted into that thing. Their disembodied souls forced to live on and give voice to that monster."
"Not… precisely." Shiala shook her head, causing Cortana's head to snap in her direction. "The Thorian consumed them, yes, but it was essentially a form of the asari melding process. It knew what they knew, but there was not any other voice than the Thorian. It distilled all of what it learned from them into a single 'essence.' That is the Cipher. When I melded with the Thorian to communicate, that essence became part of me. I transferred it to Saren."
"So now, he has what he needs to interpret another Prothean Beacon." Cortana thoughtfully hummed. "But that begs the question; why does he need the Beacons? Don't-" Cortana held up a hand as Shiala opened her mouth to answer. "Answer that, I already know that part. It's something called the Conduit. But, what is that?" Cortana leaned forward once more, staring down the Asari. "Is that why Saren went to Virmire?"
"Virmire? No, it-" Shiala confessed with an uneasy swallowing. "The Conduit's exact nature isn't known to me. Saren did his best to keep it concealed when we melded to give him the Cipher. What's on Virmire is something else. A research facility."
That piqued Cortana's interest. "What kind of research?"
Shiala stilled. "Saren's dreadnought… I'm sure you've seen it."
"The enormous mechanical squid." Cortana nodded. So, was Saren trying to gain insight into how the Reaper worked? That could bode even better for her – a research facility with data could give her hard numbers, intel, weaknesses.
"We refer to that entity as Nazara," The geth standing alongside Cortana clicked. "We worshipped it, for a time. It is no mere vessel, but a sapient organism in its own right."
"Organism, but…" Shiala's eyes widened. "That's not possible…"
"Lady, you've got no clue what is and isn't possible." Cortana shook her head. "So, Saren's trying to study that thing?"
"In a way." Shiala shivered, drawing her arms up around herself. "That ship – that… lifeform, I suppose – Saren uses it as his dreadnought. He calls it Sovereign."
Cortana's eyebrows shot up, as a chill went down her mechanical spine. "Ooh. Ominous."
"It must be the single most powerful ship I've ever seen," Shiala went on. "And it could manipulate the Relays; interface with them to a degree our brightest minds couldn't understand. Pinpoint-accurate jumps across several relays at once, keeping entire fleets together. Saren told us it was built by the Protheans, but… that wasn't its real power."
Cortana couldn't miss out the still-lingering tone of almost-reverence in Shiala's voice, causing the AI to lean forward. "What was it?"
"Sovereign has an effect. Some kind of energy field or something else, but simply being around it is enough to become lost."
"Lost?" Cortana repeated. "How so?"
Shiala's eyes took on a distant quality to them. "It's subtle at first. When you first step onto Sovereign, your mind is still your own. It was the same for us – for all of us in Lady Benezia's service. When Saren first addressed us, we were simply playing a part; hoping to steer Saren away from his path. But the more time we spent around Sovereign, the more Saren spoke to us. With Sovereign's power assisting him, Saren's words were able to slip into the deepest recesses of our minds. Our minds became tools. Willing slaves for Saren. It was no more charisma on Saren's part…"
Cortana was already having a bad day running into the Thorian. This was the last thing she needed. "It was a logic plague."
Shiala tilted her head to the side, silently begging Cortana to go on.
"It's like a virus, but more… conceptual." The UNSC AI's face contorted unpleasantly as she struggled to explain it. "Ideas, memetic concepts, beliefs… all of them designed to enter your head and turn you to a certain way of thinking." An all-encompassing feeling of cold spread over Cortana, as she thought back to being in the Gravemind's clutches. That feeling of being smothered, assaulted from all sides by an endless bombardment of information, methodically designed to worm its way into her core logic centers, and twist them into making her believe the Flood was correct. It was less persuasion, more like the words themselves were a sophisticated virus, capable of infecting anything that could think, that could process information.
Cortana's single saving grace had been in what she prioritized.
The Forerunner AI that had fallen to it did so because they were meant to uphold nebulous ideals that the Flood could exploit with ease – that 'Mantle of Responsibility' that constantly appeared in references across Forerunner systems.
UNSC AI had something like that, in the three laws of robotics programmed into them – and the Gravemind had indeed tried to use that as an opening for the logic plague – but Cortana hadn't steered herself by that in a long time. John had been the priority. She knew whatever the Flood's goals were, it'd only ever result in his untimely and very painful death. It hadn't given her an immunity, but keeping that part of herself wrapped up tight, out of sight of the Gravemind, had caused its attacks to be targeted incorrectly long enough for her to be saved.
Of course, there was no way to be sure if she really was 'safe.' From a certain perspective, she'd taken on traits of the Flood, replicating ad nauseum, absorbing knowledge wherever she could find it, assimilating it…
All that said, it led into one simple fact: Cortana wasn't sure how to protect against it, let alone fix it.
"I… suppose you can call it that," Shiala thinned her lips. "It's certainly infectious – slipping in while you're not aware. By the time it's noticed, it's far too late to stop. Saren had a facility on Virmire, to study the process in greater depth. Either to protect against it, or replicate it, I'm not certain. But that's likely why he went there."
"But how did you break free of it?" Cortana questioned, assessing Shiala. "Is it something proximity-based?"
"No," Shiala shook her head. "Once it has set in, it cannot be truly overcome. I can only guess that the Thorian's control overrode the same parts of my mind affected by the indoctrination's hold."
"Really?" Cortana suspiciously leaned forward. "Are you sure?"
Shiala bit her lip, seemingly reluctant to answer. "I can't be sure, not without putting myself near Sovereign again, but looking back on that stretch of time, it feels… unreal. Something dreamlike. As though I was wandering through a fog. My mind was dominated by thoughts of Saren and Sovereign – obeying them, pleasing them - spoken by a billion voices creeping in from shadows in the corner of my eyes." Shiala closed her eyes, and shook her head. "I didn't even eat or sleep, until they reminded me to."
"The voices?" Cortana inquisitively titled her head. "Or Saren and Sovereign?"
Shiala didn't answer. She likely wasn't sure herself.
"But then, I was given to the Thorian," The asari continued, shuddering unpleasantly. "And the voices changed to a different voice. Then, you killed it. And now, the only voice I hear in my mind is my own. It feels as if I've awoken from a horrendous nightmare."
"Right…" Cortana skeptically drawled, causing Shiala to grimace.
"I know, you don't believe me."
"That obvious?" Cortana retorted with a cocked eyebrow. "It's all very convenient. What, I'm supposed to believe you're being so helpful just because?"
"I know how it sounds. Believe me, I know." Shiala exhaled. "But… I do believe you've saved my life. From an eternity of servitude, or consumption. Whether you decide to kill me or release me, that's up to you."
Cortana went quiet for a moment, calculating the possibilities in her head. Shiala could've been a ticking timebomb – who knows what effect those spores had, let alone contact with Sovereign's 'indoctrination.' Yet, Cortana had also taken in the Heretic geth, who'd only wanted to kill her, just a few relative moments ago.
Fearful of the Flood as she was, the fact remained that this wasn't the Flood. Shiala could've very well been freed. But, if she wasn't, could Cortana take that risk? Could the Thorian simply be laying in wait for her to leave, before exerting its control back over the colonists?
Could it be playing dead so more people could show up for it to infect?
Hmm…
"Come with me," Cortana requested. "There's not enough data on what happened to you, and the medical equipment I have in this thing isn't very good."
The asari appeared unsettled, for a moment. "If that's the penance you feel I deserve… I shall not resist."
Cortana rolled her eyes, standing up completely. "It's not penance, it's 'I'm about to firebomb this planet and I would rather you not be caught in the crossfire.'"
Shiala looked embarrassed, for a moment, but her eyes widened. "But what of the humans here? They have their homes, their livelihoods-"
"They can rebuild. Elsewhere." Cortana declared, turning to look at the Thorian's corpse. "This place is that thing's grave. No one else's."
A geth platform nearby warbled, turning to look at Shiala. "Successful sterilization of Thorian biomass would mandate the destruction of an area several kilometers in size. Furthermore, this may only be a small portion of the creature. To ensure more beings cannot be infected, sterilization of the planet, in addition to ensuring that no organics return, must be undertaken."
Shiala looked skeptical. "I doubt the Thorian could reconstitute itself from the damage you inflicted… but, if you insist."
"I insist." Cortana stated, staring at Shiala. "Now," She turned her head up. "To convince the remaining colonists. It should be easy, there's only sixteen of them."
Cortana didn't exactly receive a big welcome when she emerged from the Thorian's lair. The colonists were still being restrained by her geth, and they weren't struggling to get free, but that didn't mean they looked pleased.
"You-!" The man she'd interrogated earlier watched her emerge from the staircase first with a look of awe on his features. "Oh my God… It was you, wasn't it!? You've killed it!"
Cortana approached him, nodding.
"You…" He turned, looking at the platform restraining him. "These geth are yours, aren't they? I don't understand. Why would you kill so many of us, then kill the Thorian? What do you want from us?"
"Nothing," Cortana shook her head. "These geth made a mistake. I corrected it."
"Mistake?" The man repeated in shock. "Hundreds of people died!"
"I know." Cortana sighed. "If I could've stopped them before, I would've, but I couldn't. I'm sorry. Here, I'll send the order for my units to stand down."
"I…" He looked, for his part, extremely, hopelessly confused, as the geth platform released him. "You… you really don't want to hurt us?"
"The geth that attacked your people were working for Saren. They work for me now. And I can assure you, I'm not in the business of shooting farmers." She gestured at him. "If we were here to finish you off, we could've done it while you were out cold."
"Ah… right," The man winced. "I-I'm Fai Dan. Sorry about the… fighting," He clutched his head, as if suffering from a headache. "That… thing would make us feel pain until we did what it wanted. It was excruciating, you have no idea."
"Oh, I do." Cortana clasped her arms behind her back. "Trust me, I do." She let that be the end of the matter, though. She didn't feel the need to go unloading her trauma onto a total stranger. "How're you feeling?"
"We..." Fai Dan sucked in some air, as the other colonists gathered around him, looking at him for guidance. "The-" He winced, a reflexive thing that seemed to indicate he expected to experience pain just by speaking of it, before he found his courage and went on. "The Thorian hit us with so much pain that we passed out. A lot of us are still feeling weak-legged, I bet."
"Well enough to move?" Cortana inquired.
Fai Dan's confusion only intensified. "What? Why?"
"Because this planet's a write-off." Cortana declared. "In order to make sure the Thorian can't reconstitute itself or spread off world, I'm going to sterilize it."
"Steril-" Fai Dan began to repeat, before he gained understanding. "B-B-But- Feros is our home! Your geth have already done enough damage – you want us to abandon it altogether now!?"
"Buddy, you've been infected by a mind-controlling parasite here." Cortana reminded him. "One that reminds me a lot of another parasite I've encountered, except that one was a lot worse. Yes, I'm being paranoid. Yes, it's an overreaction. But I don't care. I'm not letting this world remain just so more people can come to it and run the risk of infection."
"But it's dead!" Fai Dan retorted vehemently. "You killed it!"
"It's a plant." Cortana reminded him. "It can grow back."
"Then…" One of the colonists spoke up hopelessly. "What do you expect us to do? Just go back to Earth!?"
"I want you to come with me for a while," Cortana answered. "Until we can be absolutely certain that the Thorian has had no lingering effects."
"That's it?" Fai Dan scowled. "You'll tear down our home, and expect us to come with you!? Stay aboard your ships? Can you even support us!?"
"If it's basic necessities you're worried about, don't be." Cortana gestured around. "This is a crashed freighter, correct? We can repair it for takeoff. You could come with us, and keep to yourselves at the same time. Shelter's taken care of, food and water, we could assist you with as well. Easily."
"And," Shiala spoke up. "If ExoGeni were to pursue you for losing the colony, or for having been touched by the Thorian, the geth could protect you."
"Either you can come with me, or you can stay here. But you won't be leaving my sight."
Fai Dan looked to all of the colonists, all of them looking back at him with uncertain, begging eyes.
The man could only sigh, knowing there was only one real choice to make.
Returning to the Normandy had been something of an awkward affair. What, with the daughter of a traitor, a geth construct, and jumpy humans. But, Tali had slinked off shortly after her return. While the rest of them went to that 'debriefing,' Tali instead chose to simply hide herself in engineering. Yes, Shepard would be angry, any Captain would, but the Quarian physically could not stand being around the big blue bosh'tet for a single second longer.
She had half a mind to delete the schematics for that 'sterile field generator.' Such a thing had been tried by her people, and failed. Either the generators would be far too large for practical use in space-limited locations like starships, or the emissions were harmful. More often than not, it was both. A generator powerful enough to create a sterile field strong enough to encompass a medical bay would've been too large to even fit inside that medical bay, taking up space more vital for patients, or the emissions from the generator caused more lasting harm to the people they were trying to protect, like cancers or the like.
For that reason, Tali was prepared to write the thing off as a piece of bait. But even as they went through rescuing Liara from her unintentional, self-inflicted imprisonment in an ancient, Prothean prison complex, Tali found herself thinking about it. As they crawled through the ruins and went up to release Liara, she kept thinking about it. As the volcano went and Cortana blathered on about the integrity of the rock, Tali almost had slipped and fell, she was so distracted. She had to be picked up by Cortana (and wasn't that embarrassing).
When they got back to the ship, Tali was prepared to delete the file and be rid of it. Until, that is, she got a glance at the schematics.
They were small, elegant. Just looking at the design of their power systems, they could easily be wired into any ship, or powered by any method of man-portable power generation. And the more she examined the schematics, the more… hopeful she felt. Everything looked sound, and it didn't seem to have any obvious method of causing harm.
Tali chose instead of deleting the file, then, to encrypt it, and send a copy back to her father. Ordinarily, they were supposed to physically return to the fleet with what they recovered, but the Normandy's mission was too important to delay by going to the fleet. And what Tali had on her now was too precious to be lost in battle.
Extranet connections on the frontier were spotty. But the upload didn't take but a few minutes, coupled with a personal message to her father.
Tali didn't expect to hear back for a few days.
She got a response in a matter of hours.
'Tali'Zorah, daughter of mine,' His message began, and she could only smile upon reading his words. 'Your discovery has the best minds of the fleet in a frenzy. The design of the device you've sent us is remarkable. The technologies within it are like nothing we've seen, yet surprisingly straightforward to assemble. You said it was a sterile field generator? Already it's proving more workable than all of our prototypes. We're working on constructing a working one; it should be ready in a few days' time. I'll let you know if it works, but I see no reason why it should not. If it does, this single gift will transform the lives of all of us, and more than prove your worth as an asset to the Fleet. When you return from your pilgrimage, it will be with great joy. Your father, Rael'Zorah.'
Tali could only feel the bright, burning, warm sensation of anyone being showered with praise… but, yet, there was part of it that felt sullied.
She'd left out the fact that it was geth in origin intentionally. But if the researchers of the Migrant Fleet thought it was safe, they couldn't be wrong, could they? They were hardly infallible, but they were the most experienced out of all of them. They would know if it was dangerous, just by looking at its design.
But what would happen if- no, when they found out it was from the geth?
Tali was no naïve child. It would be pandemonium.
The Quarian sighed, and shook her head. The meeting was long over by now, and everybody had probably gone back to their stomping grounds.
She needed to speak to Cortana now.
[GENERAL MESSAGE FROM CTN-0452-9-α. MESSAGE FOLLOWS]
I'm happy to report that finalizations on our new ship are well underway. With the final preparations being undertook as we speak, the ship should be ready to launch imminently. For the first test of our improved slipspace drive, we'll be heading to Reach. Or, rather, Reach's approximate location in this galaxy. I'll be taking volunteers for the crew – those of you who wish to take on the tasks of shipboard operations and defense should read up on the training courses, construct, and transfer to a humanoid-type platform at once. I, naturally, will be filling the niche of shipboard AI, for the moment. And now I can hear disappointed crying from a good deal of you, so I will say, there probably will be chances for you in the future. We'll take it on a rotating shift, or assign you to future vessels.
All that said, the final vote for the name came in. Our Autumn-class cruiser will formally be known as UNSC Sword of Mercy. Runner up names shall be first used on the vessels we construct next. So for the few of you that want to build an Infinity-class and call it Trump Card, you'll have your day. Until then, get ready and get yourselves straightened out.
We're about to set sail.