Uninspired

Mass Effect, Inspired Inventor

13

Commissioned by Rival.

Watching the screen, I smirked when Delta detected a hyperspace window opening outside the station. A moment later, a transmission began broadcasting on all channels and the wolf girl put it up on screen. Sitting in her own command chair, the light blonde, blue eyed catgirl gynoid that was Zeta frowned at the screen for several seconds, as we began picking up increased transmissions within and leaving the station and signs of the place powering up.

Finally, resting her chin in her palm, leaning on her elbow and putting out all the casual annoyance of a cat, Zeta spoke. "I know you can hear me. I know you can understand me. You have something of ours—people important to us, on that ship. Release it now and we can forgive your curiosity, forget this ever happened. It will go down in the history books as a miscommunication. At most, the actions of an over eager operative. Refuse and this will escalate beyond your ability to contain. You have one minute to acknowledge."

With that, she went silent, simply staring into the screen as her tail swished in a way that betrayed just how irritated she truly was for those of us who knew her—or knew cat body language. Sixty seconds later, as apparently she was counting by Earth seconds, her eyes shifted off the screen. "Deploy fighters. Pry that hangar open."

A moment after that, a connection request came from the space station, and Zeta accepted, patching us in so we could see and hear. On the station side of the comms window, a salarian stood, looking nervous as others moved around in the background. "Unidentified vessel, I am Ishoth and this is an unarmed salarian mining colony. We have no idea what ship you speak of."

Zeta shook her head. "Zeta. First Fleet frigate, Stalker. And that was the wrong answer, Ishoth. I don't play games and I won't entertain liars. You are an STG black site and you are all salarian STG agents. I see you powering weapons and shields. My scanners detect the Lone Wolf in your hold, which your hired Blood Pack mercenaries stole from its berth in Omega, and I have been tracking the whole way here. Your window to resolve this peacefully is closing swiftly."

Ishoth fell silent for a moment, blinking as he apparently considered that. Then, he smiled. "I'm sure there's some misunderstanding. I don't recognize your species, captain Zeta. If a previously undiscovered race has lost one of their vessels, then I would be happy to have a ship escort you to the Citadel and explain the situation. The Citadel council and salarian government would surely be happy to help you search for it—"

I cut in, deciding to put an end to this. The salarian shifted his gaze to my window as I transmitted the view from the inside of the Lone Wolf. Behind him someone called out, "Sir, that's coming from inside the station!"

"Alright, that's about enough of that. Let's cut the bullshit, huh?" Reaching out, I laid a hand on Delta's head, scratching her ears. "Delta," she perked up, tail swishing once, "power weapons. If those doors don't open in ten seconds, put a laser through this facility and into their command center. Center it on Ishoth there."

"Powering up~!" the wolf girl leered.

I began counting. "Ten. Nine."

In my lap, Epsilon smirked. "I'd do what he says."

"Eight. Seven."

"Sir, we're detecting a massive energy buildup!"

"Six. Five."

Ishoth held my gaze for another three seconds before sighing. "Open it."

The hangar doors behind us began opening and I stopped counting. As soon as they were wide enough, Delta backed us out. "Good. It seems you can be reasoned with, at gunpoint." The salarian frowned at that. I muted our broadcast to the station. "Zeta, you've got enough room in your hangar for them?"

"Mm. I do," she confirmed.

"Alright. Beam them onboard. Delta, grab Ishoth bring him here. We're going on a field trip to Sur'Kesh."

Zeta nodded and cut comms, prompting Delta to do the same. A moment later, the musical note of teleportation signaled Ishoth's arrival on the ship. The salarian blinked dumbly. "What? I…" He looked around, taking everything in, before his green tinted skin paled. "Oh."

"Yeah. 'Oh,'" I repeated, lifting Epsilon from my lap and standing. The alien looked up as I offered him a hand. "I'm Leon. I'd say it's nice to meet you, but it's really not."

"Ah," he hesitated, then took the offered hand. "I… apologize for that."

"There are worse ways to initiate first contact. You could have shot first," I shrugged. "Come on, how about I give you the tour? Delta, coordinate with Zeta and get us to Sur'Kesh, would you? Put a hurry on it."

"On it, master~!"

The salarian reached for his omni-tool, before pausing. I cast a knowing glance his way and smiled. "Go ahead. Feel free. Scan all you like."

"You're being surprisingly accommodating for someone who was relocated against his will," the alien murmured, bringing up his tool and scanning me. A frown pulled his lips downwards as he did it again, before turning and waving it over the interior of the ship, to similar results. Finally, he chuckled. "I see."

"We've had time to learn how to block omni-tool scans, as you can see. You're pulling valid data, for the things we're allowing you to see, and the rest just isn't going to show up."

"Yes, I see," he nodded, following along as I led him through the ship. "Did you take only me, or did you abduct the rest of the crew as well?"

"They're with Zeta on the Stalker. I can arrange for you to talk to them, but you won't be here long."

As we passed Rated, the Salarian stared, holding up his omni-tool to scan the huragok. "What is that? I've never seen anything like it."

"That? That's Space Rated—or just Rated. He's a member of a bio-engineered race created to help with engineering, maintenance, repairs, medical, and other things. Very smart, friendly, and generally docile."

"Generally?"

"Well, if you manage to actually make one mad, they can disassemble parts of you on the molecular level, so I wouldn't recommend it."

"…Ah."

We came to the engine room and Ishoth blinked again. "That eezo core is several times the size a vessel of this size actually requires…"

I chuckled, before shooing him back out of the engine room towards the kitchen area. "Yeah, the quarians said the same thing, the one time one of them got a good look inside one of my ships."

Ishoth hummed at that, before taking the conversational bait and asking the obvious as he took the offered seat and I began pouring drinks. "The Migrant Fleet disappeared half a century ago. Was that your doing?"

"It was. We offered to let them settle with us and gave them a planet." The salarian blinked, silently repeating that as what I thought might be incredulity washed over his face. "We've been rubbing elbows with them ever since. They like being able to finally get out of the suits, you know?"

"'Out of,'" he echoed, sitting forward. "What about the weakened quarian immune system?"

"What about it?" I asked, my lips twitching into an amused smirk. I put a glass in front of him and sat down, taking a sip from my soda. He narrowed his eyes and I continued, "We took care of it. Human medical technology is pretty advanced. Actually, we've heard of another race like the quarians, that are on the outs with your council. The, what were they called again?"

"Krogan," Epsilon supplied as she walked in and leaned against the door frame.

I snapped a finger as though just remembering. "Right, those guys! We've heard they had some birthrate issues and I thought we might have a look and see what's going on there. Maybe it's some kind of problem related to the radiation from nuking their planet, or some kind of disease they picked up somewhere."

Ishoth paled, his eyes going wide. "You can't!"

"Hm? Can't what?"

"The krogan are a scourge upon the galaxy!" Taking a breath, he visibly forced himself to calm down. "You've never seen one. They're huge. Usually about as tall as you, but they outmass you about five times in pure muscle, plus their shell. They were born and bred for war. They adapt to whatever environment you put them in. Before being introduced to the wider galaxy, their planet was in a constant state of war, fighting over resources and space, because they bred quickly, producing clutches of dozens at a time. It used to be a garden world, but as you said, they used nuclear weapons and poisoned it, killing off much of the local plant life. They are violent and thrive on conflict!"

"Neat. Then we'll get along great." The salarian boggled at that. "Human history is filled with conquest, murder, war, and the worst sorts of violence against each other. We are madmen, barely leashed by the desire to be better, but always looking for an excuse to slip the chains of civilization and return to our caveman days of hunting, killing, and conquering everything that so much as moves funny. I imagine we'll get along just fine with them. The thing you need to understand about humans is, we offer one hand in peace, while the other hides a knife. We are absolutely willing to make peace and get along with others, but the moment you make us your enemy, the knives come out."

"Is that a threat?"

Epsilon snorted. "Did it sound like a threat? A threat would be, if you lay your filthy xeno hands on my master again, I'm going to personally strangle you to death and watch as the life leaves your eyes."

"Epsilon, it's okay." I sent the salarian a smile. "What I gave you was a warning that should be taken in the same vein as any other common sense warning. Don't stare into the sun, you'll go blind. Don't put your hand on the stove, you'll get burned. Don't attack humanity, 'war crimes' don't apply to non-humans."

"I see," Ishoth murmured. "You realize this harms your ability to deal with the Citadel Council and Council races in good faith?"

I smiled. "You say, while sitting here. An STG operative who hired mercenaries on Omega to steal this very ship and attempt to kidnap us from the station. It's nice to see hypocrisy isn't just a human trait, right Epsilon?"

"Mm. Sad, but true," the girl sighed.

"The Council was never going to deal with us in good faith. You know it. I know it. Better that we come to them as something approaching equals, instead of trying to beg for their favor. You've seen this ship. You've seen the barest glimpse of what humanity can do. Tell me, Ishoth. Do you think we need the Council?"

The salarian frowned, before tapping away at his omni-tool, reviewing his scans of the ship, myself, the power readings from the ship when Delta began powering up to attack, and playing back his own teleportation. Finally, he slowly shook his head. "I think that you have a powerful starting position to negotiate from," he admitted. Looking up, he asked, "That's why you're speaking with me. Telling me all of this. Letting me scan you and your ship. You know I'm going to pass this all along to my government, and then the Council."

"Of course," Epsilon rolled her eyes. "Why do you think we came to Omega? We were looking for a messenger. Someone dumb enough, or curious enough to try it, to take the bait and then report back. You bit first."

The alien sighed, a quiet laugh escaping his lips as he nodded. "I see."

"Master! We're here!" Delta called, her voice coming from all around us.

I finished my drink and stood. Ishoth picked up his glass and took a sip, before raising an eyebrow. "Huh. Better than I was expecting."

We made our way back to the bridge and I took a seat, Epsilon dropping into her favorite chair—my lap—while Delta perched in her usual spot. Ishoth stared, his mouth falling open, at the wall to wall display Delta had put up showing Sur'Kesh and the surrounding space. "That's… impossible. This has to be some kind of pre-recorded—"

"Delta, take us in. Full stealth. Put us over their largest city."

"Mm!" Delta nodded, leaning forward a bit as we descended into atmosphere.

Ishoth watched as we approached the biggest city on the planet. Tapping away at his omni-tool, his eyes widened as it picked up transmissions and extranet coming from the planet. "It's real! But that's impossible! The speed needed to get here… it's just not possible through the mass relays! Even if transit through a relay was instant, you still need to traverse space to and from the relay—"

"Delta, do you see a roof with somewhere we can stand around?" When the wolf girl nodded, I said, "Beam us down."

There was a flash of light and I found myself standing on a roof, Ishoth a few feet away. He closed his eyes and breathed in, before slumping slightly. "It's real." Turning, he looked a bit pale as several revelations occurred all at once. "You have teleportation technology. FTL that doesn't rely on mass relays. Stealth technology that can beat our best sensors."

"All that and more," I confirmed. "That's just the stuff you've seen with your own eyes. Of course, while you were scanning me, we were scanning you. I've had some of my tech heads going over your biological data. Salarian lifespans are tiny. It wouldn't actually be all that hard to increase them. Then again, we don't exactly have any reason to do so. It's not like we're allies. Oh well," I shrugged.

"Wait! How do we contact you? To open negotiations, cultural exchange, and the like?"

I tapped into my focus interface and sent him the extranet address I'd made to contact the asari I wanted to bait into chasing after me. "That address works."

"What if we wanted to send a delegation?"

"We'll figure that out later. I'm going to need your government to rescind their standing order to try to capture my ships, first. This time, I was polite. I wanted to talk. Give diplomacy a chance, you know? If someone tries it again, we're going to move to gunboat diplomacy."

"That could start a war—"

"A possibility I'm well aware of. It's kind of funny, really. You've seen some of what my tech can do, but you haven't put together the most obvious use of it. What do you think is going to happen, if a war kicks off between our peoples? I don't know about you, but our First Strike doctrine is pretty clear. Take out the enemy command and control centers first, usually with nuclear arms. Off-relay FTL. Stealth. Teleportation. Nukes."

A full body shiver ran up the salarian's body. "[sub]Oh./sub]"

"Mhmm. But hey, it's not like we have to worry about that, right? I'm sure your government are all reasonable people who will take the polite warning for what it is, right?" The salarian swallowed. With that, I left him there as I pinged Delta to beam me away, to another site in the city, out of sight of observers, cameras, scanners, and other means of observation.

Switching over to Zeta, I radioed in, "Zeta, send me a pokeball please. Then arrange to have a Delta sent with a full crew for stealth support."

"Roger."

A moment later, I caught a ball as it beamed into the air in front of me. I tapped the green button on the side, waiting for it to go through its initialization process, before hitting it again and tossing the ball onto the roof in front of me. It opened up and a team of four black-clad androids popped out. They began transmitting immediately as they moved, sweeping the roof and surrounding area for threats, before the leader turned and marched up to me, leaving the other three on watch.

The white haired gynoid took a knee in front of me, one hand coming up to her chest as she bowed her head. "Sir!"

Reaching down, I took her hand and gently but firmly pulled her to her feet. "What's your name?"

"101E, sir," she answered quickly.

"One Oh One Echo," I nodded, and she perked up a bit as I took her in. Like all of the female androids, she was sexy and had a cute face, with bright blue eyes and white hair. "Alright, I've got a job for your team. I've already given the order to Zeta, so you'll have a Delta coming to act as support and bring your relief soon, so you can have teams rotate in and out." She nodded at that and I continued. "I need you to do a little nosing around. Find their critical infrastructure, government officials, people of interest—everything we'd need to take out if it came down to it, to cripple them. I want as much dirt on all the big players as possible. Anything we can use against them if we need to. Basically, assume we're planning a soft regime change, with a more violent alternative in case the first attempt doesn't pan out. None of you are deniable assets, so don't get caught, don't leave any evidence behind. Okay?"

"Understood, sir!"

I gave her a smile and a pat on the head, earning a quiet squeak. "Good girl, 101Echo." I turned to address the others as well. "All of you, stay safe. Don't put yourselves in danger if you don't have to."

With that, I pinged Delta and had her beam me up. We left the planet after Zeta beamed the other salarians down onto the same roof with Ishoth.

"Delta, take us to Tuchanka. Let's see if we can make some friends…"

"RAAAAGH!!!"

"RAAAH!!!"

I watched as a krogan charged Delta, only for the wolf-girl to flip over him, grab his shell, pick him up, and throw him several yards—sending the big dinosaur-like alien bouncing across the ground like a stone tossed at a lake, completely out of the fighting pit. Landing lightly on her feet, Delta fell into a crouch, her arms spread and her tail thrashing as she glared at the other krogans gathered to watch.

"Any other takers?" I asked, riling up the crowd. "Come on now, you're not just going to let some tiny alien female embarrass you like this, are you? You losers got no quads?"

That got a response, as half a dozen of them roared, charging down into the pit. Delta laughed, flashing between them as she began throwing punches and kicks, either knocking them out with shots to the jaw, or just kicking them back out of the pit.

Epsilon sighed. "Meatheads. Of course she'd be right at home here."

"Let Delta have her fun," I said, reaching over and cupping her ass, making the elf gynoid blush. "She's never really gotten a chance to just cut loose like this."

"Psh. Fine," Epsilon rolled her eyes. "Anyway master, that guy is here," she said, pointing to a krogan in red painted armor watching from a catwalk above the fighting pit. "You asked for the krogan most likely to actually listen. That's him. Urdnot Wrex. Mercenary, bounty hunter, and something called a krogan Battle Master. Basically, they're sanctioned terrorists, is the best way to put it. No methods too harsh, if it gets them what they want."

"Scary," I murmured, before nodding. "You say he's the guy?"

"Mm. His communications between other krogans show he's been trying for a while to find a way to fix the problems caused by the genophage, their own culture treating krogan lives as expendable, and their violent nature causing a lot of in-fighting when they aren't out working as shock troops, leading to steep population decline. He's one of the few males who see the writing on the wall. Many of the females do as well, but most aren't exactly in a position to do anything about it."

The fight abruptly came to an end when one of the krogan knocked out of the pit pulled a shotgun, took aim, and fired. Everything went still as the hexagonal shields of Delta's wave-force armor flared briefly. The wolf-girl turned and launched herself out of the pit in a perfect ballistic arc. The krogan fired twice more, shots again splashing off her shields, before she got to him. Delta grabbed him with one hand by the ridge at the back of the head and the other on the top of his shell, and proceeded to pull.

It was over before anyone could do anything to stop it. There was a wet ripping sound, then a thump as his body hit the floor. Holding up his head for all to see, she let it go, then kicked it hard enough to hit the ceiling of the bunker we were in, where it splattered in a wet splash of bone, blood, and brains.

Contrary to expectations, my most violent shipgirl didn't look upset at all. No, the ear to ear grin on her face told me this was exactly where she wanted to be.

Before things could devolve further, the red-clad krogan up above whistled sharply. "Humans!" he yelled, drawing our attention, before gesturing for us to follow and walking down the catwalk towards where scans of the building showed a large room.

Delta pushed her way through the crowd and latched onto my side as we made our way up to the stairs, the krogans parting around our group as we went. "Master, did you see me?! I was all, whoosh, pow, bang! And then he went all, splat, thump!"

"Good work, Delta," I squeezed her tight. "I'll reward you tonight."

"Mm!" she nodded happily.

Epsilon pouted, making a disgruntled noise. "I hacked their messages and master didn't reward me—"

"Right here, right now, in front of everyone," I threatened, and Epsilon yelped, even as her nipples stood out beneath her suit.

We found Wrex and closed the door behind us. Epsilon ran a quick scan for bugs and a moment later, we heard a pop in the ceiling, drawing an amused look from the krogan. "What do you want, human?"

"So, did you come straight back here after stealing my ship for the STG?" I asked, grinning. A bit of digging showed that it Wrex's group specifically that the salarians had hired out of Omega, and apparently they had come back after once they got paid. We'd killed a bit of time waiting for his ship to get back to Tuchanka before coming down, ostensibly to let Epsilon dig through their networks and find the krogan most likely to take the offer I was going to make.

The alien snorted a laugh. "Thought that was you. Saw you on the footage from Omega. How'd you get back to the ship?"

"Teleportation tech. As long as we're in range, we can beam anywhere the Lone Wolf's scanners can see. Or anyone."

He shifted a bit where he stood. "Oh yeah?"

"Delta," I asked, and she perked up. "Find one of those big arenas outside and put us there."

There was a note of sound and light, and between one blink and the next, we were standing in the middle of one of the outdoor arenas where they held their rites. Wrex looked around for a moment, kneeling to pick up a handful of sand and confirm that it was real. Standing again, he turned back and asked, "What'd you do to the salarians?"

"Told them that if they kept fucking around, they were going to find out. Then I beamed them all onto one of my ships and took them home. Dropped them off on their home planet, just to prove I could get in and out without them knowing until it was too late."

The big alien laughed. "They're probably shitting their pants at that. Paranoid little bastards. Alright, you're not shooting, or 'beaming' me into the sky and dropping me from orbit, so that means you wanna talk. Go on." He turned a grin on Delta and added, "That little show you put on earned that much."

Delta grinned back and I chuckled. Epsilon stepped forward, putting her focus in broadcast mode and creating a hologram Wrex could see. "You seem like the kind of person who prefers to cut to the chase, so I'll keep this brief. The krogan population is in decline. This is intentional, as you know, because of the salarians and the turians, and the genophage—but it wouldn't have happened without approval from the Citadel Council. They grew afraid of your people. Afraid of being swept away under a tide of krogans outbreeding them, living a long time, and being very hard to kill compared to other races. They used you up and threw you away."

"Yep," Wrex grunted. "What about it?"

"We're forming our own alliance. We've already got the quarians on board."

"And what would we be doing for this alliance?"

"In, not 'for,'" I corrected. "You'd work with us, not for us. There's a difference. As for what? Whatever needs doing. Whatever you're good at and want to do, same as the quarians and the other humans. Leave the specifics to the politicians to figure out. We're just here to make the offer."

"Uh huh. What's in it for us?"

"A cure," Epsilon answered with a smirk. "While we were on Sur'Kesh, I might have broken into the salarian databases—the ones they don't want anyone to know about. Did you know, the idea of air gapping their equipment never even occurred to them? I guess they thought all those fancy firewalls, antivirus, and other crap would protect their data. That, or that no one would ever get close enough to just take it. Either way, we have the original genophage data and subsequent update data. Between that and live samples, it should be possible to just destroy it."

Or we could transfer them into new bodies, but that was an offer we could make later. No need to pull out all our cards right at the start.

"What makes you think I'd believe you?" the krogan demanded. "We've been jerked around by the quad over the phage before."

"For some people, words just aren't enough," I nodded. "We're building a station. A neutral meeting place in the Attican Traverse. Sort of our own personal Citadel. I'll send you the location and you can come and have a look for yourself. Bring friends, if you like."

"Hmph. I'll think about it."

"That's all we ask. Later, then—"

"Wait." I paused and the krogan made a quiet rumble, before asking, "If I wanted to get some people off the planet, out from under a bunch of guards, could you?"

I nodded. "Wouldn't be a problem."

He nodded. "I'll go see this place, then. When should I go?"

"It should be done by the time you get there."

With that, I had Delta beam us back to the ship. Sitting down, I sent a message to Alpha and Eta, letting them know we'd need to build a facility toute suite—preferably somewhere off the beaten path, in a dead system known to be uninhabited. I had several drones out that way, moving along the relay network to map everything out, so it was likely that we already had several candidates by now.

Dialing up Victor, I grinned as I sat back and waited for him to pick up. After a moment, the call connected and the man looked blearily at me from the other side of the video call. "Leon. What is it? It's," his eyes shifted to the side, "three in the morning."

"Oh, it's nothing important. Just thought you'd like to know I made contact with several other alien races."

The man sighed, closing his eyes and bringing his hand up to rub his face. "You know I'm not going to be able to get back to sleep after that. Alright, what have you found?"

"I'll have Epsilon send you the files. Short version though, we're looking to make that alliance with the quarians official and expand it to include other species. You've got about a week to put together a diplomatic team. I'm about to call the quarians and tell them the same thing. You'll be taking the First Out from human space. You'll want to put together an escort detail of other ships from the Systems Alliance fleet. Not my ships—the ones you've built yourselves. I might send the First Fleet."

"A week."

I smiled as the man stared at me, bleary-eyed. "Yup. As Speaker for Humanity, I needed to send a message to somebody, which means I have to move fast on our other option, before they try to sabotage things."

Victor twitched. "I'm beginning to think you're more trouble than you're worth."

"Only beginning to? Damn. I'll have to work harder. Either you'll remove my titles, or I'll give you an ulcer from stress. But since I'd be betting against my own tech, I'll have to put my money on you rescinding it first."

The man glared. "I'll have teams put together and the First Out ready in five days. Anything else?"

"Good man," I chuckled. Thinking back to what I knew about the wider galaxy, and the chatter I'd seen about us on Omega, I grinned. "Just one more thing. I need strippers."

Victor looked confused. "Strippers? As in…?"

"As in people who take their clothes off and dance."

"…Why do you need strippers, Leon?"

I sent the man a look that questioned his intelligence. "Well, who else am I going to get to use the stripper poles?"

Victor's mouth opened and closed. After a moment, his gaze shifted to Epsilon in my lap, who had been silent up until now. "What. Could you please translate his insanity?"

"I don't see what's so hard to follow," Epsilon shrugged. "Here, look."

The elf gynoid gestured and a video recorded from Omega played, of several asari dancers doing their thing. Victor's mouth fell open. "Are those… alien pole dancers?"

"Yup. Turns out, shaking your ass is a universally understood language. Those are asari. Pretty much the hottest alien space babes in the galaxy—"

"An entire race of 'alien space babes,'" Epsilon corrected. "All asari are female."

Victor blinked, a distant look crossing his face. "Wait. Didn't you say something like that, years back? When we first launched? That they'd be blue and probably female?"

"I might have," I shrugged. "Doesn't matter. What does matter is the comms chatter Epsilon intercepted. To sum it up, they think we look like asari. Pink asari with hair, but still. And me? Male asari. I'm going to make sure we have a few members of races who will be sure to report back to the Citadel show up as guests. When they send their reports back, I want them to be in awe of our tech. I want them to be afraid of our ships. And I want them to be aroused at the very thought of a human. In this way, when the information leaks to the general populace—which we'll make sure happens—humanity will be the new craze. The wealthy, advanced race that everyone wants to buy from. The powerful race everyone is afraid to attack. The popular race everyone wants around. I want them to come to us, not the other way around. After the meeting, I'm going to open up the relays leading out of human space. The satellites will quarantine the space around our relays, so you don't have to worry about invasion, but you should let the rest of the Systems Alliance to know to start expecting guests."

Victor breathed out a quiet groan, before collapsing backwards in his bed. "I'm getting too old for this shit."

"You wouldn't have it any other way, old man."

The last I saw of him was Victor flipping me the bird as he cut off the transmission.