"How long till we're in range?" asked Skarrde as the Shepards departed the Meeting Point. Normally, he would be on his way to the bridge, but considering his size, he literally wouldn't have fit, and so stayed in the room where he could be kept up to date on all operations of the ship, and quickly relay orders to the relevant departments. On command, a display showing the ship with tiny dots moving around inside for the crew appeared at chest level to the Zentraedi, who could tap any one section and get a real time eye on the scene, while also showing him their destination floating just out of reach, with a timer above it showing a few minutes.
"We'll be in optimal firing range in six minutes, General," said one of the conn officers, a young male quarian who's face popped up in a window. Nodding, Skarrde began to replay the video in front of him, getting a view of the ship they were going to be attacking. Something about it seemed oddly familiar, but his mind couldn't place it, making him idly wish he had Exedore's memory, at least for a moment, before he began to plan out tactics, the ground force dispositions and such.
Below him, the two Terran's arrived to find a mad house under their feet, forcing them to step gently around the micronians who were rushing this way and that, prepping units for launch. All around them wanzers were loaded with backpacks, weapons, and shields of the pilots choices. Ground troops, without the mechs, took guns in hand and checked them over, giving each weapon a quick visual, and sometimes an even deeper inspection if the weapon allowed, none of them seemingly organized, and yet after each was finished, they would fall perfectly into line, like they'd been training for this for months.
"Not bad hustle," said Jane as she put her helmet on, the click and hiss of the seals very comforting, and the HUD quickly displaying where Charn was in this mess. His pod was already prepped and ready for attachment, so she walked over towards him, nearly stepping on a salarian who had the misfortune to run right in front of her. Luckily her suit warned her of the danger, and her sole hovered only inches above his head, before she moved it over him, and then heavily let it drop, knocking the poor guy over.
"Jane, be more careful," said Jon, as he donned his own helmet. Unlike his sister, he kept an eye down, easily dancing amid the chaos, moving with far more grace than she did. Where the crowd parted for her, because she herself was like a massive ice breaker, pounding its way through an icy sea, he flowed with the tide of micronians, his feet always finding gaps and places to set down gently. Not that those by their boots saw much difference between the two, as the giants made their way across the bay, finally arriving at their destination.
"Charn, ready for linking," said Jane as she came close, turning around, and then waiting. The batarian, rather than griping or otherwise complaining, quickly turned his pod to the task at hand, raising it from the deck, and then fitting into the space between her shoulder blades. The link between the pod and the armor created a low hum as the two connected and the mass effect field of the pod covered Jane as well, lightening her load and allowing her to move more freely in her armor.
"Linked in, Sergeant. Now we wait for orders," he told her in his commanding tone, and Jane nodded, taking a ready stance, while beside her, Jon and Tali linked without a word, and Legion soon unfolded from the cube beside their feet, standing tall and proud, the trio standing there, ready for battle, while more of the ground force began to gather in the bay, waiting for the order to come down. Above, looking at the countdown as it reached zero, Skarrde sighed to himself, watching as the display of the planet zoomed in on the ship in orbit, now floating there silently, while about it, fields and homes burned.
"As soon as we have a targeting lock, I want every gun on this vessel raining fury on that thing," ordered the Zentraedi, feeling the old instincts kick in. His training, in his old cloning pod, screamed at him to call in more ships, overwhelming force that could crush the enemy under heel, or just destroy the planet below. But he had the best chance right now to end whatever this odd ship was, and its designs. The Normandy had snuck up on it, with the thing giving no indication they had been spotted. No, this was best, a single stealthy strike, and then call in the reinforcements.
"Locked and loaded, General. Firing in five, four, th-," began the voice of Jeff over the comms, only to be cut out as everything shuddered, and Skarrde was greeted with a feeling he found rather disconcerting on the Normandy. Weightlessness. The Normandy was of turian design, and included no points where they should be zero gravity, so feeling it now, especially as the holos faded away into nothingness, told him something was very, very wrong, and he thought that maybe they'd been spotted, and he would finally taste the cold kiss of death he had avoided for so long.
Then the weightlessness ended almost as suddenly as it came, and he could hear a whining, grinding sound from somewhere above and behind where he was, the engineering section of the Normandy. Rather than panic, or demand answers of the blank walls around him, Skarrde kept his cool for the few moments it took the displays to return, and very soon two AI holos were standing with him, while beside them the image of the ship itself hung, with large red splotches all over the hull.
"General, the core has overloaded the power containment systems," said EDI quickly, as the holo spun, opening up to show the various heat and power sinks spaced throughout the Normandy's hull, most of them reading as at capacity or near it.
"Did the enemy spot us?" asked Skarrde, and the female holo shook her head.
"No, sir, I'm afraid it was my fault. The core was spinning up to speed, and I thought I could handle the spikes due to the interfacing of protoculture with an impure eezo core, given my experience, but this core went far more wild then our Runner's," explained the AI EDI, and Skarrde nodded. Jeff and EDI had been a pair of AIs in the Titan Grand Prix running a ship that had a similar setup to the Normandy's. That was why they'd been tapped for the crew.
"Can we fire anything?" asked Skarrde, pushing a few buttons on his omnitool to bring the planet back up before him, zooming in on the view of the odd ship over the colony, which despite what had happened, there was no sign it had spotted them.
"I'm afraid not without dumping our sinks, and we can't do that in the atmosphere of Eden Prime without causing some major damage to the planet," said Jeff, and ran the sim, showing the Normandy at the center of a wave of heat and electromagnetism that destabilized the entire planet's atmosphere when they vented into it. For a gas giant or the like, this wouldn't have been a problem, for a planet with a large colony, especially one with what this one had down there, it was a major issue.
"I'm sorry, General. You'll have my resignation as soon as this situation is done with," said EDI, and Jeff reached over to comfort her in a very Terran gesture, despite their digital nature. Skarrde however, shook his head.
"There is nothing to be forgiven, EDI. We chose you for your skills, but then we pressed this ship into service a bit sooner than intended. Log your data, and make sure it doesn't happen again," he informed her, going over plans in his head, thinking of what it was he could do from this position, what force to use. The jig was up, the Normandy couldn't fight, so running and getting some bigger guns was the right answer under normal circumstances, but here and now…
"EDI, patch me through to Kryik," he ordered, and soon enough, a holo of the turian appeared, sitting in the air in front of him.
"I'm guessing you're not calling with anything good, given that hiccup that just trashed half the launch deck," said the SPECTRE, as he adjusted controls that weren't being shown in the holo.
"I'm afraid not. The Normandy is currently without weapons, and right now, all my instincts are telling me to run and get some bigger guns, but if we do that, our prize might just be stolen out from under us," said the Zentraedi, and Kryik nodded at that.
"I see. What are you thinking of doing about it?" asked the Nihlus as he obviously continued to prepare for launch.
"Your unit's a stealth type. I would ask that you move forward and attempt to recon the area, securing the package if you can, while another ground force moves towards it from a distance. If it works, they should pull away enough of these enemies that you'll have free run of the port to find it," explained Skarrde.
"A suicide mission is not what anyone on this ship signed up for," countered the turian, and the Zentraedi shook his head.
"Not a suicide mission. That ship is biggest danger, and if the Normandy drops stealth while still in the atmosphere, seemingly rising from somewhere near the colony, those in charge might believe we have the package. That should get the large ship to pursue us, while we make a run for the edge of the interference field, and hopefully contact with another force," Skarrde added, and Kryik seemed to consider this for a time, tapping a finger on one of his mandibles before turning to face the General.
"Send the Shepards, Legion, and Garrus in that new unit of his, with all the latest gear. The ground stuffs already been tested, unlike the Normandy's guns. That should give them a fighting chance against whatever is down there. We'll have to explain what we're after to them, however," said Kryik, and it was Skarrde's turn to nod. This day was not shaping up like he thought it would be at all.
On the launch deck, Jon and Jane were helping the Normandy crew get back on their feet, lifting wanzers up, and flipping tanks back over, while also digging a few who'd gotten trapped beneath things out. The process was slow going, due both to the random nature of the launch deck's setup, and a few of the crew panicking as they seemed to run around randomly. Luckily, there were just enough military trained personnel that they were able to herd the civilians into out of the way areas as they got everything back in order.
"Captain Vakarian, are you still functional?" came the voice of the General over the comms, causing the crew to look up for a moment, before everyone returned to their tasks at hand.
"I'm still in the middle of my pre-launch checks, but the unit itself is undamaged," said Garrus' voice over the channel.
"Excellent, Shepards, Garrus, Legion, I want to talk with you privately for a moment," ordered Skarrde, and the six(Including Charn and Tali) switched their comms to the command channel while the two Terrans and geth took to the sides of the bay so they could stand still for a moment. There was the typical whine and clicks of the secure channel making certain no one was listening into their conversation, before finally Skarrde's voice came to them.
"Alright, I'll be quick about this. The Normandy's guns are disabled at the moment, a result of a power spike from the eezo core," he began, displaying the Normandy's current status in the huds of those listening to him.
"I told you General, this ship still had over a month of shake down before we should have launched her," commented Garrus, who had protested earlier that day when they'd been ordered to launch his ship a lot too early given the experimental nature of the tech on board. He was a good turian though, and followed orders, but it was his duty to point out when he'd been right, and the brass had been wrong.
"We've still got engines despite this setback, and are going to make a break for the edge of the interference field. However, what's down on that planet is far too precious to allow to slip through our fingers," he continued, seemingly ignoring the comment, while bringing up another image in front of the four he was speaking too. In this case, it was a set of devices that looked vaguely familiar, but not one of them could place them.
"This is the reason we had to launch early. A month ago now, a field tiller on Eden Prime discovered an underground facility buried deep beneath the surface. He reported it, and we investigated the ruins, but very little was made of them even locally. After all, there are hidden pirate bases all over this area, and it was believed this was just another one," as he explained, the scans of the facility were displayed for the team.
"It took less than a week to realize that this was no hidden pirate cache or the like. No, this facility was prothean in origin. Given the Federation's lack of experts in this field of study, and our belief that, at the time, the place would be only of archaeological significance, we brought in a few experts from the Council, similar to how the Normandy herself was a joint project," explained the General.
"I'm guessing you discovered something far more important that a few artifacts," guessed Charn.
"Indeed, Master Sergeant. Our expert believes that the facility is actually a prothean deep sleep structure. The pods all along the walls being stasis units similar to our own, while a few beacons on top were obvious receivers, waiting for an all clear signal to wake up their sleeping people," he said simply, despite what a bomb that information really was. Working prothean technology was a rare find at all, but to have found a facility with stasis pods that might contain still living protheans. That was a find that could shake the galaxy up almost as much as the Terrans themselves had managed to do two decades ago.
"How many pods are still active?" asked Jon, and Skarrde audibly sighed over the comm.
"I'm afraid not many. The structure's power grid seemed to have been damaged at some point, and what should have kept thousands of them alive for millennia yet, kept only about a few dozen. Even that is a miracle though. According to our on the ground expert if we'd discovered the facility even a year later, it's doubtful there would have been more than ten of them online, and by the end of the decade they all would have failed," he explained, showing images of several of the pods to the listeners, and then having the display move them into a Terran shipping crate.
"Given the...severity of the discovery, we were going to do a joint venture with the Council in not only awakening these long lost people, but studying an intact prothean beacon. It was the hope of the Conclave that we could actually start bridging the gap between us in a big way, and create more than the strained peace that exists now," continued Skarrde.
"And the fact that the Council has experts that have studied this tech longer gives them a better chance of getting more out of the beacon," added Garrus sardonically.
"That did help the decision, I'm sure. The Conclave is insistent on it in fact. If I didn't know any better, I'd say they want to make sure the Council sees what's on that beacon, and hears the words of the protheans," responded Skarrde, his voice getting a distant tone, as if that comment wasn't for them, but more for himself.
"Regardless, the Normandy was sent out to retrieve the artifacts and take them to the Citadel where a joint team is already waiting to receive them. Obviously, the information leaked. Of course, this presents a problem. As such, you six are going to go down to the planet, and assist Nihlus in securing the crates containing the artifacts. While you are on the ground doing that, the Normandy is going to leap the unknown ship on a chase through the system. That should give you a chance to complete your mission," he finished, and the six had to stop a moment to digest that information.
"Orders acknowledged General, get us on the ground, and we'll get those protheans and the beacon," said Tali after only a moment's hesitation, and the others soon confirmed they were ready to go as well.
"Excellent. We'll be on the ground in five minutes. Be ready," he ordered, before closing the channel, and leaving them to their preperations.