Chapter 58
"So I think replacing the wet wiring fiber optics will decrease latency between nerve impulses, translation into data, and the opposite at the other end." Miranda suggested.
"Analyzing... It is possible. Fiber optics will also allow for longer cable runs allowing injuries or deformities higher on the spine to benefit from the procedure. We will begin simulations immediately." The Geth unit working with Miranda said.
"Thank you. Please let me know when you have results." Miranda said smiling at the platform.
"Of course. We are looking forward to seeing the results as well. This unit will power down for now unless you had any other questions." The platform asked.
"No of course not, thank you very much for your help, and for helping my sister." Miranda said.
"We are pleased to have been of assistance, Ms. Lawson." The unit said before powering down. She turned to leave the room only to see the stunned faces of Armando Bailey and a Quarian doctor as well as Oriana's smug grin.
"What?" Miranda asked.
"The Geth come up with a surgical procedure for organic beings that has eluded anyone's medical science for centuries, then you manage to improve it significantly a week after the first time they improve it by looking at schematics." The doctor said.
"Well yeah I mean come on, doesn't this thing fascinate you?" Miranda asked, gesturing at the schematics.
"Nerd." Oriana said. Miranda responded by sticking out her tongue. The Quarian doctor shook her head and regained her senses.
"Ok, so Ms. Lawson..." She said
"Oriana." Oriana interrupted.
"Oriana's healing is complete and her physical therapy is progressing faster than could have been anticipated. We estimate she is at 75% standard human mobility and will be at 100% by the end of next week. My only complaint is that she should not be slouching so much." The doctor said, glaring at Oriana towards the end. Oriana stood up straight
"Yes Doctor." She said, saluting her with a goofy grin. The doctor smiled, handed Oriana a notepad and left.
"Mr. Bailey, it's good to see you again." Miranda said, walking up and hugging the older man.
"For the thousandth time it's Armando to you. How are you Miranda?" Bailey asked.
"Good. Just taking a break from the work the Alliance gave me. " Miranda says.
"So you revolutionize modern medicine while you're on break from your boring military genetic research work? I reiterate: Nerd." Oriana said. Miranda rolled her eyes
"Make sure you remember to take some time to yourself now and then. Maybe go meet some other kids your age." Bailey said.
"I'm 20, Armando." Miranda said, yawning
"Still a kid to me, kid. Oriana just finished her checkup, we were going to go meet Jack after her krav maga class and head out to lunch, you want to come with?" Bailey asked.
"Sure, let me just send out a progress report to Hastings and I'll be ready in five minutes." Miranda said. He nodded and led the doctor upstairs.
"Miri, please listen to Armando. You can't spend every waking moment working. Even I get out and do stuff, as soon as I'm cleared Jack got me into her krav maga class." Oriana said.
"I'll think about it, ok?" Miranda said, pinching the bridge of her nose, her irritation with their analysis starting to show. Oriana rolled her eyes and scoffed. Miranda grimaced and walked past Oriana to head upstairs quickly followed by Bailey. Oriana noticed a letter sitting open on Miranda's desk, and being the nosy little sister she was she unashamedly sat down to read it.
Miranda noticed that she wasn't followed by Oriana so she went down to shoo her out of the lab, only to find her sister staring in shock at the letter that she'd forgotten to put away. Miranda chuckled, startling her back into reality.
"Snooping on my correspondence again, Ori?" Miranda said.
"Miri, this is big. This is your dream job." She said, pointing at the letter.
"I'm going to decline." Miranda said, her expression dropping.
"Why the fuck are you even considering doing that?" Oriana demanded, surprising Miranda with her vehemence.
"Ori... They want me to head their new R&D unit on Shanxi. Not only does that mean I'd be gone for military training, but after that I'd have to go to Shanxi, you can't lead a department remotely." She said.
"Yeah, no fuck you you're taking this job." Oriana said, her hands now defiantly rested on her hips.
"I'm not leaving you alone, Ori." Miranda said.
"You wouldn't be. Jack is here, and I spend so much time over at her house they've set their spare room up for me. We both know Mr. and Mrs. Bailey would happily take me in until I'm 18." Ori said.
"Out of the question. I promised you when our father went to prison I wouldn't abandon you." Miranda said, now mirroring her sister's defiant stance.
"You are not abandoning me, Miri. You're following your dreams, just like you wanted me to, remember?" Oriana said, tears now trailing down her cheeks.
"Ori... I can't leave you, I couldn't live with myself." Miranda said.
"You're not leaving me, Miri. We'll keep in touch. I still have to finish college, I have enough to keep me busy here. I'll ask the Baileys if I can move in, you go get ready for boot camp." She said, wiping her eyes.
"God you're stubborn." Miranda said smiling slightly.
"Yeah well I had a damn good teacher." Ori said, grinning.
"Go upstairs I'll be right up." Miranda said. Oriana smiled and began the awkward trek up the stiars. Linear movements were second nature to her but going up and down stairs was still a challenge. Miranda opened her terminal, and took one last look at her half-written rejection of the offer before deleting it and closing the terminal back down.
Benezia T'soni's stomach was twisted into a knot as she slowly made her way to the Prime Minister's office. She cursed the Matriarchs for dropping this responsibility on her, however she did accept the role of ambassador willingly. Things had been going so well between the Asari and the Alliance, and now it was her job to potentially destroy their progress, but sadly it could not be helped. Asari sovereignty must be respected. She paused briefly before knocking on Shepard's door.
"Come in." She heard the Prime Minister's voice from behind the door. She opened it and walked in.
"Ambassador T'soni, please have a seat." She said, having stood to greet her. Benezia nodded gratefully before sitting.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Shepard said, Benezia could tell that she knew something was off.
"Prime Minister, it is my duty to inform you that the Asari republics wish to officially submit complaint against the Alliance for recent intrusions in Asari space." Benezia said. Shepard's eyes widened in surprise, of all the things she was expecting this was not it.
"I am not aware of any such fleet maneuvers, In fact our warships have been ordered to stay five light years outside the borders of Asari or Turian space unless responding to distress calls, or other such emergencies. What happened?" Shepard asked.
"Two days ago, a pair of frigates and a cruiser equipped with an atmospheric siphon were spotted loitering around Niagalon in the Tomaros system. It appears the ships were illegally harvesting helium-3." Benezia explained.
"I see. Please give me a minute." Shepard asked, as she punched some commands into a desk console. Within minutes holographic representations of admirals Hackett, Chambers, Anderson, Xen, Raan, Korris, Zorah and Gerrel appeared in front of her.
"Admirals, the Asari are lodging a formal complaint that three Alliance vessels, two frigates and a cruiser were spotted illegally harvesting Helium-3 from one of their planets two days ago." Shepard said. The admirals began consulting their terminals and began reporting. One by one they confirmed none of their ships had been within the vicinity, and in fact all accounted for ships were more than two days travel from the planet in question.
"Any ships unaccounted for?" Shepard asked.
"None, all currently active assets report in normal and are where they're supposed to be." Xen reported.
"Ambassador, did you get transponder readings from any of the ships?" Shepard asked.
"Only one of the ships' transponders responded to our query. One of the Frigates was designated: Thermopylae. " Benezia said.
"Oh really?" Shepard said, her fists clenched and gritting her teeth.
"Forgive me, Prime minister, but I don't understand the significance." Benezia said.
"The Thermopylae is an experimental next generation frigate it was part of an experimental task force including the frigate Carthage and the cruiser Nibelheim. The three ships are designed to work in tandem and can actually physically fuse together to share energy and shields. Basically it's our attempt at turning a cruiser and its escorts into a makeshift dreadnought. The task force disappeared six months ago, and we recently discovered the crews had been sold to Batarian slavers." Shepard said.
"Goddess... Why was the cruiser siphoning helium 3 though if you use antimatter reactors?" Benezia asked.
"I can only speculate that they were going to try to sell it. Tell me have the Asari had any luck tracking the ships?" Shepard asked.
"Yes, but for the sake of diplomacy we were reluctant to act." Benezia said.
"You have the Alliance's full and unconditional support in blowing those ships out of the sky. If you can, please try to capture some crew so we can find out who did it and to which Batarian slave market the crews were sent to." Shepard said.
"You don't want the ships back?" Benezia asked.
"The crews and our relationship with the Asari are far more valuable than a couple of prototypes. We're sending all of the technical information we have on those ships to Thessia as we speak." Shepard said. With that a huge weight had been lifted from Benezia's shoulders.
"Thank you, Prime Minister. I am relieved to know that it wasn't an intentional encroachment." Benezia said.
"Of course, Ambassador. I ask that you see if I can meet with the Matriarch council to apologize properly." Shepard said. Benezia agreed and took her leave. As soon as the door closed she'd given orders to the Admirals to increase security around any research divisions and prototypes to prevent this from reoccurring, then bid them farewell. She slid down into her seat again, feeling every year of her age.
"God, why do I keep seeking re-election?" She said to herself, not expecting an answer.
"Free ice cream." Rothschild's voice responded as he materialized out of nowhere. Shepard smiled, then reached down to a mini freezer under her desk, and withdrew a container of strawberry flavored ice cream.
"Thanks for keeping me on the straight and narrow as always, Rothschild." She said, before devouring her sacred confection.
"I live to serve, my Queen." Rothschild said, bowing theatrically.
"That will do, peasant. Go muck out the stables." She said grinning at the AI.
"Eat shit and die, bitch." Rothschild said before exploding into a shower of holographic glitter.
"Pirate Queen or not, she's still a head of state and you will speak to her with respect." Shepard said, glaring at her pilot. His expression dimmed as he shut off the device he'd worked so hard on and the holographic talking parrot disappeared from existence.
"You're no fun, commander." Joker pouted.
"I'm sure you'll find plenty of other ways to get in trouble on Omega, Jeff." Shepard said, grinning. Oh how desperately she wanted to allow Joker to give Aria the parrot, but alas she could hardly explain to Admiral Hackett that the crew had been kicked off the station because Joker gave aria "the bird." She doubted he'd find it as amusing as she and Joker did.
"Yeah yeah, speaking of which ETA 20 minutes." He said.
"Thanks Lieutenant." Shepard said, waving before returning to the CIC. Ash was there chatting with Dr. Chakwas and Dr. D'inan
"I do look forward to catching up with Liselle. She seemed most eager to meet when I told her we were visiting Omega." Chakwas said.
"I want to see what all the fuss is about. Everyone I've talked to said that Omega is a shithole full of sleaze and crime. I can't wait!" Ash said.
"It really isn't all that amazing. I spent a few weeks there before I was taken by the Batarians. It's dark, and way too hot, and the smell, Goddess the smell..." D'inan said
"Can't be worse than the Krogan after Gardner's dextro bean casserole." Shepard said. D'inan paused, and considered that for a moment and shuddered.
"Do you know anything about this Aria T'loak?" Shepard asked, changing the subject.
"She is extremely territorial about Omega. Anyone who she perceives as a threat she deals with, harshly and swiftly. She's also shrewd and a vicious businesswoman. If you show her weakness she will immediately close in and take advantage. Under it all though she does have a moral compass. Slavery is not tolerated on or around Omega, anyone found engaging in the slave trade is escorted off the station, and into the vacuum of space. When you meet her, be open, honest but be strong." D'inan said.
"Thanks, Doc, I'll take all the help I can get." Shepard said. A moment later, Joker announced they were beginning docking procedures, so she joined the medics to help them bring their gear aboard the station. After stepping off the Normandy and onto the station's docking bay, Shepard was greeted by a sight she had absolutely no desire to see, a group of armed Batarians assuming an aggressive posture while eyeing her crew. She gently set down the crate she'd been carrying and stalked over to the lead one angrily.
"They're still power washing what's left of the last Batarian that brandished a gun at me out of the hangar of a captured dreadnought so if you want to spend the rest of the day pulling it out of your ass by all means continue pointing it at my friends." She said, murder in her eyes.
"Who.. Who do you think you are, human?" the Batarian said, stammering. Shepard responded by grabbing him by the lapel and lifting him a foot off the ground, pinning him to the bulkhead behind him.
"The last fucking thing you're ever gonna see on this wretched rock unless you grow a brain really fucking quick." She growled. The air grew acrid as the terrified Batarian lost the battle for control over his bladder. Shepard chose to ignore it.
"Sorry! I'm sorry! Don't kill me!" He squeaked, his cohorts hurriedly sheathing their weapons before she even had a chance to spare a glance at them. She let the now damp Batarian drop to the ground, and turned to pick up the crate she'd dropped when she was stopped by another Batarian, this time an unarmed one.
"Excuse me, Commander Shepard?" The nervous man asked.
"Yes, I am Commander Shepard. What can I do for you?" She asked, all hostility completely vacant from her voice and expression.
"My name is Bray, I work for Aria T'Loak, the administrator of this facility. She would like to meet with you at your earliest convenience." Bray said.
"Of course, I just need to deliver these crates to your medical center and I'll go there directly after." She said.
"Thanks. I was worried there for a minute." Bray said, relief clearly evident on him.
"I don't hate all Batarians in general, I just keep stumbling upon ones that want to kill me. " Shepard said, hefting the crate full of medical supplies easily. Bray noticed that and was thankful again that he hadn't tried to provoke the powerful young woman.