Author's Note: So one more chapter of the Prethoryn rampaging in the background, then I'll post their codex page so look forward to that. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!
Chapter 30: Prethoryn Part 4
Hospitals hold a great deal of importance among Krogan society, to a Krogan a Doctor is a person who can subdue a blood raging Krogan with minimal to no injuries and treat their wounds on top of that. Because of that within the Terminus systems Tuchanka had the most prestigious and well built hospitals. That also meant that it was currently on the front lines of the joint task force against the Biotic Prethoryn scourge. It also meant that there were a lot of Turian's getting treated here, something that the native Krogan weren't happy about but it was what it was. Victus didn't want to be here any longer than he had to either.
"Alright you. One foot in front of the other come on now." Medigel was still being formulated for DAP based biochemistry, even if he did have it the General still needed a few days to get use to the synthetic legs, so for now he was walking between two railings so that he could support himself with his arms as he walked.
"You're enjoying this aren't you?" Victus asked spitefully looking at the Krogan doctor.
"No! What makes you say that?" Okeer leered with a Mot eating grin.
"Just a funny feeling." Victus replied as he kept walking.
Course, that wasn't nearly as bad as the new lot that came in. Valhalla's research station had to make an emergency pit stop in orbit around Tuchanka for repairs. Currently the various Asari were being kept in their own separate hospital facility on the planet, guarded by a mixture of Turian's and Synths, being checked to see if there's anymore Ardat Yakshi among the slowly being rehabilitated sex drones.
"That's the last of them." A female Turian doctor stated, indicating for the almost naked woman to be taken back to her cell.
"So then. It's only the three Tor picked out for the Fenrir's then?" Doctor-Doctor asked floating along with the Turian Doctor who nodded by way of reply. "I have to give my report to the Admiral now."
Krogan also had prisons, but they weren't kept in the same high regard. One such 'built to contain a blood raging biotic Krogan' cell was currently being dedicated to something arguably worse, a Justicar. Samara was just sitting there meditating, Tevos and the woman herself explained that the Justicar code said that Samara had to wait one day in the custody of the authorities before they either had to release her or she needed to break out.
"You've caused a lot of Damage." Admiral Shepard stated as she sat backwards on a chair while looking at the Asari at the centre of the chaos of the past several days. "Valhalla was set to fight the Prethoryn on multiple worlds and now thanks to you they've had to get their facility repaired before they've even engaged the enemy proper."
"Such is life." Samara stated shrugging her shoulders, not looking remotely repentant. "From what I've heard of Valhalla, I'm quite tempted to go back and crash their facility into one of the Prethoryn's spawning nests."
Amanda couldn't even argue with that, Tor was a diplomatic nightmare on steroids with a fetish for cybernetic enhancements.
"Yes well, the matter of the Asari could've been better handled." Amanda looked to Tevos and glared who was nervously pulling at her collar. "It would've been better to know about both what we were taking into our borders and about your order."
"Your government attempted to weaponize them. The Turians would've killed them. The Salarian's would've dissected them." Samara glared at Amanda with a vicious glint. "Secrecy was the correct course of action."
A Tebrid floated in, Doctor-Doctor, doubtlessly with more good news.
"Weaponise or Treat, two separate options that aren't necessarily mutually exclusive." The Tebrid waved a data pad around in the air. "The results of the scan's of the remaining Asari, in case you would like to check for more Ardat Yakshi." Samara had nothing better to do, so nodded in agreement and so Doctor-Doctor slipped in the Data pad that contained only the data he said it had.
"And the one that managed to kill the Prethoryn?"
"There was some brain damage from the overload of psi-energy, nothing that the Thorian isn't able to treat." Doctor-Dcotor explained simply.
"Meaning that she's arguably the single strongest Ardat Yakshi currently alive." Samara summarised as she finished looking through the results. "And it seems that the Batarian's had failed to produce more Ardat Yakshi before their long overdue demise, or if they have then their master's simply collected their prizes and left them their next job." Small Miracles. "Then all that is left to do is kill the three that they have raised and we can all end this madness on amicable terms."
"Don't be so melodramatic." Doctor-Doctor explained while sorting through more of the data-pad's files. "This is a scan of the mind of one Sha'ira, an asari like you. She was clinically brain dead when a Thorian mass found her, then it rebuilt her entire brain, twice, and succeeded after the second try using another Asari as the basis. Now that it is finding out what the problem is it can be fixed." Samara blinked. "I'm listening." The biggest problem with trying to treat the Ardat Yakshi is that their condition is neurological, curing them would require restructuring the brain, a process that would in all likelihood stop at the stage of breaking down the grey matter, fatally.
"For someone calling out for the extermination of these Ardat Yakshi you seem to be pretty interested in their continued survival." Amanda asked looking at Samara suspiciously.
"I don't expect you to understand." Samara stated while shrugging her shoulders. "A Grom, have you heard of it? It's an animal native to Thessia."
"Xenobiology is not my area of expertise or interest, so no." Amanda replied wondering where the conversation was going.
"To ensure that her young has enough to eat during the days of spring after winter, a mother Grom will hunt the nearest prey that they have available, another Grom's young." Samara replied bluntly.
"'To ensure the survival of your own children you'll kill another's children.' Is that correct?" Amanda asked brow in the air and getting the gist of what Samara was hinting at.
"Ardat Yakshi who goes out and wreaks havoc threatens the lives and safety of the ones who don't, that is why Justicar's exists. If you wish to attempt to treat them of their condition, then you will have to speak to the other members of the order. Until then my mission stands clear, the three Ardat Yakshi shall be turned over to my custody within the day or I shall go and get them myself."
"Doctor. I suggest that you finish figuring out a way of correcting the Ardat Yakshi's condition within the day." The Tebrid's face cramped up at that statement.
"...Can I have assistants?"
Outside of the prison block a man was waiting for Amanda to leave. He was well built, with lines of silver going through his body indicating where cybernetic parts met and interlocked with each other and had a large black pompadour with hints of blue going through it. He was smoking, it didn't even affect him though, he was just being a jerk to the Krogan who were watching him like a hawk.
"She broke our ship." Tor stated in no uncertain terms. In fact Tor was the one responsible for the most severe damage done. "I want her head."
"Somehow I think her head is the part that you're least interested in." Amanda stated as she walked by the man who would be a branded war criminal if not for the Prethoryn. "Go cuddle your vibrator you filthy animal, your ship will be fixed with plenty of time for you to commit crimes against Sapient Life."
Tor blew smoke into Amanda's face as he threw his cigar at her and stormed off.
"Who or what was that?" Tevos asked not liking anything about this situation.
"Former Terrorist for hire. Arrested for multiple crimes against Sapient life, and executed for them. Then the Prethoryn showed up and the government decided it needed disposable assets skilled in the use of violence, so they took Tor's Grey Box out of storage." Tevos paled. Should she feel happy that the seemingly infallible Union Government decided to turn such a thing loose? In the usual cut throat Asari political climate this would be an opportunity to get one over on the union. But she really doesn't. "You in the mean time need to contact the rest of the Justicar's so that we can convince them that it is possible to cure the Ardat Yakshi, I have to get the Valhalla facility into functional shape so that we can point that mass of war crimes at the Prethoryn and get them out of sight." Politicians work is never done.
The Facility which were holding the non-Ardat Yakshi Asari from Valhalla was also holding another prisoner, which makes sense since the facilities main purpose was studying the effects of indoctrination and how to reverse them. Liara was here to visit this prisoner, partly to compare her knowledge of the woman with what she was saying she knew, but mostly just to see her and make sure that she's doing okay.
"Hello mother." Benezia looked more lively than the last time Liara saw her, although still clearly visible the remaining cybernetics that Sovereign installed into her body, the ones the Union didn't want to risk her life to remove, which unfortunately for the other party meant that there were a block of green circuit like lines in her forehead that was visible underneath her skin despite being turned off. "How are you doing?"
"I've certainly been far worse, I've been a model prisoner, so the Union has fetched some paper backs for me to read." Benezia held up a novel that as Liara recalled was one of her mother's favourites. Of course she wasn't let near a datapad, she hadn't been that good of a prisoner.
"They've made a few creative edits though. I think they're using them to fish for false memories." Or she's remembering them wrong because she's been implanted with false memories. She'd have to ask about that later if she could. The two of them talked for a while, Liara noting no overt differences between their recollection of her Childhood, within reason of course. After a while... "You should go see your father Liara. I know you don't know who they are, but neither of you should be alone right now." Benezia stated in simple terms.
"I'll do that in between work, for now I'm still doing archaeology work." Liara stated as she prepared to leave.
"Prothean?" Benezia asked interested.
"Krogan actually. Which reminds me they should be about finished cleaning out the ruins by now."
On a field where soy beans were being grown, a hole was actively being dug, and alongside shovel fulls of dirt, something else was being spat out: Music.
"/While you're still eating breakfast I am studying catalysis/"
"My ideal date would finish with statistical analysis/ I've mastered optic instruments, reflective and refractory/ I don't begrudge the quarians their hypochondriact-ery/"
A shovel was thrown out of the hole, from which Mordin Solas emerged and together with another Salarian went to drag over a black bag, the limb of yet another Salarian sticking out of it.
"/I've memorized – eidetic – all my patients' anamnesises./ I've written papers, scores and scores, and that's not counting thesises!/ I'll toxify my enemies with nary an apology/ Then spend my weekends brushing up on elcor enzymology!"
The Krogan that were watching this pair dispose of their fellow Salarian's bodies in their soy fields had their eyes going wide, as if having a difficult time processing reality before them. Before Mordin could belt out another part of the song...
"Just... take him to get his implants put in. We'll finish up here." The Krogan opted to finish off the work here while they still had a grip on their minds.
"Much obliged." Mordin stated as he took his former and now current assistant off.
"And no more singing!" The Krogan called out after, as if a after thought.
Maelon here use to be Mordin's assistant back during his days in the STG. In their own ways the Genophage had been the straw to break the camel's back, Mordin had chosen to hand in his resignation but Maelon? Maelon was twitchy, his forearms were covered in blisters and boils, probably from where he had been picking at his skin, commonly a result of two separate symptoms of crawling skin and hallucinations, common side effects of illegal drug use for any number of poisons people dare call medicine. Mordin would see to it that he gets the help that he needs, for now the fact that he had been picking off STG sabotage teams should help to endear him to Wrex. But first there was a need for medical treatment.
"You think they'll forgive us for what we did?" Maelon asked looking at Mordin like a kicked dog.
"Will you be able to forgive yourself?" Mordin asked his question far more important than the other. "Forgiveness is best earned, earning forgiveness requires hard work, and a clear head. You need to acquire the latter, work on the first, and then we'll talk. Decide what to do with you after that." For now the two arrived at the hospital bunker that had been set up for the Asari, meeting Liara on her way out.
"The Ruins?" Liara asked suspiciously.
"Salarian free." Mordin stated by way of reply. "Kalros has been lured to the other side of the continent by the Tebrid's maw hammer network. Ruins safe now." Liara looked at the second Salarian, his eyes sunk and arms torn with tracks of old scars and infected sores.
"Do I want to know?" Liara asked audibly concerned.
"Better that you don't." Mordin replied waving off her concern.
"For now sheer mass of injured front-liners means all hands on deck, will make services known and apply if welcome, if not welcome will continue looking for possible leads on potential STG operatives." As it turns out Mordin's cross species expertise meant he was more than welcome, injuries to suture, species specific medicines and formulas to apply, anatomical knowledge to apply, he even reviewed the former Asari sex slaves when he had some free time. His general opinion was that it's impressive technology but honestly? If the Batarian's were capable of this level of technology then Mordin genuinely wished that they came up with a better use for it than this... perversion, even if it was the result of trade with the Collectors. The Prethoryn's preference for eating entire ships means that nine battles out of ten you're walking away in one piece or not at all. As for the one out of ten instance, Mordin once again found himself treating Krogan, alongside anyone else that was unfortunate enough to end up on one of the worlds that the Prethoryn has taken in their suicide attacks. "Should invest in more acid resistant boots." Mordin commented as he observed the fifth spontaneous amputation that afternoon alone. In the meantime he received a request to consult on a project that was devised in order to deal with the Prethoryn.
Thus a group of advisers were present, Wrex, Victus, Amanda, then Mordin would be serving as the scientific adviser.
"This meeting is being conducted with the full understanding that the doors will be sealed tight until it is done and no one will be leaving. All communications with the outside will be cut off. If the nature of the meeting that is about to be discussed bothers anyone here, you are free to leave now." Silence. Amanda used a small remote to shut and seal the door, and with a second press of a button the jammers for both technological and psionic communication were cut off. With that out of the way... "Currently two potential strategies exist for dealing with the current Prethoryn threat, and despite being diametrically opposed to one another both are equally risky." Amanda tapped a few buttons on the nearby table and produced a hologram. "Before you is the diagram of a Salarian bio-weapon, designed specifically to trick the Prethoryn's body into attacking itself." The Information bought by the Batarian's from the Collectors and then requisitioned by the council finally accomplished what years of Salarian mad science has failed to do, reconcile DNA and DAP into one organism, while this doesn't mean that Turian's will be enjoying the sweet taste of strawberries any time soon it does mean that they can create a highly lethal weapon. Fill up tissues of various vital organs with foreign DAP, let the overly sensitive immune system of the Prethoryn go on the offensive, bam death. Thanks to the one Queen that they captured they could even use Prethoryn stem-cells as a carrier to by pass the creature's immune system and directly target the creature's various organs.
"Riiight, because bio-weapons never came back to bite us in the arse." Wrex stated rolling his eyes.
"Dislike biological agents, they're messy, unpredictable, not to mention have had enough of them from the last time, would prefer not to have to deal with them again." Mordin followed up making a unpleasant face before eventually melting into exasperation. "May not have a choice if Prethoryn cannot be dealt with one way or another."
"And the second option." Victus asked looking at the Admiral suspiciously.
"We're attempting diplomacy one last time, and this time we have some pretty heavy hitters for the ensuing peace talks." Two holographic images appeared, and Wrex's face twisted into a snarl.
"I understand that that is the Rachni Queen, but what is that thing?" The second of the two images to appear like nothing that anyone has seen before. A roughly human shaped body with a grey rough looking texture, as the group of aliens looked at it wondering what it could be Mordin saw that there were leaves and small twigs dotting it's body, in other words. "It's a tree?" Amanda nodded. "A sentient plant based life-form!" Mordin was eagerly gripping the side of the table as if pulling himself closer to get a better look. In the meantime both Wrex and Victus smacked themselves in the face at the sheer mind numbing of the situation.
"I can't even Blame Union weirdness for this. The Sapient telepathic mushroom was found in Citadel space after all." Victus stated as he just rubbed his face down.
"Admiral, are you going to explain to us who or what this thing is?" Wrex asked indicating the second Hologram.
"A Baol, or rather the Baol given the fact that as far as we know it's the last of its kind. We found this thing in some ancient ruins inside of a cryopod, and we're given to understand that it's a refugee from the old cycle. This thing is only a sprout." Amanda explained indicating the plant like creature within the hologram. Not a full grown tree, not even a sapling, but a sprout.
"This hologram is to scale right?" Amanda nodded to Wrex's question. "It's a little taller than you are by my estimates and you're saying it's only a sprout? How big does a full ass one of these things get?" The Admiral dismissed the holograms, replacing them with a single flat image.
"This was painted by a Lich artist, depicting a Baol Tree of Life in the middle of one of their cities from the old era." Sky scrapers were featured in the background, at least one was in the fore ground off to the side, the angle of the painting indicated it was painted from the ground which gave the feeling that it was stretching up into the sky itself, bypassing the atmosphere as if reaching for raw unfiltered solar radiation. "According to the Lich's back in the old cycle these trees could directly convert sunlight into psionic energy, they could act like broadcast towers connecting together multiple worlds in psionic communication." The General and clan leader sat back in their seats stunned. Mordin was furiously padding around for something to take notes with as Amanda cut off the projection. "Sadly the germination period is decades long, let alone actually setting down roots. We don't have a lot of high hopes for this one for fighting the reapers, but there's a chance that it might be able to calm down the Prethoryn and actually get them to help us fight the Reapers."
"All for the fight against the reapers right?" Victus asked looking at Amanda suspiciously.
"Yes." Amanda was starting to get tired of stating the obvious so the admiral opted to stop being nice about this. "Everything we know about them, every thing we can find, every corpse we've managed to dig up indicates that when they come they will wage a campaign of extermination fielding numbers that out number our own ten to one, and I don't mean ship to ship, I mean unit to unit. Every ship we lose before they get here is another unit lost that can keep firing at them. Every enemy we destroy is an ally lost. It's why we didn't sink serious effort into destroying the Prethoryn, and it's why we haven't killed you either. Am I understood?"
'Your government only still exists so that we can throw it at the Reapers' that seemed to be the gist of what the Admiral had deigned to share with them.
"Sir Yes Sir!" Victus gave a mocking salute. "Permission to be dismissed Sir!?"
"One last thing." A green light from the table scanned the group, a fabricator whirled to life and produced four small round cylinders, their tops ending in a circle. "Biometric Doomsday keys, tuned to each of you and myself." Each individual received one of the keys. "When the time comes, and diplomacy has failed for the final time, these keys in this console will deploy the bio weapon against the Prethoryn removing them from this sector, and when we are done here we'll be doing the same thing to the rest."
Potential allies was one thing, but the Reapers were coming, they couldn't deal with one enemy in the front and another attacking them from behind, these key's symbolised the end of the Union's patience with the Prethoryn.
While the meeting was going on Valhalla's facility was repaired and so they were going back to fighting the Prethoryn, the potential Asari Valkyries left behind on Tuchanka to see some real treatment. In the meantime, ships were transporting the Rachni Queen and the last Baol arrived in the system, were loaded onto a single heavily armed vessel for the express purpose of contacting Hive Fleet Hydra's hive mind. What no one realised though was that a single Asari had simply walked onto the vessel before it left, sneaking was the wrong word, after all thanks to the knowledge possessed by the Prethoryn that she absorbed no one even noticed that she was there, and no one would know that she was until she had reached the hive.
Review Section:
RonaldM40196867: That's one way to put it. Probably.
Defuntstoreking: One, Log in and post a review if you want me to visit your page. Two, posting one link that I have to copy is more than enough.
Gianfranco Cembran: True.
Guest: Garrus and Saren. And yes they do.
Clown2107: They're getting there's don't you worry. Do you mean the Biotic Boot designed to disable implants, or the exotic plasma that blows up biotic fields?