Author's Note: I said this yesterday and I will say it again here: I feel like shit, If I can't post more chapters this week you'll know why. Read, Review, Favourite and Enjoy!

Chapter 92: Slag III Part 2

08M 29D 21H Until the Colossus Fires

Liara had been up for a few hours explaining to the Thorian everything the Union currently knew about the four cults and their followers. The Thorian was somewhat omni present but there were a lot of problems going on in the galaxy right now, some were even happening on its door step. With all the wild speculation floating around it was only natural that there would be matters it's confused on. Luckily the Thorian itself has news to share as well.

"Well that's unexpected." Liara was looking at an image plucked from the Thorian's memory and transferred to a screen, on it was one of the Gaian's, however it had undergone some aesthetic changes. Normally the Gaians head and shoulders are covered in a leafy green mane as a way of facilitating photosynthesis, instead however their leaves had fallen out and had been replaced with bright turquoise growths, one of which resembled a beret on top of the Gaian's head or sacks on their back. "The Brain Fruit." Liara stated bluntly.

"Their increased thought speed and improved reaction time has been a rather significant pain to deal with." The words from the Thorian, or rather the summation of it's difficulties, appeared across the screen. "With this we're on more even ground." Even if the Thorian had superior resources in the form of the Union's and Council's technology it's processing speed had been much slower, now that both sides had access to the super computer things would proceed much more smoothly. Of course there was other benefits to introducing the super conductor as well, chiefly the islands that were now floating on Mass Effect Fields.

"How does that even work?" Liara asked looking out of the surveillance feed that served as her only connection to the outside world while she was inside of her floating bunker. "You yourself are jamming the psychic signals, the only way that you should be able to connect to your psychic mass at this point in time is through a physical connection."

"You underestimate me." The Thorian replied bluntly. "The Rachni connects to her young by implanting them with Quantum entanglement particles when they are still in her egg sack. I have thousands of redundant connections all over this planet and not a single one of them relies on psionics."

"Isn't that rather dangerous all things considered?" Liara asked indicating the planet that still had chunks of the forests being evaporated thanks to the Composer of Strand's virus.

"It is, but it only works because it's an arrangement I already had in place, besides that fat slob keeps destroying the QE Nodes before he can even put them to use. He's not even bothering to check to see what they are. Well it's also true that I'm destroying them myself before he can."

Liara made note of another scorched land mass that had appeared from Exotic gas setting off a Mass Effect Field, the atmosphere was so volatile that even a slight spark could destroy the whole planet, if not for the Thorian putting out the fires and keeping them contained it probably would've too.

"It matters not, soon the creature won't even be able to affect this planet anymore." The Thorian Console played out a simulation, chunks of Eezo stone wrapped with plants was ripped out of the ground and pulled into the air, and from them pulses rippled across the planet. "Soon I will have an entire network of psi blockers set up around this world and the Composer will no longer be able to penetrate here, then we will wipe out the Composer's forces that are on the surface."

"That would make things rather convenient." Liara admitted as she looked around at her cramped little bunker. It would be nice if they could begin the colonisation process for this world already, they still had a lot of displaced Asari that needed homes. "But we still need that virus sample for this plan to work." The more the Virus spreads the more that it will mutate, they need a variety of samples from multiple locations on all three of the worlds that have come under threat if they want to neutralise the threat it represents.

"Then I suggest you have your men pick up the pace. I will not have my own safety compromised over such a trivial matter." It wasn't just the Thorian's own safety. This psychic jammer it created, if mass produced, could protect numerous different worlds from similar attacks, in Liara's mind it was equally as valuable as the Life Eater Virus Vaccine if not more so.

"I wasn't planning to."

08M 29D 20H Until the Colossus Fires

From their initial landing sight hammer heads had been deployed to every corner of the planet, taking atmospheric samples all along the way until they finally managed to snatch up samples of the Life Eater Virus itself.

"What an annoying Virus. It's a good thing the Genophage wasn't like this." Okeer stated looking at the samples of the virus they had taken so far.

The thing was that as soon as they have the virus in a sample jar they have to freeze it, or else the virus will eat itself, which was fine by the Tebrids, they had a method known as Laser spectrography where they froze a sample, fired a laser through it and through that process obtain a three dimensional model of the contagion itself. The issue here was that only a small portion of the already small sample jars actually contains the virus itself, most of it just being exotic gas and other more mundane gasses located in the atmosphere, some didn't contain any at all. Okeer was quietly complaining about how Liara managed to talk him into this but it couldn't be helped, being allowed to set up a Krogan Colony on one of the Slag worlds would be too good to pass up, even if they did have to share. One could say that it was precisely because the Krogan would be sharing the colony that Okeer found it so valuable, if future Krogan were better socialised then the odds of another Krogan rebellion would be reduced. Then Okeer found a goldmine, so to speak.

"Over there!" Okeer spotted a Thresher Maw in the distance, raised up to the air and spewing green flames over the environment. "If we can get a infected tissue sample from that thresher maw then we can save ourselves a whole lot of work!"

At once the Golema turned the Hammer head to chase after the infected Thresher Maw, Okeer was the expert after all. Luckily the Hammer Head was as much hover jet as it was mobile tank, so it could easily glide over the rough terrain that separated Okeer's crew from their prize in a timely enough manner to collect it. Soon the group arrived at the site of the battle going on with the worm. A lot of the work with the vaccine might already be completed, the Thorian likes to make the majority of its cell structures using the hyper resilient Vorcha cells, the sheer mass of the Thresher Maw's body means that the virus has a lot of work to do to tear through it's entire mass, not to mention the Thresher Maw's nasty habit of spreading spores as it dies.

"Up there around the mouth." Okeer of course knew it wouldn't be easy, as he demonstrated by indicating the most dangerous part of the creature's mass to possibly be aiming at. "That's getting the most exposure by the virus, and it's also the place that's closest to the surface."

"Not gonna be easy." One Golema pointed out watching as the creature they had come there for thrash around attempting to slam its mass into the creatures it was fighting.

"Easier than you think." Okeer pulled out his secret weapon, a large mechanical arm unfolded from the underside of the Hammer Head, it's tip a hole saw that was connected directly to a sample container which could then be frozen for preservation. "We'll jump on it the next time it slams down and then we'll take the sample before we get out of here. We should also try and get a blood sample, with some idea of how that thing's immune system is working we might get some short cuts in on that vaccine." "Understood doctor, but what about them?" The Golema were of course indicating the Gaian's that were fighting against the infected Thresher Maw. "Ignore them if they aren't going to get in our way." Okeer stated in no uncertain terms. "We're on a time limit here." On that note the hover tank zoomed forward, climbing on the back of the Thresher Maw and zipping up it's back.

Placed adequately close to the mouth of the beast the docking clamps that normally would attach the hammer head to the sheer side of a wall or a ship engaged and Okeer's surgical saw was deployed, boring into the flesh around the monster's jaw and freezing it as it went. The Thresher Maw attempted to throw Okeer's group off of it, which as soon as they had finished collecting their sample they obliged with the creature's wish being tossed through the air in the process. Unexpected the ship was caught and then put back on the ground, the one responsible revealed from the corner of Okeer's vision on a view screen, a Gaian who was now walking away from their craft.

"What in Kalros's name?"

08M 29D 16H Until the Colossus Fires

Liara got the samples that she had come there for but she wasn't happy, not happy at all. "Run that by me one more time?" Liara suspected hearing the news for the second time isn't going to be making her feel better.

"The Gaians are going out of their way to protect the people of the expedition, either from the animals the Thorian has unleashed or the other nightmares the Composer of Strands had unleashed." Which Liara might believe, if the Gaians were not beings who had created the Composer of Strands who had in turn recreated them from the ground up. And yet...

"EDI, are the other teams reporting the same thing?" It wasn't just the one Slag worlds that they were conducting this operation on, this war, the other two worlds that the Composer had targeted were both having this war fought on it, trying to collect samples of the Life Eater Virus and expel the Composer's presence from these worlds. After all for the Asari these heavy in Eezo jungle worlds represent the currently most ideal colony sights in the entire Union, without the presence of Eezo in their food a lot of health problems could arise for the Asari after all. In simple terms they needed these planets.

"We don't know." Okeer stated bluntly sitting on the other end of the feed as he held his chin in thought.

"If we had anyone willing to connect with them telepathically we might get some answers." That wasn't something that Liara was willing to allow, even if they did get volunteers, the risk of infection from the Composer was too high.

"Then lets do the opposite." The Thorian piped in as the node produced a familiar object, a ripened brain fruit. "Let's give them knowledge of your languages and the capacity to speak them, that way we won't have trouble understanding them if speech is what they want."

"I don't like giving them access to our communications." Liara stated simply.

Even if they can, through the Gorthikian's, hack into their systems the access does them no good when they don't understand anything being said.

"Then kill them after we're done with them." The Thorian immediately took the obvious solution.

"I don't think it would make much of a difference." EDI chimed in at this point. "Various former council races have already been taken, they should already have a basic understanding of our language, and thanks to the Gorthikian's constant attacks I theirs. There's nothing to lose from just talking to them or giving them the power to talk back." With that matter decided Liara moved on to the second phase. "Finish your collection Okeer, as quickly and efficiently as possible." Without the Composer to prop it up the Life Eater Virus wasn't being pumped into the planet anymore either, it also meant that their Window to collect specimens of the Life Eater Virus was closing fast.

"Then let's see what we can do about the Gaian's and what they have to say to us."

The Collection effort went smoothly, or at least as smoothly as scavenging a jungle full of mutant plants and violent tree frog hybrids could get, with the Tree people every once in a while popping up and lending a hand. Eventually they ran out of samples to take, and so the time for the confrontation was due.

08M 28D 18H Until the Colossus Fires

It was a long day of searching, but Okeer and company was reasonably certain the Life Eater Virus was wiped out. Then came the hard part. Liara and the rest of her 'diplomatic team' were dressed in their full kit, Fenrir suits, armours, other mech walker units, as they met the Gaian people that were approaching them.

"Eat this!" Okeer tossed the Brainfruit over to the nearest Gaian, who seemed to understand what the fruit was for at the very least because they immediately ate it. The Gaian grunted in discomfort for a moment with their hand on their throat.

"Ahh yoo! Ahh yoo!" Then after a few moments of their vocal exercises finished. "Thanks for-"

"What is the Composer of Strands Objectives?" Liara didn't mince words, the few she did bother with were backed by a 20 centimetre cannon bore.

"...the complete and total spread of its influence across the Galaxy." It did occur to the tree person that she may not have a lot of good will going for her at the moment considering the actions of their associates.

"What are its weaknesses?" Liara preferred it that way, considering the sheer body count these things were responsible across the Union the unimaginable amount of suffering it had inflicted upon the Council races.

"Bugger if we know." The tree person looked around them arms stretched wide. "Whatever you're doing to this planet that cut it off?"

Not promising.

"You do not seem to be very loyal to your so-called God." Liara gave a questioning glare.

"Look at us! At me!" The Gaian snapped in response to Liara's prodding. "My body is trapped inside of a cage I can barely move in that is eating away at my flesh as I grow older! When I die my soul will be devoured and my body turned into an unfeeling abomination, even that will be eaten away and replaced by apathetic stone that does nothing but process material and lay about! Our world was eaten away, the society we built rotted to it's core! We spent millions of years trapped in a hell we have no hope of understanding and were spat back out as slaves!" The Gaian took a deep breath as she calmed down. "We were serving the Composer because we had no choice. Because he was inside of our heads and his thoughts controlled our bodies. It's how I know that we are just distractions."

"Distractions? As in more than one?" Liara knew that multiple worlds were being threatened but that was that and this is this.

"All four of them have launched their own attacks into your territory. You think the virus that attacked here is the worst that the Composer can come up with? How about one that does nothing at first? It has a high rate of infection but a obscenely long incubation period and becomes contagious early on. Days? Months? Years? How long do you think an infected showing no symptoms of anything would go unnoticed? Perhaps it won't even affect you but what about your newborns? An entire generation listening to the Composer's 'music' and being indoctrinated to listen to him! You have no comprehension of his patience! You honestly think a aggressive Fast acting and highly visible virus is his usual MO?" The Gaian laughed at the foolishness of their own suggestion.

"Then what are they trying to distract us from?" Liara already sent a Memo to EDI to try and figure out what the other three were doing.

"They don't know this galaxy or how it's people think, they need someone familiar with your culture, your tactics and your beliefs so that they can be twisted to their own ends." Or in simple terms. "They need a Shepard to herd your people like cattle, and they are doing everything they can to keep you away from her."

"What did you just say!?" Liara growled threateningly.

08M 28D 18H Until the Colossus Fires

EDI had an entire server world dedicated just to herself, a tidally locked planet half frozen and half on fire, one side continuously fed EDI solar energy at point blank range, the other kept her super conducting processors cold as only the void of space hidden in the eternal shadow of a planet could. It was a set up that min-maxed the local EDI program allowing it to manage the data output and usage of over 200 worlds. And right now it had come under attack. The Whisperer of Secrets didn't do anything as boorish as ripping open a hole in space time so that he could dump psionic waves on the planet directly. No the Gorthikians have had plenty of time by now to study and understand Union technology, they for instance understand how to make their ships work, how to connect to the Grey Box Network, and the most effective ways of using that information to wreak havoc. Thus they were here, and they had seen some improvements, their telekinetic abilities amplified as they used a Grey Box Network to plug themselves directly into the ship that they stole and used that to drag in asteroids and hurl them directly at the planet itself with the goal of breaking up EDI's orbital defences and invading the planet proper.

08M 28D 18H Until the Colossus Fires

A fire fight had broken out, Arcturus station was manned by the Chozo, and now under attack by the Tzynn.

"I thought these things preferred to hide when they stalked their prey!?"

One of the crew men let out a complaint as he fired his weapon at a Tzynn. The Lizard didn't seem to mind being used as target practice, for one thing it was covered in a nice layer of shiny dragon scales to help protect it, more importantly though it was more than willing to give as good as it had gotten with it's blades.

08M 28D 18H Until the Colossus Fires

One of the numerous research stations being run by the Tebrids had come under attack by the Sathyrelians. Normally you wouldn't expect the Crayfish like aliens to be able to function well on a desert world. However the Crayfish had legs, mechanical sturdy four legs yes, but legs none the less, and wrapped around their bodies was a sophisticated and heavily armoured life support unit, hard wired with sensors so that the occupants on the inside feel every moment of what happens to it on the outside, including hits, punctures, ruptures and system crashes. The fact that this mechanical monstrosity also amplifies their psionics range was a nice bonus, but compared to the expansion of the number of environments they could enter and the expanded range of sensations that the sense freaks could subject themselves to it was just that, a bonus.

08M 23D 00H Until the Colossus Fires

The Union was at a state of war. The Four gods of the Shroud's forces had sneaked through the gaps in their defences with the opening provided by the Life Eater Virus attack. Truthfully though the Union was mostly caught off guard, the massive attention grabbing Life Eater Virus and the potential that it could unleash, not to mention that they were targeting worlds of strategic value to the Council Remnants and Gestalt. Add to that the fact that the Four Cults were using Union engineered ships to move around and no one noticed what they were doing until it was too late.

That said Liara was far from the only force in the galaxy so she was focusing on the meat of the problem, Adek where Shepard was.

Another Astral Rift had appeared and swallowed up the planet, so Liara enacted what was by now standard procedure, build a Rift station around the Rift and get a sphere ready to go to the other side. And now Liara got to see the fruits of those labours come to fruition: a frayed cable where a Rift Sphere used to be.

"Should've seen that coming." Liara already got a write up about potential military applications of the Rifts.

In many ways the Rifts were both a Turian's wet dream and their worst nightmare: Here was a mighty fortress built into the fabric of space itself with exactly one point of entry from any angle. There was the minor inconvenience that the people inside the rift couldn't interact with the outside of it unless they left it, but that was somewhat mitigated by the ability to aim every gun inside at the one choke point and blow it to kingdom come. This appeared to be the same phenomena that had happened to their Rift Sphere, or maybe the Four Gods of the Shroud just plucked it off the end of the wire for their own inane purposes, Athame knows how many different ways the monsters have found to twist Union Engineering to their own insane ends already. For now what Liara needed to do was find confirmation of what was on the other side, which means the time had come for desperate measures.

"Send the Thorian."

Liara's forces had seen enough of the psychic attacks in the past week from all four of the Shroud Gods that the Thorian would know all their signals and be able to cancel them out, no telekinetic prize plucking would impede her this time. As Liara was preparing a second attempt to probe the Rift she got a new contact, not from inside of the Rift, but rather from deeper into the former Citadel space. "Hello 'Shadow Broker.'" The person on the other end of the communication line spoke the title with as much sarcasm as they could muster, Liara was almost flattered.

"Hello Miranda." Liara replied with as much venom as she received. "Should I assume that we're here for the same reason then?"

"If you mean 'chasing down leads on an impossibly tall woman wearing mis-matched armour pieces my contacts picked up' then the answer is yes." Miranda replied as if what she said was obvious. "I would invite you aboard my ship but I suspect when you find out about what I have aboard the ship you'd much sooner try to blow me out of the void." Lovely visual that. "For the best, I can't put you and whatever you bring with you into quarantine on your ship, but I can in mine." Liara stated as she already began making preparations. Somehow 'Quarantine' sounded like a holding cell to Miranda.

08M 22D 19H Until the Colossus Fires

A few hours later a choice selection had been prepared for Miranda's diplomatic party, aside from Miranda herself there was also Grunt, the Pasharti known as Javik, and a fourth individual Liara won't dignify with a name.

"Your blood tests came back clean, as did your CAT scans, X-Rays, MRI's..." Liara continued to list off medical procedures, occasionally tossing a test done on her equipment or implants every once in a while. Needless to say they had all been thoroughly probed.

"Does that mean that you're going to let us out of quarantine now?" Miranda asked thoroughly tired by Liara's insistence on testing everything.

"Considering the fact that I haven't figured out what possessed you to bring that aboard my ship?" Liara of course indicated the Synthorganic Collector that was sitting in a Quarantine cell by itself, surrounded by several heavily armed Krogan.

"No I'm not." Liara looked more than just a little petty about the whole thing.

"We're wasting time!" Miranda snapped angrily as she gestured in the vague direction of the Rift. "Shepard is-"

"Beyond our reach until we can figure out a way through that hole without instantly getting jumped." Liara stated bluntly. "Unless you have a way of doing that then time is the one resource that we do actually have."

"What do you think the Collector is for?" Miranda asked tapping her fingers annoyed.

Oh Joy, once again they are relying on experimental technology they have no idea of the finer points of to enter the void of hell to save the galaxy from ancient horrors. What 'Fun' Liara's life has become?

Author's Note:

RonaldM40196867: I would make the birthday of the first person born on another world to be historically significant enough event to make into a holiday, because it's only when people start to be born there is a colony considered to be official. It's currently the biggest frontier that we have access to, but one day we're going to be tapping into alternate universes or travelling through time, or doing things we currently can't comprehend. New frontiers appear as we explore the ones we currently have.

Monster King: Thank you for saying so.

TheMacGuffinMan: Good to have a new reader.