Mass Effect: Spider and Wolf

Chap' number 4! Despite the time it takes to get these checked over before uploading, I'm starting to find my stride in making these chapters, here's hoping this keeps up.

Now, to respond to some of the reviews.

evolution-500: Not bad, though there seems to be shifts from third-person to first-person

Me: Could you clarify where these shifts are? Because it's really told from Marrok's perspective, but in a third-person setting, basically focusing on Marrok while still showing what others might be thinking or feeling. I understand if it feels a bit confusing, it's one of the things I'm trying to iron out of me.

Azai Jin: Thanks for the story so far! Overall I like what I've read so far, but if I remember correctly then Sparatus should not be representing the Turian Hierarchy during this time period? Turians have similar lifespan to humans and as such he would be heading for retirement by the time of the games, if he was already on the Council during first contact. Anyway, I look forward to seeing how our MC will affect the ME verse and to answer the question about the next chapter, I hope for a little time skip between this chapter 3 and the next. Thanks again for the story so far! I'm looking forward to reading more!

Me: I tried to find information about the councilor before him, Rienn Asodel, but I couldn't find a lick on the woman other than she died of illness on March 18th 2178. So yes, she would have been the Councilor before Sparatus, and if I had found out about her BEFORE making the second chapter, she'd be the one wanting the throttle Sersius. Sparatus would still be the same as I have him, just a bit less invested given it wasn't him. HOWEVER, thanks to you for getting me to look even deeper into the data, this has given me an idea to use her as well as fix the Sparatus issue. For those not aware, Sparatus is the Turian's LAST NAME, his first name being Laiel, according to what I've dug up. So, I could, say, have this Sparatus's first name be something else and be the brother to Laiel's father, who was a mechanic. I have not found anything about Sparatus having an uncle, so loophole! Let me know if this sounds like a good idea. I do want to keep A Sparatus without having to go back and work through two chapters to get the tiny bits, cause I KNOW I'll miss something. But Rienn Asodel I have a few ideas on how I could use her, so thanks for getting me to look deeper.

kite15663: Pick up where you left off in the meeting. then do something similar to this: s/12167203/1/The-Unknown-Defender

Me: I'm not exactly sure what you want me to do, but I already have a pretty solid path going forward, it's just these first chapters that are slowing me down. Don't get me wrong, that is a great story and I love it to bits, but if I end up doing something from that, it's because I already had it planned out and forgot it was already done.

PheronPyscho: Have a bare bones info block, maybe a few snippets of conversation every now and then. Then I'd say to have a more in-depth conversation with Alliance high brass

Me: This honestly sounds pretty good. It was what I was thinking about doing, to an extent.

So, given there seems to be one for time skip, one for no skip, and one for something in the middle, I'll have to do a little improvising. This is going to be a long one as a result, along with a bit of lack of story due to time skips here and there, so try and bear with me.

Disclaimer: I'm not doing this, bite my shiny ass!

The meeting went well for the most part. The Council and Anita went over what was expected along with the Laws any race that joined Citadel space had to follow. However, Marrok had to speak up at one point.

"About this 'Treaty of Farixen', how strict is it?" Marrok asked, looking over the data on his omnitool. He already knew about it beforehand, but it never hurt to see how this Council would respond.

Tevos answered. "The treaty applies to all associated races if that is your question."

He nodded. "I assumed that was the case. Then what happens when a race with a large military like ours joins? One that has more Dreadnoughts than the treaty allows? Surely you don't expect them to just scrap or decommission those ships, right?"

Tevos blinked at this, clearly not expecting this line of questioning. "Well, in order to follow the treaty, the ratio must be upheld."

"And crippling that race's military as a result, leaving them weaker should any hostile invaders attack." He countered.

Aehann spoke up. "It is the turian's role to keep the peace in Citadel space and therefore would ensure your safety."

Marrok raised a brow at this. "And just how many Dreadnoughts do they have in total to be able to accomplish this?"

Sparatus cleared his throat. "The treaty limits everyone differently. For every single Dreadnought associated race, the Asari and Salarians are allowed to have three, and five for the Turians."

"And given that the majority of your associated races either has a small military or barely any military at all, that would mean at worst, the turian military has 15 dreadnoughts and at best a little over thirty." Marrok concluded. He then looked at the Councilors with a deadpan look. "In what universe does that stupidity make sense?"

This stunned not just the Councilors, but everyone in attendance. Even Anita looked to be barely holding herself back from attempting to throttle Marrok for his words just now.

Before anyone could speak, Marrok continued. "Given the space the Citadel races, Council members or not, that is a LOT of areas for ONE military to patrol. Even IF the only thing they patrol is the border of the Terminus Systems, unless every single Hierarchy ship is used to make a wall at that border, there WILL be gaps. And add to that patrolling WITHIN Citadel Space? The Hierarchy military is going to be stretched so thin, it could fit through hairline fracture. Now, I understand if you never had this problem before with most of the races, but you have the Batarians, who from what I understand, ALSO had a large military when they first appeared. Did you make them remove their Dreadnoughts as well when they joined?"

Sparatus seemed to be stunned, Aehann, judging from the rapid eye movement, seemed to be pondering something, while Tevos looked torn between defending herself and berating Marrok.

He merely continued. "This is just my opinion though. But perhaps the treaty should be looked over and perhaps revised. I do have a proposition though." This snapped the Councilors out of their separate trances. "Humans as a general rule aren't that big on neutering their ways of defending themselves. Even LONG before we invented gunpowder and relied more on swords, spears, and arrows, telling a human they needed to give up their weapons rarely ends well. In fact, only a few times I can name on the top of my head has that gone without incident and that was because the ones that were to protect them could keep that promise. Now, I'm not saying the turians can't do the same, but being stretched as thin as they will be will make that promise very hard to keep."

The Councilors looked at one another before Sparatus spoke. "So…..what is your proposition to this?"

Marrok smiled. "Allow the Systems Alliance to keep what Dreadnoughts we have and we will not build anymore until the other races either catch up in numbers or the treaty is revised to allow for more Dreadnoughts. Even if we lose one or two, so long as our total number is above the allowed ratio, we won't build anymore. This will give other races an incentive to build more Dreadnoughts, which would allow the Asari and Salarians to build more, which in turn allows the Turians to build more. To add to this, we would also be willing to offer our own ships to aid the turian patrols, freeing up ships to be sent elsewhere or be absorbed into other fleets."

Sparatus, already liking this plan, nodded. "I find this agreeable. Not only would this take the burden off of many overworked fleets, but it would also ensure the Dreadnought count for the Alliance is always known for the most part."

Aehann nodded as well. "I second that. While the Salarians never had a large navy to begin with, this would give us a chance to experiment with ideas."

Tevos looked at both her colleagues, her expression for the briefest of moments looking panicked before she reigned herself in. He had a hunch that she wanted them both to try and talk humanity into reducing their dreadnoughts, but Sparatus spoke before she could and with Aehann agreeing, it was a two to one vote, unofficial as it was. So, she turned to Marrok and nodded. "Very well, so long as no more Dreadnoughts are built and the ones that are in service are put to work aiding the Hierarchy in their duties, the Alliance will be allowed to keep what Dreadnoughts they do have, until either the number of them among the races increases to match or the treaty is revisited and revised."

Marrok bowed his head. "Thank you, Councilors."

The rest went well and after an hour or so, Marrok and Anita were dismissed. As they went down the elevator, Anita turned to Marrok. "I want you to know that I was very close to trying to kill you right then and there."

Marrok smirked. "Sorry, I know I pushed a few buttons, but I wasn't going to let the Alliance be crippled because of a damn treaty. The other races may accept the status quo, but that doesn't mean we have to."

Anita sighed. "No offense, but I hope our time together will end soon. I can't help but think I'll get an aneurysm."

He grinned. "I like breaking the norm and seeing how long it takes for others to become numb to my shenanigans." She groaned while he laughed.

Upon returning to the ship and contacting the Alliance Parliament, Anita explained everything that happened, including how Marrok managed to get them to keep their Dreadnought count. "I see. While it's frustrating we won't be able to build more, it's still a victory nonetheless." Once again, Marrok didn't bother remembering the names of anyone, as he knew he would never see them again and he couldn't be bothered to rub to brain cells together to give a fuck about them. "Now, with this, you two will-"

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold your tits there." Marrok cut in. "I thought I made it VERY clear to the last guys that I don't answer to you. I'm not part of the Alliance and I never will be. The ONLY reason I helped out was because I didn't want humanity to get neutered by agreeing to whatever the Council told you to agree to. Be happy you get to keep your ships, that is the ONLY help I'm giving you guys. You want my help from now on? I'll be charging it." Once more, he seemed to know how to get politicians pissed at him as he could see several glaring pure hate at him. If he had even the slightest bit less of self control, he'd be opening taking in the salt with a grin.

He realized he had been hanging out with his universe's Deadpool for WAY too long.

Marrok turned to Anita with a smile. "Well, it's been a pleasure to meet and talk with you. If you need my aid, like I said, I'll be charging, but I'd be willing to offer a discount for you given you've been rather amicable the entire time we've been together."

Anita rolled her eyes at this while a smile formed. "I'll pray I won't need your help anytime soon. I need a long hiatus from you."

Marrok covered his chest in mock pain. "Oof, you wound me." He then straightened up before nodding to her. "Seriously though, just give me a holler if you need a hand." He said before sending his contact info to her from his omnitool. He then turned and waved over his shoulder as he left the room and went back to the hangar.

He approached the pilot of the shuttle that took him before. "Hey, mind dropping me off on the Citadel? You can head back here afterward."

The pilot looked surprised. "Uh, I'll need clearance to-"

Marrok pulled up his omnitool and showed the proper authorization, signed by several Alliance leaders, Admiral Drescher being one of them. The pilot went silent before he nodded and got his shuttle ready while Marrok climbed aboard. He took a seat and smiled, thinking how he would start his company here.

It has been a week since Marrok began living on the Citadel and he had made a bit of cash since then. A few bounties that were either attempting to leave the Citadel or hiding out on the station ended up earning him a nice sum. To which he used to begin his project that would be the foundation to his future company. He just had to sell the idea to C-SEC.

Which led him to being escorted to the Executor's office by, to Marrok's surprise, Castis Vakarian. "Have to say, I knew we'd be meeting again, but this soon." He said with a smile.

Castis sighed. "To be honest, I didn't think we'd be meeting again ever. I expected you to return to Alliance Space."

Marrok grinned at this as they passed several officers. "Nah, I prefer to broaden my horizons. Besides, I like helping out officers of the law."

"Indeed? Well I won't say no to more recruits, but you could have just set up an appointment."

Marrok shook his head. "Not what I meant. As much as I like upholding the law, being a cop is a bit too restrictive for me. I won't be committing any crimes, but I like the freedom I have right now. No, what I have in mind is something much better."

Castis stared inquisitively before sighed. "I suppose I'll find out soon enough then." He said, after seeing Marrok wouldn't come out and tell him right now.

After a few minutes of walking, they arrived at the Executor's office and entered. Sitting at the desk was a young turian, probably around Castis' age, give or take a year or two. The turian looked up and folded his hands on the top of the desk. "Ah, the famous Marrok Hunt. Castis informed me of your arrival. My name is Venari Pallin, Executor of C-SEC. I see you aren't in your armor."

Marrok put his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a form fitting black shirt with blue jeans and combat boots. A pack hung from his shoulder. "Meh, love the armor, but humans have a thing with our skin. If our skin doesn't get enough light, or we wear something that covers our skin for a long time, we get very pale and get mistaken for being sickly. I prefer to let my skin have a healthy color, tan or no tan."

Pallin nodded to this. "I'm not sure what a tan is, but I understand not wanting to look ill. Now, Castis informed me you wished to see me and it had something to do with helping us keep the peace on the Citadel?"

Marrok nodded before pulling his hands from his pockets and pulled off the pack before reaching inside. He pulled out a round object, silver in color, with what looked to be an indent to press a button along with a groove in the middle of it, like it could be twisted. He then set it on the desk. "I am planning on building a company, one that, while will spread out into many areas of business, will ultimately be to aid C-SEC in terms of both armor, weapons, and tools. This here is the first I've invented."

Pallin and Castis both stared at the object before Pallin picked it up. "And….this is what exactly?"

Marrok grinned. "A new type of grenade."

That nearly caused Pallin to drop the now revealed grenade while Castis tensed. "And….what TYPE of grenade is it and WHY did you see fit to place an explosive on my desk within arm's length from me?" Marrok didn't need a translator or to read body language to know Pallin was close to try to arrest him. He figured he had his fun and decided to be nice now.

"Because it's not an explosive. It's a non-lethal grenade." He said, to the surprise of both turians.

Pallin set the grenade down and crossed his hands. "Explain."

"That there is something I can do with my tech, and have used against turians on Shanxi, but converted for anyone to use. I call it a Web Grenade." Marrok said before he brought up his omnitool and pulled up a video before sending it to Pallin who, along with Castis, began to review it. The video was camera footage where there were several empty crates and some ruined skycars. They saw Marrok at the edge of the camera.

They watched as he tossed another of these 'Web Grenades' and it hit the ground. Within a few seconds, around the same time as a normal grenade, an explosion of webbing erupted from the grenade and attached to almost everything around it, the crates and two skycars before it retracted and pulled everything together in a crash.

Both turians stared in shock at this. Marrok then spoke up. "As you can see, it attaches to anything within a ten to fifteen yard radius and pulls tight, trapping any poor idiot caught. The button you see arms it. Press it once to arm it, press it a second time to disarm it. You can also twist it to change the method the web will come out. At standard, it's as you saw. Twist it till you hear a click, and it'll be a net that tightly restrains any caught in it. Twist till you hear another click, and it explodes into a mist, sort of like a smokescreen, but anything the mist comes into contact with makes it react and tighten, with the more time spent in the mist binding them more and more by the second. Twist again for another click and you're back to standard."

Both turian officers were silent for the longest time before Pallin shook his head and cleared his throat. "I…see. And…how strong is this webbing?"

Marrok crossed his arms and he thought about it. "Well, natural spider silk is stronger than steel and my prototype webbing had a tensile strength of 120 pounds per square millimeter of the cross-section. It's only gotten stronger as I perfected the formula, but needless to say, if you need to stop a charging krogan, or several, this is the perfect tool to do it."

That definitely got their attention, already they could see how law enforcement could be improved with just this one thing. Castis then noticed something. "Wait, you mentioned this was silk, correct? Artificial or not, this still would degrade like natural silk, right?"

Marrok nodded. "Yep, but you don't have to worry. It takes an hour or so for it to dissolve on its own. I can offer a chemical spray which can do so right away should you need to clear the webbing. And don't worry, the webbing doesn't leave a mess when it dissolves, so there's little risk of collateral damage."

Pallin was once more holding the grenade, now looking it over more intently. After a few moments of silence, he looked up at Marrok. "Perhaps we can work something out. I assume you're selling this to us and not just giving it away."

Marrok nodded with a smile. "Exactly. Perhaps at some point when my company is able to afford it, I can make some new toys for C-SEC to try out and just give them to you for free, but until then, I'm willing to sell these to you at a good price. I have more in my pack and I can make more easily if need be. So, interested?" He asked as he held his hand out.

Pallin looked at the hand, looked at the grenade, then back to the hand before looking at Marrok. He stood up and grabbed the hand.

It's been a few months now since Marrok decided to stay on the Citadel. With the combined funds from helping take down criminals, mostly those with bounties, and selling his web grenades to C-SEC, he had enough to get his company started. It was small right now, as it was just himself and a few others he had made friends with during his stay.

There were five others helping his company. The first was an Asari named Jenannia V'nava. She was in her matron years and had spent most of her life on Thessia, learning everything she could about biotics and bioorganic chemistry. While not very immediate in need, Marrok knew her skills would be needed down the road. Jenannia, or Jen for short as Marrok called her, was very eager to study his webbing to see what she could learn. Marrok allowed her to, as he felt that, as she had centuries of experience, she might be able to improve his webbing in ways he hadn't thought of.

Next was a female turian by the name of Lanaria Surdus. She was very valuable as she was an expert in engineering and mechanics. He met her similarly to Jen, her coming to him when it was known the human who single handedly ended the Turian invasion was staying on the Citadel. She helped Marrok come up with ideas for inventions to sell to C-SEC and then help make them real. She already had created a few armor types and even better shields to give C-SEC an edge just to name a couple. She was very friendly upon first greeting and only got more friendly the more she got to know Marrok.

The third Marrok met surprised him a bit when they first met. A krogan named Wrage from clan Nakmor. The two met in a bar, or rather in a bar during a brawl. Marrok was enjoying a few drinks, even if he couldn't get drunk on the normal stuff, and in came Wrage who, apparently, was there to get a batarian who tried to get out of paying up on a bet he lost and Wrage wasn't taking no for an answer. It had to have been a lot of credits, cause the batarian grabbed the bottle he was drinking from and smashed it against Wrage's face and tried to use the suddenness of the attack to escape. However, Wrage wasn't fazed and grabbed his target before throwing him across the bar, who then crashed into a table of other patrons, breaking their glasses and spilling the drinks. This led to a chain reaction and soon the entire bar turned into a mosh pit.

Marrok tried ignoring it as he wanted to enjoy his drink, but then one Salarian seemed to get it in his head that it would be a WONDERFUL idea to snatch Marrok's drink to smash it against a turian's head. For a few moments, he sat there, staring at his now empty hand, as if trying to will his drink back into existence. After realizing that, yes, his drink was indeed gone, no, it was not coming back, and no, he didn't get to finish it, he stood up and turned to the Salarian that swiped it. Said Salarian was standing over the now knocked out turian as he held a now dented metal tray in his hand. Before he knew what was happening, Marrok grabbed him by the back of his neck and yeeted the amphibian over him, causing him to crash into a group of four brawling patrons.

The brawl only lasted a few minutes, with the only ones left standing being Marrok and Wrage, both at the bar counter with new drinks, the batarian Wrage was after out cold on the floor between them. They introduced themselves and the rest was history.

When Marrok got his company started, Wrage offered to be security. He knew Marrok could handle himself, but he also knew that Marrok couldn't be every at once, so he figured some krogan muscle could help keep the others safe while he was gone for any reason.

The next Marrok met was, shockingly to most, a batarian. This batarian, named Brosk Sombapos, was a former slave that escaped and managed to get to the Citadel through sheer will and luck. When Marrok met him, Brosk was attempting to mug an asari. He was demanding the asari to hand over her credit chit and that he didn't want to hurt her, but he would. Marrok stepped in and let the Asari flee while he managed to talk down the batarian. He took Brosk to a bar, a different one from the one he met Wrage, and heard Brosk's story. Without him knowing, Brosk had confirmed what he had hoped wasn't true about the Hegemony. For Brosk himself, Marrok wanted to help him and asked what he could do. Brosk told him about how he was good with tech, since he was forced to be a technician when he was a slave, and that he was able to hack almost anything, given that's what he had to do the first few months of survival to get credits, though only taking what he needed.

And so, he put Brosk in charge of both program development and cybersecurity.

The final member was Folsa Nerloln, a salarian woman and a skilled biologist and geneticist. Marrok was approached by her and asked if she could work for him. He probably should have said no, given she had the same aura as spies he had met back in his universe like Natasha. However, with Lucy assisting, he felt he could keep an eye on her. However, he found that she seemed genuine in her desire to work for him. He had no idea why this was as he never made his future plans known, but he knew he would find out in time.

Marrok was drafting up a few blueprints for an invention he wanted to try and make when his omnitool pinged, informing him about a message. "That would be Admiral Drescher." Lucy told him through his ear piece.

He sighed at this as he stood from his desk and went into a side room he designed. He connected his omnitool to the systems and the screen in front of him began to display code. This room was specially designed to allow him to talk with anyone and not have to worry about hackers. If Ultron needed a week to crack this kind of cyber-security, the tech of this universe had NO chance unless an A.I. took a crack at it and even then it was a coin toss if they ever could break it.

Finally, the screen changed and Drescher appeared on screen. "Admiral, a pleasure to see you. Am I to assume this is your 'Council' making another 'demand' of me giving them my tech?"

Drescher smiled at Marrok. Over the time Marrok had stayed on the Citadel, the Alliance Council had tried many times to convince him to work solely for the Alliance, given he was human, with no success. On the other hand, the Brass had gotten along with Marrok rather well with his advice on strategy and tactics, along with selling them various alien weapons and armor for them to study along with what was collected at Shanxi. Drescher herself was the one that got along with him the best. While their first meeting wasn't all pleasant, she understood his reasons for not serving the Alliance. If they had that kind of tech, there's no doubt many would let that kind of power get to their heads and think they could take on the galaxy. "Likewise Mr. Hunt. And not this time. Brass managed to convince them that if we're ever to get a hold of your tech, we would need to buy it like everyone else. Having said that, we actually have a commission for you."

He raised a brow. "A commission? I don't know if you've noticed, but at the moment, my company is barely a storefront, we don't even have a proper name for it. Any commission would have to either take a back seat or be very small."

She nodded. "Due to the lack of materials and the lack of credits to afford them. That's why we're willing to offer you the materials for this commission if you would take that out of the final price."

Marrok was surprised. He expected the Alliance to try and see if they get him to build them something, even by hiring him, but he never expected they would solve the issue by giving him the materials for said commission. This meant one of two things, they either knew what they wanted and what was needed and needed the extra help, or they didn't know what they wanted or what was needed but knew he would. Both had pros and cons, but for now he would need to learn which it was. "I see. So, before I decide to take this commission or not, let me hear what I'm expected to make."

Drescher brought up her omnitool and sent a data file to him. He opened it and blinked a few times. "You want me to design remote drones? For your carriers?"

She nodded. "Yes. If you can only draw up the blueprints, we'll accept that with no cut in the cost, but if you can fully design and build one along with the blueprints, we'll pay extra."

He stared more at the file as his mind ran many calculations. "And…..just how much is the Alliance willing to spend for this?"

"Check the bottom of the file, that is the maximum budget." He did just that and nearly choked.

"That's…a LOT of zeros."

She nodded. "Half of it is yours for just the blueprint. All of it is yours for both the blueprint AND the drone."

Marrok had a massive grin. With this, his company would catapult to where he would need it to be and he could finally begin his TRUE projects. And he had a few ideas from Tony Stark himself to make this commission a reality. "Admiral, you got yourself a swarm."

"FUCKING FINALLY!" Marrok bellowed as he slammed his head on his work bench, the others also groaning in relief as they nearly collapsed. Six weeks, SIX FUCKING WEEKS, of non-stop work. Never again will Marrok accuse Tony Stark of cutting corners or taking shortcuts. He never knew just how complex the systems and programs Tony used to control several armors at once was and now that he had suffered through the process, he finally had an idea of the suffering Tony had to go through. It took that man months to get it right without one of the armors trying to attach to him WHILE he was wearing another armor, so Marrok would take the fact it ONLY took six weeks to do this as a win.

The issue here was basically the same, but trying to find a way to control so many drones without the use of an A.I. A V.I. could do it, but they would need at LEAST twenty for the number of drones just one Carrier would be fielding. For four and half weeks they couldn't figure out the solution.

Shockingly, the answer was so damn simple and it came from Wrage of all people. "You're trying to lower the number of pilot deaths right? Why not just have each pilot control one drone each, with two or three drones as automated escorts?"

The silence that followed could have stilled a warzone. Then, in a burst of activity, Marrok, Brosk, and Lanaria became a flurry of typing, simulations, etc. Within an hour, they found that not only it would work, but it would actually boost efficiency of the drones by 246%, since the pilots would be the ones in control for the most part. And the controls would be easy, VR and AR would easily bridge that gap and with a bit of quantum entanglement to reduce the lag between pilot and drone to near zero and V.I.s that would mimic their assigned pilot's skills for the drone escorts and the costs would be even LESS than what they first estimated! Marrok even made it so that if the drone the pilot was directly controlling was destroyed, said pilot would just 'respawn' as one of the other drones they had in their group and resume the fight.

So they all got to work, even Jen and Folsa helped out, Wrage not so much, but he did make sure no one tried to sneak in or rob the place.

That might not sound like a real risk considering the small size of the building, but with the knowledge that Marrok Hunt, the human with the smarts, tech, and skill to not only defeat the turians in ground warfare in minutes, but also hack and take over a fleet of turian warships, owned this business, many assumed he would be making new tech that could perhaps be reverse engineered and adapted or straight up sold as their own if they were that stupid.

Wrage made that worry a non-issue, at least for now. Once his company was bigger and more well known, Marrok would need better security than one driven krogan. But that was for future Marrok to worry about.

In a week and half, they managed to go through a prototype, several improvements, before finally hitting the final product. That might sound too fast, but given that everyone refused to sleep and ate and drank while working and that severely cut down the time needed. WIth what mental energy he had left, Marrok sent a message through his omnitool to Drescher. "Alright, I sent a message to our client. She'll be here in three days. I don't know about you all, but I'm going to be dead for two of those days. Consider the next two days free, cause I am NOT allowing ANY WORK to be done in that time."

Jen looked up from her reclined position in her chair. "What about the company? Wrage has been awake just as long as the rest of us guarding the place and as tough as krogan are, he has to be near the limit."

He waved it off. "I have a few friends in C-SEC, I can ask them to post who they trust to guard this place while we rest and regain our sanity."

Lanaria rubbed her fringe as she moaned. "Good, I swear my plates are about to fall off. As fun as it was to design and make such a masterpiece, I don't think I can pull off productivity like that again."

Brosk sighed as he relaxed after taking a long drink from his flask, which was thankfully just juice from a fruit with calming properties. "At least we got it finished. Seriously, where did you even think of that idea?" He asked Wrage who was eating a large ration block, something they all had to deal with for the last week and a half.

"I might be better useful in a fight and with guns, but I still have some moments where I like to have fun that wasn't a fight, or at least, where a fight would only bring me trouble. The idea came from a few games I played that had the same concept, controlling a squad of fighter ships." Wrage shrugged as he drank a large bottle of water.

Marrok groaned as he popped his neck. "Well, that gave us the answer and we were able to finish. That's what matters."

Folsa looked at Marrok. "So, what kind of pay are we expecting from this? You merely mentioned that there were a lot of zeros and that it would elevate this company into a real power."

Marrok grinned as he remembered the number. "5 BILLION."

Wrage spat his water out, Brosk nearly choked, Jen and Lanaria almost fell from their seats, and Folsa looked ready to faint. Wrage managed to clear his throat from any water that went down the wrong pipe. "WHAT KIND OF PULL DO YOU HAVE?!" The Krogan bellowed as Marrok laughed his ass off.

Well, there we are. A good bit longer than I'm used to, but there was too much to deal with without leaving too much out due to time skips. Add to that this was also a sort of filler chapter, but like I said last chapter, there's not much that's different from canon if it's not related to Marrok. This job for drones to put with carriers being one of them. And some might feel that five billion might be WAY too much for what Marrok did, but think about it for a moment. Having the fighter craft to fight and harass the enemy can be expensive, but those things can be rebuilt in a relatively short time. Training NEW pilots after the old experienced ones died in battle can take YEARS.

But with this, there's not only a reduction in the costs of training new pilots, since they won't have to worry about G-force training, but the drones won't need a cockpit, air tanks, or really anything organics might need, leaving SO MUCH SPACE for other things, such as a second Eezo core to power the shield alone, making it that much stronger, and the proper systems, components, and everything needed to make controlling the drone as smooth and flawless as possible. And with each pilot having three to five extra drones paired with the one they do control, and each pilot suddenly becomes worth a squadron. And with many ways of reducing the cost of constructing such things, the end result is that 5 billion would be a drop in the bucket compared to what they can save with this, both in lives and in resources. And just to add to it, if the pilots are down to their last drone or the drone they're controlling is too damaged to keep going, they can overload their ME cores and kamikaze the enemy.

Ok, with that said, the next chapter WILL start with Drescher being shown the new drone and what it can do, but then I will put in a time skip that will have the company in full swing. Yes, I know, this might be moving too fast, but like I mentioned before, I have a good set plan and path on how I want this story to go, it's just the filler and the first few chapters that are slowing me down, so I want to get through them all as fast as possible without leaving too much out, and that's hard to do when you feel like some things could be left out but someone else would feel that too much was left out. I feel I did a good job here, but I'm not sure.

Anywho, you know the drill by now, read, review, no flames, constructive criticism only, blah blah blah.