Neat little news segments, mention of saren!

The data suggests they could do good off the Factory as well, and they are requesting field assignments," the holo reminded him, and Exedore sighed. The young, always wanting glory on the field of battle….no that was unfair. Shepard didn't want glory. That was his sister who acted like that. He wanted to help people, really help them, and be able to see their faces. He never seemed to be able to understand that even if he didn't see the results, helping them by developing new tech in the factory was far more efficient.

Tali for her part, merely wanted to stay by his side. It was her first assignment request, and Shepard had agreed to it, which is what had brought them here, to the Factory together. She was up for an officer's promotion, and after their performance today, Exedore would give his go ahead on it. Then they would get reassigned, probably to some far off outpost where their brains wouldn't have access to all the tools the Factory offered them. They'd be happy, that was certain, as they would be together, but they wouldn't be helping develop the future of their people.

"Ah, to be young and in love," he said, and the holo looked at him.

"Statement, the pair have yet to express a romantic interest in one another," it told him, and Exedore chuckled. Sometimes, computers could be so blind to the data right in front of them.

"Such is the way of the young as well. Still, we will need to get these results to Red Team right away. Perhaps Sarge can motivate his team to use the data in the development of that new vehicle of theirs. What did they call it again, the Puma?" asked Exedore, trying to remember.

—-

True that.

I sent you down there because if they discovered the two of you, you'd have the best chance of fighting them off. I didn't want you to slaughter the whole ship and her compliment," he explained.

"Anderson-Captain, we accomplished the mission that was dictated to this ship, did we not?" asked Legion, and Anderson stared at the geth.

"No, no you did not. If they two of you had done your job on the planet, which was to confirm they were picking up the protoculture, this ship would have followed the cruiser out of the system using a tracker planted in the stash, and we would have found out who they were selling to," said the Captain, and the two ground troops just went blank faced at that, as the information processed.

"Sir, if we'd known that-," and again, Shepard was cut off by Anderson's hand.

"It's not the job of the ground troops to know every little thing, Shepard. You have orders, you follow them, isn't that what the Federation Fleet is all about?" he asked, and she nodded without hesitation.

"Then why do you have such a problem doing that?!" he demanded, and then threw her file onto the desk in front of him. Out of the folder poured a ton of paper, on which one could see her five year career, from Rannoch's guard, to her current posting. Most of the remarks in her file were about how skilled a warrior she was, with many very much calling her a reborn Zentraedi. Of course, those tended to be followed up with remarks of where she'd gone against orders, getting the job done, but typically leaving no living witnesses in her wake.

"If one of them were still alive, I'd say this was at least salvageable, but at this point, our entire mission is a bust," he told the two before him, and then placed his hand in front of his mouth in a thoughtful gesture as he leaned forward in his seat

—

I guess it’s her nature, war like. Zentradi were about war, or fighting. That doesn’t necessarily coincide to following orders.

But Jan seems to only care with taking out enemies.

She thought the order was because they believed her combat was lacking.

Sighing, rubbing at the spot between his two left most eyes to massage a nerve, the Broker began to make plans. His contacts, once they got inside the Terran machine, went dark, and he knew why. They felt safe from his reach, and thus any reprisal from him. He would have to make that safety seem more of an illusion, and that meant striking at someone in a high profile position within the Terran Federation. The giants themselves were out of the question there, but they had begun integrating a fair few of the lesser races.

A quick look through a directory, and some called placed from his personal terminal, and the Broker was smiling in that horrid way of his people. The events he'd set in motion would remind those in his employ that his reach was far and wide. That no matter where they ran, they could never truly escape the shadow's hand. Outside the vessel, the storm, as if sensing the dark thoughts, sent lightning playing over the hull, creating a flash of shadows and light playing amongst those rolling clouds.

—

Yikes! The Yog plots!

"The patrol group, expecting a fight, used every precaution as they approached the world. It did them little good," she said this as the image of a full battle fleet, sixty scout ships, seven command ships, and one flag ship all came closer to the world. Then a beam of light shot upwards from below. It looked, to their eyes, much like the beams of the thanix cannons the batarians had begun using during their attack on Rannoch. It was stronger though, wide enough that it could encompass an entire scout, and worst of all it moved, twisting around in space so that it swept through the fleet, ripping holes in many of the ships that vanished in spheres of blue light as their protoculture engines ruptured.

"The initial attack destroyed a good sixty-three percent of the group's battle effectiveness, taking out not only the flag, but also all but one of the command ships. The attacker then revealed itself to us," the image of the planet zoomed in on a seemingly barren patch of land on the surface. The only sign that something was possibly there was a small hole in one part of the plain that obviously hadn't been there moments ago. Of course, it was still surprising when a ship, as large as a flag, ripped its way free from the ground, and then shot into the sky faster than any ship had a right to in an atmosphere.

The thing was oddly designed too. It looked almost, alive in the way it moved. A single large section, cone shaped, that had multiple 'legs' hanging off the bottom that seemed to swim in the air. Worse, it seemed each leg had a thanix weapon at the end, because as it rose, swifter than any ship its size should ever be able to move, each leg shot out a beam, and carved through the remaining ships, tearing them apart as it passed, leaving only three left of the entire patrol group, which quickly fled as fast as they could, while firing their own weapons at it.

"As you can see, protoculture weapons have as much effect on the barrier of this unit as one might expect, given the sheer size and obvious power. More surprising those, is that our missiles, which have proven effective in every case where they are able to hit, somehow are blocked by this same defense," and as they watched, beams of blue light and missiles swarmed out of the ships, streaking across space at the thing. Either to mock them, or because it couldn't move fast enough, it allowed every shot to hit dead center on it, and yet, none of the weapons seemed to have any effect on the thing at all, with reflex turret fire just splashing into nothing, while missiles crashed and exploded impotently against the veil of shimmering light around the ship.

"Re-enforcements were called in as soon as the threat the thing posed should it exit the system was recognized. However, while we believed at first the ship would make a break for the local relay, it instead began to seemingly randomly travel through the star cluster," and it showed in the holo, as the ship vanished from the scene, which widened to show the entire area, while a clock over it accelerated to show almost half an hour pass. The ship first went to the nearest system, which had one small listening post, unmanned, and nothing else. It then proceeded to blow away a small chunk of a random moon in the system, on a planet not even close to the automated post, before going FTL again.

—-

They took out a reaper.

But there’s still a lot to prepare for.

Another great chapter well written

"Finally, young Jon Shepard," he said, and got on one knee so his face was level with the nine year old.

"You are still far too young for any rank that we could think of to give you, but this body has decided that when you come of age in four years, should you want it, a position will be open for you onboard the Factory. You would serve directly under Prime Thinker Exedore, with a Naval Rank equivalent of your sister's," and with that Breetai held out his hand, this time with another rank insignia in it. Unlike his forebears, it seemed like Jon was reluctant to take it.

"Um, would I be able to bring Tali with me?" he asked at last, and Breetai looked towards his parents, wondering if it was some toy or the like.

"Tali'Zorah, the daughter of Rael'Zorah, Rannoch's governor. We've been living with her and her father since the colony was founded," explained Adam.

"And why would you want her to come with you?" asked Breetai.

"Well, she helps me think. I would never have come up with the rings without her, and those things are what took down the mechs. Without them, we'd still all have been slaughtered, probably out of spite if nothing else," he explained, and Breetai seemed to think on this for a moment, before smiling down at the young boy, and tussling his fingers atop his head.

"We'll see. if I understand correctly, Rannoch's election terms are different than most places, but if her father and she consent, I don't see why the three of you can't," he explained, and the young boy's eyes lit up, as he finally took the rank insignia from Breetai's hand, and then pinned it to his collar

—-

Awwww Jon loves his friend tali. Breetai is good to kids. _ love seeing that side of him.

Oh, it’s getting heavy now!

We have confirmation, Captain Aldaris' ship has been destroyed as well," said one of the AIs from his station, his hologram directly touching the monitor in front of him as he linked with it. Behind him, Hannah Shepard used an entire array of curses. The chain of command was becoming a frayed rope of command, as these gaps kept appearing.

"Find out who's in charge of this fleet then. We need orders, and we need them now!" she shouted, looking towards another display.

"Ma'am, we have confirmed kills on all but half a dozen of our own borders. Those few stragglers are holding out in blind corridors or other tight spaces," shouted another voice, this one a lieutenant by his stripes.

"Good, keep them in there for now. See about pumping in some heat from our engines into whatever rooms they've found themselves trapped in. I've been wondering what roasted four eyes taste like for a while," she told them, turning at last to the door that had opened behind her, and then freezing.

"Mom," said Jane, giving a salute, and Hannah just stared, before getting that 'I'm in charge' look on her face that any enlisted person knew. The five who had been escorting the young Miss Shepard quickly made themselves scarce, running into the corridor outside and retaking their guard positions, just in case one of those last boarders somehow found their way onto the command deck.

"Jane, I thought I ordered you off this ship," she said, a statement of fact rather than a question.

"You did ma'am, but new information came to light that required your review," said Jane calmly, and Hannah silently gauged her for a moment, before motioning her to approach the Captain's chair.

"What new information could have come to you that I wouldn't know about?" she asked as the young girl stepped up to her.

"Jon called me, and he had some intel on the ground situation," began Jane.

"Go on," said Hannah, motioning for her daughter to continue her report.

"Jon said he devised a modification to the overload program that disabled their ground troops. What's more, he's also disabling their mechs on the surface with some of those chakram things he was throwing around for his act in the show this afternoon," she explained, and her mother seemed to take this in as she would anything else.

"Jon is a nine year old boy," said Hannah at last, as if this were some kind of argument against her son's word.

"He's a Shepard," retorted Jane, and after a few seconds of thought, the older woman nodded.

"He's also got a plan on how to deal with the ships that launched those knives," said Jane, walking over towards one of the targeting stations.
—

Phew looks like mom and daughter won’t die today. I hope.

Windows are a structural weakness," she said as she withdrew her foot, scraping off the gore onto the mech as she did so. Looking back, she totaled up her kill count, and then pushed a button on her omnitool.

"This is Cadet Shepard, five more targets on deck seven taken out," she said into the device, before a chirp acknowledged her.

"This is Captain Shepard, good work Jane. We're herding the rest into the docking bays, the veritechs can rip these fools apart. Now get down to deck twelve and take an escape pod," came the voice of her mother over the comms.

"Mom," she began, but was cut off by another chirp from her tool.

"That's an order young lady. You're not being sent away just because. The colony needs defenders as well, and you'd be more help down there than up here," explained the captain, and Jane nodded at the logic.

"Acknowledged ma'am. Good hunting," she said, and then rushed towards the gravivators for the deck she was on. Around her, she tried to ignore the signs of battle. Dead batarians in their mechs were one thing, but she saw far too many armored Terrans laying beside them. Most had their armor blown off, and had been the clue that Jane had needed to send a message that somehow, the batarians were locking their shots onto the armor itself. With that bit of info, they'd been able to strip off the armor, and switch to melee weapons to just rip the things apart, especially the veritechs which were large enough to just crush the batarian mechs in their fists.

"Jane? Jane, are you there?" came a new voice from her omnitool, and Jane skidded to a halt in her run, bringing the device to her face, and looking into the eyes of her brother down on the planet.

"Jon, what are you doing on this frequency? We're in the middle of a battle," she demanded.

"Yeah, that's the reason I'm calling you instead of mom. I can't get through any to anyone of rank, and I've got to know what's going on up there, and I have an update from the ground," that brought the girl up short. The ground defenders had been cut off since the start of the battle, so an update would certainly be welcome.

"Well, out with it little brother," she said, and he nodded.

"We've got the batarians mostly contained now. Their infantry seems to have overestimated their new technology, and I designed an overload pulse that just takes them out in one shot," responded Jon.

"Really? How'd you manage that?" she asked.

—-

What a smart boy.

And reinforcements for the Rannoch people!

Even the afternoon bridge crew were partaking in that last, as monitors often showed not the space around Rannoch, but the space around New Raaya instead. There were parties in the street, as quarians, Terrans, and even a few geth put on performances, all in celebration of the city's one year anniversary. Smiling faces, roars of adulation from the crowd, and a dozen other things marked the occasion. Today, even though few had family below, this place was really starting to feel like home.

Some watched in awe as the quarians played traditional instruments of their people. Segmented flutes with five holes on either side, great metal drums that rang like gongs, or chimed like tiny crystals. Other behind the spectacle of a young Terran boy, juggling rings of light he pulled from his omnitool. The ones watching grew to applause as one of the rings dropped just out of reach, and drove itself into the metal stage, showing the sharp nature of the things, even as the boy added more and more to the act.

A few eyes were watching the colors playing off a much closer object, one that could be observed out of any port. Rannoch's newest satellite, a great mass of metal and wires, hung just outside the fleet's orbit. On board, almost all those geth who chose to remain as they had been, to find their own path rather than take that handed to them by the Terrans, were celebrating themselves. It had been almost a year since the Factory had built them this thing, a computer complex larger than any other in the galaxy, into which many of their number had poured.

—

Cool. And then chaos!

Yeah, if Mr and Mrs shepard find out you took their nine year old son into the war zone? O.o

Now there were people here again, young and old, tall and small, and most importantly of all, biological and mechanical. Quarians now roamed the great city of the south, dubbed New Rayya by the people. Here they laughed, played, and cried. Here, the isolation of three hundred years seemed to fade away, and it was like they had never left this place they called home. Each month brought new colonists from the Flotilla, and soon there would not be a quarian left in space, as they reclaimed their lost homeland.

The geth looked at this, and simply saw what many of them had wanted during the long years. To a geth, right was the quarians in their cities, with children and families. Some even wished to resume their old roles, as helpers of the quarian people, but more wanted to explore. Freedom granted to them by the techniques of the Terrans expanded their horizons. No longer did a thousand voices need to come together to form a thought or idea. Instead they could exist on their own, watching the world play out before them.

Not that this freedom had come without cost. As they had been told, they had welcomed a time limit to their lives, a limit that had not before existed. More than that though, the platforms were denied to them. Those bodies they had lived in were too complex, too many moving parts of their single minds to run, similar to the Terran AIs own woes in that regard. They had not fully been denied the world, however, as every day brought more of the holoprojectors to their world, allowing them freedom both within themselves, and within the the real world.

The Terrans watched all of this, encouraging peace between the two peoples who had stood apart for so long. Here, they found that the strife of three hundred years was not so easily bridged. The quarians often hated the geth, for what the machines had done, and the newly independent geth sometimes hated back. Neither group was willing to come to blows over this, however, and they were slowly seeing things through. Images soon began to circulate of a small quarian girl in her bubble, handing a floor to a platform, as a sign that they could live together.

—-

Awww happy times.

But the pattern, the Reapers! O.o

Oooh Lilith, Eve, Mary, bible mother names for the cured females.
—-

"That's the job for a young one, one with hope. I haven't had that in years," he told her simply.

"What if there was hope, though? If you could bring life back to the people of our world, would you be willing to go back then?" asked the red, and Wrex, without thinking, nodded in answer. In a single beat of one of his hearts, he'd rush back to homeworld, if it could be saved. That wasn't likely to happen any time soon however. The four priestesses then descended into handtalk again, gesturing emphatically at each other, before the one in black robes finally raised her hand, silencing them.

"We have business then, Urdnot Wrex," she said in a grave, older voice than the others, holding our her hand. One of the greens pulled an ampule from the sleeve of her robes, a small vial with a needle on it. Wrex backed away a bit at the sight of it. A battle hardened soldier, he'd learned not to trust the things, but then the black robed woman stabbed her hand with it, drawing a large amount of her blood into the vial, and sliding it across the table to him.

"This is the hope we offer, the hope that the krogan can have a future. Take that vial to a doctor, one you can trust. Ask him what's different about it compared to every other sample of krogan blood in the galaxy. When you have your answer, these is an extranet address on the vial at which you may contact us," she said, and then rose. The others followed suit, rising like a wave of silk, before walking straight out the bar's front door, leaving Wrex staring at the ampule before him, knowing what must be in it, allowing that one small glimmer of hope into his mind.
—-

Hope for the krogan!

"A close examination of Mr. Church's code reveals that was fragmenting, which is curious given his age is only twenty-seven," that information seemed to shock Grant, Hayes, and Amalgam, but Breetai and the two newer Conclave members looked at him questioningly.

"Ah, yes, not everyone here is aware. Fragmentation is what happens to an AI as it ages. It's the late signs that junk code is building up too much in the logic string. Normally, there are many warning signs before it gets to this level, but in Church's case, it seemed to happen quite suddenly, and this is why," a button press, and the code reappeared, zooming right to the section where they had been before, only with some odd code glowing now in a sickly green color.

"This code, isn't part of Church's mind. It's not part of any program he has interacted with, and what's worse, I was able to observe a chemical reaction in Michael and Lavernius's brains that was similar in nature enough to believe that the device itself was somehow responsible for it," the device reappeared.

"Acting on my authority, I quickly isolated it on SCP-261, an automated unit with a cloning pod for food production over Titan," the device moved through the air, appearing inside a small satellite, overlooking the moon.

"Cloning several small neurons, I was able to observe an affect from the device I can only call genetic mind control. It took almost a day of additional testing before I realized what was causing it," the device, one final time, split open, and the eezo core was floating before them once again, this time with small waves of motion coming off it.

"You're saying eezo is somehow responsible for your people's mental instability?" asked Solo, and Exedore shook his head quickly.

"Not all eezo, I did several tests with other samples, and found them to be neutral on the subject, but every test with this sample, or even pieces of this sample, have proven beyond a doubt to me that somehow, this particular piece of eezo affects one's mind state. Possibly that's how the captain of the batarian vessel was convinced to assault one of our worlds," as he spoke, the image vanished, leaving the chamber dark for a moment, before the lights returned to normal.

—-

The indoctrination!

Oooooh interesting prison set up.

Phew. Lucky poor Ed wasn’t enslaved.