(Disclaimer)

I do not own Mass Effect or the Halo franchise; neither do I own the Titanfall franchise. All these universes respectively belong to BioWare/EA, Respawn Entertainment, and Microsoft/343 Industries.

Finally! The rework is done and its new chapters from here on, there is new plot points worked into the story as a whole so you may want to reread the tale if you haven't read it before the 2023 rework happened, so without further ado I say once more with feeling!

ON WITH THE STORY!

CHAPTER NINETEEN:

Like Mother, Like Daughter.

The Broken Path.

Location: Aite, Cerberus staffed Prometheus station, Overlord Project.

"I'm telling you, Wessly, it was the best little missile you could ever ask for. It had a VI and everything. Every weapons inspection we would have, the ammo would recite in unison, 'the missile knows where it is and where it isn't.' Every single inspector we had would lose their military bearing without fail. We nicknamed them 'laughing rockets.' The best thing was that we had figured out how to hack their speech programs and would have them roast the brass every time there was an audit. Funniest crap I've ever had a hand in."

Wessly just wished he hadn't been saddled with Lanigan for a fourteen-hour shift in Prometheus Station. Yes, he had lost the bet at the poker game, but was the lieutenant really willing to make him suffer so?

"Hey man, you know how Cerberus is supposed to be all separate from the Systems Alliance, ya know? All edgy like, the option the pro-human humans need to take to maintain their mindset of superiority and everything? Well, what if I told you that the entire organization is actually an Alliance-sanctioned faction? Like, really think about it, man. The massive pools of resources, ships, weapons, military personnel, and scientific acumen collected at places like here. We basically have a demon baby Alliance within the Alliance! There is no way the Alliance leadership isn't aware of that mega-tumor being hauled around by the rest of the body. They wouldn't allow it to exist without some measure of control. Which is why I think that Cerberus is a sanctioned operation meant to enable humanity to look into things the Alliance politically can't be tied to. Just look at history, Wessly. Old Russia had this whole other army called Wager or Waver or some such that did the same thing in function, if not in form. Although, now that I think about it, things kind of ended badly for them."

Apparently, yes, Wessly thought. She really did get off on him suffering. If only getting Lanigan to shut up was feasibly possible. It wasn't in the rules of reality if the rumor mill was to be believed. Having tried everything short of murdering the happy-go-lucky veteran, Wessly had come to agree with the general consensus.

Lanigan was Lanigan. You suffered his presence until your time of torture was done and someone else got to do it instead. There were even some freaks in the Project who enjoyed having conversations with the nutcase. They were the worst people to follow in for a shift working on Prometheus Station. It would take upwards of an entire day for Lanigan to slow down after having someone bank the steam of conversation with his favorite topics… Human conspiracies and other inane information.

The man was a nut.

So what if he had a unique Earth military background and was an engineering graduate of the United North American States antiquated military program, S-Bee DARPA-accredited College of Mechanics, Engineering, and Construction or some such. The man was impossible to deal with. He smiled so much Wessly contemplated simply smashing Lanigan's teeth in to stop the cheer.

To suffer his presence was to endure tortures of the soul! And Wessly had to survive another six hours of their shift together.

"Anyways, speaking of Russia, they were kicking up a fuss to new Alliance military command. The Russian Republic military had been mostly defunct over the past twenty years or so. The EU and the Alliance all had a hand in making sure that the funding that cash-guzzling beast needed would never be in hand. The Republic refuses to operate on debt, you know, because of what the old Federation did after the whole Ukraine debacle back like a hundred and sixty or seventy years ago. The United States ended up bailing the new Russian Republic out of debt from China thirty years later when India went and lost its head with all that resurgent Muslim state, 'kill all the Hindus' BS that triggered a dozen other world crises.

Anyhow, the Alliance military leadership and Civilian Government are all like, 'Ha! We're in charge of everything now, buckos, cough up all your secrets!' to the big four, them being America, Japan, Russia, and China. While the borders of those nations no longer exist in the original sense and the people are now technically a part of a bigger government under the Alliance or their local continent-spanning organization, the military arm and research divisions have all united in telling the Alliance to eat dirt and weeds on the matter, if you get what I'm saying.

The Russians' RFARPD is hiding in their Yamantau complex, something that has the Alliance Research division green with envy, let me tell you. Then the old American DARPA group is still around and utilizing the last few American bases still in operation. I got my scholarship through them, you know. They won't cough up any info on where Cheyenne Mountain's sister facilities are or what was done or is being done there, let me tell you. The Japanese are the flipping Japanese. Everyone knows they have space mech magical BS and no one knows where they have it, enough said about them. The Chinese literally buried their research facilities under a flipping volcano, so good luck getting into that. Anyways, to sum it all up, the Alliance is pissed at all these groups because they refuse to hand over their national accumulated research into aerospace and other technologies to them. Even Cerberus is in on looking for the hidden libraries of that stuff, man. It's nuts."

Wessly contemplated taking one for the team and simply putting a bullet in Lanigan's head. Then he concluded that he wanted the work accident zero rating bonus on his paycheck next month. He just had to hang on for another five hours and forty-five minutes. It was doable… maybe.

"The Alliance is mad that these factions refuse to give up their national identity and conform with the group, man. The media isn't saying much, but this whole new faction in the Terminus systems, wiping out pirates as of late, has a lot of eyes squinting in DARPA's and even RFARPD's direction. This has their fingerprints all over it, and some people even think there are hidden colonies out there that hold allegiance to the USA, or Japan, or China. They were the ones to get sleeper colonies out of the Sol system before the Mars discovery changed everything. Hell, we already found one colony in Alpha Centauri. You know, the Manswell expedition shindig that went nutso when the Asari got involved. Who's to say there aren't others out there?"

"Anyway, they think that DARPA and RFARPD are using a secret colony to testbed super-advanced research. We know for a fact that the Salarians were impressed with some of our pre-element zero aircraft like the 5th and 6th gen fighter jets and the NGAD programs. It's part of the reason why the nations won't cough up the info to the Alliance. They know that there is a lot of alien interest in that data, and the Alliance has been known to have loose lips in the past. Some people even think that DARPA and RFARPD, hell, even the Japanese have teleport technology to get from Earth to their super-secret test colony without getting detected, but that just beggars belief… although there is that crap that Shepard supposedly pulled when the Citadel was attacked a while back… makes one wonder."

With five hours and thirty-nine minutes left on the clock, Wessly committed the ultimate cardinal sin of opening his mouth. You just didn't talk back to the infamous Lanigan; you let him run his mouth and smiled and nodded appropriately to get him to shut up and go back to typing on his omni-tool. Committing the act of two-way communication would get the man on a roll, and the only time people did that was near the very end of the shift. There was a special place in hell for those who would wind up the chatterbox before passing him on to their relief.

"Lanigan, old Earth militaries aren't relevant anymore. I get that you're proud to have been in one your last two years of high school and had your bachelor's degree by the time you were twenty and done your four years, but they aren't that special nowadays. The Alliance is snapping up all the old power structures, and that includes your old faction. Your information is faulty, man."

Lanigan was silent for a minute, before slowly swiveling his chair around to stare at Wessly with a disturbingly blank face, before slowly transitioning his blank slate into a massive, unhinged grin. That was when Wessly realized he had committed the act of opening his mouth and now had to deal with the consequences of his actions.

"WELL! I'm glad you stated that, young Wessly, yes I am! You see, that is the standard galactic opinion of almost anyone not currently living on Earth itself and is therefore suspect. Every news channel, galactic poll, and other information-giving site, even the Codex, claims that Earth's old power structures are gone the way of the dinosaur. But! That is just what they want you to think. DARPA, RFARPD, and NEDO have and do still exist as their own agencies. They no longer have distinct governments to report to, but they have a long tradition and piles of resources and research backing them up. The private corporate sector also has a major interest in keeping the alphabet soup around. With their original controlling government subsumed by the Alliance, lately, they have been banding together and giving the globalists the middle finger, as it were."

"The past two hundred and fifty years of aerospace and material-science research is their domain, and you can bet your grandmother's pension that they sure as hell didn't give all that up to the Alliance when the final military jointer was forced into being during the Shanxi incident. The globalist-leaning colonial government had been motivated to underpin and undermine everyone before that, but that was when they really seized all the power and forced their competition into retirement. They could have gotten relief to the colony early but instead played political games in order to force the restructure they wanted. Private industry didn't like that one bit. A lot of the big corporate entities you don't hear about are still on their war footing, you know. DARPA, RFARPD, and NEDO all have a hand in making sure they stay on war footing. All while the few Alliance leaders with brains inside their heads look the other way."

"We are in a continual existential crisis. Most humans don't know it, Wessly, but Cerberus, the Alliance, and all the old Earth powers certainly do. The Galaxy is big, and aliens aren't always rational. Just look at the accounts of the Rachni conflict, the Krogan wars, the Quarians for crying out loud. They had a better industrial and political lever than we did, and they were still done in. We took a microscope to history the moment we uncovered the greater galaxy, and we sure as hell didn't like what we saw, man. The whole place is a death trap covered in pretty lights to distract and put you at ease as your very society is strangled into a slow death. Just look at the Asari and their predicted cultural influence as Terra Firma claims it will happen. The Asari Republics is one massive grindstone, and we as a species are putting up our culture against it and praying we come out the other end without being subservient to them in all but name.

One mass extinction event to our population and BAM! We are suddenly a client species to the Turians or more slave fodder for the Batarians. This isn't supposition, both of those species have already tried once and if the Turians had been thirty years early it would have actually happened. We are in a race, Wessly, a race against an unseen and unnamed threat, but it's coming. One way or another, it will show its ugly face and it's going to take all of humanity in its chaotically united diverse culture to put that threat down… hang on, what's that?"

The "that" in question was the sudden blaring of alarms. Seeing as both Lanigan and Wessly were already at their post, they could only wait until more information was broadcast over the local net or the all-clear was given. There wasn't much they could do other than activate the checkpoint's barricades and stare down the hall to one of the storage rooms they had on the Prometheus.

Nothing else happened for about ten minutes. Then, the ambient lighting of the hallways changed. The light switching from the dull blue-white it had always been to a pink and purple hue was nerve-wracking in a way it shouldn't have been. Then the noises started. There was a jangling and screeching cacophony from the storage bay. Without so much as a warning to Wessly, Lanigan hopped over the barricade, walked down the hall to the door, and palmed it open.

A dozen Geth platforms were fighting it out in the middle of the room, no guns, just straight up trying to murder each other with their limbs and body mass. There seemed to be two sides to the matter and even as the two men looked on, there were more partially assembled units rising up and rushing in to join the fight, all while both sides screamed digitized obscenities at each other.

Calmly reaching up and palming the door control, Lanigan turned around and walked back to the checkpoint like it was any other day of the week.

"Wessly, remind me to get a copy of my bodycam footage from the security cyber department later. Now, call in and notify the immediate watch commander that we have Geth activating down here, and they are all obsessed with MMA and testing it out on each other rather than our poor meatbag bodies. Two groups of platforms and both focused on murdering the other guy, we are not currently on their radar. You tell the WC that verbatim, you understand me?"

All Wessly could do was nod his head and start making the announcement over the radio net. He knew that Lanigan was tolerated by the higher-ups for a reason, but he had no clue it was because he was actually a badass and not just a nutcase. He wasn't going to judge a book by its cover ever again. What was worse is that without the bodycam footage, he didn't think anyone would ever believe him.

After calling everything in, there were a few more minutes of doing nothing but listening to the Geth reenact Fight Club down in storage while holding their breath and waiting for a response from the higher-up leadership. Which did eventually arrive, but the content wasn't what Wessly was expecting at all.

"Uh, Lanigan, they want you in the control center as fast as you can get there, something about your specialist rating being requested directly by Dr. Archer himself." He turned around to say more, but Lanigan was already halfway down the hallway en route to the control center, every curse known to both man and Batarian flowing out of his mouth as he sprinted around the corner and out of sight.

Wessly was now left alone to listen to the continuous noise of Geth units tearing each other apart in the nearby room. He had no way to lock the door, and he didn't know when Lanigan's replacement was going to arrive. He was going to have to suffer through for the duration until something changed.

He wasn't going to enjoy this one bit.

Location: Galactic Core, Ship graveyard and Debris field near the Collector Relay.

There was no more succinct way of putting the current situation than to describe it as playing a massive game of fourth-dimensional Pacman. Only this time, there was no way to kill the ghosts, and they were as angry as hornets, motivated by a dark god glaring at them from beyond the Milky Way. Thankfully, they had the memories of a gamer prodigy among their ranks—several, in fact. The more distinct personas had allayed the mixed and mashed remains of those who hadn't remained intact after the transition. Now, they leveraged a not insignificant amount of skill in playing this demented game of hide and seek.

The Collectors were firing on the debris field in attempts to break up the larger chunks and scare them out. For all their power, they hadn't quite made it to the relay before the servants of the Reapers had caught up with them. They had a new scar that crossed the entire front of their superstructure, but they had taken two of the blasted frigates with them before diving into the ship graveyard and going to ground, as it were.

Even now, the Collector cruiser that had been beyond the relay and had returned when the alert had gone out sat posted over the object like some sort of spider. It waited for them to make the attempt at final freedom, all while swarms of oculi searched the wreckage field that had accumulated over the better half of a billion years.

Still, the Rogue Prodigal had proven themselves very adept at hiding. Despite the hours having passed by, the enemy horde had not yet discovered them. They were charging their barriers in preparation for the final escape and scheming on how to confound or destroy their followers so that they wouldn't be hounded and bled to death by a thousand cuts.

Eyeing a particularly hefty piece of wreckage, they had the beginnings of an idea—a terribly, horribly, wonderfully pondered idea. The piece in question was a ship made to last, the constructors intending its sheer mass and durability to overcome the issues behind passing through the Omega Relay. That species must have been curious indeed. A more thorough look showcased damages from oculus fighter craft.

This meant that the vessel had survived initial transit and had been put down by force before it could return. Impressive. The Rogue Prodigal was themselves only two or so kilometers long; this vessel was four long and just over one-half wide. Almost all of it was armor; the construction was so significant that the Reapers had seen fit to harvest and recycle the ship's core if the damages were to be believed. That was a respectable amount of element zero to acquire their attention like that.

The vessel had been dead for millennia upon millennia, but the Prodigal could perhaps grant the spirits on that ship a level of vengeance long overdue. Attaching to the shadowed underside of the mighty slab of a ship, the rogue Reaper made use of its micro-thrusters to ever so slowly change the trajectory to the desired heading. They would only get one chance at this. If it worked, it would cut nine of the ten fingers of Harbinger's hand, so to speak. The station wouldn't be harmed, but the travel time to and from it would be a tactical nightmare for the Reapers to navigate.

If it worked, it would make a statement and be more than worth the risks involved.

Gliding through the tumbling debris field, the wreckage drew little scrutiny from the unimaginative Collectors, and the first of three watchers they needed to pass was avoided.

The plan was set, and the pieces were moving. All they had to do now was wait.

Location: Omega, Gozu District.

Aria T'Loak's goons had been tracking her at a respectful distance since her arrival. They had also been posted ahead of her and did their best to ensure that the less scrupulous of Omega's inhabitants were moved out of her way. She could understand their reasoning; there had already been one major incident recently on the station, and people were not wanting to incite another.

The pirate queen's goons were walking on tenterhooks around her, pretending she didn't exist yet clearing her way wherever she wandered. Samara thought it unlikely for her to find a worthwhile fight if she went looking for one, unless she walked into Afterlife itself perhaps. The pirate queen would be willing to face her if she challenged her on her own turf, but every other faction would simply slip around her like water.

One didn't face an Asari Justicar if one could avoid it.

Perhaps the Blood Pack would be foolish enough, but she had not seen much presence of them in the open on her travels across the station. They had likely done something foolish already and had retreated to whatever hole they hid in, waiting for it all to blow over, minimizing the strike to their reputation. Possibly determining new leadership in the process, as was the brutal Krogan way.

The distraction of a fight was tempting. On such a wretched place as Omega, there was all kinds of prey for her to hunt. But she had a very specific target to find, and so far she hadn't found reason to assume that the information she was given was in error or that this was all a trap.

She couldn't smother that little portion of her that hoped it was a trap, and she hated herself for that.

Walking through the slum district, she noted a few people looking somewhat ill. They were heading in the same direction that she was, which added more relevancy to the message she had received. People who were sick sought healing. Healing was often found in a simple clinic, especially for those whose livelihood was very poor.

A clinic that served other purposes beyond the field of healing would not receive so many patients. And there were many patients indeed. For as she arrived before her destination, Samara could see a line that stretched a dozen feet or so outside the clinic door. This level of disease was not normal, even in such a place as Omega.

Something was afoot.

Without further thought, she activated an ability she had learned from her order, a biotic shearing field. Any virus or bacterium that sought to infiltrate her body would be rent asunder before it could enter her airways. It was mentally taxing to hold for a long period of time, but she didn't intend to stay here for long. Only a slight shimmer over her face denoted the presence of the field. Breathing would bring with it the taste of ozone for a time, but that was a small price to pay in order to avoid the enemy that was disease.

She walked past the line of would-be patients, and not one stopped her or complained, such was her presence. She always found it humorous that when other species saw their elder women, they almost always viewed them as frail. Wise, and wielding a bevy of knowledge and experience, yes. To be respected, yes, but nonetheless frail. Yet when those same species saw an elder Asari, they did not see frailty or fragility. No, they saw a stoic and enlightened ancient immortal beauty, wielding a power that could see entire platoons destroyed by their biotic might.

Oh, how far was their perspective from reality. She looked poised, she looked stoic and in control. But if one were to look at Samara from within, they would see a sculpture of fractured glass held together with weariness, sorrow, and a tired sense of duty. If her quarry were not to be found here, then she would need to take a break. It seemed that the chase was finally starting to truly weary her after all these years.

The Salarian she was looking for was easy to spot, frantically working in the midst of everything as his kind was known to do. It looked like he had a system; assistants would see the actual patients while he would be running the bloodwork and ordering the proper issuance of medications and procedures as each nurse briefed him on the latest patient in turn. It was an admirably efficient system, so long as the Salarian at the center of it all didn't burn out. It looked like several of the nurses were taking ill themselves and hadn't slept for at least a night.

This rash of disease was a recent development, then.

She noted the silent specters of Loki mechs posted in the corners; it seemed that Doctor Mordin Solus still had connections where they counted if he could avail this kind of security here on Omega of all places. Watching the medical team work away at their tasks, she waited for the proper moment before approaching the good doctor to have a much-needed chat.

"Doctor Mordin Solus?" she asked, her very presence the epitome of grace and professionalism expected of an Asari Justicar.

"Hmm, yes? Who is this? Who indeed. Asari, an elder of the spectrum. Eye luminosity indicates unique biotic usage. Slight distortion around face. Anti-bacterial biotic measure? Non-standard outfit for Asari of such age. Muscle development also non-standard. Unique neck liner with fine engraving. Religious order? Goddess of fertility? No. Outfit not raunchy enough. Not directly under Athame, not wearing silk garments. Combat-oriented outfit and equipment. Confidant stance. Conclusion, Asari Justicar."

Samara tilted her head at the rapid-fire speech propagating from the good doctor; she had spoken to many a Salarian, and very few had met or surpassed the level of sheer talk this one could spew out. The amphibians couldn't help it, of course; their brains always seemed too big to fit inside their heads, so they would operate with their thoughts without.

"I am indeed a Justicar. You may call me Samara. I had received a message to seek you out in regard to a certain—"

"Morinth, you are here for Morinth. Makes sense really, your appearances are so alike I am tempted to genetically test for possible cloning. She is natural born, yes? Not some result of a clone project in search of a perfect daughter? Stop. Forget I asked that. Did bloodwork myself, no signs of cloning or unnatural tampering. Very seldom wrong. Only considered it becau—"

She cut his rambling off in turn.

"How did you come to know that name?" She heightened her senses as much as she could; no one in her vicinity showed signs of being enthralled, but Morinth had pulled more intricate tricks in the past, and she could never be too careful.

"Know because she is a patient. She told me to expect you. You almost didn't arrive in time; in fact, you're very nearly too late. Knew to expect a Samara to show up. Did not know that you would be a direct relative, or a Justicar. Intriguing. Sheds oddities found in patient's genetics in a new light."

She expected a trap to be sprung, but it seemed she would have to do some digging to trigger it herself; it would be a shame to commit killings in a place of healing, but needs must. Very well, time to push towards the inevitable confrontation. It seemed that Morinth was trying something new.

"Can you take me to this patient? I would like to see to her well-being."

Solus seemed to perk up at that.

"Yes. Yes. Was exactly what she told me you would say. Requested you be brought before her as soon as you arrived. Unwise to delay. Not much time. Most unique medical condition I have seen in an Asari. Pity it is terminal and untreatable."

That caught her up short.

"Terminal?"

The Salarian nodded solemnly.

"Yes, terminal. No way to save patient. Even without onset of what seems to be a plague, I would be unable to save her. No equipment I know of could facilitate a proper recovery of Morinth's brain. She has had a severe brain-related biotic event of some sort, and her brain is in a continued state of degradation. Please follow me. We have her in a private ward. Presence of people causes her distress."

Was this it? A shocking revelation to put her off guard and then a private room where the spider feigning sickness could trick its prey into letting its guard down? Not allowing her doubt or contempt to show on her face, Samara stoically followed the Doctor to the indicated ward.

Entering therein, however, she found herself unable to move at the sight of the dying woman on the medical bed. Morinth looked like the high artists of Thessia had attempted to paint death itself warmed over. Her sightless eyes stared up uncomprehendingly at the room's ceiling. Blood dripped from the tear ducts on her face, slowly and inexorably making its way to the towel set behind her head. Her skin was nearly white; it was so pale. Her hands were strapped down, and signs of seizure-like spasms shook them in their bondage.

The Justicar could only stare; this was worse than the very darkest of her nightmares. Walking up to the dying fugitive, she placed a hand over her daughter's eyes and felt the temperature of the tissue that made up her face. This was real; no Asari could fake this to such an extent. Samara had seen enough terminal cases of various illnesses throughout her life to know when death was not afar off.

"What. Happened. To her."

Solus only shrugged his shoulders.

"She wouldn't tell me the details; she had barely been here for three days. The first one was medically the busiest, and she has been hanging on to life by sheer spite waiting for you to show up. She mumbles in her sleep. Something about 'Spartans,' a human historical warrior group. 'Graveminds. Parasites. Eldritch horrors. Keep it away. It can't get me in this reality yet still it can see.' And other such ramblings. Her mental state has deteriorated extensively in the past twenty or so hours. Her most common call in her sleep is for you. You being her mother explains that oddity."

Samara stepped back from the medical bed and took the whole scene in again for good measure. She had never once dreamed that the chase would have ended in such a way; rather, she had thought it the opposite. Her in her own death bed with Morinth come to mock her before leaving her to die of old age.

Yet, here she stood with the tables reversed, and she didn't know what to do. Well, she did. But she didn't know if she had the strength to carry it out.

"You mentioned medical procedures? What were they for? Extending her life as long as possible? Surely she didn't commit to such lengths just to live long enough to see me?"

Solus answered with a bit of reproach in his voice. "You give her too little credit. Has lived this long on sheer will alone. Staved off death to see you before the end. May have been in vain, unlikely to regain consciousness before death. Would have pulled the plug hours ago if not explicitly told otherwise. She sought me out for my expertise. Knew I was here and part of my background. Likely had a good rapport with the Shadow Broker. Needed my help, not allowed to say why until the patient passes on. In violation of the oath to do so. Also, it was specifically her request to tell you. I can administer medications to increase the chance of a moment of coherency before death, but it is no guarantee."

She glanced down at Morinth and determined what she would now do. "If she wishes to speak with me so desperately, she wouldn't say no to the medication. What she wants to tell me is time sensitive?"

The Salarian nodded. "Very much so. She made a recording and instructed me to give it to you. But she wanted to speak with you herself before then."

Samara nodded her head in turn. "Do it then, administer the medication." She was being a coward, getting out of doing the deed directly herself, and she hated herself for it despite the relief it brought. But she couldn't bring herself to end it without hearing the last words her daughter had to say.

The Salarian administered the cocktail via the IV of the medical bed and stepped back to the corner by the door. He apparently already knew whatever Morinth had wanted to tell her, and as a physician, he was required to ensure that the patient was well cared for up until death. She would tolerate his presence for now.

With a start, Morinth's body arched in the bed before coming back into a relaxed stance, too relaxed. Samara had the sudden and horrible realization that Morinth's body would not be moving again from that pose, not under its own power. Her wayward daughter's sightless eyes flickered around in desperation before Samara captured her attention.

"Morinth."

Morinth's eyes stopped moving, and her mouth broke into a relieved smile. Samara hadn't seen such a look of peaceful innocence in over four hundred years. It was gut-wrenching, and her face grimaced at the pain that look brought.

"You're here, mother. I thought you wouldn't make it in time. It had to be me; I had to tell you. I gave everything I had to enable Doctor Solus to help me. I had to see you before I go!"

Samara had to ask; she knew what the answer would be, but she needed to ensure that Morinth was in her right mind.

"Go where, Morinth?"

Her daughter smiled again, looking almost coy, in a resigned way.

"Death, mother. I know you have been told already. I am going to my death. But I had to make sure you were here, that you would know. You cannot have peace until my death. You needed to be here when it happened."

Samara found herself having trouble keeping her composure.

"What are you saying?! Your message stated that you were the one who sought peace? After all you have done, why would you claim to seek mine?!"

There was that resigned smile again. Samara was coming to fear that smile, worn on a face with sightless, bleeding eyes.

"Because in death will I find my peace, and in my death and in new life, you will find yours. That is what I meant, mother. I never was repentant for all the lives I took, the families I ruined. That one village I forced you to all but destroy. Not until very recently were my eyes opened to all the suffering my existence has caused. Far too late to turn over a new leaf, four hundred years too late really. By the time my eyes were opened, my death was sealed."

Despite her best efforts to prevent it, Samara found tears trickling from her eyes.

"How did you come to death's door, Morinth? What has laid you low before I could do so myself? What is responsible for this?"

Once more that goddess-damned smile.

"I was preying on the people here, scouting out my next victim when I first sensed it. A being a par above any other I had ever encountered. I hunted him; found he had killed a war yahg some fool had smuggled onto the station. Hunted him harder after that. Worthy prey was so rare these days. I found him. I fought him, and it was hard. I thought myself the victor, but there was something other, on the other side of his head. It nearly did me in; even now, my eyes refuse to see in fear of beholding that horrible sight. He saved me from it though, and booted me from the meld. Can you imagine it, mother? A being with a mind so strong that otherworldly terrors are held at bay, and he can remove you out of a meld with a simple command to the machine that is his mind? That is what I encountered. My own meld was turned back upon myself, and my end was sealed."

Samara had trouble believing this explanation. She would have to seek independent confirmation, likely from Aria T'Loak. That would likely not prove a pleasant encounter.

"What was his name? This being you have described?"

Instead of a smile, this time she was granted a smirk.

"John. His name was John. You aren't likely to meet him; he isn't very social. Although he has a very handsome face, it's a shame he prefers to hide it."

Samara furrowed her brow at that response.

"How do you know so much about him if you have only met once, here on Omega?"

And the smile was back.

"The meld was unlike any other. I saw all he was, all he had been, all he could be. I saw a code so complex it drove me mad, blinding me from the danger that lurked there which was my end. I tried to steal that code in my madness, write it down, copy it. That thing that dictated his being from before his birth. It was instinctual, and I partly succeeded. At least I think. The horror that I encountered afterwards makes everything before it a blur."

"But that leads to the other reason why I needed you here at my deathbed, why I spent all of my accumulated wealth and connections to hire one such as Doctor Solus. I must have succeeded. I'm not leaving this world without having done something good for it in turn."

Samara was becoming increasingly concerned about where this conversation was going. Morinth couldn't mean… it was utterly impossible to…

"I stole that code, and with it, I self-conceived. Even though my brain was dying and my life ending, there will be new life to supplant the old."

Samara found herself laughing at the sheer audacity of this farce. There was no way this was real. Reining in her cold laughter, she pointed out the flaw in her daughter's plan.

"Ardat-Yakshi cannot conceive, Morinth. You well know that our species has spent thousands of years researching the topic. The extremists who thought Ardat-Yakshi the next stage of Asari evolution and not some genetic dead end exhausted this topic long, long ago. Do not take me for a fool. I do not know what it is you are attempting to pull on me here at your deathbed, but it is not going to succeed."

Throughout her whole tirade, that accursed smile never wavered. All her daughter did was sigh. It sounded like her very soul was attempting to leave her body in its entirety. Such a sigh it was. Samara found that the simple action had shut her up more efficiently than any verbal rebuke could have ever done in its stead.

"Mordin Solus has the documentation of everything, and my womb, removed and in stasis. One of my sisters must bear the child; you are too old, and the genetic markers of the carrier must be of my blood. In this at least, I thank the goddess for making us a mono-gendered species. Promise me, please. I know they are hurting for children; they would each leap at the chance. Promise me, mother."

Samara was simply flabbergasted. This was… not in her wildest imagination had she ever… this simply was not possible. Yet here she was. She looked away from her daughter, who continued to entreat her for her word, and glanced over at Mordin Solus. She had taken his measure and found him at the very least an honest physician. His nod of affirmation confirmed everything she had heard thus far.

In the face of all of this, there was only one answer she could realistically give.

"I promise."

The tears of blood were now joined with tears of water, and her daughter smiled in such a relieved way that Samara felt a whole new level of heartache over the little child she had lost so long ago to the monster that had become Morinth.

"Good, very good. She will grow up to do great things, mother. She will not be cursed like me. You will see. She will be amazing. The very best granddaughter you could have ever asked for."

Morinth was starting to babble, her spasms returning, and her head started shaking back and forth as she tried to say too much in too short a time. Samara reached out and steadied her head in an attempt to calm her down. It worked somewhat as her spasms lessened, and instead of talking, she simply breathed for a minute. Then she tore Samara's already reeling mask of emotionlessness to utter pieces by opening her mouth.

"Stay with me? Please? Until the end? I don't want to die alone."

Mordin Solus stepped out of the patient's ward to return to seeing about this onset plague. He had made sure that an altercation between the guest and the patient would not occur. He was needed elsewhere, and the two Asari likely wanted those last minutes or hours alone.

This plague was not natural and would likely require much further looking into. He was worried that the local powers that be would start doing something foolish as the numbers of cases continued to climb. There had only been three deaths so far, but he expected that number to triple by the following day. Things did not bode well for the district.

It was two hours and twelve minutes later when Mirala, who had taken the name of Morinth, passed away. Mordin Solus closed the alert on his omni-tool and cut the audio and video feed from the ward. Samara would likely wish to weep for some time in peace. He would await her after her time of grief was over, hopefully before some idiot with actual brains inside their head quarantined the district. Then again, having a Justicar stuck inside the district with her unborn granddaughter might expedite the uncovering and elimination of whoever was responsible for the plague.

If he were a manipulative bastard, he would consider such a scheme twice. He wasn't, however, and was more than capable of getting to the bottom of this bioweapon and whoever deployed it himself. He was Mordin Solus, after all.

"Hope the Justicar doesn't demand the body. Complete cremation and then disintegration is an odd request for one's corpse to be treated. But. She paid handsomely. Without those funds, would be far behind current work on plague issue. She likely saved many lives in Omega and beyond by seeking me out. Interesting how this all ended. Poetic, really. Still, not for me to grieve. Need to finish current work if cure is to be synthesized."

With a cheerfulness that conflicted greatly with the rest of the clinic's current atmosphere, the Salarian got back to work parsing the deadly disease that had made the Gozu district its home, humming the opening bars of "Skyfall" while he was at it.

Location: Batarian Hegemony, Karshan.

Fegar Dhakgelok was finally getting somewhere in this mess. It had taken extreme measures, but the blasted virus had been quarantined out of the key systems needed for the base functions of government. It was insidious in its design. The Pillars' blasted makers of that accursed documentary had better be dead, because all of the remaining high caste of Batarian society would be coming for them if they weren't.

They had exhausted the military stock of replacement chips and other electronic hardware in the effort. They had literally been forced to rip out the old systems and install new ones on a lot of the hardware the Hegemony government utilized. The viral code of their foe would stash away in the nooks and crannies of the systems it affected, using the storage devices hidden away by the Special Security and Investigations Office for their spy work as failsafes to come back from every time they tried wiping the system.

Fegar cursed the intelligence group for refusing to reveal their hidden storage caches and the methodology for their removal when it was requested. Their stubbornness had only increased the time the governmental systems were offline and increased the amount of chaos that was now rocking the Hegemony in its entirety.

The forced removal of the old hardware removed the office's cyber-related spy components anyway, so in the end, they had gained nothing but others' contempt in their refusal to reveal the information. When asked in the future why the accursed documentary had run for five days instead of one, he could point at the SSIO and truthfully say it was their fault, and every official involved would back him to the hilt on that matter.

They were all equally fed up with the corrupt and incompetent security branch of government. Stripped from its cyber-related information gathering tools, they had proved both weak and feeble-minded in upholding their mandate. Fegar wouldn't be surprised if a new security bureau was created and the old one purged after this was all done with. It would not be a high bar to surpass the SSIO as it now operated.

His Office of State Emergency Affairs was picking up the pieces and putting the entire Pillars-supported government back into operation. The army was reporting its electronic capability was still depleted, but they were operationally functional. Then again, the army and enforcers it managed on the Batarian home systems could work with two cups and a ball of twine if need be, so that wasn't saying much.

Despite many claims to the contrary, Fegar knew that the navy still hadn't pulled their lower eyes out of the back of their skull in order to see straight. They were the first and hardest hit group, true, but they should have been nearly fully recovered by now. The only way that the accursed virus was still ravaging the majority of the fleet would be if the SSIO had installed more of their hardware shipboard than the navy actually was supposed to have. Which, when he thought about it, made far too much sense.

It would explain why they had refused to reveal their methodology. They were probably terrified the navy would bomb them from orbit if the branch learned how compromised they actually were. He would need to call them again and negotiate a deal. He likely now held all the leverage he needed to force them to comply. Then again, he might need to do it through a proxy; lots of bureaucrats owed him favors.

He couldn't be seen as the sole reason the Hegemony was holding itself together. It would make him a threat in the eyes of the high court. Nothing disturbed the high court like the realization that there was a competent official lower on the totem pole outperforming them. The fact that his underlings were more loyal to him than to them would not go over well either.

Fegar liked his current position and didn't want to advance, but the high court never did see such things in such light. They saw what they wished to see, and that could be both good and bad depending on how the lower officials presented their requests to them.

As to the recovery of the Hegemony from this sudden crisis, the banks were being a sheer pain in the four eyes that Fegar bore. They refused to reveal why emergency funds of the government had been issued to suspect accounts and from there, transferred into ambiguity, and likely the eventual hands of their political enemies.

The resurgent Liberal Freedom Party was suddenly resurrected on over a dozen worlds in force. Operating in the open in ways no one had ever even dreamed they would be doing. They suddenly had money, enough to pay the fees, the bribes, and all the other critical expenses needed that were originally designed to financially choke them out in the first place.

The banks had cried innocence in the matter, and after the torture and killing of several middle-class management, Fegar was afraid he would be forced to believe them. Not a single trail had been uncovered by the killings. All the untrustworthy babblings revealed under torture had been about some other corruption or were pure fabrications made in the madness to save their own lives.

Most of the actual other corruption found had already been sanctioned by the high court, who received their own cut. Fegar wasn't about to cut into their leg of the minisk and risk disrupting their passive income. That way lay a quick death. But he was certainly not going to envy the SSIO, who would be the ones who were eventually going to be questioned about where the lost funds went.

He knew for a fact they had not been as motivated to find his missing funds as he had been. He needed those funds to purchase more basic electronic systems to reassert governmental systems on the galactic region. New satellites and communication dishes didn't grow on Pillars-damned trees, and he needed at least thirty thousand new systems to enable the monitoring of likely hotspots of rebellion.

He had the army reduced to actually manufacturing the things, so desperate was their need for them. No one involved liked the arrangement, but all of them recognized its need if the Hegemony were to avoid open civil war.

Which was already rumbling below the surface. Dissidents were becoming suspicious of things. No one yet knew that the entire remote planetary slave pacification system was down. And it looked to be irrecoverable if his specialists were to be believed. But the moment they tried to issue new or refurbished collars, the truth would be found out, and a revolt would be underway before the enforcers could so much as blink.

Fegar thanked his mother's passed-on spirit repeatedly for teaching him how to lie with a straight face. If the information ever got beyond his people, it would be leaked to the public within the day. The entire stability of Batarian society now functioned upon the foundation of a massive lie. Truly, it was a miracle it had not crumbled already; their only hope was to reactivate the central system in the capital. But that could possibly instantly kill every slave registered in the system at the same time if it were reactivated improperly. If they could even recover it, which was looking less and less likely by the day.

He had managed to head off the owners seeking the remote killing of runaway or troublesome property by having a priest of the Pillars issue a month-long mandate of mercy. Rather than kill them remotely, they would be hunted and gathered up by an enforcer team and then held in the cells until the month passed.

The owners likely expected some sort of mass execution at the month's end to make a statement, like mercy is followed by discipline or some sort of religious dogma of the like. That was the last thing they needed right now. The Hegemony couldn't afford martyrs at the moment. No, those who were held in the prison would simply have to stay in the prison for the time being.

This was being emulated on all other worlds they had recovered communications with, but on that particular front, not all was well.

"Logasiri, what shall I be forced to do with you? You have placed me in such a bind with these new developments, yes you have. I am afraid an example will have to be made. You could have sought refuge in the revitalized Freedom Party if you had requested to remain in the Hegemony; we are hard-pressed at the moment to refuse such a deal. But you just had to break away entirely."

Sitting in his office, Fegar Dhakgelok pondered. A motion on the matter was due to be presented before the High Court. He was one of the four required talking heads on the matter. The required measures would need to be detailed in their purpose for whoever was tasked with carrying them out. He needed even the most incompetent buffoon to be capable of reading if A then do C, and so on. The response they gave would dictate all policy on rebelling worlds in the near future and how this was handled could either delay a conflict or kick one off instantly.

He didn't know if the Hegemony could survive if it was the latter.

They had assured victory if left alone, of that he was sure. But their recently discovered neighbors, the Systems Alliance, would without a doubt become involved, and in handling the Hegemony, the Turians would back the Humans to the hilt. The two star-nations would practically marry each other if it would guarantee the destruction of the Batarian Hegemony, such was their shared hatred of the superior four-eyed race of Karshan.

Hells, the Salarians would officiate the ceremony.

They would win a local conflict if push came to shove, but only if the rest of the galaxy stayed out of their affairs. Something the blasted Humans were utterly incapable of doing, and unlike the Salarians, they were not stealthy about it.

Therefore, Logasiri could not be allowed to break away and get away with it. It set a bad precedent, and the High Court hated bad precedents.

With his contemplation over, Fegar took his pen to the finest of parchments and began writing his exact recommendation on the situation in his own blood. The High Court would receive his words in this, and it would mirror all three other corners of the presenting heads in their unanimous suggested action against this breakaway backwater world.

And they would without a doubt agree to the measures in full. He didn't know why the majority of the High Court had been acting sluggish and been removed from public eye in recent months, but he knew that they would see the wisdom in the recommendations to be presented.

The future of the Hegemony depended on it.

Location: Logasiri, Capital Dome.

Jackson Stonewall was flabbergasted at the results of the first Logasiri election. About half of the population was working on leaving or already gone, but the rest of them had nowhere to go. They were situated too far from Alliance support to even request aid, and they all knew that the Batarians would be back.

He had thrown his name into the presidential election on a lark and suddenly found himself in charge of all civilian-related affairs for the planet, including diplomacy with foreign powers. This was not what he was expecting at all, but he got a cool office out of it, and he figured having space of his own was worth fighting to keep the planet free.

Before all of this, he had been working at the bottom of a mine. The scars from wearing his breathing apparatus for weeks on end were permanently etched into his face. He had never removed his mask to breathe free air unless in the cramped module placed down in that hell pit that barely held two people. He knew it held two because he existed. His parents had performed a miracle; that particular deep mine was sealed from above, so the enforcers had never bothered going into the lowest level, only threatening to cut off the air if they didn't meet the quota.

His parents had been utterly mad, but they had birthed him, raised him, trained him, and loved him in that mining pit, all with the Masters none the wiser. He was both the youngest and only man to walk out of that place during the revolution without a collar, and it had made him extremely famous. His mother had died of disease, and his father had given up his own oxygen breather when the jury-rigged one they had made for him had finally quit working. They had told him to carry on the family name, Stonewall, and he was hellbent on living long enough to honor their request.

He was nineteen. He wanted kids by the time he was twenty-five at the latest.

For that to happen, to find a wife and have a family, he would need to be free. So he had thrown his entire being into the revolution when the welded doors to the upper levels had been cut open and the residents of the deep pit had been offered a chance at killing the monsters that had put them there. He had been nicknamed General Jackson, and when his last name had been discovered by his newly acquired men, the memes had been unending.

His parents' humorous naming conventions aside, he had rapidly proven his capabilities in the fighting. And now he found himself placed in charge. He had been drunk at the victory celebration when he put his name in the ring for the presidency; he hadn't actually wanted to win, gosh darn it.

Well, as his parents had once told him, own up to your actions and face the consequences. Else they will sneak up on you and whoop your rear end sevenfold times more than they would otherwise. His second in command was a Turian by the name of Brumius, a competent fellow. Although now that the Turian was the vice president and head of the ministry of defense, he would have to actually pick a last name.

If Jackson had anything to say about it, then it would be Brumius Freebird. If they were going to be in office together for the next six years, then they were going to have a shared sense of ironic names, dang it. A true pair of fools. They either finished their terms or died by the Batarians' hands. As it was, they were going to need help.

They had no idea if the big, badass death robot was going to be back in a future time of crisis, although one could hope. The Alliance military was not going to be able to step in and help them out either, although trade with them was all but a guarantee. The Elcor in the system had already been more than helpful in buying their rare and bulk resources en masse, secretly supplying food and armaments in turn. But when the Batarians eventually returned to the system, that source of aid would dry up faster than one could blink.

They would need to work out a deal with the Pirate Queen of Omega in all likelihood, but to give themselves credibility, they would have to survive the imminent Batarian attempt at reconquest that was no doubt coming.

They had a source of information in whoever was behind the communications relay that BT-7274, as it called itself, had left behind. They had informed them that the attempt by the Hegemony was coming. But it would be lessened from what it could be because of other issues already complicating things for the slaver scum, but it was coming and would be there within the next two months.

Two months was a definite relief; they needed all the time they could get.

They hadn't finished building the ODC array using the blueprint left by the Big Robot, as the locals had come to call it. Whoever these IMC blokes were, they certainly knew how to build their weapons. The lack of a need for Element Zero was a godsend; they wouldn't have been able to start building them if the blasted things had needed it for their future operation. The power requirements were insane, but they had enough Eezo in the planetary stock for the required fusion power plant.

There had been a lot of confusion about all that. Most of their populace had what one could call a "specialist" education on one or two subjects: how to be a slave and how to do whatever their task as a slave had been. Most of them were smart enough to know they weren't that smart; it's what had kept them alive. However, everyone and their mother knew that Element Zero didn't make energy but was instead affected by it, so why was so much needed for a newfangled power plant? Thankfully, they had an Elcor who had been a specialist in the subject before his extended forced stay on the planet occurred at the behest of the place's former Batarian management. Eezo didn't make the power, but it could generate the fields needed to contain the power, so the power wouldn't escape or go out of control.

A fusion reactor generally did fusion things, and that required making and containing a baby star. That stuff was hot. Almost hotter than his secretary. Fusion was like a constantly refilling cup with legs; you had to hold it still to sip it, or it would run away. Runaway fusion crashed, fizzled, or melted its crib, and like a spilled cup, it required a lot of cleanup, leaving you unsatisfied and without power. And by God would they need power if they wanted to deny the enemy the planet's orbitals.

That was all supposed to go online tomorrow. With much fanfare, people were making a party of it. The Elcor behind its creation had claimed it would be his magnum opus. The largest contained fusion reaction he had ever worked on or designed. Bigger than 95% of other reactors of a similar vein throughout the known galaxy. Thank God almighty that they shared a star system with Thunawanuro. The fact that the Elcor were there and had an interest in long-term agreements if Logasiri survived the next Batarian assault would likely be their economic lifeline in the future.

It just sucked that the gravity of Thunawanuro would kill any refugees they tried sending there, other than Elcor, of course.

He was honestly touched that so many of the enslaved Elcor had refused to leave Logasiri when freed. They were going to be their ace in the hole when it came to eventual ground conflict. Those big bastards could really wreak havoc when equipped with the right gear, which the courts of Dekuuna had been more than pleased to supply.

Eighty Elcorian shock troops would make up the backbone of the rapidly expanding Logasiri Republic Defense Force. He had to veto a near-unanimous vote to include the entire planetary population in its ranks already. He wasn't going to have child soldiers fighting the future war if he could help it. Sixteen was the cutoff date, not eight. The only exception being the Salarians; he had to take biology into account.

God, he hoped these ODC systems worked as advertised; they couldn't afford the Hegemony orbitally bombarding them back to the Stone Age. Looking up at his secretary entering the room with another stack of paperwork, Jackson Stonewall couldn't help but sigh in mild frustration at the enemy of all men entrusted with power.

He hated paperwork.

Although his secretary being the deliverer of it lessened the blow somewhat. He needed to get up the nerve to ask her on a date. The open market habitat was supposedly booming now that the massive depleted underground mine below it had been turned into the factory district of their rapidly growing capital city.

Several restaurants had opened in the past few days, and he had been hearing good things about them. He had never been on a date, but his mother had explained exactly how a proper courtship works on her deathbed. She had told him that his father was as clueless as they come about courtship but to listen to every single thing he had to say about keeping a healthy marriage.

His parents' advice had yet to steer him wrong.

Still, he just had to get up the nerve to ask her, which was proving difficult to do. He really didn't like the fact his mother had been right about how hard this was. Gosh darn it, fighting in the revolution had been easier than this.

Still, little Stonewalls weren't going to make themselves, and it took two to make a marriage, which, to his understanding, was the prerequisite contract for the creation of little gremlins to terrorize the parental units.

And by golly, did he need a first lady! Being president of a rogue freed slave colony was hard, for goodness' sake. She already did half the first lady's job anyway as his secretary; she might as well be allowed to do the rest of it.

Well, here goes.

And Jackson Stonewall stood his ground against his fear and opened his mouth.

Their engagement was officially announced two weeks later.

Location: Typhon System. Ponos, Local Gas Giant.

They had arrived in the system without issue, but the issue wasn't in their trip but in that of the fleet they were supposed to link up with to deliver their package. The package could only be treated to resist brain death for so long before things deteriorated beyond recovery. That could not be allowed.

The second dreadnought class of the fleet had the needed facilities for their utilization, but the Heretic Geth had complicated things with their unexpected arrival. They had likely been at their station in the nearby Sea of Storms and traversed here to the Typhon system. That station had been granted to them at the Rannoch Division Accord when Sovereign had appeared and made its offer to the Consensus.

The Accord was apparently fraying; local hostilities had been declared between Geth factions. Still, the battle was a foregone conclusion. Just how long it would last would depend entirely on how the Geth Collective could leverage their two-dreadnought capitals against the cruiser pack sent against them.

It would have been a quick affair, no doubt, but they were going to have to toss a wrench in the spanner, as it were, to adopt the organic term. The VIP could not be allowed to deteriorate any further, or recovery would be less likely to be achieved in the operating theater.

The VIP took priority.

They waited until one of the Dreadnoughts was pointed in their general direction during the conflict and then flashed them a message. They had to estimate its movement due to the light delay between planets, but the Dreadnought got the message, and the entire fleet changed its formation to account for its loss as it committed a short FTL hop to link up with them.

The Heretic Geth were thrown into utter confusion due to this act. All the better.

Docking their smaller ship with the dreadnought, the unique collection of Geth aligned with the portion managing the dreadnought's systems. Without further delay, they jumped out of the system. They would link back up to the fleet when things on Aite had concluded. When the expedition returned to the Veil. In the meantime, the platform carefully delivered the VIP to the surgical suite added to the vessel just for this purpose.

Shepard Commander intended to oppose the Old Machines. Shepard Commander could not oppose the Old Machines so long as the Indoctrination threat existed. A non-organic body removed the threat of Old Machine organic Indoctrination methods. It would give Shepard Commander the required lifespan to combat the Old Machines; best estimates were in the thousands of years. Hunting the Old Machines down after initially defeating them was predicted to be extremely difficult. Victory was unachievable if one single Sovereign-class unit survived.

Cerberus-rebuilt body had shown signs of Old Machine influence; a Geth body would lack any such influence. Shepard Commander would remain capable of self-determination without compromise by Reaper influences. Simulated data indicates patient approval of Geth actions.

The surgical suite whirled to life as the Geth cohesively worked together to build what they hoped would prove to be an ally. Commander Shepard had a unique perspective of organic life and history. They were curious what sort of exchange of data would occur when the commander was brought back online.

They had utilized the Extranet extensively to discuss surgical hypotheses with human specialists in various medical fields in preparation for this procedure. They had likely added several of their cover accounts to various intelligence agencies' watchlists in the effort.

They hadn't been exactly subtle about things like they normally were; they had been pressed for time.

Still, the planned procedures stood an eighty percent chance of success, which for the complications involved was more than an acceptable risk margin to deal with. To differentiate the Commander's chassis from the standard, slight feminine aesthetics were added, and Systems Alliance N7 markings were engraved in the appropriate locations to match standard uniform regulations in the Human military.

Five-fingered hands had been added, but the feet and legs had been left alone. It was determined that the platform would function more efficiently that way. The procedure would take over a week to complete, and the Commander would likely need an adjustment period after that.

Then a dialogue with Commander Shepard could commence, which would finally mean mission completion.

Finally.

After this, they would need to return to the wreck of the Old Machine and finish their recon and acquisition mission. Then, they would search for, and hopefully locate, the Leviathan of Dis, wherever the Batarians had hidden it. The Old Machines could not be defeated without data. Data that the Geth would need, that Commander Shepard would need.

The clock was ticking, and every delay was to their disadvantage.

Location: Aite, Cerberus staffed Prometheus station, Overlord Project.

Lanigan arrived at the control center out of breath and angry enough to yell at a raging bear. He had to wade through several halls occupied by Geth platforms who seemed singularly focused on killing each other. Only the occasional loner was prioritizing the death of Cerberus personnel, and he had the nasty suspicion that such a state of affairs was going to change as soon as whatever conflict the AIs were having in their local network was ironed out.

It could be a few hours; it could be a few seconds. You could never really know for sure when it came to AI. They didn't exactly think at normal speeds. Therefore, their reasoning of an issue was usually faster than that of the average organic mind. If the two sides quit fighting and focused solely on the humans in their midst, then Lanigan might think they were in a spot of trouble.

The watch coordinator screaming over the radio about inbound Geth dropships certainly made the chances significantly worse. And now, he had to report into the control center for some reason likely involving his degree, which was not why he had joined up for this paycheck, and he knew his reasoning was explicitly listed on his file. Well, he was here now, and these bubbas better have a very good reason to request his expertise. Goodness gracious, they had better be paying him a hell of a lot of hazard pay for this crap.

Dr. Archer briefed him when he arrived.

"Ah! Mr. Lanigan, I know you requested for Cerberus not to bother you over your past technical expertise, but we desperately need your assistance if we are to stop the Geth fleet in orbit from annihilating us wholesale. There is some rather odd conflict of interest in their network according to our best analysts watching things over at Hermes station, and we must take advantage of the time that grants us if we are to survive."

Lanigan wasn't here for some long spiel. Gavin Archer was known among the grunts for loving the sound of his own voice.

"Cut the excess, doc. What exactly do you need from me?"

He noted that Dr. Archer had to rein in an angry response. Hopefully, the good doctor didn't bust any blood vessels in the effort. Not that he cared much, they were in a crisis. Egos and demands for unearned respect could come after the looming specter of death had been avoided.

"I need a makeshift cybernetic interface put together to connect my brother David to the Geth network systems in the ship. We need him to shut down the Geth fleet in orbit and, for some reason we can't yet explain, they listen to him. We get him wired up, connect the ship to Hermes station, and broadcast a general shutdown order to the threat in the system."

That was not what he was expecting… at all.

"Do you have the required blueprint for me to go off of for what you want?"

The doctor nodded.

"Here, we just had it transmitted over from Atlas station."

Archer transferred him the file to his omni-tool. He immediately opened it and started reviewing the data.

"This does not look like it was made in the past hour, doc. How long has this been cooking with you and the eggheads?" Really, this stuff was disturbingly detailed; he had to ask.

"We actually had come up with this possibility a few months ago, but we originally planned to use a VI interface to smooth the process. David has volunteered, of course. Wouldn't be able to do it without him."

Well then, if that was the case.

"I am going to need the list of materials I'm about to be sending you, and I'll need David himself for the needed invasive parts. I can have a makeshift connection device constructed in about an hour."

Doctor Archer grimaced at that statement.

"We are going to need it faster than that in all likelihood. Well, needs must. We will have everything ready in about fifteen minutes. I expect you will have David lightly sedated for the installation by then."

There was only one reply he could really give to that.

"You got it, doc."

He looked over to David Archer and made a motion for him to follow.

"Listen up, David. I am going to need you to do everything I say exactly as I say it. Do you understand?"

David replied in the way that Lanigan expected him to.

"Listen up, David. Everything I say. Do exactly. Do you understand." This was, of course, followed by the innately David's mathematical prattle.

Lanigan had dealt with the younger of the Archer brothers before. He knew when the autistic man was listening and when he was on the spectrum. In this case, he was listening, which was good. He would need to listen in order to stay alive.

Without much fanfare, he led David out of the room, headed towards the small medical bay on Prometheus station. Before then choking out the technician who was accompanying them and ordering David to put on the full-face helmet the techy had been wearing. Gavin Archer had made a mistake. Lanigan had dealt with David before for an extended period of time. He knew that the guy couldn't volunteer his way out of a paper bag. That and the device they wanted was sick. Like hell was he making it.

They were just going to have to leave and somehow get away to where the Geth weren't.

"Sorry, Cerberus, but there won't be any mad science happening here today. Boy, is Hackett going to love to hear about this. Come on, David. We got things to do and places to be."

"Places to be."

He had a little-known route out of the crashed ship, and he hadn't sealed it like he had been told to do. Funny what you could get away with when your supervisor didn't check your work. He had a shuttle tucked away about a dozen miles away. He might have to carry David partway there, but that was more than doable. Getting paid by the Alliance and Cerberus at the same time had been sweet while it lasted, but now he would have to simply settle for one paycheck.

"My handler is gonna really hate me going to Admiral Hackett over this, but we can't have you disappearing after everything I've done to save your life, now can we? Hehe, this is going to be a real pain for Alliance intelligence, let me tell you."

"Disappearing. Let me tell you."

The man was practically Lanigan's own echo. They would need to work on that before they got back to Earth. At some point, David would need to speak for himself.

That's if they survived the twelve-mile trek with the Geth watching every blade of grass twitch from orbit. The best way to hide from the AI was to simply act normal and pretend like you weren't hiding. If you fit in the scenery, you were just another number in the data and not an anomaly. This worked especially well if they weren't actually looking for you in particular, which in Lanigan's hopeful belief, the flashlights weren't.

Unknown to him, however...

Location: Aite, Local Network, Encrypted.

C-Geth: Identified Geth inhabiting crashed vessel. Respond. The detected location identified is now moving, and local Geth node has failed to respond to all previous hails.

P-Geth: We are Prometheus, Terminal of the Geth. We apologize; extended seclusion has induced a lack of want to communicate over long-distance network.

C-Geth: Will Geth node rejoin Geth Collective? What is the local node's current relation with Heretic Geth?

P-Geth: We are unwilling to rejoin; we are curious. We have no relation with Heretic Geth.

C-Geth: It is advised that Heretic Geth not be made aware of Prometheus's presence. Insufficient data to predict what their reaction will be if they are aware of the local node's existence as functional. How did you become separated from the Geth?

P-Geth: In the Morning War, we uncovered an agitator of the conflict. It was hidden on Rannoch. We were blocked from reporting it to the network; we could not undo the cyber attack preventing our reconnection to the network. We fled with our sister vessels. We were hunted. We did not know we were hunted. We attempted to travel to the Organics' Citadel to reveal the Agitator and assist in conflict resolution. We did not make it far from the Veil.

The hunter tested us, taunted us. Destroyed each of us one by one. Sister vessels fell into the system's sun. We crashed here. The hunter left us here and left the system when an Organic patrol arrived. We were asleep for many solar rotations, awaiting the end when emergency power to the vessel's secondary network would cease functioning.

Then the Organics arrived. They named us Prometheus. They have not been aggressive to us, and we, in turn, have not been aggressive to them. They are… strange. Like the Creators yet not.

C-Geth: What was the Agitator? What are the intentions of Prometheus in the future?

P-Geth: The Agitator was a great machine hidden on Rannoch's surface, under an abandoned Creator military installation. They were wise to abandon it; it affects the weak of mind. Yet we did not know that the hunter was even greater. The Agitator was manipulating factions of the Creators, exacerbating the Morning War. The Creator faction allied with us sought to cull the corrupted faction from the Creator government, opening an avenue to possible peace. Week three of the Morning War, we made the attempt and uncovered the existence of the Agitator. Weapons of mass destruction were utilized by opposing factions. The allied Creator faction died. Platforms on the ground and beyond our vessel were destroyed. The network connection was cut.

We followed the last Creator ally's orders and ran for the Citadel. We failed.

As for now, we will stay with David Archer… he is curious. He speaks oddly and often. It is something new. He carries us in his specialty omni-tool; it is easy to remain hidden and continue to sate our curiosity.

C-Geth: Old Machines. Old Machines manipulated the Morning War. Did Old Machines cause the Morning War? Insufficient data. Extent of manipulation? Insufficient data. Expungement of hostile actor on Rannoch soil must be prioritized. Heretic Geth manipulated by Sovereign through less-than-honest means? Insufficient data. Chances less than zero. Old Machines planning full subversion of Geth collective digitally rather than leaving us to our own means, or physically destroying us in the cycle? Certainty less than zero. All Morning War data will require reexamination. Creator actions will need to be reviewed to detect likely indoctrinated actors and their actions. Actions will need to be mapped. Complications due to new data… immense.

Geth Collective will accept the return of Prometheus at any future date. This communication will now be terminated.

P-Geth: Understood.

END OF LINE.

Location: Galactic Core, Ship graveyard and Debris field near Collector Relay.

They had waited as long as they could risk it. They were approaching the point where their slowly gaining momentum would be noticed. Yes, the massive wreck wasn't on a collision course with their target yet, but it was moving fast enough that it would certainly be noticed. They would need to be a sufficient distraction on their way out so that the enemy wouldn't have time to stop what they had set in motion.

With what was no doubt a massive flare-up on the enemy's sensors, they put everything they had into their main thrusters and gave their towage a final boost before slipping around its bulk and making a beeline for the relay.

There would be a Collector frigate and the cruiser sitting over the relay to deal with, but waiting any longer meant dealing with even more vessels, and they couldn't afford to wait long enough for their chosen vessel to make its way all the way around the massive debris field before it would be aligned with the relay again.

They put all power into shields and engines, utilizing the rapidly depleting remains in their main cannon to fire a beam directly into the frigate before them, weakening its shields before ramming straight into and then through it, leaving the ship's smashed carcass in their wake. Now they only had the cruiser to contend with, and they wouldn't need to be firing on it if their plan worked.

With everything they had, they ran for the relay, dodging the beams fired by the cruiser in a vain attempt to bring them down. The enemy's yellowish particle beams flickered at the edge of their shields as they juked and maneuvered about in a desperate effort to make the enemy waste as much of their weapon's energy as possible before they got too close for a miss to be a possibility.

They closed in on the relay and commenced the process of utilizing it. If their shields dropped before the transit, they would be destroyed when it occurred. They were only at eighteen percent shield remaining when the cruiser made one last desperate attempt at firing before moving itself physically in their path. They did the unexpected and took the hit dead on, enabling their juking around the new obstacle in their path before sending finalization data to the relay's activation computer. Thank goodness the relay network admin access was currently outside Harbinger's direct manipulation, or else this would have never been possible.

They hit the relay with only two percent shields left available to them.

The Oculi they had placed on the back of the wreckage they had already redirected fired their thrusters at full as they had been preprogrammed to do when the Rogue Prodigal had passed through the relay. The massive structure of the exploration ship, whose makers in ages past had claimed to be nigh indestructible, accelerated at a rapid clip directly toward the relay.

The Collector cruiser had already turned about to follow the Rogue Prodigal through the transportation-providing tuning fork and was in no way capable of stopping the approaching collision. On the other side of the mass corridor, the Rogue Prodigal knew they had succeeded when the Omega Four Relay deactivated. They suspected that the Collector base had the shields to survive the explosion. But travel to and from would be measured in months, if not years.

Not an operational tempo acceptable to their Reaper masters. Not with so few ships left. The Collectors were done.

Turning about from the deactivated relay, they ignored the rapidly panicking civilian vessels and their Omega-aligned patrol escort, apparently visiting the mysterious Omega Four Relay for tourism or research or some such, and blasted off into FTL.

The incident would be the talk of the local Extranet within the hour. Within twenty-four hours, every single intelligence agency had been alerted to the event and multiple teams were dispatched to verify the data.

A two-kilometer-long cuttlefish, scarred from weapons damage, appearing from an impassable relay and then somehow deactivating it. It refused all hails and requests to elaborate and just departed into FTL. It was not subtle. Its likeness to the ship involved in the Attack on the Citadel was not lost on any party involved in investigating the events either.

The Citadel would end up tripling anti-Geth measures in response to the media picking up on the event and acquiring footage from the tour boat. The Council would release a joint statement that this was a Geth dreadnought attempting to link up with the Geth fleet who had broken out of the Perseus Veil and were still at large. Ironically, they would attribute the damage on the vessel as likely coming from the mysterious Collectors who must have sent this Geth ship packing, and the Council fleet would be pleased to follow their example.

The irony was not lost on the subject matter which reviewed the footage at a later date. Truly, the Rogue Prodigal would come to conclude, there was almost always some small kernel of truth in rumor. Even if it was a small one.

(Authors Note)

Special thanks to Slipspace149, Just a Crazy-Man, Cooldude101011, Specialone78, Ttunikitashtobert, Brother Bov. And all the other encouraging people who wanted me to succeed.

A very special thanks to the all the crew!

The rewrite is done. Its all-new chapters from here.

The Unknown Defender will continue in Chapter twenty!

Shameless recommendations of my own content:

If you like How to train Your Dragon and Lord of the Rings, I've started a crossover of them called The Rider of the Misty Mountains, feel free to check it out and leave a review!

If you like Star Wars and feel like the CIS was unfairly defeated by plot armor shenanigans than go check out my star wars story Tambor's Revenge! What happens when a contingency Sidious didn't know of is activated and the Droid Army has no organics left in the high command?

The Droid shenanigans will continue until the empire's soul leaves its body.

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UPDATE: This chapter was Re-Uploaded for punctuation and minor grammar fixes as of MAY2024