Mass Effect: Augment

Chapter 4: Fallout

“Hackett.”

“Shepard.” The wizened officer on the other end of the screen replied with a smile.

Jon met it, “Whats the scuttlebut?”

Hackett said, “Even your detractors stopped detracting. House quote, respected the honestly of calling it a bribe. You somehow told the complete truth about how weak we actually are, yet convinced them we were much stronger. They got more than they could have dreamed of getting out of it.”

Jon chucked, “Almost filth of an entire galaxy. The first contact war is a decisive Alliance victory.”

Hackett smiled slyly, “Incident actually. The first contact incident.”

Jon scoffed, “That feels like I’m being stolen from.”

Hackett asked, “Have you ever lost a battle?”

Jon nodded, “Once, when I got shot in the face, twice in Washington. Everyone there tallied Washington as a defeat, matter of principle. They broke our will and taste for war.”

Hackett grimaced, “Just the reports he got from that battle scarred Arthur Maxson so deeply he made sure the Brotherhood died with him.”

Jon shrugged, “Don’t count them out yet. I almost guarantee some branded themselves as outcasts and are still hiding out somewhere.”

Hackett nodded, “Much of earth is still uninhabited to an extreme, everyone finding shelter in and near the cites. They are experts at bunker squatting in the wilderness, if nothing else.”

Jon said, “And hell, who says they didn’t slip out into the black. We left the garden worlds, but it’s not like we don’t have colonies that people zip too around and away from.”

Hackett grimaced again, “They’re seriously considering changing that policy.”

Jon huffed, “Of course they are. Why wouldn't they? I can’t even blame them.”

Hackett shook his head, “Neither can I, even if I don’t like it. We need real colonies if we want any hope of matching the Citadel on any time frame. It’s not going to happen popping down vaults a thousand or two at a time on asteroids and moons. People have been clamoring for them anyway for a while now, in particular China, because they are starting to have population problems. They got hit much harder during the war, they’re damn near reliant on the NCR for food shipments to cover what they can’t grow or tend with this past century’s population boom.”

Jon said, “The restoration projects haven't been going well, I take it.”

Hackett said, “Maybe in another century or two. That doesn’t feed their people now, and the whole purpose of this space deal was the resources, something you started I think.”

“Well there aren't much in terms of resources left on Earth.”

“And eventually you would have and did run out of scrap. They’re calling it the survey act. One last chance to make sure we aren't knocking off some kind of intelligent life form, so there’s that at least. It also includes provisions mandating local crop selection and cultivation. Only question is what happens when the FEV gets it hooks into the ecosystem.”

“The real question is what happens when the FEV gets it’s hooks into the galaxy. I give it a year before the Salarians dick around and try to blame us.”

“That’s a conservative estimate going by the betting pool.”

Jon grimaced. He would handle that problem when it came up, or better yet let the Systems Alliance handle it. The Salarians would blame them, and they would point to their laws mandating death penalties for unsanctioned FEV research, or weaponization of any kind. Any Salarian program would be described by definition. The ultimatum would be simple, stop blaming us or we will blame you. But what would the consequences be?

“Can they develop a vaccine? We’ve never had a reason until now.”

“Don t know. The CIT is working on it. So it every other university and lab.”

“The problem is Evolutionary is in the name.”

“That's a problem for the eggheads. Our problem now is making good on the promises you made.”

“I thought my detractors stopped detracting.” Jon said with a half grin.

Hackett smiled, “Only temporarily. You can’t do anything from where you are. You’re going to need to bring the Normandy back to get its secondary ezo core. It’s much smaller than if you’re trying to power an entire ship with it, so it will slot right in with a bit of jerry rigging.”

“The sister ships were practically designed around it.”

“Uh huh. They’ll be leading the way with the Batarians. The Charles River, the Colorado, and the Yangtze.”

“Yangtze.”

“Yangtze.”

“No, Yang-tze.”

“Yangtze.”

“There you go, don’t let Zao hear you mispronounce his ship’s name.”

Hackett chuckled, “He’d shoot me the next time he saw me in person. Anyway, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to come home and kick your feet up for a while. We’ll take it from here, General.”

Jon returned with a shark smile, “The Minutemen always do, Admiral. Sheppard out.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Captain Zao stood on the command pedestal of his Normandy class frigate, Yangtze. When the class was commissioned, it was determined by the various commands that a submarine captain would be best at commanding a ship that sails the deep sea of the cosmos. They had a mind frame perfectly suited for the task going by historical accounts. The long bouts without air, the isolation, the quiet of the black with only the rumble of the ship to keep you sane. It took a special individual to navigate its sometime times rough shoals of the universe. China proudly had the last submarine captain in the world, and he was proud to be commanding a ship like his, his Yangtze, his mistress behind his original love’s back.

He was in his traditional uniform of a state long dead, as he had come back to the Socialist Republic of China with the CCP long eradicated. The people were still adherent to socialism, with capitalist characteristics, but blamed the old party for all the worlds ills, as they knew they had fired first. When he returned, he presented himself to face justice for the crimes he committed.

He explained why the CCP decided to trigger Mutually Assured Destruction, and they understood a little more about their ancestors. They still did not look upon the party in a new light, however. They sill blamed them for many crimes they did commit. They still wanted nothing to do with the old party. However, they did not blame him for those crimes. They did not want nothing to do with him They still welcomed him home with open arms, as a native son that had returned home from far too long at war; No matter what flag he flew. With the gifts the Americans had given him, they truly began to rebuild rather than barley sustain.

He was overlooking the map of the local star cluster, zoomed in to the Harsa system. He and his wolf pack, as the German navigator called the formation, were slipping though the Batarian home system, skirting it around it’s kuiper belt away from the relay as they took reading and scans with all passive sensors.

The ships had come in thought the relay with a wide drift, their radiation controlled, and then quickly activated their cloaking devices to shield them further from any prying eyes. In the event that failed, their absorbent paint would soak up any sensors pointing their way as well. China made great contributions to the Normandy class’s stealth systems, and they worked overtime against the enemy investigation of the activation.

His eyes on the map told him the small Batarian patrol were still investigating the activation. We was far away from where they were looking. With a nod the order was silently and electronically passed to the helmsman, who shifted their course to bring the wolf pack around to the rear of the patrol vessels. Tight beam, low frequency, short range bursts went back and forth between the three vessels both giving and acknowledging the order. They shifted course as well, but one would approach with a heavy angle in the positive z-axis, and the other in the negative. The Yangtze would hold the center, and claim the first kills.

The ship crept though the black, barely at a tenth impulse, and came within effective range of the phaser array. That was a significant disadvantage his wolf pack had, range, as they had not focused on mass drivers when it came to weapons development. He dropped his fist, slashing it though the air, and without a word again the order was given. The Yangtze dropped her cloak, though he suspected they still couldn’t detect him, and then a 10km long phaser lance shot out from one of its two main strips. Red orange light shot back and forth a moment before it did, and then convalesced into the weapon of war it was. The beam cut across the first ship’s stern, disabling it’s engines and gashing it to the core.

The first target exploded just as the second beam lashed in anger. It too cut the enemy deep and permanently ended its hopes of fighting back in a detonation. The third and last beam did it’s work, and the Yangtze cloaked a moment later. The Helmsman put the throttle to one quarter impulse and drifted away from the battle space as more Batarian ships responded to the explosions. They knew someone was just firing, saw the flashes, and were flooding the area the Yangtze was with their mass driver shots, and throwing some of their ezo torpedoes as well.

They hit little but vacuum and their own wreckages. The helmsman was well trained and needed no order to exit the space at a perpendicular angle to the enemy advance. Another burst went back and forth to indicate directions and speeds for the wolf pack. They went further away for a bit, and then meandered around as the next patrol force closed the gap. The fire let up, but their investigation, and thus tunnel vision did not.

This patrol force was slightly larger, and included a dreadnought class ship. From the scans they were all old, ramshackle, and poorly maintained. A far cry from either of his muses, and it was no wonder he so easily damaged them. While they were using some ships of Turian design, the engagement so far was no good for determining what their real effectiveness would be against the Citadel fleets.

It was still a good proving ground however. He swiped his fist again, and the second planned attack took place. All three ships this time decloaked and fried a full spread of anti-matter torpedoes before cloaking again and making a wide turn off to a new direction. Each ship fired four torpedoes, and they slammed into the enemy formation in a blinding fury. The dreadnought went first, then its five escorts not long after from either weapon impacts themselves, or secondary detonations caused by their tight formation.

Zao tapped a few keys on his command suite to ensure every ship was credited for the kills, and now every ship in his formation was an ace, with his Yangtze still firmly in the lead as is proper. His regret was that her lead would stay only as firm as it was. The next planned attack would not be credited as kills. He also regretted the slaves that had perished on those ships so they could test their weapons. It had to be done, he rationalized. Simulations can be run all day, but at the end of the day they were at war with the Batarian Hegemony, and space combat was a cold and calculated affair. They had to know for certain, and at least only those few would die.

A third swipe of his fist, and the electronic warfare suite went into overdrive to process the order. It was not self aware as the cowboy Americans on the east coast built theirs to be, but it was still apart of Zao’s Yangtze, and he hopped one day it did show a spark of life as theirs did. He would be there for it if it did.

The virus bomb went off, and the firewalls of the Batarians melted away as if it didn’t exist. The hack overtook their networks, shut down their ships save for basic life support functions, and spread like FEV to the Batarian home world down below. The Cyber attack was apocalyptic. It wormed though and fired any terminal it touched, any piece of infrastructure it touched, shut down financial services, cut off access to the extranet, and blew up the omi-tools of certain high ranking individuals, and then used the Batarians own transmission hardware against them to jam the signals to their slave’s collars and implants. While they were not connected directly, they could stop any signal leaving a remote from reaching it’s destination on anything but extremely short range.

With their own satellite feeds up he could see the majority of the power going off all around the dark side of Khar’shan. With the space around it full of derelicts, the ground beginning to rise in chaos, it was time to give the next order.

He keyed his comms system, breaking EMCON, and the relay when into a low ready to pass the message. He said, “This is Yangtze, the way is clear. Repeat, the way is clear.”

Not a moment later the prongs of the relay lit up, and its core went from a low din to an energetic spin. Several ships exited in formation, and they were harsh and ugly to Zao’s eyes. They would however serve their purpose well. Proudly on the front of the space bricks was the logo for House Industries. Contained within them was his secureitron Mk 2 mercenary force. They served well all over the Earth as the Systems Alliance expanded it reach across the globe, taking out raiders and rogue states, propping up stable governments with democratic characteristics in their place, supporting those already there.

His comm pinged and he accepted the call. The electronic avatar of House, with his signature sly grin, overtook his map of the local battle space. He said, “Captain Zao. Excellent work.”

He gave a small bow. House was technically one of the leaders of the systems Alliance, if not even his equal in military command. Zao said, “Thank you Mr. House. I have no doubt your secruitrons will handle it from here, however I must ask-”

“This particular force was built in vacuum, for vacuum. It was also autonomously sanitized again at Systems Alliance expense. Then checked again, again at their expense. No FEV. When they’re not taking it to economically illiterate slavers, they’ll be surveying the quote un-quote garden words.”

Zao rose his eyebrow, “You do not like that term?”

House replied, “I think it cute they thought of Earth as a garden, to tend or prune at their discretion.”

Zao chuckled for a moment. He said, “A folly to be sure. Very well, Mr House. We will leave your to your contract obligations. The wolf pack will cover you.”

House’s grin became a smile, “Now there's an old world call back I like. Thank you Captain. House out.”

The formation punched though the new junkyard and headed straight for the planet. There were hundreds of ships waiting to be boarded, but they had to wait as the time and place to act was now and on the ground. From the feeds Zao saw, the majority of the population, the slaves Batarian and other species alike, were just beginning to realize something was amiss. Perhaps now would be their chance to live or die free. Perhaps something was wrong with the implants and that’s why the guards were looking so nervous.

The landing ships interceded their thoughts as they screamed though the atmosphere in fire and then leveled out to the ground over the main population center and capital of the planet. House had brought a dozen of the ships, and each could hold ten thousand of his forces. They were not defenseless craft either. Some air defenses lit up against them, crude lasers or mass drivers, but their shots bounced off the energy shielding of the landing craft. Even if they did get though the shield, House calculated they would not get though the scapl armor with anything except heavily coordinated fire they were now incapable of.

As the positions isolated from the hack made themselves known, House initiated counter battery fire with both lower power phasers, and atmospheric hyper sonic missiles dumping themselves from the top and sides of the ships on targeted approach vectors. They were simple conventional munitions, only big enough to do their jobs, but did their jobs they did. Some were shot down by the targeting vi’s in the Batarian batteries, but there were a glutton of missiles.

The one thing House was almost never short of these days was resources to build with. He could simply pick any rock he could throw a rock at, and mine it with his superior automation without much bother. There were plenty of rocks, and he only had to begrudgingly pay an admittedly reasonable tax to the Systems Alliance to formalize the claim and operation.

He hated that word, hated the thought of it, so he didn’t even call it a tax on his balance sheet. It was a miscellaneous cost, one he had to admit gained him far more then he lost. Especially if they were going to embargo him completely for the crime of having good business sense, and doubly so now that an entire galaxy of rival competitors was just revealed. The Volus in particular were dangerous and cunning foes, but something told him the Citadel wasn't as united as they would all believe, just as the Systems Alliance wasn’t. There would no doubt be potential partners out there as well, he thought as the first robots were launched into the streets.

The Mk 2 securiton was mostly unchanged from its predecessor. It was bulky on the shoulders for its rocket grenade launchers, and thinned down to its signature wheel for locomotion. Its weapons were replaced with phased bolt plasma, and it armor with scapl entirely. The screen was no longer a CRT, and instead the new LED display. The raced off as soon as they gained traction, and identified targets immediately to fire at.

The Batarians tried to fire back, but a good number of them found their weapons inoperable. They were perhaps to new, to up to date, to many bells and whistles. The ones that were able to fire found no luck as well. While the projectiles traveled at relativistic speeds, they were no bigger than the a grain of sand. Their shots only just scratched the bots, perhaps damage them with a lucky shot, crack and shatter the screens they did not need to operate, but there were not a match for the heavily armed and armored robot force.

The phased bolts stitched back at Hegemony forces, deadly accurate and lethal to anything they touched. The better kinetic barriers some had did hold up to some of the damage, but collapsed far to quickly, against a force far too reliant on them. It wasn't long before charred Batarian bodies hit the city streets as the fire support sill poured in from above. The secruitrons broke their lines and ground them under their treads from all sides of the city, to the center where the leader no doubt was.

As the sounds of war sang it’s song, a smaller drop ship ferried a shipment to behind the lines. House chose the place for it concentration of Batarian servatiudes. They were treated marginally better than the other species, not as chattel, but slaves still they were and House also recorded a mood of optimism from those looking on as the battle passed them. The ship slowed, and a shipping crate dropped from it and onto the street.

The door opened, and a solid gold securiton Mk 2 rolled out from it and surveyed the damage around. Overall the collateral damage was so far acceptable. Some buildings had been hit, black marks of plasma everywhere, rubble from explosions, Batarian slavers dead in the street, but the cost of rebuilding was very manageable he calculated.

Some poked their heads and four eyes from the broken windows and doors to spy what was going on. House turned his speakers up and said, “Greetings. I am Mr. House, President of House Industries, headquartered in New Vegas, Earth, official member of the Systems Alliance I am contractually obligated to say. You may have noticed their guns have stopped working, and your implants if you have them have been jammed. In short, I am the arbiter of your economic and physical liberation. Included with this offer is a one time gift of weapons, for which to shoot your former masters with.”

One peaked a moment longer, then slowly exited from the door she was hiding in. each step towards House was deliberate, and each eye judged for any lie or threat. It was hard to judge with a mech, but they saw what the others did. The mech would have just started shooting and wouldn't have needed a trick to kill them. She walked a bit past House and peaked into the crate. Sure enough it was full of weapons unlike any she had seen before, but they still operated on mass effect she spied.

House said, “Go ahead. Only one per person while supplies last, children exuded.”

She thought a moment more while everyone else looked on with bated breath. If he was anything like her former masters, he would have shoved the guns into the hands of the children first, but he said the offer wasn't for children specifically. She took a couple more steps in, and then picked up on of the weapons before stepping back out.

House said, “The magazine is detachable, and acts like the heat sink. There plenty of magazines to go around.”

She nodded. That sounded like going back to limited ammo to her, but she wasn't going to question a free gun at the moment. One of the upper military class looked like they were still twitching on the ground, so she lined up a shot and put one in his head, ending any twitch she thought she saw. The weapon worked as advertised, wasn't sabotaged, didn’t explode, neither did her head.

She turned and said, “Thank you Mr. House. Thank you. There are some slave pens nearby. Those folks have it much worse than us. We have to help them.”

House smiled on his screen, “Lead the way, and I’ll divert some securitons to assist.”

She smiled and nodded while waving others out. The fools, House thought. They just willingly took on the bulk of the costs for their liberation, and all it cost him was a crate of outdated weapons. This would be a fine place for corporate expansion, House thought, and after however many years their culture of strongmen and slavery has stood, they'll need a benevolent autocrat like him to guide them. A garden world, he thought, to tend at his discretion.