Plan for the Galaxy Chapter 59

PFTG

A/N Hello everyone! I hope everyone is well. This chapter starts to move more into the plans for the post ME1 arc. I hope you enjoy it.

…

CHAPTER 59 – A MYRIAD OF MEETINGS

(Benezia POV)

She wasn’t wearing chains as the shuttle flew towards its hidden destination. That was about the only positive thing that could be said about her situation.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t a prisoner. While she might have been given more privileges than she would have if she had been put into a Citadel cell, though even that was far less than the freedoms she would have been given if she had been interned on Thessia due to her status on the Council of Matriarchs, she was undoubtedly still captive to Mr Nielson’s people.

The biotic dampening collar she was forced to wear was a strong testament to that fact.

She couldn’t even rightly tell where it was that she had been taken. No one was telling her anything useful after she was woken from her forced coma. They told her were to go, what to wear and when she was being ‘inspected’ to ensure that she was in good health and complying with whatever rules she was required to follow as a prisoner.

She had no idea how Spectre Shepard and Mr Nielson had managed to coerce the Council to ensure that she was no remanded into Citadel custody. By all rights, she should be placed in the recesses of Citadel Security until the Council of Matriarchs sought her release as befitting her station. No one would answer her question on the matter when she asked so there wasn’t much that she was able to do about it.

Still, she was no fool. Nearly a millennium of living had told her that it was probably the wisest course to do so. After all, Spectres have a great deal of access and resources, especially on of Saren’s talents. Saren might have been able to find her location and had her taken out if she had been placed in Citadel custody, even with his removal from the Spectres.

Not being on the Citadel would have been the safest for her well-being. But as a private citizen, Mr Nielson should not have had the ability to hold a person in custody. That was a role for law enforcement. Even with his work alongside Spectre Shepard, he would, at best, only be holding her on a temporary basis.

There was clearly something amiss here and she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

The shuttle rocked as it touched down, the door opening a second later. Benezia squinted against the bright light coming in the door but climbed out at a gesture from her wards. The turian and asari guards that were holding her leash, on behalf of their master, Mr Nielson. She hadn’t bothered to ask their names and they hadn’t volunteered the information.

She exited the shuttle and blinked in surprise at what she saw around her.

She was on a garden world. A rather beautiful one, at least as far as this area was concerned. The shuttle had landed in a clearing that was between a beautiful lush red and green forest, and a sparkling mountain range. The tops of the mountains were capped with snow and the rocks themselves seemed to contain some sort of material that sparkled in the light.

She followed the guards to a small compound set into the foot of the mountains. The building was more secure than the usual prefab buildings that could be found on a new colony world. The walls looked to be made of a reinforced concrete, though they were clearly the type that were premade and assembled on the spot.

The guards led her through the compound, which had some surprisingly tasteful art pieces on the walls. She took a look at some of them as she passed. They were not originals, but she recognised a few prints of some well-known asari artists.

The guards finally came to a closed door and knocked. A call to ‘enter’ came from within and they palmed the door access open.

The room beyond appeared to be a conference room of some sort. There was a large table and several displays that were switched off lining the walls. At the head of the table, working on a personal terminal, was a human. He didn’t look up from his work as they approached and Benezia couldn’t help feeling a little irked at the lack of respect.

She squashed the feeling immediately. If there was anything she had learned recently, it was that her prejudices were clearly not allowing her to exercise her better judgement. It was very much up in the air on how that was going to impact her daughter. Her Little Wing was still likely to suffer due to her decisions. The evidence that she was under a form of forced indoctrination might mitigate that. However, the uncertainty remained.

Finally, after he tapped away at his terminal for more than a minute, the man looked up. It wasn’t Mr Nielson. The didn’t know this human. He was a little shorter than Mr Nielson, from what she could see. Then again, she was lying down and Mr Nielson was sitting when she was interrogated by Spectre Shepard, so it wasn’t a fair comparison.

“Right,” the human said, standing up and facing her directly.  The human was wearing some rugged clothing. Not combat armour, by any stretch, but something that he could wear while hiking, or some other physical activity. “My name is Beau Clarke. I am the Security Director for Shieldstar under Brock Nielson. Welcome to our new planet.”

“Your new planet?” Benezia asked, arching an eyebrow sceptically.

To her concern, the human just nodded. “Yes indeed. We are on a garden world that was quite well hidden in the Terminus. We did find some mercenaries that had made a base here and we cleared them out. Once that was done, well, no need to waste a perfectly good planet that isn’t even on Citadel navigational charts. No one else had a claim and anyone that tries now will find themselves rather unhappy with the pushback.”

A home base that no one knows about. Controlled by a group with uncertain aims and objectives. This was no small concern.

“And you are not worried about others finding out about it?” she asked, wondering if there was a chance that they were close enough to the Relay network that she would be able to get in contact with her people on Thessia through a comm beacon.

The human just shook his head. “It’s unlikely,” he replied. “The only reason we were able to find it was because we were actively tracking the mercenaries that had made this place home and they had stumbled across it at some point. I won’t say that it is impossible though; after all, they had to find out about it somehow.”

She gave a vague nod, her mind distracted by her concerns. She was stuck here on an unknown world without a way to contact her people. She supposed she could always steal a ship somehow. She was, after all, a powerful biotic. She just needed to find a way to remove the biotic dampeners.

“Take a seat,” Mr Clarke offered as he sat back down himself.

Benezia slowly followed his instruction, sitting with the grace of a matriarch of her station. Not that the human seemed to appreciate it. He just stared at her flatly as she seated herself. She couldn’t help feeling contempt for the pink-skinned alien. No matter how much they looked like asari, they couldn’t compare to their grace.

“You should probably stop thinking negative thoughts about me,” the human said, looking dead in her face.

She blinked in shock, her eyes widening slightly. Was the human capable of reading minds? That was not something that had even been disclosed to her. Were the humans hiding this from the Citadel?

“And no,” the human continued, looking amused at her expression, “I can’t read your mind. But I don’t need to, to know that you are thinking rude things about us.”

She pursed her lips. The human was more perceptive than she had expected. Or he was bluffing.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“You’ve already been told,” Mr Clarke responded bluntly. “This is Shieldstar’s planet in the Terminus. A remote planet where very few, if any other people, know exists, let alone where it is. So, no one to help you escape are coming for you here.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You mock a prisoner?” she asked, trying to put him in his place. “How uncivilised are you humans?”

“Considering as your idea of ‘civilised’ includes the allowed slavery of millions and killing innocent civilians, before turning your attention to the mass extinction of all advanced life in the galaxy and condemning my own child to poverty and social exclusion for it,” the human said in such a flat tone that she couldn’t help flinching, “I would rather make fun of a prisoner than the alternative.”

She wanted to frown, but she couldn’t really argue the point. While she might not have been completely in her own mind after a while, she had accepted the mission that Saren had laid out before she was completely under indoctrination.

Even before that, she had been complicit in allowing thousands of the daughters of Thessia in being slaves under the Hegemony or the various warlords out in the Terminus. She had led many of the discussions in preventing action being taken against the mercenaries and slavers. She had even employed the filth to conduct raids that would weaken her political rivals, and even those of other races. All in the name of being a good Matriarch.

She hated to think it, but maybe the human wasn’t completely wrong.

“For now, you will be billeted in separate quarters away from the main compound,” the human said, breaking into her thoughts. “You will be allowed your freedoms inside your room, but the biotic dampeners will remain on and active the whole time. You will be allowed access to fictional reading materials, human movies, painting supplies and be able to contact your daughter at will. All other requests that you have for entertainment will be considered on a case-by-case scenario.

“You will be required to help out with the establishment of this colony as it expands. You are not here for a vacation in a lovely workspace. You will be monitored the entire time you are here. You will have no privacy. Make no mistake, while the Citadel may have forgotten about you in the meantime, you are a prisoner wanted for high treason. Your quiet disappearance is the only thing that is allowing your daughter to maintain all of her current privileges without restriction.

“As you comply with all of your instructions, you will be granted more privileges. You may even be able to have free reign of the planet. But make no mistake, even if you stole a ship and left the planet, you will never make it to the Relay alive.”

So, Mr Nielson had established orbital assets, or perhaps had a fleet on standby in space. That was annoyingly prudent of him. It also meant that any ship that made it to the surface was not likely to be armed or capable of extracting through the defences without being destroyed. It was possible that she would be able to ‘convince’ a ship to let her stowaway, but the dangers of that would be unacceptably high without access to her biotics. Even then, death was almost certain.

“I understand,” she said simply. “What is to be done with me afterwards?”

“That remains the decision of Mr Nielson until the Council summons you,” Mr Clarke said. “Until then, you will be assigned daily duties that you are expected to fulfil. Failure to comply with your instructions will mean that privileges will be removed from you. Continue to cause issues after that, and I will leave you at the mercy of the former slaves living here that were only enslaved because of your previous actions.”

A flicker of fear passed through her at that. If there were really former slaves living in the colony that had been enslaved because she had ordered it, then if they found out that she was the reason for it, her own life would likely end extremely painfully and possibly not quickly.

“You are bluffing,” she tried to rebut. “You wouldn’t do that to a prisoner.”

The human had the audacity to snort at her in some sort of twisted amusement. “Listen, Nezzie,” he said, his tone not quite mocking. “In Citadel space, before you showed your true colours, you might have been a big shot. You might have had billions in resources and property and been extremely influential in asari society. Out here,” he gestured around him, “your matriarch status means nothing. Your resources mean nothing.

“The vast majority of people being moved here are freed slaves that have chosen to not return to their previous lives after we broke them out of their confinement. Most of the rest are people that joined up with us after we saved Eden Prime from Saren’s geth, while you were working with him. If you think there is anyone that would be particularly happy with you after all that, you are more delusional now than you were under indoctrination. So if you want to test my goodwill, go ahead.”

She made the decision right then and there that she would not be doing so.

The human stood up and moved to the window, staring out at the world beyond. “This planet is going to be a safe zone for former slaves and others who join us. It will also be a place of production to help us in our war against the reapers. The shipyards above us are working around the clock to help prepare our ships as best as they can. There are workers and tens of thousands of drones all around the planet establishing arms factories to help us have the material needed to produce whatever we can think of to protect ourselves. There are training camps being established all around the planet to help our people get training in combat so that they won’t be helpless when the reapers come.

“We are moving assets to build us up and deny the reapers the materials they would normally acquire when they begin their rampage throughout the galaxy. We may be the most prepared cycle that has ever been forced to fight the reapers. But it will be because everyone is working towards the same goal.”

The certainty and the gravitas that the human was displaying were making her feel both concerned and motivated. While following Saren, she had learned that the reapers were indeed real and that they were coming in force. She had even been the one trying to help it happen. Now, she wished she had never been part of that idiotic plan. She didn’t want the galaxy to die. She feared becoming a slave again, like she had been to Saren. Like Saren had been to Sovereign by the end.

The human turned back to face Benezia directly, his face firm and full of conviction. “You will serve here as a trainer for our biotic troops. Your powers are extremely notable and your time here will be used to do what you can to help improve our biotic troopers to prepare them for the battlefields against the reaper ground troops. Otherwise, those ground troops will be made up of the forcibly mutated people of the galaxy.”

She understood that this wasn’t a request; she was being given an order. And while she might not be happy taking orders from a human, she understood her position. More than that, she was also interested in not having the galaxy’s peoples be turned into husks like Sovereign had carried around to all of the planets that they had raided.

She shuddered to think what an asari would look like after that conversion.

“Very well,” she said, nodding her head. “Will I be allowed to use my own biotics during the training sessions?”

“Not right away,” the human said. “Any use of your biotics will be decided at a later date, once you have proven yourself worthy of the trust we would require of you to have access to them again.”

She grimaced but nodded. Understandable. “I see. When do you wish for me to begin?”

“Tomorrow afternoon,” came the swift reply. “We will have a group of former asari slaves in training at camp eight who have decided that they wish for more training in the use of biotics. You will be taken there to assist.”

He moved back to his desk and sat down. “If you have any questions, you can ask your guards. I won’t be around much to help out. As the Head of Security for Shieldstar, I have a lot of responsibilities all over the galaxy. I am just here to help establish one of our other members who is becoming security head of ground forces here. His name is Polus. He’s a turian that we rescued a couple of years ago and has been part of the ground teams that have been raiding mercenary and slavers bases around the galaxy. He has proven himself and is now in charge of the security here. You can direct questions to him. For now, your guards will take you to your quarters.”

Recognising the dismissal for what it was, Benezia nodded and stood, heading for the exit.

“Oh, and one more thing,” the human spoke up from behind her. She turned back to look at him. “If you harm a single person on this base in any way outside of training, you will suffer more than you could possibly imagine, before we dump you with a slave collar in Hegemony space. We don’t like slavery in the least, but plenty of people here would think that turnabout is fair play.”

The calm certainty with which the human issued that threat actually sent a shiver of fear running down Benezia’s spine. She had no doubt at all that the human was being serious.

As she was led to her new quarters, she had to wonder once more, why she had ever thought betraying the Citadel had ever seemed like a good idea.

…

(Brock POV)

It had been a while since I put on this costume, making myself look like an unscarred version of a nondescript human with dark hair. I only used this disguise when dealing with one person. That batarian ambassador, Jath’Amon.

It had been some time since then, but now that the reaper invasion stuff was mostly settled, it was time to start hitting up some of the smaller issues that would help to deny the reapers resources for their ground troops later on.

“I want it on record,” Persei’s voice came through her speaker, sounding fairly distorted, “that I am in favour of just letting the Batarian Hegemony get dissolved. The entire leadership cast can be removed and no one in the galaxy would blink at it.”

I nodded. “I agree,” I replied. “And if it was as simple as letting the leadership die, I would not bother doing this. But because we know that the reapers can take over organics and use them as their own, if we let that happen, we risk the reapers taking billions of batarians and their billions of slaves as biomatter and ground troops. I don’t think we need to see more of what they had done to the people that were brought to Sovereign’s forces like how Saren did.”

Persei conceded the point with a hesitant nod and a sigh. I took a deep breath, putting on the confident, secretly all-powerful organisation character than I had played last time and moved down the pathway to the Batarian Embassy.

The damage in this area was noticeably worse than it was in other areas on the Citadel. I know that the cleanup had started but clearly someone with an agenda against the batarians was waiting to clean them up last.

Sure, why not antagonise the slavers. That never goes wrong.

We approached the receptionist, a female batarian in a business pant suit, sitting at a desk that looked like it had been cut off on one side. Three batarian soldiers were visible in the front area of the embassy.

“Hello,” she welcomed, a large fake smile on her face. “Welcome to the Batarian Embassy. How can I help you today?”

I raised an eyebrow. That was the sort of cheerful greeting an asari to give at the Consort’s rooms, not at a batarian establishment. They must be working hard on their image to show that they are not feeling down about being left until last on the cleanup.

“Hello,” I greet back. “Mister Lynch. I have an appointment with the ambassador.”

She nodded, not even looking down at her terminal. Either she was good enough to know his entire schedule for the day, which was entirely possible, or there weren’t enough people booking meetings with the batarians so she wouldn’t have a hard time memorising his schedule.

“Please take a seat,” she gestured to a mismatched set of chairs to one side. “The ambassador will be with you shortly.”

Considering that last time we were here, we had waited about ten minutes before we were seen to, I expected to wait about that long before we were called in this time. To my surprise, I had barely sat down before a chime sounded from the reception desk, making the receptionist look down at her desk, slowly blinking all four eyes.

“Oh, the ambassador will see you now,” she said, gesturing to a guard, who stepped forward. “Please follow him. Have a nice day!”

I nodded to her and Persei and I followed the batarian soldier down the hallway to the ambassador’s office.

“Enter!” a voice called out before we even knocked on the door.

The soldier opened the door for us and gestured for us to go in, closing the door behind us.

“Sit down,” Jath’Amon grouched at me. “I don’t have all day.”

I sat as directed and crossed one leg over the other, staring at him calmly.

“Do you see the insult that the Council offers us?” he growled gesturing towards the front of the building. “We are much more important than those barbaric elcor or those slimy hanar. Yet, our embassy is left to stay in ruins while theirs were put on the priority list for repairs.”

I hummed. “Did they give you a reason for that when you asked?” I replied, making sure not to tilt my head. That was, after all, significant to batarian culture.

He grunted again. “Yes,” he admitted. “As their embassies are clustered with the volus and there wasn’t as much damage, they thought that it would be prudent, seeing as my embassy is not in serious danger, to get three embassies out of the way quickly so that they can spend their whole attention on mine.”

“I see,” I replied carefully. “If they truly mean that then I don’t believe that they intended to show any offence.”

“Bah,” he spat to the side. “If it was a single instance, I might accept that, but the Council put us last far too much!” He devolved into mumbling his grievances under his breath.

“As unfortunate as that is,” I said, changing topics, “that is not why I am here today.”

He took a steadying breath and composed himself. “I know,” he replied, his voice more serious than before. “Don’t think I didn’t notice that the so-called reaper that turian traitor was flying here was a match for our own leviathans. The Council also released a classified preliminary report for those dealing with the wreckage to ensure that they take extra care as prolonged exposure can lead to altered brainwave patterns, making a being susceptible to suggestions and hallucinations.”

I nodded and opened my own omnitool, flicking another report. “Not just that,” I replied. “I have here a copy of Spectre Shepard’s report regarding the ship and indoctrination via proximity. Combined with some paragraphs regarding Saren’s statements, it would appear as if we have proof the Council is accepting that the ships themselves are the source of indoctrination. Several of my own people have shown from our studies that it is impossible to change the loyalty of those who are indoctrinated.”

Jath’Amon narrowed his eyes at me. “What do you mean by that?” he asked suspiciously.

“Once a subject is under indoctrination, there is no way to subvert it,” I explained. “You can’t change the person that they are subject to. There is no form of brainwave therapy, no counselling, no torture and no coercion that will allow you to take command so that they are indoctrinated by you. There may have been a cure once, but that was destroyed inadvertently by Spectre Shepard’s crew on Feros.”

“What cure was that?” the ambassador asked, leaning forward.

I wanted to shake my head. It looks like there are some important people that are indoctrinated, but the batarians don’t want to confess anything just yet.

“An alien plant that was sentient and had been alive since before the protheans,” I said. “Unfortunately, it tried to kill members of Shepard’s ground team and they were forced to kill it in self-defence.”

The ambassador sat back in his chair and growled. “Of course they did,” he bit out. “The humans like destroying everything, don’t they?”

“Actually,” I cut into his diatribe, “there was a krogan reported as part of the ground team. I hear he has a new form of grenade launcher that he is very proud of.”

The batarian pursed his lips and nodded. “That does sound likely too,” he conceded.

“How are things among your people?” I asked. “Obviously, if it is classified, then don’t compromise yourself. But is there anything that you can share with me?”

The ambassador frowned, but this time it was more thoughtful. “Not much,” he confessed. “I’m sure an organisation such as yours is aware of things you can’t share. You know how it goes.”

I nodded my acceptance.

“That said,” he continued, “you are the ones who warned us about the dangers of working with the leviathan. The Hegemon has given me permission to inform you that your information has proven invaluable, though sadly it was later than he would have wanted. That’s all I can say.”

I nodded again. Clearly, they had no idea that people were indoctrinated. Still, there was something I was going to help with.

“I understand,” I said. “I am honoured by the consideration that your Hegemon has given me.”

Jath’Amon nodded, looking a little pleased. Either at the respect shown or just the gratitude, I don’t know.

“If you’ll allow me,” I said, tapping over a file and sharing it to his terminal. “I believe that this should be extremely useful.”

He opened the file and looked at it, frowning for a moment. “I’m not a technician,” he said bluntly. “What am I looking at?”

“That is the blueprints and schematics for a device developed by the protheans,” I explained. “Its sole use is to discover whether or not someone is under the effects of indoctrination.”

His head jerked back as he stared at me, his mouth falling open. He closed it and looked back far more intensely at the terminal. “That is extremely helpful,” he said absently. He gathered himself and looked back at me. “This is incredibly generous.” He hesitated for a moment longer. “I don’t believe I understate it when I say that this will be able to help the Hegemony a great deal.” He stared at me and tilted his head far to his left in a sign of great respect. “You have my gratitude.”

I nodded, knowing that rejecting such a token of appreciation could be grounds for insult in batarian culture. “I receive your thanks,” I replied. “However, it is something that my organisation considers crucial to the survival of the galaxy against the leviathans. As such, they have determined that this device shall be shared with all of the ambassadors and their governments. I merely chose to give you yours first.”

The batarian blinked and he smiled. “I see,” he replied. “Thanks.” He sighed as he looked back at his terminal. “Are there any other major things for today? Because I need to send a message to my Hegemon.”

I shook my head and stood up, Persei standing with me. “Thank you for your time,” I said. “If my organisation has any more information they wish to share with you, I will make another appointment.”

He nodded, looking back at me and tilting his head far to the left as a sign of deep respect, before turning away to face his terminal as he started to tap away at the holographic display. “Of course,” he replied, already sounding preoccupied. “Farewell.”

With that, Persei and I departed the office. We merged with the crowd once we got back to the main thoroughfare, but I was still cautious of any potential pursuers. After all, we did give away something very valuable with that tech.

Still, in the original timeline, most of the batarian leadership got indoctrinated through the Leviathan of Dis so when the reapers made their appearance through the Alpha Relay, they collapsed with barely a whimper, letting the reapers come and spread throughout the galaxy without detection until it was too late. By cutting off the chances of the batarians being crushed so easily, I was hoping to at least slow the reapers down to both give us more time and maybe have the batarians take a few of them out, while also denying the reapers some ground forces.

That being said, I was being truthful when I said that the only thing that that piece of tech was for was to check for indoctrination. It had no ability to cause it. And knowing how crazy the batarians were about slavery, they would probably get a kick out of finding a way to make it done on purpose. Very Illusive Man like.

A minute later, we got an all clear by the spotter team that we had watching out for us, letting me let out a sigh to remove some of the tension.

“I know that you hate being around that embassy,” I said softly to Persei as we made our way to the aircar station. “But thank you for doing that with me.”

She nodded, her expression still hidden behind her helmet. “I know,” she replied. “I hate having to do anything with the batarian leadership caste. I mentally understand that it is necessary that they stay intact, at least for now, but I emotionally hate it and can’t wait for the day that they are gone.”

I could understand that. Eighty years as a slave is no small matter at all. It doesn’t matter that she is an asari and can live for more than a thousand years, or that her owners were mostly nice to her. She was still a slave; kidnapped, abused and treated like an object. Then I brought her face to face twice with the same people who, if while they didn’t personally do the job, were the government that made it happen.

“I know,” I said again. “Unfortunately, they are a necessary evil right now. We just don’t have the numbers to be able to take out their government and free the slaves. The smaller individual slavers and merc band are already being more than what we can reliably do without drawing too much attention to us. But we are going to continue doing as much as we can to free as many of them as we can. In fact, it will be even more essential going before the invasion. We can get more volunteers join us and leave less bodies for the reapers to convert to their own forces.”

Persei nodded silently and I cursed myself for bringing her into this again. Once was bad enough. Doing it again was only done to have the same people that came last time. I had been counting on the familiarity putting the batarians at ease. I hadn’t realised that it hadn’t truly been necessary until I was in front of the batarian. After all, Jath’Amon had been surprisingly open with me.

“Next time I have to speak to him, I will bring someone else,” I said. “I won’t put you through that again.”

“Thank you,” she said. “For now, I want to have a chat with Selaen and then have a long bath.”

I smiled. “Anything you need,” I said. “Anything at all.”

…

A surprise message came through just as I was leaving my appointment with the Vol Protectorate ambassador.

I had managed to use the Alliance getting a seat on the Council to show how having their own power and being willing to use it in defence of the Citadel had been the key to getting the recognition that they were very desperately after. Thankfully, this time, the ambassador was much more receptive to what I had to say from the start. Afterwards, I had made a deal to buy helium-3 from the volus at a reduced rate. While a part of me had wanted to go through human businesses, the fact that everything was much cheaper meant that I was willing to go through the Protectorate.

Interestingly, the ambassador had also told me that in the two years since our last meeting, they had acquired a second-hand dreadnought from the turians and more than doubled the size of their fleet. They were making plans to split the fleet so that they had a patrol fleet as well as their bombing fleet.

That was good news for me. Well, for the galaxy. The more resources we had to throw at the reapers meant we would have a better chance when they came at us. I had planned afterwards to make an appointment with the hanar for more of their ultralight materials. After all, that would make weapon systems and armour parts a lot easier to bear.

But the message that came through meant I needed to rearrange that plan. I headed back to the orphanage, which would still remain as the main point of contact for people wishing to make contact with me after we moved most of our resources to our new planet.

Once in my office, I activated all of my security systems and called up my spaceport manager.

It was a turian woman named Nyssa Takilas that had been the logistics manager for a mid-level company that operated as a supplier for colony expansion within Citadel space. She had actually been involved in coordinating the resources that had been part of Bekenstein’s expansion once the Alliance got permission to settle it from the Council. Seeing as Bekenstein was settled to be a manufacturing planet for the Alliance, they needed a whole bunch of equipment that other Citadel races had in abundance.

Unfortunately for Nyssa, she had been on route to Illium for talks about expanding the company’s offices there when her ship was attacked by pirates. Nearly ten years later, we managed to save her on a slave run on a planet in the Terminus. After a more than half a year of therapy, she had decided that she owed us a debt and wished to stay with us.

Persei had been the one to recommend her for a job. I wasn’t a Human Resources kinda guy. Neither was Persei. Luckily, we had saved enough people who were that wanted to join us. They provided Nyssa’s resume and one thing led to another.

I was glad for her appointment. She was good at what she did and having good people that you can trust was never a bad thing.

“Hello Nyssa,” I said once her painted face came up on my screen. “I got your message. What do you need?”

“I think we should expand the shipyards,” she said hurriedly, ignoring my greeting.

I blinked at that. “I see. How much?”

“I am sending you a report now with everything,” she replied, tapping away at her own terminal. “But if you can get the materials and the drones to help with it, not to mention a few extra parts to add zero gee cranes, I can get another two docking arms inside three months. Three docking arms in twenty-one weeks.”

Now that was certainly helpful. A single docking arm had space to upgrade, or assemble, four cruisers at a time, or two dreadnoughts if you had them. If we could have three new docking arms done in a few short months, that would be able to massively improve our abilities to upgrade our fledgling fleet.

“I’ll go through the report soon, but just tell me how many construction drones you would need,” I said. “And can you make a start with the materials we have on hand?”

“With the materials we have on hand or have already ordered is incoming to our new base through our transports,” she answered, looking off to the side where I assume her data was being displayed, “we can get three quarters of one completed. Our acquisition teams can get more but costs are rising across all material sectors. Every race in Citadel space is buying larger quantities of all starship grade metals and materials.”

“That will be good for our eezo sales,” I mused thoughtfully. While we used plenty of the element for our own ships, there was still thousands of tons of the stuff available for sale on the private market. “I’ll send a message to our sales departments. See if we can step up on sales for eezo. That will give us plenty of money to get more metals.”

“Good,” she said shortly. “In the meantime, I need more drones. Five thousand at least. More, if you can. Ten thousand would be better.”

I blinked. That was a lot of drones. But then, we could always sell them on to the quarians if we didn’t need them. Or just get the quarians to build them. They certainly knew how to do it and in a hurry. Plus, they were always desperate for more credits as their colony kept growing. And if they didn’t want to build construction drones for us, they were always happy to make sure that there was no spy equipment from anyone hidden in the drones.

It was a full-time job keeping out the STG, the Shadow Broker, Cerberus and any of the thousand other information brokers in the galaxy.

“I’ll reach out to our usual suppliers and also see if the quarians can lend a hand,” I said, already starting to tap away at my own omnitool. “But if we can get this going, I also want you to coordinate with some of our shipwrights to see if we can design something new, just for us.”

It would be tight, but we could possibly divert some of the resources from building gunships, but I would need to see how many we were going to be able to produce. And without manpower, none of this would work anyway. I made a note for Beau to increase anti-slaver operations and ensure that larger targets could be hit by combining teams. It would increase the chances of being caught, but we would find ways to avoid detection and tracing.

“What type?” she asked.

“Don’t know,” I replied cheerfully. “Think ‘flagship’ and go from there. But I want several different classes from stealth shuttle all the way up to flagship. I will send you a list in a minute.”

“Ok,” she replied. “I’ll have the teams make a start on the docking arm, but without new materials, it will all come to a stop in about three weeks.”

I nodded. “Alright,” I said, making another note. “I will have some survey teams head out to known asteroid belts and uninhabited planets to look for more materials of our own. In the meantime, see if there is anyone there that has any experience in metal fabrication or mining in general.”

“Will do,” she said. “That’s all from me. You need anything else?”

I said no and she hung up without a goodbye. I wasn’t bothered though. Nyssa was a person who lived for work and didn’t bother with interactions much, beyond what was necessary. She also didn’t want to take charge of everything so I know she would overrule me or try depose me or anything.

I leaned back in my chair, realising how much work would need to be done over the next two years before Jane’s return to life. Increasing the colony, building and renovating ships, freeing slaves, training the ones that want to work for us to be ready for the reapers, finding more materials, selling more resources, making and maintaining alliances and increasing digging on Eden Prime to get Javik. That was the things immediately on my mind and that didn’t even mention the things that would come up if I thought about them more.

This next two years was going to be damn busy.

…

1 film, 4 reviews

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Thessian Suns Publication

By Helia Mis’audis

A worthy follow up to the first vid. The despair that was portayed very convincingly through all of the vid as the audience could see how beaten down the people were. The musical score was exceptional for this vid and the scenery was beautiful. And those horses! Oh, I wish that I could ride one. I understand that there is going to be a horsing ranch established on Thessia soon. I will have to go once it is open.

Sur’kesh Leaf Script

By Silarn Moduk

A sequel and the second vid in this fantasy trilogy. The blending of the storylines, instead of being a single tale, is now done in three parts. A challenge for many a director, but masterfully done. The lighting, music and set design was exceptional. Each of the storylines were engaging and the transitions between them had me wishing ‘just a little more’ on each one, but in a good way. I am looking forward to the third vid.

Palaven Daily Call

By Marticus Lossus

Certainly an expansion from the first vid. More complex stories, more interesting characters, a few plot twists. I understand that the vids came out two centuries ago, but there are plenty of people who haven’t seen them and I won’t ruin the surprises for those people. The action was certainly heart-racing and the moments of humour certainly helped break through the darker tones of the storyline. Excellently written and acted. Highly recommend for those who enjoy action and pre-space sword adventures.

The Krogan Word

By Ognut Grax

Another long vid. That said, I would have loved to fight in the battle at the end. Or maybe the battle where the other hobbits were fighting orcs with the dead guy’s brother.

No! I wanna fight one of the ents! Those tree guys look like they could kick real ass. I could take it though!