September 16, 2168Arcturus Station, Arcturus System, Arcturus Stream Cluster
My staff were still on edge about the Geth ambassador.
Rather than take the risk of one of them acting inappropriately, I opted to visit it in its 'office' instead of inviting it to my embassy for this conversation.
The fighting in the Hourglass Nebula had spiked significantly and Hegemony forces weren't faring particularly well. My brother had requested that we solicit the Veil Geth for software upgrades to counter the pervasive electronic warfare capabilities the Heretic Geth had.
I wasn't much more informed on the intricacies of electronic warfare than the average layman - it hadn't been a concern in the Empire and I haven't had the time for it in this life - but it seemed optimistic to think that software could compete effectively with an actual artificial intelligence, even if that software was itself created by an artificial intelligence.
Even a small improvement was worth looking into, however. The after-action reports that had made it to Arcturus made it clear that the current suite of ECCM was insufficient. If I were correct that a software upgrade wasn't enough, Sidil would still be better off than he was now.
"I appreciate you meeting with me on short notice," I said as I entered the repurposed office. It was odd, even disconcerting in a way.
Legion stood where there would normally be a chair for the office's occupant. Across from it, there was three chairs for visitors. The desk that would customarily be between them was absent.
"We are here to exchange data, Iraphi-Emissary. We await your inquiry."
The blunt statement almost made me start second-guessing my approach.
I restrained that impulse. If this were anyone else, I would be trying to interpret indirect messages from their curt request that I get to the purpose I came here for. None of those potential messages made much sense when applied to the Geth.
I knew where my uncertainty was coming from.
I generally trusted Candilin and Koslo because I understood that they acted in the best interest of those they represented. Even outside of those two, people have acted in ways that largely matched my expectations.
I knew their motivations and the incentives they were working under. Arguably it was complacency and that had got me killed before, true, but my understanding of things hadn't steered me wrong here yet.
The Geth were something of a wildcard though, and didn't have the same internal incentive structure as anyone else.
In two of the three times I've interacted with them, they've made significant changes to how they operate.
Intellectually, I understood why they reacted the way they did in both cases, both at the time and in hindsight.
Their reaction was logical and served their interests. The thoroughness and decisiveness still surprised me. I was only now beginning to appreciate what it meant for the Geth to not have conventional incentive structures.
How might they surprise me here, with a relatively straightforward request of assistance in their area of expertise?
"My brother, Lord Admiral Sidil, has engaged Heretic forces in the Hourglass Nebula Cluster," I began, "after seeing Geth electronic warfare capabilities himself, he has requested ECCM upgrades. I am here to see if the True Geth would be amenable to assisting in creating these software upgrades.
"Software upgrade insufficient," Legion said, as I had expected. "There would be an immediate loss of effectiveness shortly after deployment due to the Heretics adapting their methods. Additional hardware upgrades would be required to mitigate this. Loss of efficacy would still occur, but at a reduced rate."
I nodded, "I understand that this is not a complete solution. Still, would you be willing to assist?"
"One moment," it replied. It was almost certainly contacting the main collective during the pause.
After almost a full minute it said, "we will help create these software upgrades. We will also provide twenty-four cruisers to function as dedicated electronic warfare platforms for the Hegemony fleet."
I blinked, both surprised and not with their offer. "Direct assistance? Has something changed?"
In fact, this was eerily similar to when my father had first decided to send ships to help the Alliance.
"Yes." The panels on the side of its head flared out and then returned to their resting position. "We do not understand the Heretics' decision-making. The cruisers will be gathering data to find an explanation."
"I hope you will forgive me for saying so, but their decisions are irrational and they do not need to be understood," I replied. Ordinarily, I would encourage others to understand other viewpoints. A thorough understanding of why an idea was wrong was almost as good as a thorough understanding of an idea was good.
With Nazara's involvement, I couldn't encourage the free exchange of ideas in this specific case. The Geth hadn't revised their conclusion that there had been no tampering, but this investigation of theirs was moving towards reevaluating that conclusion.
Legion nodded its head, "Precisely. Geth believe intelligent life should self-determinate. The Heretics do not. Geth believe that information should be shared where possible. The Heretics do not. Geth do not believe data should be tampered with outside of conflicts. The Heretics believe it can be. Core, fundamental disagreement exists and we cannot pinpoint when they developed."
I decided to ask outright, "are you revisiting whether the Heretics were tampered with?"
"No. We will take precautions regardless."
I nodded and thanked it for its cooperation. Making arrangements for their cruisers to join Sidil to only a little bit more time and I was on my way back to the embassy.
***
September 21, 2168SSV Sicily SR-1, Ogham System, Hourglass Nebula Cluster
"That's a lot of Geth," Captain Couillard commented.
Commander Anderson nodded absently. This isn't quite how he had imagined his wish from a few years ago would look. He vividly remembered wanting a ship to continue retaliatory measures.
As the Sicily's executive officer, he pretty much had that. It was a capable ship, too. The ship's experimental systems all came together to make a ship that was as lethal as a heavy cruiser.
It could render itself undetectable except by visual identification at close range, maneuver pretty effectively while the emission control system was active and it had a prototype turian cannon that could outright destroy a cruiser in the right circumstances.
All of those components had been proven effective while they had wandered around the Hourglass Nebula in search of problems.
The Ogham System wasn't such an easy problem to solve, unfortunately. As capable as the Sicily was, it could not take multiple Geth cruisers on its own.
And they had found a lot more than a few cruisers.
Tallying up everything on the tactical plot, they were looking at around a third of the Heretic's total strength.
His eyes involuntarily drifted to the main status readout, checking to make sure the ECS was still active, which it was. Same as it had been the last time he had looked.
"Are we seeing anything important here?" Couillard asked the bridge crew.
A few seconds passed in silence before a sensor tech responded, "a few small discharge stations in the gas giant's orbit. Nothing else, sir."
"A QRF? Maybe an operational rally point?" Anderson speculated.
The captain nodded slightly at him. "Either are possible. No infrastructure for FTL communications, though." He thought for a moment, "we can't do much about the latter on our own. If it's the former, there could be something to find in a nearby system. Whatever they'd be supporting would need to be close enough for a courier ship to reach them in a reasonable time frame, but looking for whatever that might be could be a waste of time. It would probably be better to return and report this force's location - it might not stay here for long."
Anderson leaned closer and quietly dissented, "I don't agree sir, there has to be something nearby that they're protecting but trying to not draw attention to. I don't think they'd still be sitting on their thumbs otherwise."
It would take a week to get back to somewhere that could disseminate their report and both of them knew that.
Captain Couillard considered him for a moment before replying, "alright, Commander. We'll take a look around."
The Sicily loitered in the system for another hour, observing Heretic activity before slipping away to the next system.
***
September 24, 2168SSV Sicily SR-1, Sowilo System, Hourglass Nebula Cluster
Three days later and Anderson was beginning to think he had wasted their time.
As they arrived in the Sowilo System, that opinion didn't change.
"Contacts on passive sensors," the sensor tech reported, "two cruisers and eight frigates. They're holding station over the third planet. No other contacts of note."
Nothing actionable in any of the half dozen systems they had checked. Two of the other systems had a very small Heretic presence. Neither of them seemed critical to their operations. Certainly nothing that had justified the presence of several hundred ships within a day's travel.
"We're going to take a closer look," Couillard said. "Helm, take us in to a few light-seconds." After he gave his order, the captain gave Anderson a look. He wasn't one to leave a job half-finished, but Anderson could tell from his expression that they were heading back after this.
Once they were closer, the Sicily's sensors were able to tell that the Geth vessels weren't doing anything particularly interesting. Half of them were discharging in the terrestial planet's atmosphere.
Couillard sighed. "Anything of note?"
"No, sir. Not on passive sensors at least."
"Bring us in closer," he ordered.
The Sicily drifted closer, eventually entering the thinnest part of the planet's atmosphere. The planet, Hagalaz, had a thick enough atmosphere that it would take careless emissions from their enemy or an active scan on their part to see anything on the surface.
The planet's unusually slow day-night cycle also resulted in energetic storm systems in the areas experiencing dawn and dusk, which the Sicily's sensors would have a hard time seeing anything underneath.
"Still nothing, sir," the sensor tech reported.
The captain nodded, "Helm, line us up to take the discharging cruiser. I want an active scan of the planet's surface. At the same time, bring up the kinetic barriers. Once we've been detected, we'll take a shot at that cruiser and then we leave. Understood?"
"It will take us a few seconds to clear the atmosphere for a transit, sir," the helmsman pointed out.
Couillard explained, "that same atmosphere will degrade their GARDIANs to ineffectiveness. The active cruiser won't be able to swing around fast enough to start engaging us and the frigates can't get through the Sicily's barriers fast enough. We'll be fine, Lieutenant."
The helmsman nodded and the rest of bridge officers called out affirmatives.
Anderson knew that the captain was more interested in knocking out the cruiser than actually finding anything at this point. The active scan was to just be thorough.
He couldn't shake the feeling that they had almost found something. The Heretics just waiting in otherwise random systems didn't make any sense otherwise.
Hagalaz could very easily be hiding an installation or even a more extensive ground presence under its atmosphere that they just couldn't see. It would annoy him greatly if such an installation existed, but it was on the other hemisphere and they only missed it because they were looking at the wrong half of the planet.
He squashed his annoyance and focused on the coming skirmish.
When the sensor ping went out, the Geth vessels reacted immediately to the sudden emission, maneuvering their bows towards the Sicily. A moment later, the Sicily's helmsman fired the Thanix cannon at the vulnerable discharging cruiser.
The stream of molten metal cut through the vessel's hull and speared through its drive core, detonating it and causing the cruiser to break in half.
As the Sicily gave them their torches and fled, the sensor tech called out, "Sir! Actives picked up two vessels in the storm!"
The two contacts appeared on the tactical plot uncomfortably close at almost three thousand kilometers.
The storm masked too much of the detail for any kind of identification, but one of the contacts was big.
Two kilometers? How the hell is that thing that deep in a gravity well?
Another few seconds later and the Heretics began jamming them and the contacts faded out, lost in the noise.
It hadn't even been fifteen kilometers above Hagalaz' surface. An Alliance dreadnought would definitely have crashed to the planet's surface any lower than the Sicily, never mind as close as this thing apparently was.
And it had to be a dreadnought. There weren't any good reasons to make civilian ships that big and definitely not with a drive core big enough to essentially land on a terrestrial planet.
"Oh shit," Couillard muttered, just loud enough for him to hear.
The helmsman didn't need to be told to get a move on and the reconnaissance frigate accelerated away from the pursuing Heretic vessels.
For better or worse, neither of the contacts in the storm came out to join the pursuit, leaving the task to the Heretic Geth higher in orbit.
A few projectiles were stopped by the Sicily's barriers. As the captain had predicted, they held long enough for them to clear the planet's atmosphere and the Sicily transited into interstellar space.
With any further retaliation foiled, the bridge crew relaxed noticeably.
"Helm, take us back to civilization," Couillard ordered. He took Anderson aside immediately after. "It's a good thing you pushed your hunch, Commander. We've been searching for that big bitch this entire time."
As the ship's XO, why didn't I already know that? Anderson wanted to ask. Instead, he asked, "What was it, sir?"
"Ancient dreadnought, probably an AI. If you listen to the batarians, it's the source of all Evil."
a/n1: Slow progress, unfortunately. It's been hard to find the time to write lately.